"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE
Once more a hand had touched the spring. Once more the meeting vibrated
to a universal shock. Mr. Gumama signed to the fruit-peddler and a brace
of laborers that they provide themselves with lengths of rope and the
three withdrew to a position across the stairhead from the man with the
knife, where they, too, waited in the shadow of the walls. Confiding in
the sharpshooters at the window Mr. Gumama had the sailors called
upstairs.
Meanwhile the man at the door, happily unaware of the preparations for
receiving him above, came lounging inside with his hands in his pockets;
and Mrs. Pascoe, whose greeting had shown some slight surprise at his
appearance, laughed aloud. "It's funny how it does become you! I can't
deny it!"
For he had doffed his gentleman's attire and was dressed like the
shabbiest laborer, the tawny, earth-stained shirt open at his throat
against a red cotton handkerchief; his loose, frayed, dingy jacket had
once been of square, seafaring cut.
"I bet she picked them out fur yeh!" Mrs. Pascoe jeered. "She ain't one
to miss the artistic touch!" Her mockery took him all in. "She'd be sure
t' have yeh more uv a Dago organ-grinder 'n any Dago organ-grinder ever
was! But I will say you wear 'em t' the manner born!"
Well, truly, the swinging gold earrings, rounder than Mr. Gumama's, had
been carefully tarnished; his bracelet shot its golden gleam from under
a ragged cuff; the cord of a scapular, scarlet against his olive skin,
had been torn and knotted, and a handkerchief in the Sicilian colors was
thrust into a belt supple with age. But, truly again, they became him
mightily. For in those weathered boots, of which the soles were almost
gone, his feet gripped the earth with a loping, elastic tread like a
young animal's; and when, at the disconcerting coldness of her greeting,
he snatched off his old cap and stood with it crushed flat in his
nervous fingers the smooth and coal-black glitter of his head called her
attention to the alertness of its carriage, like some prowler's scouting
in the woods. Doubtless morning-coats and starched British linen are
very discreet garments. But the worn softness of those old borrowed
properties, in loosing the movement and the poise of his lithe body, had
released some other change in him; something wild, light and strong,
with the strength of a hound and the lightness of a cat, which, in the
dense jungle where he was about to enter, might yet stand him in good
stead. After all, one does not dress as a Sicilian for nothing!
Particularly when there are ladies about! Mrs. Pascoe was as much a
woman as any silkier petticoat and it must have been some such momentary
glimmer of the national presence, of the primitive equation, which had
won her forgotten girlhood as it had once wooed and won her daughter's
fancy. "Well, I vum!" said she again with tart amusement. Was he going
to turn out a man? She leaned toward him all intentness. _Was he?_
"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an
impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart
an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't God A'mighty, whoever she
is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't
goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this
world--she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said,
she's got her husband!"
He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she
cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I
got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're
natcherul born devils--she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh
had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low
an' squirm through.--Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out
there?"
He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his
strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man
came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic
consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You
will, above, attend the council!"
Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw
she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in
his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with
which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul
pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and
pulling mildly at his cuff.
The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that
gibberish--I been altogether _too_ patient, this good while!" The
messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman
an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never
thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I
hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got
all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!--Yeh
can g'won up."
Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath
through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his
guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only
gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft.
At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself
standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of
faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke
and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the
cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate
glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a
bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings reassured
him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing
that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on
trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow
looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed
and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled;
he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were
thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not
with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can
never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were
the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?--A satisfied, panting breath, full of
heat, rose from the crowd.
"Filippi Alieni?"
"Suor servitor, signor."
He did not deny it!
"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are
admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?"
"Si, Signor."
"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to
another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello,
were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable
Society?"
"Si, signor."
"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires
and releasing muffled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat
in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of
Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate
themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the
accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from
somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was
softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It
was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood
sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces.
"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our
basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon
both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath
of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to
reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your
bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to
avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done
you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your
death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the
sacred song
If I live, I will kill thee,
If I die, I forgive thee!
You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you
denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live--because
you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and
fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he
feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed
man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the
last--is it not so!"
He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no
good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His
guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the
pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long
enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when
through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables
and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of
the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the
suppression of Filippi Alieni!"
"I demand--" "I demand--" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to
sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!"
And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo
in testa in our name!"
"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too
greedy.--Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless!
Admit! Admit!"
"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if
stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself
between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's.
It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in
which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi
Alieni, you must now be put to sleep."
Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly,
incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his
head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife.
He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an
uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of
the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment
when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men
rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling
like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs.
A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the
street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly
jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which
was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his
back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of
triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him
a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train
roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it
was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the
prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely
lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope.
"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?"
The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still
breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint
as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with
a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose,
and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated
to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe
had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared space before the
court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails."
Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?"
This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for
time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and
the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back
again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of
his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.--Mr. Gumama
regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with God?"
He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon
his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the
Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama
pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal.
"Wait yet a little!"
It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly
studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing."
The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up.
Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly
replied, "Ask, then!"
"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do
to remain awake?"
The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much!
The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes
of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with
their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the
Parmesan with a gesture like a blow.
"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak,
who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was
invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine."
He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring
evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might
befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough
street. So I suppose--what else?--that those two are to attempt the Duel
by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving
him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his
token--that bracelet will do--to the capo in testa?"
"It is the plan."
"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir--pardon!--you do not--in your
greatness you do not--reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza,
another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is."
His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence
and admission reluctantly broke forth.
"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence
that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us
and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's
brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees--the
policemen of the Americans! Ay di me--listen, my dears! Does not this
cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in
the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's
tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the
traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell
us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little
Nancia--Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!"