THE LITTLE STEEL COILS
I
"A Lady to see you, sir."
I looked up and was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of theperson thus introduced to me.
"Is there anything I can do to serve you?" I asked, rising.
She cast me a childlike look full of trust and candour as she seatedherself in the chair I had pointed out.
"I believe so; I hope so," she earnestly assured me. "I--I am in greattrouble. I have just lost my husband--but it is not that. It is the slipof paper I found on my dresser, and which--which----"
She was trembling violently and her words were fast becoming incoherent.I calmed her and asked her to relate her story just as it had happened;and after a few minutes of silent struggle she succeeded in collectingherself sufficiently to respond with some degree of connection andself-possession.
"I have been married six months. My name is Lucy Holmes. For the lastfew weeks my husband and I have been living in an apartment house onFifty-ninth Street, and, as we had not a care in the world, we were veryhappy till Mr. Holmes was called away on business to Philadelphia. Thiswas two weeks ago. Five days later I received an affectionate letterfrom him, in which he promised to come back the next day; and the newsso delighted me that I accepted an invitation to the theatre from someintimate friends of ours. The next morning I naturally felt fatigued androse late; but I was very cheerful, for I expected my husband at noon.And now comes the perplexing mystery. In the course of dressing myself Istepped to my bureau, and seeing a small newspaper slip attached to thecushion by a pin, I drew it off and read it. It was a death notice, andmy hair rose and my limbs failed me as I took in its fatal andincredible words.
"'Died this day at the Colonnade, James Forsythe De Witt Holmes. NewYork papers please copy.'
"James Forsythe De Witt Holmes was my husband, and his last letter,which was at that very moment lying beside the cushion, had been datedfrom the Colonnade. Was I dreaming or under the spell of some frightfulhallucination which led me to misread the name on the slip of paperbefore me? I could not determine. My head, throat, and chest seemedbound about with iron, so that I could neither speak nor breathe withfreedom, and, suffering thus, I stood staring at this demoniacal bit ofpaper which in an instant had brought the shadow of death upon my happylife. Nor was I at all relieved when a little later I flew with thenotice into a neighbour's apartment, and praying her to read it to me,found that my eyes had not deceived me and that the name was indeed myhusband's and the notice one of death.
"Not from my own mind but from hers came the first suggestion ofcomfort.
"'It cannot be your husband who is meant,' said she; 'but some one ofthe same name. Your husband wrote to you yesterday, and this person musthave been dead at least two days for the printed notice of his deceaseto have reached New York. Some one has remarked the striking similarityof names, and wishing to startle you, cut the slip out and pinned it onyour cushion.'
"I certainly knew of no one inconsiderate enough to do this, but theexplanation was so plausible, I at once embraced it and sobbed aloud inmy relief. But in the midst of my rejoicing I heard the bell ring in myapartment, and, running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding inhis outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often bespeaks deathor disaster. The sight took my breath away. Summoning my maid, whom Isaw hastening toward me from an inner room, I begged her to open thetelegram for me. Sir, I saw in her face, before she had read the firstline, a confirmation of my very worst fears. My husband was----"
The young widow, choked with her emotions, paused, recovered herself forthe second time, and then went on.
"I had better show you the telegram."
Taking it from her pocketbook, she held it toward me. I read it at aglance. It was short, simple, and direct:
"Come at once. Your husband found dead in his room this morning. Doctorssay heart disease. Please telegraph."
"You see it says this morning," she explained, placing her delicatefinger on the word she so eagerly quoted. "That means a week agoWednesday, the same day on which the printed slip recording his deathwas found on my cushion. Do you not see something very strange in this?"
I did; but, before I ventured to express myself on this subject, Idesired her to tell me what she had learned in her visit toPhiladelphia.
Her answer was simple and straightforward.
"But little more than you find in this telegram. He died in his room. Hewas found lying on the floor near the bell-button, which he hadevidently risen to touch. One hand was clenched on his chest, but hisface wore a peaceful look, as if death had come too suddenly to causehim much suffering. His bed was undisturbed; he had died beforeretiring, possibly in the act of packing his trunk, for it was foundnearly ready for the expressman. Indeed, there was every evidence of hisintention to leave on an early morning train. He had even desired to beawakened at six o'clock; and it was his failure to respond to thesummons of the bellboy which led to so early a discovery of his death.He had never complained of any distress in breathing, and we had alwaysconsidered him a perfectly healthy man; but there was no reason forassigning any other cause than heart failure to his sudden death, and sothe burial certificate was made out to that effect, and I was allowed tobring him home and bury him in our vault at Woodlawn. But"--and here herearnestness dried up the tears which had been flowing freely during thisrecital of her husband's lonely death and sad burial--"do you not thinkan investigation should be made into a death preceded by a falseobituary notice? For I found when I was in Philadelphia that noparagraph such as I had found pinned to my cushion had been inserted inany paper there, nor had any other man of the same name ever registeredat the Colonnade, much less died there."
"Have you this notice with you?" I asked.
She immediately produced it, and while I was glancing it over remarked:
"Some persons would give a superstitious explanation to the wholematter; think I had received a supernatural warning and been satisfiedwith what they would call a spiritual manifestation. But I have not abit of such folly in my composition. Living hands set up the type andprinted the words which gave me so deathly a shock; and hands, with areal purpose in them, cut it from the paper and pinned it to my cushionfor me to see when I woke on that fatal morning. But whose hands? Thatis what I want you to discover."
I had caught the fever of her suspicions long before this and now feltjustified in showing my interest.
"First, let me ask," said I, "who has access to your rooms besides yourmaid?"
"No one; absolutely no one."
"And what of her?"
"She is innocence herself. She is no common housemaid, but a girl mymother brought up, who for love of me consents to do such work in thehousehold as my simple needs require."
"I should like to see her."
"There is no objection to your doing so; but you will gain nothing byit. I have already talked the subject over with her a dozen times andshe is as much puzzled by it as I am myself. She says she cannot see howany one could have found an entrance to my room during my sleep, as thedoors were all locked. Yet, as she very naturally observes, some onemust have done so, for she was in my bedroom herself just before Ireturned from the theatre, and can swear, if necessary, that no suchslip of paper was to be seen on my cushion at that time, for her dutiesled her directly to my bureau and kept her there for full five minutes."
"And you believed her?" I suggested.
"Implicitly."
"In what direction, then, do your suspicions turn?"
"Alas! in no direction. That is the trouble. I don't know whom tomistrust. It was because I was told that you had the credit of seeinglight where others can see nothing but darkness that I have sought youraid in this emergency. For the uncertainty surrounding this matter iskilling me and will make my sorrow quite unendurable if I cannot obtainrelief from it."
"I do not wonder," I began, struck by the note of truth in her tones."And I shall certainly do what I can for you. But before we go anyfurth
er, let us examine this scrap of newspaper and see what we can makeout of it."
I had already noted two or three points in connection with it to which Inow proceeded to direct her attention.
"Have you compared this notice," I pursued, "with such others as youfind every day in the papers?"
"No," was her eager answer. "Is it not like them all----"
"Read," was my quiet interruption. "'On this day at the Colonnade'--onwhat day? The date is usually given in all the bona fide notices I haveseen."
"Is it?" she asked, her eyes, moist with unshed tears, opening widely inher astonishment.
"Look in the papers on your return home and see. Then the print. Observethat the type is identical on both sides of this make-believe clipping,while in fact there is always a perceptible difference between that usedin the obituary column and that to be found in the columns devoted toother matter. Notice also," I continued, holding up the scrap of paperbetween her and the light, "that the alignment on one side is notexactly parallel with that on the other; a discrepancy which would notexist if both sides had been printed on a newspaper press. These factslead me to conclude, first, that the effort to match the type exactlywas the mistake of a man who tried to do too much; and, secondly, thatone of the sides at least, presumably that containing the obituarynotice, was printed on a hand-press, on the blank side of a piece ofgalley proof picked up in some newspaper office."
"Let me see." And stretching out her hand with the utmost eagerness, shetook the slip and turned it over. Instantly a change took place in hercountenance. She sank back in her seat and a blush of manifest confusionsuffused her cheeks. "Oh!" she exclaimed; "what will you think of me! Ibrought this scrap of print into the house _myself_, and it was I whopinned it on the cushion with my own hands! I remember it now. The sightof those words recalls the whole occurrence."
"Then there is one mystery less for us to solve," I remarked, somewhatdrily.
"Do you think so?" she protested, with a deprecatory look. "For me themystery deepens, and becomes every minute more serious. It is true thatI brought this scrap of newspaper into the house, and that it had, thenas now, the notice of my husband's death upon it, but the time of mybringing it in was Tuesday night, and he was not found dead tillWednesday morning."
"A discrepancy worth noting," I remarked.
"Involving a mystery of some importance," she concluded.
I agreed to that.
"And since we have discovered how the slip came into your room, we cannow proceed to the clearing up of this mystery," I observed. "You can,of course, inform me where you procured this clipping which you say youbrought into the house?"
"Yes. You may think it strange, but when I alighted from the carriagethat night, a man on the sidewalk put this tiny scrap of paper into myhand. It was done so mechanically that it made no more impression on mymind than the thrusting of an advertisement upon me. Indeed, I supposedit was an advertisement, and I only wonder that I retained it in my handat all. But that I did do so, and that, in a moment of abstraction, Iwent so far as to pin it to my cushion, is evident from the fact that avague memory remains in my mind of having read this recipe which you seeprinted on the reverse side of the paper."
"It was the recipe, then, and not the obituary notice which attractedyour attention the night before?"
"Probably, but in pinning it to the cushion, it was the obituary noticethat chanced to come uppermost. Oh, why should I not have rememberedthis till now! Can you understand my forgetting a matter of so muchimportance?"
"Yes," I allowed, after a momentary consideration of her ingenuouscountenance. "The words you read in the morning were so startling thatthey disconnected themselves from those you had carelessly glanced atthe night before."
"That is it," she replied; "and since then I have had eyes for the oneside only. How could I think of the other? But who could have printedthis thing and who was the man who put it into my hand? He looked like abeggar, but----Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed, her cheeks flushing scarletand her eyes flashing with a feverish, almost alarming glitter.
"What is it now?" I asked. "Another recollection?"
"Yes." She spoke so low I could hardly hear her. "He coughed and----"
"And what?" I encouragingly suggested, seeing that she was under somenew and overwhelming emotion.
"That cough had a familiar sound, now that I think of it. It was likethat of a friend who----But no, no; I will not wrong him by any falsesurmises. He would stoop to much, but not to that; yet----"
The flush on her cheeks had died away, but the two vivid spots whichremained showed the depth of her excitement.
"Do you think," she suddenly asked, "that a man out of revenge mightplan to frighten me by a false notice of my husband's death, and thatGod to punish him, made the notice a prophecy?"
"I think a man influenced by the spirit of revenge might do almostanything," I answered, purposely ignoring the latter part of herquestion.
"But I always considered him a good man. At least I never looked uponhim as a wicked one. Every other beggar we meet has a cough; and yet,"she added after a moment's pause, "if it was not he who gave me thismortal shock, who was it? He is the only person in the world I everwronged."
"Had you not better tell me his name?" I suggested.
"No, I am in too great doubt. I should hate to do him a second injury."
"You cannot injure him if he is innocent. My methods are very safe."
"If I could forget his cough! but it had that peculiar catch in it thatI remembered so well in the cough of John Graham. I did not pay anyespecial heed to it at the time. Old days and old troubles were farenough from my thoughts; but now that my suspicions are raised, thatlow, choking sound comes back to me in a strangely persistent way, and Iseem to see a well-remembered form in the stooping figure of thisbeggar. Oh, I hope the good God will forgive me if I attribute to thisdisappointed man a wickedness he never committed."
"Who is John Graham?" I urged, "and what was the nature of the wrong youdid him?"
She rose, cast me one appealing glance, and perceiving that I meant tohave her whole story, turned towards the fire and stood warming her feetbefore the hearth, with her face turned away from my gaze.
"I was once engaged to marry him," she began. "Not because I loved him,but because we were very poor--I mean my mother and myself--and he hada home and seemed both good and generous. The day came when we were tobe married--this was in the West, way out in Kansas--and I was evendressed for the wedding, when a letter came from my uncle here, a richuncle, very rich, who had never had anything to do with my mother sinceher marriage, and in it he promised me fortune and everything elsedesirable in life if I would come to him, unencumbered by any foolishties. Think of it! And I within half an hour of marriage with a man Ihad never loved and now suddenly hated. The temptation was overwhelming,and, heartless as my conduct may appear to you, I succumbed to it.Telling my lover that I had changed my mind, I dismissed the ministerwhen he came, and announced my intention of proceeding East as soon aspossible. Mr. Graham was simply paralysed by his disappointment, andduring the few days which intervened before my departure, I was hauntedby his face, which was like that of a man who had died from someoverwhelming shock. But when I was once free of the town, especiallyafter I arrived in New York, I forgot alike his misery and himself.Everything I saw was so beautiful! Life was so full of charm, and myuncle so delighted with me and everything I did! Then there was JamesHolmes, and after I had seen him----But I cannot talk of that. We lovedeach other, and under the surprise of this new delight how could I beexpected to remember the man I had left behind me in that barren regionin which I had spent my youth? But he did not forget the misery I hadcaused him. He followed me to New York; and on the morning I was marriedfound his way into the house, and mixing with the wedding guests,suddenly appeared before me just as I was receiving the congratulationsof my friends. At sight of him I experienced all the terror he hadcalculated upon causing, but remembering our old relations and m
y newposition, I assumed an air of apparent haughtiness. This irritated JohnGraham. Flushing with anger, and ignoring my imploring look, he criedperemptorily, 'Present me to your husband!' and I felt forced to presenthim. But his name produced no effect upon Mr. Holmes. I had never toldhim of my early experience with this man, and John Graham, perceivingthis, cast me a bitter glance of disdain and passed on, mutteringbetween his teeth, 'False to me and false to him! Your punishment beupon you!' and I felt as if I had been cursed."
She stopped here, moved by emotions readily to be understood. Then withquick impetuosity she caught up the thread of her story and went on.
"That was six months ago; and again I forgot. My mother died and myhusband soon absorbed my every thought. How could I dream that this man,who was little more than a memory to me and scarcely that, was secretlyplanning mischief against me? Yet this scrap about which we have talkedso much may have been the work of his hands; and even my husband'sdeath----"
She did not finish, but her face, which was turned towards me, spokevolumes.
"Your husband's death shall be inquired into," I assured her. And she,exhausted by the excitement of her discoveries, asked that she might beexcused from further discussion of the subject at that time.
As I had no wish, myself, to enter any more fully into the matter justthen, I readily acceded to her request, and the pretty widow left me.
II
Obviously the first fact to be settled was whether Mr. Holmes had diedfrom purely natural causes. I accordingly busied myself the next fewdays with the question, and was fortunate enough to so interest theproper authorities that an order was issued for the exhumation andexamination of the body.
The result was disappointing. No traces of poison were to be found inthe stomach nor was there to be seen on the body any mark of violencewith the exception of a minute prick upon one of his thumbs.
This speck was so small that it escaped every eye but my own.
The authorities assuring the widow that the doctor's certificate givenher in Philadelphia was correct, the body was again interred. But I wasnot satisfied; and confident that this death had not been a natural one,I entered upon one of those secret and prolonged investigations whichfor so many years have constituted the pleasure of my life. First, Ivisited the Colonnade in Philadelphia, and being allowed to see the roomin which Mr. Holmes died, went through it carefully. As it had not beenused since that time I had some hopes of coming upon a clue.
But it was a vain hope, and the only result of my journey to this placewas the assurance I received that the gentleman had spent the entireevening preceding his death in his own room, where he had been broughtseveral letters and one small package, the latter coming by mail. Withthis one point gained--if it was a point--I went back to New York.
Calling on Mrs. Holmes, I asked her if, while her husband was away, shehad sent him anything besides letters, and upon her replying to thecontrary, requested to know if in her visit to Philadelphia she hadnoted among her husband's effects anything that was new or unfamiliar toher. "For he received a package while there," I explained, "and thoughits contents may have been perfectly harmless, it is just as well for usto be assured of this before going any further."
"Oh, you think, then, he was really the victim of some secret violence."
"We have no proof of it," I said. "On the contrary, we are assured thathe died from natural causes. But the incident of the newspaper slipoutweighs, in my mind, the doctor's conclusions, and until the mysterysurrounding that obituary notice has been satisfactorily explained byits author I shall hold to the theory that your husband has been madeaway with in some strange and seemingly unaccountable manner, which itis our duty to bring to light."
"You are right! You are right! Oh, John Graham!"
She was so carried away by this plain expression of my belief that sheforgot the question I had put to her.
"You have not said whether or not you found anything among yourhusband's effects that can explain this mystery," I suggested.
She at once became attentive.
"Nothing," said she; "his trunks were already packed and his bag nearlyso. There were a few things lying about the room which I saw thrust intothe latter. Would you like to look through them? I have not had theheart to open the bag since I came back."
As this was exactly what I wished, I said as much, and she led me into asmall room, against the wall of which stood a trunk with atravelling-bag on top of it. Opening the latter, she spread the contentsout on the trunk.
"I know all these things," she sadly murmured, the tears welling in hereyes.
"This?" I inquired, lifting up a bit of coiled wire with two or threerings dangling from it.
"No; why, what is that?"
"It looks like a puzzle of some kind."
"Then it is of no consequence. My husband was forever amusing himselfover some such contrivance. All his friends knew how well he likedthese toys and frequently sent them to him. This one evidently reachedhim from Philadelphia."
Meanwhile I was eyeing the bit of wire curiously. It was undoubtedly apuzzle, but it had appendages to it that I did not understand.
"It is more than ordinarily complicated," I observed, moving the ringsup and down in a vain endeavour to work them off.
"The better he would like it," she said.
I kept working with the rings. Suddenly I gave a painful start. A littleprong in the handle of the toy had started out and pierced me.
"You had better not handle it," said I, and laid it down. But the nextmoment I took it up again and put it in my pocket. The prick made bythis treacherous bit of mechanism was in or near the same place on mythumb as the one I had noticed on the hand of the deceased Mr. Holmes.
There was a fire in the room, and before proceeding further I cauterisedthat prick with the end of a red-hot poker. Then I made my adieux toMrs. Holmes and went immediately to a chemist friend of mine.
"Test the end of this bit of steel for me," said I. "I have reason tobelieve it carries with it a deadly poison."
He took the toy, promising to subject it to every test possible and letme know the result. Then I went home. I felt ill, or imagined I did,which under the circumstances was almost as bad.
Next day, however, I was quite well, with the exception of a certaininconvenience in my thumb. But not till the following week did I receivethe chemist's report. It overthrew my whole theory. He found nothing,and returned me the bit of steel.
But I was not convinced.
"I will hunt up this John Graham," thought I, "and study him."
But this was not so easy a task as it may appear. As Mrs. Holmespossessed no clue to the whereabouts of her quondam lover, I had nothingto aid me in my search for him, save her rather vague description of hispersonal appearance and the fact that he was constantly interrupted inspeaking by a low, choking cough. However, my natural perseverancecarried me through. After seeing and interviewing a dozen John Grahamswithout result, I at last lit upon a man of that name who presented afigure of such vivid unrest and showed such a desperate hatred of hisfellows, that I began to entertain hopes of his being the person I wasin search of. But determined to be sure of this before proceedingfurther, I confided my suspicions to Mrs. Holmes, and induced her toaccompany me down to a certain spot on the "Elevated" from which I hadmore than once seen this man go by to his usual lounging place inPrinting House Square.
She showed great courage in doing this, for she had such a dread of himthat she was in a state of nervous excitement from the moment she lefther house, feeling sure that she would attract his attention and thusrisk a disagreeable encounter. But she might have spared herself thesefears. He did not even glance up in passing us, and it was mainly by hiswalk she recognised him. But she did recognise him; and this nerved meat once to set about the formidable task of fixing upon him a crimewhich was not even admitted as a fact by the authorities.
He was a man-about-town, living, to all appearances, by his wits. He wasto be seen mostly in the downtown
portions of the city, standing forhours in front of some newspaper office, gnawing at his finger-ends, andstaring at the passers-by with a hungry look alarming to the timid andprovoking alms from the benevolent. Needless to say that he rejected thelatter expression of sympathy with angry contempt.
His face was long and pallid, his cheek-bones high, and his mouth bitterand resolute in expression. He wore neither beard nor moustache, butmade up for their lack by an abundance of light-brown hair, which hungvery nearly to his shoulders. He stooped in standing, but as soon as hemoved, showed decision and a certain sort of pride which caused him tohold his head high and his body more than usually erect. With all thesegood points his appearance was decidedly sinister, and I did not wonderthat Mrs. Holmes feared him.
My next move was to accost him. Pausing before the doorway in which hestood, I addressed him some trivial question. He answered me withsufficient politeness, but with a grudging attention which betrayed thehold which his own thoughts had upon him. He coughed while speaking, andhis eye, which for a moment rested on mine, produced an impression uponme for which I was hardly prepared, great as was my prejudice againsthim. There was such an icy composure in it; the composure of anenvenomed nature conscious of its superiority to all surprises. As Ilingered to study him more closely, the many dangerous qualities of theman became more and more apparent to me; and convinced that to proceedfurther without deep and careful thought would be to court failure wheretriumph would set me up for life, I gave up all present attempt atenlisting him in conversation and went away in an inquiring and seriousmood.
In fact, my position was a peculiar one, and the problem I had set formyself one of unusual difficulty. Only by means of some extraordinarydevice such as is seldom resorted to by the police of this or any othernation, could I hope to arrive at the secret of this man's conduct, andtriumph in a matter which to all appearance was beyond humanpenetration.
But what device? I knew of none, nor through two days and nights ofstrenuous thought did I receive the least light on the subject. Indeed,my mind seemed to grow more and more confused the more I urged it intoaction. I failed to get inspiration indoors or out; and feeling myhealth suffer from the constant irritation of my recurringdisappointment, I resolved to take a day off and carry myself and myperplexities into the country.
I did so. Governed by an impulse which I did not then understand, I wentto a small town in New Jersey and entered the first house on which I sawthe sign "Room to Let." The result was most fortunate. No sooner had Icrossed the threshold of the neat and homely apartment thrown open to myuse, than it recalled a room in which I had slept two years before andin which I had read a little book I was only too glad to remember atthis moment. Indeed, it seemed as if a veritable inspiration had come tome through this recollection, for though the tale to which I allude wasa simple child's story written for moral purposes, it contained an ideawhich promised to be invaluable to me at this juncture. Indeed, by meansof it, I believed myself to have solved the problem that was puzzlingme, and, relieved beyond expression, I paid for the night's lodging Ihad now determined to forego, and returned immediately to New York,having spent just fifteen minutes in the town where I had received thishappy inspiration.
My first step on entering the city was to order a dozen steel coils madesimilar to the one which I still believed answerable for James Holmes'sdeath. My next to learn as far as possible all of John Graham's hauntsand habits. At a week's end I had the springs and knew almost as well ashe did himself where he was likely to be found at all times of the dayand night. I immediately acted upon this knowledge. Assuming a slightdisguise, I repeated my former stroll through Printing House Square,looking into each doorway as I passed. John Graham was in one of them,staring in his old way at the passing crowd, but evidently seeingnothing but the images formed by his own disordered brain. A manuscriptroll stuck out of his breast-pocket, and from the way his nervousfingers fumbled with it, I began to understand the restless glitter ofhis eyes, which were as full of wretchedness as any eyes I have everseen.
Entering the doorway where he stood, I dropped at his feet one of thesmall steel coils with which I was provided. He did not see it. Stoppingnear him, I directed his attention to it by saying:
"Pardon me, but did I not see something drop out of your hand?"
He started, glanced at the seemingly inoffensive toy I had pointed out,and altered so suddenly and so vividly that it became instantly apparentthat the surprise I had planned for him was fully as keen and searchinga one as I had anticipated. Recoiling sharply, he gave me a quick look,then glanced down again at his feet as if half expecting to find theobject of his terror gone. But, perceiving it still lying there, hecrushed it viciously with his heel, and uttering some incoherent wordsdashed impetuously from the building.
Confident that he would regret this hasty impulse and return, I withdrewa few steps and waited. And sure enough, in less than five minutes, hecame slinking back. Picking up the coil with more than one sly lookabout, he examined it closely. Suddenly he gave a sharp cry and wentstaggering out. Had he discovered that the seeming puzzle possessed thesame invisible spring which had made the one handled by James Holmes sodangerous?
Certain as to the place he would be found next, I made a short cut to anobscure little saloon in Nassau Street, where I took up my stand in aspot convenient for seeing without being seen. In ten minutes he wasstanding at the bar asking for a drink.
"Whiskey!" he cried. "Straight."
It was given him, but as he set the empty glass down on the counter hesaw lying before him another of the steel springs, and was so confoundedby the sight that the proprietor, who had put it there at myinstigation, thrust out his hand toward him as if half afraid he wouldfall.
"Where did that--that _thing_ come from?" stammered John Graham,ignoring the other's gesture and pointing with a trembling hand at theinsignificant bit of wire between them.
"Didn't it drop from your coat-pocket?" inquired the proprietor. "Itwasn't lying here before you came in."
With a horrible oath the unhappy man turned and fled from the place. Ilost sight of him after that for three hours, then I suddenly came uponhim again. He was walking uptown with a set purpose in his face thatmade him look more dangerous than ever. Of course I followed him,expecting him to turn towards Fifty-ninth Street, but at the corner ofMadison Avenue and Forty-seventh Street he changed his mind and dashedtoward Third Avenue. At Park Avenue he faltered and again turned north,walking for several blocks as if the fiends were behind him. I began tothink that he was but attempting to walk off his excitement, when, at asudden rushing sound in the cut beside us, he stopped and trembled. Anexpress train was shooting by. As it disappeared in the tunnel beyond,he looked about him with a blanched face and wandering eye; but hisglance did not turn my way, or, if it did, he failed to attach anymeaning to my near presence.
He began to move on again and this time towards the bridge spanning thecut. I followed him very closely. In the centre of it he paused andlooked down at the track beneath him. Another train was approaching. Asit came near he trembled from head to foot, and, catching at the railingagainst which he leaned, was about to make a quick move forward when apuff of smoke arose from below and sent him staggering backward, gaspingwith a terror I could hardly understand till I saw that the smoke hadtaken the form of a spiral and was sailing away before him in what tohis disordered imagination must have looked like a gigantic image of thecoil with which twice before on this day he had found himselfconfronted.
It may have been chance and it may have been providence; but whicheverit was it saved him. He could not face that semblance of his hauntingthought; and turning away he cowered down on the neighbouring curbstone,where he sat for several minutes, with his head buried in his hands;when he arose again he was his own daring and sinister self. Knowingthat he was now too much master of his faculties to ignore me anylonger, I walked quickly away and left him. I knew where he would be atsix o'clock and had already engaged a table at the same resta
urant. Itwas seven, however, before he put in an appearance, and by this time hewas looking more composed. There was a reckless air about him, however,which was perhaps only noticeable to me; for none of the habitues ofthis especial restaurant were entirely without it; wild eyes and unkempthair being in the majority.
I let him eat. The dinner he ordered was simple and I had not the heartto interrupt his enjoyment of it.
But when he had finished and came to pay, then I allowed the shock tocome. Under the bill which the waiter laid at the side of his plate wasthe inevitable steel coil; and it produced even more than its usualeffect. I own I felt sorry for him.
He did not dash from the place, however, as he had from the liquorsaloon. A spirit of resistance had seized him and he demanded to knowwhere this object of his fear had come from. No one could tell him (orwould). Whereupon he began to rave and would certainly have done himselfor somebody else an injury if he had not been calmed by a man almost aswild-looking as himself. Paying his bill, but vowing he would neverenter the place again, he went out, clay white, but with the swaggeringair of a man who had just asserted himself.
He drooped, however, as soon as he reached the street, and I had nodifficulty in following him to a certain gambling den, where he gainedthree dollars and lost five. From there he went to his lodgings in WestTenth Street.
I did not follow him. He had passed through many deep and wearingemotions since noon, and I had not the heart to add another to them.
But late the next day I returned to this house and rang the bell. It wasalready dusk, but there was light enough for me to notice the unrepairedcondition of the iron railings on either side of the old stoop and tocompare this abode of decayed grandeur with the spacious and elegantapartment in which pretty Mrs. Holmes mourned the loss of her younghusband. Had any such comparison ever been made by the unhappy JohnGraham, as he hurried up these battered steps into the dismal hallsbeyond?
In answer to my summons there came to the door a young woman to whom Ihad but to intimate my wish to see Mr. Graham for her to let me in withthe short announcement:
"Top floor, back room! Door open, he's out; door shut, he's in."
As an open door meant liberty to enter, I lost no time in following thedirection of her finger, and presently found myself in a low atticchamber overlooking an acre of roofs. A fire had been lighted in theopen grate, and the flickering red beams danced on ceiling and wallswith a cheeriness greatly in contrast to the nature of the businesswhich had led me there. As they also served to light the room, Iproceeded to make myself at home; and drawing up a chair, sat down atthe fireplace in such a way as to conceal myself from any one enteringthe door.
In less than half an hour he came in.
He was in a state of high emotion. His face was flushed and his eyesburning. Stepping rapidly forward, he flung his hat on the table in themiddle of the room, with a curse that was half cry and half groan. Thenhe stood silent and I had an opportunity of noting how haggard he hadgrown in the short time which had elapsed since I had seen him last. Butthe interval of his inaction was short, and in a moment he flung up hisarms with a loud "Curse her!" that rang through the narrow room andbetrayed the source of his present frenzy. Then he again stood still,grating his teeth and working his hands in a way terribly suggestive ofthe murderer's instinct. But not for long. He saw something thatattracted his attention on the table, a something upon which my eyes hadlong before been fixed, and starting forward with a fresh and quitedifferent display of emotion, he caught up what looked like a roll ofmanuscript and began to tear it open.
"Back again! Always back!" wailed from his lips; and he gave the roll atoss that sent from its midst a small object which he no sooner sawthan he became speechless and reeled back. It was another of the steelcoils.
"Good God!" fell at last from his stiff and working lips. "Am I mad orhas the devil joined in the pursuit against me? I cannot eat, I cannotdrink, but this diabolical spring starts up before me. It is here,there, everywhere. The visible sign of my guilt; the--the----" He hadstumbled back upon my chair, and turning, saw me.
I was on my feet at once, and noting that he was dazed by the shock ofmy presence, I slid quietly between him and the door.
The movement roused him. Turning upon me with a sarcastic smile in whichwas concentrated the bitterness of years, he briefly said:
"So I am caught! Well, there has to be an end to men as well as tothings, and I am ready for mine. She turned me away from her doorto-day, and after the hell of that moment I don't much fear any other."
"You had better not talk," I admonished him. "All that falls from younow will only tell against you on your trial."
He broke into a harsh laugh. "And do you think I care for that? Thathaving been driven by a woman's perfidy into crime I am going to bridlemy tongue and keep down the words which are my only safeguard frominsanity? No, no; while my miserable breath lasts I will curse her, andif the halter is to cut short my words, it shall be with her nameblistering my lips."
I attempted to speak, but he would not give me an opportunity. Thepassion of weeks had found vent and he rushed on recklessly:
"I went to her house to-day. I wanted to see her in her widow's weeds; Iwanted to see her eyes red with weeping over a grief which owed itsbitterness to me. But she would not grant me admittance. She had methrust from her door, and I shall never know how deeply the iron hassunk into her soul. But"--and here his face showed a sudden change--"Ishall see her if I am tried for murder. She will be in the courtroom--onthe witness stand----"
"Doubtless," I interjected; but his interruption came quickly and withvehement passion.
"Then I am ready. Welcome trial, conviction, death, even. To confronther eye to eye is all I wish. She shall never forget it, never!"
"Then you do not deny----" I began.
"I deny nothing," he returned, and held out his hands with a grimgesture. "How can I, when there falls from everything I touch thedevilish thing which took away the life I hated?"
"Have you anything more to say or do before you leave these rooms?" Iasked.
He shook his head, and then, bethinking himself, pointed to the roll ofpaper which he had flung on the table.
"Burn that!" he cried.
I took up the roll and looked at it. It was the manuscript of a poem inblank verse.
"I have been with it into a dozen newspaper and magazine offices," heexplained with great bitterness. "Had I succeeded in getting apublisher for it I might have forgotten my wrongs and tried to build upa new life on the ruins of the old. But they would not have it, none ofthem; so I say, burn it! that no memory of me may remain in thismiserable world."
"Keep to the facts!" I severely retorted. "It was while carrying thispoem from one newspaper to another that you secured that bit of printupon the blank side of which yourself printed the obituary notice withwhich you savoured your revenge upon the woman who had disappointedyou."
"You know that? Then you know where I got the poison with which I tippedthe silly toy with which that weak man fooled away his life?"
"No," said I, "I do not know where you got it. I merely know it was nocommon poison bought at a druggist's, or from any ordinary chemist."
"It was woorali; the deadly, secret woorali. I got it from--but that isanother man's secret. You will never hear from me anything that willcompromise a friend. I got it, that is all. One drop, but it killed myman."
The satisfaction, the delight, which he threw into these words arebeyond description. As they left his lips a jet of flame from theneglected fire shot up and threw his figure for one instant into boldrelief upon the lowering ceiling; then it died out, and nothing but thetwilight dusk remained in the room and on the countenance of this doomedand despairing man.