DROOM TRIUMPHS OVER DEATH
Droom stood for a few moments in the hurtling snowstorm, abstractedly
gazing toward Longacre Square. The chill in his marrow was not from
the blizzard that swept down upon him; the gaunt grey look in his
face was not that of hunger or want. There was fever in his brain
and chill in his heart. He had forgotten Jane's trivial tragedy;
his one overwhelming thought was of James Bansemer.
The heavy ulster was unbuttoned and the snowflakes pelted in against
his neglected shirt front. A doorman called his attention to the
oversight. He came to himself, drew the coat close about his long
frame, and hurried off down Fifth Avenue. The storm was so vicious
that he boarded a crosstown car at Forty-second Street. A man
elbowed him in the narrow vestibule. He looked up and gasped aloud
in sudden terror. An instant later he laughed at his fears; the man
was not James Bansemer. A cold perspiration started out over his
body, however. Through his brain there went racing the ever-revolving
cry:
"He'll come straight to me-straight to me!"
The hour was not late, but the blizzard had driven the crowds from
the streets. Eighth avenue sidewalks were deserted except for the
people who were obliged to brave the storm. As Droom hurried south
to his lodgings he became possessed of a racking belief that someone
was following close upon his heels--someone who was rushing up to
deal him a murderous blow in the back. The old man actually broke
into a frantic run in covering the last half block.
It was not until he was in his rooms, with the door bolted that
he could rid himself of the dread. The fire had gone out and the
light was low. His teeth chattered and his hand shook as he raised
the wick in the lamp. The palsy of inexplicable fear was upon him.
Kneeling before the stove he began to rebuild the fire. His back
was toward the door and he turned an anxious face in that direction
from time to time. Footsteps on the stairway sent a new chill through
his gaunt frame. They passed on up the next flight, but he waited
breathlessly until he heard the door of the apartment above slam
noisily.
For half an hour he sat huddled in front of the stove without
removing his hat and ulster.
"Curse the luck," he was saying over and over again to himself,
sometimes aloud. "Why should he have a pardon? What are the laws
for? Curse that meddling old fool Clegg! They'll set him free, and
he'll hunt me out, I know he will. He won't forgive me for that
day's work. He may be free now-it may have been he who followed me.
But no! That's a silly thing to think. It takes weeks and months
to get a pardon. Maybe--maybe they won't get it, after all."
He tried to throw off his desperate feeling of apprehension,
chattering all sorts of comforting reasons and excuses to himself
as he scurried about the rooms with aimless haste. Try as he would,
however, when the time came, he could not read--not even of his
courage-inspiring Napoleon. The howl of the wind annoyed and appalled
him; he caught himself listening intently for sounds above and not
of the storm. A nervous, intermittent laugh broke from his lips
as he went on cursing himself for a fool to be so disturbed by
Graydon's report.
"What have I to fear from him? Why should I let that look of his
unnerve me so? Why can't I forget it? It--it didn't mean anything.
I'm a fool to think of it. Nearly two years ago, that was. Why,
he may be--" A new thought chased the old one out before it was
formed. His eyes caught sight of one of his completed models,
standing in the corner. It was the model for the guillotine.
For a long time he sat staring at the thing, a hundred impressions
forming and reforming in his brain.
"I wonder if I'll really die before he is liberated," he was saying
dumbly to himself. "I wonder if I will. There's no sign of it now.
I'm strong and well enough to live for years. Suppose he is freed
inside of a month or two, what then? By Heaven, I'd be losing the
dearest hope of my whole life. My last sight of him--that beautiful
vision behind the bars--would be spoiled, undone, wiped out. He'd
be as free as I. I won't die inside of a month, I'm sure. He'd come
here and laugh at me and he'd kill me in the end. God! I know he
would. He'd have the joy of seeing my pain and terror and defeat--he'd
see me LAST! I'd be bloody and crushed and--"
He checked himself in the midst of these dire forebodings to rise
suddenly and cross to the ghastly looking frame with the cords, the
hinges, and the great broadaxe that lay harmlessly in the grooves
at the top. For many minutes he stood and gazed at the axe, his
flesh as cold as ice. Then he tested the cords. The axe dropped
heavily to the block below. He smiled with cunning triumph at his
own skill.
The odour of geranium leaves assailed his nostrils. With an ugly
impulse he turned and swept the pots from the window box, scattering
them over the floor.
"I'm in a devil of a humour," he laughed as he surveyed the wreck.
"Something's gone wrong with me. I've never mistreated my flowers
before." He lifted the broadaxe to its place, tenderly, almost
lovingly. "By my soul, it's a beautiful piece of work. It's as sure
as the grave itself."
Again he stood off and looked at the infernal bit of his own
handiwork, his eyes glistening with dread of the thing. He turned
and fled to the opposite side of the room, keeping his back toward
the silent guillotine which seemed to be calling to him with
mocking yet fascinating persistency.
"Curse the thing," he groaned. "Damn it, I didn't make it for my
own use. What is the matter with me?" He glanced slyly, fearfully
over his shoulder and then faced the thing deliberately, his jaws
set, his eyes staring.
"It is a quick way--a sure way," he muttered. "I haven't anything
to live for and but a few years at most. Nobody cares whether I
live or die--not even I. James Bansemer could not batter me down,
as he surely will, if I--"
He crossed to an old chest and unlocked its lid with feverish haste.
A bundle of papers came up in the grasp of his tense fingers.
Casting dreadful glances at the insistent axe, he seated himself
at the table and began looking over the papers.
"He won't take his father's rotten money, but he'll take mine.
It's honest. It represents wages honestly, bitterly earned. There's
more than twenty thousand to give him. He'll be surprised. Twenty
thousand." He laid the first paper, his will drawn in favour of
Graydon Bansemer, signed and addressed; upon the table, and then
carelessly tossed the other documents into the chest. "By the Lord
Harry, I'll have the best of James Bansemer yet. His boy will take
my money even though he spurns his. God, I wish I could see him
when he knows all this. It would be glorious."
He fingered the document for a tense moment, and then arose to
remove his coat and vest. These he hung away in his closet with all
his customary carefulness. In the middle of the room he stopped,
his quivering face turned toward the gaunt thing of execution. His
feet seemed nailed to the floor; his brain was urging him to go on
with the horrid deed, his body was rebelling. The torture of terror
was overpowering him.
Suddenly he found his strength of limb. With a guttural howl he
clasped his hands to his eyes and fled blindly into his bedroom.
Hurling his long, shivering frame upon the bed, he tried to shut
out the enticing call of the thing of death. How long he quivered
there, shuddering and struggling, he could not have told. In the
end--and as suddenly as he had fled--he leaped up and with a shrill
laugh dashed back into the other room.
There was no hesitation in his body now. With a maniacal glee he
rushed upon the devilish contrivance in the corner, tearing the axe
from its place with ruthless hands. Throughout the building rang
the sounds of smashing wood, furious blows of steel upon wood, and
high above the din arose the laugh of Elias Droom. In two minutes,
the guillotine lay in chips and splinters about the room--destroyed
even as it was on the point of destroying him.
Dropping back against the wall, wet with perspiration, a triumphant
grin upon his face, Elias surveyed the wreckage. His muscles relaxed
and his eyes lost the dread that had filled them. The smile actually
grew into an expression of sweetness and peace that his face had
never known before.
As he staggered to a chair close by, a great sigh of relief broke
from his lips.
"There!" he gasped. "It's over! it's over! My head is on
my shoulders--it really is after all! It is not rolling into the
corner--no! no! By my head--my own head, too--it was a close call
for you, Elias Droom. Now, I'll take what comes. I'll wait for
James Bansemer! I'll stick it out to the end. If he comes, he'll
find me here. I've conquered the infernal death that stood waiting
so long for me in that corner--and I never suspected it, either.
God, how near it was to me! It stood there and waited for me to
come. It knew that I would come sooner or later! But I've smashed
it--it's gone! It's not there!"
With eager hands he gathered up the pieces of wood and cast them
into the stove. As the remains of that frightful minister of death
crackled and spit with defeated venom, Elias Droom calmly pulled on
his worn dressing gown, lighted his pipe and cocked his feet upon
the stove rail, a serene look in his eyes, a chuckle in his throat.