The first dim noises of the tragedy in the living-room Mary's stupefied
senses had confused with a nightmare which she had been painfully
fighting.
The torch in Nance's hand had flashed through a crack into her face
once. It was the flame of a revolver in the hands of a thief in Jim's
den in New York. She merely felt it. Her eyes had been gouged out and
she was blind. A gang of his coarse companions were holding a council,
cursing, drinking, fighting. Jim had sprung between two snarling brutes
and knocked the revolver into the air. The flame had scorched her face.
With an oath he had slapped her.
“Get out, you damned little fool!” he growled. “You're always in the way
when you're not wanted. Nobody can ever find you when there's work to be
done----”
“But I can't see, Jim dear,” she pleaded. “I do not know when things are
out of place----”
“You're a liar!” he roared. “You know where every piece of junk stands
in this room better than I do. I can't bring a friend into that door
that you don't know it. You can hear the swish of a woman's skirt on the
stairs four stories below----”
“I only asked you who the woman was who came in with you, Jim----”
His fingers gripped her throat and stopped her breath. Through the roar
of surging blood she could barely hear the vile words he was dinning
into her ears.
“I know you just asked me, you nosing little devil, and it's none of
your business! She's a pal of mine, if you want to know, the slickest
thief that ever robbed a flat. She's got more sense in a minute than
you'll ever have in a lifetime. She's going to live here with me now.
You can sleep on the cot in the kitchen. And you come when she calls,
if you know what's good for your lazy hide. I've told her to thrash the
life out of you if you dare to give her any impudence.”
She had cowered at his feet and begged him not to beat her again. The
fumes of whiskey and stale beer filled the place.
Jim turned from her to quell a new fight at the other end of the room.
Another woman was there, coarse, dirty, beastly. She drew a knife and
demanded her share of the night's robberies. She was trying to break
from the men who held her to stab Jim. They were all fighting and
smashing the furniture----
She sprang from the bed with a cry of horror. The noise was real! It was
not a dream. The beast inside was stumbling in the dark. His passions
fired by liquor, he was fumbling to find his way into her room.
She rushed to the door and put her shoulder against the bar, panting in
terror.
She heard his strangling cry:
“Here! Here! Great God! Do you know what you're doing?”
And then his mother's voice, mad with greed, cruel, merciless:
“I just want yer money--that's all, an' I'm goin' to have it!”
She heard the clinch in the struggle and the dull blow of the knife.
In a sudden flash she saw it all. He had succeeded in rousing Nance's
avarice and transforming her into a fiend. Without knowing it she was
stabbing her own son to death in the room in which he had been born!
She tried to scream and her lips refused to move. She tried to hurry to
the rescue and her knees turned to water.
Gasping for breath, she drew the bar from her prison door and walked
slowly into the room.
Nance's tall, bony figure was still crouched over the open bag, her
left hand buried in the gold, her right gripping the knife, her face
convulsed with greed--avarice and murder blended into perfect hell-lit
unity at last.
Jim lay on his back, limp and still, obliquely across the couch, his
breast bared in the struggle, the blood oozing a widening scarlet blot
on his white shirt. His head had fallen backward over the edge and could
not be seen.
Without moving a muscle, her body crouching, Nance spoke:
“You wuz awake--you heered?”
“Yes!”
The gleaming eyes burned through the gray dawn, two points of
scintillating, hellish light fixed in purpose on the intruder.
She had only meant to take the money. The fool had fought. She killed
him because she had to. And now the sobbing, sniveling little idiot who
had kept her waiting all night had stuck her nose into some thing that
didn't concern her. If she opened her mouth, the gallows would be the
end.
She would open it too. Of course she would. She was his wife. They had
quarreled, but the simpleton would blab. Nance knew this with unerring
instinct. It was no use to offer her half the money. She didn't have
sense enough to take it. She knew those pious, baby faces--well, there
was room for two in the cave under the cliff. It was daylight now. No
matter; it was Christmas morning. No man or woman ever darkened her door
on Christmas day. She could hide their bodies until dark, and then it
was easy. She would be in New York herself before anyone could suspect
the meaning of that automobile in the shed or the owners would trouble
themselves to come after it.
Again her decision was quick and fierce. Her hand was on the bag. She
would hold it against the world, all hell and heaven.
With the leap of a tigress she was on the girl, the bag gripped in her
left hand, the knife in her right.
To her amazement the trembling figure stood stock still gazing at her
with a strange look of pity.
“Well!” Nance growled. “I ain't goin' ter be took now I've got this
money--I'm goin' to New York ter find my boy!”
She lifted the knife and stopped in sheer stupor of surprise at the
girl's immovable body and staring eyes. Had she gone crazy? What on
earth could it mean? No girl of her youth and beauty could look death
in the face without a tremor. No woman in her right senses could see
the body of her dead husband lying there red and yet quivering without a
sign. It was more than even Nance's nerves could endure.
She lowered the knife and peered into the girl's set face and glanced
quickly about the room. Could she have called help? Was the house
surrounded? It was impossible. She couldn't have escaped. What did it
mean?
The old woman drew back with a terror she couldn't understand.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” she panted.
Mary held her gaze in lingering pity. Her heart went out now to the
miserable creature trembling in the presence of her victim. The blow
must fall that would crush the soul out of her body at one stroke. The
gray hair had tumbled over her distorted features, the ragged dress had
been torn from her throat in the struggle and her flat, bony breast was
exposed.
“You don't--have--to--go--to--New York--to--find--your--boy!” the
strained voice said at last.
Nance frowned in surprise and flew back at her in rage.
“Yes I do, too--he lives thar!”
The little figure straightened above the crouching form.
“He's here!”
Nance sank slowly against the table and rested the bag on the edge of
the chair. Its weight was more than she could bear. She tried to glance
over her shoulder at the body on the couch and her courage failed. The
first suspicion of the hideous truth flashed through her stunned mind.
She couldn't grasp it at once.
“Whar?” she whispered hoarsely.
Mary lifted her arm slowly and pointed to the couch.
“There!”
Nance glared at her a moment and broke into a hysterical laugh.
“It's a lie--a lie--a lie!”
“It's true----”
“Yer're just a lyin' ter me ter get away an give me up--but ye won't do
it--little Miss--old Nance is too smart for ye this time. Who told you
that?”
“He told me tonight!”
“He told you?” she repeated blankly.
“Yes.”
“You're a liar!” she growled. “And I'll prove it--you move out o' your
tracks an' I'll cut your throat. My boy's got a scar on his neck--I know
right whar to look for it. Don't you move now till I see--I know you're
a liar----”
She turned and with the quick trembling fingers of her right hand tore
the shirt back from the neck and saw the scar. She still held the bag
in her left hand. The muscles slowly relaxed and the bag fell endwise to
the floor, the gold crashing and rolling over the boards. She stared in
stupor and threw both hands above her streaming gray hair.
“Lord God Almighty!” she shrieked. “Why didn't I think that he wuz
somebody else's boy if he weren't mine!”
The thin body trembled and crumpled beside the couch.
The girl lifted her head in a look of awe as if in prayer.
“And God has set me free! free! free!”