The Auction Block Part 35

Bob Wharton mounted the box and drove eastward across Broadway, through the gloomy block to Columbus Avenue and on to Central Park West, the clop-clop-clop of the horse's feet echoing lonesomely in the empty street. At Sixty-seventh Street he wheeled into the sunken causeway that links the East and West sides.

Once in the shadows, Merkle leaned from the door, crying softly, "Faster! Faster!"

Bob whipped up, the horse cantered, the cab reeled and bounced over the cobblestones, rocking the wounded man pitifully.

To John Merkle the ride was terrible, with a drunkard at the reins and in his own arms a perhaps fatally injured man, who, despite the tortures of that b.u.mping carriage, interspersed his groans with cries of "Hurry, Hurry!" But, while Merkle was appalled at the situation and its possible consequences, he felt, nevertheless, that Hammon had acted in quite the proper way. In fact, for a manly man there had been no alternative, regardless of who had fired the shot. It was quite like Jarvis to do the generous, even the heroic, thing when least expected. Whatever Hammon might have been, he was in the last a.n.a.lysis all man, and Merkle admired his courage. He was glad that Hammon had thought of those three women who bore his name, even if they bore him no love, and he took courage from his friend's plucky self-control.

Perhaps the wound was not serious, after all. Hammon's death would mean the ruin of many investors, a general crash, perhaps even a wide-spread panic, and, according to Merkle's standards, these catastrophes bulked bigger than the unhappiness of women, the fall of an honored name, or death itself.

When he felt the grateful smoothness of Fifth Avenue beneath the wheels he leaned forth a second time and warned Bob, "Be careful of the watchman in the block."

The liquor in Bob was dying; he bent downward to inquire, "Is he all right?"

Merkle nodded, then withdrew his head.

The Hammon residence has changed owners of late, but many people recall its tragic a.s.sociations and continue to point it out with interest. It is a ma.s.sive pile of gray stone, standing just east of Fifth Avenue, and its bronze doors open upon an exclusive, well-kept side-street. As the cab swung in sight of the house Wharton, seeing a gray-clad figure near by, drove past without pausing and turned south on Madison Avenue. He made a complete circuit of the block, meditating with sobering effect upon the risk he was running. His heart was pounding violently when the street unrolled before him for a second time. At the farther corner, dimly discernible beneath the radiance of a street-light, he made out the watchman, now at the end of his patrol. The moment was propitious; there could be no further delay.

Bob reined in and leaped from his box. Merkle had the cab door open and was hoisting Hammon from his seat.

"Have you got the key?" Bob asked, swiftly.

"Yes. Help me! He's fainted, I think."

They lifted the half-conscious man out, then with him between them struggled up the steps; but Hammon's feet dragged; he hung very heavy in their arms.

Merkle was not a strong man; he was panting, and his hands shook as he fumbled with the lock. The key escaped him and tinkled upon the stone.

"Hurry! Here comes the watchman." Bob was gazing over his shoulder at the slowly approaching figure. The watchman had his eyes fixed upon the old-fashioned vehicle and its dejected animal, wondering, no doubt, what brought such an antiquated rig into this most exclusive neighborhood. He was within a few numbers of the Hammon house before Merkle solved the mysteries of the lock and the heavy portals swung open. In another instant the door had closed noiselessly, and the three were shut off from the street by a barricade of iron grillwork and plate gla.s.s. Both Bob and Merkle were weak from the narrowness of their escape, but the way was still barred by another door, through which two elaborate H's worked into French lace panels showed pallidly.

A second but briefer delay, and they stood in the gloom of the marble foyer hall. Then they shuffled across the floor to the great curving stairway. Both of Hammon's friends knew the house well, and, guided only by their sense of touch, they labored upward with their burden. The place was still, tomb-like; only the faint, measured ticking of a clock came to them.

Hammon had a.s.sured them that there would be no one in the house except Orson, his man, and some of the kitchen servants, the others having followed their mistress to the country; nevertheless the rescuers' nerves were painfully taut, and they tried to go as silently as burglars. It was hard, awkward work; they collided with unseen objects; their arms ached with the constant strain; when they finally gained the library they were drenched with perspiration. Merkle switched on the lights; they deposited the wounded man on a couch and bent over him.

Hammon was not dead. Merkle felt his way into the darkened regions at the rear and returned with a gla.s.s of spirits. Under his and Bob's ministrations the unconscious man opened his eyes.

"You got me here, didn't you?" he whispered, as he took in his surroundings. "Now go--everything is all right."

"We're not going to leave you," Merkle said, positively.

"No!" echoed Bob. "I'll wake up Orson while John telephones the doctor."

But Hammon forbade Bob's movement with a frown. It was plain that despite his weakness his mind remained clear. "Listen to me," he ordered. "Prop me up--put me in that chair. I'm choking." They did as he directed. "That's better. Now, you mustn't be seen here-- either of you. We can't explain." He checked Merkle. "I know best.

Go home; it's only two blocks--I'll telephone."

"You'll ring for Orson quick?"

Hammon nodded.

"Rotten way to leave a man," Bob mumbled. "I'd rather stick it out and face the music."

"Go, go! You're wasting time." Hammon's brow was wrinkled with pain and anger. "You've been good; now hurry."

Merkle's thin face was marked with deep feeling.

"Yes," he agreed. "There's nothing else for us to do; but tell Orson to 'phone me quick. I'll be back here in five minutes." Then he and Bob stole out of the house as quietly as they had stolen in.

They got into the cab and drove away without exciting suspicion.

Merkle alighted two blocks up the avenue and sped to his own house; Bob turned his jaded nag westward through the sunken road that led toward the Elegancia and Lorelei.

The owner of the equipage was waiting patiently, and there still lacked something of the allotted hour when the exchanged garments had been transferred to their respective owners. Bob walked toward the Elegancia with a feeling of extreme fatigue in his limbs, for the effort to conquer his intoxication had left him weak; he dimly realized also that he was still far from sober.

There was no answer when he rang at Lilas Lynn's apartment; the hall-boy volunteered the information that the occupant had just gone out with a gentleman. Miss Knight? Yes, she was up-stairs, he supposed. But when Bob undertook to go up there was prompt objection. The attendant would not hear to such a thing until he had first called Miss Knight. Even Lorelei's halting a.s.surance that the gentleman was indeed her husband did not wholly satisfy, and it was with a suspicious mien that the man finally gave way.

Bob was surprised at his wife's apparent self-control when she let him in. Except for the slim hand pressed to her bosom and the anxiety lurking in her deep blue eyes she might have just come from the theater. Those eyes, he noted, were very dark, almost black, under this emotional stress; they questioned him, mutely.

"We got him home all right," he told her, when they stood facing each other in the tiny living-room.

"Will he live?"

"Oh yes. He says he's not badly hurt, and Merkle agrees. Lord!

we'd never left him alone if we'd thought--"

"I'm glad. When the telephone rang I thought--it was the police."

"There, there!" he said, comfortingly, seeing her tremble. "I won't let anybody hurt you. I was terribly drunk--things are swimming yet--but all the way across town I couldn't think of anything, anybody except you and what it would mean to you if it got out."

"It will get out, I'm sure. Such things always do."

He eyed her gravely, kindly, with an expression she had never seen upon his face.

"Then--we'll face it together," he said.

After a moment her glance drooped, a faint color tinged her cheeks. "I--wouldn't dare face it alone. I couldn't. But you're tired--sick." He nodded. "You must lie down and sleep, and get to be yourself again--We can't tell what may happen now at any moment."

"It's the reaction, I suppose. I'm all in. And you?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep if I tried. I feel as if I'd never be able to sleep again. I--I'll sit and watch and--wait."

CHAPTER XVI

That afternoon Mrs. Knight, in a great flutter of excitement, arrived with Jim at the Elegancia. Embracing her daughter in tremulous, almost tearful delight, she burst forth:

"You DEAR! You DARLING! Jim came home not an hour ago and told me everything. I thought I should swoon."

"Told you--everything?" Lorelei flashed a glance at her brother, who made a quick sign of rea.s.surance.