The Girl at Central/Chapter 17

N beginning this chapter, which is going to end my story of the Hesketh Mystery, I want to say right here that I'm no coward. The reason that things happened as they did was that I was worn out—more than I knew—by the strain and excitement of the last two months. Also I do think that most any girl would have lost her nerve if she'd been up against what I was.

The gloom of that dreadful Wayside Arbor was still on me as I walked along with Babbitts. After a few moments I thought it had gone off and when I told him I wasn't afraid I said what seemed to me the truth. But when the sound of his footsteps died away, the loneliness crept in on me, seemed to be telling me something that I didn't want to hear. Down deep I knew what it was, and that every step was taking me closer to what I was afraid of—the place where Sylvia Hesketh had been murdered.

It was when I was peering out ahead, trying to locate it, telling myself not to be a fool and gathering up my courage, that I heard that faint, stealthy rustling behind me.

I stopped dead, listening. I was scared but not clear through yet, for I knew it might be some little animal, a rabbit or a chipmunk, creeping through the underbrush. I stood waiting, feeling that I was breathing fast, and as still as one of the telegraph poles along the road. The trees hid me completely. A person could have passed close by and not seen me standing there in my black cloak against the black background.

Then I heard it again, very soft and cautious, a crackle of branches and then a wait, and presently—it seemed hours—a crackle of branches again. I moved forward, stepping on tiptoe, stifling my breath, my head turned sideways, listening, listening with every nerve. Even then I wasn't so terribly frightened, but I was shivery, shivery down to my heart, for I could hear that, whether it was beast or human, it was on the other side of the trees, just a little way back, going the way I was.

It only took a few minutes—me stealing forward and it coming on, now soft as it stepped on the earth, now with a twig snapping sharp—to tell me I was being followed.

When I got that clear, the last of my courage melted away. If it had been anywhere else, if it hadn't been so dark, if there'd been a house or a person within call, but, oh, Lord, in that lonesomeness, far off from everything—it was awful! And the awfullest part was that right there in front of me, getting nearer every minute, was the place where another girl had been murdered on a night like this.

I tried to pull myself together, to remember that Babbitts would be back soon, but I couldn't stop my heart from beating like a hammer, terrible thuds up in my throat. Way off through the trees I could see the twinkle of Cresset's lights and I thought of them there; but it was as if they were at the other end of the world, too far for me to reach them or for them to hear my call.

I don't know why I walked on, but I think it was pure fear. I was afraid if I stopped that dreadful following thing would overtake me. Once I tried to look back but I couldn't. I thought I might see it and I stole forward, now and then stopping and listening and every time hearing the crackle and snap of the twigs as it crept after me. I could see now the place where Sylvia was found, the shrubs curving back from the road as if to leave a space wide enough for her body.

The sight made me stop and, as I stood there still as a statue, I heard the sounds behind me get louder, as if a big body was feeling and pushing its way between the trees, not so careful now, but trampling and crushing through the interlaced boughs. Then for the first time in my life I knew what it means when they say your hair stands on end. Down at the roots of mine there was a stirring all over my head and my heart! It was banging against my chest, blow after blow, as if it was trying to break a hole.

The sky began to brighten. I got a sort of impression of those cracks in the clouds parting and the moonlight leaking through; but I didn't seem to see it plain, everything in me was turned to terror. The noise behind me was closer and louder and through it I heard a breathing, deep, panting breaths, drawn hard. Then I knew if I turned I could have seen what was following me, seen its awful face, glaring between the branches and its bent body, crouched, ready to spring.

It's hard for me to tell what followed—everything came together and I couldn't see or think. I remember trying to scream, to give one shriek for Babbitts, and no sound coming, and that the thing, as if it knew what I was doing, made a sudden crashing close at my back. The brightness of the sky flashed in my eyes. I saw the clouds broken open, and the moon, big and white, whirling round like a silver plate. I tried to run but the earth rose up in waves and I staggered forward over them, wave after wave, with the moon spinning close to my eyes, and then blackness shutting down like the lid of a box.

The next thing I remember was the sky with clouds all over it and in one place an opening with a little star as big as a pinhead set in the middle. I looked at that star for a long time, having a queer feeling that I was holding on to it and it was pulling me up. Then I felt as if something was helping the star, a strong support under my shoulders that raised me still further, and while I seemed to be struggling out of a darkness like water, I heard Babbitts' voice close to my ear:

"Thank God, she's coming out of it."

I turned my head and there was his face close to mine. A strong yellow light shone on it—afterward I saw it came from a lantern on the ground—and without speaking I looked into his eyes, and had a lovely feeling of rest as if I'd found something I was looking for.

"You're all right?" he said; "you're not hurt?"

"I'm very well, thank you," I said back, and my voice was like a whisper.

The support under my shoulders tightened, drew me up against him, and he bent down and kissed me.

We said no more, but stayed that way, looking at each other. I didn't want to move or speak. I didn't feel anything or care about anything. It seemed like Babbitts and I were the only two people in the whole world, as if there was no world, just us, and all the rest nothing.

After that—he's often told me it was only a minute or two, though if you'd asked me I'd have said it was hours—I began to look round and take notice. I heard queer sounds as if someone was groaning in pain, and saw the shrubs and grass plain by the light of two lanterns standing on the ground. Near these was a man, lit up as far as his knees, and close by him, all crumpled on the earth, another person. The lanterns threw a bright glow over the upper part of that figure, and I saw the head and shoulders, the hair with leaves and twigs in it and round the neck a red bandanna. Then I made out it was a man and that it was from him the sounds were coming—moans and groans and words in a strange language.

"What is it?" I whispered to Babbitts. "What's happened?"

And he whispered back:

"I'll tell you later. You're all right—that's all that matters now."

It was like a dream and I can only tell it that way—me noticing things in little broken bits, as if I was at the "movies" and kept falling to sleep, and then woke up and saw a new picture. The man who was standing turned round and it was Hines. He looked across the road and gave a shout and others answered it, and lights danced up and down, coming closer through the dark. Then men came running—Farmer Cresset and his sons—and behind them Mrs. Hines, with her clothes held up high and her thin legs like a stork's. I could hear them breathing as they raced up and one man's voice crying:

"It's all right, is it? There ain't been no harm done?"

After that the men were in a group talking low, the lanterns in their hands sending circles and squares of light over the bushes and the grass. Presently Farmer Cresset broke away and went to the figure on the ground. He tried to pull him up, but the man squirmed out of his hand and fell back like a meal sack, his face to the earth, the moans coming from him loud and awful.

After a while they put me on something long and hard with a bundle under my head and took me away up the road and through the woods. It was dark and no one said anything, the Cresset boys carrying what I was on and Babbitts walking alongside. As we started I heard someone say the Farmer would stay with Hines and "communicate with the authorities." And then we went swinging off under the trees, the footsteps of the men squashing in the mud. Soon there were lights twinkling through the branches, and just as I saw them and heard a dog bark, and a woman call out, my heart faded away again and that blackness swept over me.

I didn't know till afterwards how long I was sick—weeks it was—lying in Mrs. Cresset's spare room with that blessed woman caring for me like her own daughter. No people in this world were ever better to another than that family was to me. And others were good—it takes sickness and trouble to make you value human nature—for when I got desperate bad Dr. Fowler came over and took a hand. Mrs. Cresset herself told me that respecting Dr. Graham as she did, she thought I'd never have come through if Dr. Fowler hadn't given himself right up to it, staying in the house for two days the time I was worst. And not a cent would he ever take for it, only a pair of bed slippers I knitted for him while I was getting better.

It was not till I was well along on the upgrade that I heard what happened on that gruesome night. I was still in bed, sitting up in a pink flannel jacket that Anne Hennessey gave me, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows and a bunch of violets scenting up the room. Babbitts had brought them and it was he that told me, sitting in a rocker by the bedside and speaking very quiet and gentle so as not to give me any shock. For without my knowledge, just like an instrument of fate, it was I that had solved the Hesketh mystery.

Neither man nor woman had killed Sylvia Hesketh. The murderer was the dancing bear.

The man they found on the ground beside me that night was its owner, Tito Malti, the dago I had seen nearly three months before making the bear dance at Longwood, and the man Babbitts and I had seen that afternoon on the hill. Hines and Farmer Cresset carried him—he was unable to walk at first—to the Wayside Arbor and in the bar there he told them his story.

He had been associated with the acrobats for several years, working over the country with them during the summer and lying up in small towns for the winter. That spring, when the company went out on their tour, he had noticed that his bear (he called it Bruno and spoke of it like a human) showed signs of bad temper. It was a big strong beast, but was getting old and a viciousness that it had always had was growing on it. He kept quiet about it as he hoped to get through the season without trouble and knew, if the company thought it was dangerous, they wouldn't stand for having it around. All the summer he wandered with them, guarding the bear carefully, never leaving it unmuzzled, and sleeping beside it at night.

Toward the end of the season it began to grow worse. It had tried to attack one of the acrobats and there had been a quarrel. He saw he'd have to part from them, but they patched up the fight and he stayed on for their last performance at Longwood, where the business was always good.

After that they separated, the company going into winter quarters at Bloomington and Malti telling them he would take Bruno across country and make a little extra money at the farms and villages. He did intend to do this but he really wanted to get off by himself, watch the animal, and try and gain his old control over it.

He started, working round by the turnpike, letting Bruno perform when he seemed good tempered, but a good part of the time being afraid to. In this way he made enough money to keep himself, sleeping when the nights were bad, in barns and on the lee side of hayricks, the bear chained to him.

On the night of the murder he had got round as far as the Wayside Arbor. His intention had been to take his supper there—he knew the place well—and have the bear dance for the Italian customers. But by the time he reached the Arbor he didn't dare. For some days Bruno had been sullen and savage—that afternoon Malti had had to beat him with the iron-spiked staff he always carried. The poor man said he was half crazy with fright and misery. He told Hines and Cresset, who said he was as simple as a young child, that what between his fear of getting into trouble with the authorities and his fear of losing the bear which was all he had in the world, he was distracted.

In the afternoon he had begged some food at a farm and with this in his pocket he tracked across the fields and woods to the turnpike near the Firehill Road. Here—it being a lonely spot—he sat down in the shade of the trees that hid him from the highway and ate his supper. As he had been on the tramp for days he was dropping with fatigue and, seeing the bear seemed quiet, he stretched out and with the chain in his hand, had fallen asleep.

He was wakened by a scream—the most awful he had ever heard. Half asleep as he was, he leaped to his feet, feeling in the dark for the chain. It was gone and the bear with it.

The scream had come from the other side of the trees. With his staff in his hand he burst through them and in the darkness saw dimly the shape of that fearful, great beast reared upon its hind legs, with a black thing lying at its feet. He yelled and struck it in the face with the staff and it dropped down to all fours, growling and terrible, but as if the sound of his voice and the blows had cowed it. Then he grabbed for the chain, moving along the ground like a snake, and holding it, knelt and looked at the black thing—the thing the scream had come from.

He raised it and saw the faint white of the face and hands and felt by the clothes it was a woman. He knew the way an enraged bear attacks—rising up to its hind legs and giving a blow with its paw, a blow that if the body it strikes is unprotected, can break bones and tear muscles out of their place. In the dark he felt the woman till his hand came on the trickle of blood on her face. That told him the brute had struck at her head, and sick and trembling, he lit a match and held it low over her. The hat had protected her from the claws; without it they would have torn through the scalp like the teeth of a rake. But when he saw her face and felt of her pulse, he knew that that savage blow had broken her skull and she was dead.

At first he was too paralyzed to think, kneeling there beside her with the bear crouched at the end of his chain, not stirring as if it was scared at what it had done. Then the horn of the Doctor's auto woke him and, clutching the body, he drew back into the shadow. The car passed at furious speed, its noise drowning any sound that that strange and awful group might have made. Shaking in every limb he laid his burden on the grass and tried to compose it, putting back the hat which was torn off, but was caught to the hair by its long pin.

While he was doing this the clouds broke and he was drawing the coat about her when the moon came out bright as day. By its light he saw the pearl necklace and in his own words, "All the badness in his heart came up into his head."

When he told that part of his story he wrung his hands and sobbed, declaring over and over that he was an honest man and a good Catholic. Never before had he stolen, though often he had gone cold and hungry. But he knew now that he must kill the bear, and then he would be left an old man without a penny or any way to earn one. "And the pearls," he moaned out, "what are they to the dead? And to me, who must live, they mean riches forever."

He said his hands shook so he couldn't find the clasp and to get at it he pulled open the coat. And then he gave a cry and drew back like he was burnt, for there on the breast of the dead woman, sparkling like a thing of fire, was the cross.

Babbitts said the two men were greatly impressed by the way he acted when he told this. The perspiration broke out on his face and he crossed himself, bowing his head and shuddering. "It was God's voice," he whispered. "It said: 'Stop, Tito; hold your hand. No man can rob the dead.'"

So he closed the coat, folded the arms across the chest and covered all with branches he found in a pile near by. As he moved about the bear watched him, not stirring, as if it knew it was guilty and was waiting to see what he would do to it.

When the work was finished the two of them stole away, as noiseless as shadows. His head was clear enough to think of the footprints and he kept on the grass till he was near the Firehill Road. He was approaching this when he heard Reddy's horn, and with the bear following, he slipped through a break in the trees into the open space beyond. Here, huddled into the blackness under the boughs, he saw the car swing past. It went a little way down the road and then stopped and stood for what seemed to him a long time, every now and then the horn sounding. When it finally started again he moved on, the bear padding silently beside him. He said the car came back soon and passed and repassed him a number of times. Each time he was ready for it, the noise and the lamps warning him of its approach. Crowded up against the bear, he watched it through the branches, all the road bright in front of it where the lamps threw their two long shoots of light.

When they asked him if he wasn't afraid of the bear making some sound he shook his head and said just like a child:

"Bruno? No—he is wise like a man. When I look him in the eye I see he knows he is a murderer and must die, and it makes him very quiet."

He had made up his mind to kill Bruno. As he told the men about it the tears ran down his face, for he said the bear was like his brother. When Reddy had gone, he made off, Bruno walking at the end of the chain behind him, both keeping to the grass edges of the fields. All night they walked, those two—and strange they must have looked slipping across the moonlit spaces, two black shadows moving over the lonesomeness, not a sound from either of them, one leading the other to his execution.

At dawn they entered the woods. There, when the light was clear enough to see, that poor, scared dago killed the bear with the knife he had carried all summer. The rest of the day he spent scooping a grave for him. When he told how he dragged the great body into the hole and covered it with earth, he put his hands over his face, rocking back and forth, and crying like a baby.

After that he went to Bloomington and joined the acrobats, telling them the bear had died. They thought no more about it and welcomed him back, sharing their quarters with him and promising him a place with them in the summer.

But his knowledge of the crime haunted him. Like all those dagoes, he was superstitious and full of queer notions. Babbitts said he was as ignorant as the animal he was so fond of, seeming to think as they couldn't hang the bear they might hang him in its place. He wanted to go to the priest and confess, but when he heard people talking of the murder he was afraid. After a while he couldn't eat or sleep and the torment of his terror and remorse was like to drive him crazy.

Finally he couldn't stand it any more and got the idea that if he could go back to the place and offer up prayers there he might get some relief. He told the acrobats he was going to hunt for work on a farm, left Bloomington and once again walked across the country.

It was night when he reached the region he was bound for, and feeling too weak and sick to go straight to the spot, he went to the Wayside Arbor to beg for food which would give him strength to bear the task he had set himself. They gave him what he asked for and he took it to his old nook under the trees and there in the cold and dark ate ravenously. Then, just as on that other night, he lay down and the sleep that had left him for so long came back to him.

He never heard us pass, but I guess without his knowing it we wakened him, for he said he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes, when he heard Babbitts' footsteps as he ran back to the inn.

He listened and, making sure no one else was on the road, got up and began to steal cautiously forward. He felt sure that God would hear his prayers after he had walked so far and his misery had been so great.

I guess the poor thing was about all in, and was as scared when he came near the place as I was. Of course he had no idea I was in front of him and wasn't following me as I thought. With the trees between, both of us were making for the same spot, the only difference being that while I heard him he never heard me.

What he saw when he broke through the hedge would have terrified anyone, let alone a man in the state he was. For there, just as he had last seen her, lay a woman in a black coat with the moonlight shining on her dead white face—a ghost waiting to accuse him.

They say the shriek he gave was the most awful that man ever heard. Babbitts, who was on his way back, said it sounded like it came from a lost soul in Hell. He tried to yell back, but couldn't and ran like a madman, and when he got there saw me lying as if I was dead in the moonlight and a wild, screaming figure crouched on the ground beside me. The two Hines heard it. Hines picked up a lantern and ran with Mrs. Hines at his heels. When he came up he found Babbitts kneeling over me, half crazy, thinking I was murdered, too. They felt my pulse and found it was going and sent Mrs. Hines on the run to Cresset's. She lit out, calling and crying as she flew through the woods, and met the Cresset crowd, hiking along with their lanterns, having heard her and not knowing what had happened.

Well—that's the end of my story. Oh, I forgot the reward—I got it. I oughtn't to have for I didn't do anything but fall in a faint, which was the easiest thing I could do. But Mrs. Fowler and the Doctor wouldn't have it any other way, so I gave in. Not that I didn't want to. Believe me, Jew or Gentile gets weak when ten thousand dollars is pressed into her palm. It's invested and I get good interest on it, but I'm saving that up. You never can tell what may happen in this world.

As to the rest of us—the bunch that in one way or another were drawn into the Hesketh mystery—we're all scattered now.

Jack Reddy's not living at Firehill any more. He's taken an apartment in town where the two old Gilseys look after him like he was their only son, and he's studying law in Mr. Whitney's office. Sometimes Sunday he comes to see us, just as cordial and kind and handsome as ever, and it's I that'll be glad when he tells me he's found the right girl—God bless him!

Cokesbury Lodge is sold and Cokesbury's living in town, too. They say his part in the Hesketh case sort of finished him. High society wouldn't stand for it, which shows you can't believe all you hear about the idle rich. I've heard that he's seen round a lot with an actress-lady and one of the papers had it he was going to marry her.

The Fowlers went to Europe. They're living in Paris now and I hear from Anne Hennessey, who corresponds with Mrs. Fowler, that they're going to reside there. Anyway, Jim Donahue told me last time I was down at Longwood that Mapleshade was to let.

Annie's got a new job in town, on Fifth Avenue, grand people who never quarrel. She dines with us most every Sunday and we sit till all hours talking over the past, like people who've been in some great disaster and when they get together always drift back to the subject.

Me?—you want to know about me?

Well, I'm living uptown on the West Side in the cutest little flat in New York—five rooms, on a corner, all bright and sunny. And furnished! Say, I wish I could show them to you. When Mrs. Fowler broke up she gave me a lot of the swellest things. Why, I've got a tapestry in the parlor that cost five hundred dollars and cut glass you couldn't beat on Fifth Avenue.

It's on 125th Street, near the Subway. We had to be near that for Himself—he likes to stay as late as he can in the morning and get up as quick as he can at night. If you're passing that way any time, just drop in. I'd love to see you and have you see my place—and me, too. You'll see the name on the letter-box—Morganthau? Oh, quit your kidding—it's Babbitts now.