The Incendiary Part 21

"I've a notion you'd be a bad man to cross, Dobbs, eh?"

"Do you fawncy Hi'd 'urt you, Bobbs, me hangel? Hi wouldn't 'arm you no more'n a wadge-dog would bark at a baby. Hi'll (hic) Hi'll protect you, Bobbs."

Floyd smiled at the cracksman's offer of patronage. But this time he thought it better not to seal the compact with a b.u.mper.

"Not drink?" Dobbs' temper had changed again. "Won't drink and won't give me no mark of 'is confidence--"

"What is it you want, Dobbs? A confession?"

"Confession? Hi? Ho!" the cracksman laughed as if the joke were a rich one. He was far gone, as indeed any man might be after taking so many quarts of ale.

"Confession, ho, ho--wot do Hi want of a confession? Hi 'ad a natural curiosity to know 'ow you set it, and"--his voice a.s.sumed reproachful quavers--"a natural mortification to find that my pal (hic) wouldn't trust me."

"Well, the truth is, Dobbs--"

"Wot is the truth?"

"Is this house safe? Walls have ears, they say."

"Safeazherown (hic)."

"I'm afraid--couldn't I write it down--that waiter, you know--" Robert walked uneasily to the door, but the waiter was not eavesdropping.

"Waiter," Dobbs rung the bell and Johnnie appeared.

"Bring me pen and paper." They were brought with expedition.

"Zhall I 'old the lamp, Bobbs?"

"It's almost lightsome enough to see, if you draw up the curtains."

"Hi'll 'old the light, Bobbs."

"Steady, now, you'll drop it."

Dobbs staggered over behind Robert, with the lamp in his trembling hand and stood over the young man's shoulder while he wrote the following confession: "When you pick a lady's pocket on a railway train next time, do it with your left hand, Mr. McCausl--"

Before he realized what was happening the lamp had been shattered against the opposite wall and he found himself forced to the floor, with a cold circle of steel at his temple.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BEHIND THE VEIL.

"My mother has your flowers," said s.h.a.garach. "She would be delighted if you would come to see her."

It was in response to this invitation that Emily had selected an appropriate dress from her modest wardrobe and kissed her mother good-by for the evening. She was at first not a little alarmed when a young man sidled up to her from behind and began uttering incoherent avowals of devotion, which not even her chilling glance and hastened step could check. Kennedy had disappeared for some time,--probably busy extricating himself from his Dove-Cote sc.r.a.pe,--and she had congratulated herself on good riddance of the lovesick manikin. But here he was, bolder and more nauseously enamored than before.

She felt like summoning a bystander to her aid, but as she was walking close to the edge of the sidewalk, with Kennedy on the very curbstone, this appeal for help was rendered unnecessary. A quick, firm shove with her brave little hands sent the shadow of a man topsy-turvy into the gutter, while Emily, with burning cheeks and quickened pulse, made on to the car corner.

An old Hebrew housemaid answered her ring and ushered her into the tiny parlor of the tiny house, none too large for even the three persons who occupied it--and three is the smallest number that can be called a family. It need not be said that Emily was all a-flutter with the privilege of admission to the great lawyer's private acquaintance and that she cast a curious glance upon the surroundings. There was something oriental about them, even to the barely perceptible odor of musk in the air.

The carpet was clocked in a Turkish pattern, though the bough birds woven in the corners suggested that it came from one of the countries further east, where the shah, not the sultan, rules under Allah, and the admonitions of the prophet are less literally observed. The lamp was a silver fantasy, brazed with arabesques in gold, and the furniture in its scroll-work and the embroideries, like gossamer, all whispered of a taste exotic and luxurious.

Yet the articles were few and severely disposed in their places. A bust of Swedenborg over a ma.s.sively carved bookcase, filled with volumes of royal exterior, attracted Emily's eye. On the opposite wall were several shelves, crowded with plainer books, as tattered and dingy as a schoolboy's algebra. A portrait of Spinoza reclined on an easel, and a well-thumbed Marcus Aurelius, of pocket size, with flexible covers, lay face down and open on the table. It was a far cry from the Swedish mystic to the imperial stoic of Rome.

"You are welcome, Miss Barlow, to my home," exclaimed s.h.a.garach, extending his hand and sunning her with his great warm eyes.

"Pardon my curiosity. I am a woman and a book-lover," said Emily, who had been standing before s.h.a.garach's gorgeous volumes when he crossed the threshold.

"They are not secreted from those who can handle them without danger," answered the lawyer, opening the bookcase.

"I call them my meeting of the masters."

Emily marveled at the range and judgment of the selection. Here were Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe in the original tongues, which her own studies just enabled her to distinguish one from the other; the Koran, the Talmud, the Zend-Avesta; Camoens, Luis de Leon and a dozen others from the hidalgo land; Maimonides and all the great mediaeval Hebrews; Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge--whatever richest remnants remain from the cultured nations of Europe and western Asia. What rare powers of acquisition, what hermit-like seclusion from the busy world, were implied in the ability to read and enjoy these treasures!

"And which are your especial favorites?" asked Emily.

"The Persian poets," answered s.h.a.garach, pointing to the uppermost shelf, where the t.i.tles were in characters she could not read, resembling odd curves of beauty and flourishes of a draughtsman's pen. "Firdusi, the weaver of the magic carpet, who spurned back the treasure-laden caravan of the shah; Sadi, the nightingale of a thousand songs, planter of the rose garden and the garden of trees; Hafiz, the sugar-lipped dervish of s.h.i.+raz, whose couplets are appealed to as oracles by the simple, and whose legion of commentators surround him like the stars cl.u.s.tering around the orb of the moon."

Was this the criminal lawyer, the granite-lipped reasoner of the immobile forehead, forever pacing to and fro, folding his arms in solution of problems?

The memory of the barren law office was vivid upon her, and of the austere occupant, the last being in the world from whom dithyrambics would be expected. She found it hard to reconcile the task-ridden s.h.a.garach with this praiser of Firdusi, the half-fabulous minstrel who had loved to recline on silken divans, smothered with roses and waited upon by his hundred slaves.

"Inspect them," said s.h.a.garach. Emily reached for the Persian shelf. The books stuck a little, and when they came away she was surprised to find that they were attached together in sets of five; still more surprised when she turned them over and saw a fine chain of steel running from edge to edge through the covers, just where the clasp of an alb.u.m fits, and meeting again in an exquisite padlock at the middle volume. All this splendor of beauty and thought was sealed as effectively as if the pages had been bathed in glue.

"The keys to the padlock?" she looked interrogatively. "There is only one," said s.h.a.garach, a divine smile for the first time breaking the set curve of his lips. "It fits them all, but the dragon is jealous of its possession. My mother, Miss Barlow."

The lady who had entered approached Emily and greeted her warmly.

"My son said you were beautiful," she said.

Emily blushed. She was usually disconcerted by praise, but somehow the entrance of the mother put her more at her ease. Standing beside her son, the lady appeared to be taller than he, though this may have been more in looks than in inches, since the standard of stature for women is lower. The resemblance between them was marked. It was from her that the son inherited his beauty, for she must have been queenly in her maiden-hood. Even now her coloring was autumnally perfect, the rich dark skin, oxidizing like an old painting, having gained in mellowness a part of what it had lost in brilliancy.

"We live plainly, you see," she said, speaking with a strong accent, as if she had learned our stubborn language too late in life ever to master it.

"I admire your furnis.h.i.+ngs," answered Emily, "but your library amazes me most of all."

The son and mother exchanged a sparkling glance, while s.h.a.garach replaced the Persian set on its shelf. But he did not explain the mystery of his padlocked treasures.

"Miss Barlow has been wondering at my taste in the poets," he said, diverting the conversation a little. "She forgets, perhaps, that we are orientals, a long way back. And still in my dreams at times I feel the rocking rhythm of the camel ride and the winged bulls of the a.s.syrians seem to haunt me like familiar sights."

All at once Emily remembered that she had often divined a more emotional and mystical side to the criminal lawyer.

And then in a flash many things became clear to her--s.h.a.garach's constant repression of emotion, his frugality and tireless toil, his shutting out of the gypsy violinist's strain that day when she brought him the news of Bertha--all these told of some great resignation, the ruthless division of a dual nature and the discarding of one part, perhaps the better beloved, and the abandonment with that resignation of almost all that was personal to him in life--leaving only the restlessly energizing intellect, the ethical strenuousness as of a modern Isaiah, the filial love and these sealed mementos of a more congenial but probably less successful past.

"And this is Spinoza--the greatest of our race," added s.h.a.garach. "Not the least refined of human faces."

"My ancestors were his kinsmen," added the mother, not without pride. "We were Spanish once and my son can claim the t.i.tle of count in Spain if he chose--"

"And many a castle in that country besides," added the son, smiling the rare, sweet smile which he reserved for this privacy of his home.

"But my mother speaks the truth, Miss Barlow. She is an accurate historian, as you see. An ancestor of mine rose to power in the court of Ferdinand and left his wealth to two sons. The elder, bearer of the t.i.tle, chose exile when our people were harried from Spain. The younger, by apostatizing, succeeded to his name and property, and the heirs of that brother still survive in Valencia. That makes us feel for Spinoza, who was also an exile--and a heretic," he concluded, in a lower tone.

"This way, Miss Barlow," the mother led Emily through portieres into a rear room, not unlike the parlor in its furnis.h.i.+ngs. "Here are the flowers which you were so good, so thoughtful, to send. I have changed the water twice every day, and last night put them out to drink in the rain, for they love the rain from heaven, it is manna to them." The mother fondled them as if they were living things, and gave them to Emily to smell. They were indeed wonderfully fresh, considering the number of days they had been kept.

s.h.a.garach stepped to the cleft in the portieres and excused himself to answer a ring at the doorbell. Emily was left chatting alone in the dim light with his mother. From flowers to other subjects of feminine interest the transition was easy, and the old lady's vivacity, strong sense and above all her warmth of heart made the minutes pa.s.s delightfully for the sensitive young girl. She had not been conscious of any unusual merit in offering s.h.a.garach a simple bouquet, yet it had deeply touched the lonely son and his devoted mother, both of whom seemed to regard her now with that intensity of friends.h.i.+p which the Arab lavishes upon the stranger whom he admits to his hospitality.

It was while they were alone in the rear chamber, and s.h.a.garach was conversing in low tones with the visitor behind the drawn portieres--probably a client calling in the evening--that Emily's attention was called to a tapping noise which seemed to come from the window. She thought it best not to speak of it, though it continued for almost a minute. Besides, she remembered having often arisen in the night to investigate the origin of just such a tapping, and lifted the sash to find nothing and hear nothing, not even a departing sparrow, who, perched on the sill, might have been feeling his way along the transparent gla.s.s. s.h.a.garach's mother was talking herself at the time and probably the sound of her voice obscured the interruption.

"Is it not pleasanter in here, mother?" s.h.a.garach had thrown the portieres aside and stood again in the cleft, widening it for the ladies to pa.s.s. His visitor had been dismissed, but it was a few moments before he recovered his earlier manner. By a graduated ascent, however, his conversation rose to its former glow of enthusiasm, and Emily could not help contrasting its richness and elasticity with the sententiousness, the compressed statement, bare of all accessories, which characterized him when at his desk in the office. Probably this was the style he had used in addressing his caller, and the transition to and fro was not easy.

"'Try how the life of a good man suits thee,'" s.h.a.garach began reading from his Marcus Aurelius; "'the life of him who is satisfied with his portion out of the whole and satisfied with his own just acts and benevolent disposition.' That is the advice I gave to my visitor and charged him nothing for it."

"It was Simon Rabofsky's voice?" asked the mother keenly.

"Yes," answered s.h.a.garach.

"Then you did wrong. You should have charged him double. He is a rogue."

"For the emperor's wisdom?" smiled s.h.a.garach.

"What mischief is he about?"

"He wishes to sell Mrs. Arnold's jewels. It is his legal right, since she has defaulted in the payment, but I have counseled a postponement of its exercise."

"And will he postpone it?" asked Emily, sympathetically.

"He? My dear, you do not know him," said the mother. "He is of the tribe of Aaron, who wors.h.i.+ped the golden calf."

Emily wondered if some of the proud Spanish blood had not become mingled with the Hebrew in her veins. Scorn of petty avarice was betrayed in every line of her n.o.ble face. Yet Emily felt sure that it was she who had called s.h.a.garach away from the companions.h.i.+p of the Persian poets and impelled him to write his signet on the living world in letters of self-a.s.sertion and honorable achievement.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN UNBIDDEN GUEST.

"What tainted people you have to deal with!" she exclaimed, unconsciously continuing her vein of silent thought. "I should crave another environment, I think."

"Your Christ lived with sinners and publicans. And they are not all tainted, my dear," added the mother, smiling so that Emily might know whom she meant to except. "There is so much in common between my son and Mr. Floyd. Both proud, serious, too serious, I tell him, and both true Castilians in honor. But the one looked about wisely and found him a--lady; and the other--"

"The other will grow gray by his good mother's side, I fear," said s.h.a.garach, gently kissing the laughing and delighted old lady. Emily smiled herself to see John Davidson's sphinx, whose reticence outside was indeed a mask of stone, unbending thus to the frankness and simplicity of a child. The mother's ways were more demonstrative, but with deep reserves of dignity.

"But you are right, Miss Barlow. The lawyer's profession is one shade more distasteful than the surgeon's, for he handles the moral sores of humanity."

"Handles them to cure them," cried Emily, s.h.i.+fting about, like a true woman.

"Possibly. Though for my own part I agree with those who hold that the law perpetrates no less wickedness than it punishes--were it not that it prevents more than it perpetrates," he added, smiling, "we should live in a very troublesome world. It is a profession which uses the conscience as a whetstone upon which to sharpen the intellect. I attribute the venality of our congress and legislatures partly to the disproportion among them of lawyers."

"But surely there are exceptions?"

"In the criminal courts," answered s.h.a.garach. Emily asked herself if this was s.h.a.garach's destiny, to continue as a criminal lawyer. As if in answer to her question, he added: "There alone one can feel at all times that he is either protecting the innocent or punis.h.i.+ng the guilty. This is my working library," he pointed to the thumbed volumes on the shelves. Emily noticed that most of them were treatises on psychology, the old and the new.

"I do not carry the keys for those," said his mother, gayly.

"Light to illuminate our case," s.h.a.garach took down one of the books. "By the way, my correspondent, Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones, has honored me again."

The two ladies started and the mother seized her son by the arm.

"A black-edged letter, apprising me that I am marked and doomed." Just then Emily heard the strange tapping that had startled her before. It came from the window of the front parlor this time. She shuddered in a sudden terror and drew closer to Mrs. s.h.a.garach. The old lady had heard the sound and blanched a little, but her voice was firm when she spoke: "Is that a mouse in the wainscoting, my son?"

"I thought it was a tapping at the window, mother."

"Go and look. There may be a stranger in the yard."

s.h.a.garach raised the curtain and looked out, then opened the window. The cool night air flowed in and heightened Emily's tremors so that the elder lady took pity on her.

"There is no one in sight, mother, but I will put on my hat and go out the back door."

In a few minutes s.h.a.garach returned by the street entrance.

"I thought I heard footsteps in the pa.s.sageway and followed them around, but there is no one. The yard is empty."

"I will inform the policeman to-morrow," said his mother. "There are many loiterers about in these bad times. And you should acquaint them with the letter you received."

"I have done so, mother. I have considered it strange," he added, turning toward Emily, "that the parties opposed to us in the Floyd case should resort to murder. It is a confession of guilt."

"If they are caught."

"Murder will out. Moreover, I do not work alone. I have engaged the a.s.sistance of--whom do you think?"

"Of Mr. McCausland," said the mother, breaking in. "It was my suggestion."

"McCausland investigating Harry Arnold!" exclaimed Emily.