The Auction Block Part 32

She slid down from her perch and approached him, crying roughly, "Don't you remember Joe Levinski?" Hammon shook his head. "He worked for you in the Bessemer plant of the old Kingman mill.

Don't you remember?"

"There were four thousand men--"

"He was killed when the converter dumped. You were rus.h.i.+ng the work. Do you remember now?" Her words came swift and shrill.

Hammon started; a frown drew his brows together. His mind groped back through the years and memory faintly stirred, but she gave him no leisure to speak.

"I was waiting outside with his dinner-bucket, along with the other women. I saw him go. I saw you kill him--"

"LILAS! Good G.o.d, are you crazy?" he burst forth.

"It was murder."

"Murder?"

"It was. You did it. You killed him." She had dropped her cigarette, and it burned a black scar into the rug at their feet.

Hammon retreated a step, the girl followed with blazing eyes and words that were hot with hate. "You spilled that melted steel on him, and I saw it all. When I grew up I prayed for a chance to get even, for his sake and for the sake of the other hunkies you killed. You killed my mother, too, Jarvis Hammon, and made me a-- a--You made me hustle my living in the streets, and go through h.e.l.l to get it."

"Be quiet!" he commanded, roughly. "The thing's incredible-- absurd. You--the daughter of one of my workmen--and a JEW!"

"Yes. Levinski--Lily Levinski. And you wanted to marry me," she gibed. "But I fooled you."

"I guess I--must be--out of my head. I never knew the man--there were thousands of them; accidents were common. But--you say--" He gathered his whirling thoughts, and, strangely enough, grew calm.

"You say you prayed for a chance to get even--So, then, you've been humbugging--By G.o.d, I don't believe it!"

"It's true. It's true. It's true," shrilled the girl so hysterically that her voice roused Lorelei, sitting vacant-eyed in the room down the hall, and brought her to her feet with ears suddenly strained. Lorelei could hear only a part of the words that followed, but the tones of the two voices drew her from her retreat and toward the front of the apartment.

"I went through the gutter, I was a girl of the streets," Lilas was saying. "Oh, you're not the first--At last I got on the stage and then--you came. I knew you; I thought I'd die when you first touched me--then I figured it all out, and--you were easy."

"Go on," he said, hoa.r.s.ely.

"You were a bigger fool than I dreamed, but you were old and you didn't know women. I knew men, though--old men especially."

"You took my money--you let me support you!" cried Hammon, in bitter accusation.

"Oh, I did more than that. I planned everything that has happened to you, even that blackmail."

"Blackmail!" he shouted. "Did you--was that your--?" He grew suddenly apoplectic; his eyes distended and reddened with rage.

His dismay delighted her.

"Certainly," she smiled. "Half the money is in my bank at this minute--besides all the rest you've given me. Oh, I've got enough to live on without marrying you. Who do you think put your wife wise and gave her the evidence for her divorce, eh? Think it over."

As she watched the effect of her words Lilas felt that her satisfaction was now complete; the man's slack jaw, his staring, bloodshot eyes convinced her that this moment was all that she had wished it to be.

"You'll settle with her for a million, and then you'll settle with me for this." She indicated the elaborate apartment with a gesture. "You think this ends our affair, don't you? Well, it doesn't. Oh no! You can't cast me off. I'll drag you through the gutter where you sent me, and you'll either marry me or--the courts and the newspapers will get all your letters. You can't buy them--the letters. I'm rich, understand? Do you remember those letters? You were very indiscreet--and--do you want me to quote them? The less said, the better, perhaps. Your wife will read them and your daughters--"

Jarvis Hammon roused himself at last. Surprise, incredulity, dismay gave place to fury, and, as in all primitive natures, his wrath took shape as an impulse to destroy.

"You'll--do that--eh?" His tone, his bearing were threatening. He advanced as if to seize her in his great hands, and only her quickness saved her.

"Don't touch me!" Her voice ended in a little shriek as she evaded a second effort to grasp her, and placed the table between them.

"What do you--mean?"

But it seemed that she had done her work too well, for his answer was like the growl of a hungry beast. His eyes roved over the table for a weapon, and, reading his insane purpose, she cried again:

"Don't do that. I warn you--"

The nearest object chanced to be a crystal globe in which was set a tiny French clock--one of those library ornaments serving as timepiece and paperweight--over this his hand closed; he moved toward her.

"Put that down," she cried. He did not pause. "Put it--" She wrenched at the table drawer and fumbled for something. Hammon uttered a bellow and leaped at her.

It was a tiny revolver, small enough to fit into a man's vest pocket or a woman's purse, but its report echoed loudly. The noise came like a cannon-shot to the girl in the hall outside and brought a cry to her lips. Lorelei flung herself against the library door.

What she saw rea.s.sured her momentarily, for, although Lilas was at bay against a book-case, Hammon was rooted in his tracks. A strange, almost ludicrous expression of surprise was on his face; he was staring down at his breast; the revolver lay on the floor between him and Lilas.

Lorelei gasped an incoherent question, but neither of the two who faced each other appeared to hear it or to notice her presence in the room.

"I told you to--keep off," Lilas chattered. Her eyes were fixed upon Hammon, but her out-flung arms were pressed against the support at her back as if she felt herself growing weak. "You did it--yourself. I warned you."

The man merely remained motionless, staring. But there was something shocking in the paralysis that held him and fixed his face in that distorted mold of speechless amazement. Finally he stirred; one hand crept inside his waistcoat, then came away red; he turned, walked to a chair, and half fell upon it. Then he saw Lorelei's face, and her agonized question took shape out of the whirling chaos in his mind.

"Where's Bob?" he said, faintly. "Call him, please."

"You're--hurt. I'll telephone for a doctor; there's one in the house, and--and the police, too." Lorelei voiced her first impulse, then shrilly appealed to Lilas to do something. But Lilas remained petrified in her att.i.tude of retreat; from the pallor that was whitening her cheeks now it might have been she who was in danger of death.

"Don't telephone," said Hammon, huskily. "You must do just as I say, understand? This mustn't get out, do you hear? I'm not--hurt.

I'm all right, but--fetch Bob. Don't let him call a doctor, either, until I--get home. Now hurry--please."

Lorelei rushed to the outside door, restraining with difficulty a wild impulse to run screaming through the hall of the apartment building and so arouse the other tenants. But the wounded man's instructions had been terse and forceful, therefore she held herself in check. Fortunately, the hall-man was not at his post, or without doubt he would have read tragedy in her demeanor. With skirts gathered high and breath sobbing in her throat, the girl fled up the stair to her own door, where she clung, ringing the bell frantically.

She could hear Bob's--her husband's voice inside, raised in the best of humor. Evidently he was telephoning.

"Yes. Two hours ago, I tell you. With book, bell, and candle.

Sure, I'm happy--couldn't be otherwise, for I'm drunk and married.

I knew you'd be glad. What? No; glad because I'm married."

Jim's footsteps sounded, his hand opened the door, then his arm flew out to his sister's support as she staggered in.

"SIS! What the devil?" he cried, aghast at sight of her.

"Something--dreadful."

Bob continued his cheerful colloquy over the wire. "Just got in from your nightly joy-ride, eh? Lucky I caught you. Say! Here she is now. We'll expect a marble clock with gilt cupids from you, Merkle--Want to say h.e.l.lo?" He lurched aside from the telephone as Lorelei s.n.a.t.c.hed the receiver from his hand.

"Mr. Merkle," she cried.

"h.e.l.lo! Yes. Is that you?" came Merkle's steady voice.