32 Caliber Part 7

"No, mother. What made you think that?" I asked.

She slowly withdrew her arms and let them fall at her side.

"I don't know. I seemed to feel that something had happened. Just lying here, I felt afraid for you children--and then there were so many people ringing the bell and the telephone, I was afraid that some accident had happened to you or Helen."

I patted her wan cheek. "It's just your imagination. The only thing wrong is that my dearest, little mother isn't as well and strong as her good-for-nothing son."

I kissed her again, and she smiled up at me. "I'm so glad," she whispered. "I was worried."

I almost choked when I got outside. If Helen should recover and be put on trial, it would kill mother, I felt sure. And I would be left alone in the world. Down-stairs, I asked Stella who had called, and she told me the reporters had been trying to find me all day.

During the drive to the hospital, I tried to focus my mind on Helen's defense, but all the force seemed to have been sapped out of me. I felt weak and miserable and unutterably lonely.

At the hospital, they received me with the quiet sympathy that strengthens you in spite of yourself and gives you hope. Doctor Forbes, who had operated on Helen the night before, was in the office. He had just come from Helen's room and he reported her condition to be "extremely satisfactory."

"There is only one thing that worries me," he said. "Your sister seems to have something on her mind that keeps her from resting as quietly as I could wish. It is some real or fancied danger that repeats itself over and over in her delirium. If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I should have every reason to believe she'd get well. I say this to you because you are her brother and are no doubt acquainted with what has happened to her in the last few weeks, and may be able to suggest what it is she fears."

"Perhaps it is the accident itself," I offered.

He shook his head. "It may be, but I think not. However, suppose you step into the room and listen to what she says. If we can only rid her of her fears and get her to rest quietly, I am positive she will recover."

I shook his hand warmly and went upstairs to Helen's room. I knew what it was Helen feared. The consequences of her crime. The terrible fear of public prosecution for the murder of her husband was torturing her poor delirious brain. For a moment I forgave her everything and pitied her from the depths of my heart.

The smell of ether lay thick in the air as I walked down the long corridor to Helen's room. I knocked softly at the door and a white-capped nurse opened it a little way, her finger to her lips. I beckoned her outside and told her Doctor Forbes wished me to find out, if I could, what troubled my sister's mind.

As we entered, I saw Mary sitting by the bed, holding the hand of the poor white figure that lay, death-like, beneath the sheet. Helen's head was swathed in bandages, except for the oval of her face. She looked quite like some fair nun who had said her last "Ava." It was impossible to believe that it was her hand that had fired the shot that killed Jim, and if she lived, that she would have to face the world a murderer.

Mary only glanced up at me for a moment and then turned her eyes again to Helen's lips to catch any sound that might pa.s.s them. As I watched her sitting there so patiently, a little pale from her cramped vigil by the bedside, a great tenderness welled up in my heart, for her. Just then Helen's lips began to move. At first the words were inaudible, although Mary leaned forward to catch them. Then with a half-cry, in which there was a perfect agony of fear---- "Look out, Jim! It's going to hit us! Oh-oh-oh----"

The voice died away and was succeeded by moans, low and trembling. Mary glanced up with a startled look in her eyes. The nurse went quickly to the bedside and soothed the impatient hand that was plucking at the sheets. As for me, my forehead was bathed in sweat and tears were running down my cheeks, but a joy throbbed and sang through my heart till I felt that I should suffocate unless I left that ether-filled room for the open air.

I tiptoed toward the door and caught a nod from Mary as I pa.s.sed, which said she would join me later. For a second, after I closed the door, I couldn't move. My legs failed me and I felt I was going to faint. Gathering all my strength, I stumbled over to a chair by the window and sat down.

I think I should have dropped to my knees and thanked G.o.d right there, if I hadn't feared that my prayers would have been interrupted. That cry, "Look out, Jim!" proved not only that Helen had nothing whatever to do with Jim's death, but that she had tried to warn him of his danger. "It's going to hit us!" What could that mean but that my first theory was correct, that the men in the black limousine had recognized Jim's car and had tried to run him into the ditch? Schreiber and Zalnitch were at the bottom of it, after all, and Helen was innocent.

As I had hoped she would die, when I thought her guilty, now I hoped and prayed she would live. I recalled Doctor Forbes' words: "If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I would have every reason to believe she would get well." I could at least tell him the cause of the fear and leave it to him to find a remedy. With Helen well, ready to testify as to the details of that tragic night, we would certainly bring Jim's murderers to trial.

The door opened and Mary came out. I rose and walked over to her, my eyes still betraying the emotion Helen's words had roused in me.

"You heard what she said?" Mary breathed.

"We knew she didn't do it, didn't we?"

"But, Warren, the things she says are all so weird and mixed up. Sometimes she talks of things that happened just recently and then again she babbles of things that took place a long time ago when we were kids. Once when the nurse came into the room, Helen began crying as though her heart would break and begged that we wouldn't think too harshly of her. Again she repeated over and over, 'He didn't do it--He didn't do it!'"

"Her other fears," I replied, "probably had to do with Woods. But that cry to Jim to 'Look out!' is a real clue and I'm going to sift it to the bottom."

"What are you going to do?" Mary demanded.

"I'm going to accuse Zalnitch of Jim's murder--going to accuse him to his face."

"Oh, be careful, Bupps! Nothing must happen to you!"

The tone she used, her sweet anxiety for my safety, went to my head and I reached out to take her in my arms, but with a little protesting gesture she stopped me.

"Please don't be foolish, Warren!" Then as she saw my spirits droop, she added, "Not till Helen is well."

CHAPTER TEN.

I ACCUSE ZALNITCH.

"Mr. Zalnitch is busy and can't see you."

The girl, evidently a stenographer or secretary, looked coolly competent in her white s.h.i.+rt-waist and well-made skirt. I was surprised to find a young woman of her evident education and refinement in the employ of such a man.

"Did you give him my message?" I asked.

"Yes. He said he was not interested."

I felt vaguely disappointed that my strategy had not worked. I had given the name of Anderson, and had represented myself as the head of the Steamfitters' Union of Cleveland, anxious for instructions on how to settle a labor problem in our local union. I had done this, feeling that if I gave my own name, he might refuse to see me. Apparently my alias was to have no better success.

"When will he be free, can you tell me?"

"I couldn't say," the girl answered. "He is very busy at present, but if you will come in and wait, perhaps he may see you later."

It seemed to me there was the faintest suggestion of a smile on the girl's face as I stepped across the threshold into the small waiting-room, but I hadn't a chance to observe more closely, for she turned her back on me at once and immediately resumed her typewriting.

The room in which I found myself was one of a dingy suite in an old warehouse that had been converted into a newspaper building to house The Uplift, a weekly paper, edited by a Russian Jew named Borsky and financed by Schreiber. It was a typical anarchistic sheet, and had been suppressed for a time, during the war. Opposite where I sat was a door from which the paint had peeled in places. This evidently led into Zalnitch's office, for I could hear the murmur of voices behind it. The rooms were ill-lighted and unclean, and it made me mad to see as nice a girl as the stenographer working herself to death in such dingy surroundings and for such a man as Zalnitch.

I watched her as she worked and marveled that any one could make her fingers go so rapidly. I noticed with admiration and dissatisfaction, that unlike my stenographers, she didn't have to stop to erase a misspelled word every two minutes. I wondered what salary Zalnitch paid her and if she would like to change employers.

"I hope you will pardon my interrupting your work--" I began.

"You're not," the girl responded, without even glancing up.

"May I ask if you are entirely satisfied with your employment here?"

"Why do you ask?" she inquired, stopping for a moment and fixing me with clear gray eyes.

"I am badly in need of a competent stenographer and I thought you might prefer working in a place where the surroundings are pleasanter and the pay probably higher."

She studied me a moment, as though card-indexing me, then having apparently decided that I was in earnest and not merely trying to flirt, that elusive smile again played about her mouth.

"You are the first steamfitter I ever met that found himself badly in need of a stenographer."

Caught! I bit my lip at my stupid blunder, but had to laugh in spite of myself.

"Your make-up is all wrong, Mr. Anderson--if your name is Anderson. I don't know what you are trying to do, nor why you picked out steamfitting as your mythical life-work, but I do know you aren't a detective."

This time the smile came out in the open. I liked her immensely. She might make an ally. She would at least know what had happened in the office during the last few days.

"Miss--?"

"Miller," she added.

"Miss Miller. I am a lawyer, and my sister is about to be accused of a terrible crime which she didn't commit. I think I know who did commit it, but so far I haven't been able to connect him definitely with the crime. I think you can help me. Will you?"

"What makes you think I can help you?" she asked.

"Because you are so situated you can observe the person I believe to be responsible for the crime," I replied.

Her gaze changed from pleasant questioning to indignant surprise. When she spoke her voice was coldly final.

"I think you have made a mistake in judgment of character. Please let me finish my work now."

"Miss Miller, please don't think for a minute that I--"

Behind me a door opened and, as I turned, I found myself looking into the wrathful eyes of a stunted little man with an enormous head. Any one who has once seen Zalnitch can never forget him. His wizened, misshapen body is a grotesque caricature of a man's, which, surmounted by his huge head with its bushy hair, makes him look for all the world like some scientist's experiment. In the doorway to Zalnitch's private office stood Schreiber, a heavy-jowled, unsmiling mastiff of a man.

"What do you want that you should be keeping my stenographer from working?" Zalnitch's voice rose in a shrill crescendo. "Get out of here! You have no business here. Get out!"

"Zalnitch, I came here to speak to you."

"Get out!" he screamed. "I won't talk with you. I have no time to waste, even if you have. I know who you are. You're the brother-in-law of Felderson, the blood-sucking millionaire who sent me to jail. I won't talk with you, do you hear?"

As he grew more excited I seemed to grow cooler.

"Zalnitch, I'm going to swear out a warrant against you for my brother's murder."

For a moment the little man blinked at me in amazement; then he threw back his head and laughed, a shrill, giggling squeak. With his fists he pounded his misshapen legs.

"You arrest me for his murder? Hee-hee! You hear, Schreiber? He is going to--to arrest me!"

Suddenly he stopped, as quickly as he had started.

"Go ahead! Arrest me! Try to send me to prison again. I'll make you sweat blood before you are through. You think I killed him--your brother? I wish I had. I'd be proud to say I killed him! You hear? I wish I had killed him. I wish he were alive so I could kill him."

The little monstrosity emphasized each of his staccato sentences by stamping a puny foot on the floor. His gloating over Jim's death was more than flesh could stand.

"Stop!" I yelled. "If it wasn't you that killed him, it was one of that murderous gang of cutthroats and anarchists that was with you. If it wasn't you, then it was Schreiber's son--that Prussian jail-bird, or one of his friends."

Zalnitch's eyes blazed. "You call us anarchists and cutthroats. You, who are a product of the rotten government that has ground down and oppressed the people I represent. Because we rebel, you throw us in prison, making a mockery of your boasted liberty. So they did for a time in Russia. You call us 'cutthroats.' It's a good term. I hope to G.o.d we earn that t.i.tle."

Finding that the talk was turning into a political harangue, I turned my back on Zalnitch and started toward the door. Schreiber followed me.

"Chust one minud." There was heavy menace in his look. "You galled my son a chail-bird a minud ago. He vas in chail because he did righd, but dot don't matter. You're egsited, because your brodder vas gilled. Ve don't know nodding aboud it. Ve heard aboud it de nexd day. I don'd have nodding against Velderson, bud if you dry to pud my son, Karl, in chail again, someding vill happen to you. I'm delling dis to you vor your own good."

Disappointed at the interview, I closed the door behind me and started down the hall. I don't know just what I had hoped to find out, but I thought Zalnitch would betray himself in some way--must in some way show his guilty knowledge of Jim's death. Instead, he had laughed at me when I threatened to arrest him, even wished he could claim the credit for the crime.

I heard the pattering of feet and turned to find Miss Miller behind me.

"Mr. Thompson."

"Yes, Miss Miller."

"A few moments ago you asked me to help you discover who killed your brother-in-law. For some reason you think Mr. Zalnitch had something to do with it, and you wanted me to give you any information I could about him."

"Yes," I responded.

"When you made that proposal, I was very angry because I resented your thinking I'd spy on my employer. However, your suspicions are so ridiculous I feel it is only fair to tell you that you are wasting your time."

"What makes you so sure that Zalnitch had nothing to do with it, Miss Miller?"

"Because I know he is utterly incapable of doing anything of that kind," she answered.

I half smiled. "Mr. Zalnitch has the reputation of holding life very cheaply--that is, the lives of others who stand in his way. He hated my brother-in-law for that very reason. If he didn't kill him, it wasn't because he didn't want to. For proof of it, you heard what he said in there."

The girl looked me over for a minute. A far-away look had come into her eyes.

"Mr. Thompson, Mr. Zalnitch is obsessed by a wonderful idea. You people call him 'Bolshevist' and 'anarchist,' because he is trying to overthrow the existing order of things. In working out his great theory, he would stamp out a nation if it interfered with the fulfillment of his plan, and he would not think that he had done anything wrong. In fact, he would think it the only thing to do. In that much, he holds life cheaply. But if you think he would descend to wreaking vengeance on individuals for personal spite, you are all wrong. He is too big a man for that."

"Did Zalnitch send you out to say this to me?" I asked suspiciously.

The girl flushed angrily. "Really, Mr. Thompson, you make it almost impossible for any one to help you. Instead of being sent, I may be dismissed for having come out here to talk to you. You asked for my a.s.sistance and now that I have tried to give it, you make me regret the impulse."

She turned and started to leave, but I called her back.

"Miss Miller, please forgive me and don't think me ungrateful. Mr. Felderson meant more to me than any person living, and I have made up by mind to bring his murderer to justice if I have to devote the rest of my life to it. I know that I have been jumping at conclusions. I've done a lot of things since Mr. Felderson's death that I can't understand, myself,--things that were entirely unlike me--but I feel that I would be a traitor to my brother-in-law's memory unless I follow every possible clue. He had only three enemies and one was Zalnitch, who threatened him. Isn't it only natural that I should suspect him?"

Her look was entirely sympathetic as she replied.

"I know how Mr. Felderson's death must have affected you, Mr. Thompson, and I do want to help you. You say he had three enemies; then I advise you to look for the other two, for I am positive Mr. Zalnitch had nothing to do with the murder."

I thanked her and went down the rickety stairs, believing somehow that she had told me the truth. But if not Zalnitch, then who? I knew that in less than a week, as soon as Helen was well enough to stand the shock, she would be indicted, unless in the meantime, I could discover the murderer. Helen had regained consciousness the night before, but was far too weak to undergo any questioning. My impatience at the delay, necessary before she could tell the story of the crime, had driven me, most foolishly, I now realized, into trying to force Zalnitch to a guilty admission of complicity.

When I got hold of myself, I knew well enough that the only sensible course was to wait until Helen should be able to clear up the mystery, so I went to the office and began the heavy task of putting Jim's effects in order.