The Sign at Six Part 22

PERCY KEEPS VIGIL

The morning of the third day after the failure of the search, and of the sixth since McCarthy's disappearance, had arrived. During that time Percy Darrow, apparently insensible to fatigue, had maintained an almost sleepless vigil. His meals Jack Warford brought in to him; he dozed in his chair or on the couch. Never did he appear to do anything.

The very persistent quietude of the man ended by making its impression. To all questions, however, Darrow returned but the one reply, delivered always in a voice full of raillery:

"I couldn't bear to miss a single step of Eldridge's masterly work."

About half past nine of the morning in question, through the door to the wireless office, always half opened, somebody looked hesitatingly into the room. Instantly Darrow and Jack were on their feet and in the hallway.

"Helen!" cried Jack.

"What is it? Anything happened?" demanded Darrow.

She surveyed them both amusedly.

"You certainly look like a frowzy tramp, Jack," she told her brother judiciously, "and you need sleep," she informed Darrow.

The young scientist bowed ironically, his long lashes drooping over his eyes in his accustomed lazy fashion as he realized that the occasion was not urgent. Helen turned directly to him.

"When are you going to stop this?" she demanded.

Darrow raised his eyebrows.

"You needn't look at me like that. You said you could lay your hands on Monsieur X at any moment; why don't you do it?"

"Eldridge is too amusing."

"Too amusing!" echoed the girl. "All you think of is yourself."

"Is it?" drawled Darrow.

"Have you been out in the city? Have you seen the people? Have you seen men out of work? Families leaving their homes? Panic spreading slowly but surely over a whole city?"

"Those pleasures have been denied me," said Darrow blandly.

The girl looked at him with bright angry eyes. Her cheeks were glowing, and her whole figure expressed a tense vibrant life in singular contrast to the apparent indolence of the men at whom she was talking.

"You are insufferable!" She fairly stamped her foot in vexation. "You are an egoist! You would play with the welfare of four million people to gratify your little personal desire for getting even!"

"Steady, sis!" warned Jack.

Darrow had straightened, and his indolent manner had fallen from him.

"I have said I would permit no harm to come to these people, and I mean it," said he.

"No harm!" cried Helen. "What do you call this--"

Darrow turned to the window looking out over the city.

"This!" he said. "Why, this isn't harm! There isn't a man out there who is not better off for what has happened to him. He has lost a little time, a little money, a little sleep, and he has been given a new point of view, a new manhood. As a city dweller he was becoming a mollusk, a creature that could not exist without its sh.e.l.l. The city transported him, warmed him, fed him, amused him, protected him. He had nothing to do with it in any way; he didn't even know how it was done. Deprived of his push-b.u.t.tons, he was as helpless as a baby. Beyond the little stunt he did in his office or his store, and beyond the ability to cross a crowded street, he was no good. He not only didn't know how to do things, but he was rapidly losing, through disuse, the power to learn how to do things. The modern city dweller, bred, born, brought up on this island, is about as helpless and useless a man, considered as a four-square, self-reliant individual, as you can find on the broad expanse of the globe. I've got no use for a man who can't take care of himself, who's got to have somebody else to do it for him, whenever something to which he hasn't been accustomed rises up in front of him!"

His eye was fixed somberly on the city stretching away into the haze of the autumn day.

"You blame me for letting this thing run!" he went on. "Of course it tickles me to death to see Eldridge flounder; but that isn't all. This is the best thing that could happen to them out there! I'm just patriotic enough to wish them more of it. It's good medicine! At last every man jack of them is up against something he's got to decide for himself. The police are useless; the fire department is useless; the railroads and street-cars are crippled. If a man is going to take care of his life and property, he must do it himself. He's buying back his self-reliance. Self-reliance is a valuable property. He ought to pay something for it. Generally he has to pay war or insurrection or b.l.o.o.d.y riot. In the present instance he's getting off cheap."

He turned back from the open window. His eye traveled beyond Helen's trim figure down the empty hall. "Wait right here, Jack," he shot over his shoulder, and rushed along the hall and down the stairway before either the young man or his sister could recover from their astonishment.

CHAPTER XX

THE PLAGUE OF COLD

Without pause, and three steps at a time, Darrow ran down three flights of stairs. Then, recovering from his initial excitement somewhat, he caught the elevator and shot to the street. There he walked rapidly to the subway, which he took as far as City Hall Square. On emerging from the subway station he started across for the _Despatch_ office as fast as he could walk. By the entrance to the City Hall, however, he came to an abrupt halt. From the open doorway rushed his friend, Officer Burns, of the City Hall Station. The policeman's face was chalky white; his eyes were staring, his cap was over one side, he staggered uncertainly. As he caught sight of Darrow he stumbled to the young man and clung to his neck, muttering incoherently. People pa.s.sing in and out looked at him curiously and smiled.

"My G.o.d!" gasped Burns, his eyes roving. "I says to him, 'Mike, I don't wonder you've got cold feet.' And there he was, and the mayor--Heaven save--and his secretary! My G.o.d!"

Darrow shook his shoulder.

"Here," he said decisively, "what are you talking about? Get yourself together! Remember you're an officer; don't lose your nerve this way!"

At the touch to his pride Burns did pull himself together somewhat, but went on under evident strong excitement.

"I went in just now to the mayor's office a minute," said he, "and saw my friend Mike Mallory, the doorkeeper, settin' in his chair, as usual. It was cold-like, and I went up to him and says, 'Mike, no wonder you get cold feet down here,' just by way of a joke; and when he didn't answer, I went up to him, and he was dead, there in his chair!"

"Well, you've seen dead men before. There's no occasion to lose your nerve, even if you did know him," said Darrow.

The brutality of the speech had its intended effect. Burns straightened.

"That's all very well," said he more collectively. "_But the man was froze_!"

"Frozen!" muttered Darrow, and whistled.

"Yes, and what's more, his little dog, setting by the chair, was froze, too; so when I stepped back sudden and hit against him, he tumbled over _bang_, like a cast-iron dog! That got my goat! I ran!"

"Come with me," ordered Darrow decisively.

They entered the building and ran up the single flight of stairs to the second-story room which the mayor of that term had fitted up as a sort of private office of his own. A sharp chill hung in the hallways; this increased as they neared the executive's office. Outside the door sat the doorkeeper in his armchair. Beside him was a dog, in the att.i.tude of an animal seated on its haunches, but lying on its side, one fore leg sticking straight out. Darrow touched the man and stooped over to peer in his face. The att.i.tude was most lifelike; the color was good. A deadly chill ran from Darrow's finger tips up his arm.

He pushed open the door cautiously and looked in.

"All right, Burns," said he. "The atmosphere has become gaseous again. We can go in." With which strange remark he entered the room, followed closely, but uncertainly by the officer.

The private office possessed the atmosphere of a cold-storage vault. Four men occupied it. At the desk was seated the mayor, leaning forward in an att.i.tude of attention, his triple chin on one clenched fist, his heavy face scowling in concentration. Opposite him lounged two men, one leaning against the table, the other against the wall. One had his hand raised in argument, and his mouth open. The other was watching, an expression of alertness on his sharp countenance. At a typewriter lolled the clerk, his hand fumbling among some papers.

The group was exceedingly lifelike, more so, Darrow thought, than any wax figures the Eden Musee had ever placed for the mystification of its country visitors. Indeed, the only indication that the men had not merely suspended action on the entrance of the visitors was a fine white rime frost that sparkled across the burly countenance of the mayor. Darrow remembered that, summer and winter, that dignitary had always perspired!