The Conquest of Canaan Part 28

"But, Joe, if they git me, what'll she do? She can't hold her job no longer--not after this...."

The door opened, and the two men came out, Joe with his hand on the other's shoulder. The splotches had gone from Happy's face, leaving it an even, deathly white. He did not glance toward Ariel; he gazed far beyond all that was about him; and suddenly she was aware of a great tragedy. The little man's chin trembled and he swallowed painfully; nevertheless he bore himself upright and dauntlessly as the two walked slowly to the door, like men taking part in some fateful ceremony. Joe stopped upon the landing at the head of the stairs, but Happy Fear went on, clumping heavily down the steps.

"It's all right, Happy," said Joe. "It's better for you to go alone.

Don't you worry. I'll see you through. It will be all right."

"Just as YOU say, Joe," a breaking voice came back from the foot of the steps,--"just as YOU say!"

The lawyer turned from the landing and went rapidly to the window beside Ariel. Together they watched the shabby little figure cross the street below; and she felt an infinite pathos gathering about it as it paused for a moment, hesitating, underneath the arc-lamp at the corner.

They saw the white face lifted as Happy Fear gave one last look about him; then he set his shoulders st.u.r.dily, and steadfastly entered the door of the jail.

Joe took a deep breath. "Now we'll go," he said. "I must be quick."

"What was it?" she asked, tremulously, as they reached the street.

"Can you tell me?"

"Nothing--just an old story."

He had not offered her his arm, but walked on hurriedly, a pace ahead of her, though she came as rapidly as she could. She put her hand rather timidly on his sleeve, and without need of more words from her he understood her insistence.

"That was the husband of the woman who told you her story," he said.

"Perhaps it would shock you less if I tell you now than if you heard it to-morrow, as you will. He's just shot the other man."

"Killed him!" she gasped.

"Yes," he answered. "He wanted to run away, but I wouldn't let him.

He has my word that I'll clear him, and I made him give himself up."

XVI

THE TWO CANAANS

When Joe left Ariel at Judge Pike's gate she lingered there, her elbows upon the uppermost cross-bar, like a village girl at twilight, watching his thin figure vanish into the heavy shadow of the maples, then emerge momentarily, ghost-gray and rapid, at the lighted crossing down the street, to disappear again under the trees beyond, followed a second later by a brownish streak as the mongrel heeled after him. When they had pa.s.sed the second corner she could no longer be certain of them, although the street was straight, with flat, draughtsmanlike Western directness: both figures and Joe's quick footsteps merging with the night. Still she did not turn to go; did not alter her position, nor cease to gaze down the dim street. Few lights shone; almost all the windows of the houses were darkened, and, save for the summer murmurs, the faint creak of upper branches, and the infinitesimal voices of insects in the gra.s.s, there was silence: the pleasant and somnolent hush, swathed in which that part of Canaan crosses to the far side of the eleventh hour.

But Ariel, not soothed by this balm, sought beyond it, to see that unquiet Canaan whither her old friend bent his steps and found his labor and his dwelling: that other Canaan where peace did not fall comfortably with the coming of night; a place as alien in habit, in thought, and almost in speech as if it had been upon another continent.

And yet--so strange is the duality of towns--it lay but a few blocks distant.

Here, about Ariel, as she stood at the gate of the Pike Mansion, the houses of the good (secure of salvation and daily bread) were closed and quiet, as safely shut and sound asleep as the churches; but deeper in the town there was light and life and merry, evil industry,--screened, but strong to last until morning; there were haunts of haggard merriment in plenty: surrept.i.tious chambers where roulette-wheels swam beneath dizzied eyes; ill-favored bars, reached by devious ways, where quavering voices offered song and were harshly checked; and through the burdened air of this Canaan wandered heavy smells of musk like that upon Happy Fear's wife, who must now be so pale beneath her rouge. And above all this, and for all this, and because of all this, was that one resort to which Joe now made his way; that haven whose lights burn all night long, whose doors are never closed, but are open from dawn until dawn--the jail.

There, in that desolate refuge, lay Happy Fear, surrendered st.u.r.dily by himself at Joe's word. The picture of the little man was clear and fresh in Ariel's eyes, and though she had seen him when he was newly come from a thing so terrible that she could not realize it as a fact, she felt only an overwhelming pity for him. She was not even horror-stricken, though she had shuddered. The pathos of the shabby little figure crossing the street toward the lighted doors had touched her. Something about him had appealed to her, for he had not seemed wicked; his face was not cruel, though it was desperate. Perhaps it was partly his very desperation which had moved her. She had understood Joe, when he told her, that this man was his friend; and comprehended his great fear when he said: "I've got to clear him! I promised him."

Over and over Joe had reiterated: "I've got to save him! I've got to!" She had answered gently, "Yes, Joe," hurrying to keep up with him. "He's a good man," he said. "I've known few better, given his chances. And none of this would have happened except for his old-time friendship for me. It was his loyalty--oh, the rarest and absurdest loyalty!--that made the first trouble between him and the man he shot.

I've got to clear him!"

"Will it be hard?"

"They may make it so. I can only see part of it surely. When his wife left the office, she met Cory on the street. You saw what a pitiful kind of fool she was, irresponsible and helpless and feather-brained.

There are thousands of women like that everywhere--some of them are 'Court Beauties,' I dare say--and they always mix things up; but they are most dangerous when they're like Claudine, because then they live among men of action like Cory and Fear. Cory was artful: he spent the day about town telling people that he had always liked Happy; that his ill feeling of yesterday was all gone; he wanted to find him and shake his hand, bury past troubles and be friends. I think he told Claudine the same thing when they met, and convinced the tiny brainlet of his sincerity. Cory was a man who 'had a way with him,' and I can see Claudine flattered at the idea of being peace-maker between 'two such nice gen'lemen as Mr. Cory and Mr. Fear.' Her commonest a.s.severation--quite genuine, too--is that she doesn't like to have the gen'lemen making trouble about her! So the poor imbecile led him to where her husband was waiting. All that Happy knew of this was in her cry afterwards. He was sitting alone, when Cory threw open the door and said, 'I've got you this time, Happy!' His pistol was raised but never fired. He waited too long, meaning to establish his case of 'self-defence,' and Fear is the quickest man I know. Cory fell just inside the door. Claudine stumbled upon him as she came running after him, crying out to her husband that she 'never meant no trouble,' that Cory had sworn to her that he only wanted to shake hands and 'make up.'

Other people heard the shot and broke into the room, but they did not try to stop Fear; he warned them off and walked out without hindrance, and came to me. I've got to clear him."

Ariel knew what he meant: she realized the actual thing as it was, and, though possessed by a strange feeling that it must all be medieval and not possibly of to-day, understood that he would have to fight to keep his friend from being killed; that the unhappy creature who had run into the office out of the dark stood in high danger of having his neck broken, unless Joe could help him. He made it clear to her that the State would kill Happy if it could; that it would be a point of pride with certain deliberate men holding office to take the life of the little man; that if they did secure his death it would be set down to their efficiency, and was even competent as campaign material. "I wish to point out," Joe had heard a candidate for re-election vehemently orate, "that in addition to the other successful convictions I have named, I and my a.s.sistants have achieved the sending of three men to the gallows during my term of office!"

"I can't tell yet," said Joe, at parting. "It may be hard. I'm so sorry you saw all this. I--"

"Oh NO!" she cried. "I want to UNDERSTAND!"

She was still there, at the gate, her elbows resting upon the cross-bar, when, a long time after Joe had gone, there came from the alley behind the big back yard the minor chordings of a quartette of those dark strollers who never seem to go to bed, who play by night and playfully pretend to work by day:

"You know my soul is a-full o' them-a-trub-bils, Ev-ry mawn!

I cain' a-walk withouten I stum-bils!

Then le'ss go on-- Keep walkin' on!

These times is sow'owful, an' I am pow'owful Sick an' fo'lawn!"

She heard a step upon the path behind her, and, turning, saw a white-wrapped figure coming toward her.

"Mamie?" she called.

"Hush!" Mamie lifted a warning hand. "The windows are open," she whispered. "They might hear you!"

"Why haven't you gone to bed?"

"Oh, don't you see?" Mamie answered, in deep distress,--"I've been sitting up for you. We all thought you were writing letters in your room, but after papa and mamma had gone to bed I went in to tell you good night, and you weren't there, nor anywhere else; so I knew you must have gone out. I've been sitting by the front window, waiting to let you in, but I went to sleep until a little while ago, when the telephone-bell rang and he got up and answered it. He kept talking a long time; it was something about the Tocsin, and I'm afraid there's been a murder down-town. When he went back to bed I fell asleep again, and then those darkies woke me up. How on earth did you expect to get in? Don't you know he always locks up the house?"

"I could have rung," said Ariel.

"Oh--oh!" gasped Miss Pike; and, after she had recovered somewhat, asked: "Do you mind telling me where you've been? I won't tell him--nor mamma, either. I think, after all, I was wrong yesterday to follow Eugene's advice. He meant for the best, but I--"

"Don't think that. You weren't wrong." Ariel put her arm round the other's waist. "I went to talk over some things with Mr. Louden."

"I think," whispered Mamie, trembling, "that you are the bravest girl I ever knew--and--and--I could almost believe there's some good in him, since you like him so. I know there is. And I--I think he's had a hard time. I want you to know I won't even tell Eugene!"

"You can tell everybody in the world," said Ariel, and kissed her.

XVII

MR. SHEEHAN'S HINTS

"Never," said the Tocsin on the morrow, "has this community been stirred to deeper indignation than by the cold-blooded and unmitigated brutality of the deliberate murder committed almost under the very shadow of the Court-house cupola last night. The victim was not a man of good repute, it is true, but at the moment of his death he was in the act of performing a n.o.ble and generous action which showed that he might have become, if he lived, a good and law-fearing citizen. In brief, he went to forgive his enemy and was stretching forth the hand of fellowship when that enemy shot him down. Not half an hour before his death, Cory had repeated within the hearing of a dozen men what he had been saying all day, as many can testify: 'I want to find my old friend Fear and shake hands with him. I want to tell him that I forgive him and that I am ashamed of whatever has been my part in the trouble between us.' He went with that intention to his death. The wife of the murderer has confessed that this was the substance of what he said to her, and that she was convinced of his peaceful intentions.

When they reached the room where her husband was waiting for her, Cory entered first. The woman claims now that as they neared the vicinity he hastened forward at a pace which she could not equal. Naturally, her testimony on all points favoring her husband is practically worthless. She followed and heard the murdered man speak, though what his words were she declares she does not know, and of course the murderer, after consultation with his lawyer, claims that their nature was threatening. Such a statement, in determining the truth, is worse than valueless. It is known and readily proved that Fear repeatedly threatened the deceased's life yesterday, and there is no question in the mind of any man, woman, or child, who reads these words, of the cold blooded nature of the crime. The slayer, who had formerly made a murderous attack upon his victim, lately quarrelled with him and uttered threats, as we have stated, upon his life. The dead man came to him with protestations of friendship and was struck down a corpse.

It is understood that the defence will in desperation set up the theory of self-defence, based on an unsubstantiated claim that Cory entered the room with a drawn pistol. No pistol was found in the room. The weapon with which the deed was accomplished was found upon the person of the murderer when he was seized by the police, one chamber discharged. Another revolver was discovered upon the person of the woman, when she was arrested on the scene of the crime. This, upon being strictly interrogated, she said she had picked up from the floor in the confusion, thinking it was her husband's and hoping to conceal it. The chambers were full and undischarged, and we have heard it surmised that the defence means to claim that it was Cory's. Cory doubtless went on his errand of forgiveness unarmed, and beyond doubt the second weapon belonged to the woman herself, who has an unenviable record.

"The point of it all is plainly this: here is an unquestionable murder in the first degree, and the people of this city and county are outraged and incensed that such a crime should have been committed in their law-abiding and respectable community. With whom does the fault lie? On whose head is this murder? Not with the authorities, for they do not countenance crime. Has it come to the pa.s.s that, counting on juggleries of the law, criminals believe that they may kill, maim, burn, and slay as they list without punishment? Is this to be another instance of the law's delays and immunity for a hideous crime, compa.s.sed by a cunning and cynical trickster of legal technicalities?