The Breaking Point (23 page)

When he found Dick 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 Dick'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 unobserved, made his way back to his own bedroom and packed his
belongings.

Dick was still sleeping, stretched on his bed, when he returned to
three-twenty. And here Bassett's careful plans began to go awry, for
Dick's body was twitching, and his face was pale and covered with a cold
sweat. From wondering how they could get away, Bassett 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, Dick 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 God 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 assistance.

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 Dick. 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. Bassett 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 Bassett 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 Bassett 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 Bassett 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, Bassett rang the bell. It was
answered by the elderly maid who took care of his own bedroom.

Months later, puzzling over the situation, Bassett 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 Dick'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, assumed 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 apron, raising
incurious eyes to his.

"I suppose it's all right if she sits in the hall?" Bassett 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.

Bassett 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 Bassett'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.

Bassett stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up.

To Elizabeth the first days of Dick'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 Dick 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 Dick'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 God'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."

"She'll be all right," he said aloud.

He got up and whistled for the dog.

"I'll take him around the block before I lock up," he said heavily. He
bent over and kissed his wife. She was a sad figure to him in her black
dress. He did not say to her what he thought sometimes; that Jim had
been saved a great deal. That to live on, and to lose the things one
loved, one by one, was harder than to go quickly, from a joyous youth.

He had not told her what he knew about Jim's companion that night. She
would never have understood. In her simple and child-like faith she
knew that her boy sat that day among the blessed company of heaven. He
himself believed that Jim had gone forgiven into whatever lay behind the
veil we call death, had gone shriven and clean before the Judge who knew
the urge of youth and life. He did not fear for Jim. He only missed him.

He walked around the block that night, a stooped commonplace figure, the
dog at his heels. Now and then he spoke to him, for companionship.
At the corner he stopped and looked along the side street toward the
Livingstone house. And as he looked he sighed. Jim and Nina, and now
Elizabeth. Jim and Nina were beyond his care now. He could do no more.
But what could he do for Elizabeth? That, too, wasn't that beyond him?
He stood still, facing the tragedy of his helplessness, beset by vague
apprehensions. Then he went on doggedly, his hands clasped behind him,
his head sunk on his breast.

He lay awake for a long time that night, wondering whether he and Dick
had been quite fair to Elizabeth. She should, he thought, have been
told. Then, if Dick's apprehensions were justified, she would have had
some preparation. As it was—Suppose something turned up out there,
something that would break her heart?

He had thought Margaret was sleeping, but after a time she moved and
slipped her hand into his. It comforted him. That, too, was life. Very
soon now they would be alone together again, as in the early days before
the children came. All the years and the struggle, and then back where
they started. But still, thank God, hand in hand.

Ever since the night of Jim's death Mrs. Sayre had been a constant
visitor to the house. She came in, solid, practical, and with an
everyday manner neither forcedly cheerful nor too decorously mournful,
which made her very welcome. After the three first days, when she
had practically lived at the house, there was no necessity for small
pretensions with her. She knew the china closet and the pantry, and the
kitchen. She had even penetrated to Mr. Wheeler's shabby old den on
the second floor, and had slept a part of the first night there on the
leather couch with broken springs which he kept because it fitted his
body.

She was a kindly woman, and she had ached with pity. And, because of her
usual detachment from the town and its affairs, the feeling that she
was being of service gave her a little glow of content. She liked the
family, too, and particularly she liked Elizabeth. But after she had
seen Dick and Elizabeth together once or twice she felt that no plan she
might make for Wallace could possibly succeed. Lying on the old leather
couch that first night, between her frequent excursions among the waking
family, she had thought that out and abandoned it.

But, during the days that followed the funeral, she was increasingly
anxious about Wallace. She knew that rumors of the engagement had
reached him, for he was restless and irritable. He did not care to go
out, but wandered about the house or until late at night sat smoking
alone on the terrace, looking down at the town with sunken, unhappy
eyes. Once or twice in the evening he had taken his car and started out,
and lying awake in her French bed she would hear him coming hours later.
In the mornings his eyes were suffused and his color bad, and she knew
that he was drinking in order to get to sleep.

On the third day after Dick's departure for the West she got up when
she heard him coming in, and putting on her dressing gown and slippers,
knocked at his door.

"Come in," he called ungraciously.

She found him with his coat off, standing half defiantly with a glass of
whisky and soda in his hand. She went up to him and took it from him.

"We've had enough of that in the family, Wallie," she said. "And it's a
pretty poor resource in time of trouble."

"I'll have that back, if you don't mind."

"Nonsense," she said briskly, and flung it, glass and all, out of the
window. She was rather impressive when she turned.

"I've been a fairly indulgent mother," she said. "I've let you alone,
because it's a Sayre trait to run away when they feel a pull on the bit.
But there's a limit to my patience, and it is reached when my son drinks
to forget a girl."