A WOMAN'S CONFESSION
"The wicked are overthrown and are not; but the house of the
righteous shall stand."--Prov. xii, 7
After making their way from the perilous swamp in which they had seen
the hog-farmer engulfed, the detectives, with Wayne, made all haste
to the Grimes farm, hoping they might find the kidnapped child there
unharmed.
Their interview with Maria, however, had been bitterly disappointing.
When she told of Mollie's venture into the swamp, with little Doris
strapped on her back, Wayne collapsed and had to be taken home.
The horrible death of Grimes which he had just witnessed, convinced
him that a similar fate must have overtaken his baby. The pictures
his imagination conceived as to what took place after the children
had passed beyond Maria's range of vision were more than any father
could endure with stoicism.
Maria, when they told her of Peter's tragic end, manifested no trace
of grief or affection. She dropped down on the door-step with a sigh
that was plainly one of relief. The wild, hunted look which had for
so many years dwelt in her eyes, giving her an aspect of fierceness
which she was far from feeling, gave place to the stupid dullness and
placidity that had been hers before Peter Grimes ever walked into her
life and home.
"Then I reckon I kin tell yo'-all jist how mean he war," she remarked
in a voice that was not unpleasant. "Thar wa'n't a dangder scoundrel
ever trod shoe leather. He needed killin'. He war jus' nachully
mean. Ary man, woman er child on earth thet went contrary ter him
he'd fling in th' bog es quick es scat. Ef I be alive ter-day hit
air becus I allus done whut he sed. Many's th' time I'd a-gi'n them
young-uns sumpin' ter eat ef I didn't know he'd pitch me inter th'
bog fer doin' hit. Thet thar Mollie war th' bes' leetle gal on
earth. I knowed th' dawg hain't a-goin' ter harm 'em when I sic'd
'im onter them. But Pete tol' me ter do hit an' I knowed I mus'."
Poor thing. She was actually trembling.
Fourteen years of living under such a strain would have told upon a
stronger mentality than Maria's.
"An' I got thet brat," she went on, indicating Ambrose. "When he war
leetle I thunk mebbe he'd grow up ter be a good son ter me, but he's
jes' like his Pappy an' orter be put away whar he cain't do nobody no
harm. I'm mos' es skeered o' him es I war o' Pete."
"All right," interrupted the Chief, "we'll look after him for you.
It isn't safe for the community to have such people at large. The
greatest kindness their own folks can ever do them is to put them
some place where they will be cared for and treated like human beings
but kept from doing harm to anybody. They're mental cripples. In
other words, their heads are twisted inside just like some people
have a mis-shapen arm or leg which keeps them from using it. These
fellows with twisted, warped brains shouldn't be expected to use
them, either. They can't use them right and when they try to use
them, they only commit crimes. And now Mrs. Grimes,--"
Maria raised her head to say morosely: "Doan yo' call me thet name no
mor'. I hain't Mrs. Grimes. I don't never wanter hyar th' name
spoke. I'm Maria Honeycut, ole Am. Honeycut's datter an' this hyar
farm es my place that my Pappy giv me."
There was a trace of pride in the poor woman's tone which had not
been there before and which demanded respect as well as pity. She,
too, had suffered under the domination of the ogre.
She and Ambrose, however, accompanied the officers to headquarters to
make what statements were necessary before a notary and to arrange
for the boy's admittance to an institution. There was so much to
tell and, for Maria, conversation was difficult. After the first
sudden outpouring of the fear and resentment she had nursed for years
she retreated into her usual shell of reticence and responded only to
questioning.
But when the Chief entered the big room at headquarters he stood for
an instant as if transfixed. What on earth, he wondered, had been
brought in? A kindergarten? It looked like it. There were children
on all sides of him and, squarely facing him, the brightest-eyed
little girl just entering upon her teens that he had ever seen. She
wore her hair in two long braids that fell below her waist, was
bare-footed and hatless and clad mostly in rags. She, as well as the
other children, were soiled and disheveled and drenched with rain.
It was plain they had been out in the storm that had passed. But the
child that particularly riveted the Chief's gaze was the
curly-headed, winsome baby in the oldest girl's arms.
He turned to the lieutenant at the desk. "Where'd you find her?" he
asked, in evident relief.
"Who--which--Oh, that one?" returned the man at the desk. "She came
in with the bunch. Captain Carey brought 'em. He found 'em cruising
down the river on a motor launch. He's up-stairs. Shall I call him
down? He's got a report to make about a couple of fellows who jumped
overboard."
The Chief wanted very much to see Captain Carey and said so. A
moment later he and the river captain were closeted in his private
office comparing notes regarding the launch, the kidnappers, all of
whom seemed to have met death within a few moments of one another,
Mollie's remarkable story and the recovery of Wayne's little girl.
"Of course, you'll get the reward," the Chief told the captain, as he
reached for the telephone to notify the distracted father that his
baby was safe.
"I don't see it that way," the captain instantly retorted. "I didn't
find her. It was that little girl. From what she says and you've
just told me, if she hadn't taken the child and fled with her into
the swamp, keeping her up in the trees, that fellow Grimes would have
flung her in the bog two or three hours before the other fellows got
there looking for her."
"That's right," said the Chief. "I'll mention that to Wayne. What
we've done has only been in the line of duty, just what we'd do for
anybody in trouble."
"That's right," echoed the captain.
Connection with the Wayne establishment was quickly secured but the
telephone was answered by the butler. Mr. Wayne was ill and unable
to speak to anyone, he said.
"Tell him," said the Chief, "that his little girl is safe, well,
unharmed and happy down at police headquarters. I think that news
will make him get well at once."
No better restorative could have been administered to Harris Wayne.
Within ten minutes after the message came over the wire he was on his
way to town. A regiment of doctors and nurses could not have
deterred him. When he dashed into the room at headquarters and saw
little Doris in Mollie's arms his impetuous rush almost frightened
the child.
After her one glad cry of "Daddy!" she flung her arms about Mollie's
neck as if fearing to be taken away.
"Muh-Mollie! Muh-Mollie!" she repeated over and over. Mollie held
her firmly, reluctant to release her even into her father's arms.
Realizing that the baby she so adored was going to be taken from her
and out of her sight, Mollie made one last desperate stand.
"She wants me--an' I love her," she declared, with tears in her big,
lustrous eyes. "Ef she hain't got no mammy she needs me ter look
arter her, so's she won't git stol'd ag'in."
But the father's thoughts were, for the moment, solely for his child.
"That's all right about the reward, Chief," he found time to say.
"Give it to this girl. She deserves credit. But give me my baby and
let me get away. I'm all in."
The baby was taken from Mollie's arms and given to her father. As he
carried her from the room she waved her chubby hand in farewell.
"Bye-bye, muh-Mollie--bye-bye, muh-Mollie!"
Mollie buried her head in her hands and sobbed aloud.
The lieutenant at the desk was speaking over the telephone. "Have
they got the body?" he asked. "Yes. Black mustache, eh! You say
Burke identified him as the fellow called Bailey? All right. Send
down any letters or papers you may find on him."
He turned to the Chief, who was trying to make friends with Leathy,
for as yet none of the children would talk. The sight of Mollie in
tears impressed them with the idea that she was being abused and they
must each stand by her.
"They've got that fellow Bailey's body," the lieutenant remarked.
"There was an unmailed letter in his pocket addressed to some woman.
They're sending it down."
A messenger soon arrived with the expected packet. After the Chief
examined it, a look of amazed incredulity overspread his face.
"Well, I'll be darned!" he ejaculated. Then he called one of his
men, gave the latter a brief message to deliver and told him to go in
civilian clothes. "Don't attract any attention," he said, "and fetch
her right back with you. Take a cab."
An hour or so later, after he had been talking for a long time in his
private office with a woman whose identity no one knew, the Chief
sent for a notary. And after the latter, as well as the woman had
gone, he put papers in the safe which he said would be the means of
proving Mollie's identity.
Meanwhile the matron was instructed to make the little waifs
comfortable for the night. Mollie, alone, refused to be comforted or
comfortable. She shivered in her wet clothes and gratefully accepted
a policeman's coat in lieu of a jacket, but refused to part with the
bottle in which she had thoughtfully carried milk for her
"Honey-baby" when they traversed the death-haunted swamps. Bolt
upright she sat, listening, listening for the summons which her love
and intuition knew would come.
It was nearing midnight when the messenger came. Mollie was on her
feet instantly. She had never seen James, Wayne's chauffeur, before,
but she sensed that he had come for her. "Mr. Wayne sent me down to
fetch up the girl, Mollie," said the man. "The baby wants her."
Mollie started forward, the bottle that had once contained corn
liquor gripped tightly in her hands. A policeman handed her a
newspaper. She tore off a piece, wrapped it about the bottle and
hurried out the door with the chauffeur.
It was not her first ride in an automobile. They had driven up from
the river in the police patrol only that afternoon. Before the Wayne
residence was reached Mollie had told the chauffeur of the thrilling
experience and learned all the principal points of difference between
the Wayne limousine and the "black Maria."
The car had hardly paused before Mollie was out and running up the
steps, brushing past the astonished butler who opened the door, and
tearing on through the house as if she had entered it many times
before. Straight up the stairs she sped, her queer little figure
with its bare feet and legs extending rather startlingly from below a
policeman's coat, appearing an incongruous note in the harmony of
that stately, sumptuous mansion. The nursery door was open and
Mollie, hearing the baby's voice, dashed in.
"Muh-Ma-Mollie!" cried the little one, extending her arms and fairly
leaping into Mollie's embrace.
"She wouldn't take her bottle--she wouldn't do anything," explained
the poor little rich girl's father, by way of excuse for having sent
for Mollie.
The latter examined the bottle they had been trying to persuade
little Doris to accept. It was modern and extremely sanitary.
Mollie inspected it and put it contemptuously aside.
"She knowed it wa'n't hern," she remarked, with great dignity. "I
reckon she wanted this'n," and to Harris Wayne's horror she took from
out its newspaper wrappings the corn liquor relic, partially filled
with a lacteal fluid evidently procured by some kindly policeman from
the open can of a delicatessen store, and, after first testing the
milk herself, placed the improvised rubber top of the bottle in his
child's mouth. The baby accepted it with gurgles of joy. The
child's nurse cried out in horror. Mollie sniffed.
"She doan know nawthin' 'bout babies," she remarked, of the nurse.
"She hain't hed th' sperience I've hed."
Neither Wayne nor Mollie knew that down at police headquarters,
securely locked in the safe, were papers that told of Mollie's family
and the fortune, rightfully hers, that was invested through his own
bank and remitted in monthly sums, supposedly for her education and
maintenance, through the medium of a woman connected with a
fashionable private school.
Mollie's story had been corroborated. Bailey's sister had confessed.