CALLED BACK
YOU remember the case. The papers were full of it. It was a sordid, gruesome affair. A scrub girl was killed by a fanatic. His name was Will Hoist. Hers was Gladys Rogers. It was known as the Hoist-Rogers case.
I was reporter for the "Page," and, as a sort of last horrible chapter, I was sent to see Hoist electrocuted. He behaved disgracefully. He was as backboneless as a jelly fish. His eyes stared. His lips were positively blue. He had all the ear marks of an abject coward. I think he was the worst specimen of physical fear that I have ever seen and in my reporter days I have witnessed many men on their short journey to the chair. The last words Hoist ever spoke were ones familiar to me:
"I didn't kill Gladie," he protested until the end. "You ask Peter. Peter knows the truth."
During the long trial, he had often reiterated those sententious sentences, to us, meaningless. I knew them by heart but I had recorded them only as the jargon of a man demented by his crime. To probe him on the subject brought nothing. He would go so far and then stop.
Peter was his twin brother's name, Peter Hoist, the sculptor, whose new art was the sensation of last year's art exhibit. He was found dead in his bed from heart failure, three months before his brother, Will, became a murderer.
I therefore gave little heed to Hoist's parting words and in my story for the next day's "Page," I merely mentioned that he had gone to his death still protesting his innocence and implicating his deceased brother.
Since that, time I have stumbled upon strange things and have, at this writing, more respect for Will Hoist's utterances. That is why, at this late date, I am digging up this gruesome affair and turning the poor Hoist brothers over in their graves. Strange and impossible as this story may seem, I feel duty bound to publish it. Hoist's name is on the black list and there is only a cross with a number marking his grave and if what I have learned can in any way exonerate him, if only in the eyes of a very few, I shall consider myself repaid.
I had almost forgotten the case being immersed in other matters, Hoist had gotten his judgment and fitting punishment and that was all there was to it. It was not circumstantial evidence that had convicted him. He had been seen plunging the knife into Gladys Rogers's breast by a girl living in the flat next door. She had come forward timidly the last moment and had clinched the matter. We were all angry at the stupid creature. She was a shop girl and fearing anything connected with cops, she had lengthened the life of the trial by holding back her valuable testimony. But you, who followed the trial in the papers, know all this.
Believing, thoroughly, Hoist's guilt, it annoyed me to have Jack Hayes, a fellow journalist on the "Page," come bursting in on me one lunch time at the Palace grill and interrupt my mastication of a thick steak, by exclaiming:
"Remember the Hoist case, Bert?"
Jack was always abrupt and annoying and he loved to slap people on the back, especially when they had a mouthful. I sputtered and glared at him and when I finished coughing and getting my wind pipe cleared, I said, "Of course, I remember it. Don't resuscitate unpleasant memories, Jack, and, for the love of Mike, kindly refrain from hitting a man on the back when he’s in the act of swallowing."
"My error, Bertie," he laughingly apologized, at the same time sitting beside me in a place just vacated. He ordered a steak too, having no originality, all his stories are cut and dried journalism, and while he waited for the steak to fry, he told me that immediately after I had left the office, a woman had rung up the editorial room enquiring for me.
"No, you young devil," he chortled, although I had not flickered an eyelash. "It wasn't Mary Pickford asking for an interview or Lady Duff requesting you to visit her fashion show. It was only an old lady. Get it? An old lady with a cracked voice. I spoke to her myself and she was as ancient as the hills."
Here he poked me viciously in the ribs and here I state frankly that I never did like Jack Hayes.
"Well, what did she want?" I demanded, ignoring his scanty humor, if humor one could call it.
"Have no false hopes, Bertie. This old crone doesn't want to leave you her fortune. She simply wants to have a confidential chat with you about the Hoist ease. It'll be cheerful no doubt. She says she hasn't long to live and her one desire is to see you before the Grim Reaper cuts her down. Sounds like Eddie Poe, doesn't it, or Annie K. Green?"
I was angry. I had dallied long enough with Will Hoist. He was dead. Let him remain in his ignominious resting place.
"But why should she pick me out of the millions for her death bed confession?" I cried, pushing away my coffee cup with disgust. "Check please, waiter. I'll not bother with it. You follow it up, Jack, if you care to. I'm through with Hoist and his whole nasty affair."
I was reaching for my hat and overcoat. Jack took hold of my arm. "Bertie, she said nobody but you would do. It seems she saw you at court or read your stuff or something. Anyhow she wants you and you only. Better follow it up, Bertie. It sounds like a wonderful story. Here's her name and address. Complete information."
He shoved into my reluctant hand one of his cards on the back of which was a hasty jotting in pencil. I did not read it then but stuck it irritably into my overcoat pocket.
"So long, Jack," I said, leaving him quickly.
"Better take my advice, old man," he flung after me, but I pretended not to hear him.
I STOOD on the sidewalk, for a moment, to light a cigarette and fumbling for my matches my fingers encountered Jack's card. I pulled it out and read what he had written on it:
Lorna Blanchard, 2021 Hubert street, City.
Hubert street is one of the shabbiest streets in our city. It is a pitiful street because it had once been something. It is like an old duchess in poverty. I know the street well with its gray rows of old-fashioned houses. It is a blowy
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