CHAPTER XVITHE LAUGH OF THE WOLF
STANLEY FYLES noted the ease, the almost extravagant calm of the youth. And he could not but admire. The Wolf had sprawled himself on the bed as though his presence in the officer’s personal quarters in the barracks was the most natural thing in the world.
The man bore no trace of his recent ordeal, unless, perhaps, it was the avidity with which he smoked. In his fine face, in the frank smile of his dark eyes there was nothing to remind the officer of the wild beast he had seen looking out of the latter when the relentless counsel was driving Annette to her confession.
Fyles and the Wolf had left the court together. And it had been odd how the boy who had stood so recently under the shadow of the gallows was glad enough of the companionship of the man who had been instrumental in setting him in the prisoner’s dock.
So it was, however. Fyles had approached the Wolf in the friendliest spirit. And the man had responded at once. Fyles had invited him to the barracks before he left the city. And the Wolf had accepted the invitation without hesitation.
The underlying truth was really simple. Fyles stillhad his problem of the murder of Sinclair to solve. And the one person in the world with whom the Wolf wanted to talk was the man with his problem before him. So, once more, the Wolf found himself sitting on the smooth brown blankets of the sergeant’s bed.
But this time Fyles was no longer keeping guard over the door. His chair was faced about from his desk so that he could gaze into the face of his visitor as the light from the window fell upon it.
“You know I think you’re lucky, Wolf,” Fyles said, sucking his big pipe thoughtfully. He smiled. “You see, you don’t get the law, and the ways of folks who administer it, like I do. One of the crazy things in life to me is the queer fashion in which the outward seeming of human nature transforms the moment it finds itself in the position of having to hand out correction to the other fellow. The balance of justice is the notion—in theory. But in practice I’d hate to say how heavy the scale turns against a victim. It’s just the effect of authority on the general run of the fool human mind. Set a club in a boy’s hand, and he fancies using it all the time. If there’s no one else around I guess he’ll beat his own mother over the head with it. Pansarta’s quite a boy. You certainly were lucky. It wasn’t only the crazy way you mussed things for him between you that you got clear away. He was dead sure you didn’t kill Sinclair.”
“An’ I’m sick to death he’s right.”
There could be no mistaking the cold sincerity with which the Wolf spoke, as he sat gazing down at the burning cigarette in his fingers.
“Sure. I know.”
Fyles nodded. Then he added:
“But I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
The two men sat eye to eye. In the shadow Fyles’ expression was largely hidden. The Wolf’s sharp inquiry was there for all to see. The man had no thought of concealment. He was concerned for but one thing at the moment.
“I wasn’t yearning to see you drop to the bottom of the pit of hell for—Sinclair.”
A warm grin flashed into the Wolf’s face and passed as suddenly as it appeared. He sat up, leaning forward intensely.
“Wher’s Annette?”
The man’s moods seemed to change with kaleidoscopic rapidity. Now he was a living volcano of scarcely suppressed emotion. His question was the whole reason for his presence there.
“In barracks.”
“Barracks? Why? Why’s she in barracks?”
The questions came with a rush. They seemed to whistle on the smoke haze of the room. Fyles removed his pipe and rubbed its bowl gently on the leg of his yellow-striped breeches.
“You can’t let a lone girl, a half-breed, face the women of a city like this.”
“You haven’t arrested her?”
Fyles watched the eager face so tortured by anxiety. He shook his head and returned his pipe to his mouth.
“What makes you so crazy sure she killed Sinclair? She didn’t.”
The policeman’s quiet confidence had immediate effect. The Wolf caught himself under control. He flung his cigarette end into a cuspidor and lit a fresh one.
For some moments there was no verbal reply. But the Wolf was watching, watching. He was measuring the sturdy man in the chair. He was striving with all his might to read behind the unsmiling mask of the man who had committed the biggest failure of his career and yet was strong enough to feel no grievance against those who had helped him to it.
At last a sound broke seemingly from behind clenched teeth. The eyes that looked into the face of the policeman were almost pleading.
“Say, Sergeant, d’you reckon we’re men? Or are you just a red-coat, an’ me a bootlegger?”
The manner of it was superbly ingenious. And Fyles understood the simplicity of the nature lying behind it.
“We’re men enough, Wolf.”
“Yes. It’s how I thought. I guess I’d go rightout an’ blow my fool brains to pieces if I thought I was just a bootlegger.”
A shadowy smile hovered in the policeman’s eyes.
“And if I was just a red-coat I’d be scared to go meet my old mother when I’m through.”
A queer brooding settled in the Wolf’s eyes. He sat gazing into space for some moments, while his cigarette burned on unheeded. Suddenly he seemed to make up his mind.
“How’d you reckon if you’d been watching around an’ saw a gal standin’ over a dead Sinclair with the gun that shot him dead in her hand?” the Wolf asked abruptly.
Fyles uncrossed his legs. He removed the pipe from between his teeth.
“Why, that she was looking down at the work she guessed she had a right to figger you’d done.”
“God!”
The Wolf was sitting up. Every fibre in his big body was strung tense. His eyes were wide with the wonder in his mind.
Fyles shook his head.
“She didn’t do it, boy,” he said. “She hadn’t real reason anyway. One time I thought she had. That’s why Danson took the line he did and drove her hard. We fixed him to do that. We guessed that way we’d get further towards the truth. But we didn’t. All we did was to make her see what lay back of hermind the whole time, and she didn’t know it was there. We made her wake to the thing that was real. That she was crazy for the boy she was raised with, and that she was setting a rope about his foolish neck. The result? It was easy. She’s just a woman, a wild, foolish, half-breed woman, all heart an’ hot temper. And she came back as she was bound to come back in the end. She reckoned to undo all she could. She jumped at what the hot head of hers thought was the only way. She played rattled and said she’d killed him herself. And she told the story of it just as Danson had put it up to her, feeling mighty sure no one could deny it. And that’s why you’re sitting around here free. Oh, she did her best to pull the coals from the fire she’d set burning. But there wasn’t a word of truth in it. You see, though Sinclair was crooked around women he wasn’t a darn fool. With his game half-played he wouldn’t have turned her down. That would have come later—when you were in penitentiary. Annette didn’t take your gun there. She just found it.”
The Wolf was gazing hungrily. His cigarette was forgotten. Everything was forgotten while he learned that truth which had set him stumbling blindly into a hideous pitfall. Annette had not killed her lover. A crazy gladness surged. But almost on the instant came reaction. If Annette were innocent of the crime then how did Sinclair come by his death?
The Wolf remained gazing at the man in the chairas though fascinated. Something was hammering in his brain. It was something that drove him blindly, headlong; and Fyles was watching. He saw the flush mount suddenly to cheeks and brow. He saw the queer light that flashed into the man’s eyes. So he waited.
The Wolf seemed to gulp, swallowing with difficulty.
“That’s why she wasn’t set in the cells?” he asked thickly.
Fyles shook his head and further clouded the atmosphere.
“You saved her that.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You said she was lying. You told us how you shot Sinclair.”
The flush had faded from the face of the Wolf. He passed a hand up over his forehead with a weary gesture.
“I—don’t get it,” he said.
“No,” Fyles smiled. “It don’t matter. It’s the law. You both swore you killed Sinclair.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“I think I get it now.”
The Wolf lit a fresh cigarette.
“You ain’t—holding her?”
The question came in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“You can go to her and take her right home—just when you fancy.”
The Wolf stood up. His movement was so sudden as to be almost startling. It was like the spring of a young puma.
“I’ll go to her right away.”
Fyles found himself standing, too.
“We’re still men, Wolf?”
The younger thrust out an impulsive hand. Fyles took it and gripped it. And he released it as though it were the hand of a friend he was reluctant to lose.
“Who killed Sinclair?”
Fyles’ eyes were boring as he searched the smile whose fixity made it no less pleasant.
The smile deepened. It grew into a laugh. It was a queer hard laugh that had something fierce lying behind it. But no verbal reply accompanied it. The Wolf just looked squarely into the face before him and shook his head.
Then Fyles reached his fur coat and pulled it on. He buttoned it deliberately. And as his fingers moved amongst the fur, and his eyes were hidden in his search for the buttons, his voice came, speaking in the casual fashion of a man without great interest.
“What’s Pideau Estevan got on you, boy?” he asked.
And again came the Wolf’s hard laugh as he flung the remains of his cigarette into the cuspidor.