Mr. Achilles Part 12

The woman turned to him--a little comfort shining in the sleepless eyes.

"Come in," she said, "I want to talk to you--tell me about Athens--the sun shines there!" She glanced again at the hearth and shivered.

The boy came in, flashing a gleam through the dark day. The little sadness of the night before had gone. He was alive and lithe and happy.

He came over to her, smiling... and she looked at him curiously. "What have you been doing all day?" she asked.

"I play," said Alcibiades, "I play--on flute--" His fingers made little music gestures at his lips, and fell away. "And I--run--" he said, "I go in rain--and run--and come in." He shook his dark head. Little gleams of moisture shone from it. The earth seemed to breathe about him.

She drew a quick breath. "You shall tell me," she said, "but not here."

She glanced about the room filled with sickness and wild thoughts--not even the boy's presence dispelled them. "We will go away somewhere--to the gallery," she said quickly, "it is lighter there and I have not been there--for weeks." Her voice dropped a little.

The boy followed her through the hall, across a covered way, to the gallery that held the gems--and the refuse--that Philip Harris had gathered up from the world. She looked about her with a proud, imperious gesture. She knew--better now than when the pictures were purchased--which ones were good, and which were very bad; but she could not interfere with the gallery. It was Philip's own place in the house.

It had been his fancy--to buy pictures--when the money came pouring in faster than they could spend it--and the gallery was his own private venture--his gymnasium in culture! She smiled a little. Over there, a great canvas had been taken down and carted off to make room for the little Monticelli in its place. He was learning--yes! But she could not bring guests to the gallery when they came to Idlewood for the day. If he would only let a connoisseur go through the place and pick out the best ones--the gallery was not so bad! She looked about her with curious, tolerant smile.

The boy's gaze followed hers. He had not been in this big room, with the high-reaching skylight, and the vari-coloured pictures and grey walls. His dark eyes went everywhere--and flashed smiles and brought a touch-stone to the place. Eyes trained to the Acropolis were on the pictures; and the temples of the G.o.ds spoke in swift words or laughed out in quick surprise.

The mistress of the house followed him, with amused step. If Phil could only hear it! She must manage somehow--Phil was too shrewd and practical not to see how true the boy was--and how keen! That great Thing--over the fireplace--Chicago on her throne, with the nations prostrate before her--how the boy wondered and chuckled--and questioned her--and brought the colour to her face!... Philip had stood before the picture by the hour--entranced; the man who painted it had made a key to go with it, and Philip Harris knew the meaning of every line and figure--and he gloried and wallowed in it. "That is a picture with some sense in it!"

was his proudest word, standing before it and waving his hand at the vision on her throne. She was a lovely lady--a little like his wife, Philip Harris thought. Perhaps the artist had not been unaware of this.

Certainly Mrs. Philip Harris knew it, and loathed the Thing. The boy's words were like music to her soul, under the skylight with the rain dripping softly down. She had thought of covering the Thing up--a velvet curtain, perhaps. But she had not quite dared yet.... Across the room another picture was covered by a curtain--the velvet folds sweeping straight in front of it, and covering it from top to bottom. Only the rim of the gilt frame that reached to the ceiling, glimmered about the blue folds of the curtain. The boy's eyes had rested on the curtained picture as they pa.s.sed before it, but Mrs. Philip Harris had not turned her head. She felt the boy's eyes now--they had wandered to it again, and he stood with half-parted lips, as if something behind the curtain called to him. She touched him subtly and drew his attention--and he followed her a minute... then his attention wandered and he gazed at the deep folds in the curtain with troubled eyes. She hesitated a moment--and her hand trembled. It was as if the curtain were calling her, too, and she moved toward it, the boy beside her.... They did not speak--they moved blindly and paused a breath... the rain falling on the skylight. The boy flashed a smile to her. "I have not see it," he said.

She reached out her hand then and drew back the curtain. "It is Betty--my little girl--" she said, "she has gone away--" She was talking aimlessly--to steady her hands. But the boy did not hear her--he had stumbled a little--and his eyes were on the picture--searching the roguish smile, the wide eyes, the straight, true little figure that seemed stepping toward them--out from behind the curtain.... The mother's eyes feasted on it a moment hungrily and she turned to the boy.

But he did not see--his gaze was on the picture--and he took a step--and looked--and drew his hand across his eyes with a little breath. Then he reached out his hands, "--I--see--her," he said swiftly. "She look at me--on ground--she cry--" His face worked a minute--then it grew quiet and he turned it toward her. "I see--her," he repeated slowly.

She had seized his shoulder and was questioning him, forcing him toward the picture, calling the words into his ear as if he were deaf, or far away--and the boy responded slowly--truly, each word lighting up the scene for her--the great car crashing upon him, the overthrow of his cart, the scattered fruit on the ground, and the Greek boy crawling toward it--thrust forward as the car pushed by--and his swift, upward glance of the girl's face as it flashed past, and of the men holding her between them--"She cry," he said--as if he saw the vision again before him. "She cry--and they stop--hands." He placed both hands across his mouth, shutting out words and cry.

And the mother fondled him and cried to him and questioned him again.

_She_ had no fear--no knowledge of what might hang in the balance--of the delicate grey matter that trembled at her strokes... no surgeon would have dared question so sternly, so unsparingly. But the delicate brain held itself steady and the boy's eyes were turned to her--piecing her broken words, answering them before they came--as if she drew them forth at will--

The door opened and she looked up and sprang forward. "Listen, Phil.

He saw Betty!" Her hand trembled to the boy. "He _saw_ her--_that last day_--it must be--tell him, Alcie--"

The boy was looking at him smiling quietly, and nodding to him.

Philip Harris closed the door with set face.

XXII

"WHAT DID YOU SEE?"

"What did you see--boy?" Philip Harris stood with his legs well apart, looking at him.

The boy answered quickly, his quick gesture running to the picture above them, and filling out his words. He had gathered the story of the child as the mother had gathered his--and his voice trembled a little, but it did not falter in the broken words.

Philip Harris glanced up. The rain on the skylight had ceased, but the room was full of dusk. "There is not time," he said, "to-night--You must rest now, and have your dinner and go to bed. To-morrow there will be men to question you. You must tell them what you have told us."

"I tell them," said the boy simply, "--what I see."

So the boy slept quietly... and through the night, messages ran beneath the ground, they leaped out and struck wires--and laughed. Men bent their heads to listen... and spoke softly and hurried. Cars thrust themselves forth, striking at the miles--their great bulk sliding on.

The world was awake--gathering itself... toward the boy.

In the morning they questioned him--they set down his answers with quick, sharp jerks that asked for more. And the boy repeated faithfully all that he had told; and the surgeon sitting beside him watched with keen eyes--and smiled.... The boy would hold. He was sound. But they must be careful... and after a little he sent him into the garden to work--while the men compared notes and sent despatches and the story travelled into the world, tallying itself against the face of every rogue. But there were no faces that matched it--no faces such as the boy had cherished with minute care... as if the features had been stamped--one flashing stroke--upon his brain, and disappeared. There could be no doubt of them--the description of the child was perfect--red cherries, grey coat--and floating curls. He seemed to see the face before him as he talked--and the face of the big man at her left, with red moustache and sharp chin--and the smaller man beside her, who had clapped his hand across her mouth and glared at the boy on the ground--his eyes were black--yes, and he wore a cap--pulled down, and collar up--you only saw the eyes--black as--The boy had looked about him a minute, and pointed to the shoes of the chief of police gleaming in the sunlight--patent leathers, and dress suit, hurried away from a political banquet the night before. The men smiled and the pencils raced.... There had been another man who drove the machine, but the boy had not noticed him--his swift glance had taken in only the child, it seemed, and the faces that framed her.

A little later they drove into the city--the boy accompanying them, and the surgeon and Achilles, who had hurried out with the first news and had listened to his son's story with dark, silent eyes. He sat in the car close to Alcibiades, one hand on the back of the seat, the other on the boy's hand. Through the long miles they did not speak. The boy seemed resting in his father's strength. It was only when they reached the scene of his disaster that he roused himself and pointed with quick finger--to the place where he had fallen.... He was pushing his cart--so--and he looked up--quick--and his cart went--so!--and all his fruit, and he was down--looking up--and the car went by, close.... Which way?--He could not tell that--no.... He shut his eyes--his face grew pale. He could not tell.

The street forked here--it might have been either way--by swerving a little. And the police looked wise and took notes and reporters photographed the spot and before night a crowd had gathered about it, peering hopefully at the pavement where Alcibiades had lain, and pointing with eager fingers to bits of peel--orange and banana--scattered by the last pa.s.ser-by, and gazing at dark stains on the pavement--something that might be marks of blood--after ten weeks of rain and mud and dust!

Achilles and the boy returned to the shop. "I want to go home," the boy had said, as the car turned away, "I--go--home--with you, father." So they had drawn up at the little fruit shop; and Yaxis in the door, his teeth gleaming, had darted out to meet them, hovering about them and helping his brother up the stairs and out to the verandah that ran across the windows at the rear. Down below, in tin-can backyards of the neighbours, old bottles and piles of broken lumber filled the place; but along the edge of the verandah, boxes of earth had been set, and the vines ran to the top, shutting out the glare of the brick walls opposite and making a cool spot in the blank heat.

Alcibiades looked at the vines with happy eyes. "They grow," he said softly.

Yaxis nodded and produced a pot of forget-me-nots. He had been tending them for three weeks--for Alcie. They bent over the pot, blue with blossoms, talking eager words and little gestures and quick laughs. And Achilles, coming out, smiled at the two heads bending above the plant.

Yaxis had been lonely--but now the little laughs seemed to stir softly in the close rooms and wake something happy there.

XXIII

ACHILLES HAS A PLAN

The next day, life in the little shop went on as if there had been no break. With the early light, Yaxis was off, to the south, pushing his tip-cart before him and calling aloud--bananas and fruit and the joy of Alcibiades's return, in his clear, high voice.... In the shop, Achilles arranged the fruit--great piles of oranges, and grape fruit and figs--and swung the heavy bunches of bananas to their hooks outside, and opened crates and boxes and made ready for the day. By and by, when trade slackened a little, he would slip away and leave Alcibiades in charge of the shop. His mind was busy as he worked. He had something to do that would take him away from the shop--every day for a while, it might be--but the shop would not suffer. Alcibiades was strong--not well enough, perhaps, to go out with the new push-cart that had replaced the old one, and waited outside, but strong enough to make change and fill up the holes in the piles of oranges as they diminished under the swift rush of trade.

Achilles's eyes rested on him fondly. It had been lonely in the shop--but now the long days of waiting were repaid... they had their clue. Even now the detectives might have followed it up. The little lady would be found. He hurried over the last things--his heart singing--and called the boy to him.

"I go away," he said, looking at him kindly. "You stay in shop--till I come."

"Yes, father." The boy's eyes were happy. It was good to be in the close, dark, home place with its fruity smell and the striped awning outside. "I do all right!" he said gaily.

The father nodded. "To-morrow you go with push-cart--little way--every day little way--" He waited a moment while the boy's face took in the words--he spoke with slow significance--"Some day you see--those men--then you run--like devil!" he said quickly, "you tell me!"

The boy's teeth made a quick line of light and his face flashed. "I tell--quick!" he said, "I know those men!"

He left the shop and was lost in the crowd. He was going first to the city hall for news--then he would seek Philip Harris. The plan that he was shaping in his mind needed help.

But at the city hall there was no news. The chief of police seemed even a little irritated at the sight of the dark face and the slim, straight figure that stood before him. He eyed it a moment, almost hostilely; then he remembered Philip Harris's command and told the man what steps had been taken and the reports that had come in thus far through the day. The Greek listened without comment, his dark face smouldering a little over its quick fire. "You find nothing?" he said quietly.

"Not a d.a.m.n thing!" answered the chief.

"I go try," said Achilles.

The man looked at him. Then he laughed out. The door opened. It was the detective in charge of the case. He glanced at Achilles and went over to the chief and said something. But the chief shook his head and they looked carelessly at Achilles, while the chief drummed on the desk.

Achilles waited with slow, respectful gaze.

The detective came across to him. "No news," he said.