The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Whatever else the spirit of Tom Harrow had said to the spirit of Franz Stoessel, it had said nothing in condemnation, hatred or anger, but only in sorrow and regret. The feeble and fumbling hand which he now painfully lifted and laid on Franz’s icy fingers was only a confirmation of that deep and eternal conversation.

  “Dolly,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” said Franz, very gently, and very softly. “And the children.” And he held Tom’s hand strongly.

  Tom closed his eyes. A policeman, seeing that his life was almost spent, shook him a little. “Who hit you?”

  Tom did not open his eyes. But hs lips moved. “I don’t know the barstards,” he said. He sighed once. His chest heaved; his head moved spasmodically. Then he was still, with the street lamp shining on his dead face, his blood forming grotesque geometric patterns over his features.

  Franz sighed. He held his friend’s hand. It cooled in his fingers.

  And then, as though struck savagely and violently, he started. He looked up. Over the peering heads of the crowd of men and police, he saw Jan Kozak.

  CHAPTER 30

  The factory superintendent, Fritz Dietrich, glided softly into Hans Schmidt’s office. He glanced swiftly across the expanse of polished floor and dark rich rug to the great, shining mahogany desk, behind which Hans sat slumped and sullen in his fat pink flesh. Shirred, gray silk draperies were drawn across the high narrow windows to shut out the sudden brilliant December sun. A small fire smouldered on the hearth of a black marble fireplace, and threw thin ribbons of rosy light on the desk, on the brown walls, and caught reflections from Hans’s diamond cravat pin and the diamond ring on his pudgy hand.

  There were no other chairs in the room save that on which Hans sat. He did not encourage prolonged conversation, he would say. But the real reason was that some peasant belligerence and egotism in him would not allow others to sit in his presence. On the occasions of visits of important men, chairs were brought in, and immediately removed after the visit. Between two windows behind Hans was a broad low divan covered with red velvet, on which he took brief naps when tired. Sometimes he spent the night on that divan, when his home became more than usually insupportable to him. On his desk was a small gilt-framed miniature of his daughter, Ernestine. Over the divan hung a dark portrait of his wife’s late father, former absentee owner of the mills. The portrait had been painted in the best Rembrandt tradition, all umber and shadow and points of light, but perpetual smoky fog and age and imperfect pigments had blurred it almost completely to one dim tint. However, the long thin face, the narrow aristocratic nose, the cold dark eyes, looked out from the heavy gold frame with supreme and icy contempt and aloofness. That face repudiated, with a startling and living disdain and delicate fastidiousness, the fat peasant seated beneath it. Sometimes susceptible visitors thought that there was affront in the lofty expression, and passionless outrage.

  Often, when alone, Hans would tuck his hands under his broadcloth coat-tails and grimace malevolently up at the portrait, with a kind of sardonic triumph. He loved aristocracy, with the deep grovelling respect of the innately servile. But he also hated its superiority, and knew its contempt for him. He would teeter back and forth on his heels, grunting under his breath, glaring at the portrait, hating it, triumphing over it. He would seem to say: “It is justice. Aristocracy stares impotently from its golden frame, but the peasant always triumphs, in his flesh and his blunt life.” It is no paradox to say that he realized that coarse flesh and strong brutal urging were at once inferior and superior to attenuated delicacy and civilization. Hearty animalism used its fists on aristocracy, out of envy, hatred, respect and worship. It grovelled before intellect and birth, and kicked it savagely whenever an occasion presented itself. The grovelling came not from fear, but from adoration, and the savage kicking came also from it, and out of despair. The unattainable was regarded with awe, but out of that awe came the impulse of destruction.

  The dim red fire struck life and fragile vitality from the cold face of Simeon Bradhurt as Fritz Dietrich glided silently into Hans’s office. Hans grunted brutally at the entrance of his superintendent. Dietrich spoke quietly, in German:

  “Mein Herr, the mills remain quiet, but frightened and uncertain. The men continue to work. They whisper. But there is no sign of disorder. Burnley has arrived—”

  Hans’s sullen stodgy flesh was electrified. He struck the polished desk a dull and resounding blow with the flat of his hand. His tiny blue eyes were inflamed.

  “Do what you want!” he shouted, viciously. “It is no concern of mine! I have had no part in this small and contemptible occasion. Involve me in no degrading discussion! Do you hear me? I am Hans Schmidt!”

  Dietrich incilned his head and murmured in respectful conciliation.

  “I understand that, Herr Schmidt. It is insulting to speak of the matter to you. But the laws of America often insist on involving the important as well as the unimportant. It is disgusting.”

  Hans breathed loudly through his short and fleshy nose. He threw himself back in his chair. He beat an infuriated tattoo on his desk with his short fat fingers. During all this, he shot malignant glances at Dietrich.

  “I, Hans Schmidt, have nothing to do with a drunken brawl between my laborers,” he said, his hoarse voice filled with fury and detestation. But there was something else in his eyes: fear. Out of this fear came his rage. Dietrich knew this. He smiled deprecatingly, and inclined his head again.

  “I know this too well, Herr Schmidt. Nevertheless, Burnley is here. He insists that if his men, Collins and Brent, are involved in this, he will have to protect them. He also insists upon seeing you.”

  At this, Hans literally leapt from his chair. He leaned his fists on his desk. His head was bent like that of a charging bull’s, and he regarded Dietrich with crimson and apoplectic hatred.

  “You dare bring that message to me?” he screamed incredulously. “You dare bring the demand of a cheap and scurvy detective to ME?”

  Dietrich coughed delicately, as though with supreme regret. “But the message involves murder, Mein Herr,” he murmured. Hans could not see the gloating in the respectfully lowered eyes.

  Hans struck the desk violently with his fists.

  “I have had no part in it! You brought that rabble to Nazareth, not I!”

  Dietrich was silent for a moment, though he smiled a little. Then he said: “You will not see Burnley, Mein Herr? It is well. I shall deal with him, myself. Nevertheless, he remains impudent. He says we delegated Stoessel to advise Brent and Collins, his men. They acted, he declares, on the express advice of Stoessel.”

  “Then, let Stoessel take the consequences!”

  Dietrich sighed. “In that event, no doubt Stoessel will involve us. I have never trusted that Prussian. There is a saying in Saxony that a boar and a Prussian were mothered by the same sow.”

  Hans said nothing. He tugged open his desk and brought out a box of cigars. He thrust one in his mouth. Dietrich leapt lithely to light it from his own box of “lucifers.” Hans's broad fat face was suffused, and there was a furtive expression on it. His pursy mouth was sullen.

  “You empower me, Mein Herr, to deal with Burnley to the best of my ability?” asked Dietrich, with regretful softness.

  “Do what you wish. But I command you not to speak my name.”

  Dietrich went towards the door. There, he paused. “Have you decided, Mein Herr, on what day you will grant an interview to Mr. Jules Bouchard, of Sessions Steel?”

  “That smirking swine of a Frenchman!” exclaimed Hans, with a look of contempt which could not, however, conceal the furtive gleam of his eyes. “Sessions Steel affects to ignore us, as a third-rate mill, but nevertheless when a question of manganese is involved, they will graciously become aware of our existence. Let him wait a day or two. Then, we shall write him.”

  Dietrich bowed, and left the office. He returned to his own desk, where a small stout man with a completely bald head, a bristling mustache and ha
rd shrewd eyes, waited for him, smoking a prodigious cigar. He wore a loud black-and-white check suit with a black waistcoat across which swung a thick gold watch-chain. On Detrich’s desk he had placed his round brown derby hat and a gold-headed cane. About him there was an air of callous surety and determination, at once compact and ruthless.

  “Well?” he said shortly, seeing Detrich. He made a motion of rising.

  Dietrich respectfully waved him back to his chair, and then seated himself. He then became aware for the first time of two burly men lurking near the outer door. But though he became aware of them, he affected to ignore them. He made a little bony tent of his fingers and regarded Burnley with benevolence. But Burnley was accustomed to benevolence in awkward and precarious circumstances, and his shrewd gray eyes narrowed in malicious suspicion. Moreover, Dietrich’s lean foxlike face, and the pale blue eyes behind their halflenses, did not disarm him in the least.

  Dietrich coughed. He smiled affectionately, and thrust a box of cigars across his desk towards the chief of the private detective bureau. Burnley stared at the cigars, and with a grunt, helped himself to a handful, which he deliberately inserted in the capacious pockets of his waistcoat. He waited.

  Dietrich coughed again, and leaned back in his chair. “I have talked to Mr. Schmidt,” he said, in his high Saxon voice. “He is most regretful. But at the present moment he is unable to see you, much as he might desire to. He is engaged with a number of clerks in annotating large new orders. However,” added the superintendent, with smiling briskness, “he delegates me to tell you that under no circumstances would he consider ignoring the—er—present position of your agents, should the necessity arise. He would consider bearing part of the cost of the fee, at least, for excellent attorneys—”

  Burnley’s eyes became glittering points of light. He glanced over his shoulder at Brent and Collins. He spoke in a voice of deep sarcasm: “Now, boys, isn’t that just too jim-dandy of Mr. Schmidt? He will shed a few tears for you when you get hanged. Capital, eh?”

  The two men laughed shortly, in voices like menacing growls.

  Burnley turned back to Dietrich, and his face was full of cold threat.

  “Look here, you, there ain’t going to be any ‘necessity.’ You’re all in it, Schmidt and the rest of you. If one of my boys hangs, he won’t hang alone. Understand?”

  Dietrich examined his pale fingernails with rapt attention. Then he said softly: “Let us be sensible, and consider the situation. Your agents were not commissioned to any—acts of violence. That is against all the principles of the Schmidt Steel Company. However,” he said, lifting his hand to interrupt a violent outburst from Burnley, “it is hardly likely that any untoward—circumstances—shall arise. We are now awaiting the return of Franz Stoessel, who gave instructions to your agents, and who is now attending the inquest. It is not possible that he will involve himself, and your agents. I understand that the unfortunate—victim—died without incriminating any one.”

  Burnley threw himself back in his chair and regarded Dietrich menacingly.

  “We will wait for this Stoessel,” he said.

  Dietrich gazed through the window contemplatively, and with an air of gentle detachment. “That might be well,” he murmured. The two men near the door sat down deliberately, lit cigars, and waited, their beefy hands on their spread knees. Dietrich glanced at them fleetingly. They were ugly “customers.”

  Dietrich returned his attention to his desk. “You will excuse me, please,” he said, in his murmuring and placating voice. He began to examine a pile of papers. His air was one of regretful dismissal of the present situation. Minute after minute passed. Burnley was not intimidated. He puffed stolidly on his cigar. His men puffed. The papers on Dietrich’s desk whispered. The sound of the mills penetrated into the office in a dull subterranean roar. The pallid bright sky outside appeared and disappeared in gushes of smoke.

  Half an hour went by, then the door suddenly opened, and a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with hard pale lips, ghastly color and red-veined blue eyes, entered abruptly. His manner was grim and purposeful. His eyes touched Burnley and the two agents, who stirred and muttered to themselves. Dietrich glanced up, and smiled.

  “Ah, Stoessel,” he said, genially. “We were waiting for you. We wish to hear the results of the inquest.” He smiled at Burnley. “This is Franz Stoessel. He will now tell us about the inquest.”

  But Franz ignored all these niceties. He came directly to Dietrich’s desk. He leaned towards the superintendent and pressed his clenched fists down on the wood. He spoke only to him, and then in German.

  “The inquest is over. Closed. The verdict was an attack by unknown thieves. I beat them off.” He looked at Dietrich with a slight but terrible smile. “I am a hero. I did all I could to protect my friend. The police were there. They gave their evidence. They repeated Harrow’s last words, that he did not know the identity of his attackers. There is a warrant out for the unknown thieves. Three warehouse watchmen were found with excellent imaginations. They saw the thieves, and described them as three or four shabbily-dressed men with caps pulled low over their eyes, carrying clubs.”

  Dietrich looked at Franz with a sweet expression, and breathed with relief. He turned to Burnley, who put up a short brusque hand. “Don’t interpret. I know your damned language.” He stared at Franz Stoessel. “Congratulations on being a hero,” he said, ironically. “Or maybe you’re just a smart man. Maybe you got a touchy feeling for your own neck. My boys wouldn’t have hanged alone.”

  “No,” said Franz, very quietly, and looking only at Dietrich with his swollen and diffused eyes, “we would not have hanged alone.”

  Dietrich, suddenly uncomfortable, roused himself to renewed benevolence. “So, it is all finished,” he said lightly. “There is nothing more to say. I advise you to take your agents, all of them, out of town immediately, Mr. Burnley. Now, there is a matter of your fee—”

  Burnley slapped the desk before him heavily and slowly. “My fee, yes. It was to be two thousand dollars, for last night, and for today, if any disorders came up in your mills. But, I’ve decided that ain’t enough. I want four thousand. My boys deserve it. They did a good night’s work for you bastards.” He glanced over his shoulder again at Brent and Collins'. “A fair price, eh, boys, for risking your necks?”

  “Preposterous!” exclaimed Dietrich. Franz still stood, leaning against the desk, leaning towards him, with those fixed and glaucous eyes. Dietrich affected to ignore him.

  Burnley shrugged. “On second thought,” he said, “maybe you’re right. Maybe it is preposterous. My boys only removed a feller that would’ve cost Mr. Schmidt maybe twenty-five thousand dollars. Four thousand’s too cheap for the work we done. We want six. Did I say twenty thousand dollars out of Mr. Schmidt’s money-bags? If there’d been a strike, it would’ve cost him twice as much. If there’d been a trial, and my boys here got involved, Schmidt might just as well have closed down his mills and gone out of business, if not worse. Six thousand it is, Mr. Dietrich.”

  Franz stirred. It seemed even to the alarmed Dietrich that that stirring cost him a prodigious effort, that the very act of pushing himself upright involved a mortal strain. Sweat appeared on his gray face, and at the corners of his grim clenched mouth. He looked at Burnley, and something in his expression made that gentleman sit up, abruptly, as though anticipating attack.

  “Two thousand dollars,” said Franz, in a low voice. “Two thousand dollars for a murder. That is a lot of money. Judas got only thirty pieces of silver.”

  Dietrich opened his mouth as if to speak, then said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Schmidt’s door was slightly open.

  Burnley narrowed his eyes to an evil slit, as he sat up in his chair, regarding Franz warily.

  “So!” he said. “A big talker, ain’t you? What’s it got to do with you, anyway? You’re a kind of gandy-dancer around here, eh? Keep your mouth shut when you ain’t being consulted.” He turned to Diet
rich insolently. “Five thousand dollars. That’s my last price. Take it or leave it.”

  Dietrich was silent. He looked at Franz, whose exhausted and stony face had taken on its look of implacability and hatred.

  “Don’t try me,” he said to Burnley, in that same low pent voice. “I’m reaching the place where I don’t care what happens. To me, or to any one. In five minutes, the price will be one thousand. Make up your mind.”

  Dietrich cleared his throat deprecatingly. “The fee agreed upon was two thousand dollars, Mr. Burnley,” he said. “We must adhere to the original bargain.”

  Brent came forward now, walking lightly on the balls of his feet, his neck and head thrust forward, his large brutal face wrinkling like that of a gorilla’s. He faced Franz, laid a gripping hand on his shoulder.

  “Shut up,” he said, briefly, and he raised the other hand, clenched into a fist, and pressed it viciously against Franz’s chin.

  Franz did not move for a moment, then he struck down the fist, and wrenched himself free from the other’s grip. He smiled a little, and the red veins thickened in his eyes.

  “It was you, wasn’t it, Brent, who hit Harrow first? I can swear to that.”

  Brent lifted his fist suddenly, then held it back. His lips and eyes wrinkled still more, grimacing. His stubbled cheeks became crimson. Then, very slowly, he dropped his fist. He panted slightly. But what he had seen in Franz’s face terrified him. He shook his head, as though he had been struck. He looked at Burnley.

  “Chief,” he said, “let’s take the money. I’m gettin’ out of town, right now.”