water, the girl turned to the lonely figure in the doorway and waved
her hand.
"May we come again?" she called.
But young Mr. Carey did not trust his voice to answer. Standing erect,
with folded arms, in dark silhouette in the light of the hall, he bowed
his head.
Deaf to alarm bells, to pistol shots, to cries for help, they found her
brother and Ernest Peabody sleeping soundly.
"Sam is a charming chaperon," said the owner of the car.
With the girl beside him, with Fred crouched, shivering, on the step,
he threw in the clutch; the servants from the house waved the emptied
buckets in salute, and the great car sprang forward into the awakening
day toward the golden dome over the Boston Common. In the rear seat
Peabody shivered and yawned, and then sat erect.
"Did you get the water?" he demanded, anxiously.
There was a grim silence.
"Yes," said the owner of the car patiently. "You needn't worry any
longer. We got the water."
III
THE KIDNAPPERS
During the last two weeks of the "whirlwind" campaign, automobiles had
carried the rival candidates to every election district in Greater New
York.
During these two weeks, at the disposal of Ernest Peabody--on the
Reform Ticket, "the people's choice for Lieutenant-Governor--"
Winthrop had placed his Scarlet Car, and, as its chauffeur, himself.
Not that Winthrop greatly cared for Reform, or Ernest Peabody. The
"whirlwind" part of the campaign was what attracted him; the crowds,
the bands, the fireworks, the rush by night from hall to hall, from
Fordham to Tompkinsville. And, while inside the different Lyceums,
Peabody lashed the Tammany Tiger, outside in his car, Winthrop was
making friends with Tammany policemen, and his natural enemies, the
bicycle cops. To Winthrop, the day in which he did not increase his
acquaintance with the traffic squad, was a day lost.
But the real reason for his efforts in the cause of Reform, was one he
could not declare. And it was a reason that was guessed perhaps by
only one person. On some nights Beatrice Forbes and her brother Sam
accompanied Peabody. And while Peabody sat in the rear of the car,
mumbling the speech he would next deliver, Winthrop was given the
chance to talk with her. These chances were growing cruelly few. In
one month after election day Miss Forbes and Peabody would be man and
wife. Once before the day of their marriage had been fixed, but, when
the Reform Party offered Peabody a high place on its ticket, he asked,
in order that he might bear his part in the cause of reform, that the
wedding be postponed. To the postponement Miss Forbes made no
objection. To one less self-centred than Peabody, it might have
appeared that she almost too readily consented.
"I knew I could count upon your seeing my duty as I saw it," said
Peabody much pleased, "it always will be a satisfaction to both of us
to remember you never stood between me and my work for reform."
"What do you think my brother-in-law-to-be has done now?" demanded Sam
of Winthrop, as the Scarlet Car swept into Jerome Avenue. "He's
postponed his marriage with Trix just because he has a chance to be
Lieutenant-Governor. What is a Lieutenant-Governor anyway, do you
know? I don't like to ask Peabody."
"It is not his own election he's working for," said Winthrop. He was
conscious of an effort to assume a point of view both noble and
magnanimous.
"He probably feels the 'cause' calls him. But, good Heavens!"
"Look out!" shrieked Sam, "where you going?"
Winthrop swung the car back into the avenue.
"To think," he cried, "that a man who could marry--a girl, and then
would ask her to wait two months. Or, two days! Two months lost out
of his life, and she might die; he might lose her, she might change her
mind. Any number of men can be Lieutenant-Governors; only one man can
be----"
He broke off suddenly, coughed and fixed his eyes miserably on the
road. After a brief pause, Brother Sam covertly looked at him. Could
it be that "Billie" Winthrop, the man liked of all men, should love his
sister, and--that she should prefer Ernest Peabody? He was deeply,
loyally indignant. He determined to demand of his sister an immediate
and abject apology.
At eight o'clock on the morning of election day, Peabody, in the
Scarlet Car, was on his way to vote. He lived at Riverside Drive, and
the polling-booth was only a few blocks distant. During the rest of
the day he intended to use the car to visit other election districts,
and to keep him in touch with the Reformers at the Gilsey House.
Winthrop was acting as his chauffeur, and in the rear seat was Miss
Forbes. Peabody had asked her to accompany him to the polling-booth,
because he thought women who believed in reform should show their
interest in it in public, before all men. Miss Forbes disagreed with
him, chiefly because whenever she sat in a box at any of the public
meetings the artists from the newspapers, instead of immortalizing the
candidate, made pictures of her and her hat. After she had seen her
future lord and master cast his vote for reform and himself, she was to
depart by train to Tarrytown. The Forbes's country place was there,
and for election day her brother Sam had invited out some of his
friends to play tennis.
As the car darted and dodged up Eighth Avenue, a man who had been
hidden by the stairs to the Elevated, stepped in front of it. It
caught him, and hurled him, like a mail-bag tossed from a train,
against one of the pillars that support the overhead tracks. Winthrop
gave a cry and fell upon the brakes. The cry was as full of pain as
though he himself had been mangled. Miss Forbes saw only the man
appear, and then disappear, but, Winthrop's shout of warning, and the
wrench as the brakes locked, told her what had happened. She shut her
eyes, and for an instant covered them with her hands. On the front
seat Peabody clutched helplessly at the cushions. In horror his eyes
were fastened on the motionless mass jammed against the pillar.
Winthrop scrambled over him, and ran to where the man lay. So,
apparently, did every other inhabitant of Eighth Avenue; but Winthrop
was the first to reach him and kneeling in the car tracks, he tried to
place the head and shoulders of the body against the iron pillar. He
had seen very few dead men; and to him, this weight in his arms, this
bundle of limp flesh and muddy clothes, and the purple-bloated face
with blood trickling down it, looked like a dead man.
Once or twice when in his car, Death had reached for Winthrop, and only
by the scantiest grace had he escaped. Then the nearness of it had
only sobered him. Now that he believed he had brought it to a fellow
man, even though he knew he was in no degree to blame, the thought
sickened and shocked him. His brain trembled with remorse and horror.
But voices assailing him on every side brought him to the necessity of
the moment. Men were pressing close upon him, jostling, abusing him,
shaking fists in his face. Another crowd of men, as though fearing the
car would escape of its own volition, were clinging to the steps and
running boards.
Winthrop saw Miss Forbes standing above them, talking eagerly to
Peabody, and pointing at him. He heard children's shrill voices
calling to new arrivals that an automobile had killed a man; that it
had killed him on purpose. On the outer edge of the crowd men shouted:
"Ah, soak him," "Kill him," "Lynch him."
A soiled giant without a collar stooped over the purple, blood-stained
face, and then leaped upright, and shouted: "It's Jerry Gaylor, he's
killed old man Gaylor."
The response was instant. Every one seemed to know Jerry Gaylor.
Winthrop took the soiled person by the arm.
"You help me lift him into my car," he ordered. "Take him by the
shoulders. We must get him to a hospital."
"To a hospital? To the Morgue!" roared the man. "And the police
station for yours. You don't do no get-away."
Winthrop answered him by turning to the crowd. "If this man has any
friends here, they'll please help me put him in my car, and we'll take
him to Roosevelt Hospital."
The soiled person shoved a fist and a bad cigar under Winthrop's nose.
"Has he got any friends?" he mocked. "Sure, he's got friends, and
they'll fix you, all right."
"Sure!" echoed the crowd.
The man was encouraged.
"Don't you go away thinking you can come up here with your buzz wagon
and murder better men nor you'll ever be and----"
"Oh, shut up!" said Winthrop.
He turned his back on the soiled man, and again appealed to the crowd.
"Don't stand there doing nothing," he commanded. "Do you want this man
to die? Some of you ring for an ambulance and get a policeman, or tell
me where is the nearest drug store."
No one moved, but every one shouted to every one else to do as Winthrop
suggested.
Winthrop felt something pulling at his sleeve, and turning, found
Peabody at his shoulder peering fearfully at the figure in the street.
He had drawn his cap over his eyes and hidden the lower part of his
face in the high collar of his motor coat. "I can't do anything, can
I?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not," whispered Winthrop. "Go back to the car and don't
leave Beatrice. I'll attend to this."
"That's what I thought," whispered Peabody eagerly. "I thought she and
I had better keep out of it."
"Right!" exclaimed Winthrop. "Go back and get Beatrice away."
Peabody looked his relief, but still hesitated.
"I can't do anything, as you say," he stammered, "and it's sure to get
in the 'extras,' and they'll be out in time to lose us thousands of
votes, and though no one is to blame, they're sure to blame me. I
don't care about myself," he added eagerly, "but the very morning of
election--half the city has not voted yet--the Ticket----"
"Damn the Ticket!" exclaimed Winthrop. "The man's dead!"
Peabody, burying his face still deeper in his collar, backed into the
crowd. In the present and past campaigns, from carts and automobiles
he had made many speeches in Harlem, and on the West Side, lithographs
of his stern, resolute features hung in every delicatessen shop, and
that he might be recognized, was extremely likely.
He whispered to Miss Forbes what he had said, and what Winthrop had
said.
"But you DON'T mean to leave him," remarked Miss Forbes.
"I must," returned Peabody. "I can do nothing for the man, and you
know how Tammany will use this--They'll have it on the street by ten.
They'll say I was driving recklessly; without regard for human life.
And, besides, they're waiting for me at headquarters. Please hurry. I
am late now."
Miss Forbes gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Why, I'm not going," she said.
"You must go! _I_ must go. You can't remain here alone."
Peabody spoke in the quick, assured tone that at the first had
convinced Miss Forbes his was a most masterful manner.
"Winthrop, too," he added, "wants you to go away."
Miss Forbes made no reply. But she looked at Peabody inquiringly,
steadily, as though she were puzzled as to his identity, as though he
had just been introduced to her. It made him uncomfortable.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
Her answer was a question.
"Are you going?"
"I am!" returned Peabody. He added sharply: "I must."
"Good-by," said Miss Forbes.
As he ran up the steps to the station of the elevated, it seemed to
Peabody that the tone of her "good-by" had been most unpleasant. It
was severe, disapproving. It had a final, fateful sound. He was
conscious of a feeling of self-dissatisfaction. In not seeing the
political importance of his not being mixed up with this accident,
Winthrop had been peculiarly obtuse, and Beatrice, unsympathetic.
Until he had cast his vote for Reform, he felt distinctly ill-used.
For a moment Beatrice Forbes sat in the car motionless, staring
unseeingly at the iron steps by which Peabody had disappeared. For a
few moments her brows were tightly drawn. Then, having apparently
quickly arrived at some conclusion, she opened the door of the car and
pushed into the crowd.
Winthrop received her most rudely.
"You mustn't come here!" he cried.
"I thought," she stammered, "you might want some one?"
"I told--" began Winthrop, and then stopped, and added--"to take you
away. Where is he?"
Miss Forbes flushed slightly.
"He's gone," she said.
In trying not to look at Winthrop, she saw the fallen figure,
motionless against the pillar, and with an exclamation, bent fearfully
toward it.
"Can I do anything?" she asked.
The crowd gave way for her, and with curious pleased faces, closed in
again eagerly. She afforded them a new interest.
A young man in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was kneeling beside
the mud-stained figure, and a police officer was standing over both.
The ambulance surgeon touched lightly the matted hair from which the
blood escaped, stuck his finger in the eye of the prostrate man, and
then with his open hand slapped him across the face.
"Oh!" gasped Miss Forbes.
The young doctor heard her, and looking up, scowled reprovingly.
Seeing she was a rarely beautiful young woman, he scowled less
severely; and then deliberately and expertly, again slapped Mr. Jerry
Gaylor on the cheek. He watched the white mark made by his hand upon
the purple skin, until the blood struggled slowly back to it, and then
rose.
He ignored every one but the police officer.
"There's nothing the matter with HIM," he said. "He's dead drunk."
The words came to Winthrop with such abrupt relief, bearing so
tremendous a burden of gratitude, that his heart seemed to fail him.
In his suddenly regained happiness, he unconsciously laughed.
"Are you sure?" he asked eagerly. "I thought I'd killed him."
The surgeon looked at Winthrop coldly.
"When they're like that," he explained with authority, "you can't hurt
'em if you throw them off the Times Building."
He condescended to recognize the crowd. "You know where this man
lives?"
Voices answered that Mr. Gaylor lived at the corner, over the saloon.
The voices showed a lack of sympathy. Old man Gaylor dead was a
novelty; old man Gaylor drunk was not.
The doctor's prescription was simple and direct.
"Put him to bed till he sleeps it off," he ordered; he swung himself to
the step of the ambulance. "Let him out, Steve," he called. There was
the clang of a gong and the rattle of galloping hoofs.
The police officer approached Winthrop. "They tell me Jerry stepped in
front of your car; that you wasn't to blame. I'll get their names and
where they live. Jerry might try to hold you up for damages."
"Thank you very much," said Winthrop.
With several of Jerry's friends, and the soiled person, who now seemed
dissatisfied that Jerry was alive, Winthrop helped to carry him up one
flight of stairs and drop him upon a bed.
"In case he needs anything," said Winthrop, and gave several bills to
the soiled person, upon whom immediately Gaylor's other friends closed
in. "And I'll send my own doctor at once to attend to him."
"You'd better," said the soiled person morosely, "or, he'll try to
shake you down."
The opinions as to what might be Mr. Gaylor's next move seemed
unanimous.
From the saloon below, Winthrop telephoned to the family doctor, and
then rejoined Miss Forbes and the Police officer. The officer gave him
the names of those citizens who had witnessed the accident, and in
return received Winthrop's card.
"Not that it will go any further," said the officer reassuringly.
"They're all saying you acted all right and wanted to take him to
Roosevelt. There's many," he added with sententious indignation, "that
knock a man down, and then run away without waiting to find out if
they've hurted 'em or killed 'em."
The speech for both Winthrop and Miss Forbes was equally embarrassing.
"You don't say?" exclaimed Winthrop nervously. He shook the
policeman's hand. The handclasp was apparently satisfactory to that
official, for he murmured "Thank you," and stuck something in the
lining of his helmet. "Now, then!" Winthrop said briskly to Miss
Forbes, "I think we have done all we can. And we'll get away from this
place a little faster than the law allows."
Miss Forbes had seated herself in the car, and Winthrop was cranking
up, when the same policeman, wearing an anxious countenance, touched
him on the arm. "There is a gentleman here," he said, "wants to speak
to you." He placed himself between the gentleman and Winthrop and
whispered: "He's 'Izzy' Schwab, he's a Harlem police-court lawyer and
a Tammany man. He's after something, look out for him."
Winthrop saw, smiling at him ingratiatingly, a slight, slim youth, with
beady, rat-like eyes, a low forehead, and a Hebraic nose. He wondered
how it had been possible for Jerry Gaylor to so quickly secure counsel.
But Mr. Schwab at once undeceived him.
"I'm from the Journal," he began, "not regular on the staff, but I send
'em Harlem items, and the court reporter treats me nice, see! Now
about this accident; could you give me the name of the young lady?"
He smiled encouragingly at Miss Forbes.
"I could not!" growled Winthrop. "The man wasn't hurt, the policeman
will tell you so. It is not of the least public interest."
With a deprecatory shrug, the young man smiled knowingly.
"Well, mebbe not the lady's name," he granted, "but the name of the
OTHER gentleman who was with you, when the accident occurred." His
black, rat-like eyes snapped. "I think HIS name would be of public
interest."
To gain time Winthrop stepped into the driver's seat. He looked at Mr.
Schwab steadily.
"There was no other gentleman," he said. "Do you mean my chauffeur?"
Mr. Schwab gave an appreciative chuckle.
"No, I don't mean your chauffeur," he mimicked. "I mean," he declared
theatrically in his best police-court manner, "the man who to-day is
hoping to beat Tammany, Ernest Peabody!"
Winthrop stared at the youth insolently.
"I don't understand you," he said.
"Oh, of course not!" jeered "Izzy" Schwab. He moved excitedly from
foot to foot. "Then who WAS the other man," he demanded, "the man who
ran away?"
Winthrop felt the blood rise to his face. That Miss Forbes should hear
this rat of a man, sneering at the one she was to marry, made him hate
Peabody. But he answered easily:
"No one ran away. I told my chauffeur to go and call up an ambulance.
That was the man you saw."
As when "leading on" a witness to commit himself, Mr. Schwab smiled
sympathetically.
"And he hasn't got back yet," he purred, "has he?"
"No, and I'm not going to wait for him," returned Winthrop. He reached
for the clutch, but Mr. Schwab jumped directly in front of the car.
"Was he looking for a telephone when he ran up the elevated steps?" he
cried.
He shook his fists vehemently.
"Oh, no, Mr. Winthrop, it won't do--you make a good witness. I
wouldn't ask for no better, but, you don't fool 'Izzy' Schwab."
"You're mistaken, I tell you," cried Winthrop desperately. "He may
look like--like this man you speak of, but no Peabody was in this car."
"Izzy" Schwab wrung his hands hysterically.
"No, he wasn't!" he cried, "because he run away! And left an old man
in the street--dead, for all he knowed--nor cared neither. Yah!"
shrieked the Tammany heeler. "HIM a Reformer, yah!"
"Stand away from my car," shouted Winthrop, "or you'll get hurt."
"Yah, you'd like to, wouldn't you?" returned Mr. Schwab, leaping,
nimbly to one side. "What do you think the Journal'll give me for that
story, hey? 'Ernest Peabody, the Reformer, Kills an Old Man, AND RUNS
AWAY.' And hiding his face, too! I seen him. What do you think that
story's worth to Tammany, hey? It's worth twenty thousand votes!" The
young man danced in front of the car triumphantly, mockingly, in a
frenzy of malice. "Read the extras, that's all," he taunted. "Read
'em in an hour from now!"
Winthrop glared at the shrieking figure with fierce, impotent rage;
then, with a look of disgust, he flung the robe off his knees and rose.
Mr. Schwab, fearing bodily injury, backed precipitately behind the
policeman.
"Come here," commanded Winthrop softly. Mr. Schwab warily approached.
"That story," said Winthrop, dropping his voice to a low whisper, "is
worth a damn sight more to you than twenty thousand votes. You take a
spin with me up Riverside Drive where we can talk. Maybe you and I can
'make a little business.'"
At the words, the face of Mr. Schwab first darkened angrily, and then,
lit with such exultation that it appeared as though Winthrop's efforts
had only placed Peabody deeper in Mr. Schwab's power. But the rat-like
eyes wavered, there was doubt in them, and greed, and, when they turned
to observe if any one could have heard the offer, Winthrop felt the
trick was his. It was apparent that Mr. Schwab was willing to
arbitrate.
He stepped gingerly into the front seat, and as Winthrop leaned over
him and tucked and buckled the fur robe around his knees, he could not
resist a glance at his friends on the sidewalk. They were grinning
with wonder and envy, and as the great car shook itself, and ran easily
forward, Mr. Schwab leaned back and carelessly waved his hand. But his
mind did not waver from the purpose of his ride. He was not one to be
cajoled with fur rugs and glittering brass.
"Well, Mr. Winthrop," he began briskly. "You want to say something?
You must be quick--every minute's money."
"Wait till we're out of the traffic," begged Winthrop anxiously "I
don't want to run down any more old men, and I wouldn't for the world
have anything happen to you, Mr.--" He paused politely.
"Schwab--Isadore Schwab."
"How did you know MY name?" asked Winthrop.
"The card you gave the police officer"
"I see," said Winthrop. They were silent while the car swept swiftly
west, and Mr. Schwab kept thinking that for a young man who was afraid
of the traffic, Winthrop was dodging the motor cars, beer vans, and
iron pillars, with a dexterity that was criminally reckless.
At that hour Riverside Drive was empty, and after a gasp of relief, Mr.
Schwab resumed the attack.
"Now, then," he said sharply, "don't go any further. What is this you
want to talk about?"
"How much will the Journal give you for this story of yours?" asked
Winthrop.
Mr. Schwab smiled mysteriously.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," said Winthrop, "I think I could offer you something better."
"You mean," said the police-court lawyer cautiously, "you will make it
worth my while not to tell the truth about what I saw?"
"Exactly," said Winthrop.
"That's all! Stop the car," cried Mr. Schwab. His manner was
commanding. It vibrated with triumph. His eyes glistened with wicked
satisfaction.
"Stop the car?" demanded Winthrop, "what do you mean?"
"I mean," said Mr. Schwab dramatically, "that I've got you where I want
you, thank you. You have killed Peabody dead as a cigar butt! Now I
can tell them how his friends tried to bribe me. Why do you think I
came in your car? For what money YOU got? Do you think you can stack
up your roll against the New York Journal's, or against Tammany's?"
His shrill voice rose exultantly. "Why, Tammany ought to make me judge
for this! Now, let me down here," he commanded, "and next time, don't
think you can take on 'Izzy' Schwab and get away with it."
They were passing Grant's Tomb, and the car was moving at a speed that
Mr. Schwab recognized was in excess of the speed limit.
"Do you hear me?" he demanded, "let me down!"
To his dismay Winthrop's answer was in some fashion to so juggle with
the shining brass rods that the car flew into greater speed. To "Izzy"
Schwab it seemed to scorn the earth, to proceed by leaps and jumps.
But, what added even more to his mental discomfiture was, that Winthrop
should turn, and slowly and familiarly wink at him.
As through the window of an express train, Mr. Schwab saw the white
front of Claremont, and beyond it the broad sweep of the Hudson. And,
then, without decreasing its speed, the car like a great bird, swept
down a hill, shot under a bridge, and into a partly paved street. Mr.
Schwab already was two miles from his own bailiwick. His surroundings
were unfamiliar. On the one hand were newly erected, untenanted flat
houses with the paint still on the window panes, and on the other side,
detached villas, a roadhouse, an orphan asylum, a glimpse of the Hudson.
"Let me out," yelled Mr. Schwab, "what you trying to do? Do you think
a few blocks'll make any difference to a telephone? You think you're
damned smart, don't you? But you won't feel so fresh when I get on the
long distance. You let me down," he threatened, "or, I'll----"