The Breaking Point Part 34

"Well, she blew in. You know there was a reward out for him, and I guess it still stands. I'll have to look it up, for if Maggie Donaldson wasn't crazy some one will turn him up some day, probably. Well, Lizzie blew in, and she said she'd seen Jud Clark. Saw him standing at a second story window of this hotel. Can you beat that?"

"Not for pure invention. Hardly."

"That's what I said at first. But I don't know. In some ways it would be like him. He wouldn't mind coming back and giving us the laugh, if he thought he could get away with it. He didn't know fear. Only time he ever showed funk was when he beat it after the shooting, and then he was full of hootch, and on the edge of D.T.'s."

"A man doesn't play jokes with the hangman's rope," Ba.s.sett commented, dryly. He looked at his watch and rose. "It's a good story, but I wouldn't wear out any trouser-seats sitting here watching for him. If he's living he's taken pretty good care for ten years not to put his head in the noose; and I'd remember this, too. Wherever he is, if he is anywhere, he's probably so changed his appearance that Telescope Lizzie wouldn't know him. Or you either."

"Probably," the sheriff said, comfortably. "Still I'm not taking any chances. I'm up for reelection this fall, and that Donaldson woman's story nearly queered me. I've got a fellow at the railroad station, just for luck."

Ba.s.sett went up the stairs and along the corridor, deep in dejected thought. The trap of his own making was closing, and his active mind was busy with schemes for getting d.i.c.k away before it shut entirely.

It might be better, in one way, to keep Livingstone there in his room until the alarm blew over. On the other hand, Livingstone himself had to be dealt with, and that he would remain quiescent under the circ.u.mstances was unlikely. The motor to the main line seemed to be the best thing. True, he would have first to get Livingstone to agree to go.

That done, and he did not underestimate its difficulty, there was the question of getting him out of the hotel, now that the alarm had been given.

When he found d.i.c.k still sleeping he made a careful survey of the second floor. There was a second staircase, but investigation showed that it led into the kitchens. He decided finally on a fire-escape from a rear hall window, which led into a courtyard littered with the untidy rubbish of an overcrowded and undermanned hotel, and where now two or three saddled horses waited while their riders ate within.

When he had made certain that he was not observed he unlocked and opened the window, and removed the wire screen. There was a red fire-exit lamp in the ceiling nearby, but he could not reach it, nor could he find any wall switch. Nevertheless he knew by that time that through the window lay d.i.c.k's only chance of escape. He cleared the grating of a broken box and an empty flower pot, stood the screen outside the wall, and then, still un.o.bserved, made his way back to his own bedroom and packed his belongings.

d.i.c.k was still sleeping, stretched on his bed, when he returned to three-twenty. And here Ba.s.sett's careful plans began to go awry, for d.i.c.k's body was twitching, and his face was pale and covered with a cold sweat. From wondering how they could get away, Ba.s.sett began to wonder whether they would get away at all. The sleep was more like a stupor than sleep. He sat down by the bed, closer to sheer fright than he had ever been before, and wretched with the miserable knowledge of his own responsibility.

As the afternoon wore on, it became increasingly evident that somehow or other he must get a doctor. He turned the subject over in his mind, pro and con. If he could get a new man, one who did not remember Jud Clark, it might do. But he hesitated until, at seven, d.i.c.k opened his eyes and clearly did not know him. Then he knew that the matter was out of his hands, and that from now on whatever it was that controlled the affairs of men, David's G.o.d or his own vague Providence, was in charge.

He got his hat and went out, and down the stairs again. Wilkins had disappeared, but Bill still stood by the entrance, watching the crowd that drifted in and out. In his state of tension he felt that the hotel clerk's eyes were suspicious as he retained the two rooms for another day, and that Bill watched him out with more than casual interest.

Even the matter of cancelling the order for the car loomed large and suspicion-breeding before him, but he accomplished it, and then set out to find medical a.s.sistance.

There, however, chance favored him. The first doctor's sign led him to a young man, new to the town, and obviously at leisure. Not that he found that out at once. He invented a condition for himself, as he had done once before, got a prescription and paid for it, learned what he wanted, and then mentioned d.i.c.k. He was careful to emphasize his name and profession, and his standing "back home."

"I'll admit he's got me worried," he finished. "He saw me registered and came to my room this morning to see me, and got sick there. That is, he said he had a violent headache and was dizzy. I got him to his room and on the bed, and he's been sleeping ever since. He looks pretty sick to me."

He was conscious of Bill's eyes on him as they went through the lobby again, but he realized now that they were unsuspicious. Ba.s.sett himself was in a hot sweat. He stopped outside the room and mopped his face.

"Look kind of shot up yourself," the doctor commented. "Watch this sun out here. Because it's dry here you Eastern people don't notice the heat until it plays the deuce with you."

He made a careful examination of the sleeping man, while Ba.s.sett watched his face.

"Been a drinking man? Or do you know?"

"No. But I think not. I gave him a small drink this morning, when he seemed to need it."

"Been like this all day?"

"Since noon. Yes."

Once more the medical man stooped. When he straightened it was to deliver Ba.s.sett a body blow.

"I don't like his condition, or that twitching. If these were the good old days in Wyoming I'd say he is on the verge of delirium tremens.

But that's only snap judgment. He might be on the verge of a good many things. Anyhow, he'd better be moved to the hospital. This is no place for him."

And against this common-sense suggestion Ba.s.sett had nothing to offer.

If the doctor had been looking he would have seen him make a gesture of despair.

"I suppose so," he said, dully. "Is it near? I'll go myself and get a room."

"That's my advice. I'll look in later, and if the stupor continues I'll have in a consultant." He picked up his bag and stood looking down at the bed. "Big fine-looking chap, isn't he?" he commented. "Married?"

"No."

"Well, we'll get the ambulance, and later on we'll go over him properly.

I'd call a maid to sit with him, if I were you." In the grip of a situation that was too much for him, Ba.s.sett rang the bell. It was answered by the elderly maid who took care of his own bedroom.

Months later, puzzling over the situation, Ba.s.sett was to wonder, and not to know, whether chance or design brought the Thorwald woman to the door that night. At the time, and for weeks, he laid it to tragic chance, the same chance which had placed in d.i.c.k's hand the warning letter that had brought him West. But as months went on, the part played in the tragedy by that faded woman with her tired dispirited voice and her ash colored hair streaked with gray, a.s.sumed other proportions, loomed large and mysterious.

There were times when he wished that some prescience of danger had made him throttle her then and there, so she could not have raised her shrill, alarming voice! But he had no warning. All he saw was a woman in a washed-out blue calico dress and a fresh white ap.r.o.n, raising incurious eyes to his.

"I suppose it's all right if she sits in the hall?" Ba.s.sett inquired, still fighting his losing fight. "She can go in if he stirs."

"Right-o," said the doctor, who had been to France and had brought home some British phrases.

Ba.s.sett walked back from the hospital alone. The game was up and he knew it. Sooner or later--In a way he tried to defend himself to himself.

He had done his best. Two or three days ago he would have been exultant over the developments. After all, mince things as one would, Clark was a murderer. Other men killed and paid the penalty. And the game was not up entirely, at that. The providence which had watched over him for so long might continue to. The hospital was new. (It was, ironically enough, the Clark Memorial hospital.) There was still a chance.

He was conscious of something strange as he entered the lobby. The constable was gone, and there was no clerk behind the desk. At the foot of the stairs stood a group of guests and loungers, looking up, while a bell-boy barred the way.

Even then Ba.s.sett's first thought was of fire. He elbowed his way to the foot of the stairs, and demanded to be allowed to go up, but he was refused.

"In a few minutes," said the boy. "No need of excitement."

"Is it a fire?"

"I don't know myself. I've got my orders. That's all." Wilkins came hurrying in. The crowd, silent and respectful before the law, opened to let him through and closed behind him.

Ba.s.sett stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up.

XXVI

To Elizabeth the first days of d.i.c.k's absence were unbelievably dreary.

She seemed to live only from one visit of the postman to the next. She felt sometimes that only part of her was at home in the Wheeler house, slept at night in her white bed, donned its black frocks and took them off, and made those sad daily pilgrimages to the cemetery above the town, where her mother tidied with tender hands the long narrow mound, so fearfully remindful of Jim's tall slim body.

That part of her grieved sorely, and spent itself in small comforting actions and little caressing touches on bowed heads and grief-stooped shoulders. It put away Jim's clothing, and kept immaculate the room where now her mother spent most of her waking hours. It sent her on her knees at night to pray for Jim's happiness in some young-man heaven which would please him. But the other part of her was not there at all.

It was off with d.i.c.k in some mysterious place of mountains and vast distance called Wyoming.

And because of this division in herself, because she felt that her loyalty to her people had wavered, because she knew that already she had forsaken her father and her mother and would follow her love through the rest of her life, she was touchingly anxious to comfort and to please them.

"She's taking d.i.c.k's absence very hard," Mrs. Wheeler said one night, when she had kissed them and gone upstairs to bed. "She worries me sometimes."

Mr. Wheeler sighed. Why was it that a man could not tell his children what he had learned,--that nothing was so great as one expected; that love was worth living for, but not dying for. The impatience of youth for life! It had killed Jim. It was hurting Nina. It would all come, all come, in G.o.d's good time. The young did not live to-day, but always to-morrow. There seemed no time to live to-day, for any one. First one looked ahead and said, "I will be so happy." And before one knew it one was looking back and saying: "I was so happy."