The Incendiary Part 26

At last she had found an officer who recollected "something of such a young man as she described." He "couldn't swear to it," but "had an idea he noticed him." In fact, his recollection grew vaguer and vaguer the more they tried to make it specific, and to Emily's chagrin, when they brought him to the jail, he a.s.serted positively that Robert was not the man. This disappointment was sharpened tenfold by her meeting Inspector McCausland, pa.s.sing out of the corridor, arm in arm with a car conductor.

"I am certain that was my pa.s.senger," the conductor was saying. To have her own failure and McCausland's success thus brought into contact accentuated both and gave Emily a miserable day.

The case of the old chemist was not so bad, and besides, was none of Emily's doing. John Davidson, the marshal, had taken up s.h.a.garach's theory of Harry Arnold's guilt with remarkable zeal and had borrowed one of the photographs, so as to see if he could be of use. One day he came in, greatly excited, and asked for the lawyer.

"Got some evidence that'll surprise you, brother," said the marshal.

"Then it must be extraordinary," answered s.h.a.garach.

"What do you think that young rascal did?"

"Who?"

"Arnold. Went to a chemist, a friend of mine, fellow-townsman, too, Phineas Fowler, and bought a big heap of combustible powder, a day or two before the fire. Sprinkled it over the whole room, probably."

"He wasn't so foolish as to leave his name, however?"

"Oh, Phineas knew the photograph. Spotted him right away when I fetched her out. Lucky I took it now, wan't it? 'That's the man,' says Phineas."

"I believe I have your friend's address already," said s.h.a.garach, and in two or three days he was paying a long-delayed visit to Phineas Fowler.

Amid the compound odor of chemicals sat a shriveled pantaloon, with a long, thin beard whose two forks he kept pulling and stroking. s.h.a.garach was about to state his business, when a stranger at the window came forward and interrupted him.

"The young man who bought the combustion powder was identified in jail yesterday," said Inspector McCausland, smiling. "It was only Floyd, on that matter of the bomb."

That matter of the bomb! Perhaps it would be harder to explain than Emily thought.

But McCausland was not always out beating the bush for evidence. Occasionally the mountain went to Mahomet. The reward of $5,000, which Harry Arnold had advertised, drew a dribbling stream of callers to the inspector's office. There was the veiled lady, who had seen the crime with the eyes of her soul, and would accept a small fee for a clairvoyant seance, and the lady with green gla.s.ses, whose card announced her as "Phoebe Isingla.s.s, metaphysician." The moderation of her terms could only be accounted for by her scientific interest in the matter. She asked only $1,000 if she proved Floyd insane, $500 if she proved him sane, and $100 (merely as a compensation for her time) if the case baffled her skill.

Prof. I. Noah Little, the conchologist, paid McCausland the honor of a call and even brought his whelk-sh.e.l.l with him. With this occult instrument at his ear he had been known to make the most remarkable prophecies, declaring to gullible girls the names of their future spouses, and even portending the great snowfall of May 21 in the year 1880.

As for suggestions by mail, the office porter's spine grew bent with emptying the waste-basket which received them. Hypnotism was the favorite explanation with a large majority of the correspondents, followed by a somnambulism and various ingenious theories of accident. The pope and the czar were named as authors, and the freemasons were accused in one epistle of a plot to burn up the ocean with some diabolical explosive, to procure which they had all sold their souls to the devil, though what this had to do with the Floyd case was a greater mystery than the fire itself.

Out of all this chaff the inspector sifted a solitary grain. One morning he was joking in the office with Hardy, Johnson and Smith, three of his brothers-in-b.u.t.tons. Hardy handled sneak-thieves and shoplifters, Johnson swindlers of a higher order, such as confidence men, and Smith the gangs of forgers and counterfeiters. They were all, like McCausland, common-looking men. This enabled them to slouch through life quietly, taking observations by the way.

"Well, d.i.c.k," said Johnson, "I hear you've been appointed confessor-general to Col. Mainwaring's sinners."

This was received with a hearty laugh, for they were a jolly four, these men of iron.

"That arson case is a puzzler," put in Smith. "Why didn't you send a bottle of the smoke to Sherlock Holmes?"

"With a blank label," added Johnson, "for the incendiary's name."

"Would he notice such an A B C riddle?" laughed Hardy.

"A lady for Mr. McCausland," announced the mulatto policeman, and the brothers-in-b.u.t.tons quickly found other business.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

HONEY, NOT WITHOUT STING.

She looked so timid and demure, with the blue straw bonnet which framed her sweet face, the red band lettered in gold, "Salvation Army."

Eyes, lifted slowly, of deep, dark blue, and the level brows laid over them for a foil. Beautiful eyes, we male observers say in our rough, generic fashion, but the finer perception of our sisters discriminates more closely. Not the iris alone makes the beauty of eyes. Lashes long and thick, lids of bewitching droop, brows penciled in the bow curve, any of these may be the true feature that starts our exclamation of delight. But in Miss Serena Lamb (as the girl gave her name) nearly all these marks were blended, and they overhung a feature which used to be fashionable and is still, when perfect, divine--the rosebud mouth.

She might well be timid in those surroundings--revolvers and handcuffs to right of her, medals and canes to left; shutter-cutters, winches, chisels, diamond drills, skeleton keys, wax molds, jimmies, screws, in the gla.s.s case in front--an elaborate outfit of burglar's tools, the trophies of McCausland's hunting expeditions, for the inspector's specialty was burglary. On one side the portrait of the true Bill Dobbs looked out from the center of a congenial group, and a tiny plush case kept the file made from a watch-spring with which the famous Barney Pease had cut his way to liberty. All this was formidable enough in itself, to say nothing of the huge bloodhound that lay half-asleep, with his jowl on the hearthstone.

"I thought I ought to tell you," said Miss Lamb, modestly, "although it may not be of importance."

"And yet it may," said the inspector, politely. "We often work from the merest trifles."

"It concerns the fire in Prof. Arnold's house."

"Ah!"

"You know our labors often bring sinners back to the fold and many of them insist on unburdening their past misdeeds to us. It is very distressing to hear, but it seems to ease their consciences."

McCausland mentally registered a great broad mark in her favor. She had not begun by asking for the reward.

"One day a young convert of ours came to my house and spent an hour with me. We sung hymns and conversed, and I truly believe he has heard the word. Hosanna! Alleluia!"

McCausland fidgeted a little at these transports, but the sweet face in the blue bonnet kept him respectful.

"I am young," she hardly looked 18, "but I strove earnestly with him that night. Moved by the spirit, he told me a guilty story, which I put aside until reading about your case stirred my memory, and I felt in duty bound to relate it. Alleluia!"

"Proceed, Miss Lamb."

"The young convert had been in his early days a locksmith and a great sinner before the world. One day a stranger proposed to him a reward if he should enter a certain room and open a safe which it contained. The temptation was great and he yielded, for he was poor in the riches of earth, and knew not then of the treasures of heaven. Alleluia! Praise!

"Weakly he consented to accompany the stranger, and on a certain Sunday, during the early hours of evening, suffered himself to be led into the room, where he found himself alone with the stranger. It was the name of this man and the description he gave me of the room which led me afterward to think that his action might have a connection with your case."

"What name?"

"Robert Floyd."

McCausland took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end.

"And how did he describe the room?"

"A library, he said, with a bird cage before one window and a desk in the corner."

"And the safe?"

"He could not open it at first, but tried again and again. Something alarmed them, however, or so I gathered. For you must know his accent was very hard to follow and--and"--(Serena blushed)--"he was very much agitated while he told me. But I gathered that they were interrupted and put off their wicked work."

"I must see this young convert. He may have sinned to good purpose that time."

"There comes the strange part of it. Since he made the confession I have not seen him again. He has not come to our meetings, as he used. Perhaps he has fallen back into the evil ways of the worldly minded. Perhaps the wicked ones have punished him."

"The description is certainly similar," said McCausland, shutting his right eye, so as to fix more keenly on his visitor's face the other, which was the one reputed microscopic in its powers.

"So it seemed to me, reading the papers, which are full of profane sayings, alas! But where sin is there must be the workers in the vineyard."

"I am glad you read them and you did well to come. But--do you know the convert's name? Without some clew, I fear----"

The young girl hesitated awhile, then answered: "Aronson!"

McCausland started. It was not a common name.

"A young man, you say? And spoke with an accent?"

"Yes, slightly."

"Can it be s.h.a.garach's man?" said McCausland to himself, reaching for the city directory. "There was something shady about his record." Then he rung a bell.

"Have the criminal docket looked up about four years ago for a case against one Aronson--larceny of an overcoat, I believe," he said to the mulatto officer.

"That was all," said Miss Lamb, arising to go.

"One moment," said McCausland, running his forefinger up the directory page. "Was his first name Saul?"

"I don't remember. I remember very little about him."

"'Saul Aronson, law student.' Let's look farther back," said McCausland, restoring the 1895 volume to the shelf; "'94, '93, '92, '91," he drew out the last. "It would be queer," he said to himself, "if Floyd's junior counsel should turn out to be an accomplice."

"Aronson," he read aloud. "Isaac, Jacob, Marks--Saul! 'Saul Aronson, locksmith'!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

A BACK-St.i.tCH.

This was how Aronson made the acquaintance of Serena Lamb. One day there resounded through the Ghetto (where Aronson lived) the pounding of a violent drum. Tum, tum, tum! Tum, tum, tum! Tumtyty, Tumtyty! Tum, tum, tum! And every now and then its ba.s.s companion marked the ictuses with a cavernous "Boom!" Then Moses and Samuel ceased their buying and selling for a few moments and the coats, vests and trousers which draped their window-fronts swung idly in the wind. And the little Samuels swarmed from their hiding-places till both curbstones were fringed two deep with humanity, eying the musical invaders. For the notes of the bugle burst out after this percussion prelude and a mixed choir of voices lifted a strange refrain.

Motley singers they were! Shabbily dressed men, with exaltation in their faces, and women of all ages and types, uniform only in their costumes. Raising the song, they clapped their hands together, like bacchants or chorybantes dashing cymbal on cymbal in the ecstasy of the dance. But such bacchants! Bacchants in blue bonnets, like grandmother's sundown! Bacchants with pure faces of undefiled girlhood! Bacchants with crone-faces all wrinkled and yellow! And away at the rear, chanting with might and main, though bent nearly double under the ba.s.s-drum which rested on his back, proudly marched Pineapple Jupiter.

Frowns gathered on the foreheads of Moses and Samuel when the import of this procession became clear, and many a portly Rachel clucked warningly to her brood. But youth is frivolous and inquisitive even in Israel; so the square was jammed with onlookers when the army set up its standard in the very heart of the Ghetto. True, not all these were children of the tribe. The slurred consonants of the Italian, vainly trying to smooth and liquefy our rugged tongue, were heard; the m.u.f.fled nasals of the Portuguese; the virile drawl of the Celt; and a youthful accent which seemed to be a resultant of all this polyglot mixture. And to these others also the army was an abomination even as to Samuel and Moses.

Therefore, when the music ceased and the army formed in a wide ring with hands joined sisterly and brotherly, a great pandemonium took up and prolonged the last note of the dying bugle. The c.o.c.k crew, the cat called and the bulldog barked at these devoted soldiers. But they only blessed their enemies and danced round and round as if rejoicing at persecution. Whereat the mult.i.tude fringing their circle danced with them, too, and staid Saul Aronson, who was pa.s.sing, found himself whirled perforce in a maelstrom of larking boys, full-grown hoodlums and petticoated hobbledehoys.

When the first sister stepped forth to give her "testimony" the face beneath her bonnet compelled silence. Her voice was gentle, her figure pet.i.te. Her eyebrows lay across her forehead straight and dark, and she spoke from a rosebud mouth. No wonder the nearest onlookers leaned forward and the idlers on the outskirts inclined their heads to one side and hollowed their hands at their ears so as to catch the utterance which promised so fairly to their eyes.

To Saul Aronson it was a vision of paradise. The lashes of her modestly drooped eyes lay in dark half-moons on her cheek, but once when she lifted them a blue light seemed to flash down into his very heart; and that organ, amorphous before, grew suddenly crystal--a great blood-red ruby which he longed to lay at her feet. This was what she said, this lily of the mora.s.s: "I give thanks to the Lord,"--her utterance was slow, her shrill voice pierced the stillness, "that He has led me away from my sins."

"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.

"That He has poured into my heart the grace of His love and made manifest the wonder of His works. Are ye weary, sinners, weary of the way ye tread? Oh, come to the true way, where ye shall find life and light and joy and peace, as I have found it."

"Bress de name ob de Lord!" said Pineapple Jupiter, loudly. Whereat several t.i.ttered and a discreet sister whispered "Hush!"

"It is not to-day for which we live or the things of to-day--not for bread, or for gold, or for fame, which are perishable things. Not for to-day nor for to-morrow should we strive, but for eternity! Not for the approval of men, but of Him who is the just Judge everlasting. Holy! Holy! Holy!"

"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.

"It is written in the word, which cannot lie, that the keys of the kingdom are given to Peter. Therefore, when ye go forth to the labor of your days, ask yourselves not what will men say, but what will Peter say when I knock at the golden door for admittance. Will he welcome me as a true child or will he spurn me to the outer darkness? Ask yourselves this, oh, sinners, each and all. What will Peter say, Joseph? What will Peter say, John? What will Peter say, Christian soul?"

This conclusion seemed to be the refrain of a hymn which the circle took up: "What will Peter say, Christian soul, When the last great trumpet sounds?"

The trombone here drew forth a sepulchral note, representing, no doubt, the trump of doom, and Saul Aronson could almost feel its vibrations in the earth beneath him. He could have pummeled the irreverent knot of gamins who mimicked it grotesquely. Such courage, such loveliness, such sincerity, imposed reverence even for opposite opinions. Never before had he seen their performance in such a light as now. For performance it was. One after another of the brethren stepped into the circle and recited "testimony" to the jeering crowd around. Each testimony was followed by a hymn, in regular alternation. Not even the curiosity about the different sisters and brothers could prevent this evangel from becoming monotonous. So the captain varied it with more and more ecstatic exhibitions.

"Volunteers to clap hands!" he would call and four or five brothers jumped into the middle, clapping hands to the verses of a simple hymn, repeated ten or fifteen times. Brisker and brisker the tempo became, till the captain and his volunteers found themselves galloping around the ring, with sweet bonneted faces eagerly chanting their accompaniment. Aronson marveled but he did not sneer. For his gaze was on the rosebud mouth, whose "Alleluias" (adapted from his own liturgy, he knew) seemed to him the sweetest music mortal throat ever gave forth, the distilled honey of sound.

After more than an hour of such missionary effort, the captain called for a show of converts. "Hands up, all that have the love of the Lord in their hearts!"

Two seafaring men and a darky had the courage to show their palms, and they were standing very near the circle.

"How many souls love Jesus who died on the cross?"

Aronson, still at his post, felt a traitorous gladness when a dozen more of the crowd gave the signal of a.s.sent. This meager harvest of souls was the result of their labors. Then Pineapple Jupiter again bent his back under the heavy ba.s.s-drum, and the army reformed. Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tumtyty, boom! The ringing bugle revived the languishing interest of the mob. One Jew of the Jews followed the music for nearly a mile. When he finally fell to the rear the rosebud mouth was still singing: "What will Peter say, Christian soul?"

and he felt as if a great light had come to him and then vanished again, leaving a deeper darkness than ever.

Next morning he awoke with a rapid pulse. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" he asked as he drew on his garments, and when he sat down to copy a brief for s.h.a.garach, "What will Peter say, Aronson?" the question again recurred. Strangely enough, it always took the clear, shrill accent of the girl. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the prayer for success he offered, when a week later, he mustered up courage to cross the mission threshold and ask Jupiter her name.

From that day Saul Aronson was an altered youth. The least beat of a drum in the Ghetto found him ready to quit dinner or company or work and fly out of the house with a hasty s.n.a.t.c.h at his hat in the entry.

Sometimes he returned with a rueful look and then his mother knew it was only the Garibaldi guard parading. But at other times it was a subject of remark how long he stayed and how moody he returned.

There was a family living in the rear of the Aronsons, with a divine little 8-year-old girl. Saul knew she was divine, although he had never seen anything but the back of her head. For at noontime when he came to dinner, or in the evening when he returned from work, she would be sitting in the swing her father had built for her, with her back toward him--swinging, singing, in blissful ignorance of the eyes that doted on her through the slats of Saul Aronson's blinds. She had one song of "the Savior" which she delighted to croon. Her voice was like that of a fledgling lark and her carols were made sweet with little improvised turns which often threatened to fail but always came out true--so sure was the child-singer's instinct, feeling the way before her. Nothing reminded him of Serena so much as this earthly angel, and he loved her for the image she called up.

Serena always looked at him. That is to say, her blue eyes pierced him through, accused him, reproved him, every time they were lifted toward the onlookers. But it was not until the day he raised his hand among the converts that she noted down his face for remembrance. He knew its features were not fascinating, especially the red mustache that bristled out horizontally from his lips, with the ends trimmed off as clean as a scrubbing-brush. But no one else, he felt sure, could worship her with such reverent adoration; and now she had deigned to notice him. What if Simon Rabofsky scowled at his raising his hand? Not "What will Simon Rabofsky say?" but "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the question of questions. But I fear Peter was confused somewhat oddly in Saul's mind with the possessor of a certain rosebud mouth.

One night Aronson dreamed of Serena Lamb as his bride and the next morning announced his conversion to Pineapple Jupiter, at the same time asking for an introduction to blue eyes.