"Hear you, best and dearest father in the world?" she cried, looking quickly up at him again. "Of course I will! Only, I beg you, don't—don't ask me to—"
"I will ask you nothing, Kate, my girl, save this—to consider everything well, and to act like a reasoning, thinking creature, not like an impetuous and romantic school-girl!"
Releasing her hands, he once more sat down in the easy-chair, crossed his legs and peered keenly at her, to fathom if he could the inner workings of that other brain and heart.
"Well, father," she said, "I'll admit, right away, that I've done wrong to keep this from you, or to try to. We—I—broke the engagement, that day of the accident, out at Longmeadow. Imeantto tell you, tell you everything and explain it all, but somehow—"
"You needn't explain, my dear," said Flint, judicially. "Wally has already done so."
"And does he blame me, father?" cried the girl, eagerly, clasping her hands on her knees.
"No, not at all. On the contrary, he claims the fault is all his own. And he's most contrite and repentant, Kate. Absolutely so. All he asks in the world is to make amends and—well, resume the old relation, whenever you are willing."
Kate shook her head.
"That's noble and big of him, father," said she, "to assume all the blame. Really, half of it is mine. But he's acted like a true man, in taking it. However, that can't change my decision. I want him for a friend, in every way. But for a husband, no, no, never in this world!"
The Billionaire frowned darkly. Already a stronger opposition was developing than he had expected; and opposition was the one thing in all the world that he could neither tolerate nor endure.
"Listen, Kate," said he. "You don't grasp the situation at all. Waldron is an extraordinary man in many ways. In refusing him, you seriously injure yourself. Of course, he has never done any spectacular, heroic thing for you, like—for instance—that young man who rescued you, and whom I shall suitably reward as soon as I find him—"
"What!" she exclaimed, peering eagerly at her father. "What do you mean? Find him? Reward him?"
"Eh? Why, naturally," the Billionaire replied, scowling at the interruption. "His game of refusing his identity was, of course, just a clever dodge on his part. He certainly must expect something out of it. I have—er—set certain forces at work to discover him; and, as I say, when I've done so, I will reward him liberally, and—"
"You'd betternot!" ejaculated Kate, with animation. "He isn't the sort of man you can take liberties with!"
"Hm? What now?" said Flint, with vexation. "What doyouknow about him?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing, father," the girl answered quickly. "Only, I think you're making a mistake to try andforce a reward on a man who doesn't want it. But no matter," she added, her face tinged by a warmer glow—which Flint was quick to see. "Forgive my interruption. Now, about Wally?"
The old man peered intently at his daughter, a full minute, then with a peculiar sinking at his heart, made shift to say:
"About Wally, yes; you simply don't understand. That's all. Listen now, Kate, and be reasonable."
"I will, daddy. Only don't ask me to marry a man I don't and can't love, ever, ever, so long as I live!"
"That isn't anything, my girl. Love isn't all."
"It is, tome!Without it, marriage is only—" She shuddered. "No, daddy; a thousand times better for me to be an old maid, and—and all that, than give myself tohim!"
Flint set his teeth hard together.
"Kate," said he, his voice like wire, "now hear what I have to say! I want you fully to understand the character and desirability of Maxim Waldron!"
Then in a cold, analytic voice, carefully, point by point, he analyzed the suitor, told of his wealth and power, his connections and his prospects, his culture, travel, political influence and world-wide reputation.
"Furthermore," he added, while Kate listened with an expression as cold as her father's tone itself, "he is my partner. We are allied, in business. I hope we may be, too, in family. This man is one that any woman in the world might be proud to call her husband—proud, and glad! Love flies away, in a few brief months or years. Wealth and power and respect remain. And, with these, love too may come. Be strong, Kate! Be sensible! Youare no child, but a grown woman. I shall not try to force you. All I want to do is show you your own best interest. Think this all over. Sleep on it. Tomorrow, let us talk of it again. For your own sake, and mine, do as you should, and let folly be averted. Renew the engagement. Hush the breath of gossip and scandal. Conform. Play the game! Do right—be strong!"
She only shook her head; and now he saw the glister of tear-drops in those beautiful gray eyes.
"Father," cried she, standing up and holding out both hands to him. "Have mercy on me! I can't—I can't! My heart refuses and I cannot force it. All this—what is it to me?" She swept her hand at the glowing luxury around her. "Without love, what would such another home be to me? Worse than a prison-cell, I swear! A living death, to one like me! Barter and sale—cold calculation—oh, horrible prostitution, horrible, unspeakable!
"Poverty, with love—yes, I would choose it. Without love, I never, never can give myself! Never, as long as I live!"
The Billionaire, too, stood up. He was shaking, now, as in a palsy, striving to control his rage. His fingers twitched spasmodically, and his eyes burned like firecoals behind those gleaming lenses.
Then, as he peered at her, he suddenly went even paler than before. Through his heart a stab of understanding had all at once gone home. The veils were lifted, and he knew the truth.
Her manner in speaking of that unknown, wandering rescuer; the blush that had burned from breast to brow, when he had mentioned the fellow; her aversion for Waldron and her reticence in talking of the accident—all this, and more, now surged on Flint's comprehension, flooding his mind with light—with light and with terrible anger.
And, losing all control, he took a step or two, and raised his shaking hand. His big-knuckled finger, shaken in denunciation, was raised almost in her face. Choking, stammering, he cried:
"Ah! Now I know! Now, now I understand you!"
Terrified, she retreated toward the door of the music-room.
"Father, father! What makes you look so?" she gasped. "Oh, you have never looked or spoken to me this way! What—what can it be?"
"What can it be?" he mouthed at her. "You ask me, you hypocrite, when you well know?"
Suddenly she faced him, stiffening into pride and hard rebellion.
"No more of that, father!" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing. "I am your daughter, but you can't talk to me thus. You must not!"
"Who—who areyouto say 'must not?'" he gibed, now wholly beside himself. "You—you, who love a vagabond, a tramp, scum and off-scouring of the gutter?"
A strange, half-choking sound was his only answer. Then, with no word, she turned away from him, biting her lip lest she answer and betray herself.
"Go!" he commanded, bloodless and quivering. "Go to your room. No more of this! We shall see, soon, who's master of this house!"
She was already gone.
Old Flint stood there a moment, listening to her retreating footfalls on the parquetry of the vast hall. Then,as these died he turned and groped his way, as though blind, back to his chair, and fell in it, and covered his eyes with both his shaking hands.
For a long time he sat there, anguished and crucified amid all that unmeaning luxury and splendor.
At last he rose and with uncertain steps sought his own suite, above-stairs.
Billionaire and world-master though he was, that night he knew his heart lay dead within him. He realized that all the fruits of life were Dead Sea fruits, withered to dust and ashes on his pale and quivering lips.
He was aroused from this bitter revery by a rapping at the door. Opening, he admitted Slawson, his valet. The servile one handed him a letter with a special-delivery stamp on it.
"Excuse me for intruding, sir," said Slawson, meekly smiling, "but I knew this was urgent."
"All right. Get out!" growled Flint. When the man was gone, he fortified himself with a couple of morphine tablets, and ripped the long envelope. It was from Slade, he knew, of the Cosmos Agency.
With a rapid eye he glanced it over. Then uttering a sudden oath, he studied it carefully, under the electric bulb beside his dressing-table.
"Gods and devils!" he ejaculated. "What next?"
The letter read:
142A Park Row, New York City, June 28, 1921.Isaac L. Flint, Esq.,Idle Hour, Englewood, N. J.Dear Sir:Reporting in the matter of the young man who rescued your daughter, in the recent accident, let me say I have discovered his identity and some important facts concerning him. I take the liberty of thinking that your intention of rewarding him, when found, will be somewhat modified by this information.This man's name is Gabriel Armstrong, age 24. Occupation, expert electrical and chemical worker. A Socialist and labor agitator, of the most dangerous type, because intellectual and well-read. A man of considerable power andinfluence in Socialist and labor circles. Has been something of a wanderer. Is well known to union men and Socialists, all over the country. A powerful speaker, and resourceful.He was last employed at your testing-works on Staten Island. Discharged by your Mr. Herzog, about two weeks ago for having, I understand, been in possession of a certain red-covered note-book, which Mr. Herzog found in his pocket. This book is the same which you commissioned me to find, but which Mr. Herzog returned to you before I undertook the search for it. The inference is that this Armstrong is in possession of some private information about your work, which may make him even more dangerous. Herzog informs me that you and Mr. Waldron have had Armstrong blacklisted. But this seems of no importance to the man, as he is clever and can live anywhere, by casual labor and by working with the Socialists.Armstrong is now at Syracuse. He has been tramping the roads. Have had two of my operators enter his room at the Excelsior Lodging House and search, his effects, while he was taking a bath. Can find nothing to give me any legal means of proceeding against him. He has some ready money, so a vagrancy-charge will not hold. If you wish me to resort to extreme measures to "get" him, kindly give me carte blanche, and guarantee me protection in case of trouble. The job can be done, but it may be risky, in view of his influence and backing among the Socialists and labor people. Before proceeding further I want to know how far you will support me.Am having him shadowed. He cannot get away. As yet he suspects nothing. On receipt of your next, will take measures to put him away for a few months. I know that, once he lands behind bars, his finish can be easily arranged.Trusting this information will prove satisfactory to you, and awaiting your further instructions, I am,Very truly yours,THE COSMOS AGENCY,Dillon F. Slade, Mgr.
142A Park Row, New York City, June 28, 1921.
Isaac L. Flint, Esq.,
Idle Hour, Englewood, N. J.
Dear Sir:
Reporting in the matter of the young man who rescued your daughter, in the recent accident, let me say I have discovered his identity and some important facts concerning him. I take the liberty of thinking that your intention of rewarding him, when found, will be somewhat modified by this information.
This man's name is Gabriel Armstrong, age 24. Occupation, expert electrical and chemical worker. A Socialist and labor agitator, of the most dangerous type, because intellectual and well-read. A man of considerable power andinfluence in Socialist and labor circles. Has been something of a wanderer. Is well known to union men and Socialists, all over the country. A powerful speaker, and resourceful.
He was last employed at your testing-works on Staten Island. Discharged by your Mr. Herzog, about two weeks ago for having, I understand, been in possession of a certain red-covered note-book, which Mr. Herzog found in his pocket. This book is the same which you commissioned me to find, but which Mr. Herzog returned to you before I undertook the search for it. The inference is that this Armstrong is in possession of some private information about your work, which may make him even more dangerous. Herzog informs me that you and Mr. Waldron have had Armstrong blacklisted. But this seems of no importance to the man, as he is clever and can live anywhere, by casual labor and by working with the Socialists.
Armstrong is now at Syracuse. He has been tramping the roads. Have had two of my operators enter his room at the Excelsior Lodging House and search, his effects, while he was taking a bath. Can find nothing to give me any legal means of proceeding against him. He has some ready money, so a vagrancy-charge will not hold. If you wish me to resort to extreme measures to "get" him, kindly give me carte blanche, and guarantee me protection in case of trouble. The job can be done, but it may be risky, in view of his influence and backing among the Socialists and labor people. Before proceeding further I want to know how far you will support me.
Am having him shadowed. He cannot get away. As yet he suspects nothing. On receipt of your next, will take measures to put him away for a few months. I know that, once he lands behind bars, his finish can be easily arranged.
Trusting this information will prove satisfactory to you, and awaiting your further instructions, I am,
Very truly yours,
THE COSMOS AGENCY,
Dillon F. Slade, Mgr.
Old Flint read this extraordinary communication twice through, then, raising his head, growled in his shrunken throat, for all the world like a wild beast. His gold tooth, gleaming in the light, made his rictus of passion more venomous, more malevolent still.
"The—the Hell-hound!" he stammered, his eyes narrowed with hate and rage. "Oh, wait! Wait till weland him! And this—thisis the devil, the scum, that Kate, my daughter—"
He could not finish; but, clutching at his sparse gray hair, fell to pacing the floor and mouthing execrations. Had he been of the sanguine manner of body, he must inevitably have suffered an apoplexy. Only his spare frame and bloodless type, due to the drug, saved his life, at that first shock of rage and hate.
Grown calmer, presently, he took quick action. Seating himself at a desk in the corner of his bed-chamber—a desk where some of his most important private matters had been put through—he chose a sheet of blank paper, with no monogram, and wrote:
Take immediate action. Will back you to the limit, and beyond. Ten thousand bonus if you land him behind bars inside a week. Stop at nothing, but get results. F.
Take immediate action. Will back you to the limit, and beyond. Ten thousand bonus if you land him behind bars inside a week. Stop at nothing, but get results. F.
This he folded and put in an envelope which he addressed to Slade, and was about to seal, when another idea struck him.
"By God!" he exclaimed, smiting the desk. "It won't do to have this just some ordinary charge. The thing has got to be disgraceful, unpardonable, hideous!
"There are two things to be considered now. One is to 'get' him, in connection with that red book of my plans—to head him off from making any possible trouble in the development of the Air Trust.
"The other is—Kate! Nothing catches a woman, like martyrdom. If anything happens to this cur, and she suspects that I've done it, out of spite, all Hell can'thold her. I know her well enough forthat. No, this fellow has got to be put away on some charge that will absolutely and utterly ruin him, in her eyes, for good and all—that will blast and wreck him, forever, with her. Something that, when I tell her, will fill her with loathing and horror. Something that will cause a terrible and complete revulsion of feeling in her, and bring her back to Waldron, as to a strong refuge in time of trouble. Something that will crush and quell her, utterly cure her of those idiotic, school-girl notions of hers, and make her—as she should be—submissive to my will and my demands!"
He pondered a moment, an ugly, crafty smile on those old lips of his; then, struck by sudden inspiration, laughed a dry, harsh laugh.
"The very thing!" he exulted, with the mirth of a vulture that has just found a peculiarly revolting mass of carrion. "Fool that I was, not to have thought of it before!"
Hastily he withdrew the letter from the envelope, opened it, and with eager hand wrote three short sentences. He read these over, nodded approval, and this time sealed and addressed the letter. Then he pushed an electric button over the desk.
"Have this letter carried to this address at once," he commanded Slawson. "Mr. Dillon Slade, 432 Highland Avenue, Rutherford, N. J. See? Special delivery won't do. Have Sanders take it at once, in the racer. No answer required. And after you've seen it start on its way, come back here. I want to go to bed."
"Yes, sir. All right, sir," the valet bowed as he took the letter and departed.
Ten minutes later, he was back again, helping old Flint undress.
Long after the Billionaire was in bed, in the big, luxurious room, with its windows open toward the river—the room guarded all night by armed men in the house and on the lawn outside—he lay there thinking of his plot, chuckling to himself over its infernal cunning, and filled with joy at the prospects now opening out ahead of him.
"Two birds with one stone, this time, for sure," he pondered. "Ha! They'll try to beat old Isaac Flint at this or any other game, will they? Man or woman, I don't care which, they'll never get away with it—never, so long as life and breath remain in me!"
Then, soothed by these happy thoughts, and by a somewhat increased dosage of his drug, the Billionaire gradually and contentedly fell asleep, to dream of victory, and vengeance, and power.
Not in weeks had he slumbered so peacefully.
But for many hours after her father was asleep, Catherine sat at her window, in a silk kimono, and with fevered pulses and dry eyes, with throbbing heart and leaping pulses, thought long thoughts.
Sleepless she sat there, counting the hours tolled from the church-spire in the town, below.
Morning still found her at the window, her brain afire, her heart laid desolate and waste by the consuming struggle which, that night, had swept and ravaged it.
On the evening of July third, a week later, Gabriel Armstrong found himself at Rochester, having tramped the hundred miles from Syracuse, by easy stages. During this week, old Flint took good care not to reopen the subject of the break with Waldron; and his daughter, too, avoided it. They two were apparently at an impasse regarding it. But Flint inwardly rejoiced, knowing full well the plot now under way. And though Waldron urged him to take some further action and force the issue, Flint bade him hold his peace, and wait, telling him all would yet be well.
Outwardly calmer, the old man was raging, within, more and ever more bitterly, against Armstrong. On July first, Slade had reported in person that his operators who were trailing the quarry had—in the night—discovered in one of his pockets a maple leaf wrapped in a fine linen handkerchief marked "C. J. F." Flint, recognizing his daughter's initials, well-nigh burst a blood-vessel for wrath. But he instructed Slade not to have the handkerchief abstracted from Armstrong's possession. By no sign or hint must the victim be made aware that he was being spied upon. When the final blow should fall, then (reflected the Billionaire, with devilish satisfaction) all scores would be paid in full, and more than paid.
July third, then, found Gabriel at Rochester, now seventy-five or eighty miles from Niagara Falls, his goal, where—he had already heard—ground was being actually broken for the huge new power plant of which he alone, of all outsiders, understood the meaning. Gabriel counted on spending the Fourth at Rochester where a Socialist picnic and celebration had been arranged. Ordinarily, he would have taken part in the work and volunteered as a speaker, but now, anxious to keep out of sight, he counted merely on forming one of the crowd. There could be little danger, thought he, in such a mass. Despite the recent stringent censorship and military rule of the district by the new Mounted Police, a huge gathering was expected. The big railway and lake-traffic strikes, both recently lost, had produced keen resentment, and, as political and economic power had been narrowed here, as all over the country, in these last few months of on-sweeping capitalist domination, the Socialist movement had been growing ever more and more swiftly.
"It will be worth seeing," thought Gabriel, as he stood outside the lodging-house where he had taken a room for the night. The workers are surely awakening, at last. The spirit I've been meeting, lately, is uglier and more determined than anything I ever used to find, a year or two ago. It seems to me, if conditions are like this all over the country, the safety-valve is about ready to pop, and the masters had better look out, or some of them are going to land in Hell!
"Yes, I'll stop over here, one day, and look and listen. Sorry I can't take part, but I mustn't. My game, now,is to travel underground as it were. I've got a bigger job in view than soap-boxing, justnow!"
He ate a simple supper at an "Owl" lunch-cart, totally unaware that, across the street, a couple of Cosmos men were waiting for him to come out. And, after this, buying a Socialist paper, he strolled into Evans Park to sit and read, a while, by the red light of the descending sun.
Here he remained till dark, smoking his briar, watching the dirty, ragged children of the wretched wage-slaves at play; observing the exploited men and women on the park-benches, as they sought a little fresh air and respite from toil; and pondering the problems that still lay before him. At times—often indeed—his thoughts wandered to the maple-grove and the old sugar-house, far away on the Hudson. Memories of the girl would not be banished, nor longings for her. Who she might be, he still knew not. Unwilling to learn, he had refrained from looking up the number he had copied from the plate of the wrecked machine. He had even abstained from reading the papers, a few days, lest he might see some account of the accident. A strange kind of unwillingness to know the woman's name possessed him—a feeling that, if he positively identified her as one of some famous clan of robbers and exploiters, he could no longer cherish her memory or love the thought of how they two had, for an hour, sat together and talked and been good, honest friends.
"No," he murmured to himself, "it's better this way—just to recall her as a girl in need, a girl who let me help her, a girl I can always remember with kind thoughts, as long as I live!"
From his pocket he took the little handkerchief, which wrapped the leaf, once part of her bed. A faint, elusive scent still hung about it—something of her, still it seemed. He closed his eyes, there on the hard park bench, and let his fancies rove whither they would; and for a time it seemed to him a wondrous peace possessed him.
"If it could only have been," he murmured, at last. "If only it could be!"
Then suddenly urged by a realization of the hopelessness of it all, he stood up, pocketed the souvenirs of her again, and walked away in the dusk; away, through the park; away, at random, through squalid, ugly streets, where the first electric-lights were just beginning to flare; where children swarmed in the close heat, wallowing along the gutters, dodging teams and cars, as they essayed to play, setting off a few premature firecrackers and mocking the police—all in all, leading the ugly, unnatural, destructive life of all children of the city proletariat.
"Poor little devils!" thought Gabriel, stopping to observe a dirty group clustered about an ice-cream cart, where cheap, adulterated, high-colored stuff was being sold for a penny a square—aniline poison, no doubt, and God knows what else. "Poor little kids! Not much like the children of the masters, eh? with their lawns and playgrounds, their beaches and flowery fields, their gardens and fine schools, their dogs, ponies, autos and all the rest! Some difference, all right—and it takes a thousand ofthese, yes, ten thousand, to keep one ofthose. And—andshewas one of the rich and dainty children! Her beauty, health and grace were bought at theprice of ten thousand other children's health, and joy and lives! Ah, God, what a price! What a cruel, awful, barbarous price to pay!"
Saddened and pensive, he passed on, still thinking of the woman he could not banish from his mind, despite his bitterness against her class.
So he walked on and on, now through better streets and now through worse, up and down the city.
Here and there, detonations and red fire marked the impatience of some demonstrator who could not wait till midnight to show his ardent patriotism and his public spirit by risking life and property. The saloons were all doing a land-office business, with the holiday impending and the thermometer at 97. Now and then, slattern women, in foul clothes and with huge, gelatinous breasts, could be seen rushing the growler, at the "family entrance" of some low dive. Even little girls bore tin pails, for the evening's "scuttle o' suds" to be consumed on roof, or in back yard of stinking tenement, or on some fire-escape. The city, in fine, was relaxing from its toil; and, as the workers for the most part knew no other way, nor could afford any, they were trying to snatch some brief moment of respite from the Hell of their slavery, by recourse to rough ribaldry and alcohol.
Nine o'clock had just struck from the church-spires which mocked the slums with their appeal to an impassive Heaven, when, passing a foul and narrow alley that led down to the Genesee River, Gabriel saw a woman sitting on a doorstep, weeping bitterly.
This woman—hardly more than a girl—was holding a little bundle in one hand. The other covered her face. Her sobs were audible. Grief of the most intense, he sawat once, convulsed her. Two or three by-standers, watching with a kind of pleased curiosity, completed the scene, most sordid in its setting, there under the flicker of a gas-light on the corner.
"Hm! What now?" thought Gabriel, stopping to watch the little tragedy. "More trouble, eh? It's trouble all up and down the line, for these poor devils! Nothing but trouble for the slave-class. Well, well, let's see what's wrongnow!"
Gabriel turned down the alley, drew near the little group, and halted.
"What's wrong?" he asked, in the tone of authority he knew how to use; the tone which always overbore his outward aspect, even though he might have been clad in rags; the tone which made men yield to him, and women look at him with trustful eyes, even as the Billionaire's daughter had looked.
"Searchme!" murmured one of the men, shrugging his shoulders. "Ican't git nothin' out o' her. She's been sittin' here, cryin', a few minutes, that's all I know; an' she won't say nothin' to nobody.
"Any of you men know anything about it?" demanded Gabriel, looking at the rest.
A murmur of negation was his only answer. One or two others, scenting some excitement, even though only that of a distressed woman—common sight, indeed!—lingered near. The little group was growing.
Gabriel bent and touched the woman's shoulder.
"What's the matter?" asked he, in a gentle voice. "If you're in trouble, let me help you."
Renewed sobs were her only answer.
"If you'll only tell me what's the matter," Gabriel went on, "I'm sure I can do something for you."
"You—you can't!" choked the woman, without raising her head from the corner of the ragged shawl that she was holding over her eyes. "Nobody can't! Bill, he's gone, and Eddy's gone, and Mr. Micolo says he won't let me in. So there ain't nothin' to do. Let me alone—oh dear, oh dear, dear!"
Fresh tears and grief. The little knot of spectators, still growing, nodded with approval, and figuratively licked its lips, in satisfaction. Somewhere a boy snickered.
"Come, come," said Gabriel, bending close over the grief-stricken woman, "pull together, and let's hear what the trouble is! Who's Bill, and who's Eddy—and what about Mr. Micolo? Come, tell me. I'm sure I can do something to straighten things out."
No answer. Gabriel turned to the increasing crowd, again.
"Any of you people know what about it?" he asked.
Again no answer, save that one elderly man, standing on the steps beside the woman, remarked casually:
"I guess she's got fired out of her room. That's all I know."
Gabriel took her by the arm, and drew her up.
"Come, now!" said he, a sterner note in his voice. "This won't do! You mustn't sit here, and draw a crowd. First thing you know an officer will be along, and you may get into trouble. Tell me what's wrong, and I promise to see you through it, as far as I can."
She raised her face, now, and looked at him, a moment. Tear-stained and dishevelled though she was, andsoiled by marks of drink and debauchery, Gabriel saw she must once have been very beautiful and still was comely.
"Well," he asked. "Aren't you going to tell me?"
"Tell you?" she repeated. "I—oh, I can't! Not in front of all them men!"
"Very well!" said he, "walk with me, and give me your story. Will you do that? At all events, you mustn't stay here, making a disturbance on the highway. If you knew the police as well as I do, you'd understand that!"
"You're right, friend," said she, hoarsely. "I'm on, now. Come along then—I'll tell you. It ain't much to tell; but it's a lot to me!"
She glanced at the curious faces of the watchers, then turned and followed Gabriel, who was already walking up the alley, toward the brighter lights of Stuart Street. For a moment, one or two of the men hesitated as though undecided whether or not to follow after; but one backward look by Gabriel instantly dispelled any desire to intrude. And as Gabriel and the woman turned into the street, the little knot of curiosity-seekers dissolved into its component atoms, and vanished.
"It—it's all along o' that there Mr. Micolo!" the woman suddenly exclaimed, "Him an' his rent-bill! If he'd ha' let me in, there, tonight, I could ha' got Ed's things an' then started to my sister's, out to Scottsville. But he wouldn't. He claimed they was two-seventy-five still owin', and I didn't have but about fifty cents, so I couldn't pay it. So he wouldn't let me in. Natchally, anybody'd feel bad, like that, 'specially when a man told 'em he'd hold their kid's clothes an' things till they paid—which they couldn't!"
"Naturally, of course," answered Gabriel, rather dazed by this sudden burst of details, with which she seemed to think he should already be quite familiar—details all sordid and commonplace, through which he seemed to perceive, dimly as in a dark glass, some mean and ugly tragedy of poverty and ignorance and sin.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, all at once. "If so, come in here, where we can talk quietly and get things straight." He pointed at a cheap restaurant, across the street.
"Hungry? Gord, yes!" she exclaimed. Only I—I wouldn't ask, if I fell on the sidewalk! Fifty cents—yes, I got that much, but I been tryin' to get enough to pay Mr. Micolo, an' get hold of Ed's things, an'—"
"All right, forget that, now," commanded Gabriel. Hetook her by the arm and piloted her across the thoroughfare, then into the dingy hash-house and to a table in a far corner. A few minutes later, pretty much everything on the bill of fare was before them on the greasy table.
"Not a word till you're satisfied," directed Armstrong. "I'll just take a little bread and coffee, to keep you company."
The woman adequately proved her statement that she was hungry. Rarely had Gabriel seen anybody eat with such ravenous appetite. He watched her with satisfaction, and when she could consume no more, smiled as he asked:
"Now, then, feel better? If so, let's tackle the next problem. What's your grief?"
The woman stared at him a long moment before she made reply. Then she exclaimed suddenly:
"You ain't no kind of 'bull,' are you? Nor plain-clothes man?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"No," said he, "nothing of that kind. You can trust me. Let's have the story."
"Hm! It ain't much, I s'pose," she answered still half-suspiciously. "Bill and me was livin' together, that's all. No, not married, nor nothin'—but—"
"All right. Go on."
"That was last winter. When the kid happened—Ed, you know—Bill, he got sore, an' beat it. Then I—I went on the street, to keep Ed. Nothin' else to do, Mister, so help me, an'—"
"Never mind, I understand," said Gabriel. "What next?"
"And after that, I gets sick.Youknow. Almost right away. So I has to go to St. Luke's hospital. I leaves Ed with Mrs. McCane, at the same house. That place in the alley, you know. Well, when I gets out, the boy's dead.An' they never even tells me, till I goes back! An' I can't even get his things. Because why? Mrs. McCane's gone, Gord knows where, an' Mr. Micolo says I still owe two-seventy-five. I want to get down there to Scottsville, to my sister's; but cursemeif I'll go till I pay that devil an' get them clothes!"
A sudden savage light in her blurred eyes betrayed the passion of the mother-love, through all the filth and soilure of her degradation. Gabriel felt his heart deeply moved. He bent toward her, across the table, touched her hand and asked:
"Will you accept five dollars, to pay this man and get you down to Scottsville?"
"Huh?" she queried, gazing at him with vacant, uncomprehending eyes.
He repeated his query. Then, as he saw the slow tears start and roll down her wan cheeks, he felt a greater joy within his breast than if the world and all its treasures had been his.
"Will I take it?" she whispered. "Gord,willI? You bet I will! That is, if I can have your name, an' pay it back some time?"
He promised, and wrote it down for her, giving as his address Socialist Headquarters in Chicago. Then, without publicity, he slipped a V into her trembling hand.
"Come on," said he. "That'sall settled!"
He paid the check, and they went out, together. For a moment they stood together, undecided, on the sidewalk.
"Couldn't I get them things to-night, an' start?" asked she, eagerly. "There's a train at 11:08, on the B. R. & P."
"All right," he assented. "Can you see this Micolo, now? It's after ten."
"Oh,thatdon't make no difference," she answered. "He runs a pawnshop over here on Dexter Street, two blocks east. He'll be open till midnight, easy, tomorrow bein' the Fourth."
"Come on, then," said Gabriel. "I'll see you through the whole business, and onto the train. Maybe I can help you, all along."
Without another word she started, with Gabriel at her side. They traversed the main street, two blocks, then turned to the left down a narrower, darker one.
"Here's Micolo's," said she, pausing at a doorway. Gabriel nodded. "All right," he answered. He had not noted, nor did he dream, that, at the corner behind them, two slinking, sneaking figures were now watching his every move.
The woman turned the knob, and entered. Gabriel followed.
"It's on the second floor," said she. Gabriel saw a sign, on the landing: "S. L. Micolo, Pawn Broker," and motioned her to precede him.
In a minute they had reached the upper hallway. The woman opened another door. The room, inside, was dark.
"This way," said she. "He's in the inside office, I guess. The light must ha' gone out here, some way or other."
Gabriel hesitated. Some inkling, some vague intuition all at once had come upon him, that all was not well. At his elbow some invisible force seemed plucking. "Come away! Come back, before it is too late!" some ghostly voice seemed calling in his ear.
But still, he did not fully understand. Still he remained there, his mind obsessed by the plausibility of the woman's story and by the pity he so keenly felt.
And now he heard her voice again:
"Mr. Micolo! Oh, Mr. Micolo! Where are you?"
Striking a match, he advanced into the room.
"Any gas here?" he asked, peering about for a burner.
Suddenly he started with violent emotion. Behind him, in some unaccountable way, the door had been closed. He heard a key turn, softly.
"What—what's this?" he exclaimed. He heard the woman moving about, somewhere in the gloom. "See here!" he cried. "What kind of a—?"
The match burned brightly, all at once. He peered about him, wide-eyed.
"This is no office!" shouted he. "Here, you! What's the meaning of this? This is a bed-room!"
Sudden realization of the trap stunned and sickened him.
"God! They've got me! Flint and Waldron—they've landed me, at last!" he choked. "But—but not till I've broken a few heads, by God!"
The match fell from his burnt fingers. Whirling toward the door, he rained powerful kicks upon it. He would get out, he must get out, at all hazards!
Suddenly the woman began to scream, with harsh and piercing cries that seemed to rip the very atmosphere.
Aiming at the base of the skull she struck.
Aiming at the base of the skull she struck.
Aiming at the base of the skull she struck.
Aiming at the base of the skull she struck.
At the third scream, or the fourth, the key was turned and the door jerked open.
In its aperture, three men stood—the two who had been so long trailing Gabriel, and a policeman, burly, red-jowled, big-paunched.
Gabriel stared at them. His mouth opened, then closed again without a word. As well for a trapped animal to make explanations to the Indian hunter, as for him to tell these men the truth. The truth?Theyknew the truth; and they were there to crucify him. He read it in their cruel, eager eyes.
The woman had stopped screaming now, and was weeping with abandon, pouring forth a tale of insults and abuse and robbery, with hysterical sobs.
Full in the faces of the three men Gabriel sneered.
"You've done a good job of it, this time, you skunks!" he gibed. "I'm on. You'll get me, in the end; but not just yet. The first man through this door gets his head broken—and that goes, too!"
With a snarl of "You damned white slaver!" the officer raised his night-stick and hurled himself at Gabriel.
Gabriel ducked and planted a terrific left-hander on the "bull's" ear. Roaring, the majesty of the law careened against the bed, crashed the flimsy thing to wreckage and went down.
Then, fighting back into the gloom of the trap, Gabriel engaged the two detectives. For a moment he held them. One went to the floor with an uppercut under the chin; but came back. The other landed hard on Gabriel's jaw.
He turned to strike down, again, the first of the two. He heard the bed creaking, and saw the policeman struggling to arise. In a whirlwind of blows, the second detective flailed at him, striving to beat down his guard and floor him with a vicious rib-jolt.
"All's fair, here!" thought Gabriel, snatching up a chair. For a moment he brandished it on high. With this weapon, he knew—though final defeat was inevitable, when reinforcements should arrive—he could sweep a clear space.
Perhaps he might even yet escape! He heard feet trampling on the stairs, and his heart died within him. Well, even though escape were impossible, he would fight to a finish and die game, if die he must!
Down swung the chair, and round, crashing to ruin as it struck the policeman who was just getting to his feet again. Oaths, cries, screams made the place hideous. Dust rose, and blood began to flow.
Armed now with one leg of the chair, Gabriel retreated; and as he went, he hurled the bitterness of all his scorn and hate upon these vile conspirators.
And as he flayed them with his tongue, he struck; and like Samson against the Philistines, he did great execution.
Like Samson, too, he lost his power through a woman's treachery. For, even as the attackers seemed to fall back, shattered and at a loss before such fury and tremendous strength, behind Gabriel the woman rose, a laugh of malice on her lips, the policeman's long and heavy night-stick in her hand.
A moment she poised it, crouching as he—seeing her not—swung his weapon and hurled his defiance at the baffled men in front.
Then, aiming at the base of the skull, she struck.
Sudden bright lights spangled the darkness, for Gabriel. Everything whirled about, in dizzying confusion. A strange, far roaring sounded in his ears.
Then he fell; and oblivion took him to its blessed peace and rest; and all grew still and black.
"Fer Gawd's sake, let's have a light here, somebody!" panted the dishevelled policeman. Outside, the ringing of a gong became audible. Then came a clattering of hoofs, as the police-patrol, nicely-timed by the conspirators, and summoned by a confederate, drew up at the box on the corner.
Somebody struck another match, and a raw gas-light flared. From the hallway, two or three others crowded into the wrecked room. Disjointed exclamations, oaths and curses intermingled with harsh laughter.
The woman—Lillian Rafter, probably the finest actress and stool-pigeon in the whole detective world of graft and crookedness—lighted a cigarette at the gas-burner, and laughed with triumph.
"Some make-up, eh kid?" she demanded of the taller detective, who was now nursing a bad "shiner," as a black eye is known in the under-world, and whose face was battered to a bleeding pulp. "Believe me, as a job, this is some job! From start to finish, a pippin. He was bound to fall for it though. No help for him. Even if he hadn't butted into the 'plant' we fixed for him in the alley, there, I could have braced him in the street with my tale of woe. He was just bound to be 'it,' this time. We had him going, all ways for Sunday!"
Scornfully the woman Gabriel had befriended in herseeming misery, spat at him as he lay there stunned and scarcely breathing on the dirty floor.
"And just pipe this, will you, too?" she exulted, holding up the five-dollar bill he had given her. "And this?" She exhibited his name and address, written on a card. "In his own writing, boys. As evidence to hold him on a white slave charge, is this some evidence or isn't it?"
"Oh, we'll hold him, all right!" growled the other detective, whose right arm dangled limp, where the chair had struck him. "The —— —— of a ——! He'll go up for a finif, a five-spot, or I'm a liar! And once we get him behind bars, good-night!"
He deliberately drew back his heavy boot and kicked Gabriel full in the face.
"You —— ——!" he cursed. "Try to beanme, will you? Damn you! You've madeyourlast soap-box spiel!"
"Come on, now, boys, out with him, an' no more rag-chewin'!" the policeman exclaimed. "Git him in the wagon, an' away, before a gang piles in here! You, Caffery, take his feet. I'll manage his head. Jesus, but he's some big guy, though, the —— —— of a ——!"
Together, the battered policeman and the detective who still had some strength left in him, raised Gabriel's limp body and carried it from the room. The woman, meanwhile, stood there inhaling cigarette-smoke and laughing viciously to herself.
"You easy mutt!" she exclaimed. "Dead baby, room-rent due, wanted to get home to sister—and you fell for that old gag with whiskers on it! You're some wise guy all right, all right, I don't think. Well, as a stall it was a beaut. And I must say I never screamed better in allmy life. And that wallop I handed out, was a peach. If I don't pull down five hundred for this night's work—"
"Shut up, you ——!" snarled Caffery, as he turned into the stairway. "Keep that lip o' yours quiet, will you, or—"
The woman stared at him a moment, then laughed insolently and snapped her smoke-yellowed fingers at him in defiance.
"Mind you show up in court, in the mornin'!" panted the officer, staggering downstairs under the weight of Gabriel's huge shoulders.
"Better arrest her now," suggested Caffery, "an' hold her."
"You will, like Hell!" retorted the woman.
"Shhh! In one door an' out the other," the second detective whispered in her ear, as she stood there in the doorway. "I'll see to it you get fifty extra forthat!"
"Oh, if that's the game, fine business!" she smiled. "Go to it—I'm your huckleberry!"
Thus it befell that, while a large and growing crowd observed, under the arc-light on the corner—a crowd where no fewer than six reporters, all duly tipped off in advance, were taking notes—Gabriel Armstrong, the Socialist speaker and leader, was bundled, unconscious, into a patrol wagon of the City of Rochester; and with him, a drunken-acting harlot, babbling charges of white-slave extortion and violence against him; and with them both, several witnesses, who would have sworn that Heaven was Hell, for five dollars cash in hand.
Thus was the stage set, for the next session of the honorable court. Thus were the wires pulled. Thus, the prison doors were swung wide open, and, above all, thehonor and the reputation of a man swept to the garbage-heaps of life.
True, at the morrow's great mass-meeting, there were destined to be protests and calls for investigation. The Socialist press was destined to take it up, defend him and demand the truth. But, swamped by a perfectly overwhelming capitalist press, not only naturally hostile but in this case already heavily subsidized; shattered by the close-knit, circumstantial evidence; hamstrung and hampered in every way by the power of unlimited money and Tammany pull, the Socialists might as well have tried to sweep back the sea with a broom as save this man from legal crucifixion. Worse still, they themselves, and the beaten strikers with whom they had been fraternizing, got a black eye in the affair; and many an editorial column, many a pulpit, unctuously discoursed thereon. Many an anti-Socialist thug and grafter, loud-mouthed and blatant, bellowed revamped platitudes of "immorality" and "breaking up the home," and the "nation of fatherless children," pointing at Gabriel Armstrong as a shining example of Socialist hypocrisy and filth.
Press, law, church, capitalism itself nailed this man and the movement he stood for, to the cross. And the pimps and parasites of the private detective agency chuckled in their well-paid glee. The woman, Gabriel's betrayer, counted her "thirty pieces of silver" and laughed in the foul dark. The police cut a fine melon secretly handed them by Flint; and so, too, did the local papers and more than one local pulpit.
So, in Gabriel's grief and woe and desolation, as he sat in his grim cell with aching head, bruised face and bleeding heart, with all his plans now broken, with the verysoul within him dead—in this grief and anguish, I say, the foul harpy-brood of Capitalism revelled and rioted like maggots in carrion.
None more viciously than old Flint, himself. None with more brutal joy, more savage satisfaction. One of the culminant moments of his life, he felt, was on the evening after the dastardly plot had been carried to its putrid conclusion.
Opening the Rochester "News-Intelligencer" which Slade had sent him, his glittering eyes seemed to sparkle joy as a blue-penciled column met his gaze.
Eagerly he read it all, every word, and weighed it, and re-read it, as men do when news is dear to their souls. Already, through the New York papers he had got the essentials of the affair. Already, by long distance 'phone he had received the outlines of the news from Slade, as well as a code telegram of more than 500 words, giving him additional details. But this paper especially pleased him. The other Rochester sheets, which Slade would send as fast as they appeared, he already was looking forward to, with keenest pleasure.
"Ah!Thisis what I call efficiency!" he exclaimed, settling himself in his big chair, adjusting the pince-nez on his hawk-bill and preparing to read the column for the third time. "The way this thing was planned and carried out, and the manner in which Slade has managed to get it played up in the papers, proves to me he's a general in his line, a true Napoleon. I may safely intrust any affair of this sort to him and his agency. No fee of his shall ever be questioned; and as for bonuses—well, he shall have no reason to complain. An admirable man, in every way—a wonderful organization! With men and agencies liketheseat work in our interests, what have we, really, to be uneasy about?"
Smacking his mental lips, if I may be pardoned the phrase, he once more slowly read the delightful, gratifying news: