The Rose in the Ring/Part 2/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
DOOR-STEPS
David hurried off toward the car-line, bent on reaching Joey's home before that worthy retired for the night.
At the top of a flight of stone steps leading to the doors of an imposing mansion across the street from the Portman home a motionless figure sat, as bleak as the shadows in which it was shrouded. Like a malevolent gargoyle it glowered out upon the deserted street; a tense, immovable chin rested in a pair of clenched hands, knees supporting the elbows. This desolate, forbidding figure had been there for an hour or more—ever since Christine's return from the concert. Not once were the burning eyes removed from the lighted windows across the way. At last, long after the footsteps of the anxious Virginian had died away in the night, and the lights were extinguished in the house opposite, the silent watcher moved for the first time. Slowly he came to his feet, his eyes still upon the solitary window in which a light had lingered long after all the others were gone.
"Well, they're through discussing me," muttered Tom Braddock, thinking aloud. Shivering, as if from a mighty chill, although the night was warm, he stalked down from his perch and went swiftly up the street, a gaunt, broad-shouldered figure whose step seemed to suggest purpose more than stealth.
As he slunk past the approach to a basement hard-by, a stealthy figure slipped out from the recess and kept pace with him, not twenty feet behind. A block farther up the street this second watcher quickened his pace. He came alongside the man ahead.
"Hello, Brad," fell upon the ears of the stalked. He betrayed no surprise, no sign of alarm. He did not check his pace, nor look around.
"Confound you, Dick," he said, as if pronouncing sentence, "if you don't quit dogging me like this I'll kill you, so help me God."
"You might have known I'd be somewhere around," said the other quietly. They were now side by side, gaunt, slouching figures, both of them.
"I thought I'd given you the slip."
"Umph," was the expressive comment.
"What did you follow me over here to-night for?" demanded Braddock fiercely, after thirty steps.
"You know why, Brad. Don't ask."
"This is my affair," went on the big man. "I was doing no harm, sitting across there. Can't a man sneak off for a single look at his own child—in the dark, at that—without being hounded by— Say, you must stop dogging me, d' you hear? I'm not a rat. I'm a human being. I've got feelings. I wanted to have a look at her. She's my girl and—"
"Not so loud, Brad. Remember who you are with. You are in bad company, old man. Don't draw attention to the fact. Take a word of advice from me. Keep away from that house. Don't—"
"I don't want to hear anything more out of you," grated Braddock. "I know what I'm doing. I'm living up to my promise, ain't I? Didn't I say I'd see Mary before I— Say," he broke off incontinently, his thoughts leaping backward, "that was my girl that said good night to the swells back there—mine! Did you see how prettily she was dressed? Did you hear how sweet her voice was? I—I—" Something came up in the man's throat to cut off the words; and a long silence fell between them.
Not until they were turning into Fourth Avenue did Dick Cronk speak again. Somehow he felt the emotion that struggled in the breast of the man beside him. For the first time in his life he was sorry for him.
"Where are you going now, Tom?" he asked, knowing full well what the spiritless answer would be.
"To that hell-hole of a place you call home," said Braddock. Dick slipped his hand through the other's arm; they turned oft into one of the cross streets, wending their way through the sodden community, one with his head erect, the other with his chin on his breast, his hands in his coat pockets.
Half an hour later a cab stopped at a corner not far from a Pell Street intersection. Two men got down and picked their way through the vile street, searching out the house numbers as they progressed. They passed the all-night dives and brothels, whence came the sounds of unrestrained and unrefined revelry, and came at last to a spot beneath a huge wooden boot that hung suspended above the door of the most unholy structure in the narrow street. A man in his shirt sleeves sat back in the shadow of the tumbledown stoop, smoking a pipe. At his left a narrow, black passage led down between two squalid buildings, one of which was dark, the other lighted so that the vicious revelers within might see and be seen.
The uncertain, timorous actions of the strangers in Thieves' Alley brought a fantastic smile to the lips of the smoker. He watched them as they looked up at the boot and compared notes in rather subdued tones.
"This must be the place," said one of the men. There was no mistaking the note of disgust in his voice.
"Looking for some one, gents?" demanded the smoker, without rising from the stool on which he sat leaning against the wall.
"Is this No. 24— Hello! It's Dick!"
"Ain't you afraid to be seen down here, Joey?" asked the man on the stool, chuckling.
"It's worth an honest man's life to be seen 'ere," said Joey Noakes, in hushed tones. "God 'elp 'im as can't 'elp 'isself if he ever strolls in 'ere unawares."
"It's rather late in the night for any one to be about," said Dick Cronk. "Still, I've been expecting you, gents. That's why I'm sitting out here, takin' things easy—and makin' things easy for you. If you don't mind I'll keep my seat, David. It ain't wise to be seen hobnobbin' with swell gents at this time o' night—in Hell's Kitchen particularly. I know what you're here for. He's back there asleep. Don't worry. I've got him safely sidetracked."
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the narrow passage. The others looked down that filthy corridor and shuddered.
"What a place!" muttered David Jenison.
"Wot 'as Brad been up to to-night?" demanded Joey.
Without changing his position, Dick Cronk, in as few words as possible, told them of Braddock's vigil.
"Don't hang around here a minute longer than you have to," he said in conclusion. "There are a hundred eyes on you right now. You don't see 'em, but they're looking, just the same. I thought you'd be blame' fools enough to come, so I waited up. Something told me you would go to Joey's when you left her, kid, and you'd make him come along to hunt me out. Brad's safe, and he's not going to do anything just yet. So go home and go to bed. I'll see you to-morrow and we'll arrange for a time when she can talk with him. She'll see him, won't she?"
"Of course. She is eager to see him. I am to bring him to her as soon as—"
"We've got to handle him carefully or—" began Dick.
Joey interrupted him. "The devil's to pay in another direction, Dick," he said. "Bob Grand 'as 'eard that Brad's out and that he's been 'anging around his 'otel, nasty-like. Who should come to my 'ouse in a cab at nine o'clock to-night but Bob Grand 'isself. He finds me alone, Ruby being off with 'er young man. When I sees who is coming up my steps, I almost keels over. The first words he says took my breath away. I was getting ready to kick 'im into the gutter when he puts a check on my leg, curious-like, by remarking that he's looking for Tom Braddock. He came to arsk me where he could be found. I told 'im I didn't know, and, if I did, I'd be hanged if I'd tell 'im. We 'ad some pretty sharp words, you may believe. But he took all the impudence out of me by announcing most plainly that he understood Brad wanted to kill 'im and that I'd best 'ave a care how I acted, because my 'ouse was being watched by secret service men. There was a lot more, but I 'aven't time to tell you. The upshot of it is, he's going to 'ave Brad nabbed and put where he can't do any 'arm. And, see 'ere, Dick, I don't want to be mixed up in this business. You've got to get Brad out of town to-night. He's done for now and—"
Dick Cronk interrupted his old friend with a snarl of impatience. "Get him away yourself! I'm doing the best I know how. He won't leave of his own free will. He's here to do that man and he won't be put off. And what's more, Bob Grand ought to get it good and hard. Somebody ought to spike him, and who's got a better right than Tom Braddock? I'm ashamed of you, Joey! If you'd been half a man you'd 'a' beat his head off to-night when he put his foot on your doorstep, after what he put up to Ruby. I—I wish I'd been there!"
The bowl of the clay pipe dropped to the bricks. He literally had ground the stem in two with his teeth.
"Go home now—both of you," he said, a moment later, following his own awkward laugh. "You can't afford to be seen here. I'll look out for Brad. The Colonel won't come here a-lookin' for him, you can bet your life on that. You'll hear from me to-morrow. Maybe you think I ain't sick of this business? If it wasn't for you, Davy, I'd cut it in a minute and dig for the wooly West, where Mr. Barnum and Mr. Forepaugh are dying for my society. Move along now! Don't block the sidewalk! Can't you see the ladies want to pass?"
Two maudlin women of the underworld lurched by, with coarse, ribald comments on the "swells." David felt himself grow hot with shame and disgust. After their laughter had died away he turned to the grinning Dick.
"But we must do something to-night—" he began imploringly.
Dick lifted his hand. "Correct," he said. "We must do some sleeping." He strode to the mouth of the forbidding passage. A light from a saloon window shone out upon a long flight of rickety steps at the farther end, leading up to the darkness above. "See that stairway? Well, I wouldn't advise you to follow me up there. It ain't a Romeo and Juliet balcony, gents. Good night!"
He turned into the passage with a wave of the hand. They saw him pass up through the shaft of light from the window and disappear in the shadows. Then they hurried away from the foul place, almost running to the cab at the corner.
David did not sleep that night. He tossed on his bed, beset by the direst anxiety and dread, his eyes wide open and staring. He dozed off at six, but was wide awake before seven, when he arose and partook of a hurried, half-eaten breakfast. It was not likely that he would hear from Dick Cronk before the middle of the forenoon. Until then he was to be harassed by doubts and fears that would not be easy to suppress in his present unquiet frame of mind. While he was obliged to stand idle and impotent, the very foundation of all the future happiness of the girl he loved might be irreparably shattered. Silent, deadly, purposeful forces were working toward that end. Her mother would, no doubt, prepare her in a way for the crash, but there always would be the memory of the cruel blow that might have been prevented.
He crossed into Madison Square, taking a seat where he could watch the entrance to his hotel, though the hour was so early that it seemed sheer folly to expect Dick Cronk. A dozen times in the first half-hour he looked at his watch. Would the hands never reach nine o'clock? He knew that Dick would make his approach slyly. Perhaps if he returned to his room he would find him there. It would not be an unusual circumstance, he recalled.
Had Colonel Grand's detectives swooped down upon Tom Braddock? Was Christine's father already in jail? Was Grand in a position to hold a new club over the heads of the two women? Were the newspapers preparing to revel in the great story—
He was in the midst of these direful questions when some one tapped him lightly on the shoulder from behind. He turned and glanced upward, his nerves a-tingle.
"Dick!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.
"Sit down!" commanded the pickpocket warily.
David dropped to the bench, his eyes fastened on the white, drawn face of the pickpocket. A thick, white bandage was wrapped around his forehead, partially hidden by the slouch hat he wore. The man seemed faint and unsteady on his feet.
"I say, Dick," cried David, "what has happened? You are hurt. Who—"
With a rigid grin Dick put his hand to his head.
"Braddock," he said succinctly.
"You don't mean— Tell me what has happened? Wait! Do you require the attention of a surgeon?"
"Sit still, kid. I'm all right. You might pass me a quarter or something, just to make people think I'm boning you for a breakfast. Thanks! Well, Brad's gone."
"Gone?"
"He cracked me good and hard, that's what he did. I told you he wouldn't be held down long. He's in no mood to be kind to them that are trying to be kind to him. He's past all that. He means business, Brad does. This morning about six he got up. I was watchin' him. He said he was going over to see his wife. He said he wanted to see her before Christine was awake, or out of bed. I told him they wouldn't let him in at that time of day. He said he'd get in or know the reason why. Then he opened up on me about all of us trying to manage his affairs for him. I tried to quiet him. But the devil of it was he was quiet enough. He was too quiet. It looked bad. When he started for the door I took hold of him. He—well, he shoved me off. When I jumped in front of the door he picked up a chair and let me have it over the head. I didn't know anything for a long time. When I came to he was gone. Jimmie Parsons, who was in the room with us all the time, also tried to stop him after he biffed me. Jimmie's got two wonderful black eyes as a result."
"The man must be insane!" cried David, aghast.
Dick shook his head. "Not a bit of it. He's the sanest man I know."
"Where has he gone? You said he started for Mrs. Braddock's? Great heavens, Dick, he may do her bodily harm! He may have shot her down in cold—"
"Easy, easy! He ain't likely to do anything like that until after he's got Bob Grand."
"Then he will shoot Bob Grand this morning, mark my words. He—"
"He won't shoot anybody. He hasn't any gun. He says he don't need one. If he gets Grand, it won't be with a weapon of any kind. That's what he says, and he means it. If Bob Grand dies from a bullet, you can bet your life it won't come from Tom Braddock. But all this can wait. I stopped off at Joey's. He sent Ruby down to Mr. Portman's at once, and he's gone over to keep watch around the hotel where Grand stops. The thing for you to do is to make tracks for Portman's. I'm going to—"
But David did not wait to hear what Dick intended to do. He was rushing off to hail a passing hansom.
Dick followed him to the curb. "If you see Brad tell him there's no hard feelings, Davy. It was a dirty smash, but I deserve it for not ducking. And say, be careful how you tackle him. Remember that thing about wisdom being better than—what's the word? Nerve?"
The hansom turned and sped down Fifth Avenue with its nervous passenger. Dick shook his head wearily. Then he smiled. From his coat pocket he slyly extracted a shining revolver. Three minutes before it had been in David Jenison's pocket. "He's better off without a thing like this," mused the clever philosopher.
Thomas Braddock rang the door-bell at the Portman home shortly after eight o'clock. He was perfectly calm and in full possession of himself. A brisk manservant opened the door and faced the strange caller.
"I want to see Mrs. Braddock," said the man in the vestibule.
"Call again," said the servant curtly.
"Just a minute, please," said Braddock. He did not offer to resist the closing of the door in his face. There was something in his tone, however, that caused the footman to hesitate. He took a second, surprised look at the gray, set face of the caller.
"Mrs. Braddock is occupied," he announced.
"You mean she isn't up yet. I'll wait," remarked Braddock, still very quietly. The man stared hard at him, suddenly struck by the pallor of his face. His eyes swept the grim figure in the ill-fitting suit of jeans.
"What do you want? Can't you leave a message?"
"Want? I want to see her." The footman glanced back over his shoulder as if searching for some one on whom he could shift an amazing responsibility. Recalling his dignity, he essayed to close the door in Braddock's face.
"I am her husband," announced the caller, his hands still in his pockets. The servant's hand was stayed.
"Won't you call again?" he temporized. "I don't quite understand. It don't go down very easy, I'll say that. At any rate, you can't see her now, no matter who you are. She was up all night with Miss Braddock, who took sick suddenly. Mrs. Braddock has just laid down for a—"
"Christine sick?" demanded Braddock. The new note in his voice commanded attention. "It—it can't be serious. She was all right when she came in last night. What's the matter with her? Speak up! What does the doctor say?"
"They didn't call a doctor."
He was surprised to see the ominous glare fade from Braddock's eyes. They wavered and then fell. An uneasy, mirthless laugh cracked in his throat; then his lip quivered ever so slightly—Brooks could have sworn to it. His hand shook as it went up to fumble the square chin in evident perplexity. For a moment Thomas Braddock stood there, reflecting, swayed by an emotion so unexpected that he was a long time in accounting for it. Indecision succeeded the arrogant assurance that had marked his advances. He looked up quickly, suspecting the lie that might have been offered as an excuse to get rid of him.
"Are you lying to me?" he demanded.
"Sir!"
Braddock's mind, long acute, worked swiftly. He went back of the servant's statement with an intelligence that grasped the true conditions quite as plainly as if they had been laid bare before him. Christine was ill. No physician had been called. He knew what the servant could not, by any chance, have known. He knew why Mary Braddock sat up with her daughter. A doctor? As if a doctor could prescribe for the affliction that beset her! Too well he now understood what had transpired in that upstairs room. A thing of horror had come to rack the soul of that happy, beautiful girl—had come suddenly because the time was ripe. She was suffering because he was near! He understood.
A tense, bitter oath struggled through his lips.
"Well, it's time she knew," he muttered in self-justification. Impelled by a strange anxiety—perhaps it was apprehension—he strained his eyes in the effort to penetrate the depths of the unfriendly hall at the servant's back. His ear seemed bent to catch the sounds of sobs or moans that he knew must reach him if he listened closely.
He again questioned the servant with his eyes, a long, intense scrutiny that confused the man.
Then he turned away.
"All right," he said sullenly, putting his hands into his pockets once more and drawing up his shoulders as if he were cold. "I'll come again. Tell Mrs. Braddock I was here and that I'll be back in a couple of hours." Another glance through the half-open door, over the footman's shoulder, and he stalked off, his jaw set, his hands clenched in the pockets of his coat. At the foot of the steps he shot a quick, involuntary glance upward, taking in the second story windows. The wondering servant looked after him until he turned the corner below.
Brooks had seen men with the prison pallor in their faces before.
He was not long in apprising Mrs. Braddock of the stranger's visit. She was with Christine when he made the unhappy announcement. If he expected a demonstration of concern or surprise, he was disappointed.
"I will see Mr. Braddock when he returns," said his mistress quietly. Brooks blinked two or three times, his only tribute to the stupendous shock he had experienced.
Thomas Braddock walked to the Battery. There he sat down on one of the benches and glowered out upon the blue waters of the bay for an hour or more. No muscle moved in his face. He waited with a patience that was three years old.
When David drove up to the Portman place, Mrs. Braddock herself arose from one of the chairs in the narrow stone porch at the top of the steps. She, too, had been waiting, but not for the young man who dashed up the steps.
"He has been here," she said, as she gave him her hand. The tenseness of the clasp revealed the strain that was upon her. He noted the pallor in her cheek, the dread in her eyes. The hot glare of the June sun seemed to bring out gray hairs he had never seen before. He had not thought of her as growing old until now.
"Yes?" he cried anxiously. "Where is he? I tried to get here in time. Did he—"
"Sit down, David—here, please, behind the balustrade. I am waiting out here for him. He went off in that direction. I've been watching for nearly an hour. He is coming back."
She resumed her chair, facing the direction which Braddock had taken.
"You—you sent him away?"
"I did not see him. You must not think, David, that I am afraid to see him. I am nervous, upset, but it really isn't fear. Christine—Christine knows everything. I told her last night. She is—well, you can imagine, she is very unhappy. Everything looks black to her. I did not hide anything. She is crushed."
"Where is she? I must see her. I can comfort her, Mrs. Braddock. Let me see her before he comes back." He was standing over her, his face working.
"She will not see you, David," she said in dull tones.
He started. "What do you mean? She must see me."
"Her father was in the penitentiary." That was all; but it told all there was to tell.
It required a moment or two for comprehension. Then he cried out reproachfully: "Does she think that will make any difference in my—"
She held up her hand. "She knows it won't. That's what distresses her. I am afraid, David, after all, you have brought your honor to a wretched market. We are what we are, we Braddocks. We can't look beyond our environment. You cannot marry a convict's daughter. It was bad enough before. I should have seen all this. But I was blind only to her happiness. We can't—"
His jaws were set. "Mrs. Braddock," he said, his voice quivering with decision, "I am not going to be put off like this. You may as well understand that, first and last. I love her. I want her. She loves me, thank God. It won't be so hard to make her understand how impossible it is for anything to come between us. She is going to marry me, Mary Braddock."
A great light leaped into her eyes, even as she shook her head. The words of protest she would have uttered failed to pass her lips. She reached out as if to clasp his hand, a movement as involuntary as it was instinctive. He had turned and was facing the closed portals behind which his heart's desire was beating all joy and hope out of her poor tormented soul. The tears rushed to his eyes.
"I can't stand it," he cried. "She must hear the words now—this is the time for me to go to her and say that I love her better than all the world. Nothing else matters."
In his eagerness he was starting for the door when a sharp cry fell from her lips. He hesitated, struck by the note of consternation in the cry.
A carriage had drawn up at the curb in front of the house. A face appeared at the open window of the vehicle, a never-to-be-forgotten face that brought to mind the African gazelle in Van Slye's.
David turned. For a moment he could not believe his eyes. He stood rigid in the paralysis of stupefaction. Then a cold perspiration started from every pore of his body. He sprang to Mrs. Braddock's side. She was even then peering down the street, a great fear in her heart, every fiber quivering with alarm.
Colonel Grand was assisting his daughter to the sidewalk. Already he had lifted his hat and sent a nauseous smile to the woman above. David's gaze followed hers in quest of a more sinister actor who might even then be coming upon the scene for the tragic climax.
The young man recognized the necessity for quick action. Colonel Grand, whatever his motive for appearing so unexpectedly at the Portman house, must be turned away without ceremony or consideration. At any minute Thomas Braddock might return. A tragedy would be the result; that was inevitable.
David started down the steps, passing the rigid, staring woman at the top. He was vaguely aware of Roberta Grand's bow and of the look of annoyance in the Colonel's face. Half-way down he called out:
"Colonel Grand, you must not stay here—not a second longer. I will explain if you will let me ride with you for a couple of blocks."
Grand advanced.
"Young man," he said coldly, "I am here to see Mrs. Braddock on a matter of importance. You will do well to subside."
David flushed angrily. "But Mrs. Braddock does not care to see you. She—"
Grand came on up the steps, ignoring Jenison, addressing himself to Mary Braddock.
"I have come to discuss Tom with you, Mary," he said. She started at the use of her name, a hot wave of anger rushing over her.
"Go away!" she cried, in low, intense tones. "How dare you come here, Colonel Grand? Go!"
He stopped, raised his hat, shrugged his shoulders in a deprecating manner, and then quickly lifted his free hand to check the approach of the young man who was ominously near at hand.
"I fancy it will be best for all concerned if we avoid tableaux. Still, I will go away if you see fit to send me—"
"I do see fit! Go!"
Roberta Grand was staring at the speaker from the bottom of the steps.
"Don't haggle with her, father," she cried venomously. "Bring her to time!"
"You have met my daughter, Mrs. Braddock?" said Grand in his most suave manner. "What are you looking at, Jenison?" he demanded, suddenly noting the young man's frozen stare, directed down the street.
David passed his hand over his damp brow and turned to look helplessly into Mary Braddock's face.
Tom Braddock was standing across the street at the corner below, clutching a lamp-post for support. He was staring with wide open eyes at the group on the steps.