Chapter 3

Well, I carried her suit-case and followed her back into the hotel. I didn't want to a bit, though that coat still--wonder how she got it back!

She sailed up the hall and into the elevator, and I had to follow. We got of at the third story, and she brought me right to the door of 331. And then I knew this must be Evelyn.

"Mrs. Kingdon's out, Miss. She didn't expect you till to-morrow."

"Did she tell you that? Too bad she isn't at home! She said she'd be kept busy all day to-day with a business matter, and that I'd better not get here till to-morrow. But I--"

"Wanted to get here in time for the wedding?" I suggested softly.

You should have seen her jump.

"Wedding! Not--"

"Mrs. Kingdon and Mr. Moriway."

She turned white.

"Has that man followed her here? Quick, tell me. Has she actually married him?"

"No--not yet. It's for five o'clock at the church on the corner."

"How do you know?" She turned on me, suddenly suspicious.

"Well--I do know. And I'm the only person in the house that does."

"I don't believe you."

She took out her key and opened the door, and I followed her in with the suit-case. But before I could get it set down on the floor, she had swooped on a letter that was lying in the middle of the table, had torn it open, and then with a cry had come whirling toward me.

"Where is this church? Come, help me to get to it before five and I'll--oh, you shall have anything in the world you want!"

She flew out into the hall, I after her. And first thing you know we were down in the street, around the corner, and there in front of the church was a carriage with Moriway just helping Mrs. Kingdon out.

"Mother!"

At that cry the old lady's knees seemed to crumble under her. Her poor old painted face looked out ghastly and ashamed from her wedding finery. But Evelyn in her red coat flew to her and took her in her arms as though she was a child. And like a child, Mrs. Kingdon sobbed and made excuses and begged to be forgiven.

I looked at Moriway. It was all the pay I wanted--particularly as I had those little diamonds.

"You're just in time, Miss Kingdon," he said uneasily, "to make your mother happy by your presence at her wedding."

"I'm just in time, Mr. Moriway, to see that my mother's not made unhappy by your presence."

"Evelyn!" Mrs. Kingdon remonstrated.

"Come, Sarah." Moriway offered his arm.

The bride shook her head.

"To-morrow," she said feebly.

Moriway breathed a swear.

Miss Kingdon laughed.

"I've come to take care of you, you silly little mother, dear.... It won't be to-morrow, Mr. Moriway."

"No--not to-morrow--next week," sighed Mrs. Kingdon.

"In fact, mother's changed her mind, Mr. Moriway. She thinks it ungenerous to accept such a sacrifice from a man who might be her son--don't you, mother?"

"Well, perhaps, George--" She looked up from her daughter's shoulder--she was crying all over that precious red coat of mine--and her eyes lit on me. "Oh--you wicked boy, you told a lie!" she gasped. "You did read my letter."

I laughed; laughed out loud, it was such a bully thing to watch Moriway's face.

But that was an unlucky laugh of mine; it turned his wrath on me. He made a dive toward me. I ducked and ran. Oh, how I ran! But if he hadn't slipped on the curb he'd have had me. As he fell, though, he let out a yell.

"Stop thief! stop thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!"

May you never hear it, Mag, behind you when you've somebody else's diamonds in your pocket. It sounds--it sounds the way the bay of the hounds must sound to the hare. It seems to fly along with the air; at the same time to be behind you, at your side, even in front of you.

I heard it bellowed in a dozen different voices, and every now and then I could hear Moriway as I pelted on--that brassy, cruel bellow of his that made my heart sick.

And then all at once I heard a policeman's whistle.

That whistle was like a signal--I saw the gates of the Correction open before me. I saw your Nance, Tom, in a neat striped dress, and she was behind bars--bars--bars! There were bars everywhere before me. In fact, I felt them against my very hands, for in my mad race I had shot up a blind alley--a street that ended in a garden behind an iron fence.

I grabbed the diamonds to throw them from me, but I couldn't--I just couldn't! I jumped the fence where the gate was low, and with that whistle flying shrill and shriller after me I ran to the house.

I might have jumped from the frying-pan? Of course, I might. But it was all fire to me. To be caught at the end is at least no worse than to be caught at the beginning. Anyhow, it was my one chance, and I took it as unhesitatingly as a rat takes a leap into a trap to escape a terrier. Only--only, it was my luck that the trap wasn't set! The room was empty. I pushed open a glass door, and fell over an open trunk that stood beside it.

It bruised my knee and tore my hand, but oh!--it was nuts to me. For it was a woman's trunk filled with women's things.

A skirt! A blessed skirt! And not a striped one. I threw off the bell-boy's jacket and I got into that dear dress so quick it made my head swim.

The jacket was a bit tight but I didn't button it, and I'd just got a stiff little hat perched on my head when I heard the tramp of men on the sidewalk, and in the dusk saw the cop's buttons at the gate.

Caught? Not much. Not yet. I threw open the glass doors and walked out into the garden.

"Miss--Omar--I wonder if it would be Miss Omar?"

You bet I didn't take time to see who it was talking before I answered. Of course I was Miss Omar. I was Miss Anybody that had a right to wear skirts and be inside those blessed gates.

"Ah--h! I fancied you might be. I've been expecting you."

It was a lazy, low voice with a laugh in it, and it came from a wheeled chair, where a young man lay. Sallow he was and slim and long, and helpless--you could see that by his white hanging hands. But his voice--it was what a woman's voice would be if she were a man. It made you perk up and pretend to be somewhere near its level. It fitted his soft, black clothes and his fine, clean face. It meant silks and velvets and--

Oh, all right, Tommy Dorgan, if you're going to get jealous of a voice!

"Excuse me, Mr. Latimer." The cop came in as he spoke, Moriway following; the rest of the hounds hung about. "There's a thieving bell-boy from the hotel that's somewhere in your grounds. Can I come in and get him?"

"In here, Sergeant? Aren't you mistaken?"

"No; Mr. Moriway here saw him jump the gate not five minutes since."

"Strange, and I here all the time! I may have dozed of, though. Certainly--certainly. Look for the little rascal. What's he stolen? Diamonds! Tut! tut! Enterprising, isn't he? ... Miss Omar, won't you kindly reach the bell yonder--no, on the table; that's it--and ring for some one to take the officer about?"

I rang.

Do you know what happened? An electric light strung on the tree above the table shone out, and there I stood under it with Moriway's eyes full upon me.

"Great--!" he began.

"Just ring again--" Mr. Latimer's voice came soft as silk.

My fingers trembled so, the bell clattered out of them and fell jangling to the ground. But it rang. And the light above me went out like magic. I fell back into a garden chair.

"I beg your pardon, Mr.--was Moriway the name?--I must have interrupted you, but my eyes are troubling me this evening, and I can't bear the light. Miss Omar, I thought the housekeeper had instructed you: one ring means lights, two mean I want Burnett. Here he comes... Burnett, take Sergeant Mulhill through the place. He's looking for a thief. You will accompany the Sergeant, Mr.--Moriway?"

"Thank you--no. If you don't mind, I'll wait out here."

That meant me. I moved toward the gate.

"Not at all. Have a seat. Miss Omar, sit down, won't you?" I sat down.

"Miss Omar reads to me, Mr. Moriway. I'm an invalid, as you see, dependent on the good offices of my man. I find a woman's voice a soothing change."

"It must be. Particularly if the voice is pleasing. Miss Omar--I didn't quite catch the name--"

He waited. But Miss Omar had nothing to say that minute.

"Yes, that's the name. You've got it all right," said Latimer. "An uncommon name, isn't it?"

"I don't think I ever heard it before. Do you know, Miss Omar, as I heard your voice just before we got to the gate, it sounded singularly boyish to me."

"Mr. Latimer does not find it so--do you?" I said as sweet--as sweet as I could coax. How sweet's that, Tom Dorgan?

"Not at all." A little laugh came from Latimer as though he was enjoying a joke all by himself. But Moriway jumped with satisfaction. He knew the voice all right.

"Have you a brother, may I ask?" He leaned over and looked keenly at me.

"I am an orphan," I said sadly, "with no relatives."

"A pitiful position," sneered Moriway. "You look so much like a boy I know that--"

"Do you really think so?" So awfully polite was Latimer to such a rat as Moriway. Why? Well, wait. "I can't agree with you. Do you know, I find Miss Omar very feminine. Of course, short hair--"

"Her hair is short, then!"

"Typhoid," I murmured.

"Too bad!" Moriway sneered.

"Yes," I snapped. "I thought it was at the time. My hair was very heavy and long, and I had a chance to sit in a window at Troyon's where they were advertising a hair tonic and--"

Rotten? Of course it was. I'd no business to gabble, and just because you and your new job, Mag, came to my mind at that minute, there I went putting my foot in it.

Moriway laughed. I didn't like the sound of his laugh.

"Your reader is versatile, Mr. Latimer," he said.

"Yes." Latimer smoothed the soft silk rug that lay over him. "Poverty and that sort of versatility are often bedfellows, eh?... Tell me, Mr. Moriway, these lost diamonds are yours?"

"No. They belong to a--a friend of mine, Mrs. Kingdon."

"Oh! the old lady who was married this afternoon to a young fortune-hunter!" I couldn't resist it.

Moriway jumped out of his seat.

"She was not married," he stuttered. "She--"

"Changed her mind? How sensible of her! Did she find out what a crook the fellow was? What was his name--Morrison? No--Middleway--I have heard it."

"May I ask, Miss Omar"--I didn't have to see his face; his voice told how mad with rage he was--"how you come to be acquainted with a matter that only the contracting parties could possibly know of?"

"Why, they can't have kept it very secret, the old lady and the young rascal who was after her money, for you see we both knew of it; and I wasn't the bride and you certainly weren't the groom, were you?"

An exclamation burst from him.

"Mr. Latimer," he stormed, "may I see you a moment alone?"

Phew! That meant me. But I got up just the same.

"Just keep your seat, Miss Omar." Oh, that silken voice of Latimer's! "Mr. Moriway, I have absolutely no acquaintance with you. I never saw you till to-night. I can't imagine what you may have to say to me, that my secretary--Miss Omar acts in that capacity--may not hear."

"I want to say," burst from Moriway, "that she looks the image of the boy Nat, who stole Mrs. Kingdon's diamonds, that the voice is exactly the same, that--"

"But you have said it, Mr. Moriway--quite successfully intimated it, I assure you."

"She knows of my--of Mrs. Kingdon's marriage, that that boy Nat found out about."

"And you yourself also, as Miss Omar mentioned."

"Myself? Damn it, I'm Moriway, the man she was going to marry. Why shouldn't I--"

"Ah--h!" Latimer's shoulders shook with a gentle laugh. "Well, Mr. Moriway, gentlemen don't swear in my garden. Particularly when ladies are present. Shall we say good evening? Here comes Mulhill now.... Nothing, Sergeant? Too bad the rogue escaped, but you'll catch him. They may get away from you, but they never stay long, do they? Good evening--good evening, Mr. Moriway."

They tramped on and out, Moriway's very back showing his rage. He whispered something to the Sergeant, who turned to look at me but shook his head, and the gate clanged after them.

A long sigh escaped me.

"Warm, isn't it?" Latimer leaned forward. "Now, would you mind ringing again, Miss Omar?"

I bent and groped for the bell and rang it twice.

"How quick you are to learn!" he said. "But I really wanted the light this time.... Just light up, Burnett," he called to the man, who had come out on the porch.

The electric bulb flashed out again just over my head. Latimer turned and looked at me. When I couldn't bear it any longer, I looked defiantly up at him.

"Pardon," he said, smiling; nice teeth he has and clear eyes. "I was just looking for that boyish resemblance Mr. Moriway spoke of. I hold to my first opinion--you're very feminine, Miss Omar. Will you read to me now, if you please?" He pointed to a big open book on the table beside his couch.

"I think--if you don't mind, Mr. Latimer, I'll begin the reading to-morrow." I got up to go. I was through with that garden now.

"But I do mind!"

Silken voice? Not a bit of it! I turned on him so furious I thought I didn't care what came of it--when over by the great gate-post I saw a man crouching--Moriway.

I sat down again and pulled the book farther toward the light.

We didn't learn much poetry at the Cruelty, did we, Mag? But I know some now, just the same. When I began to read I heard only one word--Moriway--Moriway--Moriway. But I must have--forgotten him after a time, and the dark garden with the light on only one spot, and the roses smelling, and Latimer lying perfectly still, his face turned toward me, for I was reading--listen, I bet I can remember that part of it if I say it slow--

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!

--when all at once Mr. Latimer put his hand on the book. I looked up with a start. The shadow by the gate was gone.

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Garden--and for ONE in vain!

Latimer was saying it without the book and with a queer smile that made me feel I hadn't quite caught on.

"Thank you, that will do," he went on. "That is enough, Miss--" He stopped.

I waited.

He did not say "Omar."

I looked him square in the eye--and then I had enough.

"But what in the devil did you make believe for?" I asked.

He smiled.

"If ever you come to lie on your back day and night, year in and year out, and know that never in your life will it be any different, you may take pleasure in a bit of excitement and--and learn to pity the under dog, who, in this case, happened to be a boy that leaped over the gate as though his heart was in his mouth. Just as you would admire the nerve of the young lady that came out of the house a few minutes after in your housekeeper's Sunday gown."

Yes, grin, Torn Dorgan. You won't grin long.

I put down the book and got up to go.

"Good night, then, and thank you, Mr. Latimer."

"Good night.... Oh, Miss--" He didn't say "Omar"--"there is a favor you might do me."

"Sure!" I wondered what it could be.

"Those diamonds. I've got to have them, you know, to send them back to their owner. I don't mind helping a--a person who helps himself to other people's things, but I can't let him get away with his plunder without being that kind of person myself. So--"

Why didn't I lie? Because there are some people you don't lie to, Tom Dorgan. Don't talk to me, you bully, I'm savage enough. To have rings and pins and ear-rings, a whole bagful of diamonds, and to haul 'em out of your pocket and lay 'em on the table there before him!

"I wonder," he said slowly, as he put them away in his own pocket, "what a man like me could do for a girl like you?"

"Reform her!" I snarled. "Show her how to get diamonds honestly."

Say, Tom, let's go in for bigger game.

III.

Oh, Mag, Mag, for heaven's sake, let me talk to you! No, don't say anything. You must let me tell you. No--don't call the other girls. I can't bear to tell this to anybody but you.

You know how I kicked when Tom hit on Latimer's as the place we were to scuttle. And the harder I kicked the stubborner he got, till he swore he'd do the job without me if I wouldn't come along. Well--this is the rest of it.

The house, you know, stands at the end of the street. If you could walk through the garden with the iron fence you'd come right down the bluff on to the docks and out into East River. Tom and I came up to it from the docks last night. It was dark and wet, you remember. The mud was thick on my trousers--Nance Olden's a boy every time when it comes to doing business.

"We'll blow it all in, Tom," I said, as we climbed. "We'll spend a week at the Waldorf, and then, Tom Dorgan, we'll go to Paris. I want a red coat and hat with chinchilla, like that dear one I lost, and a low-neck satin gown, and a silk petticoat with lace, and a chain with rhinestones, and--"

"Just wait, Sis, till you get out of this. And keep still."

"I can't. I'm so fidgety I must talk or I'll shriek."

"Well, you'll shut up just the same. Do you hear me?"

I shut up, but my teeth chattered so that Tom stopped at the gate.

"Look here, Nance, are you going to flunk? Say it now--yes or no."

That made me mad.

"Tom Dorgan," I said, "I'll bet your own teeth chattered the first time you went in for a thing like this. I'm all right. You'll squeal before I do."

"That's more like. Here's the gate. It's locked. Come, Nance."

With a good, strong swing he boosted me over, handed me the bag of tools and sprang over himself.... He looked kind o' handsome and fine, my Tom, as he lit square and light on his feet beside me. And because he did, I put my arm in his and gave it a squeeze.

Oh, Mag, it was so funny, going through Latimer's garden! There was the garden table where I had sat reading and thinking he took me for Miss Omar. There was the bench where that beast Moriway sat sneering at me. The wheeled chair was gone. And it was so late everything looked asleep. But something was left behind that made me think I heard Latimer's slow, silken voice, and made me feel cheap--turned inside out like an empty pocket--a dirty, ragged pocket with a seam in it.

"You'll stay here, Nancy, and watch," Tom whispered. "You'll whistle once if a cop comes inside the gate, but not before he's inside the gate. Don't whistle too soon--mind that--nor too loud. I'll hear ye all right. And I'll whistle just once if--anything happens. Then you run--hear me? Run like the devil--"

"Tommy--"

"Well, what?"

"Nothing--all right." I wanted to say good-by--but you know Tom.

Mag, were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnight--alone? No, I know you weren't. 'Twas your ugly little face and your hair that saved you--the red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty. I can see you now--a freckle-faced, thin little devil, with the tangled hair to the very edge of your ragged skirt, yanked in that first day to the Cruelty when the neighbors complained your crying wouldn't let 'em sleep nights. The old woman had just locked you in there, hadn't she, to starve when she lit out. Mothers are queer, ain't they, when they are queer. I never remember mine.

Yes, I'll go on.

I stood it all right for a time, out there alone in the night. But I never was one to wait patiently. I can't wait--it isn't in me. But there I had to stand and just--God!--just wait.

If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a' given out so soon. But I stood so still and listened so terribly hard that the trees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and creep. I heard things in my head and ears that weren't sounding anywhere else. And all of a sudden--tramp, tramp, tramp--I heard the cop's footsteps.

He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the gate. I crouched down behind the iron bench.

And my coat caught a twig on a bush and its crack--ck was like a yell.

I thought I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run. I thought I'd faint. But I didn't--for there, asleep on a rug that some one had forgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her a quick slap, and she flew out and across the path like a flash.

The cop watched her, his hand on the gate, and passed on.

Mag Monahan, if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and gone home with me, I'd been so relieved I'd never have tried again. But he didn't come. Nothing happened. Nights and nights and nights went by, and the stillness began to sound again. My throat went choking mad. I began to shiver, and I reached for the rug the cat had lain on.

Funny, how some things strike you! This was Latimer's rug. I had noticed it that evening--a warm, soft, mottled green that looked like silk and fur mixed. I could see the way his long, white hands looked on it, and as I touched it I could hear his voice--

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!

Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well, it's--it's different. It's as if the river had spoken--or a tree--it's so--it's so different.

That saved me--that verse that I remembered. I said it over and over and over again to myself. I fitted it to the ferry whistles on the bay--to the cop's steps as they passed again--to the roar of the L-train and the jangling of the surface cars.

And right in the middle of it--every drop of blood in my body seemed to leak out of me, and then come rushing back to my head--I heard Tom's whistle.

Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I promised Tom. But you see I hadn't heard that whistle then. When it came, it changed everything. It set the devil in me loose. I felt as if the world was tearing something of mine away from me. Stand for it? Not Nance Olden.

I did run--but it was toward the house. That whistle may have meant "Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"

I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was still quiet. Nobody inside had heard that whistle so far as I could tell.

I crept along--the carpets were thick and soft and silky as the rug I'd had my hands buried in to keep 'em warm.

Along a long hall and through a great room, whose walls were thick with books, I was making for a light I could see at the back of the house. That's where Tom Dorgan must be and where I must be to find out--to know.

With my hands out in front of me I hurried, but softly, and just as I had reached the portieres below which the light streamed, my arms closed about a thing--cold as marble, naked--I thought it was a dead body upright there, and with a cry, I pitched forward through the curtains into the lighted room.

"Nance!--you devil!"

You recognize it? Yep, it was Tom. Big Tom Dorgan, at the foot of Latimer's bed, his hands above his head, and Latimer's gun aimed right at his heart.

Think of the pluck of that cripple, will you?

His eyes turned on me for just a second, and then fixed themselves again on Tom. But his voice went straight at me, all right.

"You are something of a thankless devil, I must admit, Miss--Omar," he said.

I didn't say anything. You don't say things in answer to things like that. You feel 'em.

Ashamed? What do I care for a man with a voice like that! ... But you should have heard how Tom's growl sounded after it.

"Why the hell didn't you light out?"

"I couldn't, Tom. I just--couldn't," I sobbed.

"There seems invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals where Miss Omar is concerned. Also a disposition to use strong language in the lady's presence. Don't you, young man!"

"Don't you call me Miss Omar!" I blazed, stamping my foot.