A TRYST IN THE PARK
Unable for a moment to credit his senses, Garrison moved over against
the wall of the building he was passing, and stood there, slowly,
almost mechanically, searching his pockets once again, while his mind
revolved about the lost cigar, in an effort to understand its
disappearance.
He was wholly at a loss for a tenable theory till he thought of the
frequency with which men are robbed of scarf-pins or similar
trifles--and then a sickening possibility possessed him.
One of the commonest devices that a woman employs in such a petty theft
is to faint on the breast of her victim. In such a pose she may
readily extract some coveted article from either his tie or his pocket,
with almost absolute certainty of avoiding detection.
It did not seem possible--and yet the fact remained that Dorothy had
fainted thus against him, and the poisoned cigar was gone. She had
known of his visit to Branchville; his line of questions might have
roused her suspicions; the cigar had been plainly in sight. He had
seen her enact her rôle so perfectly, in the presence of her relatives,
that he could not doubt her ability in any required direction.
For a moment a powerful revulsion of feeling toward the girl, who was
undeniably involved in some exceptionally deep-laid plan, crept
throughout his being. Not only does a man detest being used as a tool
and played upon like any common dunce, but he also feels an utter
chagrin at being baffled in his labors. Apparently he had played the
fool, and also he had lost the vital evidence of Hardy's poisoning.
Mortified and angry, he remained there, while the crowds surged by, his
gaze dully fixed on the pavement. For a time he saw nothing, and then
at last he was conscious that a rose--a crushed and wilted rose, thrown
down by some careless pedestrian--was lying almost at his feet.
Somehow, it brought him a sense of calm and sweetness; it seemed a
symbol, vouchsafed him here in the hot, sordid thoroughfare, where
crime and folly, virtue and despair, stalk arm in arm eternally.
He could not look upon the bit of trampled beauty, thus wasted on a
heedless throng, and think of Dorothy as guilty. She had seemed just
as crushed and wilted as the rose when he left her at her home--just as
beautiful, also, and as far from her garden of peace and fragrances as
this rejected handful of petals. She must be innocent. There must be
some other explanation for the loss of that cigar--and some good reason
for the things she had done and said.
He took up the rose, indifferent to anyone who might have observed the
action with a smile or a sneer, and slowly proceeded down the street.
The cigar, he reflected, might easily have been stolen in the Subway.
A hundred men had crushed against him. Any one of them so inclined
could have taken the weed at his pleasure. The thought was wholly
disquieting, since if any man attempted to bite the cigar-end through,
to smoke, he would pay a tragic penalty for his petty theft.
This aspect of the affair, indeed, grew terrible, the more he thought
upon it. He almost felt he must run to the station, try to search out
that particular train, and cry for all to hear that the stolen cigar
would be fatal--but the thought was a wild, unreasoning vagary; he was
absolutely helpless in the case.
He could not be certain that the weed had thus been extracted from his
pocket. It might in some manner have been lost. He did not know--he
could not know. He felt sure of one thing only--his hope, his demand,
that Dorothy must be innocent and good.
Despite his arguments, he was greatly depressed. The outcome of all
the business loomed dim and uncertain before him, a haze charged with
mystery, involving crime as black as night.
He presently came to the intersection of fashionable Fifth Avenue and
Forty-second Street, and was halted by the flood of traffic. Hundreds
of vehicles were pouring up and down, in endless streams, while two
calm policemen halted the moving processions, from time to time, to
permit the crosstown cars and teams to move in their several directions.
Across from Garrison's corner loomed the great marble library, still
incomplete and gloomily fenced from the sidewalk. Beyond it,
furnishing its setting, rose the trees of Bryant Park, a green oasis in
the tumult and unloveliness about it. Garrison knew the benches there
were crowded; nevertheless, he made his way the length of the block and
found a seat.
He sat there till the sun was gone and dusk closed in upon the city.
The first faint lights began to twinkle, like the palest stars, in the
buildings that hedged the park about. He meant to hunt out a
restaurant and dine presently, but what to do afterward he could not
determine.
There was nothing to be done at Branchville or Hickwood at night, and
but little, for the matter of that, to be done by day. Tomorrow would
be ample time to return to that theater of uncertainty. He longed for
one thing only--another sight of Dorothy--enshrined within his heart.
Reminded at last of the man who had followed on his trail, he purposely
strolled from the park and circled two blocks, by streets now almost
deserted, and was reasonably certain he had shaken off pursuit. As a
matter of fact, his "shadow" had lost him in the Subway, and now,
having notified the Robinsons by telephone, was watching the house
where he roomed.
Garrison ate his dinner in a mood of ceaseless meditation concerning
Dorothy. He was worried to know what might have happened since his
departure from her home. Half inclined in one minute to go again to
the house, in the next he was quite undecided.
The thought of the telephone came like an inspiration. Unless the
Robinsons should interfere, he might readily learn of her condition.
At a drug-store, near the restaurant, he found a quiet booth, far
better suited to his needs than the noisier, more public boxes at the
eating place he had quitted. He closed himself inside the little
cubby-hole, asked for the number, and waited.
It seemed an interminable time till a faint "Hello!" came over the
wire, and he fancied the voice was a man's.
"Hello! Is that Mrs. Fairfax?" he asked. "I'd like to speak to Mrs.
Fairfax."
"Wait a minute, please. Who is it?" said a voice unmistakably
masculine.
"Mr. Wallace," said Garrison, by way of precaution. "She'll
understand."
"Hold the wire, please."
He held the receiver to his ear, and waited again. At length came a
softer, more musical greeting. It was Dorothy. His heart was
instantly leaping at the sound of her voice.
"Hello! Is that someone to speak to me?" she said. "This is Mrs.
Fairfax."
"Yes," answered Garrison. "This is Jerold. I felt I must find out
about you--how you are. I've been distressed at the way I was obliged
to leave."
"Oh!" said the voice faintly. "I--I'm all right--thank you. I must
see you--right away." Her voice had sunk to a tone he could barely
distinguish. "Where are you now?"
"Downtown," said Garrison. "Where shall I meet you?"
"I--hardly know," came the barely audible reply. "Perhaps--at Central
Park and Ninety-third Street."
"I'll start at once," he assured her. "If you leave the house in
fifteen minutes we shall arrive about the same time. Try to avoid
being followed. Good-by."
He listened to hear her answer, but it did not come. He heard the
distant receiver clink against its hook, and then the connection was
broken.
He was happy, in a wild, lawless manner, as he left the place and
hastened to the Elevated station. The prospect of meeting Dorothy once
more, in the warm, fragrant night, at a tryst like that of lovers, made
his pulses surge and his heart beat quicken with excitement. All
thought of her possible connection with the Branchville crime had fled.
The train could not run fast enough to satisfy his hot impatience. He
wished to be there beneath the trees when she should presently come.
He alighted at last at the Ninety-third Street station, and hastened to
the park.
When he came to the appointed place, he found an entrance to the
greenery near by. Within were people on every bench in sight--New
York's unhoused lovers, whose wooing is accomplished in the all but
sylvan glades which the park affords.
Here and there a bit of animated flame made a tiny meteor streak
against the blackness of the foliage--where a firefly quested for its
mate, switching on its marvelous little searchlight. Beyond, on the
smooth, broad roadways, four-eyed chariots of power shot silently
through the avenues of trees--the autos, like living dragons, half
tamed to man's control.
It was all thrilling and exciting to Garrison, with the expectation of
meeting Dorothy now possessing all his nature. Then--a few great drops
of rain began to fall. The effect was almost instantaneous. A dozen
pairs of sweethearts, together with as many more unmated stragglers,
came scuttling forth from unseen places, making a lively run for the
nearest shelter.
Garrison could not retreat. He did not mind the rain, except in so far
as it might discourage Dorothy. But, thinking she might have gone
inside the park, he walked there briskly, looking for some solitary
figure that should by this time be in waiting. He seemed to be
entirely alone. He thought she had not come--and perhaps in the rain
she might not arrive at all.
Back towards the entrance he loitered. A lull in the traffic of the
street had made the place singularly still. He could hear the
raindrops beating on the leaves. Then they ceased as abruptly as they
had commenced.
He turned once more down the dimly lighted path. His heart gave a
quick, joyous leap. Near a bench was a figure--the figure of a woman
whose grace, he fancied, was familiar.
Her back was apparently turned as he drew near. He was about to
whistle, if only to warn her of his coming, when the shrubbery just
ahead and beside the path was abruptly parted and a man with a short,
wrapped club in his hand sprang forth and struck him viciously over the
head.
He was falling, dimly conscious of a horrible blur of lights in his
eyes, as helplessly as if he had been made of paper. A second blow,
before he crumpled on the pavement, blotted out the last remaining
vestige of emotion. He lay there in a limp, awkward heap.
The female figure had turned, and now came striding to the place with a
step too long for a woman. There was no word spoken. Together the two
lifted Garrison's unconscious form, carried it quickly to the
shrubbery, fumbled about it for a minute or two, struck a match that
was shielded from the view of any possible passer-by, and then, still
in silence, hastily quitted the park and vanished in one of the
glistening side streets, where the rain was reflecting the lamps.