The Penalty Part 21

"Perhaps he's dropped down to Jake's saloon. Wait here. I'll see."

The bell of the outer door clanged with horrid suddenness. And then she heard a piercing loud whistle twice repeated. And a few moments later the sound of a motor.

"All right, Miss Ferris, I've got him."

She drew her cloak together, and joined the legless man on the sidewalk.

"Thank you very much," she said, "and good-by till to-morrow."

The taxicab driver's face had no expression whatever. He who understood driving so well could not make out what the master was driving at.

Blizzard held open the door of the taxi, and Barbara got in. But he did not at once close the door. Instead he turned his head and looked up the street. Then he called out sharply:

"Hurry up! Can't you see the lady's waiting."

One came, running; a tall well-built youth, with an expression on his face of cool, cynical courage and good humor.

"Miss Ferris," said Blizzard, "this young fellow will ride in with you if you don't mind. You can drop him when you get out of the East Side, and reach your own part of the city. He will see that no harm comes to you. If you ask him questions he will answer them. Otherwise he will not speak unless you wish."

The youth grinned a little sheepishly, and Barbara made room for him on the seat beside her.

"He will answer for your safety," continued the legless man, "with his ears. Where to?"

She gave the number of the house at which she was to dine, and the legless man repeated it to the driver.

"Good-night, Mr. Blizzard, and thank you."

"Good-night, Miss Ferris, and welcome."

The legless man watched the taxicab until it had rounded the corner of Marrow Lane. Then he looked upward at the stars for a while. Then he swung slowly and wearily back into his rookery, and having extinguished the light, sat for a long time in the dark.

What was it that had come over the man to let his victim escape when she was so mercilessly in his power? Ask the stars to which he turned. Ask the darkness in which he sits, alone, thinking. Better, perhaps, ask the man's warped and tormented soul.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.... "Here I wishes you salutations ..."]

It seems that while he sat in his office waiting for her, a champion rose up to defend her, a champion in his own heart. A champion who made such headway against the brute's lawless and beastly intention as to overthrow it.

Blizzard was in the power of that which all his mature life he had feared more than hanging or the electric chair, more even than prisons.

He had fallen quietly, even gently, in love.

"I'm not going to ask you any questions," said Barbara, "because I don't think of any. But if you like to talk, please do."

Without comment or preamble the youth who was to answer for her safety with his ears, began to talk.

"Might have knocked me over with a feather," he said, "to find a lady like you sitting in a cab in front o' Blizzard's place. At first look I says to myself: 'One o' these high-fliers I've heard talk about that likes to fly low.' Then I flings your eyes one penetrating peep, and says to myself: ''Spect she ain't one o' that kind.' And I make out just this about you that you're O.K. from A to Xylophone, and I takes this opportunity to remark aloud to myself that I don't know what your game is, and it's none o' my haterogeneous business, but if I was you I'd cut Marrow Lane out o' my itenerary, and stay home nights playin' a quiet rubber o' tiddle winks-the-barber."

Barbara laughed gayly. "Everybody," she said, "thinks that my friend, Mr. Blizzard, is a very bad man. But he does nothing to prove it. He has been very considerate of me in every way."

"Did I say anything against Blizzard? You'll tell him I did? Not you.

And I did not. If it _wasn't_ for him, I says, Marrow Lane _would_ be h.e.l.l's kitchen, and on the chanct that he ain't always going to be on the spot, nor me, cut it out, I says. But," continued the talkative youth, "in case you don't cut it out, in case you're ever in trouble down our way you take this," bluntly he handed her a small, dark metal whistle, "and blow her good. I knows the note, and if my ears is on the job, you gets help. You gets it sudden. You gets it good. And here, without fear or comment, I leaves you."

He signalled to the driver to stop. They had reached the southern boundary of Washington Square. Barbara held out her hand. She was greatly taken with her escort.

"And whom," she said, "am I thanking for the whistle?"

"Kid Shannon."

"Don't tell me," said Barbara, "that _you're_ the man who put Hook Hammersley out in the third!"

"A right to the solar plexus," said Kid Shannon simply, "to bring him in range and a left to the jaw. Even his friends admits that he begun to take his gloves off while he was still in the air. But I'm in the saloon business now, if it's all the same to you, having been light-weight champion, and spoke a monologue over three circuits--nice-behaved ladies and gentlemen o' both s.e.xes always welcome, pay as you consume; but for you or any friends o' yours the drinks will be on the house."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wilmot Allen took her into dinner, and looked much love at her, and talked much nonsense.]

He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.

"Lady," he said, "what I've poured in jest, drink in earnest. All that's yellow isn't b.u.t.ter. But if anybody was to ask you--say, a man who shall be as nameless as he is legless--what I says to you during our discursive promenaid, you answer back and say, 'Kid Shannon, whenever I speaks to him, merely says, "Ha! Hum!"--_or words to that effect_.' Here I wishes you salutations, and may your life contain nothing but times when you looks and feels your best."

Barbara shook hands with him again. "Come to 17 McBurney Place," she said, "some morning. Ask for Miss Ferris, and see what you think of the bust she's making of Mr. Blizzard." She smiled mischievously. "He's supposed to represent the devil just after falling into h.e.l.l."

Shannon nodded with complete understanding. "Then," said he, "I bet he looks a ringer for Hook Hammersley that time he hit the resin."

"Thank you for protecting me," said Barbara, "and for the whistle. Will you tell the man to hurry, please? Thank you! Good-by."

She was very late to her dinner, but much too amused with recent events to care. And n.o.body could have made her believe that her going to Blizzard's place had been fraught with terrible peril. She prized the whistle that Kid Shannon had given her, and resolved that some time she would adventure again into his part of the city, and see if she could bring him running to her side.

"I am sorry I am late," said Barbara, "but I couldn't help it." She vouchsafed no further explanation, and because she was so young and beautiful all those who had been kept waiting forgave her.

Wilmot Allen took her in to dinner, and looked much love at her, and talked much nonsense. He was, indeed, so gay and foolish that she imagined that he must have got himself into trouble again.

XVII

Blizzard was an acute student of human nature. And a certain softening in Barbara's manner toward him was proof that she had learned his story from her father, and no longer regarded him as a stranger off the streets, but as a human being definitely connected with her outlook upon life. Still, the suggestion that their relations had changed did not come from him, for he knew that pity or sympathy given by request lacks the potency of that which is spontaneously offered. So he held his peace in order that Barbara might be the first to speak, and during those days his heart became filled with mad hopes for the future.

Upon one thing he was determined, that when in the course of events Barbara should touch upon her father's criminal mistake, he would conceal, as something precious from a thief, the hatred and vengefulness that were in him, and unroll for her benefit a character n.o.ble and forgiving. He was content, or appeared content, day after day, for a number of hours, to be with her, and to play the hypocrite so ably as to defy detection.

And Barbara, knowing how the man had been abused, guessing how he must have suffered, and still suffered, came to look upon him, not indeed as upon a person wholly n.o.ble, but as upon one who, with an impulse in the right direction, had in him possibilities of great n.o.bility.

Just as a fine motor-car, perfect in mechanism, punctures a tire and is stalled by the side of the road, so works of genius like Barbara's head of Blizzard do not progress in one swift rush from start to finish.

There were whole mornings during which it seemed that things went backward instead of forward, and when she was so discouraged that, had it not been for the legless man's almost fiery confidence in her ability to overcome all obstacles, she must have taken a hammer and pounded her fine sketch back into the lump of clay from which it had been evolved.

Blizzard's eyes had undergone a most thorough schooling. They had learned, to the flicker of an eyelid, when Barbara was going to look their way, and at such times were careful not to meet her eyes. When, however, they knew her to be intent for a period upon the work and not the model, they studied her always with zest, and always with more and more understanding.

Suddenly, one day, after he had been sitting motionless for half an hour, the beggar broke his pose.