Page:Weird Tales v02n04 (1923-11).djvu/60

Rh "How could you do a thing like that, Tim? Steal!"

"How?" Contemptuously he flung the jewels and the money to the table. His brows sank so that he glowered at her. "I'll tell you how. You needn't stand there like an angel looking into hell. Use your head and you'll see. We need money, don't we? What with winter coming and you wanting clothes for yourself and the kid—we need money, don't we? Sure! Have we got any of our own? No, we ain't. Stands to reason we got to get it somewhere."

"But, Tim, stealing—"

"Stealing is one way to get it—and I used that way. The farm didn't give us a cent this year, did it? No. Nobody around here made any money this year nobody except the doctor. 'Cause we had rotten weather, we had sickness instead of crops. And the doctor gets his money out of our misery. Look at his wife—buying wrist-watches and brooches and diamonds and fancy dresses out of the money her husband sucks from us poor sick farmers. Is it right? It ain't! I didn't take much from him. Maybe the whole business here, including the cash, ain't worth more than five hundred. It'll tide us over the winter. What'll it mean to him—the doctor? Nothing!"

He strode ponderously to the window and glared out into the night. Trickling rivulets of rain traced their crooked courses on the pane, but he did not see them. He saw nothing. In defiance he was awaiting his wife's answer.

Agatha Cruze was eying the fortune on the table. Queer thoughts raced through her brain—new thoughts—fearful thoughts. If those things could be sold for five hundred dollars, it would mean a comfortable winter, proper attention to Gilbert, her suffering son. She glanced at the boy; he was leaning on one elbow, his eyes feasting themselves upon the display of wealth on the table.

"Put your head down on the pillow, Gil!" she ordered; and he obeyed unexpectedly laughing with a wild joy.

"We're rich now, ain't we, Mom?" he cried deliriously.

She offered no reply. She considered rapidly. Then her low voice called:

"Tim!"

Slowly the man looked around.

"Were you—seen? Anybody know you did it?"

"No!" he snapped brusquely. "Think I'm a fool? Of course nobody knows—excepting you and the kid. And you ain't going to tell."

"Then—then as long as nobody knows, why don't you want to call the doctor?"

"Call him!" He appeared amazed. His feet astride, he remained silent for an instant. He had expected his wife to preach a sermon on the evils of theft. Instead, she was still thinking of summoning the physician for Gilbert.

"Then—then as long as nobody knows, why don't you want to call the doctor?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "The boy needs him. He—he'll get worse; maybe, if we don't call—"

"But, Agatha; do you want me to tempt the fates and everything by calling the doctor right after I—I've robbed him? He'll be so excited over finding his safe open that he won't want to come, anyway. Call him!"

"A doctor always comes, Tim."

"But—but—" An inexplicable cowardice was gripping him. He did not wish to face the man whose home he had robbed; he was afraid of something intangible. "Say, Agatha, use your head. It's after midnight and it's raining cats and dogs. Dr. Philemon lives four miles from here. Why make him come out on a night like this?"

"Gil needs him," she insisted, calmly obdurate.

"Gil can wait till tomorrow!"

"He can't—I won't let him. The boy's terribly sick. He gets a doctor tonight."

"But four miles!"

"You don't have to walk it. Go down the road to Drake's—that's only one mile. They'll let you telephone."

"Aw, look at that rain!" he objected.

"Tim, if you don't go, I will! You fool, don't you see the boy needs a doctor? He's as red as fire. Who knows what's wrong with him?"

"Still—"

"Still nothing!" she ejaculated, spitting the words at him. "You're afraid to meet the doctor, that's what. But I ain't! What's to prevent our hiding the things you took from him? What's to prevent our putting them where the doctor won't see 'em when he comes? They don't have to be on the table all night!"

The realization that his wife was not condemning his theft, that she was actually making of herself an accomplice, stirred a peculiar emotion in Timothy Cruze. It is soothing to have one's sins shared by others. He experienced a surge of courage. He moved forward hesitantly.

"You don't mean, Agatha—"

"I don't mean anything except that we need the doctor. And if you ain't going right now to 'phone him, I'll go myself!"

"And the brooch and the money and the watch—what—"

"Hide 'em in the closet. He'll never guess you got 'em here, will he? He ain't a mind reader. Besides—" she paused thoughtfuly.

"What?" he urged.

"Oh, even if somebody saw you there or thought they saw you—or somebody like you—I'm just supposing, Tim—then your calling the doctor here would sort of—sort of kill supicionsuspicion [sic], see?"

Timothy Cruze did "see." A shrewd appreciation of his wife manifested itself in a comprehending smile as he nodded.

"You're right, Agatha."

"Are you going to call the doctor?" she demanded.

He lifted his drenched coat from a chair.

"All right," he agreed. "I'll walk down to Drake's. And you—you hide the things, Agatha."

And from the bed of Gilbert came a hysterical wail:

"Hide 'em in the closet, Mom, hide 'em in the closet! We're rich now, ain't we?"

The boy ended his question with a hysterical, shrill laugh

T WAS after two o'clock in the morning when Dr. Philemon, huddled under the leaking top of his buggy, drove up to the rickety porch of the Cruze house.

He stepped awkwardly to the ground and muttered an oath as his feet sank into deep mud. Carefully he moved to the head of the horse; he tied the rein to one of the square beams which supported the roof of the porch.

The rain splashed upon him, upon the mud-spattered animal. He felt a stream of water run down his sleeve as he fastened the rein, and he grumbled audibly. But his protest ceased when he heard the moans of Gilbert Cruze, distinct above the noise of the wind.

Agatha opened the door for the doctor, and he eyed her angular being with mingled pity and contempt. These poverty-stricken farmers who lacked energy to earn a living from a source other than the soil disgusted him. They were worse, he firmly believed, than Russian peasants.

He unwound the muffler from his throat, threw off his great, dripping coat. No longer was he looking at Agatha or at Timothy, standing in a dark corner. Now his attention was fixed on the flushed young face under the light of the oil lamp.