EXPRESSIONS OF THE FAMILY AND IMPRESSIONS OF THE PRESS
With that, all the strangeness of the day, all the feeling of moving in
an unnatural world which had hung about me since the dawn, blew away
like the shadow of smoke. It was a summer morning of breezes and cool
lights, garrulous with innumerable birds; and I was standing with my
feet upon solid earth, glad beyond measure for the knowledge that I was
a fool. The very idea of it had been absurd; and best of all, there were
still things to be done.
"God be thanked," said I to Lady.
She smiled down at me very sweetly. "So much as that? It doesn't sound
as if you appreciated Walter, Mr. Crosby. I can easily imagine a worse
husband myself."
"I don't mean that," said I hastily. "At least--"
"At least you may as well come in to breakfast."
"I should say he might," Mr. Tabor cried behind her. "I have Sheila
safely stowed away, and now I must make sure of you."
I must have looked nearly as puzzled as I felt.
"You see, Mr. Crosby, I owe you an apology. You helped us out of a tight
place last night, and we are deeply in your debt; your coals of fire are
upon all our heads."
"But--" I said, and hesitated.
"'But;' but that's what I say. I owe you an apology. We fired you out
the other night because we had to. We had something going on here then
which we did not care to have a stranger mixed up in. We had every
regard for you--but, after all, you were an outsider, and we simply
could not risk you. So we threw you out. You understand that I am
speaking to you now in confidence, and because I take you to be a
gallant gentleman. Neither can I explain. Of course, the explanation I
did give you was a sheer bit of bluff. I know nothing against you
whatever; but you forced me into saying something, and that was the most
effective thing I could think of to say to a man of your kind. Believe
me, I hated to do it. Will you shake hands?"
By that time I had got my breath again. "I will do more," I said
laughingly. "I will congratulate you. You are one of the ablest and most
convincingly finished--a--"
"Liars," he prompted.
"That I ever had the privilege of meeting," I concluded unblushingly.
Mr. Tabor clapped me on the shoulder. "Thank you. I am honored. We shall
get along very well, I promise you. Lady, lead the way where breakfast
waits; this low fellow and I will follow."
So the three of us made a very comfortable meal. Mrs. Tabor was not at
table, and I supposed her breakfasting in bed, if indeed she were awake;
and Doctor Reid, it appeared, was yet busy with his patient. We told Mr.
Tabor our adventure, turn and turn about, and I found myself listening
to Lady's warm praise of what she was pleased to call my resource, with
a tingling at the heart-strings. When we had done, and Mr. Tabor had
listened very carefully, he sat frowning before him for a while; and I
thought that he saw more in the recital than did we ourselves.
"Well," he said at last. "I suppose all's well that ends well; but I do
hope that it has all ended. Are you quite sure, Mr. Crosby, that nobody
got a look at you or Lady or the car who would be likely to have mind
enough to give the affair clearly to the newspapers?"
"I'm pretty sure of it, sir," I answered. "The only people who got a
good look at anything were the little group of the usual slum roughs;
and from their general air and the hour of the night, the probability is
that there wasn't one of them that was not pretty well befuddled."
"How about the police?"
"I didn't get a good look at the police myself; but I think that we were
too fast for them. You see, Miss Tabor had the number off, and we
started with considerable speed. They may have a general idea of the
car, but I think that is about all."
"I wonder what Carucci will do?" mused Miss Tabor. "He looked rather
unpleasant on the sidewalk."
"He will have to say something," I said uneasily. "He couldn't have
careened around there very long without falling into the hands of the
police; and they would certainly arrest him. They usually arrest
everybody in sight when one person has got away and they don't know
quite what the trouble is."
Mr. Tabor nodded. "Yes, they doubtless have him safe behind the bars by
now; but I don't think that will hurt us any. Personally, I can imagine
no place where I should rather have him, unless it were far upon or
under the deep blue sea."
"But, father dear, that is terrible. If they have him in jail, he will
have to talk, and he will be blamed for that poor wrecked room and
everything. He'll have to give some explanation to save himself; and he
must know that we are the only people that would be likely to come for
Sheila in an automobile."
"The Italian, my dear, is not that breed of man. We may be very glad for
once that he is an Italian. There is only about one thing in the world
that a man of his race and class will not do--and that is, talk to the
police. It is part of his faith not to. He will either invent some
all-enfolding lie that tells nothing whatsoever, or else he will not say
a word."
"But he must have struck her _with_ something," said Lady. "Suppose they
should find _that_, father. He'd have to tell them to save himself."
I slipped my hand into my pocket. "I don't think they will find it,"
said I, and showed the thing above the table. Lady shuddered, and I
quickly returned it to my pocket.
"Just what you would expect," said Mr. Tabor, "and if you had left it, I
am afraid Carucci would have had some difficulty in explaining things. A
marlinespike, isn't it? Poor Sheila was really very fortunate that he
didn't stab her with the sharp end. A stab would have been more in his
line--the beast. As it is, I don't believe the police will ever find out
any of the truth of the matter."
"Well, even if they do," said I, "it won't do any great amount of harm.
They might arrest me for speeding, but that would be about all. No one
in his senses would be likely to accuse us of murder."
"My good young man," Mr. Tabor answered, "they absolutely mustn't dream
that we had any hand in it at all. They mustn't even hear of us. And
neither must anybody else."
Lady sighed wearily. "I'm sure that it will be all right, father," she
said.
"The chauffeur will be quiet for the sake of his own character," I
added. "He's as anxious to avoid any connection with it as we are. And
as for me, sir, you may be sure that nothing shall leak out through any
indiscretion of mine."
Mr. Tabor pushed aside his finger-bowl. "I understand that, Mr.
Crosby--and I appreciate how uncomfortable it must be for you to act in
the dark. Believe me, I regret very much the necessity for it, and
appreciate your generosity."
Lady was looking at us, and I colored. "I'm very much at your service,
Mr. Tabor," I said.
"You may perhaps wonder what this Italian has to do with us at all.
That, at least, I can tell you. He was a sailor on one of my ships in
years past, and when the girls were--" He paused. "When Lady was a
little girl, you understand, we took quite a voyage for Mrs. Tabor's
health. Sheila was Lady's nurse--and a very pretty slip of an Irish lass
she was. Naturally we took her along, and the rest is one of those
whimsies of fate that you can never explain. This Carucci fell in love
with her; what attracted _her_ was more than any one of us could
imagine, but at any rate she married him. Married him as soon as we got
back to New York. Well, after that things gradually went wrong. The man
got a taste for drink, which is unusual--the Italians aren't a drunken
people--and although I kept him on against my captain's advice for
Sheila's sake, in the end I had to let him go. From time to time, when
there has been trouble, we have taken Sheila into our family to give the
poor woman some protection, though her loyalty makes it pretty hard to
do much for her. Carucci, however, resents our interference, and
pretends that we force her from him. He is becoming very troublesome."
Mr. Tabor had lighted a cigar, puffing it slowly throughout his story.
He talked very easily; and I was ashamed of myself for wondering whether
he was telling all the truth. Perhaps my encounter with him had made me
suspicious, but I could not forget that Doctor Reid had given Carucci
money. I felt uncomfortable; and with the mental discomfort, I realized
that I had been through a sleepless and violent night, and that I was
very tired. I must have shown some shadow of this sudden weariness, for
Lady rose from her chair decidedly and stretched out her hand.
"Now you must go back to your room and get some sleep, Mr. Crosby. You
can come back this evening if you like--we should have the evening
papers by then, and we shall see how much notice has been taken of us."
"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.
"You are tired out," said Lady, "I know. I'm tired myself, and I--" she
stopped, flushing.
Her father was looking at us with half a frown, and it was to him that
I turned. "Well, then, I'm off," said I, "but I'll be back to help you
dissect the associated press."
I had not thought that I could sleep during the day, or even rest,
except from worry. But the strain, and perhaps even more, the relief of
the last twenty-four hours, must have relaxed me more than I knew; for I
did sleep soundly until late in the afternoon. When I returned to the
Tabors in the evening, Mrs. Tabor was still invisible; and the others
were seated about the big lamp in the living-room, busy over a bale of
last editions. The floor was strewn with open sheets from which wild
pictures and wilder words stared upward.
"Come in and be thrilled," was Lady's greeting. "You're an unknown
slayer and a mysterious criminal. We seem to be sufficiently notorious,
but thus far we remain unidentified."
"Outrageous, the tone of these things," growled her father. "I never
realized it before. They haven't got our names, though."
As for Doctor Reid, his mind was so concentrated upon the matter in hand
that he barely looked up for a mechanical salutation and plunged again
into the abyss of journalism.
"How is Mrs. Tabor?" I said, "and Mrs. Carucci--is she badly hurt?"
"Oh, mother's perfectly well. She was tired a little after sitting up
for us, and went to bed early, that's all. And Sheila is doing
splendidly."
Doctor Reid came abruptly to the surface. "Fine. Fine. Very rapid
recovery. Blow only glanced along the bone. No fracture, no concussion.
Strong vitality, too. Astonishing what resistance those unhygienic
people have. Soon be all over it."
"Look here," Lady broke in, "here's a bird's-eye view of the tenement
house, with--no, it's an X-ray view, the walls are transparent. 'Arrow
points to room in which Mrs. Carucci was discovered; cross marks
location of blood-stain; inner room with disordered bed; dotted line
shows how the body was carried down-stairs.' See, they've got little
pictures of us carrying her down, on each floor. And here's the
automobile starting away with me leaning out of the window."
"And vignettes of Carucci and the policeman, and a fancy sketch of
Sheila," said I. "Like those early Italian paintings, where they have
two or three successive scenes on one canvas."
"This is about the fullest account, too. It's pretty nearly all here,
except who we are. 'Carucci is in custody.' Do you suppose they
interviewed him?"
"I doubt it," said her father. "It was probably the tenants and the men
in the street."
"Listen to this," put in Doctor Reid, with an indignant snort.
"Outrageous, the flippant way this sheet takes everything. Send a clever
young ignoramus to write up important surgical cases. Poke fun at every
thing. Listen:
"'Antonio Carucci is a true son of Neptune, born, as his name implies,
under the shadow of Vesuvius. He goes down to the sea in ships; and,
like all good mariners since old Noah himself, returns with a throat
parched by many days of briny breezes. Last night, being new landed from
a long cruise, Giuseppe sought solace in flowing flagons of Chianti,
until, when he tacked through the breakers of River Street toward the
beacon light which his lass kept ever burning in her wifely window, he
had almost forgotten his own name amid the rosy aromas of his national
potation. Arrived at his domicil, Geronimo fell into a deep sleep, with
a sinuous string of spaghetti clasped firmly in his corded hand; and as
he slept, he dreamed a dream,' Then it goes on to treat the whole affair
as a hallucination, distorting or evading all the facts. Ridiculous
account. Rubbish. Perfect rubbish."
"At least, it can do us no harm," said Mr. Tabor, while Lady and I
exchanged mirthful glances. "The more the whole affair is belittled, the
less danger there is of any serious gossip or investigation. What I
don't like is this sort of thing." He crumpled a red and black page
across his knee. "There is no substance in it, but it might stir up
trouble.
"'Last night the perpetrators of a brutal and mysterious crime escaped
without a struggle.
"'They abducted a poor woman, a wife and mother, from her home. They
left behind them destruction and a red stain upon the threshold.
"'How did these wretches escape? Why were they not apprehended?
"'The answer is simple: They were rich.
"'A swift automobile awaited them. The police were powerless to stop
them as they sped away.
"'If a poor laboring man, crazed by sorrow, commits a crime, the utmost
rigor of the law awaits him. He can not purchase a great machine to
speed his flight.
"'Neither can he purchase the machinery of justice, the skill of
eminent lawyers, the shifts and delays of appeal. He must pay the
penalty.
"'But the rich man pays only his myrmidons. The dastards who committed
last night's atrocity vanished behind a cloud of gold.
"'Shall we permit these things to be so? Shall we allow the wealthy to
avoid those punishments which we impose upon the poor? _This means you._
"'They deem themselves already secure; but though they exhaust every
device of plutocracy, they shall be brought to justice in the end.
"'We say to them, _We know you, and we will find you yet_.'"
"That sounds threatening," I said. "But, after all, isn't it just as
empty as the rest? People read that same shriek three hundred and
sixty-five days in the year, and nothing much ever happens. Do you think
there will actually be any extra search because of that?"
"I'm not so sure," Mr. Tabor answered. "It may not matter to the police,
but the paper itself is quite capable of seeking us out. Indeed, I think
we are really most likely to have trouble, not from the authorities, but
from reporters."
"That's it," Reid added. "You've put your finger on it. That's what
we've got to look out for. Reporters."
"But what can they do?" asked Lady. "Suppose some reporter comes here;
we won't tell him anything, and nobody else has anything to tell."
"My dear child, you haven't the slightest idea what a newspaper
investigation means. If they once get a hint of who we are we shall have
a dozen men and women here, questioning everybody in sight--the
neighbors, the servants--trying in every possible way to get at
something which can be made to look sensational, and printing
conjectures if they can't find facts."
"Besides," said Doctor Reid, "the poking and prying would be just as bad
as the publicity. Let's look at the case: 'Tisn't that we're trying to
conceal a specific fact; we're trying to avoid gossip, trying to avoid
appearing in any way unusual, trying to seem like other people. We are
like other people, except--well, now, here's the situation. Three
points: First, we mustn't be bothered by the police; secondly, we
mustn't get into the papers; thirdly, we mustn't be investigated or
talked about."
"We're tolerably safe from the first," said I, "if Mr. Tabor is right."
"Good. Safe from the first. Then we'll pass right on to the next. Now
let's see what the papers will try to do. Their whole purpose--"
The tiny tinkle of a bell rippled from overhead. Reid was on his feet in
a flash and started for the door, Lady following. I had risen, too,
startled at the tense faces of the rest.
"Don't you come, father dear," she said, turning for an instant in the
doorway. "It's probably only for Sheila. We'll call if we need you." I
heard their careful footsteps on the stairs.
Mr. Tabor had settled back into his chair, the paper lying on his knee,
his head forward, and the muscles of his neck rigid with listening.
Somehow in the sharp sidelong light he looked much older than I had seen
him: more conquerable, more marked by time and trial; and with the
listless hands and deep eyes of his night's unrest went a strange look
of being physically lighted and less virile than the formidable old man
I had begun to know. And as the noiseless minutes went by I grew
presumptuously sorry for him.
After a little he relaxed himself with an evident effort and turned to
me with his careful smile.
"A family man gets very fussy, Mr. Crosby," he said. "You learn so many
things outside yourself to worry about."
"Hadn't I better go and leave you all free?" I asked. "It's getting
time, anyway."
"I wish you'd stay," he growled, "it's easier to wait when there are
two."
I sat down again and tried to talk; but neither of us could keep any
movement in the conversation. We fell into long silences, through which
the weight of the silent anxiety above pressed down like a palpable
thing. At last Lady's voice called softly, and we rose.
"Don't tell me anything," I said, as I opened the front door, "but if I
can be of any earthly use, I will."
"Thank you, Mr. Crosby," he answered, shaking my hand slowly, "I know
that."