THE REVOLVER
He waited until the middle of the week for some sign from her; none
coming, he decided to go once more to her apartment before it was too
late. The many letters he wrote to her during the first days after
learning of her change of plans were never sent. He destroyed them. A
sense of shame, a certain element of pride, held them back. Still, he
argued with no little degree of justice, there were many things to be
decided before she took the long journey--and the short step she was
so plainly contemplating.
It was no more than right that he should make one last and determined
effort to save her from the fate she was so blindly courting. It was
due her. She was his wife. He had promised to cherish and protect her.
If she would not listen to the appeal, at least he would have done his
bounden duty.
There was an ever present, ugly fear, too, that she meant, by some
hook or crook, to rob him of Phoebe.
"And she's as much mine as hers," he declared to himself a thousand
times or more.
Behind everything, yet in plain view, lay his own estimate of
himself--the naked truth--he was "no good!" He had come to the point
of believing it of himself. He was not a success; he was quite the
other thing. But, granting that, he was young and entitled to another
chance. He could work into a partnership with Mr. Davis if given the
time.
Letting the midweek matinée slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday.
She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from
the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie's breakdown and its
lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said,
before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the
columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in
type little less conspicuous than that accorded to her, and
stigmatised as a brute, an inebriate, a loafer. It was all the same to
him--brute, soak, or loafer. But even under these extraordinary
conditions he was as completely blanketed by obscurity as if he never
had been in existence.
Sometimes he wondered whether she could get a divorce without
according him a name. He had read of fellow creatures meeting death
"at the hand of a person (or of persons) unknown." Could a divorce
complaint be worded in such non-committal terms? Then there was that
time-honoured shroud of private identity, the multitudinous John Doe.
Could she have the heart to bring proceedings against him as John Doe?
He wondered.
If he were to shoot himself, so that she might have her freedom
without going to all the trouble of a divorce or the annoyance of a
term of residence in Reno, would she put his name on a tombstone? He
wondered.
A strange, a most unusual thing happened to him just before he left
the house to go to the depot. He was never quite able to account for
the impulse which sent him upstairs rather obliquely to search through
a trunk for a revolver, purchased a couple of years before, following
the report that housebreakers were abroad in Tarrytown, and which he
had promptly locked away in his trunk for fear that Phoebe might get
hold of it.
He rummaged about in the trunk, finally unearthing the weapon. He
slipped it into his overcoat pocket with a furtive glance over his
shoulder. He chuckled as he went down the stairs. It was a funny thing
for him to do, locking the revolver in the trunk that way. What
burglar so obliging as to tarry while he went through all the
preliminaries incident to destruction under the circumstances? Yes, it
was stupid of him.
He did not consider the prospect of being arrested for carrying
concealed weapons until he was halfway to the city, and then he broke
into a mild perspiration. From that moment he eyed every man with
suspicion. He had heard of "plain clothes men." They were the very
worst kind. "They take you unawares so," said he to himself, with
which he moved closer to the wall of the car, the more effectually to
conceal the weapon. It wouldn't do to be caught going about with a
revolver in one's pocket. That would be the very worst thing that
could happen. It would mean "the Island" or some other such place, for
he could not have paid a fine.
It occurred to him, therefore, that it would be wiser to get down at
One Hundred and Tenth street and walk over to Nellie's. The policemen
were not so thick nor so bothersome up there, he figured, and it was a
rather expensive article he was carrying; one never got them back from
the police, even if the fine were paid.
Footsore, weary, and chilled to the bone, he at length came to the
apartment building wherein dwelt Nellie Duluth. In these last few
weeks he had developed a habit of thinking of her as Nellie Duluth, a
person quite separate and detached from himself. He had come to regard
himself as so far removed from Nellie Duluth that it was quite
impossible for him to think of her as Mrs.--Mrs.--he had to rack his
brain for the name, the connection was so remote.
He had walked miles--many devious and lengthening miles--before
finally coming to the end of his journey. Once he came near asking a
policeman to direct him to Eighty-ninth Street, but the sudden
recollection of the thing he carried stopped him in time. That and the
discovery of a sign on a post which frostily informed him that he was
then in the very street he sought.
It should go without the saying that he hesitated a long time before
entering the building. Perhaps it would be better after all to write
to her. Somewhat sensibly he argued that a letter would reach her,
while it was more than likely he would fall short of a similar
achievement. She couldn't deny Uncle Sam, but she could slam the door
in her husband's face. Yes, he concluded, a letter was the thing.
Having come to this half-hearted decision, he proceeded to argue
himself out of it. Suppose that she received the letter, did it follow
that she would reply to it? He might enclose a stamp and all that sort
of thing, but he knew Nellie; she wouldn't answer a letter--at least,
not that kind of letter. She would laugh at it, and perhaps show it to
her friends, who also would be vastly amused. He remembered some of
them as he saw them in the café that day; they were given to
uproarious laughter. No, he concluded, a letter was not the thing. He
must see her. He must have it out with her, face to face.
So he went up in the elevator to the eleventh floor, which was the top
one, got out and walked down to the sixth, where she lived. Her name
was on the door plate. He read it three or four times before
resolutely pressing the electric button. Then he looked over his
shoulder quickly, impelled by the queer feeling that some one was
behind him, towering like a dark, threatening shadow. A rough hand
seemed ready to close upon his shoulder to drag him back and down. But
no one was there. He was alone in the little hall. And yet something
was there. He could feel it, though he could not see it; something
sinister that caused him to shiver. His tense fingers relaxed their
grip on the revolver. Strangely the vague thing that disturbed him
departed in a flash and he felt himself alone once more. It was very
odd, thought he.
Rachel came to the door. She started back in surprise, aye, alarm,
when she saw the little man in the big ulster. A look of consternation
sprang into her black eyes.
He opened his lips to put the natural question, but paused with the
words unuttered. The sound of voices in revelry came to his ears from
the interior of the apartment, remote but very insistent. Men's voices
and women's voices raised in merriment. His gaze swept the exposed
portion of the hall. Packing boxes stood against the wall, piled high.
The odour of camphor came out and smote his sense of smell.
Rachel was speaking. Her voice was peculiarly hushed and the words
came quickly, jerkily from her lips.
"Miss Duluth is engaged, sir. I'm sorry she will not be able to see
you."
He stared uncertainly at her and beyond her.
"So she's packing her things," he murmured, more to himself than to
the servant. Rachel was silent. He saw the door closing in his face. A
curious sense of power, of authority, came over him. "Hold on," he
said sharply, putting his foot against the door. "You go and tell her
I want to see her. It's important--very important!"
"She has given orders, sir, not to let you----"
"Well, I'm giving a few orders myself, and I won't stand for any back
talk, do you hear? Who is the master of this place, tell me that?" He
thumped his breast with his knuckles. "Step lively, now. Tell her I'm
here."
He pushed his way past her and walked into what he called the
"parlour," but what was to Nellie the "living-room." Here he found
numerous boxes, crates, and parcels, all prepared for shipment or
storage. Quite coolly he examined the tag on a large crate. The word
"Reno" smote him. As he cringed he smiled a sickly smile without being
conscious of the act. "Wait a minute," he called to Rachel, who was
edging in an affrighted manner toward the lower end of the hall and
the dining-room. "What is she doing?"
Rachel's face brightened. He was going to be amenable to reason.
"It's a farewell luncheon, sir. She simply can't be disturbed. I'll
tell her you were here."
"You don't need to tell her anything," said he, briskly. The sight of
those crates and boxes had made another man of him. "I'll announce
myself. She won't----"
"You'd better not!" cried Rachel, distractedly. "There are some men
here. They will throw you out of the apartment. They're big enough,
Mr.--Mr.----"
He grinned. His fingers took a new grip on the revolver.
"Napoleon wasn't as big as I am," he said, much to Rachel's distress.
It sounded very mad to her. "Size isn't everything."
"For Heaven's sake, sir, please don't----"
"They seem to be having a gay old time," said he, as a particularly
wild burst of laughter came from the dining-room. He hesitated. "Who
is out there?"
Rachel was cunning. "I don't know the names, sir. They're--they're
strangers to me."
At that instant the voice of Fairfax came to his ears, loudly
proclaiming a health to the invalid who was going to Reno. Harvey
stood there in the hall, listening to the toast. He heard it to the
end, and the applause that followed. If he were to accept the
diagnosis of the speaker, Nellie was repairing to Reno to be cured of
an affliction that had its inception seven years before, a common
malady, but not fatal if taken in time. The germ, or, more properly
speaking, the parasite, unlike most bacteria, possessed but two legs,
and so on and so forth.
The laughter was just dying away when Harvey--who recognised himself
as the pestiferous germ alluded to--strode into the room, followed by
the white-faced Rachel.
"Who was it, Rachel?" called out Nellie, from behind the enormous
centrepiece of roses which obstructed her view of the unwelcome
visitor.
The little man in the ulster piped up, shrilly:--
"She don't know my name, but I guess you do, if you'll think real
hard."
There were ten at the table, flushed with wine and the exertion of
hilarity. Twenty eyes were focussed on the queer, insignificant little
man in the doorway. If they had not been capable of focussing them on
anything a moment before, they acquired the power to do so now.
Nellie, staring blankly, arose. She wet her lips twice before
speaking.
"Who let you in here?" she cried, shrilly.
One of the men pushed back his chair and came to his feet a bit
unsteadily.
"What the deuce is it, Nellie?" he hiccoughed.
Nellie had her wits about her. She was very pale, but she was calm.
Instinctively she felt that trouble--even tragedy--was confronting
her; the thing she had feared all along without admitting it even to
herself.
"Sit down, Dick," she commanded. "Don't get excited, any of you. It's
all right. My husband, that's all."
The man at her right was Fairfax. He was gaping at Harvey with horror
in his face. He, too, had been expecting something like this.
Involuntarily he shifted his body so that the woman on the other side,
a huge creature, was partially between him and the little man in the
door.
"Get him out of here!" he exclaimed. "He's just damned fool enough to
do something desperate if we----"
"You shut up!" barked Harvey, in a sudden access of fury. "Not a word
out of you, you big bully."
"Get him out!" gasped Fairfax, holding his arm over his face. "What
did I tell you? He's crazy! Grab him, Smith! Hurry up!"
"Grab him yourself!" retorted Smith, in some haste. "He's not gunning
for me."
What there was to be afraid of in the appearance of the little
ulstered man who stood there with his hands in his pockets I cannot
for the life of me tell, but there was no doubt as to the
consternation he produced in the midst of this erstwhile jovial crowd.
An abrupt demand of courtesy urged him to raise his hand to doff his
hat in the presence of ladies. Twenty terrified eyes watched the
movement as if ten lives hung on the result thereof. Half of the
guests were standing, the other half too petrified to move. A husband
is a thing to strike terror to the heart, believe me, no matter how
trivial he may be, especially an unexpected husband.
"Go away, Harvey!" cried Nellie, placing Fairfax between herself and
the intruder.
"Don't do that!" growled the big man, sharply. "Do you suppose I want
him shooting holes through me in order to get at you?"
"Is he going to shoot?" wailed one of the women, dropping the
wineglass she had been holding poised near her lips all this time. The
tinkle of broken glass and the douche of champagne passed unnoticed.
"For God's sake, let me get out of here!"
"Keep your seats, ladies and gents," said Harvey, hastily, beginning
to show signs of confusion. "I just dropped in to see Nellie for a few
minutes. Don't let me disturb you. She can step into the parlour, I
guess. They'll excuse you, Nellie."
"I'll do nothing of the sort," snapped Nellie, noting the change in
him. "Go away or I'll have a policeman called."
He grinned. "Well, if you do, he'll catch me with the goods," he said,
mysteriously.
"The goods?" repeated Nellie.
"Do you want to see it?" he asked, fixing her with his eyes. As he
started to withdraw his hand from his overcoat pocket, a general cry
of alarm went up and there was a sudden shifting of positions.
"Don't do that!" roared two or three of the men in a breath.
"Keep that thing in your pocket!" commanded Fairfax, huskily, without
removing his gaze from the arm that controlled the hidden hand.
Harvey gloated. He waved the hand that held his hat. "Don't be
alarmed, ladies," he said. "You are quite safe. I can hit a silver
dollar at twenty paces, so there's no chance of anything going wild."
"For God's sake!" gasped Fairfax. Suddenly he disappeared beneath the
edge of the table. His knees struck the floor with a resounding
thump.
"Get away from me!" shrieked the corpulent lady, kicking at him as
she fled the danger spot.
Harvey stooped and peered under the table at his enemy, a broad grin
on his face. Fairfax took it for a grin of malevolence.
"Peek-a-boo!" called Harvey.
"Don't shoot! For the love of Heaven, don't shoot!" yelled Fairfax.
Then to the men who were edging away in quest of safety behind the
sideboard, china closet, and serving table:--"Why don't you grab him,
you idiots?"
Harvey suddenly realised the danger of his position. He straightened
up and jerked the revolver from his pocket, brandishing it in full
view of them all.
"Keep back!" he shouted--a most unnecessary command.
Those who could not crowd behind the sideboard made a rush for the
butler's pantry. Feminine shrieks and masculine howls filled the air.
Chairs were overturned in the wild rush for safety. No less than three
well-dressed women were crawling on their hands and knees toward the
only means of exit from the room.
"Telephone for the police!" yelled Fairfax, backing away on
all-fours, suggesting a crawfish.
"Stay where you are!" cried Harvey, now thoroughly alarmed by the turn
of affairs.
They stopped as if petrified. The three men who were wedged in the
pantry door gave over struggling for the right of precedence and
turned to face the peril.
Once more he brandished the weapon, and once more there were shrieks
and groans, this time in a higher key.
Nellie alone stood her ground. She was desperate. Death was staring
her in the face, and she was staring back as if fascinated.
"Harvey! Harvey!" she cried, through bloodless lips. "Don't do it!
Think of Phoebe! Think of your child!"
Rachel was stealing down the hall. The little Napoleon suddenly
realised her purpose and thwarted it.
"Come back here!" he shouted. The trembling maid could not obey for a
very excellent reason. She dropped to the floor as if shot, and,
failing in the effort to crawl under a low hall-seat, remained there,
prostrate and motionless.
He then addressed himself to Nellie, first cocking the pistol in a
most cold-blooded manner. Paying no heed to the commands and
exhortations of the men, or the whines of the women, he announced:--
"That's just what I've come here to ask you to do, Nellie; think of
Phoebe. Will you promise me to----"
"I'll promise nothing!" cried Nellie, exasperated. She was beginning
to feel ridiculous, which was much worse than feeling terrified. "You
can't bluff me, Harvey, not for a minute."
"I'm not trying to bluff you," he protested. "I'm simply asking you to
think. You can think, can't you? If you can't think here with all this
noise going on, come into the parlour. We can talk it all over quietly
and--why, great Scott, I don't want to kill anybody!" Noting an abrupt
change in the attitude of the men, who found some encouragement in his
manner, he added hastily, "Unless I have to, of course. Here, you!
Don't get up!" The command was addressed to Fairfax. "I'd kind of like
to take a shot at you, just for fun."
"Harvey," said his wife, quite calmly, "if you don't put that thing
in your pocket and go away I will have you locked up as sure as I'm
standing here."
"I ask you once more to come into the parlour and talk it over with
me," said he, wavering.
"And I refuse," she cried, furiously.
"Go and have it out with him, Nellie," groaned Fairfax, lifting his
head above the edge of the table, only to lower it instantly as
Harvey's hand wabbled unsteadily in a sort of attempt to draw a bead
on him.
"Well, why don't you shoot?" demanded Nellie, curtly.
"No! No!" roared Fairfax.
"No! No!" shrieked the women.
"For two cents I would," stammered Harvey, quite carried away by the
renewed turmoil.
"You would do anything for two cents," said Nellie, sarcastically.
"I'd shoot myself for two cents," he wailed, dismally. "I'm no use,
anyway. I'd be better off dead."
"For God's sake let him do it, Nellie," hissed Fairfax. "That's the
thing; the very thing."
Poor Harvey suddenly came to a full realisation of the position he was
in. He had not counted on all this. Now he was in for it, and there
was no way out of it. A vast sense of shame and humiliation mastered
him. Everything before him turned gray and bleak, and then a hideous
red.
He had not meant to do a single thing he had already done. Events had
shaped themselves for him. He was surprised, dumfounded, overwhelmed.
The only thought that now ran through his addled brain was that he
simply had to do something. He couldn't stand there forever, like a
fool, waving a pistol. In a minute or two they would all be laughing
at him. It was ghastly. The wave of self-pity, of self-commiseration
submerged him completely. Why, oh why, had he got himself into this
dreadful pickle? He had merely come to talk it over with Nellie, that
and nothing more. And now, see what he was in for!
"By jingo," he gasped, in the depth of despair, "I'll do it! I'll make
you sorry, Nellie; you'll be sorry when you see me lying here all shot
to pieces. I've been a good husband to you. I don't deserve to die
like this, but----" His watery blue eyes took in the horrified
expressions on the faces of his hearers. An innate sense of delicacy
arose within him. "I'll do it in the hall."
"Be careful of the rug," cried Nellie, gayly, not for an instant
believing that he would carry out the threat.
"Shall I do it here?" he asked, feebly.
"No!" shrieked the women, putting their fingers in their ears.
"By all means!" cried Fairfax, with a loud laugh of positive relief.
To his own as well as to their amazement, Harvey turned the muzzle of
the pistol toward his face. It wabbled aimlessly. Even at such short
range he had the feeling that he would miss altogether and looked over
his shoulder to see if there was a picture or anything else on the
wall that might be damaged by the stray bullet. Then he inserted the
muzzle in his mouth.
Stupefaction held his audience. Not a hand was lifted, not a breath
was drawn. For half a second his finger clung to the trigger without
pressing it. Then he lowered the weapon.
"I guess I better go out in the hall, where the elevator is," he
said. "Don't follow me. Stay where you are. You needn't worry."
"I'll bet you ten dollars you don't do it," said Fairfax, loudly, as
he came to his feet.
"I don't want your dirty money, blast you," exclaimed Harvey, without
thinking. "Good-by, Nellie. Be good to Phoebe. Tell 'em out in
Blakeville that I--oh, tell 'em anything you like. I don't give a
rap!"
He turned and went shambling down the hall, his back very stiff, his
ears very red.
It was necessary to step over Rachel's prostrate form. He got one foot
across, when she, crazed with fear, emitted a piercing shriek and
arose so abruptly that he was caught unawares. What with the start the
shriek gave him and the uprising of a supposedly inanimate mass, his
personal equilibrium was put to the severest test. Indeed, he quite
lost it, going first into the air with all the sprawl of a bronco
buster, and then landing solidly on his left ear where there wasn't a
shred of rug to ease the impact. In a twinkling, however, he was on
his feet, apologising to Rachel. But she was crawling away as fast as
her hands and knees would carry her. From the dining-room came
violent shouts, the hated word "police" dominating the clamour.
He slid through the door and closed it after him. A moment later he
was plunging down the steps, disdaining the elevator, which, however
fast it may have been, could not have been swift enough for him in his
present mood. The police! They would be clanging up to the building in
a jiffy, and then what? To the station house!
Half-way down he paused to reflect. Voices above came howling down the
shaft, urging the elevator man to stop him, to hold him, to do all
manner of things to him. He felt himself trapped.
So he sat down on an upper step, leaned back against the marble wall,
closed his eyes tightly, and jammed the muzzle of the revolver against
the pit of his stomach.
"I hate to do it," he groaned, and then pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell with a sharp click. He opened his eyes. If it didn't
hurt any more than that he could do it with them open. Why not? In a
frenzy to have it over with he pulled again and was gratified to find
that the second bullet was not a whit more painful than the first.
Then he thought of the ugly spectacle he would present if he confined
the mutilation to the abdominal region. People would shudder and say,
"how horrible he looks!" So he considerately aimed the third one at
his right eye.
Even as he pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell with the usual
click, his vision centred on the black little hole in the end of the
barrel. Breathlessly he waited for the bullet to emerge. Then, all of
a sudden, he recalled that there had been no explosion. The fact had
escaped him during the throes of a far from disagreeable death. He put
his hand to his stomach. In a dumb sort of wonder he first examined
his fingers, and, finding no gore, proceeded to a rather careful
inspection of the weapon.
Then he leaned back and dizzily tried to remember when he had taken
the cartridges out of the thing.
"Thank the Lord," he said, quite devoutly. "I thought I was a goner,
sure. Now, when did I take 'em out?"
The elevator shot past him, going upward. He paid no attention to it.
It all came back to him in a flash. He remembered that he had never
loaded it at all. A loaded pistol is a very dangerous thing to have
about the house. The little box of cartridges that came with the
weapon was safely locked away at the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a
thick suit of underwear for protection against concussion.
Even as he congratulated himself on his remarkable foresight the
elevator, filled with excited men, rushed past him on the way down. He
heard them saying that a dangerous lunatic was at large and that he
ought to be----But he couldn't hear the rest of it, the car being so
far below him.
"By jingo!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet in consternation.
"They'll get me now. What a blamed fool I was!"
Scared out of his wits, he dashed up the steps, three at a jump, and,
before he knew it, ran plump into the midst of the women who were
huddled at Nellie's landing, waiting for the shots and the death yells
from below. They scattered like sheep, too frightened to scream, and
he plunged through the open door into the apartment.
"Where are you, Nellie?" he bawled. "Hide me! Don't let 'em get me.
Nellie! Oh, Nellie!"
The shout would have raised the dead. Nellie was at the telephone. She
dropped the receiver and came toward him.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" she squealed, clutching his arm.
"What an awful spectacle you've made of yourself--and me! You
blithering little idiot. I----"
"Where can I hide?" he whispered, hopping up and down in his
eagerness. "Hurry up! Under a bed or--anywhere. Good gracious, Nellie,
they'll get me sure!"
She slammed the door.
"I ought to let them take you and lock you up," she said, facing him.
The abject terror in his eyes went straight to her heart. "Oh, you
poor thing!" she cried, in swift compassion. "You--you wouldn't hurt a
fly. You couldn't. Come along! Quick! I'll do this much for you, just
this once. Never again! You can get down the back steps into the alley
if you hurry. Then beat it for home. And never let me see your face
again."
Three minutes later he was scuttling down the alley as fast as his
eager legs could carry him.
Nellie was holding the front door against the thunderous assault of a
half dozen men, giving him time to escape. All the while she was
thinking of the depositions she could take from the witnesses to his
deliberate attempt to kill her. He had made it very easy for her.