What's-His-Name Part 22

Half-way down he paused to reflect. Voices above came howling down the shaft, urging the elevator man to stop him, to hold him, to do all manner of things to him. He felt himself trapped.

So he sat down on an upper step, leaned back against the marble wall, closed his eyes tightly, and jammed the muzzle of the revolver against the pit of his stomach.

"I hate to do it," he groaned, and then pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell with a sharp click. He opened his eyes. If it didn't hurt any more than that he could do it with them open. Why not? In a frenzy to have it over with he pulled again and was gratified to find that the second bullet was not a whit more painful than the first.

Then he thought of the ugly spectacle he would present if he confined the mutilation to the abdominal region. People would shudder and say, "how horrible he looks!" So he considerately aimed the third one at his right eye.

Even as he pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell with the usual click, his vision centred on the black little hole in the end of the barrel. Breathlessly he waited for the bullet to emerge. Then, all of a sudden, he recalled that there had been no explosion. The fact had escaped him during the throes of a far from disagreeable death. He put his hand to his stomach. In a dumb sort of wonder he first examined his fingers, and, finding no gore, proceeded to a rather careful inspection of the weapon.

Then he leaned back and dizzily tried to remember when he had taken the cartridges out of the thing.

"Thank the Lord," he said, quite devoutly. "I thought I was a goner, sure. Now, when did I take 'em out?"

The elevator shot past him, going upward. He paid no attention to it.

It all came back to him in a flash. He remembered that he had never loaded it at all. A loaded pistol is a very dangerous thing to have about the house. The little box of cartridges that came with the weapon was safely locked away at the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a thick suit of underwear for protection against concussion.

Even as he congratulated himself on his remarkable foresight the elevator, filled with excited men, rushed past him on the way down. He heard them saying that a dangerous lunatic was at large and that he ought to be----But he couldn't hear the rest of it, the car being so far below him.

"By jingo!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet in consternation.

"They'll get me now. What a blamed fool I was!"

Scared out of his wits, he dashed up the steps, three at a jump, and, before he knew it, ran plump into the midst of the women who were huddled at Nellie's landing, waiting for the shots and the death yells from below. They scattered like sheep, too frightened to scream, and he plunged through the open door into the apartment.

"Where are you, Nellie?" he bawled. "Hide me! Don't let 'em get me.

Nellie! Oh, Nellie!"

The shout would have raised the dead. Nellie was at the telephone. She dropped the receiver and came toward him.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" she squealed, clutching his arm.

"What an awful spectacle you've made of yourself--and me! You blithering little idiot. I----"

"Where can I hide?" he whispered, hopping up and down in his eagerness. "Hurry up! Under a bed or--anywhere. Good gracious, Nellie, they'll get me sure!"

She slammed the door.

"I ought to let them take you and lock you up," she said, facing him.

The abject terror in his eyes went straight to her heart. "Oh, you poor thing!" she cried, in swift compa.s.sion. "You--you wouldn't hurt a fly. You couldn't. Come along! Quick! I'll do this much for you, just this once. Never again! You can get down the back steps into the alley if you hurry. Then beat it for home. And never let me see your face again."

Three minutes later he was scuttling down the alley as fast as his eager legs could carry him.

Nellie was holding the front door against the thunderous a.s.sault of a half dozen men, giving him time to escape. All the while she was thinking of the depositions she could take from the witnesses to his deliberate attempt to kill her. He had made it very easy for her.

CHAPTER VII

THE LAWYER

He was dismally confident that he would be arrested and thrown into jail on Friday. It was always an unlucky day for him. The fact that Nellie had aided and abetted in his undignified flight down the slippery back steps did not in the least minimise the peril that still hung like a cloud over his wretched head. Of course, he understood: she was sorry for him. It was the impulse of the moment. When she had had time to think it all over and to listen to the advice of Fairfax and the others, she would certainly swear out a warrant.

As a measure of precaution he had slyly tossed the revolver from a car window somewhere north of Spuyten Duyvil, and, later on at home, stealthily disposed of the box of cartridges.

All evening long he sat huddled up by the fireplace, listening with all ears for the ominous sound of constabulary thumpings at the front door. The fierce wind shrieked around the corners of the house, rattling the shutters and banging the kitchen gate, but he heard nothing, for his own heart made such a din in response to the successive bursts of noise that all else seemed still by comparison.

His efforts to amuse the perplexed Phoebe were pitiful. The child took him to task for countless lapses of memory in his recital of oft-told and familiar fairy tales.

But no one came that night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect the enchantment. In fact, he was quite sure he would worship her a great deal more comfortably if she were beyond the border of the State.

The thought of punishment quite overshadowed a previous dread as to how he was going to provide for Phoebe and himself up to the time of a.s.suming the job in Davis' drug store. He had long since come to the conclusion that if Nellie persisted in carrying out her plan to divorce him he could not conscientiously accept help from her, nor could he expect to retain custody of the child unless by his own efforts he made suitable provision for her. His one great hope in the face of this particular difficulty had rested on the outcome of the visit to her apartment, the miserable result of which we know. Not only had he upset all of his fondest calculations, but he had heaped unthinkable ruin in the place he had set aside for them.

There was nothing consoling in the situation, no matter how he looked at it. More than once he regretted the emptiness of that confounded cylinder. If there had been a single bullet in the thing his troubles would now be over. Pleasing retrospect! But not for all the money in the world would he again subject himself to a similar risk.

It made him shudder to even think of it. It was hard enough for him to realise that he had had the monumental courage to try it on that never to be forgotten occasion. As a matter of fact, he was rather proud of it, which wouldn't have been at all possible if he had succeeded in the cowardly attempt.

Suppose, thought he with a qualm--suppose there had been a bullet! It was now Sat.u.r.day. His funeral would be held on Sat.u.r.day. By Sat.u.r.day night he would be in a grave--a lonesome, desolate grave. Nellie would have seen to that, so that she could get away on Sunday. Ugh! It was most unpleasant!

The day advanced. His spirits were rising. If nothing happened between then and midnight he was reasonably secure from arrest.

But in the middle of the day the blow fell. Not the expected blow, but one that stunned him and left him more miserable than anything else in the world could have done.

There came a polite knock at the door. Annie admitted a pleasant-faced, rather ceremonious young man, who said he had business of the utmost importance to transact with Mr.--Mr.--He glanced at a paper which he drew from his pocket, and supplying the name asked if the gentleman was in.

Harvey was tiptoeing toward the dining-room, with Phoebe at his heels, when the stranger entered the library.

"Pardon me," called the young man, with what seemed to Harvey unnecessary haste and emphasis. "Just a moment, please!"

Harvey stopped, chilled to the marrow.

"It was all a joke," he said, quickly. "Just a little joke of mine.

Ha! Ha!" It was a sepulchral laugh.

"I am John Buckley, from the offices of Barnes & Canby, representing Miss Duluth, your wife, I believe? It isn't a pleasant duty I have to perform Mr.--Mr--er--but, of course, you understand we are acting in the interests of our client and if we can get together on this----"

"Can't you come some other day?" stammered Harvey, holding Phoebe's hand very tightly in his. "I'm--I'm not well to-day. We--we are waiting now for the health officer to--to see whether it's smallpox or just a rash of----"

The pleasant young gentleman laughed.

"All the more necessary why we should settle the question at once. If it is smallpox the child would be quarantined with you--that would be unfortunate. You don't appear to have a rash, however."

"It hasn't got up to my face yet," explained Harvey, feebly. "You ought to see my body. It's----"

"I've had it," announced the young man, glibly; "so I'm immune." He winked.

"What do you want?" demanded Harvey, bracing himself for the worst.