The Rose in the Ring Part 4

"Say, do you suppose I'm going to get into a muss with these people by hiding a murderer?" snapped Braddock. "Bring him out here. Come along, bub."

"You're getting blamed virtuous all of a sudden, Braddock," said the clown angrily. "'Ow about these dogs you are protectin' all the time?

What's more, this 'ere kid's innocent."

"There's five hundred dollars reward for this fellow," said Braddock, jamming his hands into his coat pockets. "That doesn't sound like he's innocent, does it? Besides, the officers are plumb certain he's hanging around this show some place. I'm not going to be pestered with constables and detectives from here to Indiana, let me tell you that.

It's bad business, monkeying with stray boys, ever since the Charley Ross kidnapping job last year. So you lummixes have decided to protect him, have you? Why, the whole pack of you ought to be in jail for even thinkin' of it. Come out here, boy!"

Without a word, the boy shook himself free of Grinaldi's protecting grasp, and stepped forward.

"I'm not willing to see these men get into trouble," he said steadily, addressing the boss. "Give me time to change my clothes again, and then you can call in the officers."

"Don't be a fool," exclaimed the clown. A murmur of protest arose from the others.

"Thomas!" A woman's voice was calling from the other side of the low canvas part.i.tion.

"That's my wife," growled Braddock. "I suppose she'll be beggin' for you, too. What do you want?" The question was roared through the canvas.

"Come here, please. I must speak with you."

"Change your clothes, boy," he said, after a moment of indecision. "See that he don't get away, you fellows. If he gives you the slip, I'll have blood, and don't you forget it."

The man had been drinking. His eyes were bloodshot and unsteady. His face was bloated from the effects of long and continued use of alcohol.

Once on a time he had been a dashing, boldly handsome fellow; there could be no doubt of that; the sort of youth that any romantic girl might have fallen in love with. He was tall and straight and powerful, despite the evidences of dissipation that his face presented. A wonderfully vital const.i.tution had protected his body from the ravages of self-indulgence; the const.i.tution of a great, splendid human animal, in whom not the faintest sign of a once attractive personality remained. There was no refinement there, no mark of good breeding; all of the mirage-like glamour that may have bewildered and deceived _her_, long years ago, was gone. What she had evidently mistaken for the n.o.bility of true manhood, in her innocence and folly, was no more than the arrogance of splendid health. This man had been beautiful in his day, and frankly pleasing. That was long before the thing that was in his blood, and in the blood of his fathers, perhaps, had claimed dominion: the mysterious thing which inevitably registers the curse of the base-born, so that no man may be deceived. Blood always tells, but usually it tells too late.

But of the Braddocks and their hateful history, more anon. Let us look at this man as he now is, just as we have looked, perhaps too casually, at the woman who called him husband.

A heavy black mustache, lightly touched with gray, shaded a coa.r.s.e, rather sinister mouth, from the corner of which protruded an unlighted but thoroughly-chewed cigar. His hair and eyebrows were thick and black. Thin red lines formed a network in his cheeks, telling of the habits that had put them there; on his forehead there was a perpetual scowl, a line slashed between the eyes as if laid there by a knife. The features were not irregular, but they were of the strength that denotes cultivated weaknesses. His chin was square and strong, heavily stubbled with a two days' growth of beard. Eyes that were black and sullen, stood well out in their sockets; the lids were red and thick, and there were narrow pouches below them; the whites were bloodshot and indefinite. He was flashily dressed in the mode of the day, typical of his calling. A silk hat tilted rakishly over his brow. His waistcoat was a loud brocade, his necktie a single black band, knotted once.

There was a great paste diamond in his soiled shirt-front. A long checked coat, with tails and sidepockets, trousers of the same material, completed his ordinary makeup. Tonight, on account of the rain, he wore high gum boots outside of the trouser-legs.

You could hardly have mistaken his calling in those days, unless you might have suspected him of being a gambler. In which you would not have been wrong.

The line between his eyes seemed to deepen as he turned from the group to join his wife in the "green room" of the tent. As the flap dropped behind him, Grinaldi turned to the boy, who had started to unlace the striped overshirt.

"Wait a minute," he said quickly. "Mebbe we can fix it with 'im. She'll put in a plea for you and so will Little Starbright,--that's what 'is daughter is called on the bills--if she gets a chance. Stay right 'ere, youngster. I've got to go in for my girl's act now. I wish you could see my girl. She's the queen of the air, and don't you forget it. Ain't she, boys?"

There was a combined--apparently customary--chorus of approval.

Outside, Braddock was glowering upon his wife, who faced him resolutely. There never had been a time when she was afraid of this man; even though he had mistreated her shamefully, he had never found the courage to exercise his physical supremacy. As so often is the case--almost invariably, it may be affirmed--with men of his type and origin, Braddock recognized and respected the qualities that put her so far above him. Not that he admitted them, even to himself: that would have been fatal to his own sense of justice. He merely felt them; he could not evade the conditions for the reason that he was powerless to a.n.a.lyze the force which produced them. He only knew that somehow he merited the scorn in which she held him. There were times when he hated her for the very beauty of her character. Then he cursed her in bleak, despairing rage, more against himself than against her; but never without afterward cringing in morbid contemplation of the shudder it brought to her sensitive face.

If any one had been so bold as to accuse him of not loving her, he would have been crushed to earth by the brute that was in him. On the other hand, if he were timorously charged with loving her, it would have been like him to call the venturesome one a liar--and mean it, too, in his heart.

"But five hundred is five hundred," he was repeating doggedly in opposition to her argument in behalf of the boy. "You don't know whether he's guilty or not, Mary. So what's the use of all this gabble?

It makes me sick. Business is bad. We need every dollar we can sc.r.a.pe up. I won't be a party to--"

"You harbor pickpockets and thieves and--yes, murderers, I'm told, Tom.

It is a shameful fact that more sneak thieves follow this show and share with its owner than any other concern in the business. Oh, I know all about it! Don't try to deny it. They pay a regular tribute to you for privileges and protection. Artful d.i.c.k Cronk gave you half of the hundred he filched from the old man at Charlottesville last week. I--"

"Here, here!" he said in an angry whisper. "Don't talk so d.a.m.ned loud.

Next thing you'll be telling that sort of stuff to the girl. That'd be a nice thing for her to think, wouldn't it? Say, don't you ever let me hear of you breathin' a word of that kind to her. I'd--I'd beat your brains out. Understand?"

"Oh, I'm not likely to tell her what kind of a man her father is," said his wife bitterly. "Take care, Tom, that she doesn't find it out for herself. Be quiet! She is coming."

The girl, cleansed of her paint and powder, her lithe body clad in a prim, navy blue frock, the skirt of which came below the tops of her high-laced boots, approached hastily from the women's section. She was tying the strings of her quaint poke-bonnet under her chin, and her eyes were gleaming with excitement.

"Where is that boy?" she asked, looking about in some anxiety. "Father, you should see him. He is so different from the boys who follow--"

"We were just talking about him," interrupted her father shortly. "He's wanted by the police, so you see he ain't so different from the rest after all. He's a--"

"Don't, Tom," cried his wife.

"--a murderer," completed Braddock, rolling his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

The girl stared at him for a moment, dumbly, uncomprehendingly. Her lips parted and her eyes grew very wide.

"Oh, father," she cried, in low, hushed tones. Then she turned to her mother, almost imploringly. "Is--is it true, mother?"

"Well, see here," broke in Braddock angrily. "Don't you believe me?

Haven't I said so?"

"He is the Jenison boy we were talking about last night, dearie," said Mrs. Braddock. "I don't believe he committed that horrid crime. I can't believe it."

"I am sure he didn't--I am sure he didn't," cried the girl impulsively.

"He is a gentleman, father. He couldn't--"

Braddock took instant offense. He hated to hear any one spoken of as a gentleman.

"What's that got to do with it?" he demanded. "Gentleman, eh? You two seem to think that these pretty gentlemen can't do anything wrong. Why, they're rottener than nine-tenths of the blokes that follow this show--every mother's son of 'em. I'm sick of having this gentleman business thrown up to me. That's all you two talk about. I suppose you think you're better than the company you live with. Let me tell you this, you're show people and nothin' more. I don't give a d.a.m.n who your people are; you're my wife and my daughter, and that's all there is to it. I won't stand this sort of--"

"Tom, you _must_ keep still," said his wife firmly. He was intoxicated; she knew better than to argue with him, or to agree with him. "All this has nothing to do with the boy. We must give him a chance, the same as--you understand?"

He glared at her warningly.

"I don't protect thieves and murderers," he said quickly.

Then he whirled about and s.n.a.t.c.hed aside the flap, calling to the group of acrobats.

"Come out here, you! Step lively. I want to ask a few questions. Where the dev--Say, haven't you got out of that suit yet? Why, you little scuttle, I'll rip it off your back if you're not out of it in two minutes. Hold on! Come out here first."

As Jenison walked past him the proprietor gave him a violent cuff on the side of the head. The boy, weak and faint, reeled away and would have fallen but for the tent pole which he managed to clutch. His face was convulsed by sudden rage. Even while his head swam, he pulled himself together for a leap at the man who had struck the wanton, unexpected blow.

Braddock was huge enough and strong enough to crush the infuriated lad, but drink had made him a coward at heart. He stooped over and picked up an iron-ringed stake from the ground.

With a little cry of terror his daughter, recovering from her sudden stupefaction, sprang forward and frantically clutched the man's arm.

Her mother was no less active in putting herself in front of the boy, staying him with resolute hands. The performers who had followed David from the room leaped in with clenched fists, glaring hatefully at their employer. Others, in remote parts of the enclosure, hurried up, aroused from drowsy meditation by the sharp excitement.

"Don't, father!" cried the girl in the agony of dread.

"d.a.m.n him, he may have a gun," exclaimed Braddock. "He's used one before."