_The Shadow on the Floor_
Donaldson toiled up the dark staircase leading to Barstow's laboratory.
To him it was as though he were fighting his way through deep water
reaching twenty fathoms above his head. The air was just as cold as
green water; it contained scarcely more life. He felt the same sense
of clammy, lurking things, unknown things, such as crawl along the
slimy bottoms where rotting hulks lie. He was impelled here by the
same sort of fascination which is said to lead murderers back to their
victims, yet it seemed to be the only place where he would be able to
think at all. It was getting back to the beginning--to the
source--where he could start fresh. It was here, and here alone, that
he could write his letter to her. Perhaps here he could make something
out of the chaos of his thoughts.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he paused before the closed
door. He did not expect Barstow to be in. He hoped that he was not.
He did not wish to face him to-day. To-morrow perhaps--but he realized
that if Barstow had gone on his proposed vacation he would not be back
even then. That did not matter either. The single thing remaining for
him to do was to make Elaine understand something of what his life had
meant, what she had meant in it, what he hoped to mean to her in the
silent future. That must be done alone, and this of all places was
where he could best do it. The mere thought of his room at the hotel
was repulsive to him.
He listened at the door. There was no sound--no sound save the
interminable "tick-tock, tick-tock" which still haunted him through the
pulse beats in his wrists. He reached forward and touched the knob;
listened again, and then turned it and pressed. The door was locked.
But it was a feeble affair. Barstow had made his experimental
laboratory in this old building to get away from the inquisitive, and
half of the time did not take the trouble to turn the key when he left,
for there was little of value here.
He knocked on the chance that Barstow might have lain down upon the
sofa for a nap. Again he waited until he heard the "tick-tock,
tick-tock" at his wrists. Then, pressing his body close to the lock,
he turned the knob and pushed steadily. It weakened. He drew back a
little and threw his weight more heavily against it. The lock gave and
the door swung open.
The sight of the threadbare sofa was as reassuring as the face of an
old friend. Yet what an eternity it seemed since he had sat there and
discussed his barren life with Barstow. The phrases he had used came
back to mock him. He had talked of the things that lay beyond his
reach, while even then they were at his hand, had he been but hardy
enough to seize them; he had spoken of what money could buy for him,
with love eagerly pressing greater gifts upon him without price; he had
hungered for freedom with freedom his for the taking. Sailors have
died of thirst at the broad mouth of the Amazon, thinking it to be the
open salt sea; so he was dying in the midst of clean, sweet life.
He sat down on the sofa, with his head between his hands and stared at
the glittering rows of bottles which caught the sun. Each one of them
was a laughing demon. They danced and winked their eyes--yellow, blue,
and blood-red. There were a hundred of them keeping step to the
bobbing shadows upon the floor. Row upon row of them--purple, brown,
and blood-red--all dancing, all laughing.
"You come out wrong every time," Barstow had said.
And he--he had laughed back even as the bottles were doing.
He was not cringing even now. He was asking no pity, no mercy. When
he had stepped across the room and had taken down that bottle, he had
been clear-headed; he had been clear-headed when he had swallowed its
contents. The only relief he craved for himself was to be allowed to
remain clear-headed until he should have written his letter. Coming up
the stairs he feared lest this might not be. Now he seemed to be
steadying once more.
He thought of Sandy. Poor pup, he had gone out easily enough. He had
curled up on a friendly knee and gone to sleep. That was all there had
been to it. It would be an odd thing, he mused, if the dog was where
he could look down on this man-struggle. This braced him up; he would
not have even this dog see him die other than bravely.
As far as he himself was concerned, he knew that he would go
unflinchingly to meet his final creditor, but there were the
Others--with Sandy there had been no Others. It was easy enough to die
alone, but when in addition to one's own death throes one had to bear
those of others,--that was harder. When he died, it would be as when
several died. There would be that mother in Vermont--part of her would
die with him; there would be Saul--even part of him would die with him;
there was Ben--some of him would die, too; and there was Elaine--good
God, how much of her would die with him?
He sprang to his feet and began to pace the stained wooden floor. As
he did so, a shadow crawled, from beneath the sofa and stole across the
room like a rat. But unlike a rat, it did not disappear into a hole;
it came back again towards Donaldson. He stopped. Close to the ground
the shadow crept nearer until he saw that it was a dog. Then he saw
that it was a black terrier. Then he saw that in size, color, and
general appearance it was the living double of Sandy.
He stooped and extended his hand. He tried to pronounce the name, but
his lips were too dry. The dog crouched, frightened, some three feet
distant. Donaldson, squatting there, watched him with straining eyes.
Once again he tried to utter the name. It stuck in his throat, but at
the inarticulate cry he made, the dog wagged his tail so feebly that it
scarcely moved its shadow. Donaldson ventured nearer. The dog rolled
over to its back and held up its trembling forefeet on guard, studying
Donaldson through half closed eyes with its head turned sideways.
Donaldson put forward his trembling fingers and touched its side. The
dog was warm, even as Sandy had been when he first picked him up. The
dog feebly waved his padded paws and finally rested them upon
Donaldson's hand.
"Sandy! Sandy!" he murmured, his voice scarcely above a whisper.
The dumb mouth moved nearer to lick the man's fingers, but his
movements were negative as far as any recognition of the name went. It
was just the friendly overture of any dog to any man.
If he could get him to answer to the name! It meant life--a chance for
life! It meant, perhaps, that there had been some mistake--that,
perhaps, after all, the poison was not so deadly as Barstow had thought
it.
He threw himself upon the floor beside the dog. In the body of this
black terrier centred everything in life that a man holds most dear.
If he could speak--if the dumb tongue could wag an answer to that one
question!
The dog turned over and crawled nearer. Donaldson fixed his burning
eyes upon the blinking brute.
"Sandy," he cried, "is this you, Sandy?"
The moist tongue reached for his fingers.
He took a deep breath. He said,
"Dick--is this you, Dick?"
Again the moist tongue reached for his fingers.
Donaldson picked him up.
"Sandy," he cried, "answer me."
The dog closed his eyes as though expecting a blow.
Donaldson dropped him. The animal crawled away beneath the sofa.
Donaldson felt more alone that minute than he had ever felt in all his
life. It was as though he sat there, the sole living thing in the
broad universe. There was nothing left but the blinking eyes of the
bottles dancing in still brisker joy. He could not endure it.
Moving across the room he knelt by the sofa and tried to coax the
frightened animal out again.
"Sandy. Come, Sandy," he called.
There was no show of life. He snapped his fingers. He groped beneath
the old lounge. Then, in a frenzy of fear, lest it had all been an
apparition, he swung the sofa into the middle of the room. The dog
followed beneath it, but he caught a glimpse of him. He pushed the
sofa back to the wall and began to coax again.
"Come out, Sandy. I 'll not hurt you. Come, Sandy."
There was a scratching movement and then the tip of a hot, dry nose
appeared.
"Come. That 's a good dog. Come."
He could hear the tail vigorously thumping the floor, but the head
appeared only inch by inch. Donaldson held his breath.
"Come," he whispered.
Slowly, with the sly pretension that it demanded a tremendous physical
effort, the dog emerged and stood shivering beneath the big hand which
smoothed its back with cooing words of assurance.
"Why, I was n't going to hurt you, Sandy," whispered Donaldson, finding
comfort in pronouncing the name. "I was n't going to hurt you. We 're
old friends. Don't you remember, Sandy? Don't you remember the night
I held you? Don't you remember that, Sandy?"
The dog looked up at him moistening its own dry mouth. In every detail
this was the same dog he had held upon his knee while arguing with
Barstow. He made another test.
"Mike," he called.
In response the pup wagged his tail good naturedly and with more
confidence now.
Donaldson caught his breath. Locked within that tiny brute brain was
the secret of what waited for him on the morrow: love and the glories
of a big life, or death and oblivion. The answer was there behind
those moist eyes. But if he could reach Barstow--
Here was a new hope. He could ask him if this was Sandy, and so spare
himself the terrors of the night to come. He had the right to do that
as long as he abided by the decision. There was a telephone here, and
he knew that Barstow lived in an up-town apartment house, so that some
one was sure to be in. He found the number in the battered,
chemical-stained directory, and put in his call. It seemed an hour
before he received his reply.
"No, sir, Mr. Barstow is away. Any message?"
"Where has he gone?" asked Donaldson dully.
"He's off on a yachting cruise, sir."
It would have been impossible for him to withdraw more completely out
of reach.
"When do you expect him back?"
"I don't know, sir. He said he might be gone a day or two or perhaps a
week."
"And he left?"
"Last Friday--very unexpectedly."
Donaldson hung up the receiver, which had grown in his hand as heavy as
lead. He turned back to the dog, who had jumped upon the sofa and was
now cuddled into a corner. He lifted his head and began to tremble
again as Donaldson came nearer.
"Still afraid of me?" he asked with a sad smile. "Why, there is n't
enough of me left to be afraid of, pup. There 's only about a day of
me left and we ought to be friends during that time."
He nestled his head down upon the warm body. The dog licked his hair
affectionately. The kindness went to his heart. The attention was
soothing, restful. He responded to it the more, because this dog was
to him the one thing left in the world alive. He snuggled closer to
the silky hide and continued to talk, finding comfort in the sound of
his own voice and the insensate response of the warm head.
"We ought to be good comrades--you and I--Sandy, because we 're all
alone here in this old rat trap. When a man's alone, Sandy, anything
else in the world that's alive is his brother. The only thing that
counts is being alive. Why, a fly is a better thing than the dead man
he crawls over. And if there be a live man, a dead man, and a fly,
then the fly and the live man are brothers. So you and I are brothers,
and we must fight the devil-eyes in those bottles together."
They danced before him now--yellow, blue, and blood-red. A more
perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the
flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red
liquid. It was never still. It skipped from the bottom of the bottle
to the top and from one side to the other, as though in drunken ecstasy.
It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome. It was
such a restless, scarlet thing! It looked as though it were trying to
get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the
sides, like a bottled viper.
"See it, Sandy? It's trying to get at us. But it can't, if we keep
together. It's only when a man's alone that those things have any
power. And the little devil knows it. If it were not for you, Sandy,
the thing might drive me mad--might make me mad before I had written my
letter!"
He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet
planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark. This broke the tension
at once.
"That's the dog," Donaldson praised him. "When the shadows get too
close bark at 'em like that!"
The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's
mouth. This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves.
But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog
which he had held upon his knee. He looked thinner, more angular. His
ears were cocked like two stiff v-shaped funnels. Now he looked like
an older dog. It was more reasonable to suppose, Donaldson realized,
that Barstow had two dogs of this same breed than that a dead dog had
come to life.
"Sandy!" he called sharply.
The dog wagged his stub-tail with vigor.
"Spike!" he called again.
The tail wagged on with undiminished enthusiasm.
Donaldson passed his hand over his forehead.
This was as useless as to try to solve the enigma of the Sphinx. The
dog's lips were sealed as tightly as the stone lips; the barrier
between his brain and Donaldson's brain was as high as that between the
man-chiseled image and the man who chiseled. He was only wasting his
time on such a task, time that he should use in the framing of his
letter.
He sat down again upon the sofa, took the dog upon his knee, and tried
to think. Before him the bottles danced--purple, brown, and blood-red.
He closed his eyes. He would begin his letter like this:
"To the most wonderful woman in all the world."
He would do this because it was true. There was no other woman like
her. No other woman would have so helped an old man in his battle with
himself; no other woman would have stayed on there alone in that house
and would have helped the son in his battle with himself; no other
woman would have followed him as she had wished to do and help him
fight his battle with himself. But she was the most wonderful woman in
the world because of the white courage she had shown in standing before
him and telling of her love. The eyes of her--the glory in her
hair--the marvel in her cheeks--the smile of her!
He opened his eyes. The devil in the bottle directly in front of him
was more impish than it had been at all. Donaldson rose. The pup
rolled to the floor. Donaldson crossed the room, picked out the
bottle, drew back his arm, and hurled it against the wall, where it
broke into a thousand pieces. It left a gory-looking blotch where it
struck. He went back to the sofa. The dog crept to his side again.
Before him a devil danced in a purple bottle. He closed his eyes.
He would begin his letter, then, like that. He would go on to tell her
that he was unable to compute his life save in terms of her, that it
had its beginning in her, grew to its fulness through her, and now had
reached its zenith in her. At the brook when he had clasped her in his
arms, he had drunk one deep draught of her.
He lost himself in one hot love phrase after another. He poured out
his soul in words he had left unspoken to her. He was back again
before the fire, telling her all that he did not tell her then. One
gorgeous image after another swarmed to his brain. He was like a poet
gone mad. He crowded sentence upon sentence, superlative upon
superlative, until he found himself upon his feet, his cheeks hot, and
his breath coming short. Then he caught sight of the crimson stain
upon the wall and felt himself a murderer. He staggered back and threw
himself full-length upon the couch, panting like one at the end of a
long run. He lay here very quietly.
The dog crawled to his side and licked the hair at his hot temple.