One of My Sons Part 29

An unexpectedly quiet interior met my eye. The bare walls, the busy stove, the woman whose gaunt frame and lowering eye I had heard described by Yox, were before me, but nothing of a sinister, or even suspicious, appearance. I had surprised Mother Merry's quarters at a happy hour; that is, happy for her and possibly so for me.

But perhaps I convey a wrong impression in speaking of the walls as bare. They were not so; for, stretched from side to side of the steam-reeking, stifling room, were lines on which coa.r.s.e garments were hanging up to dry; and on the wall directly before me I saw a pair of rough seaman's breeches, pinned up in a ghostly and grotesque fashion over the little stove which even on this mild afternoon was doing its best to keep out undesirable visitors.

The old woman, who was bending over a table on which a few broken victuals lay, was, without doubt, Mother Merry herself; and, recognizing her as such, I a.s.sumed the half-audacious, half-deprecatory manner I thought best calculated to impress her. With a broad smile, I thrust my hand into my pocket. Then as I perceived her hard eye melt and the coa.r.s.e lines about her mouth twist into something which was as near encouragement as one could expect from a being always on her guard against strangers, I whispered with a careful look about me:

"Anyone here? My errand won't stand peering eyes or listening ears."

She gave me a penetrating glance.

"What do you want?" she grumbled.

I took out a dollar and laid it on the table. Her hand was over it in an instant.

"A morsel of drug," I whispered. "Three drops of something that'll do up a man in five minutes. The man is myself," I added, as her eye darkened.

She continued to regard me intently for a minute; then cast a quick glance down at the hand which covered the coin.

"Sorry," she muttered, with a reluctant lift of that member; "but I'm not in the way of getting any such stuff. Who sent you to me?"

I hesitated, then made my great venture.

"The man you helped out of here the night the police came down on you.

He had better luck than I. You didn't refuse it to him."

"You lie!" she cried.

Startled by these uncompromising words, I fell back. Had I made a great mistake?

"He never got any such stuff from me," she went on shrilly. "That wasn't what he came for, or else he made more of a fool of me than I knew."

"What did he come for?"

Her look of inquiry turned into one of suspicion.

"Did you come here to ask that? If so, you'd better go. I'm not one of the blabbing sort."

I drew out another dollar.

"Perhaps he got it upstairs," I insinuated.

"Oh!" she cried, spreading out her long fingers so as to cover both pieces. "That may be; those girls have strange ways with them."

"May I have a peep at them? May I have a peep at _her_?"

The emphasis I placed on the last word called out from Mother Merry a long stare, which I bore as best I could.

"She hasn't a drop left of what you were talking about," said Mother Merry at last. "If she gave it to him it's all gone."

"Perhaps she can get more where she got that," I made bold to suggest.

The old hag gave a grunt and looked gloatingly at the coins sparkling between her bony fingers.

"How many of these have you saved up?" she asked.

"Ten."

"And with ten dollars in your pocket you come here for _poison_?"

Her amazement was quite real. Ten dollars in my pocket and wanting poison! It took her some minutes to grasp the fact; then she said:

"And how many of these are for _me_?"

"Five."

She pawed at the coins till they were well under her palm.

"I'll call her down; will that do?"

"Yes."

"She may not be just right."

"No matter."

"She may be all right herself and not think you so."

"I'll risk that, too."

"Then stand near the stove so she won't see you when she first comes in. She wouldn't stay a minute if she did."

Obeying the old hag, I watched her sidle to the door already familiar to me in Yox's narrative; the door upstairs, I mean. As she disappeared behind it I glanced at the table near which she had been standing. The two silver dollars were gone.

"I'll never see them again," was my inward decision.

And I never did.

The presence of the wet clothing hanging so near me was anything but agreeable. Moving around to the other side of the stove, I at least avoided some of the fumes which in that stifling atmosphere were almost insufferable; but I was more exposed to view, something which the old woman noticed when she reentered.

"You have moved," she suspiciously snarled. "Come back and let the clothes hide you. Perhaps I can make the girl sing if she don't see you. She seems to be in one of her queer moods. Would you like to hear her sing?"

As the old woman evidently expected an enthusiastic a.s.sent I gave it with as much force as I could muster up on such short notice.

"Hush! she is coming. You mustn't mind her laugh."

It was well she gave me this warning, for the sudden wild shout of hilarious mirth which I now heard from the region of the staircase was so startling, that without these words of caution I might have betrayed myself. As it was, I kept my post in silence, watching for the girl who I had every reason to believe had given the bottle of prussic acid to Leighton Gillespie. Would she prove to be the wild, unkempt woman whose beautiful look he had endeavoured to describe to the Salvation Army Captain? I hoped not; why, I hardly knew.

Suddenly there broke upon my eyes a sight I have never forgotten. A woman came in--a woman, not a girl--and while her look was not beautiful--far from it--she had that about her which no man could see for the first time without emotion. Her features were ordinary when taken by themselves, but seen together possessed an individuality whose subtle attraction had been marred, but not entirely destroyed, by the countless privations she had evidently undergone. And her hair, wild and uncared-for though it was, was wonderful; so was the air of vivacity and rich, exuberant life which characterised her. Though her cheek was pale and her arms thin, she fairly beamed with that indefinable but spontaneous gladness which springs from the mere fact of being alive, a gladness which at that moment did not suggest drugs or any unwholesome source. I was astounded at the effect she produced upon me, and watched her eagerly. No common unfortunate, this. Yet it would have been hard to find among the city's worst a woman more bedraggled or more poorly nourished.