“Chuck up your job! Let the Consolidated Press go to the devil!” urged
Lynde.
“I have resigned,” said Caithness quietly. A fit of coughing shook him,
and he raised his napkin to his lips. He continued, “I thought I’d come
around to-night and say good-bye.”
The dog shifted his position under the bar and sighed again. One of the
gas jets behind the bar blazed up suddenly; McManus turned it lower,
cursing the gas company.
“Do you fellows know that I have scooped?” said Caithness abruptly.
“Not—not the fellow who shot Lil,” faltered Penlow, who had thrown his
whole soul into solving the mystery.
“Yes—the murderer of Lily White,” said Caithness. In the silence I could
hear McManus grinding his toothpick in his yellow teeth.
“I’m out of the Consolidated now,” continued Caithness calmly,—“the scoop
is yours if you want it, Penlow.”
“But—but you”—began Penlow.
“I?” said Caithness fiercely, “what do I care for newspapers? What do I
care who knows it now,—what paper prints it first?”
Lynde leaned over the table, his head in his hand; Penlow’s pipe went
out; he did not relight it.
“Did you never know,” said Caithness with a touch of scorn in his voice,
“that I also loved the girl? Do you think I am ashamed to confess it? Do
you know what I have been through since she died? Hell? Oh, yes, that’s
what they say in books. It doesn’t matter;—Penlow, when you are ready—”
Penlow started, then groped in his pocket for pencil and pad.
“I am ready, Jack,” he said.
“This is the story,” said Caithness, almost eagerly. “On the 13th of last
November, Lily White, a girl living next door, was shot through the heart
by a man who was jealous of her. He knew that she came into McManus’s
and gossiped with the newspaper men, and he knew that Wah-Wo had offered
her all his money, which was a great deal. When she was chatting with us
here, this man was not jealous,—have you got that, Penlow?”
“Yes,” said Penlow, scratching away on his pad.
“He was not jealous when Lily chatted with us, but when he saw Wah-Wo
talking to her one night under the electric light by the Joss-house, he
watched the girl night and day. She said that she loved him—she laughed
at him when he offered her marriage,—so he watched her. Have you got
that, Penlow?”
“Yes.”
“Then a day came when Lily was to go to the country to see her
sister,—that is what she said,—to see her sister, and this man went with
her to the train and saw her off on her journey. But something told him
to watch the next in-coming train, and he did. And Lily was on it.
“He followed her. She came straight to Doyers Street, heavily veiled, and
entered a house that you all know,—the house with the paper lanterns and
red signs. Wah-Wo lives there. A week later she returned to the man who
had followed her. He was waiting for her,—have you written that?”
“Yes, Jack.”
“He was waiting in her room,—alone with that dog there. He accused her,
and she denied it. She called Heaven to witness her innocence. He offered
her marriage again; she laughed at him. Then he shot her through the
heart.”
Penlow ceased writing and looked up expectantly.
“The murderer’s name? Have patience,” said Caithness grimly smiling. “The
man called to the dog,—her dog there, and, because he was the only living
soul who knew the brute’s name, the dog answered and followed him out
into the street.
“All day long he wandered about the city, and at night he went back to
look upon the dead. He did not care who saw him,—he courted discovery,
but no one paid him any attention, and, as it now appears, nobody even
saw him. About midnight he went away, leaving the dog crouched at the
dead girl’s feet, and since then he has moved like a living death among
the people of the city, unsuspected, unnoticed by any,—except me.” He
paused and looked at us. Tears had quenched the pale flame in his eyes,
and the hair clung to his damp forehead.
“That man killed the woman I loved,” he said, “and now I am going to give
him up!” Then he rose trembling. The sleeping dog sighed heavily; his
hind legs quivered.
Caithness bent and touched the massive head, muttering, “Come!”
At his touch the dog raised its head and looked at him with grave eyes.
Then, moving toward the door, he whispered again, _calling the dog by
name_; and the great brute rose stiffly, yawned, and slowly followed him
out into the night.
The iron door slammed behind them; the damp odour of fog came from the
black street. Lynde buried his head in his hands; McManus leaned heavily
on the bar, pale as a corpse. Presently I heard the sound of rustling
paper.
It was Penlow, tearing up his pad.