The Girl at Central Part 27

"It's all right, is it? There ain't been no harm done?"

After that the men were in a group talking low, the lanterns in their hands sending circles and squares of light over the bushes and the gra.s.s. Presently Farmer Cresset broke away and went to the figure on the ground. He tried to pull him up, but the man squirmed out of his hand and fell back like a meal sack, his face to the earth, the moans coming from him loud and awful.

After a while they put me on something long and hard with a bundle under my head and took me away up the road and through the woods. It was dark and no one said anything, the Cresset boys carrying what I was on and Babbitts walking alongside. As we started I heard someone say the Farmer would stay with Hines and "communicate with the authorities." And then we went swinging off under the trees, the footsteps of the men squashing in the mud. Soon there were lights twinkling through the branches, and just as I saw them and heard a dog bark, and a woman call out, my heart faded away again and that blackness swept over me.

I didn't know till afterwards how long I was sick-weeks it was-lying in Mrs. Cresset's spare room with that blessed woman caring for me like her own daughter. No people in this world were ever better to another than that family was to me. And others were good-it takes sickness and trouble to make you value human nature-for when I got desperate bad Dr.

Fowler came over and took a hand. Mrs. Cresset herself told me that respecting Dr. Graham as she did, she thought I'd never have come through if Dr. Fowler hadn't given himself right up to it, staying in the house for two days the time I was worst. And not a cent would he ever take for it, only a pair of bed slippers I knitted for him while I was getting better.

It was not till I was well along on the upgrade that I heard what happened on that gruesome night. I was still in bed, sitting up in a pink flannel jacket that Anne Hennessey gave me, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows and a bunch of violets scenting up the room. Babbitts had brought them and it was he that told me, sitting in a rocker by the bedside and speaking very quiet and gentle so as not to give me any shock. For without my knowledge, just like an instrument of fate, it was I that had solved the Hesketh mystery.

Neither man nor woman had killed Sylvia Hesketh. The murderer was the dancing bear.

The man they found on the ground beside me that night was its owner, t.i.to Malti, the dago I had seen nearly three months before making the bear dance at Longwood, and the man Babbitts and I had seen that afternoon on the hill. Hines and Farmer Cresset carried him-he was unable to walk at first-to the Wayside Arbor and in the bar there he told them his story.

He had been a.s.sociated with the acrobats for several years, working over the country with them during the summer and lying up in small towns for the winter. That spring, when the company went out on their tour, he had noticed that his bear (he called it Bruno and spoke of it like a human) showed signs of bad temper. It was a big strong beast, but was getting old and a viciousness that it had always had was growing on it. He kept quiet about it as he hoped to get through the season without trouble and knew, if the company thought it was dangerous, they wouldn't stand for having it around. All the summer he wandered with them, guarding the bear carefully, never leaving it unmuzzled, and sleeping beside it at night.

Toward the end of the season it began to grow worse. It had tried to attack one of the acrobats and there had been a quarrel. He saw he'd have to part from them, but they patched up the fight and he stayed on for their last performance at Longwood, where the business was always good.

After that they separated, the company going into winter quarters at Bloomington and Malti telling them he would take Bruno across country and make a little extra money at the farms and villages. He did intend to do this but he really wanted to get off by himself, watch the animal, and try and gain his old control over it.

He started, working round by the turnpike, letting Bruno perform when he seemed good tempered, but a good part of the time being afraid to. In this way he made enough money to keep himself, sleeping when the nights were bad, in barns and on the lee side of hayricks, the bear chained to him.

On the night of the murder he had got round as far as the Wayside Arbor.

His intention had been to take his supper there-he knew the place well-and have the bear dance for the Italian customers. But by the time he reached the Arbor he didn't dare. For some days Bruno had been sullen and savage-that afternoon Malti had had to beat him with the iron-spiked staff he always carried. The poor man said he was half crazy with fright and misery. He told Hines and Cresset, who said he was as simple as a young child, that what between his fear of getting into trouble with the authorities and his fear of losing the bear which was all he had in the world, he was distracted.

In the afternoon he had begged some food at a farm and with this in his pocket he tracked across the fields and woods to the turnpike near the Firehill Road. Here-it being a lonely spot-he sat down in the shade of the trees that hid him from the highway and ate his supper. As he had been on the tramp for days he was dropping with fatigue and, seeing the bear seemed quiet, he stretched out and with the chain in his hand, had fallen asleep.

He was wakened by a scream-the most awful he had ever heard. Half asleep as he was, he leaped to his feet, feeling in the dark for the chain. It was gone and the bear with it.

The scream had come from the other side of the trees. With his staff in his hand he burst through them and in the darkness saw dimly the shape of that fearful, great beast reared upon its hind legs, with a black thing lying at its feet. He yelled and struck it in the face with the staff and it dropped down to all fours, growling and terrible, but as if the sound of his voice and the blows had cowed it. Then he grabbed for the chain, moving along the ground like a snake, and holding it, knelt and looked at the black thing-the thing the scream had come from.

He raised it and saw the faint white of the face and hands and felt by the clothes it was a woman. He knew the way an enraged bear attacks-rising up to its hind legs and giving a blow with its paw, a blow that if the body it strikes is unprotected, can break bones and tear muscles out of their place. In the dark he felt the woman till his hand came on the trickle of blood on her face. That told him the brute had struck at her head, and sick and trembling, he lit a match and held it low over her. The hat had protected her from the claws; without it they would have torn through the scalp like the teeth of a rake. But when he saw her face and felt of her pulse, he knew that that savage blow had broken her skull and she was dead.

At first he was too paralyzed to think, kneeling there beside her with the bear crouched at the end of his chain, not stirring as if it was scared at what it had done. Then the horn of the Doctor's auto woke him and, clutching the body, he drew back into the shadow. The car pa.s.sed at furious speed, its noise drowning any sound that that strange and awful group might have made. Shaking in every limb he laid his burden on the gra.s.s and tried to compose it, putting back the hat which was torn off, but was caught to the hair by its long pin.

While he was doing this the clouds broke and he was drawing the coat about her when the moon came out bright as day. By its light he saw the pearl necklace and in his own words, "All the badness in his heart came up into his head."

When he told that part of his story he wrung his hands and sobbed, declaring over and over that he was an honest man and a good Catholic.

Never before had he stolen, though often he had gone cold and hungry.

But he knew now that he must kill the bear, and then he would be left an old man without a penny or any way to earn one. "And the pearls," he moaned out, "what are they to the dead? And to me, who must live, they mean riches forever."

He said his hands shook so he couldn't find the clasp and to get at it he pulled open the coat. And then he gave a cry and drew back like he was burnt, for there on the breast of the dead woman, sparkling like a thing of fire, was the cross.

Babbitts said the two men were greatly impressed by the way he acted when he told this. The perspiration broke out on his face and he crossed himself, bowing his head and shuddering. "It was G.o.d's voice," he whispered. "It said: 'Stop, t.i.to; hold your hand. No man can rob the dead.'"

So he closed the coat, folded the arms across the chest and covered all with branches he found in a pile near by. As he moved about the bear watched him, not stirring, as if it knew it was guilty and was waiting to see what he would do to it.

When the work was finished the two of them stole away, as noiseless as shadows. His head was clear enough to think of the footprints and he kept on the gra.s.s till he was near the Firehill Road. He was approaching this when he heard Reddy's horn, and with the bear following, he slipped through a break in the trees into the open s.p.a.ce beyond. Here, huddled into the blackness under the boughs, he saw the car swing past. It went a little way down the road and then stopped and stood for what seemed to him a long time, every now and then the horn sounding. When it finally started again he moved on, the bear padding silently beside him. He said the car came back soon and pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed him a number of times.

Each time he was ready for it, the noise and the lamps warning him of its approach. Crowded up against the bear, he watched it through the branches, all the road bright in front of it where the lamps threw their two long shoots of light.

When they asked him if he wasn't afraid of the bear making some sound he shook his head and said just like a child:

"Bruno? No-he is wise like a man. When I look him in the eye I see he knows he is a murderer and must die, and it makes him very quiet."

He had made up his mind to kill Bruno. As he told the men about it the tears ran down his face, for he said the bear was like his brother. When Reddy had gone, he made off, Bruno walking at the end of the chain behind him, both keeping to the gra.s.s edges of the fields. All night they walked, those two-and strange they must have looked slipping across the moonlit s.p.a.ces, two black shadows moving over the lonesomeness, not a sound from either of them, one leading the other to his execution.

At dawn they entered the woods. There, when the light was clear enough to see, that poor, scared dago killed the bear with the knife he had carried all summer. The rest of the day he spent scooping a grave for him. When he told how he dragged the great body into the hole and covered it with earth, he put his hands over his face, rocking back and forth, and crying like a baby.

After that he went to Bloomington and joined the acrobats, telling them the bear had died. They thought no more about it and welcomed him back, sharing their quarters with him and promising him a place with them in the summer.

But his knowledge of the crime haunted him. Like all those dagoes, he was superst.i.tious and full of queer notions. Babbitts said he was as ignorant as the animal he was so fond of, seeming to think as they couldn't hang the bear they might hang him in its place. He wanted to go to the priest and confess, but when he heard people talking of the murder he was afraid. After a while he couldn't eat or sleep and the torment of his terror and remorse was like to drive him crazy.

Finally he couldn't stand it any more and got the idea that if he could go back to the place and offer up prayers there he might get some relief. He told the acrobats he was going to hunt for work on a farm, left Bloomington and once again walked across the country.

It was night when he reached the region he was bound for, and feeling too weak and sick to go straight to the spot, he went to the Wayside Arbor to beg for food which would give him strength to bear the task he had set himself. They gave him what he asked for and he took it to his old nook under the trees and there in the cold and dark ate ravenously.

Then, just as on that other night, he lay down and the sleep that had left him for so long came back to him.

He never heard us pa.s.s, but I guess without his knowing it we wakened him, for he said he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes, when he heard Babbitts' footsteps as he ran back to the inn.

He listened and, making sure no one else was on the road, got up and began to steal cautiously forward. He felt sure that G.o.d would hear his prayers after he had walked so far and his misery had been so great.

I guess the poor thing was about all in, and was as scared when he came near the place as I was. Of course he had no idea I was in front of him and wasn't following me as I thought. With the trees between, both of us were making for the same spot, the only difference being that while I heard him he never heard me.

What he saw when he broke through the hedge would have terrified anyone, let alone a man in the state he was. For there, just as he had last seen her, lay a woman in a black coat with the moonlight shining on her dead white face-a ghost waiting to accuse him.

They say the shriek he gave was the most awful that man ever heard.

Babbitts, who was on his way back, said it sounded like it came from a lost soul in h.e.l.l. He tried to yell back, but couldn't and ran like a madman, and when he got there saw me lying as if I was dead in the moonlight and a wild, screaming figure crouched on the ground beside me.

The two Hines heard it. Hines picked up a lantern and ran with Mrs.

Hines at his heels. When he came up he found Babbitts kneeling over me, half crazy, thinking I was murdered, too. They felt my pulse and found it was going and sent Mrs. Hines on the run to Cresset's. She lit out, calling and crying as she flew through the woods, and met the Cresset crowd, hiking along with their lanterns, having heard her and not knowing _what_ had happened.

Well-that's the end of my story. Oh, I forgot the reward-_I_ got it. I oughtn't to have for I didn't do anything but fall in a faint, which was the easiest thing I could do. But Mrs. Fowler and the Doctor wouldn't have it any other way, so I gave in. Not that I didn't want to. Believe me, Jew or Gentile gets weak when ten thousand dollars is pressed into her palm. It's invested and I get good interest on it, but I'm saving that up. You never can tell what may happen in this world.

As to the rest of us-the bunch that in one way or another were drawn into the Hesketh mystery-we're all scattered now.

Jack Reddy's not living at Firehill any more. He's taken an apartment in town where the two old Gilseys look after him like he was their only son, and he's studying law in Mr. Whitney's office. Sometimes Sunday he comes to see us, just as cordial and kind and handsome as ever, and it's I that'll be glad when he tells me he's found the right girl-G.o.d bless him!

c.o.kesbury Lodge is sold and c.o.kesbury's living in town, too. They say his part in the Hesketh case sort of finished him. High society wouldn't stand for it, which shows you can't believe all you hear about the idle rich. I've heard that he's seen round a lot with an actress-lady and one of the papers had it he was going to marry her.

The Fowlers went to Europe. They're living in Paris now and I hear from Anne Hennessey, who corresponds with Mrs. Fowler, that they're going to reside there. Anyway, Jim Donahue told me last time I was down at Longwood that Mapleshade was to let.

Annie's got a new job in town, on Fifth Avenue, grand people who never quarrel. She dines with us most every Sunday and we sit till all hours talking over the past, like people who've been in some great disaster and when they get together always drift back to the subject.

Me?-you want to know about me?

Well, I'm living uptown on the West Side in the cutest little flat in New York-five rooms, on a corner, all bright and sunny. And furnished!

Say, I wish I could show them to you. When Mrs. Fowler broke up she gave me a lot of the swellest things. Why, I've got a tapestry in the parlor that cost five hundred dollars and cut gla.s.s you couldn't beat on Fifth Avenue.

It's on 125th Street, near the Subway. We had to be near that for Himself-he likes to stay as late as he can in the morning and get up as quick as he can at night. If you're pa.s.sing that way any time, just drop in. I'd love to see you and have you see my place-and me, too. You'll see the name on the letter-box-Morganthau? Oh, quit your kidding-it's _Babbitts_ now.