by S. T. Joshi
“Will you please give me a little money, sir?” she pleaded. “My husband has gone away, and I have nothing to eat, and my poor baby is starving.”
It was not the voice alone that came to me out of infinite distance; there came crowding with it a thousand memories and all the anguish of a blasted life. I was a broken man, carrying existence heavily, but the eagerness which surged up within me swept aside all the torpor of my being. Some strange movement must have alarmed the woman, for she quickly raised her face...and there was not a trace of recognition in her eyes.
“Annette!” I cried. “You know me—your guardian—your old friend, who reared you from infancy—Annette!”
“I—I don’t know you,” she replied, with pitiful fright. “I am not Annette—I never had a guardian”; and honesty shone luminous in every word.
“But you are Annette,” I protested, aghast, “and you must come with me.”
“No, no!” she cried, with worse fright still; and then she turned and ran away.
I would not let her go so easily. I sprang forward and caught her, and held her firmly.
“Do you hate me so much as this, Annette?” I asked with angry and unreasoning bitterness. “Tell me so, and I will let you go.”
“I don’t hate you—I don’t know you—you are mistaken. Let me go. I am afraid of you. I will cry out, and you shall be arrested.”
I released her, and she hurried away. Was there really some dreadful mistake? Was it possible not to be certain of that low, sweet voice, those beautiful eyes (now strangely dull), that look of indescribable sadness, that small frail form, those exquisite graces of pose and movement? But if it were she, how could she, so honest and innocent, so much a stranger to deceit, conceal her surprise upon encountering me, and how assume entire ignorance of me? Here was a strange mystery—or—had I gone mad and taken to finding Annette in shadows? I glanced after her, and in the distance saw her hurrying along, fear lending fleetness to her step. Had I forgotten that Annette was dead?—but would not even her spirit know me? Without a thought of what I did I hurried after the flying form, which distance and darkness were absorbing—I would not lose Annette again. I went forthwith in pursuit, holding my pace within the necessities of its mission, getting a firmer hand upon my eagerness, and looking to the ordering of my purpose; for if ever a man needed to be bold yet cautious, firm yet gentle, fearless in strange, dark perils and reliant upon the evidence of his senses, that man was I. Enough had come forth already to distract my faculties; but Annette, dead or alive, had stood before me, and I would follow her now whithersoever the love which had bound me to her might lead.
Without once having looked back, Annette arrived in a dark street, slipped quickly into a door, and in a moment a tall, ugly house had swallowed her up. I was now close behind her. I tried the door. She had bolted it. I rushed upon it madly, burst it open, and sent it flying against the wall with a crash that resounded throughout the depths of the house; and as I did so I saw Annette—for I must call her so—clearing the top step. She turned and saw me, and fled with a cry. Never bounded a deer with swifter leaps than mine. I was close upon her in a dimly lighted hall, when she flung open a door, cried “Mother!” in a choking fright, and as I pushed into the room threw herself into the arms of a strange, sinister woman, wrinkled and bent with age. There the poor girl, her face buried in the woman’s shoulder, sobbed and gasped and trembled in a very agony of fear. In a moment a powerful man of middle age came hastily into the room behind me, and stepped to one side to see me better. Other men followed him—men with dull, vacant faces, whose blankness would have impressed me at another time; but through all these faces and circumstances, through the turbulence of my emotions and the fierce energy of my purpose, there arose and stood forth the fact that this strong man and I were enemies—that between us two lay the settlement of this affair, and a dark pit yawned for him who should fall. He was the old woman’s son; thus spoke his sharp eyes, somewhat dulled with drink, and his high cheek bones, like hers; the pose of his head and certain tokens of manner—all a copy of his mother’s; but where coarse and brutal in him, sharp and cruel in her. Upon his body he wore only a woolen shirt, open at the breast, the sleeves rolled up, and upon his lower limbs coarse trousers.
“Well,” said the man, his voice deep and his manner menacing, though betraying a puzzled mind, “who are you an’ what yer tryin’ to skeer them women to death fer?”
Annette, controlling a sob, raised her face upon hearing his voice, and looked at him gratefully.
“Joe,” she said faintly, “I’m so glad you are here. You won’t let him hurt me, will you, Joe?”
“Not as long as them hands kin close up a windpipe,” responded the man, making a significant prehensile movement with his fingers; “but I don’t think anybody wants to hurt yer, Bess. Now go to the baby.”
Annette started and her lips opened. With a little cry she ran to a cradle in the corner—a very poor and shabby cradle—and tenderly lifted a sleeping infant. “Poor little angel,” she crooned. “Did you think your mother had forgotten you?”
Its mother?
“Whose child is that?” I asked the man, and he noted the threat and challenge in my voice.
“I don’t know what right you have—”
“I have a right, and we will not discuss it,” I peremptorily interrupted.
“—to come here an’ raise this rumpus an’ skeer a couple o’ women, but if you’ll be decent an’ kind, like, about it, you kin ax my sister herself.”
“Who is your sister?”
“Bess, there.” He motioned toward Annette—Annette, gentle, dainty, refined, full of the softest graces—Annette the sister of this ruffian! “Come, Bess,” said he, “brace up an’ answer this man’s questions. I won’t let him hurt yer. You’re jest as safe as you ever wuz in yer life. Tell him what he wants ter know, and tell it straight up ’n’ down.”
Thus encouraged—and, I could see, half commanded also—Annette (for I must call her that yet) turned and looked at me for the first time since I had entered the room. All hope that she might recognize me in the stronger light was dissipated instantly; she regarded me only with fear and uneasiness. I approached her closer.
“Annette,” I said, removing my hat and looking down into her face as she sat holding the child—
“My name is not Annette,” she hastily interjected.
“What is your name, then?”
“Elizabeth. My mother and my brother Joe call me Bess.” This, looking up at me in the fullness of honesty, but perplexed and fearful.
“What is your other name?”
“Hartly. That is my husband’s name.”
I staggered under the blow, and the sharp eyes of the old woman and her son were fastened upon me with a steady gleam that burned.
“Whose child is that?” The words came with effort from a great depth within me.
“It is mine. Her name is Pearl. I am her mother.”
Thereupon I went all astray from myself, and looked around with helpless dismay. The four sharp eyes were consuming me. Annette—may I so call her yet?—gazed steadily up at me with all her old gentleness and sweetness, but still with fear and anxiety. Beyond the four burning eyes were the faces of men who stared in blank stupidity. I looked down at Annette, and there too I saw now, not clearly, if at all, something of the stamp of vacuity which was upon the faces of these ragged men grouped near the door. I was groping in a gloomy path beset with deep pits, and I breathed uncertain dangers. The four eyes burned me with a glowing heat. In a tangle of betrayed senses I essayed a persistence which I hoped would drag Annette forth from what I conceived to be some grim and overmastering constraint.
“Where is your husband?” I asked.
Annette was puzzled or cautious, for her glance flew for help to the man Joe.
“Where is your husband?” I pressed it upon her, feeling that I possibly had touched a spring. The man’s sharp gaze was transferred from me to her.
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“Answer him fair, Bess,” he said, not unkindly; “give him the straight truth.”
“He has gone to sea,” answered Annette, looking up at me in a wondering and troubled manner.
“When did he go?”
She appeared to be thinking very hard and sounding her memory for an honest answer.
“It was while I was ill,” she finally said with some suddenness, and with much pride in her victory of recollection.
“You have been very ill?”
“Oh, yes; very ill indeed.”
“When was it?”
“It was when my baby was born.” (Here she began to speak with a quick, nervous energy.) “I didn’t know it until a long time afterward—I was so very ill—and my husband was not with me. When I recovered I had forgotten I was married. I was in a strange—”
“Stop there, Bess,” fiercely cried the man. She obeyed instantly and trembled. “You’ve got one o’ them spells o’ your’n agin, an’ yer tellin’ what yer don’t know, an’ yer lett’n yer tongue run away with yer senses. Forget yer husband! Forget yer was married! Maybe you’ve forgot I’m yer brother.”
“No,” faintly protested the girl, regarding him with wide eyes; “no, Joe; I haven’t forgotten that, but I forget so many—”
“Who’s this woman here?” demanded the man, indicating his mother.
“My mother. But, Joe—”
“Shup up! You’ve got one o’ them crazy spells agin. Now, mister,” added he, turning angrily upon me, “it’s about time yer cleared out o’ here, ain’t it?” With increasing anger he continued: “You chased this here girl to her house, an’ smashed in the door like a wild beast, and tore in here like as if you was goin’ to murder the poor thing, an’ now you’ve set her wits loose an’ brung on another o’ them wanderin’ an’ fergettin’ spells. That’s why I say you’d jist better clear out.”
The man was in a rage; and, seeing that I did not move, he stepped to the chimney and took an axe-handle from the corner. At this juncture the old woman came out of her silence.
“No, Joe,” she said with a strong, quiet firmness; “don’t lose yer head, my son, for yer need a cool brain an’ a stiddy nerve right here and right now. There’s jist a misunderstandin’ summers, an’ it’ll come out all right.” Joe became quiet, and his mother turned to me and said: “You look lack a gentlemun, sir, an’ no doubt you air; an’ yer don’t look lack you’d been a-drinkin’; but you’ll allow you’ve acted very queer—I may say outrageous-like—an’ my son ain’t to be blamed fer gittin’ mad at yer. Now, to save my blessed life I don’t know what yer drivin’ at, but I b’lieve yer actin’ on good principles and have mistook this girl fer summon else, ’cause you’ve been callin’ her Ninette, or somethin’. You suspec’ there’s somethin’ wrong, an’ yer think yer know the girl, an’ want ter get her out o’ this scrape.” And so the woman talked on, reviewing the whole situation with uncommon skill, reminding me that the girl did not know me, that in all her answers she had tried to tell the truth so far as a shattered mind would permit. The woman closed a long speech by going into a tedious history of the girl’s life and assuring me that unrestricted opportunity would be given for an official investigation on the morrow. But the whole of this fine effort passed without effect upon me.
“No!” I exclaimed. “I will not trust her another night in your devilish hands. There is some crime here of so damnable a character that it overwhelms your lies. I will spare you the law on condition that you stand aside and let me take away this girl in peace.”
Upon saying that I picked up Annette and her child and advanced toward the door, but the fury of the man Joe escaped restraint, and he sprang before me with his weapon aloft.
“No!” he cried with an oath; “not while I’m alive.”
In an instant I had put Annette aside and sent a chair flying through the glass window. I leaped to the opening it made and cried out with all my strength. The call for help went bounding up and down the street from other throats, and swift feet were set in motion. I glanced back upon my enemies. The furious ruffian, taken unaware, had stood a moment in a stupor; but now, having roused himself, he came upon me with the one purpose of killing me. At that moment the shrill whistle of a policeman, always a thing which strikes upon one’s sensibilities much as a physical blow, went at large upon the night and thrilled all the ruffian’s nerves and drew the sap from his purpose; pallor swept over his face, his hand dropped.
“Joe,” called his mother, in sharp anxiety, “git them fellers away quick an’ come back here. We’ll see yit.”
The man, quickened by a sense of danger, hustled away the dumb blank creatures and returned simultaneously with two officers, who headed a procession of frightened and curious people.
“Shut the door,” I called out. The officers came within and the door was closed upon the crowd.
“Who was it called for help? What is the matter?” asked one of the officers.
“It was I who called,” I answered.
“Oho, Simpson!” said the same officer, addressing Joe. “Trying to do this man, eh? You’ve been quiet so long that I thought you had given up that sort of thing and was sticking to the begging business.... Well, what has he been trying on you, sir?” concluded the officer, addressing me.
“Nothing, I assure you,” I replied, “but this girl, whom I have known from infancy—I found her here and would have taken her away, but this man tried to kill me. I want you to help me rescue her from this fearful den.”
“That girl with the child? Oh, she’s one of Simpson’s best beggars!”
Upon his requesting it, I gave a relation of all that had happened since I first saw Annette on the street. “She is one of his beggars, you say,” I added; “there is yet a deeper and more damnable infamy. They say she is married. It is a lie; but see, she is a mother!”
“Ah!” exclaimed the officer, fixing a hard look upon Simpson, who, encaged within grave suspicions, appealed with his eyes to his mother. She thereupon said:
“I’d lack ter speak a word private to this gentlemun.”
I went with her into a corner of the room, and we whispered.
“What yer want ter do, sir?” she asked.
“I intend to take this girl to the police station.”
“Ah, well! She’s dementy, like; an’, ’twixt you an’ me, I ain’t sorry ter git rid of her.”
“You and your son also will go to the station, but as prisoners, to be tried and punished for your crimes.”
This to her was not unexpected; but she fastened her gaze upon me with a penetrating, sinister, unwavering manner, and it hurt.
“I don’t think you’d better do that,” she said, not relaxing her gaze, and speaking very slowly. “Once there was a man what connivered in schemes fer to remove people what didn’t have the sand fer to kill theirselves, an’ when some folkses found it out they blowed on him, an’ he spent the rest of his life in the state’s prison.... Me ’n’ my son don’t want no trouble with you, an’ you don’t look lack a gentlemun what’s got a wobbly tongue.”
I left her and returned to the officers. Annette sat holding her child tenderly, but with a look so pathetic and helpless, so confused with fright and a shaken consciousness, that while I yearned to comfort her I could see that whatever little mind she had was drifting away. I said to the officers:
“I wish to take this girl and her child to Dr. Arnold’s hospital. Will you kindly help me?”
“And Simpson goes to the station?” I heard the sharp clinking of handcuffs.
“No—not to-night; there is time for that. Help me in the present urgency.”
Annette’s resistance was slight, and there was no other. She sobbed all the way in the carriage, and talked incoherently to her fretting child. She was made comfortable in the hospital, but she sobbed continuously. “Her dementia,” said Dr. Arnold, “is almost complete. The shock has been too great.” I took him wholly into my confidence, omitting not even the Removal
Company and Annette’s experience there. He asked me many questions; his mind was quicker and deeper and shrewder than mine. “Without knowing it,” he said, after a long silence spent in pacing the floor, “you have unearthed a singular and original form of crime. The Removal Company has never killed any one.”
I looked at him amazed and incredulous.
“Not one,” he continued. “The victims were simply treated with a drug which destroyed their minds partly and their memory wholly. Are you so confiding as to believe that Reiferth would have dared take any one’s life? The risk was too great, and the plan lacked that merit of continued profit which distinguishes the one in actual operation.”
I did not understand him.
“With wrecked minds the victims would make good beggars,” explained the doctor. “The wretches are sent from San Francisco to Philadelphia, where the danger of recognition is small, and are kept as beggars under the reliable agency of Mr. Joe Simpson and his mother; and your Removal Company has a steady income through their zeal. The blank-faced men whom you saw at Simpson’s, as well as this poor girl, have been subjected to the peculiar treatment of the Removal Company, and are employed as beggars.”
I think I hardly understood all of this at the time, for I was weak from a great strain, and nervously awry from a certain strange, wild joy for having Annette alive and under my care once more.
“Can you restore her to her former condition of mind?” I asked.
Gravely and slowly he made answer: “There is a bare possibility.... The plan must be heroic and desperate.... If it fails—death or complete dementia.”
It came out afterward, in an investigation of Simpson’s methods, that my poor Annette, whose innocence and sweetness must have been her guard against even the lowest brutality, had never been a mother; that was a deception practiced upon her to make her captivity surer.