K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient didnot need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned thegas office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy toreconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocenceof the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with theconviction that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.

  For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitalskeep their secrets well. And it is doubtful if the Street wouldhave been greatly concerned even had it known. It had never heard ofEdwardes, of the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation. Its medicalknowledge comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner.When, as would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it wouldbe more concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner ofit. That was as it should be.

  But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood. Ifthe boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable. Twenty people hadseen him at Schwitter's and would know him again.

  To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.

  At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him. He had not beenhome all night. Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told himthat. "Mrs. Drummond was here," she said. "She is almost frantic. Shesays Joe has not been home all night. She says he looks up to you, andshe thought if you could find him and would talk to him--"

  "Joe was with me last night. We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry.I feel sure she will hear from him to-day. Something went wrong with hiscar, perhaps, after he left me."

  He bathed and shaved hurriedly. Katie brought his coffee to his room,and he drank it standing. He was working out a theory about the boy.Beyond Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, acrossthe State. Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating upthe miles all that night, or--K. would not formulate his fear of whatmight have happened, even to himself.

  As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with alittle knot of people around her. The Street was getting the night'snews.

  He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into thecountry. He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day. He wentto Schwitter's first. Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill wasscrubbing the porch, and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grassinto a box. The dead lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back onthe hill came the staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.

  "Where's Schwitter?"

  "At the barn with the missus. Got a boy back there."

  Bill grinned. He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch,shoved a chair on it.

  "Sit down. Well, how's the man who got his last night? Dead?"

  "No."

  "County detectives were here bright and early. After the lady's husband.I guess we lose our license over this."

  "What does Schwitter say?"

  "Oh, him!" Bill's tone was full of disgust. "He hopes we do. He hatesthe place. Only man I ever knew that hated money. That's what this houseis--money."

  "Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?"

  A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtainbefore his eyes. But his reply came promptly:

  "Surest thing in the world. Close to him as you are to me. Dark man,about thirty, small mustache--"

  "Bill, you're lying, and I know it. Where is he?"

  The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.

  "I don't know anything about him." He thrust his mop into the pail. K.rose.

  "Does Schwitter know?"

  "He doesn't know nothing. He's been out at the barn all night."

  The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of thehouse. K. put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.

  "We've got to get him away from here, Bill."

  "Get who away?"

  "You know. The county men may come back to search the premises."

  "How do I know you aren't one of them?"

  "I guess you know I'm not. He's a friend of mine. As a matter of fact,I followed him here; but I was too late. Did he take the revolver awaywith him?"

  "I took it from him. It's under the bar."

  "Get it for me."

  In sheer relief, K.'s spirits rose. After all, it was a good world:Tillie with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joesafe, and, without the revolver, secure from his own remorse. Otherthings there were, too--the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, theway she had turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, thislast, but it was worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; ithad stopped on the hillside. The men were drinking out of a bucket thatflashed in the sun.

  There was one thing wrong. What had come over Wilson, to do so recklessa thing? K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.

  From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne. He noted histall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over hisears. Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job. After his survey hewent behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.

  K. thrust it into his pocket.

  "Now," he said quietly, "where is he?"

  "In my room--top of the house."

  K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had satwaiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down.And last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure.Surely the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery. None of it paid.No one got away with it.

  The room under the eaves was stifling. An unmade bed stood in a corner.From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and acracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.

  Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window. When the doorswung open, he looked up. He showed no interest on seeing K., who had tostoop to enter the low room.

  "Hello, Joe."

  "I thought you were the police."

  "Not much. Open that window, Bill. This place is stifling."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No, indeed."

  "I wish I'd killed him!"

  "Oh, no, you don't. You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I."

  "What will they do with me?"

  "Nothing until they find you. I came to talk about that. They'd betternot find you."

  "Huh!"

  "It's easier than it sounds."

  K. sat down on the bed.

  "If I only had some money!" he said. "But never mind about that, Joe;I'll get some."

  Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room. As he closed the doorbehind him, K.'s voice took on a new tone: "Joe, why did you do it?"

  "You know."

  "You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know who was with him?"

  "Yes, and so do you. Don't go into that. I did it, and I'll stand byit."

  "Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?"

  "Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!" he sneered. "Theycame here and took a room. I met him coming out of it. I'd do it againif I had a chance, and do it better."

  "It was not Sidney."

  "Aw, chuck it!"

  "It's a fact. I got here not two minutes after you left. The girl wasstill there. It was some one else. Sidney was not out of the hospitallast night. She attended a lecture, and then an operation."

  Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had notbeen Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.

  "If he is that sort, he deserves what he got," said the boy grimly.

  And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spentalone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a timethat he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees--his descent of thestaircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing
above; his resolve towalk back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could beno mistake as to who had committed the crime.

  "I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself," he told K."But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And--"

  After a pause: "Does she know who did it?"

  "Sidney? No."

  "Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow."

  "Possibly. That's not up to us, Joe. The thing we've got to do is tohush the thing up, and get you away."

  "I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money."

  K. rose. "I think I can get it."

  He turned in the doorway.

  "Sidney need never know who did it."

  "I'm not ashamed of it." But his face showed relief.

  There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reservebetween men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K.The boy rose and followed him to the door.

  "Why don't you tell her the whole thing?--the whole filthy story?" heasked. "She'd never look at him again. You're crazy about her. I haven'tgot a chance. It would give you one."

  "I want her, God knows!" said K. "But not that way, boy."

  Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.

  "Five hundred gross," the little man hastened to explain. "But you'reright, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It's going hardwith her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about. It's in thesafe, in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank." He seemedto apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lendingan entire day's gross receipts on no security. "It's better to get himaway, of course. It's good business. I have tried to have an orderlyplace. If they arrest him here--"

  His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walkeddown the Street, and eyed Its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late thatnight to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him toa railroad station. But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.

  He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message foundhim there. Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hardfight. The message from Schwitter was very brief:--

  "Something has happened, and Tillie wants you. I don't like to troubleyou again, but she--wants you."

  K. was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and littlefood since the day before. But he got into the rented machine again--itsrental was running up; he tried to forget it--and turned it towardHillfoot. But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walkedwithout ringing into Mrs. McKee's.

  Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state hadaltered the "mealing" house. The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rackin the hall. Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window oneviewed the spiraea, still in need of spraying. Mrs. McKee herself was inthe pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaveson each of an interminable succession of plates.

  K., who was privileged, walked back.

  "I've got a car at the door," he announced, "and there's nothing soextravagant as an empty seat in an automobile. Will you take a ride?"

  Mrs. McKee agreed. Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap theideal headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.

  "If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap," she said."Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one. If you'll take me in mytoque--"

  K. said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety,having not the faintest idea what a toque was. He was not without otheranxieties. What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that heexpected? Good women could be most cruel. And Schwitter had been veryvague. But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice hadexpressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not agrief.

  He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring themtogether. But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables,its whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper windowbehind which Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather. Hehad a masculine dislike for meddling, and yet--Mrs. McKee had suddenlyseen the name in the wooden arch over the gate: "Schwitter's."

  "I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne."

  "Tillie's not in the house. She's back in the barn."

  "In the barn!"

  "She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out. It'svery comfortable and clean; it smells of hay. You'd be surprised hownice it is."

  "The like of her!" snorted Mrs. McKee. "She's late with her conscience,I'm thinking."

  "Last night," K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, "shehad a child there. It--it's rather like very old times, isn't it? Aman-child, Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course."

  "What do you want me to do?" Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce atthe beginning, ended feebly.

  "I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had anew baby and needed a friend. Lie a little--" Mrs. McKee gasped. "Tellher the baby's pretty. Tell her you've been wanting to see her." Histone was suddenly stern. "Lie a little, for your soul's sake."

  She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch withthe shameful name, and back to the barn. But there he had the tact toremain in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone.When, five minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn,her eyes were red.

  "Come in, Mr. K.," she said. "The wife's dead, poor thing. They're goingto be married right away."

  The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels. K.entered the barn. At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head.The child was asleep at her breast.

  The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe'scredit. On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at thebank with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University andCountry Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, andvarious small obligations of Christine's.

  The immediate result of the money was good. He drank nothing for a week,went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat athome with Christine on her balcony in the evenings. With the knowledgethat he could pay his debts, he postponed the day. He liked the feelingof a bank account in four figures.

  The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him theregratified him. He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous. On the thirdevening he was restless. It occurred to him that his wife was beginningto take his presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer.When he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he wasfurious.

  Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only halfin it. She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed forPalmer in the things he liked. They still took their dinners at theLorenz house up the street. When she saw that the haphazard tableservice there irritated him, she coaxed her mother into getting abutler.

  The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly andin its heart, it was proud of him. With a half-dozen automobiles, andChristine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler,not to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself onits commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack ofaffectation had lain its charm.

  On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.He had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once sincethe motor accident. To do him justice, his dissipation of the past fewmonths had not included women.

  The girl had a strange fascination for him. Perhaps she typified thecare-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,fundamental. He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson wasshot. The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's blackdress had been enough to set his pulses racing. When he saw that shemeant to pass h
im, he fell into step beside her.

  "I believe you were going to cut me!"

  "I was in a hurry."

  "Still in the store?"

  "Yes." And, after a second's hesitation: "I'm keeping straight, too."

  "How are you getting along?"

  "Pretty well. I've had my salary raised."

  "Do you have to walk as fast as this?"

  "I said I was in a hurry. Once a week I get off a little early. I--"

  He eyed her suspiciously.

  "Early! What for?"

  "I go to the hospital. The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know."

  "Oh!"

  But a moment later he burst out irritably:--

  "That was an accident, Grace. The boy took the chance when he engagedto drive the car. I'm sorry, of course. I dream of the littledevil sometimes, lying there. I'll tell you what I'll do," he addedmagnanimously. "I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have donesomething before this."

  "The boy's not strong enough yet. I don't think you can do anything forhim, unless--"

  The monstrous injustice of the thing overcame her. Palmer and shewalking about, and the boy lying on his hot bed! She choked.

  "Well?"

  "He worries about his mother. If you could give her some money, it wouldhelp."

  "Money! Good Heavens--I owe everybody."

  "You owe him too, don't you? He'll never walk again."

  "I can't give them ten dollars. I don't see that I'm under anyobligation, anyhow. I paid his board for two months in the hospital."

  When she did not acknowledge this generosity,--amounting to forty-eightdollars,--his irritation grew. Her silence was an accusation. Her mannergalled him, into the bargain. She was too calm in his presence, toocold. Where she had once palpitated visibly under his warm gaze, she wasnow self-possessed and quiet. Where it had pleased his pride to thinkthat he had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the other foot.

  At the entrance to a side street she stopped.

  "I turn off here."

  "May I come and see you sometime?"

  "No, please."

  "That's flat, is it?"

  "It is, Palmer."

  He swung around savagely and left her.

  The next day he drew the thousand dollars from the bank. A good manyof his debts he wanted to pay in cash; there was no use putting checksthrough, with incriminating indorsements. Also, he liked the idea ofcarrying a roll of money around. The big fellows at the clubs always hada wad and peeled off bills like skin off an onion. He took a couple ofdrinks to celebrate his approaching immunity from debt.

  He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of thehotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be withhim. He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket.Money seemed to bring money! If he could carry the thousand around for aday or so, something pretty good might come of it.

  He had been drinking a little all afternoon. When the game was over, hebought drinks to celebrate his victory. The losers treated, too, to showthey were no pikers. Palmer was in high spirits. He offered to put upthe eighty and throw for it. The losers mentioned dinner and variousengagements.

  Palmer did not want to go home. Christine would greet him with raisedeyebrows. They would eat a stuffy Lorenz dinner, and in the eveningChristine would sit in the lamplight and drive him mad with soft music.He wanted lights, noise, the smiles of women. Luck was with him, and hewanted to be happy.

  At nine o'clock that night he found Grace. She had moved to a cheapapartment which she shared with two other girls from the store. Theothers were out. It was his lucky day, surely.

  His drunkenness was of the mind, mostly. His muscles were wellcontrolled. The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth wereslightly accentuated, his eyes open a trifle wider than usual. Thatand a slight paleness of the nostrils were the only evidences of hiscondition. But Grace knew the signs.

  "You can't come in."

  "Of course I'm coming in."

  She retreated before him, her eyes watchful. Men in his condition wereapt to be as quick with a blow as with a caress. But, having gained hispoint, he was amiable.

  "Get your things on and come out. We can take in a roof-garden."

  "I've told you I'm not doing that sort of thing."

  He was ugly in a flash.

  "You've got somebody else on the string."

  "Honestly, no. There--there has never been anybody else, Palmer."

  He caught her suddenly and jerked her toward him.

  "You let me hear of anybody else, and I'll cut the guts out of him!"

  He held her for a second, his face black and fierce. Then, slowly andinevitably, he drew her into his arms. He was drunk, and she knew it.But, in the queer loyalty of her class, he was the only man she hadcared for. She cared now. She took him for that moment, felt his hotkisses on her mouth, her throat, submitted while his rather brutalhands bruised her arms in fierce caresses. Then she put him from herresolutely.

  "Now you're going."

  "The hell I'm going!"

  But he was less steady than he had been. The heat of the little flatbrought more blood to his head. He wavered as he stood just inside thedoor.

  "You must go back to your wife."

  "She doesn't want me. She's in love with a fellow at the house."

  "Palmer, hush!"

  "Lemme come in and sit down, won't you?"

  She let him pass her into the sitting-room. He dropped into a chair.

  "You've turned me down, and now Christine--she thinks I don't know. I'mno fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made hermiserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don'tkick about it."

  "You know that."

  She was watching him gravely. She had never seen him just like this.Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reedhe was.

  "I got you in wrong. You were a good girl before I knew you. You'rea good girl now. I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it. I onlywanted to take you out for a good time. I've got money. Look here!" Hedrew out the roll of bills and showed it to her. Her eyes opened wide.She had never known him to have much money.

  "Lots more where that comes from."

  A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.

  She was instantly cunning.

  "Aren't you going to give me some of that?"

  "What for?"

  "I--I want some clothes."

  The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.

  "You lie."

  "I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld."

  He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp ofit.

  "That's it," he complained. "Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw itall up to me!"

  "You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you."

  "If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!"

  But his eyes were wavering. She could see victory.

  "Take off enough for the evening."

  But he drew himself up.

  "I'm no piker," he said largely. "Whole hog or nothing. Take it."

  He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eightydollars, in crushed and wrinkled notes.

  "It's my lucky day," he said thickly. "Plenty more where this came from.Do anything for you. Give it to the little devil. I--" He yawned. "God,this place is hot!"

  His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on astool. She knew him--knew that he would sleep almost all night.She would have to make up something to tell the other girls; but nomatter--she could attend to that later.

  She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before. It seemedsmaller than that amount. Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, inpinning on her hat, to count the bills. It was all there.