Ashes to Ashes
The night elevator man was almost slumbering peacefully before the
telephone switchboard as they traversed the hall to the vestibule, and
the street itself seemed deserted, but from afar echoed the measured
tread of the watchman approaching upon his rounds.
“Let’s cut across to the path,” suggested Storm with a hint of
nervousness in his lowered tones. “It is better walking, and you can
get a really magnificent view of the river lights from a few blocks
further up.”
He led his companion across the driveway and bridle road to the path
deeply enshrouded by trees and bordered by the low stone wall which
ran along the edge of the embankment. The night was moonless, but
overhead the stars shone brightly and the broad sweep of the river
below them at their left was dotted with the lights of ships and
barges riding at anchor or moving slowly out with the tide.
“By jingo, it’s some night!” Horton thrust back his shoulders and drew
in a deep breath as he strode along at the rapid, vigorous gait of one
habituated to covering long distances afoot. “Glad you thought of
getting a bit of air, Norman; this is great! Look at the old river
down there, and the Palisades beyond! I tell you there isn’t a spot on
the face of the earth that can touch little old New York!”
“I like it out here myself. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I walk along
this path for hours, watching the lights and the river; there is a
bigness and impersonality about it that is restful.” Storm spoke
truly, but back of his mind was the shuddering consciousness that
never again would he find peace and tranquility in this nocturnal
haunt. After tonight the shadows would be peopled with ghosts, the
dark river would run red and the frowning cliffs on the farther bank
would echo with the doings of this hour.——What matter? He would be far
away with the means to live his own life and not a trace left behind
him! Unconsciously his grip tightened on the cane, and he glanced
speculatively at his companion. How easy it was going to be! Just a
moment of steady courage, of carefully calculated effort; one
smash—and the task would be accomplished! A few more blocks, a quarter
mile at most——!
“You ought to see the harbor at Yokohama,” Horton remarked. “Prettiest
sight in the world when a ship comes in, if you didn’t have to use
your nose at the same time! All the sampans come out with their
strings of colored lights and I can tell you they beat our barges any
day in the week for picturesqueness! You hear the coolies chanting and
the samyens and samisens tinkling, and the very taste of the East is
in your mouth. Oh, I’m not getting poetic from the effects of your
Scotch, old scout! It’s all ugly enough and dirty and mean and
distorted in the daylight, but there is a witchery over it at night.
Here you don’t get that; there’s a hard-and-fast realism about it that
dispels any illusion. It is a sort of bigness, as you say, but it
doesn’t hit me with any _dolce-far-niente_ stuff; it means bustle to
me, and commerce and adventure and wealth. Gee, when I’ve made my pile
I’d like to sit in at the window of one of those white stone fronts
over there and watch my coal barges slouching along on the end of a
tow line and my cranes and winches and flat-cars getting busy along
the docks! Fine pipe dream for a guy whose only contact with big money
is in handling other people’s, eh?”
He laughed boyishly, without cynicism, and Storm clapped him on the
shoulder with assumed heartiness.
“You’ll get there yet, Jack! Perhaps you’re on the way to it now, who
knows?” Only six blocks more and then they would reach that turn in
the path! The unintended double significance in his words swept over
him, and he felt an insane desire to laugh aloud. “You say you are in
right with this Mid-Eastern Consolidated Corporation, and your wife
will have money——”
“I’m not marrying her for what her old man has got!” Horton
interrupted hastily. “It may be convenient some time for her to be
able to help me swing something big, but you understand I like that
little girl for herself. She’s a thoroughbred, if her mother did run a
miner’s boarding house in the old days, and she’s got the pep to keep
a fellow right up on his toes and make him make good on his own
account. I kind of wish I had telephoned to her to-night; it’ll be a
couple of weeks at least before I can hit this burg again, and I’d
like to have heard her voice——”
“You can ’phone in the morning,” Storm suggested, his eyes intent upon
the path ahead. A figure was advancing toward them out of the
darkness, and midway between them a street lamp shed broad rays. They
would meet the stranger directly beneath it if they kept up their
present gait. Storm halted deliberately and drew out his cigarette
case. “Wait half a second till I get a light. Tell you what you can
do, Jack. Stop over a train in Philadelphia with me to-morrow and call
the lady up from there.”
Horton shook his head decisively.
“Not me! Once I get on my way in the morning I’m going to keep right
on going,” he declared. “I don’t feel right in my mind yet about this
little stop-over, but it sure has been worth it! The next time I come
to town——”
The advancing figure passed under the rays of the lamp and was
revealed as a blue-coated policeman swinging along idly but with a
certain brisk watchfulness. Storm blew out his match and fell in step
once more beside his companion.
“The next time you come, drop me a line ahead and we’ll fix up a
little dinner with Holworthy and any of the rest I can find lying
around the club,” he said suavely. “It is a good thing to get in touch
with the old crowd now and then; livens a chap up and keeps him in the
running.”
The policeman passed with only a casual glance at the two obviously
respectable citizens, and his footsteps died away behind them. Only
four blocks more!
“You bet it does!” Horton assented heartily. “Why, just running into
you to-night like this and having a chat over old times has given me a
new lease of life! I’ll like first rate to see old Holworthy and the
rest again, but most of all I want you to meet my girl. She’s aces
high, Norman, and you’ll agree with me when you know her. We’ll get
her to shake the old lady for an evening and come to dinner—” he
paused suddenly and added: “Say, we’ve come further than I thought.
Hadn’t we better be getting back? I don’t want to cut short your
stroll, but that bag back there is on my mind.”
“All right. Just let us go to the top of the hill here around the
turn.” Storm threw his cigarette away and strove to speak casually,
but his throat had become all at once parched and strained, and a
tremor of excitement threatened his tones. “There’s a down-stream boat
almost due, and I want you to see it come round the bend. I watch for
it here nearly every night, and it’s a sight worth seeing. I suppose
you’ll be taking a trip somewhere on your honeymoon?”
“Haven’t got as far as that yet!” Horton protested laughingly. “Oh,
the little girl knows what is in the wind, all right—trust a woman for
that!—but I haven’t put it up to her in so many words. I want to lay
my pipes with the Mid-Eastern first and see where I’m likely to stand
before I tackle her old man. He likes me fast enough, but when it
comes to me horning in on the family he’ll expect me to spread my
cards on the table, and I have not got much to show for the last
twenty years except the trust of the people I’ve worked for.”
“That is a pretty big asset,” muttered Storm, his eyes on the brow of
the hill just ahead. If he could keep Horton going, keep him talking
until they reached that dark stretch and then, unsuspected, fall a
step or two behind——! “It is a long step of the way toward success to
gain the trust of your associates.”
“Sure!” the other responded with pardonable pride. “But it is not so
much of an asset as an income producer to an old guy who has struggled
all his life and then struck it rich all of a sudden; so rich and so
easy that he figures any fellow who hasn’t done the same is a dub. But
I’m not worrying; I’ve got it pretty good out there, and two or three
more trips with the payroll will about be my finish. There’s going to
be a big reorganization soon, and I mean to edge in then on the
inside.”
Storm glanced hurriedly, keenly behind him. Not a figure was in sight,
no sound broke the stillness save his companion’s voice and the
whispering of the wind in the rows of trees along the deserted drive.
On the other side of the low wall the ground dropped away into
seemingly limitless space, while outward and far below the broad river
waited. A few yards more, a few steps——
A sudden raucous honk blared upon the air, and over the top of the
hill appeared a wildly careening motor car which bore down upon them
and passed in a bedlam of screeching brakes and maudlin song.
An oath borne of his keyed-up nerves burst unbidden from Storm’s lips,
and Horton turned.
“Gave you a start, eh?” he remarked. “This is a nice stretch of road
on which to be flirting with death like that, isn’t it? Thirty miles
an hour and a chance to see the scenery, that’s my motto; but then as
I told you I’ve learned to play safe.”
“My nerves aren’t what thy used to be,” Storm admitted, listening
intently. The roar of the car had diminished in the distance to a low
humming whirr which seemed only to accentuate the silence. “Just at
the turn of the path there ahead—I think the boat is coming. Do you
see any lights on the river?”
Horton quickened his pace, peering expectantly out over the wall. He
was sensible that Storm had fallen back and heard the click of his
cigarette case and the rasp of a match.
“Just those bobbing down there on some tugs,” he announced. “A river
steamer is a pretty sight at night, isn’t she? I remember——”
The words ended in a gasp as something crashed down hideously upon him
from behind, and the world was blotted out. His body lurched, sagged,
and slumped down in a crumpled heap against the wall.
Storm’s arm sank nervelessly to his side and a sickening wave of
horror swept over him. Had Horton cried out, or had he himself? It
seemed to him for an instant that tumultuous shouting rang in his
ears, that footsteps were beating upon the pavement behind him, a
myriad of lights flashing in his eyes. Then silence and darkness
descended again, and a shuddering sigh escaped him. The blow had been
struck, but had it been sufficiently heavy? Suppose Horton still
lived! What if he survived to be found in the morning by some damnable
chance and to name his assailant?
Storm bent swiftly over the body, and his groping fingers came in
contact with the back of the head, only to be shrinkingly withdrawn.
God, but that sturdy stick had done its work well! He had only to
possess himself of the key to the closet and heave the body over the
wall——
Then a swift thought brought beads of sweat out upon his brow. The
cap! The maker’s name and his own initials were inside; suppose he had
forgotten it! With fumbling, sticky fingers he felt about on the wet
pavement. Thank heaven the puddles left by the rain had not dried!
The sinister stains would be obliterated, washed away——But where was
the cap? Horton had been leaning toward the wall when the blow reached
him; could the cap have fallen over and down, to be found on the
morrow and traced?
With wild fear clutching at his heart, Storm straightened and groped
feverishly along the wall. Was this to be the end, after his scheme
had worked so smoothly; was he to be betrayed by the merest detail,
one of the details which he had himself worked out to insure success?
He felt along to the very edge of the wall, and then a sob of relief
welled up in his throat; for his fingers had closed at last upon the
cap, caught by a clutching tendril of vine as it must have fallen from
the head of his victim.
He stuffed it into his coat pocket and stooping once more thrust his
hand beneath that crumpled body and after a moment produced the key to
the closet which contained the treasure. His! One hundred and twelve
thousand——
But what was that light, quick tapping like hastily running feet?
Storm recoiled and turned instinctively to flee, then by a supreme
effort of will stayed the wild impulse. The tapping sounded there upon
the wall close at hand; it was just a dead branch of the vine whipping
in the wind. What a fool he was! Where had his nerve gone?
He must finish his job and quickly. That policeman would pass shortly
again upon his rounds, or if not he, some strolling night prowler
might appear at any moment to stumble over the body and raise an
alarm. Every minute that he lingered there increased his danger, and
yet he felt a loathsome repugnance at the thought of touching Horton
again.
Nerving himself desperately he slipped his arms beneath the body and
gave a convulsive heave. It jerked, swayed suddenly but slumped back
again, and Storm’s breath came in a sobbing gasp. God, how heavy it
was! Could he ever get it up to the top of the wall? The sweat poured
like rain down his face, and with a mighty effort of strained and
snapping muscles he lifted it from the pavement, poised it for a
moment on the edge of the abyss and sent it crashing over and down.
Weak and trembling in the nausea of sickening reaction, he cowered
back and listened. Would the thing ever stop rolling? The first thud
and crash of underbrush was followed by a sound as of mighty beasts
trampling through a forest, then a pattering hail of pebbles and then,
at last, silence.
Swaying drunkenly, Storm groped for the cane, found it and turned.
Every instinct impelled him to frenzied flight, to run while wind and
limb retained strength to obey his will; yet beneath the shuddering
terror which obsessed him he realized that he must walk slowly,
casually, that no chance passer-by might connect this strolling
pedestrian with the horror which lay behind.
Quivering with the effort to stay the mad impulse, he moved stiffly
off down the path nor dared glance once behind him, although he could
feel the gooseflesh rising upon his neck with the sensation of being
watched by something supernatural, unclean! He must pass beneath the
first street lamp, but in the shadows midway the block he could cross
the bridle road and driveway and continue south on the sidewalk. It
would not do to remain on the path; if he should encounter the
policeman again, and the latter recognizing him, should question him,
should question why only one returned where two had gone——
Each dragging step sent a spasm of nervous torture through his frame,
but he gritted his teeth and held himself erect as he passed beneath
the light, even giving a jaunty swing to the cane which seemed to gain
weight with every moment that went. Twenty yards further he turned to
cut across the driveway to the sidewalk, and as he did so a sound came
from behind him that stilled the blood in his veins. It was merely the
hoot of the fog horn on the river, but it came to him like the
long-drawn wail of a soul in pain.
A sense of utter desolation swept over him with its echo, but he
rallied it with a savage defiance. In spite of everything, in spite of
fate itself, had he not won? The money was his, money for a life-time
of travel and ease and forgetfulness! No one could trace him, not a
clue had been overlooked. What if commonplace Jack Horton with his
petty affairs and affections and ambitions had been snuffed out? He
had taken one chance too many, that was all, and the Mid-Eastern could
well afford their loss, while to Storm the contents of that bag meant
reason, life itself!
Still that odd sense of loneliness oppressed him, and in spite of his
eagerness to examine and gloat over his treasure, as he neared the
apartment house his steps lagged. He realized all at once that he
missed Horton’s presence, his easy, self-centered chatter. How
confidently the fellow had boasted of his ‘girl’ and his prospects,
talked of the future as a condition already brought to pass; and then
at one blow, one single muscular effort of another, he had been sent
into eternity!
What an easy thing it was to take a life and to evade the
consequences, if only one used a modicum of courage and caution!
Murder was nothing more, after all, than the twang of a pea shooter at
a bird, the tap of a butcher’s hammer! A stealthy glow of elation
stole over Storm’s spirit, stilling the qualms which had beset him,
and a heady exhilaration coursed through his veins like wine. The
future was his; he was invincible!
The elevator man still slumbered in the same position as when Storm
had left the house, and he let himself into his own apartment with
infinite caution, closing the door noiselessly behind him. He longed
to drag the bag from its hiding place and thrust his hands into its
contents in a very orgy of triumphant possession, but he reminded
himself sternly that an imperative task still lay before him. Homachi
must find no traces of a visitor when he came in the morning. Then,
too, there were other possible evidences to consider . . .
Storm switched on the lights and examined his hands and clothing with
minute care. The latter bore no stains which he could discover, but
upon his fingers were brownish smears which made his gorge rise, and
about the thumb-nail of his left hand—the hand which had come in
contact with Horton’s fallen head—a thread of dull crimson had
settled.
He turned to the bathroom in revolted haste when a fresh thought made
him pause and grope for the pocket of his overcoat. The cap! Had the
glancing but deadly blow which knocked it off to catch it by a miracle
upon the vine spattered it with Horton’s blood? He drew it forth and
smoothed it into a semblance of shape with shaking hands. It was damp
and crumpled, but no spot marred its surface or lining; the blow had
been too swift and sure!
Tossing it upon the rack, Storm made for the bathroom, where he
scrubbed his hands until the flesh smarted before turning his
attention to the cane itself. When he had dropped it upon the path in
order to raise the body it must have fallen into a puddle left by the
storm, for it bore no marks save the discoloration of dampness; yet to
make sure he carried it into the kitchen and held its heavy head
beneath the strong bow of water from the faucet in the sink, then
polished it with a rough towel until it shone. How it reminded him of
that other rounded knob of wood with the sinister smudge of blood upon
it and the single golden hair . . .
What a timorous, morbid weakling he had been that night! Afraid of his
own shadow, of every move and breath! Nothing could touch him now,
nothing could harm him; no one could ever know!
He replaced the cane in the umbrella-stand and was turning again
toward the kitchen when his eyes fell upon the center table in the
living-room. There beneath the lamp lay the bronze ash tray ringed
with cigar butts and filled with ashes. Again the thought came to him
of that other tray with similar contents which he had scattered to the
winds. Why not these also? _Ashes to ashes._
Those other ashes had been symbolic of his deed and vanished at a mere
gesture; these were the concrete evidences of Horton’s presence
beneath his roof and yet might be as easily dispelled.
With a quick movement he pressed the button of the living-room switch,
plunging the room in semi-gloom. Then, by the faint light which came
in from the hallway, he made his way to the window and opened it. Not
a soul in sight, not a sound save the rustle of the wind in the trees
across the drive!
Storm caught up the tray from the table and gripping it firmly flung
its contents far outward with all his strength lest any of the cigar
stumps fall upon the sidewalk or in the gutter directly before him. On
the instant the wind rose in a sweeping gust, and it seemed to him
that he could see the gray handful spread out in a haze and swirl away
into the void of night.
There stole over him once more that glow of achievement, as of some
strange and pagan ritual performed, and he was closing the window when
again there came the lingering, challenging, deep-throated note of a
ship’s fog horn upon the river. He shivered, in spite of himself, for
to his distorted imagination it held no longer a wail as of a passing
soul; rather, it sounded a menace and a warning, an awesome portent of
doom.