WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS
As Mr. Heatherbloom prepared to issue from his neighbor's gate opening
on the side street, the feminine voice of one of the servants in the
rear of the corner house called out in alarm at sight of the strange
figure speeding across their metropolitan imitation of a back yard. If
anything were needed to stimulate the fugitive's footsteps, it was the
sound of that voice. He stayed not on the order of his going, but
pushing back the heavy bolt--fortunately his egress was not barred by a
locked door--he tore open the gate and sprang to the sidewalk. Then
without stopping, he ran on, away from the fashionable avenue. The
street he traversed like many thoroughfares of its kind was
comparatively deserted most of the time; nobody impeded his progress,
though one or two people gazed after him from their windows.
He had gone about three-quarters of a block when the window spectators
discerned a heavier built figure come lumbering around the corner,
apparently in hot pursuit. Mr. Heatherbloom, glancing over his shoulder,
also observed this person; his capture and subsequent incarceration
seemed inevitable. Already the fugitive was drawing near to busier
Fourth Avenue; there he would be obliged to relax his pace; he could not
sprint down that thoroughfare without attracting undue attention.
Behind, the pursuer called out; he was, however, too short of breath for
compelling vocal effect.
Mr. Heatherbloom, on the contrary, had good control of his breathing and
was, moreover, yet fresh and physically capable. Which fact made it the
more difficult for him to settle down to a forced, albeit sharp walk as
he approached the corner, when his gait suddenly accelerated once more.
A street-car had just started not very far from him and Mr. Heatherbloom
ran after it. A fine pretext for speed was offered him; as he "let
himself go" in the way he had once gone somewhere in the past in a
hundred-yards' dash, he felt joyously conscious both of covering space
quickly and that he did so without making himself particularly
prominent. Fools who ran after street-cars were born every moment; he
was happy to be relegated to that idiotic class by any onlookers. He
caught the car while it was going; he didn't want it to stop for him.
Neither did it stop to pick up any one else for several blocks; there
was a space before it unobstructed by traffic. The motorman turned on
more power and Mr. Heatherbloom listened gratefully to the humming
wheels. At the same time he looked back; at the corner where he had
turned into Fourth avenue he fancied a number of people were gathering.
He could surmise the cause; the stockily-built man--his pursuer--was
asking questions; he had learned what had become of the fugitive and was
presumably looking around for a "taxi." In vain. At least, Mr.
Heatherbloom so concluded, because one did not appear in hot chase
behind them.
The motorman still gave "rapid service"; the conductor looked at his
watch, by which Mr. Heatherbloom imagined they had time to make up. He
hoped so, then resented a pause at a corner for an old lady. How he
wished she had not been afflicted with rheumatism, and could have got on
without help! But at length the light-weight conductor did manage to
pull the heavy-weight passenger aboard. Time lost, thirty seconds! The
motorman manipulated the lever more deliberately now and they gathered
headway slowly. Mr. Heatherbloom dared not remain longer where he was;
as the car approached a corner near an elevated station, he got off. He
was obliged to walk now a short distance but he did so hastily. Drawing
near the iron steps, leading upward, he once more looked back; a "taxi"
_was_ whirling after him and he had no doubt as to its occupant. The
street-car could easily have been kept in sight and his leaving it been
noted.
Mr. Heatherbloom now threw discretion to the winds; dashing toward the
stairway he ran up. Just as he reached the ticket window, the pursuing
vehicle stopped below. Some one sprang out, did not pause to pay the
chauffeur, but calling out to him his name, started after Mr.
Heatherbloom. That gentleman had by this time boarded the train waiting
above; he stood on the rear platform. Any moment the pursuer would
appear. He did appear as the gates of the train were closed and the cars
had started on their way.
Yet he did not give up for running alongside the last car he called out
to the guard:
"Fugitive from justice! Criminal--on this train! Open the gate for me!"
An instant the guard hesitated; rules, however, were rules.
"Five hundred dollars if you let me on!" the voice panted.
The guard in his own mind decided he would let the other on--too late;
the last car dashed past the end of the platform. A faint sigh of relief
from Mr. Heatherbloom was drowned in the tumult of the wheels; then he
endeavored to appear indifferent, apathetic. It was not easy to do so;
the secret-service agent had been heard by many others.
A "fugitive from justice" on the train! Mr. Heatherbloom tried to look
as little the part as possible, to simulate by his expression a
preoccupied young business man of heavy responsibilities. Fortunately
the train was crowded; nevertheless he fancied people glanced especially
at him. He wished now he were better dressed; good clothes may cover a
multitude of sins. Still there was no reason why he should be suspected
more than sundry other indifferently-dressed people. He would dismiss
the thought, tell himself he was going down town on some little errand;
he even devised what that errand should be--to procure theater tickets.
But his brain did not seem quite capable of concentrating itself solely
on desirable orchestra chairs; it constantly and perversely reverted to
that other disagreeable subject--a "fugitive from--"
Whoever could the fellow be? He endeavored by a mental process to
eliminate himself and see but a mythical some one else in a mythical
background. A short person; a tall one? What kind of person would the
imaginary individual be, anyhow? And what had he done, what crime
committed? Mr. Heatherbloom tried to think with the minds of all these
other people on the train, to put himself figuratively in their shoes.
One young sprig of a girl, about fourteen, with sallow complexion and
bead-like black eyes, kept regarding him. He conceived a profound
dislike for her, shifted a foot; then straightened and banished her
peremptorily from his environment. His principal interest lay now in
casual glimpses of windows and speculation as to what was behind them.
He varied this employment in a passing endeavor to decipher sundry signs
that obtruded incidentally within range of vision.
He had made out only a few when the, train slackened and came to a
standstill. Mr. Heatherbloom told himself he would get off as quickly as
possible; then changed his mind and remained. People would, of course,
argue that, under the circumstances, the unknown criminal would be
among those to leave the train at the first opportunity.
A number got out; Mr. Heatherbloom noted the passengers who remained
aboard and watched closely the departing ones. A few of the latter
seemed slightly self-conscious, notably, an elderly spinster who, having
never done anything wrong, was possessed of an unusual sensitiveness.
"See that slouchy chap--By jove, I believe--"
"Does look like a tough customer--"
"On the contrary, he just looks poor." Mr. Heatherbloom turned upon the
two speakers warmly.
Why could he not have kept silent; why was he obliged to obtrude his
opinion into their conversation?
They stared and he half turned as the train banged itself along once
more. Where should he go? Reaching for a paper that some one had
discarded, he sank into a vacant seat and opened the sheet with
misgiving.
What would the big types say? Nothing! Miss Van Rolsen had managed to
keep the strange affair of her niece's disappearance out of the columns
of the papers. They knew nothing about it as yet--Only a single little
item in the shipping news, in fine print, which suddenly caught his gaze
bore in any way, and that a remote one, upon her niece and her affairs.
Mr. Heatherbloom regarded it with dull glance. The few lines meant
nothing to him--then; later he had cause to turn to them with abrupt
wondering avidity. Now his eyes swept with simulated interest the
general news of the day; he professed to read cable dispatches.
But an odd reaction seemed to have settled on him; the excitement of the
chase became, for the moment, forgotten. The scope of his mental
visuality no longer included the figure of the agent from the private
detective bureau. An anxiety more poignant moved him; his thoughts
centered on that other matter--the cause of Miss Van Rolsen's
apprehensions--the while those emotions that had held him a listener
behind the curtain in her library again stirred in his breast. He had
not played the eavesdropper for any selfish purpose or through a sense
of personal apprehension. The sudden realization of his own danger, had,
perforce, awakened in him the need for quick action if he would save
himself.
If? What chance had he? But for one compelling reason, one consuming
purpose, he would not have fled at all; he would have faced them,
instead! But he had work to do--he! A fugitive, a logical candidate for
the prison cell! Ironical situation! Even now he heard a voice at his
elbow.
"Mr. Heatherbloom!" Some one spoke suddenly to him and he wheeled with
abrupt swift fierceness.
"Well, are you going to eat me up?" the voice laughed.
He looked into the pert face of Jane--the maid with the provoking
nose--who had been at Miss Van Rolsen's. She had got on at the other end
of the car at the last station, and after waiting a few moments for him
to see her, had moved toward him, or a seat at his side just then
vacated by some one preparing to leave. Mr. Heatherbloom's face cleared;
he banished the belligerent expression.
"You look edible enough!" he said with forced jocularity.
"Indeed?" she retorted, surprised at such gallantry from one who had
heretofore not deigned to pay her compliments. "I'll have to tell my
husband about you." Playfully. "But how are things at Miss Van Rolsen's?
Anything new?"
Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something about the customary routine; then,
even as he spoke, became conscious of a sudden new disconcerting
circumstance. The tracks for the up and the down trains on the elevated
had widely separated and ran now on the extreme sides of the broad
thoroughfare. From his side of the car the young man was afforded a view
of the pavement below, between the two sustaining iron structures. A
chill shot through him and his smile became set. Gazing down he
discerned, on the street beneath and a little to one side of them, a
motor-car, speeding fast, apparently bent on keeping up with them.
"How--how's your husband?" he said irrelevantly. The car _was_ keeping
up with them.
"Very well, thank you." (Would _it_ reach the next station before them?)
"You--you have a pleasant home?" he asked. (A slight blockade below
impeded, momentarily, the "taxi". Mr. Heatherbloom raised his
handkerchief to his moist brow.)
"Lovely," she answered. "Are you going far?"
"Brooklyn," he said at random. What _were_ they talking about? (The car
was once more under way; fortunately their progress overhead would not
be impeded by a press of vehicles.)
"That's where we live--Brooklyn," she said.
"Is it? Got a nice house?" He had practically asked this question
before; but he hardly knew what he was saying. A policeman had stopped
the "taxi" and was shaking his head, as at a rather "fishy" story. Mr.
Heatherbloom by a species of telepathy, seemed to overhear the excited
talk waging below.
"Oh, yes; lovely!" Jane's accents were but parenthetical to something
else. The "taxi" had been allowed to proceed, in spite of the detaining
thought-waves Mr. Heatherbloom had launched toward the officer of the
law. The occupant had probably showed a badge; Mr. Heatherbloom
stretched his neck out of the window.
"You can come around and see, sometime, if you want to." Pride in her
voice. "And meet my husband." Husband was a very substantial baker.
"Charmed, I'm sure! Ha! ha!" He suddenly laughed.
"What is it?" She looked startled.
"Funniest accident!" He waved his hat, as at some one, out of the
window. "See that taxi! Bumped into a dray. Ha! ha!"
"I don't see anything so funny in that." Straightening.
"No? You should have seen the expression on his face--"
"His? Whose?"
"The--ah, drayman's, of course! He--looked so mad."
"I should have thought," she observed, "the man in the car would have
been the maddest It couldn't have hurt the dray much."
"No? Perhaps that's what made it seem so funny to me."
"Well," she said, "I never noticed before that you had a great sense of
humor."
"You never knew me." Jauntily.
They got off at Brooklyn Bridge together. As they made their way through
the crowd, Mr. Heatherbloom appeared most care-free and very sedulous of
his companion's welfare, especially when they passed one or two
loiterers who seemed eying the passengers rather closely.
"Two for Brooklyn." Mr. Heatherbloom laid down a dime at the ticket
office.
Soon, unmolested, he sped on once more; but as they crossed the busy
river all his light-heartedness seemed suddenly to desert him; the
questions he had been vainly asking himself earlier that day were
reiterated in his brain. Where was she? What had become of her? His
hands clasped closely. A red spot burned on his cheek.