by Gwen Bristow
Marny went back to the bedroom. The air was growing chilly, and the rippling curtains reminded her that while there was not much wind yet, it might get stronger as the night went on. She set down the lamp and went to close the windows.
The windows looked over the roofs that sloped downhill toward the bay. San Francisco still had no street lights, but here between the plaza and the waterfront the town was never quite dark, and as this was a Saturday night there were even more lights than usual. In the bay were five hundred vessels, most of them with lights of their own. Marny saw an Isthmus steamer, and other coastwise craft, and tall-masted seagoing vessels from many ports, and the busy little steamers that chugged between San Francisco and the placer country. Farther out she could see the lost ships, rotting and falling to pieces in the water.
She closed the windows and drew the curtains. Making sure the outer doors of bedroom and boudoir were locked, and the door between the rooms closed so the kittens would have to stay where they belonged, she started downstairs.
Around her she heard laughter, music, all the merry sounds of the plaza on a Saturday night. She went down to the first floor and cracked open the door behind the bar of the public room.
What a racket!—but the men seemed to be having fun. In this room they now had two female dealers, French girls who had come to California to seek their fortunes. Marny could see them, smoking little black cigars and bestowing seductive smiles upon the players.
The bar was doing a rush of business. On the platform at one end of the room the orchestra was playing. At the end of the bar near the orchestra four men were warbling the words that went with the tune. Along the bar other men clinked glasses and made comments of their own. In front of the bar a boozy patriot was prancing up and down, waving a flag and announcing that he was prepared to carve the gizzard out of the first fool duck of a foreigner who questioned the right of a trueborn American to do exactly as he pleased in his own country.
“Things going all right, Marny?” asked a voice at her side.
She turned to see Troy Blackbeard. “Yes, Troy, so far. Except, that fellow with the flag—don’t you think we’d better get him out before he starts a war?”
Troy grinned. The Blackbeards liked Marny. Not only did she play fair and mind her own business, but she was one of the few people who went to the trouble of telling them apart and calling them by different names. After all, a man may like his twin but he also likes to be treated as a person in his own right instead of half a unit.
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Troy promised.
“Good. I’ll go on up to the parlor.”
She went up to the parlor. As she crossed the room a score of men called greetings. Marny smiled at them and waved. She noticed that Pollock was here again tonight, as usual in the group around Hortensia. He was not one of those who greeted Marny as she passed.
Marny was not distressed. She told the Harvard man to go to dinner, and took his place at the card table.
She had an agreeable evening. Her table was crowded with as many players as she could take care of. Nobody made trouble. When she paused to stretch, she noted that play was brisk at all the tables, and while the bar was noisy the noise was good humored. The cards were kind to her, and she felt a glow of good luck.
At ten o’clock she left her game to the Harvard man and went out for a rest. In the kitchen a pot of chocolate was ready on the stove. Marny filled a cup and carried it upstairs to her own room.
She lit the whale oil lamp, took off the heavy nugget necklace and dropped it into the pocket of her skirt, took up the cup and tasted the chocolate. Evidently Lulu or Lolo had made it tonight. Marny could always tell when Kendra had not made the chocolate. As she drank, she reflected that she was going to miss Kendra.
Certainly she did not begrudge Kendra her present happiness. Kendra had had more than her share of trouble and she had met it with courage. She deserved to be happy now.
—But I do wish, Marny thought as she set down her empty cup, that Lulu and Lolo could learn to cook like her.
She heard a little call from the boudoir. Geraldine had heard her come in, and had caught her scent under the door. In cat language, Geraldine was calling, “Come and pay some attention to me.”
Marny lit the small lamp and carried it into the boudoir. Geraldine was standing by the door, but as Marny came in she sprang to the table top and rejoined her babies in the hut. Setting the lamp on the side table Marny bent to talk to them. The gun at her belt felt heavy. She should have taken it off, and given her waist a rest along with her neck.
No matter. The kittens were so adorable. Marny would never understand the way they liked to lie in a pile on top of each other. —You’d think, she reflected, that they would smother, or at least be mighty uncomfortable. But evidently not.
“You darlings,” she said to them. “Jupiter and Empy and Pandora and Calico. I love you all.”
As she stood up she was wondering—When Kendra leaves the Calico Palace, how shall we divide the kittens? I suppose we’ll each take a boy and a girl. But which of us will get Geraldine? She’s the one who came to the door at midnight. Oh well, we’ll decide somehow.
Marny said good night to the kittens and started to leave them.
“Stop!” ordered a voice as she turned around.
In the doorway between the boudoir and the bedroom stood Captain Pollock. He held a gun in his hand, and the gun was pointed at herself.
Almost by instinct Marny’s hand flashed to her belt. But at the same moment he barked,
“Stop!”
Marny stopped.
Pollock ordered, “Put your hands in front of you.”
Without thought or reason, Marny obeyed.
“Don’t move,” said Pollock, “and don’t scream.”
Marny did not move or scream. For that moment she was benumbed. She felt nothing but stark, absolute terror.
They faced each other. Marny stood still, her elbows bent, her hands in front of her as though she were carrying an invisible tray. Pollock too stood motionless, his gun ready to fire.
Now that she had passed that first instant of shock, Marny’s wits began to clear. She became aware of every detail, with such acuteness as she had seldom felt before. She saw the lamplight pouring through the doorway behind him, and the light from the smaller lamp on the table in front of him, making his features plain; she saw his neat chestnut hair and beard, the excellent quality of his clothes and his well-kept boots; and she saw his strong competent hand on the gun. The gun was a Colt Army Revolver. This was a favorite type of gun in San Francisco and Marny had seen it often. It weighed four pounds, it was a pistol of .44 caliber, and it could easily blow her—or anybody else—right out of the world.
She heard the sounds of the Calico Palace—music, voices, footsteps, opening and closing of doors, the muffled roar of the plaza and the streets beyond. The noise seemed loud, and it seemed to be all round her, like a wall enclosing the silence where she and Pollock stood.
She had thought she was well guarded. But Pollock was a clever man, and crafty. He was here on the fourth floor now. No doubt he had been here before, more than once. Leaving the parlor as if to go home, he must have found a way to elude the guards and slip up the stairs. Pollock had had a purpose in his mind and he had cleared the way.
And she had thought—they all had thought—he came to the Calico Palace because he liked Hortensia and her music! Of course, this was what he had meant them to think.
What did he want? Whatever it was, his plan had served him well. She was alone with him and he was holding the gun. He glared at her, full of hate, and she saw his eyes.
His eyes were open wide, so wide that she could see white above and below the blue irises. With rising terror Marny realized that Pollock did not look quite sane.
He began to talk.
“You are an evil woman.” His voice was harsh with rage. “Now you are going to pay for what you have taken from me.”
Marny
knew it was no use to answer. Pollock went on voicing his fury.
“You have taken everything good I ever had.” He still spoke roughly, unevenly. “You have killed my ship. You have destroyed my prospects. Since you forced yourself upon the Cynthia, I have had nothing but misfortune.”
“Do you think I can work—black magic?” she exclaimed.
He went on as if he had not heard her. Probably he had not.
“I tried to repair the blight you brought upon me,” he said. “I went into business. Honorable business. Not like your career of wrecking men’s lives. I dealt in brick and lumber. I wanted to help build this city—”
While he talked, her thoughts were taking shape. Pollock had made the same mistake as so many other men: he had chosen to deal in goods of which the supply had outrun the need. Since the Eastern shippers had overloaded the market, prices of brick and lumber were ruinously down.
Kendra had shown her that absurd item about the five hundred dozen fans. Pollock did not deal in fans. But like many other men lost in the swamp of unwanted merchandise, he was bankrupt or nearly so. And he was blaming her for this, as he had blamed her for the fate of the Cynthia.
With utter hatred, he was telling her so. His present trouble, like the other, was her fault. She had demonized his destiny. He believed every word he was saying.
Whatever he wanted of her, Pollock intended to get it or kill her. Maybe both.
At her side, below the level of her elbow, Marny heard little protesting sounds from the hut. Geraldine did not understand Pollock’s words, but she had sensed that he was not a friend. Geraldine was saying to Marny, “I don’t like this man. Make him go away.”
Pollock heard Geraldine too. “What’s that?” he snarled.
Marny said, “A cat.” (—What stupid conversation, she thought, when he may shoot me dead any minute.)
“Cat!” Pollock repeated. He spat out the word as if it were a dirty word. “Fit company for you. You look like a cat.”
The sounds of hilarity rose from the floors below them. Marny was agonizingly conscious of the little weapon at her belt. If only she could put her hand on it! She could whip out the gun and fire it in a second. But oh, how to get that second?
If somebody would only come to the door! Hortensia, to say, “Kendra left us a plate of raisin tarts.” Or Lolo: “Marny, Norman says what’s keeping you so long?” Or Norman himself, to tell her he was taking coins out of a safe to replenish a table where the play was going against the house.
Coins. Gold. Of course, this was what Pollock wanted. If he told her to open the safes she would have to do so. This was what he was telling her now.
“You are going to pay me in gold,” he thundered at her. “I shall walk away from this den of sin with what is rightly mine. It will be no more than what I should have had today if you had not destroyed my ship and my hopes. You she-devil!” he roared.
Such hatred was deadly. And Marny was realizing that if he killed her here he would have a good chance to get away. He could rob the safes and then shoot her, and run down the iron staircase at the back while the guards were rushing up the main stairs from the gambling rooms.
Or maybe he would not need to flee by the back stairs. He could crack her head with that gun as easily as he could shoot her with it. She would crumple up silently, and Pollock could walk down the main stairs and leave by the front door, his coat over his arm to hide the pokes of gold he was carrying.
Marny’s heart was pounding and her skin felt clammy under her clothes. She did not know how much longer she could breathe without choking. In the hut Geraldine mewed angrily. Geraldine had plenty of breath.
Pollock was saying, “Do as I tell you.” He turned his command into a question. “Will you do as I tell you?”
Stiff with fear, Marny gasped, “Yes.”
(—If I am quite docile, she thought, maybe I can hold him until somebody comes up to this floor. Somebody will come up here for something, sometime—if only I can stay alive that long.)
Pollock was speaking again. “You will give me your gold. Gold nuggets, gold dust, gold coins. First I want your nugget necklace.”
The nugget necklace was in the pocket of her skirt, where she had dropped it when she came into the bedroom. But Pollock did not know this.
“I’m not wearing the necklace,” said Marny.
“You are not wearing it now,” he retorted with contempt. “But you were wearing it tonight while you dealt cards. You were wearing it when you opened your bedroom door. You took it off after you came in. Now,” he commanded her with an evil smile, “you will tell me where it is.”
Marny felt starved for air. She tried to draw a deeper breath, but she could not. If only she could think of some excuse to move her hands, she could reach her gun.
“All right, I’ll give you the necklace,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
“You will not!” Pollock snapped. “I will get it. And I will not move my eyes from you while I am getting it. Tell me where it is.”
Again Marny tried to draw a deep breath. It was no use. She could not.
“Do you hear me?” Pollock demanded. “I want that nugget necklace. Tell me where it is.”
In Marny’s mind, from out of the depth of her breathless terror, rose an idea.
She wet her lips. “I hid the necklace when I took it off,” she said. “When I take it off I always put it in a secret hiding place.”
Pollock gave her a smile of triumph. The smile was like a cut across his face, showing his teeth. “Where is this hiding place?”
“It’s in this room,” said Marny.
His eyes did not shift and his gun did not waver. “Tell me where it is.”
“It’s a place where nobody would ever think of looking,” said Marny. “My cat is in this little hut here by me, with her kittens. They are lying on a blanket. I hid the necklace under the blanket. If you will slip your hand under the blanket you can find the necklace and take it out.”
Still watching her to make sure she did not move, Pollock took a step farther into the room. He took another step, and another. He reached the table on which stood the hut. He was very careful. Still looking at her, still holding the gun on her, he lowered himself on one knee to the level of the little doorway at the front of the hut. Marny followed him with her eyes.
Pollock held the gun in his right hand. Without looking into the hut, with his left hand he felt along the front edge until he found the doorway. He felt the edge of the blanket on which lay the kittens and Geraldine. His face upturned toward Marny, he slipped his hand under the blanket.
With a cry of rage Geraldine leaped at him. She leaped right at his face. Her claws went into his cheeks. Pollock gave a gasp of shock, his head jerked, and by this time Marny had her gun in her hand. She fired.
63
THE REPORT OF HER gun was the most welcome sound Marny had ever heard. At almost the same instant she heard another and louder report, as Pollock’s hand dropped to his side and his gun went off. Pollock stumbled to the floor. His bullet whacked the rug with a violence that nearly threw Marny down beside him.
She caught her balance against the wall, dizzy but not hurt. Her relief was so overwhelming that at first she did not notice anything around her. But as the spinning in her head began to lessen she saw that she had struck Pollock in his right leg, slightly below the knee. Blood was seeping from the wound and making a splotch on the rug, not far from the place where his bullet had torn a jagged hole in the rug and splintered the planks beneath. Pollock’s face showed the marks of Geraldine’s claws. Drops of blood were trickling across his cheeks.
As for Geraldine, she had gone down to the floor with him, and the shots had sent her ducking under the table. But hearing no more shots she had crept out again, and stood glaring at Pollock and growling awful threats of what she would do to him if he troubled her kittens any more. Though Pollock had been half stunned for a minute, now Marny saw that he was moving, pushing himself toward the spot where
his gun had fallen.
The sight of him cleared the last confusion from her mind. Swooping like a bird of prey, she grabbed the gun before he could do so. Pollock tried to stand up, but his injured leg doubled under him and he fell on the floor again. Marny heard him groan, less in pain than in rage because he could not reach her.
At the same time, she became aware of other sounds—banging doors, hurrying footsteps, cries and questions from a multitude of throats. Into the room burst Troy Blackbeard and Norman, demanding to know what the gunfire was about. From outside the room she heard Duke Blackbeard shouting to the gamblers who were suddenly crowding the halls, “Keep back! Stay where you are!”
Norman was staring down at the man on the floor. “My God, Marny!” he exclaimed, almost doubting what he saw. “Is that Captain Pollock? What’s been going on here?”
Troy had put an arm around Marny’s shoulders. “Did he hurt you, Marny?”
She shook her head. The Colt Army Revolver felt terribly heavy in her hand. She gave it to Troy, and leaned on him, glad of his support. Her other hand, still holding her own little gun, hung limply at her side. Troy took that gun too. She was glad he took it, for she felt hardly strong enough to hold anything. Now that her danger was past, it seemed to her that she had never been so tired in her life.
Norman went to the door and began to give orders.
“Tell them there’s been a little trouble but everything’s all right now. Burglar tried to get in and Marny fired. She got him, and we’re about to throw him out. No, she’s not hurt. Tell them to go on with the games. Everything’s under control.”
Except for her own tremulous nerves, Marny observed that everything really was under control. Pollock had managed to raise himself on an elbow, and was mumbling furiously, but with his leg wound he was helpless and no menace to anybody. Geraldine was on her way back to her maternal duties, climbing the little staircase that led to the table top where stood her hut. Geraldine too had observed that everything was under control. No doubt she attributed this to her own excellent management, and she was right.