by Max Brand
“Go on,” said Jimmy. “Cut out the sighs and tell me the dope. This is getting pretty deep for me.”
She regarded him half with wonder and half with amusement, as a child looks upon a playmate after years of separation. “I did keep watch on him,” she said at last. “I saw him register at the hotel across the street from my apartment, just as we expected he would. Then I waited for him to come out. I knew that he daren’t stay inside with that assay in his pocket. He wouldn’t be able to meet his financier until the next day. In the meantime he would want to be with people. I knew he would not dare to sit in a room for fear he would go to sleep and, once asleep, he never knew when we would get at him. So I waited just inside the door of the apartment house and pretty soon, sure enough, out he came and stood on the steps of the hotel.
“He looked mighty big, standing over there. It looked a larger job than I could tackle. But even then I didn’t dream just how big a job it would be. I had made up my mind to a game. I had a box of knockout pills, and I determined to get him into my apartment and give him one.” She stopped, shivering slightly, and closed her eyes. “I ran down the steps of the apartment house just as he started down his steps on the opposite side of the street,” she continued, “and walked a bit down the street and then started to cross to his side.”
“By Jove,” exclaimed Jimmy, “this is as good as a horse race, to hear you tell it. Go on.”
“The street was covered with hard snow,” she said, avoiding Jimmy’s intent eyes, “and that gave me an idea. I reached the sidewalk a few paces ahead of him, and, as I stepped up from the gutter to the pavement, I pretended to twist my ankle, gave a little cry, and sort of collapsed on the snow.” Remembering, she threw back her head and laughed low in her throat, an ominous little chuckle. “Oh, Jimmy,” she cried, “Sarah Bernhardt never had anything on the way I did that tumble! I lay with one hand on my ankle, and one arm supporting me, and my head thrown back, and my eyes closed. It was a great pose.
“Then I knew he was leaning over me, and I shivered. It was a real shiver, too, because all at once I remembered all the stories we had heard about that silent John Gleason.” She smiled reminiscently. “But I didn’t find him so very silent,” she said. “Anyway, when I opened my eyes a little, his face was close to me. I never saw such a worried face on a man. I guess he hadn’t slept for weeks from the way he looked. His eyes you could hardly see, the shadows were so deep around them. All around his mouth ran deep furrows. You boys must certainly have dodged him like his own shadow. But he wasn’t done yet. I knew that by the square jaw and the straight set of his lips. I knew I’d have my hands full with him.”
“‘You have sprained your ankle?’ he said.
“‘Yes,’ I said in a sort of breathy voice that went off into a half moan. ‘And it hurts awfully!’ I stopped a minute and closed my eyes and breathed hard. I could feel his eyes studying me. Then I said: ‘Will you please telephone for a taxi or something to take me home?’
“He began to rub his chin as if he were thinking hard. Then he said: ‘And leave you sitting on the snow with a sprained ankle? Do you live on this block?’
“Of course, I had a hard time keeping from a grin. It was so easy I was almost ashamed. Gee, I was a fool! ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I live in that apartment house across the street.’
“T could carry you back,’ he said.
“‘No,’ I began, pretending to be pretty weak and incoherent with pain, ‘I... I....’ I broke off as though I couldn’t stand it any more, and dropped my face into my bent arm, and burst into weeping. I had found out that most men can’t stand to hear a girl cry, especially when you sort of choke up between sobs. I didn’t need to cry then, but I wanted to make sure of him. I wanted to do an artistic job that the gang would praise me for. Jimmy, while I lay there crying, I was really thinking of how the story would sound when I told it to you boys.”
“It sounds great, Madge,” said Jimmy. “Gee whiz, lady mine, didn’t I always say you were the queen of the lot?”
She drew a deep breath through stiff lips. “Oh, Jimmy,” she cried, “I’m ashamed, ashamed to think back to it! What a strange creature I must have been. Anyway I heard him say: ‘Come on, I’ll have you home in a jiffy,’ and then his arms went round me as gently as a mother picks up a baby, and away I went up into the air. He was an awful tall man, Jimmy. And strong? My, he was a regular giant.”
Jimmy scowled grimly. “I ain’t any infant’s food baby myself,” he declared. “I’d like to meet up with this Gleason chap. Go on. He picked you up in his arms. I got that all right. Huh!”
“He carried me back across the street,” she continued, smiling faintly, “and I dropped my head against his shoulders and let out a sob once in a while to make him think I was using all my self-control to keep down a cry of agony. When we stood inside the entrance of the apartment house, I whispered very weakly: ‘You may leave me here. I think I may be able to get upstairs.’ Then I waited a minute, nearly shaking for fear he’d take me at my word. But not he. He was a dead game chap, all right.
“‘Where is your floor?’ he asked.
“‘Second,’ I said. ‘Apartment has the whole floor.’
“And he commenced to climb the stairs with me. Half way up the stairs I thought I’d better faint. The great point was to get him inside my room. After that, things would take care of themselves, but I was deadly afraid he would leave me at the door. So I fainted. Nothing less would have convinced him how far gone I was. I went weak and soft as a rag in his hands. He stopped in the middle of the flight and raised my head to his shoulder so that it wouldn’t fall back. Then I felt two hard, cold lips touch mine.”
“Hell!” cried Jimmy, starting up in his bed. “You felt what? Madge, do you mean to say... aw, say, this makes me all sick inside.”
He leaned back wearily on the bed and closed his eyes. She continued as if she had not heard him.
“At the door I pretended to get conscious and started taking quick, short breaths. He lowered me to the floor. I opened the door and dragged myself inside. I stood without looking at him.
“‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘I... I...,’ and then I stopped and stood with my eyes closed, groping against the wall for support. The next minute he had me in his arms and took me over to a couch that stood at one side of the room. I opened my eyes. ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, smiling up to him, ‘that I fainted. Thank you so much for helping me home. I can manage now.’
“‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I know something about sprained ankles. Let me bandage yours.’
“Before I could stop him, he had started to untie my shoelace. It gave me a thrill then, and I went cold. Of course, when he took the shoe off, he would find no swelling. I wondered how I could bluff it through. Then he said: ‘Maybe I can bandage it up before the swelling starts.’ That gave me a hope again. So I pretended that the pain overcame me again and sank back into the pillows. He was wonderfully gentle while he took the shoe off.”
“I’d like to get my hands on the big stiff,” growled Jimmy, apropos of nothing.
“‘Now,’ he said gravely, ‘if you’ll tell me where I can get hot water and bandages, I’ll leave you to take off the stocking.’
“‘But...,’ I began, as if I were going to protest.
“‘Tut, tut!’ he said and waved his hand, as if he were brushing away all my arguments into thin air, ‘don’t be silly about it.’
“‘There’s a basin in the bathroom over there,’ I said after a little pause, as if I were thinking it over. ‘And I think you’ll find a roll of bandages in the little toilet cupboard in the same room.’
“By the time I got my stocking off, he came through the door again with a towel thrown over his shoulder and carrying the package of bandages and the basin of steaming water. My, he looked as official as a waiter. I sat on the edge of the couch and held my leg tight with both hands above the ankle, as if I were trying to keep the pain from spreading. He knelt down and took the heel of
my foot into the hollow of his hand.
“‘The trouble is,’ he said critically, ‘that your foot is much too small to walk upon’ and here he scowled up to me ‘and the heels of your shoes are too high.’
“‘I shall have them lowered,’ I said meekly, and put my foot into the water with a little indrawn breath, as if the pain were going. He kept frowning away at my foot which got all pink in the hot water, and then he drew one finger very lightly over the arch of my foot. I turned away and blushed. Oh Jimmy, something snapped inside me then, and I wanted to cry.
“Afterward he dried my foot with a towel. When he came to the toes, he looked up and I had to bite my lips to keep from a smile, it was so tickly. He laughed at me then, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Huh,” snapped Jimmy, “I’d have punched him on the chin.”
“‘It’s funny,’ said John Gleason. ‘Why, your foot isn’t as big as my hand. I suppose that’s why I can’t notice any swelling so far. We must have caught it just in time.’
“‘And how can you be so gentle with such... with such...I began.
“‘With such big hands?’ he finished for me, as he commenced to pass the bandage around my foot and over my ankle. ‘Only from long practice in the football training quarters.’
“‘You played football,’ I asked him, and I noticed the thick set of his shoulders.
“He pointed to a scar on one side of his forehead. ‘That’s a touching little reminder,’ he said, ‘where one of the boys stepped on my face. And it was during a practice scrimmage at that.’
“‘Oh,’ I cried, ‘what a disgusting game!’
“Indeed, I did hate the game when I saw his poor scarred face. Then just the shadow of a smile touched his mouth. I guess he isn’t the kind that smiles often.
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I guess it’s only a game for India rubber men like me with hard hands and hard hearts.’
“It made me feel pretty bad to hear him call himself that when there I was being treated by him as if he were my big brother, and me all the time trying some way to do him dirt. When a woman’s bad, she’s awful, awful bad, Jimmy.”
Jimmy was staring moodily into one corner of the room. He made no answer.
“Then he got up and stood towering over me,” she went on. “‘Is there anything here with which I can make you a hot drink?’ he said.
“‘Oh,’ I said, ‘don’t trouble. I have kept you too long.’
“He smiled at me. ‘Not a bit,’ he said, and with that started for the kitchen.
“What a clattering he made among the pans. Once he came to the door to ask where I kept the sugar. He had thrown his coat off and stood with an apron tied about his waist. In one hand he carried a saucepan and the rolled-up shirt revealed the corded strength of his arms. Such whip-cord muscles. Then he went back to the kitchen, and pretty soon I heard him singing in a roar of a bass voice:
Oh, I am a friar of orders gray,
And down the valley I take my way;
My long bead roll I merrily chant,
Wherever I wander no money I want,
And why I’m so plump the reason I’ll tell,
Who leads a good life is sure to live well.
“When he returned again, he carried a tray all carefully arranged with toast on a plate, a steaming pot of chocolate, a little jar of jam, two butter knives, two pats of butter, and a bowl of lump sugar. He set the card table in front of me, the tray upon it, and then drew up a chair on the opposite end of the table. It made me feel sick to do it, but I had gone too far to draw back now. I reached inside the purse and got hold of the knockout pills.
“‘This is truly domestic,’ said silent John Gleason, ‘a scene like this may only be found in the homes of married couples after some ten years of living together. Your hair, for instance, is a bit toweled where it rubbed against my shoulder, and I am in my shirt sleeves... do you mind? Yes, this is the great test of married life, for after ten years of domesticity we sit thus, and the proof of the happy life is that I do not miss my morning paper, and you are too much interested in your sprained ankle to remember that your hair is in disarray.’
“I smiled a little back to him. I had put in the knockout pills while he was talking. He was looking away at the moment. I guess my hand shook as I passed him the chocolate. He looked down at it and stirred the sugar around slowly. Suddenly he leaned over to me.
“‘Has any one man got a chance against a gang?’ he said.
“I went cold inside. I guess my eyes went wide. ‘No,’ I stammered, ‘I guess not. Why?’
“‘Because I have a gang against me,’ he said, ‘and I am trying to fight them single-handed. I tell you, it is too much of a job for one man to tackle.’ Here he set down the cup. ‘Will you be a pal to me and help me out?’ he said.
“I tried to think, but I felt his eyes burning on me out of the hollow of his face. ‘God knows I’ll try to do every right thing by you.’
“‘Put it there,’ he said, ‘you’re the real thing, little partner.’
“Well, I shook hands with him, then he went on to say just what was happening to him, how he had started from San Francisco with the assay of a rich new mine and how a gang of crooks had got wind of it, and they were going to try to get the assay from him, and how he hadn’t dared to sleep for a week, almost.
“He leaned closer at that and put a hand on mine. His hand was awfully large and cold. ‘I’ve got to sleep,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to see my financier who would back our mine until tomorrow. I can’t last another day. God, no! They will get me before tomorrow.’
“He dropped his face into his hands and groaned aloud. Oh Jimmy, it’s a fearful thing to see a big, strong... honest man like that groan and give up.
“Suddenly he raised his head and his face was brighter. ‘Have you got an extra bed here?’ he asked.
“Then I saw what was coining. I was desperate, but I couldn’t dodge those questioning eyes of his. ‘Yes,’ I said.
“‘And may I use it? Be a real pal to me. You’ve got to hang with me against that gang. They will never dream that I am here. If I leave here, I am lost.’
“Jimmy, I couldn’t say no, could I, to a man like that? Then I thought to myself that it would be easy to get the paper from him while he slept.
“‘There’s a bed in that room there,’ I said. ‘Of course you can use it any time.’
“He got up without a word. Now that he felt safe, every line of his face dragged down. He was letting his will go. He walked toward the door I had pointed out, then hesitated, and came back toward me. A wallet was in his hand. When he spoke, his voice came dragging out as if he already was half asleep.
“‘In this wallet is the assay they’re after,’ he said. ‘Keep it for me till morning. Somehow I feel safer with it in your hands.’
“Then he went off to bed. I heard the springs groan as he flung himself on the bed. After a minute I heard his heavy breathing and slipped in to see him. He lay with his arms thrown out crosswise and his head collapsed to one side just as he had fallen. His whole body seemed to be drinking in sleep and rest. I drew the cover over him, went out, and closed the door so that his breathing wouldn’t sound in the next room.”
“And do you mean to tell me,” cried Jimmy, “that he was in that room when I went to see you that day? And that you had the wallet? And that all that stall about your broken ankle which kept you from tracking Gleason was a joke and that you pulled the wool over my eyes?”
“That’s it, Jimmy. Will you ever forgive me for it?”
He struck his hand across his eyes. “But why did you disappear afterwards?” A sudden light of horrified understanding broke across his face. “Madge, for God’s sake!” he cried. “You didn’t go away with Gleason the next day?”
She grew a little pale under his stare. “Wait,” she said. “My story is just beginning. I went to bed that night after looking at Gleason again. He had remained in the same position all day. I woke up th
e next morning to a rapping on my door, then Gleason’s voice. ‘Hey, there, wake up!’
“‘I am awake.’
“‘Then dress and come out here,’ he called. ‘I have something important to tell you.’
“I dressed as fast as I could and went out to him. He was a different man, standing in the corner of the room with his hands clasped behind him and most of the lines and hollows gone from his face.
“‘You don’t seem to be limping this morning,’ he said.
“I remembered then, and went red and pale, I guess.
“‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘where’s the wallet?’
“I gave it to him without a word. He looked to see that the assay was there.
All my world was whirling around in my head. I felt helpless as a baby before him.
“‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’m going to give you a straight talk, Red Madge.’
“I shrank away from him when I heard that name, and I guess my eyes were as big as moons.
“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘don’t faint away. I knew you the first moment I clapped my eyes on you. You should have known I would. Yours isn’t a common face, my dear, and your hair isn’t a common color.’
“Here he grinned a little, and I hated him with all my heart.”
“Good for you,” said Jimmy. “Now you’re talking.”
“‘Did you think you took me in with that circus fall?’ went on John Gleason. ‘My dear girl, it was very badly done. You should learn more finesse. It was very bad indeed. If you are going to be a crook, be a clever crook. The one thing the world can’t forgive a thief is stupidity. And did your pals call while I was asleep? And did you double-cross them because you hadn’t the heart to give away the poor, simple-minded, heavy-handed blockhead who lay fast asleep in the next room? Why, this is as good as Shakespeare brought up to date.’
“I simply dropped into a chair, and buried my face in my hands, and cried. I hadn’t any more courage. But pretty soon I felt his hand on my shoulder, and he was saying little comfortable things which didn’t mean anything but made me stop crying. And then he wiped my face with his big handkerchief, and patted my head, and said I would be all right in the end.