I
All day long Archie Koerner and Curly Jackson had ridden in the empty
box-car. They had made themselves as comfortable as they could, and had
beguiled the time with talk and stories and cigarettes. Now and then
they had fallen asleep, but not for long, for their joints ached with
the jolting of the train, and, more than all else, there was a constant
concern in their minds that made them restless, furtive and uneasy. The
day was warm, and toward noon the sun beat down, hotter and hotter; the
car was stifling, its atmosphere charged with the reminiscent odors of
all the cargoes it had ever hauled. Long before daylight that morning
they had crawled into the car as it stood on a siding in a village a
hundred miles away. Just before dawn the train came, and they heard the
conductor and brakeman moving about outside; now and then they caught
the twinkle of their lanterns. Then the car was shunted and jolted back
and forth for half an hour; finally the train was made up, and pulled
out of the sleeping village they were so glad to get away from. With
the coming of the dawn, they peeped out to see the sun come up over the
fields. They watched the old miracle in silence until they saw a farmer
coming across the field with a team. The farmer stopped, watched the
train go by, then turned and began to plow corn.
"Pipe the Hoosier," Curly had said, the sight of a human being relieving
the silence imposed by nature in her loneliness. "We call 'em suckers.
He'll be plowing all day, but next winter he'll be sitting by a
fire--and we'll--we'll be macing old women for lumps at the back doors."
Archie was not much affected by Curly's sarcastic philosophy; he had not
yet attained to Curly's point of view.
Two days before, at evening, they had left the city and spent the first
half of the night on foot, trudging along a country road; then a
freight-train had taken them to a little town far to the south, where,
in the small hours of the morning, they had broken into a post-office,
blown open the safe with nitroglycerin, and taken out the stamps and
currency. Curly considered the venture successful, though marred by one
mishap: in the explosion the currency had been shattered and burned.
But he had carefully gathered up the remnants, wrapped them in a paper,
and stowed them away in his pocket with the stamps. The next day they
hid in a wood. Curly made a fire, cooked bacon, and brewed tea in a
tomato can, and these, with bread, had made a meal for them. Then he
had carefully sorted the stamps, and had hidden in the ground all the
five- and ten-cent stamps, preserving only those of the one- and
two-cent denominations. After that he had lain down on the grass and
slept.
While Curly slept, Archie sat and examined with an expert's loving
interest and the fascination of a boy a new revolver he had stolen from
a hardware store in the city three days before. Curly at first had
opposed the theft of the revolver, but had finally consented because he
recognized Archie's need; Archie had had no revolver since he was sent
to the workhouse. The one he had when he was arrested had been
confiscated--as it is called--by the police, and given by Bostwick to a
friend, a lawyer who had long wanted a revolver to shoot burglars in
case any should break into his home. Curly had consented to Archie's
stealing the revolver, but he had commanded him to take nothing else,
and had waited outside while Archie went into the hardware store.
Archie had chosen a fine one, a double-acting, self-cocking revolver of
thirty-eight caliber, like those carried by the police. He had been
childishly happy in the possession of this weapon; he had taken it out
and looked at it a hundred times, and had been tempted when they were
alone in the woods to take a few practice shots, but when Curly ordered
him not to think of such nonsense, he drew the cartridges, aimed at
trees, twigs, birds, and snapped the trigger. Every little while in the
box-car that day he had taken it out, looked at it, caressed it, turned
it over in his palm, delicately tested its weight, and called Curly to
admire it with him. He thought much more of the revolver than he did of
the stamps and blasted currency they had stolen, and Curly had spoken
sharply to him at last and said:
"If you don't put up that rod, I'll ditch it for you."
Archie obeyed Curly, but when he had restored the revolver to his
pocket, he continued to talk of it, and then of other weapons he had
owned, and he told Curly how he had won the sharp-shooter's medal in the
army.
But finally, in his weariness, Archie lost interest even in his new
revolver, and when Curly would not let him go to the door of the car and
look out, lest the trainmen should see them and force them into an
encounter, Archie had fallen asleep in a corner.
It was a relief to Curly when Archie went to sleep, for in addition to
his joy in his revolver, Archie had been excited over their adventure.
Curly was in many ways peculiar; he was inclined to be secretive; he
frequently worked alone, and his operations were as much a mystery to
his companions and to Gibbs as they were to the police. He had had his
eye on the little post-office at Trenton for months; it had called to
him, as it were, to come and rob it. It had advantages, the building
was old; an entrance could be effected easily. He had stationed Archie
outside to watch while he knocked off the peter, and Archie had
acquitted himself to Curly's satisfaction. The affair came off
smoothly. Though it was in the short summer night, no one had been
abroad; they got away without molestation. Now, as they drew near the
city, Curly felt easy.
Late in the afternoon Curly saw signs of the city's outposts--the
side-tracks were multiplying in long lines of freight-cars. Then Curly
wakened Archie, and when the train slowed up, they dropped from the car.
It was good to feel once more their feet on the ground, to walk and
stretch their tired, numb muscles, good to breathe the open air and,
more than all, good to see the city looming under its pall of smoke.
They joined the throngs of working-men; and they might have passed for
working-men themselves, for Curly wore overalls, as he always did on his
expeditions, and they were both so black from the smoke and cinders of
their journey, that one might easily have mistaken their grime for that
of honest toil.
They came to the river, pressed up the long approach to its noble
bridge, and submerged themselves in the stream of life that flowed
across it, the stream that was made up of all sorts of
people--working-men, clerks, artisans, shop-girls, children, men and
women, the old and the young, each individual with his burden or his
care or his secret guilt, his happiness, his hope, his comedy or his
tragedy, losing himself in the mass, merging his identity in the crowd,
doing his part to make the great epic of life that flowed across the
bridge as the great river flowed under it--the stream in which no one
could tell the good from the bad, or even wish thus to separate them, in
which no one could tell Archie or Curly from the teacher of a class in a
Sunday-school. Here on the bridge man's little distinctions were lost
and people were people merely, bound together by the common possession
of good and bad intentions, of good and bad deeds, of frailties, errors,
sorrows, sufferings and mistakes, of fears and doubts, of despairs, of
hopes and triumphs and heroisms and victories and boundless dreams.
Beside them rumbled a long procession of trucks and wagons and
carriages, street-cars moved in yellow procession, ringing their
cautionary gongs; the draw in the middle of the bridge vibrated under
the tread of all those marching feet; its three red lights were already
burning overhead. Far below, the river, growing dark, rolled out to the
lake; close to its edge on the farther shore could be descried, after
long searching of the eye, the puffs of white smoke from crawling
trains; vessels could be picked out, tugs and smaller craft, great
propellers that bore coal and ore and lumber up and down the lakes; here
and there a white passenger-steamer, but all diminutive in the long
perspective. Above them the freight-depots squatted; above these
elevators lifted themselves, and then, as if on top of them, the great
buildings of the city heaved themselves as by some titanic convulsive
effort in a lofty pile, surmounted by the high office buildings in the
center, with here and there towers and spires striking upward from the
jagged sky-line. All this pile was in a neutral shade of gray,--lines,
details, distinctions, all were lost; these huge monuments of man's
vanity, or greed, or ambition, these expressions of his notions of
utility or of beauty, were heaped against a smoky sky, from which the
light was beginning to fade. Somewhere, hidden far down in this mammoth
pile, among all the myriads of people that swarmed and lost themselves
below it, were Gusta and Dick Ward, old man Koerner and Marriott,
Modderwell and Danner, Bostwick and Parrish, and Danny Gibbs, and Mason,
and Eades, but they were lost in the mass of human beings--the preachers
and thieves, the doctors and judges, and aldermen, and merchants, and
working-men, and social leaders, and prostitutes--who went to make up
the swarm of people that crawled under and through this pile of iron and
stone, thinking somehow that the distinctions and the grades they had
fashioned in their little minds made them something more or something
less than what they really were.
II
And yet, after having crossed the bridge in the silence that was the
mysterious effect of the descent of evening over the city, after having
been gathered back again for a few moments into human relations with
their fellow mortals, Archie and Curly became thieves again. This
change in them occurred when they saw two policemen standing at the
corner of High Street, where the crowd from the bridge, having climbed
the slope of River Street, began to flow in diverging lines this way and
that. The change was the more marked in Archie, for at sight of the
policemen he stopped suddenly.
"Look!" he whispered.
"Come on!" commanded Curly, and Archie fell into step. "You never want
to halt that way; it don't make any difference with harness bulls, but
if a fly dick was around, it might put him hip."
It was a relief to Archie when at last they turned into Danny Gibbs's;
the strange shrinking sensation he had felt in the small of his back,
the impulse to turn around, the starting of his heart at each footfall
behind him, now disappeared. It was quiet at Gibbs's; the place was in
perfect order; in the window by the door, under the bill which pictured
two pugilists, the big cat he had seen now and then slinking about the
place was curled in sleep; and two little kittens were playing near her.
At one of the tables, his head bowed in his hands, was the wreck of a
man Archie had so often seen in that same attitude and in that same
place--the table indeed seemed to be used for no other purpose. Gibbs
himself was there, in shirt-sleeves, leaning over the evening paper he
had spread before him on his bar. He was freshly shaven, and was reading
his paper and smoking his cigar in the peace that had settled on his
establishment; his shirt was fresh and clean; the starch was scarcely
broken in its stiff sleeves, and Archie was fascinated by the tiny red
figures of horseshoes and stirrups and jockey caps that dotted it; he
had a desire to possess, some day, just such a shirt himself. At the
approaching step of the two men, Gibbs looked up suddenly, and the light
flashed blue from the diamond in the bosom of his shirt. Curly jerked
his head toward the back room. Gibbs looked at Curly an instant and
then at Archie, a question in his glance.
"Sure," said Curly; "he's in." Then Gibbs carefully and deliberately
folded his paper, stuck it in one of the brackets of his bar, and went
with the two men into the back room. There he stood beside the table,
his hands thrust into his pockets, his cigar rolling in the corner of
his mouth, his head tilted back a little. Archie was tingling with
interest and expectation.
"Well," said Gibbs, in an introductory way.
Curly was unbuttoning his waistcoat; in a moment he had drawn from its
inner pocket a package, unwrapped it, and disclosed the sheets of fresh
new stamps, red and green, and stiff with the shining mucilage. He
counted them over laboriously and separated them, making two piles, one
of the red two-cent stamps, another of the green one-cent stamps, while
Gibbs stood, squinting downward at the table. When Curly was done,
Gibbs counted the sheets of postage stamps himself.
"Just fifty of each, heh?" he asked when he had done.
"That's right," said Curly.
"That's right, is it?" Gibbs repeated; a shrewdness in his squint.
"Yes," Curly said.
"Sixty per cent.," said Gibbs.
"All right," said Curly.
"I can't give more for the stickers just now," Gibbs went on, as if the
men were entitled to some word of explanation; "business is damned bad,
and I'm not making much at that."
"That's all right," said Curly somewhat impatiently, as one who disliked
haggling.
"That goes with you, does it, Dutch?" Gibbs said to Archie.
"Sure," said Archie, glancing hastily at Curly, "whatever he says goes
with me all right." And then he smiled, his white teeth showing, his
face ruddier, his blue eyes sparkling with the excitement he
felt--smiled at this new name Gibbs had suddenly given him.
Curly had thrust his hand into another pocket meanwhile, and he drew out
another package, done up in a newspaper. He laid this on the table,
opened it slowly, and carefully turning back the folds of paper,
disclosed the bundle of charred bank-notes. Gibbs began shaking his
head dubiously as soon as he saw the contents.
"I can't do much with that," he said. "But you leave it and I'll see."
"Well, now, that's all right," said Curly, speaking in his high
argumentative tone; "I ain't wolfing. You can give us our bit later."
"All right," said Gibbs, and carefully doing up the parcels, he took
them and disappeared. In a few moments he came back, counted out the
money on the table--ninety dollars--and then went out with the air of a
man whose business is finished.
Curly divided the money, gave Archie his half, and they went out. The
bar-room was just as they had left it; the wreck of a man still bowed
his head on his forearms, the cat was still curled about her kittens.
Gibbs had taken down his paper, and resumed his reading.
"I'm going to get a bath and a shave," Curly said. He passed his hand
over his chin, rasping its palm on the stubble of his beard. Archie was
surprised and a little disappointed at the hint of dismissal he felt in
Curly's tone. He wished to continue the companionship, with its
excitement, its interest, its pleasure, above all that quality in it
which sustained him and kept up his spirits. He found himself just then
in a curious state of mind; the distinction he had felt but a few
moments before in the back room with Gibbs, the importance in the
success of the expedition, more than all, the feeling that he had been
admitted to relationships which so short a time before had been so
mysterious and inaccessible to him,--all this was leaving him, dying out
within, as the stimulus of spirits dies out in a man, and Archie's
Teutonic mind was facing the darkness of a fit of despondency; he felt
blue and unhappy; he longed to stay with Curly.
"Look at, Dutch," Curly was saying; "you've got a little of the cush
now--it ain't much, but it's something. You want to go and give some of
it to your mother; don't go and splash it up in beer."
It pleased Archie to have Curly call him Dutch. There was something
affectionate in it, as there is in most nicknames--something reassuring.
But the mention of his mother overcame this sense; it unmanned him, and
he looked away.
"And look at," Curly was going on, "you'll bit up on that burned darb;
you be around in a day or two."
Curly withdrew into himself in the curious, baffling way he had; the way
that made him mysterious and somewhat superior, and, at times, brought
on him the distrust of his companions, always morbidly suspicious at
their best. Archie disliked to step out of Gibbs's place into the
street; it seemed like an exposure. He glanced out. The summer
twilight had deepened into darkness. The street was deserted and bare,
though the cobblestones somehow exuded the heat and turmoil of the day
that had just passed from them. Archie thought for an instant of what
Curly had said about his mother; he could see her as she would be
sitting in the kitchen, with the lamp on the table; Gusta would be
bustling about getting the supper, the children moving after her,
clutching at her skirts, retarding her, getting in her way, seeming to
endanger their own lives by scalding and burning and falling and other
domestic accidents, which, though always impending, never befell. The
kitchen would be full of the pleasant odor of frying potatoes, and the
coffee, bubbling over now and then and sizzling on the hot stove--Archie
had a sense of all these things, and his heart yearned and softened.
And then suddenly he thought of his father, and he knew that the
conception of the home he had just had was the way it used to be before
his father lost his leg and all the ills following that accident had
come upon the family; the house was no longer cheerful; the smell of
boiling coffee was not in it as often as it used to be; his mother was
depressed and his father quarrelsome, even Gusta had changed; he would
be sure to encounter that lover of hers, that plumber whom he hated. He
squeezed the roll of bills in his pocket; suddenly, too, he remembered
his new revolver and pressed it against his thigh, and he had pleasure
in that. He went out into the street. After all, the darkness was
kind; there were glaring and flashing electric lights along the street,
of course; the cheap restaurant across the way was blazing, people were
drifting in and out, but they were not exactly the same kind of people
in appearance that had thronged the streets by day. There was a new
atmosphere--a more congenial atmosphere, for night had come, and had
brought a change and a new race of people to the earth--a race that
lived and worked by night, with whom Archie felt a kinship. He did not
hate them as he was unconsciously growing to hate the people of the
daylight. He saw a lame hot-tamale man in white, hobbling up the
street, painfully carrying his steaming can; he saw cabmen on their cabs
down toward Cherokee Street; he saw two girls, vague, indistinct,
suggestive, flitting hurriedly by in the shadows; the electric lights
were blazing with a hard fierce glare, but there were shadows, deep and
black and soft. He started toward Cherokee Street; he squeezed the
money in his pocket; he was somehow elated with the independence it gave
him. At the corner he paused again; he had no plan, he was drifting
along physically just as he was morally, following the line of least
resistance, which line, just then, was marked by the lights along Market
Place. He started across that way, when all at once a hand took him by
the lapel of his coat and Kouka's black visage was before him. Archie
looked at the detective, whose eyes were piercing him from beneath the
surly brows that met in thick, coarse, bristling hairs across the wide
bridge of his nose.
"Well," said Kouka, "so I've got you again!"
Archie's heart came to his throat. A great rage suddenly seized him, a
hatred of Kouka, and of his black eyes; he had a savage wish to grind
the heel of his boot heavily, viciously, remorselessly into that face,
right there where the eyebrows met across the nose--grinding his heel
deep, feeling the bones crunch beneath it. For some reason Kouka
suddenly released his hold.
"You'd better duck out o' here, young fellow," Kouka was saying. "You
hear?"
Archie heard, but it was a moment before he could fully realize that
Kouka knew nothing after all.
"You hear?" Kouka repeated, bringing his face close to Archie's.
"Yes, I hear," said Archie sullenly, as it seemed, but thankfully.
"Don't let me see you around any more, you--"
Archie, saved by some instinct, did not reply, and he did not wait for
Kouka's oath, but hurried away, and Kouka, as he could easily feel,
stood watching him. He went on half a block and paused in a shadow. He
saw Kouka still standing there, then presently saw him turn and go away.
Archie paused in the shadow; he thought of Kouka, remembering all the
detective had done to him; he remembered those forty days in the
workhouse; he thought of Bostwick, of the city attorney, of the whole
town that seemed to stand behind him; the bitterness of those days in
the workhouse came back, and the force of all the accumulated hatred and
vengeance that had been spent upon him was doubled and quadrupled in his
heart, and he stood there with black, mad, insane thoughts clouding his
reason. Then he gripped his roll of money, he pressed his new revolver,
and he felt a kind of wild, primitive, savage satisfaction,--the same
primitive satisfaction that Kouka, and Bostwick, the city attorney, the
whole police force, and the whole city had seemed to take in sending him
to the workhouse. And then he went on toward the tenderloin.
III
Gibbs, never sure that the police would keep their word with him, rose
earlier than usual the next morning, ate his breakfast, called a cab--he
had an eccentric fondness for riding about in hansom-cabs--and was
driven rapidly to the corner of High and Franklin Streets, the busiest,
most distracting corner in the city. There the enormous department store
of James E. Bills and Company occupied an entire building five stories
high. The store was already filled with shoppers, mostly women, who
crowded about the counters, on which all kinds of trinkets were huddled,
labeled with cards declaring that the price had just been reduced. The
girls behind the counters, all of whom were dressed in a certain
extravagant imitation of the women who came every day to look these
articles over, were already tired; their eyes lay in dark circles that
were the more pronounced because their cheeks were covered with powder,
and now and then they lifted their hands, their highly polished
finger-nails gleaming, to the enormous pompadours in which they had
arranged their hair. Many of the women in the store, clerks and
shoppers, wore peevish, discontented expressions, and spoke in high ugly
voices; the noise of their haggling filled the whole room and added to
the din made by the little metal money-boxes that whizzed by on overhead
wires, and increased the sense of confusion produced by the cheap and
useless things which, with their untruthful placards, were piled about
everywhere. The air in the store was foul and unwholesome; here and
there pale little girls who carried bundles in baskets ran about on
their little thin legs, piping out shrill numbers.
Gibbs was wearied the moment he entered, and irritably waved aside the
sleek, foppish floor-walker. The only person to whom he spoke as he
passed along was a private detective leaning against one of the
counters; Gibbs had already had dealings with him and had got back for
him articles that had been stolen by certain women thieves who were
adept in the art of shoplifting. Gibbs went straight back to the
elevator and was lifted out of all this din and confusion into the
comparative quiet of the second floor, where the offices of the
establishment occupied a cramped space behind thin wooden partitions.
Gibbs entered the offices and glanced about at the clerks, who worked in
silence; on each of them had been impressed a subdued, obedient
demeanor; they glanced at Gibbs surreptitiously. It was plain that all
spirit had been drilled out of them; they were afraid of something, and,
driven by their necessities, they toiled like machines. Gibbs felt a
contempt for them as great as the contempt he felt for the floor-walkers
below, a contempt almost as great as that he had for Bills himself. A
timid man of about forty-five, with a black beard sprouting out of the
pallor of his skin, came up, and lifted his brows with amazement when
Gibbs, ignoring him, made plainly for the door that was lettered: "Mr.
Bills."
"Mr. Bills is engaged just now," the man said in a hushed tone.
"Well, tell him Mr. Gibbs is here."
"But he's engaged just now, sir; he's dictating." The man leaned
forward and whispered the word "dictating" impressively.
But Gibbs kept on toward the door; then the man blocked his way.
"Tell him if you want to," said Gibbs, "if not, I will."
It seemed that Gibbs might walk directly through the man, who retreated
from him, and, having no other egress, went through Mr. Bills's door. A
moment more and he held it open for Gibbs.
Bills was sitting at an enormous desk which was set in perfect order; on
either side of him were baskets containing the letters he was
methodically answering. Bills's head showed over the top of the desk; it
was a round head covered with short black hair, smoothly combed and
shining. His black side-whiskers were likewise short and smooth. His
neck was bound by a white collar and a little pious, black cravat, and
he wore black clothes. His smoothly-shaven lips were pursed in a
self-satisfied way; he was brisk and unctuous, very clean and proper,
and looked as if he devoutly anointed himself with oil after his bath.
In a word, he bore himself as became a prominent business man, who,
besides his own large enterprise, managed a popular Sunday-school, and
gave Sunday afternoon "talks" on "Success," for the instruction of
certain young men of the city, too mild and acquiescent to succeed as
anything but conformers.
"Ah, Mr. Gibbs," he said. "You will excuse me a moment."
Bills turned and resumed the dictation of his stereotyped phrases of
business. He dictated several letters, then dismissed his stenographer
and, turning about, said with a smile:
"Now, Mr. Gibbs."
Gibbs drew his chair close to Bills's desk, and, taking a package from
his pocket, laid out the stamps.
"One hundred sheets of twos, fifty of ones," he said.
Bills had taken off his gold glasses and slowly lowered them to the end
of their fine gold chain; he rubbed the little red marks the glasses
left on the bridge of his nose, and in his manner there was an
uncertainty that seemed unexpected by Gibbs.
"I was about to suggest, Mr. Gibbs," said Bills, placing his fingers tip
to tip, "that you see our Mr. Wilson; he manages the mail-order
department, now."
"Not for mine," said Gibbs decisively. "I've always done business with
you. I don't know this fellow Wilson."
Bills, choosing to take it as a tribute, smiled and went on:
"I think we're fully stocked just now, but--how would a sixty per cent.
proposition strike you?"
"No," said Gibbs, as decisively as before.
"No?" repeated Bills.
"No," Gibbs went on, "seventy-five."
Bills thought a moment, absently lifting the rustling sheets.
"How many did you say there were?"
"They come to one-fifty," said Gibbs; "count 'em."
Bills did count them, and when he had done, he said:
"That would make it one-twelve-fifty?"
"That's it."
"Very well. Shall I pass the amount to your credit?"
"No; I'll take the cash."
"I thought perhaps Mrs. Gibbs would be wanting some things in the summer
line," said Bills.
Gibbs shook his head.
"We pay cash," said he.
Bills smiled, got up, walked briskly with a little spring to each step
and left the room. He returned presently, closed the door, sat down,
counted the bills out on the leaf of his desk, laid a silver half-dollar
on top and said:
"There you are."
Gibbs counted the money carefully, rolled it up deliberately and stuffed
it into his trousers pocket.
Gibbs had one more errand that morning, and he drove in his hansom-cab
to the private bank Amos Hunter conducted as a department of his trust
company. Gibbs deposited his money, and then went into Hunter's private
office. Hunter was an old man, thin and spare, with white hair, and a
gray face. He sat with his chair turned away from his desk, which he
seldom used except when it became necessary for him to sign his name,
and then he did this according to the direction of a clerk, who would
lay a paper before him, dip a pen in ink, hand it to Hunter, and point
to the space for the signature. Hunter was as economical of his energy
in signing his name as in everything else; he wrote it "A. Hunter." He
sat there every day without moving, as it seemed, apparently determined
to eke out his life to the utmost. His coachman drove him down town at
ten each morning, at four in the afternoon he came and drove him home
again. It was only through the windows of the carriage and through the
windows of his private office that Hunter looked out on a world with
which for forty years he had never come in personal contact. His inert
manner gave the impression of great age and senility; but the eyes under
the thick white brows were alert, keen, virile. He was referred to
generally as "old Amos."
Gibbs went in, a parcel in his hand.
"Just a little matter of some mutilated currency," he said.
Old Amos's thin lips seemed to smile.
"You may leave it and we'll be glad to forward it to Washington for you,
Mr. Gibbs," he said, without moving.
Gibbs laid the bundle on old Amos's desk, and, taking up a bit of paper,
wrote on it and handed it to Hunter.
"Have you a memorandum there?" asked Hunter. He glanced at the paper and
wrote on the slip:
"A. H."
Then he resumed the attitude that had scarcely been altered, laid his
white hands in his lap and sat there with his thin habitual smile.
Gibbs thanked him and went away. His morning's work among the business
men of the city was done.
IV
It promised to be a quiet evening at Danny Gibbs's. There had been a
vicious electrical storm that afternoon, but by seven o'clock the
lightning played prettily in the east, the thunder rolled away, the air
cooled, and the rain fell peacefully. The storm had been predicted to
Joe Mason in the rheumatism that had bitten his bones for two days, but
now the ache had ceased, and the relief was a delicious sensation he was
content simply to realize. He sat in the back room, smoking and
thinking, a letter in his hand. Gibbs's wife had gone to bed--she had
been drinking that day. Old Johnson, the sot who, by acting as porter,
paid Gibbs for his shelter and the whisky he drank--he ate very little,
going days at a time without food--had set the bar-room in order and
disappeared. Gibbs was somewhere about, but all was still, and Mason
liked it so. From time to time Mason glanced at the letter. The letter
was a fortnight old; it had been written from a workhouse in a distant
city by his old friend Dillon, known to the yeggs as Slim. Mason had
not seen Dillon for a year--not, in fact, since they had been released
from Dannemora. This was the letter:
OLD PAL--I thought I would fly you a kite, and take chances of its safe
arrival at your loft. I was lagged wrong, but I am covered and strong
and the bulls can't throw me. I am only here for a whop, and I'll hit
the road before the dog is up. I have filled out a country jug that can
be sprung all right. We can make a safe lamas. There is a John O'Brien
at 1:30 A. M., and a rattler at 3:50. The shack next door is a cold
slough, and the nearest kip to the joint is one look and a peep. There
is a speeder in the shanty, and we can get to the main stem and catch
the rattler and be in the main fort by daylight. The trick is easy
worth fifty centuries. Now let me know, and make your mark and time. I
am getting this out through a broad who will give it to our fall-back,
you know who.
Yours in durance vile,
SLIM.
Mason had not answered the letter, and only the day before Dillon had
appeared, bringing with him a youth called Squeak. And now this night,
as Mason sat there, he did not like to think of Dillon. Dillon had
traveled hundreds of miles by freight-trains to be with Mason, to give
him part in his enterprise; he had been to the little town and examined
the bank; he had even entered it by night alone. He had laid his plans,
and, like all his kind, could not conceive of their miscarrying. He had
estimated the amount they would procure; he considered five thousand
dollars a conservative estimate. It was the big touch, of which they
were always dreaming as a means of reformation. But Mason had refused.
Then Dillon asked Curly, and Curly refused. Mason gave Dillon no reason
for his refusal, but Curly contended that summer was not the time for
such a big job; the nights were short and people slept lightly, with
open windows, even if the old stool-pigeon was not up. Dillon had
taunted him and hinted contemptuously at a broad. They had almost come
to blows. Finally Dillon had left, taking with him Mandell and Squeak
and Archie--all eager to go.
Mason sat there and thought of Dillon and his companions. He could
imagine them on the John O'Brien, jolting on through the rain, maybe
dropping off when the train stopped, to hide under some water-tank, or
behind some freight-shed--he had done it all so many, many times
himself. Still he tried not to think of Dillon, for he could not do so
without a shade of self-reproach; it seemed like pigging to refuse
Dillon as he had; they had worked so long together. Dillon's long,
gaunt figure presented itself to his memory as crouching before some old
rope mold, a bit of candle in his left hand, getting ready to pour the
soup, and then memory would usually revert to that night when Dillon had
suddenly doused the candle--but not before Mason had caught the gleam in
his eyes and the setting of his jaw--and, pulling his rod, had barked
suddenly into the darkness. Then the flight outside, the rose-colored
flashes from their revolvers in the night, the race down the silent
street--white snow in the fields across the railroad tracks, and the
bitter cold in the woods.
He shook his head as if to fling the memories from him. But Dillon's
figure came back, now in the front rank of his company, marching across
the hideous prison yard, his long legs breaking at the middle as he
leaned back in the lock-step. Mason tried to escape these thoughts, but
they persisted. He got a newspaper, but understood little of what he
read, except one brief despatch, which told of a tramp found cut in two
beside the tracks, five hundred dollars sewed in his coat. The despatch
wondered how a hobo could have so much money, and this amused Mason; he
would tell Gibbs, and they would have a laugh--their old laugh at the
world above them. Then they themselves would wonder--wonder which one
of the boys it was; it might be weeks before the news would reach them
in an authoritative form. He enjoyed for a moment his laugh at the
stupid world, the world which could not understand them in the least,
the world which shuddered in its ignorance of them. Then he thought of
Dillon again. Dillon had never refused him; he had not refused him that
evening in northern Indiana, when the sheriff and the posse of farmers,
armed with pitchforks and shot-guns and old army muskets, had brought
them to bay in the wheat stubble; his ammunition had given out, but old
Dillon, with only three cartridges left, had stood cursing and covering
his retreat. Mason was beginning to feel small about it, and
yet--Dillon did not understand; when he came back he would explain it
all to him. This notion gave him some comfort, and he lighted his
cigar, turned to his newspaper again, and listened for the rain falling
outside. Suddenly there was a noise, and Mason started. Was that old
Dillon crouching there beside him, his face gleaming in the flicker of
the dripping candle? He put his hand to his head in a kind of daze.
"Je's!" he exclaimed. "I'm getting nutty."
He was troubled, for his head had now and then gone off that way in
prison--they called it stir simple. Mason sat down again, but no longer
tried to read. He heard the noise in the bar-room, the noise of high
excitement, and he wondered. His curiosity was great, but he had
learned to control his curiosity. He could hear talking, laughing,
cursing, the shuffle of feet, the clink of glasses--some sports out for
a time, no doubt. In a moment the door opened and Gibbs appeared.
"Where's Kate?" he demanded.
"She went to bed half an hour ago," said Mason. "Why--what's the
excitement?"
"Eddie Dean's here--come on out." Gibbs disappeared; the door closed.
Mason understood; no wonder the place thrilled with excitement. He had
heard of Eddie Dean. Down into his world had come stories of this man,
of his amazing skill and cleverness, of the enormous sums he made every
year--made and spent. Dean had the fascination for Mason that is born
of mystery; he had had Dean's methods and the methods of other big-mitt
men described to him; he had heard long discussions in sand-house
hang-outs and beside camp-fires in the woods, but the descriptions never
described; he could never grasp the details. He could understand the
common, ordinary thefts; he could see how a pickpocket by long practice
learned his art, but the kind of work that Dean did had something occult
in it. How a man could go out, wearing good clothes, and, without
soiling his fingers, merely by talking and playing cards, make such sums
of money--Mason simply could not realize it. Surely it was worth while
to have a look at him. He started out, then he remembered; he passed
his hand over the stubble of hair that had been growing after the
shaving at the workhouse, and he picked up his low-crowned,
narrow-brimmed felt hat--the kind worn by the brakemen he now and then
wished to be taken for--pulled it down to his eyebrows, and went out.
Eddie Dean, who stood at the bar in the blue clothes that perfectly
exemplified the fashion of that summer, was described in the police
identification records as a man somewhat above medium size, and now, at
forty, he was beginning to take on fat. His face was heavy, and despite
the fact that his nose was twisted slightly to one side, and his upper
lip depressed where it met his nose, the women whom Dean knew considered
him handsome. His face was smooth-shaven and blue, like an actor's,
from his heavy beard. His mouth was large, and his lips thin; he could
close them and look serious and profound; and when he smiled and
disclosed the gold fillings in his teeth, he seemed youthful and gay.
His face showed vanity, a love of pleasure, vulgarity, selfishness,
sensuality accentuated by dissipation, and the black eyes that were so
sharp and bright and penetrating were cruel. Mason, however, could not
analyze; he only knew that he did not like this fellow, and merely
grunted when Gibbs introduced him, and Dean patronizingly said, without
looking at him:
"Just in time, my good fellow."
Then he motioned imperiously to the bartender, who took down another
wine-glass, wiped it dexterously, and set it out with an elegant
flourish and filled it. Mason watched the golden bubbles spring from the
hollow stem to the seething surface. He did not care much for
champagne, but he lifted his glass and looked at Dean, who was saying:
"Here's to the suckers--may they never grow less."
The others in the party laughed. Besides Gibbs, who was standing
outside his own bar like a visitor, there were Nate Rosen, a gambler,
dressed more conspicuously than Dean; a small man in gray, with strange
pale eyes fastened always on Dean; and a third man in tweeds, larger
than either, with broad shoulders, heavy jaw and an habitual scowl.
Beyond him, apart, with the truckling leer of the parasite, stood a man
in seedy livery, evidently the driver of the carriage that was waiting
outside in the rain.
Dean's history was the monotonous one of most men of his kind. Having a
boy's natural dislike for school, he had run away from home and joined a
circus. At first he led the sick horses, then he was hired by one of
the candy butchers and finally allowed to peddle on the seats; there he
learned the art of short change, and when he had mastered this he sold
tickets from a little satchel outside the tents; by the time he was
twenty-five he knew most of the schemes by which the foolish, seeking to
get something for nothing, are despoiled of their money. He was an
adept at cards; he knew monte and he could work the shells; later he
traveled about, cheating men by all kinds of devices, aided by an
intuitive knowledge of human nature. He could go through a passenger
train from coach to coach and pick out his victims by their backs. As
he went through he would suddenly lose his balance, as if by the
lurching of the train, and steady himself by the arm of the seat in
which his intended victim sat. His confederate, following behind, would
note and remember. Later, he would return and invite him to make a
fourth hand at whist or pedro or some other game. Dean would do the
rest. He went to all large gatherings--political conventions,
especially national conventions, conclaves, celebrations, world's fairs,
the opening of any new strip of land in the West, the gold-fields of
Alaska, and so on. He had roamed all over the United States; he had
been to Europe, and Cuba, and Jamaica, and Old Mexico; he had visited
Hawaii; he boasted that he had traveled the whole world over--"from St.
Petersburg to Cape Breton" was the way he put it, and it impressed his
hearers all the more because most of them had none but the most confused
notion of where either place was. He boasted, too, that United States
senators, cabinet officers, congressmen, governors, financiers and other
prominent men had been among his victims, and many of these boasts were
justified--by the facts, at least.
The atmosphere of the bar-room had been changed by the arrival of Dean.
It lost its usual serenity and quivered with excitement. The deference
shown to Dean was marked in the attitude of the men in his suite; it was
marked, too, by the bartender's attitude, and even in that of Gibbs,
though Gibbs was more quiet and self-contained, bearing himself, indeed,
quite as Dean's equal. He did not look at Dean often, but stood at his
bar with his head lowered, gazing thoughtfully at the glass of mineral
water he was drinking, turning it round and round in his fingers, with a
faint smile on his lips. But no one could tell whether the amusement
came from his own thoughts or the little adventures Dean was relating.
"No, I'm going out in the morning," Dean was saying, the diamond on his
white, delicate hand flashing as he lifted his glass.
"Which way?" asked Gibbs.
"I'm working eastward," said Dean. "Here!" he turned to the bartender,
"let's have another--and get another barrel of water for Dan."
He smiled with what tolerance he could find for a man who did not drink.
"How much of that stuff do you lap up in a week, Dan?"
"Oh, I don't know," Gibbs said. He was not quick at repartee.
"Well, slush up, but don't make yourself sick," Dean went on.
The bartender, moving briskly about, pressed the cork from a bottle,
poured a few drops into Dean's glass, and then proceeded to fill the
other glasses.
"Well, how's the graft?" Gibbs asked presently.
"Oh, fairly good," said Dean. "A couple of bucks yesterday." He
switched his leg with the slender stick he carried.
Gibbs's eyes lighted with humorous interest and pleasure.
"They were coming out of St. Louis," Dean went on, and then, as if he
had perhaps given an exaggerated impression of the transaction, he went
on in a quick, explicatory way: "Oh, it didn't amount to much--just for
the fun of the thing, you know. But say, who do you think I saw in St.
Louis?"
"Don't know," said Gibbs, shaking his head.
"Why, old Tom Young."
"No!" exclaimed Gibbs, looking up in genuine interest and surprise.
"Sure," said Dean.
"What's he doing?"
"He made the big touch, quit the business, got a farm in Illinois, and
settled down with Lou. The girl's grown up, just out of a seminary, and
the boy's in college. He said he'd like me to see the place, but he
wouldn't take me out 'cause the girl was home then. Remember the old
joint in the alley?"
Gibbs's eyes kindled with lively memories.
"Remember that afternoon Bob's man came down for the brace-box? I can
see Tom now--he gets the box and says, 'Tell Bob not to frisk him.'
God! They sent that mark through the alley that afternoon to a
fare-you-well. And they had hell's own time keepin' the box in advance
of 'em--it was the only one in the alley. Remember?"
Gibbs remembered, but that did not keep Dean from relating the whole
story.
"What became of Steve Harris?" Dean asked.
"He's out with the rag, I guess," Gibbs replied.
"I heard Winnie sold her place."
"Oh, yes," said Gibbs; "bought a little home in the swell part--quiet
street and all that--and they're living there happy as you please."
"Well, that's good," said Dean. "Steve and me was with the John
Robinson show in the old days. He was holdin' a board for the monte
tickets, and old Pappy King was cappin' for the game. I remember one
night in Danville, Kentucky"--and Dean told another story. The stories
were all alike, having for their theme the despoilment of some simpleton
who had tried to beat Dean or his confederates at one of their own
numerous games.
"I was holding the shingle for Jim Steele when he was playing the
broads, you understand. He was the greatest spieler ever. I can see
him now, taking up the tickets, looking around and saying: 'Is there a
speculator in the party?'"
Dean's face was alight with the excitement of dramatizing the long-past
scene. He laid his stick on the bar and bent over, with his white
fingers held as if they poised cards. He was a good mimic. One could
easily imagine the scene on the trampled grass, with the white canvas
tents of the circus for a background.
"Dick Nolan and Joe Hipp were capping, and Dick would come up--he had
the best gilly make-up in the world, you understand, a paper collar, a
long linen duster and big green mush--he'd look over the
cards--see?"--Dean leaned over awkwardly like a country-man, pointing
with a crooked forefinger--"and then he'd say, 'I think it's that one.'"
His voice had changed; he spoke in the cracked tone of the farmer, and
his little audience laughed.
"Well, the guy hollers, you understand, but at the come-back they're all
swipes--working in the horse tents; you'd never know 'em. And then,"
Dean went on, with the exquisite pleasure of remembering, "old Ben
Mellott was there working the send--you remember Ben, Dan?"
Gibbs nodded.
"Jake Rend was running the side-show, and old Jew Cohen had a dollar
store--a drop-case, you know."
Gibbs nodded again. Dean grew meditative, and a silence fell on the
group.
"We had a great crowd of knucks, too; the guns to-day are nothing to
them. Those were the days, Dan. Course, there wasn't much in it at
that."
Dean meditated over the lost days a moment, and then he grew cheerful
again.
"I met Luke Evans last fall, Dan," he began again. "In England. The
major and I were running between London and Liverpool, working the
steamer trains, and him and me--"
And he was off into another story. Having taken up his English
experience, Dean now told a number of vulgar stories, using the English
accent, which he could imitate perfectly. While in the midst of one of
them, he suddenly started at a footfall, and looked hastily over his
shoulder. A man came in, glanced about, and came confidently forward.
"Good morning, Danny," he said, in a tone of the greatest familiarity.
Gibbs answered the greeting soberly, and then, at a sign from the man,
stepped aside rather reluctantly and whispered with him. Dean eyed them
narrowly, took in the fellow's attire from his straw hat to his damp
shoes, and, when he could catch Gibbs's eye, he crooked his left arm,
touched it significantly, and lifted his eyebrows in sign of question.
Gibbs shook his head in a negative that had a touch of contempt for the
implication, and then drew the man toward the bar. Without the man's
seeing him or hearing him, Dean touched his arm again and said to Gibbs
softly:
"Elbow?"
"No," said Gibbs, "reporter."
Then he turned and, speaking to the new-comer, he presented him to Dean,
saying:
"Mr. Jordon, make you acquainted with Mr. Wales, of the _Courier_."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Jordon," said the newspaper man.
"Ah, chawmed, I'm suah," said Dean, keeping to the English accent he had
just been using. "I say, won't you join us?"
The bartender, at a glance from Dean, produced another bottle of
champagne; the newspaper man's eyes glistened with pleasure, Dean was
taking out his cigarette case. Wales glanced at the cigarettes, and
Dean hastened to proffer them. In conversation with the reporter Dean
impersonated an English follower of the turf who had brought some horses
to America. As he did this, actor that he was, he became more and more
interested in his impromptu monologue, assumed the character perfectly
and lived into it, and the others there who knew of the deceit he was
practising on the reporter--he was nearly always practising some sort of
deceit, but seldom so innocently as now--were utterly delighted; they
listened to his guying until nearly midnight, when Dean, having
sustained the character of the Englishman for more than two hours, grew
weary and said he must go. As he was leaving he said to the reporter:
"You've been across, of course? No? Well, really now, that's quite too
bad, don't you know! But I say, whenever you come, you must look me up,
if you don't mind, at Tarlingham Towers. I've a bit of a place down in
the Surrey country; I've a beast there that's just about up to your
weight. Have you ever ridden to the hounds?"
The reporter was delighted; he felt that a distinction had been
conferred upon him. Wishing to show his appreciation, he asked Dean, or
Jordan, as he was to him, if he might print an interview. Dean
graciously consented, and the reporter left for his office, glad of a
story with which to justify to his city editor, at least partly, his
wasted evening.
When Dean had gone, taking his three companions with him, Gibbs and
Mason sat for a long while in the back room.
"So that's Eddie Dean!" said Mason.
"Yes," said Gibbs, "that's him."
"And what's his graft?"
"Oh," said Gibbs, "the send, the bull con, the big mitt, the cross
lift--anything in that line."
"And those two other guys with him?" asked Mason.
"That little one is Willie the Rat, the other is Gaffney."
"Sure-thing men, too?"
"Yes, they're in Ed's mob."
Mason was still for a while, then he observed:
"Je's! He did make a monkey of that cove!"
Gibbs laughed. "Oh, he's a great cod! Why, do you know what he did
once? Well, he went to Lord Paisley's ball in Quebec, impersonating Sir
Charles Jordon--that's why I introduced him as Mr. Jordon to-night."
Gibbs's eyes twinkled. "He went in to look for a rummy, but the
flatties got on and tipped him off."
"He's smart."
"Yes, the smartest in the business. He's made several ten-century
touches."
Gibbs thought seriously a moment and then said:
"No, he isn't smart; he's a damn fool, like all of them."
"Fall?"
"Yes, settled twice; done a two-spot at Joliet and a finiff at Ionia."
Mason knit his brows and thought a long time, while Gibbs smoked.
Finally Mason shook his head.
"No," he said, "no, Dan, I don't get it. I can understand knocking off
a peter--the stuff's right there. All you do is to go take it. I can
understand a hold-up, or a heel, or a prowl; I can see how a gun reefs a
britch kick and gets a poke--though I couldn't put my hand in a barrel
myself and get it out again--without breaking the barrel. I haven't any
use for that kind, which you know--but these sure-thing games, the big
mitt and the bull con--no, Dan, I can't get hip."
Gibbs laughed.
"Well, I can't explain it, Joe. You heard him string that chump
to-night."
Mason dropped that phase of the question and promptly said:
"Dan, I suppose there's games higher up, ain't they?"
Gibbs laughed a superior laugh.
"Higher up? Joe, there's games that beat his just as much as his beats
yours. I could name you men--" Then he paused.
Mason had grown very solemn. He was not listening at all to Gibbs, and,
after a moment or two, he looked up and said earnestly:
"Dan, what you said a while back is dead right. I'm a damn fool. Look
at me now--I've done twenty years, and in all my time I've had less than
two thousand bucks."
Gibbs was about to speak, but Mason was too serious to let himself be
interrupted.
"I was thinking it all over to-night, and I decided--know what I
decided?"
Gibbs shook his head.
"I decided," Mason went on, "to square it without waiting for the big
touch." Gibbs was not impressed; the good thieves were always
considering reformation. "I know I can't get anything to do--I'm too
old, and besides--well, you know." Mason let the situation speak for
itself. "I'm about all in, but I was thinking, Dan, this here place
you've got in the country, can't you--" Mason hesitated a
little--"can't you let me work around there? Just my board and a few
clothes?" Mason leaned forward eagerly.
"You know, Joe," said Gibbs, seeing that Mason was serious, "that as
long as I've got a place you can have a home with me. I'm going to take
Kate out there and live. I've got the place almost paid for."
Mason leaned back, tried to speak, paused, swallowed, and moistened his
lips.
"I worried about Slim to-night," he managed to say presently. It was
hard for him to give utterance to thoughts that he considered
sentimental. "My treating him so, you see--that I decided; I want to
try it. That's why I wouldn't go with him; he didn't understand, but
maybe I can explain. As I was thinking to-night, my head went off
again--that stir simple, you know."
He raised his hand to his head and Gibbs was concerned.
"You'd better take a little drink, Joe," he said.
After Gibbs had brought the whisky, they sat there and discussed the
future until the early summer dawn was red.
V
Dillon, Archie, Mandell and Squeak had left the city that morning.
Dillon was gloomy and morose because Mason had refused to join him. He
had been disappointed, too, in Curly, but not so much surprised, for
Curly was so strange and mysterious that nothing he might do could
surprise his friends. Cedarville was far away, in Illinois, and long
before daylight the four men had started on their journey in a
freight-train. Dillon's plan was to rob the bank that night. He had
chosen Saturday night because a Sunday would probably intervene before
discovery, and thus give them time to escape. But the journey was beset
by difficulties; the train spent long hours in switching, in cutting out
and putting in cars, and at such times the four men had been compelled
to get off and hide, lest the trainmen detect them. Besides, the train
made long inexplicable stops, standing on a siding, with nothing to mar
the stillness but the tired exhaust of the engine and the drone of the
wide country-side. At noon the empty box-car in which the men had been
riding was cut out and left stranded at a village; after that, unable to
find another empty car, they rode on a car that was laden with lumber,
but this, too, was cut out and left behind. Then they rode in most
uncomfortable and dangerous positions on the timber-heads over the
couplings. Half-way to Cedarville they met the storm. It had been
gathering all the morning, and now it broke suddenly; the rain came down
in torrents, and they were drenched to the skin. Mandell, who was
intensely afraid of lightning, suffered agonies, and threatened to
abandon the mob at the first opportunity. Late in the afternoon, just
as the train was pulling into the village of Romeo, the rear brakeman
discovered them, called the conductor and the front brakeman, and
ordered the men to leave the train.
"Stick and slug!" cried Mandell, made irritable by the storm. But
Dillon repressed him.
"Unload!" he commanded. "Don't goat 'em."
Archie, on the other side of the car, had not been seen clearly by the
trainmen, but the others had, and though Dillon made them all get off,
he could not keep Squeak from stopping long enough to curse the
train-men with horrible oaths. Then the train went on and left them.
At evening they went into the woods and built a fire. There were
discouragements as to the fire; the wood was wet, but finally they
achieved a blaze, and Dillon went into the village after food. When he
returned the fire was going well, the men had dried their clothes, and
their habitual spirits had returned. In the water of a creek Dillon
washed the can he had found, and made tea; they cooked bacon on pointed
sticks, broke the bread and cheese, and ate their supper. Then, in the
comfort that came of dry clothes and warmth and the first meal they had
eaten that day, they sat about, rolled cigarettes, and waited for the
night. Then darkness fell, Dillon made them put out the fire, and they
tramped across the fields to the railroad.
"We'll wait here for the John O'Brien," said Dillon, when they came to
the water-tank. "We must get the jug to-night--that'll give us all day
to-morrow for the get-away."
They waited then, and waited, while the summer night deepened to
silence; once, the headlight of an engine sent its long light streaming
down the track; they made ready; the train came swaying toward them.
"Hell!" exclaimed Mandell, in the disappointment that was common to all
of them. "It's a rattler!" And the lighted windows of a
passenger-train swept by.
They waited and waited, and no freight-train came. At midnight, when
they were all stiff and cold, Dillon ordered them into the village.
They were glad enough to go. In the one business street of the town
they found a building in which a light gleamed. They glanced through a
window; it was the post-office. Then Dillon changed his plan in that
ease with which he could change any plan, and forgot the little bank at
Cedarville. He placed Squeak at the rear of the building, Mandell in
the front.
"Come on, Dutch," he said.
He took Archie with him because he was not so sure of him as he was of
the two other men, though Archie felt that he had been honored above
them. He followed Dillon into the deep shadows that lay between the
post-office and the building next door. He kept close behind Dillon,
and watched with excitement while Dillon's tall form bent before one of
the windows. Dillon was groping; presently he stood upright, his back
bowed, he strained and grunted and swore, then the screws gave, and
Dillon wrenched the little iron bars from the windows.
"Come on," he said.
He was crawling through the window; Archie followed.
Inside, Dillon stood upright, holding Archie behind him, and peered
about in the dim light from the oil lamp that burned before a tin
reflector on the wall. The safe was in the light. Dillon looked back,
made a mental note of the window's location, and put out the lamp. Then
he lighted a candle and knelt before the safe.
Archie stood with his revolver in his hand; Dillon laid his on the floor
beside him. Then from the pocket of his coat he drew out some soap; a
moment more and Archie could see him plastering up the crevices about
the door of the safe, leaving but one opening, in the middle of the top
of the door. Then out of the soap he fashioned about this opening a
crude little cup. Archie watched intently. Dillon worked rapidly,
expertly, and yet, as Archie noted, not so rapidly nor so expertly as
Curly had worked. Curly was considered one of the most skilful men in
the business, but Dillon was older and could tell famous tales of the
old days when they had blown gophers--the days when they used to drill
the safes and pour in powder. Dillon's age was telling; his fingers
were clumsy and knotted with rheumatism, and now and then they trembled.
[Illustration: Archie could see him plastering up the crevices]
"Now the soup," Dillon was saying, quite to himself, and he poured the
nitroglycerin from a bottle into the little cup he had made of soap.
"And the string," said Archie, anxious to display his knowledge.
"Cheese it!" Dillon commanded.
He was fixing a fulminating cap to the end of a fuse, and he inserted
this into the cup. Then he plastered it all over with soap, picked up
his revolver, lighted the slow fuse from the candle, and, rising
quickly, he stepped back, drawing Archie with him. They stood in a
corner of the room watching the creeping spark; a moment more and there
was the thud of an explosion, and Dillon was springing toward the safe;
he seized the handle, opened the heavy door, and was down with his
candle peering into its dark interior. He went through it rapidly, drew
out the stamps and the currency and the coin. Another moment and they
were outside. Mandell and Squeak were where Dillon had left them.
"All right," Dillon said. "Lam!"
VI
A week later, returning by a roundabout way, Dillon and his companions
came back to town. That night Dillon, Archie, Squeak, Mandell and Mason
were arrested. When Archie was taken up to the detectives' office and
found himself facing Kouka, his heart sank.
"Couldn't take a little friendly advice, could you?" said Kouka,
thrusting forward his black face.
Archie was dumb.
"Where'd you get that gat?" Kouka demanded.
Still Archie was dumb.
"You might as well tell," Kouka said. "Your pals have split on you."
Archie had heard of that ruse; he did not think any of them would
confess, and he was certain they had not done so when Kouka referred to
his revolver, for no one but Jackson knew where he had got the weapon.
After an hour Kouka gave it up, temporarily at least, and sent Archie
back to the prison.
The next morning all five men were taken to the office of the
detectives. Besides Kouka, Quinn and Inspector McFee, there were two
others, one of whom the prisoners instantly recognized as Detective
Carney. Dillon and Mason had long known Carney, and respected him; he
was the only detective in the city whom they did respect, for this
silent, undemonstrative man, with the weather-beaten face, white hair
and shrewd blue eyes, had a profound knowledge of all classes of thieves
and their ways. Indeed, this knowledge, which made Carney the most
efficient detective in the city, militated against him with his
superiors; he knew too much for their comfort. As for Kouka and the
other detectives, they were jealous of him, though he never interfered
in their work nor offered suggestion or criticism; but they all felt
instinctively that he contemned them. When Dillon saw Carney his heart
sank; Mason's, on the contrary, rose. Carney gave no sign of
recognition; it was plain that he was a mere spectator. But when Dillon
saw the other man he whispered to Mason out of the corner of his mouth:
"It's all off."
This man was a tall, well-built fellow, with iron-gray hair, a ruddy
face and a small black mustache above full red lips; he was dressed in
gray, and he bore himself as something above the other officers present
because he was an United States inspector. His name was Fallen. He
glanced at the five men, and smiled and nodded complacently.
"I thought it looked like one of your jobs," he said, addressing Dillon
and Mason jointly. Dillon could not refrain from nudging Mason, and in
the same instant he caught Carney's eye. Carney winked quietly, and
Dillon smiled, and to hide the smile, self-consciously ducked his head
and spat out his tobacco.
"Well," said Fallen, "I'm much obliged to you men." He included McFee
officially, and Kouka and Quinn personally in this acknowledgment.
"I'll have the marshal come for them after dinner. I want Mason there
and Dillon"--he pointed fiercely and menacingly--"and Mandell and that
kid." He was indicating Squeak. "What's your name?" he demanded.
Squeak hesitated, then said: "Davis."
Fallen laughed in his superior, federal way, and said:
"That'll do as well as any."
Then he looked at Archie.
"I don't want him," he said. "He doesn't belong to this gang; he wasn't
there. There were only four of them. You can cut him out."
Kouka and Quinn looked at each other in surprise; they were about to
protest. In Archie's heart, as he watched this little drama, a wild
hope flamed. Carney, too, looked up, showing the first interest he had
evinced. Something in his look deterred Fallen, held his eye. He knew
Carney and his reputation; his glance plainly implied a question.
"You're wrong on that fellow Mason," said Carney.
Fallen looked at him, then at Mason; then he smiled his superior smile.
"Oh, I guess not," he said lightly. He turned away with his complacent,
insulting smile.
"All right," said Carney. "You've got him wrong, that's all. He's been
here in town for three weeks. Of course, it's nothing to me--'tain't my
business." He plunged his hands in his trousers pockets and walked over
to the window.
The men in the chained line shuffled uneasily.
"Do I get out now?" Archie asked.
Kouka laughed.
"Yes--when I'm through with you."
That afternoon Dillon, Mason, Mandell and Squeak were taken to the
county jail on warrants charging them with the robbery of the
post-office at Romeo.
Gibbs appeared at the jail early that evening, his blue eyes filled with
a distress that made them almost as innocent as they must have been when
he was a little child.
"I just heard of the pinch," he said apologetically.
"Didn't they send you word last night?" asked Dillon.
Gibbs shook his head impatiently, as if it were useless to waste time in
discussing such improbabilities.
"Never mind," he said. "I'll send a mouthpiece."
"Yes, do, Dan," said Mason. "We want a hearing."
"Well, now, leave all that to me, Joe," said Gibbs. "I'll send you some
tobacco and have John fetch in some chuck."
Gibbs attended to their little wants, but he had difficulty as to the
lawyer. He had, from time to time, employed various lawyers in the
city, being guided in his selections, not by the reputed abilities of
the lawyers, but by his notions of their pull with the authorities.
Formerly he had employed Frisby on the recommendation of Cleary, the
chief of police, with whom Frisby divided such fees, but Frisby's
charges were extortionate, and lately, Gibbs understood, his influence
was waning. In thinking over the other lawyers, he recalled Shelley
Thomas, but Thomas, he found, was on a drunk. At last he decided on
Marriott.
"There's nothing to it," he said to Marriott, "especially so far as
Mason's concerned; he's a friend of mine. He's in wrong, but these
United States inspectors will job him if they get a chance."
Marriott wished that Gibbs had retained some other lawyer. The plight
of the men seemed desperate enough. He thought them guilty, and,
besides, he wished to go away on his vacation. But his interest
deepened; he found that he was dealing with a greater power than he
encountered in the ordinary state case; the power, indeed, of the United
States. The officials in the government building were unobliging;
Fallen was positively insulting; from none of them could he receive any
satisfaction. The hearing was not set, and then one evening Fallen
mysteriously disappeared. Marriott was enraged, Gibbs was desperate, and
Marriott found himself sharing Gibbs's concern.
Dillon and Mandell and Squeak spoke only of proving an alibi; they said
that Gibbs would arrange this for them. This disheartened Marriott,
confirmed his belief in their guilt, and he shrank from placing on the
stand the witnesses Gibbs would supply. And then, one afternoon at the
jail, a strange experience befell him. Mason was looking at him, his
face pressed against the bars; he fixed his eyes on him, and, speaking
slowly, with his peculiar habit of moistening his lips and swallowing
between his words, he said:
"You think I'm guilty of this, Mr. Marriott."
Marriott tried to smile, and tried to protest, but his looks must have
belied him.
"I know you do," Mason went on, "but I'm not, Mr. Marriott. I've done
time--lots of it, but they've got me wrong now. These inspectors will
lie, of course, but I can prove an alibi. What night was the job done?"
"The twelfth," said Marriott.
"That was Saturday, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, that night I was in Gibbs's. There was a mob of sure-thing men
in there that night--Ed Dean and the Rat and some others--Gibbs will
tell you. I can't subpoena them--they couldn't help; nobody would
believe them, and they dassen't show, anyway."
"Are they--" Marriott felt a delicacy in saying the word.
"Thieves?" said Mason. "Yes--you see how it is."
"Of course," said Marriott.
"But," Mason went on, "there was a fellow in there--I don't know his
name--a reporter; he put a piece in his paper the next day about Dean.
Dean was kidding him--Gibbs can tell you. I wish you'd see him--he'll
remember me, and he can fix the time by that piece he wrote."
Mason paused.
"I've done nearly twenty years, Mr. Marriott," he said presently. "That
was all right; they done that on the square; this is the first time they
ever had me in wrong. Dillon was with me every time--we worked
together--that'll go against me. And them inspectors don't care--they'd
just as soon job a fellow as not. All I ask now is a fair show. But
those United States courts are a fierce game to put a man up against."
While Mason was talking a great wave of sympathy swept over Marriott; a
conviction came to him that Mason was telling the truth.
"But," he said as the thought came to him, "can't Dillon and the others
help you?"
"Well," Mason hesitated. "They've got themselves to look after. I'd
rather fall myself than to throw them down. You see Gibbs about that
reporter."
Marriott was convinced that Mason was not deceiving him; he felt a
reproach at his own original lack of faith in the man. As he waited for
the turnkey to unlock the door and let him out, a sickness came over
him. The jail was new; there were many boasts about its modern
construction, its sanitary conditions, and all that, but when he went
out, he was glad of the cool air of the evening--it was wholly different
from the atmosphere inside, however scientifically pure that may have
been. He stopped a moment and looked back at the jail. It lifted its
stone walls high above him; it was all clean, orderly, and
architecturally not bad to look on. The handsome residence of the
sheriff was brilliantly lighted; there were lace curtains at the
windows, and within, doubtless, all the comforts, and yet--the building
depressed Marriott. It struck him, though he could not then tell why,
as a hideous anachronism. He thought of the men mewed within its stone
walls; he could see Dillon's long eager face, ugly with its stubble of
beard; he could see the reproach in Mason's eyes; he could see the
shadowy forms of the other prisoners, walking rapidly up and down the
corridors in their cramped exercises--how many were guilty? how many
innocent? He could not tell; none could tell; they perhaps could not
tell themselves. A great pity for them all filled his breast; he longed
to set them all free. He wished this burden were lifted from him; he
wished Gibbs had never come to him; he wished he could forget Mason--but
he could not, and a great determination seized him to liberate this man,
to prevent this great injustice which was gathering ominously in the
world, drawing within its coils not only Mason, but all those who, like
Fallen and the other officials, were concerned in the business, even
though they remained free in the outer world. And Marriott had one more
thought: if he could not prevent the injustice, would it taint him, too,
as it must taint all who came in contact with it? He shuddered with a
vague, superstitious fear.
Marriott found Wales, who recalled the evening at Gibbs's, consulted the
files of his newspaper, made sure of the date, and then went with
Marriott to the jail and looked through the bars into Mason's expectant
eyes. He prolonged his inspection, plainly for the effect. Presently
he said:
"Yes, he was there."
"You'll swear to it?" asked Marriott.
"Sure," said Wales, "with pleasure."
There was relief in Mason's eyes and in his manner, as there was relief
in Marriott's mind.
"That makes it all right, Joe," he said, and Mason smiled gratefully.
Marriott left the jail happy. His faith was restored. The universe
resumed its order and its reason. After all, he said to himself,
justice will triumph. He felt now that he could await the preliminary
hearing with calmness. Wales's identification of Mason made it certain
that he could establish an alibi for him; he must depend on Gibbs for
the others, but somehow he did not care so much for them; they had not
appealed to him as Mason had, whether because of his conviction that
they were guilty or not, he could not say. The hearing was set for
Thursday at two o'clock, but Marriott looked forward to it with the
assurance that as to Mason, at least, there was no doubt of the outcome.
VII
Although Fallen had told the police they could set Archie free, the
police did not set him free.
"It's that fellow Kouka," Archie explained to Marriott. "He's got it in
for me; he wants to see me get the gaff."
That afternoon Archie was legally charged with being a "suspicious
person." The penalty for being thus suspected by the police was a fine
of fifty dollars and imprisonment in the workhouse for sixty days.
Marriott was angry; the business was growing complicated. He began to
fear that he would never get away on his vacation; he was filled with
hatred for Fallen, for Kouka, because just now they personified a system
against which he felt himself powerless; finally, he was angry with
Archie, with Dillon, even with Mason, for their stupidity in getting
into such desperate scrapes.
"They're fools--that's what they are," he said to himself; "they're
crazy men." But at this thought he softened. When he recalled Mason in
his cell at the jail, and Archie in the old prison at the Central
Station, his anger gave way to pity. He resolved to give up his
vacation, if necessary, and fight for their release. He determined to
demand a jury to try Archie on this charge of suspicion; he knew how
Bostwick and all the attaches of the police court disliked to have a
jury demanded, because it made them trouble. As he walked up the street
he began to arrange the speech he would make in Archie's defense;
presently, he noticed that persons turned and looked at him; he knew he
had been talking to himself, and he felt silly; these people would think
him crazy. This dampened his ardor, crushed his imagination and ruined
his speech. He began to think of Mason again; he would have to let
Archie's case go until after Mason had had a hearing; he must do one
thing at a time.
Archie had been able to endure the confinement as long as Mason and
Dillon and Mandell and Squeak were there; the five men had formed a
class by themselves; they had a certain superiority in the eyes of the
other prisoners, who were confined for drunkenness, for disturbance, for
fighting, for petty thefts and other insignificant offenses. But when
his companions were taken away, when his own hope of liberty failed, he
grew morose. The city prison was an incredibly filthy place. The walls
dripped always with dampness. High up, a single gas-jet burned
economically in its mantle, giving the place the only light it ever
knew. A bench ran along the wall below it, and on this bench the
prisoners sat all day and talked, or stretched themselves and slept; now
and then, for exercise, they tried chinning themselves from the little
iron gallery that ran around the cells of the upper tier. Twice a day
they were fed on bologna and coffee and bread. At night they were
locked in cells, the lights were put out, and the place became a hideous
bedlam. Men snored from gross dissipations, vermin crawled, rats raced
about, and the drunken men, whose bodies from time to time were thrown
into the place, went mad with terror when they awoke from their stupors,
and cursed and blasphemed. The crawling vermin and the scuttling rats,
the noises that suggested monsters, made their delirium real. The
atmosphere of the prison was foul, compounded of the fumes of alcohol
exhaled by all those gaping mouths, of the feculence of all those filthy
bodies, of the foul odors of the slop-pails, of the germs of all the
diseases that had been brought to the place in forty years. Archie
could not sleep; no one could sleep except those who were overcome by
liquor, and they had awful nightmares.
His few moments of relief came when the turnkey, a man who had been
embruted by long years of locking other men in the prison, opened the
door, called him with a curse and turned him over to Kouka. Then the
respite ended. He was subjected to new terrors, to fresh horrors,
surpassing those physical terrors of the night by infinity. For Kouka
and Quinn took him into a little room off the detectives' office, closed
and locked the door, and then for two hours questioned him about the
robbery of the post-office at Romeo, about countless other robberies in
the city and out of it; they accused him of a hundred crimes, pressed
him to tell where he had stolen the revolver. They bent their wills
against his, they shook their fingers under his nose, their fists in his
face; they told him they knew where he had got the revolver; they told
him that his companions had confessed. He was borne down and beaten; he
felt himself grow weak and faint; at times a nausea overcame him--he was
wringing with perspiration.
The first day of this ordeal he sat in utter silence, sustained by
dogged Teutonic stubbornness. That afternoon they renewed the torture;
still he did not reply.
The morning of the second day, though weakened in body and mind, he
still maintained his stubbornness; that afternoon they had brought McFee
with a fresh will to bear on him. By evening he told them he had stolen
the revolver in Chicago. He did this in the hope of peace. It did gain
him a respite, but not for long. The next morning they told him he had
lied and he admitted it; then he gave them a dozen explanations of his
possession of the revolver, all different and all false. Then, toward
evening, Kouka suddenly fell upon him, knocked him from his chair with a
blow, and then, as he lay on the floor, beat him with his enormous hairy
fists. Quinn, the only other person in the room, stood by and looked
on. Finally, Quinn grew alarmed and said:
"Cheese it, Ike! Cheese it!"
Kouka stopped and got up.
Archie was weeping, his whole body trembling, his nerves gone. That
night he lay moaning in his hammock, and the man in the cell under him
and the man in the cell next him, cursed him. In the morning they took
him again up to the detective's office; this was the morning of the
third day. Archie was in a daze, his mind was no longer clear, and he
wondered vaguely, but with scarcely any interest, why it was that Kouka
looked so smiling and pleasant.
"Set down, Arch, old boy," Kouka said, "and let me tell you all about
it."
And then Kouka told him just where he had stolen the revolver, and when,
and how--told him, indeed, more about the hardware store and the owners
of it than Archie had ever known. And yet Archie did not seem surprised
at this. He felt numbly that it was no longer worth while to deny
it--he wondered why he ever had denied it in the first place. It did
not matter; nothing mattered; there was no difference between
things--they were all the same. But presently his mind became suddenly
clear; he was conscious that there was one unanswered question in the
world.
"Say, Kouka," he said, "how did you tumble?"
Kouka laughed. He was in fine humor that morning.
"Oh, it's no use, my boy," he said; "it's no use; you can't fool your
Uncle Isaac. You'd better 'ave taken his advice long ago--and been a
good boy."
"That's all right," said Archie, a strange calm having come to him
because of the change in the world, "but who put you wise?"
Kouka looked at Quinn and smiled, and then he said to Archie:
"Oh, what you don't know won't hurt you."
Then he had Archie taken back to the prison, but before they locked him
up Kouka gave him a box of cigarettes he had taken from a prostitute
whom he had arrested the night before, and he left Archie leaning
against the door of the prison smoking one of the cigarettes.
"What have they been doing to you?" asked a prisoner.
"The third degree," said Archie laconically.
The knowledge which Kouka preferred to shroud in mystery had been
obtained in a simple way. Glancing over the records in the detective's
office, he had by chance come across an old report of the robbery of a
hardware store. Kouka had taken the revolver found on Archie to the
merchant, and the merchant had identified it. That evening Marriott
read in the newspapers conspicuous accounts of the brilliant work of
Detective Kouka in solving the mystery that had surrounded a desperate
burglary. The articles gave Kouka the greatest praise.
VIII
The United States court-room had been closed ever since court adjourned
in May, but when it was thrown open for the hearing of the case against
Dillon and Mason and the rest, it was immediately imbued with the
atmosphere of federal authority. This atmosphere, cold, austere and
formal, smote Marriott like a blast the moment he pushed through the
green baize doors.
The great court-room was furnished in black walnut; the dark walls
immediately absorbed the light that came through the tall windows. On
the wall behind the bench was an oil portrait of a former judge;
Marriott could see it now in the slanting light--the grave and solemn
face, smooth-shaven, with the fine white hair above it, expressing
somehow the older ideals of the republic. On the wall, laureled Roman
fasces were painted in gilt. The whole room was somber and gloomy,
suggesting the power of a mighty government poised menacingly above its
people; there were hints of authority and old precedents in that
atmosphere.
The reason the room held this atmosphere was that the judge who
ordinarily sat on the bench had been appointed to his position for life,
and there were no real checks on his power. For twenty years before he
had been appointed this man had been the attorney for great
corporations, had amassed a fortune in their promotion and defense, and,
as a result, his sympathies and prejudices were with the rich and
powerful. He knew nothing of the common currents and impulses of
humanity, having never been brought in contact with the people; the
almost unlimited power he wielded, and was to wield until he died, made
him, quite naturally, autocratic, and he had impressed his character on
the room and on all who held official positions there. The clerks,
commissioners and assistant prosecutors whom he appointed imitated him
and acquired his habits of thought, for they received his opinions just
as they received his orders.
Marriott sat at the table and waited, and while he waited looked about.
He looked at Wilkison, the commissioner; the judge had appointed him to
his place; the amount of fees he received depended entirely on the
number of cases the district attorney and his assistants brought before
him; consequently, there being two commissioners, he wished to have the
good will of the district attorney, and always reached decisions that
would please him.
Dalrymple, the assistant district attorney, was a good-looking young man
with a smooth-shaven, regular face that might have been pleasant, but,
because of his new importance, it now wore a stern and forbidding
aspect. He was dressed in new spring clothes; the trousers were rolled
up at the bottoms, showing the low tan shoes which just then had come
again into vogue. He wore a pink flannel shirt of exquisite texture; on
this flannel shirt was a white linen collar. This combination produced
an effect which was thought to give him the final touch of aristocracy
and refinement. When he was not talking to Wilkison or to Fallen, he
was striding about the court-room with his hands in his trousers
pockets. Once he stopped, drew a silver case from his pocket and
lighted a cigarette made with his monogram on the paper.
Marriott turned from Dalrymple with disgust; he looked beyond the
railing, and there, on the walnut benches, sat Gibbs, with a retinue
that made Marriott smile. They must have come in when Marriott was
preoccupied, for he was surprised to see them. Gibbs sat on the end of
one bench, as uncomfortable and ill at ease as he would have been in a
pew at church. He was shaved to a pinkness, his hair was combed smooth,
and he was very solemn. Marriott could easily see that the atmosphere
of the court-room oppressed and cowed him; he had lost his native
bearing, and had suddenly grown meek, humble and afraid. Marriott knew
none of the others; there were half a dozen men, none of them dressed as
well as Gibbs, with strange visages, marked by crime and suffering, all
the more touching because they were so evidently unconscious of these
effects. The heads ranged along the bench were of strange shapes,
startlingly individual in one sense, very much alike in another. They
were all solemn, afraid to speak, bearing themselves self-consciously,
like children suddenly set out before the public. On one bench sat a
young girl, and something unmistakable in her eyes, in her mouth, in the
clothes she wore--she had piled on herself all the finery she had--told
what she was. Her toilet, on which she had spent such enormous pains,
produced the very effect the womanhood left in her had striven to avoid.
Marriott smiled, until he detected the deep concern which Gibbs was
trying to hide; then his heart was touched, as the toilet of the girl
had touched it. Marriott knew that these people were the witnesses by
whom Gibbs expected to establish an alibi for Dillon and Squeak and
Mandell; the sight of them did not reassure him; he had again that
disheartening conviction of the utter lack of weight their appearance
would carry with any court; he did not credit them himself, and he began
to feel a shame for offering such witnesses. He was half decided,
indeed, not to put them forward. But his greater concern came with the
thought of Mason, whom he believed to be innocent; where, he suddenly
wondered, was the reporter Wales?