direction of his domicile. "Come on over here by the lamp-post, Mr.
Crow. I got something important I want to say to you."
"You ain't going to give yourself up without a fight, are you, Lucius?"
cried Mrs. Banks in considerable agitation.
"You leave me alone," snarled Lucius in a manner so malevolent that Mrs.
Banks cried out delightedly:
"Oh, ain't he just grand? Did you hear the way he spoke to me, Emma
Ducker? Goodness, what would I give if I had a man that could talk to me
like--"
"You ought to heard what he said to me when I asked him to come over to
our house and--" began Mrs. Ducker somewhat acrimoniously.
"Oh, cut it out--cut it out!" rasped Lucius. "Beat it! Go home, all of
you! Gosh a'mighty, can't a feller lick his own wife without--Here!
Leggo my arm! What in thunder are you tryin' to do, Lou Banks?"
"I'm going to take you over to my house and put your feet in a hot
mustard bath, and--"
"No, you ain't! Leggo, I say! Fer the Lord's sake, Officer, chase 'em
away!"
"Move on, now--move on, all of you," commanded the Marshal, waving the
revolver in lieu of his well-known night-stick. "What you got to say to
me, Lucius?" he asked as the women fell back.
"Do you think they c'n hear?"
"Not unless you whisper loudern' that."
"Well, say, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to take me up to
the jail an' lock me in."
"You--you want to be locked in?"
"I don't care whether you put it that way er to lock all these fool
women out. It's all the same to me. I ain't had a minute's peace for
nearly two months. I--"
"Why don't you go in your own house an' stay there?" demanded Anderson.
"That don't seem to help any. They come to call on me so often you'd
think I was a preacher or a doctor. An' what's more, my wife's beginnin'
to get her dander up. I c'n see what's comin'. If she ever--gee, it will
be awful!"
"Then you hain't murdered her yet? I understood you had."
* * * * *
Vicious Lucius looked over his shoulder and drew closer to the Marshal.
"This here strain is gittin' to be too much fer me, Mr. Crow. I can't
keep it up much longer. I'm breakin' down. I been thinkin' it over, an'
I can't see any way out of it except to go to jail fer a month er two."
"What's the charge?" inquired Marshal Crow.
"There won't be any. I'll do it fer nothing. It won't cost you a cent to
arrest me."
"That ain't what I mean. What I mean is what offence have you committed?
What law have you broke?"
"Well, it's purty hard to say."
"What charge will your wife make ag'inst you? Somebody has to make one,
you know."
"That's just it. She won't make any charge against me--positively not.
So I've got to do it myself. You've had a lot of experience. What fer
sort of a charge would you say I ought to bring?"
"Against yourself? It ain't regular, Lucius."
"How about insanity? Wouldn't that be a safe sort of complaint? I been
actin' mighty queer lately."
"I should say you had. Ain't you goin' to resist arrest?"
"No, I'm askin' fer it. If you don't want to be seen walkin' through the
streets with me, I'll go on ahead an' wait fer you at the jail."
"Well, this certainly beats all! I thought sure you'd put up an awful
fight, Lucius."
"I want to be locked up so's I won't commit murder," Lucius explained
eagerly.
"Good gracious! You come along with me, Lucius Fry. You got to be put
under lock an' key 'fore this night is over. I can't take no chances on
your murderin' that pore defenceless wife of your'n. You come--"
"I ain't thinkin' of murderin' my wife," protested Lucius, holding back.
"What I'm scared of is I'll murder one or two of these pesky women--that
Banks woman, fer instance. It's gittin' so I can't stick my nose outside
the door 'thout her droppin' everything an' runnin' out to gab with me.
I don't get a minute's privacy. If it ain't one, it's another. You'd
think I was Napoleon Boneparte, the way them women act. I don't know
what's come over 'em."
"Why, it's just 'cause they think you can lick any man in town. That's
the way with some women. The more brutal a man is to his own wife, the
more the other women seem to appreciate him. I must say, it takes a
purty good man to lick that wife of your'n--she's twice as big as you
are, and--"
"Why, gosh dern it, Mr. Crow, I couldn't lick Stella in a million
years," whispered Lucius fiercely.
"What's that? You--you say you can't lick your wife?"
"_I should say not!_" exclaimed Mr. Fry, raising his voice in
earnestness. Instantly he lowered it, standing on his tip-toes the
better to impart the following information to the amazed Marshal: "She
can lick me with both hands tied behind her back. Nobody knows it
better'n I do. I just got to keep throwin' things at her an' cussin' an'
smashin' furniture, an' all that, 'cause if she ever got an idea how
scared I am of her, she'd pick me up by the seat of my pants an'--Oh, I
tell you it's gettin' to be more'n I c'n stand, Mr. Crow. It's mighty
hard to keep on thinkin' you got to keep on bein' brave when you're
scared plumb to death all the time. Why, if Stella ever got onto the
fact that I--"
"But you keep on beatin' her just the same, don't you?"
"I never beat her unless her back's turned. First I throw somethin' at
her. That's the best way. But you never ought to throw anything unless
you got somethin' ready in the other hand. _An' hang onto that until
you're sure she's not goin' to run to'ards you 'stead of the other way._
If you're goin' to be a successful wife-beater, you got to use an awful
lot of common-sense." He looked over his shoulder. "Come on up the
street a little ways, Mr. Crow," he said nervously. "Them fool women are
edgin' nearer all the time. Next thing you know, they'll be tryin' to
sick me onto you, an'--an' I'd have to make good. They got all their
husbands scared of me, an' they keep tellin' me that I'm the grandest
little man in the world. You know Jim Banks? Well, he's twice as big as
I am. A week or two ago he came out on his back porch an' called me a
name. I started over to apologize to him, but he thought I was comin'
_after_ him, so he jumped back in the kitchen an' slammed the door. She
told me he wanted to send fer you, Mr. Crow. I--I wish he had."
"I understand you been makin' threats about what you'd do to me if I
ever tried to arrest you," said Anderson sternly. "Is that true?"
"No, it ain't. My wife's been makin' all the threats. She don't make any
bones about what _she'll_ do to you if you ever try to arrest me. She
says she'll bust your head fer you."
Marshal Crow straightened up and glared at the Fry habitation. There was
a light in the kitchen window.
"You wait here, Lucius Fry, an' don't move till I come back. I'm going
in there an' talk to that wife o' yourn."
"You better take a gang o' men with you. Remember, I'm givin' you fair
warnin'. She'll eat you alive."
"I'll take my friend Mr. Squires with me fer a witness--that's all. Is
she out in the kitchen?"
"I don't know. I ain't been in the house since the row. She locked the
door on me."
The Marshal strode away, leaving Vicious Lucius to the mercy of the
women. Harry Squires was nowhere in sight. Mr. Crow looked about in some
alarm. His speed noticeably decreased. Fumbling in his coat pocket, he
found his police whistle and proceeded to blow a shrill blast upon it. A
few moments passed, and then Harry came hurrying around the corner of
the house.
"Where have you been, dern you?"
"I've been in the house chatting with Mrs. Fry," said the reporter.
"Is she conscious? Is she able to talk?"
"She certainly is. Come on. She wants to see you."
Harry Squires grasped his arm and led him toward the kitchen door. Mrs.
Fry herself admitted them. She looked most formidable.
"Did my daughter Elfaretta ask you to come here and interfere with my
private affairs, Anderson Crow?" she demanded.
"I am not supposed to answer questions like that, Mrs. Fry," said
Anderson with dignity. "I am pleased to inform you, however, that I have
succeeded in arrestin' your husband, an' I intend to see to it that he
is locked up fer--"
"Oh, my goodness!" groaned the gigantic lady, dropping suddenly into a
chair and lowering her face into her apron.
The Marshal looked at her in astonishment.
"You have got to release Vicious Lucius at once," said Harry Squires
sternly. "We can't afford to wreck this poor little woman's life."
"Little--what's that you said?" stammered the Marshal, still gazing at
the ponderous bulk in the chair.
"You heard what I said--wreck this poor but proud lady's life. Speak up,
Mrs. Fry. Tell the good Marshal all about it."
Whereupon the woebegone Mrs. Fry lifted her head and her voice in
lamentation.
"I knew it couldn't last. I might 'a' knowed something would turn up to
spoil it. It was too much to expect. Oh, if you only wouldn't lock him
up, Mr. Crow! What will people say when they find out you was able to
arrest him single-handed, without a gang o' men to help you? Oh, oh,
oh!"
Mr. Squires interposed a suggestion just as she was on the verge of
sobs.
"I dare say we could stage a perfectly realistic struggle between Mr.
Fry and Mr. Crow. Mr. Fry could trip Mr. Crow up--all in play, you
know; and then I could rush in and grab Mr. Fry from behind while he was
letting on as though he was kicking Mr. Crow in the face. The spectators
would--"
"I won't be a party to any such monkey business!" exclaimed the Marshal
in some heat. "What do you take me for? If I arrest Lucius Fry, I'll
jest simply pick him up by the coat-collar and--"
"That's just it," cried Mrs. Fry. "He wouldn't fight back, and how would
I feel if you carried him off to jail as if he was a lunch-basket? And I
was beginning to feel so proud and happy. I was getting so I could look
those cats in the face, all because my husband was the best little
daredevil in the Gully. They used to pity me. Now they are so jealous of
me they don't know what to do. They'd give anything if they had a
husband like Lucius--little as he is. My, how they envy me, and how I
have been looking down on all of 'em the last six months! And here you
arrest him as easy as if he was a little girl, when I been telling
everybody there wasn't anybody living that could take my man to jail.
Oh, I--I wish I'd never been born!"
* * * * *
Anderson Crow was puzzled. He pulled at his whiskers in the most
helpless way, and stared wide-eyed.
"But--but ain't you afraid to live with him?" he mumbled. "Ain't you
afraid he'll lick you to death sometime when he's in one of--"
"He couldn't lick me if I was chloroformed," blurted out Mrs. Fry,
arising suddenly. She bared a huge right arm. "See that? Well, that's as
big as his leg. Don't you ever get it in your head that I can't lick
Lucius Fry. That ain't the point. I can do it, but I wouldn't do it for
anything on earth. I want to be proud of him, and I want these other
women to feel sorry for me because I've got a _man_ for a husband, and
not a rabbit. Where is he, Mr. Crow?"
"He's out there waitin' fer me to take him to jail--that is, he _said_
he'd wait. Course, if you won't make any affidavit ag'inst him, I--I
guess there's no sense in me lockin' him up. I was doin' it as a--er--as
a sort of favour to him, anyhow. He seemed to be afraid he'd kill some
of them women that hang around him."
"I just thought he'd act that way. I won't make any charge against him.
I want him to stay just the way he is--a fine, upstanding brutal sort of
feller. You go out there an' tell him to come in here. I want to go down
on my knees again and forgive him."
The Marshal hesitated. He was between two fires. He couldn't very well
oblige _both_ of them. Lucius unquestionably was eager to go to jail for
reasons of his own, and Mrs. Fry was just as eager that he should
remain at large. The Marshal scratched his head.
"I feel kinder sorry fer him," he mused. "Like as not, one of them women
will git so foolish over him that her husband will take it into his head
to get a divorce, an'--" He paused in confusion.
"Go on--go on!" pleaded Mrs. Fry, her eyes sparkling.
"Well, from all Lucius says, he despises the whole lot of 'em. Still,
that ain't goin' to help _him_ any if Jim Banks er one of them other
idiots gits all het up an' jealous an' goes and sues fer a divorce,
namin' Lucius Fry as--"
Mrs. Fry slapped him violently on the back.
"That's just what I want!" she cried eagerly. "I'd be the proudest woman
in Tinkletown."
The Marshal stared. Harry Squires covered his mouth with his hand.
"Well, of all the gosh--"
* * * * *
His ejaculation was cut short by the opening of the kitchen door. Lucius
stood outlined in the aperture. He was clapping his arms about his body,
and his teeth were chattering. The voluminous sleeves flapped like great
limp wings.
"Say," he whined, "I can't wait out there all night in this kinder
weather. If I got to go to jail, I want to do it right away. It's
cruelty to animals to leave me standin' out there with nothing on my
feet but carpet-slippers. Come on an'--"
"Come in to the fire an' get warm, Lucius dear," called out his wife, as
shrinking and as timid as a whipped child. "I forgive you. Julie!
Jul-ie! Come down here an' help me get some hot coffee an' something to
eat fer your Pa."
"I--I guess we'd better be goin', Harry," said Marshall Crow
uncomfortably. "I got to disperse that crowd o' women out there in the
street. Good night, Lucius. Night, Mrs. Fry. If you ever need me, all
yer got to do is just send word."
Lucius followed him to the door, and would have gone out into the night
with him if the Marshal had not deliberately pushed him back.
"You--you ain't goin' to desert me, are you?" whispered Lucius fiercely.
The Marshal leaned over and whispered to Lucius.
"If all the other men in this here town had as soft a snap as you've
got, Lucius Fry, they'd hate to die worse'n ever, because they'd know
they'd never git back into heaven ag'in."
THE VEILED LADY AND THE SHADOW
A veiled lady is not, in ordinary circumstances, an object of concern to
anybody. Circumstances, however, are sometimes so extraordinary that a
veiled lady becomes an object of concern to everybody. If the old-time
novelists are to be credited, an abundantly veiled lady is more than a
source of interest; she is the vital, central figure in a mystery that
continues from week to week, or month to month, as the case may be,
until the last chapter is reached and she turns out to be the person you
thought she was all the time.
Now, the village of Tinkletown is a slow-going, somnolent sort of place
in which veils are worn by old ladies who wish to enjoy a pleasant
snooze during the sermon without being caught in the act. That any one
should wear a veil with the same regularity and the same purpose that
she wears the dress which renders the remainder of her person invisible
is a circumstance calculated to excite the curiosity of even the most
indifferent observers in the village of Tinkletown.
So when the news travelled up and down Main Street, and off into the
side-streets, and far out beyond Three Oaks Cemetery to the new division
known as Oak Park, wherein reside four lonely pioneer families, that
the lady who rented Mrs. Nixon's house for the month of September was in
a "perpetual state of obscurity" (to quote Mr. Harry Squires, the
_Banner_ reporter), the residents of Tinkletown admitted that they
didn't know what to make of it.
The Nixon cottage was a quaint, old-fashioned place on the side of
Battle Hill, looking down upon the maples of Sickle Street. The grounds
were rather spacious, and the house stood well back from the street,
establishing an aloofness that had never been noticed before. A low
stone wall guarded the lawn and rose-garden, and there was an iron gate
at the bottom of the slope. The front porch was partly screened by
"Dutchman's Pipe" vines. With the advent of the tenant, smart Japanese
sun-curtains made their appearance, and from that day on no prying eye,
no matter how well-trained it may have been, could accomplish anything
like a satisfactory visit to the regions beyond.
Mrs. Nixon usually rented her house for the summer months. The summer of
1918 had proved an unprofitable season for her. It was war-time, and the
people who lived in the cities proved unduly reluctant to venture far
from their bases of supplies. Consequently Mrs. Nixon and her daughter
Angie remained in occupancy, more heartsick than ever over the horrors
of war. Just as they were about to give up hope, the unexpected
happened. Joseph P. Singer, the real-estate agent, offices in the
Lamson Block, appeared bright and early one morning to inquire if the
cottage could be had for the month of September and part of October.
"You may ask any price you like, Abbie," he said. "The letter I received
this morning was written on the paper of the Plaza Hotel in New York.
Anybody who can afford to put up at the Plaza, which is right on Central
Park,--and also on Fifth Avenue,--ain't going to haggle about prices.
The party wants a bathroom with hot and cold water and electric lights.
Well, you've got all these improvements, and--"
"I've got to have references," said Mrs. Nixon firmly.
"I guess if the Plaza is willing to rent a room to a party, there
oughtn't to be any question as to the respectability of the said party,"
said Mr. Singer. "They're mighty particular in them New York hotels."
"Well, you write and tell the party--"
"I am requested to telegraph, Abbie," said he. "The party wants to know
right away."
As the result of this conversation and a subsequent exchange of
telegrams, the "party" arrived in Tinkletown on the first day of
September. Mr. Singer's contentions were justified by the manner in
which the new tenant descended upon the village. She came in a
maroon-and-black limousine with a smart-looking chauffeur, a French
maid, a French poodle and what all of the up-to-date ladies in
Tinkletown unhesitatingly described as a French gown a la mode.
Miss Angie Nixon, who had never been nearer to Paris than Brattleboro,
Vermont, said to her customers that from what she had seen of the new
tenant's outfit, she was undoubtedly from the Tooleries. Miss Angie was
the leading dressmaker of Tinkletown. If she had said the lady was from
Somaliland, the statement would have gone unchallenged.
The same day, a man cook and a "hired girl" arrived from Boggs City,
having come up by rail from New York.
The tenant was a tall, slender lady. There could be no division of
opinion as to that. As to whether she was young, middle-aged or only
well-preserved, no one was in a position to asseverate. As a matter of
fact, observers would have been justified in wondering whether she was
black or white. She was never abroad without the thick, voluminous veil,
and her hands were never ungloved. Mrs. Nixon and Angie described her
voice as refined and elegant, and she spoke English as well as anybody,
not excepting Professor Rank of the high school.
By the end of her first week in the Nixon cottage, there wasn't a person
in Tinkletown, exclusive of small babies, who had not advanced a theory
concerning Mrs. Smith, the new tenant. On one point all agreed; she was
the most "stuck-up" person ever seen in Tinkletown.
She resolutely avoided all contact with her neighbours. On several
occasions, polite and cordial citizens had bowed and mumbled "Howdy-do"
to her as she passed in the automobile, but there is no record of a
single instance in which she paid the slightest heed to these
civilities. All of her marketing was done by the man cook, and while he
was able to speak English quite fluently when objecting to the quality,
the quantity and the price of everything, he was singularly unable to
carry on a conversation in that language when invited to do so by
friendly clerks or proprietors.
As for the French chauffeur, his knowledge of English appeared to be
limited to an explosive sort of profanity. Lum Gillespie declared on the
third day after Mrs. Smith's car first came to his garage for live
storage, that "that feller Francose" knew more English cuss-words than
all the Irishmen in the world.
The veiled lady did a good many surprising things. In the first place,
she had been in the Nixon cottage not more than an hour when she ordered
the telephone taken out--not merely discontinued, but taken out. She
gave no reason, and satisfied the telephone-company by making the local
manager a present of ten dollars. She kept all of the green
window-shutters open during the day, letting the sunshine into the rooms
to give the carpets the first surprise they had had in years, and at
night she sat out on the screened-in porch, with a reading-lamp, until
an hour when many of the residents of Tinkletown were looking out of
their windows to see what sort of a day it was going to be. She paid
cash for everything, and always with bright, crisp banknotes, "fresh
from the mint." She slept till noon. She went out every afternoon about
four, rain or shine, for long motor-rides in the country. The queerest
thing about her was that she never went near the "movies."
Nearly every afternoon, directly after luncheon--they called it dinner
in Tinkletown--she appeared in the back yard and put her extraordinarily
barbered dog through a raft of tricks. Passers-by always paused to watch
the performance. She had him walking first on his hind legs, then on his
front legs; then he was catching a tennis-ball which she tossed every
which way (just as a woman would, said Alf Reesling); and when he wasn't
catching the ball, he was turning somersaults, or waltzing to the tune
she whistled, or playing dead. The poodle's name was Snooks.
* * * * *
The venerable town marshal, Anderson Crow, sat in front of Lamson's
store one hot evening about a week after the advent of the mystery. He
was the center of a thoughtful, speculative group of gentlemen
representing the first families of Tinkletown. Among those present were:
Alf Reesling, the town drunkard; Harry Squires, the reporter; Ed
Higgins, the feed-store man; Justice of the Peace Robb; Elmer K. Pratt,
the photographer; Situate M. Jones; and two or three others of less
note. The shades of night had just descended; some of the gentlemen had
already yawned three or four times.
"There ain't no law against wearin' a veil," said the Marshal, reaching
out just in time to pluck a nice red apple before Lamson's clerk could
make up his mind to do what he had come out of the store expressly to
do--that is, to carry inside for the night the bushel basket containing,
among other things, a plainly printed placard informing the public that
"No. 1 Winesaps" were "2 for 5c."
Crow inspected the apple critically for a moment, looking for a suitable
place to begin; then, with his mouth full, he went on: "The only thing I
got ag'inst her is that she's settin' a new style in Tinkletown. In the
last two-three days I've seen more'n one of our fair sex lookin' at
veils in the Five an' Ten Cent Store, and this afternoon I saw somebody
I was sure was Sue Becker walkin' up Maple Street with her head wrapped
up in something as green as grass. Couldn't see her face to save my
soul, but I recognized her feet. My daughter Caroline was fixin' herself
up before the lookin'-glass last night, seein' how she'd look in a veil,
she said. It won't be long before we won't any of us be able to
recognize our own wives an' daughters when we meet 'em on the street."
"My girl Queenie's got a new pink one," said Alf Reesling. "She made it
out of some sort of stuff she wore over her graduatin' dress three years
ago."
"Maybe she's got a bad complexion," ventured Mr. Jones.
"Who? My girl Queenie? Not on your--" began Alf, bristling.
"I mean the woman up at Mrs. Nixon's," explained Mr. Jones hastily.
Harry Squires had taken no part in the conversation up to this juncture.
He had been ruminating. His inevitable--you might almost say, his
indefatigable--pipe had gone out four or five times.
"Say, Anderson," he broke in abruptly, "has it ever occurred to you that
there might be something back of it that ought to be investigated?" The
flare of the match he was holding over the bowl of his pipe revealed an
eager twinkle in his eyes.
"There you go, talkin' foolishness again," said Anderson. "I guess there
ain't anything back of it 'cept a face, an' she's got a right to have a
face, ain't she?"
"I mean the _reason_ for wearing a veil that completely obscures her
face--_all the time_. They say she never takes it off, even in the
house."
"Who told you that?"
"Angie Nixon. She says she believes she sleeps in it."