XVII
In beginning this chapter, which is going to end my story of the HeskethMystery, I want to say right here that I'm no coward. The reason thatthings happened as they did was that I was worn out--more than Iknew--by the strain and excitement of the last two months. Also I dothink that most any girl would have lost her nerve if she'd been upagainst what I was.
The gloom of that dreadful Wayside Arbor was still on me as I walkedalong with Babbitts. After a few moments I thought it had gone off andwhen I told him I wasn't afraid I said what seemed to me the truth. Butwhen the sound of his footsteps died away, the loneliness crept in onme, seemed to be telling me something that I didn't want to hear. Downdeep I knew what it was, and that every step was taking me closer towhat I was afraid of--the place where Sylvia Hesketh had been murdered.
It was when I was peering out ahead, trying to locate it, telling myselfnot to be a fool and gathering up my courage, that I heard that faint,stealthy rustling behind me.
I stopped dead, listening. I was scared but not clear through yet, for Iknew it might be some little animal, a rabbit or a chipmunk, creepingthrough the underbrush. I stood waiting, feeling that I was breathingfast, and as still as one of the telegraph poles along the road. Thetrees hid me completely. A person could have passed close by and notseen me standing there in my black cloak against the black background.
Then I heard it again, very soft and cautious, a crackle of branches andthen a wait, and presently--it seemed hours--a crackle of branchesagain. I moved forward, stepping on tiptoe, stifling my breath, my headturned sideways, listening, listening with every nerve. Even then Iwasn't so terribly frightened, but I was shivery, shivery down to myheart, for I could hear that, whether it was beast or human, it was onthe other side of the trees, just a little way back, going the way Iwas.
It only took a few minutes--me stealing forward and it coming on, nowsoft as it stepped on the earth, now with a twig snapping sharp--to tellme I was being followed.
When I got that clear, the last of my courage melted away. If it hadbeen anywhere else, if it hadn't been so dark, if there'd been a houseor a person within call, but, oh, Lord, in that lonesomeness, far offfrom everything--it was awful! And the awfullest part was that rightthere in front of me, getting nearer every minute, was the place whereanother girl had been murdered on a night like this.
I tried to pull myself together, to remember that Babbitts would be backsoon, but I couldn't stop my heart from beating like a hammer, terriblethuds up in my throat. Way off through the trees I could see the twinkleof Cresset's lights and I thought of them there; but it was as if theywere at the other end of the world, too far for me to reach them or forthem to hear my call.
I don't know why I walked on, but I think it was pure fear. I was afraidif I stopped that dreadful following thing would overtake me. Once Itried to look back but I couldn't. I thought I might see it and I stoleforward, now and then stopping and listening and every time hearing thecrackle and snap of the twigs as it crept after me. I could see now theplace where Sylvia was found, the shrubs curving back from the road asif to leave a space wide enough for her body.
The sight made me stop and, as I stood there still as a statue, I heardthe sounds behind me get louder, as if a big body was feeling andpushing its way between the trees, not so careful now, but trampling andcrushing through the interlaced boughs. Then for the first time in mylife I knew what it means when they say your hair stands on end. Down atthe roots of mine there was a stirring all over my head and my heart! Itwas banging against my chest, blow after blow, as if it was trying tobreak a hole.
The sky began to brighten. I got a sort of impression of those cracks inthe clouds parting and the moonlight leaking through; but I didn't seemto see it plain, everything in me was turned to terror. The noise behindme was closer and louder and through it I heard a breathing, deep,panting breaths, drawn hard. Then I knew if I turned I could have seenwhat was following me, seen its awful face, glaring between the branchesand its bent body, crouched, ready to spring.
It's hard for me to tell what followed--everything came together and Icouldn't see or think. I remember trying to scream, to give one shriekfor Babbitts, and no sound coming, and that the thing, as if it knewwhat I was doing, made a sudden crashing close at my back. Thebrightness of the sky flashed in my eyes. I saw the clouds broken open,and the moon, big and white, whirling round like a silver plate. I triedto run but the earth rose up in waves and I staggered forward over them,wave after wave, with the moon spinning close to my eyes, and thenblackness shutting down like the lid of a box.
The next thing I remember was the sky with clouds all over it and in oneplace an opening with a little star as big as a pinhead set in themiddle. I looked at that star for a long time, having a queer feelingthat I was holding on to it and it was pulling me up. Then I felt as ifsomething was helping the star, a strong support under my shoulders thatraised me still further, and while I seemed to be struggling out of adarkness like water, I heard Babbitts' voice close to my ear:
"Thank God, she's coming out of it."
I turned my head and there was his face close to mine. A strong yellowlight shone on it--afterward I saw it came from a lantern on theground--and without speaking I looked into his eyes, and had a lovelyfeeling of rest as if I'd found something I was looking for.
"You're all right?" he said; "you're not hurt?"
"I'm very well, thank you," I said back, and my voice was like awhisper.
The support under my shoulders tightened, drew me up against him, and hebent down and kissed me.
We said no more, but stayed that way, looking at each other. I didn'twant to move or speak. I didn't feel anything or care about anything. Itseemed like Babbitts and I were the only two people in the whole world,as if there _was_ no world, just us, and all the rest nothing.
After that--he's often told me it was only a minute or two, though ifyou'd asked me I'd have said it was hours--I began to look round andtake notice. I heard queer sounds as if someone was groaning in pain,and saw the shrubs and grass plain by the light of two lanterns standingon the ground. Near these was a man, lit up as far as his knees, andclose by him, all crumpled on the earth, another person. The lanternsthrew a bright glow over the upper part of that figure, and I saw thehead and shoulders, the hair with leaves and twigs in it and round theneck a red bandanna. Then I made out it was a man and that it was fromhim the sounds were coming--moans and groans and words in a strangelanguage.
"What is it?" I whispered to Babbitts. "What's happened?"
And he whispered back:
"I'll tell you later. You're all right--that's all that matters now."
It was like a dream and I can only tell it that way--me noticing thingsin little broken bits, as if I was at the "movies" and kept falling tosleep, and then woke up and saw a new picture. The man who was standingturned round and it was Hines. He looked across the road and gave ashout and others answered it, and lights danced up and down, comingcloser through the dark. Then men came running--Farmer Cresset and hissons--and behind them Mrs. Hines, with her clothes held up high and herthin legs like a stork's. I could hear them breathing as they raced upand one man's voice crying:
"It's all right, is it? There ain't been no harm done?"
After that the men were in a group talking low, the lanterns in theirhands sending circles and squares of light over the bushes and thegrass. Presently Farmer Cresset broke away and went to the figure on theground. He tried to pull him up, but the man squirmed out of his handand fell back like a meal sack, his face to the earth, the moans comingfrom him loud and awful.
After a while they put me on something long and hard with a bundle undermy head and took me away up the road and through the woods. It was darkand no one said anything, the Cresset boys carrying what I was on andBabbitts walking alongside. As we started I heard someone say the Farmerwould stay with Hines and "communicate with the authorities." And thenwe went swinging off under the trees, the footsteps of the men
squashingin the mud. Soon there were lights twinkling through the branches, andjust as I saw them and heard a dog bark, and a woman call out, my heartfaded away again and that blackness swept over me.
I didn't know till afterwards how long I was sick--weeks it was--lyingin Mrs. Cresset's spare room with that blessed woman caring for me likeher own daughter. No people in this world were ever better to anotherthan that family was to me. And others were good--it takes sickness andtrouble to make you value human nature--for when I got desperate bad Dr.Fowler came over and took a hand. Mrs. Cresset herself told me thatrespecting Dr. Graham as she did, she thought I'd never have comethrough if Dr. Fowler hadn't given himself right up to it, staying inthe house for two days the time I was worst. And not a cent would heever take for it, only a pair of bed slippers I knitted for him while Iwas getting better.
It was not till I was well along on the upgrade that I heard whathappened on that gruesome night. I was still in bed, sitting up in apink flannel jacket that Anne Hennessey gave me, with the sunlightstreaming in through the windows and a bunch of violets scenting up theroom. Babbitts had brought them and it was he that told me, sitting in arocker by the bedside and speaking very quiet and gentle so as not togive me any shock. For without my knowledge, just like an instrument offate, it was I that had solved the Hesketh mystery.
Neither man nor woman had killed Sylvia Hesketh. The murderer was thedancing bear.
The man they found on the ground beside me that night was its owner,Tito Malti, the dago I had seen nearly three months before making thebear dance at Longwood, and the man Babbitts and I had seen thatafternoon on the hill. Hines and Farmer Cresset carried him--he wasunable to walk at first--to the Wayside Arbor and in the bar there hetold them his story.
He had been associated with the acrobats for several years, working overthe country with them during the summer and lying up in small towns forthe winter. That spring, when the company went out on their tour, he hadnoticed that his bear (he called it Bruno and spoke of it like a human)showed signs of bad temper. It was a big strong beast, but was gettingold and a viciousness that it had always had was growing on it. He keptquiet about it as he hoped to get through the season without trouble andknew, if the company thought it was dangerous, they wouldn't stand forhaving it around. All the summer he wandered with them, guarding thebear carefully, never leaving it unmuzzled, and sleeping beside it atnight.
Toward the end of the season it began to grow worse. It had tried toattack one of the acrobats and there had been a quarrel. He saw he'dhave to part from them, but they patched up the fight and he stayed onfor their last performance at Longwood, where the business was alwaysgood.
After that they separated, the company going into winter quarters atBloomington and Malti telling them he would take Bruno across countryand make a little extra money at the farms and villages. He did intendto do this but he really wanted to get off by himself, watch the animal,and try and gain his old control over it.
He started, working round by the turnpike, letting Bruno perform when heseemed good tempered, but a good part of the time being afraid to. Inthis way he made enough money to keep himself, sleeping when the nightswere bad, in barns and on the lee side of hayricks, the bear chained tohim.
On the night of the murder he had got round as far as the Wayside Arbor.His intention had been to take his supper there--he knew the placewell--and have the bear dance for the Italian customers. But by the timehe reached the Arbor he didn't dare. For some days Bruno had been sullenand savage--that afternoon Malti had had to beat him with theiron-spiked staff he always carried. The poor man said he was half crazywith fright and misery. He told Hines and Cresset, who said he was assimple as a young child, that what between his fear of getting intotrouble with the authorities and his fear of losing the bear which wasall he had in the world, he was distracted.
In the afternoon he had begged some food at a farm and with this in hispocket he tracked across the fields and woods to the turnpike near theFirehill Road. Here--it being a lonely spot--he sat down in the shade ofthe trees that hid him from the highway and ate his supper. As he hadbeen on the tramp for days he was dropping with fatigue and, seeing thebear seemed quiet, he stretched out and with the chain in his hand, hadfallen asleep.
He was wakened by a scream--the most awful he had ever heard. Halfasleep as he was, he leaped to his feet, feeling in the dark for thechain. It was gone and the bear with it.
The scream had come from the other side of the trees. With his staff inhis hand he burst through them and in the darkness saw dimly the shapeof that fearful, great beast reared upon its hind legs, with a blackthing lying at its feet. He yelled and struck it in the face with thestaff and it dropped down to all fours, growling and terrible, but as ifthe sound of his voice and the blows had cowed it. Then he grabbed forthe chain, moving along the ground like a snake, and holding it, kneltand looked at the black thing--the thing the scream had come from.
He raised it and saw the faint white of the face and hands and felt bythe clothes it was a woman. He knew the way an enraged bearattacks--rising up to its hind legs and giving a blow with its paw, ablow that if the body it strikes is unprotected, can break bones andtear muscles out of their place. In the dark he felt the woman till hishand came on the trickle of blood on her face. That told him the brutehad struck at her head, and sick and trembling, he lit a match and heldit low over her. The hat had protected her from the claws; without itthey would have torn through the scalp like the teeth of a rake. Butwhen he saw her face and felt of her pulse, he knew that that savageblow had broken her skull and she was dead.
At first he was too paralyzed to think, kneeling there beside her withthe bear crouched at the end of his chain, not stirring as if it wasscared at what it had done. Then the horn of the Doctor's auto woke himand, clutching the body, he drew back into the shadow. The car passed atfurious speed, its noise drowning any sound that that strange and awfulgroup might have made. Shaking in every limb he laid his burden on thegrass and tried to compose it, putting back the hat which was torn off,but was caught to the hair by its long pin.
While he was doing this the clouds broke and he was drawing the coatabout her when the moon came out bright as day. By its light he saw thepearl necklace and in his own words, "All the badness in his heart cameup into his head."
When he told that part of his story he wrung his hands and sobbed,declaring over and over that he was an honest man and a good Catholic.Never before had he stolen, though often he had gone cold and hungry.But he knew now that he must kill the bear, and then he would be left anold man without a penny or any way to earn one. "And the pearls," hemoaned out, "what are they to the dead? And to me, who must live, theymean riches forever."
He said his hands shook so he couldn't find the clasp and to get at ithe pulled open the coat. And then he gave a cry and drew back like hewas burnt, for there on the breast of the dead woman, sparkling like athing of fire, was the cross.
Babbitts said the two men were greatly impressed by the way he actedwhen he told this. The perspiration broke out on his face and he crossedhimself, bowing his head and shuddering. "It was God's voice," hewhispered. "It said: 'Stop, Tito; hold your hand. No man can rob thedead.'"
So he closed the coat, folded the arms across the chest and covered allwith branches he found in a pile near by. As he moved about the bearwatched him, not stirring, as if it knew it was guilty and was waitingto see what he would do to it.
When the work was finished the two of them stole away, as noiseless asshadows. His head was clear enough to think of the footprints and hekept on the grass till he was near the Firehill Road. He was approachingthis when he heard Reddy's horn, and with the bear following, he slippedthrough a break in the trees into the open space beyond. Here, huddledinto the blackness under the boughs, he saw the car swing past. It wenta little way down the road and then stopped and stood for what seemed tohim a long time, every now and then the horn sounding. When it finallystarted again he moved on, the bear p
adding silently beside him. He saidthe car came back soon and passed and repassed him a number of times.Each time he was ready for it, the noise and the lamps warning him ofits approach. Crowded up against the bear, he watched it through thebranches, all the road bright in front of it where the lamps threw theirtwo long shoots of light.
When they asked him if he wasn't afraid of the bear making some sound heshook his head and said just like a child:
"Bruno? No--he is wise like a man. When I look him in the eye I see heknows he is a murderer and must die, and it makes him very quiet."
He had made up his mind to kill Bruno. As he told the men about it thetears ran down his face, for he said the bear was like his brother. WhenReddy had gone, he made off, Bruno walking at the end of the chainbehind him, both keeping to the grass edges of the fields. All nightthey walked, those two--and strange they must have looked slippingacross the moonlit spaces, two black shadows moving over thelonesomeness, not a sound from either of them, one leading the other tohis execution.
At dawn they entered the woods. There, when the light was clear enoughto see, that poor, scared dago killed the bear with the knife he hadcarried all summer. The rest of the day he spent scooping a grave forhim. When he told how he dragged the great body into the hole andcovered it with earth, he put his hands over his face, rocking back andforth, and crying like a baby.
After that he went to Bloomington and joined the acrobats, telling themthe bear had died. They thought no more about it and welcomed him back,sharing their quarters with him and promising him a place with them inthe summer.
But his knowledge of the crime haunted him. Like all those dagoes, hewas superstitious and full of queer notions. Babbitts said he was asignorant as the animal he was so fond of, seeming to think as theycouldn't hang the bear they might hang him in its place. He wanted to goto the priest and confess, but when he heard people talking of themurder he was afraid. After a while he couldn't eat or sleep and thetorment of his terror and remorse was like to drive him crazy.
Finally he couldn't stand it any more and got the idea that if he couldgo back to the place and offer up prayers there he might get somerelief. He told the acrobats he was going to hunt for work on a farm,left Bloomington and once again walked across the country.
It was night when he reached the region he was bound for, and feelingtoo weak and sick to go straight to the spot, he went to the WaysideArbor to beg for food which would give him strength to bear the task hehad set himself. They gave him what he asked for and he took it to hisold nook under the trees and there in the cold and dark ate ravenously.Then, just as on that other night, he lay down and the sleep that hadleft him for so long came back to him.
He never heard us pass, but I guess without his knowing it we wakenedhim, for he said he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes, when he heardBabbitts' footsteps as he ran back to the inn.
He listened and, making sure no one else was on the road, got up andbegan to steal cautiously forward. He felt sure that God would hear hisprayers after he had walked so far and his misery had been so great.
I guess the poor thing was about all in, and was as scared when he camenear the place as I was. Of course he had no idea I was in front of himand wasn't following me as I thought. With the trees between, both of uswere making for the same spot, the only difference being that while Iheard him he never heard me.
What he saw when he broke through the hedge would have terrified anyone,let alone a man in the state he was. For there, just as he had last seenher, lay a woman in a black coat with the moonlight shining on her deadwhite face--a ghost waiting to accuse him.
They say the shriek he gave was the most awful that man ever heard.Babbitts, who was on his way back, said it sounded like it came from alost soul in Hell. He tried to yell back, but couldn't and ran like amadman, and when he got there saw me lying as if I was dead in themoonlight and a wild, screaming figure crouched on the ground beside me.The two Hines heard it. Hines picked up a lantern and ran with Mrs.Hines at his heels. When he came up he found Babbitts kneeling over me,half crazy, thinking I was murdered, too. They felt my pulse and foundit was going and sent Mrs. Hines on the run to Cresset's. She lit out,calling and crying as she flew through the woods, and met the Cressetcrowd, hiking along with their lanterns, having heard her and notknowing _what_ had happened.
Well--that's the end of my story. Oh, I forgot the reward--_I_ got it. Ioughtn't to have for I didn't do anything but fall in a faint, which wasthe easiest thing I could do. But Mrs. Fowler and the Doctor wouldn'thave it any other way, so I gave in. Not that I didn't want to. Believeme, Jew or Gentile gets weak when ten thousand dollars is pressed intoher palm. It's invested and I get good interest on it, but I'm savingthat up. You never can tell what may happen in this world.
As to the rest of us--the bunch that in one way or another were drawninto the Hesketh mystery--we're all scattered now.
Jack Reddy's not living at Firehill any more. He's taken an apartment intown where the two old Gilseys look after him like he was their onlyson, and he's studying law in Mr. Whitney's office. Sometimes Sunday hecomes to see us, just as cordial and kind and handsome as ever, and it'sI that'll be glad when he tells me he's found the right girl--God blesshim!
Cokesbury Lodge is sold and Cokesbury's living in town, too. They sayhis part in the Hesketh case sort of finished him. High society wouldn'tstand for it, which shows you can't believe all you hear about the idlerich. I've heard that he's seen round a lot with an actress-lady and oneof the papers had it he was going to marry her.
The Fowlers went to Europe. They're living in Paris now and I hear fromAnne Hennessey, who corresponds with Mrs. Fowler, that they're going toreside there. Anyway, Jim Donahue told me last time I was down atLongwood that Mapleshade was to let.
Annie's got a new job in town, on Fifth Avenue, grand people who neverquarrel. She dines with us most every Sunday and we sit till all hourstalking over the past, like people who've been in some great disasterand when they get together always drift back to the subject.
Me?--you want to know about me?
Well, I'm living uptown on the West Side in the cutest little flat inNew York--five rooms, on a corner, all bright and sunny. And furnished!Say, I wish I could show them to you. When Mrs. Fowler broke up she gaveme a lot of the swellest things. Why, I've got a tapestry in the parlorthat cost five hundred dollars and cut glass you couldn't beat on FifthAvenue.
It's on 125th Street, near the Subway. We had to be near that forHimself--he likes to stay as late as he can in the morning and get up asquick as he can at night. If you're passing that way any time, just dropin. I'd love to see you and have you see my place--and me, too. You'llsee the name on the letter-box--Morganthau? Oh, quit your kidding--it's_Babbitts_ now.
THE END
The Girl at Central Page 17