IV
He took a cigar out of his pocket and began to smoke, and to think. His impassive face showed no trace of emotion. He was simply waiting for a train; but within he was in a panic, torn with rage, fear, and a frantic desire for action.
Who the devil was Charley? After all, what did he know of Kathleen? What did he know of women, anyway? He had left her alone for days and days, while he looked after business matters in the city. He had left her alone, partly because he wanted to go into the city, because he disliked solitude and quiet. How did he know what she thought of when he was gone? Charley!
He could scarcely endure it. His lean body trembled, like that of a nervous horse held brutally in check. He wanted to bolt. Charley!
Unfortunately, Brecky did not find it difficult to believe evil. His experience of life had been hard and definite. He had as high an opinion of Kathleen as he had ever had of a human being, but he was not trustful. He knew too much, and it was a one-sided knowledge.
It was possible that Kathleen was merely a fool, and didn’t realize what she was doing; but this Charley wouldn’t be like that. If women were more or less a mystery to Brecky, men were not. He had a sudden and very clear picture of Kathleen, neat, rosy, pitifully self-assured, alighting from the train, to be met by Charley.
All at once he knew who Charley was—that fat, owlish fellow who used to sit so often at Kathleen’s table in the restaurant. Sands, his name was. He had money of his own, and used to bother Brecky for tips on the races. He used to sit for hours ab[Pg 47]sorbed in the form sheets, trying to figure things out for himself—with the usual results. And Kathleen had turned from Brecky, the shrewd, the alert, the competent, to that fellow!
“I’ve got nearly an hour to wait, haven’t I?” he asked.
Brecky’s voice rang out sharply in the quiet little room. The agent opened his eyes, more startled than the words warranted. He fancied there was something in the other man’s tone. He stared at him, instantly wide awake.
“I guess I’ll have time to run home and get something,” Brecky went on.
“Don’t be late, though,” said the agent. “This’ll be the last train to-night.”
Brecky vanished, slamming the door behind him. He retraced his steps with dreamlike ease. He was not conscious of progressing until he found himself once more at the hotel. He was filled with emotions so violent, with such a confusion of hatred, jealousy, and pain, that he was truly overwhelmed. His inarticulate soul could find no other words for his anguish than—
“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”
He put his hand into his coat pocket for the key of the front door, but it wasn’t there. He was obliged to go around to the back of the house and enter through the cellar. He felt his way through the piercing cold of that black underground cavern, and ascended the shaking wooden steps to the kitchen.
The kitchen gave him a shock. It was exactly as he had left it, neat, quiet, warm, with the clock ticking, the kettle gently steaming, Kathleen’s apron across a chair. It was like the memory of a past irretrievably gone. Brecky’s heart contracted with pain. He stopped for a moment, to muster all the resolution he had.
He went upstairs into the bedroom, and from a drawer of the bureau he took what he wanted. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, saw his face strained and hard beneath his inevitable cap, and he thought he looked like a criminal in the movies. Well, why shouldn’t he?
He caught the train. He got in and settled himself comfortably in the smoking car, deserted except for two men playing pinochle.
The train ran on smoothly, stronger than the wind. Brecky could see very little from the window except the slanting rain and now and then a blurred light. The turmoil in his brain never ceased. He looked unpleasantly wide awake, staring, like a somnambulist. His gray eyes never seemed to blink, or his face to move a muscle.
And for all his grief and fury he had no other words than that pitifully inadequate refrain:
“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”
His cigar was out, but he did not notice it. He sat with a curiously alert air, like a pointing dog, immobile, but terribly ready. He was thinking.
He stopped the conductor as he passed through the car.
“Can you stop at New Chelsea?” he asked.
The conductor shook his head.
“It’s not an express stop,” he said. “You’ll have to go on to New York and then take a train back. You’ll have to wait till to-morrow morning, too. No more trains to-night!”
Brecky reflected. He took it for granted that if Kathleen had telephoned to the fellow at New Chelsea, that was where he lived, and where he was most likely to be found. He pulled at the conductor’s sleeve as the man was moving away.
“Do you slow down anywhere near there?”
“Not enough for—”
“Just you tell me when you’re going to slow down a bit,” said Brecky. “I’ve got to get there. You won’t be responsible.”
“I should be,” said the conductor sententiously. “Morally speaking, I should be responsible.”
Brecky knew every inch of that line. As they approached the desired destination, he got up and went out upon the platform. The pinochle players saw him standing there, in the wind and the rain. Then, suddenly, he vanished. He had climbed down the steps and jumped.
The fall stunned him, and he lay still for an instant. When he could breathe freely again, he rose, and mechanically tried to brush himself off. He was always a neat fellow.
The train had disappeared, and he was alone in the universe. He could still hear the sea, dull and menacing, and the demoniac wind still blew. He didn’t quite know where he was. His plan was to follow the tracks.
Wet to the skin, a sinister enough figure with his face nearly hidden by pulled down cap and turned up collar, he went doggedly[Pg 48] forward toward the next station. He presented the appearance of a highwayman.
Before long he saw the feeble light of the New Chelsea station ahead of him, blurred through the rain. With a sigh of relief he mounted the wooden platform, where he was for the moment sheltered from the weather.
He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He looked in through the window, and saw the dimly lit room, quite empty, and the stove, without fire. Evidently the station master had gone for the night. This was a blow to Brecky, for he had counted upon making inquiries here.
He prowled around the platform, scowling, trying to plan his course. To his right he saw a few scattered lights, which must be, he thought, the village of New Chelsea; and he went toward them, along a muddy road. In due time he reached the main street. There was a drug store, closed and locked, with a ghostly green light in the window. There was also a protective light in the window of a well stocked grocery; but not a human being to be seen, not a sound to be heard, except the yelping of a dog somewhere in the hills that rose behind the town and partly sheltered it from the wind. Only a sudden cruel gust, from time to time, met him full in the face.
He turned a corner, and at the end of the street he saw a distant form, walking with a slow and deliberate step very familiar to him. It was a policeman, and Brecky hastened after him.
“I’ve lost my bearings,” he said. “Is Charley Sands’s place anywhere near here?”
The policeman hesitated for a moment, with rural caution.
“What do you want to go there for?” he asked.
“Well,” said Brecky, laughing, “I suppose because I don’t want to walk around New Chelsea all night in this weather. Three of us started here in a motor, but we broke down a little way up the line, and we couldn’t get our bearings. We each tried a different direction, and I guess I’m the lucky one. Charley will have to turn out with a lantern to find the other fellows.”
“Oh, they’ll be all right!” said the policeman, disarmed. “There’s houses and little settlements all around this part of the country.”
He directed Brecky to the house of Charley Sands. A good walk, about three miles, he should say—uphill, and mighty hard to find in the dark.
“Oh, I’ll find it all right!” said Brecky cheerfully.