Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Damn the officer boy. If he....”

  “Sh-h,” laughed Rulaki, closing his mouth with her hand. “He had a great big camera, and he teased me until I let him take pictures of me, lots and lots of them. But when he showed them to me, my... how disappointed I was. I could recognize my face, but it was not the real I. Won’t you understand?”

  “The officer boy was a fool,” began Martin angrily. “Besides, no camera can do what a trained hand can do. It’s what is called art, Rulaki, to show the inside of things as much as the outside. That’s what I’m going to try to do for you.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Rulaki sulkily.

  “But think,” said Martin, “just think that, if I can paint you as you are, you may live forever.”

  “Live forever! Live forever!” cried Rulaki savagely. “Why should I care to have a picture of me live forever when I’ll be dead and... and... nasty.”

  A wave of warmer air rolled around them, and Martin settled himself more comfortably.

  Rulaki crept closer to him and slipped one arm under his head. “Why do you want to work and paint pictures?” she murmured in his ear.

  “Because...,” he began.

  “Sh!” cried Rulaki. “Listen.”

  From above came the caw of a bird, faint from the distance and yet wonderfully clear. Martin looked up through the branches and out into the great quiet of the sky.

  “It is better to be like this, after all,” he said. “I will place you against all the pictures that were ever painted. I will give them all up for you.”

  “No, no,” laughed Rulaki, “for yourself.”

  It was a habit of Rulaki’s to laugh at critical moments. She laughed even when the crash came about two months later. Martin was never a financier, and his entire fortune, which was considerable, had become tangled in some shaky railroad stock. Now he went to the wall with every cent.

  “What matter?” cried Rulaki gaily. “I have enough for two... yes, more than enough, and we might as well spend it all.”

  Martin lighted a cigarette and inhaled several full puffs before he replied. “I have fallen pretty far,” he said slowly, with his eyes on the floor. “But I don’t think that I can live at the expense of a woman. At least not yet,” he added bitterly.

  They were silent for a time, and I think that Rulaki trembled.

  “What will you do?” Rulaki asked at last.

  “I will go away,” said Martin, “go away to Paris. Perhaps, when I’m there, the dead part of me will come to life, and all that I’ve lost will come back to me. If I can, I’ll make enough money in a year to come back to you and stay.”

  “But what have you lost that you must go so far away to get it back?” she asked. “Do you mean the money?”

  “You won’t understand me,” said Martin, “but I’ll try to tell you. I want to get hungry again, the kind of hunger that gets down in a man’s bones and tortures him. It’s the hunger for power over the souls of men.” He extended his hands with their long fingers, already less indicative of power than they had been a few months before. “If you could have known what those hands have done when the hunger was on me... but the hunger is gone. I’ve eaten and I’ve drunk... I’ve lived and I’ve loved. You don’t understand me... you can’t... but the hunger’s gone. Oh, God! shall I ever get it back?”

  “I don’t understand,” cried Rulaki, white and bewildered. “You are going away, far away across the oceans, to be hungry?”

  “I shall come back,” he said, “with money.”

  “Men come to Tutuila,” she returned quietly, “and of these some go away, and those who go away never come again. Take me with you.”

  “To starve, perhaps?”

  “But I have much money.”

  “In Europe the man cares for the woman. No, I shall go alone... I must work... and I must be alone. You shall wait here for me. Will you wait?”

  A chorus of laughter reached them from a group of sailors who were climbing up into the hills from the beach.

  “Yes,” said Rulaki, “I will surely wait for you.”

  Thereafter she was very quiet, and neither wept nor pleaded. I think she felt that some Nemesis had come upon her, for her happiness had been too great. So she met it proudly but unresistingly, as one should meet the inevitable. She did not even ask to go with him again, for something made her understand.

  The hill on which Rulaki’s house stands is in full view of the harbor and not a long journey from it, so that Martin could stay with her until the last moment. She would have gone down to the boat with him. This he would not allow.

  “If I should see you standing there on the shore while I sailed out into the night, it would be too much, as though I were sailing forever out and away from your life,” he said.

  In the final moment after Martin had kissed her for the last time and they stood together at the door, she clung to him for a few seconds and stared hungrily into his face, as if she were drawing something from it to keep forever. Then she smiled and waved him down the hill. Part way down he turned to look again. It was night, and the same moon which had shown her to him for the first time among the waves was now ghostly pale upon her face. She was still waving. It is in that way that I like to think of her, smiling and waving, to make him think that she was hopeful and confident.

  When he had placed his suitcase in his stateroom, he went out upon the stem of the ship to look again upon the house of Rulaki. There was no need of any moon to help his sight. The entire house was in flames.

  I was walking down the street with Parker the other day, when Martin, no longer “Hercules” Martin, passed us. For some moments afterward we were silent.

  “Martin,” said Parker, as though we had just been talking on the subject, “might have been a great painter.. and, after all, Rulaki was only a half- breed.”

  HOLE-IN-THE-WALL BARRETT

  I

  IF THIS STORY were not fact it would not be written. It is too incredible for fiction. The best proof of its reality is the very fact that it is incredible, but if further proof is wanted it may be obtained from the twelve good men and true who formed the jury at the trial of Harry McCurtney. If they will not do, certainly Judge Lorry is an unimpeachable witness.

  The story has to do with probably the oldest combination known to stories — a hero, a villain, and a beautiful woman. The hero was young, handsome, talented; the villain was middle-aged and rather stout, and smoked big black cigars; the beautiful woman was very beautiful.

  Whatever the reader may think, this is not a motion-picture scenario. However, it sounds so much like one that it might as well start in the movie way.

  The camera, therefore, opens on a close-up of the middle-aged villain. As the round spot of light widens, everyone can see that the man is a villain. The way he chews that long black cigar, for instance, emitting slow; luxurious puffs, is sufficient proof.

  No one but a villain really enjoys good tobacco; but to pile Pelion on Ossa, there are other proofs — lots of them. He has a square, bulging jaw, a straight-lipped, cruel mouth, a great hawk nose, and keen eyes buried under the overhanging shelter of shaggy brows. He is frowning in his villainous way and looking down.

  The spot of light widens still further and includes the beautiful woman. She is very, very beautiful; a black-haired type with questioning, dark eyes. She is dressed in black, too, filmy over the arms, so that the rose tint of flesh shines through. She reclines in an easy chair with her head pillowed gracefully and canted somewhat to one side, while she studies the villain and defies him.

  One notices her slender-fingered hand drooping from the arm of the chair, and compares it with the big fist of the villain, wondering how she can have the courage to defy him. She seems to know all about him. Well, she ought to. She is his wife.

  The camera now opens out to the full and one sees the room. It is very big. There is a soft glimmer of diffused light, which is brightest on the corner of the grand piano and the slightly gray head of
the villain. His big feet are planted in the thick texture of a rug. An arched doorway opens upon a vista of other rooms fully as sumptuous as this one. Proof positive that the man is a villain! He is too rich to be good.

  The woman is talking. She leans forward with a smile that would win the heart of an armored angel — one of Milton’s kind; but the man still frowns. It is easy to see that he is going to refuse her request — the beast! She concludes with a gesture of infinite grace, infinite appeal. This is what she said:

  “So you see, John, it was really a good act on the part of Harry to rid the world of that unspeakable uncle of his. Why, there isn’t a soul in the city with a single kind word for that old miser, William McCurtney! He never did a gentle act. He broke the heart of his wife and killed her. He has kept poor Harry in penury.”

  The villain removed the black cigar from his teeth with a singularly unattractive hand. It looked as if it had been used all his life for grabbing things — and then holding them. His eyes burrowed into the face of the beautiful woman as if it made not the slightest difference to him whether he was speaking to his wife or not.

  “This is the case,” he said. “Harry McCurtney killed his uncle, William McCurtney. He did it by putting poison in the Scotch whisky which old William was drinking to the health of his nephew. A maid saw Harry put something into his uncle’s glass. She afterward got hold of the vial of poison, out of which only a few drops had been poured. There was enough left to kill ten men. When old McCurtney died that night, the maid called in the police and had Harry arrested. She produced the vial of poison as evidence. The case was easily made out. A druggist has sworn that the poison was purchased from him by young Harry McCurtney. Tomorrow the jury is certain to bring a verdict of guilty against this man. That, in brief, is the case of the man you want me to defend.”

  “Your brevity,” said his wife, “has destroyed everything worthwhile in the case. You have left out the fact that William McCurtney was a heartless old ruffian — a miser, hated by everyone and hating everyone. You have left out the fact” — here her voice lowered and grew musically gentle as only the voice of a woman of culture can grow— “you have left out the fact, John, that Harry McCurtney is a rare soul, an artist, a man unequipped for battling with the world. With the fortune he inherits from his uncle he would lead a beautiful, an ideal existence. He would do good to the world. He is — he is — a chosen spirit, John!”

  “And he murdered his uncle,” said John Barrett, “while old William was drinking his nephew’s health and long life.”

  “That is an absurd and brutal way of stating it,” said Mrs. John Barrett. “You cannot reduce the troubles of a delicate and esthetic soul to such a bald statement of fact.”

  “I should have to be a poet to do him justice?” “You would.”

  “However it is a waste of time to attempt to defend this fellow. I’ve seen the evidence. He’ll hang!”

  His wife rose from her chair and stood facing him. All the color went from her face; she seemed to have been painted white with a single stroke of an invisible brush.

  “He must not hang! John, you can defend him. I’ve seen you win more impossible cases than this! I remember the Hanover trial. John Hanover was guilty. All the world knew it; but all the evidence of his guilt came from one witness. On the last day, before the case went to the jury, you put the witness for the prosecution on the stand. I’ll never forget it! You drew him out. You seemed hopeless of winning your case; you seemed to be questioning him simply as a matter of form to justify the collection of your fee. And the witness grew very confident. Finally you asked him the color of the necktie which Hanover was wearing when he committed the crime. The witness said without hesitation:

  “‘A red tie with white stripes.’

  “With that you clapped your hand over your own necktie, sprang to your feet, pointed a melodramatic hand at the witness, and thundered in your courtroom voice:

  “‘What color is the necktie that I’m wearing?’

  “The witness was dumfounded. He couldn’t tell. Then you turned to the jury and discredited all that witness’s testimony. You said you had been wearing the same necktie day after day in court, and the witness didn’t know what its color was. Then how could he be sure of the color of the necktie which Hanover wore, when he had only seen Hanover for a few seconds, committing the murder? It showed that the man was giving valueless testimony; that he was lying out of hand. And the jury acquitted your man. John, you can do some miraculous thing like that now for my friend, Harry McCurtney. You’ll find some way. Why else are you called Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett?”

  While she completed this impassioned appeal, John Barrett regarded her with utter unconcern. He might have been listening to the accomplishments of some fabulous character rather than to one of his own most spectacular exploits.

  “To be brief, Elizabeth,” he said, “I won’t take the case. I’ve other work planned for tomorrow.”

  And he turned to leave the room.

  Who but a villain could have turned his back on such a woman and at such a time? She stiffened; her head went back; there was a tremor of coming speech in her throat. “She is about to play her last card,” a gambler would have said, and she played it.

  “John!” she called.

  The villain turned only half toward her at the door. “There is another reason why you must defend McCurtney,” she said. “I love him!”

  It sufficed to make the villain turn squarely toward her, but he showed not the least emotion. His head bowed a little, thoughtfully.

  “Ah!” he repeated. “You love him?”

  And with that he shifted his glance up suddenly and met her eyes. She shrank back, trembling. One could see that she was expectant of a blow, a torrent of abuse. Instead, he smiled slowly at her.

  She made a little gesture. There seemed more appeal than anger in it. “You don’t care, John? I knew you didn’t care!”

  “If you love him,” said the villain slowly, “I suppose I don’t care.”

  “You never have,” she answered. “You merely bought me — with your courtroom eloquence, and your money — just as you would buy a fine piece of furniture. You wanted a decorative wife for your home — someone you could be proud to show.”

  It was not a quarrel, you see. For it happened in the twentieth century; happened yesterday, in fact. Neither of them raised their voices. There fell a little silence, and silences always make a woman explain.

  “I’ve tried to love you,” she said. “I’ve tried to break through that hard exterior you wear like armor. I’ve guessed at depths and tendernesses in you, but the only time I’ve heard poetry in your voice was when you said before the minister, ‘I will!’ Since then I’ve waited for a touch of that sound to come back into your voice, but it never has, and gradually I’ve learned the truth — you never really cared for me.”

  John Barrett was a villain; also a vulgar man.

  “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” he said. “If I haven’t seemed to love you, why — I haven’t.”

  And he grinned; it was not by any means a smile. She shuddered as if those hands of his, made for gripping great burdens, had closed on a vital nerve that ran to her heart. She turned away, veiling her eyes with her hand. Surely it was strange that a man could give up such beauty!

  “And will you defend him?” she asked in a whisper. “If you love him,” said Barrett, “I shall set him free for you. Good night, Elizabeth!”

  He strode out of the room. She ran after him a few steps and followed him with her eyes down the long vista of the rooms; but the massive shoulders went on their way with characteristic swagger; the bowed thoughtful head never once cast back a glance toward her.

  “It is done!” said the beautiful woman, and sank into a chair.

  Her eyes were half closed, and she smiled — the smile of the twentieth-century woman, which is harder to read than the smile of the Sphinx.

  II

  THE next afternoon
she sat in a front seat in the courtroom and bent eyes of sad sympathy upon Harry McCurtney. There were others who looked on him in the same way. They were not, to be sure, quite like the beautiful woman, but then they were fair enough to have filled up a motion-picture background.

  What woman under thirty could look upon him without some such sad emotion? He was very young; he was very handsome. The brown eyes were as soft and liquid as the eyes of a thoughtful Byron — or a calf. That tall forehead and that long, pale face — they brought home all the romantic melancholy of life to a woman under thirty. Even the twelve good men and true felt some ruth as they glanced on him who was about to die; but being hardheaded fellows, those twelve, they looked away again and cleared their throats and frowned. Metaphorically speaking, they were rolling up their sleeves and preparing to grasp the knife from the hands of blind justice.

  The hero knew it. He turned those large, soft eyes on the jurors, and then flicked them swiftly away and let them journey from one fair face to another along the benches of the courtroom. And at last, as one overcome by the woes of life, he bowed his head and veiled his eyes with his long, white, tremulous fingers. A beautiful hand! It should have rested upon velvet; should have toyed with locks of golden hair, or blue-black hair — Elizabeth’s hair was blue-black.

  The crowd had not come to hear the plea of Hole-inthe-Wall Barrett, simply because it was not known until the last moment that he was taking over the case for the defense; but the moment his burly figure appeared, swaggering toward a chair, a hum and then a whisper and then a voice passed through the crowd. His honor removed his glasses and frowned. The clerk rapped for order.

  From that moment everyone waited; everyone was expectant. The prosecution was uneasy; the district attorney drank many glasses of water; the jurors set their teeth as if they were resolving their collective minds that they would not be budged from their duty even by a John Barrett. They scowled and nudged one another with assurances of immovability; they smiled upon the district attorney; they frowned upon Harry McCurtney and John Barrett.