JOHN BRUCE opened his eyes dreamily, unseeingly; and then his eyelids fluttered and closed again. There was an exquisite sense of languor upon him, of cool, comfortable repose; a curious absence of all material things. It seemed as though he were in some suspended state of animation.
It was very strange. It wasn't life—not life as he had ever known it. Perhaps it was death. He did not understand.
He tried to think. He was conscious that his mind for some long indeterminate period had been occupied with the repetition of queer, vague, broken snatches of things, fantastic things born of illusions, brain fancies, cobwebby, intangible, which had no meaning, and were without beginning or end. There was a white beach, very white, and a full round moon, and the moon winked knowingly while he whittled with a huge jack-knife at a quill toothpick. And then there was a great chasm of blackness which separated the beach from some other place that seemed to have nothing to identify it except this black chasm which was the passageway to it; and here a man's face, a face that was sinister in its expression, and both repulsive and unhealthy in its color, was constantly bending over him, and the man's head was always in the same posture—cocked a little to one side, as though listening intently and straining to hear something. And then, in the same place, but less frequently, there was another face—and this seemed to bring with it always a shaft of warm, bright sunlight that dispelled the abominable gloom, and before which the first face vanished—a beautiful, the wondrously beautiful, face of a girl, one that he had seen somewhere before, that was haunting in its familiarity and for which it seemed he had always known a great yearning, but which plagued him miserably because there seemed to be some unseen barrier between them, and because he could not recognize her, and she could not speak and tell him who she was.
John Bruce opened his eyes again. Dimly, faintly, his mind seemed to be grasping coherent realities. He began to remember fragments of the past, but it was very hard to piece those fragments together into a concrete whole. That white beach—yes, he remembered that. And the quill toothpick. Only the huge jack-knife was absurd! It was at Apia with Larmon. But he was in a room somewhere now, and lying on a cot of some sort. And it was night. How had he come here?
He moved a little, and suddenly felt a twinge of pain in his side. His hand groped under the covering, and his fingers came into contact with bandages that were wrapped tightly around his body.
And then in a flash memory returned. He remembered the fight in Ratti's wine shop, the knife stab, and how he had dragged himself along the lane and climbed in throughherwindow. His eyes now in a startled way were searching his surroundings. Perhaps this was the room! He could not be quite sure, but there seemed to be something familiar about it. The light was very low, like a gas-jet turned down, and he could not make out where it came from, nor could he see any window through which he might have climbed in.
He frowned in a troubled way. It was true that, as he had climbed in that night, he had not been in a condition to take much note of the room, but yet it did seem to be the same place. The frown vanished. What did it matter? He knew now beyond any question whose face it was that had come to him so often in that shaft of sunlight. Yes, itdidmatter! He must have been unconscious, perhaps for only a few hours, perhaps for days, but if this was the same place, then she washere, not as a figment of the brain, not as one created out of his own longing, but here in her actual person, a living, breathing reality. It was the girl of the traveling pawn-shop, and——
John Bruce found himself listening with sudden intentness. Was he drifting back into unconsciousness again, into that realm of unreal things, where the mind, fevered and broken, wove out of its sick imagination queer, meaningless fancies? It was strange that unreal things should seem so real! Wasn't that an animal of some sort scratching at the wall of the house outside?
He lifted his head slightly from the pillow—and held it there. A voice from within the room reached him in an angry, rasping whisper:
“Damn you, Birdie, why don't you pull the house down and have done with it? You clumsy hog! Do you want the police on us? Can't you climb three feet without waking up the whole of New York?”
John Bruce's lips drew together until they formed a tight, straight line. This was strange! Very strange! It wasn't a vagary of his brain this time. His brain was as clear now as it had ever been in his life. The voice came from beyond the head of his cot. He had seen no one in the room, but that was natural enough since from the position in which he was lying his line of vision was decidedly restricted; what seemed incomprehensible though, taken in conjunction with the words he had just heard, was that his own presence there appeared to be completely ignored.
He twisted his head around cautiously, and found that the head of the cot was surrounded by a screen. He nodded to himself a little grimly. That accounted for it! There was a scraping sound now, and heavy, labored breathing.
John Bruce silently and stealthily stretched out his arm. He could just reach the screen. It was made of some soft, silken material, and his fingers found no difficulty in drawing this back a little from the edge of that portion of the upright framework which was directly in front of him.
He scarcely breathed now. Perhaps he was in so weak a state that his mind faltered if crowded, for there was so much to see that he could not seem to grasp it all as a single picture. He gazed fascinated. The details came slowly—one by one. Itwasthe room where he had crawled in through the window and had fallen senseless to the floor—whenever that had been! That was the window there. And, curiously enough, another man was crawling in through it now! And there was whispering. And two other men were already standing in the room, but he could not see their faces because their backs were turned to him. Then one of the two swung around in the direction of the window, bringing his face into view. John Bruce closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, it must be that! His mind was off wandering once more, painting and picturing for itself its fanciful unrealities, bringing back again the character it had created, the man with the sinister face whose pallor was unhealthy and repulsive.
And then he opened his eyes and looked again, and the face was still there—and it was real. And now the man spoke:
“Come on, get busy, Birdie! If you take as long to crack the box as you have taken to climb in through a low window, maybe we'll be invited to breakfast with the family! You act just like a swell cracksman—not! But here's the combination—so try and play up to the part!”
The man addressed was heavy of build, with a pockmarked and forbidding countenance. He was panting from his exertions, as, inside the room now, he leaned against the sill.
“That's all right, Doc!” he grunted. “That's all right! But how about his nibs over there behind the screen? Ain't he ever comin' out of his nap?”
The man addressed as “Doc” rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, and produced a hypodermic syringe from his pocket.
“There's the safe over there, Birdie,” he drawled, as he pricked his arm with the needle and pushed home the plunger. “Get busy!”
The big man shuffled his feet.
“I know you know your business, Doc,” he said uneasily; “but I guess me an' Pete here 'd feel more comfortable if you'd have put that shot of coke into the guy I'm speakin' about instead of into yourself. Ain't I right, Pete?”
The third man was lounging against the wall, his back still turned to John Bruce.
“Sure,” he said; “but I guess you can leave it to Doc. A guy that's been pawin' the air for two days ain't likely to butt in much all of a sudden.”
The man with the hypodermic, in the act of replacing the syringe in his pocket, drew it out again.
“Coming from you, Birdie,” he murmured caustically, “that's a surprisingly bright idea. I've been here for the last three hours listening to his interesting addresses from the rostrum of delirium, and I should say he was quite safe. Still, to oblige you, Birdie, and make you feel more comfortable, we'll act on your suggestion.”
John Bruce's teeth gritted together. How weak he was! His arm ached from even the slight strain of extending it beyond his head to the screen.
And then he smiled grimly. But it wasn't a case of strength now, was it? He was obviously quite helpless in that respect. This man they called Doc believed him to be still unconscious, and—he drew his arm silently back, tucked it again under the sheet and blanket that covered him, and closed his eyes—and even if he could resist, which he couldn't, a hypodermic injection of morphine, or cocaine, or whatever it was that the supreme crook of the trio indulged in, could notinstantlytake effect. There ought to be time enough to watch at least——
John Bruce lay perfectly still. He heard a footstep come quickly around the screen; he sensed the presence of some one bending over him; then the coverings were pulled down and his arm was bared. He steeled himself against the instinctive impulse to wince at the sharp prick of the needle which he knew was coming—and felt instead a cold and curiously merciless rage sweep over him as the act was performed. Then the footstep retreated—and John Bruce quietly twisted his head around on the pillow, reached out his arm, and his fingers drew the silk panel of the screen slightly away from the edge of the framework again.
He could see the safe they had referred to now. It was over at the far side of the room against the wall, and the three men were standing in front of it. Presently it was opened. The man called Doc knelt down in front of it and began to examine its contents. He swung around to his companions after a moment with a large pile of banknotes in his hands. From this pile he counted out and handed a small portion to each of the other two men—and coolly stuffed the bulk of the money into his own pockets.
The scene went blurry then for a moment before John Bruce's eyes, and he lifted his free hand and brushed it across his forehead. He was so beastly weak, anyhow, and the infernal dope was getting in its work too fast! He fought with all his mental strength against the impulse to relax and close his eyes. What was it they were doing now? It looked like some foolish masquerade. The two companions of the man with the sinister, pasty face were tying handkerchiefs over their faces and drawing revolvers from their pockets; and then the big man began to close the door of the safe.
The Doc's voice came sharply:
“Look out you don't lock it, you fool!”
Once more John Bruce brushed his hand across his eyes. His brain must be playing him tricks again. A din infernal rose suddenly in the room. While the big man lounged nonchalantly against the safe, the other two were scuffling all over the floor and throwing chairs about. And then from somewhere upstairs, on the floor there too, John Bruce thought he caught the sound of hurried movements.
Then for an instant the scuffling in the room ceased, and the pasty-faced man's voice came in a peremptory whisper:
“The minute any one shows at the door you swing that safe open as though you'd been working at it all the time, Birdie, and pretend to shove everything in sight into your pockets. And you, Joe, you've got me cornered and covered here—see? And you hold the doorway with your gun too; and then both of you back away and make your getaway through the window.” The scuffling began again. John Bruce watched the scene, a sense of drowsiness and apathy creeping upon him. He tried to rouse himself. He ought to do something. That vicious-faced little crook who had haunted him with unwelcome visitations, and who at this precise moment had the bulk of the money from the safe in his own pockets, was in the act of planting a somewhat crude, but probably none the less effective, alibi, and——
John Bruce heard a door flung open, and then a sudden, startled cry, first in a woman's and then in a man's voice. But he could not see any door from the position in which he lay. He turned over with a great effort, facing the other way, and reached out with his fingers for the panel of the screen that overlapped the head of the cot. And then John Bruce lay motionless, the blood pounding fiercely at his temples.
He was conscious that a tall, white-haired man in scanty attire was there, because the doorway framed two figures; but hesawonly a beautiful face, pitifully white, only the slim form of a girl whose great brown eyes were very wide with fear, and who held her dressing gown tightly clutched around her throat. It was the girl of the traveling pawn-shop, it was the girl of his dreams in the shaft of sunlight, it was the girl he had followed here—only—only the picture seemed to be fading away. It was very strange! It was most curious! She always seemed to leave that way. This was Larmon now instead, wasn't it? Larmon... and a jack-knife... and a quill toothpick... and....
JOHN BRUCE abstractedly twirled the tassel of the old and faded dressing gown which he wore, the temporary possession of which he owed to Paul Veniza, his host. From the chair in which he sat his eyes ventured stolen glances at the nape of a dainty neck, and at a great coiled mass of silken brown hair that shone like burnished copper in the afternoon sunlight, as Claire Veniza, her back turned toward him, busied herself about the room. He could walk now across the floor—and a great deal further, he was sure, if they would only let him. He had not pressed that point; it might be taking an unfair advantage of an already over-generous hospitality, but he was not at all anxious to speed his departure from—well, from where he was at that precise moment.
And now as he looked at Claire Veniza, his thoughts went back to the night he had stepped, at old Hawkins' invitation, into the traveling pawn-shop. That was not so very long ago—two weeks of grave illness, and then the past week of convalescence—but it seemed to span a great and almost limitless stretch of time, and to mark a new and entirely different era in his life; an era that perplexed and troubled and intrigued him with conditions and surroundings and disturbing elements that he did not comprehend—but at the same time made the blood in his veins to course with wild abandon, and the future to hold out glad and beckoning hands.
He loved, with a great, overwhelming, masterful love, the girl who stood there just across the room all unconscious of the worship that he knew was in his eyes, and which he neither tried nor wished to curb. Of his own love he was sure. He had loved her from the moment he had first seen her, and in his heart he knew he held fate kind to have given him the wound that in its turn had brought the week of convalescence just past. And yet—and yet—— Here dismay came, and his brain seemed to stumble. Sometimes he dared to hope; sometimes he was plunged into the depths of misery and despair. Little things, a touch of the hand as she had nursed him that had seemed like some God-given tender caress, a glance when she had thought he had not seen and which he had allowed his heart to interpret to its advantage with perhaps no other justification than its own yearning and desire, had buoyed him up; and then, at times, a strange, almost bitter aloofness, it seemed, in her attitude toward him—and this had checked, had always checked, the words that were ever on his lips.
A faint flush dyed his cheeks. But even so, and for all his boasted love, did he not in his own soul wrong her sometimes? The questionswouldcome. What was the meaning of the strange environment in which she lived? Why should she have driven to a gambling hell late at night, and quite as though it were the usual thing, to transact business alone in that car with——
God! His hands clenched fiercely. He remembered that night, and how the same thought had come then, mocking him, jeering him, making sport of him. He was a cad, a pitiful, vile-minded cad! Thank God that he was at least still man enough to be ashamed of his own thoughts, even if they came in spite of him!
Perhaps it was the strange, unusual characters that surrounded her, that came and went in this curious place here, that fostered such thoughts; perhaps he was not strong enough yet to grapple with all these confusing things. He smiled a little grimly. The robbery of the safe, for instance—and that reptile whom he now knew to be his own attending physician, Doctor Crang! He had said nothing about his knowledge of the robbery—yet. As nearly as he could judge it had occurred two or three days prior to the time when his actual convalescence had set in, and as a material witness to the crime he was not at all sure that in law his testimony would be of much value. They must certainly have found him in an unconscious state immediately afterward—and Doctor Crang would as indubitably attack his testimony as being nothing more than the hallucination of a sick brain.
The luck of the devil had been with Crang! Why had he, John Bruce, gone drifting off into unconsciousness just at the psychological moment when, if the plan had been carried out as arranged and the other two had made their fake escape, Crang would have been left in the room with Claire and Paul Veniza—with the money in his pockets! He would have had Doctor Crang cold then! It was quite different now. He was not quite sure what he meant to do, except that he fully proposed to have a reckoning with Doctor Crang. But that reckoning, something, he could not quite define what, had prompted him to postpone until he had become physically a little stronger!
And then there was another curious thing about it all, which too had influenced him in keeping silent. Hawkins, Paul Veniza, Claire and Doctor Crang had each, severally and collectively, been here in this room many times since the robbery, and not once in his presence had the affair ever been mentioned! And—oh, what did it matter! He shrugged his shoulders as though to rid himself of some depressing physical weight. What did anything matter on this wonderful sunlit afternoon—save Claire there in her white, cool dress, that seemed somehow to typify her own glorious youth and freshness.
How dainty and sweet and alluring she looked! His eyes were no longer contented with stolen glances; they held now masterfully, defiant of any self-restraint, upon the slim figure that was all grace from the trim little ankles to the poise of the shapely head. He felt the blood quicken his pulse. Stronger than he had ever known it before, straining to burst all barriers, demanding expression as a right that would not be denied, his love rose dominant within him, and——
The tassel he had been twirling dropped from his hand. She had turned suddenly; and across the room her eyes met his, calm, deep and unperturbed at first, but wide the next instant with a startled shyness, and the color sweeping upward from her throat crimsoned her face, and in confusion she turned away her head.
John Bruce was on his feet. He stumbled a little as he took a step forward. His heart was pounding, flinging a red tide into the pallor of his cheeks that illness had claimed as one of its tolls.
“I—I did not mean to tell you like that,” he said huskily. “But I have wanted to tell you for so long. It seems as though I have always wanted to tell you. Claire—I love you.”
She did not answer.
He was beside her now—only her head was lowered and averted and he could not look into her face. Her fingers were plucking tremulously at a fold of her dress. He caught her hand between both his own.
“Claire—Claire, I love you!” he whispered.
She disengaged her hand gently; and, still refusing to let him see her face, shook her head slowly.
“I—I——-” Her voice was very low. “Oh, don't you know?”
“I know I love you,” he answered passionately. “I know that nothing else but that matters.”
Again she shook her head.
“I thought perhaps he would have told you. I—I am going to marry Doctor Crang.”
John Bruce stepped back involuntarily; and for a moment incredulity and helpless amazement held sway in his expression—then his lips tightened in a hurt, half angry way.
“Is that fair to me, Claire—to give me an answer like that?” he said in a low tone. “I know it isn't true, of course; it couldn't be—but—but it isn't much of a joke either, is it?”
“It is true,” she said monotonously.
He leaned suddenly forward, and taking her face between his hands, made her lift her head and look at him. The brown eyes were swimming with tears. The red swept her face in a great wave, and, receding, left it deathly pale—and in a frenzy of confusion she wrenched herself free from him and retreated a step.
“My God!” said John Bruce hoarsely. “You—and Doctor Crang! I don't understand! It is monstrous! You can't love that——” He checked himself, biting at his lips. “You can't love Doctor Crang. It is impossible! You dare not stand there and tell me that you do. Answer me, Claire—answer me!”
She seemed to have regained her self-control—or perhaps it was the one defense she knew. The little figure was drawn up, her head held back.
“You have no right to ask me that,” she said steadily.
“Right!” John Bruce echoed almost fiercely. His soul itself seemed suddenly to be in passionate turmoil; it seemed to juggle two figures before his consciousness, contrasting one with the other in most hideous fashion—this woman here whom he loved, who struggled to hold herself bravely, who stood for all that was pure, for all that he reverenced in a woman; and that sallow, evil-faced degenerate, a drug fiend so lost to the shame of his vice that he pricked himself with his miserable needle quite as unconcernedly in public as one would smoke a cigarette—and worse—a crook—a thief! Was it a coward's act to tell this girlwhatthe man was whom she proposed to marry? Was it contemptible to pull a rival such as that down from the pedestal which in some fiendish way he must have erected for himself? Surely she did not know the man for what he actually was! She could not know! “Right!” he cried out. “Yes, I have the right—both for your sake and for my own. I have the right my love gives me. Do you know how I came here that first night?”
“Yes,” she said with an effort. “You told me. You were in a fight in Ratti's place, and were wounded.”
He laughed out harshly.
“And I told you the truth—as far as it went,” he said. “But do you know how I came to be in this locality after leaving you in that motor car? I followed you. I loved you from the moment I saw you that night. It seems as though I have always loved you—as I always shall love you. That is what gives me the right to speak. And I mean to speak. If it were an honorable man to whom you were to be married it would be quite another matter; but you cannot know what you are doing, you do not know this man as he really is, or what he——”
“Please! Please stop!” she cried out brokenly. “Nothing you could say would tell me anything I do not already know.”
“I am not so sure!” said John Bruce grimly. “Suppose I told you he was a criminal?”
“He is a criminal.” Her voice was without inflection.
“Suppose then he were sent to jail—to serve a sentence?”
“I would marry him when he came out,” she said. “Oh, please do not say any more! I know far more about him than you do; but—but that has nothing to do with it.”
For an instant, motionless, John Bruce stared at Claire; then his hands swept out and caught her wrists in a tight grip and held her prisoner.
“Claire!” His voice choked. “What does this mean? You do not love him; you say you know he is even a criminal—and yet you are going to marry him! What hold has he got on you? What is it? What damnable trap has he got you in? I am going to know, Claire! I will know! And whatever it is, whatever the cause of it, I'll crush it, strangle it, sweep it out of your dear life at any cost! Tell me, Claire!”
Her face had gone white; she struggled a little to release herself.
“You—you do not know what you are saying. You——” Her voice broke in a half sob.
“Claire, look at me!” He was pleading now with his soul in his eyes and voice. “Claire, I——”
“Oh, please let me go!” she cried out frantically. “You cannot say anything that will make any difference. I—it only makes it harder.” The tears were brimming in her eyes again. “Oh, please let me go—there's—there's some one coming.”
John Bruce's hands dropped to his sides. The door, already half open, was pushed wide, and Hawkins, the old chauffeur, stood on the threshold. And as John Bruce looked in that direction, he was suddenly and strangely conscious that somehow for the moment the old man dominated his attention even to the exclusion of Claire. There was something of curious self-effacement, of humbleness in the bent, stoop-shouldered figure there, who twisted a shapeless hat awkwardly in his hands; but also something of trouble and deep anxiety in the faded blue eyes as they fixed on the girl, and yet without meeting her eyes in return, held upon her as she walked slowly now toward the door.
“Dear old Hawkins,” she said softly, and laid her hand for an instant on the other's arm as she passed by him, “you and Mr. Bruce will be able to entertain each other, won't you? I—I'm going upstairs for a little while.”
And the old man made no answer; but, turning on the threshold, he watched her, his attitude, it seemed to John Bruce, one of almost pathetic wistfulness, as Claire disappeared from view.
CLAIRE'S footsteps, ascending the stairs, died away. John Bruce returned to his chair. His eyes were still on the old chauffeur.
Hawkins was no longer twisting his shapeless hat nervously in his fingers; instead, he held it now in one clenched hand, while with the other he closed the door behind him as he stepped forward across the threshold, and with squared shoulders advanced toward John Bruce. And then, quite as suddenly again, as though alarmed at his own temerity, the old man paused, and the question on his lips, aggressively enough framed, became irresolute in tone.
“What—what's the matter with Claire?” he stammered. “What's this mean?”
It was a moment before John Bruce answered, while he eyed the other from head to foot. Hawkins was not the least interesting by any means of the queer characters that came and went and centered around this one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza; but Hawkins, of them all, was the one he was least able, from what he had seen of the man, to fathom. And yet, somehow, he liked Hawkins.
“That's exactly what I want to know,” he said a little brusquely. “And”—he eyed Hawkins once more with cool appraisal—“I think you are the man best able to supply the information.”
Hawkins began to fumble with his hat again.
“I—I—why do you say that?” he faltered, a sudden note of what seemed almost trepidation in his voice.
John Bruce shrugged his shoulders.
“Possibly it is just a hunch,” he said calmly. “But you were the one who was driving that old bus on a certain night—you remember? And you seem to hang around here about as you please. Therefore you must stand in on a fairly intimate basis with the family circle. I'd like to know what hold a rotten crook like Doctor Crang has got on Claire Veniza that she should be willing to marry him, when she doesn't love him. I'd like to know why a girl like Claire Veniza drives alone at night to a gambling hell to——”
“That's enough!” Hawkins' voice rose abruptly, peremptorily. He advanced again threateningly oft John Bruce. “Don't you dare to say one word against my—against—against her. I'll choke the life out of you, if you do! Who are you, anyway? You are asking a lot of questions. How did you get here in the first place? You answer that! I've always meant to ask you. You answer that—and leave Claire out of it!”
John Bruce whistled softly.
“I can't very well do that,” he said quietly, “because it was Claire who brought me here.”
“Claire brought you!” The old blue eyes grew very hard and very steady. “That's a lie! She never saw you after you got out at the corner that night until you came in through the window here. She didn't tell you where she lived. She didn't invite you here. She's not that kind, and, sick though you may be, I'll not keep my hands off you, if——”
“Steady, Hawkins—steady!” said John Bruce, his voice as quiet as before. “We seem to possess a common bond. You seem to be pretty fond of Claire. Well, so am I. That ought to make us allies.” He held out his hand suddenly to the old man. “I had just asked Claire to marry me when you came to the door.”
Hawkins stared from the outstretched hand into John Bruce's eyes, and back again at the outstretched hand. Bewilderment, hesitation, a curious excitement was in his face.
“You asked Claire to marry you?” He swallowed hard. “You—you want to marry Claire? I—why?”
“Why?” John Bruce echoed helplessly. “Good Lord, Hawkins, youarea queer one! Barring beasts like Crang, why does a man ordinarily ask a woman to marry him? Because he loves her. Well, I love Claire. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I followed her, or, rather, that old bus of yours, here that night. And that is how, after that fight at Ratti's when I got out the back door and into the lane, I crawled over here for sanctuary. I said Claire brought me here. You understand now, don't you? That's how she brought me here—because I loved her that night. But it is because of Crang”—his voice grew hard—“that I am telling you this. I love her now—and a great deal too much, whether she could ever care for me or not, to see her in the clutches of a crook, and her life wrecked by a degenerate cur. And somehow”—his hand was still extended—“I thought you seemed to think enough of her to feel the same way about this marriage—for I imagine you must know about it. Well, Hawkins, where do you stand? There's something rotten here. Are you for Claire, or the dope-eater?”
“Oh, my God!” Hawkins whispered huskily. And then almost blindly he snatched at John Bruce's hand and wrung it hard. “I—I believe you're straight,” he choked. “I know you are. I can see it in your eyes. I wouldn't ask anything more in the world for her than a man's honest love. And she ain't going to marry that devil! You understand?” His voice was rising in a curious cracked shrillness. “She ain't! Not while old Hawkins is alive!”
John Bruce drew his brows together in a puzzled way.
“I pass you up, Hawkins,” he said slowly. “I can't make you out. But if you mean what you say, and if you trust me——”
“I'm going to trust you!” There was eagerness, excitement, a tremble in the old man's voice. “I've got to trust you after what you've said. I ain't slept for nights on account of this. It looks like God sent you. You wait! Wait just a second, and I'll show you how much I trust you.”
John Bruce straightened up in his chair. Was the old man simply erratic, or perhaps a little irresponsible—or what? Hawkins had pattered across the floor, had cautiously opened the door, and was now peering with equal caution into the outer room. Apparently satisfied at last, he closed the door noiselessly, and started back across the room. And then John Bruce knew suddenly an indefinable remorse at having somehow misjudged the shabby old chauffeur, whose figure seemed to totter now a little as it advanced toward him. Hawkins' face was full of misery, and the old blue eyes were brimming with tears.
“It—it ain't easy”—Hawkins' voice quavered—“to say—what I got to say. There ain't no one on earth but Paul Veniza knows it; but you've got a right to know after what you've said. And I've got to tell you for Claire's sake too, because it seems to me there ain't nobody going to help me save her the way you are. She—she's my little girl. I—I'm Claire's father.” John Bruce stared numbly at the other. He could find no words; he could only stare.
“Yes, look at me!” burst out the old man finally, and into his voice there came an infinite bitterness. “Look at my clothes! I'm just what I look like! I ain't no good—and that's what has kept my little girl and me apart from the day she was born. Yes, look at me! I don't blame you!”
John Bruce was on his feet. His hand reached out and rested on the old man's shoulder.
“That isn't the way to trust me, Hawkins,” he said gently. “What do your clothes matter? What do your looks matter? What does anything in the world matter alongside of so wonderful a thing as that which you have just told me? Straighten those shoulders, Hawkins; throw back that head of yours. Her father! Why, you're the richest man in New York, and you've reason to be the proudest!”
John Bruce was smiling with both lips and eyes into the other's face. He felt a tremor pass through the old man's frame; he saw a momentary flash of joy and pride light up the wrinkled, weather-beaten face—and then Hawkins turned his head away.
“God bless you,” said Hawkins brokenly; “but you don't know. She's all I've got; she's the only kith and kin I've got in all the world, and oh, my God, how these old arms have ached just to take her and hold her tight, and—and——” He lifted his head suddenly, met John Bruce's eyes, and a flush dyed his cheeks. “She's my little girl; but I lie when I say I love her. It's drink I love. That's my shame, John Bruce—you've got it all now. I pawned my soul, and I pawned my little girl for drink.”
“Hawkins,” said John Bruce huskily, “I think you're a bigger man than you've any idea you are.”
“D'ye mean that?” Hawkins spoke eagerly—only to shake his head miserably the next instant. “You don't understand,” he said. “I as good as killed her mother with drink. She died when Claire was born. I brought Claire here, and Paul Veniza and his wife took her in. And Paul Veniza was right about it. He made me promise she wasn't to know I was her father until—until she would have a man and not a drunken sot to look after her. That's twenty years ago. I've tried.. God knows I've tried, but it's beaten me ever since. Paul's wife died when Claire was sixteen, and Claire's run the house for Paul—and—and I'm Hawkins—just Hawkins—the old cab driver that's dropping in the harness. Just Hawkins that shuffers the traveling pawn-shop now that Paul's quit the regular shop. That's what I am—just old Hawkins, who's always swearing to God he's going to leave the booze alone.”
John Bruce did not speak for a moment. He returned to his chair and sat down. Somehow he wanted to think; somehow he felt that he had not quite grasped the full significance of what he had just heard. He looked at Hawkins. Hawkins had sunk into a chair by the table, and his face was buried in his hands.
And then John Bruce smiled.
“Look here, Hawkins,” he said briskly, “let's talk about something else for a minute. Tell me about Paul Veniza and this traveling pawn-shop. It's a bit out of the ordinary, to say the least.”
Hawkins raised his head, and his thoughts for the moment diverted into other channels, his face brightened, and he scratched at the scanty fringe of hair behind his ear.
“It ain't bad, is it?” he said with interest. “I'm kind of proud of it too, 'cause I guess mabbe, when all's said and done, it was my idea. You see, when Paul's wife died, Paul went all to pieces. He ain't well now, for that matter—nowhere near as well as he looks. I'm kind of scared about Paul. He keeps getting sick turns once every so often. But when the wife died he was just clean broken up. She'd been his right hand from the start in his business here, and—I dunno—it just seemed to affect him that way. He didn't want to go on any more without her. And as far as money was concerned he didn't have to. Paul ain't rich, but he's mighty comfortably off. Anyway, he took the three balls down from over the door, and he took the signs off the windows, and in comes the carpenters to change things around here, and there ain't any more pawn-shop.”
Hawkins for the first time smiled broadly.
“But it didn't work out,” said Hawkins. “Paul's got a bigger business and a more profitable one to-day than he ever had before in his life. You see, he had been at it a good many years, and he had what you might call a private connection—swells up on the Avenue, mostly ladies, but gents too, who needed money sometimes without having it printed in the papers, and they wouldn't let Paul alone. Paul ain't got a hair in his head that ain't honest and fair and square and above-board—and they were the ones that knew it better than anybody else. See?”
“Yes,” said John Bruce. “Go on, Hawkins,” he prompted.
“Well,” said Hawkins, “I used to drive an old hansom cab in those days, and I used to drive Paul out on those private calls to the swell houses. And then when Mrs. Paul died and Paul closed up the shop here he kind of drew himself into his shell all round, and mostly he wouldn't go out any more, though the swells kept telephoning and telephoning him. He'd only go to just a few people that he'd done business with since almost the beginning. He said he didn't want to go around ringing people's doorbells, and being ushered into boudoirs or anywhere else, and he was settling down to shun everybody and everything. It wasn't good for Paul. And then a sort of crazy notion struck me, and I chewed it over and over in my mind, and finally I put it up to Paul. In the mood he was in, it just caught his fancy; and so I bought a second-hand closed car, and fitted it up like you saw, and learned to drive it—and that's how there came to be the traveling pawn-shop.
“After that, there wasn't anything to it. It caught everybody else's fancy as well as Paul's, and it began to get him out of himself. The old bus, as you called it, was running all the time. Lots of the swells who really didn't want to pawn anything took a ride and did a bit of business just for the sake of the experience, and the regular customers just went nutty over it, they were that pleased.
“And then some one who stood in with that swell gambling joint where we picked you up must have tipped the manager off about it, and he saw where he could do a good stroke of business—make it a kind of advertisement, you know, besides doing away with any lending by the house itself, and he put up a proposition to Paul where Paul was to get all the business at regular rates, and a bit of a salary besides on account of the all-night hours he'd have to keep sometimes. Paul said he'd do it, and turned the salary over to me; and they doped out that pass word about a trip to Persia to make it sound mysterious and help out the advertising end, and—well, I guess that's all.”
John Bruce was twirling the tassel of his dressing gown again abstractedly; but now he stopped as Hawkins rose abruptly and came toward him.
“No—it ain't all,” said Hawkins, a curious note almost of challenge in his voice. “You said something about Claire going to that gambling joint. It was the first time she had ever been there. That night Paul was out when they telephoned. You must be one of their big customers, 'cause they wouldn't listen to anything but a trip to Persia right on the spot. They were so set on it that Claire said it would be all right. She sent for me. At first I wasn't for it at all, but she said it seemed to be of such importance, and that there wasn't anything else to do. Claire knows a bit of jewelry or a stone as well as Paul does, and I knew Claire could take care of herself; and besides, although she didn't know it, it—it was her own old father driving the car there with her.”
“Thank you, Hawkins,” said John Bruce simply; and after a moment: “It doesn't make the love I said I had for her show up very creditably to me, does it—that I should have had any questions?”
Hawkins shook his head.
“I didn't mean it that way,” he said earnestly. “It would have been a wonder if you hadn't. Anyway, you had a right to know, and it was only fair to Claire.”