CHAPTER IV
A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS
Herrick felt the strong light of the one lamp like something hypnotic;it reminded him of the glare in some Sardou or Belasco torture chamber.It seemed to him that the scene wasn't real; it was like a council ofwolves and he powerless and quiet with them there, as they hungered torun, baying, on Christina. It was only a nightmare and yet it was morereal and keen than life, and only God knew what would come of it! Thenhe saw the slight, dark figure pass the door; every eye, but with whatdifferent desires, turned, ravenous as his, for the secret that itcarried in its breast.
The doorman brought Denny up to the end of the table and withdrew. Theprisoner was very carefully dressed, his black hair brushed as smooth assatin, and against his dark blue coat the black silk handkerchief thatsupported his arm was scarcely noticeable. He looked a model of rigiddecorum until you observed the heavy straps of plaster across his hands.Only his skin, always dark and pale, seemed really to be drained ofblood. He nodded gravely to Kane, and with a sort of still surprise toHerrick. Ten Euyck he passed over. He remained standing until Kane toldhim to sit down. If he then dropped rather wearily into a chair hecontrived to sit upright, with a good show of formal manners. As hisdark eyes met the keen light ones of the lawyer a faint, derisive smileappeared, and was instantly suppressed, upon both their faces.
"You seem very sure of yourself!" Ten Euyck exploded.
Denny appeared to become slowly conscious of him. "Even the persuasivemanners of your department," he said, "couldn't make me tell what Ididn't know!"
Ten Euyck said quickly, "You don't know who killed Ingham?"
"If I said anything more incriminating, it's possible it might be usedagainst me."
"We're not here," Kane interposed, "to discuss Ingham's death. Mr.Denny, within the last few days there have been some very graveoccurrences, about which it's possible you can enlighten us. If you can,we shan't be ungrateful. Did you ever hear of an organization called theArm of Justice?"
"Is this a joke?"
"You never heard of it?"
"No."
"Well, then, you can have no objection to repeating the name and addressof Miss Hope's Italian friends?"
"Not the least in the world. Has she any?"
"You mean to tell me you don't know she has?"
"Not if it annoys you. I thought you asked."
Ten Euyck, with a gesture as of uncontrollable impatience, rose and wentto the window.
"Since you're in a jocular mood, I will ask you something you may thinkextremely amusing. Do you know if Miss Christina Hope owns a red wig?"
He didn't think it amusing. He seemed to think little enough about it."I suppose so."
"But you never saw one about her house?"
"She wouldn't keep it about her house, like a pet. She'd keep it in atrunk. She's not an amateur."
"You never saw her wear one in private life?"
"Not even on the first of April."
"You couldn't even swear she had one, perhaps."
"I certainly could not."
"Nor that she had not?"
"No."
"So that you wouldn't recognize hers if you saw it?"
"No."
The light was very strong upon his face, which remained relaxed andtranquil. But he was very weak and a faint moisture broke out upon it.
"Was there any love affair between you and Miss Hope which angered NancyCornish?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me!"
Denny drew in his breath a little. But he did not speak.
"What was your trouble with Nancy Cornish?"
Silence.
"Didn't she quarrel with you because of some woman?"
Silence.
"You know she did. You can't deny it. Do you know what many of yourfriends are saying? That you kept that appointment with her and got ridof her. They think you were tired of her and preferred Christina Hope!"
"Do they?"
It had missed fire utterly. Yet, since the mention of that other girl, akind of hunger had been growing in his face, and suddenly Kane whollyveered on that new track.
"But I don't!" said Kane, leaning toward him, and trying to catch andhold his eye. "I think you really care for Nancy Cornish, whether she'salive or dead!" He paused. "I think you'll end by telling me what youknow of the woman whom you'll find parted you."
The same dead silence; only Denny had closed his eyes.
"Come, give me your attention. Look at me, please. Look at me, andyou'll see that I'm sincere. Did you hear me say if you can help me Ishan't be ungrateful? But you can do better for yourself than that. Youcan simply tell the truth! Tell the truth and you won't need my favor.You'll be free. And you'll have set me in the way to find Nancy Cornish!It isn't possible you prefer to keep this ridiculous silence, to dielike a criminal for nothing; or spend fifteen to twenty years in thepenitentiary--spend life there,--ah, I thought so!" TheDistrict-Attorney laughed with triumph at the little straightening ofDenny's nostrils. "There's your weak point, my friend! I have never seena man to whom the idea of jail was so entirely uncongenial! Get rid ofit, then! Admit the truth about Christina Hope! What do you owe her? Shenever even came to me with the witness that she promised."
"I rather thought she'd have trouble doing that!"
"Because you knew there was no such woman. Or rather that that woman wasChristina Hope; that she tried to get up courage to incriminate herselfin your place and failed!"
"You're a bad guesser, Kane!" Denny said. He had sunk a little forwardwith his arms upon his knees, and Kane rose and stood over him.
"Admit that your whole attitude is dictated simply by loyalty to her.You need be loyal no longer. Has she been near you since you've been inthe Tombs?"
"No, you've kept her out. And a fine time you must have had doing it!"
Ten Euyck turned round and said, "She's so _fond_ of you, I suppose!"
Denny flushed. "Yes," he said, "she's fond of me. She was born to be agood comrade-in-arms, to carry the flag of a forlorn hope and stand byyou in the last ditch. If you gentlemen can't understand that, I'm sorryfor you. I can't change her."
"Exactly," Kane said. "I knew that was your ground. Well, thiscomrade-in-arms has deserted you altogether. The day she should havebrought me that witness, she threw down her engagement and left NewYork!"
"Oh, guess again!" said Denny. "Not while she lived, she didn't!"
"And she took with her," Ten Euyck cried, "forty thousand dollars' worthof my diamonds! Perhaps she was in hopes you'd get away and join her!"
"Well," said Denny, turning his eyes toward Herrick, without raising hishead, "you!--you're not a criminal!--are you going to stand for that?"
"Doesn't his standing for it speak for itself!" said Ten Euyck. "If youwant to defend a woman, why don't you come out like a man and confessthat you did it yourself."
They all looked at him in astonishment and, flushing at himself, hesubsided.
"Ah, thanks, Ten Euyck, that's what I've been suspecting! You think youcan trap me into one of your damned confessions with these tricks! Getrid of that idea. I'll not confess. It's up to you to prove it; proveit! Why should I help you!" He turned again to Herrick, as if injustification. "Yes, I am afraid of jail! I'm a coward about prison, Iconfess that! and to give myself up to a lifetime of it--no!--Herrick,there's no chance of their being serious in this talk about Christina."
Kane took him by the unwounded shoulder and forced him from his leaningposture, till his face came full into the light. "Upon my word of honor,Denny," he said, "Christina Hope has disappeared."
The shock struck Denny like a sort of paralysis. He did not stir, but heseemed to stiffen. His eyes dilated with a horrified amazement. "What doyou mean?" he said.
Kane handed him that evening's paper, folded to the headlines that dealtwith the missing girl. He read them with greed, but it was plain that hefound their information stupefying. "Chris, now! First, Nancy!" hesaid, "and
then, Christina! What is this thing? What can it be? You," toKane, "you that are so clever, have you any explanation at all? Have youthe least clue? Have you?" he insisted, and from the dark meaning oftheir faces he seemed to kindle, and half rose, leaning on the table."My God, then," he cried, "what is it? What is it?"
"Well, then," said Kane, "as you yourself suggest, she is very probablyin the same place with Nancy Cornish." Denny continued to lean on thetable, looking at him with ravenous eyes. "You know that Joe Patrick wasknocked down by an automobile on his way to the inquest, that the sameso-called accident happened two or three days later to Herrick, here;you know that subsequently four armed men attacked him in the park;to-day you had an experience of your own. Well, all these things hangtogether and were committed by a band of blackmailers. Your own shouldergives you a taste of their quality. You can judge for yourself whatthey'll stop at. Brace yourself. We know, now, for a certainty thatNancy Cornish is in their hands."
Denny continued to lean there, without stirring. "It's a trick! It's oneof your little tricks! Is it?" he said to Herrick with a suddenshrillness, "Is it?"
"One of them brought us a message from her. It said, 'Help me, dearChris!'"
"No, no, no!" said Denny, as if to himself. "It's a lie. It's all a lie.I won't be frightened. I know it's a lie."
"Is that her writing?"
He cried out, a dreadful, formless sound, and covered his face with hishands. Kane's glance said to the others, "Let him alone! It's working!"
He asked them then, quite gravely and clearly, "When--do you expect--tocatch--this--gang?"
"I don't know that we can catch them at all. We don't know how to getat them. We've no idea where they are."
His hands dropped from his face; it throbbed now and blazed; all thenerves had come to life in a quivering network. "Oh, for God's sake," hesaid, "don't tell me that!--Go on, then, go on! Tell me!" He lookedbeseechingly and then in a fury of impatience from face to face. "Don'tstand gaping! You must know something! Look here, you don't understand!You don't know all I've been through all these weeks--wondering!--If shewas in that lake where we used to row! If she'd only gone away, hatingme! My mind's in pieces trying to think--think--following every sign!Hundreds of times I've seen her dead! And now you tell me she's alive!and calling--calling for help! Do you? Do you?"
"Yes," said Kane.
He swayed forward so suddenly that he had to catch at the table. "It'shorrible! It's a nightmare!" With a strange monotonous inflection hisvoice rose higher and higher on the one strained note. "It's the thingI've dreamed of night and day, week out and in! That she was frightenedand in danger! With brutes! With the faces of beasts round her! Oh,God--!"
"Don't!" Herrick cried.
"Yes, but look here!" With an eagerness sudden as a child's, he said toHerrick, "But it's hope! Hope, isn't it? She's alive! And she didn'tjust leave me!--I've got to get out of here! Yesterday--why,yesterday--this morning--but now! 'Help me!' she says! I've got to getout! I--" He stopped. The dusky choking red that had surged up horriblyover his face and forehead receded sharply, and left only his eyesburning black in the white incredulous horror of his face. He cried,"There's no way out!"
"There may be," said the District-Attorney, "if you will look verycarefully at this lock of hair."
Denny took the soft red curl in a hand that he vainly strove to steady;they could read recognition, but no further enlightenment in histormented face.
"Sit down!" Kane said. "Untie the string. Shake the hair loose here onthe table under the lamp. Now, does anything strike you? No?"
Once more Herrick had that singular impression of Denny's going, for aninstant's flash, perfectly blind. Then he said, quite quietly, "Go! Thestation you want is Waybrook. Drive five miles inland, on the road toBenning's Point; about three miles south of the Hoover estate. Theleft-hand side of the road; an old house newly fixed up and paintedyellow. Pascoe's the name. And, for God's sake, go quickly."
The District-Attorney sat back and wiped his forehead. It had been ahard day's work. "Don't you, Herrick, want to take a look at thecuriosity without which I might as well have asked a clam for a Fourthof July oration?"
The hair was spread out and thinned under the lamp. And now Herrickcould see distinctly that it was of two shades. The outer curl was thedark red of Nancy Cornish; hidden within it was a smaller lock of asingularly fine light shade, like the red of golden fire. This it waswhich had wrung the address from Denny and stricken down Christina in afaint.
"Nancy Cornish hid it there in the message she was allowed to send,"guessed Herrick. "She was certain Miss Hope would know the head it camefrom."
"Then I needn't point out to a gentleman of your discernment that it wasthe head which astonished Joe Patrick on the night of Ingham's murder.Directly afterward, I think Miss Hope stored that head, inconspicuously,with her friends in the Arm of Justice."
Denny, rabid with impatience, seemed eating them alive with his savageeyes. "Start!" he bit out. "Go, can't you? Go! What are you waitingfor?"
Kane looked up at him with a smile of triumphant ice. "We're waiting foryour account of midnight in these rooms between the fourth and fifth ofAugust. And no one stirs to Nancy Cornish till we get it."
Denny's jaw dropped and he hung against the edge of the table as if hewere struck too sick to stand.
Ten Euyck, too, cried out and Kane silenced him. "Why not--since he sayshe's innocent?"
"You dog!" Denny groaned. "You won't save her?"
"_You_ won't save her--you know how!"
"Lose time and you lose everything!"
"What do you know?"
"Know! Know! Of course I know! But do you think you can make me tell?Try that game! Try it! Try! You know damned well you can't! So what'llyou give for what I know?"
"You mean--?"
"Come back to me when you've found Nancy Cornish and you shall have yourmurderer fast enough! Every detail, every fact, every clue! Till then Idon't trust you! Bring her here, bring her!" He leaned forward, besidehimself; shaken and exhausted, burning with fever, weak with loss ofblood, he reached toward Kane and beat the table with his wounded hands."That's my bargain! That's my price! I'm not going to give up fornothing! You don't get my life unless you give me hers--"
"_What?_"
The great gasp broke into a buzz. Denny came slowly to himself and readwhat he had uttered in their looks. His face went dead, a cold sweatstood out upon it. "O!" he breathed. And once more he covered his facewith his hands.
It didn't take many questions to get his story from him after that.
"Yes, I killed him. Yes, I'm confessing. I've got to. All right,--takeit down. I killed James Ingham. I went to his apartment after mydress-rehearsal on the night of the fourth of August. I had been toldthat he had injured Nancy Cornish. I shot him dead. I've regretted itevery moment of my life since then. That's all. What are you waiting fornow?"
"Then, Miss Hope--was not in Ingham's rooms that night?"
There was a dead pause. Denny looked hard in Kane's face. "Yes," hesaid, "she was. She came there to try and prevent our quarrel." The menwho had seen the moving-picture of the shadow breathed again.
"What did she do when you fired?"
"I sent her down to the Deutches to get a doctor. I wanted her out ofthe way, and I switched off the lights so she need not see how uselessany doctor was!"
"How did you yourself escape?"
"Up the back stairs, across the roof, into the next house."
"But she went out of the room before you did?"
The earth swam before Herrick's eyes, and then he heard Denny's "Yes."
"Then since you were the last to leave, explain how you were able tobolt the door behind you?"
"I didn't bolt it behind me. I stayed in the room."
Herrick lifted his head.
"I had dropped my revolver and in feeling for it on the rug I got myhand stained." He spoke lower and lower, but every now and then hisvoice flickered, licking upward like a flame,
and cracked. "I ran intothe bathroom and put it under the faucet, and after that it was too lateto get away. People were peering and listening from their doors. I gotin a blind panic--you've noticed I'm upset by jail!--I knew I wascornered--I bolted the door. But in doing that I saw how close theportieres hung." Herrick drew a long breath. "I thought once I couldclear that outside room a little I could make a dash for it. To do thatit was necessary to remove the magnet. I dragged Ingham's body into thebedroom. The bed's head was toward the portieres. I went and stood inits shadow, in the portieres' folds. Then they burst in. When Deutchheld the portiere aside for the policeman I was so close at his backthat he touched me. When he saw me he screened me almost completely.They had been so obliging as to clear the hall. There was plenty ofnoise; the men were opening the closet door, a motor whirring, a trolleypassing the corner; they all had their backs to me, and I made but acouple of steps of it into the hall. A few moments later I had the honorand privilege of addressing Mr. Herrick, and of hearing from him thatthe murderer was a lady and had not been caught."
"Deutch screened you, you say? Why?"
A queer little color came into Denny's face. "I'm fated to beridiculous," he said. "I had seen a hooded cloak of Christina's lying onthe table; it was Christina's own blue-gray; just the shade of theportieres. The hood covered my head. The shadow back there is very deep.Well, Deutch knew Christina had been there, you know. He must have lefthis apartment just before she got to it, for he was simply one funk ofanxiety about her." Denny had to struggle up, for the interview had toldon him terribly, and he kept one hand on the back of his chair. "I'm ofno greatly imposing bulk," he said. "And Christina Hope is la tallwoman!"
A cry came from within the portieres. Denny, his self-control utterlyshattered, flashed round. Henrietta Deutch greeted him with a radiantface.
"Ah, sirs, thank God! Oh, oh, it was that he saw! Mr. Deutch saw one hetook for her! And Christina it could not have been! He was not twominutes gone when she was with me!"
"Thanks, Mrs. Deutch! I couldn't have trusted even you for the truth ofthat point if I'd simply asked you! But we must make sure that was whathe saw--that and no other proof. Here's the same depth of shadow, then,and the same portieres. Take this couch cover, Denny, for a cloak. Standback, and screen your face with it.--Wade, bring in Deutch."
Herrick shuddered and anticipation choked him. This man had suffered somuch for Christina, and now he was to decide her fate! Thesuperintendent stepped into a silent room. All those eyes fed on him.The place cast its spell of horror. His plump, pale, sagging facequivered with dread; his eyes floundered from Herrick to Kane, and akind of dumb moan burst from him. Kane pointed to the portieres and hispanic was complete.
"Show him, Herrick. Just as he stood, that night."
He stood there, dizzy with bewilderment, and suddenly he screamed.Gasping, he clutched at the portiere through which some touch, somemotion had repeated for him a dreadful moment. Behind it he once morebeheld a dim, blue figure. He fell on his knees, strangling, his breathraving and rattling in his mouth, and brought out like a convulsion theone word "Christina!" Sobbing, he caught at a fragment of the cloak andcovered it with piteous, protecting kisses. Denny let the cloaking stufffall from him, and, stepping out, broken as a thing thrown away, stoodin full view with hanging head. Every eye was fastened upon Deutch.
He had no need for words. What he had believed himself to have seen,what he had suffered, the mad relief, the almost ludicrous exultation inwhat he now learned, passed one after the other across that tormentedvisage and broke in one happy blubber as he ducked his head in hiswife's skirts.
The relief that shook Herrick touched, too, every one in the room. Noman there had really wished to sentence a girl. It was as though, atlast, they had all got air to breathe. When into this new air Denny'svoice broke with a sick snarl.
"And do you think you've saved her? You miserable, gabbling fools, didyou think your Arm of Justice was her friend? Why, she knew no more ofit than you do! If they've got the girl there, she's fighting, accusing,threatening them, she's facing her death! And now in God's name, can youhurry? Hurry!"