room, with a vaulted ceiling. The walls were lined with unbroken rows of books. There was not even a window; the air came through two ventilators. John Barrett stood in front of an open fireplace with his back to them, so that they could not tell, at first, exactly what he was doing there.
“We are here, John,” said Elizabeth in a rather thin voice.
“Oh!” boomed Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett. “Are you here?”
And as he turned half toward them they discerned his employment—he was heating the end of a stout poker in a bed of white-hot coals.
“Good God!” whispered the hero.
He seized the knob of the door; but it did not budge. He could not even elicit a rattle from it when he shook it frantically.
“The door locks with a spring,” explained John Barrett, turning squarely toward them, and still twirling the poker in the coals.
“Help!” yelled the hero.
“Harry!” said the beautiful woman in some disdain.
“It is often necessary for me to hold the most secret conferences here,” said the villain, “and therefore I have had these walls built so thick that no sounds can enter or leave. The room is impervious to noise. It is necessary, because some really strange things have happened here.”
“What do you mean?” said the hero, his voice changed beyond recognition.
“It is a suggestion,” said the impassive villain, “for those who desire privacy. A room like this, for instance, would be ideal for writing your poetry, McCurtney.”
“John!” said the beautiful woman sharply. “What are you driving at?”
In that vulgar atmosphere it was no wonder if she had learned to use slang. The hero, however, did not seem to notice it. His curiosity, for the moment, overwhelmed any other emotions.
“How in the name of Heaven,” he said, “did you survive that poison?”
“Was it poison?” queried the villain. “Well, albumen coagulates and collects around certain poisons. I had swallowed several raw eggs just before I entered the courtroom. It is not a new trick. The moment I left I was taken by two doctors to a private room, and my stomach was pumped out.”
“Oh!” said the hero scornfully. “I thought it was some ingenious thing you did!”
“Oh!” said the villain. “Did you?”
“John, why have you sent for us?” said the beautiful woman.
Barrett buried the poker in the coals so deep that it would not topple out, produced one of his villainous long cigars and lighted it. He then picked up a riding whip which had fallen to the floor, and hung it again above the fireplace.
“It is about your leaving,” said the villain, and took the handle of the poker.
“Have you made up your mind to oppose me?” she asked.
“If you love this man,” he said in his calm voice, “I sha’n’t raise a hand to stop you or to hinder your happiness. I would even drink poison again to help you along.”
“You?” said the beautiful woman.
“Because I love you,” said the villain.
“You?” said the beautiful woman.
“Rot!” said the hero.
“But,” went on the villain, “if you really care for this fellow here—this sneaking cur who makes my hand itch—if you really care for him, I’m sure that I can get along without you.”
“Do you mean—?” cried the hero.
“I mean, Elizabeth,” said the villain, “that I’ve probably made many mistakes in my treatment of you. I’ve never been a man of many words—outside the courtroom. I’ve usually depended on actions instead. After I married you, I didn’t think you required more proofs of my love. If you do, I’ll try to give them to you—not in words, because this is not a courtroom; but I want you to know that I’ve crossed the line from my old life and stepped into a new. This is the proof.”
He drew out the poker from the coals. It sparkled and glittered and radiated snapping sparks in showers. The iron indeed, seemed instinct with a terrible life, a volition of its own.
“God!” whispered the hero, and cowered against the locked door.
The beautiful woman said nothing at all.
Coming to a point halfway across the room, the villain took the glowing iron and with it seared a smoking furrow, crooked and deep, across the polished wood from one side of the room to the other. The mark still fumed when he stepped back and cast the poker clanging on the hearth. It was an ugly mark, and a melodramatic thing to do, but the villain was a vulgar man.
“If you doubt that I love you hereafter,” said the villain, “don’t wait for me to tell you, but come up here and look at this mark on the floor, Elizabeth. You’ve done to me what I’ve done here.”
“John!” whispered his wife.
He turned his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. Truly, a very vulgar man!
“Elizabeth!” groaned the hero. “Are you going to leave me?”
“John!” whispered the beautiful woman, and she ran across the smoking furrow on the floor, stretching out her arms to her husband.
He removed his cigar.
“You will be able to open that other door,” he said.
She opened the door and went out.
“And now?” asked the hero hoarsely.
“And now,” said the villain, “I have always been a man of few words.”
So saying, he took down the riding whip from above the fireplace. The room was impervious to noise. It was necessary, because some strange things happened there.
TRAILIN’! (1919)
To ROBERT HOBART DAVIS, Maker of Books and Men
CHAPTER I
“LA-A-A-DIES AN’ GEN’L’MUN”
All through the exhibition the two sat unmoved; yet on the whole it was the best Wild West show that ever stirred sawdust in Madison Square Garden and it brought thunders of applause from the crowded house. Even if the performance could not stir these two, at least the throng of spectators should have drawn them, for all New York was there, from the richest to the poorest; neither the combined audiences of a seven-day race, a prize-fight, or a community singing festival would make such a cosmopolitan assembly.
All Manhattan came to look at the men who had lived and fought and conquered under the limitless skies of the Far West, free men, wild men—one of their shrill whoops banished distance and brought the mountain desert into the very heart of the unromantic East. Nevertheless from all these thrills these two men remained immune.
To be sure the smaller tilted his head back when the horses first swept in, and the larger leaned to watch when Diaz, the wizard with the lariat, commenced to whirl his rope; but in both cases their interest held no longer than if they had been old vaudevillians watching a series of familiar acts dressed up with new names.
The smaller, brown as if a thousand fierce suns and winds had tanned and withered him, looked up at last to his burly companion with a faint smile.
“They’re bringing on the cream now, Drew, but I’m going to spoil the dessert.”
The other was a great, grey man whom age apparently had not weakened but rather settled and hardened into an ironlike durability; the winds of time or misfortune would have to break that stanch oak before it would bend.
He said: “We’ve half an hour before our train leaves. Can you play your hand