Chapter VI: Part 6

"Well, why then Anna as a factor in this discussion?"

"I'm coming to that. Speaking of names--"

"We are not speaking of names any more. Pray be coherent."

"We are--at least I am. Speaking of names, do you know what she calls me? She calls me 'Miss Fleeceyou,' like that."

"In view of the salary Anna is drawing down I'd call that a touch of subtle irony," stated Mr. Bugbee. "But I see no reason why she should address me as 'Mr. Clammy.' I'm not clammy--I leave it to any impartial judge. I'll not start complaining yet, though. I have a foreboding of worse things to follow. I foresee that when the feeling of formality wears off and we get on an easier social footing she'll call me 'Clam.' I decline to be just plain Clam to Anna or anybody else. If I've got to be a clam I'm going to be a fancy one."

"You drift about so! What I've been trying for the last five minutes to tell you was that Anna has been confiding to me that some of the older inhabitants are taking exception to us--to me, rather. It seems they've already found out that I smoke cigarettes. They regard that as sinful or at least highly improper. There's been talk. She told me so."

"I wonder how they learned of your secret vice!" mused Mr. Bugbee. "It can't be that Anna is a gossip--heaven forbid! Have you been detected in any other shameful practice?"

"Not exactly detected--but, well, criticized. She tells me that certain persons, including one of the two ministers--the Reverend Mr. Peters is the one--have been discussing my costume." She glanced down at her trim riding-breeches and her smart high-laced boots, which with her soft flannel shirt gave her the look of a graceful, good-looking boy. "And I thought I was dressed so appropriately!"

"I believe there is still a prejudice in certain remote districts against the human female leg," said her husband. "Just what fault do the merry villagers find with your get-up?"

"One man at the post-office spoke of these"--she touched a slender Bedford-corded thigh--"of these as choke-bore pants. He said there ought to be a law against a woman parading the public streets with a pair of choke-bore pants on. He said it this afternoon and Anna heard about it and came right straight and told me."

"Strong language for a minister of the Gospel to be using," commented Mr. Bugbee. "Still, the comparison is apt. Choke-bore, eh? Not so bad for a backwoods preacher. The man has traveled and seen the world."

"It wasn't the minister, stupid! It was another man. At that the minister--I mean the Reverend Mr. Peters, not the other one--glared at me today as though he were thinking unutterable things. I thought then he might be miffed because I'd been to see the other minister first. He behaved so--so stand-offish and sort of hostile when I told him about our plan for having a joint Christmas tree for both Sunday Schools. But since I talked with Anna I'm pretty sure it must have been my clothes he didn't like. I'm afraid some of these people are going to be rather difficult, really I am!"

"I'm going to be a trifle difficult myself unless those cigars get here soon," said Mr. Bugbee. "Say, they seem to be having unusually long and silent nights up here this winter, don't they?" he added. "I never thought I'd become so city-broke that I'd miss the plaintive call of the taxicab mooing for its first-born. Gee--it's nearly nine o'clock. If the lights in this house aren't turned out pretty soon some unacquainted passers-by--if any such there be--will suspect the presence of burglars on the premises."

* * * * *

It was on Friday afternoon of that week that a female villager called. She had a keen and searching gaze--that was the first thing to be noticed when the door had been opened in response to her knock. And the second striking thing about her was that on taking a seat she seemed to sink into herself sectionally rather in the style of certain nautical instruments.

The collapsible-looking lady stayed on for upwards of an hour. Upon leaving, she uncoupled joint by joint, as it were, becoming again a person of above the average height. Mr. Bugbee, who after a mumbled introduction and a swift appraisal of the visitor had betaken himself to another part of the house, reentered the living-room upon her departure.

"Who," he asked, "who is yon gentle stranger with the telescopic eye and the self-folding figure? I failed to catch the name."

"Miss Teasdale--a Miss Henny Teasdale."

"Did you say Henny--or do my ears deceive me?"

"Yes; it's short for Henrietta, I think."

"And long for Hen. I'll think that, if you don't mind. If I'm not too inquisitive, might I make so bold as to inquire what brought her hither?"

"She came to tell me some--well, some things. She said she felt it to be her Christian duty to walk up here and tell me these things."

"For example, what?"

"For one thing she thinks we make a mistake in----" Mrs. Bugbee, who appeared slightly flustered, left this sentence uncompleted and built a second one of fresh materials: "Clem, why is it that people have to be so narrow and so critical of other people's motives and so everything?"

"I give it up. But to return to the lady whose fighting name is Henny?"

"Oh, yes! Well, she told me that quite a good many of the members of one of the congregations here rather resent the fact that the pastor of the other congregation is the chairman of my committee that's getting up the Christmas entertainment. And they aren't going to cooperate or let their children come either. There are two cliques, it seems, and they're both awfully cliquey."

"A common fault of cliques, I believe. And what else?"

"And she says some of the young people think our celebration is going to be too tame for them. So they're planning to import special music from over at the junction and throw a jazz party, as they put it, on the same night. It seems there's a barber over at the junction who plays the saxophone and he has an orchestra of four pieces; that's the one they're going to hire."

"Every junction has a barber who plays the saxophone. But formerly the favored instrument was the guitar, though in exceptional cases the harmonica or mouth-organ might be preferred. Proceed, please; you interest me deeply."

"And she says that there's a good deal of curiosity--_curiosity_ was the word she used--about our private lives. There actually seems to be a suspicion that we're some sort of refugees or fugitives or something, and that we're trying to ingratiate ourselves with the residents here in order to work some scheme on them later. At least she hinted that much. But this Miss Teasdale doesn't share in this sentiment at all. She said so several times. She said she only came up as a friend to let me know what was going on. She hasn't any ax to grind herself, she says. She doesn't believe in all this envy and jealousy, she says."

"I don't believe the ax is her favorite weapon. I seem to picture her in the privacy of the home circle brewing a great jorum of poison-ivy tea. Perchance she revealed more?"

"Quite a lot more. She says we're being imposed on shamefully in regard to the prices we're paying for things. She says we picked the wrong people to deal with and that if we'd just come to her first she could have saved us money. She says that Anna is charging us about three times what she'd expect from a neighbor for the same services. Still, I gather that there's a sort of feud between her and Anna, so she may be biased. And she says that this man Talbot--"

"All of which reminds me. I had to order more firewood this morning. Due, I take it, to post-war conditions in Europe the price is now twelve dollars a cord. The egg market also shows an advance, influenced no doubt by disquieting advices from Morocco. Well, if we will meddle in world affairs we must pay the price."

"I believe that practically was about all she said," wound up Mrs. Bugbee. "Where's my fur coat and muffler? I've got to hurry down to the Masonic Hall. I called a rehearsal for three o'clock and I'll probably be late as it is." Mrs. Bugbee lost her worried look. "I'm certain of one thing: I'm not going to be disappointed in my Christmas carols. Not that they have such good voices. But such enthusiasm as all eight of them show! And how they're looking forward to midnight of Christmas Eve! And how willing they are to practice!"

As the festival drew nearer, unforeseen complications ensued. Inspired by an affection which the holiday spirit had quickened, various persons back in New York chose to disregard the advertised views of the Bugbees touching on the overworked custom of exchanging gifts. Their hiding-place was known too, as now developed. By express and by parcel-post came packages done up in gay wrappings and bearing cards and sprigs of holly and inevitably containing the conventional remembrances, the customary loving messages. The opening of each box served to enhance an atmosphere of homesickness which was beginning to fill the Rousseau bungalow.

"Well, I've done the best I could," wailed Mrs. Bugbee despairingly. "Of course we have to make some return for all this." She indicated a litter of brilliant paper and parti-colored ribbon bindings on the floor about her.

"Why do we?" he countered, he having just returned from the settlement. "Those darned fools knew how we felt about this business."

"Because we just do, that's why! They'd never forgive us. So while you were gone I wrote out a telegram to Aunt Bessie and telephoned it down to the junction. I gave Aunt Bessie the names of everybody who'd sent us something and told her what stores we have charge accounts at and begged her as a tremendous favor to get each one of them something, no matter what, and send it around to them. It wouldn't have done any good to wire the stores direct--they're too rushed to pay any attention. And poor Aunt Bessie will be up to her ears in her own Christmas shopping and of course it's a dreadful imposition on her and of course she won't have time to pick out suitable presents or anything. But what could I do?"

"I'll tell you what you could have done," said Mr. Bugbee, fixing an accusing eye upon his wife. "You could have dissuaded me from this mad folly, this wild impulse to flee to the wildwood for Christmas. Back there in October had you but done this our associates might even now be saying: 'Poor Bugbee had a brain-storm but what did Bugbee's little woman do? She saved him from himself, that's what Bugbee's little woman did!' But no, woman-like, you fed the flames of my delusion. And now it's too late to turn back. Madam, you have but yourself to blame, I refuse to offer you my pity. Anyhow, I need it all for personal use."

"What else has happened now?" she asked in the resigned tone of one who is prepared for any tidings however grievous and hard to bear.

"I decline to furnish the harrowing details," he replied. "Suffice it to say that one rift shows in the encompassing clouds. In certain local quarters our intentions may be misinterpreted, that I grant you; it would be wasting words to claim otherwise. But today, mark you, I struck the trail of at least one prospective beneficiary who'll surely respond to our overtures with gratitude. He's going to be our reward--perhaps our only one--for making this trip."

"After certain recent experiences I'd love to meet him."

"Your desire shall be gratified. Let me tell you about him: You remember that starved-looking shabby chap that we've seen several times plowing past here through the drifts on his way to the village or back again? And always alone?"

"Yes, I do. We were speaking of him yesterday, saying how forlorn he seemed and how solitary."

"That's our candidate. The name is Sisson. He came into the post-office an hour ago and I got a good look at him--at close range he's even more melancholy than he is viewed from a distance--and after he was gone I asked a few discreet questions about him. He's a mystery. About six weeks ago he moved into a tumble-down cabin about a mile up the mountain behind this clearing and he leads a sort of solitary hermit existence up there. Nobody ever goes to see him and he never comes to see anybody and nobody knows anything about him except that occasionally he gets an official-looking letter from Washington. The postmistress told me that much."

"I believe I can guess." Mrs. Bugbee's voice warmed sympathetically. "He's probably a poor shell-shocked veteran that has hid himself away on account of his nervous condition. And he's been writing to the Government trying to get it to do something about his pension or his disability allowance or something--poor neglected hero! I just feel it that I'm right about him. You know yourself, Clem, how my intuition works sometimes?"

"Well, in a way I rather jumped at that conclusion too," said Mr. Bugbee. "So I dusted out and overtook the nominee and introduced myself and walked along with him. As a matter of fact I just left him. I invited him in but he declined. He behaved as though he distrusted me, but before I quit I succeeded in getting him to promise faithfully that he'd drop in on us late on Christmas Eve. I realized that he wouldn't care to show himself among the crowd down at the hall."

"I think that's a splendid arrangement," applauded Mrs. Bugbee. "Just perfectly splendid! And the next thing is, what are we going to give him?"

"Not too much. We don't want him to get the idea that we look on him as an object of charity. Just one timely, suitable small present--a token, if you get what I mean; that would be my notion."

"Mine, too," chorused Mrs. Bugbee. "But the question is, what?"

They had quite a little dispute over it. She voted first for a pair of military hair-brushes, the Herbert Ryders, of East Sixty-ninth Street, having sent Mr. Bugbee a pair and he being already the possessor of two other pairs. But as Mr. Bugbee pointed out, an offering even remotely suggestive of the military life possibly might recall unpleasant memories in the mind of one who had suffered in the Great War. So then she suggested that a box containing one-half dozen cakes of imported and scented violet soap might be acceptable; there was such a box among the gifts accumulating about the room. But, as Mr. Bugbee said, suppose he was sensitive? Suppose he took it as a personal reflection? They argued back and forth. Eventually Mr. Bugbee found an answer to the problem.

"I'm going to hand him my last full quart of old Scotch," he announced with a gesture of broad generosity. "He'll appreciate that, or I miss my guess."

He had the comforting feeling of having made a self-sacrifice for the sake of a stranger. He had the redeemed feeling of one who means to go the absolute limit on behalf of his fellow man. For Mr. Bugbee had brought with him but three bottles of his treasured pre-Prohibition Scotch. And the first bottle was emptied and the second had been broached and half emptied and only the third precious survivor remained intact.

It was a lovely yet a poignant feeling to have.

On the night before Christmas it was raining. By morning probably the underfooting would be all one nice icy slickery glare but now everything was melting and running. As the Bugbees, man and wife, slopped along up the gentle slope leading from the highway to their front door they were exchanging remarks which had been uttered several times already on the homeward journey but each, with variations, was still repeating his, or as the case was, her contributions to the dialogue, just as persons will do when a subject for conversation happens to be one that lies close to the speakers' heart.

"The little ones," she was saying, "they almost repaid me for all the trouble we've been to and all the pains we've taken. Their glee was genuine. Sometimes, Clem, I think there ought to be a law against anybody celebrating Christmas who's more than twelve years old--I mean celebrating it with gifts."

"Second the motion!" His tone was grim. One might even say it was bitter.

"But some of these older ones--turning up their noses right before our eyes at the little presents that we'd bought for them. What did they expect--diamond bracelets? Do they think we're made out of money?"

"Well, I'm not, for one. I settled Brother Talbot's account for the past two weeks this afternoon. That man's talents are wasted here. He ought to be operating a fleet of pirate ships."

"There was one thing that I haven't had the courage to tell you about yet." She blurted the rest in a gulped staccato: "With me it was absolutely the last straw. And I'm ashamed of myself. But my heart was so set on the singing! That's my only excuse for being so weak."

"Go on. I'm listening."

"Well, you know yourself, Clem, how hard I've worked at drilling those eight men and boys for my Christmas carols? And how I've explained to them over and over again about the meanings of all those beautiful Old World customs such as the English have? And I thought they'd caught the spirit--from the very first they seemed so inspired. But tonight--just a little while ago when you were busy with the tree--they took me aside. They said they wanted to tell me something. And Clem--they--they struck!"

"Struck for what?"

"For money. Said they wouldn't sing a note unless I paid them for their back time."

"And what did you do?"

"I paid them," she confessed. "Five dollars apiece. That is, all but the leader. He--he got ten."

Mr. Bugbee made no comment on this disclosure. But his silence fairly screamed at her. "Wipe your feet before you come into the house," he said. He kicked the muddied snow off his boots and opened the door.

They entered where efforts had been made to create a showing of holiday cheer. There were greens about and a sprig of synthetic mistletoe dangled above the lintel, and on the mantel was a composition statuette of good Saint Nicholas, rotund and rosy and smiling a painted smile. In the act of crossing the threshold they were aware of the presence of a visitor. Very rigidly and rather with the air of being peevish for some reason, a lantern-jawed person stood in the middle of the floor.

"Oh," said Mrs. Bugbee advancing to make the stranger welcome. "How do you do? It's Mr. Sisson, isn't it? My husband told me you were coming."

"He said eleven o'clock." Mr. Sisson's voice was condemnatory. "It's nearly twenty past."

"I'm so sorry--we are a trifle late, aren't we? Detained down in the Cove, you know."

"Personally I alluz make it a point to be on time, myself." Mr. Sisson accepted the outstretched hand of his hostess and shook it stiffly but he did not unbend. He aimed a sternly interrogative glance at Mr. Bugbee: "Whut business did you want to have with me?"

"No business," explained that gentleman. "Pleasure, I hope. We asked you here so that we might wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

"And to offer you a small remembrance," supplemented Mrs. Bugbee. "And here it is--with our very best compliments." She took from a side table a longish, roundish parcel enclosed in white tissue with ribbon bindings and a bit of imitation holly caught in the bow-knot at the top. She put it in his somewhat limp grasp.

Immediately though, his clutch on the object tightened. He fingered its contours. "Feels to me sort of like a bottle," he opined.

"It is," said the jovial Mr. Bugbee. "Open it and see."

The recipient opened it. He tore away the festal wrappings, and held the contents to the light. His eye seemed to kindle. "Looks to me sort of like licker," he said.

"That's what it is."

Mrs. Bugbee was hovering alongside awaiting the expected outburst of gratitude, puzzled though that it should be so long delayed.

"Mind ef I taste it right here?"

"Not at all."

"Got a corkscrew handy?"

"I think I can locate one."

"And a glass?"

Mrs. Bugbee brought a tumbler. Mr. Bugbee found a corkscrew.

Deftly Mr. Sisson unstoppered the bottle. Into the glass he poured a taste of the liquid. He did not invite them to share with him. There was about him no suggestion that he meant to make a loving-cup of it. He sipped briefly. "That's sufficient--I jest wanted to make sure," he stated. "This here is a stimilent containing' more'n one-half of one percent alcohol by volume."

"I should say it is. That Scotch was made back in--" He checked, for Mr. Sisson was behaving very peculiarly indeed.

Mr. Sisson was recorking the bottle and sliding it carefully into a side pocket of his overcoat. From other pockets he brought forth a revolver, a folded document of an official and formidable appearance, it having a seal upon its outermost side, and finally a clanking pair of very new looking, very shiny handcuffs. He laid these one by one upon a convenient table-top and next he cast a determined and confounding stare upon the startled faces of Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee.

The lady's fascinated eyes were fixed for the moment upon the horrifying steeliness of those glinting cuffs, and spasmodically she thrust her hands wrist deep in her ulster pockets. It was evident that, be this daunting intruder's purposes what they might, Mrs. Bugbee did not mean to be manacled without a struggle. But Mr. Bugbee stood unresistingly and blinked like a man coming out of a distressful trance and not sure yet that he is out.

"You're both under arrest," expounded Mr. Sisson. "Fur endeavorin' to ply a third party with alcoholic stimilents."

"But--but we gave it to you--of our own free will!" faltered Mrs. Bugbee.

"Givin', sellin' outright or barterin', the law don't recognize no difference. Anything you say further kin be used ag'inst you. Still, I guess there's evidence aplenty to convict. Prob'ly it'll go the worse with you fur offerin' it to an officer of the law. That's whut I am--an officer of the law. Here's my credentials to prove it. And ef you don't believe me, here's my badge." He flipped back a lapel to display a large and silverish decoration pinned under the flap.

"You can't do this outrageous thing to us," declaimed Mr. Bugbee, now fully emerging from coma. His cheeks were blazing. "It's incredible!"

"It's done done," said their accuser calmly. His manner became more menacing, his tone more emphatic. "Don't think, young man, jest because I'm kind of a new hand at this line that you kin work any bluff on me. I've been studyin' to go into the detective business fur quite some time, havin' took a full course in the Unsleepin' Eye Correspondence Detective College, Dayton, Ohio. After I got my diplomy I came on up here to perfect myself in my callin'. Then a new notion come over me and I took it up with the Government about gittin' onto the revenue enforcement department." He spoke on in the proud yet unboastful way of one who is sure his hearers will be interested in following the successive steps of a brilliant career. "I been writin' back and forth fur quite a spell with them Washington authorities."

"Oh!" The understanding exclamation popped from Mrs. Bugbee of its own accord.

"Whut's that?" demanded Mr. Sisson.

"I--I only just said 'oh,'" explained Mrs. Bugbee weakly.

"I thought so." It was as though Mr. Sisson made a mental note of this admission to be incorporated into the testimony. "But it seems like the Government force is all full up at present. So only last week I got a commission from the county to do shadderin' and hunt down these here Prohibition violators and I been workin' on hidden clues ever since. I'm whut they call an independent secret operative. Ez it happens, though, you're my first case--my first two cases I should say.

"Point is that now I've got you I don't know whut to do with you. Can't git you over to the county-seat tonight, late as 'tis and the roads the way they are. And tomorrer bein' Christmas the judge won't want to set to hold you fur trial. Prob'ly"--he caressed the handcuffs tentatively--"prob'ly I'll have to keep you ez prisoners right here under guard fur the next forty-eight hours or so. Prob'ly that would be the best way. Whut do you think?"

Mr. Bugbee made a sign to Mrs. Bugbee that she should withdraw. She did so with backward apprehensive glances.

"My wife's not trying to escape," explained Mr. Bugbee. "She's only going into the next room for a few minutes. She's had a shock--in fact she's had several shocks this evening."

He waited until the latch clicked, then to their captor he said simply: "How much?"

"Which?"

"I think you got my meaning the first time. How much?"

"Looky here," cried Mr. Sisson indignantly, "ef you're aimin' to question my honor lemme tell you I got a sacred reputation at stake."

"That is exactly my aim. What is the current quotation on honor in this vicinity?"

"Oh, well, if you're willin' to talk reasonable, come on over here closer so's nobody can't overhear us."

* * * * *

Five minutes later Mr. Bugbee went over and opened the hall door. "You can come out now," he said. "Our Christmas guest has gone. And all is well."

Mrs. Bugbee came out. She still was pale. "What--what did you do with him?" She asked it tremulously.

"I have just corrupted the noble soul of the only truly unselfish individual we have met to date in these mountains. I might add that corruption comes high hereabouts. City prices prevail." He took her in his arms and kissed her. "Let us now give thanks for deliverance from a great peril. We ought to do more than just give thanks. How about a little Christmas gift from each to the other?"

"But we decided that this year we'd spend that money up here." She winced.

"Circumstances warrant a redecision. Besides, I'm thinking of useful presents--presents which will bring joy to both of us. A couple of those lovely light green railroad tickets back to New York! You give me one; I'll give you one."

"Oh, Clem!" She hugged him.

"Oh, Felice!" He hugged her. "Where's that time-table? I saw a folder around here the other day. If we caught a morning train out of the junction tomorrow we might get in in time for the Baxters' party tomorrow night. Everybody we know--and like--will be there."

"But you know it's a costume party--fancy dress. And we haven't any costumes."

Airily he gestured away her quavering objections. "Say, do you know one thing?" he said. "This place is incomplete. It needs a motto. If I had time to spare I'd write one out and stick it up as a souvenir of our visit. I'd write on it the words 'E Pluribus Your'n,' meaning: 'It's all for you, dear Rousseau, the Bugbees have had enough.'... Now then, if I could just find that time card? Oh, there it is, yonder behind the clock. We can put in the rest of the night packing, and bright and early tomor--"

He broke off, listening. From without came the advancing sound of slushy foot-treads in a considerable number.

The tramping drew nearer and ended just outside. Masculine voices were uplifted in song:

"Hark-k, the herald angels sing,
Glor-y to the--"

"That ain't right--wrong key!" they heard a dominating voice cutting in to check the vocal flow. "Git set fur a fresh start."

"My Christmas minstrels," said Mrs. Bugbee.

"Our little band of strikers," murmured Mr. Bugbee. He hurried to the mantel, plucked something from it, then leaped nimbly thence to a front window and crouched behind its curtains, his posture tense. "Here's where I also join the last-straw club," said Mr. Bugbee softly to nobody in particular.

Once again the unseen troubadours essayed the opening measures of their serenade:

"Hark-k the herald angels sing,
Glor-y to the new-born king,
Peace on earth--"

Mr. Bugbee snatched a sash up and made a movement as of hurling a heavy object into the drizzling night. It was a heavy object, too, judging by the yelp of pain which followed its outward flight. "I'll peace-on-earth you!" he said, closing the window.

A confusion of noises betokening a retreat died away in the distance.

"Did you throw something?" asked Mrs. Bugbee.

"I did," said Mr. Bugbee. "What's more, I hit something--something in the nature of a solid ivory dome. My darling, congratulate me not only on my accuracy but on my choice of a missile. I am pleased to inform you that I have just beaned the inspired leader of your coterie of private Christmas choristers with a heavy plaster image of dear old Santa Claus.... Let me have a look at this schedule.... Ah, here it is. We can catch a through train at ten-five and--by Jove, look, that's luck!--it will put us into Grand Central in ample time to make the Baxters' Christmas party."

"But we've nothing to go in--it's fancy dress. I told you that five minutes ago," protested Mrs. Bugbee.

"Don't worry," said Mr. Bugbee. "We'll go just as we are--as a couple of All-Day Suckers!"

THREE WISE MEN OF THE EAST SIDE

[Decoration]

While he was in the death-house Tony Scarra did a lot of thinking. You couldn't imagine a better place for thinking; it goes on practically all the time there and intensively. But no matter where the thoughts range and no matter what elements enter into them--hope or despair, rebellion or resignation, or whatever--sooner or later they fly back, like dark homing pigeons, to a small iron door opening upon a room in which, bolted to the floor, there is a chair with straps dangling from its arms and from its legs and its head-rest--in short, the Chair. This picture is the beginning and the end of all the thinking that is done in the death-house.

Such were the facts with regard to Tony Scarra. As nearly as might be judged, he felt no remorse for the murdering which had brought him to his present trapped estate. But he did have a deep regret for the entanglement of circumstances responsible for his capture and conviction. And constantly he had a profound sense of injustice. It seemed to him that in his case the law had been most terribly unreasonable. Statistics showed that for every seventy-four homicides committed in this state only one person actually went to the Chair. He'd read that in a paper during the trial. It had been of some comfort to him. Now he brooded on these figures. Over and over and over again, brooding on them, he asked himself about it.

Why should he have to be the unlucky one of seventy-four? Was it fair to let seventy-three other guys go free or let them off with prison sentences and then shoot the whole works to him? Was that a square deal? Why did it have to be that way, anyhow? What was the sense of it? Why pick on him? Why must he go through with it? Why--that was just it--why? The question-marks were so many sharp fishhooks all pricking down into his brain and hanging on.

His calling had made a sort of fatalist out of Tony Scarra. His present position was in a fair way to make a sort of anarchist out of him.

All the way through, his lawyer kept trying to explain to him touching on the lamentable rule of averages. He was not concerned with averages though. He was concerned with the great central idea of saving his life. To that extent his mind had become a lop-sided mind. Its slants all ran the same way, like shingles on a roof that slopes.

At length there came a morning when the death-house seemed to close in on him, tighter and tighter. It no longer was a steel box to enclose him; it became a steel vise and pinched him. This Scarra was not what you would call an emotional animal, nor a particularly imaginative one. Even so, and suddenly, he saw those bolt-heads in the ironwork as staring unmerciful eyes all vigilantly cocked to see how he took the news. And his thinking, instead of being scattered, now came to a focus upon a contingency which through weeks past he had carried in the back lobe.

"I'm just as sore about this as you are, Tony," the lawyer said. "It hurts me almost as much as it hurts you. Why, look here, yours is the first case I ever lost--the first capital case, I mean. All the others, I got 'em off somehow--acquittal or a hung jury or a mistrial or a retrial or, if it looked bad, we took a plea in the second degree and the fellow went up the road for a stretch. It's my reputation that's at stake in this thing; this thing is bound to hurt my record--the conviction standing and all. So naturally, not only on my own account but on yours, I've done everything I could--claiming reversible errors and taking an appeal and now this last scheme of asking the judges to reopen the case on the ground of newly discovered evidence. We've fought it along with stays and delays for nearly eight months now, going all the way up to the highest court in the state, and here today I have to come and tell you we've been turned down there. It's hard on me, don't forget that, Tony. It'll hurt me in New York. You know what your crowd call me there--the Technicality Kid?"

"You was recommended to me as one swell mouthpiece and I sent for you and you came up and I hired you," answered Scarra in a recapitulation of vain grievances, "and you took my jack and you kept on taking it till you milked me clean, pretty near it, and now you stand there and tell me you're through!"

"No, I'm not through either," the lawyer made haste to say. "There's still the chance the governor might commute the sentence. You know how often that happens--men being reprieved right at the very last minute, as you might say. Oh, I'm going to the governor next. We've still got nearly a month left, Tony, and a lot could happen in a month."

"Swell chance I've got with this governor, and you know it. He's a politician, ain't he? Can't you see these here rube papers riding him if he should let off the 'Big City Gunman'? Ain't that their gentlest name for me? No, you quit stalling and listen to me a minute."

There was a tight iron grille between them; they talked with each other through the meshes, and as they talked a keeper watched them, keeping beyond earshot, though. Even in the death-house the sanctity of the professional relation as between a convicted man and his legal adviser was preserved. So the sentry must watch but he might not listen; the meeting partook of the nature of a confessional. All the same, Scarra followed the quite unnecessary precaution of sinking his voice before saying what next he had to say. Saying it, he kept shifting his eyes away from Attorney Finburg's face to look this way and that--first this way, toward the heedful but unhearing keeper, then that way toward the part of the building where, behind soundproof walls, the Chair stood.

"Finburg," he whispered, "I ain't going to let these guys cook me. I'm going to beat their game yet--and you're going to help me." He twisted his mouth into the stiffened shape of a grin; the embalmed corpse of a grin. "Get that? You're going to help me."

Counselor Finburg had eloquent shoulders. Often in debate he used those shoulders of his to help out his pleading hands. He lifted both of them in a shrug of confessed helplessness. Nevertheless his expression invited further confidences. It was as much as to say that this was a poor unfortunate friend who, having a delusion, must be humored in it.

"Don't start that stuff with me," went on Scarra, correctly interpreting the look; "not till you've heard what I got to tell you. Finburg, if I got to croak, I got to croak, that's all. I took plenty chances in my time on getting bumped off and I've seen more'n one guy getting his--what I mean, more'n one besides that hick cop that I fixed his clock for him. If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't been here. But that ain't the thing. The thing is that I ain't going to let 'em make cold meat out of me in that kitchen of theirs out there. They ain't going to fry me on one side like an egg. I'll beat 'em to it, that's all. I couldn't stand it, that's all."

"They say it's absolutely--you know"--Mr. Finburg's lips were reluctant to form the word--"well, painless--and, of course, instantaneous."

"Who says so? A bunch of wise-cracking doctors, that's who. What do they know about it? Any of them ever try it to find out? Finburg, I had a brother and he knew about electricity--was a lineman for a high-tension power company. I've heard him tell about being caught in them currents, heard him tell what other guys went through that took a big jolt of the juice. The first shock don't always put a guy out. He may look to be dead but he ain't--he's stuck there waiting for the next shot--waiting, waiting. Well, not for me--I'm going to do my own croaking--with a little help from outside. That's where you figure in."

Involuntarily, Finburg made as if to back away. His body shrank back but his feet rooted him fast. A fascination held him.

"You ain't going to lose anything by it," maintained the caged man, pressing his point. "You're going to make by it."

"No, no, no!" Finburg strove to make his dissent emphatic. "Oh, no, Scarra, I'd like to do you any favor in my power but I couldn't do that. Why, man, it's against the law. It's conniving at a suicide. It makes the man who does it an accessory."

"Swell law that wants to croak a poor guy and yet calls it a crime if somebody helps him croak himself!" commented Scarra. "Still, I know about that part of it already. What if I tell you you ain't running any risk? And what if you clean up on the deal yourself? You've been knocking holes in the law ever since you got your license. Why're you weakening now?"

"But--but if you're determined to go this way, why not use something in your cell--some utensil, say?" suggested the nervous Finburg. Already he felt guilty. His cautious voice had a guilty quaver in it.

"With them bringing me my grub already cut up and only a spoon to eat it with--_huh!_" The murderer grunted. "Why, even the tooth-brush they gave me has got a limber handle on it. And if they let me have a lead-pencil to write with, there's a keeper standing alongside to see I don't try to shove the sharp end of it down my throat. Don't they search my coop every little while? You know they do. Anyhow, I ain't craving to make a messy job of it and probably be caught before it's done, besides. I'm going clean and I'm going quick. What I want is just a nice little jolt of this here cyanide of potassium. You know about that stuff? You swallow it and it's all over in a minute. That's what I want--one little shot of that cyanide stuff. I ain't going to take it till the last hope's gone--a miracle might happen with that governor yet. But when they come to take me out to be juiced in that chair, why, down goes the little pill and out goes Tony, laughing in their foolish faces. I ain't scared to go my way, you understand, but"--he sucked in his breath--"but I'm scared to go their way and I might as well admit it."

Still on the defensive and the negative, Finburg had been shaking his head through this, but his next speech belied his attitude. Being rent between two crossed emotions--a sinking fear for his own safety and a climbing, growing avarice, he said in a soft, wheedling tone: "You mentioned just now about my making something out of--this? Not that I'd even consider such a dangerous proposition," he added hastily. "I--I just wanted to know what you had on your mind, that's all?"

"I thought that'd interest you! Listen, Finburg. All along, I've been holding out on you. I been keeping an ace in the hole in case we should lose out on the appeal. You thought you'd taken the last cent of fall-money I could dig up for fighting my case for me, didn't you? Well, kid, you guessed wrong there. You remember the big Bergen Trust Company hold-up down in New Jersey early last spring, don't you?"

"Yes." Finburg's jaws relaxed the least bit to let a greedy tongue lick out.

"Then you remember, probably, that quite a chunk of negotiable securities--bonds and things--wasn't never recovered?"

"Yes, I recall." Finburg suggested a furtive jackal, tense with a mounting hunger and smelling afar off a bait of rich but forbidden food.

"And that the trust company people offered a reward of ten thousand for the return of that stuff and no questions asked?"

"Yes, go on."

"Well, Finburg, you're smart but here's something you never knew before. I was in on that hold-up--I engineered it. And inside of three weeks afterwards, while I was waiting for the squawk over that job to die down, I came up here and got in this jam and had to plug this cop and they nailed me. But, Finburg, I've got a safe-deposit box in a bank on Third Avenue and I've got a key to it stuck away in another place where a pal's keeping it for me--a pal I can trust. I'll leave you guess what's in that safe-deposit box. Or, if you want me to, I'll tell--"

"No, don't tell me--that would be illegal," said the lawyer very uneasily and yet very eagerly. "It would be more regular, you understand, if I didn't actually have knowledge of what the contents were--that is, beforehand. I've been double-crossed before by some of you hard-boiled people. There was the time when I almost worked my head off defending Roxie McGill and her mob for shoving phony money, and every time I think of how that McGill skirt slipped it over on me, when it came time to settle up"--he winced on what plainly was a most painful recollection--"well, it's made me careful, Tony, awfully careful. Not that I'm doubting you, understand. If a man can't trust a--" He broke off, looking, for him, a trifle embarrassed.

"Say it!" prompted Scarra grimly. "If you can't trust a dying man you can't trust nobody--that's what you had in your mind, wasn't it? Well, I'm as good as dead right now and you won't never regret it, playing my game. It could be fixed up, according to law, couldn't it, like a will, that me not having any kinfolks, I was leaving you what was in that safe-deposit box on account of you having been my lawyer and having worked so hard for me?"

"Oh, yes, I'd know how to phrase the instrument properly. There'd be no trouble about that, none whatever, Tony."

"All right, then, you fix up the paper and I'll sign it right here any day it's ready. And I'll give you a written order on that pal of mine for the key, telling him to hand it over to you the day after I'm gone. You ain't got a thing to worry about. And in payment all you got to do for me is just the one little favor of getting that little pill made up and--"

"I'm telling you there's entirely too much risk," interrupted Finburg, in a timorous sweat of almost over-powering temptation, but still clinging to safety. "I wouldn't dare risk trying to slip you poison, Tony--I couldn't."

"Nobody's asking you to."

"What? What's that you're saying, Tony?" The lawyer shoved his peaked nose between two wattles of the steel.

"I say, nobody's asking you to. Knowing you, I've doped out that part of it so you won't have to take a chance. Listen, Finburg--there's a guard here named Isgrid--a Swede or something. And he comes from down on the East Side, the same as you and me. I've been working on him. We've got friendly. Maybe him and me both having been born on the same block over there beyond the Bowery was what made him sort of mushy towards me--he's one of those big thick slobs. But it ain't for friendship only that he's willing to help. He wants his bit out of it. He's aiming to quit this job he's got here and he wants to take a piece of money with him when he quits. Now, here's what he tells me: He'll be on the death-watch on me. That last night he'll slip me the pill, see? Nobody ain't going to suspect him, he says, and even if anybody does, they ain't going to be able to hang it on him, let alone get you mixed in with the plant."

"I suppose I'll have to see this man," conceded Finburg; "not that that means I'm committing myself to this undertaking."

"I thought of that too. Day after tomorrow is Sunday, and Sunday is his day off. He'll run down to New York and meet you in your office or at your flat, and you can size him up and talk it over with him."

"It can't do any harm to see the man, I suppose." It was plain that the lawyer was convincing himself. "Tell him--only, mind you, this is just an accommodation to you--tell him the address of my rooms and tell him to be there at ten o'clock."

"One thing more," stated the killer. "Isgrid wants one grand for his cut."

"One grand--a thousand dollars!"

"That's his lowest price. I had to work on him to cut it down to that. And, Finburg, you'll have to dig up the thou'. He wants it in advance, see? You can pay yourself back--afterwards. That's up to you."

"That makes it still more complicated," lamented the wavering Finburg. "I don't know--I don't know." Figuratively he wrung his hands in an anguish born of desire and doubt.

"Well, I'll give you till over Sunday to make up your mind, then," said Scarra, he secretly being well content with the progress that had been made. "If by Monday you've decided to go through with your share of the deal, you can come back here and bring that will with you and I'll sign it. If you don't show up on Monday I'll know you're too chicken-hearted for your own good. Remember this, though, Finburg--one way or another I'm going to get that pill. If you don't want to help, that's your lookout--you'll only be kissing good-by to what's down in them safe-deposit vaults on Third Avenue. And if you do--well, I guess you're wise enough to protect yourself at every angle. It's easy pickings for you, Finburg--easy pickings. So think it over before you decide to say no. Well, so long, see you Monday."

He fell back from the grating and to the keeper at the farther end of the corridor motioned to indicate that his interview with his counsel was ended and that he was ready to be returned to his cell.

Monday morning, good and early, Mr. Finburg was back again. His mind had been made up for many hours. In fact it was made up before he left on Friday afternoon. Only, at the time, he had not cared to say so or to look so. To wear a mask was one part of Mr. Finburg's professional attitude. To do things deviously was another. For him always, the longest way round was the shortest way across. His mind was a maze of detours, excepting when he was collecting his retainers or pressing for his principal fees. Then he could be straightforward enough to satisfy anybody. The practice of the criminal law does this to some of its practitioners.

It was because of this trait of Mr. Finburg's that certain preliminary steps in the working-out of his share in the plot were elaborated and made intricate. Since Friday evening when his train landed him at the Grand Central, he had been a reasonably busy young man. From the station he went directly to the Public Library and there, at a table well apart from any other reader, he consulted a work on toxicology, with particular reference to the effects of the more deadly poisons. Before midnight he was in touch with a chemist of his acquaintance who served as laboratory sharp and chief mixer for a bootlegging combine specializing in synthetic goods with bogus labels on them. His real purpose in this inquiry was, of course, carefully cloaked; the explanation he gave--it referred to experiments which a purely supposititious client was making with precious metals--apparently satisfied the expert, who gave information fully.

By virtue of a finely involved ramification of underworld connections, Mr. Finburg was enabled next to operate through agents. Three separate individuals figured in the transaction. But no one of the three beheld more than his particular link in a winding chain and only one of the three had direct dealings with the principal, and this one remained in complete ignorance of what really was afoot. All he knew, all he cared to know, was that, having been dispatched on a mission which seemed to start nowhere and lead nowhere, he had performed what was expected of him and had been paid for it and was through. By such deft windings in and out, Mr. Finburg satisfied himself the trail was so broken that no investigator ever could piece it together. There were too many footprints in the trace; and too many of them pointing in seemingly opposite and contrary directions.

He was quite ready for the man Isgrid when that person came to his apartment on Sunday morning. Whether Isgrid studied Finburg is of no consequence to this narrative, but we may be quite assured that Finburg studied Isgrid, seeing the latter as a stolid, dull person, probably of Scandinavian ancestry and undoubtedly of a cheap order of mentality. About Isgrid as interpreted by Finburg, there was nothing to suggest any personal initiative. He appeared close-mouthed and secretive, though--in short, a man who being committed to a venture would go through it with a sort of intent and whole-hearted determination. This greatly pleased the little lawyer. For the rôle of an unthinking middleman Isgrid seemed an admirable choice. He had such a dependable dumb look about him. Nevertheless it suited Mr. Finburg's book that his conspirings with this man should be marked by crafty play-acting. There sat the two of them, entirely alone, yet Mr. Finburg behaved as though a cloud of witnesses hovered to menace him.

He asked Isgrid various questions--leading questions, they would be called in court--but so phrased that they might pass for the most unsuspicious of inquiries. Then, being well satisfied by the results of such cross-examination, the lawyer came to business.

"Look here," he said, pointing, "on this table is a little box with the lid off. See it? Well, in it are twelve five-grain capsules same as you'd get from any drug-store if you had a touch of grippe and the doctor gave you a prescription to be filled. Between ourselves we'll just say it is a grippe cure that we've got here. Well, one of these capsules is stronger than the others are. If I'm not mistaken, it's this one here"--his finger pointed again--"the last one in the bottom row, the one with a little spot of red ink on it. It's marked that way so a fellow will be wised up to handling it pretty carefully.