Kitabı oku: «One of My Sons», sayfa 12

XX
THE LITTLE HOUSE IN NEW JERSEY

The surprise was great, but I doubt if I betrayed the fact to the unsuspicious eye of the patient lass who attended me.

"I wish to see one of your captains," I explained. "I will gladly await his convenience."

"Captain Smith will be at liberty soon," she answered, going back to her work.

I was thus left to study the face of the man whom at that very moment I was bent upon connecting with a great crime.

I had not seen him since that touching scene at the inquest; and I found him looking both older and sadder. Perhaps his health was broken; perhaps there were other and deeper reasons for the great change I saw in him.

I had instinctively withdrawn a few steps when the lass left me and stood in as inconspicuous a position as possible, with my face turned from the light. But I had not retreated far enough to lose a word of the conversation going on so near me.

They were discussing an approaching meeting; Leighton with deep interest, the Captain with an embarrassment not often seen in one of his calling. Listening, I heard these words.

"It will be a full one, won't it?"

This from Leighton.

"It usually is on a day like this," was the hesitating reply.

"Do women come?"

"More women than men."

"I should like to speak at the meeting."

The Captain, with an uncomfortable flush, fumbled with the ribbon on his cap, and said nothing. Leighton repeated his request.

The Captain summoned up courage.

"I am sorry, sir," he remarked, in an apologetic tone. "You have given the Army much help, and we have listened to many good words from you, but I have received orders not to let you speak again; that is, from the platform."

A painful silence ensued. Then Leighton remarked, with a forced composure and something more than his usual melancholy:

"Because of the unhappy prominence given me by the circumstances attending my father's death?"

"That, and something else. I may as well be frank, sir. We have heard of the little house, leased under your name, in New Jersey."

"Ah!"

A chord had been touched which vibrated keenly in this mysterious breast. I saw his hand go to his throat and fall again quickly. Meantime the Captain went on:

"We are not frightened by sin and we hold out our hands to sinners; but we have no use for a man who prays in New York and has his pleasure on the other side of the North River. It shows hypocrisy, sir, and hypocrisy is the enemy of religion."

A smile, whose dark depths betrayed anything but hypocrisy at that moment, crossed Leighton's pale lips as he remarked without anger (which I could not but consider strange in a man so openly attacked):

"That little house is empty now. Has the thought struck you that my heart might be so too?"

The Captain, who evidently did not like his task, seemed to experience some difficulty in answering; but when he had settled upon his reply, spoke both clearly and with resolution:

"The house of which you speak may lack its occupant just now, but everything goes to show she is always expected. Or why are the lamps invariably lighted there at nightfall, the rooms kept warm, and the larder replenished? Some birds in flitting come round again to their forsaken nest. Your bird may; meanwhile the nest remains ready."

"Enough!" The tone was sharp now, the words cutting. "You do not understand me nor my interest in the poor and forsaken. As for my place among you, let it be filled by whom you will. I have my own griefs, and they are not light, and I have anxieties such as visit few men. A ban is upon me and upon all who bear the name of Gillespie. This is known to you and possibly to every man and woman soon to assemble here. Perhaps you do well not to submit me to their curiosity. But there is something you can do for me – something which you will do for me, I am sure; something which would place me under lasting obligation to you without doing you or anyone else the least harm in the world. A woman may come in here; a woman, wild-eyed, unkempt, but with a look – I am sure you will know her. There is an unearthly loveliness in her wan features. She has – But what use is there in my attempting to describe her? If she answers to the name of Mille-fleurs – some persons call her Millie – she is the woman I seek. Will you give her this?" (He had torn the edge off a newspaper lying near and was rapidly writing on it a few words.) "It will do no harm to the cause for which you are working, and it may save a most unhappy woman. Of myself I make no count, yet it might save me, too."

He handed over to the Captain the slip carelessly folded. It was received with reluctance. Mr. Gillespie, noting this, observed with some agitation:

"You are here to do God's work. Sometimes you are called upon to do it blindly and without full enlightenment." And having emphasised this with a bow of remarkable dignity he went out, little realising that the possible clue to his own future fate lay in the hands of one he at that moment passed without a look.

"These are the crosses we are called upon to bear," spoke up the Salvation Army Captain as the door closed upon the man they had once held in deepest reverence. "Now, what am I to do with this?" he added, turning over in his hands the half-rolled-up slip which had just been given into his charge.

Involuntarily my hand went out to it. It was a perfectly unconscious action on my part, and I blushed vividly when I realised what I had done. I had no authority here. I was not even known to the good man and woman before me.

The Captain, who may or may not have noted my anxiety, paid no heed either to my unfortunate self-committal or to the apologetic question with which I endeavoured to retrieve myself.

Turning to the lass beside him, he handed her the slip, with the look which a man gives to a woman on whose good sense and judgment he has come to rely.

"Take it, Sally," he said. "You will know the girl if she comes in, and, what's more, you'll know how to manage the matter so as to give satisfaction to all the parties concerned. And now, sir? – " he inquired, turning towards me.

But at this instant a diversion was created by the arrival of Detective Sweetwater, a man for whose presence I was certainly little prepared.

"The gentleman who has just gone out passed you something," he cried, approaching the lass without ceremony, though not without respect. Me he did not appear to see.

"The gentleman left a note with us for one of the poor women who sometimes straggle in here," was her quiet response. "He is interested in poor girls; tries to reclaim them."

"I am sorry," protested the detective "but I must have a glance at what he wrote. It may be of immediate importance to the police. Here is my authority," he added in lower tones, opening his coat for a moment. "You know under what suspicion the Gillespie family lies. He is a Gillespie; let me see those lines – or, stay, read them out yourself – that may be better."

The young woman hesitated, consulted the Captain with a look, then glanced down at the slip trembling in her hand. It was half unrolled, and some of its words must have met her eye.

"Why do you think this has anything to do with the serious matter you mention?" she ventured to ask.

The detective approached his mouth to her ear, but my hearing did not fail me even under these unfavourable circumstances.

"Everything has connection with it," I heard him say. "Everything they do and think. I wouldn't trust one of them round the corner. I should make the greatest mistake of my life if I allowed any secret communication written by a Gillespie to pass under my nose without an attempt to see what it was. This one may be of an innocent nature; probably is. The gentleman who left it with you passes for a philanthropist, and as such might very readily hold communication with the worst characters in town without any other motive than the one you yourselves can best appreciate. But I must be sure of this. I have been detailed to watch his movements, and his movements have brought him here. You will therefore oblige me, Miss, if you can make it clear that the cause of justice – by which I mean the cause which I here personally represent – will not suffer injury by the free transmission of this slip to the person for whom it is meant."

"I will read you what he has written here," replied the girl. "He left it open or almost open to anyone's perusal." And I heard her read out, in low but penetrating tones, the following words:

When I last saw you, you were suffering. This is an unbearable thought to me, yet I cannot go to you for reasons which you can readily appreciate. Come to me, then. The house is always open and the servants have received orders to admit anyone who asks for me.

This was certainly warm language from a mere philanthropist to a city waif whose misery had attracted his notice. But no remarks passed, and Sweetwater did not seek to hinder even by a look the careful refolding of the slip and the putting of it away in the young lass's desk. Indeed, he seemed to approve of this, for the next moment I heard him say:

"That's right; take good care of the slip. If the young woman comes in, give it to her. I suppose you know her?"

"Not at all; he simply described her to us; or attempted to. She may not come in at all."

"Then keep a grip on those lines. What kind of a person did he say she was?"

"Oh, I don't know. He said she was wild-looking, but beautiful, and that she answered to some such name as Millie."

"It's likely to be a fake, the whole mess. Good-day, Captain; good-day, Miss." And Detective Sweetwater stepped away.

I had thought him keen, yet he had paid no more attention to me than if I had been a stick. Was the corner in which I sat darker than I thought, or had he been so full of his own affairs that he failed to recognise me? I had kept my face turned away, but he assuredly must have known my figure.

When he was gone the two laid their heads together for a moment, then began to bustle towards me. In the meantime I had planned a coup d'etat. I had considered if, by a little acting on my part, I could put them in the wrong, I might succeed in getting from them some positive facts to work upon. Accordingly, I was in a state of suppressed feeling when the Captain found himself face to face with me.

"I heard you," said I, flinging down the book I had taken up. "I have ears like a hare and I couldn't help it. I know Mr. Gillespie, and it made my blood boil to hear him addressed with suspicion. How anyone who has ever heard him speak to the poor and unfortunate could associate him with the atrocious death of his father, I cannot imagine. So good to poor girls! So bountiful in his charities! I thought you were Christians here."

The Captain may have been a Christian, but he was also a man, and, being a man, looked nettled.

"It was a mistake for us to discuss Army affairs within reach of two such sharp ears," said he. "Mr. Gillespie has done some good work, and far be it from me to add myself to those who have associated his name with the crime which has just made the family notorious. I simply fail to stand by him because he uses us as a cloak for his personal indulgences. He is infatuated with a woman whom he has never presumed to present to his family. This won't do for us. The other matter belongs to the police."

I allowed myself to cool down a trifle.

"I beg your pardon; you know your own business, of course. But it's a little hard for me to believe that such a refined man as Mr. Gillespie could find any other than a charitable interest in any woman likely to come straying in here. Did you ever see his home, his child, his friends?"

The Captain shrugged his shoulders and curtly replied:

"I can imagine." Then in a tone calculated to end the interview so far as this topic was concerned: "We count nothing as strange in this place, sir. We come too near the unregenerate heart. Human nature's the same, sir, in rich and in poor. And now, sir, your business? It's most time for our noon meeting, so I must ask you to be concise."

I had almost forgotten I had any business there, but I pulled myself up under his eye and told him I was on the search for a woman, too.

"But she's an old one," I made haste to assure him; "a lodging-house keeper who is in the possession of evidence of great importance to a client of mine. Her name, as told me, is Mother Merry; do you know any such person?"

He did not, but informed me that there were several queer old places down by the wharves where I might hear of her. This was enough. I had now an excuse for penetrating the district towards which I had been pointing from the first.

Thanking him, and asking his pardon for my few brusque words, I went out, and, giving my policeman a wink, turned in the direction of the river.

XXI
MILLE-FLEURS

The complications which had surrounded Leighton Gillespie were, through his own imprudence, in the way of being cleared up, though hardly to his advantage. This was not all. Either from indifference or ignorance – I hardly thought it was indifference – he had not only called attention to his own secret passion, but laid such a trap for the object of it that she could hardly fail to fall ultimately into the hands of the police.

Under these circumstances was it my duty to proceed with the task I had imposed upon myself? Was my help needed when Mr. Gryce's right-hand man was at work? It would not seem so. But – as I was happy enough to remember before my hesitation resolved itself into action – the one clue connecting him to this murder was to be found in my hands, not theirs. I alone knew where to look for the woman who had procured him the phial of poison. This in itself created an obligation I dared not slight. I must continue my quest, if I desired to fulfil my promise to Hope Meredith.

The day was Friday and the fish-stalls were doing a lively business. By the time I had threaded my way through innumerable sheds, I had got enough of this commodity into my nostrils to satisfy my appetite for a week. I was glad when I stepped out upon the wharf.

"Is it along there you want to go?" asked the officer under whose protection I moved.

I looked, and saw fluttering before me the calico curtain which had blown in and out of Yox's story.

"Yes, if it's where an old woman named Merry is to be found."

"I'll ask."

He approached a brother officer whose presence I had not noticed, spoke to him, and came back.

"That's the place," said he. "Do you want me to go in with you?"

"Not if it's safe."

"Oh, it's safe enough at this hour. You haven't any too much cash on you, I judge? Besides, I'll hang about the door, and if you don't come out in ten minutes I'll just inquire the reason why. You see, the place's on our books and we don't want to keep too open an eye on it."

I was glad to be allowed to go in alone. I had not dared to hope for this and felt correspondingly relieved.

An unexpectedly quiet interior met my eye. The bare walls, the busy stove, the woman whose gaunt frame and lowering eye I had heard described by Yox, were before me, but nothing of a sinister, or even suspicious, appearance. I had surprised Mother Merry's quarters at a happy hour; that is, happy for her and possibly so for me.

But perhaps I convey a wrong impression in speaking of the walls as bare. They were not so; for, stretched from side to side of the steam-reeking, stifling room, were lines on which coarse garments were hanging up to dry; and on the wall directly before me I saw a pair of rough seaman's breeches, pinned up in a ghostly and grotesque fashion over the little stove which even on this mild afternoon was doing its best to keep out undesirable visitors.

The old woman, who was bending over a table on which a few broken victuals lay, was, without doubt, Mother Merry herself; and, recognizing her as such, I assumed the half-audacious, half-deprecatory manner I thought best calculated to impress her. With a broad smile, I thrust my hand into my pocket. Then as I perceived her hard eye melt and the coarse lines about her mouth twist into something which was as near encouragement as one could expect from a being always on her guard against strangers, I whispered with a careful look about me:

"Anyone here? My errand won't stand peering eyes or listening ears."

She gave me a penetrating glance.

"What do you want?" she grumbled.

I took out a dollar and laid it on the table. Her hand was over it in an instant.

"A morsel of drug," I whispered. "Three drops of something that'll do up a man in five minutes. The man is myself," I added, as her eye darkened.

She continued to regard me intently for a minute; then cast a quick glance down at the hand which covered the coin.

"Sorry," she muttered, with a reluctant lift of that member; "but I'm not in the way of getting any such stuff. Who sent you to me?"

I hesitated, then made my great venture.

"The man you helped out of here the night the police came down on you. He had better luck than I. You didn't refuse it to him."

"You lie!" she cried.

Startled by these uncompromising words, I fell back. Had I made a great mistake?

"He never got any such stuff from me," she went on shrilly. "That wasn't what he came for, or else he made more of a fool of me than I knew."

"What did he come for?"

Her look of inquiry turned into one of suspicion.

"Did you come here to ask that? If so, you'd better go. I'm not one of the blabbing sort."

I drew out another dollar.

"Perhaps he got it upstairs," I insinuated.

"Oh!" she cried, spreading out her long fingers so as to cover both pieces. "That may be; those girls have strange ways with them."

"May I have a peep at them? May I have a peep at her?"

The emphasis I placed on the last word called out from Mother Merry a long stare, which I bore as best I could.

"She hasn't a drop left of what you were talking about," said Mother Merry at last. "If she gave it to him it's all gone."

"Perhaps she can get more where she got that," I made bold to suggest.

The old hag gave a grunt and looked gloatingly at the coins sparkling between her bony fingers.

"How many of these have you saved up?" she asked.

"Ten."

"And with ten dollars in your pocket you come here for poison?"

Her amazement was quite real. Ten dollars in my pocket and wanting poison! It took her some minutes to grasp the fact; then she said:

"And how many of these are for me?"

"Five."

She pawed at the coins till they were well under her palm.

"I'll call her down; will that do?"

"Yes."

"She may not be just right."

"No matter."

"She may be all right herself and not think you so."

"I'll risk that, too."

"Then stand near the stove so she won't see you when she first comes in. She wouldn't stay a minute if she did."

Obeying the old hag, I watched her sidle to the door already familiar to me in Yox's narrative; the door upstairs, I mean. As she disappeared behind it I glanced at the table near which she had been standing. The two silver dollars were gone.

"I'll never see them again," was my inward decision.

And I never did.

The presence of the wet clothing hanging so near me was anything but agreeable. Moving around to the other side of the stove, I at least avoided some of the fumes which in that stifling atmosphere were almost insufferable; but I was more exposed to view, something which the old woman noticed when she reëntered.

"You have moved," she suspiciously snarled. "Come back and let the clothes hide you. Perhaps I can make the girl sing if she don't see you. She seems to be in one of her queer moods. Would you like to hear her sing?"

As the old woman evidently expected an enthusiastic assent I gave it with as much force as I could muster up on such short notice.

"Hush! she is coming. You mustn't mind her laugh."

It was well she gave me this warning, for the sudden wild shout of hilarious mirth which I now heard from the region of the staircase was so startling, that without these words of caution I might have betrayed myself. As it was, I kept my post in silence, watching for the girl who I had every reason to believe had given the bottle of prussic acid to Leighton Gillespie. Would she prove to be the wild, unkempt woman whose beautiful look he had endeavoured to describe to the Salvation Army Captain? I hoped not; why, I hardly knew.

Suddenly there broke upon my eyes a sight I have never forgotten. A woman came in – a woman, not a girl – and while her look was not beautiful – far from it – she had that about her which no man could see for the first time without emotion. Her features were ordinary when taken by themselves, but seen together possessed an individuality whose subtle attraction had been marred, but not entirely destroyed, by the countless privations she had evidently undergone. And her hair, wild and uncared-for though it was, was wonderful; so was the air of vivacity and rich, exuberant life which characterised her. Though her cheek was pale and her arms thin, she fairly beamed with that indefinable but spontaneous gladness which springs from the mere fact of being alive, a gladness which at that moment did not suggest drugs or any unwholesome source. I was astounded at the effect she produced upon me, and watched her eagerly. No common unfortunate, this. Yet it would have been hard to find among the city's worst a woman more bedraggled or more poorly nourished.

"Sing!" cried old Mother Merry, with an authority against which I instinctively rebelled, though I had seen the object of it for only a couple of minutes. "You feel like it, and I feel like hearing you. Sing!"

The woman's throat throbbed. She stopped just where she was and threw out her arms. Then she smiled and then – she sang.

I have heard Guilbert, I have heard Loftus, but neither of them ever made my temples throb, my heart swell, or my breath falter as this woman did. That she chose the saddest of all sad songs – she who a moment before seemed hardly able to contain her laughter – could not quite account for this effect; nor the fact that these flights of tragic melody rose from out a misery which no laughter could cover up. It was genius, great and wonderful genius, misdirected and lost, but still heaven-given and worthy of an artist's recognition. As she sang on I yielded her mine, for my heart swelled almost to bursting, and when she had finished and stood poised, rapt, ecstatic, enthralled with her own melody and beautiful with her own feeling, I found my cheeks wet with tears. I had never wept at anyone's singing before.

"Dance!" came in fresh command from the miserable hag behind me.

I had forgotten Mother Merry.

But the raised face I was contemplating drooped forward at these words, and the arms, which had moved all through the singing, fell inert.

"I have no strength," she wailed. Yet in another instant she was swaying, turning, rising, and falling in mazes of movement so full of grace and charm that I scarcely missed the music which should have accompanied them. It was more than a dance: it was a drama; instinctively I followed her feelings and knew as by a species of revelation what each motion was meant to convey. I watched her as I would some charmed being; for the marks of care had vanished from her features, and the lips, which had been drawn and white, burned redly, and the hair, which had hung in dishevelled locks, now blew out in live curls, athrill with passion and breathing forth rapture and love. Suddenly she paused. Mother Merry had pointed me out with the words:

"The gentleman is looking at you."

Instantly her beauty shrivelled and vanished. Her hands went up to her face; and she crouched like a lost thing against the floor.

"No, no!" she wailed, and would have fled, but Mother Merry forced her back.

"The gentleman wants something. He wants a drop of what you gave the other one that night. You remember, the night the boys slid away and left us to the police."

Instinctively her right hand went to her bosom and her eyes looked wildly into mine. Suddenly she saw the moisture on my cheeks.

"Oh! he's been crying, Mother Merry, been crying. Perhaps now I can cry, too. I should like to; it's better than singing." And she broke into sobs so violent that I stood aghast in mingled pity and amazement.

Just then the policeman looked in.

"How now?" he cried. "What's up?"

My impulse was to shield her from this fellow's curiosity. Motioning him away, I whispered in her ear:

"You haven't said whether you would give me what I have come for."

"What is that?"

"A drop of what kills trouble; kills it at once, instantly, and forever. I am wretched, heartbroken." (God knows I spoke the truth.)

She stared, and what remained of light in her face went out.

"I have none – now," she hoarsely assured me.

"Then get it where you got that."

"I cannot. I got that when it was easier to smile, and dancing was not followed by dreadful pain. Now – " She tried to laugh as she had a few moments before, but her jocund mood had passed. One would never imagine from her present aspect that she had just floated through the room an embodiment of joyousness and grace.

"You gave it all to him, all?" I questioned.

The emphasis did not strike her, or rather it assumed a different place in her mind than on my lips. "To him?" she repeated, shrinking back with evident distrust.

"Yes," I pursued, following her and speaking in her ear; "the sailor lad who took it away from here that night. Poison – prussic acid – a phial you could hide in your hand."

She broke into laughter, not the expression of joy, but that of defiance if not derision. She was but a common woman now.

"Sailor lad!" she repeated, and laughed again.

I felt that the moment had come for speaking the significant word. Looking around and seeing that Mother Merry was not too near, I whispered:

"A sailor lad with a gentleman's name. You know the name; so do I – Leighton Gillespie."

She had not expected me to go so far. Smothering a frightened cry, she struck her hands together over her head and dashed towards the door by which she had come in. Mother Merry stood before it laughing. Then she turned to escape by the street; but there she was confronted by the heavy form of the policeman, who had thrust himself across the threshold. Crouching, she folded her arms over her breast and made a plunge for the door communicating with the den beyond. It opened under her pressure and she fell gasping and bruised upon the threshold. I hastened to her aid, but she was up before I could reach her.

"I don't know the man you talk of; I don't know you. I am a free woman! a – free – woman! – " she shrieked, bounding to the trap and opening it. As she uttered the last words she swung herself down. I tried to stop her, but she was as agile as a cat. As I leaned over the hole I saw her disappearing among a confusion of oozy piles; and shuddering with the chill of the mephitic air that came pouring up, I drew back.

"That's the end of her for to-day," muttered the harsh voice of Mother Merry behind me. "When she's like that you might as well make for other quarters. But you've had your money's worth. You've heard her sing; you've seen her dance. It's not every man can boast of that. She's shy of men; at least she'll never sing for them."

Perhaps I looked surprised; perhaps I only looked dejected. Misinterpreting the expression, whichever it was, old Mother Merry sidled up closer, and, as I made for the door, whispered with a leer:

"If you really want what you say, come back in a week; and if I can get it you shall have it."

I gave her another coin.

"What do you call that girl?" I asked, with my hand on the latch.

The money made her loquacious.

"Millie," she answered. "That is not how she speaks it, but it's how we all call her."

It was, then, as I had thought. I had seen and listened to Mille-fleurs, the woman to whom Leighton Gillespie had addressed those appealing lines.