When Brainard opened the door of his room, he heard the rustle of papers
on the floor, blown about by the draft from the window. He lighted his
lamp and picked up the loose sheets, which were the typewritten leaves of
his last play—the one that he had finally got back that very afternoon
from a famous actor-manager, without even the usual note of polite regret
from the secretary. The absence of that familiar note had dejected him
especially.
He shoved the rejected play into his table drawer indifferently, thinking
of the sick man’s last urgent look, and of the terrible effort he had
made to articulate his final words. What did he mean by “Melody”?
Perhaps the old fellow was really out of his head, and all the rest about
his valuable papers in some private safe at the other end of the
continent was mythical—the fancy of an unhinged mind.
But the memory of the old man’s face—of those keen blue eyes—made
Brainard reject such a commonplace solution of the puzzle. The sick man
had been in this room with him for a full half-hour, and the place still
seemed filled with his positive, commanding personality.
No! The man who signed “H. Krutzmacht” to the sheet lying on the table
before him was no vague lunatic. Though he might be at the extremity of
life, almost unable to articulate, nevertheless his purpose was clear to
himself, and his will was as strong as ever.
Brainard was hungry. Snatching up his old cap, he went out to the
neighboring avenue, and, without hesitation, entered the most expensive
restaurant in sight—a resort he frequented only on rare days of opulence.
Instead of the oyster-stew and doughnuts which had latterly been his
luxurious limit, he ordered a good dinner, as if he had earned it, and
devoured the food without the usual qualms of prudence.
His spirits had undergone a marvelous change from the timid, fearful
state in which he had been that afternoon. He wondered at his own
confidence. Complacently selecting a good cigar at the cashier’s desk,
he strolled back to his room, his body peacefully engaged in the
unaccustomed task of digesting a full meal.
When he entered his dreary little room, his eye fell upon the wallet,
which lay under the table where he had dropped it. What was he going to
do with that—with this whole Krutzmacht business? Why, simply nothing at
all. In the morning, he would go around to St. Joseph’s and see how the
sick man was. If Krutzmacht recovered, there was nothing to do but to
return his pocketbook. But if he got worse, or was dead already? Well,
Brainard could turn the wallet over to the hospital people or the
coroner, and that would end the affair for him.
With this prudent resolution he took his play from the drawer, and looked
it over. His interest in the thing had quite gone, and the sting of its
rejection no longer smarted. Very likely it was as bad as the managers
to whom he had submitted it seemed to think. He tied the manuscript
together with a piece of twine, and shoved it back into the drawer.
One sheet—that last one on which he had taken down Krutzmacht’s
dictation—was missing from this roll. That sheet contained his final
curtain. He looked at the lines, and smiled as he read. The Lady Violet
was parting from her lover, with the following dialogue:
VIOLET.—Oh, Alexander!
ALEXANDER.—Violet!
VIOLET.—What will you do, dearest?
ALEXANDER.—I go on my great adventure!
VIOLET.—Your great adventure?
ALEXANDER.—Life!
He turned the sheet over. On the other side were the few shorthand notes
he had hastily jotted down—the figures of the safe combination and the
power of attorney with its legal phrases, the latter written out again
below in long hand. At the bottom of the sheet, just beneath Alexander’s
heroic announcement to Violet, were the three signatures. The old man’s
blunt name dominated the others—a firm, black scrawl with a couple of
vicious dashes.
The powerful will of the sick man, working in what might be the agony of
death, spoke in that signature. Brainard felt that there was something
mysterious in it. The name spoke to him as the eyes had spoken to him,
personally. Criminal? Possibly. Dramatic? Oh, surely! He felt
instinctively that there was more drama on this side of the sheet than on
the other.
He folded the paper carefully and put it in his inner pocket. It would
be an interesting souvenir.
As the young man sat and smoked in his little room, the comfort of his
abundant meal penetrating his person, he felt more and more the drama of
actual life touching him, calling to him to take a hand in it. He
reached unconsciously for the fat wallet, and opened it. There were some
legal papers—contracts and leases and agreements, at which Brainard
merely glanced.
He felt into the inner recesses of the old-fashioned wallet, and from one
pocket extracted a thick sheaf of bank-notes. They were in large
denominations—hundreds, fifties, and twenties. Brainard smoothed out the
bills on his knee and carefully counted them; in all there was rather
more than four thousand dollars.
“The old boy traveled with quite a wad!” he muttered, fingering the crisp
bills.
The touch of the money gave a curious electric thrill to his thoughts.
Here was an evidence of reality that made the old man’s mumbled words and
intense effort assume a reasonable shape. When Krutzmacht let Brainard
take possession of this wallet, he knew what it contained. He trusted to
a stranger in his desperate need.
Still feeling around in the folds of the wallet, Brainard extracted a
railroad-ticket of voluminous length for San Francisco.
“He was on his way to the train!” Brainard exclaimed, and added
unconsciously, “when they got him and did him up!”
Already his busy mind had accepted the hypothesis of enemies and foul
play rather than that of disease.
With the railroad-ticket and the money in his hand, he stood staring
before him, still debating the matter. Something seemed to rise within
him, some determination—a spirit of daring which he had not felt for
years.
Mechanically he put the papers and bank-notes back into the wallet, and
shoved it into his pocket. Then he looked at his watch. It was nearly
ten o’clock. If he was to leave to-night, as the old man had ordered,
there was no more time to lose.
Without further hesitation, he threw a few articles into an old bag and
started for the ferry. On the way he stopped to telephone the hospital.
After a delay which made him impatient, he learned that the sick man was
resting quietly—“still unconscious,” the nurse said. So he had not
spoken again.
When Brainard reached the station in Jersey City, having a few moments to
spare, he wrote a brief note to the hospital authorities, saying that he
was leaving the city on business, and would call on his return in a week
or ten days. He inclosed several bank-notes, requesting that the sick
man should have every comfort. Having dropped his letter into the box he
stepped into the Chicago sleeper. The exhilarating beat of his heart
told him that he had done well.
The disdainful look that the porter had given him when he took charge of
his shabby bag, as well as the curious glances of his fellow passengers,
the next morning, made Brainard conscious of his eccentric appearance.
But all that he could do, for the present, to improve his neglected
person, was to have himself shaved and his hair cut. He was obliged to
keep his rain-coat on, although the car was hot, in order to cover up a
large hole in his trousers—the only pair he possessed.
He resolved to employ the few hours in Chicago, between trains, in making
himself as decent as possible. Meanwhile he ate three good meals and
furtively watched his more prosperous fellow travelers.