It was very still in that back room. No step sounded in the hall, and
the noise from the street came muffled. In the stillness, the sick man’s
desperate efforts to breathe filled the little room with painful sounds.
Brainard felt the stifling approach of death, and opened the window wide
to get what air would come in from the small court outside.
He studied the figure on the lounge more closely. The thick, red under
lip curled over the roots of the gray beard. A short, thick nose gave
the face a look of strong will, even of obstinacy. There was a foreign
expression to the features that might indicate German descent.
On the third finger of his right hand, the sick man wore an old, plain
gold ring, which had sunk deep into the flesh. From the inside pocket of
his short coat bulged a thick wallet, over which his right hand rested,
as if to guard precious possessions.
“He thought I was going to rob him!” Brainard observed. “Expect he’s
been up against it already—and that’s what’s the trouble.”
It was quite dark. The young man lighted a gas-jet, then went again to
the door. As he stood there, listening, he felt the old man’s eyes on
him, and turned to look at him. The eyes, now wide open, held him,
asking what the lips refused to utter.
Brainard went back to his patient and leaned over to catch the flutter
from the moving lips. At last, as if with great exertion, the murmur
came:
“Wh-wh-what are you go-going to do—to do—with me?”
In spite of the faintness of the whisper, it was the voice of one
accustomed to being answered.
“I’ve sent an officer for an ambulance,” Brainard replied. “It ought to
be here before now, I should think. They’ll take you to some hospital
and fix you up,” he added encouragingly.
The lips twitched into a semblance of a smile, then mumbled:
“No—not—th-this time.”
“What’s the matter—accident?” Brainard asked.
The sick man did not attempt to reply, as if he considered the question
of trifling importance. Instead, his eyes studied the young man’s face
intently. Evidently his brain was clearing from the shock, whatever had
caused it, and he was revolving some purpose. Soon the lips began to
move once more, and Brainard bent close to catch the faint sounds.
“Wh-wh-what’s your bus-bus-i-ness?”
“Oh, I’ve had lots of businesses,” the young man replied carelessly.
“Been on a newspaper, in the ad business, real estate, and so on.” He
added after a moment, with a little ironical laugh, “Just now I’m in the
literary business—a dramatist.”
The sick man looked puzzled, and frowned, as if disappointed. Perhaps
his cloudy brain could not assort this information with his purpose.
Presently his brow contracted, his face twitched violently, the right leg
shot out.
“I say! It’s too bad,” the young man exclaimed sympathetically. “I wish
I knew what to do for you. Where can that ambulance be?” He laid one
hand on the sick man’s hot brow, and held his arm with the other. “Easy
now!” he exclaimed, as the right arm began whirling. “There! Steady!
It’s going off.”
Instead of closing his eyes, as he had done after the previous attacks,
and relapsing into coma, the sick man made an immediate effort to speak.
“Co-come here,” he articulated faintly. “Important, very important.”
He groped feebly for his inner pocket.
“You want me to take out this bundle?” Brainard asked, laying his hand on
the bulky wallet.
The man made an affirmative sign, and kept his eyes steadily on Brainard
while the latter gently extracted the pocketbook.
“You—you will do something for me?” the stranger said more distinctly
than he had hitherto spoken, as if urgency were clearing his mind. “You
can—you can start to-night?”
“I’m not very busy,” the young man said, with a laugh. “I guess I could
start for Hong-Kong on a few minutes’ notice.”
“Not Hong-Kong,” the old man labored forth literally. “You’re honest?”
It was said in a tone of self-conviction rather than of question.
“Oh, I guess so,” the young man answered lightly. “At least, what’s
called honest—never had a chance to steal anything worth taking!” He
added more seriously, to quiet the sick man, who seemed to be laboring
under excitement, “Tell me what you want done, and I’ll do my best to put
it through for you.”
The sick man’s eyes expressed relief, and then his brow contracted, as if
he were summoning all his powers in a final effort to make a clogged
brain do his urgent will.
“Lis-lis-listen,” he murmured. “No—no, write—write it down,” he went on,
as Brainard leaned forward.
Brainard looked about his bare room for paper, but in vain. He felt in
his pockets for a stray envelope, then drew from his overcoat a roll of
manuscript. He glanced at it dubiously for a moment, then tore off the
last sheet, which had on one side a few lines of typewriting. With a
gesture of indifference, he turned to the sick man and prepared to take
his message.
“All ready,” he remarked. “I can take it in shorthand, if you want.”
“Sev-en, thir-ty-one, and four. Sev-en, thir-tyone, and four. Sev-en,
thir-ty-one, and four,” he repeated almost briskly.
Brainard looked at him inquiringly, and the stranger whispered the
explanation: “Combi-na-tion pri-vate safe—understand?” Brainard nodded.
“Where?”
“Office—San Francisco.”
The young man whistled.
“That’s a good ways off! What do you want me to do there?”
“Take _everything_.”
“What shall I do with the stuff? Bring it here to New York?” the young
man inquired, with growing curiosity.
The sick man’s blue eyes stared at him steadily, with a look of full
intelligence.
“I shall be dead then,” he mumbled.
“Oh, I hope not!” Brainard remarked.
But with unflinching eyes, the sick man continued:
“You must have—pow-er—pow-er of attorney.”
He brought the words out with difficulty, not wasting his strength by
discussing his chances of recovery. He was evidently growing weaker, and
Brainard had to bend close to his lips in order to catch the faint
whisper, “Take it down!”
And with his face beginning to twitch, and the convulsive tremors running
over his body, the sick man summoned all his will and managed to dictate
a power of attorney in legal terms, as if he were familiar with the
formula. When he had finished, his eyes closed, and his lips remained
open. Brainard dropped his paper and felt for the sick man’s heart. It
was still beating faintly.
After a few moments, the eyes opened mistily, and again the man made an
effort to collect himself for another effort.
“What shall I do with the stuff?” Brainard inquired.
“Ge-get it out of the country. Take it to—to Ber-Ber-Ber—”
“Bermuda?” Brainard suggested.
“Ber_lin_!” the sick man corrected with a frown. As if to impress his
messenger with the seriousness of his work, he added, “If you don’t get
away, they’ll—kill you.”
“Oh!” Brainard exclaimed, impressed.
The blue eyes examined the young man steadily, as if they would test his
metal. Then, satisfied, the man murmured:
“Quick—must—sign—quick! Now!” he concluded, as his face began to twitch.
Brainard handed him a pen, and held his right arm to steady him while he
scrawled his name—“H. Krutzmacht.” The sick man traced the letters
slowly, patiently, persisting until he had dashed a heavy line across the
t’s and another beneath the name; then he dropped the pen and closed his
eyes.
When another moment of control came to him, he whispered uneasily:
“Witness? Must have witness.”
“We’ll find some one—don’t worry,” the young man replied lightly. “The
ambulance man, when he comes, if he ever does come!”
Brainard did not yet take very seriously the idea of starting that night
for San Francisco to rifle a safe.
“Mo-mo-money,” the voice began, and the eyes wandered to the fat wallet
which Brainard had deposited on the table.
Brainard lifted the wallet.
“Plen-plen-plenty of mon-money!”
“I understand,” the young man replied. “There’s enough cash for the
journey in here.”
As he laid the wallet down, there was the welcome sound of feet in the
passage outside, and with an exclamation of relief the young man flung
open the door. The ambulance surgeon was there with an assistant and a
stretcher. With a muttered explanation for his delay, the doctor went at
once to the sick man and examined him, while Brainard told what he knew
of his strange guest.
“Tries to talk all the time—must be something on his mind!” he said, as
another convulsion seized the sick man. “Been doped, I should say.”
“Looks like brain trouble, sure,” the ambulance surgeon remarked,
watching the stranger closely. “He can’t last long that way. Well, we’d
better hustle him to the hospital as soon as we can.”
They had the sick man on the stretcher before he had opened his eyes from
his last attack. As they lifted him, he mumbled excitedly, and Brainard,
listening close to his lips, thought he understood what was troubling
him.
“He wants that paper witnessed,” he explained. “I forgot—it’s something
he dictated to me.”
“Well, hurry up about it,” the surgeon replied carelessly, willing to
humor the sick man. “Here!”
Brainard dipped his pen in the ink-bottle and handed it to the surgeon,
who lightly dashed down his signature at the bottom of the sheet, without
reading it.
“Now are we ready?” the doctor demanded impatiently.
But the blue eyes arrested Brainard, and the young man, stooping over the
stretcher, caught a faint whisper:
“You’ll g-g-go?”
“Sure!”
“Gi-gi-give it all to—”
Krutzmacht struggled hard to pronounce a name, but he could not utter the
word.
“It’s no use!” the doctor exclaimed. “Tell him to wait until he’s
better.”
But Brainard, moved by the sick man’s intense look of mental distress,
raised his hand to the doctor and listened. At last the whispered
syllable reached his ear:
“M-M-Mel—”
“I tell you it’s no use!” the ambulance doctor repeated irritably.
“They’ll find out at the hospital what he wants done. Come on!”
As they bore the stretcher through the narrow door, the agonized
expression gave way, and the sick man articulated more distinctly:
“Mel-Melo—”
“Melo-melodrama!” Brainard said. “It’s all right, my friend. Don’t
worry—I’ll fix it up for you!”
With astonishing distinctness came back the one word:
“Melody!”
“All right—Melody!”
The sick man would have said more, but the ambulance men bore him swiftly
to the waiting vehicle and shoved him in.
“Will you come along?” the doctor asked.
“No. I’ll look in some time to-morrow, probably—St. Joseph’s, isn’t it?”
The sick man’s eyes still rested on Brainard, when the latter poked his
head into the dark ambulance. They seemed to glow with a full
intelligence, and also with a command, as if they said:
“Do just what I’ve told you to do!”
“He knows what he wants, even if he can’t say it,” Brainard muttered to
himself as the ambulance moved off. “Poor old boy!”