“Gypo!”
Gypo had taken three steps down the street when his name came to him
through the darkness, uttered in that long-drawn-out whisper which is
the customary intonation among revolutionaries. He contracted his back
suddenly like an ass that has been struck with violence. Then he
halted. He did not turn about or reply. He waited. He listened with a
beating heart to the slow footsteps that came up to him from behind.
One, two, three, four . . . they stopped. Gypo looked to his left.
Bartly Mulholland was standing there.
The two of them stood in front of a window through which lamp-light
was streaming, across Gypo’s chest on to Mulholland’s face.
Mulholland’s yellow face looked almost black in the lamp-light. It was
furrowed vertically from the temples to the jaws, with deep black
furrows. The mouth was large and open, fixed in a perpetual grin that
had absolutely no merriment in it, that fixed grin of sardonic
contempt that is nearly always seen on the faces of men who make a
business of concealing their thoughts. The nose was long and narrow.
The ears were large. The forehead was furrowed horizontally. The skin
on the forehead was very white in contrast to the dark skin on the
cheeks. The furrows on the forehead were very shallow and narrow, like
thin lines drawn with a sharp pencil. In fact, the whole appearance of
the face was that of an artificial face, such as that produced in the
dressing-room of an actor by means of paints, etc. This suggestion was
strengthened by the appearance of the hair that straggled in loose
wisps from beneath the shovel-shaped peak of the grey tweed cap. The
hair appeared to be a dirty brown wig, much the worse for wear. But
neither the hair nor any portion of the face was artificial.
Everything had come from the hand of Nature, which seemed, by some
peculiar whimsey, to have cast this individual for the rôle of a
conspirator. The face was the face of a clown to hide the
conspirator’s eyes, except from a very close scrutiny. The eyes were
the colour of sea water that is dirty with grey sand. These eyes are
sometimes described as watery blue, but it is a totally wrong
description. There was an indescribable coldness and depth in them
which it is beyond the power of any colour to describe. They stared
without a movement of the pupils or of the lashes at Gypo’s face,
expressing no emotion whatever. They were not doors of the soul like
ordinary eyes, but spy holes. They stared glassily like a cat’s eyes.
This curious creature was dressed like a workman, in heavy hobnailed
boots, brown corduroy trousers with strings tied around the legs below
the knees, a black handkerchief tied in sailor fashion around his neck
and an old grey tweed coat that almost reached half-way down his
thighs. His hands were stuck deep down in the pockets of his coat.
“Where’s yer hurry takin’ ye, Gypo?” he drawled in a low lazy voice,
as if he were half-drunk or lying on his back in a sunny place on a
hot summer’s day.
“Who’s in a hurry?” growled Gypo. “How d’ye make out I’m in a hurry?”
“Oh, nothin’ atall. Don’t get yer rag out, Gypo. Ye might talk to the
people. We never see ye atall now since ye left the Organization. Are
ye workin’?”
“No,” snapped Gypo angrily. The short ejaculation coming from his
thick lips sounded like a solitary gunshot coming a long way over
still air. “I ain’t workin’ an’ all o’ you fellahs, that were supposed
to be comrades o’ mine, take damn good care to keep out o’ the way,
for fear I might ask ye for the price of a feed or a flop. Yer a quare
lot o’ Communists.”
Mulholland drew himself in at the middle, emitted his breath, shrugged
his shoulders, thrust out his right foot and leaned his weight
backwards heavily on his left foot. Then he turned his head up
sideways to let the drizzling rain beat on the back of his neck
instead of on his face. The grin left his mouth and for a moment he
appeared to have become angry.
“Ye don’t seem to be in any need o’ money to-night, Gypo,” he breathed
ever so gently.
Then just as suddenly he broke into an almost fawning and ingratiating
smile. He continued in his ordinary lazy voice:
“Don’t be tryin’ to make out yer broke, after me seein’ the money that
fell outa yer pocket in the kitchen beyond just now. Aren’t ye goin’
to stand us a wet?”
Gypo had begun to shiver. He shivered with minute movements, just as a
massive tree shivers, when the forest earth is shaken beneath it by a
heavy concussion. Then suddenly he recovered himself. Without pausing
to think, he shot out both hands simultaneously like piston-rods.
Mulholland gasped as the two huge hands closed about his throat. He
struck out helplessly with his own hands at Gypo’s body. His blows
were as ineffective as the flapping of a linnet’s wings against its
cage. Gypo’s face was lit with a demoniac pleasure as he raised
Mulholland’s body from the ground, clutching it by the throat with his
two hands. He raised it up like a book which he wanted to read, until
Mulholland’s eyes were level with his own. Then they both looked at
one another.
Mulholland’s eyes were still cold and glassy, impenetrable and
absolutely without emotion. Gypo’s eyes were ferocious and eager, full
of a mad savage joy. His mouth had shut tight and the skin had run
taut over the glossy humps on his face, so that his face looked like
tanned pigskin. Mulholland’s tongue was hanging out.
Then Gypo groaned and prepared to crush out Mulholland’s life between
his thick fingers, when he was disturbed by a shout from behind. He
dropped Mulholland to the street like a bag and whirled about. Tommy
Connor had rushed up from the doorway of No. 44 where he had been
waiting. He was standing now with his mouth wide open in astonishment
and terror.
“What’s wrong, boys?” he cried. “In the name o’ God what are ye up
to?”
“He suspects me,” cried Gypo, “and . . .” Then he sank into silence,
unable to say any more. His unsatisfied fury choked him.
“Suspects ye of what?” cried Connor. “What d’ye say he suspects ye
of?”
“I didn’t suspect him of anythin’ atall,” cried Mulholland, rising to
his feet slowly. His face was contorting with pain. “I only asked him
to——”
“Yer a liar, ye did,” bellowed Gypo. “Ye suspect me, an’ well I know
ye, Bartly Mulholland. D’ye think I don’t know ye an’ all about ye? Ye
got a grudge agin me an’ Frankie McPhillip this long time. Don’t I
know yer Intelligence Officer for No. 3 Area an’ that yer nosin’
around now——”
“Shut up or I’ll plug ye where ye stand,” hissed Connor, ramming the
muzzle of his revolver into Gypo’s side. “Don’t ye know there are
people listenin’? D’ye want to let the dogs o’ the street know the
secrets o’ the Organization that ye swore on yer oath to kape?” He
panted and continued in a lower voice still: “Are ye mad or are ye
lookin’ to get plugged?”
Gypo’s mouth remained open in the act of beginning a word, but he did
not utter the word. He half-turned his body in order to look into
Connor’s face. He saw it, big, angry, menacing, with the nostrils
distended, so that the insides, blackened with coal, were visible. The
face was within four inches of Gypo’s face. Connor’s revolver muzzle
was pressing into Gypo’s right armpit. Gypo feared neither the face
nor the revolver. He stared with wrinkled forehead at Connor, knowing
that he could crush him and Mulholland, both together, crush them to
death, to a shapeless pulp, by clasping them in his arms.
But they were not merely two men, two human beings. They were
something more than that. They represented the Revolutionary
Organization. They were merely cogs in the wheel of that Organization.
That was what he feared, what rendered him powerless. He feared that
mysterious, intangible thing, that was all brain and no body. An
intelligence without a body. A thing that was full of plans,
implacable, reaching out everywhere invisibly, with invisible
tentacles like a supernatural monster. A thing that was like a
religion, mysterious, occult, devilish.
Frankie McPhillip had once told him that they tracked a man to the
Argentine Republic, somewhere the other side of the world. Shot him
dead in a lodging-house at night too, without saying a word. What d’ye
think of that?
“All right,” he said at last, “put away yer gat, Tommy. I’ll stay
quiet.”
A few people had gathered on the far side of the street and were
looking on curiously. An immense crowd would have already gathered on
ordinary occasions, but there was tension and anxiety in the district
that night. Shooting might begin at any minute. It was always so. One
death brings another in its train. Each man thought this in his own
mind, although nobody breathed a word. It was a kind of silent terror.
“Come on, boys,” said Connor, “let’s get away from here. We’re
gatherin’ a crowd.”
“Come on down to Ryan’s,” whispered Mulholland to Gypo, in his usual
lazy, insinuating voice, as if nothing had happened, “Commandant
Gallagher is down there. He wants to see ye.”
“What does he want with me?” growled Gypo. “I’m not a member o’ the
Organization any more. He’s got nothin’ to do with me. I’m not goin’.”
“Come on, man,” whispered Connor, “don’t stand here chawin’. He’s not
goin’ t’ate ye. Come on. Is it afraid o’ the Commandant ye are? Why
so?”
“I’m not afraid of any man that was ever pupped,” growled Gypo. “Come
on.”
The three men walked off abreast, in step like soldiers, their feet
falling loudly on to the wet pavement, heels first. At the corner the
footfalls became confused. Gypo spat into the street. Mulholland
sneezed. They entered the public-house by a little narrow side door
that had a bright brass knob on it. They went along a narrow passage,
through a stained-glass swing door, into a brightly lit oblong room.
A man was sitting by a little gas fire on a high three legged stool
facing the door. When Gypo saw the man he stopped dead.
The man was Commandant Dan Gallagher.