Page:Weird Tales v02n04 (1923-11).djvu/59

58 The woman shuddered. Somewhere in that miserable night was her husband. She did not know where. Peering through the streaming window, she could discern a lonely light far down the road—but that was all; no sign of her husband.

It was almost midnight. He should have been home hours ago. But—well, it wouldn't help to worry about Timothy Cruze. Most probably he was in the village, as usual, wasting his time with the shiftless crowd at the store.

A sneer twisted the woman's mouth as she walked back to the bed. She looked about the room—a pauper's room furnished with a few broken chairs; a table which groaned with every weight placed upon it; an old-fashioned closet which might have retained a semblance of dignity, had it been standing on four legs instead of three. And now, to make the poverty of the home even more keenly felt, two beds had been brought into the chamber.

Those beds had been on the upper floor through the summer; but now, with cold weather imminent, they had been carried down. It was foolish, Timothy explained, to heat two floors when the family could sleep downstairs. He had said "foolish." What he actually meant was "impossible." The Cruzes could not afford enough fuel for a whole house.

A peculiar little laugh escaped the woman as she viewed the dismal chamber, large and square. The glow of the lamp near her son's bed served but to accentuate the bleakness of the other corners.

Again she sat by the boy and stroked his forehead. She watched him writhe for a few moments, then said:

"You ought to have a doctor, Gil. Soon as Pop comes home we'll send for—"

"Where's Pop?" The boy caught her hand in a frenzied, trembling grip. Deliriously he repeated, "Where's Pop? Where is he? I want him!"

"I don't know where he is, son. I never know—"

"Call him. Oh, Mom, please call him!"

The plaintive wail in his voice tortured her. She looked away—only to be mocked by the persistent splash of rain on the window. If only Timothy would come, it would be so much easier to sit with the fevered boy!

But another hour dragged by before Timothy Cruze came home. She did not hear him as he approached the house. The wind drowned the sound of his steps sloughing through the mud.

Her long, bony fingers were lengthening the flickering wick of the lamp when she felt a gust of wind on her back. She looked around.

Leaning against the closed door, her husband stood panting. Water dripped from his uncouth clothes, from his face, from his hands. He drew the soaked cap from his head and tossed it to a chair.

And then she saw that he was smiling a strange, malicious smile-a smile of triumph-almost a leer. His huge head was lowered as he began to pull off the baggy coat. In the dim luminosity of the oil lamp he appeared menacing; about him hovered an air that seemed unreal, fiendish. "How's the kid?" he asked gruffly. "Very bad, Tim-worse than he was this morning. have you been?" He ignored the question. Instead, he strode lumberingly across the room until he stood beside the bed. From his arms, powerful and dangling, water dripped to the covers. He studied his son's fiery face. "Looks bad," he grunted. "He was-delirious before." "Delirious?" He squinted at his wife with suspicion, as if he doubted her re- port. "From what?" "I don't know, Tim," she answered wearily. "He just sort of raved about oh, about everything." He emitted a short, guttural sound in- tended to express displeasure and con- cern. Fever's awful. Where a challenge. "His face is all red," he mumbled. "Bad fever, I guess." "Yes. Bad fever. I want you to call Dr. Philemon." With a sudden start, Timothy Cruze turned savagely toward his wife. Even the shadows of the room could not hide the wild flames which had leapt to his narrow, swollen eyes. His chest heaved as he lowered his head close to her straggling hair. "Forget Philemon!" he commanded, his voice strangely subdued.. In surprise she looked up. Crazy shadows played across her features as she demanded: "What do you mean, 'forget' him? We need him. The boy needs him. I want you to go down to Drake's place where you can telephone." "No! We ain't going to get the doc- tor." "Ain't going to get him?" Exaspera- tion sprang into her tones, and she scowled. "You're talking like a fool, Tim. We've got to get him. Just look at Gil. Who knows what's wrong with the boy?" "I ain't going to call Philemon tonight -nothing doing." Tim raised his huge shoulders in a stubborn shrug. Indignant and angered, the woman jumped up, faced him. She shook a fin- ger under his nose and declared: "Look here, Tim Cruze, I stand for a lot from you. But I ain't going to let the boy suffer on account of your thick- headedness. If you don't go out and get the doctor, I'll do it myself!" A queer smile appeared on his heavy lips-the same malicious smilè he had displayed when he entered the house. "None of us is going to call the doctor tonight. He's too excited to come out here in this weather." "Why?" She shot the word at him as " 'Cause-'cause I just came from the doctor's house!" She frowned questioningly. "You just came from-the doc- tor's?" "Yes." "What for what were you doing there?" He laughed harshly, curtly. His hand fell into his pocket, and from it he drew, with great deliberation, a glit- tering brooch and a studded wrist-watch. From another pocket he extracted a thin packet of bills-ten-dollar bills. And as he held them under the radi- ance of the oil lamp, he continued to laugh softly. "Look at 'em," he said, exulting, "look at 'em, Agatha! Worth a couple of hundred dollars, sure!" The woman's eyes were round as she gaped upon the jewels. Her bony hand rose to suppress a gasp. Never before had she gazed upon such glistening, such alluring wealth. A brooch-a wrist- watch-and money.. "Wh-where'd you get that, Tim?" she whispered in awe. "I just told you, didn't I, that I came from the doctor's?" "The doctor's!" She glanced up in terror to encounter his triumphant leer. For an instant they stared into each oth- er's eyes; then she asked hushedly, "You mean you-stole 'em?" "Just what I did. From that toy-safe in his office." "Oh-Tim!" Agatha Cruze shrank from her hus- band. Her ungainly form receded to a corner, and out of its darkness she di- rected a piercing, incredulous gaze at him. He stood, tall and swaggering, a brute of a man, self-satisfaction beaming on his puffed features. "What's the matter?" he asked tauntingly.