by Leroy Scott
CHAPTER IX
THE OPEN ROAD
At one o'clock David, still aflame with bitterness, was entering hisroom when a door across the hall opened and Kate Morgan looked out."Come into my house!" she snapped in a whisper.
David could not see her face, but her voice told him she was angry. Hefollowed her. Actresses' photographs on the walls, a rug of glaringdesign, cheap red-and-green upholstered furniture that overcrowded thelittle room--such was Kate Morgan's parlour. She closed the door, thenturned, her eyes blazing, and swore at him.
"A nice time to be getting home! I've been waiting two hours for you!"
For a moment he looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Oh, you're thinking ofthat robbery. You needn't have waited. I told you I'd have nothing to dowith it."
"Drop that bluffing! You know you're in it!"
He started toward the door.
"Where you going?" she demanded.
"To bed."
She seized his arm, stepped between him and the door and staredwrathfully up at him. She now saw how pale and drawn his face was. Herwrath slowly left her. "You're tired--blue," she said, abruptly, butsoftly.
He nodded. "So I'm going to bed."
"Let's chat a minute first," she said, and drew him to the largest ofthe chairs, and pushed him down into it. "And we'll have something toeat, just you and me. I've made dad go to bed. It's all ready. I'llbring it in here."
She moved a little table before him and went out. Could David have seenthe look she held upon him through the door, he would have been puzzled,perhaps startled. After she had made three trips into the rear of theflat there were upon the table a plate of sandwiches, a dish of olives,a pie, and two cups of coffee, all served with a neatness that, afterthe Bowery restaurants, was astonishing to David.
"Now, we'll begin," she said, and sat down on the opposite side of thelittle table. The food had a wonderful taste to David, and thecoffee--it was real coffee--warmed his chilled body. For several minutesthey both ate in silence, then Kate pushed back her chair, lighted acigarette, and sat regarding him with eyes that grew very soft.
When he had finished she leaned suddenly forward and laid a hand on oneof his.
"I don't like it for you to look this way, David," she said.
He started at the touch and at the "David." She saw the start and drewher hand away. "Why shouldn't I call you David? We're good pals, ain'twe? I'm tired of this miss and mister business. Call me Kate."
He was still too surprised to make an immediate answer, and she went onsoftly, "You look very bad!"
The remark brought flooding back to him all his misery and hopelessness,all his rebellion, and he forgot his wonder at her overture. "Whyshouldn't I?" he asked bitterly.
She nodded. "I understand," she said. "The world's got no use for a manthat's been a crook. He's got no chance. I've seen a lot of boys comeback, and swear they'd never touch another job. They tried--some of 'emhard, but none as hard as you. But nobody wanted 'em. What way was open?Only one--to go back to cracking cribs. They all went back." She paused,then added: "Now I want to ask you one square question: what's the usetrying?"
David was remembering his four months' futile struggle when heinvoluntarily echoed, "What's the use!"
"Yes, what?" she continued quickly. "The world may not owe you a living,but it owes you the right to live. It owes you that much. If it won'tlet you live by working, why, you've got to live by stealing. There's noother way. You've tried the first--"
She went on, but David heard no more. His bitterness, his resentment,were making a fiercer plea. Yes, he had tried! Could any man try harder?And what had he gained? Rebuff--insult--uttermost poverty. There was nouse in trying further--none whatever. There was left only the secondway--the one road that is always open, that always welcomes therepentant thief whom the world refuses.
Why should he not enter this only road? He had no single friend whowould be pained. He had no faintest hope of a future. All that could belost was lost. The thief's trade promised him the necessities of life.He had offered to pay the world in work for these necessities, but theworld had refused his payment. What could he do, then, but takethem?--Besides, would it not be just treatment of the world--of theworld that had destroyed him, of the world that cared more for dollarsthan for souls--if some of its all-precious wealth were taken from it?
He looked up; his face was tight-set, vindictive; his eyes glittered.
Kate's gaze was fixed upon him, waiting. "It's time we were starting,"she said. "It's almost two."
He breathed deeply, almost convulsively.
"Come on," he said.
She reached across and seized his hand. "I knew you'd come in!" shecried triumphantly. "We'll turn a lot of tricks together, you and me!"
He gripped her hand so hard that she gave a little gasp, but he did notanswer. For a minute or more they looked silently into each other'sface.
"Come, we must go," she said.... "You have your diagram of the house?"
"No. I tore it up."
She drew some sheets from the front of her flannel waist. "Here'sanother, then. You may need it."
From beneath the red-and-green sofa she took a suit-case, which shethrew open. In it were a full set of burglar's tools. "We really don'tneed 'em, for I've got keys to almost everything. But we'll take 'emalong and twist the locks a bit, so they'll never suspect the job mayhave been done by someone who'd been in the inside--that is, by me.We'll bring the swag back in the suit-case."
She looked at David, as at a superior artist, for commendation of herplan; but he silently regarded the strange instruments in the bag. Sheslipped on a pair of rubbers, fastened on a little hat, and had Davidhelp her into a short jacket which had large pockets in the lining.David drew on his overcoat, picked up the suit-case, and together theycrept down the black stairways and out into the street. She chatteredsoftly all the while, as though fearing David, if left to his ownthoughts, might withdraw from the adventure.
Shortly before three o'clock Kate paused, in one of the Seventies nearFifth Avenue, before a flight of broad steps leading up to a broad stoopand a broad entrance. "Here we are," she whispered.
They searched the street in both directions with quick glances. Not asoul was in sight. Then they slipped to the shadowed servants' entrancebeneath the stoop, and in less than a minute Kate had unlocked a door ofiron grating and a second door of wood, and they were standing in a darkhallway. She opened the grip, handed David a lantern, took one forherself, tied a handkerchief over his face so that all below the eyeswas hidden, and masked herself likewise. Then with a jimmy and a wrenchshe hurried away.
Two minutes later she reappeared. She was inspired with the desire toimpress David with her skill as a thief, as another woman might beinspired to attract male attention by the display of her beauty. "I justopened a back window and broke the latch," she whispered. "We'll lockthese doors when we go out, and they'll think we got in through thewindow. Now, come on. But hadn't you better take off your shoes? They'repretty heavy."
David sat down upon a chair, and she turned her lantern's bar of lightupon his feet, so that he could better manage the laces. When the shoescame off, there were his heels and toes gleaming whitely. In theconfusion of strange sensations that had begun to flow in upon him, hehad forgotten that his stockings were only tops. He quickly shifted hisfeet out of the embarrassing rays.
"That's all right," said Kate. "There'll be plenty of new onesto-morrow."
They went up a narrow stairway, then a broad one, stealthily followingthe guidance of the lantern's white finger, pausing breathless at everythree or four steps to reach forth with their ears for any possible stirof life--Kate tense and alert with excitement, David giddied by achoking, throbbing, unshaped emotion. After a dozen of these pauses,when to David the rubadub of his heart seemed to resound through thehouse, Kate led him across deep rugs and through a broad doorway hungwith tapestries.
"The drawing-room," she whispered, and slowly sweeping it with herlantern she
revealed to him its gorgeous fittings. Then her lanternsought out a curio cabinet, of glass sides and gilded frame, standing ina corner. "That's what we want in here," she said. At her order Davidset down the suit-case he had carried, and they tiptoed to the cabinetover rugs worth hundreds of dollars a step.
"You get the good things in there, I'll go upstairs after the old lady'ssparklers, and then we'll both go down and get the silver," shewhispered, as she unlocked the cabinet with one of her keys. "I'll meetyou here in a little while."
A sudden fear of being alone leaped up in David. He clutched Kate's armand threw the lantern's light into her face. Of the face he saw only anarrow slit between her handkerchief and hat-brim, amid which her eyesgleamed like black diamonds.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "You're trembling."
"It must be--my nerves are gone," he whispered, with an effort.
"Oh, you'll be all right when you've been fed up and done another job ortwo."
He watched her little figure glide out of the room behind its headlight,then he turned to the contemplation of the miniature portraits ingem-set frames, the old hand-painted fans, the heavy old-fashionedlockets and earrings and bracelets, that lay upon the glass shelves ofthe cabinet.
He had no distinct thought toward the articles--there was no thought,not even a vague one, in his mind. His throat and lips were dry, hiseyes were wide and fixed. His dizzy, unpowering emotion had so increasedthat he would not have been surprised had he slipped to the floor andspread out like a boneless sea creature. He was mental and emotionalincoherence.
The intention to steal had brought him here. That intention was over anhour old, but since it had been neither fulfilled nor countermanded, itwas stored energy; and presently it began to move his will-less members,as the stored energy of a coiled spring sets an automaton at itsappointed task. He took from the floor the plunder-bag Kate had givenhim, and holding the lantern and the edge of the bag's mouth in his lefthand, he swung open the plate-glass door of the cabinet. His eyesselected a golden bracelet, and his hand moved slowly forward and tookit up.
Then suddenly his fingers unclosed, the bracelet clicked back upon theglass shelf, and his hand withdrew from the cabinet. The coiled springof his intention had snapped. The touch of what was another man's hadreadjusted his confused senses. His blurred feelings became definite,his dumb brain articulate. He saw what he was doing, saw it clearly, asa bare act, unjustified by the arguments his bitterness had urged uponhim an hour before--saw that he was committing a theft!
A chill swept through him and he sat stiffly upright in his chair andstared at the bracelet he had dropped. In the mood he had been in anhour or two hours before David would not have drawn back from theft, anymore than any other normal starving man, could it have been committedquickly, upon impulse. But the hour that had passed, the deliberationwhich was surrounding the theft, had given opportunity to his moralbeing to overthrow the impulse and assert itself.
He rose, forgetting even to take the cabinet key. He would leave thehouse at once.
But as he passed out of the drawing-room it came to him that he couldnot go away without telling Kate of his purpose. Before him he saw aflight of stairs; she was somewhere above. He stealthily mounted, passedthrough a doorway and found himself in a library. He stood a moment withstrained ears, but got no sound of her. He must go through the floor,and perhaps through the floor above; but before proceeding further hemust get the lay of the house.
He moved noiselessly toward the library table, drawing out the plan Katehad given him. He set the lantern on the table beside a telephone,spread out the sheets and was sitting down when cautious footfallssounded without. The next instant a blade of light stabbed the room'sdarkness.
"Kate?" he whispered.
"Yes."
They came toward each other and each threw his light into the other'smasked face.
"I've got the old lady's twinklers," she said. "Where's your swag?"
"I didn't take it," he whispered. "I've changed my mind. I'm leaving."
"What!"
"I'm not going to take anything. I'm going away. I came to tell youthat."
She drew a step nearer and for a space her black eyes gazed up into hisin amazement. The deep night silence of the great house flooded overthem.
"You mean it?" she demanded.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I cannot. It was a mistake, my coming."
Her eyes suddenly gleamed like knife points, she trembled with passion,and she plunged her whispered words in up to the hilt.
"So that's the kind of nerve you've got! Oh, my God!... What a damnedcoward you are!... Well, get out! I don't want you!"
She brushed him wrathfully by, and tensely erect, her free handclenched, walked out of the room behind the shaft of light.
He stood motionless where she had left him, alone amid the great hush.Her words had pierced to the seat of life. He quivered with thepain--deserved pain, he realised, for it was not a noble part to leave acomrade at such a time. But he had made a mistake in coming, and theonly way to correct it was to go. He wished she would go with him, buthe knew the result of asking her. She would stab him again, and walkaway in contempt.
He sighed, set his lantern on the table, and folded and pocketed theplans of the house. As he laid hold of his lantern to start away he sawon the table, in the lantern's ribbon of light, three or four lettersthat had evidently been written during the evening and left to be mailedin the morning. He started, sank to a chair, and gazed fixedly at one ofthe envelopes. The name on it was "Miss Helen Chambers."
Amid all the sensations that swirled within him, his mind instantly madeone deduction: Kate Morgan had, after all, secured a place throughHelen Chambers, and they were now in the home of one of her friends.
For a minute or more he sat staring at the envelope. It was almost as ifHelen herself had surprised him in his guilty presence here. Then,across the darkness of the room, there came the faintest of sounds.
He thought it was Kate. "Is that you?" he whispered.
There was no answer; only dead quiet. In sudden fear he sprang up anddirected the lantern's pointer of light toward whence the sound hadcome. The white spot fell upon the skirt of a dressing-gown. He jerkedthe pointer upward. The luminous circle enframed the square-jawed,clean-shaven face of a man--of the man he had seen with HelenChambers--of Mr. Allen.
Instantly the room was filled with a blinding glare, and David saw Mr.Allen standing in the doorway, his left hand still on the electric-lightkey, his right holding out a revolver.
"Yes, it's I," said Mr. Allen in a quiet, grim voice. "Suppose youremove your mask and give me the equal pleasure of seeing whom I'mmeeting."
There was no disobeying, with a revolver's muzzle staring coldly at him.David drew the handkerchief down and let it fall about his neck.
Mr. Allen gazed a moment at David's face, thin, haggard, yet rare in itsfineness. "H'm. A new variety." His gaze shifted till its edge took inthe telephone on the table, and there it rested reflectively. Then heremarked, as though completing his thought aloud, "I guess it will besafer for you to do the telephoning. Will you please call up Central andask her to give you Police Headquarters?"
Wild, contrary impulses tugged at David, but man's primal instinct,self-preservation, controlled him the first moment.
"I have been near starvation," he said, forcing his words to calmness."I came here to steal--yes; but when I tried to steal, I could not. I--Idid not steal!"
His plea snapped off harshly. The world had driven him here, and with arush he realised the world would not forgive him for being here.Bitterness swept into him in a great wave, and the recklessness thatfeels that all is lost. Besides, he could not ask mercy of HelenChambers's lover.
Mr. Allen gave an ironic laugh. "I've been hearing that sort of storyfor fifteen years. There never was a guilty man.--Call up Central."
The natural animal hatred of a rival flared up. David looked Mr. Allendefiantly in the face. "If
you want Central, call her yourself!" he saidslowly.
Mr. Allen was surprised, but his surprise passed immediately under hiscontrol. "Of course you are aware," he said quietly, "that you have thechoice between calling up and being shot."
"And you are aware," David returned, "that you have the choice betweencalling up and shooting."
Mr. Allen was silent a moment. "The killing of a man who enters yourhouse is justified by law," he warned grimly.
"Well--why don't you shoot?"
"Are you going to call up?"
"So then--you're afraid to shoot!" taunted David.
Mr. Allen remained silent. He gazed at David over the pistol barrel, andDavid gazed back at the pistol and at Mr. Allen. Their wills had lockedhorns, stood braced.
"I'm getting very tired," said David, throwing a leg over a corner ofthe table. "If you don't shoot soon I'll have to go."
At this instant David saw in the doorway behind Mr. Allen the smallfigure of Kate Morgan. In her right hand there shone a little pistol, inher left she held a heavy walking-stick.
Mr. Allen broke his silence. "If you make a move toward your pocketwhile I cross the floor, it'll be your last move."
David's will had conquered, but his exultation did not speak. He waswatching Kate Morgan, fascinated. Her pistol rose, then fell, and thepistol and walking-stick exchanged hands. Mr. Allen took the first steptoward the telephone. The stick came up, whizzed down upon Mr. Allen'spistol hand. The weapon went flying upon the rug, and Mr. Allen let outa sharp cry and started to whirl around. As the stick struck flesh Davidsprang forward, and with the skill of his old boxing-days, with all hisstrength and weight focussed in the blow, he drove his fist against Mr.Allen's unguarded chin. Mr. Allen fell limply upon the deep carpet.
"Come on! Out of here!" cried David, seizing Kate's arm.
She jerked away and stood tensely erect, glaring at him. "Go, youcoward! I stay here!"
"But you'll get caught!"
"That's my business!" she blazed. "Get out!--I'm going to finish thejob."
She whirled about, jerked the handkerchief from her face, thrust it intoAllen's mouth, and tied this gag securely in place with a handkerchiefwhich she took from the pocket of Allen's dressing-gown. Then she tiedhis feet with the dressing-gown's rope girdle, and his hands with one ofthe silken ropes that held back the hangings in the broad doorway. Thisdone, she sprang to the electric-light key, and the room filled withblackness.
She flashed her lantern on David, who had stood watching her rapidactions in amazement. "Why don't you go? Get out!"
"See here, it's crazy to stay here. You know it. You've got to come withme."
His lantern, which he had taken up, showed a face that darted scorn andrage. "Go with you?--I'll die first!" she returned in a low, fiercewhisper. And then she added, each slow word edged with infinitecontempt:
"Oh, what a poor damned coward!"
He quivered, but he said quietly, "If you won't go, I'll stay with you."
"Stay with me? You'll not! I won't have you!"
She turned abruptly and left the room. He stood thinking for a space;then he went out and crept down the stairway. As he passed thedrawing-room door he saw Kate bending in front of the open curiocabinet. He crept down another flight to the first floor and hid himselfbehind a palm in an angle of the great hall. He strained his ears fortrouble, ready to rush upstairs at the first sound. After a time a wandof light was thrust down the stairway. Then came Kate, the suit-case inone hand, feeling her way with the wand like a blind man with a cane.For a moment the searching light pierced through the palm into his face,and David thought he was discovered; but she glided on and down thebasement stairs. He let several minutes pass; then he too slipped outinto the street.
* * * * *
Perhaps it was chance, perhaps it was the direction of the subconscious,that led David in his circuitous homeward journey, past St.Christopher's Mission. He was walking slowly along, the caution of thefirst part of his flight forgotten in the mixture of despair and shamethat now possessed him, when he waded into pools of coloured light thatlay upon the sidewalk and the street. He looked up. There, aglow withits inspiration, was the window to the memory of Philip Morton. Heinvoluntarily stepped back a pace or two, and leaning against a stack ofbricks designed for repairs in the Mission's basement, alone in thedeserted street, he gazed steadfastly at the luminous words.
He had often looked at that tribute, as he had upon the whole Mission,with a sense of thankfulness that his life was counting. But now therewas no thankfulness within him. Anger began to burn, revolt to rise.That sainted man there was the cause of all his misery, all hisdegradation. The shame of his trial, the loss of his four prison years,the refusal of work, his insults, his lost strength, his lost character,his ragged clothes, his starving, his uttermost poverty, his uttermostdespair--all these rushed upon him in one hot turbulent flood ofrebellion. Of all these inflictions that man was directly the cause! Andmore--that man had made him a thief! And yet that man was worshipped asa saint--while he, he was a starving outcast!
His resentment culminated in a wild impulse. His right hand clutched oneof the bricks on which it rested, and he took a quick step forward. Thebrick crashed through Morton's glowing name.
BOOK III
TOWARD THE LIGHT