A fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from the West.
It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the first year of peace.
A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy that it beaded the face and
hands and deposited a fairy diamond dust upon wool. The station
lights had the visibility of stars, and like the stars were without
refulgence--a pale golden aureola, perhaps three feet in diameter, and
beyond, nothing. The few passengers who alighted and the train itself
had the same nebulosity of drab fish in a dim aquarium.
Among the passengers to detrain was a man in a long black coat. The high
collar was up. The man wore a derby hat, well down upon his head, after
the English mode. An English kitbag, battered and scarred, swung heavily
from his hand. He immediately strode for the station wall and stood with
his back to it. He was almost invisible. He remained motionless until
the other detrained passengers swam past, until the red tail lights of
the last coach vanished into the deeps; then he rushed for the exit to
the street.
Away toward the far end of the platform there appeared a shadowy patch
in the fog. It grew and presently took upon itself the shape of a man.
For one so short and squat and thick his legs possessed remarkable
agility, for he reached the street just as the other man stopped at the
side of a taxicab.
The fool! As if such a movement had not been anticipated. Sixteen
thousand miles, always eastward, on horses, camels, donkeys, trains, and
ships; down China to the sea, over that to San Francisco, thence across
this bewildering stretch of cities and plains called the United States,
always and ever toward New York--and the fool thought he could escape!
Thought he was flying, when in truth he was being driven toward a wall
in which there would be no breach! Behind and in front the net was
closing. Up to this hour he had been extremely clever in avoiding
contact. This was his first stupid act--thought the fog would serve as
an impenetrable cloak.
Meantime, the other man reached into the taxicab and awoke the sleeping
chauffeur.
“A hotel,” he said.
“Which one?”
“Any one will do.”
“Yes, sir. Two dollars.”
“When we arrive. No; I'll take the bag inside with me.” Inside the cab
the fare chuckled. For those who fished there would be no fish in the
net. This fog--like a kindly hand reaching down from heaven!
Five minutes later the taxicab drew up in front of a hotel. The unknown
stepped out, took a leather purse from his pocket and carefully counted
out in silver two dollars and twenty cents, which he poured into the
chauffeur's palm.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You are an American?”
“Sure! I was born in this burg.”
“Like the idea?”
“Huh?”
“The idea of being an American?”
“I should say yes! This is one grand little gob o' mud, believe me! It's
going to be dry in a little while, and then it will be some grand little
old brick. Say, let me give you a tip! The gas in this joint is extra if
you blow it out!”
Grinning, the chauffeur threw on the power and wheeled away into the
fog.
His late fare followed the vehicle with his gaze until it reached the
vanishing point, then he laughed. An American cockney! He turned and
entered the hotel. He marched resolutely up to the desk and roused
the sleeping clerk, who swung round the register. The unknown without
hesitance inscribed his name, which was John Hawksley. But he hesitated
the fraction of a second before adding his place of residence--London.
“A room with a bath, if you please; second flight. Have the man call me
at seven.”
“Yes, sir. Here, boy!”
Sleepily the bellboy lifted the battered kitbag and led the way to the
elevator.
“Bawth!” said the night clerk, as the elevator door slithered to the
latch. “Bawth! The old dear!”
He returned to his chair, hoping that he would not be disturbed again
until he was relieved.
What do we care, so long as we don't know? What's the stranger to us but
a fleeting shadow? The Odysseys that pass us every day, and we none the
wiser!
The clerk had not properly floated away into dreams when he was again
roused. Resentfully he opened his eyes. A huge fist covered with a
fell of black hair rose and fell. Attached to this fist was an arm,
and joined to that were enormous shoulders. The clerk's trailing,
sleep-befogged glance paused when it reached the newcomer's face. The
jaws and cheeks and upper lip were blue-black with a beard that required
extra-tempered razors once a day. Black eyes that burned like opals, a
bullet-shaped head well cropped, and a pudgy nose broad in the nostrils.
Because this second arrival wore his hat well forward the clerk was
not able to discern the pinched forehead of the fanatic. Not wholly
unpleasant, not particularly agreeable; the sort of individual one
preferred to walk round rather than bump into. The clerk offered the
register, and the squat man scratched his name impatiently, grabbed the
extended key, and trotted to the elevator.
“Ah,” mused the clerk, “we have with us Mr. Poppy--Popo--” He stared at
the signature close up. “Hanged if I can make it out! It looks like
some new brand of soft drink we'll be having after July first. Greek
or Bulgarian. Anyhow, he didn't awsk for a bawth. Looks as if he needed
one, too. Here, boy!”
“Ye-ah!”
“Take a peek at this John Hancock.”
“Gee! That must be the guy who makes that drugstore drink--Boolzac.”
The clerk swung out, but missed the boy's head by a hair. The boy stood
off, grinning.
“Well, you ast me!”
“All right. If anybody else comes in tell 'em we're full up. I'll be a
wreck to-morrow without my usual beauty sleep.” The clerk dropped into
his chair again and elevated his feet to the radiator.
“Want me t' git a pillow for yuh?”
“No back talk!”--drowsily.
“Oh! boy, but I got one on you!”
“What?”
“This Boolzac guy didn't have no baggage, and yuh give 'im the key
without little ol' three-per in advance.”
“No grip?”
“Nix. Not a toot'brush in sight.”
“Well, the damage is done. I might as well go to sleep.”
It was not premeditated on the part of the clerk to give the squat man
the room adjoining that of Hawksley's. The key had been nearest his
hand. But the squat man trembled with excitement when he noted that it
was stamped 214. He had taken particular pains to search the register
for Hawksley's number before rousing the clerk. He hadn't counted on any
such luck as this. His idea had been merely to watch the door of Room
212.
He had the feline foot, as they say. He moved about lightly and without
sound in the dark. Almost at once he approached one of the two doors
and put his ear to the panel. Running water. The fool had time to take a
bath!
A plan flashed into his head. Why not end the affair here and now, and
reap the glory for himself? What mattered the net if the fish swam into
your hand? Wasn't this particularly his affair? It was the end, not the
means. A close touch in Hong-Kong, but the fool had slipped away. But
there, in the next room, assured that he had escaped--it would be
easy. The squat man tiptoed to the window. Luck of luck, there was a
fire-escape platform! He would let half an hour pass, then he would
act. The ape, with his British mannerisms! Death to the breed, root and
branch! He sat down to wait.
On the other side of the wall the bather finished his ablutions. His
body was graceful, vigorous, and youthful, tinted a golden bronze. His
nose was hawky; his eyes a Latin brown, alert and roving, though there
was a hint of weariness in them, the pressure of long, racking hours of
ceaseless vigilance. His top hair was a glossy black inclined to curl;
but the four days' growth of beard was as blond as a ripe chestnut burr.
In spite of this mark of vagabondage there were elements of beauty
in the face. The expanse of the brow and the shape of the head were
intellectual. The mouth was pleasure-loving, but the nose and the jaw
neutralized this.
After he had towelled himself he reached down for a brown leather pouch
which lay on the three-legged bathroom stool. It was patently a tobacco
pouch, but there was evidently something inside more precious than
Saloniki. He held the pouch on his palm and stared at it as if it
contained some jinn clamouring to be let out. Presently he broke away
from this fascination and rocked his body, eyes closed--like a man
suffering unremitting pain.
“God's curse on them!” he whispered, opening his eyes. He raised the
pouch swiftly, as though he intended dashing it to the tiled floor; but
his arm sank gently. After all, he would be a fool to destroy them. They
were future bread and butter.
He would soon have their equivalent in money--money that would bring
back no terrible recollections.
Strange that every so often, despite the horror, he had to take them out
and gaze at them. He sat down upon the stool, spread a towel across his
knees, and opened the pouch. He drew out a roll of cotton wool, which he
unrolled across the towel. Flames! Blue flames, red, yellow, violet, and
green--precious stones, many of them with histories that reached back
into the dim centuries, histories of murder and loot and envy. The
young man had imagination--perhaps too much of it. He saw the stones
palpitating upon lovely white and brown bosoms; he saw bloody and greedy
hands, the red sack of towns; he heard the screams of women and the
raucous laughter of drunken men. Murder and loot.
At the end of the cotton wool lay two emeralds about the size of half
dollars and half an inch in thickness, polished, and as vividly green
as a dragonfly in the sun, fit for the turban of Schariar, spouse of
Scheherazade.
Rodin would have seized upon the young man's attitude--the limp body,
the haggard face--hewn it out of marble and called it Conscience. The
possessor of the stones held this attitude for three or four minutes.
Then he rolled up the cotton wool, jammed it into the pouch, which he
hung to his neck by a thong, and sprang to his feet. No more of this
brooding; it was sapping his vitality; and he was not yet at his
journey's end.
He proceeded to the bedroom, emptied the battered kitbag, and began to
dress. He put on heavy tan walking shoes, gray woollen stockings, gray
knickerbockers, gray flannel shirt, and a Norfolk jacket minus the third
button.
Ah, that button! He fingered the loose threads which had aforetime
snugged the button to the wool. The carelessness of a tailor had saved
his life. Had that button held, his bones at this moment would be
reposing on the hillside in far-away Hong-Kong. Evidently Fate had some
definite plans regarding his future, else he would not be in this room,
alive. But what plans? Why should Fate bother about him further? She had
strained the orange to the last drop. Why protect the pulp? Perhaps
she was only making sport of him, lulling him into the belief that
eventually he might win through. One thing, she would never be able to
twist his heart again. You cannot fill a cup with water beyond the brim.
And God knew that his cup had been full and bitter and red.
His hand swept across his eyes as if to brush away the pictures suddenly
conjured up. He must keep his thoughts off those things. There was a
taint of madness in his blood, and several times he had sensed the brink
at his feet. But God had been kind to him in one respect: The blood of
his glorious mother predominated.
How many were after him, and who? He had not been able to recognize the
man that night in Hong-Kong. That was the fate of the pursued: one never
dared pause to look back, while the pursuers had their man before them
always. If only he could have broken through into Greece, England would
have been easy. The only door open had been in the East. It seemed
incredible that he should be standing in this room, but three hours from
his goal.
America! The land of the free and the brave! And the irony of it was
that he must seek in America the only friends he had in the world.
All the Englishmen he had known and loved were dead. He had never made
friends with the French, though he loved France. In this country alone
he might successfully lose himself and begin life anew. The British were
British and the French were French; but in this magnificent America they
possessed the tenacity of the one and the gayety of the other--these
joyous, unconquered, speed-loving Americans.
He took up the overcoat. Under the light it was no longer black but
a very deep green. On both sleeves there were narrow bands of a still
deeper green, indicating that gold or silver braid had once befrogged
the cuffs. Inside, soft silky Persian lamb; and he ran his fingers over
the fur thoughtfully. The coat was still impregnated with the strong
odour of horse. He cast it aside, never to touch it again. From the
discarded small coat he extracted a black wallet and opened it. That
passport! He wondered if there existed another more cleverly forged. It
would not have served an hour west of the Hindenburg Line; but in the
East and here in America no one had questioned it. In San Francisco they
had scarcely glanced at it, peace having come. Besides this passport the
wallet contained a will, ten bonds, a custom appraiser's receipt and
a sheaf of gold bills. The will, however, was perhaps one of the most
astonishing documents conceivable. It left unreservedly to Capt. John
Hawksley the contents of the wallet!
Within three hours of his ultimate destination! He knew all about great
cities. An hour after he left the train, if he so willed, he could lose
himself for all time.
From the bottom of the kitbag he dug up a blue velours case, which after
a moment's hesitation he opened. Medals incrusted with precious stones;
but on the top was the photograph of a charming girl, blonde as ripe
wheat, and arrayed for the tennis court. It was this photograph he
wanted. Indifferently he tossed the case upon the centre table, and it
upset, sending the medals about with a ring and a tinkle.
The man in the next room heard this sound, and his eye roved
desperately. Some way to peer into yonder room! But there was no
transom, and he would not yet dare risk the fire escape. The young man
raised the photograph to his lips and kissed it passionately.
Then he hid it in the lining of his coat, there being a convenient rent
in the inside pocket.
“I must not think!” he murmured. “I must not!”
He became the hunted man again. He turned a chair upend and placed
it under the window. He tipped another in front of the door. On the
threshold of the bathroom door he deposited the water carafe and the
glasses. His bed was against the connecting door. No man would be
able to enter unannounced. He had no intention of letting himself fall
asleep. He would stretch out and rest. So he lit his pipe, banked the
two pillows, switched out the light, and lay down. Only the intermittent
glow of his pipe coal could be seen. Near the journey's end; and no more
tight-rope walking, with death at both ends, and death staring up from
below. Queer how the human being clung to life. What had he to live
for? Nothing. So far as he was concerned, the world had come to an end.
Sporting instinct; probably that was it; couldn't make up his mind to
shuffle off this mortal coil until he had beaten his enemies. English
university education had dulled the bite of his natural fatalism. To
carry on for the sport of it; not to accept fate but to fight it.
By chance his hand touched his spiky chin. Nevertheless, he would have
to enter New York just as he was. He had left his razor in a Pullman
washroom hurriedly one morning. He dared not risk a barber's chair,
especially these American chairs, that stretched one out in a most
helpless manner.
Slowly his pipe sank toward his breast. The weary body was overcoming
the will. A sound broke the pleasant spell. He sat up, tense. Someone
had entered through the window and stumbled over the chair! Hawksley
threw on the light.