The Professor's Mystery Part 22

"Sit down, you dope," the other growled, "let him have it for a while."

Carucci grinned drunkenly, and crammed the handful carelessly into a deep pocket, swaying to his feet.

"Graz'. Alia ri'." His mouth opened loosely, and he slumped to the floor in a heap.

The waiter had come up, and with the giant's help lifted Carucci; and between them they half carried him to a doorway at the side of the room.

They moved for all the world like three boon companions, arm in arm. The door closed behind them, and I glanced around. n.o.body appeared to be concerned in the least; and even Reid, almost dancing with nervousness, no longer attracted attention.

"See here," I said, "did you people drug that fellow, Reid?"

He whirled upon me. "You keep out of this, Crosby," he stuttered; "nothing to do with you, nothing whatever."

"Well," I answered, "Mr. Tabor asked me to keep an eye on him, that's all. What am I to report? What are you going to do with him?"

"Um, humph! That's why you're here, then. Beg pardon, I'm sure, but you startled me. Bad business. Bad business. But the man had to be made sure of. Getting dangerous. Man with me drugged him. Chloral, you know. Won't harm him. Not at all."

The giant was coming back. "Here's your roll, mister," he said, with an unfriendly glance at me. "Count 'em. I took out my twenty."

"Is he all right?" Reid asked.

"Sure!" grinned the other. "He won't wake up till morning, and then he'll be out o' sight o' land. I got a nice ship picked out fer him."

CHAPTER XIX

IN WHICH I CAN NOT BELIEVE HALF I HEAR

We were all upon our feet, and now Reid, with a curt nod of farewell, turned away with his companion. I stepped to his other side.

"One moment," I said. "I want to know a little more about this before I drop it; and right here is as good a place as any."

"Can't just now, Crosby." He motioned me away nervously. "Not possible.

See you up in the country any time, and tell you all you want. Not here," and he moved toward the door.

"You can't help yourself," said I, "and I won't keep you long. Sit down again, please." He had lugged out his watch. "You'll have to miss your train, but there are plenty more."

The giant scowled at me with obvious willingness to begin a disturbance then and there; and Reid glanced hesitatingly from the one to the other of us, his impulse printed plain upon his face.

"Certainly," I put in, "you can get rid of me in that way, for the moment, if it's worth your while. Make up your mind--you're the doctor."

He started angrily, flushing to the roots of his close-cropped hair; and I thought for an instant that I had mistaken my man. Then the melodrama oozed out of him. He dismissed the unwilling bully with a whispered word or two, and sat sullenly down across the table.

"I'll make it as short as you please," I retorted. "Carucci's wife is sent down to see that he sails. I'm sent down to see that she makes good. Now you come down and have him shanghaied. Was this your own idea, or were you--"

"No. My own initiative entirely. Only practical way of making sure that he went. Best to see to it personally. Always better to do the thing yourself, and then you know it's done."

"I understand, then, that Mr. Tabor didn't suggest this to you?"

"Exactly. Tabor knows nothing about it. My own idea altogether." His triumph in his own efficiency was overriding his annoyance. "Better say nothing to him whatever. He has enough to think of. Always best to avoid trouble. The man's gone, and there's an end to it. Is that all?"

So Reid's own fear of Carucci had been intense enough to drive him to this dirty alternative rather than trust to our sending the man safely away. There was something unnatural here.

"Not quite," I said. "Of course, you know the exact nature of the fellow's blackmailing story?"

"Certainly. Pack of lies. Won't discuss it. Utterly absurd, the whole thing, but we can't have it go any further."

"Precisely, and it won't go any further, now. What I want to know is the foundation for it. You must see the reason for my knowing that much of the facts, and for trusting me with them. If there is any entanglement--"

"Look here, Crosby," Reid leaned forward across the table, his face scarlet and working, "that'll do. I don't propose to sift over my life with you. Not for a minute. What's more, if we could afford a row, I'd punch your head for having the a.s.surance to repeat that infernal slander to my face. That's all, you understand? That's all."

"There's plenty of time for that," I said, lowering my voice instinctively, as I felt my own temper slipping. "I'll ask you just one more question. On your word, is Miriam Tabor alive, or not?"

I never saw a man so broken by a word. He turned from red to greenish white, the perspiration shining on his forehead; and for a moment it seemed that he could not speak. Then he dragged the words out hoa.r.s.ely and unnaturally.

"You've taken a d.a.m.ned cowardly advantage--Miriam Tabor was my wife, and she's dead. Now are you satisfied? Because I'm not."

There was nothing to add. I rose in silence, and we made our way to the door. On the sidewalk, he waited for me to choose my direction; then without a word, turned pointedly in the opposite one, and walked quickly away.

I set out for the Carucci tenement in a state of no great comfort. By forcing a scene I had gained nothing; and I had made an overt enemy of Doctor Reid. Not that I was particularly concerned over that development; I had never liked the man from the first; and I was impressed not so much by what he had said as by his open and disproportionate confusion. Think what I might of my own side of the affair, Reid had confessed to a personal concern with Carucci; he had flown into a rage upon my asking for an explanation; and the name of Miriam had stricken him like a blow. He had told me nothing, after all, and had made me the more anxious over what he refused to tell. If he had been absolutely in the right, I had done nothing worse than to touch upon a grief brutally; and he would have said precisely what he did say if I had been justified and he had been lying. Well, Carucci was out of reach, and Reid worse than silenced. What chance remained to me of an answer to my problem depended upon Sheila.

I had no time to doubt if I should find her; for her window was lighted up, and she herself plainly to be seen, leaning far out to watch the street below as I turned the corner. When I was still half way up the block, she called to me by name, bidding me come up at once; and I answered as I picked my way along, trying to rea.s.sure her. The scene for a moment resembled a ludicrous burlesque of a serenade; nor did the street miss anything of its humor. With one accord the women in the doorways, the lounging men about the lamps and the scurrying screaming groups of youngsters underfoot caught up the implication, and began a babel of jocose advice and criticism in a dozen languages. And although I understood but little of it, and was somewhat preoccupied with graver matters, yet I was fain to dive hurriedly into the doorway with a heated and tingling countenance. The little room was itself again, save for a dull spot upon the clean-scrubbed boards; and the canary in the window paused in a burst of singing as I entered.

"Sheila," I said, "I am very much afraid you won't like my news."

"Well, sir, what's happened him?" she asked briefly.

"You're right," I answered. "It's your husband, but it's nothing to be alarmed about, nothing at all dangerous. You must--"

"For the love av G.o.d, don't thry to break things to me, sir. Speak right out. He's not hurt, ye say; well, he's pinched then, I suppose."

"No, it's not the police. He's been shanghaied, if you know what that means."

"Crimped? It's thrue for ye, I know; 'tis twice before he's been, but who done it I never could tell. Av I thought anny av my folk that's afraid av his silly tongue wud do that dhirty thrick--" she stopped short, her strong face working.

I was rather angry myself. "Well, Sheila, I don't believe they had anything to do with it before; but it was Doctor Reid who had it done to-day. I was there, but it was over before I understood what was going on."

"Reid? I shud ha' known 'twas Reid, the shamblin' scun he is, an' small good them that loved him best ever had av him! Now, the divil hould his dhirty little pinch av a soul! For why shud he harm my man?"

"That's what I want to know," I said. "He's afraid of what Antonio says about him, and you know--"

"As far as his story ever goes it'll harm no man," she burst out, "they know well he's all bark an' no bite, if they weren't all crazy-afraid together, an' a truer man anny day than that blagyard body-s.n.a.t.c.hin'

pill-roller. His own guilty heart it is, whisperin' over his shoulder, an' me poor lamb that he married an' murthered, and the child av his own body on the one day! An' the poor mother they're callin' crazy, with the soul av the daughter she cudn't let free standin' between her an' the sunshine. Crazy she'll never be until they make her so, with their doctors an' questions an' whispers, an' that death-fetch Reid grinnin'

before her face, with the blood not dhry on him!" She paused for breath, walking up and down the room and twisting her hands.

"Sit down, Sheila," I said, "you know this is absurd. I'm trying to get a little truth about people we both care for; and if you say things like that, how can you expect me to believe anything?" But my knees were trembling as I spoke.