IN all Bleecker Street was no more comfortable doorway than that of the butcher Rogaum, even if the first floor was given over to meat market purposes. It was to one side of the main entrance, which gave ingress to the butcher shop, and from it led up a flight of steps, at least five feet wide, to the living rooms above. A little portico stood out in front of it, railed on either side, and within was a second or final door, forming, with the outer or storm door, a little area, where Mrs. Rogaum and her children frequently sat of a summer’s evening. The outer door was never locked, owing to the inconvenience it would inflict on Mr. Rogaum, who had no other way of getting upstairs. In winter, when all had gone to bed, there had been cases in which belated travelers had taken refuge there from the snow or sleet. One or two newsboys occasionally slept there, until routed out by Officer Maguire, who, seeing it half open one morning at two o’clock, took occasion to look in. He jogged the newsboys sharply with his stick, and then, when they were gone, tried the inner door, which was locked.
“You ought to keep that outer door locked, Rogaum,” he observed to the phlegmatic butcher the next evening, as he was passing, “people might get in. A couple o’ kids was sleepin’ in there last night.”
“Ach, dot iss no difference,” answered Rogaum pleasantly. “I haf der inner door locked, yet. Let dem sleep. Dot iss no difference.”
“Better lock it,” said the officer, more to vindicate his authority than anything else. “Something will happen there yet.”
The door was never locked, however, and now of a summer evening Mrs. Rogaum and the children made pleasant use of its recess, watching the route of street cars and occasionally belated trucks go by. The children played on the sidewalk, all except the budding Theresa (eighteen just turning), who, with one companion of the neighborhood, the pretty Kenrihan girl, walked up and down the block, laughing, glancing, watching the boys. Old Mrs. Kenrihan lived in the next block, and there, sometimes, the two stopped. There, also, they most frequently pretended to be when talking with the boys in the intervening side street. Young “Connie” Almerting and George Goujon were the bright particular mashers who held the attention of the maidens in this block. These two made their acquaintance in the customary bold, boyish way, and thereafter the girls had an urgent desire to be out in the street together after eight, and to linger where the boys could see and overtake them.
Old Mrs. Rogaum never knew. She was a particularly fat, old German lady, completely dominated by her liege and portly lord, and at nine o’clock regularly, as he had long ago deemed meet and fit, she was wont to betake her way upward and so to bed. Old Rogaum himself, at that hour, closed the market and went to his chamber.
Before that all the children were called sharply, once from the doorstep below and once from the window above, only Mrs. Rogaum did it first and Rogaum last. It had come, because of a shade of lenience, not wholly apparent in the father’s nature, that the older of the children needed two callings and sometimes three. Theresa, now that she had “got in” with the Kenrihan maiden, needed that many calls and even more.
She was just at that age for which mere thoughtless, sensory life holds its greatest charm. She loved to walk up and down in the as yet bright street where were voices and laughter, and occasionally moonlight streaming down. What a nuisance it was to be called at nine, anyhow. Why should one have to go in then, anyhow. What old fogies her parents were, wishing to go to bed so early. Mrs. Kenrihan was not so strict with her daughter. It made her pettish when Rogaum insisted, calling as he often did, in German, “Come you now,” in a very hoarse and belligerent voice.
She came, eventually, frowning and wretched, all the moonlight calling her, all the voices of the night urging her to come back. Her innate opposition due to her urgent youth made her coming later and later, however, until now, by August of this, her eighteenth year, it was nearly ten when she entered, and Rogaum was almost invariably angry.
“I vill lock you oudt,” he declared, in strongly accented English, while she tried to slip by him each time. “I vill show you. Du sollst come ven I say, yet. Hear now.”
“I’ll not,” answered Theresa, but it was always under her breath.
Poor Mrs. Rogaum troubled at hearing the wrath in her husband’s voice. It spoke of harder and fiercer times which had been with her. Still she was not powerful enough in the family councils to put in a weighty word. So Rogaum fumed unrestricted.
There were other nights, however, many of them, and now that the young sparks of the neighborhood had enlisted the girls’ attention, it was a more trying time than ever. Never did a street seem more beautiful. Its shabby red walls, dusty pavements and protruding store steps and iron railings seemed bits of the ornamental paraphernalia of heaven itself. These lights, the cars, the moon, the street lamps! Theresa had a tender eye for the dashing Almerting, a young idler and loafer of the district, the son of a stationer farther up the street. What a fine fellow he was, indeed! What a handsome nose and chin! What eyes! What authority! His cigarette was always cocked at a high angle, in her presence, and his hat had the least suggestion of being set to one side. He had a shrewd way of winking one eye, taking her boldly by the arm, hailing her as, “Hey, Pretty!” and was strong and athletic and worked (when he worked) in a tobacco factory. His was a trade, indeed, nearly acquired, as he said, and his jingling pockets attested that he had money of his own. Altogether he was very captivating.
“Aw, whaddy ya want to go in for?” he used to say to her, tossing his head gayly on one side to listen and holding her by the arm, as old Rogaum called. “Tell him yuh didn’t hear.”
“No, I’ve got to go,” said the girl, who was soft and plump and fair—a Rhine maiden type.
“Well, yuh don’t have to go just yet. Stay another minute. George, what was that fellow’s name that tried to sass us the other day?”
“Theresa!” roared old Rogaum forcefully. “If you do not now come! Ve vill see!”
“I’ve got to go,” repeated Theresa with a faint effort at starting. “Can’t you hear? Don’t hold me. I haf to.”
“Aw, whaddy ya want to be such a coward for? Y’ don’t have to go. He won’t do nothin’ tuh yuh. My old man was always hollerin’ like that up tuh a coupla years ago. Let him holler! Say, kid, but yuh got sweet eyes! They’re as blue! An’ your mouth——”
“Now stop! You hear me!” Theresa would protest softly, as, swiftly, he would slip an arm about her waist and draw her to him, sometimes in a vain, sometimes in a successful effort to kiss her.
As a rule she managed to interpose an elbow between her face and his, but even then he would manage to touch an ear or a cheek or her neck—sometimes her mouth, full and warm—before she would develop sufficient energy to push him away and herself free. Then she would protest mock earnestly or sometimes run away.
“Now, I’ll never speak to you any more, if that’s the way you’re going to do. My father don’t allow me to kiss boys, anyhow,” and then she would run, half ashamed, half smiling to herself as he would stare after her, or if she lingered, develop a kind of anger and even rage.
“Aw, cut it! Whaddy ya want to be so shy for? Don’tcha like me? What’s gettin’ into yuh, anyhow? Hey?”
In the meantime George Goujon and Myrtle Kenrihan, their companions, might be sweeting and going through a similar contest, perhaps a hundred feet up the street or near at hand. The quality of old Rogaum’s voice would by now have become so raucous, however, that Theresa would have lost all comfort in the scene and, becoming frightened, hurry away. Then it was often that both Almerting and Goujon as well as Myrtle Kenrihan would follow her to the corner, almost in sight of the irate old butcher.
“Let him call,” young Almerting would insist, laying a final hold on her soft white fingers and causing her to quiver thereby.
“Oh, no,” she would gasp nervously. “I can’t.”
“Well, go on, then,” he would say, and with a flip of his heel would turn back, leaving Theresa to wonder whether she had alienated him forever or no. Then she would hurry to her father’s door.
“Muss ich all my time spenden calling, mit you on de streeds oudt?” old Rogaum would roar wrathfully, the while his fat hand would descend on her back. “Take dot now. Vy don’d you come ven I call? In now. I vill show you. Und come you yussed vunce more at dis time—ve vill see if I am boss in my own house, aber! Komst du vun minute nach ten to-morrow und you vill see vot you vill get. I vill der door lock. Du sollst not in kommen. Mark! Oudt sollst du stayen—oudt!” and he would glare wrathfully at her retreating figure.
Sometimes Theresa would whimper, sometimes cry or sulk. She almost hated her father for his cruelty, “the big, fat, rough thing,” and just because she wanted to stay out in the bright streets, too! Because he was old and stout and wanted to go to bed at ten, he thought every one else did. And outside was the dark sky with its stars, the street lamps, the cars, the tinkle and laughter of eternal life!
“Oh!” she would sigh as she undressed and crawled into her small neat bed. To think that she had to live like this all her days! At the same time old Rogaum was angry and equally determined. It was not so much that he imagined that his Theresa was in bad company as yet, but he wished to forefend against possible danger. This was not a good neighborhood by any means. The boys around here were tough. He wanted Theresa to pick some nice sober youth from among the other Germans he and his wife knew here and there—at the Lutheran Church, for instance. Otherwise she shouldn’t marry. He knew she only walked from his shop to the door of the Kenrihans and back again. Had not his wife told him so? If he had thought upon what far pilgrimage her feet had already ventured, or had even seen the dashing Almerting hanging near, then had there been wrath indeed. As it was, his mind was more or less at ease.
On many, many evenings it was much the same. Sometimes she got in on time, sometimes not, but more and more “Connie” Almerting claimed her for his “steady,” and bought her ice-cream. In the range of the short block and its confining corners it was all done, lingering by the curbstone and strolling a half block either way in the side streets, until she had offended seriously at home, and the threat was repeated anew. He often tried to persuade her to go on picnics or outings of various kinds, but this, somehow, was not to be thought of at her age—at least with him. She knew her father would never endure the thought, and never even had the courage to mention it, let alone run away. Mere lingering with him at the adjacent street corners brought stronger and stronger admonishments—even more blows and the threat that she should not get in at all.
Well enough she meant to obey, but on one radiant night late in June the time fled too fast. The moon was so bright, the air so soft. The feel of far summer things was in the wind and even in this dusty street. Theresa, in a newly starched white summer dress, had been loitering up and down with Myrtle when as usual they encountered Almerting and Goujon. Now it was ten, and the regular calls were beginning.
“Aw, wait a minute,” said “Connie.” “Stand still. He won’t lock yuh out.”
“But he will, though,” said Theresa. “You don’t know him.”
“Well, if he does, come on back to me. I’ll take care of yuh. I’ll be here. But he won’t though. If you stayed out a little while he’d letcha in all right. That’s the way my old man used to try to do me but it didn’t work with me. I stayed out an’ he let me in, just the same. Don’tcha let him kidja.” He jingled some loose change in his pocket.
Never in his life had he had a girl on his hands at any unseasonable hour, but it was nice to talk big, and there was a club to which he belonged, The Varick Street Roosters, and to which he had a key. It would be closed and empty at this hour, and she could stay there until morning, if need be or with Myrtle Kenrihan. He would take her there if she insisted. There was a sinister grin on the youth’s face.
By now Theresa’s affections had carried her far. This youth with his slim body, his delicate strong hands, his fine chin, straight mouth and hard dark eyes—how wonderful he seemed! He was but nineteen to her eighteen but cold, shrewd, daring. Yet how tender he seemed to her, how well worth having! Always, when he kissed her now, she trembled in the balance. There was something in the iron grasp of his fingers that went through her like fire. His glance held hers at times when she could scarcely endure it.
“I’ll wait, anyhow,” he insisted.
Longer and longer she lingered, but now for once no voice came.
She began to feel that something was wrong—a greater strain than if old Rogaum’s voice had been filling the whole neighborhood.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Gee, but you’re a coward, yuh are!” said he derisively. “What ’r yuh always so scared about? He always says he’ll lock yuh out, but he never does.”
“Yes, but he will,” she insisted nervously. “I think he has this time. You don’t know him. He’s something awful when he gets real mad. Oh, Connie, I must go!” For the sixth or seventh time she moved, and once more he caught her arm and waist and tried to kiss her, but she slipped away from him.
“Ah, yuh!” he exclaimed. “I wish he would lock yuh out!”
At her own doorstep she paused momentarily, more to soften her progress than anything. The outer door was open as usual, but not the inner. She tried it, but it would not give. It was locked! For a moment she paused, cold fear racing over her body, and then knocked.
No answer.
Again she rattled the door, this time nervously, and was about to cry out.
Still no answer.
At last she heard her father’s voice, hoarse and indifferent, not addressed to her at all, but to her mother.
“Let her go, now,” it said savagely, from the front room where he supposed she could not hear. “I vill her a lesson teach.”
“Hadn’t you better let her in now, yet?” pleaded Mrs. Rogaum faintly.
“No,” insisted Mr. Rogaum. “Nefer! Let her go now. If she vill alvays stay oudt, let her stay now. Ve vill see how she likes dot.”
His voice was rich in wrath, and he was saving up a good beating for her into the bargain, that she knew. She would have to wait and wait and plead, and when she was thoroughly wretched and subdued he would let her in and beat her—such a beating as she had never received in all her born days.
Again the door rattled, and still she got no answer. Not even her call brought a sound.
Now, strangely, a new element, not heretofore apparent in her nature but nevertheless wholly there, was called into life, springing in action as Diana, full formed. Why should he always be so harsh? She hadn’t done anything but stay out a little later than usual. He was always so anxious to keep her in and subdue her. For once the cold chill of her girlish fears left her, and she wavered angrily.
“All right,” she said, some old German stubbornness springing up, “I won’t knock. You don’t need to let me in, then.”
A suggestion of tears was in her eyes, but she backed firmly out onto the stoop and sat down, hesitating. Old Rogaum saw her, lowering down from the lattice, but said nothing. He would teach her for once what were proper hours!
At the corner, standing, Almerting also saw her. He recognized the simple white dress, and paused steadily, a strange thrill racing over him. Really they had locked her out! Gee, this was new. It was great, in a way. There she was, white, quiet, shut out, waiting at her father’s doorstep.
Sitting thus, Theresa pondered a moment, her girlish rashness and anger dominating her. Her pride was hurt and she felt revengeful. They would shut her out, would they? All right, she would go out and they should look to it how they would get her back—the old curmudgeons. For the moment the home of Myrtle Kenrihan came to her as a possible refuge, but she decided that she need not go there yet. She had better wait about awhile and see—or walk and frighten them. He would beat her, would he? Well, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. She might come back, but still that was a thing afar off. Just now it didn’t matter so much. “Connie” was still there on the corner. He loved her dearly. She felt it.
Getting up, she stepped to the now quieting sidewalk and strolled up the street. It was a rather nervous procedure, however. There were street cars still, and stores lighted and people passing, but soon these would not be, and she was locked out. The side streets were already little more than long silent walks and gleaming rows of lamps.
At the corner her youthful lover almost pounced upon her.
“Locked out, are yuh?” he asked, his eyes shining.
For the moment she was delighted to see him, for a nameless dread had already laid hold of her. Home meant so much. Up to now it had been her whole life.
“Yes,” she answered feebly.
“Well, let’s stroll on a little,” said the boy. He had not as yet quite made up his mind what to do, but the night was young. It was so fine to have her with him—his.
At the farther corner they passed Officers Maguire and Delahanty, idly swinging their clubs and discussing politics.
“’Tis a shame,” Officer Delahanty was saying, “the way things are run now,” but he paused to add, “Ain’t that old Rogaum’s girl over there with young Almerting?”
“It is,” replied Maguire, looking after.
“Well, I’m thinkin’ he’d better be keepin’ an eye on her,” said the former. “She’s too young to be runnin’ around with the likes o’ him.”
Maguire agreed. “He’s a young tough,” he observed. “I never liked him. He’s too fresh. He works over here in Myer’s tobacco factory, and belongs to The Roosters. He’s up to no good, I’ll warrant that.”
“Teach ’em a lesson, I would,” Almerting was saying to Theresa as they strolled on. “We’ll walk around a while an’ make ’em think yuh mean business. They won’t lock yuh out any more. If they don’t let yuh in when we come back I’ll find yuh a place, all right.”
His sharp eyes were gleaming as he looked around into her own. Already he had made up his mind that she should not go back if he could help it. He knew a better place than home for this night, anyhow—the club room of the Roosters, if nowhere else. They could stay there for a time, anyhow.
By now old Rogaum, who had seen her walking up the street alone, was marveling at her audacity, but thought she would soon come back. It was amazing that she should exhibit such temerity, but he would teach her! Such a whipping! At half-past ten, however, he stuck his head out of the open window and saw nothing of her. At eleven, the same. Then he walked the floor.
At first wrathful, then nervous, then nervous and wrathful, he finally ended all nervous, without a scintilla of wrath. His stout wife sat up in bed and began to wring her hands.
“Lie down!” he commanded. “You make me sick. I know vot I am doing!”
“Is she still at der door?” pleaded the mother.
“No,” he said. “I don’t tink so. She should come ven I call.”
His nerves were weakening, however, and now they finally collapsed.
“She vent de stread up,” he said anxiously after a time. “I vill go after.”
Slipping on his coat, he went down the stairs and out into the night. It was growing late, and the stillness and gloom of midnight were nearing. Nowhere in sight was his Theresa. First one way and then another he went, looking here, there, everywhere, finally groaning.
“Ach, Gott!” he said, the sweat bursting out on his brow, “vot in Teufel’s name iss dis?”
He thought he would seek a policeman, but there was none. Officer Maguire had long since gone for a quiet game in one of the neighboring saloons. His partner had temporarily returned to his own beat. Still old Rogaum hunted on, worrying more and more.
Finally he bethought him to hasten home again, for she must have got back. Mrs. Rogaum, too, would be frantic if she had not. If she were not there he must go to the police. Such a night! And his Theresa—— This thing could not go on.
As he turned into his own corner he almost ran, coming up to the little portico wet and panting. At a puffing step he turned, and almost fell over a white body at his feet, a prone and writhing woman.
“Ach, Gott!” he cried aloud, almost shouting in his distress and excitement. “Theresa, vot iss dis? Wilhelmina, a light now. Bring a light now, I say, for himmel’s sake! Theresa hat sich umgebracht. Help!”
He had fallen to his knees and was turning over the writhing, groaning figure. By the pale light of the street, however, he could make out that it was not his Theresa, fortunately, as he had at first feared, but another and yet there was something very like her in the figure.
“Um!” said the stranger weakly. “Ah!”
The dress was gray, not white as was his Theresa’s, but the body was round and plump. It cut the fiercest cords of his intensity, this thought of death to a young woman, but there was something else about the situation which made him forget his own troubles.
Mrs. Rogaum, loudly admonished, almost tumbled down the stairs. At the foot she held the light she had brought—a small glass oil-lamp—and then nearly dropped it. A fairly attractive figure, more girl than woman, rich in all the physical charms that characterize a certain type, lay near to dying. Her soft hair had fallen back over a good forehead, now quite white. Her pretty hands, well decked with rings, were clutched tightly in an agonized grip. At her neck a blue silk shirtwaist and light lace collar were torn away where she had clutched herself, and on the white flesh was a yellow stain as of one who had been burned. A strange odor reeked in the area, and in one corner was a spilled bottle.
“Ach, Gott!” exclaimed Mrs. Rogaum. “It iss a vooman! She haf herself gekilt. Run for der police! Oh, my! oh, my!”
Rogaum did not kneel for more than a moment. Somehow, this creature’s fate seemed in some psychic way identified with that of his own daughter. He bounded up, and jumping out his front door, began to call lustily for the police. Officer Maguire, at his social game nearby, heard the very first cry and came running.
“What’s the matter here, now?” he exclaimed, rushing up full and ready for murder, robbery, fire, or, indeed, anything in the whole roster of human calamities.
“A vooman!” said Rogaum excitedly. “She haf herself umgebracht. She iss dying. Ach, Gott! in my own doorstep, yet!”
“Vere iss der hospital?” put in Mrs. Rogaum, thinking clearly of an ambulance, but not being able to express it. “She iss gekilt, sure. Oh! Oh!” and bending over her the poor old motherly soul stroked the tightened hands, and trickled tears upon the blue shirtwaist. “Ach, vy did you do dot?” she said. “Ach, for vy?”
Officer Maguire was essentially a man of action. He jumped to the sidewalk, amid the gathering company, and beat loudly with his club upon the stone flagging. Then he ran to the nearest police phone, returning to aid in any other way he might. A milk wagon passing on its way from the Jersey ferry with a few tons of fresh milk aboard, he held it up and demanded a helping.
“Give us a quart there, will you?” he said authoritatively. “A woman’s swallowed acid in here.”
“Sure,” said the driver, anxious to learn the cause of the excitement. “Got a glass, anybody?”
Maguire ran back and returned, bearing a measure. Mrs. Rogaum stood looking nervously on, while the stocky officer raised the golden head and poured the milk.
“Here, now, drink this,” he said. “Come on. Try an’ swallow it.”
The girl, a blonde of the type the world too well knows, opened her eyes, and looked, groaning a little.
“Drink it,” shouted the officer fiercely. “Do you want to die? Open your mouth!”
Used to a fear of the law in all her days, she obeyed now, even in death. The lips parted, the fresh milk was drained to the end, some spilling on neck and cheek.
While they were working old Rogaum came back and stood looking on, by the side of his wife. Also Officer Delahanty, having heard the peculiar wooden ring of the stick upon the stone in the night, had come up.
“Ach, ach,” exclaimed Rogaum rather distractedly, “und she iss oudt yet. I could not find her. Oh, oh!”
There was a clang of a gong up the street as the racing ambulance turned rapidly in. A young hospital surgeon dismounted, and seeing the woman’s condition, ordered immediate removal. Both officers and Rogaum, as well as the surgeon, helped place her in the ambulance. After a moment the lone bell, ringing wildly in the night, was all the evidence remaining that a tragedy had been here.
“Do you know how she came here?” asked Officer Delahanty, coming back to get Rogaum’s testimony for the police.
“No, no,” answered Rogaum wretchedly. “She vass here alretty. I vass for my daughter loog. Ach, himmel, I haf my daughter lost. She iss avay.”
Mrs. Rogaum also chattered, the significance of Theresa’s absence all the more painfully emphasized by this.
The officer did not at first get the import of this. He was only interested in the facts of the present case.
“You say she was here when you come? Where was you?”
“I say I vass for my daughter loog. I come here, und der vooman vass here now alretty.”
“Yes. What time was this?”
“Only now yet. Yussed a half-hour.”
Officer Maguire had strolled up, after chasing away a small crowd that had gathered with fierce and unholy threats. For the first time now he noticed the peculiar perturbation of the usually placid German couple.
“What about your daughter?” he asked, catching a word as to that.
Both old people raised their voices at once.
“She haf gone. She haf run avay. Ach, himmel, ve must for her loog. Quick—she could not get in. Ve had der door shut.”
“Locked her out, eh?” inquired Maguire after a time, hearing much of the rest of the story.
“Yes,” explained Rogaum. “It was to schkare her a liddle. She vould not come ven I called.”
“Sure, that’s the girl we saw walkin’ with young Almerting, do ye mind? The one in the white dress,” said Delahanty to Maguire.
“White dress, yah!” echoed Rogaum, and then the fact of her walking with some one came home like a blow.
“Did you hear dot?” he exclaimed even as Mrs. Rogaum did likewise. “Mein Gott, hast du das gehoert?”
He fairly jumped as he said it. His hands flew up to his stout and ruddy head.
“Whaddy ya want to let her out for nights?” asked Maguire roughly, catching the drift of the situation. “That’s no time for young girls to be out, anyhow, and with these toughs around here. Sure, I saw her, nearly two hours ago.”
“Ach,” groaned Rogaum. “Two hours yet. Ho, ho, ho!” His voice was quite hysteric.
“Well, go on in,” said Officer Delahanty. “There’s no use yellin’ out here. Give us a description of her an’ we’ll send out an alarm. You won’t be able to find her walkin’ around.”
Her parents described her exactly. The two men turned to the nearest police box and then disappeared, leaving the old German couple in the throes of distress. A time-worn old church-clock nearby now chimed out one and then two. The notes cut like knives. Mrs. Rogaum began fearfully to cry. Rogaum walked and blustered to himself.
“It’s a queer case, that,” said Officer Delahanty to Maguire after having reported the matter of Theresa, but referring solely to the outcast of the doorway so recently sent away and in whose fate they were much more interested. She being a part of the commercialized vice of the city, they were curious as to the cause of her suicide. “I think I know that woman. I think I know where she came from. You do, too—Adele’s, around the corner, eh? She didn’t come into that doorway by herself, either. She was put there. You know how they do.”
“You’re right,” said Maguire. “She was put there, all right, and that’s just where she come from, too.”
The two of them now tipped up their noses and cocked their eyes significantly.
“Let’s go around,” added Maguire.
They went, the significant red light over the transom at 68 telling its own story. Strolling leisurely up, they knocked. At the very first sound a painted denizen of the half-world opened the door.
“Where’s Adele?” asked Maguire as the two, hats on as usual, stepped in.
“She’s gone to bed.”
“Tell her to come down.”
They seated themselves deliberately in the gaudy mirrored parlor and waited, conversing between themselves in whispers. Presently a sleepy-looking woman of forty in a gaudy robe of heavy texture, and slippered in red, appeared.
“We’re here about that suicide case you had to-night. What about it? Who was she? How’d she come to be in that doorway around the corner? Come, now,” Maguire added, as the madam assumed an air of mingled injured and ignorant innocence, “you know. Can that stuff! How did she come to take poison?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the woman with the utmost air of innocence. “I never heard of any suicide.”
“Aw, come now,” insisted Delahanty, “the girl around the corner. You know. We know you’ve got a pull, but we’ve got to know about this case, just the same. Come across now. It won’t be published. What made her take the poison?”
Under the steady eyes of the officers the woman hesitated, but finally weakened.
“Why—why—her lover went back on her—that’s all. She got so blue we just couldn’t do anything with her. I tried to, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Lover, eh?” put in Maguire as though that were the most unheard-of thing in the world. “What was his name?”
“I don’t know. You never can tell that.”
“What was her name—Annie?” asked Delahanty wisely, as though he knew but was merely inquiring for form’s sake.
“No—Emily.”
“Well, how did she come to get over there, anyhow?” inquired Maguire most pleasantly.
“George took her,” she replied, referring to a man-of-all-work about the place.
Then little by little as they sat there the whole miserable story came out, miserable as all the wilfulness and error and suffering of the world.
“How old was she?”
“Oh, twenty-one.”
“Well, where’d she come from?”
“Oh, here in New York. Her family locked her out one night, I think.”
Something in the way the woman said this last brought old Rogaum and his daughter back to the policemen’s minds. They had forgotten all about her by now, although they had turned in an alarm. Fearing to interfere too much with this well-known and politically controlled institution, the two men left, but outside they fell to talking of the other case.
“We ought to tell old Rogaum about her some time,” said Maguire to Delahanty cynically. “He locked his kid out to-night.”
“Yes, it might be a good thing for him to hear that,” replied the other. “We’d better go round there an’ see if his girl’s back yet. She may be back by now,” and so they returned but little disturbed by the joint miseries.
At Rogaum’s door they once more knocked loudly.
“Is your daughter back again?” asked Maguire when a reply was had.
“Ach, no,” replied the hysterical Mrs. Rogaum, who was quite alone now. “My husband he haf gone oudt again to loog vunce more. Oh, my! Oh, my!”
“Well, that’s what you get for lockin’ her out,” returned Maguire loftily, the other story fresh in his mind. “That other girl downstairs here to-night was locked out too, once.” He chanced to have a girl-child of his own and somehow he was in the mood for pointing a moral. “You oughtn’t to do anything like that. Where d’yuh expect she’s goin’ to if you lock her out?”
Mrs. Rogaum groaned. She explained that it was not her fault, but anyhow it was carrying coals to Newcastle to talk to her so. The advice was better for her husband.
The pair finally returned to the station to see if the call had been attended to.
“Sure,” said the sergeant, “certainly. Whaddy ya think?” and he read from the blotter before him:
“‘Look out for girl, Theresa Rogaum. Aged 18; height, about 5, 3; light hair, blue eyes, white cotton dress, trimmed with blue ribbon. Last seen with lad named Almerting, about 19 years of age, about 5, 9; weight 135 pounds.’”
There were other details even more pointed and conclusive. For over an hour now, supposedly, policemen from the Battery to Harlem, and far beyond, had been scanning long streets and dim shadows for a girl in a white dress with a youth of nineteen,—supposedly.
Officer Halsey, another of this region, which took in a portion of Washington Square, had seen a good many couples this pleasant summer evening since the description of Theresa and Almerting had been read to him over the telephone, but none that answered to these. Like Maguire and Delahanty, he was more or less indifferent to all such cases, but idling on a corner near the park at about three a.m., a brother officer, one Paisly by name, came up and casually mentioned the missing pair also.
“I bet I saw that couple, not over an hour ago. She was dressed in white, and looked to me as if she didn’t want to be out. I didn’t happen to think at the time, but now I remember. They acted sort o’ funny. She did, anyhow. They went in this park down at the Fourth Street end there.”
“Supposing we beat it, then,” suggested Halsey, weary for something to do.
“Sure,” said the other quickly, and together they began a careful search, kicking around in the moonlight under the trees. The moon was leaning moderately toward the west, and all the branches were silvered with light and dew. Among the flowers, past clumps of bushes, near the fountain, they searched, each one going his way alone. At last, the wandering Halsey paused beside a thick clump of flaming bushes, ruddy, slightly, even in the light. A murmur of voices greeted him, and something very much like the sound of a sob.
“What’s that?” he said mentally, drawing near and listening.
“Why don’t you come on now?” said the first of the voices heard. “They won’t let you in any more. You’re with me, ain’t you? What’s the use cryin’?”
No answer to this, but no sobs. She must have been crying silently.
“Come on. I can take care of yuh. We can live in Hoboken. I know a place where we can go to-night. That’s all right.”
There was a movement as if the speaker were patting her on the shoulder.
“What’s the use cryin’? Don’t you believe I love yuh?”
The officer who had stolen quietly around to get a better view now came closer. He wanted to see for himself. In the moonlight, from a comfortable distance, he could see them seated. The tall bushes were almost all about the bench. In the arms of the youth was the girl in white, held very close. Leaning over to get a better view, he saw him kiss her and hold her—hold her in such a way that she could but yield to him, whatever her slight disinclination.
It was a common affair at earlier hours, but rather interesting now. The officer was interested. He crept nearer.
“What are you two doin’ here?” he suddenly inquired, rising before them, as though he had not seen.
The girl tumbled out of her compromising position, speechless and blushing violently. The young man stood up, nervous, but still defiant.
“Aw, we were just sittin’ here,” he replied.
“Yes? Well, say, what’s your name? I think we’re lookin’ for you two, anyhow. Almerting?”
“That’s me,” said the youth.
“And yours?” he added, addressing Theresa.
“Theresa Rogaum,” replied the latter brokenly, beginning to cry.
“Well, you two’ll have to come along with me,” he added laconically. “The Captain wants to see both of you,” and he marched them solemnly away.
“What for?” young Almerting ventured to inquire after a time, blanched with fright.
“Never mind,” replied the policeman irritably. “Come along, you’ll find out at the station-house. We want you both. That’s enough.”
At the other end of the park Paisly joined them, and, at the station-house, the girl was given a chair. She was all tears and melancholy with a modicum possibly of relief at being thus rescued from the world. Her companion, for all his youth, was defiant if circumspect, a natural animal defeated of its aim.
“Better go for her father,” commented the sergeant, and by four in the morning old Rogaum, who had still been up and walking the floor, was rushing stationward. From an earlier rage he had passed to an almost killing grief, but now at the thought that he might possibly see his daughter alive and well once more he was overflowing with a mingled emotion which contained rage, fear, sorrow, and a number of other things. What should he do to her if she were alive? Beat her? Kiss her? Or what? Arrived at the station, however, and seeing his fair Theresa in the hands of the police, and this young stranger lingering near, also detained, he was beside himself with fear, rage, affection.
“You! You!” he exclaimed at once, glaring at the imperturbable Almerting, when told that this was the young man who was found with his girl. Then, seized with a sudden horror, he added, turning to Theresa, “Vot haf you done? Oh, oh! You! You!” he repeated again to Almerting angrily, now that he felt that his daughter was safe. “Come not near my tochter any more! I vill preak your effery pone, du teufel, du!”
He made a move toward the incarcerated lover, but here the sergeant interfered.
“Stop that, now,” he said calmly. “Take your daughter out of here and go home, or I’ll lock you both up. We don’t want any fighting in here. D’ye hear? Keep your daughter off the streets hereafter, then she won’t get into trouble. Don’t let her run around with such young toughs as this.” Almerting winced. “Then there won’t anything happen to her. We’ll do whatever punishing’s to be done.”
“Aw, what’s eatin’ him!” commented Almerting dourly, now that he felt himself reasonably safe from a personal encounter. “What have I done? He locked her out, didn’t he? I was just keepin’ her company till morning.”
“Yes, we know all about that,” said the sergeant, “and about you, too. You shut up, or you’ll go down-town to Special Sessions. I want no guff out o’ you.” Still he ordered the butcher angrily to be gone.
Old Rogaum heard nothing. He had his daughter. He was taking her home. She was not dead—not even morally injured in so far as he could learn. He was a compound of wondrous feelings. What to do was beyond him.
At the corner near the butcher shop they encountered the wakeful Maguire, still idling, as they passed. He was pleased to see that Rogaum had his Theresa once more. It raised him to a high, moralizing height.
“Don’t lock her out any more,” he called significantly. “That’s what brought the other girl to your door, you know!”
“Vot iss dot?” said Rogaum.
“I say the other girl was locked out. That’s why she committed suicide.”
“Ach, I know,” said the husky German under his breath, but he had no intention of locking her out. He did not know what he would do until they were in the presence of his crying wife, who fell upon Theresa, weeping. Then he decided to be reasonably lenient.
“She vass like you,” said the old mother to the wandering Theresa, ignorant of the seeming lesson brought to their very door. “She vass loog like you.”
“I vill not vip you now,” said the old butcher solemnly, too delighted to think of punishment after having feared every horror under the sun, “aber, go not oudt any more. Keep off de streads so late. I von’t haf it. Dot loafer, aber—let him yussed come here some more! I fix him!”
“No, no,” said the fat mother tearfully, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “She vouldn’t run avay no more yet, no, no.” Old Mrs. Rogaum was all mother.
“Well, you wouldn’t let me in,” insisted Theresa, “and I didn’t have any place to go. What do you want me to do? I’m not going to stay in the house all the time.”
“I fix him!” roared Rogaum, unloading all his rage now on the recreant lover freely. “Yussed let him come some more! Der penitentiary he should haf!”
“Oh, he’s not so bad,” Theresa told her mother, almost a heroine now that she was home and safe. “He’s Mr. Almerting, the stationer’s boy. They live here in the next block.”
“Don’t you ever bother that girl again,” the sergeant was saying to young Almerting as he turned him loose an hour later. “If you do, we’ll get you, and you won’t get off under six months. Y’ hear me, do you?”
“Aw, I don’t want ’er,” replied the boy truculently and cynically. “Let him have his old daughter. What’d he want to lock ’er out for? They’d better not lock ’er out again though, that’s all I say. I don’t want ’er.”
“Beat it!” replied the sergeant, and away he went.