THAT mental jumping-off place, popularly known as “the psychological moment,” is usually hatched out of the dust-pan of Destiny. Materialistic sweepings. And, sometimes spontaneous combustion follows.
Old Lady Destiny, house-cleaning, swept together, from various directions, elements which, uncombined, would not have set the dust-bin afire.
Apropos of Annan and his stories, Coltfoot had made this objection, saying that the literary explosion never seemed to be spontaneous, and charging the author with secreting in the heap a firecracker of commercial manufacture.
Coltfoot, in the absence of Eris, began to frequent Annan. A rudderless ship, a homeless pup, a gasless flivver—these similes haunted him whenever he beheld the quenched features of Barry Annan.
Annan had been candid with him. It was love, he admitted, that knocked every other ambition out of him.
And, at first, Coltfoot thought so, although in his case with Rosalind, love was proving a stimulus to effort amazing, resembling inspiration.
But gradually a disturbing explanation for Annan’s idleness forced itself upon Coltfoot. The boy’s motive power seemed to be suspended.
Except for the personal pleasure Annan had taken in his mental acrobatics, there never had been anything inspired in his work until he began his latest novel—still merely blocked in.
But this story had in it, carefully and skilfully laid, a deep-bedded foundation of truth. And work on it began from the day that Eris had promised to become his wife.
Through all the upsetting excitement of the boy’s courtship, the inception of the story had produced nothing material.
In the glow of glorious certainty it had flowered under the girl’s tender ministry.
In her absence, now, all growth ceased.
It was a disturbing explanation that seemed to force itself upon Coltfoot,—that, in Annan, there was nothing creative except through the vitality of this girl. Or that the living germ was in her; and that Annan was merely the medium for transplantation—adequate soil skilfully mixed for culture of seeds developed in the entity of Eris.
He said one day to Annan: “How far in any creative work Eris would go if she had the chance, I couldn’t prophesy.... I saw some of the continuity of that last Smull picture she made——”
Annan looked up sharply.
“—It is a noble piece of creative acting,” said Coltfoot in a deliberate voice.
After a silence Annan said: “She shall have every chance in the world.”
“The trouble is, with such a girl, that she is likely to lend herself to her husband’s career.... And ignore her own.... There is in her a breadth of generosity I have seen very seldom, Barry,—perhaps never before.... And she is very much in love.”
“Do you suppose I’d accept any such sacrifice, Mike?” demanded Annan impatiently.
“You may have no option. She is a curious girl. Enormously capable. Perfectly normal. Intensely human.... She is the balanced type which civilisation is supposed to breed. And seldom does. That is why the ordinary becomes extraordinary; why symmetry is such a rarity.... We’re a twisted lot, Barry. We never notice it until we see somebody who not only was born straight, but who has continued to grow that way.”
The elements of ignition began to collect in Destiny’s dust-pan toward the end of the month.
Camille Armand, Gowns, 57th Street, sent Betsy Blythe an estimate for her personal adornment in the proposed production of a super-picture to be called The Devil’s Own.
Betsy sent the outrageous estimate to Frank Donnell.
Donnell sent it to Albert Smull.
His partner, Leopold Shill, got hold of it and objected with both hands.
Smull telephoned to Donnell that he’d drop in and discuss cuts in the morning.
A minor accident detained Donnell’s suburban train.
Smull arrived at Donnell’s office and sat down at Donnell’s desk to wait.
Donnell’s secretary opened the director’s morning mail and laid it on his desk under the ruddy nose of Albert Smull. On top was a telegram to Donnell from Eris, dated from Whitewater, N. Y. Smull read it:
“Arrive Saturday evening, Jane Street. Would love to see you before I begin work. Do call me up after Monday. Best wishes always.
“Eris.”
Smull was standing by one of the windows looking out on Broadway when Donnell arrived.
They discussed the estimate Betsy had submitted, came to an economic conclusion, parted.
Smull went down-town. But he could not keep his mind on business. He had a row with Shill, was brutal to a stenographer, made enemies of one or two customers, bullied his personal office force, and finally put on his hat and light overcoat and departed, leaving everything in a mess.
At the Patroon’s Club that afternoon he saw Annan passing, and saluted him; and was ignored.
This didn’t suit him. He turned back, and, coming up alongside of Annan:
“What’s the matter?” he asked; “anything wrong, Annan?”
“Yes, you are,” said the boy.
Smull was still smiling his near-eyed smile, but his sanguine features reddened more heavily.
They had walked as far as the Strangers’ Room. There was nobody there, not even a servant.
“What’s all this about?” demanded Smull. “I don’t get you, Annan——”
“You don’t get anybody. That’s why your activities are ridiculous and you obnoxious.”
Smull’s grin became mechanical: “Are you trying to quarrel with me over a skirt who has made monkeys out of both of us——”
Annan hit him hard. He lost his balance, stumbled backward and landed on a leather sofa, seated. His left eye was already puffing up. He seemed too astonished to stir.
Annan went over to the door, locked it, leaving the key there. Then he came back and waited for Smull to get up, which he did after a moment, and began to remove his coat and waistcoat.
“We’ll both be expelled,” he said coolly, “but it’s worth it to me——”
A heavy automatic pistol fell from an inside coat pocket to the carpet.
“That’s what I ought to use on you,” he remarked; but he picked it up and dropped it into the side pocket of his coat.
Then he turned and was on Annan like a panther. Both fell, smashing a chair; both were on their feet the next second. But Smull’s bolt was sped. His face was congested; he was panting already. He had lived too well.
Annan walked toward him, perfectly aware that he could hit him when and where he chose.
But after he had selected the spot he couldn’t do it. In fact, there was nothing further to do or say.
He looked into the crimson, disfigured visage, at the two red and swollen fists awaiting attack.
Then, dropping his hands into his pockets, he turned on his heel, walked slowly to the door, let himself out, closed the door quietly behind him.
Smull emerged a little later, stepped into the elevator, and went up to the club barber.
“Charlie,” he said, “I got bunged playing squash. Kindly apply the sinking fund process to my left eye.”
After an hour’s treatment: “I guess that’s the best I can do, Mr. Smull,” concluded the barber.
Smull inspected himself in the glass: “Hell,” he said, “—and I’ve got a date.”
However, he dined early at the club. He maintained sleeping quarters there. Dinner was served in his room. He had a quart of Burgundy to wash down the entrée, and one or two more serious highballs for the remainder of the repast. He was a fastidious feeder, but always a large one. It was that, principally, which played the devil with him. A skin saturated with alcohol completed the muscular atrophy of what had been a magnificent, natural strength in college.
But that was long ago: his sensations had been his gods too long. They had done for him—worse still, they had nearly done with him. What remained, principally, was a shameless persistence. Only the man himself knew the tragedy of it. But such men are doomed to go on.
That is their hell.
From the club Smull called up his limousine.
When the doorman announced it, Smull threw aside the evening paper, took a look at his damaged eye in a mirror, put on hat and overcoat, and went out to where his car stood.
“You know where,” he said to his chauffeur, “—and stop somewhere for the evening papers.”
A newsboy on 42d Street supplied the papers. Smull continued to read all the way to Jane Street. But when his car drew up along the east curb of Greenwich Avenue, he laid aside the papers and settled back to watch.
Through the early October dusk, illuminated shop windows and street arc-lights shed conflicting rays and shadows over passers-by.
Smull’s vision, too, was impaired, and he squinted intently at every taxi, watching for one that would turn into Jane Street.
He could see the front of the house where Eris lived. He could see, also, that her windows were unlighted. It was evident that she had not yet arrived.
He hadn’t the least idea what time she would appear. She had said nothing about that in her telegram to Frank Donnell. Her telegram said “Saturday evening,” nothing more precise. There was nothing for him to do except to wait.
And now the Old Lady, scraping away vigorously at the four points of the compass, dislodged a bit of rubbish and swept it into her dust-pan with all the rest.
The fragment in question came drifting through Greenwich Avenue in the October night, half revealed in the glow of some humble shop window, lost in the shadow beyond, dimly visible along the dark fringe of an arc-light, fading to a shade again,—a spectre now, and now a ghost-white face adrift in the night.
At the corner of Jane Street the shape stood revealed,—a shabby man, deathly pale, who stood as though he had nowhere else to go—stood with lowered head as though preoccupied, picking nervously at the raw skin around his finger-nails.
Chance and the Dust Pan dumped him there,—the chance that his wife had returned to Jane Street. He had no knowledge of her coming; did not know where she had been or when she would return. All he knew was that there never were any lights in her windows any more. He had written to her, but she had not replied. And he needed money.
Smull’s chauffeur, reposing resignedly at the wheel, straightened up abruptly, then left his seat and came around to the open window of the car.
“That bum is over there on the corner again, Mr. Smull,” he said.
“Where?”
“He’s in the shadow of that doorway—just south of the corner, sir.”
“All right,” nodded Smull.
He could now just distinguish a shape there. For some time he watched it, speculating on the affair and still puzzled. For how the girl who had so contemptuously repulsed him could ever have married the derelict across the street, Smull was unable to conjecture.
More perplexing to him still were her relations with Annan. He did not wish to believe they were meretricious. In the muddy depths of him he didn’t believe that. But he would not have hesitated to accuse her.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Annan didn’t matter, nor did the bum across the way; nor did the girl’s intrigues, chaste or otherwise, matter to this man.
He was after his quarry. Perhaps in the muddy depths of him he knew the chase was hopeless. Perhaps he was doomed to hunt anyway—never to rest, never to quit the trail over which he had sped so eagerly, so long ago, after his first quarry.
He had smoked four large cigars and was lighting a fifth. It was ten o’clock. No taxi had turned into Jane Street.
The windows of the house he watched remained unlighted. And, across the street, the shadowy shape had not stirred. Undoubtedly the fellow had recognised Smull’s car. Which concerned Smull not a whit.
However, he was growing restless. He had over-smoked, too.
Now he flung away the cigar just lighted, opened the limousine door and got out.
To his chauffeur he said: “That’s all. Call up at eight-thirty to-morrow morning.”
“That bum is still over there, sir——”
“All right, Harvey. Go back to the garage.... And I’ll want the coupé to-morrow.”
“Very good, sir.”
Smull watched the car glide away down Greenwich Avenue, turn east, disappear.
Then he walked across to Jane Street and as far as the house he was watching, and gazed up at her darkened windows.
For half an hour or so he sauntered back and forth between her house and the corner. The night had grown warmer and he loosened his light grey overcoat and threw it back.
Now and then he noticed that the shadowy shape of Carter had not stirred. That did not concern him for a while.
But, as the hour wore on, irritation increased and his nerves became more susceptible to annoyance.
And once, although his contempt for Carter remained supreme, he ran his right hand over the coat pocket where the pistol sagged,—a movement involuntary and quite unconscious.
A little before eleven a taxi-cab suddenly turned out of Greenwich Avenue and halted before the house in which Eris dwelt.
Smull was prowling some distance to the westward on the opposite side of the street; and the sudden appearance of the cab caught him unprepared.
He started back instantly; but even before he arrived opposite the house she had entered it, carrying her suitcase.
Her taxi-cab, however, remained waiting.
Smull gazed up at her windows. Suddenly a light broke out behind the lowered shades.
He looked across at the waiting taxi. He was going to have another chance.
When the light went out behind the yellow shades it would be time enough to cross the street. He thought so. Meanwhile, he would wait. He’d take his time. What’s time to a gentleman?
Eris had lighted the apartment, had taken one swiftly comprehensive glance at the dusty solitude about her, then she hurried to the telephone and gave Annan’s number. And heard his voice, presently:
“Who is it?”
“Darling!”
“Eris! Why on earth did you wire me and neglect to tell me what train to meet?”
“Because I didn’t know, dearest. Sometimes the Central waits for the local and sometimes it doesn’t. I didn’t want you to spend the evening hanging around the Grand Central——”
“You blessed child, I’ve done it. I’ve met every train. They told me there were no more from Whitewater. So I came home.”
“Darling! I’m fearfully sorry. They were quite right, too. The Central did not wait for the local, so I took a taxi at the station and drove thirty miles to catch an express——”
“Where on earth are you?”
“Home——”
“I’m coming——”
“No! It’s dusty and messy and horrid. May I come to Governor’s place? I have a taxi—and I’m starved——”
“Jump into that taxi instantly! I’ll find Xantippe and have something for you in a few minutes. Will you come at once?”
“I’m on the way, Barry.”
She was on the way. But it was the feminine way.
First of all she had a toilet to make, a complete change of clothing to effect. No girl ever lived who would deny herself that much before she braved her lover.
She went to the windows to reassure herself that the shades were properly lowered. Her taxi was both visible and audible below. She noticed nothing else in the street except that it was beginning to rain.
Probably she could not have recognised Smull, even if she had caught sight of him on the opposite side of the way.
There is an old brick building there, untenanted, its shabby façade running westward toward the North River.
Against it Smull stood in darkness.
But already another person had discovered Smull; had recognised him; and now was shuffling slowly along toward him.
The last bit of rubbish in the Dust Pan.
Smull, intent on the lighted windows above, did not notice The Rubbish until it had drifted close to his elbow. Then he turned. It did not suit Smull to have any altercation then or there.
He said in a guarded voice: “Get out of here, you son of a slut!”
“I want to talk to you,” said Carter, hoarsely. “I’ve got to have some money——”
Smull, infinitely annoyed, turned his back and walked westward, turning up the collar of his light overcoat as the drizzle thickened from the River.
He walked a few paces, stood looking back over his left shoulder at the windows where light shone behind the yellow shades.
Presently he was aware of Carter close behind him. His instinct was to kick him aside; but it was too near the house he was watching and he wanted no outcry or scuffle.
“What do you want, you dirty bum?” he demanded, fumbling in his pocket, “—a dollar for a shell of coke?”
“I want you to keep away from my wife,” said Carter in a ghost of a voice.
Smull turned on him savagely. Neither stirred. But it was too close to her house: and Smull, deciding to end the matter quickly, turned once more and walked toward the North River.
When he concluded that he was far enough away in the obscurity he halted, listening for the shuffle of feet.
But Carter came very silently; he was at his elbow again before he heard him. Then, for the first time, the stealthy movements of the man seemed to convey a menace to Smull.
As he confronted Carter he began to unbutton his overcoat, deliberately at first, then more swiftly as he saw the expression in his enemy’s eyes.
White as a corpse, Carter said something to him he did not understand as his hand closed on the pistol sagging in his coat pocket.
Then he saw a pistol in Carter’s hand; felt a terrific blow in the stomach that knocked him against the brick wall behind him.
As he slid down to a sitting posture, all darkness seemed crashing down around him. And through the rushing chaos he freed his pistol and fired at a grey blur above him,—fired again as sight failed in his dying eyes,—lay very still there in the rain....
Eris, aglow from her shower bath, began to realise it was time to hurry.
In her clothes press she rummaged feverishly, selecting the freshest of last season’s dinner-gowns,—an orchid-mauve affair with touches of violet and silver,—very charmingly calculated to enhance her chestnut hair and slender, milk-white beauty.
Now she really must hurry—for the mantel-clock had run down weeks ago and her wrist-watch was broken, and she had that deliciously guilty feeling which is entirely and constitutionally feminine—the sensation of being awaited by love impatient and probably adorably out of temper.
To see whether it still was raining she ran to the window. The street seemed to be full of movement and noise—shrill voices, people running, a throng in the rain surging, ebbing, scattering as an ambulance clanged into the street from Greenwich Avenue.
A second’s hesitation, then she lowered the shade, ran to her closet for a cloak and umbrella, opened the outer door, switched off every light, and hurried downstairs.
On the steps she opened her umbrella and made her way through the increasing crowd toward the taxi-cab.
She had no morbid curiosity concerning such painful scenes, when curiosity alone could afford no aid. She heard a ragged boy say something about “a coupla guys dead acrost the street”—and shuddered as she stepped into the taxi-cab.
The driver turned around and opened the front window:
“When I heard that first shot,” he said excitedly, “I tuk it f’r a blow-out. Yes, ma’am. Then come two more shots an’ I gets wise an’ ducks. I hear them two fellas are dead. Some gun-play. I’ll say so.... Where to, lady?”