The Brass Bowl by Louis Joseph Vance
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Louis Joseph Vance >> The Brass Bowl
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What did it matter? Surely he, who knew the world wherein he lived and
moved and had his being, knew bitter well the worth of its verdicts. The
world might go hang, for all he cared. At least his life was his own,
whether to make or to mar, and he had not to answer for it to any power
this side of the gates of darkness. And if by any act of his the world
should be given a man and a woman in exchange for a thief and an idler,
perhaps in the final reckoning his life might not be accounted altogether
wasted....
He set back his shoulders and inspired deeply, eyes lightening; and
stepped into the study, resolved. "Miss--" he called huskily; and
stopped, reminded that not yet did he even know her name.
"It is safe now," he amended, more clearly and steadily, "to come out, if
you will."
He heard no response. The long gleaming folds of the portières hung
motionless. Still, a sharp and staccato clatter of hoofs that had risen in
the street, might have drowned her voice.
"If you please--?" he said again, loudly.
The silence sang sibilant in his ears; and he grew conscious of a sense of
anxiety and fear stifling in its intensity.
At length, striding forward, with a swift gesture he flung the hangings
aside.
XII
ON RECONSIDERATION
Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the
allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.
He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour
rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of
O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either
arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move
the temperate soul.
"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't
guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."
And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.
The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow.
Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very violent
exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again he saw fit
to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled bandana with grim
abandon.
At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim
infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh
profoundly--not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress, but
the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has drunk
deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.
Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his
yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal
countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened
with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that
autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the
detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire,
unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty
processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges
preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled
martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking,"
transfers; or--yet a third possibility--with the prevailing rate of wage
as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of
living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one hand, and Jamaica,
Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the other.
A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the
sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on
Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside,
entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that illicit
hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose sloppy
imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were set
about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of sleepy-eyed,
case-hardened habitués.
Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and
familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to
his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George.... Nah," in response to a
concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."
Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chairback, another on the
table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar, puffy
hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by the side
of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his mind the
one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.
"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself.... He's wise enough.... Yeh
can't fool Hickey all the time.... I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r
it's the sidewalks f'r mine.... Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest
livin'.... 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"
The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein,
touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not
require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work
of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment of
engraved arabesques.
"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for mine.
'Nd _he_ had a wad like a ham ... _on_ him.... 'Nd I might've had
it all for my very own if...." His brow clouded blackly.
"_Sleuth!_" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth.
And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"
Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned
hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer
which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and, rising,
waddled hastily out into the night.
It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to save
his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.
"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but ...
I'll _get_ him all right."
And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings, squat,
swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the Tenderloin;
and so on toward Maitland's rooms--morose, misunderstood, malignant,
coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical of the force
he represented.
On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his dour
mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully familiar to
his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he took to be the
beginning of a street brawl.
XIII
FLIGHT
In the alcove the girl waited, torn in the throes of incipient hysteria:
at first too weak from reaction and revulsion of feeling to do anything
other than lean heavily against the wall and fight with all her strength
and will against this crawling, shuddering, creeping horror of nerves,
that threatened alike her self-control, her consciousness, and her reason.
But insensibly the tremor wore itself away, leaving her weary and worn but
mistress of her thoughts and actions. And she dropped with gratitude into
a chair, bending an ear attentive to the war of words being waged in the
room beyond the portières.
At first, however, she failed to grasp the import of the altercation. And
when in time she understood its trend, it was with incredulity,
resentment, and a dawning dread lest a worse thing might yet befall her,
worse by far than aught that had gone before. But to be deprived of his
protection, to feel herself forcibly restrained from the shelter of his
generous care--!
A moment gone she had been so sure that all would now be well with her,
once Maitland succeeded in ridding himself of the police. He would shut
that door and----and then she would come forth and tell him, tell him
everything, and, withholding naught that damned her in her own esteem,
throw herself upon his mercy, bruised with penitence but serene in the
assurance that he would prove kind.
She had such faith in his tender and gentle kindness now.... She had
divined so clearly the motive that had permitted Anisty's escape in order
that she might be saved, not alone from Anisty, not alone from the shame
of imprisonment, but from herself as well--from herself as Maitland knew
her. The burglar out of the way, by ruse, evasion, or subterfuge she would
be secreted from the prying of the police, smuggled out of the house and
taken to a place of safety, given a new chance to redeem herself, to clean
her hands of the mire of theft, to become worthy of the womanhood that was
hers....
But now--she thrust finger-nails cruelly into her soft palms, striving to
contain herself and keep her tongue from crying aloud to those three
brutal, blind men the truth: that she was guilty of the robbery, she with
Anisty; that Maitland was--Maitland: a word synonymous with "man of
honor."
In the beginning, indeed, all that restrained her from doing so was her
knowledge that Maitland would be more pained by her sacrifice than
gladdened or relieved. He was so sure of clearing himself.... It was
inconceivable to her that there could be men so stupid and crassly
unobservant as to be able to confuse the identity of the two men for a
single instant. What though they did resemble each other in form and
feature? The likeness went no deeper: below the surface, and rising
through it with every word and look and gesture, lay a world-wide gulf of
difference in every shade of thought, feeling, and instinct.
She herself could never again be deceived--no, never! Not for a second
could she mistake the one for the other.... What were they saying?
The turmoil of her indignation subsided as she listened, breathlessly, to
Maitland's story of his adventures; and the joy that leaped in her for his
frank mendacity in suppressing every incident that involved her, was all
but overpowering. She could have wept for sheer happiness; and at a later
time she would; but not now, when everything depended on her maintaining
the very silence of death.
How dared they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of
them! Her anger raged high again ... and as swiftly was quenched,
extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare
suggestion thrown out by Hickey.
"... _explainin' how a crook like Anisty made three tries in one day to
steal some jewels and didn't get 'em. Where were they, all this time?_"
Maitland's cool retort was lost upon her. What matter? If they disbelieved
him, persisted in calling him Anisty, in natural course they would
undertake to search the flat. And if she were found.... Oh, she must spare
him that! She had given him cause for suffering enough. She must get away,
and that instantly, before.... From a distance, to-morrow
morning,--to-night, even,--by telegraph, she could communicate with him.
At this juncture O'Hagan entered with his parcel. The rustle of the paper
as he brushed against the door-jamb was in itself a hint to a mind keyed
to the highest pitch of excitement and seeking a way of escape from a
position conceived to be perilous. In a trice the girl had turned and
sped, lightfooted, to the door opening on the private hall.
Here, halting for a brief reconnaissance, she determined that her plan was
feasible, if hazardous. She ran the risk of encountering some one
ascending the stairs from the ground floor; but if she were cautious and
quick she could turn back in time. On the other hand, the men whom she
most feared were thoroughly occupied with their differences, dead to all
save that which was happening within the room's four walls. A curtain hung
perhaps a third of the way across the study door, tempering the light in
the hall; and the broad shoulders of the cabby obstructed the remainder of
the opening.
It was a chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and--the
rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity
to escape, by drowning the noise of her movements.
For two eternal seconds she was edging stealthily down toward the outer
door; then, in no time at all, found herself on the landing
and--confronted by a fresh complication, one unforeseen: how to leave the
house without being observed, stopped, and perhaps detained until too
late? There would be men at the door, beyond doubt; possibly police,
stationed there to arrest all persons attempting to leave....
No time for weighing chances. The choice of two alternatives lay before
her: either to return to the alcove or to seek safety in the darkness of
the upper floors--untenanted, as she had been at pains to determine. The
latter seemed by far the better, the less dangerous, course to pursue. And
at once she took it.
There was no light on the first-floor landing--it having presumably been
extinguished by the janitor early in the evening. Only a feeble twilight
obtained there, in part a reflected glow from the entrance hall, partly
thin and diffused rays escaping from Maitland's study. So it was that the
first few steps upward took the girl into darkness so close and unrelieved
as to seem almost palpable.
At the turn of the staircase she paused, holding the rail and resting for
an instant, the while she listened, ere ascending at a more sedate pace to
a haven of safety more complete in that it would be more remote from the
battle-ground below.
And, resting so, was suddenly chilled through and through with fear, sheer
childish dread of the intangible and unknown terrors that lurked in the
blackness above her. It was as if, rendered supersensitive by strain and
excitement, the quivering filaments of her subconsciousness, like
spiritual tentacles feeling ahead of her, had encountered and recoiled
from a shape of evil, a specter of horror obscene and malign, crouching,
ready to spring, there, in the shadow of night. . . .
And her breath was smothered in her throat and her heart smote so madly
against the frail walls of its cage that they seemed like to burst, while
she stood transfixed, frozen in inaction, limbs stiffening, roots of her
hair stirring, fingers gripping the banister rail until they pained her;
and with eyes that stared wide into the black heart of nothingness, until
the night seemed pricked with evanescent periods of dim fire, peopled with
monstrous and terrible shadows closing about her. . . .
Yet--it was absurd! She must not yield to such puerile superstitions.
There was nothing there. . . .
There _was_ something there . . . something that like an incarnation
of hatred was stalking her. . . .
If only she dared scream! If only she dared turn and fly, back to the
comfort of light and human company!...
There arose a trampling of feet in the hallway; and she heard Maitland's
voice like a far echo, as he bade the police good night. And distant and
unreachable as he seemed, the sound of his words brought her strength and
some reassurance, and she grew slightly more composed. Yet, the instant
that he had turned away to talk to the cabman, her fright of that
unspeakable and incorporeal menace flooded her consciousness like a great
wave, sweeping her--metaphorically--off her feet. And indeed, for the
time, she felt as if drowning, overwhelmed in vast waters, sinking,
sinking into the black abyss of syncope....
Then, as a drowning person--we're told--clutches at straws, she grasped
again at the vibrations of his voice.... What was he saying?
"_You will wait outside, please, until I come out or send somebody, whom
you will take wherever directed_...."
----Speaking to the cabman, thinking of her, providing for her escape!
Considerate and fore-sighted as always! How she could have thanked him!
The warmth of gratitude that enveloped her almost unnerved her; she was
put to it to restrain her impulse to rush down the stairs and....
But no; she must not risk the chance of rebuff. How could she foretell
what was in his mind and heart, how probe the depths of his feeling toward
her? Perhaps he would receive her protestations in skeptic spirit. Heaven
knew he had cause to! Dared she.... To be repulsed!...
But no. He had provided this means for flight; she would advantage herself
of it and ... and thank him by letter. Best so: for he must ever think the
worst of her; she could never undeceive him--pride restraining and
upholding her.
Better so; she would go, go quickly, before he discovered her absence from
the flat.
And incontinently she swung about and flew down the stairs, silently,
treading as lightly on the heavily padded steps as though she had been
thistledown whirled adrift by the wind, altogether heedless of the
creeping terror she had sensed on the upper flight, careless of all save
her immediate need to reach that cab before Maitland should discover that
she had escaped.
The door was just closing behind the cabby as she reached the bottom step;
and she paused, considering that it were best to wait a moment, at least,
lest he should be surprised at the quickness with which his employer found
work for him; paused and on some mysterious impulse half turned, glancing
back up the stairs.
Not a thought too soon; another instant's hesitation and she had been
caught. Some one--a man--was descending; and rapidly. Maitland? Even in
her brief glance she saw the white shield of a shirt bosom gleam dull
against the shadows. Maitland was in evening dress. Could it be
possible...?
No time now for conjecture, time now only for action. She sprang for the
door, had it open in a trice, and before the cabby was really enthroned
upon his lofty box, the girl was on the step, fair troubled face upturned
to him in wild entreaty.
"Hurry!" she cried, distracted. "Drive off, at once! Please--oh, please!"
Perhaps the man had expected something of the sort, analyzing Maitland's
words and manner. At all events he was quick to appreciate. This was what
he had been engaged for and what he had been paid for royally, in advance.
Seizing reins and whip, he jerked the startled animal between the shafts
out of its abstraction and----
"I say, cabby! One moment!"
The cabman turned; the figure on the stoop of the house was undoubtedly
Maitland's--Maitland as he had just seen him, with the addition of a hat.
As he looked the man was at the wheel, clambering in.
"Changed my mind--I'm coming along, cabby," he said cheerfully. "Drive us
to the St. Luke Building, please and--hurry!"
"Yessir!"
Bitter as poverty the cruel lash cut round the horse's flanks; and as the
hansom shot out at break-neck speed toward Fifth Avenue, the girl cowered
back in her corner, shivering, staring wide-eyed at the man who had so
coolly placed himself at her side.
This, then, was that nameless danger that had stalked her on the
staircase, this the personality whose animosity toward her had grown so
virulent that, even when consciously ignorant of its proximity, she had
been repelled and frightened by its subtle emanations! And now--and now
she was in his power!
Dazed with fear she started up, acting blindly on the primitive instinct
to fly; and in another moment, doubtless, would have thrown herself boldly
from the cab to the sidewalk, had her companion not seized her by the
forearm and by simple force compelled her to resume her seat.
"Be still, you little fool!" he told her sharply. "Do you think that I'm
going to let you go a third time? Not till I'm through with you.... And if
you scream, by the powers, I'll throttle you!"
XIV
RETRIBUTION
She sank back, speechless. Anisty glanced her up and down without visible
emotion, then laughed unpleasantly,--the hard and unyielding laugh of
brute man brutishly impassioned.
"This silly ass, Maitland," he observed, "isn't really as superfluous as
he seems. _I_ find him quite a convenience, and I suppose that ought
to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste
to resemble me.... Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab!
What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to
frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back
there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent
heart! fixes it all up for me.... And so," concluded the criminal with
ironic relish,--"and so I've got _you_, my lady."
He looked at her in sidelong fashion, speculative, calculating,
relentless. And she bowed her head, assenting, "Yes--"
"You're dead right, little woman. Got you. Um-mmm."
She made no reply; she could have made none aside from raising an outcry,
although now she was regaining something of her shattered poise, and with
it the ability to accept the situation quietly, for a little time (she
could not guess how long she could endure the strain), pending an
opportunity to turn the tables on this, her persecutor.
"What is it," she said presently, with some effort--"what is it you wish
with me?"
"I have my purpose," with a grim smile.
"You will not tell me?"
"You've guessed it, my lady; I will not--just yet. Wait a bit."
She spurred her flagging spirit until it flashed defiance. "Mr. Anisty!"
"Yes?" he responded with a curling lip, cold eyes to hers.
"I demand--"
"No you don't!" he cut her short with a snarl. "You're not in a position
to demand anything. Maybe it would be as well for you to remember who
you're dealing with."
"And----?"--heart sinking again.
"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a
crook--like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in
being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll
spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today
I've been within an ace of being nabbed--kindness of you and your
Maitland. Now--I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?"
"What--?" she asked breathlessly.
"I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the
back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape
up to the top flat--something a copper would never think of--and went
through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tête-à-tête
Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet
been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks.
Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted
it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion.
"I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore.
The girl tried to nerve herself. "It--it doesn't seem to strike you," she
argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I
have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue."
For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking
rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped
down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming
trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to
repeat it, with added emphasis.
"You try it on, my lady, and see what happens."
She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But
you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect
of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to
know me well enough to know...."
"What?" she breathed, in spite of herself.
Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat.
"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got
the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my
hands. Now I guess you understand,"--and turning his head he fixed her
with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,--"that one squeal
out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means
a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and--I'll take
you with me for company."
"You--you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous.
"Like a dog," he returned with unction.
"You, a man, would--would shoot a woman?"
"You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man:
_I'm_ a crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have
overlooked that. Amateurs often do.... To-night I made you a fair
proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty.
Now you see the other side of the picture."
Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she
crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly
reptile.
He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably
strong and malevolent.
"And there is one other reason why you will think twice before making a
row," he clinched his case. "If you did that, and I weakly permitted the
police to nab and walk us off, the business would get in the papers--your
name and all; and--what'd Maitland think of you then, my lady? What'd he
think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company
with the little woman he'd been making eyes at--whom he was going, in his
fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter
and redeem and--and all that slush? Eh?"
And again his low evil laugh made her shudder. "Now, you won't risk that.
You'll come with me and behave, I guess, all right."
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