January 4 and 6, 1896
[Philadelphia Press, January 4, p. 11; January 6, p. 10.]
A TALE OF MERE CHANCE
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PURSUIT OF THE TILES, THE STATEMENT OF THE CLOCK, AND THE GRIP OF A COAT OF ORANGE SPOTS, TOGETHER WITH SOME CRITICISM OF A DETECTIVE SAID TO BE CARVED FROM AN OLD TABLE LEG
[The White Tiles]
Yes, my friend, I killed the man, but I would not have been detected in it were it not for some very extraordinary circumstances. I had long considered this deed, but I am a delicate and sensitive person, you understand, and I hesitated over it as the diver hesitates on the brink of a dark and icy mountain pool. A thought of the shock of the contact holds one back.
As I was passing his house one morning, I said to myself, “Well, at any rate, if she loves him it will not be for long.” And after that decision I was not myself, but a sort of a machine.
I rang the bell, and the servants admitted me to the drawing room. I waited there while the old tall clock placidly ticked its speech of time. The rigid and austere chairs remained in possession of their singular imperturbability, although, of course, they were aware of my purpose. But the little white tiles of the floor whispered one to another and looked at me. Presently he entered the room, and I, drawing my revolver, shot him. He screamed—you know that scream—mostly amazement—and as he fell forward his blood was upon the little white tiles. They huddled and covered their eyes from this rain. It seemed to me that the old clock stopped ticking as a man may gasp in the middle of a sentence, and a chair threw itself in my way as I sprang toward the door.
A moment later, I was walking down the street, tranquil, you understand, and I said to myself: “It is done. Long years from this day I will say to her that it was I who killed him. After time has eaten the conscience of the thing, she will admire my courage.”
I was elated that the affair had gone off so smoothly, and I felt like returning home and taking a long, full sleep, like a tired workingman. When people passed me, I contemplated their stupidity with a sense of satisfaction.
But those accursed little white tiles!
I heard a shrill crying and chattering behind me, and, looking back, I saw them, bloodstained and impassioned, raising their little hands and screaming “Murder! It was he!” I have said that they had little hands. I am not sure of it, but they had some means of indicating me as unerringly as pointing fingers. As for their movement, they swept along as easily as dry, light leaves are carried by the wind. Always they were shrilly piping their song of my guilt.
My friend, may it never be your fortune to be pursued by a crowd of little bloodstained tiles. I used a thousand means to be free from the clash-clash of those tiny feet. I ran through the world at my best speed, but it was no better than that of an ox, while they, my pursuers, were always fresh, eager, relentless.
I am an ingenious person, and I used every trick that a desperate, fertile man can invent. Hundreds of times I had almost evaded them when some smoldering, neglected spark would blaze up and discover me.
I felt that the eye of conviction would have no terrors for me; but the eyes of suspicion which I saw in city after city, on road after road, drove me to the verge of going forward and saying, “Yes, I have murdered.”
People would see the following, clamorous troops of bloodstained tiles, and give me piercing glances, so that these swords played continually at my heart. But we are a decorous race, thank God. It is very vulgar to apprehend murderers on the public streets. We have learned correct manners from the English. Besides, who can be sure of the meaning of clamoring tiles? It might be merely a trick in politics.
Detectives? What are detectives? Oh, yes, I have read of them and their deeds, when I come to think of it. The prehistoric races must have been remarkable. I have never been able to understand how the detectives navigated in stone boats. Still, specimens of their pottery excavated in Taumalipas show a remarkable knowledge of mechanics. I remember the little hydraulic—what’s that? Well, what you say may be true, my friend, but I think you dream.
The little stained tiles. My friend, I stopped in an inn at the ends of the earth, and in the morning they were there flying like little birds and pecking at my window.
I should have escaped. Heavens, I should have escaped. What was more simple? I murdered, and then walked into the world, which is wide and intricate.
Do you know that my own clock assisted in the hunting of me? They asked what time I left my home that morning, and it replied at once, “Half-past eight.” The watch of a man I had chanced to pass near the house of the crime told the people “Seven minutes after nine.” And, of course, the tall old clock in the drawing room went about day after day repeating, “Eighteen minutes after nine.”
Do you say that the man who caught me was very clever? My friend, I have lived long, and he was the most incredible blockhead of my experience. An enslaved, dust-eating Mexican vaquero wouldn’t hitch his pony to such a man. Do you think he deserves credit for my capture? If he had been as pervading as the atmosphere, he would never have caught me. If he was a detective, as you say, I could carve a better one from an old table leg. But the tiles! That is another matter. At night I think they flew in a long high flock, like pigeons. In the day, little mad things, they murmured on my trail like frothy-mouthed weasels.
I see that you note these great, round, vividly orange spots on my coat. Of course, even if the detective were really carved from an old table leg, he could hardly fail to apprehend a man thus badged. As sores come upon one in the plague, so came these spots upon my coat. When I discovered them, I made effort to free myself of this coat. I tore, tugged, wrenched at it, but around my shoulders it was like the grip of a dead man’s arms. Do you know that I have plunged into a thousand lakes? I have smeared this coat with a thousand paints. But day and night the spots burn like lights. I might walk from this jail today if I could rid myself of this coat, but it clings—clings—clings.
At any rate, the person you call a detective was not so clever to discover a man in a coat of spotted orange, followed by shrieking, bloodstained tiles. Yes, that noise from the corridor is most peculiar. But they are always there, muttering and watching, clashing and jostling. It sounds as if the dishes of Hades were being washed. Yet I have become used to it. Once, indeed, in the night, I cried out to them: “In God’s name, go away, little bloodstained tiles!” But they doggedly answered: “It is the law.”
March, 1896
[The English Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 14, pp. 569–571.]
THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS*
I
The girl was in the front room on the second floor, peering through the blinds. It was the “best room.” There was a very new rag carpet on the floor. The edges of it had been dyed with alternate stripes of red and green. Upon the wooden mantel there were two little puffy figures in clay—a shepherd and a shepherdess probably. A triangle of pink and white wool hung carefully over the edge of this shelf. Upon the bureau there was nothing at all save a spread newspaper, with edges folded to make it into a mat. The quilts and sheets had been removed from the bed and were stacked upon a chair. The pillows and the great feather mattress were muffled and tumbled until they resembled great dumplings. The picture of a man terribly leaden in complexion hung in an oval frame on one white wall and steadily confronted the bureau.
From between the slats of the blinds she had a view of the road as it wended across the meadow to the woods, and again where it reappeared crossing the hill, half a mile away. It lay yellow and warm in the summer sunshine. From the long grasses of the meadow came the rhythmic click of the insects. Occasional frogs in the hidden brook made a peculiar chug-chug sound, as if somebody throttled them. The leaves of the wood swung in gentle winds. Through the dark green branches of the pines that grew in the front yard could be seen the mountains, far to the southeast, and inexpressibly blue.
Mary’s eyes were fastened upon the little streak of road that appeared on the distant hill.
Her face was flushed with excitement, and the hand which stretched in a strained pose on the sill trembled because of the nervous shaking of the wrist. The pines whisked their green needles with a soft, hissing sound against the house.
At last the girl turned from the window and went to the head of the stairs. “Well, I just know they’re coming, anyhow,” she cried argumentatively to the depths.
A voice from below called to her angrily: “They ain’t. We’ve never seen one yet. They never come into this neighborhood. You just come down here and ’tend to your work insteader watching for soldiers.”
“Well, ma, I just know they’re coming.”
A voice retorted with the shrillness and mechanical violence of occasional housewives. The girl swished her skirts defiantly and returned to the window.
Upon the yellow streak of road that lay across the hillside there now was a handful of black dots—horsemen. A cloud of dust floated away. The girl flew to the head of the stairs and whirled down into the kitchen.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
It was as if she had cried “Fire!” Her mother had been peeling potatoes while seated comfortably at the table. She sprang to her feet “No—it can’t be—how you know it’s them—where?” The stubby knife fell from her hand, and two or three curls of potato skin dropped from her apron to the floor.
The girl turned and dashed upstairs. Her mother followed, gasping for breath, and yet contriving to fill the air with question, reproach, and remonstrance. The girl was already at the window, eagerly pointing. “There! There! See ’em! See ’em!”
Rushing to the window, the mother scanned for an instant the road on the hill. She crouched back with a groan. “It’s them, sure as the world! It’s them!” She waved her hands in despairing gestures.
The black dots vanished into the wood. The girl at the window was quivering, and her eyes were shining like water when the sun flashes. “Hush! They’re in the woods! They’ll be here directly.” She bent down and intently watched the green archway whence the road emerged. “Hush! I hear ’em coming,” she swiftly whispered to her mother, for the elder woman had dropped dolefully upon the mattress and was sobbing. And indeed the girl could hear the quick, dull trample of horses. She stepped aside with sudden apprehension, but she bent her head forward in order to still scan the road.
“Here they are!”
There was something very theatrical in the sudden appearance of these men to the eyes of the girl. It was as if a scene had been shifted. The forest suddenly disclosed them—a dozen brown-faced troopers in blue—galloping.
“Oh, look!” breathed the girl. Her mouth was puckered into an expression of strange fascination, as if she had expected to see the troopers change into demons and gloat at her. She was at last looking upon those curious beings who rode down from the North—those men of legend and colossal tale—they who were possessed of such marvelous hallucinations.
The little troop rode in silence. At its head was a youthful fellow with some dim yellow stripes upon his arm. In his right hand he held his carbine, slanting upward, with the stock resting upon his knee. He was absorbed in a scrutiny of the country before him.
At the heels of the sergeant the rest of the squad rode in thin column, with creak of leather and tinkle of steel and tin. The girl scanned the faces of the horsemen, seeming astonished vaguely to find them of the type she knew.
The lad at the head of the troop comprehended the house and its environments in two glances. He did not check the long, swinging stride of his horse. The troopers glanced for a moment like casual tourists, and then returned to their study of the region in front. The heavy thudding of the hoofs became a small noise. The dust, hanging in sheets, slowly sank.
The sobs of the woman on the bed took form in words which, while strong in their note of calamity, yet expressed a querulous mental reaching for some near thing to blame. “And it’ll be lucky fer us if we ain’t both butchered in our sleep—plundering and running off horses—old Santo’s gone—you see if he ain’t—plundering—”
“But, ma,” said the girl, perplexed and terrified in the same moment, “they’ve gone.”
“Oh, but they’ll come back!” cried the mother, without pausing her wail. “They’ll come back—trust them for that—running off horses. O John, John! why did you, why did you?” She suddenly lifted herself and sat rigid, staring at her daughter. “Mary,” she said in a tragic whisper, “the kitchen door isn’t locked!” Already she was bent forward to listen, her mouth agape, her eyes fixed upon her daughter.
“Mother,” faltered the girl.
Her mother again whispered, “The kitchen door isn’t locked.”
Motionless and mute, they stared into each other’s eyes.
At last the girl quavered, “We better—we better go and lock it.” The mother nodded. Hanging arm in arm, they stole across the floor toward the head of the stairs. A board of the floor creaked. They halted and exchanged a look of dumb agony.
At last they reached the head of the stairs. From the kitchen came the bass humming of the kettle and frequent sputterings and cracklings from the fire. These sounds were sinister. The mother and the girl stood incapable of movement. “There’s somebody down there!” whispered the elder woman.
Finally, the girl made a gesture of resolution. She twisted her arm from her mother’s hands and went two steps downward. She addressed the kitchen: “Who’s there?” Her tone was intended to be dauntless. It rang so dramatically in the silence that a sudden new panic seized them, as if the suspected presence in the kitchen had cried out to them. But the girl ventured again: “Is there anybody there?” No reply was made save by the kettle and the fire.
With a stealthy tread the girl continued her journey. As she neared the last step the fire crackled explosively, and the girl screamed. But the mystic presence had not swept around the corner to grab her, so she dropped to a seat on the step and laughed. “It was—was only the—the fire,” she said, stammering hysterically.
Then she arose with sudden fortitude and cried: “Why, there isn’t anybody there! I know there isn’t.” She marched down into the kitchen. In her face was dread, as if she half expected to confront something, but the room was empty. She cried joyously: “There’s nobody here! Come on down, ma.” She ran to the kitchen door and locked it.
The mother came down to the kitchen. “Oh, dear, what a fright I’ve had! It’s given me the sick headache. I know it has.”
“Oh, ma,” said the girl.
“I know it has—I know it. Oh, if your father was only here! He’d settle those Yankees mighty quick—he’d settle ’em! Two poor helpless women—”
“Why, ma, what makes you act so? The Yankees haven’t—”
“Oh, they’ll be back—they’ll be back. Two poor helpless women! Your father and your uncle Asa and Bill off gallivanting around and fighting when they ought to be protecting their home! That’s the kind of men they are. Didn’t I say to your father just before he left—?”
“Ma,” said the girl, coming suddenly from the window, “the barn door is open. I wonder if they took old Santo?”
“Oh, of course they have—of course—Mary, I don’t see what we are going to do—I don’t see what we are going to do.”
The girl said, “Ma, I’m going to see if they took old Santo.”
“Mary,” cried the mother, “don’t you dare!”
“But think of poor old Sant, ma.”
“Never you mind old Santo. We’re lucky to be safe ourselves, I tell you. Never mind old Santo. Don’t you dare to go out there, Mary—Mary!”
The girl had unlocked the door and stepped out upon the porch. The mother cried in despair, “Mary!”
“Why, there isn’t anybody out here,” the girl called in response. She stood for a moment with a curious smile upon her face, as of gleeful satisfaction at her daring.
The breeze was waving the boughs of the apple trees. A rooster with an air importantly courteous was conducting
three hens upon a foraging tour. On the hillside at the rear of the gray old barn the red leaves of a creeper flamed amid the summer foliage. High in the sky clouds rolled toward the north. The girl swung impulsively from the little stoop and ran toward the barn.
The great door was open, and the carved peg which usually performed the office of a catch lay on the ground. The girl could not see into the barn because of the heavy shadows. She paused in a listening attitude and heard a horse munching placidly. She gave a cry of delight and sprang across the threshold. Then she suddenly shrank back and gasped. She had confronted three men in gray seated upon the floor with their legs stretched out and their backs against Santo’s manger. Their dust-covered countenances were expanded in grins.
II
As Mary sprang backward and screamed, one of the calm men in gray, still grinning, announced, “I knowed you’d holler.” Sitting there comfortably, the three surveyed her with amusement.
Mary caught her breath, throwing her hand up to her throat. “Oh!” she said, “you—you frightened me!”
“We’re sorry, lady, but couldn’t help it no way,” cheerfully responded another. “I knowed you’d holler when I seen you coming yere, but I raik-oned we couldn’t help it no way. We hain’t a-troubling this yere barn, I don’t guess. We been doing some mighty tall sleeping yere. We done woke when them Yanks loped past.”
“Where did you come from? Did—did you escape from the—the Yankees?” The girl still stammered and trembled.
The three soldiers laughed. “No, m’m. No, m’m. They never cotch us. We was in a muss down the road yere about two mile. And Bill yere, they gi’n it to him in the arm, kehplunk. And they pasted me thar, too. Curious. And Sim yere, he didn’t get nothing, but they chased us all quite a little piece, and we done lose track of our boys.”
The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane Page 34