THE LAUGH OF THE WOLF
Stanley Fyles noted the ease, the almost extravagant calm of the youth.
And he could not but admire. The Wolf had sprawled himself on the
bed as though his presence in the officer’s personal quarters in the
barracks was the most natural thing in the world.
The man bore no trace of his recent ordeal, unless, perhaps, it was the
avidity with which he smoked. In his fine face, in the frank smile of
his dark eyes there was nothing to remind the officer of the wild beast
he had seen looking out of the latter when the relentless counsel was
driving Annette to her confession.
Fyles and the Wolf had left the court together. And it had been odd how
the boy who had stood so recently under the shadow of the gallows was
glad enough of the companionship of the man who had been instrumental
in setting him in the prisoner’s dock.
So it was, however. Fyles had approached the Wolf in the friendliest
spirit. And the man had responded at once. Fyles had invited him to
the barracks before he left the city. And the Wolf had accepted the
invitation without hesitation.
The underlying truth was really simple. Fyles still had his problem
of the murder of Sinclair to solve. And the one person in the world
with whom the Wolf wanted to talk was the man with his problem before
him. So, once more, the Wolf found himself sitting on the smooth brown
blankets of the sergeant’s bed.
But this time Fyles was no longer keeping guard over the door. His
chair was faced about from his desk so that he could gaze into the face
of his visitor as the light from the window fell upon it.
“You know I think you’re lucky, Wolf,” Fyles said, sucking his big
pipe thoughtfully. He smiled. “You see, you don’t get the law, and the
ways of folks who administer it, like I do. One of the crazy things in
life to me is the queer fashion in which the outward seeming of human
nature transforms the moment it finds itself in the position of having
to hand out correction to the other fellow. The balance of justice is
the notion--in theory. But in practice I’d hate to say how heavy the
scale turns against a victim. It’s just the effect of authority on the
general run of the fool human mind. Set a club in a boy’s hand, and he
fancies using it all the time. If there’s no one else around I guess
he’ll beat his own mother over the head with it. Pansarta’s quite a
boy. You certainly were lucky. It wasn’t only the crazy way you mussed
things for him between you that you got clear away. He was dead sure
you didn’t kill Sinclair.”
“An’ I’m sick to death he’s right.”
There could be no mistaking the cold sincerity with which the Wolf
spoke, as he sat gazing down at the burning cigarette in his fingers.
“Sure. I know.”
Fyles nodded. Then he added:
“But I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
The two men sat eye to eye. In the shadow Fyles’ expression was largely
hidden. The Wolf’s sharp inquiry was there for all to see. The man had
no thought of concealment. He was concerned for but one thing at the
moment.
“I wasn’t yearning to see you drop to the bottom of the pit of hell
for--Sinclair.”
A warm grin flashed into the Wolf’s face and passed as suddenly as it
appeared. He sat up, leaning forward intensely.
“Wher’s Annette?”
The man’s moods seemed to change with kaleidoscopic rapidity. Now he
was a living volcano of scarcely suppressed emotion. His question was
the whole reason for his presence there.
“In barracks.”
“Barracks? Why? Why’s she in barracks?”
The questions came with a rush. They seemed to whistle on the smoke
haze of the room. Fyles removed his pipe and rubbed its bowl gently on
the leg of his yellow-striped breeches.
“You can’t let a lone girl, a half-breed, face the women of a city like
this.”
“You haven’t arrested her?”
Fyles watched the eager face so tortured by anxiety. He shook his head
and returned his pipe to his mouth.
“What makes you so crazy sure she killed Sinclair? She didn’t.”
The policeman’s quiet confidence had immediate effect. The Wolf caught
himself under control. He flung his cigarette end into a cuspidor and
lit a fresh one.
For some moments there was no verbal reply. But the Wolf was watching,
watching. He was measuring the sturdy man in the chair. He was striving
with all his might to read behind the unsmiling mask of the man who had
committed the biggest failure of his career and yet was strong enough
to feel no grievance against those who had helped him to it.
At last a sound broke seemingly from behind clenched teeth. The eyes
that looked into the face of the policeman were almost pleading.
“Say, Sergeant, d’you reckon we’re men? Or are you just a red-coat, an’
me a bootlegger?”
The manner of it was superbly ingenious. And Fyles understood the
simplicity of the nature lying behind it.
“We’re men enough, Wolf.”
“Yes. It’s how I thought. I guess I’d go right out an’ blow my fool
brains to pieces if I thought I was just a bootlegger.”
A shadowy smile hovered in the policeman’s eyes.
“And if I was just a red-coat I’d be scared to go meet my old mother
when I’m through.”
A queer brooding settled in the Wolf’s eyes. He sat gazing into space
for some moments, while his cigarette burned on unheeded. Suddenly he
seemed to make up his mind.
“How’d you reckon if you’d been watching around an’ saw a gal standin’
over a dead Sinclair with the gun that shot him dead in her hand?” the
Wolf asked abruptly.
Fyles uncrossed his legs. He removed the pipe from between his teeth.
“Why, that she was looking down at the work she guessed she had a right
to figger you’d done.”
“God!”
The Wolf was sitting up. Every fibre in his big body was strung tense.
His eyes were wide with the wonder in his mind.
Fyles shook his head.
“She didn’t do it, boy,” he said. “She hadn’t real reason anyway. One
time I thought she had. That’s why Danson took the line he did and
drove her hard. We fixed him to do that. We guessed that way we’d get
further towards the truth. But we didn’t. All we did was to make her
see what lay back of her mind the whole time, and she didn’t know it
was there. We made her wake to the thing that was real. That she was
crazy for the boy she was raised with, and that she was setting a rope
about his foolish neck. The result? It was easy. She’s just a woman, a
wild, foolish, half-breed woman, all heart an’ hot temper. And she came
back as she was bound to come back in the end. She reckoned to undo
all she could. She jumped at what the hot head of hers thought was the
only way. She played rattled and said she’d killed him herself. And
she told the story of it just as Danson had put it up to her, feeling
mighty sure no one could deny it. And that’s why you’re sitting around
here free. Oh, she did her best to pull the coals from the fire she’d
set burning. But there wasn’t a word of truth in it. You see, though
Sinclair was crooked around women he wasn’t a darn fool. With his game
half-played he wouldn’t have turned her down. That would have come
later--when you were in penitentiary. Annette didn’t take your gun
there. She just found it.”
The Wolf was gazing hungrily. His cigarette was forgotten. Everything
was forgotten while he learned that truth which had set him stumbling
blindly into a hideous pitfall. Annette had not killed her lover. A
crazy gladness surged. But almost on the instant came reaction. If
Annette were innocent of the crime then how did Sinclair come by his
death?
The Wolf remained gazing at the man in the chair as though fascinated.
Something was hammering in his brain. It was something that drove him
blindly, headlong; and Fyles was watching. He saw the flush mount
suddenly to cheeks and brow. He saw the queer light that flashed into
the man’s eyes. So he waited.
The Wolf seemed to gulp, swallowing with difficulty.
“That’s why she wasn’t set in the cells?” he asked thickly.
Fyles shook his head and further clouded the atmosphere.
“You saved her that.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You said she was lying. You told us how you shot Sinclair.”
The flush had faded from the face of the Wolf. He passed a hand up over
his forehead with a weary gesture.
“I--don’t get it,” he said.
“No,” Fyles smiled. “It don’t matter. It’s the law. You both swore you
killed Sinclair.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“I think I get it now.”
The Wolf lit a fresh cigarette.
“You ain’t--holding her?”
The question came in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“You can go to her and take her right home--just when you fancy.”
The Wolf stood up. His movement was so sudden as to be almost
startling. It was like the spring of a young puma.
“I’ll go to her right away.”
Fyles found himself standing, too.
“We’re still men, Wolf?”
The younger thrust out an impulsive hand. Fyles took it and gripped
it. And he released it as though it were the hand of a friend he was
reluctant to lose.
“Who killed Sinclair?”
Fyles’ eyes were boring as he searched the smile whose fixity made it
no less pleasant.
The smile deepened. It grew into a laugh. It was a queer hard laugh
that had something fierce lying behind it. But no verbal reply
accompanied it. The Wolf just looked squarely into the face before him
and shook his head.
Then Fyles reached his fur coat and pulled it on. He buttoned it
deliberately. And as his fingers moved amongst the fur, and his eyes
were hidden in his search for the buttons, his voice came, speaking in
the casual fashion of a man without great interest.
“What’s Pideau Estevan got on you, boy?” he asked.
And again came the Wolf’s hard laugh as he flung the remains of his
cigarette into the cuspidor.