The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XXV

  Shortly after that Dick said he would go to his room. He was still pale,but his eyes looked bright and feverish, and Bassett went with him,uneasily conscious that something was not quite right. Dick spoke onlyonce on the way.

  "My head aches like the mischief," he said, and his voice was dull andlifeless.

  He did not want Bassett to go with him, but Bassett went, nevertheless.Dick's statement, that he meant to surrender himself, had filled himwith uneasiness. He determined, following him along the hall, to keep aclose guard on him for the next few hours, but beyond that, just then,he did not try to go. If it were humanly possible he meant to smugglehim out of the town and take him East. But he had an uneasy convictionthat Dick was going to be ill. The mind did strange things with thebody.

  Dick sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "My head aches like the mischief," he repeated. "Look in that grip andfind me some tablets, will you? I'm dizzy."

  He made an effort and stretched out on the bed. "Good Lord," hemuttered, "I haven't had such a headache since--"

  His voice trailed off. Bassett, bending over the army kit bag in thecorner, straightened and looked around. Dick was suddenly asleep andbreathing heavily.

  For a long time the reporter sat by the side of the bed, watching himand trying to plan some course of action. He was overcome by his ownresponsibility, and by the prospect of tragedy that threatened. ThatLivingstone was Clark, and that he would insist on surrendering himselfwhen he wakened, he could no longer doubt. His mind wandered back tothat day when he had visited the old house as a patient, and from thatalong the strange road they had both come since then. He reflected, notexactly in those terms, that life, any man's life, was only one threadin a pattern woven of an infinite number of threads, and that to tanglethe one thread was to interfere with all the others. David Livingstone,the girl in the blue dress, the man twitching uneasily on the bed,Wilkins the sheriff, himself, who could tell how many others, allthreads.

  He swore in a whisper.

  The maid tapped at the door. He opened it an inch or so and sent heroff. In view of his new determination even the maid had become a danger.She was the same elderly woman who looked after his own bedroom, andshe might have known Clark. Just what Providence had kept him fromrecognition before this he did not know, but it could not go onindefinitely.

  After an hour or so Bassett locked the door behind him and went down tolunch. He was not hungry, but he wanted to get out of the room, to thinkwithout that quiet figure before him. Over the pretence of food he facedthe situation. Lying ready to his hand was the biggest story of hiscareer, but he could not carry it through. It was characteristic ofhim that, before abandoning it, he should follow through to the end theresult of its publication. He did not believe, for instance, thateither Dick's voluntary surrender or his own disclosure of the situationnecessarily meant a conviction for murder. To convict a man of a crimehe did not know he had committed would be difficult. But, with hiscustomary thoroughness he followed that through also. Livingstoneacquitted was once again Clark, would be known to the world as Clark.The new place he had so painfully made for himself would be gone. Thestory would follow him, never to be lived down. And in his particularprofession confidence and respect were half the game. All that would begone.

  Thus by gradual stages he got back to David, and he struggled for themotive which lay behind every decisive human act. A man who followed acourse by which he had nothing to gain and everything to lose was eithera fool or was actuated by some profound unselfishness. To save a life?But with all the resources Clark could have commanded, added to hispersonal popularity, a first degree sentence would have been unlikely.Not a life, then, but perhaps something greater than a life. A man'ssoul.

  It came to him, then, in a great light of comprehension, the thing Davidhad tried to do; to take this waster and fugitive, the slate of his mindwiped clean by shock and illness, only his childish memories remaining,and on it to lead him to write a new record. To take the body he hadfound, and the always untouched soul, and from them to make a man.

  And with that comprehension came the conviction, too, that David hadsucceeded. He had indeed made a man.

  He ate absently, consulting his railroad schedule and formulating thearguments he meant to use against Dick's determination to give himselfup. He foresaw a struggle there, but he himself held one or two strongcards--the ruthless undoing of David's work, the involving of David forconspiring against the law. And Dick's own obligation to the girl athome.

  He was more at ease in the practical arrangements. An express wentthrough on the main line at midnight, and there was a local on thebranch line at eight. But the local train, the railway station, too,were full of possible dangers. After some thought he decided to get acar, drive down to the main line with Dick, and then send the car back.

  He went out at once and made an arrangement for a car, and on returningnotified the clerk that he was going to leave, and asked to have hisbill made out. After some hesitation he said: "I'll pay three-twentytoo, while I'm at it. Friend of mine there, going with me. Yes, up toto-night."

  As he turned away he saw the short, heavy figure of Wilkins coming in.He stood back and watched. The sheriff went to the desk, pulled theregister toward him and ran over several pages of it. Then he shoved itaway, turned and saw him.

  "Been away, haven't you?" he asked.

  "Yes. I took a little horseback trip into the mountains. My knees arestill not on speaking terms."

  The sheriff chuckled. Then he sobered.

  "Come and sit down," he said. "I'm going to watch who goes in and out ofhere for a while."

  Bassett followed him unwillingly to two chairs that faced the desk andthe lobby. He had the key of Dick's room in his pocket, but he knew thatif he wakened he could easily telephone and have his door unlocked.But that was not his only anxiety. He had a sudden conviction thatthe sheriff's watch was connected with Dick himself. Wilkins, from afriendly and gregarious fellow-being, had suddenly grown to sinisterproportions in his mind.

  And, as the minutes went by, with the sheriff sitting forward andwatching the lobby and staircase with intent, unblinking eyes, Bassett'sanxiety turned to fear. He found his heart leaping when the roombells rang, and the clerk, with a glance at the annunciator, sent boyshurrying off. His hands shook, and he felt them cold and moist. And allthe time Wilkins was holding him with a flow of unimportant chatter.

  "Watching for any one in particular?" he managed, after five minutes orso.

  "Yes. I'll tell you about it as soon as--Bill! Is Alex outside?"

  Bill stopped in front of them, and nodded.

  "All right. Now get this--I want everything decent and in order. Noexcitement. I'll come out behind him, and you and Bill stand by. OutsideI'll speak to him, and when we walk off, just fall in behind. But keepclose."

  Bill wandered off, to take up a stand of extreme nonchalance inside theentrance. When Wilkins turned to him again Bassett had had a moment toadjust himself, and more or less to plan his own campaign.

  "Somebody's out of luck," he commented. "And speaking of being out ofluck, I've got a sick man on my hands. Friend of mine from home. We'vegot to catch the midnight, too."

  "Too bad," Wilkins commented rather absently. Then, perhaps feeling thathe had not shown proper interest, "Tell you what I'll do. I've got somebusiness on hand now, but it'll be cleared up one way or another prettysoon. I'll bring my car around and take him to the station. These hacksare the limit to ride in."

  The disaster to his plans thus threatened steadied the reporter, and hemanaged to keep his face impassive.

  "Thanks," he said. "I'll let you know if he's able to travel. Isthis--is this business you're on confidential?"

  "Well, it is and it isn't. I've talked some to you, and as you'releaving anyhow--it's the Jud Clark case again."

  "Sort of hysteria, I suppose. He'll be seen all over the country for thenext six months."

  "Yes. But I never saw a hysterical India
n. Well, a little while ago anIndian woman named Lizzie Lazarus blew into my office. She's a smartwoman. Her husband was a breed, dairy hand on the Clark ranch for years.Lizzie was the first Indian woman in these parts to go to school, andbesides being smart, she's got Indian sight. You know these Indians.When they aren't blind with trachoma they can see further and betterthan a telescope."

  Bassett made an effort.

  "What's that got to do with Jud Clark?" he asked.

  "Well, she blew in. You know there was a reward out for him, and I guessit still stands. I'll have to look it up, for if Maggie Donaldson wasn'tcrazy some one will turn him up some day, probably. Well, Lizzie blewin, and she said she'd seen Jud Clark. Saw him standing at a secondstory window of this hotel. Can you beat that?"

  "Not for pure invention. Hardly."

  "That's what I said at first. But I don't know. In some ways it wouldbe like him. He wouldn't mind coming back and giving us the laugh, ifhe thought he could get away with it. He didn't know fear. Only time heever showed funk was when he beat it after the shooting, and then he wasfull of hootch, and on the edge of D.T.'s."

  "A man doesn't play jokes with the hangman's rope," Bassett commented,dryly. He looked at his watch and rose. "It's a good story, but Iwouldn't wear out any trouser-seats sitting here watching for him. Ifhe's living he's taken pretty good care for ten years not to put hishead in the noose; and I'd remember this, too. Wherever he is, if he isanywhere, he's probably so changed his appearance that Telescope Lizziewouldn't know him. Or you either."

  "Probably," the sheriff said, comfortably. "Still I'm not taking anychances. I'm up for reelection this fall, and that Donaldson woman'sstory nearly queered me. I've got a fellow at the railroad station, justfor luck."

  Bassett went up the stairs and along the corridor, deep in dejectedthought. The trap of his own making was closing, and his active mind wasbusy with schemes for getting Dick away before it shut entirely.

  It might be better, in one way, to keep Livingstone there in his roomuntil the alarm blew over. On the other hand, Livingstone himself hadto be dealt with, and that he would remain quiescent under thecircumstances was unlikely. The motor to the main line seemed to be thebest thing. True, he would have first to get Livingstone to agree to go.That done, and he did not underestimate its difficulty, there was thequestion of getting him out of the hotel, now that the alarm had beengiven.

  When he found Dick still sleeping he made a careful survey of the secondfloor. There was a second staircase, but investigation showed that itled into the kitchens. He decided finally on a fire-escape from a rearhall window, which led into a courtyard littered with the untidy rubbishof an overcrowded and undermanned hotel, and where now two or threesaddled horses waited while their riders ate within.

  When he had made certain that he was not observed he unlocked and openedthe window, and removed the wire screen. There was a red fire-exit lampin the ceiling nearby, but he could not reach it, nor could he find anywall switch. Nevertheless he knew by that time that through the windowlay Dick's only chance of escape. He cleared the grating of a broken boxand an empty flower pot, stood the screen outside the wall, and then,still unobserved, made his way back to his own bedroom and packed hisbelongings.

  Dick was still sleeping, stretched on his bed, when he returned tothree-twenty. And here Bassett's careful plans began to go awry, forDick's body was twitching, and his face was pale and covered with a coldsweat. From wondering how they could get away, Bassett began to wonderwhether they would get away at all. The sleep was more like a stuporthan sleep. He sat down by the bed, closer to sheer fright than he hadever been before, and wretched with the miserable knowledge of his ownresponsibility.

  As the afternoon wore on, it became increasingly evident that somehow orother he must get a doctor. He turned the subject over in his mind, proand con. If he could get a new man, one who did not remember Jud Clark,it might do. But he hesitated until, at seven, Dick opened his eyes andclearly did not know him. Then he knew that the matter was out of hishands, and that from now on whatever it was that controlled the affairsof men, David's God or his own vague Providence, was in charge.

  He got his hat and went out, and down the stairs again. Wilkins haddisappeared, but Bill still stood by the entrance, watching the crowdthat drifted in and out. In his state of tension he felt that the hotelclerk's eyes were suspicious as he retained the two rooms for anotherday, and that Bill watched him out with more than casual interest.Even the matter of cancelling the order for the car loomed large andsuspicion-breeding before him, but he accomplished it, and then set outto find medical assistance.

  There, however, chance favored him. The first doctor's sign led him to ayoung man, new to the town, and obviously at leisure. Not that he foundthat out at once. He invented a condition for himself, as he had doneonce before, got a prescription and paid for it, learned what he wanted,and then mentioned Dick. He was careful to emphasize his name andprofession, and his standing "back home."

  "I'll admit he's got me worried," he finished. "He saw me registered andcame to my room this morning to see me, and got sick there. That is, hesaid he had a violent headache and was dizzy. I got him to his room andon the bed, and he's been sleeping ever since. He looks pretty sick tome."

  He was conscious of Bill's eyes on him as they went through the lobbyagain, but he realized now that they were unsuspicious. Bassett himselfwas in a hot sweat. He stopped outside the room and mopped his face.

  "Look kind of shot up yourself," the doctor commented. "Watch this sunout here. Because it's dry here you Eastern people don't notice the heatuntil it plays the deuce with you."

  He made a careful examination of the sleeping man, while Bassett watchedhis face.

  "Been a drinking man? Or do you know?"

  "No. But I think not. I gave him a small drink this morning, when heseemed to need it."

  "Been like this all day?"

  "Since noon. Yes."

  Once more the medical man stooped. When he straightened it was todeliver Bassett a body blow.

  "I don't like his condition, or that twitching. If these were the goodold days in Wyoming I'd say he is on the verge of delirium tremens.But that's only snap judgment. He might be on the verge of a good manythings. Anyhow, he'd better be moved to the hospital. This is no placefor him."

  And against this common-sense suggestion Bassett had nothing to offer.If the doctor had been looking he would have seen him make a gesture ofdespair.

  "I suppose so," he said, dully. "Is it near? I'll go myself and get aroom."

  "That's my advice. I'll look in later, and if the stupor continues I'llhave in a consultant." He picked up his bag and stood looking down atthe bed. "Big fine-looking chap, isn't he?" he commented. "Married?"

  "No."

  "Well, we'll get the ambulance, and later on we'll go over him properly.I'd call a maid to sit with him, if I were you." In the grip of asituation that was too much for him, Bassett rang the bell. It wasanswered by the elderly maid who took care of his own bedroom.

  Months later, puzzling over the situation, Bassett was to wonder, andnot to know, whether chance or design brought the Thorwald woman tothe door that night. At the time, and for weeks, he laid it to tragicchance, the same chance which had placed in Dick's hand the warningletter that had brought him West. But as months went on, the part playedin the tragedy by that faded woman with her tired dispirited voice andher ash colored hair streaked with gray, assumed other proportions,loomed large and mysterious.

  There were times when he wished that some prescience of danger hadmade him throttle her then and there, so she could not have raised hershrill, alarming voice! But he had no warning. All he saw was a womanin a washed-out blue calico dress and a fresh white apron, raisingincurious eyes to his.

  "I suppose it's all right if she sits in the hall?" Bassett inquired,still fighting his losing fight. "She can go in if he stirs."

  "Right-o," said the doctor, who had been to France and had brought homesome British phra
ses.

  Bassett walked back from the hospital alone. The game was up and he knewit. Sooner or later--In a way he tried to defend himself to himself.He had done his best. Two or three days ago he would have been exultantover the developments. After all, mince things as one would, Clark was amurderer. Other men killed and paid the penalty. And the game was not upentirely, at that. The providence which had watched over him for so longmight continue to. The hospital was new. (It was, ironically enough, theClark Memorial hospital.) There was still a chance.

  He was conscious of something strange as he entered the lobby. Theconstable was gone, and there was no clerk behind the desk. At the footof the stairs stood a group of guests and loungers, looking up, while abell-boy barred the way.

  Even then Bassett's first thought was of fire. He elbowed his way tothe foot of the stairs, and demanded to be allowed to go up, but he wasrefused.

  "In a few minutes," said the boy. "No need of excitement."

  "Is it a fire?"

  "I don't know myself. I've got my orders. That's all." Wilkins camehurrying in. The crowd, silent and respectful before the law, opened tolet him through and closed behind him.

  Bassett stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up.