Murder in Any Degree Part 36

I

The base-ball season had closed, and we were walking down Fifth avenue, Larry Moore and I. We were discussing the final series for the championship, and my friend was estimating his chances of again pitching the Giants to the top, when a sudden jam on the avenue left us an instant looking face to face at a woman and a child seated in a luxurious victoria.

Larry Moore, who had hold of my arm, dropped it quickly and wavered in his walk. The woman caught her breath and put her m.u.f.f hastily to her face; but the child saw us without surprise. All had pa.s.sed within a second, yet I retained a vivid impression of a woman of strange attraction, elegant and indolent, with something in her face which left me desirous of seeing it again, and of a pretty child who seemed a little too serious for that happy age. Larry Moore forgot what he had begun to say. He spoke no further word, and I, in glancing at his face, comprehended that, incredible as it seemed, there was some bond between the woman I had seen and this raw-boned, big-framed, and big-hearted idol of the bleachers.

Without comment I followed Larry Moore, serving his mood as he immediately left the avenue and went east. At first he went with excited strides, then he slowed down to a profound and musing gait, then he halted, laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, and said:

"Get into the car, Bob. Come up to the rooms."

I understood that he wished to speak to me of what had happened, and I followed. We went thus, without another word exchanged, to his rooms, and entered the little parlor hung with the trophies of his career, which I looked at with some curiosity. On the mantel in the center I saw at once a large photograph of the Hon. Joseph Gilday, a corporation lawyer of whom we reporters told many hard things, a picture I did not expect to find here among the photographs of the sporting celebrities who had sent their regards to my friend of the diamond. In some perplexity I approached and saw across the bottom written in large firm letters: "I'm proud to know you, Larry Moore."

I smiled, for the tribute of the great man of the law seemed incongruous here to me, who knew of old my simple-minded, simple-hearted friend whom, the truth be told, I patronized perforce. Then I looked about more carefully, and saw a dozen photographs of a woman, sometimes alone, sometimes holding a pretty child, and the faces were the faces I had seen in the victoria. I feigned not to have seen them; but Larry, who had watched me, said:

"Look again, Bob; for that is the woman you saw in the carriage, and that is the child."

So I took up a photograph and looked at it long. The face had something more dangerous than beauty in it--the face of a Cleopatra with a look in the deep restless eyes I did not fancy; but I did not tell that to Larry Moore. Then I put it back in its place and turned and said gravely:

"Are you sure that you want to tell me, Larry Moore?"

"I do," he said. "Sit down."

He did not seek preliminaries, as I should have done, but began at once, simply and directly--doubtless he was retelling the story more to himself than to me.

"She was called f.a.n.n.y Montrose," he said, "a slip of a girl, with wonderful golden hair, and big black eyes that made me tremble, the day I went into the factory at Bridgeport, the day I fell in love. 'I'm Larry Moore; you may have heard of me,' I said, going straight up to her when the whistle blew that night, 'and I'd like to walk home with you, f.a.n.n.y Montrose.'

"She drew back sort of quick, and I thought she'd been hearing tales of me up in Fall River; so I said: 'I only meant to be polite. You may have heard a lot of bad of me, and a lot of it's true, but you never heard of Larry Moore's being disrespectful to a lady,' and I looked her in the eye and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you, f.a.n.n.y Montrose?'

"She swung on her foot a moment, and then she said: 'I will.'

"I heard a laugh go up at that, and turned round, with the bit in my teeth; but it was only the women, and you can't touch them. f.a.n.n.y Montrose hurried on, and I saw she was upset by it, so I said humbly: 'You're not sorry now, are you?'

"'Oh, no,' she said.

"'Will you catch hold of my arm?' I asked her.

"She looked first in my face, and then she slipped in her hand so prettily that it sent all the words from my tongue. 'You've just come to Bridgeport, ain't you?' she said timidly.

"'I have,' I said, 'and I want you to know the truth. I came because I had to get out of Fall River. I had a sc.r.a.p--more than one of them.'

"'Did you lick your man?' she said, glancing at me.

"'I licked every one of them, and it was good and fair fighting--if I was on a tear,' I said; 'but I'm ashamed of it now.'

"'You're Larry Moore, who pitched on the Fall Rivers last season?' she said.

"'I am.'

"'You can pitch some!' she said with a nod.

"'When I'm straight I can.'

"'And why don't you go at it like a man then? You could get in the Nationals,' she said.

"'I've never had anyone to work for--before,' I said.

"'We go down here; I'm staying at Keene's boarding-house,' she said at that.

"I was afraid I'd been too forward; so I kept still until we came to the door. Then I pulled off my hat and made her a bow and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you steady, f.a.n.n.y Montrose?'

"And she stopped on the door-step and looked at me without saying a word, and I asked it again, putting out my hand, for I wanted to get hold of hers. But she drew back and reached for the k.n.o.b. So I said:

"'You needn't be frightened; for it's me that ought to be afraid.'

"'And what have you to be afraid of, you great big man?' she said, stopping in wonder.

"'I'm afraid of your big black eyes, f.a.n.n.y Montrose, 'I said, 'and I'm afraid of your slip of a body that I could snap in my hands,' I said; 'for I'm going to fall in love with you, f.a.n.n.y Montrose.'

"Which was a lie, for I was already. With that I ran off like a fool. I ran off, but from that night I walked home with f.a.n.n.y Montrose.

"For a month we kept company, and Bill Coogan and Dan Farrar and the rest of them took my notice and kept off. The women laughed at me and sneered at her; but I minded them not, for I knew the ways of the factory, and besides there wasn't a man's voice in the lot--that I heard.

"But one night as we were wandering back to Keene's boarding-house, f.a.n.n.y Montrose on my arm, Bill Coogan planted himself before us, and called her something to her face that there was no getting around.

"I took her on a bit, weeping and shaking, and I said to her: 'Stand here.'

"And I went back, and caught Bill Coogan by the throat and the belt, and swung him around my head, and flung him against the lamp-post. And the post broke off with a crash, and Coogan lay quiet, with nothing more to say.

"I went back to f.a.n.n.y Montrose, who had stopped her crying, and said, shaking with anger at the dirty insult: 'f.a.n.n.y Montrose, will you be my wife? Will you marry me this night?'

"She pushed me away from her, and looked up into my face in a frightened way and said: 'Do you mean to be your wife?'

"'I do,' I said, and then because I was afraid that she didn't trust in me enough yet to marry me I said solemnly: 'f.a.n.n.y Montrose, you need have no fear. If I've been drunk and riotous, it's because I wanted to be, and now that I've made up my mind to be straight, there isn't a thing living that could turn me back again. f.a.n.n.y Montrose, will you say you'll be my wife?'

"Then she put out her two hands to me and tumbled into my arms, all limp."

II

Larry Moore rose and walked the length of the room. When he came back he went to the wall and took down a photograph; but with what emotion I could not say, for his back was to me. I glanced again at the odd volatile beauty in the woman's face and wondered what was the word Bill Coogan had said and what was his reason for saying it.

"From that day it was all luck for me," Larry Moore said, settling again in the chair, where his face returned to the shadow. "She had a head on her, that little woman. She pulled me up to where I am. I pitched that season for the Bridgeports. You know the record, Bob, seven games lost out of forty-three, and not so much my fault either. When they were for signing me again, at big money too, the little woman said:

"'Don't you do it, Larry Moore; they're not your cla.s.s. Just hold out a bit.'

"You know, Bob, how I signed then with the Giants, and how they boosted my salary at the end of that first year; but it was f.a.n.n.y Montrose who made the contracts every time. We had the child then, and I was happy.