by Unknown
The old buccaneer's eyes gleamed. He was as daring a lawbreaker as ever built or wrecked a railroad. "Have you the nerve, young man?"
"When I'm working for you, sir," retorted James coolly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"If I've studied your career to any purpose, sir, one thing stands out pretty clear. You haven't the slightest respect for law merely as law. When it's on your side you're a stickler for it; when it isn't you say nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. In either case you get what you want."
"I'm glad you've noticed that last point. Now we'll have luncheon." He smiled grimly. "I daresay you'll enjoy it no less because I stole it from the horny hand of labor, by your mad cousin's way of it."
"Not a bit," answered James cheerfully.
CHAPTER 13
"Must it be? Must we then Render back to God again This, His broken work, this thing For His man that once did sing?" --Josephine Prestor Peabody.
"And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say--and I do not doubt it--you have never ceased to be virtuous in the sight of God!" --Victor Hugo.
THE REBEL PROVES THAT HE IS LOST TO GOOD FORM AND RESPECTABILITY BY STEPPING BETWEEN A SINNER AND THE WAGES OF SIN, THUS EVIDENCING TO THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY HIS COMPLETE DEGENERATION
Part 1
Sam Miller came into Jeff's office one night as he was looking over the editorials. Farnum nodded abstractedly to him.
"Take a chair, Sam. Be through in a minute."
Presently Jeff pushed the galley proof to one side and looked at his friend. "Well, Sam?" Almost at once he added: "What's the matter?"
There were queer white patches on Miller's fat face. He looked like a man in hell. A lump rose in his throat. Two or three times he swallowed hard.
"It's--it's Nellie."
"Nellie Anderson?"
He nodded.
Jeff felt as if his heart had been drenched in icy water. "What about her?"
"She's--gone."
"Gone where?"
"We don't know. She left Friday. There was a note for her mother. It said to forget her, because she was a disgrace to her name."
"You mean--" Jeff did not finish his question. He knew what the answer was, and in his soul lay a reflection of the mortal sickness he saw in his friend's face.
Miller nodded, unable to speak. Presently his words came brokenly. "She's been acting strangely for a long time. Her mother noticed it. . . . So did I. Like as if she wasn't happy. We've been worried. I . . .I . . ." He buried his face in his arm on the table. "My God, I love her, Jeff. I have for years. If I'd only known . . . if she'd only told me."
Jeff was white as the galley proof that lay before him with the unprinted side up. "Tell me all about it, Sam."
Miller looked up. "That's all. We don't know where she's gone. She had no money to speak of."
"And the man?" Jeff almost whispered.
"We don't know who he is. Might be any one of the clerks at the Verden Dry Goods Company.
Maybe it's none of them. If I knew I'd cut his heart out."
The clock on the wall ticked ten times before Jeff spoke. "Did she go alone?"
"We don't know. None of the clerks are missing from the store where she worked. I checked up with the manager yesterday."
Another long silence. "They may have rooms in town here."
"Not likely." Presently Miller added miserably: "She's--going to be a mother soon. We found the doctor she went to see."
"You're sure she hasn't been married? Of course you've looked over the marriage licenses for the past year."
"Yes. Her name isn't on the list."
"Did she have money?"
"About fifteen dollars, we figure."
"That wouldn't take her far--unless the man gave her some. Have you been to a detective agency?"
"Yes."
"We'll put blind ads in all the papers telling her to come home. We'll rake the city and the state with a fine tooth comb. We're bound to hear of her."
"She's desperate, Jeff. If she's alone she'll think she has no friends. We've got to find her in time or--"
Jeff guessed the alternative. She might take the easy way out, the one which offered an escape from all her earthly troubles. Girls of her type often did. Nellie was made for laughter and for happiness. He had known her innocent as a sunbeam and as glad. Now that she was in the pit, facing disgrace and disillusionment and despair, the horror and the dread of existence to her would be a millstone round her neck.
The damnable unfairness of it took. Jeff by the throat. Was it her fault that she had inherited a temperament where passions lurked unsuspected like a banked fire? Was she to blame because her mother had brought her up without warning, because she had believed in the love and the honor of a villain? Her very faith and trust had betrayed her. Every honest instinct in him cried out against the world's verdict, that she must pay with salt tears to the end of her life while the scoundrel who had led her into trouble walked gaily to fresh conquests.
Cogged dice! She had gone forth smiling to play the game of life with them, never dreaming that the cubes were loaded. He remembered how once her every motion sang softly to him like music, with what dear abandon she had given herself to his kisses. Her fondness had been a thing to cherish, her innocence had called for protection. And her chivalrous lover had struck the lightness forever from her soul.
For long he never thought of her without an icy sinking of the heart.
Part 2
Weeks passed. Sam Miller gave his whole time to the search for the missing girl. Jeff supplied the means; in every way he could he encouraged him and the broken mother. For a thousand miles south and east the police had her description and her photograph. But no trace of her could be found. False clews there were aplenty. A dozen haggard streetwalkers were arrested in mistake for her. Patiently Sam ran down every story, followed every possibility to its hopeless end.
The weeks ran into months. Mrs. Anderson still hoped drearily. Every night the light in the hall burned now till daybreak. And every night she wept herself to sleep for that her one ewe lamb was lost in a ravenous world.
Tears were for the night. Wan smiles for the day, when she and Sam, drawn close by a common grief, met to understand each other with few words. He was back again at his work as curator of the museum at the State House, a place Jeff had secured for him after the election.
Outside of Nellie's mother the one friend to whom Sam turned now was Jeff. He came for comfort, to sit long hours in the office while Farnum did his night work. Sometimes he would read; more often sit brooding with his chin in his hands. When the midnight rush was past and Jeff was free they would go together to a restaurant.
Afterwards they would separate at the door of the block where Jeff had his rooms.
Part 3
Yet when Jeff found her it was not Sam who was with him, but Marchant. They had been to see Sobieski about a place Captain Chunn had secured for him as a night watchman of the shipbuilding plant of which Clinton Rogers was part owner. The Pole had mounted his hobby and it had been late when they got away from his cabin under the viaduct.
Just before they turned into lower Powers Avenue from the deadline below Yarnell Way, Marchant clutched at the sleeve of his friend.
"See that woman's face?" he asked sharply.
"No."
Jeff was interested at once. For during the past months he had fallen into a habit of scanning the countenance of any woman who might be the one they sought.
"She knew you. I could see fear jump to her eyes."
"We'll go back," Jeff decided instantly.
"She's in deep water. Death is written on her face."
Already Jeff was swinging back, almost on the run. But she had gone swallowed up in the darkness of the night. They listened, but could hear only the steady splashing of the rain. While they stood hesitating the figure of a woman showed at the other end of the alley and was lost at once down Pacific Avenue.
J
eff ran toward the lights of the other avenue, but before he reached it she had again disappeared. Marchant joined him a few moments later. The little socialist leaned against the wall to steady himself against the fit of coughing that racked him.
"Nuisance . . . this . . . being a lunger. . . What's it all . . . about, Jeff?"
"I know her. We'll cover the waterfront. Take from Coffee Street up. Don't miss a wharf or a boathouse. And if you find the girl don't let her get away."
The editor crossed to the Pacific & Alaska dock, his glance sweeping every dark nook and cranny that might conceal a huddled form. Out of a sodden sky rain pelted in a black night.
He was turning away when an empty banana crate behind him crashed down from a pyramid of them. Jeff whirled, was upon her in an instant before she could escape.
She was shrinking against the wall of the warehouse, her face a tragic mask in its haggard pallor, a white outline clenched hard against the driving rain. One hand was at her heart, the other beat against the air to hold him back.
"Nellie!" he cried.
"What do you want? Let me alone! Let me alone!" She was panting like a spent deer, and in her wild eyes he saw the hunted look of a forest creature at bay.
"We've looked everywhere for you. I've come to take you home."
"Home!" Her strange laughter mocked the word. "There's no home for folks like me in this world."
"Your mother is breaking her heart for you. She thinks of nothing else. All night she keeps a light burning to let you know."
She broke into a sob. "I've seen it. To-night I saw it--for the last time."
"It is pitiful how she waits and waits," he went on quietly. "She takes out your dresses and airs them. All the playthings you used when you were a little girl she keeps near her. She--"
"Don't! Don't!" she begged.
"Your place is set at the table every day, so that when you come in it may be ready."
At that she leaned against the crates and broke down utterly. Jeff knew that for the moment the battle was won. He slipped out of his rain coat and made her put it on, coaxing her gently while the sobs shook her. He led her by the hand back to Pacific Avenue, talking cheerfully as if it were a matter of course.
Here Marchant met them.
"I want a cab, Oscar," Jeff told him.
While he was gone they waited in the entrance to a store that sheltered them from the rain.
Suddenly the girl turned to Jeff. "I--I was going to do it to- night," she whispered.
He nodded. "That's all past now. Don't think of it. There are good days ahead--happy days. It will be new life to your mother to see you. We've all been frightfully anxious."
She shivered, beginning to sob once more. Not for an instant had he withdrawn the hand to which she clung so desperately.
"It's all right, Nellie. . .All right at last. You're going home to those that love you."
"Not to-night--not while I'm looking like this. Don't take me home to-night," she begged. "I can't stand it yet. Give me to-night, please. I . . ."
She trembled like an aspen. Jeff could see she was exhausted, in deadly fear, ready to give way to any wild impulse that might seize her. To reason with her would do no good and might do much harm. He must humor her fancy about not going home at once. But he could not take her to a rooming house and leave her alone while her mind was in this condition. She must be watched, protected against herself. Otherwise in the morning she might be gone.
"All right. You may have my rooms. Here's the cab."
Jeff helped her in, thanked Marchant with a word, got in himself, and shut the door. They were driven through streets shining with rain beneath the light clusters. Nellie crouched in a corner and wept. As they swung down Powers Avenue they passed motor car after motor car filled with gay parties returning from the theaters. He glimpsed young women in furs, wrapped from the cruelty of life by the caste system in which wealth had incased them. Once a ripple of merry laughter floated to him across the gulf that separated this girl from them.
A year ago her laughter had been light as theirs. Life had been a thing beautiful, full of color. She had come to it eagerly, like a lover, glad because it was so good.
But it had not been good to her. By the cluster lights he could see how fearfully it had mauled her, how cruelly its irony had kissed hollows in her young cheeks. All the bloom of her was gone, all the brave pride and joy of youth--gone beyond hope of resurrection. Why must such things be? Why so much to the few, so little to the many? And why should that little be taken away? He saw as in a vision the infinite procession of her hopeless sisters who had traveled the same road, saw them first as sweet and carefree children bubbling with joy, and again, after the World had misused them for its pleasure, haggard, tawdry, with dragging steps trailing toward the oblivion that awaited them. Good God, how long must life be so terribly wasted? How long a bruised and broken thing instead of the fine, brave adventure for which it was meant?
Across his mind flashed Realf's words:
"Amen!" I have cried in battle-time, When my beautiful heroes perished; The earth of the Lord shall bloom sublime By the blood of his martyrs nourished. "Amen!" I have said, when limbs were hewn And our wounds were blue and ghastly The flesh of a man may fail and swoon But God shall conquer lastly.
Part 4
As Jeff helped her from the cab in front of the block where he lived a limousine flashed past. It caught his glance for an instant, long enough for him to recognize his Cousin James, Mrs. Van Tyle and Alice Frome. The arm which supported Nellie did not loosen from her waist, though he knew they had seen him and would probably draw conclusions.
The young woman was trembling violently.
"My rooms are in the second story. Can you walk? Or shall I carry you?" Farnum asked.
"I can walk," she told him almost in a whisper.
He got her upstairs and into the big armchair in front of the gas log. Now that she had slipped out of his rain coat he saw that she was wet to the skin. From his bedroom he brought a bathrobe, pajamas, woolen slippers, anything he could find that was warm and soft. In front of her he dumped them all.
"I'm going down to the drug store to get you something that will warm you, Nellie. While I'm away change your clothes and get into these things," he told her.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "You're good."
A lump rose in his heart. He thought of those evenings before the grate alone with her and of the desperate fight he had had with his passions. Good! He accused himself bitterly for the harm that he had done her. But before her his smile was bright and cheerful.
"We're all going to be so good to you that you'll not know us. Haven't we been waiting two months for a chance to spoil you?"
"Do you . . . know?" she whispered, color for an instant in her wan face.
"I know things aren't half so bad as they seem to you. Dear girl, we are your friends. We've not done right by you. Even your mother has been careless and let you get hurt. But we're going to make it up to you now."
A man on the other side of the street watched Jeff come down and cross to the drug store. Billie Gray, ballot box stuffer, detective, and general handy man for Big Tim O'Brien, had been lurking in that entry when Jeff came home. He had sneaked up the stairs after them and had seen the editor disappear into his rooms with one whom he took to be a woman of the street. Already a second plain clothes man was doing sentry duty. The policeman whose beat it was sat in the drug store and kept an eye open from that quarter.
To the officer Jeff nodded casually. "Bad weather to be out all night in, Nolan."
"Right you are, Mr. Farnum."
The editor ordered a bottle of whiskey and while it was being put up passed into the telephone booth and closed the door behind him. He called up Olive 43I.
Central rang again and again.
"Can't get your party," she told him at last.
"You'll waken him presently. Keep at it, please. It's very important."
At last
Sam Miller's voice answered. "Hello! Hello! What is it?"
"I've found Nellie. . . . Just in time. thank God. . .She's at my rooms. . . . Have Mrs. Anderson bring an entire change of clothing for her. . . . Yes, she's very much exhausted. I'll tell you all about it later.... Come quietly. She may be asleep when you get here."
Jeff hung up the receiver, paid for the whiskey, and returned to his rooms. He did not know that he had left three good and competent witnesses who were ready to take oath that he had brought to his rooms at midnight a woman of the half world and that he had later bought liquor and returned with it to his apartment.