HELEN ANSWERS HER LETTER
Entirely unaware that she had been observed, Helen Gilmore slipped
furtively into the dark, musty vestibule of the ugly house. There were
those unpleasant odors which accumulate in a decaying house, the smell
that suggests neglect.
The opening of the second door automatically set a bell ringing, an
unpleasant jangling that caused the woman to start and compress her
lips, shutting back the nervous gasp which rose in her throat. When she
closed the door the ringing stopped.
After a wait of a moment there came down the raggedly carpeted stairs a
slovenly and haglike female, with straggling hair of dirty gray and the
shoulders of a professional wrestler in their muscular broadness. The
face of the slattern was, until she reached the bottom of the stairs,
in the shadows. At the sight of it Helen instinctively retreated a
step; she had never seen such a terrible face, she thought. A pair
of narrow red eyes looked her up and down with appraising, impudent
curiosity.
"Perhaps--perhaps I've made a mistake," Helen stammered. "I thought
this was the right number; I--I wanted to see Don Haskins."
"You ain't made no mistake," came the response in a hoarse guttural.
"He's upstairs. He told me he was lookin' fer comp'ny. Guess you're the
swell sister he was tellin' me about."
"Y-yes," Helen answered faintly.
"Go right on up, deary; it's the thoid floor--the door at the end of
the hall, the door with a busted panel, where the cops broke in. They
thought, it bein' locked, Terry Mooney was there, but he wasn't." Her
voice broke into a peal of cackling mirth. "No, he wasn't there; he
was--somewheres else."
Starting toward the stairs, Helen turned, one hand resting upon the
ancient rail.
"Then Don is wanted by--by the cops?"
"Ask him," grunted the woman with the gargoyle face; "ask him. I'll say
he is, deary."
Helen went tremulously up the stairs, stumbled about the dark hallway
until she found the second flight, which was narrow and, if possible,
dirtier than the first. Here the boards were loose and clattered
noisily beneath her step. Reaching the third floor, a bit of sun
struggled feebly through the dust-filmed skylight and fell slantwise
across the door with the broken panel, now patched with some unpainted
strips torn from a chance packing box.
The occupant of the room had heard her approach--only a deaf man
could have failed to be notified by the clatter of the loose stairway
boards--for the door opened cautiously, and a haggard unshaven face
looked out through a widening crack. A pair of thin lips twisted back
into an unpleasant and gloating triumphant grin.
"So--so you've come, have you?" the man rasped and laughed harshly. "I
thought you would. I give you credit for havin' that much sense. Real
prompt, ain't you? Only mailed the letter yesterday." He moved back,
making room for her to enter. His eyes, hard and glittering, followed
her with a look of venomous hate that was at the same time one of
admiration, as if her beauty stirred him.
The room was small, dark, and unventilated, and there was the vile odor
of soured liquor that mingled nauseatingly with the stench of stale
tobacco smoke. There was a narrow, tousled bed, with the white paint
long since peeled from the metal framework, a broken-backed chair upon
which rested a bottle of homemade whisky, that the old hag downstairs
sold for ten dollars the quart.
"Why did you send for me, Don?" demanded Helen. She was plainly
frightened. Looking at him she found it hard to believe that this
haggard man was the same person she had first known as "Nifty Don." Don
had been handsome--once.
Don Haskins placed the bottle on the floor and with a sarcastic
courtesy waved her to the chair.
"Be seated, Mrs. Haskins," he sneered, and himself occupied the edge of
the bed. Helen shivered, her fingers working nervously. For a moment he
sat there staring.
"You still got the looks," he muttered thickly. "I--I guess I ain't
ever goin' to get over bein' crazy about you, Helen--even--even when
I'm hatin' you. His grimy hand reached out to her; his touch might have
been tender, but at her shuddering recoil his eyes blazed again, and
his fingers crushed about her white wrist until she gave a cry of pain.
"You always did think you was too good for your own kind," he snarled.
"Now that I've got you where I can put on the screws, I ought to get
you sent up; that's what I ought to do with you. After what you done to
me----"
"I've done nothing to you, Don. Why did you send for me? You told that
woman downstairs that I am----"
"Yeah, it was a good stall, tellin' 'Eighth Avenue Annie' that I gotta
rich sister that would put up for me. See? Thirty bucks a week I gotta
give the grafter for hidin' me away in this room, and ten dollars
a bottle for this rat poison she calls whisky. I owe her a hundred
now, and she won't let me skip until I pay up. If I don't pay--well,
Annie fixes that by givin' the bulls a tip where I can be located.
See? That's why I sent for you--to take me outta hock." He grinned
sardonically. "When a guy's in trouble, ain't it the most natural thing
in the world that he turns to--to his wife."
Helen shivered. "I'm not your wife!" she cried. "You know I'm not. I've
never been your wife!"
"The law says different," retorted Don Haskins. "You married me, didn't
you?"
"Yes," Helen admitted bitterly, "I married you. I liked you, and when
you got into that trouble I--I thought I loved you. It was only pity.
You rushed me into it so that I wouldn't have to testify against you--a
wife can't be made to testify against her husband. I knew, before you
got out of the Tombs, that I'd made a mistake."
This revival of old and bitter memories convulsed Don Haskins' face
with anger.
"You lie!" he gritted. "When y' say I married you just to keep outta
stir, you lie. I married you because I was crazy about you. You liked
me, too, until--until you run into that other bird and fell for him.
But when I got outta the Tombs I stopped that, all right."
"Yes, you stopped it," choked Helen. "I loved him--with every beat of
my heart. You--you robbed me of my one chance to be happy. You--oh, why
do you drag all these ghosts before me? Those are things I'm always
trying to forget. I saved you from doing a twenty-year stretch, and
you've been hounding me--hounding me ever since. That--that's your idea
of gratitude!"
"Aw, cut out that stuff. I'm desperate. The cops is lookin' for me; I
gotta make a get-away and I gotta have money."
"Oh, I see, you want money," nodded Helen, fumbling at her purse. "You
said a hundred dollars----"
Don Haskins gave a contemptuous sneer.
"I said that's what I owe Annie, but I want more'n that--a lot more.
Aw, I know you're well fixed. I know you married a guy that's got it. I
got all the dope on you, see."
"How----"
"You thought you were pretty foxy, didn'tcha? It wasn't much trouble
gettin' a line on you. When I went out West with Keegan and got nabbed
pullin' the job we went out there to do in Chi, you thought I was in
for a long stretch, and that you'd lose me. You changed your name, did
the workin'-girl stunt, and hooked a live one--married a fellow that
writes, Kirklan Gilmore.
"But the State's attorney out there made a little deal with me; I
handed him some information he wanted, and he got me paroled. See? I
come back, lookin' for you. Madge knew all about it, and I made her
tell. Never trust a friend, girlie; that's my motto."
"So Madge told you?"
"She hadda tell; I'd have choked the life outta her if she hadn't."
"I--I suppose the past is one thing that never dies," Helen whispered.
"I was a fool to think I could get away with it. I--I was a fool to
take the chance."
"I ain't gonna stop you from gettin' away with it," grunted Don; "at
least I ain't--providin'----"
"Don't beat around the bush, Don; get to the point. Providing--what?"
"I'll get to the point fast enough. I gotta be practical, I oughtta
make you squirm, but I'm in a bad fix. What I need is a thousand bucks,
and I need it quick."
Helen stared at him fixedly.
"I haven't got a thousand dollars, Don, but if two hundred will help
any----" Her fingers were at the clasp of her hand bag.
"If you ain't got a thousand, then get it--from that rich husband
you've swung onto."
"But he's not rich. You don't understand. He owns a house, an
automobile, and lives well, but he's not rich. I doubt if he's got much
money outside the royalties from his book. I--I don't see how I could
ask him for a thousand dollars, without giving him some sort of an
explanation, and I don't know what I could tell him."
"He ain't rich?" Don broke in skeptically. "Say, whatcha tryin' to hand
me? If he ain't rich, whatcha marry him for--and risk doin' a trip for
bigamy? Stuck on the guy, huh?"
Helen shook her head.
"N-no," she faltered. "I'm not 'stuck' on him. I wish to Heaven that I
hadn't married him--now." Her lips twitched. "I--I suppose it looked
like a chance to be respectable. I heard that you were in trouble
out in Chicago, that you'd been put away for a long time. I took up
typewriting after Tilliston's cabaret closed; I changed my name and got
a job with a publishing house."
"Yeah, I got all that from Madge."
"Oh, what's the use going into the rest of it? I don't like to work;
I never did. I met Gilmore. He was wild about me--still is. It seemed
like such a wonderful chance, the wife of a famous novelist. I wonder
what he'll do if he ever learns the truth? Perhaps--perhaps--he'll kill
me!"
"Aw, can that stuff," growled Don Haskins. "Conversation don't help me
any; what I want is that thousand bucks--quick. I'm due for a long trip
up the river--or worse--if I don't jump town before the bulls nail me.
"I was in on a loft job. It was a water haul--not a ten-dollar bit
between the three of us that was in on it. One of the birds got nabbed,
and I know he's got a yellow streak in 'im as wide as Fifth Avenue.
The cops won't have to more'n bounce a nightstick over his head when
he'll come through with a squeal. I gotta get outta town, put distance
behind me, because"--his voice sank to a low, hoarse whisper--"because
the watchman got croaked, see! It--it's a chance of the chair, if 'Dago
Mike' squeals on the other two of us.
"A guy ain't got no chance doin' a slide outta town these days unless
he's well heeled. I'm flat broke. Do I get that thousand from you,
or----"
"Say it, Don."
The man's eyes were narrowed.
"Or do I drop a note to Gilmore, tellin' him that his wife's got two
husbands, that if he'll taxi over to Borough Hall in Brooklyn and
look over the marriage-license records for October tenth, nineteen
sixteen----"
"You--you wouldn't do that to me, Don?" Helen's face was deathly white.
"You ungrateful rat----"
"If I'm a rat, then it was you made me a rat!" gritted the man. "When I
got outta the Tombs that time and found you'd throwed me over, and was
trailin' around with that swell with the Eyetalian name, it made a bum
outta me. If I could have got my hands on you that first night----" His
hands darted toward her, extended fingers twitching convulsively, as
they neared her throat. With a stifled scream Helen protected herself
with her arms.
"Don't! Don't! Don't look at me like that. I'll try to get the thousand
dollars, but I don't know what--what I will tell him."
"It's up to you what kind of a song and dance you give 'im," he
growled. "The big thing is--get it. It's that, or else----Now pass over
that two hundred you was talkin' about; that'll help a little."
Helen's fingers trembled as she reached into her hand bag for the roll
of bills. "Even if I give you the thousand dollars, I suppose I'll
always be at your mercy--that you'll always be coming back for more,
that you'll hound me, blackmail me----"
Haskins made no promises as to that; he grabbed the money avidly from
her hand and counted it eagerly. Ten dollars lacking two hundred.
"When do I get the rest of it?" he demanded. "I can't wait long; it
won't be safe--stayin' here with Eighth Avenue Annie."
Helen considered swiftly. "This--this is Monday," she said. "I may be
able to get it by Wednesday. If I can get it at all I suppose I can get
it by then. You--you'll give me until Wednesday?"
"Ain't got no jewelry that you can put in soak to raise the jack?" Don
wanted to know.
"He--he would miss that, what little there is. I'd better try to get
the money from him--if I can."
Haskins' lips twisted unpleasantly. "You better," he grunted
threateningly. "Aw right, I'm givin' you until Wednesday, but if you
ain't come across with it by then, I'll saunter out to that swell place
I hear you're livin' in--and collect."