If I Die Before I Wake

by Sherwood King

  She stopped biting her lip.

  ‘So then he did kill him after all!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, and Broome, too! Nobody else could have!’

  ‘And he would – he would let you go to the chair for something he had done himself? Why, he even defended you!’

  ‘Yes – to make sure I’d go to the chair!’ An idea came to me. ‘You said that the only reason you stayed with him was because you pitied him. Do you still?’

  She looked at me with her eyes flashing.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You said you loved me. Do you still?’

  Her eyes softened.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘All right, then. Prove it! Tell Bannister you’re through. Tell him you know all about him killing Grisby – and Broome—’

  ‘But we don’t know that – not for sure.’

  ‘This will get him to confess. He’ll crack, I know it.’

  ‘It would kill him.’

  ‘He’s going to let me go to the chair in his place, isn’t he? Will you do it?’

  ‘I—’

  And suddenly there he was – standing right behind her.

  Bannister!

  VI

  Bannister grabbed her by the arm. His lips were white in a face dark with anger.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  He was so angry he shook her.

  She tried to free herself. Bannister tightened his grip.

  McCracken came in. He stopped with his mouth open.

  ‘What the hell…’

  Bannister paid no attention. His voice was sharp, bitter. It sent shivers all through me.

  ‘A touching scene – the lovers parting in the shadow of the chair! And you said that kiss on the beach didn’t mean anything! I suppose Grisby didn’t mean anything, either!’

  Elsa was cold. She did not struggle any more.

  ‘Please – my arm—’

  The way she said it made him drop back.

  ‘You’re not going to deny—’

  ‘I don’t deny anything. I love him.’ Her voice rose. ‘Are you going to deny that you killed Grisby – and Broome?’

  He was ready for that.

  ‘Of course I am! It’s ridiculous. He’s grasping at straws. He tried to do the same thing in court. Elsa – you don’t believe—’

  She just looked at him.

  ‘Listen!’ he said.

  She said slowly, coldly, ‘And you’d let an innocent man suffer for something you did yourself!’

  ‘Elsa! Listen—’

  Suddenly she tore into him. It was like a dam bursting, the way the words poured out.

  ‘I’m through listening! I married you because of pity. I stayed with you for eight years – for eight years! Because I knew what it meant to you. Because you were always brooding about your leg and the things that were “denied” you. Nothing was denied you – it was all in your own twisted mind. Your warped, jealous mind! There wasn’t a bit of truth about my going away with Lee. You imagined the whole thing – and you killed him! Now I’m going to the Governor. I’m going to tell him everything I know. If your own wife turns against you, it ought to mean something. At least it will stop them from killing an innocent man!’

  Bannister came toward her.

  ‘You can’t leave me – you know you can’t. You know it would kill me. I’d – I’d kill myself.’

  Elsa didn’t back down an inch.

  ‘Isn’t that exactly what you deserve, letting an innocent man go to the chair for you?’

  McCracken and I looked on without saying a word. Silence clapped down on us – a humming silence like high tension wires about to snap.

  Bannister looked shaken. You could tell that the liquor had fogged his brain.

  ‘Elsa… please. This is ridiculous, the whole thing. Let’s talk like civilized human beings.’

  ‘There’s nothing more to talk about – nothing at all, ever.’

  Bannister moved his lips, but no words came. He seemed to be crumbling to pieces right before our eyes.

  McCracken stepped up and shook him.

  ‘What’s this about your killing Grisby?’

  Bannister paid no attention. He said to Elsa, almost in a whisper:

  ‘Then you meant it – we’re through?’

  The whisper came back:

  ‘It’s over – everything. Even pity.’

  Bannister saw there was no use talking here. He turned toward the door, lurching a little to one side, gasping when it hurt his leg. Trying to play on her pity! He expected her to call him back. When she didn’t, he went on.

  McCracken tried to stop him.

  ‘What about this, did you kill him or didn’t you?’

  ‘He did!’ I yelled. ‘He as much as told me. He thought she was going to run away with him!’

  Bannister didn’t even hear. He went out half dazed.

  ‘Follow him,’ I said. ‘Get him to confess!’

  ‘I’ll watch him every minute,’ said McCracken. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Elsa came over to the screen. Her eyes were gleaming.

  ‘You were wonderful,’ I said. ‘Now maybe he’ll confess.’

  ‘I’ve only started,’ she said. ‘I’m going to the Governor. He’ll have to believe me. He’ll have to stop this before it’s too late. Don’t lose hope. I’ll be thinking of you every minute. There must be something that can be done – there must be.’

  She hurried out.

  I went back to my cell to wait. Now everything would be fine, I hadn’t a doubt of it. The Governor would give me the reprieve or Bannister would confess, one or the other. I didn’t even try to sleep – I was too excited, waiting, waiting…

  About midnight the Warden came in to see me.

  ‘The Governor and I had a long talk,’ he said. ‘He told me that Mrs Bannister had come to plead for you on the ground that her husband had confessed. He made an immediate investigation.’

  ‘That’s swell.’

  ‘Bannister denied everything. With no definite evidence to act on, the Governor was in a spot. He knew that you had accused Bannister once before, apparently without foundation. What could he do? What would you have done? I think the same thing he did – refuse to grant you a stay. He had no alternative, don’t you see? I’m sorry, Laurence—’

  So now there was only one hope left – for Bannister to confess. It was all up to him now.

  After the Warden had left, I slipped out of the bunk and knelt down beside it. I knew only one prayer. I put everything I had into it:

  ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

  If I die before I wake…’

  VII

  February ninth!

  This was the day… six hours, twenty-two minutes, thirteen seconds to go!

  All I could think of was that by midnight the hands of the clock would have met like shears to snip another life, and this time mine.

  Mine!

  I paced the cell – and waited.

  Suddenly the guard unlocked the door. He saw that I hadn’t touched the dinner they brought me. I told him to take it away, to give it to someone else. My last big meal!

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but get a move on. There’s someone to see you.’

  A visitor! It was almost like being freed. I hurried out.

  It was Elsa.

  For a while we did not speak. We just looked at each other; that was enough. Little by little a peace stole over me.

  ‘Laurence—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I saw the Governor.’

  ‘The Warden told me. You were wonderful. If there had been any – any chance at all, you’d have got me off, I know.’

  ‘Oh, there’s still a chance. Don’t think—’

  ‘Sure. You never know
until the last minute. They let one off just this morning, one of those who was going to go with me. He was always yelling, “Oh, my God!” He killed his wife.’

  Her mouth trembled.

  ‘You don’t mean – the one in the suicide pact!’

  ‘That’s the one. He made out he was crazy. Maybe he was. He acted like it.’

  But it didn’t do any good. The fact remained that they were letting him off and he was guilty. I was innocent, yet they were sending me to the chair.

  My throat tightened; an ache came to it.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ she said. ‘I know – so well. Believe me, everything that is happening to you is happening to me too, deep down inside. I told you, if I hadn’t stopped you, that night, you wouldn’t be here. Oh, Laurence – I wish—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wish I could go with you!’

  A surge went through me… a surge like great music rising. My blood sang. I felt light, as though I were floating. I thought: nothing can stop this. Nothing! No one has ever loved like this before. It can’t end in my going to the chair. Something must happen to stop it. Bannister must confess.

  ‘I’ll get out,’ I said. ‘Something will happen, even if the Governor—’

  ‘He has no proof, only your word. Don’t you see? He can’t stop it just because he wants to!’

  ‘I know. It’s all up to Bannister now. If he doesn’t confess, now that you’ve left him – But he will. He has to!’

  She put her hand to the screen to feel my hand pressing through.

  ‘I saw him – this morning.’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘I had to. I had to get proof. He was the only one who could give it to me. I – I asked him to confess.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He laughed. It was awful. I think he had been drinking steadily, from the moment he left here. He said he hadn’t slept all night. When I hadn’t come home he’d realized what was happening. He knew then that I’d meant it and that this was the end. The house seemed so empty and still… he’d even frightened the maid away.’

  She looked away from me and at the floor.

  I did not dare say anything.

  ‘He said I couldn’t leave him. He said he’d built his whole life around me; if I left there’d be nothing to live for. But he said he knew I’d come back, too, that I couldn’t leave him. I told him why I’d come – to get him to confess, that only by confessing to save an innocent man from the chair could he prove himself worthy of my staying with him. It was crazy, just like that. But he was so – well, so unbalanced that you couldn’t talk any other way. And I think the main thing was he realized, underneath everything, that he’d killed Grisby without reason, that there’d been nothing between us at all except in his jealous mind.’

  I started to tingle. Everything was working out the way I’d hoped when I’d asked her to prove that she loved me – by telling Bannister she was through. If he didn’t confess now, with everything against him, he never would. I held my breath.

  She went on:

  ‘We talked for an hour. He kept repeating that I couldn’t leave him – even if he killed himself, I couldn’t. The way he said it made me afraid. He said I couldn’t deny that there had been something between Grisby and me, that we had planned to meet in the South Seas – Broome had heard it. He kept coming back to that to justify what he had done, even knowing that it wasn’t true. Finally he admitted that he had killed Lee—’

  This was it! Now he’d confess everything and I would go free!

  ‘I asked him to put that on paper. He said to wait – he had just what was needed to fix everything. He went upstairs to the safe, I think – and came down with something in his hand behind him. He said he’d been saving it for just such an emergency as this. I asked him what it was, and then he brought it out – a revolver! He pointed it at me…’

  ‘He was going to kill you!’

  ‘Yes!… That’s what he meant when he said I couldn’t leave him. If he went, I would have to go, too. He raised the gun…’

  I waited, breathless.

  ‘He asked me to confess – to admit that I had had an affair with Lee, and with you. I told him he was crazy and to put down the gun. He came closer. I was terrified. I knew McCracken was near. I screamed for him. I saw him turn the gun on himself—’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Laurence – I didn’t want to tell you, to destroy your last hope—’

  I was weak.

  ‘What – what do you mean – my last hope?’

  ‘Laurence – Marco is dead!’

  VIII

  ‘Dead!’

  I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. Bannister – dead!

  She told me all about it. He was going to kill her. It was partly the drink, partly his crazed, jealous mind. But McCracken had been near. When she’d screamed for him, he’d come on the run.

  Bannister had heard him coming. He’d thought only of himself – to stop McCracken from arresting him – what else? And he’d turned the gun on himself before McCracken could come in and stop him.

  My lips quivered as I said it:

  ‘So then – he didn’t confess—’

  ‘No. There wasn’t time, even if he had wanted to.’

  My voice shook: ‘Then that’s the end of me. There’s nothing that can stop it now – nothing!’

  ‘Oh, there’s still hope! Believe me – I know I shouldn’t have told you, though. I didn’t mean to. I wanted you to think – maybe – even up to the last, even if what I hoped wasn’t true—’

  ‘But he killed himself! That’s the same as a confession, isn’t it?’

  ‘I talked to Sergeant McCracken. He said no – I had left him, that was enough to make him kill himself, even without the other. He’d threatened to do it, you know – when I told him we were through. But it’s the gun, Laurence – the gun! Sergeant McCracken is checking it now, to see if it’s the same one used to kill Grisby. If it is—’

  ‘Yes, and if it isn’t—’

  ‘Laurence, listen!’

  We looked at each other until my eyes blurred over.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If it isn’t,’ she said, ‘—if it isn’t, I meant what I said, about wishing I could go to the chair with you!’

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ said a voice behind us. ‘Because it looks like you’ll get your wish. Only you won’t be going with anyone – you’ll be going alone!’

  Sergeant McCracken!

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘You don’t mean—’

  ‘I mean I’m arresting you for the murder of Mark Bannister – and Grisby – and Broome!’

  ‘Hey, watch her!’ I yelled. ‘She’s going to faint.’

  He caught her as she fell.

  ‘Humm,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think she had it in her.’

  I was suddenly angry.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I yelled. ‘Leave her alone! You’re crazy if you think she killed anyone. What are you trying to do here?’

  He looked at me with his mouth open.

  ‘You mean you didn’t even guess?’ he said.

  ‘Then it’s true? She really—’

  ‘No doubt about it. You’ll be free within twenty-four hours – free!’

  I was so stunned I could hardly think or talk. I kept staring at Elsa, lying in his arms, her face deathly white.

  McCracken was rubbing her wrists.

  ‘What a fool I’ve been,’ he said. ‘Talk about your perfect crime! She’d have got away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for one thing. She forgot fingerprints on the gun Bannister was supposed to have killed himself with. Either forgot them or didn’t have time to wipe them off, I came in so soon. It was Bannister’s gun, all right, and it was the gun used to kill Grisby – she knew that, and she knew that we’d check it, too – not for fingerprints, it looked so
much like suicide, but for bullets. Well, we did check it – and found her fingerprints on it! That was the one place she slipped up. Until then, we hadn’t even suspected her. I don’t mean we hadn’t considered her as a possibility. It’s just that she didn’t fit in anywhere, even if we figured your story was true about Grisby trying to kill Bannister, and went a step further and had her in it with Grisby – then why kill Grisby? It didn’t make sense. But it does now, with Bannister dead – and with her fingerprints on the gun!’

  ‘Then Bannister didn’t kill himself – she did it? You know for sure?’

  He nodded, looking at her admiringly.

  ‘She wanted it to look like suicide, like I said, and it would have, too, if we hadn’t checked the prints. And that was just routine. The gun was found lying near his right hand, as though it had dropped when he fell.’

  ‘And she killed Grisby?’

  He was still rubbing her wrists, but it didn’t seem to do much good.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘She was downtown that night, remember? She said it was to see a show. It was a show, all right, but not that kind. She was the most important one in it, though Grisby didn’t know it. He thought that he was. He must have been surprised to see her, when he came up from the speedboat and found her waiting for him down on Wall Street. He must have been even more surprised when she pulled a gun on him – Bannister’s gun – and shot him just like he would have been shot if you had done it sitting beside him in the car. Because the way I figure it, she knew all about the plan to kill Bannister, and just where you fitted in… they’d planned it all together; then they were to meet down in the South Seas. At least, that’s what Grisby thought. They’d be free – you’d get the rap for it. But you nearly spoiled it by starting to run away. She had to hold you there, to make sure that you went through with your part. And in doing that she fell for you – she didn’t want you to get the rap for it, after all. She’s a very passionate woman, anyone can see that.

  ‘But it wasn’t for that reason that she killed Grisby – wanting to save you just made it easy for her to do. No, what I think is that she never did intend to run away with Grisby – she’d planned on killing him all the time. She’d have to, to get the hundred-thousand-dollar partnership insurance between Grisby and Bannister. And she’d have to get him first, so the money would go to Bannister. Then she’d have to get Bannister, so it would go to her. That wasn’t the only reason she wanted to get him out of the way – she hated him. And then, in the end, there was another reason, too – she had to kill him to save you, or at least to try.