by Whit Burnett
suppressed, always festering in the dark hollow of his heart. He
thought, as he had a thousand times in his boyhood, that there
could be no depravity so low as this vicious ill-will towards his
unconscious, blameless brother. He told himself once again
that he was cheating Mary-he knew why she overlooked his
personal insignificance, his poverty-it was because she had the
illusion that he was true-hearted, above baseness. If she should
learn that he was capable of this obscene resentment of the
kind and generous Roger's superiority--she would tum away
no
Nineteen Tales of Terror
•
from him forever. Was there any real difference-no, there
was not-between such a feeling towards a brother and the upraised arm of Cain?
But Mary was looking at him ! She had lifted her eyes from
her account book! He had not seen when. How long had she
been watching him? A man with a guilty secret is always terrified to be watched. Had she guessed? Had she read this thought in his face? He froze. And waited.
But Mary smiled. The room shone. The golden light around
him brought Francis with a start out of his nightmare.
"Why, you've been asleep," said Mary.
"Yes, I must have dropped off a moment." He thought he
had been having a bad dream. What a relief to be waked up!
Before he lay down to sleep that night, he stepped over to the
twins' little cribs. Through the high railing of the sleepingporch the barred moonlight shone on their round faces, bland in sleep. How safe they looked. And it was he who made them
safe, their father. His heart grew great with love.
But after he was in bed Mary heard him draw the long sighing breath of disheartenment. "What is it, dear?" she murmured. He did not answer. Probably be was already asleep, she thought.
He was awake. His sigh had been of disheartenment. He had
perceived that his love for his little boys was tarnished and
sullied by satisfaction in his brother's childlessness.
The tide that had been sweeping in so strongly, had begun
to ebb.
The two vacant-lot courts had never been so busy as that
summer. Bert Warder made them the center of Jefferson Street
life as much as he could. For there he knew success. By concentrating fiercely on his game, he had made himself one of the best players, and looked forward all through his uneasy days to
the hour with his racket at the end, which was almost his only
respite from misery. His big unused working-man's body
grunted with satisfaction in the hard physical effort and the
copious sweat: the strain of his fixed idea relaxed in a momentary forgetfulness of Don in jail: and his perpetual doubt of his equality with those about him fell with the ravening zest of
starvation on the chance to inflict defeat.
He steered clear cunningly of the two or three men who
could beat him. And naturally played a good deal with Frankie
Tuttle. They did not work in the same department of Stott Mc
Devitt, but he scarcely let a day go by without hunting up
Francis, inviting him to play, and saying facetiously that he did
hope this time he might get by Francis' cannon-ball serve and
maybe score a few points against him : promising if he did, to
campaign for Frankie's election to be town dog-catcher, or
ne Murder on JeHerson Street • I l l
chief reader-aloud a t th e Sewing Society. Day b y day h e scored
more points.
Mary went up to watch the play once, and afterwards said,
"See here, Francis, why don't you give up tennis for the rest of
the summer? You're wearing yourself out." But the tum of her
phrase, the quality of her voice showed Francis how pitiful he
looked on the courts, going to pieces under Bert's ragging,
trotting about, broken-kneed, like a futile old woman, unstrung, unable to command even his usual modestly competent strokes. If he stopped playing now after such exhibitions of
feebleness there would be no limit to the joshing he would get
at Bert's hands.
And by this time Bert's joshing did not so much annoy as
frighten him. He was terrified at the thought that another
chance lunge in the dark might lay open to Bert's rough handling the secret shame he was trying to leave behind. Bert had, so far, never twitted him with Roger, but at any moment he
might try that line; certainly would if he guessed that to be a
sore point. Francis' nerves tautened in vigilance if he even
caught sight of Bert from afar. He seemed to feel Roger in the
air, whenever Bert was present.
He was right in feeling that Roger's name was often in Bert's
mind. The contrast between Francis' brother, distinguished,
wealthy, well-known, and his disgraced convict brother was
one of the sorest of Bert's stripes, the worst of all his envies.
Glaring across the net at Francis, going forlornly and hopelessly through the complicated wind-up for his serve, he thought, (as he called out in his witty way, "Play ball, bald
head,") ''There's one sure thing, 'bo . • • . you'll never know
from me I ever heard of that big stiff!"
Mary was rather troubled by the way Francis seemed to feel
the heat that summer. But the hot weather would soon be gone.
And wasn't he growing thinner? She'd have to start the evening
hot chocolate and crackers again. He didn't seem to have the
interest in his garden of other summers. Perhaps only that he
hadn't much time left over from tennis. He hadn't written a
line of poetry for weeks. But of course the wind of poetry blew
fitfully. Was he enjoying the twins as much as he did? Or was
that only a fancy of hers?
It was no fancy of hers. Coming in to his children after his
daily defeat in tennis, worn out with standing guard over his
threatened secret, it was soon borne in on him that he had been
in a fool's paradise. Now, while his little sons were babies, yes
of course, they were his, as other men's children were theirs.
But they grew so fast. Over and over he lived helplessly through
in imagination as if it had already happened, how they would
turn from him. They would soon naturally be asked to visit
112
Nineteen Tales of Terror
•
their Uncle Roger. They could not but be struck by the difference between the two homes. They would begin to compare their father with his brother. And then they would see how their
father always took a back seat, never was consulted, never
elected to any office, had no influence. As they grew, they
would note people's surprise that a Senator-Roger would
probably be a Senator by that time-had such a queer singedcat of a brother . . . . "And now," Francis often thought, his fingers fumbling with his thinning hair, "Now a mangy singedcat."
Twenty times a day it seemed to him, he was startled to find
that without his knowing it, he was nervously drawing his hair
up over the crown of his head.
He was even more startled to discover that he was not the
only one to notice this involuntary reflex. "Have you hurt the
top of your head lately, Mr. Tuttle?" Mrs. Benson once asked
him. He was shocked and turned on her such a darkening face
that she hurriedly excused herself, "I just noticed that you
&nbs
p; often put your hand up to it."
He snatched down his hand-to his amazement it was once
more lifted to his head-and told her shortly, "No. I'm all
right." As he moved away a strange thought came to him, one
that soon became familiar by repetition. "It would be better if
all the hair on my head would come out. And have it over
with !" Sometimes he imagined for an instant between sleep and
waking that this had happened. And it was a relief. He was
sickened to find that he could not control himself even in such
a little matter as fumbling with that thin place. How could he
hope to hide his secret vice? Every time he found his fingers in
his hair he thought anew, disheartened at his own weakness,
that he would never be quick enough to hide what would
·
come
leaping up to his eyes at a mention of Roger.
.V
But until now he had had Mary. As long as Mary was
there . . .
Then early in August a tragic telegram took M ary away for
a time. Her delicate sister, now a young wife, was lying at the
point of death, her baby prematurely born. "Come at once.
Florence calling for you," the telegram read. She telephoned
the news to Francis who looked up the hour of the next train
for her and hurried to draw the money from the savings bank
to cover her expenses. Mary, wild with sorrow and alarm began
to pack, interrupted herself to run over to ask Mrs. Benson to
keep a neighborly eye on Francis while she was away, tried to
' The Murder on Jefferson Street • 113
think what clothes the twins would need, stopped to telephone
the cleaning-woman about getting Francis' meals, stood still in
the middle of the floor and wrung her hands. When Francis
came with the money, he was startled to see her so distraught.
"If it were only time for tny vacation, so I could go along to
take care of the twins," he said.
"Oh, if you only could be there to take care of me!" cried
poor Mary, weeping on his shoulder. "I'm scared to death to go
by myself. I don't know how to face anything without you
now!"
The memory of this cry of Mary's, the thought of her need
for him, Mary's real and actual need for him hung like incense
around Francis as he stood on the station platform that evening
looking after the train from which the twins' handkerchiefs
still fluttered. It was a sweetness in the night air as he let himself into the empty house. He was breathing it in as he fell asleep, his arm on the pillow sacred to Mary's dear head. Mary
had not yet wholly gone.
The next day, the first day since his marriage that he had
wakened alone, he arrived early at the office. To his surprise
Bert Warder was at a desk farther down the same room, among
the apprentices. Francis wondered if this meant that Bert had
been definitely put out of the drafting room. There had been
some gossip about his mistakes there. Bert's eyes were roving
about unhappily. He saw the surprise in Francis' glance. "You,
damn you, with your rich brother and your pull! Of course you
get on!" he thought, savage over the injustice of the world. To
say something he called out foolishly, "Hey there, Francis, I
got special orders to report here to keep the air blowing through
your clearing." As Francis took out the papers from his drawer
he heard Bert's loud unmodulated voice explaining the joke
about "the clearing." "Have I got to go all through that again?"
thought Francis shrugging his shoulders wearily. But the men
near Bert thought the joke a flat one, found Bert's noise about
it tiresome, and took no pains to conceal their impression.
Smarting, humiliated, apprehensive, resentful, Bert drew
glumly back into himself, waiting bodefully for a chance to pay
Francis out for his rebuff.
At lunch he went out of his way in the cafeteria to sit at the
same table with Francis, ostentatiously familiar with him and
after work he let trolley after trolley go by the comer while he
waited till Francis arrived. Knowing that he had been punished for being too fresh, he was impelled by the fatality that hangs over people who have struck a false note, to strike it yet
more loudly. Francis had never found him harder to endure. As
they walked up Jefferson Street together, he said peremptorily,
l l4 • Nineteen Tales of Terror
"Run on in and get your tennis things on, Frankie. We'll have a
set before supper. Maybe if I try hard I can score a point or
two on you."
"It's gosh-awful hot for tennis," protested Francis.
Bert's heavy eyebrows lifted ironically over his bulging eyes,
he began a certain menacing one-sided smile which was the
introduction to his worst joshing. It was uglier than usual, ominous and threatening. There was but one threat that Francis feared. It came instantly into his mind. He lost his head, "This
is the time he is going to bring Roger up-and I have not yet
thought what to say or how to look!" and said in a hurried
panic, "All right, all right. Yes, let's play. It may do us good."
A couple of hours later he came in. He had lost one love set
after another to Bert. Too tired to bathe and change, he sank
down in a chair. The cold supper that was to be left for him
every evening by Mary's cleaning-woman, faced him on the
table. After a time he ate a little of it, and went stiffly to bed.
But for a long time not to sleep. Out of the darkness white balls
hurtled towards him. Every time he began to doze, he saw one
like a bullet, driving straight towards his eyes, and starting to
one side to avoid it woke up to find himself sweating, his heart
beating fast, all his muscles taut.
The cleaning-woman, come in early by Mary's instructions
to get Mr. Tuttle's breakfast told him, "You don't look so good,
Mr. Tuttle."
"It was hot last night," he told her pushing his uneaten breakfast away.
It was hot all that day too. But in spite of it he lingered in
the furnace-like office till the 5 : 20 trolley. To no avail. As soon
as he stepped off the trolley Bert and a couple of others shouted
at him to come and make a fourth at doubles. They played set
after set, shifting partners in all the possible combinations.
But defeat always came to the side that Francis was on. He
could have told them that beforehand, he thought, playing more
and more feebly.
When he went home he found two letters waiting for him in
the hot shut-up living room. One from Mary. One from Roger.
What could Roger be writing for? Looking at that letter with
apprehension he opened Mary's. The twins were well, she
wrote, her sister had recognized her but was not expected to
live. The rest was love. •" . . . take care of yourself, darling,
darling! I miss you so! I need you, dearest. I love you. I love
you." A murmur as from Mary's voice rose faintly from the
paper. But died away in the silence coldly breathed out from
the letter he had not read. He sat a long time looking at it, forgetting his dinner. But it had to be read. He tore it open.
R
oger wrote to give Francis the news everybody was to see
The Murder on Jefferson Street • 1 15
in the newspaper the next day, that through a new business
combine, he was now one of the Vice Presidents of the Stott
McDevitt Company, as well as of his own. "We'll see to it that
this means some well-deserved advancement for you too, Francis, old man," wrote Roger pleasantly. His letters were always kind. "It'll be fine to see more of you and Mary. We may even
decide to become neighbors of yours. Nothing holds us here.
And I certainly would enjoy getting acquainted with my splendid little nephews."
The darkness fell slowly around Francis holding the letter
in a clutch he could not relax. He had not eaten since noon. His
old inner wound opened slowly, gaping here and there, and
began to bleed. No, no, he told himself shamed to the heart, it
was nothing so clean and wholesome as bleeding; it was the
drip of pus from a foul old ulcer. Well, a man was a leper, who
could feel nothing but mortal sickness over his own brother's
success.
The blackness deepened. Out of it, one after another, there
hurtled towards him bullet-like revelations of his own pitifUl
abjectness. He had always known he was a dub at business, a
dub at tennis, a dub at life--everybody's inferior in everything!
But till now he had hoped he might at least grow into a harmless dub. But he was not even that. He was incurably vicious, with the mean vice of feebleness. The beast in his heart would
not die, starve it though he might. It snarled and gnashed its
teeth over every new triumph of Roger's and sprang up from its
lair, rattling its chain in sordid hope every time a faint shadow
came over Roger's life. He would rather die, oh infinitely rather
die than have Mary leam that her husband could not kill that
hope tighten his hold as he might around its filthy throat.
Through the darkness a voice in a loud snarl came to Francis' ears, "He'll never have any children. And I have two sons."
Francis leaped to his feet. Who was there in the dark with him?
He bad thought he was alone. He snapped on a light and looked
wildly around the empty room. He was alone.
Had he said that? Or had he only thought it so fiercely that it
rang in his ears like a cry? His knees shook. Suppose Mary had