"Reid-Tabor. On May 24, at the home of the bride's parents, Miriam, daughter of George and Charlotte Bennett Tabor, to Doctor Walter Reid."
"Reid-Tabor. On May 24, at the home of the bride's parents, Miriam, daughter of George and Charlotte Bennett Tabor, to Doctor Walter Reid."
Very carefully, and wondering the while in a listless fashion why I should do so at all, I tore out the notice and put it carefully away in my pocketbook. I had the explanation now; I understood it all—the hidden ring at the end of the chain, and the shadow of which it was the symbol, the mystery and disturbance of the house, the continual pretexts to get rid of me, the effort to disguise any strangeness of appearance in the life of the family. And I understood why it was true that I must go away and utterly forget. And yet—was the explanation so perfect, after all? Mechanically I pulled the paper out of the drawer, and searched for the date. It was only three years back; but even that length of time would have made Lady a mere child when she was married. She could not be very far beyond twenty now, certainly not more than twenty-two or three. And in any case, why should the marriage beconcealed and the husband retained as a member of the family, masquerading as a brother? And how, after the ordinary announcement in the press, could the marriage have become a secret at all? Then once more the whispers and pointings of a score of abnormal circumstances, uncertain, suggestive, indefinite, crowded in upon my understanding, like the confusion of simultaneous voices. It was no use. I could not imagine what it all meant, and for the moment I was too sick and weary to wonder. The bare fact was more than enough; she was married and beyond my reach, and I must go away.
I went through a pantomime of supper, making the discovery that my appetite was supplemented by an unquenchable thirst and an immeasurable desire for tobacco. After that I walked, read, made dull conversation with casual acquaintances—anything to kill the interminable time, and quiet for the moment that weary spirit of unrest which kept urging me to useless thought and unprofitable action, to examine my trouble as one irritates a trivial wound, to decide or do something where nothing was to be decided or to be done. An inhabitant of the nearest comfortless piazza chair contributed the only episode worth remembering.
"Say," he began, "do you remember that guinea that was here the other day and started the argument with the old gent out in front? Well, what did you make of that feller, anyway?"
"I don't know. He was drunk, I suppose, and got the wrong man."
"Well, now, you take it from me, there was more to it than that. Yes, sir, there's a shady story around there somewhere. You hear what I say."
"Is the man still around here?" I asked.
"Well, not now, he ain't. That's what I'm telling you. He hung about town for two or three days, I guess. Maybe he got after the old man some more. He was in here after a drink once, and the barkeep threw him out. He's a good mixer, Harry is, men or drinks; but he don't like guineas. Well, I don't go much on them foreigners, myself."
"Where does your shady story come in?"
"Well, now, that's just it. You listen. I was coming along the street the other night, and I passed this guinea standing under a street lamp, talking to that Reid feller that lives up to Tabors'. Doc Reid, you know whom I mean? Well, I was going past and I heard Reid say: 'Now, you understand what you got to do,' he says, 'keep quiet and keep away. Theminute you show up here again or give any trouble,' he says, 'the money stops. You understand that?' he says. And you can call me a liar if you like, but I swear I saw him slip the guinea a roll. Now, what do you know about that?"
I put him off as well as I could. Here was another point in the labyrinth, but I had no energy to think about it. I got away from the gossip at last only by taking refuge in my room. And the rest of the evening was a dreary nightmare of unreality which only expanded without changing when I tried to sleep. I tossed about endlessly, thinking thoughts that were not thoughts, dreaming evil dreams even while I watched the swollen shadows about the room and listened to the unmeaning voices and footsteps in the hallways. It seemed so much a part of this when some one pounded on my door and told me that I was wanted on the telephone, that it was a troublesome task to make me understand.
I pulled on a sweater and ran down-stairs, wondering who could have called me up at one in the morning. I was not left long in doubt.
"Hello! This Mr. Crosby? Hello! Hello there! Mr. Crosby? Hello!"
"Yes!" I said savagely, "what is it?"
"Doctor Reid talking. Can you—what? All right—hold the line a second." Then Lady's voice: "Mr. Crosby? Listen: I have to go to New York in the machine now, right away. Can you come with me?"
"Can I—? Why, of course; but why doesn't—why don't you take some one else?"
"No one else can go. If you're not willing—"
"Of course I'm willing," I said, "if I can be of use."
"I knew you would. The car will be there for you in five minutes, or—wait: there's no need of waking up the whole inn. Walk up to the first street corner this way, and the car will meet you there."
Five minutes later I was standing on the corner, shivering with interrupted sleep, while four flaming yellow eyes swung toward me down the hill. It was the same big limousine I had noticed the night before. I climbed in beside the chauffeur. With a clash and a grinding lurch the car swung around and pointed up the hill again, toward the Tabors'. There was power and to spare, but I noticed that one cylinder was missing now and again.
"Your ignition isn't very steady," I said to the chauffeur. "What is it—valves?"
He turned and looked at me with supercilious respect. "Poor petrol, sir. I fancy she'll run well enough, sir."
Lady came running out, veiled and muffled. "Come inside," she said, as I sprang down to help her in, "I'd rather have you with me." The door slammed, and we were off with a jerk that threw us back against the deep leather cushions. For a few moments we flashed under lamps and sidled around corners to an accompaniment of growling brakes and squeaking springs; then we ran out upon the smooth macadam of the highway, and settled into our speed with a steady purr. Lady sat up in her corner and patted at her veil.
"It was very good of you to come," she said, "but I knew we could count on you. Here, take this thing—I don't want it."
It was a very serviceable revolver, cold and smooth as I slipped it out of its leather holster. I made sure that it was ready for use.
"It's perfectly ridiculous taking it along," she added. "We're not going on any desperate midnight errand. The mere time of night is the only thing that's even unconventional. But Walter wouldn't let me come without it."
I asked no questions. By this time I had learned better; and besides I did not greatly care what we were doing, or what was to happen next. I would be of service if I could, that was all. Since it was to be hopelessly, it might as well be blindly, too; and the sense of adventure was gone out of me. The car swayed and sidled gently to the irregular mutter of the engine and the drowsy whining of the gears. We might almost have been motionless, except when the flare of some passing light swept across us, filling with an uncanny and sudden illumination the polished interior of the limousine, and showing me as by the glimpse of a lightning-flash the veiled and silent figure by my side. Here was romance beyond my wildest imagination: night, and hurry and mysterious need, the swift rush onward through the warm gloom, the womanhood of the breathing shadow so close to me, whose thought I could not know, whose anxiety I could not seek to fathom, whose trouble I could only help by doing ignorantly what she asked of me and then leaving her in other hands. And all this that should have stirred me to chivalry seemed only dull and weary, a thankless task. The lines ofThe Last Ride Togetherbegan running in my mind, and I turned them over andover, trying vaguely to fill in forgotten phrases, until the rocking of the car reminded me where I was, and the sardonic incongruity of it jarred me back to earth. It was always like that: the deed a parody of the dream, the details of actual happenings making mouths at the truth that lay behind them, life sneering at itself. Here were two lovers hurrying together through the night, held silent by a secret and bound by a blind trust. And they were riding through Westchester in a motor-car, and the thought of a fussy medical man with a bass voice was the naked sword which lay between them.
A trolley car, looking like a huge and luminous caterpillar, hung alongside us for a moment, then fell behind. Our engine had not been running perfectly from the first; and now as we jolted over a section of newly mended road and began to climb a bumpy hill, the trouble suddenly became so much worse that it looked as though it meant delay. Impure gasolene does not make one cylinder miss fire regularly for many revolutions and then explode once or twice with a croupy grunt.
"There's something the matter with the car," said Lady nervously. "I hope we're not going to break down. We mustn't break down."
"The chauffeur says it's the gasolene," I answered, "but I don't believe it. It's ignition by the sound."
"Do you know anything about a car?"
"A little," I said; and as we drew up at the side of the road, I was out and in front of the machine almost before the chauffeur had lumbered from his seat. He got out his electric lamp, and began tinkering with the carburetor.
"Hold on a minute," I said. "If you ball up that adjustment, it may take half an hour to get it right again. Are you sure it isn't ignition?"
"Ignition's all right, sir," he grunted; "she's getting too much gas."
"Then why are three of your cylinders all right and one all wrong?" I snapped. "Come around here with that lamp."
Once the bonnet was open it was not hard to find the trouble. The nut which held one of the wires to its connection on the magneto had dropped off, and the end of the wire was hanging loose, connecting only when the vibration of the car swung it against the binding-post. The chauffeur did not appear grieved.
"We're dished," he remarked cheerfully. "I've no other nut like that."
"It's probably in the underpan," I retorted. We got the pan off, and after some search in the puddle of grimy grease, were fortunate enough to find it. A moment later we were throbbing steadily on our way.
"That man of yours isn't exactly delighted with his work," I commented.
"I don't blame him. He isn't supposed to be waked up for forty-mile trips in the middle of the night, and he's English and worships his habits. Are we all right now?"
"Yes; it wasn't anything. We're nearly there now; there's Woodlawn."
She did not speak again for some time, and I began to wonder if I had again trodden upon trouble. I seemed fated to do so at every turn. But presently she broke in with a comfortable triviality.
"Look here, why don't you smoke if you want to? I forgot all about it, but of course you may. I don't mind."
I had not noticed it before, but the cigarette was exactly what I wanted. The bodily comfort balanced things again, and made me feel at home with the situation. We ran down Riverside Drive, the dark bulk of the city on our left, and on our rightthe glimmering breadth of the Hudson, streaked with yellow gleams. Thence we crossed over and continued on down Fifth Avenue, between blank houses and unnatural lights, the occasional clack of hoofs and hollow growl of wheels accentuating the unwonted stillness. I had somehow taken it for granted that we were going for a doctor. But when we passed Madison Square and kept on south along Broadway, that errand became unlikely; and when we turned eastward over the rough cobbles of narrow side streets, I was in a state of blank wonder. We ran slowly, lurching and bumping, through interminable chasms of squalor where iron railings mounted to the doors and clots of bedding hung from open windows; where evil odors hung and drifted like clouds, and a sick heat lay prisoned between wall and pavement, and stragglers turned to stare after us as we went by. Now and then we crossed some wider thoroughfare with its noise of cars and tangle of sagging wires overhead, and signs in foreign tongues under the corner lights. And at last we came into a city of dreadful sleep, dim and deserted and still. The scattered lamps were only yellow splotches in the dusk, the stores were barred and bared, and there was no human thing in sightsave here and there a huddle of grimy clothes under the half shelter of a doorway. Puffs of salt air from the river troubled the stagnant mixture of fish, leather and stale beer.
We stopped before a narrow doorway pinched sidewise between two shop windows like a fish's mouth. Lady leaned across me to scan the bleak windows above.
"There should be a light on the top floor," she said, "yes, there it is. Ask Thomas to make sure of the number."
He was back in a moment to say that the number was right: "And all asleep, Miss, by the look of it. Shall I knock somebody up? There's no bell."
"No, not yet. What time is it, Mr. Crosby?"
"Twenty minutes of three," I told her.
"She must have got the message before now," she said, half to herself. Then, after a little thought, "Stay here with the car, Thomas. Mr. Crosby and I are going in."
"You're not going into such a place at this hour!" I protested. "Tell me what it is and let me go."
"No, I'm coming too. Don't stop to talk about it, please."
The door yielded and let us into a stained andchoking hallway, faintly lighted by a blue flicker of gas at the far end. The stairs were worn into creaking hollows, and the noise of our passing, though instinctively we crept upward like thieves, awakened a multitude of squeaks and scufflings behind the plaster. The banisters were everywhere loose and shaky, and in places they were entirely broken away, so that we went close along the filthy wall rather than trust to them. Each hallway was like the one below; narrow, dusty and airless, with its blue spurt of gas giving us just light enough to find our way without groping. At last we reached the top, and Lady knocked softly on the door at the end of the hall.
There was no answer. She knocked again. I turned up the gas, and as I did so a fat beetle ran from under my feet. I stepped on it, and wished that I had not done so.
"Are you sure this is the place?" I whispered.
"Yes; I've been here before. But I don't understand. Sheila knew that we were coming."
"Look," said I, "the door is unlatched. Shall I go in?"
For an instant the oppression of the place was too much for her, and she clung to my arm whispering,"I'm afraid—I'm afraid!" Then before I could speak, she had caught up her courage.
"Yes," she said. "Open it if you can."
The door swung a few inches, then resisted. Something soft and heavy, like a mattress, seemed to be braced against the bottom of it. I felt for the revolver in my pocket, then put my weight against the panel. The thing inside moved a little, then rolled over with a thud, and the door swung wide. What had lain against it, and now lay across the opening clearly visible in the light from behind us was the body of a woman with blood soaking into her hair.
We stood looking down upon her without speech. She was a tall, rather thin woman of about fifty; Irish by the look of her, and still with some share of earlier good looks. The hair that fell away loosely from her broad forehead was black and straight, showing only here and there a thread of silver. The large hands lay limply open, and the face was deathly white. She had fallen away from the door with her knees pressed closely against it, as though she had been trying to open it when the blow came.
"Do you think she is dead?" Lady breathed at last.
"Of course not," I answered, but I was very much afraid. I knelt down beside her and listened to her heart. I was not sure, but it seemed to me that it beat faintly; so faintly that it might have been only the drumming of my own pulses in my ears.
"Can you find a mirror?" I asked from the floor.
Lady glanced vaguely about the room, then came back to me with uncomprehending eyes. "No, I can't see any. What for?" she said dully.
I sprang quickly to my feet. A chair lay overturned on the bare white boards of the floor, and I picked it up, setting it near the window.
"Sit there," I said, "while I rummage," and I drew her to it, half forcing her down into it. She sat very still, mechanically obedient, while I looked around me.
It was a strange little room to find in this decaying tenement. On the sill of the single window that gave upon the street blossomed an uneven row of geraniums. One pot had fallen to the floor and lay shattered, the fresh green of its broken plant piteous in a sprawl of scattered earth. The whole place bore evidence of an insistent struggle for the cheerfulness of a home. White, starchy curtains were at the windows; the walls were fairly covered with pictures, colored prints for the most part, and supplements of Sunday papers. A bird-cage had hung in one corner, and now lay, cage and bottom fallen apart, upon a muddle of seed and water; and a frightened canary perched upon the leg of a fallentable, blinking in the unsteady flare of the gas. The floor was spotlessly clean, its worn boards white with scrubbing, save where the flower-pot and bird-cage had been overturned, and the dark stain spread from beneath the woman's hair. The whole scene was unnaturally and strangely vivid, all its little details leaping to the eye with the stark brilliance of a flashlight.
To the right of the door by which the woman lay was another door, and I crossed over to it. It opened with a squeak, and for a moment I stood looking in. This was evidently the sleeping-room. It held only a washstand, a chest and an iron bedstead; and here, too, an unextinguished gas-jet flared. I stepped in and closed the door behind me, for upon the bed lay another huddled figure. It was a man lying face downward, breathing heavily and evidently very drunk; for the whole place reeked sourly of alcohol. I pulled at his shoulder, turning him half over. For half a minute I held him so, then let him fall back as I had found him. I glanced behind me to be sure that the door was shut. The man on the bed muttered thickly, shifting his position; and something thudded upon the floor, and rolled to my feet. It was a short bit of iron, rather more thickat one end than at the other; and as I turned it over in my hands, it left a stain. Somewhere I had seen such an instrument before, but I could not at the moment recall where; and I dropped the thing into my pocket not without some feeling of disgust. A small mirror hung over the washstand. This I hurriedly took down, and as hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind me. Lady was still sitting where I had left her, but as I came across the room she got up.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. "I'm sure I can help in some way. You were gone a long time, but I waited."
"I'll show you in a moment," I said. We talked in whispers as if in the presence of death; and yet I was almost sure that the woman was alive. Nevertheless, it was with a great deal of relief that I saw the mirror softly cloud before her lips.
"It's all right," I cried. "She's alive."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Oh, thank God!" Lady breathed
"Amen," said I. "What are we to do now?"
"What do you think we had better do? Is there any water in there?"
"There's nothing in there that's of any use," I said quickly. "I should say the first thing would be to send for an ambulance, and the next for the police."
"No, no!" Lady cried. "Whatever is to be done we must do ourselves. I came here to take her away. Can't we take her as she is?"
"She could be carried down-stairs easily enough," said I, surprised, "but somebody ought to be arrested for this thing. Have you any notion who did it?"
"Her husband, I suppose," answered Lady bitterly. "He is like that when he has been drinking. Sheila was afraid something would happen when he came back."
"Sheila?"
Lady glanced at the figure before us. "That is Sheila," she said. "She used to be my nurse."
I picked the woman up in my arms. She was heavier than I had thought; not beyond my strength, but more than I could walk with safely down those crazy stairs.
"I'll call the chauffeur," I said. "He can help carry her down."
"Yes; but I'd rather he didn't see this."
"He'd see her anyhow, when we brought herdown; and we can't do anything for her here. Where shall I put her?"
"Wasn't there a bed in that room?" she asked.
"Slip off your coat; she will be all right on the floor for a minute."
Lady took off the long coat and spread it upon the boards, taking Sheila's hand in her lap as I laid her down upon it. I raised the little window, and looked down into the street. The car stood there, its lights glaring monstrously down the empty street.
"Hi!" I called. "You chauffeur! Leave the car and come up here."
Below, a figure detached itself from the shadow of the car. "What, sir?" he shouted up.
"Come up here; we want you."
The man did not answer, and turned back to his car. I watched him angrily, but after a moment he crossed the sidewalk and disappeared in the hall doorway.
"I wouldn't blame her husband too surely," I said, as I turned from the window. "I think the man who struck her was an Italian."
Lady started. "What makes you think so?" she asked in a whisper.
I shook my head, but did not answer.
"Never mind," said Lady, "but you are right. Her husband is an Italian."
It was my turn to start. "What?" I cried. "Was he by any chance also a sailor?"
She nodded, frightened eyes upon me. And I wondered what it was all about, for the man lying upon the bed in the inner room was the man whom I had seen at the inn bar, the man who had threatened her father, the man to whom her—her husband had given money.
I met the chauffeur in the hall, puffing and evidently disgusted.
"A very low quarter, sir. I was afraid for my life below; and this is a dirty, bad-smelling 'ouse, sir."
"Well," I said, "there is a woman who is sick in here, and Miss Tabor has come to take her away in the car. You are to help me to carry her down."
He sniffed dolefully, and I opened the door, closing it quickly behind him.
"Mrs. Carucci has been hurt," said Miss Tabor. "You are to help Mr. Crosby carry her down to the car."
The man stared at the woman on the floor. "Hurt?" he cried. "Mr. Crosby said she was ill." He glanced about the clean little room, disordered bythe violence that had passed, and shrank back against the wall, white and staring.
"What's that?" He pointed to the dark stain near the door.
"That," I answered lightly, "is none of your business. Suppose you take her feet."
The man turned a sick green. "It's blood," he whispered. "It's murder."
"Nonsense, man; the woman is alive. She fell and hurt her head, that's all. At any rate, we are going to take her where she can be cared for. Take her feet. We ought not to leave the car too long."
The fellow shook his head.
"She is dead," he repeated sullenly. "There has been murder done. I'll have nothing to do with it."
Miss Tabor broke in: "Thomas, you heard what Mr. Crosby said. You are to help him this instant."
"I am not," he said. "I have done more and seen more than a decent man should, already. A fine district this is for this hour of the night, with cut-throats asleep in the street and a dead woman lying above. I give notice now, and I go now."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," I retorted. "Have you no loyalty?"
"I am as honest as the next," he answered, "toohonest, or I should have gone a month ago. 'Tis no place for a decent, quiet man, what with a fly-by-night sawbones living in my garage, and all sorts of strange folks going and coming at the house, and calls at all hours, and Lord knows what going on. 'Tis no decent place. I'm through right now! For the love of God, what's that?"
The sound had startled us all, and it was repeated—a sound betwixt a groan and a growl. I glanced toward the door of the inner room.
"My God!" cried Thomas. "There's another of them!" He started across the room, but I was before him. I turned the key in the door, and placed my back against it. From within the growls came with greater frequency. The chauffeur stood before me, shaking with the anger of terror.
"Very well," I said, "you go down to your car and start the engine. I will carry the woman down without you."
The man hesitated.
"Go!" I cried, and took a step forward. He whimpered out an oath, and turning, clattered down the stairs as if the devil were after him. I turned to find Lady on her feet, staring at the closed door.
"Carucci?" she whispered.
I nodded, and went over to take up the woman.
"Wait a minute," cried Lady. "We can't leave the bird loose. She thinks everything of him."
Somehow I did not laugh. "Very well," I said, "but be quick," and even as I spoke there came a muttering of Italian; the bed creaked, the feet came heavily to the floor. Lady stretched out her hand for the bird, but it fluttered off frightened to the geranium plants. A thud came against the locked door, and another drunken mutter of Italian. But now Lady had the bird safe, and I latched the cage top to its flooring, and held open the door for her capture.
"You carry it," I said. "I'll take the woman."
We were just in time; for Carucci began to realize that he was locked in, and the door shook under his fury. It was a weak-looking door at best, and as we left the room, a lower panel splintered. We fairly ran down-stairs, fearful every moment that the door would not hold long enough; for the whole building seemed to vibrate with the savage uproar above. Here and there, as we turned down the dark hall, doors opened, and frightened faces, dull with sleep, looked out.
Once in the street, I pushed hurriedly through theknot of roughs that had gathered peering and jeering around the car, and tore open the door.
"Quick! Get in!" I cried. Lady slipped past me and up the step.
"Give her to me," she said.
I put the woman in gently upon the seat, where Lady held her close. Then I turned to the chauffeur in a fury, for the engine was not running. He was fumbling at the dash, while the onlookers jostled about him. I shook him angrily.
"Start it, you fool!" I growled.
He shrank away from me. "I'm through, I told you. I'll have nothing to do with mur—" I slapped the word short with a swing of my open hand across his mouth. Without a word he turned and elbowed his way through the press behind us. I caught him by the arm.
"Give me that plug," I said, twisting it from his hand. And as I jammed it into its socket, I heard Lady's voice at my shoulder. She was standing on the curb, one hand upon the open door of the car.
"Can't you make it go?"
"It's all right," I shouted, reaching for the spark, "get inside!" and the engine started with a snort and a howl. The crowd had begun to mutter threateningly,and as I sprang for the other side of the car they jostled me back.
"Murder!" some one shouted hoarsely. "Police! police! police!"
From far down the block came the regular thud of running feet, and the shrill blast of a whistle; and along with it, a stumbling clatter from the tenement hallway, and Carucci, a great smear of blood across his convulsed and swollen face, lurched drunkenly to the sidewalk.
It was a matter of seconds. I vaulted over the spare tires into the chauffeur's seat, pulling the throttle open while I felt for my pedals; and as I did so, I heard the door of the limousine slam behind me. A hasty glance over my shoulder showed me that the back of the car was clear. I jerked in the reverse and raised my feet; and with a roar and a stream of blue smoke, the machine swung backward across the street, while I twisted furiously at the wheel. One of the men caught at me as we began to move, but the suddenness of our starting helped the push I gave him to throw him off his balance. He sprawled on his back in the gutter, and an instant later I was in my second speed and half-way up the block. The policeman behind us was firing his revolver; whether at us or our tires or the sky I had no time to guess. And I took the first corner with my heart in my mouth and an empty feeling inmy stomach, praying that we might get around it right side up. A shadow ran out from the curb and sprang for the running-board; but my hands and eyes were so busy in front of me that I did not know whether we missed him or ran him down.
Speed was impossible over the cobbles; our only chance was to take as many turnings as possible to avoid being headed, and for the next few minutes we swayed and slid around treacherous corners through a darkness that was full of shouts and whistlings and gesticulating enemies. I wondered that every blue-coated figure running blindly up the lane of our lights did not stop us, and that at every turning we had neither upset nor skidded into the opposite curb. It was wild work at the best; and considering that I was driving a heavy and unfamiliar car over slimy pavements, I can not understand now how we avoided either accident or capture. But presently the headlights showed a long, dark street, clear of interference. We raced up it at a rate that seemed to loosen every tooth in my head, and numbed my fingers upon the rattling wheel. The noise was fairly behind us. After a couple more turns, it had grown fainter; and I slowed to a saner speed, watching the street lamps for knowledge ofmy whereabouts. Then I became conscious that there was a man beside me in the car.
He was huddled in a heap on the floor, between the seat and the dash, hanging on desperately, and crowding himself into the least possible space as if to keep out of sight. As soon as I could spare a hand, I began to pound him over the head and neck. I was in no mood for half measures. He cowered back on to the running-board, shielding himself with an arm and turning up an absurd and ugly face of terror. It was our highly respectable chauffeur.
"Oh, for God's sake, don't, sir!" he croaked, shrinking back out of reach. "I won't interfere with you nor nothing. I'll get out as soon as we get fair away. Only I'd ha' been took up sure, sir, and there's me character gone."
"Get into that seat and keep still," I said, "or you'll have us all taken up. Get in, I tell you."
He crawled into the seat, shaking and protesting. There were tears in his voice, and I think actually in his eyes.
"Do you know your way out of this?" I demanded.
"No, sir. I haven't a notion. I'll get out and ask." He was apparently too frightened to knowhis own mind, but I had made up mine. He was better with us than wandering about the city, telling murder stories.
"Stay where you are," I snapped, "you'll go home with us, and keep your head shut."
"Oh, I can't think of it, sir. We'll never get home after this. I'll get out here. It's murder and resisting arrest and endangering traffic. They'll have me an accomplice."
I caught at his collar as he tried to stand up, and jerked him back into the seat. Before he could make another move, I had shut off and got my right hand on the revolver. I held it across my knees under the wheel, and slipped the holster off it.
"You're going to sit still and keep quiet," I said, "and you're going wherever we go. Do you understand?"
He sat like a graven image after that, with no sound but an occasional sniff. I slid the revolver between me and the edge of the seat, and we went on. He might have known that I should never have dared to use it; but either he was too shaken and stupid to put himself in my place, or he lacked the nerve to try me. All this time we had been working westward as fast as the rough going and my dividedattention would allow. Now and then some one shouted after us. But it was still dark and we were soon out of sight around a corner, and the few policemen who concerned themselves with us at all did not trouble themselves to whistle up a hue and cry. Presently the black bulk of the elevated gave me my bearings, and I turned north under it, running along the car tracks. The lights and the scattered traffic, and the occasional roaring of a train overhead, seemed curiously homelike and comfortable. I felt as if I were waking out of a nightmare.
We crossed over to Union Square and hurried carefully through civilization. I was afraid of Fifth Avenue; even at this hour, too many of the guardians of the peace there were provided with better means of speed than their own feet; and I did not like the attention we still seemed to attract, now that we were safe away from our original trouble and running at an ordinary rate. Madison Avenue was decently asleep; and its empty length must have tempted me to unreasonable speed, for the few people we passed stopped to stare, and call after us unmeaningly. I expected every moment to meet a mounted policeman, and held myself ready to slow down or take a sudden corner; but none appeared,and I turned into the leafy darkness of Central Park with a sigh of relief. I was more than a little anxious for the safety of my passengers within.
I stopped in the deepest shade I could find, and clambered out. Lady's face was at the door almost before I could open it.
"Are you all right?" she panted. I could see only her eyes and the outline of her face like a white shadow.
"Yes; are you?"
She laughed nervously. "I'm as well as when we started, and Sheila is better. She has come to herself now. Can you find some water? I have a flask here."
"There are fountains all along these drives. We'll run ahead until we come to one of them."
As I spoke, there was a thud behind me, and a quick patter of running feet. The excellent Thomas had taken advantage of my forgetfulness to break for liberty. He was out of sight almost before I turned; and he had been thoughtful enough to throw the revolver away as he jumped.
"I'm a clever idiot," I said ruefully, "your chauffeur has been trying to desert all along, and now he's done it."
"But you were driving, yourself. What difference does it make?"
"I was thinking of what he might say," said I. "But for that matter, I suppose I have got you into a newspaper scrape anyhow, if nothing worse. Every policeman on the East Side must have our number."
"I was just going to ask you about that," said Lady, with a queer little crow in her voice. "Perhaps we had better carry this outside now." She felt about her feet and handed me a muddy strip of metal. "I took this off while you were starting the car. And I put out that red lantern thing, too."
For an instant I forgot Doctor Reid and all the mountain of impossibility that lay between us. She had always been more than other women. And now she was that rarest thing of all, a comrade ready in a moment of need. I reached out my hand, as if she had been a man.
"You're a miracle," I said, "and I'm not half good enough to be your lieutenant. Good work."
There was a broken whisper from the darkness within.
"The water," said Lady, "we're forgetting Sheila."
I replaced our number, lighted the tail-lamp, and a little farther on found a drinking fountain and got the water. Mrs. Carucci was able to speak only a few words of unsteady thanks; but that was enough to make me fall in love with the crooning voice of her. We pushed on out of town without any further adventure; and on the open roads off to the northward were free to make the most of our speed.
The night slowly faded, not as if any light were coming, but as if the darkness itself were growing faint and weak. The roadside trees were still mysterious bulks against remoter gloom, but their blackness now gave a dull hint of green and the yellow glare of our lamps grew washed out and lifeless. The crowing of cocks, reiterated from place to place, sounded fictitious and unnatural. The air chilled a little and here and there we ran through a momentary blindness of mist, as if a small cloud had fallen to drift along the surface of the earth. I sat back half drowsily, with relaxed nerves; and although I had no desire for sleep, although I never loosened my hands upon the wheel, nor took my eyes for a second from the wavering end of the ribbon of light that unwound itself continually toward me, yet Ifelt somehow unreal and very peaceful, without will or memory, like a person in a dream. The car obeyed me without my being conscious of any movement, as if I guided it by my mere volition. Slowly the pallor around me changed from green to gray; the air freshened as the stars went out; and the twitter of birds and the scattered barking of dogs underran the unvarying, inevitable drumming of the engine. That sound itself dried and hardened in the keener atmosphere. And in the pleasure of the perfect power under me, I let the car out nearly to the limit of its speed, until the sidelong sway of the body warned me that I was driving too fast for the road. We passed a milk wagon or two and an occasional early trolley. Then came the dawn, so swiftly that it was full day of sunlight and shadow before I thought to look for color in the east. Somehow it did not seem like morning, but like coming out of a curtained house into the midst of afternoon.
It was part of this same strangeness that I only felt the exhilaration of the present without any thought of trouble that lay before me and behind. I was a conquering hero, carrying my princess home in triumph out of the castle of the enchanter. I hadovercome desperate accidents and won my spurs; this page of the fairy-tale bore a picture in shining colors, and I knew of neither the last page nor the next. It was in this mood that I passed, unheeding, through the gathering familiarity of nearer landmarks, past the inn and up the winding hill, and drew up at last before the Tabors' door with some vague fancy that I should hear a trumpet blown. I suppose that I was unconsciously very tired and in part asleep, so that it came upon me with the shock of a violent awakening when the front door swung open and Mr. Tabor hurried out to meet us, followed by Doctor Reid.
The fairy-tale burst like a bubble, and the actuality of all that those two men stood for in my last few days and all the days to come drowned me in a breath. I got down mechanically to help them. I suppose we must have spoken a few words while Lady was getting out of the car and Mrs. Carucci was helped down and half-carried into the house between the two men. But I do not remember. I remember only the three figures in the doorway, the drooping woman, with their arms about her. Then the door closed, and Lady stood alone upon the steps above me. Her eyes were larger for the shadowsunder them; but there was no bloom upon her, and I wondered why I had thought her really beautiful.
"I'll take the car around and leave it," I said. "Good-by."
"You're a strange man," she muttered; then with her sudden smile, "Aren't you coming in to breakfast? You've had an adventure, and you ought to be hungry."
Her tone jarred. "Never mind that," I said bitterly. "I was to go this morning, and I'm going. There's still plenty of time for my train. The sooner it's over with, the better."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Mean? I mean what you told me—and one thing more, I understand now what you meant yesterday, because I found your marriage notice in an old paper."
"What marriage notice? I don't understand."
"Yours; on the twenty-sixth of May three years ago, to Doctor Reid. That's all. I beg your pardon."
The color came back into her face; and under the trouble of her brows I thought she almost smiled.
"That was my sister," she said quietly. "My name's Margaret; I thought you knew."
With that, all the strangeness of the day, all the feeling of moving in an unnatural world which had hung about me since the dawn, blew away like the shadow of smoke. It was a summer morning of breezes and cool lights, garrulous with innumerable birds; and I was standing with my feet upon solid earth, glad beyond measure for the knowledge that I was a fool. The very idea of it had been absurd; and best of all, there were still things to be done.
"God be thanked," said I to Lady.
She smiled down at me very sweetly. "So much as that? It doesn't sound as if you appreciated Walter, Mr. Crosby. I can easily imagine a worse husband myself."
"I don't mean that," said I hastily. "At least—"
"At least you may as well come in to breakfast."
"I should say he might," Mr. Tabor cried behind her. "I have Sheila safely stowed away, and now I must make sure of you."
I must have looked nearly as puzzled as I felt.
"You see, Mr. Crosby, I owe you an apology. You helped us out of a tight place last night, and we are deeply in your debt; your coals of fire are upon all our heads."
"But—" I said, and hesitated.
"'But;' but that's what I say. I owe you an apology. We fired you out the other night because we had to. We had something going on here then which we did not care to have a stranger mixed up in. We had every regard for you—but, after all, you were an outsider, and we simply could not risk you. So we threw you out. You understand that I am speaking to you now in confidence, and because I take you to be a gallant gentleman. Neither can I explain. Of course, the explanation I did give you was a sheer bit of bluff. I know nothing against you whatever; but you forced me into saying something, and that was the most effective thing I could think of to say to a man of your kind. Believe me, I hated to do it. Will you shake hands?"
By that time I had got my breath again. "I willdo more," I said laughingly. "I will congratulate you. You are one of the ablest and most convincingly finished—a—"
"Liars," he prompted.
"That I ever had the privilege of meeting," I concluded unblushingly.
Mr. Tabor clapped me on the shoulder. "Thank you. I am honored. We shall get along very well, I promise you. Lady, lead the way where breakfast waits; this low fellow and I will follow."
So the three of us made a very comfortable meal. Mrs. Tabor was not at table, and I supposed her breakfasting in bed, if indeed she were awake; and Doctor Reid, it appeared, was yet busy with his patient. We told Mr. Tabor our adventure, turn and turn about, and I found myself listening to Lady's warm praise of what she was pleased to call my resource, with a tingling at the heart-strings. When we had done, and Mr. Tabor had listened very carefully, he sat frowning before him for a while; and I thought that he saw more in the recital than did we ourselves.
"Well," he said at last. "I suppose all's well that ends well; but I do hope that it has all ended. Are you quite sure, Mr. Crosby, that nobody got a lookat you or Lady or the car who would be likely to have mind enough to give the affair clearly to the newspapers?"
"I'm pretty sure of it, sir," I answered. "The only people who got a good look at anything were the little group of the usual slum roughs; and from their general air and the hour of the night, the probability is that there wasn't one of them that was not pretty well befuddled."
"How about the police?"
"I didn't get a good look at the police myself; but I think that we were too fast for them. You see, Miss Tabor had the number off, and we started with considerable speed. They may have a general idea of the car, but I think that is about all."
"I wonder what Carucci will do?" mused Miss Tabor. "He looked rather unpleasant on the sidewalk."
"He will have to say something," I said uneasily. "He couldn't have careened around there very long without falling into the hands of the police; and they would certainly arrest him. They usually arrest everybody in sight when one person has got away and they don't know quite what the trouble is."
Mr. Tabor nodded. "Yes, they doubtless havehim safe behind the bars by now; but I don't think that will hurt us any. Personally, I can imagine no place where I should rather have him, unless it were far upon or under the deep blue sea."
"But, father dear, that is terrible. If they have him in jail, he will have to talk, and he will be blamed for that poor wrecked room and everything. He'll have to give some explanation to save himself; and he must know that we are the only people that would be likely to come for Sheila in an automobile."
"The Italian, my dear, is not that breed of man. We may be very glad for once that he is an Italian. There is only about one thing in the world that a man of his race and class will not do—and that is, talk to the police. It is part of his faith not to. He will either invent some all-enfolding lie that tells nothing whatsoever, or else he will not say a word."
"But he must have struck herwithsomething," said Lady. "Suppose they should findthat, father. He'd have to tell them to save himself."
I slipped my hand into my pocket. "I don't think they will find it," said I, and showed the thing above the table. Lady shuddered, and I quickly returned it to my pocket.
"Just what you would expect," said Mr. Tabor, "and if you had left it, I am afraid Carucci would have had some difficulty in explaining things. A marlinespike, isn't it? Poor Sheila was really very fortunate that he didn't stab her with the sharp end. A stab would have been more in his line—the beast. As it is, I don't believe the police will ever find out any of the truth of the matter."
"Well, even if they do," said I, "it won't do any great amount of harm. They might arrest me for speeding, but that would be about all. No one in his senses would be likely to accuse us of murder."
"My good young man," Mr. Tabor answered, "they absolutely mustn't dream that we had any hand in it at all. They mustn't even hear of us. And neither must anybody else."
Lady sighed wearily. "I'm sure that it will be all right, father," she said.
"The chauffeur will be quiet for the sake of his own character," I added. "He's as anxious to avoid any connection with it as we are. And as for me, sir, you may be sure that nothing shall leak out through any indiscretion of mine."
Mr. Tabor pushed aside his finger-bowl. "I understand that, Mr. Crosby—and I appreciate howuncomfortable it must be for you to act in the dark. Believe me, I regret very much the necessity for it, and appreciate your generosity."
Lady was looking at us, and I colored. "I'm very much at your service, Mr. Tabor," I said.
"You may perhaps wonder what this Italian has to do with us at all. That, at least, I can tell you. He was a sailor on one of my ships in years past, and when the girls were—" He paused. "When Lady was a little girl, you understand, we took quite a voyage for Mrs. Tabor's health. Sheila was Lady's nurse—and a very pretty slip of an Irish lass she was. Naturally we took her along, and the rest is one of those whimsies of fate that you can never explain. This Carucci fell in love with her; what attractedherwas more than any one of us could imagine, but at any rate she married him. Married him as soon as we got back to New York. Well, after that things gradually went wrong. The man got a taste for drink, which is unusual—the Italians aren't a drunken people—and although I kept him on against my captain's advice for Sheila's sake, in the end I had to let him go. From time to time, when there has been trouble, we have taken Sheila into our family to give the poor woman some protection,though her loyalty makes it pretty hard to do much for her. Carucci, however, resents our interference, and pretends that we force her from him. He is becoming very troublesome."
Mr. Tabor had lighted a cigar, puffing it slowly throughout his story. He talked very easily; and I was ashamed of myself for wondering whether he was telling all the truth. Perhaps my encounter with him had made me suspicious, but I could not forget that Doctor Reid had given Carucci money. I felt uncomfortable; and with the mental discomfort, I realized that I had been through a sleepless and violent night, and that I was very tired. I must have shown some shadow of this sudden weariness, for Lady rose from her chair decidedly and stretched out her hand.
"Now you must go back to your room and get some sleep, Mr. Crosby. You can come back this evening if you like—we should have the evening papers by then, and we shall see how much notice has been taken of us."
"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.
"You are tired out," said Lady, "I know. I'm tired myself, and I—" she stopped, flushing.
Her father was looking at us with half a frown,and it was to him that I turned. "Well, then, I'm off," said I, "but I'll be back to help you dissect the associated press."
I had not thought that I could sleep during the day, or even rest, except from worry. But the strain, and perhaps even more, the relief of the last twenty-four hours, must have relaxed me more than I knew; for I did sleep soundly until late in the afternoon. When I returned to the Tabors in the evening, Mrs. Tabor was still invisible; and the others were seated about the big lamp in the living-room, busy over a bale of last editions. The floor was strewn with open sheets from which wild pictures and wilder words stared upward.
"Come in and be thrilled," was Lady's greeting. "You're an unknown slayer and a mysterious criminal. We seem to be sufficiently notorious, but thus far we remain unidentified."
"Outrageous, the tone of these things," growled her father. "I never realized it before. They haven't got our names, though."
As for Doctor Reid, his mind was so concentrated upon the matter in hand that he barely looked up for a mechanical salutation and plunged again into the abyss of journalism.
"How is Mrs. Tabor?" I said, "and Mrs. Carucci—is she badly hurt?"
"Oh, mother's perfectly well. She was tired a little after sitting up for us, and went to bed early, that's all. And Sheila is doing splendidly."
Doctor Reid came abruptly to the surface. "Fine. Fine. Very rapid recovery. Blow only glanced along the bone. No fracture, no concussion. Strong vitality, too. Astonishing what resistance those unhygienic people have. Soon be all over it."
"Look here," Lady broke in, "here's a bird's-eye view of the tenement house, with—no, it's an X-ray view, the walls are transparent. 'Arrow points to room in which Mrs. Carucci was discovered; cross marks location of blood-stain; inner room with disordered bed; dotted line shows how the body was carried down-stairs.' See, they've got little pictures of us carrying her down, on each floor. And here's the automobile starting away with me leaning out of the window."
"And vignettes of Carucci and the policeman, and a fancy sketch of Sheila," said I. "Like those early Italian paintings, where they have two or three successive scenes on one canvas."
"This is about the fullest account, too. It's prettynearly all here, except who we are. 'Carucci is in custody.' Do you suppose they interviewed him?"
"I doubt it," said her father. "It was probably the tenants and the men in the street."
"Listen to this," put in Doctor Reid, with an indignant snort. "Outrageous, the flippant way this sheet takes everything. Send a clever young ignoramus to write up important surgical cases. Poke fun at every thing. Listen:
"'Antonio Carucci is a true son of Neptune, born, as his name implies, under the shadow of Vesuvius. He goes down to the sea in ships; and, like all good mariners since old Noah himself, returns with a throat parched by many days of briny breezes. Last night, being new landed from a long cruise, Giuseppe sought solace in flowing flagons of Chianti, until, when he tacked through the breakers of River Street toward the beacon light which his lass kept ever burning in her wifely window, he had almost forgotten his own name amid the rosy aromas of his national potation. Arrived at his domicil, Geronimo fell into a deep sleep, with a sinuous string of spaghetti clasped firmly in his corded hand; and as he slept, he dreamed a dream,' Then it goes on to treat the whole affair as a hallucination, distortingor evading all the facts. Ridiculous account. Rubbish. Perfect rubbish."
"At least, it can do us no harm," said Mr. Tabor, while Lady and I exchanged mirthful glances. "The more the whole affair is belittled, the less danger there is of any serious gossip or investigation. What I don't like is this sort of thing." He crumpled a red and black page across his knee. "There is no substance in it, but it might stir up trouble.
"'Last night the perpetrators of a brutal and mysterious crime escaped without a struggle.
"'They abducted a poor woman, a wife and mother, from her home. They left behind them destruction and a red stain upon the threshold.
"'How did these wretches escape? Why were they not apprehended?
"'The answer is simple: They were rich.
"'A swift automobile awaited them. The police were powerless to stop them as they sped away.
"'If a poor laboring man, crazed by sorrow, commits a crime, the utmost rigor of the law awaits him. He can not purchase a great machine to speed his flight.
"'Neither can he purchase the machinery of justice,the skill of eminent lawyers, the shifts and delays of appeal. He must pay the penalty.
"'But the rich man pays only his myrmidons. The dastards who committed last night's atrocity vanished behind a cloud of gold.
"'Shall we permit these things to be so? Shall we allow the wealthy to avoid those punishments which we impose upon the poor?This means you.
"'They deem themselves already secure; but though they exhaust every device of plutocracy, they shall be brought to justice in the end.
"'We say to them,We know you, and we will find you yet.'"
"That sounds threatening," I said. "But, after all, isn't it just as empty as the rest? People read that same shriek three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and nothing much ever happens. Do you think there will actually be any extra search because of that?"
"I'm not so sure," Mr. Tabor answered. "It may not matter to the police, but the paper itself is quite capable of seeking us out. Indeed, I think we are really most likely to have trouble, not from the authorities, but from reporters."
"That's it," Reid added. "You've put your fingeron it. That's what we've got to look out for. Reporters."
"But what can they do?" asked Lady. "Suppose some reporter comes here; we won't tell him anything, and nobody else has anything to tell."
"My dear child, you haven't the slightest idea what a newspaper investigation means. If they once get a hint of who we are we shall have a dozen men and women here, questioning everybody in sight—the neighbors, the servants—trying in every possible way to get at something which can be made to look sensational, and printing conjectures if they can't find facts."
"Besides," said Doctor Reid, "the poking and prying would be just as bad as the publicity. Let's look at the case: 'Tisn't that we're trying to conceal a specific fact; we're trying to avoid gossip, trying to avoid appearing in any way unusual, trying to seem like other people. We are like other people, except—well, now, here's the situation. Three points: First, we mustn't be bothered by the police; secondly, we mustn't get into the papers; thirdly, we mustn't be investigated or talked about."
"We're tolerably safe from the first," said I, "if Mr. Tabor is right."
"Good. Safe from the first. Then we'll pass right on to the next. Now let's see what the papers will try to do. Their whole purpose—"
The tiny tinkle of a bell rippled from overhead. Reid was on his feet in a flash and started for the door, Lady following. I had risen, too, startled at the tense faces of the rest.
"Don't you come, father dear," she said, turning for an instant in the doorway. "It's probably only for Sheila. We'll call if we need you." I heard their careful footsteps on the stairs.
Mr. Tabor had settled back into his chair, the paper lying on his knee, his head forward, and the muscles of his neck rigid with listening. Somehow in the sharp sidelong light he looked much older than I had seen him: more conquerable, more marked by time and trial; and with the listless hands and deep eyes of his night's unrest went a strange look of being physically lighted and less virile than the formidable old man I had begun to know. And as the noiseless minutes went by I grew presumptuously sorry for him.
After a little he relaxed himself with an evident effort and turned to me with his careful smile.
"A family man gets very fussy, Mr. Crosby," hesaid. "You learn so many things outside yourself to worry about."
"Hadn't I better go and leave you all free?" I asked. "It's getting time, anyway."
"I wish you'd stay," he growled, "it's easier to wait when there are two."
I sat down again and tried to talk; but neither of us could keep any movement in the conversation. We fell into long silences, through which the weight of the silent anxiety above pressed down like a palpable thing. At last Lady's voice called softly, and we rose.
"Don't tell me anything," I said, as I opened the front door, "but if I can be of any earthly use, I will."
"Thank you, Mr. Crosby," he answered, shaking my hand slowly, "I know that."