stay oudt, let her stay now. Ve vill see how she likes dot.”
His voice was rich in wrath, and he was saving up a good beating for
her into the bargain, that she knew. She would have to wait and wait
and plead, and when she was thoroughly wretched and subdued he would
let her in and beat her--such a beating as she had never received in
all her born days.
Again the door rattled, and still she got no answer. Not even her call
brought a sound.
Now, strangely, a new element, not heretofore apparent in her nature
but nevertheless wholly there, was called into life, springing in
action as Diana, full formed. Why should he always be so harsh? She
hadn’t done anything but stay out a little later than usual. He was
always so anxious to keep her in and subdue her. For once the cold
chill of her girlish fears left her, and she wavered angrily.
“All right,” she said, some old German stubbornness springing up, “I
won’t knock. You don’t need to let me in, then.”
A suggestion of tears was in her eyes, but she backed firmly out onto
the stoop and sat down, hesitating. Old Rogaum saw her, lowering down
from the lattice, but said nothing. He would teach her for once what
were proper hours!
At the corner, standing, Almerting also saw her. He recognized the
simple white dress, and paused steadily, a strange thrill racing
over him. Really they had locked her out! Gee, this was new. It was
great, in a way. There she was, white, quiet, shut out, waiting at her
father’s doorstep.
Sitting thus, Theresa pondered a moment, her girlish rashness and anger
dominating her. Her pride was hurt and she felt revengeful. They would
shut her out, would they? All right, she would go out and they should
look to it how they would get her back--the old curmudgeons. For the
moment the home of Myrtle Kenrihan came to her as a possible refuge,
but she decided that she need not go there yet. She had better wait
about awhile and see--or walk and frighten them. He would beat her,
would he? Well, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. She might come
back, but still that was a thing afar off. Just now it didn’t matter so
much. “Connie” was still there on the corner. He loved her dearly. She
felt it.
Getting up, she stepped to the now quieting sidewalk and strolled up
the street. It was a rather nervous procedure, however. There were
street cars still, and stores lighted and people passing, but soon
these would not be, and she was locked out. The side streets were
already little more than long silent walks and gleaming rows of lamps.
At the corner her youthful lover almost pounced upon her.
“Locked out, are yuh?” he asked, his eyes shining.
For the moment she was delighted to see him, for a nameless dread had
already laid hold of her. Home meant so much. Up to now it had been her
whole life.
“Yes,” she answered feebly.
“Well, let’s stroll on a little,” said the boy. He had not as yet quite
made up his mind what to do, but the night was young. It was so fine to
have her with him--his.
At the farther corner they passed Officers Maguire and Delahanty, idly
swinging their clubs and discussing politics.
“’Tis a shame,” Officer Delahanty was saying, “the way things are run
now,” but he paused to add, “Ain’t that old Rogaum’s girl over there
with young Almerting?”
“It is,” replied Maguire, looking after.
“Well, I’m thinkin’ he’d better be keepin’ an eye on her,” said the
former. “She’s too young to be runnin’ around with the likes o’ him.”
Maguire agreed. “He’s a young tough,” he observed. “I never liked him.
He’s too fresh. He works over here in Myer’s tobacco factory, and
belongs to The Roosters. He’s up to no good, I’ll warrant that.”
“Teach ’em a lesson, I would,” Almerting was saying to Theresa as they
strolled on. “We’ll walk around a while an’ make ’em think yuh mean
business. They won’t lock yuh out any more. If they don’t let yuh in
when we come back I’ll find yuh a place, all right.”
His sharp eyes were gleaming as he looked around into her own. Already
he had made up his mind that she should not go back if he could help
it. He knew a better place than home for this night, anyhow--the club
room of the Roosters, if nowhere else. They could stay there for a
time, anyhow.
By now old Rogaum, who had seen her walking up the street alone, was
marveling at her audacity, but thought she would soon come back. It was
amazing that she should exhibit such temerity, but he would teach her!
Such a whipping! At half-past ten, however, he stuck his head out of
the open window and saw nothing of her. At eleven, the same. Then he
walked the floor.
At first wrathful, then nervous, then nervous and wrathful, he finally
ended all nervous, without a scintilla of wrath. His stout wife sat up
in bed and began to wring her hands.
“Lie down!” he commanded. “You make me sick. I know vot I am doing!”
“Is she still at der door?” pleaded the mother.
“No,” he said. “I don’t tink so. She should come ven I call.”
His nerves were weakening, however, and now they finally collapsed.
“She vent de stread up,” he said anxiously after a time. “I vill go
after.”
Slipping on his coat, he went down the stairs and out into the night.
It was growing late, and the stillness and gloom of midnight were
nearing. Nowhere in sight was his Theresa. First one way and then
another he went, looking here, there, everywhere, finally groaning.
“Ach, Gott!” he said, the sweat bursting out on his brow, “vot in
Teufel’s name iss dis?”
He thought he would seek a policeman, but there was none. Officer
Maguire had long since gone for a quiet game in one of the neighboring
saloons. His partner had temporarily returned to his own beat. Still
old Rogaum hunted on, worrying more and more.
Finally he bethought him to hasten home again, for she must have got
back. Mrs. Rogaum, too, would be frantic if she had not. If she were
not there he must go to the police. Such a night! And his Theresa----
This thing could not go on.
As he turned into his own corner he almost ran, coming up to the little
portico wet and panting. At a puffing step he turned, and almost fell
over a white body at his feet, a prone and writhing woman.
“Ach, Gott!” he cried aloud, almost shouting in his distress and
excitement. “Theresa, vot iss dis? Wilhelmina, a light now. Bring a
light now, I say, for himmel’s sake! Theresa hat sich _umgebracht_.
Help!”
He had fallen to his knees and was turning over the writhing, groaning
figure. By the pale light of the street, however, he could make out
that it was not his Theresa, fortunately, as he had at first feared,
but another and yet there was something very like her in the figure.
“Um!” said the stranger weakly. “Ah!”
The dress was gray, not white as was his Theresa’s, but the body was
round and plump. It cut the fiercest cords of his intensity, this
thought of death to a young woman, but there was something else about
the situation which made him forget his own troubles.
Mrs. Rogaum, loudly admonished, almost tumbled down the stairs. At the
foot she held the light she had brought--a small glass oil-lamp--and
then nearly dropped it. A fairly attractive figure, more girl than
woman, rich in all the physical charms that characterize a certain
type, lay near to dying. Her soft hair had fallen back over a good
forehead, now quite white. Her pretty hands, well decked with rings,
were clutched tightly in an agonized grip. At her neck a blue silk
shirtwaist and light lace collar were torn away where she had clutched
herself, and on the white flesh was a yellow stain as of one who had
been burned. A strange odor reeked in the area, and in one corner was a
spilled bottle.
“Ach, Gott!” exclaimed Mrs. Rogaum. “It iss a vooman! She haf herself
gekilt. Run for der police! Oh, my! oh, my!”
Rogaum did not kneel for more than a moment. Somehow, this creature’s
fate seemed in some psychic way identified with that of his own
daughter. He bounded up, and jumping out his front door, began to call
lustily for the police. Officer Maguire, at his social game nearby,
heard the very first cry and came running.
“What’s the matter here, now?” he exclaimed, rushing up full and ready
for murder, robbery, fire, or, indeed, anything in the whole roster of
human calamities.
“A vooman!” said Rogaum excitedly. “She haf herself _umgebracht_. She
iss dying. Ach, Gott! in my own doorstep, yet!”
“Vere iss der hospital?” put in Mrs. Rogaum, thinking clearly of an
ambulance, but not being able to express it. “She iss gekilt, sure.
Oh! Oh!” and bending over her the poor old motherly soul stroked the
tightened hands, and trickled tears upon the blue shirtwaist. “Ach, vy
did you do dot?” she said. “Ach, for vy?”
Officer Maguire was essentially a man of action. He jumped to the
sidewalk, amid the gathering company, and beat loudly with his club
upon the stone flagging. Then he ran to the nearest police phone,
returning to aid in any other way he might. A milk wagon passing on its
way from the Jersey ferry with a few tons of fresh milk aboard, he held
it up and demanded a helping.
“Give us a quart there, will you?” he said authoritatively. “A woman’s
swallowed acid in here.”
“Sure,” said the driver, anxious to learn the cause of the excitement.
“Got a glass, anybody?”
Maguire ran back and returned, bearing a measure. Mrs. Rogaum stood
looking nervously on, while the stocky officer raised the golden head
and poured the milk.
“Here, now, drink this,” he said. “Come on. Try an’ swallow it.”
The girl, a blonde of the type the world too well knows, opened her
eyes, and looked, groaning a little.
“Drink it,” shouted the officer fiercely. “Do you want to die? Open
your mouth!”
Used to a fear of the law in all her days, she obeyed now, even in
death. The lips parted, the fresh milk was drained to the end, some
spilling on neck and cheek.
While they were working old Rogaum came back and stood looking on, by
the side of his wife. Also Officer Delahanty, having heard the peculiar
wooden ring of the stick upon the stone in the night, had come up.
“Ach, ach,” exclaimed Rogaum rather distractedly, “und she iss oudt
yet. I could not find her. Oh, oh!”
There was a clang of a gong up the street as the racing ambulance
turned rapidly in. A young hospital surgeon dismounted, and seeing the
woman’s condition, ordered immediate removal. Both officers and Rogaum,
as well as the surgeon, helped place her in the ambulance. After a
moment the lone bell, ringing wildly in the night, was all the evidence
remaining that a tragedy had been here.
“Do you know how she came here?” asked Officer Delahanty, coming back
to get Rogaum’s testimony for the police.
“No, no,” answered Rogaum wretchedly. “She vass here alretty. I vass
for my daughter loog. Ach, himmel, I haf my daughter lost. She iss
avay.”
Mrs. Rogaum also chattered, the significance of Theresa’s absence all
the more painfully emphasized by this.
The officer did not at first get the import of this. He was only
interested in the facts of the present case.
“You say she was here when you come? Where was you?”
“I say I vass for my daughter loog. I come here, und der vooman vass
here now alretty.”
“Yes. What time was this?”
“Only now yet. Yussed a half-hour.”
Officer Maguire had strolled up, after chasing away a small crowd that
had gathered with fierce and unholy threats. For the first time now he
noticed the peculiar perturbation of the usually placid German couple.
“What about your daughter?” he asked, catching a word as to that.
Both old people raised their voices at once.
“She haf gone. She haf run avay. Ach, himmel, ve must for her loog.
Quick--she could not get in. Ve had der door shut.”
“Locked her out, eh?” inquired Maguire after a time, hearing much of
the rest of the story.
“Yes,” explained Rogaum. “It was to schkare her a liddle. She vould not
come ven I called.”
“Sure, that’s the girl we saw walkin’ with young Almerting, do ye mind?
The one in the white dress,” said Delahanty to Maguire.
“White dress, yah!” echoed Rogaum, and then the fact of her walking
with some one came home like a blow.
“Did you hear dot?” he exclaimed even as Mrs. Rogaum did likewise.
“_Mein Gott, hast du das gehoert?_”
He fairly jumped as he said it. His hands flew up to his stout and
ruddy head.
“Whaddy ya want to let her out for nights?” asked Maguire roughly,
catching the drift of the situation. “That’s no time for young girls
to be out, anyhow, and with these toughs around here. Sure, I saw her,
nearly two hours ago.”
“Ach,” groaned Rogaum. “Two hours yet. Ho, ho, ho!” His voice was quite
hysteric.
“Well, go on in,” said Officer Delahanty. “There’s no use yellin’ out
here. Give us a description of her an’ we’ll send out an alarm. You
won’t be able to find her walkin’ around.”
Her parents described her exactly. The two men turned to the nearest
police box and then disappeared, leaving the old German couple in the
throes of distress. A time-worn old church-clock nearby now chimed
out one and then two. The notes cut like knives. Mrs. Rogaum began
fearfully to cry. Rogaum walked and blustered to himself.
“It’s a queer case, that,” said Officer Delahanty to Maguire after
having reported the matter of Theresa, but referring solely to the
outcast of the doorway so recently sent away and in whose fate they
were much more interested. She being a part of the commercialized vice
of the city, they were curious as to the cause of her suicide. “I
think I know that woman. I think I know where she came from. You do,
too--Adele’s, around the corner, eh? She didn’t come into that doorway
by herself, either. She was put there. You know how they do.”
“You’re right,” said Maguire. “She was put there, all right, and that’s
just where she come from, too.”
The two of them now tipped up their noses and cocked their eyes
significantly.
“Let’s go around,” added Maguire.
They went, the significant red light over the transom at 68 telling
its own story. Strolling leisurely up, they knocked. At the very first
sound a painted denizen of the half-world opened the door.
“Where’s Adele?” asked Maguire as the two, hats on as usual, stepped
in.
“She’s gone to bed.”
“Tell her to come down.”
They seated themselves deliberately in the gaudy mirrored parlor
and waited, conversing between themselves in whispers. Presently a
sleepy-looking woman of forty in a gaudy robe of heavy texture, and
slippered in red, appeared.
“We’re here about that suicide case you had to-night. What about it?
Who was she? How’d she come to be in that doorway around the corner?
Come, now,” Maguire added, as the madam assumed an air of mingled
injured and ignorant innocence, “you know. Can that stuff! How did she
come to take poison?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the woman with the
utmost air of innocence. “I never heard of any suicide.”
“Aw, come now,” insisted Delahanty, “the girl around the corner. You
know. We know you’ve got a pull, but we’ve got to know about this case,
just the same. Come across now. It won’t be published. What made her
take the poison?”
Under the steady eyes of the officers the woman hesitated, but finally
weakened.
“Why--why--her lover went back on her--that’s all. She got so blue
we just couldn’t do anything with her. I tried to, but she wouldn’t
listen.”
“Lover, eh?” put in Maguire as though that were the most unheard-of
thing in the world. “What was his name?”
“I don’t know. You never can tell that.”
“What was her name--Annie?” asked Delahanty wisely, as though he knew
but was merely inquiring for form’s sake.
“No--Emily.”
“Well, how did she come to get over there, anyhow?” inquired Maguire
most pleasantly.
“George took her,” she replied, referring to a man-of-all-work about
the place.
Then little by little as they sat there the whole miserable story came
out, miserable as all the wilfulness and error and suffering of the
world.
“How old was she?”
“Oh, twenty-one.”
“Well, where’d she come from?”
“Oh, here in New York. Her family locked her out one night, I think.”
Something in the way the woman said this last brought old Rogaum and
his daughter back to the policemen’s minds. They had forgotten all
about her by now, although they had turned in an alarm. Fearing to
interfere too much with this well-known and politically controlled
institution, the two men left, but outside they fell to talking of the
other case.
“We ought to tell old Rogaum about her some time,” said Maguire to
Delahanty cynically. “He locked his kid out to-night.”
“Yes, it might be a good thing for him to hear that,” replied the
other. “We’d better go round there an’ see if his girl’s back yet. She
may be back by now,” and so they returned but little disturbed by the
joint miseries.
At Rogaum’s door they once more knocked loudly.
“Is your daughter back again?” asked Maguire when a reply was had.
“Ach, no,” replied the hysterical Mrs. Rogaum, who was quite alone
now. “My husband he haf gone oudt again to loog vunce more. Oh, my! Oh,
my!”
“Well, that’s what you get for lockin’ her out,” returned Maguire
loftily, the other story fresh in his mind. “That other girl downstairs
here to-night was locked out too, once.” He chanced to have a
girl-child of his own and somehow he was in the mood for pointing a
moral. “You oughtn’t to do anything like that. Where d’yuh expect she’s
goin’ to if you lock her out?”
Mrs. Rogaum groaned. She explained that it was not her fault, but
anyhow it was carrying coals to Newcastle to talk to her so. The advice
was better for her husband.
The pair finally returned to the station to see if the call had been
attended to.
“Sure,” said the sergeant, “certainly. Whaddy ya think?” and he read
from the blotter before him:
“‘Look out for girl, Theresa Rogaum. Aged 18; height, about 5, 3;
light hair, blue eyes, white cotton dress, trimmed with blue ribbon.
Last seen with lad named Almerting, about 19 years of age, about 5, 9;
weight 135 pounds.’”
There were other details even more pointed and conclusive. For over an
hour now, supposedly, policemen from the Battery to Harlem, and far
beyond, had been scanning long streets and dim shadows for a girl in a
white dress with a youth of nineteen,--supposedly.
Officer Halsey, another of this region, which took in a portion of
Washington Square, had seen a good many couples this pleasant summer
evening since the description of Theresa and Almerting had been read to
him over the telephone, but none that answered to these. Like Maguire
and Delahanty, he was more or less indifferent to all such cases,
but idling on a corner near the park at about three a.m., a brother
officer, one Paisly by name, came up and casually mentioned the missing
pair also.
“I bet I saw that couple, not over an hour ago. She was dressed in
white, and looked to me as if she didn’t want to be out. I didn’t
happen to think at the time, but now I remember. They acted sort o’
funny. She did, anyhow. They went in this park down at the Fourth
Street end there.”
“Supposing we beat it, then,” suggested Halsey, weary for something to
do.
“Sure,” said the other quickly, and together they began a careful
search, kicking around in the moonlight under the trees. The moon was
leaning moderately toward the west, and all the branches were silvered
with light and dew. Among the flowers, past clumps of bushes, near
the fountain, they searched, each one going his way alone. At last,
the wandering Halsey paused beside a thick clump of flaming bushes,
ruddy, slightly, even in the light. A murmur of voices greeted him, and
something very much like the sound of a sob.
“What’s that?” he said mentally, drawing near and listening.
“Why don’t you come on now?” said the first of the voices heard. “They
won’t let you in any more. You’re with me, ain’t you? What’s the use
cryin’?”
No answer to this, but no sobs. She must have been crying silently.
“Come on. I can take care of yuh. We can live in Hoboken. I know a
place where we can go to-night. That’s all right.”
There was a movement as if the speaker were patting her on the shoulder.
“What’s the use cryin’? Don’t you believe I love yuh?”
The officer who had stolen quietly around to get a better view now
came closer. He wanted to see for himself. In the moonlight, from a
comfortable distance, he could see them seated. The tall bushes were
almost all about the bench. In the arms of the youth was the girl in
white, held very close. Leaning over to get a better view, he saw him
kiss her and hold her--hold her in such a way that she could but yield
to him, whatever her slight disinclination.
It was a common affair at earlier hours, but rather interesting now.
The officer was interested. He crept nearer.
“What are you two doin’ here?” he suddenly inquired, rising before
them, as though he had not seen.
The girl tumbled out of her compromising position, speechless and
blushing violently. The young man stood up, nervous, but still defiant.
“Aw, we were just sittin’ here,” he replied.
“Yes? Well, say, what’s your name? I think we’re lookin’ for you two,
anyhow. Almerting?”
“That’s me,” said the youth.
“And yours?” he added, addressing Theresa.
“Theresa Rogaum,” replied the latter brokenly, beginning to cry.
“Well, you two’ll have to come along with me,” he added laconically.
“The Captain wants to see both of you,” and he marched them solemnly
away.
“What for?” young Almerting ventured to inquire after a time, blanched
with fright.
“Never mind,” replied the policeman irritably. “Come along, you’ll find
out at the station-house. We want you both. That’s enough.”
At the other end of the park Paisly joined them, and, at the
station-house, the girl was given a chair. She was all tears and
melancholy with a modicum possibly of relief at being thus rescued
from the world. Her companion, for all his youth, was defiant if
circumspect, a natural animal defeated of its aim.
“Better go for her father,” commented the sergeant, and by four in the
morning old Rogaum, who had still been up and walking the floor, was
rushing stationward. From an earlier rage he had passed to an almost
killing grief, but now at the thought that he might possibly see his
daughter alive and well once more he was overflowing with a mingled
emotion which contained rage, fear, sorrow, and a number of other
things. What should he do to her if she were alive? Beat her? Kiss her?
Or what? Arrived at the station, however, and seeing his fair Theresa
in the hands of the police, and this young stranger lingering near,
also detained, he was beside himself with fear, rage, affection.
“You! You!” he exclaimed at once, glaring at the imperturbable
Almerting, when told that this was the young man who was found with his
girl. Then, seized with a sudden horror, he added, turning to Theresa,
“Vot haf you done? Oh, oh! You! You!” he repeated again to Almerting
angrily, now that he felt that his daughter was safe. “Come not near
my tochter any more! I vill preak your effery pone, du teufel, du!”
He made a move toward the incarcerated lover, but here the sergeant
interfered.
“Stop that, now,” he said calmly. “Take your daughter out of here and
go home, or I’ll lock you both up. We don’t want any fighting in here.
D’ye hear? Keep your daughter off the streets hereafter, then she won’t
get into trouble. Don’t let her run around with such young toughs as
this.” Almerting winced. “Then there won’t anything happen to her.
We’ll do whatever punishing’s to be done.”
“Aw, what’s eatin’ him!” commented Almerting dourly, now that he felt
himself reasonably safe from a personal encounter. “What have I done?
He locked her out, didn’t he? I was just keepin’ her company till
morning.”
“Yes, we know all about that,” said the sergeant, “and about you, too.
You shut up, or you’ll go down-town to Special Sessions. I want no guff
out o’ you.” Still he ordered the butcher angrily to be gone.
Old Rogaum heard nothing. He had his daughter. He was taking her home.
She was not dead--not even morally injured in so far as he could learn.
He was a compound of wondrous feelings. What to do was beyond him.
At the corner near the butcher shop they encountered the wakeful
Maguire, still idling, as they passed. He was pleased to see that
Rogaum had his Theresa once more. It raised him to a high, moralizing
height.
“Don’t lock her out any more,” he called significantly. “That’s what
brought the other girl to your door, you know!”
“Vot iss dot?” said Rogaum.
“I say the other girl was locked out. That’s why she committed suicide.”