The Penalty Part 15

"Do you suppose it would be possible to get her interested in anything besides this sculpture business--before it's too late?"

"Too late?"

"Before she gets a taste of success."

"But will she--ever?"

Wilmot Allen nodded eagerly. "She will," he said. "She is doing a head.

It's far from finished; but even now, in the rough state, it's quite the most exceptional inspired thing you ever saw. She will exhibit it and become famous overnight. I can't bet much--as you may perhaps suspect--but I'll bet all I've got. And of course, once she gets recognition and everybody begins to kow-tow to her--why, good-by, Barbara."

"Still," said Dr. Ferris, "if she's developing a real talent, I don't know that I ought to stand in her way. And, besides, we've fought that all out, and," he laughed grimly, "I took my licking like a man."

"Of course," said Allen. "When a girl that ought to go in for marriage and that sort of thing takes to being talented--I call it a tragedy.

But, pa.s.sing that, the model for the head she's doing isn't a proper person. That's what I'm driving at. He's one of the wickedest and most unscrupulous persons in the world. Barbara ought not to speak to him, let alone give him the run of her studio and hobn.o.b with him same as with one of her friends. He's a man too busy with villainy to sit as a model for the fun of sitting. The pay doesn't interest him. And if he shows up every morning at nine and stays all morning, it's only because he's got an axe to grind. He talks. He lays down the law. He appeals to Barbara's mind and imagination; and it's all rather horrible--one of those poison snakes that look like an old rubber boot, and a bird all prettiness, bright colors, innocence, and admiration of how the world is made. Look at it in this way. She makes a great hit with the bust. Who's responsible? Well, the creature that supplied the inspiration, largely.

She'll feel grat.i.tude. He'll take advantage of anything that comes his way. And frankly, Dr. Ferris, I may be making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm worried to death. Suppose I told you that, say, Duane Carter spent hours every day in Barbara's studio?"

Dr. Ferris jumped to his feet, white with anger. "Do you mean to tell me that my daughter is friendly with that person?"

"Oh, no," said Allen calmly. "I think Barbara's new friend is a very much more dangerous person for her to know. Whatever Duane Carter is he wouldn't dare. This other man--"

"Look here, Wilmot"--Dr. Ferris began to pace the room in considerable agitation--"you're an old friend of Barbara's. Is friendliness at the root of your worry, or is it some other feeling, not so disinterested as friendship?"

Wilmot Allen rose to his full height, and Dr. Ferris paused in his pacings. They faced each other.

"If I was any good," said the young man slowly, "if I had any money, if Barbara would have me, I'd marry her to-morrow. But I'm not any good--never was. I haven't any money, hardly ever have had, and Barbara would no more have me of her own free will than she'd take a hammer and smash the bust she's making. So much for motives. Have I disposed of jealousy?"

Dr. Ferris nodded.

"The man," said Allen, "isn't a man. He's a gutter-dog, a gargoyle, half a man. And his position in the city--in the whole country, I think--is so fortified that with the best will in the world the law cannot touch him. Duane Carter--well, he's been a gay boy with the ladies--a bad man if you like--but at least he is not accused by gossip of murder, arson, abduction, and crimes infinitely worse than these. He may have beguiled women, but at least his worst enemy would never suppose that he had trafficked in them. Barbara's model is all the things that you can imagine. And all of them are written in his horrible face. To see them together, friendly, reparteeing, chummy, would turn your stomach--Barbara so exquisite and high-born, and the man, his eyes full of evil fires, sitting like a great toad on the model's chair. And at that--good G.o.d, you might stand it, if he was a whole man! But he isn't.

It's horrible! He has no legs--and you want to stamp on him till he's dead."

Dr. Ferris had turned white as a sheet. "To me," he said quietly, "that is the most horrible form of mutilation. I can't tell you why. It is so.

And you will believe that in my practice I have encountered all sorts.

But who is he?"

"He's a man named Blizzard--he pa.s.ses for a beggar, grinds an organ, sells shoe-laces and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, he's very well off, if not rich. Why don't you visit Barbara's studio to-morrow, look things over, and put a stop to it? You can say things to Barbara that I can't, that no young man can say to a girl. Go as far as you like. Whatever you tell her about him will be true even if you can't prove it. You can make her see what thin ice she's skating on. Or if you can't n.o.body can."

"I'll go to the studio to-morrow," said the surgeon. "I am very much disturbed by what you have told me: the more so because as a physician I have learned how many impossible things are true. Have you told me all you wish to? Or is there more? Do you think," he spoke very steadily, "that Barbara _cares_ for this beast? Such things happen in the world, I know."

"G.o.d forbid," said Allen, "but I think he has a sort of fascination for her, and that she doesn't realize it. You'll let your visit appear casual and accidental, won't you? You won't let Barbara suspect that I had anything to do with it?"

Dr. Ferris promised, and the two parted with mutual good-will; but neither the next morning, nor the morning after that, was Dr. Ferris at liberty to pay a visit to Barbara in her studio. Nominally retired from active practice, and devoting whatever of life should remain to surgical experimentation and theory, the sudden and acute jeopardy of an old friend caused him to put all other considerations aside for the time being, and once more to don the white harness of his profession. For two days Dr. Ferris hardly left his friend's side; on the morning of the third day, quite worn out, his jumping nerves soothed by a small dose of morphine, he called a taxicab, gave Barbara's number in McBurney Place, leaned back against the leather cushions, relaxed his muscles, and fell asleep.

The taxicab and the legless man reached the curb in front of Barbara's studio at the same moment. The driver of the cab lifted one finger to his hat. The legless man nodded, and peering into the cab recognized the handsome features of the sleeping doctor. He smiled, and said to the driver:

"Take him back to his house."

The driver said: "If I do he'll enter a complaint."

"No," said the legless man; "you will tell him when he wakes that he gave you the order himself. He won't know whether he did or not. So-long."

The driver once more lifted one finger to his hat and obediently drove off.

It was very silent in McBurney Place; the double row of ancient stables made over into studio-buildings appeared deserted. The legless man could not but flatter himself that his actions had been un.o.bserved. He chuckled, and with even more than his usual deft alacrity climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio.

Meanwhile, however, a young man and a small boy, looking through the curtains of the latter's bedroom window, had been witnesses of all that pa.s.sed.

"That was Miss Barbara's father in the taxi," said Harry West.

"Looks like he'd been out all night," said Bubbles.

"He may have been drugged."

"Doubt it. The taxi turned north at the corner. If the ole 'un had had the doctor drugged o' purpose he'd 'a' sent him south where he could use him. I guess he's sent him home."

"He doesn't want his morning with Miss Barbara interrupted."

Harry West sighed and said: "I don't smoke, Bub. Give me a cigarette."

Bubbles accommodated his friend with eagerness.

"And now," said West, "the road's clear to Marrow Lane; better slip down and see if Rose has any word for us. I'll keep a good ear on Blizzard."

Bubbles changed from his b.u.t.tons to his street-jacket, and departed by the back stairs. Harry West took a small automatic pistol from his breast pocket and played with it, but in the expression of the young man's face was nothing bellicose or threatening; only a kind of gentle, patient misery.

He pa.s.sed fifteen minutes in taking quick aims with the little automatic pistol at the roses on the wall-paper. Short of actual target-practice, he knew by experience that this was the best way to keep the hand and eye in touch with each other. He let his thoughts run as they would. And presently he heard the sound of Bubbles's feet upon the back stairs.

"All serene here," said West.

"All serene there," said Bubbles, and he produced a slip of paper upon which Rose had written:

"Don't come so often. You've been noticed. He'll tell me things before long--or wring my neck."

"She worked her hands some," said Bubbles, and he made letters of the deaf and dumb alphabet upon his fingers. "She said O'Hagan's in the city. They had him to eat with them last night. He's growed a beard, and trained off twenty pounds, so's not to be knowed."

The air of revery had left Harry West. "O'Hagan in the East!" he exclaimed, rather with exhilaration than excitement. "Things are coming to a head."

"Yep," said Bubbles, "and we don't know what things is--"

"Bubbles! Oh, Bubbles!"

The boy disappeared in the direction of the studio.

"Mr. Blizzard has gone," said Barbara. "Ask Mr. West if he will speak to me a moment."

Mr. West would; and he, the athlete, the man of trained poise, actually overturned a chair in his willingness.

"Mr. West," she said, "you know all sorts of things about people, don't you? And if you don't know them, you can find them out, can't you?"