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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37545-8.txt b/37545-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76821ae --- /dev/null +++ b/37545-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16292 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Persons Unknown", by Virginia Tracy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: "Persons Unknown" + +Author: Virginia Tracy + +Illustrator: Henry Raleigh + +Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37545] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + + + + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + + "PERSONS UNKNOWN" + + BY VIRGINIA TRACY + + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + HENRY RALEIGH + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1914 + + Copyright, 1914, by + + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company + + _Published, October, 1914_ + + + + TO + MY FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS + HELEN L. KLOEBER AND JESSIE C. SOULE + + When winter's breath was on the pane, + Through dusk and snow, wild winds and rain, + I fled to your bright hearth again + To read about a _Shadow_! + You lit the lamp, you brewed the tea, + Pulled up the deepest chair for me, + And set yourselves to guess and see-- + _What ailed that minx, Christina?_ + + What Herrick found--what Nancy knew-- + Whose motor raced the county through-- + What could that harsh Policeman do-- + You never failed to argue; + Of moonlight, murders, lovers, threats, + Vengeance and kisses, siren's nets, + And pale, dark men with cigarettes, + Not once I found you weary! + + Through broken music, sudden light + In the deep darkness, jewels bright, + Persons unknown in unknown plight, + You still sought _unknown_ persons; + Authors, if you would straightway know + Where faith and cheer and counsel grow, + Suggestions flourish and hints flow: + _Go ask my Nancy Cornish!_ + + + + +[Illustration: Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange +and splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as Herrick had +never seen before] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + BOOK FIRST + + THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND + + I WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 3 + + II HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED 7 + + III SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND 12 + + IV HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING 14 + + V HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER 19 + + VI HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR 25 + + VII HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY 36 + + VIII MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS 51 + + IX JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED 58 + + X JOE PATRICK ARRIVES 67 + + XI PERSONS UNKNOWN 89 + + XII HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 96 + + + BOOK SECOND + + THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN + + I HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT 103 + + II IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED 115 + + III HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S + WAY 124 + + IV THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD 133 + + V HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING 158 + + VI AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL 166 + + VII MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY 170 + + VIII A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN + ENTERS 177 + + IX PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS + ME!" 184 + + X MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DÉSIR--" 190 + + XI KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT 201 + + XII AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW 206 + + XIII THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION + SCENE 215 + + XIV ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 219 + + XV "WHEN STARS GROW COLD" 222 + + + BOOK THIRD + + WILL O' THE WISP + + I GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY 231 + + II CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY 242 + + III SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY 254 + + IV A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS 270 + + V THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA + WAS 283 + + VI THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT 292 + + VII VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE 298 + + VIII JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR 305 + + IX A SIGN IN THE SKY 314 + + X "THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY + TIES 324 + + XI THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE + TO A COMIC OPERA 334 + + XII THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD + BOY AM I!'" 343 + + XIII "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE 356 + + XIV THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE + VIEW" 365 + + XV ONE WITNESS SPEAKS 377 + + XVI THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT + BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!" 380 + + XVII HERSELF 385 + + + BOOK FOURTH + + THE LIGHTED HOUSE + + I THE HOSTESS PREPARING 389 + + II THE EXPECTED COMPANY 399 + + III THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM 401 + + IV TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL-- 423 + + V CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX 433 + + VI THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I + MADE MY BATTLE STAY!" 447 + + VII THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF + THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT 459 + + VIII IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR 481 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange and + splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as + Herrick had never seen before _Frontispiece_ + + Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders 10 + + "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false impression; + may I? 76 + + "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope!'" 86 + + "There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't + deny it--I know!" 160 + + Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor any + other name 296 + + "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! + Thank God, I've done with you!" 420 + + "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, + through and through--?" 476 + + + + +BOOK FIRST + +THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT + + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" + +The phrase might have exploded into Herrick's mind, it leaped there with +such sudden violence, distinct as the command of a voice, out of the +smothering blackness of the torrid August night. + +He started up instantly, as if to listen, sitting upright on the bed +from which he had long since tossed all covering. Then he frowned at the +tricks which the heat was playing upon even such strong nerves as his. +In the unacknowledged homesickness of his heart his very first doze had +brought him a dream of home; then the dream had slid along the trail of +desire to a cool sea beach, where he and Marion used to be taken every +summer when they were children, and a fog had rolled in along this beach +which, at first, he had welcomed because it was so deliciously cold. It +was no longer his sister who was there beside him; it was no less +unexpected a person than the Heroine of the novel he was writing and +whose conduct in the very next chapter he had been trying all day to +decide. It was a delightful convenience to have her there, ready to tell +him the secret of her heart! He saw that she had brought the novel with +her, all finished. She held it out to him, open, and he read one +phrase, "When Ann and her lover were down in Cornwall." He asked her +what that was doing there--since her name was not Ann and he had never +imagined her in Cornwall. And then the fog rolled up between them, +blotting out the book, blotting out his Heroine; that fog became a +horror, he was lost in it, and yet it vaguely showed him the shadowy +forms of shadowy persons--he hoped if they were his other characters +they really weren't quite so shadowy as that!--one of whom threateningly +cried to him through the fog, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" And here he was, now, +actually conscious of a great rush of energy and intention, as if he +really had some way of asking Nancy Cornish, or anything to ask her, if +he had! + +He remembered perfectly well, now, who she was--a little red-headed +girl, a friend of his sister; a girl whom he had not seen in eight years +and did not care if he never saw again. What had brought her into his +dreams? + +She certainly had no business there. No girl had any business anywhere +inside his head for the present, except that Heroine of his, whose +photograph he had had framed to reign over his desk. It was a photograph +which he had found forgotten, last winter, in the room of a hotel in +Paris, and it had seemed to him the personality he had been looking for. +Of the original he knew no more than that. But he knew well enough she +was not Nancy Cornish. + +The novel was his first novel; and, after a long day of laborious +failure at it, Herrick, in pure despair of his own work, had early flung +himself abed. He had lain there waking and restless upon scorching +linen, reluctantly listening, listening; to the passage of the trolley +cars on upper Broadway; to the faint, threatening grumble of the Subway; +the pitiful crying of a sick baby; the advancing, dying footfalls; to +all the diabolic malevolence of shrieking or chugging automobiles. The +mere act of sitting up, however, recalled him from the mussy stuffiness +in which he had been tossing. Why, he was not buried somewhere in a +black hole! He was occupying his landlady's best bedroom--the back +parlor, indeed, of Mrs. Grubey's comfortable flat. Well, and to-morrow, +after two months of loneliness, of one-sided conversations with the +maddeningly mute countenance of his Heroine and of swapping jokes, +baseball scores, weather prophecies, and political gossip with +McGarrigle, the policeman on the beat, he was going to take lunch with +Jimmy Ingham, the most eminent of publishers. Everything was all right! +That peculiar sense of waiting and watching was growing on him merely +with the restless brooding of the night, which smelt of thunder. In that +burning, motionless air there was expectancy and a crouching sense of +climax. + +Yet it was not so late but that, in the handsome apartment house +opposite, an occasional window was still lighted. The pale blinds of one +of these, directly on a level with Herrick's humbler casement, were +drawn to the bottom; and Herrick vaguely wondered that any one should +care to shut out even the idea of air. Just then, behind those blinds, +some one began to play a piano. + +The touch was the touch of a master, and Herrick sat listening in +surprise. The tide of lovely melody swept boldly out, filling the air +with soaring angels. Could people be giving a party? + +Herrick got to his feet and struck a match. Five minutes past one! If he +dressed and went down to the river, he would wake Mrs. Grubey and the +Grubey children. He resigned himself; glancing at the precious letter of +appointment with Ingham on his desk, and at the photograph of his +Heroine, looking out at him with her quiet eyes; shy and candid, tender +and bravely boyish, and cool with their first youth. To her he sighed, +thinking of his novel, "Well, Evadne, we must have faith!" He turned out +the light again, stripped off the coat of his pajamas, sopped the +drinking water from his pitcher over his head and his strong shoulders, +and drew an easy chair up to the window. Down by the curb one of those +quivering automobiles seemed to purr, raspingly, in its sleep. Some one +across the street was talking on and on, accompanied by the musician's +now soft and improvising touch. Then, in Herrick's thoughts, the voice, +or voices, and the fitful, straying music began to blend; and then he +had no thoughts at all. + +He was wakened by a demonic crash of chords. His eyes sprang open; and +there, on the blind opposite, was the shadow of a woman. She stood there +with her back to the window, lithe and tense, and suddenly she flung one +arm up and out in such a strange and splendid gesture, of such free and +desperate passion, as Herrick had never seen before. For a full minute +she stood so; and then the gesture broke, as though she might have +covered her face. The music, scurrying onward from its crash, had never +ceased; it had risen again, ringing triumphantly into the march from +Faust, a man's voice rising furiously with it, and it flashed over +Herrick that they might be rehearsing some scene in a play. Then the +sound of a pistol-shot split through the night. Immediately, behind the +blind, the lights went out. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED + + +The sleepy boy at the switchboard of the house opposite did not seem to +feel in the situation any of the urgency which had brought Herrick into +that elegant vestibule, barefoot and with nothing but an unbuttoned +ulster over his pajama trousers. The boy said he guessed the shot wasn't +a shot; he guessed maybe it was an automobile tire. There couldn't be a +lady in 4-B, anyhow; it was just a bachelor apartment. Well, he supposed +it was 4-B because there was always complaints of him playing on the +piano late at night. The switchboard called him imperatively as he +spoke, and he reluctantly consented to ring up the superintendent. +Instinctively, he refrained from interfering with Herrick when that +young man possessed himself of the elevator and shot to the fourth +floor. + +There was no further noises, no call for help, no woman's fleeing +figure. But Herrick's sense of locality guided him down a little hall, +upon which, toward the front, only two apartments opened. One of these +was lettered 4-B. If Herrick had not stopped for his boots he had for +his revolver and it was with the butt end of this that he began +hammering upon the sheet-iron surface of that door. There was no answer. +Was he too late? + +The other door opened the length of a short chain. A little man, with +wisps of woolly gray standing up from his head as if in amazement, +brought his face to the opening and quavered, "Be careful! You'll get +hurt! Be--" + +"Good God!" cried Herrick. "There's a woman in there!" + +"A woman! Why--I _thought_ I heard a woman--!" + +It was not so long since Herrick's reporting days but that he believed +he could still work the trick pressure by which two policemen will burst +in the strongest lock. But he now gave up hope of the woolly gentleman +as an assistant and turned his attention to the brass knob. "Get me a +screw-driver!" + +"Theodore!" came a voice from behind the woolly gentleman, "Don't you +open our door! It's no business of yours!" + +Herrick, glancing desperately about him for any aid, was sufficiently +aware that he might be making a fool of himself for nothing. But the +young fellow felt that was a risk he had to take. In the long hall +crossing the little one he could hear doors opening; the clash of +questioning voices mingled with excited cries--And then came a girl's +voice shrilling, "Isn't anybody going to _do_ anything?" A husky +business voice roared from secure cover, "You don't know what you may be +breaking into, young man! You may get yourself in trouble." + +Herrick growled through his teeth an imprecation that ended in "Hand me +a screw-driver, can't you? And a hammer!" The sweat was pouring down his +face from the pressure of his strength upon the lock, but the lock held. +What was going on in there? Or--what had ceased to go on? He could hear +Theodore tremblingly protesting, "I have telephoned for the +superintendent--He has the keys. It's the superintendent's business--" +Had the one shot done the trick? Then, above the stairhead, across the +longer hall, appeared the helmet of a policeman. At his heels came the +superintendent, carrying the keys. + +The policeman was jolted from his first idea of arresting Herrick by +Herrick's welcoming cry, "Get a gait on you, McGarrigle!" which +proclaimed to him a valued acquaintance; then, with a hand shaking with +excitement, the half-dressed superintendent fitted the key in the lock. +The lock turned but nothing happened. The door was bolted on the inside. + +The re-captured elevator was heard in the distance, and the +superintendent sang out, "Get the engineer! Hurry! Make him hurry!--You +heard no cries--no?" he asked of Herrick. And he stood wiping his face +and breathing hard, his brow dark with trouble. + +The halls had begun to be bravely peopled. Also, a second policeman had +arrived. And the information spread that one of these reassuring figures +had been left in the hall downstairs and that another had gone to the +roof. Curiosity, comparatively comfortable and respectable, now, made +itself audible and even visible on every side; some adventurers from the +street had sallied in. When McGarrigle asked the superintendent, "Any +way we can get a look in?" some one immediately volunteered, "There's +Mrs. Willing's apartment right across the entrance-court. You can see in +both these rooms from hers." + +"Only two rooms?" + +"Parlor, bedroom and bath," said somebody in the tone of a prospectus. + +"You go see what you can see, Clancy," said McGarrigle to the second +policeman. "Now, Mr. Herrick?" + +Herrick told what he knew, and McGarrigle, his eyes resting with +admiration on the extremely undraped muscles of his informant, plied him +with attentive questions. Herrick's own eyes were on the engineer's +steel. Would it never spring the bolt? "If only she'd cry out!" he said. +"Why doesn't she make some sign?" + +"You're sure 'twas him fired?" + +"That shadow had no revolver." + +"He's done for her, then. Els't he'd never have barricaded himself +like, in there. He didn't give himself a dose, after?" + +"Only the one shot." + +"If there's an inquest you'll be wanted." + +"All right.--But why hasn't he tried to gain time with some kind of +parley--some kind of bluff?" + +"Knows he's cornered. He'll show fight as we go in on him. If there's +more than one--" The bolt gave. + +McGarrigle turned like a fury. "Clear the hall," he cried. + +There was a confused movement. Obedient souls disappeared. + +Clancy returned and reported the front room invisible from Mrs. +Willing's side window, the shade of its own side window being down. In +the bedroom and bath all lights out, but shades up and nothing stirring. + +"Any hall?" + +The superintendent replied in the negative. + +"No fire-escapes, you say?" + +"No. Fireproof building." + +"They're right ahead of us, then." + +Again, with a long shudder, the door gave. + +The whole hall seemed to give a gasping breath. McGarrigle growled. +"I'll have no mix-up in this hall!" He favored Herrick with a wink that +said, "See me clear 'em out!" "Clancy, you stay here by the door; pick +out half a dozen of 'em that see it through and hold 'em to be +witnesses." The halls were cleared. Locks clicked as if by simultaneous +miracles and even the adventurers from the street could be heard in full +flight. Herrick and McGarrigle exchanged grim smiles. "Now! You keep +back, Mr. Herrick! Clancy, look out!" The engineer jumped to one side. +The door swung open. + +[Illustration: Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders] + +It gave directly into the dark room which had lately been full of light +and music and a woman's passionate grace. Not a breath, not a +movement, greeted the invaders. No shadow, now, on the white blind. +Whatever was within the dusk simply waited. Herrick, pushing past +Clancy, entered the room with McGarrigle. Behind them the superintendent +leaned in and pressed an electric button. Light sprang forth, flooding +everything. The room was empty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND + + +"Get-away, eh!" said McGarrigle, grimly. + +The superintendent, shaken and wide-eyed, responded only "The bolt!" + +They glanced round them, non-plused. + +The large living-room upon which they had entered was richly furnished, +but it had no screens nor hidden corners, and, on that summer night, the +windows were undraped. The doorway in which they stood faced the great +window which took up nearly all the frontage of the room. The door +opened against the left wall. Just beyond the door, along that left +wall, stood the piano; beyond that a couch; between the head of the +couch and the front window the wall was cut, up to the molding, by one +of those high, narrow doors which, in a modern apartment house, indicate +the welcome, though inopportune, closet. This door was the single object +of suspicion; then, an overturned chair caught their attention. It lay +between the great library-table which, standing horizontally, almost +halved the room, and the narrow strip of paneling of wall to the right +of the main door in which the superintendent had pressed the button for +the lights. In the right wall, opening on the entrance-court, directly +opposite the piano, but also with its blind drawn, was another window of +ordinary size. + +"The bedroom," said the superintendent, moistening his lips, "'s on the +court, there." Then they observed, to their right, the bedroom's arch +hung with heavy portières. And the sight of these portières carried +with it a cold thrill. But--"There ain't anybody in there!" Clancy +persisted. + +McGarrigle walked over to the door in the wall and tried it. It was +locked and there was no key in the lock. "What's this?" + +"A closet." + +"Open it, engineer. Clancy, you stand by him." + +He went up to the portières, opened them with some caution and peered +in. Faced only by an empty room he jerked at the portières to throw them +back; they were very heavy and the humidity made their rings stick to +the pole so that Deutch, running to his assistance, held one aside for +him, while with his other hand he himself fumbled to spring on the +bedroom light. Herrick was hard upon McGarrigle's heels, but, a look +round revealing nothing, he was struck by a sudden fancy and, recrossing +the living-room, raised the shade. No, the little balcony was wholly +empty. The great window had been made in three sections, and the middle +section was really a pair of doors that opened outward on this balcony. +Clancy commented upon the foolishness of their not opening in as he +watched Herrick step through them into the calm night that offered no +explanation of that bolted emptiness. Herrick stepped to the end of the +balcony and craned round toward the entrance-court. From the now lighted +bedroom window there was no access to any other. He glimpsed +McGarrigle's head stuck forth from the bathroom for the same +observation. And it somehow surprised him that a trolley car should +still bang indifferently past the corner; that, just opposite, that +automobile should still chug away, as if nothing had happened. Then he +heard a cry from the superintendent, followed by the policeman's oath. +Herrick ran into the bedroom and stopped short. On the floor at the foot +of the bed lay the body of a young man in dinner clothes. He had been +shot through the heart. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING + + +There was something at once commonplace and incredible about it--about +the stupid ghastliness of the face and about the horrid, sticky smear in +the muss of the finely tucked shirt. That gross, silly sprawl of the +limbs!--was it those hands that had called forth angelic music? The dead +man was splendidly handsome and this somehow accentuated Herrick's +revulsion. McGarrigle bent over the body. After a moment he said to the +superintendent, "No use for a doctor. But if you got one, get him." + +"He's dead!" said the superintendent. "It's suicide!" He spoke quietly, +but with a dreadfully repressed and labored breath. "Officer, can't you +see it's suicide?" He called up the doctor, and then to the silent group +he again insisted, "It's him shot himself. The door was bolted on the +inside. He had to shoot himself!" + +McGarrigle was at the 'phone, calling up the station. Turning his head +he responded, "Where's the weapon?" + +They had got the closet open now; no one there. No one in the bedroom +closet. No one under the big brass bed, in the folds of the portières, +behind the piano, under the couch. No one anywhere. Nor any weapon, +either. + +Herrick and Clancy began to examine the fastening of the door. It was an +ordinary little brass catch--a slip-catch, the engineer called it--which +shot its bolt by being turned like a Yale lock. "If this door shut +behind any one with a bang, could the catch slip of itself?" The +engineer shook his head. + +The hall was long since full again, though the adventurers were ready to +pop back at a moment's notice; pushing through them came the doctor. +Herrick did not follow him into the bedroom. The room he stood in had a +personality it seemed to challenge him to penetrate. + +His most pervasive impression was of cool coloring. The portières were +of a tapestry which struck Herrick as probably genuine Gobelin, but with +their famous blue faded to a refreshing dullness and he now remembered +that in handling them he had found them lined with a soft but very heavy +satin of the same shade, as if to give them all possible substance. The +stretched silk, figured in tapestry, which covered the walls, had been +dyed a dull blue, washed with gray, to match them; and, to Herrick, this +tint, sober as it was, somehow seemed a strange one for a man's room. In +couch and rugs and lampshades these notes of gray and blue continued to +predominate, greatly enhanced by all the woodwork, which, evidently +supplied by the tenant, was of black walnut. + +He had been no anchorite, that tenant. In the corner between the bedroom +and the court window the surface of a seventeenth century sideboard +glimmered under bright liquids, under crystal and silver. Beyond that +window all sorts of rich lusters shone from the bindings of the books +that thronged shelves built into the wall until they reached the great +desk standing in the farthest right hand corner to catch the front +window's light. A lamp stood on this desk, unlighted. At present all the +illumination in the room came from three other lamps; one that squatted +atop of the grand piano, between the now flameless old silver +candelabra; one, almost veiled by its heavy shade, in the middle of the +library table; and one, of the standing sort, that rose up tall from a +sea of newspapers at the head of the couch. All these lamps, worked by +the same switch, were electric, and the ordinary electric fixtures had +been dispensed with; the light was abundant, but very soft and thrown +low, with outlying stretches of shadow. It was not remarkable that it +had failed to show them the murdered man until the electricity in the +bedroom itself had been evoked. + +Herrick looked again at the couch. Its cushions had lately been rumpled +and lounged upon; at its head, under the tall lamp, stood a teakwood +tabouret, set with smoking materials on a Benares tray. At its foot, as +if for the convenience of the musician, a little ebony table bore a +decanter and a bowl of ice; the ice in a tall glass, half-empty, was +still melting into the whiskey; in a shallow Wedgewood saucer a +half-smoked cigarette was smoldering still. + +"McGarrigle!" said Herrick, in a low voice. + +"Hallo!" + +"He was shot in here, after all. I was sure of it." And he pointed to +the foot of the piano stool. Still well above the surface of the +hardwood flooring was a little puddle of blood. + +McGarrigle contemplated this with a kind of sour bewilderment. "Well, +the coroner's notified. You'll be wanted, y'know, to the inquest." + +"What's this?" asked somebody. + +It was a long chiffon scarf and it lay on the library table under the +lamp. Clancy lifted it and its whiteness creamed down from his fingers +in the tender lights and folds which lately it had taken around a +woman's throat. Just above the long silk fringe, a sort of cloudy +arabesque was embroidered in a dim wave of lucent silk. And Herrick +noticed that the color of this border was blue-gray, like the blue-gray +room. As they all grimly stared at it, the superintendent exclaimed, "I +never saw it before!" + +McGarrigle looked from him to the scarf and commanded, in deference to +the coming coroner, "You leave that lay, now, Clancy!" + +Clancy left it. But something in the thing's frail softness affected +Herrick more painfully than the blood of the dead man. In no nightmare, +then, had he imagined that shadow of a woman! She had been here; she was +gone. And, on the floor in there, was that her work? + +Now that the interest of rescue had failed, he wanted to get away from +that place. He wanted to dress and go down to the river and think the +whole thing over alone. He had now heard the doctor's verdict of instant +death; and McGarrigle, again reminding him that he would be wanted at +the inquest, made no objection to his withdrawal. + +On his own curb stood a line of men, staring at the windows of 4-B as if +they expected the tragedy to be reënacted for their benefit. They all +turned their attention greedily to Herrick as he came up, and the +nearest man said, "Have they got him?" + +"Him?" + +"Why, the murderer!" + +"Oh!" Herrick said. Even in the crude excitement of the question the +man's voice was so pleasant and his enunciation so agreeably clear that +Herrick, constitutionally sensitive to voices and rather weary for the +sound of cultivated speech, replied familiarly, "I'm afraid, strictly +speaking, that there isn't any murderer. It's supposed to be a woman." + +"Indeed! Well, have they caught her?" + +"They've caught no one. And, after all, there seems to be some hope that +it's a suicide." + +"Oh!" said the other, with a smile. "Then you found him in evening +dress! I've noticed that bodies found in evening dress are always +supposed to be suicides!" + +The note of laughter jarred. "I see nothing remarkable," Herrick rebuked +him, with considerable state, "in his having on dinner clothes." + +"Nothing whatever! 'Dinner clothes'--I accept the correction. Any poor +fellow having them on, a night like this, might well commit +suicide!--I'm obliged to you," he nodded. And, humming, went slowly down +the street. + +Herrick suddenly hated him; and then he saw how sore and savage he was +from the whole affair. The same automobile still waited, not far from +his own door, and he longed to leap into it and send it rapid as fury +through the night, leaving all this doubt and horror behind him in the +cramped town. His troubled apprehension did not believe in that +suicide.--What sort of a woman was she? And what deviltry or what +despair had driven her to a deed like that? Where and how--in God's +name, how!--had she fled? He, too, looked up at that window where he had +seen the lights go out. It was brightly enough lighted, now. But this +time there was no blind drawn and no shadow. The bare front of the house +baulked the curiosity on fire in him. "How the devil and all did she get +out?" It was more than curiosity; it was interest, a kind of personal +excitement. That strange, imperial, and passionate gesture! The woman +who made it had killed that man. Of one thing he was sure. "If ever I +see it again, I shall know her," he said, "among ten thousand!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER + + +Late the next morning Herrick struggled through successive layers of +consciousness to the full remembrance of last night. But now, with +to-morrow's changed prospective, those events which had been his own +life-and-death business, had, as it were, become historic and passed out +of his sphere; they were no longer of the first importance to him. + +Inestimably more important was his appointment with Ingham. Herrick had +passed such a lonely summer that the prospect of a civilized luncheon +with an eminent publisher was a very exciting business. Moreover, this +was a critical period in his fortunes. + +At twenty-eight years of age Bryce Herrick knew what it was to live a +singularly baffled life--a life of artificial stagnation. His first +twenty-two years, indeed, had been filled with an extraordinary +popularity and success. In the ancient and beloved town of Brainerd, +Connecticut, where he was born, it had been enough for him to be known +as the son of Professor Herrick. The family had never been rich, but for +generations it had been an honored part of the life of the town. It was +Bryce's mother who, marrying in her girlhood a spouse of forty already +largely wedded to his History of the Ancient Chaldeans and Their +Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, brought him a little +fortune; she brought, as well, the warm rich strain of mingled Irish and +Southern blood which still touched the shrewdness of her son's clear +glance and his boyish simplicity of manner, with something at once +peppery and romantic. It was a popular combination. He grew into a tall +youth with a square chin, with square white teeth and rather an +aggressive nose, but, in his crinkly blue eyes, humor and kindness; with +a kind of happy glow pervading all his thought and all his +dealings--just as it pervaded his fresh color, his look of gay hardihood +and enduring power, the ruddiness of his brown hair and his tanned skin, +and of his sensitive and sanguine blood. At college he had appeared very +much more than the son of an eminent man. Of that fortunate physical +type which is at once large and slender--broad shouldered and deep +chested, but narrow hipped, long of limb and strong and light of +flank--it had surprised nobody when he became, as if naturally, +spontaneously, a figure in athletics. What surprised people was the +craftmanship in those articles of travel and adventure which sprang from +his vacations. At twenty-two he was a reporter on the New York _Record_; +soon other reporters were prophesying that rockets come down like +sticks, and he was not yet twenty-three when the blow fell. Mrs. Herrick +died, and it was presently found that her money had been a long time +gone; mismanaged utterly by a hopeful husband. This amiable and innocent +creature had been bitten, in his old age, by the madness and the vanity +of speculation; he had made a score of ventures, not one of which had +come to port. His health being now quite shattered, Switzerland was +prescribed; there, for five years, in the country housekeeping of their +straitened circumstances, his son and daughter tended him. There, during +the first two years of exile, Herrick had written those short stories +which had won him a distinguished reputation. No predictions had been +thought too high for him; but he had never got anything together in book +form, and bye-and-bye he had become altogether silent. It was all too +painful, too futile, too muffling! He seemed to be meant for but two +uses: to struggle with the knotted strains of Herrick senior's business +affairs and to assist with that History of the Ancient Chaldeans and +Their Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, which was his +father's engrossing, and now sole and senile, mania. His father +suffered, so that the young man was the more enslaved; and made him +suffer, so that he was the more anxious his sister should do no +secretary work for the Chaldeans. But it was his mother's suffering he +thought of now; the years in which she had put up with all this, +uncomforted, and struggled to save something out of the wreck for Marion +and for him, struggled to keep the shadow of it from their youth--and he +had not known! In so much solitude and so much distasteful occupation, +this idea flourished and struck deep. He saw his sister's life +sacrificed, too; given up to household work and nursing, to exile and +poverty, with lack of tenderness and with continual ailing pick-thanks; +and there grew up in him a passionate consideration for women, a +romantic faith in their essential nobility, a romantic devotion to their +right to happiness. Snatched from all the populous clamor and dazzle of +his boyhood and set down by this backwater, alone with a young girl and +the Ancient Chaldeans, he grew into a very simple, lonely fellow; +sometimes irascible but most profoundly gentle; a little old-fashioned; +perhaps something of the pack-horse in his daily round; but living, +mentally, in a very rosy, memory-colored vision of the great, strenuous, +lost, world. + +Death gave him back his life; Professor Herrick followed the Chaldeans, +the Babylonians, and the Kassites; within a few months Marion was +married; and Herrick, with something like Whittington's sixpence in his +pocket, famished for adventure and companionship, with the appetite of a +man and the experience of a boy, started for the rainbow metropolis of +his five-years' dream. In this mood he had rushed into the hot stone +desert of New York in summer--a New York already changed, and which +seemed to have dropped him out! + +But he brought, like other young desperadoes, his first novel with him; +and he had approached the junior partner of the famous old house of +Ingham and Son with letters from mutual friends in Brainerd. Now, at +last, within twenty-four hours after his own return from abroad, +Ingham--himself scarcely a decade older than Herrick, preceding him at +the same university, and with a Brainerd man for a brother-in-law,--had +responded with the invitation to lunch. Yes, it was exciting enough! +Herrick looked at his watch. It was barely ten. And then he took time to +remember when he had last looked at his watch in that room. + +Certainly, it was rather grim! And yet, said the desperado, it wasn't +going to be such a bad thing with which to command Ingham's interest at +lunch and get him into a confidential humor that wouldn't be too +superior. While he was attempting to inspire Ingham with a craving for +his complete works, this thrilling topic would be just the thing to do +away with self-consciousness. He mustn't lose faith in himself. And, +before all things, he mustn't, as he had done last night, lose faith in +his Heroine! + +He looked across the room at her picture; got out of bed; walked over to +her, and humbly saluted. Lose faith in her? "Evadne," he said, "through +my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous--You darling!" Lose +faith in _her_! + +The photograph, which looked like an enlargement of a kodak, represented +a very young girl, standing on a strip of beach with her back to the +sea. Her sailor tie, her white dress, and the ends of her uncovered hair +all seemed to flutter in the wind. Slim and tall as Diana she showed, in +her whole light poise, like a daughter of the winds, and Herrick was +sure that she was of a fresh loveliness, a fair skin and brown hair, +with eyes cool as gray water. It was the eyes, after all, which had +wholly captured his imagination. They were extraordinarily candid and +wide-set; in a shifting world they were entirely brave. This was what +touched him as dramatic in her face; she was probably in the new dignity +of her first long skirts, so that all that candor and courage, all the +alert quiet of those intelligent eyes were only the candor and courage +of a kind of royal child. She wanted to find out about life; she longed +to try everything and to face everything; but she was only a tall little +girl! That was the look his Heroine must have! Thus had she come +adventuring to New York with him, to seek their fortunes, and all during +those dreary months of heat and dust she had borne him happy company; in +the Park or in the Bowery, at Coney Island or along Fifth Avenue's +deserted pomp, he had always tried to see, for the novel, how things +would look to that young eagerness--no more ardent, had he but realized +it, than his own!--"Evadne," said he, now, "if things look promising +with Ingham this afternoon we'll take a taxi, to-night, and see the moon +rise up the river." He called her Evadne when he was talking about the +moon; when he required her pity because the laundress had faded his best +shirt, he called her Sal. + +A sound as of the Grubey children snuffling round his door recalled him +to the illustrious circumstance that he was by way of being a hero of a +murder story. But, if he was nursing pride in that direction, it was +destined to a fall. Johnnie Grubey thrust under the door something +which, as he had brought it up from the mail-box in the vestibule, +Johnnie announced as mail. But it was only a large, rough scrap of +paper, which astonished Herrick by turning out to be wall-paper--a +ragged sample of the pale green "cartridge" variety that so largely +symbolizes apartment-house refinement--and which confronted him from its +smoother side with the lines, penciled in a long, pointed, graceful +hand, + + For the Apollo in the bath-robe! Or was it a raincoat? + But should not Apollos stay in when it rains? + +It was many a day since Herrick had received a comic valentine, but all +the appropriate sensations returned to him then. The hand of this +neighborly jest was plainly a woman's and its slap brought a blush. He +was forced to grin; but he longed to evade the solemn questioning of the +Grubeys through whose domain he must presently venture to his bath and +it occurred to him that the most peaceful method of clearing a road was +to send out the younger generation for a plentiful supply of newspapers. +Besides, he wished very much to see the papers himself. + +He distributed them freely and escaped back to his room still carrying +three. When he had closed his door, the first paragraph which met his +eyes was on the lower part of the sheet which he held folded in half. It +began--"The body of Mr. Ingham was not found in the living-room, but--" +He flapped it over, agog for the headlines. They read: + + DEATH BAFFLES POLICE. + + James R. Ingham, Noted Publisher, Found Shot in Apartment-- + +Herrick was still standing with the paper in his hand when the second +Grubey boy brought him a visiting-card. It bore the name of Hermann E. +Deutch; and scribbled beneath this in pencil was the explanatory phrase, +"Superintendent, Van Dam Apartment House." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR + + +Hermann Deutch was a shortish, middle-aged Jew, belonging to the humbler +classes and of a perfectly cheap and cheerful type. But at the present +moment he was not cheerful. He showed his harassment in the drawn +diffidence of his sympathetic, emotional face, and in every line of +what, ten or fifteen years ago, must have been a handsome little person. +Since that period his tight black curls, receding further and further +from his naturally high forehead, had grown decidedly thin, and exactly +the reverse of this had happened to his figure. But he had still a pair +of femininely liquid and large black eyes, brimming with the romance +which does not characterize the cheap and cheerful of other races, and +Herrick remembered him last night as very impressionably, but not +basely, nervous. + +He now fixed his liquid eyes upon Herrick with an anxiety which took +humble but minute notes. Since the young fellow was at least +half-dressed in very well-cut and well-cared-for, if not specially new, +garments, it was clear to Mr. Deutch's reluctant admiration that he was +thoroughly "_high-class_!" Whatever was Mr. Deutch's apprehension, it +shrank weakly back upon itself. Then he simply took his life in his +hands and plunged. + +"I won't keep you a minute, Mr. Herrick. But I've got a little favor I +want to ask you.--You behaved simply splendid last night, Mr. +Herrick.--Well, I will, thanks,"--as he dropped into a chair. "I--I +won't keep you a minute--" + +"I'll be glad to do anything I can," Herrick interrupted. + +The news in his paper had made him feel as if he had just been +disinherited and, now that the dead man was a personality so much nearer +home, his brain rang with a hundred impressions of pity and wonder and +excitement. But he sympathized with poor Mr. Deutch; it could be no +sinecure to be the superintendent of a murder! Then, recollecting, "What +made you so certain it was suicide?" he asked suddenly. + +"What else could it be? There wasn't anybody but him there." + +"There was a woman there," Herrick said, "when the shot was fired." + +The superintendent took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "Well, +now, Mr. Herrick, that's just what I wanted to see you about. Now +please, Mr. Herrick, don't get excited and mad! All I want to say is, if +there _was_ a lady there last night--but there _couldn't_ have +been--well, of course, Mr. Herrick, if you say so! Why, you couldn't +have seen her so very plain, now could you?" + +"What are you driving at?" Herrick asked. + +"Couldn't it have been a gentleman's shadow you saw, Mr. Herrick? Mr. +Ingham's shadow? Raising his pistol, maybe, with one hand--" + +"While he played the piano with the other?" + +"Mr. Herrick, there couldn't have been any lady there!" He bridled. +"It's against the rules--that time o' night! I wouldn't ever allow such +a thing. There's never been a word against the Van Dam since I been +running it. Why, Mr. Herrick, if there was to be that kind of talk, +especially if she was to murder the gentleman and all like that, I'd be +ruined. And so'd the house. It ain't one o' these cheap flat buildings. +We got leases signed by--" + +"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be +reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a +woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not, +I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch." + +"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't +understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the +police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't +expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick; +it's your language!" + +"What!" + +"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be +quite so particular--" + +"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know +it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to +me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a +good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I +was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I +don't feel very leniently to the person--not even to the woman--who +murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do +it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going +to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed +him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr. +Deutch. And, good-morning." + +"Oh, my God! Oh, dear! But my dear sir--" + +"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what +people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and +that it was you who connived at her escape!" + +"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no +kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the +lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina." + +"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor +worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any +woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss +Christina!" + +"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all +like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of +a play." + +"Did I? Well?" + +Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped +upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran: +"About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina +Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as +of prophecy realized. "Oh--ho!" he breathed. + +"Oh--ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes +you think, all right. Even me!--that was what brought her first to my +mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed, +any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody +think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not +so. It's a damn mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!" + +"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he +had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as +a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West, +and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to +her detriment. + +"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all, +but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop +there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with +their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any +denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think +she's guilty--" + +"Oh, come! Why--" + +"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?" + +Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them +without speaking. + +"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to +be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself +and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit +of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated +gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced, +old-fashioned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries--people like +them, and Miss Christina--Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr. +Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn +them on to Miss Christina, you--" + +"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the +completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in +every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed. +But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a +handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression, +must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very +good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried, +"you want a drink!" + +For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic assurance, had put his plump elbows on +his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump +and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got +himself together; without embarrassment, but with a comfort in his +relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he +returned the glass he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr. +Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres +near so crazy to you." + +Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and +regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions. +But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see +her with Mr. Ingham?" + +"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before +ever _he_ set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa +had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a +pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for +myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it +was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very +refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as +high-class a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames; +plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings--oh, +beautiful!--by expensive, high-class artists; everything elegant. But it +wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick, +they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I +ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways +successful, since." + +"But you saw something of Mr. Hope--" + +"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are +yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture, +once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina +was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from +dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her +groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to +manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know +that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little +girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the +door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her +little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them +pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind +her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular +every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a +cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little +lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she +liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an +affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody +like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife, +Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing +like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was +kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the +most stylish child I ever set eyes on!" + +"Father living?" Herrick prompted. + +"No, Mr. Herrick, no. And before he died, he got into business +difficulties himself, and he didn't leave enough to keep a bird alive. I +helped Mrs. Hope dispose of all the bric-a-brac, my paintings and all, +everything that wasn't mortgaged, and they put it in with an aunt of Mr. +Hope's, a catamaran, and went to keeping a high-class boarding-house. +We're all apt to fall, Mr. Herrick. I've fallen myself." + +"The boarding-house didn't succeed either, then?" + +"I ask you, how could it, with that battle-ax? She cheated my poor +ladies, and she bullied Miss Christina, and used to take the books she +was always reading and burn 'em up, and say nasty common things to her, +when she got older, about the young gentlemen that were always on her +heels even then, and that she'd like well enough, one day, and the next +she couldn't stand the sight of. If there's one thing Miss Christina +has, more than another, it's a high spirit; she has what I'd call a +plenty of it. They had fierce fights. Often, when she'd come to me with +a little breastpin or other to pawn for her, so her and her mama'd have +a mite o' cash, she'd put her pretty head down on my wife's shoulder and +cry; and my wife'd make her a cup o' tea. She'd say then she was going +to run away and be an actress. And, when she was sixteen yet, she ran. +Two years afterward, her and her mama turned up in my first little +flat-house; a cheap one, down Eighth Avenue, in the twenties. She was on +the stage, all right, and what a time she'd had! It'd been cruel, Mr. +Herrick; cruel hard work and, just at the first, cruel little of it. But +now she's a leading lady. And this fall she's going to open in New York, +in a big part. It's the play they call 'The Victors'; I guess you've +heard. Mr. Wheeler, he's the star, and Miss Christina's part's better +than what his is. But now--" + +There was a pause. Mr. Deutch mopped his face, and Herrick, cogitating, +bit his lip. + +"This engagement to Ingham--" + +"She met him about two years ago, when she had her first leading part, +and they went right off their heads about each other. I never expected I +should see Miss Christina act so regular loony over any man. But she +refused him time and again. She said she'd always been a curse to +herself and she wasn't going to bring her curse on him. In the end, of +course, she gave in. She said she'd marry him this winter, if he'd go +away for the summer and leave her alone. You knew it was only day before +yesterday he got back from Europe?" + +"Yes. I know." + +"My wife and me have seen a lot more of her this summer than since she +was a little girl. There's been years at a time, all the while she was +on the road, that we wouldn't know if she was alive or dead. And then +some day I'd come home, and find her sitting in our apartment--it's a +basement apartment, Mr. Herrick!--as easy as if she'd just stepped +across the street. But I wouldn't like you should think it's Miss +Christina's talked to us very much about her engagement. She's a pretty +close-mouthed girl, in her way, and a simply elegant lady. Not but what +Mrs. Hope is an elegant lady, too. But still she is--if you know what I +mean--gabby! Miss Christina's always been a puzzle to her; and she's a +great hand to sit and make guesses at her with my wife. Mr. Ingham left +a key with Miss Christina when he went abroad so she could come and play +his piano and read his books whenever it suited her, and she'd have a +quiet place to study her part. Every once in a while Mrs. Hope would +take a notion it wasn't quite the proper thing she should come by +herself. But after she'd seen her inside, she'd drop down our way and +wait. She wasn't just exactly gone on Mr. Ingham, and my wife wasn't +either." + +Herrick lifted his head with a flash of interest. "Mrs. Hope opposed the +marriage?" + +"Well, not opposed. She never opposed the young lady in anything, when +you came down to it. But he wanted she should leave the stage. And he +wasn't ever faithful to her, Mr. Herrick! For all he was so crazy about +her and so wild-animal jealous of the very air she had to breathe, he +wasn't ever faithful to her--and if ever you'd seen her, that'd make +your blood boil! She'd hear things; and he'd lie. And she'd believe him, +and believe him! If it wasn't for his money, she'd be well rid of him, +to my mind." + +He sat nursing his wrath. And Herrick, still watching him, felt sorry. +For, in Herrick's mind it was now all so clear; so pitiably clear! Poor +little chap!--he didn't know how scanty was the reassurance in his +portrait of his Miss Christina! The indulged, imperious child, choosing +"her own" friends; the unhappy, bold, bedeviled girl, already with young +men at her heels, whom she encouraged one day and flouted the next; +pawning her trinkets at sixteen and plunging alone into the world, the +world of the stage; the ambitious, adventurous woman capable of holding +such a devotion as that of the good Deutch by so capricious and +high-handed a return, snaring such a man of the world as Ingham by an +adroit blending of abandon and retreat, putting up with the humiliations +of his flagrant inconstancies only, perhaps, to find herself, after her +stipulated summer alone, on the verge of losing him through his +insensate jealousy--were there no materials here for tragic quarrel? Was +not this the very figure that last night he had seen fling out an arm in +unexampled passion and grace? In his heart he saw Christina Hope, while +her betrothed, whether as accuser or accused, taunted her from the +piano, kill James Ingham. And he profoundly knew that he had almost seen +this with his eyes. His pulse beat high; but it was with a sobered mind +that he beheld Mr. Deutch preparing to depart. + +"Well, you see how I had to ask you, Mr. Herrick, not to say that lady's +shadow made you think any of an actress?" + +"I do, indeed." + +"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if +only you was acquainted with her--" He had turned, in rising, to get his +hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach, +"Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?" + +"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his +Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?" + +"Why, that you _was_ acquainted with--" said Mr. Deutch, extending his +hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope." + +Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her, +all along! It's a real old picture--'bout five years ago. You knew her +then? You knew her--And you--saw--" His voice died away. His glance +turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds +drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow +must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw, +looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear. + +Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been +these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar +face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life, +shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt +his blood go cold. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY + + +There was a time coming when Herrick was to salute as prophetic what he +now noted with a grim amusement; that from the moment the shadow sprang +upon the blind the current of his life was changed. Peopled, busy, +adventurous, it had passed, as one might say, into active circulation. +He was suddenly in the center of the stage. + +This was brought home to him rather sharply when Deutch had been not +five minutes gone. On the exit of that gentleman Herrick's first thought +had been for Miss Hope's photograph. Although an actress seems less a +woman than a type, yet, since, to any stray gossip, she was recognizable +as a real person, she mustn't, at this critical time, be left hanging on +his wall to excite comment. He had scarcely laid the photograph on his +desk to compare it with a cut in one of the newspapers when information +that he was "wanted on the 'phone" made him drop the paper atop of his +dethroned Heroine and hurry into the hall. And the place to which the +telephone invited him was the Ingham publishing house. + +The message was from old Gideon Corey, the prop and counselor of the +House of Ingham, father and son. It told Herrick that Ingham senior had +just arrived in New York and had not yet gone to an hotel; he had turned +instinctively to his office, where he besought Herrick, whose name he +had recognized, to come to him and tell him what there was to tell. It +was only the piteous human longing to be brought nearer, by some detail, +by some vision later than our own, to those to whom we shall never be +near again. Herrick flinched from the task, but there could be no +question of his obedience; and he came out from that interview humbly, +softened by the gentleness of such a grief. It seemed to him that he had +never seen so tender a dignity of reserve; that beautiful old gentleman +who had wished to question him had also wished to spare him; wished, +too,--and taken the loyalest precautions--to spare some one else. + +"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Herrick," Ingham's father had said +to him, "that my son was engaged to be married?" + +"I had just heard--" + +"Then you will understand how especially painful it is that there should +be any mention of a--another lady--Miss Hope is a sweet girl," said the +old gentleman, "a sweet, good girl--" He paused, as if he were feeling +for words delicate enough for what he had to say; and then a little +breath that was like a cry broke from him. "My son was a wild boy, Mr. +Herrick, but he loved her--he loved her! Will it be necessary to add to +her grief by telling her that, at the very last, he was entertaining--? +I wanted her for my daughter! May she not keep even the memory of my +son?" + +Herrick could have groaned aloud. "Only tell me," he said, "what can I +do?" + +"Mr. Ingham means to ask"--Corey interposed--"whether, at the--the +inquest, it will be necessary to lay so much emphasis on that shadow you +observed?" + +Thus, for the second time that day, from what different mouths and under +what different circumstances, came the same request! And there passed +over Herrick that little shiver of the skin which takes place, the +country people tell you, when some one steps over your grave. + +"Could you not assume that you might have been mistaken? That it might +have been a man's shadow--?" + +"I was not mistaken--Why, look here!" he continued, eagerly. "Can't you +see that it would be the worst kind of a mistake for me to change now? +They'd think I'd heard who the woman was, and was trying to shield her! +And, besides," he added to Corey, "it's your only clue." It occurred to +him, as he spoke, that Ingham's family might be concerned for his +reputation rather than for vengeance; this continued to seem probable +even while they assured him that it was not the police, but Miss Hope +alone, from whom they wished to keep the circumstance; they were +thinking of what would have been the dead man's dearest wish. What she +read in the papers they could perhaps deny; but what she heard at the +inquest-- + +When, however, they reluctantly agreed with him that it was too late for +any effectual reticence it was with unabated kindliness that Corey went +with him into the hall. "We remain infinitely obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick, and--later on--we mustn't lose track of you again--Well, +good-morning! Good-morning!" + +It was nearly afternoon and Herrick stepped out from the dark, +old-fashioned elevator into its sunny heat, which occasional spattering +showers had vainly tried to dissipate, with a very highly charged sense +of moving among vivid personalities. Concerning two of these there +persisted a certain lack of reassurance, and as that of Ingham +brightened or darkened the shadow herself now shone as a tigress +devouring, now an avenging angel. Sometimes her figure stood out +clearly, by itself; sometimes it wavered and changed, and passed, +whether Herrick willed it or not, into the figure of Christina Hope. +Then, whether for Deutch's or Ingham's sake, or for Evadne's, there was +something oppressive in the sunshine. + +But the young fellow was not enough of a hypocrite to pretend, even to +himself, that all this excitement, all this acquaintance with swift +events, with salient people under the influence of strong emotion, all +this quick, warm, and strong feeling which had been aroused in himself, +were anything but very welcome. Nor were his adventures over yet. His +walk brought him, with a thoughtful forehead but all in a breathing glow +of interest, to City Hall Park; a spot where he had loitered that summer +a score of times, wearying vaguely for a friendly face. To-day, his +brisk step had scarcely carried him within its boundaries before he +heard his name called and, turning, was accosted by a _Record_ +acquaintance of six years ago whose recognition displayed the utmost +eagerness. + +The spirit of New York City, which had hitherto considered him merely +one of her returned failures, had now made up her mind to show what she +could do for such a darling as the near-eye-witness of a murder. He +found himself hailed into the office of the _Record_, whence they had +been madly telephoning him this long while, and immediately +commissioned, at the price of a high, temporary specialist, to report +the Ingham inquest, and to write a Sunday special of the murder! + +He thought of Ingham's father, and "It isn't a tasty job!" he said to +his old chief. But it swept upon him what material it was; it felt, in +his empty hand, like the key of success; and then, there is always in +our ears at such a time the whisper that it will certainly be done by +somebody. "And never, surely," Herrick wrote his sister that night, "so +chastely, so justly, with either such dash or such discretion, as by our +elegant selves!" + +This, at least, was the view which the Ingham office took of it. Corey +reported the family as glad to leave it in Herrick's hands; while a +tremor at once of regret, pleasure and superstition pricked over +Herrick's nerves as Corey followed up this statement with an invitation +through the _Record_ phone to meet him at the Pilgrims' Club and talk +some things over during lunch! + +"To shake the iron hand of Fate" was becoming so much the rule that +Herrick was nearly capable of feeling gripped by it even in the somewhat +remote circumstances that the Pilgrims' had been founded as a club of +actors and, overrun as it was by men of all professions and particularly +literary men, it had remained essentially a club of actors--while he, +Bryce Herrick, hastening toward it through a smart shower, had at first +conceived of his novel as a play and then, in Switzerland, been baffled +by the inaccessibility of that world! His novel, of whom the heroine had +been so unwittingly Christina Hope!--However, the low, wide portals of +the Pilgrims' received him under their great, wrought iron lanterns +without excitement and he passed, self-consciously and with a certain +shyness, into the cooling twilight of a hallway still perfectly calm and +over the lustrous, glinting sweeps of easy and quite indifferent stairs +up to an "apartment brown and booklined" that looked out on a green +park. + +At one of the windows Corey stood talking to a dark, heavy, vigorous man +whose face was familiar to Herrick and whom Corey introduced as Robert +Wheeler. It was a name of note but Herrick bewilderedly exclaimed "Miss +Hope's manager?" Two or three men turned to Wheeler and grinned and he, +himself, said with a gruff chuckle, yes, he supposed it had come to +that, already! Herrick's embarrassed tactlessness sought refuge in +looking out of doors. + +The famous square had kept its ancient privacy secure from all the +city's noise and hurry. It was still, secluded; self-sufficient with an +old-world grace; and the green park shone fresh after the shower, its +flower beds and the window boxes of its grave, dark houses gave out a +delicate, glimmering sparkle along with their moist and newly piercing +sweetness. Nothing could have been more tranquil except the cool spaces, +the dusky, sunny, airy, oak-hued shadows of the wide-windowed +club--neither could anything have been less like Mrs. Grubey's or even +Professor Herrick's idea of what an actors' club would be. The whole +place seemed to rebuke its visitor, more graciously than had Hermann +Deutch, for the feverish suggestion which Christina's calling had hinted +round her name. The blithe young gentlemen in light clothes, fussing +over with cigarette smoke and real and unreal English accents, the older +men, less saddled and bridled and fit for the fray but still with +something at once lazy and boyish in the quick sensibility of their +faces, appeared to have no very lurid intensities up their sleeve and +amid so much serene and humorous assurance Ingham senior's "sweet, good +girl," Hermann Deutch's "Miss Christina" seemed better founded in kind +and credible probabilities. She bloomed, indeed, hedged with all +proprieties in the sound of Wheeler's voice saying, "But must Miss Hope +appear at the inquest?" + +"Yes," said Corey, tartly, "since her name will add to its notoriety! +Have you forgotten our coroner?" Wheeler lifted his thick brows in +annoyance and with the same sourness of inflection Corey added, "Is it +possible any corner of the universe can for a moment forget Cuyler Ten +Euyck!" + +Herrick started and looked at the two men with quick eagerness. "You +don't mean--" + +"Precisely! The mighty in high places--Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler +Ten Euyck! No less!" + +Wheeler broke into a curse and then into his deep laugh, and said Miss +Hope's manager would do well to clear out before any Sherlock Holmes +with wings got to throwing his mouth around here. "I can stand his +always bringing down a curtain with 'Seventy times a millionaire--the +world is at my feet!' A man has to believe in something! But it's his +taking himself for a tin District-Attorney-on-wheels that'll get his +poor jaw broken one of these days!" + +Herrick's curiosity was roused to certain reminiscences and he went on +putting them together even while he followed Corey downstairs and out +onto an open gallery whose tables overlooked a little garden. As soon +as the waiter left them he asked Corey, "But--I've been so long +away--this coroner can't be the same Ten Euyck--" + +"Can you think there are two?" + +Well, the world is certainly full of entertainment! A man born to one of +the proudest names and greatest fortunes of his time serving as +coroner--coroner! That was what certain references of McGarrigle's +meant, certain newspaper flippancies. "Mr. Ten Euyck!" Herrick's extreme +youth had witnessed the historic thrill that shook society when the full +significance of the great creature's visiting-cards first burst upon a +startled and ingenuous nation! But even then Mr. Ten Euyck must have +aspired beyond social thrills and seen himself as a man of parts and +public conscience. It was not so much later that Herrick remembered him +as a literary dabbler, an amateur statesman, endeavoring by means of +elegant Ciceronics to waken his class to its duty as leader of the +people! He had then seemed merely a solemn ass who, having learned +during a long residence abroad an aristocratic notion of government, +took his caste and its duties much too seriously.--"But why coroner?" + +Despair, apparently, over that caste's lack of seriousness! There had +been talk of abolishing the coronership, Corey said, and Ten Euyck had +run for it. If irresponsible idlers dared to slight even the presidency +in their choice of careers let them see what could be done with the +least considerable of offices! If younger sons dared lessen class-power +by neglecting government, let them see to what Mr. Ten Euyck could +condescend in the public service! It was an old-fashioned, an old-world +ambition; the man, essentially stiff-necked, essentially egotistical, +was in no sense a reformer. "He pushes his office, upon my word, to the +diversion of the whole town; holding court, if you please, as if he were +launching a thunderbolt, making speeches and denunciations, and taking +himself for a kind of District Attorney.--I may as well say, Mr. +Herrick, that it's a black bitterness to me that that pretentious puppy +should have authority in--in dealing with Mr. James. There was never +anything cordial between them; in fact, quite the contrary. We refused a +book of his once!" + +"But, great heavens,--" + +"It was a book of plays, Mr. Herrick; blank verse and Roman +soldiery--with orations! I don't deny Mr. James's letter was a trifle +saucy; he was often not conciliating; no, not conciliating! Well, now, +it's Ten Euyck's turn. If he can soil Mr. James's memory in Miss Hope's +eyes, why, that will be just to his taste, believe me. Now I come to +think of it, I believe Miss Hope herself is rather in his black books! +It seems to me she once took part in one of the plays, and it failed. I +tell you all this, Mr. Herrick, because James Ingham had the highest +admiration for you, and had great pleasure in the hope of bringing out +your novel." + +Herrick gaped at him in an astonishment which had not so much as become +articulate before--such is our mortal frailty--his slight, but hitherto +persistent, repulsion from the dead man was shaken to its foundation and +moldered in dust away. + +"Yes, when we are ourselves again, you must bring in that manuscript. +Yes, yes, he wished it! They were almost the last words I had from him. +He was very pleased to get your letter, very pleased. He was talking +about it to Stanley, his young brother, and to me; we were all there +yesterday--think of it, Mr. Herrick, yesterday!--working out his ideas +for our new Weekly. He was always an enthusiast, a keen enthusiast, and +the Weekly was his latest enthusiasm. Its politics would have been very +different from Mr. Ten Euyck's--" + +A friendly visage at another table favored them with a sidelong +contortion and a warning wink. Just behind them a shrewd voice ceased +abruptly and a metallic tone responded, "Yes, but you--you're a man with +a mania!" + +The first voice replied, "Well, you're down on criminals and I'm down on +crime." + +Then Ten Euyck's was again lifted. "You're out after a criminal whom you +think corrupting and to wipe him out you'll pass by fifty of the +plainest personal guilt! In my view nobody but the corruptible is +corrupted. Any person who commits a crime belongs in the criminal +class." + +"Crime may end in the criminal class," the other voice took up the +challenge, "but it begins at home. You can't always pounce upon the +decayed core. But if you observe a very little speck on a healthy +surface, one of two things--either you can cut it away and save the +apple, or your tunneling will lead you farther and farther in, it will +open wider and wider and the speck will vanish, automatically, because +the whole rotten fruit will fall open in your hand." + +"Delightful, when it does! But in this short life I prefer the pounce!" + +By this time everybody was harkening and Herrick ventured to turn his +chair and look round. He beheld a sallow man, nearer forty than thirty +and as tall as himself or taller, but of a straighter and stiffer +height; with a long head, a long handsome nose and chin, long hands and +long ears. This elongated countenance was not without contradictions. +Under the sparse, squarely cut mustache Herrick was surprised to find +the lips a little pouting, and the glossily black eyes were prominent +and full. Fastidiously as he was dressed there persisted something +funereal in the effect; forward of each ear a shadow of clipped whisker +leant him the dignity of a daguerreotype. He spoke neatly, distinctly. +His excellent, strong voice was dry, cold and inflexible. On the whole +Herrick's easy and contemptuous amusement received a slight set-back. + +"I prefer the pounce!" To be pounced upon by that bony intensity might +not be amusing at all! + +Then he discovered what had changed his point of view: it had shifted a +trifle toward the criminal's! All very well for Ten Euyck's +guest--Herrick had somehow gathered that the other man was a guest--to +give up the argument, indifferently refusing to play up to his host! All +very well for the free-hearted lunchers to sit, diverted, getting +oratorical pointers from the monologue into which Ten Euyck had plunged! +It was neither the lunchers nor the guest, but Herrick who must, +to-morrow morning, appear as a witness before Ten Euyck! He would have +to tell the man something which the Inghams had asked him not to tell +because it might prove prejudicial to James Ingham--his admirer--which +Hermann Deutch had asked him not to tell because it might prove +prejudicial to Christina Hope--she whose face had been his heart's +companion through hard and lonely times! The idea of the inquest had +become exceedingly disagreeable to Herrick. + +And the more he listened to Ten Euyck, the more disagreeable it became; +the more he felt that a derisive audience had underestimated its man. +Ten Euyck might take himself too seriously; he might show too small a +sense of the ridiculous in loudly delivering, at luncheon, a sort of +Oration-on-the-Respect-of-Law-in-Great-Cities. But this depended on +whether you considered him as a man or a trap. The real quality in a +trap is not a sense of the ridiculous nor a delicate repugnance to +taking itself seriously. Its real quality is the ability to catch +things. And, as a trap, Herrick began to feel that Ten Euyck was made +for success. + +The new-born criminal actually felt an impulse to warn his unknown +accomplice how trivial gossip had been, how blind the public gaze. +Platitudes about law, yes. But, when the orator came to dealing with the +lawless, the whole man awoke. Those who broke the rules of the world's +game and yet struggled not to lose it were to him mere despicable +impertinents whose existence at large was an outrage to self-respecting +players and for what he despised he found excellent cold thrusts and +even a kind of homely and savage humor. Then, indeed, "it was not blood +which ran in his veins, but iced wine." Why, he was right to think of +himself as a prosecutor--he was born a prosecutor! In unconsciously +assuming the robes of justice he had simply found himself. To him +justice meant punishment, punishment an ideal vocation for the righteous +and life a thing continually coming up before him to be weighed, found +wanting and rebuked. To admonish, to blame, and then--with a spring--to +crush--it is a passion which grows by what it feeds on, so that even Ten +Euyck's jests had become corrections and the whole creature admirably of +one piece, untorn by conflicting beliefs and inaccessible to reason, +provocation, pity or consequences; because illegal actions--ideas, too, +daily spreading--must be suppressed at all costs by proper persons and +the patriarchal arrangement of the world rebuilt over the body of a +rebel.--Of course, as his cowed analyst admitted, with P. W. B. C. Ten +Euyck on top! Thank heaven the monster had one weak spot! As he jibed at +a newspaper cartoon of the coroner's office he displayed fully the +symptom of his disease; a raging fever of egotism. He was one to die of +a laugh and Herrick doubted if he could have survived a losing game. + +But when was he likely to lose? Not when, as now, he lifted the bugle of +a universal summons, calling expertly on a primitive instinct. Your +aristocrat may be a fool and a bore in your own workshop, but he is the +hereditary leader of the chase; his mounted figure convinces you he will +run down the fugitive and in the minds of men the weight of his millions +add themselves, automatically, to his hand. This huntsman had branched +off to the importance of motive in murder trials and his audience was +not smiling, now. It had warmed itself at his cold fire and the +excitement of the hunt was in the air. Ten Euyck always uttered the word +"crime" with a gusto that spat it forth, indeed, but richly scrunched; +and it was a day on which that word could not but start an electrical +contagion. Nothing definite was said, in Corey's presence; still less +was a name named--nor was any needed. But a sense of gathering issues, +of closing in on some breathless revelation thickened in the heating, +thrilling, restive atmosphere till a boy's voice said languidly, "Lead +me to the air, Reginald! This is too rich for my blood!" and they all +dropped the wet blanket of a shamefaced relief upon the coroner's +inconsiderate eloquence. The quiet guest got suddenly to his feet and +bore his host away. + +In a tone of tremulous scorn Corey said to Herrick, "He's grown a +mustache, you see, because Kane wears one!" + +"Kane?" + +"You've no nose for celebrities! Ten Euyck brought him here to-day to +pose before him as a literary man and before us as a political lion. But +our coroner's founded himself on Gerrish so long I don't know what'll +become of him now we've got a District-Attorney who has no particular +appetite for the scalps of women!" + +Kane! So the District-Attorney was the quiet guest! To Herrick's roused +apprehension Kane might just as well have been brought there to be +presented with any chance mention which might indicate some circumstance +connected with last night. And he understood too well the allusion to +Gerrish, a District-Attorney of the past whose successful prosecutions +had made a speciality of women; who had never delegated, who had always +prosecuted with especial and eloquent ardor, any case in which the +defendant was a woman, whether notorious or desperate. Herrick could +scarcely restrain a whistle; this did indeed promise a lively inquest! +Heaven help the lady of the shadow if this imitation prosecutor should +nose her out! It was, perhaps, an immoral exclamation. Yet all the +afternoon, as Herrick worked on his story for the _Record_, he could not +rout his distaste for his own evidence. + +Even after his late and imposing lunch he brought himself to a cheap and +early dinner, rather than go back to the Grubey flat. He affected, when +he found himself downtown, a little Italian table d'hôte in the +neighborhood of Washington Square; much frequented by foreign laborers +and so humble that a plaintive and stocky dog, a couple of peremptory +cats, and two or three staggering infants with seraphic eyes and a +chronic lack of handkerchiefs or garters generally lolled about the +beaten earth of the back yard, where the tables were spread under a +tent-like sail-cloth. It was all quaint and foreign and easy; and, so +far as might be, it was cool; on occasions, the swarthy _dame de +comptoir_ was replaced by a spare, square, gray-haired woman, small and +neat and Yankee, whom it greatly diverted Herrick to see at home in such +surroundings; a little gray parrot, looking exactly like her, climbed +and see-sawed about her desk; a vine waved along the fence; the late sun +flickered on the clean coarseness of the table-cloths and jeweled them, +through the bottles of thin wine, with ruby glories; there was a +worthless, poverty-stricken charm about the place, and Herrick sat +there, early and alone, smiling to himself with, after all, a certain +sense of satisfying busyness and of having come home to life again. + +He had little enough wish to return to his close room where his +perplexities would be waiting for him and he lingered after dinner, +practicing his one-syllable Italian on Maria Rosa, the little eldest +daughter of the house, who trotted back and forth bearing tall glasses +of branching bread-sticks and plates of garnished sausage to where her +mother was setting a long table for some fête, and, when the guests +began to come, he still waited in his corner, idly watching. + +They were all men and all poor, but all lively; there was an almost +feminine sweetness in the gallantry of the Latin effervescence with +which they passed a loving-cup in some general ceremony. And no woman +could have been more beautiful than the tall Sicilian whose grave +stateliness, a little stern from the furrowing of brows still touched +with Saracen blood, faced Herrick from the table's farther end. Herrick +even inquired, as he paid his check, who this imposing creature was and +the Yankee woman replied with unconcern that he was Mr. Gumama, who ran +a pool-game at the barber's. + +It charmed Herrick to combine this name and occupation with the fervent +kisses which Mr. Gumama, rising majestically and swooping to the nearer +end of the table, implanted, one on each cheek, upon the hero of the +fête. All the guests, as each finished the ceremonial draught, followed +his example. None of the rest, however, had Saracen brows, nor long, +grim earrings whose fringe swing beneath three stories of gilt squares. +The Yankee woman turned contemptuously from "such monkey-shines," but +Herrick lingered till the last kiss and as he even then walked home +through the hot cloudy night it was after nine o'clock before he reached +there. He had not been in since morning and he was greatly to blame. For +he had had a caller and the caller was Cuyler Ten Euyck! + +The Grubeys were greatly excited by this circumstance and it excited +Herrick, too. The coroner had himself examined Ingham's apartment and +then the conscientious creature had climbed the stairs to Herrick's. He +had even waited in the hope that his witness might return. All this was +proudly poured forth while Herrick was also asked to examine a rival +public interest--a most peculiar prize which the corner saloon-keeper's +son had been awarded at a private school; he had loaned it to Johnnie +Grubey for twenty-four hours if Johnnie would let him see the revolver +with which Herrick would have shot the murderer last night if the +murderer had been there! It was a sort of return in kind; for the +school prize was also a revolver. + +It was a very little one and Johnnie insisted that it was solid gold. On +the handle was a monogram of three capital A's in small bright stones, +white, green and red--near them a straggling C had been wantonly +scratched. Johnnie averred that the A's stood for Algebra, Astronomy and +Art-Drawing and even had the combination of studies for one prize been +less remarkable Herrick would have suspected that the boy was lying. +What he suspected he hardly knew; still less when he discovered that +this unwontedly sympathetic prize was, after all, a fake. The little +golden pistol was not a pistol, but a curiously pointless trinket--the +cylinder was nothing but a sculptured suggestion; the toy was made all +in one piece!--"D'yeh ever see the like?" Mrs. Grubey asked him. And he +never had. It was quainter than Mr. Gumama's kisses. + +But Herrick's head was full of other things. As he opened his door he +grinned to think of that aristocratic scion waiting in his humble +bedroom. Well, it had been a great day! Even if he had lost heart for +that taxi-ride up the river with Evadne! And then from long habit, he +glanced at Evadne's empty place. + +The picture had left an unfaded spot on the wall-paper. "I suppose I +might add 'And on my heart!'" said Herrick. He lifted the concealing +newspaper. Then he went out and made inquiries. No one but Ten Euyck and +Mrs. Grubey had been in the room nor had Mrs. Grubey noticed that the +picture had been moved. Now Herrick was certain he had left the likeness +under the newspaper, lying face up. It was still under the newspaper, +but face down. He said to himself, with a shrug of annoyance, that the +coroner had made good use of his time. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS + + +The morning of the inquest was cloudy, with a wet wind. Herrick was +nervous, and he could not be sure whether this nervousness sprang from +the ardor of championship or accusation. But one thing was clear. +Christina Hope had slain Evadne and closed his mouth to Sal; but, at +last, he was to see her, face to face. + +She was there when he arrived, sitting in a corner with her mother. +Herrick recognized her at once, but with a horrid pang of +disappointment. Was this his Diana of the Winds? Or yet his Destroying +Angel? This was only a tall quiet girl in a gray gown. To be more exact +it was a gray ratine suit, with a broad white collar, and her small gray +hat seemed to fold itself close in to the shape of her little head; the +low coil of her hair was very smooth. Herrick observed with something +oddly akin to satisfaction that he had been right about her +coloring--there were the fair skin, the brown hair, the eyes cool as +gray water. Under these to-day there were dark shadows and her face was +shockingly pale. + +The first witness called was a Doctor Andrews. After the preliminary +questions as to name, age, and so forth, he was asked, "You reside in +the Van Dam Apartments?" + +"I do." + +"On what floor?" + +"The ninth." + +"On the night of August fifth did you hear any unusual sounds?" + +"Not until I heard the pistol-shot--that is, except Mr. Ingham, playing +his piano--if you could call that unusual." + +"He often played late at night?" + +"He had been away during the summer; but, before that, there was a great +deal of complaint. He gave a great many supper-parties; at the same +time, he was such a charming fellow that people forgave him whenever he +wished. Besides, he was a magnificent musician." + +"Were there ladies at these supper-parties?" + +"Not to my personal knowledge." + +"What did you do, Dr. Andrews, when you heard the shot?" + +"I looked out of the window, and saw nothing. I thought I might have +been mistaken; it might have been a tire bursting. But I noticed that +the piano had stopped." + +After the shot the witness had remained restless. + +"Presently I thought I heard some one hammering. I got up again and +opened the door and then I heard it distinctly. I know now that it was +the efforts of Mr. Herrick to break Ingham's lock with a revolver. I +could hear a mixture of sounds--movements. I went back and began to get +my clothes on and when I was nearly dressed my 'phone rang." + +"Tell us what it said." + +"It was the voice of the superintendent saying, 'Please come down to 4-B +in a hurry, Dr. Andrews. Mr. Ingham's shot himself.'" + +"And you went?" + +"Immediately." + +"He was dead on your arrival?" + +"Quite." + +"How long should you, as a physician, say it was since death occurred?" + +"Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes." + +"Had the death been instantaneous?" + +"Certainly. He was shot through the heart." + +"Then, in your opinion, if the deceased had taken his own life, he could +not have sprung off the electric lights, nor in any fashion done away +with the weapon, after the shot." + +"He certainly could not." + +"In your professional opinion, then, he did not commit suicide?" + +"There is no question of an opinion. I know he did not." + +"You are very positive, Dr. Andrews?" + +"Absolutely positive. Death was instantaneous. Also, there was no powder +about the wound, showing that the shot had been fired from a distance of +four feet or more. Also, the body did not lie where it had fallen." + +"How do you know that?" + +"There was a little puddle of blood in the sitting-room, where Ingham +fell. Your physician and myself called the attention of the police to +marks on the rugs following a trail of drops of blood into the bedroom +where the body was found." + +"You do not think that the deceased could have crawled or staggered +there, after the shooting?" + +"I do not." + +"You believe that the body was dragged there, after death?" + +"Yes." + +"You remained with the body until the arrival of myself and Doctor +Shippe?" + +"I did." + +"Dr. Andrews, the apartment in which the shooting occurred had no access +to the windows of any other apartment, no fire-escape, and no means of +egress except through a door which was found bolted on the inside. +Suppose that a murder was committed. Have you any theory accounting for +the murderer's escape?" + +"None whatever." + +"And does not the absence of all apparent means of escape shake your +theory of the impossibility of suicide?" + +"Not in the least. It is unshakable." + +"Thank you. That will do." + +The coroner's physician confirmed Dr. Andrews in every particular. The +coroner settled back and seemed to pause. And the listeners drew a long +breath. Something at least had been decided. It was not suicide. It was +murder. + +This had been established so completely and so early in the examination +that Herrick found himself impressed with the idea of the coroner's +knowing pretty distinctly what he was about. It seemed that he might +very well have some theory to establish, for which, in the first place, +he had now cleared the ground. Herrick stole a glance at Deutch. His +face was wet and colorless, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. And then, +curious to note the effect of hearing her lover proclaimed foully +murdered, he permitted himself the cruelty of looking at Miss Hope. +Apparently it had no effect on her at all. Her mother, a slight, +handsome woman, very fashionably turned out, followed eagerly every +suggestion of the evidence. But the girl still sat with lowered eyes. + +The next evidence, that of the police, threw no further light; and then +came the tremulous Theodore of Herrick's acquaintance whose surname +transpired as Bird. + +Bird, too, had been awake and had heard the shot; he had been fully +aware from the first that it was a pistol-shot. He and Mrs. Bird had +risen and put up the chain on their door, and then he had telephoned to +the superintendent. + +"Did the hall-boy connect you at once?" + +"It isn't the hall-boy. It's the night-elevator-boy." + +"Well, did the night-elevator-boy connect you at once?" + +"No, I was a long time getting him." + +"The boy?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah! He, at least, was able to sleep. But, after you got him, was your +connection with the superintendent immediate?" + +"Almost immediate, I guess." + +"It didn't strike you that he was purposely delaying?" + +The listeners leaned forward. And Herrick, as at a touch home, dropped +his eyes. + +"Why, I couldn't say that it did. No, hardly. Besides, he might have +been asleep, too." + +"Ah! So he might. And what was the first thing he said to you?" + +"Through the 'phone?" + +"Certainly. Through the 'phone." + +"He said, 'What is it?'" (Slight laughter from the crowd.) + +"Well? Go on!" + +"I said, 'Excuse me. But I heard a shot just now, in 4-B.' And he said, +'A pistol-shot?' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Do you think somebody +has got hurt?' And I said, 'I'm afraid so.' Then he said, 'Well, I'll +come up.'" + +"Did he seem excited?" + +"Not so much as I was." + +Mrs. Bird, though she described at some length her forethought in +dressing and getting their valuables together, had nothing material to +add. Nor had the widow and her son in the apartment below that in which +the catastrophe took place; nor the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Willing, in the +apartment across the court which had been invaded as a look-out station +by the police, anything further to relate; until, indeed, the lady +stumbled upon the phrase--"The party had been going on for some time." + +"In 4-B?" + +"What? Yes." + +"What made you think there was a party going on in 4-B?" + +"There were voices. And then he often had them." + +"Did you, as a near neighbor, ever observe that there were any ladies at +these parties?" + +"I wouldn't like to say." + +"I see. Well, on this occasion, how many voices were there?" + +"I don't know." + +"About how many? Two? A dozen? Twenty?" + +"Oh, not many at all. There was poor Mr. Ingham's voice, nearly all the +time. And maybe a couple of others. I was in my bedroom, trying to +sleep, and the piano was going all the time." + +"I see. So there may have been two or three persons besides Mr. Ingham, +and there may have been only one?" + +"Yes, sir. At times I was pretty sure I heard another voice. I mean a +third one, anyhow." + +"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?" + +"I don't know." + +"Could you swear you heard a third voice at all?" + +"Well, I don't believe I could exactly. No." + +"Now, Mrs. Willing, I want you to be very careful. And I want you to try +and remember. Please tell exactly all that you can remember about what I +am going to ask you and nothing more." + +"Oh, now, you're frightening me dreadfully." + +"I don't want to frighten you. But I do want you to think. Now. You are +certain you heard at least two voices?" + +"Yes, I am, I--" + +"Mr. Ingham's and one other?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Was that other voice the voice of a man?" + +"No, sir." + +"It was a woman's voice?" + +"I--I suppose so." + +"Aren't you sure?" + +"Well, yes, I am." + +"Was it angry, excited?" + +"Toward the end it was." + +"As if the speaker were losing control of herself?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Now, Mrs. Willing, had you ever heard it before?" + +"The woman's voice?" + +"Yes." + +"I can't be sure." + +"What do you think?" + +"Well, I thought I had, yes. I told Mr. Willing so. He'd been to a +bridge party upstairs and he came down just along there." + +"You recognized it then?" + +"Well, toward the end I thought I did; yes." + +"Mrs. Willing, whose was that voice?" + +"Oh, sir,--I--I'd rather not say!" + +"You must say, Mrs. Willing." + +"Well, then, I'll just say I don't know." + +"That won't do, Mrs. Willing.--When you told your husband that you +thought you recognized that voice, exactly what did you say?" + +"Well, I said--oh!--I--Well, what I said was 'That's that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.'" + +"Ah!--And, now, I suppose you know the name of the actress he was +engaged to?" + +"Yes, of course. She's Miss Hope. Christina Hope her name is. Of course, +I haven't said I was sure!" + +"Thank you. That will do." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED + + +A thrill shook the assemblage. It was plain enough now to what goal was +the coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all along +had been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall, +dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become something +sinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wild +animal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gasp +and rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and then +collapsing in his seat, with a muffled croak. His wife frowned; clucking +indignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspected +girl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that she +was much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You will +have your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back with +exclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressed +it lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintained +her composure intact. + +But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed a +long, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. It +was the expression of a very good and very serious child who regards +earnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Once +she had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there. + +In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exact +profile occasioned by her change of attitude, Herrick began once more +to see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there _was_ something +royally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in that +obstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thus +expectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall little +girl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By God, he was branding +her!--"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called. + +The young man was aware at once of being a local celebrity. His evidence +was to be one of the treats of the day. Not even the attack upon +Christina had created a much greater stir. He took his place; and, "At +last," said the coroner, "we are, I believe, to hear from somebody who +saw _something_." + +Herrick told his story almost without interruption. He was listened to +in flattering silence; the young author had never had a public which +hung so intently on his words. The silence upon which he finished was +still hungry. + +The coroner drew a long breath. "We're greatly obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick. And now let us get this thing straight. It was one o'clock or +thereabouts that Mr. Ingham began to play?" + +They established the time and they went over every minutest detail of +changing spirit in Ingham's music. + +"That crash which waked you for the second time--do you think it could +have been occasioned by an attack on Mr. Ingham?--that he may have been +struck and thrown against the piano?" + +"Oh, not at all. It was a perfectly deliberate discord, a kind of +hellish eloquence." + +"Ah! I'm obliged to you for that phrase, Mr. Herrick." And again he was +asked--"That gesture which so greatly impressed you--do you think you +could repeat it for us?" + +Herrick quelled the impulse to reply, "Not without making a damned fool +of myself," and substituted, "I can describe it." + +"Kindly do so." + +"She threw her arm high up, as high as it would go, but at a very wide +angle from her body, and at that time her hand was clenched. But while +the arm was still stretched out, she slowly opened her fingers, as if +they were of some stiff mechanism--and it seemed to me that it was the +violence of her feeling they were stiff with--until the whole hand was +open, like a stretched gauntlet." + +"Well, and then, when she took down her hand?" + +"She drew it in toward her quickly; I had an idea she might have covered +her face." + +"And then she disappeared?" + +"Yes; but she seemed to dip a little forward." + +"As if to pick something up?" + +"Well, not as much as from the floor; no." + +"From a chair, then, or the couch?" + +"Possibly." + +"She would, standing at the window, have been some five or six feet from +the piano, where Ingham sat?" + +"I should say about that." + +"Mr. Herrick, are you absolutely sure that this was not until after the +shooting?--this forward dip?" + +"After? No, it was before!" + +"Ah--And directly after the shot the lights went out?" + +"Directly after. Almost as if the shot had put them out." + +"Now, Mr. Herrick, you have testified that from, as you say, the vague +outline of the hair and shoulders and the slope of her skirts, and from +the fact that when she raised her arm there was a bit of lace, or +something of the kind, hanging from her sleeve, you were perfectly sure +that this shadow was the shadow of a woman. Yet you still could not in +the least determine anything whatever of her appearance. That I can +quite understand. But didn't you gather, nevertheless, some notion of +her personality?" + +Herrick avoided Deutch's eye. He said--"I don't think so." + +"That extraordinary movement, then, did not leave upon you a very +distinct impression?" + +"In what way?" + +"An impression of a lady not much concerned with social constraint or +emotional control; and of a very great habitual ease and flexibility in +movement." + +Herrick managed to smile. "I'm afraid I'm no such observer as all that. +Perhaps any lady, within sixty seconds of committing murder, is a little +indifferent to social constraint." + +The coroner looked at him with a slight change of expression. "Well, +then, let us put it another way. You would not expect to see your +mother, or your sister, or any lady of your own class, make such a +gesture? No? Yet you must often have seen an actress do so?" + +"That doesn't follow!" Herrick said. His flush resented for Christina +the slur that his words overlooked. And suddenly words escaped him. "You +answered the previous question yourself, remember! Be kind enough not to +confuse my evidence with yours!" + +The coroner studied him a long time without speaking, while the young +man's color continued to rise, and at length came the comment, "I'm not +falling asleep, Mr. Herrick. I'm only wondering what charming influence +has been at work with the natural appetite, at your age, for discussing +an actress." + +"Ask me that later, outside your official capacity," said Herrick hotly, +"and we'll see if we can't find an answer!" + +"Mr. Herrick, why, on the morning after the murder, did you take down +Miss Hope's photograph from over your desk?" + +"Because, never having met Miss Hope, it was a photograph I had no right +to. I took it down when I learned the identity of the original. I didn't +want its presence to be misconstrued by cads." + +"Thank you. That will do. Hermann Deutch, if you please." + +Herrick retired, ruffled and angry at himself; and Deutch, in passing +him, cast him a clinging glance, as of a fellow conspirator, that he +found strangely indigestible. At Christina, he could not look. + +It did not take the coroner two minutes to make hay of Mr. Deutch. Not, +indeed, that he was able to extract any very damaging admissions. The +superintendent said that he was wakened by his wife, who had herself +been wakened by the 'phone. He had held the before stated conversation +with Mr. Bird, and, not being able to get the elevator, had walked +upstairs, being joined in the office by a policeman. The rest of his +proceedings were unquestionable. But the coroner, an expert in +caricature and bullying and the twisting of phrases, by making him +appear ridiculous, managed to make him appear mendacious; this was the +easier because every now and then there was a slip in the sense of what +he said, as if he had forgotten the meaning of words; he certainly +perspired more than was at all persuasive; he soon began to stumble and +to contradict himself about nothing; his slight accent thickened and, in +a syntax with which his German tongue was habitually glib, but not +accurate, he was soon making errors laughably contemptible to a public +that presumably expressed itself with equal elegance in all languages. +So that presently, when he was sufficiently harrowed, the coroner drew +from him an admission; not only had Ingham frequently entertained ladies +at his supper-parties, but complaints had been made to Deutch by various +tenants, and these complaints he had not transmitted to the owners of +the apartment house. The most searching inquiry failed to connect +Christina with these parties, but the inference was obvious. + +"I didn't,"--Mr. Deutch burst forth--"keep 'em quiet any because she was +there. She wouldn't have touched such doings, not with the sole of her +foot. But I didn't want the gentleman she was engaged to should be put +out of the house when I was running it, after her recommending it to +him, on my account!" His eyes and his voice were full of exasperated +tears. "He'd have told her one lie and yet another and another, and +she'd have believed him, and he'd have wanted her to fight me. Not that +she would. But he was fierce against her friends, any of 'em. And I +didn't want she should have no more trouble than what she had with him +already." + +"Very kind of you. Nature made you for a squire of dames, Mr. Deutch. +Miss Hope, now,--you are a particularly old friend of hers, I believe. +And I understand you would do a great deal for her." + +"I'd do anything at all for her." + +"I see." All that was crouching in the coroner coiled and sprang. "Even +to committing perjury for her, Mr. Deutch. Even to concealing a murder +for her sake?--Silence!" he commanded Christina's friends. + +In the sudden deathly stillness Deutch lifted his head. He looked at the +coroner with the eyes of a lion, and in a firm voice he replied, "Say, +when you speak like that about a lady, Mr. Coroner, you want to look out +you don't go a little too far." + +"I am about to call a witness," said the coroner, with his cold laugh, +"who will go even farther. Joseph Patrick, please!" + +Joe Patrick was the night-elevator boy. + +People stared about them. No witness. The coroner's man came forward, +saying something about "telephoned--accident--get here shortly." + +"See that he does,--The day-elevator boy in court!" + +Disappointment reigned. After the glorious baiting of one whose race +went so long a way to make him fair game, almost anything would have +been an anti-climax. There now advanced for their delectation a slim, +blond, anemic, peevish youth, feeble yet cocky, almost as much like a +faded flower from a somewhat degenerated stalk as if he had been nipping +down Fifth Avenue under a silk hat, and whose name of Willie Clarence +Dodd proclaimed him of the purest Christian blood. Yet the stare of the +assembly wandered from him, passed, grinning, where Deutch sat with +hanging head, and settled down to feed upon the pallor of Christina's +cheek. Herrick rose suddenly, displacing, as it were, a great deal of +atmosphere with his large person, and stalking across the room, pulled +up a chair to Deutch's side. If he had clasped and held that plump, that +trembling hand, his intention could not have been more obvious. +Christina turned her head a little and, with no change of expression, +looked at him for a moment. Then she turned back again to Willie +Clarence Dodd. That gentleman, ogling her with a canny glance, affably +tipped his hat to her, and she bowed to him with utter gravity. + +Mr. Dodd was a gentleman cherishing a just grudge. By the accident of +bringing him into day-service instead of night-service, when there was a +murder up her sleeve, Fate had balked him of his legitimate rights in +life. Notoriety had been near him, but it had escaped. Mr. Dodd's +self-satisfaction, however, was not easily downed. He had still a card +to play, and he played it as jauntily as if doom had not despoiled him +of his due. He smiled. And he had a right to. The first important +question asked him ran--"On the day after Mr. Ingham's return from +Europe--the day, in fact, of his death--did Mr. Ingham have any +callers?" + +"Yes, sir. He had one." + +Interest leaped to him. He bloomed with it. + +Apart from interruptions, his story ran--"Yes, sir. A lady. Quite a +good-looker. Medium height. Might make you look round for a white horse; +but curls, natural. Very neat dresser and up-to-date. Cute little feet. +She wouldn't give her name. But not one o' _that_ sort, you understand. +She came up to me--the telephone girl was sick and I was onto her +job--and she says to me, very low, as if she'd kind of gone back on +herself,--'Will you kindly tell Mr. James Ingham that the lady he +expects is here?' He came down livelier than I'd ever known him, and she +said it was good of him to see her and they sat down on the window-seat. +That's one thing where the Van Dam's on the bum--no parlor. I was really +sorry for the little lady--no, not short, but the kind a man just +naturally calls little--she was so nervous and she talked about as loud +as a mouse; I guess he felt the same way, for he says, 'Won't you come +upstairs to tell me all this? We shall be quite undisturbed,' he says. +And while they were waiting for the elevator--the hall-boy wasn't much +on running it--she says to him, 'You understand; I don't want to get +Christina into any trouble.' And he says, 'Of course; that is all quite +understood.' In about half an hour down they came together and he had +his hat. He wanted to send her off in a cab, but she wouldn't let him. +The minute she was gone he says to me, ''Phone for a taxi!' They didn't +answer, and he says, 'Ring like the devil!' It hadn't stopped at the +door when he was in it and off." + +"You couldn't, of course, hear his direction?" + +"Nop! He got back about six--chewing the rag, but on the quiet. Went out +in his dress suit about seven-thirty. I went off at eight." + +He was dismissed, strutting. + +"And now let us get down to business. If you please," said the coroner, +"Miss Christina Hope." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOE PATRICK ARRIVES + + +If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had, +as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither of +them stooped to signify it now. + +"Your name, if you please?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + +"May one ask a lady's age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. -- West 93rd +Street. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these dry +preliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaning +forward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could give +them. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand--"Unless, +of course, you would rather I did not." + +The coroner replied to this biddable appeal--"I shan't keep you a moment +longer than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very few +questions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject; +and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call +_personally_ intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hope +you will answer as fully as possible in the same cause." + +"Oh, certainly." + +"You were engaged to be married to Mr. Ingham, Miss Hope?" + +"Yes." + +"When did this engagement take place?" + +"About a year ago." + +"And your understanding with him remained unimpaired up to his death?" + +"Yes." + +"When did you last see him alive?" + +"On the day before he--died. He drove to our house from the ship." + +"Ah! Very natural, very natural and proper. But surely you dined +together? Or met again during the next twenty-four hours?" + +"No." + +"No? What were you doing on the evening of the fourth of August--the +evening of his death?" + +"My mother and I dined alone, at home. We were neither of us in good +spirits. I had had a bad day at rehearsal--everything had gone wrong. My +head ached and my mother was worn out with trying to get our house in +order; it was a new house, we were just moving in." + +"You rented a new house just as you were going to be married?" + +"Yes, that was why. I was determined not to be married out of a flat." + +A smile of sympathy stirred through her audience. It might be stupidity +which kept her from showing any resentment toward a man who had +practically accused her of murder. Or, it might be guilt. But she was so +young, so docile, so demure! Her voice was so low and it came in such +shy breaths--there was something so immature in the little rushes and +hesitations of it. She seemed such a sweet young lady! After all, they +didn't want to feed her to the tigers yet awhile! + +And the coroner was instantly aware of this. "Then your mother," he +said, "is the only person who can corroborate your story of how you +passed that evening?" + +"Yes." + +"How did you pass it?" + +"I worked on my part until after eleven, but I couldn't get it. Then I +took a letter of my mother's out to the post-box." + +"At that hour! Alone!" + +"Yes. I am an actress; I am not afraid. And I wanted the air." + +"You came straight home?" + +"Yes." + +"While you were out did any neighbor see you? Did you speak to any one?" + +"On the way to the post-box I saw Mrs. Johnson, who lives two doors +below and who had told us about the house being for rent. She is the +only person whom I know in the neighborhood. On the way back I met no +one." + +"Then no one saw you re-enter the house?" + +"I think not." + +"Did the maid let you in?" + +"No, I had my key. The maids had gone to bed." + +"But it was a very hot night. People sat up late, with all their windows +open, and caretakers in particular must have been sitting on the steps, +some one must have seen you return." + +"Perhaps they did." + +"Did you, yourself, notice no one whom we can summon as a witness to +your return?" + +"No one." + +"What did you do when you came in?" + +"I went to bed." + +"You do not sleep in the same room with your mother?" + +"No." + +"On the same floor?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you lock your door?" + +"No." + +"But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?" + +"Not unless something had happened; no." + +"Could you pass her door without her hearing you?" + +"I should suppose so. I never tried." + +"So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that you +returned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?" + +"No," Christina breathed. + +"Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but when +and how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?" + +"In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I could +hear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so ill +I did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, and +I wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must be +time, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bring +up my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; and +she said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something has +happened.'" + +The naïveté of Christina's phrases sank to an awed whisper; her eyes +were very fixed, like those of a child hypnotized by its own vision. + +"I saw then that she was trying not to tremble and that she had been +crying. She couldn't deny it, and so she told me that Mr. Ingham was +very, very ill, and she let me get up and helped me to dress. But then, +when I must see other people--she told me--she told me--" + +Christina's throat swelled and her eyes filled suddenly with tears. + +The coroner, cursing the sympathy of the situation, forced himself to a +commiserating, "Did she say how he died?" + +"She told me it was an accident. I said, 'What kind of an accident?' And +she said he was shot. 'But,' I said, 'how could he be shot by an +accident? He didn't have any pistol? You know he didn't own such a +thing.'" A slight sensation traversed the court. "Then it came out--that +no one knew--that people were saying it was--murder--" + +"Do you believe that, Miss Hope?" + +"I don't know what to believe." + +"Did Mr. Ingham have any enemies?" + +"I knew of none." + +"From your intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingham's affairs you know of no +one, either with a grudge to satisfy or a profit to be made, by his +death?" + +"No. No one at all." + +"So that you have really no theory as to how this terrible thing +happened?" + +"No, really, I haven't." + +"Well, then, I suppose we may excuse you, Miss Hope." + +The girl, with her tranquil but slightly timid dignity, inclined her +head, and heaving a deep sigh of relief, turned away.-- + +--"Oh, by the way, Miss Hope,--" And suddenly, with a violent change of +manner, he began to beat her down by the tactics which he had used with +Deutch. But with how different a result! Nothing could make that pale, +tall girl ridiculous. Scarcely speaking above a breath, she answered +question after question and patiently turned aside insult after insult. +He found no opposition, no confusion, no reticence; nothing but that +soft yielding, that plaintive ingenuousness. The crudest jokes, the +cruelest thrusts still left her anxiously endeavoring to convey desired +information. He took her back over her relations with Ingham, their +interview upon his return, the events of the last evening, with an +instance and a repetition that wearied even the auditors to distraction; +he would let her run on a little in her answers and then bring her up +with a round turn; twenty times he took with her that journey to and +from the post-box and examined every step, and still her replies ran +like sand through his fingers and left no trace behind. But, at last, +she put out a hand toward the chair she had rejected, and sank slowly +into it. Then indeed it became plain that she was profoundly exhausted. + +And because her exhaustion was so natural and so pitiable, the coroner, +watching its effect, said, "Well, I can think of nothing more to ask +you, Miss Hope. I suppose it would be useless to inquire whether, being +familiar with the apartment, you could suggest any way in which, the +door being bolted, the murderer could have escaped?" + +Christina looked up at him with a very faint smile and with her humble +sweetness that had become almost stupidity, she said, "Perhaps the +murderer wasn't in the apartment at all!" + +The whole roomful of tired people sat up. "Not in the apartment! And +where, then, pray?" + +"Well," said Christina, softly, "he could have been shot through an open +window, I suppose. Of course, I'm only a woman, and I shouldn't like to +suggest anything. Because, of course, I'm not clever, as a lawyer is. +But--" + +"Well, we're waiting for this suggestion!" + +"Oh!--Well, it seems to me that when this lady, whose shadow excited the +young gentleman so much, disappeared as if it went forward, perhaps it +did go forward, perhaps she ran out of the room. You can see--if you +don't mind stopping to think about it--that she must have been standing +right opposite the door. If she had been quarreling with Mr. Ingham, he +may have bolted the door after her. I don't know if you've looked--but +the button for the lights is right there--in the panel of the wall +between the door and the bedroom arch. Mr. Ingham was a very nervous, +emotional person. If there had been a scene, he might very well have +meant to switch the lights out after her, too. If he had his finger on +the button when the bullet struck him, he might very well, in the shock, +have pressed it. And then the lights would have gone out, almost as if +the bullet had put them out, just as the young man says. But, of course, +if this were what had happened, you would have thought of it for +yourself." And she looked up meekly at him, with her sweet smile. + +The coroner smiled, too, with compressed lips, and putting his hands in +his pockets, threw back his head. "And how do you think, then, that--if +he was killed instantly, as the doctors have testified,--the corpse +walked into the bedroom, where it was found?" + +"Ah!" said Christina, "I can't account for everything! I'm not an +observer, like you! But there has never been, has there, a doctor who +was ever wrong? Of course, I don't pretend to know." + +"Well, it's a pretty theory, my dear young lady, and I'm sure you mean +to work it out for us all you can. So give us a hint where this bullet, +coming through an open window, was fired from." + +"It could have been fired from the apartment opposite. Across the +entrance-court. You remember, the policeman who went in there found that +the windows exactly--do you call it 'tallied'?" + +"Very good, Miss Hope. If it were an unoccupied apartment. But it is +occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willing, and Mrs. Willing was in the apartment +the entire evening." + +"Yes," said Christina, turning and looking pleasantly at the lady +mentioned, "alone." Then she was silent. + +After a staggered instant, the coroner asked, "And what became of this +lady who ran out into the hall?" + +"Well, of course," said Christina, sweetly, "if it was Mrs. Willing--" + +The Willings leaped to their feet. "This is ridiculous! This is an +outrage! Why!" cried the husband, "his blind opposite our sitting-room +was down all the time. There isn't even a hole through it where a shot +would have passed!" + +"Oh, isn't there?" asked Christina. "You see, it wasn't I who knew +that!" + +"What do you mean, you wicked girl! How dare you! Why, you heard the +policeman say that it was only when he looked through our bedroom that +he could see into Mr. Ingham's apartment--" + +"And wasn't it in the bedroom that the body was found?" + +"Miss Hope!" said the coroner, sternly, "I must ask you not to +perpetrate jokes. You know perfectly well that your implied charge +against Mrs. Willing is perfectly ridiculous--" + +"Is it?" Christina interrupted, "she implied it about me!" + +And for the first time she lifted to his a glance alight with the +faintest mockery of malice; a wintry gleam, within the white exhaustion +of her face. Then,--if all the time she had been playing a part--then, +if ever, she was off her guard. + +And she could not see what Herrick, from his angle, could see very well; +that the coroner had been quietly slipping something from his desk into +his hand, and was now dangling it behind his back. + +This something was the scarf found on Ingham's table--that white scarf +with its silky border, cloudy, watery, of blue glimmering into gray. How +the tender, misty coloring recalled that room of Ingham's! + +"Don't you know very well, Miss Hope," the coroner went on, "that Mrs. +Willing had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Ingham's death?" + +"How can I? You see, I wasn't there!" + +"So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?" + +He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face. +And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well have +knotted it about her neck. + +And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said, +"Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to ask +you if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, might +have been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on him +that afternoon." + +With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded, +"I don't know." + +"Neither can you tell us, I suppose,--it would straighten matters out +greatly--who that caller was?" + +"No, I can't. I'm sorry." + +"Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and pretty +young ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Dodd +informs us, with cute little feet?" + +Christina was silent. + +"What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiancé--'I don't +wish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice, +now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us the +address of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!" + +The girl opened her pale lips to breathe forth, "I can't tell you! I +don't know!" + +"Let us assist your memory, Miss Hope, by recalling to you the lady's +name. Her name is Ann Cornish." + +Herrick's nerves leaped like a frightened horse. And then he saw +Christina start from her chair, and, casting round her a wild glance +that seemed to cry for help, drop back again and put her hands over her +face. A dozen people sprang to their feet. + +Mrs. Hope ran to her daughter's side, closely followed by Mrs. Deutch. +The two women, crying forth indignation and comfort, and exclaiming that +the girl was worn out and ought to be in bed, rubbed Christina's head, +and began to chafe her hands. She was half fainting; but when a glass of +whiskey had appeared from somewhere and Mrs. Deutch had forced a few +drops between her lips, Christina, unlike the heroine of romance whose +faints always refuse stimulants, lifted her head and drank a mouthful +greedily. She sat there then, breathing through open lips, with a trace +of color mounting in her face. + +Then the coroner, once more commanding attention, held up a slip of +pasteboard. "This visiting-card," he said, "is engraved with Miss +Cornish's name, but with no address. It was found leaning against a +candlestick on Mr. Ingham's piano, as though he wished to keep it +certainly in mind. As a still further reminder, Mr. Ingham himself had +written on it in pencil--'At four.'" + +Christina, with the gentlest authority, put back her friends. She rose, +slowly and weakly, to her feet. "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to +correct a false impression; may I?" + +[Illustration: "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false +impression; may I?"] + +"That's what we're here for, my dear young lady," the coroner scornfully +replied. + +"I have said nothing," she went on, "that is not true, but I have +allowed something to be inferred which is not true." She pressed her +hands together and drew a long breath. "It is true that I was engaged to +Mr. Ingham. And when you asked me if our understanding was unimpaired at +the time of his death, I said yes; for, believe me, our understanding +then was better than it had ever been before. But that was not what you +meant. I will answer what you meant, now. At the time of his death, I +was not engaged to marry Mr. Ingham." + +"You were not! Why not?" + +"We had quarreled." + +"When?" + +"The day before he died." + +An intense excitement began to prevail. Herrick longed to stand up and +shout, to warn her, to muzzle her. Good God! was it possible she +didn't see what she was doing? The coroner, weary man, sat back with a +long sigh of satisfaction. His whole attitude said, "Now we're coming to +it." + +"And may one ask an awkward question, Miss Hope? Who broke the +engagement?" + +"I did." + +"Oh, of course, _naturally_. And may one ask why?" + +"Because I began to think that life with Mr. Ingham would not be +possible to me." + +"But on what grounds?" + +"He was grossly and insanely jealous," said Christina, flushing. "Some +women enjoy that sort of thing; I don't." + +"Jealous of anyone in particular, Miss Hope?" + +"Only," said Christina, "of everyone in particular." + +"There was never, of course, any grounds for this jealousy?" + +Christina looked through him without replying. + +"Well, well. And was there nothing but this?" + +"He objected to my profession; and when I was first in love with him I +thought that I could give it up for his sake. But as I came to know more +of--everything--and to understand more of myself, I knew that I could +not. And I would not." + +"So that it was partly Mr. Ingham, himself, in his insistence upon your +renouncing your profession, who broke the engagement?" + +"If you like." + +"At least, your continuance in it made his jealousy more active?" + +"It made it unbearable. And as it gradually became clear to me that he +scarcely pretended to practise even the rudiments of the fidelity that +he exacted, it seemed to me that there were limits to the insults which +even a gentleman may offer to his betrothed. And I--freed myself." + +Two or three people exchanged glances. + +"Was the engagement ever broken before and patched up again?" + +"We had quarreled before, but not definitely. Last spring I asked him to +release me, and he would not. But he consented to my remaining on the +stage, and to going away for the summer, so that I could think things +out." + +"And you immediately took a house from which to be married!" + +"Yes. I tried to go on with it. I thought furnishing it might make me +want to. But I couldn't. I wrote him so, and he came home. While he was +on the ocean I found out something which made any marrying between us +utterly impossible. When he drove to my house the day before he was +killed, I told him so. We had a terrible scene, but he knew then as well +as I that it was the end. I never saw him again." + +"As a matter of fact, then, the definite breaking of the engagement was +caused by something new and wholly extraneous to your profession or his +jealousy?" + +"Yes." + +"And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?" + +"Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that." +And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't know +what I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me? +But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know, +now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It +had nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simply +something--monstrous--which happened a long time ago. But, between us +two, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. And +you can never make me." + +"And you don't know Ann Cornish?" + +Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bear +to have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christina +added, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And, +besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she never +had an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill of +me. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Her +address is--" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied. +"She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress, +poor child!" + +"Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean,--you don't care +about appearing innocent any longer?" + +"I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through this +afternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You've +made me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn and +twist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and now +that I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if you +choose!" + +Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes, +impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Not +to have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in this +horrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worry +me, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you! +I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have a +career, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to kill +me for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hated +women--once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;--how you copied an +attorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by the +persecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard as +when she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed to +every scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answer +everything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old, +and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For if +you imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, it +is easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him like +that, oh, you are wrong--and my nerves are all in shreds. So that it +seemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated, +and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defend +myself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To be +judged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading. +But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to make +people believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a little +choking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother, +and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't prove +that I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It's +worse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you think +I would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day? +I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm all +alone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and sat +down beside her mother. + +Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash such +different lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentiments +of a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knew +what to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly more +conciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishly +into her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have melted +the public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against the +wall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down her +unshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forward +across his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "My +friends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardly +expect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for a +witness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us get +into shape what we have already learned.--The first thing of which we +are sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of the +third of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss Christina +Hope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that house +their engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that he +disapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and that +they quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have no +witness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will ask +you to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statement +that it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement. + +"Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is that +Mr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, had +an appointment with a lady for four o'clock--an appointment the hour of +which he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady's +visiting-card, and stood the card against a candle on his piano. Our +next facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had a +private interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, as +soon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, and +that he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitement +of some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you should +bring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and in +questioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham, +then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon the +great clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you have +clearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish was +not a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledged +lovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend, +and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr. +Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham, +and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for she +said--'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found the +information important, for he soon wished it told him at greater length +upstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees; +although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, I +ask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to get +Christina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses to +give her name come to a specially attractive man with news of her +dearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry--news +for which she feels it necessary to apologize--for but one of two +reasons;--either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injure +her friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man and +jealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend's +legitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her point +for she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparently +failed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture. + +"Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge of +facts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening, +expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to be +admitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy, +and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; that +despite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham's +apartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the only +visitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy, +Joseph Patrick, all this must wait. + +"Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham's +playing at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was after +eleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box, +and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spoken +with her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Ingham +played, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began to +be the sound of voices talking through the music--the voices, as other +witnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins to +sound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun to +quarrel. Their voices--particularly the woman's voice--rise higher and +stormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep. +But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, and +says to her husband, who has just come in, 'He's got that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.' And then even Mr. Herrick is awakened by +a deliberate discord from the piano; a jarring crash, 'a kind of hellish +eloquence.' In other words, the man, with his comparative calm and his +mastery over his instrument, is mocking and goading the woman, whose +shadow, convulsed, threatening, furious, immediately springs out upon +the blind. Gentlemen, can you not imagine the sensations of that woman? +Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose that a girl ambitious and lovely, +but of a type of loveliness not easily grasped by the mob, a girl who +has had to work hard and fight hard, who is worthy to adorn the highest +circles, but who is, in Miss Christina Hope's feeling expression, +without position, without money, without friends, suddenly meets and +becomes engaged to marry a distinguished and wealthy man. Let us suppose +that she puts up with this man's exactions, with his furious jealousies, +with his continual infidelities for the sake of the security and +affluence of becoming his wife. But is it not possible that when this +exacting gentleman is safely across the ocean she may allow herself a +little liberty? That in the chagrin of knowing she is presently to be +torn from her really more congenial friends and surroundings she goes, +in his absence, a little too far? At any rate, he cuts short his visit +in Europe, he flies to her from the steamer, full of accusations, +but--contrary to the experience narrated by Miss Hope--he is perhaps +soothed by her version of things and goes away, without having fully +withdrawn his word, to examine matters. Let us suppose that on the next +day he receives a call from his fiancée's confidential friend,--very +possibly his informant while he was abroad--who circumstantially +confirms his worst suspicions. Let us suppose he drives wildly to the +house of his betrothed; but she is not at home, and after a time he +gives up looking for her. He comes miserably back, dines out, returns +early, but leaves word that he is not at home. But in the meanwhile may +not the lady have got word of all this? Suppose that when she does, she +comes to him,--at any hour, at any risk,--and uses her hitherto +infallible charm to get him back. Suppose she gets him back; they are +alone together; she is excited and confident and off her guard. She lets +something slip. Instantly the battle is on. This time she cannot get him +back. She becomes desperate. If he speaks, as perhaps he has threatened +to, she loses not only him, but everything. For she is on the brink of +the great step of her career. She is to play the leading feminine rôle +under a celebrated star, who does not care for scandal in his +advertisements. On the contrary, he has bruited everywhere her youth, +her propriety, her breeding, her good blood. She is a fairy-tale of the +girlish virtues. He has no use for her otherwise. And still the man at +the piano proclaims her everything that is otherwise, and she sees that +she is to lose him and all she has struggled for, professionally, in one +breath. He sits there--he, he, the man who has been continually false to +her, claiming for himself a different morality--he sits there playing, +playing, shattering her nerves with his crash of chords, with his +hellish eloquence. But with his back to her, you observe, where she +stands at the window and suddenly she sees something lying on a little +table or the foot of the couch--something not unusual in a man's +apartment, although we have Miss Hope's word that Mr. Ingham did not +possess one--something which, perhaps, in his wrecked happiness, he had +loaded earlier in the evening with that sinister intention of suicide in +which Miss Hope's respected friend, Mr. Deutch, so profoundly believes. +Well, gentlemen, the frenzied eye of this tormented girl lights on that +little object, she stoops to pick it up, he turns,--and then comes a +pistol-shot. There is an end to the strength of a woman's nerves, +gentlemen, and she has found it. She cannot look upon her handiwork. She +springs off the light and flees. In the confusion she escapes. +Gentlemen, with the dumbfounding mystery of that bolted door I can not +deal, unless--as Miss Hope has reminded us--medical science may be for +once at fault,--unless the wounded man instinctively staggered to the +door and bolted it, staggered toward his telephone, in his bedroom, and +died there. That, gentlemen, can be threshed out at the trial. In the +meantime, I must ask you to remember that the lady whom events seem to +indicate is high-strung and overwrought; that her natural grief and +nervousness led her through a long cross-examination in which she never +once betrayed any hesitation, or the fact that she had quarreled with +Mr. Ingham or that she was aware of the existence of Ann Cornish, to a +satirical attack upon Mrs. Willing, whose remarks had annoyed her; that, +as she tells us, she has no one to take care of her, and if we are +inclined to think that she can take very good care of herself, we must +remember that when she was confronted with a lady's scarf found not far +from the murdered man, she screamed at the sight of it, and when +confronted with the visiting-card of Ann Cornish, she so much wished her +friend to be kept out of it that she fainted, and, afterwards, _changed +all her evidence_.--Gentlemen, I rejoice to see, entering this room, our +witness, Joseph Patrick." + +Joe Patrick, a short, thick-set young fellow, with rough hair and a +bright eye, advanced to the coroner's desk. His forehead was ornamented +with a great deal of very fresh surgeon's plaster, and when asked why he +was so late, he replied that he had been knocked down by an automobile +on his way to the inquest. Well, yes, he would sit down; he did feel a +little weak, but it wasn't so much from that--he'd had some candy sent +him day before yesterday and he'd been awful sick ever since he ate it. +Joe was a friendly soul and he added that he was sorry the man the +coroner sent hadn't seen anybody but his mother. He was to the doctor's, +then. + +"But you had telephoned a pretty detailed account to your mother, hadn't +you, before you left the Van Dam--on the morning of the murder--much +more detailed than you gave the police?" + +"Yes, sir. I guess I did." + +"Well, then, please give that account to us." + +Joe looked rather at sea, and the coroner added, "You have said from the +beginning, that a lady called upon Mr. Ingham the night of his death?" + +"Oh, yes, sir! She did!" + +"Well, tell us first what happened when you went on watch. You had a +message from Mr. Ingham?" + +"Yes, sir. He telephoned down to me. He says, 'I'm out. And if any lady +comes to see me this evening, you say right away I'm out.'" + +"Well, and then?" + +"Well, along about half-past twelve--it was awful hot and lonesome, +and--and--" + +"And you began to get sleepy! It seems that at least the house-staff was +able to sleep that night!" + +"Well," said Joe, "I guess anybody'd get sleepy, been sittin' there for +four hours in that heat! Anyhow, it seemed like I'd just closed my eyes, +when they came open all of a sudden and I was looking at the front +door. And there, all in white--'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's +Miss Hope!' I don't know why it seemed so awful queer to me, unless +because I wasn't really but half-awake." + +[Illustration: "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's Miss Hope!'"] + +It is not too much to say that a shudder traversed the court. Christina, +white as death, and her eyes black and strained with horror, leaned +toward him in an agony. + +"Perhaps you thought she was rather a late visitor!" smiled the coroner. +"Well? She didn't melt away, I suppose?" + +"No, sir. She came up to me, all smiles like, but you bet there was +something that wasn't a bit funny in that smile. And she says to me, 'Is +our friend, Mr. Ingham, at home?' she says. And I says, 'No, ma'am.' And +she says, 'You're a bad liar, my boy! But you won't take me up, I +suppose?' And I says, 'He told me not to, ma'am.'" + +"Well? Go on!" + +"So she says, 'Well, then, I must take myself up.' And before you could +say 'Pop,' she was up the stairs." + +"And what did you do?" + +"'Oh, here, ma'am, ma'am,' I says, 'you mustn't do that!' She stopped +and put her elbows on the stair-rail,--they run right up to one side o' +the 'phone desk, you know,--and laughed down at me. She looked awful +pretty, but there was something about her kind o' scared me. And 'It's +all right, my boy,' she says. 'I shan't hurt him!' An' she laughed again +an' ran on up." + +"And you did nothing?" + +"Well, what could I do, I like to know! But I grabbed at the switchboard +and called up Mr. Ingham. 'Mr. Ingham,' I says, 'that lady's coming up +anyhow.' An' he says, 'Damnation!' That's the last word I ever heard out +o' him." + +"'That lady!' Didn't you give him her name?" + +"Why, I didn't know her name, sir!" + +"Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope--you know her name?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?" + +"Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PERSONS UNKNOWN + + +The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that it +became a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest. +The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiest +of formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance until +Ingham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itself +ridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcastic +woman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death, +and not coming down again! Well! + +As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even his +instant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was struggling +now against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack was +sucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receive +its due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of a +smiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her," +leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked out +the rest for itself. + +"Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. I +said I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But she +wasn't." + +"Did she look so much like Miss Hope?" + +"No, sir; not when she came near. That was the thing made me feel so +queer. I can't understand it. First she was Miss Hope, and then she +wasn't. She gave me a funny feeling when I seen her standing there in +the door an' says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope.' 'Twas kind of's if I +seen her ghost. An' then all of a sudden there she was, right on top o' +me. An' not like Miss Hope a bit. An' that gimme a funny feeling, too!" + +"Well, never mind your sensations. If she didn't resemble Miss Hope, at +least how did she differ from her?" + +"Why, I guess she was a good deal handsomer for one thing. At least I +expect most people would think so, though I prefer Miss Hope's style, +myself. She was dressier, for one thing, in white lace like, with a big +hat, an' she was pretty near as slim, but yet she had, as you might say, +more figger. An' she had red hair." + +Joe had made another sensation. + +"Red hair! Curly?" + +"Well, it was combed standin' out fluffy like one o' these here halos, +up into her hat. It wasn't anyways common red, you know, sir, it was +elegant, stylish red, like the goldy part in flames." + +"Don't get poetic, Joe. Was she a very young lady?" + +"I don't think so, sir.--Oh, I guess she wouldn't hardly see twenty-five +again! Her feet, sir? I didn't notice. But she didn't walk kind o' +waddlin', either, nor else kind o' pinchin', the way ladies mostly do; +she just swum right along, like Miss Hope does." + +"But she didn't swim downstairs again, without your seeing her?" + +"No, sir." + +"Now look here, Joe Patrick, how do you know she didn't? When Mr. Bird +went to the 'phone after the shooting he was a long time getting +connected, and Mr. Herrick found you asleep at the desk." + +"I couldn't have fell asleep again until after one o'clock, sir, for I +had a clock right on the desk and at one I noticed the time. I was +watchin' for her, she was such a queer one, an' only one man came in all +that time, that I had to carry upstairs. He only went to the fourth +floor, just where she was, an' I rushed him up an' dropped right down +again. She couldn't ha' walked down in that time. I could hear the piano +goin' all the while, the front doors bein' open. But after one I must +ha' dropped off. Because it was about twenty minutes past when Mr. +Herrick shook me up. Then I knew I'd been kind o' comin' to, the last +few minutes, hearin' Mr. Bird ringin'. When Mr. Herrick grabbed my +elevator I called up Mr. Deutch, an' he was quite a minute, too. I says +to him, 'Say, Mr. Deutch, somepun's happened,' an' I switched him onto +Mr. Bird." + +"Well, we're very much obliged to you, Mr. Patrick, for an exceedingly +full account. What apartment did the gentleman have whom you took up to +the fourth floor? Perhaps he may have heard something." + +"I don't know, sir." + +"What?" + +"He just stepped into the elevator, like he lived there, an' he says to +me, 'Fourth!' I never thought nothing about him." + +"You didn't know him?" + +"No, sir." + +"You'd never seen him before?" + +"No, sir." + +"Nor since?" + +"No, sir." + +"You took a man upstairs in the middle of the night, without announcing +him, whom you knew to be a stranger?" + +"Why no, I thought he was a new tenant. We got a few furnished +apartments in the building, goes by the month. And then there's always a +good deal o' sublettin' in the summer. He was so quiet an' never asked +any questions nor anything, goin' right along about his business, I +never give him a thought." + +"Well, give him a thought now, my boy. When you let him out of the +elevator, which way did he turn?" + +The boy started and his eyes jumped open. "Oh, good Lord! sir," he +cried, "why, he turned down toward 4-B." + +His start was reproduced in the persons of all present. Only the coroner +controlled himself. + +"What time was this?" + +"It hadn't quite struck one, sir." + +"And during all this talk about Mr. Ingham's murder, at one-fifteen, it +never occurred to you that at just before one, you had taken up to his +floor a man whom you had never seen, whom you never saw again, and who +turned toward his apartment?" + +"I'm sorry, sir. I never thought of it till this minute." + +"Think hard, now. Give us a good description of this man." + +"A description of him?" + +"Yes, yes. What did he look like?" + +"Why, I don't hardly know, sir." + +"Try and remember. He at least, I presume, did not remind you of Miss +Hope?" + +"No, sir; he didn't remind me of anything." + +"He looked so unlike other people?" + +"No, sir. He looked just like all gentlemen." + +"I see, Joseph, that you don't observe your own sex with the passionate +attention which you reserve for ladies. Well, had he a beard or a +mustache?" + +"No, sir, he hadn't any beard, I'm sure." + +"Come, that's something! And no mustache?" + +"Well, I don't think so, sir. But I wouldn't hardly like to say." + +"Was he light or dark?" + +"I never noticed, sir." + +"Was he tall?" + +"Well, sir, I should say he was about middle height." + +"About how old?" + +"Oh, maybe thirty, sir. Or forty, maybe. Or maybe not so old." + +"Stout?" + +"No, sir." + +"Ah! He was slender, then?" + +"Well, I shouldn't say he was either way particular, sir." + +"How was he dressed, then?" + +"Well, as far as I can remember; he had on a suit, and a straw hat." + +"Was the suit light or dark?" + +"About medium, sir." + +"Not white, then? Nor rose color, I presume? Nor baby blue?" + +"No, sir." + +"Black?" + +"I don't think so, sir." + +"Well, was it brown, gray, navy-blue?" + +"Well, it seems like it might have been a gray, the way I think of it. +But then, again, when I think of it, it seems like it might ha' been a +blue." + +"Thank you, Joe. Your description is most accurate. It's a pity you're +not a detective." + +"There's no use getting mad at me, Mister," Joe protested. "I'm doing +the best I know." + +"I'm sure you are. If Mr. Ingham's second anonymous visitor had only +been a lady, what revelations we should have had! But this unfortunate +and insignificant male, Mr. Patrick. Should you know him again if you +saw him?" + +"I think so, sir. I wouldn't hardly like to say." + +"Well, to get back to more congenial topics!--The lady who was not Miss +Hope--you would know her, I presume?" + +"Oh, yes, sir!"--Joe hesitated. + +"Out with it!" commanded the coroner. + +"Why, it's only--why, anybody'd know her, sir. They couldn't help it. +She had--" He paused, blushing. + +"She had--what?" + +"I couldn't hardly believe it myself, sir. She had--I'm afraid you'll +laugh." + +"Oh, not at you, Joe! Impossible!" + +"Well, she had a blue eye, sir." + +"A blue eye! You don't mean she was a Cyclops?" + +"Sir?" + +"She had more than the one eye, hadn't she?" + +"Oh, yes, sir. She had the two o' them all right." + +"Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one." + +"No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!" + +The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even the +coroner laughed. + +"Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don't +wonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake, +Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality--she would be +easily identified!" + +Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted just +before his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with an +unaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in, +and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death by +shooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown. + +Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had not +gone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his name +called, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in Joe +Patrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she had +come along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and in +her hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in her +eyes. And she said to him, + +"You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and went +to help her?" + +He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!" + +"You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "I +wonder, will you shake hands?" + +He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft but +electric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp. + +"And try to believe, will you?" said Christina, "that perhaps, whoever +she was and whatever she did, perhaps she was in distress, after all." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE + + +Herrick came home through a world which he had never seen before, +blindly climbed his three flights of stairs, and, shutting himself into +his room, sat down on his bed. He stared across the floor at the +wall-paper, like a man drugged. Yes, there was wall-paper in the world, +just as there had been this morning. This room had existed this morning! +And so had he! Incredible! Almost indecent! To-day, for the first time, +he had found himself. For he had found Her! + +Yes, he had lived twenty-eight years, and it had been so much time +wasted! But he need waste little more. She was an actress. Incredibly, +she did not abide in a sanctuary! She was stuck up there on the stage +for fools to gape at. And, for two dollars a performance, he, too, could +gape! Two dollars a vision--eight visions a week. He began to perceive +that he would need some money! + +And, with the thought of money, there materialized out of the void of +the past a quantity of loose scribbled papers, which, last night, had +been of paramount importance. They belonged to his Sunday special. +Good--that would buy many theater tickets! Yesterday it had been the key +to Success. But now he said to himself, "Success?" And he looked dully +at the scribbled sheets. "Success?" he thought again, as he might have +thought "Turkish toweling?" It was a substance for which, at the moment, +he had no use. + +He had no use for anything except the remembrance of being near her. +First there was the time when she was just a girl, sitting beside her +mother. He remembered that he, poor oaf, had been disappointed in her. +And then came the time when she turned her head, and he had seen that +strange, proud, childish innocence--like Evadne's. At the time he had +reminded himself that this effect was largely due to her extraordinary +purity of outline; to the curving perfection of modeling with which the +length of her throat rose from that broad white collar of hers into the +soft, fair dusk of her coiled hair; to the fine fashioning of brows and +short, straight nose and little chin and the set of the little head, so +that the incomparable delicacy of every slope and turn, of every curve +and line and luminous surface at last seemed merely to flower in one +innocent ravishment. He had then admitted that for a girl who wasn't a +howling beauty she had at least the comeliness of being quite perfectly +made. And no bolt from the blue had descended upon his gross complacency +to strike him dead! + +He remembered next, how, at the end of his testimony, she had, with her +first restless movement, begun pulling off her long gloves. Her hands +were slim and strong and rather large, with that look of sensitive +cleverness which one sees sometimes in the hands of an extremely nice +boy. And with the backs of these hands she had a childish trick of +pushing up the hair from her ears, which Herrick found adorable. +Suddenly his brain became a kind of storm-center filled with snatches of +verse, now high, now homely--she had risen to give her testimony! There +she stood before that brute; and the thing he remembered clearest in the +world was a line from his school-reader-- + +"My beautiful, my beautiful, that standest meekly by--" + +Did he, then, think that she was beautiful? Had he not denied it? For +the first time she lifted her eyes, giving their soft radiance, so mild, +so penetrating, out fully to the world. And every pulse in him had +leaped with but the one cry, + + "Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air, + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!" + +"Your name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + +"Age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +Through the light, clear silver of Christina's speech there ran a strain +deeper, lower, richer colored,--Irish girls speak so, sometimes. It +trailed along the listener's heart; it dragged; it drawled; by the +unsympathetic it might have been called husky. Conceivably, creatures +may have existed who did not care for it. But to those who did, it was +the last turn of the screw. + +"Name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + + "The devil hath not yet in all his choice + An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice!" + +This arrow, with Christina's very first word, pierced to the center and +the quick of Herrick's heart, and nailed it to the mast! + +"Name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +At the beginning of that scrap of dialogue, Herrick, as a lover, had not +yet been born; at its end, compared to him, Romeo was a realist. + +He did not tell himself that he was in love with her, and he would have +denied convulsively that he wished her to be in love with him. With him? +Fool! Dolt! Lout! Boor! Not to him did he wish her to stoop! All he +wanted was to become nobler for her sake, to serve her, to die for her! +Merely that! And before dying, to become humbly indispensable to her, to +know her more intimately than any one had ever known her, to take up +every moment of her time! It was entirely for the sake of her +perfection, of the holy and ineffable vision, that he objected +profoundly, almost with nausea, to Deutch's saying that she had acted +loony about Ingham. Ingham!--why Ingham? Even he, Herrick, would be +better than Ingham. For had not he, unworthy, by his deep perception of +her become worthy? Great as her beauty was, it was not for the mob. It +was too fine, too subtle; slim as a flame and winged as the wind yet +April-colored, its aching ravishment could thrill only sensitive nerves. +Yet he remembered something--the elevator boy had thought that, too! +Joseph Patrick had declared he supposed that other people thought +dressier ladies was handsomer, but he preferred Miss Hope! Deutch, too; +hadn't he suggested something of the kind? Now he came to think of it, +even the beast of a coroner had said so! Then, and not till then, did he +fully perceive the cruel trick, the last refinement of her perfect +beauty; that it came to you in such a humble, friendly, simple guise, so +slight and helpless did it knock upon your heart, whispering its shy way +into your blood with the sweet promise that it was yours alone and that +you alone could understand it. Until, when it had taken you wholly, +passion and spirit, it drew aside its veil and revealed itself as the +dream of every common prince and laborer and lover; the poet's hope and +the world's desire. He saw her now, coming toward him through the wet +wind, shining in the gray day, with a smile on her uplifted face, and, +at last, past its candor and its child's decorum, he knew it for the +face that launch'd a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of +Ilium! + +At that moment the summons of a Grubey infant declared him wanted on the +telephone. And through the potent instrument a friendly voice from the +_Record_ office brought him back to earth. It said, "Say, Herrick, we've +got hold of a corking wind-up for your inquest story." + +He cared nothing, now, for inquests, since they no longer concerned her. +But he said, "Have you?" + +"Yes. We thought we'd see what the Cornish girl had to say, and we sent +right down, both to her boarding-house and her theater." + +"And what had she?" + +"Why, that's it. Since the day of the murder she hasn't showed up at +either place. She's disappeared." + + + + +BOOK SECOND + +THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT + + +Herrick had written on his card, "Forgive what must seem an intrusion. I +am asking your time on a matter of business, but I'm afraid I must call +it a personal matter, too." After the maid had taken it, he suffered the +terrors of considering this message at once pretentious and too +emotional and in the worst possible taste. + +Christina's little reception-room was a delicate miracle of Spartan +white, with a few dark gleams of slender formal mahogany shapes and a +couple of water-colors in white frames. On a little table a broad, +shallow bowl was filled with marigolds. Herrick had time for a second's +charmed curiosity at the presence of the little country flowers, and +then, from the floor above, he heard a low cry. + +Instinctively, he stepped into the hall, and there came Christina, +flying down the stairs. + +"Oh, Mr. Herrick," she called out to him. "Have you any news?" And then, +"Please don't hesitate. I can bear it! I can't bear suspense!" + +"News?" he queried. + +"Of Nancy!" + +He cursed himself for not having known that that would be her first +thought. "I'm sorry and ashamed, Miss Hope. I've no news of her at all." + +Christina's legs gave way under her, and she sat down on the stairs. + +Herrick's chagrin and discomfiture were extreme. She paid no further +attention to him. Dropping her head on her clenched hands, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" +she said. + +Mrs. Hope came out of a room at the back, and, passing Herrick with as +little ceremony as even her daughter had displayed, caught hold of +Christina's wrists and shook her sharply. + +"Christina!" she exclaimed. "Christina! Now, there has been quite enough +of this!" + +Christina did not seem to resent this summary treatment. She began to +sob more quietly, until she suddenly burst forth, "Where is she, then? +Can you tell me that? Where is she?" + +"I don't care where she is!" cried poor Mrs. Hope. "Or, at least, now +you know very well what I mean, my dear. I can't have you going on in +this hysterical way all the time, when you've rehearsals to attend to. +Nancy probably went away to get out of all the disagreeable notoriety +that you've got into. And I'm sure she's very well off." + +"Where is she, then?" Christina wailed. She seemed to have an +extraordinary capacity for sticking to her point. "With all the police +in New York looking for her, where is she?" + +"Well, she hasn't been murdered, as you seem to think! If she had been, +she'd be found. If people kill people, they have to do something with +their bodies! But if people are alive, they can do something with +themselves!" + +Christina shuddered. + +"Now, my dear," said her mother, "it's very high time that we apologized +to Mr. Herrick, who must think us mad. But let me tell you this. I am +not going to have you go on the stage in a month looking like your own +ghost and all unstrung. I'm not going to have the play ruined by you, +and have you turn Mr. Wheeler and all of them into your enemies. It +would be better for them to get some one else. You don't sleep, you +won't eat, and you sit brooding all the time, as if you were looking at +nightmares. Well, if you don't get some kind of hold over yourself +within the next day or two, I shall tell Mr. Wheeler that you are +nervously unfit to be entrusted with a part, and I am taking you away." + +Christina sat for an appreciable time without moving. Then she slowly +lifted her face and smiled at Herrick with her wet eyes. "We have +treated you to a strange scene," she said. "It is our bad hour. +But--sometimes--we can be really nice." She held out her hand. Then, +becoming aware of herself sitting on the steps, and of her mother and +Herrick standing before her, "'Have we no chears?'" she quoted; and, +springing up, she led the way into the little white room. + +Herrick found that it was only he who followed her there. Mrs. Hope, +having dealt with the emergency, had again retreated; evidently feeling +that Christina, even in tears, was quite capable of entertaining a young +man single handed. + +But when he was seated near her, Herrick was shocked by the girl's +appearance. It was not only that her face was worn with anxiety, but +that, in twenty-four hours, she seemed actually to have lost flesh. The +lovely outline of her cheek was sunken and the jaw sharpened; if it were +possible to be paler than she had been yesterday, she was paler now. She +looked so fine and light and frail that it seemed as if the beating of +her heart must show through her body, and all during the talk that +followed, Herrick had the sense of her bright, still eyes being +concentrated in expectation,--almost, as it were, in listening,--through +her thick, wet lashes; the gentle wildness of some woodland animal +listens so for the moving of a twig. She was dressed in white serge with +a knot of the marigolds in her belt, and they seemed like a kind of +bright wound in the tragic pallor of her weariness. + +The cause of his visit seemed more than ever an impertinence, but it +must be faced, and he began to stumble out the story of his Sunday +special. + +"There's the old argument that it must be done by somebody. Only, of +course, without your sanction, it will never be done by me. I've +ventured to bring it to you," said he, guiltily producing the article +which he had sat up all night to typewrite. "If I might, I'd leave it +here, and the maid could give it to me when I called for it--you would +only have had to run your pencil through anything that distressed you. I +know how distasteful the idea--the horribly melodramatic and sensational +idea--must be to you--" + +"Oh, well, I don't know that I joined a profession so retiring as all +that!" Christina said, and she held out her hand for the manuscript. She +seemed to weigh this for a moment, and then she handed it back to +Herrick unopened. "No,--say what you please of me. It is sure to be only +too good. Well, and if not?--What does it matter?" She closed her eyes, +and the terrible fatigue of her face brought him to his feet. At the +same time, he knew his story was amazingly good, and, despite his +tremors, he couldn't help wanting her to read it. + +"But--" he ventured. + +"Well, then, I will tell you what we can do--give it to my mother. You +will need it at once? She can have read it by tea-time. You may be quite +easy that if there is anything in it which can injure me I shall break +the news to you, over your tea-cup, that it is in ashes. Will that +do?--Ada," she said to the maid, "please take this in to my mother and +ask her to read it at once. She's alone, isn't she?" + +"Please, ma'am, Mrs. Deutch is with her." + +"Then they can both read it." + +Herrick expressed his thanks and added, "About five, then, I may come +back?" + +Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portières to +the softly curtained windows between which they two were completely +alone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired. + +Herrick sat down. + +She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. He +told her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said to +him, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he, +too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that I +didn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called it +out--perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a pretty +fidgety state,--to speak grandly, an electric state,--and, being just on +the sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simply +happened to catch it--like a wireless at sea." + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy--ah, if we could! +What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if you +heard it again?" + +"How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice." + +"Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to you +that it might have been the woman who fired? I see--you don't think of +women in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to call +here," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come." + +She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith that +Herrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!" + +"Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr. +Herrick--they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, or +else--" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?--a curse, a +darkness?--I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited a +circle with me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trap +fell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plush +curtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to his +house. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tell +you that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? I +can't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings the +storm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that's +all." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,--the quaint +little gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all this +to frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well, +then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish to +befriend me? Isn't that true?" + +"It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied. + +"You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girl +needed a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need. +I don't know what it may do to you." + +Herrick answered her with a smile--"And I don't care." + +She, too, smiled. It began to be borne in upon Herrick how great, when +she chose to exercise it, was her self-control. She could talk to him +with one part of her mind while the other was still listening, peering, +questing, trembling for some fatal news. And he was suddenly aware of +her murmuring-- + + "'Vous qui m'avez tant puni, + Dans ma triste vie--'" + +"Well, then," she said, "if you must,--I want something. Not protection, +not pity, not championship; I'm a little in your own line, you know, I'm +not easily frightened. + + "'Je suis aussi sans désir + Autre que d'en bien finir-- + Sans regret, sans repentir--' + +"I don't know if you read Peter Ibbetson?" + +"Raised on it!" Herrick said. + +"Well, then, you understand things--I don't mean merely his French +songs! And that is exactly what I want--to be quite simply and sensibly +and decently understood! I am a more successful actress than you +realize, you backward Easterners, and I am treated like a goddess, a bad +child, a sibyl, an adventuress, a crazy woman. I should like to speak +now and then with some one who knew that I was nothing but a lonely girl +with some brains in her head, who often took herself too seriously and +sometimes, alas! not seriously enough; who was capricious and perverse +but not a coward, and oh, who meant so well! Such a person would +sometimes say, 'She was silly to-day, but by this time she is ashamed. +She had a strange girlhood and they taught her very bad manners, but she +is not a fool and she will learn.' Well, I will not have any common +person thinking like that about me! It takes an artist to understand an +artist! You think me very arrogant to speak like that of you and me, +because, at the bottom of your heart, you have the arrogance of all the +world--you do not admit that an actress really is an artist! Wait a +little, and you shall own that I am one. At any rate, I know a bit of +other people's art; it's my pride I was among the first to be made happy +by yours--and oh, but I could do very well with a friend I could be +proud of!"--It was not very long before he had embarked upon the history +of his novel. + +He went on and on; he explained to her Ten Euyck's thrust about the +photograph; he told her of Evadne and of Sal. The first thing she said +to him was--"Is there a play in it?" + +"I tried it as a play first, but--" + +"Oh, surely, the novel's better first! You can get it all out of your +system in the novel, and then we could drain it of the pure gold for my +end of it--for the play! You'd never sell it over my head! Why, I could +have you up,--couldn't I?--for plagiarism! Do you know how you can keep +me agreeable? Bring it to me here, when my rehearsals are over, and read +it to me--it will please me and it can do you no harm. If you find me +stupid, say to yourself, 'She is drunk with pleasure, poor thing, at +what I have made of her.' Oh, you'd never have the heart to publish my +portrait, and not let me see the proof!" + +The compact was concluded as the maid entered with the tea things. Mrs. +Hope came in radiant. She began to thank Herrick for his article, and +Christina said, "Where is Mrs. Deutch?" + +"She is in the sitting-room. She says she must go home." + +Christina went and parted the portières and Herrick heard her speaking +with a kind of sweet authority in German, of which he caught the +phrase--"Yes, you will stay! You will certainly stay!" She waited there +till her friend joined her, and then, returning, she took charge of the +tea-table. + +Henrietta Deutch was a large, handsome woman of about forty-five, too +stout, but of a matronly dignity; her beautiful coloring was blended +into a smooth, rich surface as foreign-looking as lacquer. So far as he +was capable of perceiving anything but Christina, Herrick perceived that +not only her physical but her social stature was higher than her +husband's; she was neither ignorant nor fussy; she was a person of large +silences, as well, he imagined, as of grave sympathies; for her age she +was, to an American, strangely old-fashioned but, despite her addiction +to black silk and the incessant knitting of white woolen clouds, she +had, in her continental youth, received an excellent formal education +"with accomplishments." + +"Tante Deutch," said Christina, "this is our new friend, Mr. Herrick, +who stood up for us against that man." + +The little maid continued to throw out signals of distress and Mrs. +Hope, going to her relief, was heard to say, "Well, she'll use her +white one." She explained to Christina, "It's only about laying out your +things for to-night. She can't find your blue cloak--you know, the long +one with the hood--" + +"I am very glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Deutch. "Christina, my +lamb, you are ill!" + +"No, I am not ill. But I am distracted. Sugar, Mr. Herrick? Lemon? My +hand shakes and if the coroner were here he would say it was with guilt. +Poor soul, what a disappointment!" + +"Christina!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Don't laugh!" + +"I am not laughing. I think the man a dangerous enemy and now he is my +enemy. He will never forgive me for letting him make himself ridiculous. +He is too righteous to forget a grudge, for any one who earns such a +thing from the excellent Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck +becomes a criminal by that action. 'Winthrop.' Of course there had to be +the New England strain--he was born to wear a steeple hat and snoop for +witches! May he never light the faggots about me!" + +"Now, my dear, you are working yourself up!" + +"Dear mother, you are a bit hard to please! First you tell me not to +laugh and then you reproach me with working myself up! But you are +right! Why should I fash myself over a man with a personality like a +pair of shears? Ah, if I could get news of Nancy, my hand would be +steady enough!" + +"You'll have news of Nancy when she gets ready!" declared Mrs. Hope, +with the maternal freedom of speech toward our dearest friends, "An +ungrateful, stubborn, secretive girl!" + +"My mother," said Christina, "is enthusiastic but inaccurate. She means +that Nancy is neither voluble nor impulsive, like the paragon before +you, and that though her affection is steady it is not easily dazzled. +We have been friends scarcely more than four years--since she made her +first five dollars a week as part of a stage-mob--but I knew her at +once for the little real sister of my heart. I told you I'd always been +a lonely girl, Mr. Herrick, and that soft, little touch came close on my +loneliness, like a child's. I have succeeded and she has not; I am the +world's own daughter--I know the world and she does not; my hands are +very keen, believe me, for the power and the glory--after all, one must +have something!--and she can only put hers into mine. But where I am +weak, she is strong. One can't ask one's family to forgive that!" said +Christina. And with a tempestuous swoop she handed him a photograph upon +which, whether for newspapers or detectives, had been pasted some +memoranda. "This is more to the point." + +He beheld a charming little face, fresh and pretty, quaintly feminine, +with sensible and resolute brows to balance the wistfulness of the soft +mouth; a face at once grave and glad, with a deep dimple softening the +stubborn little chin. Herrick, studying the memoranda, compared them +with his own vague memories and the photograph. + +Height, five feet, four inches. + +Weight, a hundred and twenty pounds. + +Age, twenty years. + +Complexion, fair. + +Hair, dark auburn and curling. + +Eyes, blue. + +Wearing, when last seen, a white organdie dress with lace insertion; +white shoes, stockings and gloves; small straw hat, dull green, trimmed +with violets; carried a white embroidered linen sunshade and a small +purse-bag, green suède with silver monogram, "A. C." No jewelry of any +value. Wearing round her neck a string of green beads. Missing from her +effects and commonly worn by her, two bangle bracelets--one silver, one +jade. One silver locket. One scarab ring, bluish-green Egyptian +turquoise, set in silver. Last seen on West Eighty --th Street, +walking east, at five o'clock in the afternoon of August fourth. + +It was now August seventh; she had been missing for three days. + +"Where is she?" + +"And I thought it strange enough, before the inquest, that I was in such +trouble and didn't hear from her! Mother, you say she is hiding herself. +But,--all alone? I have telegraphed and telephoned everywhere, to every +one! And then--does a girl throw down her work, her engagement, for +nothing, without a syllable, and disappear! Her things are all at Mrs. +McBride's; her bill for her room is still going on; she was to have gone +out to an opening that night with Susie Grayce! She hadn't a valise with +her, not a change of clothes! She turned east from Jim Ingham's doorway, +and that's all!" Christina was beginning to lose control of herself; she +looked as if her teeth were going to chatter. + +"Now, my pretty--" began Mrs. Deutch. + +"Turned east?" ruminated Mrs. Hope. "East? That's toward the park. She +might have been going to meet--Well, Christina!" + +For the hand which Christina had criticized as trembling had dropped the +tea-pot. This must have dropped rather hard, for it broke to pieces. +Everything was deluged with tea. + +"My sweeting!" cried Mrs. Deutch. "Move yet a little!" For she was +already at work upon the disaster which was threatening Christina's +white gown. The fragments of the wreck were cleared away, and while +fresh tea was being made Christina urged Mrs. Deutch to play "and get me +quiet." + +"Yes, you will play. You will play for me and for Mr. Herrick. Mr. +Herrick is not one of these deaf Yankees--don't you remember what he +wrote about the music in Berlin?" + +"So!" said Mrs. Deutch. "In Berlin! Is it so!" She went seriously to +the piano where she executed some equally serious music with admirable +technique and some feeling, but her performance was scarcely so +remarkable as to account for Christina's extreme eagerness. + +When she had finished Herrick took himself unwillingly away, and was +still so agitated by the sweetness of Christina's farewell that after he +had got himself into the hall he dropped his glove. The little maid who +had opened the door for him, let it slam as she sprang to pick up the +glove, and at the closing of the door he heard Christina's voice break +hysterically forth, and rise above some remonstrance of her mother's. + +"Yes, you do. You spy on me, both of you." + +"But, my little one--" ejaculated Mrs. Deutch. + +"You spy on me, you whisper, you stare, you guess, you talk! Talk! Talk! +And you remember nothing that I tell you! I shall go mad! I am among +spies in my own house!" + +Herrick quickened his petrified muscles and went. Even to his +infatuation it occurred that whatever might have been the faults of +James Ingham, Christina herself was a person with whom it would not be +too difficult to quarrel. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED + + +It was not because this reflection was in any way cooling to his love +that Herrick did not see again, for some days, the lady of his heart. He +was, perhaps, not very self-assured. Yet when his story of the murder +and the inquest appeared he became a marked man. He awoke to find +himself famous, and to be summoned to another interview at the Ingham +publishing house. + +There seemed to be no thought of allowing the prestige of "Ingham's" to +perish with its brilliant junior partner. Ingham, senior, who for years +had been only nominally its head, intended to resume active work once +more, at least until the younger son should have finished college and +gone into training for his brother's place. Perhaps the real pillar of +the house was Corey; and Corey remained, to sustain both father and son. +And they had all three agreed not to forsake the new, the yet unborn +enterprise of _Ingham's Weekly_. "Mr. James Ingham was wrapped up in +it," Corey told Herrick, whom he had met with the kindest compliments, +"and his father can't bear that all his work should be wasted now. +Besides, in the whole of the business, it's the thing that most +interests young Mr. Stanley, and it seems to me the place where the boy +may be most of use. We want the _Weekly_ to be a real force, Mr. +Herrick, and in its first number we shall want to give up the usual +editorial pages to a memoir of its founder and his ideals for it. Mr. +Herrick, if we could induce you to undertake that memoir we should think +ourselves extremely fortunate." + +Herrick could not believe his ears; it seemed such a strange sequel to a +kind of police report, however able, for the Sunday papers. There began +to be something uncanny to him about his connection with Ingham's death +and how it continued to seem his Open Sesame to fortune. But he was glad +enough and grateful enough. He ventured to send Christina a note telling +her that her new friend was now being pursued by good not evil fortune +and her reply came in the same mail with a letter from his sister to +whom he had written for details about Nancy Cornish. + +Marion remembered only that Nancy's parents had been killed in a runaway +when she was about fourteen and that Nancy had gone out West +somewhere,--to Portland, Oregon, Marion thought, to live with an +uncle--and had gradually ceased to write. Of this uncle's name or +address both Marion and the principal of the school which both girls had +attended were amiably ignorant. + +"There's only one thing I'm positive about; she was the best little soul +alive. Never in this world did she go to that man's rooms to tell tales +of her friend. She never told tales. She was a natural born +hero-worshiper; the most loyal child I ever saw and the most generous, +the bravest, the lovingest, the most devoted. If she went to Mr. Ingham, +it wasn't to injure that Christina Hope; it was to help her out of some +scrape. She was just the kind of girl to be taken in by a woman like +that, whom I must say sounds--" + +Herrick dropped this letter to return to that other which it cannot be +denied he had read first. It was directed in a penmanship new to him but +recognized at once in every nerve, and he had drawn forth Christina's +note with that strange thrill which stirs in us at the first sight of +the handwriting of the beloved. She thanked him, with a certain shyness, +for his news. It was so good one must take it with their breath held! +And now she had a favor to ask. Stanley Ingham had gone home to +Springfield for the week-end, but he had just telephoned her that he +would be back in town on Tuesday morning, by the train which got in to +the Grand Central at eleven thirty-five. He had some news for her but +she would be at rehearsal; she should not see him until the evening, and +she was naturally an impatient person. Would not Mr. Herrick humor a +spoiled girl, meet the train and bring her the news at about noon to a +certain little tea-room of which she gave him the address. "You may find +it a great bore. They are supposed to let us out for an hour, like the +shop-girls. But, alas! they don't do it so regularly. They may push us +straight through till mid-afternoon. But I know you will have patience +with my eagerness to hear any news where it need not trouble my mother. +She has had anxiety enough." It may be taken as a measure of Herrick's +infatuation that he saw nothing in this letter which was not angelic. + +The Grand Central Station, however, is no sylvan spot and Herrick +wondered how he should recognize an unknown Stanley Ingham among the +hordes swarming in its vast marble labyrinth. But that gentleman proved +to be a lively youth of about twenty, who plucked Herrick from the crowd +without hesitation and led him to a secluded seat with that air of +deferential protection which a really smart chap owes it to himself to +show to age. His collar was so high that it was remarkable how +powerfully he had established winking terms with the world over the top +of it, but he stooped to account for himself at once as an emissary of +Christina's. + +"She wired me to see you here, and here I am. You know I'm the bearer of +some new exhibits for the police. We think we've struck a new trail. +After I've handed 'em over I'm dining with Miss Hope, and as she'd have +heard all about 'em then, should think she might have waited. Still, you +know how women are! + +"In the first place," young Mr. Ingham continued, "we want you, we want +everybody, to know we're Miss Hope's friends. We want to go on record +that the way she's been knocked around in this thing has been simply +damnable, and, if poor old Jim were alive--" + +He stopped. At the mention of his brother a moisture, which Herrick knew +he considered the last word of shame, rose in his eyes; behind his high +collar something swelled and impeded his utterance. Then Mr. Stanley +Ingham became once more a man of the world. + +"You can take it from me that if you hadn't treated her as jolly well as +you did in that capital article of yours, we shouldn't be trying to +lasso you now onto the staff of the _Weekly_." Herrick started, but the +man of the world was not easily checked. "You were awfully decent, you +know, to all of us, and Corey was all the more pleased because +that--that last day, old Jim was down at the office till three +o'clock--the first day after he was home, too,--working like a dog, and +yet when he found that letter of Rennett's introducing you he was as +pleased as Punch, and when he made the appointment with you for next +day, he said to Corey, 'People are taking that boy pretty easy yet +awhile, but he's the best short-story writer on this side of the +Atlantic; and if he's really got a novel about him, the old house will +show him it's still awake.'" The man of the world repeated these phrases +with an innocent satisfaction in having them at first hand, and +Herrick's own heart went questing into the future. + +Then his attention returned to the words of his young friend. "We don't +think we've done enough for her, and we want to do all we can do." + +"Miss Hope?" + +"Of course. You see, we don't any of us feel she was wrong in quarreling +with Jim--except the mater, who thinks she ought to have let him cut her +throat for breakfast every morning and damned glad to get him--and, +considering everything, we think she let him down pretty easy at the +inquest. There's no denying the dear old fellow had been a gay one in +his time, and, of course, he drove a high-spirited girl like that +frantic with a lot of antiquated notions about the stage. You see, he +was pretty close to thirty-five, and when a man gets along about there +he's apt to lose touch with what's going on. Well, having her in our pew +and our carriage at the funeral didn't shut all the fools' mouths in New +York nor Springfield either! So now we're going to do something really +swotting--we've taken a box for her first night, and we're going to get +mother into it, mourning and all, if we have to bring her in a bag. It's +our duty. Read that." + + "My dear and kind Mr. Ingham (ran Christina's letter): You must try + and be patient with me, and not think hardly of me, when I tell you + that I can not profit by the terms of Jim's will. He made those + provisions for the girl who was to be his wife, and not for me who + never could be. + + "As I write this I feel your good heart harden to me, with the + sense that I never loved him. But oh, believe me!--time was when I + loved him better than earth or heaven. We couldn't agree, he and I. + Let it remain my consolation that between us there was never any + question of expedient nor compromise. + + "If she can bear it, give my love to his mother. + + "My heart is full of fondest gratitude to all that family which I + should have been so proud to enter. And do you keep a little + kindness for your unhappy, + + "CHRISTINA HOPE." + +"What do you think of that? Won't take a cent! You can easily see," +commented the wise one, "that they'd have made it up all right. Splendid +girl! Best thing the poor old chap ever did was trying to get her into +the family. I don't suppose you're as hipped about her good looks as I +am? Takes a special kind of eye, I fancy! I snaked this particularly to +show you--but we want everybody to know she's turned down the coin. And +we're going to have the beast that fired that shot if he's alive on this +planet. 'Tisn't only on Jim's account! It's for her--it's the only way +you can knock that damned lie on the head about her being up there in +his rooms that night.--Chris! Why, she's a regular kid! And the +straightest kid that ever lived! We mean to keep the police hot at it. +And look here what I'm turning in to them!" + +It was a typewritten envelope, postmarked "New York City" and addressed +to Mr. James Ingham. + +"We found it, opened, in his desk at the office," the boy explained. +"But we've only just got it away from my mother." Its contents were a +piece of red ribbon and a single sheet of paper, closely typed. + + The Arm of Justice warns Mr. James Ingham-- + +("Is this a joke?") "Go on! Read it!" + + --warns Mr. James Ingham that it demands ten thousand dollars. ("By + George!") If Mr. Ingham wisely decides to grant this application, he + will tie the enclosed ribbon to the frame work of his awning on the + afternoon of August fourth, at four o'clock. It will be seen by an + agent of the Society, who will then advise Mr. Ingham as to how and + where the money may be paid. If Mr. Ingham decides against the + application, he will do nothing. + + But in that case he must be prepared for the publication of a + paragraph in the _Voice of Justice_, beginning--"There has recently + come to light an episode in the career of Mr. James Ingham, the + well-known publisher, eldest son of Robert Ingham of Springfield and + New York, who is engaged to be married to the popular actress, + Christina Hope--" + + It will go on to relate the story of his association with a young, + pure and helpless girl eight years ago; how he betrayed her, and, + after a promise of marriage--she being then destitute--abandoned + her. It will tell this girl's name and where she is. It will give + all names in connection with the affair. It will publish letters + that passed between Mr. Ingham and this young girl, corroborating + the worst that has been said. + + Mr. Ingham knows the standards of society, the reputation, the + probity and the justice of his father, and also the temper of Miss + Christina Hope. Mr. Ingham is the best judge of whether or not it + will be wise to pay for silence. + +"That's all!" exclaimed Stanley Ingham, as if the absence of signature +were really remarkable. "Well, how's that! Poor old chap, you know--how +dare they!" He reddened. "Because, hang it all, of course a man has to +be a man, and you've got to be liberal-minded and all that; but, just +the same, a fellow that would do what that thing says--why, he'd be +regularly rotten! You can't deny it, he'd be rotten." + +Herrick sat dumb. Words of Christina's were passing in his mind.--"I +will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It was simply something +monstrous which happened a long time ago." Because he had to say +something, he said--"And you're taking this in to the police?" + +"Yes. Isn't it a mercy Jim didn't destroy it? Meant it for the +detectives himself, I dare say. Perhaps his not hanging out that piece +of ribbon didn't have anything to do with his death. And perhaps it did. +Anyhow, wait a bit--I'm a walking post-office this morning. Here's the +last exhibit!" And he plumped down on Herrick's knee the duplicate of +the typewritten envelope. The postmark, however, was dated August ninth, +and it was directed to Ingham senior. + +"It opened with the same formalities, but this time its threat ran-- + + "The _Voice_ will relate the actual circumstances connected with + the death of Mr. James Ingham--" + +"Jove!" cried Herrick, "that would be something!" + +"Wait till you read 'em!" + +"It will not pause after the story of the young girl whom Ingham +abandoned years ago. It will tell how, on the eve of his departure for +Europe, just such a story was reënacted, but this time with a close +friend of his intended bride, an actress named Ann Cornish; who, on his +return, appealed to him for the only reparation in his power; even +slandering her friend Christina Hope in the attempt to win him back. +Failing in this, she fled, and disappeared--perhaps destroyed herself. +It will tell how Miss Hope suspected the intrigue, having quarreled +about it with her lover the day before, when he denied all knowledge of +Nancy Cornish; how, suspecting an appointment for the evening instead of +the afternoon of August fourth, Miss Hope disguised herself in a red wig +and dabs of paint about her eyes and penetrated to Ingham's apartment; +how, finding no one there, she was placated until she spied Nancy +Cornish's card on the piano and how then a terrible quarrel arose; the +excitable young woman, springing in front of the window with her arm +outstretched, the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air, +uttered a terrible, low cry, and snatching up Ingham's revolver from the +table at the head of the couch, shot him dead. It will follow the flight +of Miss Hope exactly as she described it at the inquest--out through +the door which Ingham must have bolted behind her. She ran upstairs and +escaped over the roof into the apartment house next door. It was a +terribly hot night, and, against all rules, the roof-doors of both +apartment houses had been fastened back. Miss Hope came quietly +downstairs, passed through an entrance hall, empty of the boy who had +run to join the crowd in the street, and walked away. This will be the +conclusion of the narrative." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S WAY + + +The light in the little tea-room was rather dim. Christina spread out +Herrick's copies of the two blackmailing letters upon the table and +studied them, propping her chin on her hands. Herrick, in surrendering +them, had dreaded the squalid clutch which they laid upon herself. But +when she lifted her eyes it was to say--"We must never let them credit +this trash about Nancy!" + +"None of it, then--?" + +"Not a syllable! Not a breath!--Jim! Little she cared for Jim, poor +child! She was unhappy, but not with that unhappiness. It's true her +only love-affair had come to grief. That's what my mother means by +calling her secretive--even I have never been able to get out of her +what happened to it. But disgrace--run away! Disgrace could never have +looked at her, and never in her life did she run away from anything! And +if she were alive and free, anywhere upon this earth, the first word +against me would have brought her back. She would butt walls down, with +her little red head, to stand by a friend's side!" + +"That's what my sister says. It's odd!" + +"Odd?" + +"I mean--Well, there's the circumstance that the hour when she called on +Ingham was the hour when the ribbon was to have signaled from the +window. And she didn't give her name, you know; she said, 'The lady he +expects.' Then one remembers that this mysterious woman who passed Joe +had red hair. Joe says she had on a white lace dress, Miss Hope--well, +Miss Cornish was in white with lace trimming. He mistook her for you. +Still, he was very sleepy, and though she's not so tall as you are, +she's not short, and she's very slender, too. Forgive me for making you +impatient. But the boy's devoted to you, isn't he?" + +"I suppose so," Christina ingenuously replied. + +"Well, he knows, now, that Nancy Cornish is your dear friend. I can't +altogether rely upon his not recognizing her photograph." + +"I can," said Christina, almost tartly. "White--everybody's in white. I +wore a white dress that night, myself. It wasn't Nancy. You may put that +out of your mind." + +Herrick considered. "That business of the variegated eyes--people seem +to suppose he threw it in for good measure. But could such an effect be +produced by make-up?" + +"I think not. On the stage we generally use blue pencil to darken our +lashes. Well, once in a way, some one from the front assures us that we +have blue eyes. Or else brown, if we use brown. But close to, and--and +in combination--surely not! And why try so thin a disguise?" + +"To suggest a striking mark of identification which does not really +exist. That would explain so much. Why she was willing to make a +conspicuous impression on the boy--she may have been a dark woman, you +know, in a red wig, only too glad to leave behind her the picture of a +blonde. There always lingers the impression that it may have been some +one whom Joe knew, or was used to seeing, and that it was merely this +vague familiarity which he recognized before he had time to be taken in +by her disguise. Ingham was on his mind; that may have been why he first +thought of you.--Miss Hope, do you know what other impression, or +superstition, or whatever you like, I can't get rid of? That the +mystery of who fired the shot is part of the answer to the mystery of +that bolted door. When we know how he got out, we shall know who he +was." + +"He?" + +"Well--man or woman. It's ridiculous, it's silly, but I feel as if that +personality were somehow still imprisoned in those rooms. As though, if +we knew how to look, it would be there and there only we should find the +truth." + +Christina murmured a soft sound of regret and wonder. "What a strange +thing! His poor mother--she feels so, too! She won't have a thing in his +rooms touched till the lease is up. She says the secret is still there." + +He loved the pity in Christina's face. And then he watched her +reabsorption in the letters. But though they absorbed, they did not +impress her. They somehow seemed even to bring her mind relief. +"Heavens!" said she, presently. "Is it altogether a bad joke?--'The Arm +of Justice!'" + +"I did think at first they were a hoax of some sort. But the Inghams are +far from thinking so." + +"They think--?" + +"Yes. They've accepted these letters as changing the whole course of the +investigation. They believe now that the scandalous, the personal motive +was an entirely wrong lead; that Ingham was murdered in cold blood, as a +matter of business; that the woman was only a cat's paw. And they're +looking for a man." + +"Dear God!" said Christina. "How hot it is in here! That fan--can't they +start it?" She took off her hat; the cool air from the fan came about +her face, carrying to Herrick's nostrils a scent of larkspur and verbena +and candy-tuft (how she clung to those garden flowers!), and she closed +her eyes. + +Herrick sat watching her with concern. He thought of how she had said +her mother had had anxiety enough. It seemed now, to Herrick, that +Christina, too, had had anxiety enough. "Evadne!" he said, suddenly. + +She opened her eyes, smiling at him. + +"You know I have known you very intimately and served you very +faithfully for an immensely long time. I am your author, and I'm going +to bully you. I want you to drop all this! What is it to you? Something +hideous, that's over. In no way can the miserable muck of these letters +touch you! Let the Inghams and the police and the District Attorney +worry--it's their business. It's your business to make beautiful things +for the world. Dear Evadne, you've got to possess your own soul if +you're going to polish up ours! Forget these lies!" + +It was rather late in the little restaurant and they were the only +patrons. After a moment the girl leaned toward him, and laid her hand on +his. + +"I will try!" she said, gently. "And you will dine with us to-night? And +Stan can tell what the detectives say to you, and not to me? Oh, please! +You are right. I want to forget. I am worn out, my soul and my body; my +heart's drying up. Nancy! Nancy! Oh, Nancy! If I could only know about +Nancy! But for the rest, I don't care. You are my friend, and I will +tell you something. Whenever they've wanted to show me they didn't think +me a murderess, they've said, 'Of course, my dear, you're as eager to +have the criminal caught as any of us.' It's false! Why should I wish +for anything so horrible?" + +He looked at her with a start of wonder that was half agreement. + +"In what age are we living that I am expected to enjoy an execution? Do +you know what one's like? I've been on trial for my life now, and I've +been reading it up! They--" + +"Hush!" said Herrick, sternly. + +"But isn't it wicked? Why should I wish that done?--to man or +woman?--Or to lock some one up for life--that's worse! Why should it +amuse me to have people tortured? Who tortured Jim? Poor fellow, he +scarcely could have known! Why should they suffer more than he? For the +act of one little minute to burn in fire all the rest of one's life. Oh, +my good friend, what's the use of pretending? We know perfectly well +that some girl's despair may have fired that shot, that if she had a +brother or a lover--Can't you stop them, Mr. Herrick? Must they go +frothing on in this man-hunt? It's to clear my name? My name's my own; I +won't have it put up against any human being's misery! If they catch and +kill some unhappy creature for my sake--it will kill me, too. I shall +die of it!" + +"What you'll do now," said Herrick, "is to come out of here into the +sunlight, and get some air before you go back to rehearsal." + +She let him walk with her to the stage-door, and before it swallowed +her, she abruptly and almost gaily soliloquized, "A man! A man wrote +those letters! Does one man send a piece of ribbon to another, and ask +him to hang it out of his window? Do you mean, to tell me that it was a +man who made that remark about my temper? 'The Arm of Justice' forsooth! +There's a female idea of a brigand." + +It was plain that she inclined to believe the blackmailer some mercenary +trickster, who knew no more of the murder than herself. Some woman, she +said. But there were two persons in Joe Patrick's testimony. And Herrick +believed there were two in the attempted blackmail. As to their +knowledge of Ingham's death, one circumstance appeared to him highly +significant; the changed standpoint of the second letter! He said to +himself, "The first is obviously sincere; it was written in the genuine +hope of getting money out of Ingham by a person who really felt that he +or she had a case. And the second is nothing on earth but an attempt to +divert suspicion from the murderer by a lot of villainous poppycock. +Between the writing of those two letters they lost their case and they +lost their nerve. Suppose the first letter had been written by a +woman,--by a woman of some cultivation, with a very strong taste for +expressing herself picturesquely. But her picturesqueness all streams +into one channel--into hatred for Ingham. When she cuts at him, her pen +scorches the paper. She has only one sentiment of anything like equal +strength--her sympathy with the girl whom Ingham is supposed to have +deserted. There, now, is a person whom she thoroughly admires. Was she +herself once that girl?" + +Herrick was on his way to dine at Christina's by the time that he +hazarded this runaway guess, and he told himself that he must pull up a +little, now he was on the public street, or he would be holding people +with his glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner. + +But one fact continued to strike him. The man whom Joe Patrick had taken +up to the fourth floor after the arrival of the red-haired woman did not +appear in the narrative. + +How if this man himself had written the second letter? The writer had +sacrificed the only other persons mentioned--Christina and +Nancy--without a scruple, but that curt and silent male it had never +occurred to him to sacrifice. He was consistently shielded. Having no +feasible way of accounting for him, the writer had not even explained +him away. He had simply left him out, hoping that, in the definiteness +of the accusation of a woman, he would be forgotten. For this reason he +had gone into details of her flight without even touching the great dark +points of the moving of Ingham's body and the bolted door. He was too +busy pointing: "Look, look, there she goes! The murderess! The woman! I +am calling her Christina Hope. But, in any case, a woman. No man has had +anything to do with it." + +Herrick turned off the avenue into Christina's street. And trying to +clear his brain lest its feverish contagion should presently reach hers, +he told himself, "You're cracked, my friend. You know nothing whatever. +Simply cracked." But he could not cure himself. Right or wrong, his +obsession continued. Nonsense or no, there grew steadily within him the +notion of that man who had seen all, who knew all, and who had done his +work! This figure became strangely potent, and singularly ominous. They +were all suffering and struggling here, ridiculously ignorant, +ridiculously in pain, and he could laugh at them. Not a sound had +escaped him. He had betrayed himself by no melodramatic shadow. "He was +so quiet," Joe Patrick had said, "goin' right along about his +business--" Yes, he had come upon his business, he had accomplished it, +he had vanished, and left no trace behind. Blackmailer, slanderer, +murderer, and maybe coward and traitor, there was about him a stillness +that had a strange effect. The very blankness of his passage--he looked +so like "all gentlemen," neither tall nor short, stout nor thin, light +nor dark, thirty, forty, or some other age--why, Beelzebub himself could +not have accomplished a more complete disguise! It was as if, going so +quietly on such an errand, some evil of devilish mockery looked out from +behind that featureless face, as from behind a mask. And about the heart +of the big, lean, ruddy youth striding toward his beloved through the +warm August evening, the cold breath of superstition lightly breathed. +It was, for one instant, as though it were at him the mockery were +directed; as though, when that mask should be removed, it would be his +blood that would be frozen by the sight. The next moment his strength +exulted. Patience! He must be found, that fellow--he had made Christina +suffer! The young man's heart winced and then steeled itself upon the +phrase. He drew deep into his spirit the horrid degradation that had +been breathed upon her; the sickening danger that had struck at her; he +saw the thinned line of her cheek, her pallor and her tears, and the +dark circles under those dear eyes. He saw and his teeth set themselves. +Oh, yes, that featureless and silent fellow should be found! And when +that hour came, and Herrick's hand was on that mask, it made him laugh +to think how well its wearer should learn that it was not only a woman +at whom he had struck! + +Immersed in these thoughts Herrick had not noticed a scudding automobile +which now passed him so close that he had to spring backward in order to +avoid being knocked down. And he was not in the mood when springing +backward could be in the least agreeable to him. The rescuer of ladies +was thrown into a fuming rage. What, he, he, a free-born American +citizen, he, a knight-errant on his way to the queen of love and beauty, +he, Bryce Herrick, a presentable young man of the privileged classes to +bound into the air like a ball or a mountebank! Made to retreat +ignominiously and hurriedly!--actually to--in the language of his +childhood--to "skip the gutter" by the menial of upstarts with his +horn!--By George, the fellow had not blown his horn! + +Herrick came to a raging pause and looked about him for a policeman. He +could at least complain to a policeman! Then he discovered that he was +within half a block of Christina's corner; her house was on the other +side of the street. To come into her presence was to forget everything +else. As he reached the corner and started to cross the road he heard +the whirr of another motor and then beheld it speeding toward him, some +distance off, from the same direction as his first enemy. Determined not +to skip the gutter this time he advanced at a dignified pace, +deliberately fixing the automobile with the power of the human eye. The +wild beast approached headlong, nevertheless, and Herrick, observing +that it, too, dispensed with the formality of blowing its horn, stopped +dead in its path. He was filled with the immense public spirit of +outraged dignity and pure temper. The automobile was a long, low +touring-car, gray, with an unfashionable look of hard usage, and there +were three roughly dressed men in it. If they thought he would move +unless that horn were blown, they were mistaken! He glared pointedly at +the number which was streaked, illegibly, with mud. And the truth came +to him, that this was no second automobile--it was the same one! And now +it was so near that, above the man's raised collar, he could see the +eyes of the chauffeur looking straight at him. Then it was he knew that +they did not expect him to get out of the way; that they did not intend +to blow the horn; nor did they intend to swerve aside. What they +intended was to run him down! With inconceivable rapidity the thing had +loomed out of the distance and was here; death lunged at him in a flash, +bulked right upon him, the wind of it in his angry eyes. The shock of +that anger utterly controlled him and took up the challenge; he could +not have changed the set of his whole nature and broken his defiance if +he would. But from the sidewalk some one screamed. Automatically, he +started, and the touring-car, as though rocked by the scream, swayed a +hair's breadth to one side. Only a hair's breadth! Herrick felt an +impact like the end of things; then a horrible, jarring pain as if his +bones were coming out through himself and knocking him to splinters. And +then--nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD + + +The doctor drew back from examining a badly bruised, cut, and skinned +youth and smiled. + +"Well, young man," said he, "if I were you, the next time I saw an +automobile making right for me, I'd get out of its way." + +"I guess I'm all right," Herrick grinned. The grin was rather sketchy. +He was not very secure yet in which world he was. + +On first recovering consciousness he had found himself lying with his +head in Christina's lap, and had supposed he was in heaven. But it +hadn't been heaven; it had still been the middle of Ninety-third Street +and Christina was sitting in the dust thereof. And then he had another +glimmer; he was on a couch, and, facing him, Christina was huddled on +her heels on the floor with large tears running down her nose and +plumping off the end of it into a bowl, full of funny red water, that +she held; a cloth in her hand was even redder, and her mouth had such a +piteous droop that if only he could have sat up it would have been the +natural thing to kiss it. "Darling!" he had said, to comfort her; and +she had said, eagerly, "Yes!" just as if that were her name; then +another blackness. And now the couch was in her drawing-room and +everywhere was the scent and the sheen of her country flowers--larkspur +and sweet alyssum and mignonette, the white of wild cucumber vine, the +lavender of horsemint, and everywhere the breath of clover--the house +was filled with them! Wherever did she get them? + +"What's that?" he asked sharply. It was a policeman's helmet. + +The policeman was merely left there,--the automobile having escaped +without leaving its number behind it,--to take his evidence of the +accident. Herrick rather dreaded being laughed at for his surety that it +was no accident; but a man who had seen it from a window and the passing +lady who had saved his life by shrieking had already testified to the +same effect. They had both declared the offending car to be a gray +touring-car; a very dark gray, Herrick thought. The policeman, who had +read his Sunday special, stooped to be communicative. "Do you remember +the young feller," he asked, "that was a witness to the Ingham inquest? +Do you remember he got there late through bein' knocked over by 'n +automobile?" + +Herrick stared. + +"Well, the young lady called him on the 'phone with me listenin', an' I +guess you're on a'ready to what kind of a car it was that hit him--'twas +a gray tourin'-car." + +By-and-by, when the policeman and the doctor were gone, and Mrs. Hope +and Mrs. Deutch, without whom no crisis in the life of the Hope family +seemed to be complete, had swathed him tastefully in one of Mrs. Hope's +kimonos they began to tell him that he must send for his things, because +he would have to convalesce as Christina's guest. The idea was +distressing to him, but he was a little surprised by the soft bitterness +with which Christina opposed it. "Do you want him murdered outright?" +she said. "What has he done that he should be mixed up with my house and +my life? I was wrong ever to let him be my friend." She was spreading a +cloth over a little table which Stanley Ingham had brought close to the +couch. She lifted a lighted lamp out of Herrick's eyes and set it on the +mantel shelf behind his head. Looking down as the light touched his +bandaged forehead and the unusual pallor of his bronzed face she said, +so gently that Herrick's heart melted with a painful sweetness, "I +warned you!" + +"It does look awfully funny," young Ingham exclaimed, "about this +touring-car. Wonder what the police will say to that! Wouldn't open +their mouths about the letters, and warned me not to open mine. Wouldn't +even let me tell you, Chris!" + +"Fortunately," said Christina, "Mr. Herrick had told me before any one +could possibly interfere.--The police think they're genuine, then?" + +"You bet they do! At least, I s'pose they do. They didn't say. But they +grabbed them, fast enough." + +Christina asked no more, and thereafter, if she kept the talk around +Herrick quiet, she kept it almost gay. She and the boy ate their dinner +with him in order to wait on him and watch his comfort; and before long +she seemed scarcely the older of the two. It was all wonderfully simple +and kind; there could be no embarrassment in that light, genial +atmosphere; when the dishes had been cleared away the girl went to the +piano and sang softly--tender negro melodies, little folk lullabies, +snatches of German love-songs. Just as Herrick, greatly soothed and at +peace, was beginning to feel tired, Deutch arrived and he and Stanley +Ingham took the patient home in a taxi and put him to bed. + +To Herrick's indignant astonishment, it was four or five days before he +could get about again, and at the end of that period the Deutches had +become almost as large a part of his life as of the Hopes. It was in +vain he protested. Mrs. Deutch came twice a day and looked after his +comfort with a devotion as arbitrary as a mother's; she inspected all +his garments, and, with clucks of consternation, took them away with her +and returned them, perfected; between her and Mrs. Grubey a deep +distrust as to each other's cookery arose. She cooked him three meals a +day, beside all sorts of elaborate "foreign" trifles, Mr. Deutch +bringing them over in a basket, piping hot; and Mrs. Grubey, entering +with her own dainty contribution of pork chops and canned lobster, +professed herself unable to understand how he could eat such messes. He +finished his memorial of Ingham amid the perpetual bloom and fragrance +of Christina's garden flowers; once Mr. Ingham came, with Stanley, to +inquire; Mrs. Hope came twice. On her second visit, when he was almost +ready to re-enter the world, she brought Christina with her. + +The girl had lost her air of tragic greatness; there was more color in +her face, the pupils of her eyes were less expanded and her nostrils +less inflated. She seemed, too, to have been rather put back into her +place as a young lady, for she smiled sweetly but a little shyly about +Herrick's room, and left the talking to her mother; when her eyes +encountered the photograph which had been replaced over the desk a faint +flush suffused her face. + +"My daughter has at last allowed herself to be persuaded," said Mrs. +Hope, "that Miss Cornish is hiding voluntarily; and that, if there is a +blackmailing society trying to slander us and to injure any one who is +apt to defend us, the police are quite as capable of dealing with it as +she is. Therefore she is now able to give a little attention to her own +affairs." + +Herrick was sorry for the poor lady; he knew that she was devoted to +Christina and that she must have had a great deal to endure. He had +learned by this time that she had been a Miss Fairfax, and that her +family, however desperately poor, considered her to have made a +misalliance with a mere wealthy manufacturer of wall-papers, like Hope. +It had been, indeed, a runaway match and relations with her family were +never really resumed. Now Deutch reported that of late conciliatory +relatives, making advances to the rising star, had been routed with +great slaughter. But both men guessed that this had not been the real +wish of a person so socially inclined as Mrs. Hope; she was too plainly +dragged at the chariot-wheels of a freer spirit, and in this light even +her occasional asperities, her method of communicating with her daughter +mainly by protesting exclamations, became only pathetic attempts at an +authority she did not possess. "You know, Mr. Herrick," she now went on, +"that the opening of 'The Victors' three weeks from next Thursday night +is the great occasion of my daughter's life. I can't begin to tell you +what it means to us; it's everything. At such a time I think we--we +ought to have our friends about us. The Inghams are so kind; they are +taking me in their box. But Christina had already ordered me two of the +best seats in the house, and I'm sure I'm speaking for her, too, when I +say what a pleasure it would be if you would accept them. Indeed it +would be a favor.--My dear, can't you persuade him?" + +"It's only--" said Christina, slowly, "that I'm afraid." + +"Christina! I do wish you would drop that ridiculous pose. No horrible +fate has overtaken me!" + +"Ah, mother," said the girl, touching her mother's shoulder, "perhaps +because we were both born, you and I, under the same ban!" + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. Hope, as if Christina had mentioned something +indecent. "I hope you won't pay any attention to her, Mr. Herrick." + +"I certainly shan't. I shall be too glad to get those seats." + +"Ah, now you're a dear! You'll see Christina at her best, and I'm going +to say that that's something to see. It's a magnificent part and Mr. +Wheeler has been so wonderful in rehearsing her in it. Christina doesn't +find him at all intimidating or brutal, as people say. Though, of +course, he's a very profane man." + +"I love every bone in his body," Christina said. + +"My child! I wish you wouldn't speak so immoderately!" + +"I'm an immoderate person," the girl replied. She rose, and pointing out +of the window she said to Herrick--"You sat here? It was there, on that +shade?" + +"Yes." + +Christina shuddered; just then Mr. Deutch arrived with the luncheon +basket. The ladies passed him in taking their leave and Christina +slipped her hand through his arm. "Mr. Herrick," she said, "Herr Hermy +does not look wise--no, Herr Hermy, you don't,--but if ever I puzzle +you, ask him. Do not ask Tante Deutch, she will tell you something noble +and solid, for she herself is wise, and so she can never understand me. +But Herr Hermy is a little foolish, just as I am. He is flighty; he has +the artistic temperament and understands us; he knows me to the +core.--Herr Hermy, he is coming to see me act; tell him I am really Sal, +not Evadne; tell him that I am a hardworking girl." + +As he came to know her better, Herrick did not need to be told that. He +had never seen any one work so hard nor take their work quite so +seriously. But her advice remained with him and he began to listen more +respectfully to Hermann Deutch on his favorite subject. "Wait till you +see her, Mr. Herrick! She's like Patti, and the others were the chorus; +you'll say so, too. And it don't seem but yesterday, hardly, she didn't +know how she should go to faint, even! Drop herself, she would, about +the house, and black and blue herself in bumps! We used to go in the +family circle, when I had a half-a-dollar or two, and watch great +actresses and when one did something she had a fancy for, she'd pinch me +like a pair o' scissors! And she'd be up practising it all night, over +and over, and the gas going! She'd wear herself out, and there's those +that would expect she shouldn't wear them out, too!" + +"She takes things too hard," said the lover fondly. + +"Yes," said Mr. Deutch, after a pause, "she takes 'em hard, but she can +drop 'em quick!" Herrick felt a little knife go through his heart; and +then Deutch added, "Not that she's the way people talk--insincere. Oh, +that's foolish talk! She's only quick-like; she sees all things and she +feels all things, and not one of 'em will she keep quiet about! Those +glass pieces, you know, hang from chandeliers?--when they flash first in +the one light and then the way another strikes 'em, they ain't +insincere. An' that's the way Miss Christina is--she's young, an' she's +got curiosity, an' she wants she should know all things an' feel all +things, so she can put 'em in her parts; she wants all the lights to go +clean through her. And there's so many of 'em! So many to take in and so +many to give out! There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herrick, but what she'll +reflect it right into your face." + +Although, in this elaborate fancy, Herrick suspected an echo of +Christina's own eloquence, he did not listen to it less eagerly on that +account. "After all," he translated, "it's only that she's willingly and +extraordinarily impressionable, and then willingly and extraordinarily +expressive! In that case, instead of being less sincere than other +people, she's more so!" + +"You got it!" cried Mr. Deutch with satisfaction. "That's what these +outsiders, they can't ever understand. The best friend she ever had says +to me once, 'If ever Miss Hope gets enough really good parts to keep her +interested, she'll take things more quietly around the house!' That's +been a great comfort to me, Mr. Herrick.--She's got these emotions in +her, I'll say to myself, and what harm is it she should let 'em off?" + +"The best friend she ever had?" + +"Well, now, Mr. Herrick, he was an old hand when she first came into the +business. He taught her a lot; she'd be the first to say so. Often I've +thought if she hadn't been so young then, what a match they might ha' +made of it! But she never thought of it, nor, I shouldn't wonder, he +neither, and now it's too late. But don't you worry because she takes +all things hard; she's got a kind of a spring in her. When she's laid +down to die of one thing, comes along another and she gets up again." + +If Herrick did not complete this analysis, it was not for lack of +opportunity. As soon as he was about again he found himself as merged in +the life of the Hopes as were the Deutches themselves. "You interest +Christina," Mrs. Hope told him. "You take her mind off these dreadful +things. It's a very critical week with us. I hope you won't leave her +alone." + +Herrick did all that in him lay to justify this hope, and if Christina +never urged nor invited, never made herself "responsible" for his +presence, she accepted it unquestioningly. His first outing was a Sunday +dinner at their house, and again Christina kept herself in the +background, and only drew her mother's affectionate wrath upon herself +by one remark; saying, as Herrick helped himself from the dish the maid +was passing him, "I hope it's not poisoned!" + +She seemed rather tired, and he hoped this was not because she had made +him come at an outrageously early hour and read her the beginning of his +novel. He knew she was recasting it into scenes as he read; she got him +to tell her all that he meant to do with it and, as they all, save Mrs. +Hope, lighted their cigarettes over the coffee in the sitting-room, she +began telling Wheeler about it.--Wheeler had dined there, too. + +Christina's star was a big, stalwart man of about fifty, who had not +quite ceased to be a matinée idol in becoming one of the foremost of +producers. He listened with a good deal of interest and indeed the story +lost nothing on Christina's tongue; Herrick began to see that her mind +was a highly sensitized plate which could catch reflections even of +disembodied things. Then Wheeler exclaimed what an actor's approval has +to say first, whatever he may bring himself to deal with afterward. +"Why, but there's a play in that!" + +"Yes," said Christina, promptly. "For me!" + +Humor shone out of the good sense and good feeling of Wheeler's heavy, +handsome face. "Give me more coffee, my cormorant! Do you think I want +to play the young lady myself? Nay, 'I know the hour when it +strikes!'--heavy fathers for mine! Stouter than I used to be--Tut-tut, +no sugar!--There will be too much of me--Did you get your idea of moral +responsibility out of New England, Mr. Herrick?" + +"Well, this form of it I got from such a different source as a very +suave, amiable Italian, Emile Gabrielli, an intending author, too,--a +lawyer who had exiled himself to Switzerland. Do you know a line of +Howell's?--'The wages of sin is more sinning.' And it's seemed to me +that the more-sinning doesn't stop with ourselves; it draws the most +innocent and indifferent people into our net. Well, I always wanted to +find a vehicle for that notion." + +"And your Italian told you this story?" + +"Something like it. Set the tone for it, too, in a way. He was a highly +respectable sentimental person, and used to carry about an old miniature +of a lovely girl to whom, I believe, he had once been betrothed. The +bans had been forbid by cruel parents but he used to brag to me, at +fifty, that they could never force him to part from her idolized face! +Yet he knew so many shady stories I've often wondered if he hadn't left +home in order to avoid a circle of too embarrassing clients. At any rate +he had known a woman whose husband had got into trouble with the police +in Italy--for swindling, I think he said. She had to clear out and +disappeared. Years afterward he found that she had run into the arms of +a respectable, God-fearing family; the natural prey of cheats because +years before their little daughter had been kidnapped or lost and never +found. They cry out at this young woman's resemblance to the child; the +young woman puts two and two together into a story which deceives those +who wish to be deceived, and settles down to be taken care of for the +rest of her life. It must have been any port in a storm, for I didn't +gather her adopted family had money. Spent all they had in looking for +her when she was a baby, as I understood. To Signor Gabrielli the cream +of the jest was that this girl was being petted and cherished and +labored for by industrious people who would have perished of horror if +they had known who she was, and who had not one drop of their blood in +her veins.--I may not have got the incidents at all straight, but that's +the idea." + +"But you've changed the relationship--?" + +"Oh, yes. I've cut down the family to a daughter and, as you see, I've +reversed the parts--in my story it is the daughter who is deceived; it +is the supposed mother who settles down upon the devoted innocence and +labor of a generous girl." + +"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Put it all on the mother! +Nowadays, everything's sure to be her fault!" + +Christina gave her mother her hand, much as she might have given her a +cup of tea and said, "Well, but that is only where your novel begins?" + +"Yes. I thought the interesting part was all to come. I thought I should +be justified in supposing my reformed lady to go back to her old habits, +perhaps through the mere claim of genuine ties,--old friendships, real +relationships--to be caught in some serious crime, involve those friends +and, finally, without in the least intending it, draw her daughter and +her daughter's lover into her quicksand--of course, by means of their +efforts to pull her out! And then to see what happened!" + +"When the daughter finds out," Wheeler cogitated, "that should be a +strong scene, a very strong scene.--What made you think of reversing the +characters?--less trite?" + +"Simply, I could handle it this way and not the other. When I had the +cheat a young woman, she was very strenuous--I couldn't keep her from +being the most lurid of common adventuresses. And I had a theory that +people are never like that to themselves. Well, as soon as I substituted +a rather passée woman she became much quieter--just a feeble, worthless, +selfish person a good deal battered by life, and wanting nothing but +comfort--trying to get it in the easiest way. I wanted so much to give +the commonplace quality of crime, of what a simple, sensible, ordinary +piece of business it seems to the person engaged in it--at any rate +until it's found out, and he begins to be reacted on by fear and other +people's minds. Ah, if I can only give these people their own point of +view, and make one thing after another seem quite ordinary and human, +just the necessary thing to do! Until they begin to lose their heads +when one gate and then another closes and, finding themselves cornered, +they fight like rats in a trap! The good as well as the bad, in one +panic degradation of despair! I heard a figure of crime the other day +which I should like to carry out. I should like to start with the +smallest blemish on the outside of the clean, rosy apple of respectable +society, 'the little, pitted speck in garnered fruit, which, rotting +inward' lets you, by following it, down and down, from one layer of +human living to another, at last hold a whole sphere of crime, +collapsed, crumbling and wide open, in your hand. Then I've got to save +Evadne in the end, without the effect of dragging her through a +trap-door!" + +"Well, if you made it into a play," Wheeler persisted, "would the mother +or the daughter be the star-part?" + +"I could play both!" Christina cried. + +Wheeler laughed aloud. "You are too good to be true!" + +"Well, but why not? Why not a dual rôle? Even if the relationship were +false, the resemblance would have to be real--it's the backbone of the +story! Mother and I look a good deal alike, but I've seen chance +resemblances incomparably stronger!" + +She went on eagerly and Herrick was surprised to see that it was not she +alone but Wheeler who took the idea of dramatization seriously. It was +his first real gage of what was expected of Christina as an +actress--that in a year or two she would be starring on her own account. +She was not only Wheeler's leading-woman, she was his find, his +speculation; he meant to be her manager and Christina meant that he +should, too. Again Ingham's death seemed to be dragging Herrick into the +path of success. + +Then his attention was caught by Wheeler's saying, "Well, we must all be +as criminal as we can, while we can. Once P. L. B. C. Ten Euyck gets to +be a police inspector there will be no more crime. The word will be +blotted from the vocabulary of New York." + +"That man!" Mrs. Hope cried. + +"Well, all these recent scandals in the Department are making them +remove Simmonds; they want somebody beyond the reach of graft; and Ten +Euyck has resigned his coronership. What does that look like to you? + +"It will be nuts to watch," Wheeler went on. "The force, down in his +district, will be shaken up till its teeth rattle. Ten Euyck won't rest +contented till he has stopped mice from stealing scraps of cheese! But +my leading-woman must be civil to him, now, or he's the sort of fellow +to get my license revoked. Nobody's ever run up against his +self-righteousness and got away with it, yet. Poor chap, he'd be mighty +able if he weren't crazy! I believe I could do a Valjean if I could +engage him as Javert!" + +"Don't let us speak forever of that bilious person! Why do you distract +a poor girl from her work? Come," cried she to Wheeler, "are we going to +do our scene?" + +She drove her rather reluctant star to action.--"Young miss!" he said, +"it is not every ageing favorite who would take a girl on the word of a +mutual friend, give her a better part than his own, push her over his +own head, and coach her in private into the bargain!" He put his big +hand on Christina's shoulder. "But she's worth it!" he said. "A scene +with her is a tonic to me--I did not know the old man had so much blood +in him! Sally, the poor working-girl, what are you going to do to the +critics, that still sleep unconscious? 'Ha--ha! Wait till Monday week!' +or whenever we open! + + "'They'll be all gangin' East an' West, + They'll be all gane a-glee! + They'll be all gangin' East an' West, + Courtin' Molly Lee!' + +"Mr. Herrick, as you come up Broadway, you don't see her name on the +bills! But they might as well be printing the paper!--for the younger +generation is knocking at the door. Ah, Christina, my dear, thou art thy +Wheeler's glass, and he in thee calls back the lovely April of his +prime!" His indulgent sardonic glance caught Christina's and the flaming +sword of hers drove him to work. They left behind them such a vivid +sense of Herrick's having written his play and their having taken it, +that he might have thought it a scene of his they were working on. + +From the room where they were immured strange sounds occasionally +escaped; sometimes Wheeler laughed and sometimes he swore furiously. +"She'll get everything that he knows out of him!" said Mrs. Hope with +great satisfaction. + +Herrick discovered this, in no ignoble sense, to be the keynote of +Christina's life. It was borne in upon him with every hour that her +work in the theater was the essence of her; that no matter where nor how +utterly she should consciously give her heart the unconscious course of +her nature would still flow through the field of dramatic endeavor. He +might admire or condemn this, like it or leave it; but the jealous +humility of his love must recognize it. + +She seemed largely to have recovered from the terrors that had enveloped +her upon Ingham's death. If for Nancy Cornish she had lain down to die, +for her opening night she had got up again. And she was ready to bend +the whole world to that night's service. Herrick saw that she had always +been so. + +It became a thrilling amusement to him to watch her at work; to see how +vividly she perceived, how unscrupulously she absorbed! In the +vocabulary of her profession, everything was so much "experience." All +her life long she had sucked out of every creature that came near her +some sort of artistic sustenance; learning from the jests of her own +heart and its despair; out of the shop windows and the night sky. At an +age when other girls were being chaperoned to dancing-parties she had +worked,--she with her soft cheek and slight strength and shy eye,--"like +a miner buried in a landslide"; she was mistress of her body's every +curve, of her voice's every note; she had read widely and with +passionate intelligence; as soon as she had begun to make money, she had +poured it into her accomplishments; she was a diligent student of +passing manners and historic modes, and of each human specimen through +which she did not hesitate to run her pin. + +For instance, what use had she not made of the Deutches? From Henrietta +Deutch she had learned German and a not inconsiderable amount of music; +they had a venerated library of standard works that contained a few +modern continentals in the original; she developed her school-girl +French by reading the Parisians under Mrs. Deutch's supervision and in +Italian she surpassed her; while all the time she learned just enough +knitting to know how people feel when they knit, and just what the +sensation is of stirring sugar into the preserves. She liked to go to +their apartment of an evening and, once, when Mrs. Hope sent Herrick +after her, he found her sitting on the floor with her hair down and her +head against Mrs. Deutch's black silk knee while that lady crooned +German lullabies to the baby she had never borne, and "Herr Hermy" +played the pianola. As soon as she had twisted up her hair, she put on a +long apron and got supper and waited on them all with the charming +daughterly ways which lent her such a tender girlishness; and Herrick +perceived that when a part required her to move about a kitchen she +would be able to welcome the kitchen as an old friend. She could +reproduce Deutch's accent, his whole personal equation, with inhuman +exactness, even his tremors at the inquest, his inarticulate stammer--as +of a mental dumbness, groping for words--that overtook him in moments of +extreme excitement, she had caught in her net; she had learned from him +some jokes and stories, some student songs, which would have astonished +the many delicate tea-tables at which she shyly cast down her thieving +eyes to observe exactly what service was in vogue; she did not hesitate +to stir him up to dreadful stories of old racial hates and though +Herrick saw her eyes darken and her nostrils expand he knew that she was +drawing thoroughly into her system the dark passion of retaliation with +which she would some day scorch an astonished audience. "If ever I get a +queen to do--oh, one of the virtuous queens, of course," she said, "I +shall have to fall back on Tante Deutch." And Herrick saw how right she +was; how all along she had modeled her grand moments--and Christina, +though so fond of describing herself as a poor working girl, had +occasional moments of extreme grandeur--upon that simple, domestic +stateliness which was really the stateliness of a great lady. + +On the other hand when she was out with her mother she modeled +herself--except for a stray vagary of speech--upon Mrs. Hope's excellent +idea of a-young-lady-out-with-her-mother-a-la-mode; and she was by no +means insensible to the glories of the smart world, nor to the luxuries +of the moneyed world. "I want them all," she confessed to Herrick as +they walked up Fifth Avenue from rehearsal. "I covet them; I long to own +them, and I dare swear I should never be owned by them. I'm infinitely +more fit than those that have them, and thank heaven I've stood out here +when I was cold and wet and _oh!_ how hopeless, and felt in me the +anarchist and his bomb. I was never made to smile on conquerors. One +man, from these great houses, once taught me how to hate them! How I +should like to do a Judith! How I should like to _tame_ all this!" She +looked, with a bitterer gaze than he had ever seen in her, down the +incomparable pomp of the great street. Then more lightly, with a curving +lip, "My Deutches, I believe," she said, "are supposed to belong to the +moneyed camp. But it is borne in upon me, every now and then, that our +own race has occasionally put by a dollar or two." + +She moved in such an atmosphere of luxury that it was difficult to +imagine her what she plainly called "hard up." But it will be seen that +they were now continually together and there was something about her +which made it possible to offer her the simplest and the cheapest +pleasures. In her rare hours of freedom he had the fabulous happiness of +taking her where he had often taken Evadne in that old empty time; to +Coney Island, to strange Bowery haunts, to the wharves where the boys +dive, and even to his table d'hôte in the back yard. She had a zest, a +fresh-hearted pleasure in everything and her sense of characterization +fed upon queer colors and odd flavors just as he had known it would. He +was so sorry that the little Yankee woman was absent from his table +d'hôte, particularly as he had recently had a specimen of her which he +longed to hear Christina reproduce. She had a little sewing-table behind +her desk at which she sat playing solitaire with a grim precision which +made Herrick think of the French Revolution and the knitting women; but +as she had then been absent from the restaurant for some time he +ventured a "Buon giorno" as he passed. + +She instantly replied, "You needn't talk that Dago talk to me. I just +took my daughter's paul-parrot away from here, case 't 'ed get so it +couldn't talk real talk." + +"That's what I call a good firm prejudice!" Herrick laughed to himself, +and he continued to hope for some such specimen, or at least for Mr. +Gumama, when he should bring Christina again. + +But as the opening drew near, she began to limit her interests and to +exclude from her vision everything which could interfere with the part +in hand. It sometimes seemed to him, indeed, as if even her new calm +about Nancy were only because Nancy--yes, and the threatening Arm of +Justice,--were among these conscious, these voluntary exclusions. It was +almost as though, over the very body of Ingham's death, she had thrown +her part's rosy skirts and shut it out of sight. Beneath her innumerable +moods one seemed permanent, strangely compounded of languor and +excitement. By-and-by, she seemed to dwell within it, veiled, and +Herrick knew that only her part was there behind the veil with her. + +It was Mrs. Hope who could least endure this sleepwalking abstraction. +There came an evening when some people whom Mrs. Hope considered of +importance were asked to dinner. Christina improved this occasion by +having her own dinner served upstairs, so that she would not be too +tired to rehearse that night with Wheeler. And to Herrick Mrs. Hope +reported this behavior, biting her lips. "She's the most self-willed +person living! I declare to you, Mr. Herrick, she has the cruelest +tricks in the world. The best friend that any girl ever had said once +that, if acting were in question, she would grind his bones to make its +bread!" + +Later, Herrick said jealously to the girl, "Who _was_ the best friend +you ever had?" + +Her head happened to be turned from him and it seemed to him a long time +before she spoke. Even then her indifference was so great she almost +yawned as "Who has told you of him?" she asked. + +"Both Deutch and your mother called some old actor that." + +"They meant a dear fellow who put me in the moving-picture business, +bless him, when I hadn't enough to eat!" + +"And where's he now?" + +"I dare say he's very well off. He taught me poise. He taught me +independence, too. That's enough for one man. He had a singular way of +turning his eyes, without turning his head. I learned that, too." + +Was it true, then--what had been hinted to him often enough--that once +she had plucked out the heart of your mystery, the heart of the human +being she forgot all about? She might be of as various moods as she +would, she was very single-minded, and was all she valued in her friends +some personal mannerism?--any peculiar impression of which she might +master the physical mechanism and reproduce it? A trait like this +naturally made Herrick take anxious stock of his own position. What +personal peculiarity of his was she studying? But it was nevertheless in +such a trait that the staunchness of his love found its true food. He +found his faith digested such things capitally; his passion at once +nourished and clarified itself by every human failing, by all the little +nerves and little ways of his darling divinity, until it ceased to be +merely the bleeding heart of a valentine and found within itself the +solid, articulated bones of mortal life. If, in return, there was the +least thing she could learn of him, let her, in heaven's name, learn it! +Only, how long before she would have finished with it? + +In the blessed meantime she scarcely stirred without him. With a freedom +unthinkable in girls of his own world, she let him take her to lunch +every day; unlike a proper heroine of romance, Christina required at +this time a great deal of food and he waited for her after rehearsal and +took her to tea. It was a mercy that he was now doing a series of Famous +Crimes in Manhattan, for the Record, as he certainly did not wish to put +her on a diet of Italian table d'hôtes! She accepted all this quite as a +matter of course; and it had become a matter of course that he should go +home with her for dinner. Sometimes they walked up through the Park, +sometimes they took a taxi and drove to shops or dressmakers; she did +not scruple, when she was tired or wanted air, to drive home with her +hat off and her eyes shut. It seemed to the poor fellow that she had +accepted him like the weather. + +For she had become strangely quiet in his presence. Eventually she +ceased to use upon him any conscious witchery whatever; something had +spiked all her guns, and Herrick was too much in love to presume that +this quiet meant anything except that he did not irritate her. Every now +and again, it is true, he was breathlessly aware of something that +brooded, touchingly humble and anxious and tender, in a tone, in a +glance. He feared that this anxiety, this tenderness, was only that +royal kindness with which, for instance, when Joe Patrick gave up his +elevator, hating that haunted job, she at once got him taken on as usher +at the theater. But Herrick dared not translate her expression, when, +looking up suddenly, he would find her eyes swimming in a kind of happy +light and fastened on his face. At such moments a flush would run +through him; there would fall between them a painful, an exquisite +consciousness. And, with the passing of the wave, she would seem to him +extraordinarily young. + +He considered it a bad sign that seldom or never did she introduce him +to any of her mates. Public as was their companionship, she kept him +wholly to herself. This was particularly noticeable in the restaurants +where she would go to strange shifts to keep actors from dallying at her +table; she would forestall their advances by paying visits to theirs, +leaving Herrick to make what he liked of it; and, do what he would, the +poor fellow could find no flattering reason for this. Already he knew +Christina too well to have any hope that it was the actors who were not +good enough. + +They were to her, in the most drastic and least sentimental sense, her +family. She quarreled with them; often enough she abused and mimicked +them; at the memory of bad acting scorn and disdain rode sparkling in +her eye, and if her vast friendliness was lighted by passionate +enthusiasms, it was capable, too, of the very sickness of contempt. But +this was in private and among themselves; there was not the least nor +the worst of them whom she would not have championed against the world. +Quite apart from goodness or badness of art, Christina conceived of but +two classes of human beings, artists and not artists; as who should say +"Brethren"; "Cattle." Herrick congratulated himself that he could be +scooped in under at least the title of "Writer." It was not so good as +"Actor," but 't was enough, 't would serve. All her sense of kin, of +race, of patriotism, and--once you came to good acting--of religion, was +centered in her country of the stage. Herrick had never seen any one so +class conscious. With those whom she called "outsiders," she adopted the +course most calculated, as a matter of fact, to make her the rage; she +refused to know them. And when, for the sake of some day reproducing +high life upon the boards, she brought herself to dine out, this little +protégée of the Deutches had always said to herself, with Arnold +Bennett's hero, "World, I condescend." + +Such an affair took place on the Monday before Christina's opening. Some +friends of the Inghams made a reception for her; and Herrick saw a dress +arrive that was plainly meant for conquest. Now Herrick considered that +this reception had played him a mean trick. He had a right to! He who +had recently been a desperado with sixpence was soon to be an associate +editor of _Ingham's Weekly_!--While he was still dizzy with this +knowledge a friend on the _Record_ had pointed out a suite in an old +fashioned downtown mansion, which had been turned into bachelor +lodgings: a friend of the friend wished to sub-let these rooms +furnished, and Herrick had extravagantly taken them. A beautiful +Colonial fireplace had decided him. He remembered a mahogany tea-table +and some silver which Marion could be induced to part with, and it +seemed to him that he could not too quickly bring about the hour when +Christina, before that fireplace and at that tea-table, should pour tea +for whatever Thespians she might think him worthy to entertain. But it +had taken time for the things to arrive; to-morrow she was going on the +road for the preliminary performances, and to-day was set for the +reception! He had, of course, kept silence. But it was heartbreaking to +see how perfect a day it was for tea and fires--one of those cool days +of earliest September. He kindled the flame; alas, it didn't matter! +Then, toward six he went uptown to hear about the party. + +He found Mrs. Hope, but not Christina, and the elder lady received him +almost with tears. "She is out driving, Mr. Herrick; she is out driving +about all by herself and she won't come home. She is in one of her +tantrums and all about Mr. Wheeler--a fine actor, of course, but why +bother?" + +Herrick had never seen the poor lady so ruffled. "It was such a +beautiful reception," she told him, "all the best people. She got there +late. She always does. You can't tell me, Mr. Herrick, that she doesn't +do it on purpose to make an entrance. All the time I was brushing her up +after the rehearsal she stood with her eyes shut, mumbling one line over +and over from her part. Nobody could be more devoted to her success than +I am, but it got on my nerves so I stuck her with a hairpin and I +thought she would have torn her hair down. 'What are these people to +me?' she said. 'Or I to them.' You know how she goes on, Mr. Herrick, as +if she were actually disreputable, instead of being really the best of +girls. Then, again, she's so exclusive it seems sometimes as if she +really couldn't associate with anybody, except the Deutches! She likes +well enough to fascinate people, all the same. She behaved beautifully +after she got there; and oh, Mr. Herrick, you can't imagine how +beautiful she looked! Surely, there never was anything so lovely as my +daughter!" + +"Can't I?" Herrick exclaimed. + +"Well, every one just lay down flat in front of her. Even Mr. Ten Euyck. +Yes, he was there. I trembled when they should meet. You know, he has +his inspectorship now. He wants to give her a lunch on board his yacht! +It was a triumph. Christina was very demure. But by-and-by I began to +feel a trifle uneasy. You know that soft, sad look she's got?--it's so +angelic it just _melts_ you--when she's really thinking how dull people +are! Well, there, I saw it beginning to come! And about then they had +got rid of all but the very smartest people, just the cream, you know, +for a little intimacy! We were all getting quite cozy, when some one +asked Christina how she could bear to play love-scenes with a man like +Wheeler--of course, Mr. Herrick, it _is_ annoying, but they will ask +things like that; they can't help it." + +"And Miss Hope?" + +"She looked up at them with the sugariest expression I ever saw and +asked them why, and they all began reminding her of the--well, you know! +And I must say, when you come to think of his--ah--affairs--! And they +talked about how dear Miss So-and-So had refused to act with him in +amateur theatricals, he said such rough things! And how lovely Christina +was, and how hard it was on her, and all the time I could see Christina +clouding up." + +Herrick, with his eyes on the rug, smilingly murmured, "Wave, Munich, +all thy banners wave! And charge, with all thy chivalry!" + +"Well, Mr. Herrick, she stood up and looked all round her with that +awful stormy lower she has, and then, in a voice like one of those +pursuing things in the Greek tragedies, 'I!' she said, 'I am not worthy +to kiss his feet!' Oh, Mr. Herrick, why should she mention them? There +are times when she certainly is not delicate!" + +Herrick burst out laughing. He thought Christina might at least have +exhibited some sense of humor. "And was the slaughter terrible?" + +"Why, Mr. Herrick, what could any one say? She looked as if she might +have hit them. She shook the crumbs off her skirt, as if they were the +party, and then she said good-by very sweetly, but coldly and sadly, +like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution, and left. Mr. Herrick, I +don't know where to hide my head!" + +Herrick stayed for some time to counsel and console, but Christina did +not return and as Mrs. Hope did not ask him to dinner he was at length +obliged to go. For all his amusement he felt a little snubbed and blue +and lonely; his eyes hungered for Christina in her finery; he saw her at +once as the darling and the executioner of society and he longed to +reassure himself with the favor of the spoiled beauty; how was he to +wait till to-morrow for the summons of his proud princess? As he opened +his door he saw that the fire had been kept up; some one kneeling +before it turned at his entrance and faced him. It was Christina. + +The shock of her presence was cruelly sweet. The firelight played over +her soft light gown; she had taken off her gloves and the ruddiness +gleamed on her arms and her long throat and on the sheen of her hair. As +she rose slowly to her feet that something at once ineffably luxurious +and ineffably spiritual which hung about her like the emanation of a +perfume stirred uneasily in him and his senses ached. Never had her +fairness hurt him like that; his passion rose into his throat and held +him dumb. + +"The man looked at me, hard," she told him, "and let me in. I came here +to rest. And because I didn't want to be scolded. Don't scold me. +Perhaps I've thrown away a world this afternoon. But no; it will roll +back to be picked up again. Listen, and tell me that I was right." + +Without stirring, "I can never tell you but the one thing," he said. "I +love you!" + +It was no sooner said than he loathed himself for speaking. He had not +dreamed that he should say such a thing. It was not yet a month since +her engagement to Ingham had been broken; she was a young girl; she was +here alone with him in his rooms, to which she had paid him the perfect +honor of coming--she, who had accepted him so simply, so nobly, as a +gentleman. Hot shame and black despair seized upon him. + +The girl stood quiet as if controlling herself. Then, so gently that she +was almost inaudible, she said, "I must go!" + +He could not answer her; he was aware of the ripple and murmur of her +dress as she fetched her wraps; she put on her hat and the lace of her +sleeves foamed back from her arms in the ruddy light; he felt how soon +she would be engulfed by that world which was already rolling back to be +picked up. He stepped forward to help her with her thin chiffon coat and +she suffered this, gently, passively; as it slipped over her shoulders +he felt her turn; he felt her arms come around his neck, clinging to +him, and the sweetness of her body on his breast. In that firelit room +her lips were cold, as they stumbled on his throat with the low cry, +"Oh, you love me!--You love me!" she repeated. "And you're a man! Save +me!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING + + +"Don't let them take me!" Christina entreated. "Don't let them lock me +up! That door--! Turn the key!" + +Without demur he turned it. He was in that commotion of bewildered +feeling where one shock after another deliciously and terribly strikes +upon the heart, and anything seems possible. From the trembling girl his +pulses took a myriad alarms; apprehension of he knew not what ran riot +in them and credited the suggestions of her terror; but all the while +his blood rushed through him, warm and singing, and his heart glowed. +She was here, with him! She had fled here and clung to him for defense! +She loved him! In no dream, now, did she lie back there, in the deep +chair beside his fire, with her hand clasping his eagerly as he knelt +and her shoulder leaning against his. It was keener than any dream; it +was that fullness of life, which, even at Herrick's age, we have mostly +ceased to expect. + +"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it--I +know! They've been following me from the beginning!" + +[Illustration: "There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. +"Don't deny it--I know!"] + +"But why, dearest, why?" + +"Because they think I killed Jim Ingham." + +"Christina! Why should they think such a thing?" + +"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?" + +She put her finger on his lips to still his cry of protest, and, looking +down into his face, her own eyes slowly filled with that brooding of +maternal tenderness which seemed to search him through and through. For +a moment he thought that her eyes brimmed, that her lips trembled with +some communication. But, without speaking, she ran her hand along his +arm and a quiver passed through her; taking his face in her two hands +she bent and kissed his mouth. In that kiss they plighted a deeper troth +than in ten thousand promises. And, creeping close into his breast with +a shuddering sigh, she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, Bryce, you won't +let them take me away? I can stand anything but being locked up--I +couldn't bear that--I couldn't! What can I do?" + +"My dearest, no one in the world can harm you!" + +"I came here to be safe, where I could touch you. Let me rest here a +little, and feel your heart close to me. Oh, my love, I'm so frightened! +I thought I was strong! I thought I was brave and could go through with +it! But I can't! I'm tired--to death! All through my soul, I'm cold. +It's only here I can get warm!" + +"Christina," he asked her, "go through with what?" + +She stirred in his arms and drew back. "Look first--ah, carefully!--from +the window. What do you see?" + +"Nothing but ordinary people passing. And the usual number of waiting +taxis." + +"Well, in the nearest of those taxis is a detective. He has been +following me all the afternoon. He is sitting there waiting for me to +come out." + +Herrick carried her hand to his lips. "Christina, don't think me a +cursed schoolmaster. But it's imagination, dear. You've driven yourself +wild with all this worry and excitement. Why, believe me, they're not so +clumsy! If they were following you, you wouldn't know it." + +"I tell you I've known it for at least two weeks! I'm an actress, and +if, as they say, we've no intelligence, only instincts, well then, our +instincts are extraordinarily developed. And mine tells me that, over +my shoulder, there is a shadow creeping, creeping, looming on my path." + +A series of sounds burst on the air. Herrick went to the window. "There, +my sweet, the taxi's gone." + +"Did no one get out?" + +"No one." + +He had snatched up her hand again and he felt her relax. + +"Well, I ought to be used to shadows; all my girlhood there has been a +shadow near me. Bryce, when I was really a child, something happened. +Something that changed my whole heart--oh, you shall know before you +marry me! I shall find a way to tell you!--It made me a rebel and a +cynic; it made me wish to have nothing to do with the rules men make; I +had to find my own morality. Only, when I saw you, I felt such a +strength and freshness, like sunny places. Bryce!" + +"Yes." + +"My feeling for Jim was dead a year ago. Do you believe that?" + +"Oh, my darling! Why--" + +"Because I won't have you think me shameless! Nor that an accident, like +death, turned my light love to you! I was just twenty when he first +asked me to marry him; I was so mad about him that my head swam. And yet +it wasn't love. It was only infatuation and I knew it. I was still young +enough for him to be a sort of prince--all elegance and the great world. +The last two have been my big years, Bryce. I was rather a poor little +girl till then. Even so, I held him off ten months. I felt that there +was a curse on it and that it could never, never be! What did I know of +men or that great world--well, God knows he taught me! When I did +consent to our engagement the fire was already dying. But by that time +the idea of him had grown into me. He had always a great influence over +me, Bryce, and he could trouble and excite me long after he had +broken my dream. Oh, my dear, it was one long quarrel. It was a year's +struggle for my freedom! Well, I got my release. I didn't wait for +fate." She paused. And then with a low gasp, "All my life I've stood +quite alone. I have been hard. I have been independent. I have been +brave--oh, yes, I can say it; I have been brave!--but I've broken down. +Only, if you will let me keep hold of you, I shall get courage." + +"Christina!" + +"Do you know how big you are? Or what a clear look your eyes have got? +There in that coroner's office--oh, heavens,--among those +_stones_!--Bryce, he was there this afternoon! that man!" + +"Ten Euyck? Yes, I know." + +"Do you know what he means to do as Police Inspector? He means to run me +down! Wait--you've never known. I've kept so still--I didn't want to +think of it. Four years ago he payed for the production of a play of +his, by a stock company I was with. Oh, my dear, that play! It gave us +all quite a chill! He wanted his Mark Antony played like a young +gentleman arranging the marriage-settlements. But he took the rehearsals +so hard, he nearly killed us." She hesitated. "He was very kind to me. +He was too kind. One night, he met me as I was coming out of the +theater, and--forgot himself. One of the boys in the company, who was +right behind me, slapped him in the face! Do you mean to tell me that he +has ever forgotten that? At the inquest he thought he had me down, and +the laugh turned against him! Is he the man to forget that?" + +"But what can he do?" + +"How I detested him!" Christina hurried on. "He taught me, in that one +minute, when I was eighteen, how men feel about girls who aren't in +their class! Just because I was on the stage, he took it for granted +I--Well, he, too, learned something! Since then I've heard about him. +He isn't a hypocrite, he's an egoist. I wonder, were some of the +Puritans really like that? He's so very proper, and so particular not to +entangle himself with respectable women! But with women he calls bad he +doesn't mind--because for him bad women don't count, they don't exist! +Oh, dear God, how I despise a man who feels like that! How I love you, +who never, never could! Does he really know, I wonder, that sometimes +it's the coldest of heart who can be made to turn his ships at +Actium?--'What can he do?' He can hope I'm guilty! And he can use all +the machinery of his office to prove me so!" + +"Why, look here, dearest, if he's never revenged himself on the man who +struck him--" + +Christina gave a shrill little cry. "But, now he has his chance with me! +His great spectacular chance! Oh, Bryce, I'm afraid of him, and I was +never afraid before!--Dearest dear, I know you can't do anything! But +the girl's in love with you, poor thing, and she feels as if you can! +I've wanted you--oh, how I've wanted you!--all my life. I've known the +dearest fellows in the world, the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were too much like poor Christina; fidgety things, +nervous and on edge. 'You take me where the good winds blow and the +eternal meadows are!'--What are you doing?" + +He had bowed down to kiss her wrist and he replied, "I'm thanking God I +look like a farmer!" + +"My poor boy!" cried Christina, breaking her tears with little laughs, +"I've got your cheek all wet! Bryce dear, we're engaged, aren't we? You +haven't said.--Bryce!" + +He slipped back onto the floor, with his head in her lap and her two +hands gathered in his one. They were both silent. The little fire was +going out and the room was almost dark. And in that happy depth of life +where she had led him he was at first unaware of any change. Then he +knew that the hands he held had become tense, that rigidity was +creeping over her whole body, and looking up, he could just make out +through the dusk, the alert head, the parted lips of one who is waiting +for a sound. "Bryce," she said, "you were mistaken. That detective has +not gone!" + +"What do you hear?" + +"I don't hear. I simply know." Their senses strained into the silence. +"If he went away, it was only to bring some one back. He went to get Ten +Euyck!" + +"Christina! Tell me what you're really afraid of!" + +"Oh! Oh!" she breathed. + +"Christina, what was it you couldn't go through with?" + +"Death!" she said. "Not that way! I can't!" She rocked herself softly to +and fro. "If I could die now!" she whispered. + +"You shan't die. And you shan't go crazy, either. You're driving +yourself mad, keeping silence." He drew her to her feet, and she stood, +shaking, in his arms. "Christina, what's your trouble?" + +"Nancy,--that murder--my opening--my danger--aren't they enough?" + +"For everything but your conviction that it is you who are pursued, and +you who will be punished. Some horrible accident, dear heart, has shown +you something, which you must tell. Tell it to me, and we will find that +it is nothing." + +"Bryce," she said, "they're coming. It's our last time together. Don't +let's spend it like this." + +"Did you--" he asked her so tenderly that it sounded like a caress, "did +you, in some terrible emergency, in some defense, dear, of yourself, +Christina--did you fire that shot?" + +Her head swung back; she did not answer. + +"My darling, if you did we must just take counsel whether to fight or to +run. Don't be afraid. The world's before us. Christina, did you?" + +"No, no, no!" she whispered. "I did not!" She felt his quiver of relief, +and her nervous hands closed on his sleeve. "Oh, if you only knew. There +is a thing I long to tell you! But not that! Oh, if I could trust you!" + +"Can't you?" + +"I mean--trust you to see things as I do! To do only what I ask! What I +chose--not what was best for me! Suppose that some one whom--Bryce?" + +"Yes?" + +"If any one should hear--" + +"There is no one to hear." + +"You can't tell where they are." + +"Christina, can't you see that we're alone here? That the door's locked? +That you're safe in my arms? The cab went away. No one followed you. No +one even knows where I live; my dear, dear love, we're all alone--" + +The door-bell sounded through the house. + +He thought the girl would have fallen and his own heart leaped in his +side. "Darling, it's nothing. It's for some one else." + +"It's for me." + +"That's impossible." + +There was a knock on the door. + +Herrick called--"Who's there?" + +"It's a card, sir." + +"A card?" + +"A gentleman's card, sir. He's down in the hall." + +"I can't see any one at present." + +"It's not for you, sir; it's for the young lady." + +"Did you tell him there was a lady here?" + +"He knew it himself, sir." + +"Well, she came in here because she felt ill; I'm just taking her home. +She can't be bothered." + +"He said it was very important, sir. Something she's to do to-morrow," +he said. + +"Christina! It's only some one about your going away." + +"No. It's the end. Take the card." + +Springing on the light, he took the card to reassure her. She motioned +him to read it. And he read aloud the words "Mr. Ten Euyck." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL + + +Christina took the card from him, and seemed to put him to one side. +Almost inaudibly she said, "I will go down." + +Before Herrick could prevent her, a voice from just outside the door +replied, "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Hope. May I come in?" Ten Euyck, +hat in hand, appeared in the doorway. + +He looked from one to the other, noting Christina's tear-stained face, +with a civil, sour smile. "I am sorry if I intrude. I had no idea Mr. +Herrick was to be my host. The truth is, Miss Hope, I followed you and +have been waiting for you, in the hope of making peace--where it was +once my unhappy fortune to make war." + +Christina said, "You followed me!" + +"But I shouldn't have yielded to that impulse so far as to--well, break +into Mr. Herrick's apartment, if I had not become, in the meanwhile, +simply the messenger of--a higher power." Ten Euyck tried to say the +last phrase like a jest, but it stuck in his throat. He moved out of the +doorway, and there stepped past him into the room the man whom Herrick +had seen at the Pilgrims'. "Miss Hope, Mr. Herrick," Ten Euyck said, +"Mr. Kane; our District Attorney." + +Kane nodded quickly to each of them. "Miss Hope," he said, "I don't +often play postman; but when I met our friend Ten Euyck outside and he +told me you were here, the opportunity was too good to lose." He took a +letter out of his pocket, watching her with shrewd and smiling eyes. +"We've been tampering with your mail. Allow me." + +Christina took the letter wonderingly, but at its heading her face +contemptuously brightened. "I can hardly see," she said, passing it to +Herrick. "Read it, will you?--He would have to know anyhow," she said +sweetly to the two officials. "We are just engaged to be married. You +must congratulate us." + +Herrick, never very eloquent, was stricken dumb. "Sit down, won't you?" +was as much as he could ask his guests. The letter ran-- + + +"The Arm of Justice suggests to Miss Christina Hope that she exert her +well-known powers of fascination to persuade the Ingham family into +paying the Arm of Justice its ten thousand dollars. Miss Hope need not +work for nothing, nor even in order to avert an accusation against which +she doubtless feels secure. But the Arm of Justice has in its possession +a secret which Miss Hope would give much to know. She may learn what +that secret is, and how it may be negotiated if she will hang this white +ribbon out of the window wherever she may be dining on Monday. She will +receive a communication at once." + + +"Exactly!" said Kane, as though in triumph. "For such swells as the Arms +of Justice it's about dinner-time now. Would you oblige me, Miss Hope, +by tying the ribbon out of the window? Show yourself as clearly as +possible. All the lights, please." + +As Christina stepped to the window, he added, "I'm trusting they didn't +recognize us as we came in. It's pretty dark." + +They waited. The three men were strung to a high degree of expectation. + +"But it's all so silly!" Christina said. The call of the telephone +shrilled through the room. + +"Miss Hope?" Herrick asked. "Yes, she's here." + +Then they heard Christina answering, "Yes, yes, it's Miss Hope. I hear. +I understand. I'll be there." She hung up the receiver and turned round. +"The Park. To-morrow. At ten in the morning. The bench under the +squirrel's house at the top of the hill beyond the Hundred-and-tenth +Street entrance. And be sure to come alone." She sat down, staring at +Kane. + +He said, "Excuse me!" and went to the 'phone. "Boy! Did that party ask +for Miss Hope in the first place? All right. That's queer. They asked +for Mr. Herrick's apartment." + +"They knew I was living here? Why, I only moved in this morning." + +"And they must know I'm going on the road to-morrow; the eleven-thirty +train!" + +"Exactly. They're well informed." Kane had been passing up and down; now +he stopped in front of Christina and again he seemed to measure her with +his keen eyes. "Well!" he said; "are you game for it?" + +Christina sprang up and stood before him, glowing. + +"You'll keep this appointment?" + +"Surely! And alone!" + +"Not by a long shot! Your mother and Mr. Ingham have feared exactly some +such escapade; that's why you've had to be shadowed all this while and +not advised of the activities of the police. There will be plenty of +plain clothes men, well planted. But not you, Mr. Herrick, whom they +would know. If you attempt to smuggle yourself in, we'll have to put you +in irons. Well, Miss Hope?" + +"My mother," said Christina, rising, and faintly smiling, "deserves to +have her hair turn as white as I'm sure it has by this time." She held +out her hand. "You gave me a great fright," she said. "Did you know it? +I thought you had all come to execute me. Don't! I'm not worth it!" + +The admiration which no man could withhold from her for very long +colored Kane's studying face and warmed his handshake. "I can count on +your not losing your head, I think. You'll be there?" + +"I'll be there.--But have these people really any secret? Are they +really going to tell me something?" + +"Well, my dear young lady, we'll know that to-morrow." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY + + +The week in which Christina was to open in "The Victors" was one of +those which call down the curses of dramatic critics by producing a new +play each night. Thursday was to see the opening of openings; there were +but two nights on the road and Mrs. Hope and Herrick were to live +through these as best they might in a metropolis that was once more a +desert. + +After that momentous interview of Monday evening Christina would not let +Herrick drive home with her. "Come to the station in the morning, and +hear what has happened. Lunch with me on Thursday. But don't let me see +you alone again till Friday noon, when--" she laughed--"when I've read +my notices. Let your poor Christina tell you her trouble then. Till then +she has trouble enough!" She put her face up with a kind of humble +frankness, to be kissed. And he saw that it was a weary face, indeed. + +Throughout the night his anxiety concerning the next day's meeting with +the blackmailers contended in him with that other anxiety: what she was +to tell him on Friday--when she had read her notices! Whatever it was, +it was not for his passion that he feared. There were even times when he +could almost have wished it were not some distorted molehill that the +girl's excitable broodings had swollen past all proportion, but some +test of his strength, some plumbing of his tenderness. And then again he +would be aware of a cold air crawling over his heart, of that horrible +sinking of the stomach with which, walking in the dark, we feel that we +are taking a step into space. A black wall, ominous, menacing and very +near, would loom upon him and blind him from the wholesome and habitable +world. The daylight reinforced his faith in simpler probabilities. It +washed away all but the sweetly humble arrogance of the one fact which +all night long had shot in glory through his veins and built itself into +the foundations of his life. With the day he remembered only that she +loved him. + +He hung about the outskirts of One Hundred-and-tenth Street till he saw +her enter the Park and till he saw her leave it--safe, but with an +exceedingly clouded brow. + +"They didn't come, of course!" she said to him at the station. "They +very naturally refused to swim into a net. Mr. Kane is a great dear, but +I wish he would mind his own business! Mother, speak to Bryce." She took +leave of them both with a serenely fond indifference to public +conjecture and the train bore her away. + +Mrs. Hope may habitually have endeavored to clutch at the life-lines of +her own world even while she was being submerged in the billows of +Christina's but she was not mercenary and she accepted Herrick with an +evident thankfulness that he was no worse. When he had taken her home, +he found himself at a loss as to what to do with his life. Christina had +become so wholly his occupation that to lose her even for a few days was +to lose the bottom out of the world. Although the morning was still +swathed in yesterday's fog, the sun was struggling, the damp air was +very warm, and his steps turned toward the Park. But he did not follow +the paths which he and Christina had trod homeward from rehearsals; +instinctively, he turned north. Then he smiled to see that he was once +more making for the Hundred-and-tenth Street entrance. + +Yes, here was the last spot which had held her, and, as he looked about +him, his heart stirred to think of her here. They should come here +together, he and she. The place was a little wilderness; he could not +have believed that in that kempt and ordered domain there could be so +wild and sweet a grace of nature and charmed loneliness. The hill was +high and thinly wooded; finely veiled in the mist and the faint sunshine +it was the very spot for the dryad length and lightness of Christina's +movements. At the same time, so close to the city's hum, there seemed +something magic, something ominous and waiting in the utter, perfect +stillness, and the little clearing at the top of the hill somehow, +whether by its broken boulders or the columnar straightness of a +semicircle of trees, suggested a Druid clearing. Those who wished to +make a sacrifice here would be very strangely unmolested. High and low +and far away there was no human figure, and a cry might perish long +before it traveled those misty distances. Herrick thought, "If she had +come alone!" and shuddered. + +But there was the little squirrel house; there the bench where she had +waited; and at its base he smiled to see the scattered nuts which +Christina, with her variegated interests, had not failed to bring her +furry hosts. A lassitude of loneliness came over him; he was still not +wholly recovered from his accident of three weeks before and with a +weary yielding to stiffness and weakness he dropped down on the bench. +Then he saw that along one of its slats some one had recently penciled a +line, and he recognized Christina's hand. "I will come again for three +days running, after Thursday. At the same hour. And I will come +_alone_." + +He was startled, but he smiled. It was so like her! Looking up, he saw +behind him a man sweeping leaves in the distance, and, far down the +hill, there appeared a loafer with a newspaper. The charm was broken. +Good heavens, where were people starting from! He could perceive, now, +to his left a man sleeping in the grass. Could any of these be the plain +clothes men, still lingering hopefully about? By George, they must be! +And Christina was right--they were too obvious a snare! Why, there was +a fourth, altogether too loutishly and innocently eating an apple as he +strayed on! + +Herrick looked down at Christina's message, wondering if the detectives +had seen it. Intrepid and obstinate darling, how resolute she was to +know all there was to be known! When he looked up again he saw that the +slumberer had wakened and was sitting up. The other three men were +approaching from their respective angles, nearer and nearer to the +bench. And then it occurred to him--did they take him for a blackmailer? + +It made him laugh and then somehow it vexed him; and he began to stir +the fallen leaves with a light stick he carried, restlessly. The men +came on, and it annoyed him to be surrounded like this, as by a pack of +wolves. He lifted his head impatiently, and was about to hail the +nearest man when a splash of sun fell full on that man's face. It was +the face of the chauffeur in the gray touring-car. + +He knew then that he was in a trap. Controlling his first impulse to +spring up and bring the struggle to an issue, he counted his chances. He +remembered how far and still was this deserted spot; his muscles were +very stiff, and he felt the slimness of the stick in his hand. He had no +other weapon. And there were four of those figures sauntering in upon +him through the silence and the pale, dreamy sunshine. He felt the high, +hot beating of his heart. The city lay so close at hand! He could still +feel on his mouth Christina's kiss! And the immense desire to live, and +all a man's fury against outrage, against this causeless and +inexplicable brute-hate, which already, in the city's very streets, had +dared to maim and tried to murder him, rose in him with a colder rage +and kept him quiet and expressionless. He rose; and striking the dust of +the bench from his clothes, he glanced about. Yes, the man behind him +was still advancing, sweeping leaves; down the hill before him the man +climbed upward, still mumbling over his newspaper; to his right the +apple-eater, chewing his last bite, tossed away the core as he came on; +the chauffeur alone disdained subterfuge, advancing quietly; he carried +in his hand some lengths of rope. Herrick believed that he had one +chance. This wooded isolation could not be so far-reaching as it seemed: +they would scarcely dare to fire a shot. + +Leisurely he idled a step or two down the slope toward the man with the +newspaper, till he was just outside the closing semicircle of the +others. Then, lowering his head, he shot swiftly forward. Immediately +there was a shrill whistle and the reader cast his newspaper away. It +was too late; Herrick's lowered head struck him in the diaphragm and +knocked him backwards. As he fell, Herrick leaped over him and turning, +caught the chauffeur a stinging blow across the eyes with his stick. The +stick broke; and Herrick, dropping to his knees, caught the ankle of the +next comer and threw him flat upon his face. The fourth man flung a +blackjack which, as Herrick rose up, caught him just below the right +elbow; the young fellow sprang up and, shouting now for help at the top +of his strong voice, he raced down the hill as if, once more, he were +bearing the ball to its last goal. + +For a moment he felt that he had snatched the victory, but his stiff +muscles played him false and his right arm hung as if paralyzed. His +shouts, too, were leaving him winded and the fourth man, now +considerably in advance of the others, was gaining on him at every step. +Suddenly Herrick mistook the shadow of a little bush for the shadow of a +fifth opponent; in his second's wavering the fourth man lunged at him, +missed him, and losing his own balance clutched the end of Herrick's +coat. They both went down together, getting and giving blows; and though +Herrick was up and off again in an instant, the breath was pretty well +knocked out of him. Violent pains were throbbing now through his arm; he +seemed to himself as heavy as lead; near the bottom of the hill the +fourth man was on him again; Herrick landed on the fellow's head with +his left, only to fall himself into the hands of the two whom he had +thrown at first and who now fell upon him with a zeal that all his +French boxing, which enabled him to land a kick in one jaw and a +horrible backheeled stroke into the ribs of the fellow who was trying to +wrap a coat round his head, scarcely availed to rid him of. He gathered +himself together for one shout that seemed to him to crack the +tree-trunks. But the game was up; without knowing it he was turning +faint from the pain in his arm, and then the men were all round him now; +barring his path and only holding off from him a little because the +chauffeur was running down hill toward them, aiming at Herrick, as he +came, the rope which he had tied into a noose. Herrick leaped to one +side, and clinging to the tactics which had served him best, dropped to +the ground and pulled the chauffeur down atop of him. They clenched like +that and went, rolling and struggling, down the hill; striking against +trees, kicking, clawing, blind with rage, till they were stopped by the +flat ground. It was Herrick who landed on his back and found himself +staring up at the revolver the chauffeur was drawing from his pocket. At +that moment there sounded a policeman's whistle. + +The man who had been running after them with the coat for Herrick's +head, dropped it and ran like mad. His companion's arm had been broken +by Herrick's kick, but this man and the fourth continued wildly +searching for something they had dropped on the hill. The chauffeur had +had to ease a little on Herrick in order to draw his gun; but when he +felt Herrick struggling onto his right side and even rolling himself on +top of his right arm, he quickly slid the barrel of the revolver into +his palm and lifted the butt-end. As he did so Herrick's left fist shot +up and dealt him a blow on the point of the chin. He fell back as if his +neck were broken; the pistol slipped out of his hand and Herrick caught +it just as the man with the broken arm dropped on his chest. The +policemen's whistles were sounding nearer and nearer; the man on +Herrick's chest kept him from aiming the pistol, but he discharged it in +the grass, shot after shot, five of them, to guide the police. "Let him +have it!" said the man on top of Herrick, but in an Italian phrase, to +the fourth man, who leaned over Herrick raising what the other had +dropped back there on the hill. It was the blackjack. Herrick could just +turn the pistol a little and point it upward from his side. He fired it +straight into the fourth man's face; and he was always glad, afterward, +that, like a sick girl, he had closed his eyes. The next man who bent +over him was a policeman. + +"Don't mind me," Herrick said, "get them! Get after them!" But that +automobile of theirs must have been waiting on the driveway near at +hand; for the man whom Herrick had shot dead was the only one they +caught. + +At first the body seemed to offer no clue; save a soiled and torn half +of a blank card on which had been uncouthly scribbled the number +1411--unless its being the body of a young Italian could be called a +clue. Herrick, who had, of course, accompanied it to the station under a +nominal arrest, turned sick with disappointment. At that moment the +lieutenant in charge emitted an exclamation. He had found on the dead +man a letter addressed in the typewriting of the Arm of Justice to +Christina Hope. The inclosure was intact, and the lieutenant held it out +to Herrick. + +To the single sheet of paper was fastened a thick, soft curl of dark red +hair. Under the curl, in a rounded but girlish handwriting, were four +words: "Help me, dear Chris!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS + + +This piece of information was very carefully guarded from the +newspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But the +fight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinister +automobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began to +find himself the most widely advertised man in New York; his +battle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity and +he did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero who +had slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin always +being bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was a +good deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarily +paralyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hung +helpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerous +wound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christina +called him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leave +the house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties to +come home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and of +horrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was the +unhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion. +"Besides, Mr. Herrick,--Bryce--were they trying to kidnap you, too? And +if so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or did +they mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr. +Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is--and who will it be +next?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many other +questions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spun +round in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage. + +Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And when +Mrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as a +pugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern he +seemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what. + +For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to her +Johnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use his +influence against his being such a little liar.--"You remember that +queer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boy +friend?" + +"A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection with +them?" + +"Why, it never come from a school at all!" + +"I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing." + +"Oh, you'd oughtn't to laugh, Mr. Herrick--and the child so naughty! Why +that morning after Mr. Ingham was killed he found it propping open the +slit in our letter box." Herrick ceased to laugh. "He was so set on +keeping it he made up that story, and then to go to work and lose it, +an' it so queer the stones in it was maybe real--" + +"He lost it, then?" + +"Els't we'd never have known on account of him coming home crying. He +lost it in the Park, where he'd been playing train-robber with it an' +lots o' the loafers on benches watchin' him. A bigger boy got it away +from him, larkin' back an' forth, an' threw it to him, an' just then a +horse took fright from an automobile and run up on the grass with its +rig. The boys scattered in a hurry an' when they come back the pistol +was gone. He hadn't noticed no particular person watching, so he didn't +know who was gone, too. I tell him, God took it to punish his lyin'," +concluded Mrs. Grubey, with the self-righteousness of perfect truth, +"but I certainly would like to know how much it was worth! An' how it +ever got there an' who it belonged to." + +Herrick had a vision of a comic valentine he had received on the same +morning. "I'm afraid it was meant for me!" he said. He knew this could +not clear things up much for Mrs. Grubey; and afterward he fell to +wondering if the capital "C" scratched on the dummy pistol's golden +surface bore any similarity to the slender, pointed lettering which had +formed the words "To the Apollo in the bath-robe." He could never +remember when the initials rose before him in a new order; the A's blent +as one and then the C--A. C.--Oh, madness! Yet, on Friday, he would ask +Christina. + +One other tribute to his popular fame gave him a new idea. It came from +his Yankee woman at the table d'hôte. The night after the attack she +motioned him to her as he was leaving and without ceasing to play +solitaire she said, "If I was you, young feller, I guess I wouldn't come +down here for one while." + +His eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why not?" + +"Ain't you the one shot a Dago yesterday in the Park? Pshaw, you needn't +tell me--I know 'twas 'cause you had t' do it! An' good riddance! But +it's healthier for you to stay where you belong." + +Herrick looked round him on the good-tempered, smiling people at the +little clean tables, and laughed. "But you don't suppose the whole +nation is one united Black-Hand, do you? You seem to have a mighty poor +opinion of Italians!" + +"Well," said the woman, with a grim smile of her own, "I married one. +I'd oughta know!" + +She finished her game and seeing him still lingering, in enjoyment of +her tartness, she said, "All forriners 're pretty poor folks. When I +get mad at my children I say it's the streak of forrin' in 'em. Well, my +girl's good Yankee, anyhow. Fair as anybody. It's my son's took after +his father, poor fellow!" + +"Then the proprietress, here, isn't your daughter?" + +"Her? Sakes, no! She's my niece-in-law. I brought up my daughter like +she was an American girl! It's my son keeps in with these! He's +homesick. My daughter's husband got into a little bit o' trouble in the +Old Country," said this remarkable little dame, without the least +embarrassment, "and her an' me's glad enough to stay here. But the men +kind o' mope. Their business worries 'em and as I say, 'tain't the +business I ever would have chose, but I s'pose when I married a Dago I +might's well made up my mind to it!" She said this with an air +inimitably business like, and so continued--"Now I want you should clear +out from here, young man! There's all kinds of fellers come here. It may +be awful funny to you to think o' gettin' a knife in your back, but I +don't want it any round where I am! When they're after Dagoes, it ain't +my business. But my own folks is my own folks." + +Now it could not be denied that there was something not wholly +reassuring as to the pursuits of this respectable old lady's family in +this speech, and in lighter-hearted times Herrick might have noted it as +a testimonial to that theory of his concerning the matter-of-fact in +crime. But now it suggested to him that he might do worse than look for +the faces of the blackmailers in such little eating-places as this one. +After all, they evidently were Italians, and it was with Italians that +they would sojourn. Yes--that was one line to follow! He remembered that +this region was in or adjacent to Ten Euyck's district and he wondered +if he could bring himself to ask the favor of a list of its Latin +haunts. He and Mrs. Hope were on their way to a big Wednesday night +opening when this resolution took definite shape, and it was strange, +with his mind full of these ideas, to come into the crush and dazzle of +the theater lobby. + +Mrs. Hope at once began bowing right and left; the theatrical season was +still so young that there were actors and actresses everywhere. Herrick, +abnormally aware of his new conspicuousness, could only endeavor to look +pleasant; and, trailing, like a large helpless child, in her wake, was +glad to catch the friendly eye of Joe Patrick; fellow-sufferer in a +common cause, whom Christina's recommendation as usher he perceived to +have landed him here, instead of at the theater where she was to play. +Unfortunately Joe hailed him by name, in an unexpectedly carrying voice; +a blush for which Herrick could have kicked himself with rage flamed +over him to the roots of his hair, and when he perceived, with horror, +that they were entering a box, he clutched Mrs. Hope's cloak and slunk +behind the curtains with it like a raw boy. + +But even so, there was a continual coming and going of acquaintances, +many of whom conveyed a sort of sympathetic flutter over Mrs. Hope's +interest in to-night's play; an impression that Christina must feel her +own absence simply too hard, and Herrick smiled to think how much more +concentrated were Christina's interests than they realized. Not but +their expectation of her appearance to-morrow was keen enough. It seemed +to Herrick that there was a thrill of it in all the audience, which +persistently studied Mrs. Hope's box. Christina's genius was a burning +question, and the unknown quantity of her success agitated her +profession like a troubled air--through which how many eyes were already +ardently directed toward to-morrow night, passionate astronomers, +attendant on a new star! Murders come and murders go, but here was a +girl who, in a few hours, might throw open the brand-new continent of a +new career; who, next season, might be a queen, with powers like life +and death fast in her hands. And, with that tremendous absorption in +their own point of view which Herrick had not failed to observe in the +members of Christina's profession, people asked if it wasn't too +dreadful that this business of Ingham's murder and Nancy Cornish's +disappearance should happen just at this time, when it might upset +Christina for her performance? + +Mrs. Hope introduced him to all comers with a liberality which her +daughter had been far from displaying, and he could see them studying +him and trying to place him in Christina's life. It was clear to him +that if he ranked high, they were glad he had not gone and got himself +beaten to death in the Park, or it might have upset her still more. He +thought of the girl whose wet cheek had pressed his in the firelight. +The sweetness of the memory was sharp as a knife, and the rise of the +curtain, displaying wicked aristocrats of Louis the Fourteenth, sporting +on the lawns of Versailles, could not deaden it. + +For if there is one quality essential to the effect of wicked +aristocrats it is that of breeding; and of all mortal qualities there is +none to which managers are so indifferent. In a costume play more +particularly, there is one requisite for men and one only; size. Solemn +bulks, with the accents of Harlem, Piccadilly and Pittsburgh, bowed +themselves heavily about the stage in conscientiously airy masquerade +and, since nothing is so terrible as elegance when she goes with a flat +foot, Herrick's eyes roved up and down the darkened house studying the +faces of Christina's confreres, there, and endeavoring to contrast them +with the faces of the public and the critics to whom, to-morrow, she +must entrust her fate. + +A burst of applause, recalling his attention to the stage, pointed out +to him a real aristocrat. Among the full-calved males in pinks and +blues, the entrance of a slender fellow in black satin, not very tall, +with an order on his breast and the shine of diamonds among his laces, +had created something the effect of the arrival of a high-spirited and +thoroughbred racehorse among a drove of caparisoned elephants. Herrick, +the ingenuous outsider, supposed this actor the one patrician obtainable +by the management; not knowing that it was his hit as the spy in +"Garibaldi's Advance" which had opened to him the whole field of foreign +villains, and that he could never have been cast for a treacherous +marquis of Louis Quatorze this season if he had not succeeded as a +treacherous private of Garibaldi the season before. + +With a quick, light gesture, which acknowledged and dismissed the +welcome of the audience, the newcomer crossed the stage and bowed deeply +before his king. The king stood at no great distance from Herrick's box, +and when the newcomer lifted his extraordinarily bright, dark eyes they +rested full on Herrick's own. Then Herrick found himself looking into +the face of the man in the street who had questioned him about the +murder on the night of Ingham's death. + +Herrick had a strange sensation that for the thousandth part of an +instant the man's eyes went perfectly blind. But they never lost their +sparkle, and his lips retained the fine light irony that made his quiet +face one pale flash of mirth and malice. "Who is that?" Herrick asked +Mrs. Hope. + +"Who? Oh--that's Will Denny." + +Herrick was startled by a hand on his sleeve, and a hoarse, boyish voice +said in his ear, "That's him!" He knew the voice for Joe Patrick's. +"That's the man I took up in the elevator." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!" + + +Herrick excused himself to Mrs. Hope and followed Joe Patrick out of the +box. "But are you sure, Joe?" he asked. "Could you swear to it?" + +"Sure I could! Why couldn't I?" + +"And you couldn't tell the coroner that that man was as slim as a whip +and as dark as an Indian, about middle height and over thirty, and of a +very nervous, wiry, high-strung build." + +"Well, now I look at him close again I can see all that. But he didn't +strike me anyways particular." + +Herrick had an exasperated moment of wondering, if Joe considered Denny +commonplace, what was his idea of the salient and the vivid. Was the +whole of Joe's testimony as valueless as this? He stood now and watched +their man with wonder. Had Denny recognized him? Had he seen Joe Patrick +rooted upright there, behind his chair, with staring eyes? If so, after +that first flicker of blindness, not an eyelash betrayed him. He was +triumphantly at his ease; his part became a thing of swiftness and wit, +with the grace of flashing rapiers and of ruffling lace, so that from +the moment of his entrance the act quickened and began to glow; the man +seemed to take the limp, stuffed play up in his hand, to breathe life in +it, to set it afire, to give it wings. And all this so quietly, with +merely a light, firm motion, an eloquent tone, a live glance! He had, as +Herrick only too well remembered, a singularly winning voice, an +utterance of extraordinary distinction, with a kind of fastidious edge +to his words that seemed to cut them clear from all duller sounds. But +Herrick recalled how, after the first pleasure of hearing him speak, he +had disliked a mocking lightness which seemed to blend, now, with the +something slightly satanic of the wicked marquis whom Denny played. He +remembered Shaw's advice, "Look like a nonentity or you will get cast +for villains!" Truly, they didn't cast men like that for heroes! And in +the light of that sinister flash, Herrick was aware of vengeance rising +in him. He rejoiced to be hot on the trail, and when he and Joe parted +it was with the understanding that he was to allay suspicion by +returning to the box and Joe was to telephone the police. Rather to his +surprise the performance continued without interruption and he somehow +missed Joe as he came out. + +Now at the ungodly hour of one-thirty in the morning, Christina was +expected home. She was to take the midnight train from some Connecticut +town, and the thought of her approach began gradually to overcome, in +Herrick's mind, the thought of justice. As he walked to meet her through +the beautiful warm, windless dark, he told himself, indeed, that he had +a great piece of news for her and took counsel of her how he should +carry it to Kane. + +But when, under the night lights of the station, he saw how she was +ready to drop with fatigue, he simply changed his mind. He had +sufficiently imbibed the tone of her colleagues to feel that nothing was +so necessary as that she shouldn't be upset. It was bad enough that +to-morrow she must be told of Nancy's message and add her identification +of that curly hair; let her sleep to-night. + +In the cab she drooped against him with a simplicity of exhaustion that +was full, too, of content. "I was afraid I should never get you back!" +she said, and again, "I thought, all the evening, how you had +been--hurt; and how all that theaterful of women could see that you +were safe--and I couldn't! Do you know how I comforted myself?" And she +began to murmur into his shoulder a little scrap of song-- + + "Careless and proud, + That is their part of him-- + But the deep heart of him + Hid from the crowd!" + +"You know where my heart was!" he said. He had forgotten how large a +part of it had been excited by the apparition of Denny. + +Still humming, she drew back a little and let her look shine up to his. + + "Simple and frank, + Traitors be wise of him! + Are not the eyes of him + Pledge of his rank?" + +"Christina!" he said, humbly. "Don't!" + +"You don't like it!" she softly jeered. And though when he put her into +her mother's arms her little smile was so pitiful that it frightened +him, and he would have given anything that to-morrow night were past, +yet she turned on the stairway and cast him down, with a teasing +fondness, a final verse. + + "Vigor and tan! + Look at the strength of him! + Oh, the good length of him! + There is my man!" + +"Christina!" cried Mrs. Hope, scandalized. And Christina, with a +hysterical and weary laugh, dragged herself upstairs. + +Herrick went forth into the street bathed in the sense of her love and +with a soul that trembled at her sweetness. He was himself very +restless, and, sniffing the fresh dark, he dismissed the cab. He had +begun to be really in dread lest Christina should break down; after he +had crossed the street he turned, with anxious lingering, to look up at +her window, and he saw the light spring forth behind it as he looked. It +was so hard to leave the sense of her nearness that Herrick, like a boy, +stood still and there rose in his breast a tenderness that seemed to +turn his heart to water. He had no desire, ever again, on any blind, to +see a woman's shadow. Yet he hoped that she might come to the window to +pull this blind down; in case some one else did so for her, he stepped +backward into a little area-way in the shadow of a tall stoop. But she +did not come. The hall light went out, and then hers. He gave up, and +just then the front door opened and Christina, not having so much as +removed her hat, appeared upon the threshold. He remained quite still +with astonishment; and the girl, after glancing cautiously up and down +the street, descended the steps and set off eastward at a brisk pace. + +When she turned the corner into Central Park West, the explanation was +clear to him. In some way or another, she had got into communication +with the blackmailers and made a rendezvous which she was determined +this time to keep alone. For the first time, Herrick felt angry with +her. He had a sense of having been trifled with and he was really +frightened; now, indeed, he cursed himself for continuing to go unarmed. +He knew that it would be worse than useless to reason with her, and the +instant she was out of sight, he merely followed. Gaining the avenue, he +looked up the long line of the Park without seeing her. Ah! This time +she was going south. He went as far as he dared on the other side of the +street but he knew her ears were quick and, reaching the Park side he +vaulted the wall, and gained the shelter of the trees. + +He had scarcely done so when Christina turned sharply round; and she +continued to take this precaution every little while, but he could see +that it was a mere formality. She no longer thought herself followed and +never glanced among the trees; his steps were inaudible on the soft +turf. At the Seventy-sixth Street entrance she turned into the park; +pausing, wearily, she took off her hat and pushed up her hair with the +backs of her hands. She looked as if she were likely to drop; but then +she set off rapidly again, and Herrick prayed they would meet a +policeman. But no member of the law put in an appearance, and presently +Herrick smelled water, and knew that they were near the border of the +big lake. Under the white electric light Christina stopped and looked at +her watch; she frowned as if her heart would break; and then, in a few +steps, she paused on the threshold of a little summer-house that stood +with the lake lapping its outer edge. The doorway was faintly lighted +from an electric light outside, and Christina glanced expectantly +within. But there was no one there. She uttered a little moan of +disappointment and entering dropped onto the bench beside the lake; she +rested her elbow on the latticework and Herrick could see her dear, +outrageous, uncovered head mistily outlined against the water. + +Never in his life had he so little known what to do. A wrong step now +might precipitate untold disaster. His instinct was merely to remain +there, like a watchdog, and never take his eyes off her till the time +came for him to spring. But reason insisted that on the drive, less than +a block away, there must be policemen, and that the quicker he sought +one the better. He had not even yesterday's stick, his right arm was now +useless, and in a struggle by the water the odds against him were +doubled. Moreover, he had no reason to think that the blackmailers +intended Christina any violence. They had come to her yesterday in order +to deliver a message. This failing, they had allowed her to depart +unmolested and, on her side, her only thought was to do as they asked. +He perceived that the meeting would at least open with a parley; if he +could return with reinforcements in time to prevent foul play or to +effect a capture! But he simply could not bear to try it! And then the +nearness of the roadlights and the sense of his own extreme helplessness +overbore his instinct, and kicking off his shoes, he sped noiselessly +over grassy slopes. It seemed to him his feet were leaden; his heart +tugged at him to be back; his senses strained backward for a sound and +when he burst out on the drive he could have cursed the officer he saw +for being fifty feet away. It did not occur to him until afterwards that +if his likeness had not been in every paper in New York he might himself +have been immediately arrested. But the policeman listened with interest +to his story and then ambled out with the circumstance that the +summer-house was not on his beat, but that Herrick would find another +officer near such and such a place! With the blackness of death in his +heart, Herrick sped back as he had come, and then, hearing nothing, +slackened speed. There, still, thank God, was that dim outline of an +uncovered head against the lake! But so motionless that Herrick was +stabbed by one of those quick, insensate pangs of nightmare. Suppose +they had killed her and set her there, like that! He controlled himself; +but he was determined, now, at all hazards to get her away and stepping +into the path before the door, "Christina!" he said. + +The figure rose, and as it did so, he saw that it was not Christina at +all, but a man. A slight man, not over tall, who, as he stepped forward +toward the light, turned upon Herrick the pale, dark, restless face of +the actor, Will Denny. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DÉSIR--" + + +The men were equally startled; a very slight quiver passed over Denny's +face, but he said nothing. "Good God!" Herrick cried, "what are you +doing here?" + +"The same to you," Denny replied. + +"But Christina! Where's Miss Hope?" + +"Christina! Has she been here?" + +Herrick pushed roughly past him. There was no sign of the girl, and in a +cold apprehension, Herrick stared out over the lake. Denny's voice at +his elbow said, "She doesn't seem to float! Why not see if I've thrown +her under the bench?" + +"Why not?" Herrick savagely replied. + +The other smiled faintly. "Christina? It wouldn't be such an easy job!" + +She wasn't under the bench and Herrick hurried back into the path. + +"Go and look for her, if you like. I'll wait here." He called in a +sibilant whisper after Herrick, "You'll have to hurry. Don't yell." + +No hurry availed, but as Herrick burst out of the Park he caught a +glimpse of her back as she passed into a moving trolley car bound for +home. Only love's baser humors and blacker claims were left in him. He +knew that his dignity lay anywhere but in that little arbor, yet he +deliberately retraced his steps. Again he found Denny sitting there, and +this time the actor did not rise. But he must have been walking about +in Herrick's absence for he made a slight motion to a dark blot on the +bench near him. He said, "Are those your shoes?" + +Herrick sat down angrily and put them on, more and more exasperated even +by the dim shape of a cigar in Denny's fingers; although he was a +seething volcano of accusation he could not think of anything to say and +besides, what with emotion and with haste, he was rather breathless. So +that at last it was Denny who broke the silence with, "Well, now that +you are here, have you got a match?--Thank you!" But he did not light +it. He seemed to forget all about it as he sat there silent again in the +darkness waiting for Herrick to speak. + +When Herrick struggled with himself and would not, Denny at length +began. "I won't pretend to deny that she came here to find me. I only +deny that she did find me. I missed her, poor child. Doesn't that +content you?" + +And Herrick asked him in the strangling voice of hate, "Do you usually +have ladies meet you here? At this hour?" + +"No. That's what disturbs me. It must have been something very urgent. +She couldn't trust the telephone and she couldn't wait till morning. She +knows that now I almost never sleep, and that I can't bear to be awake +with walls around me; if I'm not careful I shall have walls around me +close enough. I come here, as Chris remembered, because--I must be +somewhere. So she chanced it. She didn't find me. I came just too late." + +Herrick rose. He felt as if he were stifling. "Do you pretend to tell +me, then, that you don't know why she came?" + +"No, I'd better not pretend that. I suppose I know why she came." He +added, very low, in his clear voice, "I suppose she came to warn me." + +"Warn you? Of what?" + +"Come, do I need to tell you that? Her mother must have told her that +you recognized me to-night and that the elevator boy recognized me, too, +and told you." + +"You saw all that?" + +"I saw all that." + +"And did nothing?" + +"What could I do?" + +"You've had time, since the performance, to get away!" + +"Where to?" asked Denny. + +If it was the simplicity of despair it affected the distraught and +baffled Herrick like the simplicity of some subtle and fiendish triumph. +Not for nothing had he observed the calm of the French marquis. Taking a +violent hold on himself, "Do you realize--" he demanded, "what you're +admitting?" + +"The mark of Cain?" said the other, with his faint smile. "Oh, yes!" + +Herrick incredulously demanded, "You don't deny it?" + +"Deny it? Why, yes, I deny it. I'm not looking for trouble and I deny it +absolutely. But what then? Will anybody believe me? Between friends, do +you believe me? Well--what's the use?" + +"You've no proofs? No defense?" + +"None whatever!--And I've been playing villains here for four years! My +dear fellow, don't blush! I'm complimented to find that you, too, are +hit by that impression. And I shan't tell Christina!" + +"If I could see by what damned theatrical trick you go about admitting +all this!" + +Denny seemed to take no offense. "I'm indifferent to who knows it. I'm +tired out." + +Herrick flounced impatiently and, "But season your solicitude awhile," +the other added. "Remember that even to you I don't admit my--what's the +phrase? My guilt! And legally I shall never admit it." + +"You merely 'among friends' allow its inference?" + +"If you like." + +"You don't seem very clear in your own mind!" + +"Clear?" The brilliance of his eyes searched Herrick's face with a +singular, quick, sidelong glance for which he did not turn his head. +Then the glance drooped heavily to earth and Herrick could just hear him +add, in a voice that fell like a stone, "No--pit-murk!" He sat there +with his elbows on his knees and seemed to stare at the loose droop of +his clasped hands. He said, "I shall never play Hamlet. But at least I +am like him in one thing; I do not hold my life at a pin's fee." + +"Good God!" Herrick burst forth. "Do you think it's you I care about?" + +The other man replied softly into the darkness, "You mean, I've +implicated Christina?" + +"You've admitted that she knows--and shields you!" + +"So she does, poor girl! But don't think I shall put either Chris or me +to the horrors of a trial. I seem to have given some proof that I carry +a revolver. And I haven't the least fear of being taken alive." + +"I care nothing about you!" Herrick repeated. "What I want to understand +is why Miss Hope should shield you--if she is shielding you. Why she +should come here, in the middle of the night, to warn you? Whoever shot +Ingham was mixed up with everything that's rotten--with blackmail--with +the disappearance of that girl--" + +"O!" Denny had perceptibly winced. But then he said, "I don't confess to +all the crimes in the decalogue! For instance, Mr. Herrick, I am +perfectly guiltless of those rude--ah--ornamentations on your own brow." +He laughed outright. "How could I face Chris?" he said. + +Herrick jumped at him with an oath and bore him, by pure force of +weight, back against the lattice. His hand was on Denny's throat and it +was a moment before Denny could tear it away. When he had done so, he +said nothing; he continued to sit there as if nothing had happened; and +Herrick, a little ashamed, sulked at him, "Don't speak of her like that, +then!" He walked to the door of the arbor and back, facing Denny and +controlling himself, with his hands in his pocket. "There's been enough +of this," he said, through his teeth. "I've got to know now--what's she +to do with you? What's it to her, if you're caught? How, in the first +place, did she ever come to know such a secret? Why should you confide +it to _her_?" + +He was aware of Denny lifting his eyes and looking at him steadily +through the half-dark. "I'll tell you why, if you'll sit down. I've done +a hard night's work and, at any rate, I don't care to shout." + +Herrick dropped down beside him and Denny struck his match. "Smoke?" he +queried. Herrick shook his head and again, by the light of the little +flame, Denny stared gravely into his set and haggard face. "Is it so +much as that to you?" he said. "Well, then, I never told Christina. +Nothing--whether I was innocent or guilty. I didn't need to. There was +a--friend of hers in the room when it was done. But here's my connection +with the thing. You don't know, I suppose, that two months ago, I +expected to marry Nancy Cornish?" + +"I might have known it!" Herrick said. + +"I don't see why! Unless you've observed that the sweetest women are +born with a natural kindness for cads. I was perfectly sure that she +loved me. I used to meet her here"--Herrick started--"and take her out +in a boat and all that, as if I were a boy,--she was _so_ young! Well, +then I displeased her and she sent me to the right about. It was hard. I +don't know if you're too happy and too virtuous to see that when another +woman was good to me, then, I fell in what it pleases us to call love +with her. It came and passed, like fever. No matter. She belonged +legally, at that time, to another man, but she swore to me she would get +free and marry me--yes, I believed she loved me, too, if you can swallow +that! You see, there were no limits to my complacency! There were +certain things I couldn't help but know, and she accounted for them all, +to me, by a dreadful tale of ill-usage when she was just growing up--a +man of the world, older than she, her first love, promise of marriage, +desertion, the horrors after it; how she had been forced to accept the +first chance of respectability--but now--for love of me--All the old +story! She never would tell me that man's name. She pretended to hate +him and fear him, and I lashed myself into such a rage against him, and +the insults with which she said he was following her again, that I +hardly saw the streets I walked through. The afternoon before the +shooting Nancy called me up; she said she had something to tell me, and +asked me to meet her at the old place in the Park at five o'clock. It +was cruel hard, because now I'd doubly lost her. I was sick of myself +and the whole world. It was touch and go with me. I sat here, waiting, +waiting--if she'd brought her goodness, her freshness, her gentleness +even within hailing distance of me, then, they might have shed a little +sanity on me as she passed." + +"And Christina?" Herrick persisted. + +"Well--this other woman was Christina's friend. That day that Nancy +didn't come I had a dress rehearsal, and Christina and this other woman +dined with me, just before that. She said, then, for the first time that +Ingham was the man she had told me of. She said she told me now because +it was he who had sent Nancy away; that Nancy was afraid of me because +he and she--I went straight for him after rehearsal. They didn't expect +me. And up there, in that room with Ingham, I found that other woman. +Would anybody believe in my innocence after that? Ought I to be +innocent? 'Deny it?' No, on the whole, I'd better not deny it!' That's +all!" + +They were both silent. Then through his groping thoughts Herrick could +hear Denny half-humming a catch of song whose words were instantly +familiar. + + "Je suis aussi sans désir + Autre que d'en bien finir-- + Sans regret, sans repentir, + Sans espoir ni crainte--" + +"Without regret, without repentance--Repentance? Surely! But--without +regret? He asked a good deal, that lad! You ought to like my little +song--it was taught me by the erudite Christina." + +"Where's that woman, now?" + +"Ah!" said Denny, "that's her secret." + +"And Christina?" said Herrick, again. + +"Christina and I are very old chums; aside from the Deutches I am the +oldest friend she has. It was I got Wheeler to go West and see her. I +was in the first company she ever joined, when she was just a tall, slim +kid--sixteen, I think--and I was twenty-six. We've worked together, and +won together and--gone without together. I had been at it for eight +years when she first went on; and I taught her all I knew; when I got +into the moving pictures for a summer I worked her in--" + +Herrick started. "The best friend Christina ever had!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh!" said the other. "Thank you!" Herrick was aware of his quaint +smile. "Yes, I suppose I might be called that!" + +"I was told--I was led to believe you were an older man." + +"Ah, that's one of Christina's sweetest traits--she colors things so +prettily! She can't help it! But you see, now, don't you, that she'd +never give me away? Chris would shield her friends as long as she had +breath for a lie. She's pretended a quarrel with me all these weeks, +because, thinking the police were following her, she didn't want them to +find me. She's kept you from knowing people who might speak of me. She's +had but the one thought since the beginning; and that was to save my +life. But she's in love with you, and she can't lie to you any +longer--you'll see. Besides, she thinks she can make you our accomplice; +that because you're a friend of hers, you're a friend of mine. She has +still her innocences, you see, and, in the drama, so many lovers behave +so handsomely." The ring had died out of his voice; but he went on, with +a kind of rueful amusement, spurring himself to be persuasive, "Come, +now, stop thinking of what would influence you, and try to think of what +would influence Chris! Do you think she'd like to see Wheeler hanged?" + +"Wheeler!" + +"Well, allow me to put forward that Chris thinks me quite as good an +actor as Wheeler, with the double endearment of not being so well +appreciated by outsiders!" He leaned forward with an intent flash. "If +you think she wouldn't stand by me, you don't know her!" + +"And is that the reason," asked Herrick, "why you left her in the +lurch?" He was aware of behaving like a quarrelsome old woman, now that +he had a probable murderer on his hands and didn't quite know what to do +with him. The man must feel singularly safe. There was something at once +annoying and disarming in his passiveness, and Herrick drove home this +question with a voice as hard as a blow. "Was it because you could play +on the loyalty and courage of a romantic girl, that, when you were +likely to be suspected, you ran away and left her to bear the public +accusation?" + +Denny answered, with that gentleness which Herrick found offensive, "I +didn't run far." + +"You've been filling her, too, I suppose, with this cock and bull +melodrama of suicide if you're arrested?" + +He had touched a live nerve. "Would it be less melodramatic to crave +that other exit--have my head shaved so that the apparatus could be +fitted on--let them take half an hour strapping me into an electric +chair! Do you think that would be soothing to her? No, thank you! Or do +you want me to hide and run, to twist and duck and turn and be caught in +the end?--I can't help your calling me a coward," Denny said, "and I +dare say I am a coward. A jump over the edge I could manage well enough. +But 'to sit in solemn silence, in a dark, dank dock, awaiting the +sensation of a short, sharp shock--'" He seemed to rein in his voice in +the darkness. "If I were even sure of that! But to be shut up for life, +for twenty years, death every minute of them! To be starved and +degraded, pawed over and mishandled by bullies--" He shuddered with a +violence that seemed to snap his breath; even his eyebrows gave a +convulsive twitch, as if he felt something crawling over his face. And, +rising, he went across to the entrance of the arbor and stood leaning in +the doorway, looking out. + +Herrick did not want him to get away and at the same time he did not +want to bring about any crisis until he had seen Christina. He thought +Denny's explanation of her attitude only too probable. "I've known the +dearest fellows in the world--the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were all like poor Christina--fidgety things, nervous +and on edge." Was she thinking of Denny then? "Oblige me by staying +where you are!" he said to Denny's back. Denny turned the grim delicacy +of his pale face to smile at him and the smile maddened Herrick. He went +on, "You must see yourself I can't let you go! Will you come to my +rooms for to-night, and in the morning Miss Hope can tell me if this +story's true!" + +Denny walked slowly out and stood smoking in the center of the pathway, +under the tall electric light. He was far from a happy-looking man, and +yet he looked as if he were going to laugh. "And what then?" he asked. + +"Then I shall know if this isn't all a bid for sympathy. Whether there's +really any other woman beside this Nancy Cornish--" + +Denny wheeled suddenly round on him. + +"Or whether you don't know more of her--" + +"Damn you!" Denny said. "You fool,--" He had come close to Herrick and +then remembering the limp hang of Herrick's arm, he paused. And as he +paused a man stepped out from among the trees and touched him on the +shoulder. + +He wheeled round; there were two men behind him. They were in plain +clothes but the man who had touched Denny showed a shield. "Come along! +You're wanted at headquarters." + +Denny stood quiet, breathing a little rapidly. "Let me see your +warrant," he said, and he took two steps backward to get it under the +light. So that before any one could stop him, he had whipped out a +revolver, put the end of the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. + +There was a little click before the man could jump on him and then +another; and then Herrick heard the steel cuffs snap over his wrists. +The man with the shield drew back, and grinning, shook into his palm +what were not even blank cartridges but only careful imitations. "The +next time you rely on a gun," he said, "you want to look out for that +valet of yours!" + +Denny was standing with his heavy hair shaken by the struggle about his +eyes; one of the men obligingly pushed it back with the edge of Denny's +straw hat which he picked up and put on Denny's head. "Come! Get a gait +on us," said the man with the star. + +Denny said, aloud, "You overheard those last remarks for which this +gentleman raised his voice?" + +"Rather!" the three grinned. + +"Ah, well, then there is certainly no more to be said." He nodded +agreeably to Herrick, and then between his captors, walked lightly and +quickly off, into the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT + + +Daylight was in the streets when Herrick got to bed, sure he should not +close his eyes; then he was wakened only by the cries of the newsboys +underneath his windows, calling, as if it had been an extra--"Ingham +Murderer Arrested! Murderer Arrested! Popular Actor Arrested in the +Ingham Murder!" + +Herrick tumbled into his clothes and bought a paper on his way to a very +late breakfast at the Pilgrims', where he had a card. In the account of +the arrest he himself figured as something between a police decoy and an +accomplice in crime, but Christina's midnight sally remained unknown and +he breathed freer. Now that she was to be kept out of it, he could but +admire the quiet good sense with which the police had gone about their +business. While those more closely concerned had dashed and bewildered +themselves against their own points of view like blind, flying beetles, +the police had simply made haste to ascertain if Nancy Cornish had a +lover. She had been engaged to Denny; a recent coolness between them had +been common gossip; and, since Nancy's disappearance, their common +friend, Christina Hope, had kept aloof from Denny, as though embracing +her friend's quarrel or suspecting her friend's sweetheart. It now +transpired for the first time that the police had dug further into that +evidence of Mrs. Willing's which Ten Euyck's eagerness to turn it +against Christina had left undeveloped. Mrs. Willing had heard a man's +voice which she did not think to be Ingham's, call out loudly and very +clearly, "Ask--" somebody or something the name of which was unfamiliar +to her, and which she had forgotten until later events had violently +recalled it--"Ask Nancy Cornish." + +Herrick did not read any further till he was seated and had given his +order to a friendly waiter. There were some men at a table near him; it +seemed to him that everybody in the room was talking of the arrest and +as a matter of fact most of them were talking of it. He had an uneasy +desire to know how Christina appeared in her own world's version. But +she remained there the friend of Denny, and of the girl over whom Ingham +and Denny must have quarreled. When he looked at the paper again, he +read that on the night in question by no less a person than Theodore +Bird, Denny had been seen to enter Ingham's apartment! + +Yes, the tremulous Theodore, despite his wife's particular instructions +that he should keep out of it, had called at headquarters and delivered +up the fact that at one o'clock or thereabouts, when he was just on the +point of retiring, he had heard what sounded like a ring at his +door-bell. But he had opened the door only a crack because the wires +between his apartment and Ingham's were apt to get crossed, and, indeed, +this was what had happened in the present case. He had seen a man +standing there, at Ingham's door; and Theodore, safe behind his crack, +his constitution being not entirely devoid of rubber, had taken a good +look; had seen Ingham fling wide his door, and the stranger enter. On +being asked if he could identify this stranger, he said he was certain +of it. Confronted with photographs of a dozen men he had unhesitatingly +selected Denny's. + +The police had delayed Denny's arrest in the hope of finding him in +correspondence with Nancy Cornish. Sure of their man, they had given him +rope to hang himself. But Joe Patrick's recognition, which, at any +moment, he might reveal to the suspected man, had forced their hand. +They did not add that until yesterday they had never connected Denny or +Nancy with the blackmailing letters, but Herrick now added it for them; +and he saw how Nancy's message, with its suggestion of the girl's peril, +had forced it, too. + +He deduced that, by the summer-house, they had not been able to overhear +anything until Denny had gone to the doorway and Herrick had raised his +voice. He read, finally, how, while Denny was changing for the street, +after the performance, his dresser had managed to unload and reload the +revolver. The number of the cartridge used in it was the same as that of +the bullet taken from Ingham's body. + +Up to the last line of the article Herrick kept a hope that Denny had +given some clue of Nancy's whereabouts but the police were obliged to +admit that the young man had proved a mighty tough customer. "He has +undergone six hours of as stiff an examination as Inspector Corrigan has +ever put a prisoner through and nothing whatever save the barest denial +has been got out of him. However, the Inspector is confident that in the +near future--" There was something in this last statement which made +Herrick slightly sick. He hoped Christina had not seen it. + +He understood well enough the weakness and blankness of Denny's account +of himself. The young man denied the murder much more definitely than he +had troubled himself to deny it to Herrick, but with the same listless +lack of hope and even of conviction. He made no secret of his having +gone to Ingham's room with the intention of shooting him, though he +asserted that Ingham had proved false the story which had occasioned +their quarrel and he had gone away again--that was all. Expect to be +believed? Of course he didn't expect to be believed! On the reason of +their quarrel he remained mute. To all further questions, such as what +other visitors Ingham had that night, he opposed the blankest, +smoothest ignorance. And Herrick, filling out the blanks, was still +impatient of the reticence which left it possible for any woman of the +men's mutual acquaintance to be taken for the woman of the shadow. No +effort for the good name of another woman justified to him the suspicion +and the suffering that Christina had already been allowed to endure. +Denny's guilt he did not and he could not doubt, but he might have +respected a guilt which, after so strong a provocation, had instantly +given itself up. Such an avowal might have kept further silence with the +highest dignity and Herrick wondered why an actor, of all people, could +not see that that would have been even the popular course. Then he heard +another actor, a much handsomer and more stalwart person, remark, "I +always said, poor chap, that he hadn't the physique for a hero!" + +"Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of the +affair had been discussed, "what I've always said is--Strung on wires! +He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your star +and your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of the +stage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, and +everybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say it +again--Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remark +met the occasion fully at every point. + +And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrick +discovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathy +for Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrow +night. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of them +extolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessing +what the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made the +management's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemed +to feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, that +Denny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment. + +So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suited +Herrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be kept +out of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one was +excited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hope +was a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long as +possible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning of +the night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You're +please to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!" + +With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown into +the office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW + + +The only professional appearance which Wheeler had hitherto permitted +Christina to make in New York had been when she recited at a benefit +early in the preceding spring. The benefit was for the families of some +policemen who had perished valiantly in the public service and when +Christina had enlisted the Ingham influence in the cause Wheeler had +made the whole affair appear of her contriving. To procure herself an +interview with Denny in the Inspector's office before the formalities of +the Tombs should close about him she had not scrupled to make use of +this circumstance, and whether because it combined with her having +business there, in the identification of Nancy's message, or because the +Inspector believed she could really influence Denny to talk, as she said +she could, or because he wanted to watch them together, or, after all, +because she was one of those who get what she desired, there she was. + +Herrick was no longer at a loss to account for a sort of tickled +admiration which admitted him as one at least near the rose. She had +evidently been treated with the consideration due the chief mourner, +whatever one may think of the corpse; the Inspector, over by the window, +had made himself inconspicuous and for a moment Herrick saw only +Christina--a Christina wholly baffled and at a loss! She had, indeed, +that air of having spent her life in the office which was her +distinguishing characteristic in any atmosphere. Her hat was, as usual, +anywhere but on her head; she had stripped off her gloves and tossed +them into it. But she now sat in an attitude of despairing quiet which +she broke on Herrick's entrance only to catch his arm with one hand; +turning her face in upon his sleeve, "Bryce," she moaned, "I brought him +to this!" + +Then he saw that Denny was standing looking through the barred window +with his back to them. When he turned Herrick had to struggle against a +touch of sympathy for the change in his appearance. Although he had +never seen Denny in the daylight before, there was no denying that he +was only the worn ghost of what he had been last night. His slenderness +had the broken droop of physical and emotional exhaustion; beneath the +intense black of his hair, his face was the color of ashes and his +quick, brilliant eyes looked lifeless and burned out. Nevertheless, +Herrick preferred the daytime version. The sort of evil phosphorescence +of the French marquis which had continued to dazzle his eyes in the +darkness and the sharp electric light, had wholly vanished; Denny was +not playing a villain now--and in the blue serge suit of ordinary life, +there was something almost boyish in him. + +"He won't help me, Bryce," Christina said. "He won't tell me anything, +he won't say anything. He won't even tell me what lawyer he wants." + +Denny stood with his eyes fixed on his visitors but in an abstraction +which seemed to take no note of them; and Christina went on to Herrick, +as to a more sympathetic audience. "I tell him he shall have the best +lawyers in the world! He shan't be tormented any longer; he shall have +the law to look out for him! He'll be all right, won't he, Bryce, won't +he? If he'll only help himself! If he'll only say something!" Her voice +rose desperately and broke. "Tell him you're simply _for_ him, as I +am--that's what I brought you here for! Tell him we're with him, both of +us, all the world to nothing, and that we urge him to anything he can +say or do to help himself! And that it will never make any difference +to--either of us!" When Herrick had made out to say that Christina's +friends were his friends, she went up to Denny and took him by the +shoulders. "Don't you understand? I want to speak not only for myself, +but for all those dear to me!" + +Denny broke into a nervous laugh, but he said nothing. + +Herrick guessed that his denial of his guilt had taken Christina wholly +by surprise; that she had relied greatly on the story of his provocation +and that now she did not know what to do. That it is not seemly for +young ladies to display such extreme emotion over gentlemen to whom they +are not related and who have had the misfortune to be imprisoned for +murder did not cross her mind. She was now reduced to a sort of +hysterical practicality in which, for lack of the treacherous valet, she +enlisted Herrick to discuss with a surprised Inspector what clothes and +furnishings of Denny's she would be allowed to have packed up and sent +to the Tombs--"What ought I to do to make them like me there? Oh, yes, +Bryce, it makes a difference everywhere! I mustn't wear a veil; and I +must get them plenty of passes. It's a pity we can't pretend to be +engaged--it would interest every one so!--How about money, Will?" + +"I've plenty, thanks." + +"Most ladies don't think beyond flowers!" contrasted the Inspector, in +amused admiration. + +Exasperated beyond endurance, Herrick heard himself launch the sickly +pleasantry, "Any use for flowers, Mr. Denny?" + +"Not before the funeral," Denny said. + +She shook him a little in her eagerness. "Books. And tobacco. And things +to drink. And the best food. And magazines. And all the newspapers." +Christina clung to the items like a child trying to comfort itself. +"Or--perhaps--not the newspapers--" + +Denny flung restlessly out of her hands. "Oh, yes," he said, "the +newspapers, please! Let me at least know how I am admired." He went back +to staring out of the window; he seemed so little interested in his +visitors that it was as though he had left them alone. + +Christina stood looking at him with an infinite pity. She was not crying +but her magnificent eyes swam in a sort of luminous ether and Herrick +had never seen her so girlishly helpless.--"Knowing me brought him to +this!" + +"Don't talk like a fool, Christina!" Denny interrupted over his shoulder +in his dead-and-alive voice. + +"It's true. If you'd never known me, or if I'd never engaged myself to +Jim--" + +"Or if I'd never been born. It's just as true and just about as +relevant." His absent voice died in his throat. Then, of a sudden, he +turned on her with a kind of restive suspicion. "What did you say, +awhile ago, about Kane's office?" + +"He's sent for me to come there to-morrow at two." + +"Well, whatever you begin telling him, remember there's one thing I +can't put up with. And that's--Well, anything less than--the full dose." +He came up to the girl and took her hand in his cold fingers. "And I +implore you, Christina, whatever you do, not to set such a motion on +foot, not to work up any sympathies nor bring forward any circumstances +which might lead to what they call a merciful sentence. I couldn't stand +it, Chris. It's the one thing I can't bear.--Oh, don't cry, don't cry! +Come, my dear! Why, you surely don't want me to live--like this! With +nothing to think of except--about Nancy! Well, then!" But Christina was +visibly gasping for breath and, in a nature easily drawn together +against a world harsh or indifferent, all the defenses against feeling +began to give way. Some comfort must be found for those that insist upon +caring! But what comfort?--"Ah now, Chris, dear old girl, such a brave +girl--it's all right. It's bound to be. Why, it's what I want, really. +Really it is. You know that. You know I've been pretty well through, all +these weeks, isn't that so?--Oh, take her away, won't you?" he cried to +Herrick. + +But Christina had by this time begun to cry, indeed, and now she threw +her arms round Denny's neck, pulled down his face and kissed him. "To +leave you here!" she wept. + +For a moment he stood stiff in her embrace and then he gently returned +her kiss; suddenly, with a sobbing breath, he caught her by the +shoulders as a man clings to something tried and dear, which he knows he +may not often see again. "Poor Chris!" he said. "All right, Chris!" + +The Inspector signed to the doorman who stepped up, pleasantly enough, +to Denny, and at his touch Denny took the girl by her elbows and held +her off. + +"Come," he said, "you've got a performance to-night!" + +"Oh, God help me!" Christina cried. "How am I to go through with it!" + +"Why," said Denny, quickly, "do it for me! Don't let me wreck everything +I touch!" He looked at Herrick as though to say, "Be good to her--she's +only a girl! You needn't fear she can help me!" And aloud he continued, +"Look here, Christina, you mustn't fail. You're my friend, to pull me +through and make friends for me, isn't that so? Well, then, you mustn't +be a nobody! If you're going to get me out of here, you've got to be a +celebrity, and move worlds. Well, you've got nothing but to-night to do +it with. People like us, my dear, we've nothing but ourselves to fight +with, just ourselves! Come, get yourself together and pull it off +to-night! For me!" Over her head his miserable eyes besought Herrick to +take her away while she could believe this. But the girl, straightening +up, held out her hand. Denny took it and "All right," she said, "I +will!" As they stood thus, a door from within the building opened and +there was admitted no less a person than Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +Christina was standing between him and Denny. The eyes of the two men +met and slashed like whips. Herrick never needed to be told whose was +the hand that long ago, for Christina's sake, had struck Ten Euyck. Now +Denny said in a quick undertone, "Don't fret, old girl!" And the guard +took him away. + +The newcomer looked rather more frozen than usual; he was surprised and +he did not take kindly to surprises. "It seems to be my fate to +interrupt! Mr. Herrick, don't you feel de trop?" + +He indulged himself in this discomforting question while his byplay of +glances was really saying to Inspector Corrigan, "What are all these +people doing here?" and Corrigan's was replying, "None of your +business!" There was evidently no love lost between the types, +particularly when the first glance persisted, "You got nothing out of +him?" And the second was obliged to admit, "Nothing!"--"But I implore +your toleration," Ten Euyck continued to Christina, "I can perhaps do +you some service for the prisoner with Inspector Corrigan." + +"The prisoner thanks you, as I do. But we have played in melodrama and +we are acquainted with the practice of poisoned bouquets. Inspector +Corrigan and I are doing very well as we are!" + +"You are unkind and, believe me, you are unwise. I really wish to please +you--do you find that so unnatural?--and to justify myself in your +regard. I want to begin by advising you not to let your friend's +melodramatic silence suggest to the public that he is going to hide +behind some story of a woman--" + +"He is very foolishly trying to keep a woman's name out of his story," +Christina clearly and boldly declared. + +"Nonsense! There is no such person!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because if there were he would be only too anxious to get her to come +forward and tell the jury what she told him. It might get him off." + +"How do you know what she told him?" + +"My dear lady, they all tell the same thing. It seems to those who are +interested--" + +"It seems nothing whatever but a chance to divert yourself with what you +consider his disgrace, because the idea of disgrace comes natural to +you--and, indeed, to you, in his presence, it should do so! But I rely +on Inspector Corrigan to limit your diversions. His favors are the +favors of a practical man; neither he nor I are fortune's darlings; we +both work for our living and we both understand one another.--I ought to +say that I am sorry to be rude. But I am not sorry, I rejoice. While +there was a suspicion for you to nose out I was afraid of you. But now I +am free of you. If I were your poor mother," cried Christina, catching +up her hat, "I should pray you were ever in a disgrace that did you so +much honor!" + +This outburst produced a silence: Inspector Corrigan amused and +gratified, Inspector Ten Euyck struggling to appear amused and tolerant. +In fact, as Christina, still breathing fire, drew on her gloves, he +became so very easy and happy as to hum a little tune. The words +instantly fitted themselves to it in Herrick's mind. + + "Je suis aussi sans désir + Autre que d'en bien finir--" + +"That's very charming!" said Christina, in the tone of a person always +governed by amiability. "Where did you hear that?" + +"I don't really know. I'll trace it for you, if that will make my +peace." + +"Thank you, no.--Then you think," said Christina, sharply to both +officials, "that it would do him great good if this woman, whether he's +innocent or guilty, should come forward of her own accord, and repeat +the story of her trouble as she repeated it to him?" + +"Undoubtedly!" + +"Well, then, she shall!" + +"Christina!" + +"Miss Hope!" + +Christina was inexpressibly grave; she trembled a little, but her voice +was firm. "What must be, must be!" she said. + +"But, Miss Hope, in person?" + +"In person, yes." + +"But how, when, where?" + +"Very simply. On Friday. At the office of the District Attorney." + +"And you can be certain of this?" + +"I can." + +"You know who she is then?" + +"Most assuredly I do." + +"Mr. Herrick's terrible shadow?" + +"Oh, she needn't bring her shadow, need she?" Christina said. + +Ten Euyck, who was just leaving the building, turned and looked at her; +there was always a covert, sullen admiration in his glances at her. "I'm +glad to see your spirits are improving. It's now you who are singing!" + +"'Auld acquaintance'--a sad enough song! But my Nancy's favorite! Don't +begrudge it me, Inspector Ten Euyck; it reminds all who love her of kind +hours. '_Should_ auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?' +Good-by, Mr. Ten Euyck." The outside door closed after him, and she said +to the Inspector, "There is something you wish me to identify?" + +"Here we are!" said the Inspector. "The experts say she wrote it!" + +Christina looked at the four words a long time. The tears rose in her +eyes again. "Yes. She did." She turned to Herrick. "This was what I came +to tell Will last night. My mother had just told me. But now that he's +helpless, he mustn't know!" + +"Well?" said the Inspector, and he handed Christina the red lock of +curly hair. + +She took it a little gingerly; studying it, as it lay in the palm of her +hand. "Of course, one could be deceived," she said, slowly. "But it's +either her hair or it's exactly like it." She lifted the curl and held +it to the light. She untied the string which bound it, and thinning it +out in her fingers spread it to a soft flame of color. "Oh, surely, it's +her hair--oh, poor little girl!" she cried, and crossed by a sudden +shiver, she let the hair fall from her hand. Swifter than the men about +her she gathered it up again, and again stood studying the tumbled and +scattered little mass. And then Herrick saw a terrible change come over +her face--an immense amazement, mingled almost at once with passionate +incredulity; slowly, the incredulity gave way to conviction and to fear; +and then there swept upon Christina's face a blaze of such anger as +Herrick had never seen in a woman's eyes. + +"What is it?" they all cried to her. + +She opened her lips, as if to call it forth; but then she seemed to lose +her breath, and, all at once, she slipped down in a dead faint at their +feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE + + +If the police believed Christina when she revived enough to say that it +had seemed to her as if the hair were soaked in blood it was more than +Herrick did. He only wondered that they let her go and if they were +perhaps not spreading a net about her as they had spread one about +Denny. + +But thereafter she was very composed, allowed herself to be taken +quietly home, and took a sedative so as to get some sleep. Herrick came +in from an errand at four and found the house subdued to the ordinary +atmosphere--high-pressured enough in itself--of the house of an actress +before a big first night. + +Down in the drawing-room Mrs. Hope said they must not talk about +anything exciting or Christina would be sure to feel it. But she herself +seemed to feel that the fact of her coming appearance in the Inghams' +box was about the only satisfactory piece of calmness in connection with +her daughter's future. She congratulated herself anew upon the outcome +of an old bout with Christina in which the girl had wished to go to +supper afterward with Wheeler rather than with the devoted Inghams, and +in which Mrs. Hope had unwontedly conquered. She said now that she +wished she had spoken to the Inghams about inviting Herrick; it could +have been arranged so easily. + +When Christina came in she allowed herself to be fondly questioned as to +how she felt and even to be petted and pitied. She was perhaps no more +like a person in a dream than she would have been before the same +occasion if Ingham had never been shot; when she spoke at all she varied +between the angelic and the snappish; and before very long she excused +herself and went to her room. She was to have a light supper sent up and +Mrs. Hope adjured Herrick not to worry! + +He duly sent his roses and his telegram of good wishes, but that she +could really interest herself in the play at such a time seemed horrible +to him and he arrived at the theater still puzzled and rather resentful +of the intrusion of this unreal issue. + +But the first thrill of the lighted lobby, glowing and odorous with the +stands of Christina's flowers; the whirr of arriving motors; the shining +of jeweled and silken women with bare shoulders and softly pluming hair; +the expectant crowd; the managerial staff, in sacrificial evening dress, +smiling nervously, catching their lips with their teeth; the busy +movements of uniformed ushers; the clapping down of seats; the high, +light chatter, a little forced, a little false, sparkling against the +memory of those darker issues that clung about Christina's skirts; the +whole, thrilling, judging, waiting house; all this began to affect +Herrick like strong drink on jaded nerves. From his seat in the third +row he observed Mrs. Hope and the Inghams take their places; the +attention of the audience leaped like lightning on them. Just then one +man came into the box opposite and drawing his chair into its very +front, sat down. It was Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +Herrick forgot him quickly enough. It was a real play, acted by real +artists; the production held together by a master hand; and it continued +to string up Herrick's nerves even while to himself he scarcely seemed +to notice it. He had had no idea that it would be so terrible to live +through the moment of Christina's entrance. He sat with his eyes on his +program, suffering her nervousness, feeling under what an awful handicap +she was waiting there, the other side of that painted canvas, to lose +or win. There was the wracking suspense of waiting for her, and then, as +in a dream, the sound of her voice. Her dear, familiar voice! She was +there! She was there; radiant, unshadowed, exulting in the flood of +light, at home, at ease; softly, shyly, proudly bending to the swift +welcome and carrying, after that, the hearts of the audience in her +hand. She had only to go on, now, from triumph to triumph; her sun swam +to the meridian and blazed there with a splendid light. Mrs. Hope with +lowered eyes, breathed deep of a success that passed her dreams; Ten +Euyck, compressing his lips, his arms folded, never took his eyes from +Christina's face. And Bryce Herrick, watching her move, watching her +speak, not accepting this, as did the public, for a gift from heaven, +but aware to the bone of its being all made ground, of the art that had +lifted her as it were from off the wrack into this divine power of +breathing and creating loveliness, could have dropped down before her +and begged to be forgiven. + +Who was he to have judged her?--to-day or last night? to have exacted +from her a line of conduct? to have tried to force upon her the motives +and the standards of tame, of ordinary women? He remembered having often +smiled, however tenderly, at her pretensions; not having taken quite +seriously her attitude to her work. And here was a genius of the first +order, whose gifts and whose beauty would remain a happy legend in the +hearts of men when he was dust; whose name youth would carry on its lips +for inspiration when no one would care that he had ever been born! Oh, +dear and beautiful Diana who had stooped to a mortal! For this was the +secret thrill that ran like wildfire through the homage of his +heart--the knowledge that she loved him, and the feel of her lips on +his! + +Let them worship, poor creatures, poor mob! Unknowing and unguessing +that between him and her there was a bond that crossed the +footlights--the memory of a dark room and firelight, a girl in his +arms.--"Bryce dear, are we engaged? You haven't said?--I've wanted +you--Oh, how I've wanted you--all my life!"--At the end of the +performance it was impossible not to try to see her; not to get a word +with her, to confess and to have absolution. + +But at the stage-door there were so many people that he could not have +endured to share his minute with them. He knew the Babel that it must be +inside, and he decided to wait here; by-and-by the Inghams wouldn't +grudge him a moment. They seemed to stay forever; but at last all were +gone but two or three, and he decided to send in his card. As he stepped +forward the door opened, and Christina, in the oblong of light, stood +drawing on her gloves. + +She was dressed as if for a coronation and not even upon the stage had +the effulgence of her beauty seemed so drawn together for conquest. Her +long white gown had threads of silver in it; the white cloak thrown back +from her shoulders did not conceal her lovely throat nor the long string +of diamonds that to Herrick's amazement were twisted round her neck and +fell down along her breast; she carried on one arm a great white sheaf +of orchids, and Iphigenia led to the sacrifice was surely not so pale. + +Upon her appearance the closed motor which had been waiting across the +street swept into place. It was a magnificent car, lined with white; the +little curtains at the windows were drawn back and a low electric lamp +showed the swinging vases of orchids and white violets. Christina turned +her eyes from it till they met Herrick's; for a moment they widened as +if galvanized, and then, with a sweet, icy bow, she went right past him. +A man who had jumped out of the motor got in after her, and closed the +door. It was the man who had sat all alone in the stage box; Cuyler Ten +Euyck. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS + + +There are violences to nature in which she is reined up so suddenly that +after them we are left stupid rather than unhappy. In such a mood of +held-in turmoil Herrick walked home and waited for to-morrow. His +appointment with Christina was at twelve, noon, and until noon he +struggled not to think at all. Anything was better than thought; yet +nothing would now answer save security--security past, present and +future--a full understanding of her life, of her trouble, of her +actions, of what game she was playing and of what part in it she was +ready to give him. By-and-by the wound began to throb, but he merely +kept it closed with a firm hand. Till noon to-morrow! + +With the morning the papers he had ordered, in a time that seemed long +ago, came to his door; he found himself opening them, and tracing the +dazzling streams of Christina's notices. Their flaming praises left him +cold; already they seemed to be written about some one whom he did not +know. + +Here, at any rate, was a Christina Hope with whom he could imagine +parting. The greatness of her destiny was full upon her; she seemed +ringed with a cold fire, brilliant as the golden collar of the world and +passible, perhaps, by Cuyler Ten Euycks, but hardly by a young literary +man from the country. Never again, whether she wished or no, could she +be quite the same girl in the gray gown who had sat in a corner of the +coroner's office beside her mother. Hermann Deutch's Miss Christina had +become one of the great successes of all time. And Herrick shrank a +little at the loud clang of her fame. + +He was going that morning to the Ingham offices at ten o'clock to sign +his contract. The day was oppressively warm, with hot glints of +sunshine, and it seemed to Herrick that the bright, feverish streets +swarmed with the rumors of Christina's triumph. He wondered if it had +got in to that man in jail and acquainted him with the strange +difference in their fates. His contract meant nothing to him; he got +away as soon as he could. Yet already the atmosphere was changed, the +sky was overcast, and as the clocks about Herald Square struck eleven, a +warm, dusty wind, even now bearing heavy drops of rain, swept down the +street. If Herrick took a car he would reach the Hopes a good half hour +too early, and he had no mind, after walking in the wet, to present +himself in muddied boots and a wilted collar before Christina. He looked +about him. He could choose between hotel bars--where actors might be +talking of her glory--dry goods shops and a moving-picture show. Perhaps +because Christina had gratefully mentioned moving-pictures, he chose the +latter. His longing and dread were so concentrated upon twelve o'clock +that he had no consciousness of buying his ticket. Only of +wondering--wondering-- + +The place was not yet full enough to be oppressive, and Herrick sat +there in the welcome dark, with the rhythmic pounding of the music +stunning his nerves. He closed his eyes; and immediately there sprang up +before his consciousness the eternal, monotonous procession of +questions--What had she meant last night, by throwing over everything +for Ten Euyck? Why had she fainted at the sight of Nancy Cornish's hair +and what strange bond linked Nancy with Ingham's murder? Why had Nancy +disappeared a few hours before the shot; who had said, in Ingham's room, +"Ask Nancy Cornish," and to whom had they said it? Why had her +visiting-card broken down Christina's earlier evidence, and was that her +scarf which had frightened Christina so, or did it belong to that woman +of the shadow? And who was that woman? Why had an uncontrolled and +variable man, such as Denny had described himself, suffered six hours of +the third degree rather than risk revealing her name? By what authority +did Christina promise to produce her, that very afternoon, at the office +of the District Attorney? Had she made Christina break with Ingham, as +she had made Denny kill him, by that story of his betrayal of her youth? +He felt intuitively that in this woman was the key to the entire +situation. She had created it; she would be found, more than they now +knew, to have controlled it; and she, and perhaps she alone, could solve +its manifold involutions. She had arrived before Denny, she had spoken +boldly and insolently to Joe of Ingham; she had forced herself in upon +him when he did not want her; she had come openly in a white lace +dress--he remembered the lace that hung from the shadow's sleeve--and +made herself as conspicuous as possible--why? And as Herrick asked +himself these questions in the darkness he could almost have believed +himself surrounded by the darkness of that night; the brisk strumming of +the orchestra was not much like Ingham's piano, but it had the same +excited hurry of those last few moments; and Herrick's mind called up +again the light, bright surface of the blind and then the shadow of the +woman cast upon it, lithe and tense, with uplifted arm, the fingers +stiffening in the air. His eyes sprang open, and there before him, on +the pictured screen, among the moving figures of the play, was the same +shadow, with uplifted arm, the fingers spreading and stiffening in the +air. Then in the movement of the scene, the shadow turned clean round +and disclosed Christina's face. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +"WHEN STARS GROW COLD" + + +Herrick sat without moving while the shadows played out their play. But +he saw them no longer. They had begun and ended for him with that +certainty which it seemed to him, now, that he had always felt. + +When Christina's film came round again he watched it carefully all +through from the beginning. The play was of some western episode, and he +saw Christina come on, a spare slip of a girl in short skirts and long +braids, a little awkward, a little jerky, like a suspicious colt, and he +observed quite coolly what she had gained in five years. He saw Denny +come on, dressed as a Mexican--cast for the villain even then!--and he +saw for himself how greatly Denny had been her superior in those days, +and all the method and knowledge which she had absorbed from him as she +absorbed everything from everybody; and Herrick smiled there, in the +darkness, to think of it. As the action of the play quickened it shook +the novice from her self-consciousness; the promise of her great talent +began to show; already she did things that were magnificent; and when at +last her wedding was interrupted at the church door by the Mexican's +attempt to claim her as his sweetheart, her fire and fury became superb. +Herrick leaned forward watching. He saw Denny pour out his accusation, +he saw the bridegroom hesitate, he saw Christina sweep round denouncing +them both, saw the lithe, tense length of her, and her proudly lifted +head, saw her suddenly fling one arm up and out in her strange and +splendid gesture of her free, her desperate passion; the hand clenched +for an instant and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in +the air. He waited for the shot, but no shot came. Only once more the +shadow turned and revealed the young face of Christina, as she was at +seventeen, and shone upon him through the darkness with Christina's +eyes. Herrick rose to his feet and pushed out of the theater. The +streets were full of wind and rain, but he did not know it, and along +the crowded crossings, among multitudes that he did not see, he had the +luck of the drunken and the blind. + +He walked for hours without knowing where he went. His soaked clothes +hung on him like lead and the wind pounded him and made him wrestle with +it, but the burning poison of his thoughts could not be put out by wind +or rain. Towards nightfall he found himself at the door of the house +where he lived, and having nothing else to do, he went in. His +sitting-room was dark and cold; he threw himself into a chair and +lounged there, sodden with fatigue and wet, and staring at the empty +grate. There, when it was all aglow, had she leaned to him and put her +face to his and lied. As she had lied to Ingham, waking on his breast! +As she had lied to Denny, folded in his arms! Harlot and liar, liar and +cheat--oh, liar, liar, liar! For that was the poison in the wound, and +the bitterness beyond death--that not for one hour had she been true! +That flower-sweetness of her dear touch, of her hand in his, was as +corrupt as hell. His dear, wild, brave, demure Diana had never drawn one +breath of life--and the adventuress who wore her masque had all along +laughed at him in her sleeve! If she had only told him! It was a +challenge he could have met and carried; he felt his hand lock on +Christina's, strong to draw her from any quicksand of which she +struggled to be free. But that she should have fooled him and played +with him and led him blindfold, that she should have gone out of her way +to snare and laugh at him--what one of the lies with which she had been +waiting for him this noon could he now believe? She had betrayed and +thrown over Ingham for Denny as she had thrown over Denny for him, and +as she had thrown him over for Ten Euyck! She had played them all four +against each other--them, and how many others!--as in her insatiable +vanity she would yet throw Ten Euyck over for some new fool! She was all +vanity and nothing else; foul in her heart and scheming in her tongue, +cruel, cheating, worthless! Oh, Christina, oh, sweet, my sweet--liar, +liar, liar!--oh, Christina!--you! How could you? + +He sprang up; going to his sideboard, he poured out a strong drink of +the raw liquor and drained the glass. And as he stood there, with the +rank fire coursing through his exhaustion, the chilled stiffness of his +body and the heavy reeking damp of his crumpled clothes gave way to a +terrible warm sense of life and pain, and to a hunger, such as he had +never known, for that pain to be eased. Only one thing on earth could +ease it and that was the sight of Christina's face. + +He struck a light and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. In the +mirror opposite he could see his leaden face, stiff with soil and +weariness and framed in his moist, rumpled hair. He looked at it with a +sense of its being very ugly and unseemly, and that the dull red +beginning to creep into it from the whiskey was uglier and unseemlier +still. His body weighed upon him horribly, it seemed to creak and +prickle in its reluctant joints, and to loom up tangibly before him, as +if he saw double. But his spirit was very light and fierce and swift, +and throbbed in him, mad to be out of jail. Mechanically he got his hat, +and started for Christina's theater. + +He did not want to speak to her, to have any sort of dealings with her; +but see her he must. It was a need like any other, but stronger than any +other; not to be argued with. Now that he knew her, he must see her. +That would cure him. Let him see her once more and he could forget her +in peace. Something heavy, like his body, told him that this wouldn't +do; this was death and damnation, this would destroy him through and +through! And he replied that he hated her, and would forget her, and +never wished to pass another word with her! But see her this once more, +he must. Once more! Through the night and the pouring rain, the lights +of her theater began to gleam. They gleamed on arriving motors; on high +hats and snowy shirt-fronts, on opera cloaks and jeweled hair. Despite +the storm, the city had driven forth to do homage to the new star. The +candles at Christina's altar were burning high and clear; the lobby, all +brightness and warmth, was filled with delicate rustlings, frou-frous of +light feet and chattering voices and soft, merry sounds, idle +excitement. There was a little sparkle on all faces; the glimmer +reflected from Christina's eyes. In all men's mouths was the sound of +her name. Not last night had been more crowded nor more brilliant. + +And Herrick was very quiet and knew quite well how to behave. There +would not be a seat left at the box-office, nor would he appeal to the +management. He pushed to the center of the little crowd around a +speculator; then, clutching his ticket, went in. Just as last night, the +ushers ran up and down the aisles, and the seats clapped into place; +just as last night, he was surrounded by a garden of chiffon and satin +and perfume, of gossip and murmur. The audience, a little nervous, was +waiting to be thrilled. The overture was in, and the music quivered +through Herrick as the drink had done. He sat there very still, muddy +and damp, with a wilted collar, a rough head, and no gloves; there was a +little fixed smile on his lips and he stared at the curtain. He couldn't +see through it. But soon it must go up. He was nothing but one waiting +expectancy. + +They played a second overture and this did not surprise him. Then he saw +Wheeler, dressed for the first act, come before the curtain. And his +smile broke. Because the delay was so terrible. Then he realized that +Wheeler was making a speech. + +"You can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, with what regret I am obliged to +inform you that there will be no performance this evening. On account of +the sudden illness of Miss Christina Hope the theater will be closed for +to-night." There was something about getting back money at the +box-office. + +Herrick continued to sit there, unable to accept what had happened to +him. He wasn't going to see her! It was the snatching back of food from +a starving man; he had laid his lips to the spring in the desert and +found it dry! The thing wasn't possible. All his nature had been running +violently forward, and the shock of its stoppage stupefied him. As for +any concern over Christina's illness, it never occurred to him. +By-and-by he stood a long while on the corner of the street, not knowing +where to go. He was not so lost as to seek Christina in person, and +after his recent vigil there his own rooms were insupportable to him. +Presently some one jostled him, and he was face to face with Wheeler. + +"Great God, man!" Wheeler said. "Where have you been! What are you +standing here for! We've been looking for you all afternoon. Called up +your rooms a dozen times! Deutch and Mrs. Hope and I, we've scoured the +city--been to the Tombs, the District Attorney's, Police Headquarters, +everywhere. The Inghams are raving crazy. Ten Euyck's worse. Well, and +how about me? After all it's my loss! Everything's been done that can be +done. By to-morrow morning the whole city of New York'll be hit by a +tornado. This little old town's going to get the shock of its life and +go right off its trolley! Say something! Don't stand there like a stuck +pig! Speak, can't you? Have you got any idea?" + +Herrick heard his own voice saying, "Is she so ill?" + +"Ill? Heavens and earth--you didn't swallow that drool, did you? Where +have you been? Ill? No, the girl's gone--vanished, kidnapped, run away, +whatever you like. She's disappeared!" + + + + +BOOK THIRD + +WILL O' THE WISP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY + + +Herrick made no outcry at Wheeler's words. He simply stood looking out +into the wet and windy spaces of Times Square, where the great splashes +of colored lights wavered and shone in manifold reflections on the +gleaming pavement. And a tremendous and ultimate change arose like new +life in his heart. + +There is a common human fallacy, touching and perhaps profounder than we +know, by which we instinctively assume any person in danger to be an +innocent person. To both men the missing girl was now in danger. It +occurred no more to Herrick than to Wheeler that Christina, by any +possibility whatever, could have voluntarily deserted a performance. +Something had happened. Inevitably, Herrick remembered the once laughed +at Arm of Justice. Had it known, all along, what the shadow on the +screen had told him to-day? A hundred references of hers, a hundred +inconsistencies, were solved at a stroke. Alone with that insensate +malignity which he had himself encountered, had she now tried to break +some blackmailing game and--lost?--He remembered with a horrid shock +that once let her be identified with the shadow on the blind and in the +eyes of the law she became the perjured witness of a murder, accessory +before and after!--Threatened, thus, on every side, Christina's face +seemed to flower for him there, on the night sky; as once, upon a foggy +afternoon just as the wind began to rise, it had shone on him in the +rainy street--when Christina had first held out her hand to him and +said, "Try to believe that perhaps she was in distress, after all!" + +In what hectic hot-house had he been stifling?--It was as though, in +this wild hour of sweeping rain and blowing air, of lights that flashed +and changed in the surrounding darkness, of isolation amid the myriad +noises of the theater traffic and the clanging trolleys, he heard, of a +sudden, Christina's cry for help; as though, running out into the +freedom of the storm, he gained her side of the road and took her hand. +It might be the hand of an outlaw, it was empty, forever, of any love or +hope for him; but he could feel it, now, in his and he did not care +against what world, whether his own or hers, he held it. For their +personal relation was no longer the great thing. The great thing could +be only that somewhere beyond him in the darkness, desperately needing +help, _she was_. And the next thing was to find her. + +"Well," he heard himself say to Wheeler in a commonplace voice, "let's +hear about it." + +"I want to eat something beside trouble!" Wheeler groaned. "Come in +across the way. Stan's to 'phone there at nine." + +Instinctively they chose a table by a window, as though in the great +street she had loved so much and won so lately, they might see her +hurrying by. The restaurant was almost empty, but the news was already +there. It peered out of the cigar-smoke of the men to whom Wheeler +curtly nodded; it questioned them from the waiter's face. "Where'll I +begin?" asked Wheeler. "Well, this afternoon they wouldn't let me see +Denny. But I met Stan, and he told me Chris had jumped her appointment +with Kane, never brought her witness! Partly, I could have choked the +girl--and, partly, I couldn't believe it of her. I called up her house +and I've been jumping ever since." And he poured out a story of haste +and confusion, of friends interrogated, detectives summoned, of a mother +more ignorant than any one and more prostrated.--"God, Herrick, I'm +sick! The girl's such a monkey, up to the last minute I hoped she'd show +up! About seven Kane got me over the coals. Wonder what he's hit the +trail so hard for? He'd had his suspicions of the Park,--the little +Cornish girl was last seen, you remember, going that way--but the police +have searched every bush for hours. The Inghams are all stewed up with +him and Stanley's wished on to him like a burr. The first thing he said +to me was, 'At what time did Mrs. Hope inform you of her daughter's +absence? Don't hesitate--I can remind you. She never informed you at +all!' Was he trying to see if I'd lie to him? What does he think I've +done with her? But funny thing--Mrs. Hope and the Deutches had been +worrying round looking for that girl all day and yet she'd never +consulted me! Look here, it's not possible--No, what cause would she +have to harm herself?--Mrs. Hope blames herself because last night when +Christina didn't come home--You didn't know that? Well, she didn't. Her +mother thought she was at the Deutches, out of temper. You knew she +quarreled with her mother about Ten Euyck? They nearly knifed each +other!" + +"For God's sake," said Herrick, "tell me whatever you know!" Across his +shoulder the zest of Broadway seemed to peer and listen. But it was too +late to consider that. + +"You see, last night's supper has been delicate ground from the +beginning. Before I knew what the Inghams had planned I asked Christina +to come to supper with me--to bring her mother and any one she liked. +She seemed to be down on Denny since he and that Cornish girl disagreed +and, as a particular bait, I mentioned you. I knew she was interested in +you. And when she isn't interested, the Lord help her host! Well, she +preferred my scheme to the Inghams'--she seems to have shown all along +the most ungodly resistance to their help or countenance in any way! But +I could see, as well as her mother, which was best for my +leading-woman, and she finally gave in. It's remarkable how entirely +one thinks of Christina as the head of the house, and yet how often she +does give in--what an influence her mother has over her when she has any +at all!" He drained his long glass with a sigh. "But last night, right +after the performance, Mrs. Hope comes running into my dressing-room, +well--as I may say, at death's door. Christina was going off to supper +with Ten Euyck. You can understand that I didn't listen to her then as I +should now. She wanted me, as the only person Christina would be likely +to take a word from, to reason with her. I said, 'Yes, yes. By-and-by.' +I only wanted to shut her up, you understand. For just then, in the +first flush of Christina's triumph, I didn't any more think of +interfering with her than with the sun in heaven! I won't say I'd been +rehearsing an angel unawares, but the girl had grown, in that one night, +way out of my sphere. I thought probably Ten Euyck had just prostrated +himself and she'd gone a little off her head, and no wonder! It didn't +seem necessarily so terrible to me. But the old lady is a great stickler +for the proprieties--yes, and for all her talk, Christina has her own +eye on social splendor! It's one thing not to receive people and it's +quite another not to have them call!--When I'd got rid of my friends and +had given Christina time to get rid of hers, I went round to thank her +and congratulate her and at the same time to ask her if she didn't think +she was doing the Inghams a pretty dirty trick. There stood my young +lady dressed out--I was going to say 'to kill'--why, to make Solomon in +all his glory turn pale and fade away! Great Scott!--She looked like the +kingdoms of the earth and the wonders thereof! Christina is always +bewailing the money she owes but you may have noticed that, for a poor +working-girl, she does herself rather well in frocks. Mrs. Hope was +sitting quiet in a corner, quashed, and Christina was humming--'Auld +acquaintance,' if you please!--to herself in front of the glass. 'Auld +acquaintance,' indeed! I thought of Denny, and how he'd stood by this +radiant image through thick and thin--in a way, you might say, made her! +And though you'll forgive a good deal to a first night like that, I +began to agree with the people who say she hasn't any heart. And then I +saw--" + +"Yes--" + +"I saw she had a long string of diamonds twisted round her neck. 'Great +God, girl!' I said, 'where did those come from?'" + +"And she answered?" + +Wheeler had been speaking slower and slower and now, for a long time, it +seemed as if he were not going to speak at all. Then "She answered, +'They have come from Cuyler Ten Euyck. But don't breathe it. It has just +killed dear mamma.'" + +"Well, go on." + +"Her mother got up at that and started to go. But Christina stopped her +at the door and took hold of her arm. 'Mother,' she said, 'what does it +matter? Oh, my poor mother, can't you see that whatever happens we have +done with respectability? It's inevitable, it must be done. And to-night +or to-morrow, what does it matter? Twenty-four hours, one way or the +other, and then--mud to the right of us, mud to the left of us, and unto +dust we shall return!' I thought they were the strangest words that ever +came out of a girl's mouth on the night of what you might call her +coronation!" + +"And Mrs. Hope?" + +"Mrs. Hope just took her daughter's hand off her arm and walked out of +the door and out of the theater.--Well," said Wheeler, with a deep sigh, +"it wasn't for me to do that. I'm a pretty long way from a Puritan! All +the same, this thing made me sick. 'Chris,' said I, 'don't go with him! +Take off those damned diamonds and tell him to go to hell! You can soon +make diamonds for yourself, old girl!' She looked up, singing, in my +face. And that's the last I saw of her." + +"Go on!" + +"My boy, you need a drink!" + +"And Ten Euyck says--?" + +"Oh, poor Ten Euyck--his dignity can't bend, so it's all cracked. He +took her to supper at the Palisades and she left early." The Palisades +was a new roadhouse up the river and the rage of that summer. "The +zealous creature has even run to Kane and disgorged the names of his +guests. So it leaks out that, once the poor soul had unbent so far as to +be seen with an actress, he couldn't be devilish by halves. It seems +miss was annoyed at the character of said guests, as well as at finding +supper served in a private room. So with the offended majesty of an +injured queen, she withdrew to no less public a spot than the entrance +porch. There she sat, swathed in her cloak and with her skirts drawn +about her, till the arrival of the cab she had insisted upon." Wheeler +broke into a laugh. "That girl," he said, "is the devil himself!" + +"And that--was that the very--last--?" + +"Exactly. There she is, togged out in a white, silky crepe-y, trail-y +dress, embroidered in silver, and a white lace opera cloak. In these +useful and inconspicuous garments, she vanishes." His grim grin soured. +"You know what they'll all say! Kane tells the Inghams she couldn't +catch Ten Euyck so surely as with an irritant. She took, of all ways, +the way to hold him. Why, she left him in public--him, the invulnerable +corrector of women! He'll never rest until she is seen, in public, +hanging on his arm! And then the man values his diamonds at forty +thousand dollars!" + +"She drove off alone, at midnight, in a taxicab, with forty thousand +dollars' worth of diamonds round her neck--" + +"Yes, and the cabman was discharged this morning for drunkenness! Stan's +to 'phone if they've found him. Oh, but look here--take it slow! She +'phoned Ten Euyck's house at eight this morning and left a message, +openly, with her name! The servant who took the message describes +exactly that trailing voice of hers--'tell him he may come for his +necklace to-night!'" + +"Come! Come where?" + +"Search me! Or Ten Euyck, either, from the foam on his mouth!--Well, +doesn't that put it up that wherever she 'phoned from they got on to the +diamond necklace. So, where was she? You and I, we know old Chris--we +know, after all, that she just went somewhere for the night on account +of her quarrel with her mother. But, oh, lord, Herrick, who else is +going to believe it? The whole braying pack of this intelligent +world--all it can think of's dirt--the devilish gay sensation of the +whole business! Christina Hope! D'you think there's a bank clerk or a +submissive wife that won't recognize her proper atmosphere at a glance? +You and I and little Stan--a poor author, a profane actor and a brat! In +a few hours that's what her kingdom's crumbled to--'that was so wondrous +sweet and fair!' Police and all, there's the spirit in which they're +going to look for her, and that's going to be one of the worst things in +our way. Well, I'm not a rich man and our precious kid's just about +ruined me this night! But I've done for her what may bust me sky-high +and worth it--I've offered ten thousand for her--safe, you understand! +It ought to be in to-night's late editions, so by now, in one spirit or +the other, this town's out after her like a hound!--Eh? All right! It's +Stan, now!" + +Herrick sat there staring into the street. A newsboy ran past with the +last extra of the evening. Two of the interested smokers had just left +the restaurant and now stopped in the rain to buy a paper, opening and +scanning the flapping sheets against the wind. Ah, yes, of course! He, +too, sent for a paper. Yes, there, on the first page--scare headings, +but in itself the meagerest fact. Scarcely even insinuations +yet--"friends fear some serious accident," "friends deny suicide," +"suspicious circumstance--Ten Euyck necklace"--Wheeler's reward, and +news three hours old. When he looked up the square seemed full of +newsboys; several people as they came into the restaurant had papers in +their hands. She was just news, now; disreputable news! "The town's out +after her like a hound!"--Wheeler's hand was on his shoulder. "No cabman +yet. But they want you, Herrick, on the 'phone." + +Stanley's voice told him only to hold the wire. Then a crisper tone +asked pleasantly, "Mr. Herrick? This is Henry Kane. I just wanted to ask +you--you had an appointment with Miss Hope for noon to-day. If you +didn't know she was not at home, why didn't you keep it?" + +How sharply the trap bit! + +"You've had no communication with her since last evening? Nothing +happened to arouse your anxiety? Nor distrust? No, nothing? And yet, +just as it began to rain, you started for a walk in a light suit--or" +(the telephone itself seemed to give forth a dry smile) "what I am told +was once a light suit, and walked about all day in an equinoctial storm! +Taking yourself to the theater at night without changing, without +shaving, without dining, but still carrying on your person a good deal +of the surface of the earth and of the waters under the earth! Well, +sorry to have disturbed you. Only my dear sir, don't trouble yourself to +conceal too much. Don't fancy yourself the only man in New York who has +been to a moving-picture show." Kane hung up the receiver. + +That stunned, sick, silent curse of the man on the wrong side of the +law! This attorney fellow was like a hound after her, too! He, then, +since he was so clever, in God's name let him find her and find +her--soon! It was all he asked!--As Herrick stepped out of the booth +into the corridor of mirrors that ran through the building to the next +street a page boy came briskly up the gilded lane, pattering out a +phrase that washed across Herrick's mind in a wave of sound dimly +familiar; he saw the boy turn into the orangerie and through the +glass-screen he vaguely watched him wend his way between the little +green tables with their golden lamps, lifting his flatted tones into the +orange-scented air so that its mechanical legend was caught by trailing +vines and mingled with the plashing of a little fountain. His mind +aimlessly followled the boy's cry till it was lost in the music of a +mezzanine orchestra hidden in the foliage of a tame tropical jungle! +This was what they called civilization--this trash which had achieved no +mechanism to find her, to protect her! But which could know that she had +been struck out of its midst and yet sit there in its futile nonsense, +stuffing--A voice rose from the velvet lounge beside him in the toneless +delivery of one who reads aloud. It was reading the extra's account of a +gesture in a moving picture show. "The police say that boys began +reporting it before noon, and, the attention of the theater having been +called to the film, its patrons are now offered a thrill of realism by +the piano in the orchestra accompanying the gesture with the march from +Faust. This time, it will be remembered..." + +Oh, no doubt it would be remembered! Its exultant shout sounded like the +hunter's cry after her now, winged by Wheeler's offer of ten thousand +dollars! Doubtless the film would be repeated on the morrow, that all +the world might steel its heart as it watched with its own eyes +Christina Hope moving with that motion to that time! + +Oh, for something to do! Some untried search, some shrewder question! +Something to do, to suffer, to dare--some clue--some suggestion--Denny! +Had they tried Denny? He who knew so much at the least would set them +right, would know and would tell them that she had never deserted his +cause of her own free will, that he who knew her believed in +her--Wheeler came out into the lobby and took him by the arm. He, too, +had bought a paper and now he held it under Herrick's eyes. "This is why +I couldn't see him, then!" In the Tombs that afternoon, Denny had again +attempted suicide. + +So that was how he proclaimed his confidence! He had somehow got hold of +a knife, but the blow aimed at his heart had been averted by a watchful +guard and he had received only fleshwounds--one in the left shoulder, +one in the left forearm. A little ludicrous, a little sickening that a +man so expert in killing another should always bungle about killing +himself! But he had been prompt enough and successful enough in setting +upon the girl who had failed him the brand of his despair! Who would +credit, now, that he did not believe in her flight? Herrick felt a +thickness in his throat; with a longing for fresh, dark spaces he pushed +open a door of the lobby and was confronted by the city, glittering in +wet gold. There, up Long Acre, lay the heart of her world. + +And from down where the bronze workmen struck the hours in Herald Square +up past where the gathering streets parted again under a new electric +girl, high in the sky, who winked a knowing colossal eye over a rainbow +cocktail, what faith did it keep with her? Her flight, her shadow on the +screen, they burned in a newer sky-sign, they flashed a fearful but a +more stirring legend! This swept up the thoroughfare that never colors +itself more like Harlequin than in its mirrors of wet asphalt and sped +down every side street starred with theaters where, between the acts, +men gathered and returned with news, and it became clear to thrilling +audiences that so long as there had been nothing against this Christina +Hope she had meant to tell some tale to Kane in Denny's behalf--it would +have been a pretty piece of acting--but the mute witness of the shadow +had broken her down. She had fled from that writing on the screen--even +in the dressing-rooms they would say that! And later, in all these hot, +bright jardins de danse that yesterday were cabarets, these cabarets +that were restaurants yesterday, among the pellucid proprieties of slit +skirts, tango turns, and trotting music it would be said that all along +Denny had kept at least the half of his silence for Christina's sake. +Oh, street of a thousand feverish tongues, how she loved you! And why +did she leave you? Where is she, and where is she? How near, how far? +"Where is she? And how doth she?" There lay her theater; what stroke +could be so heavy as to drive her from that? "The Victors!" Leave "The +Victors!" There were great blurs of light before the billboards. But the +wind tore through them at the boards, struggling to wrench the signs +away. Fierce as it was it was still rising and it ran like a crazy +newsboy whooping through the world, senseless as the cry of the page +that came nearer and nearer. So that Wheeler said, "Good lord, man, +don't you know your own name?" + +Yes, that was what the boy had been saying all along--"Herr--ick! +Herr--ick! Mr. Bry--us Herrick!" + +"No card, sir. Forty-fifth Street entrance. In a taxi, sir. A lady wants +to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY + + +The monstrous hope died almost in the pang that gave it birth. The lady +who leaned out to him from the cab, putting aside her heavy veil, showed +him the troubled countenance of Henrietta Deutch. + +It came to him even then that he had arrived at the turning of a corner. +So that he was surprised when she said to him, "Oh, sir, where have you +been? Sir, sir, have you any news?" + +She had none, then! + +"Hours have I waited and waited at your rooms! There the young Ingham +sends me word that you are here. We have hoped always you might be with +her! Oh, dear heaven! You know nothing, young sir? Nothing at all?" + +"Nothing." + +She drew back. "Tell me only this. Are you--for her, Mr. Herrick? Or +_rid_ of her?" + +Herrick replied, "Well, what do you think?" + +She, whom grief somehow became and illumined like her native and +revealing element, peered into his haggard face, worn and soiled and +sharpened and grim. "Then, young gentleman, I am asked by Mrs. Hope if +of her daughter you have any word or trace, do not give it to the +police." + +What? Herrick felt something cold breaking about the roots of his hair. +Then this clinging, this devoted mother did not want her daughter +found!--"She said nothing more than this?" + +"Nothing more." + +He digested it in silence and it was with a heavy gathering dread that +when she asked him to drive home with her he put himself in her hands. +Then, in what seemed a single convulsion of the storm, the taxi rocked +to a standstill before the Deutch apartment. + +As Mrs. Deutch sprung on the light their eyes vainly quested for some +envelope beneath the door; she went out again to the mail-box, to the +elevator, inquiring for a message. Then the woman and the young man, not +knowing where to turn next, sat down amid the emptiness of those walls +which had so often held Christina. Here, more than ever, everything +said, "She must be just round the corner! Where is she? Where can she +be?" And still Herrick knew that Mrs. Hope's message was but a part of +what he had to hear and that his hostess still groped for terms in which +to tell the rest. + +The pause lay heavy between them. Then, "Young gentleman," said Mrs. +Deutch, "you love my Christina, is it not so?" + +"Don't make me laugh!" Herrick desolately replied. + +She rose. "Then I will say to you what I have long had on my heart." She +opened the door. The halls were empty. She turned the key in the lock, +and glanced at the closed windows; sitting close to him again she laid a +kind hand on his. "Mr. Herrick, there is something wrong with Hermann +Deutch. There is something in his mind to make him crazy. And in the +last days--say it is two or three--it makes him crazier all the while. +Yes, this is so. It is fear. And something that he will not tell. He +knows something, and it makes him afraid. It has been so since he went +up to the room of Mr. Ingham on _that_ night." + +Herrick looked down at her hand and then he put his other hand atop of +both and gave hers a little pressure. "Mrs. Deutch, what is it that you +know about that night? Don't be afraid of me. Don't be afraid for me. +What is it?" + +"Oh, my young sir, I am ready to tell you. Yesterday, no. But to-day, +when all the world has seen the shadow-picture, yes--why not? On that +night till very late I was away. For I had a friend with a sick baby, +and nurses one can not always pay. When I came to the basement gate +there was in our flat no lights. But when I went in there was my +husband, with his coat over his shirt, standing, listening, in the dark. +And he said, 'Christina is upstairs!'--very cross and ugly. I said, 'At +Ingham's? Why, what for?--Why,' I said, before he could tell it to me, +'are you out of your mind that you should let her go up there with that +man at midnight?' He said, 'Tell me the one thing. How would you have +prevented her from going up?'" + +They smiled at one another, ruefully, as at an evocation of Christina. + +"'Oh, my God!' he cries out. 'There is going to be trouble! Mr. Denny, +he has found out why she quarreled with that Ingham, yesterday. She says +he will kill him. She wants that Ingham should go away.'" + +"Do you know why they did quarrel?" + +"No, neither of us. Never at all.--But then, I started to go up to her, +by the freight elevator as he had taken her. Down that back hall we did +not hear the shot. But the telephone made us halt. Joe told us." + +The clasp of Herrick's hand lent her its reassurance and she went on. + +"My husband was all at once like a man in a fit. He seemed to have no +head. He is not to say fearful, but he is the way men are. 'Go!' I said, +'Hasten! It may be that it is he who himself shot!' And this gave him +heart to go upstairs. Then comes to me Christina, slipping along from +the back. I saw her white dress in the dark. And then she came into a +little patch of light and put her finger to her lips. I ran and pulled +her in and shut the door. And I took her in my arms to warm her, for +she was made all of ice. 'Is he dead?' I asked her. And she shivered +out, 'Oh, a doctor! Get a doctor! Go up to him, Tante Deutch! And +hurry!' she would say, 'Hurry!' But, indeed, I thought there was enough +with him. I asked her the one thing: 'Who did it?' She looked at me with +her lips all wide apart. But not a name would she breathe out. Neither +then nor to this day. And by that I knew it was Mr. Denny. For no man +but him would she be so still. Or not then, when you she did not yet +know." + +The color rushed into Herrick's face. But he could not speak and Mrs. +Deutch went on. "I asked her not one thing more. I held her and tried to +give her comfort, and at first she clung to me. She did not cry, but by +and by she would sit alone, waiting, listening, and her nostrils made +themselves large. But at last it was only my husband who came, and +Christina flew up and looked at him. And her eyes were big and wild with +questions, but still speak she would not. But my husband's face, Mr. +Herrick, it was the face of him who has been struck, who has been +stabbed. Not then nor now do I know why that look he has. But it is not +gone, it grows worse. He said only to Christina, looking straight at +her, 'You left your scarf!' and his voice had in it a sound that was +hard. She looked at him a long time, and she said, 'Very well, then. I +shall know what to do!' At that moment, see you, she said to herself, +'Me they will suspect, and not him!' And oh, my brave heart, her mind +she made up: 'So be it!' We kept her there till just before dawn. And +then, because of her white lace dress, we put upon her my old black coat +and hat, and both of us went home with her that she might be the less +looked at. She let herself in, and all the rest you know. Only--" + +"Only that Deutch knows something more!" + +"And in all our life the one with the other, it is to me the one thing +he has not told. He is not a secret man. Mr. Herrick, here is what +makes my heart heavy. This thing--it is something not good for our +little girl or he would have told it long ago! But to-day when she +vanishes like that other girl who was her friend, he tells it to the +mother of Christina!" + +So, that was why! Herrick rose. No hour seemed too late, no scene too +strange. "Mrs. Hope will have to tell me!" he said. + +Henrietta Deutch rose, too, and put her hands on his two shoulders, as +if at once to comfort and control. She said, "She is not here!" + +"Not where?" + +"Not in New York. She is gone. She has fled away that she need not tell +at all. A train to some other city where there are boats for Europe--he +says it is best I know no more. He has gone West somewhere. You see, he +must have thought Christina, too, has fled. And what he told her mother, +it has made them not dare to stay. My poor boy!" said Mrs. Deutch, +tightening her hold of Herrick, "my poor boy!" + +"It's all right!" Herrick said, "It's all right! They're wrong, that's +all! They're wrong!" + +He moved up and down the room with long, excited strides. False lights +of misery--horrible corpse candles, leading their lying way toward that +which was bitterer than a new-made grave!--"Why, Denny did it! We all +know that! You've just said so, yourself!" + +"Ah, yes, truly. Surely! But--yet--" + +"What could Deutch have seen that we didn't see? We were all there--he +only went in with us. He may guess something--he can't know. What are we +all afraid of?" + +"And yet," said Mrs. Deutch, "we are all afraid!" + +There was a brisk knock on the door. The newcomer smiled grimly at them +from under a dripping hat brim. "I hope I'm welcome," he said. It was +the District Attorney. + +He seemed to take his own appearance quite naturally and perhaps he was +not averse to their being stunned by it. Standing with his back against +the door he removed his hat and rubbed his hand over the wet mark across +his forehead. "Mrs. Deutch? As soon as my assistants get here I want to +try an experiment in the Ingham apartment. You're rather an +exceptional--janitress, madam! I think I'm going to ask you at once if +there isn't some story connected with your marriage to Hermann Deutch. +It looks as though there must have been scandal of some sort to account +for it." + +The wife's glow of indignation maintained in silence an unruffled +dignity. After awhile she said very slowly, "It is true. There was a +scandal. It did make our marriage." + +Herrick's defensive frown faltered over a sense of something coming +true. He knew, now, that he had always felt in that rich simplicity of +Henrietta Deutch a superiority somehow mysterious. Yes, he had always +seen that figure of domestic tranquillity as not wholly detached from a +dense background, somehow somber and mysterious. + +"Before you commit yourself on that point, just tell me who or what +enforces obedience with a triangular knife?--Let her alone!" + +For Mrs. Deutch had uttered a dreadful cry. It was low, but full of +incredible pain. + +Kane grinned triumphantly at Herrick. "Great heaven!" Herrick begged. +"What is it? What do you know?" + +"Here! Let's sit down and get at this! Mrs. Deutch, this is nearer than +you think to our young lady. Best help me!" + +"Wait! A moment! No, what I know it is far from Christina. It happened +before she was born. But I will tell it. You shall judge." + +A long painful breath labored from her bosom. Then she spoke. + +"The scandal was this. My father died in prison. He was imprisoned for +his life. He was accused that he had killed a child." + +"Yes. Well, go on." + +"It begins long before, with my home in Germany. My father was a +merchant of wines there, and he had in business relations with a +Neapolitan family named Gabrielli. Their son, Emile, was my brother's +friend.----Emile Gabrielli, Herrick's Italian lawyer, who had suggested +his novel!" + +"I had but the one brother; for my mother was never strong and of her +children only two grew up. We were very old fashioned; we lived in +comfort but we had neither the new thoughts nor the new manners. Only my +brother was very advanced. He was so modern that when he looked upon us, +even, it gave him exasperation. His friend was not of his faith. But +that was so old-fashioned a thought it could not be at all mentioned +before him. Well, then, I--too--for one thing perhaps we are all enough +advanced! I came to love Emile. He loved me, too. And no one was +pleased--not even my brother! But, after a long time, when they began to +think I, too, was falling ill like all the rest who died, we were +betrothed. And my father sold his business out and bought a vineyard in +Sicily, near to the estate of Emile's father, taking there my mother, +whose health failed." Yes, with the bewildered indifference of his own +emotion, Herrick remembered the miniature of which the parents of that +sentimental gentleman had not been able to deprive him and recognized +the changed original in Henrietta Deutch. + +"And one morning, walking far before breakfast, my father came upon a +dead little boy under a bush among some rocks. He brought it to our home +in his arms; it was the baby of a poor farmer. It had been stabbed +between the little shoulders. And there was a strange, three-cornered +wound." + +She stopped and her hands stirred in her lap. But she clasped them and +went on. "My father was accused. Witnesses appeared against him with +strange tales. How could we make ourselves believed. I have told you how +he fared. + +"Do you think my brother could rest? He left his law in Germany; he came +to Sicily to fight, to hunt, to turn every stone. He was found like the +child. There was the same three-cornered mark." + +Kane gave a low whistle. + +"My mother and I, we were all alone." She smoothed out a little fold in +her dress. "We had but the one message from the family of my +betrothed--that they withdrew the word of their son." + +Kane looked up quickly. "Yes?" he urged. "And then?" + +"Then came to us Hermann Deutch, who in the old days sold our wine. He +gave us escort to Naples, for my mother could go no farther, and +returned to attend our property. It was all in a ruin. The house had +burned. The cattle were gone. The laborers, too, nor would any return. +The land none would buy. It was a place accursed. Our money was soon all +gone." She paused, struggling with a sudden sob. "Hermann Deutch, to +stay on he had lost his position, and he took one that was poor but in +Naples, to be near me. He was all that came near us, who had word or +dealing with us, while my mother grew too weak to live. When she, too, +died, I married him. There was the scandal, sir, to account for my +marriage." + +She looked with deep, mild scorn at Kane. He remained imperturbable, +while Herrick blushed for him. + +"There was one thing more. Mr. Deutch had spent much for us and before +he could take me from Naples he must save something from what work he +had. One month came upon another in that terrible city and we had not +gone. So the time came when I, like other women, thought to have a +child. One night there were fire-works at the seashore and, to liven my +mind, he made me go. As we came home there was a lonely bit of beach, +though toward the cars. Out of the dark a voice called some words at us +and something fell--it rang on a stone at our feet. They had thrown a +kind of dagger. Sirs," said Mrs. Deutch, "it was a triangular knife." + +Kane gave a cry with a strange note of satisfaction. + +But the tears were running down Mrs. Deutch's face. "The shock and the +fear, they were too much for me. I never bore my child. God has never +given me a child to love except Christina. Tell me what all this can be +to her?" + +"Do you know what aphasia is, Mrs. Deutch? And doesn't Mr. Deutch +suffer, occasionally, from a confusion of words?" + +"Not so much that it could be called by a name. Except that one time. +Mr. Deutch has been all his life an excited man. And when that knife +fell at my feet he was like one crazed. Then he forgot language, sir, +and could not speak well for days. English and German he ran together, +and what of French he knows with what Italian. Though he knew well what +he wished to say. And there is yet a smear in his brain where the words +may sometimes a little mix together. But--Christina?" + +"Mrs. Deutch, what did all this suggest to you? Of what did you think +you were the victims?" + +"Imagine yourselves that it was in a time of one of those outcries +against Jewish people which come like stupid fever as though nations, +ignorantly, have eaten too much in strong sun. They needed to blame some +one and, just then, in blaming us they could blame as they would." + +"H'm!--Do either of you know what happened at the Tombs this afternoon?" + +"The papers say that Mr. Denny has tried to kill himself." + +"Well, and very obliging of them. But, for a desperate man, he gave +himself rather queer wounds--scratches in the shoulder and arm. The +guard ran for the doctor and seems to be running yet. But where was our +suicide really cut to the bone? On the insides of his hands!" + +He had produced his sensation. + +"The guard was one of the new Italian contingent. And the blow aimed by +an Italian, then, at the prisoner's heart and caught by his arm, was +given with a triangular knife!" + +They were all three on their feet. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Deutch, for my opening gallery play with you. I didn't +know the tragedy I was running into. And our friend Herrick, here, and +the excellent Wheeler both tried to hoodwink me to-night when I asked +them straight questions. You're going to tell me the truth, I know, for +now I'm telling it to you. We got hold of your husband at the +Pennsylvania Station. Our intelligent police tried to frighten him with +the stab of Denny's triangular prick and they succeeded in putting him +clean out of the game with aphasia--sensory aphasia. Word +blindness--speech or writing--heavens, what a gag! But don't be alarmed; +fortunately it goes with a perfectly clear mind and it's only temporary. +Only--time's everything! Well, it gave me the cue to come up here and +dig for some three-cornered mystery, blackmailing if procurable, in +Deutch's life. Every District-Attorney his own detective! Yes--when it's +this District-Attorney and this crime--Amen! Amen!--What is it?" + +"Oh, sir, the Italian!" + +"Yes?" + +"All morning one hung about the house of Mrs. Hope. Not coming near, but +watching, watching. A little, slim, soft, pretty man, in gentleman's +clothes. And it made her afraid." + +"Ah!" + +"Look here, the fellow in the park--the one with the message--he was an +Italian! They all were!" + +"Exactly! Now--Mrs. Deutch, what was that old secret in the life of the +Hopes which turned the daughter into a cynic and a hater of social +conventions? Ah, come, please!" + +"Oh, sir, that was not a great thing!" + +"What was it?" + +"The sister of Mr. Hope found letters from him--old letters when +Christina was fourteen--written to her who was afterwards his wife. The +marriage had been so long forbidden, they were driven to see each other +so seldom, secretly, alone, and in strange places. Sir, they were in +love and they were very young." + +"This was not known till Christina was fourteen?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then her birth was, of course, legitimate." + +"Oh, of a surety!" + +"And this was all?" + +"All!" + +Herrick found himself listening with a strange excitement. He could not +have told why he had a sudden sense of having touched a spring. That +brief revelation of rash love--what was there in that? Such a thing +might loom large in a society novel; in the vast, mixed, multitudinous +life of men and women it was small enough. How could it arrest his +attention at a time like this? As though some small, mysterious, +irrelevant key had been slipped into his hand! By the fleeing figure of +Mrs. Hope? That amiable, vacant, and correct lady, how could any young +and long-dead folly of hers, reaching across a generation, strike down +Ingham and shatter a little world? "The little pitted speck"--What was +that? What was he remembering now? "The wages of sin are more sinning!" +Why, that was the motto he had taken for his novel? Sin? Nonsense! "The +little pitted speck in garnered fruit that, rotting inward,--" + +He woke himself roughly to hear Mrs. Deutch adding, "But they lived with +that hard woman, she and her mother, in poverty. And to have it nagged +at and flaunted at the mother, it made her a morbid child. No more. But +now, sir, the Italians?" + +"The Italians, indeed! Mrs. Deutch, as you owe them such a grief, as you +believe in justice and the protection of the weak, as you have had +enough of government by the triangular knife, give me the name of your +Christina's Italian host!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY + + +"Well, for one thing," Kane said, "no mortal creature ever looked at +that girl and thought her a quitter." He was standing at Ingham's table, +wrinkling his eyebrows at the storied blind. "I've come within the +fascinations of that young person myself, but I don't think it's +infatuation which makes me say that she didn't drop down in a dead faint +yesterday afternoon, just to pass the time. When those clear eyes of +hers looked at that lock of hair she learned something that astonished +and horrified her. From that moment she made up her mind to go somewhere +and, at the appointed hour, go she did. Devil take her for not confiding +in Mrs. Deutch! She meant, I daresay, to return. But she must have been +greeted with the news of the moving picture advertisement and thought +herself very well off where she was. Eventually, she'll pull some string +from there." + +He began putting out all lights but the table-lamp. + +"I fancied, at first, the mother had followed, for she lied about going +to Europe. We've had every steamship and railway line watched since long +before she left, so she's not beyond the scope of trolleys. But she'd +only be a nuisance to the girl, nor is she one to pursue risks--more +likely, she just skipped out early to avoid the rush. All sorts of +intimidating things have happened lately; then, last night, Christina +threatened her with some exposure, this morning she was frightened by an +Italian, and the climax has been capped by whatever it was Deutch told +her--Don't jump! No, I'm no mind-reader. But I had, of course, the +Deutch apartment, as well as yours, wired for a dictograph. Useful thing +a dictograph--especially when there are ladies about!" + +With a happy indifference to the effect of this statement upon Herrick +he cast about the room, appearing to sniff up its suggestions and to +compare them with a vision in his mind's eye. Absorbed, elate, on edge, +tingling with some suspended energy, as he raised the blind and peered +out he radiated a good humor somehow inhuman. + +"That wasn't a taxi? I'm expecting a couple of my boys and," he grinned, +"poor Ten Euyck!" He disappeared, bent on examining the bedroom. + +Herrick still stood, dumb and raging, with his back against the door. In +his impotent rebellion against Kane's inferences he had been almost +indifferent to the fateful setting of the new scene in that night's +hurrying kinetoscope. But slowly this had begun to assume its natural +imaginative sway. There were the dim blue walls framed in their outline +of smooth, black wood. There before him was the long white blind; to his +left the piano where Ingham had sat playing; by stretching out his right +hand he could touch the portières of the room in which they had found +Ingham's body. It was all in order now. The cushions of the couch had +been smoothed and set up. The chair that had lain overturned beside the +table had been stood in its proper place, at the edge of the portières, +near the door. The newspapers and ashes, the siphon and half-empty glass +had been cleared away. The little puddle by the piano stool, too, was +gone. All was in order; Ingham's hand might have been about to draw +those portières, he might have stepped between them to tell--what? What, +the poor fellow persisted, was there to tell? He knew the secret of the +shadow on the blind, the secret of the shot in Ingham's breast. Only +the one thing was unknown--Who had contrived to bolt the door? That he +had always felt the puzzle's essence and its answer; there stole through +him again that sense of a skeleton still locked within those walls to be +discovered with some recognizing shock; once more his fancy began to +search through those hollow rooms in desperate hope, driven by that +superstition, by the obstinate unreason with which a starving hand +continues to fumble in an empty pocket. Futilest of occupations! The +sense of shamed stupidity, of failure in Christina's cause, warned him +with a squelching sneer that he was the merest pawn in Kane's hand and +that the room would yield its secret, if it had one, to Kane and not to +him. At any rate, how could that secret find Christina? And, if he were +not looking for Christina, what was he doing there? + +As he turned to go it was Kane who came back through the portières and +said, "Sit down, for heaven's sake! Don't stand there glaring at me as +if I were Ingham's corpse!" + +The sharpness of his entrance suggested something. + +Herrick answered with his hand on the knob, "I'm virtually a prisoner, I +suppose?" + +"Oh, don't you care to sit out the show?" + +"If I left here should I be arrested?" + +"Arrested's an exaggeration." + +"I should be shadowed, then?" + +"Well, my dear fellow, there've been so many disappearances! And you're +so near the storm-center--you make such a sensitive barometer!" + +Herrick dropped on to the couch as a mouse might give itself up to a cat +and leaned forward, frowning, motionless. + +"It's a great game, this, of 'Vanishing Lady'! But I don't mind telling +you that it's the Italian background to the vanishings that interests +us. An obscure young girl--but a great friend of Christina Hope's--is +the first to vanish. She sends an appeal for aid to Christina Hope, +through the Arm of Justice. + +"A publisher--betrothed to Christina Hope--receives blackmailing letters +from the Arm of Justice, and is murdered. + +"A young author--also betrothed to Christina Hope--is attacked. But, as +a victim, proves a failure. + +"An actor--also--well, also an old friend of Christina Hope, and said to +have been recently in love with the vanished Nancy Cornish is arrested +for Ingham's murder. And what happens? S-s-z-boum! A cluster of +respectable and comfortable persons scatter for the ends of the earth. +While, ahead of them all, pop goes the beauty! In a white and silver +dress. So she didn't go farther than the embrace held wide open to +receive her." + +"You mean, of course, the Arm of Justice?" + +"Of course." + +"What are you trying to do with me?" Herrick snarled. + +Kane answered with great deliberation, "I'm trying to save you, you +young fool!" + +"Spare yourself wasted time. What does all this matter to me? What does +a lot of gab matter? I've heard enough of it to-night, God knows! But +does it tell me anything? You're all full of suggestions, but where is +she? Do something if you know how--find her, find her! She's in danger, +that's all that matters! Where is she? Where is she?" + +"You talk about danger! And you want _me_ to find her?" + +"Has Denny retained you, then?" + +"Oh, you poor kid!--Now, Herrick, I know your place in life. I studied, +one term, under your father. I breathe familiarly the air of Brainerd, +Connecticut. Corey and old Ingham are friends of mine. This muss +of--Paah! Come out of it, Herrick, it isn't good enough! She in her +rotten world and you--Oh, all right!" + +Kane rose and went again to the window. "Rain's held up." He looked at +his watch. Strolling back to his chair he fixed his eyes on Herrick, +across his interwoven knuckles. + +"But you've listened so willingly to Wheeler and to Mrs. Deutch, why not +listen to me? I've something of a confession to make, myself. Do you +know what it is to be possessed by a mania?" + +A man with a mania! + +"I heard Ten Euyck call you that, the first time I ever saw you." + +"Good! A man with a mania, a prosecutor with a pet criminal! But he +didn't mention the criminal? Allow me--the Arm of Justice!" + +Herrick's pulse gave a mad leap and he slowly raised his head. + +"You've taken that business, all along, as just a mask for some +desperate amateur. Then, too, you were all thrown off the track--and +small wonder!--by those literate, unbusinesslike letters in idiomatic +English. A lady's letters, in fact!--My dear fellow, a very real and +definite 'Arm of Justice,' a low-lived little gang that sunny Italy knew +how to get rid of, has made its living at blackmailing certain gutters +of ours for a generation. What nobody but your humble servant has +believed is that this more stylish business, using our language and +dwelling very evidently in our midst, has any connection with the +original A. of J. beyond borrowing its title from the police reports. +Not for the first time! See here! The Arm of Justice started life as the +humblest little blackguard gang, extorting money from low-class +Italians. It was like all its class, strictly minding its own business +in its own nationality and considered worth nobody's while to catch. But +to my mind about four years ago this violet by a mossy stone burst out +like a sunflower. To my mind, it was this very same Arm of Justice +which abandoned every precedent by entering, with one bound, into +American life." + +His look seemed to ring with triumph, but his voice kept a cold edge. + +"No Italian gang, real or bogie, big or little, had ever thrown its +shadow there. But the Arm of Justice flew high, carried the new +territory at a rush, and struck at the very proudest families in New +York, the most powerful individuals!" + +"But how? How?" + +"Ah, if I knew! What's its source of information? How does it get hold +of those unhappy secrets that its owners guard like Koh-i-noors? Well, +men will tell a good deal to a woman--and those were a woman's letters, +Herrick! Once it gets its secret it starts a correspondence. How often +it has succeeded, grabbed its hush-money and retreated, of course I +don't know. But when its advances are rejected it abandons its +typewriter and calmly prints a scant edition of a dirty little rag +calling itself _The Voice of Justice_ and telling the blackmailing +story. It then mails marked copies through various New York post offices +to the family, friends and enemies of its victims--the three before +Ingham were all of Knickerbocker standing. What a revenge! What a +prestige for next time such a threat gave it! The desire of my life is +to smash that printing-press!" + +"But it followed up the Ingham business with letters alone?" + +"There you are--the whole Ingham business is a departure! Observe that +until Ingham's death the English-speaking branch of the business never +committed itself to violence; it caused four tragedies in four years, +but it simply pressed the button of exposure and its vengeance came off +automatically. The first time a young girl went crazy. The second there +was a divorce and the wife shot herself. And the third time a bad +stumble, lived down for twenty years by a fine old friend of mine, a +judge of the highest standing who had made himself an honorable +character, was exposed to such relentless political foes that this +office had to prosecute. Well, Mrs. Deutch's father isn't the only +gentle soul who's died in jail!" + +Kane's voice had risen in hot anger. "Perhaps you think I ought to be +grateful--thank them for doing my work! Am I to do theirs, then? Execute +their orders, their sentences? Make my office the tool of cowards and +criminals worse than those I convict? Ah, my boy, that did turn me into +a monomaniac! Is there anything I wouldn't give to break that particular +bone in the Arm of Justice?--to lay hands on the real villain of that +little evening party in these rooms that night--not the one who fired +the shot but who prompted it! Believe me, the death of Ingham was a +slip, an accident, bitterly repented. Some last new element got in this +time and got in wrong. The Arm was using a new tool and pushed it +farther than it dreamed the tool would go. The English-speaking branch, +always so careful not to commit murder--I could almost be thankful for +this time--it's put a definite, popular crime into my hand! And now the +poor fools've lost their heads! They that were so cautious, they're +following one sensation with another. They've tried anything, +everything, to get clear! They've only floundered further and further +in! And now they're wild as rats in a trap!" + +"Like rats in a trap!" There it was again! "The wages of sin is more +sinning!" Good heavens, what was his novel to him, now? + +"Still people don't believe me. They can't credit that a single criminal +gang has its feet in the slums, its hand in the pocket of Fifth Avenue, +and its head--well, for instance, on Broadway. Naturally, it wants a +connecting thread. I was so keen after that, even before I came into +office, that they used to call me The Blackhander and say I ought to +write a comic opera. Well, Italy's an operatic nation! And this great +brat of a city, that thinks there's nothing doing in the world but +Anglo-Saxon temperaments, embezzling and baseball games, doesn't know +what it may get up against! I'm sure if I can nab either end of the +skein it will carry conviction. But unfortunately even the Eastsiders +never gave us a map of their whereabouts. There are about seven hundred +Italians in New York who might be called professional gangsters and very +likely a cozy, private little affair like the A. of J. but murmurs, 'We +are seven.' So I've never been able to put the slightest Italian accent +on those illustrious letters till I saw the body of your gunman from +Central Park. Encouraging though not overwhelming evidence! But the +knife that stuck in Denny's arm is a bigger business." + +He might well congratulate himself, Herrick inwardly groaned, over the +color and the emphasis liberally supplied him in the story of Mrs. +Deutch. + +"Of course, you understood what had happened? The farmer had refused +toll to the brigands who governed the south so capably in those days. +They killed his child, leaving their mark on it as a warning that toll +must be paid. The poor wine-merchant attempted to set the authorities on +that sign. The authorities were too weak to take up the gage, and, of +course, a stranger and a Jew made an easy scape-goat. But the brother +didn't take warning from the father's fate. Then the mark on him warned +the countryside that the family was taboo. They became simply lepers. +Not, this time, because the people were religious bigots nor social +asses but because they were scared stiff. Every one connected with the +tabooed strangers must have dreaded some brigand dictum. Every Gabrielli +may have squirmed under that thumb for many a year. Whatever she +romantically believes, her fiancé's family simply dared not, for their +lives, receive Henrietta. Nobody dared, except, apparently, our little +friend, Hermann Deutch. Hats off--I salute Hermann! Really, for an +excited man--! But how's that for the nationality of the three-cornered +knife? The nation's pitched it out, over there; and now, to-day, in the +city of New York, in the city's jail, in broad daylight, some descendant +of this agreeable Sicilian clan uses the same weapon to silence a wiry +gentleman who turns out a bit too much for him--being a little on the +Sicilian order himself! But isn't that a sign of something doing between +the slums and Broadway? For what were they afraid Denny would tell? Why +did they wish to silence him except for what he could tell of a certain +lady?" + +Herrick rose, lighted a cigar and flicked out the match with steady +fingers. "And you picture Miss Hope as The Queen of the Black Hand?" + +This pleasantry was delivered with such a raucous and guttural attempt +at quiet satire that Kane returned to earth and smiled. + +"Put in that way it's comic opera, indeed. But it's the tune that makes +the song. I know how crass the thing seems. Good heavens, says common +sense, in what century are we living? And who believes in comic opera? +What's the clue? What's the connecting thread that can reach from the +lowest dives of the East Side, out of another country and another race, +and mix with the grandeurs of so extremely well-known and high-flying a +young lady, on the very day that she becomes a world-celebrity? What's +the answer?" + +The extreme nonchalance of Herrick's voice shook a little as he +remarked, "That's up to you, isn't it?" + +"It's bound to lie in some dangerous indiscretion of her youth. She's +had hard struggling years, in which her temper was still luxurious--a +youth that's ambitious is never too scrupulous--if she had a friend +unscrupulous by profession--And yet I was so sure they had got hold of +her by some secret of her mother's! The Hope honeymoon took place in +Italy--but, in that day, so did everybody's! After all, perhaps they had +a closer clutch. What do we inevitably find in the pasts of all very +young, very beautiful and very successful actresses? We find a dark and +early husband. Italians whose humbler connections still sojourn in +tenements are often highly ornamental and blackmailers aren't branded, +you know, to keep them out of matrimony. Well, whatever the start, +whether she was coaxed in or threatened or married, forced by poverty or +blackmail, she's made them a wonderful--Do you know the thieves' slang +of Naples? And the term 'basista'?" + +"A basista's a sort of fence, isn't he? A confederate on the outside?" + +"A good deal more. A basista, without being a member of the gang, is the +invaluable unsuspected spy in the camp of the victims, who loots +profitable news and sends it in. He or she is sometimes the brilliant +amateur director, the educated person with an outlook, the Adviser +Plenipotentiary. A dramatic-minded young lady with extravagant tastes +and some kind of righteous grudge against society might hardly realize +at first what she was doing--and oh, how she has struggled to be rid of +it, since! Naturally, she's become worth double to them. And she's +recently furnished them with such a hold that, so far from getting +clear, I fancy she was pushed to furnish them with another victim; that +if it hadn't been for the moving-picture another person would soon have +received an Arm of Justice letter, and that person Cuyler Ten Euyck. +What do you think of my thread?" + +"Pretty thin, isn't it?" + +"Wait, encouraging youth! You'll be grateful some day! Come, I'll show +you my hand! Ever since the inquest it has been perfectly clear to the +unprejudiced mind that Christina Hope was in that room when Ingham was +shot. It was perfectly evident that she was shielding somebody. We say, +now, that she was shielding Denny. When we began to suspect Denny we had +to run down his friend, Christina Hope, who left behind her a scarf +bordered with the color in which, through his craze for her, Ingham's +apartment was decorated--a color which up to the time of the murder she +wore so constantly that it was like a part of her personal effect, and +which she has never worn since." + +The color was all about them--blue-gray. What could that have to do with +the shimmer of a dummy pistol, scratched upon whose golden surface +Herrick once more confronted the initial "C"? But he did not put this +question to the District-Attorney. And it was Kane who continued. "Shall +I treat you to a bit of ancient history; shall I reconstruct for you the +movements of Miss Hope on the night of the fourth of August?" + +"As you please." + +"She testified to have dined at home. So she did; but with so poor an +appetite that the maids said to each other that she had really dined +early somewhere else. She testified to being ill and out of sorts; so +she was. But she was incited by this being out of sorts to something +very different from the languor to which she testified. Far from having +bade Ingham farewell forever she called him up at the Van Dam on an +average of every half hour, as well as at his club, and at two +restaurants which he frequented. Failing to find him, at eleven o'clock +she did, indeed, go to the post-box and mail a letter; but at twenty +minutes past eleven she was waiting in a taxi outside the theater where +Denny was rehearsing and sent in a message, without any concealment of +her name, that she wished to speak to him. He sent out word that he was +engaged. An hour later she was there again, and not believing the back +doorman who told her that he had left, she stopped Wheeler, who had +been inside, and besought him to get Denny to speak to her. He replied +that Denny was gone, whereupon she called out to her chauffeur, with +every adjuration to hurry, the name of the Van Dam apartment +house--where, say at a quarter after one, you, Herrick, saw her shadow +on the blind. According to Joe Patrick she was the first on the +spot.--Was she the last there, too?" + +Herrick paused in a long stride; with his bones slowly freezing in him +he turned and faced the District-Attorney. + +"If Denny loved her and went there on her account did he shoot down +Ingham before her eyes? Or did she run out, as she suggested at the +inquest, and Denny shoot Ingham as he turned to follow her? There's your +chance, Herrick, prove that! Mr. Bird tells us when our prisoner came +in. But, before all and everything, when did he come out?" + +He had a way for which Herrick could have slain him, of driving points +home with a smile. + +"But suppose, now, she did most of the loving on her own account. +Ingham, to a certainty, had found out her connection with the Arm of +Justice, when it tried to blackmail him through her. From the row you +heard between them he's likely to have been threatening her with +exposure. Suppose Denny's story is straight and when he found her there +with Ingham he just turned and walked off. Was Ingham a man to refrain +from threatening to send his revelations, first of all, to a man who had +treated him so cavalierly? Is she a girl to stop short of the desperate +in preventing him? Isn't she one to avenge herself in advance? It may +not have been wholly in revenge. Ingham was himself a wild revengeful +fellow who sometimes had too much to drink. He may have provoked her +even to bodily fear. If he guessed such a thing do you think Denny would +not keep silence? I see it strikes you." + +It seemed to him as if it struck the life out of his heart over which +he folded his arms. "Try somebody else," he said, in defiance of the +little clasps of proof which he could hear snapping into each other, +"next time you accuse her." + +"Yes, I'll try Deutch. I gave her every doubt till I heard of his +secret. Is it possible you don't know what he found? And is it possible +that you don't see a preparation for emergency in her taking such pains +to establish--well, not an alibi, but a substitute?--A mysterious +unknown lady with the most conspicuous physical attributes, in whose +person this admirable actress appears before Joe Patrick as the +red-headed murderess of the drama on the front stairs, before, on the +back stairs, with which she appears to be so familiar, she resumes +herself and turns to see what can be done with Ingham! That's the worst +point in the story of a distracted girl, pushed to the wall, driven past +her last stand, maddened by a suddenly enlightened and too cruel Ingham, +hounded by her friends, the Arm of Justice, to their work; herself no +more--as I was once no more!--than a trigger pulled by their hand! No +wonder they've had a firmer hold on her than ever since that night, and +shield her, now, with all their care because in doing so they shield +themselves!" + +"That's what you think, is it?" + +"It's what I fear--and it's what you fear! Or--what's a +District-Attorney to a lover?--you'd have knocked me down long +ago!--There's not a man of you, knowing the girl, in whose mind, in +whose pulse, it hasn't been from the first hour! Yet there's not one of +you who hasn't sacrificed Denny to her without a scruple. One man in the +end won't do it. I mean Denny himself. He, too, is prepared to go +extraordinary lengths not to betray her. He will deny, of course, that +it was she who was there that night. But I rely on one thing. He knows +that in the State of New York he can not plead guilty to murder in the +first degree. And he won't send himself up for anything less. He's not +afraid of death, but he's mortally afraid of prison--it gets on every +one of his nerves. And he seems to have a great many of them. If they +are ground on the idea of jail so that they break they may break quite +contrary to poor Deutch's--they may set him talking! Ah, if he and +Deutch could happen to meet; those two temperamental persons!--Here, in +this room, in the night, now when neither of them are quite themselves, +what a start they might get! What mightn't it shake out of +them?--There's one final thing the person who shot Ingham, the person +who was last with him in this room, alone, can tell me--How came that +door bolted? Whatever Denny guesses, you'll find he won't guess me +that!--Come in!" + +He conferred with some one on the threshold. "Ask Inspector Ten Euyck to +come up." Turning back to take his place at the library table he +motioned Herrick to a seat. "Pity the sorrows of a poor policeman whose +legal sense is too strong to let him ask a single question of an accused +man, yet who was born to be the head of the Inquisition and looks at the +prisoner with a deep desire quite simply to tear him open! The prisoner +is well held together with surgeon's plaster, but the poor Inspector's +pride in his profession is suffering horribly from the inadequate +conduct of his city's jail to-day and of our detectives' search.--Here +we are!" + +A group of young men appeared in the doorway, with Ten Euyck looming +like a damaged monument in their wake. Civility and self-control forced +themselves on Herrick. He and Ten Euyck sniffed each other, wary as +strange dogs, their spines beginning to rise. "Inspector," said Kane, +"cheer up!" And indeed the funereal quality in that gentleman's +appearance had greatly increased. He sat down, as directed, but when he +looked at Herrick he had to turn his growl into a cough and when he +looked at Kane he winced. It was evidently not alone the errors of the +Tombs and the police department which had bowed his head. It was the +knowledge of last night. His magnificent storm coat could not hide his +riddled dignity. Only by the sight of Christina in his grasp could he +get his dignity back again. + +"Ten Euyck, I sent for you because this is so largely your affair, but +you are not going to be asked to do anything immoral. I am about to +examine a witness, but with no illegal questions nor shall I force him +to testify against himself. He is only going to be asked about another, +a missing witness. Your legal mind doesn't quarrel with his being hard +pushed in that direction? I thought not!" + +Ten Euyck exclaimed, eagerly, "But Deutch can't talk yet!" + +"Deutch? Did you think I meant Deutch? There is some one dearer to +Christina Hope than her dear Deutches and still nearer to the habits of +her life. I mean a gentleman who can talk but won't. Ah, brighten up Ten +Euyck--he shall be got to! He may be ignorant of certain amiable +Italians as criminal characters, it's inconceivable he can be ignorant +of them as Christina Hope's familiar friends. He mayn't be able to tell +me the secret of their lives. But he can give me their address. And he +will." + +They were all grouped about the long table: Kane at its center, facing +the window; Ten Euyck and Herrick bearing with each other at one end; +Holt, an assistant of Kane's, between him and Ten Euyck; to his right, a +stenographer with a short-hand pad. The end of the table was still +vacant. Kane's own doorman stood on the threshold. + +"Wade, have you got Mrs. Deutch? Please step into the bedroom, Mrs. +Deutch. Sit down comfortably, keep silent and listen to everything.--I +want to remind you all that, wise as our witness is, there are some +things he doesn't know. So far as we know he has never connected the +Cornish girl's disappearance with the blackmailers. He's not supposed to +know there are any blackmailers. And, for certain, he's seen no papers +nor been allowed to talk with any one. He doesn't know that Christina +Hope has disappeared! He doesn't know that New York has seen a +moving-picture!" Turning to the man at the door Kane said, "Bring in +William Denny." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS + + +Herrick felt the strong light of the one lamp like something hypnotic; +it reminded him of the glare in some Sardou or Belasco torture chamber. +It seemed to him that the scene wasn't real; it was like a council of +wolves and he powerless and quiet with them there, as they hungered to +run, baying, on Christina. It was only a nightmare and yet it was more +real and keen than life, and only God knew what would come of it! Then +he saw the slight, dark figure pass the door; every eye, but with what +different desires, turned, ravenous as his, for the secret that it +carried in its breast. + +The doorman brought Denny up to the end of the table and withdrew. The +prisoner was very carefully dressed, his black hair brushed as smooth as +satin, and against his dark blue coat the black silk handkerchief that +supported his arm was scarcely noticeable. He looked a model of rigid +decorum until you observed the heavy straps of plaster across his hands. +Only his skin, always dark and pale, seemed really to be drained of +blood. He nodded gravely to Kane, and with a sort of still surprise to +Herrick. Ten Euyck he passed over. He remained standing until Kane told +him to sit down. If he then dropped rather wearily into a chair he +contrived to sit upright, with a good show of formal manners. As his +dark eyes met the keen light ones of the lawyer a faint, derisive smile +appeared, and was instantly suppressed, upon both their faces. + +"You seem very sure of yourself!" Ten Euyck exploded. + +Denny appeared to become slowly conscious of him. "Even the persuasive +manners of your department," he said, "couldn't make me tell what I +didn't know!" + +Ten Euyck said quickly, "You don't know who killed Ingham?" + +"If I said anything more incriminating, it's possible it might be used +against me." + +"We're not here," Kane interposed, "to discuss Ingham's death. Mr. +Denny, within the last few days there have been some very grave +occurrences, about which it's possible you can enlighten us. If you can, +we shan't be ungrateful. Did you ever hear of an organization called the +Arm of Justice?" + +"Is this a joke?" + +"You never heard of it?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, you can have no objection to repeating the name and address +of Miss Hope's Italian friends?" + +"Not the least in the world. Has she any?" + +"You mean to tell me you don't know she has?" + +"Not if it annoys you. I thought you asked." + +Ten Euyck, with a gesture as of uncontrollable impatience, rose and went +to the window. + +"Since you're in a jocular mood, I will ask you something you may think +extremely amusing. Do you know if Miss Christina Hope owns a red wig?" + +He didn't think it amusing. He seemed to think little enough about it. +"I suppose so." + +"But you never saw one about her house?" + +"She wouldn't keep it about her house, like a pet. She'd keep it in a +trunk. She's not an amateur." + +"You never saw her wear one in private life?" + +"Not even on the first of April." + +"You couldn't even swear she had one, perhaps." + +"I certainly could not." + +"Nor that she had not?" + +"No." + +"So that you wouldn't recognize hers if you saw it?" + +"No." + +The light was very strong upon his face, which remained relaxed and +tranquil. But he was very weak and a faint moisture broke out upon it. + +"Was there any love affair between you and Miss Hope which angered Nancy +Cornish?" + +"No." + +"Don't lie to me!" + +Denny drew in his breath a little. But he did not speak. + +"What was your trouble with Nancy Cornish?" + +Silence. + +"Didn't she quarrel with you because of some woman?" + +Silence. + +"You know she did. You can't deny it. Do you know what many of your +friends are saying? That you kept that appointment with her and got rid +of her. They think you were tired of her and preferred Christina Hope!" + +"Do they?" + +It had missed fire utterly. Yet, since the mention of that other girl, a +kind of hunger had been growing in his face, and suddenly Kane wholly +veered on that new track. + +"But I don't!" said Kane, leaning toward him, and trying to catch and +hold his eye. "I think you really care for Nancy Cornish, whether she's +alive or dead!" He paused. "I think you'll end by telling me what you +know of the woman whom you'll find parted you." + +The same dead silence; only Denny had closed his eyes. + +"Come, give me your attention. Look at me, please. Look at me, and +you'll see that I'm sincere. Did you hear me say if you can help me I +shan't be ungrateful? But you can do better for yourself than that. You +can simply tell the truth! Tell the truth and you won't need my favor. +You'll be free. And you'll have set me in the way to find Nancy Cornish! +It isn't possible you prefer to keep this ridiculous silence, to die +like a criminal for nothing; or spend fifteen to twenty years in the +penitentiary--spend life there,--ah, I thought so!" The +District-Attorney laughed with triumph at the little straightening of +Denny's nostrils. "There's your weak point, my friend! I have never seen +a man to whom the idea of jail was so entirely uncongenial! Get rid of +it, then! Admit the truth about Christina Hope! What do you owe her? She +never even came to me with the witness that she promised." + +"I rather thought she'd have trouble doing that!" + +"Because you knew there was no such woman. Or rather that that woman was +Christina Hope; that she tried to get up courage to incriminate herself +in your place and failed!" + +"You're a bad guesser, Kane!" Denny said. He had sunk a little forward +with his arms upon his knees, and Kane rose and stood over him. + +"Admit that your whole attitude is dictated simply by loyalty to her. +You need be loyal no longer. Has she been near you since you've been in +the Tombs?" + +"No, you've kept her out. And a fine time you must have had doing it!" + +Ten Euyck turned round and said, "She's so _fond_ of you, I suppose!" + +Denny flushed. "Yes," he said, "she's fond of me. She was born to be a +good comrade-in-arms, to carry the flag of a forlorn hope and stand by +you in the last ditch. If you gentlemen can't understand that, I'm sorry +for you. I can't change her." + +"Exactly," Kane said. "I knew that was your ground. Well, this +comrade-in-arms has deserted you altogether. The day she should have +brought me that witness, she threw down her engagement and left New +York!" + +"Oh, guess again!" said Denny. "Not while she lived, she didn't!" + +"And she took with her," Ten Euyck cried, "forty thousand dollars' worth +of my diamonds! Perhaps she was in hopes you'd get away and join her!" + +"Well," said Denny, turning his eyes toward Herrick, without raising his +head, "you!--you're not a criminal!--are you going to stand for that?" + +"Doesn't his standing for it speak for itself!" said Ten Euyck. "If you +want to defend a woman, why don't you come out like a man and confess +that you did it yourself." + +They all looked at him in astonishment and, flushing at himself, he +subsided. + +"Ah, thanks, Ten Euyck, that's what I've been suspecting! You think you +can trap me into one of your damned confessions with these tricks! Get +rid of that idea. I'll not confess. It's up to you to prove it; prove +it! Why should I help you!" He turned again to Herrick, as if in +justification. "Yes, I am afraid of jail! I'm a coward about prison, I +confess that! and to give myself up to a lifetime of it--no!--Herrick, +there's no chance of their being serious in this talk about Christina." + +Kane took him by the unwounded shoulder and forced him from his leaning +posture, till his face came full into the light. "Upon my word of honor, +Denny," he said, "Christina Hope has disappeared." + +The shock struck Denny like a sort of paralysis. He did not stir, but he +seemed to stiffen. His eyes dilated with a horrified amazement. "What do +you mean?" he said. + +Kane handed him that evening's paper, folded to the headlines that dealt +with the missing girl. He read them with greed, but it was plain that he +found their information stupefying. "Chris, now! First, Nancy!" he +said, "and then, Christina! What is this thing? What can it be? You," to +Kane, "you that are so clever, have you any explanation at all? Have you +the least clue? Have you?" he insisted, and from the dark meaning of +their faces he seemed to kindle, and half rose, leaning on the table. +"My God, then," he cried, "what is it? What is it?" + +"Well, then," said Kane, "as you yourself suggest, she is very probably +in the same place with Nancy Cornish." Denny continued to lean on the +table, looking at him with ravenous eyes. "You know that Joe Patrick was +knocked down by an automobile on his way to the inquest, that the same +so-called accident happened two or three days later to Herrick, here; +you know that subsequently four armed men attacked him in the park; +to-day you had an experience of your own. Well, all these things hang +together and were committed by a band of blackmailers. Your own shoulder +gives you a taste of their quality. You can judge for yourself what +they'll stop at. Brace yourself. We know, now, for a certainty that +Nancy Cornish is in their hands." + +Denny continued to lean there, without stirring. "It's a trick! It's one +of your little tricks! Is it?" he said to Herrick with a sudden +shrillness, "Is it?" + +"One of them brought us a message from her. It said, 'Help me, dear +Chris!'" + +"No, no, no!" said Denny, as if to himself. "It's a lie. It's all a lie. +I won't be frightened. I know it's a lie." + +"Is that her writing?" + +He cried out, a dreadful, formless sound, and covered his face with his +hands. Kane's glance said to the others, "Let him alone! It's working!" + +He asked them then, quite gravely and clearly, "When--do you expect--to +catch--this--gang?" + +"I don't know that we can catch them at all. We don't know how to get +at them. We've no idea where they are." + +His hands dropped from his face; it throbbed now and blazed; all the +nerves had come to life in a quivering network. "Oh, for God's sake," he +said, "don't tell me that!--Go on, then, go on! Tell me!" He looked +beseechingly and then in a fury of impatience from face to face. "Don't +stand gaping! You must know something! Look here, you don't understand! +You don't know all I've been through all these weeks--wondering!--If she +was in that lake where we used to row! If she'd only gone away, hating +me! My mind's in pieces trying to think--think--following every sign! +Hundreds of times I've seen her dead! And now you tell me she's alive! +and calling--calling for help! Do you? Do you?" + +"Yes," said Kane. + +He swayed forward so suddenly that he had to catch at the table. "It's +horrible! It's a nightmare!" With a strange monotonous inflection his +voice rose higher and higher on the one strained note. "It's the thing +I've dreamed of night and day, week out and in! That she was frightened +and in danger! With brutes! With the faces of beasts round her! Oh, +God--!" + +"Don't!" Herrick cried. + +"Yes, but look here!" With an eagerness sudden as a child's, he said to +Herrick, "But it's hope! Hope, isn't it? She's alive! And she didn't +just leave me!--I've got to get out of here! Yesterday--why, +yesterday--this morning--but now! 'Help me!' she says! I've got to get +out! I--" He stopped. The dusky choking red that had surged up horribly +over his face and forehead receded sharply, and left only his eyes +burning black in the white incredulous horror of his face. He cried, +"There's no way out!" + +"There may be," said the District-Attorney, "if you will look very +carefully at this lock of hair." + +Denny took the soft red curl in a hand that he vainly strove to steady; +they could read recognition, but no further enlightenment in his +tormented face. + +"Sit down!" Kane said. "Untie the string. Shake the hair loose here on +the table under the lamp. Now, does anything strike you? No?" + +Once more Herrick had that singular impression of Denny's going, for an +instant's flash, perfectly blind. Then he said, quite quietly, "Go! The +station you want is Waybrook. Drive five miles inland, on the road to +Benning's Point; about three miles south of the Hoover estate. The +left-hand side of the road; an old house newly fixed up and painted +yellow. Pascoe's the name. And, for God's sake, go quickly." + +The District-Attorney sat back and wiped his forehead. It had been a +hard day's work. "Don't you, Herrick, want to take a look at the +curiosity without which I might as well have asked a clam for a Fourth +of July oration?" + +The hair was spread out and thinned under the lamp. And now Herrick +could see distinctly that it was of two shades. The outer curl was the +dark red of Nancy Cornish; hidden within it was a smaller lock of a +singularly fine light shade, like the red of golden fire. This it was +which had wrung the address from Denny and stricken down Christina in a +faint. + +"Nancy Cornish hid it there in the message she was allowed to send," +guessed Herrick. "She was certain Miss Hope would know the head it came +from." + +"Then I needn't point out to a gentleman of your discernment that it was +the head which astonished Joe Patrick on the night of Ingham's murder. +Directly afterward, I think Miss Hope stored that head, inconspicuously, +with her friends in the Arm of Justice." + +Denny, rabid with impatience, seemed eating them alive with his savage +eyes. "Start!" he bit out. "Go, can't you? Go! What are you waiting +for?" + +Kane looked up at him with a smile of triumphant ice. "We're waiting for +your account of midnight in these rooms between the fourth and fifth of +August. And no one stirs to Nancy Cornish till we get it." + +Denny's jaw dropped and he hung against the edge of the table as if he +were struck too sick to stand. + +Ten Euyck, too, cried out and Kane silenced him. "Why not--since he says +he's innocent?" + +"You dog!" Denny groaned. "You won't save her?" + +"_You_ won't save her--you know how!" + +"Lose time and you lose everything!" + +"What do you know?" + +"Know! Know! Of course I know! But do you think you can make me tell? +Try that game! Try it! Try! You know damned well you can't! So what'll +you give for what I know?" + +"You mean--?" + +"Come back to me when you've found Nancy Cornish and you shall have your +murderer fast enough! Every detail, every fact, every clue! Till then I +don't trust you! Bring her here, bring her!" He leaned forward, beside +himself; shaken and exhausted, burning with fever, weak with loss of +blood, he reached toward Kane and beat the table with his wounded hands. +"That's my bargain! That's my price! I'm not going to give up for +nothing! You don't get my life unless you give me hers--" + +"_What?_" + +The great gasp broke into a buzz. Denny came slowly to himself and read +what he had uttered in their looks. His face went dead, a cold sweat +stood out upon it. "O!" he breathed. And once more he covered his face +with his hands. + +It didn't take many questions to get his story from him after that. + +"Yes, I killed him. Yes, I'm confessing. I've got to. All right,--take +it down. I killed James Ingham. I went to his apartment after my +dress-rehearsal on the night of the fourth of August. I had been told +that he had injured Nancy Cornish. I shot him dead. I've regretted it +every moment of my life since then. That's all. What are you waiting for +now?" + +"Then, Miss Hope--was not in Ingham's rooms that night?" + +There was a dead pause. Denny looked hard in Kane's face. "Yes," he +said, "she was. She came there to try and prevent our quarrel." The men +who had seen the moving-picture of the shadow breathed again. + +"What did she do when you fired?" + +"I sent her down to the Deutches to get a doctor. I wanted her out of +the way, and I switched off the lights so she need not see how useless +any doctor was!" + +"How did you yourself escape?" + +"Up the back stairs, across the roof, into the next house." + +"But she went out of the room before you did?" + +The earth swam before Herrick's eyes, and then he heard Denny's "Yes." + +"Then since you were the last to leave, explain how you were able to +bolt the door behind you?" + +"I didn't bolt it behind me. I stayed in the room." + +Herrick lifted his head. + +"I had dropped my revolver and in feeling for it on the rug I got my +hand stained." He spoke lower and lower, but every now and then his +voice flickered, licking upward like a flame, and cracked. "I ran into +the bathroom and put it under the faucet, and after that it was too late +to get away. People were peering and listening from their doors. I got +in a blind panic--you've noticed I'm upset by jail!--I knew I was +cornered--I bolted the door. But in doing that I saw how close the +portières hung." Herrick drew a long breath. "I thought once I could +clear that outside room a little I could make a dash for it. To do that +it was necessary to remove the magnet. I dragged Ingham's body into the +bedroom. The bed's head was toward the portières. I went and stood in +its shadow, in the portières' folds. Then they burst in. When Deutch +held the portière aside for the policeman I was so close at his back +that he touched me. When he saw me he screened me almost completely. +They had been so obliging as to clear the hall. There was plenty of +noise; the men were opening the closet door, a motor whirring, a trolley +passing the corner; they all had their backs to me, and I made but a +couple of steps of it into the hall. A few moments later I had the honor +and privilege of addressing Mr. Herrick, and of hearing from him that +the murderer was a lady and had not been caught." + +"Deutch screened you, you say? Why?" + +A queer little color came into Denny's face. "I'm fated to be +ridiculous," he said. "I had seen a hooded cloak of Christina's lying on +the table; it was Christina's own blue-gray; just the shade of the +portières. The hood covered my head. The shadow back there is very deep. +Well, Deutch knew Christina had been there, you know. He must have left +his apartment just before she got to it, for he was simply one funk of +anxiety about her." Denny had to struggle up, for the interview had told +on him terribly, and he kept one hand on the back of his chair. "I'm of +no greatly imposing bulk," he said. "And Christina Hope is la tall +woman!" + +A cry came from within the portières. Denny, his self-control utterly +shattered, flashed round. Henrietta Deutch greeted him with a radiant +face. + +"Ah, sirs, thank God! Oh, oh, it was that he saw! Mr. Deutch saw one he +took for her! And Christina it could not have been! He was not two +minutes gone when she was with me!" + +"Thanks, Mrs. Deutch! I couldn't have trusted even you for the truth of +that point if I'd simply asked you! But we must make sure that was what +he saw--that and no other proof. Here's the same depth of shadow, then, +and the same portières. Take this couch cover, Denny, for a cloak. Stand +back, and screen your face with it.--Wade, bring in Deutch." + +Herrick shuddered and anticipation choked him. This man had suffered so +much for Christina, and now he was to decide her fate! The +superintendent stepped into a silent room. All those eyes fed on him. +The place cast its spell of horror. His plump, pale, sagging face +quivered with dread; his eyes floundered from Herrick to Kane, and a +kind of dumb moan burst from him. Kane pointed to the portières and his +panic was complete. + +"Show him, Herrick. Just as he stood, that night." + +He stood there, dizzy with bewilderment, and suddenly he screamed. +Gasping, he clutched at the portière through which some touch, some +motion had repeated for him a dreadful moment. Behind it he once more +beheld a dim, blue figure. He fell on his knees, strangling, his breath +raving and rattling in his mouth, and brought out like a convulsion the +one word "Christina!" Sobbing, he caught at a fragment of the cloak and +covered it with piteous, protecting kisses. Denny let the cloaking stuff +fall from him, and, stepping out, broken as a thing thrown away, stood +in full view with hanging head. Every eye was fastened upon Deutch. + +He had no need for words. What he had believed himself to have seen, +what he had suffered, the mad relief, the almost ludicrous exultation in +what he now learned, passed one after the other across that tormented +visage and broke in one happy blubber as he ducked his head in his +wife's skirts. + +The relief that shook Herrick touched, too, every one in the room. No +man there had really wished to sentence a girl. It was as though, at +last, they had all got air to breathe. When into this new air Denny's +voice broke with a sick snarl. + +"And do you think you've saved her? You miserable, gabbling fools, did +you think your Arm of Justice was her friend? Why, she knew no more of +it than you do! If they've got the girl there, she's fighting, accusing, +threatening them, she's facing her death! And now in God's name, can you +hurry? Hurry!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA WAS + + +At nine o'clock on the morning of Friday, the day when Christina +disappeared, there stood at the little interior station of Waybrook, +awaiting the train from New York, a touring-car which had very recently +been painted black. In the body of this car an observing person might +have descried a couple of indentations which, were he of a sensational +turn of mind, would have suggested to him the marks of bullets. This +touring-car was, at that time of day, the only vehicle in waiting, and +when the train rushed on again from its brief pause, only one person had +alighted from it. + +This was a tall woman, heavily veiled, wearing a long dark ulster, +considerably too large for her, and a rather shabby black hat. This +woman walked directly up to the touring-car and flung herself into it +without a word. When the chauffeur turned and said to her, in surprise, +"You all alone?" she responded, "Yes. And in twice the hurry on that +account!" The curt command of the words did not conceal the quality of a +voice which all the newspapers in New York were that morning praising; +and the face from which she then lifted her veil, although furrowed with +anger and ravaged with grief, was the unforgettable face of Christina +Hope. She sat for the five miles which led to her destination with her +eyes closed and her hands wrung tight together in her lap. + +The touring-car stopped at the gate of an old yellow house, very +carefully kept, its bright windows screened by curtains rather elegantly +pretty; and a flagged path leading up to its brass-knockered door. On +either side of the flagged path stretched a garden, a little sobered by +its autumn coloring, but still abounding in the country flowers which to +Bryce Herrick's admiration had kept Christina's house so sweet. + +The door was opened by a small, square, hard-featured, close-mouthed old +woman, very neatly dressed, with gray hair and a white apron. In other +words, by the occasional cashier at the Italian table d'hôte. This +woman, as the chauffeur had done, looked over Christina's shoulder in +expectation and then said, grudgingly, "Oh, it's you!" + +"As you see," said Christina, pressing inside. "But I shan't trouble you +long. I should like some coffee, if you please. I've had no breakfast." +The woman stood still, staring at Christina's ill-fitting clothes and +sunken eyes, and the girl added, with the same peremptory coldness which +had marked her manner from the beginning, "I must ask you to be quick. I +have only come to relieve you of our guest." + +"You have!" said the old woman. "Who says so?" + +"I think you heard me say so," Christina responded, from the foot of the +stairs. + +The old woman hurried after her. "Yes, I daresay. But by whose orders?" + +Christina turned round. "Who owns this place?" she demanded. + +"Well, you do." + +"Who pays for every mouthful that is eaten here and for everything that +is brought into this house? Who makes your living for you?" + +"You do, I suppose." + +"Well, then, I suppose, by my orders. Where is she?" + +"She's in your room, the same as ever." + +"Locked in, of course?" + +"Of course." + +"The key, please." + +The old woman hesitated, then she took the key out of her pocket. And at +that moment Christina noticed something. There came from the floor above +the sound of a voice speaking rapidly, incessantly, and indistinctly +like a child talking to itself. An expression of amused and contemptuous +malice broke upon the old woman's face and she handed over the key with +greater readiness. "Much good may it do you!" said she, turning toward +the kitchen. + +Christina snatched it and fled upstairs. "Bring the coffee up here, +please," she called over her shoulder. + +For all her haste she paused at the top of the stair, and, with her hand +over her heart, listened to the babbling voice. Then she turned to the +right and knocked on a closed door. The voice ran on, heedlessly. +"Nancy!" Christina called. "Nancy! It's I, Chris! Dear Nancy, I've come +to take you home." + +She was answered only by the endless repetition of some phrase, and +unlocking the door, she went in. + +She stepped into a charming, simple, sunny room, comfortably appointed, +the windows open toward the road and their thin, flowery curtains +stirring in the low, sultry wind. But on the inside of these curtains +the windows were completely screened with poultry wire, and, over the +door, the transom was wired, too. In the bed a young, slight girl half +lay, half sat; her dark red curls had been gathered into a heavy braid +and her blue eyes were blank with fever; she rocked her head from side +to side upon the pillow with an indescribable weariness, and without +breath, without change, with a monotonous and yet agitated inflection, +she repeated over and over again the same phrases: "No, no, no, no! I +don't believe it! Oh, Will, Will, Will, I don't believe it! You did it +yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask Nancy Cornish!" +And then, always with a little listening pause, "I'll promise +anything!" + +Christina shrank back against the door-jamb as if she were going to +fall. + +"Whatever does this mean? How came she like this? Oh, God!" she +breathed, "what shall I do? What can I do?" + +"Oh, Will, Will, Will!" said the other voice. "No, no, no, I don't +believe it!" + +"Ah, me!" Christina breathed. "Nor I! If only I hadn't been there, and +seen!" + +"You did it yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask +Nancy Cornish!" + +Christina sank on her knees beside the bed, in an agony of terror and +tenderness, and for the first time since she had seen the lock of hair, +her tears poured forth. But she took the girl's hand and held it; and +she tried to master those feverish eyes with the eyes of her own +despair. "Nancy!" she said, "Nancy! It's Christina. Nancy dear, it's +Chris. Oh, try to know me. Look at me. Listen to me. You must know me. +You shall. Nancy, stop it! Stop it and look at me!--Oh, God!" Christina +prayed. "Help me! Help me!" She caught the sick girl in her arms and +covered the young little face with tears and kisses. + +And as she held Nancy on her breast she became aware of a thin ribbon +round the girl's neck, with a key to it. She picked up this strange +ornament, and immediately Nancy's fingers came creeping in search of it +and she cried out. Christina dropped it and rose to her feet. "Why!" she +said aloud. "It's the key to my desk!" The desk stood against the wall +and she tried it. It was locked. Nancy lay almost quiet clutching the +key. Christina stood there, puzzled. + +In a drawer of the dressing-table there was a key much the same in shape +and size. Christina took it out, drew the ribbon from Nancy's neck, and, +steeling her heart, plucked open Nancy's hand. The girl set up a shrill +cry but was instantly quieted by the substitute key; the old woman +could be heard rattling with a tray at the foot of the stairs. + +Christina sprang to the desk and opened it; it was in order and almost +empty, containing no object that Christina did not know. She pulled open +one after the other of the three little drawers. And thus she came, with +an amazed start, upon a bulky envelope bearing an address which was the +last she could have expected. The envelope was addressed to the +District-Attorney of New York. + +Christina appropriated it without pause or scruple, slipped it into her +little handbag and restored Nancy's property almost with one swift +movement. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in an attitude of +listless dejection when the housekeeper entered with the tray. + +"Well," said the old woman, "why don't you take her? Mebbe everything +ain't just as you expected. What'd she yell out like that for?" + +"I touched that ribbon round her neck. What has she got clutched in her +hand?" + +"Oh, just some old trash! Better leave it be. She yells blue murder if +you try to take it away from her." + +These two truthful ladies looked down together on the turning head and +chattering lips and the eyes burning with fever. "Ain't it a sight?" +said the old woman. "It's wonderful what frettin' 'll do. She ain't been +like this but since Wednesday. She kep' up surprisin' until then. Guess +her not hearin' anything from you set her off. She counted on that. I'd +know why she sh'd be so terrible set on gettin' away from here. She's +been well treated. When there's been anybody here fit to keep an eye on +her, she ain't even been locked up. Nicola fastened down the window in +the closet where you had the sink put in--y' know, under the stairs?--in +case she sh'd take to carryin' on. But mercy me, we found out soon +enough that wa'n't the idea. She's had the best in the house.--Well, +you 'bout scalded yerself." + +"I'm in a hurry," said Christina, setting down the empty coffee-cup. +"Where are some loose clothes for her?" + +"Land sakes!" said the old woman. "You want to kill her!" + +Christina went to a closet and found some skirts and a cloak. + +"Please go down," she said, "and tell Nicola to put the hood up and let +down the rain curtains." + +The old woman's suspicion and resentment had never been allayed, but she +kept them choked under. "Well," said she, "I s'pose it's all right. I +guess she's goin' t' die anyhow. An' I guess it's 'bout the best thing +she can do. I dunno what on earth we're goin' t' do with her if she +don't. I ain't goin' to stand for any o' them Dago actions. But I dunno +as I can always put a veto on 'em!--Well, I don't see as you got any +call to make such a face as that--seems to me that Denny fellow got a +long way ahead o' anything any o' our boys done, if they are Dagoes!" + +"Take my message to Nicola, please," Christina said, "and don't stand +there talking. Hurry!" + +The old woman got as far as the door. "I s'pose you know's well as +anybody why she's here!" she said, intently studying Christina's face. +She went out and downstairs muttering. "But I'd jus' like to know why +you're takin' a hand in it! The idea! I guess that Denny feller--" The +front door closed after her; Christina looked out of the window and saw +her speaking with Nicola. + +She had Nancy partly dressed, and now wrapped her in the cloak. "What am +I to ask you, my poor Nancy? Do you know what he never would tell +me--how that door came to be bolted?" The girl's babble kept on +undiminished. "God forgive me!" Christina cried, "if I do wrong!" With a +strong effort, she lifted the girl in her arms. + +And then she was struck still by a sudden sound. It was the sound of the +automobile racing down the road. + +She laid Nancy down and ran to the window; she flew downstairs and +opened the front door. The rear of the car in which she had arrived, +speeding in an opposite direction, was still visible in its own dust. +Had Nicola gone to borrow rain curtains or some tool? Puzzled, Christina +called to the old woman. "Mrs. Pascoe!" Getting no answer she went into +the dining-room and from thence to the kitchen; they were empty. Her +glance scoured the weedy homeliness of the backyard. She went to the +shed, to the barn; they were deserted. A strange silence had fallen upon +the place. In the hot lowering sunshine the girl stood still, and for +the first time the cold fingers of suspicion began to creep along her +pulse. + +She had been very sure of her position, and she felt, as yet, nothing +that could be called fear. But the defiance of her authority was amply +evident. She knew now that she had been a fool to come here alone, to +depend entirely on her personal force. But her mouth set itself in a +smile like light on steel. Did they know what they were doing when they +pushed her to the wall like this? Perhaps, in some way, they counted on +the time it would take her to leave Nancy behind her and go for +help--the nearest house was half a mile away. Leave Nancy behind her! +For reply Christina sped into the hall, and caught up the New York +telephone book. She ran her finger down a column until, having come to +the number 3100 Spring, she picked up the receiver. Something said, in +her little steely smile, that with the utterance of that number she +would throw a world away. The number was that of Police Headquarters. + +The exchange was a long time answering. Christina shook the receiver +hook vigorously. Still silence. As she gave an impatient movement +something brushed, swinging, against her wrist. It was a loose end of +dark green cord from the receiver in her hand. The wire had been cut. + +Christina remained there quite quiet, while that cold hand of the +suspicion that was now certainty seemed to stop her heart. She +remembered that, in the world of help she was cut off from, not a living +human being knew where she was. Well, she was a strong girl. She said to +herself, "It is better Nancy should die on the road in my arms than that +I should leave her here!" She ran up to Nancy's room. When she had first +descended to the road, some one must have mounted the back stairs. +Nancy's door was locked. + +With a firm step Christina entered the kitchen and opened the +table-drawer. They had thought of that, too. Everything with which a +lock might be pried open had been swept up and away. Christina lifted a +dining-room chair and carried it upstairs. + +She brought it down with all the force she had upon the lock. Failing in +this, she held the chair in front of her and charged the door with it. +But whereas in anything requiring swiftness, elasticity, endurance even, +Christina was as strong as wire, she had absolutely no weight. After +half a dozen of these batteries every one of which seemed to strike +through her own heart on Nancy's fever, she decided that whether or no +she might shatter the door in time, time was the last thing she had to +waste. And she could run half a mile like an arrow. She had all along +retained her hold on the little bag which held her purse and she thanked +heaven for the money in it. She had her hand on the front door when she +was arrested by the sound of voices and approaching footsteps; Mrs. +Pascoe's, Nicola's and the heavier step of an older man. + +From her earlier confidence Christina had now jumped to an extreme of +accusation in which any violence seemed probable. Mad to get away for +help, it seemed better to delay for a moment or two than to be caught. +She slipped back across the hall and hid herself in the little closet +under the stairs. She was scarcely secure there when the front door +opened, and Christina hardly dared to breathe lest the click of her own +door closing should have betrayed her presence. To her highly wrought +nerves the utter darkness, the airless pressure of her sanctuary were +terrible, and she found and held the knob that at the first stillness +she might slip out. She could hear calling and running about; she could +hear them talking in Nancy's room. After a while, the men went out and +then she heard Mrs. Pascoe come downstairs and the dining-room door +close after her. The time had come. Christina, all her life subject to +fainting-fits, felt that she scarcely could have borne, for a moment +longer, that black airlessness. With infinite softness, she turned the +knob. And then, indeed, her heart stood still. Mrs. Pascoe had omitted +to mention one improvement with which, in preparation for Nancy's +occupancy, the outside of the closet-door had been fortified. This +improvement was a Yale lock. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT + + +It was after midnight when Stanley Ingham stopped his car and yielded up +the steering-wheel to Herrick. Besides themselves their car carried +three of Kane's detectives and they were followed by the sheriff and a +roadster full of armed men. + +The detectives had a secondary mission. At the last minute Kane had +received a message from a much concerned elderly cousin of Joe +Patrick's. This cousin was a waiter at "Riley's," a roadhouse which was +not only a cheap edition of the aristocratic Palisades, whence Christina +had disappeared, but was kept by a brother-in-law and erstwhile partner +of the Palisades' proprietor. The waiter at Riley's declared that a +drunken taxi-driver had just turned up with a note from the Palisades +urging Riley's to keep him over night. This man was quite drunk enough +to talk about having lost his place through obliging the Palisades and +Joe's cousin volunteered to keep an eye on him till the arrival of the +detectives. These were to return to New York with their prisoners of the +yellow house not from Waybridge, but from Benning's Point, stopping on +the way to that station at Riley's and telephoning thence all news to +Kane. + +At Waybridge they had been fortunate in finding the sheriff up and +starting forth after some marauders who were reported to have robbed a +still burning post-office at Benning's Point; the station agent whom +they found with him had seen Nicola, that morning, meet a lady with that +old car of his that he had painted black when there was so much talk +about those New York Guinees having a gray one; the agent was sure the +lady had taken no return train. + +From both him and the sheriff it was evident that the Pascoes as +foreigners, had been contemptible, but not disliked. The unpopular +person was a boarder they had; a woman with red hair who stayed out +there to write novels and thought she was so much too good for other +people that she never so much as passed the time of day with anybody. +Friends of hers did come out from the city to see her sometimes. Going +or coming from the city herself she was tied up in one o' those +automobile veils--might 'uv been her come back this morning, only she +looked kind of shabby-dressed. The sheriff added that there was old Mrs. +Pascoe, Nicola's mother, as nice a little woman as you'd want to see; +real neat, trim, gray-haired lady, an American lady. Herrick suddenly +turned and stared. + +But now they were within half a mile of the Pascoe house. Stanley and +the detectives crowded into the sheriff's car. They had been instructed +to send Herrick on alone; he was to attempt an entrance by a message of +urgent and friendly warning, endeavoring to get the lay of the land and +to make his presence known to any watchful captive, but otherwise +awaiting reinforcements. One of the detectives said to Herrick, "If they +won't let you in, just leave your message. And let them hear you drive +off. Then we'll get together." + +Herrick ran the car slowly along the unfamiliar road. This was still +clogged and rutted with mud, which had begun to stiffen since the rain +had stopped; a high wind shouldered the clouds in driving masses. His +destination was the second house on his left; and, as he peered along +the roadside, the deep excitement, the terrible questions which glowed +in that dark night, worked in him with a fearful gladness. Certainty was +at hand! A bitter exultation rode within him nearer and nearer to +whatever stroke Fate stood to deal him in the yellow house. A hundred +visions of Christina shone and darkened before him, leaping along his +pulse, and his blood sang in him with a kind of madness.--The second +house on the left! There it rose, a blot on the blackness! Dark as a +stone, it somehow struck cold on his hot hopes. + +He brought up the car before the gate and flung a falsely cheerful +halloo upon the wind. Nothing answered. The gate yielded to his hand; as +he went up the path a fragrance greeted him like Christina's +presence--the cold, moist air was filled with the sweetness of +old-fashioned, garden flowers. His fingers missed the bell; but, +lighting on the brass knocker, sent loud reverberations through the +house. Nothing within it seemed to stir. But the silence echoed horribly +and swung, quaking, in his breast. Of a sudden he knew that house was +empty. + +Nothing else mattered. Discretion ceased to exist. He drew back and +scanned the vacant, shuttered windows; he ran round the house; there was +still no light; he tried the kitchen door and drew back to listen; it +was as though within the house he could hear silence walking and her +step was ominous. He put his shoulder to the kitchen door and burst it +in. + +Once again, as on that night in August, a dark room lay waiting; the +darkness seemed to breathe. He had matches in his pocket and once again +the light discovered only emptiness. But he remembered what, that other +time, the inner chamber had revealed. He found a candle and then a lamp, +and, lighting that, crossed the dining-room and then the hall into the +living-room. All prettily upholstered, all in order, and vacant as the +eye of idiotcy. His soul knew there was nothing living in that house; +and yet it seemed to him there would surely be a step upon the stair, +that a voice behind him or an opening door would certainly reveal some +fateful presence. There in the hall, under the stairs, a door was open +and he paused to look into a closet. + +It contained a sink with running water, gardening tools, wraps hanging +upon nails, and, on the floor, a big silk umbrella without a handle, the +rod recently broken. There were also some old flower-pots, two of them +half full of earth. Nothing else. + +At the foot of the stairs he called out, "Christina!" and stood and +listened while his voice went dying about the empty house. +"Christina--it's I--Bryce!" and then "Nancy Cornish! Can you hear me, +Nancy Cornish?" But no face leaned over the balusters to him. He went +upstairs. But his step was heavy, and up there the silence weighed on +him, like silence in a vault. Two rooms on the left told him nothing. +But in a room on his right he found a small forgotten slipper. That +slipper had fitted the slim foot of some littler maid than Christina! +Holding the lamp high, he was struck to see the transom covered with +poultry-wire. He went at once to the windows. Yes, there were the holes +in the woodwork; even, here and there, a nail. There had been poultry +wire over the windows, too. In this room some one had been held a +prisoner. They had taken her away; and in such haste that they had +forgotten to strip the transom and they had forgotten her slipper. At +one side of the room a desk lay open, all its drawers pulled out and +empty; he snatched at the waste basket; there was a crumpled sheet of +paper in it and a handful of torn-up scraps. He shook the scraps into +his handkerchief and, setting the lamp on the desk, he bent above the +crumpled sheet. There leaped before him, in an illiterate, but very firm +hand, an opening of such unimpeachable decorum as to stagger his prying +eyes. + + Mrs. Hope, + + Honored Madam, + +There was no date or other heading. The note ran: + + Mrs. Hope, + + Honored Madam, + + Would say don't come here or send. You can tell where by knowing my + handwriting. She is not here. Where she is now I got no idee on + earth. I surmise she will be heard from. + +There was no signature. Why had the letter not been sent? It had +evidently been volunteered upon some early intimation of Christina's +disappearance. "Perhaps they found out, later, that Mrs. Hope had gone +away--" Then he heard Stanley hailing him from the road. + +The sheriff's party, taking advantage of his house breaking, were with +him immediately. They examined the place from the small, bare, +air-chamber into which Stanley, mounting on Herrick's shoulders, stuck +his head, to the cellar; where only a coal-bin, almost empty beneath +their flinching quest, an ice-box, and an admirable array of preserves +confronted them. + +Upstairs, clothes had been found in all the closets--the clothes of +working people for the most part; but in one, the long, slim, +sophisticatedly simple gowns of a pretty woman. In that room they had +forced another desk, which kept them busy for a while with tradesmen's +bills, all made out, regularly enough, to Nicola Pascoe. Nowhere was +there a letter, no significant writing nor any other name. In the barn a +couple of trunks disgorged only some winter coats and a smell of +camphor; the tools in the shed were in empty order, and when, +considerably soiled and stuck about with lint and hay, they met again in +the composed and pretty living-room, there on the mantelshelf the face +of Christina Hope smiled mockingly at them from a silver frame. +Indifferent to prayer or scrutiny, it had nothing to tell them. And +it seemed to ask if they, on their part, had anything to say. + +[Illustration: Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor +any other name.] + +Herrick never knew what instinct took him back to the closet under the +stairs. He could not bear to leave it; there was a little broken glass +on the floor and a sudden wavering in his lamp suggested that this came +from a break in one of the minute panes in a small window over head. He +tried to reach this window to see if it were fastened and found it +nailed down, with outside shutters that were closed. But in getting near +enough for this he knocked over one of the flower-pots. "Find anything?" +Stanley cried, bounding forward. + +The smashed flower-pot lay at their feet. "No, only broken something!" +Herrick instinctively picked it up and the loosened earth parted in his +hand. "Yes, after all," he said, "I think I have." There had been +buried, smooth and deep in the flower-pot, the diamond necklace. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE + + +The countryside slept vigorously and an hour's exhaustive inquiry +gleaned but the one circumstance--the search party itself discovered, +pinned to the first door they came to, a note informing the neighbor he +might have the livestock in lieu of certain debts. It had not been there +when the man had closed his house at nine o'clock. This limitation of +time was their sole reward, unless they counted the talk of an old +farmer, after the sheriff, promising to drop the detectives at Riley's, +had gone on to his post-office. The farmer said that hours ago, when +he'd been ever so long in bed and asleep, he thought he heard somebody +hollerin' an' bangin' on his door. Kind o' half dreamed it. Kind o' half +fancied it was a woman's voice. Storm was so bad he warn't sure. It was +with this pale fancy to keep them company that Herrick and Stanley let +out their car along the road again, this time in a dryly nipping air and +under a troubled, scudding moon. + +From that desert purity and freedom of cold space Riley's accosted them +like Babylon. It was one blare and glare of hot lights and jigging +music; colored globes over the gates, colored lanterns in the garden; +along the driveway the blazing headlights of continually arriving and +departing motor cars that hissed and shrieked and shuddered; on the +veranda, where the tables indeed were nearly deserted, fur-coated men +stood smoking huge cigars and women with complexions artificially secure +against the wind passed in and out; their solitaire earrings pushed +forward beyond the streaming scarlet or purple of the veils that bound +their heads. The change of atmosphere warmed Herrick with that +unreasonable anger which the young feel against those who do not suffer +when they suffer. + +He followed Stanley Ingham morosely through the hubbub and felt no +fitting gratitude for the table miraculously provided with a fortifying +meal, since Thompson, the chief detective, had not yet been able to get +Kane upon the 'phone. The cabman was upstairs under guard of the others, +babbling some trash about having taken the lady to the Amsterdam hotel +and left her there. The thick smoke, the smell of wine and food and +abominable coffee, the clatter of cheap china, the banging of the music +and the motions of the "trotting" dancers in street dress, the cries of +acquaintances urging them to new contortions, disgusted Herrick and set +an edge upon the iron of his self-contempt. The woman calling and +knocking in the night confronted him like a ghost, in the rank profusion +and fever of that place. He, to eat and drink and wile away the time; +what was _she_ doing? Was that she who had begged in vain for shelter, +beaten by the wind and drenched by the storm, and with God knew what +terrors in her heart! Out of her pale face, with the rain upon it, her +eyes besought him. + +Stanley, anxious, but waving a cigar, for at twenty an adventure is +still an adventure, commented, "Say, old man, you want to relax! I could +let things wear on me, too, if I wanted to!--What are those?"--For the +detective having again fidgetted to the 'phone, Herrick had shaken out +upon the table-cloth the handful of torn scraps from the waste-paper +basket. + +They were in the same handwriting as the interrupted note, but much more +hurried and scrawled on cheap pad paper as if to a more intimate +associate. Only six of them were of appreciable size and these came to +Herrick's hand in this order-- + + This time get rid of her. + I say. She but she can't g + real dau mother + + et rid do the way + een any + She can but + mebbe + of she's got to + ain't ever b + ghter to me + +At the phrase "get rid of her" Stanley quailed. But what the words +brought clearest to Herrick's mind was a small, spare face in its gray +frame bent above its game of solitaire. Without help from the law could +he make her speak? He heard Stanley saying, "How did Chris ever get +mixed up with this lot? What kind of hold _can_ they have on her?" +"Sssh!'" he said, dropping his handkerchief over the scraps. The +detective was returning. + +Thompson sat down at their table, baulked and restive, and Herrick, a +hundred times more so, was reduced to scowling at their surroundings. +Near him sat a wrinkled, enameled, fluffy mite stubbing out her +cigarette as she giggled at a masculine bulk whose face Herrick could +not see. Dark and handsome as it vaguely promised to be this did not +account for a curiosity which Herrick somehow at once felt to see it; +but between them reared a gorged Amazon with a high bust and a coiffure +of corrugated brass. The band struck up again, this time to a music-hall +ditty, so that the customers kept their seats. But the hired singers +were straining their poor voices above the tumult and some musicians +blacked up as negroes joined in the chorus, performing shuffles as they +walked up and down and slapping steps with a dreary, noisy simulation of +irrepressible glee; infected by this whirl of gaiety the Amazon frisked +back from the little dyed man to whom she had been bending and gave +Herrick a clear view of a portly seigneur with a close beard. Instinct +had not misled his curiosity; the portly seigneur was his old +acquaintance, Signor Emile Gabrielli. + +He could not have told why this struck him as portentous. The men smiled +and bowed. Then Gabrielli bowed to Stanley. "Didn't you know?" Stanley +asked. "He brought us letters--this is his first visit. He's going to do +our Italian correspondence." + +It was the more remarkable that there should be, in Signor Gabrielli's +honeyed civility, a kind of chill. Then Herrick remembered that he, at +least, was a marked man and that his old suspicion of shady corners in +the lawyer's experience had been partly due to that gentleman's extreme +dislike of being "mixed up" in things. Henrietta Deutch could also have +borne witness to that characteristic! Far from advancing toward their +old familiarity the signor began to round up his innocent flock and +insinuate it mildly from Herrick's polluted neighborhood. And though +this splendor retreated Herrick did not regret being left alone, as if +beside the dear ghost with the rain upon its face! + +But there was a singular beating at his heart, a feeling that he was +plucking at a veil which he longed and feared to raise. Yet that at some +other time he had raised it and lived through a shock upon the threshold +of which he stood again. It was already time for another dance and the +groups about the tables rose to their feet. Herrick had a moment's +vision, fever keen, of the room's arrested motion. Even the Gabrielli +party paused in the doorway; Herrick was moved by an uncontrollable +impulse to follow and accost the Italian and oddly impelled by his +excitement Stanley, too, rose to his feet; all round them the couples +clasped each other; the musicians lifted their bows; after ten minutes' +enforced repose the whole world seemed to hang in expectation of the +maxixe. When, just ahead of the orchestra, from somewhere outside, +beyond, above, into that instant's perfect silence there thrilled forth +the voice of a single instrument; the full-tongued call of a piano, +leaping, swelling, swaying into the march from Faust! + +A gasp of amazement, a prickle, a shudder, ran over the skin of that +susceptible assembly. It was a tune, just then, so well advertised! They +recovered themselves with amused, scared smiles, awaiting some jest in +the sequel. The piano stopped with a wild crash. Instantly, from the +front courtyard where the motors waited, a bomb of oaths, cries and +movement burst upon the night. The sound of men jumping and running, +exclaiming, stumbling, swearing, of people bounding up the steps, of the +hall filled with astonished, excited questioners merged with one phrase +growing over, topping all the others--"The shadow! It's the shadow! The +shadow on the blind!" + +Amazement, bewilderment, incredulity, obstructed the story which Herrick +traced to a knot of chauffeurs. "Yes--up there! The third window! Look, +it's dark--they've turned out the lights!" As Stanley, Herrick and +Thompson ran to the second story the legend still beat about their ears. +"It had its back to the window--it threw out its right arm--" + +The door of the room was thrown open. The proprietor's wife, shaken with +hysterical laughter, ushered in the crowd. She was a flushed, stout +woman in the gaudiest of kimonos, larger than the fat man in the +driving-coat to whom she appealed. "My brother here 's from Mizzouri and +I was just showing him how the shadow must have done--you can't earn any +reward's round here! Anyhow, you don't suppose that hussy spends all her +time giving signals for murders, do you?"--"But the shadow was so slim!" +somebody said, as Mrs. Riley scornfully assisted Thompson in his +researches. These coming to nothing the young men were powerless to +refuse going oil to Benning's Point and telephoning from there--Thompson +had begun to be suspicious of this exchange. + +They had gone perhaps a mile, moving slowly, watchful of the leaves in +every bush, and Herrick was remounting from the examination of a false +alarm when they heard a hail in their rear and beheld approaching +through the moonlight a hatless figure on a motorcycle. + +The elderly cousin of Joe Patrick, whom they had not seen since he first +welcomed them, bore down upon them in timid and disheveled haste.--"Yis, +sor. I tried to see y' alone, sor, but yeh were gone. 'T is the reward, +sor; I'd not be sharin' it with the policeman an' him takin' th' whole +of it, not a doubt! An' impidence, beside, they do always give yeh! But +a gintleman, sor, I don't mind tellin' him; if yeh 'll exscuse me sayin' +so, Mrs. Riley's a liar!" + +Not that he really knew anything. "No more than yirselves! But the +piana, sor! It stands there fer the upstairs dances, an' her not knowin' +wan note from another!--An' what's more, comin' down the back stairs +from that same room wid the dhirty dishes, what did I see standin' at +the back door but a car like yer own--only still as death an' no lights +in its head! Wasn't that a queer thing, now? An' it gone whin I rode +out." + +What was that?--down the road which crossed theirs, where they had just +reconnoitered for a sound! Nothing but their distorted fancy, their +roused longing! "An' all I can tell surely, sor, is that awhile back, +whin Riley sinds me upstairs with a bite o' supper for Mrs. Riley's +brother that's just come in, barrin' the long drink, stheamin' hot, +'twas chicken an' like that yeh'd give to a lady. He has his own room, +has the brother, but 'twas to hers I took the thray. An' though I saw +no wan an' I heard no wan, yit sure there was some wan beyond Riley she +was yellin' at an' him prayin' her 'Hoosh! Hoosh!' as I come to the +door!" + +"Did you hear anything of what she was saying?" + +"Just the wan thing, sor, an' you'll remimber 'twas me told yeh. She +said, 'I'll thank yeh to hand over that diamond necklace!'" + +There was something there! They could not hear, but they could somehow +feel from far behind them a stealthy purring. They turned; no lamp nor +headlight but their own was anywhere to be seen. The second and less +traveled road crossed theirs just above them at a narrow angle; but it, +too, lay untenanted, not a breath quivering on the stillness. They saw +themselves quite alone beneath the moon, breathing a night silence +drenched with coldest sweetness; the last words rang in their blood with +an accent that could not leave them wholly sober; they were, perhaps, a +little "fey." At any rate, it was by an impulse with which reason had +nothing to do that, as the old waiter continued--"'Twas for her, surely, +they'd have that dark car waitin'!" Herrick held up a warning hand. The +waiter hushed himself, stricken, and huddled in against their car; +Herrick bent forward in a passionate readiness, and from far in the +rear, but nearing swifter than the flight of time, along the +intersecting road came the tremulous vibration of a second automobile. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR + + +They listened, incredulous, straining their eyes among the black pools +and bright patches of wooded, winding way up from the river and +discerned--almost on the instant close at hand--a gray ghost dipped in +moonshine; lost under the trees and then springing out upon them, a +black shape against the darkness, heralded by no sound of voice or horn, +speeding as if with its head down like some sullen thunderbolt. + +With their lights blazing defiance Herrick, catching out his revolver, +attempted to cross the junction in time to throw their own car across +the narrow road. He was too late; she grazed them as she passed; they +fell in behind her, shouting threats which were lost in the wind of that +flight; the road fell away before them; the hilled and wooded earth tore +past; the noise, as of blowing forests, of multitudinous crowds and the +roaring of the sea, surged in their ears; great waves and solid hills of +air rose up and moved upon them, and, as they passed through, split into +stinging, icy shreds that whipped their faces; the car rocked in the +wild tide of its own speed, and in a world where they had gone blind to +everything but one crazy whirl, they yet saw their lights fall ever +nearer and brighter upon the fugitive. + +It was now nearing three o'clock, the moon wholly victorious and the +cars leaping through a world of molten silver. Herrick said to the boy +beside him, "Can you shoot?" + +"Not so that you can tell it!" + +"Take the wheel, then!" + +He could not make out her figure in the car. But in such thickly looming +dangers, what must be, must be. + +The men ahead heard him call to them to stop before he fired. In answer +they merely leaned forward shielding themselves, and Herrick let fly two +shots, aiming for the back tires; but, in that swaying speed, he missed. +With a kind of harsh gaiety he answered Stanley, "No more can I!" and +with the words the man beside Nicola turned and fired straight at +Herrick's head. The wind-shield shattered in their faces; as the bullet +passed between them Stanley felt a little sting, like the scorch of a +quick, hot iron, on his cheek. "Slide down," Herrick said to him, "way +under the wheel! Keep your head to one side." He himself was kneeling, +resting his revolver on the frame of the broken wind-shield. At his +third bullet they heard Nicola cry out and clap his hand to the back of +his neck; the touring-car swerved and gave a kind of bounce; the man +beside Nicola fired again and put a hole through Herrick's cap. The next +minute the revolver dropped out of his hand; Herrick's fourth shot had +broken his wrist. And now the road broadened a little, and the Ingham +car was drawing on a level with its opponent. The touring-car did not +carry Christina. + +"Get as far forward as you can," Herrick said, "I'm after the front +tires." + +Their own front tires passed the rear of the first car; as they came +abreast the man with the broken wrist, using his left hand, emptied his +pistol almost in their faces; a shot from the man in the body of the car +struck their steering-wheel; there was a cloud now between the two cars, +smelling so thick of powder that Stanley seemed to himself to eat it. He +was aware of Herrick suddenly casting aside all defenses, leaning +forward into this cloud, his brows knotted and his arm outstretched. +There came the quick Ping!--Ping! of his last two shots and as if in +the same breath, the earthquake! The black touring-car seemed to spring +into the air; then her fore wheels collapsed and she sank forward, still +sliding a little as if on her nose, and, running quietly over the edge +of the road into the shallow ditch that edged it, turned on her side. + +They were well passed by this time, and despite the jerk with which +Stanley brought up, Herrick had leaped out before they were stopped, and +at the same moment a figure scrambled from the fallen hulk and, without +a glance behind, made off across the fields. Herrick, shifting his empty +revolver as he ran, till he carried it by the barrel, swung into full +pursuit. + +This was the more foolhardy because on getting to his feet Nicola had +drawn his own revolver, from which Herrick had to dodge as he ran, and +at length indeed to throw himself down, and get forward only by his +hands and knees. They were now in a broken, stony lot, spotted with +underbrush; a brook running through it, and here and there tall chestnut +trees. By screening himself with these, and making a run for it in any +patch of shadow, he kept his man in sight and even gained upon him; he +was waiting till Nicola's gun should be as empty as his own before he +came to closer quarters. For this he knelt and rose and ran and crawled, +now showing himself, to draw--and waste!--a bullet; and now plumping +down among bushes. It was at one of these moments that he heard a shot +behind him and, peering through the screen of twigs, saw that Nicola's +comrades had freed themselves from the ditch and were advancing, +apparently full-armed, and he of the uninjured hand beating the coverts +as they came. They called to each other, and in Italian sure enough; and +they carried a lantern from Stanley's car. What had become of Stanley? +And what now was he himself to do? + +He crept forward to the edge of his thicket and could just make out a +figure, not very far off, running heavily across a cleared space. Then, +in a blanket of darkness, the figure disappeared as though through a +trap-door, and Herrick, for all his listening, could hear only the +calling and trampling of the men with the lamp. He told himself that +Nicola had taken a leaf from his own book and was perhaps lying +flattened to the earth--there came a disturbance in the bushes, a jar +along the ground, as of some one plunging back from that cleared space +toward the road; it appeared to him that a bulk of blacker blackness +appeared and disappeared where those sounds rose. But the moon had so +gone under a cloud that he could not be sure. So he thought; and then +his heart leaped to admit the blessed truth--the moon had set! He +slipped to his feet and fled, swift as a shadow and strong as a hound, +after the heavier runner. He had guessed the truth, that Nicola was +returning to the road. He had been led out across the fields on a false +scent, but now Nicola, thinking to have doubled and shaken him off, was +on the home trail straight for the high road. They came out upon it +perhaps two hundred feet to the south of their empty motors; Herrick +steadily gaining, and surprised cries and lantern-flashes piercing the +field they had left behind. But as Herrick lifted his gun to let the +lagging quarry have its butt-end, suddenly Nicola pitched forward and +lay at his feet. He brought up short, suspicious of a trick. And then he +remembered how Nicola had clapped his hand to the back of his neck. +Holding the gun ready, he stooped and put his own hand to the same spot. +It was covered with something hot and wet, which Herrick, with a +surprising lack of sentiment, wiped off on the man's coat; he tried to +lift the senseless figure and get it back to his own car. Something fell +out of Nicola's breast with a little silver tinkle. The sound, as of +some woman's trinket, drove the sense out of Herrick's head. Though he +might as well have run up an electric target, he struck a match. A +silver locket lay in his hand. It had been violently wrested from a +neck-chain in whose wrenched links a thread or two of lace still clung. +In one broken side the glass had been ground to fragments, as though +under a man's heel, but the marred lines of a likeness were still there. +The likeness, cut from an old kodak picture, was of Will Denny. Some +one, like Signor Gabrielli, had never voluntarily parted with the +features of her love! Out of the locket's other side, warm from Nicola's +breast and unmarred but by the trickling of his blood, cried mutely, +eagerly, to Herrick the fresh youth of Nancy Cornish. + +Almost as he saw the bullets sang about him, as if he had charged into a +bee hive. The lamp the Italians carried swallowed up his little match +and picked him out with brightness, holding him in the circle of its +light. He snatched up Nicola's gun and pulled the trigger, but the +barrel was empty as that of his own; he might have flung himself down +and taken his chance to crawl off in the ditch, but he had no mind to +die like that; and what he did was to snatch off his coat and hold it +before him, back and forth like a moving screen, as he ran forward into +the mouth of the revolvers to crack at least one man on the head with +his cold weapon before he fell. Just then from down the road a fresh +volley of bullets shattered the night, and the voice of Stanley and the +sheriff came to him like music. + +The rescue which so much firing had helped Stanley to summon swept in +full chase after the Pascoes and the tables were completely turned. But +the shouts of the sheriff's party--"Got one?" "No; haven't you?" "Hi, +Williams, they must have got over the wall of the Hoover place!" "We'll +scramble over from the hood and see if they've struck down to the +river!" "Blake, you and Cobbett drive round and ring up the lodge. Them +old folks are easy a million, but get 'em up!"--warned Herrick of a +blank in the sequel. And sure enough when the conquerors foregathered, +the escape of the Pascoes, presumably by the river, was the end of +their conquest. + +For this had they fought and ridden, crawled and run! No wonder they +felt a certain need of cheering each other with what gains they had. +There was the yellow house; the home of the Pascoes and their Arm of +Justice, the rainbow end of Kane's dream! And there, in the ditch beside +them was a vague tumble of wreckage. "Hail, and farewell!" Herrick +whistled, with a curious laugh. "We've met once too often!" For there, +at least, was the end of his acquaintance, the gray touring-car. + +As the two young men reëntered New York with the milk wagons and drove +soberly through the Park, a cool gray light, more like darkness than +light and yet perfectly and strangely clear like shadowed water, had +begun to break above the sleeping town. Then Herrick drew from his +pocket his paper puzzle and spread it out beside him on the rear seat of +the car. + + This time get rid of her. + I say. She but she can't g + real dau mother + + et rid do the way + een any + She can but + mebbe + of + + she's got to + ain't ever b + ghter to me + +Some of the connections were obvious enough, but what the torn edges +helped him still further to form was a purely domestic statement. "This +time she's got to do the way I say. She ain't ever been any real +daughter to me. But--" Then there was a bit gone. Then, "She can get rid +of" word missing, "mebbe, but she can't get rid of her mother--" + +"Well!" cried Stanley in disdainful disappointment. "What's that got to +do with anything?" + +"How should I know?" + +He made the scraps into a little pile on the floor of the car, set fire +to them, and ground them to ashes with his heel. For he knew only too +well. That gray parrot face, that sharp, ignorant, cold voice in the +sunny table d'hôte! "I want you should clear out from here, young man. +I'd oughta know Dagoes; I married one." Yes, that was it! Wasn't it +Stanley who wanted to know what hold such people had on Chris? "My +girl's good Yankee--fair as any one. I brought her up so fine--" As they +turned down still unawakened Broadway to his rooms Herrick looked into +the light that was like darkness with eyes that made nothing of the +first pale blush of peach blow nor the first hint of vaporous blue. + +Till he heard Stanley say, "And if that Pascoe Arm-of-Justice gang have +run away and yet come back, where did they run to?" + +Through all his preoccupation Herrick was aware of an immense stupidity. +"You're right. We went over that place inch by inch. And you know, when +they left, they must have tumbled into their car and off--no time for +anything. They packed nothing, they took nothing. Well, then, Stan, +where was Justice's typewriter? And in what room or garret or cellar was +the printing-press?" + +Stanley gaped. + +"Agreed--there wasn't any. And so that never was their real shop. Only a +blind. Their real place of business, Stan, their fortress, their +retreat, we've never found at all!" + +This was the net result of town and country in their search for a +missing girl, twenty-four hours after Christina had disappeared. + + * * * * * + +The anxiety of her friends would have been scarcely more enlightened, or +even more relieved, had the search not happened to miss one accident of +that cross-wired night. + +At about eleven o'clock, more than an hour before Herrick had forced an +entrance, the since damaged touring-car, returning from its expedition +of the morning, had drawn up before the gate of the yellow house. The +night world was then still a world of wind and rain; the car was +splashed as though it had passed through a flood, and Nicola, stiff, +muddy and drenched, was not in a very good humor when he got no reply to +his knock at the kitchen door. He had driven quietly and knocked +quietly, but now he lost control of himself and began to hammer; +catching hold of the knob impatiently, he felt it turn in his grasp and +entered. The door had not been locked, though the kitchen was lighted. +He thought he could hear, somewhere, some one knocking. He took the lamp +and went up the back stairs; then it seemed to him that the knocking +came from the front of the house. He retraced his steps. Yes, there was +a light in the hall and the knocking came from the closet under the +stairs. + +The Pascoes were in desperate straits, and Nicola was alone. He drew his +knife from the capacious foldings of his coat, and stepped a little +behind the door as he flung it open. There stumbled out, and sank, +gasping, at his feet, the figure of a woman. She brought with her, out +of the reeking closet, a strong odor of ammonia. Nicola gave a grunt of +amazement. Then, like Herrick afterward, he lifted his lamp, and stared +about the closet. On the floor lay an empty quart bottle which had +recently been full of household ammonia, a still soaking towel, and a +large silk umbrella, the rod broken and the handle missing. With the +point of this umbrella a pane of the little window overhead had been +broken and a slant of the outside shutter forced open for air. Nicola +could make nothing of it; he turned at length, and grouchily pulled the +gasping woman to her feet. This woman was the gray-haired housekeeper, +Mrs. Pascoe. + +At ten o'clock she said she had gone to get something from the closet +and, as she opened the door, she had smelled ammonia. Then a towel, +soaking with it, had been pressed on her face. Before she could do more +than struggle with that, she had been pushed into the closet and the +door had clicked upon her. That was all she knew. She must have been +unconscious part of the time.--At ten o'clock! What an eternity of +despair, then, had Christina not lived through before she thus +ruthlessly freed herself! And what, now, had become of her; under a dawn +some seven hours later than when, leaving Nancy behind, she had rushed +out of that house and sped away, along the storm-tossed road? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A SIGN IN THE SKY + + +At the end of four days Christina's friends gave up their private search +for the retreat of the Arm of Justice. + +During those days Herrick and the faithful Stanley, sometimes +accompanied by Wheeler's stalwart hopefulness, had persistently +attempted to take up the trail where it had broken--in the fields at one +end of the Hoover estate. The beautiful old place, one of the great show +places of the Hudson, stretched three miles deep to the river bank and a +mile and a half along the road; remembering the theory of an escape +through the grounds they presented themselves as richly tipping tourists +to the little old, old couple at the lodge. These aged folk accustomed, +during the Hoovers' prolonged absence abroad, to curious sightseers, +welcomed them beneath the winged marble lions of the entrance-gates and +made them free of the grounds with a host-like courtesy. But no broken +shrubbery, no footstep save of that of a stray gardener or of their +rival searchers the police, rewarded them; from the Hudson Club's +boathouse, which had rented a strip of the beach, no boat was missing; +the shores of unbroken woodland for a league on either side yielded no +sign; when a hanging shutter at the great house led to a belief that the +refugees had sheltered there the friends watched anxiously the +disappointed ransacking of privileged authorities, and their only gain +came from the gossip of the old lodge-keepers which informed them that +the body of Nicola Pascoe had never been found. He could, then, have +been only stunned. Thus it was still he they were most alert for during +the next three days when the whole district--inns and post-offices, +country-stores and stable-yards as well as every grove and +by-lane--yielded them by day or night no scrap of news. + +During their search, indeed, what clues existed had crumbled away. The +cabman, for instance, had most truly driven Christina to the Amsterdam +hotel, where she had simply given him so large a tip as to upset his +sobriety and earn his discharge. Meeting in with the manager of The +Palisades and applying fuddleheadedly for relief he had conveyed to that +gentleman the idea of "knowing something," and had been sent to sober up +at Riley's in order to keep the reward in the family. Then the day-clerk +of the Amsterdam brought forth Christina's registered signature, +engaging a suite on Thursday afternoon for Thursday night; she had +claimed this suite from the night-clerk and occupied it; early in the +morning she had sent for the housekeeper and hired some clothes of hers, +saying she couldn't wait for her maid to bring her any. The frightened +housekeeper had at length displayed the white and silver dress. Last and +worst, to Herrick, when, on Saturday, he had sought out the table +d'hôte, the dogs, the cats, the babies were unchanged, the Italian +proprietress greeted him with a smile of welcome, but no gray-haired +woman played solitaire behind the desk. + +It was a curious enough blight without being heightened by the fact that +Kane's patience with Herrick had plainly given out. Ever since the young +man's return from Waybridge he had been aware of a change in the +official attitude which rendered it suddenly impossible for him to see +any one whom he asked to see and stretched like a fine wire excluding +him from the whole affair. It increased his sense of outlawry, but a +private preoccupation kept it from striking home. + +This preoccupation ran parallel with, but, alas! could never be brought +to meet that old story of the Hopes' love-affair which he could not help +feeling to be the key to the true, the hidden, situation. That little +pitted speck--and his novel! His novel of the Italian impostor! On the +morrow of his chase after Nicola the table d'hôte had scarcely failed +him before he was knocking at the door of Mrs. Deutch. + +He took her for a walk on Riverside Drive, to be out of the way of +dictographs, and laid before her not only the whole labyrinth of his +perplexities but the best outline he could make of his dim conjectures. +He had not failed to secure Signor Gabrielli's address from the Ingham +office and he now put forward a petition which he tried not to feel +monstrous. "Mrs. Deutch, there is a man who knows some strange things +and strange people, who might perhaps send to Naples and receive from +there a very enlightening cablegram. I am less than nothing to him, he +will never send it for me. But I needn't tell you he is a man of great +sensibility, very susceptible both to shame and pride. And still, after +twenty-five years, he carries the miniature of his betrothed." + +Mrs. Deutch looked out across the proud bright waters. Through the +serene air the somber glory of an autumn leaf floated to her feet; its +fellows were gathered everywhere in withered piles which shouting +children rejoiced to trample into powder. "Yes," she said, by-and-by, "I +will see him. There are always perhaps those of whom he is afraid. +Perhaps he is like that. But it will be easy to say, 'We were very fond +of each other, you and I, we were so young and you were so beautiful a +person! It would be a great happiness to think that now you were brave!' +I can tell him 'Christina is my youth and my prettiness and my true +faith and all that you once knew.' Oh, yes, he will give them back to +me! He will send your message!" + +He had, indeed, sent it; but on Tuesday afternoon no reply had arrived. +Having given up the countryside in despair Herrick could not keep away +from the table d'hôte and, merely as a curious resort, he asked Stanley, +who was returning to Springfield on Wednesday, to meet him there for +dinner. He was able to show his guest the gorgeous Mr. Gumama with the +knit, gloomy glories of his Saracen brow, but no mystery showed a +feather. Inquiry, in his primitive Italian, elicited a statement that +nearly wrenched a groan from his lips--his old lady had taken her eldest +grandniece, Maria Rosa, to visit relations in the country! The mother of +Maria Rosa insisted with a sweet smile that she could not remember the +name of the place. + +The young men sat for a while in the square, where Stanley's astuteness +discovered so many blackmailers in the gentle, lolling crowd that even +the statue of Garibaldi seemed scarcely safe, and then they started up +Fifth Avenue; the austere, departing dignities of whose lower end never +seem so faded, so historic, so composed, as in September dusks. When +they made out the identity of an angular correctness sailing stiffly but +handsomely some distance ahead of them, it seemed of all neighborhoods +the most suitable in which to encounter Ten Euyck; yet they loitered, +lacking the spirit to cope with their opportunities. And Stanley, who +was still in favor with the powers, began to attempt the diversion of +his moodier companion with an account of Ten Euyck's efforts to propel +the Commissioner of Police. "Every little while you forget that he isn't +anybody and can't do anything, even if there were anything to do. And +you say to yourself, 'Golly! I'd rather Chris stayed lost than that he +laid hands on her.' He looks so black and white and dried in vinegar he +does get on your nerves all right. You remember what a lot of money he's +got, after all, and pull and all the rest of it, and you feel as if he'd +be able to find _something_ against her--or, even if he didn't--" + +In the warm still evening his voice had carried farther than he thought; +Ten Euyck turned round and recognized them. Evidently without offense, +since he stood waiting for them to overtake him. "Good news for you, +Ingham," he greeted the boy. "Judge Fletcher does not consider a +confession equivalent to pleading guilty in the first degree! Moreover, +in strict confidence, the judge is a veteran with an extreme distaste +for the artistic temperament! If the prisoner is brought before him we +shall get a first degree sentence yet!" + +"Oh, I don't care!" cried the lad, making a disgusted face. "It's all +too horrible and--and queer, somehow! I don't want to hear about it." + +"Oh, if your consideration is for the actor in the lady's cloak--what a +symbol of his whole conduct!--I understand he prefers it." Ten Euyck +gave a short laugh. He was evidently in his happy vein of inquisitorial +power. "When a man's been ruffling before the public in lace and satin +and diamonds of course he baulks at prison accommodations. Yet even +there our temperamental friend is welching."--He had evidently +approached his point and they could not deny him the tribute of a stare. + +"We may be very foolish, my dear sirs, but we are not incapable of +learning and I may tell you that we have acted on a hint." + +"You mean by 'we' yourself and the law?" + +"Perhaps I do, Mr. Herrick. At any rate, this time to-morrow we shall +have rung the door-bell of the Arm of Justice." + +He took a tolerant pity on their restiveness, relaxing to an urbane +smile as though his machinery were eased by the oil which always flowed +when his prosecuting talent raised its head. "When that disgraceful +laxity occurred at the Tombs and a prisoner was attacked there, we took +a leaf from the criminals' book and put in among the guards some men of +our own. One of these, a man named Firenzi, a very capable fellow, +informed himself in no time of a marvelously well-paid plan for the +prisoner's escape. Yes, by the very tribe who tried to kill him. +Anything, you see, to get him out of the way. The idea is the old one of +passing him out as a guard, leaving the true-false guard quite overcome +in his cell;--a slim chap who's let wear a black beard on account of +asthma or some such nonsense. They naturally suppose that an actor will +look less conspicuous than most criminals in a bit of make-up! Does our +consistent hero refuse to go? Filled with the bright hope of a hanging +judge he does have to be coaxed a little, but not much. He is not lured +by being told that he is to be sent to the safety of foreign lands, a +far-off country and, I believe, a tropical climate, suited to his +complexion. Firenzi reports him as demanding what they suppose there is +in this foreign country to interest him. 'The lady who throws a shadow +that you know.' 'It's enough!' says Denny, through his teeth, I am +informed. I don't mind telling you that it's enough for us, too! They +will be sure to take him to their nest to transfer him to the escort of +their gang and his visit--before a Sampson shorn of his new beard and +having still further done for himself with Fletcher, is returned to a +jail somewhat less porous than he imagines to-night--his visit will be +well watched!" + +They had reached Thirty-fourth Street and turned toward Broadway where +Stanley had an errand. The two puppets in Ten Euyck's hands had nothing +to say. Neither of them could bring himself to utter his excitement in +that now potent presence and Herrick wondered if he were really +trembling. A far-off country! The phrase chilled and hardened him, as +premeditated safety always does. He was scarcely even grateful for the +strength and fleetness of her wings. Never had Ten Euyck's inspectorship +seemed less absurd or more really a fact. Of to-night and to-morrow he +was now the master. And yet, beside the news of a far-off country, what +news could he wring from the Arm of Justice to-morrow for which Herrick +need care so much? They stopped on the corner of Long Acre and as +Stanley plunged into a drug-store, a certain embarrassment fell upon the +two men left together. "It's remarkable how warm it is!" Ten Euyck said. + +Herrick refrained from the flippancy of replying, "Wonderful weather for +the time of year!" On closer inspection Ten Euyck proved a good deal +worked up. His excitement was like a sort of dry paste and as he now +grew pastier and pastier something that was almost a tremor seemed about +to crack it; in fact the dry mask of his face was suffering from a +lockjaw which was his form of hysteria. He took off his hat and, cold as +he looked, produced an extremely superior handkerchief and wiped his +brow. He said something about the last hot spell of the year and his +lips clicked on the words as though they were rather a compromising +statement; was it the coming crisis that creaked in his throat? It +occurred to Herrick that Ten Euyck might be suffering from a sense that +his vanity of achievement and his taste for torture, in leading him to +disclose to-morrow's program, had led him injudiciously far. At any rate +he studied, as if for sympathy, the irreproachable excellence of his +hat-lining and a little pink line came out about his nose. + +Herrick looked uneasily at the doorway beyond which Stanley still +loitered; he saw no reprieve. And as he made sure of this Ten Euyck +again fortified himself with the interior of his hat and spoke. "On your +honor, now, Herrick, you wouldn't keep it from me? You've no idea where +she is?" And he followed this extraordinary question with a piteous, a +blenching glance. + +Herrick did not speak; and Ten Euyck moistened his lips. The whole +outline of his face seemed to take on a certain sharpness, and famine +and fever thrust themselves, for a moment, into the windows of his eyes. +In the silence which Herrick could not break, he murmured, "I'm not like +this about women! You know that! Only she--" His voice cracked and then +snapped off short, but with a hundred quiverings, like the string of a +banjo breaking. + +Herrick seemed to himself to look through a door, in a house of +revelations. Was this what covered Ten Euyck's complacent coldness to +the other sex? Did those neat and formal lips often stifle an outcry +like this? True, Christina's own story had revealed to him that Ten +Euyck's coldness was all hot ice and very swarthy snow. But he had +presumed that incident to be a deliberate brutality; Ten Euyck had +always appeared to govern his instincts masterfully or to walk on them, +indeed, with heels of iron. To see him bared and shaken like this was to +put a new value on the force that had betrayed him; but Herrick was too +young and too much in love to endure this lusting and trembling breath +when it blew upon Christina. + +"On the whole," said he, deliberately, "keep your confidences to +yourself, can't you? They make me sick." + +The pinkness spread over Ten Euyck's face: + +"Oh, I had forgotten your happiness!" he managed to cry, with a fierce +shaking laugh. "Do let me know the date of the wedding!" He lifted his +hat and strode from a neighborhood dangerous to dignity. But as he flung +over his shoulder the ejaculation, "I hope you thought my diamonds +became her!" Stanley's return arrested him. + +"These infernal papers!" the boy cried. + +Neither he nor Herrick had ever been strong enough to deny themselves +the foolish headlines where one hour Christina had been seen as a +passenger for Hongkong and another as a chambermaid in Yonkers. Nancy's +ill-treated locket had roused the public to frenzy, but its imagination +had definite items only of the eclipsing Christina Hope who, in the +mid-day editions, generally lapsed to a lunatic in a suburban +sanitarium; but nightfall always saw her mount again to the ghastliest +and most criminal of "bodies." It was some such horror upon which +Stanley had now fallen; below it Herrick saw the statement that in a day +or two Denny would come up for sentence before Judge Fletcher. + +He had little enough love for Will Denny, but it was with a feeling of +nausea that he observed the mounting satisfaction of Ten Euyck. After +four years the law was to wipe out, for its most obedient son, a blow +across the mouth! It was, nevertheless, the poisoned rumor of Christina +which had set the air afire between all three men. This dealt with some +lovely fugitive hunted out that day by wireless and then disappearing +from a steamer in mid-ocean. The languor of an incredible fatigue stole +feverishly through Herrick's veins. Ten Euyck shouted to Stanley in a +kind of bark, "Well, no waves can hold her down!" And he began to hum a +tune in defiance of the faith with which Herrick's silence defied the +printed words. Herrick looked up and their gaze met across the screaming +columns. Ten Euyck's tune was, "Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken +deer." Herrick knocked the newspaper out of his hand and there was a +second's tense fury before these two, who had forgotten everything else, +should leap at each other. In that second Stanley, lifting his eyes, +whistled excitedly and caught Herrick's arm. + +They were standing at the corner of Long Acre where five nights ago +Herrick had met Wheeler in the rain. Fiery words and figures flashed +their announcements, bright as ever, against the soft, lowering, purple +blackness of the night. Down the side street Wheeler's theater, since +Christina's disappearance, had been dark. It was still closed, but +Wheeler must now have taken heart; for dark, save in theatrical +parlance, it was no longer. The electric sign-- + + ROBERT WHEELER + IN + THE VICTORS + +had been re-lighted. And beneath this, in letters of equal size and +brilliancy ran the surprising legend-- + + THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, + CHRISTINA HOPE + WILL POSITIVELY REAPPEAR + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY TIES + + +"I know no more than you do," Wheeler said. "Or rather, no more than +this." And he spread before them a sheet of writing-paper. + +Above the penciled scribble was neither date nor heading, but the +signature in Christina's slapdash scrawl made the world spin before +Herrick's eyes. Upon that sheet of paper her hand had rested and had +written there to Wheeler, but not to him! The message ran-- + + "Announce me for Thursday night, September 20th. I will be there. + + "CHRISTINA HOPE." + +"Where did it come from?" + +"From the infernal regions, apparently. It was left here at the club +without the mannikin in buttons so much as noticing by whom. It may have +been written from across the street; it may have been enclosed from +anywhere." + +"When?" + +"This noon-time. You don't doubt its being genuine?" Wheeler asked. "No +more do I. As for what to think, I haven't a guess. The girl may be, for +all I know, a mere born-devil, or the tool of devils. Let her come back +to my cast, and, for what I care, she may bring all hell in her pocket! +I've had a very nasty interview with Ten Euyck, who thinks I can explain +my sign." + +Stanley stood there with his face working. "You don't mean to tell me," +he cried aloud, "you don't mean to tell me that it's been nothing but an +advertising trick from the beginning!" + +"God forgive you!" Wheeler said. "You are our public!--No, my dear lad, +there is one thing in this angelic wildcat of ours that you can tie to. +When she tells me, in our business, to bank on her being in the theater +Thursday night, I bank on it; if she can set one foot before the other, +there she will be. That's my belief, if it were my last breath, and I'm +staking everything on it. But we've got to allow for one thing. _If she +can!_ Christina has a great idea of her powers. But, even for her, +heaven and earth are not always movable." + +More people than one were perhaps discovering a certain helplessness +before fate. About noon of the next day Mrs. Pascoe sat knitting in a +bedroom above her niece's table d'hôte. There was only one other person +in the room, a smallish man in the early thirties, who looked as though +he had once been a gentleman, and whose correct feminine little features +were now drawn into an expression at once weak and wild. His soft +helpless-looking figure writhed and twitched as he now lay down and now +sat up upon the bed; his face was swollen with weeping and the tears +still flowed from his eyes. + +"Well, if yeh're goin' to take on that way," said Mrs. Pascoe, "I dunno +as I can blame her any. I dunno as I blame her anyhow. Yeh never +objected when there was any money in it. It's kind o' late to carry on, +now. What say?" + +The gentleman poured forth in Italian, which Mrs. Pascoe understood +better than he did English, that the lady he lamented had never wished +to leave him before; she had never loved anybody before; hitherto it had +always been business. The business of the whole family he had never +interfered with, but this he would not bear; he had borne too much. +And, indeed, from his language, it appeared that he had. + +"My," said Mrs. Pascoe, "men are funny! Yeh been married to my girl +since she was sixteen years old, and she ain't never treated yeh like +anything but dirt. Well, what do yeh want to hang on to her for! Clear +out! You ain't like me. Yeh can get another wife but I ain't got no +other daughter. I gotta stick. She don't want me either. She wants swift +folks an' gay folks, she'd forget she was mine if she could. But she +can't! An' I can't! I can't deny anything yeh got to say. You say she +ruined yer life. She'd ruin anybody's she can get her clutch onto. You +say she don't love you. If you ask me, why should she? Even if 'twasn't +herself she was thinkin' of, first, last an' all the time! She ain't +never cared for any human bein' but this actin' feller, an' that's +'cause he cares 'bout the other one. Still, she got hold of him, oncet, +an' do you think if she can get him again, if she can get them fellers +our boys know to snake him out onto that boat for 'er, she's goin' to +care whether you like it or not? You take it from me you ain't goin' to +sail to-morrow any--or anyway not with us. You ain't never wanted +anything but a wife that could take care o' you, an' you're quite a +pretty lookin' little feller. The best you can do is to get some money +out of her an' get a divorce." + +The young man rolled back and forth and bit the pillows. Mrs. Pascoe, +who had hitherto regarded him with contemptuous tolerance, observed a +wave of genuine despair in this sea of grief and her eyes narrowed. + +"See here, young man," she said, "don't you let me ketch ye doin' +anything underhanded--squealin' on us or tryin' to keep us here, 'cause +we got to get out. If I was to say a word to my son that I thought that, +there wouldn't be no prettiness left to you. I ain't goin' to have her +locked up in no jail for any man that ever was born. Mebbe you think, +'cause I speak harsh of her, I ain't fond of 'er. Why, you little fool, +I ain't never had a thought but for that minx since she was born. Even +when I first see the other child, an' the resemblance gimme such a turn, +the first thing I think of was how I was goin' to get somepun' out of it +for her. That's why when I got to nurse the little thing I never let on +fur a minute that I had one the spittin' breathin' image of it,--hair, +mouth and nose, an' the eyes, too, so I near fainted when I first seen +theirs--somepun' warned me to shut up an' somepun' 'ud come of it. They +thought I'd just gone cracked on their baby. It's been the same ever +since. I read all them yarns about changed children an' I thought it +would be funny if I couldn't work it. An' I did. She used to act it all +to me afterwards, right out in poertry. 'The ol' earl's daughter died at +my breast'--Didn't she ever do any of her actin' fur you? Goes--'I +buried her like my own sweet child an' put my child in her stead.'" Mrs. +Pascoe gave this forth with an inimitable relish of its stylish +precedent. "If theirs hadn't died I'd ha' worked it somehow. They was +rich then. She's walked on me an' on them, an' on the whole blame lot of +us, ever since. But she's mine. What she wants she's goin' to have,--him +or anything--I can't prevent her. No more can you. I'm goin' to stan' by +her. An' you've got to." + +"He's a murderer!" shrieked the Italian gentleman. "He's a murderer!" + +"Seems like it's catchin'," Mrs. Pascoe commented. "Here's my daughter +tells me you was hangin' round Mrs. Hope's all last Friday, lookin' fur +that spy feller, an' all is you wasn't even competent to find him.--I +guess I don't want to hear no talk outer you! Though as far forth as +what roughness goes I don't say but what you wus druv to it." + +The young man rose and stretching out a delicate hand, over which a +gold bracelet drooped from underneath a highly fashionable British cuff, +tremulously lighted a cigarette. Under its soothing influence he replied +that of course he was a lost soul and he didn't deny that his companions +had at last succeeded in dragging him to their level. + +Mrs. Pascoe snorted like an angry horse. "Now you look here, Filly; when +I married Mr. Ansello I didn't have no more idee what his business was +than what you had. So far forth as what that goes, I didn't rightly +ketch the whole o' what was goin' on till you come whoopin' along an' +got us all into that muss where we had to clear out back to my country. +I was mighty glad we did an' cut loose from all them demons--I said then +an' I say now I won't stand fur nothin' rough! But you know as well as I +do, oncet we was started out fur ourselves there's nobody ain't worked +harder to keep to the quiet part o' the business 'un what yer +brother-in-law an' yer wife has. It usta be, before Ally come back, that +things did get oncet in a while beyond Nick's control, but never any +more, thank the Lord--not in his own little crowd 'ut he has anything to +do with! I guess there's one thing we agree on, young feller; it's jus' +druv me crazy, lately, to get mixed up with the regular Society again. +It's gettin' to be so big, even in this country, it won't let none o' +the little ones work fur themselves--all this month since it took us in +I've felt there was things goin' on I never got to hear of an' I'm +mighty glad we're goin' to get away from it to-morrer." She caught +herself back from what was evidently a favorite topic. "But don't let me +hear any more talk about draggin' down! You've done considerable +draggin' on us with all that feller spyin' on yeh costs us, an' yeh'd +ought to thank the children the way they've kep' yeh clear out o' the +whole business. Why, nobody hardly knows 'ut yer alive! Y' ain't asked +to do anything, y' ain't asked to show yerself, y' ain't even ever been +a member, so now the Society ain't nabbed on yeh none. I wisht it +hadn't sent fur yeh to the meetin' to-day, jus' to take Nick the word +an' his money. Ally nor me, we won't do--no, they gotta have a man, an' +I s'pose they take you fur one! So far forth as what that goes the less +I have to do with their greasy meetin's the better I like it, but I want +you should be awful careful. If oncet they was to get on to who you +was--Now, Filly, don't you smash them mugs!" + +The Italian hastily resigned the object with which he had been angrily +and absently rapping the table, and, exhausted with sobbing, began to +breathe upon and polish his fingernails. + +The mug, or jug, a little earthenware copy of a two-handled Etruscan +drinking-vase, was one of three which stood there side by side, exactly +alike save that the crude design which each of them bore--an arm and +hand holding a scales--was differently colored; one red, one white, one +green. But Mrs. Pascoe was aware of another difference and she turned +the jugs around in a bar of sunlight till she found it; on one jug the +scales of justice were gilded, on another silvered, on the third painted +a dull gray. The single exclamation stenciled over each design +translated into a sort of jingle: + + Gold buys! + Silver pays! + Lead slays! + +"Ain't she the hand," exclaimed Mrs. Pascoe, "for monkey-shines! Don't +you wonder what they do with these here, Filly? Mr. Gumama asked Ally to +get him these new ones fur to-day. She'd have to fancy a thing up if 't +was only to take a pill out of. Comin' in las' night without the car, +what with luggin' these here an' the paul-parrot--'t ain't spoke a word, +that bird ain't, since it left here!--I dunno but I'd ha' broke my neck +hadn't been fur M'ree. I do hate turrible to part from M'ree--I declare, +if ever anything happens to my Ally, I'll come back here an' put up with +these Dagoes on M'ree's account--Now, for mercy's sake, Filly, don't +howl!" + +For the mention of parting had brought on a still more violent attack of +the young man's anguish. The smile--wan but touched with the charm of +Sicilian plaintiveness--with which he had been reconciling himself to +life utterly disappeared; he ceased half-way through an excellent polish +and casting himself down as from the Tarpeian rock, blubbered into the +bedspread. + +The old lady regarded him with contempt passing again into suspicion and +then into a softening weariness that rose in her manner like an anxiety +that all the time had barely been held down. "Filly," said Mrs. Pascoe +with sudden friendliness and such an uneasy, furtive look of dread as +quite transformed her face, "what'er they goin' to do with that girl?" + +He lay quiet a moment, as if discomfortably arrested by the question. +Then he asked, how did he know? Take her, leave her; what was it to him? + +"Well, 't ain't hardly likely they're goin' to take her--an' her feller +on the boat! An' I should jus' like to know how they could leave her!" A +strange, helpless tremor passed across that firm mouth. "Oh, why was she +ever brought away? I allus knoo what it 'ud come to! Times there I did +hope she was goin' to die, poor thing! But it war n't to be!" There was +no sound but the sound of Filly, growling moistly into the bed. + +Mrs. Pascoe,--or, according to her own reference, Mrs. Ansello--looked +at the clock and began to fold up her knitting. But her long pent-up +broodings burst from her again in a new channel. "One while I was scared +Nick was kind o' losin' his head about the little piece. What with him +gettin' more an' more stuck on her, all the time, an' her sick with love +uv another feller, even to the farm I didn't know from one day to the +next what he would do. But when he made out 't was safer to take her +alone with him up t' the old place--Well, we all had to scuttle there +that very same night, an' when she begun to take on for that letter I +guess he forgot all them feelin's. He ain't never let a human bein' +stand in his sister's way an', however pretty that little neck o' hers +might strike him, 't wouldn't take him two minutes t' wring it if he got +scared she'd shoot her mouth against Allegra. I've had bad dreams before +you ever was born, but I ain't ever had any like waitin' fur the bunch +to come home that night an' the river so handy! I never thought I'd be +glad to see my son half-bled to death--but there, there's allus mercies! +I expect he wishes, though, he'd come straight home from the +post-office, instead o' snoopin' round that hotel! The sea-voyage'll fix +him up all right, an' he's strong enough an' cross enough an' sick +enough to pull the whole house down 'cause he can't get back an' forth +without the car. Filly," she shot forth, "sure as you live he's got +something made up fur to-night about that girl!" + +The Italian gentleman taking this as a still further personal +degradation, inquired aloud why he ever was born. But Mrs. Pascoe did +not attempt the obvious retort. + +She rose, fetched paper and string and, with an impotence foreign to her +whole nature, fumbled in tying up the jugs. "I've allus said I wouldn't +stand fur it, allus! But what can I do? I tell him I'll curse the last +breath he draws--but can I stop him? Yeh know what he is--can anybody +stop him? I tell yeh what 't is, Filly, I'm gettin' scared uv him! Yes, +now I'm past sixty, I'll say it fur oncet--I'm scared uv him! And then, +poor boy, so far forth as what that goes, what can he do, himself? When +you come down to it, what can any uv us do? The girl knows +everything--nobody knows that better'n you!--an' what she knows she'll +blab. She's soft-lookin' but she's got a chin an' she's in love! If her +feller's done fur, we're goin' to be done fur, too! There's my daughter +to consider an' every last one uv us. Jus' now, too, when Ally's goin' +to get her divorce an' be so happy! What can I do?" + +There was the sound of doors opening and closing and of some one coming +upstairs. But Mrs. Pascoe paid no heed. Her unaccustomed garrulity, +which had hitherto seemed the result of mere strain, began to appear as +her idea of conciliation for the ushering in of a plan. "I've only one +thing I can say favorable to you, Filly," she urged him, "yeh ain't +rough an' yeh was a gentleman. Yeh don't want screamin' an' hurtin', +I'll be bound. She's a little lady, Filly, an' she's 'n American girl. +Well, what I'm gettin' at is, would yeh dare do this? Now she's +conscious, they won't lemme near her. But they'll never suspect you. I +want yeh should tell her there's a bottle o' laudanum fur M'ree's tooth +in my closet an' if she wants it, give it to her. Give it to her quick!" + +The Italian gentleman giving no sign of finding consolation in this +prospect, "Oh, yeh'll never in the world do it!" Mrs. Pascoe groaned. +"Yeh ain't got the nerve uv a sick worm! Why, it's different,--can't yeh +see, Filly?--if she asks fur it herself--it's different, ain't it? It's +what she promised to do in the beginnin'. An' now, jus' out o' +spitework, she won't. But I bet she will to-night. Whatever's up, she'll +know it before they get her feller out there to-night. Give it to her, +Filly!" + +There was a knock at the door and the proprietress of the table d'hôte +entered cheerfully. "They come?" inquired Mrs. Pascoe. "Well, time I +went. There, get up, Filly, an' blow yer nose, do! Come, come, yeh don't +want the gentleman yer wife's goin' to marry to be brought up an' find +yeh wallerin' on yer stomach!--Well, stay where yeh be! But now yeh mind +what I was tellin' yeh, awhile back, about bein' anyways treacherous. +'T wouldn't be the first time but 't would be the last! My daughter's my +daughter, an' as fur my son--I never said there was anythin' so rough I +wouldn't stand fur it, when it come to Dagoes!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE TO A COMIC OPERA + + +Mrs. Pascoe had some last minute shopping on hand, including farewell +gifts for her niece's family and a special token for Maria Rosa, and she +was quite unaware that it would have been a godsend for her daughter's +plans had she kept her sharp eyes, that day, on the interior of the +table d'hôte. But even had this occurred to her the number of figures on +the background of her son's life had lately so increased that she could +scarcely have been expected to recognize that the friendly Italians who +arrived at the appointed time were not a guard of Nicola's choosing, +sent to carry a willing captive to the freedom of Allegra's waiting +ship, but plain clothes men, who bore their prisoner back to jail. She +and little Maria Rosa shopped successfully, refreshed themselves at an +ice-cream parlor, returned home for a distribution of the farewells and, +re-emerging from the house in mid-afternoon, walked briskly enough +eastward, though now laden with heavier packages. Mrs. Pascoe carried so +many bottles of wine that even the stout wrappings threatened to give +way and, wrapped in many folds of clean dust-cloth, Maria bore the +pretty jugs. + +"I did lay out you should wait an' take those home," said Mrs. Pascoe to +the little girl, "since your cousin Ally's fixed 'em up so pretty! But +it'll be too late, likely, an' I don't like you should be crossin' the +street after dark. You better tell me good-by an' run home soon 's I get +the loft cleaned up fer the meetin'. I told yer ma you an' me 'd unpack +that barrel o' backyard party truck an' the boys could bring a bundle of +it over when they leave to-night. No use it settin' in a empty garradge. +Don't fergit yer old great-aunt, now will you, M'ree?--an' I'll send you +somepun' reel pretty from furrin' parts, where yer parrot come from." +She added, as they crossed under a bend of the Elevated Road into South +Fifth Avenue, "Remember, I've told yer ma ye're always to go out an' +visit my folks, same as if I was there. Mercy, I hope it don't rain with +all of us trapesin' out there fer our last night! I don't see how the +boys are goin' to get that feller out, with them fools skiddin' round +the roads the way they be--an' Filly'll faint away most likely!" + +They turned in at the door of a small dingy structure, which had been +something else before it became a garage and that now looked vaguely out +of use; from its obscure depths emerged the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama, +who relieved her of the wine. She and the child mounted a ladder-like +staircase and emerged through a sort of hatchway, scarcely more than an +opening in the boards, with its lid tipped back against the wall. + +It was not yet four in the afternoon, but the September light was +already failing under the low roof of the loft. The windows were built +close to the floor and that at the rear had a little, begrimed straggle +of vine waving in at it. For the window looked out upon a triangle of +trodden earth, heaped as with the rubbish of an old machine-shop but +producing spears of grass and black, stunted bushes to show it had once +been part of a yard. In front the loft gave directly upon a turning of +the Elevated Road, and when a deafening train roared by the whole flimsy +structure rattled and shook; the walls were irregularly studded with +nails and hooks from which hung lengths of rope and buckled straps as of +old harness that shook, too. Among these, from a cleared space of +honor, a head of Garibaldi, in gaily colored lithograph, confronted the +flyspecked grandeur of the Italian royal family, domestically grouped; +the pink paper of cheap gazettes brightened some of the murkier boards +with woodcuts of prizefighters or disrobing ladies. Three or four stools +stood about on the dingy boards and rather a greater number of worn out +chairs; a couple of heaping barrels in one corner were covered with an +old awning; there was a small bureau, once yellowishly glazed, without +any glass; a kitchen table, stained with al fresco dinners, had been +brought in from the yard; in another corner, torn rubber curtain-flaps, +collapsed tires and threadbare leather cushions supported each other. +Suddenly Mrs. Pascoe uttered a little hiss. She had perceived, sitting +in the frame of the front window, a listless, undersized, undeveloped +lad with the delicate, soft-eyed face of a young seraph, who looked +seventeen and had probably turned twenty. + +This young person was reading an Italian newspaper and sucking a limp +cigarette which hung from between his teeth and occasionally scattered +sparks down the slim chest which his inconceivably filthy shirt left +open to his belt. He was greeted devotedly by Maria as Cousin Beppo and, +though he was evidently the old lady's abomination, when she accosted +him with the unconciliatory greeting, "Here, you! You stir yourself!" he +reared himself slowly to his feet and, with a good-natured smile, sagged +amicably toward her. + +"I don't s'pose you think so," snapped Mrs. Pascoe, "but this place's +got to be swep' out!" + +Fortunately, the tidying of the loft did not depend upon the +sweet-smiling indolence which remained unbroken while she swept and +rubbed; when the barrels were despoiled of their green and pink netting, +their feast-day lanterns and paper flowers Beppo nosed ingratiatingly +up; but long before the old woman had laid clean oil-cloth over table +and bureau he was playing charmingly with Maria, whom he coaxed to +carry a chair to the rear window, to fill and set upon it a tin basin, +and to filch him a clean dust-cloth. + +Then he began cautiously to wash his face, down almost to the black rim +midway of his pretty throat; cleansing his hands, too, but not so as to +disturb the fingernails. Out from the top drawer of the bureau he took a +broken bit of mirror, also richly scented pomatum with which he smoothed +his hair well down over his brows and then he brought forth a velvet +jacket and a waistcoat sprigged with embroidered flowers. He handled +them as if they were vestments and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, +their weight did not appal him. To these, over the filthy shirt, he +added a silk neckerchief of robin's egg blue and a glittering scarfpin; +there came forth, from its hiding-place about his person, a very +graceful little knife which he stuck with airy bravado in his belt. +Lastly, he lighted a huge cigar and assumed, though for indoor display +only, a soft hat balanced on the left side of the head, and a light cane +swung from the left hand. Standing thus, full-costumed, with a +hip-swaying swagger, he was more picturesque though less fashionable +than his confreres of northern races, but his infamous profession was +none the less proclaimed in every line of him. And once more he turned +the sweet beam of his smile upon the little girl. + +Beppo had not, however, dressed himself for professional purposes. The +coming occasion was more solemn and his toilette an act of the purest +piety. Perhaps that was why, when Mrs. Pascoe turned her contempt on him +again, he was no longer amused. + +The old woman, as she set out the jugs, was saying, "Fetch up them +bottles, M'ree. An' Becky or whatever your name is--" + +She turned and beheld the basin of dirty water. "You take that right +down stairs!" cried she, in outrage. "An' the rest o' yer trash with +yeh! When I clean a place, I want it left clean!" + +He said something, sulkily, about emptying it herself. + +"Well, when I come to emptyin' swill, 't won't be no Dago swill! Here--" + +For he had furiously snatched the basin above his head to dash it on the +floor. + +She caught at and somehow prevented him, but not from whirling it +through the window into the back yard. He was smiling again at this +assuagement to his dignity when he suddenly perceived that the struggle +had sprinkled his vest; spots appeared also upon his scarf's cerulean +blue! He became, on the instant, a maniac, not human; he raved, he +shrieked, his delicate skin flamed, tears suffused his eyes, he ran up +and down scattering prayers, howls and curses. Until, one of these +voyages bringing him close to Mrs. Pascoe's small disgusted figure, he +seized her by the wrist and with the deliberate, systematic skill of +custom began to wrench her arm. + +Mrs. Pascoe very promptly kicked him in the shins. "If my son Nick was +here he'd take the buckle-end o' one o' those straps an' spank the life +out o' yeh! Yeh wax-face! Yeh--" For once stooping to Italian she shot +forth the word, "Ricondoterro!" + +It was his calling and he should not have objected to it. None the less, +pursing his soft lips he spat a fine spray over her face. She jumped at +him in such a fury that Maria threw protecting arms about her +playfellow; then they were all parted by the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama. + +This imposing person had, with dramatic quiet, brought up the wine; and +now, holding Beppo by one wrist, he listened to Mrs. Pascoe's angry +cluckings. Then he seemed merely to put out one fist. The boy fell on +his back without even a cry and lay as he fell. "Why, you beast, you!" +cried Mrs. Pascoe. "Mebbe you've killed him!" + +"No. But no matter," said Mr. Gumama. "Go and make your guard. Come not +up again till I call you. Take the child." + +She went, holding Maria's hand and looking back, with her old mingling +of curiosity and reluctance at the prone figure of the pretty +ricondoterro, from whose nostrils blood had begun copiously to gush on +her clean floor. The tall Mr. Gumama was evidently not one to be defied. + +It was half-past four and those who were expected began to come. First a +couple of laborers, warm from their work; the next had the proud bearing +of a chauffeur; after him came a respectable professional man, probably +a dentist, wearing a black suit, a full beard and glasses; then a plump +and coquettish little beau, the owner of a fruit-and-candy stand, who +bore a flower in his light, ornamental coat and the scar of a knife +across his rosy left cheek. He was followed by his cousin, who had only +a fruit cart and sold for him on commission. One and all were obliged to +halt before Mrs. Pascoe, who sat on a stool at the foot of the stairs, +playing solitaire on a couple of orange boxes. + +She bent her tongue Italianwards and asked of each the same question. + +"What do you want here?" + +"Justice!" + +"How can you get it?" + +"By the Arm of God." + +"Who is your enemy and mine and your children's children's?" + +"A traitor!" + +"Y' can g'won up." + +As they emerged into the loft they were each greeted by Mr. Gumama and +then dropped themselves awkwardly about on stools and window-sills, with +the whispering stiffness of people in their best clothes. Beppo, +moaning, now lay huddled on his side and, as occasion arose, they +stepped about and over him without the slightest interest or even malign +amusement in his plight. By-and-by he got to his hands and knees and +crawled into a corner, where, with the now fatally ruined blue scarf +held to his nose, he shivered himself slowly quiet. But his pomatum came +into play with the laborers, who sat seriously down by the still bright +rear window and beautified their heads with it, cheerfully assisting +each other's toilet as amiable monkeys often do and even smearing +themselves a little from the communal mercies of the water-pitcher. +"Enough!" Mr. Gumama sternly rebuked them. "Business alone!" + +They looked meekly at him, stricken, and he called one of them by +name--"Take the stairs!" + +The man crossed to the opening in the floor and seated himself a little +back from where it gave into the room; the knife which he drew from +inside his clothes seemed a trifle clouded and he sat idly polishing it. +Mr. Gumama looked at his large silver watch and, stepping to the front +window, glanced out. A certain anxiety in him began to make itself felt. + +More and more men arrived, but evidently not the looked-for men. A +strapping youth began unconcernedly to converse with Beppo about a duel +they were to fight. "I cannot remain forever a picciotto. If I do not +fight the next duel how shall I ever get to be a member?" + +"Me they will not yet let fight again." Beppo stopped sniffling and +displayed, a bit above his knee, a wound that might have been made with +a knife like that in his belt or a short dagger. "In two duels have I +lost, and if I lose the third I lose my entry." + +The strapping youth began to get excited. "With whom, then, can I +fight? How long do they intend to keep me waiting? See, now, I want my +rights--I want to be promoted--" + +A man with turned-up red mustaches, sporting a carnation and a pair of +highly polished boots, interrupted his complaint that the bootblack +under the Elevated had overcharged him and reproved Beppo for kicking +his chair. The fruit-vendors also stopped quarreling over the accusation +of the huckster that the merchant had supplied him with decayed fruit; +the merchant allying himself with the strapping youth and declaring that +his wife's brother was right and ought to be promoted. Then, with the +one word, "Peace!" Mr. Gumama struck them into abject silence. + +"Peace! Ludovisi, your wife's brother may win all three duels and yet +endure years of probation. Beppo, let your squeal rise once more and you +are suspended for a month.--Have you, then, no wits at all? Let the +result of this meeting go a little wrong and promotion it will be no +more! At least for us, fellow members of the old-days Arm of Justice, +for we shall be no more!" + +A number of men cast glances of horror. But after a few lightning-shot +growls even this number returned to its knitting, being accustomed to +obey and not to ask questions. Again Mr. Gumama looked at his watch. + +More and more men arrived till the loft was crowded. The unknown persons +who had so long so strangely shadowed the pathway of Christina Hope were +beginning to mass for action and to detach themselves from the +background. And still as the loft darkened with the passage of each +train and relightened less and less when that was gone, another presence +seemed to enter and abide; the growing, shadowy presence of suspense. It +was in the air, for the ignorant many as well as for the few who +understood. There were brief silences so deep that the little vine, +spying in at the window, could be heard tapping on the upper pane. Then +a cab stopped outside and a startled thrill passed through the assembly. +The man who had been told to take the stairs rose with a soft, +business-like precision and drew his knife. He stood, waiting. Something +in his attitude defined his duty as preventative not of an entrance, but +an exit. Any unwelcome comer who got past Mrs. Pascoe's guard would get +farther; he would enter the loft, but he would never leave it. He would +not even turn round. Mr. Gumama, watching the cab avidly, opened his +fateful mouth. But the men disgorged from its disreputable depths were +friends to that house. + +The first two tumbled into the garage, glanced round, saluted Mrs. +Pascoe, and returned to the assistance of those on the sidewalk. These +manoeuvered between them a man with his hat pulled down over his eyes +and an overcoat hanging about his shoulders whom they supported like a +drunkard. A fascinated crowd stopped to wink and advise. As soon as the +two men were inside they threw their burden flat on the floor and +returned to the cab for another. The man on the floor was gagged, his +arms were tied behind him and even his thighs were bound. + +Swarthy as was the man's face Mrs. Pascoe was still observing with +annoyance these signs of roughness when a second human bundle was +brought in from the cab and the cavalcade somehow hoisted itself +upstairs. In the loft the human bundles were propped against the wall +and the meeting came to attention. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I!'" + + +"The eighth district, members of the Honorable Society," said Mr. +Gumama, bowing to the assembly as if he were ascending a throne, "it is +my duty to inform you that, for reasons which you shall presently know, +Nicola Pascoe is no longer our capo d'intini. Unworthy that I am," he +continued with pomp, "be pleased to signify by the vote whether it is +your pleasure that I assume this post of glory." + +It was their pleasure and the vote acclaimed it. Instantly Beppo, the +merchant's brother-in-law and three or four other lads ranged chairs and +barrels in a circle nearly as might be round the kitchen-table and all +of the assembly that could find seats sat quietly down. Mr. Gumama +filled the earthen jugs with wine and they were passed from hand to +hand, each man taking a ceremonial draught; then the man at Mr. Gumama's +right rose and, with dramatic gesture and winy mouth, kissed him on the +forehead. So, in turn, did each of those to whom, by some mystic +precedence, the seats at the table had been spontaneously allotted. All +was accomplished with due ceremony, but rapidly and with an undertone of +nervous expectation, the weight of some unusual circumstance. It was +another and less flowery version of the festivity which had so amused +Herrick that evening, a month ago, when it had frothed round Nicola +Pascoe under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. Almost immediately the +meeting proceeded to business. + +The man with the carnation and the resplendent shoes rose ponderously +and began to hurry through a fortnightly financial report. This report +was starred with titles--capos of various departments, first voters, +senior members, cashiers, secretaries--and with references to local +districts, twelve or fourteen of them, into which that blundering +mammoth baby, New York City, would have been surprised to find itself +divided. The administrative looting of these departments was again +crossed off into eight sub-divisions--paranze, the treasurer called +them, each of which had, apparently, its own committee and procedure; +for each paranza had turned over its earnings to its capo d'intini, +these capos in turn had passed them to the capo in testa who had turned +them into the treasurer in exchange for a receipt. One of these receipts +Mr. Gumama now produced. The fortnightly gains were deposited upon the +table in two cigar-boxes; in one the baratolo, won at games and +swindling; the other held the sbruffo, more heroically acquired from +extortion or theft. Every one began to praise what he had himself +contributed, and it became evident that the apprentices, like Beppo, +were expected to do most of this light work. However, save for a glass +of wine to each, which they were told to drink thankfully, they did not +share in the spoils they had so largely produced. These were apportioned +by Mr. Gumama without the protestation of a single voice. Percentages +for three funds were set aside; one for what was politely called "social +expenses," which, to a gross mind, might have suggested corruption; one +for legal defense; the other for pensioners--retired members, families +of those unfortunately detained in jail, and widows of members deceased +while in good standing. Not till then was the remainder paid equally +into each individual hand, in a model of just and scrupulous +dealing.--As, in various dialects, a foam of pent-up exclamations now +rose, Mr. Gumama again looked at his watch and, with an awe-inspiring +contraction of his beautiful brows, once more betook himself to the +window. + +A slick, sleek oily youth in a gray derby began to deliver some mail +which he had just collected from the branch post-office in Marco +Morello's drug-store down the street; among the innocent pleasantries of +indecent post cards there seemed to be at least two enigmatic warnings +in dirty envelopes and a happy suggestion of workable scandal about a +rich jeweler; one postal, demanding in scarcely legible and very +illiterate Neapolitan slang the "suppression" of a woman who had turned +the writer out of his job in her fake employment agency, was frowned +upon by Mr. Gumama as unnecessarily careless. Directly the meeting had +formed itself into a rough semblance of a court, the writer of the +careless postal was condemned to be suspended for six months, so that +his earnings were cut off from both sources. + +One of the laborers rose to complain that the capo of his paranza had +sentenced him to a week's suspension for quarreling with a companion; +the evidence showed injustice and the complaint was sustained. A +saloon-keeper broke into passionate appeal against another sentence of +suspension, this time for a year, because he had shed a tear of pity for +the child of a wine-merchant which had died while held for ransom. But +his capo d'intini, the head of a whole district, had seen the tear and +the punishment was confirmed. A picciotto di sgarro, a novice, who had +passed two duels with credit, was found to have hesitated in obedience +and was expelled from possible membership for all time. Now popped up a +red, bushy stub of a man, with a full tuck under his chin and a certain +unshaven dinginess, to declare that something outrageous was going on in +his neighborhood: there were rowdies who hung about the street corners +and offended the female foundlings of the good sisters, making remarks +when these took exercise! The gentle ladies had appealed to the police +in vain, but to the Honorable Society they could now in tranquillity +trust. The Honorable Society, shocked and indignant, assumed the future +immunity of the female foundlings for a slight consideration. Finally +amidst an ominous silence Balbo the Wolf, a chauffeur, a full member, +was convicted of having practised extortion without orders and on his +own account. + +"Lupo Balbo," said Mr. Gumama, in the profound chest notes of an +outraged parent, "you deserve to sleep forever. You have broken your +oath of humility, you have rebelled against your father and scandalized +your mother, you have taken food from the mouth of your family, for the +Society is your family and your father and your mother.--Tommaso +Antonelli--" He spoke low and quick to a man near him, who sprang +forward, there was an instant's sharp, half-voluntary struggle and then +Antonelli drew back with a dripping razor in his hand. Lupo, the +chauffeur, covered a face marked forever with a double slash. And Mr. +Gumama somewhat unnecessarily added, "The spreggio is for you the +punishment, you wolf Balbo. Bathe your face, there in the pitcher by the +innocent vine, and leave the council." Lupo Balbo, no more than his +predecessors, winced, argued, nor rebelled. Against the decree of the +capo no appeal was possible. + +All this time--so much shorter a time than any agreeable social club +would have taken to despatch a single item of business--the human +bundles had remained propped against the wall; silent perforce and +wrapped in the indifference of their own doom. Mr. Gumama now turned an +attentive eye upon these lumps of misery, and a kind of brightening +glimmered through the assemblage; the duller preliminaries were disposed +of at last. + +The poor souls being brought forward the capo pronounced their names +with scorn. "Luigi Pachotto and Carlo Firenzi, you deserve no trial. +But the Society honors its strict laws and does not condemn without +justice. Beppo, Chigi, remove those gags." The eyes of the human bundles +goggled avidly forward; their mouths puffed moistly in physical relief. +Still, they made no complaint. + +"Full members of the Society, alas!" Mr. Gumama tragically continued, +"members, also, of our Arm of Justice, ere the Society accepted that Arm +as part of its own body, we have received demands for your suppression +and, from our camorrista scelto, proof of your guilt. Luigi Pachotto, of +the eight crimes against the Society which incur the penalty of death +you are charged with the first--Number one, to reveal the secrets of the +Society. And you, Carlo Firenzi, with the second,--spying on behalf of +the police. It is true that Lupo Balbo was guilty of the sixth, and I +made his penalty little. But of such crimes, like disobedience, the +punishment at its worst is death. Yours are the crimes of treachery, for +which the death is slow. Most for you, Carlo Firenzi, there can be no +excuse. When you began to suspect the news which I am about to break to +the paranza you turned police operative and betrayed the system by which +our unfortunate friends communicate in horrible prisons and become +properly organized. And when, last night, you were set by the paranza to +do a service this morning to your basista you gave notice to the police. +So that they came and took back the friend of our basista and now guard +the nest of our social gatherings. Did you think the Arm of Justice had +grown too weak to punish? Carlo Firenzi, what have you to say?" + +He had nothing to say; only, hanging his head, he ground his teeth. Yet +the form--the form? the very core and gist--of a trial was put through; +the evidence heard and questioned, the witnesses confronted with the +mute despair of a guilt taken red handed and making no denial; fifteen +minutes of the truth passionately sought and no law-game played. + +The conclusion, however, was foregone and Firenzi was soon stood back +out of the way. "Luigi Pachotto, you have, I believe, affirmed good +intention. You knew that the old-days' Arm of Justice, now the fifth +paranza of this eighth district of the Honorable Society, had long +sheltered in its midst, all unknowing, a traitor to the Honorable +Society." He had touched a spring that vibrated through the whole room. +Unable to proceed he waited till the murmur of incredulous horror that +had risen to a growl should die away. "You betook yourself to the capo +in testa of the Honorable Society rather than to your old friends of the +Arm or even to this district, and to him pointed out the whereabouts of +the traitor. Did you dare to insinuate that the Arm itself would not +have punished had it known? What good to it or to the Society did you +expect of this?" + +It was more a slur than a question and he answered it in a hopeless +mumble. "I did it for the good of the Arm and to make our peace with the +Honorable Society. I say it, who am about to die--I thought to resign +the traitor, to give him into its hand who sullies ours, to be done with +him and at peace." + +"Luigi Pachotto, you took too much upon yourself! It is for the Arm to +make its own terms. I think it was your private peace you wished to +make, thus to save your own throat. But you have cut it." Mr. Gumama +paused and sententiously expanded his beautiful brows. "Nevertheless, it +may be that you are to be shown strange mercy!" + +The murmur rose again, humming with amazement. + +"The Society can be merciful for its own just ends. There is a service +to be rendered, a deed to be done, beyond the skill of any garzione di +mala vita, its apprentice, or yet of its novice, the picciotto di +sgarro, the young one. It should be done by one who is past life. +Therefore, the Society, yet a little while, suspends your execution." +Pachotto was thrust into the background and Mr. Gumama, who all this +time had been seated at the table, rose and leaned forward, indicating +that the meeting had reached its climax. + +"Dear friends, you observed well what Pachotto said? For this have we +come together. We of the Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, we, in +particular, must take heed to ourselves." He paused, collecting +attention. But it was already in his pocket. "He who used the Arm of +Justice to shelter a traitor, is its long-time chief, Nicola +Pascoe--called in the country from which he carried his bowed head, +Nicola Ansello! Ah, you know the name! Then you know well that the +serpent whom he nourished in our bosom is the traitor at whose word, ten +years ago in Italy, four members perished!" + +A shudder shook the assembly. Many crossed themselves. Mr. Gumama, in +the relish of his own rhetoric, grew increasingly impressive. He was, +moreover, extremely pale. "The Society passes sentence--that Arm still +enfolds the traitor!" + +The assembly cried out as against a sacrilege and its cry was menacing. +The Hands of the Arm were now easily distinguishable by their very long +faces. + +"Ah, my friends," wailed Mr. Gumama with a sudden shrillness, "the +Society falters not, but strikes--Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, it +condemns us, every one!" + +A horrible yelling broke loose like a storm. Sobs and hysterical curses +strangled together amidst the revilements of the now inimical district. +One man was seized with convulsions and had to have wine and water +dashed over him, another fainted and got stepped on. Mr. Gumama remained +superior and at last made himself heard. "But was it not from the +Society I learned lenience to Pachotto? Does it not, in wisdom, leave me +in place to address you? On one condition the Society withdraws its +condemnation." + +The very melody of howling rose. "The condition! Tell! Tell!" + +"First, lest too great the shock, listen a moment. You know well how in +this America where, since Italy drove her forth, she grows so great, the +conditions of the Mother Society are greatly relaxed; so that, in a new +country, she may strengthen herself with all her children. When heads of +small societies, existing ere here she had waxed great, came to be +absorbed in her she accepted the members for whom they vouched without +requiring the apprenticeship nor the novitiate. So it was with the Arm +of Justice. Of all the small societies we were the most distinguished. +It was not seemly so superior a collection should exist outside the +Honorable Society. So much truth do I speak that in accepting us it made +our chief, Nicola Pascoe, chief of this district, made ourselves into +one paranza where we are yet a unit with our own rules, fifth paranza of +the eighth district. The Society decrees that after to-day this paranza +shall be broken up and scattered among the others and that name, the Arm +of Justice, be spoken no more. So shall the true forget the traitor!" + +His breath failed him. But fortunately his audience came to his rescue +with a hissing snarl--"Traditore! Traditore!" + +"Fellow members, it is nothing. We who are innocent expect to suffer for +the guilt of friends. What I entreat, it is that you examine what kind +of a friend Nicola Pascoe has been to us. It is true he found us little +and made us great. It is true he taught us, formed us and was our +leader. But knew we who he was? Did he tell us he had fled from Naples +to this place carrying in his arms a traitor? Now that we know, to us +what is he?--Ah, we, guileless, true shoot of the parent vine, branch of +her root, of the Honorable Society the pious children!" Mr. Gumama, +sincerely overcome by this pastoral vision, rolled up his eyes for a +long pause. But as he had to sneeze he continued, "Hands of the Arm, +for to-day we are still ourselves. For to-day I might have called one +last meeting of the fifth paranza and we, all alone, have discussed our +own affairs. But that there may be no stain on us of secret counsel we +show our hand to the whole district.--How may we again be dear children +of the Mother from Naples, held safe in her embrace? Hands of the Arm, +to save the Arm cut off always the Hand, one, three, how many, it is no +matter! Hear the one condition of the Honorable Society: We divulge the +whereabouts this night of Nicola Pascoe, the basista and all their +house; we offer them neither warning, shelter nor defense; we lead, +ourselves, this district in their suppression!" And he leaned towards +them, glaring and sweating, his voice still cautiously lowered and +waited their answer with open mouth. + +They who never yet had disobeyed Nicola Pascoe stared at him a trifle +wanly, huddling one on the other. Astonished gutturals mingled hoarsely +with shrill peeps; "Body of Bacchus!" "Woe, woe! Beware!" "Presence of +the devil!" clashed with gobs of thieves' slang and the less amiable +expressions that were overwhelmed by the general assurances of the +district that the paranza had no choice. + +Then a well-to-do little soul with a black beard rose to speak. "Listen +to the voice of reason. If we condemn ourselves, can we save Nicola +Pascoe? But if we condemn Nicola Pascoe, we still do save ourselves! All +must not die--a few it is better to die! It is well I should say this, +for I am a man of gentle speech. I do not wish to be thought like a bad +murderer nor the companion of murderers. I am a business-man--a dealer +in tortoise-shells which I send mostly to Chicago, and I am unique for +the perfection of my wares. I have now the one hope for the support of +my family and small children--that the Society if it suppresses us all +will leave upon each of us its mark. That would cause a sensation and +perhaps advertise my unique tortoise-shells to improve the business for +my wife. But this hope is not enough. Nicola Pascoe, the basista, all, +all, suppress them! Me, I wish to live!" He sat down. + +But then, from Nicola's closer brethren immediate and violent opposition +arose, with arguments that Nicola himself had done no wrong and pleading +for a lighter sentence. The meeting was in scarcely less than an +apoplectic fit when, from its outskirts, a young farmhand shrieked out +that they must take the counsel of the good priest, the Angel of the +Society. + +A tall man at once began to weep and to utter horrible invectives +against the last speaker, while Mr. Gumama exhorted him to be more calm. +It turned out that the Angel of the Society was in jail for perjury and +that the tall man was his brother. "I must leave the room! I must have +air! How could he, the bad of heart, the pig, mention my brother before +me--" + +"Angelo, you are a man and must show more strength! Antonio was not +aware of the trouble of your brother--" + +"Not aware of--He who celebrated masses for the soul of King Humbert, he +who remained tender to us though all other fathers refused us absolution +while we practised our profession, he who among us was best for +plausible defenses, that holy man!" + +"We revere him. But it is impossible to allow you to leave the room +every time he is mentioned! You have disordered in that way the last +four meetings!" + +Angelo threw himself on the ground with cries of injustice, and an +equally angry person started up from his corner. "What is he screaming +about? Has he the only feelings to be considered? Do I thus weep like a +woman? I, too, have a brother in a dark prison--and if I were with him I +would be more safe! While that one there slobbers do I wish to die? And +to thus make a martyr not only of me, but of that holy soul, my mother! +Who, at eighty-four would weep for me and tear her sacred hair, all +gray!" A chorus of sympathetic wails responded to this touching +reference. "Me, I see in this room one who once took my lock of that +hair for another woman's!" Hisses arose. "Yet do I ask to leave the +room? Let it be the house of Pascoe which forever leaves this room. +Rather than meet in the dark with the agent of the Honorable Society I +will surrender me to the police!" + +This, indeed, achieved tumult, breaking into personal rancors in which +the issue of Nicola seemed to vanish. + +"You are a liar! He did not--" + +"I will swear on the ashes of my father and of my dead son!" + +"You would swear on anything!" + +"Beware! Beware the anathema!" + +"I am sorry for you--I take you to my bosom!" + +"I curse you down to the seventh generation!" + +"Once you dug, quiet, in my sewer! But now you are proud and a +gentleman--" + +"I was always more of a gentleman than you are!" + +"I remind you that you must die!" + +At last the voice of Mr. Gumama was able to make itself heard. +"Beautiful friends, the vote, the vote!--Ah! Now, attention! This is +what you do not know. Who thinks to be faithful to Nicola Pascoe, is +Nicola Pascoe faithful to him? Nicola Pascoe flees away! A-a-ah! Doubt +you that the Society will have _some_ atonement? He flees to Brazil, +this coming sunrise, he and his, and leaves us to bear his blame!" + +It was enough. The meeting could not speak; it could only shake and +froth in one united epilepsy. As the fifth paranza found voice it +groaned, "We have been betrayed! We are innocent! We have been cast like +lambs to the slaughter! He has trampled not only on the human but the +divine law! He leaves us to perish in this infamous market--" And a +very old man, as he called down upon the Pascoes all the curses of +heaven mixed with descriptions of his sufferings from nightmare as a +child, put up insane appeals for their punishment. He rose from hysteria +to hysteria; sobbing with exhaustion he buried his face in his hands +after summoning God, personally, to convince Nicola's friends; suddenly +he raised his head and, plucking at one of his wild eyes, with a +sweeping movement he cast a small object apparently at Jehovah's feet. +His magnificent gesture defying their mercies, he lifted to their gasp +of amazement the seared, empty, gaping socket in his ancient, bearded +face, and, uttering a choking shriek, he fell to the ground. A stampede +of horror was averted by Mr. Gumama, who picked up the eye-ball, cast it +down again and ground it under foot. It was glass. + +There being no hope of capping this climax they got down to business and +surrendered Nicola in a wink. There remained to be dealt with a flourish +of Mr. Gumama's. "This is all demanded by our kind Mother. But shall we +not give a little more? Shall she herself be obliged to slay the serpent +that we have fed and made strong? Will she not be pleased by a little +more zeal on our part, while still we are ourselves? My friends, I have +made a little arrangement." Fortunately for Mr. Gumama's climax as he +now sent another of his impatient glances out of the window he gave an +uncontrollable cry of relief. "Here they come!" + +Strolling along the sidewalk appeared three men, all evidently Italians; +but two, in their rough clothes, lumpish sailors. The slenderer and +finer-made came sauntering between them; he had a charming smile with +which he listened attentively to some oath embroidered anecdote. As they +entered the garage one of the sailors, looking up, caught the eye of Mr. +Gumama and made a quick signal. "Bene! They have not been followed!" Mr. +Gumama exclaimed. "By the grace of heaven they have not been followed! +And he has no suspicion!" The confidential aides purred aloud, the whole +meeting slightly relaxed and the man with the knife decided to sit down. +But he kept his knife in his hand. + +Mr. Gumama stationed two men at the window to watch the sidewalk and +then motioned half a dozen distinguished members to the stairs. +Crouching forward they could see the slight man leaning in the doorway, +whistling, and glancing up and down the swarming street with quick, dark +eyes. Mr. Gumama squatted until he was in danger of falling through the +opening and pointing a long, soiled finger at the slight man, "Il +traditore," hissed Mr. Gumama. "He whom Nicola and the basista shelter +in our midst! Alieni, o' n'infama! Traditore! He, Filippi Alieni!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE + + +Once more a hand had touched the spring. Once more the meeting vibrated +to a universal shock. Mr. Gumama signed to the fruit-peddler and a brace +of laborers that they provide themselves with lengths of rope and the +three withdrew to a position across the stairhead from the man with the +knife, where they, too, waited in the shadow of the walls. Confiding in +the sharpshooters at the window Mr. Gumama had the sailors called +upstairs. + +Meanwhile the man at the door, happily unaware of the preparations for +receiving him above, came lounging inside with his hands in his pockets; +and Mrs. Pascoe, whose greeting had shown some slight surprise at his +appearance, laughed aloud. "It's funny how it does become you! I can't +deny it!" + +For he had doffed his gentleman's attire and was dressed like the +shabbiest laborer, the tawny, earth-stained shirt open at his throat +against a red cotton handkerchief; his loose, frayed, dingy jacket had +once been of square, seafaring cut. + +"I bet she picked them out fur yeh!" Mrs. Pascoe jeered. "She ain't one +to miss the artistic touch!" Her mockery took him all in. "She'd be sure +t' have yeh more uv a Dago organ-grinder 'n any Dago organ-grinder ever +was! But I will say you wear 'em t' the manner born!" + +Well, truly, the swinging gold earrings, rounder than Mr. Gumama's, had +been carefully tarnished; his bracelet shot its golden gleam from under +a ragged cuff; the cord of a scapular, scarlet against his olive skin, +had been torn and knotted, and a handkerchief in the Sicilian colors was +thrust into a belt supple with age. But, truly again, they became him +mightily. For in those weathered boots, of which the soles were almost +gone, his feet gripped the earth with a loping, elastic tread like a +young animal's; and when, at the disconcerting coldness of her greeting, +he snatched off his old cap and stood with it crushed flat in his +nervous fingers the smooth and coal-black glitter of his head called her +attention to the alertness of its carriage, like some prowler's scouting +in the woods. Doubtless morning-coats and starched British linen are +very discreet garments. But the worn softness of those old borrowed +properties, in loosing the movement and the poise of his lithe body, had +released some other change in him; something wild, light and strong, +with the strength of a hound and the lightness of a cat, which, in the +dense jungle where he was about to enter, might yet stand him in good +stead. After all, one does not dress as a Sicilian for nothing! + +Particularly when there are ladies about! Mrs. Pascoe was as much a +woman as any silkier petticoat and it must have been some such momentary +glimmer of the national presence, of the primitive equation, which had +won her forgotten girlhood as it had once wooed and won her daughter's +fancy. "Well, I vum!" said she again with tart amusement. Was he going +to turn out a man? She leaned toward him all intentness. _Was he?_ + +"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an +impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart +an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't God A'mighty, whoever she +is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't +goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this +world--she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said, +she's got her husband!" + +He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she +cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I +got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're +natcherul born devils--she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh +had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low +an' squirm through.--Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out +there?" + +He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his +strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man +came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic +consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You +will, above, attend the council!" + +Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw +she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in +his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with +which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul +pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and +pulling mildly at his cuff. + +The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that +gibberish--I been altogether _too_ patient, this good while!" The +messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman +an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never +thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I +hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got +all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!--Yeh +can g'won up." + +Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath +through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his +guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only +gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft. + +At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself +standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of +faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke +and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the +cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate +glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a +bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings reassured +him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing +that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on +trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow +looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed +and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; +he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were +thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not +with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can +never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were +the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?--A satisfied, panting breath, full of +heat, rose from the crowd. + +"Filippi Alieni?" + +"Suor servitor, signor." + +He did not deny it! + +"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are +admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?" + +"Si, Signor." + +"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to +another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello, +were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable +Society?" + +"Si, signor." + +"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires +and releasing muffled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat +in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of +Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate +themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the +accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from +somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was +softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It +was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood +sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces. + +"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our +basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon +both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath +of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to +reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your +bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to +avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done +you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your +death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the +sacred song + + If I live, I will kill thee, + If I die, I forgive thee! + +You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you +denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live--because +you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and +fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he +feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed +man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the +last--is it not so!" + +He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no +good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His +guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the +pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long +enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when +through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables +and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of +the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the +suppression of Filippi Alieni!" + +"I demand--" "I demand--" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to +sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!" +And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo +in testa in our name!" + +"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too +greedy.--Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless! +Admit! Admit!" + +"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if +stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself +between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's. + +It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in +which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi +Alieni, you must now be put to sleep." + +Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, +incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his +head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife. +He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an +uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of +the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment +when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men +rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling +like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs. +A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the +street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly +jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which +was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his +back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of +triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him +a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train +roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it +was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the +prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely +lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope. + +"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?" + +The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still +breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint +as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with +a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose, +and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated +to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe +had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared space before the +court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails." +Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?" + +This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for +time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and +the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back +again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of +his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.--Mr. Gumama +regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with God?" + +He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon +his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the +Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama +pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal. + +"Wait yet a little!" + +It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly +studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing." + +The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up. + +Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly +replied, "Ask, then!" + +"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do +to remain awake?" + +The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much! +The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes +of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with +their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan with a gesture like a blow. + +"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak, +who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was +invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine." +He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring +evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might +befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough +street. So I suppose--what else?--that those two are to attempt the Duel +by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving +him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his +token--that bracelet will do--to the capo in testa?" + +"It is the plan." + +"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir--pardon!--you do not--in your +greatness you do not--reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, +another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is." + +His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence +and admission reluctantly broke forth. + +"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence +that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us +and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's +brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees--the +policemen of the Americans! Ay di me--listen, my dears! Does not this +cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in +the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's +tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the +traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell +us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little +Nancia--Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW" + + +The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their +hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the +world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any +meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his +close stare. + +But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, +resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is +a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her +American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his +betrothed--it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night +with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There +they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very +well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis +in Brazil." + +"I do not--pardon!--I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for +us?" + +"In Brazil? If she were a danger even there would not the Signora Alieni +have destroyed that danger?" + +"The Signora Alieni has never done such work--she has no practice. +Moreover, be sure she fears what Nicola feared in the beginning--the +curse of his mother!" + +A voice remarked, "His mother is ugly and old. If she should die she +could not curse." + +"True. But we are busy." + +Beppo began to exclaim, "It is too bad! Time after time have I asked for +her! I, too, love her and could be happy. And I need them like her every +day! Why should she be sent to Brazil? I never have anything!" He +stamped with rage and his nose began to bleed again. + +Other young ricondeterros, complaining of the dearth of blondes, began +to protest against Brazil. The Parmesan looked at Mr. Gumama with a +smile. "Is she not a firebrand, eh? She who is so sought by the police, +is it to the police she shall tell her story?" + +Brushing the Parmesan aside the capo insisted, "She is not of our +nation. It is against the custom. It is a greater danger than she is. +Even if she should meet, so far away, with men of the Americans, what +does she know?" + +The Parmesan, now visibly measuring strength with Mr. Gumama, responded +merely, "What is it, Beppo?" + +Beppo, past the handkerchief he ostentatiously held to his nose, cried +out, "She knows everything!" As this won him the center of the stage he +proceeded in a series of sniffling shrieks, "I will tell you! I am the +cousin of Nicola. I am the friend of their house. I play much with Maria +but I watch and listen. Attention! She knows all, all, all! She seemed +at first wrapped in the love of the basista. They slept side by side. +She made a promise to ask, of her own accord, for sleep; but then she is +ill and when she is well again she has some notion and she will +not--why? Because she wills to tell all she knows! She, too, has watched +and listened! She knows my name--and yours, Giuseppe Gumama! Under her +red hair she carries death for you, Antonelli! And for you--and you--and +you!" + +The meeting was on its feet, swaying with passion and fear and +gesticulating, with congenial resolution, "I demand the suppression--" + +"I, too!" + +"And I!" + +"And I!" + +"I demand the suppression of Mees Cornees!" + +The capo's authority was shaken in a paranza which was a paranza no +longer. Obedience was not what it had been in the Arm of Justice. + +"Hands of the Arm," Beppo adjured, "is she not now at our meeting-place? +Knows she not that? Did the basista conceal when Nicola was made a capo +in the Honorable Society? Knows she not that? Oh, friends of my blood, +can she not tell _that name_? By the body of Bacchus, I see her in my +dreams! There is a shower of gold about her! If she is not for me, do +not give her to the Rosellis--let her sleep!" + +The meeting echoed, in one soft whisper of satisfaction, "Let her +sleep!" + +"S-s-ssh!" said Mr. Gumama. + +He said it instinctively, glancing toward the scuttle. But he realized +that the precedent of dealing solely with his own nation must now be set +aside; he heard the people's voice. Alas, he had also to baulk it of its +Duel by Wine. + +"Let it be so. Firenzi, you will suppress the traitor and deliver him to +the wharf. Choose two apprentices to help you with the barrel. Pachotto, +you will take Beppo and the brother of Antonelli's wife and proceed to +our old meeting-place. When you have suppressed the girl Cornees bring +back her token." + +"Sir," the Parmesan again coolingly corrected, "Nicola has still with +him some of his men and the Rosellis. There is but one man who, without +suspicion, can reach past these to the little Cornees.--Alieni o' +n'infama," he pleasantly repeated, "would you do this to remain awake?" + +The prisoner felt himself quiver as though he had been struck. He could +not control the hope which was almost a sickness that rose in him at +these words. He heard the popular cry surge up against him, hissing and +protesting; Firenzi and Pachotto were the most horribly excited for he +and they were the only persons in the room not having a good time. His +quick glances, furtive and secret, ran questing among the lips that +condemned him; when he lifted them to his questioner the sharp intake of +his breath promised his soul away. But Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan and told him that he forgot himself. + +"Ah, sir, in private a word. Alieni, does he speak English?" He broke +his beautiful Italian into a strange sound. "Spik Inglese, Alieni?" + +The prisoner, trembling to oblige, responded in the same dialect, +"Unstan' Inglese!" + +It did not oblige--the Parmesan frowned. "Unstan' Inglese verra goood?" +He coaxed, winningly, hoping for a denial. + +Now the prisoner, though he understood English perfectly, was no fool +and could see a possible weapon when it was put into his hand. "I +deplore!" said he, shrugging sadly. "Heartseek! Unstan' notta mooch!" +And he tried not to vibrate with greed of what they should say. + +"Va bene! Spik Inglese, us! Spik low! Oh, Gumama, let heem put da girl +to slip--heem! Let heem tak' for token--Whatta she wear?" he asked +Beppo. + +Beppo considered and then pointed to the gold bracelet under the old +Sicilian cuff. "But silvere!" He lapsed into Italian. The girl had had +three silver trinkets--a ring, a locket, a bracelet. Nicola had taken +the locket, the ring she had lost. "It ees time she loosa da t'ird!" +grinned the Parmesan. "Ssh! He ees leesten!" Their voices sank to a +whisper. Inordinately acute though his senses always were the prisoner +could no longer understand a syllable. + +"I go weeth Beppo an' Chigi. Let heem settle da girl an' tak' her +token. Den _we_ settle heem an' tak' botta tokens! Tak' dem to capo in +testa for show extrra gooda faith in nama da Arma of Zhoostees. Den +Honorrahble Soceeata embrass us! We done gooda!" He inhaled with languid +elegance and returned to the world a ring of cigarette smoke. + +Still the prisoner could not catch a word. The decision hung fire. The +protesting roar surged louder and louder and the cries of Pachotto and +Firenzi became tiger cries. Mr. Gumama suddenly called to order. He had +found a way to satisfy the Parmesan and yet to maintain his supremacy. + +"This meeting promised Firenzi and Pachotto a chance of mercy and a +chance of service. This meeting keeps its word. The chance is to be now. +But for Alieni, also. Do not rebel. They were to enter on the Duel by +Wine. But for the Duel by Wine the basista Alieni has sent us three +cups. Why should not the prisoner Alieni play at the game of his wife?" + +He had turned the tide. Their craving for games of chance, always +temporarily stronger than fear, anger or duty, flared into high fire. +Again was Mr. Gumama the popular man. Even on the prisoner smiles were +lavished. And still for some crevice of safety, as if in every muscle of +their faces, his eyes sought. + +The meeting got happily to work, like a good child. It brought forth a +dice-box and dice, a bottle of wine and, wrapped in a colored +handkerchief, two triangular knives. In that musical neighborhood +another hand-organ had long since followed the first; "The Wearing of +the Green," which had made melodious the Parmesan's battle, now gave way +to the Tales of Hoffman and the Barcarolle, a rhythm that swayed in +every busy motion and humming tongue as the prisoner watched the table +cleared and the painted jugs set forth. Mrs. Pascoe was called up to +fetch a lantern; as she withdrew all three prisoners were faced toward +the wall; Mr. Gumama took a twist of paper from his pocket, shielded it +from view, and dropped a tablet from it into each of two jugs. Then he +filled them all with wine. The prisoners were turned round again. +"Alieni o' n'infama," called the Parmesan, blithely, "you are very much +afraid!" + +He knew it and sank his head on his breast. + +"Cowards play well. They grow brave from fear. You will be desperate." + +The young fellow shuddered. But he tried to keep his head clear. + +"Cheer up, traditore! It is true our haste but sentenced you to the +knife and the knife is quick. But do you not choose to risk a few drops +and die wriggling--when, if you are lucky, you may live? When you have +but to strike, afterwards, a little soft blow to make your peace!" The +Parmesan, snatching up a triangular knife and, despite the remonstrances +of Mr. Gumama, one of the jugs, thrust them jocularly under the +prisoner's nose. + +The tormented fellow, with an uncontrollable gasp that spilled the wine, +bent and kissed the jug. A burst of childish applause approved his +enthusiasm. A dank moisture of relief broke out upon him. At least they +saw that he was resolved and would not fear to let him try. What was +coming? + +The meeting had formed into a circle as for a cock fight. He, Firenzi +and Pachotto and the table with the dice and wine were in the center. +The silent circle devoured him with applauding, encouraging glances. He +was horribly aware of the two other men, larger, heavier, perhaps +therefore luckier--the bigger the build, he had thought before, the +greater the luck!--They were all too still! What were they going to make +him do now? + +Mr. Gumama himself took down a strap from the wall and tested its +strength. + +"Firenzi, then you, Pachotto, then you, Alieni, you will appeal to the +dice. He who throws highest will have first choice of the jugs. Of the +three who drink, one will live. It will take some time to settle this. +The meeting will disperse, but a committee will return. The man whom +they find alive will go with Beppo and Chigi and you, Pepe, to our +meeting-place and put to sleep that girl. Those not surviving will be +signed with our sign--but only one thrust for each paranza of this +district.--Filippi Alieni, what is the matter with you? You show no +feeling at what I say!" + +For all his brilliant, questioning eyes, it was true he looked extremely +blank; his expression too often merely followed theirs with an opposite. +"Well, there must always be a first time. It is true, Alieni, is it not +so, that you have never suppressed a life?" + +There are bitternesses which fear cannot quench. Having no free hand to +beat his breast he turned his head with restless passion from side to +side and in a high, shrill, wild desolation, a Latin sweetness of +hysteria roughened by his grinding laugh, he cried aloud, "Mea culpa, +mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!" + +"There is no need for irreverence!" exclaimed Mr. Gumama, scandalized. +"That is all. Loose their bonds." + +Firenzi and Pachotto ran to examine the jugs, voting simultaneously for +the immunity of the golden scales--what others? So that the first choice +would be all important. But the third prisoner had given his last flash. +He dropped his shivering face and hid it in his hands. + +"Sit!" + +They dropped beside the table. + +"Swear obedience to the decree of Fate!" + +All three laid a hand on the crossed triangular knives. Mr. Gumama +purposed the oath. "Filippi Alieni, your lips shake so that you do not +repeat distinctly. Say, I swear!" + +"I swear!" + +"Rise!" + +"Firenzi, make your appeal." + +Firenzi started forward on a rush. But after a step or two he halted, +glared about him as if just waking up, and then went forward, sagging +like a drunkard. Arrived at the table he crossed himself, shook the +dice, and, whimpering, fell on his knees. His shaking hand crawled along +the table, groping for the dice-box and lifted it. The crowd, straining +in upon him, buzzed. For the number was moderate. He had thrown a three +and a two. And kneeled there, blubbering. The courage of the Honorable +Society does not remain fast in all washes. + +"Pachotto, make the appeal." + +He, too, started with bravado; he was perhaps half way across when they +had to catch and drag him forward. He threw wild and they had to support +his wrist. Even so one die fell underneath the edge of the saucer in +which the box had stood. That in view was another two-spot. If, however, +that under the saucer were even a four he was ahead in the throw. They +moved the saucer--the die was a five. Pachotto leaped in the air with +triumph--Firenzi, yellow and cursing, tried to fold his arms. Frightful +sounds issued from his throat, upon which the cords stood out. + +"Alieni, you will make the appeal." + +He who had been a gentleman drew himself together and came slowly +forward. He was now the darling of the crowd. But he did not guess that; +he came of a superstitious tribe and to him, too, it seemed important to +win from the start. His soul trembled, but steadily and softly he stole +to the table. Now he was arrived, looking down, one concentrated +apprehension, on his fate. Lifting the dice-box he once more threw out +his bright suspicious glance into the crowding faces. "Whatever gods +there be!"--he threw the dice. Over these he bent with a sort of sweep +and then, uttering a sharp hiss, sprang up like a jack-knife. The crowd +swayed, yelped and shivered with amusement into a triumphing crow. He +had thrown two sixes. Pachotto uttered a piercing yell and fell on his +stomach in a dead faint. + +"Filippi Alieni, of the jugs you have the first choice." + +He stood as if nothing had happened. He had suddenly realized that his +situation was really more terrible than ever. Watching, watching, he +could descry no help. None of those alert, elated faces had a hint in +it, not a congratulating hand pointed toward the fateful jug. He +moistened his lips and looked mechanically at the dice which had thrown +him this choice. But the dice, too, were dumb. Then, at last, he looked +at the jugs. + +There was the red design, the white and the green. His hand crept up and +touched the chord at his throat. Scarlet was her favorite! But did she +know? White--there was no luck in white. Green, the color of hope! Of +resurrection! Yes, but to be resurrected one must first die! Red, again, +was blood-color--but there was blood at every turn! Whose blood did this +stand for--whose? Ah, yes, the scales--the scales were different! Gold, +silver, and gray! The scales were very little, so it was they that held +the secret! Silver, gray and gold! Why gray? Silver--hadn't he heard +them whispering about silver? Why, there were some words--He dropped to +the ground with the jug, leaning on the table and pressing the scrolled +legend to the lantern.--Silver pays! Pays whom? Pays what? Oh, God, to +understand! What was the other--gold? He was panting--his breath smeared +the glass of the lantern. It was dry and cut his lips like grass-blades! +Yet he reeked with cold sweat, it was running into his mouth! He wiped +the glass clear with one cuff. Steady! Take care! Can't you read, you +fool! Gold buys. Oh, heaven, what would it buy here? Life--freedom--what +else would anybody buy? What was the sense of it, if it meant anything +else? But it might be a lie! "She's a natcherul-born devil." It was a +lie she would delight in! One chance! One! Everything on it--everything! +Never to leave here--to die here--here, where no one would ever know! +Without doing what he had secretly meant to do, without ever having +lifted a hand--to die in torment, squirming on the floor like a rat with +torn bowels--There was one other jug. Gray--what a color! +Ghost-color--was that what she meant? Lead slays! But, once more, slays +whom? Lead slays--lead--lead--Lead! + +A change passed over him. He became very still. Then, shaking with +suppressed eagerness, he got slowly to his feet. He put his dense hair +back from his eyes. And those eyes, hypnotized by the little jug with +its gray scales, never left it; drinking it up before he could raise it +to his lips. His mouth gaped for it with hanging jaw. He raised it in +hands that gradually steadied and then over its brim, he gave the faces +that fawned in upon him, breathless, one last look.--"He has chosen!" + +They might be less than human, but he and they were still living +creatures; and, in ten minutes, what would he be? Beyond them were dusky +walls, built by human hands, chairs, a bureau, lithographs, all the warm +furnishings of life; windows into the world, into the swarming, +chattering streets where the lamps began to glow, while from round the +corner came the clang of trolley-cars; whistles, calls, footsteps, were +in his ears, laughter above the crash of wheels, + + "Give my regards to Broadway--" + +That was the hand-organ, tired of opera and getting down to business; + + "Remember me to Herald Square--" + +It filled the whole room! A lighted train swept by; he could see the +faces of people reading evening papers, people who complained at +hanging on to straps! The roar of it was familiar and dear as a beloved +voice at home but it passed and left him quite alone. + + "Tell all the boys on Forty-second Street + That I will soon be there!" + +--"Choose, Alieni, choose! Drink! Drink!" + +Everything passed from his eyes. He was blind as before he was born. +Then his mouth was in the wine; he drank it to the last drop; the jug, +with a clatter that he heard perfectly but no longer understood, rolled +at his feet. "É fatto!" said he, in a low, clear voice. "É fatto--it is +done!" And his face dropped into his hands. + +The meeting came about him but he did not know it. Around one wrist a +strap was buckled and the strap's other end nailed to the table so that +the death-agonies might not wander too far. A like precaution was taken +with the other men when they had drunk. He did not notice it. He looked +at the floor. Firenzi, upon whom chance had forced the silver scales, +gave a horrible sound of retching and slid from his stool, the strap +holding his arm. A quiver passed through the body of the first drinker, +but he would not look. The meeting picked up its lantern and +trooped--rather reluctantly but leaving the hatch open--chattering down +the steps. The hands of the Arm dismissed Mrs. Pascoe, fetched some more +wine, cut some tobacco and sat down to the business of making bets while +they waited. He did not miss them. + +He, too, waited. + +Twenty minutes later, in the darkness, the loft was quite still. Two +bodies, horribly contorted, lay straining on their straps. The rigor of +death was already settling upon those convulsive heaps. The faint +squares of the windows made a kind of glimmer by which it was possible +to discern a pale face, a slight figure; this leaned against the table, +which it clutched with hands of steel. He who had trusted to the leaden +scales had trusted well. + +In that darkness, in that silence, through that horror of squalid death +which had not been silent, he had shed the rags of his hysteria and had +caught again the concentration, the keenness, the readiness of that +moment when Mrs. Pascoe had called on him to be a man. But what did he +see in those empty shadows, and for what did he nerve himself? The +figure there at the table was desperate, but it was very slight, and at +the end of no road--valor nor cowardice nor vengeance--could he see +escape. They were all blocked, those roads, the program too close built +and every knot too tightly tied. Whatever he might wish, there was but +one thing he could do. A knife was to be put into his hand and he had no +choice except to strike. After all that had passed it was perhaps even +with eagerness that silently, alone among those shadows, he embraced his +fate. + +A stir began to rise from below; the men down in the garage were coming +to pack the barrel. He heard the mounting footstep of his guard, ready +to convey him to the secret meeting-place of the Arm of Justice; along +that road where it should deal with him, when he had dealt with Nancy +Cornish. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ONE WITNESS SPEAKS + + +It was fully dark under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. A strong +smell of rancid wicks disturbed nobody and in the charged, suspensive +air the cheap lamps burned with a still flame. This may in part have +been due to Herrick's tensely strung imagination, which Christina's +message of the night before still mercilessly played upon. From that +source no drop of further information had fallen through Tantalus on to +the parched tongue of Herrick's nor of Wheeler's nor of the Law's +desire. + +That afternoon Herrick had seen Stanley off from the station where not +six weeks ago they had met as strangers. And so little was Fate's veil +lifted for him, even now, that he had no forewarning of when next, nor +why, he should be there again!--Stanley had, however, told him Ten +Euyck's latest news--how it was to the table d'hôte the Italians had +conveyed their liberated prisoner from the Tombs! + +The boy looked at his friend a little suspiciously even while he +repeated Ten Euyck's chagrin: "That's a hideously shameful thing to +happen to me! It's the annoyance of a blind, stupid, brutal +reproof--when I've worked so hard and suffered so much! Here, in my own +district--Under my own hand--!" There are no unalloyed elations in this +world! Nor did there seem any doubt in Ten Euyck's mind that this was +the long-sought-for secret place, where they should find a +printing-press. But he forebore to raid it until evening, when all +possible birds should have returned to the nest, and contented himself +with the sending of his disguised operatives peacefully to fetch from it +Will Denny, before whose coming Stanley had fled the police station. +That young gentleman had also gathered from Wheeler's thunderstorm of +oaths that Christina's manager considered himself under surveillance. +And this had made Herrick wonder if the same were not true of himself. + +On account of his momentarily expected cablegram it was a crushing +suspicion. He spent an afternoon of aloof and goaded wandering, and at +last, shielded as he hoped by the darkness and by the company of a whole +group of entering diners, yielded to the temptation of the table d'hôte. +He could not doubt it was encompassed by spies; he could not but attend +the seizure, the crisis, the outcome. Here, more than anywhere, were the +lines converging; here, for to-night, was the center of the web. He said +to himself, then, in his ignorance, that nothing mortal should induce +him to forsake it. + +Under the sail-cloth there was no longer any room; but, within doors, +save for a couple of men at a distant table, Herrick was quite alone. +There was no change in the deportment of the place, no disturbance. The +Italian proprietress, in her comings and goings, found time to reply +that the old lady was still in the country but her prototype, the little +gray parrot, which he had not seen for a long time, was climbing in and +out of its cage and the angelic children still snuffled about the floor. +It was on these innocents that Herrick began as usual to practise his +Italian when the proprietress had gone affably to see about his order, +but if he thought one of them would lightly drop Christina's address +he was mistaken. Smother-y as the place was, with that same looming +sultriness of a week ago, agitated in its daily business, its pulse did +not beat so hard as his, its imagination did not quiver, like the +figures of a cinematograph, reviewing the movements of a motor-car that +until yesterday had sped through mire and dust and blood, through +sunrise and midnight, past the spread, astonished wings of the marble +Hoover lions, past the smoking-ruins of a post-office, past Riley's +where the shadow danced, after a will o' the wisp. There was no +suggestion, here, which could lift that phantom light; the customers +ordered, the little fat boy, next in age to Maria Rosa, leaned +familiarly against his knee, the parrot continued to clamber over its +cage, talking steadily, rapidly and monotonously to itself, and then +Herrick said in surprise, + +"Why, the bird's speaking English!" + +The parrot looked at him coldly, disinterred something which it had +buried in its food-cup, gnawed on the treasure, and dropped it. The +little fat boy picked it up and smiled at Herrick. Herrick said, "Let's +see!" It was a silver ring, holding a bluish-green Egyptian scarab. + +It seemed to Herrick that he had heard of such a ring before, and he +tried to remember where. One of the men at the further table left and +the other was buried in a foreign newspaper. Herrick got up and went +over to the desk. That was English the bird was speaking. "No, no, no, +no! I don't believe it. I don't beli--" + +"Polly," said Herrick, "what are you talking about? And what do I know +about this ring?" + +The bird burst into a shriek of the ungodly laughter of its kind, pecked +the ring out of his hand, backed away with it, dropped it again; and +then, out of a perfect stillness, with its little eyes fixed on his face +it replied-- + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW +ME!" + + +Oh, yes, the Italian proprietress cheerfully informed him, the parrot +had been in the country with Maria Rosa and her great-aunt. Truly, the +great-aunt was fond of the country, she was still there. When was he +going to see Maria Rosa again? Oh, there, alas!--Maria Rosa had gone +with her father to the moving-picture show-- + +He could get no further and he feared to excite conjecture. He might +waylay the little girl as she returned, but not too near the watched +house--nor was the idea of the father encouraging. Nevertheless, he +betook himself outside, turning toward Third Avenue where the +picture-shows flourished. About two blocks down the street he took +refuge in the hole of a tobacconist, whose door stood open into the warm +dusk. On the farther corner the bright blue interior of a delicatessen +that was also a fruit stand blazed hot with gas and, in exchange for a +bottle of oil, a child passed a coin over the counter. The gas gleamed +on the child's face and Herrick crossed the street. Here was Maria Rosa +and here the moving-picture show which she attended! + +He stopped on the outside for some nuts and affected surprise when Maria +appeared. She accepted various delicacies and was freely chatty about +her country visit. Oh, she had been in a beautiful place; grass, trees, +flowers--nothing of its whereabouts could be ascertained. Great-auntie +had lived there with old auntie--old auntie was her mama--when she was +a little girl no bigger than Maria Rosa! But they had gone often to a +grand big place where Cousin Nick's office used to be in the basement. +But the morning after they brought the sick lady the things for the +office were all gone! Ah, the grand big place had made the greater +impression, but ignorance had evidently been carefully preserved. +Herrick tried the words "Waybridge" and "Benning's Point" to no avail. +With "river" he was more successful. Did you go there by the boat? +Apparently not. Finally it came out that you went there by the walk past +old auntie's house. And what pretty thing had she ever noticed about old +auntie's house? Eh? Come, now? What did she like best? + +"The marble kitties with wings." + +The marble-- + +A child had dropped an address, after all! + +Herrick, reaching into his pocket for a time table, had discovered a +train for Benning's Point at eight-fifteen when, hearing his name he +turned; beyond the now hurrying figure of Maria Rosa Joe Patrick was +advancing toward him. + +The boy came up hastily, extending an envelope addressed to Herrick in +Mrs. Deutch's hand. As he took it he saw that Joe was brimming with some +communication. "I saw you from down street. She sent for me an' says to +bring you this. I was lookin' for you when I met Mr. Ten Euyck and he +said the place to find you was around here." + +"Touché!" Herrick said to himself. Even at that moment he vouchsafed an +admiring smile to Ten Euyck's able conveying of a taunt. + +"Mr. Herrick?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +"I got to get right back in time for the theayter. But I'd like to speak +to you a minute." + +"Walk back toward the Square with me." + +"It's something I been worried about telling for days an' now I'm goin' +to. I mean--Mr. Herrick, I wouldn't tell it to anybody but a friend o' +hers! But I make out that it's right to tell it to you.--You remember +that night out to Riley's?" + +"Yes." + +"An' the shadder the chaufers seen?" + +"Yes?" + +"I was there. My cousin Sweeney sent for me, an' my uncle an' me come +out together. As we come into the yard--that toon--you know! There was +the shadder--I seen it, too! And another man seen it an' skipped up the +steps an' went inside. Me after him! An' before he'd got in, hardly, out +he bounced with a lady. That lady wasn't no Mrs. Riley, Mr. Herrick. It +was--_her_!" + +"You've seen the moving-picture?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And this gesture was the same?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"So that you thought you saw Miss Hope's shadow?" + +"I know I did, sir." + +"Wait. This gentleman, had you ever seen him before?" + +"No, I never laid eyes on him." + +"He went right into the room?" + +"Popped right in as if he lived there!" + +"And came out with Miss Hope?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How was she dressed?" + +"She had on a long coat an' a fussed up hat o' Mrs. Riley's." + +"And no one else saw them?" + +"No, sir. They run down the back-stairs as everybody come up the +front." + +"She was willing to go with him, then? He wasn't forcing her?" + +"Well, you bet he wasn't! She was hangin' right on to him!" + +"What was your idea of the whole business?" + +"I thought mebbe she done it for a signal to him when to come in." + +"Now, Joe, don't you believe that--it being, as you say, done so +quick--and you having just seen this shadow which you had taken for Miss +Hope's, you might have imagined it was she who came out with this man?" + +"No, Mr. Herrick. I was at the door when they come out. I saw her face +clear. I didn't make no mistake this time." + +"And you didn't follow?" + +"No, sir. Because--because--Oh, Mr. Herrick, she seen me as plain as I +see you an' she smiled at me!" + +Herrick paused with a threatening cry. "Why didn't you speak to her, +then? Why didn't you tell--" + +"Because, Mr. Herrick, when she opened her eyes wide and smiled at me, +that way, she put her finger to her lips! Oh, Mr. Herrick, I ain't ever +told a soul but you!" + +She put her finger to her lips! Secret she had ever been, and there was +another way in which Christina had never failed. She had never failed, +in any stress of change or chance, to seize the measure of a devotion +and use it to its hilt. + +She smiled and put her finger to her lips! She pleased herself, then! +She was free! She came and went at her own pleasure! Secretly, with +companions of her choice! While he, in the room below--That night, too! +That night of the road and the fields, of Denny and the yellow house! + +Bitterness mastered him. An indifference like the indifference of sleep +somehow wearied him to the bone. After Joe's departure, when he stopped +under a street-lamp to open Mrs. Deutch's letter, he scarcely cared what +it contained. + +"--When you were not at home he sent this to me. Think you for yourself +the meaning for it. What in myself I believed and prayed, that +afternoon, now in person have I ascertained. Christina was born in this +city of New York; she was baptized in the same month in the Church of +the Holy Service, April 17, 1892." + +He unfolded Gabrielli's cablegram: + +Girl you inquire of victimized family named Hope, in America. They lived +at Naples 1886. Record daughter born to Hopes, Allegra, not Christina, +1886. Died 1889. + +The Hopes had had a child, that died three years before Christina was +born! What was the meaning in the case of this dead baby? And if +Christina was Mrs. Pascoe's child, what had the death of Allegra Hope to +do with her? How could she have passed herself off on the Hopes for a +dead child six years older than herself? He knew that somewhere in his +aching brain the answer quivered to spring forth, when--at about the +time when the Italians started with their prisoner from the garage--an +open taxi hesitated at the corner nearest to the table d'hôte and then +spun on without stopping. As it passed under the lamp Herrick was just +leaving, a veiled lady rose in it to her tall height and pulled on a +long, light coat. And all the pulses in his body stopped as though they +had been stricken dead. For his eyes had recognized Christina. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HERSELF + + +There was no other cab in sight. But fortunately a 'bus was just +starting, and bye and bye he plunged from that into a taxi. All the way +up Fifth Avenue he continued to keep his quarry well in sight; flashing +in and out beneath the lamps, the beautiful tall figure sitting lightly +erect and neither shunning nor avoiding the public gaze. At first he +thought she had come back to be well in time for to-morrow night, but at +Forty-second Street she turned toward the depot. She was making for the +same train as himself. + +A policeman, who should have died before he ever was born, let her cab +through the block and held up Herrick's. He saw with horror that it was +possible he should miss the train. Then, with a thrill of hope, that +they would probably both miss it. When he got to the depot there was no +sign of her. He tore like a madman across the vast stretches and up and +down the flights of stairs by which modern travel is precipitated and +came to the gate. She was inside, just stepping on the last car of the +train. Officials were shouting at her, enraged, because the train had +begun to creep. + +"Tickets, tickets!" said the man at the gate. He was resolute, and +Herrick had to pick him up and lift him to one side. It took an instant, +and now the train was under way. But Herrick, as a free-born male +unhampered even by a suit-case, was privileged to risk his neck, and he +flew down the platform and gathered himself to leap upon the car. His +hand was outstretched for the railing but it never reached it. A single +zealous employee plunged at him, roaring. The sound halted his quarry in +the doorway, and when she saw him she stepped back on to the platform of +the car, bending toward him with a look of eager amusement, and throwing +back her veil. And Herrick lost his chance to jump. + +For her face, framed in soft flames of red, of golden fire, was the face +of a stranger. It was extremely lovely, but for one curious defect. She +had a blue eye and a brown. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH + +THE LIGHTED HOUSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOSTESS PREPARING + + +Herrick lay in the long grass of the wooded lot, against the wall of the +Hoover place. Already the night was velvet-black, and hot and +thunder-scented as in summer. A million vibrations that were scarcely +sound stirred with the myriad lives of leaf and blade in the dense +silence. And his expectancy vibrated too, reaching for the end of a long +chase. His slower train had followed on the very heels of that malign +and radiant red-haired changeling, whose mysterious brew he was at last +to taste for himself. Not this time in a little yellow cottage beside an +open road, but in that great house, walled and guarded, deep and still +in its own woodland, between the stone lions with their lifted wings and +the mighty current of the tidal river! What he should do when he got +there could be decided only by what he found. He had his revolver, and +he scarcely knew whether to pray that he might, or that he might not, +have need for it. + +He remembered, tumbling over the wall from the inside, cascades of ivy, +which he now hoped might give him a hand up the rough stone. But they +tore away, one after the other, and sagged in his hold. He went on down +the field, scouting in the darkness for some friendly tree; when he +found one at last it was not so near the wall as he could have desired, +and the first branch that seemed likely to bear him for any distance he +judged to be about twenty feet above the ground. He crawled along this +till its circumference seemed so slight he dared not trust another inch +and peered into the pit. There was no way to make sure that the wall +was there but to let go; he lowered himself the whole six feet of his +length; let go; landed on the coping; by a miracle of balance maintained +his equilibrium; and then, dropping cautiously to his knees, flattened +himself along the edge. When you have dropped on to a wall which might +or might not be there, it is nothing at all to drop on to the earth, +which can not escape. He stood up, at last, within the Hoover grounds. + +All was perfectly silent; the noise of his descent, which had seemed to +crash like an earthquake, in reality had not waked a bird. He had now to +make his way to the house through about a mile of perfect blackness; as +a good beginning, he ran into a tree, and this rebuke of nature's seemed +to put him in his place, and tell him to walk here like a spy, not like +a combatant. He went on, but now with infinite caution. + +This part of the ground was as little tended as a wild wood; then +presently he came forth upon an old-fashioned garden, run wild, but +still sending out sweet smells beneath his trampling feet; beds of white +gillyflowers and fever-few and white banks of that odorous star-shaped +bloom which opens to the night made a kind of paleness in the dark which +perhaps he rather breathed and guessed than saw. It was an approach for +a Romeo, and seemed to cast a kind of dream over his desperate and grimy +business. He sped on to another little grove upon a rise of ground and +coming to the top of the slope saw, far ahead of him through the trees, +the shining of bright lights. + +He could scarcely believe his eyes, for surely they would never dare to +light the house. And then again he remembered how far and lonely that +house stood, a mile and a half in from the road, and save through the +lodge or from the river how hard to come at! If this was really their +haunt it must have been so a long time; they must have grown used to +it, like their own house. All the more chance, then, for his spying! +Expectancy sprang higher. He kept on down the slope, this time at +something of a reckless pace, and, at the bottom, plumped full into a +pond. + +The shock was horrid and without even the dignity of danger. He could +easily have scrambled back but that, as he re-opened his eyes, he found +himself gazing at a lantern, held up from across the pond. At that +moment three shots flew past him, aimed at the bank he had so +involuntarily and violently quitted. It seemed well to remain +inconspicuous as might be; the bullets began to skip close to him, and, +experimentally sinking, he found a fair depth and struck out under water +for the opposite shore. + +In the middle of the pond his hands touched a solid and terrifying +obstruction. Heavens, what was this? Through what snares did he clumsily +struggle to make his way? And in what nightmare? Involuntarily he came +to the surface and found himself confronted by a high, overhanging +shape, bulking featureless in the darkness and chilling him with a sort +of superstitious despair. The more so that he seemed to be grasping +something shaped like a foot; his hand climbed a vast, cold leg and the +next moment he could have laughed aloud. He remembered, now, from his +daylight forays, an ornamental wilderness of rocks and ferns, across +which he had once glimpsed a stone lady; seated, and bending forward +with a vase extended in her hand. The pond had been hidden by that +wilderness; the vase had once been a playing fountain, and the lady +herself sat on a rock in the middle of the waters. It was against this +rock his hand had struck and it was her ankles which he thus ungallantly +grasped. He hung to them a moment, resting in her shadow, and then with +infinite precautions began to pull himself up those smooth, cold knees. +She was very large and dense, a bulwark between him and the spitting +bullets; he felt her rocky island beneath his feet, and gave himself, +even with ardor, to her embraces. + +The light upon the shore split in two and one-half of it began to skirt +the pond at a brisk pace. He clambered across the stone lady's lap and +crouched, kneeling, in the shadow of her arm. Thus sheltered, his first +thought was for the priming of his revolver. It was soaked through! He +could have cried out like a child! But already his breathing space was +past. + +The runner with the lantern had reached the spot where Herrick had +plunged in and the surface of the pond was now raked with rays of light, +crossing each other and striking perilously near his refuge so that they +sought out at once the breast and the bent back of the stone lady. +Herrick, as he blotted himself down the rock, observed that on the +further side the pond was edged by a coping of rough stones rising, +perhaps, two feet above the water and irregularly surmounted by small +boulders--the beginning of the ornamental wilderness. He came up close +against the wall; his fingers wedging themselves in a crack between the +stones, and his head, shadowed by a boulder, half above the water. Thus, +as he could hear and was not likely to be seen, he had every advantage +of that dangerous neighborhood. And also time for a somewhat chill +reflection. Suppose the life were not knocked out of him in the next +five minutes, what use was there in going on with a useless pistol? It +seemed even the outer grounds were being patroled or perhaps +searched--he remembered the light shining from the house--it came in +upon him that something unusual was going on, and that he might +presently succeed in being either the victim or the witness of a climax. +That thought was enough; his blood committed him beyond denial; and when +the searchers, without having dropped a single significant remark, began +scouting their own fears, and, accepting the surrounding silence as +empty of intruders, turned back through the artificial wilderness toward +the center of the estate, Herrick pulled himself out of the water and, +sometimes on his hands and knees, sometimes upon his stomach, followed +among the rocks. + +The group with the lantern came out upon the carriage-way and paused. A +horse and two-seated wagon awaited them, the horse's head turned toward +the house; in the wagon sat Herrick's old friend, Mrs. Pascoe and the +little old, old couple from the lodge. As the other men tumbled in the +old lodge-keeper lifted up his voice: "I ain't slep' out o' the lodge, +nor your ma ain't, either, in forty years!" + +"Well, you'll have to to-night, pa," said Mrs. Pascoe. "An' there ain't +any time to talk about it, either." She added, "You an' ma can come back +when we're gone. Don't ferget M'ree's your great gran'niece by marriage. +Have her visit yeh again." They were off and through the shrubbery; +Herrick followed. + +But the carriage-way was clear of everything save errant weeds and at an +ordinary trot they very easily distanced him. After a while he ceased to +hear the wheels, but now again he could see the house shine among the +trees, and as he came closer still he listened for the sounds of their +arrival but heard nothing. + +It was extraordinary what a stillness had again fallen upon the night. +No sound covered his approach, and when he came at last in view of the +great entrance no wagon waited on the path nor did any voice challenge +him from the doorway. + +He stood among the trees and stared across the wide sweep of +carriage-way. He saw on either side depths of lawn, kept cut and roughly +trimmed, merging at last again into the darkness. The drive was bright +from the great glowing portico, and from the entrance doors set wide +into a stately hall; the hall was all in order as though for a +reception, with rugs and palms and candelabra, and to its left a vast +apartment like a ballroom flung from its long open windows, that crossed +the left front of the house and shone far along the side, spaces of +lamplight down the terraces. Save for one pane gleaming overhead, the +rest of the house stood dark, as if unoccupied. But in that still yet +quivering night, in that dense, black, vast but sultry silence, this +made a great illumination, and that wing of the old mansion seemed to +blaze like a palace in a wood; in the lack of sound or motion, it seemed +swept, opened and made ready by enchantment, and waiting for the +conqueror. It had indeed so great an air, so composed, so ordered, and +of such stately openness that it seemed to rebuke suspicion; surely law +and seemliness were on its side and not that of the dark, soiled, +muddied, creeping figure that skulked, staring, in the shrubbery like a +thief in the night; totally confounded, oppressed by every terror of the +house-breaker and yet with empty hands. But the bright house, which +should have threatened, invited him with every luster. + +He was a fool, if you wish, but at least he knew his foolhardiness to +the core. The wagon he had followed must have passed the house and gone +on toward the river, but this bright vacancy and quiet had not been +arranged for nothing. To go forward was most likely death; a death quite +futile and unremarked, and scarcely a breathing-stage in the wild story +whose blazed trail of ruin and murder he had already followed so far. +Well, he had followed too far to go back. He was too near the goal; he +was too near the turning of the page, and, as far as was mortally +possible, he must read it. + +The empty drive, the empty hall, the empty, shining windows drew him +like wires, and, dropping back across the border of the drive to a +far-lying depth of shadow, he crossed it like a ghost; taking advantage +of every unclipped shrub and moldering urn, began to mount the terraces. + +Thus at last he came to the long windows, and huddling at one side, +peered in. He saw a proud interior, brilliant and pale, with panels of +latticed glass, after the French fashion, and other panels frescoed with +Pierrots and Columbines and with great clusters of wax candles set +between the panels. There was a great chandelier with swinging prisms +reflected in the floor that was waxed like satin; but this chandelier +was not lighted, and indeed everything suggested that they had never +dared to use any electricity, for which they would have to work the +power-house on the estate. But the clustered candles and the many lamps +made the place afloat with liquid gold, and the room trembled and +bloomed with the scent and the beauty of hot-house flowers, so that the +air seemed to shimmer with their sweetness. There was little enough +furniture; a golden grand piano with Cupids painted on it; a few chairs +from which Herrick guessed the holland had but lately been removed; and +near the huge, rose-filled fireplace, a little table, gleaming with +silver and linen, with lilies and crystal and lace. It was set for two; +close at hand was a serving-table with silver covers showing on it, and, +for a practical and modern touch, a chafing-dish! There was no one in +the room. + +But the table was hint enough. Here was the center of these +preparations. Here two people were to meet, and Herrick thought he knew +the hostess. In the departing wagon-load, there had been no beautiful +tall figure with red hair. To this little private festivity Fate had led +him through the rough magic of his scramble in the night; she pointed at +the table with a very sure finger, and now all his vague expectancy was +centered in a single question, and his first necessity was to behold the +face of the red-haired woman's guest. + +Now at the first glance he had taken this room for a sort of music-room +which had been used, too, for informal dances. And sure enough, along +one wall, just as though put there to tempt him to the final madness, +ran a little gallery for the dance-music. It had a balustrade about it +and within this balustrade hung short yellow brocaded curtains, in a +sort of valance, that seemed to Herrick strangely fresh, as though hung +there yesterday. And he determined if it should be his last move on +earth to get behind those curtains. + +There was no staircase to the balcony from within the room. He crept to +the hall-door; the hall opened out square as a courtyard with doorways +and arches upon every side. At the rear the great staircase, after +perhaps a dozen steps, branched off to either hand, and on its left a +little gallery ran along the wall behind that very room and led to a +curtained niche. This would be the entrance to the musicians' balcony, +and there was nothing for it but that Herrick should traverse the hall +and mount the staircase. It was as if the house had turned to one great +eye; he thanked heaven for the rugs upon the marble and for the scanty +shelter of the palms; while with every step he took and every breath he +drew the house-breaker dreaded to hear another footstep in his rear or +to see an assailant rise before his eyes. But all remained vacant and +was as silent as the tomb. Running up those marble steps, he came at one +bound to the curtained niche, and, as he darted in between its hangings, +he had a strong inclination to laugh; for, if there were any one within, +it would be quaint to see whether he or they were the more startled! But +there was no one there. He had now his private box for the coming +entertainment. He dropped softly to the floor and, as he did so, some +one in the room below struck a match. + +It startled him like the crack of doom. He parted the little curtains of +the valance, and beheld himself so far right that there stood the +red-haired lady lighting the chafing-dish. + +Herrick was not more than about nine feet above the flooring of the +room, with the main door from the hall to his right hand and the +fireplace on his left, so that the little glittering table was before +him and to the left of him but a few feet. And there the red-haired +woman blew out the flame she had kindled, as if she had but meant to +test the wick. It was Herrick's first long clear look at her and he +looked hard. The resemblance to Christina lay only in a very striking +suggestion of the tall figure, a pose, a poise, an indescribable +lightness and sense of life; they had the same gracious, gallant +bearing, the same proud carriage of the head, and he suddenly realized +that he was looking at one of Christina's gowns. For the rest, she was, +of course, six years the elder, and her equal slenderness was much more +richly hued and softly curved. Handsome enough, her face at once +attracted and repelled by the diverse coloring of the eyes. It was a +face at once selfish and fierce and soft, with the softness of a woman +who is fashioned from head to foot in one ardent glow; a softness like a +panther's. In the flame-white allure of sex she struck straight at you, +as undisguised and challenging as lightning, and, to any but a +monomaniac, as soon wearied of. It seemed that she could never be +satisfied with her preparations. She walked about the room, touching and +re-touching the flowers; over and over again she scrutinized the +appointments of the table; lifted the silver covers; peered into the +chafing-dish, and tested the champagne in its bucket of ice. At last she +could find nothing more to do. Through all her coming and going, she had +seemed to be mocking and triumphing to herself; humming, singing and +even whistling very low with her mouth pursed into a confident and +quizzing little smile, or inclining her bright head, in victorious +scrutinies, from side to side; so that it seemed the guest must be very +welcome and, if she were bent on conquest, the conquest very sure. + +She was not yet gowned for a festival, and, remembering the light in the +room above, Herrick, grim as the hour was, smiled to imagine that here +was to be played a little domestic comedy like thousands that go on in +Harlem flats and tame suburban cottages; the servantless hostess +satisfied at length about her cooking and her table and flying upstairs +at the last moment to dress for company. So indeed she turned to fly, +but then her mood changed. She whirled round upon the vacant table, her +comedy, her mockery quite fallen from her, and given way to a black +hate. All her quick humors swarmed in her, in a threatening storm; she +was not so much like a woman as like a great, bad, lovely, furious child +that runs its tongue out in defiance. But there was a power in this +defiance like the power in that soft panther of her grace. So that it +was a sort of curse her swirling movement cast upon the pretty table as +she flung one arm up and out above her head; the hand clinched, and then +the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air. Then she went +out of the room and up the stair and overhead. + +Herrick, scarcely knowing what he did, rose to his knees! Just then, he +thought he heard a slight noise behind him. As he turned, something +struck him on the head; he fell millions of miles through a black horror +stabbed with pain and forgot everything. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE EXPECTED COMPANY + + +When he came to himself he was trussed up like a bundle, with arms and +ankles tied too tight for comfort. He still lay on the floor of the +musicians' gallery and the room below him was still lighted. He rolled +over and again could look through the valance. Only a little time must +have elapsed, for the room was still empty. + +And with the sight of that emptiness, questions poured in upon him. Who +had found him out? And for what fate was he reserved? How long did they +mean to leave him here and why did they leave him here at all? Why had +he not been finished and done with? There struck through him, with +perhaps the first utter and broken fear of his life, the depth of the +silence by which he was again surrounded. No breath, no stir; that +intense stillness was vivid as a presence and positive like sound; he +was alone in it; he lay there helpless; a bound fool and sacrifice in +the bright house, in the middle of the wood and the depth of the night, +and, if those chose who left him so, he must lie there till he died. He +lurched up and sat quiet, waiting for the dreadful giddiness and nausea +that came with movement to pass by; determined to struggle till he got +to his knees and on his knees, if necessary, to attempt to pass out of +that house. He knew it was impossible, but movement he must have. Then, +through that density of silence, he heard a step upon the terrace. + +His curiosity rushed back on him, like fire in a back-draft. He held +his breath; the step was a man's; it crossed the threshold of the great +door and sounded on the tiling of the hall. The next instant the guest +of the red-haired woman was in the room under Herrick's eyes. + +Removing a long driving ulster and a soft hat, he proved to be in full +evening clothes, and expectancy, held firmly down, lay mute and rigid in +every part of him. He lifted a face the color of tallow and, staring +straight at Herrick's balcony with blank, black eyes, the visitor drew a +quivering breath. This visitor was Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +The sound of his entrance had evidently been remarked. Again there was a +light footstep overhead, and Herrick guessed that enough time had +elapsed for the toilet to have been completed. The hostess came forth at +once, and could be heard slowly, and with great deliberation, descending +the stairs. Ten Euyck did not go to meet her. Only his eyes traveled to +the door and he stood stiff, with little swallowings in his throat. +Herrick could hear, as she came into the room, a swish, a tinkle about +her steps as though she walked through jeweled silk, and before her on +the waxed and gleaming floor there floated a pool of additional +brightness, so that he saw she had not been satisfied, after all, with +the lighting of her supper-party, but carried a lamp to her own beauty +as she came. Another step and there swam into his sight the beautiful, +tall figure, carrying her lamp high, and incomparably more than before +the mistress of that great apartment. This time it was Christina +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM + + +She stretched out one arm, keeping Ten Euyck at the tips of her fingers. +He seemed content to stay so, looking at her. + +She was dressed in a trailing gown of silken tissue that was now gold, +now silver, as the light took it; but the long vaporous slip beneath was +of pale rose; molded to her motion and stirring with her breath, there +dwelt in the gauze which covered her a perpetual faint flush. The stuffs +were cut as low about the breast as if she had been some social queen, +and her fair, pale arms were bare of gloves. Their adorable young +flatness below the gleam of the slim, smooth shoulders, was now +shimmered over and now revealed by short fringes of silver and gold, of +cooler colored amber and crystal, which were their only sleeve; and +these fringes hung about the borders of her gown and trembled into music +as she moved. In the high-piled softness of her hair, diamonds glimmered +like stars in a fair dusk; diamonds banded her brow in an inverted +crescent; diamonds and topaz dropped in long pendants from her ears; +diamonds and pearls clung round her arms; the restored necklace drooped +down her breast, and the peep and shine of jewels glanced from her +everywhere like glow-worms. She seemed to be clothed in fluctuant light, +and yet it could not dim one radiance of her beauty. This was more than +newly crowned; the rose was fully open; her loveliness had spread its +folded wings and come into its own. There was no shyness now in those +wide eyes; her spirit shone there, all in arms, and moved with a new and +deeper strength in her young body. Very faintly, on the pure and +delicate oval of her cheek, burned the soft, hot stain of rouge. This +was the reality of the dear ghost, calling in the night with the rain +upon its face; this was the pale girl in the gray suit who had once sat +beside her mother in the corner of the coroner's office. It may be Ten +Euyck thought of this; it may be she did. + +"Well," she said, "have I made myself fine? Do I please you?" + +He broke from his trance, took the lamp out of her hold, set it on the +mantelshelf, and returned to her without a word. + +"Pray speak!" she said; "I am all yours!" + +"Christina!" he broke out, and caught and covered her hand with kisses. + +"It is quite true. Do I do you credit? + + "Look at me here, + Look at me there, + Criticize me everywhere--" + +He leaned toward her and she swayed past him to the piano. Over her +shoulder she sang to him-- + + "From head to feet + I am most sweet, + And most perfect and complete!" + +She struck the chords a crash and whirled round to him with her hands in +her lap. "Yes, it is quite true. From my head to my feet--" here she +thrust forth through the music of the shaken fringe a slim gold shoe +with its buckle winking up at him--"you have paid for every rag I stand +in." Christina's accent upon the word "rag" suggested that she was +accustomed to standing in something much better. "It would be hard if +you were not suited. Would you like to go to your room a moment? It's +all ready." + +He must have considered this jabber at somewhat its true worth, for what +he did was to draw up a chair and take and hold her hands. "Christina," +said he, studying her face, "do you hate me so much?" + +She remained a moment, silent. Then, "Yes!" she said. "I am a good +hater!" And she smiled at him, a soft, stinging smile, with her eyes +lingering on his. + +"And yet you come--willingly--to me?" + +"Willingly?" she said. "Oh, greedily!" + +"Of your own suggestion?" + +"Of my own suggestion." + +"And on my terms?" + +"Ah, no!" she cried. "On mine!" + +"Well, then, for simply what you know I have?" + +"For that," she said, "and nothing else." + +"Great heavens!" he cried. "You're a cool hand!--You, who value yourself +so well, are willing to pay so high for it." + +She replied, "To the last breath of my life!" + +He leaned down and kissed her wrist and then her arm, and she sat quiet +in his grasp. + +"What are you thinking of?" he asked, looking up. + +She replied, "Of other kisses." + +He sprang to his feet with a kind of snort, going to one of the windows, +and Christina purled at his broad back, "Don't be angry. How can I help +what I think? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Have I not come +here to meet you without another soul? To a house I never saw before? +That you tell me you have hired? In a sort of wood, at night, quite +alone, not even a servant--although I must say everything seems to have +been well arranged and left quite handy! Would you like some supper, +now? If you ordered it, I am sure it must be good. I am very obedient. +All the same, I am rather hungry." + +He came back to the table with the little pink line showing about his +nostrils. "I do not mind your not desiring me," he said, "and perhaps, +after all, I shall not mind your desiring another man. As you say, it is +not a question of what you desire, but of what I do. Well, Christina, I +am satisfied with your preparations for me; do you approve mine for you? +You shall have servants enough, Christina, when I am sure we may not be +traced by your sister's gentry! How do you like my trysting-place? You +gave me very little time. If you consider it a cage, is it sufficiently +gilded?" + +Christina drew a long breath. "It's wonderful. A palace--wonderful! +Surely I was born to walk rooms like these! And a far cry from the +little boarding-house I lived in when you first met me! God knows," said +Christina, in a voice that trembled, "I am glad to be here!" + +"You like it then?" he cried eagerly. "It's for sale. It shall be yours +to-morrow!" + +"Give me some wine!" she said. "I am tired!" + +He looked at her and said, yes, she was right; and she would better have +something to eat. + +The wine brought back her brightness; it was she who lighted the wick, +heated the supper, and set the smoking chafing-dish before him. Till it +came to the serving she would not let him stir and he could only lean +forward on the table, looking and looking at her. During this she said +little enough, except that he must be sure to praise her cooking, for +she had always boasted she could be a good wife to a poor man! But once +she was seated she poured out a stream of chatter which he sometimes +answered and sometimes not, being intent upon but one thing, and that +was to drink deeper and deeper of her presence. + +Now through much of this Herrick lost sight of them, for he had come +upon an interest of his own. He had discovered in one of the balusters +against which he lay the jutting head of a nail. Never was an object, +not in itself alluring, more dearly welcomed. For he saw that his legs +were bound with only the soft cord that had once looped back the +curtains between the inner and the outer balcony; there must have been +two of these cords, and if his arms were but fastened with the other the +edge of the nailhead might make, in the course of time, some impression +upon it. He sat up and found the nail of a good height to saw back and +forth upon, and if it did not convincingly appear that any effect would +be made upon the cord, at least it provided him with a violent, if +furtive, exercise. This was better than to lie there and let those below +saw upon his heart instead. + +But he must stop at last from pure exhaustion; and at that moment there +was the sound of a chair pushed back. "I thank you for your +hospitality," said Christina's voice. "But, now to business. I have +played in too many melodramas to sign a contract without reading it. The +yacht sails at sunrise?" + +"Or when you will." + +"And takes with her Allegra and Mrs. Pascoe and whatever of their tribe +they choose?" + +"Safely and secretly to Brazil! They have chosen their own crew. They +must be aboard of her already." + +At such words as these Herrick may well be said to have picked up his +ears. He heard Ten Euyck go on: + +"She is yours, Christina; and theirs if you choose to make her so!" + +"You are very generous!" said Christina dryly. "But there is only one +way I can be sure of the end of all this. You know what is most +important to me." Herrick, leaning against the banisters had got his eye +to the opening in the valance again, and he could now see Christina with +her hands in her lap facing Ten Euyck. "Have you got that letter?" she +said. + +Ten Euyck gave his breast a smart rap so that Christina, being so near, +must have heard the paper crackle there. + +"Very well," said she; "so much for the District-Attorney's mail!" + +He stood up, and his voice croaked with triumph as he talked. +"Christina," he said, "I have brought you that letter--it's the price of +my professional, my political honor; it's bought with my disgrace, with +my career! But I have brought it. I'm ridiculous to you, Christina, but +who got it for you? Your friends, the Inghams? your admirer, Wheeler? +your poor fool of a Herrick? your cherished jail-bird, Denny?--No, I +did! This letter that I have here Ann Cornish fell ill guarding, for her +vengeance. You stole and lost it. Your enterprising family broke into a +post-office to get it back. But the despised policeman brings it to +you." + +"You got it by accident, you say," commented Christina. "Don't forget +that!" + +"Forget! I shall never forget the triumph of catching that gang, +although I renounce it at your bidding. I shall never forget your +message when the letter was barely in my hands!-- + +"'I know now that I am come of a family of criminals. My pride is in the +dust, as deep as you could wish it. If you do not help us, if it must +come out that I am tied to blackmailers whom you will catch and send to +prison, I shall die of it!' Christina, can I forget that?" + +"No," said Christina, "I never thought you could." + +"And you will remember my answer, my dear! That I had the proof, the +letter in my hand, to publish or to destroy, as you should choose. You +haven't forgotten that?" + +"No," said Christina again. "But the destroying, that's the thing! +You'll burn it?" + +"Yes." + +"Before my eyes?" + +"Of course." + +"To-night?" + +"To-morrow!" + +She seemed, for a moment, to take counsel with herself. "Very well." + +An extraordinary limp helplessness, a kind of dejection of acquiescence, +seemed to melt her with lassitude at the words. It was enough to sicken +the heart of any lover, and even Ten Euyck cried out, as if to justify +himself, "Ah, remember--you gave me the slip once before!" And at the +memory he seemed to lose all control of himself, falling suddenly +forward, clinging to her knees and hiding his face in her skirts. + +She sat for a moment motionless. Then, with fastidious deliberation, as +if they were bones which a dog had dropped in her lap, she plucked up +his wrists in the extreme tips of her fingers, and slowly pushed him +off. "Quietly!" she said. "You are one who would always do well to be +quiet!" + +He sat on his heels, the picture of misery, already ashamed and almost +frightened at himself. And suddenly, "Christina," he whispered, while +another flash branded itself across his face, "whose kisses were you +thinking of?" + +She did not, at first, understand; and then, remembering--"I will take a +page from your book. I will tell you to-morrow." + +"Was it Denny?" he snapped. + +"Denny?" said she, abstractedly. "Will? God bless me, no!" + +He sighed with a kind of vacancy. "You could easily tell me so!" + +"Well, then," said Christina, with considerable temper, "I will tell you +something else. When I came here to-night, that I might not die of my +own contempt I promised myself one thing. I swore to that girl I used to +be, who carried so high a head she could not breathe the same air with +you and never thought to stand you miawling and whimpering here about +her feet, that at least I should tell no lies of love. There shall never +come one out of my mouth to you and may God hear me. So if I do not tell +you the man I thought of, it is only because I can not bear to speak his +name in this place!--But rest easy! I am very capricious. Things will be +different to-morrow. To-morrow, if you still think it interesting, you +shall know." + +"Know!" he cried. And catching her arm, looked at her with a baleful +face. "Yes, there's my trouble! What do I know of you at all! I met you +once four years ago--well, I forget myself, I know it! But did I?--Were +you even then--? Well, at the inquest, at that reception, in the +station, holding to Denny, the night of your performance, and now, +to-night! There's my knowledge of you! You dazzle, you befool, you drive +me crazy, and you leave me empty--why should I throw my life away for +that! After all, where were you when all New York was looking for you? +Nearly a week! Where were you?" + +"Where was I!" Christina cried. "Well, it's rather long. But does not +the favorite slave always tell stories to her master? Listen to +Scheherezade." + +Then, for the first time, Herrick heard the story of Christina's visit +to the yellow house; how she had determined that Allegra must tell the +authorities, in Denny's behalf, the story of his provocation against +Ingham; how then, hidden in Nancy's, she had found Allegra's hair and +guessed everything. "Then it seemed that the first thing was to get +Nancy away, quietly, without warning, so that there should be no danger +to her. I thought that then I could manage Allegra." She had had Allegra +come into town for her performance, and go straight from it to the +Amsterdam, up to Christina's apartment in Christina's name; following +her there she had slept on the couch, and slipped off early in the +morning. Suspecting the identity of the motor, she had telephoned for it +as though to meet them both, and now she went on to tell Ten Euyck of +her attempt to deceive Mrs. Pascoe, as though she had come from Allegra, +and of her imprisonment in the closet. + +"Ah, that wretched necklace! I said to myself, 'If it comes to a fight, +they may find it and take it from me.' And then I should really have +been in your power! I buried it in the flower-pot, thinking to come back +with reinforcements!" She told of the flight in the rain, and of the +farmers who wouldn't wake up. Both men listened, absorbed, staring. And +Christina said, "I was afraid to go toward Waybrook, in case those men +followed me. I ran toward Benning's Point. I feared the main road, too, +and I thought I could follow the short cut. It is very hilly and broken +and I had never seen it before in the dark; the sheets of rain were like +the heavens falling, and the wind beat out my last strength; I was mud +up to my knees and I had on heavy clothes, too large for me, all +dragging down with wet. Perhaps it all made me stupid; at any rate, I +lost my way. Oh!" said Christina, "that was hard!" and she put her hand +over her heart. "I don't know--it must have been hours--I ran and +staggered and stumbled and climbed! You are to remember I had had no +food all day, and little enough the day before. And by and by I fell. I +got up and on again for a little, but I had hurt myself in falling, and +I fell again. And this time I lay there." + +Ten Euyck lifted the border of her golden dress and put it to his lips. + +The moisture of self-pity swam in Christina's eyes. "Nancy!" she said. +"That was worst to think of!" In her own lip she set her teeth and soon +she went on--"While I was still unconscious, a man came along with a +motor. Somehow, he didn't run over me; he found me. And he recognized +me! He wanted the reward. He took me to his sister's; to that Riley's. +They gave me all sorts of hot drinks and things; I think they saved my +life. But when I tried to thank them, something very comic had +happened--I had lost my voice." Christina closed her eyes. + +"Well?" said Ten Euyck. + +"Well, that woman said I needed sleep, so she sent her brother out of +the room--but she didn't send her husband. When she found I could not +speak, she pulled down the blinds of her room for fear some one should +see in, and said I needn't make a fuss, trying to get away, for she knew +as well as any one I was mixed up with murder and trying to clear out. +She said she was not going to hold any poor girl that was in trouble, +not for the few hundreds he would give her out of that reward. She was +going to let me go. 'But first,' said she, 'I'll thank you to hand over +that diamond necklace!'" + +Both Ten Euyck and the unseen Herrick started and stared. + +"She wouldn't believe me. If I didn't have it, I had hidden it since I +got in the house. 'Very well, if you won't do anything for me, I think +there's a gentleman who will. I think the party for me to send for is +Mr. Ten Euyck.' I wasn't ready for you, then, nor did I mean to be +handed over to you, like a thief done up in a bundle! But what was I to +do? I was still weak and she was between me and the locked door! I'm +grand at screaming," said Christina, "but I couldn't even speak! And +then, out of the stones of the courtyard, heaven raised up a miracle for +me!" + +"It was you, then?" + +"The shadow? yes. But how could I dream a friend would be going by? It +was just a desperate game, a wild chance! She had been telling me what +an outcry there was, how I would be recognized anywhere, and about the +moving-picture, and how they played the march from Faust, now, at that +film--and I thought of the reward and how there must be many looking for +it. There was a piano in that room and I went to it, put my foot on the +loud pedal and began to play. 'Oh,' I thought, 'will some one glance up? +Will some one guess?' And then I threw the shadow on the blind! Before +she could do much more than drag me away, my unsuspected friend was in +the room. She didn't dare to try to keep me. He put a hat and cloak on +me from her closet--oh, I'm sure he sent them back!--and snatched me +off!" + +"And is this your idea of explanation?" said Ten Euyck. "Who was this +friend?" + +"Ah," she said, "you ask too much! Leave something for to-morrow!" And +she went and sat at the piano, with her elbows on the keyboard and her +head in her hands. + +This was the first moment in which Herrick began to be sensible of a +little hope. It seemed to him that the edge of the nail was beginning to +make some impression upon the soft silk cord that bound him. He ground +away, desperately, but always there was the dread of any sound, and +quivers of terror that the violence of his pressure might loosen the +nail. The blow on his head made him easily dizzy, and as he leaned there +quiet to recover himself, it was plain that Ten Euyck with a dozen +questions had endeavored to follow Christina to the piano, and been +checked where he was. + +"No, we are both getting fussed. It is my right, perhaps, but hardly the +man's. As for me, I'm all for decorum. Sit back and smoke and when you +have smoked you will not fidget. I will play and sing to you--yes, I +should love it!" softly laughed Christina, her fingers moving on the +keys and her voice breaking into song-- + + "I'm only a poor little singing girl + That wanders to and fro, + Yet many have heard me with hearts awhirl; + At least they tell me so! + At least--" + +she chanted, leaning with gay insolence toward Ten Euyck, + + "At least they tell me so!" + +"Christina!" he said hoarsely. + +"You like personal ditties! You shall have another! + + "You dressed me up in scarlet red + And used me very kindly-- + But still I thought my heart would break + For the boy I left behind me! + +That's too rowdy a song for a patrician! But I can sing only very simple +things! The one I always think of when I think of you is the simplest of +all!-- + + "We twa hae run about the braes + And pu'd the gowans fine; + But we've wandered many a weary foot + Sin auld lang syne." + +The color rose up in her face and her eyes shone; her bosom rose and +fell in long, triumphing breaths, and--"Damn him!" Ten Euyck cried. +"It's not me you think of when you sing that! It's Denny!" + + "For auld lang syne, my dear, + For auld lang syne-- + +Is it?" Christina broke out. "Who knows! + + "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet + For auld lang syne. + +Ah, that stays my heart!--Ten Euyck!" + +"My God!" he cried. "I won't bear it!" + +He had his two hands on her shoulders and as she continued to play she +lifted up toward his at once a laughing and a tragic face. "What does he +matter to you?" she said, "to you, the Inspector of Police! Aren't you +here, with me, and isn't he down and done for, and out of every race? As +good as dead? + + "He is dead and gone, lady, + He is dead and gone, + At his heels a grass-green turf; + At his head, a stone! + +Come, pluck up spirit! + + "Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride! + Hark, hark, across the sea! + Ah-ha, the dead do ride with speed! + Dost fear to ride with me? + +--'Dost fear to ride with me?'" she sang, on the deepest note of her +voice, and turning, rose and held Ten Euyck off from her, seeming to +study and to challenge him, and then, with the excitement and the wild +emotion which she had kindled in both of them, dying slowly from her +face but not from his. + +She released him, and, going to a little table, unclasped her necklace, +and slipped the strings of diamonds from her arms. The crescent round +her head came next. "What are you doing?" he almost whispered. + +"Unclasp this earring. Thank you!" She lifted one foot and then the +other and tore the buckles from her shoes. She did not hesitate above +that bewildering heap, but pushed closer and closer together those +fallen stars and serpents of bright light. "There!" she cried. "Are they +all there? No--here!" At her breast there was still a quivering point or +two; she wrenched off the lace that held them and flung it on the pile. +"There!" she said again, "they are all there! My poor fellow, I have +changed my mind." + +She walked away and leaned her forehead on the tall mantelshelf. + +Whence she was perhaps prepared to have him turn her round and holding +her by the wrists say to her through stiff lips,--"Explain yourself!" He +shook from head to foot with temper; doubtless, too, with the scandalous +outrage to commonsense. + +"There is so little to explain. I thought I could. I can't! It wouldn't +pay!" + +"Not pay!" + +"Oh," said Christina, indicating, with a scornful glance, the mirrored, +golden room and piled-up jewels, "these were only incidents! Try to +understand. Long ago, when I was a child, I set out to vanquish the +world. Not to belong to it, not to be of it, but to have it under foot! +I was so poor, so weak, so unbefriended. I thought it would be a fine +day when I could give this great, contemptuous, cold, self-satisfied +world a little push with my shoe and pass it by. It was a childish +ambition--well, in some ways I have never grown up! And to me, since our +first encounter, _you_ have always typified that world." + +He started back, and released her hands. + +"All that I really wanted I won for myself last week! And Allegra stole +from me when I saw her hair! You tell me that you can save it for me in +saving her, but it's not true! It was easy to think of you as the world, +to feel that you were giving me yourself and it to play with! It's easy +to imagine that you would be under my heel.--No, I should be under +yours! I shouldn't have vanquished the world, I should be vanquished by +it!--No, I thank you!" + +"And Allegra?" he asked her, grimly. + +Christina shuddered and closed her eyes. But she said, "Has Allegra been +so tender to me that I should lose myself for her? Understand me, it +never was for Allegra that I came here to-night. Ah, Ten Euyck, I have +been a good sister. It is time I thought of myself." + +"Think," he replied, "that she will pass from ten to twenty years in +jail." + +The girl's face trembled as if he had struck it, but--"Well," she said, +"you the upholder of the law--you shall judge. She lived off me--that's +nothing!--But she lived off and bled others, and drove and hounded them, +and made me an ignorant partner in it--that's something, you'll admit! +And--Nancy! How about that? She lied to Will about Nancy and Jim +Ingham.--Come, isn't the balance getting heavy? She just as much killed +Jim as if she had done it with her hand; and if Will--dies," cried +Christina, with a breath like a little scream upon the word, "it is my +sister kills him! I am stone and ice to her! When I saw Nancy's message, +in that moment I knew who and what my sister was, and then and there I +had done with her! Let me hear you blame me! And yet," said Christina +with a change of voice, "there is one more count!" + +Her look had changed and darkened. "When that crew of hers laid hands +on _him_--O!" she cried out, suddenly. And flinging forth her arms +buried her face in them. + +The effect on Ten Euyck was electrical. Hitherto drugged and fascinated +by the mobility of her beauty, the lights and emotions varying in it, he +now shot forward on his sofa as if, in a mechanical toy, a spring had +been touched. + +"It isn't possible!" he cried. "That calf! That milk-sop! Christina, you +don't mean--Herrick!" + +She let her arms fall, and without raising her head, lifted her eyes for +him to read. + +He broke into a loud laugh that jangled, hysterically cold, round the +great, brilliant room. "And to think," he said, "that all this time I +have thought of him as my pet diversion, my wittol, my moon-calf! It has +been my one jest through all this wretched business to see the +importance of that great baby! To watch him industriously acquiring +bumps and bruises, and getting more and more scratches on his innocent +nose! I waited to see it put out of joint forever when you threw him +flat upon it! I thought that we were laughing in our sleeves at him, +together! When I had this appointment with you safe, I smiled to see him +careering up and down the country like Lochinvar in a child's reader.-- + + "'He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone, + He swam the Eske River--'" + +Ten Euyck sprang up and catching Christina by the elbows snatched her +smartly to her feet and shook her till, on her slim neck, her head +bobbed back and forth. "What did you tell me for," he cried, "if you +hoped to be rid of me! I, at least, am no baby, and I have had enough of +this! Your dear Lochinvar is doubtless swimming and riding somewhere in +the neighborhood. But not within call! And let me assure you, though he +stay not for brake and he stop not for stone--yet ere he alights here at +Netherby Gate--" + +"Go on!" said Christina, "you know the end of the verse." She flung it, +with a gallant backward movement of her head, straight in his teeth-- + + "'For a laggard in love and a dastard in war--' + +Oh, listen, listen, listen! Now you know! Now you know whose name I +would not speak! Not in this place! Oh, oh!--Will and Nancy; after all, +they are only pieces of myself! They are no more to me than--me! But he +is all I am not and long for! He is life outside myself, to meet mine! +He is my light and my air and my hope and my heart's desire! She knew +it--_she knew it_! She had taken my youth and my faith and my kindness +with the world, and killed them, and then she tried to kill him +too!--Love him? O God!" cried Christina, "what must he think of me!" And +she began to shake with weeping. + +"That cub!" said Ten Euyck. "You love that cub!" And he took her in his +arms; and covering her throat and hair with kisses, he held her off +again, and tried to see into her face. "Do you?" he cried. "Do you? Do +you?" + +"Give me a handkerchief!" Christina snapped. + +He was surprised into releasing her; and plucking forth her own scrap of +lace, she wiped her nose with some deliberation. "I look hideous. I +should like those lights out!" + +He went about putting out light after light, till she said, + +"Leave my lamp!" + +She was standing beneath it, pensive and grave and now quite pale, with +her back to the mantelshelf, her soft, fair arms stretched out along its +length, and her head hanging. She might have been bound there, beneath +the single lamp, like an olden criminal to a seacoast rock before the +rising tide. The pale light floated over her as Ten Euyck came up and +seemed to illumine her within a magic circle. + +"My dear," Ten Euyck began, with a kind of solemn fierceness, "when you +made me accomplice in a crime, when you came here to me like this +to-night, did you really dream that you could change your mind? Did you +suppose you could make me ridiculous again? Do you know where you are? +And under what circumstances? There is a slang phrase, Christina--do you +really think you can get away with it?" + +"No," Christina replied. She quietly lifted her head. Her eyes rested +soberly on his. "I am here, with you. I am alone. There is no Rebecca's +window here to dash myself from. You see I have counted up everything. +And this is what I will do. If I cannot die now, I can die to-morrow. +You can not watch me forever. And in the hour when you leave me, I shall +find a way to die." + +His face grayed as he looked at her. + +"Do you think I am not acquainted," Christina went on, "with the story +of Lucretia? I could strike a blow like hers! And oh, believe me, like +her I should not die in silence!" She felt him start. "Do you suppose I +should not tell why I came here? Do you by any chance suppose I should +not tell what bait I had from the Inspector of Police? Ah, when we have +something to lose, we stumble and make terms. But when we have no longer +anything, we are the masters of terms.--Is this my last night?" +Christina asked. + +"By God!" he said, "you know how to defend yourself!" And his arms +dropped at his side. + +He was a moment silent, his mouth twitching, his eyes drinking her up. +Christina had, in argument, that better sort of eloquence that calls up +convincing pictures. Doubtless, he knew she might denounce his theft of +the letter. Doubtless he saw her, then, clay-cold; lost to him, +utterly. On the other hand, to lose her, now, was a thing outside +nature and not to be endured. So that suddenly he broke out in a kind of +high, hoarse whisper; "Christina, there's another way! I never meant to +marry--but--Christina, shall it be that?" + +"_What!_" she exclaimed. It was a volcanic outcry, not a question. She +stretched out her two arms, with the palms of her hands lifted against +him, and laughter and amazement seemed to course through her and to wave +and shine out of her face, like fire in a wind. + +"Christina," he said; "Christina, I will marry you!--Oh, Christina, +isn't that the way! There's your ambition! There's your satisfaction! +There's the world under your shoe! Christina, will you?" + +"Is it possible?" she said. And again--"Is it possible! What! Peter +Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck and the girl in the moving-picture +show? 'Mr. Ten Euyck' and the sister of a jail-bird! Eh, me, my poor +soul, is it as bad as that?" Her laughter died and her brows clouded. +"It's a far cry, Ten Euyck, since you stole my kiss on the sly! You laid +the first bruise on my soul! You put the first slur and sense of shame +into the shabby little girl in the stock-company who had no one to +defend her but a boy as poor as herself. What did it feel like, dear +sir, that check? We have come a long way since then, but have you +forgotten? And does the pure patrician and the representative of high +life now lay the cloak of his great name down at my feet? To walk on it, +yes! But to pick it up? After all, I think it would be stopping! Ah, my +good fellow, I don't jump at it!" + +"I know you don't! That's why I want you! I've been jumped at all my +life!" Thus Ten Euyck, holding her fast, his face burning darkly under +her little blows of speech, and his pulse rising with the sense of +battle. "I think I've never known a woman who wouldn't have given her +eyes to marry me! I've never taken a step among them without looking out +for traps! Christina, I long to do the trapping and the giving, yes, and +the taking, for myself! You don't want me; well, I want you! Yes, for my +wife! I see it now. You dislike me, you despise me. Well, your dislike +doesn't count; believe me, you'd not despise me long! I'd rather see you +bearing my name--you, with another man for me to wipe out of your heart, +you, as cold as ice and as hard as nails to me,--than any of those soft, +waiting women! See, we'll play a great trick on the world! We'll be +married to-morrow! We'll sail for Europe. From there we'll send back +word we've been married all along. People shall think that when you left +me the other night I followed you; that we fooled them from the +beginning, and when next they see you, you shall be on my arm! Come, +Christina, will not that be a reëntry? Will not the world be vanquished, +then?" + +"Hush!" she said, with lifted finger. "I thought I heard some one!" She +lifted the lamp from the mantelshelf and going to the window held it far +out into the darkness with an anxious face. "No!" she breathed. Ten +Euyck observed with joy that her manner to him had changed; it had +become that of a fellow-conspirator. Up and down the terrace she sent +the light, her apprehensive eyes searching the shadows and the bushes. +"No!" said she again, "I was wrong." + +She came back to him flushed and eager, and setting the light upon the +table, he caught her hands. "Remember!" he said, "otherwise I shall stop +your sister. And where will your name be then?" + +Her nostrils widened, her eyes contracted, doubt succeeded to triumph in +her face. "If it were not the truth!" she said. + +"What do you mean?" + +"If there were no such necessity! If you did not have my name in your +power at all. If you have no such letter!" + +"Christina!" + +"It is what I have doubted from the beginning! How do I know you haven't +lied to me all along? I ask you if you have that letter, and you thump +your breast! I ask you to show it to me and you answer, 'To-morrow'! +Traps--did you say? Did you think I was to be caught in a trap? When you +were looking for a poor gull, did you cast eyes on Christina Hope? If +you had that proof to show me, you wouldn't hesitate! There is no such +letter--I can see it in your face!" + +He took the letter from his coat and held it up. + +"Oh, well," Christina said, "I see an envelope. Am I to marry for an +envelope?" + +He cast the envelope away, folded the letter to a certain page and held +it for her to read. + +She read it and a faintness seized her. She stood there, swaying, with +closed eyes, and he put an arm about her for support. She leaned upon +him, and he put down his mouth to hers. "Christina, look up!" he cried. +"Don't be afraid! Don't tremble so! My darling, here's your first +wedding-present!" And, alarmed by her half-swoon, transported by that +surrender in his arms, he held the letter above the lamp and let its +edge catch fire. + +Christina opened her sick eyes and they dwelt dully on the paper and +then with pleasure on the little flame. "Let me!" she breathed. "Yes, +let me. It's my right." + +He put the burning paper in her hands, smiling on her with a tender +playfulness. "Take care!" he said. + +[Illustration: "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! +Thank God, I've done with you!"] + +"I will take care." She held up the paper, intent on the thin edges +crisping in the glowing fire, and then, swift as a deer and wild as a +lion's mate, she sprang away, clapped her hands hard upon the burning +paper, pressed out the flame upon the bosom of her gown, and thrust the +letter in her breast. "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous +fool! Thank God, I've done with you!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL-- + + +Ten Euyck's face blazed white with anger. Sick with rage, driven with +bewilderment and some touch of vague suspicion, all his cold strength +gathered itself. He was no longer merely a harp for Christina's fingers. +She stood at the far end of the room with her back against the wall, +barricaded, indeed, by a little gilded table, but not at all alarmed or +even concerned, and the master of the situation forced himself to say +quietly, "I am tired of play, my dear. I shall not run after you. Bring +that letter here!" + +Christina laughed. + +"You will come to me, quite obediently, and give that letter here to +me." + +"Oh, I think not!" Christina said. "Not to a thief! Not to a +blackmailer! Nor even to a gentleman who tried, and failed, at +murder.--How much did you give the man in the Tombs?" + +A profound silence fell upon that house. It was as if, in that great +golden room, among the mirrored gulfs of shadow, something held its +breath. Night seemed to look in at the windows with a startled face. +Then somewhere, a hawk cried. And still there was no movement in the +room. The homely sound of crickets rose from without like the stir of a +world immeasurably far away. And Christina, in the changing lusters of +her gold and silver gown, stood half in shadow; flushed and radiant, a +little shaken with triumph, as a spent runner who has touched his goal, +and with her hand above the letter on her heaving breast. Ten Euyck did +not make one sound. But his face had a paralyzed, chalky stiffness, and +the jaw dropped, like the jaw of a corpse. + +"You fatuous hypocrite!" cried the girl. "You pillar of society! And +could you ever imagine it was for _you_ I came! For your name, for your +position! I thank you, I prefer my own! For your protection? Can you +protect yourself? Am I the girl to throw myself away on you for the sake +of a bad sister, who has treated me with so much hate? It took all your +greed, all your vanity, all your stupid, cruel pomp and dullness to be +fooled like that! Did you ever really think I could stoop to such a +scene as this to-night for you--or me? Oh, blind, blind, blind! How +could you imagine I would leave him in your hands and never make a fight +for it? Did you think I didn't remember?--that I couldn't still hear, as +I heard when I was a frightened girl, the stroke of his hand across your +face, and that I didn't know you had always had death for him in your +heart?" + +She covered her face with her hands and then she stood up tall again. + +"My dear Will, my poor boy!--who treated me as if I were his little +brother! Oh, the cold night trips on railway trains when I couldn't pay +for a sleeper and used to sit wrapped in his coat; the morning races +down the track for coffee; the scenes we used to work and work on and +get so cross we almost struck each other; the time I was discharged and +he lent me his few dollars till I should get work again; his first big +hit and then mine; and then--Nancy, and all the sweetness of a hundred +times with both my dears! Did you think I was going to sit quiet and let +you turn your heel on all of that? Allow your conceit and insolence and +spite to feed on his disgrace and danger! Let _you_ sneer at _him_! +Leave _him_ to be triumphed over by _you_!--Will Denny by a Ten Euyck! +An artist by a bourgeois Inspector of Police! An actor," cried +Christina, beginning to soar, "and _such_ an actor, by a mere outsider! +Your side over mine!--Why did you try? Will to be shamed and hidden in +the dark! And you to be bowed down to, to swell and strut and smirk and +look dull and glossy and respectable, and be brushed by valets, and have +prize cattle raised for you to eat, and carry gold umbrellas! He to die! +And you to pillow yourself upon a hundred crimes he never dreamed +of!--Tybalt in triumph and Mercutio slain!--You poor, pretentious, +silly, vulnerable soul!--not while he was paying for one moment's +madness, and I began to guess and hope and pray that about you there was +something prisons had been gaping for, year after year, if only I could +find it out! Did you really think I didn't guess what was in this +letter? Do you think I didn't know you sent Nicola into that post-office +to steal it? Why, it was I, with my last strength, who mailed it there. +He must have found some trace of me and guessed. Nothing in heaven or +earth would have brought me here, except to steal it back!" + +"How did you--" he tried to say. But the machinery of his throat was +stiff and could not work. He swallowed once or twice, and then, dropping +his dulled eyes, he got out--"When--did you--at first--?" + +"When you came so grandly to the station, a master of the trap that my +poor boy was caught in, and said, 'If she would tell the jury what she +told him--' Don't you remember that I answered, 'How do you know what +she told him?' A strange confidant for Allegra! It wasn't accident, +coincidence--for you knew the music that she made for Will's and my +French song! Not five minutes later I learned what Allegra was! A +queerer confidant, still, for an Inspector of Police! I said to myself, +'There is a very black spot frozen inside that block of bilious ice. If +one could know, now, what it was!' Then came your necklace and your +note. And I saw you were a violent, greedy creature, after all, who +would go a long way to get your will; I saw you could be managed--and +how. I remembered Will's saying that people like us had nothing but +ourselves to fight with. Oh, it has been with myself that I have fought! +I'm sorry, I'm ashamed. But I've won!--What was my second hint? Do you +remember the torn card of the Italian Bryce Herrick had to kill? How it +said, 1411--nothing more? When I 'phoned you to call for your necklace +your number wasn't in the book. The girl, at first, gave me a wrong +direction. Then she remembered that was your old number which you had +just had changed. The district was the same, of course. But the old +number ran, 1--4--1--1.--Ah, wait for my third--the best of all! My good +Ten Euyck, you never made quite such a mistake as when you lost one +symbol of respectability--as when you forgot your umbrella!" + +This time he looked up with a stare. + +"You left it at Allegra's, and, like all excellent housekeepers, Mrs. +Pascoe put it in the closet under the stairs. I found it there. I was +looking for something to break the window with. A little light came in +then, and I saw the gold handle, like a staff of office, with your name. +I broke the rod and have the handle still." Christina paused and smiled +at him. "My sister's partner in the business of blackmail; you, whose +money robbed and burned a post-office of the United States; you, whose +influence attempted murder in jail, on the highroads, in the Park, +rather than be found out, I make you my bow! If I cannot save Will with +you, if I cannot trade you for him with the law--and oh, I think I +can!--at least our side shan't fall alone! If he is to be punished, at +least he will never be punished by you! But you, Mr. Ten Euyck, who +exulted in his trouble, who are afraid, as he is not, who will perish at +the scorn of every fool, as he has not, you, who of shame are about to +die, I salute you! Your career as a criminal, your career as a shining +light, they are both at an end!--And why? Because you declared war +against people without money, without position, without influence, whom +you despised! Because you weren't strong enough to fight Christina Hope! +Remember that!" + +The heart knoweth its own bitterness. For one little moment Ten Euyck +stood with his eyes upon the reckless girl who was driving him to the +last terrible extreme of self-defense. He had come there a happy and +indulgent conqueror, and even the sweetness of a necessary revenge was +black and poisoned in him. Then, in that moment, he heard what +Christina, flushed with victory, did not hear at all--a little sound +behind him and above his head. + +His driving-coat still lay across a chair and he went slowly to it and +drew the case of his revolver from its pocket; the revolver was fully +loaded; he looked at the barrel a long time, as if he were thinking +something out, and then he heard Christina laugh. "Take care!" she said. +"I did not come without a guard." + +He did not turn upon her. He still stood with his back to her, and, from +under his bent brows, his glance shot up and found the parting of the +valance. Now, since the lessening of the lights, Herrick, half-mad and +goaded by the continual slight weakening of the cords, had grown +careless of concealment. There, in the opening, his face showed. Not +much, indeed; not enough to be easily recognized; all masked, too, with +blood and sweat and with the gag across the mouth. But still whiter than +the Italian face Ten Euyck had most expected. Then he caught a glimpse +of the brown, ruddy hair, and knew. This was Nicola's and Allegra's idea +of a jest. + +"A guard?" he said. And he turned then upon Christina. + +"Don't come near me!" the girl cried. "And if you want to live, don't +shoot! My friends are all about this house! They are in waiting down the +road! They have waited the whole evening long, watching for my signal. +They started to close in on us when I waved my lamp. Let me cry out my +name and you will hear, in answer, the horn of an automobile. It will +blow three times--two short notes and one long. That means--Stand out of +the way, Christina Hope; the men are ready!--Don't come near me!" + +"Cry out your name!" Ten Euyck replied. + +The girl lifted up her voice, and gave forth the words "Christina Hope" +so that they leaped out in the still darkness and went shrilling and +searching through the night, the vibrations dying in the distance, and +the air giving back an echo of their call. Till, after an age-long +moment, their last note died away. And nothing happened. No note from +the horn of an automobile broke forth in answer; there was only a +profounder stillness. Christina was left face to face with nothingness +and Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +"You spoke too soon!" he said. "You were always foolhardy. This time you +have outdone yourself. The clever Christina was not the only person, on +coming here, to take precautions. If I gave so much to the guard in the +Tombs, what did I give to buy off these friends of yours? The agreeable +gang your sister commands--did you think it was in your pay for +to-night? It is in mine! I suspected nothing, but I took no chances. I +prepared for accident. No automobile can pass that lodge. No spy can +creep about these grounds. One tried, my dear. They caught him. He is +lying in that little gallery gagged and bound. When his body is +discovered, he will have been shot by blackmailers, whom Cuyler Ten +Euyck never so much as saw. I thought you wouldn't leave me!" + +Christina had gathered up her train for flight and had been +manoeuvering nearer and nearer to the window that gave deepest into +the shelter of the dark. Only at the first word of a spy she had stood +still. + +"Yes," Ten Euyck went on, "I see that you guess his name. I am not a bad +shot, and he can't move, poor fellow. Give me that letter!" + +Christina looked along his arm, along the lifted revolver, to what was +now only a dark opening in the valance. Her mouth opened, but no sound +came. The life went out of her like the flame from a dying candle, and +she seemed to shrink and crumple and to sway upon her feet. There was a +long stillness. + +"That letter, if you please!" Ten Euyck said. + +"Bryce!" Christina called, quite low. "Bryce, are you there! Let me +see!" she screamed out, and ran forward. + +Ten Euyck held up a finger, and she stopped dead. "Do you understand +that I, too, have a signal and these fellows will come at it? Do you +understand what cause they have to love Herrick?--Fetch that chair!" + +She brought it forward. + +"No, under the balcony. Pardon my not helping you. I dare not lower my +hand. Stand on the chair! Can you reach those little curtains? No? Take +this candlestick--push them back! What do you see?" + +Christina shuddered like a stricken birch, and gave forth a lamentable +cry. The candlestick fell to the ground. She had met Herrick's eyes. + +"Have I won?" said Ten Euyck. + +"You are a brave girl, but you lack discretion.--Get down! Take that +letter from your breast. That's right. What a pretty change in manners, +my dear! Come here! Come!" + +Her face looked thin and her eyes were set with fear. She came slowly +on, like a person in a trance, half hanging back, half drawn with +ropes. She stopped at one end of the little table, a few feet from him. + +"Put out your hand and offer me that letter." + +She put it out and he seized the letter and the hand in his. + +"And now, my dear, understand me. In my connection with the Arm of +Justice, I hold myself neither stained nor shamed. It has been an arm of +_justice_; when I have struck it was--as poor Kane will tell +you!--always at those who had sinned against the law, though I could not +then reach them through the law. In that punishment I used an imperfect +instrument, as a man who stands for decency must do, in an imperfect +world. When I recognized your sister as our mysterious shadow I forced +her to write this account of her disgraceful life not, as she supposed, +for fear she might some day blackmail me--for there was nothing in my +life to be used for blackmail--but for a net to snare you with! In that +net you are caught. Never till its loss determined me to have it back at +any cost did I really sin. And never legally! For when I give money to a +needy woman I do not question what she does with it. If there is +violence--why not? In self-defense! But if I sinned, at least I have +succeeded in my sin. For here you are! While you--you have forfeited +even your price. But when Denny is dead, talk over with Allegra, in her +prison, the story of his death--it may divert you both! For now she, +too, is lost, as well as he. And through your fault as Herrick is!" + +She lifted her white face and questioned him, with the darkness of her +eyes. + +"Let him go! After all that he has heard? How could I? You gave your +signal and now I must give mine!--It's been a hard fight, Christina! And +to the victor belong the spoils!" + +He dragged her slowly toward him by the clenched hand he held, his +hungry smile flushed and yet cold with hate, feeding on her desperate +compliance. And as he drew her past the table, Christina caught up the +lamp and struck it with her whole force into his face. + +There was a tremendous noise of crashing glass, and then darkness, +filled with the smell of oil. Christina's slender strength had found +force for such a blow that the lamp had been put out before it could +explode,--and what it had been put out upon was Ten Euyck's head. He +floundered back; dazed, cut, with the sense battered out of him. And at +the same moment the last knot yielded to stiff fingers and Herrick +staggered to his feet. He dropped over the balcony to the ground, and +Christina ran toward the sound of him, in the darkness. "Oh! Oh!" she +said, and clung like a child upon his breast. + +But for a little crack under the door into the hall, the blackness had +swallowed every shape. This was all in their favor. They stood +listening, holding their breath, knowing that Ten Euyck was there before +them but not able to see where; and then he fired. Herrick followed the +lead of the flash and leaped upon him. Ten Euyck sank to one knee, but +he had gripped Herrick as he fell; the two men struggled to their feet, +and across the room and up and down they fought and clung and swayed and +trampled, upsetting chairs, their feet slipping and grinding on the +smooth floor; and though the shots continued to sound, they were fired +downward and Christina guessed that Herrick forced Ten Euyck's hand +toward the ground and was struggling for possession of the pistol. She +could hear their breath pulsing and sobbing in the darkness. Suddenly +their black, struggling bulk crashed down on the piano and the shots +ceased. The pistol fell to the ground. Ten Euyck's voice gasped out, +like rending cloth: "All six are fired! That's my signal!" Then there +was an oath, a lurch, a sound of blows, the table tipped over with a +smash, followed by the thud of both men falling to the floor; there was +a groan, a pause, a last decisive blow, and then some one rose and came +slowly toward Christina through the dark room. + +In a childish terror of broken nerves, "Bryce!" Christina shrieked. Then +her shrieking, outstretched fingers touched a rough, damp sleeve, and +"Bryce!" she sobbed contentedly. They met with a bump, and clutched each +other, laughing with joy, in this little moment before the last. Already +they could hear the hurrying men; dark figures blackened on the +darkness, the terraces came alive with sound, lights showed and were +gone; and Herrick, holding the empty gun, sought vainly to put Christina +back from him. She held to him, leaning on him, hardly breathing. "It's +death, dear!" she said. "Forgive me!" + +"Oh!" + +She felt him bend his head, and lifting up her face, she set her mouth +to his. + +From the carriage sweep without there came--two short and one +long--three notes from the horn of an automobile. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX + + +The door from the hall opened, letting in a flood of light. At the same +time a man stepped through one of the windows. He was the first of a +number whom the halls and staircases instantly absorbed. Out of +Herrick's very hold Christina slipped and caught this man by the arm and +hung away from him as she was wont to hang upon the arm of Hermann +Deutch. "Oh, heaven and our fathers!" cried she in a faint wail. "But +you were a little late!" + +The man, standing tense in the shadow, was examining the room with +appraising eyes. Christina, blind to something rigid in him, hurried on. +"And I did so depend on a quick curtain! But all's well that ends +well--I've got it! Mr. District-Attorney, your mail!" + +"Who's that with you?" said the voice of Henry Kane. + +As he took, from the hand that had never once resigned them, the +scorched and torn sheets and buttoned them beneath his coat he glanced +over his shoulder, expectantly. + +"You'll go to the Governor, yourself, to-morrow? To-morrow!" + +"Please God! Ah, Herrick, you make one more! Hear anything, Sheriff?" he +called into the hall. + +Kane had turned to close the shutters at his back but Christina, blind +with triumph, continued to Herrick: "He saw my shadow at Riley's. I told +him all that I suspected and he believed me. He spoke to the Governor. +They promised me if I could give Mr. Kane that man and the headquarters +of the others I should have Will's life in exchange. I knew from Nancy's +holding that letter and it's being addressed in Allegra's hand that it +must be the story which caused his feeling against Ingham--that Nancy, +as well as I, must have hoped it might even set him free. Mr. Kane got +me a doctor and as soon as I had my voice he sent me to a little hotel +up the river here, kept by Ten Euyck's old servants whom he would know +must recognize him, and there I sent for him. He was afraid to come +there, of course, into my disreputable company. But he was fine and +eager to meet me somewhere. We hoped he would name that stronghold of +Allegra's where he would feel safe and when he named this house our +hopes leaped.--Oh, I'm so tired!" cried Christina, sitting down on the +floor like a worn-out child and snuggling her head forward in her lap. + +"Are those doors fast?" called Kane from his second window. "That +shutter's loose! What's that balcony? This room won't stand a siege! +You, Herrick, the sheriff and I and five men--can we hold this house?" + +Sheriff Buckley had just limped in with his bruised, cut face further +discolored by the blood from a scalp-wound which he was binding with a +handkerchief. Herrick had already noticed that Kane's arm was tied +tight, just above the elbow, with a gaily flaunting necktie and around +this necktie the torn sleeve was soaked and stained.--"Against how +many?" he replied. + +It was not till then that, lifting a face of weary dismay, "Are we still +fighting?" Christina almost sobbingly demanded. + +"Now, don't frighten the lady!" The sheriff turned to Kane. "We just got +into a mix-up at the gate with the whole Dago gang. They'll never come +up here after us." + +All three men, none the less, were busy latching shutters, locking, +barricading. They were not interrupted and no alarm but their own +seemed in the air. As they worked Kane said, "There's something up we +don't understand. This is something more than any bunch of Pascoes. We +expected a fight. We had over a dozen men. We were attacked by a +hundred. They had made an obstacle race for the motors. One they put out +for good. But the sheriff got this one through." + +"We've left 'em a mile behind!" said the sheriff. "Before they can get +here the river police'll have taken the yacht. They'll be up here before +long. We're safe here awhile, all to ourselves, and they can't get +within a hundred feet of the house without being picked off by our boys +upstairs!" + +As he spoke the pane above Herrick's head, where he struggled with the +loose shutter, cracked into flying splinters. A small hard object had +hurtled into the room and thumped at Kane's feet. A bewilderment +ludicrous as hysteria came over Herrick. For the object that carried a +bit of paper rolled in its mouth was a little golden pistol--which +though sufficiently valued to carry on its handle a monogram of three +capital A's, picked out in jewels, was yet no pistol at all. It was a +dummy made all in one piece! + +"So!" said the District-Attorney. "Now we know!" + +"What?" + +"I asked you, Herrick, if we could hold this house. And you asked me +against how many. I can't tell you against how many but I can now tell +you against what. Against an army of which you have read, not so long +since, a considerable deal in the papers. Against the Camorra." + +"Here!" + +"After us?" + +"The Italian Camorra!" + +"In America!" + +"Yes," Kane insisted, "and under those trees." + +"In costume!" cried Christina, with rising spirits and flitting to the +window. + +"A skeleton pistol is its badge. The owner of this trinket is a member. +Please, Miss Hope, translate us this paper." + +She read aloud, "Alieni the infamous and all his house die here to-night +the death of traitors." + +"Well, the information's dear, but we're getting plenty of it! There's +an advance guard, evidently, set hereabouts!--Alieni! And capital A's! +It's their traitor's badge they've stolen to threaten him. If we only +knew who Alieni is? And where he is! And what they think he has to do +with us!" + +Herrick told them where he had seen the pistol before. To no one did +this, at that time, bring any light. Kane's mind was busy with the +fortunes of the police-boat. "The Camorra easily swarms thick enough to +overpower that!" He paused, surveying their fortress. If they had needed +anything to tell them they were doomed they might have found it in the +colloquial, dry calm of Kane's voice as he said, "We should, perhaps, +have sent Miss Hope upstairs." + +"Oh, I beseech you--anything but a trap. Let me stay where I can run!" + +"The more as they may try to smoke us out!" + +Silence grew up in their midst. + +The great front doors were barred and chained; through the house five +men were on watch; the door into the hall was barricaded with the gilt +piano, whence still the Cupids smiled, stacked above and below with the +little table and the chairs; down the room's long front the five great +windows, three more crossing at the farther end, were dark with the +latched shutters of which the second on the front was the suspected. So +frail were the defenses! So short a time from the first blow must the +slats give and the glass crash in! + +"I think you'd best take the end, Mr. Kane; me and Mr. Herrick the front +windows--Lord, who's this?" + +The black figure with gleaming shirt-front was seated in a little gilt +chair in the wall's darkest angle; with outstretched legs and tilted +head it confronted them from very glassy eyes. But it was only the dead +body of Ten Euyck, who must have reared up thus with his last breath and +joined their council. + +"Well," cried the sheriff, gaily, "you make another--if they think so!" +Seizing the chair he trundled it across the room; on the floor he found +Ten Euyck's gun and propped it into the passive fingers. "There! If this +blind falls down, you'll be better 'n the piano--they'll waste a lot of +attention on you! Now, if they only make noise enough, down by the +river--Oh, you mustn't let him make you whimper, miss!" + +Herrick was mainly aware of a terrible impatience. The surprise and +confusion of their peril made its expectation a raging fever, as if only +a horrible scarecrow in a mirror waited to be smashed. Despite the whole +week's frenzied pulse, despite the happenings of the last four hours, +Herrick could not believe in what lay before and all about them. These +were men he knew, with whom he had put through other adventures; the +girl beside him had never seemed so much a girl as in this failure of +her hardihood--he saw her for the first time with loosened hair that +touched her face with a childish softness, made for cherishing--it +tightened something in his heart as though to crack it, but it was +absurd to suppose that in half an hour, in ten or twenty minutes, they +would be there on the floor, unconscious of each other, ended, wiped +out! Christina lifted her arms in a gesture instinctive with all +womankind and gathering up this tumble of hair her dear, quick fingers +twined and thrust till it was heaped into its place--why, of course not! +This strange night camp amid broken furniture, the spreading pool of +oil, the jewels lying mixed with the supper's wreckage, Christina silent +again and holding his hand tight, the two wounded, haggard men, all +these his mind admitted, all these were conceivable. But what was soon +to come was not conceivable! Yet--hark! Was that--No, only some creak of +the old house! What sound would be the last before the deluge? How long +must they wait? Already the air seemed thick and hard to breathe, the +twilight of the room hung on them like a solid weight and the one candle +Christina had lighted made scarce a twinkle of sane, human comfort in +the vast yellowish gloom.-- + +"If you please, miss, put out that light!" + +"Oh!" + +"We can't afford to advertise!" + +The light was gone. + +In the pitch-black airlessness Herrick could feel Christina kneeling +against him, quiet but for the broken breathing that told him she was +still afraid of the dark. As he put his left arm round her shoulders she +pressed her cold cheek to his hand. + +"It's funny, isn't it? We never even had time to get an +engagement-ring!--Here they come!" + +A sound as of excited animals plunged through the groves about the +house; with tramplings and scufflings a great herd seemed to surge out +upon the vacant drive. As it confronted the empty automobile, the +tranquil terraces and the blank front of the locked house it paused, +uncertainly; then a high, prolonged whistle sounded, shorter whistles +responded from every stretch and nook of woodland and there fell again, +to the stupefaction of those within, a perfect silence. + +This continued unbroken, baffling, interminable, inscrutable, and solid +as the walls of a cell. Christina in her endeavor for control gave a +slight, nervous cough, no more than a rough catch of the breath, such +as Herrick had heard her give many a time when their taxi skimmed too +close to a trolley in the safe, crowded, far-off streets. And with this +familiar little sound apprehension awoke in him, full-armed. The +merciful veil was torn from his imagination, his soul gaped to the +knowledge of death and of direr things that precede death. On the +instant all he had ever known of struggle changed; chivalry, +civilization, restraint, vanished like things that never were; if, at +that moment, the bodies of a hundred other women as sweet, as +defenseless, as tender as his love's had stood in her way he could have +set his heel upon them all to save her. Then, close at hand, as if from +somewhere within the wall, came the imperative, prolonged tingle of a +telephone! + +They turned, dumbfounded, shaken with incredulous, mad hope. But whence +came it? Where was it? Christina stirred and slid to her feet; her dress +went whispering across the room; the men, not daring to leave their +posts, knew she must be feeling along the rear wall and still through +the darkness the telephone rang. Then she gave a low cry--a narrow door +in the glass paneling had slipped sideways so that she stretched her +hands into a kind of pantry; the instrument's shrill call was now +directly in her ears--"It's Nicola!" + +The three questioning whispers sprang at her at once. + +"He wants to speak to Mr. Ten Euyck." + +Blankness answered. The ringing became more impatient. + +"Take the message." + +But no message was to be had. Nicola's party was at the boathouse, in +great trouble, in danger--never mind what! He wanted to speak to Mr. Ten +Euyck. "He says, 'Get him to pass me his word to shelter us or what will +you give--what will you give for news of Nancy Cornish?'" + +"Tell him I, Kane, 'll buy his news." + +Christina dropped back against the wall. "When he has spoken to Mr. Ten +Euyck." + +Perhaps, in the helpless pause, the glassy face taking aim behind the +shutter smiled to itself in the dark. Before they had time to try if the +wire connected only with the boathouse, a single shot sprang from across +the drive. + +There was a sharp crack and splintering, a hot puff on Christina's +cheek, and the shattered telephone hung crazily on the wall. The +besieging force had misinterpreted what seemed the reinforcement of the +world and used its best marksman. Having done so it was content and +reassumed its patient crouching. "Rifles!" cried the sheriff. "And yet +they don't attack!" + +Kane peered through the broken slat and with a very grim expression drew +back for the others. "Look under the trees, there. Is it just dark? Or +is it dark with men?" + +"Looks like Birnam Wood!" said Herrick. + +It was that blackest hour before the morning when darkness takes on +weight and bulk so that the eye must carve a way through. But the +blazing dazzle of the entrance porch broke and distorted the besieging +dark, exaggerating, multiplying the forces that it held. Beyond the +brightness of the steps the stone and then the grassy terraces fell +indistinct and shallow to the lawns, beyond which, perhaps a hundred +feet away, the drive was rather known than discerned; twenty feet or so +farther still the wood lay shapeless and invisible but filled by the +monstrous darkness as close as with a great tide. There the most +straining eye could see nothing whatever; now and again the night came +alive with snapping twigs, every grove would wake and rustle; then not a +leaf would stir. But through all the intermediate borderland shadows +seemed to loom, to creep, dissolve and disappear; then to their more +accustomed eyes these shadows began to take on form--they were the +shadows of softly moving men, individuals and small groups, unknown +persons on unknown errands which carried them here and there but closer +and closer about the house. "Queer the boys upstairs don't spot them!" +One group passed so close to the end windows that Kane fired at it and +produced a commotion which he followed by another shot. There was no +response, but from all directions the fringe of figures drew nearer, a +crouching, irregular line behind its faggot-like shields of broken +boughs. The defenders spent their shots recklessly, now, for the same +thought was in all their minds; it seemed to take form from its own +apprehension when, as the invaders drew back their wounded, those within +became aware of something across the tree-tops, down toward the river; a +ruddier dusk, a glow that was not morning, far against the sky. + +Close at their backs Christina's voice murmured with an icy softness, +"The boathouse! It's afire!" Her tone told Herrick that the telephone +had stolen all her weakness, she was strung like a bow; side by side +with his her glance strained out and forward as the knots of men +continued to advance with velvet stealth. The fire of the defenders +ceased. Automatically, for they had nothing left to fire with. "What's +become of my fellows?" Sheriff Buckley wondered. The first foam of the +tide began to lap the terraces. Christina looked beyond it toward the +flames that flared on the horizon. And from that way Herrick, too, heard +a new sound, the thudding of a horse galloping clumsily on soft turf. +The shadows blotted themselves to the ground. The hoofbeats began to run +amuck as though the horse had lost its rider. Hither and yon round the +corners of the house shapeless movements hurried, there came the step of +a heavy runner and the cursing of a deep voice in some Italian patois. +The long, single whistle darted out again and once more there fell that +motionless waiting of the profoundly brooding night. It was Christina +who first said, "Some one else is in this room!" + +As they listened they, too, could hear the sound of crawling. Something +was creeping into the room. It was coming through the pantry door which +Christina had left open and it advanced with a dragging sound as a +wounded beast drags on its stomach. Kane, dropping on it, found his +hands in a man's hair. The man sank under him with a deathly groan and +now it was Kane who called for a candle. "Nicola!" Christina breathed. + +He was making horrible motions with his mouth; Christina found some +unspilled wine and thrust the edge of the glass between his lips. "Tell +me! Nancy--?" + +Kane held up his hand. Beyond, in the pantry, a step sounded--backing +from Nicola's trail. Herrick and the sheriff dragged in between them a +tall Sicilian whose triangular knife was still wet. The embroidered +table-cloth with which they bound him to the piano strained under his +renewed efforts to attack the dying man whom Christina still entreated, +"Is she with my sister? Is she?" + +A hoarse sob raged through Nicola and gasped past his last grin of pride +and hate. "You fool of hers! Fool of us all! _Your_ sister? _My_ sister, +mine! You think _you_ ever have a sister like that?" + +The girl stood above him, tranced and wide-eyed, with distended +nostrils; as she turned to Herrick a face which release and knowledge +were even then palely lighting the figure of a man darted into the +gallery where Herrick had lain; a slim, soft man whose pretty little +face was all flecked and sweated with the insane hate and courage which +come of insane fear. The Sicilian greeted what he took for reinforcement +with a cry of triumph and encouragement; but it was not Nicola, it was +Herrick at whom this tremulous assassin, yelling "Spy! Spy! Will you +show me again to the Camorra?" extended his revolver. At the same +moment, Nicola, turning on his side and aiming upward, shot him dead. +The slim, soft figure doubled over the rail and the refined, pretty, +convulsed face swung there with open mouth. At this Nicola spat the wine +which he had sucked as he lay: "Thus my sister salutes thee!" Then his +head knocked back upon the floor and he lay still. + +The tall Sicilian, who had watched the action without fully +understanding the quick English words, now strained forward, peering +with a kind of gratified thirst into Christina's face. He said to her in +Italian that was almost a whisper, "You are very fair!" + +"Do you think that is news to me?" asked the girl, with a kind of fury. +"But my fairness has done all it can! What's to do, now?" + +"You are fair. But you are the devil. You brought police to the river, +who will return with more. You have plunged this night in the blood of +your brothers. There was one who was like a little sister. Where is +she?" + +Christina started; half in appeal, half in defense against the omen of +his tones, she stretched out her hands. The Sicilian lowered his mouth +to the bosom of his shirt and brought forth in his teeth a little hoop +of silver which he shook before Christina's eyes. "Where is she now? Of +her tokens _she has lost the third_!" It was Nancy's bracelet that he +dropped at Christina's feet. + +"Devil of fine fairness," he said, "I shall pick it up again, when you +are lying low! When not one shot is left for our hurt we there, without, +will come quietly in! Then shall I bear this to my chief. I took it from +the hand of Beppo, who lay bleeding in the grass. Were Chigi and Pepe +caught in the fire? They reached her late, for they had rowed their boat +back, to escape those policemen on the river. Only when Alieni jumped +and swam they must follow him and tramp to the house for boats along the +shore. But they reached her! I was against it always--she was not of our +nation. Ah, she was pretty! Had you not let her know too much she need +not have been put to sleep!" + +Christina made no outcry. If his attack on herself bewildered her, her +imagination caught the significance of the Camorrist phrase. "Where," +asked she slowly, "does she sleep?" + +"In the dead ashes of the house of boats." His malignant sneer took in +the stricken, threatened group, as well as his own bondage. And turning +once more to Christina he smilingly informed her, "I seek in the house +for boats Nicola Pascoe. I hear him talking as at a telephone. They have +brought a lamp and in the window I see a pretty girl, young and not so +tall, with a face very sweet but sick and the hair falls curling and +red. She has in her hands a tiny bottle filled with a dark liquid. She +throws it from the window where it fills the air with laudanum smell. +And at that up runs to her Nicola--and she, away! They must have knocked +over the lamp, for next the house for boats is blazing high. And, as the +smoke comes in the window, there she runs again--just as I see the +woman's figure and in the fiery smoke one light of her red hair at that +out from the bushes a bullet springs. She clasps her hands over her +breast with a small cry and down she sinks. And Alieni flies out of the +bushes with Beppo and Chigi and Pepe at his back and he races into the +flaming house. It is after that down plunges Nicola, down and past us, +running here to this place, and I follow him, sure that past him I shall +come, too, upon his sister. Before we reach here, through the dark, +comes a horse with two men on its back--one is yelling 'I have killed +her! I have killed her!' and he passes. The other falls off. It is +Beppo, who dies at my feet, giving me the bracelet. He had it from +Pepe, the Parmesan, whom he saw meet with Alieni in the doorway of the +house for boats. By this time all, everywhere, is fighting and the house +for boats blows up in a puff and falls in upon itself in crumbling +fire." + +Christina had never taken her eyes from his face and in those eyes alone +there now seemed any life to hold her body upright. "It's not true!" +said she, gently and at length. "Life's not so silly!" But she stretched +out a blind hand to Herrick and leaned on him a little. + +"Ah!" mocked the Sicilian, "it made a beautiful grave! You will not have +so fine! But yours gapes for you now as well as for your lover, and for +your husband, who caused all the death! Do not pity the girl who died. +Exult not over Giuseppe Gumama. Read, instead, the writing in your +golden pistol--of Alieni--and the Signora Alieni--" He stopped with a +gratified gasp. The handle of the door into the hall had been softly +turned from the outside. + +No one moved. In a strange voice the sheriff called to know if this were +one of his men. There was no answer. "Where are they? Why don't they--" + +Gumama the Sicilian laughed aloud. "The long cellar-way, where by night +we carried out to the river our broken press--It has let us in--so +quietly--Many went upstairs--" + +Herrick translated. With one impulse the three men turned toward the +slide in the paneling. It was closed. But their intent listening made +sure of more than one soft touch, straying in search of the mechanism. +Of crowding whispers they could not be so sure. Herrick reached for +Nicola's gun. But it had only one charge and then, indeed, though +without turning her head, Christina closed her hand on his and took it +from him. "That's mine, you know!" No man gainsaid her and she put it in +her breast. Undisguised, unhurried footsteps sounded overhead. An alien +presence pervaded all that house. Caged in their shelter, they drew +together, close under the balcony. Christina suffered herself to be +drawn with them, but she was considering aloud the Sicilian's words. + +"My golden pistol!" Christina looked from the little femininely jeweled +dummy to the script, "'Filippi Alieni and all his house'--And all his +house! 'The death of traitors'--My husband, you say? The Signora +Alieni--A. A. A. Alieni, of course! But--Allegra?--Allegra?--Alieni?" + +"Signora Alieni!" Gumama smilingly repeated. + +The girl gave him one glance, sprang past him and flung herself against +the shuttered windows. "Whom do you mean by traitors?" she called. "For +whom do you take us? Answer! Answer!" + +At the sound of her voice a deep-bayed, many-throated yell roared out +derision and victory. As the men dragged Christina back a coarse laugh +mocked loudly from across the road. "Signora Alieni, we rejoice at the +last to salute you!" And the whole woodland took up his phrase in +chorus, "Buona sera, Signora Alieni!" + +Then, uncontrollably, at length the darkness volleyed, the earth was +rived with sound and fire, the flashes of it scorching their skin while +glass, plaster, woodwork, split and spattered round them as through the +windows the hail beat. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I MADE MY BATTLE STAY!" + + +Christina's stream of Italian left Herrick so far behind that he could +only watch the incredulity of Gumama's face turn to doubt and then to +reflection. The word "American" was often repeated, and then came +Gumama's slower answer, puzzling out the question--But was not the +Signora Alieni herself much American? Did not she to-night meet here in +this house her brother Nicola? And was she not to run away at sunrise +with--and he pointed to Herrick--an American? And how well was it not +known that the Signora Alieni was bella, bella donna?--"Bella--bella!" +with mounting fervor he violently repeated. + +"But you, yourself? You never saw her?" + +"The Signora Alieni goes always veiled." + +"Are there none--out there--who know her?" + +"Old friends ten years ago in Naples. And the laborers of Nicola." + +"When they come, they will know at once she is not here," said +Christina, with an odd, proud calm. "Ah, please, let me see what they +are about!" And she persistently advanced to a window and peered between +the slats of a blind. + +Blackness was lifting from the earth. That clear gray light, clearer and +grimmer than ever they had seen it, of the slowly rising dawn had begun +to fill the open spaces. Under the trees it was still a dusk of living +shadows, and, from within the house, the half-muffled, surrounding +pressure strained closer still against the walls. Christina faced +round, uttered a piercing shriek and pointed toward the panel. To this, +the men who watched her turned. And on the instant, the shutters +clicking as she flung them open, the girl flashed through and ran +straight into the dawn on the white terrace. "You who know Allegra +Alieni, am I she? Am I she?" + +A wail of amazement and denial greeted her. The men within, the men +without, came to a standstill.--"If you ever loved me," said Christina +to Herrick, "keep back from me, now!" He replied only by swinging +forward Gumama, who thereupon stood in the sight of his friends with the +mute argument of a revolver at his head. Not a voice replied. But not a +shot was fired. + +In the pause produced by the concerned and puzzled hesitation of the +besiegers, Christina gathered up her voice. She was used to send it far, +to hush and rouse with it, to pierce and move at will, and neither +misery nor fatigue seemed now to have weakened its flexible and winning +melody. "Sirs," cried the girl, "I ask you the one thing. Are you not +here as the executioners of the great Camorra? Do you, then, wish to +disobey?" + +She had centered upon herself a bewildered stare. + +"And do you not disobey if you blunder? Do you wish to bring all the new +world about your ears for the wrong thing? Believe me, we four, we are +strong persons in that world--we do not fall unavenged! If we are to die +here, now, and the great society of the Camorra is to wreck itself upon +our death, let it not be in a mistake!--Ah, you see! Believe me! We are +not false brethren of yours, we are Americans, every one! But in a way +you and I are brethren, for I, like you, have seen my heart's good faith +betrayed--and by the same hand!" + +A startled murmur rose. + +"I, too, was brought to come here by the ruin of my life through +Allegra Alieni! Of her husband I never knew. Only hold back the force +that masses at our door and here is a plan. We are here four--three men +and a woman. Send us four men--mask them, if you will--and let them look +at us close and well; they will see that we cannot be those whom you +seek. But we have with us the body of Nicola whom this one here, calling +himself Giuseppe Gumama, slew, and who was brother to the Alienis. Let +your men take this Nicola from our house, for we, no more than you, have +any use for traitors!" + +These words produced an extraordinary effect. A murmur of admiration, of +fellowship, exclamations, argument, a sort of congratulation traversed +the green spaces through the still strengthening dawn. Christina, as +always, had found her audience. + +"Oh, sirs," cried the girl, in a softer cadence, advancing to the very +edge of the terrace, and still eagerly baring her face to the pale +light, "you seek our lives and I am so weary I am almost glad to die. +But die or live, oh, now, for the dear love of God, let me go down to +the river! Let me see who is still alive there! Send whom you will with +me, but let me go!" And Christina stretched out her arms to the men of +the Camorra as to the brothers of her soul and for the moment they were +all more than her brothers in their inflammable hearts. + +But even a little noise could still distract them. And this time it was +the noise of the unhinged shutter as it slid, bumping, for a second and +then fell with a crash upon the terrace. In the half-light Ten Euyck's +hand, holding a pistol, was visible at the window and above it the white +leer of his face. Voices cried, "A fourth man! A man of whom she did not +tell!" + +A prisoner from the yellow farmhouse called out in an insufferable, +fawning yelp, "I know him! He used to visit the signora! He is the +confidant of the signora and of her brother!" + +A roar rose and drowned out Christina's voice. "That man--how comes he +there! The friends of Allegra Alieni are her friends!" + +The crowd did not advance for the ring of Herrick's gun was still +pressed against Mr. Gumama's beautiful brow. But some shrill voice rose, +a-quiver with exhorting hate. "The hour is come! For what have we +waited? Till they had not a shot left! They have none now! If they had +they would have shot Gumama when he came in! They do not shoot him, +now--they have nothing to shoot! Give the signal! They hid the friend of +Allegra Alieni behind the window--how shall they tell us her friends are +not their friends? How shall they tell us they can injure our Gumama? +Close in! Close in!" + +The tide of the Camorra washed forward, and surged up the first terrace. +But it came to a halt. + +"How?" Christina had cried. And then, extending the revolver that +carried the last shot, she had fired straight into the dead face of Ten +Euyck. + +The jar shattered that perilous equilibrium. The corpse fell in upon +itself, its weapon dropping with a clank, the tongue suddenly protruding +beneath the shattered cheekbones and the head goggling on the breast. +The note of one still unaffrighted bird came through the perfect +stillness. + +The invading army shivered, shocked and applausive; then, +apprehensively, it glanced at Gumama. It drew together in consulting +knots. Some men, coming from round the house, joined the counsel and +created a sensation. A puzzled but now rather friendly voice shouted, +"Some one lies! Alieni was seen to enter where you are!" + +They all looked at Christina. But the wire had snapped at last. She +stood with a scared vagueness on her white face, the pistol swinging +loose in her hand and her eyes fixed on the hunched clutter of what had +been Ten Euyck. Herrick made out to translate the message and Kane said, +"Ask 'em if they'll send up that investigating committee?" + +Christina's shot had made, however, too great an impression. If they had +ammunition to spare, they were no hosts for the Camorra. Would the +Americans come out, each one, upon the second terrace?--bringing, also, +the dead and wounded, till Gumama shall tell us there are no more? + +"When the devil drives--! Say we'll begin with the dead!" + +They began with Ten Euyck. Sheriff Buckley took the head, Kane the feet; +the long, bony figure sagged between them and the tails of its +dress-coat flopped as if pointing jocularly toward the ground. As they +bore this burden down the terraces and laid it on the smooth greenness +of the lawn, amid the ever brightening daylight and the ever growing +chirp and twitter of the slowly calming birds, various disheveled +figures began to hurry into view along the drive from the river. These +arrivals had all the air of refugees and continued to excite, in +counsel, an increasing perturbation. Yet the truce remained unbroken. So +long as Kane and Buckley, exposed, defenseless, to the first marksman, +carried forth Nicola no word nor movement was given in enmity. But the +delay in reaching the figure in the gallery produced great restiveness. +Taunts and outcries of nervous impatience gave way, when the two men +appeared with their slighter burden, to a chorus of half-derisive +welcome. The Camorra had begun to be in a hurry. + +Its nervousness communicated itself to the men who bore this third body +down the great stone steps and laid it at Ten Euyck's right hand. A +thick sweat stood out upon them when a sharp storm of curses, geysers +and downpours of venom broke suddenly from heavens and earth. But the +tempest was not for them. The face of their last burden had become +visible to the advance guard stationed among the foremost trees and this +now leaned violently forth, tossing like branches with the shriek, +"Alieni! Traditore! Alieni!" + +Upon that the shadow of the woodland broke at last. A dozen men, their +hats screened low to shield their faces, detached themselves from the +mass which crouched greedily after them and, racing out upon the lawn, +threw themselves prostrate on the soft, supine thing that lay there. +Behind them the tide became ungovernable; rose, swelled forward; covered +the road, the lowest terrace; raving, shrieking, leaping and falling; +biting the grass upon which it rolled in frenzy. There were perhaps two +minutes of pandemonium. Then a whistle sounded. Then another. The tide +rolled back; the groves of oak and pine and maple swallowed it into +their shadow; and of that orgy of living hate no trace remained in the +full clearness of the fresh morning but the trampled, mangled body of +Filippi Alieni, pierced with fifty-eight wounds and still bearing +between the shoulder blades a triangular knife. The will of the Camorra +was satisfied. + +A chorus of whistles sounded from the wood. Then arose a single voice, +demanding Gumama. His captors realized that the war was over; the +prisoner was released. Despite the hurrying bird-calls of his mates he +paused, thoughtfully knitting his Saracen brows, for a look at +Christina. + +The girl was standing perfectly still, with her eyes intent upon Ten +Euyck's empty chair, as if she had not observed his removal; her gaze +was fixed, but her lower lip strained and quivered. As Gumama paused the +pistol slid from her hand; the noise of its dropping at her feet +attracted her eyes; she shivered violently; broke into trembling mirth +and sank, till her soft cheek and the convulsive throbbing of her young +body lay pressed upon the stone. Herrick and Gumama both sprang to her. +Herrick lifted her head upon his knee, but she lay limp and shook from +head to foot with sobbing laughter. + +Gumama shrugged and stood back. "Is it," he asked, "the silver +bracelet?" Then they all saw that the bracelet snatched from Nancy was +on Christina's wrist. + +Herrick nodded; his soul was sick with that horror. There was no +triumph, now, in victory. + +"Tell her," said the tall Sicilian, "when she avenges her friend to +think of me. I will come. Always. She is the pearl of everything. All +would not see it. But I have the piercing eye. I see." + +He ran off swiftly; and the sort of uproarious twitter which welcomed +him under the trees ended in a final message. "Farewell, Americans. You +do us the courtesy of our beloved Gumama! We do you our courtesy--Flee! +Whoever you are, the policemen are upon you! They are coming from the +gate, they are coming from the river! In ten minutes they will be here! +Americans, farewell!" + +It was the last word of the Camorra in their lives. The undergrowth of +the wood seemed to grow scantier; it was the backward fading of the +shadows, it was the passing of a great, black bulk; the disappearance of +innumerable unknown persons whom they had never even seen, of whose +existence they had never even known, out of their path. Nothing remained +but the signaling whistles of the Camorra, gathering its children in its +retreat. The thing was over. The last consequence of the Ingham murder, +of the birth of the Hopes' first child twenty-eight years ago in Naples, +was over and done. And the three men regarded each other with a strange +feeling of vacancy. + +But in the mouths of Kane and the sheriff the morning air was good and +life ran sweet in their veins. Even to Herrick, with the exhausted girl +laughing and shuddering in his arms, there seemed to rise a kind of +future hope when forgetfulness should deal tenderly with her. Soon she +must begin to weep and the other side of weeping a kind of consolation +lies. "Why, her own youth and life must heal her!" Kane said. "It's +hard, it's bitter hard! But there's her feeling for you, her future, her +work--Don't look at her as if she were dying! Time, my boy, she needs +time, that's all!--As for Nancy Cornish, she fell with one shot. And +since she was so much in love with that poor fellow, believe me, she's +better off!" + +Herrick looked up in alarm, lest Christina should hear bad news. But she +was lost in the hot surge of tears that had come to her at last and lay +only quieter and quieter in his hold. Till at length, since there was a +time coming when she must know if Fate had played her doubly false, he +fetched a coat to put under her head and drew Kane aside. "You meant +just now--?" + +"I meant what I've had on my mind through all this night, as something +with which I didn't know how to face Miss Hope. I meant that this chap +Denny was never a very lucky fellow--" + +"_Was?_" + +"But that never was anything unluckier than his consenting to leave the +Tombs." + +"Because they followed and brought him back?" + +"They followed. But they didn't bring him back!--I forgot you wouldn't +know. The Italians somehow palmed off on Ten Euyck's men another Italian +made up with the things in which they took Denny from the Tombs. It's +easy enough to understand now why Ten Euyck, with discreet mercy, called +this substitute simply a mistake and let him go." He paused, studying +the driveway with clouded eyes. "The Italians must have got clear away +with Denny, but why did they take so much pains? Were they really going +to hand over to Allegra a man whom they certainly considered in some +way their enemy, when already they must have begun to turn against her? +What were they going to do with him? What _did_ they try to do with him +when he was first imprisoned in the Tombs? Don't groan, my boy! It's the +one way out. It's the most merciful thing for that poor girl, there; +it's the most merciful thing for Denny himself. Hope for it! If his +captors didn't get away, if he's been retaken with them, then marry +Christina Hope as fast as may be and get her out of this country for +awhile. You understand?" Herrick looked up. "I intend, with all my +strength, to keep my bargain. I'll go to the Governor to-morrow. But he +let me know, as I was starting here, that it would be useless." + +"After his promise?" + +"Since that promise Denny broke jail. There are minds to which such a +move is always the unpardonable sin! Against it the mere justifying +provocation in any story Allegra Alieni may tell could make no appeal. +Besides, it's told by a woman who was in love with him, and who, by this +time, is either dead or run away. So must be every witness to it. Even +as evidence against the blackmailers, if there are any left, Miss Hope +can't force the state to sell her his life for this, now. Well, some +day, perhaps, you can make her see that whatever happens, police or +Camorra, he managed to get his way, poor chap! If she weren't fooled by +life's being hope she would see, well enough, that he was the last man +to thank her for a light sentence. He was keen against jail, you +remember?" + +They were both silent. Yes, Herrick remembered. "The best friend +Christina ever had" she would surely some day see could not have +lingered in the black durance that he loathed.--Rest, rest, perturbed +spirit! + +It was the hour for resolution, for new birth. Herrick felt a strength +of pity in his breast whose tide should lift Christina from the +whirlpools of which the lessening eddies still plucked at her sick soul. +Poor girl, poor, brave, spoiled, wilful, imperious, generous heart! To +have fought so hard and to be checked thus at the end! To have +outwatched, outstalked, outrun the hounds for this! "Thus far shalt thou +go...." Hers had been a heroic presumption, but it had been presumption +all the same. You cannot outface consequences nor outdare natural +tragedy; no, not even you, Christina Hope! After all, could she have +expected to clear out from a morass like this without a loss? Ah, for +her defeat he suffered, but for her safety he thanked God! Rest, time, +the irrevocable--these in the end would place the past under her feet. +Was it because she read the tender vowing of his thought that she had a +little ceased to weep? + +For she lifted her exhausted face, where the wild, wet eyes still seemed +to listen, just as Herrick remembered their continual guard six weeks +ago. She was listening to those chorusing signals, still whistled from +far stations nearer road and river and returned in such imitation of +bird voices that bird after bird replied. They were growing +fainter--they were retreating on every hand--all but one, which seemed +to advance and to give forth a more familiar note. And suddenly +Christina answered it. + +Herrick caught her closer, in a new terror of delirium. The girl rose to +her knees and put him back. "But we've wandered many a weary foot--" +From among the fleeing whistles of the wood one had certainly warned or +questioned in articulate notes with which hers joined in a familiar +bar--"Since auld lang syne, my dear--" Through the colorless day a +strong yellow light had begun to flood the earth; the clouds were carved +out sharp in it, the woods stood black; the light had a blush of happy +fire and the air sparkled. In that cool radiance, in that bright hour, +out from among the very waves of the Camorra's receding sea, a single +figure stepped from the border of the wood and came straight up the +terraces. + +Not so tall as Mr. Gumama but still vaguely Sicilian in cut, the +messenger or fugitive or whatever he might be advanced under the gaze of +those who grew terribly pale and could not speak; Christina peering +forward, shaking from head to foot, her clenched hands hanging at her +side and her lips caught between the knocking of her teeth. The echoing, +ominous whistles, the noises of rescue approaching from two sides, the +hails of the police, the sound of wheels, tires, horses' hoofs and +running feet did not deter the single figure which, mounting with a kind +of steady stumble, like one far spent, blind, now, to the danger of +sudden bullets, indifferent to arrest or punishment or anything in +heaven or earth but his own ends, gained at length the foot of the stone +steps and lifted his face. At the same instant the risen sun glinted on +the swinging gold of sailors' earrings, on the bracelet slipped out +below a ragged cuff, on the red cord of a scapular and on the scarf in +the Sicilian colors that had helped to play their part in the Duel by +Wine in the loft above the garage. The wearer was damp from the river +and stained with earth, yet smelling of singed cloth and grimed with +smoke; torn, wounded, blackened, haggard, with bright, steady eyes. It +was Will Denny. He carried the unconscious but still breathing figure of +Nancy Cornish in his arms. + + + * * * * * + +The first thing she woke to was Allegra's letter and Kane's question, +"Do you know what this document contains? Can you witness its truth?" + +And then answered Nancy Cornish, "Of course I can! I saw her come out in +Christina's cloak. They kept me waiting in the motor outside while she +shot Mr. Ingham." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT + + +The whole of Allegra's document was never made public. Before it was +read even by those concerned they heard from Nancy how, when she had run +from the window of the boathouse, it was Allegra who had reappeared +there, she whose red hair Gumama had glimpsed through the smoke and she +whom Alieni had found courage to shoot. Afterwards they got from Denny +the story of his venture: how he had guessed that, on leaving the Tombs, +he would, in his own person, be kept a prisoner by his Italian hosts +till he was got out of the country; and how he had therefore persuaded +Filippi Alieni to change places with him--Filippi to be carried to +Allegra and he to receive at the meeting of the Camorra a message that +would take him to Nicola, to the hiding of the Arm of Justice and to +Nancy Cornish. What must forever sicken Denny to think of was that hour +in the boathouse when Nancy might have yielded and taken the laudanum +that Mrs. Pascoe had finally secured, before he could get to her. +Nancy's eyes were upon him, regarding him fixedly and strangely. With +the vividness of his remembrance he broke off to question her. "How, at +such a time, among such dangers, did you dare to throw it away?" + +"Why, I had to! No matter what! I had to live till the last minute. The +letter was gone. I was your life. I was the only one who knew!" + +He dropped his face into her lap with a strange laugh. By and by, they +turned to the story of Allegra. + +That great donkey of a Ten Euyck wishes me to write this. He says it is +for his protection, but I know well enough what it is for. It is a net +to catch a peacock--to whom he is welcome. He will never bray about +me--this is two-edged; it would avenge me. It is a pity none will ever +read it, for it is a good story and I should like every one to know +about me. Then, too, sometimes, I almost think that when I am far away +and sheltered with my friends, I will send word of it to high places for +_his_ sake. For I shall be always in torment if they kill him. That is, +if by then there shall be no Nancy Cornish. To send him, free, to the +arms of another woman--no, that would be a little too much! + +I am a remarkable girl. It has taken to crush me the same as to crush +Napoleon--bad luck. My bad luck began when I was born, with the two +colors of my eyes. Thus a mark was put upon me, keeping me always in +holes and corners unless I would be known, and making most men, who love +me by nature, growing in time to weary of my face. If it had not been +for the blue eye and the brown, my mother would never have noticed, +among the children in the park, the American baby with the fair down +upon its head who, when she came to look at it, was made with a shaped +face like mine, and who also had a brown eye and a blue. She would never +have made friends with the nurse and learned how the child was named +Allegra Hope, and how the rich Americans had been married but four +months before it was born, and were to wait in Italy till it could be +brought home a year younger than it was. This the nurse had picked up, +not being supposed to speak much English. And then came the telegram to +come home, somebody was dying. And at the same time the nurse was sick, +and there was no one with whom to leave the child. And then the nurse +brings forth her friend who has always showed so fond of the child, and +there is rejoicing because she is American, and the English doctor says +she is healthy and the child is left with her. It is treated well; it +grows; it grows more and more like me, who am but one year the older, so +that all laugh to see us, and I am more like that other mother than my +own, showing in what class it would have been just I should be born. And +the old creature in America does not die, but hangs and hangs, and money +is always sent for the baby, and by and by when it is three years old it +catches the fever and it dies. And the English doctor is to write to the +parents, but he does not write--he does an injury to one of the great +clan of the Camorra and he writes no more. And I grow every day more +beautiful, more strong, more strange to have sprung out of the mud, and +the money keeps coming and coming; but that the dead one was fair in the +head, and I am red like the sun, there is no great difference from what +she might have been, and that she is dead and buried and the money spent +and spent on me, is never told. But they there in America, thinking to +be gone but a month at most, never said there was a daughter, so they +know not how, now, one is to be produced. + +So that when I am seven years old, comes the Hope man; he looks upon the +child with the blue eye and the brown, and sighs his great breath on my +hair, and takes me to the English school. But I come every summer to my +own people, so that I have all that is best of both kinds, and grow to +be so beautiful and have such fascination, that when there comes +sometimes a Hope father or Hope mother to take me on a trip and be sorry +for me, I laugh at their backs! The mother I do not like, and she does +not like me. She is a fool, and she has, too, another child. It is a +girl and it is said to be pretty; but the picture she carries with her +resembles a pale, shapeless child with dull hair,--not like mine that +burns men's hearts like fire! Moreover this child has things that I +should have, more money, more fuss, she is more shown. I am proud to be +what I am; my mother, who is scarcely more than a common servant, had +the great luck to marry into the Camorra, and my brother Nicola at +eighteen takes the oath, so I am not come alone from dull peasants and +these cackling Yankees, but from free men, born to judge, born to +strike, born to live wild and to satisfy their blood. But all the same, +as to this brat, Christina, I am the elder sister and I should have all, +_all_! I make up my mind to be even with her and to spoil what things +she has. I hear how she is strange, and is a lonely child, and plays she +has a sister to talk to, a little girl who lives in the looking-glass; +and how it is a game of hers that when she is in a gown of pink the +sister is in blue, and when they buy her a doll there is another for the +sister, and a place set at the dolls' teas, and Christina talks for the +two. Then I know she is a fool, like her mother. + +When I am fifteen, and of the right age for passion and to break men's +hearts, my bad luck comes and breaks my own. It could not leave me with +the poor to be like the poor, it raised me up so that my nose sniffed at +sight of them, and then it brought me together with Alonzo Pasquale, the +son of a millionaire. He was mad for me, and well he might be, and I +liked him so well, being young and fanciful, that I gave him +encouragement. I ran away from school with him and we would have been +happy forever, he having so much to give me, but that he grew weary of +my blue eye and my brown. He told me so, for he was a dog and a devil, +and I took little Filippi Alieni, and married him! It was wise. It was +as well to be married, and he was a gentleman, with money. All was done +as a wise girl should do, and yet see how my luck pursued me! + +His people cast him off, on my account, their own daughters being ugly; +and Nicola, who has been the best of brothers to me, Nicola got him +into the Camorra, where his gentlemanly manners would make him able to +get, first, confidence, and then money, from the best. + +Yet when I had been but three months married and was not yet sixteen, he +gets himself caught. And in prison he tells, he betrays his comrades, so +that he is released, and for this Nicola does not kill him. No, he keeps +the secret of that disgrace, and ships us to America, where I am to +introduce my husband to the Hopes. All so well planned, and yet such +luck! + +One of those to whom he had confessed loses his place, and then, by +blackmail, that he will give my husband's treachery to the Camorra, he +gets from him all the money that he now has. So that I have to lose him +quickly; to take the little, ah, so little! there is left, and slip +away! I do not wish a Camorra knife in my back! + +I am afraid to go to the Hopes, for there he will follow me, and he is a +snivelling, watering thing to make a fuss and spoil all. So I ask for +work to teach Italian, and I live for a little while as if I were quite +commonplace. And so I meet with the great Jim. + +Hail and farewell, my poor Jim! You were only twenty-three and you cared +too much! You did so many things for me, you thought such things about +me, and were of such a considerate politeness and care, it made me +laugh! But you were a beautiful lover, and I would have loved you, if I +could! I would have been glad to marry you, as you made me so weary +begging of me. I was very happy with you; you gave more to me and I +think you loved me better than any one. But you were very silly to +believe me, and silly to leave me when you found me out! That little +whimpering puppy came; and, since you left me, and he had a good hint +from Nicola how to get money from an Italian family here, what was I to +do? We did very well, for a while, besides the money the Hopes sent +me--I told them I came here to escape impertinence and was teaching +Italian--and then they lost their money and I wrote to them no more. + +But Mrs. Hope, because of her sick conscience, was always trying, in sly +ways, to find where I was. And it seems when her brat was come to +fourteen years old it chanced upon my last letter and learned all. +Heavens, what a row it raised! And how I was written to and written to; +and some letters being forwarded me that they had tried sending me to +Italy, were all about how she cried for me, and pitied and loved me and +rejoiced, and said, again and again: "Oh, mother, I have a sister! I +have a sister!" "Bene!" I thought, "she sounds like a tiresome little +minx; but at least it is a thing to know!" + +So that by and by--when Filippi is clumsy again and goes to jail for +four years, and they dare to put me there for two--when I come out I go +to my sentimental miss, who is now more than sixteen and makes already a +little money. Not a dollar has she made since but I have had the half of +it. She has no frugality; she is all luxuries and caprices and always in +debt; and for a while it seemed as if really she would be scarcely of +any use at all. But it is strange how pale she is, and yet attracts and +shoots onward! Since then I have found a letter about those two years +when I was silent. She wrote it to Will Denny, who thought she did too +much for me. Like this: + + "As I grew up and understood, and saw what little girls can come to + in a world like this, I thought here was I and where was she?--My + elder sister, born in wedlock, born of my father and my mother, + grown up among peasants, among hardships, and if she had come to + harm, lost, thrown away, forsaken and denied--for what? For any + fault of hers? For a convention, a cowardice, done in obedience to + the chatter of fools and in order to stand well with those that + have no hearts! What can I think of my poor mother but that her + weakness forsook and denied her child to please the world? What can + I think of any shame or sorrow that touches Allegra but that this + is what the world and her own family have made of her? Oh, Will, it + came to be my madness to find her and to ask her forgiveness for + being in her place. All that I am and have and ever shall be I + stole from her, and only give her back again to repay what can + never in this world be repaid!" + +You see, she was a crazy girl from the beginning. As soon as ever I see +her I know the thing to tell her is that I have been in prison for +stealing--I do not tell her I am innocent; I tell her I was starving! It +was funny to see her--I was like a saint to her! I think of all I can +that is piteous and wild and of a great pride, broken, like a sick +eagle! I tell her about Ingham, but all wrong and round the other way, +and how he cannot marry me because I am without money or place, and +leaves me, when I am eighteen, without a dollar and without a name. And +how when that had come to a young girl I could not write. All, all +because society had kept me from my place in life and, having turned me +out, had locked me into jail because I could not starve. + +Eh me, you should have seen her! She used herself like a maid to me, and +a mother and a little lover, all in one. And I might have done very well +with her, and the world would have been all for me to walk,--or this +little running colt, she would have known the reason!--but for my bad +luck. Nicola who would do better in this country with education wishes +me to work with him. And how can I guess the growing brat will grow so +far and high? So I am glad enough to make a little butter to my bread. +Try living once, three women, the Hope woman and Christina and me, off +the salary of a girl younger than eighteen and you will see. But who +would think that all the while this monkey girl was looking in the glass +of my grace, to steal and steal and steal from me? And would steal once +too often, for the moving-picture show, and gets herself into a corner! +That was, indeed, the justice of the gods. + +All this time I have made Christina keep me secret. I have still the +brown and the blue eye, to be noticed everywhere, and I do not want +Filippi on my hands, nor yet Jim Ingham. And for all she begs me to know +this Denny, whom she persists to tell about me, I think he has a look +that is not simple--the look of a man who has been about, and may guess +too much--and so I will not--I am too sensitive and proud, and cannot +face a person in the world except my little sister, whom I love so much +and who is all I have! Except, I want the poor, devoted, kind, good folk +who brought me up! So when she is eighteen she begins to buy for me this +farm and here she welcomes my mother and Nicola. Nicola has found out +friends of ours and kinsfolk who have long run, among people of our +nation in New York, a business called the Arm of Justice, and we work +for that; I having the best ideas, but, alas, ever doomed to hide. And +on the farm we live in innocence and peace, and conduct our business +excellently, out of the way of those from whom we make a little money, +and here comes at last the sick puppy, Filippi, not to be kept off, who +can but sit quiet and lick his paws in the background, that Christina +shall not know of him. + +And then, it is the first year of Ten Euyck being coroner, and a man who +has been paying us, unfortunately, dies, and Ten Euyck, nosing, nosing, +he comes upon our trail. And he sees how we have had nothing to do with +the death, only the man had no more to pay and so he killed himself. And +Ten Euyck sends for me, and tells me he is sorry for me and he will not +inform against me. He tells me of a young girl he knows in the highest +of society, for whom a friend of his had so great a fancy he was ready +to marry her, and I knew he was that friend. And the girl dare not but +lead him on, but all the time she prefers some one else and is in +trouble; and he tells me all he has found out and he says, "I would not +tell this to you, if I did not think you grateful to me and too discreet +to use it otherwise than as I wish, when you know liberty is in my +hand!" So I know what I am to do, and the girl goes mad. And he pays me +by and by, but not enough. But what can I do? + +We are going mad, too, for money, for our bad luck is always there! That +man who made Filippi pay has found us out, and exacts of us more and +more. We are in terror of the law from Ten Euyck, who has let none see +him but me, and not one strand to hold him by, and of the Camorra from +this brute. We work hard, we run great danger, and we remain poor, so +that if we lose Christina we have nothing but what we must make and pay +away--and Christina engages herself to Ingham! Was it not enough to +break the heart! What use is it to work, to struggle, to be beautiful, +and to have nothing? And here is this silly girl, not worth my little +finger, who has all! + +Three times more I work for Ten Euyck, and that man Kane gets after us. +It is all the fault of Ten Euyck, who has made us conspicuous, and he +knows Kane thinks there is something strange, and he loses his nerve. He +comes always to the farm like a caller, when I have sent all away but +me, for he will put nothing in writing, and he drives his own machine. +And one day he is raging against Ingham and Christina, and what he would +give to know against them, any more than Ingham's dissipation, and I +think "Maybe I can make something out of this!" + +By and by I rejoice to hear that there is trouble with Jim Ingham. He is +not the boy I found him. He has let himself go wild so long he cannot +tame himself, all at once, and then he is exacting, like a fiend, and +jealous and suspicious, not believing in himself, nor anything, nor +anybody; and I laugh to myself, if she should know why! For were there +nothing else at all, it would annoy me that chit should marry him! But I +am pleased, and in that moment I let her bring out to me her Will Denny +and her Nancy Cornish. And so I spoil my life and break my heart, and do +not know myself with love. + +I have come to be twenty-eight years old and nothing has counted. Then I +meet him, and nothing else can count. I say to myself that I will have +him, and I know it is not possible but I shall get him. But still he is +all eyes and ears for a rag of a girl, who is so sick with love she +knows not even how to charm. She knows nothing at all but to love him; +and to love him nicely--so that she would not make him unhappy, even to +hold him forever! It makes me ill to look at her, and still I cannot get +him to look at me. But I can make him seem to look at me. I can make him +ever with me, and amused by me, and of a manner a little sweet and +tender to me--the poor sister of Christina, whom he can see to be dying +on her feet for love of him. And the little rag of a girl sees how +beautiful I am and full of life and far above her every way and fit for +him, and knows no better than to grow pale and to keep out of the way, +and to be silent and cold with him. And he begins to be hurt and not to +follow her so hard, and then she finds me crying, crying. And at first I +will not tell, but then I say how I must go away, because I love him. By +and by I say that I would not have to go but I am afraid if I stay I +will steal him from her. And at last, very reluctant, I show her a +letter--for Nicola, who has done something in that line, too, was ever a +good brother to me and taught and helped me well, so that it was in +Will's hand. It said how he would never forsake Nancy, who loved him, +for she could not live without him, but I was brave and strong and he +must be so, too. It said how we were each other's mates, he and I, but +met too late, and his heart would be mine forever, but he could never +forsake nor pain his poor Nancy. Crack, she broke her engagement, the +little fool! Who never had scarcely been able to understand how he +should love her, as no more could I--and she shuts herself away from +him, and will not answer and will tell him nothing! Only, she's changed +her mind. And he says to Christina, "I am too old for her, and not so +gay!" And I see him tear up the photographs she has sent back, and sneer +at them, and say how God knows she could never have taken him for a +beauty! And oh, I am so kind to him! I am so gentle and so sad, and I +get new clothes and dress my hair, and always he can see me die of love. +And so there comes a day when he asks me if I would be afraid to take +the pieces of our lives and see what we could make of them together.--Ah +me! and to think it all had to be kept secret because I was still so +proud and sad! For bethink you, there was Filippi! + +I think at last what a fool I am not to have divorced Filippi long ago! +Here I am, betrothed to marry and it is all to do yet! Long ago, had I +not been so soft-hearted, or had I thought of it, I might have been rid +of fearing the spy who threatens him with the Camorra, in being rid of +him. I wonder how much Filippi will take to set me free, and he makes a +horrible fuss and will take nothing at all! But his spy is begun all +fresh, killing him by inches with demands for five thousand dollars. And +he asks also five thousand, now, not to report Nicola who has remained +silent and a friend to us! It is all like a mad spider's web which but +entangles more and more. And I think I will get that ten thousand from +Ingham because I do not publish the story I have told Christina. Or else +from Ten Euyck, because I do. + +I send the Arm of Justice letter to Ingham's office that it may be +forwarded to Europe. And then I hear from Christina that she cares for +him no longer and has written him, and already he is coming back to +argue with her. Oh, my luck, my bad luck! If he has lost her already, he +will fight my lies! He will get my letter, too; he will connect that +with her broken promise, he will ask her if she knows a girl with a +brown eye and a blue, and what may he not guess and put into her head +about my business? I am in despair, I have a fit of crazy rage, and I +think, too, I will get ahead of him, so she will not listen to him. I +say to her, "That man who ruined my life years ago, that was James +Ingham!" I say to her, "I could not let it go on, dear sister. But don't +let him know where I am." He comes straight to her, before he has my +letter, and all she says to him is, "You have never known all these +years that I had a sister." And then she tells him her sister's name, +and he goes away. + +But Nicola ever hopes that perhaps he will pay and at four o'clock +watches his window for my ribbon. Then he sees go in Nancy Cornish, and +he thinks that very queer and comes to tell me, who am round the corner +in the car. We watch and see her come out, and turn east, and we follow +her, and I see her going into the Park; a thing to drive me wild, for I +know well she used to meet Will Denny in the Park. She came much, much +too soon this time, but did not care. Till she saw me. + +If she had not come so soon, if she had kept her mouth shut, how +different all would be to-day! No! Out she came with it--Filippi has +told her! He has told her we are married! She has telephoned to my +betrothed, she is to tell him here! Filippi has done worse. He has said +to her, "This I would not tell to every one. But if she should seek to +injure you and get him back, say to her--What do you know of the Arm of +Justice? She will let you alone, then!" With those words did she not +seal her own fate? He must have got drunk on talk, Filippi,--not being +used to be listened to--for he tells her that Nicola and I wrote that +letter from Will I gave her to read. He gives this girl the address of +my cousin, and says if Will comes there, directly, he will show him the +papers of our marriage. Thus do these two little jealous, peeping fools +spoil everything! + +In the meanwhile Ingham has got my letter, and has guessed I wrote it. +And he calls up this girl, whom he knows to be Christina's dearest +friend, and asks her, does she know Christina's sister? He tells her +that though all is broken between Christina and him, there are things +Christina must not believe, and perhaps there is something she must +know. He asks when he can see this Cornish girl, and she tells him after +rehearsal, but before five. She is very much excited, and she says how +always in her own room girls run out and in and so she will come to +him--She, mind you, the baby-girl! And there she tells him her tale and +he tells her his, my letter for the money and all, and she gives him the +address of my cousin, and there he has gone to find Filippi,--for she is +not so crazy Will shall go!--while she is telling me what she thinks of +me, softly, in a low voice, in the Park. I think how Will Denny is +coming, and I make a little sign. And Nicola hits her once, and picks +her up limp; I following with her hat, like a sister, in case we meet a +policeman. And we lift her in the automobile and put up the hood, going +fast as we dare. At my cousin's they have denied to know of Filippi. For +Filippi, out of the window, saw it was not Will, but Ingham. And we take +her in there. She comes to, before long, and all we can do with her is +to take her out of town. Only I must leave her at my cousin's now, for I +am to dine with Will before his rehearsal. + +It seems to me that any person of a pitiful heart, who also admires +courage and address, must be sorry for me, now. Here am I, born for +love and to command and charm, tied to Filippi and to lowly life; having +planned so wisely and dared so well, now with this rag of a girl on my +hands, not knowing what to do with her; with the Camorra itself, all +unconscious, closing ever in and in, by its offer to absorb our Arm of +Justice; with the spite of Ingham on my heels and tattlers and spies on +all sides, just when I need all my wit to win my love. For he has not +had time to learn to love me as he would love me before long. He is +very, very sweet to me, but he does not care. Just when he first turned +to me there was one flash. I hope and I pray to all the saints, I plan +and watch and make myself fair and think of all that can please him; I +spend my days and nights to feed the fire; but it burns out. He is kind, +he thinks he is to marry me, he is fond of me, because I am sad and so +is he. But he is sick for that Cornish girl who is not worth one hair of +my head, and I have no time to wait till his love grows. I think how I +am to defend myself with him if Ingham talks; and when I get to the +restaurant where we have a private room--I am so shy and so sensitive, +lest people laugh at my queer eyes!--there I find he has met Christina +on the street and carried her along to ask her does she know why Nancy +did not come in the Park. + +Well, I tell him. I tell him Ingham's name, as I have told it to +Christina. And he does not like Ingham, whom he has seen fascinate +Christina against her will, and whom he has heard of as a brute to +women. And always Ingham has wished Christina to be less friends with +him, and has done many little things in hate of him. So that he is all +ready to believe what I say; how his Nancy was afraid to face him this +long while, and meant to try this afternoon and failed; and how it is +Ingham who has given her money to go away. I think it will make him hate +her. I think it will make him not listen to Ingham. I do not know it +will make him perfectly cold and perfectly still, not speaking a +word--not even when Christina, for the first time in her whole life, is +angry with me and tells me I deceive myself, I misunderstood Nancy, he +does not speak. + +He talks nicely about other things at dinner, but he does not go toward +the theater afterwards. And when Christina asks him why not, he says he +forgot something which he has at home. And she says to him, "You cannot +go to Ingham now, you have a dress-rehearsal." And he says, "I have not +forgotten that." So she takes me with her to Nancy's boarding-house, and +there they who are busy and notice no better, say she has gone out to +dinner, before the theater, with a Miss Grayce. And Christina goes home +to see if she can get word to Ingham to keep out of Will's way and I go +back to my cousin's table d'hôte. + +Now we have never said to Christina that we have a car. She cannot +afford us one, however she tries, and we do not want her to know we have +ever a dollar but from her. We sell a little from the farm, and she +knows we send this in to market by a man with a truck, and she is +willing to spend so much on her own fancies that she even arranges with +him to bring her my flowers. But for us she buys a little wagon with two +seats and a plug of a horse. She needs not to know everything and watch +all our movements. So mostly we keep the car at the other place; and +half the time I am there myself. If she comes visiting to the farm I can +take the Cornish girl out there. + +But I must first see Ingham and beg him to be merciful to me. And, +indeed, he has loved me so much, I think he cannot resist to be a little +kind. And I leave Nancy in the car with Nicola and the boys and with her +mouth stopped, across the street from Ingham's house under the windows +of that Herrick. So, without thought of fear, I enter. Afterward, when I +read about the elevator boy, I remember I have on a favorite of +Christina's dresses. For, naturally, of hers, I take what I choose. + +Well, there is nothing to be done with Ingham--he is mean, mean +through. He will give me up to the police. He has heard before of the +Arm of Justice; he says that he will break it. And then I tell him he +would better clear out, for I know Christina thinks that Will will kill +him. And it is then Will rings and when he, grinning, welcomes Will in, +he sees, and any one may see, that Will has his revolver in his hand. +But when Will finds me there he is stricken dumb. And Ingham laughs and +says, "You wonder what this injured lady is doing here? Ask Nancy +Cornish!" + +And Will cries out at him, not so very loud, but as a sword goes through +the air, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and then, very low, "Do not imagine but +that I shall ask Nancy Cornish! And you shall tell me where she is!" + +Then Ingham says, "Well, if you didn't wish her to have done with you, +my dear fellow, why did you throw her over for this married lady?" + +Will never gets any further than to stand by that panel of wall, between +the portières and the door. He looks to me and not to Ingham, and it is +the one time in my life when I can think of nothing to say. I talk on +and on, but I say nothing. It is the fault of that Ingham who continues +to laugh, and to play like an angel who is a devil, too. + +I tell him that Filippi married me when I was an ignorant child, with +poor people, for the sake of the Hopes' money; how he brought me to this +country and deserted me and came back after I had thought I was free, +and had made friends with Ingham because I was destitute and alone. And +he does not speak. But he does not believe me. I fall down on my knees +and tell him, before Ingham's face, how I love him, and only him; how +there never was any other man who had my heart! How when I saw him I +knew he was my life, and I was born anew in knowing him. I tell him how +I fear to let him know I am married. But how I am trying all the time to +get free, and how I would have been free before I married him; how not +for years have I been a wife to Filippi who hangs upon us and will not +work and does not care for me! And I take his hand and cover it with +kisses and with tears, and I implore him not to leave me, I shall die if +he leaves me! And I ask him if he himself has never in his life done +wrong! And I swear if I lied to him it was for love for him! He knows +that is true; he cannot look at me, and not know! And I throw myself +down, before his feet. + +He lifts me up by one shoulder, and he looks at me long and long; still +kind but very cold and still, and what he says is, "Then was it a lie +you told me about her--and this man?" He has not one thought of me, at +all. + +It throws me into a great rage. I spring up and round the table, and +Jim, who has not ceased to play, laughs loud, and gives one crash of +chords. It is his triumph and I could kill him for it. I am all one fire +of hate that tosses in the wind, and I lift my arm and Herrick sees my +shadow on the blind. But quick I put my hand over my mouth, petrified. +For at that moment there is a soft, quick knocking on the door and +Christina's voice saying, "Let me in, both of you! Let me in!" + +By good luck, she has come while I am silent. And I leap forward and +catch my hat up off the table and fly behind the curtains. For I know I +have lost Will. And if I lose her, too, I have nothing. And Ingham +breaks into the march from "Faust," triumphing, and just then I see +through the curtain crack on the little chair at Will's side his pistol +that he has dropped. And I hear Ingham say, now all in fury, "Shall I +let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and +through?--" And the door opens. She had her key, Christina, that she had +forgot to give him back. And she calls out, sharp, to Will. But she +turns to Ingham and says, "I implore you, leave me with him a moment!" +And he swirls round to see where I have run. I snatch up Will's pistol +and fire past him from behind the curtain into Ingham's heart. Will +reaches back to catch my hand and shakes the pistol out of it. It has +not taken one breath and his first thought is for Christina, yes, and +for me, and he snaps off the light. There she stands in the doorway; the +light in the hall on Ingham fallen back dead. And when she turns her +eyes again, there is still no one there but Will. Will stoops for the +pistol that still smokes and drops it loose in his pocket. + +[Illustration: "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you +are, through and through?--"] + +You are to remember it is what she has come there to prevent. And before +she has time scarcely to breathe, he forces her back across the +threshold. Up he swoops her in his arms for he is strong like wire, and +light and swift as a hound is, and flies with her for the back stairs. I +wait, for if she sees me I do not know, any more than he does, which way +she will turn. She has stood by him, and perhaps she would have stood by +me; but not if she had known the truth. And at the back stairway he asks +her, "Can we trust the Deutches?" And she replies, "For me, yes. But I +will not trust your life with any one." And then, poor fellow, he must +have seen what she thought, and made up his mind to let her think it. I +was her sister; and he had gone into that room the man who was to marry +me. He could still feel my kisses and my arms about him; and he never +dreamed that Ingham was to denounce me for a criminal--he thought I +fired not from mingled frenzies, but from only the desperate love of +him. Besides, it was only accident he had not fired himself. He would +not have given me up if he had died. + +For me, almost in a moment, it is too late to run. I stumble on +Christina's cloak and scarf, that she has had on her arm and dropped in +the dark. I am terribly afraid! I am in panic to think they are all +coming, and I bolt the door! I wish only to hide and yet I know I cannot +hide! I am wild! I try the closet. It is locked. I run behind the +portières, knocking over the little chair in the dark. I have no plan, +nothing but fear! Till, with the feeling of the curtains close about me, +I remember how I once slipped out of the rooms of a man I had been to +see on business, for the Arm of Justice. He had called the people out of +the front room into the other, the room where I was, and as they all got +in, I had slipped out. How to get them in here? Then I drag in Ingham's +body. I stand close in my cloak colored like the curtains, and once I +hear Deutch's voice I remember that it is Christina's cloak. He makes it +all easy. To come out while those men were working, there at the closet, +is terrible, but there are the trolley-car and my automobile making good +noises. I have pinned my hat under the cloak, and my slippers I put in +its inside pocket. It is when the police have cleared the halls. I have +scarcely got to the back-stairs when the people begin peeping out again. +I have in my hand Christina's key. I turn to the door of the apartment +nearest the back stairs, to pretend I am unlocking it. And the knob +turns in my hand. The decorators have left it open and I walk in and +slip the catch. There I wait till all the hunt is done. But I wish to be +rid of the little pistol, shaped for the impunitura of the Camorra, +which, in early days, Filippi had made for me and on which once, before +Nicola forbade me, I had tried to scratch "Camorrist." Were I taken with +that, I should have every foe on my heels! I wish that I might slip it +into the coat-pocket of that great boy with the figure of gods--he who +led the chase and deafened me with his hammering. Then I remember him +telling the police where he lives. It makes me laugh; there are scraps +of wall-paper about. On one of these I write a message and in this I +wrap my impunitura. Then, long after, when all my cackling geese have +cackled into bed again, I go up to the roof and across into the next +house. There is an opening of some feet between the two apartment +houses, and it may be that Will jumped it, but I think not. I think he +must have gone up to the front, where the cornices join, and crept and +balanced along the little ledge behind them, as I do. And I walk boldly +down those stairs where all is still, and choose a moment when the +night-boy takes some one up in the elevator, and then I cross the +office, and Nicola is still waiting with the car. I stuff the impunitura +in the letter-box and I am away, away!--But the little rag of a girl, +she knows when I went in and when I came out! + +So now you see how hard my problem is, my problem that is double: what +to do with her, and how to save my love! Three weeks and more go by, and +for him I am beginning to breathe. And he tells Christina nothing, +nothing at all. Only he asks her did she meet me as she came up, for I +have only just run out as he and Ingham quarrel. And she says no, Deutch +brought her up in the freight-elevator. Thus she is not surprised to +hear about my shadow on the blind; she thinks I came there like her to +get Jim away. But she fears I will be implicated and my poor story told. +This she thinks of a great deal, and keeps me very quiet in the country. +While she, if you please, is no sooner saved from Ingham but she takes +up that boy with the figure of gods, who saw my shadow. The fool did not +feel such a kindness for that which moved with splendid grace! Nor did +he keep my pistol. But perhaps he wants her money. I tell Nicola and the +boys he is the spy who drains us of ours, and who is carrying news to +her from little Stanley of my letters. They will rid her of him! And no +one knows who fired that shot but Will and me, no one. And Mother +Pascoe-Ansello watches all the time what we do with Nancy Cornish. I am +very good to Nancy Cornish. In case she should, by any chance, get away +and tell Will and Christina. For there are some things they would not +forgive. I am frightened, now, and I would let her go, if I could. + +And, then, Ten Euyck will not pay me! He is furious I have shot Ingham, +which he finds out at the inquest, and yet he must give me his +protection. And he says what I said in the Ingham letter was a lie, and +he will not pay for lies; they are wrong in all ways, for they never +work. And money I must have, or that spy of Filippi's will settle us. We +have just been received by the Camorra and all must be careful. Then I +think Christina can some way get it. But not to know it is for me. So at +last I threaten the little Nancy, and she is glad to write as I say. And +she cut off the lock of her hair at my own dressing-table with my own +scissors, when mine was all down my back to show her that I had more +than she. + +And when we do not have the answer that we hope for, she begins to fret +terribly. She is always listening and watching; she is so helpless and I +am lonely and perhaps I talk too much! Then, oh, my God, he is arrested! +I cannot keep it to myself, I run screaming through the house! I think I +shall die, and I think almost that that rag of a girl will kill me! She +recognized his voice up there cry, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and she has not +said one word so that I think she thinks he did it. But when they catch +him and she jumps at me that it was I, she can see it in my face. And +she makes a terrible scene--begs me and prays me to denounce myself, to +save him. And then I know that she must die. + +But I have a mind to Mother Pascoe-Ansello, and I make a bargain with +this girl. I ask her what she will promise, and she says _anything_. And +I ask her if I write a full confession to the District-Attorney and mail +it when things go hard with Will, will that content her? Oh, very fine! +So I tell her it is what I would do, who would die for him to-morrow, +but that it would give him to her arms. And she says she will go away, +she will never see him. I reply, "He will find you, he will make you." +And she says to me eager, with open mouth, "What can I do?" I answer, +"You are not very well. You grow every day more feverish. Nothing shall +ever happen to you under my roof. But if it should, how it would solve +all." She says, "Will you let me keep the letter myself and mail it +myself?" and I say, "Yes." So then she says, "You gave me laudanum so I +could sleep. When I have mailed that letter, give me some more." Oh, I +feel such a relief! If she is found, even, with laudanum it is suicide. +"Will you ask for it every night, aloud, before them all, and after you +have mailed the letter will you take--enough? Will you swear?" "Oh," she +says, "upon his freedom, I do swear." + + * * * * * + +So! Thus far has she read. And now she falls ill. And any hour, now, may +Ten Euyck come for this. And I must warn him I will not have him drop +another word before Nicola, as though Will would drag us all in by +telling I was there with him. Nicola's hand might reach into his prison. +When Nancy wakes, she has still this envelope--stuffed with blanks. But +if I cannot fool her, Nicola has planned a better way. A fine way! For, +after that, she will be silent--she, who thought to be bride to the man +I choose.--Oh, my love, you love her. If you, too, must die, it is for +that you die, my darling! For no little rag of a girl can frustrate the +will of + + ALLEGRA ANSELLO ALIENI. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR + + + "Oh, then, I'll marry Sally! For she is the darling of my heart--" + +"But _is_ she?" queried Christina, swinging round from the piano, "Is +she?" And she looked wistfully at Herrick as he took her outstretched +hand. "Oh, if she's a very troublesome person, tell me at least she +brought the author luck! Was it any wonder, eh, that the pulse of your +life changed when you saw a shadow on the blind? Since at that very +moment my hand was on the door? Oh, I can perhaps rouse luck with the +best 'when I come knocking!'" + +It was Sunday evening, a month from that September Twentieth when, to a +public that perhaps had never given quite such a welcome, Christina Hope +had positively reappeared. This occasion was of a very homely gathering, +an hour when Christina had simply confessed to the need of seeing all +the people of one episode "alive together." She had spent the month in +watching Nancy grow strong, here, in her house, and to-morrow was the +day of Nancy's wedding. "Once I have packed off my daughter," Christina +had been saying, "I shall marry myself out of hand--quite simply, by +just stepping round the corner--to the patientest fellow living. The +public and I meet often enough--it shall not stick its head in at my +marriage!" + +But Herrick's sister was to arrive to-morrow and this seemed to have +made Christina restive. "You know very well that you are marrying an +actress. But there has been too much glare--to her you must be marrying, +as some play says, 'The Queen of the Gipsies!' Ah, but Bryce--it's easy +enough to be fond of me, now! After all, I behaved admirably, like a +good girl. I was as grand as Evadne and as energetic as Sal! I had a +very hard time and, really, I was quite a heroine. But my hard times are +done and God send I may never be a heroine again! Well, what price the +Queen of the Gipsies, dear, as a nice young lady? And through what rent +in my admirable behavior will next--to try your patience--the real +Christina Hope too positively reappear? I wonder!" Thus she spoke, a +little sadly. And, then, at the ringing of the door-bell called out for +her mother and Mrs. Deutch. "For heaven forbid," added Christina, "that +ever I should be seen without a chaperone!" + +It was the simplest of supper-parties, at a table that jumbled Joe +Patrick with the District-Attorney; but the great kindness of good-will +still showed, inevitably, against a somber background. Before that +company there continued to rise in vivid silences, sharp as though edged +with acid, a wild space of death and hiding, of prison and darkness, +when suddenly Christina's perverse lip twitched with a small, soft +laugh. "And to think that, all the time, we were just as respectable as +we could be!" + +"I don't know how respectable you can be," said Denny. "I think I could +do better." + +"_I_ think it's a pretty good thing for you," said Wheeler, "that she is +as she is. You appear to have what I don't mind calling--in a lean, +black party of no particular stature--an almost inexplicable charm for +the ladies!" + +"In that case," said Christina, "you can see what a waste it is for him +to play villains. Give him to me for the hero of Bryce's play, when I +star next year." + +"Thank you for waiting a year. You must have arranged your production +with Ten Euyck so quickly that it makes a manager's hair raise!" + +"As fast as I could learn my lines!" Christina cried. "But sometimes he +did throw me out. Ah, if I could only have spoken his speeches too!" + +"Many stars in your profession have made that complaint! But I forgive +you everything, Christina, since you notified me for an advance sale!" + +"She broke her word to me," said Kane, "to do that! I was so anxious not +a breath should get out--it might have ruined everything. I caught her +second message--to you, Herrick--and stopped it." + +Herrick asked, "Will it always be the first which goes to Wheeler?" + +She responded with surprised earnestness, "Why, but, dearest, that was +_business_!" + +He laughed; and there was no bitterness in his laugh. He was glad of her +quick, earnest interest. A month and three days had softened the tragic +brooding of Christina's face and drawn them all far from pain and fear, +deep waters and dark night. But this first attempt to mention that time +with any ease showed him how they all still winced at scars; even this +ripple of mirth, glowing and vibrating like the air of all that house +with love and joy, had glowed and vibrated too sharply. He wanted some +happening that should clear the air, and he did not know what. Work was +the safest thing he knew. And even his work, now they had begun, was a +good thing to talk of. + +"How about that realistic tone?" Wheeler was asking. "Our experience +doesn't leave much of Herrick's idea about the commonplaceness of +crime--" + +"Oh, yes, it does!" Christina interrupted. "They were commonplace +enough, to themselves. It was only where we rushed in that it turned +into melodrama. That's the way with amateurs! They have to," she flung +at Denny, "be more like Dago organ-grinders than any Dago organ-grinder +ever was!" + +"I thank you," returned that unabashed young man. "It was quite +realistic enough for me. If all my foreign traitors had done as well by +me as this one!" His eyes sought Nancy's. For an instant neither of them +could speak. But the girl could not resist putting out her hand. And no +one minded when he took it. "But I thanked the gods," he could then say +with a laugh, "for my Italian accent! I knew two or three phrases from +the Garibaldi play--and then I knew the sound and some of the sense +from--Chris's farm. But I could have wished, none the less, to be better +equipped." + +"Rotten to have to make out so much funk!" contributed Stanley. "So's to +seem like that scared-to-death fellow." + +"On the whole, that was the best thing I did. It came quite easy!" + +"But the choice?" inquired Mrs. Deutch. "How did you make that choice, +dear sir, amidst the goblets?" + +"Only luck--I just chanced it. Gold, silver, and lead--can't you guess?" + +He looked at Christina, and Christina blushed. Deutch glanced up +twinkling. + +"Ah, tante," said the girl, "you will never understand--you have not the +artistic temperament! 'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit!' +That was it, Will? Ah, my dear, and to think you've never played the +scene!" + +Her pensiveness turned sterner. She looked at him with reproving eyes. +"You took it out of a part!" she said. "Heaven help us, of what are we +made? That shot I fired--that last shot--I took that out of a part, too! +'A Princess Imprisoned,' the end of the third act. And you with your +'Merchant of Venice' and your casket scene! It's true what they say of +us--we're stuffed with sawdust!" + +"We'd be fools not to use it, then," Denny comfortably retorted. "Though +you might certainly have chosen a better play." + +"No, you don't understand me. It's too bad, it's wrong--all wrong! It +cheapens life. It dulls the value of what we feel. To think of written +things at such a moment and throw oneself on them--it's like an +insincerity of the heart. It's like acting a lie. And with all my +faults, that one fault I never had," Christina said. "I was never a +liar!" And she turned on them the ineffable starry candor of her wide, +cool eyes. + +A smile traversed the board. Christina looked puzzled. + +"Never mind, old girl," Wheeler came to her assistance. "Some lies are +made in heaven. How about your pretending, at the inquest, not to know +who Nancy was?" + +"Ah, that card of Nancy's! There, surely, was a dreadful moment! It was +a shock. I didn't know what to say. Why, it was like seeing that +horrible story fastened round her neck--it was like seeing Will pointed +out! Oh, and I'd tried to keep away even the thought of them!" + +"I don't wonder that knocked you out all right. But, Miss Christina," +pondered Deutch, "before that--a thing starts the trouble for you at +that inquest always gives me a puzzle. Miss Christina, why did you +holler when you saw the scarf? That wasn't a surprise, anyhow. You knew +he had it!" + +"Yes," said Christina, "but it was _such_ a thrilling point! I'd worked +so much further up into an accused murderess than I'd ever gone before, +and I did so long to know how it would feel--" + +An aghast laugh silenced her. It rang about the room, it swept with gay +and topsy-turvy cleansing through every heart and blew the cobwebs far +away. The air was cleared for good and all. No more shudders skulked in +emotional underbrush. Christina Hope had quite too positively +reappeared. + +"Christina, you she-devil!" Denny cried. But he bent his black head with +the words and kissed her hand. There were tears that were like worship +in the teasing, jeering smile that lit his eyes. + +Christina caught his hand and stood up, flushing. Her eyes traveled +round the table and came back to Herrick's face. He had never seen her +thus bathed in rosy color before she sobered again to that meek gravity, +like a good child's. + +"Very well, then, very well--there I am! Well, take me as I am! I +will--myself! I will say, let's get down to it, then: the dearest or +most terrible experience I ever had is none too terrible or too dear for +Bryce's play! Is yours, Will? Is your own, Bryce? Ah, and then, we +zealous ones, when we want to know the hardest, hardest, passive part, +the loneliest suffering, the simplest courage, the deepest depths, we +needn't experiment, we can humbly inquire--we can ask Nancy Cornish!" + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Persons Unknown", by Virginia Tracy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + +***** This file should be named 37545-8.txt or 37545-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/5/4/37545/ + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: "Persons Unknown" + +Author: Virginia Tracy + +Illustrator: Henry Raleigh + +Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37545] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + + + + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>"PERSONS UNKNOWN"</h1> + +<h2>BY VIRGINIA TRACY</h2> + + +<p class="center">ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br /> +HENRY RALEIGH</p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK<br /> +THE CENTURY CO.<br /> +1914</p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1914, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Published, October, 1914</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center">TO<br /> +MY FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS<br /> +HELEN L. KLOEBER AND JESSIE C. SOULE</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When winter's breath was on the pane,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through dusk and snow, wild winds and rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fled to your bright hearth again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To read about a <i>Shadow</i>!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You lit the lamp, you brewed the tea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulled up the deepest chair for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And set yourselves to guess and see—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>What ailed that minx, Christina?</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What Herrick found—what Nancy knew—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose motor raced the county through—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What could that harsh Policeman do—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You never failed to argue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of moonlight, murders, lovers, threats,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vengeance and kisses, siren's nets,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pale, dark men with cigarettes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not once I found you weary!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through broken music, sudden light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the deep darkness, jewels bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Persons unknown in unknown plight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You still sought <i>unknown</i> persons;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Authors, if you would straightway know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where faith and cheer and counsel grow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suggestions flourish and hints flow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Go ask my Nancy Cornish!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange +and splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as Herrick had +never seen before</h3> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<h3>BOOK FIRST<br /> +THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND</h3> + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td align="right">I </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT</a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED</a></td><td align="right">7</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND</a></td><td align="right">12</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING</a></td><td align="right">14</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER</a></td><td align="right">19</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR</a></td><td align="right">25</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY</a></td><td align="right">36</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS</a></td><td align="right">51</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED</a></td><td align="right">58</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">X </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">JOE PATRICK ARRIVES</a></td><td align="right">67</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">PERSONS UNKNOWN</a></td><td align="right">89</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE</a></td><td align="right"> 96</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3>BOOK SECOND<br /> +THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN</h3> + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td align="right">I </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT</a></td><td align="right">103</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED</a></td><td align="right">115</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S WAY</a></td><td align="right">124</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD</a></td><td align="right">133</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING</a></td><td align="right">158</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL</a></td><td align="right">166</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY</a></td><td align="right">170</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS</a></td><td align="right">177</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!"</a></td><td align="right">184</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">X </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DÉSIR—"</a></td><td align="right">190</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT</a></td><td align="right">201</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW</a></td><td align="right">206</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE</a></td><td align="right">215</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XIV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS</a></td><td align="right">219</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">"WHEN STARS GROW COLD"</a></td><td align="right">222</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3>BOOK THIRD<br /> +WILL O' THE WISP</h3> + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td align="right">I </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY</a></td><td align="right">231</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY</a></td><td align="right">242</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY</a></td><td align="right">254</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS</a></td><td align="right">270</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA WAS</a></td><td align="right">283</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT</a></td><td align="right">292</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE</a></td><td align="right">298</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR</a></td><td align="right">305</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">A SIGN IN THE SKY</a></td><td align="right">314</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">X </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">"THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY TIES</a></td><td align="right">324</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE TO A COMIC OPERA</a></td><td align="right">334</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I!'"</a></td><td align="right">343</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE</a></td><td align="right">356</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XIV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW"</a></td><td align="right">365</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">ONE WITNESS SPEAKS</a></td><td align="right">377</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XVI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!"</a></td><td align="right">380</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XVII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">HERSELF</a></td><td align="right">385</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3>BOOK FOURTH<br /> +THE LIGHTED HOUSE</h3> + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td align="right">I </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">THE HOSTESS PREPARING</a></td><td align="right">389</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">THE EXPECTED COMPANY</a></td><td align="right">399</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM</a></td><td align="right">401</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL—</a></td><td align="right">423</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX</a></td><td align="right">433</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_L">THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I MADE MY BATTLE STAY!"</a></td><td align="right">447</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT</a></td><td align="right">459</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR</a></td><td align="right">481</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table> +<tr><td><a href="#illus1">Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange and +splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as +Herrick had never seen before </a></td><td align="right"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus2">Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders</a></td><td align="right">10</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus3">"Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false impression; may I?</a></td><td align="right">76</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus4">"'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope!'"</a></td><td align="right">86</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus5">"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it—I know!"</a></td><td align="right">160</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus6">Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor any other name</a></td><td align="right">296</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus7">"You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! Thank God, I've done with you!"</a></td><td align="right">420</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus8">"Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and through—?"</a></td><td align="right">476</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOK FIRST</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT</h3> + + +<p>"Ask Nancy Cornish!"</p> + +<p>The phrase might have exploded into Herrick's mind, it leaped there with +such sudden violence, distinct as the command of a voice, out of the +smothering blackness of the torrid August night.</p> + +<p>He started up instantly, as if to listen, sitting upright on the bed +from which he had long since tossed all covering. Then he frowned at the +tricks which the heat was playing upon even such strong nerves as his. +In the unacknowledged homesickness of his heart his very first doze had +brought him a dream of home; then the dream had slid along the trail of +desire to a cool sea beach, where he and Marion used to be taken every +summer when they were children, and a fog had rolled in along this beach +which, at first, he had welcomed because it was so deliciously cold. It +was no longer his sister who was there beside him; it was no less +unexpected a person than the Heroine of the novel he was writing and +whose conduct in the very next chapter he had been trying all day to +decide. It was a delightful convenience to have her there, ready to tell +him the secret of her heart! He saw that she had brought the novel with +her, all finished. She held it out to him, open, and he read one +phrase, "When Ann and her lover were down in Cornwall." He asked her +what that was doing there—since her name was not Ann and he had never +imagined her in Cornwall. And then the fog rolled up between them, +blotting out the book, blotting out his Heroine; that fog became a +horror, he was lost in it, and yet it vaguely showed him the shadowy +forms of shadowy persons—he hoped if they were his other characters +they really weren't quite so shadowy as that!—one of whom threateningly +cried to him through the fog, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" And here he was, now, +actually conscious of a great rush of energy and intention, as if he +really had some way of asking Nancy Cornish, or anything to ask her, if +he had!</p> + +<p>He remembered perfectly well, now, who she was—a little red-headed +girl, a friend of his sister; a girl whom he had not seen in eight years +and did not care if he never saw again. What had brought her into his +dreams?</p> + +<p>She certainly had no business there. No girl had any business anywhere +inside his head for the present, except that Heroine of his, whose +photograph he had had framed to reign over his desk. It was a photograph +which he had found forgotten, last winter, in the room of a hotel in +Paris, and it had seemed to him the personality he had been looking for. +Of the original he knew no more than that. But he knew well enough she +was not Nancy Cornish.</p> + +<p>The novel was his first novel; and, after a long day of laborious +failure at it, Herrick, in pure despair of his own work, had early flung +himself abed. He had lain there waking and restless upon scorching +linen, reluctantly listening, listening; to the passage of the trolley +cars on upper Broadway; to the faint, threatening grumble of the Subway; +the pitiful crying of a sick baby; the advancing, dying footfalls; to +all the diabolic malevolence of shrieking or chugging automobiles. The +mere act of sitting up, however, recalled him from the mussy stuffiness +in which he had been tossing. Why, he was not buried somewhere in a +black hole! He was occupying his landlady's best bedroom—the back +parlor, indeed, of Mrs. Grubey's comfortable flat. Well, and to-morrow, +after two months of loneliness, of one-sided conversations with the +maddeningly mute countenance of his Heroine and of swapping jokes, +baseball scores, weather prophecies, and political gossip with +McGarrigle, the policeman on the beat, he was going to take lunch with +Jimmy Ingham, the most eminent of publishers. Everything was all right! +That peculiar sense of waiting and watching was growing on him merely +with the restless brooding of the night, which smelt of thunder. In that +burning, motionless air there was expectancy and a crouching sense of +climax.</p> + +<p>Yet it was not so late but that, in the handsome apartment house +opposite, an occasional window was still lighted. The pale blinds of one +of these, directly on a level with Herrick's humbler casement, were +drawn to the bottom; and Herrick vaguely wondered that any one should +care to shut out even the idea of air. Just then, behind those blinds, +some one began to play a piano.</p> + +<p>The touch was the touch of a master, and Herrick sat listening in +surprise. The tide of lovely melody swept boldly out, filling the air +with soaring angels. Could people be giving a party?</p> + +<p>Herrick got to his feet and struck a match. Five minutes past one! If he +dressed and went down to the river, he would wake Mrs. Grubey and the +Grubey children. He resigned himself; glancing at the precious letter of +appointment with Ingham on his desk, and at the photograph of his +Heroine, looking out at him with her quiet eyes; shy and candid, tender +and bravely boyish, and cool with their first youth. To her he sighed, +thinking of his novel, "Well, Evadne, we must have faith!" He turned out +the light again, stripped off the coat of his pajamas, sopped the +drinking water from his pitcher over his head and his strong shoulders, +and drew an easy chair up to the window. Down by the curb one of those +quivering automobiles seemed to purr, raspingly, in its sleep. Some one +across the street was talking on and on, accompanied by the musician's +now soft and improvising touch. Then, in Herrick's thoughts, the voice, +or voices, and the fitful, straying music began to blend; and then he +had no thoughts at all.</p> + +<p>He was wakened by a demonic crash of chords. His eyes sprang open; and +there, on the blind opposite, was the shadow of a woman. She stood there +with her back to the window, lithe and tense, and suddenly she flung one +arm up and out in such a strange and splendid gesture, of such free and +desperate passion, as Herrick had never seen before. For a full minute +she stood so; and then the gesture broke, as though she might have +covered her face. The music, scurrying onward from its crash, had never +ceased; it had risen again, ringing triumphantly into the march from +Faust, a man's voice rising furiously with it, and it flashed over +Herrick that they might be rehearsing some scene in a play. Then the +sound of a pistol-shot split through the night. Immediately, behind the +blind, the lights went out.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED</h3> + + +<p>The sleepy boy at the switchboard of the house opposite did not seem to +feel in the situation any of the urgency which had brought Herrick into +that elegant vestibule, barefoot and with nothing but an unbuttoned +ulster over his pajama trousers. The boy said he guessed the shot wasn't +a shot; he guessed maybe it was an automobile tire. There couldn't be a +lady in 4-B, anyhow; it was just a bachelor apartment. Well, he supposed +it was 4-B because there was always complaints of him playing on the +piano late at night. The switchboard called him imperatively as he +spoke, and he reluctantly consented to ring up the superintendent. +Instinctively, he refrained from interfering with Herrick when that +young man possessed himself of the elevator and shot to the fourth +floor.</p> + +<p>There was no further noises, no call for help, no woman's fleeing +figure. But Herrick's sense of locality guided him down a little hall, +upon which, toward the front, only two apartments opened. One of these +was lettered 4-B. If Herrick had not stopped for his boots he had for +his revolver and it was with the butt end of this that he began +hammering upon the sheet-iron surface of that door. There was no answer. +Was he too late?</p> + +<p>The other door opened the length of a short chain. A little man, with +wisps of woolly gray standing up from his head as if in amazement, +brought his face to the opening and quavered, "Be careful! You'll get +hurt! Be—"</p> + +<p>"Good God!" cried Herrick. "There's a woman in there!"</p> + +<p>"A woman! Why—I <i>thought</i> I heard a woman—!"</p> + +<p>It was not so long since Herrick's reporting days but that he believed +he could still work the trick pressure by which two policemen will burst +in the strongest lock. But he now gave up hope of the woolly gentleman +as an assistant and turned his attention to the brass knob. "Get me a +screw-driver!"</p> + +<p>"Theodore!" came a voice from behind the woolly gentleman, "Don't you +open our door! It's no business of yours!"</p> + +<p>Herrick, glancing desperately about him for any aid, was sufficiently +aware that he might be making a fool of himself for nothing. But the +young fellow felt that was a risk he had to take. In the long hall +crossing the little one he could hear doors opening; the clash of +questioning voices mingled with excited cries—And then came a girl's +voice shrilling, "Isn't anybody going to <i>do</i> anything?" A husky +business voice roared from secure cover, "You don't know what you may be +breaking into, young man! You may get yourself in trouble."</p> + +<p>Herrick growled through his teeth an imprecation that ended in "Hand me +a screw-driver, can't you? And a hammer!" The sweat was pouring down his +face from the pressure of his strength upon the lock, but the lock held. +What was going on in there? Or—what had ceased to go on? He could hear +Theodore tremblingly protesting, "I have telephoned for the +superintendent—He has the keys. It's the superintendent's business—" +Had the one shot done the trick? Then, above the stairhead, across the +longer hall, appeared the helmet of a policeman. At his heels came the +superintendent, carrying the keys.</p> + +<p>The policeman was jolted from his first idea of arresting Herrick by +Herrick's welcoming cry, "Get a gait on you, McGarrigle!" which +proclaimed to him a valued acquaintance; then, with a hand shaking with +excitement, the half-dressed superintendent fitted the key in the lock. +The lock turned but nothing happened. The door was bolted on the inside.</p> + +<p>The re-captured elevator was heard in the distance, and the +superintendent sang out, "Get the engineer! Hurry! Make him hurry!—You +heard no cries—no?" he asked of Herrick. And he stood wiping his face +and breathing hard, his brow dark with trouble.</p> + +<p>The halls had begun to be bravely peopled. Also, a second policeman had +arrived. And the information spread that one of these reassuring figures +had been left in the hall downstairs and that another had gone to the +roof. Curiosity, comparatively comfortable and respectable, now, made +itself audible and even visible on every side; some adventurers from the +street had sallied in. When McGarrigle asked the superintendent, "Any +way we can get a look in?" some one immediately volunteered, "There's +Mrs. Willing's apartment right across the entrance-court. You can see in +both these rooms from hers."</p> + +<p>"Only two rooms?"</p> + +<p>"Parlor, bedroom and bath," said somebody in the tone of a prospectus.</p> + +<p>"You go see what you can see, Clancy," said McGarrigle to the second +policeman. "Now, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>Herrick told what he knew, and McGarrigle, his eyes resting with +admiration on the extremely undraped muscles of his informant, plied him +with attentive questions. Herrick's own eyes were on the engineer's +steel. Would it never spring the bolt? "If only she'd cry out!" he said. +"Why doesn't she make some sign?"</p> + +<p>"You're sure 'twas him fired?"</p> + +<p>"That shadow had no revolver."</p> + +<p>"He's done for her, then. Els't he'd never have barricaded himself +like, in there. He didn't give himself a dose, after?"</p> + +<p>"Only the one shot."</p> + +<p>"If there's an inquest you'll be wanted."</p> + +<p>"All right.—But why hasn't he tried to gain time with some kind of +parley—some kind of bluff?"</p> + +<p>"Knows he's cornered. He'll show fight as we go in on him. If there's +more than one—" The bolt gave.</p> + +<p>McGarrigle turned like a fury. "Clear the hall," he cried.</p> + +<p>There was a confused movement. Obedient souls disappeared.</p> + +<p>Clancy returned and reported the front room invisible from Mrs. +Willing's side window, the shade of its own side window being down. In +the bedroom and bath all lights out, but shades up and nothing stirring.</p> + +<p>"Any hall?"</p> + +<p>The superintendent replied in the negative.</p> + +<p>"No fire-escapes, you say?"</p> + +<p>"No. Fireproof building."</p> + +<p>"They're right ahead of us, then."</p> + +<p>Again, with a long shudder, the door gave.</p> + +<p>The whole hall seemed to give a gasping breath. McGarrigle growled. +"I'll have no mix-up in this hall!" He favored Herrick with a wink that +said, "See me clear 'em out!" "Clancy, you stay here by the door; pick +out half a dozen of 'em that see it through and hold 'em to be +witnesses." The halls were cleared. Locks clicked as if by simultaneous +miracles and even the adventurers from the street could be heard in full +flight. Herrick and McGarrigle exchanged grim smiles. "Now! You keep +back, Mr. Herrick! Clancy, look out!" The engineer jumped to one side. +The door swung open.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It gave directly into the dark room which had lately been full of light +and music and a woman's passionate grace. Not a breath, not a +movement, greeted the invaders. No shadow, now, on the white blind. +Whatever was within the dusk simply waited. Herrick, pushing past +Clancy, entered the room with McGarrigle. Behind them the superintendent +leaned in and pressed an electric button. Light sprang forth, flooding +everything. The room was empty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND</h3> + + +<p>"Get-away, eh!" said McGarrigle, grimly.</p> + +<p>The superintendent, shaken and wide-eyed, responded only "The bolt!"</p> + +<p>They glanced round them, non-plused.</p> + +<p>The large living-room upon which they had entered was richly furnished, +but it had no screens nor hidden corners, and, on that summer night, the +windows were undraped. The doorway in which they stood faced the great +window which took up nearly all the frontage of the room. The door +opened against the left wall. Just beyond the door, along that left +wall, stood the piano; beyond that a couch; between the head of the +couch and the front window the wall was cut, up to the molding, by one +of those high, narrow doors which, in a modern apartment house, indicate +the welcome, though inopportune, closet. This door was the single object +of suspicion; then, an overturned chair caught their attention. It lay +between the great library-table which, standing horizontally, almost +halved the room, and the narrow strip of paneling of wall to the right +of the main door in which the superintendent had pressed the button for +the lights. In the right wall, opening on the entrance-court, directly +opposite the piano, but also with its blind drawn, was another window of +ordinary size.</p> + +<p>"The bedroom," said the superintendent, moistening his lips, "'s on the +court, there." Then they observed, to their right, the bedroom's arch +hung with heavy portières. And the sight of these portières carried +with it a cold thrill. But—"There ain't anybody in there!" Clancy +persisted.</p> + +<p>McGarrigle walked over to the door in the wall and tried it. It was +locked and there was no key in the lock. "What's this?"</p> + +<p>"A closet."</p> + +<p>"Open it, engineer. Clancy, you stand by him."</p> + +<p>He went up to the portières, opened them with some caution and peered +in. Faced only by an empty room he jerked at the portières to throw them +back; they were very heavy and the humidity made their rings stick to +the pole so that Deutch, running to his assistance, held one aside for +him, while with his other hand he himself fumbled to spring on the +bedroom light. Herrick was hard upon McGarrigle's heels, but, a look +round revealing nothing, he was struck by a sudden fancy and, recrossing +the living-room, raised the shade. No, the little balcony was wholly +empty. The great window had been made in three sections, and the middle +section was really a pair of doors that opened outward on this balcony. +Clancy commented upon the foolishness of their not opening in as he +watched Herrick step through them into the calm night that offered no +explanation of that bolted emptiness. Herrick stepped to the end of the +balcony and craned round toward the entrance-court. From the now lighted +bedroom window there was no access to any other. He glimpsed +McGarrigle's head stuck forth from the bathroom for the same +observation. And it somehow surprised him that a trolley car should +still bang indifferently past the corner; that, just opposite, that +automobile should still chug away, as if nothing had happened. Then he +heard a cry from the superintendent, followed by the policeman's oath. +Herrick ran into the bedroom and stopped short. On the floor at the foot +of the bed lay the body of a young man in dinner clothes. He had been +shot through the heart.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING</h3> + + +<p>There was something at once commonplace and incredible about it—about +the stupid ghastliness of the face and about the horrid, sticky smear in +the muss of the finely tucked shirt. That gross, silly sprawl of the +limbs!—was it those hands that had called forth angelic music? The dead +man was splendidly handsome and this somehow accentuated Herrick's +revulsion. McGarrigle bent over the body. After a moment he said to the +superintendent, "No use for a doctor. But if you got one, get him."</p> + +<p>"He's dead!" said the superintendent. "It's suicide!" He spoke quietly, +but with a dreadfully repressed and labored breath. "Officer, can't you +see it's suicide?" He called up the doctor, and then to the silent group +he again insisted, "It's him shot himself. The door was bolted on the +inside. He had to shoot himself!"</p> + +<p>McGarrigle was at the 'phone, calling up the station. Turning his head +he responded, "Where's the weapon?"</p> + +<p>They had got the closet open now; no one there. No one in the bedroom +closet. No one under the big brass bed, in the folds of the portières, +behind the piano, under the couch. No one anywhere. Nor any weapon, +either.</p> + +<p>Herrick and Clancy began to examine the fastening of the door. It was an +ordinary little brass catch—a slip-catch, the engineer called it—which +shot its bolt by being turned like a Yale lock. "If this door shut +behind any one with a bang, could the catch slip of itself?" The +engineer shook his head.</p> + +<p>The hall was long since full again, though the adventurers were ready to +pop back at a moment's notice; pushing through them came the doctor. +Herrick did not follow him into the bedroom. The room he stood in had a +personality it seemed to challenge him to penetrate.</p> + +<p>His most pervasive impression was of cool coloring. The portières were +of a tapestry which struck Herrick as probably genuine Gobelin, but with +their famous blue faded to a refreshing dullness and he now remembered +that in handling them he had found them lined with a soft but very heavy +satin of the same shade, as if to give them all possible substance. The +stretched silk, figured in tapestry, which covered the walls, had been +dyed a dull blue, washed with gray, to match them; and, to Herrick, this +tint, sober as it was, somehow seemed a strange one for a man's room. In +couch and rugs and lampshades these notes of gray and blue continued to +predominate, greatly enhanced by all the woodwork, which, evidently +supplied by the tenant, was of black walnut.</p> + +<p>He had been no anchorite, that tenant. In the corner between the bedroom +and the court window the surface of a seventeenth century sideboard +glimmered under bright liquids, under crystal and silver. Beyond that +window all sorts of rich lusters shone from the bindings of the books +that thronged shelves built into the wall until they reached the great +desk standing in the farthest right hand corner to catch the front +window's light. A lamp stood on this desk, unlighted. At present all the +illumination in the room came from three other lamps; one that squatted +atop of the grand piano, between the now flameless old silver +candelabra; one, almost veiled by its heavy shade, in the middle of the +library table; and one, of the standing sort, that rose up tall from a +sea of newspapers at the head of the couch. All these lamps, worked by +the same switch, were electric, and the ordinary electric fixtures had +been dispensed with; the light was abundant, but very soft and thrown +low, with outlying stretches of shadow. It was not remarkable that it +had failed to show them the murdered man until the electricity in the +bedroom itself had been evoked.</p> + +<p>Herrick looked again at the couch. Its cushions had lately been rumpled +and lounged upon; at its head, under the tall lamp, stood a teakwood +tabouret, set with smoking materials on a Benares tray. At its foot, as +if for the convenience of the musician, a little ebony table bore a +decanter and a bowl of ice; the ice in a tall glass, half-empty, was +still melting into the whiskey; in a shallow Wedgewood saucer a +half-smoked cigarette was smoldering still.</p> + +<p>"McGarrigle!" said Herrick, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!"</p> + +<p>"He was shot in here, after all. I was sure of it." And he pointed to +the foot of the piano stool. Still well above the surface of the +hardwood flooring was a little puddle of blood.</p> + +<p>McGarrigle contemplated this with a kind of sour bewilderment. "Well, +the coroner's notified. You'll be wanted, y'know, to the inquest."</p> + +<p>"What's this?" asked somebody.</p> + +<p>It was a long chiffon scarf and it lay on the library table under the +lamp. Clancy lifted it and its whiteness creamed down from his fingers +in the tender lights and folds which lately it had taken around a +woman's throat. Just above the long silk fringe, a sort of cloudy +arabesque was embroidered in a dim wave of lucent silk. And Herrick +noticed that the color of this border was blue-gray, like the blue-gray +room. As they all grimly stared at it, the superintendent exclaimed, "I +never saw it before!"</p> + +<p>McGarrigle looked from him to the scarf and commanded, in deference to +the coming coroner, "You leave that lay, now, Clancy!"</p> + +<p>Clancy left it. But something in the thing's frail softness affected +Herrick more painfully than the blood of the dead man. In no nightmare, +then, had he imagined that shadow of a woman! She had been here; she was +gone. And, on the floor in there, was that her work?</p> + +<p>Now that the interest of rescue had failed, he wanted to get away from +that place. He wanted to dress and go down to the river and think the +whole thing over alone. He had now heard the doctor's verdict of instant +death; and McGarrigle, again reminding him that he would be wanted at +the inquest, made no objection to his withdrawal.</p> + +<p>On his own curb stood a line of men, staring at the windows of 4-B as if +they expected the tragedy to be reënacted for their benefit. They all +turned their attention greedily to Herrick as he came up, and the +nearest man said, "Have they got him?"</p> + +<p>"Him?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the murderer!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Herrick said. Even in the crude excitement of the question the +man's voice was so pleasant and his enunciation so agreeably clear that +Herrick, constitutionally sensitive to voices and rather weary for the +sound of cultivated speech, replied familiarly, "I'm afraid, strictly +speaking, that there isn't any murderer. It's supposed to be a woman."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Well, have they caught her?"</p> + +<p>"They've caught no one. And, after all, there seems to be some hope that +it's a suicide."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the other, with a smile. "Then you found him in evening +dress! I've noticed that bodies found in evening dress are always +supposed to be suicides!"</p> + +<p>The note of laughter jarred. "I see nothing remarkable," Herrick rebuked +him, with considerable state, "in his having on dinner clothes."</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever! 'Dinner clothes'—I accept the correction. Any poor +fellow having them on, a night like this, might well commit +suicide!—I'm obliged to you," he nodded. And, humming, went slowly down +the street.</p> + +<p>Herrick suddenly hated him; and then he saw how sore and savage he was +from the whole affair. The same automobile still waited, not far from +his own door, and he longed to leap into it and send it rapid as fury +through the night, leaving all this doubt and horror behind him in the +cramped town. His troubled apprehension did not believe in that +suicide.—What sort of a woman was she? And what deviltry or what +despair had driven her to a deed like that? Where and how—in God's +name, how!—had she fled? He, too, looked up at that window where he had +seen the lights go out. It was brightly enough lighted, now. But this +time there was no blind drawn and no shadow. The bare front of the house +baulked the curiosity on fire in him. "How the devil and all did she get +out?" It was more than curiosity; it was interest, a kind of personal +excitement. That strange, imperial, and passionate gesture! The woman +who made it had killed that man. Of one thing he was sure. "If ever I +see it again, I shall know her," he said, "among ten thousand!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER</h3> + + +<p>Late the next morning Herrick struggled through successive layers of +consciousness to the full remembrance of last night. But now, with +to-morrow's changed prospective, those events which had been his own +life-and-death business, had, as it were, become historic and passed out +of his sphere; they were no longer of the first importance to him.</p> + +<p>Inestimably more important was his appointment with Ingham. Herrick had +passed such a lonely summer that the prospect of a civilized luncheon +with an eminent publisher was a very exciting business. Moreover, this +was a critical period in his fortunes.</p> + +<p>At twenty-eight years of age Bryce Herrick knew what it was to live a +singularly baffled life—a life of artificial stagnation. His first +twenty-two years, indeed, had been filled with an extraordinary +popularity and success. In the ancient and beloved town of Brainerd, +Connecticut, where he was born, it had been enough for him to be known +as the son of Professor Herrick. The family had never been rich, but for +generations it had been an honored part of the life of the town. It was +Bryce's mother who, marrying in her girlhood a spouse of forty already +largely wedded to his History of the Ancient Chaldeans and Their +Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, brought him a little +fortune; she brought, as well, the warm rich strain of mingled Irish and +Southern blood which still touched the shrewdness of her son's clear +glance and his boyish simplicity of manner, with something at once +peppery and romantic. It was a popular combination. He grew into a tall +youth with a square chin, with square white teeth and rather an +aggressive nose, but, in his crinkly blue eyes, humor and kindness; with +a kind of happy glow pervading all his thought and all his +dealings—just as it pervaded his fresh color, his look of gay hardihood +and enduring power, the ruddiness of his brown hair and his tanned skin, +and of his sensitive and sanguine blood. At college he had appeared very +much more than the son of an eminent man. Of that fortunate physical +type which is at once large and slender—broad shouldered and deep +chested, but narrow hipped, long of limb and strong and light of +flank—it had surprised nobody when he became, as if naturally, +spontaneously, a figure in athletics. What surprised people was the +craftmanship in those articles of travel and adventure which sprang from +his vacations. At twenty-two he was a reporter on the New York <i>Record</i>; +soon other reporters were prophesying that rockets come down like +sticks, and he was not yet twenty-three when the blow fell. Mrs. Herrick +died, and it was presently found that her money had been a long time +gone; mismanaged utterly by a hopeful husband. This amiable and innocent +creature had been bitten, in his old age, by the madness and the vanity +of speculation; he had made a score of ventures, not one of which had +come to port. His health being now quite shattered, Switzerland was +prescribed; there, for five years, in the country housekeeping of their +straitened circumstances, his son and daughter tended him. There, during +the first two years of exile, Herrick had written those short stories +which had won him a distinguished reputation. No predictions had been +thought too high for him; but he had never got anything together in book +form, and bye-and-bye he had become altogether silent. It was all too +painful, too futile, too muffling! He seemed to be meant for but two +uses: to struggle with the knotted strains of Herrick senior's business +affairs and to assist with that History of the Ancient Chaldeans and +Their Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, which was his +father's engrossing, and now sole and senile, mania. His father +suffered, so that the young man was the more enslaved; and made him +suffer, so that he was the more anxious his sister should do no +secretary work for the Chaldeans. But it was his mother's suffering he +thought of now; the years in which she had put up with all this, +uncomforted, and struggled to save something out of the wreck for Marion +and for him, struggled to keep the shadow of it from their youth—and he +had not known! In so much solitude and so much distasteful occupation, +this idea flourished and struck deep. He saw his sister's life +sacrificed, too; given up to household work and nursing, to exile and +poverty, with lack of tenderness and with continual ailing pick-thanks; +and there grew up in him a passionate consideration for women, a +romantic faith in their essential nobility, a romantic devotion to their +right to happiness. Snatched from all the populous clamor and dazzle of +his boyhood and set down by this backwater, alone with a young girl and +the Ancient Chaldeans, he grew into a very simple, lonely fellow; +sometimes irascible but most profoundly gentle; a little old-fashioned; +perhaps something of the pack-horse in his daily round; but living, +mentally, in a very rosy, memory-colored vision of the great, strenuous, +lost, world.</p> + +<p>Death gave him back his life; Professor Herrick followed the Chaldeans, +the Babylonians, and the Kassites; within a few months Marion was +married; and Herrick, with something like Whittington's sixpence in his +pocket, famished for adventure and companionship, with the appetite of a +man and the experience of a boy, started for the rainbow metropolis of +his five-years' dream. In this mood he had rushed into the hot stone +desert of New York in summer—a New York already changed, and which +seemed to have dropped him out!</p> + +<p>But he brought, like other young desperadoes, his first novel with him; +and he had approached the junior partner of the famous old house of +Ingham and Son with letters from mutual friends in Brainerd. Now, at +last, within twenty-four hours after his own return from abroad, +Ingham—himself scarcely a decade older than Herrick, preceding him at +the same university, and with a Brainerd man for a brother-in-law,—had +responded with the invitation to lunch. Yes, it was exciting enough! +Herrick looked at his watch. It was barely ten. And then he took time to +remember when he had last looked at his watch in that room.</p> + +<p>Certainly, it was rather grim! And yet, said the desperado, it wasn't +going to be such a bad thing with which to command Ingham's interest at +lunch and get him into a confidential humor that wouldn't be too +superior. While he was attempting to inspire Ingham with a craving for +his complete works, this thrilling topic would be just the thing to do +away with self-consciousness. He mustn't lose faith in himself. And, +before all things, he mustn't, as he had done last night, lose faith in +his Heroine!</p> + +<p>He looked across the room at her picture; got out of bed; walked over to +her, and humbly saluted. Lose faith in her? "Evadne," he said, "through +my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous—You darling!" Lose +faith in <i>her</i>!</p> + +<p>The photograph, which looked like an enlargement of a kodak, represented +a very young girl, standing on a strip of beach with her back to the +sea. Her sailor tie, her white dress, and the ends of her uncovered hair +all seemed to flutter in the wind. Slim and tall as Diana she showed, in +her whole light poise, like a daughter of the winds, and Herrick was +sure that she was of a fresh loveliness, a fair skin and brown hair, +with eyes cool as gray water. It was the eyes, after all, which had +wholly captured his imagination. They were extraordinarily candid and +wide-set; in a shifting world they were entirely brave. This was what +touched him as dramatic in her face; she was probably in the new dignity +of her first long skirts, so that all that candor and courage, all the +alert quiet of those intelligent eyes were only the candor and courage +of a kind of royal child. She wanted to find out about life; she longed +to try everything and to face everything; but she was only a tall little +girl! That was the look his Heroine must have! Thus had she come +adventuring to New York with him, to seek their fortunes, and all during +those dreary months of heat and dust she had borne him happy company; in +the Park or in the Bowery, at Coney Island or along Fifth Avenue's +deserted pomp, he had always tried to see, for the novel, how things +would look to that young eagerness—no more ardent, had he but realized +it, than his own!—"Evadne," said he, now, "if things look promising +with Ingham this afternoon we'll take a taxi, to-night, and see the moon +rise up the river." He called her Evadne when he was talking about the +moon; when he required her pity because the laundress had faded his best +shirt, he called her Sal.</p> + +<p>A sound as of the Grubey children snuffling round his door recalled him +to the illustrious circumstance that he was by way of being a hero of a +murder story. But, if he was nursing pride in that direction, it was +destined to a fall. Johnnie Grubey thrust under the door something +which, as he had brought it up from the mail-box in the vestibule, +Johnnie announced as mail. But it was only a large, rough scrap of +paper, which astonished Herrick by turning out to be wall-paper—a +ragged sample of the pale green "cartridge" variety that so largely +symbolizes apartment-house refinement—and which confronted him from its +smoother side with the lines, penciled in a long, pointed, graceful +hand,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For the Apollo in the bath-robe! Or was it a raincoat?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But should not Apollos stay in when it rains?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was many a day since Herrick had received a comic valentine, but all +the appropriate sensations returned to him then. The hand of this +neighborly jest was plainly a woman's and its slap brought a blush. He +was forced to grin; but he longed to evade the solemn questioning of the +Grubeys through whose domain he must presently venture to his bath and +it occurred to him that the most peaceful method of clearing a road was +to send out the younger generation for a plentiful supply of newspapers. +Besides, he wished very much to see the papers himself.</p> + +<p>He distributed them freely and escaped back to his room still carrying +three. When he had closed his door, the first paragraph which met his +eyes was on the lower part of the sheet which he held folded in half. It +began—"The body of Mr. Ingham was not found in the living-room, but—" +He flapped it over, agog for the headlines. They read:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">DEATH BAFFLES POLICE.</span><br /> +James R. Ingham, Noted Publisher, Found Shot in Apartment—</p> + +<p>Herrick was still standing with the paper in his hand when the second +Grubey boy brought him a visiting-card. It bore the name of Hermann E. +Deutch; and scribbled beneath this in pencil was the explanatory phrase, +"Superintendent, Van Dam Apartment House."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR</h3> + + +<p>Hermann Deutch was a shortish, middle-aged Jew, belonging to the humbler +classes and of a perfectly cheap and cheerful type. But at the present +moment he was not cheerful. He showed his harassment in the drawn +diffidence of his sympathetic, emotional face, and in every line of +what, ten or fifteen years ago, must have been a handsome little person. +Since that period his tight black curls, receding further and further +from his naturally high forehead, had grown decidedly thin, and exactly +the reverse of this had happened to his figure. But he had still a pair +of femininely liquid and large black eyes, brimming with the romance +which does not characterize the cheap and cheerful of other races, and +Herrick remembered him last night as very impressionably, but not +basely, nervous.</p> + +<p>He now fixed his liquid eyes upon Herrick with an anxiety which took +humble but minute notes. Since the young fellow was at least +half-dressed in very well-cut and well-cared-for, if not specially new, +garments, it was clear to Mr. Deutch's reluctant admiration that he was +thoroughly "<i>high-class</i>!" Whatever was Mr. Deutch's apprehension, it +shrank weakly back upon itself. Then he simply took his life in his +hands and plunged.</p> + +<p>"I won't keep you a minute, Mr. Herrick. But I've got a little favor I +want to ask you.—You behaved simply splendid last night, Mr. +Herrick.—Well, I will, thanks,"—as he dropped into a chair. "I—I +won't keep you a minute—"</p> + +<p>"I'll be glad to do anything I can," Herrick interrupted.</p> + +<p>The news in his paper had made him feel as if he had just been +disinherited and, now that the dead man was a personality so much nearer +home, his brain rang with a hundred impressions of pity and wonder and +excitement. But he sympathized with poor Mr. Deutch; it could be no +sinecure to be the superintendent of a murder! Then, recollecting, "What +made you so certain it was suicide?" he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What else could it be? There wasn't anybody but him there."</p> + +<p>"There was a woman there," Herrick said, "when the shot was fired."</p> + +<p>The superintendent took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "Well, +now, Mr. Herrick, that's just what I wanted to see you about. Now +please, Mr. Herrick, don't get excited and mad! All I want to say is, if +there <i>was</i> a lady there last night—but there <i>couldn't</i> have +been—well, of course, Mr. Herrick, if you say so! Why, you couldn't +have seen her so very plain, now could you?"</p> + +<p>"What are you driving at?" Herrick asked.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't it have been a gentleman's shadow you saw, Mr. Herrick? Mr. +Ingham's shadow? Raising his pistol, maybe, with one hand—"</p> + +<p>"While he played the piano with the other?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, there couldn't have been any lady there!" He bridled. +"It's against the rules—that time o' night! I wouldn't ever allow such +a thing. There's never been a word against the Van Dam since I been +running it. Why, Mr. Herrick, if there was to be that kind of talk, +especially if she was to murder the gentleman and all like that, I'd be +ruined. And so'd the house. It ain't one o' these cheap flat buildings. +We got leases signed by—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be +reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a +woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not, +I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch."</p> + +<p>"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't +understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the +police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't +expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick; +it's your language!"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be +quite so particular—"</p> + +<p>"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know +it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to +me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a +good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I +was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I +don't feel very leniently to the person—not even to the woman—who +murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do +it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going +to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed +him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr. +Deutch. And, good-morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God! Oh, dear! But my dear sir—"</p> + +<p>"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what +people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and +that it was you who connived at her escape!"</p> + +<p>"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no +kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the +lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina."</p> + +<p>"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor +worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any +woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss +Christina!"</p> + +<p>"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all +like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of +a play."</p> + +<p>"Did I? Well?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped +upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran: +"About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina +Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as +of prophecy realized. "Oh—ho!" he breathed.</p> + +<p>"Oh—ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes +you think, all right. Even me!—that was what brought her first to my +mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed, +any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody +think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not +so. It's a damn mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!"</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he +had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as +a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West, +and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to +her detriment.</p> + +<p>"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all, +but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop +there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with +their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any +denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think +she's guilty—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, come! Why—"</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?"</p> + +<p>Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them +without speaking.</p> + +<p>"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to +be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself +and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit +of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated +gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced, +old-fashioned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries—people like +them, and Miss Christina—Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr. +Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn +them on to Miss Christina, you—"</p> + +<p>"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the +completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in +every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed. +But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a +handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression, +must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very +good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried, +"you want a drink!"</p> + +<p>For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic assurance, had put his plump elbows on +his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump +and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got +himself together; without embarrassment, but with a comfort in his +relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he +returned the glass he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr. +Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres +near so crazy to you."</p> + +<p>Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and +regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions. +But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see +her with Mr. Ingham?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before +ever <i>he</i> set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa +had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a +pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for +myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it +was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very +refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as +high-class a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames; +plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings—oh, +beautiful!—by expensive, high-class artists; everything elegant. But it +wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick, +they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I +ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways +successful, since."</p> + +<p>"But you saw something of Mr. Hope—"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are +yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture, +once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina +was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from +dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her +groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to +manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know +that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little +girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the +door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her +little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them +pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind +her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular +every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a +cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little +lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she +liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an +affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody +like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife, +Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing +like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was +kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the +most stylish child I ever set eyes on!"</p> + +<p>"Father living?" Herrick prompted.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Herrick, no. And before he died, he got into business +difficulties himself, and he didn't leave enough to keep a bird alive. I +helped Mrs. Hope dispose of all the bric-a-brac, my paintings and all, +everything that wasn't mortgaged, and they put it in with an aunt of Mr. +Hope's, a catamaran, and went to keeping a high-class boarding-house. +We're all apt to fall, Mr. Herrick. I've fallen myself."</p> + +<p>"The boarding-house didn't succeed either, then?"</p> + +<p>"I ask you, how could it, with that battle-ax? She cheated my poor +ladies, and she bullied Miss Christina, and used to take the books she +was always reading and burn 'em up, and say nasty common things to her, +when she got older, about the young gentlemen that were always on her +heels even then, and that she'd like well enough, one day, and the next +she couldn't stand the sight of. If there's one thing Miss Christina +has, more than another, it's a high spirit; she has what I'd call a +plenty of it. They had fierce fights. Often, when she'd come to me with +a little breastpin or other to pawn for her, so her and her mama'd have +a mite o' cash, she'd put her pretty head down on my wife's shoulder and +cry; and my wife'd make her a cup o' tea. She'd say then she was going +to run away and be an actress. And, when she was sixteen yet, she ran. +Two years afterward, her and her mama turned up in my first little +flat-house; a cheap one, down Eighth Avenue, in the twenties. She was on +the stage, all right, and what a time she'd had! It'd been cruel, Mr. +Herrick; cruel hard work and, just at the first, cruel little of it. But +now she's a leading lady. And this fall she's going to open in New York, +in a big part. It's the play they call 'The Victors'; I guess you've +heard. Mr. Wheeler, he's the star, and Miss Christina's part's better +than what his is. But now—"</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Mr. Deutch mopped his face, and Herrick, cogitating, +bit his lip.</p> + +<p>"This engagement to Ingham—"</p> + +<p>"She met him about two years ago, when she had her first leading part, +and they went right off their heads about each other. I never expected I +should see Miss Christina act so regular loony over any man. But she +refused him time and again. She said she'd always been a curse to +herself and she wasn't going to bring her curse on him. In the end, of +course, she gave in. She said she'd marry him this winter, if he'd go +away for the summer and leave her alone. You knew it was only day before +yesterday he got back from Europe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know."</p> + +<p>"My wife and me have seen a lot more of her this summer than since she +was a little girl. There's been years at a time, all the while she was +on the road, that we wouldn't know if she was alive or dead. And then +some day I'd come home, and find her sitting in our apartment—it's a +basement apartment, Mr. Herrick!—as easy as if she'd just stepped +across the street. But I wouldn't like you should think it's Miss +Christina's talked to us very much about her engagement. She's a pretty +close-mouthed girl, in her way, and a simply elegant lady. Not but what +Mrs. Hope is an elegant lady, too. But still she is—if you know what I +mean—gabby! Miss Christina's always been a puzzle to her; and she's a +great hand to sit and make guesses at her with my wife. Mr. Ingham left +a key with Miss Christina when he went abroad so she could come and play +his piano and read his books whenever it suited her, and she'd have a +quiet place to study her part. Every once in a while Mrs. Hope would +take a notion it wasn't quite the proper thing she should come by +herself. But after she'd seen her inside, she'd drop down our way and +wait. She wasn't just exactly gone on Mr. Ingham, and my wife wasn't +either."</p> + +<p>Herrick lifted his head with a flash of interest. "Mrs. Hope opposed the +marriage?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not opposed. She never opposed the young lady in anything, when +you came down to it. But he wanted she should leave the stage. And he +wasn't ever faithful to her, Mr. Herrick! For all he was so crazy about +her and so wild-animal jealous of the very air she had to breathe, he +wasn't ever faithful to her—and if ever you'd seen her, that'd make +your blood boil! She'd hear things; and he'd lie. And she'd believe him, +and believe him! If it wasn't for his money, she'd be well rid of him, +to my mind."</p> + +<p>He sat nursing his wrath. And Herrick, still watching him, felt sorry. +For, in Herrick's mind it was now all so clear; so pitiably clear! Poor +little chap!—he didn't know how scanty was the reassurance in his +portrait of his Miss Christina! The indulged, imperious child, choosing +"her own" friends; the unhappy, bold, bedeviled girl, already with young +men at her heels, whom she encouraged one day and flouted the next; +pawning her trinkets at sixteen and plunging alone into the world, the +world of the stage; the ambitious, adventurous woman capable of holding +such a devotion as that of the good Deutch by so capricious and +high-handed a return, snaring such a man of the world as Ingham by an +adroit blending of abandon and retreat, putting up with the humiliations +of his flagrant inconstancies only, perhaps, to find herself, after her +stipulated summer alone, on the verge of losing him through his +insensate jealousy—were there no materials here for tragic quarrel? Was +not this the very figure that last night he had seen fling out an arm in +unexampled passion and grace? In his heart he saw Christina Hope, while +her betrothed, whether as accuser or accused, taunted her from the +piano, kill James Ingham. And he profoundly knew that he had almost seen +this with his eyes. His pulse beat high; but it was with a sobered mind +that he beheld Mr. Deutch preparing to depart.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see how I had to ask you, Mr. Herrick, not to say that lady's +shadow made you think any of an actress?"</p> + +<p>"I do, indeed."</p> + +<p>"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if +only you was acquainted with her—" He had turned, in rising, to get his +hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach, +"Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his +Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that you <i>was</i> acquainted with—" said Mr. Deutch, extending his +hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope."</p> + +<p>Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her, +all along! It's a real old picture—'bout five years ago. You knew her +then? You knew her—And you—saw—" His voice died away. His glance +turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds +drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow +must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw, +looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear.</p> + +<p>Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been +these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar +face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life, +shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt +his blood go cold.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY</h3> + + +<p>There was a time coming when Herrick was to salute as prophetic what he +now noted with a grim amusement; that from the moment the shadow sprang +upon the blind the current of his life was changed. Peopled, busy, +adventurous, it had passed, as one might say, into active circulation. +He was suddenly in the center of the stage.</p> + +<p>This was brought home to him rather sharply when Deutch had been not +five minutes gone. On the exit of that gentleman Herrick's first thought +had been for Miss Hope's photograph. Although an actress seems less a +woman than a type, yet, since, to any stray gossip, she was recognizable +as a real person, she mustn't, at this critical time, be left hanging on +his wall to excite comment. He had scarcely laid the photograph on his +desk to compare it with a cut in one of the newspapers when information +that he was "wanted on the 'phone" made him drop the paper atop of his +dethroned Heroine and hurry into the hall. And the place to which the +telephone invited him was the Ingham publishing house.</p> + +<p>The message was from old Gideon Corey, the prop and counselor of the +House of Ingham, father and son. It told Herrick that Ingham senior had +just arrived in New York and had not yet gone to an hotel; he had turned +instinctively to his office, where he besought Herrick, whose name he +had recognized, to come to him and tell him what there was to tell. It +was only the piteous human longing to be brought nearer, by some detail, +by some vision later than our own, to those to whom we shall never be +near again. Herrick flinched from the task, but there could be no +question of his obedience; and he came out from that interview humbly, +softened by the gentleness of such a grief. It seemed to him that he had +never seen so tender a dignity of reserve; that beautiful old gentleman +who had wished to question him had also wished to spare him; wished, +too,—and taken the loyalest precautions—to spare some one else.</p> + +<p>"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Herrick," Ingham's father had said +to him, "that my son was engaged to be married?"</p> + +<p>"I had just heard—"</p> + +<p>"Then you will understand how especially painful it is that there should +be any mention of a—another lady—Miss Hope is a sweet girl," said the +old gentleman, "a sweet, good girl—" He paused, as if he were feeling +for words delicate enough for what he had to say; and then a little +breath that was like a cry broke from him. "My son was a wild boy, Mr. +Herrick, but he loved her—he loved her! Will it be necessary to add to +her grief by telling her that, at the very last, he was entertaining—? +I wanted her for my daughter! May she not keep even the memory of my +son?"</p> + +<p>Herrick could have groaned aloud. "Only tell me," he said, "what can I +do?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ingham means to ask"—Corey interposed—"whether, at the—the +inquest, it will be necessary to lay so much emphasis on that shadow you +observed?"</p> + +<p>Thus, for the second time that day, from what different mouths and under +what different circumstances, came the same request! And there passed +over Herrick that little shiver of the skin which takes place, the +country people tell you, when some one steps over your grave.</p> + +<p>"Could you not assume that you might have been mistaken? That it might +have been a man's shadow—?"</p> + +<p>"I was not mistaken—Why, look here!" he continued, eagerly. "Can't you +see that it would be the worst kind of a mistake for me to change now? +They'd think I'd heard who the woman was, and was trying to shield her! +And, besides," he added to Corey, "it's your only clue." It occurred to +him, as he spoke, that Ingham's family might be concerned for his +reputation rather than for vengeance; this continued to seem probable +even while they assured him that it was not the police, but Miss Hope +alone, from whom they wished to keep the circumstance; they were +thinking of what would have been the dead man's dearest wish. What she +read in the papers they could perhaps deny; but what she heard at the +inquest—</p> + +<p>When, however, they reluctantly agreed with him that it was too late for +any effectual reticence it was with unabated kindliness that Corey went +with him into the hall. "We remain infinitely obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick, and—later on—we mustn't lose track of you again—Well, +good-morning! Good-morning!"</p> + +<p>It was nearly afternoon and Herrick stepped out from the dark, +old-fashioned elevator into its sunny heat, which occasional spattering +showers had vainly tried to dissipate, with a very highly charged sense +of moving among vivid personalities. Concerning two of these there +persisted a certain lack of reassurance, and as that of Ingham +brightened or darkened the shadow herself now shone as a tigress +devouring, now an avenging angel. Sometimes her figure stood out +clearly, by itself; sometimes it wavered and changed, and passed, +whether Herrick willed it or not, into the figure of Christina Hope. +Then, whether for Deutch's or Ingham's sake, or for Evadne's, there was +something oppressive in the sunshine.</p> + +<p>But the young fellow was not enough of a hypocrite to pretend, even to +himself, that all this excitement, all this acquaintance with swift +events, with salient people under the influence of strong emotion, all +this quick, warm, and strong feeling which had been aroused in himself, +were anything but very welcome. Nor were his adventures over yet. His +walk brought him, with a thoughtful forehead but all in a breathing glow +of interest, to City Hall Park; a spot where he had loitered that summer +a score of times, wearying vaguely for a friendly face. To-day, his +brisk step had scarcely carried him within its boundaries before he +heard his name called and, turning, was accosted by a <i>Record</i> +acquaintance of six years ago whose recognition displayed the utmost +eagerness.</p> + +<p>The spirit of New York City, which had hitherto considered him merely +one of her returned failures, had now made up her mind to show what she +could do for such a darling as the near-eye-witness of a murder. He +found himself hailed into the office of the <i>Record</i>, whence they had +been madly telephoning him this long while, and immediately +commissioned, at the price of a high, temporary specialist, to report +the Ingham inquest, and to write a Sunday special of the murder!</p> + +<p>He thought of Ingham's father, and "It isn't a tasty job!" he said to +his old chief. But it swept upon him what material it was; it felt, in +his empty hand, like the key of success; and then, there is always in +our ears at such a time the whisper that it will certainly be done by +somebody. "And never, surely," Herrick wrote his sister that night, "so +chastely, so justly, with either such dash or such discretion, as by our +elegant selves!"</p> + +<p>This, at least, was the view which the Ingham office took of it. Corey +reported the family as glad to leave it in Herrick's hands; while a +tremor at once of regret, pleasure and superstition pricked over +Herrick's nerves as Corey followed up this statement with an invitation +through the <i>Record</i> phone to meet him at the Pilgrims' Club and talk +some things over during lunch!</p> + +<p>"To shake the iron hand of Fate" was becoming so much the rule that +Herrick was nearly capable of feeling gripped by it even in the somewhat +remote circumstances that the Pilgrims' had been founded as a club of +actors and, overrun as it was by men of all professions and particularly +literary men, it had remained essentially a club of actors—while he, +Bryce Herrick, hastening toward it through a smart shower, had at first +conceived of his novel as a play and then, in Switzerland, been baffled +by the inaccessibility of that world! His novel, of whom the heroine had +been so unwittingly Christina Hope!—However, the low, wide portals of +the Pilgrims' received him under their great, wrought iron lanterns +without excitement and he passed, self-consciously and with a certain +shyness, into the cooling twilight of a hallway still perfectly calm and +over the lustrous, glinting sweeps of easy and quite indifferent stairs +up to an "apartment brown and booklined" that looked out on a green +park.</p> + +<p>At one of the windows Corey stood talking to a dark, heavy, vigorous man +whose face was familiar to Herrick and whom Corey introduced as Robert +Wheeler. It was a name of note but Herrick bewilderedly exclaimed "Miss +Hope's manager?" Two or three men turned to Wheeler and grinned and he, +himself, said with a gruff chuckle, yes, he supposed it had come to +that, already! Herrick's embarrassed tactlessness sought refuge in +looking out of doors.</p> + +<p>The famous square had kept its ancient privacy secure from all the +city's noise and hurry. It was still, secluded; self-sufficient with an +old-world grace; and the green park shone fresh after the shower, its +flower beds and the window boxes of its grave, dark houses gave out a +delicate, glimmering sparkle along with their moist and newly piercing +sweetness. Nothing could have been more tranquil except the cool spaces, +the dusky, sunny, airy, oak-hued shadows of the wide-windowed +club—neither could anything have been less like Mrs. Grubey's or even +Professor Herrick's idea of what an actors' club would be. The whole +place seemed to rebuke its visitor, more graciously than had Hermann +Deutch, for the feverish suggestion which Christina's calling had hinted +round her name. The blithe young gentlemen in light clothes, fussing +over with cigarette smoke and real and unreal English accents, the older +men, less saddled and bridled and fit for the fray but still with +something at once lazy and boyish in the quick sensibility of their +faces, appeared to have no very lurid intensities up their sleeve and +amid so much serene and humorous assurance Ingham senior's "sweet, good +girl," Hermann Deutch's "Miss Christina" seemed better founded in kind +and credible probabilities. She bloomed, indeed, hedged with all +proprieties in the sound of Wheeler's voice saying, "But must Miss Hope +appear at the inquest?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Corey, tartly, "since her name will add to its notoriety! +Have you forgotten our coroner?" Wheeler lifted his thick brows in +annoyance and with the same sourness of inflection Corey added, "Is it +possible any corner of the universe can for a moment forget Cuyler Ten +Euyck!"</p> + +<p>Herrick started and looked at the two men with quick eagerness. "You +don't mean—"</p> + +<p>"Precisely! The mighty in high places—Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler +Ten Euyck! No less!"</p> + +<p>Wheeler broke into a curse and then into his deep laugh, and said Miss +Hope's manager would do well to clear out before any Sherlock Holmes +with wings got to throwing his mouth around here. "I can stand his +always bringing down a curtain with 'Seventy times a millionaire—the +world is at my feet!' A man has to believe in something! But it's his +taking himself for a tin District-Attorney-on-wheels that'll get his +poor jaw broken one of these days!"</p> + +<p>Herrick's curiosity was roused to certain reminiscences and he went on +putting them together even while he followed Corey downstairs and out +onto an open gallery whose tables overlooked a little garden. As soon +as the waiter left them he asked Corey, "But—I've been so long +away—this coroner can't be the same Ten Euyck—"</p> + +<p>"Can you think there are two?"</p> + +<p>Well, the world is certainly full of entertainment! A man born to one of +the proudest names and greatest fortunes of his time serving as +coroner—coroner! That was what certain references of McGarrigle's +meant, certain newspaper flippancies. "Mr. Ten Euyck!" Herrick's extreme +youth had witnessed the historic thrill that shook society when the full +significance of the great creature's visiting-cards first burst upon a +startled and ingenuous nation! But even then Mr. Ten Euyck must have +aspired beyond social thrills and seen himself as a man of parts and +public conscience. It was not so much later that Herrick remembered him +as a literary dabbler, an amateur statesman, endeavoring by means of +elegant Ciceronics to waken his class to its duty as leader of the +people! He had then seemed merely a solemn ass who, having learned +during a long residence abroad an aristocratic notion of government, +took his caste and its duties much too seriously.—"But why coroner?"</p> + +<p>Despair, apparently, over that caste's lack of seriousness! There had +been talk of abolishing the coronership, Corey said, and Ten Euyck had +run for it. If irresponsible idlers dared to slight even the presidency +in their choice of careers let them see what could be done with the +least considerable of offices! If younger sons dared lessen class-power +by neglecting government, let them see to what Mr. Ten Euyck could +condescend in the public service! It was an old-fashioned, an old-world +ambition; the man, essentially stiff-necked, essentially egotistical, +was in no sense a reformer. "He pushes his office, upon my word, to the +diversion of the whole town; holding court, if you please, as if he were +launching a thunderbolt, making speeches and denunciations, and taking +himself for a kind of District Attorney.—I may as well say, Mr. +Herrick, that it's a black bitterness to me that that pretentious puppy +should have authority in—in dealing with Mr. James. There was never +anything cordial between them; in fact, quite the contrary. We refused a +book of his once!"</p> + +<p>"But, great heavens,—"</p> + +<p>"It was a book of plays, Mr. Herrick; blank verse and Roman +soldiery—with orations! I don't deny Mr. James's letter was a trifle +saucy; he was often not conciliating; no, not conciliating! Well, now, +it's Ten Euyck's turn. If he can soil Mr. James's memory in Miss Hope's +eyes, why, that will be just to his taste, believe me. Now I come to +think of it, I believe Miss Hope herself is rather in his black books! +It seems to me she once took part in one of the plays, and it failed. I +tell you all this, Mr. Herrick, because James Ingham had the highest +admiration for you, and had great pleasure in the hope of bringing out +your novel."</p> + +<p>Herrick gaped at him in an astonishment which had not so much as become +articulate before—such is our mortal frailty—his slight, but hitherto +persistent, repulsion from the dead man was shaken to its foundation and +moldered in dust away.</p> + +<p>"Yes, when we are ourselves again, you must bring in that manuscript. +Yes, yes, he wished it! They were almost the last words I had from him. +He was very pleased to get your letter, very pleased. He was talking +about it to Stanley, his young brother, and to me; we were all there +yesterday—think of it, Mr. Herrick, yesterday!—working out his ideas +for our new Weekly. He was always an enthusiast, a keen enthusiast, and +the Weekly was his latest enthusiasm. Its politics would have been very +different from Mr. Ten Euyck's—"</p> + +<p>A friendly visage at another table favored them with a sidelong +contortion and a warning wink. Just behind them a shrewd voice ceased +abruptly and a metallic tone responded, "Yes, but you—you're a man with +a mania!"</p> + +<p>The first voice replied, "Well, you're down on criminals and I'm down on +crime."</p> + +<p>Then Ten Euyck's was again lifted. "You're out after a criminal whom you +think corrupting and to wipe him out you'll pass by fifty of the +plainest personal guilt! In my view nobody but the corruptible is +corrupted. Any person who commits a crime belongs in the criminal +class."</p> + +<p>"Crime may end in the criminal class," the other voice took up the +challenge, "but it begins at home. You can't always pounce upon the +decayed core. But if you observe a very little speck on a healthy +surface, one of two things—either you can cut it away and save the +apple, or your tunneling will lead you farther and farther in, it will +open wider and wider and the speck will vanish, automatically, because +the whole rotten fruit will fall open in your hand."</p> + +<p>"Delightful, when it does! But in this short life I prefer the pounce!"</p> + +<p>By this time everybody was harkening and Herrick ventured to turn his +chair and look round. He beheld a sallow man, nearer forty than thirty +and as tall as himself or taller, but of a straighter and stiffer +height; with a long head, a long handsome nose and chin, long hands and +long ears. This elongated countenance was not without contradictions. +Under the sparse, squarely cut mustache Herrick was surprised to find +the lips a little pouting, and the glossily black eyes were prominent +and full. Fastidiously as he was dressed there persisted something +funereal in the effect; forward of each ear a shadow of clipped whisker +leant him the dignity of a daguerreotype. He spoke neatly, distinctly. +His excellent, strong voice was dry, cold and inflexible. On the whole +Herrick's easy and contemptuous amusement received a slight set-back.</p> + +<p>"I prefer the pounce!" To be pounced upon by that bony intensity might +not be amusing at all!</p> + +<p>Then he discovered what had changed his point of view: it had shifted a +trifle toward the criminal's! All very well for Ten Euyck's +guest—Herrick had somehow gathered that the other man was a guest—to +give up the argument, indifferently refusing to play up to his host! All +very well for the free-hearted lunchers to sit, diverted, getting +oratorical pointers from the monologue into which Ten Euyck had plunged! +It was neither the lunchers nor the guest, but Herrick who must, +to-morrow morning, appear as a witness before Ten Euyck! He would have +to tell the man something which the Inghams had asked him not to tell +because it might prove prejudicial to James Ingham—his admirer—which +Hermann Deutch had asked him not to tell because it might prove +prejudicial to Christina Hope—she whose face had been his heart's +companion through hard and lonely times! The idea of the inquest had +become exceedingly disagreeable to Herrick.</p> + +<p>And the more he listened to Ten Euyck, the more disagreeable it became; +the more he felt that a derisive audience had underestimated its man. +Ten Euyck might take himself too seriously; he might show too small a +sense of the ridiculous in loudly delivering, at luncheon, a sort of +Oration-on-the-Respect-of-Law-in-Great-Cities. But this depended on +whether you considered him as a man or a trap. The real quality in a +trap is not a sense of the ridiculous nor a delicate repugnance to +taking itself seriously. Its real quality is the ability to catch +things. And, as a trap, Herrick began to feel that Ten Euyck was made +for success.</p> + +<p>The new-born criminal actually felt an impulse to warn his unknown +accomplice how trivial gossip had been, how blind the public gaze. +Platitudes about law, yes. But, when the orator came to dealing with the +lawless, the whole man awoke. Those who broke the rules of the world's +game and yet struggled not to lose it were to him mere despicable +impertinents whose existence at large was an outrage to self-respecting +players and for what he despised he found excellent cold thrusts and +even a kind of homely and savage humor. Then, indeed, "it was not blood +which ran in his veins, but iced wine." Why, he was right to think of +himself as a prosecutor—he was born a prosecutor! In unconsciously +assuming the robes of justice he had simply found himself. To him +justice meant punishment, punishment an ideal vocation for the righteous +and life a thing continually coming up before him to be weighed, found +wanting and rebuked. To admonish, to blame, and then—with a spring—to +crush—it is a passion which grows by what it feeds on, so that even Ten +Euyck's jests had become corrections and the whole creature admirably of +one piece, untorn by conflicting beliefs and inaccessible to reason, +provocation, pity or consequences; because illegal actions—ideas, too, +daily spreading—must be suppressed at all costs by proper persons and +the patriarchal arrangement of the world rebuilt over the body of a +rebel.—Of course, as his cowed analyst admitted, with P. W. B. C. Ten +Euyck on top! Thank heaven the monster had one weak spot! As he jibed at +a newspaper cartoon of the coroner's office he displayed fully the +symptom of his disease; a raging fever of egotism. He was one to die of +a laugh and Herrick doubted if he could have survived a losing game.</p> + +<p>But when was he likely to lose? Not when, as now, he lifted the bugle of +a universal summons, calling expertly on a primitive instinct. Your +aristocrat may be a fool and a bore in your own workshop, but he is the +hereditary leader of the chase; his mounted figure convinces you he will +run down the fugitive and in the minds of men the weight of his millions +add themselves, automatically, to his hand. This huntsman had branched +off to the importance of motive in murder trials and his audience was +not smiling, now. It had warmed itself at his cold fire and the +excitement of the hunt was in the air. Ten Euyck always uttered the word +"crime" with a gusto that spat it forth, indeed, but richly scrunched; +and it was a day on which that word could not but start an electrical +contagion. Nothing definite was said, in Corey's presence; still less +was a name named—nor was any needed. But a sense of gathering issues, +of closing in on some breathless revelation thickened in the heating, +thrilling, restive atmosphere till a boy's voice said languidly, "Lead +me to the air, Reginald! This is too rich for my blood!" and they all +dropped the wet blanket of a shamefaced relief upon the coroner's +inconsiderate eloquence. The quiet guest got suddenly to his feet and +bore his host away.</p> + +<p>In a tone of tremulous scorn Corey said to Herrick, "He's grown a +mustache, you see, because Kane wears one!"</p> + +<p>"Kane?"</p> + +<p>"You've no nose for celebrities! Ten Euyck brought him here to-day to +pose before him as a literary man and before us as a political lion. But +our coroner's founded himself on Gerrish so long I don't know what'll +become of him now we've got a District-Attorney who has no particular +appetite for the scalps of women!"</p> + +<p>Kane! So the District-Attorney was the quiet guest! To Herrick's roused +apprehension Kane might just as well have been brought there to be +presented with any chance mention which might indicate some circumstance +connected with last night. And he understood too well the allusion to +Gerrish, a District-Attorney of the past whose successful prosecutions +had made a speciality of women; who had never delegated, who had always +prosecuted with especial and eloquent ardor, any case in which the +defendant was a woman, whether notorious or desperate. Herrick could +scarcely restrain a whistle; this did indeed promise a lively inquest! +Heaven help the lady of the shadow if this imitation prosecutor should +nose her out! It was, perhaps, an immoral exclamation. Yet all the +afternoon, as Herrick worked on his story for the <i>Record</i>, he could not +rout his distaste for his own evidence.</p> + +<p>Even after his late and imposing lunch he brought himself to a cheap and +early dinner, rather than go back to the Grubey flat. He affected, when +he found himself downtown, a little Italian table d'hôte in the +neighborhood of Washington Square; much frequented by foreign laborers +and so humble that a plaintive and stocky dog, a couple of peremptory +cats, and two or three staggering infants with seraphic eyes and a +chronic lack of handkerchiefs or garters generally lolled about the +beaten earth of the back yard, where the tables were spread under a +tent-like sail-cloth. It was all quaint and foreign and easy; and, so +far as might be, it was cool; on occasions, the swarthy <i>dame de +comptoir</i> was replaced by a spare, square, gray-haired woman, small and +neat and Yankee, whom it greatly diverted Herrick to see at home in such +surroundings; a little gray parrot, looking exactly like her, climbed +and see-sawed about her desk; a vine waved along the fence; the late sun +flickered on the clean coarseness of the table-cloths and jeweled them, +through the bottles of thin wine, with ruby glories; there was a +worthless, poverty-stricken charm about the place, and Herrick sat +there, early and alone, smiling to himself with, after all, a certain +sense of satisfying busyness and of having come home to life again.</p> + +<p>He had little enough wish to return to his close room where his +perplexities would be waiting for him and he lingered after dinner, +practicing his one-syllable Italian on Maria Rosa, the little eldest +daughter of the house, who trotted back and forth bearing tall glasses +of branching bread-sticks and plates of garnished sausage to where her +mother was setting a long table for some fête, and, when the guests +began to come, he still waited in his corner, idly watching.</p> + +<p>They were all men and all poor, but all lively; there was an almost +feminine sweetness in the gallantry of the Latin effervescence with +which they passed a loving-cup in some general ceremony. And no woman +could have been more beautiful than the tall Sicilian whose grave +stateliness, a little stern from the furrowing of brows still touched +with Saracen blood, faced Herrick from the table's farther end. Herrick +even inquired, as he paid his check, who this imposing creature was and +the Yankee woman replied with unconcern that he was Mr. Gumama, who ran +a pool-game at the barber's.</p> + +<p>It charmed Herrick to combine this name and occupation with the fervent +kisses which Mr. Gumama, rising majestically and swooping to the nearer +end of the table, implanted, one on each cheek, upon the hero of the +fête. All the guests, as each finished the ceremonial draught, followed +his example. None of the rest, however, had Saracen brows, nor long, +grim earrings whose fringe swing beneath three stories of gilt squares. +The Yankee woman turned contemptuously from "such monkey-shines," but +Herrick lingered till the last kiss and as he even then walked home +through the hot cloudy night it was after nine o'clock before he reached +there. He had not been in since morning and he was greatly to blame. For +he had had a caller and the caller was Cuyler Ten Euyck!</p> + +<p>The Grubeys were greatly excited by this circumstance and it excited +Herrick, too. The coroner had himself examined Ingham's apartment and +then the conscientious creature had climbed the stairs to Herrick's. He +had even waited in the hope that his witness might return. All this was +proudly poured forth while Herrick was also asked to examine a rival +public interest—a most peculiar prize which the corner saloon-keeper's +son had been awarded at a private school; he had loaned it to Johnnie +Grubey for twenty-four hours if Johnnie would let him see the revolver +with which Herrick would have shot the murderer last night if the +murderer had been there! It was a sort of return in kind; for the +school prize was also a revolver.</p> + +<p>It was a very little one and Johnnie insisted that it was solid gold. On +the handle was a monogram of three capital A's in small bright stones, +white, green and red—near them a straggling C had been wantonly +scratched. Johnnie averred that the A's stood for Algebra, Astronomy and +Art-Drawing and even had the combination of studies for one prize been +less remarkable Herrick would have suspected that the boy was lying. +What he suspected he hardly knew; still less when he discovered that +this unwontedly sympathetic prize was, after all, a fake. The little +golden pistol was not a pistol, but a curiously pointless trinket—the +cylinder was nothing but a sculptured suggestion; the toy was made all +in one piece!—"D'yeh ever see the like?" Mrs. Grubey asked him. And he +never had. It was quainter than Mr. Gumama's kisses.</p> + +<p>But Herrick's head was full of other things. As he opened his door he +grinned to think of that aristocratic scion waiting in his humble +bedroom. Well, it had been a great day! Even if he had lost heart for +that taxi-ride up the river with Evadne! And then from long habit, he +glanced at Evadne's empty place.</p> + +<p>The picture had left an unfaded spot on the wall-paper. "I suppose I +might add 'And on my heart!'" said Herrick. He lifted the concealing +newspaper. Then he went out and made inquiries. No one but Ten Euyck and +Mrs. Grubey had been in the room nor had Mrs. Grubey noticed that the +picture had been moved. Now Herrick was certain he had left the likeness +under the newspaper, lying face up. It was still under the newspaper, +but face down. He said to himself, with a shrug of annoyance, that the +coroner had made good use of his time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS</h3> + + +<p>The morning of the inquest was cloudy, with a wet wind. Herrick was +nervous, and he could not be sure whether this nervousness sprang from +the ardor of championship or accusation. But one thing was clear. +Christina Hope had slain Evadne and closed his mouth to Sal; but, at +last, he was to see her, face to face.</p> + +<p>She was there when he arrived, sitting in a corner with her mother. +Herrick recognized her at once, but with a horrid pang of +disappointment. Was this his Diana of the Winds? Or yet his Destroying +Angel? This was only a tall quiet girl in a gray gown. To be more exact +it was a gray ratine suit, with a broad white collar, and her small gray +hat seemed to fold itself close in to the shape of her little head; the +low coil of her hair was very smooth. Herrick observed with something +oddly akin to satisfaction that he had been right about her +coloring—there were the fair skin, the brown hair, the eyes cool as +gray water. Under these to-day there were dark shadows and her face was +shockingly pale.</p> + +<p>The first witness called was a Doctor Andrews. After the preliminary +questions as to name, age, and so forth, he was asked, "You reside in +the Van Dam Apartments?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"On what floor?"</p> + +<p>"The ninth."</p> + +<p>"On the night of August fifth did you hear any unusual sounds?"</p> + +<p>"Not until I heard the pistol-shot—that is, except Mr. Ingham, playing +his piano—if you could call that unusual."</p> + +<p>"He often played late at night?"</p> + +<p>"He had been away during the summer; but, before that, there was a great +deal of complaint. He gave a great many supper-parties; at the same +time, he was such a charming fellow that people forgave him whenever he +wished. Besides, he was a magnificent musician."</p> + +<p>"Were there ladies at these supper-parties?"</p> + +<p>"Not to my personal knowledge."</p> + +<p>"What did you do, Dr. Andrews, when you heard the shot?"</p> + +<p>"I looked out of the window, and saw nothing. I thought I might have +been mistaken; it might have been a tire bursting. But I noticed that +the piano had stopped."</p> + +<p>After the shot the witness had remained restless.</p> + +<p>"Presently I thought I heard some one hammering. I got up again and +opened the door and then I heard it distinctly. I know now that it was +the efforts of Mr. Herrick to break Ingham's lock with a revolver. I +could hear a mixture of sounds—movements. I went back and began to get +my clothes on and when I was nearly dressed my 'phone rang."</p> + +<p>"Tell us what it said."</p> + +<p>"It was the voice of the superintendent saying, 'Please come down to 4-B +in a hurry, Dr. Andrews. Mr. Ingham's shot himself.'"</p> + +<p>"And you went?"</p> + +<p>"Immediately."</p> + +<p>"He was dead on your arrival?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"How long should you, as a physician, say it was since death occurred?"</p> + +<p>"Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>"Had the death been instantaneous?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. He was shot through the heart."</p> + +<p>"Then, in your opinion, if the deceased had taken his own life, he could +not have sprung off the electric lights, nor in any fashion done away +with the weapon, after the shot."</p> + +<p>"He certainly could not."</p> + +<p>"In your professional opinion, then, he did not commit suicide?"</p> + +<p>"There is no question of an opinion. I know he did not."</p> + +<p>"You are very positive, Dr. Andrews?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely positive. Death was instantaneous. Also, there was no powder +about the wound, showing that the shot had been fired from a distance of +four feet or more. Also, the body did not lie where it had fallen."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"There was a little puddle of blood in the sitting-room, where Ingham +fell. Your physician and myself called the attention of the police to +marks on the rugs following a trail of drops of blood into the bedroom +where the body was found."</p> + +<p>"You do not think that the deceased could have crawled or staggered +there, after the shooting?"</p> + +<p>"I do not."</p> + +<p>"You believe that the body was dragged there, after death?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You remained with the body until the arrival of myself and Doctor +Shippe?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Dr. Andrews, the apartment in which the shooting occurred had no access +to the windows of any other apartment, no fire-escape, and no means of +egress except through a door which was found bolted on the inside. +Suppose that a murder was committed. Have you any theory accounting for +the murderer's escape?"</p> + +<p>"None whatever."</p> + +<p>"And does not the absence of all apparent means of escape shake your +theory of the impossibility of suicide?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. It is unshakable."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. That will do."</p> + +<p>The coroner's physician confirmed Dr. Andrews in every particular. The +coroner settled back and seemed to pause. And the listeners drew a long +breath. Something at least had been decided. It was not suicide. It was +murder.</p> + +<p>This had been established so completely and so early in the examination +that Herrick found himself impressed with the idea of the coroner's +knowing pretty distinctly what he was about. It seemed that he might +very well have some theory to establish, for which, in the first place, +he had now cleared the ground. Herrick stole a glance at Deutch. His +face was wet and colorless, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. And then, +curious to note the effect of hearing her lover proclaimed foully +murdered, he permitted himself the cruelty of looking at Miss Hope. +Apparently it had no effect on her at all. Her mother, a slight, +handsome woman, very fashionably turned out, followed eagerly every +suggestion of the evidence. But the girl still sat with lowered eyes.</p> + +<p>The next evidence, that of the police, threw no further light; and then +came the tremulous Theodore of Herrick's acquaintance whose surname +transpired as Bird.</p> + +<p>Bird, too, had been awake and had heard the shot; he had been fully +aware from the first that it was a pistol-shot. He and Mrs. Bird had +risen and put up the chain on their door, and then he had telephoned to +the superintendent.</p> + +<p>"Did the hall-boy connect you at once?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't the hall-boy. It's the night-elevator-boy."</p> + +<p>"Well, did the night-elevator-boy connect you at once?"</p> + +<p>"No, I was a long time getting him."</p> + +<p>"The boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Ah! He, at least, was able to sleep. But, after you got him, was your +connection with the superintendent immediate?"</p> + +<p>"Almost immediate, I guess."</p> + +<p>"It didn't strike you that he was purposely delaying?"</p> + +<p>The listeners leaned forward. And Herrick, as at a touch home, dropped +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why, I couldn't say that it did. No, hardly. Besides, he might have +been asleep, too."</p> + +<p>"Ah! So he might. And what was the first thing he said to you?"</p> + +<p>"Through the 'phone?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Through the 'phone."</p> + +<p>"He said, 'What is it?'" (Slight laughter from the crowd.)</p> + +<p>"Well? Go on!"</p> + +<p>"I said, 'Excuse me. But I heard a shot just now, in 4-B.' And he said, +'A pistol-shot?' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Do you think somebody +has got hurt?' And I said, 'I'm afraid so.' Then he said, 'Well, I'll +come up.'"</p> + +<p>"Did he seem excited?"</p> + +<p>"Not so much as I was."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bird, though she described at some length her forethought in +dressing and getting their valuables together, had nothing material to +add. Nor had the widow and her son in the apartment below that in which +the catastrophe took place; nor the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Willing, in the +apartment across the court which had been invaded as a look-out station +by the police, anything further to relate; until, indeed, the lady +stumbled upon the phrase—"The party had been going on for some time."</p> + +<p>"In 4-B?"</p> + +<p>"What? Yes."</p> + +<p>"What made you think there was a party going on in 4-B?"</p> + +<p>"There were voices. And then he often had them."</p> + +<p>"Did you, as a near neighbor, ever observe that there were any ladies at +these parties?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't like to say."</p> + +<p>"I see. Well, on this occasion, how many voices were there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"About how many? Two? A dozen? Twenty?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not many at all. There was poor Mr. Ingham's voice, nearly all the +time. And maybe a couple of others. I was in my bedroom, trying to +sleep, and the piano was going all the time."</p> + +<p>"I see. So there may have been two or three persons besides Mr. Ingham, +and there may have been only one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. At times I was pretty sure I heard another voice. I mean a +third one, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Could you swear you heard a third voice at all?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't believe I could exactly. No."</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Willing, I want you to be very careful. And I want you to try +and remember. Please tell exactly all that you can remember about what I +am going to ask you and nothing more."</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, you're frightening me dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to frighten you. But I do want you to think. Now. You are +certain you heard at least two voices?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am, I—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ingham's and one other?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Was that other voice the voice of a man?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"It was a woman's voice?"</p> + +<p>"I—I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, I am."</p> + +<p>"Was it angry, excited?"</p> + +<p>"Toward the end it was."</p> + +<p>"As if the speaker were losing control of herself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Willing, had you ever heard it before?"</p> + +<p>"The woman's voice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I can't be sure."</p> + +<p>"What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I thought I had, yes. I told Mr. Willing so. He'd been to a +bridge party upstairs and he came down just along there."</p> + +<p>"You recognized it then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, toward the end I thought I did; yes."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Willing, whose was that voice?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir,—I—I'd rather not say!"</p> + +<p>"You must say, Mrs. Willing."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll just say I don't know."</p> + +<p>"That won't do, Mrs. Willing.—When you told your husband that you +thought you recognized that voice, exactly what did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I said—oh!—I—Well, what I said was 'That's that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.'"</p> + +<p>"Ah!—And, now, I suppose you know the name of the actress he was +engaged to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. She's Miss Hope. Christina Hope her name is. Of course, +I haven't said I was sure!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you. That will do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED</h3> + + +<p>A thrill shook the assemblage. It was plain enough now to what goal was +the coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all along +had been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall, +dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become something +sinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wild +animal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gasp +and rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and then +collapsing in his seat, with a muffled croak. His wife frowned; clucking +indignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspected +girl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that she +was much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You will +have your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back with +exclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressed +it lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintained +her composure intact.</p> + +<p>But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed a +long, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. It +was the expression of a very good and very serious child who regards +earnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Once +she had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there.</p> + +<p>In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exact +profile occasioned by her change of attitude, Herrick began once more +to see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there <i>was</i> something +royally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in that +obstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thus +expectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall little +girl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By God, he was branding +her!—"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called.</p> + +<p>The young man was aware at once of being a local celebrity. His evidence +was to be one of the treats of the day. Not even the attack upon +Christina had created a much greater stir. He took his place; and, "At +last," said the coroner, "we are, I believe, to hear from somebody who +saw <i>something</i>."</p> + +<p>Herrick told his story almost without interruption. He was listened to +in flattering silence; the young author had never had a public which +hung so intently on his words. The silence upon which he finished was +still hungry.</p> + +<p>The coroner drew a long breath. "We're greatly obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick. And now let us get this thing straight. It was one o'clock or +thereabouts that Mr. Ingham began to play?"</p> + +<p>They established the time and they went over every minutest detail of +changing spirit in Ingham's music.</p> + +<p>"That crash which waked you for the second time—do you think it could +have been occasioned by an attack on Mr. Ingham?—that he may have been +struck and thrown against the piano?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all. It was a perfectly deliberate discord, a kind of +hellish eloquence."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I'm obliged to you for that phrase, Mr. Herrick." And again he was +asked—"That gesture which so greatly impressed you—do you think you +could repeat it for us?"</p> + +<p>Herrick quelled the impulse to reply, "Not without making a damned fool +of myself," and substituted, "I can describe it."</p> + +<p>"Kindly do so."</p> + +<p>"She threw her arm high up, as high as it would go, but at a very wide +angle from her body, and at that time her hand was clenched. But while +the arm was still stretched out, she slowly opened her fingers, as if +they were of some stiff mechanism—and it seemed to me that it was the +violence of her feeling they were stiff with—until the whole hand was +open, like a stretched gauntlet."</p> + +<p>"Well, and then, when she took down her hand?"</p> + +<p>"She drew it in toward her quickly; I had an idea she might have covered +her face."</p> + +<p>"And then she disappeared?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but she seemed to dip a little forward."</p> + +<p>"As if to pick something up?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not as much as from the floor; no."</p> + +<p>"From a chair, then, or the couch?"</p> + +<p>"Possibly."</p> + +<p>"She would, standing at the window, have been some five or six feet from +the piano, where Ingham sat?"</p> + +<p>"I should say about that."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, are you absolutely sure that this was not until after the +shooting?—this forward dip?"</p> + +<p>"After? No, it was before!"</p> + +<p>"Ah—And directly after the shot the lights went out?"</p> + +<p>"Directly after. Almost as if the shot had put them out."</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. Herrick, you have testified that from, as you say, the vague +outline of the hair and shoulders and the slope of her skirts, and from +the fact that when she raised her arm there was a bit of lace, or +something of the kind, hanging from her sleeve, you were perfectly sure +that this shadow was the shadow of a woman. Yet you still could not in +the least determine anything whatever of her appearance. That I can +quite understand. But didn't you gather, nevertheless, some notion of +her personality?"</p> + +<p>Herrick avoided Deutch's eye. He said—"I don't think so."</p> + +<p>"That extraordinary movement, then, did not leave upon you a very +distinct impression?"</p> + +<p>"In what way?"</p> + +<p>"An impression of a lady not much concerned with social constraint or +emotional control; and of a very great habitual ease and flexibility in +movement."</p> + +<p>Herrick managed to smile. "I'm afraid I'm no such observer as all that. +Perhaps any lady, within sixty seconds of committing murder, is a little +indifferent to social constraint."</p> + +<p>The coroner looked at him with a slight change of expression. "Well, +then, let us put it another way. You would not expect to see your +mother, or your sister, or any lady of your own class, make such a +gesture? No? Yet you must often have seen an actress do so?"</p> + +<p>"That doesn't follow!" Herrick said. His flush resented for Christina +the slur that his words overlooked. And suddenly words escaped him. "You +answered the previous question yourself, remember! Be kind enough not to +confuse my evidence with yours!"</p> + +<p>The coroner studied him a long time without speaking, while the young +man's color continued to rise, and at length came the comment, "I'm not +falling asleep, Mr. Herrick. I'm only wondering what charming influence +has been at work with the natural appetite, at your age, for discussing +an actress."</p> + +<p>"Ask me that later, outside your official capacity," said Herrick hotly, +"and we'll see if we can't find an answer!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, why, on the morning after the murder, did you take down +Miss Hope's photograph from over your desk?"</p> + +<p>"Because, never having met Miss Hope, it was a photograph I had no right +to. I took it down when I learned the identity of the original. I didn't +want its presence to be misconstrued by cads."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. That will do. Hermann Deutch, if you please."</p> + +<p>Herrick retired, ruffled and angry at himself; and Deutch, in passing +him, cast him a clinging glance, as of a fellow conspirator, that he +found strangely indigestible. At Christina, he could not look.</p> + +<p>It did not take the coroner two minutes to make hay of Mr. Deutch. Not, +indeed, that he was able to extract any very damaging admissions. The +superintendent said that he was wakened by his wife, who had herself +been wakened by the 'phone. He had held the before stated conversation +with Mr. Bird, and, not being able to get the elevator, had walked +upstairs, being joined in the office by a policeman. The rest of his +proceedings were unquestionable. But the coroner, an expert in +caricature and bullying and the twisting of phrases, by making him +appear ridiculous, managed to make him appear mendacious; this was the +easier because every now and then there was a slip in the sense of what +he said, as if he had forgotten the meaning of words; he certainly +perspired more than was at all persuasive; he soon began to stumble and +to contradict himself about nothing; his slight accent thickened and, in +a syntax with which his German tongue was habitually glib, but not +accurate, he was soon making errors laughably contemptible to a public +that presumably expressed itself with equal elegance in all languages. +So that presently, when he was sufficiently harrowed, the coroner drew +from him an admission; not only had Ingham frequently entertained ladies +at his supper-parties, but complaints had been made to Deutch by various +tenants, and these complaints he had not transmitted to the owners of +the apartment house. The most searching inquiry failed to connect +Christina with these parties, but the inference was obvious.</p> + +<p>"I didn't,"—Mr. Deutch burst forth—"keep 'em quiet any because she was +there. She wouldn't have touched such doings, not with the sole of her +foot. But I didn't want the gentleman she was engaged to should be put +out of the house when I was running it, after her recommending it to +him, on my account!" His eyes and his voice were full of exasperated +tears. "He'd have told her one lie and yet another and another, and +she'd have believed him, and he'd have wanted her to fight me. Not that +she would. But he was fierce against her friends, any of 'em. And I +didn't want she should have no more trouble than what she had with him +already."</p> + +<p>"Very kind of you. Nature made you for a squire of dames, Mr. Deutch. +Miss Hope, now,—you are a particularly old friend of hers, I believe. +And I understand you would do a great deal for her."</p> + +<p>"I'd do anything at all for her."</p> + +<p>"I see." All that was crouching in the coroner coiled and sprang. "Even +to committing perjury for her, Mr. Deutch. Even to concealing a murder +for her sake?—Silence!" he commanded Christina's friends.</p> + +<p>In the sudden deathly stillness Deutch lifted his head. He looked at the +coroner with the eyes of a lion, and in a firm voice he replied, "Say, +when you speak like that about a lady, Mr. Coroner, you want to look out +you don't go a little too far."</p> + +<p>"I am about to call a witness," said the coroner, with his cold laugh, +"who will go even farther. Joseph Patrick, please!"</p> + +<p>Joe Patrick was the night-elevator boy.</p> + +<p>People stared about them. No witness. The coroner's man came forward, +saying something about "telephoned—accident—get here shortly."</p> + +<p>"See that he does,—The day-elevator boy in court!"</p> + +<p>Disappointment reigned. After the glorious baiting of one whose race +went so long a way to make him fair game, almost anything would have +been an anti-climax. There now advanced for their delectation a slim, +blond, anemic, peevish youth, feeble yet cocky, almost as much like a +faded flower from a somewhat degenerated stalk as if he had been nipping +down Fifth Avenue under a silk hat, and whose name of Willie Clarence +Dodd proclaimed him of the purest Christian blood. Yet the stare of the +assembly wandered from him, passed, grinning, where Deutch sat with +hanging head, and settled down to feed upon the pallor of Christina's +cheek. Herrick rose suddenly, displacing, as it were, a great deal of +atmosphere with his large person, and stalking across the room, pulled +up a chair to Deutch's side. If he had clasped and held that plump, that +trembling hand, his intention could not have been more obvious. +Christina turned her head a little and, with no change of expression, +looked at him for a moment. Then she turned back again to Willie +Clarence Dodd. That gentleman, ogling her with a canny glance, affably +tipped his hat to her, and she bowed to him with utter gravity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dodd was a gentleman cherishing a just grudge. By the accident of +bringing him into day-service instead of night-service, when there was a +murder up her sleeve, Fate had balked him of his legitimate rights in +life. Notoriety had been near him, but it had escaped. Mr. Dodd's +self-satisfaction, however, was not easily downed. He had still a card +to play, and he played it as jauntily as if doom had not despoiled him +of his due. He smiled. And he had a right to. The first important +question asked him ran—"On the day after Mr. Ingham's return from +Europe—the day, in fact, of his death—did Mr. Ingham have any +callers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. He had one."</p> + +<p>Interest leaped to him. He bloomed with it.</p> + +<p>Apart from interruptions, his story ran—"Yes, sir. A lady. Quite a +good-looker. Medium height. Might make you look round for a white horse; +but curls, natural. Very neat dresser and up-to-date. Cute little feet. +She wouldn't give her name. But not one o' <i>that</i> sort, you understand. +She came up to me—the telephone girl was sick and I was onto her +job—and she says to me, very low, as if she'd kind of gone back on +herself,—'Will you kindly tell Mr. James Ingham that the lady he +expects is here?' He came down livelier than I'd ever known him, and she +said it was good of him to see her and they sat down on the window-seat. +That's one thing where the Van Dam's on the bum—no parlor. I was really +sorry for the little lady—no, not short, but the kind a man just +naturally calls little—she was so nervous and she talked about as loud +as a mouse; I guess he felt the same way, for he says, 'Won't you come +upstairs to tell me all this? We shall be quite undisturbed,' he says. +And while they were waiting for the elevator—the hall-boy wasn't much +on running it—she says to him, 'You understand; I don't want to get +Christina into any trouble.' And he says, 'Of course; that is all quite +understood.' In about half an hour down they came together and he had +his hat. He wanted to send her off in a cab, but she wouldn't let him. +The minute she was gone he says to me, ''Phone for a taxi!' They didn't +answer, and he says, 'Ring like the devil!' It hadn't stopped at the +door when he was in it and off."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't, of course, hear his direction?"</p> + +<p>"Nop! He got back about six—chewing the rag, but on the quiet. Went out +in his dress suit about seven-thirty. I went off at eight."</p> + +<p>He was dismissed, strutting.</p> + +<p>"And now let us get down to business. If you please," said the coroner, +"Miss Christina Hope."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>JOE PATRICK ARRIVES</h3> + + +<p>If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had, +as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither of +them stooped to signify it now.</p> + +<p>"Your name, if you please?"</p> + +<p>"Christina Hope."</p> + +<p>"Occupation?"</p> + +<p>"Actress."</p> + +<p>"May one ask a lady's age?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two years."</p> + +<p>She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. — West 93rd +Street. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these dry +preliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaning +forward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could give +them. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand—"Unless, +of course, you would rather I did not."</p> + +<p>The coroner replied to this biddable appeal—"I shan't keep you a moment +longer than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very few +questions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject; +and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call +<i>personally</i> intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hope +you will answer as fully as possible in the same cause."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly."</p> + +<p>"You were engaged to be married to Mr. Ingham, Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When did this engagement take place?"</p> + +<p>"About a year ago."</p> + +<p>"And your understanding with him remained unimpaired up to his death?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When did you last see him alive?"</p> + +<p>"On the day before he—died. He drove to our house from the ship."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Very natural, very natural and proper. But surely you dined +together? Or met again during the next twenty-four hours?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No? What were you doing on the evening of the fourth of August—the +evening of his death?"</p> + +<p>"My mother and I dined alone, at home. We were neither of us in good +spirits. I had had a bad day at rehearsal—everything had gone wrong. My +head ached and my mother was worn out with trying to get our house in +order; it was a new house, we were just moving in."</p> + +<p>"You rented a new house just as you were going to be married?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was why. I was determined not to be married out of a flat."</p> + +<p>A smile of sympathy stirred through her audience. It might be stupidity +which kept her from showing any resentment toward a man who had +practically accused her of murder. Or, it might be guilt. But she was so +young, so docile, so demure! Her voice was so low and it came in such +shy breaths—there was something so immature in the little rushes and +hesitations of it. She seemed such a sweet young lady! After all, they +didn't want to feed her to the tigers yet awhile!</p> + +<p>And the coroner was instantly aware of this. "Then your mother," he +said, "is the only person who can corroborate your story of how you +passed that evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How did you pass it?"</p> + +<p>"I worked on my part until after eleven, but I couldn't get it. Then I +took a letter of my mother's out to the post-box."</p> + +<p>"At that hour! Alone!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I am an actress; I am not afraid. And I wanted the air."</p> + +<p>"You came straight home?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"While you were out did any neighbor see you? Did you speak to any one?"</p> + +<p>"On the way to the post-box I saw Mrs. Johnson, who lives two doors +below and who had told us about the house being for rent. She is the +only person whom I know in the neighborhood. On the way back I met no +one."</p> + +<p>"Then no one saw you re-enter the house?"</p> + +<p>"I think not."</p> + +<p>"Did the maid let you in?"</p> + +<p>"No, I had my key. The maids had gone to bed."</p> + +<p>"But it was a very hot night. People sat up late, with all their windows +open, and caretakers in particular must have been sitting on the steps, +some one must have seen you return."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they did."</p> + +<p>"Did you, yourself, notice no one whom we can summon as a witness to +your return?"</p> + +<p>"No one."</p> + +<p>"What did you do when you came in?"</p> + +<p>"I went to bed."</p> + +<p>"You do not sleep in the same room with your mother?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"On the same floor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you lock your door?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless something had happened; no."</p> + +<p>"Could you pass her door without her hearing you?"</p> + +<p>"I should suppose so. I never tried."</p> + +<p>"So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that you +returned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?"</p> + +<p>"No," Christina breathed.</p> + +<p>"Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but when +and how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?"</p> + +<p>"In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I could +hear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so ill +I did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, and +I wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must be +time, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bring +up my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; and +she said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something has +happened.'"</p> + +<p>The naïveté of Christina's phrases sank to an awed whisper; her eyes +were very fixed, like those of a child hypnotized by its own vision.</p> + +<p>"I saw then that she was trying not to tremble and that she had been +crying. She couldn't deny it, and so she told me that Mr. Ingham was +very, very ill, and she let me get up and helped me to dress. But then, +when I must see other people—she told me—she told me—"</p> + +<p>Christina's throat swelled and her eyes filled suddenly with tears.</p> + +<p>The coroner, cursing the sympathy of the situation, forced himself to a +commiserating, "Did she say how he died?"</p> + +<p>"She told me it was an accident. I said, 'What kind of an accident?' And +she said he was shot. 'But,' I said, 'how could he be shot by an +accident? He didn't have any pistol? You know he didn't own such a +thing.'" A slight sensation traversed the court. "Then it came out—that +no one knew—that people were saying it was—murder—"</p> + +<p>"Do you believe that, Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to believe."</p> + +<p>"Did Mr. Ingham have any enemies?"</p> + +<p>"I knew of none."</p> + +<p>"From your intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingham's affairs you know of no +one, either with a grudge to satisfy or a profit to be made, by his +death?"</p> + +<p>"No. No one at all."</p> + +<p>"So that you have really no theory as to how this terrible thing +happened?"</p> + +<p>"No, really, I haven't."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I suppose we may excuse you, Miss Hope."</p> + +<p>The girl, with her tranquil but slightly timid dignity, inclined her +head, and heaving a deep sigh of relief, turned away.—</p> + +<p>—"Oh, by the way, Miss Hope,—" And suddenly, with a violent change of +manner, he began to beat her down by the tactics which he had used with +Deutch. But with how different a result! Nothing could make that pale, +tall girl ridiculous. Scarcely speaking above a breath, she answered +question after question and patiently turned aside insult after insult. +He found no opposition, no confusion, no reticence; nothing but that +soft yielding, that plaintive ingenuousness. The crudest jokes, the +cruelest thrusts still left her anxiously endeavoring to convey desired +information. He took her back over her relations with Ingham, their +interview upon his return, the events of the last evening, with an +instance and a repetition that wearied even the auditors to distraction; +he would let her run on a little in her answers and then bring her up +with a round turn; twenty times he took with her that journey to and +from the post-box and examined every step, and still her replies ran +like sand through his fingers and left no trace behind. But, at last, +she put out a hand toward the chair she had rejected, and sank slowly +into it. Then indeed it became plain that she was profoundly exhausted.</p> + +<p>And because her exhaustion was so natural and so pitiable, the coroner, +watching its effect, said, "Well, I can think of nothing more to ask +you, Miss Hope. I suppose it would be useless to inquire whether, being +familiar with the apartment, you could suggest any way in which, the +door being bolted, the murderer could have escaped?"</p> + +<p>Christina looked up at him with a very faint smile and with her humble +sweetness that had become almost stupidity, she said, "Perhaps the +murderer wasn't in the apartment at all!"</p> + +<p>The whole roomful of tired people sat up. "Not in the apartment! And +where, then, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Christina, softly, "he could have been shot through an open +window, I suppose. Of course, I'm only a woman, and I shouldn't like to +suggest anything. Because, of course, I'm not clever, as a lawyer is. +But—"</p> + +<p>"Well, we're waiting for this suggestion!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—Well, it seems to me that when this lady, whose shadow excited the +young gentleman so much, disappeared as if it went forward, perhaps it +did go forward, perhaps she ran out of the room. You can see—if you +don't mind stopping to think about it—that she must have been standing +right opposite the door. If she had been quarreling with Mr. Ingham, he +may have bolted the door after her. I don't know if you've looked—but +the button for the lights is right there—in the panel of the wall +between the door and the bedroom arch. Mr. Ingham was a very nervous, +emotional person. If there had been a scene, he might very well have +meant to switch the lights out after her, too. If he had his finger on +the button when the bullet struck him, he might very well, in the shock, +have pressed it. And then the lights would have gone out, almost as if +the bullet had put them out, just as the young man says. But, of course, +if this were what had happened, you would have thought of it for +yourself." And she looked up meekly at him, with her sweet smile.</p> + +<p>The coroner smiled, too, with compressed lips, and putting his hands in +his pockets, threw back his head. "And how do you think, then, that—if +he was killed instantly, as the doctors have testified,—the corpse +walked into the bedroom, where it was found?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Christina, "I can't account for everything! I'm not an +observer, like you! But there has never been, has there, a doctor who +was ever wrong? Of course, I don't pretend to know."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a pretty theory, my dear young lady, and I'm sure you mean +to work it out for us all you can. So give us a hint where this bullet, +coming through an open window, was fired from."</p> + +<p>"It could have been fired from the apartment opposite. Across the +entrance-court. You remember, the policeman who went in there found that +the windows exactly—do you call it 'tallied'?"</p> + +<p>"Very good, Miss Hope. If it were an unoccupied apartment. But it is +occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willing, and Mrs. Willing was in the apartment +the entire evening."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christina, turning and looking pleasantly at the lady +mentioned, "alone." Then she was silent.</p> + +<p>After a staggered instant, the coroner asked, "And what became of this +lady who ran out into the hall?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course," said Christina, sweetly, "if it was Mrs. Willing—"</p> + +<p>The Willings leaped to their feet. "This is ridiculous! This is an +outrage! Why!" cried the husband, "his blind opposite our sitting-room +was down all the time. There isn't even a hole through it where a shot +would have passed!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't there?" asked Christina. "You see, it wasn't I who knew +that!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, you wicked girl! How dare you! Why, you heard the +policeman say that it was only when he looked through our bedroom that +he could see into Mr. Ingham's apartment—"</p> + +<p>"And wasn't it in the bedroom that the body was found?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Hope!" said the coroner, sternly, "I must ask you not to +perpetrate jokes. You know perfectly well that your implied charge +against Mrs. Willing is perfectly ridiculous—"</p> + +<p>"Is it?" Christina interrupted, "she implied it about me!"</p> + +<p>And for the first time she lifted to his a glance alight with the +faintest mockery of malice; a wintry gleam, within the white exhaustion +of her face. Then,—if all the time she had been playing a part—then, +if ever, she was off her guard.</p> + +<p>And she could not see what Herrick, from his angle, could see very well; +that the coroner had been quietly slipping something from his desk into +his hand, and was now dangling it behind his back.</p> + +<p>This something was the scarf found on Ingham's table—that white scarf +with its silky border, cloudy, watery, of blue glimmering into gray. How +the tender, misty coloring recalled that room of Ingham's!</p> + +<p>"Don't you know very well, Miss Hope," the coroner went on, "that Mrs. +Willing had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Ingham's death?"</p> + +<p>"How can I? You see, I wasn't there!"</p> + +<p>"So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?"</p> + +<p>He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face. +And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well have +knotted it about her neck.</p> + +<p>And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said, +"Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to ask +you if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, might +have been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on him +that afternoon."</p> + +<p>With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded, +"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Neither can you tell us, I suppose,—it would straighten matters out +greatly—who that caller was?"</p> + +<p>"No, I can't. I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and pretty +young ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Dodd +informs us, with cute little feet?"</p> + +<p>Christina was silent.</p> + +<p>"What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiancé—'I don't +wish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice, +now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us the +address of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!"</p> + +<p>The girl opened her pale lips to breathe forth, "I can't tell you! I +don't know!"</p> + +<p>"Let us assist your memory, Miss Hope, by recalling to you the lady's +name. Her name is Ann Cornish."</p> + +<p>Herrick's nerves leaped like a frightened horse. And then he saw +Christina start from her chair, and, casting round her a wild glance +that seemed to cry for help, drop back again and put her hands over her +face. A dozen people sprang to their feet.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hope ran to her daughter's side, closely followed by Mrs. Deutch. +The two women, crying forth indignation and comfort, and exclaiming that +the girl was worn out and ought to be in bed, rubbed Christina's head, +and began to chafe her hands. She was half fainting; but when a glass of +whiskey had appeared from somewhere and Mrs. Deutch had forced a few +drops between her lips, Christina, unlike the heroine of romance whose +faints always refuse stimulants, lifted her head and drank a mouthful +greedily. She sat there then, breathing through open lips, with a trace +of color mounting in her face.</p> + +<p>Then the coroner, once more commanding attention, held up a slip of +pasteboard. "This visiting-card," he said, "is engraved with Miss +Cornish's name, but with no address. It was found leaning against a +candlestick on Mr. Ingham's piano, as though he wished to keep it +certainly in mind. As a still further reminder, Mr. Ingham himself had +written on it in pencil—'At four.'"</p> + +<p>Christina, with the gentlest authority, put back her friends. She rose, +slowly and weakly, to her feet. "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to +correct a false impression; may I?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false impression; may I?"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"That's what we're here for, my dear young lady," the coroner scornfully +replied.</p> + +<p>"I have said nothing," she went on, "that is not true, but I have +allowed something to be inferred which is not true." She pressed her +hands together and drew a long breath. "It is true that I was engaged to +Mr. Ingham. And when you asked me if our understanding was unimpaired at +the time of his death, I said yes; for, believe me, our understanding +then was better than it had ever been before. But that was not what you +meant. I will answer what you meant, now. At the time of his death, I +was not engaged to marry Mr. Ingham."</p> + +<p>"You were not! Why not?"</p> + +<p>"We had quarreled."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"The day before he died."</p> + +<p>An intense excitement began to prevail. Herrick longed to stand up and +shout, to warn her, to muzzle her. Good God! was it possible she +didn't see what she was doing? The coroner, weary man, sat back with a +long sigh of satisfaction. His whole attitude said, "Now we're coming to +it."</p> + +<p>"And may one ask an awkward question, Miss Hope? Who broke the +engagement?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, <i>naturally</i>. And may one ask why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I began to think that life with Mr. Ingham would not be +possible to me."</p> + +<p>"But on what grounds?"</p> + +<p>"He was grossly and insanely jealous," said Christina, flushing. "Some +women enjoy that sort of thing; I don't."</p> + +<p>"Jealous of anyone in particular, Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Only," said Christina, "of everyone in particular."</p> + +<p>"There was never, of course, any grounds for this jealousy?"</p> + +<p>Christina looked through him without replying.</p> + +<p>"Well, well. And was there nothing but this?"</p> + +<p>"He objected to my profession; and when I was first in love with him I +thought that I could give it up for his sake. But as I came to know more +of—everything—and to understand more of myself, I knew that I could +not. And I would not."</p> + +<p>"So that it was partly Mr. Ingham, himself, in his insistence upon your +renouncing your profession, who broke the engagement?"</p> + +<p>"If you like."</p> + +<p>"At least, your continuance in it made his jealousy more active?"</p> + +<p>"It made it unbearable. And as it gradually became clear to me that he +scarcely pretended to practise even the rudiments of the fidelity that +he exacted, it seemed to me that there were limits to the insults which +even a gentleman may offer to his betrothed. And I—freed myself."</p> + +<p>Two or three people exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>"Was the engagement ever broken before and patched up again?"</p> + +<p>"We had quarreled before, but not definitely. Last spring I asked him to +release me, and he would not. But he consented to my remaining on the +stage, and to going away for the summer, so that I could think things +out."</p> + +<p>"And you immediately took a house from which to be married!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I tried to go on with it. I thought furnishing it might make me +want to. But I couldn't. I wrote him so, and he came home. While he was +on the ocean I found out something which made any marrying between us +utterly impossible. When he drove to my house the day before he was +killed, I told him so. We had a terrible scene, but he knew then as well +as I that it was the end. I never saw him again."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, then, the definite breaking of the engagement was +caused by something new and wholly extraneous to your profession or his +jealousy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that." +And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't know +what I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me? +But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know, +now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It +had nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simply +something—monstrous—which happened a long time ago. But, between us +two, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. And +you can never make me."</p> + +<p>"And you don't know Ann Cornish?"</p> + +<p>Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bear +to have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christina +added, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And, +besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she never +had an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill of +me. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Her +address is—" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied. +"She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress, +poor child!"</p> + +<p>"Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean,—you don't care +about appearing innocent any longer?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through this +afternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You've +made me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn and +twist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and now +that I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if you +choose!"</p> + +<p>Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes, +impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Not +to have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in this +horrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worry +me, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you! +I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have a +career, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to kill +me for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hated +women—once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;—how you copied an +attorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by the +persecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard as +when she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed to +every scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answer +everything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old, +and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For if +you imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, it +is easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him like +that, oh, you are wrong—and my nerves are all in shreds. So that it +seemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated, +and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defend +myself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To be +judged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading. +But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to make +people believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a little +choking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother, +and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't prove +that I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It's +worse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you think +I would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day? +I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm all +alone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and sat +down beside her mother.</p> + +<p>Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash such +different lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentiments +of a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knew +what to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly more +conciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishly +into her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have melted +the public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against the +wall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down her +unshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forward +across his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "My +friends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardly +expect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for a +witness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us get +into shape what we have already learned.—The first thing of which we +are sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of the +third of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss Christina +Hope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that house +their engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that he +disapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and that +they quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have no +witness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will ask +you to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statement +that it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement.</p> + +<p>"Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is that +Mr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, had +an appointment with a lady for four o'clock—an appointment the hour of +which he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady's +visiting-card, and stood the card against a candle on his piano. Our +next facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had a +private interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, as +soon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, and +that he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitement +of some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you should +bring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and in +questioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham, +then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon the +great clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you have +clearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish was +not a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledged +lovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend, +and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr. +Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham, +and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for she +said—'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found the +information important, for he soon wished it told him at greater length +upstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees; +although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, I +ask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to get +Christina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses to +give her name come to a specially attractive man with news of her +dearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry—news +for which she feels it necessary to apologize—for but one of two +reasons;—either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injure +her friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man and +jealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend's +legitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her point +for she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparently +failed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture.</p> + +<p>"Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge of +facts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening, +expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to be +admitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy, +and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; that +despite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham's +apartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the only +visitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy, +Joseph Patrick, all this must wait.</p> + +<p>"Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham's +playing at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was after +eleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box, +and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spoken +with her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Ingham +played, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began to +be the sound of voices talking through the music—the voices, as other +witnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins to +sound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun to +quarrel. Their voices—particularly the woman's voice—rise higher and +stormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep. +But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, and +says to her husband, who has just come in, 'He's got that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.' And then even Mr. Herrick is awakened by +a deliberate discord from the piano; a jarring crash, 'a kind of hellish +eloquence.' In other words, the man, with his comparative calm and his +mastery over his instrument, is mocking and goading the woman, whose +shadow, convulsed, threatening, furious, immediately springs out upon +the blind. Gentlemen, can you not imagine the sensations of that woman? +Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose that a girl ambitious and lovely, +but of a type of loveliness not easily grasped by the mob, a girl who +has had to work hard and fight hard, who is worthy to adorn the highest +circles, but who is, in Miss Christina Hope's feeling expression, +without position, without money, without friends, suddenly meets and +becomes engaged to marry a distinguished and wealthy man. Let us suppose +that she puts up with this man's exactions, with his furious jealousies, +with his continual infidelities for the sake of the security and +affluence of becoming his wife. But is it not possible that when this +exacting gentleman is safely across the ocean she may allow herself a +little liberty? That in the chagrin of knowing she is presently to be +torn from her really more congenial friends and surroundings she goes, +in his absence, a little too far? At any rate, he cuts short his visit +in Europe, he flies to her from the steamer, full of accusations, +but—contrary to the experience narrated by Miss Hope—he is perhaps +soothed by her version of things and goes away, without having fully +withdrawn his word, to examine matters. Let us suppose that on the next +day he receives a call from his fiancée's confidential friend,—very +possibly his informant while he was abroad—who circumstantially +confirms his worst suspicions. Let us suppose he drives wildly to the +house of his betrothed; but she is not at home, and after a time he +gives up looking for her. He comes miserably back, dines out, returns +early, but leaves word that he is not at home. But in the meanwhile may +not the lady have got word of all this? Suppose that when she does, she +comes to him,—at any hour, at any risk,—and uses her hitherto +infallible charm to get him back. Suppose she gets him back; they are +alone together; she is excited and confident and off her guard. She lets +something slip. Instantly the battle is on. This time she cannot get him +back. She becomes desperate. If he speaks, as perhaps he has threatened +to, she loses not only him, but everything. For she is on the brink of +the great step of her career. She is to play the leading feminine rôle +under a celebrated star, who does not care for scandal in his +advertisements. On the contrary, he has bruited everywhere her youth, +her propriety, her breeding, her good blood. She is a fairy-tale of the +girlish virtues. He has no use for her otherwise. And still the man at +the piano proclaims her everything that is otherwise, and she sees that +she is to lose him and all she has struggled for, professionally, in one +breath. He sits there—he, he, the man who has been continually false to +her, claiming for himself a different morality—he sits there playing, +playing, shattering her nerves with his crash of chords, with his +hellish eloquence. But with his back to her, you observe, where she +stands at the window and suddenly she sees something lying on a little +table or the foot of the couch—something not unusual in a man's +apartment, although we have Miss Hope's word that Mr. Ingham did not +possess one—something which, perhaps, in his wrecked happiness, he had +loaded earlier in the evening with that sinister intention of suicide in +which Miss Hope's respected friend, Mr. Deutch, so profoundly believes. +Well, gentlemen, the frenzied eye of this tormented girl lights on that +little object, she stoops to pick it up, he turns,—and then comes a +pistol-shot. There is an end to the strength of a woman's nerves, +gentlemen, and she has found it. She cannot look upon her handiwork. She +springs off the light and flees. In the confusion she escapes. +Gentlemen, with the dumbfounding mystery of that bolted door I can not +deal, unless—as Miss Hope has reminded us—medical science may be for +once at fault,—unless the wounded man instinctively staggered to the +door and bolted it, staggered toward his telephone, in his bedroom, and +died there. That, gentlemen, can be threshed out at the trial. In the +meantime, I must ask you to remember that the lady whom events seem to +indicate is high-strung and overwrought; that her natural grief and +nervousness led her through a long cross-examination in which she never +once betrayed any hesitation, or the fact that she had quarreled with +Mr. Ingham or that she was aware of the existence of Ann Cornish, to a +satirical attack upon Mrs. Willing, whose remarks had annoyed her; that, +as she tells us, she has no one to take care of her, and if we are +inclined to think that she can take very good care of herself, we must +remember that when she was confronted with a lady's scarf found not far +from the murdered man, she screamed at the sight of it, and when +confronted with the visiting-card of Ann Cornish, she so much wished her +friend to be kept out of it that she fainted, and, afterwards, <i>changed +all her evidence</i>.—Gentlemen, I rejoice to see, entering this room, our +witness, Joseph Patrick."</p> + +<p>Joe Patrick, a short, thick-set young fellow, with rough hair and a +bright eye, advanced to the coroner's desk. His forehead was ornamented +with a great deal of very fresh surgeon's plaster, and when asked why he +was so late, he replied that he had been knocked down by an automobile +on his way to the inquest. Well, yes, he would sit down; he did feel a +little weak, but it wasn't so much from that—he'd had some candy sent +him day before yesterday and he'd been awful sick ever since he ate it. +Joe was a friendly soul and he added that he was sorry the man the +coroner sent hadn't seen anybody but his mother. He was to the doctor's, +then.</p> + +<p>"But you had telephoned a pretty detailed account to your mother, hadn't +you, before you left the Van Dam—on the morning of the murder—much +more detailed than you gave the police?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. I guess I did."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, please give that account to us."</p> + +<p>Joe looked rather at sea, and the coroner added, "You have said from the +beginning, that a lady called upon Mr. Ingham the night of his death?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir! She did!"</p> + +<p>"Well, tell us first what happened when you went on watch. You had a +message from Mr. Ingham?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. He telephoned down to me. He says, 'I'm out. And if any lady +comes to see me this evening, you say right away I'm out.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, and then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, along about half-past twelve—it was awful hot and lonesome, +and—and—"</p> + +<p>"And you began to get sleepy! It seems that at least the house-staff was +able to sleep that night!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Joe, "I guess anybody'd get sleepy, been sittin' there for +four hours in that heat! Anyhow, it seemed like I'd just closed my eyes, +when they came open all of a sudden and I was looking at the front +door. And there, all in white—'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's +Miss Hope!' I don't know why it seemed so awful queer to me, unless +because I wasn't really but half-awake."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's Miss Hope!'"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It is not too much to say that a shudder traversed the court. Christina, +white as death, and her eyes black and strained with horror, leaned +toward him in an agony.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you thought she was rather a late visitor!" smiled the coroner. +"Well? She didn't melt away, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. She came up to me, all smiles like, but you bet there was +something that wasn't a bit funny in that smile. And she says to me, 'Is +our friend, Mr. Ingham, at home?' she says. And I says, 'No, ma'am.' And +she says, 'You're a bad liar, my boy! But you won't take me up, I +suppose?' And I says, 'He told me not to, ma'am.'"</p> + +<p>"Well? Go on!"</p> + +<p>"So she says, 'Well, then, I must take myself up.' And before you could +say 'Pop,' she was up the stairs."</p> + +<p>"And what did you do?"</p> + +<p>"'Oh, here, ma'am, ma'am,' I says, 'you mustn't do that!' She stopped +and put her elbows on the stair-rail,—they run right up to one side o' +the 'phone desk, you know,—and laughed down at me. She looked awful +pretty, but there was something about her kind o' scared me. And 'It's +all right, my boy,' she says. 'I shan't hurt him!' An' she laughed again +an' ran on up."</p> + +<p>"And you did nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what could I do, I like to know! But I grabbed at the switchboard +and called up Mr. Ingham. 'Mr. Ingham,' I says, 'that lady's coming up +anyhow.' An' he says, 'Damnation!' That's the last word I ever heard out +o' him."</p> + +<p>"'That lady!' Didn't you give him her name?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I didn't know her name, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope—you know her name?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>PERSONS UNKNOWN</h3> + + +<p>The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that it +became a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest. +The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiest +of formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance until +Ingham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itself +ridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcastic +woman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death, +and not coming down again! Well!</p> + +<p>As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even his +instant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was struggling +now against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack was +sucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receive +its due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of a +smiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her," +leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked out +the rest for itself.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. I +said I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But she +wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Did she look so much like Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir; not when she came near. That was the thing made me feel so +queer. I can't understand it. First she was Miss Hope, and then she +wasn't. She gave me a funny feeling when I seen her standing there in +the door an' says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope.' 'Twas kind of's if I +seen her ghost. An' then all of a sudden there she was, right on top o' +me. An' not like Miss Hope a bit. An' that gimme a funny feeling, too!"</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind your sensations. If she didn't resemble Miss Hope, at +least how did she differ from her?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I guess she was a good deal handsomer for one thing. At least I +expect most people would think so, though I prefer Miss Hope's style, +myself. She was dressier, for one thing, in white lace like, with a big +hat, an' she was pretty near as slim, but yet she had, as you might say, +more figger. An' she had red hair."</p> + +<p>Joe had made another sensation.</p> + +<p>"Red hair! Curly?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was combed standin' out fluffy like one o' these here halos, +up into her hat. It wasn't anyways common red, you know, sir, it was +elegant, stylish red, like the goldy part in flames."</p> + +<p>"Don't get poetic, Joe. Was she a very young lady?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, sir.—Oh, I guess she wouldn't hardly see twenty-five +again! Her feet, sir? I didn't notice. But she didn't walk kind o' +waddlin', either, nor else kind o' pinchin', the way ladies mostly do; +she just swum right along, like Miss Hope does."</p> + +<p>"But she didn't swim downstairs again, without your seeing her?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Now look here, Joe Patrick, how do you know she didn't? When Mr. Bird +went to the 'phone after the shooting he was a long time getting +connected, and Mr. Herrick found you asleep at the desk."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't have fell asleep again until after one o'clock, sir, for I +had a clock right on the desk and at one I noticed the time. I was +watchin' for her, she was such a queer one, an' only one man came in all +that time, that I had to carry upstairs. He only went to the fourth +floor, just where she was, an' I rushed him up an' dropped right down +again. She couldn't ha' walked down in that time. I could hear the piano +goin' all the while, the front doors bein' open. But after one I must +ha' dropped off. Because it was about twenty minutes past when Mr. +Herrick shook me up. Then I knew I'd been kind o' comin' to, the last +few minutes, hearin' Mr. Bird ringin'. When Mr. Herrick grabbed my +elevator I called up Mr. Deutch, an' he was quite a minute, too. I says +to him, 'Say, Mr. Deutch, somepun's happened,' an' I switched him onto +Mr. Bird."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're very much obliged to you, Mr. Patrick, for an exceedingly +full account. What apartment did the gentleman have whom you took up to +the fourth floor? Perhaps he may have heard something."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"He just stepped into the elevator, like he lived there, an' he says to +me, 'Fourth!' I never thought nothing about him."</p> + +<p>"You didn't know him?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"You'd never seen him before?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Nor since?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"You took a man upstairs in the middle of the night, without announcing +him, whom you knew to be a stranger?"</p> + +<p>"Why no, I thought he was a new tenant. We got a few furnished +apartments in the building, goes by the month. And then there's always a +good deal o' sublettin' in the summer. He was so quiet an' never asked +any questions nor anything, goin' right along about his business, I +never give him a thought."</p> + +<p>"Well, give him a thought now, my boy. When you let him out of the +elevator, which way did he turn?"</p> + +<p>The boy started and his eyes jumped open. "Oh, good Lord! sir," he +cried, "why, he turned down toward 4-B."</p> + +<p>His start was reproduced in the persons of all present. Only the coroner +controlled himself.</p> + +<p>"What time was this?"</p> + +<p>"It hadn't quite struck one, sir."</p> + +<p>"And during all this talk about Mr. Ingham's murder, at one-fifteen, it +never occurred to you that at just before one, you had taken up to his +floor a man whom you had never seen, whom you never saw again, and who +turned toward his apartment?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, sir. I never thought of it till this minute."</p> + +<p>"Think hard, now. Give us a good description of this man."</p> + +<p>"A description of him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. What did he look like?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't hardly know, sir."</p> + +<p>"Try and remember. He at least, I presume, did not remind you of Miss +Hope?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir; he didn't remind me of anything."</p> + +<p>"He looked so unlike other people?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. He looked just like all gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"I see, Joseph, that you don't observe your own sex with the passionate +attention which you reserve for ladies. Well, had he a beard or a +mustache?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, he hadn't any beard, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Come, that's something! And no mustache?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't think so, sir. But I wouldn't hardly like to say."</p> + +<p>"Was he light or dark?"</p> + +<p>"I never noticed, sir."</p> + +<p>"Was he tall?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I should say he was about middle height."</p> + +<p>"About how old?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, maybe thirty, sir. Or forty, maybe. Or maybe not so old."</p> + +<p>"Stout?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ah! He was slender, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't say he was either way particular, sir."</p> + +<p>"How was he dressed, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, as far as I can remember; he had on a suit, and a straw hat."</p> + +<p>"Was the suit light or dark?"</p> + +<p>"About medium, sir."</p> + +<p>"Not white, then? Nor rose color, I presume? Nor baby blue?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Black?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, was it brown, gray, navy-blue?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems like it might have been a gray, the way I think of it. +But then, again, when I think of it, it seems like it might ha' been a +blue."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Joe. Your description is most accurate. It's a pity you're +not a detective."</p> + +<p>"There's no use getting mad at me, Mister," Joe protested. "I'm doing +the best I know."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you are. If Mr. Ingham's second anonymous visitor had only +been a lady, what revelations we should have had! But this unfortunate +and insignificant male, Mr. Patrick. Should you know him again if you +saw him?"</p> + +<p>"I think so, sir. I wouldn't hardly like to say."</p> + +<p>"Well, to get back to more congenial topics!—The lady who was not Miss +Hope—you would know her, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir!"—Joe hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Out with it!" commanded the coroner.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's only—why, anybody'd know her, sir. They couldn't help it. +She had—" He paused, blushing.</p> + +<p>"She had—what?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't hardly believe it myself, sir. She had—I'm afraid you'll +laugh."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at you, Joe! Impossible!"</p> + +<p>"Well, she had a blue eye, sir."</p> + +<p>"A blue eye! You don't mean she was a Cyclops?"</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"She had more than the one eye, hadn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir. She had the two o' them all right."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one."</p> + +<p>"No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!"</p> + +<p>The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even the +coroner laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don't +wonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake, +Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality—she would be +easily identified!"</p> + +<p>Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted just +before his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with an +unaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in, +and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death by +shooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown.</p> + +<p>Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had not +gone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his name +called, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in Joe +Patrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she had +come along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and in +her hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in her +eyes. And she said to him,</p> + +<p>"You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and went +to help her?"</p> + +<p>He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!"</p> + +<p>"You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "I +wonder, will you shake hands?"</p> + +<p>He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft but +electric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp.</p> + +<p>"And try to believe, will you?" said Christina, "that perhaps, whoever +she was and whatever she did, perhaps she was in distress, after all."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE</h3> + + +<p>Herrick came home through a world which he had never seen before, +blindly climbed his three flights of stairs, and, shutting himself into +his room, sat down on his bed. He stared across the floor at the +wall-paper, like a man drugged. Yes, there was wall-paper in the world, +just as there had been this morning. This room had existed this morning! +And so had he! Incredible! Almost indecent! To-day, for the first time, +he had found himself. For he had found Her!</p> + +<p>Yes, he had lived twenty-eight years, and it had been so much time +wasted! But he need waste little more. She was an actress. Incredibly, +she did not abide in a sanctuary! She was stuck up there on the stage +for fools to gape at. And, for two dollars a performance, he, too, could +gape! Two dollars a vision—eight visions a week. He began to perceive +that he would need some money!</p> + +<p>And, with the thought of money, there materialized out of the void of +the past a quantity of loose scribbled papers, which, last night, had +been of paramount importance. They belonged to his Sunday special. +Good—that would buy many theater tickets! Yesterday it had been the key +to Success. But now he said to himself, "Success?" And he looked dully +at the scribbled sheets. "Success?" he thought again, as he might have +thought "Turkish toweling?" It was a substance for which, at the moment, +he had no use.</p> + +<p>He had no use for anything except the remembrance of being near her. +First there was the time when she was just a girl, sitting beside her +mother. He remembered that he, poor oaf, had been disappointed in her. +And then came the time when she turned her head, and he had seen that +strange, proud, childish innocence—like Evadne's. At the time he had +reminded himself that this effect was largely due to her extraordinary +purity of outline; to the curving perfection of modeling with which the +length of her throat rose from that broad white collar of hers into the +soft, fair dusk of her coiled hair; to the fine fashioning of brows and +short, straight nose and little chin and the set of the little head, so +that the incomparable delicacy of every slope and turn, of every curve +and line and luminous surface at last seemed merely to flower in one +innocent ravishment. He had then admitted that for a girl who wasn't a +howling beauty she had at least the comeliness of being quite perfectly +made. And no bolt from the blue had descended upon his gross complacency +to strike him dead!</p> + +<p>He remembered next, how, at the end of his testimony, she had, with her +first restless movement, begun pulling off her long gloves. Her hands +were slim and strong and rather large, with that look of sensitive +cleverness which one sees sometimes in the hands of an extremely nice +boy. And with the backs of these hands she had a childish trick of +pushing up the hair from her ears, which Herrick found adorable. +Suddenly his brain became a kind of storm-center filled with snatches of +verse, now high, now homely—she had risen to give her testimony! There +she stood before that brute; and the thing he remembered clearest in the +world was a line from his school-reader—</p> + +<p>"My beautiful, my beautiful, that standest meekly by—"</p> + +<p>Did he, then, think that she was beautiful? Had he not denied it? For +the first time she lifted her eyes, giving their soft radiance, so mild, +so penetrating, out fully to the world. And every pulse in him had +leaped with but the one cry,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"Christina Hope."</p> + +<p>"Occupation?"</p> + +<p>"Actress."</p> + +<p>"Age?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two years."</p> + +<p>Through the light, clear silver of Christina's speech there ran a strain +deeper, lower, richer colored,—Irish girls speak so, sometimes. It +trailed along the listener's heart; it dragged; it drawled; by the +unsympathetic it might have been called husky. Conceivably, creatures +may have existed who did not care for it. But to those who did, it was +the last turn of the screw.</p> + +<p>"Name?"</p> + +<p>"Christina Hope."</p> + +<p>"Occupation?"</p> + +<p>"Actress."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The devil hath not yet in all his choice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This arrow, with Christina's very first word, pierced to the center and +the quick of Herrick's heart, and nailed it to the mast!</p> + +<p>"Name?"</p> + +<p>"Christina Hope."</p> + +<p>"Age?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two years."</p> + +<p>At the beginning of that scrap of dialogue, Herrick, as a lover, had not +yet been born; at its end, compared to him, Romeo was a realist.</p> + +<p>He did not tell himself that he was in love with her, and he would have +denied convulsively that he wished her to be in love with him. With him? +Fool! Dolt! Lout! Boor! Not to him did he wish her to stoop! All he +wanted was to become nobler for her sake, to serve her, to die for her! +Merely that! And before dying, to become humbly indispensable to her, to +know her more intimately than any one had ever known her, to take up +every moment of her time! It was entirely for the sake of her +perfection, of the holy and ineffable vision, that he objected +profoundly, almost with nausea, to Deutch's saying that she had acted +loony about Ingham. Ingham!—why Ingham? Even he, Herrick, would be +better than Ingham. For had not he, unworthy, by his deep perception of +her become worthy? Great as her beauty was, it was not for the mob. It +was too fine, too subtle; slim as a flame and winged as the wind yet +April-colored, its aching ravishment could thrill only sensitive nerves. +Yet he remembered something—the elevator boy had thought that, too! +Joseph Patrick had declared he supposed that other people thought +dressier ladies was handsomer, but he preferred Miss Hope! Deutch, too; +hadn't he suggested something of the kind? Now he came to think of it, +even the beast of a coroner had said so! Then, and not till then, did he +fully perceive the cruel trick, the last refinement of her perfect +beauty; that it came to you in such a humble, friendly, simple guise, so +slight and helpless did it knock upon your heart, whispering its shy way +into your blood with the sweet promise that it was yours alone and that +you alone could understand it. Until, when it had taken you wholly, +passion and spirit, it drew aside its veil and revealed itself as the +dream of every common prince and laborer and lover; the poet's hope and +the world's desire. He saw her now, coming toward him through the wet +wind, shining in the gray day, with a smile on her uplifted face, and, +at last, past its candor and its child's decorum, he knew it for the +face that launch'd a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of +Ilium!</p> + +<p>At that moment the summons of a Grubey infant declared him wanted on the +telephone. And through the potent instrument a friendly voice from the +<i>Record</i> office brought him back to earth. It said, "Say, Herrick, we've +got hold of a corking wind-up for your inquest story."</p> + +<p>He cared nothing, now, for inquests, since they no longer concerned her. +But he said, "Have you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We thought we'd see what the Cornish girl had to say, and we sent +right down, both to her boarding-house and her theater."</p> + +<p>"And what had she?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that's it. Since the day of the murder she hasn't showed up at +either place. She's disappeared."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOK SECOND</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT</h3> + + +<p>Herrick had written on his card, "Forgive what must seem an intrusion. I +am asking your time on a matter of business, but I'm afraid I must call +it a personal matter, too." After the maid had taken it, he suffered the +terrors of considering this message at once pretentious and too +emotional and in the worst possible taste.</p> + +<p>Christina's little reception-room was a delicate miracle of Spartan +white, with a few dark gleams of slender formal mahogany shapes and a +couple of water-colors in white frames. On a little table a broad, +shallow bowl was filled with marigolds. Herrick had time for a second's +charmed curiosity at the presence of the little country flowers, and +then, from the floor above, he heard a low cry.</p> + +<p>Instinctively, he stepped into the hall, and there came Christina, +flying down the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Herrick," she called out to him. "Have you any news?" And then, +"Please don't hesitate. I can bear it! I can't bear suspense!"</p> + +<p>"News?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"Of Nancy!"</p> + +<p>He cursed himself for not having known that that would be her first +thought. "I'm sorry and ashamed, Miss Hope. I've no news of her at all."</p> + +<p>Christina's legs gave way under her, and she sat down on the stairs.</p> + +<p>Herrick's chagrin and discomfiture were extreme. She paid no further +attention to him. Dropping her head on her clenched hands, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" +she said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hope came out of a room at the back, and, passing Herrick with as +little ceremony as even her daughter had displayed, caught hold of +Christina's wrists and shook her sharply.</p> + +<p>"Christina!" she exclaimed. "Christina! Now, there has been quite enough +of this!"</p> + +<p>Christina did not seem to resent this summary treatment. She began to +sob more quietly, until she suddenly burst forth, "Where is she, then? +Can you tell me that? Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care where she is!" cried poor Mrs. Hope. "Or, at least, now +you know very well what I mean, my dear. I can't have you going on in +this hysterical way all the time, when you've rehearsals to attend to. +Nancy probably went away to get out of all the disagreeable notoriety +that you've got into. And I'm sure she's very well off."</p> + +<p>"Where is she, then?" Christina wailed. She seemed to have an +extraordinary capacity for sticking to her point. "With all the police +in New York looking for her, where is she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, she hasn't been murdered, as you seem to think! If she had been, +she'd be found. If people kill people, they have to do something with +their bodies! But if people are alive, they can do something with +themselves!"</p> + +<p>Christina shuddered.</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear," said her mother, "it's very high time that we apologized +to Mr. Herrick, who must think us mad. But let me tell you this. I am +not going to have you go on the stage in a month looking like your own +ghost and all unstrung. I'm not going to have the play ruined by you, +and have you turn Mr. Wheeler and all of them into your enemies. It +would be better for them to get some one else. You don't sleep, you +won't eat, and you sit brooding all the time, as if you were looking at +nightmares. Well, if you don't get some kind of hold over yourself +within the next day or two, I shall tell Mr. Wheeler that you are +nervously unfit to be entrusted with a part, and I am taking you away."</p> + +<p>Christina sat for an appreciable time without moving. Then she slowly +lifted her face and smiled at Herrick with her wet eyes. "We have +treated you to a strange scene," she said. "It is our bad hour. +But—sometimes—we can be really nice." She held out her hand. Then, +becoming aware of herself sitting on the steps, and of her mother and +Herrick standing before her, "'Have we no chears?'" she quoted; and, +springing up, she led the way into the little white room.</p> + +<p>Herrick found that it was only he who followed her there. Mrs. Hope, +having dealt with the emergency, had again retreated; evidently feeling +that Christina, even in tears, was quite capable of entertaining a young +man single handed.</p> + +<p>But when he was seated near her, Herrick was shocked by the girl's +appearance. It was not only that her face was worn with anxiety, but +that, in twenty-four hours, she seemed actually to have lost flesh. The +lovely outline of her cheek was sunken and the jaw sharpened; if it were +possible to be paler than she had been yesterday, she was paler now. She +looked so fine and light and frail that it seemed as if the beating of +her heart must show through her body, and all during the talk that +followed, Herrick had the sense of her bright, still eyes being +concentrated in expectation,—almost, as it were, in listening,—through +her thick, wet lashes; the gentle wildness of some woodland animal +listens so for the moving of a twig. She was dressed in white serge with +a knot of the marigolds in her belt, and they seemed like a kind of +bright wound in the tragic pallor of her weariness.</p> + +<p>The cause of his visit seemed more than ever an impertinence, but it +must be faced, and he began to stumble out the story of his Sunday +special.</p> + +<p>"There's the old argument that it must be done by somebody. Only, of +course, without your sanction, it will never be done by me. I've +ventured to bring it to you," said he, guiltily producing the article +which he had sat up all night to typewrite. "If I might, I'd leave it +here, and the maid could give it to me when I called for it—you would +only have had to run your pencil through anything that distressed you. I +know how distasteful the idea—the horribly melodramatic and sensational +idea—must be to you—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I don't know that I joined a profession so retiring as all +that!" Christina said, and she held out her hand for the manuscript. She +seemed to weigh this for a moment, and then she handed it back to +Herrick unopened. "No,—say what you please of me. It is sure to be only +too good. Well, and if not?—What does it matter?" She closed her eyes, +and the terrible fatigue of her face brought him to his feet. At the +same time, he knew his story was amazingly good, and, despite his +tremors, he couldn't help wanting her to read it.</p> + +<p>"But—" he ventured.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I will tell you what we can do—give it to my mother. You +will need it at once? She can have read it by tea-time. You may be quite +easy that if there is anything in it which can injure me I shall break +the news to you, over your tea-cup, that it is in ashes. Will that +do?—Ada," she said to the maid, "please take this in to my mother and +ask her to read it at once. She's alone, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Please, ma'am, Mrs. Deutch is with her."</p> + +<p>"Then they can both read it."</p> + +<p>Herrick expressed his thanks and added, "About five, then, I may come +back?"</p> + +<p>Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portières to +the softly curtained windows between which they two were completely +alone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>Herrick sat down.</p> + +<p>She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. He +told her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said to +him, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he, +too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that I +didn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called it +out—perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a pretty +fidgety state,—to speak grandly, an electric state,—and, being just on +the sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simply +happened to catch it—like a wireless at sea."</p> + +<p>"Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy—ah, if we could! +What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if you +heard it again?"</p> + +<p>"How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice."</p> + +<p>"Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to you +that it might have been the woman who fired? I see—you don't think of +women in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to call +here," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come."</p> + +<p>She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith that +Herrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr. +Herrick—they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, or +else—" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?—a curse, a +darkness?—I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited a +circle with me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trap +fell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plush +curtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to his +house. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tell +you that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? I +can't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings the +storm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that's +all." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,—the quaint +little gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all this +to frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well, +then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish to +befriend me? Isn't that true?"</p> + +<p>"It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied.</p> + +<p>"You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girl +needed a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need. +I don't know what it may do to you."</p> + +<p>Herrick answered her with a smile—"And I don't care."</p> + +<p>She, too, smiled. It began to be borne in upon Herrick how great, when +she chose to exercise it, was her self-control. She could talk to him +with one part of her mind while the other was still listening, peering, +questing, trembling for some fatal news. And he was suddenly aware of +her murmuring—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Vous qui m'avez tant puni,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dans ma triste vie—'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Well, then," she said, "if you must,—I want something. Not protection, +not pity, not championship; I'm a little in your own line, you know, I'm +not easily frightened.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Je suis aussi sans désir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Autre que d'en bien finir—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sans regret, sans repentir—'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I don't know if you read Peter Ibbetson?"</p> + +<p>"Raised on it!" Herrick said.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you understand things—I don't mean merely his French +songs! And that is exactly what I want—to be quite simply and sensibly +and decently understood! I am a more successful actress than you +realize, you backward Easterners, and I am treated like a goddess, a bad +child, a sibyl, an adventuress, a crazy woman. I should like to speak +now and then with some one who knew that I was nothing but a lonely girl +with some brains in her head, who often took herself too seriously and +sometimes, alas! not seriously enough; who was capricious and perverse +but not a coward, and oh, who meant so well! Such a person would +sometimes say, 'She was silly to-day, but by this time she is ashamed. +She had a strange girlhood and they taught her very bad manners, but she +is not a fool and she will learn.' Well, I will not have any common +person thinking like that about me! It takes an artist to understand an +artist! You think me very arrogant to speak like that of you and me, +because, at the bottom of your heart, you have the arrogance of all the +world—you do not admit that an actress really is an artist! Wait a +little, and you shall own that I am one. At any rate, I know a bit of +other people's art; it's my pride I was among the first to be made happy +by yours—and oh, but I could do very well with a friend I could be +proud of!"—It was not very long before he had embarked upon the history +of his novel.</p> + +<p>He went on and on; he explained to her Ten Euyck's thrust about the +photograph; he told her of Evadne and of Sal. The first thing she said +to him was—"Is there a play in it?"</p> + +<p>"I tried it as a play first, but—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely, the novel's better first! You can get it all out of your +system in the novel, and then we could drain it of the pure gold for my +end of it—for the play! You'd never sell it over my head! Why, I could +have you up,—couldn't I?—for plagiarism! Do you know how you can keep +me agreeable? Bring it to me here, when my rehearsals are over, and read +it to me—it will please me and it can do you no harm. If you find me +stupid, say to yourself, 'She is drunk with pleasure, poor thing, at +what I have made of her.' Oh, you'd never have the heart to publish my +portrait, and not let me see the proof!"</p> + +<p>The compact was concluded as the maid entered with the tea things. Mrs. +Hope came in radiant. She began to thank Herrick for his article, and +Christina said, "Where is Mrs. Deutch?"</p> + +<p>"She is in the sitting-room. She says she must go home."</p> + +<p>Christina went and parted the portières and Herrick heard her speaking +with a kind of sweet authority in German, of which he caught the +phrase—"Yes, you will stay! You will certainly stay!" She waited there +till her friend joined her, and then, returning, she took charge of the +tea-table.</p> + +<p>Henrietta Deutch was a large, handsome woman of about forty-five, too +stout, but of a matronly dignity; her beautiful coloring was blended +into a smooth, rich surface as foreign-looking as lacquer. So far as he +was capable of perceiving anything but Christina, Herrick perceived that +not only her physical but her social stature was higher than her +husband's; she was neither ignorant nor fussy; she was a person of large +silences, as well, he imagined, as of grave sympathies; for her age she +was, to an American, strangely old-fashioned but, despite her addiction +to black silk and the incessant knitting of white woolen clouds, she +had, in her continental youth, received an excellent formal education +"with accomplishments."</p> + +<p>"Tante Deutch," said Christina, "this is our new friend, Mr. Herrick, +who stood up for us against that man."</p> + +<p>The little maid continued to throw out signals of distress and Mrs. +Hope, going to her relief, was heard to say, "Well, she'll use her +white one." She explained to Christina, "It's only about laying out your +things for to-night. She can't find your blue cloak—you know, the long +one with the hood—"</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Deutch. "Christina, my +lamb, you are ill!"</p> + +<p>"No, I am not ill. But I am distracted. Sugar, Mr. Herrick? Lemon? My +hand shakes and if the coroner were here he would say it was with guilt. +Poor soul, what a disappointment!"</p> + +<p>"Christina!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Don't laugh!"</p> + +<p>"I am not laughing. I think the man a dangerous enemy and now he is my +enemy. He will never forgive me for letting him make himself ridiculous. +He is too righteous to forget a grudge, for any one who earns such a +thing from the excellent Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck +becomes a criminal by that action. 'Winthrop.' Of course there had to be +the New England strain—he was born to wear a steeple hat and snoop for +witches! May he never light the faggots about me!"</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear, you are working yourself up!"</p> + +<p>"Dear mother, you are a bit hard to please! First you tell me not to +laugh and then you reproach me with working myself up! But you are +right! Why should I fash myself over a man with a personality like a +pair of shears? Ah, if I could get news of Nancy, my hand would be +steady enough!"</p> + +<p>"You'll have news of Nancy when she gets ready!" declared Mrs. Hope, +with the maternal freedom of speech toward our dearest friends, "An +ungrateful, stubborn, secretive girl!"</p> + +<p>"My mother," said Christina, "is enthusiastic but inaccurate. She means +that Nancy is neither voluble nor impulsive, like the paragon before +you, and that though her affection is steady it is not easily dazzled. +We have been friends scarcely more than four years—since she made her +first five dollars a week as part of a stage-mob—but I knew her at +once for the little real sister of my heart. I told you I'd always been +a lonely girl, Mr. Herrick, and that soft, little touch came close on my +loneliness, like a child's. I have succeeded and she has not; I am the +world's own daughter—I know the world and she does not; my hands are +very keen, believe me, for the power and the glory—after all, one must +have something!—and she can only put hers into mine. But where I am +weak, she is strong. One can't ask one's family to forgive that!" said +Christina. And with a tempestuous swoop she handed him a photograph upon +which, whether for newspapers or detectives, had been pasted some +memoranda. "This is more to the point."</p> + +<p>He beheld a charming little face, fresh and pretty, quaintly feminine, +with sensible and resolute brows to balance the wistfulness of the soft +mouth; a face at once grave and glad, with a deep dimple softening the +stubborn little chin. Herrick, studying the memoranda, compared them +with his own vague memories and the photograph.</p> + +<p>Height, five feet, four inches.</p> + +<p>Weight, a hundred and twenty pounds.</p> + +<p>Age, twenty years.</p> + +<p>Complexion, fair.</p> + +<p>Hair, dark auburn and curling.</p> + +<p>Eyes, blue.</p> + +<p>Wearing, when last seen, a white organdie dress with lace insertion; +white shoes, stockings and gloves; small straw hat, dull green, trimmed +with violets; carried a white embroidered linen sunshade and a small +purse-bag, green suède with silver monogram, "A. C." No jewelry of any +value. Wearing round her neck a string of green beads. Missing from her +effects and commonly worn by her, two bangle bracelets—one silver, one +jade. One silver locket. One scarab ring, bluish-green Egyptian +turquoise, set in silver. Last seen on West Eighty —th Street, +walking east, at five o'clock in the afternoon of August fourth.</p> + +<p>It was now August seventh; she had been missing for three days.</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"And I thought it strange enough, before the inquest, that I was in such +trouble and didn't hear from her! Mother, you say she is hiding herself. +But,—all alone? I have telegraphed and telephoned everywhere, to every +one! And then—does a girl throw down her work, her engagement, for +nothing, without a syllable, and disappear! Her things are all at Mrs. +McBride's; her bill for her room is still going on; she was to have gone +out to an opening that night with Susie Grayce! She hadn't a valise with +her, not a change of clothes! She turned east from Jim Ingham's doorway, +and that's all!" Christina was beginning to lose control of herself; she +looked as if her teeth were going to chatter.</p> + +<p>"Now, my pretty—" began Mrs. Deutch.</p> + +<p>"Turned east?" ruminated Mrs. Hope. "East? That's toward the park. She +might have been going to meet—Well, Christina!"</p> + +<p>For the hand which Christina had criticized as trembling had dropped the +tea-pot. This must have dropped rather hard, for it broke to pieces. +Everything was deluged with tea.</p> + +<p>"My sweeting!" cried Mrs. Deutch. "Move yet a little!" For she was +already at work upon the disaster which was threatening Christina's +white gown. The fragments of the wreck were cleared away, and while +fresh tea was being made Christina urged Mrs. Deutch to play "and get me +quiet."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will play. You will play for me and for Mr. Herrick. Mr. +Herrick is not one of these deaf Yankees—don't you remember what he +wrote about the music in Berlin?"</p> + +<p>"So!" said Mrs. Deutch. "In Berlin! Is it so!" She went seriously to +the piano where she executed some equally serious music with admirable +technique and some feeling, but her performance was scarcely so +remarkable as to account for Christina's extreme eagerness.</p> + +<p>When she had finished Herrick took himself unwillingly away, and was +still so agitated by the sweetness of Christina's farewell that after he +had got himself into the hall he dropped his glove. The little maid who +had opened the door for him, let it slam as she sprang to pick up the +glove, and at the closing of the door he heard Christina's voice break +hysterically forth, and rise above some remonstrance of her mother's.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. You spy on me, both of you."</p> + +<p>"But, my little one—" ejaculated Mrs. Deutch.</p> + +<p>"You spy on me, you whisper, you stare, you guess, you talk! Talk! Talk! +And you remember nothing that I tell you! I shall go mad! I am among +spies in my own house!"</p> + +<p>Herrick quickened his petrified muscles and went. Even to his +infatuation it occurred that whatever might have been the faults of +James Ingham, Christina herself was a person with whom it would not be +too difficult to quarrel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED</h3> + + +<p>It was not because this reflection was in any way cooling to his love +that Herrick did not see again, for some days, the lady of his heart. He +was, perhaps, not very self-assured. Yet when his story of the murder +and the inquest appeared he became a marked man. He awoke to find +himself famous, and to be summoned to another interview at the Ingham +publishing house.</p> + +<p>There seemed to be no thought of allowing the prestige of "Ingham's" to +perish with its brilliant junior partner. Ingham, senior, who for years +had been only nominally its head, intended to resume active work once +more, at least until the younger son should have finished college and +gone into training for his brother's place. Perhaps the real pillar of +the house was Corey; and Corey remained, to sustain both father and son. +And they had all three agreed not to forsake the new, the yet unborn +enterprise of <i>Ingham's Weekly</i>. "Mr. James Ingham was wrapped up in +it," Corey told Herrick, whom he had met with the kindest compliments, +"and his father can't bear that all his work should be wasted now. +Besides, in the whole of the business, it's the thing that most +interests young Mr. Stanley, and it seems to me the place where the boy +may be most of use. We want the <i>Weekly</i> to be a real force, Mr. +Herrick, and in its first number we shall want to give up the usual +editorial pages to a memoir of its founder and his ideals for it. Mr. +Herrick, if we could induce you to undertake that memoir we should think +ourselves extremely fortunate."</p> + +<p>Herrick could not believe his ears; it seemed such a strange sequel to a +kind of police report, however able, for the Sunday papers. There began +to be something uncanny to him about his connection with Ingham's death +and how it continued to seem his Open Sesame to fortune. But he was glad +enough and grateful enough. He ventured to send Christina a note telling +her that her new friend was now being pursued by good not evil fortune +and her reply came in the same mail with a letter from his sister to +whom he had written for details about Nancy Cornish.</p> + +<p>Marion remembered only that Nancy's parents had been killed in a runaway +when she was about fourteen and that Nancy had gone out West +somewhere,—to Portland, Oregon, Marion thought, to live with an +uncle—and had gradually ceased to write. Of this uncle's name or +address both Marion and the principal of the school which both girls had +attended were amiably ignorant.</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing I'm positive about; she was the best little soul +alive. Never in this world did she go to that man's rooms to tell tales +of her friend. She never told tales. She was a natural born +hero-worshiper; the most loyal child I ever saw and the most generous, +the bravest, the lovingest, the most devoted. If she went to Mr. Ingham, +it wasn't to injure that Christina Hope; it was to help her out of some +scrape. She was just the kind of girl to be taken in by a woman like +that, whom I must say sounds—"</p> + +<p>Herrick dropped this letter to return to that other which it cannot be +denied he had read first. It was directed in a penmanship new to him but +recognized at once in every nerve, and he had drawn forth Christina's +note with that strange thrill which stirs in us at the first sight of +the handwriting of the beloved. She thanked him, with a certain shyness, +for his news. It was so good one must take it with their breath held! +And now she had a favor to ask. Stanley Ingham had gone home to +Springfield for the week-end, but he had just telephoned her that he +would be back in town on Tuesday morning, by the train which got in to +the Grand Central at eleven thirty-five. He had some news for her but +she would be at rehearsal; she should not see him until the evening, and +she was naturally an impatient person. Would not Mr. Herrick humor a +spoiled girl, meet the train and bring her the news at about noon to a +certain little tea-room of which she gave him the address. "You may find +it a great bore. They are supposed to let us out for an hour, like the +shop-girls. But, alas! they don't do it so regularly. They may push us +straight through till mid-afternoon. But I know you will have patience +with my eagerness to hear any news where it need not trouble my mother. +She has had anxiety enough." It may be taken as a measure of Herrick's +infatuation that he saw nothing in this letter which was not angelic.</p> + +<p>The Grand Central Station, however, is no sylvan spot and Herrick +wondered how he should recognize an unknown Stanley Ingham among the +hordes swarming in its vast marble labyrinth. But that gentleman proved +to be a lively youth of about twenty, who plucked Herrick from the crowd +without hesitation and led him to a secluded seat with that air of +deferential protection which a really smart chap owes it to himself to +show to age. His collar was so high that it was remarkable how +powerfully he had established winking terms with the world over the top +of it, but he stooped to account for himself at once as an emissary of +Christina's.</p> + +<p>"She wired me to see you here, and here I am. You know I'm the bearer of +some new exhibits for the police. We think we've struck a new trail. +After I've handed 'em over I'm dining with Miss Hope, and as she'd have +heard all about 'em then, should think she might have waited. Still, you +know how women are!</p> + +<p>"In the first place," young Mr. Ingham continued, "we want you, we want +everybody, to know we're Miss Hope's friends. We want to go on record +that the way she's been knocked around in this thing has been simply +damnable, and, if poor old Jim were alive—"</p> + +<p>He stopped. At the mention of his brother a moisture, which Herrick knew +he considered the last word of shame, rose in his eyes; behind his high +collar something swelled and impeded his utterance. Then Mr. Stanley +Ingham became once more a man of the world.</p> + +<p>"You can take it from me that if you hadn't treated her as jolly well as +you did in that capital article of yours, we shouldn't be trying to +lasso you now onto the staff of the <i>Weekly</i>." Herrick started, but the +man of the world was not easily checked. "You were awfully decent, you +know, to all of us, and Corey was all the more pleased because +that—that last day, old Jim was down at the office till three +o'clock—the first day after he was home, too,—working like a dog, and +yet when he found that letter of Rennett's introducing you he was as +pleased as Punch, and when he made the appointment with you for next +day, he said to Corey, 'People are taking that boy pretty easy yet +awhile, but he's the best short-story writer on this side of the +Atlantic; and if he's really got a novel about him, the old house will +show him it's still awake.'" The man of the world repeated these phrases +with an innocent satisfaction in having them at first hand, and +Herrick's own heart went questing into the future.</p> + +<p>Then his attention returned to the words of his young friend. "We don't +think we've done enough for her, and we want to do all we can do."</p> + +<p>"Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. You see, we don't any of us feel she was wrong in quarreling +with Jim—except the mater, who thinks she ought to have let him cut her +throat for breakfast every morning and damned glad to get him—and, +considering everything, we think she let him down pretty easy at the +inquest. There's no denying the dear old fellow had been a gay one in +his time, and, of course, he drove a high-spirited girl like that +frantic with a lot of antiquated notions about the stage. You see, he +was pretty close to thirty-five, and when a man gets along about there +he's apt to lose touch with what's going on. Well, having her in our pew +and our carriage at the funeral didn't shut all the fools' mouths in New +York nor Springfield either! So now we're going to do something really +swotting—we've taken a box for her first night, and we're going to get +mother into it, mourning and all, if we have to bring her in a bag. It's +our duty. Read that."</p> + +<blockquote><p>"My dear and kind Mr. Ingham (ran Christina's letter): You must try +and be patient with me, and not think hardly of me, when I tell you +that I can not profit by the terms of Jim's will. He made those +provisions for the girl who was to be his wife, and not for me who +never could be.</p> + +<p>"As I write this I feel your good heart harden to me, with the +sense that I never loved him. But oh, believe me!—time was when I +loved him better than earth or heaven. We couldn't agree, he and I. +Let it remain my consolation that between us there was never any +question of expedient nor compromise.</p> + +<p>"If she can bear it, give my love to his mother.</p> + +<p>"My heart is full of fondest gratitude to all that family which I +should have been so proud to enter. And do you keep a little +kindness for your unhappy,</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Christina Hope.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"What do you think of that? Won't take a cent! You can easily see," +commented the wise one, "that they'd have made it up all right. Splendid +girl! Best thing the poor old chap ever did was trying to get her into +the family. I don't suppose you're as hipped about her good looks as I +am? Takes a special kind of eye, I fancy! I snaked this particularly to +show you—but we want everybody to know she's turned down the coin. And +we're going to have the beast that fired that shot if he's alive on this +planet. 'Tisn't only on Jim's account! It's for her—it's the only way +you can knock that damned lie on the head about her being up there in +his rooms that night.—Chris! Why, she's a regular kid! And the +straightest kid that ever lived! We mean to keep the police hot at it. +And look here what I'm turning in to them!"</p> + +<p>It was a typewritten envelope, postmarked "New York City" and addressed +to Mr. James Ingham.</p> + +<p>"We found it, opened, in his desk at the office," the boy explained. +"But we've only just got it away from my mother." Its contents were a +piece of red ribbon and a single sheet of paper, closely typed.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The Arm of Justice warns Mr. James Ingham—</p></blockquote> + +<p>("Is this a joke?") "Go on! Read it!"</p> + +<blockquote><p>—warns Mr. James Ingham that it demands ten thousand dollars. ("By +George!") If Mr. Ingham wisely decides to grant this application, he +will tie the enclosed ribbon to the frame work of his awning on the +afternoon of August fourth, at four o'clock. It will be seen by an +agent of the Society, who will then advise Mr. Ingham as to how and +where the money may be paid. If Mr. Ingham decides against the +application, he will do nothing.</p> + +<p>But in that case he must be prepared for the publication of a +paragraph in the <i>Voice of Justice</i>, beginning—"There has recently +come to light an episode in the career of Mr. James Ingham, the +well-known publisher, eldest son of Robert Ingham of Springfield and +New York, who is engaged to be married to the popular actress, +Christina Hope—"</p> + +<p>It will go on to relate the story of his association with a young, +pure and helpless girl eight years ago; how he betrayed her, and, +after a promise of marriage—she being then destitute—abandoned +her. It will tell this girl's name and where she is. It will give +all names in connection with the affair. It will publish letters +that passed between Mr. Ingham and this young girl, corroborating +the worst that has been said.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ingham knows the standards of society, the reputation, the +probity and the justice of his father, and also the temper of Miss +Christina Hope. Mr. Ingham is the best judge of whether or not it +will be wise to pay for silence. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>"That's all!" exclaimed Stanley Ingham, as if the absence of signature +were really remarkable. "Well, how's that! Poor old chap, you know—how +dare they!" He reddened. "Because, hang it all, of course a man has to +be a man, and you've got to be liberal-minded and all that; but, just +the same, a fellow that would do what that thing says—why, he'd be +regularly rotten! You can't deny it, he'd be rotten."</p> + +<p>Herrick sat dumb. Words of Christina's were passing in his mind.—"I +will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It was simply something +monstrous which happened a long time ago." Because he had to say +something, he said—"And you're taking this in to the police?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Isn't it a mercy Jim didn't destroy it? Meant it for the +detectives himself, I dare say. Perhaps his not hanging out that piece +of ribbon didn't have anything to do with his death. And perhaps it did. +Anyhow, wait a bit—I'm a walking post-office this morning. Here's the +last exhibit!" And he plumped down on Herrick's knee the duplicate of +the typewritten envelope. The postmark, however, was dated August ninth, +and it was directed to Ingham senior.</p> + +<p>"It opened with the same formalities, but this time its threat ran—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"The <i>Voice</i> will relate the actual circumstances connected with +the death of Mr. James Ingham—"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Jove!" cried Herrick, "that would be something!"</p> + +<p>"Wait till you read 'em!"</p> + +<p>"It will not pause after the story of the young girl whom Ingham +abandoned years ago. It will tell how, on the eve of his departure for +Europe, just such a story was reënacted, but this time with a close +friend of his intended bride, an actress named Ann Cornish; who, on his +return, appealed to him for the only reparation in his power; even +slandering her friend Christina Hope in the attempt to win him back. +Failing in this, she fled, and disappeared—perhaps destroyed herself. +It will tell how Miss Hope suspected the intrigue, having quarreled +about it with her lover the day before, when he denied all knowledge of +Nancy Cornish; how, suspecting an appointment for the evening instead of +the afternoon of August fourth, Miss Hope disguised herself in a red wig +and dabs of paint about her eyes and penetrated to Ingham's apartment; +how, finding no one there, she was placated until she spied Nancy +Cornish's card on the piano and how then a terrible quarrel arose; the +excitable young woman, springing in front of the window with her arm +outstretched, the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air, +uttered a terrible, low cry, and snatching up Ingham's revolver from the +table at the head of the couch, shot him dead. It will follow the flight +of Miss Hope exactly as she described it at the inquest—out through +the door which Ingham must have bolted behind her. She ran upstairs and +escaped over the roof into the apartment house next door. It was a +terribly hot night, and, against all rules, the roof-doors of both +apartment houses had been fastened back. Miss Hope came quietly +downstairs, passed through an entrance hall, empty of the boy who had +run to join the crowd in the street, and walked away. This will be the +conclusion of the narrative."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S WAY</h3> + + +<p>The light in the little tea-room was rather dim. Christina spread out +Herrick's copies of the two blackmailing letters upon the table and +studied them, propping her chin on her hands. Herrick, in surrendering +them, had dreaded the squalid clutch which they laid upon herself. But +when she lifted her eyes it was to say—"We must never let them credit +this trash about Nancy!"</p> + +<p>"None of it, then—?"</p> + +<p>"Not a syllable! Not a breath!—Jim! Little she cared for Jim, poor +child! She was unhappy, but not with that unhappiness. It's true her +only love-affair had come to grief. That's what my mother means by +calling her secretive—even I have never been able to get out of her +what happened to it. But disgrace—run away! Disgrace could never have +looked at her, and never in her life did she run away from anything! And +if she were alive and free, anywhere upon this earth, the first word +against me would have brought her back. She would butt walls down, with +her little red head, to stand by a friend's side!"</p> + +<p>"That's what my sister says. It's odd!"</p> + +<p>"Odd?"</p> + +<p>"I mean—Well, there's the circumstance that the hour when she called on +Ingham was the hour when the ribbon was to have signaled from the +window. And she didn't give her name, you know; she said, 'The lady he +expects.' Then one remembers that this mysterious woman who passed Joe +had red hair. Joe says she had on a white lace dress, Miss Hope—well, +Miss Cornish was in white with lace trimming. He mistook her for you. +Still, he was very sleepy, and though she's not so tall as you are, +she's not short, and she's very slender, too. Forgive me for making you +impatient. But the boy's devoted to you, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," Christina ingenuously replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, he knows, now, that Nancy Cornish is your dear friend. I can't +altogether rely upon his not recognizing her photograph."</p> + +<p>"I can," said Christina, almost tartly. "White—everybody's in white. I +wore a white dress that night, myself. It wasn't Nancy. You may put that +out of your mind."</p> + +<p>Herrick considered. "That business of the variegated eyes—people seem +to suppose he threw it in for good measure. But could such an effect be +produced by make-up?"</p> + +<p>"I think not. On the stage we generally use blue pencil to darken our +lashes. Well, once in a way, some one from the front assures us that we +have blue eyes. Or else brown, if we use brown. But close to, and—and +in combination—surely not! And why try so thin a disguise?"</p> + +<p>"To suggest a striking mark of identification which does not really +exist. That would explain so much. Why she was willing to make a +conspicuous impression on the boy—she may have been a dark woman, you +know, in a red wig, only too glad to leave behind her the picture of a +blonde. There always lingers the impression that it may have been some +one whom Joe knew, or was used to seeing, and that it was merely this +vague familiarity which he recognized before he had time to be taken in +by her disguise. Ingham was on his mind; that may have been why he first +thought of you.—Miss Hope, do you know what other impression, or +superstition, or whatever you like, I can't get rid of? That the +mystery of who fired the shot is part of the answer to the mystery of +that bolted door. When we know how he got out, we shall know who he +was."</p> + +<p>"He?"</p> + +<p>"Well—man or woman. It's ridiculous, it's silly, but I feel as if that +personality were somehow still imprisoned in those rooms. As though, if +we knew how to look, it would be there and there only we should find the +truth."</p> + +<p>Christina murmured a soft sound of regret and wonder. "What a strange +thing! His poor mother—she feels so, too! She won't have a thing in his +rooms touched till the lease is up. She says the secret is still there."</p> + +<p>He loved the pity in Christina's face. And then he watched her +reabsorption in the letters. But though they absorbed, they did not +impress her. They somehow seemed even to bring her mind relief. +"Heavens!" said she, presently. "Is it altogether a bad joke?—'The Arm +of Justice!'"</p> + +<p>"I did think at first they were a hoax of some sort. But the Inghams are +far from thinking so."</p> + +<p>"They think—?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They've accepted these letters as changing the whole course of the +investigation. They believe now that the scandalous, the personal motive +was an entirely wrong lead; that Ingham was murdered in cold blood, as a +matter of business; that the woman was only a cat's paw. And they're +looking for a man."</p> + +<p>"Dear God!" said Christina. "How hot it is in here! That fan—can't they +start it?" She took off her hat; the cool air from the fan came about +her face, carrying to Herrick's nostrils a scent of larkspur and verbena +and candy-tuft (how she clung to those garden flowers!), and she closed +her eyes.</p> + +<p>Herrick sat watching her with concern. He thought of how she had said +her mother had had anxiety enough. It seemed now, to Herrick, that +Christina, too, had had anxiety enough. "Evadne!" he said, suddenly.</p> + +<p>She opened her eyes, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>"You know I have known you very intimately and served you very +faithfully for an immensely long time. I am your author, and I'm going +to bully you. I want you to drop all this! What is it to you? Something +hideous, that's over. In no way can the miserable muck of these letters +touch you! Let the Inghams and the police and the District Attorney +worry—it's their business. It's your business to make beautiful things +for the world. Dear Evadne, you've got to possess your own soul if +you're going to polish up ours! Forget these lies!"</p> + +<p>It was rather late in the little restaurant and they were the only +patrons. After a moment the girl leaned toward him, and laid her hand on +his.</p> + +<p>"I will try!" she said, gently. "And you will dine with us to-night? And +Stan can tell what the detectives say to you, and not to me? Oh, please! +You are right. I want to forget. I am worn out, my soul and my body; my +heart's drying up. Nancy! Nancy! Oh, Nancy! If I could only know about +Nancy! But for the rest, I don't care. You are my friend, and I will +tell you something. Whenever they've wanted to show me they didn't think +me a murderess, they've said, 'Of course, my dear, you're as eager to +have the criminal caught as any of us.' It's false! Why should I wish +for anything so horrible?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with a start of wonder that was half agreement.</p> + +<p>"In what age are we living that I am expected to enjoy an execution? Do +you know what one's like? I've been on trial for my life now, and I've +been reading it up! They—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said Herrick, sternly.</p> + +<p>"But isn't it wicked? Why should I wish that done?—to man or +woman?—Or to lock some one up for life—that's worse! Why should it +amuse me to have people tortured? Who tortured Jim? Poor fellow, he +scarcely could have known! Why should they suffer more than he? For the +act of one little minute to burn in fire all the rest of one's life. Oh, +my good friend, what's the use of pretending? We know perfectly well +that some girl's despair may have fired that shot, that if she had a +brother or a lover—Can't you stop them, Mr. Herrick? Must they go +frothing on in this man-hunt? It's to clear my name? My name's my own; I +won't have it put up against any human being's misery! If they catch and +kill some unhappy creature for my sake—it will kill me, too. I shall +die of it!"</p> + +<p>"What you'll do now," said Herrick, "is to come out of here into the +sunlight, and get some air before you go back to rehearsal."</p> + +<p>She let him walk with her to the stage-door, and before it swallowed +her, she abruptly and almost gaily soliloquized, "A man! A man wrote +those letters! Does one man send a piece of ribbon to another, and ask +him to hang it out of his window? Do you mean, to tell me that it was a +man who made that remark about my temper? 'The Arm of Justice' forsooth! +There's a female idea of a brigand."</p> + +<p>It was plain that she inclined to believe the blackmailer some mercenary +trickster, who knew no more of the murder than herself. Some woman, she +said. But there were two persons in Joe Patrick's testimony. And Herrick +believed there were two in the attempted blackmail. As to their +knowledge of Ingham's death, one circumstance appeared to him highly +significant; the changed standpoint of the second letter! He said to +himself, "The first is obviously sincere; it was written in the genuine +hope of getting money out of Ingham by a person who really felt that he +or she had a case. And the second is nothing on earth but an attempt to +divert suspicion from the murderer by a lot of villainous poppycock. +Between the writing of those two letters they lost their case and they +lost their nerve. Suppose the first letter had been written by a +woman,—by a woman of some cultivation, with a very strong taste for +expressing herself picturesquely. But her picturesqueness all streams +into one channel—into hatred for Ingham. When she cuts at him, her pen +scorches the paper. She has only one sentiment of anything like equal +strength—her sympathy with the girl whom Ingham is supposed to have +deserted. There, now, is a person whom she thoroughly admires. Was she +herself once that girl?"</p> + +<p>Herrick was on his way to dine at Christina's by the time that he +hazarded this runaway guess, and he told himself that he must pull up a +little, now he was on the public street, or he would be holding people +with his glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner.</p> + +<p>But one fact continued to strike him. The man whom Joe Patrick had taken +up to the fourth floor after the arrival of the red-haired woman did not +appear in the narrative.</p> + +<p>How if this man himself had written the second letter? The writer had +sacrificed the only other persons mentioned—Christina and +Nancy—without a scruple, but that curt and silent male it had never +occurred to him to sacrifice. He was consistently shielded. Having no +feasible way of accounting for him, the writer had not even explained +him away. He had simply left him out, hoping that, in the definiteness +of the accusation of a woman, he would be forgotten. For this reason he +had gone into details of her flight without even touching the great dark +points of the moving of Ingham's body and the bolted door. He was too +busy pointing: "Look, look, there she goes! The murderess! The woman! I +am calling her Christina Hope. But, in any case, a woman. No man has had +anything to do with it."</p> + +<p>Herrick turned off the avenue into Christina's street. And trying to +clear his brain lest its feverish contagion should presently reach hers, +he told himself, "You're cracked, my friend. You know nothing whatever. +Simply cracked." But he could not cure himself. Right or wrong, his +obsession continued. Nonsense or no, there grew steadily within him the +notion of that man who had seen all, who knew all, and who had done his +work! This figure became strangely potent, and singularly ominous. They +were all suffering and struggling here, ridiculously ignorant, +ridiculously in pain, and he could laugh at them. Not a sound had +escaped him. He had betrayed himself by no melodramatic shadow. "He was +so quiet," Joe Patrick had said, "goin' right along about his +business—" Yes, he had come upon his business, he had accomplished it, +he had vanished, and left no trace behind. Blackmailer, slanderer, +murderer, and maybe coward and traitor, there was about him a stillness +that had a strange effect. The very blankness of his passage—he looked +so like "all gentlemen," neither tall nor short, stout nor thin, light +nor dark, thirty, forty, or some other age—why, Beelzebub himself could +not have accomplished a more complete disguise! It was as if, going so +quietly on such an errand, some evil of devilish mockery looked out from +behind that featureless face, as from behind a mask. And about the heart +of the big, lean, ruddy youth striding toward his beloved through the +warm August evening, the cold breath of superstition lightly breathed. +It was, for one instant, as though it were at him the mockery were +directed; as though, when that mask should be removed, it would be his +blood that would be frozen by the sight. The next moment his strength +exulted. Patience! He must be found, that fellow—he had made Christina +suffer! The young man's heart winced and then steeled itself upon the +phrase. He drew deep into his spirit the horrid degradation that had +been breathed upon her; the sickening danger that had struck at her; he +saw the thinned line of her cheek, her pallor and her tears, and the +dark circles under those dear eyes. He saw and his teeth set themselves. +Oh, yes, that featureless and silent fellow should be found! And when +that hour came, and Herrick's hand was on that mask, it made him laugh +to think how well its wearer should learn that it was not only a woman +at whom he had struck!</p> + +<p>Immersed in these thoughts Herrick had not noticed a scudding automobile +which now passed him so close that he had to spring backward in order to +avoid being knocked down. And he was not in the mood when springing +backward could be in the least agreeable to him. The rescuer of ladies +was thrown into a fuming rage. What, he, he, a free-born American +citizen, he, a knight-errant on his way to the queen of love and beauty, +he, Bryce Herrick, a presentable young man of the privileged classes to +bound into the air like a ball or a mountebank! Made to retreat +ignominiously and hurriedly!—actually to—in the language of his +childhood—to "skip the gutter" by the menial of upstarts with his +horn!—By George, the fellow had not blown his horn!</p> + +<p>Herrick came to a raging pause and looked about him for a policeman. He +could at least complain to a policeman! Then he discovered that he was +within half a block of Christina's corner; her house was on the other +side of the street. To come into her presence was to forget everything +else. As he reached the corner and started to cross the road he heard +the whirr of another motor and then beheld it speeding toward him, some +distance off, from the same direction as his first enemy. Determined not +to skip the gutter this time he advanced at a dignified pace, +deliberately fixing the automobile with the power of the human eye. The +wild beast approached headlong, nevertheless, and Herrick, observing +that it, too, dispensed with the formality of blowing its horn, stopped +dead in its path. He was filled with the immense public spirit of +outraged dignity and pure temper. The automobile was a long, low +touring-car, gray, with an unfashionable look of hard usage, and there +were three roughly dressed men in it. If they thought he would move +unless that horn were blown, they were mistaken! He glared pointedly at +the number which was streaked, illegibly, with mud. And the truth came +to him, that this was no second automobile—it was the same one! And now +it was so near that, above the man's raised collar, he could see the +eyes of the chauffeur looking straight at him. Then it was he knew that +they did not expect him to get out of the way; that they did not intend +to blow the horn; nor did they intend to swerve aside. What they +intended was to run him down! With inconceivable rapidity the thing had +loomed out of the distance and was here; death lunged at him in a flash, +bulked right upon him, the wind of it in his angry eyes. The shock of +that anger utterly controlled him and took up the challenge; he could +not have changed the set of his whole nature and broken his defiance if +he would. But from the sidewalk some one screamed. Automatically, he +started, and the touring-car, as though rocked by the scream, swayed a +hair's breadth to one side. Only a hair's breadth! Herrick felt an +impact like the end of things; then a horrible, jarring pain as if his +bones were coming out through himself and knocking him to splinters. And +then—nothing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD</h3> + + +<p>The doctor drew back from examining a badly bruised, cut, and skinned +youth and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, young man," said he, "if I were you, the next time I saw an +automobile making right for me, I'd get out of its way."</p> + +<p>"I guess I'm all right," Herrick grinned. The grin was rather sketchy. +He was not very secure yet in which world he was.</p> + +<p>On first recovering consciousness he had found himself lying with his +head in Christina's lap, and had supposed he was in heaven. But it +hadn't been heaven; it had still been the middle of Ninety-third Street +and Christina was sitting in the dust thereof. And then he had another +glimmer; he was on a couch, and, facing him, Christina was huddled on +her heels on the floor with large tears running down her nose and +plumping off the end of it into a bowl, full of funny red water, that +she held; a cloth in her hand was even redder, and her mouth had such a +piteous droop that if only he could have sat up it would have been the +natural thing to kiss it. "Darling!" he had said, to comfort her; and +she had said, eagerly, "Yes!" just as if that were her name; then +another blackness. And now the couch was in her drawing-room and +everywhere was the scent and the sheen of her country flowers—larkspur +and sweet alyssum and mignonette, the white of wild cucumber vine, the +lavender of horsemint, and everywhere the breath of clover—the house +was filled with them! Wherever did she get them?</p> + +<p>"What's that?" he asked sharply. It was a policeman's helmet.</p> + +<p>The policeman was merely left there,—the automobile having escaped +without leaving its number behind it,—to take his evidence of the +accident. Herrick rather dreaded being laughed at for his surety that it +was no accident; but a man who had seen it from a window and the passing +lady who had saved his life by shrieking had already testified to the +same effect. They had both declared the offending car to be a gray +touring-car; a very dark gray, Herrick thought. The policeman, who had +read his Sunday special, stooped to be communicative. "Do you remember +the young feller," he asked, "that was a witness to the Ingham inquest? +Do you remember he got there late through bein' knocked over by 'n +automobile?"</p> + +<p>Herrick stared.</p> + +<p>"Well, the young lady called him on the 'phone with me listenin', an' I +guess you're on a'ready to what kind of a car it was that hit him—'twas +a gray tourin'-car."</p> + +<p>By-and-by, when the policeman and the doctor were gone, and Mrs. Hope +and Mrs. Deutch, without whom no crisis in the life of the Hope family +seemed to be complete, had swathed him tastefully in one of Mrs. Hope's +kimonos they began to tell him that he must send for his things, because +he would have to convalesce as Christina's guest. The idea was +distressing to him, but he was a little surprised by the soft bitterness +with which Christina opposed it. "Do you want him murdered outright?" +she said. "What has he done that he should be mixed up with my house and +my life? I was wrong ever to let him be my friend." She was spreading a +cloth over a little table which Stanley Ingham had brought close to the +couch. She lifted a lighted lamp out of Herrick's eyes and set it on the +mantel shelf behind his head. Looking down as the light touched his +bandaged forehead and the unusual pallor of his bronzed face she said, +so gently that Herrick's heart melted with a painful sweetness, "I +warned you!"</p> + +<p>"It does look awfully funny," young Ingham exclaimed, "about this +touring-car. Wonder what the police will say to that! Wouldn't open +their mouths about the letters, and warned me not to open mine. Wouldn't +even let me tell you, Chris!"</p> + +<p>"Fortunately," said Christina, "Mr. Herrick had told me before any one +could possibly interfere.—The police think they're genuine, then?"</p> + +<p>"You bet they do! At least, I s'pose they do. They didn't say. But they +grabbed them, fast enough."</p> + +<p>Christina asked no more, and thereafter, if she kept the talk around +Herrick quiet, she kept it almost gay. She and the boy ate their dinner +with him in order to wait on him and watch his comfort; and before long +she seemed scarcely the older of the two. It was all wonderfully simple +and kind; there could be no embarrassment in that light, genial +atmosphere; when the dishes had been cleared away the girl went to the +piano and sang softly—tender negro melodies, little folk lullabies, +snatches of German love-songs. Just as Herrick, greatly soothed and at +peace, was beginning to feel tired, Deutch arrived and he and Stanley +Ingham took the patient home in a taxi and put him to bed.</p> + +<p>To Herrick's indignant astonishment, it was four or five days before he +could get about again, and at the end of that period the Deutches had +become almost as large a part of his life as of the Hopes. It was in +vain he protested. Mrs. Deutch came twice a day and looked after his +comfort with a devotion as arbitrary as a mother's; she inspected all +his garments, and, with clucks of consternation, took them away with her +and returned them, perfected; between her and Mrs. Grubey a deep +distrust as to each other's cookery arose. She cooked him three meals a +day, beside all sorts of elaborate "foreign" trifles, Mr. Deutch +bringing them over in a basket, piping hot; and Mrs. Grubey, entering +with her own dainty contribution of pork chops and canned lobster, +professed herself unable to understand how he could eat such messes. He +finished his memorial of Ingham amid the perpetual bloom and fragrance +of Christina's garden flowers; once Mr. Ingham came, with Stanley, to +inquire; Mrs. Hope came twice. On her second visit, when he was almost +ready to re-enter the world, she brought Christina with her.</p> + +<p>The girl had lost her air of tragic greatness; there was more color in +her face, the pupils of her eyes were less expanded and her nostrils +less inflated. She seemed, too, to have been rather put back into her +place as a young lady, for she smiled sweetly but a little shyly about +Herrick's room, and left the talking to her mother; when her eyes +encountered the photograph which had been replaced over the desk a faint +flush suffused her face.</p> + +<p>"My daughter has at last allowed herself to be persuaded," said Mrs. +Hope, "that Miss Cornish is hiding voluntarily; and that, if there is a +blackmailing society trying to slander us and to injure any one who is +apt to defend us, the police are quite as capable of dealing with it as +she is. Therefore she is now able to give a little attention to her own +affairs."</p> + +<p>Herrick was sorry for the poor lady; he knew that she was devoted to +Christina and that she must have had a great deal to endure. He had +learned by this time that she had been a Miss Fairfax, and that her +family, however desperately poor, considered her to have made a +misalliance with a mere wealthy manufacturer of wall-papers, like Hope. +It had been, indeed, a runaway match and relations with her family were +never really resumed. Now Deutch reported that of late conciliatory +relatives, making advances to the rising star, had been routed with +great slaughter. But both men guessed that this had not been the real +wish of a person so socially inclined as Mrs. Hope; she was too plainly +dragged at the chariot-wheels of a freer spirit, and in this light even +her occasional asperities, her method of communicating with her daughter +mainly by protesting exclamations, became only pathetic attempts at an +authority she did not possess. "You know, Mr. Herrick," she now went on, +"that the opening of 'The Victors' three weeks from next Thursday night +is the great occasion of my daughter's life. I can't begin to tell you +what it means to us; it's everything. At such a time I think we—we +ought to have our friends about us. The Inghams are so kind; they are +taking me in their box. But Christina had already ordered me two of the +best seats in the house, and I'm sure I'm speaking for her, too, when I +say what a pleasure it would be if you would accept them. Indeed it +would be a favor.—My dear, can't you persuade him?"</p> + +<p>"It's only—" said Christina, slowly, "that I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Christina! I do wish you would drop that ridiculous pose. No horrible +fate has overtaken me!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, mother," said the girl, touching her mother's shoulder, "perhaps +because we were both born, you and I, under the same ban!"</p> + +<p>"My dear!" cried Mrs. Hope, as if Christina had mentioned something +indecent. "I hope you won't pay any attention to her, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"I certainly shan't. I shall be too glad to get those seats."</p> + +<p>"Ah, now you're a dear! You'll see Christina at her best, and I'm going +to say that that's something to see. It's a magnificent part and Mr. +Wheeler has been so wonderful in rehearsing her in it. Christina doesn't +find him at all intimidating or brutal, as people say. Though, of +course, he's a very profane man."</p> + +<p>"I love every bone in his body," Christina said.</p> + +<p>"My child! I wish you wouldn't speak so immoderately!"</p> + +<p>"I'm an immoderate person," the girl replied. She rose, and pointing out +of the window she said to Herrick—"You sat here? It was there, on that +shade?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Christina shuddered; just then Mr. Deutch arrived with the luncheon +basket. The ladies passed him in taking their leave and Christina +slipped her hand through his arm. "Mr. Herrick," she said, "Herr Hermy +does not look wise—no, Herr Hermy, you don't,—but if ever I puzzle +you, ask him. Do not ask Tante Deutch, she will tell you something noble +and solid, for she herself is wise, and so she can never understand me. +But Herr Hermy is a little foolish, just as I am. He is flighty; he has +the artistic temperament and understands us; he knows me to the +core.—Herr Hermy, he is coming to see me act; tell him I am really Sal, +not Evadne; tell him that I am a hardworking girl."</p> + +<p>As he came to know her better, Herrick did not need to be told that. He +had never seen any one work so hard nor take their work quite so +seriously. But her advice remained with him and he began to listen more +respectfully to Hermann Deutch on his favorite subject. "Wait till you +see her, Mr. Herrick! She's like Patti, and the others were the chorus; +you'll say so, too. And it don't seem but yesterday, hardly, she didn't +know how she should go to faint, even! Drop herself, she would, about +the house, and black and blue herself in bumps! We used to go in the +family circle, when I had a half-a-dollar or two, and watch great +actresses and when one did something she had a fancy for, she'd pinch me +like a pair o' scissors! And she'd be up practising it all night, over +and over, and the gas going! She'd wear herself out, and there's those +that would expect she shouldn't wear them out, too!"</p> + +<p>"She takes things too hard," said the lover fondly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Deutch, after a pause, "she takes 'em hard, but she can +drop 'em quick!" Herrick felt a little knife go through his heart; and +then Deutch added, "Not that she's the way people talk—insincere. Oh, +that's foolish talk! She's only quick-like; she sees all things and she +feels all things, and not one of 'em will she keep quiet about! Those +glass pieces, you know, hang from chandeliers?—when they flash first in +the one light and then the way another strikes 'em, they ain't +insincere. An' that's the way Miss Christina is—she's young, an' she's +got curiosity, an' she wants she should know all things an' feel all +things, so she can put 'em in her parts; she wants all the lights to go +clean through her. And there's so many of 'em! So many to take in and so +many to give out! There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herrick, but what she'll +reflect it right into your face."</p> + +<p>Although, in this elaborate fancy, Herrick suspected an echo of +Christina's own eloquence, he did not listen to it less eagerly on that +account. "After all," he translated, "it's only that she's willingly and +extraordinarily impressionable, and then willingly and extraordinarily +expressive! In that case, instead of being less sincere than other +people, she's more so!"</p> + +<p>"You got it!" cried Mr. Deutch with satisfaction. "That's what these +outsiders, they can't ever understand. The best friend she ever had says +to me once, 'If ever Miss Hope gets enough really good parts to keep her +interested, she'll take things more quietly around the house!' That's +been a great comfort to me, Mr. Herrick.—She's got these emotions in +her, I'll say to myself, and what harm is it she should let 'em off?"</p> + +<p>"The best friend she ever had?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Mr. Herrick, he was an old hand when she first came into the +business. He taught her a lot; she'd be the first to say so. Often I've +thought if she hadn't been so young then, what a match they might ha' +made of it! But she never thought of it, nor, I shouldn't wonder, he +neither, and now it's too late. But don't you worry because she takes +all things hard; she's got a kind of a spring in her. When she's laid +down to die of one thing, comes along another and she gets up again."</p> + +<p>If Herrick did not complete this analysis, it was not for lack of +opportunity. As soon as he was about again he found himself as merged in +the life of the Hopes as were the Deutches themselves. "You interest +Christina," Mrs. Hope told him. "You take her mind off these dreadful +things. It's a very critical week with us. I hope you won't leave her +alone."</p> + +<p>Herrick did all that in him lay to justify this hope, and if Christina +never urged nor invited, never made herself "responsible" for his +presence, she accepted it unquestioningly. His first outing was a Sunday +dinner at their house, and again Christina kept herself in the +background, and only drew her mother's affectionate wrath upon herself +by one remark; saying, as Herrick helped himself from the dish the maid +was passing him, "I hope it's not poisoned!"</p> + +<p>She seemed rather tired, and he hoped this was not because she had made +him come at an outrageously early hour and read her the beginning of his +novel. He knew she was recasting it into scenes as he read; she got him +to tell her all that he meant to do with it and, as they all, save Mrs. +Hope, lighted their cigarettes over the coffee in the sitting-room, she +began telling Wheeler about it.—Wheeler had dined there, too.</p> + +<p>Christina's star was a big, stalwart man of about fifty, who had not +quite ceased to be a matinée idol in becoming one of the foremost of +producers. He listened with a good deal of interest and indeed the story +lost nothing on Christina's tongue; Herrick began to see that her mind +was a highly sensitized plate which could catch reflections even of +disembodied things. Then Wheeler exclaimed what an actor's approval has +to say first, whatever he may bring himself to deal with afterward. +"Why, but there's a play in that!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christina, promptly. "For me!"</p> + +<p>Humor shone out of the good sense and good feeling of Wheeler's heavy, +handsome face. "Give me more coffee, my cormorant! Do you think I want +to play the young lady myself? Nay, 'I know the hour when it +strikes!'—heavy fathers for mine! Stouter than I used to be—Tut-tut, +no sugar!—There will be too much of me—Did you get your idea of moral +responsibility out of New England, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Well, this form of it I got from such a different source as a very +suave, amiable Italian, Emile Gabrielli, an intending author, too,—a +lawyer who had exiled himself to Switzerland. Do you know a line of +Howell's?—'The wages of sin is more sinning.' And it's seemed to me +that the more-sinning doesn't stop with ourselves; it draws the most +innocent and indifferent people into our net. Well, I always wanted to +find a vehicle for that notion."</p> + +<p>"And your Italian told you this story?"</p> + +<p>"Something like it. Set the tone for it, too, in a way. He was a highly +respectable sentimental person, and used to carry about an old miniature +of a lovely girl to whom, I believe, he had once been betrothed. The +bans had been forbid by cruel parents but he used to brag to me, at +fifty, that they could never force him to part from her idolized face! +Yet he knew so many shady stories I've often wondered if he hadn't left +home in order to avoid a circle of too embarrassing clients. At any rate +he had known a woman whose husband had got into trouble with the police +in Italy—for swindling, I think he said. She had to clear out and +disappeared. Years afterward he found that she had run into the arms of +a respectable, God-fearing family; the natural prey of cheats because +years before their little daughter had been kidnapped or lost and never +found. They cry out at this young woman's resemblance to the child; the +young woman puts two and two together into a story which deceives those +who wish to be deceived, and settles down to be taken care of for the +rest of her life. It must have been any port in a storm, for I didn't +gather her adopted family had money. Spent all they had in looking for +her when she was a baby, as I understood. To Signor Gabrielli the cream +of the jest was that this girl was being petted and cherished and +labored for by industrious people who would have perished of horror if +they had known who she was, and who had not one drop of their blood in +her veins.—I may not have got the incidents at all straight, but that's +the idea."</p> + +<p>"But you've changed the relationship—?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I've cut down the family to a daughter and, as you see, I've +reversed the parts—in my story it is the daughter who is deceived; it +is the supposed mother who settles down upon the devoted innocence and +labor of a generous girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Put it all on the mother! +Nowadays, everything's sure to be her fault!"</p> + +<p>Christina gave her mother her hand, much as she might have given her a +cup of tea and said, "Well, but that is only where your novel begins?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I thought the interesting part was all to come. I thought I should +be justified in supposing my reformed lady to go back to her old habits, +perhaps through the mere claim of genuine ties,—old friendships, real +relationships—to be caught in some serious crime, involve those friends +and, finally, without in the least intending it, draw her daughter and +her daughter's lover into her quicksand—of course, by means of their +efforts to pull her out! And then to see what happened!"</p> + +<p>"When the daughter finds out," Wheeler cogitated, "that should be a +strong scene, a very strong scene.—What made you think of reversing the +characters?—less trite?"</p> + +<p>"Simply, I could handle it this way and not the other. When I had the +cheat a young woman, she was very strenuous—I couldn't keep her from +being the most lurid of common adventuresses. And I had a theory that +people are never like that to themselves. Well, as soon as I substituted +a rather passée woman she became much quieter—just a feeble, worthless, +selfish person a good deal battered by life, and wanting nothing but +comfort—trying to get it in the easiest way. I wanted so much to give +the commonplace quality of crime, of what a simple, sensible, ordinary +piece of business it seems to the person engaged in it—at any rate +until it's found out, and he begins to be reacted on by fear and other +people's minds. Ah, if I can only give these people their own point of +view, and make one thing after another seem quite ordinary and human, +just the necessary thing to do! Until they begin to lose their heads +when one gate and then another closes and, finding themselves cornered, +they fight like rats in a trap! The good as well as the bad, in one +panic degradation of despair! I heard a figure of crime the other day +which I should like to carry out. I should like to start with the +smallest blemish on the outside of the clean, rosy apple of respectable +society, 'the little, pitted speck in garnered fruit, which, rotting +inward' lets you, by following it, down and down, from one layer of +human living to another, at last hold a whole sphere of crime, +collapsed, crumbling and wide open, in your hand. Then I've got to save +Evadne in the end, without the effect of dragging her through a +trap-door!"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you made it into a play," Wheeler persisted, "would the mother +or the daughter be the star-part?"</p> + +<p>"I could play both!" Christina cried.</p> + +<p>Wheeler laughed aloud. "You are too good to be true!"</p> + +<p>"Well, but why not? Why not a dual rôle? Even if the relationship were +false, the resemblance would have to be real—it's the backbone of the +story! Mother and I look a good deal alike, but I've seen chance +resemblances incomparably stronger!"</p> + +<p>She went on eagerly and Herrick was surprised to see that it was not she +alone but Wheeler who took the idea of dramatization seriously. It was +his first real gage of what was expected of Christina as an +actress—that in a year or two she would be starring on her own account. +She was not only Wheeler's leading-woman, she was his find, his +speculation; he meant to be her manager and Christina meant that he +should, too. Again Ingham's death seemed to be dragging Herrick into the +path of success.</p> + +<p>Then his attention was caught by Wheeler's saying, "Well, we must all be +as criminal as we can, while we can. Once P. L. B. C. Ten Euyck gets to +be a police inspector there will be no more crime. The word will be +blotted from the vocabulary of New York."</p> + +<p>"That man!" Mrs. Hope cried.</p> + +<p>"Well, all these recent scandals in the Department are making them +remove Simmonds; they want somebody beyond the reach of graft; and Ten +Euyck has resigned his coronership. What does that look like to you?</p> + +<p>"It will be nuts to watch," Wheeler went on. "The force, down in his +district, will be shaken up till its teeth rattle. Ten Euyck won't rest +contented till he has stopped mice from stealing scraps of cheese! But +my leading-woman must be civil to him, now, or he's the sort of fellow +to get my license revoked. Nobody's ever run up against his +self-righteousness and got away with it, yet. Poor chap, he'd be mighty +able if he weren't crazy! I believe I could do a Valjean if I could +engage him as Javert!"</p> + +<p>"Don't let us speak forever of that bilious person! Why do you distract +a poor girl from her work? Come," cried she to Wheeler, "are we going to +do our scene?"</p> + +<p>She drove her rather reluctant star to action.—"Young miss!" he said, +"it is not every ageing favorite who would take a girl on the word of a +mutual friend, give her a better part than his own, push her over his +own head, and coach her in private into the bargain!" He put his big +hand on Christina's shoulder. "But she's worth it!" he said. "A scene +with her is a tonic to me—I did not know the old man had so much blood +in him! Sally, the poor working-girl, what are you going to do to the +critics, that still sleep unconscious? 'Ha—ha! Wait till Monday week!' +or whenever we open!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'They'll be all gangin' East an' West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They'll be all gane a-glee!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They'll be all gangin' East an' West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Courtin' Molly Lee!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, as you come up Broadway, you don't see her name on the +bills! But they might as well be printing the paper!—for the younger +generation is knocking at the door. Ah, Christina, my dear, thou art thy +Wheeler's glass, and he in thee calls back the lovely April of his +prime!" His indulgent sardonic glance caught Christina's and the flaming +sword of hers drove him to work. They left behind them such a vivid +sense of Herrick's having written his play and their having taken it, +that he might have thought it a scene of his they were working on.</p> + +<p>From the room where they were immured strange sounds occasionally +escaped; sometimes Wheeler laughed and sometimes he swore furiously. +"She'll get everything that he knows out of him!" said Mrs. Hope with +great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Herrick discovered this, in no ignoble sense, to be the keynote of +Christina's life. It was borne in upon him with every hour that her +work in the theater was the essence of her; that no matter where nor how +utterly she should consciously give her heart the unconscious course of +her nature would still flow through the field of dramatic endeavor. He +might admire or condemn this, like it or leave it; but the jealous +humility of his love must recognize it.</p> + +<p>She seemed largely to have recovered from the terrors that had enveloped +her upon Ingham's death. If for Nancy Cornish she had lain down to die, +for her opening night she had got up again. And she was ready to bend +the whole world to that night's service. Herrick saw that she had always +been so.</p> + +<p>It became a thrilling amusement to him to watch her at work; to see how +vividly she perceived, how unscrupulously she absorbed! In the +vocabulary of her profession, everything was so much "experience." All +her life long she had sucked out of every creature that came near her +some sort of artistic sustenance; learning from the jests of her own +heart and its despair; out of the shop windows and the night sky. At an +age when other girls were being chaperoned to dancing-parties she had +worked,—she with her soft cheek and slight strength and shy eye,—"like +a miner buried in a landslide"; she was mistress of her body's every +curve, of her voice's every note; she had read widely and with +passionate intelligence; as soon as she had begun to make money, she had +poured it into her accomplishments; she was a diligent student of +passing manners and historic modes, and of each human specimen through +which she did not hesitate to run her pin.</p> + +<p>For instance, what use had she not made of the Deutches? From Henrietta +Deutch she had learned German and a not inconsiderable amount of music; +they had a venerated library of standard works that contained a few +modern continentals in the original; she developed her school-girl +French by reading the Parisians under Mrs. Deutch's supervision and in +Italian she surpassed her; while all the time she learned just enough +knitting to know how people feel when they knit, and just what the +sensation is of stirring sugar into the preserves. She liked to go to +their apartment of an evening and, once, when Mrs. Hope sent Herrick +after her, he found her sitting on the floor with her hair down and her +head against Mrs. Deutch's black silk knee while that lady crooned +German lullabies to the baby she had never borne, and "Herr Hermy" +played the pianola. As soon as she had twisted up her hair, she put on a +long apron and got supper and waited on them all with the charming +daughterly ways which lent her such a tender girlishness; and Herrick +perceived that when a part required her to move about a kitchen she +would be able to welcome the kitchen as an old friend. She could +reproduce Deutch's accent, his whole personal equation, with inhuman +exactness, even his tremors at the inquest, his inarticulate stammer—as +of a mental dumbness, groping for words—that overtook him in moments of +extreme excitement, she had caught in her net; she had learned from him +some jokes and stories, some student songs, which would have astonished +the many delicate tea-tables at which she shyly cast down her thieving +eyes to observe exactly what service was in vogue; she did not hesitate +to stir him up to dreadful stories of old racial hates and though +Herrick saw her eyes darken and her nostrils expand he knew that she was +drawing thoroughly into her system the dark passion of retaliation with +which she would some day scorch an astonished audience. "If ever I get a +queen to do—oh, one of the virtuous queens, of course," she said, "I +shall have to fall back on Tante Deutch." And Herrick saw how right she +was; how all along she had modeled her grand moments—and Christina, +though so fond of describing herself as a poor working girl, had +occasional moments of extreme grandeur—upon that simple, domestic +stateliness which was really the stateliness of a great lady.</p> + +<p>On the other hand when she was out with her mother she modeled +herself—except for a stray vagary of speech—upon Mrs. Hope's excellent +idea of a-young-lady-out-with-her-mother-a-la-mode; and she was by no +means insensible to the glories of the smart world, nor to the luxuries +of the moneyed world. "I want them all," she confessed to Herrick as +they walked up Fifth Avenue from rehearsal. "I covet them; I long to own +them, and I dare swear I should never be owned by them. I'm infinitely +more fit than those that have them, and thank heaven I've stood out here +when I was cold and wet and <i>oh!</i> how hopeless, and felt in me the +anarchist and his bomb. I was never made to smile on conquerors. One +man, from these great houses, once taught me how to hate them! How I +should like to do a Judith! How I should like to <i>tame</i> all this!" She +looked, with a bitterer gaze than he had ever seen in her, down the +incomparable pomp of the great street. Then more lightly, with a curving +lip, "My Deutches, I believe," she said, "are supposed to belong to the +moneyed camp. But it is borne in upon me, every now and then, that our +own race has occasionally put by a dollar or two."</p> + +<p>She moved in such an atmosphere of luxury that it was difficult to +imagine her what she plainly called "hard up." But it will be seen that +they were now continually together and there was something about her +which made it possible to offer her the simplest and the cheapest +pleasures. In her rare hours of freedom he had the fabulous happiness of +taking her where he had often taken Evadne in that old empty time; to +Coney Island, to strange Bowery haunts, to the wharves where the boys +dive, and even to his table d'hôte in the back yard. She had a zest, a +fresh-hearted pleasure in everything and her sense of characterization +fed upon queer colors and odd flavors just as he had known it would. He +was so sorry that the little Yankee woman was absent from his table +d'hôte, particularly as he had recently had a specimen of her which he +longed to hear Christina reproduce. She had a little sewing-table behind +her desk at which she sat playing solitaire with a grim precision which +made Herrick think of the French Revolution and the knitting women; but +as she had then been absent from the restaurant for some time he +ventured a "Buon giorno" as he passed.</p> + +<p>She instantly replied, "You needn't talk that Dago talk to me. I just +took my daughter's paul-parrot away from here, case 't 'ed get so it +couldn't talk real talk."</p> + +<p>"That's what I call a good firm prejudice!" Herrick laughed to himself, +and he continued to hope for some such specimen, or at least for Mr. +Gumama, when he should bring Christina again.</p> + +<p>But as the opening drew near, she began to limit her interests and to +exclude from her vision everything which could interfere with the part +in hand. It sometimes seemed to him, indeed, as if even her new calm +about Nancy were only because Nancy—yes, and the threatening Arm of +Justice,—were among these conscious, these voluntary exclusions. It was +almost as though, over the very body of Ingham's death, she had thrown +her part's rosy skirts and shut it out of sight. Beneath her innumerable +moods one seemed permanent, strangely compounded of languor and +excitement. By-and-by, she seemed to dwell within it, veiled, and +Herrick knew that only her part was there behind the veil with her.</p> + +<p>It was Mrs. Hope who could least endure this sleepwalking abstraction. +There came an evening when some people whom Mrs. Hope considered of +importance were asked to dinner. Christina improved this occasion by +having her own dinner served upstairs, so that she would not be too +tired to rehearse that night with Wheeler. And to Herrick Mrs. Hope +reported this behavior, biting her lips. "She's the most self-willed +person living! I declare to you, Mr. Herrick, she has the cruelest +tricks in the world. The best friend that any girl ever had said once +that, if acting were in question, she would grind his bones to make its +bread!"</p> + +<p>Later, Herrick said jealously to the girl, "Who <i>was</i> the best friend +you ever had?"</p> + +<p>Her head happened to be turned from him and it seemed to him a long time +before she spoke. Even then her indifference was so great she almost +yawned as "Who has told you of him?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Both Deutch and your mother called some old actor that."</p> + +<p>"They meant a dear fellow who put me in the moving-picture business, +bless him, when I hadn't enough to eat!"</p> + +<p>"And where's he now?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say he's very well off. He taught me poise. He taught me +independence, too. That's enough for one man. He had a singular way of +turning his eyes, without turning his head. I learned that, too."</p> + +<p>Was it true, then—what had been hinted to him often enough—that once +she had plucked out the heart of your mystery, the heart of the human +being she forgot all about? She might be of as various moods as she +would, she was very single-minded, and was all she valued in her friends +some personal mannerism?—any peculiar impression of which she might +master the physical mechanism and reproduce it? A trait like this +naturally made Herrick take anxious stock of his own position. What +personal peculiarity of his was she studying? But it was nevertheless in +such a trait that the staunchness of his love found its true food. He +found his faith digested such things capitally; his passion at once +nourished and clarified itself by every human failing, by all the little +nerves and little ways of his darling divinity, until it ceased to be +merely the bleeding heart of a valentine and found within itself the +solid, articulated bones of mortal life. If, in return, there was the +least thing she could learn of him, let her, in heaven's name, learn it! +Only, how long before she would have finished with it?</p> + +<p>In the blessed meantime she scarcely stirred without him. With a freedom +unthinkable in girls of his own world, she let him take her to lunch +every day; unlike a proper heroine of romance, Christina required at +this time a great deal of food and he waited for her after rehearsal and +took her to tea. It was a mercy that he was now doing a series of Famous +Crimes in Manhattan, for the Record, as he certainly did not wish to put +her on a diet of Italian table d'hôtes! She accepted all this quite as a +matter of course; and it had become a matter of course that he should go +home with her for dinner. Sometimes they walked up through the Park, +sometimes they took a taxi and drove to shops or dressmakers; she did +not scruple, when she was tired or wanted air, to drive home with her +hat off and her eyes shut. It seemed to the poor fellow that she had +accepted him like the weather.</p> + +<p>For she had become strangely quiet in his presence. Eventually she +ceased to use upon him any conscious witchery whatever; something had +spiked all her guns, and Herrick was too much in love to presume that +this quiet meant anything except that he did not irritate her. Every now +and again, it is true, he was breathlessly aware of something that +brooded, touchingly humble and anxious and tender, in a tone, in a +glance. He feared that this anxiety, this tenderness, was only that +royal kindness with which, for instance, when Joe Patrick gave up his +elevator, hating that haunted job, she at once got him taken on as usher +at the theater. But Herrick dared not translate her expression, when, +looking up suddenly, he would find her eyes swimming in a kind of happy +light and fastened on his face. At such moments a flush would run +through him; there would fall between them a painful, an exquisite +consciousness. And, with the passing of the wave, she would seem to him +extraordinarily young.</p> + +<p>He considered it a bad sign that seldom or never did she introduce him +to any of her mates. Public as was their companionship, she kept him +wholly to herself. This was particularly noticeable in the restaurants +where she would go to strange shifts to keep actors from dallying at her +table; she would forestall their advances by paying visits to theirs, +leaving Herrick to make what he liked of it; and, do what he would, the +poor fellow could find no flattering reason for this. Already he knew +Christina too well to have any hope that it was the actors who were not +good enough.</p> + +<p>They were to her, in the most drastic and least sentimental sense, her +family. She quarreled with them; often enough she abused and mimicked +them; at the memory of bad acting scorn and disdain rode sparkling in +her eye, and if her vast friendliness was lighted by passionate +enthusiasms, it was capable, too, of the very sickness of contempt. But +this was in private and among themselves; there was not the least nor +the worst of them whom she would not have championed against the world. +Quite apart from goodness or badness of art, Christina conceived of but +two classes of human beings, artists and not artists; as who should say +"Brethren"; "Cattle." Herrick congratulated himself that he could be +scooped in under at least the title of "Writer." It was not so good as +"Actor," but 't was enough, 't would serve. All her sense of kin, of +race, of patriotism, and—once you came to good acting—of religion, was +centered in her country of the stage. Herrick had never seen any one so +class conscious. With those whom she called "outsiders," she adopted the +course most calculated, as a matter of fact, to make her the rage; she +refused to know them. And when, for the sake of some day reproducing +high life upon the boards, she brought herself to dine out, this little +protégée of the Deutches had always said to herself, with Arnold +Bennett's hero, "World, I condescend."</p> + +<p>Such an affair took place on the Monday before Christina's opening. Some +friends of the Inghams made a reception for her; and Herrick saw a dress +arrive that was plainly meant for conquest. Now Herrick considered that +this reception had played him a mean trick. He had a right to! He who +had recently been a desperado with sixpence was soon to be an associate +editor of <i>Ingham's Weekly</i>!—While he was still dizzy with this +knowledge a friend on the <i>Record</i> had pointed out a suite in an old +fashioned downtown mansion, which had been turned into bachelor +lodgings: a friend of the friend wished to sub-let these rooms +furnished, and Herrick had extravagantly taken them. A beautiful +Colonial fireplace had decided him. He remembered a mahogany tea-table +and some silver which Marion could be induced to part with, and it +seemed to him that he could not too quickly bring about the hour when +Christina, before that fireplace and at that tea-table, should pour tea +for whatever Thespians she might think him worthy to entertain. But it +had taken time for the things to arrive; to-morrow she was going on the +road for the preliminary performances, and to-day was set for the +reception! He had, of course, kept silence. But it was heartbreaking to +see how perfect a day it was for tea and fires—one of those cool days +of earliest September. He kindled the flame; alas, it didn't matter! +Then, toward six he went uptown to hear about the party.</p> + +<p>He found Mrs. Hope, but not Christina, and the elder lady received him +almost with tears. "She is out driving, Mr. Herrick; she is out driving +about all by herself and she won't come home. She is in one of her +tantrums and all about Mr. Wheeler—a fine actor, of course, but why +bother?"</p> + +<p>Herrick had never seen the poor lady so ruffled. "It was such a +beautiful reception," she told him, "all the best people. She got there +late. She always does. You can't tell me, Mr. Herrick, that she doesn't +do it on purpose to make an entrance. All the time I was brushing her up +after the rehearsal she stood with her eyes shut, mumbling one line over +and over from her part. Nobody could be more devoted to her success than +I am, but it got on my nerves so I stuck her with a hairpin and I +thought she would have torn her hair down. 'What are these people to +me?' she said. 'Or I to them.' You know how she goes on, Mr. Herrick, as +if she were actually disreputable, instead of being really the best of +girls. Then, again, she's so exclusive it seems sometimes as if she +really couldn't associate with anybody, except the Deutches! She likes +well enough to fascinate people, all the same. She behaved beautifully +after she got there; and oh, Mr. Herrick, you can't imagine how +beautiful she looked! Surely, there never was anything so lovely as my +daughter!"</p> + +<p>"Can't I?" Herrick exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Well, every one just lay down flat in front of her. Even Mr. Ten Euyck. +Yes, he was there. I trembled when they should meet. You know, he has +his inspectorship now. He wants to give her a lunch on board his yacht! +It was a triumph. Christina was very demure. But by-and-by I began to +feel a trifle uneasy. You know that soft, sad look she's got?—it's so +angelic it just <i>melts</i> you—when she's really thinking how dull people +are! Well, there, I saw it beginning to come! And about then they had +got rid of all but the very smartest people, just the cream, you know, +for a little intimacy! We were all getting quite cozy, when some one +asked Christina how she could bear to play love-scenes with a man like +Wheeler—of course, Mr. Herrick, it <i>is</i> annoying, but they will ask +things like that; they can't help it."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"She looked up at them with the sugariest expression I ever saw and +asked them why, and they all began reminding her of the—well, you know! +And I must say, when you come to think of his—ah—affairs—! And they +talked about how dear Miss So-and-So had refused to act with him in +amateur theatricals, he said such rough things! And how lovely Christina +was, and how hard it was on her, and all the time I could see Christina +clouding up."</p> + +<p>Herrick, with his eyes on the rug, smilingly murmured, "Wave, Munich, +all thy banners wave! And charge, with all thy chivalry!"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Herrick, she stood up and looked all round her with that +awful stormy lower she has, and then, in a voice like one of those +pursuing things in the Greek tragedies, 'I!' she said, 'I am not worthy +to kiss his feet!' Oh, Mr. Herrick, why should she mention them? There +are times when she certainly is not delicate!"</p> + +<p>Herrick burst out laughing. He thought Christina might at least have +exhibited some sense of humor. "And was the slaughter terrible?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Herrick, what could any one say? She looked as if she might +have hit them. She shook the crumbs off her skirt, as if they were the +party, and then she said good-by very sweetly, but coldly and sadly, +like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution, and left. Mr. Herrick, I +don't know where to hide my head!"</p> + +<p>Herrick stayed for some time to counsel and console, but Christina did +not return and as Mrs. Hope did not ask him to dinner he was at length +obliged to go. For all his amusement he felt a little snubbed and blue +and lonely; his eyes hungered for Christina in her finery; he saw her at +once as the darling and the executioner of society and he longed to +reassure himself with the favor of the spoiled beauty; how was he to +wait till to-morrow for the summons of his proud princess? As he opened +his door he saw that the fire had been kept up; some one kneeling +before it turned at his entrance and faced him. It was Christina.</p> + +<p>The shock of her presence was cruelly sweet. The firelight played over +her soft light gown; she had taken off her gloves and the ruddiness +gleamed on her arms and her long throat and on the sheen of her hair. As +she rose slowly to her feet that something at once ineffably luxurious +and ineffably spiritual which hung about her like the emanation of a +perfume stirred uneasily in him and his senses ached. Never had her +fairness hurt him like that; his passion rose into his throat and held +him dumb.</p> + +<p>"The man looked at me, hard," she told him, "and let me in. I came here +to rest. And because I didn't want to be scolded. Don't scold me. +Perhaps I've thrown away a world this afternoon. But no; it will roll +back to be picked up again. Listen, and tell me that I was right."</p> + +<p>Without stirring, "I can never tell you but the one thing," he said. "I +love you!"</p> + +<p>It was no sooner said than he loathed himself for speaking. He had not +dreamed that he should say such a thing. It was not yet a month since +her engagement to Ingham had been broken; she was a young girl; she was +here alone with him in his rooms, to which she had paid him the perfect +honor of coming—she, who had accepted him so simply, so nobly, as a +gentleman. Hot shame and black despair seized upon him.</p> + +<p>The girl stood quiet as if controlling herself. Then, so gently that she +was almost inaudible, she said, "I must go!"</p> + +<p>He could not answer her; he was aware of the ripple and murmur of her +dress as she fetched her wraps; she put on her hat and the lace of her +sleeves foamed back from her arms in the ruddy light; he felt how soon +she would be engulfed by that world which was already rolling back to be +picked up. He stepped forward to help her with her thin chiffon coat and +she suffered this, gently, passively; as it slipped over her shoulders +he felt her turn; he felt her arms come around his neck, clinging to +him, and the sweetness of her body on his breast. In that firelit room +her lips were cold, as they stumbled on his throat with the low cry, +"Oh, you love me!—You love me!" she repeated. "And you're a man! Save +me!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING</h3> + + +<p>"Don't let them take me!" Christina entreated. "Don't let them lock me +up! That door—! Turn the key!"</p> + +<p>Without demur he turned it. He was in that commotion of bewildered +feeling where one shock after another deliciously and terribly strikes +upon the heart, and anything seems possible. From the trembling girl his +pulses took a myriad alarms; apprehension of he knew not what ran riot +in them and credited the suggestions of her terror; but all the while +his blood rushed through him, warm and singing, and his heart glowed. +She was here, with him! She had fled here and clung to him for defense! +She loved him! In no dream, now, did she lie back there, in the deep +chair beside his fire, with her hand clasping his eagerly as he knelt +and her shoulder leaning against his. It was keener than any dream; it +was that fullness of life, which, even at Herrick's age, we have mostly +ceased to expect.</p> + +<p>"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it—I +know! They've been following me from the beginning!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a> +<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it—I know!"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"But why, dearest, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because they think I killed Jim Ingham."</p> + +<p>"Christina! Why should they think such a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?"</p> + +<p>She put her finger on his lips to still his cry of protest, and, looking +down into his face, her own eyes slowly filled with that brooding of +maternal tenderness which seemed to search him through and through. For +a moment he thought that her eyes brimmed, that her lips trembled with +some communication. But, without speaking, she ran her hand along his +arm and a quiver passed through her; taking his face in her two hands +she bent and kissed his mouth. In that kiss they plighted a deeper troth +than in ten thousand promises. And, creeping close into his breast with +a shuddering sigh, she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, Bryce, you won't +let them take me away? I can stand anything but being locked up—I +couldn't bear that—I couldn't! What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"My dearest, no one in the world can harm you!"</p> + +<p>"I came here to be safe, where I could touch you. Let me rest here a +little, and feel your heart close to me. Oh, my love, I'm so frightened! +I thought I was strong! I thought I was brave and could go through with +it! But I can't! I'm tired—to death! All through my soul, I'm cold. +It's only here I can get warm!"</p> + +<p>"Christina," he asked her, "go through with what?"</p> + +<p>She stirred in his arms and drew back. "Look first—ah, carefully!—from +the window. What do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but ordinary people passing. And the usual number of waiting +taxis."</p> + +<p>"Well, in the nearest of those taxis is a detective. He has been +following me all the afternoon. He is sitting there waiting for me to +come out."</p> + +<p>Herrick carried her hand to his lips. "Christina, don't think me a +cursed schoolmaster. But it's imagination, dear. You've driven yourself +wild with all this worry and excitement. Why, believe me, they're not so +clumsy! If they were following you, you wouldn't know it."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I've known it for at least two weeks! I'm an actress, and +if, as they say, we've no intelligence, only instincts, well then, our +instincts are extraordinarily developed. And mine tells me that, over +my shoulder, there is a shadow creeping, creeping, looming on my path."</p> + +<p>A series of sounds burst on the air. Herrick went to the window. "There, +my sweet, the taxi's gone."</p> + +<p>"Did no one get out?"</p> + +<p>"No one."</p> + +<p>He had snatched up her hand again and he felt her relax.</p> + +<p>"Well, I ought to be used to shadows; all my girlhood there has been a +shadow near me. Bryce, when I was really a child, something happened. +Something that changed my whole heart—oh, you shall know before you +marry me! I shall find a way to tell you!—It made me a rebel and a +cynic; it made me wish to have nothing to do with the rules men make; I +had to find my own morality. Only, when I saw you, I felt such a +strength and freshness, like sunny places. Bryce!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"My feeling for Jim was dead a year ago. Do you believe that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my darling! Why—"</p> + +<p>"Because I won't have you think me shameless! Nor that an accident, like +death, turned my light love to you! I was just twenty when he first +asked me to marry him; I was so mad about him that my head swam. And yet +it wasn't love. It was only infatuation and I knew it. I was still young +enough for him to be a sort of prince—all elegance and the great world. +The last two have been my big years, Bryce. I was rather a poor little +girl till then. Even so, I held him off ten months. I felt that there +was a curse on it and that it could never, never be! What did I know of +men or that great world—well, God knows he taught me! When I did +consent to our engagement the fire was already dying. But by that time +the idea of him had grown into me. He had always a great influence over +me, Bryce, and he could trouble and excite me long after he had +broken my dream. Oh, my dear, it was one long quarrel. It was a year's +struggle for my freedom! Well, I got my release. I didn't wait for +fate." She paused. And then with a low gasp, "All my life I've stood +quite alone. I have been hard. I have been independent. I have been +brave—oh, yes, I can say it; I have been brave!—but I've broken down. +Only, if you will let me keep hold of you, I shall get courage."</p> + +<p>"Christina!"</p> + +<p>"Do you know how big you are? Or what a clear look your eyes have got? +There in that coroner's office—oh, heavens,—among those +<i>stones</i>!—Bryce, he was there this afternoon! that man!"</p> + +<p>"Ten Euyck? Yes, I know."</p> + +<p>"Do you know what he means to do as Police Inspector? He means to run me +down! Wait—you've never known. I've kept so still—I didn't want to +think of it. Four years ago he payed for the production of a play of +his, by a stock company I was with. Oh, my dear, that play! It gave us +all quite a chill! He wanted his Mark Antony played like a young +gentleman arranging the marriage-settlements. But he took the rehearsals +so hard, he nearly killed us." She hesitated. "He was very kind to me. +He was too kind. One night, he met me as I was coming out of the +theater, and—forgot himself. One of the boys in the company, who was +right behind me, slapped him in the face! Do you mean to tell me that he +has ever forgotten that? At the inquest he thought he had me down, and +the laugh turned against him! Is he the man to forget that?"</p> + +<p>"But what can he do?"</p> + +<p>"How I detested him!" Christina hurried on. "He taught me, in that one +minute, when I was eighteen, how men feel about girls who aren't in +their class! Just because I was on the stage, he took it for granted +I—Well, he, too, learned something! Since then I've heard about him. +He isn't a hypocrite, he's an egoist. I wonder, were some of the +Puritans really like that? He's so very proper, and so particular not to +entangle himself with respectable women! But with women he calls bad he +doesn't mind—because for him bad women don't count, they don't exist! +Oh, dear God, how I despise a man who feels like that! How I love you, +who never, never could! Does he really know, I wonder, that sometimes +it's the coldest of heart who can be made to turn his ships at +Actium?—'What can he do?' He can hope I'm guilty! And he can use all +the machinery of his office to prove me so!"</p> + +<p>"Why, look here, dearest, if he's never revenged himself on the man who +struck him—"</p> + +<p>Christina gave a shrill little cry. "But, now he has his chance with me! +His great spectacular chance! Oh, Bryce, I'm afraid of him, and I was +never afraid before!—Dearest dear, I know you can't do anything! But +the girl's in love with you, poor thing, and she feels as if you can! +I've wanted you—oh, how I've wanted you!—all my life. I've known the +dearest fellows in the world, the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were too much like poor Christina; fidgety things, +nervous and on edge. 'You take me where the good winds blow and the +eternal meadows are!'—What are you doing?"</p> + +<p>He had bowed down to kiss her wrist and he replied, "I'm thanking God I +look like a farmer!"</p> + +<p>"My poor boy!" cried Christina, breaking her tears with little laughs, +"I've got your cheek all wet! Bryce dear, we're engaged, aren't we? You +haven't said.—Bryce!"</p> + +<p>He slipped back onto the floor, with his head in her lap and her two +hands gathered in his one. They were both silent. The little fire was +going out and the room was almost dark. And in that happy depth of life +where she had led him he was at first unaware of any change. Then he +knew that the hands he held had become tense, that rigidity was +creeping over her whole body, and looking up, he could just make out +through the dusk, the alert head, the parted lips of one who is waiting +for a sound. "Bryce," she said, "you were mistaken. That detective has +not gone!"</p> + +<p>"What do you hear?"</p> + +<p>"I don't hear. I simply know." Their senses strained into the silence. +"If he went away, it was only to bring some one back. He went to get Ten +Euyck!"</p> + +<p>"Christina! Tell me what you're really afraid of!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"Christina, what was it you couldn't go through with?"</p> + +<p>"Death!" she said. "Not that way! I can't!" She rocked herself softly to +and fro. "If I could die now!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"You shan't die. And you shan't go crazy, either. You're driving +yourself mad, keeping silence." He drew her to her feet, and she stood, +shaking, in his arms. "Christina, what's your trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Nancy,—that murder—my opening—my danger—aren't they enough?"</p> + +<p>"For everything but your conviction that it is you who are pursued, and +you who will be punished. Some horrible accident, dear heart, has shown +you something, which you must tell. Tell it to me, and we will find that +it is nothing."</p> + +<p>"Bryce," she said, "they're coming. It's our last time together. Don't +let's spend it like this."</p> + +<p>"Did you—" he asked her so tenderly that it sounded like a caress, "did +you, in some terrible emergency, in some defense, dear, of yourself, +Christina—did you fire that shot?"</p> + +<p>Her head swung back; she did not answer.</p> + +<p>"My darling, if you did we must just take counsel whether to fight or to +run. Don't be afraid. The world's before us. Christina, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no!" she whispered. "I did not!" She felt his quiver of relief, +and her nervous hands closed on his sleeve. "Oh, if you only knew. There +is a thing I long to tell you! But not that! Oh, if I could trust you!"</p> + +<p>"Can't you?"</p> + +<p>"I mean—trust you to see things as I do! To do only what I ask! What I +chose—not what was best for me! Suppose that some one whom—Bryce?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"If any one should hear—"</p> + +<p>"There is no one to hear."</p> + +<p>"You can't tell where they are."</p> + +<p>"Christina, can't you see that we're alone here? That the door's locked? +That you're safe in my arms? The cab went away. No one followed you. No +one even knows where I live; my dear, dear love, we're all alone—"</p> + +<p>The door-bell sounded through the house.</p> + +<p>He thought the girl would have fallen and his own heart leaped in his +side. "Darling, it's nothing. It's for some one else."</p> + +<p>"It's for me."</p> + +<p>"That's impossible."</p> + +<p>There was a knock on the door.</p> + +<p>Herrick called—"Who's there?"</p> + +<p>"It's a card, sir."</p> + +<p>"A card?"</p> + +<p>"A gentleman's card, sir. He's down in the hall."</p> + +<p>"I can't see any one at present."</p> + +<p>"It's not for you, sir; it's for the young lady."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell him there was a lady here?"</p> + +<p>"He knew it himself, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, she came in here because she felt ill; I'm just taking her home. +She can't be bothered."</p> + +<p>"He said it was very important, sir. Something she's to do to-morrow," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Christina! It's only some one about your going away."</p> + +<p>"No. It's the end. Take the card."</p> + +<p>Springing on the light, he took the card to reassure her. She motioned +him to read it. And he read aloud the words "Mr. Ten Euyck."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL</h3> + + +<p>Christina took the card from him, and seemed to put him to one side. +Almost inaudibly she said, "I will go down."</p> + +<p>Before Herrick could prevent her, a voice from just outside the door +replied, "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Hope. May I come in?" Ten Euyck, +hat in hand, appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>He looked from one to the other, noting Christina's tear-stained face, +with a civil, sour smile. "I am sorry if I intrude. I had no idea Mr. +Herrick was to be my host. The truth is, Miss Hope, I followed you and +have been waiting for you, in the hope of making peace—where it was +once my unhappy fortune to make war."</p> + +<p>Christina said, "You followed me!"</p> + +<p>"But I shouldn't have yielded to that impulse so far as to—well, break +into Mr. Herrick's apartment, if I had not become, in the meanwhile, +simply the messenger of—a higher power." Ten Euyck tried to say the +last phrase like a jest, but it stuck in his throat. He moved out of the +doorway, and there stepped past him into the room the man whom Herrick +had seen at the Pilgrims'. "Miss Hope, Mr. Herrick," Ten Euyck said, +"Mr. Kane; our District Attorney."</p> + +<p>Kane nodded quickly to each of them. "Miss Hope," he said, "I don't +often play postman; but when I met our friend Ten Euyck outside and he +told me you were here, the opportunity was too good to lose." He took a +letter out of his pocket, watching her with shrewd and smiling eyes. +"We've been tampering with your mail. Allow me."</p> + +<p>Christina took the letter wonderingly, but at its heading her face +contemptuously brightened. "I can hardly see," she said, passing it to +Herrick. "Read it, will you?—He would have to know anyhow," she said +sweetly to the two officials. "We are just engaged to be married. You +must congratulate us."</p> + +<p>Herrick, never very eloquent, was stricken dumb. "Sit down, won't you?" +was as much as he could ask his guests. The letter ran—</p> + + +<p>"The Arm of Justice suggests to Miss Christina Hope that she exert her +well-known powers of fascination to persuade the Ingham family into +paying the Arm of Justice its ten thousand dollars. Miss Hope need not +work for nothing, nor even in order to avert an accusation against which +she doubtless feels secure. But the Arm of Justice has in its possession +a secret which Miss Hope would give much to know. She may learn what +that secret is, and how it may be negotiated if she will hang this white +ribbon out of the window wherever she may be dining on Monday. She will +receive a communication at once."</p> + + +<p>"Exactly!" said Kane, as though in triumph. "For such swells as the Arms +of Justice it's about dinner-time now. Would you oblige me, Miss Hope, +by tying the ribbon out of the window? Show yourself as clearly as +possible. All the lights, please."</p> + +<p>As Christina stepped to the window, he added, "I'm trusting they didn't +recognize us as we came in. It's pretty dark."</p> + +<p>They waited. The three men were strung to a high degree of expectation.</p> + +<p>"But it's all so silly!" Christina said. The call of the telephone +shrilled through the room.</p> + +<p>"Miss Hope?" Herrick asked. "Yes, she's here."</p> + +<p>Then they heard Christina answering, "Yes, yes, it's Miss Hope. I hear. +I understand. I'll be there." She hung up the receiver and turned round. +"The Park. To-morrow. At ten in the morning. The bench under the +squirrel's house at the top of the hill beyond the Hundred-and-tenth +Street entrance. And be sure to come alone." She sat down, staring at +Kane.</p> + +<p>He said, "Excuse me!" and went to the 'phone. "Boy! Did that party ask +for Miss Hope in the first place? All right. That's queer. They asked +for Mr. Herrick's apartment."</p> + +<p>"They knew I was living here? Why, I only moved in this morning."</p> + +<p>"And they must know I'm going on the road to-morrow; the eleven-thirty +train!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. They're well informed." Kane had been passing up and down; now +he stopped in front of Christina and again he seemed to measure her with +his keen eyes. "Well!" he said; "are you game for it?"</p> + +<p>Christina sprang up and stood before him, glowing.</p> + +<p>"You'll keep this appointment?"</p> + +<p>"Surely! And alone!"</p> + +<p>"Not by a long shot! Your mother and Mr. Ingham have feared exactly some +such escapade; that's why you've had to be shadowed all this while and +not advised of the activities of the police. There will be plenty of +plain clothes men, well planted. But not you, Mr. Herrick, whom they +would know. If you attempt to smuggle yourself in, we'll have to put you +in irons. Well, Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"My mother," said Christina, rising, and faintly smiling, "deserves to +have her hair turn as white as I'm sure it has by this time." She held +out her hand. "You gave me a great fright," she said. "Did you know it? +I thought you had all come to execute me. Don't! I'm not worth it!"</p> + +<p>The admiration which no man could withhold from her for very long +colored Kane's studying face and warmed his handshake. "I can count on +your not losing your head, I think. You'll be there?"</p> + +<p>"I'll be there.—But have these people really any secret? Are they +really going to tell me something?"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear young lady, we'll know that to-morrow."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY</h3> + + +<p>The week in which Christina was to open in "The Victors" was one of +those which call down the curses of dramatic critics by producing a new +play each night. Thursday was to see the opening of openings; there were +but two nights on the road and Mrs. Hope and Herrick were to live +through these as best they might in a metropolis that was once more a +desert.</p> + +<p>After that momentous interview of Monday evening Christina would not let +Herrick drive home with her. "Come to the station in the morning, and +hear what has happened. Lunch with me on Thursday. But don't let me see +you alone again till Friday noon, when—" she laughed—"when I've read +my notices. Let your poor Christina tell you her trouble then. Till then +she has trouble enough!" She put her face up with a kind of humble +frankness, to be kissed. And he saw that it was a weary face, indeed.</p> + +<p>Throughout the night his anxiety concerning the next day's meeting with +the blackmailers contended in him with that other anxiety: what she was +to tell him on Friday—when she had read her notices! Whatever it was, +it was not for his passion that he feared. There were even times when he +could almost have wished it were not some distorted molehill that the +girl's excitable broodings had swollen past all proportion, but some +test of his strength, some plumbing of his tenderness. And then again he +would be aware of a cold air crawling over his heart, of that horrible +sinking of the stomach with which, walking in the dark, we feel that we +are taking a step into space. A black wall, ominous, menacing and very +near, would loom upon him and blind him from the wholesome and habitable +world. The daylight reinforced his faith in simpler probabilities. It +washed away all but the sweetly humble arrogance of the one fact which +all night long had shot in glory through his veins and built itself into +the foundations of his life. With the day he remembered only that she +loved him.</p> + +<p>He hung about the outskirts of One Hundred-and-tenth Street till he saw +her enter the Park and till he saw her leave it—safe, but with an +exceedingly clouded brow.</p> + +<p>"They didn't come, of course!" she said to him at the station. "They +very naturally refused to swim into a net. Mr. Kane is a great dear, but +I wish he would mind his own business! Mother, speak to Bryce." She took +leave of them both with a serenely fond indifference to public +conjecture and the train bore her away.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hope may habitually have endeavored to clutch at the life-lines of +her own world even while she was being submerged in the billows of +Christina's but she was not mercenary and she accepted Herrick with an +evident thankfulness that he was no worse. When he had taken her home, +he found himself at a loss as to what to do with his life. Christina had +become so wholly his occupation that to lose her even for a few days was +to lose the bottom out of the world. Although the morning was still +swathed in yesterday's fog, the sun was struggling, the damp air was +very warm, and his steps turned toward the Park. But he did not follow +the paths which he and Christina had trod homeward from rehearsals; +instinctively, he turned north. Then he smiled to see that he was once +more making for the Hundred-and-tenth Street entrance.</p> + +<p>Yes, here was the last spot which had held her, and, as he looked about +him, his heart stirred to think of her here. They should come here +together, he and she. The place was a little wilderness; he could not +have believed that in that kempt and ordered domain there could be so +wild and sweet a grace of nature and charmed loneliness. The hill was +high and thinly wooded; finely veiled in the mist and the faint sunshine +it was the very spot for the dryad length and lightness of Christina's +movements. At the same time, so close to the city's hum, there seemed +something magic, something ominous and waiting in the utter, perfect +stillness, and the little clearing at the top of the hill somehow, +whether by its broken boulders or the columnar straightness of a +semicircle of trees, suggested a Druid clearing. Those who wished to +make a sacrifice here would be very strangely unmolested. High and low +and far away there was no human figure, and a cry might perish long +before it traveled those misty distances. Herrick thought, "If she had +come alone!" and shuddered.</p> + +<p>But there was the little squirrel house; there the bench where she had +waited; and at its base he smiled to see the scattered nuts which +Christina, with her variegated interests, had not failed to bring her +furry hosts. A lassitude of loneliness came over him; he was still not +wholly recovered from his accident of three weeks before and with a +weary yielding to stiffness and weakness he dropped down on the bench. +Then he saw that along one of its slats some one had recently penciled a +line, and he recognized Christina's hand. "I will come again for three +days running, after Thursday. At the same hour. And I will come +<i>alone</i>."</p> + +<p>He was startled, but he smiled. It was so like her! Looking up, he saw +behind him a man sweeping leaves in the distance, and, far down the +hill, there appeared a loafer with a newspaper. The charm was broken. +Good heavens, where were people starting from! He could perceive, now, +to his left a man sleeping in the grass. Could any of these be the plain +clothes men, still lingering hopefully about? By George, they must be! +And Christina was right—they were too obvious a snare! Why, there was +a fourth, altogether too loutishly and innocently eating an apple as he +strayed on!</p> + +<p>Herrick looked down at Christina's message, wondering if the detectives +had seen it. Intrepid and obstinate darling, how resolute she was to +know all there was to be known! When he looked up again he saw that the +slumberer had wakened and was sitting up. The other three men were +approaching from their respective angles, nearer and nearer to the +bench. And then it occurred to him—did they take him for a blackmailer?</p> + +<p>It made him laugh and then somehow it vexed him; and he began to stir +the fallen leaves with a light stick he carried, restlessly. The men +came on, and it annoyed him to be surrounded like this, as by a pack of +wolves. He lifted his head impatiently, and was about to hail the +nearest man when a splash of sun fell full on that man's face. It was +the face of the chauffeur in the gray touring-car.</p> + +<p>He knew then that he was in a trap. Controlling his first impulse to +spring up and bring the struggle to an issue, he counted his chances. He +remembered how far and still was this deserted spot; his muscles were +very stiff, and he felt the slimness of the stick in his hand. He had no +other weapon. And there were four of those figures sauntering in upon +him through the silence and the pale, dreamy sunshine. He felt the high, +hot beating of his heart. The city lay so close at hand! He could still +feel on his mouth Christina's kiss! And the immense desire to live, and +all a man's fury against outrage, against this causeless and +inexplicable brute-hate, which already, in the city's very streets, had +dared to maim and tried to murder him, rose in him with a colder rage +and kept him quiet and expressionless. He rose; and striking the dust of +the bench from his clothes, he glanced about. Yes, the man behind him +was still advancing, sweeping leaves; down the hill before him the man +climbed upward, still mumbling over his newspaper; to his right the +apple-eater, chewing his last bite, tossed away the core as he came on; +the chauffeur alone disdained subterfuge, advancing quietly; he carried +in his hand some lengths of rope. Herrick believed that he had one +chance. This wooded isolation could not be so far-reaching as it seemed: +they would scarcely dare to fire a shot.</p> + +<p>Leisurely he idled a step or two down the slope toward the man with the +newspaper, till he was just outside the closing semicircle of the +others. Then, lowering his head, he shot swiftly forward. Immediately +there was a shrill whistle and the reader cast his newspaper away. It +was too late; Herrick's lowered head struck him in the diaphragm and +knocked him backwards. As he fell, Herrick leaped over him and turning, +caught the chauffeur a stinging blow across the eyes with his stick. The +stick broke; and Herrick, dropping to his knees, caught the ankle of the +next comer and threw him flat upon his face. The fourth man flung a +blackjack which, as Herrick rose up, caught him just below the right +elbow; the young fellow sprang up and, shouting now for help at the top +of his strong voice, he raced down the hill as if, once more, he were +bearing the ball to its last goal.</p> + +<p>For a moment he felt that he had snatched the victory, but his stiff +muscles played him false and his right arm hung as if paralyzed. His +shouts, too, were leaving him winded and the fourth man, now +considerably in advance of the others, was gaining on him at every step. +Suddenly Herrick mistook the shadow of a little bush for the shadow of a +fifth opponent; in his second's wavering the fourth man lunged at him, +missed him, and losing his own balance clutched the end of Herrick's +coat. They both went down together, getting and giving blows; and though +Herrick was up and off again in an instant, the breath was pretty well +knocked out of him. Violent pains were throbbing now through his arm; he +seemed to himself as heavy as lead; near the bottom of the hill the +fourth man was on him again; Herrick landed on the fellow's head with +his left, only to fall himself into the hands of the two whom he had +thrown at first and who now fell upon him with a zeal that all his +French boxing, which enabled him to land a kick in one jaw and a +horrible backheeled stroke into the ribs of the fellow who was trying to +wrap a coat round his head, scarcely availed to rid him of. He gathered +himself together for one shout that seemed to him to crack the +tree-trunks. But the game was up; without knowing it he was turning +faint from the pain in his arm, and then the men were all round him now; +barring his path and only holding off from him a little because the +chauffeur was running down hill toward them, aiming at Herrick, as he +came, the rope which he had tied into a noose. Herrick leaped to one +side, and clinging to the tactics which had served him best, dropped to +the ground and pulled the chauffeur down atop of him. They clenched like +that and went, rolling and struggling, down the hill; striking against +trees, kicking, clawing, blind with rage, till they were stopped by the +flat ground. It was Herrick who landed on his back and found himself +staring up at the revolver the chauffeur was drawing from his pocket. At +that moment there sounded a policeman's whistle.</p> + +<p>The man who had been running after them with the coat for Herrick's +head, dropped it and ran like mad. His companion's arm had been broken +by Herrick's kick, but this man and the fourth continued wildly +searching for something they had dropped on the hill. The chauffeur had +had to ease a little on Herrick in order to draw his gun; but when he +felt Herrick struggling onto his right side and even rolling himself on +top of his right arm, he quickly slid the barrel of the revolver into +his palm and lifted the butt-end. As he did so Herrick's left fist shot +up and dealt him a blow on the point of the chin. He fell back as if his +neck were broken; the pistol slipped out of his hand and Herrick caught +it just as the man with the broken arm dropped on his chest. The +policemen's whistles were sounding nearer and nearer; the man on +Herrick's chest kept him from aiming the pistol, but he discharged it in +the grass, shot after shot, five of them, to guide the police. "Let him +have it!" said the man on top of Herrick, but in an Italian phrase, to +the fourth man, who leaned over Herrick raising what the other had +dropped back there on the hill. It was the blackjack. Herrick could just +turn the pistol a little and point it upward from his side. He fired it +straight into the fourth man's face; and he was always glad, afterward, +that, like a sick girl, he had closed his eyes. The next man who bent +over him was a policeman.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind me," Herrick said, "get them! Get after them!" But that +automobile of theirs must have been waiting on the driveway near at +hand; for the man whom Herrick had shot dead was the only one they +caught.</p> + +<p>At first the body seemed to offer no clue; save a soiled and torn half +of a blank card on which had been uncouthly scribbled the number +1411—unless its being the body of a young Italian could be called a +clue. Herrick, who had, of course, accompanied it to the station under a +nominal arrest, turned sick with disappointment. At that moment the +lieutenant in charge emitted an exclamation. He had found on the dead +man a letter addressed in the typewriting of the Arm of Justice to +Christina Hope. The inclosure was intact, and the lieutenant held it out +to Herrick.</p> + +<p>To the single sheet of paper was fastened a thick, soft curl of dark red +hair. Under the curl, in a rounded but girlish handwriting, were four +words: "Help me, dear Chris!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS</h3> + + +<p>This piece of information was very carefully guarded from the +newspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But the +fight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinister +automobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began to +find himself the most widely advertised man in New York; his +battle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity and +he did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero who +had slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin always +being bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was a +good deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarily +paralyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hung +helpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerous +wound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christina +called him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leave +the house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties to +come home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and of +horrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was the +unhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion. +"Besides, Mr. Herrick,—Bryce—were they trying to kidnap you, too? And +if so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or did +they mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr. +Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is—and who will it be +next?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many other +questions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spun +round in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage.</p> + +<p>Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And when +Mrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as a +pugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern he +seemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what.</p> + +<p>For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to her +Johnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use his +influence against his being such a little liar.—"You remember that +queer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boy +friend?"</p> + +<p>"A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection with +them?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it never come from a school at all!"</p> + +<p>"I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'd oughtn't to laugh, Mr. Herrick—and the child so naughty! Why +that morning after Mr. Ingham was killed he found it propping open the +slit in our letter box." Herrick ceased to laugh. "He was so set on +keeping it he made up that story, and then to go to work and lose it, +an' it so queer the stones in it was maybe real—"</p> + +<p>"He lost it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Els't we'd never have known on account of him coming home crying. He +lost it in the Park, where he'd been playing train-robber with it an' +lots o' the loafers on benches watchin' him. A bigger boy got it away +from him, larkin' back an' forth, an' threw it to him, an' just then a +horse took fright from an automobile and run up on the grass with its +rig. The boys scattered in a hurry an' when they come back the pistol +was gone. He hadn't noticed no particular person watching, so he didn't +know who was gone, too. I tell him, God took it to punish his lyin'," +concluded Mrs. Grubey, with the self-righteousness of perfect truth, +"but I certainly would like to know how much it was worth! An' how it +ever got there an' who it belonged to."</p> + +<p>Herrick had a vision of a comic valentine he had received on the same +morning. "I'm afraid it was meant for me!" he said. He knew this could +not clear things up much for Mrs. Grubey; and afterward he fell to +wondering if the capital "C" scratched on the dummy pistol's golden +surface bore any similarity to the slender, pointed lettering which had +formed the words "To the Apollo in the bath-robe." He could never +remember when the initials rose before him in a new order; the A's blent +as one and then the C—A. C.—Oh, madness! Yet, on Friday, he would ask +Christina.</p> + +<p>One other tribute to his popular fame gave him a new idea. It came from +his Yankee woman at the table d'hôte. The night after the attack she +motioned him to her as he was leaving and without ceasing to play +solitaire she said, "If I was you, young feller, I guess I wouldn't come +down here for one while."</p> + +<p>His eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't you the one shot a Dago yesterday in the Park? Pshaw, you needn't +tell me—I know 'twas 'cause you had t' do it! An' good riddance! But +it's healthier for you to stay where you belong."</p> + +<p>Herrick looked round him on the good-tempered, smiling people at the +little clean tables, and laughed. "But you don't suppose the whole +nation is one united Black-Hand, do you? You seem to have a mighty poor +opinion of Italians!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said the woman, with a grim smile of her own, "I married one. +I'd oughta know!"</p> + +<p>She finished her game and seeing him still lingering, in enjoyment of +her tartness, she said, "All forriners 're pretty poor folks. When I +get mad at my children I say it's the streak of forrin' in 'em. Well, my +girl's good Yankee, anyhow. Fair as anybody. It's my son's took after +his father, poor fellow!"</p> + +<p>"Then the proprietress, here, isn't your daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Her? Sakes, no! She's my niece-in-law. I brought up my daughter like +she was an American girl! It's my son keeps in with these! He's +homesick. My daughter's husband got into a little bit o' trouble in the +Old Country," said this remarkable little dame, without the least +embarrassment, "and her an' me's glad enough to stay here. But the men +kind o' mope. Their business worries 'em and as I say, 'tain't the +business I ever would have chose, but I s'pose when I married a Dago I +might's well made up my mind to it!" She said this with an air +inimitably business like, and so continued—"Now I want you should clear +out from here, young man! There's all kinds of fellers come here. It may +be awful funny to you to think o' gettin' a knife in your back, but I +don't want it any round where I am! When they're after Dagoes, it ain't +my business. But my own folks is my own folks."</p> + +<p>Now it could not be denied that there was something not wholly +reassuring as to the pursuits of this respectable old lady's family in +this speech, and in lighter-hearted times Herrick might have noted it as +a testimonial to that theory of his concerning the matter-of-fact in +crime. But now it suggested to him that he might do worse than look for +the faces of the blackmailers in such little eating-places as this one. +After all, they evidently were Italians, and it was with Italians that +they would sojourn. Yes—that was one line to follow! He remembered that +this region was in or adjacent to Ten Euyck's district and he wondered +if he could bring himself to ask the favor of a list of its Latin +haunts. He and Mrs. Hope were on their way to a big Wednesday night +opening when this resolution took definite shape, and it was strange, +with his mind full of these ideas, to come into the crush and dazzle of +the theater lobby.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hope at once began bowing right and left; the theatrical season was +still so young that there were actors and actresses everywhere. Herrick, +abnormally aware of his new conspicuousness, could only endeavor to look +pleasant; and, trailing, like a large helpless child, in her wake, was +glad to catch the friendly eye of Joe Patrick; fellow-sufferer in a +common cause, whom Christina's recommendation as usher he perceived to +have landed him here, instead of at the theater where she was to play. +Unfortunately Joe hailed him by name, in an unexpectedly carrying voice; +a blush for which Herrick could have kicked himself with rage flamed +over him to the roots of his hair, and when he perceived, with horror, +that they were entering a box, he clutched Mrs. Hope's cloak and slunk +behind the curtains with it like a raw boy.</p> + +<p>But even so, there was a continual coming and going of acquaintances, +many of whom conveyed a sort of sympathetic flutter over Mrs. Hope's +interest in to-night's play; an impression that Christina must feel her +own absence simply too hard, and Herrick smiled to think how much more +concentrated were Christina's interests than they realized. Not but +their expectation of her appearance to-morrow was keen enough. It seemed +to Herrick that there was a thrill of it in all the audience, which +persistently studied Mrs. Hope's box. Christina's genius was a burning +question, and the unknown quantity of her success agitated her +profession like a troubled air—through which how many eyes were already +ardently directed toward to-morrow night, passionate astronomers, +attendant on a new star! Murders come and murders go, but here was a +girl who, in a few hours, might throw open the brand-new continent of a +new career; who, next season, might be a queen, with powers like life +and death fast in her hands. And, with that tremendous absorption in +their own point of view which Herrick had not failed to observe in the +members of Christina's profession, people asked if it wasn't too +dreadful that this business of Ingham's murder and Nancy Cornish's +disappearance should happen just at this time, when it might upset +Christina for her performance?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hope introduced him to all comers with a liberality which her +daughter had been far from displaying, and he could see them studying +him and trying to place him in Christina's life. It was clear to him +that if he ranked high, they were glad he had not gone and got himself +beaten to death in the Park, or it might have upset her still more. He +thought of the girl whose wet cheek had pressed his in the firelight. +The sweetness of the memory was sharp as a knife, and the rise of the +curtain, displaying wicked aristocrats of Louis the Fourteenth, sporting +on the lawns of Versailles, could not deaden it.</p> + +<p>For if there is one quality essential to the effect of wicked +aristocrats it is that of breeding; and of all mortal qualities there is +none to which managers are so indifferent. In a costume play more +particularly, there is one requisite for men and one only; size. Solemn +bulks, with the accents of Harlem, Piccadilly and Pittsburgh, bowed +themselves heavily about the stage in conscientiously airy masquerade +and, since nothing is so terrible as elegance when she goes with a flat +foot, Herrick's eyes roved up and down the darkened house studying the +faces of Christina's confreres, there, and endeavoring to contrast them +with the faces of the public and the critics to whom, to-morrow, she +must entrust her fate.</p> + +<p>A burst of applause, recalling his attention to the stage, pointed out +to him a real aristocrat. Among the full-calved males in pinks and +blues, the entrance of a slender fellow in black satin, not very tall, +with an order on his breast and the shine of diamonds among his laces, +had created something the effect of the arrival of a high-spirited and +thoroughbred racehorse among a drove of caparisoned elephants. Herrick, +the ingenuous outsider, supposed this actor the one patrician obtainable +by the management; not knowing that it was his hit as the spy in +"Garibaldi's Advance" which had opened to him the whole field of foreign +villains, and that he could never have been cast for a treacherous +marquis of Louis Quatorze this season if he had not succeeded as a +treacherous private of Garibaldi the season before.</p> + +<p>With a quick, light gesture, which acknowledged and dismissed the +welcome of the audience, the newcomer crossed the stage and bowed deeply +before his king. The king stood at no great distance from Herrick's box, +and when the newcomer lifted his extraordinarily bright, dark eyes they +rested full on Herrick's own. Then Herrick found himself looking into +the face of the man in the street who had questioned him about the +murder on the night of Ingham's death.</p> + +<p>Herrick had a strange sensation that for the thousandth part of an +instant the man's eyes went perfectly blind. But they never lost their +sparkle, and his lips retained the fine light irony that made his quiet +face one pale flash of mirth and malice. "Who is that?" Herrick asked +Mrs. Hope.</p> + +<p>"Who? Oh—that's Will Denny."</p> + +<p>Herrick was startled by a hand on his sleeve, and a hoarse, boyish voice +said in his ear, "That's him!" He knew the voice for Joe Patrick's. +"That's the man I took up in the elevator."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!"</h3> + + +<p>Herrick excused himself to Mrs. Hope and followed Joe Patrick out of the +box. "But are you sure, Joe?" he asked. "Could you swear to it?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I could! Why couldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"And you couldn't tell the coroner that that man was as slim as a whip +and as dark as an Indian, about middle height and over thirty, and of a +very nervous, wiry, high-strung build."</p> + +<p>"Well, now I look at him close again I can see all that. But he didn't +strike me anyways particular."</p> + +<p>Herrick had an exasperated moment of wondering, if Joe considered Denny +commonplace, what was his idea of the salient and the vivid. Was the +whole of Joe's testimony as valueless as this? He stood now and watched +their man with wonder. Had Denny recognized him? Had he seen Joe Patrick +rooted upright there, behind his chair, with staring eyes? If so, after +that first flicker of blindness, not an eyelash betrayed him. He was +triumphantly at his ease; his part became a thing of swiftness and wit, +with the grace of flashing rapiers and of ruffling lace, so that from +the moment of his entrance the act quickened and began to glow; the man +seemed to take the limp, stuffed play up in his hand, to breathe life in +it, to set it afire, to give it wings. And all this so quietly, with +merely a light, firm motion, an eloquent tone, a live glance! He had, as +Herrick only too well remembered, a singularly winning voice, an +utterance of extraordinary distinction, with a kind of fastidious edge +to his words that seemed to cut them clear from all duller sounds. But +Herrick recalled how, after the first pleasure of hearing him speak, he +had disliked a mocking lightness which seemed to blend, now, with the +something slightly satanic of the wicked marquis whom Denny played. He +remembered Shaw's advice, "Look like a nonentity or you will get cast +for villains!" Truly, they didn't cast men like that for heroes! And in +the light of that sinister flash, Herrick was aware of vengeance rising +in him. He rejoiced to be hot on the trail, and when he and Joe parted +it was with the understanding that he was to allay suspicion by +returning to the box and Joe was to telephone the police. Rather to his +surprise the performance continued without interruption and he somehow +missed Joe as he came out.</p> + +<p>Now at the ungodly hour of one-thirty in the morning, Christina was +expected home. She was to take the midnight train from some Connecticut +town, and the thought of her approach began gradually to overcome, in +Herrick's mind, the thought of justice. As he walked to meet her through +the beautiful warm, windless dark, he told himself, indeed, that he had +a great piece of news for her and took counsel of her how he should +carry it to Kane.</p> + +<p>But when, under the night lights of the station, he saw how she was +ready to drop with fatigue, he simply changed his mind. He had +sufficiently imbibed the tone of her colleagues to feel that nothing was +so necessary as that she shouldn't be upset. It was bad enough that +to-morrow she must be told of Nancy's message and add her identification +of that curly hair; let her sleep to-night.</p> + +<p>In the cab she drooped against him with a simplicity of exhaustion that +was full, too, of content. "I was afraid I should never get you back!" +she said, and again, "I thought, all the evening, how you had +been—hurt; and how all that theaterful of women could see that you +were safe—and I couldn't! Do you know how I comforted myself?" And she +began to murmur into his shoulder a little scrap of song—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Careless and proud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is their part of him—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the deep heart of him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hid from the crowd!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"You know where my heart was!" he said. He had forgotten how large a +part of it had been excited by the apparition of Denny.</p> + +<p>Still humming, she drew back a little and let her look shine up to his.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Simple and frank,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Traitors be wise of him!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are not the eyes of him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pledge of his rank?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Christina!" he said, humbly. "Don't!"</p> + +<p>"You don't like it!" she softly jeered. And though when he put her into +her mother's arms her little smile was so pitiful that it frightened +him, and he would have given anything that to-morrow night were past, +yet she turned on the stairway and cast him down, with a teasing +fondness, a final verse.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vigor and tan!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look at the strength of him!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, the good length of him!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is my man!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Christina!" cried Mrs. Hope, scandalized. And Christina, with a +hysterical and weary laugh, dragged herself upstairs.</p> + +<p>Herrick went forth into the street bathed in the sense of her love and +with a soul that trembled at her sweetness. He was himself very +restless, and, sniffing the fresh dark, he dismissed the cab. He had +begun to be really in dread lest Christina should break down; after he +had crossed the street he turned, with anxious lingering, to look up at +her window, and he saw the light spring forth behind it as he looked. It +was so hard to leave the sense of her nearness that Herrick, like a boy, +stood still and there rose in his breast a tenderness that seemed to +turn his heart to water. He had no desire, ever again, on any blind, to +see a woman's shadow. Yet he hoped that she might come to the window to +pull this blind down; in case some one else did so for her, he stepped +backward into a little area-way in the shadow of a tall stoop. But she +did not come. The hall light went out, and then hers. He gave up, and +just then the front door opened and Christina, not having so much as +removed her hat, appeared upon the threshold. He remained quite still +with astonishment; and the girl, after glancing cautiously up and down +the street, descended the steps and set off eastward at a brisk pace.</p> + +<p>When she turned the corner into Central Park West, the explanation was +clear to him. In some way or another, she had got into communication +with the blackmailers and made a rendezvous which she was determined +this time to keep alone. For the first time, Herrick felt angry with +her. He had a sense of having been trifled with and he was really +frightened; now, indeed, he cursed himself for continuing to go unarmed. +He knew that it would be worse than useless to reason with her, and the +instant she was out of sight, he merely followed. Gaining the avenue, he +looked up the long line of the Park without seeing her. Ah! This time +she was going south. He went as far as he dared on the other side of the +street but he knew her ears were quick and, reaching the Park side he +vaulted the wall, and gained the shelter of the trees.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely done so when Christina turned sharply round; and she +continued to take this precaution every little while, but he could see +that it was a mere formality. She no longer thought herself followed and +never glanced among the trees; his steps were inaudible on the soft +turf. At the Seventy-sixth Street entrance she turned into the park; +pausing, wearily, she took off her hat and pushed up her hair with the +backs of her hands. She looked as if she were likely to drop; but then +she set off rapidly again, and Herrick prayed they would meet a +policeman. But no member of the law put in an appearance, and presently +Herrick smelled water, and knew that they were near the border of the +big lake. Under the white electric light Christina stopped and looked at +her watch; she frowned as if her heart would break; and then, in a few +steps, she paused on the threshold of a little summer-house that stood +with the lake lapping its outer edge. The doorway was faintly lighted +from an electric light outside, and Christina glanced expectantly +within. But there was no one there. She uttered a little moan of +disappointment and entering dropped onto the bench beside the lake; she +rested her elbow on the latticework and Herrick could see her dear, +outrageous, uncovered head mistily outlined against the water.</p> + +<p>Never in his life had he so little known what to do. A wrong step now +might precipitate untold disaster. His instinct was merely to remain +there, like a watchdog, and never take his eyes off her till the time +came for him to spring. But reason insisted that on the drive, less than +a block away, there must be policemen, and that the quicker he sought +one the better. He had not even yesterday's stick, his right arm was now +useless, and in a struggle by the water the odds against him were +doubled. Moreover, he had no reason to think that the blackmailers +intended Christina any violence. They had come to her yesterday in order +to deliver a message. This failing, they had allowed her to depart +unmolested and, on her side, her only thought was to do as they asked. +He perceived that the meeting would at least open with a parley; if he +could return with reinforcements in time to prevent foul play or to +effect a capture! But he simply could not bear to try it! And then the +nearness of the roadlights and the sense of his own extreme helplessness +overbore his instinct, and kicking off his shoes, he sped noiselessly +over grassy slopes. It seemed to him his feet were leaden; his heart +tugged at him to be back; his senses strained backward for a sound and +when he burst out on the drive he could have cursed the officer he saw +for being fifty feet away. It did not occur to him until afterwards that +if his likeness had not been in every paper in New York he might himself +have been immediately arrested. But the policeman listened with interest +to his story and then ambled out with the circumstance that the +summer-house was not on his beat, but that Herrick would find another +officer near such and such a place! With the blackness of death in his +heart, Herrick sped back as he had come, and then, hearing nothing, +slackened speed. There, still, thank God, was that dim outline of an +uncovered head against the lake! But so motionless that Herrick was +stabbed by one of those quick, insensate pangs of nightmare. Suppose +they had killed her and set her there, like that! He controlled himself; +but he was determined, now, at all hazards to get her away and stepping +into the path before the door, "Christina!" he said.</p> + +<p>The figure rose, and as it did so, he saw that it was not Christina at +all, but a man. A slight man, not over tall, who, as he stepped forward +toward the light, turned upon Herrick the pale, dark, restless face of +the actor, Will Denny.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DÉSIR—"</h3> + + +<p>The men were equally startled; a very slight quiver passed over Denny's +face, but he said nothing. "Good God!" Herrick cried, "what are you +doing here?"</p> + +<p>"The same to you," Denny replied.</p> + +<p>"But Christina! Where's Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Christina! Has she been here?"</p> + +<p>Herrick pushed roughly past him. There was no sign of the girl, and in a +cold apprehension, Herrick stared out over the lake. Denny's voice at +his elbow said, "She doesn't seem to float! Why not see if I've thrown +her under the bench?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Herrick savagely replied.</p> + +<p>The other smiled faintly. "Christina? It wouldn't be such an easy job!"</p> + +<p>She wasn't under the bench and Herrick hurried back into the path.</p> + +<p>"Go and look for her, if you like. I'll wait here." He called in a +sibilant whisper after Herrick, "You'll have to hurry. Don't yell."</p> + +<p>No hurry availed, but as Herrick burst out of the Park he caught a +glimpse of her back as she passed into a moving trolley car bound for +home. Only love's baser humors and blacker claims were left in him. He +knew that his dignity lay anywhere but in that little arbor, yet he +deliberately retraced his steps. Again he found Denny sitting there, and +this time the actor did not rise. But he must have been walking about +in Herrick's absence for he made a slight motion to a dark blot on the +bench near him. He said, "Are those your shoes?"</p> + +<p>Herrick sat down angrily and put them on, more and more exasperated even +by the dim shape of a cigar in Denny's fingers; although he was a +seething volcano of accusation he could not think of anything to say and +besides, what with emotion and with haste, he was rather breathless. So +that at last it was Denny who broke the silence with, "Well, now that +you are here, have you got a match?—Thank you!" But he did not light +it. He seemed to forget all about it as he sat there silent again in the +darkness waiting for Herrick to speak.</p> + +<p>When Herrick struggled with himself and would not, Denny at length +began. "I won't pretend to deny that she came here to find me. I only +deny that she did find me. I missed her, poor child. Doesn't that +content you?"</p> + +<p>And Herrick asked him in the strangling voice of hate, "Do you usually +have ladies meet you here? At this hour?"</p> + +<p>"No. That's what disturbs me. It must have been something very urgent. +She couldn't trust the telephone and she couldn't wait till morning. She +knows that now I almost never sleep, and that I can't bear to be awake +with walls around me; if I'm not careful I shall have walls around me +close enough. I come here, as Chris remembered, because—I must be +somewhere. So she chanced it. She didn't find me. I came just too late."</p> + +<p>Herrick rose. He felt as if he were stifling. "Do you pretend to tell +me, then, that you don't know why she came?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'd better not pretend that. I suppose I know why she came." He +added, very low, in his clear voice, "I suppose she came to warn me."</p> + +<p>"Warn you? Of what?"</p> + +<p>"Come, do I need to tell you that? Her mother must have told her that +you recognized me to-night and that the elevator boy recognized me, too, +and told you."</p> + +<p>"You saw all that?"</p> + +<p>"I saw all that."</p> + +<p>"And did nothing?"</p> + +<p>"What could I do?"</p> + +<p>"You've had time, since the performance, to get away!"</p> + +<p>"Where to?" asked Denny.</p> + +<p>If it was the simplicity of despair it affected the distraught and +baffled Herrick like the simplicity of some subtle and fiendish triumph. +Not for nothing had he observed the calm of the French marquis. Taking a +violent hold on himself, "Do you realize—" he demanded, "what you're +admitting?"</p> + +<p>"The mark of Cain?" said the other, with his faint smile. "Oh, yes!"</p> + +<p>Herrick incredulously demanded, "You don't deny it?"</p> + +<p>"Deny it? Why, yes, I deny it. I'm not looking for trouble and I deny it +absolutely. But what then? Will anybody believe me? Between friends, do +you believe me? Well—what's the use?"</p> + +<p>"You've no proofs? No defense?"</p> + +<p>"None whatever!—And I've been playing villains here for four years! My +dear fellow, don't blush! I'm complimented to find that you, too, are +hit by that impression. And I shan't tell Christina!"</p> + +<p>"If I could see by what damned theatrical trick you go about admitting +all this!"</p> + +<p>Denny seemed to take no offense. "I'm indifferent to who knows it. I'm +tired out."</p> + +<p>Herrick flounced impatiently and, "But season your solicitude awhile," +the other added. "Remember that even to you I don't admit my—what's the +phrase? My guilt! And legally I shall never admit it."</p> + +<p>"You merely 'among friends' allow its inference?"</p> + +<p>"If you like."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very clear in your own mind!"</p> + +<p>"Clear?" The brilliance of his eyes searched Herrick's face with a +singular, quick, sidelong glance for which he did not turn his head. +Then the glance drooped heavily to earth and Herrick could just hear him +add, in a voice that fell like a stone, "No—pit-murk!" He sat there +with his elbows on his knees and seemed to stare at the loose droop of +his clasped hands. He said, "I shall never play Hamlet. But at least I +am like him in one thing; I do not hold my life at a pin's fee."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" Herrick burst forth. "Do you think it's you I care about?"</p> + +<p>The other man replied softly into the darkness, "You mean, I've +implicated Christina?"</p> + +<p>"You've admitted that she knows—and shields you!"</p> + +<p>"So she does, poor girl! But don't think I shall put either Chris or me +to the horrors of a trial. I seem to have given some proof that I carry +a revolver. And I haven't the least fear of being taken alive."</p> + +<p>"I care nothing about you!" Herrick repeated. "What I want to understand +is why Miss Hope should shield you—if she is shielding you. Why she +should come here, in the middle of the night, to warn you? Whoever shot +Ingham was mixed up with everything that's rotten—with blackmail—with +the disappearance of that girl—"</p> + +<p>"O!" Denny had perceptibly winced. But then he said, "I don't confess to +all the crimes in the decalogue! For instance, Mr. Herrick, I am +perfectly guiltless of those rude—ah—ornamentations on your own brow." +He laughed outright. "How could I face Chris?" he said.</p> + +<p>Herrick jumped at him with an oath and bore him, by pure force of +weight, back against the lattice. His hand was on Denny's throat and it +was a moment before Denny could tear it away. When he had done so, he +said nothing; he continued to sit there as if nothing had happened; and +Herrick, a little ashamed, sulked at him, "Don't speak of her like that, +then!" He walked to the door of the arbor and back, facing Denny and +controlling himself, with his hands in his pocket. "There's been enough +of this," he said, through his teeth. "I've got to know now—what's she +to do with you? What's it to her, if you're caught? How, in the first +place, did she ever come to know such a secret? Why should you confide +it to <i>her</i>?"</p> + +<p>He was aware of Denny lifting his eyes and looking at him steadily +through the half-dark. "I'll tell you why, if you'll sit down. I've done +a hard night's work and, at any rate, I don't care to shout."</p> + +<p>Herrick dropped down beside him and Denny struck his match. "Smoke?" he +queried. Herrick shook his head and again, by the light of the little +flame, Denny stared gravely into his set and haggard face. "Is it so +much as that to you?" he said. "Well, then, I never told Christina. +Nothing—whether I was innocent or guilty. I didn't need to. There was +a—friend of hers in the room when it was done. But here's my connection +with the thing. You don't know, I suppose, that two months ago, I +expected to marry Nancy Cornish?"</p> + +<p>"I might have known it!" Herrick said.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why! Unless you've observed that the sweetest women are +born with a natural kindness for cads. I was perfectly sure that she +loved me. I used to meet her here"—Herrick started—"and take her out +in a boat and all that, as if I were a boy,—she was <i>so</i> young! Well, +then I displeased her and she sent me to the right about. It was hard. I +don't know if you're too happy and too virtuous to see that when another +woman was good to me, then, I fell in what it pleases us to call love +with her. It came and passed, like fever. No matter. She belonged +legally, at that time, to another man, but she swore to me she would get +free and marry me—yes, I believed she loved me, too, if you can swallow +that! You see, there were no limits to my complacency! There were +certain things I couldn't help but know, and she accounted for them all, +to me, by a dreadful tale of ill-usage when she was just growing up—a +man of the world, older than she, her first love, promise of marriage, +desertion, the horrors after it; how she had been forced to accept the +first chance of respectability—but now—for love of me—All the old +story! She never would tell me that man's name. She pretended to hate +him and fear him, and I lashed myself into such a rage against him, and +the insults with which she said he was following her again, that I +hardly saw the streets I walked through. The afternoon before the +shooting Nancy called me up; she said she had something to tell me, and +asked me to meet her at the old place in the Park at five o'clock. It +was cruel hard, because now I'd doubly lost her. I was sick of myself +and the whole world. It was touch and go with me. I sat here, waiting, +waiting—if she'd brought her goodness, her freshness, her gentleness +even within hailing distance of me, then, they might have shed a little +sanity on me as she passed."</p> + +<p>"And Christina?" Herrick persisted.</p> + +<p>"Well—this other woman was Christina's friend. That day that Nancy +didn't come I had a dress rehearsal, and Christina and this other woman +dined with me, just before that. She said, then, for the first time that +Ingham was the man she had told me of. She said she told me now because +it was he who had sent Nancy away; that Nancy was afraid of me because +he and she—I went straight for him after rehearsal. They didn't expect +me. And up there, in that room with Ingham, I found that other woman. +Would anybody believe in my innocence after that? Ought I to be +innocent? 'Deny it?' No, on the whole, I'd better not deny it!' That's +all!"</p> + +<p>They were both silent. Then through his groping thoughts Herrick could +hear Denny half-humming a catch of song whose words were instantly +familiar.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Je suis aussi sans désir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Autre que d'en bien finir—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sans regret, sans repentir,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sans espoir ni crainte—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Without regret, without repentance—Repentance? Surely! But—without +regret? He asked a good deal, that lad! You ought to like my little +song—it was taught me by the erudite Christina."</p> + +<p>"Where's that woman, now?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Denny, "that's her secret."</p> + +<p>"And Christina?" said Herrick, again.</p> + +<p>"Christina and I are very old chums; aside from the Deutches I am the +oldest friend she has. It was I got Wheeler to go West and see her. I +was in the first company she ever joined, when she was just a tall, slim +kid—sixteen, I think—and I was twenty-six. We've worked together, and +won together and—gone without together. I had been at it for eight +years when she first went on; and I taught her all I knew; when I got +into the moving pictures for a summer I worked her in—"</p> + +<p>Herrick started. "The best friend Christina ever had!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the other. "Thank you!" Herrick was aware of his quaint +smile. "Yes, I suppose I might be called that!"</p> + +<p>"I was told—I was led to believe you were an older man."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's one of Christina's sweetest traits—she colors things so +prettily! She can't help it! But you see, now, don't you, that she'd +never give me away? Chris would shield her friends as long as she had +breath for a lie. She's pretended a quarrel with me all these weeks, +because, thinking the police were following her, she didn't want them to +find me. She's kept you from knowing people who might speak of me. She's +had but the one thought since the beginning; and that was to save my +life. But she's in love with you, and she can't lie to you any +longer—you'll see. Besides, she thinks she can make you our accomplice; +that because you're a friend of hers, you're a friend of mine. She has +still her innocences, you see, and, in the drama, so many lovers behave +so handsomely." The ring had died out of his voice; but he went on, with +a kind of rueful amusement, spurring himself to be persuasive, "Come, +now, stop thinking of what would influence you, and try to think of what +would influence Chris! Do you think she'd like to see Wheeler hanged?"</p> + +<p>"Wheeler!"</p> + +<p>"Well, allow me to put forward that Chris thinks me quite as good an +actor as Wheeler, with the double endearment of not being so well +appreciated by outsiders!" He leaned forward with an intent flash. "If +you think she wouldn't stand by me, you don't know her!"</p> + +<p>"And is that the reason," asked Herrick, "why you left her in the +lurch?" He was aware of behaving like a quarrelsome old woman, now that +he had a probable murderer on his hands and didn't quite know what to do +with him. The man must feel singularly safe. There was something at once +annoying and disarming in his passiveness, and Herrick drove home this +question with a voice as hard as a blow. "Was it because you could play +on the loyalty and courage of a romantic girl, that, when you were +likely to be suspected, you ran away and left her to bear the public +accusation?"</p> + +<p>Denny answered, with that gentleness which Herrick found offensive, "I +didn't run far."</p> + +<p>"You've been filling her, too, I suppose, with this cock and bull +melodrama of suicide if you're arrested?"</p> + +<p>He had touched a live nerve. "Would it be less melodramatic to crave +that other exit—have my head shaved so that the apparatus could be +fitted on—let them take half an hour strapping me into an electric +chair! Do you think that would be soothing to her? No, thank you! Or do +you want me to hide and run, to twist and duck and turn and be caught in +the end?—I can't help your calling me a coward," Denny said, "and I +dare say I am a coward. A jump over the edge I could manage well enough. +But 'to sit in solemn silence, in a dark, dank dock, awaiting the +sensation of a short, sharp shock—'" He seemed to rein in his voice in +the darkness. "If I were even sure of that! But to be shut up for life, +for twenty years, death every minute of them! To be starved and +degraded, pawed over and mishandled by bullies—" He shuddered with a +violence that seemed to snap his breath; even his eyebrows gave a +convulsive twitch, as if he felt something crawling over his face. And, +rising, he went across to the entrance of the arbor and stood leaning in +the doorway, looking out.</p> + +<p>Herrick did not want him to get away and at the same time he did not +want to bring about any crisis until he had seen Christina. He thought +Denny's explanation of her attitude only too probable. "I've known the +dearest fellows in the world—the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were all like poor Christina—fidgety things, nervous +and on edge." Was she thinking of Denny then? "Oblige me by staying +where you are!" he said to Denny's back. Denny turned the grim delicacy +of his pale face to smile at him and the smile maddened Herrick. He went +on, "You must see yourself I can't let you go! Will you come to my +rooms for to-night, and in the morning Miss Hope can tell me if this +story's true!"</p> + +<p>Denny walked slowly out and stood smoking in the center of the pathway, +under the tall electric light. He was far from a happy-looking man, and +yet he looked as if he were going to laugh. "And what then?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Then I shall know if this isn't all a bid for sympathy. Whether there's +really any other woman beside this Nancy Cornish—"</p> + +<p>Denny wheeled suddenly round on him.</p> + +<p>"Or whether you don't know more of her—"</p> + +<p>"Damn you!" Denny said. "You fool,—" He had come close to Herrick and +then remembering the limp hang of Herrick's arm, he paused. And as he +paused a man stepped out from among the trees and touched him on the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>He wheeled round; there were two men behind him. They were in plain +clothes but the man who had touched Denny showed a shield. "Come along! +You're wanted at headquarters."</p> + +<p>Denny stood quiet, breathing a little rapidly. "Let me see your +warrant," he said, and he took two steps backward to get it under the +light. So that before any one could stop him, he had whipped out a +revolver, put the end of the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.</p> + +<p>There was a little click before the man could jump on him and then +another; and then Herrick heard the steel cuffs snap over his wrists. +The man with the shield drew back, and grinning, shook into his palm +what were not even blank cartridges but only careful imitations. "The +next time you rely on a gun," he said, "you want to look out for that +valet of yours!"</p> + +<p>Denny was standing with his heavy hair shaken by the struggle about his +eyes; one of the men obligingly pushed it back with the edge of Denny's +straw hat which he picked up and put on Denny's head. "Come! Get a gait +on us," said the man with the star.</p> + +<p>Denny said, aloud, "You overheard those last remarks for which this +gentleman raised his voice?"</p> + +<p>"Rather!" the three grinned.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, then there is certainly no more to be said." He nodded +agreeably to Herrick, and then between his captors, walked lightly and +quickly off, into the darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT</h3> + + +<p>Daylight was in the streets when Herrick got to bed, sure he should not +close his eyes; then he was wakened only by the cries of the newsboys +underneath his windows, calling, as if it had been an extra—"Ingham +Murderer Arrested! Murderer Arrested! Popular Actor Arrested in the +Ingham Murder!"</p> + +<p>Herrick tumbled into his clothes and bought a paper on his way to a very +late breakfast at the Pilgrims', where he had a card. In the account of +the arrest he himself figured as something between a police decoy and an +accomplice in crime, but Christina's midnight sally remained unknown and +he breathed freer. Now that she was to be kept out of it, he could but +admire the quiet good sense with which the police had gone about their +business. While those more closely concerned had dashed and bewildered +themselves against their own points of view like blind, flying beetles, +the police had simply made haste to ascertain if Nancy Cornish had a +lover. She had been engaged to Denny; a recent coolness between them had +been common gossip; and, since Nancy's disappearance, their common +friend, Christina Hope, had kept aloof from Denny, as though embracing +her friend's quarrel or suspecting her friend's sweetheart. It now +transpired for the first time that the police had dug further into that +evidence of Mrs. Willing's which Ten Euyck's eagerness to turn it +against Christina had left undeveloped. Mrs. Willing had heard a man's +voice which she did not think to be Ingham's, call out loudly and very +clearly, "Ask—" somebody or something the name of which was unfamiliar +to her, and which she had forgotten until later events had violently +recalled it—"Ask Nancy Cornish."</p> + +<p>Herrick did not read any further till he was seated and had given his +order to a friendly waiter. There were some men at a table near him; it +seemed to him that everybody in the room was talking of the arrest and +as a matter of fact most of them were talking of it. He had an uneasy +desire to know how Christina appeared in her own world's version. But +she remained there the friend of Denny, and of the girl over whom Ingham +and Denny must have quarreled. When he looked at the paper again, he +read that on the night in question by no less a person than Theodore +Bird, Denny had been seen to enter Ingham's apartment!</p> + +<p>Yes, the tremulous Theodore, despite his wife's particular instructions +that he should keep out of it, had called at headquarters and delivered +up the fact that at one o'clock or thereabouts, when he was just on the +point of retiring, he had heard what sounded like a ring at his +door-bell. But he had opened the door only a crack because the wires +between his apartment and Ingham's were apt to get crossed, and, indeed, +this was what had happened in the present case. He had seen a man +standing there, at Ingham's door; and Theodore, safe behind his crack, +his constitution being not entirely devoid of rubber, had taken a good +look; had seen Ingham fling wide his door, and the stranger enter. On +being asked if he could identify this stranger, he said he was certain +of it. Confronted with photographs of a dozen men he had unhesitatingly +selected Denny's.</p> + +<p>The police had delayed Denny's arrest in the hope of finding him in +correspondence with Nancy Cornish. Sure of their man, they had given him +rope to hang himself. But Joe Patrick's recognition, which, at any +moment, he might reveal to the suspected man, had forced their hand. +They did not add that until yesterday they had never connected Denny or +Nancy with the blackmailing letters, but Herrick now added it for them; +and he saw how Nancy's message, with its suggestion of the girl's peril, +had forced it, too.</p> + +<p>He deduced that, by the summer-house, they had not been able to overhear +anything until Denny had gone to the doorway and Herrick had raised his +voice. He read, finally, how, while Denny was changing for the street, +after the performance, his dresser had managed to unload and reload the +revolver. The number of the cartridge used in it was the same as that of +the bullet taken from Ingham's body.</p> + +<p>Up to the last line of the article Herrick kept a hope that Denny had +given some clue of Nancy's whereabouts but the police were obliged to +admit that the young man had proved a mighty tough customer. "He has +undergone six hours of as stiff an examination as Inspector Corrigan has +ever put a prisoner through and nothing whatever save the barest denial +has been got out of him. However, the Inspector is confident that in the +near future—" There was something in this last statement which made +Herrick slightly sick. He hoped Christina had not seen it.</p> + +<p>He understood well enough the weakness and blankness of Denny's account +of himself. The young man denied the murder much more definitely than he +had troubled himself to deny it to Herrick, but with the same listless +lack of hope and even of conviction. He made no secret of his having +gone to Ingham's room with the intention of shooting him, though he +asserted that Ingham had proved false the story which had occasioned +their quarrel and he had gone away again—that was all. Expect to be +believed? Of course he didn't expect to be believed! On the reason of +their quarrel he remained mute. To all further questions, such as what +other visitors Ingham had that night, he opposed the blankest, +smoothest ignorance. And Herrick, filling out the blanks, was still +impatient of the reticence which left it possible for any woman of the +men's mutual acquaintance to be taken for the woman of the shadow. No +effort for the good name of another woman justified to him the suspicion +and the suffering that Christina had already been allowed to endure. +Denny's guilt he did not and he could not doubt, but he might have +respected a guilt which, after so strong a provocation, had instantly +given itself up. Such an avowal might have kept further silence with the +highest dignity and Herrick wondered why an actor, of all people, could +not see that that would have been even the popular course. Then he heard +another actor, a much handsomer and more stalwart person, remark, "I +always said, poor chap, that he hadn't the physique for a hero!"</p> + +<p>"Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of the +affair had been discussed, "what I've always said is—Strung on wires! +He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your star +and your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of the +stage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, and +everybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say it +again—Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remark +met the occasion fully at every point.</p> + +<p>And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrick +discovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathy +for Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrow +night. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of them +extolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessing +what the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made the +management's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemed +to feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, that +Denny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment.</p> + +<p>So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suited +Herrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be kept +out of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one was +excited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hope +was a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long as +possible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning of +the night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You're +please to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!"</p> + +<p>With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown into +the office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW</h3> + + +<p>The only professional appearance which Wheeler had hitherto permitted +Christina to make in New York had been when she recited at a benefit +early in the preceding spring. The benefit was for the families of some +policemen who had perished valiantly in the public service and when +Christina had enlisted the Ingham influence in the cause Wheeler had +made the whole affair appear of her contriving. To procure herself an +interview with Denny in the Inspector's office before the formalities of +the Tombs should close about him she had not scrupled to make use of +this circumstance, and whether because it combined with her having +business there, in the identification of Nancy's message, or because the +Inspector believed she could really influence Denny to talk, as she said +she could, or because he wanted to watch them together, or, after all, +because she was one of those who get what she desired, there she was.</p> + +<p>Herrick was no longer at a loss to account for a sort of tickled +admiration which admitted him as one at least near the rose. She had +evidently been treated with the consideration due the chief mourner, +whatever one may think of the corpse; the Inspector, over by the window, +had made himself inconspicuous and for a moment Herrick saw only +Christina—a Christina wholly baffled and at a loss! She had, indeed, +that air of having spent her life in the office which was her +distinguishing characteristic in any atmosphere. Her hat was, as usual, +anywhere but on her head; she had stripped off her gloves and tossed +them into it. But she now sat in an attitude of despairing quiet which +she broke on Herrick's entrance only to catch his arm with one hand; +turning her face in upon his sleeve, "Bryce," she moaned, "I brought him +to this!"</p> + +<p>Then he saw that Denny was standing looking through the barred window +with his back to them. When he turned Herrick had to struggle against a +touch of sympathy for the change in his appearance. Although he had +never seen Denny in the daylight before, there was no denying that he +was only the worn ghost of what he had been last night. His slenderness +had the broken droop of physical and emotional exhaustion; beneath the +intense black of his hair, his face was the color of ashes and his +quick, brilliant eyes looked lifeless and burned out. Nevertheless, +Herrick preferred the daytime version. The sort of evil phosphorescence +of the French marquis which had continued to dazzle his eyes in the +darkness and the sharp electric light, had wholly vanished; Denny was +not playing a villain now—and in the blue serge suit of ordinary life, +there was something almost boyish in him.</p> + +<p>"He won't help me, Bryce," Christina said. "He won't tell me anything, +he won't say anything. He won't even tell me what lawyer he wants."</p> + +<p>Denny stood with his eyes fixed on his visitors but in an abstraction +which seemed to take no note of them; and Christina went on to Herrick, +as to a more sympathetic audience. "I tell him he shall have the best +lawyers in the world! He shan't be tormented any longer; he shall have +the law to look out for him! He'll be all right, won't he, Bryce, won't +he? If he'll only help himself! If he'll only say something!" Her voice +rose desperately and broke. "Tell him you're simply <i>for</i> him, as I +am—that's what I brought you here for! Tell him we're with him, both of +us, all the world to nothing, and that we urge him to anything he can +say or do to help himself! And that it will never make any difference +to—either of us!" When Herrick had made out to say that Christina's +friends were his friends, she went up to Denny and took him by the +shoulders. "Don't you understand? I want to speak not only for myself, +but for all those dear to me!"</p> + +<p>Denny broke into a nervous laugh, but he said nothing.</p> + +<p>Herrick guessed that his denial of his guilt had taken Christina wholly +by surprise; that she had relied greatly on the story of his provocation +and that now she did not know what to do. That it is not seemly for +young ladies to display such extreme emotion over gentlemen to whom they +are not related and who have had the misfortune to be imprisoned for +murder did not cross her mind. She was now reduced to a sort of +hysterical practicality in which, for lack of the treacherous valet, she +enlisted Herrick to discuss with a surprised Inspector what clothes and +furnishings of Denny's she would be allowed to have packed up and sent +to the Tombs—"What ought I to do to make them like me there? Oh, yes, +Bryce, it makes a difference everywhere! I mustn't wear a veil; and I +must get them plenty of passes. It's a pity we can't pretend to be +engaged—it would interest every one so!—How about money, Will?"</p> + +<p>"I've plenty, thanks."</p> + +<p>"Most ladies don't think beyond flowers!" contrasted the Inspector, in +amused admiration.</p> + +<p>Exasperated beyond endurance, Herrick heard himself launch the sickly +pleasantry, "Any use for flowers, Mr. Denny?"</p> + +<p>"Not before the funeral," Denny said.</p> + +<p>She shook him a little in her eagerness. "Books. And tobacco. And things +to drink. And the best food. And magazines. And all the newspapers." +Christina clung to the items like a child trying to comfort itself. +"Or—perhaps—not the newspapers—"</p> + +<p>Denny flung restlessly out of her hands. "Oh, yes," he said, "the +newspapers, please! Let me at least know how I am admired." He went back +to staring out of the window; he seemed so little interested in his +visitors that it was as though he had left them alone.</p> + +<p>Christina stood looking at him with an infinite pity. She was not crying +but her magnificent eyes swam in a sort of luminous ether and Herrick +had never seen her so girlishly helpless.—"Knowing me brought him to +this!"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk like a fool, Christina!" Denny interrupted over his shoulder +in his dead-and-alive voice.</p> + +<p>"It's true. If you'd never known me, or if I'd never engaged myself to +Jim—"</p> + +<p>"Or if I'd never been born. It's just as true and just about as +relevant." His absent voice died in his throat. Then, of a sudden, he +turned on her with a kind of restive suspicion. "What did you say, +awhile ago, about Kane's office?"</p> + +<p>"He's sent for me to come there to-morrow at two."</p> + +<p>"Well, whatever you begin telling him, remember there's one thing I +can't put up with. And that's—Well, anything less than—the full dose." +He came up to the girl and took her hand in his cold fingers. "And I +implore you, Christina, whatever you do, not to set such a motion on +foot, not to work up any sympathies nor bring forward any circumstances +which might lead to what they call a merciful sentence. I couldn't stand +it, Chris. It's the one thing I can't bear.—Oh, don't cry, don't cry! +Come, my dear! Why, you surely don't want me to live—like this! With +nothing to think of except—about Nancy! Well, then!" But Christina was +visibly gasping for breath and, in a nature easily drawn together +against a world harsh or indifferent, all the defenses against feeling +began to give way. Some comfort must be found for those that insist upon +caring! But what comfort?—"Ah now, Chris, dear old girl, such a brave +girl—it's all right. It's bound to be. Why, it's what I want, really. +Really it is. You know that. You know I've been pretty well through, all +these weeks, isn't that so?—Oh, take her away, won't you?" he cried to +Herrick.</p> + +<p>But Christina had by this time begun to cry, indeed, and now she threw +her arms round Denny's neck, pulled down his face and kissed him. "To +leave you here!" she wept.</p> + +<p>For a moment he stood stiff in her embrace and then he gently returned +her kiss; suddenly, with a sobbing breath, he caught her by the +shoulders as a man clings to something tried and dear, which he knows he +may not often see again. "Poor Chris!" he said. "All right, Chris!"</p> + +<p>The Inspector signed to the doorman who stepped up, pleasantly enough, +to Denny, and at his touch Denny took the girl by her elbows and held +her off.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, "you've got a performance to-night!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, God help me!" Christina cried. "How am I to go through with it!"</p> + +<p>"Why," said Denny, quickly, "do it for me! Don't let me wreck everything +I touch!" He looked at Herrick as though to say, "Be good to her—she's +only a girl! You needn't fear she can help me!" And aloud he continued, +"Look here, Christina, you mustn't fail. You're my friend, to pull me +through and make friends for me, isn't that so? Well, then, you mustn't +be a nobody! If you're going to get me out of here, you've got to be a +celebrity, and move worlds. Well, you've got nothing but to-night to do +it with. People like us, my dear, we've nothing but ourselves to fight +with, just ourselves! Come, get yourself together and pull it off +to-night! For me!" Over her head his miserable eyes besought Herrick to +take her away while she could believe this. But the girl, straightening +up, held out her hand. Denny took it and "All right," she said, "I +will!" As they stood thus, a door from within the building opened and +there was admitted no less a person than Cuyler Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>Christina was standing between him and Denny. The eyes of the two men +met and slashed like whips. Herrick never needed to be told whose was +the hand that long ago, for Christina's sake, had struck Ten Euyck. Now +Denny said in a quick undertone, "Don't fret, old girl!" And the guard +took him away.</p> + +<p>The newcomer looked rather more frozen than usual; he was surprised and +he did not take kindly to surprises. "It seems to be my fate to +interrupt! Mr. Herrick, don't you feel de trop?"</p> + +<p>He indulged himself in this discomforting question while his byplay of +glances was really saying to Inspector Corrigan, "What are all these +people doing here?" and Corrigan's was replying, "None of your +business!" There was evidently no love lost between the types, +particularly when the first glance persisted, "You got nothing out of +him?" And the second was obliged to admit, "Nothing!"—"But I implore +your toleration," Ten Euyck continued to Christina, "I can perhaps do +you some service for the prisoner with Inspector Corrigan."</p> + +<p>"The prisoner thanks you, as I do. But we have played in melodrama and +we are acquainted with the practice of poisoned bouquets. Inspector +Corrigan and I are doing very well as we are!"</p> + +<p>"You are unkind and, believe me, you are unwise. I really wish to please +you—do you find that so unnatural?—and to justify myself in your +regard. I want to begin by advising you not to let your friend's +melodramatic silence suggest to the public that he is going to hide +behind some story of a woman—"</p> + +<p>"He is very foolishly trying to keep a woman's name out of his story," +Christina clearly and boldly declared.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! There is no such person!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because if there were he would be only too anxious to get her to come +forward and tell the jury what she told him. It might get him off."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what she told him?"</p> + +<p>"My dear lady, they all tell the same thing. It seems to those who are +interested—"</p> + +<p>"It seems nothing whatever but a chance to divert yourself with what you +consider his disgrace, because the idea of disgrace comes natural to +you—and, indeed, to you, in his presence, it should do so! But I rely +on Inspector Corrigan to limit your diversions. His favors are the +favors of a practical man; neither he nor I are fortune's darlings; we +both work for our living and we both understand one another.—I ought to +say that I am sorry to be rude. But I am not sorry, I rejoice. While +there was a suspicion for you to nose out I was afraid of you. But now I +am free of you. If I were your poor mother," cried Christina, catching +up her hat, "I should pray you were ever in a disgrace that did you so +much honor!"</p> + +<p>This outburst produced a silence: Inspector Corrigan amused and +gratified, Inspector Ten Euyck struggling to appear amused and tolerant. +In fact, as Christina, still breathing fire, drew on her gloves, he +became so very easy and happy as to hum a little tune. The words +instantly fitted themselves to it in Herrick's mind.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Je suis aussi sans désir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Autre que d'en bien finir—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"That's very charming!" said Christina, in the tone of a person always +governed by amiability. "Where did you hear that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't really know. I'll trace it for you, if that will make my +peace."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, no.—Then you think," said Christina, sharply to both +officials, "that it would do him great good if this woman, whether he's +innocent or guilty, should come forward of her own accord, and repeat +the story of her trouble as she repeated it to him?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, she shall!"</p> + +<p>"Christina!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Hope!"</p> + +<p>Christina was inexpressibly grave; she trembled a little, but her voice +was firm. "What must be, must be!" she said.</p> + +<p>"But, Miss Hope, in person?"</p> + +<p>"In person, yes."</p> + +<p>"But how, when, where?"</p> + +<p>"Very simply. On Friday. At the office of the District Attorney."</p> + +<p>"And you can be certain of this?"</p> + +<p>"I can."</p> + +<p>"You know who she is then?"</p> + +<p>"Most assuredly I do."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick's terrible shadow?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she needn't bring her shadow, need she?" Christina said.</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck, who was just leaving the building, turned and looked at her; +there was always a covert, sullen admiration in his glances at her. "I'm +glad to see your spirits are improving. It's now you who are singing!"</p> + +<p>"'Auld acquaintance'—a sad enough song! But my Nancy's favorite! Don't +begrudge it me, Inspector Ten Euyck; it reminds all who love her of kind +hours. '<i>Should</i> auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?' +Good-by, Mr. Ten Euyck." The outside door closed after him, and she said +to the Inspector, "There is something you wish me to identify?"</p> + +<p>"Here we are!" said the Inspector. "The experts say she wrote it!"</p> + +<p>Christina looked at the four words a long time. The tears rose in her +eyes again. "Yes. She did." She turned to Herrick. "This was what I came +to tell Will last night. My mother had just told me. But now that he's +helpless, he mustn't know!"</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the Inspector, and he handed Christina the red lock of +curly hair.</p> + +<p>She took it a little gingerly; studying it, as it lay in the palm of her +hand. "Of course, one could be deceived," she said, slowly. "But it's +either her hair or it's exactly like it." She lifted the curl and held +it to the light. She untied the string which bound it, and thinning it +out in her fingers spread it to a soft flame of color. "Oh, surely, it's +her hair—oh, poor little girl!" she cried, and crossed by a sudden +shiver, she let the hair fall from her hand. Swifter than the men about +her she gathered it up again, and again stood studying the tumbled and +scattered little mass. And then Herrick saw a terrible change come over +her face—an immense amazement, mingled almost at once with passionate +incredulity; slowly, the incredulity gave way to conviction and to fear; +and then there swept upon Christina's face a blaze of such anger as +Herrick had never seen in a woman's eyes.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" they all cried to her.</p> + +<p>She opened her lips, as if to call it forth; but then she seemed to lose +her breath, and, all at once, she slipped down in a dead faint at their +feet.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE</h3> + + +<p>If the police believed Christina when she revived enough to say that it +had seemed to her as if the hair were soaked in blood it was more than +Herrick did. He only wondered that they let her go and if they were +perhaps not spreading a net about her as they had spread one about +Denny.</p> + +<p>But thereafter she was very composed, allowed herself to be taken +quietly home, and took a sedative so as to get some sleep. Herrick came +in from an errand at four and found the house subdued to the ordinary +atmosphere—high-pressured enough in itself—of the house of an actress +before a big first night.</p> + +<p>Down in the drawing-room Mrs. Hope said they must not talk about +anything exciting or Christina would be sure to feel it. But she herself +seemed to feel that the fact of her coming appearance in the Inghams' +box was about the only satisfactory piece of calmness in connection with +her daughter's future. She congratulated herself anew upon the outcome +of an old bout with Christina in which the girl had wished to go to +supper afterward with Wheeler rather than with the devoted Inghams, and +in which Mrs. Hope had unwontedly conquered. She said now that she +wished she had spoken to the Inghams about inviting Herrick; it could +have been arranged so easily.</p> + +<p>When Christina came in she allowed herself to be fondly questioned as to +how she felt and even to be petted and pitied. She was perhaps no more +like a person in a dream than she would have been before the same +occasion if Ingham had never been shot; when she spoke at all she varied +between the angelic and the snappish; and before very long she excused +herself and went to her room. She was to have a light supper sent up and +Mrs. Hope adjured Herrick not to worry!</p> + +<p>He duly sent his roses and his telegram of good wishes, but that she +could really interest herself in the play at such a time seemed horrible +to him and he arrived at the theater still puzzled and rather resentful +of the intrusion of this unreal issue.</p> + +<p>But the first thrill of the lighted lobby, glowing and odorous with the +stands of Christina's flowers; the whirr of arriving motors; the shining +of jeweled and silken women with bare shoulders and softly pluming hair; +the expectant crowd; the managerial staff, in sacrificial evening dress, +smiling nervously, catching their lips with their teeth; the busy +movements of uniformed ushers; the clapping down of seats; the high, +light chatter, a little forced, a little false, sparkling against the +memory of those darker issues that clung about Christina's skirts; the +whole, thrilling, judging, waiting house; all this began to affect +Herrick like strong drink on jaded nerves. From his seat in the third +row he observed Mrs. Hope and the Inghams take their places; the +attention of the audience leaped like lightning on them. Just then one +man came into the box opposite and drawing his chair into its very +front, sat down. It was Cuyler Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>Herrick forgot him quickly enough. It was a real play, acted by real +artists; the production held together by a master hand; and it continued +to string up Herrick's nerves even while to himself he scarcely seemed +to notice it. He had had no idea that it would be so terrible to live +through the moment of Christina's entrance. He sat with his eyes on his +program, suffering her nervousness, feeling under what an awful handicap +she was waiting there, the other side of that painted canvas, to lose +or win. There was the wracking suspense of waiting for her, and then, as +in a dream, the sound of her voice. Her dear, familiar voice! She was +there! She was there; radiant, unshadowed, exulting in the flood of +light, at home, at ease; softly, shyly, proudly bending to the swift +welcome and carrying, after that, the hearts of the audience in her +hand. She had only to go on, now, from triumph to triumph; her sun swam +to the meridian and blazed there with a splendid light. Mrs. Hope with +lowered eyes, breathed deep of a success that passed her dreams; Ten +Euyck, compressing his lips, his arms folded, never took his eyes from +Christina's face. And Bryce Herrick, watching her move, watching her +speak, not accepting this, as did the public, for a gift from heaven, +but aware to the bone of its being all made ground, of the art that had +lifted her as it were from off the wrack into this divine power of +breathing and creating loveliness, could have dropped down before her +and begged to be forgiven.</p> + +<p>Who was he to have judged her?—to-day or last night? to have exacted +from her a line of conduct? to have tried to force upon her the motives +and the standards of tame, of ordinary women? He remembered having often +smiled, however tenderly, at her pretensions; not having taken quite +seriously her attitude to her work. And here was a genius of the first +order, whose gifts and whose beauty would remain a happy legend in the +hearts of men when he was dust; whose name youth would carry on its lips +for inspiration when no one would care that he had ever been born! Oh, +dear and beautiful Diana who had stooped to a mortal! For this was the +secret thrill that ran like wildfire through the homage of his +heart—the knowledge that she loved him, and the feel of her lips on +his!</p> + +<p>Let them worship, poor creatures, poor mob! Unknowing and unguessing +that between him and her there was a bond that crossed the +footlights—the memory of a dark room and firelight, a girl in his +arms.—"Bryce dear, are we engaged? You haven't said?—I've wanted +you—Oh, how I've wanted you—all my life!"—At the end of the +performance it was impossible not to try to see her; not to get a word +with her, to confess and to have absolution.</p> + +<p>But at the stage-door there were so many people that he could not have +endured to share his minute with them. He knew the Babel that it must be +inside, and he decided to wait here; by-and-by the Inghams wouldn't +grudge him a moment. They seemed to stay forever; but at last all were +gone but two or three, and he decided to send in his card. As he stepped +forward the door opened, and Christina, in the oblong of light, stood +drawing on her gloves.</p> + +<p>She was dressed as if for a coronation and not even upon the stage had +the effulgence of her beauty seemed so drawn together for conquest. Her +long white gown had threads of silver in it; the white cloak thrown back +from her shoulders did not conceal her lovely throat nor the long string +of diamonds that to Herrick's amazement were twisted round her neck and +fell down along her breast; she carried on one arm a great white sheaf +of orchids, and Iphigenia led to the sacrifice was surely not so pale.</p> + +<p>Upon her appearance the closed motor which had been waiting across the +street swept into place. It was a magnificent car, lined with white; the +little curtains at the windows were drawn back and a low electric lamp +showed the swinging vases of orchids and white violets. Christina turned +her eyes from it till they met Herrick's; for a moment they widened as +if galvanized, and then, with a sweet, icy bow, she went right past him. +A man who had jumped out of the motor got in after her, and closed the +door. It was the man who had sat all alone in the stage box; Cuyler Ten +Euyck.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS</h3> + + +<p>There are violences to nature in which she is reined up so suddenly that +after them we are left stupid rather than unhappy. In such a mood of +held-in turmoil Herrick walked home and waited for to-morrow. His +appointment with Christina was at twelve, noon, and until noon he +struggled not to think at all. Anything was better than thought; yet +nothing would now answer save security—security past, present and +future—a full understanding of her life, of her trouble, of her +actions, of what game she was playing and of what part in it she was +ready to give him. By-and-by the wound began to throb, but he merely +kept it closed with a firm hand. Till noon to-morrow!</p> + +<p>With the morning the papers he had ordered, in a time that seemed long +ago, came to his door; he found himself opening them, and tracing the +dazzling streams of Christina's notices. Their flaming praises left him +cold; already they seemed to be written about some one whom he did not +know.</p> + +<p>Here, at any rate, was a Christina Hope with whom he could imagine +parting. The greatness of her destiny was full upon her; she seemed +ringed with a cold fire, brilliant as the golden collar of the world and +passible, perhaps, by Cuyler Ten Euycks, but hardly by a young literary +man from the country. Never again, whether she wished or no, could she +be quite the same girl in the gray gown who had sat in a corner of the +coroner's office beside her mother. Hermann Deutch's Miss Christina had +become one of the great successes of all time. And Herrick shrank a +little at the loud clang of her fame.</p> + +<p>He was going that morning to the Ingham offices at ten o'clock to sign +his contract. The day was oppressively warm, with hot glints of +sunshine, and it seemed to Herrick that the bright, feverish streets +swarmed with the rumors of Christina's triumph. He wondered if it had +got in to that man in jail and acquainted him with the strange +difference in their fates. His contract meant nothing to him; he got +away as soon as he could. Yet already the atmosphere was changed, the +sky was overcast, and as the clocks about Herald Square struck eleven, a +warm, dusty wind, even now bearing heavy drops of rain, swept down the +street. If Herrick took a car he would reach the Hopes a good half hour +too early, and he had no mind, after walking in the wet, to present +himself in muddied boots and a wilted collar before Christina. He looked +about him. He could choose between hotel bars—where actors might be +talking of her glory—dry goods shops and a moving-picture show. Perhaps +because Christina had gratefully mentioned moving-pictures, he chose the +latter. His longing and dread were so concentrated upon twelve o'clock +that he had no consciousness of buying his ticket. Only of +wondering—wondering—</p> + +<p>The place was not yet full enough to be oppressive, and Herrick sat +there in the welcome dark, with the rhythmic pounding of the music +stunning his nerves. He closed his eyes; and immediately there sprang up +before his consciousness the eternal, monotonous procession of +questions—What had she meant last night, by throwing over everything +for Ten Euyck? Why had she fainted at the sight of Nancy Cornish's hair +and what strange bond linked Nancy with Ingham's murder? Why had Nancy +disappeared a few hours before the shot; who had said, in Ingham's room, +"Ask Nancy Cornish," and to whom had they said it? Why had her +visiting-card broken down Christina's earlier evidence, and was that her +scarf which had frightened Christina so, or did it belong to that woman +of the shadow? And who was that woman? Why had an uncontrolled and +variable man, such as Denny had described himself, suffered six hours of +the third degree rather than risk revealing her name? By what authority +did Christina promise to produce her, that very afternoon, at the office +of the District Attorney? Had she made Christina break with Ingham, as +she had made Denny kill him, by that story of his betrayal of her youth? +He felt intuitively that in this woman was the key to the entire +situation. She had created it; she would be found, more than they now +knew, to have controlled it; and she, and perhaps she alone, could solve +its manifold involutions. She had arrived before Denny, she had spoken +boldly and insolently to Joe of Ingham; she had forced herself in upon +him when he did not want her; she had come openly in a white lace +dress—he remembered the lace that hung from the shadow's sleeve—and +made herself as conspicuous as possible—why? And as Herrick asked +himself these questions in the darkness he could almost have believed +himself surrounded by the darkness of that night; the brisk strumming of +the orchestra was not much like Ingham's piano, but it had the same +excited hurry of those last few moments; and Herrick's mind called up +again the light, bright surface of the blind and then the shadow of the +woman cast upon it, lithe and tense, with uplifted arm, the fingers +stiffening in the air. His eyes sprang open, and there before him, on +the pictured screen, among the moving figures of the play, was the same +shadow, with uplifted arm, the fingers spreading and stiffening in the +air. Then in the movement of the scene, the shadow turned clean round +and disclosed Christina's face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>"WHEN STARS GROW COLD"</h3> + + +<p>Herrick sat without moving while the shadows played out their play. But +he saw them no longer. They had begun and ended for him with that +certainty which it seemed to him, now, that he had always felt.</p> + +<p>When Christina's film came round again he watched it carefully all +through from the beginning. The play was of some western episode, and he +saw Christina come on, a spare slip of a girl in short skirts and long +braids, a little awkward, a little jerky, like a suspicious colt, and he +observed quite coolly what she had gained in five years. He saw Denny +come on, dressed as a Mexican—cast for the villain even then!—and he +saw for himself how greatly Denny had been her superior in those days, +and all the method and knowledge which she had absorbed from him as she +absorbed everything from everybody; and Herrick smiled there, in the +darkness, to think of it. As the action of the play quickened it shook +the novice from her self-consciousness; the promise of her great talent +began to show; already she did things that were magnificent; and when at +last her wedding was interrupted at the church door by the Mexican's +attempt to claim her as his sweetheart, her fire and fury became superb. +Herrick leaned forward watching. He saw Denny pour out his accusation, +he saw the bridegroom hesitate, he saw Christina sweep round denouncing +them both, saw the lithe, tense length of her, and her proudly lifted +head, saw her suddenly fling one arm up and out in her strange and +splendid gesture of her free, her desperate passion; the hand clenched +for an instant and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in +the air. He waited for the shot, but no shot came. Only once more the +shadow turned and revealed the young face of Christina, as she was at +seventeen, and shone upon him through the darkness with Christina's +eyes. Herrick rose to his feet and pushed out of the theater. The +streets were full of wind and rain, but he did not know it, and along +the crowded crossings, among multitudes that he did not see, he had the +luck of the drunken and the blind.</p> + +<p>He walked for hours without knowing where he went. His soaked clothes +hung on him like lead and the wind pounded him and made him wrestle with +it, but the burning poison of his thoughts could not be put out by wind +or rain. Towards nightfall he found himself at the door of the house +where he lived, and having nothing else to do, he went in. His +sitting-room was dark and cold; he threw himself into a chair and +lounged there, sodden with fatigue and wet, and staring at the empty +grate. There, when it was all aglow, had she leaned to him and put her +face to his and lied. As she had lied to Ingham, waking on his breast! +As she had lied to Denny, folded in his arms! Harlot and liar, liar and +cheat—oh, liar, liar, liar! For that was the poison in the wound, and +the bitterness beyond death—that not for one hour had she been true! +That flower-sweetness of her dear touch, of her hand in his, was as +corrupt as hell. His dear, wild, brave, demure Diana had never drawn one +breath of life—and the adventuress who wore her masque had all along +laughed at him in her sleeve! If she had only told him! It was a +challenge he could have met and carried; he felt his hand lock on +Christina's, strong to draw her from any quicksand of which she +struggled to be free. But that she should have fooled him and played +with him and led him blindfold, that she should have gone out of her way +to snare and laugh at him—what one of the lies with which she had been +waiting for him this noon could he now believe? She had betrayed and +thrown over Ingham for Denny as she had thrown over Denny for him, and +as she had thrown him over for Ten Euyck! She had played them all four +against each other—them, and how many others!—as in her insatiable +vanity she would yet throw Ten Euyck over for some new fool! She was all +vanity and nothing else; foul in her heart and scheming in her tongue, +cruel, cheating, worthless! Oh, Christina, oh, sweet, my sweet—liar, +liar, liar!—oh, Christina!—you! How could you?</p> + +<p>He sprang up; going to his sideboard, he poured out a strong drink of +the raw liquor and drained the glass. And as he stood there, with the +rank fire coursing through his exhaustion, the chilled stiffness of his +body and the heavy reeking damp of his crumpled clothes gave way to a +terrible warm sense of life and pain, and to a hunger, such as he had +never known, for that pain to be eased. Only one thing on earth could +ease it and that was the sight of Christina's face.</p> + +<p>He struck a light and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. In the +mirror opposite he could see his leaden face, stiff with soil and +weariness and framed in his moist, rumpled hair. He looked at it with a +sense of its being very ugly and unseemly, and that the dull red +beginning to creep into it from the whiskey was uglier and unseemlier +still. His body weighed upon him horribly, it seemed to creak and +prickle in its reluctant joints, and to loom up tangibly before him, as +if he saw double. But his spirit was very light and fierce and swift, +and throbbed in him, mad to be out of jail. Mechanically he got his hat, +and started for Christina's theater.</p> + +<p>He did not want to speak to her, to have any sort of dealings with her; +but see her he must. It was a need like any other, but stronger than any +other; not to be argued with. Now that he knew her, he must see her. +That would cure him. Let him see her once more and he could forget her +in peace. Something heavy, like his body, told him that this wouldn't +do; this was death and damnation, this would destroy him through and +through! And he replied that he hated her, and would forget her, and +never wished to pass another word with her! But see her this once more, +he must. Once more! Through the night and the pouring rain, the lights +of her theater began to gleam. They gleamed on arriving motors; on high +hats and snowy shirt-fronts, on opera cloaks and jeweled hair. Despite +the storm, the city had driven forth to do homage to the new star. The +candles at Christina's altar were burning high and clear; the lobby, all +brightness and warmth, was filled with delicate rustlings, frou-frous of +light feet and chattering voices and soft, merry sounds, idle +excitement. There was a little sparkle on all faces; the glimmer +reflected from Christina's eyes. In all men's mouths was the sound of +her name. Not last night had been more crowded nor more brilliant.</p> + +<p>And Herrick was very quiet and knew quite well how to behave. There +would not be a seat left at the box-office, nor would he appeal to the +management. He pushed to the center of the little crowd around a +speculator; then, clutching his ticket, went in. Just as last night, the +ushers ran up and down the aisles, and the seats clapped into place; +just as last night, he was surrounded by a garden of chiffon and satin +and perfume, of gossip and murmur. The audience, a little nervous, was +waiting to be thrilled. The overture was in, and the music quivered +through Herrick as the drink had done. He sat there very still, muddy +and damp, with a wilted collar, a rough head, and no gloves; there was a +little fixed smile on his lips and he stared at the curtain. He couldn't +see through it. But soon it must go up. He was nothing but one waiting +expectancy.</p> + +<p>They played a second overture and this did not surprise him. Then he saw +Wheeler, dressed for the first act, come before the curtain. And his +smile broke. Because the delay was so terrible. Then he realized that +Wheeler was making a speech.</p> + +<p>"You can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, with what regret I am obliged to +inform you that there will be no performance this evening. On account of +the sudden illness of Miss Christina Hope the theater will be closed for +to-night." There was something about getting back money at the +box-office.</p> + +<p>Herrick continued to sit there, unable to accept what had happened to +him. He wasn't going to see her! It was the snatching back of food from +a starving man; he had laid his lips to the spring in the desert and +found it dry! The thing wasn't possible. All his nature had been running +violently forward, and the shock of its stoppage stupefied him. As for +any concern over Christina's illness, it never occurred to him. +By-and-by he stood a long while on the corner of the street, not knowing +where to go. He was not so lost as to seek Christina in person, and +after his recent vigil there his own rooms were insupportable to him. +Presently some one jostled him, and he was face to face with Wheeler.</p> + +<p>"Great God, man!" Wheeler said. "Where have you been! What are you +standing here for! We've been looking for you all afternoon. Called up +your rooms a dozen times! Deutch and Mrs. Hope and I, we've scoured the +city—been to the Tombs, the District Attorney's, Police Headquarters, +everywhere. The Inghams are raving crazy. Ten Euyck's worse. Well, and +how about me? After all it's my loss! Everything's been done that can be +done. By to-morrow morning the whole city of New York'll be hit by a +tornado. This little old town's going to get the shock of its life and +go right off its trolley! Say something! Don't stand there like a stuck +pig! Speak, can't you? Have you got any idea?"</p> + +<p>Herrick heard his own voice saying, "Is she so ill?"</p> + +<p>"Ill? Heavens and earth—you didn't swallow that drool, did you? Where +have you been? Ill? No, the girl's gone—vanished, kidnapped, run away, +whatever you like. She's disappeared!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOK THIRD</h2> + +<h3>WILL O' THE WISP</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY</h3> + + +<p>Herrick made no outcry at Wheeler's words. He simply stood looking out +into the wet and windy spaces of Times Square, where the great splashes +of colored lights wavered and shone in manifold reflections on the +gleaming pavement. And a tremendous and ultimate change arose like new +life in his heart.</p> + +<p>There is a common human fallacy, touching and perhaps profounder than we +know, by which we instinctively assume any person in danger to be an +innocent person. To both men the missing girl was now in danger. It +occurred no more to Herrick than to Wheeler that Christina, by any +possibility whatever, could have voluntarily deserted a performance. +Something had happened. Inevitably, Herrick remembered the once laughed +at Arm of Justice. Had it known, all along, what the shadow on the +screen had told him to-day? A hundred references of hers, a hundred +inconsistencies, were solved at a stroke. Alone with that insensate +malignity which he had himself encountered, had she now tried to break +some blackmailing game and—lost?—He remembered with a horrid shock +that once let her be identified with the shadow on the blind and in the +eyes of the law she became the perjured witness of a murder, accessory +before and after!—Threatened, thus, on every side, Christina's face +seemed to flower for him there, on the night sky; as once, upon a foggy +afternoon just as the wind began to rise, it had shone on him in the +rainy street—when Christina had first held out her hand to him and +said, "Try to believe that perhaps she was in distress, after all!"</p> + +<p>In what hectic hot-house had he been stifling?—It was as though, in +this wild hour of sweeping rain and blowing air, of lights that flashed +and changed in the surrounding darkness, of isolation amid the myriad +noises of the theater traffic and the clanging trolleys, he heard, of a +sudden, Christina's cry for help; as though, running out into the +freedom of the storm, he gained her side of the road and took her hand. +It might be the hand of an outlaw, it was empty, forever, of any love or +hope for him; but he could feel it, now, in his and he did not care +against what world, whether his own or hers, he held it. For their +personal relation was no longer the great thing. The great thing could +be only that somewhere beyond him in the darkness, desperately needing +help, <i>she was</i>. And the next thing was to find her.</p> + +<p>"Well," he heard himself say to Wheeler in a commonplace voice, "let's +hear about it."</p> + +<p>"I want to eat something beside trouble!" Wheeler groaned. "Come in +across the way. Stan's to 'phone there at nine."</p> + +<p>Instinctively they chose a table by a window, as though in the great +street she had loved so much and won so lately, they might see her +hurrying by. The restaurant was almost empty, but the news was already +there. It peered out of the cigar-smoke of the men to whom Wheeler +curtly nodded; it questioned them from the waiter's face. "Where'll I +begin?" asked Wheeler. "Well, this afternoon they wouldn't let me see +Denny. But I met Stan, and he told me Chris had jumped her appointment +with Kane, never brought her witness! Partly, I could have choked the +girl—and, partly, I couldn't believe it of her. I called up her house +and I've been jumping ever since." And he poured out a story of haste +and confusion, of friends interrogated, detectives summoned, of a mother +more ignorant than any one and more prostrated.—"God, Herrick, I'm +sick! The girl's such a monkey, up to the last minute I hoped she'd show +up! About seven Kane got me over the coals. Wonder what he's hit the +trail so hard for? He'd had his suspicions of the Park,—the little +Cornish girl was last seen, you remember, going that way—but the police +have searched every bush for hours. The Inghams are all stewed up with +him and Stanley's wished on to him like a burr. The first thing he said +to me was, 'At what time did Mrs. Hope inform you of her daughter's +absence? Don't hesitate—I can remind you. She never informed you at +all!' Was he trying to see if I'd lie to him? What does he think I've +done with her? But funny thing—Mrs. Hope and the Deutches had been +worrying round looking for that girl all day and yet she'd never +consulted me! Look here, it's not possible—No, what cause would she +have to harm herself?—Mrs. Hope blames herself because last night when +Christina didn't come home—You didn't know that? Well, she didn't. Her +mother thought she was at the Deutches, out of temper. You knew she +quarreled with her mother about Ten Euyck? They nearly knifed each +other!"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake," said Herrick, "tell me whatever you know!" Across his +shoulder the zest of Broadway seemed to peer and listen. But it was too +late to consider that.</p> + +<p>"You see, last night's supper has been delicate ground from the +beginning. Before I knew what the Inghams had planned I asked Christina +to come to supper with me—to bring her mother and any one she liked. +She seemed to be down on Denny since he and that Cornish girl disagreed +and, as a particular bait, I mentioned you. I knew she was interested in +you. And when she isn't interested, the Lord help her host! Well, she +preferred my scheme to the Inghams'—she seems to have shown all along +the most ungodly resistance to their help or countenance in any way! But +I could see, as well as her mother, which was best for my +leading-woman, and she finally gave in. It's remarkable how entirely +one thinks of Christina as the head of the house, and yet how often she +does give in—what an influence her mother has over her when she has any +at all!" He drained his long glass with a sigh. "But last night, right +after the performance, Mrs. Hope comes running into my dressing-room, +well—as I may say, at death's door. Christina was going off to supper +with Ten Euyck. You can understand that I didn't listen to her then as I +should now. She wanted me, as the only person Christina would be likely +to take a word from, to reason with her. I said, 'Yes, yes. By-and-by.' +I only wanted to shut her up, you understand. For just then, in the +first flush of Christina's triumph, I didn't any more think of +interfering with her than with the sun in heaven! I won't say I'd been +rehearsing an angel unawares, but the girl had grown, in that one night, +way out of my sphere. I thought probably Ten Euyck had just prostrated +himself and she'd gone a little off her head, and no wonder! It didn't +seem necessarily so terrible to me. But the old lady is a great stickler +for the proprieties—yes, and for all her talk, Christina has her own +eye on social splendor! It's one thing not to receive people and it's +quite another not to have them call!—When I'd got rid of my friends and +had given Christina time to get rid of hers, I went round to thank her +and congratulate her and at the same time to ask her if she didn't think +she was doing the Inghams a pretty dirty trick. There stood my young +lady dressed out—I was going to say 'to kill'—why, to make Solomon in +all his glory turn pale and fade away! Great Scott!—She looked like the +kingdoms of the earth and the wonders thereof! Christina is always +bewailing the money she owes but you may have noticed that, for a poor +working-girl, she does herself rather well in frocks. Mrs. Hope was +sitting quiet in a corner, quashed, and Christina was humming—'Auld +acquaintance,' if you please!—to herself in front of the glass. 'Auld +acquaintance,' indeed! I thought of Denny, and how he'd stood by this +radiant image through thick and thin—in a way, you might say, made her! +And though you'll forgive a good deal to a first night like that, I +began to agree with the people who say she hasn't any heart. And then I +saw—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—"</p> + +<p>"I saw she had a long string of diamonds twisted round her neck. 'Great +God, girl!' I said, 'where did those come from?'"</p> + +<p>"And she answered?"</p> + +<p>Wheeler had been speaking slower and slower and now, for a long time, it +seemed as if he were not going to speak at all. Then "She answered, +'They have come from Cuyler Ten Euyck. But don't breathe it. It has just +killed dear mamma.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, go on."</p> + +<p>"Her mother got up at that and started to go. But Christina stopped her +at the door and took hold of her arm. 'Mother,' she said, 'what does it +matter? Oh, my poor mother, can't you see that whatever happens we have +done with respectability? It's inevitable, it must be done. And to-night +or to-morrow, what does it matter? Twenty-four hours, one way or the +other, and then—mud to the right of us, mud to the left of us, and unto +dust we shall return!' I thought they were the strangest words that ever +came out of a girl's mouth on the night of what you might call her +coronation!"</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Hope just took her daughter's hand off her arm and walked out of +the door and out of the theater.—Well," said Wheeler, with a deep sigh, +"it wasn't for me to do that. I'm a pretty long way from a Puritan! All +the same, this thing made me sick. 'Chris,' said I, 'don't go with him! +Take off those damned diamonds and tell him to go to hell! You can soon +make diamonds for yourself, old girl!' She looked up, singing, in my +face. And that's the last I saw of her."</p> + +<p>"Go on!"</p> + +<p>"My boy, you need a drink!"</p> + +<p>"And Ten Euyck says—?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Ten Euyck—his dignity can't bend, so it's all cracked. He +took her to supper at the Palisades and she left early." The Palisades +was a new roadhouse up the river and the rage of that summer. "The +zealous creature has even run to Kane and disgorged the names of his +guests. So it leaks out that, once the poor soul had unbent so far as to +be seen with an actress, he couldn't be devilish by halves. It seems +miss was annoyed at the character of said guests, as well as at finding +supper served in a private room. So with the offended majesty of an +injured queen, she withdrew to no less public a spot than the entrance +porch. There she sat, swathed in her cloak and with her skirts drawn +about her, till the arrival of the cab she had insisted upon." Wheeler +broke into a laugh. "That girl," he said, "is the devil himself!"</p> + +<p>"And that—was that the very—last—?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. There she is, togged out in a white, silky crepe-y, trail-y +dress, embroidered in silver, and a white lace opera cloak. In these +useful and inconspicuous garments, she vanishes." His grim grin soured. +"You know what they'll all say! Kane tells the Inghams she couldn't +catch Ten Euyck so surely as with an irritant. She took, of all ways, +the way to hold him. Why, she left him in public—him, the invulnerable +corrector of women! He'll never rest until she is seen, in public, +hanging on his arm! And then the man values his diamonds at forty +thousand dollars!"</p> + +<p>"She drove off alone, at midnight, in a taxicab, with forty thousand +dollars' worth of diamonds round her neck—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the cabman was discharged this morning for drunkenness! Stan's +to 'phone if they've found him. Oh, but look here—take it slow! She +'phoned Ten Euyck's house at eight this morning and left a message, +openly, with her name! The servant who took the message describes +exactly that trailing voice of hers—'tell him he may come for his +necklace to-night!'"</p> + +<p>"Come! Come where?"</p> + +<p>"Search me! Or Ten Euyck, either, from the foam on his mouth!—Well, +doesn't that put it up that wherever she 'phoned from they got on to the +diamond necklace. So, where was she? You and I, we know old Chris—we +know, after all, that she just went somewhere for the night on account +of her quarrel with her mother. But, oh, lord, Herrick, who else is +going to believe it? The whole braying pack of this intelligent +world—all it can think of's dirt—the devilish gay sensation of the +whole business! Christina Hope! D'you think there's a bank clerk or a +submissive wife that won't recognize her proper atmosphere at a glance? +You and I and little Stan—a poor author, a profane actor and a brat! In +a few hours that's what her kingdom's crumbled to—'that was so wondrous +sweet and fair!' Police and all, there's the spirit in which they're +going to look for her, and that's going to be one of the worst things in +our way. Well, I'm not a rich man and our precious kid's just about +ruined me this night! But I've done for her what may bust me sky-high +and worth it—I've offered ten thousand for her—safe, you understand! +It ought to be in to-night's late editions, so by now, in one spirit or +the other, this town's out after her like a hound!—Eh? All right! It's +Stan, now!"</p> + +<p>Herrick sat there staring into the street. A newsboy ran past with the +last extra of the evening. Two of the interested smokers had just left +the restaurant and now stopped in the rain to buy a paper, opening and +scanning the flapping sheets against the wind. Ah, yes, of course! He, +too, sent for a paper. Yes, there, on the first page—scare headings, +but in itself the meagerest fact. Scarcely even insinuations +yet—"friends fear some serious accident," "friends deny suicide," +"suspicious circumstance—Ten Euyck necklace"—Wheeler's reward, and +news three hours old. When he looked up the square seemed full of +newsboys; several people as they came into the restaurant had papers in +their hands. She was just news, now; disreputable news! "The town's out +after her like a hound!"—Wheeler's hand was on his shoulder. "No cabman +yet. But they want you, Herrick, on the 'phone."</p> + +<p>Stanley's voice told him only to hold the wire. Then a crisper tone +asked pleasantly, "Mr. Herrick? This is Henry Kane. I just wanted to ask +you—you had an appointment with Miss Hope for noon to-day. If you +didn't know she was not at home, why didn't you keep it?"</p> + +<p>How sharply the trap bit!</p> + +<p>"You've had no communication with her since last evening? Nothing +happened to arouse your anxiety? Nor distrust? No, nothing? And yet, +just as it began to rain, you started for a walk in a light suit—or" +(the telephone itself seemed to give forth a dry smile) "what I am told +was once a light suit, and walked about all day in an equinoctial storm! +Taking yourself to the theater at night without changing, without +shaving, without dining, but still carrying on your person a good deal +of the surface of the earth and of the waters under the earth! Well, +sorry to have disturbed you. Only my dear sir, don't trouble yourself to +conceal too much. Don't fancy yourself the only man in New York who has +been to a moving-picture show." Kane hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>That stunned, sick, silent curse of the man on the wrong side of the +law! This attorney fellow was like a hound after her, too! He, then, +since he was so clever, in God's name let him find her and find +her—soon! It was all he asked!—As Herrick stepped out of the booth +into the corridor of mirrors that ran through the building to the next +street a page boy came briskly up the gilded lane, pattering out a +phrase that washed across Herrick's mind in a wave of sound dimly +familiar; he saw the boy turn into the orangerie and through the +glass-screen he vaguely watched him wend his way between the little +green tables with their golden lamps, lifting his flatted tones into the +orange-scented air so that its mechanical legend was caught by trailing +vines and mingled with the plashing of a little fountain. His mind +aimlessly followled the boy's cry till it was lost in the music of a +mezzanine orchestra hidden in the foliage of a tame tropical jungle! +This was what they called civilization—this trash which had achieved no +mechanism to find her, to protect her! But which could know that she had +been struck out of its midst and yet sit there in its futile nonsense, +stuffing—A voice rose from the velvet lounge beside him in the toneless +delivery of one who reads aloud. It was reading the extra's account of a +gesture in a moving picture show. "The police say that boys began +reporting it before noon, and, the attention of the theater having been +called to the film, its patrons are now offered a thrill of realism by +the piano in the orchestra accompanying the gesture with the march from +Faust. This time, it will be remembered..."</p> + +<p>Oh, no doubt it would be remembered! Its exultant shout sounded like the +hunter's cry after her now, winged by Wheeler's offer of ten thousand +dollars! Doubtless the film would be repeated on the morrow, that all +the world might steel its heart as it watched with its own eyes +Christina Hope moving with that motion to that time!</p> + +<p>Oh, for something to do! Some untried search, some shrewder question! +Something to do, to suffer, to dare—some clue—some suggestion—Denny! +Had they tried Denny? He who knew so much at the least would set them +right, would know and would tell them that she had never deserted his +cause of her own free will, that he who knew her believed in +her—Wheeler came out into the lobby and took him by the arm. He, too, +had bought a paper and now he held it under Herrick's eyes. "This is why +I couldn't see him, then!" In the Tombs that afternoon, Denny had again +attempted suicide.</p> + +<p>So that was how he proclaimed his confidence! He had somehow got hold of +a knife, but the blow aimed at his heart had been averted by a watchful +guard and he had received only fleshwounds—one in the left shoulder, +one in the left forearm. A little ludicrous, a little sickening that a +man so expert in killing another should always bungle about killing +himself! But he had been prompt enough and successful enough in setting +upon the girl who had failed him the brand of his despair! Who would +credit, now, that he did not believe in her flight? Herrick felt a +thickness in his throat; with a longing for fresh, dark spaces he pushed +open a door of the lobby and was confronted by the city, glittering in +wet gold. There, up Long Acre, lay the heart of her world.</p> + +<p>And from down where the bronze workmen struck the hours in Herald Square +up past where the gathering streets parted again under a new electric +girl, high in the sky, who winked a knowing colossal eye over a rainbow +cocktail, what faith did it keep with her? Her flight, her shadow on the +screen, they burned in a newer sky-sign, they flashed a fearful but a +more stirring legend! This swept up the thoroughfare that never colors +itself more like Harlequin than in its mirrors of wet asphalt and sped +down every side street starred with theaters where, between the acts, +men gathered and returned with news, and it became clear to thrilling +audiences that so long as there had been nothing against this Christina +Hope she had meant to tell some tale to Kane in Denny's behalf—it would +have been a pretty piece of acting—but the mute witness of the shadow +had broken her down. She had fled from that writing on the screen—even +in the dressing-rooms they would say that! And later, in all these hot, +bright jardins de danse that yesterday were cabarets, these cabarets +that were restaurants yesterday, among the pellucid proprieties of slit +skirts, tango turns, and trotting music it would be said that all along +Denny had kept at least the half of his silence for Christina's sake. +Oh, street of a thousand feverish tongues, how she loved you! And why +did she leave you? Where is she, and where is she? How near, how far? +"Where is she? And how doth she?" There lay her theater; what stroke +could be so heavy as to drive her from that? "The Victors!" Leave "The +Victors!" There were great blurs of light before the billboards. But the +wind tore through them at the boards, struggling to wrench the signs +away. Fierce as it was it was still rising and it ran like a crazy +newsboy whooping through the world, senseless as the cry of the page +that came nearer and nearer. So that Wheeler said, "Good lord, man, +don't you know your own name?"</p> + +<p>Yes, that was what the boy had been saying all along—"Herr—ick! +Herr—ick! Mr. Bry—us Herrick!"</p> + +<p>"No card, sir. Forty-fifth Street entrance. In a taxi, sir. A lady wants +to speak to you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY</h3> + + +<p>The monstrous hope died almost in the pang that gave it birth. The lady +who leaned out to him from the cab, putting aside her heavy veil, showed +him the troubled countenance of Henrietta Deutch.</p> + +<p>It came to him even then that he had arrived at the turning of a corner. +So that he was surprised when she said to him, "Oh, sir, where have you +been? Sir, sir, have you any news?"</p> + +<p>She had none, then!</p> + +<p>"Hours have I waited and waited at your rooms! There the young Ingham +sends me word that you are here. We have hoped always you might be with +her! Oh, dear heaven! You know nothing, young sir? Nothing at all?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>She drew back. "Tell me only this. Are you—for her, Mr. Herrick? Or +<i>rid</i> of her?"</p> + +<p>Herrick replied, "Well, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>She, whom grief somehow became and illumined like her native and +revealing element, peered into his haggard face, worn and soiled and +sharpened and grim. "Then, young gentleman, I am asked by Mrs. Hope if +of her daughter you have any word or trace, do not give it to the +police."</p> + +<p>What? Herrick felt something cold breaking about the roots of his hair. +Then this clinging, this devoted mother did not want her daughter +found!—"She said nothing more than this?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing more."</p> + +<p>He digested it in silence and it was with a heavy gathering dread that +when she asked him to drive home with her he put himself in her hands. +Then, in what seemed a single convulsion of the storm, the taxi rocked +to a standstill before the Deutch apartment.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Deutch sprung on the light their eyes vainly quested for some +envelope beneath the door; she went out again to the mail-box, to the +elevator, inquiring for a message. Then the woman and the young man, not +knowing where to turn next, sat down amid the emptiness of those walls +which had so often held Christina. Here, more than ever, everything +said, "She must be just round the corner! Where is she? Where can she +be?" And still Herrick knew that Mrs. Hope's message was but a part of +what he had to hear and that his hostess still groped for terms in which +to tell the rest.</p> + +<p>The pause lay heavy between them. Then, "Young gentleman," said Mrs. +Deutch, "you love my Christina, is it not so?"</p> + +<p>"Don't make me laugh!" Herrick desolately replied.</p> + +<p>She rose. "Then I will say to you what I have long had on my heart." She +opened the door. The halls were empty. She turned the key in the lock, +and glanced at the closed windows; sitting close to him again she laid a +kind hand on his. "Mr. Herrick, there is something wrong with Hermann +Deutch. There is something in his mind to make him crazy. And in the +last days—say it is two or three—it makes him crazier all the while. +Yes, this is so. It is fear. And something that he will not tell. He +knows something, and it makes him afraid. It has been so since he went +up to the room of Mr. Ingham on <i>that</i> night."</p> + +<p>Herrick looked down at her hand and then he put his other hand atop of +both and gave hers a little pressure. "Mrs. Deutch, what is it that you +know about that night? Don't be afraid of me. Don't be afraid for me. +What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my young sir, I am ready to tell you. Yesterday, no. But to-day, +when all the world has seen the shadow-picture, yes—why not? On that +night till very late I was away. For I had a friend with a sick baby, +and nurses one can not always pay. When I came to the basement gate +there was in our flat no lights. But when I went in there was my +husband, with his coat over his shirt, standing, listening, in the dark. +And he said, 'Christina is upstairs!'—very cross and ugly. I said, 'At +Ingham's? Why, what for?—Why,' I said, before he could tell it to me, +'are you out of your mind that you should let her go up there with that +man at midnight?' He said, 'Tell me the one thing. How would you have +prevented her from going up?'"</p> + +<p>They smiled at one another, ruefully, as at an evocation of Christina.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, my God!' he cries out. 'There is going to be trouble! Mr. Denny, +he has found out why she quarreled with that Ingham, yesterday. She says +he will kill him. She wants that Ingham should go away.'"</p> + +<p>"Do you know why they did quarrel?"</p> + +<p>"No, neither of us. Never at all.—But then, I started to go up to her, +by the freight elevator as he had taken her. Down that back hall we did +not hear the shot. But the telephone made us halt. Joe told us."</p> + +<p>The clasp of Herrick's hand lent her its reassurance and she went on.</p> + +<p>"My husband was all at once like a man in a fit. He seemed to have no +head. He is not to say fearful, but he is the way men are. 'Go!' I said, +'Hasten! It may be that it is he who himself shot!' And this gave him +heart to go upstairs. Then comes to me Christina, slipping along from +the back. I saw her white dress in the dark. And then she came into a +little patch of light and put her finger to her lips. I ran and pulled +her in and shut the door. And I took her in my arms to warm her, for +she was made all of ice. 'Is he dead?' I asked her. And she shivered +out, 'Oh, a doctor! Get a doctor! Go up to him, Tante Deutch! And +hurry!' she would say, 'Hurry!' But, indeed, I thought there was enough +with him. I asked her the one thing: 'Who did it?' She looked at me with +her lips all wide apart. But not a name would she breathe out. Neither +then nor to this day. And by that I knew it was Mr. Denny. For no man +but him would she be so still. Or not then, when you she did not yet +know."</p> + +<p>The color rushed into Herrick's face. But he could not speak and Mrs. +Deutch went on. "I asked her not one thing more. I held her and tried to +give her comfort, and at first she clung to me. She did not cry, but by +and by she would sit alone, waiting, listening, and her nostrils made +themselves large. But at last it was only my husband who came, and +Christina flew up and looked at him. And her eyes were big and wild with +questions, but still speak she would not. But my husband's face, Mr. +Herrick, it was the face of him who has been struck, who has been +stabbed. Not then nor now do I know why that look he has. But it is not +gone, it grows worse. He said only to Christina, looking straight at +her, 'You left your scarf!' and his voice had in it a sound that was +hard. She looked at him a long time, and she said, 'Very well, then. I +shall know what to do!' At that moment, see you, she said to herself, +'Me they will suspect, and not him!' And oh, my brave heart, her mind +she made up: 'So be it!' We kept her there till just before dawn. And +then, because of her white lace dress, we put upon her my old black coat +and hat, and both of us went home with her that she might be the less +looked at. She let herself in, and all the rest you know. Only—"</p> + +<p>"Only that Deutch knows something more!"</p> + +<p>"And in all our life the one with the other, it is to me the one thing +he has not told. He is not a secret man. Mr. Herrick, here is what +makes my heart heavy. This thing—it is something not good for our +little girl or he would have told it long ago! But to-day when she +vanishes like that other girl who was her friend, he tells it to the +mother of Christina!"</p> + +<p>So, that was why! Herrick rose. No hour seemed too late, no scene too +strange. "Mrs. Hope will have to tell me!" he said.</p> + +<p>Henrietta Deutch rose, too, and put her hands on his two shoulders, as +if at once to comfort and control. She said, "She is not here!"</p> + +<p>"Not where?"</p> + +<p>"Not in New York. She is gone. She has fled away that she need not tell +at all. A train to some other city where there are boats for Europe—he +says it is best I know no more. He has gone West somewhere. You see, he +must have thought Christina, too, has fled. And what he told her mother, +it has made them not dare to stay. My poor boy!" said Mrs. Deutch, +tightening her hold of Herrick, "my poor boy!"</p> + +<p>"It's all right!" Herrick said, "It's all right! They're wrong, that's +all! They're wrong!"</p> + +<p>He moved up and down the room with long, excited strides. False lights +of misery—horrible corpse candles, leading their lying way toward that +which was bitterer than a new-made grave!—"Why, Denny did it! We all +know that! You've just said so, yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, truly. Surely! But—yet—"</p> + +<p>"What could Deutch have seen that we didn't see? We were all there—he +only went in with us. He may guess something—he can't know. What are we +all afraid of?"</p> + +<p>"And yet," said Mrs. Deutch, "we are all afraid!"</p> + +<p>There was a brisk knock on the door. The newcomer smiled grimly at them +from under a dripping hat brim. "I hope I'm welcome," he said. It was +the District Attorney.</p> + +<p>He seemed to take his own appearance quite naturally and perhaps he was +not averse to their being stunned by it. Standing with his back against +the door he removed his hat and rubbed his hand over the wet mark across +his forehead. "Mrs. Deutch? As soon as my assistants get here I want to +try an experiment in the Ingham apartment. You're rather an +exceptional—janitress, madam! I think I'm going to ask you at once if +there isn't some story connected with your marriage to Hermann Deutch. +It looks as though there must have been scandal of some sort to account +for it."</p> + +<p>The wife's glow of indignation maintained in silence an unruffled +dignity. After awhile she said very slowly, "It is true. There was a +scandal. It did make our marriage."</p> + +<p>Herrick's defensive frown faltered over a sense of something coming +true. He knew, now, that he had always felt in that rich simplicity of +Henrietta Deutch a superiority somehow mysterious. Yes, he had always +seen that figure of domestic tranquillity as not wholly detached from a +dense background, somehow somber and mysterious.</p> + +<p>"Before you commit yourself on that point, just tell me who or what +enforces obedience with a triangular knife?—Let her alone!"</p> + +<p>For Mrs. Deutch had uttered a dreadful cry. It was low, but full of +incredible pain.</p> + +<p>Kane grinned triumphantly at Herrick. "Great heaven!" Herrick begged. +"What is it? What do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Here! Let's sit down and get at this! Mrs. Deutch, this is nearer than +you think to our young lady. Best help me!"</p> + +<p>"Wait! A moment! No, what I know it is far from Christina. It happened +before she was born. But I will tell it. You shall judge."</p> + +<p>A long painful breath labored from her bosom. Then she spoke.</p> + +<p>"The scandal was this. My father died in prison. He was imprisoned for +his life. He was accused that he had killed a child."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, go on."</p> + +<p>"It begins long before, with my home in Germany. My father was a +merchant of wines there, and he had in business relations with a +Neapolitan family named Gabrielli. Their son, Emile, was my brother's +friend.——Emile Gabrielli, Herrick's Italian lawyer, who had suggested +his novel!"</p> + +<p>"I had but the one brother; for my mother was never strong and of her +children only two grew up. We were very old fashioned; we lived in +comfort but we had neither the new thoughts nor the new manners. Only my +brother was very advanced. He was so modern that when he looked upon us, +even, it gave him exasperation. His friend was not of his faith. But +that was so old-fashioned a thought it could not be at all mentioned +before him. Well, then, I—too—for one thing perhaps we are all enough +advanced! I came to love Emile. He loved me, too. And no one was +pleased—not even my brother! But, after a long time, when they began to +think I, too, was falling ill like all the rest who died, we were +betrothed. And my father sold his business out and bought a vineyard in +Sicily, near to the estate of Emile's father, taking there my mother, +whose health failed." Yes, with the bewildered indifference of his own +emotion, Herrick remembered the miniature of which the parents of that +sentimental gentleman had not been able to deprive him and recognized +the changed original in Henrietta Deutch.</p> + +<p>"And one morning, walking far before breakfast, my father came upon a +dead little boy under a bush among some rocks. He brought it to our home +in his arms; it was the baby of a poor farmer. It had been stabbed +between the little shoulders. And there was a strange, three-cornered +wound."</p> + +<p>She stopped and her hands stirred in her lap. But she clasped them and +went on. "My father was accused. Witnesses appeared against him with +strange tales. How could we make ourselves believed. I have told you how +he fared.</p> + +<p>"Do you think my brother could rest? He left his law in Germany; he came +to Sicily to fight, to hunt, to turn every stone. He was found like the +child. There was the same three-cornered mark."</p> + +<p>Kane gave a low whistle.</p> + +<p>"My mother and I, we were all alone." She smoothed out a little fold in +her dress. "We had but the one message from the family of my +betrothed—that they withdrew the word of their son."</p> + +<p>Kane looked up quickly. "Yes?" he urged. "And then?"</p> + +<p>"Then came to us Hermann Deutch, who in the old days sold our wine. He +gave us escort to Naples, for my mother could go no farther, and +returned to attend our property. It was all in a ruin. The house had +burned. The cattle were gone. The laborers, too, nor would any return. +The land none would buy. It was a place accursed. Our money was soon all +gone." She paused, struggling with a sudden sob. "Hermann Deutch, to +stay on he had lost his position, and he took one that was poor but in +Naples, to be near me. He was all that came near us, who had word or +dealing with us, while my mother grew too weak to live. When she, too, +died, I married him. There was the scandal, sir, to account for my +marriage."</p> + +<p>She looked with deep, mild scorn at Kane. He remained imperturbable, +while Herrick blushed for him.</p> + +<p>"There was one thing more. Mr. Deutch had spent much for us and before +he could take me from Naples he must save something from what work he +had. One month came upon another in that terrible city and we had not +gone. So the time came when I, like other women, thought to have a +child. One night there were fire-works at the seashore and, to liven my +mind, he made me go. As we came home there was a lonely bit of beach, +though toward the cars. Out of the dark a voice called some words at us +and something fell—it rang on a stone at our feet. They had thrown a +kind of dagger. Sirs," said Mrs. Deutch, "it was a triangular knife."</p> + +<p>Kane gave a cry with a strange note of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>But the tears were running down Mrs. Deutch's face. "The shock and the +fear, they were too much for me. I never bore my child. God has never +given me a child to love except Christina. Tell me what all this can be +to her?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know what aphasia is, Mrs. Deutch? And doesn't Mr. Deutch +suffer, occasionally, from a confusion of words?"</p> + +<p>"Not so much that it could be called by a name. Except that one time. +Mr. Deutch has been all his life an excited man. And when that knife +fell at my feet he was like one crazed. Then he forgot language, sir, +and could not speak well for days. English and German he ran together, +and what of French he knows with what Italian. Though he knew well what +he wished to say. And there is yet a smear in his brain where the words +may sometimes a little mix together. But—Christina?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Deutch, what did all this suggest to you? Of what did you think +you were the victims?"</p> + +<p>"Imagine yourselves that it was in a time of one of those outcries +against Jewish people which come like stupid fever as though nations, +ignorantly, have eaten too much in strong sun. They needed to blame some +one and, just then, in blaming us they could blame as they would."</p> + +<p>"H'm!—Do either of you know what happened at the Tombs this afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"The papers say that Mr. Denny has tried to kill himself."</p> + +<p>"Well, and very obliging of them. But, for a desperate man, he gave +himself rather queer wounds—scratches in the shoulder and arm. The +guard ran for the doctor and seems to be running yet. But where was our +suicide really cut to the bone? On the insides of his hands!"</p> + +<p>He had produced his sensation.</p> + +<p>"The guard was one of the new Italian contingent. And the blow aimed by +an Italian, then, at the prisoner's heart and caught by his arm, was +given with a triangular knife!"</p> + +<p>They were all three on their feet.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mrs. Deutch, for my opening gallery play with you. I didn't +know the tragedy I was running into. And our friend Herrick, here, and +the excellent Wheeler both tried to hoodwink me to-night when I asked +them straight questions. You're going to tell me the truth, I know, for +now I'm telling it to you. We got hold of your husband at the +Pennsylvania Station. Our intelligent police tried to frighten him with +the stab of Denny's triangular prick and they succeeded in putting him +clean out of the game with aphasia—sensory aphasia. Word +blindness—speech or writing—heavens, what a gag! But don't be alarmed; +fortunately it goes with a perfectly clear mind and it's only temporary. +Only—time's everything! Well, it gave me the cue to come up here and +dig for some three-cornered mystery, blackmailing if procurable, in +Deutch's life. Every District-Attorney his own detective! Yes—when it's +this District-Attorney and this crime—Amen! Amen!—What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, the Italian!"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"All morning one hung about the house of Mrs. Hope. Not coming near, but +watching, watching. A little, slim, soft, pretty man, in gentleman's +clothes. And it made her afraid."</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"Look here, the fellow in the park—the one with the message—he was an +Italian! They all were!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly! Now—Mrs. Deutch, what was that old secret in the life of the +Hopes which turned the daughter into a cynic and a hater of social +conventions? Ah, come, please!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, that was not a great thing!"</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"The sister of Mr. Hope found letters from him—old letters when +Christina was fourteen—written to her who was afterwards his wife. The +marriage had been so long forbidden, they were driven to see each other +so seldom, secretly, alone, and in strange places. Sir, they were in +love and they were very young."</p> + +<p>"This was not known till Christina was fourteen?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then her birth was, of course, legitimate."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of a surety!"</p> + +<p>"And this was all?"</p> + +<p>"All!"</p> + +<p>Herrick found himself listening with a strange excitement. He could not +have told why he had a sudden sense of having touched a spring. That +brief revelation of rash love—what was there in that? Such a thing +might loom large in a society novel; in the vast, mixed, multitudinous +life of men and women it was small enough. How could it arrest his +attention at a time like this? As though some small, mysterious, +irrelevant key had been slipped into his hand! By the fleeing figure of +Mrs. Hope? That amiable, vacant, and correct lady, how could any young +and long-dead folly of hers, reaching across a generation, strike down +Ingham and shatter a little world? "The little pitted speck"—What was +that? What was he remembering now? "The wages of sin are more sinning!" +Why, that was the motto he had taken for his novel? Sin? Nonsense! "The +little pitted speck in garnered fruit that, rotting inward,—"</p> + +<p>He woke himself roughly to hear Mrs. Deutch adding, "But they lived with +that hard woman, she and her mother, in poverty. And to have it nagged +at and flaunted at the mother, it made her a morbid child. No more. But +now, sir, the Italians?"</p> + +<p>"The Italians, indeed! Mrs. Deutch, as you owe them such a grief, as you +believe in justice and the protection of the weak, as you have had +enough of government by the triangular knife, give me the name of your +Christina's Italian host!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY</h3> + + +<p>"Well, for one thing," Kane said, "no mortal creature ever looked at +that girl and thought her a quitter." He was standing at Ingham's table, +wrinkling his eyebrows at the storied blind. "I've come within the +fascinations of that young person myself, but I don't think it's +infatuation which makes me say that she didn't drop down in a dead faint +yesterday afternoon, just to pass the time. When those clear eyes of +hers looked at that lock of hair she learned something that astonished +and horrified her. From that moment she made up her mind to go somewhere +and, at the appointed hour, go she did. Devil take her for not confiding +in Mrs. Deutch! She meant, I daresay, to return. But she must have been +greeted with the news of the moving picture advertisement and thought +herself very well off where she was. Eventually, she'll pull some string +from there."</p> + +<p>He began putting out all lights but the table-lamp.</p> + +<p>"I fancied, at first, the mother had followed, for she lied about going +to Europe. We've had every steamship and railway line watched since long +before she left, so she's not beyond the scope of trolleys. But she'd +only be a nuisance to the girl, nor is she one to pursue risks—more +likely, she just skipped out early to avoid the rush. All sorts of +intimidating things have happened lately; then, last night, Christina +threatened her with some exposure, this morning she was frightened by an +Italian, and the climax has been capped by whatever it was Deutch told +her—Don't jump! No, I'm no mind-reader. But I had, of course, the +Deutch apartment, as well as yours, wired for a dictograph. Useful thing +a dictograph—especially when there are ladies about!"</p> + +<p>With a happy indifference to the effect of this statement upon Herrick +he cast about the room, appearing to sniff up its suggestions and to +compare them with a vision in his mind's eye. Absorbed, elate, on edge, +tingling with some suspended energy, as he raised the blind and peered +out he radiated a good humor somehow inhuman.</p> + +<p>"That wasn't a taxi? I'm expecting a couple of my boys and," he grinned, +"poor Ten Euyck!" He disappeared, bent on examining the bedroom.</p> + +<p>Herrick still stood, dumb and raging, with his back against the door. In +his impotent rebellion against Kane's inferences he had been almost +indifferent to the fateful setting of the new scene in that night's +hurrying kinetoscope. But slowly this had begun to assume its natural +imaginative sway. There were the dim blue walls framed in their outline +of smooth, black wood. There before him was the long white blind; to his +left the piano where Ingham had sat playing; by stretching out his right +hand he could touch the portières of the room in which they had found +Ingham's body. It was all in order now. The cushions of the couch had +been smoothed and set up. The chair that had lain overturned beside the +table had been stood in its proper place, at the edge of the portières, +near the door. The newspapers and ashes, the siphon and half-empty glass +had been cleared away. The little puddle by the piano stool, too, was +gone. All was in order; Ingham's hand might have been about to draw +those portières, he might have stepped between them to tell—what? What, +the poor fellow persisted, was there to tell? He knew the secret of the +shadow on the blind, the secret of the shot in Ingham's breast. Only +the one thing was unknown—Who had contrived to bolt the door? That he +had always felt the puzzle's essence and its answer; there stole through +him again that sense of a skeleton still locked within those walls to be +discovered with some recognizing shock; once more his fancy began to +search through those hollow rooms in desperate hope, driven by that +superstition, by the obstinate unreason with which a starving hand +continues to fumble in an empty pocket. Futilest of occupations! The +sense of shamed stupidity, of failure in Christina's cause, warned him +with a squelching sneer that he was the merest pawn in Kane's hand and +that the room would yield its secret, if it had one, to Kane and not to +him. At any rate, how could that secret find Christina? And, if he were +not looking for Christina, what was he doing there?</p> + +<p>As he turned to go it was Kane who came back through the portières and +said, "Sit down, for heaven's sake! Don't stand there glaring at me as +if I were Ingham's corpse!"</p> + +<p>The sharpness of his entrance suggested something.</p> + +<p>Herrick answered with his hand on the knob, "I'm virtually a prisoner, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you care to sit out the show?"</p> + +<p>"If I left here should I be arrested?"</p> + +<p>"Arrested's an exaggeration."</p> + +<p>"I should be shadowed, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear fellow, there've been so many disappearances! And you're +so near the storm-center—you make such a sensitive barometer!"</p> + +<p>Herrick dropped on to the couch as a mouse might give itself up to a cat +and leaned forward, frowning, motionless.</p> + +<p>"It's a great game, this, of 'Vanishing Lady'! But I don't mind telling +you that it's the Italian background to the vanishings that interests +us. An obscure young girl—but a great friend of Christina Hope's—is +the first to vanish. She sends an appeal for aid to Christina Hope, +through the Arm of Justice.</p> + +<p>"A publisher—betrothed to Christina Hope—receives blackmailing letters +from the Arm of Justice, and is murdered.</p> + +<p>"A young author—also betrothed to Christina Hope—is attacked. But, as +a victim, proves a failure.</p> + +<p>"An actor—also—well, also an old friend of Christina Hope, and said to +have been recently in love with the vanished Nancy Cornish is arrested +for Ingham's murder. And what happens? S-s-z-boum! A cluster of +respectable and comfortable persons scatter for the ends of the earth. +While, ahead of them all, pop goes the beauty! In a white and silver +dress. So she didn't go farther than the embrace held wide open to +receive her."</p> + +<p>"You mean, of course, the Arm of Justice?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"What are you trying to do with me?" Herrick snarled.</p> + +<p>Kane answered with great deliberation, "I'm trying to save you, you +young fool!"</p> + +<p>"Spare yourself wasted time. What does all this matter to me? What does +a lot of gab matter? I've heard enough of it to-night, God knows! But +does it tell me anything? You're all full of suggestions, but where is +she? Do something if you know how—find her, find her! She's in danger, +that's all that matters! Where is she? Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"You talk about danger! And you want <i>me</i> to find her?"</p> + +<p>"Has Denny retained you, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you poor kid!—Now, Herrick, I know your place in life. I studied, +one term, under your father. I breathe familiarly the air of Brainerd, +Connecticut. Corey and old Ingham are friends of mine. This muss +of—Paah! Come out of it, Herrick, it isn't good enough! She in her +rotten world and you—Oh, all right!"</p> + +<p>Kane rose and went again to the window. "Rain's held up." He looked at +his watch. Strolling back to his chair he fixed his eyes on Herrick, +across his interwoven knuckles.</p> + +<p>"But you've listened so willingly to Wheeler and to Mrs. Deutch, why not +listen to me? I've something of a confession to make, myself. Do you +know what it is to be possessed by a mania?"</p> + +<p>A man with a mania!</p> + +<p>"I heard Ten Euyck call you that, the first time I ever saw you."</p> + +<p>"Good! A man with a mania, a prosecutor with a pet criminal! But he +didn't mention the criminal? Allow me—the Arm of Justice!"</p> + +<p>Herrick's pulse gave a mad leap and he slowly raised his head.</p> + +<p>"You've taken that business, all along, as just a mask for some +desperate amateur. Then, too, you were all thrown off the track—and +small wonder!—by those literate, unbusinesslike letters in idiomatic +English. A lady's letters, in fact!—My dear fellow, a very real and +definite 'Arm of Justice,' a low-lived little gang that sunny Italy knew +how to get rid of, has made its living at blackmailing certain gutters +of ours for a generation. What nobody but your humble servant has +believed is that this more stylish business, using our language and +dwelling very evidently in our midst, has any connection with the +original A. of J. beyond borrowing its title from the police reports. +Not for the first time! See here! The Arm of Justice started life as the +humblest little blackguard gang, extorting money from low-class +Italians. It was like all its class, strictly minding its own business +in its own nationality and considered worth nobody's while to catch. But +to my mind about four years ago this violet by a mossy stone burst out +like a sunflower. To my mind, it was this very same Arm of Justice +which abandoned every precedent by entering, with one bound, into +American life."</p> + +<p>His look seemed to ring with triumph, but his voice kept a cold edge.</p> + +<p>"No Italian gang, real or bogie, big or little, had ever thrown its +shadow there. But the Arm of Justice flew high, carried the new +territory at a rush, and struck at the very proudest families in New +York, the most powerful individuals!"</p> + +<p>"But how? How?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, if I knew! What's its source of information? How does it get hold +of those unhappy secrets that its owners guard like Koh-i-noors? Well, +men will tell a good deal to a woman—and those were a woman's letters, +Herrick! Once it gets its secret it starts a correspondence. How often +it has succeeded, grabbed its hush-money and retreated, of course I +don't know. But when its advances are rejected it abandons its +typewriter and calmly prints a scant edition of a dirty little rag +calling itself <i>The Voice of Justice</i> and telling the blackmailing +story. It then mails marked copies through various New York post offices +to the family, friends and enemies of its victims—the three before +Ingham were all of Knickerbocker standing. What a revenge! What a +prestige for next time such a threat gave it! The desire of my life is +to smash that printing-press!"</p> + +<p>"But it followed up the Ingham business with letters alone?"</p> + +<p>"There you are—the whole Ingham business is a departure! Observe that +until Ingham's death the English-speaking branch of the business never +committed itself to violence; it caused four tragedies in four years, +but it simply pressed the button of exposure and its vengeance came off +automatically. The first time a young girl went crazy. The second there +was a divorce and the wife shot herself. And the third time a bad +stumble, lived down for twenty years by a fine old friend of mine, a +judge of the highest standing who had made himself an honorable +character, was exposed to such relentless political foes that this +office had to prosecute. Well, Mrs. Deutch's father isn't the only +gentle soul who's died in jail!"</p> + +<p>Kane's voice had risen in hot anger. "Perhaps you think I ought to be +grateful—thank them for doing my work! Am I to do theirs, then? Execute +their orders, their sentences? Make my office the tool of cowards and +criminals worse than those I convict? Ah, my boy, that did turn me into +a monomaniac! Is there anything I wouldn't give to break that particular +bone in the Arm of Justice?—to lay hands on the real villain of that +little evening party in these rooms that night—not the one who fired +the shot but who prompted it! Believe me, the death of Ingham was a +slip, an accident, bitterly repented. Some last new element got in this +time and got in wrong. The Arm was using a new tool and pushed it +farther than it dreamed the tool would go. The English-speaking branch, +always so careful not to commit murder—I could almost be thankful for +this time—it's put a definite, popular crime into my hand! And now the +poor fools've lost their heads! They that were so cautious, they're +following one sensation with another. They've tried anything, +everything, to get clear! They've only floundered further and further +in! And now they're wild as rats in a trap!"</p> + +<p>"Like rats in a trap!" There it was again! "The wages of sin is more +sinning!" Good heavens, what was his novel to him, now?</p> + +<p>"Still people don't believe me. They can't credit that a single criminal +gang has its feet in the slums, its hand in the pocket of Fifth Avenue, +and its head—well, for instance, on Broadway. Naturally, it wants a +connecting thread. I was so keen after that, even before I came into +office, that they used to call me The Blackhander and say I ought to +write a comic opera. Well, Italy's an operatic nation! And this great +brat of a city, that thinks there's nothing doing in the world but +Anglo-Saxon temperaments, embezzling and baseball games, doesn't know +what it may get up against! I'm sure if I can nab either end of the +skein it will carry conviction. But unfortunately even the Eastsiders +never gave us a map of their whereabouts. There are about seven hundred +Italians in New York who might be called professional gangsters and very +likely a cozy, private little affair like the A. of J. but murmurs, 'We +are seven.' So I've never been able to put the slightest Italian accent +on those illustrious letters till I saw the body of your gunman from +Central Park. Encouraging though not overwhelming evidence! But the +knife that stuck in Denny's arm is a bigger business."</p> + +<p>He might well congratulate himself, Herrick inwardly groaned, over the +color and the emphasis liberally supplied him in the story of Mrs. +Deutch.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you understood what had happened? The farmer had refused +toll to the brigands who governed the south so capably in those days. +They killed his child, leaving their mark on it as a warning that toll +must be paid. The poor wine-merchant attempted to set the authorities on +that sign. The authorities were too weak to take up the gage, and, of +course, a stranger and a Jew made an easy scape-goat. But the brother +didn't take warning from the father's fate. Then the mark on him warned +the countryside that the family was taboo. They became simply lepers. +Not, this time, because the people were religious bigots nor social +asses but because they were scared stiff. Every one connected with the +tabooed strangers must have dreaded some brigand dictum. Every Gabrielli +may have squirmed under that thumb for many a year. Whatever she +romantically believes, her fiancé's family simply dared not, for their +lives, receive Henrietta. Nobody dared, except, apparently, our little +friend, Hermann Deutch. Hats off—I salute Hermann! Really, for an +excited man—! But how's that for the nationality of the three-cornered +knife? The nation's pitched it out, over there; and now, to-day, in the +city of New York, in the city's jail, in broad daylight, some descendant +of this agreeable Sicilian clan uses the same weapon to silence a wiry +gentleman who turns out a bit too much for him—being a little on the +Sicilian order himself! But isn't that a sign of something doing between +the slums and Broadway? For what were they afraid Denny would tell? Why +did they wish to silence him except for what he could tell of a certain +lady?"</p> + +<p>Herrick rose, lighted a cigar and flicked out the match with steady +fingers. "And you picture Miss Hope as The Queen of the Black Hand?"</p> + +<p>This pleasantry was delivered with such a raucous and guttural attempt +at quiet satire that Kane returned to earth and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Put in that way it's comic opera, indeed. But it's the tune that makes +the song. I know how crass the thing seems. Good heavens, says common +sense, in what century are we living? And who believes in comic opera? +What's the clue? What's the connecting thread that can reach from the +lowest dives of the East Side, out of another country and another race, +and mix with the grandeurs of so extremely well-known and high-flying a +young lady, on the very day that she becomes a world-celebrity? What's +the answer?"</p> + +<p>The extreme nonchalance of Herrick's voice shook a little as he +remarked, "That's up to you, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"It's bound to lie in some dangerous indiscretion of her youth. She's +had hard struggling years, in which her temper was still luxurious—a +youth that's ambitious is never too scrupulous—if she had a friend +unscrupulous by profession—And yet I was so sure they had got hold of +her by some secret of her mother's! The Hope honeymoon took place in +Italy—but, in that day, so did everybody's! After all, perhaps they had +a closer clutch. What do we inevitably find in the pasts of all very +young, very beautiful and very successful actresses? We find a dark and +early husband. Italians whose humbler connections still sojourn in +tenements are often highly ornamental and blackmailers aren't branded, +you know, to keep them out of matrimony. Well, whatever the start, +whether she was coaxed in or threatened or married, forced by poverty or +blackmail, she's made them a wonderful—Do you know the thieves' slang +of Naples? And the term 'basista'?"</p> + +<p>"A basista's a sort of fence, isn't he? A confederate on the outside?"</p> + +<p>"A good deal more. A basista, without being a member of the gang, is the +invaluable unsuspected spy in the camp of the victims, who loots +profitable news and sends it in. He or she is sometimes the brilliant +amateur director, the educated person with an outlook, the Adviser +Plenipotentiary. A dramatic-minded young lady with extravagant tastes +and some kind of righteous grudge against society might hardly realize +at first what she was doing—and oh, how she has struggled to be rid of +it, since! Naturally, she's become worth double to them. And she's +recently furnished them with such a hold that, so far from getting +clear, I fancy she was pushed to furnish them with another victim; that +if it hadn't been for the moving-picture another person would soon have +received an Arm of Justice letter, and that person Cuyler Ten Euyck. +What do you think of my thread?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty thin, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Wait, encouraging youth! You'll be grateful some day! Come, I'll show +you my hand! Ever since the inquest it has been perfectly clear to the +unprejudiced mind that Christina Hope was in that room when Ingham was +shot. It was perfectly evident that she was shielding somebody. We say, +now, that she was shielding Denny. When we began to suspect Denny we had +to run down his friend, Christina Hope, who left behind her a scarf +bordered with the color in which, through his craze for her, Ingham's +apartment was decorated—a color which up to the time of the murder she +wore so constantly that it was like a part of her personal effect, and +which she has never worn since."</p> + +<p>The color was all about them—blue-gray. What could that have to do with +the shimmer of a dummy pistol, scratched upon whose golden surface +Herrick once more confronted the initial "C"? But he did not put this +question to the District-Attorney. And it was Kane who continued. "Shall +I treat you to a bit of ancient history; shall I reconstruct for you the +movements of Miss Hope on the night of the fourth of August?"</p> + +<p>"As you please."</p> + +<p>"She testified to have dined at home. So she did; but with so poor an +appetite that the maids said to each other that she had really dined +early somewhere else. She testified to being ill and out of sorts; so +she was. But she was incited by this being out of sorts to something +very different from the languor to which she testified. Far from having +bade Ingham farewell forever she called him up at the Van Dam on an +average of every half hour, as well as at his club, and at two +restaurants which he frequented. Failing to find him, at eleven o'clock +she did, indeed, go to the post-box and mail a letter; but at twenty +minutes past eleven she was waiting in a taxi outside the theater where +Denny was rehearsing and sent in a message, without any concealment of +her name, that she wished to speak to him. He sent out word that he was +engaged. An hour later she was there again, and not believing the back +doorman who told her that he had left, she stopped Wheeler, who had +been inside, and besought him to get Denny to speak to her. He replied +that Denny was gone, whereupon she called out to her chauffeur, with +every adjuration to hurry, the name of the Van Dam apartment +house—where, say at a quarter after one, you, Herrick, saw her shadow +on the blind. According to Joe Patrick she was the first on the +spot.—Was she the last there, too?"</p> + +<p>Herrick paused in a long stride; with his bones slowly freezing in him +he turned and faced the District-Attorney.</p> + +<p>"If Denny loved her and went there on her account did he shoot down +Ingham before her eyes? Or did she run out, as she suggested at the +inquest, and Denny shoot Ingham as he turned to follow her? There's your +chance, Herrick, prove that! Mr. Bird tells us when our prisoner came +in. But, before all and everything, when did he come out?"</p> + +<p>He had a way for which Herrick could have slain him, of driving points +home with a smile.</p> + +<p>"But suppose, now, she did most of the loving on her own account. +Ingham, to a certainty, had found out her connection with the Arm of +Justice, when it tried to blackmail him through her. From the row you +heard between them he's likely to have been threatening her with +exposure. Suppose Denny's story is straight and when he found her there +with Ingham he just turned and walked off. Was Ingham a man to refrain +from threatening to send his revelations, first of all, to a man who had +treated him so cavalierly? Is she a girl to stop short of the desperate +in preventing him? Isn't she one to avenge herself in advance? It may +not have been wholly in revenge. Ingham was himself a wild revengeful +fellow who sometimes had too much to drink. He may have provoked her +even to bodily fear. If he guessed such a thing do you think Denny would +not keep silence? I see it strikes you."</p> + +<p>It seemed to him as if it struck the life out of his heart over which +he folded his arms. "Try somebody else," he said, in defiance of the +little clasps of proof which he could hear snapping into each other, +"next time you accuse her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll try Deutch. I gave her every doubt till I heard of his +secret. Is it possible you don't know what he found? And is it possible +that you don't see a preparation for emergency in her taking such pains +to establish—well, not an alibi, but a substitute?—A mysterious +unknown lady with the most conspicuous physical attributes, in whose +person this admirable actress appears before Joe Patrick as the +red-headed murderess of the drama on the front stairs, before, on the +back stairs, with which she appears to be so familiar, she resumes +herself and turns to see what can be done with Ingham! That's the worst +point in the story of a distracted girl, pushed to the wall, driven past +her last stand, maddened by a suddenly enlightened and too cruel Ingham, +hounded by her friends, the Arm of Justice, to their work; herself no +more—as I was once no more!—than a trigger pulled by their hand! No +wonder they've had a firmer hold on her than ever since that night, and +shield her, now, with all their care because in doing so they shield +themselves!"</p> + +<p>"That's what you think, is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's what I fear—and it's what you fear! Or—what's a +District-Attorney to a lover?—you'd have knocked me down long +ago!—There's not a man of you, knowing the girl, in whose mind, in +whose pulse, it hasn't been from the first hour! Yet there's not one of +you who hasn't sacrificed Denny to her without a scruple. One man in the +end won't do it. I mean Denny himself. He, too, is prepared to go +extraordinary lengths not to betray her. He will deny, of course, that +it was she who was there that night. But I rely on one thing. He knows +that in the State of New York he can not plead guilty to murder in the +first degree. And he won't send himself up for anything less. He's not +afraid of death, but he's mortally afraid of prison—it gets on every +one of his nerves. And he seems to have a great many of them. If they +are ground on the idea of jail so that they break they may break quite +contrary to poor Deutch's—they may set him talking! Ah, if he and +Deutch could happen to meet; those two temperamental persons!—Here, in +this room, in the night, now when neither of them are quite themselves, +what a start they might get! What mightn't it shake out of +them?—There's one final thing the person who shot Ingham, the person +who was last with him in this room, alone, can tell me—How came that +door bolted? Whatever Denny guesses, you'll find he won't guess me +that!—Come in!"</p> + +<p>He conferred with some one on the threshold. "Ask Inspector Ten Euyck to +come up." Turning back to take his place at the library table he +motioned Herrick to a seat. "Pity the sorrows of a poor policeman whose +legal sense is too strong to let him ask a single question of an accused +man, yet who was born to be the head of the Inquisition and looks at the +prisoner with a deep desire quite simply to tear him open! The prisoner +is well held together with surgeon's plaster, but the poor Inspector's +pride in his profession is suffering horribly from the inadequate +conduct of his city's jail to-day and of our detectives' search.—Here +we are!"</p> + +<p>A group of young men appeared in the doorway, with Ten Euyck looming +like a damaged monument in their wake. Civility and self-control forced +themselves on Herrick. He and Ten Euyck sniffed each other, wary as +strange dogs, their spines beginning to rise. "Inspector," said Kane, +"cheer up!" And indeed the funereal quality in that gentleman's +appearance had greatly increased. He sat down, as directed, but when he +looked at Herrick he had to turn his growl into a cough and when he +looked at Kane he winced. It was evidently not alone the errors of the +Tombs and the police department which had bowed his head. It was the +knowledge of last night. His magnificent storm coat could not hide his +riddled dignity. Only by the sight of Christina in his grasp could he +get his dignity back again.</p> + +<p>"Ten Euyck, I sent for you because this is so largely your affair, but +you are not going to be asked to do anything immoral. I am about to +examine a witness, but with no illegal questions nor shall I force him +to testify against himself. He is only going to be asked about another, +a missing witness. Your legal mind doesn't quarrel with his being hard +pushed in that direction? I thought not!"</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck exclaimed, eagerly, "But Deutch can't talk yet!"</p> + +<p>"Deutch? Did you think I meant Deutch? There is some one dearer to +Christina Hope than her dear Deutches and still nearer to the habits of +her life. I mean a gentleman who can talk but won't. Ah, brighten up Ten +Euyck—he shall be got to! He may be ignorant of certain amiable +Italians as criminal characters, it's inconceivable he can be ignorant +of them as Christina Hope's familiar friends. He mayn't be able to tell +me the secret of their lives. But he can give me their address. And he +will."</p> + +<p>They were all grouped about the long table: Kane at its center, facing +the window; Ten Euyck and Herrick bearing with each other at one end; +Holt, an assistant of Kane's, between him and Ten Euyck; to his right, a +stenographer with a short-hand pad. The end of the table was still +vacant. Kane's own doorman stood on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Wade, have you got Mrs. Deutch? Please step into the bedroom, Mrs. +Deutch. Sit down comfortably, keep silent and listen to everything.—I +want to remind you all that, wise as our witness is, there are some +things he doesn't know. So far as we know he has never connected the +Cornish girl's disappearance with the blackmailers. He's not supposed to +know there are any blackmailers. And, for certain, he's seen no papers +nor been allowed to talk with any one. He doesn't know that Christina +Hope has disappeared! He doesn't know that New York has seen a +moving-picture!" Turning to the man at the door Kane said, "Bring in +William Denny."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS</h3> + + +<p>Herrick felt the strong light of the one lamp like something hypnotic; +it reminded him of the glare in some Sardou or Belasco torture chamber. +It seemed to him that the scene wasn't real; it was like a council of +wolves and he powerless and quiet with them there, as they hungered to +run, baying, on Christina. It was only a nightmare and yet it was more +real and keen than life, and only God knew what would come of it! Then +he saw the slight, dark figure pass the door; every eye, but with what +different desires, turned, ravenous as his, for the secret that it +carried in its breast.</p> + +<p>The doorman brought Denny up to the end of the table and withdrew. The +prisoner was very carefully dressed, his black hair brushed as smooth as +satin, and against his dark blue coat the black silk handkerchief that +supported his arm was scarcely noticeable. He looked a model of rigid +decorum until you observed the heavy straps of plaster across his hands. +Only his skin, always dark and pale, seemed really to be drained of +blood. He nodded gravely to Kane, and with a sort of still surprise to +Herrick. Ten Euyck he passed over. He remained standing until Kane told +him to sit down. If he then dropped rather wearily into a chair he +contrived to sit upright, with a good show of formal manners. As his +dark eyes met the keen light ones of the lawyer a faint, derisive smile +appeared, and was instantly suppressed, upon both their faces.</p> + +<p>"You seem very sure of yourself!" Ten Euyck exploded.</p> + +<p>Denny appeared to become slowly conscious of him. "Even the persuasive +manners of your department," he said, "couldn't make me tell what I +didn't know!"</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck said quickly, "You don't know who killed Ingham?"</p> + +<p>"If I said anything more incriminating, it's possible it might be used +against me."</p> + +<p>"We're not here," Kane interposed, "to discuss Ingham's death. Mr. +Denny, within the last few days there have been some very grave +occurrences, about which it's possible you can enlighten us. If you can, +we shan't be ungrateful. Did you ever hear of an organization called the +Arm of Justice?"</p> + +<p>"Is this a joke?"</p> + +<p>"You never heard of it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you can have no objection to repeating the name and address +of Miss Hope's Italian friends?"</p> + +<p>"Not the least in the world. Has she any?"</p> + +<p>"You mean to tell me you don't know she has?"</p> + +<p>"Not if it annoys you. I thought you asked."</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck, with a gesture as of uncontrollable impatience, rose and went +to the window.</p> + +<p>"Since you're in a jocular mood, I will ask you something you may think +extremely amusing. Do you know if Miss Christina Hope owns a red wig?"</p> + +<p>He didn't think it amusing. He seemed to think little enough about it. +"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"But you never saw one about her house?"</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't keep it about her house, like a pet. She'd keep it in a +trunk. She's not an amateur."</p> + +<p>"You never saw her wear one in private life?"</p> + +<p>"Not even on the first of April."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't even swear she had one, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"I certainly could not."</p> + +<p>"Nor that she had not?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"So that you wouldn't recognize hers if you saw it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>The light was very strong upon his face, which remained relaxed and +tranquil. But he was very weak and a faint moisture broke out upon it.</p> + +<p>"Was there any love affair between you and Miss Hope which angered Nancy +Cornish?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Don't lie to me!"</p> + +<p>Denny drew in his breath a little. But he did not speak.</p> + +<p>"What was your trouble with Nancy Cornish?"</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"Didn't she quarrel with you because of some woman?"</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"You know she did. You can't deny it. Do you know what many of your +friends are saying? That you kept that appointment with her and got rid +of her. They think you were tired of her and preferred Christina Hope!"</p> + +<p>"Do they?"</p> + +<p>It had missed fire utterly. Yet, since the mention of that other girl, a +kind of hunger had been growing in his face, and suddenly Kane wholly +veered on that new track.</p> + +<p>"But I don't!" said Kane, leaning toward him, and trying to catch and +hold his eye. "I think you really care for Nancy Cornish, whether she's +alive or dead!" He paused. "I think you'll end by telling me what you +know of the woman whom you'll find parted you."</p> + +<p>The same dead silence; only Denny had closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come, give me your attention. Look at me, please. Look at me, and +you'll see that I'm sincere. Did you hear me say if you can help me I +shan't be ungrateful? But you can do better for yourself than that. You +can simply tell the truth! Tell the truth and you won't need my favor. +You'll be free. And you'll have set me in the way to find Nancy Cornish! +It isn't possible you prefer to keep this ridiculous silence, to die +like a criminal for nothing; or spend fifteen to twenty years in the +penitentiary—spend life there,—ah, I thought so!" The +District-Attorney laughed with triumph at the little straightening of +Denny's nostrils. "There's your weak point, my friend! I have never seen +a man to whom the idea of jail was so entirely uncongenial! Get rid of +it, then! Admit the truth about Christina Hope! What do you owe her? She +never even came to me with the witness that she promised."</p> + +<p>"I rather thought she'd have trouble doing that!"</p> + +<p>"Because you knew there was no such woman. Or rather that that woman was +Christina Hope; that she tried to get up courage to incriminate herself +in your place and failed!"</p> + +<p>"You're a bad guesser, Kane!" Denny said. He had sunk a little forward +with his arms upon his knees, and Kane rose and stood over him.</p> + +<p>"Admit that your whole attitude is dictated simply by loyalty to her. +You need be loyal no longer. Has she been near you since you've been in +the Tombs?"</p> + +<p>"No, you've kept her out. And a fine time you must have had doing it!"</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck turned round and said, "She's so <i>fond</i> of you, I suppose!"</p> + +<p>Denny flushed. "Yes," he said, "she's fond of me. She was born to be a +good comrade-in-arms, to carry the flag of a forlorn hope and stand by +you in the last ditch. If you gentlemen can't understand that, I'm sorry +for you. I can't change her."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," Kane said. "I knew that was your ground. Well, this +comrade-in-arms has deserted you altogether. The day she should have +brought me that witness, she threw down her engagement and left New +York!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, guess again!" said Denny. "Not while she lived, she didn't!"</p> + +<p>"And she took with her," Ten Euyck cried, "forty thousand dollars' worth +of my diamonds! Perhaps she was in hopes you'd get away and join her!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Denny, turning his eyes toward Herrick, without raising his +head, "you!—you're not a criminal!—are you going to stand for that?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't his standing for it speak for itself!" said Ten Euyck. "If you +want to defend a woman, why don't you come out like a man and confess +that you did it yourself."</p> + +<p>They all looked at him in astonishment and, flushing at himself, he +subsided.</p> + +<p>"Ah, thanks, Ten Euyck, that's what I've been suspecting! You think you +can trap me into one of your damned confessions with these tricks! Get +rid of that idea. I'll not confess. It's up to you to prove it; prove +it! Why should I help you!" He turned again to Herrick, as if in +justification. "Yes, I am afraid of jail! I'm a coward about prison, I +confess that! and to give myself up to a lifetime of it—no!—Herrick, +there's no chance of their being serious in this talk about Christina."</p> + +<p>Kane took him by the unwounded shoulder and forced him from his leaning +posture, till his face came full into the light. "Upon my word of honor, +Denny," he said, "Christina Hope has disappeared."</p> + +<p>The shock struck Denny like a sort of paralysis. He did not stir, but he +seemed to stiffen. His eyes dilated with a horrified amazement. "What do +you mean?" he said.</p> + +<p>Kane handed him that evening's paper, folded to the headlines that dealt +with the missing girl. He read them with greed, but it was plain that he +found their information stupefying. "Chris, now! First, Nancy!" he +said, "and then, Christina! What is this thing? What can it be? You," to +Kane, "you that are so clever, have you any explanation at all? Have you +the least clue? Have you?" he insisted, and from the dark meaning of +their faces he seemed to kindle, and half rose, leaning on the table. +"My God, then," he cried, "what is it? What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Kane, "as you yourself suggest, she is very probably +in the same place with Nancy Cornish." Denny continued to lean on the +table, looking at him with ravenous eyes. "You know that Joe Patrick was +knocked down by an automobile on his way to the inquest, that the same +so-called accident happened two or three days later to Herrick, here; +you know that subsequently four armed men attacked him in the park; +to-day you had an experience of your own. Well, all these things hang +together and were committed by a band of blackmailers. Your own shoulder +gives you a taste of their quality. You can judge for yourself what +they'll stop at. Brace yourself. We know, now, for a certainty that +Nancy Cornish is in their hands."</p> + +<p>Denny continued to lean there, without stirring. "It's a trick! It's one +of your little tricks! Is it?" he said to Herrick with a sudden +shrillness, "Is it?"</p> + +<p>"One of them brought us a message from her. It said, 'Help me, dear +Chris!'"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no!" said Denny, as if to himself. "It's a lie. It's all a lie. +I won't be frightened. I know it's a lie."</p> + +<p>"Is that her writing?"</p> + +<p>He cried out, a dreadful, formless sound, and covered his face with his +hands. Kane's glance said to the others, "Let him alone! It's working!"</p> + +<p>He asked them then, quite gravely and clearly, "When—do you expect—to +catch—this—gang?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that we can catch them at all. We don't know how to get +at them. We've no idea where they are."</p> + +<p>His hands dropped from his face; it throbbed now and blazed; all the +nerves had come to life in a quivering network. "Oh, for God's sake," he +said, "don't tell me that!—Go on, then, go on! Tell me!" He looked +beseechingly and then in a fury of impatience from face to face. "Don't +stand gaping! You must know something! Look here, you don't understand! +You don't know all I've been through all these weeks—wondering!—If she +was in that lake where we used to row! If she'd only gone away, hating +me! My mind's in pieces trying to think—think—following every sign! +Hundreds of times I've seen her dead! And now you tell me she's alive! +and calling—calling for help! Do you? Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Kane.</p> + +<p>He swayed forward so suddenly that he had to catch at the table. "It's +horrible! It's a nightmare!" With a strange monotonous inflection his +voice rose higher and higher on the one strained note. "It's the thing +I've dreamed of night and day, week out and in! That she was frightened +and in danger! With brutes! With the faces of beasts round her! Oh, +God—!"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Herrick cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but look here!" With an eagerness sudden as a child's, he said to +Herrick, "But it's hope! Hope, isn't it? She's alive! And she didn't +just leave me!—I've got to get out of here! Yesterday—why, +yesterday—this morning—but now! 'Help me!' she says! I've got to get +out! I—" He stopped. The dusky choking red that had surged up horribly +over his face and forehead receded sharply, and left only his eyes +burning black in the white incredulous horror of his face. He cried, +"There's no way out!"</p> + +<p>"There may be," said the District-Attorney, "if you will look very +carefully at this lock of hair."</p> + +<p>Denny took the soft red curl in a hand that he vainly strove to steady; +they could read recognition, but no further enlightenment in his +tormented face.</p> + +<p>"Sit down!" Kane said. "Untie the string. Shake the hair loose here on +the table under the lamp. Now, does anything strike you? No?"</p> + +<p>Once more Herrick had that singular impression of Denny's going, for an +instant's flash, perfectly blind. Then he said, quite quietly, "Go! The +station you want is Waybrook. Drive five miles inland, on the road to +Benning's Point; about three miles south of the Hoover estate. The +left-hand side of the road; an old house newly fixed up and painted +yellow. Pascoe's the name. And, for God's sake, go quickly."</p> + +<p>The District-Attorney sat back and wiped his forehead. It had been a +hard day's work. "Don't you, Herrick, want to take a look at the +curiosity without which I might as well have asked a clam for a Fourth +of July oration?"</p> + +<p>The hair was spread out and thinned under the lamp. And now Herrick +could see distinctly that it was of two shades. The outer curl was the +dark red of Nancy Cornish; hidden within it was a smaller lock of a +singularly fine light shade, like the red of golden fire. This it was +which had wrung the address from Denny and stricken down Christina in a +faint.</p> + +<p>"Nancy Cornish hid it there in the message she was allowed to send," +guessed Herrick. "She was certain Miss Hope would know the head it came +from."</p> + +<p>"Then I needn't point out to a gentleman of your discernment that it was +the head which astonished Joe Patrick on the night of Ingham's murder. +Directly afterward, I think Miss Hope stored that head, inconspicuously, +with her friends in the Arm of Justice."</p> + +<p>Denny, rabid with impatience, seemed eating them alive with his savage +eyes. "Start!" he bit out. "Go, can't you? Go! What are you waiting +for?"</p> + +<p>Kane looked up at him with a smile of triumphant ice. "We're waiting for +your account of midnight in these rooms between the fourth and fifth of +August. And no one stirs to Nancy Cornish till we get it."</p> + +<p>Denny's jaw dropped and he hung against the edge of the table as if he +were struck too sick to stand.</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck, too, cried out and Kane silenced him. "Why not—since he says +he's innocent?"</p> + +<p>"You dog!" Denny groaned. "You won't save her?"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> won't save her—you know how!"</p> + +<p>"Lose time and you lose everything!"</p> + +<p>"What do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Know! Know! Of course I know! But do you think you can make me tell? +Try that game! Try it! Try! You know damned well you can't! So what'll +you give for what I know?"</p> + +<p>"You mean—?"</p> + +<p>"Come back to me when you've found Nancy Cornish and you shall have your +murderer fast enough! Every detail, every fact, every clue! Till then I +don't trust you! Bring her here, bring her!" He leaned forward, beside +himself; shaken and exhausted, burning with fever, weak with loss of +blood, he reached toward Kane and beat the table with his wounded hands. +"That's my bargain! That's my price! I'm not going to give up for +nothing! You don't get my life unless you give me hers—"</p> + +<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p> + +<p>The great gasp broke into a buzz. Denny came slowly to himself and read +what he had uttered in their looks. His face went dead, a cold sweat +stood out upon it. "O!" he breathed. And once more he covered his face +with his hands.</p> + +<p>It didn't take many questions to get his story from him after that.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I killed him. Yes, I'm confessing. I've got to. All right,—take +it down. I killed James Ingham. I went to his apartment after my +dress-rehearsal on the night of the fourth of August. I had been told +that he had injured Nancy Cornish. I shot him dead. I've regretted it +every moment of my life since then. That's all. What are you waiting for +now?"</p> + +<p>"Then, Miss Hope—was not in Ingham's rooms that night?"</p> + +<p>There was a dead pause. Denny looked hard in Kane's face. "Yes," he +said, "she was. She came there to try and prevent our quarrel." The men +who had seen the moving-picture of the shadow breathed again.</p> + +<p>"What did she do when you fired?"</p> + +<p>"I sent her down to the Deutches to get a doctor. I wanted her out of +the way, and I switched off the lights so she need not see how useless +any doctor was!"</p> + +<p>"How did you yourself escape?"</p> + +<p>"Up the back stairs, across the roof, into the next house."</p> + +<p>"But she went out of the room before you did?"</p> + +<p>The earth swam before Herrick's eyes, and then he heard Denny's "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then since you were the last to leave, explain how you were able to +bolt the door behind you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't bolt it behind me. I stayed in the room."</p> + +<p>Herrick lifted his head.</p> + +<p>"I had dropped my revolver and in feeling for it on the rug I got my +hand stained." He spoke lower and lower, but every now and then his +voice flickered, licking upward like a flame, and cracked. "I ran into +the bathroom and put it under the faucet, and after that it was too late +to get away. People were peering and listening from their doors. I got +in a blind panic—you've noticed I'm upset by jail!—I knew I was +cornered—I bolted the door. But in doing that I saw how close the +portières hung." Herrick drew a long breath. "I thought once I could +clear that outside room a little I could make a dash for it. To do that +it was necessary to remove the magnet. I dragged Ingham's body into the +bedroom. The bed's head was toward the portières. I went and stood in +its shadow, in the portières' folds. Then they burst in. When Deutch +held the portière aside for the policeman I was so close at his back +that he touched me. When he saw me he screened me almost completely. +They had been so obliging as to clear the hall. There was plenty of +noise; the men were opening the closet door, a motor whirring, a trolley +passing the corner; they all had their backs to me, and I made but a +couple of steps of it into the hall. A few moments later I had the honor +and privilege of addressing Mr. Herrick, and of hearing from him that +the murderer was a lady and had not been caught."</p> + +<p>"Deutch screened you, you say? Why?"</p> + +<p>A queer little color came into Denny's face. "I'm fated to be +ridiculous," he said. "I had seen a hooded cloak of Christina's lying on +the table; it was Christina's own blue-gray; just the shade of the +portières. The hood covered my head. The shadow back there is very deep. +Well, Deutch knew Christina had been there, you know. He must have left +his apartment just before she got to it, for he was simply one funk of +anxiety about her." Denny had to struggle up, for the interview had told +on him terribly, and he kept one hand on the back of his chair. "I'm of +no greatly imposing bulk," he said. "And Christina Hope is la tall +woman!"</p> + +<p>A cry came from within the portières. Denny, his self-control utterly +shattered, flashed round. Henrietta Deutch greeted him with a radiant +face.</p> + +<p>"Ah, sirs, thank God! Oh, oh, it was that he saw! Mr. Deutch saw one he +took for her! And Christina it could not have been! He was not two +minutes gone when she was with me!"</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Mrs. Deutch! I couldn't have trusted even you for the truth of +that point if I'd simply asked you! But we must make sure that was what +he saw—that and no other proof. Here's the same depth of shadow, then, +and the same portières. Take this couch cover, Denny, for a cloak. Stand +back, and screen your face with it.—Wade, bring in Deutch."</p> + +<p>Herrick shuddered and anticipation choked him. This man had suffered so +much for Christina, and now he was to decide her fate! The +superintendent stepped into a silent room. All those eyes fed on him. +The place cast its spell of horror. His plump, pale, sagging face +quivered with dread; his eyes floundered from Herrick to Kane, and a +kind of dumb moan burst from him. Kane pointed to the portières and his +panic was complete.</p> + +<p>"Show him, Herrick. Just as he stood, that night."</p> + +<p>He stood there, dizzy with bewilderment, and suddenly he screamed. +Gasping, he clutched at the portière through which some touch, some +motion had repeated for him a dreadful moment. Behind it he once more +beheld a dim, blue figure. He fell on his knees, strangling, his breath +raving and rattling in his mouth, and brought out like a convulsion the +one word "Christina!" Sobbing, he caught at a fragment of the cloak and +covered it with piteous, protecting kisses. Denny let the cloaking stuff +fall from him, and, stepping out, broken as a thing thrown away, stood +in full view with hanging head. Every eye was fastened upon Deutch.</p> + +<p>He had no need for words. What he had believed himself to have seen, +what he had suffered, the mad relief, the almost ludicrous exultation in +what he now learned, passed one after the other across that tormented +visage and broke in one happy blubber as he ducked his head in his +wife's skirts.</p> + +<p>The relief that shook Herrick touched, too, every one in the room. No +man there had really wished to sentence a girl. It was as though, at +last, they had all got air to breathe. When into this new air Denny's +voice broke with a sick snarl.</p> + +<p>"And do you think you've saved her? You miserable, gabbling fools, did +you think your Arm of Justice was her friend? Why, she knew no more of +it than you do! If they've got the girl there, she's fighting, accusing, +threatening them, she's facing her death! And now in God's name, can you +hurry? Hurry!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA WAS</h3> + + +<p>At nine o'clock on the morning of Friday, the day when Christina +disappeared, there stood at the little interior station of Waybrook, +awaiting the train from New York, a touring-car which had very recently +been painted black. In the body of this car an observing person might +have descried a couple of indentations which, were he of a sensational +turn of mind, would have suggested to him the marks of bullets. This +touring-car was, at that time of day, the only vehicle in waiting, and +when the train rushed on again from its brief pause, only one person had +alighted from it.</p> + +<p>This was a tall woman, heavily veiled, wearing a long dark ulster, +considerably too large for her, and a rather shabby black hat. This +woman walked directly up to the touring-car and flung herself into it +without a word. When the chauffeur turned and said to her, in surprise, +"You all alone?" she responded, "Yes. And in twice the hurry on that +account!" The curt command of the words did not conceal the quality of a +voice which all the newspapers in New York were that morning praising; +and the face from which she then lifted her veil, although furrowed with +anger and ravaged with grief, was the unforgettable face of Christina +Hope. She sat for the five miles which led to her destination with her +eyes closed and her hands wrung tight together in her lap.</p> + +<p>The touring-car stopped at the gate of an old yellow house, very +carefully kept, its bright windows screened by curtains rather elegantly +pretty; and a flagged path leading up to its brass-knockered door. On +either side of the flagged path stretched a garden, a little sobered by +its autumn coloring, but still abounding in the country flowers which to +Bryce Herrick's admiration had kept Christina's house so sweet.</p> + +<p>The door was opened by a small, square, hard-featured, close-mouthed old +woman, very neatly dressed, with gray hair and a white apron. In other +words, by the occasional cashier at the Italian table d'hôte. This +woman, as the chauffeur had done, looked over Christina's shoulder in +expectation and then said, grudgingly, "Oh, it's you!"</p> + +<p>"As you see," said Christina, pressing inside. "But I shan't trouble you +long. I should like some coffee, if you please. I've had no breakfast." +The woman stood still, staring at Christina's ill-fitting clothes and +sunken eyes, and the girl added, with the same peremptory coldness which +had marked her manner from the beginning, "I must ask you to be quick. I +have only come to relieve you of our guest."</p> + +<p>"You have!" said the old woman. "Who says so?"</p> + +<p>"I think you heard me say so," Christina responded, from the foot of the +stairs.</p> + +<p>The old woman hurried after her. "Yes, I daresay. But by whose orders?"</p> + +<p>Christina turned round. "Who owns this place?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Well, you do."</p> + +<p>"Who pays for every mouthful that is eaten here and for everything that +is brought into this house? Who makes your living for you?"</p> + +<p>"You do, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I suppose, by my orders. Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"She's in your room, the same as ever."</p> + +<p>"Locked in, of course?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"The key, please."</p> + +<p>The old woman hesitated, then she took the key out of her pocket. And at +that moment Christina noticed something. There came from the floor above +the sound of a voice speaking rapidly, incessantly, and indistinctly +like a child talking to itself. An expression of amused and contemptuous +malice broke upon the old woman's face and she handed over the key with +greater readiness. "Much good may it do you!" said she, turning toward +the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Christina snatched it and fled upstairs. "Bring the coffee up here, +please," she called over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>For all her haste she paused at the top of the stair, and, with her hand +over her heart, listened to the babbling voice. Then she turned to the +right and knocked on a closed door. The voice ran on, heedlessly. +"Nancy!" Christina called. "Nancy! It's I, Chris! Dear Nancy, I've come +to take you home."</p> + +<p>She was answered only by the endless repetition of some phrase, and +unlocking the door, she went in.</p> + +<p>She stepped into a charming, simple, sunny room, comfortably appointed, +the windows open toward the road and their thin, flowery curtains +stirring in the low, sultry wind. But on the inside of these curtains +the windows were completely screened with poultry wire, and, over the +door, the transom was wired, too. In the bed a young, slight girl half +lay, half sat; her dark red curls had been gathered into a heavy braid +and her blue eyes were blank with fever; she rocked her head from side +to side upon the pillow with an indescribable weariness, and without +breath, without change, with a monotonous and yet agitated inflection, +she repeated over and over again the same phrases: "No, no, no, no! I +don't believe it! Oh, Will, Will, Will, I don't believe it! You did it +yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask Nancy Cornish!" +And then, always with a little listening pause, "I'll promise +anything!"</p> + +<p>Christina shrank back against the door-jamb as if she were going to +fall.</p> + +<p>"Whatever does this mean? How came she like this? Oh, God!" she +breathed, "what shall I do? What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Will, Will, Will!" said the other voice. "No, no, no, I don't +believe it!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, me!" Christina breathed. "Nor I! If only I hadn't been there, and +seen!"</p> + +<p>"You did it yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask +Nancy Cornish!"</p> + +<p>Christina sank on her knees beside the bed, in an agony of terror and +tenderness, and for the first time since she had seen the lock of hair, +her tears poured forth. But she took the girl's hand and held it; and +she tried to master those feverish eyes with the eyes of her own +despair. "Nancy!" she said, "Nancy! It's Christina. Nancy dear, it's +Chris. Oh, try to know me. Look at me. Listen to me. You must know me. +You shall. Nancy, stop it! Stop it and look at me!—Oh, God!" Christina +prayed. "Help me! Help me!" She caught the sick girl in her arms and +covered the young little face with tears and kisses.</p> + +<p>And as she held Nancy on her breast she became aware of a thin ribbon +round the girl's neck, with a key to it. She picked up this strange +ornament, and immediately Nancy's fingers came creeping in search of it +and she cried out. Christina dropped it and rose to her feet. "Why!" she +said aloud. "It's the key to my desk!" The desk stood against the wall +and she tried it. It was locked. Nancy lay almost quiet clutching the +key. Christina stood there, puzzled.</p> + +<p>In a drawer of the dressing-table there was a key much the same in shape +and size. Christina took it out, drew the ribbon from Nancy's neck, and, +steeling her heart, plucked open Nancy's hand. The girl set up a shrill +cry but was instantly quieted by the substitute key; the old woman +could be heard rattling with a tray at the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>Christina sprang to the desk and opened it; it was in order and almost +empty, containing no object that Christina did not know. She pulled open +one after the other of the three little drawers. And thus she came, with +an amazed start, upon a bulky envelope bearing an address which was the +last she could have expected. The envelope was addressed to the +District-Attorney of New York.</p> + +<p>Christina appropriated it without pause or scruple, slipped it into her +little handbag and restored Nancy's property almost with one swift +movement. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in an attitude of +listless dejection when the housekeeper entered with the tray.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the old woman, "why don't you take her? Mebbe everything +ain't just as you expected. What'd she yell out like that for?"</p> + +<p>"I touched that ribbon round her neck. What has she got clutched in her +hand?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, just some old trash! Better leave it be. She yells blue murder if +you try to take it away from her."</p> + +<p>These two truthful ladies looked down together on the turning head and +chattering lips and the eyes burning with fever. "Ain't it a sight?" +said the old woman. "It's wonderful what frettin' 'll do. She ain't been +like this but since Wednesday. She kep' up surprisin' until then. Guess +her not hearin' anything from you set her off. She counted on that. I'd +know why she sh'd be so terrible set on gettin' away from here. She's +been well treated. When there's been anybody here fit to keep an eye on +her, she ain't even been locked up. Nicola fastened down the window in +the closet where you had the sink put in—y' know, under the stairs?—in +case she sh'd take to carryin' on. But mercy me, we found out soon +enough that wa'n't the idea. She's had the best in the house.—Well, +you 'bout scalded yerself."</p> + +<p>"I'm in a hurry," said Christina, setting down the empty coffee-cup. +"Where are some loose clothes for her?"</p> + +<p>"Land sakes!" said the old woman. "You want to kill her!"</p> + +<p>Christina went to a closet and found some skirts and a cloak.</p> + +<p>"Please go down," she said, "and tell Nicola to put the hood up and let +down the rain curtains."</p> + +<p>The old woman's suspicion and resentment had never been allayed, but she +kept them choked under. "Well," said she, "I s'pose it's all right. I +guess she's goin' t' die anyhow. An' I guess it's 'bout the best thing +she can do. I dunno what on earth we're goin' t' do with her if she +don't. I ain't goin' to stand for any o' them Dago actions. But I dunno +as I can always put a veto on 'em!—Well, I don't see as you got any +call to make such a face as that—seems to me that Denny fellow got a +long way ahead o' anything any o' our boys done, if they are Dagoes!"</p> + +<p>"Take my message to Nicola, please," Christina said, "and don't stand +there talking. Hurry!"</p> + +<p>The old woman got as far as the door. "I s'pose you know's well as +anybody why she's here!" she said, intently studying Christina's face. +She went out and downstairs muttering. "But I'd jus' like to know why +you're takin' a hand in it! The idea! I guess that Denny feller—" The +front door closed after her; Christina looked out of the window and saw +her speaking with Nicola.</p> + +<p>She had Nancy partly dressed, and now wrapped her in the cloak. "What am +I to ask you, my poor Nancy? Do you know what he never would tell +me—how that door came to be bolted?" The girl's babble kept on +undiminished. "God forgive me!" Christina cried, "if I do wrong!" With a +strong effort, she lifted the girl in her arms.</p> + +<p>And then she was struck still by a sudden sound. It was the sound of the +automobile racing down the road.</p> + +<p>She laid Nancy down and ran to the window; she flew downstairs and +opened the front door. The rear of the car in which she had arrived, +speeding in an opposite direction, was still visible in its own dust. +Had Nicola gone to borrow rain curtains or some tool? Puzzled, Christina +called to the old woman. "Mrs. Pascoe!" Getting no answer she went into +the dining-room and from thence to the kitchen; they were empty. Her +glance scoured the weedy homeliness of the backyard. She went to the +shed, to the barn; they were deserted. A strange silence had fallen upon +the place. In the hot lowering sunshine the girl stood still, and for +the first time the cold fingers of suspicion began to creep along her +pulse.</p> + +<p>She had been very sure of her position, and she felt, as yet, nothing +that could be called fear. But the defiance of her authority was amply +evident. She knew now that she had been a fool to come here alone, to +depend entirely on her personal force. But her mouth set itself in a +smile like light on steel. Did they know what they were doing when they +pushed her to the wall like this? Perhaps, in some way, they counted on +the time it would take her to leave Nancy behind her and go for +help—the nearest house was half a mile away. Leave Nancy behind her! +For reply Christina sped into the hall, and caught up the New York +telephone book. She ran her finger down a column until, having come to +the number 3100 Spring, she picked up the receiver. Something said, in +her little steely smile, that with the utterance of that number she +would throw a world away. The number was that of Police Headquarters.</p> + +<p>The exchange was a long time answering. Christina shook the receiver +hook vigorously. Still silence. As she gave an impatient movement +something brushed, swinging, against her wrist. It was a loose end of +dark green cord from the receiver in her hand. The wire had been cut.</p> + +<p>Christina remained there quite quiet, while that cold hand of the +suspicion that was now certainty seemed to stop her heart. She +remembered that, in the world of help she was cut off from, not a living +human being knew where she was. Well, she was a strong girl. She said to +herself, "It is better Nancy should die on the road in my arms than that +I should leave her here!" She ran up to Nancy's room. When she had first +descended to the road, some one must have mounted the back stairs. +Nancy's door was locked.</p> + +<p>With a firm step Christina entered the kitchen and opened the +table-drawer. They had thought of that, too. Everything with which a +lock might be pried open had been swept up and away. Christina lifted a +dining-room chair and carried it upstairs.</p> + +<p>She brought it down with all the force she had upon the lock. Failing in +this, she held the chair in front of her and charged the door with it. +But whereas in anything requiring swiftness, elasticity, endurance even, +Christina was as strong as wire, she had absolutely no weight. After +half a dozen of these batteries every one of which seemed to strike +through her own heart on Nancy's fever, she decided that whether or no +she might shatter the door in time, time was the last thing she had to +waste. And she could run half a mile like an arrow. She had all along +retained her hold on the little bag which held her purse and she thanked +heaven for the money in it. She had her hand on the front door when she +was arrested by the sound of voices and approaching footsteps; Mrs. +Pascoe's, Nicola's and the heavier step of an older man.</p> + +<p>From her earlier confidence Christina had now jumped to an extreme of +accusation in which any violence seemed probable. Mad to get away for +help, it seemed better to delay for a moment or two than to be caught. +She slipped back across the hall and hid herself in the little closet +under the stairs. She was scarcely secure there when the front door +opened, and Christina hardly dared to breathe lest the click of her own +door closing should have betrayed her presence. To her highly wrought +nerves the utter darkness, the airless pressure of her sanctuary were +terrible, and she found and held the knob that at the first stillness +she might slip out. She could hear calling and running about; she could +hear them talking in Nancy's room. After a while, the men went out and +then she heard Mrs. Pascoe come downstairs and the dining-room door +close after her. The time had come. Christina, all her life subject to +fainting-fits, felt that she scarcely could have borne, for a moment +longer, that black airlessness. With infinite softness, she turned the +knob. And then, indeed, her heart stood still. Mrs. Pascoe had omitted +to mention one improvement with which, in preparation for Nancy's +occupancy, the outside of the closet-door had been fortified. This +improvement was a Yale lock.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT</h3> + + +<p>It was after midnight when Stanley Ingham stopped his car and yielded up +the steering-wheel to Herrick. Besides themselves their car carried +three of Kane's detectives and they were followed by the sheriff and a +roadster full of armed men.</p> + +<p>The detectives had a secondary mission. At the last minute Kane had +received a message from a much concerned elderly cousin of Joe +Patrick's. This cousin was a waiter at "Riley's," a roadhouse which was +not only a cheap edition of the aristocratic Palisades, whence Christina +had disappeared, but was kept by a brother-in-law and erstwhile partner +of the Palisades' proprietor. The waiter at Riley's declared that a +drunken taxi-driver had just turned up with a note from the Palisades +urging Riley's to keep him over night. This man was quite drunk enough +to talk about having lost his place through obliging the Palisades and +Joe's cousin volunteered to keep an eye on him till the arrival of the +detectives. These were to return to New York with their prisoners of the +yellow house not from Waybridge, but from Benning's Point, stopping on +the way to that station at Riley's and telephoning thence all news to +Kane.</p> + +<p>At Waybridge they had been fortunate in finding the sheriff up and +starting forth after some marauders who were reported to have robbed a +still burning post-office at Benning's Point; the station agent whom +they found with him had seen Nicola, that morning, meet a lady with that +old car of his that he had painted black when there was so much talk +about those New York Guinees having a gray one; the agent was sure the +lady had taken no return train.</p> + +<p>From both him and the sheriff it was evident that the Pascoes as +foreigners, had been contemptible, but not disliked. The unpopular +person was a boarder they had; a woman with red hair who stayed out +there to write novels and thought she was so much too good for other +people that she never so much as passed the time of day with anybody. +Friends of hers did come out from the city to see her sometimes. Going +or coming from the city herself she was tied up in one o' those +automobile veils—might 'uv been her come back this morning, only she +looked kind of shabby-dressed. The sheriff added that there was old Mrs. +Pascoe, Nicola's mother, as nice a little woman as you'd want to see; +real neat, trim, gray-haired lady, an American lady. Herrick suddenly +turned and stared.</p> + +<p>But now they were within half a mile of the Pascoe house. Stanley and +the detectives crowded into the sheriff's car. They had been instructed +to send Herrick on alone; he was to attempt an entrance by a message of +urgent and friendly warning, endeavoring to get the lay of the land and +to make his presence known to any watchful captive, but otherwise +awaiting reinforcements. One of the detectives said to Herrick, "If they +won't let you in, just leave your message. And let them hear you drive +off. Then we'll get together."</p> + +<p>Herrick ran the car slowly along the unfamiliar road. This was still +clogged and rutted with mud, which had begun to stiffen since the rain +had stopped; a high wind shouldered the clouds in driving masses. His +destination was the second house on his left; and, as he peered along +the roadside, the deep excitement, the terrible questions which glowed +in that dark night, worked in him with a fearful gladness. Certainty was +at hand! A bitter exultation rode within him nearer and nearer to +whatever stroke Fate stood to deal him in the yellow house. A hundred +visions of Christina shone and darkened before him, leaping along his +pulse, and his blood sang in him with a kind of madness.—The second +house on the left! There it rose, a blot on the blackness! Dark as a +stone, it somehow struck cold on his hot hopes.</p> + +<p>He brought up the car before the gate and flung a falsely cheerful +halloo upon the wind. Nothing answered. The gate yielded to his hand; as +he went up the path a fragrance greeted him like Christina's +presence—the cold, moist air was filled with the sweetness of +old-fashioned, garden flowers. His fingers missed the bell; but, +lighting on the brass knocker, sent loud reverberations through the +house. Nothing within it seemed to stir. But the silence echoed horribly +and swung, quaking, in his breast. Of a sudden he knew that house was +empty.</p> + +<p>Nothing else mattered. Discretion ceased to exist. He drew back and +scanned the vacant, shuttered windows; he ran round the house; there was +still no light; he tried the kitchen door and drew back to listen; it +was as though within the house he could hear silence walking and her +step was ominous. He put his shoulder to the kitchen door and burst it +in.</p> + +<p>Once again, as on that night in August, a dark room lay waiting; the +darkness seemed to breathe. He had matches in his pocket and once again +the light discovered only emptiness. But he remembered what, that other +time, the inner chamber had revealed. He found a candle and then a lamp, +and, lighting that, crossed the dining-room and then the hall into the +living-room. All prettily upholstered, all in order, and vacant as the +eye of idiotcy. His soul knew there was nothing living in that house; +and yet it seemed to him there would surely be a step upon the stair, +that a voice behind him or an opening door would certainly reveal some +fateful presence. There in the hall, under the stairs, a door was open +and he paused to look into a closet.</p> + +<p>It contained a sink with running water, gardening tools, wraps hanging +upon nails, and, on the floor, a big silk umbrella without a handle, the +rod recently broken. There were also some old flower-pots, two of them +half full of earth. Nothing else.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the stairs he called out, "Christina!" and stood and +listened while his voice went dying about the empty house. +"Christina—it's I—Bryce!" and then "Nancy Cornish! Can you hear me, +Nancy Cornish?" But no face leaned over the balusters to him. He went +upstairs. But his step was heavy, and up there the silence weighed on +him, like silence in a vault. Two rooms on the left told him nothing. +But in a room on his right he found a small forgotten slipper. That +slipper had fitted the slim foot of some littler maid than Christina! +Holding the lamp high, he was struck to see the transom covered with +poultry-wire. He went at once to the windows. Yes, there were the holes +in the woodwork; even, here and there, a nail. There had been poultry +wire over the windows, too. In this room some one had been held a +prisoner. They had taken her away; and in such haste that they had +forgotten to strip the transom and they had forgotten her slipper. At +one side of the room a desk lay open, all its drawers pulled out and +empty; he snatched at the waste basket; there was a crumpled sheet of +paper in it and a handful of torn-up scraps. He shook the scraps into +his handkerchief and, setting the lamp on the desk, he bent above the +crumpled sheet. There leaped before him, in an illiterate, but very firm +hand, an opening of such unimpeachable decorum as to stagger his prying +eyes.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mrs. Hope,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Honored Madam,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There was no date or other heading. The note ran:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Hope,<br /> + Honored Madam,<br /> +Would say don't come here or send. You can tell where by knowing my +handwriting. She is not here. Where she is now I got no idee on +earth. I surmise she will be heard from.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There was no signature. Why had the letter not been sent? It had +evidently been volunteered upon some early intimation of Christina's +disappearance. "Perhaps they found out, later, that Mrs. Hope had gone +away—" Then he heard Stanley hailing him from the road.</p> + +<p>The sheriff's party, taking advantage of his house breaking, were with +him immediately. They examined the place from the small, bare, +air-chamber into which Stanley, mounting on Herrick's shoulders, stuck +his head, to the cellar; where only a coal-bin, almost empty beneath +their flinching quest, an ice-box, and an admirable array of preserves +confronted them.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, clothes had been found in all the closets—the clothes of +working people for the most part; but in one, the long, slim, +sophisticatedly simple gowns of a pretty woman. In that room they had +forced another desk, which kept them busy for a while with tradesmen's +bills, all made out, regularly enough, to Nicola Pascoe. Nowhere was +there a letter, no significant writing nor any other name. In the barn a +couple of trunks disgorged only some winter coats and a smell of +camphor; the tools in the shed were in empty order, and when, +considerably soiled and stuck about with lint and hay, they met again in +the composed and pretty living-room, there on the mantelshelf the face +of Christina Hope smiled mockingly at them from a silver frame. +Indifferent to prayer or scrutiny, it had nothing to tell them. And +it seemed to ask if they, on their part, had anything to say.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus6" id="illus6"></a> +<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor any other name.</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Herrick never knew what instinct took him back to the closet under the +stairs. He could not bear to leave it; there was a little broken glass +on the floor and a sudden wavering in his lamp suggested that this came +from a break in one of the minute panes in a small window over head. He +tried to reach this window to see if it were fastened and found it +nailed down, with outside shutters that were closed. But in getting near +enough for this he knocked over one of the flower-pots. "Find anything?" +Stanley cried, bounding forward.</p> + +<p>The smashed flower-pot lay at their feet. "No, only broken something!" +Herrick instinctively picked it up and the loosened earth parted in his +hand. "Yes, after all," he said, "I think I have." There had been +buried, smooth and deep in the flower-pot, the diamond necklace.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE</h3> + + +<p>The countryside slept vigorously and an hour's exhaustive inquiry +gleaned but the one circumstance—the search party itself discovered, +pinned to the first door they came to, a note informing the neighbor he +might have the livestock in lieu of certain debts. It had not been there +when the man had closed his house at nine o'clock. This limitation of +time was their sole reward, unless they counted the talk of an old +farmer, after the sheriff, promising to drop the detectives at Riley's, +had gone on to his post-office. The farmer said that hours ago, when +he'd been ever so long in bed and asleep, he thought he heard somebody +hollerin' an' bangin' on his door. Kind o' half dreamed it. Kind o' half +fancied it was a woman's voice. Storm was so bad he warn't sure. It was +with this pale fancy to keep them company that Herrick and Stanley let +out their car along the road again, this time in a dryly nipping air and +under a troubled, scudding moon.</p> + +<p>From that desert purity and freedom of cold space Riley's accosted them +like Babylon. It was one blare and glare of hot lights and jigging +music; colored globes over the gates, colored lanterns in the garden; +along the driveway the blazing headlights of continually arriving and +departing motor cars that hissed and shrieked and shuddered; on the +veranda, where the tables indeed were nearly deserted, fur-coated men +stood smoking huge cigars and women with complexions artificially secure +against the wind passed in and out; their solitaire earrings pushed +forward beyond the streaming scarlet or purple of the veils that bound +their heads. The change of atmosphere warmed Herrick with that +unreasonable anger which the young feel against those who do not suffer +when they suffer.</p> + +<p>He followed Stanley Ingham morosely through the hubbub and felt no +fitting gratitude for the table miraculously provided with a fortifying +meal, since Thompson, the chief detective, had not yet been able to get +Kane upon the 'phone. The cabman was upstairs under guard of the others, +babbling some trash about having taken the lady to the Amsterdam hotel +and left her there. The thick smoke, the smell of wine and food and +abominable coffee, the clatter of cheap china, the banging of the music +and the motions of the "trotting" dancers in street dress, the cries of +acquaintances urging them to new contortions, disgusted Herrick and set +an edge upon the iron of his self-contempt. The woman calling and +knocking in the night confronted him like a ghost, in the rank profusion +and fever of that place. He, to eat and drink and wile away the time; +what was <i>she</i> doing? Was that she who had begged in vain for shelter, +beaten by the wind and drenched by the storm, and with God knew what +terrors in her heart! Out of her pale face, with the rain upon it, her +eyes besought him.</p> + +<p>Stanley, anxious, but waving a cigar, for at twenty an adventure is +still an adventure, commented, "Say, old man, you want to relax! I could +let things wear on me, too, if I wanted to!—What are those?"—For the +detective having again fidgetted to the 'phone, Herrick had shaken out +upon the table-cloth the handful of torn scraps from the waste-paper +basket.</p> + +<p>They were in the same handwriting as the interrupted note, but much more +hurried and scrawled on cheap pad paper as if to a more intimate +associate. Only six of them were of appreciable size and these came to +Herrick's hand in this order—</p> + +<table width="50%"> +<tr><td>This time</td><td>get rid of her.</td></tr> +<tr><td>I say. She</td><td>but she can't g</td></tr> +<tr><td>real dau</td><td>mother</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> et rid</td><td>do the way</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td> een any</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td> but</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td>She can</td><td>she's got to</td></tr> +<tr><td>mebbe</td><td>ain't ever b</td></tr> +<tr><td> of</td><td> ghter to me</td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>At the phrase "get rid of her" Stanley quailed. But what the words +brought clearest to Herrick's mind was a small, spare face in its gray +frame bent above its game of solitaire. Without help from the law could +he make her speak? He heard Stanley saying, "How did Chris ever get +mixed up with this lot? What kind of hold <i>can</i> they have on her?" +"Sssh!'" he said, dropping his handkerchief over the scraps. The +detective was returning.</p> + +<p>Thompson sat down at their table, baulked and restive, and Herrick, a +hundred times more so, was reduced to scowling at their surroundings. +Near him sat a wrinkled, enameled, fluffy mite stubbing out her +cigarette as she giggled at a masculine bulk whose face Herrick could +not see. Dark and handsome as it vaguely promised to be this did not +account for a curiosity which Herrick somehow at once felt to see it; +but between them reared a gorged Amazon with a high bust and a coiffure +of corrugated brass. The band struck up again, this time to a music-hall +ditty, so that the customers kept their seats. But the hired singers +were straining their poor voices above the tumult and some musicians +blacked up as negroes joined in the chorus, performing shuffles as they +walked up and down and slapping steps with a dreary, noisy simulation of +irrepressible glee; infected by this whirl of gaiety the Amazon frisked +back from the little dyed man to whom she had been bending and gave +Herrick a clear view of a portly seigneur with a close beard. Instinct +had not misled his curiosity; the portly seigneur was his old +acquaintance, Signor Emile Gabrielli.</p> + +<p>He could not have told why this struck him as portentous. The men smiled +and bowed. Then Gabrielli bowed to Stanley. "Didn't you know?" Stanley +asked. "He brought us letters—this is his first visit. He's going to do +our Italian correspondence."</p> + +<p>It was the more remarkable that there should be, in Signor Gabrielli's +honeyed civility, a kind of chill. Then Herrick remembered that he, at +least, was a marked man and that his old suspicion of shady corners in +the lawyer's experience had been partly due to that gentleman's extreme +dislike of being "mixed up" in things. Henrietta Deutch could also have +borne witness to that characteristic! Far from advancing toward their +old familiarity the signor began to round up his innocent flock and +insinuate it mildly from Herrick's polluted neighborhood. And though +this splendor retreated Herrick did not regret being left alone, as if +beside the dear ghost with the rain upon its face!</p> + +<p>But there was a singular beating at his heart, a feeling that he was +plucking at a veil which he longed and feared to raise. Yet that at some +other time he had raised it and lived through a shock upon the threshold +of which he stood again. It was already time for another dance and the +groups about the tables rose to their feet. Herrick had a moment's +vision, fever keen, of the room's arrested motion. Even the Gabrielli +party paused in the doorway; Herrick was moved by an uncontrollable +impulse to follow and accost the Italian and oddly impelled by his +excitement Stanley, too, rose to his feet; all round them the couples +clasped each other; the musicians lifted their bows; after ten minutes' +enforced repose the whole world seemed to hang in expectation of the +maxixe. When, just ahead of the orchestra, from somewhere outside, +beyond, above, into that instant's perfect silence there thrilled forth +the voice of a single instrument; the full-tongued call of a piano, +leaping, swelling, swaying into the march from Faust!</p> + +<p>A gasp of amazement, a prickle, a shudder, ran over the skin of that +susceptible assembly. It was a tune, just then, so well advertised! They +recovered themselves with amused, scared smiles, awaiting some jest in +the sequel. The piano stopped with a wild crash. Instantly, from the +front courtyard where the motors waited, a bomb of oaths, cries and +movement burst upon the night. The sound of men jumping and running, +exclaiming, stumbling, swearing, of people bounding up the steps, of the +hall filled with astonished, excited questioners merged with one phrase +growing over, topping all the others—"The shadow! It's the shadow! The +shadow on the blind!"</p> + +<p>Amazement, bewilderment, incredulity, obstructed the story which Herrick +traced to a knot of chauffeurs. "Yes—up there! The third window! Look, +it's dark—they've turned out the lights!" As Stanley, Herrick and +Thompson ran to the second story the legend still beat about their ears. +"It had its back to the window—it threw out its right arm—"</p> + +<p>The door of the room was thrown open. The proprietor's wife, shaken with +hysterical laughter, ushered in the crowd. She was a flushed, stout +woman in the gaudiest of kimonos, larger than the fat man in the +driving-coat to whom she appealed. "My brother here 's from Mizzouri and +I was just showing him how the shadow must have done—you can't earn any +reward's round here! Anyhow, you don't suppose that hussy spends all her +time giving signals for murders, do you?"—"But the shadow was so slim!" +somebody said, as Mrs. Riley scornfully assisted Thompson in his +researches. These coming to nothing the young men were powerless to +refuse going oil to Benning's Point and telephoning from there—Thompson +had begun to be suspicious of this exchange.</p> + +<p>They had gone perhaps a mile, moving slowly, watchful of the leaves in +every bush, and Herrick was remounting from the examination of a false +alarm when they heard a hail in their rear and beheld approaching +through the moonlight a hatless figure on a motorcycle.</p> + +<p>The elderly cousin of Joe Patrick, whom they had not seen since he first +welcomed them, bore down upon them in timid and disheveled haste.—"Yis, +sor. I tried to see y' alone, sor, but yeh were gone. 'T is the reward, +sor; I'd not be sharin' it with the policeman an' him takin' th' whole +of it, not a doubt! An' impidence, beside, they do always give yeh! But +a gintleman, sor, I don't mind tellin' him; if yeh 'll exscuse me sayin' +so, Mrs. Riley's a liar!"</p> + +<p>Not that he really knew anything. "No more than yirselves! But the +piana, sor! It stands there fer the upstairs dances, an' her not knowin' +wan note from another!—An' what's more, comin' down the back stairs +from that same room wid the dhirty dishes, what did I see standin' at +the back door but a car like yer own—only still as death an' no lights +in its head! Wasn't that a queer thing, now? An' it gone whin I rode +out."</p> + +<p>What was that?—down the road which crossed theirs, where they had just +reconnoitered for a sound! Nothing but their distorted fancy, their +roused longing! "An' all I can tell surely, sor, is that awhile back, +whin Riley sinds me upstairs with a bite o' supper for Mrs. Riley's +brother that's just come in, barrin' the long drink, stheamin' hot, +'twas chicken an' like that yeh'd give to a lady. He has his own room, +has the brother, but 'twas to hers I took the thray. An' though I saw +no wan an' I heard no wan, yit sure there was some wan beyond Riley she +was yellin' at an' him prayin' her 'Hoosh! Hoosh!' as I come to the +door!"</p> + +<p>"Did you hear anything of what she was saying?"</p> + +<p>"Just the wan thing, sor, an' you'll remimber 'twas me told yeh. She +said, 'I'll thank yeh to hand over that diamond necklace!'"</p> + +<p>There was something there! They could not hear, but they could somehow +feel from far behind them a stealthy purring. They turned; no lamp nor +headlight but their own was anywhere to be seen. The second and less +traveled road crossed theirs just above them at a narrow angle; but it, +too, lay untenanted, not a breath quivering on the stillness. They saw +themselves quite alone beneath the moon, breathing a night silence +drenched with coldest sweetness; the last words rang in their blood with +an accent that could not leave them wholly sober; they were, perhaps, a +little "fey." At any rate, it was by an impulse with which reason had +nothing to do that, as the old waiter continued—"'Twas for her, surely, +they'd have that dark car waitin'!" Herrick held up a warning hand. The +waiter hushed himself, stricken, and huddled in against their car; +Herrick bent forward in a passionate readiness, and from far in the +rear, but nearing swifter than the flight of time, along the +intersecting road came the tremulous vibration of a second automobile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR</h3> + + +<p>They listened, incredulous, straining their eyes among the black pools +and bright patches of wooded, winding way up from the river and +discerned—almost on the instant close at hand—a gray ghost dipped in +moonshine; lost under the trees and then springing out upon them, a +black shape against the darkness, heralded by no sound of voice or horn, +speeding as if with its head down like some sullen thunderbolt.</p> + +<p>With their lights blazing defiance Herrick, catching out his revolver, +attempted to cross the junction in time to throw their own car across +the narrow road. He was too late; she grazed them as she passed; they +fell in behind her, shouting threats which were lost in the wind of that +flight; the road fell away before them; the hilled and wooded earth tore +past; the noise, as of blowing forests, of multitudinous crowds and the +roaring of the sea, surged in their ears; great waves and solid hills of +air rose up and moved upon them, and, as they passed through, split into +stinging, icy shreds that whipped their faces; the car rocked in the +wild tide of its own speed, and in a world where they had gone blind to +everything but one crazy whirl, they yet saw their lights fall ever +nearer and brighter upon the fugitive.</p> + +<p>It was now nearing three o'clock, the moon wholly victorious and the +cars leaping through a world of molten silver. Herrick said to the boy +beside him, "Can you shoot?"</p> + +<p>"Not so that you can tell it!"</p> + +<p>"Take the wheel, then!"</p> + +<p>He could not make out her figure in the car. But in such thickly looming +dangers, what must be, must be.</p> + +<p>The men ahead heard him call to them to stop before he fired. In answer +they merely leaned forward shielding themselves, and Herrick let fly two +shots, aiming for the back tires; but, in that swaying speed, he missed. +With a kind of harsh gaiety he answered Stanley, "No more can I!" and +with the words the man beside Nicola turned and fired straight at +Herrick's head. The wind-shield shattered in their faces; as the bullet +passed between them Stanley felt a little sting, like the scorch of a +quick, hot iron, on his cheek. "Slide down," Herrick said to him, "way +under the wheel! Keep your head to one side." He himself was kneeling, +resting his revolver on the frame of the broken wind-shield. At his +third bullet they heard Nicola cry out and clap his hand to the back of +his neck; the touring-car swerved and gave a kind of bounce; the man +beside Nicola fired again and put a hole through Herrick's cap. The next +minute the revolver dropped out of his hand; Herrick's fourth shot had +broken his wrist. And now the road broadened a little, and the Ingham +car was drawing on a level with its opponent. The touring-car did not +carry Christina.</p> + +<p>"Get as far forward as you can," Herrick said, "I'm after the front +tires."</p> + +<p>Their own front tires passed the rear of the first car; as they came +abreast the man with the broken wrist, using his left hand, emptied his +pistol almost in their faces; a shot from the man in the body of the car +struck their steering-wheel; there was a cloud now between the two cars, +smelling so thick of powder that Stanley seemed to himself to eat it. He +was aware of Herrick suddenly casting aside all defenses, leaning +forward into this cloud, his brows knotted and his arm outstretched. +There came the quick Ping!—Ping! of his last two shots and as if in +the same breath, the earthquake! The black touring-car seemed to spring +into the air; then her fore wheels collapsed and she sank forward, still +sliding a little as if on her nose, and, running quietly over the edge +of the road into the shallow ditch that edged it, turned on her side.</p> + +<p>They were well passed by this time, and despite the jerk with which +Stanley brought up, Herrick had leaped out before they were stopped, and +at the same moment a figure scrambled from the fallen hulk and, without +a glance behind, made off across the fields. Herrick, shifting his empty +revolver as he ran, till he carried it by the barrel, swung into full +pursuit.</p> + +<p>This was the more foolhardy because on getting to his feet Nicola had +drawn his own revolver, from which Herrick had to dodge as he ran, and +at length indeed to throw himself down, and get forward only by his +hands and knees. They were now in a broken, stony lot, spotted with +underbrush; a brook running through it, and here and there tall chestnut +trees. By screening himself with these, and making a run for it in any +patch of shadow, he kept his man in sight and even gained upon him; he +was waiting till Nicola's gun should be as empty as his own before he +came to closer quarters. For this he knelt and rose and ran and crawled, +now showing himself, to draw—and waste!—a bullet; and now plumping +down among bushes. It was at one of these moments that he heard a shot +behind him and, peering through the screen of twigs, saw that Nicola's +comrades had freed themselves from the ditch and were advancing, +apparently full-armed, and he of the uninjured hand beating the coverts +as they came. They called to each other, and in Italian sure enough; and +they carried a lantern from Stanley's car. What had become of Stanley? +And what now was he himself to do?</p> + +<p>He crept forward to the edge of his thicket and could just make out a +figure, not very far off, running heavily across a cleared space. Then, +in a blanket of darkness, the figure disappeared as though through a +trap-door, and Herrick, for all his listening, could hear only the +calling and trampling of the men with the lamp. He told himself that +Nicola had taken a leaf from his own book and was perhaps lying +flattened to the earth—there came a disturbance in the bushes, a jar +along the ground, as of some one plunging back from that cleared space +toward the road; it appeared to him that a bulk of blacker blackness +appeared and disappeared where those sounds rose. But the moon had so +gone under a cloud that he could not be sure. So he thought; and then +his heart leaped to admit the blessed truth—the moon had set! He +slipped to his feet and fled, swift as a shadow and strong as a hound, +after the heavier runner. He had guessed the truth, that Nicola was +returning to the road. He had been led out across the fields on a false +scent, but now Nicola, thinking to have doubled and shaken him off, was +on the home trail straight for the high road. They came out upon it +perhaps two hundred feet to the south of their empty motors; Herrick +steadily gaining, and surprised cries and lantern-flashes piercing the +field they had left behind. But as Herrick lifted his gun to let the +lagging quarry have its butt-end, suddenly Nicola pitched forward and +lay at his feet. He brought up short, suspicious of a trick. And then he +remembered how Nicola had clapped his hand to the back of his neck. +Holding the gun ready, he stooped and put his own hand to the same spot. +It was covered with something hot and wet, which Herrick, with a +surprising lack of sentiment, wiped off on the man's coat; he tried to +lift the senseless figure and get it back to his own car. Something fell +out of Nicola's breast with a little silver tinkle. The sound, as of +some woman's trinket, drove the sense out of Herrick's head. Though he +might as well have run up an electric target, he struck a match. A +silver locket lay in his hand. It had been violently wrested from a +neck-chain in whose wrenched links a thread or two of lace still clung. +In one broken side the glass had been ground to fragments, as though +under a man's heel, but the marred lines of a likeness were still there. +The likeness, cut from an old kodak picture, was of Will Denny. Some +one, like Signor Gabrielli, had never voluntarily parted with the +features of her love! Out of the locket's other side, warm from Nicola's +breast and unmarred but by the trickling of his blood, cried mutely, +eagerly, to Herrick the fresh youth of Nancy Cornish.</p> + +<p>Almost as he saw the bullets sang about him, as if he had charged into a +bee hive. The lamp the Italians carried swallowed up his little match +and picked him out with brightness, holding him in the circle of its +light. He snatched up Nicola's gun and pulled the trigger, but the +barrel was empty as that of his own; he might have flung himself down +and taken his chance to crawl off in the ditch, but he had no mind to +die like that; and what he did was to snatch off his coat and hold it +before him, back and forth like a moving screen, as he ran forward into +the mouth of the revolvers to crack at least one man on the head with +his cold weapon before he fell. Just then from down the road a fresh +volley of bullets shattered the night, and the voice of Stanley and the +sheriff came to him like music.</p> + +<p>The rescue which so much firing had helped Stanley to summon swept in +full chase after the Pascoes and the tables were completely turned. But +the shouts of the sheriff's party—"Got one?" "No; haven't you?" "Hi, +Williams, they must have got over the wall of the Hoover place!" "We'll +scramble over from the hood and see if they've struck down to the +river!" "Blake, you and Cobbett drive round and ring up the lodge. Them +old folks are easy a million, but get 'em up!"—warned Herrick of a +blank in the sequel. And sure enough when the conquerors foregathered, +the escape of the Pascoes, presumably by the river, was the end of +their conquest.</p> + +<p>For this had they fought and ridden, crawled and run! No wonder they +felt a certain need of cheering each other with what gains they had. +There was the yellow house; the home of the Pascoes and their Arm of +Justice, the rainbow end of Kane's dream! And there, in the ditch beside +them was a vague tumble of wreckage. "Hail, and farewell!" Herrick +whistled, with a curious laugh. "We've met once too often!" For there, +at least, was the end of his acquaintance, the gray touring-car.</p> + +<p>As the two young men reëntered New York with the milk wagons and drove +soberly through the Park, a cool gray light, more like darkness than +light and yet perfectly and strangely clear like shadowed water, had +begun to break above the sleeping town. Then Herrick drew from his +pocket his paper puzzle and spread it out beside him on the rear seat of +the car.</p> + +<table width="50%"> +<tr><td>This time</td><td>get rid of her.</td></tr> +<tr><td>I say. She</td><td>but she can't g</td></tr> +<tr><td>real dau</td><td>mother</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> et rid</td><td>do the way</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td> een any</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td> but</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td>She can</td><td>she's got to</td></tr> +<tr><td>mebbe</td><td>ain't ever b</td></tr> +<tr><td> of</td><td> ghter to me</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Some of the connections were obvious enough, but what the torn edges +helped him still further to form was a purely domestic statement. "This +time she's got to do the way I say. She ain't ever been any real +daughter to me. But—" Then there was a bit gone. Then, "She can get rid +of" word missing, "mebbe, but she can't get rid of her mother—"</p> + +<p>"Well!" cried Stanley in disdainful disappointment. "What's that got to +do with anything?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know?"</p> + +<p>He made the scraps into a little pile on the floor of the car, set fire +to them, and ground them to ashes with his heel. For he knew only too +well. That gray parrot face, that sharp, ignorant, cold voice in the +sunny table d'hôte! "I want you should clear out from here, young man. +I'd oughta know Dagoes; I married one." Yes, that was it! Wasn't it +Stanley who wanted to know what hold such people had on Chris? "My +girl's good Yankee—fair as any one. I brought her up so fine—" As they +turned down still unawakened Broadway to his rooms Herrick looked into +the light that was like darkness with eyes that made nothing of the +first pale blush of peach blow nor the first hint of vaporous blue.</p> + +<p>Till he heard Stanley say, "And if that Pascoe Arm-of-Justice gang have +run away and yet come back, where did they run to?"</p> + +<p>Through all his preoccupation Herrick was aware of an immense stupidity. +"You're right. We went over that place inch by inch. And you know, when +they left, they must have tumbled into their car and off—no time for +anything. They packed nothing, they took nothing. Well, then, Stan, +where was Justice's typewriter? And in what room or garret or cellar was +the printing-press?"</p> + +<p>Stanley gaped.</p> + +<p>"Agreed—there wasn't any. And so that never was their real shop. Only a +blind. Their real place of business, Stan, their fortress, their +retreat, we've never found at all!"</p> + +<p>This was the net result of town and country in their search for a +missing girl, twenty-four hours after Christina had disappeared.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The anxiety of her friends would have been scarcely more enlightened, or +even more relieved, had the search not happened to miss one accident of +that cross-wired night.</p> + +<p>At about eleven o'clock, more than an hour before Herrick had forced an +entrance, the since damaged touring-car, returning from its expedition +of the morning, had drawn up before the gate of the yellow house. The +night world was then still a world of wind and rain; the car was +splashed as though it had passed through a flood, and Nicola, stiff, +muddy and drenched, was not in a very good humor when he got no reply to +his knock at the kitchen door. He had driven quietly and knocked +quietly, but now he lost control of himself and began to hammer; +catching hold of the knob impatiently, he felt it turn in his grasp and +entered. The door had not been locked, though the kitchen was lighted. +He thought he could hear, somewhere, some one knocking. He took the lamp +and went up the back stairs; then it seemed to him that the knocking +came from the front of the house. He retraced his steps. Yes, there was +a light in the hall and the knocking came from the closet under the +stairs.</p> + +<p>The Pascoes were in desperate straits, and Nicola was alone. He drew his +knife from the capacious foldings of his coat, and stepped a little +behind the door as he flung it open. There stumbled out, and sank, +gasping, at his feet, the figure of a woman. She brought with her, out +of the reeking closet, a strong odor of ammonia. Nicola gave a grunt of +amazement. Then, like Herrick afterward, he lifted his lamp, and stared +about the closet. On the floor lay an empty quart bottle which had +recently been full of household ammonia, a still soaking towel, and a +large silk umbrella, the rod broken and the handle missing. With the +point of this umbrella a pane of the little window overhead had been +broken and a slant of the outside shutter forced open for air. Nicola +could make nothing of it; he turned at length, and grouchily pulled the +gasping woman to her feet. This woman was the gray-haired housekeeper, +Mrs. Pascoe.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock she said she had gone to get something from the closet +and, as she opened the door, she had smelled ammonia. Then a towel, +soaking with it, had been pressed on her face. Before she could do more +than struggle with that, she had been pushed into the closet and the +door had clicked upon her. That was all she knew. She must have been +unconscious part of the time.—At ten o'clock! What an eternity of +despair, then, had Christina not lived through before she thus +ruthlessly freed herself! And what, now, had become of her; under a dawn +some seven hours later than when, leaving Nancy behind, she had rushed +out of that house and sped away, along the storm-tossed road?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>A SIGN IN THE SKY</h3> + + +<p>At the end of four days Christina's friends gave up their private search +for the retreat of the Arm of Justice.</p> + +<p>During those days Herrick and the faithful Stanley, sometimes +accompanied by Wheeler's stalwart hopefulness, had persistently +attempted to take up the trail where it had broken—in the fields at one +end of the Hoover estate. The beautiful old place, one of the great show +places of the Hudson, stretched three miles deep to the river bank and a +mile and a half along the road; remembering the theory of an escape +through the grounds they presented themselves as richly tipping tourists +to the little old, old couple at the lodge. These aged folk accustomed, +during the Hoovers' prolonged absence abroad, to curious sightseers, +welcomed them beneath the winged marble lions of the entrance-gates and +made them free of the grounds with a host-like courtesy. But no broken +shrubbery, no footstep save of that of a stray gardener or of their +rival searchers the police, rewarded them; from the Hudson Club's +boathouse, which had rented a strip of the beach, no boat was missing; +the shores of unbroken woodland for a league on either side yielded no +sign; when a hanging shutter at the great house led to a belief that the +refugees had sheltered there the friends watched anxiously the +disappointed ransacking of privileged authorities, and their only gain +came from the gossip of the old lodge-keepers which informed them that +the body of Nicola Pascoe had never been found. He could, then, have +been only stunned. Thus it was still he they were most alert for during +the next three days when the whole district—inns and post-offices, +country-stores and stable-yards as well as every grove and +by-lane—yielded them by day or night no scrap of news.</p> + +<p>During their search, indeed, what clues existed had crumbled away. The +cabman, for instance, had most truly driven Christina to the Amsterdam +hotel, where she had simply given him so large a tip as to upset his +sobriety and earn his discharge. Meeting in with the manager of The +Palisades and applying fuddleheadedly for relief he had conveyed to that +gentleman the idea of "knowing something," and had been sent to sober up +at Riley's in order to keep the reward in the family. Then the day-clerk +of the Amsterdam brought forth Christina's registered signature, +engaging a suite on Thursday afternoon for Thursday night; she had +claimed this suite from the night-clerk and occupied it; early in the +morning she had sent for the housekeeper and hired some clothes of hers, +saying she couldn't wait for her maid to bring her any. The frightened +housekeeper had at length displayed the white and silver dress. Last and +worst, to Herrick, when, on Saturday, he had sought out the table +d'hôte, the dogs, the cats, the babies were unchanged, the Italian +proprietress greeted him with a smile of welcome, but no gray-haired +woman played solitaire behind the desk.</p> + +<p>It was a curious enough blight without being heightened by the fact that +Kane's patience with Herrick had plainly given out. Ever since the young +man's return from Waybridge he had been aware of a change in the +official attitude which rendered it suddenly impossible for him to see +any one whom he asked to see and stretched like a fine wire excluding +him from the whole affair. It increased his sense of outlawry, but a +private preoccupation kept it from striking home.</p> + +<p>This preoccupation ran parallel with, but, alas! could never be brought +to meet that old story of the Hopes' love-affair which he could not help +feeling to be the key to the true, the hidden, situation. That little +pitted speck—and his novel! His novel of the Italian impostor! On the +morrow of his chase after Nicola the table d'hôte had scarcely failed +him before he was knocking at the door of Mrs. Deutch.</p> + +<p>He took her for a walk on Riverside Drive, to be out of the way of +dictographs, and laid before her not only the whole labyrinth of his +perplexities but the best outline he could make of his dim conjectures. +He had not failed to secure Signor Gabrielli's address from the Ingham +office and he now put forward a petition which he tried not to feel +monstrous. "Mrs. Deutch, there is a man who knows some strange things +and strange people, who might perhaps send to Naples and receive from +there a very enlightening cablegram. I am less than nothing to him, he +will never send it for me. But I needn't tell you he is a man of great +sensibility, very susceptible both to shame and pride. And still, after +twenty-five years, he carries the miniature of his betrothed."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Deutch looked out across the proud bright waters. Through the +serene air the somber glory of an autumn leaf floated to her feet; its +fellows were gathered everywhere in withered piles which shouting +children rejoiced to trample into powder. "Yes," she said, by-and-by, "I +will see him. There are always perhaps those of whom he is afraid. +Perhaps he is like that. But it will be easy to say, 'We were very fond +of each other, you and I, we were so young and you were so beautiful a +person! It would be a great happiness to think that now you were brave!' +I can tell him 'Christina is my youth and my prettiness and my true +faith and all that you once knew.' Oh, yes, he will give them back to +me! He will send your message!"</p> + +<p>He had, indeed, sent it; but on Tuesday afternoon no reply had arrived. +Having given up the countryside in despair Herrick could not keep away +from the table d'hôte and, merely as a curious resort, he asked Stanley, +who was returning to Springfield on Wednesday, to meet him there for +dinner. He was able to show his guest the gorgeous Mr. Gumama with the +knit, gloomy glories of his Saracen brow, but no mystery showed a +feather. Inquiry, in his primitive Italian, elicited a statement that +nearly wrenched a groan from his lips—his old lady had taken her eldest +grandniece, Maria Rosa, to visit relations in the country! The mother of +Maria Rosa insisted with a sweet smile that she could not remember the +name of the place.</p> + +<p>The young men sat for a while in the square, where Stanley's astuteness +discovered so many blackmailers in the gentle, lolling crowd that even +the statue of Garibaldi seemed scarcely safe, and then they started up +Fifth Avenue; the austere, departing dignities of whose lower end never +seem so faded, so historic, so composed, as in September dusks. When +they made out the identity of an angular correctness sailing stiffly but +handsomely some distance ahead of them, it seemed of all neighborhoods +the most suitable in which to encounter Ten Euyck; yet they loitered, +lacking the spirit to cope with their opportunities. And Stanley, who +was still in favor with the powers, began to attempt the diversion of +his moodier companion with an account of Ten Euyck's efforts to propel +the Commissioner of Police. "Every little while you forget that he isn't +anybody and can't do anything, even if there were anything to do. And +you say to yourself, 'Golly! I'd rather Chris stayed lost than that he +laid hands on her.' He looks so black and white and dried in vinegar he +does get on your nerves all right. You remember what a lot of money he's +got, after all, and pull and all the rest of it, and you feel as if he'd +be able to find <i>something</i> against her—or, even if he didn't—"</p> + +<p>In the warm still evening his voice had carried farther than he thought; +Ten Euyck turned round and recognized them. Evidently without offense, +since he stood waiting for them to overtake him. "Good news for you, +Ingham," he greeted the boy. "Judge Fletcher does not consider a +confession equivalent to pleading guilty in the first degree! Moreover, +in strict confidence, the judge is a veteran with an extreme distaste +for the artistic temperament! If the prisoner is brought before him we +shall get a first degree sentence yet!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't care!" cried the lad, making a disgusted face. "It's all +too horrible and—and queer, somehow! I don't want to hear about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if your consideration is for the actor in the lady's cloak—what a +symbol of his whole conduct!—I understand he prefers it." Ten Euyck +gave a short laugh. He was evidently in his happy vein of inquisitorial +power. "When a man's been ruffling before the public in lace and satin +and diamonds of course he baulks at prison accommodations. Yet even +there our temperamental friend is welching."—He had evidently +approached his point and they could not deny him the tribute of a stare.</p> + +<p>"We may be very foolish, my dear sirs, but we are not incapable of +learning and I may tell you that we have acted on a hint."</p> + +<p>"You mean by 'we' yourself and the law?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I do, Mr. Herrick. At any rate, this time to-morrow we shall +have rung the door-bell of the Arm of Justice."</p> + +<p>He took a tolerant pity on their restiveness, relaxing to an urbane +smile as though his machinery were eased by the oil which always flowed +when his prosecuting talent raised its head. "When that disgraceful +laxity occurred at the Tombs and a prisoner was attacked there, we took +a leaf from the criminals' book and put in among the guards some men of +our own. One of these, a man named Firenzi, a very capable fellow, +informed himself in no time of a marvelously well-paid plan for the +prisoner's escape. Yes, by the very tribe who tried to kill him. +Anything, you see, to get him out of the way. The idea is the old one of +passing him out as a guard, leaving the true-false guard quite overcome +in his cell;—a slim chap who's let wear a black beard on account of +asthma or some such nonsense. They naturally suppose that an actor will +look less conspicuous than most criminals in a bit of make-up! Does our +consistent hero refuse to go? Filled with the bright hope of a hanging +judge he does have to be coaxed a little, but not much. He is not lured +by being told that he is to be sent to the safety of foreign lands, a +far-off country and, I believe, a tropical climate, suited to his +complexion. Firenzi reports him as demanding what they suppose there is +in this foreign country to interest him. 'The lady who throws a shadow +that you know.' 'It's enough!' says Denny, through his teeth, I am +informed. I don't mind telling you that it's enough for us, too! They +will be sure to take him to their nest to transfer him to the escort of +their gang and his visit—before a Sampson shorn of his new beard and +having still further done for himself with Fletcher, is returned to a +jail somewhat less porous than he imagines to-night—his visit will be +well watched!"</p> + +<p>They had reached Thirty-fourth Street and turned toward Broadway where +Stanley had an errand. The two puppets in Ten Euyck's hands had nothing +to say. Neither of them could bring himself to utter his excitement in +that now potent presence and Herrick wondered if he were really +trembling. A far-off country! The phrase chilled and hardened him, as +premeditated safety always does. He was scarcely even grateful for the +strength and fleetness of her wings. Never had Ten Euyck's inspectorship +seemed less absurd or more really a fact. Of to-night and to-morrow he +was now the master. And yet, beside the news of a far-off country, what +news could he wring from the Arm of Justice to-morrow for which Herrick +need care so much? They stopped on the corner of Long Acre and as +Stanley plunged into a drug-store, a certain embarrassment fell upon the +two men left together. "It's remarkable how warm it is!" Ten Euyck said.</p> + +<p>Herrick refrained from the flippancy of replying, "Wonderful weather for +the time of year!" On closer inspection Ten Euyck proved a good deal +worked up. His excitement was like a sort of dry paste and as he now +grew pastier and pastier something that was almost a tremor seemed about +to crack it; in fact the dry mask of his face was suffering from a +lockjaw which was his form of hysteria. He took off his hat and, cold as +he looked, produced an extremely superior handkerchief and wiped his +brow. He said something about the last hot spell of the year and his +lips clicked on the words as though they were rather a compromising +statement; was it the coming crisis that creaked in his throat? It +occurred to Herrick that Ten Euyck might be suffering from a sense that +his vanity of achievement and his taste for torture, in leading him to +disclose to-morrow's program, had led him injudiciously far. At any rate +he studied, as if for sympathy, the irreproachable excellence of his +hat-lining and a little pink line came out about his nose.</p> + +<p>Herrick looked uneasily at the doorway beyond which Stanley still +loitered; he saw no reprieve. And as he made sure of this Ten Euyck +again fortified himself with the interior of his hat and spoke. "On your +honor, now, Herrick, you wouldn't keep it from me? You've no idea where +she is?" And he followed this extraordinary question with a piteous, a +blenching glance.</p> + +<p>Herrick did not speak; and Ten Euyck moistened his lips. The whole +outline of his face seemed to take on a certain sharpness, and famine +and fever thrust themselves, for a moment, into the windows of his eyes. +In the silence which Herrick could not break, he murmured, "I'm not like +this about women! You know that! Only she—" His voice cracked and then +snapped off short, but with a hundred quiverings, like the string of a +banjo breaking.</p> + +<p>Herrick seemed to himself to look through a door, in a house of +revelations. Was this what covered Ten Euyck's complacent coldness to +the other sex? Did those neat and formal lips often stifle an outcry +like this? True, Christina's own story had revealed to him that Ten +Euyck's coldness was all hot ice and very swarthy snow. But he had +presumed that incident to be a deliberate brutality; Ten Euyck had +always appeared to govern his instincts masterfully or to walk on them, +indeed, with heels of iron. To see him bared and shaken like this was to +put a new value on the force that had betrayed him; but Herrick was too +young and too much in love to endure this lusting and trembling breath +when it blew upon Christina.</p> + +<p>"On the whole," said he, deliberately, "keep your confidences to +yourself, can't you? They make me sick."</p> + +<p>The pinkness spread over Ten Euyck's face:</p> + +<p>"Oh, I had forgotten your happiness!" he managed to cry, with a fierce +shaking laugh. "Do let me know the date of the wedding!" He lifted his +hat and strode from a neighborhood dangerous to dignity. But as he flung +over his shoulder the ejaculation, "I hope you thought my diamonds +became her!" Stanley's return arrested him.</p> + +<p>"These infernal papers!" the boy cried.</p> + +<p>Neither he nor Herrick had ever been strong enough to deny themselves +the foolish headlines where one hour Christina had been seen as a +passenger for Hongkong and another as a chambermaid in Yonkers. Nancy's +ill-treated locket had roused the public to frenzy, but its imagination +had definite items only of the eclipsing Christina Hope who, in the +mid-day editions, generally lapsed to a lunatic in a suburban +sanitarium; but nightfall always saw her mount again to the ghastliest +and most criminal of "bodies." It was some such horror upon which +Stanley had now fallen; below it Herrick saw the statement that in a day +or two Denny would come up for sentence before Judge Fletcher.</p> + +<p>He had little enough love for Will Denny, but it was with a feeling of +nausea that he observed the mounting satisfaction of Ten Euyck. After +four years the law was to wipe out, for its most obedient son, a blow +across the mouth! It was, nevertheless, the poisoned rumor of Christina +which had set the air afire between all three men. This dealt with some +lovely fugitive hunted out that day by wireless and then disappearing +from a steamer in mid-ocean. The languor of an incredible fatigue stole +feverishly through Herrick's veins. Ten Euyck shouted to Stanley in a +kind of bark, "Well, no waves can hold her down!" And he began to hum a +tune in defiance of the faith with which Herrick's silence defied the +printed words. Herrick looked up and their gaze met across the screaming +columns. Ten Euyck's tune was, "Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken +deer." Herrick knocked the newspaper out of his hand and there was a +second's tense fury before these two, who had forgotten everything else, +should leap at each other. In that second Stanley, lifting his eyes, +whistled excitedly and caught Herrick's arm.</p> + +<p>They were standing at the corner of Long Acre where five nights ago +Herrick had met Wheeler in the rain. Fiery words and figures flashed +their announcements, bright as ever, against the soft, lowering, purple +blackness of the night. Down the side street Wheeler's theater, since +Christina's disappearance, had been dark. It was still closed, but +Wheeler must now have taken heart; for dark, save in theatrical +parlance, it was no longer. The electric sign—</p> + +<p class="center">ROBERT WHEELER<br /> IN<br /> THE VICTORS</p> + + +<p>had been re-lighted. And beneath this, in +letters of equal size and brilliancy ran the surprising legend—</p> + +<p class="center">THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH,<br /> CHRISTINA HOPE<br /> WILL POSITIVELY REAPPEAR</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>"THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY TIES</h3> + + +<p>"I know no more than you do," Wheeler said. "Or rather, no more than +this." And he spread before them a sheet of writing-paper.</p> + +<p>Above the penciled scribble was neither date nor heading, but the +signature in Christina's slapdash scrawl made the world spin before +Herrick's eyes. Upon that sheet of paper her hand had rested and had +written there to Wheeler, but not to him! The message ran—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Announce me for Thursday night, September 20th. I will be there.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Christina Hope</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Where did it come from?"</p> + +<p>"From the infernal regions, apparently. It was left here at the club +without the mannikin in buttons so much as noticing by whom. It may have +been written from across the street; it may have been enclosed from +anywhere."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"This noon-time. You don't doubt its being genuine?" Wheeler asked. "No +more do I. As for what to think, I haven't a guess. The girl may be, for +all I know, a mere born-devil, or the tool of devils. Let her come back +to my cast, and, for what I care, she may bring all hell in her pocket! +I've had a very nasty interview with Ten Euyck, who thinks I can explain +my sign."</p> + +<p>Stanley stood there with his face working. "You don't mean to tell me," +he cried aloud, "you don't mean to tell me that it's been nothing but an +advertising trick from the beginning!"</p> + +<p>"God forgive you!" Wheeler said. "You are our public!—No, my dear lad, +there is one thing in this angelic wildcat of ours that you can tie to. +When she tells me, in our business, to bank on her being in the theater +Thursday night, I bank on it; if she can set one foot before the other, +there she will be. That's my belief, if it were my last breath, and I'm +staking everything on it. But we've got to allow for one thing. <i>If she +can!</i> Christina has a great idea of her powers. But, even for her, +heaven and earth are not always movable."</p> + +<p>More people than one were perhaps discovering a certain helplessness +before fate. About noon of the next day Mrs. Pascoe sat knitting in a +bedroom above her niece's table d'hôte. There was only one other person +in the room, a smallish man in the early thirties, who looked as though +he had once been a gentleman, and whose correct feminine little features +were now drawn into an expression at once weak and wild. His soft +helpless-looking figure writhed and twitched as he now lay down and now +sat up upon the bed; his face was swollen with weeping and the tears +still flowed from his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, if yeh're goin' to take on that way," said Mrs. Pascoe, "I dunno +as I can blame her any. I dunno as I blame her anyhow. Yeh never +objected when there was any money in it. It's kind o' late to carry on, +now. What say?"</p> + +<p>The gentleman poured forth in Italian, which Mrs. Pascoe understood +better than he did English, that the lady he lamented had never wished +to leave him before; she had never loved anybody before; hitherto it had +always been business. The business of the whole family he had never +interfered with, but this he would not bear; he had borne too much. +And, indeed, from his language, it appeared that he had.</p> + +<p>"My," said Mrs. Pascoe, "men are funny! Yeh been married to my girl +since she was sixteen years old, and she ain't never treated yeh like +anything but dirt. Well, what do yeh want to hang on to her for! Clear +out! You ain't like me. Yeh can get another wife but I ain't got no +other daughter. I gotta stick. She don't want me either. She wants swift +folks an' gay folks, she'd forget she was mine if she could. But she +can't! An' I can't! I can't deny anything yeh got to say. You say she +ruined yer life. She'd ruin anybody's she can get her clutch onto. You +say she don't love you. If you ask me, why should she? Even if 'twasn't +herself she was thinkin' of, first, last an' all the time! She ain't +never cared for any human bein' but this actin' feller, an' that's +'cause he cares 'bout the other one. Still, she got hold of him, oncet, +an' do you think if she can get him again, if she can get them fellers +our boys know to snake him out onto that boat for 'er, she's goin' to +care whether you like it or not? You take it from me you ain't goin' to +sail to-morrow any—or anyway not with us. You ain't never wanted +anything but a wife that could take care o' you, an' you're quite a +pretty lookin' little feller. The best you can do is to get some money +out of her an' get a divorce."</p> + +<p>The young man rolled back and forth and bit the pillows. Mrs. Pascoe, +who had hitherto regarded him with contemptuous tolerance, observed a +wave of genuine despair in this sea of grief and her eyes narrowed.</p> + +<p>"See here, young man," she said, "don't you let me ketch ye doin' +anything underhanded—squealin' on us or tryin' to keep us here, 'cause +we got to get out. If I was to say a word to my son that I thought that, +there wouldn't be no prettiness left to you. I ain't goin' to have her +locked up in no jail for any man that ever was born. Mebbe you think, +'cause I speak harsh of her, I ain't fond of 'er. Why, you little fool, +I ain't never had a thought but for that minx since she was born. Even +when I first see the other child, an' the resemblance gimme such a turn, +the first thing I think of was how I was goin' to get somepun' out of it +for her. That's why when I got to nurse the little thing I never let on +fur a minute that I had one the spittin' breathin' image of it,—hair, +mouth and nose, an' the eyes, too, so I near fainted when I first seen +theirs—somepun' warned me to shut up an' somepun' 'ud come of it. They +thought I'd just gone cracked on their baby. It's been the same ever +since. I read all them yarns about changed children an' I thought it +would be funny if I couldn't work it. An' I did. She used to act it all +to me afterwards, right out in poertry. 'The ol' earl's daughter died at +my breast'—Didn't she ever do any of her actin' fur you? Goes—'I +buried her like my own sweet child an' put my child in her stead.'" Mrs. +Pascoe gave this forth with an inimitable relish of its stylish +precedent. "If theirs hadn't died I'd ha' worked it somehow. They was +rich then. She's walked on me an' on them, an' on the whole blame lot of +us, ever since. But she's mine. What she wants she's goin' to have,—him +or anything—I can't prevent her. No more can you. I'm goin' to stan' by +her. An' you've got to."</p> + +<p>"He's a murderer!" shrieked the Italian gentleman. "He's a murderer!"</p> + +<p>"Seems like it's catchin'," Mrs. Pascoe commented. "Here's my daughter +tells me you was hangin' round Mrs. Hope's all last Friday, lookin' fur +that spy feller, an' all is you wasn't even competent to find him.—I +guess I don't want to hear no talk outer you! Though as far forth as +what roughness goes I don't say but what you wus druv to it."</p> + +<p>The young man rose and stretching out a delicate hand, over which a +gold bracelet drooped from underneath a highly fashionable British cuff, +tremulously lighted a cigarette. Under its soothing influence he replied +that of course he was a lost soul and he didn't deny that his companions +had at last succeeded in dragging him to their level.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pascoe snorted like an angry horse. "Now you look here, Filly; when +I married Mr. Ansello I didn't have no more idee what his business was +than what you had. So far forth as what that goes, I didn't rightly +ketch the whole o' what was goin' on till you come whoopin' along an' +got us all into that muss where we had to clear out back to my country. +I was mighty glad we did an' cut loose from all them demons—I said then +an' I say now I won't stand fur nothin' rough! But you know as well as I +do, oncet we was started out fur ourselves there's nobody ain't worked +harder to keep to the quiet part o' the business 'un what yer +brother-in-law an' yer wife has. It usta be, before Ally come back, that +things did get oncet in a while beyond Nick's control, but never any +more, thank the Lord—not in his own little crowd 'ut he has anything to +do with! I guess there's one thing we agree on, young feller; it's jus' +druv me crazy, lately, to get mixed up with the regular Society again. +It's gettin' to be so big, even in this country, it won't let none o' +the little ones work fur themselves—all this month since it took us in +I've felt there was things goin' on I never got to hear of an' I'm +mighty glad we're goin' to get away from it to-morrer." She caught +herself back from what was evidently a favorite topic. "But don't let me +hear any more talk about draggin' down! You've done considerable +draggin' on us with all that feller spyin' on yeh costs us, an' yeh'd +ought to thank the children the way they've kep' yeh clear out o' the +whole business. Why, nobody hardly knows 'ut yer alive! Y' ain't asked +to do anything, y' ain't asked to show yerself, y' ain't even ever been +a member, so now the Society ain't nabbed on yeh none. I wisht it +hadn't sent fur yeh to the meetin' to-day, jus' to take Nick the word +an' his money. Ally nor me, we won't do—no, they gotta have a man, an' +I s'pose they take you fur one! So far forth as what that goes the less +I have to do with their greasy meetin's the better I like it, but I want +you should be awful careful. If oncet they was to get on to who you +was—Now, Filly, don't you smash them mugs!"</p> + +<p>The Italian hastily resigned the object with which he had been angrily +and absently rapping the table, and, exhausted with sobbing, began to +breathe upon and polish his fingernails.</p> + +<p>The mug, or jug, a little earthenware copy of a two-handled Etruscan +drinking-vase, was one of three which stood there side by side, exactly +alike save that the crude design which each of them bore—an arm and +hand holding a scales—was differently colored; one red, one white, one +green. But Mrs. Pascoe was aware of another difference and she turned +the jugs around in a bar of sunlight till she found it; on one jug the +scales of justice were gilded, on another silvered, on the third painted +a dull gray. The single exclamation stenciled over each design +translated into a sort of jingle:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gold buys!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silver pays!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lead slays!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Ain't she the hand," exclaimed Mrs. Pascoe, "for monkey-shines! Don't +you wonder what they do with these here, Filly? Mr. Gumama asked Ally to +get him these new ones fur to-day. She'd have to fancy a thing up if 't +was only to take a pill out of. Comin' in las' night without the car, +what with luggin' these here an' the paul-parrot—'t ain't spoke a word, +that bird ain't, since it left here!—I dunno but I'd ha' broke my neck +hadn't been fur M'ree. I do hate turrible to part from M'ree—I declare, +if ever anything happens to my Ally, I'll come back here an' put up with +these Dagoes on M'ree's account—Now, for mercy's sake, Filly, don't +howl!"</p> + +<p>For the mention of parting had brought on a still more violent attack of +the young man's anguish. The smile—wan but touched with the charm of +Sicilian plaintiveness—with which he had been reconciling himself to +life utterly disappeared; he ceased half-way through an excellent polish +and casting himself down as from the Tarpeian rock, blubbered into the +bedspread.</p> + +<p>The old lady regarded him with contempt passing again into suspicion and +then into a softening weariness that rose in her manner like an anxiety +that all the time had barely been held down. "Filly," said Mrs. Pascoe +with sudden friendliness and such an uneasy, furtive look of dread as +quite transformed her face, "what'er they goin' to do with that girl?"</p> + +<p>He lay quiet a moment, as if discomfortably arrested by the question. +Then he asked, how did he know? Take her, leave her; what was it to him?</p> + +<p>"Well, 't ain't hardly likely they're goin' to take her—an' her feller +on the boat! An' I should jus' like to know how they could leave her!" A +strange, helpless tremor passed across that firm mouth. "Oh, why was she +ever brought away? I allus knoo what it 'ud come to! Times there I did +hope she was goin' to die, poor thing! But it war n't to be!" There was +no sound but the sound of Filly, growling moistly into the bed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pascoe,—or, according to her own reference, Mrs. Ansello—looked +at the clock and began to fold up her knitting. But her long pent-up +broodings burst from her again in a new channel. "One while I was scared +Nick was kind o' losin' his head about the little piece. What with him +gettin' more an' more stuck on her, all the time, an' her sick with love +uv another feller, even to the farm I didn't know from one day to the +next what he would do. But when he made out 't was safer to take her +alone with him up t' the old place—Well, we all had to scuttle there +that very same night, an' when she begun to take on for that letter I +guess he forgot all them feelin's. He ain't never let a human bein' +stand in his sister's way an', however pretty that little neck o' hers +might strike him, 't wouldn't take him two minutes t' wring it if he got +scared she'd shoot her mouth against Allegra. I've had bad dreams before +you ever was born, but I ain't ever had any like waitin' fur the bunch +to come home that night an' the river so handy! I never thought I'd be +glad to see my son half-bled to death—but there, there's allus mercies! +I expect he wishes, though, he'd come straight home from the +post-office, instead o' snoopin' round that hotel! The sea-voyage'll fix +him up all right, an' he's strong enough an' cross enough an' sick +enough to pull the whole house down 'cause he can't get back an' forth +without the car. Filly," she shot forth, "sure as you live he's got +something made up fur to-night about that girl!"</p> + +<p>The Italian gentleman taking this as a still further personal +degradation, inquired aloud why he ever was born. But Mrs. Pascoe did +not attempt the obvious retort.</p> + +<p>She rose, fetched paper and string and, with an impotence foreign to her +whole nature, fumbled in tying up the jugs. "I've allus said I wouldn't +stand fur it, allus! But what can I do? I tell him I'll curse the last +breath he draws—but can I stop him? Yeh know what he is—can anybody +stop him? I tell yeh what 't is, Filly, I'm gettin' scared uv him! Yes, +now I'm past sixty, I'll say it fur oncet—I'm scared uv him! And then, +poor boy, so far forth as what that goes, what can he do, himself? When +you come down to it, what can any uv us do? The girl knows +everything—nobody knows that better'n you!—an' what she knows she'll +blab. She's soft-lookin' but she's got a chin an' she's in love! If her +feller's done fur, we're goin' to be done fur, too! There's my daughter +to consider an' every last one uv us. Jus' now, too, when Ally's goin' +to get her divorce an' be so happy! What can I do?"</p> + +<p>There was the sound of doors opening and closing and of some one coming +upstairs. But Mrs. Pascoe paid no heed. Her unaccustomed garrulity, +which had hitherto seemed the result of mere strain, began to appear as +her idea of conciliation for the ushering in of a plan. "I've only one +thing I can say favorable to you, Filly," she urged him, "yeh ain't +rough an' yeh was a gentleman. Yeh don't want screamin' an' hurtin', +I'll be bound. She's a little lady, Filly, an' she's 'n American girl. +Well, what I'm gettin' at is, would yeh dare do this? Now she's +conscious, they won't lemme near her. But they'll never suspect you. I +want yeh should tell her there's a bottle o' laudanum fur M'ree's tooth +in my closet an' if she wants it, give it to her. Give it to her quick!"</p> + +<p>The Italian gentleman giving no sign of finding consolation in this +prospect, "Oh, yeh'll never in the world do it!" Mrs. Pascoe groaned. +"Yeh ain't got the nerve uv a sick worm! Why, it's different,—can't yeh +see, Filly?—if she asks fur it herself—it's different, ain't it? It's +what she promised to do in the beginnin'. An' now, jus' out o' +spitework, she won't. But I bet she will to-night. Whatever's up, she'll +know it before they get her feller out there to-night. Give it to her, +Filly!"</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the door and the proprietress of the table d'hôte +entered cheerfully. "They come?" inquired Mrs. Pascoe. "Well, time I +went. There, get up, Filly, an' blow yer nose, do! Come, come, yeh don't +want the gentleman yer wife's goin' to marry to be brought up an' find +yeh wallerin' on yer stomach!—Well, stay where yeh be! But now yeh mind +what I was tellin' yeh, awhile back, about bein' anyways treacherous. +'T wouldn't be the first time but 't would be the last! My daughter's my +daughter, an' as fur my son—I never said there was anythin' so rough I +wouldn't stand fur it, when it come to Dagoes!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE TO A COMIC OPERA</h3> + + +<p>Mrs. Pascoe had some last minute shopping on hand, including farewell +gifts for her niece's family and a special token for Maria Rosa, and she +was quite unaware that it would have been a godsend for her daughter's +plans had she kept her sharp eyes, that day, on the interior of the +table d'hôte. But even had this occurred to her the number of figures on +the background of her son's life had lately so increased that she could +scarcely have been expected to recognize that the friendly Italians who +arrived at the appointed time were not a guard of Nicola's choosing, +sent to carry a willing captive to the freedom of Allegra's waiting +ship, but plain clothes men, who bore their prisoner back to jail. She +and little Maria Rosa shopped successfully, refreshed themselves at an +ice-cream parlor, returned home for a distribution of the farewells and, +re-emerging from the house in mid-afternoon, walked briskly enough +eastward, though now laden with heavier packages. Mrs. Pascoe carried so +many bottles of wine that even the stout wrappings threatened to give +way and, wrapped in many folds of clean dust-cloth, Maria bore the +pretty jugs.</p> + +<p>"I did lay out you should wait an' take those home," said Mrs. Pascoe to +the little girl, "since your cousin Ally's fixed 'em up so pretty! But +it'll be too late, likely, an' I don't like you should be crossin' the +street after dark. You better tell me good-by an' run home soon 's I get +the loft cleaned up fer the meetin'. I told yer ma you an' me 'd unpack +that barrel o' backyard party truck an' the boys could bring a bundle of +it over when they leave to-night. No use it settin' in a empty garradge. +Don't fergit yer old great-aunt, now will you, M'ree?—an' I'll send you +somepun' reel pretty from furrin' parts, where yer parrot come from." +She added, as they crossed under a bend of the Elevated Road into South +Fifth Avenue, "Remember, I've told yer ma ye're always to go out an' +visit my folks, same as if I was there. Mercy, I hope it don't rain with +all of us trapesin' out there fer our last night! I don't see how the +boys are goin' to get that feller out, with them fools skiddin' round +the roads the way they be—an' Filly'll faint away most likely!"</p> + +<p>They turned in at the door of a small dingy structure, which had been +something else before it became a garage and that now looked vaguely out +of use; from its obscure depths emerged the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama, +who relieved her of the wine. She and the child mounted a ladder-like +staircase and emerged through a sort of hatchway, scarcely more than an +opening in the boards, with its lid tipped back against the wall.</p> + +<p>It was not yet four in the afternoon, but the September light was +already failing under the low roof of the loft. The windows were built +close to the floor and that at the rear had a little, begrimed straggle +of vine waving in at it. For the window looked out upon a triangle of +trodden earth, heaped as with the rubbish of an old machine-shop but +producing spears of grass and black, stunted bushes to show it had once +been part of a yard. In front the loft gave directly upon a turning of +the Elevated Road, and when a deafening train roared by the whole flimsy +structure rattled and shook; the walls were irregularly studded with +nails and hooks from which hung lengths of rope and buckled straps as of +old harness that shook, too. Among these, from a cleared space of +honor, a head of Garibaldi, in gaily colored lithograph, confronted the +flyspecked grandeur of the Italian royal family, domestically grouped; +the pink paper of cheap gazettes brightened some of the murkier boards +with woodcuts of prizefighters or disrobing ladies. Three or four stools +stood about on the dingy boards and rather a greater number of worn out +chairs; a couple of heaping barrels in one corner were covered with an +old awning; there was a small bureau, once yellowishly glazed, without +any glass; a kitchen table, stained with al fresco dinners, had been +brought in from the yard; in another corner, torn rubber curtain-flaps, +collapsed tires and threadbare leather cushions supported each other. +Suddenly Mrs. Pascoe uttered a little hiss. She had perceived, sitting +in the frame of the front window, a listless, undersized, undeveloped +lad with the delicate, soft-eyed face of a young seraph, who looked +seventeen and had probably turned twenty.</p> + +<p>This young person was reading an Italian newspaper and sucking a limp +cigarette which hung from between his teeth and occasionally scattered +sparks down the slim chest which his inconceivably filthy shirt left +open to his belt. He was greeted devotedly by Maria as Cousin Beppo and, +though he was evidently the old lady's abomination, when she accosted +him with the unconciliatory greeting, "Here, you! You stir yourself!" he +reared himself slowly to his feet and, with a good-natured smile, sagged +amicably toward her.</p> + +<p>"I don't s'pose you think so," snapped Mrs. Pascoe, "but this place's +got to be swep' out!"</p> + +<p>Fortunately, the tidying of the loft did not depend upon the +sweet-smiling indolence which remained unbroken while she swept and +rubbed; when the barrels were despoiled of their green and pink netting, +their feast-day lanterns and paper flowers Beppo nosed ingratiatingly +up; but long before the old woman had laid clean oil-cloth over table +and bureau he was playing charmingly with Maria, whom he coaxed to +carry a chair to the rear window, to fill and set upon it a tin basin, +and to filch him a clean dust-cloth.</p> + +<p>Then he began cautiously to wash his face, down almost to the black rim +midway of his pretty throat; cleansing his hands, too, but not so as to +disturb the fingernails. Out from the top drawer of the bureau he took a +broken bit of mirror, also richly scented pomatum with which he smoothed +his hair well down over his brows and then he brought forth a velvet +jacket and a waistcoat sprigged with embroidered flowers. He handled +them as if they were vestments and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, +their weight did not appal him. To these, over the filthy shirt, he +added a silk neckerchief of robin's egg blue and a glittering scarfpin; +there came forth, from its hiding-place about his person, a very +graceful little knife which he stuck with airy bravado in his belt. +Lastly, he lighted a huge cigar and assumed, though for indoor display +only, a soft hat balanced on the left side of the head, and a light cane +swung from the left hand. Standing thus, full-costumed, with a +hip-swaying swagger, he was more picturesque though less fashionable +than his confreres of northern races, but his infamous profession was +none the less proclaimed in every line of him. And once more he turned +the sweet beam of his smile upon the little girl.</p> + +<p>Beppo had not, however, dressed himself for professional purposes. The +coming occasion was more solemn and his toilette an act of the purest +piety. Perhaps that was why, when Mrs. Pascoe turned her contempt on him +again, he was no longer amused.</p> + +<p>The old woman, as she set out the jugs, was saying, "Fetch up them +bottles, M'ree. An' Becky or whatever your name is—"</p> + +<p>She turned and beheld the basin of dirty water. "You take that right +down stairs!" cried she, in outrage. "An' the rest o' yer trash with +yeh! When I clean a place, I want it left clean!"</p> + +<p>He said something, sulkily, about emptying it herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, when I come to emptyin' swill, 't won't be no Dago swill! Here—"</p> + +<p>For he had furiously snatched the basin above his head to dash it on the +floor.</p> + +<p>She caught at and somehow prevented him, but not from whirling it +through the window into the back yard. He was smiling again at this +assuagement to his dignity when he suddenly perceived that the struggle +had sprinkled his vest; spots appeared also upon his scarf's cerulean +blue! He became, on the instant, a maniac, not human; he raved, he +shrieked, his delicate skin flamed, tears suffused his eyes, he ran up +and down scattering prayers, howls and curses. Until, one of these +voyages bringing him close to Mrs. Pascoe's small disgusted figure, he +seized her by the wrist and with the deliberate, systematic skill of +custom began to wrench her arm.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pascoe very promptly kicked him in the shins. "If my son Nick was +here he'd take the buckle-end o' one o' those straps an' spank the life +out o' yeh! Yeh wax-face! Yeh—" For once stooping to Italian she shot +forth the word, "Ricondoterro!"</p> + +<p>It was his calling and he should not have objected to it. None the less, +pursing his soft lips he spat a fine spray over her face. She jumped at +him in such a fury that Maria threw protecting arms about her +playfellow; then they were all parted by the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama.</p> + +<p>This imposing person had, with dramatic quiet, brought up the wine; and +now, holding Beppo by one wrist, he listened to Mrs. Pascoe's angry +cluckings. Then he seemed merely to put out one fist. The boy fell on +his back without even a cry and lay as he fell. "Why, you beast, you!" +cried Mrs. Pascoe. "Mebbe you've killed him!"</p> + +<p>"No. But no matter," said Mr. Gumama. "Go and make your guard. Come not +up again till I call you. Take the child."</p> + +<p>She went, holding Maria's hand and looking back, with her old mingling +of curiosity and reluctance at the prone figure of the pretty +ricondoterro, from whose nostrils blood had begun copiously to gush on +her clean floor. The tall Mr. Gumama was evidently not one to be defied.</p> + +<p>It was half-past four and those who were expected began to come. First a +couple of laborers, warm from their work; the next had the proud bearing +of a chauffeur; after him came a respectable professional man, probably +a dentist, wearing a black suit, a full beard and glasses; then a plump +and coquettish little beau, the owner of a fruit-and-candy stand, who +bore a flower in his light, ornamental coat and the scar of a knife +across his rosy left cheek. He was followed by his cousin, who had only +a fruit cart and sold for him on commission. One and all were obliged to +halt before Mrs. Pascoe, who sat on a stool at the foot of the stairs, +playing solitaire on a couple of orange boxes.</p> + +<p>She bent her tongue Italianwards and asked of each the same question.</p> + +<p>"What do you want here?"</p> + +<p>"Justice!"</p> + +<p>"How can you get it?"</p> + +<p>"By the Arm of God."</p> + +<p>"Who is your enemy and mine and your children's children's?"</p> + +<p>"A traitor!"</p> + +<p>"Y' can g'won up."</p> + +<p>As they emerged into the loft they were each greeted by Mr. Gumama and +then dropped themselves awkwardly about on stools and window-sills, with +the whispering stiffness of people in their best clothes. Beppo, +moaning, now lay huddled on his side and, as occasion arose, they +stepped about and over him without the slightest interest or even malign +amusement in his plight. By-and-by he got to his hands and knees and +crawled into a corner, where, with the now fatally ruined blue scarf +held to his nose, he shivered himself slowly quiet. But his pomatum came +into play with the laborers, who sat seriously down by the still bright +rear window and beautified their heads with it, cheerfully assisting +each other's toilet as amiable monkeys often do and even smearing +themselves a little from the communal mercies of the water-pitcher. +"Enough!" Mr. Gumama sternly rebuked them. "Business alone!"</p> + +<p>They looked meekly at him, stricken, and he called one of them by +name—"Take the stairs!"</p> + +<p>The man crossed to the opening in the floor and seated himself a little +back from where it gave into the room; the knife which he drew from +inside his clothes seemed a trifle clouded and he sat idly polishing it. +Mr. Gumama looked at his large silver watch and, stepping to the front +window, glanced out. A certain anxiety in him began to make itself felt.</p> + +<p>More and more men arrived, but evidently not the looked-for men. A +strapping youth began unconcernedly to converse with Beppo about a duel +they were to fight. "I cannot remain forever a picciotto. If I do not +fight the next duel how shall I ever get to be a member?"</p> + +<p>"Me they will not yet let fight again." Beppo stopped sniffling and +displayed, a bit above his knee, a wound that might have been made with +a knife like that in his belt or a short dagger. "In two duels have I +lost, and if I lose the third I lose my entry."</p> + +<p>The strapping youth began to get excited. "With whom, then, can I +fight? How long do they intend to keep me waiting? See, now, I want my +rights—I want to be promoted—"</p> + +<p>A man with turned-up red mustaches, sporting a carnation and a pair of +highly polished boots, interrupted his complaint that the bootblack +under the Elevated had overcharged him and reproved Beppo for kicking +his chair. The fruit-vendors also stopped quarreling over the accusation +of the huckster that the merchant had supplied him with decayed fruit; +the merchant allying himself with the strapping youth and declaring that +his wife's brother was right and ought to be promoted. Then, with the +one word, "Peace!" Mr. Gumama struck them into abject silence.</p> + +<p>"Peace! Ludovisi, your wife's brother may win all three duels and yet +endure years of probation. Beppo, let your squeal rise once more and you +are suspended for a month.—Have you, then, no wits at all? Let the +result of this meeting go a little wrong and promotion it will be no +more! At least for us, fellow members of the old-days Arm of Justice, +for we shall be no more!"</p> + +<p>A number of men cast glances of horror. But after a few lightning-shot +growls even this number returned to its knitting, being accustomed to +obey and not to ask questions. Again Mr. Gumama looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>More and more men arrived till the loft was crowded. The unknown persons +who had so long so strangely shadowed the pathway of Christina Hope were +beginning to mass for action and to detach themselves from the +background. And still as the loft darkened with the passage of each +train and relightened less and less when that was gone, another presence +seemed to enter and abide; the growing, shadowy presence of suspense. It +was in the air, for the ignorant many as well as for the few who +understood. There were brief silences so deep that the little vine, +spying in at the window, could be heard tapping on the upper pane. Then +a cab stopped outside and a startled thrill passed through the assembly. +The man who had been told to take the stairs rose with a soft, +business-like precision and drew his knife. He stood, waiting. Something +in his attitude defined his duty as preventative not of an entrance, but +an exit. Any unwelcome comer who got past Mrs. Pascoe's guard would get +farther; he would enter the loft, but he would never leave it. He would +not even turn round. Mr. Gumama, watching the cab avidly, opened his +fateful mouth. But the men disgorged from its disreputable depths were +friends to that house.</p> + +<p>The first two tumbled into the garage, glanced round, saluted Mrs. +Pascoe, and returned to the assistance of those on the sidewalk. These +manœuvered between them a man with his hat pulled down over his eyes +and an overcoat hanging about his shoulders whom they supported like a +drunkard. A fascinated crowd stopped to wink and advise. As soon as the +two men were inside they threw their burden flat on the floor and +returned to the cab for another. The man on the floor was gagged, his +arms were tied behind him and even his thighs were bound.</p> + +<p>Swarthy as was the man's face Mrs. Pascoe was still observing with +annoyance these signs of roughness when a second human bundle was +brought in from the cab and the cavalcade somehow hoisted itself +upstairs. In the loft the human bundles were propped against the wall +and the meeting came to attention.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I!'"</h3> + + +<p>"The eighth district, members of the Honorable Society," said Mr. +Gumama, bowing to the assembly as if he were ascending a throne, "it is +my duty to inform you that, for reasons which you shall presently know, +Nicola Pascoe is no longer our capo d'intini. Unworthy that I am," he +continued with pomp, "be pleased to signify by the vote whether it is +your pleasure that I assume this post of glory."</p> + +<p>It was their pleasure and the vote acclaimed it. Instantly Beppo, the +merchant's brother-in-law and three or four other lads ranged chairs and +barrels in a circle nearly as might be round the kitchen-table and all +of the assembly that could find seats sat quietly down. Mr. Gumama +filled the earthen jugs with wine and they were passed from hand to +hand, each man taking a ceremonial draught; then the man at Mr. Gumama's +right rose and, with dramatic gesture and winy mouth, kissed him on the +forehead. So, in turn, did each of those to whom, by some mystic +precedence, the seats at the table had been spontaneously allotted. All +was accomplished with due ceremony, but rapidly and with an undertone of +nervous expectation, the weight of some unusual circumstance. It was +another and less flowery version of the festivity which had so amused +Herrick that evening, a month ago, when it had frothed round Nicola +Pascoe under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. Almost immediately the +meeting proceeded to business.</p> + +<p>The man with the carnation and the resplendent shoes rose ponderously +and began to hurry through a fortnightly financial report. This report +was starred with titles—capos of various departments, first voters, +senior members, cashiers, secretaries—and with references to local +districts, twelve or fourteen of them, into which that blundering +mammoth baby, New York City, would have been surprised to find itself +divided. The administrative looting of these departments was again +crossed off into eight sub-divisions—paranze, the treasurer called +them, each of which had, apparently, its own committee and procedure; +for each paranza had turned over its earnings to its capo d'intini, +these capos in turn had passed them to the capo in testa who had turned +them into the treasurer in exchange for a receipt. One of these receipts +Mr. Gumama now produced. The fortnightly gains were deposited upon the +table in two cigar-boxes; in one the baratolo, won at games and +swindling; the other held the sbruffo, more heroically acquired from +extortion or theft. Every one began to praise what he had himself +contributed, and it became evident that the apprentices, like Beppo, +were expected to do most of this light work. However, save for a glass +of wine to each, which they were told to drink thankfully, they did not +share in the spoils they had so largely produced. These were apportioned +by Mr. Gumama without the protestation of a single voice. Percentages +for three funds were set aside; one for what was politely called "social +expenses," which, to a gross mind, might have suggested corruption; one +for legal defense; the other for pensioners—retired members, families +of those unfortunately detained in jail, and widows of members deceased +while in good standing. Not till then was the remainder paid equally +into each individual hand, in a model of just and scrupulous +dealing.—As, in various dialects, a foam of pent-up exclamations now +rose, Mr. Gumama again looked at his watch and, with an awe-inspiring +contraction of his beautiful brows, once more betook himself to the +window.</p> + +<p>A slick, sleek oily youth in a gray derby began to deliver some mail +which he had just collected from the branch post-office in Marco +Morello's drug-store down the street; among the innocent pleasantries of +indecent post cards there seemed to be at least two enigmatic warnings +in dirty envelopes and a happy suggestion of workable scandal about a +rich jeweler; one postal, demanding in scarcely legible and very +illiterate Neapolitan slang the "suppression" of a woman who had turned +the writer out of his job in her fake employment agency, was frowned +upon by Mr. Gumama as unnecessarily careless. Directly the meeting had +formed itself into a rough semblance of a court, the writer of the +careless postal was condemned to be suspended for six months, so that +his earnings were cut off from both sources.</p> + +<p>One of the laborers rose to complain that the capo of his paranza had +sentenced him to a week's suspension for quarreling with a companion; +the evidence showed injustice and the complaint was sustained. A +saloon-keeper broke into passionate appeal against another sentence of +suspension, this time for a year, because he had shed a tear of pity for +the child of a wine-merchant which had died while held for ransom. But +his capo d'intini, the head of a whole district, had seen the tear and +the punishment was confirmed. A picciotto di sgarro, a novice, who had +passed two duels with credit, was found to have hesitated in obedience +and was expelled from possible membership for all time. Now popped up a +red, bushy stub of a man, with a full tuck under his chin and a certain +unshaven dinginess, to declare that something outrageous was going on in +his neighborhood: there were rowdies who hung about the street corners +and offended the female foundlings of the good sisters, making remarks +when these took exercise! The gentle ladies had appealed to the police +in vain, but to the Honorable Society they could now in tranquillity +trust. The Honorable Society, shocked and indignant, assumed the future +immunity of the female foundlings for a slight consideration. Finally +amidst an ominous silence Balbo the Wolf, a chauffeur, a full member, +was convicted of having practised extortion without orders and on his +own account.</p> + +<p>"Lupo Balbo," said Mr. Gumama, in the profound chest notes of an +outraged parent, "you deserve to sleep forever. You have broken your +oath of humility, you have rebelled against your father and scandalized +your mother, you have taken food from the mouth of your family, for the +Society is your family and your father and your mother.—Tommaso +Antonelli—" He spoke low and quick to a man near him, who sprang +forward, there was an instant's sharp, half-voluntary struggle and then +Antonelli drew back with a dripping razor in his hand. Lupo, the +chauffeur, covered a face marked forever with a double slash. And Mr. +Gumama somewhat unnecessarily added, "The spreggio is for you the +punishment, you wolf Balbo. Bathe your face, there in the pitcher by the +innocent vine, and leave the council." Lupo Balbo, no more than his +predecessors, winced, argued, nor rebelled. Against the decree of the +capo no appeal was possible.</p> + +<p>All this time—so much shorter a time than any agreeable social club +would have taken to despatch a single item of business—the human +bundles had remained propped against the wall; silent perforce and +wrapped in the indifference of their own doom. Mr. Gumama now turned an +attentive eye upon these lumps of misery, and a kind of brightening +glimmered through the assemblage; the duller preliminaries were disposed +of at last.</p> + +<p>The poor souls being brought forward the capo pronounced their names +with scorn. "Luigi Pachotto and Carlo Firenzi, you deserve no trial. +But the Society honors its strict laws and does not condemn without +justice. Beppo, Chigi, remove those gags." The eyes of the human bundles +goggled avidly forward; their mouths puffed moistly in physical relief. +Still, they made no complaint.</p> + +<p>"Full members of the Society, alas!" Mr. Gumama tragically continued, +"members, also, of our Arm of Justice, ere the Society accepted that Arm +as part of its own body, we have received demands for your suppression +and, from our camorrista scelto, proof of your guilt. Luigi Pachotto, of +the eight crimes against the Society which incur the penalty of death +you are charged with the first—Number one, to reveal the secrets of the +Society. And you, Carlo Firenzi, with the second,—spying on behalf of +the police. It is true that Lupo Balbo was guilty of the sixth, and I +made his penalty little. But of such crimes, like disobedience, the +punishment at its worst is death. Yours are the crimes of treachery, for +which the death is slow. Most for you, Carlo Firenzi, there can be no +excuse. When you began to suspect the news which I am about to break to +the paranza you turned police operative and betrayed the system by which +our unfortunate friends communicate in horrible prisons and become +properly organized. And when, last night, you were set by the paranza to +do a service this morning to your basista you gave notice to the police. +So that they came and took back the friend of our basista and now guard +the nest of our social gatherings. Did you think the Arm of Justice had +grown too weak to punish? Carlo Firenzi, what have you to say?"</p> + +<p>He had nothing to say; only, hanging his head, he ground his teeth. Yet +the form—the form? the very core and gist—of a trial was put through; +the evidence heard and questioned, the witnesses confronted with the +mute despair of a guilt taken red handed and making no denial; fifteen +minutes of the truth passionately sought and no law-game played.</p> + +<p>The conclusion, however, was foregone and Firenzi was soon stood back +out of the way. "Luigi Pachotto, you have, I believe, affirmed good +intention. You knew that the old-days' Arm of Justice, now the fifth +paranza of this eighth district of the Honorable Society, had long +sheltered in its midst, all unknowing, a traitor to the Honorable +Society." He had touched a spring that vibrated through the whole room. +Unable to proceed he waited till the murmur of incredulous horror that +had risen to a growl should die away. "You betook yourself to the capo +in testa of the Honorable Society rather than to your old friends of the +Arm or even to this district, and to him pointed out the whereabouts of +the traitor. Did you dare to insinuate that the Arm itself would not +have punished had it known? What good to it or to the Society did you +expect of this?"</p> + +<p>It was more a slur than a question and he answered it in a hopeless +mumble. "I did it for the good of the Arm and to make our peace with the +Honorable Society. I say it, who am about to die—I thought to resign +the traitor, to give him into its hand who sullies ours, to be done with +him and at peace."</p> + +<p>"Luigi Pachotto, you took too much upon yourself! It is for the Arm to +make its own terms. I think it was your private peace you wished to +make, thus to save your own throat. But you have cut it." Mr. Gumama +paused and sententiously expanded his beautiful brows. "Nevertheless, it +may be that you are to be shown strange mercy!"</p> + +<p>The murmur rose again, humming with amazement.</p> + +<p>"The Society can be merciful for its own just ends. There is a service +to be rendered, a deed to be done, beyond the skill of any garzione di +mala vita, its apprentice, or yet of its novice, the picciotto di +sgarro, the young one. It should be done by one who is past life. +Therefore, the Society, yet a little while, suspends your execution." +Pachotto was thrust into the background and Mr. Gumama, who all this +time had been seated at the table, rose and leaned forward, indicating +that the meeting had reached its climax.</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, you observed well what Pachotto said? For this have we +come together. We of the Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, we, in +particular, must take heed to ourselves." He paused, collecting +attention. But it was already in his pocket. "He who used the Arm of +Justice to shelter a traitor, is its long-time chief, Nicola +Pascoe—called in the country from which he carried his bowed head, +Nicola Ansello! Ah, you know the name! Then you know well that the +serpent whom he nourished in our bosom is the traitor at whose word, ten +years ago in Italy, four members perished!"</p> + +<p>A shudder shook the assembly. Many crossed themselves. Mr. Gumama, in +the relish of his own rhetoric, grew increasingly impressive. He was, +moreover, extremely pale. "The Society passes sentence—that Arm still +enfolds the traitor!"</p> + +<p>The assembly cried out as against a sacrilege and its cry was menacing. +The Hands of the Arm were now easily distinguishable by their very long +faces.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my friends," wailed Mr. Gumama with a sudden shrillness, "the +Society falters not, but strikes—Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, it +condemns us, every one!"</p> + +<p>A horrible yelling broke loose like a storm. Sobs and hysterical curses +strangled together amidst the revilements of the now inimical district. +One man was seized with convulsions and had to have wine and water +dashed over him, another fainted and got stepped on. Mr. Gumama remained +superior and at last made himself heard. "But was it not from the +Society I learned lenience to Pachotto? Does it not, in wisdom, leave me +in place to address you? On one condition the Society withdraws its +condemnation."</p> + +<p>The very melody of howling rose. "The condition! Tell! Tell!"</p> + +<p>"First, lest too great the shock, listen a moment. You know well how in +this America where, since Italy drove her forth, she grows so great, the +conditions of the Mother Society are greatly relaxed; so that, in a new +country, she may strengthen herself with all her children. When heads of +small societies, existing ere here she had waxed great, came to be +absorbed in her she accepted the members for whom they vouched without +requiring the apprenticeship nor the novitiate. So it was with the Arm +of Justice. Of all the small societies we were the most distinguished. +It was not seemly so superior a collection should exist outside the +Honorable Society. So much truth do I speak that in accepting us it made +our chief, Nicola Pascoe, chief of this district, made ourselves into +one paranza where we are yet a unit with our own rules, fifth paranza of +the eighth district. The Society decrees that after to-day this paranza +shall be broken up and scattered among the others and that name, the Arm +of Justice, be spoken no more. So shall the true forget the traitor!"</p> + +<p>His breath failed him. But fortunately his audience came to his rescue +with a hissing snarl—"Traditore! Traditore!"</p> + +<p>"Fellow members, it is nothing. We who are innocent expect to suffer for +the guilt of friends. What I entreat, it is that you examine what kind +of a friend Nicola Pascoe has been to us. It is true he found us little +and made us great. It is true he taught us, formed us and was our +leader. But knew we who he was? Did he tell us he had fled from Naples +to this place carrying in his arms a traitor? Now that we know, to us +what is he?—Ah, we, guileless, true shoot of the parent vine, branch of +her root, of the Honorable Society the pious children!" Mr. Gumama, +sincerely overcome by this pastoral vision, rolled up his eyes for a +long pause. But as he had to sneeze he continued, "Hands of the Arm, +for to-day we are still ourselves. For to-day I might have called one +last meeting of the fifth paranza and we, all alone, have discussed our +own affairs. But that there may be no stain on us of secret counsel we +show our hand to the whole district.—How may we again be dear children +of the Mother from Naples, held safe in her embrace? Hands of the Arm, +to save the Arm cut off always the Hand, one, three, how many, it is no +matter! Hear the one condition of the Honorable Society: We divulge the +whereabouts this night of Nicola Pascoe, the basista and all their +house; we offer them neither warning, shelter nor defense; we lead, +ourselves, this district in their suppression!" And he leaned towards +them, glaring and sweating, his voice still cautiously lowered and +waited their answer with open mouth.</p> + +<p>They who never yet had disobeyed Nicola Pascoe stared at him a trifle +wanly, huddling one on the other. Astonished gutturals mingled hoarsely +with shrill peeps; "Body of Bacchus!" "Woe, woe! Beware!" "Presence of +the devil!" clashed with gobs of thieves' slang and the less amiable +expressions that were overwhelmed by the general assurances of the +district that the paranza had no choice.</p> + +<p>Then a well-to-do little soul with a black beard rose to speak. "Listen +to the voice of reason. If we condemn ourselves, can we save Nicola +Pascoe? But if we condemn Nicola Pascoe, we still do save ourselves! All +must not die—a few it is better to die! It is well I should say this, +for I am a man of gentle speech. I do not wish to be thought like a bad +murderer nor the companion of murderers. I am a business-man—a dealer +in tortoise-shells which I send mostly to Chicago, and I am unique for +the perfection of my wares. I have now the one hope for the support of +my family and small children—that the Society if it suppresses us all +will leave upon each of us its mark. That would cause a sensation and +perhaps advertise my unique tortoise-shells to improve the business for +my wife. But this hope is not enough. Nicola Pascoe, the basista, all, +all, suppress them! Me, I wish to live!" He sat down.</p> + +<p>But then, from Nicola's closer brethren immediate and violent opposition +arose, with arguments that Nicola himself had done no wrong and pleading +for a lighter sentence. The meeting was in scarcely less than an +apoplectic fit when, from its outskirts, a young farmhand shrieked out +that they must take the counsel of the good priest, the Angel of the +Society.</p> + +<p>A tall man at once began to weep and to utter horrible invectives +against the last speaker, while Mr. Gumama exhorted him to be more calm. +It turned out that the Angel of the Society was in jail for perjury and +that the tall man was his brother. "I must leave the room! I must have +air! How could he, the bad of heart, the pig, mention my brother before +me—"</p> + +<p>"Angelo, you are a man and must show more strength! Antonio was not +aware of the trouble of your brother—"</p> + +<p>"Not aware of—He who celebrated masses for the soul of King Humbert, he +who remained tender to us though all other fathers refused us absolution +while we practised our profession, he who among us was best for +plausible defenses, that holy man!"</p> + +<p>"We revere him. But it is impossible to allow you to leave the room +every time he is mentioned! You have disordered in that way the last +four meetings!"</p> + +<p>Angelo threw himself on the ground with cries of injustice, and an +equally angry person started up from his corner. "What is he screaming +about? Has he the only feelings to be considered? Do I thus weep like a +woman? I, too, have a brother in a dark prison—and if I were with him I +would be more safe! While that one there slobbers do I wish to die? And +to thus make a martyr not only of me, but of that holy soul, my mother! +Who, at eighty-four would weep for me and tear her sacred hair, all +gray!" A chorus of sympathetic wails responded to this touching +reference. "Me, I see in this room one who once took my lock of that +hair for another woman's!" Hisses arose. "Yet do I ask to leave the +room? Let it be the house of Pascoe which forever leaves this room. +Rather than meet in the dark with the agent of the Honorable Society I +will surrender me to the police!"</p> + +<p>This, indeed, achieved tumult, breaking into personal rancors in which +the issue of Nicola seemed to vanish.</p> + +<p>"You are a liar! He did not—"</p> + +<p>"I will swear on the ashes of my father and of my dead son!"</p> + +<p>"You would swear on anything!"</p> + +<p>"Beware! Beware the anathema!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for you—I take you to my bosom!"</p> + +<p>"I curse you down to the seventh generation!"</p> + +<p>"Once you dug, quiet, in my sewer! But now you are proud and a +gentleman—"</p> + +<p>"I was always more of a gentleman than you are!"</p> + +<p>"I remind you that you must die!"</p> + +<p>At last the voice of Mr. Gumama was able to make itself heard. +"Beautiful friends, the vote, the vote!—Ah! Now, attention! This is +what you do not know. Who thinks to be faithful to Nicola Pascoe, is +Nicola Pascoe faithful to him? Nicola Pascoe flees away! A-a-ah! Doubt +you that the Society will have <i>some</i> atonement? He flees to Brazil, +this coming sunrise, he and his, and leaves us to bear his blame!"</p> + +<p>It was enough. The meeting could not speak; it could only shake and +froth in one united epilepsy. As the fifth paranza found voice it +groaned, "We have been betrayed! We are innocent! We have been cast like +lambs to the slaughter! He has trampled not only on the human but the +divine law! He leaves us to perish in this infamous market—" And a +very old man, as he called down upon the Pascoes all the curses of +heaven mixed with descriptions of his sufferings from nightmare as a +child, put up insane appeals for their punishment. He rose from hysteria +to hysteria; sobbing with exhaustion he buried his face in his hands +after summoning God, personally, to convince Nicola's friends; suddenly +he raised his head and, plucking at one of his wild eyes, with a +sweeping movement he cast a small object apparently at Jehovah's feet. +His magnificent gesture defying their mercies, he lifted to their gasp +of amazement the seared, empty, gaping socket in his ancient, bearded +face, and, uttering a choking shriek, he fell to the ground. A stampede +of horror was averted by Mr. Gumama, who picked up the eye-ball, cast it +down again and ground it under foot. It was glass.</p> + +<p>There being no hope of capping this climax they got down to business and +surrendered Nicola in a wink. There remained to be dealt with a flourish +of Mr. Gumama's. "This is all demanded by our kind Mother. But shall we +not give a little more? Shall she herself be obliged to slay the serpent +that we have fed and made strong? Will she not be pleased by a little +more zeal on our part, while still we are ourselves? My friends, I have +made a little arrangement." Fortunately for Mr. Gumama's climax as he +now sent another of his impatient glances out of the window he gave an +uncontrollable cry of relief. "Here they come!"</p> + +<p>Strolling along the sidewalk appeared three men, all evidently Italians; +but two, in their rough clothes, lumpish sailors. The slenderer and +finer-made came sauntering between them; he had a charming smile with +which he listened attentively to some oath embroidered anecdote. As they +entered the garage one of the sailors, looking up, caught the eye of Mr. +Gumama and made a quick signal. "Bene! They have not been followed!" Mr. +Gumama exclaimed. "By the grace of heaven they have not been followed! +And he has no suspicion!" The confidential aides purred aloud, the whole +meeting slightly relaxed and the man with the knife decided to sit down. +But he kept his knife in his hand.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gumama stationed two men at the window to watch the sidewalk and +then motioned half a dozen distinguished members to the stairs. +Crouching forward they could see the slight man leaning in the doorway, +whistling, and glancing up and down the swarming street with quick, dark +eyes. Mr. Gumama squatted until he was in danger of falling through the +opening and pointing a long, soiled finger at the slight man, "Il +traditore," hissed Mr. Gumama. "He whom Nicola and the basista shelter +in our midst! Alieni, o' n'infama! Traditore! He, Filippi Alieni!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE</h3> + + +<p>Once more a hand had touched the spring. Once more the meeting vibrated +to a universal shock. Mr. Gumama signed to the fruit-peddler and a brace +of laborers that they provide themselves with lengths of rope and the +three withdrew to a position across the stairhead from the man with the +knife, where they, too, waited in the shadow of the walls. Confiding in +the sharpshooters at the window Mr. Gumama had the sailors called +upstairs.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the man at the door, happily unaware of the preparations for +receiving him above, came lounging inside with his hands in his pockets; +and Mrs. Pascoe, whose greeting had shown some slight surprise at his +appearance, laughed aloud. "It's funny how it does become you! I can't +deny it!"</p> + +<p>For he had doffed his gentleman's attire and was dressed like the +shabbiest laborer, the tawny, earth-stained shirt open at his throat +against a red cotton handkerchief; his loose, frayed, dingy jacket had +once been of square, seafaring cut.</p> + +<p>"I bet she picked them out fur yeh!" Mrs. Pascoe jeered. "She ain't one +to miss the artistic touch!" Her mockery took him all in. "She'd be sure +t' have yeh more uv a Dago organ-grinder 'n any Dago organ-grinder ever +was! But I will say you wear 'em t' the manner born!"</p> + +<p>Well, truly, the swinging gold earrings, rounder than Mr. Gumama's, had +been carefully tarnished; his bracelet shot its golden gleam from under +a ragged cuff; the cord of a scapular, scarlet against his olive skin, +had been torn and knotted, and a handkerchief in the Sicilian colors was +thrust into a belt supple with age. But, truly again, they became him +mightily. For in those weathered boots, of which the soles were almost +gone, his feet gripped the earth with a loping, elastic tread like a +young animal's; and when, at the disconcerting coldness of her greeting, +he snatched off his old cap and stood with it crushed flat in his +nervous fingers the smooth and coal-black glitter of his head called her +attention to the alertness of its carriage, like some prowler's scouting +in the woods. Doubtless morning-coats and starched British linen are +very discreet garments. But the worn softness of those old borrowed +properties, in loosing the movement and the poise of his lithe body, had +released some other change in him; something wild, light and strong, +with the strength of a hound and the lightness of a cat, which, in the +dense jungle where he was about to enter, might yet stand him in good +stead. After all, one does not dress as a Sicilian for nothing!</p> + +<p>Particularly when there are ladies about! Mrs. Pascoe was as much a +woman as any silkier petticoat and it must have been some such momentary +glimmer of the national presence, of the primitive equation, which had +won her forgotten girlhood as it had once wooed and won her daughter's +fancy. "Well, I vum!" said she again with tart amusement. Was he going +to turn out a man? She leaned toward him all intentness. <i>Was he?</i></p> + +<p>"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an +impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart +an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't God A'mighty, whoever she +is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't +goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this +world—she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said, +she's got her husband!"</p> + +<p>He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she +cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I +got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're +natcherul born devils—she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh +had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low +an' squirm through.—Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out +there?"</p> + +<p>He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his +strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man +came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic +consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You +will, above, attend the council!"</p> + +<p>Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw +she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in +his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with +which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul +pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and +pulling mildly at his cuff.</p> + +<p>The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that +gibberish—I been altogether <i>too</i> patient, this good while!" The +messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman +an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never +thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I +hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got +all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!—Yeh +can g'won up."</p> + +<p>Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath +through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his +guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only +gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft.</p> + +<p>At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself +standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of +faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke +and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the +cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate +glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a +bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings reassured +him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing +that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on +trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow +looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed +and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; +he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were +thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not +with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can +never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were +the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?—A satisfied, panting breath, full of +heat, rose from the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Filippi Alieni?"</p> + +<p>"Suor servitor, signor."</p> + +<p>He did not deny it!</p> + +<p>"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are +admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?"</p> + +<p>"Si, Signor."</p> + +<p>"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to +another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello, +were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable +Society?"</p> + +<p>"Si, signor."</p> + +<p>"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires +and releasing muffled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat +in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of +Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate +themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the +accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from +somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was +softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It +was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood +sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces.</p> + +<p>"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our +basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon +both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath +of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to +reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your +bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to +avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done +you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your +death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the +sacred song</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If I live, I will kill thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I die, I forgive thee!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you +denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live—because +you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and +fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he +feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed +man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the +last—is it not so!"</p> + +<p>He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no +good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His +guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the +pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long +enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when +through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables +and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of +the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the +suppression of Filippi Alieni!"</p> + +<p>"I demand—" "I demand—" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to +sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!" +And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo +in testa in our name!"</p> + +<p>"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too +greedy.—Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless! +Admit! Admit!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if +stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself +between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's.</p> + +<p>It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in +which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi +Alieni, you must now be put to sleep."</p> + +<p>Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, +incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his +head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife. +He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an +uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of +the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment +when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men +rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling +like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs. +A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the +street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly +jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which +was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his +back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of +triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him +a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train +roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it +was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the +prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely +lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope.</p> + +<p>"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?"</p> + +<p>The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still +breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint +as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with +a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose, +and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated +to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe +had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared space before the +court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails." +Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?"</p> + +<p>This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for +time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and +the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back +again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of +his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.—Mr. Gumama +regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with God?"</p> + +<p>He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon +his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the +Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama +pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal.</p> + +<p>"Wait yet a little!"</p> + +<p>It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly +studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing."</p> + +<p>The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly +replied, "Ask, then!"</p> + +<p>"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do +to remain awake?"</p> + +<p>The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much! +The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes +of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with +their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan with a gesture like a blow.</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak, +who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was +invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine." +He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring +evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might +befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough +street. So I suppose—what else?—that those two are to attempt the Duel +by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving +him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his +token—that bracelet will do—to the capo in testa?"</p> + +<p>"It is the plan."</p> + +<p>"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir—pardon!—you do not—in your +greatness you do not—reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, +another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is."</p> + +<p>His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence +and admission reluctantly broke forth.</p> + +<p>"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence +that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us +and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's +brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees—the +policemen of the Americans! Ay di me—listen, my dears! Does not this +cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in +the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's +tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the +traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell +us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little +Nancia—Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW"</h3> + + +<p>The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their +hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the +world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any +meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his +close stare.</p> + +<p>But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, +resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is +a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her +American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his +betrothed—it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night +with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There +they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very +well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis +in Brazil."</p> + +<p>"I do not—pardon!—I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for +us?"</p> + +<p>"In Brazil? If she were a danger even there would not the Signora Alieni +have destroyed that danger?"</p> + +<p>"The Signora Alieni has never done such work—she has no practice. +Moreover, be sure she fears what Nicola feared in the beginning—the +curse of his mother!"</p> + +<p>A voice remarked, "His mother is ugly and old. If she should die she +could not curse."</p> + +<p>"True. But we are busy."</p> + +<p>Beppo began to exclaim, "It is too bad! Time after time have I asked for +her! I, too, love her and could be happy. And I need them like her every +day! Why should she be sent to Brazil? I never have anything!" He +stamped with rage and his nose began to bleed again.</p> + +<p>Other young ricondeterros, complaining of the dearth of blondes, began +to protest against Brazil. The Parmesan looked at Mr. Gumama with a +smile. "Is she not a firebrand, eh? She who is so sought by the police, +is it to the police she shall tell her story?"</p> + +<p>Brushing the Parmesan aside the capo insisted, "She is not of our +nation. It is against the custom. It is a greater danger than she is. +Even if she should meet, so far away, with men of the Americans, what +does she know?"</p> + +<p>The Parmesan, now visibly measuring strength with Mr. Gumama, responded +merely, "What is it, Beppo?"</p> + +<p>Beppo, past the handkerchief he ostentatiously held to his nose, cried +out, "She knows everything!" As this won him the center of the stage he +proceeded in a series of sniffling shrieks, "I will tell you! I am the +cousin of Nicola. I am the friend of their house. I play much with Maria +but I watch and listen. Attention! She knows all, all, all! She seemed +at first wrapped in the love of the basista. They slept side by side. +She made a promise to ask, of her own accord, for sleep; but then she is +ill and when she is well again she has some notion and she will +not—why? Because she wills to tell all she knows! She, too, has watched +and listened! She knows my name—and yours, Giuseppe Gumama! Under her +red hair she carries death for you, Antonelli! And for you—and you—and +you!"</p> + +<p>The meeting was on its feet, swaying with passion and fear and +gesticulating, with congenial resolution, "I demand the suppression—"</p> + +<p>"I, too!"</p> + +<p>"And I!"</p> + +<p>"And I!"</p> + +<p>"I demand the suppression of Mees Cornees!"</p> + +<p>The capo's authority was shaken in a paranza which was a paranza no +longer. Obedience was not what it had been in the Arm of Justice.</p> + +<p>"Hands of the Arm," Beppo adjured, "is she not now at our meeting-place? +Knows she not that? Did the basista conceal when Nicola was made a capo +in the Honorable Society? Knows she not that? Oh, friends of my blood, +can she not tell <i>that name</i>? By the body of Bacchus, I see her in my +dreams! There is a shower of gold about her! If she is not for me, do +not give her to the Rosellis—let her sleep!"</p> + +<p>The meeting echoed, in one soft whisper of satisfaction, "Let her +sleep!"</p> + +<p>"S-s-ssh!" said Mr. Gumama.</p> + +<p>He said it instinctively, glancing toward the scuttle. But he realized +that the precedent of dealing solely with his own nation must now be set +aside; he heard the people's voice. Alas, he had also to baulk it of its +Duel by Wine.</p> + +<p>"Let it be so. Firenzi, you will suppress the traitor and deliver him to +the wharf. Choose two apprentices to help you with the barrel. Pachotto, +you will take Beppo and the brother of Antonelli's wife and proceed to +our old meeting-place. When you have suppressed the girl Cornees bring +back her token."</p> + +<p>"Sir," the Parmesan again coolingly corrected, "Nicola has still with +him some of his men and the Rosellis. There is but one man who, without +suspicion, can reach past these to the little Cornees.—Alieni o' +n'infama," he pleasantly repeated, "would you do this to remain awake?"</p> + +<p>The prisoner felt himself quiver as though he had been struck. He could +not control the hope which was almost a sickness that rose in him at +these words. He heard the popular cry surge up against him, hissing and +protesting; Firenzi and Pachotto were the most horribly excited for he +and they were the only persons in the room not having a good time. His +quick glances, furtive and secret, ran questing among the lips that +condemned him; when he lifted them to his questioner the sharp intake of +his breath promised his soul away. But Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan and told him that he forgot himself.</p> + +<p>"Ah, sir, in private a word. Alieni, does he speak English?" He broke +his beautiful Italian into a strange sound. "Spik Inglese, Alieni?"</p> + +<p>The prisoner, trembling to oblige, responded in the same dialect, +"Unstan' Inglese!"</p> + +<p>It did not oblige—the Parmesan frowned. "Unstan' Inglese verra goood?" +He coaxed, winningly, hoping for a denial.</p> + +<p>Now the prisoner, though he understood English perfectly, was no fool +and could see a possible weapon when it was put into his hand. "I +deplore!" said he, shrugging sadly. "Heartseek! Unstan' notta mooch!" +And he tried not to vibrate with greed of what they should say.</p> + +<p>"Va bene! Spik Inglese, us! Spik low! Oh, Gumama, let heem put da girl +to slip—heem! Let heem tak' for token—Whatta she wear?" he asked +Beppo.</p> + +<p>Beppo considered and then pointed to the gold bracelet under the old +Sicilian cuff. "But silvere!" He lapsed into Italian. The girl had had +three silver trinkets—a ring, a locket, a bracelet. Nicola had taken +the locket, the ring she had lost. "It ees time she loosa da t'ird!" +grinned the Parmesan. "Ssh! He ees leesten!" Their voices sank to a +whisper. Inordinately acute though his senses always were the prisoner +could no longer understand a syllable.</p> + +<p>"I go weeth Beppo an' Chigi. Let heem settle da girl an' tak' her +token. Den <i>we</i> settle heem an' tak' botta tokens! Tak' dem to capo in +testa for show extrra gooda faith in nama da Arma of Zhoostees. Den +Honorrahble Soceeata embrass us! We done gooda!" He inhaled with languid +elegance and returned to the world a ring of cigarette smoke.</p> + +<p>Still the prisoner could not catch a word. The decision hung fire. The +protesting roar surged louder and louder and the cries of Pachotto and +Firenzi became tiger cries. Mr. Gumama suddenly called to order. He had +found a way to satisfy the Parmesan and yet to maintain his supremacy.</p> + +<p>"This meeting promised Firenzi and Pachotto a chance of mercy and a +chance of service. This meeting keeps its word. The chance is to be now. +But for Alieni, also. Do not rebel. They were to enter on the Duel by +Wine. But for the Duel by Wine the basista Alieni has sent us three +cups. Why should not the prisoner Alieni play at the game of his wife?"</p> + +<p>He had turned the tide. Their craving for games of chance, always +temporarily stronger than fear, anger or duty, flared into high fire. +Again was Mr. Gumama the popular man. Even on the prisoner smiles were +lavished. And still for some crevice of safety, as if in every muscle of +their faces, his eyes sought.</p> + +<p>The meeting got happily to work, like a good child. It brought forth a +dice-box and dice, a bottle of wine and, wrapped in a colored +handkerchief, two triangular knives. In that musical neighborhood +another hand-organ had long since followed the first; "The Wearing of +the Green," which had made melodious the Parmesan's battle, now gave way +to the Tales of Hoffman and the Barcarolle, a rhythm that swayed in +every busy motion and humming tongue as the prisoner watched the table +cleared and the painted jugs set forth. Mrs. Pascoe was called up to +fetch a lantern; as she withdrew all three prisoners were faced toward +the wall; Mr. Gumama took a twist of paper from his pocket, shielded it +from view, and dropped a tablet from it into each of two jugs. Then he +filled them all with wine. The prisoners were turned round again. +"Alieni o' n'infama," called the Parmesan, blithely, "you are very much +afraid!"</p> + +<p>He knew it and sank his head on his breast.</p> + +<p>"Cowards play well. They grow brave from fear. You will be desperate."</p> + +<p>The young fellow shuddered. But he tried to keep his head clear.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, traditore! It is true our haste but sentenced you to the +knife and the knife is quick. But do you not choose to risk a few drops +and die wriggling—when, if you are lucky, you may live? When you have +but to strike, afterwards, a little soft blow to make your peace!" The +Parmesan, snatching up a triangular knife and, despite the remonstrances +of Mr. Gumama, one of the jugs, thrust them jocularly under the +prisoner's nose.</p> + +<p>The tormented fellow, with an uncontrollable gasp that spilled the wine, +bent and kissed the jug. A burst of childish applause approved his +enthusiasm. A dank moisture of relief broke out upon him. At least they +saw that he was resolved and would not fear to let him try. What was +coming?</p> + +<p>The meeting had formed into a circle as for a cock fight. He, Firenzi +and Pachotto and the table with the dice and wine were in the center. +The silent circle devoured him with applauding, encouraging glances. He +was horribly aware of the two other men, larger, heavier, perhaps +therefore luckier—the bigger the build, he had thought before, the +greater the luck!—They were all too still! What were they going to make +him do now?</p> + +<p>Mr. Gumama himself took down a strap from the wall and tested its +strength.</p> + +<p>"Firenzi, then you, Pachotto, then you, Alieni, you will appeal to the +dice. He who throws highest will have first choice of the jugs. Of the +three who drink, one will live. It will take some time to settle this. +The meeting will disperse, but a committee will return. The man whom +they find alive will go with Beppo and Chigi and you, Pepe, to our +meeting-place and put to sleep that girl. Those not surviving will be +signed with our sign—but only one thrust for each paranza of this +district.—Filippi Alieni, what is the matter with you? You show no +feeling at what I say!"</p> + +<p>For all his brilliant, questioning eyes, it was true he looked extremely +blank; his expression too often merely followed theirs with an opposite. +"Well, there must always be a first time. It is true, Alieni, is it not +so, that you have never suppressed a life?"</p> + +<p>There are bitternesses which fear cannot quench. Having no free hand to +beat his breast he turned his head with restless passion from side to +side and in a high, shrill, wild desolation, a Latin sweetness of +hysteria roughened by his grinding laugh, he cried aloud, "Mea culpa, +mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!"</p> + +<p>"There is no need for irreverence!" exclaimed Mr. Gumama, scandalized. +"That is all. Loose their bonds."</p> + +<p>Firenzi and Pachotto ran to examine the jugs, voting simultaneously for +the immunity of the golden scales—what others? So that the first choice +would be all important. But the third prisoner had given his last flash. +He dropped his shivering face and hid it in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Sit!"</p> + +<p>They dropped beside the table.</p> + +<p>"Swear obedience to the decree of Fate!"</p> + +<p>All three laid a hand on the crossed triangular knives. Mr. Gumama +purposed the oath. "Filippi Alieni, your lips shake so that you do not +repeat distinctly. Say, I swear!"</p> + +<p>"I swear!"</p> + +<p>"Rise!"</p> + +<p>"Firenzi, make your appeal."</p> + +<p>Firenzi started forward on a rush. But after a step or two he halted, +glared about him as if just waking up, and then went forward, sagging +like a drunkard. Arrived at the table he crossed himself, shook the +dice, and, whimpering, fell on his knees. His shaking hand crawled along +the table, groping for the dice-box and lifted it. The crowd, straining +in upon him, buzzed. For the number was moderate. He had thrown a three +and a two. And kneeled there, blubbering. The courage of the Honorable +Society does not remain fast in all washes.</p> + +<p>"Pachotto, make the appeal."</p> + +<p>He, too, started with bravado; he was perhaps half way across when they +had to catch and drag him forward. He threw wild and they had to support +his wrist. Even so one die fell underneath the edge of the saucer in +which the box had stood. That in view was another two-spot. If, however, +that under the saucer were even a four he was ahead in the throw. They +moved the saucer—the die was a five. Pachotto leaped in the air with +triumph—Firenzi, yellow and cursing, tried to fold his arms. Frightful +sounds issued from his throat, upon which the cords stood out.</p> + +<p>"Alieni, you will make the appeal."</p> + +<p>He who had been a gentleman drew himself together and came slowly +forward. He was now the darling of the crowd. But he did not guess that; +he came of a superstitious tribe and to him, too, it seemed important to +win from the start. His soul trembled, but steadily and softly he stole +to the table. Now he was arrived, looking down, one concentrated +apprehension, on his fate. Lifting the dice-box he once more threw out +his bright suspicious glance into the crowding faces. "Whatever gods +there be!"—he threw the dice. Over these he bent with a sort of sweep +and then, uttering a sharp hiss, sprang up like a jack-knife. The crowd +swayed, yelped and shivered with amusement into a triumphing crow. He +had thrown two sixes. Pachotto uttered a piercing yell and fell on his +stomach in a dead faint.</p> + +<p>"Filippi Alieni, of the jugs you have the first choice."</p> + +<p>He stood as if nothing had happened. He had suddenly realized that his +situation was really more terrible than ever. Watching, watching, he +could descry no help. None of those alert, elated faces had a hint in +it, not a congratulating hand pointed toward the fateful jug. He +moistened his lips and looked mechanically at the dice which had thrown +him this choice. But the dice, too, were dumb. Then, at last, he looked +at the jugs.</p> + +<p>There was the red design, the white and the green. His hand crept up and +touched the chord at his throat. Scarlet was her favorite! But did she +know? White—there was no luck in white. Green, the color of hope! Of +resurrection! Yes, but to be resurrected one must first die! Red, again, +was blood-color—but there was blood at every turn! Whose blood did this +stand for—whose? Ah, yes, the scales—the scales were different! Gold, +silver, and gray! The scales were very little, so it was they that held +the secret! Silver, gray and gold! Why gray? Silver—hadn't he heard +them whispering about silver? Why, there were some words—He dropped to +the ground with the jug, leaning on the table and pressing the scrolled +legend to the lantern.—Silver pays! Pays whom? Pays what? Oh, God, to +understand! What was the other—gold? He was panting—his breath smeared +the glass of the lantern. It was dry and cut his lips like grass-blades! +Yet he reeked with cold sweat, it was running into his mouth! He wiped +the glass clear with one cuff. Steady! Take care! Can't you read, you +fool! Gold buys. Oh, heaven, what would it buy here? Life—freedom—what +else would anybody buy? What was the sense of it, if it meant anything +else? But it might be a lie! "She's a natcherul-born devil." It was a +lie she would delight in! One chance! One! Everything on it—everything! +Never to leave here—to die here—here, where no one would ever know! +Without doing what he had secretly meant to do, without ever having +lifted a hand—to die in torment, squirming on the floor like a rat with +torn bowels—There was one other jug. Gray—what a color! +Ghost-color—was that what she meant? Lead slays! But, once more, slays +whom? Lead slays—lead—lead—Lead!</p> + +<p>A change passed over him. He became very still. Then, shaking with +suppressed eagerness, he got slowly to his feet. He put his dense hair +back from his eyes. And those eyes, hypnotized by the little jug with +its gray scales, never left it; drinking it up before he could raise it +to his lips. His mouth gaped for it with hanging jaw. He raised it in +hands that gradually steadied and then over its brim, he gave the faces +that fawned in upon him, breathless, one last look.—"He has chosen!"</p> + +<p>They might be less than human, but he and they were still living +creatures; and, in ten minutes, what would he be? Beyond them were dusky +walls, built by human hands, chairs, a bureau, lithographs, all the warm +furnishings of life; windows into the world, into the swarming, +chattering streets where the lamps began to glow, while from round the +corner came the clang of trolley-cars; whistles, calls, footsteps, were +in his ears, laughter above the crash of wheels,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Give my regards to Broadway—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That was the hand-organ, tired of opera and getting down to business;</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Remember me to Herald Square—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It filled the whole room! A lighted train swept by; he could see the +faces of people reading evening papers, people who complained at +hanging on to straps! The roar of it was familiar and dear as a beloved +voice at home but it passed and left him quite alone.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Tell all the boys on Forty-second Street<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I will soon be there!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—"Choose, Alieni, choose! Drink! Drink!"</p> + +<p>Everything passed from his eyes. He was blind as before he was born. +Then his mouth was in the wine; he drank it to the last drop; the jug, +with a clatter that he heard perfectly but no longer understood, rolled +at his feet. "É fatto!" said he, in a low, clear voice. "É fatto—it is +done!" And his face dropped into his hands.</p> + +<p>The meeting came about him but he did not know it. Around one wrist a +strap was buckled and the strap's other end nailed to the table so that +the death-agonies might not wander too far. A like precaution was taken +with the other men when they had drunk. He did not notice it. He looked +at the floor. Firenzi, upon whom chance had forced the silver scales, +gave a horrible sound of retching and slid from his stool, the strap +holding his arm. A quiver passed through the body of the first drinker, +but he would not look. The meeting picked up its lantern and +trooped—rather reluctantly but leaving the hatch open—chattering down +the steps. The hands of the Arm dismissed Mrs. Pascoe, fetched some more +wine, cut some tobacco and sat down to the business of making bets while +they waited. He did not miss them.</p> + +<p>He, too, waited.</p> + +<p>Twenty minutes later, in the darkness, the loft was quite still. Two +bodies, horribly contorted, lay straining on their straps. The rigor of +death was already settling upon those convulsive heaps. The faint +squares of the windows made a kind of glimmer by which it was possible +to discern a pale face, a slight figure; this leaned against the table, +which it clutched with hands of steel. He who had trusted to the leaden +scales had trusted well.</p> + +<p>In that darkness, in that silence, through that horror of squalid death +which had not been silent, he had shed the rags of his hysteria and had +caught again the concentration, the keenness, the readiness of that +moment when Mrs. Pascoe had called on him to be a man. But what did he +see in those empty shadows, and for what did he nerve himself? The +figure there at the table was desperate, but it was very slight, and at +the end of no road—valor nor cowardice nor vengeance—could he see +escape. They were all blocked, those roads, the program too close built +and every knot too tightly tied. Whatever he might wish, there was but +one thing he could do. A knife was to be put into his hand and he had no +choice except to strike. After all that had passed it was perhaps even +with eagerness that silently, alone among those shadows, he embraced his +fate.</p> + +<p>A stir began to rise from below; the men down in the garage were coming +to pack the barrel. He heard the mounting footstep of his guard, ready +to convey him to the secret meeting-place of the Arm of Justice; along +that road where it should deal with him, when he had dealt with Nancy +Cornish.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>ONE WITNESS SPEAKS</h3> + + +<p>It was fully dark under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. A strong +smell of rancid wicks disturbed nobody and in the charged, suspensive +air the cheap lamps burned with a still flame. This may in part have +been due to Herrick's tensely strung imagination, which Christina's +message of the night before still mercilessly played upon. From that +source no drop of further information had fallen through Tantalus on to +the parched tongue of Herrick's nor of Wheeler's nor of the Law's +desire.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Herrick had seen Stanley off from the station where not +six weeks ago they had met as strangers. And so little was Fate's veil +lifted for him, even now, that he had no forewarning of when next, nor +why, he should be there again!—Stanley had, however, told him Ten +Euyck's latest news—how it was to the table d'hôte the Italians had +conveyed their liberated prisoner from the Tombs!</p> + +<p>The boy looked at his friend a little suspiciously even while he +repeated Ten Euyck's chagrin: "That's a hideously shameful thing to +happen to me! It's the annoyance of a blind, stupid, brutal +reproof—when I've worked so hard and suffered so much! Here, in my own +district—Under my own hand—!" There are no unalloyed elations in this +world! Nor did there seem any doubt in Ten Euyck's mind that this was +the long-sought-for secret place, where they should find a +printing-press. But he forebore to raid it until evening, when all +possible birds should have returned to the nest, and contented himself +with the sending of his disguised operatives peacefully to fetch from it +Will Denny, before whose coming Stanley had fled the police station. +That young gentleman had also gathered from Wheeler's thunderstorm of +oaths that Christina's manager considered himself under surveillance. +And this had made Herrick wonder if the same were not true of himself.</p> + +<p>On account of his momentarily expected cablegram it was a crushing +suspicion. He spent an afternoon of aloof and goaded wandering, and at +last, shielded as he hoped by the darkness and by the company of a whole +group of entering diners, yielded to the temptation of the table d'hôte. +He could not doubt it was encompassed by spies; he could not but attend +the seizure, the crisis, the outcome. Here, more than anywhere, were the +lines converging; here, for to-night, was the center of the web. He said +to himself, then, in his ignorance, that nothing mortal should induce +him to forsake it.</p> + +<p>Under the sail-cloth there was no longer any room; but, within doors, +save for a couple of men at a distant table, Herrick was quite alone. +There was no change in the deportment of the place, no disturbance. The +Italian proprietress, in her comings and goings, found time to reply +that the old lady was still in the country but her prototype, the little +gray parrot, which he had not seen for a long time, was climbing in and +out of its cage and the angelic children still snuffled about the floor. +It was on these innocents that Herrick began as usual to practise his +Italian when the proprietress had gone affably to see about his order, +but if he thought one of them would lightly drop Christina's address +he was mistaken. Smother-y as the place was, with that same looming +sultriness of a week ago, agitated in its daily business, its pulse did +not beat so hard as his, its imagination did not quiver, like the +figures of a cinematograph, reviewing the movements of a motor-car that +until yesterday had sped through mire and dust and blood, through +sunrise and midnight, past the spread, astonished wings of the marble +Hoover lions, past the smoking-ruins of a post-office, past Riley's +where the shadow danced, after a will o' the wisp. There was no +suggestion, here, which could lift that phantom light; the customers +ordered, the little fat boy, next in age to Maria Rosa, leaned +familiarly against his knee, the parrot continued to clamber over its +cage, talking steadily, rapidly and monotonously to itself, and then +Herrick said in surprise,</p> + +<p>"Why, the bird's speaking English!"</p> + +<p>The parrot looked at him coldly, disinterred something which it had +buried in its food-cup, gnawed on the treasure, and dropped it. The +little fat boy picked it up and smiled at Herrick. Herrick said, "Let's +see!" It was a silver ring, holding a bluish-green Egyptian scarab.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Herrick that he had heard of such a ring before, and he +tried to remember where. One of the men at the further table left and +the other was buried in a foreign newspaper. Herrick got up and went +over to the desk. That was English the bird was speaking. "No, no, no, +no! I don't believe it. I don't beli—"</p> + +<p>"Polly," said Herrick, "what are you talking about? And what do I know +about this ring?"</p> + +<p>The bird burst into a shriek of the ungodly laughter of its kind, pecked +the ring out of his hand, backed away with it, dropped it again; and +then, out of a perfect stillness, with its little eyes fixed on his face +it replied—</p> + +<p>"Ask Nancy Cornish!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW +ME!"</h3> + + +<p>Oh, yes, the Italian proprietress cheerfully informed him, the parrot +had been in the country with Maria Rosa and her great-aunt. Truly, the +great-aunt was fond of the country, she was still there. When was he +going to see Maria Rosa again? Oh, there, alas!—Maria Rosa had gone +with her father to the moving-picture show—</p> + +<p>He could get no further and he feared to excite conjecture. He might +waylay the little girl as she returned, but not too near the watched +house—nor was the idea of the father encouraging. Nevertheless, he +betook himself outside, turning toward Third Avenue where the +picture-shows flourished. About two blocks down the street he took +refuge in the hole of a tobacconist, whose door stood open into the warm +dusk. On the farther corner the bright blue interior of a delicatessen +that was also a fruit stand blazed hot with gas and, in exchange for a +bottle of oil, a child passed a coin over the counter. The gas gleamed +on the child's face and Herrick crossed the street. Here was Maria Rosa +and here the moving-picture show which she attended!</p> + +<p>He stopped on the outside for some nuts and affected surprise when Maria +appeared. She accepted various delicacies and was freely chatty about +her country visit. Oh, she had been in a beautiful place; grass, trees, +flowers—nothing of its whereabouts could be ascertained. Great-auntie +had lived there with old auntie—old auntie was her mama—when she was +a little girl no bigger than Maria Rosa! But they had gone often to a +grand big place where Cousin Nick's office used to be in the basement. +But the morning after they brought the sick lady the things for the +office were all gone! Ah, the grand big place had made the greater +impression, but ignorance had evidently been carefully preserved. +Herrick tried the words "Waybridge" and "Benning's Point" to no avail. +With "river" he was more successful. Did you go there by the boat? +Apparently not. Finally it came out that you went there by the walk past +old auntie's house. And what pretty thing had she ever noticed about old +auntie's house? Eh? Come, now? What did she like best?</p> + +<p>"The marble kitties with wings."</p> + +<p>The marble—</p> + +<p>A child had dropped an address, after all!</p> + +<p>Herrick, reaching into his pocket for a time table, had discovered a +train for Benning's Point at eight-fifteen when, hearing his name he +turned; beyond the now hurrying figure of Maria Rosa Joe Patrick was +advancing toward him.</p> + +<p>The boy came up hastily, extending an envelope addressed to Herrick in +Mrs. Deutch's hand. As he took it he saw that Joe was brimming with some +communication. "I saw you from down street. She sent for me an' says to +bring you this. I was lookin' for you when I met Mr. Ten Euyck and he +said the place to find you was around here."</p> + +<p>"Touché!" Herrick said to himself. Even at that moment he vouchsafed an +admiring smile to Ten Euyck's able conveying of a taunt.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joe."</p> + +<p>"I got to get right back in time for the theayter. But I'd like to speak +to you a minute."</p> + +<p>"Walk back toward the Square with me."</p> + +<p>"It's something I been worried about telling for days an' now I'm goin' +to. I mean—Mr. Herrick, I wouldn't tell it to anybody but a friend o' +hers! But I make out that it's right to tell it to you.—You remember +that night out to Riley's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"An' the shadder the chaufers seen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I was there. My cousin Sweeney sent for me, an' my uncle an' me come +out together. As we come into the yard—that toon—you know! There was +the shadder—I seen it, too! And another man seen it an' skipped up the +steps an' went inside. Me after him! An' before he'd got in, hardly, out +he bounced with a lady. That lady wasn't no Mrs. Riley, Mr. Herrick. It +was—<i>her</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You've seen the moving-picture?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"And this gesture was the same?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"So that you thought you saw Miss Hope's shadow?"</p> + +<p>"I know I did, sir."</p> + +<p>"Wait. This gentleman, had you ever seen him before?"</p> + +<p>"No, I never laid eyes on him."</p> + +<p>"He went right into the room?"</p> + +<p>"Popped right in as if he lived there!"</p> + +<p>"And came out with Miss Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"How was she dressed?"</p> + +<p>"She had on a long coat an' a fussed up hat o' Mrs. Riley's."</p> + +<p>"And no one else saw them?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. They run down the back-stairs as everybody come up the +front."</p> + +<p>"She was willing to go with him, then? He wasn't forcing her?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you bet he wasn't! She was hangin' right on to him!"</p> + +<p>"What was your idea of the whole business?"</p> + +<p>"I thought mebbe she done it for a signal to him when to come in."</p> + +<p>"Now, Joe, don't you believe that—it being, as you say, done so +quick—and you having just seen this shadow which you had taken for Miss +Hope's, you might have imagined it was she who came out with this man?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Herrick. I was at the door when they come out. I saw her face +clear. I didn't make no mistake this time."</p> + +<p>"And you didn't follow?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. Because—because—Oh, Mr. Herrick, she seen me as plain as I +see you an' she smiled at me!"</p> + +<p>Herrick paused with a threatening cry. "Why didn't you speak to her, +then? Why didn't you tell—"</p> + +<p>"Because, Mr. Herrick, when she opened her eyes wide and smiled at me, +that way, she put her finger to her lips! Oh, Mr. Herrick, I ain't ever +told a soul but you!"</p> + +<p>She put her finger to her lips! Secret she had ever been, and there was +another way in which Christina had never failed. She had never failed, +in any stress of change or chance, to seize the measure of a devotion +and use it to its hilt.</p> + +<p>She smiled and put her finger to her lips! She pleased herself, then! +She was free! She came and went at her own pleasure! Secretly, with +companions of her choice! While he, in the room below—That night, too! +That night of the road and the fields, of Denny and the yellow house!</p> + +<p>Bitterness mastered him. An indifference like the indifference of sleep +somehow wearied him to the bone. After Joe's departure, when he stopped +under a street-lamp to open Mrs. Deutch's letter, he scarcely cared what +it contained.</p> + +<p>"—When you were not at home he sent this to me. Think you for yourself +the meaning for it. What in myself I believed and prayed, that +afternoon, now in person have I ascertained. Christina was born in this +city of New York; she was baptized in the same month in the Church of +the Holy Service, April 17, 1892."</p> + +<p>He unfolded Gabrielli's cablegram:</p> + +<p>Girl you inquire of victimized family named Hope, in America. They lived +at Naples 1886. Record daughter born to Hopes, Allegra, not Christina, +1886. Died 1889.</p> + +<p>The Hopes had had a child, that died three years before Christina was +born! What was the meaning in the case of this dead baby? And if +Christina was Mrs. Pascoe's child, what had the death of Allegra Hope to +do with her? How could she have passed herself off on the Hopes for a +dead child six years older than herself? He knew that somewhere in his +aching brain the answer quivered to spring forth, when—at about the +time when the Italians started with their prisoner from the garage—an +open taxi hesitated at the corner nearest to the table d'hôte and then +spun on without stopping. As it passed under the lamp Herrick was just +leaving, a veiled lady rose in it to her tall height and pulled on a +long, light coat. And all the pulses in his body stopped as though they +had been stricken dead. For his eyes had recognized Christina.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>HERSELF</h3> + + +<p>There was no other cab in sight. But fortunately a 'bus was just +starting, and bye and bye he plunged from that into a taxi. All the way +up Fifth Avenue he continued to keep his quarry well in sight; flashing +in and out beneath the lamps, the beautiful tall figure sitting lightly +erect and neither shunning nor avoiding the public gaze. At first he +thought she had come back to be well in time for to-morrow night, but at +Forty-second Street she turned toward the depot. She was making for the +same train as himself.</p> + +<p>A policeman, who should have died before he ever was born, let her cab +through the block and held up Herrick's. He saw with horror that it was +possible he should miss the train. Then, with a thrill of hope, that +they would probably both miss it. When he got to the depot there was no +sign of her. He tore like a madman across the vast stretches and up and +down the flights of stairs by which modern travel is precipitated and +came to the gate. She was inside, just stepping on the last car of the +train. Officials were shouting at her, enraged, because the train had +begun to creep.</p> + +<p>"Tickets, tickets!" said the man at the gate. He was resolute, and +Herrick had to pick him up and lift him to one side. It took an instant, +and now the train was under way. But Herrick, as a free-born male +unhampered even by a suit-case, was privileged to risk his neck, and he +flew down the platform and gathered himself to leap upon the car. His +hand was outstretched for the railing but it never reached it. A single +zealous employee plunged at him, roaring. The sound halted his quarry in +the doorway, and when she saw him she stepped back on to the platform of +the car, bending toward him with a look of eager amusement, and throwing +back her veil. And Herrick lost his chance to jump.</p> + +<p>For her face, framed in soft flames of red, of golden fire, was the face +of a stranger. It was extremely lovely, but for one curious defect. She +had a blue eye and a brown.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOK FOURTH</h2> + +<h3>THE LIGHTED HOUSE</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE HOSTESS PREPARING</h3> + + +<p>Herrick lay in the long grass of the wooded lot, against the wall of the +Hoover place. Already the night was velvet-black, and hot and +thunder-scented as in summer. A million vibrations that were scarcely +sound stirred with the myriad lives of leaf and blade in the dense +silence. And his expectancy vibrated too, reaching for the end of a long +chase. His slower train had followed on the very heels of that malign +and radiant red-haired changeling, whose mysterious brew he was at last +to taste for himself. Not this time in a little yellow cottage beside an +open road, but in that great house, walled and guarded, deep and still +in its own woodland, between the stone lions with their lifted wings and +the mighty current of the tidal river! What he should do when he got +there could be decided only by what he found. He had his revolver, and +he scarcely knew whether to pray that he might, or that he might not, +have need for it.</p> + +<p>He remembered, tumbling over the wall from the inside, cascades of ivy, +which he now hoped might give him a hand up the rough stone. But they +tore away, one after the other, and sagged in his hold. He went on down +the field, scouting in the darkness for some friendly tree; when he +found one at last it was not so near the wall as he could have desired, +and the first branch that seemed likely to bear him for any distance he +judged to be about twenty feet above the ground. He crawled along this +till its circumference seemed so slight he dared not trust another inch +and peered into the pit. There was no way to make sure that the wall +was there but to let go; he lowered himself the whole six feet of his +length; let go; landed on the coping; by a miracle of balance maintained +his equilibrium; and then, dropping cautiously to his knees, flattened +himself along the edge. When you have dropped on to a wall which might +or might not be there, it is nothing at all to drop on to the earth, +which can not escape. He stood up, at last, within the Hoover grounds.</p> + +<p>All was perfectly silent; the noise of his descent, which had seemed to +crash like an earthquake, in reality had not waked a bird. He had now to +make his way to the house through about a mile of perfect blackness; as +a good beginning, he ran into a tree, and this rebuke of nature's seemed +to put him in his place, and tell him to walk here like a spy, not like +a combatant. He went on, but now with infinite caution.</p> + +<p>This part of the ground was as little tended as a wild wood; then +presently he came forth upon an old-fashioned garden, run wild, but +still sending out sweet smells beneath his trampling feet; beds of white +gillyflowers and fever-few and white banks of that odorous star-shaped +bloom which opens to the night made a kind of paleness in the dark which +perhaps he rather breathed and guessed than saw. It was an approach for +a Romeo, and seemed to cast a kind of dream over his desperate and grimy +business. He sped on to another little grove upon a rise of ground and +coming to the top of the slope saw, far ahead of him through the trees, +the shining of bright lights.</p> + +<p>He could scarcely believe his eyes, for surely they would never dare to +light the house. And then again he remembered how far and lonely that +house stood, a mile and a half in from the road, and save through the +lodge or from the river how hard to come at! If this was really their +haunt it must have been so a long time; they must have grown used to +it, like their own house. All the more chance, then, for his spying! +Expectancy sprang higher. He kept on down the slope, this time at +something of a reckless pace, and, at the bottom, plumped full into a +pond.</p> + +<p>The shock was horrid and without even the dignity of danger. He could +easily have scrambled back but that, as he re-opened his eyes, he found +himself gazing at a lantern, held up from across the pond. At that +moment three shots flew past him, aimed at the bank he had so +involuntarily and violently quitted. It seemed well to remain +inconspicuous as might be; the bullets began to skip close to him, and, +experimentally sinking, he found a fair depth and struck out under water +for the opposite shore.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the pond his hands touched a solid and terrifying +obstruction. Heavens, what was this? Through what snares did he clumsily +struggle to make his way? And in what nightmare? Involuntarily he came +to the surface and found himself confronted by a high, overhanging +shape, bulking featureless in the darkness and chilling him with a sort +of superstitious despair. The more so that he seemed to be grasping +something shaped like a foot; his hand climbed a vast, cold leg and the +next moment he could have laughed aloud. He remembered, now, from his +daylight forays, an ornamental wilderness of rocks and ferns, across +which he had once glimpsed a stone lady; seated, and bending forward +with a vase extended in her hand. The pond had been hidden by that +wilderness; the vase had once been a playing fountain, and the lady +herself sat on a rock in the middle of the waters. It was against this +rock his hand had struck and it was her ankles which he thus ungallantly +grasped. He hung to them a moment, resting in her shadow, and then with +infinite precautions began to pull himself up those smooth, cold knees. +She was very large and dense, a bulwark between him and the spitting +bullets; he felt her rocky island beneath his feet, and gave himself, +even with ardor, to her embraces.</p> + +<p>The light upon the shore split in two and one-half of it began to skirt +the pond at a brisk pace. He clambered across the stone lady's lap and +crouched, kneeling, in the shadow of her arm. Thus sheltered, his first +thought was for the priming of his revolver. It was soaked through! He +could have cried out like a child! But already his breathing space was +past.</p> + +<p>The runner with the lantern had reached the spot where Herrick had +plunged in and the surface of the pond was now raked with rays of light, +crossing each other and striking perilously near his refuge so that they +sought out at once the breast and the bent back of the stone lady. +Herrick, as he blotted himself down the rock, observed that on the +further side the pond was edged by a coping of rough stones rising, +perhaps, two feet above the water and irregularly surmounted by small +boulders—the beginning of the ornamental wilderness. He came up close +against the wall; his fingers wedging themselves in a crack between the +stones, and his head, shadowed by a boulder, half above the water. Thus, +as he could hear and was not likely to be seen, he had every advantage +of that dangerous neighborhood. And also time for a somewhat chill +reflection. Suppose the life were not knocked out of him in the next +five minutes, what use was there in going on with a useless pistol? It +seemed even the outer grounds were being patroled or perhaps +searched—he remembered the light shining from the house—it came in +upon him that something unusual was going on, and that he might +presently succeed in being either the victim or the witness of a climax. +That thought was enough; his blood committed him beyond denial; and when +the searchers, without having dropped a single significant remark, began +scouting their own fears, and, accepting the surrounding silence as +empty of intruders, turned back through the artificial wilderness toward +the center of the estate, Herrick pulled himself out of the water and, +sometimes on his hands and knees, sometimes upon his stomach, followed +among the rocks.</p> + +<p>The group with the lantern came out upon the carriage-way and paused. A +horse and two-seated wagon awaited them, the horse's head turned toward +the house; in the wagon sat Herrick's old friend, Mrs. Pascoe and the +little old, old couple from the lodge. As the other men tumbled in the +old lodge-keeper lifted up his voice: "I ain't slep' out o' the lodge, +nor your ma ain't, either, in forty years!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll have to to-night, pa," said Mrs. Pascoe. "An' there ain't +any time to talk about it, either." She added, "You an' ma can come back +when we're gone. Don't ferget M'ree's your great gran'niece by marriage. +Have her visit yeh again." They were off and through the shrubbery; +Herrick followed.</p> + +<p>But the carriage-way was clear of everything save errant weeds and at an +ordinary trot they very easily distanced him. After a while he ceased to +hear the wheels, but now again he could see the house shine among the +trees, and as he came closer still he listened for the sounds of their +arrival but heard nothing.</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary what a stillness had again fallen upon the night. +No sound covered his approach, and when he came at last in view of the +great entrance no wagon waited on the path nor did any voice challenge +him from the doorway.</p> + +<p>He stood among the trees and stared across the wide sweep of +carriage-way. He saw on either side depths of lawn, kept cut and roughly +trimmed, merging at last again into the darkness. The drive was bright +from the great glowing portico, and from the entrance doors set wide +into a stately hall; the hall was all in order as though for a +reception, with rugs and palms and candelabra, and to its left a vast +apartment like a ballroom flung from its long open windows, that crossed +the left front of the house and shone far along the side, spaces of +lamplight down the terraces. Save for one pane gleaming overhead, the +rest of the house stood dark, as if unoccupied. But in that still yet +quivering night, in that dense, black, vast but sultry silence, this +made a great illumination, and that wing of the old mansion seemed to +blaze like a palace in a wood; in the lack of sound or motion, it seemed +swept, opened and made ready by enchantment, and waiting for the +conqueror. It had indeed so great an air, so composed, so ordered, and +of such stately openness that it seemed to rebuke suspicion; surely law +and seemliness were on its side and not that of the dark, soiled, +muddied, creeping figure that skulked, staring, in the shrubbery like a +thief in the night; totally confounded, oppressed by every terror of the +house-breaker and yet with empty hands. But the bright house, which +should have threatened, invited him with every luster.</p> + +<p>He was a fool, if you wish, but at least he knew his foolhardiness to +the core. The wagon he had followed must have passed the house and gone +on toward the river, but this bright vacancy and quiet had not been +arranged for nothing. To go forward was most likely death; a death quite +futile and unremarked, and scarcely a breathing-stage in the wild story +whose blazed trail of ruin and murder he had already followed so far. +Well, he had followed too far to go back. He was too near the goal; he +was too near the turning of the page, and, as far as was mortally +possible, he must read it.</p> + +<p>The empty drive, the empty hall, the empty, shining windows drew him +like wires, and, dropping back across the border of the drive to a +far-lying depth of shadow, he crossed it like a ghost; taking advantage +of every unclipped shrub and moldering urn, began to mount the terraces.</p> + +<p>Thus at last he came to the long windows, and huddling at one side, +peered in. He saw a proud interior, brilliant and pale, with panels of +latticed glass, after the French fashion, and other panels frescoed with +Pierrots and Columbines and with great clusters of wax candles set +between the panels. There was a great chandelier with swinging prisms +reflected in the floor that was waxed like satin; but this chandelier +was not lighted, and indeed everything suggested that they had never +dared to use any electricity, for which they would have to work the +power-house on the estate. But the clustered candles and the many lamps +made the place afloat with liquid gold, and the room trembled and +bloomed with the scent and the beauty of hot-house flowers, so that the +air seemed to shimmer with their sweetness. There was little enough +furniture; a golden grand piano with Cupids painted on it; a few chairs +from which Herrick guessed the holland had but lately been removed; and +near the huge, rose-filled fireplace, a little table, gleaming with +silver and linen, with lilies and crystal and lace. It was set for two; +close at hand was a serving-table with silver covers showing on it, and, +for a practical and modern touch, a chafing-dish! There was no one in +the room.</p> + +<p>But the table was hint enough. Here was the center of these +preparations. Here two people were to meet, and Herrick thought he knew +the hostess. In the departing wagon-load, there had been no beautiful +tall figure with red hair. To this little private festivity Fate had led +him through the rough magic of his scramble in the night; she pointed at +the table with a very sure finger, and now all his vague expectancy was +centered in a single question, and his first necessity was to behold the +face of the red-haired woman's guest.</p> + +<p>Now at the first glance he had taken this room for a sort of music-room +which had been used, too, for informal dances. And sure enough, along +one wall, just as though put there to tempt him to the final madness, +ran a little gallery for the dance-music. It had a balustrade about it +and within this balustrade hung short yellow brocaded curtains, in a +sort of valance, that seemed to Herrick strangely fresh, as though hung +there yesterday. And he determined if it should be his last move on +earth to get behind those curtains.</p> + +<p>There was no staircase to the balcony from within the room. He crept to +the hall-door; the hall opened out square as a courtyard with doorways +and arches upon every side. At the rear the great staircase, after +perhaps a dozen steps, branched off to either hand, and on its left a +little gallery ran along the wall behind that very room and led to a +curtained niche. This would be the entrance to the musicians' balcony, +and there was nothing for it but that Herrick should traverse the hall +and mount the staircase. It was as if the house had turned to one great +eye; he thanked heaven for the rugs upon the marble and for the scanty +shelter of the palms; while with every step he took and every breath he +drew the house-breaker dreaded to hear another footstep in his rear or +to see an assailant rise before his eyes. But all remained vacant and +was as silent as the tomb. Running up those marble steps, he came at one +bound to the curtained niche, and, as he darted in between its hangings, +he had a strong inclination to laugh; for, if there were any one within, +it would be quaint to see whether he or they were the more startled! But +there was no one there. He had now his private box for the coming +entertainment. He dropped softly to the floor and, as he did so, some +one in the room below struck a match.</p> + +<p>It startled him like the crack of doom. He parted the little curtains of +the valance, and beheld himself so far right that there stood the +red-haired lady lighting the chafing-dish.</p> + +<p>Herrick was not more than about nine feet above the flooring of the +room, with the main door from the hall to his right hand and the +fireplace on his left, so that the little glittering table was before +him and to the left of him but a few feet. And there the red-haired +woman blew out the flame she had kindled, as if she had but meant to +test the wick. It was Herrick's first long clear look at her and he +looked hard. The resemblance to Christina lay only in a very striking +suggestion of the tall figure, a pose, a poise, an indescribable +lightness and sense of life; they had the same gracious, gallant +bearing, the same proud carriage of the head, and he suddenly realized +that he was looking at one of Christina's gowns. For the rest, she was, +of course, six years the elder, and her equal slenderness was much more +richly hued and softly curved. Handsome enough, her face at once +attracted and repelled by the diverse coloring of the eyes. It was a +face at once selfish and fierce and soft, with the softness of a woman +who is fashioned from head to foot in one ardent glow; a softness like a +panther's. In the flame-white allure of sex she struck straight at you, +as undisguised and challenging as lightning, and, to any but a +monomaniac, as soon wearied of. It seemed that she could never be +satisfied with her preparations. She walked about the room, touching and +re-touching the flowers; over and over again she scrutinized the +appointments of the table; lifted the silver covers; peered into the +chafing-dish, and tested the champagne in its bucket of ice. At last she +could find nothing more to do. Through all her coming and going, she had +seemed to be mocking and triumphing to herself; humming, singing and +even whistling very low with her mouth pursed into a confident and +quizzing little smile, or inclining her bright head, in victorious +scrutinies, from side to side; so that it seemed the guest must be very +welcome and, if she were bent on conquest, the conquest very sure.</p> + +<p>She was not yet gowned for a festival, and, remembering the light in the +room above, Herrick, grim as the hour was, smiled to imagine that here +was to be played a little domestic comedy like thousands that go on in +Harlem flats and tame suburban cottages; the servantless hostess +satisfied at length about her cooking and her table and flying upstairs +at the last moment to dress for company. So indeed she turned to fly, +but then her mood changed. She whirled round upon the vacant table, her +comedy, her mockery quite fallen from her, and given way to a black +hate. All her quick humors swarmed in her, in a threatening storm; she +was not so much like a woman as like a great, bad, lovely, furious child +that runs its tongue out in defiance. But there was a power in this +defiance like the power in that soft panther of her grace. So that it +was a sort of curse her swirling movement cast upon the pretty table as +she flung one arm up and out above her head; the hand clinched, and then +the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air. Then she went +out of the room and up the stair and overhead.</p> + +<p>Herrick, scarcely knowing what he did, rose to his knees! Just then, he +thought he heard a slight noise behind him. As he turned, something +struck him on the head; he fell millions of miles through a black horror +stabbed with pain and forgot everything.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE EXPECTED COMPANY</h3> + + +<p>When he came to himself he was trussed up like a bundle, with arms and +ankles tied too tight for comfort. He still lay on the floor of the +musicians' gallery and the room below him was still lighted. He rolled +over and again could look through the valance. Only a little time must +have elapsed, for the room was still empty.</p> + +<p>And with the sight of that emptiness, questions poured in upon him. Who +had found him out? And for what fate was he reserved? How long did they +mean to leave him here and why did they leave him here at all? Why had +he not been finished and done with? There struck through him, with +perhaps the first utter and broken fear of his life, the depth of the +silence by which he was again surrounded. No breath, no stir; that +intense stillness was vivid as a presence and positive like sound; he +was alone in it; he lay there helpless; a bound fool and sacrifice in +the bright house, in the middle of the wood and the depth of the night, +and, if those chose who left him so, he must lie there till he died. He +lurched up and sat quiet, waiting for the dreadful giddiness and nausea +that came with movement to pass by; determined to struggle till he got +to his knees and on his knees, if necessary, to attempt to pass out of +that house. He knew it was impossible, but movement he must have. Then, +through that density of silence, he heard a step upon the terrace.</p> + +<p>His curiosity rushed back on him, like fire in a back-draft. He held +his breath; the step was a man's; it crossed the threshold of the great +door and sounded on the tiling of the hall. The next instant the guest +of the red-haired woman was in the room under Herrick's eyes.</p> + +<p>Removing a long driving ulster and a soft hat, he proved to be in full +evening clothes, and expectancy, held firmly down, lay mute and rigid in +every part of him. He lifted a face the color of tallow and, staring +straight at Herrick's balcony with blank, black eyes, the visitor drew a +quivering breath. This visitor was Cuyler Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>The sound of his entrance had evidently been remarked. Again there was a +light footstep overhead, and Herrick guessed that enough time had +elapsed for the toilet to have been completed. The hostess came forth at +once, and could be heard slowly, and with great deliberation, descending +the stairs. Ten Euyck did not go to meet her. Only his eyes traveled to +the door and he stood stiff, with little swallowings in his throat. +Herrick could hear, as she came into the room, a swish, a tinkle about +her steps as though she walked through jeweled silk, and before her on +the waxed and gleaming floor there floated a pool of additional +brightness, so that he saw she had not been satisfied, after all, with +the lighting of her supper-party, but carried a lamp to her own beauty +as she came. Another step and there swam into his sight the beautiful, +tall figure, carrying her lamp high, and incomparably more than before +the mistress of that great apartment. This time it was Christina +herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM</h3> + + +<p>She stretched out one arm, keeping Ten Euyck at the tips of her fingers. +He seemed content to stay so, looking at her.</p> + +<p>She was dressed in a trailing gown of silken tissue that was now gold, +now silver, as the light took it; but the long vaporous slip beneath was +of pale rose; molded to her motion and stirring with her breath, there +dwelt in the gauze which covered her a perpetual faint flush. The stuffs +were cut as low about the breast as if she had been some social queen, +and her fair, pale arms were bare of gloves. Their adorable young +flatness below the gleam of the slim, smooth shoulders, was now +shimmered over and now revealed by short fringes of silver and gold, of +cooler colored amber and crystal, which were their only sleeve; and +these fringes hung about the borders of her gown and trembled into music +as she moved. In the high-piled softness of her hair, diamonds glimmered +like stars in a fair dusk; diamonds banded her brow in an inverted +crescent; diamonds and topaz dropped in long pendants from her ears; +diamonds and pearls clung round her arms; the restored necklace drooped +down her breast, and the peep and shine of jewels glanced from her +everywhere like glow-worms. She seemed to be clothed in fluctuant light, +and yet it could not dim one radiance of her beauty. This was more than +newly crowned; the rose was fully open; her loveliness had spread its +folded wings and come into its own. There was no shyness now in those +wide eyes; her spirit shone there, all in arms, and moved with a new and +deeper strength in her young body. Very faintly, on the pure and +delicate oval of her cheek, burned the soft, hot stain of rouge. This +was the reality of the dear ghost, calling in the night with the rain +upon its face; this was the pale girl in the gray suit who had once sat +beside her mother in the corner of the coroner's office. It may be Ten +Euyck thought of this; it may be she did.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "have I made myself fine? Do I please you?"</p> + +<p>He broke from his trance, took the lamp out of her hold, set it on the +mantelshelf, and returned to her without a word.</p> + +<p>"Pray speak!" she said; "I am all yours!"</p> + +<p>"Christina!" he broke out, and caught and covered her hand with kisses.</p> + +<p>"It is quite true. Do I do you credit?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Look at me here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look at me there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Criticize me everywhere—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He leaned toward her and she swayed past him to the piano. Over her +shoulder she sang to him—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"From head to feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am most sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And most perfect and complete!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She struck the chords a crash and whirled round to him with her hands in +her lap. "Yes, it is quite true. From my head to my feet—" here she +thrust forth through the music of the shaken fringe a slim gold shoe +with its buckle winking up at him—"you have paid for every rag I stand +in." Christina's accent upon the word "rag" suggested that she was +accustomed to standing in something much better. "It would be hard if +you were not suited. Would you like to go to your room a moment? It's +all ready."</p> + +<p>He must have considered this jabber at somewhat its true worth, for what +he did was to draw up a chair and take and hold her hands. "Christina," +said he, studying her face, "do you hate me so much?"</p> + +<p>She remained a moment, silent. Then, "Yes!" she said. "I am a good +hater!" And she smiled at him, a soft, stinging smile, with her eyes +lingering on his.</p> + +<p>"And yet you come—willingly—to me?"</p> + +<p>"Willingly?" she said. "Oh, greedily!"</p> + +<p>"Of your own suggestion?"</p> + +<p>"Of my own suggestion."</p> + +<p>"And on my terms?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, no!" she cried. "On mine!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, for simply what you know I have?"</p> + +<p>"For that," she said, "and nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Great heavens!" he cried. "You're a cool hand!—You, who value yourself +so well, are willing to pay so high for it."</p> + +<p>She replied, "To the last breath of my life!"</p> + +<p>He leaned down and kissed her wrist and then her arm, and she sat quiet +in his grasp.</p> + +<p>"What are you thinking of?" he asked, looking up.</p> + +<p>She replied, "Of other kisses."</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet with a kind of snort, going to one of the windows, +and Christina purled at his broad back, "Don't be angry. How can I help +what I think? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Have I not come +here to meet you without another soul? To a house I never saw before? +That you tell me you have hired? In a sort of wood, at night, quite +alone, not even a servant—although I must say everything seems to have +been well arranged and left quite handy! Would you like some supper, +now? If you ordered it, I am sure it must be good. I am very obedient. +All the same, I am rather hungry."</p> + +<p>He came back to the table with the little pink line showing about his +nostrils. "I do not mind your not desiring me," he said, "and perhaps, +after all, I shall not mind your desiring another man. As you say, it is +not a question of what you desire, but of what I do. Well, Christina, I +am satisfied with your preparations for me; do you approve mine for you? +You shall have servants enough, Christina, when I am sure we may not be +traced by your sister's gentry! How do you like my trysting-place? You +gave me very little time. If you consider it a cage, is it sufficiently +gilded?"</p> + +<p>Christina drew a long breath. "It's wonderful. A palace—wonderful! +Surely I was born to walk rooms like these! And a far cry from the +little boarding-house I lived in when you first met me! God knows," said +Christina, in a voice that trembled, "I am glad to be here!"</p> + +<p>"You like it then?" he cried eagerly. "It's for sale. It shall be yours +to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>"Give me some wine!" she said. "I am tired!"</p> + +<p>He looked at her and said, yes, she was right; and she would better have +something to eat.</p> + +<p>The wine brought back her brightness; it was she who lighted the wick, +heated the supper, and set the smoking chafing-dish before him. Till it +came to the serving she would not let him stir and he could only lean +forward on the table, looking and looking at her. During this she said +little enough, except that he must be sure to praise her cooking, for +she had always boasted she could be a good wife to a poor man! But once +she was seated she poured out a stream of chatter which he sometimes +answered and sometimes not, being intent upon but one thing, and that +was to drink deeper and deeper of her presence.</p> + +<p>Now through much of this Herrick lost sight of them, for he had come +upon an interest of his own. He had discovered in one of the balusters +against which he lay the jutting head of a nail. Never was an object, +not in itself alluring, more dearly welcomed. For he saw that his legs +were bound with only the soft cord that had once looped back the +curtains between the inner and the outer balcony; there must have been +two of these cords, and if his arms were but fastened with the other the +edge of the nailhead might make, in the course of time, some impression +upon it. He sat up and found the nail of a good height to saw back and +forth upon, and if it did not convincingly appear that any effect would +be made upon the cord, at least it provided him with a violent, if +furtive, exercise. This was better than to lie there and let those below +saw upon his heart instead.</p> + +<p>But he must stop at last from pure exhaustion; and at that moment there +was the sound of a chair pushed back. "I thank you for your +hospitality," said Christina's voice. "But, now to business. I have +played in too many melodramas to sign a contract without reading it. The +yacht sails at sunrise?"</p> + +<p>"Or when you will."</p> + +<p>"And takes with her Allegra and Mrs. Pascoe and whatever of their tribe +they choose?"</p> + +<p>"Safely and secretly to Brazil! They have chosen their own crew. They +must be aboard of her already."</p> + +<p>At such words as these Herrick may well be said to have picked up his +ears. He heard Ten Euyck go on:</p> + +<p>"She is yours, Christina; and theirs if you choose to make her so!"</p> + +<p>"You are very generous!" said Christina dryly. "But there is only one +way I can be sure of the end of all this. You know what is most +important to me." Herrick, leaning against the banisters had got his eye +to the opening in the valance again, and he could now see Christina with +her hands in her lap facing Ten Euyck. "Have you got that letter?" she +said.</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck gave his breast a smart rap so that Christina, being so near, +must have heard the paper crackle there.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said she; "so much for the District-Attorney's mail!"</p> + +<p>He stood up, and his voice croaked with triumph as he talked. +"Christina," he said, "I have brought you that letter—it's the price of +my professional, my political honor; it's bought with my disgrace, with +my career! But I have brought it. I'm ridiculous to you, Christina, but +who got it for you? Your friends, the Inghams? your admirer, Wheeler? +your poor fool of a Herrick? your cherished jail-bird, Denny?—No, I +did! This letter that I have here Ann Cornish fell ill guarding, for her +vengeance. You stole and lost it. Your enterprising family broke into a +post-office to get it back. But the despised policeman brings it to +you."</p> + +<p>"You got it by accident, you say," commented Christina. "Don't forget +that!"</p> + +<p>"Forget! I shall never forget the triumph of catching that gang, +although I renounce it at your bidding. I shall never forget your +message when the letter was barely in my hands!—</p> + +<p>"'I know now that I am come of a family of criminals. My pride is in the +dust, as deep as you could wish it. If you do not help us, if it must +come out that I am tied to blackmailers whom you will catch and send to +prison, I shall die of it!' Christina, can I forget that?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Christina, "I never thought you could."</p> + +<p>"And you will remember my answer, my dear! That I had the proof, the +letter in my hand, to publish or to destroy, as you should choose. You +haven't forgotten that?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Christina again. "But the destroying, that's the thing! +You'll burn it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Before my eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"To-night?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow!"</p> + +<p>She seemed, for a moment, to take counsel with herself. "Very well."</p> + +<p>An extraordinary limp helplessness, a kind of dejection of acquiescence, +seemed to melt her with lassitude at the words. It was enough to sicken +the heart of any lover, and even Ten Euyck cried out, as if to justify +himself, "Ah, remember—you gave me the slip once before!" And at the +memory he seemed to lose all control of himself, falling suddenly +forward, clinging to her knees and hiding his face in her skirts.</p> + +<p>She sat for a moment motionless. Then, with fastidious deliberation, as +if they were bones which a dog had dropped in her lap, she plucked up +his wrists in the extreme tips of her fingers, and slowly pushed him +off. "Quietly!" she said. "You are one who would always do well to be +quiet!"</p> + +<p>He sat on his heels, the picture of misery, already ashamed and almost +frightened at himself. And suddenly, "Christina," he whispered, while +another flash branded itself across his face, "whose kisses were you +thinking of?"</p> + +<p>She did not, at first, understand; and then, remembering—"I will take a +page from your book. I will tell you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Was it Denny?" he snapped.</p> + +<p>"Denny?" said she, abstractedly. "Will? God bless me, no!"</p> + +<p>He sighed with a kind of vacancy. "You could easily tell me so!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Christina, with considerable temper, "I will tell you +something else. When I came here to-night, that I might not die of my +own contempt I promised myself one thing. I swore to that girl I used to +be, who carried so high a head she could not breathe the same air with +you and never thought to stand you miawling and whimpering here about +her feet, that at least I should tell no lies of love. There shall never +come one out of my mouth to you and may God hear me. So if I do not tell +you the man I thought of, it is only because I can not bear to speak his +name in this place!—But rest easy! I am very capricious. Things will be +different to-morrow. To-morrow, if you still think it interesting, you +shall know."</p> + +<p>"Know!" he cried. And catching her arm, looked at her with a baleful +face. "Yes, there's my trouble! What do I know of you at all! I met you +once four years ago—well, I forget myself, I know it! But did I?—Were +you even then—? Well, at the inquest, at that reception, in the +station, holding to Denny, the night of your performance, and now, +to-night! There's my knowledge of you! You dazzle, you befool, you drive +me crazy, and you leave me empty—why should I throw my life away for +that! After all, where were you when all New York was looking for you? +Nearly a week! Where were you?"</p> + +<p>"Where was I!" Christina cried. "Well, it's rather long. But does not +the favorite slave always tell stories to her master? Listen to +Scheherezade."</p> + +<p>Then, for the first time, Herrick heard the story of Christina's visit +to the yellow house; how she had determined that Allegra must tell the +authorities, in Denny's behalf, the story of his provocation against +Ingham; how then, hidden in Nancy's, she had found Allegra's hair and +guessed everything. "Then it seemed that the first thing was to get +Nancy away, quietly, without warning, so that there should be no danger +to her. I thought that then I could manage Allegra." She had had Allegra +come into town for her performance, and go straight from it to the +Amsterdam, up to Christina's apartment in Christina's name; following +her there she had slept on the couch, and slipped off early in the +morning. Suspecting the identity of the motor, she had telephoned for it +as though to meet them both, and now she went on to tell Ten Euyck of +her attempt to deceive Mrs. Pascoe, as though she had come from Allegra, +and of her imprisonment in the closet.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that wretched necklace! I said to myself, 'If it comes to a fight, +they may find it and take it from me.' And then I should really have +been in your power! I buried it in the flower-pot, thinking to come back +with reinforcements!" She told of the flight in the rain, and of the +farmers who wouldn't wake up. Both men listened, absorbed, staring. And +Christina said, "I was afraid to go toward Waybrook, in case those men +followed me. I ran toward Benning's Point. I feared the main road, too, +and I thought I could follow the short cut. It is very hilly and broken +and I had never seen it before in the dark; the sheets of rain were like +the heavens falling, and the wind beat out my last strength; I was mud +up to my knees and I had on heavy clothes, too large for me, all +dragging down with wet. Perhaps it all made me stupid; at any rate, I +lost my way. Oh!" said Christina, "that was hard!" and she put her hand +over her heart. "I don't know—it must have been hours—I ran and +staggered and stumbled and climbed! You are to remember I had had no +food all day, and little enough the day before. And by and by I fell. I +got up and on again for a little, but I had hurt myself in falling, and +I fell again. And this time I lay there."</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck lifted the border of her golden dress and put it to his lips.</p> + +<p>The moisture of self-pity swam in Christina's eyes. "Nancy!" she said. +"That was worst to think of!" In her own lip she set her teeth and soon +she went on—"While I was still unconscious, a man came along with a +motor. Somehow, he didn't run over me; he found me. And he recognized +me! He wanted the reward. He took me to his sister's; to that Riley's. +They gave me all sorts of hot drinks and things; I think they saved my +life. But when I tried to thank them, something very comic had +happened—I had lost my voice." Christina closed her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>"Well, that woman said I needed sleep, so she sent her brother out of +the room—but she didn't send her husband. When she found I could not +speak, she pulled down the blinds of her room for fear some one should +see in, and said I needn't make a fuss, trying to get away, for she knew +as well as any one I was mixed up with murder and trying to clear out. +She said she was not going to hold any poor girl that was in trouble, +not for the few hundreds he would give her out of that reward. She was +going to let me go. 'But first,' said she, 'I'll thank you to hand over +that diamond necklace!'"</p> + +<p>Both Ten Euyck and the unseen Herrick started and stared.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't believe me. If I didn't have it, I had hidden it since I +got in the house. 'Very well, if you won't do anything for me, I think +there's a gentleman who will. I think the party for me to send for is +Mr. Ten Euyck.' I wasn't ready for you, then, nor did I mean to be +handed over to you, like a thief done up in a bundle! But what was I to +do? I was still weak and she was between me and the locked door! I'm +grand at screaming," said Christina, "but I couldn't even speak! And +then, out of the stones of the courtyard, heaven raised up a miracle for +me!"</p> + +<p>"It was you, then?"</p> + +<p>"The shadow? yes. But how could I dream a friend would be going by? It +was just a desperate game, a wild chance! She had been telling me what +an outcry there was, how I would be recognized anywhere, and about the +moving-picture, and how they played the march from Faust, now, at that +film—and I thought of the reward and how there must be many looking for +it. There was a piano in that room and I went to it, put my foot on the +loud pedal and began to play. 'Oh,' I thought, 'will some one glance up? +Will some one guess?' And then I threw the shadow on the blind! Before +she could do much more than drag me away, my unsuspected friend was in +the room. She didn't dare to try to keep me. He put a hat and cloak on +me from her closet—oh, I'm sure he sent them back!—and snatched me +off!"</p> + +<p>"And is this your idea of explanation?" said Ten Euyck. "Who was this +friend?"</p> + +<p>"Ah," she said, "you ask too much! Leave something for to-morrow!" And +she went and sat at the piano, with her elbows on the keyboard and her +head in her hands.</p> + +<p>This was the first moment in which Herrick began to be sensible of a +little hope. It seemed to him that the edge of the nail was beginning to +make some impression upon the soft silk cord that bound him. He ground +away, desperately, but always there was the dread of any sound, and +quivers of terror that the violence of his pressure might loosen the +nail. The blow on his head made him easily dizzy, and as he leaned there +quiet to recover himself, it was plain that Ten Euyck with a dozen +questions had endeavored to follow Christina to the piano, and been +checked where he was.</p> + +<p>"No, we are both getting fussed. It is my right, perhaps, but hardly the +man's. As for me, I'm all for decorum. Sit back and smoke and when you +have smoked you will not fidget. I will play and sing to you—yes, I +should love it!" softly laughed Christina, her fingers moving on the +keys and her voice breaking into song—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I'm only a poor little singing girl<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That wanders to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet many have heard me with hearts awhirl;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least they tell me so!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>she chanted, leaning with gay insolence toward Ten Euyck,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"At least they tell me so!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Christina!" he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"You like personal ditties! You shall have another!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"You dressed me up in scarlet red<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And used me very kindly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still I thought my heart would break<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the boy I left behind me!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That's too rowdy a song for a patrician! But I can sing only very simple +things! The one I always think of when I think of you is the simplest of +all!—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We twa hae run about the braes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pu'd the gowans fine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But we've wandered many a weary foot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sin auld lang syne."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The color rose up in her face and her eyes shone; her bosom rose and +fell in long, triumphing breaths, and—"Damn him!" Ten Euyck cried. +"It's not me you think of when you sing that! It's Denny!"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For auld lang syne, my dear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For auld lang syne—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it?" Christina broke out. "Who knows!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For auld lang syne.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ah, that stays my heart!—Ten Euyck!"</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried. "I won't bear it!"</p> + +<p>He had his two hands on her shoulders and as she continued to play she +lifted up toward his at once a laughing and a tragic face. "What does he +matter to you?" she said, "to you, the Inspector of Police! Aren't you +here, with me, and isn't he down and done for, and out of every race? As +good as dead?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He is dead and gone, lady,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He is dead and gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At his heels a grass-green turf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At his head, a stone!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Come, pluck up spirit!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hark, hark, across the sea!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah-ha, the dead do ride with speed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dost fear to ride with me?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—'Dost fear to ride with me?'" she sang, on the deepest note of her +voice, and turning, rose and held Ten Euyck off from her, seeming to +study and to challenge him, and then, with the excitement and the wild +emotion which she had kindled in both of them, dying slowly from her +face but not from his.</p> + +<p>She released him, and, going to a little table, unclasped her necklace, +and slipped the strings of diamonds from her arms. The crescent round +her head came next. "What are you doing?" he almost whispered.</p> + +<p>"Unclasp this earring. Thank you!" She lifted one foot and then the +other and tore the buckles from her shoes. She did not hesitate above +that bewildering heap, but pushed closer and closer together those +fallen stars and serpents of bright light. "There!" she cried. "Are they +all there? No—here!" At her breast there was still a quivering point or +two; she wrenched off the lace that held them and flung it on the pile. +"There!" she said again, "they are all there! My poor fellow, I have +changed my mind."</p> + +<p>She walked away and leaned her forehead on the tall mantelshelf.</p> + +<p>Whence she was perhaps prepared to have him turn her round and holding +her by the wrists say to her through stiff lips,—"Explain yourself!" He +shook from head to foot with temper; doubtless, too, with the scandalous +outrage to commonsense.</p> + +<p>"There is so little to explain. I thought I could. I can't! It wouldn't +pay!"</p> + +<p>"Not pay!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Christina, indicating, with a scornful glance, the mirrored, +golden room and piled-up jewels, "these were only incidents! Try to +understand. Long ago, when I was a child, I set out to vanquish the +world. Not to belong to it, not to be of it, but to have it under foot! +I was so poor, so weak, so unbefriended. I thought it would be a fine +day when I could give this great, contemptuous, cold, self-satisfied +world a little push with my shoe and pass it by. It was a childish +ambition—well, in some ways I have never grown up! And to me, since our +first encounter, <i>you</i> have always typified that world."</p> + +<p>He started back, and released her hands.</p> + +<p>"All that I really wanted I won for myself last week! And Allegra stole +from me when I saw her hair! You tell me that you can save it for me in +saving her, but it's not true! It was easy to think of you as the world, +to feel that you were giving me yourself and it to play with! It's easy +to imagine that you would be under my heel.—No, I should be under +yours! I shouldn't have vanquished the world, I should be vanquished by +it!—No, I thank you!"</p> + +<p>"And Allegra?" he asked her, grimly.</p> + +<p>Christina shuddered and closed her eyes. But she said, "Has Allegra been +so tender to me that I should lose myself for her? Understand me, it +never was for Allegra that I came here to-night. Ah, Ten Euyck, I have +been a good sister. It is time I thought of myself."</p> + +<p>"Think," he replied, "that she will pass from ten to twenty years in +jail."</p> + +<p>The girl's face trembled as if he had struck it, but—"Well," she said, +"you the upholder of the law—you shall judge. She lived off me—that's +nothing!—But she lived off and bled others, and drove and hounded them, +and made me an ignorant partner in it—that's something, you'll admit! +And—Nancy! How about that? She lied to Will about Nancy and Jim +Ingham.—Come, isn't the balance getting heavy? She just as much killed +Jim as if she had done it with her hand; and if Will—dies," cried +Christina, with a breath like a little scream upon the word, "it is my +sister kills him! I am stone and ice to her! When I saw Nancy's message, +in that moment I knew who and what my sister was, and then and there I +had done with her! Let me hear you blame me! And yet," said Christina +with a change of voice, "there is one more count!"</p> + +<p>Her look had changed and darkened. "When that crew of hers laid hands +on <i>him</i>—O!" she cried out, suddenly. And flinging forth her arms +buried her face in them.</p> + +<p>The effect on Ten Euyck was electrical. Hitherto drugged and fascinated +by the mobility of her beauty, the lights and emotions varying in it, he +now shot forward on his sofa as if, in a mechanical toy, a spring had +been touched.</p> + +<p>"It isn't possible!" he cried. "That calf! That milk-sop! Christina, you +don't mean—Herrick!"</p> + +<p>She let her arms fall, and without raising her head, lifted her eyes for +him to read.</p> + +<p>He broke into a loud laugh that jangled, hysterically cold, round the +great, brilliant room. "And to think," he said, "that all this time I +have thought of him as my pet diversion, my wittol, my moon-calf! It has +been my one jest through all this wretched business to see the +importance of that great baby! To watch him industriously acquiring +bumps and bruises, and getting more and more scratches on his innocent +nose! I waited to see it put out of joint forever when you threw him +flat upon it! I thought that we were laughing in our sleeves at him, +together! When I had this appointment with you safe, I smiled to see him +careering up and down the country like Lochinvar in a child's reader.—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He swam the Eske River—'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ten Euyck sprang up and catching Christina by the elbows snatched her +smartly to her feet and shook her till, on her slim neck, her head +bobbed back and forth. "What did you tell me for," he cried, "if you +hoped to be rid of me! I, at least, am no baby, and I have had enough of +this! Your dear Lochinvar is doubtless swimming and riding somewhere in +the neighborhood. But not within call! And let me assure you, though he +stay not for brake and he stop not for stone—yet ere he alights here at +Netherby Gate—"</p> + +<p>"Go on!" said Christina, "you know the end of the verse." She flung it, +with a gallant backward movement of her head, straight in his teeth—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'For a laggard in love and a dastard in war—'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Oh, listen, listen, listen! Now you know! Now you know whose name I +would not speak! Not in this place! Oh, oh!—Will and Nancy; after all, +they are only pieces of myself! They are no more to me than—me! But he +is all I am not and long for! He is life outside myself, to meet mine! +He is my light and my air and my hope and my heart's desire! She knew +it—<i>she knew it</i>! She had taken my youth and my faith and my kindness +with the world, and killed them, and then she tried to kill him +too!—Love him? O God!" cried Christina, "what must he think of me!" And +she began to shake with weeping.</p> + +<p>"That cub!" said Ten Euyck. "You love that cub!" And he took her in his +arms; and covering her throat and hair with kisses, he held her off +again, and tried to see into her face. "Do you?" he cried. "Do you? Do +you?"</p> + +<p>"Give me a handkerchief!" Christina snapped.</p> + +<p>He was surprised into releasing her; and plucking forth her own scrap of +lace, she wiped her nose with some deliberation. "I look hideous. I +should like those lights out!"</p> + +<p>He went about putting out light after light, till she said,</p> + +<p>"Leave my lamp!"</p> + +<p>She was standing beneath it, pensive and grave and now quite pale, with +her back to the mantelshelf, her soft, fair arms stretched out along its +length, and her head hanging. She might have been bound there, beneath +the single lamp, like an olden criminal to a seacoast rock before the +rising tide. The pale light floated over her as Ten Euyck came up and +seemed to illumine her within a magic circle.</p> + +<p>"My dear," Ten Euyck began, with a kind of solemn fierceness, "when you +made me accomplice in a crime, when you came here to me like this +to-night, did you really dream that you could change your mind? Did you +suppose you could make me ridiculous again? Do you know where you are? +And under what circumstances? There is a slang phrase, Christina—do you +really think you can get away with it?"</p> + +<p>"No," Christina replied. She quietly lifted her head. Her eyes rested +soberly on his. "I am here, with you. I am alone. There is no Rebecca's +window here to dash myself from. You see I have counted up everything. +And this is what I will do. If I cannot die now, I can die to-morrow. +You can not watch me forever. And in the hour when you leave me, I shall +find a way to die."</p> + +<p>His face grayed as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I am not acquainted," Christina went on, "with the story +of Lucretia? I could strike a blow like hers! And oh, believe me, like +her I should not die in silence!" She felt him start. "Do you suppose I +should not tell why I came here? Do you by any chance suppose I should +not tell what bait I had from the Inspector of Police? Ah, when we have +something to lose, we stumble and make terms. But when we have no longer +anything, we are the masters of terms.—Is this my last night?" +Christina asked.</p> + +<p>"By God!" he said, "you know how to defend yourself!" And his arms +dropped at his side.</p> + +<p>He was a moment silent, his mouth twitching, his eyes drinking her up. +Christina had, in argument, that better sort of eloquence that calls up +convincing pictures. Doubtless, he knew she might denounce his theft of +the letter. Doubtless he saw her, then, clay-cold; lost to him, +utterly. On the other hand, to lose her, now, was a thing outside +nature and not to be endured. So that suddenly he broke out in a kind of +high, hoarse whisper; "Christina, there's another way! I never meant to +marry—but—Christina, shall it be that?"</p> + +<p>"<i>What!</i>" she exclaimed. It was a volcanic outcry, not a question. She +stretched out her two arms, with the palms of her hands lifted against +him, and laughter and amazement seemed to course through her and to wave +and shine out of her face, like fire in a wind.</p> + +<p>"Christina," he said; "Christina, I will marry you!—Oh, Christina, +isn't that the way! There's your ambition! There's your satisfaction! +There's the world under your shoe! Christina, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Is it possible?" she said. And again—"Is it possible! What! Peter +Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck and the girl in the moving-picture +show? 'Mr. Ten Euyck' and the sister of a jail-bird! Eh, me, my poor +soul, is it as bad as that?" Her laughter died and her brows clouded. +"It's a far cry, Ten Euyck, since you stole my kiss on the sly! You laid +the first bruise on my soul! You put the first slur and sense of shame +into the shabby little girl in the stock-company who had no one to +defend her but a boy as poor as herself. What did it feel like, dear +sir, that check? We have come a long way since then, but have you +forgotten? And does the pure patrician and the representative of high +life now lay the cloak of his great name down at my feet? To walk on it, +yes! But to pick it up? After all, I think it would be stopping! Ah, my +good fellow, I don't jump at it!"</p> + +<p>"I know you don't! That's why I want you! I've been jumped at all my +life!" Thus Ten Euyck, holding her fast, his face burning darkly under +her little blows of speech, and his pulse rising with the sense of +battle. "I think I've never known a woman who wouldn't have given her +eyes to marry me! I've never taken a step among them without looking out +for traps! Christina, I long to do the trapping and the giving, yes, and +the taking, for myself! You don't want me; well, I want you! Yes, for my +wife! I see it now. You dislike me, you despise me. Well, your dislike +doesn't count; believe me, you'd not despise me long! I'd rather see you +bearing my name—you, with another man for me to wipe out of your heart, +you, as cold as ice and as hard as nails to me,—than any of those soft, +waiting women! See, we'll play a great trick on the world! We'll be +married to-morrow! We'll sail for Europe. From there we'll send back +word we've been married all along. People shall think that when you left +me the other night I followed you; that we fooled them from the +beginning, and when next they see you, you shall be on my arm! Come, +Christina, will not that be a reëntry? Will not the world be vanquished, +then?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" she said, with lifted finger. "I thought I heard some one!" She +lifted the lamp from the mantelshelf and going to the window held it far +out into the darkness with an anxious face. "No!" she breathed. Ten +Euyck observed with joy that her manner to him had changed; it had +become that of a fellow-conspirator. Up and down the terrace she sent +the light, her apprehensive eyes searching the shadows and the bushes. +"No!" said she again, "I was wrong."</p> + +<p>She came back to him flushed and eager, and setting the light upon the +table, he caught her hands. "Remember!" he said, "otherwise I shall stop +your sister. And where will your name be then?"</p> + +<p>Her nostrils widened, her eyes contracted, doubt succeeded to triumph in +her face. "If it were not the truth!" she said.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"If there were no such necessity! If you did not have my name in your +power at all. If you have no such letter!"</p> + +<p>"Christina!"</p> + +<p>"It is what I have doubted from the beginning! How do I know you haven't +lied to me all along? I ask you if you have that letter, and you thump +your breast! I ask you to show it to me and you answer, 'To-morrow'! +Traps—did you say? Did you think I was to be caught in a trap? When you +were looking for a poor gull, did you cast eyes on Christina Hope? If +you had that proof to show me, you wouldn't hesitate! There is no such +letter—I can see it in your face!"</p> + +<p>He took the letter from his coat and held it up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," Christina said, "I see an envelope. Am I to marry for an +envelope?"</p> + +<p>He cast the envelope away, folded the letter to a certain page and held +it for her to read.</p> + +<p>She read it and a faintness seized her. She stood there, swaying, with +closed eyes, and he put an arm about her for support. She leaned upon +him, and he put down his mouth to hers. "Christina, look up!" he cried. +"Don't be afraid! Don't tremble so! My darling, here's your first +wedding-present!" And, alarmed by her half-swoon, transported by that +surrender in his arms, he held the letter above the lamp and let its +edge catch fire.</p> + +<p>Christina opened her sick eyes and they dwelt dully on the paper and +then with pleasure on the little flame. "Let me!" she breathed. "Yes, +let me. It's my right."</p> + +<p>He put the burning paper in her hands, smiling on her with a tender +playfulness. "Take care!" he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus7" id="illus7"></a> +<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! Thank God, I've done with you!"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"I will take care." She held up the paper, intent on the thin edges +crisping in the glowing fire, and then, swift as a deer and wild as a +lion's mate, she sprang away, clapped her hands hard upon the burning +paper, pressed out the flame upon the bosom of her gown, and thrust the +letter in her breast. "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous +fool! Thank God, I've done with you!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL—</h3> + + +<p>Ten Euyck's face blazed white with anger. Sick with rage, driven with +bewilderment and some touch of vague suspicion, all his cold strength +gathered itself. He was no longer merely a harp for Christina's fingers. +She stood at the far end of the room with her back against the wall, +barricaded, indeed, by a little gilded table, but not at all alarmed or +even concerned, and the master of the situation forced himself to say +quietly, "I am tired of play, my dear. I shall not run after you. Bring +that letter here!"</p> + +<p>Christina laughed.</p> + +<p>"You will come to me, quite obediently, and give that letter here to +me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think not!" Christina said. "Not to a thief! Not to a +blackmailer! Nor even to a gentleman who tried, and failed, at +murder.—How much did you give the man in the Tombs?"</p> + +<p>A profound silence fell upon that house. It was as if, in that great +golden room, among the mirrored gulfs of shadow, something held its +breath. Night seemed to look in at the windows with a startled face. +Then somewhere, a hawk cried. And still there was no movement in the +room. The homely sound of crickets rose from without like the stir of a +world immeasurably far away. And Christina, in the changing lusters of +her gold and silver gown, stood half in shadow; flushed and radiant, a +little shaken with triumph, as a spent runner who has touched his goal, +and with her hand above the letter on her heaving breast. Ten Euyck did +not make one sound. But his face had a paralyzed, chalky stiffness, and +the jaw dropped, like the jaw of a corpse.</p> + +<p>"You fatuous hypocrite!" cried the girl. "You pillar of society! And +could you ever imagine it was for <i>you</i> I came! For your name, for your +position! I thank you, I prefer my own! For your protection? Can you +protect yourself? Am I the girl to throw myself away on you for the sake +of a bad sister, who has treated me with so much hate? It took all your +greed, all your vanity, all your stupid, cruel pomp and dullness to be +fooled like that! Did you ever really think I could stoop to such a +scene as this to-night for you—or me? Oh, blind, blind, blind! How +could you imagine I would leave him in your hands and never make a fight +for it? Did you think I didn't remember?—that I couldn't still hear, as +I heard when I was a frightened girl, the stroke of his hand across your +face, and that I didn't know you had always had death for him in your +heart?"</p> + +<p>She covered her face with her hands and then she stood up tall again.</p> + +<p>"My dear Will, my poor boy!—who treated me as if I were his little +brother! Oh, the cold night trips on railway trains when I couldn't pay +for a sleeper and used to sit wrapped in his coat; the morning races +down the track for coffee; the scenes we used to work and work on and +get so cross we almost struck each other; the time I was discharged and +he lent me his few dollars till I should get work again; his first big +hit and then mine; and then—Nancy, and all the sweetness of a hundred +times with both my dears! Did you think I was going to sit quiet and let +you turn your heel on all of that? Allow your conceit and insolence and +spite to feed on his disgrace and danger! Let <i>you</i> sneer at <i>him</i>! +Leave <i>him</i> to be triumphed over by <i>you</i>!—Will Denny by a Ten Euyck! +An artist by a bourgeois Inspector of Police! An actor," cried +Christina, beginning to soar, "and <i>such</i> an actor, by a mere outsider! +Your side over mine!—Why did you try? Will to be shamed and hidden in +the dark! And you to be bowed down to, to swell and strut and smirk and +look dull and glossy and respectable, and be brushed by valets, and have +prize cattle raised for you to eat, and carry gold umbrellas! He to die! +And you to pillow yourself upon a hundred crimes he never dreamed +of!—Tybalt in triumph and Mercutio slain!—You poor, pretentious, +silly, vulnerable soul!—not while he was paying for one moment's +madness, and I began to guess and hope and pray that about you there was +something prisons had been gaping for, year after year, if only I could +find it out! Did you really think I didn't guess what was in this +letter? Do you think I didn't know you sent Nicola into that post-office +to steal it? Why, it was I, with my last strength, who mailed it there. +He must have found some trace of me and guessed. Nothing in heaven or +earth would have brought me here, except to steal it back!"</p> + +<p>"How did you—" he tried to say. But the machinery of his throat was +stiff and could not work. He swallowed once or twice, and then, dropping +his dulled eyes, he got out—"When—did you—at first—?"</p> + +<p>"When you came so grandly to the station, a master of the trap that my +poor boy was caught in, and said, 'If she would tell the jury what she +told him—' Don't you remember that I answered, 'How do you know what +she told him?' A strange confidant for Allegra! It wasn't accident, +coincidence—for you knew the music that she made for Will's and my +French song! Not five minutes later I learned what Allegra was! A +queerer confidant, still, for an Inspector of Police! I said to myself, +'There is a very black spot frozen inside that block of bilious ice. If +one could know, now, what it was!' Then came your necklace and your +note. And I saw you were a violent, greedy creature, after all, who +would go a long way to get your will; I saw you could be managed—and +how. I remembered Will's saying that people like us had nothing but +ourselves to fight with. Oh, it has been with myself that I have fought! +I'm sorry, I'm ashamed. But I've won!—What was my second hint? Do you +remember the torn card of the Italian Bryce Herrick had to kill? How it +said, 1411—nothing more? When I 'phoned you to call for your necklace +your number wasn't in the book. The girl, at first, gave me a wrong +direction. Then she remembered that was your old number which you had +just had changed. The district was the same, of course. But the old +number ran, 1—4—1—1.—Ah, wait for my third—the best of all! My good +Ten Euyck, you never made quite such a mistake as when you lost one +symbol of respectability—as when you forgot your umbrella!"</p> + +<p>This time he looked up with a stare.</p> + +<p>"You left it at Allegra's, and, like all excellent housekeepers, Mrs. +Pascoe put it in the closet under the stairs. I found it there. I was +looking for something to break the window with. A little light came in +then, and I saw the gold handle, like a staff of office, with your name. +I broke the rod and have the handle still." Christina paused and smiled +at him. "My sister's partner in the business of blackmail; you, whose +money robbed and burned a post-office of the United States; you, whose +influence attempted murder in jail, on the highroads, in the Park, +rather than be found out, I make you my bow! If I cannot save Will with +you, if I cannot trade you for him with the law—and oh, I think I +can!—at least our side shan't fall alone! If he is to be punished, at +least he will never be punished by you! But you, Mr. Ten Euyck, who +exulted in his trouble, who are afraid, as he is not, who will perish at +the scorn of every fool, as he has not, you, who of shame are about to +die, I salute you! Your career as a criminal, your career as a shining +light, they are both at an end!—And why? Because you declared war +against people without money, without position, without influence, whom +you despised! Because you weren't strong enough to fight Christina Hope! +Remember that!"</p> + +<p>The heart knoweth its own bitterness. For one little moment Ten Euyck +stood with his eyes upon the reckless girl who was driving him to the +last terrible extreme of self-defense. He had come there a happy and +indulgent conqueror, and even the sweetness of a necessary revenge was +black and poisoned in him. Then, in that moment, he heard what +Christina, flushed with victory, did not hear at all—a little sound +behind him and above his head.</p> + +<p>His driving-coat still lay across a chair and he went slowly to it and +drew the case of his revolver from its pocket; the revolver was fully +loaded; he looked at the barrel a long time, as if he were thinking +something out, and then he heard Christina laugh. "Take care!" she said. +"I did not come without a guard."</p> + +<p>He did not turn upon her. He still stood with his back to her, and, from +under his bent brows, his glance shot up and found the parting of the +valance. Now, since the lessening of the lights, Herrick, half-mad and +goaded by the continual slight weakening of the cords, had grown +careless of concealment. There, in the opening, his face showed. Not +much, indeed; not enough to be easily recognized; all masked, too, with +blood and sweat and with the gag across the mouth. But still whiter than +the Italian face Ten Euyck had most expected. Then he caught a glimpse +of the brown, ruddy hair, and knew. This was Nicola's and Allegra's idea +of a jest.</p> + +<p>"A guard?" he said. And he turned then upon Christina.</p> + +<p>"Don't come near me!" the girl cried. "And if you want to live, don't +shoot! My friends are all about this house! They are in waiting down the +road! They have waited the whole evening long, watching for my signal. +They started to close in on us when I waved my lamp. Let me cry out my +name and you will hear, in answer, the horn of an automobile. It will +blow three times—two short notes and one long. That means—Stand out of +the way, Christina Hope; the men are ready!—Don't come near me!"</p> + +<p>"Cry out your name!" Ten Euyck replied.</p> + +<p>The girl lifted up her voice, and gave forth the words "Christina Hope" +so that they leaped out in the still darkness and went shrilling and +searching through the night, the vibrations dying in the distance, and +the air giving back an echo of their call. Till, after an age-long +moment, their last note died away. And nothing happened. No note from +the horn of an automobile broke forth in answer; there was only a +profounder stillness. Christina was left face to face with nothingness +and Cuyler Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>"You spoke too soon!" he said. "You were always foolhardy. This time you +have outdone yourself. The clever Christina was not the only person, on +coming here, to take precautions. If I gave so much to the guard in the +Tombs, what did I give to buy off these friends of yours? The agreeable +gang your sister commands—did you think it was in your pay for +to-night? It is in mine! I suspected nothing, but I took no chances. I +prepared for accident. No automobile can pass that lodge. No spy can +creep about these grounds. One tried, my dear. They caught him. He is +lying in that little gallery gagged and bound. When his body is +discovered, he will have been shot by blackmailers, whom Cuyler Ten +Euyck never so much as saw. I thought you wouldn't leave me!"</p> + +<p>Christina had gathered up her train for flight and had been +manœuvering nearer and nearer to the window that gave deepest into +the shelter of the dark. Only at the first word of a spy she had stood +still.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Ten Euyck went on, "I see that you guess his name. I am not a bad +shot, and he can't move, poor fellow. Give me that letter!"</p> + +<p>Christina looked along his arm, along the lifted revolver, to what was +now only a dark opening in the valance. Her mouth opened, but no sound +came. The life went out of her like the flame from a dying candle, and +she seemed to shrink and crumple and to sway upon her feet. There was a +long stillness.</p> + +<p>"That letter, if you please!" Ten Euyck said.</p> + +<p>"Bryce!" Christina called, quite low. "Bryce, are you there! Let me +see!" she screamed out, and ran forward.</p> + +<p>Ten Euyck held up a finger, and she stopped dead. "Do you understand +that I, too, have a signal and these fellows will come at it? Do you +understand what cause they have to love Herrick?—Fetch that chair!"</p> + +<p>She brought it forward.</p> + +<p>"No, under the balcony. Pardon my not helping you. I dare not lower my +hand. Stand on the chair! Can you reach those little curtains? No? Take +this candlestick—push them back! What do you see?"</p> + +<p>Christina shuddered like a stricken birch, and gave forth a lamentable +cry. The candlestick fell to the ground. She had met Herrick's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Have I won?" said Ten Euyck.</p> + +<p>"You are a brave girl, but you lack discretion.—Get down! Take that +letter from your breast. That's right. What a pretty change in manners, +my dear! Come here! Come!"</p> + +<p>Her face looked thin and her eyes were set with fear. She came slowly +on, like a person in a trance, half hanging back, half drawn with +ropes. She stopped at one end of the little table, a few feet from him.</p> + +<p>"Put out your hand and offer me that letter."</p> + +<p>She put it out and he seized the letter and the hand in his.</p> + +<p>"And now, my dear, understand me. In my connection with the Arm of +Justice, I hold myself neither stained nor shamed. It has been an arm of +<i>justice</i>; when I have struck it was—as poor Kane will tell +you!—always at those who had sinned against the law, though I could not +then reach them through the law. In that punishment I used an imperfect +instrument, as a man who stands for decency must do, in an imperfect +world. When I recognized your sister as our mysterious shadow I forced +her to write this account of her disgraceful life not, as she supposed, +for fear she might some day blackmail me—for there was nothing in my +life to be used for blackmail—but for a net to snare you with! In that +net you are caught. Never till its loss determined me to have it back at +any cost did I really sin. And never legally! For when I give money to a +needy woman I do not question what she does with it. If there is +violence—why not? In self-defense! But if I sinned, at least I have +succeeded in my sin. For here you are! While you—you have forfeited +even your price. But when Denny is dead, talk over with Allegra, in her +prison, the story of his death—it may divert you both! For now she, +too, is lost, as well as he. And through your fault as Herrick is!"</p> + +<p>She lifted her white face and questioned him, with the darkness of her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Let him go! After all that he has heard? How could I? You gave your +signal and now I must give mine!—It's been a hard fight, Christina! And +to the victor belong the spoils!"</p> + +<p>He dragged her slowly toward him by the clenched hand he held, his +hungry smile flushed and yet cold with hate, feeding on her desperate +compliance. And as he drew her past the table, Christina caught up the +lamp and struck it with her whole force into his face.</p> + +<p>There was a tremendous noise of crashing glass, and then darkness, +filled with the smell of oil. Christina's slender strength had found +force for such a blow that the lamp had been put out before it could +explode,—and what it had been put out upon was Ten Euyck's head. He +floundered back; dazed, cut, with the sense battered out of him. And at +the same moment the last knot yielded to stiff fingers and Herrick +staggered to his feet. He dropped over the balcony to the ground, and +Christina ran toward the sound of him, in the darkness. "Oh! Oh!" she +said, and clung like a child upon his breast.</p> + +<p>But for a little crack under the door into the hall, the blackness had +swallowed every shape. This was all in their favor. They stood +listening, holding their breath, knowing that Ten Euyck was there before +them but not able to see where; and then he fired. Herrick followed the +lead of the flash and leaped upon him. Ten Euyck sank to one knee, but +he had gripped Herrick as he fell; the two men struggled to their feet, +and across the room and up and down they fought and clung and swayed and +trampled, upsetting chairs, their feet slipping and grinding on the +smooth floor; and though the shots continued to sound, they were fired +downward and Christina guessed that Herrick forced Ten Euyck's hand +toward the ground and was struggling for possession of the pistol. She +could hear their breath pulsing and sobbing in the darkness. Suddenly +their black, struggling bulk crashed down on the piano and the shots +ceased. The pistol fell to the ground. Ten Euyck's voice gasped out, +like rending cloth: "All six are fired! That's my signal!" Then there +was an oath, a lurch, a sound of blows, the table tipped over with a +smash, followed by the thud of both men falling to the floor; there was +a groan, a pause, a last decisive blow, and then some one rose and came +slowly toward Christina through the dark room.</p> + +<p>In a childish terror of broken nerves, "Bryce!" Christina shrieked. Then +her shrieking, outstretched fingers touched a rough, damp sleeve, and +"Bryce!" she sobbed contentedly. They met with a bump, and clutched each +other, laughing with joy, in this little moment before the last. Already +they could hear the hurrying men; dark figures blackened on the +darkness, the terraces came alive with sound, lights showed and were +gone; and Herrick, holding the empty gun, sought vainly to put Christina +back from him. She held to him, leaning on him, hardly breathing. "It's +death, dear!" she said. "Forgive me!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>She felt him bend his head, and lifting up her face, she set her mouth +to his.</p> + +<p>From the carriage sweep without there came—two short and one +long—three notes from the horn of an automobile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX</h3> + + +<p>The door from the hall opened, letting in a flood of light. At the same +time a man stepped through one of the windows. He was the first of a +number whom the halls and staircases instantly absorbed. Out of +Herrick's very hold Christina slipped and caught this man by the arm and +hung away from him as she was wont to hang upon the arm of Hermann +Deutch. "Oh, heaven and our fathers!" cried she in a faint wail. "But +you were a little late!"</p> + +<p>The man, standing tense in the shadow, was examining the room with +appraising eyes. Christina, blind to something rigid in him, hurried on. +"And I did so depend on a quick curtain! But all's well that ends +well—I've got it! Mr. District-Attorney, your mail!"</p> + +<p>"Who's that with you?" said the voice of Henry Kane.</p> + +<p>As he took, from the hand that had never once resigned them, the +scorched and torn sheets and buttoned them beneath his coat he glanced +over his shoulder, expectantly.</p> + +<p>"You'll go to the Governor, yourself, to-morrow? To-morrow!"</p> + +<p>"Please God! Ah, Herrick, you make one more! Hear anything, Sheriff?" he +called into the hall.</p> + +<p>Kane had turned to close the shutters at his back but Christina, blind +with triumph, continued to Herrick: "He saw my shadow at Riley's. I told +him all that I suspected and he believed me. He spoke to the Governor. +They promised me if I could give Mr. Kane that man and the headquarters +of the others I should have Will's life in exchange. I knew from Nancy's +holding that letter and it's being addressed in Allegra's hand that it +must be the story which caused his feeling against Ingham—that Nancy, +as well as I, must have hoped it might even set him free. Mr. Kane got +me a doctor and as soon as I had my voice he sent me to a little hotel +up the river here, kept by Ten Euyck's old servants whom he would know +must recognize him, and there I sent for him. He was afraid to come +there, of course, into my disreputable company. But he was fine and +eager to meet me somewhere. We hoped he would name that stronghold of +Allegra's where he would feel safe and when he named this house our +hopes leaped.—Oh, I'm so tired!" cried Christina, sitting down on the +floor like a worn-out child and snuggling her head forward in her lap.</p> + +<p>"Are those doors fast?" called Kane from his second window. "That +shutter's loose! What's that balcony? This room won't stand a siege! +You, Herrick, the sheriff and I and five men—can we hold this house?"</p> + +<p>Sheriff Buckley had just limped in with his bruised, cut face further +discolored by the blood from a scalp-wound which he was binding with a +handkerchief. Herrick had already noticed that Kane's arm was tied +tight, just above the elbow, with a gaily flaunting necktie and around +this necktie the torn sleeve was soaked and stained.—"Against how +many?" he replied.</p> + +<p>It was not till then that, lifting a face of weary dismay, "Are we still +fighting?" Christina almost sobbingly demanded.</p> + +<p>"Now, don't frighten the lady!" The sheriff turned to Kane. "We just got +into a mix-up at the gate with the whole Dago gang. They'll never come +up here after us."</p> + +<p>All three men, none the less, were busy latching shutters, locking, +barricading. They were not interrupted and no alarm but their own +seemed in the air. As they worked Kane said, "There's something up we +don't understand. This is something more than any bunch of Pascoes. We +expected a fight. We had over a dozen men. We were attacked by a +hundred. They had made an obstacle race for the motors. One they put out +for good. But the sheriff got this one through."</p> + +<p>"We've left 'em a mile behind!" said the sheriff. "Before they can get +here the river police'll have taken the yacht. They'll be up here before +long. We're safe here awhile, all to ourselves, and they can't get +within a hundred feet of the house without being picked off by our boys +upstairs!"</p> + +<p>As he spoke the pane above Herrick's head, where he struggled with the +loose shutter, cracked into flying splinters. A small hard object had +hurtled into the room and thumped at Kane's feet. A bewilderment +ludicrous as hysteria came over Herrick. For the object that carried a +bit of paper rolled in its mouth was a little golden pistol—which +though sufficiently valued to carry on its handle a monogram of three +capital A's, picked out in jewels, was yet no pistol at all. It was a +dummy made all in one piece!</p> + +<p>"So!" said the District-Attorney. "Now we know!"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I asked you, Herrick, if we could hold this house. And you asked me +against how many. I can't tell you against how many but I can now tell +you against what. Against an army of which you have read, not so long +since, a considerable deal in the papers. Against the Camorra."</p> + +<p>"Here!"</p> + +<p>"After us?"</p> + +<p>"The Italian Camorra!"</p> + +<p>"In America!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Kane insisted, "and under those trees."</p> + +<p>"In costume!" cried Christina, with rising spirits and flitting to the +window.</p> + +<p>"A skeleton pistol is its badge. The owner of this trinket is a member. +Please, Miss Hope, translate us this paper."</p> + +<p>She read aloud, "Alieni the infamous and all his house die here to-night +the death of traitors."</p> + +<p>"Well, the information's dear, but we're getting plenty of it! There's +an advance guard, evidently, set hereabouts!—Alieni! And capital A's! +It's their traitor's badge they've stolen to threaten him. If we only +knew who Alieni is? And where he is! And what they think he has to do +with us!"</p> + +<p>Herrick told them where he had seen the pistol before. To no one did +this, at that time, bring any light. Kane's mind was busy with the +fortunes of the police-boat. "The Camorra easily swarms thick enough to +overpower that!" He paused, surveying their fortress. If they had needed +anything to tell them they were doomed they might have found it in the +colloquial, dry calm of Kane's voice as he said, "We should, perhaps, +have sent Miss Hope upstairs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beseech you—anything but a trap. Let me stay where I can run!"</p> + +<p>"The more as they may try to smoke us out!"</p> + +<p>Silence grew up in their midst.</p> + +<p>The great front doors were barred and chained; through the house five +men were on watch; the door into the hall was barricaded with the gilt +piano, whence still the Cupids smiled, stacked above and below with the +little table and the chairs; down the room's long front the five great +windows, three more crossing at the farther end, were dark with the +latched shutters of which the second on the front was the suspected. So +frail were the defenses! So short a time from the first blow must the +slats give and the glass crash in!</p> + +<p>"I think you'd best take the end, Mr. Kane; me and Mr. Herrick the front +windows—Lord, who's this?"</p> + +<p>The black figure with gleaming shirt-front was seated in a little gilt +chair in the wall's darkest angle; with outstretched legs and tilted +head it confronted them from very glassy eyes. But it was only the dead +body of Ten Euyck, who must have reared up thus with his last breath and +joined their council.</p> + +<p>"Well," cried the sheriff, gaily, "you make another—if they think so!" +Seizing the chair he trundled it across the room; on the floor he found +Ten Euyck's gun and propped it into the passive fingers. "There! If this +blind falls down, you'll be better 'n the piano—they'll waste a lot of +attention on you! Now, if they only make noise enough, down by the +river—Oh, you mustn't let him make you whimper, miss!"</p> + +<p>Herrick was mainly aware of a terrible impatience. The surprise and +confusion of their peril made its expectation a raging fever, as if only +a horrible scarecrow in a mirror waited to be smashed. Despite the whole +week's frenzied pulse, despite the happenings of the last four hours, +Herrick could not believe in what lay before and all about them. These +were men he knew, with whom he had put through other adventures; the +girl beside him had never seemed so much a girl as in this failure of +her hardihood—he saw her for the first time with loosened hair that +touched her face with a childish softness, made for cherishing—it +tightened something in his heart as though to crack it, but it was +absurd to suppose that in half an hour, in ten or twenty minutes, they +would be there on the floor, unconscious of each other, ended, wiped +out! Christina lifted her arms in a gesture instinctive with all +womankind and gathering up this tumble of hair her dear, quick fingers +twined and thrust till it was heaped into its place—why, of course not! +This strange night camp amid broken furniture, the spreading pool of +oil, the jewels lying mixed with the supper's wreckage, Christina silent +again and holding his hand tight, the two wounded, haggard men, all +these his mind admitted, all these were conceivable. But what was soon +to come was not conceivable! Yet—hark! Was that—No, only some creak of +the old house! What sound would be the last before the deluge? How long +must they wait? Already the air seemed thick and hard to breathe, the +twilight of the room hung on them like a solid weight and the one candle +Christina had lighted made scarce a twinkle of sane, human comfort in +the vast yellowish gloom.—</p> + +<p>"If you please, miss, put out that light!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"We can't afford to advertise!"</p> + +<p>The light was gone.</p> + +<p>In the pitch-black airlessness Herrick could feel Christina kneeling +against him, quiet but for the broken breathing that told him she was +still afraid of the dark. As he put his left arm round her shoulders she +pressed her cold cheek to his hand.</p> + +<p>"It's funny, isn't it? We never even had time to get an +engagement-ring!—Here they come!"</p> + +<p>A sound as of excited animals plunged through the groves about the +house; with tramplings and scufflings a great herd seemed to surge out +upon the vacant drive. As it confronted the empty automobile, the +tranquil terraces and the blank front of the locked house it paused, +uncertainly; then a high, prolonged whistle sounded, shorter whistles +responded from every stretch and nook of woodland and there fell again, +to the stupefaction of those within, a perfect silence.</p> + +<p>This continued unbroken, baffling, interminable, inscrutable, and solid +as the walls of a cell. Christina in her endeavor for control gave a +slight, nervous cough, no more than a rough catch of the breath, such +as Herrick had heard her give many a time when their taxi skimmed too +close to a trolley in the safe, crowded, far-off streets. And with this +familiar little sound apprehension awoke in him, full-armed. The +merciful veil was torn from his imagination, his soul gaped to the +knowledge of death and of direr things that precede death. On the +instant all he had ever known of struggle changed; chivalry, +civilization, restraint, vanished like things that never were; if, at +that moment, the bodies of a hundred other women as sweet, as +defenseless, as tender as his love's had stood in her way he could have +set his heel upon them all to save her. Then, close at hand, as if from +somewhere within the wall, came the imperative, prolonged tingle of a +telephone!</p> + +<p>They turned, dumbfounded, shaken with incredulous, mad hope. But whence +came it? Where was it? Christina stirred and slid to her feet; her dress +went whispering across the room; the men, not daring to leave their +posts, knew she must be feeling along the rear wall and still through +the darkness the telephone rang. Then she gave a low cry—a narrow door +in the glass paneling had slipped sideways so that she stretched her +hands into a kind of pantry; the instrument's shrill call was now +directly in her ears—"It's Nicola!"</p> + +<p>The three questioning whispers sprang at her at once.</p> + +<p>"He wants to speak to Mr. Ten Euyck."</p> + +<p>Blankness answered. The ringing became more impatient.</p> + +<p>"Take the message."</p> + +<p>But no message was to be had. Nicola's party was at the boathouse, in +great trouble, in danger—never mind what! He wanted to speak to Mr. Ten +Euyck. "He says, 'Get him to pass me his word to shelter us or what will +you give—what will you give for news of Nancy Cornish?'"</p> + +<p>"Tell him I, Kane, 'll buy his news."</p> + +<p>Christina dropped back against the wall. "When he has spoken to Mr. Ten +Euyck."</p> + +<p>Perhaps, in the helpless pause, the glassy face taking aim behind the +shutter smiled to itself in the dark. Before they had time to try if the +wire connected only with the boathouse, a single shot sprang from across +the drive.</p> + +<p>There was a sharp crack and splintering, a hot puff on Christina's +cheek, and the shattered telephone hung crazily on the wall. The +besieging force had misinterpreted what seemed the reinforcement of the +world and used its best marksman. Having done so it was content and +reassumed its patient crouching. "Rifles!" cried the sheriff. "And yet +they don't attack!"</p> + +<p>Kane peered through the broken slat and with a very grim expression drew +back for the others. "Look under the trees, there. Is it just dark? Or +is it dark with men?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like Birnam Wood!" said Herrick.</p> + +<p>It was that blackest hour before the morning when darkness takes on +weight and bulk so that the eye must carve a way through. But the +blazing dazzle of the entrance porch broke and distorted the besieging +dark, exaggerating, multiplying the forces that it held. Beyond the +brightness of the steps the stone and then the grassy terraces fell +indistinct and shallow to the lawns, beyond which, perhaps a hundred +feet away, the drive was rather known than discerned; twenty feet or so +farther still the wood lay shapeless and invisible but filled by the +monstrous darkness as close as with a great tide. There the most +straining eye could see nothing whatever; now and again the night came +alive with snapping twigs, every grove would wake and rustle; then not a +leaf would stir. But through all the intermediate borderland shadows +seemed to loom, to creep, dissolve and disappear; then to their more +accustomed eyes these shadows began to take on form—they were the +shadows of softly moving men, individuals and small groups, unknown +persons on unknown errands which carried them here and there but closer +and closer about the house. "Queer the boys upstairs don't spot them!" +One group passed so close to the end windows that Kane fired at it and +produced a commotion which he followed by another shot. There was no +response, but from all directions the fringe of figures drew nearer, a +crouching, irregular line behind its faggot-like shields of broken +boughs. The defenders spent their shots recklessly, now, for the same +thought was in all their minds; it seemed to take form from its own +apprehension when, as the invaders drew back their wounded, those within +became aware of something across the tree-tops, down toward the river; a +ruddier dusk, a glow that was not morning, far against the sky.</p> + +<p>Close at their backs Christina's voice murmured with an icy softness, +"The boathouse! It's afire!" Her tone told Herrick that the telephone +had stolen all her weakness, she was strung like a bow; side by side +with his her glance strained out and forward as the knots of men +continued to advance with velvet stealth. The fire of the defenders +ceased. Automatically, for they had nothing left to fire with. "What's +become of my fellows?" Sheriff Buckley wondered. The first foam of the +tide began to lap the terraces. Christina looked beyond it toward the +flames that flared on the horizon. And from that way Herrick, too, heard +a new sound, the thudding of a horse galloping clumsily on soft turf. +The shadows blotted themselves to the ground. The hoofbeats began to run +amuck as though the horse had lost its rider. Hither and yon round the +corners of the house shapeless movements hurried, there came the step of +a heavy runner and the cursing of a deep voice in some Italian patois. +The long, single whistle darted out again and once more there fell that +motionless waiting of the profoundly brooding night. It was Christina +who first said, "Some one else is in this room!"</p> + +<p>As they listened they, too, could hear the sound of crawling. Something +was creeping into the room. It was coming through the pantry door which +Christina had left open and it advanced with a dragging sound as a +wounded beast drags on its stomach. Kane, dropping on it, found his +hands in a man's hair. The man sank under him with a deathly groan and +now it was Kane who called for a candle. "Nicola!" Christina breathed.</p> + +<p>He was making horrible motions with his mouth; Christina found some +unspilled wine and thrust the edge of the glass between his lips. "Tell +me! Nancy—?"</p> + +<p>Kane held up his hand. Beyond, in the pantry, a step sounded—backing +from Nicola's trail. Herrick and the sheriff dragged in between them a +tall Sicilian whose triangular knife was still wet. The embroidered +table-cloth with which they bound him to the piano strained under his +renewed efforts to attack the dying man whom Christina still entreated, +"Is she with my sister? Is she?"</p> + +<p>A hoarse sob raged through Nicola and gasped past his last grin of pride +and hate. "You fool of hers! Fool of us all! <i>Your</i> sister? <i>My</i> sister, +mine! You think <i>you</i> ever have a sister like that?"</p> + +<p>The girl stood above him, tranced and wide-eyed, with distended +nostrils; as she turned to Herrick a face which release and knowledge +were even then palely lighting the figure of a man darted into the +gallery where Herrick had lain; a slim, soft man whose pretty little +face was all flecked and sweated with the insane hate and courage which +come of insane fear. The Sicilian greeted what he took for reinforcement +with a cry of triumph and encouragement; but it was not Nicola, it was +Herrick at whom this tremulous assassin, yelling "Spy! Spy! Will you +show me again to the Camorra?" extended his revolver. At the same +moment, Nicola, turning on his side and aiming upward, shot him dead. +The slim, soft figure doubled over the rail and the refined, pretty, +convulsed face swung there with open mouth. At this Nicola spat the wine +which he had sucked as he lay: "Thus my sister salutes thee!" Then his +head knocked back upon the floor and he lay still.</p> + +<p>The tall Sicilian, who had watched the action without fully +understanding the quick English words, now strained forward, peering +with a kind of gratified thirst into Christina's face. He said to her in +Italian that was almost a whisper, "You are very fair!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think that is news to me?" asked the girl, with a kind of fury. +"But my fairness has done all it can! What's to do, now?"</p> + +<p>"You are fair. But you are the devil. You brought police to the river, +who will return with more. You have plunged this night in the blood of +your brothers. There was one who was like a little sister. Where is +she?"</p> + +<p>Christina started; half in appeal, half in defense against the omen of +his tones, she stretched out her hands. The Sicilian lowered his mouth +to the bosom of his shirt and brought forth in his teeth a little hoop +of silver which he shook before Christina's eyes. "Where is she now? Of +her tokens <i>she has lost the third</i>!" It was Nancy's bracelet that he +dropped at Christina's feet.</p> + +<p>"Devil of fine fairness," he said, "I shall pick it up again, when you +are lying low! When not one shot is left for our hurt we there, without, +will come quietly in! Then shall I bear this to my chief. I took it from +the hand of Beppo, who lay bleeding in the grass. Were Chigi and Pepe +caught in the fire? They reached her late, for they had rowed their boat +back, to escape those policemen on the river. Only when Alieni jumped +and swam they must follow him and tramp to the house for boats along the +shore. But they reached her! I was against it always—she was not of our +nation. Ah, she was pretty! Had you not let her know too much she need +not have been put to sleep!"</p> + +<p>Christina made no outcry. If his attack on herself bewildered her, her +imagination caught the significance of the Camorrist phrase. "Where," +asked she slowly, "does she sleep?"</p> + +<p>"In the dead ashes of the house of boats." His malignant sneer took in +the stricken, threatened group, as well as his own bondage. And turning +once more to Christina he smilingly informed her, "I seek in the house +for boats Nicola Pascoe. I hear him talking as at a telephone. They have +brought a lamp and in the window I see a pretty girl, young and not so +tall, with a face very sweet but sick and the hair falls curling and +red. She has in her hands a tiny bottle filled with a dark liquid. She +throws it from the window where it fills the air with laudanum smell. +And at that up runs to her Nicola—and she, away! They must have knocked +over the lamp, for next the house for boats is blazing high. And, as the +smoke comes in the window, there she runs again—just as I see the +woman's figure and in the fiery smoke one light of her red hair at that +out from the bushes a bullet springs. She clasps her hands over her +breast with a small cry and down she sinks. And Alieni flies out of the +bushes with Beppo and Chigi and Pepe at his back and he races into the +flaming house. It is after that down plunges Nicola, down and past us, +running here to this place, and I follow him, sure that past him I shall +come, too, upon his sister. Before we reach here, through the dark, +comes a horse with two men on its back—one is yelling 'I have killed +her! I have killed her!' and he passes. The other falls off. It is +Beppo, who dies at my feet, giving me the bracelet. He had it from +Pepe, the Parmesan, whom he saw meet with Alieni in the doorway of the +house for boats. By this time all, everywhere, is fighting and the house +for boats blows up in a puff and falls in upon itself in crumbling +fire."</p> + +<p>Christina had never taken her eyes from his face and in those eyes alone +there now seemed any life to hold her body upright. "It's not true!" +said she, gently and at length. "Life's not so silly!" But she stretched +out a blind hand to Herrick and leaned on him a little.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" mocked the Sicilian, "it made a beautiful grave! You will not have +so fine! But yours gapes for you now as well as for your lover, and for +your husband, who caused all the death! Do not pity the girl who died. +Exult not over Giuseppe Gumama. Read, instead, the writing in your +golden pistol—of Alieni—and the Signora Alieni—" He stopped with a +gratified gasp. The handle of the door into the hall had been softly +turned from the outside.</p> + +<p>No one moved. In a strange voice the sheriff called to know if this were +one of his men. There was no answer. "Where are they? Why don't they—"</p> + +<p>Gumama the Sicilian laughed aloud. "The long cellar-way, where by night +we carried out to the river our broken press—It has let us in—so +quietly—Many went upstairs—"</p> + +<p>Herrick translated. With one impulse the three men turned toward the +slide in the paneling. It was closed. But their intent listening made +sure of more than one soft touch, straying in search of the mechanism. +Of crowding whispers they could not be so sure. Herrick reached for +Nicola's gun. But it had only one charge and then, indeed, though +without turning her head, Christina closed her hand on his and took it +from him. "That's mine, you know!" No man gainsaid her and she put it in +her breast. Undisguised, unhurried footsteps sounded overhead. An alien +presence pervaded all that house. Caged in their shelter, they drew +together, close under the balcony. Christina suffered herself to be +drawn with them, but she was considering aloud the Sicilian's words.</p> + +<p>"My golden pistol!" Christina looked from the little femininely jeweled +dummy to the script, "'Filippi Alieni and all his house'—And all his +house! 'The death of traitors'—My husband, you say? The Signora +Alieni—A. A. A. Alieni, of course! But—Allegra?—Allegra?—Alieni?"</p> + +<p>"Signora Alieni!" Gumama smilingly repeated.</p> + +<p>The girl gave him one glance, sprang past him and flung herself against +the shuttered windows. "Whom do you mean by traitors?" she called. "For +whom do you take us? Answer! Answer!"</p> + +<p>At the sound of her voice a deep-bayed, many-throated yell roared out +derision and victory. As the men dragged Christina back a coarse laugh +mocked loudly from across the road. "Signora Alieni, we rejoice at the +last to salute you!" And the whole woodland took up his phrase in +chorus, "Buona sera, Signora Alieni!"</p> + +<p>Then, uncontrollably, at length the darkness volleyed, the earth was +rived with sound and fire, the flashes of it scorching their skin while +glass, plaster, woodwork, split and spattered round them as through the +windows the hail beat.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I MADE MY BATTLE STAY!"</h3> + + +<p>Christina's stream of Italian left Herrick so far behind that he could +only watch the incredulity of Gumama's face turn to doubt and then to +reflection. The word "American" was often repeated, and then came +Gumama's slower answer, puzzling out the question—But was not the +Signora Alieni herself much American? Did not she to-night meet here in +this house her brother Nicola? And was she not to run away at sunrise +with—and he pointed to Herrick—an American? And how well was it not +known that the Signora Alieni was bella, bella donna?—"Bella—bella!" +with mounting fervor he violently repeated.</p> + +<p>"But you, yourself? You never saw her?"</p> + +<p>"The Signora Alieni goes always veiled."</p> + +<p>"Are there none—out there—who know her?"</p> + +<p>"Old friends ten years ago in Naples. And the laborers of Nicola."</p> + +<p>"When they come, they will know at once she is not here," said +Christina, with an odd, proud calm. "Ah, please, let me see what they +are about!" And she persistently advanced to a window and peered between +the slats of a blind.</p> + +<p>Blackness was lifting from the earth. That clear gray light, clearer and +grimmer than ever they had seen it, of the slowly rising dawn had begun +to fill the open spaces. Under the trees it was still a dusk of living +shadows, and, from within the house, the half-muffled, surrounding +pressure strained closer still against the walls. Christina faced +round, uttered a piercing shriek and pointed toward the panel. To this, +the men who watched her turned. And on the instant, the shutters +clicking as she flung them open, the girl flashed through and ran +straight into the dawn on the white terrace. "You who know Allegra +Alieni, am I she? Am I she?"</p> + +<p>A wail of amazement and denial greeted her. The men within, the men +without, came to a standstill.—"If you ever loved me," said Christina +to Herrick, "keep back from me, now!" He replied only by swinging +forward Gumama, who thereupon stood in the sight of his friends with the +mute argument of a revolver at his head. Not a voice replied. But not a +shot was fired.</p> + +<p>In the pause produced by the concerned and puzzled hesitation of the +besiegers, Christina gathered up her voice. She was used to send it far, +to hush and rouse with it, to pierce and move at will, and neither +misery nor fatigue seemed now to have weakened its flexible and winning +melody. "Sirs," cried the girl, "I ask you the one thing. Are you not +here as the executioners of the great Camorra? Do you, then, wish to +disobey?"</p> + +<p>She had centered upon herself a bewildered stare.</p> + +<p>"And do you not disobey if you blunder? Do you wish to bring all the new +world about your ears for the wrong thing? Believe me, we four, we are +strong persons in that world—we do not fall unavenged! If we are to die +here, now, and the great society of the Camorra is to wreck itself upon +our death, let it not be in a mistake!—Ah, you see! Believe me! We are +not false brethren of yours, we are Americans, every one! But in a way +you and I are brethren, for I, like you, have seen my heart's good faith +betrayed—and by the same hand!"</p> + +<p>A startled murmur rose.</p> + +<p>"I, too, was brought to come here by the ruin of my life through +Allegra Alieni! Of her husband I never knew. Only hold back the force +that masses at our door and here is a plan. We are here four—three men +and a woman. Send us four men—mask them, if you will—and let them look +at us close and well; they will see that we cannot be those whom you +seek. But we have with us the body of Nicola whom this one here, calling +himself Giuseppe Gumama, slew, and who was brother to the Alienis. Let +your men take this Nicola from our house, for we, no more than you, have +any use for traitors!"</p> + +<p>These words produced an extraordinary effect. A murmur of admiration, of +fellowship, exclamations, argument, a sort of congratulation traversed +the green spaces through the still strengthening dawn. Christina, as +always, had found her audience.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sirs," cried the girl, in a softer cadence, advancing to the very +edge of the terrace, and still eagerly baring her face to the pale +light, "you seek our lives and I am so weary I am almost glad to die. +But die or live, oh, now, for the dear love of God, let me go down to +the river! Let me see who is still alive there! Send whom you will with +me, but let me go!" And Christina stretched out her arms to the men of +the Camorra as to the brothers of her soul and for the moment they were +all more than her brothers in their inflammable hearts.</p> + +<p>But even a little noise could still distract them. And this time it was +the noise of the unhinged shutter as it slid, bumping, for a second and +then fell with a crash upon the terrace. In the half-light Ten Euyck's +hand, holding a pistol, was visible at the window and above it the white +leer of his face. Voices cried, "A fourth man! A man of whom she did not +tell!"</p> + +<p>A prisoner from the yellow farmhouse called out in an insufferable, +fawning yelp, "I know him! He used to visit the signora! He is the +confidant of the signora and of her brother!"</p> + +<p>A roar rose and drowned out Christina's voice. "That man—how comes he +there! The friends of Allegra Alieni are her friends!"</p> + +<p>The crowd did not advance for the ring of Herrick's gun was still +pressed against Mr. Gumama's beautiful brow. But some shrill voice rose, +a-quiver with exhorting hate. "The hour is come! For what have we +waited? Till they had not a shot left! They have none now! If they had +they would have shot Gumama when he came in! They do not shoot him, +now—they have nothing to shoot! Give the signal! They hid the friend of +Allegra Alieni behind the window—how shall they tell us her friends are +not their friends? How shall they tell us they can injure our Gumama? +Close in! Close in!"</p> + +<p>The tide of the Camorra washed forward, and surged up the first terrace. +But it came to a halt.</p> + +<p>"How?" Christina had cried. And then, extending the revolver that +carried the last shot, she had fired straight into the dead face of Ten +Euyck.</p> + +<p>The jar shattered that perilous equilibrium. The corpse fell in upon +itself, its weapon dropping with a clank, the tongue suddenly protruding +beneath the shattered cheekbones and the head goggling on the breast. +The note of one still unaffrighted bird came through the perfect +stillness.</p> + +<p>The invading army shivered, shocked and applausive; then, +apprehensively, it glanced at Gumama. It drew together in consulting +knots. Some men, coming from round the house, joined the counsel and +created a sensation. A puzzled but now rather friendly voice shouted, +"Some one lies! Alieni was seen to enter where you are!"</p> + +<p>They all looked at Christina. But the wire had snapped at last. She +stood with a scared vagueness on her white face, the pistol swinging +loose in her hand and her eyes fixed on the hunched clutter of what had +been Ten Euyck. Herrick made out to translate the message and Kane said, +"Ask 'em if they'll send up that investigating committee?"</p> + +<p>Christina's shot had made, however, too great an impression. If they had +ammunition to spare, they were no hosts for the Camorra. Would the +Americans come out, each one, upon the second terrace?—bringing, also, +the dead and wounded, till Gumama shall tell us there are no more?</p> + +<p>"When the devil drives—! Say we'll begin with the dead!"</p> + +<p>They began with Ten Euyck. Sheriff Buckley took the head, Kane the feet; +the long, bony figure sagged between them and the tails of its +dress-coat flopped as if pointing jocularly toward the ground. As they +bore this burden down the terraces and laid it on the smooth greenness +of the lawn, amid the ever brightening daylight and the ever growing +chirp and twitter of the slowly calming birds, various disheveled +figures began to hurry into view along the drive from the river. These +arrivals had all the air of refugees and continued to excite, in +counsel, an increasing perturbation. Yet the truce remained unbroken. So +long as Kane and Buckley, exposed, defenseless, to the first marksman, +carried forth Nicola no word nor movement was given in enmity. But the +delay in reaching the figure in the gallery produced great restiveness. +Taunts and outcries of nervous impatience gave way, when the two men +appeared with their slighter burden, to a chorus of half-derisive +welcome. The Camorra had begun to be in a hurry.</p> + +<p>Its nervousness communicated itself to the men who bore this third body +down the great stone steps and laid it at Ten Euyck's right hand. A +thick sweat stood out upon them when a sharp storm of curses, geysers +and downpours of venom broke suddenly from heavens and earth. But the +tempest was not for them. The face of their last burden had become +visible to the advance guard stationed among the foremost trees and this +now leaned violently forth, tossing like branches with the shriek, +"Alieni! Traditore! Alieni!"</p> + +<p>Upon that the shadow of the woodland broke at last. A dozen men, their +hats screened low to shield their faces, detached themselves from the +mass which crouched greedily after them and, racing out upon the lawn, +threw themselves prostrate on the soft, supine thing that lay there. +Behind them the tide became ungovernable; rose, swelled forward; covered +the road, the lowest terrace; raving, shrieking, leaping and falling; +biting the grass upon which it rolled in frenzy. There were perhaps two +minutes of pandemonium. Then a whistle sounded. Then another. The tide +rolled back; the groves of oak and pine and maple swallowed it into +their shadow; and of that orgy of living hate no trace remained in the +full clearness of the fresh morning but the trampled, mangled body of +Filippi Alieni, pierced with fifty-eight wounds and still bearing +between the shoulder blades a triangular knife. The will of the Camorra +was satisfied.</p> + +<p>A chorus of whistles sounded from the wood. Then arose a single voice, +demanding Gumama. His captors realized that the war was over; the +prisoner was released. Despite the hurrying bird-calls of his mates he +paused, thoughtfully knitting his Saracen brows, for a look at +Christina.</p> + +<p>The girl was standing perfectly still, with her eyes intent upon Ten +Euyck's empty chair, as if she had not observed his removal; her gaze +was fixed, but her lower lip strained and quivered. As Gumama paused the +pistol slid from her hand; the noise of its dropping at her feet +attracted her eyes; she shivered violently; broke into trembling mirth +and sank, till her soft cheek and the convulsive throbbing of her young +body lay pressed upon the stone. Herrick and Gumama both sprang to her. +Herrick lifted her head upon his knee, but she lay limp and shook from +head to foot with sobbing laughter.</p> + +<p>Gumama shrugged and stood back. "Is it," he asked, "the silver +bracelet?" Then they all saw that the bracelet snatched from Nancy was +on Christina's wrist.</p> + +<p>Herrick nodded; his soul was sick with that horror. There was no +triumph, now, in victory.</p> + +<p>"Tell her," said the tall Sicilian, "when she avenges her friend to +think of me. I will come. Always. She is the pearl of everything. All +would not see it. But I have the piercing eye. I see."</p> + +<p>He ran off swiftly; and the sort of uproarious twitter which welcomed +him under the trees ended in a final message. "Farewell, Americans. You +do us the courtesy of our beloved Gumama! We do you our courtesy—Flee! +Whoever you are, the policemen are upon you! They are coming from the +gate, they are coming from the river! In ten minutes they will be here! +Americans, farewell!"</p> + +<p>It was the last word of the Camorra in their lives. The undergrowth of +the wood seemed to grow scantier; it was the backward fading of the +shadows, it was the passing of a great, black bulk; the disappearance of +innumerable unknown persons whom they had never even seen, of whose +existence they had never even known, out of their path. Nothing remained +but the signaling whistles of the Camorra, gathering its children in its +retreat. The thing was over. The last consequence of the Ingham murder, +of the birth of the Hopes' first child twenty-eight years ago in Naples, +was over and done. And the three men regarded each other with a strange +feeling of vacancy.</p> + +<p>But in the mouths of Kane and the sheriff the morning air was good and +life ran sweet in their veins. Even to Herrick, with the exhausted girl +laughing and shuddering in his arms, there seemed to rise a kind of +future hope when forgetfulness should deal tenderly with her. Soon she +must begin to weep and the other side of weeping a kind of consolation +lies. "Why, her own youth and life must heal her!" Kane said. "It's +hard, it's bitter hard! But there's her feeling for you, her future, her +work—Don't look at her as if she were dying! Time, my boy, she needs +time, that's all!—As for Nancy Cornish, she fell with one shot. And +since she was so much in love with that poor fellow, believe me, she's +better off!"</p> + +<p>Herrick looked up in alarm, lest Christina should hear bad news. But she +was lost in the hot surge of tears that had come to her at last and lay +only quieter and quieter in his hold. Till at length, since there was a +time coming when she must know if Fate had played her doubly false, he +fetched a coat to put under her head and drew Kane aside. "You meant +just now—?"</p> + +<p>"I meant what I've had on my mind through all this night, as something +with which I didn't know how to face Miss Hope. I meant that this chap +Denny was never a very lucky fellow—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Was?</i>"</p> + +<p>"But that never was anything unluckier than his consenting to leave the +Tombs."</p> + +<p>"Because they followed and brought him back?"</p> + +<p>"They followed. But they didn't bring him back!—I forgot you wouldn't +know. The Italians somehow palmed off on Ten Euyck's men another Italian +made up with the things in which they took Denny from the Tombs. It's +easy enough to understand now why Ten Euyck, with discreet mercy, called +this substitute simply a mistake and let him go." He paused, studying +the driveway with clouded eyes. "The Italians must have got clear away +with Denny, but why did they take so much pains? Were they really going +to hand over to Allegra a man whom they certainly considered in some +way their enemy, when already they must have begun to turn against her? +What were they going to do with him? What <i>did</i> they try to do with him +when he was first imprisoned in the Tombs? Don't groan, my boy! It's the +one way out. It's the most merciful thing for that poor girl, there; +it's the most merciful thing for Denny himself. Hope for it! If his +captors didn't get away, if he's been retaken with them, then marry +Christina Hope as fast as may be and get her out of this country for +awhile. You understand?" Herrick looked up. "I intend, with all my +strength, to keep my bargain. I'll go to the Governor to-morrow. But he +let me know, as I was starting here, that it would be useless."</p> + +<p>"After his promise?"</p> + +<p>"Since that promise Denny broke jail. There are minds to which such a +move is always the unpardonable sin! Against it the mere justifying +provocation in any story Allegra Alieni may tell could make no appeal. +Besides, it's told by a woman who was in love with him, and who, by this +time, is either dead or run away. So must be every witness to it. Even +as evidence against the blackmailers, if there are any left, Miss Hope +can't force the state to sell her his life for this, now. Well, some +day, perhaps, you can make her see that whatever happens, police or +Camorra, he managed to get his way, poor chap! If she weren't fooled by +life's being hope she would see, well enough, that he was the last man +to thank her for a light sentence. He was keen against jail, you +remember?"</p> + +<p>They were both silent. Yes, Herrick remembered. "The best friend +Christina ever had" she would surely some day see could not have +lingered in the black durance that he loathed.—Rest, rest, perturbed +spirit!</p> + +<p>It was the hour for resolution, for new birth. Herrick felt a strength +of pity in his breast whose tide should lift Christina from the +whirlpools of which the lessening eddies still plucked at her sick soul. +Poor girl, poor, brave, spoiled, wilful, imperious, generous heart! To +have fought so hard and to be checked thus at the end! To have +outwatched, outstalked, outrun the hounds for this! "Thus far shalt thou +go...." Hers had been a heroic presumption, but it had been presumption +all the same. You cannot outface consequences nor outdare natural +tragedy; no, not even you, Christina Hope! After all, could she have +expected to clear out from a morass like this without a loss? Ah, for +her defeat he suffered, but for her safety he thanked God! Rest, time, +the irrevocable—these in the end would place the past under her feet. +Was it because she read the tender vowing of his thought that she had a +little ceased to weep?</p> + +<p>For she lifted her exhausted face, where the wild, wet eyes still seemed +to listen, just as Herrick remembered their continual guard six weeks +ago. She was listening to those chorusing signals, still whistled from +far stations nearer road and river and returned in such imitation of +bird voices that bird after bird replied. They were growing +fainter—they were retreating on every hand—all but one, which seemed +to advance and to give forth a more familiar note. And suddenly +Christina answered it.</p> + +<p>Herrick caught her closer, in a new terror of delirium. The girl rose to +her knees and put him back. "But we've wandered many a weary foot—" +From among the fleeing whistles of the wood one had certainly warned or +questioned in articulate notes with which hers joined in a familiar +bar—"Since auld lang syne, my dear—" Through the colorless day a +strong yellow light had begun to flood the earth; the clouds were carved +out sharp in it, the woods stood black; the light had a blush of happy +fire and the air sparkled. In that cool radiance, in that bright hour, +out from among the very waves of the Camorra's receding sea, a single +figure stepped from the border of the wood and came straight up the +terraces.</p> + +<p>Not so tall as Mr. Gumama but still vaguely Sicilian in cut, the +messenger or fugitive or whatever he might be advanced under the gaze of +those who grew terribly pale and could not speak; Christina peering +forward, shaking from head to foot, her clenched hands hanging at her +side and her lips caught between the knocking of her teeth. The echoing, +ominous whistles, the noises of rescue approaching from two sides, the +hails of the police, the sound of wheels, tires, horses' hoofs and +running feet did not deter the single figure which, mounting with a kind +of steady stumble, like one far spent, blind, now, to the danger of +sudden bullets, indifferent to arrest or punishment or anything in +heaven or earth but his own ends, gained at length the foot of the stone +steps and lifted his face. At the same instant the risen sun glinted on +the swinging gold of sailors' earrings, on the bracelet slipped out +below a ragged cuff, on the red cord of a scapular and on the scarf in +the Sicilian colors that had helped to play their part in the Duel by +Wine in the loft above the garage. The wearer was damp from the river +and stained with earth, yet smelling of singed cloth and grimed with +smoke; torn, wounded, blackened, haggard, with bright, steady eyes. It +was Will Denny. He carried the unconscious but still breathing figure of +Nancy Cornish in his arms.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The first thing she woke to was Allegra's letter and Kane's question, +"Do you know what this document contains? Can you witness its truth?"</p> + +<p>And then answered Nancy Cornish, "Of course I can! I saw her come out in +Christina's cloak. They kept me waiting in the motor outside while she +shot Mr. Ingham."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT</h3> + + +<p>The whole of Allegra's document was never made public. Before it was +read even by those concerned they heard from Nancy how, when she had run +from the window of the boathouse, it was Allegra who had reappeared +there, she whose red hair Gumama had glimpsed through the smoke and she +whom Alieni had found courage to shoot. Afterwards they got from Denny +the story of his venture: how he had guessed that, on leaving the Tombs, +he would, in his own person, be kept a prisoner by his Italian hosts +till he was got out of the country; and how he had therefore persuaded +Filippi Alieni to change places with him—Filippi to be carried to +Allegra and he to receive at the meeting of the Camorra a message that +would take him to Nicola, to the hiding of the Arm of Justice and to +Nancy Cornish. What must forever sicken Denny to think of was that hour +in the boathouse when Nancy might have yielded and taken the laudanum +that Mrs. Pascoe had finally secured, before he could get to her. +Nancy's eyes were upon him, regarding him fixedly and strangely. With +the vividness of his remembrance he broke off to question her. "How, at +such a time, among such dangers, did you dare to throw it away?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I had to! No matter what! I had to live till the last minute. The +letter was gone. I was your life. I was the only one who knew!"</p> + +<p>He dropped his face into her lap with a strange laugh. By and by, they +turned to the story of Allegra.</p> + +<p>That great donkey of a Ten Euyck wishes me to write this. He says it is +for his protection, but I know well enough what it is for. It is a net +to catch a peacock—to whom he is welcome. He will never bray about +me—this is two-edged; it would avenge me. It is a pity none will ever +read it, for it is a good story and I should like every one to know +about me. Then, too, sometimes, I almost think that when I am far away +and sheltered with my friends, I will send word of it to high places for +<i>his</i> sake. For I shall be always in torment if they kill him. That is, +if by then there shall be no Nancy Cornish. To send him, free, to the +arms of another woman—no, that would be a little too much!</p> + +<p>I am a remarkable girl. It has taken to crush me the same as to crush +Napoleon—bad luck. My bad luck began when I was born, with the two +colors of my eyes. Thus a mark was put upon me, keeping me always in +holes and corners unless I would be known, and making most men, who love +me by nature, growing in time to weary of my face. If it had not been +for the blue eye and the brown, my mother would never have noticed, +among the children in the park, the American baby with the fair down +upon its head who, when she came to look at it, was made with a shaped +face like mine, and who also had a brown eye and a blue. She would never +have made friends with the nurse and learned how the child was named +Allegra Hope, and how the rich Americans had been married but four +months before it was born, and were to wait in Italy till it could be +brought home a year younger than it was. This the nurse had picked up, +not being supposed to speak much English. And then came the telegram to +come home, somebody was dying. And at the same time the nurse was sick, +and there was no one with whom to leave the child. And then the nurse +brings forth her friend who has always showed so fond of the child, and +there is rejoicing because she is American, and the English doctor says +she is healthy and the child is left with her. It is treated well; it +grows; it grows more and more like me, who am but one year the older, so +that all laugh to see us, and I am more like that other mother than my +own, showing in what class it would have been just I should be born. And +the old creature in America does not die, but hangs and hangs, and money +is always sent for the baby, and by and by when it is three years old it +catches the fever and it dies. And the English doctor is to write to the +parents, but he does not write—he does an injury to one of the great +clan of the Camorra and he writes no more. And I grow every day more +beautiful, more strong, more strange to have sprung out of the mud, and +the money keeps coming and coming; but that the dead one was fair in the +head, and I am red like the sun, there is no great difference from what +she might have been, and that she is dead and buried and the money spent +and spent on me, is never told. But they there in America, thinking to +be gone but a month at most, never said there was a daughter, so they +know not how, now, one is to be produced.</p> + +<p>So that when I am seven years old, comes the Hope man; he looks upon the +child with the blue eye and the brown, and sighs his great breath on my +hair, and takes me to the English school. But I come every summer to my +own people, so that I have all that is best of both kinds, and grow to +be so beautiful and have such fascination, that when there comes +sometimes a Hope father or Hope mother to take me on a trip and be sorry +for me, I laugh at their backs! The mother I do not like, and she does +not like me. She is a fool, and she has, too, another child. It is a +girl and it is said to be pretty; but the picture she carries with her +resembles a pale, shapeless child with dull hair,—not like mine that +burns men's hearts like fire! Moreover this child has things that I +should have, more money, more fuss, she is more shown. I am proud to be +what I am; my mother, who is scarcely more than a common servant, had +the great luck to marry into the Camorra, and my brother Nicola at +eighteen takes the oath, so I am not come alone from dull peasants and +these cackling Yankees, but from free men, born to judge, born to +strike, born to live wild and to satisfy their blood. But all the same, +as to this brat, Christina, I am the elder sister and I should have all, +<i>all</i>! I make up my mind to be even with her and to spoil what things +she has. I hear how she is strange, and is a lonely child, and plays she +has a sister to talk to, a little girl who lives in the looking-glass; +and how it is a game of hers that when she is in a gown of pink the +sister is in blue, and when they buy her a doll there is another for the +sister, and a place set at the dolls' teas, and Christina talks for the +two. Then I know she is a fool, like her mother.</p> + +<p>When I am fifteen, and of the right age for passion and to break men's +hearts, my bad luck comes and breaks my own. It could not leave me with +the poor to be like the poor, it raised me up so that my nose sniffed at +sight of them, and then it brought me together with Alonzo Pasquale, the +son of a millionaire. He was mad for me, and well he might be, and I +liked him so well, being young and fanciful, that I gave him +encouragement. I ran away from school with him and we would have been +happy forever, he having so much to give me, but that he grew weary of +my blue eye and my brown. He told me so, for he was a dog and a devil, +and I took little Filippi Alieni, and married him! It was wise. It was +as well to be married, and he was a gentleman, with money. All was done +as a wise girl should do, and yet see how my luck pursued me!</p> + +<p>His people cast him off, on my account, their own daughters being ugly; +and Nicola, who has been the best of brothers to me, Nicola got him +into the Camorra, where his gentlemanly manners would make him able to +get, first, confidence, and then money, from the best.</p> + +<p>Yet when I had been but three months married and was not yet sixteen, he +gets himself caught. And in prison he tells, he betrays his comrades, so +that he is released, and for this Nicola does not kill him. No, he keeps +the secret of that disgrace, and ships us to America, where I am to +introduce my husband to the Hopes. All so well planned, and yet such +luck!</p> + +<p>One of those to whom he had confessed loses his place, and then, by +blackmail, that he will give my husband's treachery to the Camorra, he +gets from him all the money that he now has. So that I have to lose him +quickly; to take the little, ah, so little! there is left, and slip +away! I do not wish a Camorra knife in my back!</p> + +<p>I am afraid to go to the Hopes, for there he will follow me, and he is a +snivelling, watering thing to make a fuss and spoil all. So I ask for +work to teach Italian, and I live for a little while as if I were quite +commonplace. And so I meet with the great Jim.</p> + +<p>Hail and farewell, my poor Jim! You were only twenty-three and you cared +too much! You did so many things for me, you thought such things about +me, and were of such a considerate politeness and care, it made me +laugh! But you were a beautiful lover, and I would have loved you, if I +could! I would have been glad to marry you, as you made me so weary +begging of me. I was very happy with you; you gave more to me and I +think you loved me better than any one. But you were very silly to +believe me, and silly to leave me when you found me out! That little +whimpering puppy came; and, since you left me, and he had a good hint +from Nicola how to get money from an Italian family here, what was I to +do? We did very well, for a while, besides the money the Hopes sent +me—I told them I came here to escape impertinence and was teaching +Italian—and then they lost their money and I wrote to them no more.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Hope, because of her sick conscience, was always trying, in sly +ways, to find where I was. And it seems when her brat was come to +fourteen years old it chanced upon my last letter and learned all. +Heavens, what a row it raised! And how I was written to and written to; +and some letters being forwarded me that they had tried sending me to +Italy, were all about how she cried for me, and pitied and loved me and +rejoiced, and said, again and again: "Oh, mother, I have a sister! I +have a sister!" "Bene!" I thought, "she sounds like a tiresome little +minx; but at least it is a thing to know!"</p> + +<p>So that by and by—when Filippi is clumsy again and goes to jail for +four years, and they dare to put me there for two—when I come out I go +to my sentimental miss, who is now more than sixteen and makes already a +little money. Not a dollar has she made since but I have had the half of +it. She has no frugality; she is all luxuries and caprices and always in +debt; and for a while it seemed as if really she would be scarcely of +any use at all. But it is strange how pale she is, and yet attracts and +shoots onward! Since then I have found a letter about those two years +when I was silent. She wrote it to Will Denny, who thought she did too +much for me. Like this:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"As I grew up and understood, and saw what little girls can come to +in a world like this, I thought here was I and where was she?—My +elder sister, born in wedlock, born of my father and my mother, +grown up among peasants, among hardships, and if she had come to +harm, lost, thrown away, forsaken and denied—for what? For any +fault of hers? For a convention, a cowardice, done in obedience to +the chatter of fools and in order to stand well with those that +have no hearts! What can I think of my poor mother but that her +weakness forsook and denied her child to please the world? What can +I think of any shame or sorrow that touches Allegra but that this +is what the world and her own family have made of her? Oh, Will, it +came to be my madness to find her and to ask her forgiveness for +being in her place. All that I am and have and ever shall be I +stole from her, and only give her back again to repay what can +never in this world be repaid!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>You see, she was a crazy girl from the beginning. As soon as ever I see +her I know the thing to tell her is that I have been in prison for +stealing—I do not tell her I am innocent; I tell her I was starving! It +was funny to see her—I was like a saint to her! I think of all I can +that is piteous and wild and of a great pride, broken, like a sick +eagle! I tell her about Ingham, but all wrong and round the other way, +and how he cannot marry me because I am without money or place, and +leaves me, when I am eighteen, without a dollar and without a name. And +how when that had come to a young girl I could not write. All, all +because society had kept me from my place in life and, having turned me +out, had locked me into jail because I could not starve.</p> + +<p>Eh me, you should have seen her! She used herself like a maid to me, and +a mother and a little lover, all in one. And I might have done very well +with her, and the world would have been all for me to walk,—or this +little running colt, she would have known the reason!—but for my bad +luck. Nicola who would do better in this country with education wishes +me to work with him. And how can I guess the growing brat will grow so +far and high? So I am glad enough to make a little butter to my bread. +Try living once, three women, the Hope woman and Christina and me, off +the salary of a girl younger than eighteen and you will see. But who +would think that all the while this monkey girl was looking in the glass +of my grace, to steal and steal and steal from me? And would steal once +too often, for the moving-picture show, and gets herself into a corner! +That was, indeed, the justice of the gods.</p> + +<p>All this time I have made Christina keep me secret. I have still the +brown and the blue eye, to be noticed everywhere, and I do not want +Filippi on my hands, nor yet Jim Ingham. And for all she begs me to know +this Denny, whom she persists to tell about me, I think he has a look +that is not simple—the look of a man who has been about, and may guess +too much—and so I will not—I am too sensitive and proud, and cannot +face a person in the world except my little sister, whom I love so much +and who is all I have! Except, I want the poor, devoted, kind, good folk +who brought me up! So when she is eighteen she begins to buy for me this +farm and here she welcomes my mother and Nicola. Nicola has found out +friends of ours and kinsfolk who have long run, among people of our +nation in New York, a business called the Arm of Justice, and we work +for that; I having the best ideas, but, alas, ever doomed to hide. And +on the farm we live in innocence and peace, and conduct our business +excellently, out of the way of those from whom we make a little money, +and here comes at last the sick puppy, Filippi, not to be kept off, who +can but sit quiet and lick his paws in the background, that Christina +shall not know of him.</p> + +<p>And then, it is the first year of Ten Euyck being coroner, and a man who +has been paying us, unfortunately, dies, and Ten Euyck, nosing, nosing, +he comes upon our trail. And he sees how we have had nothing to do with +the death, only the man had no more to pay and so he killed himself. And +Ten Euyck sends for me, and tells me he is sorry for me and he will not +inform against me. He tells me of a young girl he knows in the highest +of society, for whom a friend of his had so great a fancy he was ready +to marry her, and I knew he was that friend. And the girl dare not but +lead him on, but all the time she prefers some one else and is in +trouble; and he tells me all he has found out and he says, "I would not +tell this to you, if I did not think you grateful to me and too discreet +to use it otherwise than as I wish, when you know liberty is in my +hand!" So I know what I am to do, and the girl goes mad. And he pays me +by and by, but not enough. But what can I do?</p> + +<p>We are going mad, too, for money, for our bad luck is always there! That +man who made Filippi pay has found us out, and exacts of us more and +more. We are in terror of the law from Ten Euyck, who has let none see +him but me, and not one strand to hold him by, and of the Camorra from +this brute. We work hard, we run great danger, and we remain poor, so +that if we lose Christina we have nothing but what we must make and pay +away—and Christina engages herself to Ingham! Was it not enough to +break the heart! What use is it to work, to struggle, to be beautiful, +and to have nothing? And here is this silly girl, not worth my little +finger, who has all!</p> + +<p>Three times more I work for Ten Euyck, and that man Kane gets after us. +It is all the fault of Ten Euyck, who has made us conspicuous, and he +knows Kane thinks there is something strange, and he loses his nerve. He +comes always to the farm like a caller, when I have sent all away but +me, for he will put nothing in writing, and he drives his own machine. +And one day he is raging against Ingham and Christina, and what he would +give to know against them, any more than Ingham's dissipation, and I +think "Maybe I can make something out of this!"</p> + +<p>By and by I rejoice to hear that there is trouble with Jim Ingham. He is +not the boy I found him. He has let himself go wild so long he cannot +tame himself, all at once, and then he is exacting, like a fiend, and +jealous and suspicious, not believing in himself, nor anything, nor +anybody; and I laugh to myself, if she should know why! For were there +nothing else at all, it would annoy me that chit should marry him! But I +am pleased, and in that moment I let her bring out to me her Will Denny +and her Nancy Cornish. And so I spoil my life and break my heart, and do +not know myself with love.</p> + +<p>I have come to be twenty-eight years old and nothing has counted. Then I +meet him, and nothing else can count. I say to myself that I will have +him, and I know it is not possible but I shall get him. But still he is +all eyes and ears for a rag of a girl, who is so sick with love she +knows not even how to charm. She knows nothing at all but to love him; +and to love him nicely—so that she would not make him unhappy, even to +hold him forever! It makes me ill to look at her, and still I cannot get +him to look at me. But I can make him seem to look at me. I can make him +ever with me, and amused by me, and of a manner a little sweet and +tender to me—the poor sister of Christina, whom he can see to be dying +on her feet for love of him. And the little rag of a girl sees how +beautiful I am and full of life and far above her every way and fit for +him, and knows no better than to grow pale and to keep out of the way, +and to be silent and cold with him. And he begins to be hurt and not to +follow her so hard, and then she finds me crying, crying. And at first I +will not tell, but then I say how I must go away, because I love him. By +and by I say that I would not have to go but I am afraid if I stay I +will steal him from her. And at last, very reluctant, I show her a +letter—for Nicola, who has done something in that line, too, was ever a +good brother to me and taught and helped me well, so that it was in +Will's hand. It said how he would never forsake Nancy, who loved him, +for she could not live without him, but I was brave and strong and he +must be so, too. It said how we were each other's mates, he and I, but +met too late, and his heart would be mine forever, but he could never +forsake nor pain his poor Nancy. Crack, she broke her engagement, the +little fool! Who never had scarcely been able to understand how he +should love her, as no more could I—and she shuts herself away from +him, and will not answer and will tell him nothing! Only, she's changed +her mind. And he says to Christina, "I am too old for her, and not so +gay!" And I see him tear up the photographs she has sent back, and sneer +at them, and say how God knows she could never have taken him for a +beauty! And oh, I am so kind to him! I am so gentle and so sad, and I +get new clothes and dress my hair, and always he can see me die of love. +And so there comes a day when he asks me if I would be afraid to take +the pieces of our lives and see what we could make of them together.—Ah +me! and to think it all had to be kept secret because I was still so +proud and sad! For bethink you, there was Filippi!</p> + +<p>I think at last what a fool I am not to have divorced Filippi long ago! +Here I am, betrothed to marry and it is all to do yet! Long ago, had I +not been so soft-hearted, or had I thought of it, I might have been rid +of fearing the spy who threatens him with the Camorra, in being rid of +him. I wonder how much Filippi will take to set me free, and he makes a +horrible fuss and will take nothing at all! But his spy is begun all +fresh, killing him by inches with demands for five thousand dollars. And +he asks also five thousand, now, not to report Nicola who has remained +silent and a friend to us! It is all like a mad spider's web which but +entangles more and more. And I think I will get that ten thousand from +Ingham because I do not publish the story I have told Christina. Or else +from Ten Euyck, because I do.</p> + +<p>I send the Arm of Justice letter to Ingham's office that it may be +forwarded to Europe. And then I hear from Christina that she cares for +him no longer and has written him, and already he is coming back to +argue with her. Oh, my luck, my bad luck! If he has lost her already, he +will fight my lies! He will get my letter, too; he will connect that +with her broken promise, he will ask her if she knows a girl with a +brown eye and a blue, and what may he not guess and put into her head +about my business? I am in despair, I have a fit of crazy rage, and I +think, too, I will get ahead of him, so she will not listen to him. I +say to her, "That man who ruined my life years ago, that was James +Ingham!" I say to her, "I could not let it go on, dear sister. But don't +let him know where I am." He comes straight to her, before he has my +letter, and all she says to him is, "You have never known all these +years that I had a sister." And then she tells him her sister's name, +and he goes away.</p> + +<p>But Nicola ever hopes that perhaps he will pay and at four o'clock +watches his window for my ribbon. Then he sees go in Nancy Cornish, and +he thinks that very queer and comes to tell me, who am round the corner +in the car. We watch and see her come out, and turn east, and we follow +her, and I see her going into the Park; a thing to drive me wild, for I +know well she used to meet Will Denny in the Park. She came much, much +too soon this time, but did not care. Till she saw me.</p> + +<p>If she had not come so soon, if she had kept her mouth shut, how +different all would be to-day! No! Out she came with it—Filippi has +told her! He has told her we are married! She has telephoned to my +betrothed, she is to tell him here! Filippi has done worse. He has said +to her, "This I would not tell to every one. But if she should seek to +injure you and get him back, say to her—What do you know of the Arm of +Justice? She will let you alone, then!" With those words did she not +seal her own fate? He must have got drunk on talk, Filippi,—not being +used to be listened to—for he tells her that Nicola and I wrote that +letter from Will I gave her to read. He gives this girl the address of +my cousin, and says if Will comes there, directly, he will show him the +papers of our marriage. Thus do these two little jealous, peeping fools +spoil everything!</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Ingham has got my letter, and has guessed I wrote it. +And he calls up this girl, whom he knows to be Christina's dearest +friend, and asks her, does she know Christina's sister? He tells her +that though all is broken between Christina and him, there are things +Christina must not believe, and perhaps there is something she must +know. He asks when he can see this Cornish girl, and she tells him after +rehearsal, but before five. She is very much excited, and she says how +always in her own room girls run out and in and so she will come to +him—She, mind you, the baby-girl! And there she tells him her tale and +he tells her his, my letter for the money and all, and she gives him the +address of my cousin, and there he has gone to find Filippi,—for she is +not so crazy Will shall go!—while she is telling me what she thinks of +me, softly, in a low voice, in the Park. I think how Will Denny is +coming, and I make a little sign. And Nicola hits her once, and picks +her up limp; I following with her hat, like a sister, in case we meet a +policeman. And we lift her in the automobile and put up the hood, going +fast as we dare. At my cousin's they have denied to know of Filippi. For +Filippi, out of the window, saw it was not Will, but Ingham. And we take +her in there. She comes to, before long, and all we can do with her is +to take her out of town. Only I must leave her at my cousin's now, for I +am to dine with Will before his rehearsal.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that any person of a pitiful heart, who also admires +courage and address, must be sorry for me, now. Here am I, born for +love and to command and charm, tied to Filippi and to lowly life; having +planned so wisely and dared so well, now with this rag of a girl on my +hands, not knowing what to do with her; with the Camorra itself, all +unconscious, closing ever in and in, by its offer to absorb our Arm of +Justice; with the spite of Ingham on my heels and tattlers and spies on +all sides, just when I need all my wit to win my love. For he has not +had time to learn to love me as he would love me before long. He is +very, very sweet to me, but he does not care. Just when he first turned +to me there was one flash. I hope and I pray to all the saints, I plan +and watch and make myself fair and think of all that can please him; I +spend my days and nights to feed the fire; but it burns out. He is kind, +he thinks he is to marry me, he is fond of me, because I am sad and so +is he. But he is sick for that Cornish girl who is not worth one hair of +my head, and I have no time to wait till his love grows. I think how I +am to defend myself with him if Ingham talks; and when I get to the +restaurant where we have a private room—I am so shy and so sensitive, +lest people laugh at my queer eyes!—there I find he has met Christina +on the street and carried her along to ask her does she know why Nancy +did not come in the Park.</p> + +<p>Well, I tell him. I tell him Ingham's name, as I have told it to +Christina. And he does not like Ingham, whom he has seen fascinate +Christina against her will, and whom he has heard of as a brute to +women. And always Ingham has wished Christina to be less friends with +him, and has done many little things in hate of him. So that he is all +ready to believe what I say; how his Nancy was afraid to face him this +long while, and meant to try this afternoon and failed; and how it is +Ingham who has given her money to go away. I think it will make him hate +her. I think it will make him not listen to Ingham. I do not know it +will make him perfectly cold and perfectly still, not speaking a +word—not even when Christina, for the first time in her whole life, is +angry with me and tells me I deceive myself, I misunderstood Nancy, he +does not speak.</p> + +<p>He talks nicely about other things at dinner, but he does not go toward +the theater afterwards. And when Christina asks him why not, he says he +forgot something which he has at home. And she says to him, "You cannot +go to Ingham now, you have a dress-rehearsal." And he says, "I have not +forgotten that." So she takes me with her to Nancy's boarding-house, and +there they who are busy and notice no better, say she has gone out to +dinner, before the theater, with a Miss Grayce. And Christina goes home +to see if she can get word to Ingham to keep out of Will's way and I go +back to my cousin's table d'hôte.</p> + +<p>Now we have never said to Christina that we have a car. She cannot +afford us one, however she tries, and we do not want her to know we have +ever a dollar but from her. We sell a little from the farm, and she +knows we send this in to market by a man with a truck, and she is +willing to spend so much on her own fancies that she even arranges with +him to bring her my flowers. But for us she buys a little wagon with two +seats and a plug of a horse. She needs not to know everything and watch +all our movements. So mostly we keep the car at the other place; and +half the time I am there myself. If she comes visiting to the farm I can +take the Cornish girl out there.</p> + +<p>But I must first see Ingham and beg him to be merciful to me. And, +indeed, he has loved me so much, I think he cannot resist to be a little +kind. And I leave Nancy in the car with Nicola and the boys and with her +mouth stopped, across the street from Ingham's house under the windows +of that Herrick. So, without thought of fear, I enter. Afterward, when I +read about the elevator boy, I remember I have on a favorite of +Christina's dresses. For, naturally, of hers, I take what I choose.</p> + +<p>Well, there is nothing to be done with Ingham—he is mean, mean +through. He will give me up to the police. He has heard before of the +Arm of Justice; he says that he will break it. And then I tell him he +would better clear out, for I know Christina thinks that Will will kill +him. And it is then Will rings and when he, grinning, welcomes Will in, +he sees, and any one may see, that Will has his revolver in his hand. +But when Will finds me there he is stricken dumb. And Ingham laughs and +says, "You wonder what this injured lady is doing here? Ask Nancy +Cornish!"</p> + +<p>And Will cries out at him, not so very loud, but as a sword goes through +the air, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and then, very low, "Do not imagine but +that I shall ask Nancy Cornish! And you shall tell me where she is!"</p> + +<p>Then Ingham says, "Well, if you didn't wish her to have done with you, +my dear fellow, why did you throw her over for this married lady?"</p> + +<p>Will never gets any further than to stand by that panel of wall, between +the portières and the door. He looks to me and not to Ingham, and it is +the one time in my life when I can think of nothing to say. I talk on +and on, but I say nothing. It is the fault of that Ingham who continues +to laugh, and to play like an angel who is a devil, too.</p> + +<p>I tell him that Filippi married me when I was an ignorant child, with +poor people, for the sake of the Hopes' money; how he brought me to this +country and deserted me and came back after I had thought I was free, +and had made friends with Ingham because I was destitute and alone. And +he does not speak. But he does not believe me. I fall down on my knees +and tell him, before Ingham's face, how I love him, and only him; how +there never was any other man who had my heart! How when I saw him I +knew he was my life, and I was born anew in knowing him. I tell him how +I fear to let him know I am married. But how I am trying all the time to +get free, and how I would have been free before I married him; how not +for years have I been a wife to Filippi who hangs upon us and will not +work and does not care for me! And I take his hand and cover it with +kisses and with tears, and I implore him not to leave me, I shall die if +he leaves me! And I ask him if he himself has never in his life done +wrong! And I swear if I lied to him it was for love for him! He knows +that is true; he cannot look at me, and not know! And I throw myself +down, before his feet.</p> + +<p>He lifts me up by one shoulder, and he looks at me long and long; still +kind but very cold and still, and what he says is, "Then was it a lie +you told me about her—and this man?" He has not one thought of me, at +all.</p> + +<p>It throws me into a great rage. I spring up and round the table, and +Jim, who has not ceased to play, laughs loud, and gives one crash of +chords. It is his triumph and I could kill him for it. I am all one fire +of hate that tosses in the wind, and I lift my arm and Herrick sees my +shadow on the blind. But quick I put my hand over my mouth, petrified. +For at that moment there is a soft, quick knocking on the door and +Christina's voice saying, "Let me in, both of you! Let me in!"</p> + +<p>By good luck, she has come while I am silent. And I leap forward and +catch my hat up off the table and fly behind the curtains. For I know I +have lost Will. And if I lose her, too, I have nothing. And Ingham +breaks into the march from "Faust," triumphing, and just then I see +through the curtain crack on the little chair at Will's side his pistol +that he has dropped. And I hear Ingham say, now all in fury, "Shall I +let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and +through?—" And the door opens. She had her key, Christina, that she had +forgot to give him back. And she calls out, sharp, to Will. But she +turns to Ingham and says, "I implore you, leave me with him a moment!" +And he swirls round to see where I have run. I snatch up Will's pistol +and fire past him from behind the curtain into Ingham's heart. Will +reaches back to catch my hand and shakes the pistol out of it. It has +not taken one breath and his first thought is for Christina, yes, and +for me, and he snaps off the light. There she stands in the doorway; the +light in the hall on Ingham fallen back dead. And when she turns her +eyes again, there is still no one there but Will. Will stoops for the +pistol that still smokes and drops it loose in his pocket.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus8" id="illus8"></a> +<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and through?—"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>You are to remember it is what she has come there to prevent. And before +she has time scarcely to breathe, he forces her back across the +threshold. Up he swoops her in his arms for he is strong like wire, and +light and swift as a hound is, and flies with her for the back stairs. I +wait, for if she sees me I do not know, any more than he does, which way +she will turn. She has stood by him, and perhaps she would have stood by +me; but not if she had known the truth. And at the back stairway he asks +her, "Can we trust the Deutches?" And she replies, "For me, yes. But I +will not trust your life with any one." And then, poor fellow, he must +have seen what she thought, and made up his mind to let her think it. I +was her sister; and he had gone into that room the man who was to marry +me. He could still feel my kisses and my arms about him; and he never +dreamed that Ingham was to denounce me for a criminal—he thought I +fired not from mingled frenzies, but from only the desperate love of +him. Besides, it was only accident he had not fired himself. He would +not have given me up if he had died.</p> + +<p>For me, almost in a moment, it is too late to run. I stumble on +Christina's cloak and scarf, that she has had on her arm and dropped in +the dark. I am terribly afraid! I am in panic to think they are all +coming, and I bolt the door! I wish only to hide and yet I know I cannot +hide! I am wild! I try the closet. It is locked. I run behind the +portières, knocking over the little chair in the dark. I have no plan, +nothing but fear! Till, with the feeling of the curtains close about me, +I remember how I once slipped out of the rooms of a man I had been to +see on business, for the Arm of Justice. He had called the people out of +the front room into the other, the room where I was, and as they all got +in, I had slipped out. How to get them in here? Then I drag in Ingham's +body. I stand close in my cloak colored like the curtains, and once I +hear Deutch's voice I remember that it is Christina's cloak. He makes it +all easy. To come out while those men were working, there at the closet, +is terrible, but there are the trolley-car and my automobile making good +noises. I have pinned my hat under the cloak, and my slippers I put in +its inside pocket. It is when the police have cleared the halls. I have +scarcely got to the back-stairs when the people begin peeping out again. +I have in my hand Christina's key. I turn to the door of the apartment +nearest the back stairs, to pretend I am unlocking it. And the knob +turns in my hand. The decorators have left it open and I walk in and +slip the catch. There I wait till all the hunt is done. But I wish to be +rid of the little pistol, shaped for the impunitura of the Camorra, +which, in early days, Filippi had made for me and on which once, before +Nicola forbade me, I had tried to scratch "Camorrist." Were I taken with +that, I should have every foe on my heels! I wish that I might slip it +into the coat-pocket of that great boy with the figure of gods—he who +led the chase and deafened me with his hammering. Then I remember him +telling the police where he lives. It makes me laugh; there are scraps +of wall-paper about. On one of these I write a message and in this I +wrap my impunitura. Then, long after, when all my cackling geese have +cackled into bed again, I go up to the roof and across into the next +house. There is an opening of some feet between the two apartment +houses, and it may be that Will jumped it, but I think not. I think he +must have gone up to the front, where the cornices join, and crept and +balanced along the little ledge behind them, as I do. And I walk boldly +down those stairs where all is still, and choose a moment when the +night-boy takes some one up in the elevator, and then I cross the +office, and Nicola is still waiting with the car. I stuff the impunitura +in the letter-box and I am away, away!—But the little rag of a girl, +she knows when I went in and when I came out!</p> + +<p>So now you see how hard my problem is, my problem that is double: what +to do with her, and how to save my love! Three weeks and more go by, and +for him I am beginning to breathe. And he tells Christina nothing, +nothing at all. Only he asks her did she meet me as she came up, for I +have only just run out as he and Ingham quarrel. And she says no, Deutch +brought her up in the freight-elevator. Thus she is not surprised to +hear about my shadow on the blind; she thinks I came there like her to +get Jim away. But she fears I will be implicated and my poor story told. +This she thinks of a great deal, and keeps me very quiet in the country. +While she, if you please, is no sooner saved from Ingham but she takes +up that boy with the figure of gods, who saw my shadow. The fool did not +feel such a kindness for that which moved with splendid grace! Nor did +he keep my pistol. But perhaps he wants her money. I tell Nicola and the +boys he is the spy who drains us of ours, and who is carrying news to +her from little Stanley of my letters. They will rid her of him! And no +one knows who fired that shot but Will and me, no one. And Mother +Pascoe-Ansello watches all the time what we do with Nancy Cornish. I am +very good to Nancy Cornish. In case she should, by any chance, get away +and tell Will and Christina. For there are some things they would not +forgive. I am frightened, now, and I would let her go, if I could.</p> + +<p>And, then, Ten Euyck will not pay me! He is furious I have shot Ingham, +which he finds out at the inquest, and yet he must give me his +protection. And he says what I said in the Ingham letter was a lie, and +he will not pay for lies; they are wrong in all ways, for they never +work. And money I must have, or that spy of Filippi's will settle us. We +have just been received by the Camorra and all must be careful. Then I +think Christina can some way get it. But not to know it is for me. So at +last I threaten the little Nancy, and she is glad to write as I say. And +she cut off the lock of her hair at my own dressing-table with my own +scissors, when mine was all down my back to show her that I had more +than she.</p> + +<p>And when we do not have the answer that we hope for, she begins to fret +terribly. She is always listening and watching; she is so helpless and I +am lonely and perhaps I talk too much! Then, oh, my God, he is arrested! +I cannot keep it to myself, I run screaming through the house! I think I +shall die, and I think almost that that rag of a girl will kill me! She +recognized his voice up there cry, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and she has not +said one word so that I think she thinks he did it. But when they catch +him and she jumps at me that it was I, she can see it in my face. And +she makes a terrible scene—begs me and prays me to denounce myself, to +save him. And then I know that she must die.</p> + +<p>But I have a mind to Mother Pascoe-Ansello, and I make a bargain with +this girl. I ask her what she will promise, and she says <i>anything</i>. And +I ask her if I write a full confession to the District-Attorney and mail +it when things go hard with Will, will that content her? Oh, very fine! +So I tell her it is what I would do, who would die for him to-morrow, +but that it would give him to her arms. And she says she will go away, +she will never see him. I reply, "He will find you, he will make you." +And she says to me eager, with open mouth, "What can I do?" I answer, +"You are not very well. You grow every day more feverish. Nothing shall +ever happen to you under my roof. But if it should, how it would solve +all." She says, "Will you let me keep the letter myself and mail it +myself?" and I say, "Yes." So then she says, "You gave me laudanum so I +could sleep. When I have mailed that letter, give me some more." Oh, I +feel such a relief! If she is found, even, with laudanum it is suicide. +"Will you ask for it every night, aloud, before them all, and after you +have mailed the letter will you take—enough? Will you swear?" "Oh," she +says, "upon his freedom, I do swear."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So! Thus far has she read. And now she falls ill. And any hour, now, may +Ten Euyck come for this. And I must warn him I will not have him drop +another word before Nicola, as though Will would drag us all in by +telling I was there with him. Nicola's hand might reach into his prison. +When Nancy wakes, she has still this envelope—stuffed with blanks. But +if I cannot fool her, Nicola has planned a better way. A fine way! For, +after that, she will be silent—she, who thought to be bride to the man +I choose.—Oh, my love, you love her. If you, too, must die, it is for +that you die, my darling! For no little rag of a girl can frustrate the +will of</p> + +<blockquote><p>ALLEGRA ANSELLO ALIENI.</p></blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR</h3> + + +<blockquote><p>"Oh, then, I'll marry Sally! For she is the darling of my heart—"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"But <i>is</i> she?" queried Christina, swinging round from the piano, "Is +she?" And she looked wistfully at Herrick as he took her outstretched +hand. "Oh, if she's a very troublesome person, tell me at least she +brought the author luck! Was it any wonder, eh, that the pulse of your +life changed when you saw a shadow on the blind? Since at that very +moment my hand was on the door? Oh, I can perhaps rouse luck with the +best 'when I come knocking!'"</p> + +<p>It was Sunday evening, a month from that September Twentieth when, to a +public that perhaps had never given quite such a welcome, Christina Hope +had positively reappeared. This occasion was of a very homely gathering, +an hour when Christina had simply confessed to the need of seeing all +the people of one episode "alive together." She had spent the month in +watching Nancy grow strong, here, in her house, and to-morrow was the +day of Nancy's wedding. "Once I have packed off my daughter," Christina +had been saying, "I shall marry myself out of hand—quite simply, by +just stepping round the corner—to the patientest fellow living. The +public and I meet often enough—it shall not stick its head in at my +marriage!"</p> + +<p>But Herrick's sister was to arrive to-morrow and this seemed to have +made Christina restive. "You know very well that you are marrying an +actress. But there has been too much glare—to her you must be marrying, +as some play says, 'The Queen of the Gipsies!' Ah, but Bryce—it's easy +enough to be fond of me, now! After all, I behaved admirably, like a +good girl. I was as grand as Evadne and as energetic as Sal! I had a +very hard time and, really, I was quite a heroine. But my hard times are +done and God send I may never be a heroine again! Well, what price the +Queen of the Gipsies, dear, as a nice young lady? And through what rent +in my admirable behavior will next—to try your patience—the real +Christina Hope too positively reappear? I wonder!" Thus she spoke, a +little sadly. And, then, at the ringing of the door-bell called out for +her mother and Mrs. Deutch. "For heaven forbid," added Christina, "that +ever I should be seen without a chaperone!"</p> + +<p>It was the simplest of supper-parties, at a table that jumbled Joe +Patrick with the District-Attorney; but the great kindness of good-will +still showed, inevitably, against a somber background. Before that +company there continued to rise in vivid silences, sharp as though edged +with acid, a wild space of death and hiding, of prison and darkness, +when suddenly Christina's perverse lip twitched with a small, soft +laugh. "And to think that, all the time, we were just as respectable as +we could be!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how respectable you can be," said Denny. "I think I could +do better."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> think it's a pretty good thing for you," said Wheeler, "that she is +as she is. You appear to have what I don't mind calling—in a lean, +black party of no particular stature—an almost inexplicable charm for +the ladies!"</p> + +<p>"In that case," said Christina, "you can see what a waste it is for him +to play villains. Give him to me for the hero of Bryce's play, when I +star next year."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for waiting a year. You must have arranged your production +with Ten Euyck so quickly that it makes a manager's hair raise!"</p> + +<p>"As fast as I could learn my lines!" Christina cried. "But sometimes he +did throw me out. Ah, if I could only have spoken his speeches too!"</p> + +<p>"Many stars in your profession have made that complaint! But I forgive +you everything, Christina, since you notified me for an advance sale!"</p> + +<p>"She broke her word to me," said Kane, "to do that! I was so anxious not +a breath should get out—it might have ruined everything. I caught her +second message—to you, Herrick—and stopped it."</p> + +<p>Herrick asked, "Will it always be the first which goes to Wheeler?"</p> + +<p>She responded with surprised earnestness, "Why, but, dearest, that was +<i>business</i>!"</p> + +<p>He laughed; and there was no bitterness in his laugh. He was glad of her +quick, earnest interest. A month and three days had softened the tragic +brooding of Christina's face and drawn them all far from pain and fear, +deep waters and dark night. But this first attempt to mention that time +with any ease showed him how they all still winced at scars; even this +ripple of mirth, glowing and vibrating like the air of all that house +with love and joy, had glowed and vibrated too sharply. He wanted some +happening that should clear the air, and he did not know what. Work was +the safest thing he knew. And even his work, now they had begun, was a +good thing to talk of.</p> + +<p>"How about that realistic tone?" Wheeler was asking. "Our experience +doesn't leave much of Herrick's idea about the commonplaceness of +crime—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it does!" Christina interrupted. "They were commonplace +enough, to themselves. It was only where we rushed in that it turned +into melodrama. That's the way with amateurs! They have to," she flung +at Denny, "be more like Dago organ-grinders than any Dago organ-grinder +ever was!"</p> + +<p>"I thank you," returned that unabashed young man. "It was quite +realistic enough for me. If all my foreign traitors had done as well by +me as this one!" His eyes sought Nancy's. For an instant neither of them +could speak. But the girl could not resist putting out her hand. And no +one minded when he took it. "But I thanked the gods," he could then say +with a laugh, "for my Italian accent! I knew two or three phrases from +the Garibaldi play—and then I knew the sound and some of the sense +from—Chris's farm. But I could have wished, none the less, to be better +equipped."</p> + +<p>"Rotten to have to make out so much funk!" contributed Stanley. "So's to +seem like that scared-to-death fellow."</p> + +<p>"On the whole, that was the best thing I did. It came quite easy!"</p> + +<p>"But the choice?" inquired Mrs. Deutch. "How did you make that choice, +dear sir, amidst the goblets?"</p> + +<p>"Only luck—I just chanced it. Gold, silver, and lead—can't you guess?"</p> + +<p>He looked at Christina, and Christina blushed. Deutch glanced up +twinkling.</p> + +<p>"Ah, tante," said the girl, "you will never understand—you have not the +artistic temperament! 'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit!' +That was it, Will? Ah, my dear, and to think you've never played the +scene!"</p> + +<p>Her pensiveness turned sterner. She looked at him with reproving eyes. +"You took it out of a part!" she said. "Heaven help us, of what are we +made? That shot I fired—that last shot—I took that out of a part, too! +'A Princess Imprisoned,' the end of the third act. And you with your +'Merchant of Venice' and your casket scene! It's true what they say of +us—we're stuffed with sawdust!"</p> + +<p>"We'd be fools not to use it, then," Denny comfortably retorted. "Though +you might certainly have chosen a better play."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't understand me. It's too bad, it's wrong—all wrong! It +cheapens life. It dulls the value of what we feel. To think of written +things at such a moment and throw oneself on them—it's like an +insincerity of the heart. It's like acting a lie. And with all my +faults, that one fault I never had," Christina said. "I was never a +liar!" And she turned on them the ineffable starry candor of her wide, +cool eyes.</p> + +<p>A smile traversed the board. Christina looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, old girl," Wheeler came to her assistance. "Some lies are +made in heaven. How about your pretending, at the inquest, not to know +who Nancy was?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that card of Nancy's! There, surely, was a dreadful moment! It was +a shock. I didn't know what to say. Why, it was like seeing that +horrible story fastened round her neck—it was like seeing Will pointed +out! Oh, and I'd tried to keep away even the thought of them!"</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder that knocked you out all right. But, Miss Christina," +pondered Deutch, "before that—a thing starts the trouble for you at +that inquest always gives me a puzzle. Miss Christina, why did you +holler when you saw the scarf? That wasn't a surprise, anyhow. You knew +he had it!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christina, "but it was <i>such</i> a thrilling point! I'd worked +so much further up into an accused murderess than I'd ever gone before, +and I did so long to know how it would feel—"</p> + +<p>An aghast laugh silenced her. It rang about the room, it swept with gay +and topsy-turvy cleansing through every heart and blew the cobwebs far +away. The air was cleared for good and all. No more shudders skulked in +emotional underbrush. Christina Hope had quite too positively +reappeared.</p> + +<p>"Christina, you she-devil!" Denny cried. But he bent his black head with +the words and kissed her hand. There were tears that were like worship +in the teasing, jeering smile that lit his eyes.</p> + +<p>Christina caught his hand and stood up, flushing. Her eyes traveled +round the table and came back to Herrick's face. He had never seen her +thus bathed in rosy color before she sobered again to that meek gravity, +like a good child's.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, very well—there I am! Well, take me as I am! I +will—myself! I will say, let's get down to it, then: the dearest or +most terrible experience I ever had is none too terrible or too dear for +Bryce's play! Is yours, Will? Is your own, Bryce? Ah, and then, we +zealous ones, when we want to know the hardest, hardest, passive part, +the loneliest suffering, the simplest courage, the deepest depths, we +needn't experiment, we can humbly inquire—we can ask Nancy Cornish!"</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Persons Unknown", by Virginia Tracy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + +***** This file should be named 37545-h.htm or 37545-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/5/4/37545/ + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: "Persons Unknown" + +Author: Virginia Tracy + +Illustrator: Henry Raleigh + +Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37545] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + + + + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + + "PERSONS UNKNOWN" + + BY VIRGINIA TRACY + + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + HENRY RALEIGH + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1914 + + Copyright, 1914, by + + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company + + _Published, October, 1914_ + + + + TO + MY FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS + HELEN L. KLOEBER AND JESSIE C. SOULE + + When winter's breath was on the pane, + Through dusk and snow, wild winds and rain, + I fled to your bright hearth again + To read about a _Shadow_! + You lit the lamp, you brewed the tea, + Pulled up the deepest chair for me, + And set yourselves to guess and see-- + _What ailed that minx, Christina?_ + + What Herrick found--what Nancy knew-- + Whose motor raced the county through-- + What could that harsh Policeman do-- + You never failed to argue; + Of moonlight, murders, lovers, threats, + Vengeance and kisses, siren's nets, + And pale, dark men with cigarettes, + Not once I found you weary! + + Through broken music, sudden light + In the deep darkness, jewels bright, + Persons unknown in unknown plight, + You still sought _unknown_ persons; + Authors, if you would straightway know + Where faith and cheer and counsel grow, + Suggestions flourish and hints flow: + _Go ask my Nancy Cornish!_ + + + + +[Illustration: Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange +and splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as Herrick had +never seen before] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + BOOK FIRST + + THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND + + I WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 3 + + II HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED 7 + + III SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND 12 + + IV HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING 14 + + V HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER 19 + + VI HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR 25 + + VII HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY 36 + + VIII MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS 51 + + IX JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED 58 + + X JOE PATRICK ARRIVES 67 + + XI PERSONS UNKNOWN 89 + + XII HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 96 + + + BOOK SECOND + + THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN + + I HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT 103 + + II IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED 115 + + III HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S + WAY 124 + + IV THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD 133 + + V HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING 158 + + VI AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL 166 + + VII MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY 170 + + VIII A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN + ENTERS 177 + + IX PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS + ME!" 184 + + X MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DESIR--" 190 + + XI KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT 201 + + XII AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW 206 + + XIII THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION + SCENE 215 + + XIV ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 219 + + XV "WHEN STARS GROW COLD" 222 + + + BOOK THIRD + + WILL O' THE WISP + + I GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY 231 + + II CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY 242 + + III SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY 254 + + IV A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS 270 + + V THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA + WAS 283 + + VI THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT 292 + + VII VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE 298 + + VIII JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR 305 + + IX A SIGN IN THE SKY 314 + + X "THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY + TIES 324 + + XI THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE + TO A COMIC OPERA 334 + + XII THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD + BOY AM I!'" 343 + + XIII "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE 356 + + XIV THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE + VIEW" 365 + + XV ONE WITNESS SPEAKS 377 + + XVI THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT + BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!" 380 + + XVII HERSELF 385 + + + BOOK FOURTH + + THE LIGHTED HOUSE + + I THE HOSTESS PREPARING 389 + + II THE EXPECTED COMPANY 399 + + III THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM 401 + + IV TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL-- 423 + + V CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX 433 + + VI THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I + MADE MY BATTLE STAY!" 447 + + VII THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF + THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT 459 + + VIII IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR 481 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange and + splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as + Herrick had never seen before _Frontispiece_ + + Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders 10 + + "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false impression; + may I? 76 + + "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope!'" 86 + + "There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't + deny it--I know!" 160 + + Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor any + other name 296 + + "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! + Thank God, I've done with you!" 420 + + "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, + through and through--?" 476 + + + + +BOOK FIRST + +THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT + + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" + +The phrase might have exploded into Herrick's mind, it leaped there with +such sudden violence, distinct as the command of a voice, out of the +smothering blackness of the torrid August night. + +He started up instantly, as if to listen, sitting upright on the bed +from which he had long since tossed all covering. Then he frowned at the +tricks which the heat was playing upon even such strong nerves as his. +In the unacknowledged homesickness of his heart his very first doze had +brought him a dream of home; then the dream had slid along the trail of +desire to a cool sea beach, where he and Marion used to be taken every +summer when they were children, and a fog had rolled in along this beach +which, at first, he had welcomed because it was so deliciously cold. It +was no longer his sister who was there beside him; it was no less +unexpected a person than the Heroine of the novel he was writing and +whose conduct in the very next chapter he had been trying all day to +decide. It was a delightful convenience to have her there, ready to tell +him the secret of her heart! He saw that she had brought the novel with +her, all finished. She held it out to him, open, and he read one +phrase, "When Ann and her lover were down in Cornwall." He asked her +what that was doing there--since her name was not Ann and he had never +imagined her in Cornwall. And then the fog rolled up between them, +blotting out the book, blotting out his Heroine; that fog became a +horror, he was lost in it, and yet it vaguely showed him the shadowy +forms of shadowy persons--he hoped if they were his other characters +they really weren't quite so shadowy as that!--one of whom threateningly +cried to him through the fog, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" And here he was, now, +actually conscious of a great rush of energy and intention, as if he +really had some way of asking Nancy Cornish, or anything to ask her, if +he had! + +He remembered perfectly well, now, who she was--a little red-headed +girl, a friend of his sister; a girl whom he had not seen in eight years +and did not care if he never saw again. What had brought her into his +dreams? + +She certainly had no business there. No girl had any business anywhere +inside his head for the present, except that Heroine of his, whose +photograph he had had framed to reign over his desk. It was a photograph +which he had found forgotten, last winter, in the room of a hotel in +Paris, and it had seemed to him the personality he had been looking for. +Of the original he knew no more than that. But he knew well enough she +was not Nancy Cornish. + +The novel was his first novel; and, after a long day of laborious +failure at it, Herrick, in pure despair of his own work, had early flung +himself abed. He had lain there waking and restless upon scorching +linen, reluctantly listening, listening; to the passage of the trolley +cars on upper Broadway; to the faint, threatening grumble of the Subway; +the pitiful crying of a sick baby; the advancing, dying footfalls; to +all the diabolic malevolence of shrieking or chugging automobiles. The +mere act of sitting up, however, recalled him from the mussy stuffiness +in which he had been tossing. Why, he was not buried somewhere in a +black hole! He was occupying his landlady's best bedroom--the back +parlor, indeed, of Mrs. Grubey's comfortable flat. Well, and to-morrow, +after two months of loneliness, of one-sided conversations with the +maddeningly mute countenance of his Heroine and of swapping jokes, +baseball scores, weather prophecies, and political gossip with +McGarrigle, the policeman on the beat, he was going to take lunch with +Jimmy Ingham, the most eminent of publishers. Everything was all right! +That peculiar sense of waiting and watching was growing on him merely +with the restless brooding of the night, which smelt of thunder. In that +burning, motionless air there was expectancy and a crouching sense of +climax. + +Yet it was not so late but that, in the handsome apartment house +opposite, an occasional window was still lighted. The pale blinds of one +of these, directly on a level with Herrick's humbler casement, were +drawn to the bottom; and Herrick vaguely wondered that any one should +care to shut out even the idea of air. Just then, behind those blinds, +some one began to play a piano. + +The touch was the touch of a master, and Herrick sat listening in +surprise. The tide of lovely melody swept boldly out, filling the air +with soaring angels. Could people be giving a party? + +Herrick got to his feet and struck a match. Five minutes past one! If he +dressed and went down to the river, he would wake Mrs. Grubey and the +Grubey children. He resigned himself; glancing at the precious letter of +appointment with Ingham on his desk, and at the photograph of his +Heroine, looking out at him with her quiet eyes; shy and candid, tender +and bravely boyish, and cool with their first youth. To her he sighed, +thinking of his novel, "Well, Evadne, we must have faith!" He turned out +the light again, stripped off the coat of his pajamas, sopped the +drinking water from his pitcher over his head and his strong shoulders, +and drew an easy chair up to the window. Down by the curb one of those +quivering automobiles seemed to purr, raspingly, in its sleep. Some one +across the street was talking on and on, accompanied by the musician's +now soft and improvising touch. Then, in Herrick's thoughts, the voice, +or voices, and the fitful, straying music began to blend; and then he +had no thoughts at all. + +He was wakened by a demonic crash of chords. His eyes sprang open; and +there, on the blind opposite, was the shadow of a woman. She stood there +with her back to the window, lithe and tense, and suddenly she flung one +arm up and out in such a strange and splendid gesture, of such free and +desperate passion, as Herrick had never seen before. For a full minute +she stood so; and then the gesture broke, as though she might have +covered her face. The music, scurrying onward from its crash, had never +ceased; it had risen again, ringing triumphantly into the march from +Faust, a man's voice rising furiously with it, and it flashed over +Herrick that they might be rehearsing some scene in a play. Then the +sound of a pistol-shot split through the night. Immediately, behind the +blind, the lights went out. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED + + +The sleepy boy at the switchboard of the house opposite did not seem to +feel in the situation any of the urgency which had brought Herrick into +that elegant vestibule, barefoot and with nothing but an unbuttoned +ulster over his pajama trousers. The boy said he guessed the shot wasn't +a shot; he guessed maybe it was an automobile tire. There couldn't be a +lady in 4-B, anyhow; it was just a bachelor apartment. Well, he supposed +it was 4-B because there was always complaints of him playing on the +piano late at night. The switchboard called him imperatively as he +spoke, and he reluctantly consented to ring up the superintendent. +Instinctively, he refrained from interfering with Herrick when that +young man possessed himself of the elevator and shot to the fourth +floor. + +There was no further noises, no call for help, no woman's fleeing +figure. But Herrick's sense of locality guided him down a little hall, +upon which, toward the front, only two apartments opened. One of these +was lettered 4-B. If Herrick had not stopped for his boots he had for +his revolver and it was with the butt end of this that he began +hammering upon the sheet-iron surface of that door. There was no answer. +Was he too late? + +The other door opened the length of a short chain. A little man, with +wisps of woolly gray standing up from his head as if in amazement, +brought his face to the opening and quavered, "Be careful! You'll get +hurt! Be--" + +"Good God!" cried Herrick. "There's a woman in there!" + +"A woman! Why--I _thought_ I heard a woman--!" + +It was not so long since Herrick's reporting days but that he believed +he could still work the trick pressure by which two policemen will burst +in the strongest lock. But he now gave up hope of the woolly gentleman +as an assistant and turned his attention to the brass knob. "Get me a +screw-driver!" + +"Theodore!" came a voice from behind the woolly gentleman, "Don't you +open our door! It's no business of yours!" + +Herrick, glancing desperately about him for any aid, was sufficiently +aware that he might be making a fool of himself for nothing. But the +young fellow felt that was a risk he had to take. In the long hall +crossing the little one he could hear doors opening; the clash of +questioning voices mingled with excited cries--And then came a girl's +voice shrilling, "Isn't anybody going to _do_ anything?" A husky +business voice roared from secure cover, "You don't know what you may be +breaking into, young man! You may get yourself in trouble." + +Herrick growled through his teeth an imprecation that ended in "Hand me +a screw-driver, can't you? And a hammer!" The sweat was pouring down his +face from the pressure of his strength upon the lock, but the lock held. +What was going on in there? Or--what had ceased to go on? He could hear +Theodore tremblingly protesting, "I have telephoned for the +superintendent--He has the keys. It's the superintendent's business--" +Had the one shot done the trick? Then, above the stairhead, across the +longer hall, appeared the helmet of a policeman. At his heels came the +superintendent, carrying the keys. + +The policeman was jolted from his first idea of arresting Herrick by +Herrick's welcoming cry, "Get a gait on you, McGarrigle!" which +proclaimed to him a valued acquaintance; then, with a hand shaking with +excitement, the half-dressed superintendent fitted the key in the lock. +The lock turned but nothing happened. The door was bolted on the inside. + +The re-captured elevator was heard in the distance, and the +superintendent sang out, "Get the engineer! Hurry! Make him hurry!--You +heard no cries--no?" he asked of Herrick. And he stood wiping his face +and breathing hard, his brow dark with trouble. + +The halls had begun to be bravely peopled. Also, a second policeman had +arrived. And the information spread that one of these reassuring figures +had been left in the hall downstairs and that another had gone to the +roof. Curiosity, comparatively comfortable and respectable, now, made +itself audible and even visible on every side; some adventurers from the +street had sallied in. When McGarrigle asked the superintendent, "Any +way we can get a look in?" some one immediately volunteered, "There's +Mrs. Willing's apartment right across the entrance-court. You can see in +both these rooms from hers." + +"Only two rooms?" + +"Parlor, bedroom and bath," said somebody in the tone of a prospectus. + +"You go see what you can see, Clancy," said McGarrigle to the second +policeman. "Now, Mr. Herrick?" + +Herrick told what he knew, and McGarrigle, his eyes resting with +admiration on the extremely undraped muscles of his informant, plied him +with attentive questions. Herrick's own eyes were on the engineer's +steel. Would it never spring the bolt? "If only she'd cry out!" he said. +"Why doesn't she make some sign?" + +"You're sure 'twas him fired?" + +"That shadow had no revolver." + +"He's done for her, then. Els't he'd never have barricaded himself +like, in there. He didn't give himself a dose, after?" + +"Only the one shot." + +"If there's an inquest you'll be wanted." + +"All right.--But why hasn't he tried to gain time with some kind of +parley--some kind of bluff?" + +"Knows he's cornered. He'll show fight as we go in on him. If there's +more than one--" The bolt gave. + +McGarrigle turned like a fury. "Clear the hall," he cried. + +There was a confused movement. Obedient souls disappeared. + +Clancy returned and reported the front room invisible from Mrs. +Willing's side window, the shade of its own side window being down. In +the bedroom and bath all lights out, but shades up and nothing stirring. + +"Any hall?" + +The superintendent replied in the negative. + +"No fire-escapes, you say?" + +"No. Fireproof building." + +"They're right ahead of us, then." + +Again, with a long shudder, the door gave. + +The whole hall seemed to give a gasping breath. McGarrigle growled. +"I'll have no mix-up in this hall!" He favored Herrick with a wink that +said, "See me clear 'em out!" "Clancy, you stay here by the door; pick +out half a dozen of 'em that see it through and hold 'em to be +witnesses." The halls were cleared. Locks clicked as if by simultaneous +miracles and even the adventurers from the street could be heard in full +flight. Herrick and McGarrigle exchanged grim smiles. "Now! You keep +back, Mr. Herrick! Clancy, look out!" The engineer jumped to one side. +The door swung open. + +[Illustration: Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders] + +It gave directly into the dark room which had lately been full of light +and music and a woman's passionate grace. Not a breath, not a +movement, greeted the invaders. No shadow, now, on the white blind. +Whatever was within the dusk simply waited. Herrick, pushing past +Clancy, entered the room with McGarrigle. Behind them the superintendent +leaned in and pressed an electric button. Light sprang forth, flooding +everything. The room was empty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND + + +"Get-away, eh!" said McGarrigle, grimly. + +The superintendent, shaken and wide-eyed, responded only "The bolt!" + +They glanced round them, non-plused. + +The large living-room upon which they had entered was richly furnished, +but it had no screens nor hidden corners, and, on that summer night, the +windows were undraped. The doorway in which they stood faced the great +window which took up nearly all the frontage of the room. The door +opened against the left wall. Just beyond the door, along that left +wall, stood the piano; beyond that a couch; between the head of the +couch and the front window the wall was cut, up to the molding, by one +of those high, narrow doors which, in a modern apartment house, indicate +the welcome, though inopportune, closet. This door was the single object +of suspicion; then, an overturned chair caught their attention. It lay +between the great library-table which, standing horizontally, almost +halved the room, and the narrow strip of paneling of wall to the right +of the main door in which the superintendent had pressed the button for +the lights. In the right wall, opening on the entrance-court, directly +opposite the piano, but also with its blind drawn, was another window of +ordinary size. + +"The bedroom," said the superintendent, moistening his lips, "'s on the +court, there." Then they observed, to their right, the bedroom's arch +hung with heavy portieres. And the sight of these portieres carried +with it a cold thrill. But--"There ain't anybody in there!" Clancy +persisted. + +McGarrigle walked over to the door in the wall and tried it. It was +locked and there was no key in the lock. "What's this?" + +"A closet." + +"Open it, engineer. Clancy, you stand by him." + +He went up to the portieres, opened them with some caution and peered +in. Faced only by an empty room he jerked at the portieres to throw them +back; they were very heavy and the humidity made their rings stick to +the pole so that Deutch, running to his assistance, held one aside for +him, while with his other hand he himself fumbled to spring on the +bedroom light. Herrick was hard upon McGarrigle's heels, but, a look +round revealing nothing, he was struck by a sudden fancy and, recrossing +the living-room, raised the shade. No, the little balcony was wholly +empty. The great window had been made in three sections, and the middle +section was really a pair of doors that opened outward on this balcony. +Clancy commented upon the foolishness of their not opening in as he +watched Herrick step through them into the calm night that offered no +explanation of that bolted emptiness. Herrick stepped to the end of the +balcony and craned round toward the entrance-court. From the now lighted +bedroom window there was no access to any other. He glimpsed +McGarrigle's head stuck forth from the bathroom for the same +observation. And it somehow surprised him that a trolley car should +still bang indifferently past the corner; that, just opposite, that +automobile should still chug away, as if nothing had happened. Then he +heard a cry from the superintendent, followed by the policeman's oath. +Herrick ran into the bedroom and stopped short. On the floor at the foot +of the bed lay the body of a young man in dinner clothes. He had been +shot through the heart. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING + + +There was something at once commonplace and incredible about it--about +the stupid ghastliness of the face and about the horrid, sticky smear in +the muss of the finely tucked shirt. That gross, silly sprawl of the +limbs!--was it those hands that had called forth angelic music? The dead +man was splendidly handsome and this somehow accentuated Herrick's +revulsion. McGarrigle bent over the body. After a moment he said to the +superintendent, "No use for a doctor. But if you got one, get him." + +"He's dead!" said the superintendent. "It's suicide!" He spoke quietly, +but with a dreadfully repressed and labored breath. "Officer, can't you +see it's suicide?" He called up the doctor, and then to the silent group +he again insisted, "It's him shot himself. The door was bolted on the +inside. He had to shoot himself!" + +McGarrigle was at the 'phone, calling up the station. Turning his head +he responded, "Where's the weapon?" + +They had got the closet open now; no one there. No one in the bedroom +closet. No one under the big brass bed, in the folds of the portieres, +behind the piano, under the couch. No one anywhere. Nor any weapon, +either. + +Herrick and Clancy began to examine the fastening of the door. It was an +ordinary little brass catch--a slip-catch, the engineer called it--which +shot its bolt by being turned like a Yale lock. "If this door shut +behind any one with a bang, could the catch slip of itself?" The +engineer shook his head. + +The hall was long since full again, though the adventurers were ready to +pop back at a moment's notice; pushing through them came the doctor. +Herrick did not follow him into the bedroom. The room he stood in had a +personality it seemed to challenge him to penetrate. + +His most pervasive impression was of cool coloring. The portieres were +of a tapestry which struck Herrick as probably genuine Gobelin, but with +their famous blue faded to a refreshing dullness and he now remembered +that in handling them he had found them lined with a soft but very heavy +satin of the same shade, as if to give them all possible substance. The +stretched silk, figured in tapestry, which covered the walls, had been +dyed a dull blue, washed with gray, to match them; and, to Herrick, this +tint, sober as it was, somehow seemed a strange one for a man's room. In +couch and rugs and lampshades these notes of gray and blue continued to +predominate, greatly enhanced by all the woodwork, which, evidently +supplied by the tenant, was of black walnut. + +He had been no anchorite, that tenant. In the corner between the bedroom +and the court window the surface of a seventeenth century sideboard +glimmered under bright liquids, under crystal and silver. Beyond that +window all sorts of rich lusters shone from the bindings of the books +that thronged shelves built into the wall until they reached the great +desk standing in the farthest right hand corner to catch the front +window's light. A lamp stood on this desk, unlighted. At present all the +illumination in the room came from three other lamps; one that squatted +atop of the grand piano, between the now flameless old silver +candelabra; one, almost veiled by its heavy shade, in the middle of the +library table; and one, of the standing sort, that rose up tall from a +sea of newspapers at the head of the couch. All these lamps, worked by +the same switch, were electric, and the ordinary electric fixtures had +been dispensed with; the light was abundant, but very soft and thrown +low, with outlying stretches of shadow. It was not remarkable that it +had failed to show them the murdered man until the electricity in the +bedroom itself had been evoked. + +Herrick looked again at the couch. Its cushions had lately been rumpled +and lounged upon; at its head, under the tall lamp, stood a teakwood +tabouret, set with smoking materials on a Benares tray. At its foot, as +if for the convenience of the musician, a little ebony table bore a +decanter and a bowl of ice; the ice in a tall glass, half-empty, was +still melting into the whiskey; in a shallow Wedgewood saucer a +half-smoked cigarette was smoldering still. + +"McGarrigle!" said Herrick, in a low voice. + +"Hallo!" + +"He was shot in here, after all. I was sure of it." And he pointed to +the foot of the piano stool. Still well above the surface of the +hardwood flooring was a little puddle of blood. + +McGarrigle contemplated this with a kind of sour bewilderment. "Well, +the coroner's notified. You'll be wanted, y'know, to the inquest." + +"What's this?" asked somebody. + +It was a long chiffon scarf and it lay on the library table under the +lamp. Clancy lifted it and its whiteness creamed down from his fingers +in the tender lights and folds which lately it had taken around a +woman's throat. Just above the long silk fringe, a sort of cloudy +arabesque was embroidered in a dim wave of lucent silk. And Herrick +noticed that the color of this border was blue-gray, like the blue-gray +room. As they all grimly stared at it, the superintendent exclaimed, "I +never saw it before!" + +McGarrigle looked from him to the scarf and commanded, in deference to +the coming coroner, "You leave that lay, now, Clancy!" + +Clancy left it. But something in the thing's frail softness affected +Herrick more painfully than the blood of the dead man. In no nightmare, +then, had he imagined that shadow of a woman! She had been here; she was +gone. And, on the floor in there, was that her work? + +Now that the interest of rescue had failed, he wanted to get away from +that place. He wanted to dress and go down to the river and think the +whole thing over alone. He had now heard the doctor's verdict of instant +death; and McGarrigle, again reminding him that he would be wanted at +the inquest, made no objection to his withdrawal. + +On his own curb stood a line of men, staring at the windows of 4-B as if +they expected the tragedy to be reenacted for their benefit. They all +turned their attention greedily to Herrick as he came up, and the +nearest man said, "Have they got him?" + +"Him?" + +"Why, the murderer!" + +"Oh!" Herrick said. Even in the crude excitement of the question the +man's voice was so pleasant and his enunciation so agreeably clear that +Herrick, constitutionally sensitive to voices and rather weary for the +sound of cultivated speech, replied familiarly, "I'm afraid, strictly +speaking, that there isn't any murderer. It's supposed to be a woman." + +"Indeed! Well, have they caught her?" + +"They've caught no one. And, after all, there seems to be some hope that +it's a suicide." + +"Oh!" said the other, with a smile. "Then you found him in evening +dress! I've noticed that bodies found in evening dress are always +supposed to be suicides!" + +The note of laughter jarred. "I see nothing remarkable," Herrick rebuked +him, with considerable state, "in his having on dinner clothes." + +"Nothing whatever! 'Dinner clothes'--I accept the correction. Any poor +fellow having them on, a night like this, might well commit +suicide!--I'm obliged to you," he nodded. And, humming, went slowly down +the street. + +Herrick suddenly hated him; and then he saw how sore and savage he was +from the whole affair. The same automobile still waited, not far from +his own door, and he longed to leap into it and send it rapid as fury +through the night, leaving all this doubt and horror behind him in the +cramped town. His troubled apprehension did not believe in that +suicide.--What sort of a woman was she? And what deviltry or what +despair had driven her to a deed like that? Where and how--in God's +name, how!--had she fled? He, too, looked up at that window where he had +seen the lights go out. It was brightly enough lighted, now. But this +time there was no blind drawn and no shadow. The bare front of the house +baulked the curiosity on fire in him. "How the devil and all did she get +out?" It was more than curiosity; it was interest, a kind of personal +excitement. That strange, imperial, and passionate gesture! The woman +who made it had killed that man. Of one thing he was sure. "If ever I +see it again, I shall know her," he said, "among ten thousand!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER + + +Late the next morning Herrick struggled through successive layers of +consciousness to the full remembrance of last night. But now, with +to-morrow's changed prospective, those events which had been his own +life-and-death business, had, as it were, become historic and passed out +of his sphere; they were no longer of the first importance to him. + +Inestimably more important was his appointment with Ingham. Herrick had +passed such a lonely summer that the prospect of a civilized luncheon +with an eminent publisher was a very exciting business. Moreover, this +was a critical period in his fortunes. + +At twenty-eight years of age Bryce Herrick knew what it was to live a +singularly baffled life--a life of artificial stagnation. His first +twenty-two years, indeed, had been filled with an extraordinary +popularity and success. In the ancient and beloved town of Brainerd, +Connecticut, where he was born, it had been enough for him to be known +as the son of Professor Herrick. The family had never been rich, but for +generations it had been an honored part of the life of the town. It was +Bryce's mother who, marrying in her girlhood a spouse of forty already +largely wedded to his History of the Ancient Chaldeans and Their +Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, brought him a little +fortune; she brought, as well, the warm rich strain of mingled Irish and +Southern blood which still touched the shrewdness of her son's clear +glance and his boyish simplicity of manner, with something at once +peppery and romantic. It was a popular combination. He grew into a tall +youth with a square chin, with square white teeth and rather an +aggressive nose, but, in his crinkly blue eyes, humor and kindness; with +a kind of happy glow pervading all his thought and all his +dealings--just as it pervaded his fresh color, his look of gay hardihood +and enduring power, the ruddiness of his brown hair and his tanned skin, +and of his sensitive and sanguine blood. At college he had appeared very +much more than the son of an eminent man. Of that fortunate physical +type which is at once large and slender--broad shouldered and deep +chested, but narrow hipped, long of limb and strong and light of +flank--it had surprised nobody when he became, as if naturally, +spontaneously, a figure in athletics. What surprised people was the +craftmanship in those articles of travel and adventure which sprang from +his vacations. At twenty-two he was a reporter on the New York _Record_; +soon other reporters were prophesying that rockets come down like +sticks, and he was not yet twenty-three when the blow fell. Mrs. Herrick +died, and it was presently found that her money had been a long time +gone; mismanaged utterly by a hopeful husband. This amiable and innocent +creature had been bitten, in his old age, by the madness and the vanity +of speculation; he had made a score of ventures, not one of which had +come to port. His health being now quite shattered, Switzerland was +prescribed; there, for five years, in the country housekeeping of their +straitened circumstances, his son and daughter tended him. There, during +the first two years of exile, Herrick had written those short stories +which had won him a distinguished reputation. No predictions had been +thought too high for him; but he had never got anything together in book +form, and bye-and-bye he had become altogether silent. It was all too +painful, too futile, too muffling! He seemed to be meant for but two +uses: to struggle with the knotted strains of Herrick senior's business +affairs and to assist with that History of the Ancient Chaldeans and +Their Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, which was his +father's engrossing, and now sole and senile, mania. His father +suffered, so that the young man was the more enslaved; and made him +suffer, so that he was the more anxious his sister should do no +secretary work for the Chaldeans. But it was his mother's suffering he +thought of now; the years in which she had put up with all this, +uncomforted, and struggled to save something out of the wreck for Marion +and for him, struggled to keep the shadow of it from their youth--and he +had not known! In so much solitude and so much distasteful occupation, +this idea flourished and struck deep. He saw his sister's life +sacrificed, too; given up to household work and nursing, to exile and +poverty, with lack of tenderness and with continual ailing pick-thanks; +and there grew up in him a passionate consideration for women, a +romantic faith in their essential nobility, a romantic devotion to their +right to happiness. Snatched from all the populous clamor and dazzle of +his boyhood and set down by this backwater, alone with a young girl and +the Ancient Chaldeans, he grew into a very simple, lonely fellow; +sometimes irascible but most profoundly gentle; a little old-fashioned; +perhaps something of the pack-horse in his daily round; but living, +mentally, in a very rosy, memory-colored vision of the great, strenuous, +lost, world. + +Death gave him back his life; Professor Herrick followed the Chaldeans, +the Babylonians, and the Kassites; within a few months Marion was +married; and Herrick, with something like Whittington's sixpence in his +pocket, famished for adventure and companionship, with the appetite of a +man and the experience of a boy, started for the rainbow metropolis of +his five-years' dream. In this mood he had rushed into the hot stone +desert of New York in summer--a New York already changed, and which +seemed to have dropped him out! + +But he brought, like other young desperadoes, his first novel with him; +and he had approached the junior partner of the famous old house of +Ingham and Son with letters from mutual friends in Brainerd. Now, at +last, within twenty-four hours after his own return from abroad, +Ingham--himself scarcely a decade older than Herrick, preceding him at +the same university, and with a Brainerd man for a brother-in-law,--had +responded with the invitation to lunch. Yes, it was exciting enough! +Herrick looked at his watch. It was barely ten. And then he took time to +remember when he had last looked at his watch in that room. + +Certainly, it was rather grim! And yet, said the desperado, it wasn't +going to be such a bad thing with which to command Ingham's interest at +lunch and get him into a confidential humor that wouldn't be too +superior. While he was attempting to inspire Ingham with a craving for +his complete works, this thrilling topic would be just the thing to do +away with self-consciousness. He mustn't lose faith in himself. And, +before all things, he mustn't, as he had done last night, lose faith in +his Heroine! + +He looked across the room at her picture; got out of bed; walked over to +her, and humbly saluted. Lose faith in her? "Evadne," he said, "through +my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous--You darling!" Lose +faith in _her_! + +The photograph, which looked like an enlargement of a kodak, represented +a very young girl, standing on a strip of beach with her back to the +sea. Her sailor tie, her white dress, and the ends of her uncovered hair +all seemed to flutter in the wind. Slim and tall as Diana she showed, in +her whole light poise, like a daughter of the winds, and Herrick was +sure that she was of a fresh loveliness, a fair skin and brown hair, +with eyes cool as gray water. It was the eyes, after all, which had +wholly captured his imagination. They were extraordinarily candid and +wide-set; in a shifting world they were entirely brave. This was what +touched him as dramatic in her face; she was probably in the new dignity +of her first long skirts, so that all that candor and courage, all the +alert quiet of those intelligent eyes were only the candor and courage +of a kind of royal child. She wanted to find out about life; she longed +to try everything and to face everything; but she was only a tall little +girl! That was the look his Heroine must have! Thus had she come +adventuring to New York with him, to seek their fortunes, and all during +those dreary months of heat and dust she had borne him happy company; in +the Park or in the Bowery, at Coney Island or along Fifth Avenue's +deserted pomp, he had always tried to see, for the novel, how things +would look to that young eagerness--no more ardent, had he but realized +it, than his own!--"Evadne," said he, now, "if things look promising +with Ingham this afternoon we'll take a taxi, to-night, and see the moon +rise up the river." He called her Evadne when he was talking about the +moon; when he required her pity because the laundress had faded his best +shirt, he called her Sal. + +A sound as of the Grubey children snuffling round his door recalled him +to the illustrious circumstance that he was by way of being a hero of a +murder story. But, if he was nursing pride in that direction, it was +destined to a fall. Johnnie Grubey thrust under the door something +which, as he had brought it up from the mail-box in the vestibule, +Johnnie announced as mail. But it was only a large, rough scrap of +paper, which astonished Herrick by turning out to be wall-paper--a +ragged sample of the pale green "cartridge" variety that so largely +symbolizes apartment-house refinement--and which confronted him from its +smoother side with the lines, penciled in a long, pointed, graceful +hand, + + For the Apollo in the bath-robe! Or was it a raincoat? + But should not Apollos stay in when it rains? + +It was many a day since Herrick had received a comic valentine, but all +the appropriate sensations returned to him then. The hand of this +neighborly jest was plainly a woman's and its slap brought a blush. He +was forced to grin; but he longed to evade the solemn questioning of the +Grubeys through whose domain he must presently venture to his bath and +it occurred to him that the most peaceful method of clearing a road was +to send out the younger generation for a plentiful supply of newspapers. +Besides, he wished very much to see the papers himself. + +He distributed them freely and escaped back to his room still carrying +three. When he had closed his door, the first paragraph which met his +eyes was on the lower part of the sheet which he held folded in half. It +began--"The body of Mr. Ingham was not found in the living-room, but--" +He flapped it over, agog for the headlines. They read: + + DEATH BAFFLES POLICE. + + James R. Ingham, Noted Publisher, Found Shot in Apartment-- + +Herrick was still standing with the paper in his hand when the second +Grubey boy brought him a visiting-card. It bore the name of Hermann E. +Deutch; and scribbled beneath this in pencil was the explanatory phrase, +"Superintendent, Van Dam Apartment House." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR + + +Hermann Deutch was a shortish, middle-aged Jew, belonging to the humbler +classes and of a perfectly cheap and cheerful type. But at the present +moment he was not cheerful. He showed his harassment in the drawn +diffidence of his sympathetic, emotional face, and in every line of +what, ten or fifteen years ago, must have been a handsome little person. +Since that period his tight black curls, receding further and further +from his naturally high forehead, had grown decidedly thin, and exactly +the reverse of this had happened to his figure. But he had still a pair +of femininely liquid and large black eyes, brimming with the romance +which does not characterize the cheap and cheerful of other races, and +Herrick remembered him last night as very impressionably, but not +basely, nervous. + +He now fixed his liquid eyes upon Herrick with an anxiety which took +humble but minute notes. Since the young fellow was at least +half-dressed in very well-cut and well-cared-for, if not specially new, +garments, it was clear to Mr. Deutch's reluctant admiration that he was +thoroughly "_high-class_!" Whatever was Mr. Deutch's apprehension, it +shrank weakly back upon itself. Then he simply took his life in his +hands and plunged. + +"I won't keep you a minute, Mr. Herrick. But I've got a little favor I +want to ask you.--You behaved simply splendid last night, Mr. +Herrick.--Well, I will, thanks,"--as he dropped into a chair. "I--I +won't keep you a minute--" + +"I'll be glad to do anything I can," Herrick interrupted. + +The news in his paper had made him feel as if he had just been +disinherited and, now that the dead man was a personality so much nearer +home, his brain rang with a hundred impressions of pity and wonder and +excitement. But he sympathized with poor Mr. Deutch; it could be no +sinecure to be the superintendent of a murder! Then, recollecting, "What +made you so certain it was suicide?" he asked suddenly. + +"What else could it be? There wasn't anybody but him there." + +"There was a woman there," Herrick said, "when the shot was fired." + +The superintendent took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "Well, +now, Mr. Herrick, that's just what I wanted to see you about. Now +please, Mr. Herrick, don't get excited and mad! All I want to say is, if +there _was_ a lady there last night--but there _couldn't_ have +been--well, of course, Mr. Herrick, if you say so! Why, you couldn't +have seen her so very plain, now could you?" + +"What are you driving at?" Herrick asked. + +"Couldn't it have been a gentleman's shadow you saw, Mr. Herrick? Mr. +Ingham's shadow? Raising his pistol, maybe, with one hand--" + +"While he played the piano with the other?" + +"Mr. Herrick, there couldn't have been any lady there!" He bridled. +"It's against the rules--that time o' night! I wouldn't ever allow such +a thing. There's never been a word against the Van Dam since I been +running it. Why, Mr. Herrick, if there was to be that kind of talk, +especially if she was to murder the gentleman and all like that, I'd be +ruined. And so'd the house. It ain't one o' these cheap flat buildings. +We got leases signed by--" + +"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be +reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a +woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not, +I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch." + +"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't +understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the +police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't +expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick; +it's your language!" + +"What!" + +"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be +quite so particular--" + +"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know +it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to +me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a +good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I +was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I +don't feel very leniently to the person--not even to the woman--who +murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do +it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going +to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed +him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr. +Deutch. And, good-morning." + +"Oh, my God! Oh, dear! But my dear sir--" + +"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what +people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and +that it was you who connived at her escape!" + +"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no +kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the +lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina." + +"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor +worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any +woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss +Christina!" + +"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all +like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of +a play." + +"Did I? Well?" + +Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped +upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran: +"About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina +Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as +of prophecy realized. "Oh--ho!" he breathed. + +"Oh--ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes +you think, all right. Even me!--that was what brought her first to my +mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed, +any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody +think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not +so. It's a damn mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!" + +"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he +had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as +a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West, +and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to +her detriment. + +"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all, +but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop +there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with +their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any +denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think +she's guilty--" + +"Oh, come! Why--" + +"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?" + +Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them +without speaking. + +"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to +be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself +and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit +of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated +gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced, +old-fashioned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries--people like +them, and Miss Christina--Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr. +Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn +them on to Miss Christina, you--" + +"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the +completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in +every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed. +But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a +handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression, +must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very +good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried, +"you want a drink!" + +For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic assurance, had put his plump elbows on +his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump +and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got +himself together; without embarrassment, but with a comfort in his +relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he +returned the glass he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr. +Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres +near so crazy to you." + +Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and +regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions. +But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see +her with Mr. Ingham?" + +"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before +ever _he_ set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa +had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a +pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for +myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it +was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very +refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as +high-class a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames; +plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings--oh, +beautiful!--by expensive, high-class artists; everything elegant. But it +wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick, +they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I +ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways +successful, since." + +"But you saw something of Mr. Hope--" + +"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are +yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture, +once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina +was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from +dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her +groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to +manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know +that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little +girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the +door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her +little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them +pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind +her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular +every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a +cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little +lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she +liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an +affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody +like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife, +Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing +like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was +kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the +most stylish child I ever set eyes on!" + +"Father living?" Herrick prompted. + +"No, Mr. Herrick, no. And before he died, he got into business +difficulties himself, and he didn't leave enough to keep a bird alive. I +helped Mrs. Hope dispose of all the bric-a-brac, my paintings and all, +everything that wasn't mortgaged, and they put it in with an aunt of Mr. +Hope's, a catamaran, and went to keeping a high-class boarding-house. +We're all apt to fall, Mr. Herrick. I've fallen myself." + +"The boarding-house didn't succeed either, then?" + +"I ask you, how could it, with that battle-ax? She cheated my poor +ladies, and she bullied Miss Christina, and used to take the books she +was always reading and burn 'em up, and say nasty common things to her, +when she got older, about the young gentlemen that were always on her +heels even then, and that she'd like well enough, one day, and the next +she couldn't stand the sight of. If there's one thing Miss Christina +has, more than another, it's a high spirit; she has what I'd call a +plenty of it. They had fierce fights. Often, when she'd come to me with +a little breastpin or other to pawn for her, so her and her mama'd have +a mite o' cash, she'd put her pretty head down on my wife's shoulder and +cry; and my wife'd make her a cup o' tea. She'd say then she was going +to run away and be an actress. And, when she was sixteen yet, she ran. +Two years afterward, her and her mama turned up in my first little +flat-house; a cheap one, down Eighth Avenue, in the twenties. She was on +the stage, all right, and what a time she'd had! It'd been cruel, Mr. +Herrick; cruel hard work and, just at the first, cruel little of it. But +now she's a leading lady. And this fall she's going to open in New York, +in a big part. It's the play they call 'The Victors'; I guess you've +heard. Mr. Wheeler, he's the star, and Miss Christina's part's better +than what his is. But now--" + +There was a pause. Mr. Deutch mopped his face, and Herrick, cogitating, +bit his lip. + +"This engagement to Ingham--" + +"She met him about two years ago, when she had her first leading part, +and they went right off their heads about each other. I never expected I +should see Miss Christina act so regular loony over any man. But she +refused him time and again. She said she'd always been a curse to +herself and she wasn't going to bring her curse on him. In the end, of +course, she gave in. She said she'd marry him this winter, if he'd go +away for the summer and leave her alone. You knew it was only day before +yesterday he got back from Europe?" + +"Yes. I know." + +"My wife and me have seen a lot more of her this summer than since she +was a little girl. There's been years at a time, all the while she was +on the road, that we wouldn't know if she was alive or dead. And then +some day I'd come home, and find her sitting in our apartment--it's a +basement apartment, Mr. Herrick!--as easy as if she'd just stepped +across the street. But I wouldn't like you should think it's Miss +Christina's talked to us very much about her engagement. She's a pretty +close-mouthed girl, in her way, and a simply elegant lady. Not but what +Mrs. Hope is an elegant lady, too. But still she is--if you know what I +mean--gabby! Miss Christina's always been a puzzle to her; and she's a +great hand to sit and make guesses at her with my wife. Mr. Ingham left +a key with Miss Christina when he went abroad so she could come and play +his piano and read his books whenever it suited her, and she'd have a +quiet place to study her part. Every once in a while Mrs. Hope would +take a notion it wasn't quite the proper thing she should come by +herself. But after she'd seen her inside, she'd drop down our way and +wait. She wasn't just exactly gone on Mr. Ingham, and my wife wasn't +either." + +Herrick lifted his head with a flash of interest. "Mrs. Hope opposed the +marriage?" + +"Well, not opposed. She never opposed the young lady in anything, when +you came down to it. But he wanted she should leave the stage. And he +wasn't ever faithful to her, Mr. Herrick! For all he was so crazy about +her and so wild-animal jealous of the very air she had to breathe, he +wasn't ever faithful to her--and if ever you'd seen her, that'd make +your blood boil! She'd hear things; and he'd lie. And she'd believe him, +and believe him! If it wasn't for his money, she'd be well rid of him, +to my mind." + +He sat nursing his wrath. And Herrick, still watching him, felt sorry. +For, in Herrick's mind it was now all so clear; so pitiably clear! Poor +little chap!--he didn't know how scanty was the reassurance in his +portrait of his Miss Christina! The indulged, imperious child, choosing +"her own" friends; the unhappy, bold, bedeviled girl, already with young +men at her heels, whom she encouraged one day and flouted the next; +pawning her trinkets at sixteen and plunging alone into the world, the +world of the stage; the ambitious, adventurous woman capable of holding +such a devotion as that of the good Deutch by so capricious and +high-handed a return, snaring such a man of the world as Ingham by an +adroit blending of abandon and retreat, putting up with the humiliations +of his flagrant inconstancies only, perhaps, to find herself, after her +stipulated summer alone, on the verge of losing him through his +insensate jealousy--were there no materials here for tragic quarrel? Was +not this the very figure that last night he had seen fling out an arm in +unexampled passion and grace? In his heart he saw Christina Hope, while +her betrothed, whether as accuser or accused, taunted her from the +piano, kill James Ingham. And he profoundly knew that he had almost seen +this with his eyes. His pulse beat high; but it was with a sobered mind +that he beheld Mr. Deutch preparing to depart. + +"Well, you see how I had to ask you, Mr. Herrick, not to say that lady's +shadow made you think any of an actress?" + +"I do, indeed." + +"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if +only you was acquainted with her--" He had turned, in rising, to get his +hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach, +"Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?" + +"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his +Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?" + +"Why, that you _was_ acquainted with--" said Mr. Deutch, extending his +hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope." + +Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her, +all along! It's a real old picture--'bout five years ago. You knew her +then? You knew her--And you--saw--" His voice died away. His glance +turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds +drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow +must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw, +looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear. + +Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been +these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar +face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life, +shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt +his blood go cold. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY + + +There was a time coming when Herrick was to salute as prophetic what he +now noted with a grim amusement; that from the moment the shadow sprang +upon the blind the current of his life was changed. Peopled, busy, +adventurous, it had passed, as one might say, into active circulation. +He was suddenly in the center of the stage. + +This was brought home to him rather sharply when Deutch had been not +five minutes gone. On the exit of that gentleman Herrick's first thought +had been for Miss Hope's photograph. Although an actress seems less a +woman than a type, yet, since, to any stray gossip, she was recognizable +as a real person, she mustn't, at this critical time, be left hanging on +his wall to excite comment. He had scarcely laid the photograph on his +desk to compare it with a cut in one of the newspapers when information +that he was "wanted on the 'phone" made him drop the paper atop of his +dethroned Heroine and hurry into the hall. And the place to which the +telephone invited him was the Ingham publishing house. + +The message was from old Gideon Corey, the prop and counselor of the +House of Ingham, father and son. It told Herrick that Ingham senior had +just arrived in New York and had not yet gone to an hotel; he had turned +instinctively to his office, where he besought Herrick, whose name he +had recognized, to come to him and tell him what there was to tell. It +was only the piteous human longing to be brought nearer, by some detail, +by some vision later than our own, to those to whom we shall never be +near again. Herrick flinched from the task, but there could be no +question of his obedience; and he came out from that interview humbly, +softened by the gentleness of such a grief. It seemed to him that he had +never seen so tender a dignity of reserve; that beautiful old gentleman +who had wished to question him had also wished to spare him; wished, +too,--and taken the loyalest precautions--to spare some one else. + +"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Herrick," Ingham's father had said +to him, "that my son was engaged to be married?" + +"I had just heard--" + +"Then you will understand how especially painful it is that there should +be any mention of a--another lady--Miss Hope is a sweet girl," said the +old gentleman, "a sweet, good girl--" He paused, as if he were feeling +for words delicate enough for what he had to say; and then a little +breath that was like a cry broke from him. "My son was a wild boy, Mr. +Herrick, but he loved her--he loved her! Will it be necessary to add to +her grief by telling her that, at the very last, he was entertaining--? +I wanted her for my daughter! May she not keep even the memory of my +son?" + +Herrick could have groaned aloud. "Only tell me," he said, "what can I +do?" + +"Mr. Ingham means to ask"--Corey interposed--"whether, at the--the +inquest, it will be necessary to lay so much emphasis on that shadow you +observed?" + +Thus, for the second time that day, from what different mouths and under +what different circumstances, came the same request! And there passed +over Herrick that little shiver of the skin which takes place, the +country people tell you, when some one steps over your grave. + +"Could you not assume that you might have been mistaken? That it might +have been a man's shadow--?" + +"I was not mistaken--Why, look here!" he continued, eagerly. "Can't you +see that it would be the worst kind of a mistake for me to change now? +They'd think I'd heard who the woman was, and was trying to shield her! +And, besides," he added to Corey, "it's your only clue." It occurred to +him, as he spoke, that Ingham's family might be concerned for his +reputation rather than for vengeance; this continued to seem probable +even while they assured him that it was not the police, but Miss Hope +alone, from whom they wished to keep the circumstance; they were +thinking of what would have been the dead man's dearest wish. What she +read in the papers they could perhaps deny; but what she heard at the +inquest-- + +When, however, they reluctantly agreed with him that it was too late for +any effectual reticence it was with unabated kindliness that Corey went +with him into the hall. "We remain infinitely obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick, and--later on--we mustn't lose track of you again--Well, +good-morning! Good-morning!" + +It was nearly afternoon and Herrick stepped out from the dark, +old-fashioned elevator into its sunny heat, which occasional spattering +showers had vainly tried to dissipate, with a very highly charged sense +of moving among vivid personalities. Concerning two of these there +persisted a certain lack of reassurance, and as that of Ingham +brightened or darkened the shadow herself now shone as a tigress +devouring, now an avenging angel. Sometimes her figure stood out +clearly, by itself; sometimes it wavered and changed, and passed, +whether Herrick willed it or not, into the figure of Christina Hope. +Then, whether for Deutch's or Ingham's sake, or for Evadne's, there was +something oppressive in the sunshine. + +But the young fellow was not enough of a hypocrite to pretend, even to +himself, that all this excitement, all this acquaintance with swift +events, with salient people under the influence of strong emotion, all +this quick, warm, and strong feeling which had been aroused in himself, +were anything but very welcome. Nor were his adventures over yet. His +walk brought him, with a thoughtful forehead but all in a breathing glow +of interest, to City Hall Park; a spot where he had loitered that summer +a score of times, wearying vaguely for a friendly face. To-day, his +brisk step had scarcely carried him within its boundaries before he +heard his name called and, turning, was accosted by a _Record_ +acquaintance of six years ago whose recognition displayed the utmost +eagerness. + +The spirit of New York City, which had hitherto considered him merely +one of her returned failures, had now made up her mind to show what she +could do for such a darling as the near-eye-witness of a murder. He +found himself hailed into the office of the _Record_, whence they had +been madly telephoning him this long while, and immediately +commissioned, at the price of a high, temporary specialist, to report +the Ingham inquest, and to write a Sunday special of the murder! + +He thought of Ingham's father, and "It isn't a tasty job!" he said to +his old chief. But it swept upon him what material it was; it felt, in +his empty hand, like the key of success; and then, there is always in +our ears at such a time the whisper that it will certainly be done by +somebody. "And never, surely," Herrick wrote his sister that night, "so +chastely, so justly, with either such dash or such discretion, as by our +elegant selves!" + +This, at least, was the view which the Ingham office took of it. Corey +reported the family as glad to leave it in Herrick's hands; while a +tremor at once of regret, pleasure and superstition pricked over +Herrick's nerves as Corey followed up this statement with an invitation +through the _Record_ phone to meet him at the Pilgrims' Club and talk +some things over during lunch! + +"To shake the iron hand of Fate" was becoming so much the rule that +Herrick was nearly capable of feeling gripped by it even in the somewhat +remote circumstances that the Pilgrims' had been founded as a club of +actors and, overrun as it was by men of all professions and particularly +literary men, it had remained essentially a club of actors--while he, +Bryce Herrick, hastening toward it through a smart shower, had at first +conceived of his novel as a play and then, in Switzerland, been baffled +by the inaccessibility of that world! His novel, of whom the heroine had +been so unwittingly Christina Hope!--However, the low, wide portals of +the Pilgrims' received him under their great, wrought iron lanterns +without excitement and he passed, self-consciously and with a certain +shyness, into the cooling twilight of a hallway still perfectly calm and +over the lustrous, glinting sweeps of easy and quite indifferent stairs +up to an "apartment brown and booklined" that looked out on a green +park. + +At one of the windows Corey stood talking to a dark, heavy, vigorous man +whose face was familiar to Herrick and whom Corey introduced as Robert +Wheeler. It was a name of note but Herrick bewilderedly exclaimed "Miss +Hope's manager?" Two or three men turned to Wheeler and grinned and he, +himself, said with a gruff chuckle, yes, he supposed it had come to +that, already! Herrick's embarrassed tactlessness sought refuge in +looking out of doors. + +The famous square had kept its ancient privacy secure from all the +city's noise and hurry. It was still, secluded; self-sufficient with an +old-world grace; and the green park shone fresh after the shower, its +flower beds and the window boxes of its grave, dark houses gave out a +delicate, glimmering sparkle along with their moist and newly piercing +sweetness. Nothing could have been more tranquil except the cool spaces, +the dusky, sunny, airy, oak-hued shadows of the wide-windowed +club--neither could anything have been less like Mrs. Grubey's or even +Professor Herrick's idea of what an actors' club would be. The whole +place seemed to rebuke its visitor, more graciously than had Hermann +Deutch, for the feverish suggestion which Christina's calling had hinted +round her name. The blithe young gentlemen in light clothes, fussing +over with cigarette smoke and real and unreal English accents, the older +men, less saddled and bridled and fit for the fray but still with +something at once lazy and boyish in the quick sensibility of their +faces, appeared to have no very lurid intensities up their sleeve and +amid so much serene and humorous assurance Ingham senior's "sweet, good +girl," Hermann Deutch's "Miss Christina" seemed better founded in kind +and credible probabilities. She bloomed, indeed, hedged with all +proprieties in the sound of Wheeler's voice saying, "But must Miss Hope +appear at the inquest?" + +"Yes," said Corey, tartly, "since her name will add to its notoriety! +Have you forgotten our coroner?" Wheeler lifted his thick brows in +annoyance and with the same sourness of inflection Corey added, "Is it +possible any corner of the universe can for a moment forget Cuyler Ten +Euyck!" + +Herrick started and looked at the two men with quick eagerness. "You +don't mean--" + +"Precisely! The mighty in high places--Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler +Ten Euyck! No less!" + +Wheeler broke into a curse and then into his deep laugh, and said Miss +Hope's manager would do well to clear out before any Sherlock Holmes +with wings got to throwing his mouth around here. "I can stand his +always bringing down a curtain with 'Seventy times a millionaire--the +world is at my feet!' A man has to believe in something! But it's his +taking himself for a tin District-Attorney-on-wheels that'll get his +poor jaw broken one of these days!" + +Herrick's curiosity was roused to certain reminiscences and he went on +putting them together even while he followed Corey downstairs and out +onto an open gallery whose tables overlooked a little garden. As soon +as the waiter left them he asked Corey, "But--I've been so long +away--this coroner can't be the same Ten Euyck--" + +"Can you think there are two?" + +Well, the world is certainly full of entertainment! A man born to one of +the proudest names and greatest fortunes of his time serving as +coroner--coroner! That was what certain references of McGarrigle's +meant, certain newspaper flippancies. "Mr. Ten Euyck!" Herrick's extreme +youth had witnessed the historic thrill that shook society when the full +significance of the great creature's visiting-cards first burst upon a +startled and ingenuous nation! But even then Mr. Ten Euyck must have +aspired beyond social thrills and seen himself as a man of parts and +public conscience. It was not so much later that Herrick remembered him +as a literary dabbler, an amateur statesman, endeavoring by means of +elegant Ciceronics to waken his class to its duty as leader of the +people! He had then seemed merely a solemn ass who, having learned +during a long residence abroad an aristocratic notion of government, +took his caste and its duties much too seriously.--"But why coroner?" + +Despair, apparently, over that caste's lack of seriousness! There had +been talk of abolishing the coronership, Corey said, and Ten Euyck had +run for it. If irresponsible idlers dared to slight even the presidency +in their choice of careers let them see what could be done with the +least considerable of offices! If younger sons dared lessen class-power +by neglecting government, let them see to what Mr. Ten Euyck could +condescend in the public service! It was an old-fashioned, an old-world +ambition; the man, essentially stiff-necked, essentially egotistical, +was in no sense a reformer. "He pushes his office, upon my word, to the +diversion of the whole town; holding court, if you please, as if he were +launching a thunderbolt, making speeches and denunciations, and taking +himself for a kind of District Attorney.--I may as well say, Mr. +Herrick, that it's a black bitterness to me that that pretentious puppy +should have authority in--in dealing with Mr. James. There was never +anything cordial between them; in fact, quite the contrary. We refused a +book of his once!" + +"But, great heavens,--" + +"It was a book of plays, Mr. Herrick; blank verse and Roman +soldiery--with orations! I don't deny Mr. James's letter was a trifle +saucy; he was often not conciliating; no, not conciliating! Well, now, +it's Ten Euyck's turn. If he can soil Mr. James's memory in Miss Hope's +eyes, why, that will be just to his taste, believe me. Now I come to +think of it, I believe Miss Hope herself is rather in his black books! +It seems to me she once took part in one of the plays, and it failed. I +tell you all this, Mr. Herrick, because James Ingham had the highest +admiration for you, and had great pleasure in the hope of bringing out +your novel." + +Herrick gaped at him in an astonishment which had not so much as become +articulate before--such is our mortal frailty--his slight, but hitherto +persistent, repulsion from the dead man was shaken to its foundation and +moldered in dust away. + +"Yes, when we are ourselves again, you must bring in that manuscript. +Yes, yes, he wished it! They were almost the last words I had from him. +He was very pleased to get your letter, very pleased. He was talking +about it to Stanley, his young brother, and to me; we were all there +yesterday--think of it, Mr. Herrick, yesterday!--working out his ideas +for our new Weekly. He was always an enthusiast, a keen enthusiast, and +the Weekly was his latest enthusiasm. Its politics would have been very +different from Mr. Ten Euyck's--" + +A friendly visage at another table favored them with a sidelong +contortion and a warning wink. Just behind them a shrewd voice ceased +abruptly and a metallic tone responded, "Yes, but you--you're a man with +a mania!" + +The first voice replied, "Well, you're down on criminals and I'm down on +crime." + +Then Ten Euyck's was again lifted. "You're out after a criminal whom you +think corrupting and to wipe him out you'll pass by fifty of the +plainest personal guilt! In my view nobody but the corruptible is +corrupted. Any person who commits a crime belongs in the criminal +class." + +"Crime may end in the criminal class," the other voice took up the +challenge, "but it begins at home. You can't always pounce upon the +decayed core. But if you observe a very little speck on a healthy +surface, one of two things--either you can cut it away and save the +apple, or your tunneling will lead you farther and farther in, it will +open wider and wider and the speck will vanish, automatically, because +the whole rotten fruit will fall open in your hand." + +"Delightful, when it does! But in this short life I prefer the pounce!" + +By this time everybody was harkening and Herrick ventured to turn his +chair and look round. He beheld a sallow man, nearer forty than thirty +and as tall as himself or taller, but of a straighter and stiffer +height; with a long head, a long handsome nose and chin, long hands and +long ears. This elongated countenance was not without contradictions. +Under the sparse, squarely cut mustache Herrick was surprised to find +the lips a little pouting, and the glossily black eyes were prominent +and full. Fastidiously as he was dressed there persisted something +funereal in the effect; forward of each ear a shadow of clipped whisker +leant him the dignity of a daguerreotype. He spoke neatly, distinctly. +His excellent, strong voice was dry, cold and inflexible. On the whole +Herrick's easy and contemptuous amusement received a slight set-back. + +"I prefer the pounce!" To be pounced upon by that bony intensity might +not be amusing at all! + +Then he discovered what had changed his point of view: it had shifted a +trifle toward the criminal's! All very well for Ten Euyck's +guest--Herrick had somehow gathered that the other man was a guest--to +give up the argument, indifferently refusing to play up to his host! All +very well for the free-hearted lunchers to sit, diverted, getting +oratorical pointers from the monologue into which Ten Euyck had plunged! +It was neither the lunchers nor the guest, but Herrick who must, +to-morrow morning, appear as a witness before Ten Euyck! He would have +to tell the man something which the Inghams had asked him not to tell +because it might prove prejudicial to James Ingham--his admirer--which +Hermann Deutch had asked him not to tell because it might prove +prejudicial to Christina Hope--she whose face had been his heart's +companion through hard and lonely times! The idea of the inquest had +become exceedingly disagreeable to Herrick. + +And the more he listened to Ten Euyck, the more disagreeable it became; +the more he felt that a derisive audience had underestimated its man. +Ten Euyck might take himself too seriously; he might show too small a +sense of the ridiculous in loudly delivering, at luncheon, a sort of +Oration-on-the-Respect-of-Law-in-Great-Cities. But this depended on +whether you considered him as a man or a trap. The real quality in a +trap is not a sense of the ridiculous nor a delicate repugnance to +taking itself seriously. Its real quality is the ability to catch +things. And, as a trap, Herrick began to feel that Ten Euyck was made +for success. + +The new-born criminal actually felt an impulse to warn his unknown +accomplice how trivial gossip had been, how blind the public gaze. +Platitudes about law, yes. But, when the orator came to dealing with the +lawless, the whole man awoke. Those who broke the rules of the world's +game and yet struggled not to lose it were to him mere despicable +impertinents whose existence at large was an outrage to self-respecting +players and for what he despised he found excellent cold thrusts and +even a kind of homely and savage humor. Then, indeed, "it was not blood +which ran in his veins, but iced wine." Why, he was right to think of +himself as a prosecutor--he was born a prosecutor! In unconsciously +assuming the robes of justice he had simply found himself. To him +justice meant punishment, punishment an ideal vocation for the righteous +and life a thing continually coming up before him to be weighed, found +wanting and rebuked. To admonish, to blame, and then--with a spring--to +crush--it is a passion which grows by what it feeds on, so that even Ten +Euyck's jests had become corrections and the whole creature admirably of +one piece, untorn by conflicting beliefs and inaccessible to reason, +provocation, pity or consequences; because illegal actions--ideas, too, +daily spreading--must be suppressed at all costs by proper persons and +the patriarchal arrangement of the world rebuilt over the body of a +rebel.--Of course, as his cowed analyst admitted, with P. W. B. C. Ten +Euyck on top! Thank heaven the monster had one weak spot! As he jibed at +a newspaper cartoon of the coroner's office he displayed fully the +symptom of his disease; a raging fever of egotism. He was one to die of +a laugh and Herrick doubted if he could have survived a losing game. + +But when was he likely to lose? Not when, as now, he lifted the bugle of +a universal summons, calling expertly on a primitive instinct. Your +aristocrat may be a fool and a bore in your own workshop, but he is the +hereditary leader of the chase; his mounted figure convinces you he will +run down the fugitive and in the minds of men the weight of his millions +add themselves, automatically, to his hand. This huntsman had branched +off to the importance of motive in murder trials and his audience was +not smiling, now. It had warmed itself at his cold fire and the +excitement of the hunt was in the air. Ten Euyck always uttered the word +"crime" with a gusto that spat it forth, indeed, but richly scrunched; +and it was a day on which that word could not but start an electrical +contagion. Nothing definite was said, in Corey's presence; still less +was a name named--nor was any needed. But a sense of gathering issues, +of closing in on some breathless revelation thickened in the heating, +thrilling, restive atmosphere till a boy's voice said languidly, "Lead +me to the air, Reginald! This is too rich for my blood!" and they all +dropped the wet blanket of a shamefaced relief upon the coroner's +inconsiderate eloquence. The quiet guest got suddenly to his feet and +bore his host away. + +In a tone of tremulous scorn Corey said to Herrick, "He's grown a +mustache, you see, because Kane wears one!" + +"Kane?" + +"You've no nose for celebrities! Ten Euyck brought him here to-day to +pose before him as a literary man and before us as a political lion. But +our coroner's founded himself on Gerrish so long I don't know what'll +become of him now we've got a District-Attorney who has no particular +appetite for the scalps of women!" + +Kane! So the District-Attorney was the quiet guest! To Herrick's roused +apprehension Kane might just as well have been brought there to be +presented with any chance mention which might indicate some circumstance +connected with last night. And he understood too well the allusion to +Gerrish, a District-Attorney of the past whose successful prosecutions +had made a speciality of women; who had never delegated, who had always +prosecuted with especial and eloquent ardor, any case in which the +defendant was a woman, whether notorious or desperate. Herrick could +scarcely restrain a whistle; this did indeed promise a lively inquest! +Heaven help the lady of the shadow if this imitation prosecutor should +nose her out! It was, perhaps, an immoral exclamation. Yet all the +afternoon, as Herrick worked on his story for the _Record_, he could not +rout his distaste for his own evidence. + +Even after his late and imposing lunch he brought himself to a cheap and +early dinner, rather than go back to the Grubey flat. He affected, when +he found himself downtown, a little Italian table d'hote in the +neighborhood of Washington Square; much frequented by foreign laborers +and so humble that a plaintive and stocky dog, a couple of peremptory +cats, and two or three staggering infants with seraphic eyes and a +chronic lack of handkerchiefs or garters generally lolled about the +beaten earth of the back yard, where the tables were spread under a +tent-like sail-cloth. It was all quaint and foreign and easy; and, so +far as might be, it was cool; on occasions, the swarthy _dame de +comptoir_ was replaced by a spare, square, gray-haired woman, small and +neat and Yankee, whom it greatly diverted Herrick to see at home in such +surroundings; a little gray parrot, looking exactly like her, climbed +and see-sawed about her desk; a vine waved along the fence; the late sun +flickered on the clean coarseness of the table-cloths and jeweled them, +through the bottles of thin wine, with ruby glories; there was a +worthless, poverty-stricken charm about the place, and Herrick sat +there, early and alone, smiling to himself with, after all, a certain +sense of satisfying busyness and of having come home to life again. + +He had little enough wish to return to his close room where his +perplexities would be waiting for him and he lingered after dinner, +practicing his one-syllable Italian on Maria Rosa, the little eldest +daughter of the house, who trotted back and forth bearing tall glasses +of branching bread-sticks and plates of garnished sausage to where her +mother was setting a long table for some fete, and, when the guests +began to come, he still waited in his corner, idly watching. + +They were all men and all poor, but all lively; there was an almost +feminine sweetness in the gallantry of the Latin effervescence with +which they passed a loving-cup in some general ceremony. And no woman +could have been more beautiful than the tall Sicilian whose grave +stateliness, a little stern from the furrowing of brows still touched +with Saracen blood, faced Herrick from the table's farther end. Herrick +even inquired, as he paid his check, who this imposing creature was and +the Yankee woman replied with unconcern that he was Mr. Gumama, who ran +a pool-game at the barber's. + +It charmed Herrick to combine this name and occupation with the fervent +kisses which Mr. Gumama, rising majestically and swooping to the nearer +end of the table, implanted, one on each cheek, upon the hero of the +fete. All the guests, as each finished the ceremonial draught, followed +his example. None of the rest, however, had Saracen brows, nor long, +grim earrings whose fringe swing beneath three stories of gilt squares. +The Yankee woman turned contemptuously from "such monkey-shines," but +Herrick lingered till the last kiss and as he even then walked home +through the hot cloudy night it was after nine o'clock before he reached +there. He had not been in since morning and he was greatly to blame. For +he had had a caller and the caller was Cuyler Ten Euyck! + +The Grubeys were greatly excited by this circumstance and it excited +Herrick, too. The coroner had himself examined Ingham's apartment and +then the conscientious creature had climbed the stairs to Herrick's. He +had even waited in the hope that his witness might return. All this was +proudly poured forth while Herrick was also asked to examine a rival +public interest--a most peculiar prize which the corner saloon-keeper's +son had been awarded at a private school; he had loaned it to Johnnie +Grubey for twenty-four hours if Johnnie would let him see the revolver +with which Herrick would have shot the murderer last night if the +murderer had been there! It was a sort of return in kind; for the +school prize was also a revolver. + +It was a very little one and Johnnie insisted that it was solid gold. On +the handle was a monogram of three capital A's in small bright stones, +white, green and red--near them a straggling C had been wantonly +scratched. Johnnie averred that the A's stood for Algebra, Astronomy and +Art-Drawing and even had the combination of studies for one prize been +less remarkable Herrick would have suspected that the boy was lying. +What he suspected he hardly knew; still less when he discovered that +this unwontedly sympathetic prize was, after all, a fake. The little +golden pistol was not a pistol, but a curiously pointless trinket--the +cylinder was nothing but a sculptured suggestion; the toy was made all +in one piece!--"D'yeh ever see the like?" Mrs. Grubey asked him. And he +never had. It was quainter than Mr. Gumama's kisses. + +But Herrick's head was full of other things. As he opened his door he +grinned to think of that aristocratic scion waiting in his humble +bedroom. Well, it had been a great day! Even if he had lost heart for +that taxi-ride up the river with Evadne! And then from long habit, he +glanced at Evadne's empty place. + +The picture had left an unfaded spot on the wall-paper. "I suppose I +might add 'And on my heart!'" said Herrick. He lifted the concealing +newspaper. Then he went out and made inquiries. No one but Ten Euyck and +Mrs. Grubey had been in the room nor had Mrs. Grubey noticed that the +picture had been moved. Now Herrick was certain he had left the likeness +under the newspaper, lying face up. It was still under the newspaper, +but face down. He said to himself, with a shrug of annoyance, that the +coroner had made good use of his time. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS + + +The morning of the inquest was cloudy, with a wet wind. Herrick was +nervous, and he could not be sure whether this nervousness sprang from +the ardor of championship or accusation. But one thing was clear. +Christina Hope had slain Evadne and closed his mouth to Sal; but, at +last, he was to see her, face to face. + +She was there when he arrived, sitting in a corner with her mother. +Herrick recognized her at once, but with a horrid pang of +disappointment. Was this his Diana of the Winds? Or yet his Destroying +Angel? This was only a tall quiet girl in a gray gown. To be more exact +it was a gray ratine suit, with a broad white collar, and her small gray +hat seemed to fold itself close in to the shape of her little head; the +low coil of her hair was very smooth. Herrick observed with something +oddly akin to satisfaction that he had been right about her +coloring--there were the fair skin, the brown hair, the eyes cool as +gray water. Under these to-day there were dark shadows and her face was +shockingly pale. + +The first witness called was a Doctor Andrews. After the preliminary +questions as to name, age, and so forth, he was asked, "You reside in +the Van Dam Apartments?" + +"I do." + +"On what floor?" + +"The ninth." + +"On the night of August fifth did you hear any unusual sounds?" + +"Not until I heard the pistol-shot--that is, except Mr. Ingham, playing +his piano--if you could call that unusual." + +"He often played late at night?" + +"He had been away during the summer; but, before that, there was a great +deal of complaint. He gave a great many supper-parties; at the same +time, he was such a charming fellow that people forgave him whenever he +wished. Besides, he was a magnificent musician." + +"Were there ladies at these supper-parties?" + +"Not to my personal knowledge." + +"What did you do, Dr. Andrews, when you heard the shot?" + +"I looked out of the window, and saw nothing. I thought I might have +been mistaken; it might have been a tire bursting. But I noticed that +the piano had stopped." + +After the shot the witness had remained restless. + +"Presently I thought I heard some one hammering. I got up again and +opened the door and then I heard it distinctly. I know now that it was +the efforts of Mr. Herrick to break Ingham's lock with a revolver. I +could hear a mixture of sounds--movements. I went back and began to get +my clothes on and when I was nearly dressed my 'phone rang." + +"Tell us what it said." + +"It was the voice of the superintendent saying, 'Please come down to 4-B +in a hurry, Dr. Andrews. Mr. Ingham's shot himself.'" + +"And you went?" + +"Immediately." + +"He was dead on your arrival?" + +"Quite." + +"How long should you, as a physician, say it was since death occurred?" + +"Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes." + +"Had the death been instantaneous?" + +"Certainly. He was shot through the heart." + +"Then, in your opinion, if the deceased had taken his own life, he could +not have sprung off the electric lights, nor in any fashion done away +with the weapon, after the shot." + +"He certainly could not." + +"In your professional opinion, then, he did not commit suicide?" + +"There is no question of an opinion. I know he did not." + +"You are very positive, Dr. Andrews?" + +"Absolutely positive. Death was instantaneous. Also, there was no powder +about the wound, showing that the shot had been fired from a distance of +four feet or more. Also, the body did not lie where it had fallen." + +"How do you know that?" + +"There was a little puddle of blood in the sitting-room, where Ingham +fell. Your physician and myself called the attention of the police to +marks on the rugs following a trail of drops of blood into the bedroom +where the body was found." + +"You do not think that the deceased could have crawled or staggered +there, after the shooting?" + +"I do not." + +"You believe that the body was dragged there, after death?" + +"Yes." + +"You remained with the body until the arrival of myself and Doctor +Shippe?" + +"I did." + +"Dr. Andrews, the apartment in which the shooting occurred had no access +to the windows of any other apartment, no fire-escape, and no means of +egress except through a door which was found bolted on the inside. +Suppose that a murder was committed. Have you any theory accounting for +the murderer's escape?" + +"None whatever." + +"And does not the absence of all apparent means of escape shake your +theory of the impossibility of suicide?" + +"Not in the least. It is unshakable." + +"Thank you. That will do." + +The coroner's physician confirmed Dr. Andrews in every particular. The +coroner settled back and seemed to pause. And the listeners drew a long +breath. Something at least had been decided. It was not suicide. It was +murder. + +This had been established so completely and so early in the examination +that Herrick found himself impressed with the idea of the coroner's +knowing pretty distinctly what he was about. It seemed that he might +very well have some theory to establish, for which, in the first place, +he had now cleared the ground. Herrick stole a glance at Deutch. His +face was wet and colorless, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. And then, +curious to note the effect of hearing her lover proclaimed foully +murdered, he permitted himself the cruelty of looking at Miss Hope. +Apparently it had no effect on her at all. Her mother, a slight, +handsome woman, very fashionably turned out, followed eagerly every +suggestion of the evidence. But the girl still sat with lowered eyes. + +The next evidence, that of the police, threw no further light; and then +came the tremulous Theodore of Herrick's acquaintance whose surname +transpired as Bird. + +Bird, too, had been awake and had heard the shot; he had been fully +aware from the first that it was a pistol-shot. He and Mrs. Bird had +risen and put up the chain on their door, and then he had telephoned to +the superintendent. + +"Did the hall-boy connect you at once?" + +"It isn't the hall-boy. It's the night-elevator-boy." + +"Well, did the night-elevator-boy connect you at once?" + +"No, I was a long time getting him." + +"The boy?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah! He, at least, was able to sleep. But, after you got him, was your +connection with the superintendent immediate?" + +"Almost immediate, I guess." + +"It didn't strike you that he was purposely delaying?" + +The listeners leaned forward. And Herrick, as at a touch home, dropped +his eyes. + +"Why, I couldn't say that it did. No, hardly. Besides, he might have +been asleep, too." + +"Ah! So he might. And what was the first thing he said to you?" + +"Through the 'phone?" + +"Certainly. Through the 'phone." + +"He said, 'What is it?'" (Slight laughter from the crowd.) + +"Well? Go on!" + +"I said, 'Excuse me. But I heard a shot just now, in 4-B.' And he said, +'A pistol-shot?' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Do you think somebody +has got hurt?' And I said, 'I'm afraid so.' Then he said, 'Well, I'll +come up.'" + +"Did he seem excited?" + +"Not so much as I was." + +Mrs. Bird, though she described at some length her forethought in +dressing and getting their valuables together, had nothing material to +add. Nor had the widow and her son in the apartment below that in which +the catastrophe took place; nor the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Willing, in the +apartment across the court which had been invaded as a look-out station +by the police, anything further to relate; until, indeed, the lady +stumbled upon the phrase--"The party had been going on for some time." + +"In 4-B?" + +"What? Yes." + +"What made you think there was a party going on in 4-B?" + +"There were voices. And then he often had them." + +"Did you, as a near neighbor, ever observe that there were any ladies at +these parties?" + +"I wouldn't like to say." + +"I see. Well, on this occasion, how many voices were there?" + +"I don't know." + +"About how many? Two? A dozen? Twenty?" + +"Oh, not many at all. There was poor Mr. Ingham's voice, nearly all the +time. And maybe a couple of others. I was in my bedroom, trying to +sleep, and the piano was going all the time." + +"I see. So there may have been two or three persons besides Mr. Ingham, +and there may have been only one?" + +"Yes, sir. At times I was pretty sure I heard another voice. I mean a +third one, anyhow." + +"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?" + +"I don't know." + +"Could you swear you heard a third voice at all?" + +"Well, I don't believe I could exactly. No." + +"Now, Mrs. Willing, I want you to be very careful. And I want you to try +and remember. Please tell exactly all that you can remember about what I +am going to ask you and nothing more." + +"Oh, now, you're frightening me dreadfully." + +"I don't want to frighten you. But I do want you to think. Now. You are +certain you heard at least two voices?" + +"Yes, I am, I--" + +"Mr. Ingham's and one other?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Was that other voice the voice of a man?" + +"No, sir." + +"It was a woman's voice?" + +"I--I suppose so." + +"Aren't you sure?" + +"Well, yes, I am." + +"Was it angry, excited?" + +"Toward the end it was." + +"As if the speaker were losing control of herself?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Now, Mrs. Willing, had you ever heard it before?" + +"The woman's voice?" + +"Yes." + +"I can't be sure." + +"What do you think?" + +"Well, I thought I had, yes. I told Mr. Willing so. He'd been to a +bridge party upstairs and he came down just along there." + +"You recognized it then?" + +"Well, toward the end I thought I did; yes." + +"Mrs. Willing, whose was that voice?" + +"Oh, sir,--I--I'd rather not say!" + +"You must say, Mrs. Willing." + +"Well, then, I'll just say I don't know." + +"That won't do, Mrs. Willing.--When you told your husband that you +thought you recognized that voice, exactly what did you say?" + +"Well, I said--oh!--I--Well, what I said was 'That's that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.'" + +"Ah!--And, now, I suppose you know the name of the actress he was +engaged to?" + +"Yes, of course. She's Miss Hope. Christina Hope her name is. Of course, +I haven't said I was sure!" + +"Thank you. That will do." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED + + +A thrill shook the assemblage. It was plain enough now to what goal was +the coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all along +had been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall, +dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become something +sinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wild +animal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gasp +and rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and then +collapsing in his seat, with a muffled croak. His wife frowned; clucking +indignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspected +girl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that she +was much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You will +have your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back with +exclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressed +it lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintained +her composure intact. + +But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed a +long, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. It +was the expression of a very good and very serious child who regards +earnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Once +she had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there. + +In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exact +profile occasioned by her change of attitude, Herrick began once more +to see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there _was_ something +royally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in that +obstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thus +expectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall little +girl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By God, he was branding +her!--"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called. + +The young man was aware at once of being a local celebrity. His evidence +was to be one of the treats of the day. Not even the attack upon +Christina had created a much greater stir. He took his place; and, "At +last," said the coroner, "we are, I believe, to hear from somebody who +saw _something_." + +Herrick told his story almost without interruption. He was listened to +in flattering silence; the young author had never had a public which +hung so intently on his words. The silence upon which he finished was +still hungry. + +The coroner drew a long breath. "We're greatly obliged to you, Mr. +Herrick. And now let us get this thing straight. It was one o'clock or +thereabouts that Mr. Ingham began to play?" + +They established the time and they went over every minutest detail of +changing spirit in Ingham's music. + +"That crash which waked you for the second time--do you think it could +have been occasioned by an attack on Mr. Ingham?--that he may have been +struck and thrown against the piano?" + +"Oh, not at all. It was a perfectly deliberate discord, a kind of +hellish eloquence." + +"Ah! I'm obliged to you for that phrase, Mr. Herrick." And again he was +asked--"That gesture which so greatly impressed you--do you think you +could repeat it for us?" + +Herrick quelled the impulse to reply, "Not without making a damned fool +of myself," and substituted, "I can describe it." + +"Kindly do so." + +"She threw her arm high up, as high as it would go, but at a very wide +angle from her body, and at that time her hand was clenched. But while +the arm was still stretched out, she slowly opened her fingers, as if +they were of some stiff mechanism--and it seemed to me that it was the +violence of her feeling they were stiff with--until the whole hand was +open, like a stretched gauntlet." + +"Well, and then, when she took down her hand?" + +"She drew it in toward her quickly; I had an idea she might have covered +her face." + +"And then she disappeared?" + +"Yes; but she seemed to dip a little forward." + +"As if to pick something up?" + +"Well, not as much as from the floor; no." + +"From a chair, then, or the couch?" + +"Possibly." + +"She would, standing at the window, have been some five or six feet from +the piano, where Ingham sat?" + +"I should say about that." + +"Mr. Herrick, are you absolutely sure that this was not until after the +shooting?--this forward dip?" + +"After? No, it was before!" + +"Ah--And directly after the shot the lights went out?" + +"Directly after. Almost as if the shot had put them out." + +"Now, Mr. Herrick, you have testified that from, as you say, the vague +outline of the hair and shoulders and the slope of her skirts, and from +the fact that when she raised her arm there was a bit of lace, or +something of the kind, hanging from her sleeve, you were perfectly sure +that this shadow was the shadow of a woman. Yet you still could not in +the least determine anything whatever of her appearance. That I can +quite understand. But didn't you gather, nevertheless, some notion of +her personality?" + +Herrick avoided Deutch's eye. He said--"I don't think so." + +"That extraordinary movement, then, did not leave upon you a very +distinct impression?" + +"In what way?" + +"An impression of a lady not much concerned with social constraint or +emotional control; and of a very great habitual ease and flexibility in +movement." + +Herrick managed to smile. "I'm afraid I'm no such observer as all that. +Perhaps any lady, within sixty seconds of committing murder, is a little +indifferent to social constraint." + +The coroner looked at him with a slight change of expression. "Well, +then, let us put it another way. You would not expect to see your +mother, or your sister, or any lady of your own class, make such a +gesture? No? Yet you must often have seen an actress do so?" + +"That doesn't follow!" Herrick said. His flush resented for Christina +the slur that his words overlooked. And suddenly words escaped him. "You +answered the previous question yourself, remember! Be kind enough not to +confuse my evidence with yours!" + +The coroner studied him a long time without speaking, while the young +man's color continued to rise, and at length came the comment, "I'm not +falling asleep, Mr. Herrick. I'm only wondering what charming influence +has been at work with the natural appetite, at your age, for discussing +an actress." + +"Ask me that later, outside your official capacity," said Herrick hotly, +"and we'll see if we can't find an answer!" + +"Mr. Herrick, why, on the morning after the murder, did you take down +Miss Hope's photograph from over your desk?" + +"Because, never having met Miss Hope, it was a photograph I had no right +to. I took it down when I learned the identity of the original. I didn't +want its presence to be misconstrued by cads." + +"Thank you. That will do. Hermann Deutch, if you please." + +Herrick retired, ruffled and angry at himself; and Deutch, in passing +him, cast him a clinging glance, as of a fellow conspirator, that he +found strangely indigestible. At Christina, he could not look. + +It did not take the coroner two minutes to make hay of Mr. Deutch. Not, +indeed, that he was able to extract any very damaging admissions. The +superintendent said that he was wakened by his wife, who had herself +been wakened by the 'phone. He had held the before stated conversation +with Mr. Bird, and, not being able to get the elevator, had walked +upstairs, being joined in the office by a policeman. The rest of his +proceedings were unquestionable. But the coroner, an expert in +caricature and bullying and the twisting of phrases, by making him +appear ridiculous, managed to make him appear mendacious; this was the +easier because every now and then there was a slip in the sense of what +he said, as if he had forgotten the meaning of words; he certainly +perspired more than was at all persuasive; he soon began to stumble and +to contradict himself about nothing; his slight accent thickened and, in +a syntax with which his German tongue was habitually glib, but not +accurate, he was soon making errors laughably contemptible to a public +that presumably expressed itself with equal elegance in all languages. +So that presently, when he was sufficiently harrowed, the coroner drew +from him an admission; not only had Ingham frequently entertained ladies +at his supper-parties, but complaints had been made to Deutch by various +tenants, and these complaints he had not transmitted to the owners of +the apartment house. The most searching inquiry failed to connect +Christina with these parties, but the inference was obvious. + +"I didn't,"--Mr. Deutch burst forth--"keep 'em quiet any because she was +there. She wouldn't have touched such doings, not with the sole of her +foot. But I didn't want the gentleman she was engaged to should be put +out of the house when I was running it, after her recommending it to +him, on my account!" His eyes and his voice were full of exasperated +tears. "He'd have told her one lie and yet another and another, and +she'd have believed him, and he'd have wanted her to fight me. Not that +she would. But he was fierce against her friends, any of 'em. And I +didn't want she should have no more trouble than what she had with him +already." + +"Very kind of you. Nature made you for a squire of dames, Mr. Deutch. +Miss Hope, now,--you are a particularly old friend of hers, I believe. +And I understand you would do a great deal for her." + +"I'd do anything at all for her." + +"I see." All that was crouching in the coroner coiled and sprang. "Even +to committing perjury for her, Mr. Deutch. Even to concealing a murder +for her sake?--Silence!" he commanded Christina's friends. + +In the sudden deathly stillness Deutch lifted his head. He looked at the +coroner with the eyes of a lion, and in a firm voice he replied, "Say, +when you speak like that about a lady, Mr. Coroner, you want to look out +you don't go a little too far." + +"I am about to call a witness," said the coroner, with his cold laugh, +"who will go even farther. Joseph Patrick, please!" + +Joe Patrick was the night-elevator boy. + +People stared about them. No witness. The coroner's man came forward, +saying something about "telephoned--accident--get here shortly." + +"See that he does,--The day-elevator boy in court!" + +Disappointment reigned. After the glorious baiting of one whose race +went so long a way to make him fair game, almost anything would have +been an anti-climax. There now advanced for their delectation a slim, +blond, anemic, peevish youth, feeble yet cocky, almost as much like a +faded flower from a somewhat degenerated stalk as if he had been nipping +down Fifth Avenue under a silk hat, and whose name of Willie Clarence +Dodd proclaimed him of the purest Christian blood. Yet the stare of the +assembly wandered from him, passed, grinning, where Deutch sat with +hanging head, and settled down to feed upon the pallor of Christina's +cheek. Herrick rose suddenly, displacing, as it were, a great deal of +atmosphere with his large person, and stalking across the room, pulled +up a chair to Deutch's side. If he had clasped and held that plump, that +trembling hand, his intention could not have been more obvious. +Christina turned her head a little and, with no change of expression, +looked at him for a moment. Then she turned back again to Willie +Clarence Dodd. That gentleman, ogling her with a canny glance, affably +tipped his hat to her, and she bowed to him with utter gravity. + +Mr. Dodd was a gentleman cherishing a just grudge. By the accident of +bringing him into day-service instead of night-service, when there was a +murder up her sleeve, Fate had balked him of his legitimate rights in +life. Notoriety had been near him, but it had escaped. Mr. Dodd's +self-satisfaction, however, was not easily downed. He had still a card +to play, and he played it as jauntily as if doom had not despoiled him +of his due. He smiled. And he had a right to. The first important +question asked him ran--"On the day after Mr. Ingham's return from +Europe--the day, in fact, of his death--did Mr. Ingham have any +callers?" + +"Yes, sir. He had one." + +Interest leaped to him. He bloomed with it. + +Apart from interruptions, his story ran--"Yes, sir. A lady. Quite a +good-looker. Medium height. Might make you look round for a white horse; +but curls, natural. Very neat dresser and up-to-date. Cute little feet. +She wouldn't give her name. But not one o' _that_ sort, you understand. +She came up to me--the telephone girl was sick and I was onto her +job--and she says to me, very low, as if she'd kind of gone back on +herself,--'Will you kindly tell Mr. James Ingham that the lady he +expects is here?' He came down livelier than I'd ever known him, and she +said it was good of him to see her and they sat down on the window-seat. +That's one thing where the Van Dam's on the bum--no parlor. I was really +sorry for the little lady--no, not short, but the kind a man just +naturally calls little--she was so nervous and she talked about as loud +as a mouse; I guess he felt the same way, for he says, 'Won't you come +upstairs to tell me all this? We shall be quite undisturbed,' he says. +And while they were waiting for the elevator--the hall-boy wasn't much +on running it--she says to him, 'You understand; I don't want to get +Christina into any trouble.' And he says, 'Of course; that is all quite +understood.' In about half an hour down they came together and he had +his hat. He wanted to send her off in a cab, but she wouldn't let him. +The minute she was gone he says to me, ''Phone for a taxi!' They didn't +answer, and he says, 'Ring like the devil!' It hadn't stopped at the +door when he was in it and off." + +"You couldn't, of course, hear his direction?" + +"Nop! He got back about six--chewing the rag, but on the quiet. Went out +in his dress suit about seven-thirty. I went off at eight." + +He was dismissed, strutting. + +"And now let us get down to business. If you please," said the coroner, +"Miss Christina Hope." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOE PATRICK ARRIVES + + +If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had, +as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither of +them stooped to signify it now. + +"Your name, if you please?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + +"May one ask a lady's age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. -- West 93rd +Street. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these dry +preliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaning +forward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could give +them. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand--"Unless, +of course, you would rather I did not." + +The coroner replied to this biddable appeal--"I shan't keep you a moment +longer than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very few +questions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject; +and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call +_personally_ intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hope +you will answer as fully as possible in the same cause." + +"Oh, certainly." + +"You were engaged to be married to Mr. Ingham, Miss Hope?" + +"Yes." + +"When did this engagement take place?" + +"About a year ago." + +"And your understanding with him remained unimpaired up to his death?" + +"Yes." + +"When did you last see him alive?" + +"On the day before he--died. He drove to our house from the ship." + +"Ah! Very natural, very natural and proper. But surely you dined +together? Or met again during the next twenty-four hours?" + +"No." + +"No? What were you doing on the evening of the fourth of August--the +evening of his death?" + +"My mother and I dined alone, at home. We were neither of us in good +spirits. I had had a bad day at rehearsal--everything had gone wrong. My +head ached and my mother was worn out with trying to get our house in +order; it was a new house, we were just moving in." + +"You rented a new house just as you were going to be married?" + +"Yes, that was why. I was determined not to be married out of a flat." + +A smile of sympathy stirred through her audience. It might be stupidity +which kept her from showing any resentment toward a man who had +practically accused her of murder. Or, it might be guilt. But she was so +young, so docile, so demure! Her voice was so low and it came in such +shy breaths--there was something so immature in the little rushes and +hesitations of it. She seemed such a sweet young lady! After all, they +didn't want to feed her to the tigers yet awhile! + +And the coroner was instantly aware of this. "Then your mother," he +said, "is the only person who can corroborate your story of how you +passed that evening?" + +"Yes." + +"How did you pass it?" + +"I worked on my part until after eleven, but I couldn't get it. Then I +took a letter of my mother's out to the post-box." + +"At that hour! Alone!" + +"Yes. I am an actress; I am not afraid. And I wanted the air." + +"You came straight home?" + +"Yes." + +"While you were out did any neighbor see you? Did you speak to any one?" + +"On the way to the post-box I saw Mrs. Johnson, who lives two doors +below and who had told us about the house being for rent. She is the +only person whom I know in the neighborhood. On the way back I met no +one." + +"Then no one saw you re-enter the house?" + +"I think not." + +"Did the maid let you in?" + +"No, I had my key. The maids had gone to bed." + +"But it was a very hot night. People sat up late, with all their windows +open, and caretakers in particular must have been sitting on the steps, +some one must have seen you return." + +"Perhaps they did." + +"Did you, yourself, notice no one whom we can summon as a witness to +your return?" + +"No one." + +"What did you do when you came in?" + +"I went to bed." + +"You do not sleep in the same room with your mother?" + +"No." + +"On the same floor?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you lock your door?" + +"No." + +"But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?" + +"Not unless something had happened; no." + +"Could you pass her door without her hearing you?" + +"I should suppose so. I never tried." + +"So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that you +returned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?" + +"No," Christina breathed. + +"Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but when +and how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?" + +"In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I could +hear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so ill +I did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, and +I wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must be +time, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bring +up my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; and +she said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something has +happened.'" + +The naivete of Christina's phrases sank to an awed whisper; her eyes +were very fixed, like those of a child hypnotized by its own vision. + +"I saw then that she was trying not to tremble and that she had been +crying. She couldn't deny it, and so she told me that Mr. Ingham was +very, very ill, and she let me get up and helped me to dress. But then, +when I must see other people--she told me--she told me--" + +Christina's throat swelled and her eyes filled suddenly with tears. + +The coroner, cursing the sympathy of the situation, forced himself to a +commiserating, "Did she say how he died?" + +"She told me it was an accident. I said, 'What kind of an accident?' And +she said he was shot. 'But,' I said, 'how could he be shot by an +accident? He didn't have any pistol? You know he didn't own such a +thing.'" A slight sensation traversed the court. "Then it came out--that +no one knew--that people were saying it was--murder--" + +"Do you believe that, Miss Hope?" + +"I don't know what to believe." + +"Did Mr. Ingham have any enemies?" + +"I knew of none." + +"From your intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingham's affairs you know of no +one, either with a grudge to satisfy or a profit to be made, by his +death?" + +"No. No one at all." + +"So that you have really no theory as to how this terrible thing +happened?" + +"No, really, I haven't." + +"Well, then, I suppose we may excuse you, Miss Hope." + +The girl, with her tranquil but slightly timid dignity, inclined her +head, and heaving a deep sigh of relief, turned away.-- + +--"Oh, by the way, Miss Hope,--" And suddenly, with a violent change of +manner, he began to beat her down by the tactics which he had used with +Deutch. But with how different a result! Nothing could make that pale, +tall girl ridiculous. Scarcely speaking above a breath, she answered +question after question and patiently turned aside insult after insult. +He found no opposition, no confusion, no reticence; nothing but that +soft yielding, that plaintive ingenuousness. The crudest jokes, the +cruelest thrusts still left her anxiously endeavoring to convey desired +information. He took her back over her relations with Ingham, their +interview upon his return, the events of the last evening, with an +instance and a repetition that wearied even the auditors to distraction; +he would let her run on a little in her answers and then bring her up +with a round turn; twenty times he took with her that journey to and +from the post-box and examined every step, and still her replies ran +like sand through his fingers and left no trace behind. But, at last, +she put out a hand toward the chair she had rejected, and sank slowly +into it. Then indeed it became plain that she was profoundly exhausted. + +And because her exhaustion was so natural and so pitiable, the coroner, +watching its effect, said, "Well, I can think of nothing more to ask +you, Miss Hope. I suppose it would be useless to inquire whether, being +familiar with the apartment, you could suggest any way in which, the +door being bolted, the murderer could have escaped?" + +Christina looked up at him with a very faint smile and with her humble +sweetness that had become almost stupidity, she said, "Perhaps the +murderer wasn't in the apartment at all!" + +The whole roomful of tired people sat up. "Not in the apartment! And +where, then, pray?" + +"Well," said Christina, softly, "he could have been shot through an open +window, I suppose. Of course, I'm only a woman, and I shouldn't like to +suggest anything. Because, of course, I'm not clever, as a lawyer is. +But--" + +"Well, we're waiting for this suggestion!" + +"Oh!--Well, it seems to me that when this lady, whose shadow excited the +young gentleman so much, disappeared as if it went forward, perhaps it +did go forward, perhaps she ran out of the room. You can see--if you +don't mind stopping to think about it--that she must have been standing +right opposite the door. If she had been quarreling with Mr. Ingham, he +may have bolted the door after her. I don't know if you've looked--but +the button for the lights is right there--in the panel of the wall +between the door and the bedroom arch. Mr. Ingham was a very nervous, +emotional person. If there had been a scene, he might very well have +meant to switch the lights out after her, too. If he had his finger on +the button when the bullet struck him, he might very well, in the shock, +have pressed it. And then the lights would have gone out, almost as if +the bullet had put them out, just as the young man says. But, of course, +if this were what had happened, you would have thought of it for +yourself." And she looked up meekly at him, with her sweet smile. + +The coroner smiled, too, with compressed lips, and putting his hands in +his pockets, threw back his head. "And how do you think, then, that--if +he was killed instantly, as the doctors have testified,--the corpse +walked into the bedroom, where it was found?" + +"Ah!" said Christina, "I can't account for everything! I'm not an +observer, like you! But there has never been, has there, a doctor who +was ever wrong? Of course, I don't pretend to know." + +"Well, it's a pretty theory, my dear young lady, and I'm sure you mean +to work it out for us all you can. So give us a hint where this bullet, +coming through an open window, was fired from." + +"It could have been fired from the apartment opposite. Across the +entrance-court. You remember, the policeman who went in there found that +the windows exactly--do you call it 'tallied'?" + +"Very good, Miss Hope. If it were an unoccupied apartment. But it is +occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willing, and Mrs. Willing was in the apartment +the entire evening." + +"Yes," said Christina, turning and looking pleasantly at the lady +mentioned, "alone." Then she was silent. + +After a staggered instant, the coroner asked, "And what became of this +lady who ran out into the hall?" + +"Well, of course," said Christina, sweetly, "if it was Mrs. Willing--" + +The Willings leaped to their feet. "This is ridiculous! This is an +outrage! Why!" cried the husband, "his blind opposite our sitting-room +was down all the time. There isn't even a hole through it where a shot +would have passed!" + +"Oh, isn't there?" asked Christina. "You see, it wasn't I who knew +that!" + +"What do you mean, you wicked girl! How dare you! Why, you heard the +policeman say that it was only when he looked through our bedroom that +he could see into Mr. Ingham's apartment--" + +"And wasn't it in the bedroom that the body was found?" + +"Miss Hope!" said the coroner, sternly, "I must ask you not to +perpetrate jokes. You know perfectly well that your implied charge +against Mrs. Willing is perfectly ridiculous--" + +"Is it?" Christina interrupted, "she implied it about me!" + +And for the first time she lifted to his a glance alight with the +faintest mockery of malice; a wintry gleam, within the white exhaustion +of her face. Then,--if all the time she had been playing a part--then, +if ever, she was off her guard. + +And she could not see what Herrick, from his angle, could see very well; +that the coroner had been quietly slipping something from his desk into +his hand, and was now dangling it behind his back. + +This something was the scarf found on Ingham's table--that white scarf +with its silky border, cloudy, watery, of blue glimmering into gray. How +the tender, misty coloring recalled that room of Ingham's! + +"Don't you know very well, Miss Hope," the coroner went on, "that Mrs. +Willing had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Ingham's death?" + +"How can I? You see, I wasn't there!" + +"So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?" + +He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face. +And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well have +knotted it about her neck. + +And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said, +"Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to ask +you if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, might +have been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on him +that afternoon." + +With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded, +"I don't know." + +"Neither can you tell us, I suppose,--it would straighten matters out +greatly--who that caller was?" + +"No, I can't. I'm sorry." + +"Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and pretty +young ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Dodd +informs us, with cute little feet?" + +Christina was silent. + +"What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiance--'I don't +wish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice, +now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us the +address of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!" + +The girl opened her pale lips to breathe forth, "I can't tell you! I +don't know!" + +"Let us assist your memory, Miss Hope, by recalling to you the lady's +name. Her name is Ann Cornish." + +Herrick's nerves leaped like a frightened horse. And then he saw +Christina start from her chair, and, casting round her a wild glance +that seemed to cry for help, drop back again and put her hands over her +face. A dozen people sprang to their feet. + +Mrs. Hope ran to her daughter's side, closely followed by Mrs. Deutch. +The two women, crying forth indignation and comfort, and exclaiming that +the girl was worn out and ought to be in bed, rubbed Christina's head, +and began to chafe her hands. She was half fainting; but when a glass of +whiskey had appeared from somewhere and Mrs. Deutch had forced a few +drops between her lips, Christina, unlike the heroine of romance whose +faints always refuse stimulants, lifted her head and drank a mouthful +greedily. She sat there then, breathing through open lips, with a trace +of color mounting in her face. + +Then the coroner, once more commanding attention, held up a slip of +pasteboard. "This visiting-card," he said, "is engraved with Miss +Cornish's name, but with no address. It was found leaning against a +candlestick on Mr. Ingham's piano, as though he wished to keep it +certainly in mind. As a still further reminder, Mr. Ingham himself had +written on it in pencil--'At four.'" + +Christina, with the gentlest authority, put back her friends. She rose, +slowly and weakly, to her feet. "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to +correct a false impression; may I?" + +[Illustration: "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false +impression; may I?"] + +"That's what we're here for, my dear young lady," the coroner scornfully +replied. + +"I have said nothing," she went on, "that is not true, but I have +allowed something to be inferred which is not true." She pressed her +hands together and drew a long breath. "It is true that I was engaged to +Mr. Ingham. And when you asked me if our understanding was unimpaired at +the time of his death, I said yes; for, believe me, our understanding +then was better than it had ever been before. But that was not what you +meant. I will answer what you meant, now. At the time of his death, I +was not engaged to marry Mr. Ingham." + +"You were not! Why not?" + +"We had quarreled." + +"When?" + +"The day before he died." + +An intense excitement began to prevail. Herrick longed to stand up and +shout, to warn her, to muzzle her. Good God! was it possible she +didn't see what she was doing? The coroner, weary man, sat back with a +long sigh of satisfaction. His whole attitude said, "Now we're coming to +it." + +"And may one ask an awkward question, Miss Hope? Who broke the +engagement?" + +"I did." + +"Oh, of course, _naturally_. And may one ask why?" + +"Because I began to think that life with Mr. Ingham would not be +possible to me." + +"But on what grounds?" + +"He was grossly and insanely jealous," said Christina, flushing. "Some +women enjoy that sort of thing; I don't." + +"Jealous of anyone in particular, Miss Hope?" + +"Only," said Christina, "of everyone in particular." + +"There was never, of course, any grounds for this jealousy?" + +Christina looked through him without replying. + +"Well, well. And was there nothing but this?" + +"He objected to my profession; and when I was first in love with him I +thought that I could give it up for his sake. But as I came to know more +of--everything--and to understand more of myself, I knew that I could +not. And I would not." + +"So that it was partly Mr. Ingham, himself, in his insistence upon your +renouncing your profession, who broke the engagement?" + +"If you like." + +"At least, your continuance in it made his jealousy more active?" + +"It made it unbearable. And as it gradually became clear to me that he +scarcely pretended to practise even the rudiments of the fidelity that +he exacted, it seemed to me that there were limits to the insults which +even a gentleman may offer to his betrothed. And I--freed myself." + +Two or three people exchanged glances. + +"Was the engagement ever broken before and patched up again?" + +"We had quarreled before, but not definitely. Last spring I asked him to +release me, and he would not. But he consented to my remaining on the +stage, and to going away for the summer, so that I could think things +out." + +"And you immediately took a house from which to be married!" + +"Yes. I tried to go on with it. I thought furnishing it might make me +want to. But I couldn't. I wrote him so, and he came home. While he was +on the ocean I found out something which made any marrying between us +utterly impossible. When he drove to my house the day before he was +killed, I told him so. We had a terrible scene, but he knew then as well +as I that it was the end. I never saw him again." + +"As a matter of fact, then, the definite breaking of the engagement was +caused by something new and wholly extraneous to your profession or his +jealousy?" + +"Yes." + +"And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?" + +"Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that." +And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't know +what I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me? +But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know, +now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It +had nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simply +something--monstrous--which happened a long time ago. But, between us +two, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. And +you can never make me." + +"And you don't know Ann Cornish?" + +Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bear +to have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christina +added, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And, +besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she never +had an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill of +me. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Her +address is--" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied. +"She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress, +poor child!" + +"Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean,--you don't care +about appearing innocent any longer?" + +"I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through this +afternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You've +made me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn and +twist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and now +that I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if you +choose!" + +Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes, +impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Not +to have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in this +horrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worry +me, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you! +I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have a +career, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to kill +me for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hated +women--once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;--how you copied an +attorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by the +persecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard as +when she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed to +every scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answer +everything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old, +and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For if +you imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, it +is easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him like +that, oh, you are wrong--and my nerves are all in shreds. So that it +seemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated, +and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defend +myself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To be +judged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading. +But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to make +people believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a little +choking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother, +and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't prove +that I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It's +worse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you think +I would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day? +I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm all +alone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and sat +down beside her mother. + +Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash such +different lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentiments +of a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knew +what to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly more +conciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishly +into her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have melted +the public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against the +wall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down her +unshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forward +across his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "My +friends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardly +expect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for a +witness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us get +into shape what we have already learned.--The first thing of which we +are sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of the +third of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss Christina +Hope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that house +their engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that he +disapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and that +they quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have no +witness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will ask +you to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statement +that it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement. + +"Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is that +Mr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, had +an appointment with a lady for four o'clock--an appointment the hour of +which he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady's +visiting-card, and stood the card against a candle on his piano. Our +next facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had a +private interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, as +soon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, and +that he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitement +of some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you should +bring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and in +questioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham, +then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon the +great clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you have +clearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish was +not a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledged +lovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend, +and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr. +Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham, +and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for she +said--'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found the +information important, for he soon wished it told him at greater length +upstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees; +although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, I +ask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to get +Christina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses to +give her name come to a specially attractive man with news of her +dearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry--news +for which she feels it necessary to apologize--for but one of two +reasons;--either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injure +her friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man and +jealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend's +legitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her point +for she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparently +failed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture. + +"Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge of +facts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening, +expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to be +admitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy, +and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; that +despite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham's +apartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the only +visitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy, +Joseph Patrick, all this must wait. + +"Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham's +playing at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was after +eleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box, +and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spoken +with her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Ingham +played, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began to +be the sound of voices talking through the music--the voices, as other +witnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins to +sound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun to +quarrel. Their voices--particularly the woman's voice--rise higher and +stormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep. +But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, and +says to her husband, who has just come in, 'He's got that actress he's +engaged to in there with him.' And then even Mr. Herrick is awakened by +a deliberate discord from the piano; a jarring crash, 'a kind of hellish +eloquence.' In other words, the man, with his comparative calm and his +mastery over his instrument, is mocking and goading the woman, whose +shadow, convulsed, threatening, furious, immediately springs out upon +the blind. Gentlemen, can you not imagine the sensations of that woman? +Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose that a girl ambitious and lovely, +but of a type of loveliness not easily grasped by the mob, a girl who +has had to work hard and fight hard, who is worthy to adorn the highest +circles, but who is, in Miss Christina Hope's feeling expression, +without position, without money, without friends, suddenly meets and +becomes engaged to marry a distinguished and wealthy man. Let us suppose +that she puts up with this man's exactions, with his furious jealousies, +with his continual infidelities for the sake of the security and +affluence of becoming his wife. But is it not possible that when this +exacting gentleman is safely across the ocean she may allow herself a +little liberty? That in the chagrin of knowing she is presently to be +torn from her really more congenial friends and surroundings she goes, +in his absence, a little too far? At any rate, he cuts short his visit +in Europe, he flies to her from the steamer, full of accusations, +but--contrary to the experience narrated by Miss Hope--he is perhaps +soothed by her version of things and goes away, without having fully +withdrawn his word, to examine matters. Let us suppose that on the next +day he receives a call from his fiancee's confidential friend,--very +possibly his informant while he was abroad--who circumstantially +confirms his worst suspicions. Let us suppose he drives wildly to the +house of his betrothed; but she is not at home, and after a time he +gives up looking for her. He comes miserably back, dines out, returns +early, but leaves word that he is not at home. But in the meanwhile may +not the lady have got word of all this? Suppose that when she does, she +comes to him,--at any hour, at any risk,--and uses her hitherto +infallible charm to get him back. Suppose she gets him back; they are +alone together; she is excited and confident and off her guard. She lets +something slip. Instantly the battle is on. This time she cannot get him +back. She becomes desperate. If he speaks, as perhaps he has threatened +to, she loses not only him, but everything. For she is on the brink of +the great step of her career. She is to play the leading feminine role +under a celebrated star, who does not care for scandal in his +advertisements. On the contrary, he has bruited everywhere her youth, +her propriety, her breeding, her good blood. She is a fairy-tale of the +girlish virtues. He has no use for her otherwise. And still the man at +the piano proclaims her everything that is otherwise, and she sees that +she is to lose him and all she has struggled for, professionally, in one +breath. He sits there--he, he, the man who has been continually false to +her, claiming for himself a different morality--he sits there playing, +playing, shattering her nerves with his crash of chords, with his +hellish eloquence. But with his back to her, you observe, where she +stands at the window and suddenly she sees something lying on a little +table or the foot of the couch--something not unusual in a man's +apartment, although we have Miss Hope's word that Mr. Ingham did not +possess one--something which, perhaps, in his wrecked happiness, he had +loaded earlier in the evening with that sinister intention of suicide in +which Miss Hope's respected friend, Mr. Deutch, so profoundly believes. +Well, gentlemen, the frenzied eye of this tormented girl lights on that +little object, she stoops to pick it up, he turns,--and then comes a +pistol-shot. There is an end to the strength of a woman's nerves, +gentlemen, and she has found it. She cannot look upon her handiwork. She +springs off the light and flees. In the confusion she escapes. +Gentlemen, with the dumbfounding mystery of that bolted door I can not +deal, unless--as Miss Hope has reminded us--medical science may be for +once at fault,--unless the wounded man instinctively staggered to the +door and bolted it, staggered toward his telephone, in his bedroom, and +died there. That, gentlemen, can be threshed out at the trial. In the +meantime, I must ask you to remember that the lady whom events seem to +indicate is high-strung and overwrought; that her natural grief and +nervousness led her through a long cross-examination in which she never +once betrayed any hesitation, or the fact that she had quarreled with +Mr. Ingham or that she was aware of the existence of Ann Cornish, to a +satirical attack upon Mrs. Willing, whose remarks had annoyed her; that, +as she tells us, she has no one to take care of her, and if we are +inclined to think that she can take very good care of herself, we must +remember that when she was confronted with a lady's scarf found not far +from the murdered man, she screamed at the sight of it, and when +confronted with the visiting-card of Ann Cornish, she so much wished her +friend to be kept out of it that she fainted, and, afterwards, _changed +all her evidence_.--Gentlemen, I rejoice to see, entering this room, our +witness, Joseph Patrick." + +Joe Patrick, a short, thick-set young fellow, with rough hair and a +bright eye, advanced to the coroner's desk. His forehead was ornamented +with a great deal of very fresh surgeon's plaster, and when asked why he +was so late, he replied that he had been knocked down by an automobile +on his way to the inquest. Well, yes, he would sit down; he did feel a +little weak, but it wasn't so much from that--he'd had some candy sent +him day before yesterday and he'd been awful sick ever since he ate it. +Joe was a friendly soul and he added that he was sorry the man the +coroner sent hadn't seen anybody but his mother. He was to the doctor's, +then. + +"But you had telephoned a pretty detailed account to your mother, hadn't +you, before you left the Van Dam--on the morning of the murder--much +more detailed than you gave the police?" + +"Yes, sir. I guess I did." + +"Well, then, please give that account to us." + +Joe looked rather at sea, and the coroner added, "You have said from the +beginning, that a lady called upon Mr. Ingham the night of his death?" + +"Oh, yes, sir! She did!" + +"Well, tell us first what happened when you went on watch. You had a +message from Mr. Ingham?" + +"Yes, sir. He telephoned down to me. He says, 'I'm out. And if any lady +comes to see me this evening, you say right away I'm out.'" + +"Well, and then?" + +"Well, along about half-past twelve--it was awful hot and lonesome, +and--and--" + +"And you began to get sleepy! It seems that at least the house-staff was +able to sleep that night!" + +"Well," said Joe, "I guess anybody'd get sleepy, been sittin' there for +four hours in that heat! Anyhow, it seemed like I'd just closed my eyes, +when they came open all of a sudden and I was looking at the front +door. And there, all in white--'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's +Miss Hope!' I don't know why it seemed so awful queer to me, unless +because I wasn't really but half-awake." + +[Illustration: "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's Miss Hope!'"] + +It is not too much to say that a shudder traversed the court. Christina, +white as death, and her eyes black and strained with horror, leaned +toward him in an agony. + +"Perhaps you thought she was rather a late visitor!" smiled the coroner. +"Well? She didn't melt away, I suppose?" + +"No, sir. She came up to me, all smiles like, but you bet there was +something that wasn't a bit funny in that smile. And she says to me, 'Is +our friend, Mr. Ingham, at home?' she says. And I says, 'No, ma'am.' And +she says, 'You're a bad liar, my boy! But you won't take me up, I +suppose?' And I says, 'He told me not to, ma'am.'" + +"Well? Go on!" + +"So she says, 'Well, then, I must take myself up.' And before you could +say 'Pop,' she was up the stairs." + +"And what did you do?" + +"'Oh, here, ma'am, ma'am,' I says, 'you mustn't do that!' She stopped +and put her elbows on the stair-rail,--they run right up to one side o' +the 'phone desk, you know,--and laughed down at me. She looked awful +pretty, but there was something about her kind o' scared me. And 'It's +all right, my boy,' she says. 'I shan't hurt him!' An' she laughed again +an' ran on up." + +"And you did nothing?" + +"Well, what could I do, I like to know! But I grabbed at the switchboard +and called up Mr. Ingham. 'Mr. Ingham,' I says, 'that lady's coming up +anyhow.' An' he says, 'Damnation!' That's the last word I ever heard out +o' him." + +"'That lady!' Didn't you give him her name?" + +"Why, I didn't know her name, sir!" + +"Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope--you know her name?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?" + +"Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PERSONS UNKNOWN + + +The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that it +became a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest. +The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiest +of formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance until +Ingham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itself +ridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcastic +woman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death, +and not coming down again! Well! + +As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even his +instant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was struggling +now against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack was +sucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receive +its due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of a +smiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her," +leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked out +the rest for itself. + +"Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. I +said I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But she +wasn't." + +"Did she look so much like Miss Hope?" + +"No, sir; not when she came near. That was the thing made me feel so +queer. I can't understand it. First she was Miss Hope, and then she +wasn't. She gave me a funny feeling when I seen her standing there in +the door an' says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope.' 'Twas kind of's if I +seen her ghost. An' then all of a sudden there she was, right on top o' +me. An' not like Miss Hope a bit. An' that gimme a funny feeling, too!" + +"Well, never mind your sensations. If she didn't resemble Miss Hope, at +least how did she differ from her?" + +"Why, I guess she was a good deal handsomer for one thing. At least I +expect most people would think so, though I prefer Miss Hope's style, +myself. She was dressier, for one thing, in white lace like, with a big +hat, an' she was pretty near as slim, but yet she had, as you might say, +more figger. An' she had red hair." + +Joe had made another sensation. + +"Red hair! Curly?" + +"Well, it was combed standin' out fluffy like one o' these here halos, +up into her hat. It wasn't anyways common red, you know, sir, it was +elegant, stylish red, like the goldy part in flames." + +"Don't get poetic, Joe. Was she a very young lady?" + +"I don't think so, sir.--Oh, I guess she wouldn't hardly see twenty-five +again! Her feet, sir? I didn't notice. But she didn't walk kind o' +waddlin', either, nor else kind o' pinchin', the way ladies mostly do; +she just swum right along, like Miss Hope does." + +"But she didn't swim downstairs again, without your seeing her?" + +"No, sir." + +"Now look here, Joe Patrick, how do you know she didn't? When Mr. Bird +went to the 'phone after the shooting he was a long time getting +connected, and Mr. Herrick found you asleep at the desk." + +"I couldn't have fell asleep again until after one o'clock, sir, for I +had a clock right on the desk and at one I noticed the time. I was +watchin' for her, she was such a queer one, an' only one man came in all +that time, that I had to carry upstairs. He only went to the fourth +floor, just where she was, an' I rushed him up an' dropped right down +again. She couldn't ha' walked down in that time. I could hear the piano +goin' all the while, the front doors bein' open. But after one I must +ha' dropped off. Because it was about twenty minutes past when Mr. +Herrick shook me up. Then I knew I'd been kind o' comin' to, the last +few minutes, hearin' Mr. Bird ringin'. When Mr. Herrick grabbed my +elevator I called up Mr. Deutch, an' he was quite a minute, too. I says +to him, 'Say, Mr. Deutch, somepun's happened,' an' I switched him onto +Mr. Bird." + +"Well, we're very much obliged to you, Mr. Patrick, for an exceedingly +full account. What apartment did the gentleman have whom you took up to +the fourth floor? Perhaps he may have heard something." + +"I don't know, sir." + +"What?" + +"He just stepped into the elevator, like he lived there, an' he says to +me, 'Fourth!' I never thought nothing about him." + +"You didn't know him?" + +"No, sir." + +"You'd never seen him before?" + +"No, sir." + +"Nor since?" + +"No, sir." + +"You took a man upstairs in the middle of the night, without announcing +him, whom you knew to be a stranger?" + +"Why no, I thought he was a new tenant. We got a few furnished +apartments in the building, goes by the month. And then there's always a +good deal o' sublettin' in the summer. He was so quiet an' never asked +any questions nor anything, goin' right along about his business, I +never give him a thought." + +"Well, give him a thought now, my boy. When you let him out of the +elevator, which way did he turn?" + +The boy started and his eyes jumped open. "Oh, good Lord! sir," he +cried, "why, he turned down toward 4-B." + +His start was reproduced in the persons of all present. Only the coroner +controlled himself. + +"What time was this?" + +"It hadn't quite struck one, sir." + +"And during all this talk about Mr. Ingham's murder, at one-fifteen, it +never occurred to you that at just before one, you had taken up to his +floor a man whom you had never seen, whom you never saw again, and who +turned toward his apartment?" + +"I'm sorry, sir. I never thought of it till this minute." + +"Think hard, now. Give us a good description of this man." + +"A description of him?" + +"Yes, yes. What did he look like?" + +"Why, I don't hardly know, sir." + +"Try and remember. He at least, I presume, did not remind you of Miss +Hope?" + +"No, sir; he didn't remind me of anything." + +"He looked so unlike other people?" + +"No, sir. He looked just like all gentlemen." + +"I see, Joseph, that you don't observe your own sex with the passionate +attention which you reserve for ladies. Well, had he a beard or a +mustache?" + +"No, sir, he hadn't any beard, I'm sure." + +"Come, that's something! And no mustache?" + +"Well, I don't think so, sir. But I wouldn't hardly like to say." + +"Was he light or dark?" + +"I never noticed, sir." + +"Was he tall?" + +"Well, sir, I should say he was about middle height." + +"About how old?" + +"Oh, maybe thirty, sir. Or forty, maybe. Or maybe not so old." + +"Stout?" + +"No, sir." + +"Ah! He was slender, then?" + +"Well, I shouldn't say he was either way particular, sir." + +"How was he dressed, then?" + +"Well, as far as I can remember; he had on a suit, and a straw hat." + +"Was the suit light or dark?" + +"About medium, sir." + +"Not white, then? Nor rose color, I presume? Nor baby blue?" + +"No, sir." + +"Black?" + +"I don't think so, sir." + +"Well, was it brown, gray, navy-blue?" + +"Well, it seems like it might have been a gray, the way I think of it. +But then, again, when I think of it, it seems like it might ha' been a +blue." + +"Thank you, Joe. Your description is most accurate. It's a pity you're +not a detective." + +"There's no use getting mad at me, Mister," Joe protested. "I'm doing +the best I know." + +"I'm sure you are. If Mr. Ingham's second anonymous visitor had only +been a lady, what revelations we should have had! But this unfortunate +and insignificant male, Mr. Patrick. Should you know him again if you +saw him?" + +"I think so, sir. I wouldn't hardly like to say." + +"Well, to get back to more congenial topics!--The lady who was not Miss +Hope--you would know her, I presume?" + +"Oh, yes, sir!"--Joe hesitated. + +"Out with it!" commanded the coroner. + +"Why, it's only--why, anybody'd know her, sir. They couldn't help it. +She had--" He paused, blushing. + +"She had--what?" + +"I couldn't hardly believe it myself, sir. She had--I'm afraid you'll +laugh." + +"Oh, not at you, Joe! Impossible!" + +"Well, she had a blue eye, sir." + +"A blue eye! You don't mean she was a Cyclops?" + +"Sir?" + +"She had more than the one eye, hadn't she?" + +"Oh, yes, sir. She had the two o' them all right." + +"Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one." + +"No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!" + +The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even the +coroner laughed. + +"Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don't +wonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake, +Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality--she would be +easily identified!" + +Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted just +before his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with an +unaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in, +and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death by +shooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown. + +Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had not +gone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his name +called, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in Joe +Patrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she had +come along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and in +her hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in her +eyes. And she said to him, + +"You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and went +to help her?" + +He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!" + +"You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "I +wonder, will you shake hands?" + +He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft but +electric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp. + +"And try to believe, will you?" said Christina, "that perhaps, whoever +she was and whatever she did, perhaps she was in distress, after all." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE + + +Herrick came home through a world which he had never seen before, +blindly climbed his three flights of stairs, and, shutting himself into +his room, sat down on his bed. He stared across the floor at the +wall-paper, like a man drugged. Yes, there was wall-paper in the world, +just as there had been this morning. This room had existed this morning! +And so had he! Incredible! Almost indecent! To-day, for the first time, +he had found himself. For he had found Her! + +Yes, he had lived twenty-eight years, and it had been so much time +wasted! But he need waste little more. She was an actress. Incredibly, +she did not abide in a sanctuary! She was stuck up there on the stage +for fools to gape at. And, for two dollars a performance, he, too, could +gape! Two dollars a vision--eight visions a week. He began to perceive +that he would need some money! + +And, with the thought of money, there materialized out of the void of +the past a quantity of loose scribbled papers, which, last night, had +been of paramount importance. They belonged to his Sunday special. +Good--that would buy many theater tickets! Yesterday it had been the key +to Success. But now he said to himself, "Success?" And he looked dully +at the scribbled sheets. "Success?" he thought again, as he might have +thought "Turkish toweling?" It was a substance for which, at the moment, +he had no use. + +He had no use for anything except the remembrance of being near her. +First there was the time when she was just a girl, sitting beside her +mother. He remembered that he, poor oaf, had been disappointed in her. +And then came the time when she turned her head, and he had seen that +strange, proud, childish innocence--like Evadne's. At the time he had +reminded himself that this effect was largely due to her extraordinary +purity of outline; to the curving perfection of modeling with which the +length of her throat rose from that broad white collar of hers into the +soft, fair dusk of her coiled hair; to the fine fashioning of brows and +short, straight nose and little chin and the set of the little head, so +that the incomparable delicacy of every slope and turn, of every curve +and line and luminous surface at last seemed merely to flower in one +innocent ravishment. He had then admitted that for a girl who wasn't a +howling beauty she had at least the comeliness of being quite perfectly +made. And no bolt from the blue had descended upon his gross complacency +to strike him dead! + +He remembered next, how, at the end of his testimony, she had, with her +first restless movement, begun pulling off her long gloves. Her hands +were slim and strong and rather large, with that look of sensitive +cleverness which one sees sometimes in the hands of an extremely nice +boy. And with the backs of these hands she had a childish trick of +pushing up the hair from her ears, which Herrick found adorable. +Suddenly his brain became a kind of storm-center filled with snatches of +verse, now high, now homely--she had risen to give her testimony! There +she stood before that brute; and the thing he remembered clearest in the +world was a line from his school-reader-- + +"My beautiful, my beautiful, that standest meekly by--" + +Did he, then, think that she was beautiful? Had he not denied it? For +the first time she lifted her eyes, giving their soft radiance, so mild, +so penetrating, out fully to the world. And every pulse in him had +leaped with but the one cry, + + "Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air, + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!" + +"Your name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + +"Age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +Through the light, clear silver of Christina's speech there ran a strain +deeper, lower, richer colored,--Irish girls speak so, sometimes. It +trailed along the listener's heart; it dragged; it drawled; by the +unsympathetic it might have been called husky. Conceivably, creatures +may have existed who did not care for it. But to those who did, it was +the last turn of the screw. + +"Name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Occupation?" + +"Actress." + + "The devil hath not yet in all his choice + An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice!" + +This arrow, with Christina's very first word, pierced to the center and +the quick of Herrick's heart, and nailed it to the mast! + +"Name?" + +"Christina Hope." + +"Age?" + +"Twenty-two years." + +At the beginning of that scrap of dialogue, Herrick, as a lover, had not +yet been born; at its end, compared to him, Romeo was a realist. + +He did not tell himself that he was in love with her, and he would have +denied convulsively that he wished her to be in love with him. With him? +Fool! Dolt! Lout! Boor! Not to him did he wish her to stoop! All he +wanted was to become nobler for her sake, to serve her, to die for her! +Merely that! And before dying, to become humbly indispensable to her, to +know her more intimately than any one had ever known her, to take up +every moment of her time! It was entirely for the sake of her +perfection, of the holy and ineffable vision, that he objected +profoundly, almost with nausea, to Deutch's saying that she had acted +loony about Ingham. Ingham!--why Ingham? Even he, Herrick, would be +better than Ingham. For had not he, unworthy, by his deep perception of +her become worthy? Great as her beauty was, it was not for the mob. It +was too fine, too subtle; slim as a flame and winged as the wind yet +April-colored, its aching ravishment could thrill only sensitive nerves. +Yet he remembered something--the elevator boy had thought that, too! +Joseph Patrick had declared he supposed that other people thought +dressier ladies was handsomer, but he preferred Miss Hope! Deutch, too; +hadn't he suggested something of the kind? Now he came to think of it, +even the beast of a coroner had said so! Then, and not till then, did he +fully perceive the cruel trick, the last refinement of her perfect +beauty; that it came to you in such a humble, friendly, simple guise, so +slight and helpless did it knock upon your heart, whispering its shy way +into your blood with the sweet promise that it was yours alone and that +you alone could understand it. Until, when it had taken you wholly, +passion and spirit, it drew aside its veil and revealed itself as the +dream of every common prince and laborer and lover; the poet's hope and +the world's desire. He saw her now, coming toward him through the wet +wind, shining in the gray day, with a smile on her uplifted face, and, +at last, past its candor and its child's decorum, he knew it for the +face that launch'd a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of +Ilium! + +At that moment the summons of a Grubey infant declared him wanted on the +telephone. And through the potent instrument a friendly voice from the +_Record_ office brought him back to earth. It said, "Say, Herrick, we've +got hold of a corking wind-up for your inquest story." + +He cared nothing, now, for inquests, since they no longer concerned her. +But he said, "Have you?" + +"Yes. We thought we'd see what the Cornish girl had to say, and we sent +right down, both to her boarding-house and her theater." + +"And what had she?" + +"Why, that's it. Since the day of the murder she hasn't showed up at +either place. She's disappeared." + + + + +BOOK SECOND + +THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT + + +Herrick had written on his card, "Forgive what must seem an intrusion. I +am asking your time on a matter of business, but I'm afraid I must call +it a personal matter, too." After the maid had taken it, he suffered the +terrors of considering this message at once pretentious and too +emotional and in the worst possible taste. + +Christina's little reception-room was a delicate miracle of Spartan +white, with a few dark gleams of slender formal mahogany shapes and a +couple of water-colors in white frames. On a little table a broad, +shallow bowl was filled with marigolds. Herrick had time for a second's +charmed curiosity at the presence of the little country flowers, and +then, from the floor above, he heard a low cry. + +Instinctively, he stepped into the hall, and there came Christina, +flying down the stairs. + +"Oh, Mr. Herrick," she called out to him. "Have you any news?" And then, +"Please don't hesitate. I can bear it! I can't bear suspense!" + +"News?" he queried. + +"Of Nancy!" + +He cursed himself for not having known that that would be her first +thought. "I'm sorry and ashamed, Miss Hope. I've no news of her at all." + +Christina's legs gave way under her, and she sat down on the stairs. + +Herrick's chagrin and discomfiture were extreme. She paid no further +attention to him. Dropping her head on her clenched hands, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" +she said. + +Mrs. Hope came out of a room at the back, and, passing Herrick with as +little ceremony as even her daughter had displayed, caught hold of +Christina's wrists and shook her sharply. + +"Christina!" she exclaimed. "Christina! Now, there has been quite enough +of this!" + +Christina did not seem to resent this summary treatment. She began to +sob more quietly, until she suddenly burst forth, "Where is she, then? +Can you tell me that? Where is she?" + +"I don't care where she is!" cried poor Mrs. Hope. "Or, at least, now +you know very well what I mean, my dear. I can't have you going on in +this hysterical way all the time, when you've rehearsals to attend to. +Nancy probably went away to get out of all the disagreeable notoriety +that you've got into. And I'm sure she's very well off." + +"Where is she, then?" Christina wailed. She seemed to have an +extraordinary capacity for sticking to her point. "With all the police +in New York looking for her, where is she?" + +"Well, she hasn't been murdered, as you seem to think! If she had been, +she'd be found. If people kill people, they have to do something with +their bodies! But if people are alive, they can do something with +themselves!" + +Christina shuddered. + +"Now, my dear," said her mother, "it's very high time that we apologized +to Mr. Herrick, who must think us mad. But let me tell you this. I am +not going to have you go on the stage in a month looking like your own +ghost and all unstrung. I'm not going to have the play ruined by you, +and have you turn Mr. Wheeler and all of them into your enemies. It +would be better for them to get some one else. You don't sleep, you +won't eat, and you sit brooding all the time, as if you were looking at +nightmares. Well, if you don't get some kind of hold over yourself +within the next day or two, I shall tell Mr. Wheeler that you are +nervously unfit to be entrusted with a part, and I am taking you away." + +Christina sat for an appreciable time without moving. Then she slowly +lifted her face and smiled at Herrick with her wet eyes. "We have +treated you to a strange scene," she said. "It is our bad hour. +But--sometimes--we can be really nice." She held out her hand. Then, +becoming aware of herself sitting on the steps, and of her mother and +Herrick standing before her, "'Have we no chears?'" she quoted; and, +springing up, she led the way into the little white room. + +Herrick found that it was only he who followed her there. Mrs. Hope, +having dealt with the emergency, had again retreated; evidently feeling +that Christina, even in tears, was quite capable of entertaining a young +man single handed. + +But when he was seated near her, Herrick was shocked by the girl's +appearance. It was not only that her face was worn with anxiety, but +that, in twenty-four hours, she seemed actually to have lost flesh. The +lovely outline of her cheek was sunken and the jaw sharpened; if it were +possible to be paler than she had been yesterday, she was paler now. She +looked so fine and light and frail that it seemed as if the beating of +her heart must show through her body, and all during the talk that +followed, Herrick had the sense of her bright, still eyes being +concentrated in expectation,--almost, as it were, in listening,--through +her thick, wet lashes; the gentle wildness of some woodland animal +listens so for the moving of a twig. She was dressed in white serge with +a knot of the marigolds in her belt, and they seemed like a kind of +bright wound in the tragic pallor of her weariness. + +The cause of his visit seemed more than ever an impertinence, but it +must be faced, and he began to stumble out the story of his Sunday +special. + +"There's the old argument that it must be done by somebody. Only, of +course, without your sanction, it will never be done by me. I've +ventured to bring it to you," said he, guiltily producing the article +which he had sat up all night to typewrite. "If I might, I'd leave it +here, and the maid could give it to me when I called for it--you would +only have had to run your pencil through anything that distressed you. I +know how distasteful the idea--the horribly melodramatic and sensational +idea--must be to you--" + +"Oh, well, I don't know that I joined a profession so retiring as all +that!" Christina said, and she held out her hand for the manuscript. She +seemed to weigh this for a moment, and then she handed it back to +Herrick unopened. "No,--say what you please of me. It is sure to be only +too good. Well, and if not?--What does it matter?" She closed her eyes, +and the terrible fatigue of her face brought him to his feet. At the +same time, he knew his story was amazingly good, and, despite his +tremors, he couldn't help wanting her to read it. + +"But--" he ventured. + +"Well, then, I will tell you what we can do--give it to my mother. You +will need it at once? She can have read it by tea-time. You may be quite +easy that if there is anything in it which can injure me I shall break +the news to you, over your tea-cup, that it is in ashes. Will that +do?--Ada," she said to the maid, "please take this in to my mother and +ask her to read it at once. She's alone, isn't she?" + +"Please, ma'am, Mrs. Deutch is with her." + +"Then they can both read it." + +Herrick expressed his thanks and added, "About five, then, I may come +back?" + +Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portieres to +the softly curtained windows between which they two were completely +alone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired. + +Herrick sat down. + +She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. He +told her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said to +him, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he, +too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that I +didn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called it +out--perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a pretty +fidgety state,--to speak grandly, an electric state,--and, being just on +the sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simply +happened to catch it--like a wireless at sea." + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy--ah, if we could! +What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if you +heard it again?" + +"How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice." + +"Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to you +that it might have been the woman who fired? I see--you don't think of +women in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to call +here," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come." + +She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith that +Herrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!" + +"Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr. +Herrick--they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, or +else--" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?--a curse, a +darkness?--I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited a +circle with me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trap +fell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plush +curtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to his +house. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tell +you that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? I +can't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings the +storm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that's +all." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,--the quaint +little gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all this +to frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well, +then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish to +befriend me? Isn't that true?" + +"It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied. + +"You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girl +needed a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need. +I don't know what it may do to you." + +Herrick answered her with a smile--"And I don't care." + +She, too, smiled. It began to be borne in upon Herrick how great, when +she chose to exercise it, was her self-control. She could talk to him +with one part of her mind while the other was still listening, peering, +questing, trembling for some fatal news. And he was suddenly aware of +her murmuring-- + + "'Vous qui m'avez tant puni, + Dans ma triste vie--'" + +"Well, then," she said, "if you must,--I want something. Not protection, +not pity, not championship; I'm a little in your own line, you know, I'm +not easily frightened. + + "'Je suis aussi sans desir + Autre que d'en bien finir-- + Sans regret, sans repentir--' + +"I don't know if you read Peter Ibbetson?" + +"Raised on it!" Herrick said. + +"Well, then, you understand things--I don't mean merely his French +songs! And that is exactly what I want--to be quite simply and sensibly +and decently understood! I am a more successful actress than you +realize, you backward Easterners, and I am treated like a goddess, a bad +child, a sibyl, an adventuress, a crazy woman. I should like to speak +now and then with some one who knew that I was nothing but a lonely girl +with some brains in her head, who often took herself too seriously and +sometimes, alas! not seriously enough; who was capricious and perverse +but not a coward, and oh, who meant so well! Such a person would +sometimes say, 'She was silly to-day, but by this time she is ashamed. +She had a strange girlhood and they taught her very bad manners, but she +is not a fool and she will learn.' Well, I will not have any common +person thinking like that about me! It takes an artist to understand an +artist! You think me very arrogant to speak like that of you and me, +because, at the bottom of your heart, you have the arrogance of all the +world--you do not admit that an actress really is an artist! Wait a +little, and you shall own that I am one. At any rate, I know a bit of +other people's art; it's my pride I was among the first to be made happy +by yours--and oh, but I could do very well with a friend I could be +proud of!"--It was not very long before he had embarked upon the history +of his novel. + +He went on and on; he explained to her Ten Euyck's thrust about the +photograph; he told her of Evadne and of Sal. The first thing she said +to him was--"Is there a play in it?" + +"I tried it as a play first, but--" + +"Oh, surely, the novel's better first! You can get it all out of your +system in the novel, and then we could drain it of the pure gold for my +end of it--for the play! You'd never sell it over my head! Why, I could +have you up,--couldn't I?--for plagiarism! Do you know how you can keep +me agreeable? Bring it to me here, when my rehearsals are over, and read +it to me--it will please me and it can do you no harm. If you find me +stupid, say to yourself, 'She is drunk with pleasure, poor thing, at +what I have made of her.' Oh, you'd never have the heart to publish my +portrait, and not let me see the proof!" + +The compact was concluded as the maid entered with the tea things. Mrs. +Hope came in radiant. She began to thank Herrick for his article, and +Christina said, "Where is Mrs. Deutch?" + +"She is in the sitting-room. She says she must go home." + +Christina went and parted the portieres and Herrick heard her speaking +with a kind of sweet authority in German, of which he caught the +phrase--"Yes, you will stay! You will certainly stay!" She waited there +till her friend joined her, and then, returning, she took charge of the +tea-table. + +Henrietta Deutch was a large, handsome woman of about forty-five, too +stout, but of a matronly dignity; her beautiful coloring was blended +into a smooth, rich surface as foreign-looking as lacquer. So far as he +was capable of perceiving anything but Christina, Herrick perceived that +not only her physical but her social stature was higher than her +husband's; she was neither ignorant nor fussy; she was a person of large +silences, as well, he imagined, as of grave sympathies; for her age she +was, to an American, strangely old-fashioned but, despite her addiction +to black silk and the incessant knitting of white woolen clouds, she +had, in her continental youth, received an excellent formal education +"with accomplishments." + +"Tante Deutch," said Christina, "this is our new friend, Mr. Herrick, +who stood up for us against that man." + +The little maid continued to throw out signals of distress and Mrs. +Hope, going to her relief, was heard to say, "Well, she'll use her +white one." She explained to Christina, "It's only about laying out your +things for to-night. She can't find your blue cloak--you know, the long +one with the hood--" + +"I am very glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Deutch. "Christina, my +lamb, you are ill!" + +"No, I am not ill. But I am distracted. Sugar, Mr. Herrick? Lemon? My +hand shakes and if the coroner were here he would say it was with guilt. +Poor soul, what a disappointment!" + +"Christina!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Don't laugh!" + +"I am not laughing. I think the man a dangerous enemy and now he is my +enemy. He will never forgive me for letting him make himself ridiculous. +He is too righteous to forget a grudge, for any one who earns such a +thing from the excellent Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck +becomes a criminal by that action. 'Winthrop.' Of course there had to be +the New England strain--he was born to wear a steeple hat and snoop for +witches! May he never light the faggots about me!" + +"Now, my dear, you are working yourself up!" + +"Dear mother, you are a bit hard to please! First you tell me not to +laugh and then you reproach me with working myself up! But you are +right! Why should I fash myself over a man with a personality like a +pair of shears? Ah, if I could get news of Nancy, my hand would be +steady enough!" + +"You'll have news of Nancy when she gets ready!" declared Mrs. Hope, +with the maternal freedom of speech toward our dearest friends, "An +ungrateful, stubborn, secretive girl!" + +"My mother," said Christina, "is enthusiastic but inaccurate. She means +that Nancy is neither voluble nor impulsive, like the paragon before +you, and that though her affection is steady it is not easily dazzled. +We have been friends scarcely more than four years--since she made her +first five dollars a week as part of a stage-mob--but I knew her at +once for the little real sister of my heart. I told you I'd always been +a lonely girl, Mr. Herrick, and that soft, little touch came close on my +loneliness, like a child's. I have succeeded and she has not; I am the +world's own daughter--I know the world and she does not; my hands are +very keen, believe me, for the power and the glory--after all, one must +have something!--and she can only put hers into mine. But where I am +weak, she is strong. One can't ask one's family to forgive that!" said +Christina. And with a tempestuous swoop she handed him a photograph upon +which, whether for newspapers or detectives, had been pasted some +memoranda. "This is more to the point." + +He beheld a charming little face, fresh and pretty, quaintly feminine, +with sensible and resolute brows to balance the wistfulness of the soft +mouth; a face at once grave and glad, with a deep dimple softening the +stubborn little chin. Herrick, studying the memoranda, compared them +with his own vague memories and the photograph. + +Height, five feet, four inches. + +Weight, a hundred and twenty pounds. + +Age, twenty years. + +Complexion, fair. + +Hair, dark auburn and curling. + +Eyes, blue. + +Wearing, when last seen, a white organdie dress with lace insertion; +white shoes, stockings and gloves; small straw hat, dull green, trimmed +with violets; carried a white embroidered linen sunshade and a small +purse-bag, green suede with silver monogram, "A. C." No jewelry of any +value. Wearing round her neck a string of green beads. Missing from her +effects and commonly worn by her, two bangle bracelets--one silver, one +jade. One silver locket. One scarab ring, bluish-green Egyptian +turquoise, set in silver. Last seen on West Eighty --th Street, +walking east, at five o'clock in the afternoon of August fourth. + +It was now August seventh; she had been missing for three days. + +"Where is she?" + +"And I thought it strange enough, before the inquest, that I was in such +trouble and didn't hear from her! Mother, you say she is hiding herself. +But,--all alone? I have telegraphed and telephoned everywhere, to every +one! And then--does a girl throw down her work, her engagement, for +nothing, without a syllable, and disappear! Her things are all at Mrs. +McBride's; her bill for her room is still going on; she was to have gone +out to an opening that night with Susie Grayce! She hadn't a valise with +her, not a change of clothes! She turned east from Jim Ingham's doorway, +and that's all!" Christina was beginning to lose control of herself; she +looked as if her teeth were going to chatter. + +"Now, my pretty--" began Mrs. Deutch. + +"Turned east?" ruminated Mrs. Hope. "East? That's toward the park. She +might have been going to meet--Well, Christina!" + +For the hand which Christina had criticized as trembling had dropped the +tea-pot. This must have dropped rather hard, for it broke to pieces. +Everything was deluged with tea. + +"My sweeting!" cried Mrs. Deutch. "Move yet a little!" For she was +already at work upon the disaster which was threatening Christina's +white gown. The fragments of the wreck were cleared away, and while +fresh tea was being made Christina urged Mrs. Deutch to play "and get me +quiet." + +"Yes, you will play. You will play for me and for Mr. Herrick. Mr. +Herrick is not one of these deaf Yankees--don't you remember what he +wrote about the music in Berlin?" + +"So!" said Mrs. Deutch. "In Berlin! Is it so!" She went seriously to +the piano where she executed some equally serious music with admirable +technique and some feeling, but her performance was scarcely so +remarkable as to account for Christina's extreme eagerness. + +When she had finished Herrick took himself unwillingly away, and was +still so agitated by the sweetness of Christina's farewell that after he +had got himself into the hall he dropped his glove. The little maid who +had opened the door for him, let it slam as she sprang to pick up the +glove, and at the closing of the door he heard Christina's voice break +hysterically forth, and rise above some remonstrance of her mother's. + +"Yes, you do. You spy on me, both of you." + +"But, my little one--" ejaculated Mrs. Deutch. + +"You spy on me, you whisper, you stare, you guess, you talk! Talk! Talk! +And you remember nothing that I tell you! I shall go mad! I am among +spies in my own house!" + +Herrick quickened his petrified muscles and went. Even to his +infatuation it occurred that whatever might have been the faults of +James Ingham, Christina herself was a person with whom it would not be +too difficult to quarrel. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED + + +It was not because this reflection was in any way cooling to his love +that Herrick did not see again, for some days, the lady of his heart. He +was, perhaps, not very self-assured. Yet when his story of the murder +and the inquest appeared he became a marked man. He awoke to find +himself famous, and to be summoned to another interview at the Ingham +publishing house. + +There seemed to be no thought of allowing the prestige of "Ingham's" to +perish with its brilliant junior partner. Ingham, senior, who for years +had been only nominally its head, intended to resume active work once +more, at least until the younger son should have finished college and +gone into training for his brother's place. Perhaps the real pillar of +the house was Corey; and Corey remained, to sustain both father and son. +And they had all three agreed not to forsake the new, the yet unborn +enterprise of _Ingham's Weekly_. "Mr. James Ingham was wrapped up in +it," Corey told Herrick, whom he had met with the kindest compliments, +"and his father can't bear that all his work should be wasted now. +Besides, in the whole of the business, it's the thing that most +interests young Mr. Stanley, and it seems to me the place where the boy +may be most of use. We want the _Weekly_ to be a real force, Mr. +Herrick, and in its first number we shall want to give up the usual +editorial pages to a memoir of its founder and his ideals for it. Mr. +Herrick, if we could induce you to undertake that memoir we should think +ourselves extremely fortunate." + +Herrick could not believe his ears; it seemed such a strange sequel to a +kind of police report, however able, for the Sunday papers. There began +to be something uncanny to him about his connection with Ingham's death +and how it continued to seem his Open Sesame to fortune. But he was glad +enough and grateful enough. He ventured to send Christina a note telling +her that her new friend was now being pursued by good not evil fortune +and her reply came in the same mail with a letter from his sister to +whom he had written for details about Nancy Cornish. + +Marion remembered only that Nancy's parents had been killed in a runaway +when she was about fourteen and that Nancy had gone out West +somewhere,--to Portland, Oregon, Marion thought, to live with an +uncle--and had gradually ceased to write. Of this uncle's name or +address both Marion and the principal of the school which both girls had +attended were amiably ignorant. + +"There's only one thing I'm positive about; she was the best little soul +alive. Never in this world did she go to that man's rooms to tell tales +of her friend. She never told tales. She was a natural born +hero-worshiper; the most loyal child I ever saw and the most generous, +the bravest, the lovingest, the most devoted. If she went to Mr. Ingham, +it wasn't to injure that Christina Hope; it was to help her out of some +scrape. She was just the kind of girl to be taken in by a woman like +that, whom I must say sounds--" + +Herrick dropped this letter to return to that other which it cannot be +denied he had read first. It was directed in a penmanship new to him but +recognized at once in every nerve, and he had drawn forth Christina's +note with that strange thrill which stirs in us at the first sight of +the handwriting of the beloved. She thanked him, with a certain shyness, +for his news. It was so good one must take it with their breath held! +And now she had a favor to ask. Stanley Ingham had gone home to +Springfield for the week-end, but he had just telephoned her that he +would be back in town on Tuesday morning, by the train which got in to +the Grand Central at eleven thirty-five. He had some news for her but +she would be at rehearsal; she should not see him until the evening, and +she was naturally an impatient person. Would not Mr. Herrick humor a +spoiled girl, meet the train and bring her the news at about noon to a +certain little tea-room of which she gave him the address. "You may find +it a great bore. They are supposed to let us out for an hour, like the +shop-girls. But, alas! they don't do it so regularly. They may push us +straight through till mid-afternoon. But I know you will have patience +with my eagerness to hear any news where it need not trouble my mother. +She has had anxiety enough." It may be taken as a measure of Herrick's +infatuation that he saw nothing in this letter which was not angelic. + +The Grand Central Station, however, is no sylvan spot and Herrick +wondered how he should recognize an unknown Stanley Ingham among the +hordes swarming in its vast marble labyrinth. But that gentleman proved +to be a lively youth of about twenty, who plucked Herrick from the crowd +without hesitation and led him to a secluded seat with that air of +deferential protection which a really smart chap owes it to himself to +show to age. His collar was so high that it was remarkable how +powerfully he had established winking terms with the world over the top +of it, but he stooped to account for himself at once as an emissary of +Christina's. + +"She wired me to see you here, and here I am. You know I'm the bearer of +some new exhibits for the police. We think we've struck a new trail. +After I've handed 'em over I'm dining with Miss Hope, and as she'd have +heard all about 'em then, should think she might have waited. Still, you +know how women are! + +"In the first place," young Mr. Ingham continued, "we want you, we want +everybody, to know we're Miss Hope's friends. We want to go on record +that the way she's been knocked around in this thing has been simply +damnable, and, if poor old Jim were alive--" + +He stopped. At the mention of his brother a moisture, which Herrick knew +he considered the last word of shame, rose in his eyes; behind his high +collar something swelled and impeded his utterance. Then Mr. Stanley +Ingham became once more a man of the world. + +"You can take it from me that if you hadn't treated her as jolly well as +you did in that capital article of yours, we shouldn't be trying to +lasso you now onto the staff of the _Weekly_." Herrick started, but the +man of the world was not easily checked. "You were awfully decent, you +know, to all of us, and Corey was all the more pleased because +that--that last day, old Jim was down at the office till three +o'clock--the first day after he was home, too,--working like a dog, and +yet when he found that letter of Rennett's introducing you he was as +pleased as Punch, and when he made the appointment with you for next +day, he said to Corey, 'People are taking that boy pretty easy yet +awhile, but he's the best short-story writer on this side of the +Atlantic; and if he's really got a novel about him, the old house will +show him it's still awake.'" The man of the world repeated these phrases +with an innocent satisfaction in having them at first hand, and +Herrick's own heart went questing into the future. + +Then his attention returned to the words of his young friend. "We don't +think we've done enough for her, and we want to do all we can do." + +"Miss Hope?" + +"Of course. You see, we don't any of us feel she was wrong in quarreling +with Jim--except the mater, who thinks she ought to have let him cut her +throat for breakfast every morning and damned glad to get him--and, +considering everything, we think she let him down pretty easy at the +inquest. There's no denying the dear old fellow had been a gay one in +his time, and, of course, he drove a high-spirited girl like that +frantic with a lot of antiquated notions about the stage. You see, he +was pretty close to thirty-five, and when a man gets along about there +he's apt to lose touch with what's going on. Well, having her in our pew +and our carriage at the funeral didn't shut all the fools' mouths in New +York nor Springfield either! So now we're going to do something really +swotting--we've taken a box for her first night, and we're going to get +mother into it, mourning and all, if we have to bring her in a bag. It's +our duty. Read that." + + "My dear and kind Mr. Ingham (ran Christina's letter): You must try + and be patient with me, and not think hardly of me, when I tell you + that I can not profit by the terms of Jim's will. He made those + provisions for the girl who was to be his wife, and not for me who + never could be. + + "As I write this I feel your good heart harden to me, with the + sense that I never loved him. But oh, believe me!--time was when I + loved him better than earth or heaven. We couldn't agree, he and I. + Let it remain my consolation that between us there was never any + question of expedient nor compromise. + + "If she can bear it, give my love to his mother. + + "My heart is full of fondest gratitude to all that family which I + should have been so proud to enter. And do you keep a little + kindness for your unhappy, + + "CHRISTINA HOPE." + +"What do you think of that? Won't take a cent! You can easily see," +commented the wise one, "that they'd have made it up all right. Splendid +girl! Best thing the poor old chap ever did was trying to get her into +the family. I don't suppose you're as hipped about her good looks as I +am? Takes a special kind of eye, I fancy! I snaked this particularly to +show you--but we want everybody to know she's turned down the coin. And +we're going to have the beast that fired that shot if he's alive on this +planet. 'Tisn't only on Jim's account! It's for her--it's the only way +you can knock that damned lie on the head about her being up there in +his rooms that night.--Chris! Why, she's a regular kid! And the +straightest kid that ever lived! We mean to keep the police hot at it. +And look here what I'm turning in to them!" + +It was a typewritten envelope, postmarked "New York City" and addressed +to Mr. James Ingham. + +"We found it, opened, in his desk at the office," the boy explained. +"But we've only just got it away from my mother." Its contents were a +piece of red ribbon and a single sheet of paper, closely typed. + + The Arm of Justice warns Mr. James Ingham-- + +("Is this a joke?") "Go on! Read it!" + + --warns Mr. James Ingham that it demands ten thousand dollars. ("By + George!") If Mr. Ingham wisely decides to grant this application, he + will tie the enclosed ribbon to the frame work of his awning on the + afternoon of August fourth, at four o'clock. It will be seen by an + agent of the Society, who will then advise Mr. Ingham as to how and + where the money may be paid. If Mr. Ingham decides against the + application, he will do nothing. + + But in that case he must be prepared for the publication of a + paragraph in the _Voice of Justice_, beginning--"There has recently + come to light an episode in the career of Mr. James Ingham, the + well-known publisher, eldest son of Robert Ingham of Springfield and + New York, who is engaged to be married to the popular actress, + Christina Hope--" + + It will go on to relate the story of his association with a young, + pure and helpless girl eight years ago; how he betrayed her, and, + after a promise of marriage--she being then destitute--abandoned + her. It will tell this girl's name and where she is. It will give + all names in connection with the affair. It will publish letters + that passed between Mr. Ingham and this young girl, corroborating + the worst that has been said. + + Mr. Ingham knows the standards of society, the reputation, the + probity and the justice of his father, and also the temper of Miss + Christina Hope. Mr. Ingham is the best judge of whether or not it + will be wise to pay for silence. + +"That's all!" exclaimed Stanley Ingham, as if the absence of signature +were really remarkable. "Well, how's that! Poor old chap, you know--how +dare they!" He reddened. "Because, hang it all, of course a man has to +be a man, and you've got to be liberal-minded and all that; but, just +the same, a fellow that would do what that thing says--why, he'd be +regularly rotten! You can't deny it, he'd be rotten." + +Herrick sat dumb. Words of Christina's were passing in his mind.--"I +will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It was simply something +monstrous which happened a long time ago." Because he had to say +something, he said--"And you're taking this in to the police?" + +"Yes. Isn't it a mercy Jim didn't destroy it? Meant it for the +detectives himself, I dare say. Perhaps his not hanging out that piece +of ribbon didn't have anything to do with his death. And perhaps it did. +Anyhow, wait a bit--I'm a walking post-office this morning. Here's the +last exhibit!" And he plumped down on Herrick's knee the duplicate of +the typewritten envelope. The postmark, however, was dated August ninth, +and it was directed to Ingham senior. + +"It opened with the same formalities, but this time its threat ran-- + + "The _Voice_ will relate the actual circumstances connected with + the death of Mr. James Ingham--" + +"Jove!" cried Herrick, "that would be something!" + +"Wait till you read 'em!" + +"It will not pause after the story of the young girl whom Ingham +abandoned years ago. It will tell how, on the eve of his departure for +Europe, just such a story was reenacted, but this time with a close +friend of his intended bride, an actress named Ann Cornish; who, on his +return, appealed to him for the only reparation in his power; even +slandering her friend Christina Hope in the attempt to win him back. +Failing in this, she fled, and disappeared--perhaps destroyed herself. +It will tell how Miss Hope suspected the intrigue, having quarreled +about it with her lover the day before, when he denied all knowledge of +Nancy Cornish; how, suspecting an appointment for the evening instead of +the afternoon of August fourth, Miss Hope disguised herself in a red wig +and dabs of paint about her eyes and penetrated to Ingham's apartment; +how, finding no one there, she was placated until she spied Nancy +Cornish's card on the piano and how then a terrible quarrel arose; the +excitable young woman, springing in front of the window with her arm +outstretched, the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air, +uttered a terrible, low cry, and snatching up Ingham's revolver from the +table at the head of the couch, shot him dead. It will follow the flight +of Miss Hope exactly as she described it at the inquest--out through +the door which Ingham must have bolted behind her. She ran upstairs and +escaped over the roof into the apartment house next door. It was a +terribly hot night, and, against all rules, the roof-doors of both +apartment houses had been fastened back. Miss Hope came quietly +downstairs, passed through an entrance hall, empty of the boy who had +run to join the crowd in the street, and walked away. This will be the +conclusion of the narrative." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S WAY + + +The light in the little tea-room was rather dim. Christina spread out +Herrick's copies of the two blackmailing letters upon the table and +studied them, propping her chin on her hands. Herrick, in surrendering +them, had dreaded the squalid clutch which they laid upon herself. But +when she lifted her eyes it was to say--"We must never let them credit +this trash about Nancy!" + +"None of it, then--?" + +"Not a syllable! Not a breath!--Jim! Little she cared for Jim, poor +child! She was unhappy, but not with that unhappiness. It's true her +only love-affair had come to grief. That's what my mother means by +calling her secretive--even I have never been able to get out of her +what happened to it. But disgrace--run away! Disgrace could never have +looked at her, and never in her life did she run away from anything! And +if she were alive and free, anywhere upon this earth, the first word +against me would have brought her back. She would butt walls down, with +her little red head, to stand by a friend's side!" + +"That's what my sister says. It's odd!" + +"Odd?" + +"I mean--Well, there's the circumstance that the hour when she called on +Ingham was the hour when the ribbon was to have signaled from the +window. And she didn't give her name, you know; she said, 'The lady he +expects.' Then one remembers that this mysterious woman who passed Joe +had red hair. Joe says she had on a white lace dress, Miss Hope--well, +Miss Cornish was in white with lace trimming. He mistook her for you. +Still, he was very sleepy, and though she's not so tall as you are, +she's not short, and she's very slender, too. Forgive me for making you +impatient. But the boy's devoted to you, isn't he?" + +"I suppose so," Christina ingenuously replied. + +"Well, he knows, now, that Nancy Cornish is your dear friend. I can't +altogether rely upon his not recognizing her photograph." + +"I can," said Christina, almost tartly. "White--everybody's in white. I +wore a white dress that night, myself. It wasn't Nancy. You may put that +out of your mind." + +Herrick considered. "That business of the variegated eyes--people seem +to suppose he threw it in for good measure. But could such an effect be +produced by make-up?" + +"I think not. On the stage we generally use blue pencil to darken our +lashes. Well, once in a way, some one from the front assures us that we +have blue eyes. Or else brown, if we use brown. But close to, and--and +in combination--surely not! And why try so thin a disguise?" + +"To suggest a striking mark of identification which does not really +exist. That would explain so much. Why she was willing to make a +conspicuous impression on the boy--she may have been a dark woman, you +know, in a red wig, only too glad to leave behind her the picture of a +blonde. There always lingers the impression that it may have been some +one whom Joe knew, or was used to seeing, and that it was merely this +vague familiarity which he recognized before he had time to be taken in +by her disguise. Ingham was on his mind; that may have been why he first +thought of you.--Miss Hope, do you know what other impression, or +superstition, or whatever you like, I can't get rid of? That the +mystery of who fired the shot is part of the answer to the mystery of +that bolted door. When we know how he got out, we shall know who he +was." + +"He?" + +"Well--man or woman. It's ridiculous, it's silly, but I feel as if that +personality were somehow still imprisoned in those rooms. As though, if +we knew how to look, it would be there and there only we should find the +truth." + +Christina murmured a soft sound of regret and wonder. "What a strange +thing! His poor mother--she feels so, too! She won't have a thing in his +rooms touched till the lease is up. She says the secret is still there." + +He loved the pity in Christina's face. And then he watched her +reabsorption in the letters. But though they absorbed, they did not +impress her. They somehow seemed even to bring her mind relief. +"Heavens!" said she, presently. "Is it altogether a bad joke?--'The Arm +of Justice!'" + +"I did think at first they were a hoax of some sort. But the Inghams are +far from thinking so." + +"They think--?" + +"Yes. They've accepted these letters as changing the whole course of the +investigation. They believe now that the scandalous, the personal motive +was an entirely wrong lead; that Ingham was murdered in cold blood, as a +matter of business; that the woman was only a cat's paw. And they're +looking for a man." + +"Dear God!" said Christina. "How hot it is in here! That fan--can't they +start it?" She took off her hat; the cool air from the fan came about +her face, carrying to Herrick's nostrils a scent of larkspur and verbena +and candy-tuft (how she clung to those garden flowers!), and she closed +her eyes. + +Herrick sat watching her with concern. He thought of how she had said +her mother had had anxiety enough. It seemed now, to Herrick, that +Christina, too, had had anxiety enough. "Evadne!" he said, suddenly. + +She opened her eyes, smiling at him. + +"You know I have known you very intimately and served you very +faithfully for an immensely long time. I am your author, and I'm going +to bully you. I want you to drop all this! What is it to you? Something +hideous, that's over. In no way can the miserable muck of these letters +touch you! Let the Inghams and the police and the District Attorney +worry--it's their business. It's your business to make beautiful things +for the world. Dear Evadne, you've got to possess your own soul if +you're going to polish up ours! Forget these lies!" + +It was rather late in the little restaurant and they were the only +patrons. After a moment the girl leaned toward him, and laid her hand on +his. + +"I will try!" she said, gently. "And you will dine with us to-night? And +Stan can tell what the detectives say to you, and not to me? Oh, please! +You are right. I want to forget. I am worn out, my soul and my body; my +heart's drying up. Nancy! Nancy! Oh, Nancy! If I could only know about +Nancy! But for the rest, I don't care. You are my friend, and I will +tell you something. Whenever they've wanted to show me they didn't think +me a murderess, they've said, 'Of course, my dear, you're as eager to +have the criminal caught as any of us.' It's false! Why should I wish +for anything so horrible?" + +He looked at her with a start of wonder that was half agreement. + +"In what age are we living that I am expected to enjoy an execution? Do +you know what one's like? I've been on trial for my life now, and I've +been reading it up! They--" + +"Hush!" said Herrick, sternly. + +"But isn't it wicked? Why should I wish that done?--to man or +woman?--Or to lock some one up for life--that's worse! Why should it +amuse me to have people tortured? Who tortured Jim? Poor fellow, he +scarcely could have known! Why should they suffer more than he? For the +act of one little minute to burn in fire all the rest of one's life. Oh, +my good friend, what's the use of pretending? We know perfectly well +that some girl's despair may have fired that shot, that if she had a +brother or a lover--Can't you stop them, Mr. Herrick? Must they go +frothing on in this man-hunt? It's to clear my name? My name's my own; I +won't have it put up against any human being's misery! If they catch and +kill some unhappy creature for my sake--it will kill me, too. I shall +die of it!" + +"What you'll do now," said Herrick, "is to come out of here into the +sunlight, and get some air before you go back to rehearsal." + +She let him walk with her to the stage-door, and before it swallowed +her, she abruptly and almost gaily soliloquized, "A man! A man wrote +those letters! Does one man send a piece of ribbon to another, and ask +him to hang it out of his window? Do you mean, to tell me that it was a +man who made that remark about my temper? 'The Arm of Justice' forsooth! +There's a female idea of a brigand." + +It was plain that she inclined to believe the blackmailer some mercenary +trickster, who knew no more of the murder than herself. Some woman, she +said. But there were two persons in Joe Patrick's testimony. And Herrick +believed there were two in the attempted blackmail. As to their +knowledge of Ingham's death, one circumstance appeared to him highly +significant; the changed standpoint of the second letter! He said to +himself, "The first is obviously sincere; it was written in the genuine +hope of getting money out of Ingham by a person who really felt that he +or she had a case. And the second is nothing on earth but an attempt to +divert suspicion from the murderer by a lot of villainous poppycock. +Between the writing of those two letters they lost their case and they +lost their nerve. Suppose the first letter had been written by a +woman,--by a woman of some cultivation, with a very strong taste for +expressing herself picturesquely. But her picturesqueness all streams +into one channel--into hatred for Ingham. When she cuts at him, her pen +scorches the paper. She has only one sentiment of anything like equal +strength--her sympathy with the girl whom Ingham is supposed to have +deserted. There, now, is a person whom she thoroughly admires. Was she +herself once that girl?" + +Herrick was on his way to dine at Christina's by the time that he +hazarded this runaway guess, and he told himself that he must pull up a +little, now he was on the public street, or he would be holding people +with his glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner. + +But one fact continued to strike him. The man whom Joe Patrick had taken +up to the fourth floor after the arrival of the red-haired woman did not +appear in the narrative. + +How if this man himself had written the second letter? The writer had +sacrificed the only other persons mentioned--Christina and +Nancy--without a scruple, but that curt and silent male it had never +occurred to him to sacrifice. He was consistently shielded. Having no +feasible way of accounting for him, the writer had not even explained +him away. He had simply left him out, hoping that, in the definiteness +of the accusation of a woman, he would be forgotten. For this reason he +had gone into details of her flight without even touching the great dark +points of the moving of Ingham's body and the bolted door. He was too +busy pointing: "Look, look, there she goes! The murderess! The woman! I +am calling her Christina Hope. But, in any case, a woman. No man has had +anything to do with it." + +Herrick turned off the avenue into Christina's street. And trying to +clear his brain lest its feverish contagion should presently reach hers, +he told himself, "You're cracked, my friend. You know nothing whatever. +Simply cracked." But he could not cure himself. Right or wrong, his +obsession continued. Nonsense or no, there grew steadily within him the +notion of that man who had seen all, who knew all, and who had done his +work! This figure became strangely potent, and singularly ominous. They +were all suffering and struggling here, ridiculously ignorant, +ridiculously in pain, and he could laugh at them. Not a sound had +escaped him. He had betrayed himself by no melodramatic shadow. "He was +so quiet," Joe Patrick had said, "goin' right along about his +business--" Yes, he had come upon his business, he had accomplished it, +he had vanished, and left no trace behind. Blackmailer, slanderer, +murderer, and maybe coward and traitor, there was about him a stillness +that had a strange effect. The very blankness of his passage--he looked +so like "all gentlemen," neither tall nor short, stout nor thin, light +nor dark, thirty, forty, or some other age--why, Beelzebub himself could +not have accomplished a more complete disguise! It was as if, going so +quietly on such an errand, some evil of devilish mockery looked out from +behind that featureless face, as from behind a mask. And about the heart +of the big, lean, ruddy youth striding toward his beloved through the +warm August evening, the cold breath of superstition lightly breathed. +It was, for one instant, as though it were at him the mockery were +directed; as though, when that mask should be removed, it would be his +blood that would be frozen by the sight. The next moment his strength +exulted. Patience! He must be found, that fellow--he had made Christina +suffer! The young man's heart winced and then steeled itself upon the +phrase. He drew deep into his spirit the horrid degradation that had +been breathed upon her; the sickening danger that had struck at her; he +saw the thinned line of her cheek, her pallor and her tears, and the +dark circles under those dear eyes. He saw and his teeth set themselves. +Oh, yes, that featureless and silent fellow should be found! And when +that hour came, and Herrick's hand was on that mask, it made him laugh +to think how well its wearer should learn that it was not only a woman +at whom he had struck! + +Immersed in these thoughts Herrick had not noticed a scudding automobile +which now passed him so close that he had to spring backward in order to +avoid being knocked down. And he was not in the mood when springing +backward could be in the least agreeable to him. The rescuer of ladies +was thrown into a fuming rage. What, he, he, a free-born American +citizen, he, a knight-errant on his way to the queen of love and beauty, +he, Bryce Herrick, a presentable young man of the privileged classes to +bound into the air like a ball or a mountebank! Made to retreat +ignominiously and hurriedly!--actually to--in the language of his +childhood--to "skip the gutter" by the menial of upstarts with his +horn!--By George, the fellow had not blown his horn! + +Herrick came to a raging pause and looked about him for a policeman. He +could at least complain to a policeman! Then he discovered that he was +within half a block of Christina's corner; her house was on the other +side of the street. To come into her presence was to forget everything +else. As he reached the corner and started to cross the road he heard +the whirr of another motor and then beheld it speeding toward him, some +distance off, from the same direction as his first enemy. Determined not +to skip the gutter this time he advanced at a dignified pace, +deliberately fixing the automobile with the power of the human eye. The +wild beast approached headlong, nevertheless, and Herrick, observing +that it, too, dispensed with the formality of blowing its horn, stopped +dead in its path. He was filled with the immense public spirit of +outraged dignity and pure temper. The automobile was a long, low +touring-car, gray, with an unfashionable look of hard usage, and there +were three roughly dressed men in it. If they thought he would move +unless that horn were blown, they were mistaken! He glared pointedly at +the number which was streaked, illegibly, with mud. And the truth came +to him, that this was no second automobile--it was the same one! And now +it was so near that, above the man's raised collar, he could see the +eyes of the chauffeur looking straight at him. Then it was he knew that +they did not expect him to get out of the way; that they did not intend +to blow the horn; nor did they intend to swerve aside. What they +intended was to run him down! With inconceivable rapidity the thing had +loomed out of the distance and was here; death lunged at him in a flash, +bulked right upon him, the wind of it in his angry eyes. The shock of +that anger utterly controlled him and took up the challenge; he could +not have changed the set of his whole nature and broken his defiance if +he would. But from the sidewalk some one screamed. Automatically, he +started, and the touring-car, as though rocked by the scream, swayed a +hair's breadth to one side. Only a hair's breadth! Herrick felt an +impact like the end of things; then a horrible, jarring pain as if his +bones were coming out through himself and knocking him to splinters. And +then--nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD + + +The doctor drew back from examining a badly bruised, cut, and skinned +youth and smiled. + +"Well, young man," said he, "if I were you, the next time I saw an +automobile making right for me, I'd get out of its way." + +"I guess I'm all right," Herrick grinned. The grin was rather sketchy. +He was not very secure yet in which world he was. + +On first recovering consciousness he had found himself lying with his +head in Christina's lap, and had supposed he was in heaven. But it +hadn't been heaven; it had still been the middle of Ninety-third Street +and Christina was sitting in the dust thereof. And then he had another +glimmer; he was on a couch, and, facing him, Christina was huddled on +her heels on the floor with large tears running down her nose and +plumping off the end of it into a bowl, full of funny red water, that +she held; a cloth in her hand was even redder, and her mouth had such a +piteous droop that if only he could have sat up it would have been the +natural thing to kiss it. "Darling!" he had said, to comfort her; and +she had said, eagerly, "Yes!" just as if that were her name; then +another blackness. And now the couch was in her drawing-room and +everywhere was the scent and the sheen of her country flowers--larkspur +and sweet alyssum and mignonette, the white of wild cucumber vine, the +lavender of horsemint, and everywhere the breath of clover--the house +was filled with them! Wherever did she get them? + +"What's that?" he asked sharply. It was a policeman's helmet. + +The policeman was merely left there,--the automobile having escaped +without leaving its number behind it,--to take his evidence of the +accident. Herrick rather dreaded being laughed at for his surety that it +was no accident; but a man who had seen it from a window and the passing +lady who had saved his life by shrieking had already testified to the +same effect. They had both declared the offending car to be a gray +touring-car; a very dark gray, Herrick thought. The policeman, who had +read his Sunday special, stooped to be communicative. "Do you remember +the young feller," he asked, "that was a witness to the Ingham inquest? +Do you remember he got there late through bein' knocked over by 'n +automobile?" + +Herrick stared. + +"Well, the young lady called him on the 'phone with me listenin', an' I +guess you're on a'ready to what kind of a car it was that hit him--'twas +a gray tourin'-car." + +By-and-by, when the policeman and the doctor were gone, and Mrs. Hope +and Mrs. Deutch, without whom no crisis in the life of the Hope family +seemed to be complete, had swathed him tastefully in one of Mrs. Hope's +kimonos they began to tell him that he must send for his things, because +he would have to convalesce as Christina's guest. The idea was +distressing to him, but he was a little surprised by the soft bitterness +with which Christina opposed it. "Do you want him murdered outright?" +she said. "What has he done that he should be mixed up with my house and +my life? I was wrong ever to let him be my friend." She was spreading a +cloth over a little table which Stanley Ingham had brought close to the +couch. She lifted a lighted lamp out of Herrick's eyes and set it on the +mantel shelf behind his head. Looking down as the light touched his +bandaged forehead and the unusual pallor of his bronzed face she said, +so gently that Herrick's heart melted with a painful sweetness, "I +warned you!" + +"It does look awfully funny," young Ingham exclaimed, "about this +touring-car. Wonder what the police will say to that! Wouldn't open +their mouths about the letters, and warned me not to open mine. Wouldn't +even let me tell you, Chris!" + +"Fortunately," said Christina, "Mr. Herrick had told me before any one +could possibly interfere.--The police think they're genuine, then?" + +"You bet they do! At least, I s'pose they do. They didn't say. But they +grabbed them, fast enough." + +Christina asked no more, and thereafter, if she kept the talk around +Herrick quiet, she kept it almost gay. She and the boy ate their dinner +with him in order to wait on him and watch his comfort; and before long +she seemed scarcely the older of the two. It was all wonderfully simple +and kind; there could be no embarrassment in that light, genial +atmosphere; when the dishes had been cleared away the girl went to the +piano and sang softly--tender negro melodies, little folk lullabies, +snatches of German love-songs. Just as Herrick, greatly soothed and at +peace, was beginning to feel tired, Deutch arrived and he and Stanley +Ingham took the patient home in a taxi and put him to bed. + +To Herrick's indignant astonishment, it was four or five days before he +could get about again, and at the end of that period the Deutches had +become almost as large a part of his life as of the Hopes. It was in +vain he protested. Mrs. Deutch came twice a day and looked after his +comfort with a devotion as arbitrary as a mother's; she inspected all +his garments, and, with clucks of consternation, took them away with her +and returned them, perfected; between her and Mrs. Grubey a deep +distrust as to each other's cookery arose. She cooked him three meals a +day, beside all sorts of elaborate "foreign" trifles, Mr. Deutch +bringing them over in a basket, piping hot; and Mrs. Grubey, entering +with her own dainty contribution of pork chops and canned lobster, +professed herself unable to understand how he could eat such messes. He +finished his memorial of Ingham amid the perpetual bloom and fragrance +of Christina's garden flowers; once Mr. Ingham came, with Stanley, to +inquire; Mrs. Hope came twice. On her second visit, when he was almost +ready to re-enter the world, she brought Christina with her. + +The girl had lost her air of tragic greatness; there was more color in +her face, the pupils of her eyes were less expanded and her nostrils +less inflated. She seemed, too, to have been rather put back into her +place as a young lady, for she smiled sweetly but a little shyly about +Herrick's room, and left the talking to her mother; when her eyes +encountered the photograph which had been replaced over the desk a faint +flush suffused her face. + +"My daughter has at last allowed herself to be persuaded," said Mrs. +Hope, "that Miss Cornish is hiding voluntarily; and that, if there is a +blackmailing society trying to slander us and to injure any one who is +apt to defend us, the police are quite as capable of dealing with it as +she is. Therefore she is now able to give a little attention to her own +affairs." + +Herrick was sorry for the poor lady; he knew that she was devoted to +Christina and that she must have had a great deal to endure. He had +learned by this time that she had been a Miss Fairfax, and that her +family, however desperately poor, considered her to have made a +misalliance with a mere wealthy manufacturer of wall-papers, like Hope. +It had been, indeed, a runaway match and relations with her family were +never really resumed. Now Deutch reported that of late conciliatory +relatives, making advances to the rising star, had been routed with +great slaughter. But both men guessed that this had not been the real +wish of a person so socially inclined as Mrs. Hope; she was too plainly +dragged at the chariot-wheels of a freer spirit, and in this light even +her occasional asperities, her method of communicating with her daughter +mainly by protesting exclamations, became only pathetic attempts at an +authority she did not possess. "You know, Mr. Herrick," she now went on, +"that the opening of 'The Victors' three weeks from next Thursday night +is the great occasion of my daughter's life. I can't begin to tell you +what it means to us; it's everything. At such a time I think we--we +ought to have our friends about us. The Inghams are so kind; they are +taking me in their box. But Christina had already ordered me two of the +best seats in the house, and I'm sure I'm speaking for her, too, when I +say what a pleasure it would be if you would accept them. Indeed it +would be a favor.--My dear, can't you persuade him?" + +"It's only--" said Christina, slowly, "that I'm afraid." + +"Christina! I do wish you would drop that ridiculous pose. No horrible +fate has overtaken me!" + +"Ah, mother," said the girl, touching her mother's shoulder, "perhaps +because we were both born, you and I, under the same ban!" + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. Hope, as if Christina had mentioned something +indecent. "I hope you won't pay any attention to her, Mr. Herrick." + +"I certainly shan't. I shall be too glad to get those seats." + +"Ah, now you're a dear! You'll see Christina at her best, and I'm going +to say that that's something to see. It's a magnificent part and Mr. +Wheeler has been so wonderful in rehearsing her in it. Christina doesn't +find him at all intimidating or brutal, as people say. Though, of +course, he's a very profane man." + +"I love every bone in his body," Christina said. + +"My child! I wish you wouldn't speak so immoderately!" + +"I'm an immoderate person," the girl replied. She rose, and pointing out +of the window she said to Herrick--"You sat here? It was there, on that +shade?" + +"Yes." + +Christina shuddered; just then Mr. Deutch arrived with the luncheon +basket. The ladies passed him in taking their leave and Christina +slipped her hand through his arm. "Mr. Herrick," she said, "Herr Hermy +does not look wise--no, Herr Hermy, you don't,--but if ever I puzzle +you, ask him. Do not ask Tante Deutch, she will tell you something noble +and solid, for she herself is wise, and so she can never understand me. +But Herr Hermy is a little foolish, just as I am. He is flighty; he has +the artistic temperament and understands us; he knows me to the +core.--Herr Hermy, he is coming to see me act; tell him I am really Sal, +not Evadne; tell him that I am a hardworking girl." + +As he came to know her better, Herrick did not need to be told that. He +had never seen any one work so hard nor take their work quite so +seriously. But her advice remained with him and he began to listen more +respectfully to Hermann Deutch on his favorite subject. "Wait till you +see her, Mr. Herrick! She's like Patti, and the others were the chorus; +you'll say so, too. And it don't seem but yesterday, hardly, she didn't +know how she should go to faint, even! Drop herself, she would, about +the house, and black and blue herself in bumps! We used to go in the +family circle, when I had a half-a-dollar or two, and watch great +actresses and when one did something she had a fancy for, she'd pinch me +like a pair o' scissors! And she'd be up practising it all night, over +and over, and the gas going! She'd wear herself out, and there's those +that would expect she shouldn't wear them out, too!" + +"She takes things too hard," said the lover fondly. + +"Yes," said Mr. Deutch, after a pause, "she takes 'em hard, but she can +drop 'em quick!" Herrick felt a little knife go through his heart; and +then Deutch added, "Not that she's the way people talk--insincere. Oh, +that's foolish talk! She's only quick-like; she sees all things and she +feels all things, and not one of 'em will she keep quiet about! Those +glass pieces, you know, hang from chandeliers?--when they flash first in +the one light and then the way another strikes 'em, they ain't +insincere. An' that's the way Miss Christina is--she's young, an' she's +got curiosity, an' she wants she should know all things an' feel all +things, so she can put 'em in her parts; she wants all the lights to go +clean through her. And there's so many of 'em! So many to take in and so +many to give out! There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herrick, but what she'll +reflect it right into your face." + +Although, in this elaborate fancy, Herrick suspected an echo of +Christina's own eloquence, he did not listen to it less eagerly on that +account. "After all," he translated, "it's only that she's willingly and +extraordinarily impressionable, and then willingly and extraordinarily +expressive! In that case, instead of being less sincere than other +people, she's more so!" + +"You got it!" cried Mr. Deutch with satisfaction. "That's what these +outsiders, they can't ever understand. The best friend she ever had says +to me once, 'If ever Miss Hope gets enough really good parts to keep her +interested, she'll take things more quietly around the house!' That's +been a great comfort to me, Mr. Herrick.--She's got these emotions in +her, I'll say to myself, and what harm is it she should let 'em off?" + +"The best friend she ever had?" + +"Well, now, Mr. Herrick, he was an old hand when she first came into the +business. He taught her a lot; she'd be the first to say so. Often I've +thought if she hadn't been so young then, what a match they might ha' +made of it! But she never thought of it, nor, I shouldn't wonder, he +neither, and now it's too late. But don't you worry because she takes +all things hard; she's got a kind of a spring in her. When she's laid +down to die of one thing, comes along another and she gets up again." + +If Herrick did not complete this analysis, it was not for lack of +opportunity. As soon as he was about again he found himself as merged in +the life of the Hopes as were the Deutches themselves. "You interest +Christina," Mrs. Hope told him. "You take her mind off these dreadful +things. It's a very critical week with us. I hope you won't leave her +alone." + +Herrick did all that in him lay to justify this hope, and if Christina +never urged nor invited, never made herself "responsible" for his +presence, she accepted it unquestioningly. His first outing was a Sunday +dinner at their house, and again Christina kept herself in the +background, and only drew her mother's affectionate wrath upon herself +by one remark; saying, as Herrick helped himself from the dish the maid +was passing him, "I hope it's not poisoned!" + +She seemed rather tired, and he hoped this was not because she had made +him come at an outrageously early hour and read her the beginning of his +novel. He knew she was recasting it into scenes as he read; she got him +to tell her all that he meant to do with it and, as they all, save Mrs. +Hope, lighted their cigarettes over the coffee in the sitting-room, she +began telling Wheeler about it.--Wheeler had dined there, too. + +Christina's star was a big, stalwart man of about fifty, who had not +quite ceased to be a matinee idol in becoming one of the foremost of +producers. He listened with a good deal of interest and indeed the story +lost nothing on Christina's tongue; Herrick began to see that her mind +was a highly sensitized plate which could catch reflections even of +disembodied things. Then Wheeler exclaimed what an actor's approval has +to say first, whatever he may bring himself to deal with afterward. +"Why, but there's a play in that!" + +"Yes," said Christina, promptly. "For me!" + +Humor shone out of the good sense and good feeling of Wheeler's heavy, +handsome face. "Give me more coffee, my cormorant! Do you think I want +to play the young lady myself? Nay, 'I know the hour when it +strikes!'--heavy fathers for mine! Stouter than I used to be--Tut-tut, +no sugar!--There will be too much of me--Did you get your idea of moral +responsibility out of New England, Mr. Herrick?" + +"Well, this form of it I got from such a different source as a very +suave, amiable Italian, Emile Gabrielli, an intending author, too,--a +lawyer who had exiled himself to Switzerland. Do you know a line of +Howell's?--'The wages of sin is more sinning.' And it's seemed to me +that the more-sinning doesn't stop with ourselves; it draws the most +innocent and indifferent people into our net. Well, I always wanted to +find a vehicle for that notion." + +"And your Italian told you this story?" + +"Something like it. Set the tone for it, too, in a way. He was a highly +respectable sentimental person, and used to carry about an old miniature +of a lovely girl to whom, I believe, he had once been betrothed. The +bans had been forbid by cruel parents but he used to brag to me, at +fifty, that they could never force him to part from her idolized face! +Yet he knew so many shady stories I've often wondered if he hadn't left +home in order to avoid a circle of too embarrassing clients. At any rate +he had known a woman whose husband had got into trouble with the police +in Italy--for swindling, I think he said. She had to clear out and +disappeared. Years afterward he found that she had run into the arms of +a respectable, God-fearing family; the natural prey of cheats because +years before their little daughter had been kidnapped or lost and never +found. They cry out at this young woman's resemblance to the child; the +young woman puts two and two together into a story which deceives those +who wish to be deceived, and settles down to be taken care of for the +rest of her life. It must have been any port in a storm, for I didn't +gather her adopted family had money. Spent all they had in looking for +her when she was a baby, as I understood. To Signor Gabrielli the cream +of the jest was that this girl was being petted and cherished and +labored for by industrious people who would have perished of horror if +they had known who she was, and who had not one drop of their blood in +her veins.--I may not have got the incidents at all straight, but that's +the idea." + +"But you've changed the relationship--?" + +"Oh, yes. I've cut down the family to a daughter and, as you see, I've +reversed the parts--in my story it is the daughter who is deceived; it +is the supposed mother who settles down upon the devoted innocence and +labor of a generous girl." + +"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Put it all on the mother! +Nowadays, everything's sure to be her fault!" + +Christina gave her mother her hand, much as she might have given her a +cup of tea and said, "Well, but that is only where your novel begins?" + +"Yes. I thought the interesting part was all to come. I thought I should +be justified in supposing my reformed lady to go back to her old habits, +perhaps through the mere claim of genuine ties,--old friendships, real +relationships--to be caught in some serious crime, involve those friends +and, finally, without in the least intending it, draw her daughter and +her daughter's lover into her quicksand--of course, by means of their +efforts to pull her out! And then to see what happened!" + +"When the daughter finds out," Wheeler cogitated, "that should be a +strong scene, a very strong scene.--What made you think of reversing the +characters?--less trite?" + +"Simply, I could handle it this way and not the other. When I had the +cheat a young woman, she was very strenuous--I couldn't keep her from +being the most lurid of common adventuresses. And I had a theory that +people are never like that to themselves. Well, as soon as I substituted +a rather passee woman she became much quieter--just a feeble, worthless, +selfish person a good deal battered by life, and wanting nothing but +comfort--trying to get it in the easiest way. I wanted so much to give +the commonplace quality of crime, of what a simple, sensible, ordinary +piece of business it seems to the person engaged in it--at any rate +until it's found out, and he begins to be reacted on by fear and other +people's minds. Ah, if I can only give these people their own point of +view, and make one thing after another seem quite ordinary and human, +just the necessary thing to do! Until they begin to lose their heads +when one gate and then another closes and, finding themselves cornered, +they fight like rats in a trap! The good as well as the bad, in one +panic degradation of despair! I heard a figure of crime the other day +which I should like to carry out. I should like to start with the +smallest blemish on the outside of the clean, rosy apple of respectable +society, 'the little, pitted speck in garnered fruit, which, rotting +inward' lets you, by following it, down and down, from one layer of +human living to another, at last hold a whole sphere of crime, +collapsed, crumbling and wide open, in your hand. Then I've got to save +Evadne in the end, without the effect of dragging her through a +trap-door!" + +"Well, if you made it into a play," Wheeler persisted, "would the mother +or the daughter be the star-part?" + +"I could play both!" Christina cried. + +Wheeler laughed aloud. "You are too good to be true!" + +"Well, but why not? Why not a dual role? Even if the relationship were +false, the resemblance would have to be real--it's the backbone of the +story! Mother and I look a good deal alike, but I've seen chance +resemblances incomparably stronger!" + +She went on eagerly and Herrick was surprised to see that it was not she +alone but Wheeler who took the idea of dramatization seriously. It was +his first real gage of what was expected of Christina as an +actress--that in a year or two she would be starring on her own account. +She was not only Wheeler's leading-woman, she was his find, his +speculation; he meant to be her manager and Christina meant that he +should, too. Again Ingham's death seemed to be dragging Herrick into the +path of success. + +Then his attention was caught by Wheeler's saying, "Well, we must all be +as criminal as we can, while we can. Once P. L. B. C. Ten Euyck gets to +be a police inspector there will be no more crime. The word will be +blotted from the vocabulary of New York." + +"That man!" Mrs. Hope cried. + +"Well, all these recent scandals in the Department are making them +remove Simmonds; they want somebody beyond the reach of graft; and Ten +Euyck has resigned his coronership. What does that look like to you? + +"It will be nuts to watch," Wheeler went on. "The force, down in his +district, will be shaken up till its teeth rattle. Ten Euyck won't rest +contented till he has stopped mice from stealing scraps of cheese! But +my leading-woman must be civil to him, now, or he's the sort of fellow +to get my license revoked. Nobody's ever run up against his +self-righteousness and got away with it, yet. Poor chap, he'd be mighty +able if he weren't crazy! I believe I could do a Valjean if I could +engage him as Javert!" + +"Don't let us speak forever of that bilious person! Why do you distract +a poor girl from her work? Come," cried she to Wheeler, "are we going to +do our scene?" + +She drove her rather reluctant star to action.--"Young miss!" he said, +"it is not every ageing favorite who would take a girl on the word of a +mutual friend, give her a better part than his own, push her over his +own head, and coach her in private into the bargain!" He put his big +hand on Christina's shoulder. "But she's worth it!" he said. "A scene +with her is a tonic to me--I did not know the old man had so much blood +in him! Sally, the poor working-girl, what are you going to do to the +critics, that still sleep unconscious? 'Ha--ha! Wait till Monday week!' +or whenever we open! + + "'They'll be all gangin' East an' West, + They'll be all gane a-glee! + They'll be all gangin' East an' West, + Courtin' Molly Lee!' + +"Mr. Herrick, as you come up Broadway, you don't see her name on the +bills! But they might as well be printing the paper!--for the younger +generation is knocking at the door. Ah, Christina, my dear, thou art thy +Wheeler's glass, and he in thee calls back the lovely April of his +prime!" His indulgent sardonic glance caught Christina's and the flaming +sword of hers drove him to work. They left behind them such a vivid +sense of Herrick's having written his play and their having taken it, +that he might have thought it a scene of his they were working on. + +From the room where they were immured strange sounds occasionally +escaped; sometimes Wheeler laughed and sometimes he swore furiously. +"She'll get everything that he knows out of him!" said Mrs. Hope with +great satisfaction. + +Herrick discovered this, in no ignoble sense, to be the keynote of +Christina's life. It was borne in upon him with every hour that her +work in the theater was the essence of her; that no matter where nor how +utterly she should consciously give her heart the unconscious course of +her nature would still flow through the field of dramatic endeavor. He +might admire or condemn this, like it or leave it; but the jealous +humility of his love must recognize it. + +She seemed largely to have recovered from the terrors that had enveloped +her upon Ingham's death. If for Nancy Cornish she had lain down to die, +for her opening night she had got up again. And she was ready to bend +the whole world to that night's service. Herrick saw that she had always +been so. + +It became a thrilling amusement to him to watch her at work; to see how +vividly she perceived, how unscrupulously she absorbed! In the +vocabulary of her profession, everything was so much "experience." All +her life long she had sucked out of every creature that came near her +some sort of artistic sustenance; learning from the jests of her own +heart and its despair; out of the shop windows and the night sky. At an +age when other girls were being chaperoned to dancing-parties she had +worked,--she with her soft cheek and slight strength and shy eye,--"like +a miner buried in a landslide"; she was mistress of her body's every +curve, of her voice's every note; she had read widely and with +passionate intelligence; as soon as she had begun to make money, she had +poured it into her accomplishments; she was a diligent student of +passing manners and historic modes, and of each human specimen through +which she did not hesitate to run her pin. + +For instance, what use had she not made of the Deutches? From Henrietta +Deutch she had learned German and a not inconsiderable amount of music; +they had a venerated library of standard works that contained a few +modern continentals in the original; she developed her school-girl +French by reading the Parisians under Mrs. Deutch's supervision and in +Italian she surpassed her; while all the time she learned just enough +knitting to know how people feel when they knit, and just what the +sensation is of stirring sugar into the preserves. She liked to go to +their apartment of an evening and, once, when Mrs. Hope sent Herrick +after her, he found her sitting on the floor with her hair down and her +head against Mrs. Deutch's black silk knee while that lady crooned +German lullabies to the baby she had never borne, and "Herr Hermy" +played the pianola. As soon as she had twisted up her hair, she put on a +long apron and got supper and waited on them all with the charming +daughterly ways which lent her such a tender girlishness; and Herrick +perceived that when a part required her to move about a kitchen she +would be able to welcome the kitchen as an old friend. She could +reproduce Deutch's accent, his whole personal equation, with inhuman +exactness, even his tremors at the inquest, his inarticulate stammer--as +of a mental dumbness, groping for words--that overtook him in moments of +extreme excitement, she had caught in her net; she had learned from him +some jokes and stories, some student songs, which would have astonished +the many delicate tea-tables at which she shyly cast down her thieving +eyes to observe exactly what service was in vogue; she did not hesitate +to stir him up to dreadful stories of old racial hates and though +Herrick saw her eyes darken and her nostrils expand he knew that she was +drawing thoroughly into her system the dark passion of retaliation with +which she would some day scorch an astonished audience. "If ever I get a +queen to do--oh, one of the virtuous queens, of course," she said, "I +shall have to fall back on Tante Deutch." And Herrick saw how right she +was; how all along she had modeled her grand moments--and Christina, +though so fond of describing herself as a poor working girl, had +occasional moments of extreme grandeur--upon that simple, domestic +stateliness which was really the stateliness of a great lady. + +On the other hand when she was out with her mother she modeled +herself--except for a stray vagary of speech--upon Mrs. Hope's excellent +idea of a-young-lady-out-with-her-mother-a-la-mode; and she was by no +means insensible to the glories of the smart world, nor to the luxuries +of the moneyed world. "I want them all," she confessed to Herrick as +they walked up Fifth Avenue from rehearsal. "I covet them; I long to own +them, and I dare swear I should never be owned by them. I'm infinitely +more fit than those that have them, and thank heaven I've stood out here +when I was cold and wet and _oh!_ how hopeless, and felt in me the +anarchist and his bomb. I was never made to smile on conquerors. One +man, from these great houses, once taught me how to hate them! How I +should like to do a Judith! How I should like to _tame_ all this!" She +looked, with a bitterer gaze than he had ever seen in her, down the +incomparable pomp of the great street. Then more lightly, with a curving +lip, "My Deutches, I believe," she said, "are supposed to belong to the +moneyed camp. But it is borne in upon me, every now and then, that our +own race has occasionally put by a dollar or two." + +She moved in such an atmosphere of luxury that it was difficult to +imagine her what she plainly called "hard up." But it will be seen that +they were now continually together and there was something about her +which made it possible to offer her the simplest and the cheapest +pleasures. In her rare hours of freedom he had the fabulous happiness of +taking her where he had often taken Evadne in that old empty time; to +Coney Island, to strange Bowery haunts, to the wharves where the boys +dive, and even to his table d'hote in the back yard. She had a zest, a +fresh-hearted pleasure in everything and her sense of characterization +fed upon queer colors and odd flavors just as he had known it would. He +was so sorry that the little Yankee woman was absent from his table +d'hote, particularly as he had recently had a specimen of her which he +longed to hear Christina reproduce. She had a little sewing-table behind +her desk at which she sat playing solitaire with a grim precision which +made Herrick think of the French Revolution and the knitting women; but +as she had then been absent from the restaurant for some time he +ventured a "Buon giorno" as he passed. + +She instantly replied, "You needn't talk that Dago talk to me. I just +took my daughter's paul-parrot away from here, case 't 'ed get so it +couldn't talk real talk." + +"That's what I call a good firm prejudice!" Herrick laughed to himself, +and he continued to hope for some such specimen, or at least for Mr. +Gumama, when he should bring Christina again. + +But as the opening drew near, she began to limit her interests and to +exclude from her vision everything which could interfere with the part +in hand. It sometimes seemed to him, indeed, as if even her new calm +about Nancy were only because Nancy--yes, and the threatening Arm of +Justice,--were among these conscious, these voluntary exclusions. It was +almost as though, over the very body of Ingham's death, she had thrown +her part's rosy skirts and shut it out of sight. Beneath her innumerable +moods one seemed permanent, strangely compounded of languor and +excitement. By-and-by, she seemed to dwell within it, veiled, and +Herrick knew that only her part was there behind the veil with her. + +It was Mrs. Hope who could least endure this sleepwalking abstraction. +There came an evening when some people whom Mrs. Hope considered of +importance were asked to dinner. Christina improved this occasion by +having her own dinner served upstairs, so that she would not be too +tired to rehearse that night with Wheeler. And to Herrick Mrs. Hope +reported this behavior, biting her lips. "She's the most self-willed +person living! I declare to you, Mr. Herrick, she has the cruelest +tricks in the world. The best friend that any girl ever had said once +that, if acting were in question, she would grind his bones to make its +bread!" + +Later, Herrick said jealously to the girl, "Who _was_ the best friend +you ever had?" + +Her head happened to be turned from him and it seemed to him a long time +before she spoke. Even then her indifference was so great she almost +yawned as "Who has told you of him?" she asked. + +"Both Deutch and your mother called some old actor that." + +"They meant a dear fellow who put me in the moving-picture business, +bless him, when I hadn't enough to eat!" + +"And where's he now?" + +"I dare say he's very well off. He taught me poise. He taught me +independence, too. That's enough for one man. He had a singular way of +turning his eyes, without turning his head. I learned that, too." + +Was it true, then--what had been hinted to him often enough--that once +she had plucked out the heart of your mystery, the heart of the human +being she forgot all about? She might be of as various moods as she +would, she was very single-minded, and was all she valued in her friends +some personal mannerism?--any peculiar impression of which she might +master the physical mechanism and reproduce it? A trait like this +naturally made Herrick take anxious stock of his own position. What +personal peculiarity of his was she studying? But it was nevertheless in +such a trait that the staunchness of his love found its true food. He +found his faith digested such things capitally; his passion at once +nourished and clarified itself by every human failing, by all the little +nerves and little ways of his darling divinity, until it ceased to be +merely the bleeding heart of a valentine and found within itself the +solid, articulated bones of mortal life. If, in return, there was the +least thing she could learn of him, let her, in heaven's name, learn it! +Only, how long before she would have finished with it? + +In the blessed meantime she scarcely stirred without him. With a freedom +unthinkable in girls of his own world, she let him take her to lunch +every day; unlike a proper heroine of romance, Christina required at +this time a great deal of food and he waited for her after rehearsal and +took her to tea. It was a mercy that he was now doing a series of Famous +Crimes in Manhattan, for the Record, as he certainly did not wish to put +her on a diet of Italian table d'hotes! She accepted all this quite as a +matter of course; and it had become a matter of course that he should go +home with her for dinner. Sometimes they walked up through the Park, +sometimes they took a taxi and drove to shops or dressmakers; she did +not scruple, when she was tired or wanted air, to drive home with her +hat off and her eyes shut. It seemed to the poor fellow that she had +accepted him like the weather. + +For she had become strangely quiet in his presence. Eventually she +ceased to use upon him any conscious witchery whatever; something had +spiked all her guns, and Herrick was too much in love to presume that +this quiet meant anything except that he did not irritate her. Every now +and again, it is true, he was breathlessly aware of something that +brooded, touchingly humble and anxious and tender, in a tone, in a +glance. He feared that this anxiety, this tenderness, was only that +royal kindness with which, for instance, when Joe Patrick gave up his +elevator, hating that haunted job, she at once got him taken on as usher +at the theater. But Herrick dared not translate her expression, when, +looking up suddenly, he would find her eyes swimming in a kind of happy +light and fastened on his face. At such moments a flush would run +through him; there would fall between them a painful, an exquisite +consciousness. And, with the passing of the wave, she would seem to him +extraordinarily young. + +He considered it a bad sign that seldom or never did she introduce him +to any of her mates. Public as was their companionship, she kept him +wholly to herself. This was particularly noticeable in the restaurants +where she would go to strange shifts to keep actors from dallying at her +table; she would forestall their advances by paying visits to theirs, +leaving Herrick to make what he liked of it; and, do what he would, the +poor fellow could find no flattering reason for this. Already he knew +Christina too well to have any hope that it was the actors who were not +good enough. + +They were to her, in the most drastic and least sentimental sense, her +family. She quarreled with them; often enough she abused and mimicked +them; at the memory of bad acting scorn and disdain rode sparkling in +her eye, and if her vast friendliness was lighted by passionate +enthusiasms, it was capable, too, of the very sickness of contempt. But +this was in private and among themselves; there was not the least nor +the worst of them whom she would not have championed against the world. +Quite apart from goodness or badness of art, Christina conceived of but +two classes of human beings, artists and not artists; as who should say +"Brethren"; "Cattle." Herrick congratulated himself that he could be +scooped in under at least the title of "Writer." It was not so good as +"Actor," but 't was enough, 't would serve. All her sense of kin, of +race, of patriotism, and--once you came to good acting--of religion, was +centered in her country of the stage. Herrick had never seen any one so +class conscious. With those whom she called "outsiders," she adopted the +course most calculated, as a matter of fact, to make her the rage; she +refused to know them. And when, for the sake of some day reproducing +high life upon the boards, she brought herself to dine out, this little +protegee of the Deutches had always said to herself, with Arnold +Bennett's hero, "World, I condescend." + +Such an affair took place on the Monday before Christina's opening. Some +friends of the Inghams made a reception for her; and Herrick saw a dress +arrive that was plainly meant for conquest. Now Herrick considered that +this reception had played him a mean trick. He had a right to! He who +had recently been a desperado with sixpence was soon to be an associate +editor of _Ingham's Weekly_!--While he was still dizzy with this +knowledge a friend on the _Record_ had pointed out a suite in an old +fashioned downtown mansion, which had been turned into bachelor +lodgings: a friend of the friend wished to sub-let these rooms +furnished, and Herrick had extravagantly taken them. A beautiful +Colonial fireplace had decided him. He remembered a mahogany tea-table +and some silver which Marion could be induced to part with, and it +seemed to him that he could not too quickly bring about the hour when +Christina, before that fireplace and at that tea-table, should pour tea +for whatever Thespians she might think him worthy to entertain. But it +had taken time for the things to arrive; to-morrow she was going on the +road for the preliminary performances, and to-day was set for the +reception! He had, of course, kept silence. But it was heartbreaking to +see how perfect a day it was for tea and fires--one of those cool days +of earliest September. He kindled the flame; alas, it didn't matter! +Then, toward six he went uptown to hear about the party. + +He found Mrs. Hope, but not Christina, and the elder lady received him +almost with tears. "She is out driving, Mr. Herrick; she is out driving +about all by herself and she won't come home. She is in one of her +tantrums and all about Mr. Wheeler--a fine actor, of course, but why +bother?" + +Herrick had never seen the poor lady so ruffled. "It was such a +beautiful reception," she told him, "all the best people. She got there +late. She always does. You can't tell me, Mr. Herrick, that she doesn't +do it on purpose to make an entrance. All the time I was brushing her up +after the rehearsal she stood with her eyes shut, mumbling one line over +and over from her part. Nobody could be more devoted to her success than +I am, but it got on my nerves so I stuck her with a hairpin and I +thought she would have torn her hair down. 'What are these people to +me?' she said. 'Or I to them.' You know how she goes on, Mr. Herrick, as +if she were actually disreputable, instead of being really the best of +girls. Then, again, she's so exclusive it seems sometimes as if she +really couldn't associate with anybody, except the Deutches! She likes +well enough to fascinate people, all the same. She behaved beautifully +after she got there; and oh, Mr. Herrick, you can't imagine how +beautiful she looked! Surely, there never was anything so lovely as my +daughter!" + +"Can't I?" Herrick exclaimed. + +"Well, every one just lay down flat in front of her. Even Mr. Ten Euyck. +Yes, he was there. I trembled when they should meet. You know, he has +his inspectorship now. He wants to give her a lunch on board his yacht! +It was a triumph. Christina was very demure. But by-and-by I began to +feel a trifle uneasy. You know that soft, sad look she's got?--it's so +angelic it just _melts_ you--when she's really thinking how dull people +are! Well, there, I saw it beginning to come! And about then they had +got rid of all but the very smartest people, just the cream, you know, +for a little intimacy! We were all getting quite cozy, when some one +asked Christina how she could bear to play love-scenes with a man like +Wheeler--of course, Mr. Herrick, it _is_ annoying, but they will ask +things like that; they can't help it." + +"And Miss Hope?" + +"She looked up at them with the sugariest expression I ever saw and +asked them why, and they all began reminding her of the--well, you know! +And I must say, when you come to think of his--ah--affairs--! And they +talked about how dear Miss So-and-So had refused to act with him in +amateur theatricals, he said such rough things! And how lovely Christina +was, and how hard it was on her, and all the time I could see Christina +clouding up." + +Herrick, with his eyes on the rug, smilingly murmured, "Wave, Munich, +all thy banners wave! And charge, with all thy chivalry!" + +"Well, Mr. Herrick, she stood up and looked all round her with that +awful stormy lower she has, and then, in a voice like one of those +pursuing things in the Greek tragedies, 'I!' she said, 'I am not worthy +to kiss his feet!' Oh, Mr. Herrick, why should she mention them? There +are times when she certainly is not delicate!" + +Herrick burst out laughing. He thought Christina might at least have +exhibited some sense of humor. "And was the slaughter terrible?" + +"Why, Mr. Herrick, what could any one say? She looked as if she might +have hit them. She shook the crumbs off her skirt, as if they were the +party, and then she said good-by very sweetly, but coldly and sadly, +like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution, and left. Mr. Herrick, I +don't know where to hide my head!" + +Herrick stayed for some time to counsel and console, but Christina did +not return and as Mrs. Hope did not ask him to dinner he was at length +obliged to go. For all his amusement he felt a little snubbed and blue +and lonely; his eyes hungered for Christina in her finery; he saw her at +once as the darling and the executioner of society and he longed to +reassure himself with the favor of the spoiled beauty; how was he to +wait till to-morrow for the summons of his proud princess? As he opened +his door he saw that the fire had been kept up; some one kneeling +before it turned at his entrance and faced him. It was Christina. + +The shock of her presence was cruelly sweet. The firelight played over +her soft light gown; she had taken off her gloves and the ruddiness +gleamed on her arms and her long throat and on the sheen of her hair. As +she rose slowly to her feet that something at once ineffably luxurious +and ineffably spiritual which hung about her like the emanation of a +perfume stirred uneasily in him and his senses ached. Never had her +fairness hurt him like that; his passion rose into his throat and held +him dumb. + +"The man looked at me, hard," she told him, "and let me in. I came here +to rest. And because I didn't want to be scolded. Don't scold me. +Perhaps I've thrown away a world this afternoon. But no; it will roll +back to be picked up again. Listen, and tell me that I was right." + +Without stirring, "I can never tell you but the one thing," he said. "I +love you!" + +It was no sooner said than he loathed himself for speaking. He had not +dreamed that he should say such a thing. It was not yet a month since +her engagement to Ingham had been broken; she was a young girl; she was +here alone with him in his rooms, to which she had paid him the perfect +honor of coming--she, who had accepted him so simply, so nobly, as a +gentleman. Hot shame and black despair seized upon him. + +The girl stood quiet as if controlling herself. Then, so gently that she +was almost inaudible, she said, "I must go!" + +He could not answer her; he was aware of the ripple and murmur of her +dress as she fetched her wraps; she put on her hat and the lace of her +sleeves foamed back from her arms in the ruddy light; he felt how soon +she would be engulfed by that world which was already rolling back to be +picked up. He stepped forward to help her with her thin chiffon coat and +she suffered this, gently, passively; as it slipped over her shoulders +he felt her turn; he felt her arms come around his neck, clinging to +him, and the sweetness of her body on his breast. In that firelit room +her lips were cold, as they stumbled on his throat with the low cry, +"Oh, you love me!--You love me!" she repeated. "And you're a man! Save +me!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING + + +"Don't let them take me!" Christina entreated. "Don't let them lock me +up! That door--! Turn the key!" + +Without demur he turned it. He was in that commotion of bewildered +feeling where one shock after another deliciously and terribly strikes +upon the heart, and anything seems possible. From the trembling girl his +pulses took a myriad alarms; apprehension of he knew not what ran riot +in them and credited the suggestions of her terror; but all the while +his blood rushed through him, warm and singing, and his heart glowed. +She was here, with him! She had fled here and clung to him for defense! +She loved him! In no dream, now, did she lie back there, in the deep +chair beside his fire, with her hand clasping his eagerly as he knelt +and her shoulder leaning against his. It was keener than any dream; it +was that fullness of life, which, even at Herrick's age, we have mostly +ceased to expect. + +"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it--I +know! They've been following me from the beginning!" + +[Illustration: "There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. +"Don't deny it--I know!"] + +"But why, dearest, why?" + +"Because they think I killed Jim Ingham." + +"Christina! Why should they think such a thing?" + +"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?" + +She put her finger on his lips to still his cry of protest, and, looking +down into his face, her own eyes slowly filled with that brooding of +maternal tenderness which seemed to search him through and through. For +a moment he thought that her eyes brimmed, that her lips trembled with +some communication. But, without speaking, she ran her hand along his +arm and a quiver passed through her; taking his face in her two hands +she bent and kissed his mouth. In that kiss they plighted a deeper troth +than in ten thousand promises. And, creeping close into his breast with +a shuddering sigh, she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, Bryce, you won't +let them take me away? I can stand anything but being locked up--I +couldn't bear that--I couldn't! What can I do?" + +"My dearest, no one in the world can harm you!" + +"I came here to be safe, where I could touch you. Let me rest here a +little, and feel your heart close to me. Oh, my love, I'm so frightened! +I thought I was strong! I thought I was brave and could go through with +it! But I can't! I'm tired--to death! All through my soul, I'm cold. +It's only here I can get warm!" + +"Christina," he asked her, "go through with what?" + +She stirred in his arms and drew back. "Look first--ah, carefully!--from +the window. What do you see?" + +"Nothing but ordinary people passing. And the usual number of waiting +taxis." + +"Well, in the nearest of those taxis is a detective. He has been +following me all the afternoon. He is sitting there waiting for me to +come out." + +Herrick carried her hand to his lips. "Christina, don't think me a +cursed schoolmaster. But it's imagination, dear. You've driven yourself +wild with all this worry and excitement. Why, believe me, they're not so +clumsy! If they were following you, you wouldn't know it." + +"I tell you I've known it for at least two weeks! I'm an actress, and +if, as they say, we've no intelligence, only instincts, well then, our +instincts are extraordinarily developed. And mine tells me that, over +my shoulder, there is a shadow creeping, creeping, looming on my path." + +A series of sounds burst on the air. Herrick went to the window. "There, +my sweet, the taxi's gone." + +"Did no one get out?" + +"No one." + +He had snatched up her hand again and he felt her relax. + +"Well, I ought to be used to shadows; all my girlhood there has been a +shadow near me. Bryce, when I was really a child, something happened. +Something that changed my whole heart--oh, you shall know before you +marry me! I shall find a way to tell you!--It made me a rebel and a +cynic; it made me wish to have nothing to do with the rules men make; I +had to find my own morality. Only, when I saw you, I felt such a +strength and freshness, like sunny places. Bryce!" + +"Yes." + +"My feeling for Jim was dead a year ago. Do you believe that?" + +"Oh, my darling! Why--" + +"Because I won't have you think me shameless! Nor that an accident, like +death, turned my light love to you! I was just twenty when he first +asked me to marry him; I was so mad about him that my head swam. And yet +it wasn't love. It was only infatuation and I knew it. I was still young +enough for him to be a sort of prince--all elegance and the great world. +The last two have been my big years, Bryce. I was rather a poor little +girl till then. Even so, I held him off ten months. I felt that there +was a curse on it and that it could never, never be! What did I know of +men or that great world--well, God knows he taught me! When I did +consent to our engagement the fire was already dying. But by that time +the idea of him had grown into me. He had always a great influence over +me, Bryce, and he could trouble and excite me long after he had +broken my dream. Oh, my dear, it was one long quarrel. It was a year's +struggle for my freedom! Well, I got my release. I didn't wait for +fate." She paused. And then with a low gasp, "All my life I've stood +quite alone. I have been hard. I have been independent. I have been +brave--oh, yes, I can say it; I have been brave!--but I've broken down. +Only, if you will let me keep hold of you, I shall get courage." + +"Christina!" + +"Do you know how big you are? Or what a clear look your eyes have got? +There in that coroner's office--oh, heavens,--among those +_stones_!--Bryce, he was there this afternoon! that man!" + +"Ten Euyck? Yes, I know." + +"Do you know what he means to do as Police Inspector? He means to run me +down! Wait--you've never known. I've kept so still--I didn't want to +think of it. Four years ago he payed for the production of a play of +his, by a stock company I was with. Oh, my dear, that play! It gave us +all quite a chill! He wanted his Mark Antony played like a young +gentleman arranging the marriage-settlements. But he took the rehearsals +so hard, he nearly killed us." She hesitated. "He was very kind to me. +He was too kind. One night, he met me as I was coming out of the +theater, and--forgot himself. One of the boys in the company, who was +right behind me, slapped him in the face! Do you mean to tell me that he +has ever forgotten that? At the inquest he thought he had me down, and +the laugh turned against him! Is he the man to forget that?" + +"But what can he do?" + +"How I detested him!" Christina hurried on. "He taught me, in that one +minute, when I was eighteen, how men feel about girls who aren't in +their class! Just because I was on the stage, he took it for granted +I--Well, he, too, learned something! Since then I've heard about him. +He isn't a hypocrite, he's an egoist. I wonder, were some of the +Puritans really like that? He's so very proper, and so particular not to +entangle himself with respectable women! But with women he calls bad he +doesn't mind--because for him bad women don't count, they don't exist! +Oh, dear God, how I despise a man who feels like that! How I love you, +who never, never could! Does he really know, I wonder, that sometimes +it's the coldest of heart who can be made to turn his ships at +Actium?--'What can he do?' He can hope I'm guilty! And he can use all +the machinery of his office to prove me so!" + +"Why, look here, dearest, if he's never revenged himself on the man who +struck him--" + +Christina gave a shrill little cry. "But, now he has his chance with me! +His great spectacular chance! Oh, Bryce, I'm afraid of him, and I was +never afraid before!--Dearest dear, I know you can't do anything! But +the girl's in love with you, poor thing, and she feels as if you can! +I've wanted you--oh, how I've wanted you!--all my life. I've known the +dearest fellows in the world, the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were too much like poor Christina; fidgety things, +nervous and on edge. 'You take me where the good winds blow and the +eternal meadows are!'--What are you doing?" + +He had bowed down to kiss her wrist and he replied, "I'm thanking God I +look like a farmer!" + +"My poor boy!" cried Christina, breaking her tears with little laughs, +"I've got your cheek all wet! Bryce dear, we're engaged, aren't we? You +haven't said.--Bryce!" + +He slipped back onto the floor, with his head in her lap and her two +hands gathered in his one. They were both silent. The little fire was +going out and the room was almost dark. And in that happy depth of life +where she had led him he was at first unaware of any change. Then he +knew that the hands he held had become tense, that rigidity was +creeping over her whole body, and looking up, he could just make out +through the dusk, the alert head, the parted lips of one who is waiting +for a sound. "Bryce," she said, "you were mistaken. That detective has +not gone!" + +"What do you hear?" + +"I don't hear. I simply know." Their senses strained into the silence. +"If he went away, it was only to bring some one back. He went to get Ten +Euyck!" + +"Christina! Tell me what you're really afraid of!" + +"Oh! Oh!" she breathed. + +"Christina, what was it you couldn't go through with?" + +"Death!" she said. "Not that way! I can't!" She rocked herself softly to +and fro. "If I could die now!" she whispered. + +"You shan't die. And you shan't go crazy, either. You're driving +yourself mad, keeping silence." He drew her to her feet, and she stood, +shaking, in his arms. "Christina, what's your trouble?" + +"Nancy,--that murder--my opening--my danger--aren't they enough?" + +"For everything but your conviction that it is you who are pursued, and +you who will be punished. Some horrible accident, dear heart, has shown +you something, which you must tell. Tell it to me, and we will find that +it is nothing." + +"Bryce," she said, "they're coming. It's our last time together. Don't +let's spend it like this." + +"Did you--" he asked her so tenderly that it sounded like a caress, "did +you, in some terrible emergency, in some defense, dear, of yourself, +Christina--did you fire that shot?" + +Her head swung back; she did not answer. + +"My darling, if you did we must just take counsel whether to fight or to +run. Don't be afraid. The world's before us. Christina, did you?" + +"No, no, no!" she whispered. "I did not!" She felt his quiver of relief, +and her nervous hands closed on his sleeve. "Oh, if you only knew. There +is a thing I long to tell you! But not that! Oh, if I could trust you!" + +"Can't you?" + +"I mean--trust you to see things as I do! To do only what I ask! What I +chose--not what was best for me! Suppose that some one whom--Bryce?" + +"Yes?" + +"If any one should hear--" + +"There is no one to hear." + +"You can't tell where they are." + +"Christina, can't you see that we're alone here? That the door's locked? +That you're safe in my arms? The cab went away. No one followed you. No +one even knows where I live; my dear, dear love, we're all alone--" + +The door-bell sounded through the house. + +He thought the girl would have fallen and his own heart leaped in his +side. "Darling, it's nothing. It's for some one else." + +"It's for me." + +"That's impossible." + +There was a knock on the door. + +Herrick called--"Who's there?" + +"It's a card, sir." + +"A card?" + +"A gentleman's card, sir. He's down in the hall." + +"I can't see any one at present." + +"It's not for you, sir; it's for the young lady." + +"Did you tell him there was a lady here?" + +"He knew it himself, sir." + +"Well, she came in here because she felt ill; I'm just taking her home. +She can't be bothered." + +"He said it was very important, sir. Something she's to do to-morrow," +he said. + +"Christina! It's only some one about your going away." + +"No. It's the end. Take the card." + +Springing on the light, he took the card to reassure her. She motioned +him to read it. And he read aloud the words "Mr. Ten Euyck." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL + + +Christina took the card from him, and seemed to put him to one side. +Almost inaudibly she said, "I will go down." + +Before Herrick could prevent her, a voice from just outside the door +replied, "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Hope. May I come in?" Ten Euyck, +hat in hand, appeared in the doorway. + +He looked from one to the other, noting Christina's tear-stained face, +with a civil, sour smile. "I am sorry if I intrude. I had no idea Mr. +Herrick was to be my host. The truth is, Miss Hope, I followed you and +have been waiting for you, in the hope of making peace--where it was +once my unhappy fortune to make war." + +Christina said, "You followed me!" + +"But I shouldn't have yielded to that impulse so far as to--well, break +into Mr. Herrick's apartment, if I had not become, in the meanwhile, +simply the messenger of--a higher power." Ten Euyck tried to say the +last phrase like a jest, but it stuck in his throat. He moved out of the +doorway, and there stepped past him into the room the man whom Herrick +had seen at the Pilgrims'. "Miss Hope, Mr. Herrick," Ten Euyck said, +"Mr. Kane; our District Attorney." + +Kane nodded quickly to each of them. "Miss Hope," he said, "I don't +often play postman; but when I met our friend Ten Euyck outside and he +told me you were here, the opportunity was too good to lose." He took a +letter out of his pocket, watching her with shrewd and smiling eyes. +"We've been tampering with your mail. Allow me." + +Christina took the letter wonderingly, but at its heading her face +contemptuously brightened. "I can hardly see," she said, passing it to +Herrick. "Read it, will you?--He would have to know anyhow," she said +sweetly to the two officials. "We are just engaged to be married. You +must congratulate us." + +Herrick, never very eloquent, was stricken dumb. "Sit down, won't you?" +was as much as he could ask his guests. The letter ran-- + + +"The Arm of Justice suggests to Miss Christina Hope that she exert her +well-known powers of fascination to persuade the Ingham family into +paying the Arm of Justice its ten thousand dollars. Miss Hope need not +work for nothing, nor even in order to avert an accusation against which +she doubtless feels secure. But the Arm of Justice has in its possession +a secret which Miss Hope would give much to know. She may learn what +that secret is, and how it may be negotiated if she will hang this white +ribbon out of the window wherever she may be dining on Monday. She will +receive a communication at once." + + +"Exactly!" said Kane, as though in triumph. "For such swells as the Arms +of Justice it's about dinner-time now. Would you oblige me, Miss Hope, +by tying the ribbon out of the window? Show yourself as clearly as +possible. All the lights, please." + +As Christina stepped to the window, he added, "I'm trusting they didn't +recognize us as we came in. It's pretty dark." + +They waited. The three men were strung to a high degree of expectation. + +"But it's all so silly!" Christina said. The call of the telephone +shrilled through the room. + +"Miss Hope?" Herrick asked. "Yes, she's here." + +Then they heard Christina answering, "Yes, yes, it's Miss Hope. I hear. +I understand. I'll be there." She hung up the receiver and turned round. +"The Park. To-morrow. At ten in the morning. The bench under the +squirrel's house at the top of the hill beyond the Hundred-and-tenth +Street entrance. And be sure to come alone." She sat down, staring at +Kane. + +He said, "Excuse me!" and went to the 'phone. "Boy! Did that party ask +for Miss Hope in the first place? All right. That's queer. They asked +for Mr. Herrick's apartment." + +"They knew I was living here? Why, I only moved in this morning." + +"And they must know I'm going on the road to-morrow; the eleven-thirty +train!" + +"Exactly. They're well informed." Kane had been passing up and down; now +he stopped in front of Christina and again he seemed to measure her with +his keen eyes. "Well!" he said; "are you game for it?" + +Christina sprang up and stood before him, glowing. + +"You'll keep this appointment?" + +"Surely! And alone!" + +"Not by a long shot! Your mother and Mr. Ingham have feared exactly some +such escapade; that's why you've had to be shadowed all this while and +not advised of the activities of the police. There will be plenty of +plain clothes men, well planted. But not you, Mr. Herrick, whom they +would know. If you attempt to smuggle yourself in, we'll have to put you +in irons. Well, Miss Hope?" + +"My mother," said Christina, rising, and faintly smiling, "deserves to +have her hair turn as white as I'm sure it has by this time." She held +out her hand. "You gave me a great fright," she said. "Did you know it? +I thought you had all come to execute me. Don't! I'm not worth it!" + +The admiration which no man could withhold from her for very long +colored Kane's studying face and warmed his handshake. "I can count on +your not losing your head, I think. You'll be there?" + +"I'll be there.--But have these people really any secret? Are they +really going to tell me something?" + +"Well, my dear young lady, we'll know that to-morrow." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY + + +The week in which Christina was to open in "The Victors" was one of +those which call down the curses of dramatic critics by producing a new +play each night. Thursday was to see the opening of openings; there were +but two nights on the road and Mrs. Hope and Herrick were to live +through these as best they might in a metropolis that was once more a +desert. + +After that momentous interview of Monday evening Christina would not let +Herrick drive home with her. "Come to the station in the morning, and +hear what has happened. Lunch with me on Thursday. But don't let me see +you alone again till Friday noon, when--" she laughed--"when I've read +my notices. Let your poor Christina tell you her trouble then. Till then +she has trouble enough!" She put her face up with a kind of humble +frankness, to be kissed. And he saw that it was a weary face, indeed. + +Throughout the night his anxiety concerning the next day's meeting with +the blackmailers contended in him with that other anxiety: what she was +to tell him on Friday--when she had read her notices! Whatever it was, +it was not for his passion that he feared. There were even times when he +could almost have wished it were not some distorted molehill that the +girl's excitable broodings had swollen past all proportion, but some +test of his strength, some plumbing of his tenderness. And then again he +would be aware of a cold air crawling over his heart, of that horrible +sinking of the stomach with which, walking in the dark, we feel that we +are taking a step into space. A black wall, ominous, menacing and very +near, would loom upon him and blind him from the wholesome and habitable +world. The daylight reinforced his faith in simpler probabilities. It +washed away all but the sweetly humble arrogance of the one fact which +all night long had shot in glory through his veins and built itself into +the foundations of his life. With the day he remembered only that she +loved him. + +He hung about the outskirts of One Hundred-and-tenth Street till he saw +her enter the Park and till he saw her leave it--safe, but with an +exceedingly clouded brow. + +"They didn't come, of course!" she said to him at the station. "They +very naturally refused to swim into a net. Mr. Kane is a great dear, but +I wish he would mind his own business! Mother, speak to Bryce." She took +leave of them both with a serenely fond indifference to public +conjecture and the train bore her away. + +Mrs. Hope may habitually have endeavored to clutch at the life-lines of +her own world even while she was being submerged in the billows of +Christina's but she was not mercenary and she accepted Herrick with an +evident thankfulness that he was no worse. When he had taken her home, +he found himself at a loss as to what to do with his life. Christina had +become so wholly his occupation that to lose her even for a few days was +to lose the bottom out of the world. Although the morning was still +swathed in yesterday's fog, the sun was struggling, the damp air was +very warm, and his steps turned toward the Park. But he did not follow +the paths which he and Christina had trod homeward from rehearsals; +instinctively, he turned north. Then he smiled to see that he was once +more making for the Hundred-and-tenth Street entrance. + +Yes, here was the last spot which had held her, and, as he looked about +him, his heart stirred to think of her here. They should come here +together, he and she. The place was a little wilderness; he could not +have believed that in that kempt and ordered domain there could be so +wild and sweet a grace of nature and charmed loneliness. The hill was +high and thinly wooded; finely veiled in the mist and the faint sunshine +it was the very spot for the dryad length and lightness of Christina's +movements. At the same time, so close to the city's hum, there seemed +something magic, something ominous and waiting in the utter, perfect +stillness, and the little clearing at the top of the hill somehow, +whether by its broken boulders or the columnar straightness of a +semicircle of trees, suggested a Druid clearing. Those who wished to +make a sacrifice here would be very strangely unmolested. High and low +and far away there was no human figure, and a cry might perish long +before it traveled those misty distances. Herrick thought, "If she had +come alone!" and shuddered. + +But there was the little squirrel house; there the bench where she had +waited; and at its base he smiled to see the scattered nuts which +Christina, with her variegated interests, had not failed to bring her +furry hosts. A lassitude of loneliness came over him; he was still not +wholly recovered from his accident of three weeks before and with a +weary yielding to stiffness and weakness he dropped down on the bench. +Then he saw that along one of its slats some one had recently penciled a +line, and he recognized Christina's hand. "I will come again for three +days running, after Thursday. At the same hour. And I will come +_alone_." + +He was startled, but he smiled. It was so like her! Looking up, he saw +behind him a man sweeping leaves in the distance, and, far down the +hill, there appeared a loafer with a newspaper. The charm was broken. +Good heavens, where were people starting from! He could perceive, now, +to his left a man sleeping in the grass. Could any of these be the plain +clothes men, still lingering hopefully about? By George, they must be! +And Christina was right--they were too obvious a snare! Why, there was +a fourth, altogether too loutishly and innocently eating an apple as he +strayed on! + +Herrick looked down at Christina's message, wondering if the detectives +had seen it. Intrepid and obstinate darling, how resolute she was to +know all there was to be known! When he looked up again he saw that the +slumberer had wakened and was sitting up. The other three men were +approaching from their respective angles, nearer and nearer to the +bench. And then it occurred to him--did they take him for a blackmailer? + +It made him laugh and then somehow it vexed him; and he began to stir +the fallen leaves with a light stick he carried, restlessly. The men +came on, and it annoyed him to be surrounded like this, as by a pack of +wolves. He lifted his head impatiently, and was about to hail the +nearest man when a splash of sun fell full on that man's face. It was +the face of the chauffeur in the gray touring-car. + +He knew then that he was in a trap. Controlling his first impulse to +spring up and bring the struggle to an issue, he counted his chances. He +remembered how far and still was this deserted spot; his muscles were +very stiff, and he felt the slimness of the stick in his hand. He had no +other weapon. And there were four of those figures sauntering in upon +him through the silence and the pale, dreamy sunshine. He felt the high, +hot beating of his heart. The city lay so close at hand! He could still +feel on his mouth Christina's kiss! And the immense desire to live, and +all a man's fury against outrage, against this causeless and +inexplicable brute-hate, which already, in the city's very streets, had +dared to maim and tried to murder him, rose in him with a colder rage +and kept him quiet and expressionless. He rose; and striking the dust of +the bench from his clothes, he glanced about. Yes, the man behind him +was still advancing, sweeping leaves; down the hill before him the man +climbed upward, still mumbling over his newspaper; to his right the +apple-eater, chewing his last bite, tossed away the core as he came on; +the chauffeur alone disdained subterfuge, advancing quietly; he carried +in his hand some lengths of rope. Herrick believed that he had one +chance. This wooded isolation could not be so far-reaching as it seemed: +they would scarcely dare to fire a shot. + +Leisurely he idled a step or two down the slope toward the man with the +newspaper, till he was just outside the closing semicircle of the +others. Then, lowering his head, he shot swiftly forward. Immediately +there was a shrill whistle and the reader cast his newspaper away. It +was too late; Herrick's lowered head struck him in the diaphragm and +knocked him backwards. As he fell, Herrick leaped over him and turning, +caught the chauffeur a stinging blow across the eyes with his stick. The +stick broke; and Herrick, dropping to his knees, caught the ankle of the +next comer and threw him flat upon his face. The fourth man flung a +blackjack which, as Herrick rose up, caught him just below the right +elbow; the young fellow sprang up and, shouting now for help at the top +of his strong voice, he raced down the hill as if, once more, he were +bearing the ball to its last goal. + +For a moment he felt that he had snatched the victory, but his stiff +muscles played him false and his right arm hung as if paralyzed. His +shouts, too, were leaving him winded and the fourth man, now +considerably in advance of the others, was gaining on him at every step. +Suddenly Herrick mistook the shadow of a little bush for the shadow of a +fifth opponent; in his second's wavering the fourth man lunged at him, +missed him, and losing his own balance clutched the end of Herrick's +coat. They both went down together, getting and giving blows; and though +Herrick was up and off again in an instant, the breath was pretty well +knocked out of him. Violent pains were throbbing now through his arm; he +seemed to himself as heavy as lead; near the bottom of the hill the +fourth man was on him again; Herrick landed on the fellow's head with +his left, only to fall himself into the hands of the two whom he had +thrown at first and who now fell upon him with a zeal that all his +French boxing, which enabled him to land a kick in one jaw and a +horrible backheeled stroke into the ribs of the fellow who was trying to +wrap a coat round his head, scarcely availed to rid him of. He gathered +himself together for one shout that seemed to him to crack the +tree-trunks. But the game was up; without knowing it he was turning +faint from the pain in his arm, and then the men were all round him now; +barring his path and only holding off from him a little because the +chauffeur was running down hill toward them, aiming at Herrick, as he +came, the rope which he had tied into a noose. Herrick leaped to one +side, and clinging to the tactics which had served him best, dropped to +the ground and pulled the chauffeur down atop of him. They clenched like +that and went, rolling and struggling, down the hill; striking against +trees, kicking, clawing, blind with rage, till they were stopped by the +flat ground. It was Herrick who landed on his back and found himself +staring up at the revolver the chauffeur was drawing from his pocket. At +that moment there sounded a policeman's whistle. + +The man who had been running after them with the coat for Herrick's +head, dropped it and ran like mad. His companion's arm had been broken +by Herrick's kick, but this man and the fourth continued wildly +searching for something they had dropped on the hill. The chauffeur had +had to ease a little on Herrick in order to draw his gun; but when he +felt Herrick struggling onto his right side and even rolling himself on +top of his right arm, he quickly slid the barrel of the revolver into +his palm and lifted the butt-end. As he did so Herrick's left fist shot +up and dealt him a blow on the point of the chin. He fell back as if his +neck were broken; the pistol slipped out of his hand and Herrick caught +it just as the man with the broken arm dropped on his chest. The +policemen's whistles were sounding nearer and nearer; the man on +Herrick's chest kept him from aiming the pistol, but he discharged it in +the grass, shot after shot, five of them, to guide the police. "Let him +have it!" said the man on top of Herrick, but in an Italian phrase, to +the fourth man, who leaned over Herrick raising what the other had +dropped back there on the hill. It was the blackjack. Herrick could just +turn the pistol a little and point it upward from his side. He fired it +straight into the fourth man's face; and he was always glad, afterward, +that, like a sick girl, he had closed his eyes. The next man who bent +over him was a policeman. + +"Don't mind me," Herrick said, "get them! Get after them!" But that +automobile of theirs must have been waiting on the driveway near at +hand; for the man whom Herrick had shot dead was the only one they +caught. + +At first the body seemed to offer no clue; save a soiled and torn half +of a blank card on which had been uncouthly scribbled the number +1411--unless its being the body of a young Italian could be called a +clue. Herrick, who had, of course, accompanied it to the station under a +nominal arrest, turned sick with disappointment. At that moment the +lieutenant in charge emitted an exclamation. He had found on the dead +man a letter addressed in the typewriting of the Arm of Justice to +Christina Hope. The inclosure was intact, and the lieutenant held it out +to Herrick. + +To the single sheet of paper was fastened a thick, soft curl of dark red +hair. Under the curl, in a rounded but girlish handwriting, were four +words: "Help me, dear Chris!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS + + +This piece of information was very carefully guarded from the +newspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But the +fight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinister +automobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began to +find himself the most widely advertised man in New York; his +battle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity and +he did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero who +had slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin always +being bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was a +good deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarily +paralyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hung +helpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerous +wound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christina +called him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leave +the house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties to +come home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and of +horrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was the +unhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion. +"Besides, Mr. Herrick,--Bryce--were they trying to kidnap you, too? And +if so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or did +they mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr. +Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is--and who will it be +next?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many other +questions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spun +round in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage. + +Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And when +Mrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as a +pugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern he +seemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what. + +For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to her +Johnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use his +influence against his being such a little liar.--"You remember that +queer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boy +friend?" + +"A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection with +them?" + +"Why, it never come from a school at all!" + +"I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing." + +"Oh, you'd oughtn't to laugh, Mr. Herrick--and the child so naughty! Why +that morning after Mr. Ingham was killed he found it propping open the +slit in our letter box." Herrick ceased to laugh. "He was so set on +keeping it he made up that story, and then to go to work and lose it, +an' it so queer the stones in it was maybe real--" + +"He lost it, then?" + +"Els't we'd never have known on account of him coming home crying. He +lost it in the Park, where he'd been playing train-robber with it an' +lots o' the loafers on benches watchin' him. A bigger boy got it away +from him, larkin' back an' forth, an' threw it to him, an' just then a +horse took fright from an automobile and run up on the grass with its +rig. The boys scattered in a hurry an' when they come back the pistol +was gone. He hadn't noticed no particular person watching, so he didn't +know who was gone, too. I tell him, God took it to punish his lyin'," +concluded Mrs. Grubey, with the self-righteousness of perfect truth, +"but I certainly would like to know how much it was worth! An' how it +ever got there an' who it belonged to." + +Herrick had a vision of a comic valentine he had received on the same +morning. "I'm afraid it was meant for me!" he said. He knew this could +not clear things up much for Mrs. Grubey; and afterward he fell to +wondering if the capital "C" scratched on the dummy pistol's golden +surface bore any similarity to the slender, pointed lettering which had +formed the words "To the Apollo in the bath-robe." He could never +remember when the initials rose before him in a new order; the A's blent +as one and then the C--A. C.--Oh, madness! Yet, on Friday, he would ask +Christina. + +One other tribute to his popular fame gave him a new idea. It came from +his Yankee woman at the table d'hote. The night after the attack she +motioned him to her as he was leaving and without ceasing to play +solitaire she said, "If I was you, young feller, I guess I wouldn't come +down here for one while." + +His eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why not?" + +"Ain't you the one shot a Dago yesterday in the Park? Pshaw, you needn't +tell me--I know 'twas 'cause you had t' do it! An' good riddance! But +it's healthier for you to stay where you belong." + +Herrick looked round him on the good-tempered, smiling people at the +little clean tables, and laughed. "But you don't suppose the whole +nation is one united Black-Hand, do you? You seem to have a mighty poor +opinion of Italians!" + +"Well," said the woman, with a grim smile of her own, "I married one. +I'd oughta know!" + +She finished her game and seeing him still lingering, in enjoyment of +her tartness, she said, "All forriners 're pretty poor folks. When I +get mad at my children I say it's the streak of forrin' in 'em. Well, my +girl's good Yankee, anyhow. Fair as anybody. It's my son's took after +his father, poor fellow!" + +"Then the proprietress, here, isn't your daughter?" + +"Her? Sakes, no! She's my niece-in-law. I brought up my daughter like +she was an American girl! It's my son keeps in with these! He's +homesick. My daughter's husband got into a little bit o' trouble in the +Old Country," said this remarkable little dame, without the least +embarrassment, "and her an' me's glad enough to stay here. But the men +kind o' mope. Their business worries 'em and as I say, 'tain't the +business I ever would have chose, but I s'pose when I married a Dago I +might's well made up my mind to it!" She said this with an air +inimitably business like, and so continued--"Now I want you should clear +out from here, young man! There's all kinds of fellers come here. It may +be awful funny to you to think o' gettin' a knife in your back, but I +don't want it any round where I am! When they're after Dagoes, it ain't +my business. But my own folks is my own folks." + +Now it could not be denied that there was something not wholly +reassuring as to the pursuits of this respectable old lady's family in +this speech, and in lighter-hearted times Herrick might have noted it as +a testimonial to that theory of his concerning the matter-of-fact in +crime. But now it suggested to him that he might do worse than look for +the faces of the blackmailers in such little eating-places as this one. +After all, they evidently were Italians, and it was with Italians that +they would sojourn. Yes--that was one line to follow! He remembered that +this region was in or adjacent to Ten Euyck's district and he wondered +if he could bring himself to ask the favor of a list of its Latin +haunts. He and Mrs. Hope were on their way to a big Wednesday night +opening when this resolution took definite shape, and it was strange, +with his mind full of these ideas, to come into the crush and dazzle of +the theater lobby. + +Mrs. Hope at once began bowing right and left; the theatrical season was +still so young that there were actors and actresses everywhere. Herrick, +abnormally aware of his new conspicuousness, could only endeavor to look +pleasant; and, trailing, like a large helpless child, in her wake, was +glad to catch the friendly eye of Joe Patrick; fellow-sufferer in a +common cause, whom Christina's recommendation as usher he perceived to +have landed him here, instead of at the theater where she was to play. +Unfortunately Joe hailed him by name, in an unexpectedly carrying voice; +a blush for which Herrick could have kicked himself with rage flamed +over him to the roots of his hair, and when he perceived, with horror, +that they were entering a box, he clutched Mrs. Hope's cloak and slunk +behind the curtains with it like a raw boy. + +But even so, there was a continual coming and going of acquaintances, +many of whom conveyed a sort of sympathetic flutter over Mrs. Hope's +interest in to-night's play; an impression that Christina must feel her +own absence simply too hard, and Herrick smiled to think how much more +concentrated were Christina's interests than they realized. Not but +their expectation of her appearance to-morrow was keen enough. It seemed +to Herrick that there was a thrill of it in all the audience, which +persistently studied Mrs. Hope's box. Christina's genius was a burning +question, and the unknown quantity of her success agitated her +profession like a troubled air--through which how many eyes were already +ardently directed toward to-morrow night, passionate astronomers, +attendant on a new star! Murders come and murders go, but here was a +girl who, in a few hours, might throw open the brand-new continent of a +new career; who, next season, might be a queen, with powers like life +and death fast in her hands. And, with that tremendous absorption in +their own point of view which Herrick had not failed to observe in the +members of Christina's profession, people asked if it wasn't too +dreadful that this business of Ingham's murder and Nancy Cornish's +disappearance should happen just at this time, when it might upset +Christina for her performance? + +Mrs. Hope introduced him to all comers with a liberality which her +daughter had been far from displaying, and he could see them studying +him and trying to place him in Christina's life. It was clear to him +that if he ranked high, they were glad he had not gone and got himself +beaten to death in the Park, or it might have upset her still more. He +thought of the girl whose wet cheek had pressed his in the firelight. +The sweetness of the memory was sharp as a knife, and the rise of the +curtain, displaying wicked aristocrats of Louis the Fourteenth, sporting +on the lawns of Versailles, could not deaden it. + +For if there is one quality essential to the effect of wicked +aristocrats it is that of breeding; and of all mortal qualities there is +none to which managers are so indifferent. In a costume play more +particularly, there is one requisite for men and one only; size. Solemn +bulks, with the accents of Harlem, Piccadilly and Pittsburgh, bowed +themselves heavily about the stage in conscientiously airy masquerade +and, since nothing is so terrible as elegance when she goes with a flat +foot, Herrick's eyes roved up and down the darkened house studying the +faces of Christina's confreres, there, and endeavoring to contrast them +with the faces of the public and the critics to whom, to-morrow, she +must entrust her fate. + +A burst of applause, recalling his attention to the stage, pointed out +to him a real aristocrat. Among the full-calved males in pinks and +blues, the entrance of a slender fellow in black satin, not very tall, +with an order on his breast and the shine of diamonds among his laces, +had created something the effect of the arrival of a high-spirited and +thoroughbred racehorse among a drove of caparisoned elephants. Herrick, +the ingenuous outsider, supposed this actor the one patrician obtainable +by the management; not knowing that it was his hit as the spy in +"Garibaldi's Advance" which had opened to him the whole field of foreign +villains, and that he could never have been cast for a treacherous +marquis of Louis Quatorze this season if he had not succeeded as a +treacherous private of Garibaldi the season before. + +With a quick, light gesture, which acknowledged and dismissed the +welcome of the audience, the newcomer crossed the stage and bowed deeply +before his king. The king stood at no great distance from Herrick's box, +and when the newcomer lifted his extraordinarily bright, dark eyes they +rested full on Herrick's own. Then Herrick found himself looking into +the face of the man in the street who had questioned him about the +murder on the night of Ingham's death. + +Herrick had a strange sensation that for the thousandth part of an +instant the man's eyes went perfectly blind. But they never lost their +sparkle, and his lips retained the fine light irony that made his quiet +face one pale flash of mirth and malice. "Who is that?" Herrick asked +Mrs. Hope. + +"Who? Oh--that's Will Denny." + +Herrick was startled by a hand on his sleeve, and a hoarse, boyish voice +said in his ear, "That's him!" He knew the voice for Joe Patrick's. +"That's the man I took up in the elevator." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!" + + +Herrick excused himself to Mrs. Hope and followed Joe Patrick out of the +box. "But are you sure, Joe?" he asked. "Could you swear to it?" + +"Sure I could! Why couldn't I?" + +"And you couldn't tell the coroner that that man was as slim as a whip +and as dark as an Indian, about middle height and over thirty, and of a +very nervous, wiry, high-strung build." + +"Well, now I look at him close again I can see all that. But he didn't +strike me anyways particular." + +Herrick had an exasperated moment of wondering, if Joe considered Denny +commonplace, what was his idea of the salient and the vivid. Was the +whole of Joe's testimony as valueless as this? He stood now and watched +their man with wonder. Had Denny recognized him? Had he seen Joe Patrick +rooted upright there, behind his chair, with staring eyes? If so, after +that first flicker of blindness, not an eyelash betrayed him. He was +triumphantly at his ease; his part became a thing of swiftness and wit, +with the grace of flashing rapiers and of ruffling lace, so that from +the moment of his entrance the act quickened and began to glow; the man +seemed to take the limp, stuffed play up in his hand, to breathe life in +it, to set it afire, to give it wings. And all this so quietly, with +merely a light, firm motion, an eloquent tone, a live glance! He had, as +Herrick only too well remembered, a singularly winning voice, an +utterance of extraordinary distinction, with a kind of fastidious edge +to his words that seemed to cut them clear from all duller sounds. But +Herrick recalled how, after the first pleasure of hearing him speak, he +had disliked a mocking lightness which seemed to blend, now, with the +something slightly satanic of the wicked marquis whom Denny played. He +remembered Shaw's advice, "Look like a nonentity or you will get cast +for villains!" Truly, they didn't cast men like that for heroes! And in +the light of that sinister flash, Herrick was aware of vengeance rising +in him. He rejoiced to be hot on the trail, and when he and Joe parted +it was with the understanding that he was to allay suspicion by +returning to the box and Joe was to telephone the police. Rather to his +surprise the performance continued without interruption and he somehow +missed Joe as he came out. + +Now at the ungodly hour of one-thirty in the morning, Christina was +expected home. She was to take the midnight train from some Connecticut +town, and the thought of her approach began gradually to overcome, in +Herrick's mind, the thought of justice. As he walked to meet her through +the beautiful warm, windless dark, he told himself, indeed, that he had +a great piece of news for her and took counsel of her how he should +carry it to Kane. + +But when, under the night lights of the station, he saw how she was +ready to drop with fatigue, he simply changed his mind. He had +sufficiently imbibed the tone of her colleagues to feel that nothing was +so necessary as that she shouldn't be upset. It was bad enough that +to-morrow she must be told of Nancy's message and add her identification +of that curly hair; let her sleep to-night. + +In the cab she drooped against him with a simplicity of exhaustion that +was full, too, of content. "I was afraid I should never get you back!" +she said, and again, "I thought, all the evening, how you had +been--hurt; and how all that theaterful of women could see that you +were safe--and I couldn't! Do you know how I comforted myself?" And she +began to murmur into his shoulder a little scrap of song-- + + "Careless and proud, + That is their part of him-- + But the deep heart of him + Hid from the crowd!" + +"You know where my heart was!" he said. He had forgotten how large a +part of it had been excited by the apparition of Denny. + +Still humming, she drew back a little and let her look shine up to his. + + "Simple and frank, + Traitors be wise of him! + Are not the eyes of him + Pledge of his rank?" + +"Christina!" he said, humbly. "Don't!" + +"You don't like it!" she softly jeered. And though when he put her into +her mother's arms her little smile was so pitiful that it frightened +him, and he would have given anything that to-morrow night were past, +yet she turned on the stairway and cast him down, with a teasing +fondness, a final verse. + + "Vigor and tan! + Look at the strength of him! + Oh, the good length of him! + There is my man!" + +"Christina!" cried Mrs. Hope, scandalized. And Christina, with a +hysterical and weary laugh, dragged herself upstairs. + +Herrick went forth into the street bathed in the sense of her love and +with a soul that trembled at her sweetness. He was himself very +restless, and, sniffing the fresh dark, he dismissed the cab. He had +begun to be really in dread lest Christina should break down; after he +had crossed the street he turned, with anxious lingering, to look up at +her window, and he saw the light spring forth behind it as he looked. It +was so hard to leave the sense of her nearness that Herrick, like a boy, +stood still and there rose in his breast a tenderness that seemed to +turn his heart to water. He had no desire, ever again, on any blind, to +see a woman's shadow. Yet he hoped that she might come to the window to +pull this blind down; in case some one else did so for her, he stepped +backward into a little area-way in the shadow of a tall stoop. But she +did not come. The hall light went out, and then hers. He gave up, and +just then the front door opened and Christina, not having so much as +removed her hat, appeared upon the threshold. He remained quite still +with astonishment; and the girl, after glancing cautiously up and down +the street, descended the steps and set off eastward at a brisk pace. + +When she turned the corner into Central Park West, the explanation was +clear to him. In some way or another, she had got into communication +with the blackmailers and made a rendezvous which she was determined +this time to keep alone. For the first time, Herrick felt angry with +her. He had a sense of having been trifled with and he was really +frightened; now, indeed, he cursed himself for continuing to go unarmed. +He knew that it would be worse than useless to reason with her, and the +instant she was out of sight, he merely followed. Gaining the avenue, he +looked up the long line of the Park without seeing her. Ah! This time +she was going south. He went as far as he dared on the other side of the +street but he knew her ears were quick and, reaching the Park side he +vaulted the wall, and gained the shelter of the trees. + +He had scarcely done so when Christina turned sharply round; and she +continued to take this precaution every little while, but he could see +that it was a mere formality. She no longer thought herself followed and +never glanced among the trees; his steps were inaudible on the soft +turf. At the Seventy-sixth Street entrance she turned into the park; +pausing, wearily, she took off her hat and pushed up her hair with the +backs of her hands. She looked as if she were likely to drop; but then +she set off rapidly again, and Herrick prayed they would meet a +policeman. But no member of the law put in an appearance, and presently +Herrick smelled water, and knew that they were near the border of the +big lake. Under the white electric light Christina stopped and looked at +her watch; she frowned as if her heart would break; and then, in a few +steps, she paused on the threshold of a little summer-house that stood +with the lake lapping its outer edge. The doorway was faintly lighted +from an electric light outside, and Christina glanced expectantly +within. But there was no one there. She uttered a little moan of +disappointment and entering dropped onto the bench beside the lake; she +rested her elbow on the latticework and Herrick could see her dear, +outrageous, uncovered head mistily outlined against the water. + +Never in his life had he so little known what to do. A wrong step now +might precipitate untold disaster. His instinct was merely to remain +there, like a watchdog, and never take his eyes off her till the time +came for him to spring. But reason insisted that on the drive, less than +a block away, there must be policemen, and that the quicker he sought +one the better. He had not even yesterday's stick, his right arm was now +useless, and in a struggle by the water the odds against him were +doubled. Moreover, he had no reason to think that the blackmailers +intended Christina any violence. They had come to her yesterday in order +to deliver a message. This failing, they had allowed her to depart +unmolested and, on her side, her only thought was to do as they asked. +He perceived that the meeting would at least open with a parley; if he +could return with reinforcements in time to prevent foul play or to +effect a capture! But he simply could not bear to try it! And then the +nearness of the roadlights and the sense of his own extreme helplessness +overbore his instinct, and kicking off his shoes, he sped noiselessly +over grassy slopes. It seemed to him his feet were leaden; his heart +tugged at him to be back; his senses strained backward for a sound and +when he burst out on the drive he could have cursed the officer he saw +for being fifty feet away. It did not occur to him until afterwards that +if his likeness had not been in every paper in New York he might himself +have been immediately arrested. But the policeman listened with interest +to his story and then ambled out with the circumstance that the +summer-house was not on his beat, but that Herrick would find another +officer near such and such a place! With the blackness of death in his +heart, Herrick sped back as he had come, and then, hearing nothing, +slackened speed. There, still, thank God, was that dim outline of an +uncovered head against the lake! But so motionless that Herrick was +stabbed by one of those quick, insensate pangs of nightmare. Suppose +they had killed her and set her there, like that! He controlled himself; +but he was determined, now, at all hazards to get her away and stepping +into the path before the door, "Christina!" he said. + +The figure rose, and as it did so, he saw that it was not Christina at +all, but a man. A slight man, not over tall, who, as he stepped forward +toward the light, turned upon Herrick the pale, dark, restless face of +the actor, Will Denny. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DESIR--" + + +The men were equally startled; a very slight quiver passed over Denny's +face, but he said nothing. "Good God!" Herrick cried, "what are you +doing here?" + +"The same to you," Denny replied. + +"But Christina! Where's Miss Hope?" + +"Christina! Has she been here?" + +Herrick pushed roughly past him. There was no sign of the girl, and in a +cold apprehension, Herrick stared out over the lake. Denny's voice at +his elbow said, "She doesn't seem to float! Why not see if I've thrown +her under the bench?" + +"Why not?" Herrick savagely replied. + +The other smiled faintly. "Christina? It wouldn't be such an easy job!" + +She wasn't under the bench and Herrick hurried back into the path. + +"Go and look for her, if you like. I'll wait here." He called in a +sibilant whisper after Herrick, "You'll have to hurry. Don't yell." + +No hurry availed, but as Herrick burst out of the Park he caught a +glimpse of her back as she passed into a moving trolley car bound for +home. Only love's baser humors and blacker claims were left in him. He +knew that his dignity lay anywhere but in that little arbor, yet he +deliberately retraced his steps. Again he found Denny sitting there, and +this time the actor did not rise. But he must have been walking about +in Herrick's absence for he made a slight motion to a dark blot on the +bench near him. He said, "Are those your shoes?" + +Herrick sat down angrily and put them on, more and more exasperated even +by the dim shape of a cigar in Denny's fingers; although he was a +seething volcano of accusation he could not think of anything to say and +besides, what with emotion and with haste, he was rather breathless. So +that at last it was Denny who broke the silence with, "Well, now that +you are here, have you got a match?--Thank you!" But he did not light +it. He seemed to forget all about it as he sat there silent again in the +darkness waiting for Herrick to speak. + +When Herrick struggled with himself and would not, Denny at length +began. "I won't pretend to deny that she came here to find me. I only +deny that she did find me. I missed her, poor child. Doesn't that +content you?" + +And Herrick asked him in the strangling voice of hate, "Do you usually +have ladies meet you here? At this hour?" + +"No. That's what disturbs me. It must have been something very urgent. +She couldn't trust the telephone and she couldn't wait till morning. She +knows that now I almost never sleep, and that I can't bear to be awake +with walls around me; if I'm not careful I shall have walls around me +close enough. I come here, as Chris remembered, because--I must be +somewhere. So she chanced it. She didn't find me. I came just too late." + +Herrick rose. He felt as if he were stifling. "Do you pretend to tell +me, then, that you don't know why she came?" + +"No, I'd better not pretend that. I suppose I know why she came." He +added, very low, in his clear voice, "I suppose she came to warn me." + +"Warn you? Of what?" + +"Come, do I need to tell you that? Her mother must have told her that +you recognized me to-night and that the elevator boy recognized me, too, +and told you." + +"You saw all that?" + +"I saw all that." + +"And did nothing?" + +"What could I do?" + +"You've had time, since the performance, to get away!" + +"Where to?" asked Denny. + +If it was the simplicity of despair it affected the distraught and +baffled Herrick like the simplicity of some subtle and fiendish triumph. +Not for nothing had he observed the calm of the French marquis. Taking a +violent hold on himself, "Do you realize--" he demanded, "what you're +admitting?" + +"The mark of Cain?" said the other, with his faint smile. "Oh, yes!" + +Herrick incredulously demanded, "You don't deny it?" + +"Deny it? Why, yes, I deny it. I'm not looking for trouble and I deny it +absolutely. But what then? Will anybody believe me? Between friends, do +you believe me? Well--what's the use?" + +"You've no proofs? No defense?" + +"None whatever!--And I've been playing villains here for four years! My +dear fellow, don't blush! I'm complimented to find that you, too, are +hit by that impression. And I shan't tell Christina!" + +"If I could see by what damned theatrical trick you go about admitting +all this!" + +Denny seemed to take no offense. "I'm indifferent to who knows it. I'm +tired out." + +Herrick flounced impatiently and, "But season your solicitude awhile," +the other added. "Remember that even to you I don't admit my--what's the +phrase? My guilt! And legally I shall never admit it." + +"You merely 'among friends' allow its inference?" + +"If you like." + +"You don't seem very clear in your own mind!" + +"Clear?" The brilliance of his eyes searched Herrick's face with a +singular, quick, sidelong glance for which he did not turn his head. +Then the glance drooped heavily to earth and Herrick could just hear him +add, in a voice that fell like a stone, "No--pit-murk!" He sat there +with his elbows on his knees and seemed to stare at the loose droop of +his clasped hands. He said, "I shall never play Hamlet. But at least I +am like him in one thing; I do not hold my life at a pin's fee." + +"Good God!" Herrick burst forth. "Do you think it's you I care about?" + +The other man replied softly into the darkness, "You mean, I've +implicated Christina?" + +"You've admitted that she knows--and shields you!" + +"So she does, poor girl! But don't think I shall put either Chris or me +to the horrors of a trial. I seem to have given some proof that I carry +a revolver. And I haven't the least fear of being taken alive." + +"I care nothing about you!" Herrick repeated. "What I want to understand +is why Miss Hope should shield you--if she is shielding you. Why she +should come here, in the middle of the night, to warn you? Whoever shot +Ingham was mixed up with everything that's rotten--with blackmail--with +the disappearance of that girl--" + +"O!" Denny had perceptibly winced. But then he said, "I don't confess to +all the crimes in the decalogue! For instance, Mr. Herrick, I am +perfectly guiltless of those rude--ah--ornamentations on your own brow." +He laughed outright. "How could I face Chris?" he said. + +Herrick jumped at him with an oath and bore him, by pure force of +weight, back against the lattice. His hand was on Denny's throat and it +was a moment before Denny could tear it away. When he had done so, he +said nothing; he continued to sit there as if nothing had happened; and +Herrick, a little ashamed, sulked at him, "Don't speak of her like that, +then!" He walked to the door of the arbor and back, facing Denny and +controlling himself, with his hands in his pocket. "There's been enough +of this," he said, through his teeth. "I've got to know now--what's she +to do with you? What's it to her, if you're caught? How, in the first +place, did she ever come to know such a secret? Why should you confide +it to _her_?" + +He was aware of Denny lifting his eyes and looking at him steadily +through the half-dark. "I'll tell you why, if you'll sit down. I've done +a hard night's work and, at any rate, I don't care to shout." + +Herrick dropped down beside him and Denny struck his match. "Smoke?" he +queried. Herrick shook his head and again, by the light of the little +flame, Denny stared gravely into his set and haggard face. "Is it so +much as that to you?" he said. "Well, then, I never told Christina. +Nothing--whether I was innocent or guilty. I didn't need to. There was +a--friend of hers in the room when it was done. But here's my connection +with the thing. You don't know, I suppose, that two months ago, I +expected to marry Nancy Cornish?" + +"I might have known it!" Herrick said. + +"I don't see why! Unless you've observed that the sweetest women are +born with a natural kindness for cads. I was perfectly sure that she +loved me. I used to meet her here"--Herrick started--"and take her out +in a boat and all that, as if I were a boy,--she was _so_ young! Well, +then I displeased her and she sent me to the right about. It was hard. I +don't know if you're too happy and too virtuous to see that when another +woman was good to me, then, I fell in what it pleases us to call love +with her. It came and passed, like fever. No matter. She belonged +legally, at that time, to another man, but she swore to me she would get +free and marry me--yes, I believed she loved me, too, if you can swallow +that! You see, there were no limits to my complacency! There were +certain things I couldn't help but know, and she accounted for them all, +to me, by a dreadful tale of ill-usage when she was just growing up--a +man of the world, older than she, her first love, promise of marriage, +desertion, the horrors after it; how she had been forced to accept the +first chance of respectability--but now--for love of me--All the old +story! She never would tell me that man's name. She pretended to hate +him and fear him, and I lashed myself into such a rage against him, and +the insults with which she said he was following her again, that I +hardly saw the streets I walked through. The afternoon before the +shooting Nancy called me up; she said she had something to tell me, and +asked me to meet her at the old place in the Park at five o'clock. It +was cruel hard, because now I'd doubly lost her. I was sick of myself +and the whole world. It was touch and go with me. I sat here, waiting, +waiting--if she'd brought her goodness, her freshness, her gentleness +even within hailing distance of me, then, they might have shed a little +sanity on me as she passed." + +"And Christina?" Herrick persisted. + +"Well--this other woman was Christina's friend. That day that Nancy +didn't come I had a dress rehearsal, and Christina and this other woman +dined with me, just before that. She said, then, for the first time that +Ingham was the man she had told me of. She said she told me now because +it was he who had sent Nancy away; that Nancy was afraid of me because +he and she--I went straight for him after rehearsal. They didn't expect +me. And up there, in that room with Ingham, I found that other woman. +Would anybody believe in my innocence after that? Ought I to be +innocent? 'Deny it?' No, on the whole, I'd better not deny it!' That's +all!" + +They were both silent. Then through his groping thoughts Herrick could +hear Denny half-humming a catch of song whose words were instantly +familiar. + + "Je suis aussi sans desir + Autre que d'en bien finir-- + Sans regret, sans repentir, + Sans espoir ni crainte--" + +"Without regret, without repentance--Repentance? Surely! But--without +regret? He asked a good deal, that lad! You ought to like my little +song--it was taught me by the erudite Christina." + +"Where's that woman, now?" + +"Ah!" said Denny, "that's her secret." + +"And Christina?" said Herrick, again. + +"Christina and I are very old chums; aside from the Deutches I am the +oldest friend she has. It was I got Wheeler to go West and see her. I +was in the first company she ever joined, when she was just a tall, slim +kid--sixteen, I think--and I was twenty-six. We've worked together, and +won together and--gone without together. I had been at it for eight +years when she first went on; and I taught her all I knew; when I got +into the moving pictures for a summer I worked her in--" + +Herrick started. "The best friend Christina ever had!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh!" said the other. "Thank you!" Herrick was aware of his quaint +smile. "Yes, I suppose I might be called that!" + +"I was told--I was led to believe you were an older man." + +"Ah, that's one of Christina's sweetest traits--she colors things so +prettily! She can't help it! But you see, now, don't you, that she'd +never give me away? Chris would shield her friends as long as she had +breath for a lie. She's pretended a quarrel with me all these weeks, +because, thinking the police were following her, she didn't want them to +find me. She's kept you from knowing people who might speak of me. She's +had but the one thought since the beginning; and that was to save my +life. But she's in love with you, and she can't lie to you any +longer--you'll see. Besides, she thinks she can make you our accomplice; +that because you're a friend of hers, you're a friend of mine. She has +still her innocences, you see, and, in the drama, so many lovers behave +so handsomely." The ring had died out of his voice; but he went on, with +a kind of rueful amusement, spurring himself to be persuasive, "Come, +now, stop thinking of what would influence you, and try to think of what +would influence Chris! Do you think she'd like to see Wheeler hanged?" + +"Wheeler!" + +"Well, allow me to put forward that Chris thinks me quite as good an +actor as Wheeler, with the double endearment of not being so well +appreciated by outsiders!" He leaned forward with an intent flash. "If +you think she wouldn't stand by me, you don't know her!" + +"And is that the reason," asked Herrick, "why you left her in the +lurch?" He was aware of behaving like a quarrelsome old woman, now that +he had a probable murderer on his hands and didn't quite know what to do +with him. The man must feel singularly safe. There was something at once +annoying and disarming in his passiveness, and Herrick drove home this +question with a voice as hard as a blow. "Was it because you could play +on the loyalty and courage of a romantic girl, that, when you were +likely to be suspected, you ran away and left her to bear the public +accusation?" + +Denny answered, with that gentleness which Herrick found offensive, "I +didn't run far." + +"You've been filling her, too, I suppose, with this cock and bull +melodrama of suicide if you're arrested?" + +He had touched a live nerve. "Would it be less melodramatic to crave +that other exit--have my head shaved so that the apparatus could be +fitted on--let them take half an hour strapping me into an electric +chair! Do you think that would be soothing to her? No, thank you! Or do +you want me to hide and run, to twist and duck and turn and be caught in +the end?--I can't help your calling me a coward," Denny said, "and I +dare say I am a coward. A jump over the edge I could manage well enough. +But 'to sit in solemn silence, in a dark, dank dock, awaiting the +sensation of a short, sharp shock--'" He seemed to rein in his voice in +the darkness. "If I were even sure of that! But to be shut up for life, +for twenty years, death every minute of them! To be starved and +degraded, pawed over and mishandled by bullies--" He shuddered with a +violence that seemed to snap his breath; even his eyebrows gave a +convulsive twitch, as if he felt something crawling over his face. And, +rising, he went across to the entrance of the arbor and stood leaning in +the doorway, looking out. + +Herrick did not want him to get away and at the same time he did not +want to bring about any crisis until he had seen Christina. He thought +Denny's explanation of her attitude only too probable. "I've known the +dearest fellows in the world--the cleverest, the gamest, the most +charming. But they were all like poor Christina--fidgety things, nervous +and on edge." Was she thinking of Denny then? "Oblige me by staying +where you are!" he said to Denny's back. Denny turned the grim delicacy +of his pale face to smile at him and the smile maddened Herrick. He went +on, "You must see yourself I can't let you go! Will you come to my +rooms for to-night, and in the morning Miss Hope can tell me if this +story's true!" + +Denny walked slowly out and stood smoking in the center of the pathway, +under the tall electric light. He was far from a happy-looking man, and +yet he looked as if he were going to laugh. "And what then?" he asked. + +"Then I shall know if this isn't all a bid for sympathy. Whether there's +really any other woman beside this Nancy Cornish--" + +Denny wheeled suddenly round on him. + +"Or whether you don't know more of her--" + +"Damn you!" Denny said. "You fool,--" He had come close to Herrick and +then remembering the limp hang of Herrick's arm, he paused. And as he +paused a man stepped out from among the trees and touched him on the +shoulder. + +He wheeled round; there were two men behind him. They were in plain +clothes but the man who had touched Denny showed a shield. "Come along! +You're wanted at headquarters." + +Denny stood quiet, breathing a little rapidly. "Let me see your +warrant," he said, and he took two steps backward to get it under the +light. So that before any one could stop him, he had whipped out a +revolver, put the end of the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. + +There was a little click before the man could jump on him and then +another; and then Herrick heard the steel cuffs snap over his wrists. +The man with the shield drew back, and grinning, shook into his palm +what were not even blank cartridges but only careful imitations. "The +next time you rely on a gun," he said, "you want to look out for that +valet of yours!" + +Denny was standing with his heavy hair shaken by the struggle about his +eyes; one of the men obligingly pushed it back with the edge of Denny's +straw hat which he picked up and put on Denny's head. "Come! Get a gait +on us," said the man with the star. + +Denny said, aloud, "You overheard those last remarks for which this +gentleman raised his voice?" + +"Rather!" the three grinned. + +"Ah, well, then there is certainly no more to be said." He nodded +agreeably to Herrick, and then between his captors, walked lightly and +quickly off, into the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT + + +Daylight was in the streets when Herrick got to bed, sure he should not +close his eyes; then he was wakened only by the cries of the newsboys +underneath his windows, calling, as if it had been an extra--"Ingham +Murderer Arrested! Murderer Arrested! Popular Actor Arrested in the +Ingham Murder!" + +Herrick tumbled into his clothes and bought a paper on his way to a very +late breakfast at the Pilgrims', where he had a card. In the account of +the arrest he himself figured as something between a police decoy and an +accomplice in crime, but Christina's midnight sally remained unknown and +he breathed freer. Now that she was to be kept out of it, he could but +admire the quiet good sense with which the police had gone about their +business. While those more closely concerned had dashed and bewildered +themselves against their own points of view like blind, flying beetles, +the police had simply made haste to ascertain if Nancy Cornish had a +lover. She had been engaged to Denny; a recent coolness between them had +been common gossip; and, since Nancy's disappearance, their common +friend, Christina Hope, had kept aloof from Denny, as though embracing +her friend's quarrel or suspecting her friend's sweetheart. It now +transpired for the first time that the police had dug further into that +evidence of Mrs. Willing's which Ten Euyck's eagerness to turn it +against Christina had left undeveloped. Mrs. Willing had heard a man's +voice which she did not think to be Ingham's, call out loudly and very +clearly, "Ask--" somebody or something the name of which was unfamiliar +to her, and which she had forgotten until later events had violently +recalled it--"Ask Nancy Cornish." + +Herrick did not read any further till he was seated and had given his +order to a friendly waiter. There were some men at a table near him; it +seemed to him that everybody in the room was talking of the arrest and +as a matter of fact most of them were talking of it. He had an uneasy +desire to know how Christina appeared in her own world's version. But +she remained there the friend of Denny, and of the girl over whom Ingham +and Denny must have quarreled. When he looked at the paper again, he +read that on the night in question by no less a person than Theodore +Bird, Denny had been seen to enter Ingham's apartment! + +Yes, the tremulous Theodore, despite his wife's particular instructions +that he should keep out of it, had called at headquarters and delivered +up the fact that at one o'clock or thereabouts, when he was just on the +point of retiring, he had heard what sounded like a ring at his +door-bell. But he had opened the door only a crack because the wires +between his apartment and Ingham's were apt to get crossed, and, indeed, +this was what had happened in the present case. He had seen a man +standing there, at Ingham's door; and Theodore, safe behind his crack, +his constitution being not entirely devoid of rubber, had taken a good +look; had seen Ingham fling wide his door, and the stranger enter. On +being asked if he could identify this stranger, he said he was certain +of it. Confronted with photographs of a dozen men he had unhesitatingly +selected Denny's. + +The police had delayed Denny's arrest in the hope of finding him in +correspondence with Nancy Cornish. Sure of their man, they had given him +rope to hang himself. But Joe Patrick's recognition, which, at any +moment, he might reveal to the suspected man, had forced their hand. +They did not add that until yesterday they had never connected Denny or +Nancy with the blackmailing letters, but Herrick now added it for them; +and he saw how Nancy's message, with its suggestion of the girl's peril, +had forced it, too. + +He deduced that, by the summer-house, they had not been able to overhear +anything until Denny had gone to the doorway and Herrick had raised his +voice. He read, finally, how, while Denny was changing for the street, +after the performance, his dresser had managed to unload and reload the +revolver. The number of the cartridge used in it was the same as that of +the bullet taken from Ingham's body. + +Up to the last line of the article Herrick kept a hope that Denny had +given some clue of Nancy's whereabouts but the police were obliged to +admit that the young man had proved a mighty tough customer. "He has +undergone six hours of as stiff an examination as Inspector Corrigan has +ever put a prisoner through and nothing whatever save the barest denial +has been got out of him. However, the Inspector is confident that in the +near future--" There was something in this last statement which made +Herrick slightly sick. He hoped Christina had not seen it. + +He understood well enough the weakness and blankness of Denny's account +of himself. The young man denied the murder much more definitely than he +had troubled himself to deny it to Herrick, but with the same listless +lack of hope and even of conviction. He made no secret of his having +gone to Ingham's room with the intention of shooting him, though he +asserted that Ingham had proved false the story which had occasioned +their quarrel and he had gone away again--that was all. Expect to be +believed? Of course he didn't expect to be believed! On the reason of +their quarrel he remained mute. To all further questions, such as what +other visitors Ingham had that night, he opposed the blankest, +smoothest ignorance. And Herrick, filling out the blanks, was still +impatient of the reticence which left it possible for any woman of the +men's mutual acquaintance to be taken for the woman of the shadow. No +effort for the good name of another woman justified to him the suspicion +and the suffering that Christina had already been allowed to endure. +Denny's guilt he did not and he could not doubt, but he might have +respected a guilt which, after so strong a provocation, had instantly +given itself up. Such an avowal might have kept further silence with the +highest dignity and Herrick wondered why an actor, of all people, could +not see that that would have been even the popular course. Then he heard +another actor, a much handsomer and more stalwart person, remark, "I +always said, poor chap, that he hadn't the physique for a hero!" + +"Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of the +affair had been discussed, "what I've always said is--Strung on wires! +He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your star +and your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of the +stage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, and +everybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say it +again--Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remark +met the occasion fully at every point. + +And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrick +discovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathy +for Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrow +night. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of them +extolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessing +what the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made the +management's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemed +to feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, that +Denny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment. + +So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suited +Herrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be kept +out of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one was +excited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hope +was a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long as +possible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning of +the night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You're +please to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!" + +With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown into +the office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW + + +The only professional appearance which Wheeler had hitherto permitted +Christina to make in New York had been when she recited at a benefit +early in the preceding spring. The benefit was for the families of some +policemen who had perished valiantly in the public service and when +Christina had enlisted the Ingham influence in the cause Wheeler had +made the whole affair appear of her contriving. To procure herself an +interview with Denny in the Inspector's office before the formalities of +the Tombs should close about him she had not scrupled to make use of +this circumstance, and whether because it combined with her having +business there, in the identification of Nancy's message, or because the +Inspector believed she could really influence Denny to talk, as she said +she could, or because he wanted to watch them together, or, after all, +because she was one of those who get what she desired, there she was. + +Herrick was no longer at a loss to account for a sort of tickled +admiration which admitted him as one at least near the rose. She had +evidently been treated with the consideration due the chief mourner, +whatever one may think of the corpse; the Inspector, over by the window, +had made himself inconspicuous and for a moment Herrick saw only +Christina--a Christina wholly baffled and at a loss! She had, indeed, +that air of having spent her life in the office which was her +distinguishing characteristic in any atmosphere. Her hat was, as usual, +anywhere but on her head; she had stripped off her gloves and tossed +them into it. But she now sat in an attitude of despairing quiet which +she broke on Herrick's entrance only to catch his arm with one hand; +turning her face in upon his sleeve, "Bryce," she moaned, "I brought him +to this!" + +Then he saw that Denny was standing looking through the barred window +with his back to them. When he turned Herrick had to struggle against a +touch of sympathy for the change in his appearance. Although he had +never seen Denny in the daylight before, there was no denying that he +was only the worn ghost of what he had been last night. His slenderness +had the broken droop of physical and emotional exhaustion; beneath the +intense black of his hair, his face was the color of ashes and his +quick, brilliant eyes looked lifeless and burned out. Nevertheless, +Herrick preferred the daytime version. The sort of evil phosphorescence +of the French marquis which had continued to dazzle his eyes in the +darkness and the sharp electric light, had wholly vanished; Denny was +not playing a villain now--and in the blue serge suit of ordinary life, +there was something almost boyish in him. + +"He won't help me, Bryce," Christina said. "He won't tell me anything, +he won't say anything. He won't even tell me what lawyer he wants." + +Denny stood with his eyes fixed on his visitors but in an abstraction +which seemed to take no note of them; and Christina went on to Herrick, +as to a more sympathetic audience. "I tell him he shall have the best +lawyers in the world! He shan't be tormented any longer; he shall have +the law to look out for him! He'll be all right, won't he, Bryce, won't +he? If he'll only help himself! If he'll only say something!" Her voice +rose desperately and broke. "Tell him you're simply _for_ him, as I +am--that's what I brought you here for! Tell him we're with him, both of +us, all the world to nothing, and that we urge him to anything he can +say or do to help himself! And that it will never make any difference +to--either of us!" When Herrick had made out to say that Christina's +friends were his friends, she went up to Denny and took him by the +shoulders. "Don't you understand? I want to speak not only for myself, +but for all those dear to me!" + +Denny broke into a nervous laugh, but he said nothing. + +Herrick guessed that his denial of his guilt had taken Christina wholly +by surprise; that she had relied greatly on the story of his provocation +and that now she did not know what to do. That it is not seemly for +young ladies to display such extreme emotion over gentlemen to whom they +are not related and who have had the misfortune to be imprisoned for +murder did not cross her mind. She was now reduced to a sort of +hysterical practicality in which, for lack of the treacherous valet, she +enlisted Herrick to discuss with a surprised Inspector what clothes and +furnishings of Denny's she would be allowed to have packed up and sent +to the Tombs--"What ought I to do to make them like me there? Oh, yes, +Bryce, it makes a difference everywhere! I mustn't wear a veil; and I +must get them plenty of passes. It's a pity we can't pretend to be +engaged--it would interest every one so!--How about money, Will?" + +"I've plenty, thanks." + +"Most ladies don't think beyond flowers!" contrasted the Inspector, in +amused admiration. + +Exasperated beyond endurance, Herrick heard himself launch the sickly +pleasantry, "Any use for flowers, Mr. Denny?" + +"Not before the funeral," Denny said. + +She shook him a little in her eagerness. "Books. And tobacco. And things +to drink. And the best food. And magazines. And all the newspapers." +Christina clung to the items like a child trying to comfort itself. +"Or--perhaps--not the newspapers--" + +Denny flung restlessly out of her hands. "Oh, yes," he said, "the +newspapers, please! Let me at least know how I am admired." He went back +to staring out of the window; he seemed so little interested in his +visitors that it was as though he had left them alone. + +Christina stood looking at him with an infinite pity. She was not crying +but her magnificent eyes swam in a sort of luminous ether and Herrick +had never seen her so girlishly helpless.--"Knowing me brought him to +this!" + +"Don't talk like a fool, Christina!" Denny interrupted over his shoulder +in his dead-and-alive voice. + +"It's true. If you'd never known me, or if I'd never engaged myself to +Jim--" + +"Or if I'd never been born. It's just as true and just about as +relevant." His absent voice died in his throat. Then, of a sudden, he +turned on her with a kind of restive suspicion. "What did you say, +awhile ago, about Kane's office?" + +"He's sent for me to come there to-morrow at two." + +"Well, whatever you begin telling him, remember there's one thing I +can't put up with. And that's--Well, anything less than--the full dose." +He came up to the girl and took her hand in his cold fingers. "And I +implore you, Christina, whatever you do, not to set such a motion on +foot, not to work up any sympathies nor bring forward any circumstances +which might lead to what they call a merciful sentence. I couldn't stand +it, Chris. It's the one thing I can't bear.--Oh, don't cry, don't cry! +Come, my dear! Why, you surely don't want me to live--like this! With +nothing to think of except--about Nancy! Well, then!" But Christina was +visibly gasping for breath and, in a nature easily drawn together +against a world harsh or indifferent, all the defenses against feeling +began to give way. Some comfort must be found for those that insist upon +caring! But what comfort?--"Ah now, Chris, dear old girl, such a brave +girl--it's all right. It's bound to be. Why, it's what I want, really. +Really it is. You know that. You know I've been pretty well through, all +these weeks, isn't that so?--Oh, take her away, won't you?" he cried to +Herrick. + +But Christina had by this time begun to cry, indeed, and now she threw +her arms round Denny's neck, pulled down his face and kissed him. "To +leave you here!" she wept. + +For a moment he stood stiff in her embrace and then he gently returned +her kiss; suddenly, with a sobbing breath, he caught her by the +shoulders as a man clings to something tried and dear, which he knows he +may not often see again. "Poor Chris!" he said. "All right, Chris!" + +The Inspector signed to the doorman who stepped up, pleasantly enough, +to Denny, and at his touch Denny took the girl by her elbows and held +her off. + +"Come," he said, "you've got a performance to-night!" + +"Oh, God help me!" Christina cried. "How am I to go through with it!" + +"Why," said Denny, quickly, "do it for me! Don't let me wreck everything +I touch!" He looked at Herrick as though to say, "Be good to her--she's +only a girl! You needn't fear she can help me!" And aloud he continued, +"Look here, Christina, you mustn't fail. You're my friend, to pull me +through and make friends for me, isn't that so? Well, then, you mustn't +be a nobody! If you're going to get me out of here, you've got to be a +celebrity, and move worlds. Well, you've got nothing but to-night to do +it with. People like us, my dear, we've nothing but ourselves to fight +with, just ourselves! Come, get yourself together and pull it off +to-night! For me!" Over her head his miserable eyes besought Herrick to +take her away while she could believe this. But the girl, straightening +up, held out her hand. Denny took it and "All right," she said, "I +will!" As they stood thus, a door from within the building opened and +there was admitted no less a person than Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +Christina was standing between him and Denny. The eyes of the two men +met and slashed like whips. Herrick never needed to be told whose was +the hand that long ago, for Christina's sake, had struck Ten Euyck. Now +Denny said in a quick undertone, "Don't fret, old girl!" And the guard +took him away. + +The newcomer looked rather more frozen than usual; he was surprised and +he did not take kindly to surprises. "It seems to be my fate to +interrupt! Mr. Herrick, don't you feel de trop?" + +He indulged himself in this discomforting question while his byplay of +glances was really saying to Inspector Corrigan, "What are all these +people doing here?" and Corrigan's was replying, "None of your +business!" There was evidently no love lost between the types, +particularly when the first glance persisted, "You got nothing out of +him?" And the second was obliged to admit, "Nothing!"--"But I implore +your toleration," Ten Euyck continued to Christina, "I can perhaps do +you some service for the prisoner with Inspector Corrigan." + +"The prisoner thanks you, as I do. But we have played in melodrama and +we are acquainted with the practice of poisoned bouquets. Inspector +Corrigan and I are doing very well as we are!" + +"You are unkind and, believe me, you are unwise. I really wish to please +you--do you find that so unnatural?--and to justify myself in your +regard. I want to begin by advising you not to let your friend's +melodramatic silence suggest to the public that he is going to hide +behind some story of a woman--" + +"He is very foolishly trying to keep a woman's name out of his story," +Christina clearly and boldly declared. + +"Nonsense! There is no such person!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because if there were he would be only too anxious to get her to come +forward and tell the jury what she told him. It might get him off." + +"How do you know what she told him?" + +"My dear lady, they all tell the same thing. It seems to those who are +interested--" + +"It seems nothing whatever but a chance to divert yourself with what you +consider his disgrace, because the idea of disgrace comes natural to +you--and, indeed, to you, in his presence, it should do so! But I rely +on Inspector Corrigan to limit your diversions. His favors are the +favors of a practical man; neither he nor I are fortune's darlings; we +both work for our living and we both understand one another.--I ought to +say that I am sorry to be rude. But I am not sorry, I rejoice. While +there was a suspicion for you to nose out I was afraid of you. But now I +am free of you. If I were your poor mother," cried Christina, catching +up her hat, "I should pray you were ever in a disgrace that did you so +much honor!" + +This outburst produced a silence: Inspector Corrigan amused and +gratified, Inspector Ten Euyck struggling to appear amused and tolerant. +In fact, as Christina, still breathing fire, drew on her gloves, he +became so very easy and happy as to hum a little tune. The words +instantly fitted themselves to it in Herrick's mind. + + "Je suis aussi sans desir + Autre que d'en bien finir--" + +"That's very charming!" said Christina, in the tone of a person always +governed by amiability. "Where did you hear that?" + +"I don't really know. I'll trace it for you, if that will make my +peace." + +"Thank you, no.--Then you think," said Christina, sharply to both +officials, "that it would do him great good if this woman, whether he's +innocent or guilty, should come forward of her own accord, and repeat +the story of her trouble as she repeated it to him?" + +"Undoubtedly!" + +"Well, then, she shall!" + +"Christina!" + +"Miss Hope!" + +Christina was inexpressibly grave; she trembled a little, but her voice +was firm. "What must be, must be!" she said. + +"But, Miss Hope, in person?" + +"In person, yes." + +"But how, when, where?" + +"Very simply. On Friday. At the office of the District Attorney." + +"And you can be certain of this?" + +"I can." + +"You know who she is then?" + +"Most assuredly I do." + +"Mr. Herrick's terrible shadow?" + +"Oh, she needn't bring her shadow, need she?" Christina said. + +Ten Euyck, who was just leaving the building, turned and looked at her; +there was always a covert, sullen admiration in his glances at her. "I'm +glad to see your spirits are improving. It's now you who are singing!" + +"'Auld acquaintance'--a sad enough song! But my Nancy's favorite! Don't +begrudge it me, Inspector Ten Euyck; it reminds all who love her of kind +hours. '_Should_ auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?' +Good-by, Mr. Ten Euyck." The outside door closed after him, and she said +to the Inspector, "There is something you wish me to identify?" + +"Here we are!" said the Inspector. "The experts say she wrote it!" + +Christina looked at the four words a long time. The tears rose in her +eyes again. "Yes. She did." She turned to Herrick. "This was what I came +to tell Will last night. My mother had just told me. But now that he's +helpless, he mustn't know!" + +"Well?" said the Inspector, and he handed Christina the red lock of +curly hair. + +She took it a little gingerly; studying it, as it lay in the palm of her +hand. "Of course, one could be deceived," she said, slowly. "But it's +either her hair or it's exactly like it." She lifted the curl and held +it to the light. She untied the string which bound it, and thinning it +out in her fingers spread it to a soft flame of color. "Oh, surely, it's +her hair--oh, poor little girl!" she cried, and crossed by a sudden +shiver, she let the hair fall from her hand. Swifter than the men about +her she gathered it up again, and again stood studying the tumbled and +scattered little mass. And then Herrick saw a terrible change come over +her face--an immense amazement, mingled almost at once with passionate +incredulity; slowly, the incredulity gave way to conviction and to fear; +and then there swept upon Christina's face a blaze of such anger as +Herrick had never seen in a woman's eyes. + +"What is it?" they all cried to her. + +She opened her lips, as if to call it forth; but then she seemed to lose +her breath, and, all at once, she slipped down in a dead faint at their +feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE + + +If the police believed Christina when she revived enough to say that it +had seemed to her as if the hair were soaked in blood it was more than +Herrick did. He only wondered that they let her go and if they were +perhaps not spreading a net about her as they had spread one about +Denny. + +But thereafter she was very composed, allowed herself to be taken +quietly home, and took a sedative so as to get some sleep. Herrick came +in from an errand at four and found the house subdued to the ordinary +atmosphere--high-pressured enough in itself--of the house of an actress +before a big first night. + +Down in the drawing-room Mrs. Hope said they must not talk about +anything exciting or Christina would be sure to feel it. But she herself +seemed to feel that the fact of her coming appearance in the Inghams' +box was about the only satisfactory piece of calmness in connection with +her daughter's future. She congratulated herself anew upon the outcome +of an old bout with Christina in which the girl had wished to go to +supper afterward with Wheeler rather than with the devoted Inghams, and +in which Mrs. Hope had unwontedly conquered. She said now that she +wished she had spoken to the Inghams about inviting Herrick; it could +have been arranged so easily. + +When Christina came in she allowed herself to be fondly questioned as to +how she felt and even to be petted and pitied. She was perhaps no more +like a person in a dream than she would have been before the same +occasion if Ingham had never been shot; when she spoke at all she varied +between the angelic and the snappish; and before very long she excused +herself and went to her room. She was to have a light supper sent up and +Mrs. Hope adjured Herrick not to worry! + +He duly sent his roses and his telegram of good wishes, but that she +could really interest herself in the play at such a time seemed horrible +to him and he arrived at the theater still puzzled and rather resentful +of the intrusion of this unreal issue. + +But the first thrill of the lighted lobby, glowing and odorous with the +stands of Christina's flowers; the whirr of arriving motors; the shining +of jeweled and silken women with bare shoulders and softly pluming hair; +the expectant crowd; the managerial staff, in sacrificial evening dress, +smiling nervously, catching their lips with their teeth; the busy +movements of uniformed ushers; the clapping down of seats; the high, +light chatter, a little forced, a little false, sparkling against the +memory of those darker issues that clung about Christina's skirts; the +whole, thrilling, judging, waiting house; all this began to affect +Herrick like strong drink on jaded nerves. From his seat in the third +row he observed Mrs. Hope and the Inghams take their places; the +attention of the audience leaped like lightning on them. Just then one +man came into the box opposite and drawing his chair into its very +front, sat down. It was Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +Herrick forgot him quickly enough. It was a real play, acted by real +artists; the production held together by a master hand; and it continued +to string up Herrick's nerves even while to himself he scarcely seemed +to notice it. He had had no idea that it would be so terrible to live +through the moment of Christina's entrance. He sat with his eyes on his +program, suffering her nervousness, feeling under what an awful handicap +she was waiting there, the other side of that painted canvas, to lose +or win. There was the wracking suspense of waiting for her, and then, as +in a dream, the sound of her voice. Her dear, familiar voice! She was +there! She was there; radiant, unshadowed, exulting in the flood of +light, at home, at ease; softly, shyly, proudly bending to the swift +welcome and carrying, after that, the hearts of the audience in her +hand. She had only to go on, now, from triumph to triumph; her sun swam +to the meridian and blazed there with a splendid light. Mrs. Hope with +lowered eyes, breathed deep of a success that passed her dreams; Ten +Euyck, compressing his lips, his arms folded, never took his eyes from +Christina's face. And Bryce Herrick, watching her move, watching her +speak, not accepting this, as did the public, for a gift from heaven, +but aware to the bone of its being all made ground, of the art that had +lifted her as it were from off the wrack into this divine power of +breathing and creating loveliness, could have dropped down before her +and begged to be forgiven. + +Who was he to have judged her?--to-day or last night? to have exacted +from her a line of conduct? to have tried to force upon her the motives +and the standards of tame, of ordinary women? He remembered having often +smiled, however tenderly, at her pretensions; not having taken quite +seriously her attitude to her work. And here was a genius of the first +order, whose gifts and whose beauty would remain a happy legend in the +hearts of men when he was dust; whose name youth would carry on its lips +for inspiration when no one would care that he had ever been born! Oh, +dear and beautiful Diana who had stooped to a mortal! For this was the +secret thrill that ran like wildfire through the homage of his +heart--the knowledge that she loved him, and the feel of her lips on +his! + +Let them worship, poor creatures, poor mob! Unknowing and unguessing +that between him and her there was a bond that crossed the +footlights--the memory of a dark room and firelight, a girl in his +arms.--"Bryce dear, are we engaged? You haven't said?--I've wanted +you--Oh, how I've wanted you--all my life!"--At the end of the +performance it was impossible not to try to see her; not to get a word +with her, to confess and to have absolution. + +But at the stage-door there were so many people that he could not have +endured to share his minute with them. He knew the Babel that it must be +inside, and he decided to wait here; by-and-by the Inghams wouldn't +grudge him a moment. They seemed to stay forever; but at last all were +gone but two or three, and he decided to send in his card. As he stepped +forward the door opened, and Christina, in the oblong of light, stood +drawing on her gloves. + +She was dressed as if for a coronation and not even upon the stage had +the effulgence of her beauty seemed so drawn together for conquest. Her +long white gown had threads of silver in it; the white cloak thrown back +from her shoulders did not conceal her lovely throat nor the long string +of diamonds that to Herrick's amazement were twisted round her neck and +fell down along her breast; she carried on one arm a great white sheaf +of orchids, and Iphigenia led to the sacrifice was surely not so pale. + +Upon her appearance the closed motor which had been waiting across the +street swept into place. It was a magnificent car, lined with white; the +little curtains at the windows were drawn back and a low electric lamp +showed the swinging vases of orchids and white violets. Christina turned +her eyes from it till they met Herrick's; for a moment they widened as +if galvanized, and then, with a sweet, icy bow, she went right past him. +A man who had jumped out of the motor got in after her, and closed the +door. It was the man who had sat all alone in the stage box; Cuyler Ten +Euyck. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS + + +There are violences to nature in which she is reined up so suddenly that +after them we are left stupid rather than unhappy. In such a mood of +held-in turmoil Herrick walked home and waited for to-morrow. His +appointment with Christina was at twelve, noon, and until noon he +struggled not to think at all. Anything was better than thought; yet +nothing would now answer save security--security past, present and +future--a full understanding of her life, of her trouble, of her +actions, of what game she was playing and of what part in it she was +ready to give him. By-and-by the wound began to throb, but he merely +kept it closed with a firm hand. Till noon to-morrow! + +With the morning the papers he had ordered, in a time that seemed long +ago, came to his door; he found himself opening them, and tracing the +dazzling streams of Christina's notices. Their flaming praises left him +cold; already they seemed to be written about some one whom he did not +know. + +Here, at any rate, was a Christina Hope with whom he could imagine +parting. The greatness of her destiny was full upon her; she seemed +ringed with a cold fire, brilliant as the golden collar of the world and +passible, perhaps, by Cuyler Ten Euycks, but hardly by a young literary +man from the country. Never again, whether she wished or no, could she +be quite the same girl in the gray gown who had sat in a corner of the +coroner's office beside her mother. Hermann Deutch's Miss Christina had +become one of the great successes of all time. And Herrick shrank a +little at the loud clang of her fame. + +He was going that morning to the Ingham offices at ten o'clock to sign +his contract. The day was oppressively warm, with hot glints of +sunshine, and it seemed to Herrick that the bright, feverish streets +swarmed with the rumors of Christina's triumph. He wondered if it had +got in to that man in jail and acquainted him with the strange +difference in their fates. His contract meant nothing to him; he got +away as soon as he could. Yet already the atmosphere was changed, the +sky was overcast, and as the clocks about Herald Square struck eleven, a +warm, dusty wind, even now bearing heavy drops of rain, swept down the +street. If Herrick took a car he would reach the Hopes a good half hour +too early, and he had no mind, after walking in the wet, to present +himself in muddied boots and a wilted collar before Christina. He looked +about him. He could choose between hotel bars--where actors might be +talking of her glory--dry goods shops and a moving-picture show. Perhaps +because Christina had gratefully mentioned moving-pictures, he chose the +latter. His longing and dread were so concentrated upon twelve o'clock +that he had no consciousness of buying his ticket. Only of +wondering--wondering-- + +The place was not yet full enough to be oppressive, and Herrick sat +there in the welcome dark, with the rhythmic pounding of the music +stunning his nerves. He closed his eyes; and immediately there sprang up +before his consciousness the eternal, monotonous procession of +questions--What had she meant last night, by throwing over everything +for Ten Euyck? Why had she fainted at the sight of Nancy Cornish's hair +and what strange bond linked Nancy with Ingham's murder? Why had Nancy +disappeared a few hours before the shot; who had said, in Ingham's room, +"Ask Nancy Cornish," and to whom had they said it? Why had her +visiting-card broken down Christina's earlier evidence, and was that her +scarf which had frightened Christina so, or did it belong to that woman +of the shadow? And who was that woman? Why had an uncontrolled and +variable man, such as Denny had described himself, suffered six hours of +the third degree rather than risk revealing her name? By what authority +did Christina promise to produce her, that very afternoon, at the office +of the District Attorney? Had she made Christina break with Ingham, as +she had made Denny kill him, by that story of his betrayal of her youth? +He felt intuitively that in this woman was the key to the entire +situation. She had created it; she would be found, more than they now +knew, to have controlled it; and she, and perhaps she alone, could solve +its manifold involutions. She had arrived before Denny, she had spoken +boldly and insolently to Joe of Ingham; she had forced herself in upon +him when he did not want her; she had come openly in a white lace +dress--he remembered the lace that hung from the shadow's sleeve--and +made herself as conspicuous as possible--why? And as Herrick asked +himself these questions in the darkness he could almost have believed +himself surrounded by the darkness of that night; the brisk strumming of +the orchestra was not much like Ingham's piano, but it had the same +excited hurry of those last few moments; and Herrick's mind called up +again the light, bright surface of the blind and then the shadow of the +woman cast upon it, lithe and tense, with uplifted arm, the fingers +stiffening in the air. His eyes sprang open, and there before him, on +the pictured screen, among the moving figures of the play, was the same +shadow, with uplifted arm, the fingers spreading and stiffening in the +air. Then in the movement of the scene, the shadow turned clean round +and disclosed Christina's face. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +"WHEN STARS GROW COLD" + + +Herrick sat without moving while the shadows played out their play. But +he saw them no longer. They had begun and ended for him with that +certainty which it seemed to him, now, that he had always felt. + +When Christina's film came round again he watched it carefully all +through from the beginning. The play was of some western episode, and he +saw Christina come on, a spare slip of a girl in short skirts and long +braids, a little awkward, a little jerky, like a suspicious colt, and he +observed quite coolly what she had gained in five years. He saw Denny +come on, dressed as a Mexican--cast for the villain even then!--and he +saw for himself how greatly Denny had been her superior in those days, +and all the method and knowledge which she had absorbed from him as she +absorbed everything from everybody; and Herrick smiled there, in the +darkness, to think of it. As the action of the play quickened it shook +the novice from her self-consciousness; the promise of her great talent +began to show; already she did things that were magnificent; and when at +last her wedding was interrupted at the church door by the Mexican's +attempt to claim her as his sweetheart, her fire and fury became superb. +Herrick leaned forward watching. He saw Denny pour out his accusation, +he saw the bridegroom hesitate, he saw Christina sweep round denouncing +them both, saw the lithe, tense length of her, and her proudly lifted +head, saw her suddenly fling one arm up and out in her strange and +splendid gesture of her free, her desperate passion; the hand clenched +for an instant and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in +the air. He waited for the shot, but no shot came. Only once more the +shadow turned and revealed the young face of Christina, as she was at +seventeen, and shone upon him through the darkness with Christina's +eyes. Herrick rose to his feet and pushed out of the theater. The +streets were full of wind and rain, but he did not know it, and along +the crowded crossings, among multitudes that he did not see, he had the +luck of the drunken and the blind. + +He walked for hours without knowing where he went. His soaked clothes +hung on him like lead and the wind pounded him and made him wrestle with +it, but the burning poison of his thoughts could not be put out by wind +or rain. Towards nightfall he found himself at the door of the house +where he lived, and having nothing else to do, he went in. His +sitting-room was dark and cold; he threw himself into a chair and +lounged there, sodden with fatigue and wet, and staring at the empty +grate. There, when it was all aglow, had she leaned to him and put her +face to his and lied. As she had lied to Ingham, waking on his breast! +As she had lied to Denny, folded in his arms! Harlot and liar, liar and +cheat--oh, liar, liar, liar! For that was the poison in the wound, and +the bitterness beyond death--that not for one hour had she been true! +That flower-sweetness of her dear touch, of her hand in his, was as +corrupt as hell. His dear, wild, brave, demure Diana had never drawn one +breath of life--and the adventuress who wore her masque had all along +laughed at him in her sleeve! If she had only told him! It was a +challenge he could have met and carried; he felt his hand lock on +Christina's, strong to draw her from any quicksand of which she +struggled to be free. But that she should have fooled him and played +with him and led him blindfold, that she should have gone out of her way +to snare and laugh at him--what one of the lies with which she had been +waiting for him this noon could he now believe? She had betrayed and +thrown over Ingham for Denny as she had thrown over Denny for him, and +as she had thrown him over for Ten Euyck! She had played them all four +against each other--them, and how many others!--as in her insatiable +vanity she would yet throw Ten Euyck over for some new fool! She was all +vanity and nothing else; foul in her heart and scheming in her tongue, +cruel, cheating, worthless! Oh, Christina, oh, sweet, my sweet--liar, +liar, liar!--oh, Christina!--you! How could you? + +He sprang up; going to his sideboard, he poured out a strong drink of +the raw liquor and drained the glass. And as he stood there, with the +rank fire coursing through his exhaustion, the chilled stiffness of his +body and the heavy reeking damp of his crumpled clothes gave way to a +terrible warm sense of life and pain, and to a hunger, such as he had +never known, for that pain to be eased. Only one thing on earth could +ease it and that was the sight of Christina's face. + +He struck a light and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. In the +mirror opposite he could see his leaden face, stiff with soil and +weariness and framed in his moist, rumpled hair. He looked at it with a +sense of its being very ugly and unseemly, and that the dull red +beginning to creep into it from the whiskey was uglier and unseemlier +still. His body weighed upon him horribly, it seemed to creak and +prickle in its reluctant joints, and to loom up tangibly before him, as +if he saw double. But his spirit was very light and fierce and swift, +and throbbed in him, mad to be out of jail. Mechanically he got his hat, +and started for Christina's theater. + +He did not want to speak to her, to have any sort of dealings with her; +but see her he must. It was a need like any other, but stronger than any +other; not to be argued with. Now that he knew her, he must see her. +That would cure him. Let him see her once more and he could forget her +in peace. Something heavy, like his body, told him that this wouldn't +do; this was death and damnation, this would destroy him through and +through! And he replied that he hated her, and would forget her, and +never wished to pass another word with her! But see her this once more, +he must. Once more! Through the night and the pouring rain, the lights +of her theater began to gleam. They gleamed on arriving motors; on high +hats and snowy shirt-fronts, on opera cloaks and jeweled hair. Despite +the storm, the city had driven forth to do homage to the new star. The +candles at Christina's altar were burning high and clear; the lobby, all +brightness and warmth, was filled with delicate rustlings, frou-frous of +light feet and chattering voices and soft, merry sounds, idle +excitement. There was a little sparkle on all faces; the glimmer +reflected from Christina's eyes. In all men's mouths was the sound of +her name. Not last night had been more crowded nor more brilliant. + +And Herrick was very quiet and knew quite well how to behave. There +would not be a seat left at the box-office, nor would he appeal to the +management. He pushed to the center of the little crowd around a +speculator; then, clutching his ticket, went in. Just as last night, the +ushers ran up and down the aisles, and the seats clapped into place; +just as last night, he was surrounded by a garden of chiffon and satin +and perfume, of gossip and murmur. The audience, a little nervous, was +waiting to be thrilled. The overture was in, and the music quivered +through Herrick as the drink had done. He sat there very still, muddy +and damp, with a wilted collar, a rough head, and no gloves; there was a +little fixed smile on his lips and he stared at the curtain. He couldn't +see through it. But soon it must go up. He was nothing but one waiting +expectancy. + +They played a second overture and this did not surprise him. Then he saw +Wheeler, dressed for the first act, come before the curtain. And his +smile broke. Because the delay was so terrible. Then he realized that +Wheeler was making a speech. + +"You can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, with what regret I am obliged to +inform you that there will be no performance this evening. On account of +the sudden illness of Miss Christina Hope the theater will be closed for +to-night." There was something about getting back money at the +box-office. + +Herrick continued to sit there, unable to accept what had happened to +him. He wasn't going to see her! It was the snatching back of food from +a starving man; he had laid his lips to the spring in the desert and +found it dry! The thing wasn't possible. All his nature had been running +violently forward, and the shock of its stoppage stupefied him. As for +any concern over Christina's illness, it never occurred to him. +By-and-by he stood a long while on the corner of the street, not knowing +where to go. He was not so lost as to seek Christina in person, and +after his recent vigil there his own rooms were insupportable to him. +Presently some one jostled him, and he was face to face with Wheeler. + +"Great God, man!" Wheeler said. "Where have you been! What are you +standing here for! We've been looking for you all afternoon. Called up +your rooms a dozen times! Deutch and Mrs. Hope and I, we've scoured the +city--been to the Tombs, the District Attorney's, Police Headquarters, +everywhere. The Inghams are raving crazy. Ten Euyck's worse. Well, and +how about me? After all it's my loss! Everything's been done that can be +done. By to-morrow morning the whole city of New York'll be hit by a +tornado. This little old town's going to get the shock of its life and +go right off its trolley! Say something! Don't stand there like a stuck +pig! Speak, can't you? Have you got any idea?" + +Herrick heard his own voice saying, "Is she so ill?" + +"Ill? Heavens and earth--you didn't swallow that drool, did you? Where +have you been? Ill? No, the girl's gone--vanished, kidnapped, run away, +whatever you like. She's disappeared!" + + + + +BOOK THIRD + +WILL O' THE WISP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY + + +Herrick made no outcry at Wheeler's words. He simply stood looking out +into the wet and windy spaces of Times Square, where the great splashes +of colored lights wavered and shone in manifold reflections on the +gleaming pavement. And a tremendous and ultimate change arose like new +life in his heart. + +There is a common human fallacy, touching and perhaps profounder than we +know, by which we instinctively assume any person in danger to be an +innocent person. To both men the missing girl was now in danger. It +occurred no more to Herrick than to Wheeler that Christina, by any +possibility whatever, could have voluntarily deserted a performance. +Something had happened. Inevitably, Herrick remembered the once laughed +at Arm of Justice. Had it known, all along, what the shadow on the +screen had told him to-day? A hundred references of hers, a hundred +inconsistencies, were solved at a stroke. Alone with that insensate +malignity which he had himself encountered, had she now tried to break +some blackmailing game and--lost?--He remembered with a horrid shock +that once let her be identified with the shadow on the blind and in the +eyes of the law she became the perjured witness of a murder, accessory +before and after!--Threatened, thus, on every side, Christina's face +seemed to flower for him there, on the night sky; as once, upon a foggy +afternoon just as the wind began to rise, it had shone on him in the +rainy street--when Christina had first held out her hand to him and +said, "Try to believe that perhaps she was in distress, after all!" + +In what hectic hot-house had he been stifling?--It was as though, in +this wild hour of sweeping rain and blowing air, of lights that flashed +and changed in the surrounding darkness, of isolation amid the myriad +noises of the theater traffic and the clanging trolleys, he heard, of a +sudden, Christina's cry for help; as though, running out into the +freedom of the storm, he gained her side of the road and took her hand. +It might be the hand of an outlaw, it was empty, forever, of any love or +hope for him; but he could feel it, now, in his and he did not care +against what world, whether his own or hers, he held it. For their +personal relation was no longer the great thing. The great thing could +be only that somewhere beyond him in the darkness, desperately needing +help, _she was_. And the next thing was to find her. + +"Well," he heard himself say to Wheeler in a commonplace voice, "let's +hear about it." + +"I want to eat something beside trouble!" Wheeler groaned. "Come in +across the way. Stan's to 'phone there at nine." + +Instinctively they chose a table by a window, as though in the great +street she had loved so much and won so lately, they might see her +hurrying by. The restaurant was almost empty, but the news was already +there. It peered out of the cigar-smoke of the men to whom Wheeler +curtly nodded; it questioned them from the waiter's face. "Where'll I +begin?" asked Wheeler. "Well, this afternoon they wouldn't let me see +Denny. But I met Stan, and he told me Chris had jumped her appointment +with Kane, never brought her witness! Partly, I could have choked the +girl--and, partly, I couldn't believe it of her. I called up her house +and I've been jumping ever since." And he poured out a story of haste +and confusion, of friends interrogated, detectives summoned, of a mother +more ignorant than any one and more prostrated.--"God, Herrick, I'm +sick! The girl's such a monkey, up to the last minute I hoped she'd show +up! About seven Kane got me over the coals. Wonder what he's hit the +trail so hard for? He'd had his suspicions of the Park,--the little +Cornish girl was last seen, you remember, going that way--but the police +have searched every bush for hours. The Inghams are all stewed up with +him and Stanley's wished on to him like a burr. The first thing he said +to me was, 'At what time did Mrs. Hope inform you of her daughter's +absence? Don't hesitate--I can remind you. She never informed you at +all!' Was he trying to see if I'd lie to him? What does he think I've +done with her? But funny thing--Mrs. Hope and the Deutches had been +worrying round looking for that girl all day and yet she'd never +consulted me! Look here, it's not possible--No, what cause would she +have to harm herself?--Mrs. Hope blames herself because last night when +Christina didn't come home--You didn't know that? Well, she didn't. Her +mother thought she was at the Deutches, out of temper. You knew she +quarreled with her mother about Ten Euyck? They nearly knifed each +other!" + +"For God's sake," said Herrick, "tell me whatever you know!" Across his +shoulder the zest of Broadway seemed to peer and listen. But it was too +late to consider that. + +"You see, last night's supper has been delicate ground from the +beginning. Before I knew what the Inghams had planned I asked Christina +to come to supper with me--to bring her mother and any one she liked. +She seemed to be down on Denny since he and that Cornish girl disagreed +and, as a particular bait, I mentioned you. I knew she was interested in +you. And when she isn't interested, the Lord help her host! Well, she +preferred my scheme to the Inghams'--she seems to have shown all along +the most ungodly resistance to their help or countenance in any way! But +I could see, as well as her mother, which was best for my +leading-woman, and she finally gave in. It's remarkable how entirely +one thinks of Christina as the head of the house, and yet how often she +does give in--what an influence her mother has over her when she has any +at all!" He drained his long glass with a sigh. "But last night, right +after the performance, Mrs. Hope comes running into my dressing-room, +well--as I may say, at death's door. Christina was going off to supper +with Ten Euyck. You can understand that I didn't listen to her then as I +should now. She wanted me, as the only person Christina would be likely +to take a word from, to reason with her. I said, 'Yes, yes. By-and-by.' +I only wanted to shut her up, you understand. For just then, in the +first flush of Christina's triumph, I didn't any more think of +interfering with her than with the sun in heaven! I won't say I'd been +rehearsing an angel unawares, but the girl had grown, in that one night, +way out of my sphere. I thought probably Ten Euyck had just prostrated +himself and she'd gone a little off her head, and no wonder! It didn't +seem necessarily so terrible to me. But the old lady is a great stickler +for the proprieties--yes, and for all her talk, Christina has her own +eye on social splendor! It's one thing not to receive people and it's +quite another not to have them call!--When I'd got rid of my friends and +had given Christina time to get rid of hers, I went round to thank her +and congratulate her and at the same time to ask her if she didn't think +she was doing the Inghams a pretty dirty trick. There stood my young +lady dressed out--I was going to say 'to kill'--why, to make Solomon in +all his glory turn pale and fade away! Great Scott!--She looked like the +kingdoms of the earth and the wonders thereof! Christina is always +bewailing the money she owes but you may have noticed that, for a poor +working-girl, she does herself rather well in frocks. Mrs. Hope was +sitting quiet in a corner, quashed, and Christina was humming--'Auld +acquaintance,' if you please!--to herself in front of the glass. 'Auld +acquaintance,' indeed! I thought of Denny, and how he'd stood by this +radiant image through thick and thin--in a way, you might say, made her! +And though you'll forgive a good deal to a first night like that, I +began to agree with the people who say she hasn't any heart. And then I +saw--" + +"Yes--" + +"I saw she had a long string of diamonds twisted round her neck. 'Great +God, girl!' I said, 'where did those come from?'" + +"And she answered?" + +Wheeler had been speaking slower and slower and now, for a long time, it +seemed as if he were not going to speak at all. Then "She answered, +'They have come from Cuyler Ten Euyck. But don't breathe it. It has just +killed dear mamma.'" + +"Well, go on." + +"Her mother got up at that and started to go. But Christina stopped her +at the door and took hold of her arm. 'Mother,' she said, 'what does it +matter? Oh, my poor mother, can't you see that whatever happens we have +done with respectability? It's inevitable, it must be done. And to-night +or to-morrow, what does it matter? Twenty-four hours, one way or the +other, and then--mud to the right of us, mud to the left of us, and unto +dust we shall return!' I thought they were the strangest words that ever +came out of a girl's mouth on the night of what you might call her +coronation!" + +"And Mrs. Hope?" + +"Mrs. Hope just took her daughter's hand off her arm and walked out of +the door and out of the theater.--Well," said Wheeler, with a deep sigh, +"it wasn't for me to do that. I'm a pretty long way from a Puritan! All +the same, this thing made me sick. 'Chris,' said I, 'don't go with him! +Take off those damned diamonds and tell him to go to hell! You can soon +make diamonds for yourself, old girl!' She looked up, singing, in my +face. And that's the last I saw of her." + +"Go on!" + +"My boy, you need a drink!" + +"And Ten Euyck says--?" + +"Oh, poor Ten Euyck--his dignity can't bend, so it's all cracked. He +took her to supper at the Palisades and she left early." The Palisades +was a new roadhouse up the river and the rage of that summer. "The +zealous creature has even run to Kane and disgorged the names of his +guests. So it leaks out that, once the poor soul had unbent so far as to +be seen with an actress, he couldn't be devilish by halves. It seems +miss was annoyed at the character of said guests, as well as at finding +supper served in a private room. So with the offended majesty of an +injured queen, she withdrew to no less public a spot than the entrance +porch. There she sat, swathed in her cloak and with her skirts drawn +about her, till the arrival of the cab she had insisted upon." Wheeler +broke into a laugh. "That girl," he said, "is the devil himself!" + +"And that--was that the very--last--?" + +"Exactly. There she is, togged out in a white, silky crepe-y, trail-y +dress, embroidered in silver, and a white lace opera cloak. In these +useful and inconspicuous garments, she vanishes." His grim grin soured. +"You know what they'll all say! Kane tells the Inghams she couldn't +catch Ten Euyck so surely as with an irritant. She took, of all ways, +the way to hold him. Why, she left him in public--him, the invulnerable +corrector of women! He'll never rest until she is seen, in public, +hanging on his arm! And then the man values his diamonds at forty +thousand dollars!" + +"She drove off alone, at midnight, in a taxicab, with forty thousand +dollars' worth of diamonds round her neck--" + +"Yes, and the cabman was discharged this morning for drunkenness! Stan's +to 'phone if they've found him. Oh, but look here--take it slow! She +'phoned Ten Euyck's house at eight this morning and left a message, +openly, with her name! The servant who took the message describes +exactly that trailing voice of hers--'tell him he may come for his +necklace to-night!'" + +"Come! Come where?" + +"Search me! Or Ten Euyck, either, from the foam on his mouth!--Well, +doesn't that put it up that wherever she 'phoned from they got on to the +diamond necklace. So, where was she? You and I, we know old Chris--we +know, after all, that she just went somewhere for the night on account +of her quarrel with her mother. But, oh, lord, Herrick, who else is +going to believe it? The whole braying pack of this intelligent +world--all it can think of's dirt--the devilish gay sensation of the +whole business! Christina Hope! D'you think there's a bank clerk or a +submissive wife that won't recognize her proper atmosphere at a glance? +You and I and little Stan--a poor author, a profane actor and a brat! In +a few hours that's what her kingdom's crumbled to--'that was so wondrous +sweet and fair!' Police and all, there's the spirit in which they're +going to look for her, and that's going to be one of the worst things in +our way. Well, I'm not a rich man and our precious kid's just about +ruined me this night! But I've done for her what may bust me sky-high +and worth it--I've offered ten thousand for her--safe, you understand! +It ought to be in to-night's late editions, so by now, in one spirit or +the other, this town's out after her like a hound!--Eh? All right! It's +Stan, now!" + +Herrick sat there staring into the street. A newsboy ran past with the +last extra of the evening. Two of the interested smokers had just left +the restaurant and now stopped in the rain to buy a paper, opening and +scanning the flapping sheets against the wind. Ah, yes, of course! He, +too, sent for a paper. Yes, there, on the first page--scare headings, +but in itself the meagerest fact. Scarcely even insinuations +yet--"friends fear some serious accident," "friends deny suicide," +"suspicious circumstance--Ten Euyck necklace"--Wheeler's reward, and +news three hours old. When he looked up the square seemed full of +newsboys; several people as they came into the restaurant had papers in +their hands. She was just news, now; disreputable news! "The town's out +after her like a hound!"--Wheeler's hand was on his shoulder. "No cabman +yet. But they want you, Herrick, on the 'phone." + +Stanley's voice told him only to hold the wire. Then a crisper tone +asked pleasantly, "Mr. Herrick? This is Henry Kane. I just wanted to ask +you--you had an appointment with Miss Hope for noon to-day. If you +didn't know she was not at home, why didn't you keep it?" + +How sharply the trap bit! + +"You've had no communication with her since last evening? Nothing +happened to arouse your anxiety? Nor distrust? No, nothing? And yet, +just as it began to rain, you started for a walk in a light suit--or" +(the telephone itself seemed to give forth a dry smile) "what I am told +was once a light suit, and walked about all day in an equinoctial storm! +Taking yourself to the theater at night without changing, without +shaving, without dining, but still carrying on your person a good deal +of the surface of the earth and of the waters under the earth! Well, +sorry to have disturbed you. Only my dear sir, don't trouble yourself to +conceal too much. Don't fancy yourself the only man in New York who has +been to a moving-picture show." Kane hung up the receiver. + +That stunned, sick, silent curse of the man on the wrong side of the +law! This attorney fellow was like a hound after her, too! He, then, +since he was so clever, in God's name let him find her and find +her--soon! It was all he asked!--As Herrick stepped out of the booth +into the corridor of mirrors that ran through the building to the next +street a page boy came briskly up the gilded lane, pattering out a +phrase that washed across Herrick's mind in a wave of sound dimly +familiar; he saw the boy turn into the orangerie and through the +glass-screen he vaguely watched him wend his way between the little +green tables with their golden lamps, lifting his flatted tones into the +orange-scented air so that its mechanical legend was caught by trailing +vines and mingled with the plashing of a little fountain. His mind +aimlessly followled the boy's cry till it was lost in the music of a +mezzanine orchestra hidden in the foliage of a tame tropical jungle! +This was what they called civilization--this trash which had achieved no +mechanism to find her, to protect her! But which could know that she had +been struck out of its midst and yet sit there in its futile nonsense, +stuffing--A voice rose from the velvet lounge beside him in the toneless +delivery of one who reads aloud. It was reading the extra's account of a +gesture in a moving picture show. "The police say that boys began +reporting it before noon, and, the attention of the theater having been +called to the film, its patrons are now offered a thrill of realism by +the piano in the orchestra accompanying the gesture with the march from +Faust. This time, it will be remembered..." + +Oh, no doubt it would be remembered! Its exultant shout sounded like the +hunter's cry after her now, winged by Wheeler's offer of ten thousand +dollars! Doubtless the film would be repeated on the morrow, that all +the world might steel its heart as it watched with its own eyes +Christina Hope moving with that motion to that time! + +Oh, for something to do! Some untried search, some shrewder question! +Something to do, to suffer, to dare--some clue--some suggestion--Denny! +Had they tried Denny? He who knew so much at the least would set them +right, would know and would tell them that she had never deserted his +cause of her own free will, that he who knew her believed in +her--Wheeler came out into the lobby and took him by the arm. He, too, +had bought a paper and now he held it under Herrick's eyes. "This is why +I couldn't see him, then!" In the Tombs that afternoon, Denny had again +attempted suicide. + +So that was how he proclaimed his confidence! He had somehow got hold of +a knife, but the blow aimed at his heart had been averted by a watchful +guard and he had received only fleshwounds--one in the left shoulder, +one in the left forearm. A little ludicrous, a little sickening that a +man so expert in killing another should always bungle about killing +himself! But he had been prompt enough and successful enough in setting +upon the girl who had failed him the brand of his despair! Who would +credit, now, that he did not believe in her flight? Herrick felt a +thickness in his throat; with a longing for fresh, dark spaces he pushed +open a door of the lobby and was confronted by the city, glittering in +wet gold. There, up Long Acre, lay the heart of her world. + +And from down where the bronze workmen struck the hours in Herald Square +up past where the gathering streets parted again under a new electric +girl, high in the sky, who winked a knowing colossal eye over a rainbow +cocktail, what faith did it keep with her? Her flight, her shadow on the +screen, they burned in a newer sky-sign, they flashed a fearful but a +more stirring legend! This swept up the thoroughfare that never colors +itself more like Harlequin than in its mirrors of wet asphalt and sped +down every side street starred with theaters where, between the acts, +men gathered and returned with news, and it became clear to thrilling +audiences that so long as there had been nothing against this Christina +Hope she had meant to tell some tale to Kane in Denny's behalf--it would +have been a pretty piece of acting--but the mute witness of the shadow +had broken her down. She had fled from that writing on the screen--even +in the dressing-rooms they would say that! And later, in all these hot, +bright jardins de danse that yesterday were cabarets, these cabarets +that were restaurants yesterday, among the pellucid proprieties of slit +skirts, tango turns, and trotting music it would be said that all along +Denny had kept at least the half of his silence for Christina's sake. +Oh, street of a thousand feverish tongues, how she loved you! And why +did she leave you? Where is she, and where is she? How near, how far? +"Where is she? And how doth she?" There lay her theater; what stroke +could be so heavy as to drive her from that? "The Victors!" Leave "The +Victors!" There were great blurs of light before the billboards. But the +wind tore through them at the boards, struggling to wrench the signs +away. Fierce as it was it was still rising and it ran like a crazy +newsboy whooping through the world, senseless as the cry of the page +that came nearer and nearer. So that Wheeler said, "Good lord, man, +don't you know your own name?" + +Yes, that was what the boy had been saying all along--"Herr--ick! +Herr--ick! Mr. Bry--us Herrick!" + +"No card, sir. Forty-fifth Street entrance. In a taxi, sir. A lady wants +to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY + + +The monstrous hope died almost in the pang that gave it birth. The lady +who leaned out to him from the cab, putting aside her heavy veil, showed +him the troubled countenance of Henrietta Deutch. + +It came to him even then that he had arrived at the turning of a corner. +So that he was surprised when she said to him, "Oh, sir, where have you +been? Sir, sir, have you any news?" + +She had none, then! + +"Hours have I waited and waited at your rooms! There the young Ingham +sends me word that you are here. We have hoped always you might be with +her! Oh, dear heaven! You know nothing, young sir? Nothing at all?" + +"Nothing." + +She drew back. "Tell me only this. Are you--for her, Mr. Herrick? Or +_rid_ of her?" + +Herrick replied, "Well, what do you think?" + +She, whom grief somehow became and illumined like her native and +revealing element, peered into his haggard face, worn and soiled and +sharpened and grim. "Then, young gentleman, I am asked by Mrs. Hope if +of her daughter you have any word or trace, do not give it to the +police." + +What? Herrick felt something cold breaking about the roots of his hair. +Then this clinging, this devoted mother did not want her daughter +found!--"She said nothing more than this?" + +"Nothing more." + +He digested it in silence and it was with a heavy gathering dread that +when she asked him to drive home with her he put himself in her hands. +Then, in what seemed a single convulsion of the storm, the taxi rocked +to a standstill before the Deutch apartment. + +As Mrs. Deutch sprung on the light their eyes vainly quested for some +envelope beneath the door; she went out again to the mail-box, to the +elevator, inquiring for a message. Then the woman and the young man, not +knowing where to turn next, sat down amid the emptiness of those walls +which had so often held Christina. Here, more than ever, everything +said, "She must be just round the corner! Where is she? Where can she +be?" And still Herrick knew that Mrs. Hope's message was but a part of +what he had to hear and that his hostess still groped for terms in which +to tell the rest. + +The pause lay heavy between them. Then, "Young gentleman," said Mrs. +Deutch, "you love my Christina, is it not so?" + +"Don't make me laugh!" Herrick desolately replied. + +She rose. "Then I will say to you what I have long had on my heart." She +opened the door. The halls were empty. She turned the key in the lock, +and glanced at the closed windows; sitting close to him again she laid a +kind hand on his. "Mr. Herrick, there is something wrong with Hermann +Deutch. There is something in his mind to make him crazy. And in the +last days--say it is two or three--it makes him crazier all the while. +Yes, this is so. It is fear. And something that he will not tell. He +knows something, and it makes him afraid. It has been so since he went +up to the room of Mr. Ingham on _that_ night." + +Herrick looked down at her hand and then he put his other hand atop of +both and gave hers a little pressure. "Mrs. Deutch, what is it that you +know about that night? Don't be afraid of me. Don't be afraid for me. +What is it?" + +"Oh, my young sir, I am ready to tell you. Yesterday, no. But to-day, +when all the world has seen the shadow-picture, yes--why not? On that +night till very late I was away. For I had a friend with a sick baby, +and nurses one can not always pay. When I came to the basement gate +there was in our flat no lights. But when I went in there was my +husband, with his coat over his shirt, standing, listening, in the dark. +And he said, 'Christina is upstairs!'--very cross and ugly. I said, 'At +Ingham's? Why, what for?--Why,' I said, before he could tell it to me, +'are you out of your mind that you should let her go up there with that +man at midnight?' He said, 'Tell me the one thing. How would you have +prevented her from going up?'" + +They smiled at one another, ruefully, as at an evocation of Christina. + +"'Oh, my God!' he cries out. 'There is going to be trouble! Mr. Denny, +he has found out why she quarreled with that Ingham, yesterday. She says +he will kill him. She wants that Ingham should go away.'" + +"Do you know why they did quarrel?" + +"No, neither of us. Never at all.--But then, I started to go up to her, +by the freight elevator as he had taken her. Down that back hall we did +not hear the shot. But the telephone made us halt. Joe told us." + +The clasp of Herrick's hand lent her its reassurance and she went on. + +"My husband was all at once like a man in a fit. He seemed to have no +head. He is not to say fearful, but he is the way men are. 'Go!' I said, +'Hasten! It may be that it is he who himself shot!' And this gave him +heart to go upstairs. Then comes to me Christina, slipping along from +the back. I saw her white dress in the dark. And then she came into a +little patch of light and put her finger to her lips. I ran and pulled +her in and shut the door. And I took her in my arms to warm her, for +she was made all of ice. 'Is he dead?' I asked her. And she shivered +out, 'Oh, a doctor! Get a doctor! Go up to him, Tante Deutch! And +hurry!' she would say, 'Hurry!' But, indeed, I thought there was enough +with him. I asked her the one thing: 'Who did it?' She looked at me with +her lips all wide apart. But not a name would she breathe out. Neither +then nor to this day. And by that I knew it was Mr. Denny. For no man +but him would she be so still. Or not then, when you she did not yet +know." + +The color rushed into Herrick's face. But he could not speak and Mrs. +Deutch went on. "I asked her not one thing more. I held her and tried to +give her comfort, and at first she clung to me. She did not cry, but by +and by she would sit alone, waiting, listening, and her nostrils made +themselves large. But at last it was only my husband who came, and +Christina flew up and looked at him. And her eyes were big and wild with +questions, but still speak she would not. But my husband's face, Mr. +Herrick, it was the face of him who has been struck, who has been +stabbed. Not then nor now do I know why that look he has. But it is not +gone, it grows worse. He said only to Christina, looking straight at +her, 'You left your scarf!' and his voice had in it a sound that was +hard. She looked at him a long time, and she said, 'Very well, then. I +shall know what to do!' At that moment, see you, she said to herself, +'Me they will suspect, and not him!' And oh, my brave heart, her mind +she made up: 'So be it!' We kept her there till just before dawn. And +then, because of her white lace dress, we put upon her my old black coat +and hat, and both of us went home with her that she might be the less +looked at. She let herself in, and all the rest you know. Only--" + +"Only that Deutch knows something more!" + +"And in all our life the one with the other, it is to me the one thing +he has not told. He is not a secret man. Mr. Herrick, here is what +makes my heart heavy. This thing--it is something not good for our +little girl or he would have told it long ago! But to-day when she +vanishes like that other girl who was her friend, he tells it to the +mother of Christina!" + +So, that was why! Herrick rose. No hour seemed too late, no scene too +strange. "Mrs. Hope will have to tell me!" he said. + +Henrietta Deutch rose, too, and put her hands on his two shoulders, as +if at once to comfort and control. She said, "She is not here!" + +"Not where?" + +"Not in New York. She is gone. She has fled away that she need not tell +at all. A train to some other city where there are boats for Europe--he +says it is best I know no more. He has gone West somewhere. You see, he +must have thought Christina, too, has fled. And what he told her mother, +it has made them not dare to stay. My poor boy!" said Mrs. Deutch, +tightening her hold of Herrick, "my poor boy!" + +"It's all right!" Herrick said, "It's all right! They're wrong, that's +all! They're wrong!" + +He moved up and down the room with long, excited strides. False lights +of misery--horrible corpse candles, leading their lying way toward that +which was bitterer than a new-made grave!--"Why, Denny did it! We all +know that! You've just said so, yourself!" + +"Ah, yes, truly. Surely! But--yet--" + +"What could Deutch have seen that we didn't see? We were all there--he +only went in with us. He may guess something--he can't know. What are we +all afraid of?" + +"And yet," said Mrs. Deutch, "we are all afraid!" + +There was a brisk knock on the door. The newcomer smiled grimly at them +from under a dripping hat brim. "I hope I'm welcome," he said. It was +the District Attorney. + +He seemed to take his own appearance quite naturally and perhaps he was +not averse to their being stunned by it. Standing with his back against +the door he removed his hat and rubbed his hand over the wet mark across +his forehead. "Mrs. Deutch? As soon as my assistants get here I want to +try an experiment in the Ingham apartment. You're rather an +exceptional--janitress, madam! I think I'm going to ask you at once if +there isn't some story connected with your marriage to Hermann Deutch. +It looks as though there must have been scandal of some sort to account +for it." + +The wife's glow of indignation maintained in silence an unruffled +dignity. After awhile she said very slowly, "It is true. There was a +scandal. It did make our marriage." + +Herrick's defensive frown faltered over a sense of something coming +true. He knew, now, that he had always felt in that rich simplicity of +Henrietta Deutch a superiority somehow mysterious. Yes, he had always +seen that figure of domestic tranquillity as not wholly detached from a +dense background, somehow somber and mysterious. + +"Before you commit yourself on that point, just tell me who or what +enforces obedience with a triangular knife?--Let her alone!" + +For Mrs. Deutch had uttered a dreadful cry. It was low, but full of +incredible pain. + +Kane grinned triumphantly at Herrick. "Great heaven!" Herrick begged. +"What is it? What do you know?" + +"Here! Let's sit down and get at this! Mrs. Deutch, this is nearer than +you think to our young lady. Best help me!" + +"Wait! A moment! No, what I know it is far from Christina. It happened +before she was born. But I will tell it. You shall judge." + +A long painful breath labored from her bosom. Then she spoke. + +"The scandal was this. My father died in prison. He was imprisoned for +his life. He was accused that he had killed a child." + +"Yes. Well, go on." + +"It begins long before, with my home in Germany. My father was a +merchant of wines there, and he had in business relations with a +Neapolitan family named Gabrielli. Their son, Emile, was my brother's +friend.----Emile Gabrielli, Herrick's Italian lawyer, who had suggested +his novel!" + +"I had but the one brother; for my mother was never strong and of her +children only two grew up. We were very old fashioned; we lived in +comfort but we had neither the new thoughts nor the new manners. Only my +brother was very advanced. He was so modern that when he looked upon us, +even, it gave him exasperation. His friend was not of his faith. But +that was so old-fashioned a thought it could not be at all mentioned +before him. Well, then, I--too--for one thing perhaps we are all enough +advanced! I came to love Emile. He loved me, too. And no one was +pleased--not even my brother! But, after a long time, when they began to +think I, too, was falling ill like all the rest who died, we were +betrothed. And my father sold his business out and bought a vineyard in +Sicily, near to the estate of Emile's father, taking there my mother, +whose health failed." Yes, with the bewildered indifference of his own +emotion, Herrick remembered the miniature of which the parents of that +sentimental gentleman had not been able to deprive him and recognized +the changed original in Henrietta Deutch. + +"And one morning, walking far before breakfast, my father came upon a +dead little boy under a bush among some rocks. He brought it to our home +in his arms; it was the baby of a poor farmer. It had been stabbed +between the little shoulders. And there was a strange, three-cornered +wound." + +She stopped and her hands stirred in her lap. But she clasped them and +went on. "My father was accused. Witnesses appeared against him with +strange tales. How could we make ourselves believed. I have told you how +he fared. + +"Do you think my brother could rest? He left his law in Germany; he came +to Sicily to fight, to hunt, to turn every stone. He was found like the +child. There was the same three-cornered mark." + +Kane gave a low whistle. + +"My mother and I, we were all alone." She smoothed out a little fold in +her dress. "We had but the one message from the family of my +betrothed--that they withdrew the word of their son." + +Kane looked up quickly. "Yes?" he urged. "And then?" + +"Then came to us Hermann Deutch, who in the old days sold our wine. He +gave us escort to Naples, for my mother could go no farther, and +returned to attend our property. It was all in a ruin. The house had +burned. The cattle were gone. The laborers, too, nor would any return. +The land none would buy. It was a place accursed. Our money was soon all +gone." She paused, struggling with a sudden sob. "Hermann Deutch, to +stay on he had lost his position, and he took one that was poor but in +Naples, to be near me. He was all that came near us, who had word or +dealing with us, while my mother grew too weak to live. When she, too, +died, I married him. There was the scandal, sir, to account for my +marriage." + +She looked with deep, mild scorn at Kane. He remained imperturbable, +while Herrick blushed for him. + +"There was one thing more. Mr. Deutch had spent much for us and before +he could take me from Naples he must save something from what work he +had. One month came upon another in that terrible city and we had not +gone. So the time came when I, like other women, thought to have a +child. One night there were fire-works at the seashore and, to liven my +mind, he made me go. As we came home there was a lonely bit of beach, +though toward the cars. Out of the dark a voice called some words at us +and something fell--it rang on a stone at our feet. They had thrown a +kind of dagger. Sirs," said Mrs. Deutch, "it was a triangular knife." + +Kane gave a cry with a strange note of satisfaction. + +But the tears were running down Mrs. Deutch's face. "The shock and the +fear, they were too much for me. I never bore my child. God has never +given me a child to love except Christina. Tell me what all this can be +to her?" + +"Do you know what aphasia is, Mrs. Deutch? And doesn't Mr. Deutch +suffer, occasionally, from a confusion of words?" + +"Not so much that it could be called by a name. Except that one time. +Mr. Deutch has been all his life an excited man. And when that knife +fell at my feet he was like one crazed. Then he forgot language, sir, +and could not speak well for days. English and German he ran together, +and what of French he knows with what Italian. Though he knew well what +he wished to say. And there is yet a smear in his brain where the words +may sometimes a little mix together. But--Christina?" + +"Mrs. Deutch, what did all this suggest to you? Of what did you think +you were the victims?" + +"Imagine yourselves that it was in a time of one of those outcries +against Jewish people which come like stupid fever as though nations, +ignorantly, have eaten too much in strong sun. They needed to blame some +one and, just then, in blaming us they could blame as they would." + +"H'm!--Do either of you know what happened at the Tombs this afternoon?" + +"The papers say that Mr. Denny has tried to kill himself." + +"Well, and very obliging of them. But, for a desperate man, he gave +himself rather queer wounds--scratches in the shoulder and arm. The +guard ran for the doctor and seems to be running yet. But where was our +suicide really cut to the bone? On the insides of his hands!" + +He had produced his sensation. + +"The guard was one of the new Italian contingent. And the blow aimed by +an Italian, then, at the prisoner's heart and caught by his arm, was +given with a triangular knife!" + +They were all three on their feet. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Deutch, for my opening gallery play with you. I didn't +know the tragedy I was running into. And our friend Herrick, here, and +the excellent Wheeler both tried to hoodwink me to-night when I asked +them straight questions. You're going to tell me the truth, I know, for +now I'm telling it to you. We got hold of your husband at the +Pennsylvania Station. Our intelligent police tried to frighten him with +the stab of Denny's triangular prick and they succeeded in putting him +clean out of the game with aphasia--sensory aphasia. Word +blindness--speech or writing--heavens, what a gag! But don't be alarmed; +fortunately it goes with a perfectly clear mind and it's only temporary. +Only--time's everything! Well, it gave me the cue to come up here and +dig for some three-cornered mystery, blackmailing if procurable, in +Deutch's life. Every District-Attorney his own detective! Yes--when it's +this District-Attorney and this crime--Amen! Amen!--What is it?" + +"Oh, sir, the Italian!" + +"Yes?" + +"All morning one hung about the house of Mrs. Hope. Not coming near, but +watching, watching. A little, slim, soft, pretty man, in gentleman's +clothes. And it made her afraid." + +"Ah!" + +"Look here, the fellow in the park--the one with the message--he was an +Italian! They all were!" + +"Exactly! Now--Mrs. Deutch, what was that old secret in the life of the +Hopes which turned the daughter into a cynic and a hater of social +conventions? Ah, come, please!" + +"Oh, sir, that was not a great thing!" + +"What was it?" + +"The sister of Mr. Hope found letters from him--old letters when +Christina was fourteen--written to her who was afterwards his wife. The +marriage had been so long forbidden, they were driven to see each other +so seldom, secretly, alone, and in strange places. Sir, they were in +love and they were very young." + +"This was not known till Christina was fourteen?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then her birth was, of course, legitimate." + +"Oh, of a surety!" + +"And this was all?" + +"All!" + +Herrick found himself listening with a strange excitement. He could not +have told why he had a sudden sense of having touched a spring. That +brief revelation of rash love--what was there in that? Such a thing +might loom large in a society novel; in the vast, mixed, multitudinous +life of men and women it was small enough. How could it arrest his +attention at a time like this? As though some small, mysterious, +irrelevant key had been slipped into his hand! By the fleeing figure of +Mrs. Hope? That amiable, vacant, and correct lady, how could any young +and long-dead folly of hers, reaching across a generation, strike down +Ingham and shatter a little world? "The little pitted speck"--What was +that? What was he remembering now? "The wages of sin are more sinning!" +Why, that was the motto he had taken for his novel? Sin? Nonsense! "The +little pitted speck in garnered fruit that, rotting inward,--" + +He woke himself roughly to hear Mrs. Deutch adding, "But they lived with +that hard woman, she and her mother, in poverty. And to have it nagged +at and flaunted at the mother, it made her a morbid child. No more. But +now, sir, the Italians?" + +"The Italians, indeed! Mrs. Deutch, as you owe them such a grief, as you +believe in justice and the protection of the weak, as you have had +enough of government by the triangular knife, give me the name of your +Christina's Italian host!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY + + +"Well, for one thing," Kane said, "no mortal creature ever looked at +that girl and thought her a quitter." He was standing at Ingham's table, +wrinkling his eyebrows at the storied blind. "I've come within the +fascinations of that young person myself, but I don't think it's +infatuation which makes me say that she didn't drop down in a dead faint +yesterday afternoon, just to pass the time. When those clear eyes of +hers looked at that lock of hair she learned something that astonished +and horrified her. From that moment she made up her mind to go somewhere +and, at the appointed hour, go she did. Devil take her for not confiding +in Mrs. Deutch! She meant, I daresay, to return. But she must have been +greeted with the news of the moving picture advertisement and thought +herself very well off where she was. Eventually, she'll pull some string +from there." + +He began putting out all lights but the table-lamp. + +"I fancied, at first, the mother had followed, for she lied about going +to Europe. We've had every steamship and railway line watched since long +before she left, so she's not beyond the scope of trolleys. But she'd +only be a nuisance to the girl, nor is she one to pursue risks--more +likely, she just skipped out early to avoid the rush. All sorts of +intimidating things have happened lately; then, last night, Christina +threatened her with some exposure, this morning she was frightened by an +Italian, and the climax has been capped by whatever it was Deutch told +her--Don't jump! No, I'm no mind-reader. But I had, of course, the +Deutch apartment, as well as yours, wired for a dictograph. Useful thing +a dictograph--especially when there are ladies about!" + +With a happy indifference to the effect of this statement upon Herrick +he cast about the room, appearing to sniff up its suggestions and to +compare them with a vision in his mind's eye. Absorbed, elate, on edge, +tingling with some suspended energy, as he raised the blind and peered +out he radiated a good humor somehow inhuman. + +"That wasn't a taxi? I'm expecting a couple of my boys and," he grinned, +"poor Ten Euyck!" He disappeared, bent on examining the bedroom. + +Herrick still stood, dumb and raging, with his back against the door. In +his impotent rebellion against Kane's inferences he had been almost +indifferent to the fateful setting of the new scene in that night's +hurrying kinetoscope. But slowly this had begun to assume its natural +imaginative sway. There were the dim blue walls framed in their outline +of smooth, black wood. There before him was the long white blind; to his +left the piano where Ingham had sat playing; by stretching out his right +hand he could touch the portieres of the room in which they had found +Ingham's body. It was all in order now. The cushions of the couch had +been smoothed and set up. The chair that had lain overturned beside the +table had been stood in its proper place, at the edge of the portieres, +near the door. The newspapers and ashes, the siphon and half-empty glass +had been cleared away. The little puddle by the piano stool, too, was +gone. All was in order; Ingham's hand might have been about to draw +those portieres, he might have stepped between them to tell--what? What, +the poor fellow persisted, was there to tell? He knew the secret of the +shadow on the blind, the secret of the shot in Ingham's breast. Only +the one thing was unknown--Who had contrived to bolt the door? That he +had always felt the puzzle's essence and its answer; there stole through +him again that sense of a skeleton still locked within those walls to be +discovered with some recognizing shock; once more his fancy began to +search through those hollow rooms in desperate hope, driven by that +superstition, by the obstinate unreason with which a starving hand +continues to fumble in an empty pocket. Futilest of occupations! The +sense of shamed stupidity, of failure in Christina's cause, warned him +with a squelching sneer that he was the merest pawn in Kane's hand and +that the room would yield its secret, if it had one, to Kane and not to +him. At any rate, how could that secret find Christina? And, if he were +not looking for Christina, what was he doing there? + +As he turned to go it was Kane who came back through the portieres and +said, "Sit down, for heaven's sake! Don't stand there glaring at me as +if I were Ingham's corpse!" + +The sharpness of his entrance suggested something. + +Herrick answered with his hand on the knob, "I'm virtually a prisoner, I +suppose?" + +"Oh, don't you care to sit out the show?" + +"If I left here should I be arrested?" + +"Arrested's an exaggeration." + +"I should be shadowed, then?" + +"Well, my dear fellow, there've been so many disappearances! And you're +so near the storm-center--you make such a sensitive barometer!" + +Herrick dropped on to the couch as a mouse might give itself up to a cat +and leaned forward, frowning, motionless. + +"It's a great game, this, of 'Vanishing Lady'! But I don't mind telling +you that it's the Italian background to the vanishings that interests +us. An obscure young girl--but a great friend of Christina Hope's--is +the first to vanish. She sends an appeal for aid to Christina Hope, +through the Arm of Justice. + +"A publisher--betrothed to Christina Hope--receives blackmailing letters +from the Arm of Justice, and is murdered. + +"A young author--also betrothed to Christina Hope--is attacked. But, as +a victim, proves a failure. + +"An actor--also--well, also an old friend of Christina Hope, and said to +have been recently in love with the vanished Nancy Cornish is arrested +for Ingham's murder. And what happens? S-s-z-boum! A cluster of +respectable and comfortable persons scatter for the ends of the earth. +While, ahead of them all, pop goes the beauty! In a white and silver +dress. So she didn't go farther than the embrace held wide open to +receive her." + +"You mean, of course, the Arm of Justice?" + +"Of course." + +"What are you trying to do with me?" Herrick snarled. + +Kane answered with great deliberation, "I'm trying to save you, you +young fool!" + +"Spare yourself wasted time. What does all this matter to me? What does +a lot of gab matter? I've heard enough of it to-night, God knows! But +does it tell me anything? You're all full of suggestions, but where is +she? Do something if you know how--find her, find her! She's in danger, +that's all that matters! Where is she? Where is she?" + +"You talk about danger! And you want _me_ to find her?" + +"Has Denny retained you, then?" + +"Oh, you poor kid!--Now, Herrick, I know your place in life. I studied, +one term, under your father. I breathe familiarly the air of Brainerd, +Connecticut. Corey and old Ingham are friends of mine. This muss +of--Paah! Come out of it, Herrick, it isn't good enough! She in her +rotten world and you--Oh, all right!" + +Kane rose and went again to the window. "Rain's held up." He looked at +his watch. Strolling back to his chair he fixed his eyes on Herrick, +across his interwoven knuckles. + +"But you've listened so willingly to Wheeler and to Mrs. Deutch, why not +listen to me? I've something of a confession to make, myself. Do you +know what it is to be possessed by a mania?" + +A man with a mania! + +"I heard Ten Euyck call you that, the first time I ever saw you." + +"Good! A man with a mania, a prosecutor with a pet criminal! But he +didn't mention the criminal? Allow me--the Arm of Justice!" + +Herrick's pulse gave a mad leap and he slowly raised his head. + +"You've taken that business, all along, as just a mask for some +desperate amateur. Then, too, you were all thrown off the track--and +small wonder!--by those literate, unbusinesslike letters in idiomatic +English. A lady's letters, in fact!--My dear fellow, a very real and +definite 'Arm of Justice,' a low-lived little gang that sunny Italy knew +how to get rid of, has made its living at blackmailing certain gutters +of ours for a generation. What nobody but your humble servant has +believed is that this more stylish business, using our language and +dwelling very evidently in our midst, has any connection with the +original A. of J. beyond borrowing its title from the police reports. +Not for the first time! See here! The Arm of Justice started life as the +humblest little blackguard gang, extorting money from low-class +Italians. It was like all its class, strictly minding its own business +in its own nationality and considered worth nobody's while to catch. But +to my mind about four years ago this violet by a mossy stone burst out +like a sunflower. To my mind, it was this very same Arm of Justice +which abandoned every precedent by entering, with one bound, into +American life." + +His look seemed to ring with triumph, but his voice kept a cold edge. + +"No Italian gang, real or bogie, big or little, had ever thrown its +shadow there. But the Arm of Justice flew high, carried the new +territory at a rush, and struck at the very proudest families in New +York, the most powerful individuals!" + +"But how? How?" + +"Ah, if I knew! What's its source of information? How does it get hold +of those unhappy secrets that its owners guard like Koh-i-noors? Well, +men will tell a good deal to a woman--and those were a woman's letters, +Herrick! Once it gets its secret it starts a correspondence. How often +it has succeeded, grabbed its hush-money and retreated, of course I +don't know. But when its advances are rejected it abandons its +typewriter and calmly prints a scant edition of a dirty little rag +calling itself _The Voice of Justice_ and telling the blackmailing +story. It then mails marked copies through various New York post offices +to the family, friends and enemies of its victims--the three before +Ingham were all of Knickerbocker standing. What a revenge! What a +prestige for next time such a threat gave it! The desire of my life is +to smash that printing-press!" + +"But it followed up the Ingham business with letters alone?" + +"There you are--the whole Ingham business is a departure! Observe that +until Ingham's death the English-speaking branch of the business never +committed itself to violence; it caused four tragedies in four years, +but it simply pressed the button of exposure and its vengeance came off +automatically. The first time a young girl went crazy. The second there +was a divorce and the wife shot herself. And the third time a bad +stumble, lived down for twenty years by a fine old friend of mine, a +judge of the highest standing who had made himself an honorable +character, was exposed to such relentless political foes that this +office had to prosecute. Well, Mrs. Deutch's father isn't the only +gentle soul who's died in jail!" + +Kane's voice had risen in hot anger. "Perhaps you think I ought to be +grateful--thank them for doing my work! Am I to do theirs, then? Execute +their orders, their sentences? Make my office the tool of cowards and +criminals worse than those I convict? Ah, my boy, that did turn me into +a monomaniac! Is there anything I wouldn't give to break that particular +bone in the Arm of Justice?--to lay hands on the real villain of that +little evening party in these rooms that night--not the one who fired +the shot but who prompted it! Believe me, the death of Ingham was a +slip, an accident, bitterly repented. Some last new element got in this +time and got in wrong. The Arm was using a new tool and pushed it +farther than it dreamed the tool would go. The English-speaking branch, +always so careful not to commit murder--I could almost be thankful for +this time--it's put a definite, popular crime into my hand! And now the +poor fools've lost their heads! They that were so cautious, they're +following one sensation with another. They've tried anything, +everything, to get clear! They've only floundered further and further +in! And now they're wild as rats in a trap!" + +"Like rats in a trap!" There it was again! "The wages of sin is more +sinning!" Good heavens, what was his novel to him, now? + +"Still people don't believe me. They can't credit that a single criminal +gang has its feet in the slums, its hand in the pocket of Fifth Avenue, +and its head--well, for instance, on Broadway. Naturally, it wants a +connecting thread. I was so keen after that, even before I came into +office, that they used to call me The Blackhander and say I ought to +write a comic opera. Well, Italy's an operatic nation! And this great +brat of a city, that thinks there's nothing doing in the world but +Anglo-Saxon temperaments, embezzling and baseball games, doesn't know +what it may get up against! I'm sure if I can nab either end of the +skein it will carry conviction. But unfortunately even the Eastsiders +never gave us a map of their whereabouts. There are about seven hundred +Italians in New York who might be called professional gangsters and very +likely a cozy, private little affair like the A. of J. but murmurs, 'We +are seven.' So I've never been able to put the slightest Italian accent +on those illustrious letters till I saw the body of your gunman from +Central Park. Encouraging though not overwhelming evidence! But the +knife that stuck in Denny's arm is a bigger business." + +He might well congratulate himself, Herrick inwardly groaned, over the +color and the emphasis liberally supplied him in the story of Mrs. +Deutch. + +"Of course, you understood what had happened? The farmer had refused +toll to the brigands who governed the south so capably in those days. +They killed his child, leaving their mark on it as a warning that toll +must be paid. The poor wine-merchant attempted to set the authorities on +that sign. The authorities were too weak to take up the gage, and, of +course, a stranger and a Jew made an easy scape-goat. But the brother +didn't take warning from the father's fate. Then the mark on him warned +the countryside that the family was taboo. They became simply lepers. +Not, this time, because the people were religious bigots nor social +asses but because they were scared stiff. Every one connected with the +tabooed strangers must have dreaded some brigand dictum. Every Gabrielli +may have squirmed under that thumb for many a year. Whatever she +romantically believes, her fiance's family simply dared not, for their +lives, receive Henrietta. Nobody dared, except, apparently, our little +friend, Hermann Deutch. Hats off--I salute Hermann! Really, for an +excited man--! But how's that for the nationality of the three-cornered +knife? The nation's pitched it out, over there; and now, to-day, in the +city of New York, in the city's jail, in broad daylight, some descendant +of this agreeable Sicilian clan uses the same weapon to silence a wiry +gentleman who turns out a bit too much for him--being a little on the +Sicilian order himself! But isn't that a sign of something doing between +the slums and Broadway? For what were they afraid Denny would tell? Why +did they wish to silence him except for what he could tell of a certain +lady?" + +Herrick rose, lighted a cigar and flicked out the match with steady +fingers. "And you picture Miss Hope as The Queen of the Black Hand?" + +This pleasantry was delivered with such a raucous and guttural attempt +at quiet satire that Kane returned to earth and smiled. + +"Put in that way it's comic opera, indeed. But it's the tune that makes +the song. I know how crass the thing seems. Good heavens, says common +sense, in what century are we living? And who believes in comic opera? +What's the clue? What's the connecting thread that can reach from the +lowest dives of the East Side, out of another country and another race, +and mix with the grandeurs of so extremely well-known and high-flying a +young lady, on the very day that she becomes a world-celebrity? What's +the answer?" + +The extreme nonchalance of Herrick's voice shook a little as he +remarked, "That's up to you, isn't it?" + +"It's bound to lie in some dangerous indiscretion of her youth. She's +had hard struggling years, in which her temper was still luxurious--a +youth that's ambitious is never too scrupulous--if she had a friend +unscrupulous by profession--And yet I was so sure they had got hold of +her by some secret of her mother's! The Hope honeymoon took place in +Italy--but, in that day, so did everybody's! After all, perhaps they had +a closer clutch. What do we inevitably find in the pasts of all very +young, very beautiful and very successful actresses? We find a dark and +early husband. Italians whose humbler connections still sojourn in +tenements are often highly ornamental and blackmailers aren't branded, +you know, to keep them out of matrimony. Well, whatever the start, +whether she was coaxed in or threatened or married, forced by poverty or +blackmail, she's made them a wonderful--Do you know the thieves' slang +of Naples? And the term 'basista'?" + +"A basista's a sort of fence, isn't he? A confederate on the outside?" + +"A good deal more. A basista, without being a member of the gang, is the +invaluable unsuspected spy in the camp of the victims, who loots +profitable news and sends it in. He or she is sometimes the brilliant +amateur director, the educated person with an outlook, the Adviser +Plenipotentiary. A dramatic-minded young lady with extravagant tastes +and some kind of righteous grudge against society might hardly realize +at first what she was doing--and oh, how she has struggled to be rid of +it, since! Naturally, she's become worth double to them. And she's +recently furnished them with such a hold that, so far from getting +clear, I fancy she was pushed to furnish them with another victim; that +if it hadn't been for the moving-picture another person would soon have +received an Arm of Justice letter, and that person Cuyler Ten Euyck. +What do you think of my thread?" + +"Pretty thin, isn't it?" + +"Wait, encouraging youth! You'll be grateful some day! Come, I'll show +you my hand! Ever since the inquest it has been perfectly clear to the +unprejudiced mind that Christina Hope was in that room when Ingham was +shot. It was perfectly evident that she was shielding somebody. We say, +now, that she was shielding Denny. When we began to suspect Denny we had +to run down his friend, Christina Hope, who left behind her a scarf +bordered with the color in which, through his craze for her, Ingham's +apartment was decorated--a color which up to the time of the murder she +wore so constantly that it was like a part of her personal effect, and +which she has never worn since." + +The color was all about them--blue-gray. What could that have to do with +the shimmer of a dummy pistol, scratched upon whose golden surface +Herrick once more confronted the initial "C"? But he did not put this +question to the District-Attorney. And it was Kane who continued. "Shall +I treat you to a bit of ancient history; shall I reconstruct for you the +movements of Miss Hope on the night of the fourth of August?" + +"As you please." + +"She testified to have dined at home. So she did; but with so poor an +appetite that the maids said to each other that she had really dined +early somewhere else. She testified to being ill and out of sorts; so +she was. But she was incited by this being out of sorts to something +very different from the languor to which she testified. Far from having +bade Ingham farewell forever she called him up at the Van Dam on an +average of every half hour, as well as at his club, and at two +restaurants which he frequented. Failing to find him, at eleven o'clock +she did, indeed, go to the post-box and mail a letter; but at twenty +minutes past eleven she was waiting in a taxi outside the theater where +Denny was rehearsing and sent in a message, without any concealment of +her name, that she wished to speak to him. He sent out word that he was +engaged. An hour later she was there again, and not believing the back +doorman who told her that he had left, she stopped Wheeler, who had +been inside, and besought him to get Denny to speak to her. He replied +that Denny was gone, whereupon she called out to her chauffeur, with +every adjuration to hurry, the name of the Van Dam apartment +house--where, say at a quarter after one, you, Herrick, saw her shadow +on the blind. According to Joe Patrick she was the first on the +spot.--Was she the last there, too?" + +Herrick paused in a long stride; with his bones slowly freezing in him +he turned and faced the District-Attorney. + +"If Denny loved her and went there on her account did he shoot down +Ingham before her eyes? Or did she run out, as she suggested at the +inquest, and Denny shoot Ingham as he turned to follow her? There's your +chance, Herrick, prove that! Mr. Bird tells us when our prisoner came +in. But, before all and everything, when did he come out?" + +He had a way for which Herrick could have slain him, of driving points +home with a smile. + +"But suppose, now, she did most of the loving on her own account. +Ingham, to a certainty, had found out her connection with the Arm of +Justice, when it tried to blackmail him through her. From the row you +heard between them he's likely to have been threatening her with +exposure. Suppose Denny's story is straight and when he found her there +with Ingham he just turned and walked off. Was Ingham a man to refrain +from threatening to send his revelations, first of all, to a man who had +treated him so cavalierly? Is she a girl to stop short of the desperate +in preventing him? Isn't she one to avenge herself in advance? It may +not have been wholly in revenge. Ingham was himself a wild revengeful +fellow who sometimes had too much to drink. He may have provoked her +even to bodily fear. If he guessed such a thing do you think Denny would +not keep silence? I see it strikes you." + +It seemed to him as if it struck the life out of his heart over which +he folded his arms. "Try somebody else," he said, in defiance of the +little clasps of proof which he could hear snapping into each other, +"next time you accuse her." + +"Yes, I'll try Deutch. I gave her every doubt till I heard of his +secret. Is it possible you don't know what he found? And is it possible +that you don't see a preparation for emergency in her taking such pains +to establish--well, not an alibi, but a substitute?--A mysterious +unknown lady with the most conspicuous physical attributes, in whose +person this admirable actress appears before Joe Patrick as the +red-headed murderess of the drama on the front stairs, before, on the +back stairs, with which she appears to be so familiar, she resumes +herself and turns to see what can be done with Ingham! That's the worst +point in the story of a distracted girl, pushed to the wall, driven past +her last stand, maddened by a suddenly enlightened and too cruel Ingham, +hounded by her friends, the Arm of Justice, to their work; herself no +more--as I was once no more!--than a trigger pulled by their hand! No +wonder they've had a firmer hold on her than ever since that night, and +shield her, now, with all their care because in doing so they shield +themselves!" + +"That's what you think, is it?" + +"It's what I fear--and it's what you fear! Or--what's a +District-Attorney to a lover?--you'd have knocked me down long +ago!--There's not a man of you, knowing the girl, in whose mind, in +whose pulse, it hasn't been from the first hour! Yet there's not one of +you who hasn't sacrificed Denny to her without a scruple. One man in the +end won't do it. I mean Denny himself. He, too, is prepared to go +extraordinary lengths not to betray her. He will deny, of course, that +it was she who was there that night. But I rely on one thing. He knows +that in the State of New York he can not plead guilty to murder in the +first degree. And he won't send himself up for anything less. He's not +afraid of death, but he's mortally afraid of prison--it gets on every +one of his nerves. And he seems to have a great many of them. If they +are ground on the idea of jail so that they break they may break quite +contrary to poor Deutch's--they may set him talking! Ah, if he and +Deutch could happen to meet; those two temperamental persons!--Here, in +this room, in the night, now when neither of them are quite themselves, +what a start they might get! What mightn't it shake out of +them?--There's one final thing the person who shot Ingham, the person +who was last with him in this room, alone, can tell me--How came that +door bolted? Whatever Denny guesses, you'll find he won't guess me +that!--Come in!" + +He conferred with some one on the threshold. "Ask Inspector Ten Euyck to +come up." Turning back to take his place at the library table he +motioned Herrick to a seat. "Pity the sorrows of a poor policeman whose +legal sense is too strong to let him ask a single question of an accused +man, yet who was born to be the head of the Inquisition and looks at the +prisoner with a deep desire quite simply to tear him open! The prisoner +is well held together with surgeon's plaster, but the poor Inspector's +pride in his profession is suffering horribly from the inadequate +conduct of his city's jail to-day and of our detectives' search.--Here +we are!" + +A group of young men appeared in the doorway, with Ten Euyck looming +like a damaged monument in their wake. Civility and self-control forced +themselves on Herrick. He and Ten Euyck sniffed each other, wary as +strange dogs, their spines beginning to rise. "Inspector," said Kane, +"cheer up!" And indeed the funereal quality in that gentleman's +appearance had greatly increased. He sat down, as directed, but when he +looked at Herrick he had to turn his growl into a cough and when he +looked at Kane he winced. It was evidently not alone the errors of the +Tombs and the police department which had bowed his head. It was the +knowledge of last night. His magnificent storm coat could not hide his +riddled dignity. Only by the sight of Christina in his grasp could he +get his dignity back again. + +"Ten Euyck, I sent for you because this is so largely your affair, but +you are not going to be asked to do anything immoral. I am about to +examine a witness, but with no illegal questions nor shall I force him +to testify against himself. He is only going to be asked about another, +a missing witness. Your legal mind doesn't quarrel with his being hard +pushed in that direction? I thought not!" + +Ten Euyck exclaimed, eagerly, "But Deutch can't talk yet!" + +"Deutch? Did you think I meant Deutch? There is some one dearer to +Christina Hope than her dear Deutches and still nearer to the habits of +her life. I mean a gentleman who can talk but won't. Ah, brighten up Ten +Euyck--he shall be got to! He may be ignorant of certain amiable +Italians as criminal characters, it's inconceivable he can be ignorant +of them as Christina Hope's familiar friends. He mayn't be able to tell +me the secret of their lives. But he can give me their address. And he +will." + +They were all grouped about the long table: Kane at its center, facing +the window; Ten Euyck and Herrick bearing with each other at one end; +Holt, an assistant of Kane's, between him and Ten Euyck; to his right, a +stenographer with a short-hand pad. The end of the table was still +vacant. Kane's own doorman stood on the threshold. + +"Wade, have you got Mrs. Deutch? Please step into the bedroom, Mrs. +Deutch. Sit down comfortably, keep silent and listen to everything.--I +want to remind you all that, wise as our witness is, there are some +things he doesn't know. So far as we know he has never connected the +Cornish girl's disappearance with the blackmailers. He's not supposed to +know there are any blackmailers. And, for certain, he's seen no papers +nor been allowed to talk with any one. He doesn't know that Christina +Hope has disappeared! He doesn't know that New York has seen a +moving-picture!" Turning to the man at the door Kane said, "Bring in +William Denny." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS + + +Herrick felt the strong light of the one lamp like something hypnotic; +it reminded him of the glare in some Sardou or Belasco torture chamber. +It seemed to him that the scene wasn't real; it was like a council of +wolves and he powerless and quiet with them there, as they hungered to +run, baying, on Christina. It was only a nightmare and yet it was more +real and keen than life, and only God knew what would come of it! Then +he saw the slight, dark figure pass the door; every eye, but with what +different desires, turned, ravenous as his, for the secret that it +carried in its breast. + +The doorman brought Denny up to the end of the table and withdrew. The +prisoner was very carefully dressed, his black hair brushed as smooth as +satin, and against his dark blue coat the black silk handkerchief that +supported his arm was scarcely noticeable. He looked a model of rigid +decorum until you observed the heavy straps of plaster across his hands. +Only his skin, always dark and pale, seemed really to be drained of +blood. He nodded gravely to Kane, and with a sort of still surprise to +Herrick. Ten Euyck he passed over. He remained standing until Kane told +him to sit down. If he then dropped rather wearily into a chair he +contrived to sit upright, with a good show of formal manners. As his +dark eyes met the keen light ones of the lawyer a faint, derisive smile +appeared, and was instantly suppressed, upon both their faces. + +"You seem very sure of yourself!" Ten Euyck exploded. + +Denny appeared to become slowly conscious of him. "Even the persuasive +manners of your department," he said, "couldn't make me tell what I +didn't know!" + +Ten Euyck said quickly, "You don't know who killed Ingham?" + +"If I said anything more incriminating, it's possible it might be used +against me." + +"We're not here," Kane interposed, "to discuss Ingham's death. Mr. +Denny, within the last few days there have been some very grave +occurrences, about which it's possible you can enlighten us. If you can, +we shan't be ungrateful. Did you ever hear of an organization called the +Arm of Justice?" + +"Is this a joke?" + +"You never heard of it?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, you can have no objection to repeating the name and address +of Miss Hope's Italian friends?" + +"Not the least in the world. Has she any?" + +"You mean to tell me you don't know she has?" + +"Not if it annoys you. I thought you asked." + +Ten Euyck, with a gesture as of uncontrollable impatience, rose and went +to the window. + +"Since you're in a jocular mood, I will ask you something you may think +extremely amusing. Do you know if Miss Christina Hope owns a red wig?" + +He didn't think it amusing. He seemed to think little enough about it. +"I suppose so." + +"But you never saw one about her house?" + +"She wouldn't keep it about her house, like a pet. She'd keep it in a +trunk. She's not an amateur." + +"You never saw her wear one in private life?" + +"Not even on the first of April." + +"You couldn't even swear she had one, perhaps." + +"I certainly could not." + +"Nor that she had not?" + +"No." + +"So that you wouldn't recognize hers if you saw it?" + +"No." + +The light was very strong upon his face, which remained relaxed and +tranquil. But he was very weak and a faint moisture broke out upon it. + +"Was there any love affair between you and Miss Hope which angered Nancy +Cornish?" + +"No." + +"Don't lie to me!" + +Denny drew in his breath a little. But he did not speak. + +"What was your trouble with Nancy Cornish?" + +Silence. + +"Didn't she quarrel with you because of some woman?" + +Silence. + +"You know she did. You can't deny it. Do you know what many of your +friends are saying? That you kept that appointment with her and got rid +of her. They think you were tired of her and preferred Christina Hope!" + +"Do they?" + +It had missed fire utterly. Yet, since the mention of that other girl, a +kind of hunger had been growing in his face, and suddenly Kane wholly +veered on that new track. + +"But I don't!" said Kane, leaning toward him, and trying to catch and +hold his eye. "I think you really care for Nancy Cornish, whether she's +alive or dead!" He paused. "I think you'll end by telling me what you +know of the woman whom you'll find parted you." + +The same dead silence; only Denny had closed his eyes. + +"Come, give me your attention. Look at me, please. Look at me, and +you'll see that I'm sincere. Did you hear me say if you can help me I +shan't be ungrateful? But you can do better for yourself than that. You +can simply tell the truth! Tell the truth and you won't need my favor. +You'll be free. And you'll have set me in the way to find Nancy Cornish! +It isn't possible you prefer to keep this ridiculous silence, to die +like a criminal for nothing; or spend fifteen to twenty years in the +penitentiary--spend life there,--ah, I thought so!" The +District-Attorney laughed with triumph at the little straightening of +Denny's nostrils. "There's your weak point, my friend! I have never seen +a man to whom the idea of jail was so entirely uncongenial! Get rid of +it, then! Admit the truth about Christina Hope! What do you owe her? She +never even came to me with the witness that she promised." + +"I rather thought she'd have trouble doing that!" + +"Because you knew there was no such woman. Or rather that that woman was +Christina Hope; that she tried to get up courage to incriminate herself +in your place and failed!" + +"You're a bad guesser, Kane!" Denny said. He had sunk a little forward +with his arms upon his knees, and Kane rose and stood over him. + +"Admit that your whole attitude is dictated simply by loyalty to her. +You need be loyal no longer. Has she been near you since you've been in +the Tombs?" + +"No, you've kept her out. And a fine time you must have had doing it!" + +Ten Euyck turned round and said, "She's so _fond_ of you, I suppose!" + +Denny flushed. "Yes," he said, "she's fond of me. She was born to be a +good comrade-in-arms, to carry the flag of a forlorn hope and stand by +you in the last ditch. If you gentlemen can't understand that, I'm sorry +for you. I can't change her." + +"Exactly," Kane said. "I knew that was your ground. Well, this +comrade-in-arms has deserted you altogether. The day she should have +brought me that witness, she threw down her engagement and left New +York!" + +"Oh, guess again!" said Denny. "Not while she lived, she didn't!" + +"And she took with her," Ten Euyck cried, "forty thousand dollars' worth +of my diamonds! Perhaps she was in hopes you'd get away and join her!" + +"Well," said Denny, turning his eyes toward Herrick, without raising his +head, "you!--you're not a criminal!--are you going to stand for that?" + +"Doesn't his standing for it speak for itself!" said Ten Euyck. "If you +want to defend a woman, why don't you come out like a man and confess +that you did it yourself." + +They all looked at him in astonishment and, flushing at himself, he +subsided. + +"Ah, thanks, Ten Euyck, that's what I've been suspecting! You think you +can trap me into one of your damned confessions with these tricks! Get +rid of that idea. I'll not confess. It's up to you to prove it; prove +it! Why should I help you!" He turned again to Herrick, as if in +justification. "Yes, I am afraid of jail! I'm a coward about prison, I +confess that! and to give myself up to a lifetime of it--no!--Herrick, +there's no chance of their being serious in this talk about Christina." + +Kane took him by the unwounded shoulder and forced him from his leaning +posture, till his face came full into the light. "Upon my word of honor, +Denny," he said, "Christina Hope has disappeared." + +The shock struck Denny like a sort of paralysis. He did not stir, but he +seemed to stiffen. His eyes dilated with a horrified amazement. "What do +you mean?" he said. + +Kane handed him that evening's paper, folded to the headlines that dealt +with the missing girl. He read them with greed, but it was plain that he +found their information stupefying. "Chris, now! First, Nancy!" he +said, "and then, Christina! What is this thing? What can it be? You," to +Kane, "you that are so clever, have you any explanation at all? Have you +the least clue? Have you?" he insisted, and from the dark meaning of +their faces he seemed to kindle, and half rose, leaning on the table. +"My God, then," he cried, "what is it? What is it?" + +"Well, then," said Kane, "as you yourself suggest, she is very probably +in the same place with Nancy Cornish." Denny continued to lean on the +table, looking at him with ravenous eyes. "You know that Joe Patrick was +knocked down by an automobile on his way to the inquest, that the same +so-called accident happened two or three days later to Herrick, here; +you know that subsequently four armed men attacked him in the park; +to-day you had an experience of your own. Well, all these things hang +together and were committed by a band of blackmailers. Your own shoulder +gives you a taste of their quality. You can judge for yourself what +they'll stop at. Brace yourself. We know, now, for a certainty that +Nancy Cornish is in their hands." + +Denny continued to lean there, without stirring. "It's a trick! It's one +of your little tricks! Is it?" he said to Herrick with a sudden +shrillness, "Is it?" + +"One of them brought us a message from her. It said, 'Help me, dear +Chris!'" + +"No, no, no!" said Denny, as if to himself. "It's a lie. It's all a lie. +I won't be frightened. I know it's a lie." + +"Is that her writing?" + +He cried out, a dreadful, formless sound, and covered his face with his +hands. Kane's glance said to the others, "Let him alone! It's working!" + +He asked them then, quite gravely and clearly, "When--do you expect--to +catch--this--gang?" + +"I don't know that we can catch them at all. We don't know how to get +at them. We've no idea where they are." + +His hands dropped from his face; it throbbed now and blazed; all the +nerves had come to life in a quivering network. "Oh, for God's sake," he +said, "don't tell me that!--Go on, then, go on! Tell me!" He looked +beseechingly and then in a fury of impatience from face to face. "Don't +stand gaping! You must know something! Look here, you don't understand! +You don't know all I've been through all these weeks--wondering!--If she +was in that lake where we used to row! If she'd only gone away, hating +me! My mind's in pieces trying to think--think--following every sign! +Hundreds of times I've seen her dead! And now you tell me she's alive! +and calling--calling for help! Do you? Do you?" + +"Yes," said Kane. + +He swayed forward so suddenly that he had to catch at the table. "It's +horrible! It's a nightmare!" With a strange monotonous inflection his +voice rose higher and higher on the one strained note. "It's the thing +I've dreamed of night and day, week out and in! That she was frightened +and in danger! With brutes! With the faces of beasts round her! Oh, +God--!" + +"Don't!" Herrick cried. + +"Yes, but look here!" With an eagerness sudden as a child's, he said to +Herrick, "But it's hope! Hope, isn't it? She's alive! And she didn't +just leave me!--I've got to get out of here! Yesterday--why, +yesterday--this morning--but now! 'Help me!' she says! I've got to get +out! I--" He stopped. The dusky choking red that had surged up horribly +over his face and forehead receded sharply, and left only his eyes +burning black in the white incredulous horror of his face. He cried, +"There's no way out!" + +"There may be," said the District-Attorney, "if you will look very +carefully at this lock of hair." + +Denny took the soft red curl in a hand that he vainly strove to steady; +they could read recognition, but no further enlightenment in his +tormented face. + +"Sit down!" Kane said. "Untie the string. Shake the hair loose here on +the table under the lamp. Now, does anything strike you? No?" + +Once more Herrick had that singular impression of Denny's going, for an +instant's flash, perfectly blind. Then he said, quite quietly, "Go! The +station you want is Waybrook. Drive five miles inland, on the road to +Benning's Point; about three miles south of the Hoover estate. The +left-hand side of the road; an old house newly fixed up and painted +yellow. Pascoe's the name. And, for God's sake, go quickly." + +The District-Attorney sat back and wiped his forehead. It had been a +hard day's work. "Don't you, Herrick, want to take a look at the +curiosity without which I might as well have asked a clam for a Fourth +of July oration?" + +The hair was spread out and thinned under the lamp. And now Herrick +could see distinctly that it was of two shades. The outer curl was the +dark red of Nancy Cornish; hidden within it was a smaller lock of a +singularly fine light shade, like the red of golden fire. This it was +which had wrung the address from Denny and stricken down Christina in a +faint. + +"Nancy Cornish hid it there in the message she was allowed to send," +guessed Herrick. "She was certain Miss Hope would know the head it came +from." + +"Then I needn't point out to a gentleman of your discernment that it was +the head which astonished Joe Patrick on the night of Ingham's murder. +Directly afterward, I think Miss Hope stored that head, inconspicuously, +with her friends in the Arm of Justice." + +Denny, rabid with impatience, seemed eating them alive with his savage +eyes. "Start!" he bit out. "Go, can't you? Go! What are you waiting +for?" + +Kane looked up at him with a smile of triumphant ice. "We're waiting for +your account of midnight in these rooms between the fourth and fifth of +August. And no one stirs to Nancy Cornish till we get it." + +Denny's jaw dropped and he hung against the edge of the table as if he +were struck too sick to stand. + +Ten Euyck, too, cried out and Kane silenced him. "Why not--since he says +he's innocent?" + +"You dog!" Denny groaned. "You won't save her?" + +"_You_ won't save her--you know how!" + +"Lose time and you lose everything!" + +"What do you know?" + +"Know! Know! Of course I know! But do you think you can make me tell? +Try that game! Try it! Try! You know damned well you can't! So what'll +you give for what I know?" + +"You mean--?" + +"Come back to me when you've found Nancy Cornish and you shall have your +murderer fast enough! Every detail, every fact, every clue! Till then I +don't trust you! Bring her here, bring her!" He leaned forward, beside +himself; shaken and exhausted, burning with fever, weak with loss of +blood, he reached toward Kane and beat the table with his wounded hands. +"That's my bargain! That's my price! I'm not going to give up for +nothing! You don't get my life unless you give me hers--" + +"_What?_" + +The great gasp broke into a buzz. Denny came slowly to himself and read +what he had uttered in their looks. His face went dead, a cold sweat +stood out upon it. "O!" he breathed. And once more he covered his face +with his hands. + +It didn't take many questions to get his story from him after that. + +"Yes, I killed him. Yes, I'm confessing. I've got to. All right,--take +it down. I killed James Ingham. I went to his apartment after my +dress-rehearsal on the night of the fourth of August. I had been told +that he had injured Nancy Cornish. I shot him dead. I've regretted it +every moment of my life since then. That's all. What are you waiting for +now?" + +"Then, Miss Hope--was not in Ingham's rooms that night?" + +There was a dead pause. Denny looked hard in Kane's face. "Yes," he +said, "she was. She came there to try and prevent our quarrel." The men +who had seen the moving-picture of the shadow breathed again. + +"What did she do when you fired?" + +"I sent her down to the Deutches to get a doctor. I wanted her out of +the way, and I switched off the lights so she need not see how useless +any doctor was!" + +"How did you yourself escape?" + +"Up the back stairs, across the roof, into the next house." + +"But she went out of the room before you did?" + +The earth swam before Herrick's eyes, and then he heard Denny's "Yes." + +"Then since you were the last to leave, explain how you were able to +bolt the door behind you?" + +"I didn't bolt it behind me. I stayed in the room." + +Herrick lifted his head. + +"I had dropped my revolver and in feeling for it on the rug I got my +hand stained." He spoke lower and lower, but every now and then his +voice flickered, licking upward like a flame, and cracked. "I ran into +the bathroom and put it under the faucet, and after that it was too late +to get away. People were peering and listening from their doors. I got +in a blind panic--you've noticed I'm upset by jail!--I knew I was +cornered--I bolted the door. But in doing that I saw how close the +portieres hung." Herrick drew a long breath. "I thought once I could +clear that outside room a little I could make a dash for it. To do that +it was necessary to remove the magnet. I dragged Ingham's body into the +bedroom. The bed's head was toward the portieres. I went and stood in +its shadow, in the portieres' folds. Then they burst in. When Deutch +held the portiere aside for the policeman I was so close at his back +that he touched me. When he saw me he screened me almost completely. +They had been so obliging as to clear the hall. There was plenty of +noise; the men were opening the closet door, a motor whirring, a trolley +passing the corner; they all had their backs to me, and I made but a +couple of steps of it into the hall. A few moments later I had the honor +and privilege of addressing Mr. Herrick, and of hearing from him that +the murderer was a lady and had not been caught." + +"Deutch screened you, you say? Why?" + +A queer little color came into Denny's face. "I'm fated to be +ridiculous," he said. "I had seen a hooded cloak of Christina's lying on +the table; it was Christina's own blue-gray; just the shade of the +portieres. The hood covered my head. The shadow back there is very deep. +Well, Deutch knew Christina had been there, you know. He must have left +his apartment just before she got to it, for he was simply one funk of +anxiety about her." Denny had to struggle up, for the interview had told +on him terribly, and he kept one hand on the back of his chair. "I'm of +no greatly imposing bulk," he said. "And Christina Hope is la tall +woman!" + +A cry came from within the portieres. Denny, his self-control utterly +shattered, flashed round. Henrietta Deutch greeted him with a radiant +face. + +"Ah, sirs, thank God! Oh, oh, it was that he saw! Mr. Deutch saw one he +took for her! And Christina it could not have been! He was not two +minutes gone when she was with me!" + +"Thanks, Mrs. Deutch! I couldn't have trusted even you for the truth of +that point if I'd simply asked you! But we must make sure that was what +he saw--that and no other proof. Here's the same depth of shadow, then, +and the same portieres. Take this couch cover, Denny, for a cloak. Stand +back, and screen your face with it.--Wade, bring in Deutch." + +Herrick shuddered and anticipation choked him. This man had suffered so +much for Christina, and now he was to decide her fate! The +superintendent stepped into a silent room. All those eyes fed on him. +The place cast its spell of horror. His plump, pale, sagging face +quivered with dread; his eyes floundered from Herrick to Kane, and a +kind of dumb moan burst from him. Kane pointed to the portieres and his +panic was complete. + +"Show him, Herrick. Just as he stood, that night." + +He stood there, dizzy with bewilderment, and suddenly he screamed. +Gasping, he clutched at the portiere through which some touch, some +motion had repeated for him a dreadful moment. Behind it he once more +beheld a dim, blue figure. He fell on his knees, strangling, his breath +raving and rattling in his mouth, and brought out like a convulsion the +one word "Christina!" Sobbing, he caught at a fragment of the cloak and +covered it with piteous, protecting kisses. Denny let the cloaking stuff +fall from him, and, stepping out, broken as a thing thrown away, stood +in full view with hanging head. Every eye was fastened upon Deutch. + +He had no need for words. What he had believed himself to have seen, +what he had suffered, the mad relief, the almost ludicrous exultation in +what he now learned, passed one after the other across that tormented +visage and broke in one happy blubber as he ducked his head in his +wife's skirts. + +The relief that shook Herrick touched, too, every one in the room. No +man there had really wished to sentence a girl. It was as though, at +last, they had all got air to breathe. When into this new air Denny's +voice broke with a sick snarl. + +"And do you think you've saved her? You miserable, gabbling fools, did +you think your Arm of Justice was her friend? Why, she knew no more of +it than you do! If they've got the girl there, she's fighting, accusing, +threatening them, she's facing her death! And now in God's name, can you +hurry? Hurry!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA WAS + + +At nine o'clock on the morning of Friday, the day when Christina +disappeared, there stood at the little interior station of Waybrook, +awaiting the train from New York, a touring-car which had very recently +been painted black. In the body of this car an observing person might +have descried a couple of indentations which, were he of a sensational +turn of mind, would have suggested to him the marks of bullets. This +touring-car was, at that time of day, the only vehicle in waiting, and +when the train rushed on again from its brief pause, only one person had +alighted from it. + +This was a tall woman, heavily veiled, wearing a long dark ulster, +considerably too large for her, and a rather shabby black hat. This +woman walked directly up to the touring-car and flung herself into it +without a word. When the chauffeur turned and said to her, in surprise, +"You all alone?" she responded, "Yes. And in twice the hurry on that +account!" The curt command of the words did not conceal the quality of a +voice which all the newspapers in New York were that morning praising; +and the face from which she then lifted her veil, although furrowed with +anger and ravaged with grief, was the unforgettable face of Christina +Hope. She sat for the five miles which led to her destination with her +eyes closed and her hands wrung tight together in her lap. + +The touring-car stopped at the gate of an old yellow house, very +carefully kept, its bright windows screened by curtains rather elegantly +pretty; and a flagged path leading up to its brass-knockered door. On +either side of the flagged path stretched a garden, a little sobered by +its autumn coloring, but still abounding in the country flowers which to +Bryce Herrick's admiration had kept Christina's house so sweet. + +The door was opened by a small, square, hard-featured, close-mouthed old +woman, very neatly dressed, with gray hair and a white apron. In other +words, by the occasional cashier at the Italian table d'hote. This +woman, as the chauffeur had done, looked over Christina's shoulder in +expectation and then said, grudgingly, "Oh, it's you!" + +"As you see," said Christina, pressing inside. "But I shan't trouble you +long. I should like some coffee, if you please. I've had no breakfast." +The woman stood still, staring at Christina's ill-fitting clothes and +sunken eyes, and the girl added, with the same peremptory coldness which +had marked her manner from the beginning, "I must ask you to be quick. I +have only come to relieve you of our guest." + +"You have!" said the old woman. "Who says so?" + +"I think you heard me say so," Christina responded, from the foot of the +stairs. + +The old woman hurried after her. "Yes, I daresay. But by whose orders?" + +Christina turned round. "Who owns this place?" she demanded. + +"Well, you do." + +"Who pays for every mouthful that is eaten here and for everything that +is brought into this house? Who makes your living for you?" + +"You do, I suppose." + +"Well, then, I suppose, by my orders. Where is she?" + +"She's in your room, the same as ever." + +"Locked in, of course?" + +"Of course." + +"The key, please." + +The old woman hesitated, then she took the key out of her pocket. And at +that moment Christina noticed something. There came from the floor above +the sound of a voice speaking rapidly, incessantly, and indistinctly +like a child talking to itself. An expression of amused and contemptuous +malice broke upon the old woman's face and she handed over the key with +greater readiness. "Much good may it do you!" said she, turning toward +the kitchen. + +Christina snatched it and fled upstairs. "Bring the coffee up here, +please," she called over her shoulder. + +For all her haste she paused at the top of the stair, and, with her hand +over her heart, listened to the babbling voice. Then she turned to the +right and knocked on a closed door. The voice ran on, heedlessly. +"Nancy!" Christina called. "Nancy! It's I, Chris! Dear Nancy, I've come +to take you home." + +She was answered only by the endless repetition of some phrase, and +unlocking the door, she went in. + +She stepped into a charming, simple, sunny room, comfortably appointed, +the windows open toward the road and their thin, flowery curtains +stirring in the low, sultry wind. But on the inside of these curtains +the windows were completely screened with poultry wire, and, over the +door, the transom was wired, too. In the bed a young, slight girl half +lay, half sat; her dark red curls had been gathered into a heavy braid +and her blue eyes were blank with fever; she rocked her head from side +to side upon the pillow with an indescribable weariness, and without +breath, without change, with a monotonous and yet agitated inflection, +she repeated over and over again the same phrases: "No, no, no, no! I +don't believe it! Oh, Will, Will, Will, I don't believe it! You did it +yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask Nancy Cornish!" +And then, always with a little listening pause, "I'll promise +anything!" + +Christina shrank back against the door-jamb as if she were going to +fall. + +"Whatever does this mean? How came she like this? Oh, God!" she +breathed, "what shall I do? What can I do?" + +"Oh, Will, Will, Will!" said the other voice. "No, no, no, I don't +believe it!" + +"Ah, me!" Christina breathed. "Nor I! If only I hadn't been there, and +seen!" + +"You did it yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask +Nancy Cornish!" + +Christina sank on her knees beside the bed, in an agony of terror and +tenderness, and for the first time since she had seen the lock of hair, +her tears poured forth. But she took the girl's hand and held it; and +she tried to master those feverish eyes with the eyes of her own +despair. "Nancy!" she said, "Nancy! It's Christina. Nancy dear, it's +Chris. Oh, try to know me. Look at me. Listen to me. You must know me. +You shall. Nancy, stop it! Stop it and look at me!--Oh, God!" Christina +prayed. "Help me! Help me!" She caught the sick girl in her arms and +covered the young little face with tears and kisses. + +And as she held Nancy on her breast she became aware of a thin ribbon +round the girl's neck, with a key to it. She picked up this strange +ornament, and immediately Nancy's fingers came creeping in search of it +and she cried out. Christina dropped it and rose to her feet. "Why!" she +said aloud. "It's the key to my desk!" The desk stood against the wall +and she tried it. It was locked. Nancy lay almost quiet clutching the +key. Christina stood there, puzzled. + +In a drawer of the dressing-table there was a key much the same in shape +and size. Christina took it out, drew the ribbon from Nancy's neck, and, +steeling her heart, plucked open Nancy's hand. The girl set up a shrill +cry but was instantly quieted by the substitute key; the old woman +could be heard rattling with a tray at the foot of the stairs. + +Christina sprang to the desk and opened it; it was in order and almost +empty, containing no object that Christina did not know. She pulled open +one after the other of the three little drawers. And thus she came, with +an amazed start, upon a bulky envelope bearing an address which was the +last she could have expected. The envelope was addressed to the +District-Attorney of New York. + +Christina appropriated it without pause or scruple, slipped it into her +little handbag and restored Nancy's property almost with one swift +movement. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in an attitude of +listless dejection when the housekeeper entered with the tray. + +"Well," said the old woman, "why don't you take her? Mebbe everything +ain't just as you expected. What'd she yell out like that for?" + +"I touched that ribbon round her neck. What has she got clutched in her +hand?" + +"Oh, just some old trash! Better leave it be. She yells blue murder if +you try to take it away from her." + +These two truthful ladies looked down together on the turning head and +chattering lips and the eyes burning with fever. "Ain't it a sight?" +said the old woman. "It's wonderful what frettin' 'll do. She ain't been +like this but since Wednesday. She kep' up surprisin' until then. Guess +her not hearin' anything from you set her off. She counted on that. I'd +know why she sh'd be so terrible set on gettin' away from here. She's +been well treated. When there's been anybody here fit to keep an eye on +her, she ain't even been locked up. Nicola fastened down the window in +the closet where you had the sink put in--y' know, under the stairs?--in +case she sh'd take to carryin' on. But mercy me, we found out soon +enough that wa'n't the idea. She's had the best in the house.--Well, +you 'bout scalded yerself." + +"I'm in a hurry," said Christina, setting down the empty coffee-cup. +"Where are some loose clothes for her?" + +"Land sakes!" said the old woman. "You want to kill her!" + +Christina went to a closet and found some skirts and a cloak. + +"Please go down," she said, "and tell Nicola to put the hood up and let +down the rain curtains." + +The old woman's suspicion and resentment had never been allayed, but she +kept them choked under. "Well," said she, "I s'pose it's all right. I +guess she's goin' t' die anyhow. An' I guess it's 'bout the best thing +she can do. I dunno what on earth we're goin' t' do with her if she +don't. I ain't goin' to stand for any o' them Dago actions. But I dunno +as I can always put a veto on 'em!--Well, I don't see as you got any +call to make such a face as that--seems to me that Denny fellow got a +long way ahead o' anything any o' our boys done, if they are Dagoes!" + +"Take my message to Nicola, please," Christina said, "and don't stand +there talking. Hurry!" + +The old woman got as far as the door. "I s'pose you know's well as +anybody why she's here!" she said, intently studying Christina's face. +She went out and downstairs muttering. "But I'd jus' like to know why +you're takin' a hand in it! The idea! I guess that Denny feller--" The +front door closed after her; Christina looked out of the window and saw +her speaking with Nicola. + +She had Nancy partly dressed, and now wrapped her in the cloak. "What am +I to ask you, my poor Nancy? Do you know what he never would tell +me--how that door came to be bolted?" The girl's babble kept on +undiminished. "God forgive me!" Christina cried, "if I do wrong!" With a +strong effort, she lifted the girl in her arms. + +And then she was struck still by a sudden sound. It was the sound of the +automobile racing down the road. + +She laid Nancy down and ran to the window; she flew downstairs and +opened the front door. The rear of the car in which she had arrived, +speeding in an opposite direction, was still visible in its own dust. +Had Nicola gone to borrow rain curtains or some tool? Puzzled, Christina +called to the old woman. "Mrs. Pascoe!" Getting no answer she went into +the dining-room and from thence to the kitchen; they were empty. Her +glance scoured the weedy homeliness of the backyard. She went to the +shed, to the barn; they were deserted. A strange silence had fallen upon +the place. In the hot lowering sunshine the girl stood still, and for +the first time the cold fingers of suspicion began to creep along her +pulse. + +She had been very sure of her position, and she felt, as yet, nothing +that could be called fear. But the defiance of her authority was amply +evident. She knew now that she had been a fool to come here alone, to +depend entirely on her personal force. But her mouth set itself in a +smile like light on steel. Did they know what they were doing when they +pushed her to the wall like this? Perhaps, in some way, they counted on +the time it would take her to leave Nancy behind her and go for +help--the nearest house was half a mile away. Leave Nancy behind her! +For reply Christina sped into the hall, and caught up the New York +telephone book. She ran her finger down a column until, having come to +the number 3100 Spring, she picked up the receiver. Something said, in +her little steely smile, that with the utterance of that number she +would throw a world away. The number was that of Police Headquarters. + +The exchange was a long time answering. Christina shook the receiver +hook vigorously. Still silence. As she gave an impatient movement +something brushed, swinging, against her wrist. It was a loose end of +dark green cord from the receiver in her hand. The wire had been cut. + +Christina remained there quite quiet, while that cold hand of the +suspicion that was now certainty seemed to stop her heart. She +remembered that, in the world of help she was cut off from, not a living +human being knew where she was. Well, she was a strong girl. She said to +herself, "It is better Nancy should die on the road in my arms than that +I should leave her here!" She ran up to Nancy's room. When she had first +descended to the road, some one must have mounted the back stairs. +Nancy's door was locked. + +With a firm step Christina entered the kitchen and opened the +table-drawer. They had thought of that, too. Everything with which a +lock might be pried open had been swept up and away. Christina lifted a +dining-room chair and carried it upstairs. + +She brought it down with all the force she had upon the lock. Failing in +this, she held the chair in front of her and charged the door with it. +But whereas in anything requiring swiftness, elasticity, endurance even, +Christina was as strong as wire, she had absolutely no weight. After +half a dozen of these batteries every one of which seemed to strike +through her own heart on Nancy's fever, she decided that whether or no +she might shatter the door in time, time was the last thing she had to +waste. And she could run half a mile like an arrow. She had all along +retained her hold on the little bag which held her purse and she thanked +heaven for the money in it. She had her hand on the front door when she +was arrested by the sound of voices and approaching footsteps; Mrs. +Pascoe's, Nicola's and the heavier step of an older man. + +From her earlier confidence Christina had now jumped to an extreme of +accusation in which any violence seemed probable. Mad to get away for +help, it seemed better to delay for a moment or two than to be caught. +She slipped back across the hall and hid herself in the little closet +under the stairs. She was scarcely secure there when the front door +opened, and Christina hardly dared to breathe lest the click of her own +door closing should have betrayed her presence. To her highly wrought +nerves the utter darkness, the airless pressure of her sanctuary were +terrible, and she found and held the knob that at the first stillness +she might slip out. She could hear calling and running about; she could +hear them talking in Nancy's room. After a while, the men went out and +then she heard Mrs. Pascoe come downstairs and the dining-room door +close after her. The time had come. Christina, all her life subject to +fainting-fits, felt that she scarcely could have borne, for a moment +longer, that black airlessness. With infinite softness, she turned the +knob. And then, indeed, her heart stood still. Mrs. Pascoe had omitted +to mention one improvement with which, in preparation for Nancy's +occupancy, the outside of the closet-door had been fortified. This +improvement was a Yale lock. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT + + +It was after midnight when Stanley Ingham stopped his car and yielded up +the steering-wheel to Herrick. Besides themselves their car carried +three of Kane's detectives and they were followed by the sheriff and a +roadster full of armed men. + +The detectives had a secondary mission. At the last minute Kane had +received a message from a much concerned elderly cousin of Joe +Patrick's. This cousin was a waiter at "Riley's," a roadhouse which was +not only a cheap edition of the aristocratic Palisades, whence Christina +had disappeared, but was kept by a brother-in-law and erstwhile partner +of the Palisades' proprietor. The waiter at Riley's declared that a +drunken taxi-driver had just turned up with a note from the Palisades +urging Riley's to keep him over night. This man was quite drunk enough +to talk about having lost his place through obliging the Palisades and +Joe's cousin volunteered to keep an eye on him till the arrival of the +detectives. These were to return to New York with their prisoners of the +yellow house not from Waybridge, but from Benning's Point, stopping on +the way to that station at Riley's and telephoning thence all news to +Kane. + +At Waybridge they had been fortunate in finding the sheriff up and +starting forth after some marauders who were reported to have robbed a +still burning post-office at Benning's Point; the station agent whom +they found with him had seen Nicola, that morning, meet a lady with that +old car of his that he had painted black when there was so much talk +about those New York Guinees having a gray one; the agent was sure the +lady had taken no return train. + +From both him and the sheriff it was evident that the Pascoes as +foreigners, had been contemptible, but not disliked. The unpopular +person was a boarder they had; a woman with red hair who stayed out +there to write novels and thought she was so much too good for other +people that she never so much as passed the time of day with anybody. +Friends of hers did come out from the city to see her sometimes. Going +or coming from the city herself she was tied up in one o' those +automobile veils--might 'uv been her come back this morning, only she +looked kind of shabby-dressed. The sheriff added that there was old Mrs. +Pascoe, Nicola's mother, as nice a little woman as you'd want to see; +real neat, trim, gray-haired lady, an American lady. Herrick suddenly +turned and stared. + +But now they were within half a mile of the Pascoe house. Stanley and +the detectives crowded into the sheriff's car. They had been instructed +to send Herrick on alone; he was to attempt an entrance by a message of +urgent and friendly warning, endeavoring to get the lay of the land and +to make his presence known to any watchful captive, but otherwise +awaiting reinforcements. One of the detectives said to Herrick, "If they +won't let you in, just leave your message. And let them hear you drive +off. Then we'll get together." + +Herrick ran the car slowly along the unfamiliar road. This was still +clogged and rutted with mud, which had begun to stiffen since the rain +had stopped; a high wind shouldered the clouds in driving masses. His +destination was the second house on his left; and, as he peered along +the roadside, the deep excitement, the terrible questions which glowed +in that dark night, worked in him with a fearful gladness. Certainty was +at hand! A bitter exultation rode within him nearer and nearer to +whatever stroke Fate stood to deal him in the yellow house. A hundred +visions of Christina shone and darkened before him, leaping along his +pulse, and his blood sang in him with a kind of madness.--The second +house on the left! There it rose, a blot on the blackness! Dark as a +stone, it somehow struck cold on his hot hopes. + +He brought up the car before the gate and flung a falsely cheerful +halloo upon the wind. Nothing answered. The gate yielded to his hand; as +he went up the path a fragrance greeted him like Christina's +presence--the cold, moist air was filled with the sweetness of +old-fashioned, garden flowers. His fingers missed the bell; but, +lighting on the brass knocker, sent loud reverberations through the +house. Nothing within it seemed to stir. But the silence echoed horribly +and swung, quaking, in his breast. Of a sudden he knew that house was +empty. + +Nothing else mattered. Discretion ceased to exist. He drew back and +scanned the vacant, shuttered windows; he ran round the house; there was +still no light; he tried the kitchen door and drew back to listen; it +was as though within the house he could hear silence walking and her +step was ominous. He put his shoulder to the kitchen door and burst it +in. + +Once again, as on that night in August, a dark room lay waiting; the +darkness seemed to breathe. He had matches in his pocket and once again +the light discovered only emptiness. But he remembered what, that other +time, the inner chamber had revealed. He found a candle and then a lamp, +and, lighting that, crossed the dining-room and then the hall into the +living-room. All prettily upholstered, all in order, and vacant as the +eye of idiotcy. His soul knew there was nothing living in that house; +and yet it seemed to him there would surely be a step upon the stair, +that a voice behind him or an opening door would certainly reveal some +fateful presence. There in the hall, under the stairs, a door was open +and he paused to look into a closet. + +It contained a sink with running water, gardening tools, wraps hanging +upon nails, and, on the floor, a big silk umbrella without a handle, the +rod recently broken. There were also some old flower-pots, two of them +half full of earth. Nothing else. + +At the foot of the stairs he called out, "Christina!" and stood and +listened while his voice went dying about the empty house. +"Christina--it's I--Bryce!" and then "Nancy Cornish! Can you hear me, +Nancy Cornish?" But no face leaned over the balusters to him. He went +upstairs. But his step was heavy, and up there the silence weighed on +him, like silence in a vault. Two rooms on the left told him nothing. +But in a room on his right he found a small forgotten slipper. That +slipper had fitted the slim foot of some littler maid than Christina! +Holding the lamp high, he was struck to see the transom covered with +poultry-wire. He went at once to the windows. Yes, there were the holes +in the woodwork; even, here and there, a nail. There had been poultry +wire over the windows, too. In this room some one had been held a +prisoner. They had taken her away; and in such haste that they had +forgotten to strip the transom and they had forgotten her slipper. At +one side of the room a desk lay open, all its drawers pulled out and +empty; he snatched at the waste basket; there was a crumpled sheet of +paper in it and a handful of torn-up scraps. He shook the scraps into +his handkerchief and, setting the lamp on the desk, he bent above the +crumpled sheet. There leaped before him, in an illiterate, but very firm +hand, an opening of such unimpeachable decorum as to stagger his prying +eyes. + + Mrs. Hope, + + Honored Madam, + +There was no date or other heading. The note ran: + + Mrs. Hope, + + Honored Madam, + + Would say don't come here or send. You can tell where by knowing my + handwriting. She is not here. Where she is now I got no idee on + earth. I surmise she will be heard from. + +There was no signature. Why had the letter not been sent? It had +evidently been volunteered upon some early intimation of Christina's +disappearance. "Perhaps they found out, later, that Mrs. Hope had gone +away--" Then he heard Stanley hailing him from the road. + +The sheriff's party, taking advantage of his house breaking, were with +him immediately. They examined the place from the small, bare, +air-chamber into which Stanley, mounting on Herrick's shoulders, stuck +his head, to the cellar; where only a coal-bin, almost empty beneath +their flinching quest, an ice-box, and an admirable array of preserves +confronted them. + +Upstairs, clothes had been found in all the closets--the clothes of +working people for the most part; but in one, the long, slim, +sophisticatedly simple gowns of a pretty woman. In that room they had +forced another desk, which kept them busy for a while with tradesmen's +bills, all made out, regularly enough, to Nicola Pascoe. Nowhere was +there a letter, no significant writing nor any other name. In the barn a +couple of trunks disgorged only some winter coats and a smell of +camphor; the tools in the shed were in empty order, and when, +considerably soiled and stuck about with lint and hay, they met again in +the composed and pretty living-room, there on the mantelshelf the face +of Christina Hope smiled mockingly at them from a silver frame. +Indifferent to prayer or scrutiny, it had nothing to tell them. And +it seemed to ask if they, on their part, had anything to say. + +[Illustration: Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor +any other name.] + +Herrick never knew what instinct took him back to the closet under the +stairs. He could not bear to leave it; there was a little broken glass +on the floor and a sudden wavering in his lamp suggested that this came +from a break in one of the minute panes in a small window over head. He +tried to reach this window to see if it were fastened and found it +nailed down, with outside shutters that were closed. But in getting near +enough for this he knocked over one of the flower-pots. "Find anything?" +Stanley cried, bounding forward. + +The smashed flower-pot lay at their feet. "No, only broken something!" +Herrick instinctively picked it up and the loosened earth parted in his +hand. "Yes, after all," he said, "I think I have." There had been +buried, smooth and deep in the flower-pot, the diamond necklace. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE + + +The countryside slept vigorously and an hour's exhaustive inquiry +gleaned but the one circumstance--the search party itself discovered, +pinned to the first door they came to, a note informing the neighbor he +might have the livestock in lieu of certain debts. It had not been there +when the man had closed his house at nine o'clock. This limitation of +time was their sole reward, unless they counted the talk of an old +farmer, after the sheriff, promising to drop the detectives at Riley's, +had gone on to his post-office. The farmer said that hours ago, when +he'd been ever so long in bed and asleep, he thought he heard somebody +hollerin' an' bangin' on his door. Kind o' half dreamed it. Kind o' half +fancied it was a woman's voice. Storm was so bad he warn't sure. It was +with this pale fancy to keep them company that Herrick and Stanley let +out their car along the road again, this time in a dryly nipping air and +under a troubled, scudding moon. + +From that desert purity and freedom of cold space Riley's accosted them +like Babylon. It was one blare and glare of hot lights and jigging +music; colored globes over the gates, colored lanterns in the garden; +along the driveway the blazing headlights of continually arriving and +departing motor cars that hissed and shrieked and shuddered; on the +veranda, where the tables indeed were nearly deserted, fur-coated men +stood smoking huge cigars and women with complexions artificially secure +against the wind passed in and out; their solitaire earrings pushed +forward beyond the streaming scarlet or purple of the veils that bound +their heads. The change of atmosphere warmed Herrick with that +unreasonable anger which the young feel against those who do not suffer +when they suffer. + +He followed Stanley Ingham morosely through the hubbub and felt no +fitting gratitude for the table miraculously provided with a fortifying +meal, since Thompson, the chief detective, had not yet been able to get +Kane upon the 'phone. The cabman was upstairs under guard of the others, +babbling some trash about having taken the lady to the Amsterdam hotel +and left her there. The thick smoke, the smell of wine and food and +abominable coffee, the clatter of cheap china, the banging of the music +and the motions of the "trotting" dancers in street dress, the cries of +acquaintances urging them to new contortions, disgusted Herrick and set +an edge upon the iron of his self-contempt. The woman calling and +knocking in the night confronted him like a ghost, in the rank profusion +and fever of that place. He, to eat and drink and wile away the time; +what was _she_ doing? Was that she who had begged in vain for shelter, +beaten by the wind and drenched by the storm, and with God knew what +terrors in her heart! Out of her pale face, with the rain upon it, her +eyes besought him. + +Stanley, anxious, but waving a cigar, for at twenty an adventure is +still an adventure, commented, "Say, old man, you want to relax! I could +let things wear on me, too, if I wanted to!--What are those?"--For the +detective having again fidgetted to the 'phone, Herrick had shaken out +upon the table-cloth the handful of torn scraps from the waste-paper +basket. + +They were in the same handwriting as the interrupted note, but much more +hurried and scrawled on cheap pad paper as if to a more intimate +associate. Only six of them were of appreciable size and these came to +Herrick's hand in this order-- + + This time get rid of her. + I say. She but she can't g + real dau mother + + et rid do the way + een any + She can but + mebbe + of she's got to + ain't ever b + ghter to me + +At the phrase "get rid of her" Stanley quailed. But what the words +brought clearest to Herrick's mind was a small, spare face in its gray +frame bent above its game of solitaire. Without help from the law could +he make her speak? He heard Stanley saying, "How did Chris ever get +mixed up with this lot? What kind of hold _can_ they have on her?" +"Sssh!'" he said, dropping his handkerchief over the scraps. The +detective was returning. + +Thompson sat down at their table, baulked and restive, and Herrick, a +hundred times more so, was reduced to scowling at their surroundings. +Near him sat a wrinkled, enameled, fluffy mite stubbing out her +cigarette as she giggled at a masculine bulk whose face Herrick could +not see. Dark and handsome as it vaguely promised to be this did not +account for a curiosity which Herrick somehow at once felt to see it; +but between them reared a gorged Amazon with a high bust and a coiffure +of corrugated brass. The band struck up again, this time to a music-hall +ditty, so that the customers kept their seats. But the hired singers +were straining their poor voices above the tumult and some musicians +blacked up as negroes joined in the chorus, performing shuffles as they +walked up and down and slapping steps with a dreary, noisy simulation of +irrepressible glee; infected by this whirl of gaiety the Amazon frisked +back from the little dyed man to whom she had been bending and gave +Herrick a clear view of a portly seigneur with a close beard. Instinct +had not misled his curiosity; the portly seigneur was his old +acquaintance, Signor Emile Gabrielli. + +He could not have told why this struck him as portentous. The men smiled +and bowed. Then Gabrielli bowed to Stanley. "Didn't you know?" Stanley +asked. "He brought us letters--this is his first visit. He's going to do +our Italian correspondence." + +It was the more remarkable that there should be, in Signor Gabrielli's +honeyed civility, a kind of chill. Then Herrick remembered that he, at +least, was a marked man and that his old suspicion of shady corners in +the lawyer's experience had been partly due to that gentleman's extreme +dislike of being "mixed up" in things. Henrietta Deutch could also have +borne witness to that characteristic! Far from advancing toward their +old familiarity the signor began to round up his innocent flock and +insinuate it mildly from Herrick's polluted neighborhood. And though +this splendor retreated Herrick did not regret being left alone, as if +beside the dear ghost with the rain upon its face! + +But there was a singular beating at his heart, a feeling that he was +plucking at a veil which he longed and feared to raise. Yet that at some +other time he had raised it and lived through a shock upon the threshold +of which he stood again. It was already time for another dance and the +groups about the tables rose to their feet. Herrick had a moment's +vision, fever keen, of the room's arrested motion. Even the Gabrielli +party paused in the doorway; Herrick was moved by an uncontrollable +impulse to follow and accost the Italian and oddly impelled by his +excitement Stanley, too, rose to his feet; all round them the couples +clasped each other; the musicians lifted their bows; after ten minutes' +enforced repose the whole world seemed to hang in expectation of the +maxixe. When, just ahead of the orchestra, from somewhere outside, +beyond, above, into that instant's perfect silence there thrilled forth +the voice of a single instrument; the full-tongued call of a piano, +leaping, swelling, swaying into the march from Faust! + +A gasp of amazement, a prickle, a shudder, ran over the skin of that +susceptible assembly. It was a tune, just then, so well advertised! They +recovered themselves with amused, scared smiles, awaiting some jest in +the sequel. The piano stopped with a wild crash. Instantly, from the +front courtyard where the motors waited, a bomb of oaths, cries and +movement burst upon the night. The sound of men jumping and running, +exclaiming, stumbling, swearing, of people bounding up the steps, of the +hall filled with astonished, excited questioners merged with one phrase +growing over, topping all the others--"The shadow! It's the shadow! The +shadow on the blind!" + +Amazement, bewilderment, incredulity, obstructed the story which Herrick +traced to a knot of chauffeurs. "Yes--up there! The third window! Look, +it's dark--they've turned out the lights!" As Stanley, Herrick and +Thompson ran to the second story the legend still beat about their ears. +"It had its back to the window--it threw out its right arm--" + +The door of the room was thrown open. The proprietor's wife, shaken with +hysterical laughter, ushered in the crowd. She was a flushed, stout +woman in the gaudiest of kimonos, larger than the fat man in the +driving-coat to whom she appealed. "My brother here 's from Mizzouri and +I was just showing him how the shadow must have done--you can't earn any +reward's round here! Anyhow, you don't suppose that hussy spends all her +time giving signals for murders, do you?"--"But the shadow was so slim!" +somebody said, as Mrs. Riley scornfully assisted Thompson in his +researches. These coming to nothing the young men were powerless to +refuse going oil to Benning's Point and telephoning from there--Thompson +had begun to be suspicious of this exchange. + +They had gone perhaps a mile, moving slowly, watchful of the leaves in +every bush, and Herrick was remounting from the examination of a false +alarm when they heard a hail in their rear and beheld approaching +through the moonlight a hatless figure on a motorcycle. + +The elderly cousin of Joe Patrick, whom they had not seen since he first +welcomed them, bore down upon them in timid and disheveled haste.--"Yis, +sor. I tried to see y' alone, sor, but yeh were gone. 'T is the reward, +sor; I'd not be sharin' it with the policeman an' him takin' th' whole +of it, not a doubt! An' impidence, beside, they do always give yeh! But +a gintleman, sor, I don't mind tellin' him; if yeh 'll exscuse me sayin' +so, Mrs. Riley's a liar!" + +Not that he really knew anything. "No more than yirselves! But the +piana, sor! It stands there fer the upstairs dances, an' her not knowin' +wan note from another!--An' what's more, comin' down the back stairs +from that same room wid the dhirty dishes, what did I see standin' at +the back door but a car like yer own--only still as death an' no lights +in its head! Wasn't that a queer thing, now? An' it gone whin I rode +out." + +What was that?--down the road which crossed theirs, where they had just +reconnoitered for a sound! Nothing but their distorted fancy, their +roused longing! "An' all I can tell surely, sor, is that awhile back, +whin Riley sinds me upstairs with a bite o' supper for Mrs. Riley's +brother that's just come in, barrin' the long drink, stheamin' hot, +'twas chicken an' like that yeh'd give to a lady. He has his own room, +has the brother, but 'twas to hers I took the thray. An' though I saw +no wan an' I heard no wan, yit sure there was some wan beyond Riley she +was yellin' at an' him prayin' her 'Hoosh! Hoosh!' as I come to the +door!" + +"Did you hear anything of what she was saying?" + +"Just the wan thing, sor, an' you'll remimber 'twas me told yeh. She +said, 'I'll thank yeh to hand over that diamond necklace!'" + +There was something there! They could not hear, but they could somehow +feel from far behind them a stealthy purring. They turned; no lamp nor +headlight but their own was anywhere to be seen. The second and less +traveled road crossed theirs just above them at a narrow angle; but it, +too, lay untenanted, not a breath quivering on the stillness. They saw +themselves quite alone beneath the moon, breathing a night silence +drenched with coldest sweetness; the last words rang in their blood with +an accent that could not leave them wholly sober; they were, perhaps, a +little "fey." At any rate, it was by an impulse with which reason had +nothing to do that, as the old waiter continued--"'Twas for her, surely, +they'd have that dark car waitin'!" Herrick held up a warning hand. The +waiter hushed himself, stricken, and huddled in against their car; +Herrick bent forward in a passionate readiness, and from far in the +rear, but nearing swifter than the flight of time, along the +intersecting road came the tremulous vibration of a second automobile. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR + + +They listened, incredulous, straining their eyes among the black pools +and bright patches of wooded, winding way up from the river and +discerned--almost on the instant close at hand--a gray ghost dipped in +moonshine; lost under the trees and then springing out upon them, a +black shape against the darkness, heralded by no sound of voice or horn, +speeding as if with its head down like some sullen thunderbolt. + +With their lights blazing defiance Herrick, catching out his revolver, +attempted to cross the junction in time to throw their own car across +the narrow road. He was too late; she grazed them as she passed; they +fell in behind her, shouting threats which were lost in the wind of that +flight; the road fell away before them; the hilled and wooded earth tore +past; the noise, as of blowing forests, of multitudinous crowds and the +roaring of the sea, surged in their ears; great waves and solid hills of +air rose up and moved upon them, and, as they passed through, split into +stinging, icy shreds that whipped their faces; the car rocked in the +wild tide of its own speed, and in a world where they had gone blind to +everything but one crazy whirl, they yet saw their lights fall ever +nearer and brighter upon the fugitive. + +It was now nearing three o'clock, the moon wholly victorious and the +cars leaping through a world of molten silver. Herrick said to the boy +beside him, "Can you shoot?" + +"Not so that you can tell it!" + +"Take the wheel, then!" + +He could not make out her figure in the car. But in such thickly looming +dangers, what must be, must be. + +The men ahead heard him call to them to stop before he fired. In answer +they merely leaned forward shielding themselves, and Herrick let fly two +shots, aiming for the back tires; but, in that swaying speed, he missed. +With a kind of harsh gaiety he answered Stanley, "No more can I!" and +with the words the man beside Nicola turned and fired straight at +Herrick's head. The wind-shield shattered in their faces; as the bullet +passed between them Stanley felt a little sting, like the scorch of a +quick, hot iron, on his cheek. "Slide down," Herrick said to him, "way +under the wheel! Keep your head to one side." He himself was kneeling, +resting his revolver on the frame of the broken wind-shield. At his +third bullet they heard Nicola cry out and clap his hand to the back of +his neck; the touring-car swerved and gave a kind of bounce; the man +beside Nicola fired again and put a hole through Herrick's cap. The next +minute the revolver dropped out of his hand; Herrick's fourth shot had +broken his wrist. And now the road broadened a little, and the Ingham +car was drawing on a level with its opponent. The touring-car did not +carry Christina. + +"Get as far forward as you can," Herrick said, "I'm after the front +tires." + +Their own front tires passed the rear of the first car; as they came +abreast the man with the broken wrist, using his left hand, emptied his +pistol almost in their faces; a shot from the man in the body of the car +struck their steering-wheel; there was a cloud now between the two cars, +smelling so thick of powder that Stanley seemed to himself to eat it. He +was aware of Herrick suddenly casting aside all defenses, leaning +forward into this cloud, his brows knotted and his arm outstretched. +There came the quick Ping!--Ping! of his last two shots and as if in +the same breath, the earthquake! The black touring-car seemed to spring +into the air; then her fore wheels collapsed and she sank forward, still +sliding a little as if on her nose, and, running quietly over the edge +of the road into the shallow ditch that edged it, turned on her side. + +They were well passed by this time, and despite the jerk with which +Stanley brought up, Herrick had leaped out before they were stopped, and +at the same moment a figure scrambled from the fallen hulk and, without +a glance behind, made off across the fields. Herrick, shifting his empty +revolver as he ran, till he carried it by the barrel, swung into full +pursuit. + +This was the more foolhardy because on getting to his feet Nicola had +drawn his own revolver, from which Herrick had to dodge as he ran, and +at length indeed to throw himself down, and get forward only by his +hands and knees. They were now in a broken, stony lot, spotted with +underbrush; a brook running through it, and here and there tall chestnut +trees. By screening himself with these, and making a run for it in any +patch of shadow, he kept his man in sight and even gained upon him; he +was waiting till Nicola's gun should be as empty as his own before he +came to closer quarters. For this he knelt and rose and ran and crawled, +now showing himself, to draw--and waste!--a bullet; and now plumping +down among bushes. It was at one of these moments that he heard a shot +behind him and, peering through the screen of twigs, saw that Nicola's +comrades had freed themselves from the ditch and were advancing, +apparently full-armed, and he of the uninjured hand beating the coverts +as they came. They called to each other, and in Italian sure enough; and +they carried a lantern from Stanley's car. What had become of Stanley? +And what now was he himself to do? + +He crept forward to the edge of his thicket and could just make out a +figure, not very far off, running heavily across a cleared space. Then, +in a blanket of darkness, the figure disappeared as though through a +trap-door, and Herrick, for all his listening, could hear only the +calling and trampling of the men with the lamp. He told himself that +Nicola had taken a leaf from his own book and was perhaps lying +flattened to the earth--there came a disturbance in the bushes, a jar +along the ground, as of some one plunging back from that cleared space +toward the road; it appeared to him that a bulk of blacker blackness +appeared and disappeared where those sounds rose. But the moon had so +gone under a cloud that he could not be sure. So he thought; and then +his heart leaped to admit the blessed truth--the moon had set! He +slipped to his feet and fled, swift as a shadow and strong as a hound, +after the heavier runner. He had guessed the truth, that Nicola was +returning to the road. He had been led out across the fields on a false +scent, but now Nicola, thinking to have doubled and shaken him off, was +on the home trail straight for the high road. They came out upon it +perhaps two hundred feet to the south of their empty motors; Herrick +steadily gaining, and surprised cries and lantern-flashes piercing the +field they had left behind. But as Herrick lifted his gun to let the +lagging quarry have its butt-end, suddenly Nicola pitched forward and +lay at his feet. He brought up short, suspicious of a trick. And then he +remembered how Nicola had clapped his hand to the back of his neck. +Holding the gun ready, he stooped and put his own hand to the same spot. +It was covered with something hot and wet, which Herrick, with a +surprising lack of sentiment, wiped off on the man's coat; he tried to +lift the senseless figure and get it back to his own car. Something fell +out of Nicola's breast with a little silver tinkle. The sound, as of +some woman's trinket, drove the sense out of Herrick's head. Though he +might as well have run up an electric target, he struck a match. A +silver locket lay in his hand. It had been violently wrested from a +neck-chain in whose wrenched links a thread or two of lace still clung. +In one broken side the glass had been ground to fragments, as though +under a man's heel, but the marred lines of a likeness were still there. +The likeness, cut from an old kodak picture, was of Will Denny. Some +one, like Signor Gabrielli, had never voluntarily parted with the +features of her love! Out of the locket's other side, warm from Nicola's +breast and unmarred but by the trickling of his blood, cried mutely, +eagerly, to Herrick the fresh youth of Nancy Cornish. + +Almost as he saw the bullets sang about him, as if he had charged into a +bee hive. The lamp the Italians carried swallowed up his little match +and picked him out with brightness, holding him in the circle of its +light. He snatched up Nicola's gun and pulled the trigger, but the +barrel was empty as that of his own; he might have flung himself down +and taken his chance to crawl off in the ditch, but he had no mind to +die like that; and what he did was to snatch off his coat and hold it +before him, back and forth like a moving screen, as he ran forward into +the mouth of the revolvers to crack at least one man on the head with +his cold weapon before he fell. Just then from down the road a fresh +volley of bullets shattered the night, and the voice of Stanley and the +sheriff came to him like music. + +The rescue which so much firing had helped Stanley to summon swept in +full chase after the Pascoes and the tables were completely turned. But +the shouts of the sheriff's party--"Got one?" "No; haven't you?" "Hi, +Williams, they must have got over the wall of the Hoover place!" "We'll +scramble over from the hood and see if they've struck down to the +river!" "Blake, you and Cobbett drive round and ring up the lodge. Them +old folks are easy a million, but get 'em up!"--warned Herrick of a +blank in the sequel. And sure enough when the conquerors foregathered, +the escape of the Pascoes, presumably by the river, was the end of +their conquest. + +For this had they fought and ridden, crawled and run! No wonder they +felt a certain need of cheering each other with what gains they had. +There was the yellow house; the home of the Pascoes and their Arm of +Justice, the rainbow end of Kane's dream! And there, in the ditch beside +them was a vague tumble of wreckage. "Hail, and farewell!" Herrick +whistled, with a curious laugh. "We've met once too often!" For there, +at least, was the end of his acquaintance, the gray touring-car. + +As the two young men reentered New York with the milk wagons and drove +soberly through the Park, a cool gray light, more like darkness than +light and yet perfectly and strangely clear like shadowed water, had +begun to break above the sleeping town. Then Herrick drew from his +pocket his paper puzzle and spread it out beside him on the rear seat of +the car. + + This time get rid of her. + I say. She but she can't g + real dau mother + + et rid do the way + een any + She can but + mebbe + of + + she's got to + ain't ever b + ghter to me + +Some of the connections were obvious enough, but what the torn edges +helped him still further to form was a purely domestic statement. "This +time she's got to do the way I say. She ain't ever been any real +daughter to me. But--" Then there was a bit gone. Then, "She can get rid +of" word missing, "mebbe, but she can't get rid of her mother--" + +"Well!" cried Stanley in disdainful disappointment. "What's that got to +do with anything?" + +"How should I know?" + +He made the scraps into a little pile on the floor of the car, set fire +to them, and ground them to ashes with his heel. For he knew only too +well. That gray parrot face, that sharp, ignorant, cold voice in the +sunny table d'hote! "I want you should clear out from here, young man. +I'd oughta know Dagoes; I married one." Yes, that was it! Wasn't it +Stanley who wanted to know what hold such people had on Chris? "My +girl's good Yankee--fair as any one. I brought her up so fine--" As they +turned down still unawakened Broadway to his rooms Herrick looked into +the light that was like darkness with eyes that made nothing of the +first pale blush of peach blow nor the first hint of vaporous blue. + +Till he heard Stanley say, "And if that Pascoe Arm-of-Justice gang have +run away and yet come back, where did they run to?" + +Through all his preoccupation Herrick was aware of an immense stupidity. +"You're right. We went over that place inch by inch. And you know, when +they left, they must have tumbled into their car and off--no time for +anything. They packed nothing, they took nothing. Well, then, Stan, +where was Justice's typewriter? And in what room or garret or cellar was +the printing-press?" + +Stanley gaped. + +"Agreed--there wasn't any. And so that never was their real shop. Only a +blind. Their real place of business, Stan, their fortress, their +retreat, we've never found at all!" + +This was the net result of town and country in their search for a +missing girl, twenty-four hours after Christina had disappeared. + + * * * * * + +The anxiety of her friends would have been scarcely more enlightened, or +even more relieved, had the search not happened to miss one accident of +that cross-wired night. + +At about eleven o'clock, more than an hour before Herrick had forced an +entrance, the since damaged touring-car, returning from its expedition +of the morning, had drawn up before the gate of the yellow house. The +night world was then still a world of wind and rain; the car was +splashed as though it had passed through a flood, and Nicola, stiff, +muddy and drenched, was not in a very good humor when he got no reply to +his knock at the kitchen door. He had driven quietly and knocked +quietly, but now he lost control of himself and began to hammer; +catching hold of the knob impatiently, he felt it turn in his grasp and +entered. The door had not been locked, though the kitchen was lighted. +He thought he could hear, somewhere, some one knocking. He took the lamp +and went up the back stairs; then it seemed to him that the knocking +came from the front of the house. He retraced his steps. Yes, there was +a light in the hall and the knocking came from the closet under the +stairs. + +The Pascoes were in desperate straits, and Nicola was alone. He drew his +knife from the capacious foldings of his coat, and stepped a little +behind the door as he flung it open. There stumbled out, and sank, +gasping, at his feet, the figure of a woman. She brought with her, out +of the reeking closet, a strong odor of ammonia. Nicola gave a grunt of +amazement. Then, like Herrick afterward, he lifted his lamp, and stared +about the closet. On the floor lay an empty quart bottle which had +recently been full of household ammonia, a still soaking towel, and a +large silk umbrella, the rod broken and the handle missing. With the +point of this umbrella a pane of the little window overhead had been +broken and a slant of the outside shutter forced open for air. Nicola +could make nothing of it; he turned at length, and grouchily pulled the +gasping woman to her feet. This woman was the gray-haired housekeeper, +Mrs. Pascoe. + +At ten o'clock she said she had gone to get something from the closet +and, as she opened the door, she had smelled ammonia. Then a towel, +soaking with it, had been pressed on her face. Before she could do more +than struggle with that, she had been pushed into the closet and the +door had clicked upon her. That was all she knew. She must have been +unconscious part of the time.--At ten o'clock! What an eternity of +despair, then, had Christina not lived through before she thus +ruthlessly freed herself! And what, now, had become of her; under a dawn +some seven hours later than when, leaving Nancy behind, she had rushed +out of that house and sped away, along the storm-tossed road? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A SIGN IN THE SKY + + +At the end of four days Christina's friends gave up their private search +for the retreat of the Arm of Justice. + +During those days Herrick and the faithful Stanley, sometimes +accompanied by Wheeler's stalwart hopefulness, had persistently +attempted to take up the trail where it had broken--in the fields at one +end of the Hoover estate. The beautiful old place, one of the great show +places of the Hudson, stretched three miles deep to the river bank and a +mile and a half along the road; remembering the theory of an escape +through the grounds they presented themselves as richly tipping tourists +to the little old, old couple at the lodge. These aged folk accustomed, +during the Hoovers' prolonged absence abroad, to curious sightseers, +welcomed them beneath the winged marble lions of the entrance-gates and +made them free of the grounds with a host-like courtesy. But no broken +shrubbery, no footstep save of that of a stray gardener or of their +rival searchers the police, rewarded them; from the Hudson Club's +boathouse, which had rented a strip of the beach, no boat was missing; +the shores of unbroken woodland for a league on either side yielded no +sign; when a hanging shutter at the great house led to a belief that the +refugees had sheltered there the friends watched anxiously the +disappointed ransacking of privileged authorities, and their only gain +came from the gossip of the old lodge-keepers which informed them that +the body of Nicola Pascoe had never been found. He could, then, have +been only stunned. Thus it was still he they were most alert for during +the next three days when the whole district--inns and post-offices, +country-stores and stable-yards as well as every grove and +by-lane--yielded them by day or night no scrap of news. + +During their search, indeed, what clues existed had crumbled away. The +cabman, for instance, had most truly driven Christina to the Amsterdam +hotel, where she had simply given him so large a tip as to upset his +sobriety and earn his discharge. Meeting in with the manager of The +Palisades and applying fuddleheadedly for relief he had conveyed to that +gentleman the idea of "knowing something," and had been sent to sober up +at Riley's in order to keep the reward in the family. Then the day-clerk +of the Amsterdam brought forth Christina's registered signature, +engaging a suite on Thursday afternoon for Thursday night; she had +claimed this suite from the night-clerk and occupied it; early in the +morning she had sent for the housekeeper and hired some clothes of hers, +saying she couldn't wait for her maid to bring her any. The frightened +housekeeper had at length displayed the white and silver dress. Last and +worst, to Herrick, when, on Saturday, he had sought out the table +d'hote, the dogs, the cats, the babies were unchanged, the Italian +proprietress greeted him with a smile of welcome, but no gray-haired +woman played solitaire behind the desk. + +It was a curious enough blight without being heightened by the fact that +Kane's patience with Herrick had plainly given out. Ever since the young +man's return from Waybridge he had been aware of a change in the +official attitude which rendered it suddenly impossible for him to see +any one whom he asked to see and stretched like a fine wire excluding +him from the whole affair. It increased his sense of outlawry, but a +private preoccupation kept it from striking home. + +This preoccupation ran parallel with, but, alas! could never be brought +to meet that old story of the Hopes' love-affair which he could not help +feeling to be the key to the true, the hidden, situation. That little +pitted speck--and his novel! His novel of the Italian impostor! On the +morrow of his chase after Nicola the table d'hote had scarcely failed +him before he was knocking at the door of Mrs. Deutch. + +He took her for a walk on Riverside Drive, to be out of the way of +dictographs, and laid before her not only the whole labyrinth of his +perplexities but the best outline he could make of his dim conjectures. +He had not failed to secure Signor Gabrielli's address from the Ingham +office and he now put forward a petition which he tried not to feel +monstrous. "Mrs. Deutch, there is a man who knows some strange things +and strange people, who might perhaps send to Naples and receive from +there a very enlightening cablegram. I am less than nothing to him, he +will never send it for me. But I needn't tell you he is a man of great +sensibility, very susceptible both to shame and pride. And still, after +twenty-five years, he carries the miniature of his betrothed." + +Mrs. Deutch looked out across the proud bright waters. Through the +serene air the somber glory of an autumn leaf floated to her feet; its +fellows were gathered everywhere in withered piles which shouting +children rejoiced to trample into powder. "Yes," she said, by-and-by, "I +will see him. There are always perhaps those of whom he is afraid. +Perhaps he is like that. But it will be easy to say, 'We were very fond +of each other, you and I, we were so young and you were so beautiful a +person! It would be a great happiness to think that now you were brave!' +I can tell him 'Christina is my youth and my prettiness and my true +faith and all that you once knew.' Oh, yes, he will give them back to +me! He will send your message!" + +He had, indeed, sent it; but on Tuesday afternoon no reply had arrived. +Having given up the countryside in despair Herrick could not keep away +from the table d'hote and, merely as a curious resort, he asked Stanley, +who was returning to Springfield on Wednesday, to meet him there for +dinner. He was able to show his guest the gorgeous Mr. Gumama with the +knit, gloomy glories of his Saracen brow, but no mystery showed a +feather. Inquiry, in his primitive Italian, elicited a statement that +nearly wrenched a groan from his lips--his old lady had taken her eldest +grandniece, Maria Rosa, to visit relations in the country! The mother of +Maria Rosa insisted with a sweet smile that she could not remember the +name of the place. + +The young men sat for a while in the square, where Stanley's astuteness +discovered so many blackmailers in the gentle, lolling crowd that even +the statue of Garibaldi seemed scarcely safe, and then they started up +Fifth Avenue; the austere, departing dignities of whose lower end never +seem so faded, so historic, so composed, as in September dusks. When +they made out the identity of an angular correctness sailing stiffly but +handsomely some distance ahead of them, it seemed of all neighborhoods +the most suitable in which to encounter Ten Euyck; yet they loitered, +lacking the spirit to cope with their opportunities. And Stanley, who +was still in favor with the powers, began to attempt the diversion of +his moodier companion with an account of Ten Euyck's efforts to propel +the Commissioner of Police. "Every little while you forget that he isn't +anybody and can't do anything, even if there were anything to do. And +you say to yourself, 'Golly! I'd rather Chris stayed lost than that he +laid hands on her.' He looks so black and white and dried in vinegar he +does get on your nerves all right. You remember what a lot of money he's +got, after all, and pull and all the rest of it, and you feel as if he'd +be able to find _something_ against her--or, even if he didn't--" + +In the warm still evening his voice had carried farther than he thought; +Ten Euyck turned round and recognized them. Evidently without offense, +since he stood waiting for them to overtake him. "Good news for you, +Ingham," he greeted the boy. "Judge Fletcher does not consider a +confession equivalent to pleading guilty in the first degree! Moreover, +in strict confidence, the judge is a veteran with an extreme distaste +for the artistic temperament! If the prisoner is brought before him we +shall get a first degree sentence yet!" + +"Oh, I don't care!" cried the lad, making a disgusted face. "It's all +too horrible and--and queer, somehow! I don't want to hear about it." + +"Oh, if your consideration is for the actor in the lady's cloak--what a +symbol of his whole conduct!--I understand he prefers it." Ten Euyck +gave a short laugh. He was evidently in his happy vein of inquisitorial +power. "When a man's been ruffling before the public in lace and satin +and diamonds of course he baulks at prison accommodations. Yet even +there our temperamental friend is welching."--He had evidently +approached his point and they could not deny him the tribute of a stare. + +"We may be very foolish, my dear sirs, but we are not incapable of +learning and I may tell you that we have acted on a hint." + +"You mean by 'we' yourself and the law?" + +"Perhaps I do, Mr. Herrick. At any rate, this time to-morrow we shall +have rung the door-bell of the Arm of Justice." + +He took a tolerant pity on their restiveness, relaxing to an urbane +smile as though his machinery were eased by the oil which always flowed +when his prosecuting talent raised its head. "When that disgraceful +laxity occurred at the Tombs and a prisoner was attacked there, we took +a leaf from the criminals' book and put in among the guards some men of +our own. One of these, a man named Firenzi, a very capable fellow, +informed himself in no time of a marvelously well-paid plan for the +prisoner's escape. Yes, by the very tribe who tried to kill him. +Anything, you see, to get him out of the way. The idea is the old one of +passing him out as a guard, leaving the true-false guard quite overcome +in his cell;--a slim chap who's let wear a black beard on account of +asthma or some such nonsense. They naturally suppose that an actor will +look less conspicuous than most criminals in a bit of make-up! Does our +consistent hero refuse to go? Filled with the bright hope of a hanging +judge he does have to be coaxed a little, but not much. He is not lured +by being told that he is to be sent to the safety of foreign lands, a +far-off country and, I believe, a tropical climate, suited to his +complexion. Firenzi reports him as demanding what they suppose there is +in this foreign country to interest him. 'The lady who throws a shadow +that you know.' 'It's enough!' says Denny, through his teeth, I am +informed. I don't mind telling you that it's enough for us, too! They +will be sure to take him to their nest to transfer him to the escort of +their gang and his visit--before a Sampson shorn of his new beard and +having still further done for himself with Fletcher, is returned to a +jail somewhat less porous than he imagines to-night--his visit will be +well watched!" + +They had reached Thirty-fourth Street and turned toward Broadway where +Stanley had an errand. The two puppets in Ten Euyck's hands had nothing +to say. Neither of them could bring himself to utter his excitement in +that now potent presence and Herrick wondered if he were really +trembling. A far-off country! The phrase chilled and hardened him, as +premeditated safety always does. He was scarcely even grateful for the +strength and fleetness of her wings. Never had Ten Euyck's inspectorship +seemed less absurd or more really a fact. Of to-night and to-morrow he +was now the master. And yet, beside the news of a far-off country, what +news could he wring from the Arm of Justice to-morrow for which Herrick +need care so much? They stopped on the corner of Long Acre and as +Stanley plunged into a drug-store, a certain embarrassment fell upon the +two men left together. "It's remarkable how warm it is!" Ten Euyck said. + +Herrick refrained from the flippancy of replying, "Wonderful weather for +the time of year!" On closer inspection Ten Euyck proved a good deal +worked up. His excitement was like a sort of dry paste and as he now +grew pastier and pastier something that was almost a tremor seemed about +to crack it; in fact the dry mask of his face was suffering from a +lockjaw which was his form of hysteria. He took off his hat and, cold as +he looked, produced an extremely superior handkerchief and wiped his +brow. He said something about the last hot spell of the year and his +lips clicked on the words as though they were rather a compromising +statement; was it the coming crisis that creaked in his throat? It +occurred to Herrick that Ten Euyck might be suffering from a sense that +his vanity of achievement and his taste for torture, in leading him to +disclose to-morrow's program, had led him injudiciously far. At any rate +he studied, as if for sympathy, the irreproachable excellence of his +hat-lining and a little pink line came out about his nose. + +Herrick looked uneasily at the doorway beyond which Stanley still +loitered; he saw no reprieve. And as he made sure of this Ten Euyck +again fortified himself with the interior of his hat and spoke. "On your +honor, now, Herrick, you wouldn't keep it from me? You've no idea where +she is?" And he followed this extraordinary question with a piteous, a +blenching glance. + +Herrick did not speak; and Ten Euyck moistened his lips. The whole +outline of his face seemed to take on a certain sharpness, and famine +and fever thrust themselves, for a moment, into the windows of his eyes. +In the silence which Herrick could not break, he murmured, "I'm not like +this about women! You know that! Only she--" His voice cracked and then +snapped off short, but with a hundred quiverings, like the string of a +banjo breaking. + +Herrick seemed to himself to look through a door, in a house of +revelations. Was this what covered Ten Euyck's complacent coldness to +the other sex? Did those neat and formal lips often stifle an outcry +like this? True, Christina's own story had revealed to him that Ten +Euyck's coldness was all hot ice and very swarthy snow. But he had +presumed that incident to be a deliberate brutality; Ten Euyck had +always appeared to govern his instincts masterfully or to walk on them, +indeed, with heels of iron. To see him bared and shaken like this was to +put a new value on the force that had betrayed him; but Herrick was too +young and too much in love to endure this lusting and trembling breath +when it blew upon Christina. + +"On the whole," said he, deliberately, "keep your confidences to +yourself, can't you? They make me sick." + +The pinkness spread over Ten Euyck's face: + +"Oh, I had forgotten your happiness!" he managed to cry, with a fierce +shaking laugh. "Do let me know the date of the wedding!" He lifted his +hat and strode from a neighborhood dangerous to dignity. But as he flung +over his shoulder the ejaculation, "I hope you thought my diamonds +became her!" Stanley's return arrested him. + +"These infernal papers!" the boy cried. + +Neither he nor Herrick had ever been strong enough to deny themselves +the foolish headlines where one hour Christina had been seen as a +passenger for Hongkong and another as a chambermaid in Yonkers. Nancy's +ill-treated locket had roused the public to frenzy, but its imagination +had definite items only of the eclipsing Christina Hope who, in the +mid-day editions, generally lapsed to a lunatic in a suburban +sanitarium; but nightfall always saw her mount again to the ghastliest +and most criminal of "bodies." It was some such horror upon which +Stanley had now fallen; below it Herrick saw the statement that in a day +or two Denny would come up for sentence before Judge Fletcher. + +He had little enough love for Will Denny, but it was with a feeling of +nausea that he observed the mounting satisfaction of Ten Euyck. After +four years the law was to wipe out, for its most obedient son, a blow +across the mouth! It was, nevertheless, the poisoned rumor of Christina +which had set the air afire between all three men. This dealt with some +lovely fugitive hunted out that day by wireless and then disappearing +from a steamer in mid-ocean. The languor of an incredible fatigue stole +feverishly through Herrick's veins. Ten Euyck shouted to Stanley in a +kind of bark, "Well, no waves can hold her down!" And he began to hum a +tune in defiance of the faith with which Herrick's silence defied the +printed words. Herrick looked up and their gaze met across the screaming +columns. Ten Euyck's tune was, "Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken +deer." Herrick knocked the newspaper out of his hand and there was a +second's tense fury before these two, who had forgotten everything else, +should leap at each other. In that second Stanley, lifting his eyes, +whistled excitedly and caught Herrick's arm. + +They were standing at the corner of Long Acre where five nights ago +Herrick had met Wheeler in the rain. Fiery words and figures flashed +their announcements, bright as ever, against the soft, lowering, purple +blackness of the night. Down the side street Wheeler's theater, since +Christina's disappearance, had been dark. It was still closed, but +Wheeler must now have taken heart; for dark, save in theatrical +parlance, it was no longer. The electric sign-- + + ROBERT WHEELER + IN + THE VICTORS + +had been re-lighted. And beneath this, in letters of equal size and +brilliancy ran the surprising legend-- + + THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, + CHRISTINA HOPE + WILL POSITIVELY REAPPEAR + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY TIES + + +"I know no more than you do," Wheeler said. "Or rather, no more than +this." And he spread before them a sheet of writing-paper. + +Above the penciled scribble was neither date nor heading, but the +signature in Christina's slapdash scrawl made the world spin before +Herrick's eyes. Upon that sheet of paper her hand had rested and had +written there to Wheeler, but not to him! The message ran-- + + "Announce me for Thursday night, September 20th. I will be there. + + "CHRISTINA HOPE." + +"Where did it come from?" + +"From the infernal regions, apparently. It was left here at the club +without the mannikin in buttons so much as noticing by whom. It may have +been written from across the street; it may have been enclosed from +anywhere." + +"When?" + +"This noon-time. You don't doubt its being genuine?" Wheeler asked. "No +more do I. As for what to think, I haven't a guess. The girl may be, for +all I know, a mere born-devil, or the tool of devils. Let her come back +to my cast, and, for what I care, she may bring all hell in her pocket! +I've had a very nasty interview with Ten Euyck, who thinks I can explain +my sign." + +Stanley stood there with his face working. "You don't mean to tell me," +he cried aloud, "you don't mean to tell me that it's been nothing but an +advertising trick from the beginning!" + +"God forgive you!" Wheeler said. "You are our public!--No, my dear lad, +there is one thing in this angelic wildcat of ours that you can tie to. +When she tells me, in our business, to bank on her being in the theater +Thursday night, I bank on it; if she can set one foot before the other, +there she will be. That's my belief, if it were my last breath, and I'm +staking everything on it. But we've got to allow for one thing. _If she +can!_ Christina has a great idea of her powers. But, even for her, +heaven and earth are not always movable." + +More people than one were perhaps discovering a certain helplessness +before fate. About noon of the next day Mrs. Pascoe sat knitting in a +bedroom above her niece's table d'hote. There was only one other person +in the room, a smallish man in the early thirties, who looked as though +he had once been a gentleman, and whose correct feminine little features +were now drawn into an expression at once weak and wild. His soft +helpless-looking figure writhed and twitched as he now lay down and now +sat up upon the bed; his face was swollen with weeping and the tears +still flowed from his eyes. + +"Well, if yeh're goin' to take on that way," said Mrs. Pascoe, "I dunno +as I can blame her any. I dunno as I blame her anyhow. Yeh never +objected when there was any money in it. It's kind o' late to carry on, +now. What say?" + +The gentleman poured forth in Italian, which Mrs. Pascoe understood +better than he did English, that the lady he lamented had never wished +to leave him before; she had never loved anybody before; hitherto it had +always been business. The business of the whole family he had never +interfered with, but this he would not bear; he had borne too much. +And, indeed, from his language, it appeared that he had. + +"My," said Mrs. Pascoe, "men are funny! Yeh been married to my girl +since she was sixteen years old, and she ain't never treated yeh like +anything but dirt. Well, what do yeh want to hang on to her for! Clear +out! You ain't like me. Yeh can get another wife but I ain't got no +other daughter. I gotta stick. She don't want me either. She wants swift +folks an' gay folks, she'd forget she was mine if she could. But she +can't! An' I can't! I can't deny anything yeh got to say. You say she +ruined yer life. She'd ruin anybody's she can get her clutch onto. You +say she don't love you. If you ask me, why should she? Even if 'twasn't +herself she was thinkin' of, first, last an' all the time! She ain't +never cared for any human bein' but this actin' feller, an' that's +'cause he cares 'bout the other one. Still, she got hold of him, oncet, +an' do you think if she can get him again, if she can get them fellers +our boys know to snake him out onto that boat for 'er, she's goin' to +care whether you like it or not? You take it from me you ain't goin' to +sail to-morrow any--or anyway not with us. You ain't never wanted +anything but a wife that could take care o' you, an' you're quite a +pretty lookin' little feller. The best you can do is to get some money +out of her an' get a divorce." + +The young man rolled back and forth and bit the pillows. Mrs. Pascoe, +who had hitherto regarded him with contemptuous tolerance, observed a +wave of genuine despair in this sea of grief and her eyes narrowed. + +"See here, young man," she said, "don't you let me ketch ye doin' +anything underhanded--squealin' on us or tryin' to keep us here, 'cause +we got to get out. If I was to say a word to my son that I thought that, +there wouldn't be no prettiness left to you. I ain't goin' to have her +locked up in no jail for any man that ever was born. Mebbe you think, +'cause I speak harsh of her, I ain't fond of 'er. Why, you little fool, +I ain't never had a thought but for that minx since she was born. Even +when I first see the other child, an' the resemblance gimme such a turn, +the first thing I think of was how I was goin' to get somepun' out of it +for her. That's why when I got to nurse the little thing I never let on +fur a minute that I had one the spittin' breathin' image of it,--hair, +mouth and nose, an' the eyes, too, so I near fainted when I first seen +theirs--somepun' warned me to shut up an' somepun' 'ud come of it. They +thought I'd just gone cracked on their baby. It's been the same ever +since. I read all them yarns about changed children an' I thought it +would be funny if I couldn't work it. An' I did. She used to act it all +to me afterwards, right out in poertry. 'The ol' earl's daughter died at +my breast'--Didn't she ever do any of her actin' fur you? Goes--'I +buried her like my own sweet child an' put my child in her stead.'" Mrs. +Pascoe gave this forth with an inimitable relish of its stylish +precedent. "If theirs hadn't died I'd ha' worked it somehow. They was +rich then. She's walked on me an' on them, an' on the whole blame lot of +us, ever since. But she's mine. What she wants she's goin' to have,--him +or anything--I can't prevent her. No more can you. I'm goin' to stan' by +her. An' you've got to." + +"He's a murderer!" shrieked the Italian gentleman. "He's a murderer!" + +"Seems like it's catchin'," Mrs. Pascoe commented. "Here's my daughter +tells me you was hangin' round Mrs. Hope's all last Friday, lookin' fur +that spy feller, an' all is you wasn't even competent to find him.--I +guess I don't want to hear no talk outer you! Though as far forth as +what roughness goes I don't say but what you wus druv to it." + +The young man rose and stretching out a delicate hand, over which a +gold bracelet drooped from underneath a highly fashionable British cuff, +tremulously lighted a cigarette. Under its soothing influence he replied +that of course he was a lost soul and he didn't deny that his companions +had at last succeeded in dragging him to their level. + +Mrs. Pascoe snorted like an angry horse. "Now you look here, Filly; when +I married Mr. Ansello I didn't have no more idee what his business was +than what you had. So far forth as what that goes, I didn't rightly +ketch the whole o' what was goin' on till you come whoopin' along an' +got us all into that muss where we had to clear out back to my country. +I was mighty glad we did an' cut loose from all them demons--I said then +an' I say now I won't stand fur nothin' rough! But you know as well as I +do, oncet we was started out fur ourselves there's nobody ain't worked +harder to keep to the quiet part o' the business 'un what yer +brother-in-law an' yer wife has. It usta be, before Ally come back, that +things did get oncet in a while beyond Nick's control, but never any +more, thank the Lord--not in his own little crowd 'ut he has anything to +do with! I guess there's one thing we agree on, young feller; it's jus' +druv me crazy, lately, to get mixed up with the regular Society again. +It's gettin' to be so big, even in this country, it won't let none o' +the little ones work fur themselves--all this month since it took us in +I've felt there was things goin' on I never got to hear of an' I'm +mighty glad we're goin' to get away from it to-morrer." She caught +herself back from what was evidently a favorite topic. "But don't let me +hear any more talk about draggin' down! You've done considerable +draggin' on us with all that feller spyin' on yeh costs us, an' yeh'd +ought to thank the children the way they've kep' yeh clear out o' the +whole business. Why, nobody hardly knows 'ut yer alive! Y' ain't asked +to do anything, y' ain't asked to show yerself, y' ain't even ever been +a member, so now the Society ain't nabbed on yeh none. I wisht it +hadn't sent fur yeh to the meetin' to-day, jus' to take Nick the word +an' his money. Ally nor me, we won't do--no, they gotta have a man, an' +I s'pose they take you fur one! So far forth as what that goes the less +I have to do with their greasy meetin's the better I like it, but I want +you should be awful careful. If oncet they was to get on to who you +was--Now, Filly, don't you smash them mugs!" + +The Italian hastily resigned the object with which he had been angrily +and absently rapping the table, and, exhausted with sobbing, began to +breathe upon and polish his fingernails. + +The mug, or jug, a little earthenware copy of a two-handled Etruscan +drinking-vase, was one of three which stood there side by side, exactly +alike save that the crude design which each of them bore--an arm and +hand holding a scales--was differently colored; one red, one white, one +green. But Mrs. Pascoe was aware of another difference and she turned +the jugs around in a bar of sunlight till she found it; on one jug the +scales of justice were gilded, on another silvered, on the third painted +a dull gray. The single exclamation stenciled over each design +translated into a sort of jingle: + + Gold buys! + Silver pays! + Lead slays! + +"Ain't she the hand," exclaimed Mrs. Pascoe, "for monkey-shines! Don't +you wonder what they do with these here, Filly? Mr. Gumama asked Ally to +get him these new ones fur to-day. She'd have to fancy a thing up if 't +was only to take a pill out of. Comin' in las' night without the car, +what with luggin' these here an' the paul-parrot--'t ain't spoke a word, +that bird ain't, since it left here!--I dunno but I'd ha' broke my neck +hadn't been fur M'ree. I do hate turrible to part from M'ree--I declare, +if ever anything happens to my Ally, I'll come back here an' put up with +these Dagoes on M'ree's account--Now, for mercy's sake, Filly, don't +howl!" + +For the mention of parting had brought on a still more violent attack of +the young man's anguish. The smile--wan but touched with the charm of +Sicilian plaintiveness--with which he had been reconciling himself to +life utterly disappeared; he ceased half-way through an excellent polish +and casting himself down as from the Tarpeian rock, blubbered into the +bedspread. + +The old lady regarded him with contempt passing again into suspicion and +then into a softening weariness that rose in her manner like an anxiety +that all the time had barely been held down. "Filly," said Mrs. Pascoe +with sudden friendliness and such an uneasy, furtive look of dread as +quite transformed her face, "what'er they goin' to do with that girl?" + +He lay quiet a moment, as if discomfortably arrested by the question. +Then he asked, how did he know? Take her, leave her; what was it to him? + +"Well, 't ain't hardly likely they're goin' to take her--an' her feller +on the boat! An' I should jus' like to know how they could leave her!" A +strange, helpless tremor passed across that firm mouth. "Oh, why was she +ever brought away? I allus knoo what it 'ud come to! Times there I did +hope she was goin' to die, poor thing! But it war n't to be!" There was +no sound but the sound of Filly, growling moistly into the bed. + +Mrs. Pascoe,--or, according to her own reference, Mrs. Ansello--looked +at the clock and began to fold up her knitting. But her long pent-up +broodings burst from her again in a new channel. "One while I was scared +Nick was kind o' losin' his head about the little piece. What with him +gettin' more an' more stuck on her, all the time, an' her sick with love +uv another feller, even to the farm I didn't know from one day to the +next what he would do. But when he made out 't was safer to take her +alone with him up t' the old place--Well, we all had to scuttle there +that very same night, an' when she begun to take on for that letter I +guess he forgot all them feelin's. He ain't never let a human bein' +stand in his sister's way an', however pretty that little neck o' hers +might strike him, 't wouldn't take him two minutes t' wring it if he got +scared she'd shoot her mouth against Allegra. I've had bad dreams before +you ever was born, but I ain't ever had any like waitin' fur the bunch +to come home that night an' the river so handy! I never thought I'd be +glad to see my son half-bled to death--but there, there's allus mercies! +I expect he wishes, though, he'd come straight home from the +post-office, instead o' snoopin' round that hotel! The sea-voyage'll fix +him up all right, an' he's strong enough an' cross enough an' sick +enough to pull the whole house down 'cause he can't get back an' forth +without the car. Filly," she shot forth, "sure as you live he's got +something made up fur to-night about that girl!" + +The Italian gentleman taking this as a still further personal +degradation, inquired aloud why he ever was born. But Mrs. Pascoe did +not attempt the obvious retort. + +She rose, fetched paper and string and, with an impotence foreign to her +whole nature, fumbled in tying up the jugs. "I've allus said I wouldn't +stand fur it, allus! But what can I do? I tell him I'll curse the last +breath he draws--but can I stop him? Yeh know what he is--can anybody +stop him? I tell yeh what 't is, Filly, I'm gettin' scared uv him! Yes, +now I'm past sixty, I'll say it fur oncet--I'm scared uv him! And then, +poor boy, so far forth as what that goes, what can he do, himself? When +you come down to it, what can any uv us do? The girl knows +everything--nobody knows that better'n you!--an' what she knows she'll +blab. She's soft-lookin' but she's got a chin an' she's in love! If her +feller's done fur, we're goin' to be done fur, too! There's my daughter +to consider an' every last one uv us. Jus' now, too, when Ally's goin' +to get her divorce an' be so happy! What can I do?" + +There was the sound of doors opening and closing and of some one coming +upstairs. But Mrs. Pascoe paid no heed. Her unaccustomed garrulity, +which had hitherto seemed the result of mere strain, began to appear as +her idea of conciliation for the ushering in of a plan. "I've only one +thing I can say favorable to you, Filly," she urged him, "yeh ain't +rough an' yeh was a gentleman. Yeh don't want screamin' an' hurtin', +I'll be bound. She's a little lady, Filly, an' she's 'n American girl. +Well, what I'm gettin' at is, would yeh dare do this? Now she's +conscious, they won't lemme near her. But they'll never suspect you. I +want yeh should tell her there's a bottle o' laudanum fur M'ree's tooth +in my closet an' if she wants it, give it to her. Give it to her quick!" + +The Italian gentleman giving no sign of finding consolation in this +prospect, "Oh, yeh'll never in the world do it!" Mrs. Pascoe groaned. +"Yeh ain't got the nerve uv a sick worm! Why, it's different,--can't yeh +see, Filly?--if she asks fur it herself--it's different, ain't it? It's +what she promised to do in the beginnin'. An' now, jus' out o' +spitework, she won't. But I bet she will to-night. Whatever's up, she'll +know it before they get her feller out there to-night. Give it to her, +Filly!" + +There was a knock at the door and the proprietress of the table d'hote +entered cheerfully. "They come?" inquired Mrs. Pascoe. "Well, time I +went. There, get up, Filly, an' blow yer nose, do! Come, come, yeh don't +want the gentleman yer wife's goin' to marry to be brought up an' find +yeh wallerin' on yer stomach!--Well, stay where yeh be! But now yeh mind +what I was tellin' yeh, awhile back, about bein' anyways treacherous. +'T wouldn't be the first time but 't would be the last! My daughter's my +daughter, an' as fur my son--I never said there was anythin' so rough I +wouldn't stand fur it, when it come to Dagoes!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE TO A COMIC OPERA + + +Mrs. Pascoe had some last minute shopping on hand, including farewell +gifts for her niece's family and a special token for Maria Rosa, and she +was quite unaware that it would have been a godsend for her daughter's +plans had she kept her sharp eyes, that day, on the interior of the +table d'hote. But even had this occurred to her the number of figures on +the background of her son's life had lately so increased that she could +scarcely have been expected to recognize that the friendly Italians who +arrived at the appointed time were not a guard of Nicola's choosing, +sent to carry a willing captive to the freedom of Allegra's waiting +ship, but plain clothes men, who bore their prisoner back to jail. She +and little Maria Rosa shopped successfully, refreshed themselves at an +ice-cream parlor, returned home for a distribution of the farewells and, +re-emerging from the house in mid-afternoon, walked briskly enough +eastward, though now laden with heavier packages. Mrs. Pascoe carried so +many bottles of wine that even the stout wrappings threatened to give +way and, wrapped in many folds of clean dust-cloth, Maria bore the +pretty jugs. + +"I did lay out you should wait an' take those home," said Mrs. Pascoe to +the little girl, "since your cousin Ally's fixed 'em up so pretty! But +it'll be too late, likely, an' I don't like you should be crossin' the +street after dark. You better tell me good-by an' run home soon 's I get +the loft cleaned up fer the meetin'. I told yer ma you an' me 'd unpack +that barrel o' backyard party truck an' the boys could bring a bundle of +it over when they leave to-night. No use it settin' in a empty garradge. +Don't fergit yer old great-aunt, now will you, M'ree?--an' I'll send you +somepun' reel pretty from furrin' parts, where yer parrot come from." +She added, as they crossed under a bend of the Elevated Road into South +Fifth Avenue, "Remember, I've told yer ma ye're always to go out an' +visit my folks, same as if I was there. Mercy, I hope it don't rain with +all of us trapesin' out there fer our last night! I don't see how the +boys are goin' to get that feller out, with them fools skiddin' round +the roads the way they be--an' Filly'll faint away most likely!" + +They turned in at the door of a small dingy structure, which had been +something else before it became a garage and that now looked vaguely out +of use; from its obscure depths emerged the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama, +who relieved her of the wine. She and the child mounted a ladder-like +staircase and emerged through a sort of hatchway, scarcely more than an +opening in the boards, with its lid tipped back against the wall. + +It was not yet four in the afternoon, but the September light was +already failing under the low roof of the loft. The windows were built +close to the floor and that at the rear had a little, begrimed straggle +of vine waving in at it. For the window looked out upon a triangle of +trodden earth, heaped as with the rubbish of an old machine-shop but +producing spears of grass and black, stunted bushes to show it had once +been part of a yard. In front the loft gave directly upon a turning of +the Elevated Road, and when a deafening train roared by the whole flimsy +structure rattled and shook; the walls were irregularly studded with +nails and hooks from which hung lengths of rope and buckled straps as of +old harness that shook, too. Among these, from a cleared space of +honor, a head of Garibaldi, in gaily colored lithograph, confronted the +flyspecked grandeur of the Italian royal family, domestically grouped; +the pink paper of cheap gazettes brightened some of the murkier boards +with woodcuts of prizefighters or disrobing ladies. Three or four stools +stood about on the dingy boards and rather a greater number of worn out +chairs; a couple of heaping barrels in one corner were covered with an +old awning; there was a small bureau, once yellowishly glazed, without +any glass; a kitchen table, stained with al fresco dinners, had been +brought in from the yard; in another corner, torn rubber curtain-flaps, +collapsed tires and threadbare leather cushions supported each other. +Suddenly Mrs. Pascoe uttered a little hiss. She had perceived, sitting +in the frame of the front window, a listless, undersized, undeveloped +lad with the delicate, soft-eyed face of a young seraph, who looked +seventeen and had probably turned twenty. + +This young person was reading an Italian newspaper and sucking a limp +cigarette which hung from between his teeth and occasionally scattered +sparks down the slim chest which his inconceivably filthy shirt left +open to his belt. He was greeted devotedly by Maria as Cousin Beppo and, +though he was evidently the old lady's abomination, when she accosted +him with the unconciliatory greeting, "Here, you! You stir yourself!" he +reared himself slowly to his feet and, with a good-natured smile, sagged +amicably toward her. + +"I don't s'pose you think so," snapped Mrs. Pascoe, "but this place's +got to be swep' out!" + +Fortunately, the tidying of the loft did not depend upon the +sweet-smiling indolence which remained unbroken while she swept and +rubbed; when the barrels were despoiled of their green and pink netting, +their feast-day lanterns and paper flowers Beppo nosed ingratiatingly +up; but long before the old woman had laid clean oil-cloth over table +and bureau he was playing charmingly with Maria, whom he coaxed to +carry a chair to the rear window, to fill and set upon it a tin basin, +and to filch him a clean dust-cloth. + +Then he began cautiously to wash his face, down almost to the black rim +midway of his pretty throat; cleansing his hands, too, but not so as to +disturb the fingernails. Out from the top drawer of the bureau he took a +broken bit of mirror, also richly scented pomatum with which he smoothed +his hair well down over his brows and then he brought forth a velvet +jacket and a waistcoat sprigged with embroidered flowers. He handled +them as if they were vestments and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, +their weight did not appal him. To these, over the filthy shirt, he +added a silk neckerchief of robin's egg blue and a glittering scarfpin; +there came forth, from its hiding-place about his person, a very +graceful little knife which he stuck with airy bravado in his belt. +Lastly, he lighted a huge cigar and assumed, though for indoor display +only, a soft hat balanced on the left side of the head, and a light cane +swung from the left hand. Standing thus, full-costumed, with a +hip-swaying swagger, he was more picturesque though less fashionable +than his confreres of northern races, but his infamous profession was +none the less proclaimed in every line of him. And once more he turned +the sweet beam of his smile upon the little girl. + +Beppo had not, however, dressed himself for professional purposes. The +coming occasion was more solemn and his toilette an act of the purest +piety. Perhaps that was why, when Mrs. Pascoe turned her contempt on him +again, he was no longer amused. + +The old woman, as she set out the jugs, was saying, "Fetch up them +bottles, M'ree. An' Becky or whatever your name is--" + +She turned and beheld the basin of dirty water. "You take that right +down stairs!" cried she, in outrage. "An' the rest o' yer trash with +yeh! When I clean a place, I want it left clean!" + +He said something, sulkily, about emptying it herself. + +"Well, when I come to emptyin' swill, 't won't be no Dago swill! Here--" + +For he had furiously snatched the basin above his head to dash it on the +floor. + +She caught at and somehow prevented him, but not from whirling it +through the window into the back yard. He was smiling again at this +assuagement to his dignity when he suddenly perceived that the struggle +had sprinkled his vest; spots appeared also upon his scarf's cerulean +blue! He became, on the instant, a maniac, not human; he raved, he +shrieked, his delicate skin flamed, tears suffused his eyes, he ran up +and down scattering prayers, howls and curses. Until, one of these +voyages bringing him close to Mrs. Pascoe's small disgusted figure, he +seized her by the wrist and with the deliberate, systematic skill of +custom began to wrench her arm. + +Mrs. Pascoe very promptly kicked him in the shins. "If my son Nick was +here he'd take the buckle-end o' one o' those straps an' spank the life +out o' yeh! Yeh wax-face! Yeh--" For once stooping to Italian she shot +forth the word, "Ricondoterro!" + +It was his calling and he should not have objected to it. None the less, +pursing his soft lips he spat a fine spray over her face. She jumped at +him in such a fury that Maria threw protecting arms about her +playfellow; then they were all parted by the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama. + +This imposing person had, with dramatic quiet, brought up the wine; and +now, holding Beppo by one wrist, he listened to Mrs. Pascoe's angry +cluckings. Then he seemed merely to put out one fist. The boy fell on +his back without even a cry and lay as he fell. "Why, you beast, you!" +cried Mrs. Pascoe. "Mebbe you've killed him!" + +"No. But no matter," said Mr. Gumama. "Go and make your guard. Come not +up again till I call you. Take the child." + +She went, holding Maria's hand and looking back, with her old mingling +of curiosity and reluctance at the prone figure of the pretty +ricondoterro, from whose nostrils blood had begun copiously to gush on +her clean floor. The tall Mr. Gumama was evidently not one to be defied. + +It was half-past four and those who were expected began to come. First a +couple of laborers, warm from their work; the next had the proud bearing +of a chauffeur; after him came a respectable professional man, probably +a dentist, wearing a black suit, a full beard and glasses; then a plump +and coquettish little beau, the owner of a fruit-and-candy stand, who +bore a flower in his light, ornamental coat and the scar of a knife +across his rosy left cheek. He was followed by his cousin, who had only +a fruit cart and sold for him on commission. One and all were obliged to +halt before Mrs. Pascoe, who sat on a stool at the foot of the stairs, +playing solitaire on a couple of orange boxes. + +She bent her tongue Italianwards and asked of each the same question. + +"What do you want here?" + +"Justice!" + +"How can you get it?" + +"By the Arm of God." + +"Who is your enemy and mine and your children's children's?" + +"A traitor!" + +"Y' can g'won up." + +As they emerged into the loft they were each greeted by Mr. Gumama and +then dropped themselves awkwardly about on stools and window-sills, with +the whispering stiffness of people in their best clothes. Beppo, +moaning, now lay huddled on his side and, as occasion arose, they +stepped about and over him without the slightest interest or even malign +amusement in his plight. By-and-by he got to his hands and knees and +crawled into a corner, where, with the now fatally ruined blue scarf +held to his nose, he shivered himself slowly quiet. But his pomatum came +into play with the laborers, who sat seriously down by the still bright +rear window and beautified their heads with it, cheerfully assisting +each other's toilet as amiable monkeys often do and even smearing +themselves a little from the communal mercies of the water-pitcher. +"Enough!" Mr. Gumama sternly rebuked them. "Business alone!" + +They looked meekly at him, stricken, and he called one of them by +name--"Take the stairs!" + +The man crossed to the opening in the floor and seated himself a little +back from where it gave into the room; the knife which he drew from +inside his clothes seemed a trifle clouded and he sat idly polishing it. +Mr. Gumama looked at his large silver watch and, stepping to the front +window, glanced out. A certain anxiety in him began to make itself felt. + +More and more men arrived, but evidently not the looked-for men. A +strapping youth began unconcernedly to converse with Beppo about a duel +they were to fight. "I cannot remain forever a picciotto. If I do not +fight the next duel how shall I ever get to be a member?" + +"Me they will not yet let fight again." Beppo stopped sniffling and +displayed, a bit above his knee, a wound that might have been made with +a knife like that in his belt or a short dagger. "In two duels have I +lost, and if I lose the third I lose my entry." + +The strapping youth began to get excited. "With whom, then, can I +fight? How long do they intend to keep me waiting? See, now, I want my +rights--I want to be promoted--" + +A man with turned-up red mustaches, sporting a carnation and a pair of +highly polished boots, interrupted his complaint that the bootblack +under the Elevated had overcharged him and reproved Beppo for kicking +his chair. The fruit-vendors also stopped quarreling over the accusation +of the huckster that the merchant had supplied him with decayed fruit; +the merchant allying himself with the strapping youth and declaring that +his wife's brother was right and ought to be promoted. Then, with the +one word, "Peace!" Mr. Gumama struck them into abject silence. + +"Peace! Ludovisi, your wife's brother may win all three duels and yet +endure years of probation. Beppo, let your squeal rise once more and you +are suspended for a month.--Have you, then, no wits at all? Let the +result of this meeting go a little wrong and promotion it will be no +more! At least for us, fellow members of the old-days Arm of Justice, +for we shall be no more!" + +A number of men cast glances of horror. But after a few lightning-shot +growls even this number returned to its knitting, being accustomed to +obey and not to ask questions. Again Mr. Gumama looked at his watch. + +More and more men arrived till the loft was crowded. The unknown persons +who had so long so strangely shadowed the pathway of Christina Hope were +beginning to mass for action and to detach themselves from the +background. And still as the loft darkened with the passage of each +train and relightened less and less when that was gone, another presence +seemed to enter and abide; the growing, shadowy presence of suspense. It +was in the air, for the ignorant many as well as for the few who +understood. There were brief silences so deep that the little vine, +spying in at the window, could be heard tapping on the upper pane. Then +a cab stopped outside and a startled thrill passed through the assembly. +The man who had been told to take the stairs rose with a soft, +business-like precision and drew his knife. He stood, waiting. Something +in his attitude defined his duty as preventative not of an entrance, but +an exit. Any unwelcome comer who got past Mrs. Pascoe's guard would get +farther; he would enter the loft, but he would never leave it. He would +not even turn round. Mr. Gumama, watching the cab avidly, opened his +fateful mouth. But the men disgorged from its disreputable depths were +friends to that house. + +The first two tumbled into the garage, glanced round, saluted Mrs. +Pascoe, and returned to the assistance of those on the sidewalk. These +manoeuvered between them a man with his hat pulled down over his eyes +and an overcoat hanging about his shoulders whom they supported like a +drunkard. A fascinated crowd stopped to wink and advise. As soon as the +two men were inside they threw their burden flat on the floor and +returned to the cab for another. The man on the floor was gagged, his +arms were tied behind him and even his thighs were bound. + +Swarthy as was the man's face Mrs. Pascoe was still observing with +annoyance these signs of roughness when a second human bundle was +brought in from the cab and the cavalcade somehow hoisted itself +upstairs. In the loft the human bundles were propped against the wall +and the meeting came to attention. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I!'" + + +"The eighth district, members of the Honorable Society," said Mr. +Gumama, bowing to the assembly as if he were ascending a throne, "it is +my duty to inform you that, for reasons which you shall presently know, +Nicola Pascoe is no longer our capo d'intini. Unworthy that I am," he +continued with pomp, "be pleased to signify by the vote whether it is +your pleasure that I assume this post of glory." + +It was their pleasure and the vote acclaimed it. Instantly Beppo, the +merchant's brother-in-law and three or four other lads ranged chairs and +barrels in a circle nearly as might be round the kitchen-table and all +of the assembly that could find seats sat quietly down. Mr. Gumama +filled the earthen jugs with wine and they were passed from hand to +hand, each man taking a ceremonial draught; then the man at Mr. Gumama's +right rose and, with dramatic gesture and winy mouth, kissed him on the +forehead. So, in turn, did each of those to whom, by some mystic +precedence, the seats at the table had been spontaneously allotted. All +was accomplished with due ceremony, but rapidly and with an undertone of +nervous expectation, the weight of some unusual circumstance. It was +another and less flowery version of the festivity which had so amused +Herrick that evening, a month ago, when it had frothed round Nicola +Pascoe under the sail-cloth of the table d'hote. Almost immediately the +meeting proceeded to business. + +The man with the carnation and the resplendent shoes rose ponderously +and began to hurry through a fortnightly financial report. This report +was starred with titles--capos of various departments, first voters, +senior members, cashiers, secretaries--and with references to local +districts, twelve or fourteen of them, into which that blundering +mammoth baby, New York City, would have been surprised to find itself +divided. The administrative looting of these departments was again +crossed off into eight sub-divisions--paranze, the treasurer called +them, each of which had, apparently, its own committee and procedure; +for each paranza had turned over its earnings to its capo d'intini, +these capos in turn had passed them to the capo in testa who had turned +them into the treasurer in exchange for a receipt. One of these receipts +Mr. Gumama now produced. The fortnightly gains were deposited upon the +table in two cigar-boxes; in one the baratolo, won at games and +swindling; the other held the sbruffo, more heroically acquired from +extortion or theft. Every one began to praise what he had himself +contributed, and it became evident that the apprentices, like Beppo, +were expected to do most of this light work. However, save for a glass +of wine to each, which they were told to drink thankfully, they did not +share in the spoils they had so largely produced. These were apportioned +by Mr. Gumama without the protestation of a single voice. Percentages +for three funds were set aside; one for what was politely called "social +expenses," which, to a gross mind, might have suggested corruption; one +for legal defense; the other for pensioners--retired members, families +of those unfortunately detained in jail, and widows of members deceased +while in good standing. Not till then was the remainder paid equally +into each individual hand, in a model of just and scrupulous +dealing.--As, in various dialects, a foam of pent-up exclamations now +rose, Mr. Gumama again looked at his watch and, with an awe-inspiring +contraction of his beautiful brows, once more betook himself to the +window. + +A slick, sleek oily youth in a gray derby began to deliver some mail +which he had just collected from the branch post-office in Marco +Morello's drug-store down the street; among the innocent pleasantries of +indecent post cards there seemed to be at least two enigmatic warnings +in dirty envelopes and a happy suggestion of workable scandal about a +rich jeweler; one postal, demanding in scarcely legible and very +illiterate Neapolitan slang the "suppression" of a woman who had turned +the writer out of his job in her fake employment agency, was frowned +upon by Mr. Gumama as unnecessarily careless. Directly the meeting had +formed itself into a rough semblance of a court, the writer of the +careless postal was condemned to be suspended for six months, so that +his earnings were cut off from both sources. + +One of the laborers rose to complain that the capo of his paranza had +sentenced him to a week's suspension for quarreling with a companion; +the evidence showed injustice and the complaint was sustained. A +saloon-keeper broke into passionate appeal against another sentence of +suspension, this time for a year, because he had shed a tear of pity for +the child of a wine-merchant which had died while held for ransom. But +his capo d'intini, the head of a whole district, had seen the tear and +the punishment was confirmed. A picciotto di sgarro, a novice, who had +passed two duels with credit, was found to have hesitated in obedience +and was expelled from possible membership for all time. Now popped up a +red, bushy stub of a man, with a full tuck under his chin and a certain +unshaven dinginess, to declare that something outrageous was going on in +his neighborhood: there were rowdies who hung about the street corners +and offended the female foundlings of the good sisters, making remarks +when these took exercise! The gentle ladies had appealed to the police +in vain, but to the Honorable Society they could now in tranquillity +trust. The Honorable Society, shocked and indignant, assumed the future +immunity of the female foundlings for a slight consideration. Finally +amidst an ominous silence Balbo the Wolf, a chauffeur, a full member, +was convicted of having practised extortion without orders and on his +own account. + +"Lupo Balbo," said Mr. Gumama, in the profound chest notes of an +outraged parent, "you deserve to sleep forever. You have broken your +oath of humility, you have rebelled against your father and scandalized +your mother, you have taken food from the mouth of your family, for the +Society is your family and your father and your mother.--Tommaso +Antonelli--" He spoke low and quick to a man near him, who sprang +forward, there was an instant's sharp, half-voluntary struggle and then +Antonelli drew back with a dripping razor in his hand. Lupo, the +chauffeur, covered a face marked forever with a double slash. And Mr. +Gumama somewhat unnecessarily added, "The spreggio is for you the +punishment, you wolf Balbo. Bathe your face, there in the pitcher by the +innocent vine, and leave the council." Lupo Balbo, no more than his +predecessors, winced, argued, nor rebelled. Against the decree of the +capo no appeal was possible. + +All this time--so much shorter a time than any agreeable social club +would have taken to despatch a single item of business--the human +bundles had remained propped against the wall; silent perforce and +wrapped in the indifference of their own doom. Mr. Gumama now turned an +attentive eye upon these lumps of misery, and a kind of brightening +glimmered through the assemblage; the duller preliminaries were disposed +of at last. + +The poor souls being brought forward the capo pronounced their names +with scorn. "Luigi Pachotto and Carlo Firenzi, you deserve no trial. +But the Society honors its strict laws and does not condemn without +justice. Beppo, Chigi, remove those gags." The eyes of the human bundles +goggled avidly forward; their mouths puffed moistly in physical relief. +Still, they made no complaint. + +"Full members of the Society, alas!" Mr. Gumama tragically continued, +"members, also, of our Arm of Justice, ere the Society accepted that Arm +as part of its own body, we have received demands for your suppression +and, from our camorrista scelto, proof of your guilt. Luigi Pachotto, of +the eight crimes against the Society which incur the penalty of death +you are charged with the first--Number one, to reveal the secrets of the +Society. And you, Carlo Firenzi, with the second,--spying on behalf of +the police. It is true that Lupo Balbo was guilty of the sixth, and I +made his penalty little. But of such crimes, like disobedience, the +punishment at its worst is death. Yours are the crimes of treachery, for +which the death is slow. Most for you, Carlo Firenzi, there can be no +excuse. When you began to suspect the news which I am about to break to +the paranza you turned police operative and betrayed the system by which +our unfortunate friends communicate in horrible prisons and become +properly organized. And when, last night, you were set by the paranza to +do a service this morning to your basista you gave notice to the police. +So that they came and took back the friend of our basista and now guard +the nest of our social gatherings. Did you think the Arm of Justice had +grown too weak to punish? Carlo Firenzi, what have you to say?" + +He had nothing to say; only, hanging his head, he ground his teeth. Yet +the form--the form? the very core and gist--of a trial was put through; +the evidence heard and questioned, the witnesses confronted with the +mute despair of a guilt taken red handed and making no denial; fifteen +minutes of the truth passionately sought and no law-game played. + +The conclusion, however, was foregone and Firenzi was soon stood back +out of the way. "Luigi Pachotto, you have, I believe, affirmed good +intention. You knew that the old-days' Arm of Justice, now the fifth +paranza of this eighth district of the Honorable Society, had long +sheltered in its midst, all unknowing, a traitor to the Honorable +Society." He had touched a spring that vibrated through the whole room. +Unable to proceed he waited till the murmur of incredulous horror that +had risen to a growl should die away. "You betook yourself to the capo +in testa of the Honorable Society rather than to your old friends of the +Arm or even to this district, and to him pointed out the whereabouts of +the traitor. Did you dare to insinuate that the Arm itself would not +have punished had it known? What good to it or to the Society did you +expect of this?" + +It was more a slur than a question and he answered it in a hopeless +mumble. "I did it for the good of the Arm and to make our peace with the +Honorable Society. I say it, who am about to die--I thought to resign +the traitor, to give him into its hand who sullies ours, to be done with +him and at peace." + +"Luigi Pachotto, you took too much upon yourself! It is for the Arm to +make its own terms. I think it was your private peace you wished to +make, thus to save your own throat. But you have cut it." Mr. Gumama +paused and sententiously expanded his beautiful brows. "Nevertheless, it +may be that you are to be shown strange mercy!" + +The murmur rose again, humming with amazement. + +"The Society can be merciful for its own just ends. There is a service +to be rendered, a deed to be done, beyond the skill of any garzione di +mala vita, its apprentice, or yet of its novice, the picciotto di +sgarro, the young one. It should be done by one who is past life. +Therefore, the Society, yet a little while, suspends your execution." +Pachotto was thrust into the background and Mr. Gumama, who all this +time had been seated at the table, rose and leaned forward, indicating +that the meeting had reached its climax. + +"Dear friends, you observed well what Pachotto said? For this have we +come together. We of the Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, we, in +particular, must take heed to ourselves." He paused, collecting +attention. But it was already in his pocket. "He who used the Arm of +Justice to shelter a traitor, is its long-time chief, Nicola +Pascoe--called in the country from which he carried his bowed head, +Nicola Ansello! Ah, you know the name! Then you know well that the +serpent whom he nourished in our bosom is the traitor at whose word, ten +years ago in Italy, four members perished!" + +A shudder shook the assembly. Many crossed themselves. Mr. Gumama, in +the relish of his own rhetoric, grew increasingly impressive. He was, +moreover, extremely pale. "The Society passes sentence--that Arm still +enfolds the traitor!" + +The assembly cried out as against a sacrilege and its cry was menacing. +The Hands of the Arm were now easily distinguishable by their very long +faces. + +"Ah, my friends," wailed Mr. Gumama with a sudden shrillness, "the +Society falters not, but strikes--Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, it +condemns us, every one!" + +A horrible yelling broke loose like a storm. Sobs and hysterical curses +strangled together amidst the revilements of the now inimical district. +One man was seized with convulsions and had to have wine and water +dashed over him, another fainted and got stepped on. Mr. Gumama remained +superior and at last made himself heard. "But was it not from the +Society I learned lenience to Pachotto? Does it not, in wisdom, leave me +in place to address you? On one condition the Society withdraws its +condemnation." + +The very melody of howling rose. "The condition! Tell! Tell!" + +"First, lest too great the shock, listen a moment. You know well how in +this America where, since Italy drove her forth, she grows so great, the +conditions of the Mother Society are greatly relaxed; so that, in a new +country, she may strengthen herself with all her children. When heads of +small societies, existing ere here she had waxed great, came to be +absorbed in her she accepted the members for whom they vouched without +requiring the apprenticeship nor the novitiate. So it was with the Arm +of Justice. Of all the small societies we were the most distinguished. +It was not seemly so superior a collection should exist outside the +Honorable Society. So much truth do I speak that in accepting us it made +our chief, Nicola Pascoe, chief of this district, made ourselves into +one paranza where we are yet a unit with our own rules, fifth paranza of +the eighth district. The Society decrees that after to-day this paranza +shall be broken up and scattered among the others and that name, the Arm +of Justice, be spoken no more. So shall the true forget the traitor!" + +His breath failed him. But fortunately his audience came to his rescue +with a hissing snarl--"Traditore! Traditore!" + +"Fellow members, it is nothing. We who are innocent expect to suffer for +the guilt of friends. What I entreat, it is that you examine what kind +of a friend Nicola Pascoe has been to us. It is true he found us little +and made us great. It is true he taught us, formed us and was our +leader. But knew we who he was? Did he tell us he had fled from Naples +to this place carrying in his arms a traitor? Now that we know, to us +what is he?--Ah, we, guileless, true shoot of the parent vine, branch of +her root, of the Honorable Society the pious children!" Mr. Gumama, +sincerely overcome by this pastoral vision, rolled up his eyes for a +long pause. But as he had to sneeze he continued, "Hands of the Arm, +for to-day we are still ourselves. For to-day I might have called one +last meeting of the fifth paranza and we, all alone, have discussed our +own affairs. But that there may be no stain on us of secret counsel we +show our hand to the whole district.--How may we again be dear children +of the Mother from Naples, held safe in her embrace? Hands of the Arm, +to save the Arm cut off always the Hand, one, three, how many, it is no +matter! Hear the one condition of the Honorable Society: We divulge the +whereabouts this night of Nicola Pascoe, the basista and all their +house; we offer them neither warning, shelter nor defense; we lead, +ourselves, this district in their suppression!" And he leaned towards +them, glaring and sweating, his voice still cautiously lowered and +waited their answer with open mouth. + +They who never yet had disobeyed Nicola Pascoe stared at him a trifle +wanly, huddling one on the other. Astonished gutturals mingled hoarsely +with shrill peeps; "Body of Bacchus!" "Woe, woe! Beware!" "Presence of +the devil!" clashed with gobs of thieves' slang and the less amiable +expressions that were overwhelmed by the general assurances of the +district that the paranza had no choice. + +Then a well-to-do little soul with a black beard rose to speak. "Listen +to the voice of reason. If we condemn ourselves, can we save Nicola +Pascoe? But if we condemn Nicola Pascoe, we still do save ourselves! All +must not die--a few it is better to die! It is well I should say this, +for I am a man of gentle speech. I do not wish to be thought like a bad +murderer nor the companion of murderers. I am a business-man--a dealer +in tortoise-shells which I send mostly to Chicago, and I am unique for +the perfection of my wares. I have now the one hope for the support of +my family and small children--that the Society if it suppresses us all +will leave upon each of us its mark. That would cause a sensation and +perhaps advertise my unique tortoise-shells to improve the business for +my wife. But this hope is not enough. Nicola Pascoe, the basista, all, +all, suppress them! Me, I wish to live!" He sat down. + +But then, from Nicola's closer brethren immediate and violent opposition +arose, with arguments that Nicola himself had done no wrong and pleading +for a lighter sentence. The meeting was in scarcely less than an +apoplectic fit when, from its outskirts, a young farmhand shrieked out +that they must take the counsel of the good priest, the Angel of the +Society. + +A tall man at once began to weep and to utter horrible invectives +against the last speaker, while Mr. Gumama exhorted him to be more calm. +It turned out that the Angel of the Society was in jail for perjury and +that the tall man was his brother. "I must leave the room! I must have +air! How could he, the bad of heart, the pig, mention my brother before +me--" + +"Angelo, you are a man and must show more strength! Antonio was not +aware of the trouble of your brother--" + +"Not aware of--He who celebrated masses for the soul of King Humbert, he +who remained tender to us though all other fathers refused us absolution +while we practised our profession, he who among us was best for +plausible defenses, that holy man!" + +"We revere him. But it is impossible to allow you to leave the room +every time he is mentioned! You have disordered in that way the last +four meetings!" + +Angelo threw himself on the ground with cries of injustice, and an +equally angry person started up from his corner. "What is he screaming +about? Has he the only feelings to be considered? Do I thus weep like a +woman? I, too, have a brother in a dark prison--and if I were with him I +would be more safe! While that one there slobbers do I wish to die? And +to thus make a martyr not only of me, but of that holy soul, my mother! +Who, at eighty-four would weep for me and tear her sacred hair, all +gray!" A chorus of sympathetic wails responded to this touching +reference. "Me, I see in this room one who once took my lock of that +hair for another woman's!" Hisses arose. "Yet do I ask to leave the +room? Let it be the house of Pascoe which forever leaves this room. +Rather than meet in the dark with the agent of the Honorable Society I +will surrender me to the police!" + +This, indeed, achieved tumult, breaking into personal rancors in which +the issue of Nicola seemed to vanish. + +"You are a liar! He did not--" + +"I will swear on the ashes of my father and of my dead son!" + +"You would swear on anything!" + +"Beware! Beware the anathema!" + +"I am sorry for you--I take you to my bosom!" + +"I curse you down to the seventh generation!" + +"Once you dug, quiet, in my sewer! But now you are proud and a +gentleman--" + +"I was always more of a gentleman than you are!" + +"I remind you that you must die!" + +At last the voice of Mr. Gumama was able to make itself heard. +"Beautiful friends, the vote, the vote!--Ah! Now, attention! This is +what you do not know. Who thinks to be faithful to Nicola Pascoe, is +Nicola Pascoe faithful to him? Nicola Pascoe flees away! A-a-ah! Doubt +you that the Society will have _some_ atonement? He flees to Brazil, +this coming sunrise, he and his, and leaves us to bear his blame!" + +It was enough. The meeting could not speak; it could only shake and +froth in one united epilepsy. As the fifth paranza found voice it +groaned, "We have been betrayed! We are innocent! We have been cast like +lambs to the slaughter! He has trampled not only on the human but the +divine law! He leaves us to perish in this infamous market--" And a +very old man, as he called down upon the Pascoes all the curses of +heaven mixed with descriptions of his sufferings from nightmare as a +child, put up insane appeals for their punishment. He rose from hysteria +to hysteria; sobbing with exhaustion he buried his face in his hands +after summoning God, personally, to convince Nicola's friends; suddenly +he raised his head and, plucking at one of his wild eyes, with a +sweeping movement he cast a small object apparently at Jehovah's feet. +His magnificent gesture defying their mercies, he lifted to their gasp +of amazement the seared, empty, gaping socket in his ancient, bearded +face, and, uttering a choking shriek, he fell to the ground. A stampede +of horror was averted by Mr. Gumama, who picked up the eye-ball, cast it +down again and ground it under foot. It was glass. + +There being no hope of capping this climax they got down to business and +surrendered Nicola in a wink. There remained to be dealt with a flourish +of Mr. Gumama's. "This is all demanded by our kind Mother. But shall we +not give a little more? Shall she herself be obliged to slay the serpent +that we have fed and made strong? Will she not be pleased by a little +more zeal on our part, while still we are ourselves? My friends, I have +made a little arrangement." Fortunately for Mr. Gumama's climax as he +now sent another of his impatient glances out of the window he gave an +uncontrollable cry of relief. "Here they come!" + +Strolling along the sidewalk appeared three men, all evidently Italians; +but two, in their rough clothes, lumpish sailors. The slenderer and +finer-made came sauntering between them; he had a charming smile with +which he listened attentively to some oath embroidered anecdote. As they +entered the garage one of the sailors, looking up, caught the eye of Mr. +Gumama and made a quick signal. "Bene! They have not been followed!" Mr. +Gumama exclaimed. "By the grace of heaven they have not been followed! +And he has no suspicion!" The confidential aides purred aloud, the whole +meeting slightly relaxed and the man with the knife decided to sit down. +But he kept his knife in his hand. + +Mr. Gumama stationed two men at the window to watch the sidewalk and +then motioned half a dozen distinguished members to the stairs. +Crouching forward they could see the slight man leaning in the doorway, +whistling, and glancing up and down the swarming street with quick, dark +eyes. Mr. Gumama squatted until he was in danger of falling through the +opening and pointing a long, soiled finger at the slight man, "Il +traditore," hissed Mr. Gumama. "He whom Nicola and the basista shelter +in our midst! Alieni, o' n'infama! Traditore! He, Filippi Alieni!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE + + +Once more a hand had touched the spring. Once more the meeting vibrated +to a universal shock. Mr. Gumama signed to the fruit-peddler and a brace +of laborers that they provide themselves with lengths of rope and the +three withdrew to a position across the stairhead from the man with the +knife, where they, too, waited in the shadow of the walls. Confiding in +the sharpshooters at the window Mr. Gumama had the sailors called +upstairs. + +Meanwhile the man at the door, happily unaware of the preparations for +receiving him above, came lounging inside with his hands in his pockets; +and Mrs. Pascoe, whose greeting had shown some slight surprise at his +appearance, laughed aloud. "It's funny how it does become you! I can't +deny it!" + +For he had doffed his gentleman's attire and was dressed like the +shabbiest laborer, the tawny, earth-stained shirt open at his throat +against a red cotton handkerchief; his loose, frayed, dingy jacket had +once been of square, seafaring cut. + +"I bet she picked them out fur yeh!" Mrs. Pascoe jeered. "She ain't one +to miss the artistic touch!" Her mockery took him all in. "She'd be sure +t' have yeh more uv a Dago organ-grinder 'n any Dago organ-grinder ever +was! But I will say you wear 'em t' the manner born!" + +Well, truly, the swinging gold earrings, rounder than Mr. Gumama's, had +been carefully tarnished; his bracelet shot its golden gleam from under +a ragged cuff; the cord of a scapular, scarlet against his olive skin, +had been torn and knotted, and a handkerchief in the Sicilian colors was +thrust into a belt supple with age. But, truly again, they became him +mightily. For in those weathered boots, of which the soles were almost +gone, his feet gripped the earth with a loping, elastic tread like a +young animal's; and when, at the disconcerting coldness of her greeting, +he snatched off his old cap and stood with it crushed flat in his +nervous fingers the smooth and coal-black glitter of his head called her +attention to the alertness of its carriage, like some prowler's scouting +in the woods. Doubtless morning-coats and starched British linen are +very discreet garments. But the worn softness of those old borrowed +properties, in loosing the movement and the poise of his lithe body, had +released some other change in him; something wild, light and strong, +with the strength of a hound and the lightness of a cat, which, in the +dense jungle where he was about to enter, might yet stand him in good +stead. After all, one does not dress as a Sicilian for nothing! + +Particularly when there are ladies about! Mrs. Pascoe was as much a +woman as any silkier petticoat and it must have been some such momentary +glimmer of the national presence, of the primitive equation, which had +won her forgotten girlhood as it had once wooed and won her daughter's +fancy. "Well, I vum!" said she again with tart amusement. Was he going +to turn out a man? She leaned toward him all intentness. _Was he?_ + +"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an +impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart +an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't God A'mighty, whoever she +is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't +goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this +world--she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said, +she's got her husband!" + +He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she +cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I +got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're +natcherul born devils--she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh +had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low +an' squirm through.--Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out +there?" + +He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his +strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man +came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic +consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You +will, above, attend the council!" + +Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw +she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in +his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with +which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul +pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and +pulling mildly at his cuff. + +The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that +gibberish--I been altogether _too_ patient, this good while!" The +messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman +an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never +thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I +hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got +all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!--Yeh +can g'won up." + +Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath +through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his +guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only +gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft. + +At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself +standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of +faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke +and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the +cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate +glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a +bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings reassured +him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing +that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on +trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow +looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed +and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; +he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were +thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not +with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can +never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were +the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?--A satisfied, panting breath, full of +heat, rose from the crowd. + +"Filippi Alieni?" + +"Suor servitor, signor." + +He did not deny it! + +"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are +admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?" + +"Si, Signor." + +"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to +another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello, +were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable +Society?" + +"Si, signor." + +"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires +and releasing muffled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat +in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of +Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate +themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the +accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from +somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was +softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It +was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood +sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces. + +"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our +basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon +both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath +of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to +reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your +bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to +avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done +you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your +death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the +sacred song + + If I live, I will kill thee, + If I die, I forgive thee! + +You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you +denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live--because +you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and +fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he +feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed +man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the +last--is it not so!" + +He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no +good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His +guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the +pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long +enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when +through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables +and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of +the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the +suppression of Filippi Alieni!" + +"I demand--" "I demand--" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to +sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!" +And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo +in testa in our name!" + +"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too +greedy.--Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless! +Admit! Admit!" + +"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if +stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself +between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's. + +It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in +which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi +Alieni, you must now be put to sleep." + +Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, +incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his +head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife. +He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an +uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of +the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment +when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men +rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling +like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs. +A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the +street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly +jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which +was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his +back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of +triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him +a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train +roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it +was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the +prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely +lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope. + +"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?" + +The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still +breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint +as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with +a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose, +and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated +to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe +had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared space before the +court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails." +Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?" + +This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for +time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and +the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back +again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of +his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.--Mr. Gumama +regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with God?" + +He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon +his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the +Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama +pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal. + +"Wait yet a little!" + +It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly +studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing." + +The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up. + +Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly +replied, "Ask, then!" + +"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do +to remain awake?" + +The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much! +The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes +of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with +their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan with a gesture like a blow. + +"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak, +who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was +invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine." +He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring +evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might +befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough +street. So I suppose--what else?--that those two are to attempt the Duel +by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving +him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his +token--that bracelet will do--to the capo in testa?" + +"It is the plan." + +"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir--pardon!--you do not--in your +greatness you do not--reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, +another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is." + +His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence +and admission reluctantly broke forth. + +"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence +that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us +and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's +brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees--the +policemen of the Americans! Ay di me--listen, my dears! Does not this +cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in +the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's +tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the +traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell +us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little +Nancia--Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW" + + +The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their +hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the +world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any +meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his +close stare. + +But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, +resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is +a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her +American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his +betrothed--it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night +with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There +they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very +well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis +in Brazil." + +"I do not--pardon!--I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for +us?" + +"In Brazil? If she were a danger even there would not the Signora Alieni +have destroyed that danger?" + +"The Signora Alieni has never done such work--she has no practice. +Moreover, be sure she fears what Nicola feared in the beginning--the +curse of his mother!" + +A voice remarked, "His mother is ugly and old. If she should die she +could not curse." + +"True. But we are busy." + +Beppo began to exclaim, "It is too bad! Time after time have I asked for +her! I, too, love her and could be happy. And I need them like her every +day! Why should she be sent to Brazil? I never have anything!" He +stamped with rage and his nose began to bleed again. + +Other young ricondeterros, complaining of the dearth of blondes, began +to protest against Brazil. The Parmesan looked at Mr. Gumama with a +smile. "Is she not a firebrand, eh? She who is so sought by the police, +is it to the police she shall tell her story?" + +Brushing the Parmesan aside the capo insisted, "She is not of our +nation. It is against the custom. It is a greater danger than she is. +Even if she should meet, so far away, with men of the Americans, what +does she know?" + +The Parmesan, now visibly measuring strength with Mr. Gumama, responded +merely, "What is it, Beppo?" + +Beppo, past the handkerchief he ostentatiously held to his nose, cried +out, "She knows everything!" As this won him the center of the stage he +proceeded in a series of sniffling shrieks, "I will tell you! I am the +cousin of Nicola. I am the friend of their house. I play much with Maria +but I watch and listen. Attention! She knows all, all, all! She seemed +at first wrapped in the love of the basista. They slept side by side. +She made a promise to ask, of her own accord, for sleep; but then she is +ill and when she is well again she has some notion and she will +not--why? Because she wills to tell all she knows! She, too, has watched +and listened! She knows my name--and yours, Giuseppe Gumama! Under her +red hair she carries death for you, Antonelli! And for you--and you--and +you!" + +The meeting was on its feet, swaying with passion and fear and +gesticulating, with congenial resolution, "I demand the suppression--" + +"I, too!" + +"And I!" + +"And I!" + +"I demand the suppression of Mees Cornees!" + +The capo's authority was shaken in a paranza which was a paranza no +longer. Obedience was not what it had been in the Arm of Justice. + +"Hands of the Arm," Beppo adjured, "is she not now at our meeting-place? +Knows she not that? Did the basista conceal when Nicola was made a capo +in the Honorable Society? Knows she not that? Oh, friends of my blood, +can she not tell _that name_? By the body of Bacchus, I see her in my +dreams! There is a shower of gold about her! If she is not for me, do +not give her to the Rosellis--let her sleep!" + +The meeting echoed, in one soft whisper of satisfaction, "Let her +sleep!" + +"S-s-ssh!" said Mr. Gumama. + +He said it instinctively, glancing toward the scuttle. But he realized +that the precedent of dealing solely with his own nation must now be set +aside; he heard the people's voice. Alas, he had also to baulk it of its +Duel by Wine. + +"Let it be so. Firenzi, you will suppress the traitor and deliver him to +the wharf. Choose two apprentices to help you with the barrel. Pachotto, +you will take Beppo and the brother of Antonelli's wife and proceed to +our old meeting-place. When you have suppressed the girl Cornees bring +back her token." + +"Sir," the Parmesan again coolingly corrected, "Nicola has still with +him some of his men and the Rosellis. There is but one man who, without +suspicion, can reach past these to the little Cornees.--Alieni o' +n'infama," he pleasantly repeated, "would you do this to remain awake?" + +The prisoner felt himself quiver as though he had been struck. He could +not control the hope which was almost a sickness that rose in him at +these words. He heard the popular cry surge up against him, hissing and +protesting; Firenzi and Pachotto were the most horribly excited for he +and they were the only persons in the room not having a good time. His +quick glances, furtive and secret, ran questing among the lips that +condemned him; when he lifted them to his questioner the sharp intake of +his breath promised his soul away. But Mr. Gumama turned upon the +Parmesan and told him that he forgot himself. + +"Ah, sir, in private a word. Alieni, does he speak English?" He broke +his beautiful Italian into a strange sound. "Spik Inglese, Alieni?" + +The prisoner, trembling to oblige, responded in the same dialect, +"Unstan' Inglese!" + +It did not oblige--the Parmesan frowned. "Unstan' Inglese verra goood?" +He coaxed, winningly, hoping for a denial. + +Now the prisoner, though he understood English perfectly, was no fool +and could see a possible weapon when it was put into his hand. "I +deplore!" said he, shrugging sadly. "Heartseek! Unstan' notta mooch!" +And he tried not to vibrate with greed of what they should say. + +"Va bene! Spik Inglese, us! Spik low! Oh, Gumama, let heem put da girl +to slip--heem! Let heem tak' for token--Whatta she wear?" he asked +Beppo. + +Beppo considered and then pointed to the gold bracelet under the old +Sicilian cuff. "But silvere!" He lapsed into Italian. The girl had had +three silver trinkets--a ring, a locket, a bracelet. Nicola had taken +the locket, the ring she had lost. "It ees time she loosa da t'ird!" +grinned the Parmesan. "Ssh! He ees leesten!" Their voices sank to a +whisper. Inordinately acute though his senses always were the prisoner +could no longer understand a syllable. + +"I go weeth Beppo an' Chigi. Let heem settle da girl an' tak' her +token. Den _we_ settle heem an' tak' botta tokens! Tak' dem to capo in +testa for show extrra gooda faith in nama da Arma of Zhoostees. Den +Honorrahble Soceeata embrass us! We done gooda!" He inhaled with languid +elegance and returned to the world a ring of cigarette smoke. + +Still the prisoner could not catch a word. The decision hung fire. The +protesting roar surged louder and louder and the cries of Pachotto and +Firenzi became tiger cries. Mr. Gumama suddenly called to order. He had +found a way to satisfy the Parmesan and yet to maintain his supremacy. + +"This meeting promised Firenzi and Pachotto a chance of mercy and a +chance of service. This meeting keeps its word. The chance is to be now. +But for Alieni, also. Do not rebel. They were to enter on the Duel by +Wine. But for the Duel by Wine the basista Alieni has sent us three +cups. Why should not the prisoner Alieni play at the game of his wife?" + +He had turned the tide. Their craving for games of chance, always +temporarily stronger than fear, anger or duty, flared into high fire. +Again was Mr. Gumama the popular man. Even on the prisoner smiles were +lavished. And still for some crevice of safety, as if in every muscle of +their faces, his eyes sought. + +The meeting got happily to work, like a good child. It brought forth a +dice-box and dice, a bottle of wine and, wrapped in a colored +handkerchief, two triangular knives. In that musical neighborhood +another hand-organ had long since followed the first; "The Wearing of +the Green," which had made melodious the Parmesan's battle, now gave way +to the Tales of Hoffman and the Barcarolle, a rhythm that swayed in +every busy motion and humming tongue as the prisoner watched the table +cleared and the painted jugs set forth. Mrs. Pascoe was called up to +fetch a lantern; as she withdrew all three prisoners were faced toward +the wall; Mr. Gumama took a twist of paper from his pocket, shielded it +from view, and dropped a tablet from it into each of two jugs. Then he +filled them all with wine. The prisoners were turned round again. +"Alieni o' n'infama," called the Parmesan, blithely, "you are very much +afraid!" + +He knew it and sank his head on his breast. + +"Cowards play well. They grow brave from fear. You will be desperate." + +The young fellow shuddered. But he tried to keep his head clear. + +"Cheer up, traditore! It is true our haste but sentenced you to the +knife and the knife is quick. But do you not choose to risk a few drops +and die wriggling--when, if you are lucky, you may live? When you have +but to strike, afterwards, a little soft blow to make your peace!" The +Parmesan, snatching up a triangular knife and, despite the remonstrances +of Mr. Gumama, one of the jugs, thrust them jocularly under the +prisoner's nose. + +The tormented fellow, with an uncontrollable gasp that spilled the wine, +bent and kissed the jug. A burst of childish applause approved his +enthusiasm. A dank moisture of relief broke out upon him. At least they +saw that he was resolved and would not fear to let him try. What was +coming? + +The meeting had formed into a circle as for a cock fight. He, Firenzi +and Pachotto and the table with the dice and wine were in the center. +The silent circle devoured him with applauding, encouraging glances. He +was horribly aware of the two other men, larger, heavier, perhaps +therefore luckier--the bigger the build, he had thought before, the +greater the luck!--They were all too still! What were they going to make +him do now? + +Mr. Gumama himself took down a strap from the wall and tested its +strength. + +"Firenzi, then you, Pachotto, then you, Alieni, you will appeal to the +dice. He who throws highest will have first choice of the jugs. Of the +three who drink, one will live. It will take some time to settle this. +The meeting will disperse, but a committee will return. The man whom +they find alive will go with Beppo and Chigi and you, Pepe, to our +meeting-place and put to sleep that girl. Those not surviving will be +signed with our sign--but only one thrust for each paranza of this +district.--Filippi Alieni, what is the matter with you? You show no +feeling at what I say!" + +For all his brilliant, questioning eyes, it was true he looked extremely +blank; his expression too often merely followed theirs with an opposite. +"Well, there must always be a first time. It is true, Alieni, is it not +so, that you have never suppressed a life?" + +There are bitternesses which fear cannot quench. Having no free hand to +beat his breast he turned his head with restless passion from side to +side and in a high, shrill, wild desolation, a Latin sweetness of +hysteria roughened by his grinding laugh, he cried aloud, "Mea culpa, +mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!" + +"There is no need for irreverence!" exclaimed Mr. Gumama, scandalized. +"That is all. Loose their bonds." + +Firenzi and Pachotto ran to examine the jugs, voting simultaneously for +the immunity of the golden scales--what others? So that the first choice +would be all important. But the third prisoner had given his last flash. +He dropped his shivering face and hid it in his hands. + +"Sit!" + +They dropped beside the table. + +"Swear obedience to the decree of Fate!" + +All three laid a hand on the crossed triangular knives. Mr. Gumama +purposed the oath. "Filippi Alieni, your lips shake so that you do not +repeat distinctly. Say, I swear!" + +"I swear!" + +"Rise!" + +"Firenzi, make your appeal." + +Firenzi started forward on a rush. But after a step or two he halted, +glared about him as if just waking up, and then went forward, sagging +like a drunkard. Arrived at the table he crossed himself, shook the +dice, and, whimpering, fell on his knees. His shaking hand crawled along +the table, groping for the dice-box and lifted it. The crowd, straining +in upon him, buzzed. For the number was moderate. He had thrown a three +and a two. And kneeled there, blubbering. The courage of the Honorable +Society does not remain fast in all washes. + +"Pachotto, make the appeal." + +He, too, started with bravado; he was perhaps half way across when they +had to catch and drag him forward. He threw wild and they had to support +his wrist. Even so one die fell underneath the edge of the saucer in +which the box had stood. That in view was another two-spot. If, however, +that under the saucer were even a four he was ahead in the throw. They +moved the saucer--the die was a five. Pachotto leaped in the air with +triumph--Firenzi, yellow and cursing, tried to fold his arms. Frightful +sounds issued from his throat, upon which the cords stood out. + +"Alieni, you will make the appeal." + +He who had been a gentleman drew himself together and came slowly +forward. He was now the darling of the crowd. But he did not guess that; +he came of a superstitious tribe and to him, too, it seemed important to +win from the start. His soul trembled, but steadily and softly he stole +to the table. Now he was arrived, looking down, one concentrated +apprehension, on his fate. Lifting the dice-box he once more threw out +his bright suspicious glance into the crowding faces. "Whatever gods +there be!"--he threw the dice. Over these he bent with a sort of sweep +and then, uttering a sharp hiss, sprang up like a jack-knife. The crowd +swayed, yelped and shivered with amusement into a triumphing crow. He +had thrown two sixes. Pachotto uttered a piercing yell and fell on his +stomach in a dead faint. + +"Filippi Alieni, of the jugs you have the first choice." + +He stood as if nothing had happened. He had suddenly realized that his +situation was really more terrible than ever. Watching, watching, he +could descry no help. None of those alert, elated faces had a hint in +it, not a congratulating hand pointed toward the fateful jug. He +moistened his lips and looked mechanically at the dice which had thrown +him this choice. But the dice, too, were dumb. Then, at last, he looked +at the jugs. + +There was the red design, the white and the green. His hand crept up and +touched the chord at his throat. Scarlet was her favorite! But did she +know? White--there was no luck in white. Green, the color of hope! Of +resurrection! Yes, but to be resurrected one must first die! Red, again, +was blood-color--but there was blood at every turn! Whose blood did this +stand for--whose? Ah, yes, the scales--the scales were different! Gold, +silver, and gray! The scales were very little, so it was they that held +the secret! Silver, gray and gold! Why gray? Silver--hadn't he heard +them whispering about silver? Why, there were some words--He dropped to +the ground with the jug, leaning on the table and pressing the scrolled +legend to the lantern.--Silver pays! Pays whom? Pays what? Oh, God, to +understand! What was the other--gold? He was panting--his breath smeared +the glass of the lantern. It was dry and cut his lips like grass-blades! +Yet he reeked with cold sweat, it was running into his mouth! He wiped +the glass clear with one cuff. Steady! Take care! Can't you read, you +fool! Gold buys. Oh, heaven, what would it buy here? Life--freedom--what +else would anybody buy? What was the sense of it, if it meant anything +else? But it might be a lie! "She's a natcherul-born devil." It was a +lie she would delight in! One chance! One! Everything on it--everything! +Never to leave here--to die here--here, where no one would ever know! +Without doing what he had secretly meant to do, without ever having +lifted a hand--to die in torment, squirming on the floor like a rat with +torn bowels--There was one other jug. Gray--what a color! +Ghost-color--was that what she meant? Lead slays! But, once more, slays +whom? Lead slays--lead--lead--Lead! + +A change passed over him. He became very still. Then, shaking with +suppressed eagerness, he got slowly to his feet. He put his dense hair +back from his eyes. And those eyes, hypnotized by the little jug with +its gray scales, never left it; drinking it up before he could raise it +to his lips. His mouth gaped for it with hanging jaw. He raised it in +hands that gradually steadied and then over its brim, he gave the faces +that fawned in upon him, breathless, one last look.--"He has chosen!" + +They might be less than human, but he and they were still living +creatures; and, in ten minutes, what would he be? Beyond them were dusky +walls, built by human hands, chairs, a bureau, lithographs, all the warm +furnishings of life; windows into the world, into the swarming, +chattering streets where the lamps began to glow, while from round the +corner came the clang of trolley-cars; whistles, calls, footsteps, were +in his ears, laughter above the crash of wheels, + + "Give my regards to Broadway--" + +That was the hand-organ, tired of opera and getting down to business; + + "Remember me to Herald Square--" + +It filled the whole room! A lighted train swept by; he could see the +faces of people reading evening papers, people who complained at +hanging on to straps! The roar of it was familiar and dear as a beloved +voice at home but it passed and left him quite alone. + + "Tell all the boys on Forty-second Street + That I will soon be there!" + +--"Choose, Alieni, choose! Drink! Drink!" + +Everything passed from his eyes. He was blind as before he was born. +Then his mouth was in the wine; he drank it to the last drop; the jug, +with a clatter that he heard perfectly but no longer understood, rolled +at his feet. "E fatto!" said he, in a low, clear voice. "E fatto--it is +done!" And his face dropped into his hands. + +The meeting came about him but he did not know it. Around one wrist a +strap was buckled and the strap's other end nailed to the table so that +the death-agonies might not wander too far. A like precaution was taken +with the other men when they had drunk. He did not notice it. He looked +at the floor. Firenzi, upon whom chance had forced the silver scales, +gave a horrible sound of retching and slid from his stool, the strap +holding his arm. A quiver passed through the body of the first drinker, +but he would not look. The meeting picked up its lantern and +trooped--rather reluctantly but leaving the hatch open--chattering down +the steps. The hands of the Arm dismissed Mrs. Pascoe, fetched some more +wine, cut some tobacco and sat down to the business of making bets while +they waited. He did not miss them. + +He, too, waited. + +Twenty minutes later, in the darkness, the loft was quite still. Two +bodies, horribly contorted, lay straining on their straps. The rigor of +death was already settling upon those convulsive heaps. The faint +squares of the windows made a kind of glimmer by which it was possible +to discern a pale face, a slight figure; this leaned against the table, +which it clutched with hands of steel. He who had trusted to the leaden +scales had trusted well. + +In that darkness, in that silence, through that horror of squalid death +which had not been silent, he had shed the rags of his hysteria and had +caught again the concentration, the keenness, the readiness of that +moment when Mrs. Pascoe had called on him to be a man. But what did he +see in those empty shadows, and for what did he nerve himself? The +figure there at the table was desperate, but it was very slight, and at +the end of no road--valor nor cowardice nor vengeance--could he see +escape. They were all blocked, those roads, the program too close built +and every knot too tightly tied. Whatever he might wish, there was but +one thing he could do. A knife was to be put into his hand and he had no +choice except to strike. After all that had passed it was perhaps even +with eagerness that silently, alone among those shadows, he embraced his +fate. + +A stir began to rise from below; the men down in the garage were coming +to pack the barrel. He heard the mounting footstep of his guard, ready +to convey him to the secret meeting-place of the Arm of Justice; along +that road where it should deal with him, when he had dealt with Nancy +Cornish. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ONE WITNESS SPEAKS + + +It was fully dark under the sail-cloth of the table d'hote. A strong +smell of rancid wicks disturbed nobody and in the charged, suspensive +air the cheap lamps burned with a still flame. This may in part have +been due to Herrick's tensely strung imagination, which Christina's +message of the night before still mercilessly played upon. From that +source no drop of further information had fallen through Tantalus on to +the parched tongue of Herrick's nor of Wheeler's nor of the Law's +desire. + +That afternoon Herrick had seen Stanley off from the station where not +six weeks ago they had met as strangers. And so little was Fate's veil +lifted for him, even now, that he had no forewarning of when next, nor +why, he should be there again!--Stanley had, however, told him Ten +Euyck's latest news--how it was to the table d'hote the Italians had +conveyed their liberated prisoner from the Tombs! + +The boy looked at his friend a little suspiciously even while he +repeated Ten Euyck's chagrin: "That's a hideously shameful thing to +happen to me! It's the annoyance of a blind, stupid, brutal +reproof--when I've worked so hard and suffered so much! Here, in my own +district--Under my own hand--!" There are no unalloyed elations in this +world! Nor did there seem any doubt in Ten Euyck's mind that this was +the long-sought-for secret place, where they should find a +printing-press. But he forebore to raid it until evening, when all +possible birds should have returned to the nest, and contented himself +with the sending of his disguised operatives peacefully to fetch from it +Will Denny, before whose coming Stanley had fled the police station. +That young gentleman had also gathered from Wheeler's thunderstorm of +oaths that Christina's manager considered himself under surveillance. +And this had made Herrick wonder if the same were not true of himself. + +On account of his momentarily expected cablegram it was a crushing +suspicion. He spent an afternoon of aloof and goaded wandering, and at +last, shielded as he hoped by the darkness and by the company of a whole +group of entering diners, yielded to the temptation of the table d'hote. +He could not doubt it was encompassed by spies; he could not but attend +the seizure, the crisis, the outcome. Here, more than anywhere, were the +lines converging; here, for to-night, was the center of the web. He said +to himself, then, in his ignorance, that nothing mortal should induce +him to forsake it. + +Under the sail-cloth there was no longer any room; but, within doors, +save for a couple of men at a distant table, Herrick was quite alone. +There was no change in the deportment of the place, no disturbance. The +Italian proprietress, in her comings and goings, found time to reply +that the old lady was still in the country but her prototype, the little +gray parrot, which he had not seen for a long time, was climbing in and +out of its cage and the angelic children still snuffled about the floor. +It was on these innocents that Herrick began as usual to practise his +Italian when the proprietress had gone affably to see about his order, +but if he thought one of them would lightly drop Christina's address +he was mistaken. Smother-y as the place was, with that same looming +sultriness of a week ago, agitated in its daily business, its pulse did +not beat so hard as his, its imagination did not quiver, like the +figures of a cinematograph, reviewing the movements of a motor-car that +until yesterday had sped through mire and dust and blood, through +sunrise and midnight, past the spread, astonished wings of the marble +Hoover lions, past the smoking-ruins of a post-office, past Riley's +where the shadow danced, after a will o' the wisp. There was no +suggestion, here, which could lift that phantom light; the customers +ordered, the little fat boy, next in age to Maria Rosa, leaned +familiarly against his knee, the parrot continued to clamber over its +cage, talking steadily, rapidly and monotonously to itself, and then +Herrick said in surprise, + +"Why, the bird's speaking English!" + +The parrot looked at him coldly, disinterred something which it had +buried in its food-cup, gnawed on the treasure, and dropped it. The +little fat boy picked it up and smiled at Herrick. Herrick said, "Let's +see!" It was a silver ring, holding a bluish-green Egyptian scarab. + +It seemed to Herrick that he had heard of such a ring before, and he +tried to remember where. One of the men at the further table left and +the other was buried in a foreign newspaper. Herrick got up and went +over to the desk. That was English the bird was speaking. "No, no, no, +no! I don't believe it. I don't beli--" + +"Polly," said Herrick, "what are you talking about? And what do I know +about this ring?" + +The bird burst into a shriek of the ungodly laughter of its kind, pecked +the ring out of his hand, backed away with it, dropped it again; and +then, out of a perfect stillness, with its little eyes fixed on his face +it replied-- + +"Ask Nancy Cornish!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW +ME!" + + +Oh, yes, the Italian proprietress cheerfully informed him, the parrot +had been in the country with Maria Rosa and her great-aunt. Truly, the +great-aunt was fond of the country, she was still there. When was he +going to see Maria Rosa again? Oh, there, alas!--Maria Rosa had gone +with her father to the moving-picture show-- + +He could get no further and he feared to excite conjecture. He might +waylay the little girl as she returned, but not too near the watched +house--nor was the idea of the father encouraging. Nevertheless, he +betook himself outside, turning toward Third Avenue where the +picture-shows flourished. About two blocks down the street he took +refuge in the hole of a tobacconist, whose door stood open into the warm +dusk. On the farther corner the bright blue interior of a delicatessen +that was also a fruit stand blazed hot with gas and, in exchange for a +bottle of oil, a child passed a coin over the counter. The gas gleamed +on the child's face and Herrick crossed the street. Here was Maria Rosa +and here the moving-picture show which she attended! + +He stopped on the outside for some nuts and affected surprise when Maria +appeared. She accepted various delicacies and was freely chatty about +her country visit. Oh, she had been in a beautiful place; grass, trees, +flowers--nothing of its whereabouts could be ascertained. Great-auntie +had lived there with old auntie--old auntie was her mama--when she was +a little girl no bigger than Maria Rosa! But they had gone often to a +grand big place where Cousin Nick's office used to be in the basement. +But the morning after they brought the sick lady the things for the +office were all gone! Ah, the grand big place had made the greater +impression, but ignorance had evidently been carefully preserved. +Herrick tried the words "Waybridge" and "Benning's Point" to no avail. +With "river" he was more successful. Did you go there by the boat? +Apparently not. Finally it came out that you went there by the walk past +old auntie's house. And what pretty thing had she ever noticed about old +auntie's house? Eh? Come, now? What did she like best? + +"The marble kitties with wings." + +The marble-- + +A child had dropped an address, after all! + +Herrick, reaching into his pocket for a time table, had discovered a +train for Benning's Point at eight-fifteen when, hearing his name he +turned; beyond the now hurrying figure of Maria Rosa Joe Patrick was +advancing toward him. + +The boy came up hastily, extending an envelope addressed to Herrick in +Mrs. Deutch's hand. As he took it he saw that Joe was brimming with some +communication. "I saw you from down street. She sent for me an' says to +bring you this. I was lookin' for you when I met Mr. Ten Euyck and he +said the place to find you was around here." + +"Touche!" Herrick said to himself. Even at that moment he vouchsafed an +admiring smile to Ten Euyck's able conveying of a taunt. + +"Mr. Herrick?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +"I got to get right back in time for the theayter. But I'd like to speak +to you a minute." + +"Walk back toward the Square with me." + +"It's something I been worried about telling for days an' now I'm goin' +to. I mean--Mr. Herrick, I wouldn't tell it to anybody but a friend o' +hers! But I make out that it's right to tell it to you.--You remember +that night out to Riley's?" + +"Yes." + +"An' the shadder the chaufers seen?" + +"Yes?" + +"I was there. My cousin Sweeney sent for me, an' my uncle an' me come +out together. As we come into the yard--that toon--you know! There was +the shadder--I seen it, too! And another man seen it an' skipped up the +steps an' went inside. Me after him! An' before he'd got in, hardly, out +he bounced with a lady. That lady wasn't no Mrs. Riley, Mr. Herrick. It +was--_her_!" + +"You've seen the moving-picture?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And this gesture was the same?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"So that you thought you saw Miss Hope's shadow?" + +"I know I did, sir." + +"Wait. This gentleman, had you ever seen him before?" + +"No, I never laid eyes on him." + +"He went right into the room?" + +"Popped right in as if he lived there!" + +"And came out with Miss Hope?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How was she dressed?" + +"She had on a long coat an' a fussed up hat o' Mrs. Riley's." + +"And no one else saw them?" + +"No, sir. They run down the back-stairs as everybody come up the +front." + +"She was willing to go with him, then? He wasn't forcing her?" + +"Well, you bet he wasn't! She was hangin' right on to him!" + +"What was your idea of the whole business?" + +"I thought mebbe she done it for a signal to him when to come in." + +"Now, Joe, don't you believe that--it being, as you say, done so +quick--and you having just seen this shadow which you had taken for Miss +Hope's, you might have imagined it was she who came out with this man?" + +"No, Mr. Herrick. I was at the door when they come out. I saw her face +clear. I didn't make no mistake this time." + +"And you didn't follow?" + +"No, sir. Because--because--Oh, Mr. Herrick, she seen me as plain as I +see you an' she smiled at me!" + +Herrick paused with a threatening cry. "Why didn't you speak to her, +then? Why didn't you tell--" + +"Because, Mr. Herrick, when she opened her eyes wide and smiled at me, +that way, she put her finger to her lips! Oh, Mr. Herrick, I ain't ever +told a soul but you!" + +She put her finger to her lips! Secret she had ever been, and there was +another way in which Christina had never failed. She had never failed, +in any stress of change or chance, to seize the measure of a devotion +and use it to its hilt. + +She smiled and put her finger to her lips! She pleased herself, then! +She was free! She came and went at her own pleasure! Secretly, with +companions of her choice! While he, in the room below--That night, too! +That night of the road and the fields, of Denny and the yellow house! + +Bitterness mastered him. An indifference like the indifference of sleep +somehow wearied him to the bone. After Joe's departure, when he stopped +under a street-lamp to open Mrs. Deutch's letter, he scarcely cared what +it contained. + +"--When you were not at home he sent this to me. Think you for yourself +the meaning for it. What in myself I believed and prayed, that +afternoon, now in person have I ascertained. Christina was born in this +city of New York; she was baptized in the same month in the Church of +the Holy Service, April 17, 1892." + +He unfolded Gabrielli's cablegram: + +Girl you inquire of victimized family named Hope, in America. They lived +at Naples 1886. Record daughter born to Hopes, Allegra, not Christina, +1886. Died 1889. + +The Hopes had had a child, that died three years before Christina was +born! What was the meaning in the case of this dead baby? And if +Christina was Mrs. Pascoe's child, what had the death of Allegra Hope to +do with her? How could she have passed herself off on the Hopes for a +dead child six years older than herself? He knew that somewhere in his +aching brain the answer quivered to spring forth, when--at about the +time when the Italians started with their prisoner from the garage--an +open taxi hesitated at the corner nearest to the table d'hote and then +spun on without stopping. As it passed under the lamp Herrick was just +leaving, a veiled lady rose in it to her tall height and pulled on a +long, light coat. And all the pulses in his body stopped as though they +had been stricken dead. For his eyes had recognized Christina. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HERSELF + + +There was no other cab in sight. But fortunately a 'bus was just +starting, and bye and bye he plunged from that into a taxi. All the way +up Fifth Avenue he continued to keep his quarry well in sight; flashing +in and out beneath the lamps, the beautiful tall figure sitting lightly +erect and neither shunning nor avoiding the public gaze. At first he +thought she had come back to be well in time for to-morrow night, but at +Forty-second Street she turned toward the depot. She was making for the +same train as himself. + +A policeman, who should have died before he ever was born, let her cab +through the block and held up Herrick's. He saw with horror that it was +possible he should miss the train. Then, with a thrill of hope, that +they would probably both miss it. When he got to the depot there was no +sign of her. He tore like a madman across the vast stretches and up and +down the flights of stairs by which modern travel is precipitated and +came to the gate. She was inside, just stepping on the last car of the +train. Officials were shouting at her, enraged, because the train had +begun to creep. + +"Tickets, tickets!" said the man at the gate. He was resolute, and +Herrick had to pick him up and lift him to one side. It took an instant, +and now the train was under way. But Herrick, as a free-born male +unhampered even by a suit-case, was privileged to risk his neck, and he +flew down the platform and gathered himself to leap upon the car. His +hand was outstretched for the railing but it never reached it. A single +zealous employee plunged at him, roaring. The sound halted his quarry in +the doorway, and when she saw him she stepped back on to the platform of +the car, bending toward him with a look of eager amusement, and throwing +back her veil. And Herrick lost his chance to jump. + +For her face, framed in soft flames of red, of golden fire, was the face +of a stranger. It was extremely lovely, but for one curious defect. She +had a blue eye and a brown. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH + +THE LIGHTED HOUSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOSTESS PREPARING + + +Herrick lay in the long grass of the wooded lot, against the wall of the +Hoover place. Already the night was velvet-black, and hot and +thunder-scented as in summer. A million vibrations that were scarcely +sound stirred with the myriad lives of leaf and blade in the dense +silence. And his expectancy vibrated too, reaching for the end of a long +chase. His slower train had followed on the very heels of that malign +and radiant red-haired changeling, whose mysterious brew he was at last +to taste for himself. Not this time in a little yellow cottage beside an +open road, but in that great house, walled and guarded, deep and still +in its own woodland, between the stone lions with their lifted wings and +the mighty current of the tidal river! What he should do when he got +there could be decided only by what he found. He had his revolver, and +he scarcely knew whether to pray that he might, or that he might not, +have need for it. + +He remembered, tumbling over the wall from the inside, cascades of ivy, +which he now hoped might give him a hand up the rough stone. But they +tore away, one after the other, and sagged in his hold. He went on down +the field, scouting in the darkness for some friendly tree; when he +found one at last it was not so near the wall as he could have desired, +and the first branch that seemed likely to bear him for any distance he +judged to be about twenty feet above the ground. He crawled along this +till its circumference seemed so slight he dared not trust another inch +and peered into the pit. There was no way to make sure that the wall +was there but to let go; he lowered himself the whole six feet of his +length; let go; landed on the coping; by a miracle of balance maintained +his equilibrium; and then, dropping cautiously to his knees, flattened +himself along the edge. When you have dropped on to a wall which might +or might not be there, it is nothing at all to drop on to the earth, +which can not escape. He stood up, at last, within the Hoover grounds. + +All was perfectly silent; the noise of his descent, which had seemed to +crash like an earthquake, in reality had not waked a bird. He had now to +make his way to the house through about a mile of perfect blackness; as +a good beginning, he ran into a tree, and this rebuke of nature's seemed +to put him in his place, and tell him to walk here like a spy, not like +a combatant. He went on, but now with infinite caution. + +This part of the ground was as little tended as a wild wood; then +presently he came forth upon an old-fashioned garden, run wild, but +still sending out sweet smells beneath his trampling feet; beds of white +gillyflowers and fever-few and white banks of that odorous star-shaped +bloom which opens to the night made a kind of paleness in the dark which +perhaps he rather breathed and guessed than saw. It was an approach for +a Romeo, and seemed to cast a kind of dream over his desperate and grimy +business. He sped on to another little grove upon a rise of ground and +coming to the top of the slope saw, far ahead of him through the trees, +the shining of bright lights. + +He could scarcely believe his eyes, for surely they would never dare to +light the house. And then again he remembered how far and lonely that +house stood, a mile and a half in from the road, and save through the +lodge or from the river how hard to come at! If this was really their +haunt it must have been so a long time; they must have grown used to +it, like their own house. All the more chance, then, for his spying! +Expectancy sprang higher. He kept on down the slope, this time at +something of a reckless pace, and, at the bottom, plumped full into a +pond. + +The shock was horrid and without even the dignity of danger. He could +easily have scrambled back but that, as he re-opened his eyes, he found +himself gazing at a lantern, held up from across the pond. At that +moment three shots flew past him, aimed at the bank he had so +involuntarily and violently quitted. It seemed well to remain +inconspicuous as might be; the bullets began to skip close to him, and, +experimentally sinking, he found a fair depth and struck out under water +for the opposite shore. + +In the middle of the pond his hands touched a solid and terrifying +obstruction. Heavens, what was this? Through what snares did he clumsily +struggle to make his way? And in what nightmare? Involuntarily he came +to the surface and found himself confronted by a high, overhanging +shape, bulking featureless in the darkness and chilling him with a sort +of superstitious despair. The more so that he seemed to be grasping +something shaped like a foot; his hand climbed a vast, cold leg and the +next moment he could have laughed aloud. He remembered, now, from his +daylight forays, an ornamental wilderness of rocks and ferns, across +which he had once glimpsed a stone lady; seated, and bending forward +with a vase extended in her hand. The pond had been hidden by that +wilderness; the vase had once been a playing fountain, and the lady +herself sat on a rock in the middle of the waters. It was against this +rock his hand had struck and it was her ankles which he thus ungallantly +grasped. He hung to them a moment, resting in her shadow, and then with +infinite precautions began to pull himself up those smooth, cold knees. +She was very large and dense, a bulwark between him and the spitting +bullets; he felt her rocky island beneath his feet, and gave himself, +even with ardor, to her embraces. + +The light upon the shore split in two and one-half of it began to skirt +the pond at a brisk pace. He clambered across the stone lady's lap and +crouched, kneeling, in the shadow of her arm. Thus sheltered, his first +thought was for the priming of his revolver. It was soaked through! He +could have cried out like a child! But already his breathing space was +past. + +The runner with the lantern had reached the spot where Herrick had +plunged in and the surface of the pond was now raked with rays of light, +crossing each other and striking perilously near his refuge so that they +sought out at once the breast and the bent back of the stone lady. +Herrick, as he blotted himself down the rock, observed that on the +further side the pond was edged by a coping of rough stones rising, +perhaps, two feet above the water and irregularly surmounted by small +boulders--the beginning of the ornamental wilderness. He came up close +against the wall; his fingers wedging themselves in a crack between the +stones, and his head, shadowed by a boulder, half above the water. Thus, +as he could hear and was not likely to be seen, he had every advantage +of that dangerous neighborhood. And also time for a somewhat chill +reflection. Suppose the life were not knocked out of him in the next +five minutes, what use was there in going on with a useless pistol? It +seemed even the outer grounds were being patroled or perhaps +searched--he remembered the light shining from the house--it came in +upon him that something unusual was going on, and that he might +presently succeed in being either the victim or the witness of a climax. +That thought was enough; his blood committed him beyond denial; and when +the searchers, without having dropped a single significant remark, began +scouting their own fears, and, accepting the surrounding silence as +empty of intruders, turned back through the artificial wilderness toward +the center of the estate, Herrick pulled himself out of the water and, +sometimes on his hands and knees, sometimes upon his stomach, followed +among the rocks. + +The group with the lantern came out upon the carriage-way and paused. A +horse and two-seated wagon awaited them, the horse's head turned toward +the house; in the wagon sat Herrick's old friend, Mrs. Pascoe and the +little old, old couple from the lodge. As the other men tumbled in the +old lodge-keeper lifted up his voice: "I ain't slep' out o' the lodge, +nor your ma ain't, either, in forty years!" + +"Well, you'll have to to-night, pa," said Mrs. Pascoe. "An' there ain't +any time to talk about it, either." She added, "You an' ma can come back +when we're gone. Don't ferget M'ree's your great gran'niece by marriage. +Have her visit yeh again." They were off and through the shrubbery; +Herrick followed. + +But the carriage-way was clear of everything save errant weeds and at an +ordinary trot they very easily distanced him. After a while he ceased to +hear the wheels, but now again he could see the house shine among the +trees, and as he came closer still he listened for the sounds of their +arrival but heard nothing. + +It was extraordinary what a stillness had again fallen upon the night. +No sound covered his approach, and when he came at last in view of the +great entrance no wagon waited on the path nor did any voice challenge +him from the doorway. + +He stood among the trees and stared across the wide sweep of +carriage-way. He saw on either side depths of lawn, kept cut and roughly +trimmed, merging at last again into the darkness. The drive was bright +from the great glowing portico, and from the entrance doors set wide +into a stately hall; the hall was all in order as though for a +reception, with rugs and palms and candelabra, and to its left a vast +apartment like a ballroom flung from its long open windows, that crossed +the left front of the house and shone far along the side, spaces of +lamplight down the terraces. Save for one pane gleaming overhead, the +rest of the house stood dark, as if unoccupied. But in that still yet +quivering night, in that dense, black, vast but sultry silence, this +made a great illumination, and that wing of the old mansion seemed to +blaze like a palace in a wood; in the lack of sound or motion, it seemed +swept, opened and made ready by enchantment, and waiting for the +conqueror. It had indeed so great an air, so composed, so ordered, and +of such stately openness that it seemed to rebuke suspicion; surely law +and seemliness were on its side and not that of the dark, soiled, +muddied, creeping figure that skulked, staring, in the shrubbery like a +thief in the night; totally confounded, oppressed by every terror of the +house-breaker and yet with empty hands. But the bright house, which +should have threatened, invited him with every luster. + +He was a fool, if you wish, but at least he knew his foolhardiness to +the core. The wagon he had followed must have passed the house and gone +on toward the river, but this bright vacancy and quiet had not been +arranged for nothing. To go forward was most likely death; a death quite +futile and unremarked, and scarcely a breathing-stage in the wild story +whose blazed trail of ruin and murder he had already followed so far. +Well, he had followed too far to go back. He was too near the goal; he +was too near the turning of the page, and, as far as was mortally +possible, he must read it. + +The empty drive, the empty hall, the empty, shining windows drew him +like wires, and, dropping back across the border of the drive to a +far-lying depth of shadow, he crossed it like a ghost; taking advantage +of every unclipped shrub and moldering urn, began to mount the terraces. + +Thus at last he came to the long windows, and huddling at one side, +peered in. He saw a proud interior, brilliant and pale, with panels of +latticed glass, after the French fashion, and other panels frescoed with +Pierrots and Columbines and with great clusters of wax candles set +between the panels. There was a great chandelier with swinging prisms +reflected in the floor that was waxed like satin; but this chandelier +was not lighted, and indeed everything suggested that they had never +dared to use any electricity, for which they would have to work the +power-house on the estate. But the clustered candles and the many lamps +made the place afloat with liquid gold, and the room trembled and +bloomed with the scent and the beauty of hot-house flowers, so that the +air seemed to shimmer with their sweetness. There was little enough +furniture; a golden grand piano with Cupids painted on it; a few chairs +from which Herrick guessed the holland had but lately been removed; and +near the huge, rose-filled fireplace, a little table, gleaming with +silver and linen, with lilies and crystal and lace. It was set for two; +close at hand was a serving-table with silver covers showing on it, and, +for a practical and modern touch, a chafing-dish! There was no one in +the room. + +But the table was hint enough. Here was the center of these +preparations. Here two people were to meet, and Herrick thought he knew +the hostess. In the departing wagon-load, there had been no beautiful +tall figure with red hair. To this little private festivity Fate had led +him through the rough magic of his scramble in the night; she pointed at +the table with a very sure finger, and now all his vague expectancy was +centered in a single question, and his first necessity was to behold the +face of the red-haired woman's guest. + +Now at the first glance he had taken this room for a sort of music-room +which had been used, too, for informal dances. And sure enough, along +one wall, just as though put there to tempt him to the final madness, +ran a little gallery for the dance-music. It had a balustrade about it +and within this balustrade hung short yellow brocaded curtains, in a +sort of valance, that seemed to Herrick strangely fresh, as though hung +there yesterday. And he determined if it should be his last move on +earth to get behind those curtains. + +There was no staircase to the balcony from within the room. He crept to +the hall-door; the hall opened out square as a courtyard with doorways +and arches upon every side. At the rear the great staircase, after +perhaps a dozen steps, branched off to either hand, and on its left a +little gallery ran along the wall behind that very room and led to a +curtained niche. This would be the entrance to the musicians' balcony, +and there was nothing for it but that Herrick should traverse the hall +and mount the staircase. It was as if the house had turned to one great +eye; he thanked heaven for the rugs upon the marble and for the scanty +shelter of the palms; while with every step he took and every breath he +drew the house-breaker dreaded to hear another footstep in his rear or +to see an assailant rise before his eyes. But all remained vacant and +was as silent as the tomb. Running up those marble steps, he came at one +bound to the curtained niche, and, as he darted in between its hangings, +he had a strong inclination to laugh; for, if there were any one within, +it would be quaint to see whether he or they were the more startled! But +there was no one there. He had now his private box for the coming +entertainment. He dropped softly to the floor and, as he did so, some +one in the room below struck a match. + +It startled him like the crack of doom. He parted the little curtains of +the valance, and beheld himself so far right that there stood the +red-haired lady lighting the chafing-dish. + +Herrick was not more than about nine feet above the flooring of the +room, with the main door from the hall to his right hand and the +fireplace on his left, so that the little glittering table was before +him and to the left of him but a few feet. And there the red-haired +woman blew out the flame she had kindled, as if she had but meant to +test the wick. It was Herrick's first long clear look at her and he +looked hard. The resemblance to Christina lay only in a very striking +suggestion of the tall figure, a pose, a poise, an indescribable +lightness and sense of life; they had the same gracious, gallant +bearing, the same proud carriage of the head, and he suddenly realized +that he was looking at one of Christina's gowns. For the rest, she was, +of course, six years the elder, and her equal slenderness was much more +richly hued and softly curved. Handsome enough, her face at once +attracted and repelled by the diverse coloring of the eyes. It was a +face at once selfish and fierce and soft, with the softness of a woman +who is fashioned from head to foot in one ardent glow; a softness like a +panther's. In the flame-white allure of sex she struck straight at you, +as undisguised and challenging as lightning, and, to any but a +monomaniac, as soon wearied of. It seemed that she could never be +satisfied with her preparations. She walked about the room, touching and +re-touching the flowers; over and over again she scrutinized the +appointments of the table; lifted the silver covers; peered into the +chafing-dish, and tested the champagne in its bucket of ice. At last she +could find nothing more to do. Through all her coming and going, she had +seemed to be mocking and triumphing to herself; humming, singing and +even whistling very low with her mouth pursed into a confident and +quizzing little smile, or inclining her bright head, in victorious +scrutinies, from side to side; so that it seemed the guest must be very +welcome and, if she were bent on conquest, the conquest very sure. + +She was not yet gowned for a festival, and, remembering the light in the +room above, Herrick, grim as the hour was, smiled to imagine that here +was to be played a little domestic comedy like thousands that go on in +Harlem flats and tame suburban cottages; the servantless hostess +satisfied at length about her cooking and her table and flying upstairs +at the last moment to dress for company. So indeed she turned to fly, +but then her mood changed. She whirled round upon the vacant table, her +comedy, her mockery quite fallen from her, and given way to a black +hate. All her quick humors swarmed in her, in a threatening storm; she +was not so much like a woman as like a great, bad, lovely, furious child +that runs its tongue out in defiance. But there was a power in this +defiance like the power in that soft panther of her grace. So that it +was a sort of curse her swirling movement cast upon the pretty table as +she flung one arm up and out above her head; the hand clinched, and then +the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air. Then she went +out of the room and up the stair and overhead. + +Herrick, scarcely knowing what he did, rose to his knees! Just then, he +thought he heard a slight noise behind him. As he turned, something +struck him on the head; he fell millions of miles through a black horror +stabbed with pain and forgot everything. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE EXPECTED COMPANY + + +When he came to himself he was trussed up like a bundle, with arms and +ankles tied too tight for comfort. He still lay on the floor of the +musicians' gallery and the room below him was still lighted. He rolled +over and again could look through the valance. Only a little time must +have elapsed, for the room was still empty. + +And with the sight of that emptiness, questions poured in upon him. Who +had found him out? And for what fate was he reserved? How long did they +mean to leave him here and why did they leave him here at all? Why had +he not been finished and done with? There struck through him, with +perhaps the first utter and broken fear of his life, the depth of the +silence by which he was again surrounded. No breath, no stir; that +intense stillness was vivid as a presence and positive like sound; he +was alone in it; he lay there helpless; a bound fool and sacrifice in +the bright house, in the middle of the wood and the depth of the night, +and, if those chose who left him so, he must lie there till he died. He +lurched up and sat quiet, waiting for the dreadful giddiness and nausea +that came with movement to pass by; determined to struggle till he got +to his knees and on his knees, if necessary, to attempt to pass out of +that house. He knew it was impossible, but movement he must have. Then, +through that density of silence, he heard a step upon the terrace. + +His curiosity rushed back on him, like fire in a back-draft. He held +his breath; the step was a man's; it crossed the threshold of the great +door and sounded on the tiling of the hall. The next instant the guest +of the red-haired woman was in the room under Herrick's eyes. + +Removing a long driving ulster and a soft hat, he proved to be in full +evening clothes, and expectancy, held firmly down, lay mute and rigid in +every part of him. He lifted a face the color of tallow and, staring +straight at Herrick's balcony with blank, black eyes, the visitor drew a +quivering breath. This visitor was Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +The sound of his entrance had evidently been remarked. Again there was a +light footstep overhead, and Herrick guessed that enough time had +elapsed for the toilet to have been completed. The hostess came forth at +once, and could be heard slowly, and with great deliberation, descending +the stairs. Ten Euyck did not go to meet her. Only his eyes traveled to +the door and he stood stiff, with little swallowings in his throat. +Herrick could hear, as she came into the room, a swish, a tinkle about +her steps as though she walked through jeweled silk, and before her on +the waxed and gleaming floor there floated a pool of additional +brightness, so that he saw she had not been satisfied, after all, with +the lighting of her supper-party, but carried a lamp to her own beauty +as she came. Another step and there swam into his sight the beautiful, +tall figure, carrying her lamp high, and incomparably more than before +the mistress of that great apartment. This time it was Christina +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM + + +She stretched out one arm, keeping Ten Euyck at the tips of her fingers. +He seemed content to stay so, looking at her. + +She was dressed in a trailing gown of silken tissue that was now gold, +now silver, as the light took it; but the long vaporous slip beneath was +of pale rose; molded to her motion and stirring with her breath, there +dwelt in the gauze which covered her a perpetual faint flush. The stuffs +were cut as low about the breast as if she had been some social queen, +and her fair, pale arms were bare of gloves. Their adorable young +flatness below the gleam of the slim, smooth shoulders, was now +shimmered over and now revealed by short fringes of silver and gold, of +cooler colored amber and crystal, which were their only sleeve; and +these fringes hung about the borders of her gown and trembled into music +as she moved. In the high-piled softness of her hair, diamonds glimmered +like stars in a fair dusk; diamonds banded her brow in an inverted +crescent; diamonds and topaz dropped in long pendants from her ears; +diamonds and pearls clung round her arms; the restored necklace drooped +down her breast, and the peep and shine of jewels glanced from her +everywhere like glow-worms. She seemed to be clothed in fluctuant light, +and yet it could not dim one radiance of her beauty. This was more than +newly crowned; the rose was fully open; her loveliness had spread its +folded wings and come into its own. There was no shyness now in those +wide eyes; her spirit shone there, all in arms, and moved with a new and +deeper strength in her young body. Very faintly, on the pure and +delicate oval of her cheek, burned the soft, hot stain of rouge. This +was the reality of the dear ghost, calling in the night with the rain +upon its face; this was the pale girl in the gray suit who had once sat +beside her mother in the corner of the coroner's office. It may be Ten +Euyck thought of this; it may be she did. + +"Well," she said, "have I made myself fine? Do I please you?" + +He broke from his trance, took the lamp out of her hold, set it on the +mantelshelf, and returned to her without a word. + +"Pray speak!" she said; "I am all yours!" + +"Christina!" he broke out, and caught and covered her hand with kisses. + +"It is quite true. Do I do you credit? + + "Look at me here, + Look at me there, + Criticize me everywhere--" + +He leaned toward her and she swayed past him to the piano. Over her +shoulder she sang to him-- + + "From head to feet + I am most sweet, + And most perfect and complete!" + +She struck the chords a crash and whirled round to him with her hands in +her lap. "Yes, it is quite true. From my head to my feet--" here she +thrust forth through the music of the shaken fringe a slim gold shoe +with its buckle winking up at him--"you have paid for every rag I stand +in." Christina's accent upon the word "rag" suggested that she was +accustomed to standing in something much better. "It would be hard if +you were not suited. Would you like to go to your room a moment? It's +all ready." + +He must have considered this jabber at somewhat its true worth, for what +he did was to draw up a chair and take and hold her hands. "Christina," +said he, studying her face, "do you hate me so much?" + +She remained a moment, silent. Then, "Yes!" she said. "I am a good +hater!" And she smiled at him, a soft, stinging smile, with her eyes +lingering on his. + +"And yet you come--willingly--to me?" + +"Willingly?" she said. "Oh, greedily!" + +"Of your own suggestion?" + +"Of my own suggestion." + +"And on my terms?" + +"Ah, no!" she cried. "On mine!" + +"Well, then, for simply what you know I have?" + +"For that," she said, "and nothing else." + +"Great heavens!" he cried. "You're a cool hand!--You, who value yourself +so well, are willing to pay so high for it." + +She replied, "To the last breath of my life!" + +He leaned down and kissed her wrist and then her arm, and she sat quiet +in his grasp. + +"What are you thinking of?" he asked, looking up. + +She replied, "Of other kisses." + +He sprang to his feet with a kind of snort, going to one of the windows, +and Christina purled at his broad back, "Don't be angry. How can I help +what I think? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Have I not come +here to meet you without another soul? To a house I never saw before? +That you tell me you have hired? In a sort of wood, at night, quite +alone, not even a servant--although I must say everything seems to have +been well arranged and left quite handy! Would you like some supper, +now? If you ordered it, I am sure it must be good. I am very obedient. +All the same, I am rather hungry." + +He came back to the table with the little pink line showing about his +nostrils. "I do not mind your not desiring me," he said, "and perhaps, +after all, I shall not mind your desiring another man. As you say, it is +not a question of what you desire, but of what I do. Well, Christina, I +am satisfied with your preparations for me; do you approve mine for you? +You shall have servants enough, Christina, when I am sure we may not be +traced by your sister's gentry! How do you like my trysting-place? You +gave me very little time. If you consider it a cage, is it sufficiently +gilded?" + +Christina drew a long breath. "It's wonderful. A palace--wonderful! +Surely I was born to walk rooms like these! And a far cry from the +little boarding-house I lived in when you first met me! God knows," said +Christina, in a voice that trembled, "I am glad to be here!" + +"You like it then?" he cried eagerly. "It's for sale. It shall be yours +to-morrow!" + +"Give me some wine!" she said. "I am tired!" + +He looked at her and said, yes, she was right; and she would better have +something to eat. + +The wine brought back her brightness; it was she who lighted the wick, +heated the supper, and set the smoking chafing-dish before him. Till it +came to the serving she would not let him stir and he could only lean +forward on the table, looking and looking at her. During this she said +little enough, except that he must be sure to praise her cooking, for +she had always boasted she could be a good wife to a poor man! But once +she was seated she poured out a stream of chatter which he sometimes +answered and sometimes not, being intent upon but one thing, and that +was to drink deeper and deeper of her presence. + +Now through much of this Herrick lost sight of them, for he had come +upon an interest of his own. He had discovered in one of the balusters +against which he lay the jutting head of a nail. Never was an object, +not in itself alluring, more dearly welcomed. For he saw that his legs +were bound with only the soft cord that had once looped back the +curtains between the inner and the outer balcony; there must have been +two of these cords, and if his arms were but fastened with the other the +edge of the nailhead might make, in the course of time, some impression +upon it. He sat up and found the nail of a good height to saw back and +forth upon, and if it did not convincingly appear that any effect would +be made upon the cord, at least it provided him with a violent, if +furtive, exercise. This was better than to lie there and let those below +saw upon his heart instead. + +But he must stop at last from pure exhaustion; and at that moment there +was the sound of a chair pushed back. "I thank you for your +hospitality," said Christina's voice. "But, now to business. I have +played in too many melodramas to sign a contract without reading it. The +yacht sails at sunrise?" + +"Or when you will." + +"And takes with her Allegra and Mrs. Pascoe and whatever of their tribe +they choose?" + +"Safely and secretly to Brazil! They have chosen their own crew. They +must be aboard of her already." + +At such words as these Herrick may well be said to have picked up his +ears. He heard Ten Euyck go on: + +"She is yours, Christina; and theirs if you choose to make her so!" + +"You are very generous!" said Christina dryly. "But there is only one +way I can be sure of the end of all this. You know what is most +important to me." Herrick, leaning against the banisters had got his eye +to the opening in the valance again, and he could now see Christina with +her hands in her lap facing Ten Euyck. "Have you got that letter?" she +said. + +Ten Euyck gave his breast a smart rap so that Christina, being so near, +must have heard the paper crackle there. + +"Very well," said she; "so much for the District-Attorney's mail!" + +He stood up, and his voice croaked with triumph as he talked. +"Christina," he said, "I have brought you that letter--it's the price of +my professional, my political honor; it's bought with my disgrace, with +my career! But I have brought it. I'm ridiculous to you, Christina, but +who got it for you? Your friends, the Inghams? your admirer, Wheeler? +your poor fool of a Herrick? your cherished jail-bird, Denny?--No, I +did! This letter that I have here Ann Cornish fell ill guarding, for her +vengeance. You stole and lost it. Your enterprising family broke into a +post-office to get it back. But the despised policeman brings it to +you." + +"You got it by accident, you say," commented Christina. "Don't forget +that!" + +"Forget! I shall never forget the triumph of catching that gang, +although I renounce it at your bidding. I shall never forget your +message when the letter was barely in my hands!-- + +"'I know now that I am come of a family of criminals. My pride is in the +dust, as deep as you could wish it. If you do not help us, if it must +come out that I am tied to blackmailers whom you will catch and send to +prison, I shall die of it!' Christina, can I forget that?" + +"No," said Christina, "I never thought you could." + +"And you will remember my answer, my dear! That I had the proof, the +letter in my hand, to publish or to destroy, as you should choose. You +haven't forgotten that?" + +"No," said Christina again. "But the destroying, that's the thing! +You'll burn it?" + +"Yes." + +"Before my eyes?" + +"Of course." + +"To-night?" + +"To-morrow!" + +She seemed, for a moment, to take counsel with herself. "Very well." + +An extraordinary limp helplessness, a kind of dejection of acquiescence, +seemed to melt her with lassitude at the words. It was enough to sicken +the heart of any lover, and even Ten Euyck cried out, as if to justify +himself, "Ah, remember--you gave me the slip once before!" And at the +memory he seemed to lose all control of himself, falling suddenly +forward, clinging to her knees and hiding his face in her skirts. + +She sat for a moment motionless. Then, with fastidious deliberation, as +if they were bones which a dog had dropped in her lap, she plucked up +his wrists in the extreme tips of her fingers, and slowly pushed him +off. "Quietly!" she said. "You are one who would always do well to be +quiet!" + +He sat on his heels, the picture of misery, already ashamed and almost +frightened at himself. And suddenly, "Christina," he whispered, while +another flash branded itself across his face, "whose kisses were you +thinking of?" + +She did not, at first, understand; and then, remembering--"I will take a +page from your book. I will tell you to-morrow." + +"Was it Denny?" he snapped. + +"Denny?" said she, abstractedly. "Will? God bless me, no!" + +He sighed with a kind of vacancy. "You could easily tell me so!" + +"Well, then," said Christina, with considerable temper, "I will tell you +something else. When I came here to-night, that I might not die of my +own contempt I promised myself one thing. I swore to that girl I used to +be, who carried so high a head she could not breathe the same air with +you and never thought to stand you miawling and whimpering here about +her feet, that at least I should tell no lies of love. There shall never +come one out of my mouth to you and may God hear me. So if I do not tell +you the man I thought of, it is only because I can not bear to speak his +name in this place!--But rest easy! I am very capricious. Things will be +different to-morrow. To-morrow, if you still think it interesting, you +shall know." + +"Know!" he cried. And catching her arm, looked at her with a baleful +face. "Yes, there's my trouble! What do I know of you at all! I met you +once four years ago--well, I forget myself, I know it! But did I?--Were +you even then--? Well, at the inquest, at that reception, in the +station, holding to Denny, the night of your performance, and now, +to-night! There's my knowledge of you! You dazzle, you befool, you drive +me crazy, and you leave me empty--why should I throw my life away for +that! After all, where were you when all New York was looking for you? +Nearly a week! Where were you?" + +"Where was I!" Christina cried. "Well, it's rather long. But does not +the favorite slave always tell stories to her master? Listen to +Scheherezade." + +Then, for the first time, Herrick heard the story of Christina's visit +to the yellow house; how she had determined that Allegra must tell the +authorities, in Denny's behalf, the story of his provocation against +Ingham; how then, hidden in Nancy's, she had found Allegra's hair and +guessed everything. "Then it seemed that the first thing was to get +Nancy away, quietly, without warning, so that there should be no danger +to her. I thought that then I could manage Allegra." She had had Allegra +come into town for her performance, and go straight from it to the +Amsterdam, up to Christina's apartment in Christina's name; following +her there she had slept on the couch, and slipped off early in the +morning. Suspecting the identity of the motor, she had telephoned for it +as though to meet them both, and now she went on to tell Ten Euyck of +her attempt to deceive Mrs. Pascoe, as though she had come from Allegra, +and of her imprisonment in the closet. + +"Ah, that wretched necklace! I said to myself, 'If it comes to a fight, +they may find it and take it from me.' And then I should really have +been in your power! I buried it in the flower-pot, thinking to come back +with reinforcements!" She told of the flight in the rain, and of the +farmers who wouldn't wake up. Both men listened, absorbed, staring. And +Christina said, "I was afraid to go toward Waybrook, in case those men +followed me. I ran toward Benning's Point. I feared the main road, too, +and I thought I could follow the short cut. It is very hilly and broken +and I had never seen it before in the dark; the sheets of rain were like +the heavens falling, and the wind beat out my last strength; I was mud +up to my knees and I had on heavy clothes, too large for me, all +dragging down with wet. Perhaps it all made me stupid; at any rate, I +lost my way. Oh!" said Christina, "that was hard!" and she put her hand +over her heart. "I don't know--it must have been hours--I ran and +staggered and stumbled and climbed! You are to remember I had had no +food all day, and little enough the day before. And by and by I fell. I +got up and on again for a little, but I had hurt myself in falling, and +I fell again. And this time I lay there." + +Ten Euyck lifted the border of her golden dress and put it to his lips. + +The moisture of self-pity swam in Christina's eyes. "Nancy!" she said. +"That was worst to think of!" In her own lip she set her teeth and soon +she went on--"While I was still unconscious, a man came along with a +motor. Somehow, he didn't run over me; he found me. And he recognized +me! He wanted the reward. He took me to his sister's; to that Riley's. +They gave me all sorts of hot drinks and things; I think they saved my +life. But when I tried to thank them, something very comic had +happened--I had lost my voice." Christina closed her eyes. + +"Well?" said Ten Euyck. + +"Well, that woman said I needed sleep, so she sent her brother out of +the room--but she didn't send her husband. When she found I could not +speak, she pulled down the blinds of her room for fear some one should +see in, and said I needn't make a fuss, trying to get away, for she knew +as well as any one I was mixed up with murder and trying to clear out. +She said she was not going to hold any poor girl that was in trouble, +not for the few hundreds he would give her out of that reward. She was +going to let me go. 'But first,' said she, 'I'll thank you to hand over +that diamond necklace!'" + +Both Ten Euyck and the unseen Herrick started and stared. + +"She wouldn't believe me. If I didn't have it, I had hidden it since I +got in the house. 'Very well, if you won't do anything for me, I think +there's a gentleman who will. I think the party for me to send for is +Mr. Ten Euyck.' I wasn't ready for you, then, nor did I mean to be +handed over to you, like a thief done up in a bundle! But what was I to +do? I was still weak and she was between me and the locked door! I'm +grand at screaming," said Christina, "but I couldn't even speak! And +then, out of the stones of the courtyard, heaven raised up a miracle for +me!" + +"It was you, then?" + +"The shadow? yes. But how could I dream a friend would be going by? It +was just a desperate game, a wild chance! She had been telling me what +an outcry there was, how I would be recognized anywhere, and about the +moving-picture, and how they played the march from Faust, now, at that +film--and I thought of the reward and how there must be many looking for +it. There was a piano in that room and I went to it, put my foot on the +loud pedal and began to play. 'Oh,' I thought, 'will some one glance up? +Will some one guess?' And then I threw the shadow on the blind! Before +she could do much more than drag me away, my unsuspected friend was in +the room. She didn't dare to try to keep me. He put a hat and cloak on +me from her closet--oh, I'm sure he sent them back!--and snatched me +off!" + +"And is this your idea of explanation?" said Ten Euyck. "Who was this +friend?" + +"Ah," she said, "you ask too much! Leave something for to-morrow!" And +she went and sat at the piano, with her elbows on the keyboard and her +head in her hands. + +This was the first moment in which Herrick began to be sensible of a +little hope. It seemed to him that the edge of the nail was beginning to +make some impression upon the soft silk cord that bound him. He ground +away, desperately, but always there was the dread of any sound, and +quivers of terror that the violence of his pressure might loosen the +nail. The blow on his head made him easily dizzy, and as he leaned there +quiet to recover himself, it was plain that Ten Euyck with a dozen +questions had endeavored to follow Christina to the piano, and been +checked where he was. + +"No, we are both getting fussed. It is my right, perhaps, but hardly the +man's. As for me, I'm all for decorum. Sit back and smoke and when you +have smoked you will not fidget. I will play and sing to you--yes, I +should love it!" softly laughed Christina, her fingers moving on the +keys and her voice breaking into song-- + + "I'm only a poor little singing girl + That wanders to and fro, + Yet many have heard me with hearts awhirl; + At least they tell me so! + At least--" + +she chanted, leaning with gay insolence toward Ten Euyck, + + "At least they tell me so!" + +"Christina!" he said hoarsely. + +"You like personal ditties! You shall have another! + + "You dressed me up in scarlet red + And used me very kindly-- + But still I thought my heart would break + For the boy I left behind me! + +That's too rowdy a song for a patrician! But I can sing only very simple +things! The one I always think of when I think of you is the simplest of +all!-- + + "We twa hae run about the braes + And pu'd the gowans fine; + But we've wandered many a weary foot + Sin auld lang syne." + +The color rose up in her face and her eyes shone; her bosom rose and +fell in long, triumphing breaths, and--"Damn him!" Ten Euyck cried. +"It's not me you think of when you sing that! It's Denny!" + + "For auld lang syne, my dear, + For auld lang syne-- + +Is it?" Christina broke out. "Who knows! + + "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet + For auld lang syne. + +Ah, that stays my heart!--Ten Euyck!" + +"My God!" he cried. "I won't bear it!" + +He had his two hands on her shoulders and as she continued to play she +lifted up toward his at once a laughing and a tragic face. "What does he +matter to you?" she said, "to you, the Inspector of Police! Aren't you +here, with me, and isn't he down and done for, and out of every race? As +good as dead? + + "He is dead and gone, lady, + He is dead and gone, + At his heels a grass-green turf; + At his head, a stone! + +Come, pluck up spirit! + + "Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride! + Hark, hark, across the sea! + Ah-ha, the dead do ride with speed! + Dost fear to ride with me? + +--'Dost fear to ride with me?'" she sang, on the deepest note of her +voice, and turning, rose and held Ten Euyck off from her, seeming to +study and to challenge him, and then, with the excitement and the wild +emotion which she had kindled in both of them, dying slowly from her +face but not from his. + +She released him, and, going to a little table, unclasped her necklace, +and slipped the strings of diamonds from her arms. The crescent round +her head came next. "What are you doing?" he almost whispered. + +"Unclasp this earring. Thank you!" She lifted one foot and then the +other and tore the buckles from her shoes. She did not hesitate above +that bewildering heap, but pushed closer and closer together those +fallen stars and serpents of bright light. "There!" she cried. "Are they +all there? No--here!" At her breast there was still a quivering point or +two; she wrenched off the lace that held them and flung it on the pile. +"There!" she said again, "they are all there! My poor fellow, I have +changed my mind." + +She walked away and leaned her forehead on the tall mantelshelf. + +Whence she was perhaps prepared to have him turn her round and holding +her by the wrists say to her through stiff lips,--"Explain yourself!" He +shook from head to foot with temper; doubtless, too, with the scandalous +outrage to commonsense. + +"There is so little to explain. I thought I could. I can't! It wouldn't +pay!" + +"Not pay!" + +"Oh," said Christina, indicating, with a scornful glance, the mirrored, +golden room and piled-up jewels, "these were only incidents! Try to +understand. Long ago, when I was a child, I set out to vanquish the +world. Not to belong to it, not to be of it, but to have it under foot! +I was so poor, so weak, so unbefriended. I thought it would be a fine +day when I could give this great, contemptuous, cold, self-satisfied +world a little push with my shoe and pass it by. It was a childish +ambition--well, in some ways I have never grown up! And to me, since our +first encounter, _you_ have always typified that world." + +He started back, and released her hands. + +"All that I really wanted I won for myself last week! And Allegra stole +from me when I saw her hair! You tell me that you can save it for me in +saving her, but it's not true! It was easy to think of you as the world, +to feel that you were giving me yourself and it to play with! It's easy +to imagine that you would be under my heel.--No, I should be under +yours! I shouldn't have vanquished the world, I should be vanquished by +it!--No, I thank you!" + +"And Allegra?" he asked her, grimly. + +Christina shuddered and closed her eyes. But she said, "Has Allegra been +so tender to me that I should lose myself for her? Understand me, it +never was for Allegra that I came here to-night. Ah, Ten Euyck, I have +been a good sister. It is time I thought of myself." + +"Think," he replied, "that she will pass from ten to twenty years in +jail." + +The girl's face trembled as if he had struck it, but--"Well," she said, +"you the upholder of the law--you shall judge. She lived off me--that's +nothing!--But she lived off and bled others, and drove and hounded them, +and made me an ignorant partner in it--that's something, you'll admit! +And--Nancy! How about that? She lied to Will about Nancy and Jim +Ingham.--Come, isn't the balance getting heavy? She just as much killed +Jim as if she had done it with her hand; and if Will--dies," cried +Christina, with a breath like a little scream upon the word, "it is my +sister kills him! I am stone and ice to her! When I saw Nancy's message, +in that moment I knew who and what my sister was, and then and there I +had done with her! Let me hear you blame me! And yet," said Christina +with a change of voice, "there is one more count!" + +Her look had changed and darkened. "When that crew of hers laid hands +on _him_--O!" she cried out, suddenly. And flinging forth her arms +buried her face in them. + +The effect on Ten Euyck was electrical. Hitherto drugged and fascinated +by the mobility of her beauty, the lights and emotions varying in it, he +now shot forward on his sofa as if, in a mechanical toy, a spring had +been touched. + +"It isn't possible!" he cried. "That calf! That milk-sop! Christina, you +don't mean--Herrick!" + +She let her arms fall, and without raising her head, lifted her eyes for +him to read. + +He broke into a loud laugh that jangled, hysterically cold, round the +great, brilliant room. "And to think," he said, "that all this time I +have thought of him as my pet diversion, my wittol, my moon-calf! It has +been my one jest through all this wretched business to see the +importance of that great baby! To watch him industriously acquiring +bumps and bruises, and getting more and more scratches on his innocent +nose! I waited to see it put out of joint forever when you threw him +flat upon it! I thought that we were laughing in our sleeves at him, +together! When I had this appointment with you safe, I smiled to see him +careering up and down the country like Lochinvar in a child's reader.-- + + "'He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone, + He swam the Eske River--'" + +Ten Euyck sprang up and catching Christina by the elbows snatched her +smartly to her feet and shook her till, on her slim neck, her head +bobbed back and forth. "What did you tell me for," he cried, "if you +hoped to be rid of me! I, at least, am no baby, and I have had enough of +this! Your dear Lochinvar is doubtless swimming and riding somewhere in +the neighborhood. But not within call! And let me assure you, though he +stay not for brake and he stop not for stone--yet ere he alights here at +Netherby Gate--" + +"Go on!" said Christina, "you know the end of the verse." She flung it, +with a gallant backward movement of her head, straight in his teeth-- + + "'For a laggard in love and a dastard in war--' + +Oh, listen, listen, listen! Now you know! Now you know whose name I +would not speak! Not in this place! Oh, oh!--Will and Nancy; after all, +they are only pieces of myself! They are no more to me than--me! But he +is all I am not and long for! He is life outside myself, to meet mine! +He is my light and my air and my hope and my heart's desire! She knew +it--_she knew it_! She had taken my youth and my faith and my kindness +with the world, and killed them, and then she tried to kill him +too!--Love him? O God!" cried Christina, "what must he think of me!" And +she began to shake with weeping. + +"That cub!" said Ten Euyck. "You love that cub!" And he took her in his +arms; and covering her throat and hair with kisses, he held her off +again, and tried to see into her face. "Do you?" he cried. "Do you? Do +you?" + +"Give me a handkerchief!" Christina snapped. + +He was surprised into releasing her; and plucking forth her own scrap of +lace, she wiped her nose with some deliberation. "I look hideous. I +should like those lights out!" + +He went about putting out light after light, till she said, + +"Leave my lamp!" + +She was standing beneath it, pensive and grave and now quite pale, with +her back to the mantelshelf, her soft, fair arms stretched out along its +length, and her head hanging. She might have been bound there, beneath +the single lamp, like an olden criminal to a seacoast rock before the +rising tide. The pale light floated over her as Ten Euyck came up and +seemed to illumine her within a magic circle. + +"My dear," Ten Euyck began, with a kind of solemn fierceness, "when you +made me accomplice in a crime, when you came here to me like this +to-night, did you really dream that you could change your mind? Did you +suppose you could make me ridiculous again? Do you know where you are? +And under what circumstances? There is a slang phrase, Christina--do you +really think you can get away with it?" + +"No," Christina replied. She quietly lifted her head. Her eyes rested +soberly on his. "I am here, with you. I am alone. There is no Rebecca's +window here to dash myself from. You see I have counted up everything. +And this is what I will do. If I cannot die now, I can die to-morrow. +You can not watch me forever. And in the hour when you leave me, I shall +find a way to die." + +His face grayed as he looked at her. + +"Do you think I am not acquainted," Christina went on, "with the story +of Lucretia? I could strike a blow like hers! And oh, believe me, like +her I should not die in silence!" She felt him start. "Do you suppose I +should not tell why I came here? Do you by any chance suppose I should +not tell what bait I had from the Inspector of Police? Ah, when we have +something to lose, we stumble and make terms. But when we have no longer +anything, we are the masters of terms.--Is this my last night?" +Christina asked. + +"By God!" he said, "you know how to defend yourself!" And his arms +dropped at his side. + +He was a moment silent, his mouth twitching, his eyes drinking her up. +Christina had, in argument, that better sort of eloquence that calls up +convincing pictures. Doubtless, he knew she might denounce his theft of +the letter. Doubtless he saw her, then, clay-cold; lost to him, +utterly. On the other hand, to lose her, now, was a thing outside +nature and not to be endured. So that suddenly he broke out in a kind of +high, hoarse whisper; "Christina, there's another way! I never meant to +marry--but--Christina, shall it be that?" + +"_What!_" she exclaimed. It was a volcanic outcry, not a question. She +stretched out her two arms, with the palms of her hands lifted against +him, and laughter and amazement seemed to course through her and to wave +and shine out of her face, like fire in a wind. + +"Christina," he said; "Christina, I will marry you!--Oh, Christina, +isn't that the way! There's your ambition! There's your satisfaction! +There's the world under your shoe! Christina, will you?" + +"Is it possible?" she said. And again--"Is it possible! What! Peter +Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck and the girl in the moving-picture +show? 'Mr. Ten Euyck' and the sister of a jail-bird! Eh, me, my poor +soul, is it as bad as that?" Her laughter died and her brows clouded. +"It's a far cry, Ten Euyck, since you stole my kiss on the sly! You laid +the first bruise on my soul! You put the first slur and sense of shame +into the shabby little girl in the stock-company who had no one to +defend her but a boy as poor as herself. What did it feel like, dear +sir, that check? We have come a long way since then, but have you +forgotten? And does the pure patrician and the representative of high +life now lay the cloak of his great name down at my feet? To walk on it, +yes! But to pick it up? After all, I think it would be stopping! Ah, my +good fellow, I don't jump at it!" + +"I know you don't! That's why I want you! I've been jumped at all my +life!" Thus Ten Euyck, holding her fast, his face burning darkly under +her little blows of speech, and his pulse rising with the sense of +battle. "I think I've never known a woman who wouldn't have given her +eyes to marry me! I've never taken a step among them without looking out +for traps! Christina, I long to do the trapping and the giving, yes, and +the taking, for myself! You don't want me; well, I want you! Yes, for my +wife! I see it now. You dislike me, you despise me. Well, your dislike +doesn't count; believe me, you'd not despise me long! I'd rather see you +bearing my name--you, with another man for me to wipe out of your heart, +you, as cold as ice and as hard as nails to me,--than any of those soft, +waiting women! See, we'll play a great trick on the world! We'll be +married to-morrow! We'll sail for Europe. From there we'll send back +word we've been married all along. People shall think that when you left +me the other night I followed you; that we fooled them from the +beginning, and when next they see you, you shall be on my arm! Come, +Christina, will not that be a reentry? Will not the world be vanquished, +then?" + +"Hush!" she said, with lifted finger. "I thought I heard some one!" She +lifted the lamp from the mantelshelf and going to the window held it far +out into the darkness with an anxious face. "No!" she breathed. Ten +Euyck observed with joy that her manner to him had changed; it had +become that of a fellow-conspirator. Up and down the terrace she sent +the light, her apprehensive eyes searching the shadows and the bushes. +"No!" said she again, "I was wrong." + +She came back to him flushed and eager, and setting the light upon the +table, he caught her hands. "Remember!" he said, "otherwise I shall stop +your sister. And where will your name be then?" + +Her nostrils widened, her eyes contracted, doubt succeeded to triumph in +her face. "If it were not the truth!" she said. + +"What do you mean?" + +"If there were no such necessity! If you did not have my name in your +power at all. If you have no such letter!" + +"Christina!" + +"It is what I have doubted from the beginning! How do I know you haven't +lied to me all along? I ask you if you have that letter, and you thump +your breast! I ask you to show it to me and you answer, 'To-morrow'! +Traps--did you say? Did you think I was to be caught in a trap? When you +were looking for a poor gull, did you cast eyes on Christina Hope? If +you had that proof to show me, you wouldn't hesitate! There is no such +letter--I can see it in your face!" + +He took the letter from his coat and held it up. + +"Oh, well," Christina said, "I see an envelope. Am I to marry for an +envelope?" + +He cast the envelope away, folded the letter to a certain page and held +it for her to read. + +She read it and a faintness seized her. She stood there, swaying, with +closed eyes, and he put an arm about her for support. She leaned upon +him, and he put down his mouth to hers. "Christina, look up!" he cried. +"Don't be afraid! Don't tremble so! My darling, here's your first +wedding-present!" And, alarmed by her half-swoon, transported by that +surrender in his arms, he held the letter above the lamp and let its +edge catch fire. + +Christina opened her sick eyes and they dwelt dully on the paper and +then with pleasure on the little flame. "Let me!" she breathed. "Yes, +let me. It's my right." + +He put the burning paper in her hands, smiling on her with a tender +playfulness. "Take care!" he said. + +[Illustration: "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool! +Thank God, I've done with you!"] + +"I will take care." She held up the paper, intent on the thin edges +crisping in the glowing fire, and then, swift as a deer and wild as a +lion's mate, she sprang away, clapped her hands hard upon the burning +paper, pressed out the flame upon the bosom of her gown, and thrust the +letter in her breast. "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous +fool! Thank God, I've done with you!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL-- + + +Ten Euyck's face blazed white with anger. Sick with rage, driven with +bewilderment and some touch of vague suspicion, all his cold strength +gathered itself. He was no longer merely a harp for Christina's fingers. +She stood at the far end of the room with her back against the wall, +barricaded, indeed, by a little gilded table, but not at all alarmed or +even concerned, and the master of the situation forced himself to say +quietly, "I am tired of play, my dear. I shall not run after you. Bring +that letter here!" + +Christina laughed. + +"You will come to me, quite obediently, and give that letter here to +me." + +"Oh, I think not!" Christina said. "Not to a thief! Not to a +blackmailer! Nor even to a gentleman who tried, and failed, at +murder.--How much did you give the man in the Tombs?" + +A profound silence fell upon that house. It was as if, in that great +golden room, among the mirrored gulfs of shadow, something held its +breath. Night seemed to look in at the windows with a startled face. +Then somewhere, a hawk cried. And still there was no movement in the +room. The homely sound of crickets rose from without like the stir of a +world immeasurably far away. And Christina, in the changing lusters of +her gold and silver gown, stood half in shadow; flushed and radiant, a +little shaken with triumph, as a spent runner who has touched his goal, +and with her hand above the letter on her heaving breast. Ten Euyck did +not make one sound. But his face had a paralyzed, chalky stiffness, and +the jaw dropped, like the jaw of a corpse. + +"You fatuous hypocrite!" cried the girl. "You pillar of society! And +could you ever imagine it was for _you_ I came! For your name, for your +position! I thank you, I prefer my own! For your protection? Can you +protect yourself? Am I the girl to throw myself away on you for the sake +of a bad sister, who has treated me with so much hate? It took all your +greed, all your vanity, all your stupid, cruel pomp and dullness to be +fooled like that! Did you ever really think I could stoop to such a +scene as this to-night for you--or me? Oh, blind, blind, blind! How +could you imagine I would leave him in your hands and never make a fight +for it? Did you think I didn't remember?--that I couldn't still hear, as +I heard when I was a frightened girl, the stroke of his hand across your +face, and that I didn't know you had always had death for him in your +heart?" + +She covered her face with her hands and then she stood up tall again. + +"My dear Will, my poor boy!--who treated me as if I were his little +brother! Oh, the cold night trips on railway trains when I couldn't pay +for a sleeper and used to sit wrapped in his coat; the morning races +down the track for coffee; the scenes we used to work and work on and +get so cross we almost struck each other; the time I was discharged and +he lent me his few dollars till I should get work again; his first big +hit and then mine; and then--Nancy, and all the sweetness of a hundred +times with both my dears! Did you think I was going to sit quiet and let +you turn your heel on all of that? Allow your conceit and insolence and +spite to feed on his disgrace and danger! Let _you_ sneer at _him_! +Leave _him_ to be triumphed over by _you_!--Will Denny by a Ten Euyck! +An artist by a bourgeois Inspector of Police! An actor," cried +Christina, beginning to soar, "and _such_ an actor, by a mere outsider! +Your side over mine!--Why did you try? Will to be shamed and hidden in +the dark! And you to be bowed down to, to swell and strut and smirk and +look dull and glossy and respectable, and be brushed by valets, and have +prize cattle raised for you to eat, and carry gold umbrellas! He to die! +And you to pillow yourself upon a hundred crimes he never dreamed +of!--Tybalt in triumph and Mercutio slain!--You poor, pretentious, +silly, vulnerable soul!--not while he was paying for one moment's +madness, and I began to guess and hope and pray that about you there was +something prisons had been gaping for, year after year, if only I could +find it out! Did you really think I didn't guess what was in this +letter? Do you think I didn't know you sent Nicola into that post-office +to steal it? Why, it was I, with my last strength, who mailed it there. +He must have found some trace of me and guessed. Nothing in heaven or +earth would have brought me here, except to steal it back!" + +"How did you--" he tried to say. But the machinery of his throat was +stiff and could not work. He swallowed once or twice, and then, dropping +his dulled eyes, he got out--"When--did you--at first--?" + +"When you came so grandly to the station, a master of the trap that my +poor boy was caught in, and said, 'If she would tell the jury what she +told him--' Don't you remember that I answered, 'How do you know what +she told him?' A strange confidant for Allegra! It wasn't accident, +coincidence--for you knew the music that she made for Will's and my +French song! Not five minutes later I learned what Allegra was! A +queerer confidant, still, for an Inspector of Police! I said to myself, +'There is a very black spot frozen inside that block of bilious ice. If +one could know, now, what it was!' Then came your necklace and your +note. And I saw you were a violent, greedy creature, after all, who +would go a long way to get your will; I saw you could be managed--and +how. I remembered Will's saying that people like us had nothing but +ourselves to fight with. Oh, it has been with myself that I have fought! +I'm sorry, I'm ashamed. But I've won!--What was my second hint? Do you +remember the torn card of the Italian Bryce Herrick had to kill? How it +said, 1411--nothing more? When I 'phoned you to call for your necklace +your number wasn't in the book. The girl, at first, gave me a wrong +direction. Then she remembered that was your old number which you had +just had changed. The district was the same, of course. But the old +number ran, 1--4--1--1.--Ah, wait for my third--the best of all! My good +Ten Euyck, you never made quite such a mistake as when you lost one +symbol of respectability--as when you forgot your umbrella!" + +This time he looked up with a stare. + +"You left it at Allegra's, and, like all excellent housekeepers, Mrs. +Pascoe put it in the closet under the stairs. I found it there. I was +looking for something to break the window with. A little light came in +then, and I saw the gold handle, like a staff of office, with your name. +I broke the rod and have the handle still." Christina paused and smiled +at him. "My sister's partner in the business of blackmail; you, whose +money robbed and burned a post-office of the United States; you, whose +influence attempted murder in jail, on the highroads, in the Park, +rather than be found out, I make you my bow! If I cannot save Will with +you, if I cannot trade you for him with the law--and oh, I think I +can!--at least our side shan't fall alone! If he is to be punished, at +least he will never be punished by you! But you, Mr. Ten Euyck, who +exulted in his trouble, who are afraid, as he is not, who will perish at +the scorn of every fool, as he has not, you, who of shame are about to +die, I salute you! Your career as a criminal, your career as a shining +light, they are both at an end!--And why? Because you declared war +against people without money, without position, without influence, whom +you despised! Because you weren't strong enough to fight Christina Hope! +Remember that!" + +The heart knoweth its own bitterness. For one little moment Ten Euyck +stood with his eyes upon the reckless girl who was driving him to the +last terrible extreme of self-defense. He had come there a happy and +indulgent conqueror, and even the sweetness of a necessary revenge was +black and poisoned in him. Then, in that moment, he heard what +Christina, flushed with victory, did not hear at all--a little sound +behind him and above his head. + +His driving-coat still lay across a chair and he went slowly to it and +drew the case of his revolver from its pocket; the revolver was fully +loaded; he looked at the barrel a long time, as if he were thinking +something out, and then he heard Christina laugh. "Take care!" she said. +"I did not come without a guard." + +He did not turn upon her. He still stood with his back to her, and, from +under his bent brows, his glance shot up and found the parting of the +valance. Now, since the lessening of the lights, Herrick, half-mad and +goaded by the continual slight weakening of the cords, had grown +careless of concealment. There, in the opening, his face showed. Not +much, indeed; not enough to be easily recognized; all masked, too, with +blood and sweat and with the gag across the mouth. But still whiter than +the Italian face Ten Euyck had most expected. Then he caught a glimpse +of the brown, ruddy hair, and knew. This was Nicola's and Allegra's idea +of a jest. + +"A guard?" he said. And he turned then upon Christina. + +"Don't come near me!" the girl cried. "And if you want to live, don't +shoot! My friends are all about this house! They are in waiting down the +road! They have waited the whole evening long, watching for my signal. +They started to close in on us when I waved my lamp. Let me cry out my +name and you will hear, in answer, the horn of an automobile. It will +blow three times--two short notes and one long. That means--Stand out of +the way, Christina Hope; the men are ready!--Don't come near me!" + +"Cry out your name!" Ten Euyck replied. + +The girl lifted up her voice, and gave forth the words "Christina Hope" +so that they leaped out in the still darkness and went shrilling and +searching through the night, the vibrations dying in the distance, and +the air giving back an echo of their call. Till, after an age-long +moment, their last note died away. And nothing happened. No note from +the horn of an automobile broke forth in answer; there was only a +profounder stillness. Christina was left face to face with nothingness +and Cuyler Ten Euyck. + +"You spoke too soon!" he said. "You were always foolhardy. This time you +have outdone yourself. The clever Christina was not the only person, on +coming here, to take precautions. If I gave so much to the guard in the +Tombs, what did I give to buy off these friends of yours? The agreeable +gang your sister commands--did you think it was in your pay for +to-night? It is in mine! I suspected nothing, but I took no chances. I +prepared for accident. No automobile can pass that lodge. No spy can +creep about these grounds. One tried, my dear. They caught him. He is +lying in that little gallery gagged and bound. When his body is +discovered, he will have been shot by blackmailers, whom Cuyler Ten +Euyck never so much as saw. I thought you wouldn't leave me!" + +Christina had gathered up her train for flight and had been +manoeuvering nearer and nearer to the window that gave deepest into +the shelter of the dark. Only at the first word of a spy she had stood +still. + +"Yes," Ten Euyck went on, "I see that you guess his name. I am not a bad +shot, and he can't move, poor fellow. Give me that letter!" + +Christina looked along his arm, along the lifted revolver, to what was +now only a dark opening in the valance. Her mouth opened, but no sound +came. The life went out of her like the flame from a dying candle, and +she seemed to shrink and crumple and to sway upon her feet. There was a +long stillness. + +"That letter, if you please!" Ten Euyck said. + +"Bryce!" Christina called, quite low. "Bryce, are you there! Let me +see!" she screamed out, and ran forward. + +Ten Euyck held up a finger, and she stopped dead. "Do you understand +that I, too, have a signal and these fellows will come at it? Do you +understand what cause they have to love Herrick?--Fetch that chair!" + +She brought it forward. + +"No, under the balcony. Pardon my not helping you. I dare not lower my +hand. Stand on the chair! Can you reach those little curtains? No? Take +this candlestick--push them back! What do you see?" + +Christina shuddered like a stricken birch, and gave forth a lamentable +cry. The candlestick fell to the ground. She had met Herrick's eyes. + +"Have I won?" said Ten Euyck. + +"You are a brave girl, but you lack discretion.--Get down! Take that +letter from your breast. That's right. What a pretty change in manners, +my dear! Come here! Come!" + +Her face looked thin and her eyes were set with fear. She came slowly +on, like a person in a trance, half hanging back, half drawn with +ropes. She stopped at one end of the little table, a few feet from him. + +"Put out your hand and offer me that letter." + +She put it out and he seized the letter and the hand in his. + +"And now, my dear, understand me. In my connection with the Arm of +Justice, I hold myself neither stained nor shamed. It has been an arm of +_justice_; when I have struck it was--as poor Kane will tell +you!--always at those who had sinned against the law, though I could not +then reach them through the law. In that punishment I used an imperfect +instrument, as a man who stands for decency must do, in an imperfect +world. When I recognized your sister as our mysterious shadow I forced +her to write this account of her disgraceful life not, as she supposed, +for fear she might some day blackmail me--for there was nothing in my +life to be used for blackmail--but for a net to snare you with! In that +net you are caught. Never till its loss determined me to have it back at +any cost did I really sin. And never legally! For when I give money to a +needy woman I do not question what she does with it. If there is +violence--why not? In self-defense! But if I sinned, at least I have +succeeded in my sin. For here you are! While you--you have forfeited +even your price. But when Denny is dead, talk over with Allegra, in her +prison, the story of his death--it may divert you both! For now she, +too, is lost, as well as he. And through your fault as Herrick is!" + +She lifted her white face and questioned him, with the darkness of her +eyes. + +"Let him go! After all that he has heard? How could I? You gave your +signal and now I must give mine!--It's been a hard fight, Christina! And +to the victor belong the spoils!" + +He dragged her slowly toward him by the clenched hand he held, his +hungry smile flushed and yet cold with hate, feeding on her desperate +compliance. And as he drew her past the table, Christina caught up the +lamp and struck it with her whole force into his face. + +There was a tremendous noise of crashing glass, and then darkness, +filled with the smell of oil. Christina's slender strength had found +force for such a blow that the lamp had been put out before it could +explode,--and what it had been put out upon was Ten Euyck's head. He +floundered back; dazed, cut, with the sense battered out of him. And at +the same moment the last knot yielded to stiff fingers and Herrick +staggered to his feet. He dropped over the balcony to the ground, and +Christina ran toward the sound of him, in the darkness. "Oh! Oh!" she +said, and clung like a child upon his breast. + +But for a little crack under the door into the hall, the blackness had +swallowed every shape. This was all in their favor. They stood +listening, holding their breath, knowing that Ten Euyck was there before +them but not able to see where; and then he fired. Herrick followed the +lead of the flash and leaped upon him. Ten Euyck sank to one knee, but +he had gripped Herrick as he fell; the two men struggled to their feet, +and across the room and up and down they fought and clung and swayed and +trampled, upsetting chairs, their feet slipping and grinding on the +smooth floor; and though the shots continued to sound, they were fired +downward and Christina guessed that Herrick forced Ten Euyck's hand +toward the ground and was struggling for possession of the pistol. She +could hear their breath pulsing and sobbing in the darkness. Suddenly +their black, struggling bulk crashed down on the piano and the shots +ceased. The pistol fell to the ground. Ten Euyck's voice gasped out, +like rending cloth: "All six are fired! That's my signal!" Then there +was an oath, a lurch, a sound of blows, the table tipped over with a +smash, followed by the thud of both men falling to the floor; there was +a groan, a pause, a last decisive blow, and then some one rose and came +slowly toward Christina through the dark room. + +In a childish terror of broken nerves, "Bryce!" Christina shrieked. Then +her shrieking, outstretched fingers touched a rough, damp sleeve, and +"Bryce!" she sobbed contentedly. They met with a bump, and clutched each +other, laughing with joy, in this little moment before the last. Already +they could hear the hurrying men; dark figures blackened on the +darkness, the terraces came alive with sound, lights showed and were +gone; and Herrick, holding the empty gun, sought vainly to put Christina +back from him. She held to him, leaning on him, hardly breathing. "It's +death, dear!" she said. "Forgive me!" + +"Oh!" + +She felt him bend his head, and lifting up her face, she set her mouth +to his. + +From the carriage sweep without there came--two short and one +long--three notes from the horn of an automobile. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX + + +The door from the hall opened, letting in a flood of light. At the same +time a man stepped through one of the windows. He was the first of a +number whom the halls and staircases instantly absorbed. Out of +Herrick's very hold Christina slipped and caught this man by the arm and +hung away from him as she was wont to hang upon the arm of Hermann +Deutch. "Oh, heaven and our fathers!" cried she in a faint wail. "But +you were a little late!" + +The man, standing tense in the shadow, was examining the room with +appraising eyes. Christina, blind to something rigid in him, hurried on. +"And I did so depend on a quick curtain! But all's well that ends +well--I've got it! Mr. District-Attorney, your mail!" + +"Who's that with you?" said the voice of Henry Kane. + +As he took, from the hand that had never once resigned them, the +scorched and torn sheets and buttoned them beneath his coat he glanced +over his shoulder, expectantly. + +"You'll go to the Governor, yourself, to-morrow? To-morrow!" + +"Please God! Ah, Herrick, you make one more! Hear anything, Sheriff?" he +called into the hall. + +Kane had turned to close the shutters at his back but Christina, blind +with triumph, continued to Herrick: "He saw my shadow at Riley's. I told +him all that I suspected and he believed me. He spoke to the Governor. +They promised me if I could give Mr. Kane that man and the headquarters +of the others I should have Will's life in exchange. I knew from Nancy's +holding that letter and it's being addressed in Allegra's hand that it +must be the story which caused his feeling against Ingham--that Nancy, +as well as I, must have hoped it might even set him free. Mr. Kane got +me a doctor and as soon as I had my voice he sent me to a little hotel +up the river here, kept by Ten Euyck's old servants whom he would know +must recognize him, and there I sent for him. He was afraid to come +there, of course, into my disreputable company. But he was fine and +eager to meet me somewhere. We hoped he would name that stronghold of +Allegra's where he would feel safe and when he named this house our +hopes leaped.--Oh, I'm so tired!" cried Christina, sitting down on the +floor like a worn-out child and snuggling her head forward in her lap. + +"Are those doors fast?" called Kane from his second window. "That +shutter's loose! What's that balcony? This room won't stand a siege! +You, Herrick, the sheriff and I and five men--can we hold this house?" + +Sheriff Buckley had just limped in with his bruised, cut face further +discolored by the blood from a scalp-wound which he was binding with a +handkerchief. Herrick had already noticed that Kane's arm was tied +tight, just above the elbow, with a gaily flaunting necktie and around +this necktie the torn sleeve was soaked and stained.--"Against how +many?" he replied. + +It was not till then that, lifting a face of weary dismay, "Are we still +fighting?" Christina almost sobbingly demanded. + +"Now, don't frighten the lady!" The sheriff turned to Kane. "We just got +into a mix-up at the gate with the whole Dago gang. They'll never come +up here after us." + +All three men, none the less, were busy latching shutters, locking, +barricading. They were not interrupted and no alarm but their own +seemed in the air. As they worked Kane said, "There's something up we +don't understand. This is something more than any bunch of Pascoes. We +expected a fight. We had over a dozen men. We were attacked by a +hundred. They had made an obstacle race for the motors. One they put out +for good. But the sheriff got this one through." + +"We've left 'em a mile behind!" said the sheriff. "Before they can get +here the river police'll have taken the yacht. They'll be up here before +long. We're safe here awhile, all to ourselves, and they can't get +within a hundred feet of the house without being picked off by our boys +upstairs!" + +As he spoke the pane above Herrick's head, where he struggled with the +loose shutter, cracked into flying splinters. A small hard object had +hurtled into the room and thumped at Kane's feet. A bewilderment +ludicrous as hysteria came over Herrick. For the object that carried a +bit of paper rolled in its mouth was a little golden pistol--which +though sufficiently valued to carry on its handle a monogram of three +capital A's, picked out in jewels, was yet no pistol at all. It was a +dummy made all in one piece! + +"So!" said the District-Attorney. "Now we know!" + +"What?" + +"I asked you, Herrick, if we could hold this house. And you asked me +against how many. I can't tell you against how many but I can now tell +you against what. Against an army of which you have read, not so long +since, a considerable deal in the papers. Against the Camorra." + +"Here!" + +"After us?" + +"The Italian Camorra!" + +"In America!" + +"Yes," Kane insisted, "and under those trees." + +"In costume!" cried Christina, with rising spirits and flitting to the +window. + +"A skeleton pistol is its badge. The owner of this trinket is a member. +Please, Miss Hope, translate us this paper." + +She read aloud, "Alieni the infamous and all his house die here to-night +the death of traitors." + +"Well, the information's dear, but we're getting plenty of it! There's +an advance guard, evidently, set hereabouts!--Alieni! And capital A's! +It's their traitor's badge they've stolen to threaten him. If we only +knew who Alieni is? And where he is! And what they think he has to do +with us!" + +Herrick told them where he had seen the pistol before. To no one did +this, at that time, bring any light. Kane's mind was busy with the +fortunes of the police-boat. "The Camorra easily swarms thick enough to +overpower that!" He paused, surveying their fortress. If they had needed +anything to tell them they were doomed they might have found it in the +colloquial, dry calm of Kane's voice as he said, "We should, perhaps, +have sent Miss Hope upstairs." + +"Oh, I beseech you--anything but a trap. Let me stay where I can run!" + +"The more as they may try to smoke us out!" + +Silence grew up in their midst. + +The great front doors were barred and chained; through the house five +men were on watch; the door into the hall was barricaded with the gilt +piano, whence still the Cupids smiled, stacked above and below with the +little table and the chairs; down the room's long front the five great +windows, three more crossing at the farther end, were dark with the +latched shutters of which the second on the front was the suspected. So +frail were the defenses! So short a time from the first blow must the +slats give and the glass crash in! + +"I think you'd best take the end, Mr. Kane; me and Mr. Herrick the front +windows--Lord, who's this?" + +The black figure with gleaming shirt-front was seated in a little gilt +chair in the wall's darkest angle; with outstretched legs and tilted +head it confronted them from very glassy eyes. But it was only the dead +body of Ten Euyck, who must have reared up thus with his last breath and +joined their council. + +"Well," cried the sheriff, gaily, "you make another--if they think so!" +Seizing the chair he trundled it across the room; on the floor he found +Ten Euyck's gun and propped it into the passive fingers. "There! If this +blind falls down, you'll be better 'n the piano--they'll waste a lot of +attention on you! Now, if they only make noise enough, down by the +river--Oh, you mustn't let him make you whimper, miss!" + +Herrick was mainly aware of a terrible impatience. The surprise and +confusion of their peril made its expectation a raging fever, as if only +a horrible scarecrow in a mirror waited to be smashed. Despite the whole +week's frenzied pulse, despite the happenings of the last four hours, +Herrick could not believe in what lay before and all about them. These +were men he knew, with whom he had put through other adventures; the +girl beside him had never seemed so much a girl as in this failure of +her hardihood--he saw her for the first time with loosened hair that +touched her face with a childish softness, made for cherishing--it +tightened something in his heart as though to crack it, but it was +absurd to suppose that in half an hour, in ten or twenty minutes, they +would be there on the floor, unconscious of each other, ended, wiped +out! Christina lifted her arms in a gesture instinctive with all +womankind and gathering up this tumble of hair her dear, quick fingers +twined and thrust till it was heaped into its place--why, of course not! +This strange night camp amid broken furniture, the spreading pool of +oil, the jewels lying mixed with the supper's wreckage, Christina silent +again and holding his hand tight, the two wounded, haggard men, all +these his mind admitted, all these were conceivable. But what was soon +to come was not conceivable! Yet--hark! Was that--No, only some creak of +the old house! What sound would be the last before the deluge? How long +must they wait? Already the air seemed thick and hard to breathe, the +twilight of the room hung on them like a solid weight and the one candle +Christina had lighted made scarce a twinkle of sane, human comfort in +the vast yellowish gloom.-- + +"If you please, miss, put out that light!" + +"Oh!" + +"We can't afford to advertise!" + +The light was gone. + +In the pitch-black airlessness Herrick could feel Christina kneeling +against him, quiet but for the broken breathing that told him she was +still afraid of the dark. As he put his left arm round her shoulders she +pressed her cold cheek to his hand. + +"It's funny, isn't it? We never even had time to get an +engagement-ring!--Here they come!" + +A sound as of excited animals plunged through the groves about the +house; with tramplings and scufflings a great herd seemed to surge out +upon the vacant drive. As it confronted the empty automobile, the +tranquil terraces and the blank front of the locked house it paused, +uncertainly; then a high, prolonged whistle sounded, shorter whistles +responded from every stretch and nook of woodland and there fell again, +to the stupefaction of those within, a perfect silence. + +This continued unbroken, baffling, interminable, inscrutable, and solid +as the walls of a cell. Christina in her endeavor for control gave a +slight, nervous cough, no more than a rough catch of the breath, such +as Herrick had heard her give many a time when their taxi skimmed too +close to a trolley in the safe, crowded, far-off streets. And with this +familiar little sound apprehension awoke in him, full-armed. The +merciful veil was torn from his imagination, his soul gaped to the +knowledge of death and of direr things that precede death. On the +instant all he had ever known of struggle changed; chivalry, +civilization, restraint, vanished like things that never were; if, at +that moment, the bodies of a hundred other women as sweet, as +defenseless, as tender as his love's had stood in her way he could have +set his heel upon them all to save her. Then, close at hand, as if from +somewhere within the wall, came the imperative, prolonged tingle of a +telephone! + +They turned, dumbfounded, shaken with incredulous, mad hope. But whence +came it? Where was it? Christina stirred and slid to her feet; her dress +went whispering across the room; the men, not daring to leave their +posts, knew she must be feeling along the rear wall and still through +the darkness the telephone rang. Then she gave a low cry--a narrow door +in the glass paneling had slipped sideways so that she stretched her +hands into a kind of pantry; the instrument's shrill call was now +directly in her ears--"It's Nicola!" + +The three questioning whispers sprang at her at once. + +"He wants to speak to Mr. Ten Euyck." + +Blankness answered. The ringing became more impatient. + +"Take the message." + +But no message was to be had. Nicola's party was at the boathouse, in +great trouble, in danger--never mind what! He wanted to speak to Mr. Ten +Euyck. "He says, 'Get him to pass me his word to shelter us or what will +you give--what will you give for news of Nancy Cornish?'" + +"Tell him I, Kane, 'll buy his news." + +Christina dropped back against the wall. "When he has spoken to Mr. Ten +Euyck." + +Perhaps, in the helpless pause, the glassy face taking aim behind the +shutter smiled to itself in the dark. Before they had time to try if the +wire connected only with the boathouse, a single shot sprang from across +the drive. + +There was a sharp crack and splintering, a hot puff on Christina's +cheek, and the shattered telephone hung crazily on the wall. The +besieging force had misinterpreted what seemed the reinforcement of the +world and used its best marksman. Having done so it was content and +reassumed its patient crouching. "Rifles!" cried the sheriff. "And yet +they don't attack!" + +Kane peered through the broken slat and with a very grim expression drew +back for the others. "Look under the trees, there. Is it just dark? Or +is it dark with men?" + +"Looks like Birnam Wood!" said Herrick. + +It was that blackest hour before the morning when darkness takes on +weight and bulk so that the eye must carve a way through. But the +blazing dazzle of the entrance porch broke and distorted the besieging +dark, exaggerating, multiplying the forces that it held. Beyond the +brightness of the steps the stone and then the grassy terraces fell +indistinct and shallow to the lawns, beyond which, perhaps a hundred +feet away, the drive was rather known than discerned; twenty feet or so +farther still the wood lay shapeless and invisible but filled by the +monstrous darkness as close as with a great tide. There the most +straining eye could see nothing whatever; now and again the night came +alive with snapping twigs, every grove would wake and rustle; then not a +leaf would stir. But through all the intermediate borderland shadows +seemed to loom, to creep, dissolve and disappear; then to their more +accustomed eyes these shadows began to take on form--they were the +shadows of softly moving men, individuals and small groups, unknown +persons on unknown errands which carried them here and there but closer +and closer about the house. "Queer the boys upstairs don't spot them!" +One group passed so close to the end windows that Kane fired at it and +produced a commotion which he followed by another shot. There was no +response, but from all directions the fringe of figures drew nearer, a +crouching, irregular line behind its faggot-like shields of broken +boughs. The defenders spent their shots recklessly, now, for the same +thought was in all their minds; it seemed to take form from its own +apprehension when, as the invaders drew back their wounded, those within +became aware of something across the tree-tops, down toward the river; a +ruddier dusk, a glow that was not morning, far against the sky. + +Close at their backs Christina's voice murmured with an icy softness, +"The boathouse! It's afire!" Her tone told Herrick that the telephone +had stolen all her weakness, she was strung like a bow; side by side +with his her glance strained out and forward as the knots of men +continued to advance with velvet stealth. The fire of the defenders +ceased. Automatically, for they had nothing left to fire with. "What's +become of my fellows?" Sheriff Buckley wondered. The first foam of the +tide began to lap the terraces. Christina looked beyond it toward the +flames that flared on the horizon. And from that way Herrick, too, heard +a new sound, the thudding of a horse galloping clumsily on soft turf. +The shadows blotted themselves to the ground. The hoofbeats began to run +amuck as though the horse had lost its rider. Hither and yon round the +corners of the house shapeless movements hurried, there came the step of +a heavy runner and the cursing of a deep voice in some Italian patois. +The long, single whistle darted out again and once more there fell that +motionless waiting of the profoundly brooding night. It was Christina +who first said, "Some one else is in this room!" + +As they listened they, too, could hear the sound of crawling. Something +was creeping into the room. It was coming through the pantry door which +Christina had left open and it advanced with a dragging sound as a +wounded beast drags on its stomach. Kane, dropping on it, found his +hands in a man's hair. The man sank under him with a deathly groan and +now it was Kane who called for a candle. "Nicola!" Christina breathed. + +He was making horrible motions with his mouth; Christina found some +unspilled wine and thrust the edge of the glass between his lips. "Tell +me! Nancy--?" + +Kane held up his hand. Beyond, in the pantry, a step sounded--backing +from Nicola's trail. Herrick and the sheriff dragged in between them a +tall Sicilian whose triangular knife was still wet. The embroidered +table-cloth with which they bound him to the piano strained under his +renewed efforts to attack the dying man whom Christina still entreated, +"Is she with my sister? Is she?" + +A hoarse sob raged through Nicola and gasped past his last grin of pride +and hate. "You fool of hers! Fool of us all! _Your_ sister? _My_ sister, +mine! You think _you_ ever have a sister like that?" + +The girl stood above him, tranced and wide-eyed, with distended +nostrils; as she turned to Herrick a face which release and knowledge +were even then palely lighting the figure of a man darted into the +gallery where Herrick had lain; a slim, soft man whose pretty little +face was all flecked and sweated with the insane hate and courage which +come of insane fear. The Sicilian greeted what he took for reinforcement +with a cry of triumph and encouragement; but it was not Nicola, it was +Herrick at whom this tremulous assassin, yelling "Spy! Spy! Will you +show me again to the Camorra?" extended his revolver. At the same +moment, Nicola, turning on his side and aiming upward, shot him dead. +The slim, soft figure doubled over the rail and the refined, pretty, +convulsed face swung there with open mouth. At this Nicola spat the wine +which he had sucked as he lay: "Thus my sister salutes thee!" Then his +head knocked back upon the floor and he lay still. + +The tall Sicilian, who had watched the action without fully +understanding the quick English words, now strained forward, peering +with a kind of gratified thirst into Christina's face. He said to her in +Italian that was almost a whisper, "You are very fair!" + +"Do you think that is news to me?" asked the girl, with a kind of fury. +"But my fairness has done all it can! What's to do, now?" + +"You are fair. But you are the devil. You brought police to the river, +who will return with more. You have plunged this night in the blood of +your brothers. There was one who was like a little sister. Where is +she?" + +Christina started; half in appeal, half in defense against the omen of +his tones, she stretched out her hands. The Sicilian lowered his mouth +to the bosom of his shirt and brought forth in his teeth a little hoop +of silver which he shook before Christina's eyes. "Where is she now? Of +her tokens _she has lost the third_!" It was Nancy's bracelet that he +dropped at Christina's feet. + +"Devil of fine fairness," he said, "I shall pick it up again, when you +are lying low! When not one shot is left for our hurt we there, without, +will come quietly in! Then shall I bear this to my chief. I took it from +the hand of Beppo, who lay bleeding in the grass. Were Chigi and Pepe +caught in the fire? They reached her late, for they had rowed their boat +back, to escape those policemen on the river. Only when Alieni jumped +and swam they must follow him and tramp to the house for boats along the +shore. But they reached her! I was against it always--she was not of our +nation. Ah, she was pretty! Had you not let her know too much she need +not have been put to sleep!" + +Christina made no outcry. If his attack on herself bewildered her, her +imagination caught the significance of the Camorrist phrase. "Where," +asked she slowly, "does she sleep?" + +"In the dead ashes of the house of boats." His malignant sneer took in +the stricken, threatened group, as well as his own bondage. And turning +once more to Christina he smilingly informed her, "I seek in the house +for boats Nicola Pascoe. I hear him talking as at a telephone. They have +brought a lamp and in the window I see a pretty girl, young and not so +tall, with a face very sweet but sick and the hair falls curling and +red. She has in her hands a tiny bottle filled with a dark liquid. She +throws it from the window where it fills the air with laudanum smell. +And at that up runs to her Nicola--and she, away! They must have knocked +over the lamp, for next the house for boats is blazing high. And, as the +smoke comes in the window, there she runs again--just as I see the +woman's figure and in the fiery smoke one light of her red hair at that +out from the bushes a bullet springs. She clasps her hands over her +breast with a small cry and down she sinks. And Alieni flies out of the +bushes with Beppo and Chigi and Pepe at his back and he races into the +flaming house. It is after that down plunges Nicola, down and past us, +running here to this place, and I follow him, sure that past him I shall +come, too, upon his sister. Before we reach here, through the dark, +comes a horse with two men on its back--one is yelling 'I have killed +her! I have killed her!' and he passes. The other falls off. It is +Beppo, who dies at my feet, giving me the bracelet. He had it from +Pepe, the Parmesan, whom he saw meet with Alieni in the doorway of the +house for boats. By this time all, everywhere, is fighting and the house +for boats blows up in a puff and falls in upon itself in crumbling +fire." + +Christina had never taken her eyes from his face and in those eyes alone +there now seemed any life to hold her body upright. "It's not true!" +said she, gently and at length. "Life's not so silly!" But she stretched +out a blind hand to Herrick and leaned on him a little. + +"Ah!" mocked the Sicilian, "it made a beautiful grave! You will not have +so fine! But yours gapes for you now as well as for your lover, and for +your husband, who caused all the death! Do not pity the girl who died. +Exult not over Giuseppe Gumama. Read, instead, the writing in your +golden pistol--of Alieni--and the Signora Alieni--" He stopped with a +gratified gasp. The handle of the door into the hall had been softly +turned from the outside. + +No one moved. In a strange voice the sheriff called to know if this were +one of his men. There was no answer. "Where are they? Why don't they--" + +Gumama the Sicilian laughed aloud. "The long cellar-way, where by night +we carried out to the river our broken press--It has let us in--so +quietly--Many went upstairs--" + +Herrick translated. With one impulse the three men turned toward the +slide in the paneling. It was closed. But their intent listening made +sure of more than one soft touch, straying in search of the mechanism. +Of crowding whispers they could not be so sure. Herrick reached for +Nicola's gun. But it had only one charge and then, indeed, though +without turning her head, Christina closed her hand on his and took it +from him. "That's mine, you know!" No man gainsaid her and she put it in +her breast. Undisguised, unhurried footsteps sounded overhead. An alien +presence pervaded all that house. Caged in their shelter, they drew +together, close under the balcony. Christina suffered herself to be +drawn with them, but she was considering aloud the Sicilian's words. + +"My golden pistol!" Christina looked from the little femininely jeweled +dummy to the script, "'Filippi Alieni and all his house'--And all his +house! 'The death of traitors'--My husband, you say? The Signora +Alieni--A. A. A. Alieni, of course! But--Allegra?--Allegra?--Alieni?" + +"Signora Alieni!" Gumama smilingly repeated. + +The girl gave him one glance, sprang past him and flung herself against +the shuttered windows. "Whom do you mean by traitors?" she called. "For +whom do you take us? Answer! Answer!" + +At the sound of her voice a deep-bayed, many-throated yell roared out +derision and victory. As the men dragged Christina back a coarse laugh +mocked loudly from across the road. "Signora Alieni, we rejoice at the +last to salute you!" And the whole woodland took up his phrase in +chorus, "Buona sera, Signora Alieni!" + +Then, uncontrollably, at length the darkness volleyed, the earth was +rived with sound and fire, the flashes of it scorching their skin while +glass, plaster, woodwork, split and spattered round them as through the +windows the hail beat. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I MADE MY BATTLE STAY!" + + +Christina's stream of Italian left Herrick so far behind that he could +only watch the incredulity of Gumama's face turn to doubt and then to +reflection. The word "American" was often repeated, and then came +Gumama's slower answer, puzzling out the question--But was not the +Signora Alieni herself much American? Did not she to-night meet here in +this house her brother Nicola? And was she not to run away at sunrise +with--and he pointed to Herrick--an American? And how well was it not +known that the Signora Alieni was bella, bella donna?--"Bella--bella!" +with mounting fervor he violently repeated. + +"But you, yourself? You never saw her?" + +"The Signora Alieni goes always veiled." + +"Are there none--out there--who know her?" + +"Old friends ten years ago in Naples. And the laborers of Nicola." + +"When they come, they will know at once she is not here," said +Christina, with an odd, proud calm. "Ah, please, let me see what they +are about!" And she persistently advanced to a window and peered between +the slats of a blind. + +Blackness was lifting from the earth. That clear gray light, clearer and +grimmer than ever they had seen it, of the slowly rising dawn had begun +to fill the open spaces. Under the trees it was still a dusk of living +shadows, and, from within the house, the half-muffled, surrounding +pressure strained closer still against the walls. Christina faced +round, uttered a piercing shriek and pointed toward the panel. To this, +the men who watched her turned. And on the instant, the shutters +clicking as she flung them open, the girl flashed through and ran +straight into the dawn on the white terrace. "You who know Allegra +Alieni, am I she? Am I she?" + +A wail of amazement and denial greeted her. The men within, the men +without, came to a standstill.--"If you ever loved me," said Christina +to Herrick, "keep back from me, now!" He replied only by swinging +forward Gumama, who thereupon stood in the sight of his friends with the +mute argument of a revolver at his head. Not a voice replied. But not a +shot was fired. + +In the pause produced by the concerned and puzzled hesitation of the +besiegers, Christina gathered up her voice. She was used to send it far, +to hush and rouse with it, to pierce and move at will, and neither +misery nor fatigue seemed now to have weakened its flexible and winning +melody. "Sirs," cried the girl, "I ask you the one thing. Are you not +here as the executioners of the great Camorra? Do you, then, wish to +disobey?" + +She had centered upon herself a bewildered stare. + +"And do you not disobey if you blunder? Do you wish to bring all the new +world about your ears for the wrong thing? Believe me, we four, we are +strong persons in that world--we do not fall unavenged! If we are to die +here, now, and the great society of the Camorra is to wreck itself upon +our death, let it not be in a mistake!--Ah, you see! Believe me! We are +not false brethren of yours, we are Americans, every one! But in a way +you and I are brethren, for I, like you, have seen my heart's good faith +betrayed--and by the same hand!" + +A startled murmur rose. + +"I, too, was brought to come here by the ruin of my life through +Allegra Alieni! Of her husband I never knew. Only hold back the force +that masses at our door and here is a plan. We are here four--three men +and a woman. Send us four men--mask them, if you will--and let them look +at us close and well; they will see that we cannot be those whom you +seek. But we have with us the body of Nicola whom this one here, calling +himself Giuseppe Gumama, slew, and who was brother to the Alienis. Let +your men take this Nicola from our house, for we, no more than you, have +any use for traitors!" + +These words produced an extraordinary effect. A murmur of admiration, of +fellowship, exclamations, argument, a sort of congratulation traversed +the green spaces through the still strengthening dawn. Christina, as +always, had found her audience. + +"Oh, sirs," cried the girl, in a softer cadence, advancing to the very +edge of the terrace, and still eagerly baring her face to the pale +light, "you seek our lives and I am so weary I am almost glad to die. +But die or live, oh, now, for the dear love of God, let me go down to +the river! Let me see who is still alive there! Send whom you will with +me, but let me go!" And Christina stretched out her arms to the men of +the Camorra as to the brothers of her soul and for the moment they were +all more than her brothers in their inflammable hearts. + +But even a little noise could still distract them. And this time it was +the noise of the unhinged shutter as it slid, bumping, for a second and +then fell with a crash upon the terrace. In the half-light Ten Euyck's +hand, holding a pistol, was visible at the window and above it the white +leer of his face. Voices cried, "A fourth man! A man of whom she did not +tell!" + +A prisoner from the yellow farmhouse called out in an insufferable, +fawning yelp, "I know him! He used to visit the signora! He is the +confidant of the signora and of her brother!" + +A roar rose and drowned out Christina's voice. "That man--how comes he +there! The friends of Allegra Alieni are her friends!" + +The crowd did not advance for the ring of Herrick's gun was still +pressed against Mr. Gumama's beautiful brow. But some shrill voice rose, +a-quiver with exhorting hate. "The hour is come! For what have we +waited? Till they had not a shot left! They have none now! If they had +they would have shot Gumama when he came in! They do not shoot him, +now--they have nothing to shoot! Give the signal! They hid the friend of +Allegra Alieni behind the window--how shall they tell us her friends are +not their friends? How shall they tell us they can injure our Gumama? +Close in! Close in!" + +The tide of the Camorra washed forward, and surged up the first terrace. +But it came to a halt. + +"How?" Christina had cried. And then, extending the revolver that +carried the last shot, she had fired straight into the dead face of Ten +Euyck. + +The jar shattered that perilous equilibrium. The corpse fell in upon +itself, its weapon dropping with a clank, the tongue suddenly protruding +beneath the shattered cheekbones and the head goggling on the breast. +The note of one still unaffrighted bird came through the perfect +stillness. + +The invading army shivered, shocked and applausive; then, +apprehensively, it glanced at Gumama. It drew together in consulting +knots. Some men, coming from round the house, joined the counsel and +created a sensation. A puzzled but now rather friendly voice shouted, +"Some one lies! Alieni was seen to enter where you are!" + +They all looked at Christina. But the wire had snapped at last. She +stood with a scared vagueness on her white face, the pistol swinging +loose in her hand and her eyes fixed on the hunched clutter of what had +been Ten Euyck. Herrick made out to translate the message and Kane said, +"Ask 'em if they'll send up that investigating committee?" + +Christina's shot had made, however, too great an impression. If they had +ammunition to spare, they were no hosts for the Camorra. Would the +Americans come out, each one, upon the second terrace?--bringing, also, +the dead and wounded, till Gumama shall tell us there are no more? + +"When the devil drives--! Say we'll begin with the dead!" + +They began with Ten Euyck. Sheriff Buckley took the head, Kane the feet; +the long, bony figure sagged between them and the tails of its +dress-coat flopped as if pointing jocularly toward the ground. As they +bore this burden down the terraces and laid it on the smooth greenness +of the lawn, amid the ever brightening daylight and the ever growing +chirp and twitter of the slowly calming birds, various disheveled +figures began to hurry into view along the drive from the river. These +arrivals had all the air of refugees and continued to excite, in +counsel, an increasing perturbation. Yet the truce remained unbroken. So +long as Kane and Buckley, exposed, defenseless, to the first marksman, +carried forth Nicola no word nor movement was given in enmity. But the +delay in reaching the figure in the gallery produced great restiveness. +Taunts and outcries of nervous impatience gave way, when the two men +appeared with their slighter burden, to a chorus of half-derisive +welcome. The Camorra had begun to be in a hurry. + +Its nervousness communicated itself to the men who bore this third body +down the great stone steps and laid it at Ten Euyck's right hand. A +thick sweat stood out upon them when a sharp storm of curses, geysers +and downpours of venom broke suddenly from heavens and earth. But the +tempest was not for them. The face of their last burden had become +visible to the advance guard stationed among the foremost trees and this +now leaned violently forth, tossing like branches with the shriek, +"Alieni! Traditore! Alieni!" + +Upon that the shadow of the woodland broke at last. A dozen men, their +hats screened low to shield their faces, detached themselves from the +mass which crouched greedily after them and, racing out upon the lawn, +threw themselves prostrate on the soft, supine thing that lay there. +Behind them the tide became ungovernable; rose, swelled forward; covered +the road, the lowest terrace; raving, shrieking, leaping and falling; +biting the grass upon which it rolled in frenzy. There were perhaps two +minutes of pandemonium. Then a whistle sounded. Then another. The tide +rolled back; the groves of oak and pine and maple swallowed it into +their shadow; and of that orgy of living hate no trace remained in the +full clearness of the fresh morning but the trampled, mangled body of +Filippi Alieni, pierced with fifty-eight wounds and still bearing +between the shoulder blades a triangular knife. The will of the Camorra +was satisfied. + +A chorus of whistles sounded from the wood. Then arose a single voice, +demanding Gumama. His captors realized that the war was over; the +prisoner was released. Despite the hurrying bird-calls of his mates he +paused, thoughtfully knitting his Saracen brows, for a look at +Christina. + +The girl was standing perfectly still, with her eyes intent upon Ten +Euyck's empty chair, as if she had not observed his removal; her gaze +was fixed, but her lower lip strained and quivered. As Gumama paused the +pistol slid from her hand; the noise of its dropping at her feet +attracted her eyes; she shivered violently; broke into trembling mirth +and sank, till her soft cheek and the convulsive throbbing of her young +body lay pressed upon the stone. Herrick and Gumama both sprang to her. +Herrick lifted her head upon his knee, but she lay limp and shook from +head to foot with sobbing laughter. + +Gumama shrugged and stood back. "Is it," he asked, "the silver +bracelet?" Then they all saw that the bracelet snatched from Nancy was +on Christina's wrist. + +Herrick nodded; his soul was sick with that horror. There was no +triumph, now, in victory. + +"Tell her," said the tall Sicilian, "when she avenges her friend to +think of me. I will come. Always. She is the pearl of everything. All +would not see it. But I have the piercing eye. I see." + +He ran off swiftly; and the sort of uproarious twitter which welcomed +him under the trees ended in a final message. "Farewell, Americans. You +do us the courtesy of our beloved Gumama! We do you our courtesy--Flee! +Whoever you are, the policemen are upon you! They are coming from the +gate, they are coming from the river! In ten minutes they will be here! +Americans, farewell!" + +It was the last word of the Camorra in their lives. The undergrowth of +the wood seemed to grow scantier; it was the backward fading of the +shadows, it was the passing of a great, black bulk; the disappearance of +innumerable unknown persons whom they had never even seen, of whose +existence they had never even known, out of their path. Nothing remained +but the signaling whistles of the Camorra, gathering its children in its +retreat. The thing was over. The last consequence of the Ingham murder, +of the birth of the Hopes' first child twenty-eight years ago in Naples, +was over and done. And the three men regarded each other with a strange +feeling of vacancy. + +But in the mouths of Kane and the sheriff the morning air was good and +life ran sweet in their veins. Even to Herrick, with the exhausted girl +laughing and shuddering in his arms, there seemed to rise a kind of +future hope when forgetfulness should deal tenderly with her. Soon she +must begin to weep and the other side of weeping a kind of consolation +lies. "Why, her own youth and life must heal her!" Kane said. "It's +hard, it's bitter hard! But there's her feeling for you, her future, her +work--Don't look at her as if she were dying! Time, my boy, she needs +time, that's all!--As for Nancy Cornish, she fell with one shot. And +since she was so much in love with that poor fellow, believe me, she's +better off!" + +Herrick looked up in alarm, lest Christina should hear bad news. But she +was lost in the hot surge of tears that had come to her at last and lay +only quieter and quieter in his hold. Till at length, since there was a +time coming when she must know if Fate had played her doubly false, he +fetched a coat to put under her head and drew Kane aside. "You meant +just now--?" + +"I meant what I've had on my mind through all this night, as something +with which I didn't know how to face Miss Hope. I meant that this chap +Denny was never a very lucky fellow--" + +"_Was?_" + +"But that never was anything unluckier than his consenting to leave the +Tombs." + +"Because they followed and brought him back?" + +"They followed. But they didn't bring him back!--I forgot you wouldn't +know. The Italians somehow palmed off on Ten Euyck's men another Italian +made up with the things in which they took Denny from the Tombs. It's +easy enough to understand now why Ten Euyck, with discreet mercy, called +this substitute simply a mistake and let him go." He paused, studying +the driveway with clouded eyes. "The Italians must have got clear away +with Denny, but why did they take so much pains? Were they really going +to hand over to Allegra a man whom they certainly considered in some +way their enemy, when already they must have begun to turn against her? +What were they going to do with him? What _did_ they try to do with him +when he was first imprisoned in the Tombs? Don't groan, my boy! It's the +one way out. It's the most merciful thing for that poor girl, there; +it's the most merciful thing for Denny himself. Hope for it! If his +captors didn't get away, if he's been retaken with them, then marry +Christina Hope as fast as may be and get her out of this country for +awhile. You understand?" Herrick looked up. "I intend, with all my +strength, to keep my bargain. I'll go to the Governor to-morrow. But he +let me know, as I was starting here, that it would be useless." + +"After his promise?" + +"Since that promise Denny broke jail. There are minds to which such a +move is always the unpardonable sin! Against it the mere justifying +provocation in any story Allegra Alieni may tell could make no appeal. +Besides, it's told by a woman who was in love with him, and who, by this +time, is either dead or run away. So must be every witness to it. Even +as evidence against the blackmailers, if there are any left, Miss Hope +can't force the state to sell her his life for this, now. Well, some +day, perhaps, you can make her see that whatever happens, police or +Camorra, he managed to get his way, poor chap! If she weren't fooled by +life's being hope she would see, well enough, that he was the last man +to thank her for a light sentence. He was keen against jail, you +remember?" + +They were both silent. Yes, Herrick remembered. "The best friend +Christina ever had" she would surely some day see could not have +lingered in the black durance that he loathed.--Rest, rest, perturbed +spirit! + +It was the hour for resolution, for new birth. Herrick felt a strength +of pity in his breast whose tide should lift Christina from the +whirlpools of which the lessening eddies still plucked at her sick soul. +Poor girl, poor, brave, spoiled, wilful, imperious, generous heart! To +have fought so hard and to be checked thus at the end! To have +outwatched, outstalked, outrun the hounds for this! "Thus far shalt thou +go...." Hers had been a heroic presumption, but it had been presumption +all the same. You cannot outface consequences nor outdare natural +tragedy; no, not even you, Christina Hope! After all, could she have +expected to clear out from a morass like this without a loss? Ah, for +her defeat he suffered, but for her safety he thanked God! Rest, time, +the irrevocable--these in the end would place the past under her feet. +Was it because she read the tender vowing of his thought that she had a +little ceased to weep? + +For she lifted her exhausted face, where the wild, wet eyes still seemed +to listen, just as Herrick remembered their continual guard six weeks +ago. She was listening to those chorusing signals, still whistled from +far stations nearer road and river and returned in such imitation of +bird voices that bird after bird replied. They were growing +fainter--they were retreating on every hand--all but one, which seemed +to advance and to give forth a more familiar note. And suddenly +Christina answered it. + +Herrick caught her closer, in a new terror of delirium. The girl rose to +her knees and put him back. "But we've wandered many a weary foot--" +From among the fleeing whistles of the wood one had certainly warned or +questioned in articulate notes with which hers joined in a familiar +bar--"Since auld lang syne, my dear--" Through the colorless day a +strong yellow light had begun to flood the earth; the clouds were carved +out sharp in it, the woods stood black; the light had a blush of happy +fire and the air sparkled. In that cool radiance, in that bright hour, +out from among the very waves of the Camorra's receding sea, a single +figure stepped from the border of the wood and came straight up the +terraces. + +Not so tall as Mr. Gumama but still vaguely Sicilian in cut, the +messenger or fugitive or whatever he might be advanced under the gaze of +those who grew terribly pale and could not speak; Christina peering +forward, shaking from head to foot, her clenched hands hanging at her +side and her lips caught between the knocking of her teeth. The echoing, +ominous whistles, the noises of rescue approaching from two sides, the +hails of the police, the sound of wheels, tires, horses' hoofs and +running feet did not deter the single figure which, mounting with a kind +of steady stumble, like one far spent, blind, now, to the danger of +sudden bullets, indifferent to arrest or punishment or anything in +heaven or earth but his own ends, gained at length the foot of the stone +steps and lifted his face. At the same instant the risen sun glinted on +the swinging gold of sailors' earrings, on the bracelet slipped out +below a ragged cuff, on the red cord of a scapular and on the scarf in +the Sicilian colors that had helped to play their part in the Duel by +Wine in the loft above the garage. The wearer was damp from the river +and stained with earth, yet smelling of singed cloth and grimed with +smoke; torn, wounded, blackened, haggard, with bright, steady eyes. It +was Will Denny. He carried the unconscious but still breathing figure of +Nancy Cornish in his arms. + + + * * * * * + +The first thing she woke to was Allegra's letter and Kane's question, +"Do you know what this document contains? Can you witness its truth?" + +And then answered Nancy Cornish, "Of course I can! I saw her come out in +Christina's cloak. They kept me waiting in the motor outside while she +shot Mr. Ingham." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT + + +The whole of Allegra's document was never made public. Before it was +read even by those concerned they heard from Nancy how, when she had run +from the window of the boathouse, it was Allegra who had reappeared +there, she whose red hair Gumama had glimpsed through the smoke and she +whom Alieni had found courage to shoot. Afterwards they got from Denny +the story of his venture: how he had guessed that, on leaving the Tombs, +he would, in his own person, be kept a prisoner by his Italian hosts +till he was got out of the country; and how he had therefore persuaded +Filippi Alieni to change places with him--Filippi to be carried to +Allegra and he to receive at the meeting of the Camorra a message that +would take him to Nicola, to the hiding of the Arm of Justice and to +Nancy Cornish. What must forever sicken Denny to think of was that hour +in the boathouse when Nancy might have yielded and taken the laudanum +that Mrs. Pascoe had finally secured, before he could get to her. +Nancy's eyes were upon him, regarding him fixedly and strangely. With +the vividness of his remembrance he broke off to question her. "How, at +such a time, among such dangers, did you dare to throw it away?" + +"Why, I had to! No matter what! I had to live till the last minute. The +letter was gone. I was your life. I was the only one who knew!" + +He dropped his face into her lap with a strange laugh. By and by, they +turned to the story of Allegra. + +That great donkey of a Ten Euyck wishes me to write this. He says it is +for his protection, but I know well enough what it is for. It is a net +to catch a peacock--to whom he is welcome. He will never bray about +me--this is two-edged; it would avenge me. It is a pity none will ever +read it, for it is a good story and I should like every one to know +about me. Then, too, sometimes, I almost think that when I am far away +and sheltered with my friends, I will send word of it to high places for +_his_ sake. For I shall be always in torment if they kill him. That is, +if by then there shall be no Nancy Cornish. To send him, free, to the +arms of another woman--no, that would be a little too much! + +I am a remarkable girl. It has taken to crush me the same as to crush +Napoleon--bad luck. My bad luck began when I was born, with the two +colors of my eyes. Thus a mark was put upon me, keeping me always in +holes and corners unless I would be known, and making most men, who love +me by nature, growing in time to weary of my face. If it had not been +for the blue eye and the brown, my mother would never have noticed, +among the children in the park, the American baby with the fair down +upon its head who, when she came to look at it, was made with a shaped +face like mine, and who also had a brown eye and a blue. She would never +have made friends with the nurse and learned how the child was named +Allegra Hope, and how the rich Americans had been married but four +months before it was born, and were to wait in Italy till it could be +brought home a year younger than it was. This the nurse had picked up, +not being supposed to speak much English. And then came the telegram to +come home, somebody was dying. And at the same time the nurse was sick, +and there was no one with whom to leave the child. And then the nurse +brings forth her friend who has always showed so fond of the child, and +there is rejoicing because she is American, and the English doctor says +she is healthy and the child is left with her. It is treated well; it +grows; it grows more and more like me, who am but one year the older, so +that all laugh to see us, and I am more like that other mother than my +own, showing in what class it would have been just I should be born. And +the old creature in America does not die, but hangs and hangs, and money +is always sent for the baby, and by and by when it is three years old it +catches the fever and it dies. And the English doctor is to write to the +parents, but he does not write--he does an injury to one of the great +clan of the Camorra and he writes no more. And I grow every day more +beautiful, more strong, more strange to have sprung out of the mud, and +the money keeps coming and coming; but that the dead one was fair in the +head, and I am red like the sun, there is no great difference from what +she might have been, and that she is dead and buried and the money spent +and spent on me, is never told. But they there in America, thinking to +be gone but a month at most, never said there was a daughter, so they +know not how, now, one is to be produced. + +So that when I am seven years old, comes the Hope man; he looks upon the +child with the blue eye and the brown, and sighs his great breath on my +hair, and takes me to the English school. But I come every summer to my +own people, so that I have all that is best of both kinds, and grow to +be so beautiful and have such fascination, that when there comes +sometimes a Hope father or Hope mother to take me on a trip and be sorry +for me, I laugh at their backs! The mother I do not like, and she does +not like me. She is a fool, and she has, too, another child. It is a +girl and it is said to be pretty; but the picture she carries with her +resembles a pale, shapeless child with dull hair,--not like mine that +burns men's hearts like fire! Moreover this child has things that I +should have, more money, more fuss, she is more shown. I am proud to be +what I am; my mother, who is scarcely more than a common servant, had +the great luck to marry into the Camorra, and my brother Nicola at +eighteen takes the oath, so I am not come alone from dull peasants and +these cackling Yankees, but from free men, born to judge, born to +strike, born to live wild and to satisfy their blood. But all the same, +as to this brat, Christina, I am the elder sister and I should have all, +_all_! I make up my mind to be even with her and to spoil what things +she has. I hear how she is strange, and is a lonely child, and plays she +has a sister to talk to, a little girl who lives in the looking-glass; +and how it is a game of hers that when she is in a gown of pink the +sister is in blue, and when they buy her a doll there is another for the +sister, and a place set at the dolls' teas, and Christina talks for the +two. Then I know she is a fool, like her mother. + +When I am fifteen, and of the right age for passion and to break men's +hearts, my bad luck comes and breaks my own. It could not leave me with +the poor to be like the poor, it raised me up so that my nose sniffed at +sight of them, and then it brought me together with Alonzo Pasquale, the +son of a millionaire. He was mad for me, and well he might be, and I +liked him so well, being young and fanciful, that I gave him +encouragement. I ran away from school with him and we would have been +happy forever, he having so much to give me, but that he grew weary of +my blue eye and my brown. He told me so, for he was a dog and a devil, +and I took little Filippi Alieni, and married him! It was wise. It was +as well to be married, and he was a gentleman, with money. All was done +as a wise girl should do, and yet see how my luck pursued me! + +His people cast him off, on my account, their own daughters being ugly; +and Nicola, who has been the best of brothers to me, Nicola got him +into the Camorra, where his gentlemanly manners would make him able to +get, first, confidence, and then money, from the best. + +Yet when I had been but three months married and was not yet sixteen, he +gets himself caught. And in prison he tells, he betrays his comrades, so +that he is released, and for this Nicola does not kill him. No, he keeps +the secret of that disgrace, and ships us to America, where I am to +introduce my husband to the Hopes. All so well planned, and yet such +luck! + +One of those to whom he had confessed loses his place, and then, by +blackmail, that he will give my husband's treachery to the Camorra, he +gets from him all the money that he now has. So that I have to lose him +quickly; to take the little, ah, so little! there is left, and slip +away! I do not wish a Camorra knife in my back! + +I am afraid to go to the Hopes, for there he will follow me, and he is a +snivelling, watering thing to make a fuss and spoil all. So I ask for +work to teach Italian, and I live for a little while as if I were quite +commonplace. And so I meet with the great Jim. + +Hail and farewell, my poor Jim! You were only twenty-three and you cared +too much! You did so many things for me, you thought such things about +me, and were of such a considerate politeness and care, it made me +laugh! But you were a beautiful lover, and I would have loved you, if I +could! I would have been glad to marry you, as you made me so weary +begging of me. I was very happy with you; you gave more to me and I +think you loved me better than any one. But you were very silly to +believe me, and silly to leave me when you found me out! That little +whimpering puppy came; and, since you left me, and he had a good hint +from Nicola how to get money from an Italian family here, what was I to +do? We did very well, for a while, besides the money the Hopes sent +me--I told them I came here to escape impertinence and was teaching +Italian--and then they lost their money and I wrote to them no more. + +But Mrs. Hope, because of her sick conscience, was always trying, in sly +ways, to find where I was. And it seems when her brat was come to +fourteen years old it chanced upon my last letter and learned all. +Heavens, what a row it raised! And how I was written to and written to; +and some letters being forwarded me that they had tried sending me to +Italy, were all about how she cried for me, and pitied and loved me and +rejoiced, and said, again and again: "Oh, mother, I have a sister! I +have a sister!" "Bene!" I thought, "she sounds like a tiresome little +minx; but at least it is a thing to know!" + +So that by and by--when Filippi is clumsy again and goes to jail for +four years, and they dare to put me there for two--when I come out I go +to my sentimental miss, who is now more than sixteen and makes already a +little money. Not a dollar has she made since but I have had the half of +it. She has no frugality; she is all luxuries and caprices and always in +debt; and for a while it seemed as if really she would be scarcely of +any use at all. But it is strange how pale she is, and yet attracts and +shoots onward! Since then I have found a letter about those two years +when I was silent. She wrote it to Will Denny, who thought she did too +much for me. Like this: + + "As I grew up and understood, and saw what little girls can come to + in a world like this, I thought here was I and where was she?--My + elder sister, born in wedlock, born of my father and my mother, + grown up among peasants, among hardships, and if she had come to + harm, lost, thrown away, forsaken and denied--for what? For any + fault of hers? For a convention, a cowardice, done in obedience to + the chatter of fools and in order to stand well with those that + have no hearts! What can I think of my poor mother but that her + weakness forsook and denied her child to please the world? What can + I think of any shame or sorrow that touches Allegra but that this + is what the world and her own family have made of her? Oh, Will, it + came to be my madness to find her and to ask her forgiveness for + being in her place. All that I am and have and ever shall be I + stole from her, and only give her back again to repay what can + never in this world be repaid!" + +You see, she was a crazy girl from the beginning. As soon as ever I see +her I know the thing to tell her is that I have been in prison for +stealing--I do not tell her I am innocent; I tell her I was starving! It +was funny to see her--I was like a saint to her! I think of all I can +that is piteous and wild and of a great pride, broken, like a sick +eagle! I tell her about Ingham, but all wrong and round the other way, +and how he cannot marry me because I am without money or place, and +leaves me, when I am eighteen, without a dollar and without a name. And +how when that had come to a young girl I could not write. All, all +because society had kept me from my place in life and, having turned me +out, had locked me into jail because I could not starve. + +Eh me, you should have seen her! She used herself like a maid to me, and +a mother and a little lover, all in one. And I might have done very well +with her, and the world would have been all for me to walk,--or this +little running colt, she would have known the reason!--but for my bad +luck. Nicola who would do better in this country with education wishes +me to work with him. And how can I guess the growing brat will grow so +far and high? So I am glad enough to make a little butter to my bread. +Try living once, three women, the Hope woman and Christina and me, off +the salary of a girl younger than eighteen and you will see. But who +would think that all the while this monkey girl was looking in the glass +of my grace, to steal and steal and steal from me? And would steal once +too often, for the moving-picture show, and gets herself into a corner! +That was, indeed, the justice of the gods. + +All this time I have made Christina keep me secret. I have still the +brown and the blue eye, to be noticed everywhere, and I do not want +Filippi on my hands, nor yet Jim Ingham. And for all she begs me to know +this Denny, whom she persists to tell about me, I think he has a look +that is not simple--the look of a man who has been about, and may guess +too much--and so I will not--I am too sensitive and proud, and cannot +face a person in the world except my little sister, whom I love so much +and who is all I have! Except, I want the poor, devoted, kind, good folk +who brought me up! So when she is eighteen she begins to buy for me this +farm and here she welcomes my mother and Nicola. Nicola has found out +friends of ours and kinsfolk who have long run, among people of our +nation in New York, a business called the Arm of Justice, and we work +for that; I having the best ideas, but, alas, ever doomed to hide. And +on the farm we live in innocence and peace, and conduct our business +excellently, out of the way of those from whom we make a little money, +and here comes at last the sick puppy, Filippi, not to be kept off, who +can but sit quiet and lick his paws in the background, that Christina +shall not know of him. + +And then, it is the first year of Ten Euyck being coroner, and a man who +has been paying us, unfortunately, dies, and Ten Euyck, nosing, nosing, +he comes upon our trail. And he sees how we have had nothing to do with +the death, only the man had no more to pay and so he killed himself. And +Ten Euyck sends for me, and tells me he is sorry for me and he will not +inform against me. He tells me of a young girl he knows in the highest +of society, for whom a friend of his had so great a fancy he was ready +to marry her, and I knew he was that friend. And the girl dare not but +lead him on, but all the time she prefers some one else and is in +trouble; and he tells me all he has found out and he says, "I would not +tell this to you, if I did not think you grateful to me and too discreet +to use it otherwise than as I wish, when you know liberty is in my +hand!" So I know what I am to do, and the girl goes mad. And he pays me +by and by, but not enough. But what can I do? + +We are going mad, too, for money, for our bad luck is always there! That +man who made Filippi pay has found us out, and exacts of us more and +more. We are in terror of the law from Ten Euyck, who has let none see +him but me, and not one strand to hold him by, and of the Camorra from +this brute. We work hard, we run great danger, and we remain poor, so +that if we lose Christina we have nothing but what we must make and pay +away--and Christina engages herself to Ingham! Was it not enough to +break the heart! What use is it to work, to struggle, to be beautiful, +and to have nothing? And here is this silly girl, not worth my little +finger, who has all! + +Three times more I work for Ten Euyck, and that man Kane gets after us. +It is all the fault of Ten Euyck, who has made us conspicuous, and he +knows Kane thinks there is something strange, and he loses his nerve. He +comes always to the farm like a caller, when I have sent all away but +me, for he will put nothing in writing, and he drives his own machine. +And one day he is raging against Ingham and Christina, and what he would +give to know against them, any more than Ingham's dissipation, and I +think "Maybe I can make something out of this!" + +By and by I rejoice to hear that there is trouble with Jim Ingham. He is +not the boy I found him. He has let himself go wild so long he cannot +tame himself, all at once, and then he is exacting, like a fiend, and +jealous and suspicious, not believing in himself, nor anything, nor +anybody; and I laugh to myself, if she should know why! For were there +nothing else at all, it would annoy me that chit should marry him! But I +am pleased, and in that moment I let her bring out to me her Will Denny +and her Nancy Cornish. And so I spoil my life and break my heart, and do +not know myself with love. + +I have come to be twenty-eight years old and nothing has counted. Then I +meet him, and nothing else can count. I say to myself that I will have +him, and I know it is not possible but I shall get him. But still he is +all eyes and ears for a rag of a girl, who is so sick with love she +knows not even how to charm. She knows nothing at all but to love him; +and to love him nicely--so that she would not make him unhappy, even to +hold him forever! It makes me ill to look at her, and still I cannot get +him to look at me. But I can make him seem to look at me. I can make him +ever with me, and amused by me, and of a manner a little sweet and +tender to me--the poor sister of Christina, whom he can see to be dying +on her feet for love of him. And the little rag of a girl sees how +beautiful I am and full of life and far above her every way and fit for +him, and knows no better than to grow pale and to keep out of the way, +and to be silent and cold with him. And he begins to be hurt and not to +follow her so hard, and then she finds me crying, crying. And at first I +will not tell, but then I say how I must go away, because I love him. By +and by I say that I would not have to go but I am afraid if I stay I +will steal him from her. And at last, very reluctant, I show her a +letter--for Nicola, who has done something in that line, too, was ever a +good brother to me and taught and helped me well, so that it was in +Will's hand. It said how he would never forsake Nancy, who loved him, +for she could not live without him, but I was brave and strong and he +must be so, too. It said how we were each other's mates, he and I, but +met too late, and his heart would be mine forever, but he could never +forsake nor pain his poor Nancy. Crack, she broke her engagement, the +little fool! Who never had scarcely been able to understand how he +should love her, as no more could I--and she shuts herself away from +him, and will not answer and will tell him nothing! Only, she's changed +her mind. And he says to Christina, "I am too old for her, and not so +gay!" And I see him tear up the photographs she has sent back, and sneer +at them, and say how God knows she could never have taken him for a +beauty! And oh, I am so kind to him! I am so gentle and so sad, and I +get new clothes and dress my hair, and always he can see me die of love. +And so there comes a day when he asks me if I would be afraid to take +the pieces of our lives and see what we could make of them together.--Ah +me! and to think it all had to be kept secret because I was still so +proud and sad! For bethink you, there was Filippi! + +I think at last what a fool I am not to have divorced Filippi long ago! +Here I am, betrothed to marry and it is all to do yet! Long ago, had I +not been so soft-hearted, or had I thought of it, I might have been rid +of fearing the spy who threatens him with the Camorra, in being rid of +him. I wonder how much Filippi will take to set me free, and he makes a +horrible fuss and will take nothing at all! But his spy is begun all +fresh, killing him by inches with demands for five thousand dollars. And +he asks also five thousand, now, not to report Nicola who has remained +silent and a friend to us! It is all like a mad spider's web which but +entangles more and more. And I think I will get that ten thousand from +Ingham because I do not publish the story I have told Christina. Or else +from Ten Euyck, because I do. + +I send the Arm of Justice letter to Ingham's office that it may be +forwarded to Europe. And then I hear from Christina that she cares for +him no longer and has written him, and already he is coming back to +argue with her. Oh, my luck, my bad luck! If he has lost her already, he +will fight my lies! He will get my letter, too; he will connect that +with her broken promise, he will ask her if she knows a girl with a +brown eye and a blue, and what may he not guess and put into her head +about my business? I am in despair, I have a fit of crazy rage, and I +think, too, I will get ahead of him, so she will not listen to him. I +say to her, "That man who ruined my life years ago, that was James +Ingham!" I say to her, "I could not let it go on, dear sister. But don't +let him know where I am." He comes straight to her, before he has my +letter, and all she says to him is, "You have never known all these +years that I had a sister." And then she tells him her sister's name, +and he goes away. + +But Nicola ever hopes that perhaps he will pay and at four o'clock +watches his window for my ribbon. Then he sees go in Nancy Cornish, and +he thinks that very queer and comes to tell me, who am round the corner +in the car. We watch and see her come out, and turn east, and we follow +her, and I see her going into the Park; a thing to drive me wild, for I +know well she used to meet Will Denny in the Park. She came much, much +too soon this time, but did not care. Till she saw me. + +If she had not come so soon, if she had kept her mouth shut, how +different all would be to-day! No! Out she came with it--Filippi has +told her! He has told her we are married! She has telephoned to my +betrothed, she is to tell him here! Filippi has done worse. He has said +to her, "This I would not tell to every one. But if she should seek to +injure you and get him back, say to her--What do you know of the Arm of +Justice? She will let you alone, then!" With those words did she not +seal her own fate? He must have got drunk on talk, Filippi,--not being +used to be listened to--for he tells her that Nicola and I wrote that +letter from Will I gave her to read. He gives this girl the address of +my cousin, and says if Will comes there, directly, he will show him the +papers of our marriage. Thus do these two little jealous, peeping fools +spoil everything! + +In the meanwhile Ingham has got my letter, and has guessed I wrote it. +And he calls up this girl, whom he knows to be Christina's dearest +friend, and asks her, does she know Christina's sister? He tells her +that though all is broken between Christina and him, there are things +Christina must not believe, and perhaps there is something she must +know. He asks when he can see this Cornish girl, and she tells him after +rehearsal, but before five. She is very much excited, and she says how +always in her own room girls run out and in and so she will come to +him--She, mind you, the baby-girl! And there she tells him her tale and +he tells her his, my letter for the money and all, and she gives him the +address of my cousin, and there he has gone to find Filippi,--for she is +not so crazy Will shall go!--while she is telling me what she thinks of +me, softly, in a low voice, in the Park. I think how Will Denny is +coming, and I make a little sign. And Nicola hits her once, and picks +her up limp; I following with her hat, like a sister, in case we meet a +policeman. And we lift her in the automobile and put up the hood, going +fast as we dare. At my cousin's they have denied to know of Filippi. For +Filippi, out of the window, saw it was not Will, but Ingham. And we take +her in there. She comes to, before long, and all we can do with her is +to take her out of town. Only I must leave her at my cousin's now, for I +am to dine with Will before his rehearsal. + +It seems to me that any person of a pitiful heart, who also admires +courage and address, must be sorry for me, now. Here am I, born for +love and to command and charm, tied to Filippi and to lowly life; having +planned so wisely and dared so well, now with this rag of a girl on my +hands, not knowing what to do with her; with the Camorra itself, all +unconscious, closing ever in and in, by its offer to absorb our Arm of +Justice; with the spite of Ingham on my heels and tattlers and spies on +all sides, just when I need all my wit to win my love. For he has not +had time to learn to love me as he would love me before long. He is +very, very sweet to me, but he does not care. Just when he first turned +to me there was one flash. I hope and I pray to all the saints, I plan +and watch and make myself fair and think of all that can please him; I +spend my days and nights to feed the fire; but it burns out. He is kind, +he thinks he is to marry me, he is fond of me, because I am sad and so +is he. But he is sick for that Cornish girl who is not worth one hair of +my head, and I have no time to wait till his love grows. I think how I +am to defend myself with him if Ingham talks; and when I get to the +restaurant where we have a private room--I am so shy and so sensitive, +lest people laugh at my queer eyes!--there I find he has met Christina +on the street and carried her along to ask her does she know why Nancy +did not come in the Park. + +Well, I tell him. I tell him Ingham's name, as I have told it to +Christina. And he does not like Ingham, whom he has seen fascinate +Christina against her will, and whom he has heard of as a brute to +women. And always Ingham has wished Christina to be less friends with +him, and has done many little things in hate of him. So that he is all +ready to believe what I say; how his Nancy was afraid to face him this +long while, and meant to try this afternoon and failed; and how it is +Ingham who has given her money to go away. I think it will make him hate +her. I think it will make him not listen to Ingham. I do not know it +will make him perfectly cold and perfectly still, not speaking a +word--not even when Christina, for the first time in her whole life, is +angry with me and tells me I deceive myself, I misunderstood Nancy, he +does not speak. + +He talks nicely about other things at dinner, but he does not go toward +the theater afterwards. And when Christina asks him why not, he says he +forgot something which he has at home. And she says to him, "You cannot +go to Ingham now, you have a dress-rehearsal." And he says, "I have not +forgotten that." So she takes me with her to Nancy's boarding-house, and +there they who are busy and notice no better, say she has gone out to +dinner, before the theater, with a Miss Grayce. And Christina goes home +to see if she can get word to Ingham to keep out of Will's way and I go +back to my cousin's table d'hote. + +Now we have never said to Christina that we have a car. She cannot +afford us one, however she tries, and we do not want her to know we have +ever a dollar but from her. We sell a little from the farm, and she +knows we send this in to market by a man with a truck, and she is +willing to spend so much on her own fancies that she even arranges with +him to bring her my flowers. But for us she buys a little wagon with two +seats and a plug of a horse. She needs not to know everything and watch +all our movements. So mostly we keep the car at the other place; and +half the time I am there myself. If she comes visiting to the farm I can +take the Cornish girl out there. + +But I must first see Ingham and beg him to be merciful to me. And, +indeed, he has loved me so much, I think he cannot resist to be a little +kind. And I leave Nancy in the car with Nicola and the boys and with her +mouth stopped, across the street from Ingham's house under the windows +of that Herrick. So, without thought of fear, I enter. Afterward, when I +read about the elevator boy, I remember I have on a favorite of +Christina's dresses. For, naturally, of hers, I take what I choose. + +Well, there is nothing to be done with Ingham--he is mean, mean +through. He will give me up to the police. He has heard before of the +Arm of Justice; he says that he will break it. And then I tell him he +would better clear out, for I know Christina thinks that Will will kill +him. And it is then Will rings and when he, grinning, welcomes Will in, +he sees, and any one may see, that Will has his revolver in his hand. +But when Will finds me there he is stricken dumb. And Ingham laughs and +says, "You wonder what this injured lady is doing here? Ask Nancy +Cornish!" + +And Will cries out at him, not so very loud, but as a sword goes through +the air, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and then, very low, "Do not imagine but +that I shall ask Nancy Cornish! And you shall tell me where she is!" + +Then Ingham says, "Well, if you didn't wish her to have done with you, +my dear fellow, why did you throw her over for this married lady?" + +Will never gets any further than to stand by that panel of wall, between +the portieres and the door. He looks to me and not to Ingham, and it is +the one time in my life when I can think of nothing to say. I talk on +and on, but I say nothing. It is the fault of that Ingham who continues +to laugh, and to play like an angel who is a devil, too. + +I tell him that Filippi married me when I was an ignorant child, with +poor people, for the sake of the Hopes' money; how he brought me to this +country and deserted me and came back after I had thought I was free, +and had made friends with Ingham because I was destitute and alone. And +he does not speak. But he does not believe me. I fall down on my knees +and tell him, before Ingham's face, how I love him, and only him; how +there never was any other man who had my heart! How when I saw him I +knew he was my life, and I was born anew in knowing him. I tell him how +I fear to let him know I am married. But how I am trying all the time to +get free, and how I would have been free before I married him; how not +for years have I been a wife to Filippi who hangs upon us and will not +work and does not care for me! And I take his hand and cover it with +kisses and with tears, and I implore him not to leave me, I shall die if +he leaves me! And I ask him if he himself has never in his life done +wrong! And I swear if I lied to him it was for love for him! He knows +that is true; he cannot look at me, and not know! And I throw myself +down, before his feet. + +He lifts me up by one shoulder, and he looks at me long and long; still +kind but very cold and still, and what he says is, "Then was it a lie +you told me about her--and this man?" He has not one thought of me, at +all. + +It throws me into a great rage. I spring up and round the table, and +Jim, who has not ceased to play, laughs loud, and gives one crash of +chords. It is his triumph and I could kill him for it. I am all one fire +of hate that tosses in the wind, and I lift my arm and Herrick sees my +shadow on the blind. But quick I put my hand over my mouth, petrified. +For at that moment there is a soft, quick knocking on the door and +Christina's voice saying, "Let me in, both of you! Let me in!" + +By good luck, she has come while I am silent. And I leap forward and +catch my hat up off the table and fly behind the curtains. For I know I +have lost Will. And if I lose her, too, I have nothing. And Ingham +breaks into the march from "Faust," triumphing, and just then I see +through the curtain crack on the little chair at Will's side his pistol +that he has dropped. And I hear Ingham say, now all in fury, "Shall I +let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and +through?--" And the door opens. She had her key, Christina, that she had +forgot to give him back. And she calls out, sharp, to Will. But she +turns to Ingham and says, "I implore you, leave me with him a moment!" +And he swirls round to see where I have run. I snatch up Will's pistol +and fire past him from behind the curtain into Ingham's heart. Will +reaches back to catch my hand and shakes the pistol out of it. It has +not taken one breath and his first thought is for Christina, yes, and +for me, and he snaps off the light. There she stands in the doorway; the +light in the hall on Ingham fallen back dead. And when she turns her +eyes again, there is still no one there but Will. Will stoops for the +pistol that still smokes and drops it loose in his pocket. + +[Illustration: "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you +are, through and through?--"] + +You are to remember it is what she has come there to prevent. And before +she has time scarcely to breathe, he forces her back across the +threshold. Up he swoops her in his arms for he is strong like wire, and +light and swift as a hound is, and flies with her for the back stairs. I +wait, for if she sees me I do not know, any more than he does, which way +she will turn. She has stood by him, and perhaps she would have stood by +me; but not if she had known the truth. And at the back stairway he asks +her, "Can we trust the Deutches?" And she replies, "For me, yes. But I +will not trust your life with any one." And then, poor fellow, he must +have seen what she thought, and made up his mind to let her think it. I +was her sister; and he had gone into that room the man who was to marry +me. He could still feel my kisses and my arms about him; and he never +dreamed that Ingham was to denounce me for a criminal--he thought I +fired not from mingled frenzies, but from only the desperate love of +him. Besides, it was only accident he had not fired himself. He would +not have given me up if he had died. + +For me, almost in a moment, it is too late to run. I stumble on +Christina's cloak and scarf, that she has had on her arm and dropped in +the dark. I am terribly afraid! I am in panic to think they are all +coming, and I bolt the door! I wish only to hide and yet I know I cannot +hide! I am wild! I try the closet. It is locked. I run behind the +portieres, knocking over the little chair in the dark. I have no plan, +nothing but fear! Till, with the feeling of the curtains close about me, +I remember how I once slipped out of the rooms of a man I had been to +see on business, for the Arm of Justice. He had called the people out of +the front room into the other, the room where I was, and as they all got +in, I had slipped out. How to get them in here? Then I drag in Ingham's +body. I stand close in my cloak colored like the curtains, and once I +hear Deutch's voice I remember that it is Christina's cloak. He makes it +all easy. To come out while those men were working, there at the closet, +is terrible, but there are the trolley-car and my automobile making good +noises. I have pinned my hat under the cloak, and my slippers I put in +its inside pocket. It is when the police have cleared the halls. I have +scarcely got to the back-stairs when the people begin peeping out again. +I have in my hand Christina's key. I turn to the door of the apartment +nearest the back stairs, to pretend I am unlocking it. And the knob +turns in my hand. The decorators have left it open and I walk in and +slip the catch. There I wait till all the hunt is done. But I wish to be +rid of the little pistol, shaped for the impunitura of the Camorra, +which, in early days, Filippi had made for me and on which once, before +Nicola forbade me, I had tried to scratch "Camorrist." Were I taken with +that, I should have every foe on my heels! I wish that I might slip it +into the coat-pocket of that great boy with the figure of gods--he who +led the chase and deafened me with his hammering. Then I remember him +telling the police where he lives. It makes me laugh; there are scraps +of wall-paper about. On one of these I write a message and in this I +wrap my impunitura. Then, long after, when all my cackling geese have +cackled into bed again, I go up to the roof and across into the next +house. There is an opening of some feet between the two apartment +houses, and it may be that Will jumped it, but I think not. I think he +must have gone up to the front, where the cornices join, and crept and +balanced along the little ledge behind them, as I do. And I walk boldly +down those stairs where all is still, and choose a moment when the +night-boy takes some one up in the elevator, and then I cross the +office, and Nicola is still waiting with the car. I stuff the impunitura +in the letter-box and I am away, away!--But the little rag of a girl, +she knows when I went in and when I came out! + +So now you see how hard my problem is, my problem that is double: what +to do with her, and how to save my love! Three weeks and more go by, and +for him I am beginning to breathe. And he tells Christina nothing, +nothing at all. Only he asks her did she meet me as she came up, for I +have only just run out as he and Ingham quarrel. And she says no, Deutch +brought her up in the freight-elevator. Thus she is not surprised to +hear about my shadow on the blind; she thinks I came there like her to +get Jim away. But she fears I will be implicated and my poor story told. +This she thinks of a great deal, and keeps me very quiet in the country. +While she, if you please, is no sooner saved from Ingham but she takes +up that boy with the figure of gods, who saw my shadow. The fool did not +feel such a kindness for that which moved with splendid grace! Nor did +he keep my pistol. But perhaps he wants her money. I tell Nicola and the +boys he is the spy who drains us of ours, and who is carrying news to +her from little Stanley of my letters. They will rid her of him! And no +one knows who fired that shot but Will and me, no one. And Mother +Pascoe-Ansello watches all the time what we do with Nancy Cornish. I am +very good to Nancy Cornish. In case she should, by any chance, get away +and tell Will and Christina. For there are some things they would not +forgive. I am frightened, now, and I would let her go, if I could. + +And, then, Ten Euyck will not pay me! He is furious I have shot Ingham, +which he finds out at the inquest, and yet he must give me his +protection. And he says what I said in the Ingham letter was a lie, and +he will not pay for lies; they are wrong in all ways, for they never +work. And money I must have, or that spy of Filippi's will settle us. We +have just been received by the Camorra and all must be careful. Then I +think Christina can some way get it. But not to know it is for me. So at +last I threaten the little Nancy, and she is glad to write as I say. And +she cut off the lock of her hair at my own dressing-table with my own +scissors, when mine was all down my back to show her that I had more +than she. + +And when we do not have the answer that we hope for, she begins to fret +terribly. She is always listening and watching; she is so helpless and I +am lonely and perhaps I talk too much! Then, oh, my God, he is arrested! +I cannot keep it to myself, I run screaming through the house! I think I +shall die, and I think almost that that rag of a girl will kill me! She +recognized his voice up there cry, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and she has not +said one word so that I think she thinks he did it. But when they catch +him and she jumps at me that it was I, she can see it in my face. And +she makes a terrible scene--begs me and prays me to denounce myself, to +save him. And then I know that she must die. + +But I have a mind to Mother Pascoe-Ansello, and I make a bargain with +this girl. I ask her what she will promise, and she says _anything_. And +I ask her if I write a full confession to the District-Attorney and mail +it when things go hard with Will, will that content her? Oh, very fine! +So I tell her it is what I would do, who would die for him to-morrow, +but that it would give him to her arms. And she says she will go away, +she will never see him. I reply, "He will find you, he will make you." +And she says to me eager, with open mouth, "What can I do?" I answer, +"You are not very well. You grow every day more feverish. Nothing shall +ever happen to you under my roof. But if it should, how it would solve +all." She says, "Will you let me keep the letter myself and mail it +myself?" and I say, "Yes." So then she says, "You gave me laudanum so I +could sleep. When I have mailed that letter, give me some more." Oh, I +feel such a relief! If she is found, even, with laudanum it is suicide. +"Will you ask for it every night, aloud, before them all, and after you +have mailed the letter will you take--enough? Will you swear?" "Oh," she +says, "upon his freedom, I do swear." + + * * * * * + +So! Thus far has she read. And now she falls ill. And any hour, now, may +Ten Euyck come for this. And I must warn him I will not have him drop +another word before Nicola, as though Will would drag us all in by +telling I was there with him. Nicola's hand might reach into his prison. +When Nancy wakes, she has still this envelope--stuffed with blanks. But +if I cannot fool her, Nicola has planned a better way. A fine way! For, +after that, she will be silent--she, who thought to be bride to the man +I choose.--Oh, my love, you love her. If you, too, must die, it is for +that you die, my darling! For no little rag of a girl can frustrate the +will of + + ALLEGRA ANSELLO ALIENI. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR + + + "Oh, then, I'll marry Sally! For she is the darling of my heart--" + +"But _is_ she?" queried Christina, swinging round from the piano, "Is +she?" And she looked wistfully at Herrick as he took her outstretched +hand. "Oh, if she's a very troublesome person, tell me at least she +brought the author luck! Was it any wonder, eh, that the pulse of your +life changed when you saw a shadow on the blind? Since at that very +moment my hand was on the door? Oh, I can perhaps rouse luck with the +best 'when I come knocking!'" + +It was Sunday evening, a month from that September Twentieth when, to a +public that perhaps had never given quite such a welcome, Christina Hope +had positively reappeared. This occasion was of a very homely gathering, +an hour when Christina had simply confessed to the need of seeing all +the people of one episode "alive together." She had spent the month in +watching Nancy grow strong, here, in her house, and to-morrow was the +day of Nancy's wedding. "Once I have packed off my daughter," Christina +had been saying, "I shall marry myself out of hand--quite simply, by +just stepping round the corner--to the patientest fellow living. The +public and I meet often enough--it shall not stick its head in at my +marriage!" + +But Herrick's sister was to arrive to-morrow and this seemed to have +made Christina restive. "You know very well that you are marrying an +actress. But there has been too much glare--to her you must be marrying, +as some play says, 'The Queen of the Gipsies!' Ah, but Bryce--it's easy +enough to be fond of me, now! After all, I behaved admirably, like a +good girl. I was as grand as Evadne and as energetic as Sal! I had a +very hard time and, really, I was quite a heroine. But my hard times are +done and God send I may never be a heroine again! Well, what price the +Queen of the Gipsies, dear, as a nice young lady? And through what rent +in my admirable behavior will next--to try your patience--the real +Christina Hope too positively reappear? I wonder!" Thus she spoke, a +little sadly. And, then, at the ringing of the door-bell called out for +her mother and Mrs. Deutch. "For heaven forbid," added Christina, "that +ever I should be seen without a chaperone!" + +It was the simplest of supper-parties, at a table that jumbled Joe +Patrick with the District-Attorney; but the great kindness of good-will +still showed, inevitably, against a somber background. Before that +company there continued to rise in vivid silences, sharp as though edged +with acid, a wild space of death and hiding, of prison and darkness, +when suddenly Christina's perverse lip twitched with a small, soft +laugh. "And to think that, all the time, we were just as respectable as +we could be!" + +"I don't know how respectable you can be," said Denny. "I think I could +do better." + +"_I_ think it's a pretty good thing for you," said Wheeler, "that she is +as she is. You appear to have what I don't mind calling--in a lean, +black party of no particular stature--an almost inexplicable charm for +the ladies!" + +"In that case," said Christina, "you can see what a waste it is for him +to play villains. Give him to me for the hero of Bryce's play, when I +star next year." + +"Thank you for waiting a year. You must have arranged your production +with Ten Euyck so quickly that it makes a manager's hair raise!" + +"As fast as I could learn my lines!" Christina cried. "But sometimes he +did throw me out. Ah, if I could only have spoken his speeches too!" + +"Many stars in your profession have made that complaint! But I forgive +you everything, Christina, since you notified me for an advance sale!" + +"She broke her word to me," said Kane, "to do that! I was so anxious not +a breath should get out--it might have ruined everything. I caught her +second message--to you, Herrick--and stopped it." + +Herrick asked, "Will it always be the first which goes to Wheeler?" + +She responded with surprised earnestness, "Why, but, dearest, that was +_business_!" + +He laughed; and there was no bitterness in his laugh. He was glad of her +quick, earnest interest. A month and three days had softened the tragic +brooding of Christina's face and drawn them all far from pain and fear, +deep waters and dark night. But this first attempt to mention that time +with any ease showed him how they all still winced at scars; even this +ripple of mirth, glowing and vibrating like the air of all that house +with love and joy, had glowed and vibrated too sharply. He wanted some +happening that should clear the air, and he did not know what. Work was +the safest thing he knew. And even his work, now they had begun, was a +good thing to talk of. + +"How about that realistic tone?" Wheeler was asking. "Our experience +doesn't leave much of Herrick's idea about the commonplaceness of +crime--" + +"Oh, yes, it does!" Christina interrupted. "They were commonplace +enough, to themselves. It was only where we rushed in that it turned +into melodrama. That's the way with amateurs! They have to," she flung +at Denny, "be more like Dago organ-grinders than any Dago organ-grinder +ever was!" + +"I thank you," returned that unabashed young man. "It was quite +realistic enough for me. If all my foreign traitors had done as well by +me as this one!" His eyes sought Nancy's. For an instant neither of them +could speak. But the girl could not resist putting out her hand. And no +one minded when he took it. "But I thanked the gods," he could then say +with a laugh, "for my Italian accent! I knew two or three phrases from +the Garibaldi play--and then I knew the sound and some of the sense +from--Chris's farm. But I could have wished, none the less, to be better +equipped." + +"Rotten to have to make out so much funk!" contributed Stanley. "So's to +seem like that scared-to-death fellow." + +"On the whole, that was the best thing I did. It came quite easy!" + +"But the choice?" inquired Mrs. Deutch. "How did you make that choice, +dear sir, amidst the goblets?" + +"Only luck--I just chanced it. Gold, silver, and lead--can't you guess?" + +He looked at Christina, and Christina blushed. Deutch glanced up +twinkling. + +"Ah, tante," said the girl, "you will never understand--you have not the +artistic temperament! 'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit!' +That was it, Will? Ah, my dear, and to think you've never played the +scene!" + +Her pensiveness turned sterner. She looked at him with reproving eyes. +"You took it out of a part!" she said. "Heaven help us, of what are we +made? That shot I fired--that last shot--I took that out of a part, too! +'A Princess Imprisoned,' the end of the third act. And you with your +'Merchant of Venice' and your casket scene! It's true what they say of +us--we're stuffed with sawdust!" + +"We'd be fools not to use it, then," Denny comfortably retorted. "Though +you might certainly have chosen a better play." + +"No, you don't understand me. It's too bad, it's wrong--all wrong! It +cheapens life. It dulls the value of what we feel. To think of written +things at such a moment and throw oneself on them--it's like an +insincerity of the heart. It's like acting a lie. And with all my +faults, that one fault I never had," Christina said. "I was never a +liar!" And she turned on them the ineffable starry candor of her wide, +cool eyes. + +A smile traversed the board. Christina looked puzzled. + +"Never mind, old girl," Wheeler came to her assistance. "Some lies are +made in heaven. How about your pretending, at the inquest, not to know +who Nancy was?" + +"Ah, that card of Nancy's! There, surely, was a dreadful moment! It was +a shock. I didn't know what to say. Why, it was like seeing that +horrible story fastened round her neck--it was like seeing Will pointed +out! Oh, and I'd tried to keep away even the thought of them!" + +"I don't wonder that knocked you out all right. But, Miss Christina," +pondered Deutch, "before that--a thing starts the trouble for you at +that inquest always gives me a puzzle. Miss Christina, why did you +holler when you saw the scarf? That wasn't a surprise, anyhow. You knew +he had it!" + +"Yes," said Christina, "but it was _such_ a thrilling point! I'd worked +so much further up into an accused murderess than I'd ever gone before, +and I did so long to know how it would feel--" + +An aghast laugh silenced her. It rang about the room, it swept with gay +and topsy-turvy cleansing through every heart and blew the cobwebs far +away. The air was cleared for good and all. No more shudders skulked in +emotional underbrush. Christina Hope had quite too positively +reappeared. + +"Christina, you she-devil!" Denny cried. But he bent his black head with +the words and kissed her hand. There were tears that were like worship +in the teasing, jeering smile that lit his eyes. + +Christina caught his hand and stood up, flushing. Her eyes traveled +round the table and came back to Herrick's face. He had never seen her +thus bathed in rosy color before she sobered again to that meek gravity, +like a good child's. + +"Very well, then, very well--there I am! Well, take me as I am! I +will--myself! I will say, let's get down to it, then: the dearest or +most terrible experience I ever had is none too terrible or too dear for +Bryce's play! Is yours, Will? Is your own, Bryce? Ah, and then, we +zealous ones, when we want to know the hardest, hardest, passive part, +the loneliest suffering, the simplest courage, the deepest depths, we +needn't experiment, we can humbly inquire--we can ask Nancy Cornish!" + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "Persons Unknown", by Virginia Tracy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PERSONS UNKNOWN" *** + +***** This file should be named 37545.txt or 37545.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/5/4/37545/ + +Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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