“Poor little devils!” thought Gabriel, stopping to observe a dirty group clustered about an ice-cream cart, where cheap, adulterated, high-colored stuff was being sold for a penny a square—aniline poison, no doubt, and God knows what else. “Poor little kids! Not much like the children of the masters, eh? with their lawns and playgrounds, their beaches and flowery fields, their gardens and fine schools, their dogs, ponies, autos and all the rest! Some difference, all right—and it takes a thousand of these, yes, ten thousand, to keep one of those. And—and she was one of the rich and dainty children! Her beauty, health and grace were bought at the price of ten thousand other children’s health, and joy and lives! Ah, God, what a price! What a cruel, awful, barbarous price to pay!”
Saddened and pensive, he passed on, still thinking of the woman he could not banish from his mind, despite his bitterness against her class.
So he walked on and on, now through better streets and now through worse, up and down the city.
Here and there, detonations and red fire marked the impatience of some demonstrator who could not wait till midnight to show his ardent patriotism and his public spirit by risking life and property. The saloons were all doing a land-office business, with the holiday impending and the thermometer at 97. Now and then, slattern women, in foul clothes and with huge, gelatinous breasts, could be seen rushing the growler, at the “family entrance” of some low dive. Even little girls bore tin pails, for the evening’s “scuttle o’ suds” to be consumed on roof, or in back yard of stinking tenement, or on some fire-escape. The city, in fine, was relaxing from its toil; and, as the workers for the most part knew no other way, nor could afford any, they were trying to snatch some brief moment of respite from the Hell of their slavery, by recourse to rough ribaldry and alcohol.
Nine o’clock had just struck from the church-spires which mocked the slums with their appeal to an impassive Heaven, when, passing a foul and narrow alley that led down to the Genesee River, Gabriel saw a woman sitting on a doorstep, weeping bitterly.
This woman—hardly more than a girl—was holding a little bundle in one hand. The other covered her face. Her sobs were audible. Grief of the most intense, he saw at once, convulsed her. Two or three by-standers, watching with a kind of pleased curiosity, completed the scene, most sordid in its setting, there under the flicker of a gas-light on the corner.
“Hm! What now?” thought Gabriel, stopping to watch the little tragedy. “More trouble, eh? It’s trouble all up and down the line, for these poor devils! Nothing but trouble for the slave-class. Well, well, let’s see what’s wrong now!”
Gabriel turned down the alley, drew near the little group, and halted.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, in the tone of authority he knew how to use; the tone which always overbore his outward aspect, even though he might have been clad in rags; the tone which made men yield to him, and women look at him with trustful eyes, even as the Billionaire’s daughter had looked.
“Search me!” murmured one of the men, shrugging his shoulders. “I can’t git nothin’ out o’ her. She’s been sittin’ here, cryin’, a few minutes, that’s all I know; an’ she won’t say nothin’ to nobody.
“Any of you men know anything about it?” demanded Gabriel, looking at the rest.
A murmur of negation was his only answer. One or two others, scenting some excitement, even though only that of a distressed woman—common sight, indeed!—lingered near. The little group was growing.
Gabriel bent and touched the woman’s shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” asked he, in a gentle voice. “If you’re in trouble, let me help you.”
Renewed sobs were her only answer.
“If you’ll only tell me what’s the matter,” Gabriel went on, “I’m sure I can do something for you.”
“You—you can’t!” choked the woman, without raising her head from the corner of the ragged shawl that she was holding over her eyes. “Nobody can’t! Bill, he’s gone, and Eddy’s gone, and Mr. Micolo says he won’t let me in. So there ain’t nothin’ to do. Let me alone—oh dear, oh dear, dear!”
Fresh tears and grief. The little knot of spectators, still growing, nodded with approval, and figuratively licked its lips, in satisfaction. Somewhere a boy snickered.
“Come, come,” said Gabriel, bending close over the grief-stricken woman, “pull together, and let’s hear what the trouble is! Who’s Bill, and who’s Eddy—and what about Mr. Micolo? Come, tell me. I’m sure I can do something to straighten things out.”
No answer. Gabriel turned to the increasing crowd, again.
“Any of you people know what about it?” he asked.
Again no answer, save that one elderly man, standing on the steps beside the woman, remarked casually:
“I guess she’s got fired out of her room. That’s all I know.”
Gabriel took her by the arm, and drew her up.
“Come, now!” said he, a sterner note in his voice. “This won’t do! You mustn’t sit here, and draw a crowd. First thing you know an officer will be along, and you may get into trouble. Tell me what’s wrong, and I promise to see you through it, as far as I can.”
She raised her face, now, and looked at him, a moment. Tear-stained and dishevelled though she was, and soiled by marks of drink and debauchery, Gabriel saw she must once have been very beautiful and still was comely.
“Well,” he asked. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“Tell you?” she repeated. “I—oh, I can’t! Not in front of all them men!”
“Very well!” said he, “walk with me, and give me your story. Will you do that? At all events, you mustn’t stay here, making a disturbance on the highway. If you knew the police as well as I do, you’d understand that!”
“You’re right, friend,” said she, hoarsely. “I’m on, now. Come along then—I’ll tell you. It ain’t much to tell; but it’s a lot to me!”
She glanced at the curious faces of the watchers, then turned and followed Gabriel, who was already walking up the alley, toward the brighter lights of Stuart Street. For a moment, one or two of the men hesitated as though undecided whether or not to follow after; but one backward look by Gabriel instantly dispelled any desire to intrude. And as Gabriel and the woman turned into the street, the little knot of curiosity-seekers dissolved into its component atoms, and vanished.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TRAP IS SPRUNG.
“It—it’s all along o’ that there Mr. Micolo!” the woman suddenly exclaimed, “Him an’ his rent-bill! If he’d ha’ let me in, there, tonight, I could ha’ got Ed’s things an’ then started to my sister’s, out to Scottsville. But he wouldn’t. He claimed they was two-seventy-five still owin’, and I didn’t have but about fifty cents, so I couldn’t pay it. So he wouldn’t let me in. Natchally, anybody’d feel bad, like that, ‘specially when a man told ‘em he’d hold their kid’s clothes an’ things till they paid—which they couldn’t!”
“Naturally, of course,” answered Gabriel, rather dazed by this sudden burst of details, with which she seemed to think he should already be quite familiar—details all sordid and commonplace, through which he seemed to perceive, dimly as in a dark glass, some mean and ugly tragedy of poverty and ignorance and sin.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, all at once. “If so, come in here, where we can talk quietly and get things straight.” He pointed at a cheap restaurant, across the street.
“Hungry? Gord, yes!” she exclaimed. Only I—I wouldn’t ask, if I fell on the sidewalk! Fifty cents—yes, I got that much, but I been tryin’ to get enough to pay Mr. Micolo, an’ get hold of Ed’s things, an’—”
“All right, forget that, now,” commanded Gabriel. He took her by the arm and piloted her across the thoroughfare, then into the dingy hash-house and to a table in a far corner. A few minutes later, pretty much everything on the bill of fare was before them on the greasy table.
“Not a word till you’re satisfied,” directed Armstrong. “I’ll j
ust take a little bread and coffee, to keep you company.”
The woman adequately proved her statement that she was hungry. Rarely had Gabriel seen anybody eat with such ravenous appetite. He watched her with satisfaction, and when she could consume no more, smiled as he asked:
“Now, then, feel better? If so, let’s tackle the next problem. What’s your grief?”
The woman stared at him a long moment before she made reply. Then she exclaimed suddenly:
“You ain’t no kind of ‘bull,’ are you? Nor plain-clothes man?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No,” said he, “nothing of that kind. You can trust me. Let’s have the story.”
“Hm! It ain’t much, I s’pose,” she answered still half-suspiciously. “Bill and me was livin’ together, that’s all. No, not married, nor nothin’—but—”
“All right. Go on.”
“That was last winter. When the kid happened—Ed, you know—Bill, he got sore, an’ beat it. Then I—I went on the street, to keep Ed. Nothin’ else to do, Mister, so help me, an’—”
“Never mind, I understand,” said Gabriel. “What next?”
“And after that, I gets sick. You know. Almost right away. So I has to go to St. Luke’s hospital. I leaves Ed with Mrs. McCane, at the same house. That place in the alley, you know. Well, when I gets out, the boy’s dead. An’ they never even tells me, till I goes back! An’ I can’t even get his things. Because why? Mrs. McCane’s gone, Gord knows where, an’ Mr. Micolo says I still owe two-seventy-five. I want to get down there to Scottsville, to my sister’s; but curse me if I’ll go till I pay that devil an’ get them clothes!”
A sudden savage light in her blurred eyes betrayed the passion of the mother-love, through all the filth and soilure of her degradation. Gabriel felt his heart deeply moved. He bent toward her, across the table, touched her hand and asked:
“Will you accept five dollars, to pay this man and get you down to Scottsville?”
“Huh?” she queried, gazing at him with vacant, uncomprehending eyes.
He repeated his query. Then, as he saw the slow tears start and roll down her wan cheeks, he felt a greater joy within his breast than if the world and all its treasures had been his.
“Will I take it?” she whispered. “Gord, will I? You bet I will! That is, if I can have your name, an’ pay it back some time?”
He promised, and wrote it down for her, giving as his address Socialist Headquarters in Chicago. Then, without publicity, he slipped a V into her trembling hand.
“Come on,” said he. “That’s all settled!”
He paid the check, and they went out, together. For a moment they stood together, undecided, on the sidewalk.
“Couldn’t I get them things tonight, an’ start?“ asked she, eagerly. “There’s a train at 11:08, on the B. R. & P.”
“All right,” he assented. “Can you see this Micolo, now? It’s after ten.”
“Oh, that don’t make no difference,” she answered. “He runs a pawnshop over here on Dexter Street, two blocks east. He’ll be open till midnight, easy, tomorrow bein’ the Fourth.”
“Come on, then,” said Gabriel. “I’ll see you through the whole business, and onto the train. Maybe I can help you, all along.”
Without another word she started, with Gabriel at her side. They traversed the main street, two blocks, then turned to the left down a narrower, darker one.
“Here’s Micolo’s,” said she, pausing at a doorway. Gabriel nodded. “All right,” he answered. He had not noted, nor did he dream, that, at the corner behind them, two slinking, sneaking figures were now watching his every move.
The woman turned the knob, and entered. Gabriel followed.
“It’s on the second floor,” said she. Gabriel saw a sign, on the landing: “S. L. Micolo, Pawn Broker,” and motioned her to precede him.
In a minute they had reached the upper hallway. The woman opened another door. The room, inside, was dark.
“This way,” said she. “He’s in the inside office, I guess. The light must ha’ gone out here, some way or other.”
Gabriel hesitated. Some inkling, some vague intuition all at once had come upon him, that all was not well. At his elbow some invisible force seemed plucking. “Come away! Come back, before it is too late!” some ghostly voice seemed calling in his ear.
But still, he did not fully understand. Still he remained there, his mind obsessed by the plausibility of the woman’s story and by the pity he so keenly felt.
And now he heard her voice again:
“Mr. Micolo! Oh, Mr. Micolo! Where are you?”
Striking a match, he advanced into the room.
“Any gas here?” he asked, peering about for a burner.
Suddenly he started with violent emotion. Behind him, in some unaccountable way, the door had been closed. He heard a key turn, softly.
“What—what’s this?” he exclaimed. He heard the woman moving about, somewhere in the gloom. “See here!” he cried. “What kind of a—?”
The match burned brightly, all at once. He peered about him, wide-eyed.
“This is no office!” shouted he. “Here, you! What’s the meaning of this? This is a bed-room!”
Sudden realization of the trap stunned and sickened him.
“God! They’ve got me! Flint and Waldron—they’ve landed me, at last!” he choked. “But—but not till I’ve broken a few heads, by God!”
The match fell from his burnt fingers. Whirling toward the door, he rained powerful kicks upon it. He would get out, he must get out, at all hazards!
Suddenly the woman began to scream, with harsh and piercing cries that seemed to rip the very atmosphere.
At the third scream, or the fourth, the key was turned and the door jerked open.
In its aperture, three men stood—the two who had been so long trailing Gabriel, and a policeman, burly, red-jowled, big-paunched.
Gabriel stared at them. His mouth opened, then closed again without a word. As well for a trapped animal to make explanations to the Indian hunter, as for him to tell these men the truth. The truth? They knew the truth; and they were there to crucify him. He read it in their cruel, eager eyes.
The woman had stopped screaming now, and was weeping with abandon, pouring forth a tale of insults and abuse and robbery, with hysterical sobs.
Full in the faces of the three men Gabriel sneered.
“You’ve done a good job of it, this time, you skunks!” he gibed. “I’m on. You’ll get me, in the end; but not just yet. The first man through this door gets his head broken—and that goes, too!”
With a snarl of “You damned white slaver!” the officer raised his night-stick and hurled himself at Gabriel.
Gabriel ducked and planted a terrific left-hander on the “bull’s” ear. Roaring, the majesty of the law careened against the bed, crashed the flimsy thing to wreckage and went down.
Then, fighting back into the gloom of the trap, Gabriel engaged the two detectives. For a moment he held them. One went to the floor with an uppercut under the chin; but came back. The other landed hard on Gabriel’s jaw.
He turned to strike down, again, the first of the two. He heard the bed creaking, and saw the policeman struggling to arise. In a whirlwind of blows, the second detective flailed at him, striving to beat down his guard and floor him with a vicious rib-jolt.
“All’s fair, here!” thought Gabriel, snatching up a chair. For a moment he brandished it on high. With this weapon, he knew—though final defeat was inevitable, when reinforcements should arrive—he could sweep a clear space.
Perhaps he might even yet escape! He heard feet trampling on the stairs, and his heart died within him. Well, even though escape were impossible, he would fight to a finish and die game, if die he must!
Down swung the chair, and round, crashing to ruin as it struck the policeman who was just getting to his feet again. Oaths, cries, screams made the place hideous. Dust rose, and blood began to flow.
/> Armed now with one leg of the chair, Gabriel retreated; and as he went, he hurled the bitterness of all his scorn and hate upon these vile conspirators.
And as he flayed them with his tongue, he struck; and like Samson against the Philistines, he did great execution.
Like Samson, too, he lost his power through a woman’s treachery. For, even as the attackers seemed to fall back, shattered and at a loss before such fury and tremendous strength, behind Gabriel the woman rose, a laugh of malice on her lips, the policeman’s long and heavy night-stick in her hand.
A moment she poised it, crouching as he—seeing her not—swung his weapon and hurled his defiance at the baffled men in front.
Then, aiming at the base of the skull, she struck.
Sudden bright lights spangled the darkness, for Gabriel. Everything whirled about, in dizzying confusion. A strange, far roaring sounded in his ears.
Then he fell; and oblivion took him to its blessed peace and rest; and all grew still and black.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BEAST GLOATS.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, let’s have a light here, somebody!” panted the dishevelled policeman. Outside, the ringing of a gong became audible. Then came a clattering of hoofs, as the police-patrol, nicely-timed by the conspirators, and summoned by a confederate, drew up at the box on the corner.
Somebody struck another match, and a raw gas-light flared. From the hallway, two or three others crowded into the wrecked room. Disjointed exclamations, oaths and curses intermingled with harsh laughter.
The woman—Lillian Rafter, probably the finest actress and stool-pigeon in the whole detective world of graft and crookedness—lighted a cigarette at the gas-burner, and laughed with triumph.
“Some make-up, eh kid?” she demanded of the taller detective, who was now nursing a bad “shiner,” as a black eye is known in the under-world, and whose face was battered to a bleeding pulp. “Believe me, as a job, this is some job! From start to finish, a pippin. He was bound to fall for it though. No help for him. Even if he hadn’t butted into the ‘plant’ we fixed for him in the alley, there, I could have braced him in the street with my tale of woe. He was just bound to be ‘it,’ this time. We had him going, all ways for Sunday!”
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