by O. Henry
"It is."
"Thank le bon Dieu, then, I am saved."
The Gray Wolf carefully adjusts the climbers on his feet and descends the spire.
Tictocq takes out his notebook and writes in it.
"At last," he says, "I have a clue."
Monsieur le Compte Carnaignole Cusheau, once known as the Gray Wolf, stands in the magnificent drawing-room of his palace on East 47th Street.
Three days after his confession to Tictocq, he happened to look in the pockets of a discarded pair of pants and found twenty million francs in gold.
Suddenly the door opens and Tictocq, the detective, with a dozen gensd'arme, enters the room.
"You are my prisoner," says the detective.
"On what charge?"
"The murder of Marie Cusheau on the night of August 17th."
"Your proofs?"
"I saw you do it, and your own confession on the spire of Notadam."
The Count laughed and took a paper from his pocket. "Read this," he said, "here is proof that Marie Cusheau died of heart failure."
Tictocq looked at the paper.
It was a check for 100,000 francs.
Tictocq dismissed the gensd'arme with a wave of his hand.
"We have made a mistake, monsieurs," he said, but as he turns to leave the room, Count Carnaignole stops him.
"One moment, monsieur."
The Count Carnaignole tears from his own face a false beard and reveals the flashing eyes and well-known features of Tictocq, the detective.
Then, springing forward, he snatches a wig and false eyebrows from his visitor, and the Gray Wolf, grinding his teeth in rage, stands before him.
The murderer of Marie Cusheau was never discovered.
A SNAPSHOT AT THE PRESIDENT
[This is the kind of waggish editorial O. Henry was writing in 1894 for the readers of THE ROLLING STONE. The reader will do well to remember that the paper was for local consumption and that the allusions are to a very special place and time.]
(It will be remembered that about a month ago there were special rates offered to the public for a round trip to the City of Washington. The price of the ticket being exceedingly low, we secured a loan of twenty dollars from a public-spirited citizen of Austin, by mortgaging our press and cow, with the additional security of our brother's name and a slight draught on Major Hutchinson for $4,000.
We purchased a round trip ticket, two loaves of Vienna bread, and quite a large piece of cheese, which we handed to a member of our reportorial staff, with instructions to go to Washington, interview President Cleveland, and get a scoop, if possible, on all other Texas papers.
Our reporter came in yesterday morning, via the Manor dirt road, with a large piece of folded cotton bagging tied under each foot.
It seems that he lost his ticket in Washington, and having divided the Vienna bread and cheese with some disappointed office seekers who were coming home by the same route, he arrived home hungry, desiring food, and with quite an appetite.
Although somewhat late, we give his description of his interview with President Cleveland.)
I am chief reporter on the staff of THE ROLLING STONE.
About a month ago the managing editor came into the room where we were both sitting engaged in conversation and said:
"Oh, by the way, go to Washington and interview President Cleveland."
"All right," said I. "Take care of yourself."
Five minutes later I was seated in a palatial drawing-room car bounding up and down quite a good deal on the elastic plush-covered seat.
I shall not linger upon the incidents of the journey. I was given carte blanche to provide myself with every comfort, and to spare no expense that I could meet. For the regalement of my inside the preparations had been lavish. Both Vienna and Germany had been called upon to furnish dainty viands suitable to my palate.
I changed cars and shirts once only on the journey. A stranger wanted me to also change a two-dollar bill, but I haughtily declined.
The scenery along the entire road to Washington is diversified. You find a portion of it on one hand by looking out of the window, and upon turning the gaze upon the other side the eye is surprised and delighted by discovering some more of it.
There were a great many Knights of Pythias on the train. One of them insisted upon my giving him the grip I had with me, but he was unsuccessful.
On arriving in Washington, which city I instantly recognized from reading the history of George, I left the car so hastily that I forgot to fee Mr. Pullman's representative.
I went immediately to the Capitol.
In a spirit of jeu d'esprit I had had made a globular representation of a "rolling stone." It was of wood, painted a dark color, and about the size of a small cannon ball. I had attached to it a twisted pendant about three inches long to indicate moss. I had resolved to use this in place of a card, thinking people would readily recognize it as an emblem of my paper.
I had studied the arrangement of the Capitol, and walked directly to Mr. Cleveland's private office.
I met a servant in the hall, and held up my card to him smilingly.
I saw his hair rise on his head, and he ran like a deer to the door, and, lying down, rolled down the long flight of steps into the yard.
"Ah," said I to myself, "he is one of our delinquent subscribers."
A little farther along I met the President's private secretary, who had been writing a tariff letter and cleaning a duck gun for Mr. Cleveland.
When I showed him the emblem of my paper he sprang out of a high window into a hothouse filled with rare flowers.
This somewhat surprised me.
I examined myself. My hat was on straight, and there was nothing at all alarming about my appearance.
I went into the President's private office.
He was alone. He was conversing with Tom Ochiltree. Mr. Ochiltree saw my little sphere, and with a loud scream rushed out of the room.
President Cleveland slowly turned his eyes upon me.
He also saw what I had in my hand, and said in a husky voice:
"Wait a moment, please."
He searched his coat pocket, and presently found a piece of paper on which some words were written.
He laid this on his desk and rose to his feet, raised one hand above him, and said in deep tones:
"I die for Free Trade, my country, and--and--all that sort of thing."
I saw him jerk a string, and a camera snapped on another table, taking our picture as we stood.
"Don't die in the House, Mr. President," I said. "Go over into the Senate Chamber."
"Peace, murderer!" he said. "Let your bomb do its deadly work."
"I'm no bum," I said, with spirit. "I represent THE ROLLING STONE, of Austin, Texas, and this I hold in my hand does the same thing, but, it seems, unsuccessfully."
The President sank back in his chair greatly relieved.
"I thought you were a dynamiter," he said. "Let me see; Texas! Texas!" He walked to a large wall map of the United States, and placing his finger thereon at about the location of Idaho, ran it down in a zigzag, doubtful way until he reached Texas.
"Oh, yes, here it is. I have so many things on my mind, I sometimes forget what I should know well.
"Let's see; Texas? Oh, yes, that's the State where Ida Wells and a lot of colored people lynched a socialist named Hogg for raising a riot at a camp-meeting. So you are from Texas. I know a man from Texas named Dave Culberson. How is Dave and his family? Has Dave got any children?"
"He has a boy in Austin," I said, "working around the Capitol."
"Who is President of Texas now?"
"I don't exactly--"
"Oh, excuse me. I forgot again. I thought I heard some talk of its having been made a Republic again."
"Now, Mr. Cleveland," I said, "you answer some of my questions."
A curious film came over the President's eyes. He sat stiffly in his chair like an automaton.
"Proceed," he said.
"What do you think of the political future of this country?"
"I will state that political exigencies demand emergentistical promptitude, and while the United States is indissoluble in conception and invisible in intent, treason and internecine disagreement have ruptured the consanguinity of patriotism, and--"
"One moment, Mr. President," I interrupted; "would you mind changing that cylinder? I could have gotten all that from the American Press Association if I had wanted plate matter. Do you wear flannels? What is your favorite poet, brand of catsup, bird, flower, and what are you going to do when you are out of a job?"
"Young man," said Mr. Cleveland, sternly, "you are going a little too far. My private affairs do not concern the public."
I begged his pardon, and he recovered his good humor in a moment.
"You Texans have a great representative in Senator Mills," he said. "I think the greatest two speeches I ever heard were his address before the Senate advocating the removal of the tariff on salt and increasing it on chloride of sodium."
"Tom Ochiltree is also from our State," I said.
"Oh, no, he isn't. You must be mistaken," replied Mr. Cleveland, "for he says he is. I really must go down to Texas some time, and see the State. I want to go up into the Panhandle and see if it is really shaped like it is on the map."
"Well, I must be going," said I.
"When you get back to Texas," said the President, rising, "you must write to me. Your visit has awakened in me quite an interest in your State which I fear I have not given the attention it deserves. There are many historical and otherwise interesting places that you have revived in my recollection--the Alamo, where Davy Jones fell; Goliad, Sam Houston's surrender to Montezuma, the petrified boom found near Austin, five-cent cotton and the Siamese Democratic platform born in Dallas. I should so much like to see the gals in Galveston, and go to the wake in Waco. I am glad I met you. Turn to the left as you enter the hall and keep straight on out." I made a low bow to signify that the interview was at an end, and withdrew immiediately. I had no difficulty in leaving the building as soon as I was outside.
I hurried downtown in order to obtain refreshments at some place where viands had been placed upon the free list.
I shall not describe my journey back to Austin. I lost my return ticket somewhere in the White House, and was forced to return home in a manner not especially beneficial to my shoes. Everybody was well in Washington when I left, and all send their love.
AN UNFINISHED CHRISTMAS STORY
[Probably begun several years before his death. Published, as it here appears, in SHORT STORIES, January, 1911.]
Now, a Christmas story should be one. For a good many years the ingenious writers have been putting forth tales for the holiday numbers that employed every subtle, evasive, indirect and strategic scheme they could invent to disguise the Christmas flavor. So far has this new practice been carried that nowadays when you read a story in a holiday magazine the only way you can tell it is a Christmas story is to look at the footnote which reads: ["The incidents in the above story happened on December 25th.--ED."]
There is progress in this; but it is all very sad. There are just as many real Christmas stories as ever, if we would only dig 'em up. Me, I am for the Scrooge and Marley Christmas story, and the Annie and Willie's prayer poem, and the long lost son coming home on the stroke of twelve to the poorly thatched cottage with his arms full of talking dolls and popcorn balls and--Zip! you hear the second mortgage on the cottage go flying off it into the deep snow.
So, this is to warn you that there is no subterfuge about this story--and you might come upon stockings hung to the mantel and plum puddings and hark! the chimes! and wealthy misers loosening up and handing over penny whistles to lame newsboys if you read further.
Once I knocked at a door (I have so many things to tell you I keep on losing sight of the story). It was the front door of a furnished room house in West 'Teenth Street. I was looking for a young illustrator named Paley originally and irrevocably from Terre Haute. Paley doesn't enter even into the first serial rights of this Christmas story; I mention him simply in explaining why I came to knock at the door--some people have so much curiosity.
The door was opened by the landlady. I had seen hundreds like her. And I had smelled before that cold, dank, furnished draught of air that hurried by her to escape immurement in the furnished house.
She was stout, and her face and lands were as white as though she had been drowned in a barrel of vinegar. One hand held together at her throat a buttonless flannel dressing sacque whose lines had been cut by no tape or butterick known to mortal woman. Beneath this a too-long, flowered, black sateen skirt was draped about her, reaching the floor in stiff wrinkles and folds.
The rest of her was yellow. Her hair, in some bygone age, had been dipped in the fountain of folly presided over by the merry nymph Hydrogen; but now, except at the roots, it had returned to its natural grim and grizzled white.
Her eyes and teeth and finger nails were yellow. Her chops hung low and shook when she moved. The look on her face was exactly that smileless look of fatal melancholy that you may have seen on the countenance of a hound left sitting on the doorstep of a deserted cabin.
I inquired for Paley. After a long look of cold suspicion the landlady spoke, and her voice matched the dingy roughness of her flannel sacque.
Paley? Was I sure that was the name? And wasn't it, likely, Mr. Sanderson I meant, in the third floor rear? No; it was Paley I wanted. Again that frozen, shrewd, steady study of my soul from her pale-yellow, unwinking eyes, trying to penetrate my mask of deception and rout out my true motives from my lying lips. There was a Mr. Tompkins in the front hall bedroom two flights up. Perhaps it was he I was seeking. He worked of nights; he never came in till seven in the morning. Or if it was really Mr. Tucker (thinly disguised as Paley) that I was hunting I would have to call between five and ----
But no; I held firmly to Paley. There was no such name among her lodgers. Click! the door closed swiftly in my face; and I heard through the panels the clanking of chains and bolts.
I went down the steps and stopped to consider. The number of this house was 43. I was sure Paley had said 43--or perhaps it was 45 or 47--I decided to try 47, the second house farther along.
I rang the bell. The door opened; and there stood the same woman. I wasn't confronted by just a resemblance--it was the SAME woman holding together the same old sacque at her throat and looking at me with the same yellow eyes as if she had never seen me before on earth. I saw on the knuckle of her second finger the same red-and-black spot made, probably, by a recent burn against a hot stove.
I stood speechless and gaping while one with moderate haste might have told fifty. I couldn't have spoken Paley's name even if I had remembered it. I did the only thing that a brave man who believes there are mysterious forces in nature that we do not yet fully comprehend could have done in the circumstances. I backed down the steps to the sidewalk and then hurried away frontward, fully understanding how incidents like that must bother the psychical research people and the census takers.
Of course I heard an explanation of it afterward, as we always do about inexplicable things.
The landlady was Mrs. Kannon; and she leased three adjoining houses, which she made into one by cutting arched doorways through the walls. She sat in the middle house and answered the three bells.
I wonder why I have maundered so slowly through the prologue. I have it! it was simply to say to you, in the form of introduction rife through the Middle West: "Shake hands with Mrs. Kannon."
For, it was in her triple house that the Christmas story happened; and it was there where I picked up the incontrovertible facts from the gossip of many roomers and met Stickney--and saw the necktie.
Christmas came that year on Thursday, and snow came with it.
Stickney (Harry Clarence Fowler Stickney to whomsoever his full baptismal cognominal burdens may be of interest) reached his address at six-thirty
Wednesday afternoon. "Address" is New Yorkese for "home." Stickney roomed at 45 West 'Teenth Street, third floor rear hall room. He was twenty years and four months old, and he worked in a cameras-of-all-kinds, photographic supplies and films-developed store. I don't know what kind of work he did in the store; but you must have seen him. He is the young man who always comes behind the counter to wait on you and lets you talk for five minutes, telling him what you want. When you are done, he calls the proprietor at the top of his voice to wait on you, and walks away whistling between his teeth.
I don't want to bother about describing to you his appearance; but, if you are a man reader, I will say that Stickncy looked precisely like the young chap that you always find sitting in your chair smoking a cigarette after you have missed a shot while playing pool--not billiards but pool--when you want to sit down yourself.