The Marionettes - (2)

Doctor James looked at his watch. He could call half an hour his own, since before that time the old woman could scarcely return from her mission. Then he sought and found water in a pitcher and a glass tumbler. Opening his medicine case he took out the vial containing the nitroglycerine--"the oil," as his brethren of the brace-and-bit term it.
    One drop of the faint yellow, thickish liquid he let fall in the tumbler. He took out his silver hypodermic syringe case, and screwed the needle into its place, Carefully measuring each modicum of water in the graduated glass barrel of the syringe, he diluted the one drop with nearly half a tumbler of water.
    Two hours earlier that night Doctor James had, with that syringe, injected the undiluted liquid into a hole drilled in the lock of a safe, and had destroyed, with one dull explosion, the machinery that controlled the movement of the bolts. He now purposed, with the same means, to shiver the prime machinery of a human being--to rend its heart--and each shock was for the sake of the money to follow.
    The same means, but in a different guise. Whereas, that was the giant in its rude, primary dynamic strength, this was the courtier, whose no less deadly arms were concealed by velvet and lace. For the liquid in the tumbler and in the syringe that the physician carefully filled was now a solution of glonoin, the most powerful heart stimulant known to medical science. Two ounces had riven the solid door of the iron safe; with one fiftieth part of a minim he was now about to still forever the intricate mechanism of a human life.
    But not immediately. It was not so intended. First there would be a quick increase of vitality; a powerful impetus given to every organ and faculty. The heart would respond bravely to the fatal spur; the blood in the veins return more rapidly to its source.
    But, as Doctor James well knew, over-stimulation in this form of heart disease means death, as sure as by a rifle shot. When the clogged arteries should suffer congestion from the increased flow of blood pumped into them by the power of the burglar's "oil," they would rapidly become "no thoroughfare," and the fountain of life would cease to flow.
    The physician bared the chest of the unconscious Chandler. Easily and skilfully he injected, subcutaneously, the contents of the syringe into the muscles of the region over the heart. True to his neat habits in both professions, he next carefully dried his needle and re-inserted the fine wire that threaded it when not in use.
    In three minutes Chandler opened his eyes, and spoke, in a voice faint but audible, inquiring who attended upon him. Doctor James again explained his presence there.
    "Where is my wife?" asked the patient.
    "She is asleep--from exhaustion and worry," said the doctor. "I would not awaken her, unless--"
    "It isn't--necessary." Chandler spoke with spaces between his words caused by his short breath that some demon was driving too fast. "She wouldn't--thank you to disturb her--on my--account."
    Doctor James drew a chair to the bedside. Conversation must not be squandered.
    "A few minutes ago," he began, in the grave, candid tones of his other profession, "you were trying to tell me something regarding some money. I do not seek your confidence, but it is my duty to advise you that anxiety and worry will work against your recovery. If you have any communication to make about this--to relieve your mind about this--twenty thousand dollars, I think was the amount you mentioned--you would better do so."
    Chandler could not turn his head, but he rolled his eyes in the direction of the speaker.
    "Did I--say where this--money is?"
    "No," answered the physician. "I only inferred, from your scarcely intelligible words, that you felt a solicitude concerning its safety. If it is in this room--"
    Doctor James paused. Did he only seem to perceive a flicker of understanding, a gleam of suspicion upon the ironical features of his patient? Had he seemed too eager? Had he said too much? Chandler's next words restored his confidence.
    "Where--should it be," he gasped, "but in--the safe--there?"
    With his eyes he indicated a corner of the room, where now, for the first time, the doctor perceived a small iron safe, half-concealed by the trailing end of a window curtain.
    Rising, he took the sick man's wrist. His pulse was beating in great throbs, with ominous intervals between.
    "Lift your arm," said Doctor James.
    "You know--I can't move, Doctor."
    The physician stepped swiftly to the hall door, opened it, and listened. All was still. Without further circumvention he went to the safe, and examined it. Of a primitive make and simple design, it afforded little more security than protection against light-fingered servants. To his skill it was a mere toy, a thing of straw and paste-board. The money was as good as in his hands. With his clamps he could draw the knob, punch the tumblers and open the door in two minutes. Perhaps, in another way, he might open it in one.
    Kneeling upon the floor, he laid his ear to the combination plate, and slowly turned the knob. As he had surmised, it was locked at only a "day com."--upon one number. His keen ear caught the faint warning click as the tumbler was disturbed; he used the clue--the handle turned. He swung the door wide open.
    The interior of the safe was bare--not even a scrap of paper rested within the hollow iron cube.
    Doctor James rose to his feet and walked back to the bed.
    A thick dew had formed upon the dying man's brow, but there was a mocking, grim smile on his lips and in his eyes.
    "I never--saw it before," he said, painfully, "medicine and--burglary wedded! Do you--make the--combination pay--dear Doctor?"
    Than that situation afforded, there was never a more rigorous test of Doctor James's greatness. Trapped by the diabolic humor of his victim into a position both ridiculous and unsafe, he maintained his dignity as well as his presence of mind. Taking out his watch, he waited for the man to die.
    "You were--just a shade--too--anxious--about that money. But it never was--in any danger--from you, dear Doctor. It's safe. Perfectly safe. It's all--in the hands--of the bookmakers. Twenty--thousand--Amy's money. I played it at the races--lost every--cent of it. I've been a pretty bad boy, Burglar--excuse me--Doctor, but I've been a square sport. I don't think--I ever met--such an--eighteen-carat rascal as you are, Doctor--excuse me--Burglar, in all my rounds. Is it contrary--to the ethics--of your--gang, Burglar, to give a victim--excuse me--patient, a drink of water?"
    Doctor James brought him a drink. He could scarcely swallow it. The reaction from the powerful drug was coming in regular, intensifying waves. But his moribund fancy must have one more grating fling.
    "Gambler--drunkard--spendthrift--I've been those, but--a doctor-burglar!"
    The physician indulged himself to but one reply to the other's caustic taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler's fast crystallizing gaze, he pointed to the sleeping lady's door with a gesture so stern and significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, with his remaining strength, to see. He saw nothing; but he caught the cold words of the doctor--the last sounds he was to hear:
    "I never yet--struck a woman."
    It were vain to attempt to con such men. There is no curriculum that can reckon with them in its ken. Thev are offshoots from the types whereof men say, "He will do this," or "He will do that." We only know that they exist; and that we can observe them, and tell one another of their bare performances, as children watch and speak of the marionettes.
    Yet it were a droll study in egoism to consider these two--one an assassin and a robber, standing above his victim; the other baser in his offences, if a lesser law-breaker, lying, abhorred, in the house of the wife he had persecuted, spoiled, and smitten, one a tiger, the other a dog-wolf--to consider each of them sickening at the foulness of the other; and each flourishing out of the mire of his manifest guilt his own immaculate standard--of conduct, if not of honor.
    The one retort of Doctor James must have struck home to the other's remaining shreds of shame and manhood, for it proved the coup de grâce. A deep blush suffused his face--an ignominious rosa mortis; the respiration ceased, and, with scarcely a tremor, Chandler expired.
    Close following upon his last breath came the negress, bringing the medicine. With a hand gently pressing upon the closed eyelids, Doctor James told her of the end. Not grief, but a hereditary rapprochement with death in the abstract, moved her to a dismal, watery snuffling, accompanied by her usual jeremiad.
    "Dar now! It's in de Lawd's hands. He am de jedge ob de transgressor, and de suppo't of dem in distress. He gwine hab suppo't us now. Cindy done paid out de last quarter fer dis bottle of physic, and it nebber come to no use."
    "Do I understand," asked Doctor James, "that Mrs. Chandler has no money?"
    "Money, suh? You know what make Miss Amy fall down and so weak? Stahvation, suh. Nothin' to eat in dis house but some crumbly crackers in three days. Dat angel sell her finger rings and watch mont's ago. Dis fine house, suh, wid de red cyarpets and shiny bureaus, it's all hired; and de man talkin' scan'lous about de rent. Dat debble--'scuse me, Lawd--he done in Yo' hands fer jedgment, now--he made way wid everything."
    The physician's silence encouraged her to continue. The history that he gleaned from Cindy's disordered monologue was an old one, of illusion, wilfulness, disaster, cruelty and pride. Standing out from the blurred panorama of her gabble were little clear pictures--an ideal home in the far South; a quickly repented marriage; an unhappy season, full of wrongs and abuse, and, of late, an inheritance of money that promised deliverance; its seizure and waste by the dog-wolf during a two months' absence, and his return in the midst of a scandalous carouse. Unobtruded, but visible between every line, ran a pure white thread through the smudged warp of the story--the simple, all-enduring, sublime love of the old negress, following her mistress unswervingly through everything to the end.
    When at last she paused, the physician spoke, asking if the house contained whiskey or liquor of any sort. There was, the old woman informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the dog-wolf.
    "Prepare a toddy as I told you," said Doctor James. "Wake your mistress; have her drink it, and tell her what has happened."
    Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by old Cindy's arm. She appeared to be a little stronger since her sleep and the stimulant she had taken. Doctor James had covered, with a sheet, the form upon the bed.
    The lady turned her mournful eyes once, with a half-frightened look, toward it, and pressed closer to her loyal protector. Her eyes were dry and bright. Sorrow seemed to have done its utmost with her. The fount of tears was dried; feeling itself paralyzed.
    Doctor James was standing near the table, his overcoat donned, his hat and medicine case in his hand. His face was calm and impassive--practice had inured him to the sight of human suffering. His lambent brown eyes alone expressed a discreet professional sympathy.
    He spoke kindly and briefly, stating that, as the hour was late, and assistance, no doubt, difficult to procure, he would himself send the proper persons to attend to the necessary finalities.
    "One matter, in conclusion," said the doctor, pointing to the safe with its still wide-open door. "Your husband, Mrs. Chandler, toward the end, felt that he could not live; and directed me to open that safe, giving me the number upon which the combination is set. In case you may need to use it, you will remember that the number is forty-one. Turn several times to the right; then to the left once; stop at forty-one. He would not permit me to waken you, though he knew the end was near.
    "In that safe he said he had placed a sum of money--not large--but enough to enable you to carry out his last request. That was that you should return to your old home, and, in after days, when time shall have made it easier, forgive his many sins against you."
    He pointed to the table, where lay an orderly pile of banknotes, surmounted by two stacks of gold coins.
    "The money is there--as he described it--eight hundred and thirty dollars. I beg to leave my card with you, in case I can be of any service later on."
    So, he had thought of her--and kindly--at the last! So late! And yet the lie fanned into life one last spark of tenderness where she had thought all was turned to ashes and dust. She cried aloud "Rob! Rob!" She turned, and, upon the ready bosom of her true servitor, diluted her grief in relieving tears. It is well to think, also, that in the years to follow, the murderer's falsehood shone like a little star above the grave of love, comforting her, and gaining the forgiveness that is good in itself, whether asked for or no.
    Hushed and soothed upon the dark bosom, like a child, by a crooning, babbling sympathy, at last she raised her head--but the doctor was gone.
    [Illustration: "Will you go in?" (cartoon from The Rolling Stone)]