Pap, biting his fingers in the doorway, could not stand the suspense. "A-ah! Mix it! Mix it!" he quavered.
Suddenly they came together. Bill had his mighty arms locked around the other's body, while Fingy, pushing with all his strength against Bill's chest, sought to raise his knee high enough between them to break Bill's hold. One forgot their cumbering clothes then; they were rather magnificent. Jessie was reminded of a pair of figures in a Grecian frieze that she had seen. That same pose had been caught twenty-five hundred years ago.
And Fingy succeeded; Bill's arms were burst asunder. Before he could recover, Fingy, making a half turn, hooked his throat within his left elbow, and catching the elbow with his right hand, dragged Bill's head back gagging, until Jessie thought his neck must break. He had his knee in the middle of Bill's back for a fulcrum. Back, and still back, Bill struggling in vain to turn within that strangling grip, his great chest bursting. Bill got an arm over Fingy's head, and his hand groped for Fingy's face; he found it; his flexed fingers found Fingy's eyes, and Jessie closed her eyes in horror. The pain forced Fingy to let go. Once more they circled for an opening. Jessie expected to see two bloody holes in Fingy's face, but apparently his eyes were uninjured. Bill was sobbing for breath. That was where his age told against him. Fingy, snatching for a hold, missed, and tore Bill's shirt half off his back. The vast back was too fat.
And so it went. Bill had plenty of strength, but he was slow of movement, and his wind was not over good. Still, in a rough and tumble like that, mere bulk was an advantage. Fingy could not throw him. He fell on Fingy once, knocking the wind out of him, and savagely banged his head against the floor, until Jessie turned sick with disgust, but bit her lips to keep from crying out. She was not going to betray the least interest in the outcome, though they tore each other's flesh to ribbons. However, Fingy succeeded in wriggling free, before he was beaten into unconsciousness.
Bill was absolutely indifferent to punishment; planted like a great tree or a hill, he took Fingy from whichsoever quarter he came. On the other hand, Fingy had a wholesome respect for those terrible arms. Neither man had much science; Bill's ceaseless effort was to crush Fingy to his breast, and bear him down, while Fingy sought to hook him from the side, or from behind. Fingy played safe, aiming to let Bill tire himself out, and he bade fair to succeed too; for the big man's eyes became glazed with fatigue. It was not clean wrestling; many a blow was exchanged. Blood trickled down Bill's back, and running from Fingy's nose, got itself spread all over his face. Pap grinned, and held up his clenched fists at the sight. What was left of their shirts clung saturated with sweat to their flesh.
The big man proved to have a bit of strategy in his thick skull after all. He changed his tactics, and half presented his back to Fingy, as if inviting that hook which had almost finished him in the beginning. Fingy, suspecting a trick, refused, until Bill, with a vicious, foul blow, angered him beyond all prudence. Fingy hooked Bill savagely around the neck from behind; whereupon Bill dropped to a crouching position, and half-turning, got an arm under Fingy. Straightening up, he heaved the younger man clean over his head, Fingy's heels rapping against the plaster ceiling, and flung him with a crash on the floor. Fingy lay still. It seemed to Jessie that every bone in his body must be broken.
Bill stood back, looking down at him indifferently. As well as he could for panting, he said: "I guess that'll hold you."
Pap bustled in, and making haste to draw water in a dipper, flung it in Fingy's face. Fingy twisted his head from side to side, and presently raised himself, leaning against one quivering arm. Jessie was greatly relieved; she had no desire to assist at a murder. Fingy looked sick and shaken; all the vice was out of him.
"Can you get up?" Pap asked anxiously. "Try to get to your bed before Kate comes home."
Pap and Bill raised him between them, and Pap led him out through the door. There was a coat hanging on the back of the door, which Bill put on to hide his blood and his nakedness. He looked at Jessie in a proprietary way.
"Come on outside," he said with a nod.
"I won't," said Jessie.
He came towards her. She stood her ground, looking at him steadily. He thrust his hideous face close to hers. "D'ye think I'm going to listen to your nonsense now?" he said. "If you won't walk I'll drag you."
Jessie considered all her chances in a flash. Pap would presently return. But Pap was of no use to her. She would have a better chance of handling the man without witnesses. So she walked to the yard door, keeping her head up, and climbed the four steps with Bill at her heels. The night air was sweet in her nostrils. No lighted window looked down into that dark hold between the front building and the rear. This moment was to put her guiding maxim in life to the supreme test. She believed that a brave soul could not be humbled.
Standing in the very centre of the little flagged yard, she waited for Bill.
"Well, ain't you got nothin' for me?" he grumbled.
"No," she said. "I told you that before."
"I won you fair, didn't I?"
"You haven't won me until I give myself to you."
"It had to be either him or me."
"That's just a man's nonsense. I am the one to say who shall have me!"
"Hell, girl!" he said violently, "do you think you can live here amongst a lot of rough men without protection? And do you think you're going to get protection for nothing? Do you expect me to spend my strength fighting for you, and be satisfied with a 'thankee kindly?'"
"I didn't ask you to fight for me."
"Then he would a took you."
"I would say the same to him as to you."
"A-ah! what's all the talk about?" said Bill violently. "I fought for yeh, and I won yeh; that's according to Nature."
"It's according to animal nature. Am I no more to you than an animal?"
"I'm done talkin'!" cried Bill. He flung his arms around her. "Oh, you beauty!"
Jessie stood perfectly still, leaning far back, and keeping her hands up between them. "You are strong enough to take me," she said steadily. "But you can't do it."
"Why can't I?" he demanded with an oath.
"I'm done talking too," she said. "Look at me. You know why!"
It was light enough for them to see each other's eyes. "Don't look at me like that," he cried in a voice of rage and pain. "Don't look at me like that, or I'll do you a hurt!"
"Is it worth it, Bill?" she asked softly.
He flung her from him. "Get away from me!" he said thickly. "Get back in the house!"
She walked to the steps. Behind her she heard him cursing under his breath. The strangled sounds suggested a breast racked with pain. "Well ... he's a man!" she thought. Entering the kitchen, he was hard on her heels. Pap had returned, but Bill paid no attention to him.
"Lookee," he said to Jessie. "This house ain't big enough for you and me. I won't be responsible. You better go back where you come from. You make too much trouble around here." His pain escaped him in a final low, bitter cry: "By God! if Kate don't send you back to Woburn, I will!"
A moment later Black Kate herself entered the kitchen from the other side. Her eyelids were down, and she was curiously white about the lips. Jessie saw that another storm portended from this quarter. Skinny Sam came in soon after her, looking smug and self-conscious. It appeared that the combination against her was perfect, and Jessie awaited the event like a good loser, with a shrug. Oh well, she had done her best!
It was a foible of Mrs. Pullen's that, when she was angriest, she made believe to be calm. Nobody was deceived by it. She did not speak at once, but poked around the kitchen, closing a cupboard door here, moving a chair there. Finally she said, apropos of nothing:
"So you've been having trouble with Bill, too."
Jessie saw that anything she could say would only make matters worse, so she kept still. Neither did Bill volunteer any information. The big man was still in the grip of the feelings he did not understand. His forehead was knotty with veins, and the h
and with which he emptied his pipe, and started to refill it, trembled slightly.
"You cost me a good man last night," Mrs. Pullen went on; "and you've been making trouble in the house all day.... Where's Fingy?" she demanded of the room at large.
"Gone to bed," said Pap.
"Him and Bill was fighting," said Sam.
"What, Fingy too?" said Mrs. Pullen, turning again to Jessie. "How many men do you want? All there are, I suppose.... Well, you've done for yourself here. You can't say I didn't warn you. Before another day is out, you'll be back where there are no men."
Jessie looked at Bill, but he avoided her glance. Evidently he agreed with Black Kate.
"Have you got the gag and the handcuffs?" she demanded of Sam. "I don't mean to have any more uproar here."
Sain handed her the desired articles.
"Do you mean now?" asked Jessie, astonished into speech.
"This very minute!" said Black Kate viciously. "I know where to find one of Warden Insull's men. It'll mean promotion to him to carry the famous Jessie Seipp back to Woburn.... Sara, go telephone Charlie to bring his car to the back entrance as quick as he can."
Sam left the room.
The steel bracelets jangled in the older woman's hands. "Put out your hands, girl!"
Jessie put her hands behind her and backed against a dresser. She had no thought of putting up a fight. She merely wanted to gain time.
"Hold her, Bill!" said Black Kate furiously.
Bill got up willingly enough. Jessie knew that to make an appeal to him would only be to call forth an angry retort. After that, manlike, he would have to stand by his spoken words. So she said nothing, but kept her eyes fixed on him steadily. She had only the time that it would take him to make five steps to win him. At about the third step he lost his air of willingness. At one pace from Jessie he stopped dead, and looked at the floor. Jessie was willing him to look at her. "Are you going to stand for this?" her eyes were asking.
He darted a furtive look into her face, then, just as if she had spoken, he cried with a violent gesture: "No! I'm damned if I'll stand for it!"
"What's the matter with you?" cried Kate furiously.
"The truth has got to be told," said Bill doggedly. "Did you think you'd get the truth about this—or anything else, from Sam?"
"You leave Sam out of this!"
"I was sittin' in the dining-room after breakfast," said Bill coolly; "and I heard Sam go into her room. And I heard her tell him to get out. And in a minute I heard her throw him out."
"That's a lie!" cried Black Kate.
"All right," said Bill. "Feel the back of your darlin's head, and you'll find the bump where he struck."
"Out she goes to-night!" cried Kate.
"All right," said Bill. "Remember, I'm as old a member of this organisation as you are, and I know how to reach the boss's ear without using you for my mouthpiece. If Jess goes back to Woburn, Sam goes back to Sing Sing."
It is terrible for one of these all-commanding persons to find himself or herself in an impasse. Jessie could almost have felt sorry for the woman. Black Kate changed colour and bit her lip. Finally she said, with a great air of carelessness:
"Oh well, I'll think it over for to-night."
A long breath of relief escaped silently between Jessie's lips.
Bill would not spare his adversary. "You'd damn well better think it over," he said. "To-morrow, too."
"That will do," said Kate peremptorily.
"I'm finished," said Bill, thus depriving her of even the poor satisfaction of the last word.
By this time Sam had returned to the room. He was despatched to the rear entrance to send "Charley" back when he came with the car.
"Go to bed," said Kate to Jessie.
The latter was very willing to obey. To have attempted to thank Bill then would only have caused more trouble; so she contented herself with giving him an eloquent glance as she passed.
Now Pap was so much excited by all that had happened, he scarcely knew what he was doing. Even as she left the room, out of the tail of her eye Jessie saw him cutting great hunks of bread off a loaf, and putting them on a plate. Her curiosity was instantly on the qui vive. "Who can that be for," she asked herself; "at this time of night?"
Jessie went to her room, and somewhat ostentatiously closing the door, listened just within. She heard Mrs. Pullen come up and go into her room. She heard Bill's heavy step pass her door, and go on up to the top floor. Then she heard Pap coming. When Pap had passed her door, she opened it a crack. He was carrying the plate of bread, and in his other hand he had a small pitcher, presumably containing water. "Pretty slim fare!" thought Jessie. When Pap had passed out of sight up the last flight, Jessie came out into the hall the better to hear.
Pap put a key into the door at the head of the stairs. At this moment the bell sounded that announced the return of Sam through the secret door. But it would take him a minute or two to cross the yard and mount the two flights, and Jessie waited. She heard Pap open the door above, and from within the room she heard a sound that caused her to catch her breath in astonishment; the jingle of a chain.
Pap said: "Here," and a whispered voice answered him: "Wait a minute, Pap. God! I'll go out of my mind if I never hear a human voice!" To which Pap answered in a whisper: "Nothin' doin'. She's waitin' for the key."
Jessie went back into her room with a fast-beating heart. A woman's voice! Surely it could be no other than the woman she sought! And so near! so near! An overpowering excitement filled her. However dreadful the actual situation might be, while there was life there was hope. All along Jessie had been tormented by the fear that after all she might be too late. More than a fear, it had been practically a certainty. And now to be given assurance that she was not too late! Ah! what a barren satisfaction in avenging Melanie, as compared to the joy of saving her!
CHAPTER XVI
THE MEETING
It was first necessary for Jessie to make sure that the prisoner on the top floor was really Melanie Soupert. A dozen simple ways of accomplishing this suggested themselves to Jessie; the difficulty was to forestall the slightest chance of discovery. Every move that Jessie made in this matter had to be successful, for there could be no second chances. The smallest slip-up would end everything; end Jessie, end Melanie. Indeed, Jessie was still wondering how, since they suspected Melanie's loyalty to the gang, they had allowed her to live so long. The worst of it was, that in a household of this sort all the members stuck close at home by day and went out at night; yet it was only by daylight that Jessie could see Melanie.
She waited and watched her chance. It was not easy to keep track of the whereabouts of all the members of so diverse a family, but she had to know at any given moment where they were. Black Kate had evidently made up her mind it would be wiser for her to remain at home that day; and she sent Sam out to do the shopping. She herself moved softly around the house, unexpectedly appearing in the kitchen and dining-room, and watching them all like a cat.
After the violent scenes of the day before it was quiet enough in the house. Jessie, of course, bore herself precisely as if nothing had happened. To a woman it comes naturally to do so; not to a man. Big Bill went about with a hangdog look. His eyes occasionally sought Jessie's face with a sullen look, but wistful too. There seemed to be something that he wanted to say to her. Jessie gave him every opportunity to say it, but it never came out. Fingy Silo's bold, stupid stare at Jessie was gone; when he looked at her now, it was with furtive eyes.
Sam had had a lesson too; he still glinted poisonously at Jessie through his lashes; but when Kate was anywhere about, he dared not look at her at all. The house was quiet enough, but appalling forces of meanness and hatred and brutishness lurked under the surface. Only Pap and little Abell were comparatively harmless, the one because he was old, the other because "he was in love with his wife," they said with scorn.
Jessie gathered from various whispered conferences that went on that Bill and Fingy were go
ing "to turn a trick" that night. There was no animosity between the two where business was concerned. She also understood from a word or two that was dropped, that Abell would be out also, at least during the earlier part of the night. This would leave her alone in the house with Kate, Sam and Pap. She considered the chances. Pap slept in the room over hers, while Sam had the front hall room on the top floor to himself. However, she must first establish communications with the prisoner.
In the morning she carried a broom upstairs with which to sweep her room; and afterwards left it in her room, as if by accident. Pap did not miss it. Obtaining paper and pencil was rather more difficult. Apparently nobody in that house had any occasion to write. Finally, on a cupboard shelf she picked up a sheaf of cigarette papers, which would serve very well, but a pencil her sharp eyes could discover nowhere either in dining-room or kitchen. It would have been highly imprudent to ask for one. In the end it occurred to her that if they played cards, they must have a pencil to score with, so, hanging about the kitchen, as if at a loose end, she said with a yawn:
"Gee! I gotta have something to do! Where are the cards kept?"
Pap pointed to a drawer in the dresser, and there, among odds and ends of all sorts, Jessie found several worn packs of cards, and to her joy, a stubby pencil. Spreading the cards on the kitchen table, she played solitaire, until Pap told her ill-temperedly that she was in his way. Whereupon, Jessie slung the cards back in the drawer—but kept the pencil.
After lunch the time seemed ripe to act. Bill, Fingy and Abell had gone to their rooms to sleep, in order to be fresh for the night's work. Kate was in her room, too, and also sleeping, Jessie hoped. Sam had been sent out on an errand. Pap was in the kitchen. She was not likely to get a better opportunity.
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