IX
The patrol wagon bowled rapidly onward, and the brougham followed rapidly behind. The early darkness of the winter afternoon was enveloping the world, and in the damp and heavy air the roar of the city was intensified. The patrol wagon turned into Franklin Street and disappeared in the confusion of vehicles. The street was crowded; enormous trucks clung obstinately to the car tracks and only wrenched themselves away when the clamor of the gongs became desperate, their drivers swearing at the motormen, flinging angry glances at them. The trolley-cars swept by, filled with shop-girls, clerks, working-men, business men hanging to straps, reading evening papers in the brilliant electric lights; men clung to the broad rear platforms; at every crossing others attached themselves to these dark masses of humanity, swarming like insects. The sidewalks were crowded, and, as far as one could see, umbrellas balanced in the glistening mist.
The brougham of the Wards succeeded presently in crossing Franklin Street.
"They were taking them to the penitentiary!" said Elizabeth, speaking for the first time.
"I presume they were," said her mother.
"Harry Graves was among them," Elizabeth went on, staring widely before her, her tone low and level.
Mrs. Ward turned her head.
"I saw his face–it stood out among the rest. I can never forget it!"
She sat with her gloved hands in her lap. Her mother did not speak, but she looked at her.
"And that man–that big, brutal man, throwing that woman down, and then striking that man in the face!"
Mrs. Ward, not liking to encourage her daughter's mood, did not speak.
"Oh, it makes me sick!"
Elizabeth stretched forth her hand, drew a cut-glass bottle from its case beside the little carriage clock and mirror, and, sinking back in her cushioned corner, inhaled the stimulating odor of the salts. Then her mother stiffened and said:
"I don't know what Barker means, driving us down this way where we have to endure such sights. You must control yourself, dear, and not allow disagreeable things to get on your nerves."
"But think of that poor boy, and the man who was struck, and that woman!"
"Probably they can not feel as keenly as–"
"And think of all those men! Oh, their faces! Their faces! I can never forget them!"
Elizabeth continued to inhale the salts, her mind deeply intent on the scene she had just witnessed. They were drawing near to Claybourne Avenue now, and Mrs. Ward's spirits visibly improved at the sight of its handsome lamp posts and the carriages flashing by, their rubber tires rolling softly on the wet asphalt.
"Well," she exclaimed, settling back on the cushions, "this is better! I don't know what Barker was thinking of! He's very stupid at times!"
The carriage joined the procession of other equipages of its kind. They had left the street at the end of which could be seen the court-house and the jail. The jail was blazing now with light, its iron bars showing black across its illumined windows. And beyond the jail, as if kept at bay by it, a huddle of low buildings stretched crazily along Mosher's Lane, a squalid street that preserved in irony the name of one of the city's earliest, richest and most respectable citizens, long since deceased. The Lane twinkled with the bright lights of saloons, the dim lights of pawnshops, the red lights of brothels–the slums, dark, foul, full of disease and want and crime. Along the streets passed and repassed shadowy, fugitive forms, negroes, Jews, men, and women, and children, ragged, unkempt, pinched by cold and hunger. But above all this, above the turmoil of Franklin Street and the reeking life of the slums behind it, above the brilliantly lighted jail, stood the court-house, gray in the dusk, its four corners shouldering out the sky, its low dome calmly poised above the town.
X
"And how is your dear mother?" Miss Masters turned to Eades and wrought her wry face into a smile. Her black eyes, which she seemed able to make sparkle at will, were fixed on him; her black-gloved hands were crossed primly in her lap, as she sat erect on the stiff chair Elizabeth Ward had given her.
"She's pretty well, thanks," said Eades. He had always disliked Miss Masters, but he disliked her more than ever this Sunday afternoon in April when he found her at the Wards'. It was a very inauspicious beginning of his spring vacation, to which, after his hard work of the winter term, he had looked forward with sentiments as tender as the spring itself, just beginning to show in the sprightly green that dotted the maple trees along Claybourne Avenue.
"And your sister?"
"She is very well, too."
"Dear me!" the ugly little woman ran on, speaking with the affectation she had cultivated for years enough to make it natural at last to her. "It has been so long since I've seen either of them! I told mama to-day that I didn't go to see even my old friends any more. Of course," she added, lowering her already low tone to a level of hushed deprecation, "we never go to see any of the new-comers; and lately there are so many, one hardly knows the old town. Still, I feel that we of the old families understand each other and are sufficient unto ourselves, as it were, even if we allow years to elapse without seeing each other–don't you, dear?" She turned briskly toward Elizabeth.
Eades had hoped to find Elizabeth alone, and he felt it to be peculiarly annoying that Miss Masters, whose exclusiveness kept her from visiting even her friends of the older families, should have chosen for her exception this particular Sunday afternoon out of all the other Sunday afternoons at her command. He had found it impossible to talk with Elizabeth in the way he had expected to talk to her, and he was so out of sorts that he could not talk to Miss Masters, though that maiden aristocrat of advancing years, strangely stimulated by his presence, seemed efficient enough to do all the talking herself.
Elizabeth was trying to find a position that would give her comfort, without denoting any lapse from the dignity of posture due a family that had been known in that city for nearly fifty years. But repose was impossible to her that afternoon, and she nervously kept her hands in motion, now grasping the back of her chair, now knitting them in her lap, now raising one to her brow; once she was on the point of clasping her knee, but this impulse frightened her so that she quickly pressed her belt down, drew a deep breath, resolutely sat erect, crossed her hands unnaturally in her lap, and smiled courageously at her visitors. Eades noted how firm her hands were, and how white; they were indicative of strength and character. She held her head a little to one side, keeping up her pale smile of interest for Miss Masters, and Eades thought that he should always think of her as she sat thus, in her soft blue dress, her eyes winking rapidly, her dark hair parting of its own accord.
"And how do you like your new work, Mr. Eades?" Miss Masters was asking him, and then, without waiting for a reply, she went on: "Do you know, I believe I have not seen you since your election to congratulate you. But we've been keeping watch; we have seen what the papers said."
She smiled suggestively, and Eades inclined his head to acknowledge her tribute.
"I think we are to be congratulated on having you in that position. I think it is very encouraging to find some of our best people in public office."
There was a tribute surely in the emphasis she placed on the adjective, and Eades inclined his head again.
"I really think it was noble in you to accept. It must be very disagreeable to be brought in contact with–you know!" She smiled and nodded as if she could not speak the word. "And you have been so brave and courageous through it all–you are surely to be admired!"
Eades felt suddenly that Miss Masters was not so bad after all; he relished this appreciation, which he took as an evidence of the opinion prevailing in the best circles. He recalled a conversation he had lately had with Elizabeth on this very subject, and, with a sudden impulse to convict her, he said:
"I'm afraid Miss Ward will hardly agree with you."
Miss Masters turned to Elizabeth with an expression of incredulity and surprise.
"Oh, I am sure–" she began.
"I believe she considers me harsh and cruel," Eades went on, smiling, but looking intently at Elizabeth.
"Oh, Mr. Eades is mistaken," she said; "I'm sure I agree with all the nice things that are said of him."
She detested the weakness of her quick retreat; and she detested more the immediate conviction that it came from a certain fear of Eades. She was beginning to feel a kind of mastery in his mere presence, so that when she was near him she felt powerless to oppose him. The arguments she always had ready for others, or for him–when he was gone–seemed invariably to fail her when he was near; she had even gone to the length of preparing them in advance for him, but when he came, when she saw him, she could not even state them, and when she tried, they seemed so weak and puerile and ineffectual as to deserve nothing more serious than the tolerant smile with which he received and disposed of them. And now, as this weakness came over her, she felt a fear, not for any of her principles, which, after all, were but half-formed and superficial, but a fear for herself, for her own being, and she was suddenly grateful for Miss Masters's presence. Still, Eades and Miss Masters seemed to be waiting, and she must say something.
"It's only this," she said. "Not long ago I saw officers taking some prisoners to the penitentiary. I can never forget the faces of those men."
Over her sensitive countenance there swept the memory of a pain, and she had the effect of sinking in her straight chair. But Eades was gazing steadily at her, a smile on his strong face, and Miss Masters was saying:
"But, dear me! The penitentiary is the place for such people, isn't it, Mr. Eades?"
"I think so," said Eades. His eyes were still fixed on Elizabeth, and she looked away, groping in her mind for some other subject. Just then the hall bell rang.
Elizabeth was glad, for it was Marriott, and as she took his hand and said simply, "Ah, Gordon," the light faded from Eades's face.
Marriott's entrance dissolved the situation of a moment before. He brought into the drawing-room, dimming now in the fading light, a new atmosphere, something of the air of the spring. Miss Masters greeted him with a manner divided between a certain distance, because Marriott had not been born in that city, and a certain necessary approach to his mere deserts as a man. Marriott did not notice this, but dropped on to the divan. Elizabeth had taken a more comfortable chair. Marriott, plainly, was not in the formal Sunday mood, just as he was not in the formal Sunday dress. He had taken in Eades's frock-coat and white waistcoat at a glance, and then looked down at his own dusty boots.
"I've been hard at work to-day, Elizabeth," he said, turning to her with a smile.
"Working! You must remember the Sabbath day to keep it–"
"The law wasn't made for lawyers, was it, John?" He appealed suddenly to Eades, whose conventionality he always liked to shock, and Elizabeth smiled, and Eades became very dignified.
"I've been out to see our old friends, the Koerners," Marriott went on.
"Oh, tell me about them!" said Elizabeth, leaning forward with eager interest. "How is Gusta?"
"Gusta's well, and prettier than ever. Jove! What a beauty that girl is!"
"Isn't she pretty?" said Elizabeth. "She was a delight in the house for that very reason. And how is poor old Mr. Koerner–and all of them?"
"Well," said Marriott, "Koerner's amputated leg is all knotted up with rheumatism."
Miss Masters's dark face was pinched in a scowl.
"And Archie's in jail."
"In jail!" Elizabeth dropped back in her chair.
"Yes, in jail."
"Why! What for?"
"Well, he seems to belong to a gang that was arrested day before yesterday for something or other."
"There, Mr. Eades," said Elizabeth suddenly, "there now, you must let Archie Koerner go."
"Oh, I'll not let John get a chance at him," said Marriott. "He's charged with a misdemeanor only–he'll go to the workhouse, if he goes anywhere."
"And you'll defend him?"
"Oh, I suppose so," said Marriott wearily. "You've given me a whole family of clients, Elizabeth. I went out to see the old man about his case–I think we'll try it early this term."
"These Koerners are a family in whom I've been interested," Elizabeth suddenly thought to explain to Miss Masters, and then she told them of Gusta, of old Koerner's accident, and of Archie's career as a soldier.
"They've had a hard winter of it," said Marriott "The old man, of course, can't work, and Archie, by his experience as a soldier, seems to have been totally unfitted for everything–except shooting–and shooting is against the law."
Now that the conversation had taken this turn, Miss Masters moved to go. She bade Marriott farewell coldly, and Eades warmly, and Elizabeth went with her into the hall. Eades realized that all hope of a tête-à-tête with Elizabeth had departed, and he and Marriott not long afterward left to walk down town together. The sun was warm for the first time in months, and the hope of the spring had brought the people out of doors. Claybourne Avenue was crowded with carriages in which families solemnly enjoyed their Sunday afternoon drives, as they had enjoyed their stupefying dinners of roast beef four hours before. Electric automobiles purred past, and now and then a huge touring car, its driver in his goggles resembling some demon, plunged savagely along, its horn honking hoarsely at every street crossing. The sidewalks were thronged with pedestrians, young men whose lives had no other diversion than to parade in their best clothes or stand on dusty down-town corners, smoke cigars and watch the girls that tilted past.
"That Miss Masters is a fool," said Marriott, when they had got away from the house.
"Yes, she is," Eades assented. "She was boring Miss Ward to death."
"Poor Elizabeth!" said Marriott with a little laugh. "She is so patient, and people do afflict her so."
Eades did not like the way in which Marriott could speak of Elizabeth, any more than he liked to hear Elizabeth address Marriott as Gordon.
"I see the Courier gave you a fine send-off this morning," Marriott went on. "What a record you made! Not a single acquittal the whole term!"
Eades made no reply. He was wondering if Elizabeth had seen the Courier's editorial. In the morning he thought he would send her a bunch of violets, and Tuesday–
"Your course is most popular," Marriott went on. And Eades looked at him; he could not always understand Marriott, and he did not like to have him speak of his course as if he had deliberately chosen it as a mere matter of policy.
"It's the right course," he said significantly.
"Oh, I suppose so," Marriott replied. "Still–I really can't congratulate you when I think of those poor devils–"
"I haven't a bit of sympathy for them," said Eades coldly. This, he thought, was where Elizabeth got those strange, improper notions. Marriott should not be permitted–
Just then, in an automobile tearing by, they saw Dick Ward, and Eades suddenly recalled a scene he had witnessed in the club the day before.
"That young fellow's going an awful gait," he said suddenly.
"Who, Dick?"
"Yes, I saw him in the club yesterday–"
"I know," said Marriott. "It's a shame. He's a nice little chap."
"Can't you do something for him? He seems to like you."
"What can I do?"
"Well, can't you–speak to him?"
"I never could preach," said Marriott.
"Well," said Eades helplessly, "it's too bad."
"Yes," said Marriott; "it would break their hearts–Ward's and Elizabeth's."
XI
The Koerners, indeed, as Marriott said, had had a hard winter. The old man, sustained at first by a foolish optimism, had expected that his injury would be compensated immediately by heavy damages from the railroad he had served so long. Marriott had begun suit, and then the law began the slow and wearisome unfolding of its interminable delays. Weeks and months went by and nothing was done. Koerner sent for Marriott, and Marriott explained–the attorneys for the railroad company had filed a demurrer, the docket was full, the case would not be reached for a long time. Koerner could not understand; finally, he began to doubt Marriott; some of his neighbors, with the suspicion natural to the poor, hinted that Marriott might have been influenced by the company. Koerner's leg, too, gave him incessant pain. All winter long he was confined to the house, and the family grew tired of his monotonous complainings. To add to this, Koerner was now constantly dunned by the surgeon and by the authorities of the hospital; the railroad refused to pay these bills because Koerner had brought suit; the bills, to a frugal German like Koerner, were enormous, appalling.
The Koerners, a year before, had bought the house in which they lived, borrowing the money from a building and loan association. The agent of the association, who had been so kind and obliging before the mortgage was signed, was now sharp and severe; he had lately told Koerner that unless he met the next instalment of interest he would set the family out in the street.
Koerner had saved some money from his wages, small as they were; but this was going fast. During the winter Mrs. Koerner, though still depressed and ill, had begun to do washings; the water, splashing over her legs from the tubs in the cold wood-shed day after day, had given her rheumatism. Gusta helped, of course, but with all they could do it was hard to keep things going. Gusta tried to be cheerful, but this was the hardest work of all; she often thought of the pleasant home of the Wards, and wished she were back there. She would have gone back, indeed, and given her father her wages, but there was much to do at home–the children to look after, the house to keep, the meals to get, the washings to do, and her father's leg to dress. Several times she consulted Marriott about the legal entanglements into which the family was being drawn; Marriott was wearied with the complications–the damage suit, the mortgage, the threatened actions for the doctor's bills. The law seemed to be snarling the Koerners in every one of its meshes, and the family was settling under a Teutonic melancholia.
Just at this time the law touched the family at another point–Archie was arrested. For a while he had sought work, but his experience in the army had unfitted him for every normal calling; he had acquired a taste for excitement and adventure, and no peaceful pursuit could content him. He would not return to the army because he had too keen a memory of the indignities heaped on a common soldier by officers who had been trained from youth to an utter disregard of all human relations save those that were unreal and artificial. He had learned but one thing in the army, and that was to shoot, and he could shoot well. Somehow he had secured a revolver, a large one, thirty-eight caliber, and with this he was constantly practising.
Because Archie would not work, Koerner became angry with him; he was constantly remonstrating with him and urging him to get something to do. Archie took all his father's reproaches with his usual good nature, but as the winter wore slowly on and the shadow of poverty deepened in the home, the old man became more and more depressed, his treatment of his son became more and more bitter. Finally Archie stayed away from home to escape scolding. He spent his evenings in Nussbaum's saloon, where, because he had been a soldier in the Philippines and was attractive and good looking, he was a great favorite and presently a leader of the young men who spent their evenings there. These young men were workers in a machine shop; they had a baseball club called the "Vikings," and in summer played games in the parks on Sundays. In the winter they spent their evenings in the saloon, the only social center accessible to them; here, besides playing pool, they drank beer, talked loudly, laughed coarsely, sang, and now and then fought, very much like Vikings indeed.
Later, roaming down town to Market Place, Archie made other acquaintances, and these young men were even more like Vikings. They were known as the Market Place gang, and they made their headquarters in Billy Deno's saloon, though they were well known in all the little saloons around the four sides of the Market. They were known, too, at the police station, which stood grimly overlooking Market Place, for they had committed many petty raids, and most of them had served terms in the workhouse. One by one they were being sent to the penitentiary, a distinction they seemed to prize, or which their fellows seemed to prize in them when they got back. The gang had certain virtues,–it stuck together; if a member was in trouble, the other members were all willing to do anything to help him out. Usually this willingness took the form of appearing in police court and swearing to an alibi, but they had done this service so often that the police-court habitués and officials smiled whenever they appeared. Their testimonies never convinced the judge; but they were imperturbable and ever ready to commit perjury in the cause.
When Archie was out of money he could not buy cartridges for his revolver, and he discovered by chance one afternoon, when he had drifted into a little shooting gallery, that the proprietor was glad to give him cartridges in return for an exhibition with the revolver, for the exhibition drew a crowd, and the boozy sailors who lounged along the Market in the evening were fascinated by Archie's skill and forthwith emulated it. It was in this way that Archie met the members of the Market Place gang, and finding them stronger, braver, more enterprising spirits than the Vikings, he became one of them, spent his days and nights with them, and visited Nussbaum's no more. He became the fast friend of Spud Healy, the leader of the gang, and in this way he came to be arrested.
Besides Archie and Spud Healy, Red McGuire, Butch Corrigan, John Connor and Mike Nailor were arrested. A Market Place grocer had missed a box of dried herrings, reported it to the police, and the police, of course, had arrested on suspicion such of the gang as they could find.
Archie's arrest was a blow to Koerner. He viewed the matter from the German standpoint, just as he viewed everything, even after his thirty-seven years in America. It was a blow to his German reverence for law, a reverence which his own discouraging experience of American law could not impair, and it was a blow to his German conception of parental authority; he denounced Archie, declaring that he would do nothing for him even if he could.
Gusta, in the great love she had for Archie, felt an instant desire to go to him, but when she mentioned this, her father turned on her so fiercely that she did not dare mention it again. On Monday morning, when her work was done, Gusta, dressing herself in the clothes she had not often had occasion to wear during the winter, stole out of the house and went down town,–a disobedience in which she was abetted by her mother. Half an hour later Gusta was standing bewildered in the main entrance of the Market Place Police Station. The wide hall was vacant, the old and faded signs on the walls, bearing in English and in German instructions for police-court witnesses, could not aid her. From all over the building she heard noises of various activities,–the hum of the police court, the sound of voices, from some near-by room a laugh. She went on and presently found an open door, and within she saw several officers in uniform, with handsome badges on their breasts and stars on the velvet collars of their coats. As she hesitated before this door, a policeman noticed her, and his coarse face lighted up with a suggestive expression as he studied the curves of her figure. He planted himself directly in front of her, his big figure blocking the way.
"I'd like to speak to my brother, if I can," said Gusta. "He's arrested."
She colored and her eyes fell. The policeman's eyes gleamed.
"What's his name, Miss?" he asked.
"Archie Koerner."
"What's he in fer?"
"I can't tell you, sir."
The policeman looked at her boldly, and then he took her round arm in his big hand and turned her toward the open door.
"Inspector," he said, "this girl wants to see her brother. What's his name?" he asked again, turning to Gusta.
"Koerner, sir," said Gusta, speaking to the scowling inspector, "Archie Koerner."
Inspector McFee, an old officer who had been on the police force for twenty-five years, eyed her suspiciously. His short hair was dappled with gray, and his mustache was clipped squarely and severely on a level with his upper lip. Gusta had even greater fear of him than she had of the policeman, who now released his hold of her arm. Instinctively she drew away from him.
"Archie Koerner, eh?" said the inspector in a gruff voice.
At the name, a huge man, swart and hairy, in civilian's dress, standing by one of the big windows, turned suddenly and glowered at Gusta from under thick black eyebrows. His hair, black and coarse and closely clipped, bristled almost low enough on his narrow forehead to meet his heavy brows. He had a flat nose, and beneath, half encircling his broad, deep mouth, was a black mustache, stubbed and not much larger than his eyebrows. His jaw was square and heavy. A gleam showed in his small black eyes and gave a curiously sinister aspect to his black visage.
"What's that about Koerner?" he said, coming forward aggressively. Gusta shrank from him. She felt herself in the midst of powerful, angry foes.
"You say he's your brother?" asked the inspector.
"Yes, sir."
"What do you want of him?"
"Oh, I just want to see him, sir," Gusta said. "I just want to talk to him a minute–that's all, sir."
Her blue eyes were swimming with tears.
"Hold on a minute," said the man of the dark visage. He went up to the inspector, whispered to him a moment. The inspector listened, finally nodded, then took up a tube that hung by his desk and blew into it. Far away a whistle shrilled.
"Let this girl see Koerner," he said, speaking into the tube, "in Kouka's presence." Then, dropping the tube, he said to Gusta:
"Go down-stairs–you can see him."
The policeman took her by the arm again, and led her down the hall and down the stairs to the turnkey's room. The turnkey unlocked a heavy door and tugged it open; inside, in a little square vestibule, Gusta saw a dim gas-jet burning. The turnkey called:
"Koerner!"
Then he turned to Gusta and said:
"This way."
She went timidly into the vestibule and found herself facing a heavy door, crossed with iron bars. On the other side of the bars was the face of Archie.
"Hello, Gusta," he said.
She had lifted her skirts a little; the floor seemed to her unclean. The odor of disinfectants, which, strong as it was, could not overpower the other odors it was intended to annihilate, came strongly to her. Through the bars she had a glimpse of high whitewashed walls, pierced near the top with narrow windows dirty beyond all hope. On the other side was a row of cells, their barred doors now swinging open. Along the wall miserable figures were stretched on a bench. Far back, where the prison grew dark as night, other figures slouched, and she saw strange, haggard faces peering curiously at her out of the gloom.
"Hello, Gusta," Archie said.
She felt that she should take his hand, but she disliked to thrust it through the bars. Still she did so. In slipping her hand through to take Archie's hand it touched the iron, which was cold and soft as if with some foul grease.
"Oh, Archie," she said, "what has happened?"
"Search me," he said, "I don't know what I'm here for. Ask Detective Kouka there. He run me in."
Gusta turned. The black-visaged man was standing beside her. Archie glared at the detective in open hatred, and Kouka sneered but controlled himself, and looked away as if, after all, he were far above such things.
Then they were silent, for Gusta could not speak.
"How did you hear of the pinch?" asked Archie presently.
"Mrs. Schopfle was in–she told us," replied Gusta.
"What did the old man say?"
"Oh, Archie! He's awful mad!"
Archie hung his head and meditatively fitted the toe of his boot into one of the squares made by the crossed bars at the bottom of the door.
"Say, Gusta," he said, "you tell him I'm in wrong; will you? Honest to God, I am!"
He raised his face suddenly and held it close to the bars.
"I will, Archie," she said.
"And how's ma?"
"Oh, she's pretty well." Gusta could not say the things she wished; she felt the presence of Kouka.
"Say, Gusta," said Archie, "see Mr. Marriott; tell him to come down here; I want him to take my case. I'll work and pay him when I get out. Say, Gusta," he went on, "tell him to come down this afternoon. My God, I've got to get out of here! Will you? You know where his office is?"
"I'll find it," said Gusta.
"It's in the Wayne Building."
Gusta tried to look at Archie; she tried to keep her eyes on his face, on his tumbled yellow hair, on his broad shoulders, broader still because his coat and waistcoat were off, and his white throat was revealed by his open shirt. But she found it hard, because her eyes were constantly challenged by the sights beyond–the cell doors, the men sleeping off their liquor, the restless figures that haunted the shadows, the white faces peering out of the gloom. The smell that came from within was beginning to sicken her.
"Oh, Archie," she said, "it must be awful in there!"
Archie became suddenly enraged
"Awful?" he said. "It's hell! This place ain't fit for a dog to stay in. Why, Gusta, it's alive–it's crawlin'! That's what it is! I didn't sleep a wink last night! Not a wink! Say, Gusta," he grasped the bars, pressed his face against them, "see Mr. Marriott and tell him to get me out of here. Will you? See him, will you?"
"I will, Archie," she said. "Ill go right away."