K. — Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI
Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him.
His patient did not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the gas office and got a day off.
The sordid little tragedy was easy to reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence of the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the conviction that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.
For the present, at least, K.' s revealed identity was safe.
Hospitals keep their secrets well.
And it is doubtful if the Street would have been greatly concerned even had it known.
It had never heard of Edwardes, of the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation.
Its medical knowledge comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner.
When, as would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would be more concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of it.
That was as it should be.
But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood.
If the boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable.
Twenty people had seen him at Schwitter's and would know him again.
To save Joe, then, was K.' s first care.
At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him.
He had not been home all night.
Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him that.
“Mrs. Drummond was here,” she said.
“She is almost frantic.
She says Joe has not been home all night.
She says he looks up to you, and she thought if you could find him and would talk to him--” “Joe was with me last night.
We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.
Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry.
I feel sure she will hear from him to-day.
Something went wrong with his car, perhaps, after he left me.
” He bathed and shaved hurriedly.
Katie brought his coffee to his room, and he drank it standing.
He was working out a theory about the boy.
Beyond Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, across the State.
Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating up the miles all that night, or--K. would not formulate his fear of what might have happened, even to himself.
As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a little knot of people around her.
The Street was getting the night's news.
He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the country.
He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day.
He went to Schwitter's first.
Schwitter himself was not in sight.
Bill was scrubbing the porch, and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass into a box.
The dead lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on the hill came the staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
“Where's Schwitter?
” “At the barn with the missus.
Got a boy back there.
” Bill grinned.
He recognized K. , and, mopping dry a part of the porch, shoved a chair on it.
“Sit down.
Well, how's the man who got his last night?
Dead?
” “No. ” “County detectives were here bright and early.
After the lady's husband.
I guess we lose our license over this.
” “What does Schwitter say?
” “Oh, him!
” Bill's tone was full of disgust.
“He hopes we do.
He hates the place.
Only man I ever knew that hated money.
That's what this house is--money.
” “Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?
” A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtain before his eyes.
But his reply came promptly: “Surest thing in the world.
Close to him as you are to me.
Dark man, about thirty, small mustache--” “Bill, you're lying, and I know it.
Where is he?
” The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
“I don't know anything about him.
” He thrust his mop into the pail.
K.
rose.
“Does Schwitter know?
” “He doesn't know nothing.
He's been out at the barn all night.
” The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the house.
K.
put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.
“We've got to get him away from here, Bill.
” “Get who away?
” “You know.
The county men may come back to search the premises.
” “How do I know you aren't one of them?
” “I guess you know I'm not.
He's a friend of mine.
As a matter of fact, I followed him here; but I was too late.
Did he take the revolver away with him?
” “I took it from him.
It's under the bar.
” “Get it for me.
” In sheer relief, K.' s spirits rose.
After all, it was a good world: Tillie with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe safe, and, without the revolver, secure from his own remorse.
Other things there were, too--the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, the way she had turned to him in trouble.
It was not what he wanted, this last, but it was worth while.
The reaping-machine was in sight now; it had stopped on the hillside.
The men were drinking out of a bucket that flashed in the sun.
There was one thing wrong.
What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless a thing?
K.
, who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne.
He noted his tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his ears.
Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job.
After his survey he went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
K.
thrust it into his pocket.
“Now,” he said quietly, “where is he?
” “In my room--top of the house.
” K.
followed Bill up the stairs.
He remembered the day when he had sat waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down.
And last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure.
Surely the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery.
None of it paid.
No one got away with it.
The room under the eaves was stifling.
An unmade bed stood in a corner.
From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe.
A tin cup and a cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.
Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window.
When the door swung open, he looked up.
He showed no interest on seeing K. , who had to stoop to enter the low room.
“Hello, Joe.
” “I thought you were the police.
” “Not much.
Open that window, Bill.
This place is stifling.
” “Is he dead?
” “No, indeed.
” “I wish I'd killed him!
” “Oh, no, you don't. You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I. ” “What will they do with me?
” “Nothing until they find you.
I came to talk about that.
They'd better not find you.
” “Huh!
” “It's easier than it sounds.
” K.
sat down on the bed.
“If I only had some money!
” he said.
“But never mind about that, Joe;
I'll get some.
” Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room.
As he closed the door behind him, K.' s voice took on a new tone: “Joe, why did you do it?
” “You know.
” “You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?
” “Yes.
” “Do you know who was with him?
” “Yes, and so do you.
Don't go into that.
I did it, and I'll stand by it.
” “Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?
” “Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!
” he sneered.
“They came here and took a room.
I met him coming out of it.
I'd do it again if I had a chance, and do it better.
” “It was not Sidney.
” “Aw, chuck it!
” “It's a fact.
I got here not two minutes after you left.
The girl was still there.
It was some one else.
Sidney was not out of the hospital last night.
She attended a lecture, and then an operation.
” Joe listened.
It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
“If he is that sort, he deserves what he got,” said the boy grimly.
And K. had no reply.
But Joe was glad to talk.
The hours he had spent alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time that he shuddered to remember.
K.
got it by degrees--his descent of the staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to walk back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be no mistake as to who had committed the crime.
“I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself,” he told K. “But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket.
And--” After a pause: “Does she know who did it?
” “Sidney?
No. ” “Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow.
” “Possibly.
That's not up to us, Joe.
The thing we've got to do is to hush the thing up, and get you away.
” “I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money.
” K.
rose.
“I think I can get it.
” He turned in the doorway.
“Sidney need never know who did it.
” “I'm not ashamed of it.
” But his face showed relief.
There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve between men.
That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K. The boy rose and followed him to the door.
“Why don't you tell her the whole thing?
--the whole filthy story?
” he asked.
“She'd never look at him again.
You're crazy about her.
I haven't got a chance.
It would give you one.
” “I want her, God knows!
” said K. “But not that way, boy.
” Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
“Five hundred gross,” the little man hastened to explain.
“But you're right, Mr. Le Moyne.
And I guess it would please HER.
It's going hard with her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about.
It's in the safe, in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank.
” He seemed to apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending an entire day's gross receipts on no security.
“It's better to get him away, of course.
It's good business.
I have tried to have an orderly place.
If they arrest him here--” His voice trailed off.
He had come a far way from the day he had walked down the Street, and eyed its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.
Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.
It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that night to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to a railroad station.
But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.
He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message found him there.
Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hard fight.
The message from Schwitter was very brief:-- “Something has happened, and Tillie wants you.
I don't like to trouble you again, but she--wants you.
” K.
was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and little food since the day before.
But he got into the rented machine again--its rental was running up; he tried to forget it--and turned it toward Hillfoot.
But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walked without ringing into Mrs. McKee's. Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state had altered the “mealing” house.
The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rack in the hall.
Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window one viewed the spiraea, still in need of spraying.
Mrs. McKee herself was in the pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaves on each of an interminable succession of plates.
K.
, who was privileged, walked back.
“I've got a car at the door,” he announced, “and there's nothing so extravagant as an empty seat in an automobile.
Will you take a ride?
” Mrs. McKee agreed.
Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap the ideal headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.
“If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap,” she said.
“Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one.
If you'll take me in my toque--” K.
said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety, having not the faintest idea what a toque was.
He was not without other anxieties.
What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that he expected?
Good women could be most cruel.
And Schwitter had been very vague.
But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice had expressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not a grief.
He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring them together.
But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables, its whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper window behind which Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather.
He had a masculine dislike for meddling, and yet--Mrs. McKee had suddenly seen the name in the wooden arch over the gate: “Schwitter's. ” “I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne.
” “Tillie's not in the house.
She's back in the barn.
” “In the barn!
” “She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out.
It's very comfortable and clean; it smells of hay.
You'd be surprised how nice it is.
” “The like of her!
” snorted Mrs. McKee.
“She's late with her conscience, I'm thinking.
” “Last night,” K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, “she had a child there.
It--it's rather like very old times, isn't it?
A
man-child, Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course.
” “What do you want me to do?
” Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce at the beginning, ended feebly.
“I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had a new baby and needed a friend.
Lie a little--” Mrs. McKee gasped.
“Tell her the baby's pretty.
Tell her you've been wanting to see her.
” His tone was suddenly stern.
“Lie a little, for your soul's sake.
” She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch with the shameful name, and back to the barn.
But there he had the tact to remain in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone.
When, five minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn, her eyes were red.
“Come in, Mr. K.
,” she said.
“The wife's dead, poor thing.
They're going to be married right away.
” The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels.
K.
entered the barn.
At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head.
The child was asleep at her breast.
The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe's credit.
On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at the bank with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University and Country Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, and various small obligations of Christine's. The immediate result of the money was good.
He drank nothing for a week, went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat at home with Christine on her balcony in the evenings.
With the knowledge that he could pay his debts, he postponed the day.
He liked the feeling of a bank account in four figures.
The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him there gratified him.
He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous.
On the third evening he was restless.
It occurred to him that his wife was beginning to take his presence as a matter of course.
He wanted cold bottled beer.
When he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was furious.
Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half in it.
She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for Palmer in the things he liked.
They still took their dinners at the Lorenz house up the street.
When she saw that the haphazard table service there irritated him, she coaxed her mother into getting a butler.
The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back.
Secretly and in its heart, it was proud of him.
With a half-dozen automobiles, and Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler, not to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on its commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of affectation had lain its charm.
On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.
He had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since the motor accident.
To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few months had not included women.
The girl had a strange fascination for him.
Perhaps she typified the care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper, fundamental.
He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was shot.
The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black dress had been enough to set his pulses racing.
When he saw that she meant to pass him, he fell into step beside her.
“I believe you were going to cut me!
” “I was in a hurry.
