Persons Unknown Part 60

You are to remember it is what she has come there to prevent. And before she has time scarcely to breathe, he forces her back across the threshold. Up he swoops her in his arms for he is strong like wire, and light and swift as a hound is, and flies with her for the back stairs. I wait, for if she sees me I do not know, any more than he does, which way she will turn. She has stood by him, and perhaps she would have stood by me; but not if she had known the truth. And at the back stairway he asks her, "Can we trust the Deutches?" And she replies, "For me, yes. But I will not trust your life with any one." And then, poor fellow, he must have seen what she thought, and made up his mind to let her think it. I was her sister; and he had gone into that room the man who was to marry me. He could still feel my kisses and my arms about him; and he never dreamed that Ingham was to denounce me for a criminal--he thought I fired not from mingled frenzies, but from only the desperate love of him. Besides, it was only accident he had not fired himself. He would not have given me up if he had died.

For me, almost in a moment, it is too late to run. I stumble on Christina's cloak and scarf, that she has had on her arm and dropped in the dark. I am terribly afraid! I am in panic to think they are all coming, and I bolt the door! I wish only to hide and yet I know I cannot hide! I am wild! I try the closet. It is locked. I run behind the portieres, knocking over the little chair in the dark. I have no plan, nothing but fear! Till, with the feeling of the curtains close about me, I remember how I once slipped out of the rooms of a man I had been to see on business, for the Arm of Justice. He had called the people out of the front room into the other, the room where I was, and as they all got in, I had slipped out. How to get them in here? Then I drag in Ingham's body. I stand close in my cloak colored like the curtains, and once I hear Deutch's voice I remember that it is Christina's cloak. He makes it all easy. To come out while those men were working, there at the closet, is terrible, but there are the trolley-car and my automobile making good noises. I have pinned my hat under the cloak, and my slippers I put in its inside pocket. It is when the police have cleared the halls. I have scarcely got to the back-stairs when the people begin peeping out again.

I have in my hand Christina's key. I turn to the door of the apartment nearest the back stairs, to pretend I am unlocking it. And the k.n.o.b turns in my hand. The decorators have left it open and I walk in and slip the catch. There I wait till all the hunt is done. But I wish to be rid of the little pistol, shaped for the impunitura of the Camorra, which, in early days, Filippi had made for me and on which once, before Nicola forbade me, I had tried to scratch "Camorrist." Were I taken with that, I should have every foe on my heels! I wish that I might slip it into the coat-pocket of that great boy with the figure of G.o.ds--he who led the chase and deafened me with his hammering. Then I remember him telling the police where he lives. It makes me laugh; there are sc.r.a.ps of wall-paper about. On one of these I write a message and in this I wrap my impunitura. Then, long after, when all my cackling geese have cackled into bed again, I go up to the roof and across into the next house. There is an opening of some feet between the two apartment houses, and it may be that Will jumped it, but I think not. I think he must have gone up to the front, where the cornices join, and crept and balanced along the little ledge behind them, as I do. And I walk boldly down those stairs where all is still, and choose a moment when the night-boy takes some one up in the elevator, and then I cross the office, and Nicola is still waiting with the car. I stuff the impunitura in the letter-box and I am away, away!--But the little rag of a girl, she knows when I went in and when I came out!

So now you see how hard my problem is, my problem that is double: what to do with her, and how to save my love! Three weeks and more go by, and for him I am beginning to breathe. And he tells Christina nothing, nothing at all. Only he asks her did she meet me as she came up, for I have only just run out as he and Ingham quarrel. And she says no, Deutch brought her up in the freight-elevator. Thus she is not surprised to hear about my shadow on the blind; she thinks I came there like her to get Jim away. But she fears I will be implicated and my poor story told.

This she thinks of a great deal, and keeps me very quiet in the country.

While she, if you please, is no sooner saved from Ingham but she takes up that boy with the figure of G.o.ds, who saw my shadow. The fool did not feel such a kindness for that which moved with splendid grace! Nor did he keep my pistol. But perhaps he wants her money. I tell Nicola and the boys he is the spy who drains us of ours, and who is carrying news to her from little Stanley of my letters. They will rid her of him! And no one knows who fired that shot but Will and me, no one. And Mother Pascoe-Ansello watches all the time what we do with Nancy Cornish. I am very good to Nancy Cornish. In case she should, by any chance, get away and tell Will and Christina. For there are some things they would not forgive. I am frightened, now, and I would let her go, if I could.

And, then, Ten Euyck will not pay me! He is furious I have shot Ingham, which he finds out at the inquest, and yet he must give me his protection. And he says what I said in the Ingham letter was a lie, and he will not pay for lies; they are wrong in all ways, for they never work. And money I must have, or that spy of Filippi's will settle us. We have just been received by the Camorra and all must be careful. Then I think Christina can some way get it. But not to know it is for me. So at last I threaten the little Nancy, and she is glad to write as I say. And she cut off the lock of her hair at my own dressing-table with my own scissors, when mine was all down my back to show her that I had more than she.

And when we do not have the answer that we hope for, she begins to fret terribly. She is always listening and watching; she is so helpless and I am lonely and perhaps I talk too much! Then, oh, my G.o.d, he is arrested!

I cannot keep it to myself, I run screaming through the house! I think I shall die, and I think almost that that rag of a girl will kill me! She recognized his voice up there cry, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" and she has not said one word so that I think she thinks he did it. But when they catch him and she jumps at me that it was I, she can see it in my face. And she makes a terrible scene--begs me and prays me to denounce myself, to save him. And then I know that she must die.

But I have a mind to Mother Pascoe-Ansello, and I make a bargain with this girl. I ask her what she will promise, and she says _anything_. And I ask her if I write a full confession to the District-Attorney and mail it when things go hard with Will, will that content her? Oh, very fine!

So I tell her it is what I would do, who would die for him to-morrow, but that it would give him to her arms. And she says she will go away, she will never see him. I reply, "He will find you, he will make you."

And she says to me eager, with open mouth, "What can I do?" I answer, "You are not very well. You grow every day more feverish. Nothing shall ever happen to you under my roof. But if it should, how it would solve all." She says, "Will you let me keep the letter myself and mail it myself?" and I say, "Yes." So then she says, "You gave me laudanum so I could sleep. When I have mailed that letter, give me some more." Oh, I feel such a relief! If she is found, even, with laudanum it is suicide.

"Will you ask for it every night, aloud, before them all, and after you have mailed the letter will you take--enough? Will you swear?" "Oh," she says, "upon his freedom, I do swear."

So! Thus far has she read. And now she falls ill. And any hour, now, may Ten Euyck come for this. And I must warn him I will not have him drop another word before Nicola, as though Will would drag us all in by telling I was there with him. Nicola's hand might reach into his prison.

When Nancy wakes, she has still this envelope--stuffed with blanks. But if I cannot fool her, Nicola has planned a better way. A fine way! For, after that, she will be silent--she, who thought to be bride to the man I choose.--Oh, my love, you love her. If you, too, must die, it is for that you die, my darling! For no little rag of a girl can frustrate the will of

ALLEGRA ANSELLO ALIENI.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR

"Oh, then, I'll marry Sally! For she is the darling of my heart--"

"But _is_ she?" queried Christina, swinging round from the piano, "Is she?" And she looked wistfully at Herrick as he took her outstretched hand. "Oh, if she's a very troublesome person, tell me at least she brought the author luck! Was it any wonder, eh, that the pulse of your life changed when you saw a shadow on the blind? Since at that very moment my hand was on the door? Oh, I can perhaps rouse luck with the best 'when I come knocking!'"

It was Sunday evening, a month from that September Twentieth when, to a public that perhaps had never given quite such a welcome, Christina Hope had positively reappeared. This occasion was of a very homely gathering, an hour when Christina had simply confessed to the need of seeing all the people of one episode "alive together." She had spent the month in watching Nancy grow strong, here, in her house, and to-morrow was the day of Nancy's wedding. "Once I have packed off my daughter," Christina had been saying, "I shall marry myself out of hand--quite simply, by just stepping round the corner--to the patientest fellow living. The public and I meet often enough--it shall not stick its head in at my marriage!"

But Herrick's sister was to arrive to-morrow and this seemed to have made Christina restive. "You know very well that you are marrying an actress. But there has been too much glare--to her you must be marrying, as some play says, 'The Queen of the Gipsies!' Ah, but Bryce--it's easy enough to be fond of me, now! After all, I behaved admirably, like a good girl. I was as grand as Evadne and as energetic as Sal! I had a very hard time and, really, I was quite a heroine. But my hard times are done and G.o.d send I may never be a heroine again! Well, what price the Queen of the Gipsies, dear, as a nice young lady? And through what rent in my admirable behavior will next--to try your patience--the real Christina Hope too positively reappear? I wonder!" Thus she spoke, a little sadly. And, then, at the ringing of the door-bell called out for her mother and Mrs. Deutch. "For heaven forbid," added Christina, "that ever I should be seen without a chaperone!"

It was the simplest of supper-parties, at a table that jumbled Joe Patrick with the District-Attorney; but the great kindness of good-will still showed, inevitably, against a somber background. Before that company there continued to rise in vivid silences, sharp as though edged with acid, a wild s.p.a.ce of death and hiding, of prison and darkness, when suddenly Christina's perverse lip twitched with a small, soft laugh. "And to think that, all the time, we were just as respectable as we could be!"

"I don't know how respectable you can be," said Denny. "I think I could do better."

"_I_ think it's a pretty good thing for you," said Wheeler, "that she is as she is. You appear to have what I don't mind calling--in a lean, black party of no particular stature--an almost inexplicable charm for the ladies!"

"In that case," said Christina, "you can see what a waste it is for him to play villains. Give him to me for the hero of Bryce's play, when I star next year."

"Thank you for waiting a year. You must have arranged your production with Ten Euyck so quickly that it makes a manager's hair raise!"

"As fast as I could learn my lines!" Christina cried. "But sometimes he did throw me out. Ah, if I could only have spoken his speeches too!"

"Many stars in your profession have made that complaint! But I forgive you everything, Christina, since you notified me for an advance sale!"

"She broke her word to me," said Kane, "to do that! I was so anxious not a breath should get out--it might have ruined everything. I caught her second message--to you, Herrick--and stopped it."

Herrick asked, "Will it always be the first which goes to Wheeler?"

She responded with surprised earnestness, "Why, but, dearest, that was _business_!"

He laughed; and there was no bitterness in his laugh. He was glad of her quick, earnest interest. A month and three days had softened the tragic brooding of Christina's face and drawn them all far from pain and fear, deep waters and dark night. But this first attempt to mention that time with any ease showed him how they all still winced at scars; even this ripple of mirth, glowing and vibrating like the air of all that house with love and joy, had glowed and vibrated too sharply. He wanted some happening that should clear the air, and he did not know what. Work was the safest thing he knew. And even his work, now they had begun, was a good thing to talk of.

"How about that realistic tone?" Wheeler was asking. "Our experience doesn't leave much of Herrick's idea about the commonplaceness of crime--"

"Oh, yes, it does!" Christina interrupted. "They were commonplace enough, to themselves. It was only where we rushed in that it turned into melodrama. That's the way with amateurs! They have to," she flung at Denny, "be more like Dago organ-grinders than any Dago organ-grinder ever was!"

"I thank you," returned that unabashed young man. "It was quite realistic enough for me. If all my foreign traitors had done as well by me as this one!" His eyes sought Nancy's. For an instant neither of them could speak. But the girl could not resist putting out her hand. And no one minded when he took it. "But I thanked the G.o.ds," he could then say with a laugh, "for my Italian accent! I knew two or three phrases from the Garibaldi play--and then I knew the sound and some of the sense from--Chris's farm. But I could have wished, none the less, to be better equipped."

"Rotten to have to make out so much funk!" contributed Stanley. "So's to seem like that scared-to-death fellow."

"On the whole, that was the best thing I did. It came quite easy!"

"But the choice?" inquired Mrs. Deutch. "How did you make that choice, dear sir, amidst the goblets?"

"Only luck--I just chanced it. Gold, silver, and lead--can't you guess?"

He looked at Christina, and Christina blushed. Deutch glanced up twinkling.

"Ah, tante," said the girl, "you will never understand--you have not the artistic temperament! 'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit!'

That was it, Will? Ah, my dear, and to think you've never played the scene!"

Her pensiveness turned sterner. She looked at him with reproving eyes.

"You took it out of a part!" she said. "Heaven help us, of what are we made? That shot I fired--that last shot--I took that out of a part, too!

'A Princess Imprisoned,' the end of the third act. And you with your 'Merchant of Venice' and your casket scene! It's true what they say of us--we're stuffed with sawdust!"

"We'd be fools not to use it, then," Denny comfortably retorted. "Though you might certainly have chosen a better play."

"No, you don't understand me. It's too bad, it's wrong--all wrong! It cheapens life. It dulls the value of what we feel. To think of written things at such a moment and throw oneself on them--it's like an insincerity of the heart. It's like acting a lie. And with all my faults, that one fault I never had," Christina said. "I was never a liar!" And she turned on them the ineffable starry candor of her wide, cool eyes.

A smile traversed the board. Christina looked puzzled.

"Never mind, old girl," Wheeler came to her a.s.sistance. "Some lies are made in heaven. How about your pretending, at the inquest, not to know who Nancy was?"

"Ah, that card of Nancy's! There, surely, was a dreadful moment! It was a shock. I didn't know what to say. Why, it was like seeing that horrible story fastened round her neck--it was like seeing Will pointed out! Oh, and I'd tried to keep away even the thought of them!"

"I don't wonder that knocked you out all right. But, Miss Christina,"

pondered Deutch, "before that--a thing starts the trouble for you at that inquest always gives me a puzzle. Miss Christina, why did you holler when you saw the scarf? That wasn't a surprise, anyhow. You knew he had it!"