It has the usual Huron street ending. Emergency case. Psychopathic
hospital. Dunning. But the landlady talked to the police sergeant. The
landlady was curious. She wanted the police sergeant to tell her
something. And the police sergeant, resting his chin on his elbow, leaned
forward on his high stool and peered through the partition window at the
landlady--and said nothing. Or rather, he said: "don't know. That's the
way with people sometimes. They get afraid."
This man came to Mrs. Balmer's rooming-house in Huron Street when it was
spring. He was a short, stocky man with a leathery face and little eyes.
He identified himself as Joseph Crawford, offered to pay $5 a week for a
12 by 12 room on the third floor at the rear end of the long gloomy
hallway and arrived the next day at Mrs. Balmer's faded tenement with an
equally faded trunk. Nothing happened.
But when Mrs. Balmer entered the room the following morning to straighten
it up she found several innovations. There were four kerosene lamps in the
room. They stood on small rickety tables, one in each corner. And there
was a new electric light bulb in the central fixture. Mrs. Balmer took
note of these things with a professional eye but said nothing.
Idiosyncrasies are to be expected of the amputated folk who seek out
lonely tenement bedrooms for a home.
* * * * *
A week later, however, Mrs. Balmer spoke to the man. "You burn your light
all night," said Mrs. Balmer, "and while I have no objection to that,
still it runs up the electric light bill."
The man agreed that this was true and answered that he would pay $1 extra
each week for the privilege of continuing to burn the electric light all
night.
Nothing happened. Yet Mrs. Balmer, when she had time for such things as
contemplation, grew curious about the man in the back room. In fact she
transferred her curiosity from the Japanese female impersonator on the
second floor and the beautiful and remarkably gowned middle-aged woman on
the first floor to this man who kept four kerosene lamps and an electric
bulb burning all night on the third floor.
For some time Mrs. Balmer was worried over the thought that this man was
probably an experimenter. He probably fussed around with things as an old
crank does sometimes, and he would end by burning down the house or
blowing it up--accidentally.
But Mrs. Balmer's fears were removed one evening when she happened to look
down the gloomy hallway and notice that this man's door was open. A gay,
festive illumination streamed out of the opened doorway and Mrs. Balmer
paid a social call. She found her roomer sitting in a chair, reading.
Around him blazed four large kerosene lamps. But there was nothing else to
notice. His eyes were probably bad, and Mrs. Balmer, after exchanging a
few words on the subject of towels, transportation and the weather, said
good-night.
But always after that Mrs. Balmer noticed that the door remained open.
Open doors are frequent in rooming-houses. People grow lonely and leave
the doors of their cubby holes open. There is nothing odd about that. Yet
one evening while Mrs. Balmer stood gossiping with this man in the doorway
she noticed something about him that disturbed her. She had noticed it
first when she looked in the room before saying hello. Mr. Crawford was
sitting facing the portieres that covered the folding doors that
partitioned the room. The portieres were a very clever ruse of Mrs.
Balmer. Behind them were screwed hooks and these hooks functioned as a
clothes-closet.
Mrs. Balmer noticed that Mr. Crawford, as she talked, kept staring at the
portieres and watching them and that he seemed very nervous. The next
morning, when she was straightening up the room, Mrs. Balmer looked behind
the portières. An old straw hat, an old coat, a few worn shirts hung from
the hooks. There was nothing else but the folding-door and this was not
only locked but nailed up.
When two months had passed Mrs. Balmer had made a discovery. It had to do
with the four kerosene lamps and the extra large electric bulb and the
portières. But it was an irritating discovery, since it made everything
more mysterious than ever in the landlady's mind.
She had caught many glimpses of this man in the back room when he wasn't
looking. Of evenings he sat with his door opened and his eyes fastened on
the portières. He would sit like that for hours and his leathery face
would become gray. His little eyes would widen and his body would hunch up
as if he were stiffening. But nothing happened.
Finally, however, Mrs. Balmer began to talk. She didn't like this man
Crawford. It made her nervous to catch a glimpse of him in his
too-brightly lighted room, sitting hour after hour staring at the
portières--as if there was something behind them, when there was nothing
behind them except an old hat and coat and shirt. She looked every
morning.
But he paid his rent regularly. He left in the morning regularly and
always returned at eight o'clock. He was an ideal roomer--except that
there never is an ideal roomer--but Mrs. Balmer couldn't stand his lights
and his watching the portières. It frightened her.
* * * * *
Screams sometimes sound in a rooming-house. One night--it was after
midnight--Mrs. Balmer woke up. The darkened house seemed filled with
noises. A man was screaming.
Mrs. Balmer got dressed and called the janitor. There was no doubt in her
mind where the noises came from. Some of the roomers were awake and
looking sleepily and frightenedly out of their doorways. Mrs. Balmer and
the janitor hurried to the back room on the third floor. It was Crawford
screaming.
His door was closed, but it opened when the janitor turned the knob. Mr.
Crawford was standing in front of the portières in the too-brightly
lighted room and screaming. His arms, as if overcoming some awful
resistance, shot out, and his hands seized the portières. With the amazing
screams still coming from his throat, Mr. Crawford tore crazily at the
portières until they ripped from the rod above the folding-door. They came
down and the man fell with them. Over him, hanging on the "clothes-closet"
hooks, were revealed an old straw hat, an old coat and a worn shirt.
* * * * *
"You see," said Mrs. Balmer to the police sergeant, "he was afraid of
something and he couldn't stand the dark. And the portières always
frightened him. But the doctor wasn't able to do anything with him. The
doctor says there was some secret about it and that Mr. Crawford went
crazy because of this secret. The only thing they found out about him was
that he used to be a sailor."