For interminable weeks Haworth had no idea where they were. Edith had
asked him not to try to find her, and he would do nothing against her
wishes.
Most of the time he was sitting somewhere in the house—he didn’t notice
where—staring before him with wide open eyes that saw nothing. Hulda
brought him “just a taste” of this or that at meal times and he’d make
an attempt to eat a little so she wouldn’t feel hurt. Sometimes he
would start walking aimlessly about the house.
For quite a time he couldn’t bring himself to enter the room Edith had
occupied—his own room. But the time came when, with a fearful sinking
of the heart, he opened the door. After a while he ventured in a little
way and stood looking at the dressing table with the chair before it.
He could picture her there so well. His eyes slowly moved to other
things—the bureau, the chairs, the bed with the soft rug at the side
where her small white feet so often touched before she could find her
bedroom slippers.
Very soon—on his first visit—he had to turn away and hasten gropingly
out of the room. He was there again the next day, and on the floor of
the great wardrobe he found the worn little shoes that were on her feet
the day she came.
It was more than a fortnight after she left when he got a note from
her. It had been mailed. For a while he was unable to open it, as he
had been at first to enter her room. When he did, life came back to
him. Sometime they could meet somewhere—but not now. And he must not
try to find her. Would he please write and tell her if he still loved
her? It would help her to stay alive if she could only be sure that he
truly did. The best address would be the General Delivery, Boston. She
would read the letter and destroy it there at the Post Office.
After this he was able to look at all the things that spoke to him of
her, with painful delight instead of devastating despair.
But now financial troubles began to bear down on him. The greatly
increased expenses from having the Findlays there, together with
Augustus’s borrowings and Edith’s wardrobe, had more than made an end
of the few thousands left him by old Mr. Cripps. He had adopted the
plan long ago advised by Mr. Trescott, the attorney, of cutting down
living expenses and apportioning so much and no more to each month. In
this way the money could have been made to last nearly four years, and
surely by that time, Mr. Trescott had said, he ought to be able to do
something with his patents and mechanical work.
But this wise financial arrangement had been abandoned when the
Findlays came; and now the funds that were to have carried him for some
two years longer had entirely disappeared, and in addition to that a
number of people were clamoring for various amounts which he appeared
to owe them. Haworth turned in this emergency, as he had before, to
Mrs. Temple, who muttered something about “cormorants,” and then did
the best she could again, this time persuading some of the creditors
to wait a little on the ground that Mr. Haworth had valuable patents
and was on the point of selling one of them for thousands of dollars.
In cases where further credit was refused she made arrangements with
other (and more distant) firms. Of course there wasn’t the least use in
going to the electric-light company—nobody ever heard of their doing
anything except shut off the current—which they promptly did.
So far as light was concerned, Haworth minded it very little. The oil
lamps and candles Mrs. Temple got hold of somewhere, answered well
enough. But he did very much mind—though not so much at this time as
later, when he tried to get back to his work again—losing the power
for his machinery. He had only the haziest ideas as to creditors or
electrical calamities or where his groceries were or were not coming
from. Mrs. Temple was attending to it, and he let it rest at that. He
could live in peace with his dreams and memories and imaginings—all
of Edith and the exquisite pain of his longing for her. He wrote
to her and had another precious letter in reply. She told of their
having moved into a small house on Cherry Street, but said he must not
come there. Perhaps sometime, but not then. If they could only meet
somewhere, perhaps in town, before long, just for a few minutes. She
loved him so! And if she could not see him soon it did not seem as if
she could go on living.
It was a month after this before they finally met. He waited for
her on a quiet old street on the hill back of the State House. When
she finally came, neither could speak. They found a bench hidden by
shrubbery near the north end of the pond in the Public Garden.
After a time, when they had whispered those first words of endearment
after the long separation, and he could begin to realize things, he was
greatly disturbed by her appearance, so worn and thin she was, with a
hunted look in the eyes he loved beyond all measure. After much effort
he discovered in a roundabout way, that for one thing she was half
starved. It appeared that when Augustus earned anything he spent nearly
the whole of it on himself or gambled it away. Very little came to her
for household uses. Sometimes none. And now he wasn’t working at all.
He’d lost his place at the freight yards.
She wouldn’t mind so much about the food part of it, she said, but when
he came home late at night and there wasn’t anything to eat, he was so
violent! He seemed to think that she was to blame for it. The trouble
was he had a revolver again and flourished it about. He always seemed
to want to do that when he’d been drinking. And though she felt sure he
wouldn’t fire it, she couldn’t help being frightened.
After that, although they talked of other things in their brief time
together, he never once escaped from the terrifying realization that
she was starving,—actually starving, and he could do nothing. Until now
he had never entertained a suspicion of the tremendous importance of
having money. Even while they were there, with only those few precious
moments to themselves after weeks of loneliness, he was desperately
catching at straws of possibilities for obtaining some—in sufficient
amount, that is, to relieve her distressing situation at home. By a
lucky chance he had brought with him what little he had in the house,
so he could at least keep her from starvation for to-day. It would
hardly do more than that. But how to get more? How? How? How?
Then suddenly he thought of Mr. Trescott. He remembered one thing
the lawyer had recommended was the sale of the place. There was a
mortgage, but they could get a figure, he had said, that would cover it
and leave something over. Haworth couldn’t bring himself to do it then.
There was his shop and machinery and drafting room—all the things he
needed. But what did that amount to now? Edith had come into his life;
she _was_ his life. There was nothing else. He didn’t understand it,
but it was so—there was nothing else.
He would go and see Mr. Trescott the next day and ask him to sell
the place. That was settled. And for the rest of the time they were
together he had no thought but of Edith, and of her presence close
beside him. Most of it was spent in a restaurant, for as soon as
it would do after discovering the state of things he claimed to be
exceedingly hungry, and they went to one together. She was entirely
frank and said she was hungry too, and he had the joy of seeing her
present famishment relieved.
While they were there he told her, as a preparation for what would
come from selling the mansion (for she might not like that), that he
expected to dispose of one of his inventions and she was to go halves
with him on whatever he got. She said, “Oh!” and her eyes were alight
for a moment. But then she looked at him doubtfully.
“What is it, darling?” he asked.
“Oh—why, I’m thinking—I’m afraid you’ll not be taking care of
_yourself_—your machinery and patents and—and all that you need to do
about them.”
“There’ll be plenty for those things too.”
“Will there?”
And so at last she was satisfied, and they began to consider the way of
getting her “share” to her—whether a little at a time or a lump sum.
They finally decided on small and more frequent remittances, for if
Findlay once got the idea that she had a considerable amount of money
in the house he would resort to any violence to get it. And mailing
seemed the best way of sending, for she could go to the Post Office
without danger of discovery, if she was careful about it.
Soon after they had decided on this she left him, going out of the
restaurant by herself and getting a car in the subway which would take
her within a few blocks of Cherry Street.
* * * * *
On reaching the mansion Haworth found a letter waiting for him. The
envelope bore the name of a prominent savings bank in Boston from which
he vaguely remembered having heard before. Within was a formal notice
to the effect that if the interest on the mortgage note was not paid
by such and such a time (which was only five days away), foreclosure
proceedings would at once be instituted. This explained why the name
of the bank had seemed familiar, other communications on the same
subject having come in before, though none so definite and alarming.
These—as he had no idea what to do with them—he had turned over, with
other bills and requests for payment, to Mrs. Temple; and although
this estimable old woman quite well understood grocery and market
accounts, foreclosure notices were as Greek to her. She had therefore
done nothing about them, quite certain that this behavior would bring
further explanation if there was any.
It looked serious to Haworth. If they foreclosed he wouldn’t be able
to sell the place. Naturally he wasn’t able to sleep that night. Next
morning he went to Mr. Trescott’s office.
The old lawyer said at once that he doubted if anything could be done,
as the property was mortgaged to nearly the limit. A forced sale was
out of the question. When he had advised selling some years before,
prices were high; now they were normal again. A second mortgage would
hardly be possible under the circumstances. The only chance he saw
was the possibility that the holders of the first would be willing to
make a new one for an increased amount, or that a new one for a larger
amount could be negotiated elsewhere and the old one paid off with the
proceeds, leaving him something after the transaction. He would take
the matter up with the bank, and Mr. Haworth would hear from him in a
day or two. He inquired how the inventions were selling and was sorry
to hear that they hadn’t done better. He had sent a few people out
there to see them and would try to do so again.
* * * * *
Four days later—four terrible days for Haworth—the letter he was
waiting for came. Mr. Trescott requested him to call and attend to the
execution of a new mortgage. It seemed the bank was willing to increase
the amount of the loan to the extent of five thousand dollars—a
consideration being, however, not alone the payment out of this of
interest due, but interest on the new note for two years in advance.
Haworth, enormously relieved, went to the Trescott & Chamberlain
offices and the business was transacted. Fifty dollars was at once
mailed to Edith, and he sent her that amount weekly thereafter. Mrs.
Temple was given what was necessary to pay current bills and, at
her suggestion, the expenses of the establishment were reduced still
further.
All thought of attention to the needs of the house, in the way of
repairs, painting, and the like, was abandoned, as was also the keeping
up of the grounds and gardens surrounding it. Even the shattered
window in front on the second floor was still as Augustus’s hurtling
revolver had left it. These various economies and others wouldn’t have
occurred to Haworth, but his overwhelming desire to save enough out of
the additional mortgage money to enable him to take Edith away, caused
him to entreat Mrs. Temple to think of all possible ways to cut down
expenditures. This she did.
In the course of the next few weeks Edith’s condition was much
improved, though it couldn’t be said that she looked entirely well.
The two met in town when they could—which wasn’t often, for Augustus,
being out of a job, was hanging about. They’d thought of Franklin Park
and other places nearer than the Public Garden, but Edith couldn’t lose
herself before going to them as she could in the crowds in the city
district. Besides this, she had managed to find a place where they’d
give her needlework to take home—one of the “sweating” industries you
read about—and this not only furnished her with an excuse for going to
town occasionally, but had so far blocked Findlay’s suspicions as to
where her housekeeping money came from.
Several times they went out Cambridge way and beyond to some woodsy
place, and wandered among the trees. There were still warm Indian
summer days for them, though November was close at hand.
It was on one of these trips, as they were sitting on soft green moss
with their backs to the trunk of a great oak, that Haworth told her
about going away—that he couldn’t live without her. They would take a
steamer to South America or anywhere she wished. There would be money
enough to pay the fares and keep them until he could find work. He
would dig in the streets or do anything, it made no difference what, if
he could only be with her.
She looked at him in a half-frightened way and shook her head a little.
“You—you don’t mean——I thought you’d come!” he said.
“There’s a—there’s something——” She couldn’t go on and her face went
white.
He looked at her silently, desolated by the thought that she didn’t
care enough for him to come. Finally he half whispered:
“I suppose you——You don’t love me—_really_.”
“There’s only you in the world, Michael—only you—_now_—but before
long....”
He looked at her for the rest.
“Before long there’ll be some one else.”
It was a moment before he understood.
* * * * *
As weeks went by Haworth’s anxieties about Edith came to be
unbearable—the thought of her having to live in that comfortless
shanty and being subjected, at such a time, to the brutalities of her
liquor-crazed husband. Finally, in desperation, he went to Mr. Trescott
for advice, explaining that the Findlays were relatives of old Cripps
and that he (Haworth) had taken them in at the mansion for a while,
though they were now in a house of their own; that Mr. Findlay was
brutal and loathsome in every respect, often drinking to excess and at
such times abusing and browbeating his wife and frequently terrorizing
her with a revolver; so that, now she was to be confined, he feared
she’d not only have no care, but be seriously injured in some way.
“I suppose it wouldn’t do for her to have the trouble and anxiety of
divorcing him—now?”
“I—I’m afraid not.”
“Can’t she go home to her mother or family?”
“No.” (Shaking his head). “She hasn’t any.”
“Alone in the world, eh?”
“Not so good as that. She’s with him.”
“I see.... Treats her badly, you say?”
“I don’t think that’s quite the word for it.”
“You said something about a revolver?”
Haworth nodded in affirmation.
“That he threatened her with it?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone see him do that?”
The young man hesitated for an instant; then, “I did—once.”
“Then this threatening with a revolver took place in your presence?”
“Yes.”
“Did you interfere in any way?”
“Yes; I took it away from him.”
Mr. Trescott regarded Haworth with peculiar interest for an instant.
Finally he said: “If the fellow’s slamming around, threatening his wife
with firearms, we can get the patrolman on that beat to keep an eye on
him. Write the address for me.”
“But it’s no place for her there, where he might come in crazy drunk
any minute. Isn’t there some way so she can be kept away from him—so he
can’t get to her?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Haworth, unless he——” Mr. Trescott broke off as a
possibility occurred to him. “Has he any money?” he asked. “Enough, I
mean, to have her well taken care of—private hospital and all that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, he _has_! Well, do you think there’s any way to make him do it?
It’s going to cost something, you know.”
“He’ll do it.”
“That’s the thing, then.”
Trescott wrote an address on a desk pad and scribbled a few words
below. “See the doctor personally. Tell his secretary it’s from me.” He
handed the address to Haworth. “He’ll see that she’s sent to the right
place. And I rather think they can let her come along awhile before.
She’ll have nurses, doctors, everything, and nobody’ll be allowed to
see her that might have the least unfavorable effect—you understand. As
I say, it’s going to be rather expensive. You feel quite positive the
fellow can stand it?” He was watching the young man narrowly as he put
the question.
“Yes.”
“All right then—Now, Mr. Haworth, what about you? I suppose, from what
you’ve been telling me, that you’ve had some—er—interruptions and—and
anxieties that may have seriously interfered with your work?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Well, we’ve got one distraction out of the way,” Trescott said,
hopefully, indicating the note and address that Haworth was holding in
his hand.
“Yes,” the young man said; and after thanking Mr. Trescott in his
laconic way, he went to the address of the doctor.
* * * * *
They kept Edith at the hospital for some weeks after she could have
gone home. For observation, it was said—but that didn’t get to Haworth.
He knew only that all had gone well, that there was a very minute
daughter in the world, and that the conditions might perhaps be better
than they had been so far as Findlay was concerned, for a warning from
the patrolman given before his wife was taken to the hospital had
apparently accomplished its purpose. Augustus entertained a serious
repugnance to jail from having once been compelled to sample it, and
the patrolman’s words were seed sown in specially fertilized soil.
For some time he had kept on the safe side of the line which divided
bestial drunkenness from mere gentlemanly intoxication. And when Edith,
after an absence of some two months, returned to the cottage on Cherry
Street with the baby and a nurse, the comparative decency of his
conduct came near astounding her. Findlay, however, was controlling
himself with the utmost difficulty. To the fear of the police was now
added the presence of a nurse—and in a damned uniform, at that! How
did he know but that she was sent there to report him? His mania to
get even with Haworth increased till he was in a condition of chronic
fury. He’d found out that Haworth had been meeting his wife, that the
money she’d been using for household expenses came from him instead
of being earned by her, that he had sent her to the hospital for her
confinement and paid for it—though as to that, who should pay for it if
not he?—and he hadn’t a doubt that it was Haworth who’d set the police
on him. Haworth—Haworth—Haworth—whichever way he turned. And here she
was, still wearing the clothes this fellow had given her—brazenly
wearing them before his face! The getting of his money was nothing; it
was what it meant—what it showed was going on.
He’d been told by some of his disreputable associates that he could
bring suit for alienation and get all the rotter’s property away
from him. He’d do it, too! He knew a lawyer who’d take it on spec.
Cost nothing. But that wasn’t enough. Money was all very well, but
satisfaction—that was what he wanted—satisfaction!
* * * * *
Haworth had been allowed to see Edith a few days after the child was
born. She was very white and beautiful. When the nurse brought the
little speck of humanity, sound asleep, and laid it beside her, he sat
gazing at it for a long time. Edith lay looking at him with a shadow of
a smile flitting about her face. Soon the nurse made a little sign and
turned away. Haworth bent over and pressed his lips to Edith’s hands
as they lay on the coverlet—first one and then the other, and then the
first again and then the other again. Then he looked once more at the
little one, and finally let his eyes meet Edith’s in a long embracing
look that told her everything. After that he rose and tiptoed out of
the room. Neither of them noticed that not a word had been said. They
had spoken in a language not crippled by words.
I’ve always had the idea that those innocent and delightful people who
are born without a trace of what might be referred to as economics, and
who are unable to acquire enough of same for personal use, should have
financial guardians appointed to help them through. Charles Michael
Haworth, the inventor, should have had one.
Everything that he could lay his hands on was expended in providing the
best possible care for Edith during the period of her maternity. No
still small voice—indeed, no voice of any description—was heard by him
in warning against overdoing in the matter of present expenditure, as
future needs were likely to be still greater.
Haworth could not think of such things. He could think only of Edith.
And not Edith in the future, but Edith now. One day, upon roughly
figuring from his check-book stubs (which was the only figuring he ever
did) he was amazed to find that he had very nearly expended the entire
amount deposited from the new loan. Only a few hundred left, and he
needed that for the nurse who was taking care of Edith! The doctor had
advised keeping some one with her for a while, as she was still far
from well.
After a tough night worrying about it, he got old Mrs. Temple in and
told her that he had come to the place where there was no more money
for his own use—none at all. All the servants must go—the cook and
Hulda, even herself, for he would be unable to pay any more wages. He
was sorry, but they must all go.
“What will you do, sir?” the old woman asked.
“Oh, that’s—that’s nothing. I’ll be all right.”
“You won’t be all right without your food, Mr. Haworth.”
“I can get it somewhere.” He had vague notions of things in tins and
oatmeal and baked beans, that he could live on for a few cents a day.
That money in the bank, every dollar of it, must go for the nurse—for
the nurse and their food, too. Augustus was doing nothing.
Mrs. Temple went out in a blind sort of way. Soon Hulda appeared.
“She told me, sir.” She came just within the door, embarrassed.
“Oh yes—about going. I’m sorry.”
“I—I’d rather stay, Mr. Haworth.”
“You mustn’t.”
“If you please, it’s nothing to me about the paying—not till you can.”
“I don’t see how I ever can, Hulda. And there won’t be anything for you
to eat—nothing you’d like at all. It’s too bad, isn’t it? You’ve been
so good to me, Hulda.”
A strange convulsion twitched the honest Swedish face and a couple of
large-sized tears went sliding down her cheeks, upon realizing which,
she bolted out of the room.
Haworth went down into the shop. Not to work; that was
impossible—impossible even if the power current hadn’t been shut off.
He stood for half an hour gazing vacantly down the long room with the
lathes and heavier machines lined along one side, the dead power shaft
above them, and the bench with vises and tool racks and the lighter
machines along the other.
Hulda and the cook left four days later, the former making spasmodic
swipes across the upper part of her face with a bunched-up handkerchief
as she stood near the taxi waiting for them to bring down her trunks.
Nothing, however, would induce old Mrs. Temple to budge. Haworth’s
earnest pleading (on her behalf) that not only would he have no money
for her wages, but nothing wherewith to buy food for her, made no
impression on the old woman. She announced that she was a-goin’ to come
in an’ see to him an’ he might just as well make up his mind to it.
Wages wasn’t no consequence; he could pay her later when he was doin’
well with his inventions. A compromise was finally reached. She was to
come in once in a while to put things to rights, but you may as well
know now that the said “once in a while” eventually developed into
twice in a while and then to three times a week; later still, as you
will see, to the old woman remaining in the house night and day as long
as she was able to manage it.
* * * * *
Three months had passed since the baby was born, and Edith hadn’t
regained her strength. It was absolutely necessary that she should
have proper care and nourishment. The doctor continued to visit her at
intervals and insisted on the importance of having the nurse remain
with her. So far Haworth had been able to manage these things, but he
was now close upon the end of his resources, and as time went on his
anxiety became appalling.
He had been to a number of machine shops and manufacturing
establishments and applied for work. At two places he got a chance to
try, but in neither did he last more than three days. It wasn’t the
trouble of earlier years—inability to hold his mind concentrated on
work that was deadly and meaningless repetition. With the tremendous
incentive he had and the absence of interfering inventive ideas, he
could have done it. But with his marvelous mechanical knowledge he
couldn’t compete in cheap rapidity with a boob they might pick up in
the street. What he did he must do carefully and well. That lifelong
habit was absolutely unbreakable, and it unfitted him for modern work.
It took time. That wouldn’t do.
It came to be the day after to-morrow that he was expected to pay the
monthly expenses for Edith, and he realized that he couldn’t do it.
Mrs. Temple saw from the way he strode blindly about the house that he
was in distress. She’d been watching him (without seeming to do so)
for some hours. Finally she managed to get in his way so that he was
compelled to stop before her. He hesitated and looked at her blankly.
“Oh, Mrs. Temple. Yes—yes.”
“I was just thinkin’, Mr. Haworth, there’s furniture in this house that
you ain’t got any use fur that I c’n see.”
“Take anything you want, Mrs. Temple.” He turned to resume his feverish
pacing.
“No, Mr. Haworth, it wasn’t that!” She was so emphatic that he stopped
again and stood looking at her.
“There’s good furniture here, Mr. Haworth. Now that sideboard—I don’t
see’s you really need it. Maybe I could find somebody that’d give a
good price for it——”
“What?”
She repeated what she’d said.
“Could you find him now?”
“I’ll have to go in to Boston. There’s a man there——”
“Would—would it be enough to—to——”
“I dunno exactly, but that sideboard’s wuth consid’rable; and that
walnut set in the East Room——”
“Anything—anything, Mrs. Temple. Please hurry. You might lose a
chance!” And he almost pushed her out of the room. The enormous relief
made him feel really faint and he sank into the nearest chair.
* * * * *
It was more than two months after the sale of the sideboard—during
which interval many other articles of furniture and four paintings
had been disposed of in one way or another, together with the largest
of his two lathes and his shaper and drill press—that Edith heard
what was going on. The information reached her via Augustus, who kept
a close watch on Haworth, and observing the trucks of second-hand
dealers taking these various articles from the mansion, took delight in
taunting her with it.
At once she insisted that the nurse should not remain another day—that
it was entirely unnecessary, as she was feeling very much better. She
seemed so determined about this that the doctor thought best to give
way, and told her the nurse could go at the end of the month.
In a letter to Haworth, Edith told him that she was so much better that
the nurse was going, and that hereafter she could manage with very
little help—perhaps none at all—as Augustus had got a job again and she
was going to insist that he turn over half his pay to her for household
expenses. She would miss the nurse, of course, she said, especially
about getting his letters at the Post Office and taking hers there. But
she would find some way.
This letter reached Haworth at a time when he was beginning again to be
frightfully anxious as to where he could obtain money to go on with,
for he had only a small amount left and everything they could find in
the house that would sell had been disposed of. He was cutting off
every possible expense, even to half starving himself, pretending to
Mrs. Temple, when she came in on one of her “on” days and wanted to
cook things for him, that he had just eaten a hearty meal and couldn’t
possibly get down any more. He had an empty baked-bean can that he
feloniously left where she would see it, in order to help with the
deception.
Edith’s letter gave him relief. He sat on his bench in the workroom,
thinking it over, and before going to bed he wrote one to her asking if
he couldn’t call and see her before the nurse actually left as it was
better for him to come while she was there. And so it was arranged.
And the nurse was discreet and left them to themselves. And he held the
minute bundle of recently arrived humanity in his arms a few moments
until it protested vigorously on account of his profound awkwardness.
An exquisite hour it was for both of them. But Augustus was informed
of what had occurred by the small boy he’d hired to keep a lookout,
and on reaching home that evening was so violent and abusive that the
nurse started out of the house to bring the police, but he called her
back, thereafter subsiding into a scowling silence, and not long after
leaving the house.
* * * * *
On the following day, along toward afternoon, a car came up the drive
and the front-door buzzer sounded. Haworth opened the door to the
physician in whose care Edith had been at the hospital and who’d been
keeping an eye on her since she came back to the Cherry Street cottage.
“Mr. Haworth, good afternoon.”
“Oh—the doctor, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Markham. Met you two or three times at the hospital. Dropped
around to have a little talk.”
Haworth stood, near to being paralyzed with a frightful dread—some
sort of premonition concerning Edith—that stopped his heart.
He was aroused by the doctor’s gently turning him about and walking
with him into the house. There was no furniture left in the vast dim
hall, and Doctor Markham, seeing through the open door on the left that
the room beyond had at least chairs and a table in it, guided him in
there. Haworth managed to make a motion toward one of the chairs and
Doctor Markham seated himself. Then Haworth slowly sat down, without
once taking his eyes off the doctor. He heard a voice saying something
about there being no cause for alarm and wishing to assure somebody
that there was nothing that couldn’t be taken care of if the proper
steps were taken without delay.
“We’ve had Mrs. Findlay under observation for some little time,” Doctor
Markham went on. “I needn’t tell you that the important thing in these
cases is to get them in time; and while there was no——”
“What cases?” broke in Haworth, who was on the rack.
“The situation is this, Mr. Haworth: During the time Mrs. Findlay
was at the hospital we deemed it inadvisable to make a thorough
examination, for she could hardly have failed to realize what we were
looking for, and the effect on her might have been unfortunate. But we
feared a tendency toward tubercular trouble. We could say nothing more
at the time.”
The doctor paused.
Haworth heard himself repeating huskily, “At that time.”
“Yes.”
“But you—you can now?”
“We’ve made an examination, Mr. Haworth.”
Doctor Markham waited a moment and then continued: “Fortunately the
infection is very slight—only a small tract at the top of the left
lung. We’re in plenty of time, you see, and by sending her to the
right locality and making sure that she has proper treatment and
surroundings, there’s no occasion for anxiety. I came to see you about
this because I don’t know of anyone else. Her husband is out of the
question. Perhaps you know of some relatives or—or——”
Haworth shook his head a little and tried to say “no,” but accomplished
no more than a movement of his lips.
“The only thing, then, is to leave it in your hands, Mr.
Haworth,” the doctor went on, “and I’m very much hoping you’ll
see your way—or—or find a way” (he could not help a glance about
the poverty-stricken room) “to send her to one of the best
high-altitude cures, where she’ll have a complete change in every
respect:—air—food—sunlight—surroundings—even language if possible, for
every little helps. Attitude of mind is an important element you know.
Of course there are State and other institutions here—all admirable in
their way. But I’m sure Mrs. Findlay needs something more than we can
find near at hand. Moreover, there’s a child to be considered. That
complicates matters a little.”
Haworth sat rigid, his eyes fixed on the physician.
“I’m going over the case carefully with Doctor Benjamin, our lung
specialist, and I’ll have you fully informed of the steps to be taken.
Mrs. Findlay is aware of her condition. Just as well, too. She’d have
to know very soon in order to understand why certain things in the way
of treatment are necessary.” Doctor Markham understood the situation
pretty well and felt no resentment nor, indeed, surprise that Haworth
failed to rise from his chair or even seemingly to be aware that he was
going. He left the young man sitting motionless, staring before him.
* * * * *
Mrs. Temple came in next morning and found Haworth in the room on the
left, sitting motionless, staring before him. He had the appearance of
having been there for some time, though she had no idea it was so long
as since the day before. For that matter, neither had he.
It wasn’t necessary to make an effort to rouse him; he looked up at
her as she came near and answered her “good morning” absently. Later
he took a cup of strong coffee she brought, and drank it in compliance
with her request. Afterward she heard him murmuring faintly and
mechanically, as from force of habit, that he had had all the breakfast
he wanted and really couldn’t eat any more, so would she please not get
it for him. She paid no attention to this, though, and cooked him an
egg with two little ribbons of bacon which she had brought over from
her own limited base of supplies. When she set the tray on a kitchen
chair by his side he looked up at her gratefully but shook his head a
little. But when she said, “Please eat it, Mr. Haworth,” he did so.
Afterward, when she had gone back to the kitchen and was washing the
dishes he came out and asked if she could take a note to Mrs. Findlay
for him and bring back an answer. He explained how to get there, and
she started at once, without waiting to finish the dishes. There was a
strange and disquieting look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in them
before.
He had scribbled in pencil, “I must see you—I must—I must.” And the
answer came back, “Darling—oh, my darling, please don’t be worried—it
will be all right. Come to-morrow—three is the best time.”
* * * * *
When he was with her once more and she with him, there wasn’t much
that could be said. It was mostly the two silent ones clinging to each
other, feeling even then that the dread specter was standing over them,
making ready to tear them eternally apart; yet each managed to find a
few words of encouragement, Edith stopping his eyes with kisses when
they turned that terrified look on her, and telling him there wasn’t
any danger at all—that she felt so perfectly well; he muttering about
a patent he might sell, and anyway there were other things he had in
mind, so that she’d have every care and be sent to a place where cure
was certain.
And then there was the little one—Mildred they were going to name
her—sound asleep on the nearby couch! It was inconceivable that tragedy
could come to such an innocent! He sat for a long time looking down at
the child, with Edith’s hand, now so white and thin, pressed against
his lips.
While he was there the maddening inability to do what would save her
seemed not to burn into him so mercilessly. It was when he left her
and was back in the vast and gloomy house with its shadowy candlelight
and bareness of furniture that these things returned upon him and
assaulted him with their full force. And something that made it still
more terrible was lying on the table in the living room, awaiting his
return—the large envelope from Doctor Markham’s office containing
the specialist’s report. An agonizing thing to read, yet he did not
hesitate.
Mrs. Findlay was in a serious condition. Though much of the detail was
beyond his comprehension, he had no difficulty in understanding that.
No time must be lost in getting her to one of the high-altitude cures.
Switzerland was recommended as most desirable for one of her type.
There were several that were held to be as beneficial in the United
States, but for Mrs. Findlay they were not to be preferred if it were
possible to send her abroad.
Haworth saw it all. To save her life she must be sent to one of those
places—and little Mildred taken care of. And there was no one but
himself to do it,—no one.
Mrs. Temple, pretending to be busy with an unusual amount of cleaning,
managed to hover near, not annoying him as he sat distracted or moved
blindly about the house, but ready at any time to do what she could—for
she saw there was serious trouble. Along toward seven o’clock she
made tea and cooked a small chop she’d bought while he was away. When
she asked him to come and have his supper, he stared at her vacantly,
seeming not to know what she meant; but it came to him after a little,
and he seated himself at the table in the small breakfast room without
further urging, drinking and eating, but plainly without an idea of
what he was doing.
Afterward he wandered back into the living room, behaving somewhat as
people probably do when they’re walking in their sleep—I never saw one.
The old woman glanced in occasionally while doing the dishes, and saw
each time that he was sitting there staring into vacancy, the pallor of
his face emphasizing the darkness of his deep-set eyes. She was greatly
worried, and wasn’t going home _that_ night, no matter what! He might
be taken ill or something. She would lie down on the old lounge she’d
found in the loft of the barn and brought into the kitchen when all
the good furniture was taken away. The last thing before doing this
she stole quietly to the door and looked in again. Mr. Haworth hadn’t
moved from the chair nor changed his position in any way. She went back
to the kitchen and stretched herself on the ancient and moth-eaten
sofa. It was a warm evening and she needed no covering. It seemed only
a few moments after she fell asleep that she was suddenly awakened by
the sound of violent knocking or pounding that apparently came from
somewhere in the basement. She listened for a few seconds, alarmed, her
old heart doing a corresponding pounding of its own. Haworth hadn’t
worked down there for months, and it seemed incredible that he would
suddenly go at it again at such an hour, and with the terrible thing,
whatever it was, that seemed to be pressing on his mind.
But Mrs. Temple was game, if ever a woman was. It was hardly two ticks
after the pounding began before she was feeling her way down the
basement stairs.
It was Haworth at work, and not in his shop, but some distance beyond
it. She could see him by the light of the lamp he’d placed near. He
had a lot of weather-beaten boards or planks that had apparently been
dragged in through one of the basement windows. She couldn’t think
where he’d got them, unless it was from the old barn at the rear of
the house. Out of these he was building a partition, so far as the old
woman could make out, and he was evidently in a fever of haste about
it, knocking and clawing out old nails, sawing boards in lengths, and
then nailing them to upright timbers or studding set in a way so they
would wall off a small-sized room.
Even Haworth’s furious activity which she now beheld, seemed better to
her than having him sit rigid, staring at nothing, with some hidden
anguish eating his heart out; and she thought best not to disturb him.
So, after watching him a few moments she turned away and went back up
the stairs, and as soon as she’d got herself quieted a little, lay down
again on the old lounge. But not to sleep. She didn’t expect that. How
could she while hearing this dearly beloved young man in his frenzied
fit of work, to which he was driven by some desperation the cause of
which she could not guess?
It was still going on when the morning sunlight struck in through one
of the windows, and did not cease until she went down to him with
coffee and toast on a tray. He stopped when she spoke, and stood an
instant looking at her. Then he thanked her, but really he didn’t want
anything. This behavior she considered much nearer to what was normal
with him than the way he’d acted at supper the night before—eating
everything without a word. Indeed, Mrs. Temple was so much encouraged
by his refusal to take anything, that she went further and insisted. He
must take it now while it was hot, and she set the tray on the plank he
was just then sawing. On this the young fellow came to terms and drank
the coffee and ate the toast—very hurriedly to be sure, and with eyes
roving about the structure he was engaged upon; but he “got it down,”
as Mrs. Temple said to herself, “and that’s the main thing!”
In three or four minutes he was working again, and with the same
feverish haste—the same madness to have it finished.
It was late the previous night that the thing had occurred to him.
He’d been sitting where Mrs. Temple last saw him, all hope gone,
crushed, stunned, overcome. All at once, without warning, he found
himself standing erect and with a plan or conception in his mind
which promised, on its first occurring to him, to be something which
would certainly turn defeat into victory. The central idea of the
thing, with its most extraordinary possibilities for profit, came to
him as a whole, and from that he began rapidly to develop it. For
nearly an hour he stood there intensely occupied with this, feeling
positive that he had something which would enable him to save the
life of the one so dear to him. Toward the end of that time the vital
necessity for secrecy began to dawn on him and then to rise rapidly
into tremendous importance, until he suddenly came to the realization
that it was at the basis of everything—that without it the invention
would be valueless—so much junk. He decided at once to build a room
in the basement where the device could be constructed without the
slightest danger that knowledge of its purpose or mechanism would leak
out. Bars and padlocks. Timbers from the old barn back of the house.
Almost before he knew what he was doing he found himself out there with
hammer and chisel and cross-cut saw. He took the lamp that Mrs. Temple
had left lighted on the table, and drove at the business frantically.
Time—time—time! The doctors said delay might turn the scales against
her.
In a couple of hours he had enough timber ripped off and dragged to the
basement to begin on, and at it he went, startling Mrs. Temple—of whose
presence in the house he was unaware—out of a sound sleep.
Working with the same desperate drive all the next day and well into
the succeeding night, he had the small room entirely planked-up by two
in the morning, the partitions build up solid to the floor joists of
the room above.
He was at it again the morning following, and Mrs. Temple knew from the
muffling of the sound, as she heard it in the kitchen, that he had now
closed himself into the new room and was working inside.
There isn’t a doubt in the world that Charles Michael Haworth would
have starved himself to death at this time but for Mrs. Temple. Without
a word of remonstrance or fault-finding she simply took things as
they came and hustled about to do what she could. Sometimes she was
able to induce a grocer or market man to give a little more credit.
Failing that, she’d go home to her lodgings (a small room in a tenement
building of forbidding aspect) and pull a battered old trunk from under
the bed. After looking about to satisfy herself that no spectators were
present, she’d reach in under the clothing which partly filled it, and
bring up a cigar box, from which the old woman would surreptitiously
and with a snatching motion, take out a dollar or two, quite in the
manner of one engaged in a robbery of some kind. Very well she knew
that this little hoard had been put by for a rainy day, and nearly
always she’d mumble to herself, “Well if this ain’t one, what is it I’d
like to know!” as she pilfered it. The money was quickly exchanged for
groceries.
She brought his food to him in the basement, putting the dishes on an
upturned barrel near the little room where he was working. Then she’d
call to him that it was there and at once hurry away upstairs again.
He wouldn’t open the door while she was in the basement. For sleep
he took what little he got like a Chinese laundryman, dropping down
where he was when exhausted and resuming his hectic labor the instant
consciousness returned.
There was only one outside interruption during the time Haworth was
driving to finish the apparatus or device he was working on, and that
a brief one. Two young men came to the house one morning, and so
impressed old Mrs. Temple (who answered the bell) with the importance
of their errand—assuring her that instead of being after money they
wanted to pay Mr. Haworth some—that she went down and talked to him
through the partition about it. It resulted in his finally putting on
his coat and going up to see what they wanted. He found them on the
front portico. Although Mrs. Temple had asked them in, they seemed, for
some reason, to prefer waiting outside.
Certainly the one who did the talking did it well. He was a reporter
from one of the Boston papers and had in view a story for the Sunday
supplement. This recluse inventor had become quite a subject of remark
in his near neighborhood, and something of general interest might
be got out of it. Realizing from what he’d heard that Haworth would
be a ticklish proposition to handle, he said nothing about the real
object of his visit, but pretended instead that he wanted to buy one
of his inventions. His talk was so earnest, so glib, so voluble, that
Haworth was led into answering quite a lot of questions about his
life, habits of work, etc., before he realized what he was doing, and
altogether failed to notice that during this time the other chap (who
was a photographer) was dodging about in different places, carrying a
peculiar box-like affair in his hands. It was this latter that brought
an abrupt end to the interview, for Haworth’s ear, trained to a hair
on mechanical sounds, suddenly caught the click of a camera, and
turning on the instant, he got a fleeting glimpse of the thing focused
on him before the young man had time to drop it down. After a second’s
pause he turned on his heel and went into the house, closing the
door firmly, though not violently, behind him. The reporter chap was
disappointed, as he had it laid out to see the inside and look over the
inventions after they had the photographs taken. But with the pictures
they had there was enough stuff to go on with, and he could do a bit of
imaginary work for the interior.
Three weeks—even working under forced draft as he did—was quick time
in which to finish what Haworth had undertaken. He had one thing in
his favor, though, which counted for not a little: the parts he had
to get out were large and simple—heavy wooden shafts and levers,
smooth-running pulleys with cords and weights, a great heavy pendulum
with escapement device—parts like that, and all on a scale involving no
complicated adjustments. Whatever lathe-work was necessary he managed
on the small lathe—it was only the large one that had been sold. He had
to rig it for foot power, but that was a comparatively simple matter.
On an evening which was near to the end of this period of drastic
toil, Haworth sent Mrs. Temple on an errand so that he could test his
mechanism out. He found that with some minor changes and readjustments
that took him, notwithstanding the furious drive he put into it, a day
and a half longer, the device operated with certainty and precision.
Mad to complete it as he was, he realized that it must be unerring in
its performance. The slightest thing amiss or out of adjustment would
not only have spelled disaster, but pronounced it.
* * * * *
It was late one afternoon when Haworth was finally able to say to
himself that the mechanism was complete and its operation satisfactory.
As early the next morning as he thought likely people would have
arrived in their offices or places of business, he started out to
find some one who would purchase the rights for the handling and
exploitation of his novel mechanical conception; and before evening
of that same day he had come home stunned and stricken with the
realization that all his work had been of no avail. For it had never
occurred to the young inventor that the absolute secrecy upon which
the value of his device depended, could at the same time prove an
insurmountable obstacle in the way of disposing of it. Not until he
went out and tried to make a sale did this unfortunate situation reveal
itself. Then, and at once, he made the terrifying discovery that he
couldn’t possibly describe his mechanism and its tremendous monetary
possibilities until he was perfectly certain that he was doing so
to the man who would buy it; for there could be no possibility of
anyone taking hold of it and agreeing to pay the large sum of money
that he (Haworth) must have, as well as assuming the heavy expense of
manufacture and general promoting, unless given a full description of
the invention and its operation, together with his plans connected with
its exploitation. If ever there was a vicious circle on earth, this was
one—and not much distance to go in circumnavigating it.
The truth came to him with a shock; indeed, he got the shock before his
conscious mind was aware of the truth. He had gone to a man he used
occasionally to meet at the mansion while old Mr. Cripps was alive.
This gentleman and Mr. Cripps seemed quite friendly, and the latter
once mentioned that Mr. Hollister (the gentleman’s name) had just made
a big pile of money on some patent he owned. Haworth hadn’t seen him
since those days. His office was in a large building on Beacon Street
a little way up from Tremont, and Haworth was there before ten in the
morning. It was his first attempt to sell.
Mr. Hollister received him graciously—an elderly gentleman with a sharp
Yankee face, though kindly at that. While he was quite disturbed by
Haworth’s appearance—his extreme emaciation and ghastly pale face with
the feverish fire burning in his eyes—he showed no sign of it, and
after making him sit down by his desk and remarking on the number of
years since they’d met, asked if there was anything he could do for him.
Haworth began at once to explain that he’d just perfected a mechanical
novelty regarding which he would like to interest him. He had built,
in the basement of the house, a full-sized working model—in fact, the
machine itself—for in the exploitation, or you might say output, of
the thing, lay the large money-making possibilities. He was going on
glibly enough with this sort of talk—for he was feverishly excited and
spoke rapidly—when he suddenly and unexpectedly came up against the
insurmountable obstacle. At the time he did not know what it was;—he
was only aware that something had stopped him dead. There was a silence
for a full minute. Then, his mind a sickening blank, he began to
stammer out a few disconnected words, after which he was silent again
and sat staring.
Mr. Hollister, who’d been more than eager to hear what Haworth had in
the way of an invention, supposed the young man had been taken suddenly
ill (he certainly looked it) and hastened to get him a drink. But it
was all over. The young fellow couldn’t go on. And finally, in a blind
sort of way, he got up from his chair and walked dizzily out of the
office.
The elder man followed to the elevator, quite solicitous; asking if
there wasn’t something he could do, and making efforts to learn what
the trouble was. But Haworth shook his head weakly, the elevator door
clanged, and he dropped silently out of sight.
As he came out at the street entrance of the building he moved along
the wall a short distance and stood there, his eyes strained wide open.
The blow was so sudden and smashing that he was dazed, not realizing
what had struck him. He’d been there for hardly more than a minute when
the traffic policeman from the Tremont corner came hurrying along. A
lady had reported that something was the matter with a man leaning
against a building a little way up Beacon. The moment he saw Haworth he
ran across the street to him and asked what was wrong.
The young man shook his head a little, but was unable to speak.
“Live here in Boston?” the officer inquired.
“Out—Roxbury.”
“What’s the street?”
“Torrington.”
“Some ways. I’ll send a taxi.”
“No, please don’t!” Haworth was suddenly emphatic. “I can get home all
right!” Saying which, he turned and walked unsteadily up the street.
* * * * *
He found himself awhile later, without knowing how he got there,
seated on the bench in the Public Garden where he and Edith had
been—ages ago—ages ago. He was trying to remember what he’d said to
Mr. Hollister, with the vague idea of finding out what it was that had
stopped him in the midst of the interview.
It’s an odd thing, isn’t it, what the human mind’ll do to you! While
he was talking in the office there, running as smooth as you like, the
brakes suddenly went on, the wheels creaked, and he came to a dead
stop, and all without the slightest volition on his part. Now, as he
sat there near the pond and the shouting children, he slowly came to
a realization of the reason why a certain safety device installed
somewhere in his mental machinery, had automatically brought him to
a standstill. It would be impossible to explain the device and its
operation to anyone without ruining every chance it had. That is,
_unless the people he explained it to took it_—and how could he be sure
they would?
Suddenly, after a length of time of which he had no idea, he got to his
feet. There was hope yet! A ray of hope!
He would think up some sort of _similar_ affair—a proposition involving
the same sort of risks yet in reality nothing like it. This he would
describe to a man he was trying to interest in the thing, speaking
of it casually, not as anything of his own, but as an odd thing he’d
heard of—a man he knew had gone into it, and so on. From the remarks
and behavior of a person to whom he described this similar proposition,
it was Haworth’s idea that he could gain a pretty clear indication as
to whether the man would go into such a thing himself if he got the
opportunity; and when he found one who would, he could safely let him
know exactly what it was.
There was no time to waste. He walked rapidly away, trying mightily to
conceive of some scheme that would give hazards corresponding to his
own, yet bearing no dangerous similarity to it.
Among the few men with whom he had had business dealings, he selected
the manager of a machine shop—one Mat Williams—as being the most
likely to be attracted. By the time he got to Williams’s place he had
something roughly thought out to test him with, and as soon as he
could get him aside he began telling about a friend of his who had
gone into a most unusual enterprise—which enterprise he described at
length. Williams was naturally astonished that Haworth should come
there to tell him an absurd and apparently pointless anecdote, and when
the young man began demanding avidly what he thought of it, Williams
decided that the fellow had gone completely off his nut. He was sorry,
but the only course seemed to be to get rid of him as soon as possible,
which he did, smoothing things over with pleasant talk and a hurried
handshake.
Haworth was cut up a bit, though he had no idea how bad it really
was. But as he tried one after another with his singular method of
diagnosing their speculative propensities, and found that every one of
them, instead of talking business, tried to get away from him as soon
as he possibly could, his hope began to ebb.
From one to another he went, despairingly yet without thought of
surrender, coming to expect their glances of surprise, followed
sometimes by alarm, and again by something akin to pity. He accepted
these various expressions as they came, entirely unable to account for
them, realizing only that one after another of those he approached on
the subject appeared to have a strange antipathy to hearing anything
about the hypothetical cases he hit on to try them with, and hurried
away from him at the first available opportunity.
* * * * *
It was impossible that the night, when it came, should be anything but
a distressing one for Haworth. Though approaching people about his
machine had come, in this short space of time, to be about as enjoyable
as so many executions for murder, the poor fellow would rather have
gone on with it than lie helpless while his mind grappled with his
monstrous predicament.
After a time, when the torture of the thing passed the point of
endurance, he would stagger blindly to his feet and stride about at a
tremendous pace, having no realization of where he was. This happened
several times during the night.
The morning saw him out again with his white, emaciated face and
threadbare clothing, going mechanically from one place to another in
his vain search for some one he could rely on as a purchaser—a most
doubtful enterprise at the best, but put in the perfectly hopeless
class by his eccentric management of it, together with his disturbing
appearance and behavior.
He hunted up several speculators who had once been friendly with old
Mr. Cripps, and quite frequently, in those days, guests at the house;
he went to Mr. Trescott and even to the manager of the bank with which
he had had some modest dealings in time gone by. But there wasn’t one
of those he approached with his misguided efforts to test them out, who
was not quite convinced, after listening to him a moment, that the poor
fellow was mildly insane. Mr. Trescott was quite saddened by it, yet
hardly surprised.
The day following was Sunday, and after a hideous night of despair he
had fallen into a sort of stupor that lasted until the middle of the
afternoon. When he finally roused himself from it (he had been sitting
in a chair since the night before) the realization of his dreadful
dilemma came upon him with appalling intensity, and he went to pacing
about the house in a manner that filled Mrs. Temple with a new alarm.
There was a frantic desperation about it that terrified the old woman,
and it was some time before she got her courage up to speak to him.
She finally succeeded in waylaying him in the narrow back hall, but he
strode past without appearing to see her, crowding her against the side
wall as he did so, but of course without any idea of what he was doing.
She recovered herself as soon as she could and made another effort to
get his attention, this time calling out to him that he mustn’t go on
that way—he’d kill himself! But it seemed impossible to make him hear.
For more than an hour she listened to his tramping about, sometimes on
the floor above, sometimes in the large entrance hall or other rooms on
the ground floor, but never in the basement.
Suddenly, when it was getting on toward four o’clock, there was a
dull, muffled noise apparently coming from one of the rooms above, as
of something falling heavily on the floor, and with it the sound of
tramping ceased. Though she felt her legs weakening under her, she
toiled up the main stairway. Looking down the upper hall, she could
see from the light striking through it into the corridor that the door
of the room Mrs. Findlay had occupied was open—something unusual, for
he’d always kept it closed and locked.
She hurried, limping, down the hall and went to the door.
Haworth was lying face down on the floor, his head resting on his arms.
Mrs. Temple hastened to him, possessed only of the terrifying thought
that he was dead, and sank down on the floor at his side.... No! He was
breathing! Gently shaking him by the shoulder, she called his name.
At first there was no response, but after a little he spoke in a voice
that was half a whisper, and without raising his head asked her please
to go away—he didn’t want to be disturbed. Would she please go?
The old woman struggled to her feet and brought a pillow from another
room, feeling he wouldn’t like her to disturb the pillows in this one.
Kneeling on the floor beside him, she gently raised his head and put
the pillow under it. Then, with all the haste she was able to make, she
set out for a drug store, half a mile away on Center Street.
On reaching the place she had to wait a moment before she could
recover breath enough to ask the clerk if he could tell her where she
could find a good doctor for Mr. Haworth.... Yes, over at the Cripps
mansion.... Yes indeed, it was very serious and some one ought to see
him.
The clerk had, that very morning, been reading a full-page write-up in
one of the Sunday supplements, in which the house on Torrington Road
and its singular occupant had been fully described and illustrated.
For this reason he was instantly interested, and volunteered himself
to telephone to Doctor Crimmin’s office. If the doctor wasn’t in he’d
leave word for him to go out there as soon as he came.
Mrs. Temple thanked him and hurried away. When she got to her lodgings
she carefully closed the door, pulled out the old trunk, reached down
under the clothing in it, and brought up the cigar box, from which she
took three silver quarters, muttering to herself as she seized them:
“Rainy day! I should think so! It’s one o’ them cloudbursts!”
With these coins gripped in her withered hands, she went to the nearest
grocery store and bought four eggs, a loaf of bread, ten cents’ worth
of tea, and a small glass jar of milk, and then made all possible haste
back to the mansion.
* * * * *
I never could find out—for certainly Haworth had no idea, and what
other witnesses were there?—how long it was after Mrs. Temple left
him face down on the floor of his room, that he became aware of the
sounding of the front-door “buzzer.” Few in his distracted state
of mind would have noticed it, nor would he had not his years of
mechanical training made him ultrasensitive to such sounds. Sensitive
also to the condition of such mechanisms and instruments, as shown by
his never failing to keep the electric bell system of the house in
perfect working order, no matter what dilapidations befell elsewhere.
Again the buzzer sounded on the floor below, echoing through the bare
half-furnished rooms. Haworth found himself vaguely realizing that Mrs.
Temple wasn’t in the house or she’d have answered the first ring.
Slowly he got to his feet, descended the stairs, and crossing the great
hall to the front door, opened it.
* * * * *
Mr. Pentecost,—who had that morning read a Sunday supplement write-up
with headings about the “Hermit Inventor of West Roxbury,” and had come
out there (instead of taking an afternoon express for New York as he
had planned) to see if possibly some one of the devices the “Hermit
Inventor” had on hand might not come in nicely for his partner’s (Mr.
Harker’s) activities,—had hardly a doubt that it was the inventor
himself standing before him in the doorway. And although, owing to the
overshadowing elms and the roof and pillars of the portico above and
behind him, he found it difficult to see with any distinctness, he got
an instant impression, from a certain paleness of face that was almost
luminous and a peculiarity in the young fellow’s attitude or manner,
that something was wrong with him.
The two stood silent a moment, for something made the commonplace
salutation Pentecost had in mind seem quite inappropriate, and it was
the young man who finally spoke.
“What is it?” he asked in a hollow voice, slightly tremulous.
“I beg your pardon,” Pentecost hastened to say. “I called to see Mr.
Haworth.”
“What about?” still with a quivering note of near-tragedy.
“Are you Mr. Haworth?”
“Yes——but I don’t want to see anybody. Please go away.” And he was
turning back into the house.
“One moment! It’s business—entirely business—I’m sure you’ll be
interested.”
“I don’t think so,” came the hollow voice out of the gloomy half
light, and it was evident the young man was about to close the door.
“Mr. Haworth!” Pentecost spoke sharply. “Can’t you listen half a
minute? It concerns us both—and I can’t very well talk about it here.”
Haworth stared at him an instant and then, opening the door a little
wider, made a slight motion of invitation.
Pentecost stepped in with a muttered, “You’re very kind,” and glanced
quickly about the vast entrance hall in which he found himself—an
enormous place two stories in height and with a great stairway at the
further end rising to a landing and from that branching to each side.
The place was seemingly quite destitute of furniture or floor covering,
and he found himself wondering how the young man had managed to make no
sound when he crossed it to open the door. He would look at his feet
later, when there was more light; it was very dim in the hall.
Closing the massive front door, Haworth moved to the large double
doorway on the left—on the left as you enter the house, I mean—and
stood waiting for his caller to enter before him. Pentecost did so and
found himself in a large and lofty room with high paneled wainscoting
of some dark wood, and a white marble mantel on the side opposite as
he came in. There were two large windows in that wall—one on either
side of the fireplace, though not near it; and another in the wall
at his left which faced off toward Torrington Road. At the further
end of the room—which was quite a distance, as it was an exceedingly
long one—were two doors, one of which (a swing door held partly open
by a chair shoved against it) revealed a butler’s pantry beyond. This
large apartment was evidently the dining room—or once had been. The
wainscoting, heavily built and with deeply set panels, was fully six
feet high and extended entirely around it.
Though somewhat shadowed, this room was lighter than the great hall,
and he saw mechanical blueprints and drawings laid out on a cheap
kitchen table near the middle of it, with small tools and implements
scattered about. Books and papers were piled and balanced here and
there. The floor was covered with what had once been a handsome
carpet—now worn and threadbare. The windows, he noticed, had cheap
roller shades to them—but judging from the cornices and rich but faded
lambrequins above—had once evidently had the heavy draperies of an
earlier fashion.
Pentecost was an instantaneous observer, requiring no time exposure,
so that there had hardly been a pause when he turned to speak to
Haworth. But Haworth wasn’t there. He had followed into the room after
Pentecost, but had slipped to one side and was now wandering back
and forth along the wall toward the further end. He appeared to have
forgotten the other’s presence, and his eyes shifted about, giving him
the look of one tortured by some harrowing thought or memory. In a few
moments his restless glance accidentally fell on Pentecost and he came
to a sudden stop and stood staring at him.
“Oh—you!” he muttered, half to himself.
“Quite right,” said Pentecost.
“Well, what is it?” the young man asked, moving toward him.
“Perhaps I ought not to have intruded like this.”
“As you have,” came back the hollow voice out of the gloom, “why don’t
you tell me what you want?”
“It’s a matter of some importance to us and I thought it might be to
you. I represent a firm——Great God! what’s the matter?”
For as Haworth approached him out of the shadows at the far end of the
room and the light from the front window fell on his face, Pentecost
saw it distinctly for the first time, and the eyes that looked out at
him from the drawn and almost distorted features might have been those
of a drowning man.
“Matter?” the young man repeated.
“Why—yes. Are you—are you feeling all right Mr. Haworth?”
“You said you came about something important.”
“Yes—I did—but perhaps you——”
“If it’s money I owe you take anything you want and go away—that’s
all—go away!” Saying which, Haworth turned and started walking
restlessly about the room as he was doing before.
“Not at all—not at all! There’s nothing like that! It’s just the other
way—I’m going to put a few dollars in _your_ pocket if you’ve got
anything I can use.”
Haworth, halfway down the room, swung round with a look of such
fearful and desperate avidity that Pentecost saw at once it was a case
of money. The young fellow was in some dire extremity—some feverish
need that mere destitution, even to the point of starvation, wouldn’t
explain. Couldn’t be a more favorable situation for business. Easy to
drive him to the wall and get one of his inventions for a block of
stock—in other words, for nothing.
“I represent a firm of promoters—New York—Harker & Pentecost.”
He took a card from his pocketbook. “We’re always looking for
novelty—something different from anything that’s been on the market
before.”
Mr. Pentecost paused, but the young man said nothing, and he went
on: “It came to us a short time ago that you had some extraordinary
inventions here and if——”
“There’s nothing you’d want,” Haworth interrupted.
“But perhaps—if you’d allow me to see what——”
“There’s no use in that! They come—hundreds of them—just want me to let
them see. Then they’re sorry, but there’s nothing of practical use.
That’s it—always nothing practical—always—always!” He moved away.
“It’s nothing to me whether the thing’s practical or not!”
Haworth stopped and stood looking at him.
“I’m not looking for carpet sweepers,” Pentecost went on, “or fireless
cookers or any of those things that people are tired of reading
advertisements about. The thing I’m after is novelty—something
absolutely new and unheard of—something impressive in its operation so
we can exploit it and give it a chance. Now it struck me from what I
heard, that your work would perhaps be just the kind——”
He was halted in the midst of his talk by the way Haworth was staring
at him. It wouldn’t have surprised him to get an indication on the
fellow’s face that he’d just thought of one of his devices that would
be what was wanted. But that wasn’t it. For soon he saw that the young
inventor was studying _him_—figuring out what sort of a character he
really was. Those strange and troubled eyes were fixed on him with an
intense scrutiny that penetrated below the surface.
To divert this rather too close attention to himself, Pentecost spoke
with more emphasis than before.
“I see you’ve thought of something, Mr. Haworth.”
There was no verbal response to this, but a barely perceptible motion
of his head while still gazing intently at Pentecost, might be taken to
mean that he had.
“Anything near what we’re looking for, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope it’s something unusual,” Pentecost said, cheerfully; “some
novelty that’ll make ’em talk.”
“It will do that.”
“What made you say just now that you hadn’t anything I’d want?”
“This is something else.”
Pentecost was inclined to think the fellow had illusions. Anyone could
see there was something wrong with him.
“Well, bring it along,” he suggested. “Let’s have a look at it.”
The answer was a slight negative head-shake.
“Too heavy?”
“It’s built in.”
“Where?”
“Under here—in the basement.”
“I see. Something to operate in a home. What does it do?”
“I want you to come down.”
“Certainly, Mr. Haworth. Lead the way.”
Notwithstanding that Pentecost felt convinced that the young man had
signals set for some sort of brain storm and that he himself knew a
thing or two about basements in relation to crime, the notion of not
going down there when the distracted inventor suggested the idea,
didn’t come within miles of occurring to him. He had a hunch there was
something here for him—something extraordinary, too—and he was going
after it.
Haworth moved nearer. “Mr.——What did you say your——”
“Pentecost.”
“Mr. Pentecost, I’ve decided to tell you everything.”
“The best thing you could do Mr. Haworth.”
“I find you’re the person I’ve been looking for.”
“You’re very kind to say so. Shall we go down and have a look at it?”
From Haworth’s last remark, Pentecost feared that after all he was
hopeless.
“I’ll get the key.”
“Secret, eh?”
“Yes.”
“No patent?”
Haworth shook his head.
“What about the people you’ve shown it to?”
“There are none.”
“And you haven’t told anybody?”
“No.”
That sounded better. The chap had some sort of sense, anyway. But not
the sense to patent it. That was too bad.
“The key’s upstairs.” And he started toward the entrance hall.
“Could we switch on a light here, Mr. Haworth? It’s a trifle overcast.”
“I’ll tell Mrs. Temple to light a lamp,” the young man answered from
the door, and he hurried out.
So they’d cut off his current, Pentecost reflected—for he’d noticed
electric fixtures about. Although hardly late enough for twilight,
there was much the same thing in this vast and gloomy room with its
dark walls and tree-shaded and vine-overgrown windows. Pentecost wanted
to see what—if anything—was going on here. Something made him feel that
whatever it was might be turned to his advantage.
Soon after Haworth left the room, Pentecost saw in the dimness the
frail figure of a woman coming toward the table from the further end.
Mrs. Temple, probably—the one he’d spoken of. He saw from her unsteady
gait and bent figure that she was old and somewhat decrepit, and the
momentary clicking of the lamp chimney against the glass shade as she
took it off told of her trembling hands.
The old woman had reached home with her modest packages of food only
a few moments before, and was greatly relieved as she passed down the
flagged footpath to the kitchen, to catch a glimpse of Mr. Haworth
through a side window of the living room; for it was evidence that he
had recovered sufficiently to come downstairs. An instant later she
saw that he wasn’t alone. A strange man—at least a stranger to her—was
standing near the table and appeared to be watching the young fellow
intently as he moved about. Then it came to her that he must be the
doctor. Who else could it be? He certainly had the look of one with his
close trimmed beard—and watching Mr. Haworth like that.
After getting the lamp shade and chimney off, Mrs. Temple groped
about and found a match somewhere; but instead of striking it she
straightened up—so far as she could—and after a glance at the door
spoke in a low voice.
“You’re the doctor, ain’t ye?”
“No, madam,” Pentecost answered.
Mrs. Temple stared blankly at him, seeming for some reason to be
astonished. “You ain’t?” she finally said.
“Certainly not. Are you feeling ill, madam?”
“Me?” looking at him in a surprised sort of way. “No!”
After an instant she again bent over the lamp and lighted it,
regulating the flame by the little brass disk at the side. Pentecost
saw her thin, withered old hands trembling under the light.
“Perhaps it’s Mr. Haworth who isn’t well?” he ventured.
The old woman looked at him. “You ain’t blind, be ye?” she asked.
“Not exactly, madam,” with a trace of a smile. “I saw he wasn’t looking
quite right——”
“It’s a great sight more’n not lookin’ _right_!” Then she turned to him
suddenly. “What’re you doin’ here?” she demanded sharply, yet keeping
her voice subdued.
“I came on business.”
“Well ef it’s money you’re after you can talk to me. He ain’t in no
condition to be pestered; you ain’t got much jedgment about ye ef ye
can’t see that.”
“But my dear madam, I assure you——”
“Sh!” She was fussing with the lamp as Haworth came in.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, seeing her bending over it. “Won’t it
work?”
“Yes,” she said, stooping and looking under the shade.
“I guess it’s liable to go now.”
“I want to take it downstairs, Mrs. Temple——This way, Mr. Pentecost.”
The latter followed him across the great bare hall, to a door under
the branching stairway on the left, and through this to a back hall at
the further end of which the basement stairway descended.
Mrs. Temple stood motionless at the table where they’d left her.
Strange as it may seem when you realize the briefness of the time,
this decrepit old woman, bent and knotted with rheumatism, her hands
tremulous with the palsy of age, had conceived a deep and implacable
distrust of the man she had just heard addressed as Mr. Pentecost. She
didn’t reason about it or ask herself why—that wasn’t her method. She
simply accepted it and was determined to do what she could.
Ever since Haworth had built the small room in the basement some weeks
before, he’d been working feverishly day and night on what she supposed
to be one of his inventions, seeming so desperately bent on completing
the thing, and for the last day or two plunged in such dreadful
despair, that the poor woman was beside herself with anxiety. She’d
often seen him through times of such absorption in his work that he
would have starved if she hadn’t kept after him with food, but there’d
never been anything so terrible as this and she couldn’t find out what
was the matter.
And now had come this sinister-looking creature (though to save her
life she couldn’t have said what was sinister about him) enveloped,
it seemed to her, in an atmosphere of cunning and intrigue so dense
that she could feel it, and Mr. Haworth had taken him down into the
basement—most likely to that secret room he’d been working in so
desperately—where the fellow was undoubtedly arranging some infamous
plan or deviltry involving him.
Haworth, as soon as the door of the roughly planked room was closed on
them, had stripped away the sheet that covered his mechanism from view
and had begun to describe to Pentecost what it was intended to do. He
was in the midst of this when Pentecost suddenly stopped him with a
quick motion of his hand.
The lamp with its green shade stood on the top board of a stepladder,
throwing a weird light on the two men facing each other in silence.
Haworth, recovering from his surprise (for he hadn’t heard anything)
started to speak, but Pentecost shook his head emphatically, and after
a moment’s pause whispered: “I hear someone!”
There was another pause. “You think somebody’s listening?” Haworth
asked in a subdued voice.
“What I _think_ cuts no figure. This is where we take no chances!” And
Pentecost suddenly threw open the door.
The light struck on old Mrs. Temple as she was going in through the
door of Haworth’s workshop nearly opposite. She’d caught a word or two
about some one listening and noted the sudden lowering of their voices
just in time to turn back and get into the shop.
“Oh, Mrs. Temple!” Pentecost called in the most ordinary tone. “I’m on
the hunt for a drink of water. Maybe you’d get me some, if it isn’t too
much trouble?”
The old woman reappeared at the door with a bunch of chips and shavings
in her hands. “It ain’t no trouble,” she mumbled without the faintest
trace of embarrassment, and limped along to the stairway. Pentecost
watched her labor up the stairs, then turned to Haworth standing in the
door of the planked-up room.
“That old dame of yours is right on the mark,” he said in an undertone.
“Came out of there with a bunch of shavings.”
“Yes—my shop. She gets them for the stove.”
“So I inferred,” said Pentecost. His admiration was because she’d
managed it so deftly and said nothing about it. An amateur would have
mentioned the stove. Just as well to keep an eye on that old lady.
She soon came back with the water. Pentecost took it from her. “Awful
sorry to trouble you,” he said, “—and all those stairs to climb.” He
took a sip of water. “You won’t need anything more down here perhaps?”
“Anything more?” she repeated in a puzzled way.
“Kindlings, for instance?”
“Not if the fire goes, I won’t.”
“I’m trusting, then, that it’ll do that.”
They stood looking at each other for an instant. Then the old woman
turned and went hobbling off into the shadows of the basement and could
be dimly seen toiling up the stairs.
A moment before she disappeared Pentecost said to Haworth, speaking
distinctly but not raising his voice, “It’s a remarkable invention,
Mr. Haworth—one that, handled properly, would make money; and I’d like
to talk business with you.” Then, setting down the glass of water, he
asked if he could have something out of his workshop.
“Of course,” Haworth said, hardly understanding. “What is it?”
“A piece of board five or six feet long—a light one about the size of a
lath.”
They found a piece of narrow half-inch stuff, and Pentecost stood it
against the wall, slanting across the path of anyone walking through
the passageway in the darkness. He balanced it so that a touch would
send it clattering down.
“Mrs. Temple wouldn’t listen, if that’s what you think,” Haworth said
as they went back to the room.
“Of course not,” agreed Pentecost as he carefully closed the door. “Go
ahead with it,” he whispered, “but keep the soft pedal on. Basement’s
safe enough, but there’s a room above.”
“Yes, but Mrs. Temple would never——”
“I know—I know. She’s all right. Hell of a pity you don’t know what
talent you’ve got in the house! Go on now. What the devil _is_ all
this?”
And thereafter had anyone been at the rear end of the room on the
left (which was the one above) or even in the basement itself, only
the faint droning tones of conversation could have been heard, with
occasional clanking and grinding sounds suggesting the revolution of
geared wheels. No words could have been distinguished and the fact
that toward the end of the interview, after Pentecost’s voice had been
going on in a subdued but earnest murmur for quite a time, it was
suddenly stopped, as though something had shut him off in the midst
of a sentence, and that then, for several minutes following, there
was absolute silence, could only have mystified without in the least
enlightening anyone in a position to overhear.
In reality there was no mystery whatever, and the whole discussion
between the two in that basement room was simple and straightforward.
It was only that while Mr. Pentecost was in the very act of telling Mr.
Haworth that there were various reasons why it was impossible for his
firm to take on this remarkable idea of his for exploitation, there
suddenly came to him—flashing through his mind in the characteristic
way he hit on such things—a most ingenious scheme or operation that
could be worked in connection with this device of Haworth’s—and in
fact with nothing else; a scheme that appealed to him by reason of its
extraordinary possibilities for shrewd maneuvering and complicated
trickery and strategy, and because it was dangerous, cold-blooded, and
terrible.
It came crashing in on him in the very midst of his declining to have
anything to do with the Haworth invention—even while he was advising
Haworth himself to let it alone—and naturally brought him to a stop
that was near to being a jolt. The rest of his sentence remained
unspoken. He sat motionless, his mind flooded with his new idea, a
blank to everything else. And when Haworth, who had taken his refusal
as final, at last muttered something about going upstairs, he rose from
the wooden box on which he was sitting and followed.
Haworth, in the room above, set the lamp down and stood staring into
vacancy.
Pentecost hunched himself up in a chair where he sat with his dark
half-closed eyes fastened on the young inventor. He was figuring on
what the chap would be likely to do under certain circumstances—the
most effective method of taking care of him should he prove an
obstacle—the safeguards he could use.
He was as certain that he’d purchase the rights for handling and
exploiting the Haworth machine—but doing so in his own way—as he
was that he saw the young fellow there before him. It was a chance
he’d been looking for ever since he left Chicago. He’d pay anything
necessary. But of course he knew how to manage so that the said
“necessary” would be an insignificant figure.
Haworth began to walk up and down the room. Pentecost watched him for a
while.
“What seems to be the matter?” he finally asked.
The young man stopped in his tracks and looked at him.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t take it.”
“I’m not the only man on earth.”
“It’s the time—the time!”
Pentecost regarded him from under his drooping eyelids.
“You’re looking for a bunch of money?” he asked.
“Yes—oh yes!” And Haworth turned and began to move about.
“Look here,” Pentecost called out to him after a while. “Just to
satisfy my curiosity, put an index to it!”
“Index?” Haworth stopped and faced him.
“What amount?”
“I don’t know. A lot—thousands—I must have thousands.”
“How many?”
“All I can get—twenty. No, wait! More! Thirty—forty——”
“The fool that would give you that isn’t born yet.”
“How do you know? Wait! I’ve thought of something! I’ll go to the
moving-picture men. They’ll take an interest—they’re bound to—the
pictures are part of it—and they pay great prices—they pay thousands!”
Moving-picture men! And the distracted young fellow was capable of
doing it. Might get something out of them, too, if he happened to
strike a crooked concern.
“I don’t suppose you could wait a few days,” Pentecost mumbled in
an uninterested sort of way. “There’s a bare chance I’ve thought
of—though I doubt if it’s as good as the pictures at that.” (Of course
he couldn’t appear to block the picture game. The price would go up on
him—or would if the chap knew anything.)
“For yourself?” Haworth asked, eagerly; for he’d got it firmly fixed in
his mind that this man was the one choice on earth for the carrying out
of his idea.
Pentecost shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got a partner. I’ve
known him to take a fling at something on his own account—if he took a
fancy to it.”
“Where is he?”
“Pittsburgh—on business. He might be able to get here by Friday.”
“Five days!”
“Good man for you, too. Just his line. Done this sort of thing before.”
“But you don’t know he’d take it! I can’t wait five days and then
have him say no! I’ll try the pictures. There was a man here last
week—wanted to take me working at the lathe—said he’d read about me in
a paper. I know where he is. I’ll find him to-night!”
There could be no doubt that the fellow would do as he said. He hadn’t
the faintest idea in his system of what a “bluff” was. And the fear
of losing this rare chance for ingenious chicanery drove Pentecost
into the execution of what is popularly referred to as a “climb down.”
Although able to camouflage this performance so that it did not appear
in that unpleasant light, he had, before leaving the old Cripps mansion
that evening, virtually guaranteed that his firm would take over the
entire exploiting rights in the Haworth mechanism, and had agreed to
pay for the same in cash, upon the signing of the contract, an amount
which should be “satisfactory” to the young inventor. As to this
payment he asked for a delay of fourteen days so that he could sound
the market, the idea of the thing being so utterly unique that it was
impossible at this time to estimate the exact figure they could pay.
And as he needed every moment of the fourteen days option—as you might
call it, and this being Sunday and so late anyway that nothing could
be accomplished, he asked that the time allowed begin on the following
day—Monday—at noon, bringing its expiration on Monday the 30th of
August at the same hour.
With talk like this—which, as you see, bound him to nothing—in
combination with the young man’s earnest desire that he should be the
one to undertake the exploitation, Haworth was persuaded into this
fourteen days delay, being made confident of receiving a large amount
of money at the end of that time. Pentecost said he would bring Harker
there to draw up the contract, on his return from Pittsburgh, and
then this promoter of hazardous and extraordinary villainies rose to
take his leave, slipping a bunch of bills on the table as he did so,
with the explanation that what he’d got—though not in legal form—was
really a fourteen-day option, and as option money he was leaving a
couple of hundred. There was nothing of kindliness or rescue work
involved in this; Pentecost had sized up Haworth well enough to know
that acceptance of money would make him feel in honor bound to wait
the fourteen days—bound firmer, indeed, than if he’d signed documents.
A wary move, certain to prevent the young fellow, in a possible fit
of desperation, from taking his astonishing idea to a motion picture
concern.
The delay he’d asked for was absolutely necessary to Pentecost for the
carrying through of the complicated campaign mapped out in his mind.
Advance planting of a most unusual character and covering a great
extent of territory was required. In addition there was the matter of
Haworth himself—the chances—the safeguards—for he was a risk beyond
computation. He had insisted on the payment being made to him in cash
at the expiration of the fourteen days—if the firm decided to purchase
the rights. It looked like a big bunch of money dropped in his lap
and no anchor to it—an impossible situation. Of course the fellow
would have to be taken care of. The way to do it was the problem. But
Pentecost very well knew he’d have a solution—and an adroit one—before
morning.
He boarded the midnight train for New York fifteen minutes before
leaving time, and at once went to work on his intricate scheme.