The Fighting Edge (Smith's Magazine 1907)/Chapter 11

It was an hour past midnight when Blake left Maisie at her hotel and started to walk across to his rooms at the Arlington. He walked briskly, from habit, but his mind loitered in retrospect on his delightful evening.

The critics could and did find fault with Maisie’s acting. Even to him it was not always convincing, but it was always a thing of joy to see. She seemed to take her audience into her confidence, and give them a charmingly intimate glimpse of Maisie Marriott, as well as the character she was representing. She had a wonderful gift of putting herself and her audience into perfect accord; of subduing them to the purpose she was attempting. Her acting might be uneven, her interpretation sometimes faulty, but she always fascinated with that something which, for want of a better word, we call magnetism.

Thinking of his own intimate relation to her, it pleased him to share her so generously with the public. Stoneman would have resented the naiveté and abandon with which she threw herself into friendliness with her audience, but Devereux, no niggard by nature, rejoiced in the affection lavished so prodigally on her. As he swung the corner of the street to the entrance of the Arlington, a boyish smile touched his lips.

Crack! Crack! Twice a spurt of flame spat from the adjoining alley, and Devereux, turning into the entrance of his hotel, reeled against the wall. Again the revolver sounded, and he slid down in a huddled heap to the ground. Somebody on the opposite side of the street cried out. The assassin, crouching in the shadows, ran back down the alley and disappeared.

Almost instantly the deserted street became alive. From saloons supposed to be closed long since, from rooming houses, from owl drug-stores and restaurants, people poured to the spot. Presently a clanging patrol-wagon came hurrying down the silent street, and drew up at the Arlington.

But Devereux had already been carried to his rooms, and a surgeon was in attendance. An acquaintance in the adjoining apartment kept the telephone busy, and soon the friends of Blake began to arrive. The first of these was big Kreagh, the cattleman.

“Is it bad?” he asked anxiously, as he tiptoed up the stairs.

“He’s hard hit. Doctors are working over him now. When I found him, he lay crumpled up without an ounce of life in him,” explained the man he had asked.

Kreagh set his teeth grimly. “Some hound will hang for this if Blake dies. I told him not to go out at night. I wish to God I had stayed with him. He wouldn’t believe there was any danger.”

“That’s like Blake, you know, to think everybody as white as himself; or, at least, to act as if he thought so. Besides, he’s game. Wouldn't give an inch to them. Shoot and be damned, you cowards; that’s Devvie.”

It was a shrewd judgment of the man lying in the next room at the point of death. He possessed a gay-hearted intrepidity that rose warmly to face danger like a soldier. Had it been to do over again, with his knowledge of what was to happen certified, it is not certain that he would have modified his course.

All through the long night the doctors fought for his life, and when light came the issue still hung in doubt.