“You will not! I’ll be around at the hotel for you inside of twenty minutes.”
“All right. Thanks. You’ll find me in the dining-room. ’Bye!”
Stacey went down into the dining-room and ordered breakfast. Then he unfolded a newspaper. Outwardly he appeared as unmoved as ever. It was only when he came upon the one piece of news he cared about—“Mayor’s Condition Serious! Still Unconscious at Three This Morning! Doctors Hopeful!”—that a ripple of emotion passed over his face. He ate his breakfast calmly.
But on page four he happened upon a small item cursorily recorded which he read with interest.
“At twelve-thirty this morning after the termination of the riot Sergeant of Police Bassett, who was patrolling Seventeenth Street, heard groans issuing from the covered alley leading in behind the Boyd Theatre. On investigating he discovered that they came from a man lying in the alley in a semi-unconscious condition and apparently suffering from attempted strangulation. When able to speak he at first gave his name as John Smith and claimed to have been assaulted, at what time he could not say, by a man wearing U. S. Army uniform. Later he admitted he was Adolph Kraft of 1102 Chicago Street and withdrew his first story, declaring that he was attacked by an unknown man while endeavoring to restrain the rioters from further violence. He was taken to Ford Hospital, where his condition was said to be serious but not critical. The police attach little credence to either story told by Kraft, believing his injury to be the result of some personal vengeance carried out during the confusion of the riot. Kraft was formerly a bar-tender and so far as known has no present occupation. He has been twice convicted of petty offences.”
“So I didn’t kill him, after all,” thought Stacey. “Doesn’t appear that he’d have been much of a loss.” But he reflected dispassionately, merely as noting a fact, that in his assault he had shown the same overwhelming desire to kill that had possessed the mob. That the cause was different on his part did not matter a straw. His intense will to murder had been the same as theirs. Too bad! Not detached enough! Not detached enough! He should have slain the man coldly.
A cordial voice interrupted his meditations. “Well, Captain!—I say! You’re in uniform! You of all people! How come?”
“Hello, Traile,” said Stacey, looking up and shaking hands.
The lieutenant was young and had a fresh pleasant expression when, as now, he was smiling. When, as a moment later, his face grew sober again there was a certain gravity in it, as though a curtain had been dropped,—a hint of the same shadow that hung about Stacey. And this odd contrast in the young man’s face between buoyant youthfulness and weary knowledge impressed Stacey, since he had not seen Traile for many months, and was therefore now seeing him freshly.
“This is fine!” Traile continued swiftly. “But it was pretty rotten of you to be here so long and never let me know. Oh, I know all about it now, you see! Dropped around at Burnham’s on the way here.”