THE HEART OF A BURGLAR
By Jane Dahl
Noiselessly the burglar drew his great bulk through the window, deposited his kit of tools on the floor, and lowered the sash behind him. Then he stopped to listen. No sound broke the midnight stillness. Stealthily he flashed his lantern around the room in search of objects of value. His quick ear caught the sound of a door opening and hurried footsteps in the upper hall. Instantly he adjusted a black mask and sprang behind an open door. Pistol in hand, every faculty alert, he waited. He heard the soft thud of bare feet on the padded stairs, then laboured breathing nearby.
As the electric light was switched on, brilliantly illuminating the room, he gripped his revolver and stepped from behind the door.
“Hands up!” he cried in a hoarse whisper. Then he fell back with a short, raucous laugh. He was pointing the revolver at a frightened little mite of a girl shivering before him in her thin, white nightgown. The small, terrified face touched him strangely, and, placing his pistol in his pocket, he said, not unkindly:
“There, little girl, don’t be so scared—I’m not going to hurt you. Just you be real still so as not to disturb the others until I get through and get away, and you shan’t be hurt.”
The child looked at him much as she would an obstacle in her path, and attempted to rush past him. He grabbed her and held her tight.
“You little vixen!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you to keep still?”
“But I’ve got to telephone,” gasped the child, struggling to free herself. “Just let me telephone and then you can do what you like with me—but I can’t wait—I’ve got to telephone right away.” And she made another effort to reach the telephone on the wall.
Again the burglar laughed. “It’s very likely I’ll let you telephone for the police. No, missy, you can’t work that on me. I guess I’ll have to tie and gag you after all.”
Fresh terror found its way into the child’s face, and, for the first time the burglar realized that he was not the cause of it. She was not afraid of him. She fought and scratched him like a young tigress, striving to free herself, and when she realized how powerless she was in his strong arms she burst into tears.
“Oh! My brother is dying,” she cried, “and I want to telephone the doctor. He has convulsions and mamma doesn’t know what to do—and you won’t let me telephone the doctor!”
At the word “convulsions” the burglar went white—his hands fell nervelessly to his sides—the child was free.
“Call the doctor, quick,” he said, placing the child on the chair in front of the telephone. “What room are they in?”
“End of the hall, upstairs,” responded the child, with the receiver already off the hook.
In three bounds the burglar was up the steps. He made for the light which shone through a half-open door down the hall, striving to formulate some explanation to offer the mother for his presence in the house. When he gently pushed open the door he saw that none was needed—the woman before him was oblivious to all the world. Dishevelled and distracted, she sat rocking to and fro, clutching to her breast the twitching body of a wee boy. Piteously she begged him not to die—not to leave his poor mummy.
Quietly the burglar came to her side and gently loosened her clasp.
“Give me the baby,” he said in a low voice. “He will be better on the bed.”
Dumbly, with unseeing eyes, she looked at him, and surrendered the child.
“He is dying,” she moaned—“dying—oh, my little, little man!”
“No, he’s not,” said the burglar. But as he looked at the wide-open, glassy eyes and blue, pinched face of the child he had little faith in his own words.
He placed the baby upon the bed, and turning to the mother, said in an authoritative voice:
“You must brace up now and save your child—do you understand? I can save him, but you must help me, and we must be quick—quick, do you understand?”
A glimmer of comprehension seemed to penetrate her palsied brain.
“Yes, yes!” she said. “What shall I do?”
“Heat a kettle of water, quick. Bring it in his bathtub—and bring some mustard, too. Hurry.”
Impatiently the mother was off before the last “hurry” was hurled at her. Now that a ray of hope was offered, and something definite to do, she was all action.
Reverently the burglar removed the baby’s nightrobe, and, covering the little body with a blanket, he rubbed the legs and arms and back with his huge hands—very, very gently, for fear their roughness would irritate the delicate skin.
In a short time the mother was back with the hot mustard bath. Together they placed the baby in the tub. His little body relaxed—the glassy eyes closed—he breathed regularly—he was asleep.
“Thank God,” breathed the burglar, fervently, though awkwardly, as though such words were strange to his lips.
“He is sleeping,” cried the mother rapturously. “He will live!”
As the mother was drying the little body with soft towels the burglar said brokenly:
“I had a little boy once—about his size—two years old. He died in convulsions because his mother didn’t know what to do and the doctor didn’t get there in time.”
A sob of ready sympathy came from the heart of the woman.
“And his poor mother?” she asked. “Where is she?”
“She soon followed—she seemed to think the little fellow would need her over there,” he replied in a tear-choked voice.
Half ashamed, he ran his sleeve across his eyes to remove the moisture there. The woman’s tears splashed on the quietly sleeping infant in her lap.
Both were startled by the clamorous ringing of the doorbell.
“The doctor!” cried the man, suddenly brought to a realization of his position.
The woman looked at him, and for the first time she really saw him; for the first time the strangeness of an unknown man in the house in the middle of the night was apparent to her. From his face her glance wandered to the chair where the burglar had thrown his mask and tools.
“Yes,” he said, answering her look, “I’m a burglar. I heard your husband was out of town, and I came to rob you. You can call the police, now.”
“No,” the woman interrupted. “Go into the next room and wait until the doctor leaves. I want to help you to a better way of living than this, if I can.”
After the doctor had departed the woman went into the next room. The burglar was not there. Going downstairs she found the drawers ransacked and all her valuables gone. On the table was a scrap of paper. On it was written:
“Thank you, madam, for your offer, but I’m used to this life now and don’t want to change.”
The woman thought of the sleeping baby upstairs, and a tender smile came to her lips. That robbery was not reported to the police.