Chapter III: Part 3

About a week after Higgins had had his heart-to-heart talk with Bill Wiley a wedding took place, which was attended by the story-teller, the sleuths, young Higgins and John Hogan. It was he who gave the bride away. When the final words were spoken which made Anita Calafain Mrs. William Wiley a sigh of relief went up from the assembled witnesses. Higgins’ face was alight with joy as he handed the bride into a carriage. Bill Wiley was a benedict. The bride wore a white satin gown, trimmed with Italian lace, and a very beautiful white hat that had been imported at much cost for the occasion of the wedding. They were whirled away to the strains of a full string band, and then Higgins said something that was strange for him to say. “Boys,” said he, “there is a God, after all, and he has heard my prayers. I have paid dearly for one hour’s frolic in my life, but I am glad to-night that I have done the right thing, according to my code, for that vain, miserable, wretched woman. I tried to save Bill, but he wouldn’t listen, so I have done everything according to the dictates of my conscience.”

“Bill is the happiest man alive, so what matter what will turn up later?” said John Hogan.

“Something will surely turn up,” said Higgins, “for that woman was born to torment her fellow-beings.”

“She’ll lead Bill around by the nose, poor devil, and he won’t know a thing about what will be going on when his back is turned,” said one of the sleuths.

“What the eyes can’t see, the heart can’t feel,” said the story-teller.

“Come, boys,” said Higgins, with sudden hilarity, “let us get drunk. I have never been drunk in my life, so I want to feel what the sensation is like.”

So young Higgins got drunk for the first time in his life, and Bill Wiley, on wings of love, went on his honeymoon. Six weeks later the big bachelor house was in a blaze of light. Every one was happy. It was Saturday night, and pay-night. The village ladies and their husbands wandered through the quiet streets, especially near to the house where the bachelors dwelt, for Higgins was playing the violin, and that meant something to that village.

“My! What a change there has been in the lad since that baggage got married,” whispered the story-teller to one of the sleuths.

“Looks like a different man,” put in John Hogan.

“I wonder how poor Bill is making out with her?” asked the story-teller.

“Gawd to tell,” said the sleuth.

“I bet she’s leadin’ him a devil of a race,” said the other sleuth.

“They ought to be here now. They went away six weeks ago to-day,” said John Hogan.

Just now Bill Wiley entered that bachelor quarter and walked slowly and painfully toward the group of men that were talking about him.

“Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear,” said John Hogan.

“Why, you’re looking all in, Bill,” said the story-teller.

“All in?” echoed Bill. “I’m worse than that, boys.”

“How is the lady?” asked one of the sleuths.

“I don’t know how she is now, and I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? You don’t?” said the group, in chorus.

“Why, Bill, what’s happened?”

“Why, that lady is a she-devil. She and her brother fleeced me of five thousand dollars. I ain’t had a night’s rest since I left the Isthmus with her. She never give me a lovin’ word nor a lovin’ look, nor a minute’s peace of mind.”

“And where is she now, Bill?” asked John Hogan.

“Gawd knows. I lit out and left her with the man that she said was her brother in Havana.”

“What sort of a looking man was he?” asked Higgins, becoming interested.

“He was the goldurndest lookin-pirate that I ever seen in all my life,” answered Bill, becoming very red in the face.

“Tell us all about it, Bill,” said Higgins, drawing his chair very near, and speaking in a kindly tone.

“Well, the night we left ye fellers and went to Colon, the pirate showed up for the first time, an’ he come with us to the hotel; so the lady said that she wanted a room all to herself, an’ I took a room for myself. In the morning I went and paid the bills, but I didn’t pay his, and he pulled a gun on me; he carried four all ready for use. Then I went an’ bought our ticket an’ she said she wouldn’t go unless I took her dear brother; so, for peace sake, I bought a ticket for him. Then she said she wanted her dear brother to have a stateroom next ours, an’ for peace sake I had to let him have it. Well, sir, they treated me like a nigger waiter during the trip, an’, for peace sake, I couldn’t say nothin’. All the men on the ship was in love with her, but they said that the pirate wan’t her brother at all; that he was a guy that she was in love with, an’ I had to stand for it. They said I was a fool for puttin’ up with things the way I did, an’, say, I sure was; but what could I do, when that guy had a gun in every pocket an’ didn’t think it was any more harm to use one on me than if I was a rat? Well, to make a long story short, they got me in a room in the hotel in Havana the night before I left, an’ they cleaned me out of every cent I had, then he pointed a gun at me an’ told me to leave the hotel without sayin’ anythin’, or he’d riddle me with bullets. I pretended to swaller the diamond ring, an’ they fell for that bluff, so I pawned it the next day to pay my passage down here; an’ here I am. Five thousand of me money is gone, an’ all me clothes, me gold watch and chain, an’ I’m feelin’ like a damn fool. My stomach ain’t workin’ any more, an’ the first thing I’ll have to do will be to see Dr. Deeks, for I’m feelin’ bum.”

During this narration the group exchanged meaning glances. Higgins looked like a man dazed, and beads of perspiration fell from his forehead. For five minutes there was silence, and then the story-teller said, with calmness: “No good ever yet come out of a man bein’ as honorable as Higgins. It ain’t right. If he hadn’t been so darned honorable about that lady he’d a sent her about her business, an’ poor Bill wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“My life is spoiled,” said Bill, with a sob. “I never could trust another lady in this world, an’ besides, I’m married to her now, anyway. Here’s the situation: I’m a ruined an’ broken man, an’ it’s all on account of Higgins.”

“Yes, you’re right, Bill,” said Higgins. “I’m the cause of all your troubles. The lady put it all over us for fair. She got about three thousand dollars out of me, and her bluff prevented me from marrying the best little girl in the U. S. A.”

“‘Tis no use talkin’, a woman can make a monkey of a man,” said John Hogan.

“But life is no good without ’em,” said the story-teller.

“I don’t see how I’m goin’ to live without her,” said Bill. “I can’t forget her.”

“You will have to, I’m afraid,” said Higgins, “for that man whom she called her brother was the fellow she used to call husband in the old war days.”

Some months later Bill Wiley was called to the great tribunal at Culebra. When he arrived there he was requested to support his wife, whom he had wilfully abandoned in Havana. Complaint had been made by the American Consul that the wife of Bill Wiley, of the Canal Zone, was suffering for the necessities of life.

“Well, here’s where I’ll take a hand,” said Higgins. “Gawd bless you,” said Bill Wiley, “for I sure am in bad.”

So Higgins took passage for Havana, and, some few days after, Bill Wiley received the following cablegram:

“Our lady and the pirate are in the penitentiary.

“HIGGINS.”

THE GANG IN NUMBER 10.

The highbrows of Number 10 were having an argument as they sat in the dim light of the veranda of the big bachelor house.

It was Saturday night, and the less intellectual inmates were in the city seeing the sights.

“I guess I’ll play a tune,” said Higgins, who was one of the group.

That was just what had happened every Saturday night since fate had brought the men together.

Iky Gillstein, who had formerly been a Jew, but who now read Schopenhauer and quoted him on every occasion, and John Hogan, who read such books as A. Kempis’ “Life of Christ,” and who quoted him whenever Iky quoted his favorite philosopher, had the argument, as was their custom, and when Higgins found that it had gone far enough he played his violin until the Celtic and Semetic tempers had cooled down to normal.

In the gang were Bill Wiley, who had been disappointed in love, and, later, in marriage, and had taken to reading deep books as an antidote for the poison of love, and George Toby, who read the books that John Hogan read, in order to criticize and argue about them; then there was Fuller, who stepped in with a final word that always put an end to the argument.

Fuller was, according to John Hogan, the “most knowledgable” man on the Isthmus of Panama, except, of course, the Colonel himself.

The men of Number 10 were nicknamed “The Highbrows” because of their studious habits and intellectual conversation. Higgins had reorganized that bachelor house and brought peace and harmony out of chaos. The clerks, or penpushers, he had segregated to one end of the building, and the men who were engaged in work of a more strenuous nature he placed farthest from the dude clerks, and because of this there was less ill-feeling than in most other habitations of the kind on the Isthmus.

As I said before, the highbrows were smoking on the dimly lit veranda, and Higgins had just started to play the violin.

“I’m glad to see you all, boys,” said a voice from somewhere outside. “Who’s that?” asked John Hogan, peering through the wire netting.

“‘Tis only me, boys,” answered the voice.

“It’s that damm fool Percy again,” said Iky, under his breath.

“Come in, Percy,” said Higgins, in a cordial tone.

“Well, she’s gone for good this time, boys, and I’m all in.” The listeners groaned.

“Have you tried to get her back?” asked Higgins.

“I’ve tried in every way, but she hides from me, and says she hates me. Oh, God! What shall I do? I can’t get along without my queen. I love her, boys. I love her more than my soul, and God knows I treated her well,” said Percy, dropping into a chair and mopping his brow; “but I won’t live long, boys. I feel the last string of my heart giving way. I’m a goner. I don’t want to live. I have a little bottle of poison in my pocket right now, and if my heart don’t break soon, I’ll take it and shuffle off.”

“How long have you been married to the lady?” asked John Hogan.

“Three years,” said Percy, with a long-drawn sigh.

“You ought to be pretty tired of her by this time,” said Iky Gillstein. “If I had a woman around the house with me for three years I’d be darned glad to get rid of her.”

“You’re a brute, Iky,” said Bill Wiley, “and you ain’t got no more heart than a woman. I kin put myself in your place, Percy; I’ve been through it, boy. Why, when that lady that I married throwed me down, two years ago, I couldn’t eat, sleep, nor think. If it hadn’t been for Higgins an’ Hogan, I’d ‘a’ gone mad, an’ took poison, an’ God knows I had poison enough in my system. What’s love but poison?”

“Love is a loco germ, Bill,” said Percy dramatically, “an’ when it enters a fellow’s system it ain’t any use squirmin’. He might as well take his medicine.”

“Love left many a man in a darned bad stew,” said John Hogan, “an’ a guy that ’ud fall in love twice ought to be put in the bughouse.”

“I’ve been there many a time,” said Percy. “That time I was in the Jameson raid in South Africa. I wouldn’t have been in it if I hadn’t been bad stuck on a girl that threw me down.” The listeners coughed and exchanged glances. They had heard many times of the Jameson raiders from Percy, and they had even seen the marks on his feet where he had been tied up by his heels.

“Schopenhauer says that women are--” “Shut up about that old Dutch heathen, for God’s sake,” said John Hogan, testily.

“There is a good deal of truth in what he says about women,” put in Toby.

“How in God’s name could a heathen tell the truth?” asked Hogan, as he refilled his pipe.

“Do you know,” said Fuller, “that I’ve been reading A. Kempis’ ‘Life of Christ,’ and it is the best life of Him that I ever read. He was a humorist, wasn’t He?”

“He was that, as well as every other thing,” said John Hogan, approvingly.

“I have never heard Him spoken of as a humorist before,” put in Higgins. Iky Gillstein grunted.

“Wasn’t it humorous of Him that time the Sheenies were going to stone that Merry Widow to death, when He said, ‘Prepare,’ and they all got ready with their little pile of rocks, and they stood scratching their heads, waiting for Christ to speak, and when He spoke He said, as the Merry Widow knelt at His feet, ‘Let ye that are without fault throw the first stone,’ and the devil a rock they threw, and the Merry Widow went her way in peace and behaved herself ever after?”

“The Merry Widow gave the gang the wink,” said Iky, cynically.

“That’s like something the Colonel would do,” said Percy. “In fact, he done something slick like that to me once. It was when I was living at Empire with my first wife, before she got the divorce and I married my darling that has just left me.

“I was an inspector then, and my job was to look after women that were supposed to be a little bit shady. My wife was jealous of me, and I had to pretend that I didn’t like the work.

“Well, anyway, there was one particular woman who was a little beauty, and I got kind of stuck on her, but there was nothing doing with me. She loved the guy that her husband was suspicious of, but she gave me an introduction to a woman who was almost as good-looking, but who didn’t have her charms.

“About this time her husband went on night duty, and he sent in to Culebra to have his wife watched, so I was sent out to do the watching. I prolonged the case all I could, and reported that I couldn’t find any clew, while all the time I was havin’ a howling time at her house nights. She used to have stuff to drink, and she and the guy I was supposed to shadow and the woman that she introduced me to would eat and drink, play cards and love.

“Finally the neighbors began to catch on, and I was afraid that they might come around with some other gumshoe man who’d report, and then the jig would be up, so I sent in a report that there was nothing wrong in the conduct of the woman.

“A copy of this letter was sent to her husband, and he was so tickled and so sorry that he had suspected her that he told her that she might have a vacation for three months, and he gave her five hundred dollars, and she went away to her home in the South; and the petted gink who didn’t have a cent to his name went on the next boat, met her in Kansas City, and they went to Quebec and stayed there till the five hundred was used up. Then she wrote to her husband that she couldn’t live any longer away from him, so he sent her a couple of hundred more to bring her back to the Isthmus.

“Meantime my affair was hot stuff with the other one, and I used to meet her in town three times a week. I was kept pretty busy, because the women were cutting up scandalously all along the line, and we deported a lot of them.

“To make a long story shorter, I had made a date to meet my loving kid in town one Saturday, but my wife said that she wanted to come in with me. I telephoned a guy who knew everything about me, a friend he was, and he sent me a telegram and signed it with the name of the Captain of Police. When my wife saw that she said she’d wait and go some other day, because she didn’t want to interfere with my duty.

“Right then a message came from the Colonel stating that he wanted to see me. I suspected that it was another case for me to go out on, so I hurried down to the station, jumped on to a hand-car and got to Culebra in time to have the interview over and catch the 1 p. m. train for Panama.

“I’ll never forget the look in the Colonel’s eyes when I went in and stood before him.

“‘What cases have you on hand now?’ says he, looking me over, from the crown of my head to the tops of my shoes.

“‘Women cases, Colonel,’ says I.

“‘That’s well,’ says he, kind of mild, and he gave me that funny look again. ‘You like to hunt them down?’

“I didn’t like his voice, but he turned away and began to sign some papers. He had said it, however, in that calm, even tone of his, and I thought he meant it, so I said, ‘I try to do my duty, Colonel.’

“Then he gave me a very funny look, and, says he, with awful calmness, as he picked up a big, fat envelope from the desk, ‘Take this and report to me Monday afternoon.’

“He turned again to his papers, and I tiptoed out. There was something strange about the atmosphere of that office that affected me, but I put the envelope in my inside pocket, and as I had to run like mad to catch the train, I forgot all about it.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the woman to tell about the good time I had in town that afternoon, and I didn’t get back home that night till the last train. The wife was waiting up for me, and she had some good grub ready for me to eat, a club sandwich, some salad and a bottle of cold beer. She chatted and laughed and said she was getting a new dress made and she wanted a couple of dollars to buy some lace for the sleeves and neck, but I told her I couldn’t give her any more money until after next pay day. When I told her that she gave me a funny look that made me feel like I felt when the Colonel looked at me in such a queer way that forenoon. She didn’t say another word, but went off to bed, and I took the envelope from my pocket and tore it open. I was going to read what was inside that night, but the lights went out and didn’t come on again, so I laid it on the sideboard in the dining-room, and turned in myself.

“In the morning I got up to eat my breakfast, but there was no breakfast ready, no wife in sight, and no fire. Thinks I, I’ll go to the mess hall an’ get my breakfast, so I went to put on my coat, and I found the big envelope pinned to the sleeve. When I opened it my wife’s wedding ring fell out. Tied to this was a bit of paper, and on this was written, in my wife’s handwriting, ‘If you had been honorable about the secrets of others, your own secrets would not have been betrayed to me.’

“I sat down then and read the papers. Everything that I had ever done on the Isthmus since I came was known to the Colonel.

“‘My God!’ says I to myself, ‘what am I going to do? There’s going to be about ten husbands around with shotguns, so I’d better get away.’

“I went to Culebra on Monday, though I hated to do it. I saw it was all over with me, so I put on a bold front when I went into the Colonel’s office. ‘Well,’ I says, when I was inside the door, ‘I guess I’m through.’

“‘Yes,’ says the Colonel calmly, ‘your wife will go to-morrow afternoon. Better prepare to follow her soon.’

“Well the wife went, and I have not seen her since. She got a divorce from me, and then I married my queen, who is gone astray now.”

The listeners coughed, and Gillstein, who had listened attentively during the whole of the recital, said: “But you didn’t tell us how you got back here.”

“I never went away,” said Percy. “I resigned from the Commission, but after a time I went to the Colonel again and told him I was hard up and my wife was sick in the States, and he gave me, for her sake, the dump foreman’s job. It was after that that I married again.”

“Where did you meet your second wife?” asked John Hogan.

“Suppose we change the subject,” said Higgins quickly.

Gillstein winked at Hogan, and there was a pause, which was finally broken by Percy, who said calmly: “I met her in a resort on Cash Street, Colon, and I’m afraid she’ll go back there now, and that’s what’s eatin’ my heart out.... Well, I must go out to Panama now. It’s nearly ten o’clock. I spend my nights watching her. Good night, fellows. Thanks for talking to me and trying to cheer me up.”

“Good night,” said the Highbrows in chorus.

Percy tiptoed out softly, and his stealthy footsteps had died away in the distance before the silence was broken, again by Gillstein, who said: “It can’t be true, after all, that all men are just dead, and that there’s no more about ’em. There’s a special little Hell somewhere for Percy Beckle.”

“Now you’re talking like a Christian,” said John Hogan. “Play us ‘The Wearing of the Green,’ Higgins.”

THE MAN FROM NUMBER 9.

“The fellows in Number 9 are all upset over that new man,” said Bill Wiley, as he filled his pipe and prepared to settle himself to read “Three Weeks,” a book that very much interested him.

“What new man?” asked John Hogan.

“A new man that the Colonel sent over. He’s a timekeeper, and is getting only about $75 a month,” answered Bill.

“What’s the matter with him?” quickly asked Higgins.

“The fellers say that he’s been a jailbird, an’ they don’t want him in the house. Some of ’em telephoned to the Colonel, but he did not give ’em any satisfaction, only said that he desired the man to stay in Number 9; that he sent him to Balboa, and that if any of the men complained about living with him they could get out themselves.”

“That’s just like the Colonel,” said Higgins. “What business is it of that bunch of mutts if the poor devil has been in jail, if he’s behaving himself now?”

“Schopenhauer says that all men are--” began Ikey.

“For the love of Mike, don’t spring him on us again,” said Wiley. “I thought you had given up reading his book, anyway,” he continued.

“He says some darn good things,” said Ikey.

“But not about his fellow-creatures, an’ the person under discussion is a man, an’ not a dawg,” said Hogan, tersely.

“Let’s hear more about this new man, Bill,” said Higgins.

“He’s a sickly-looking guy that drags one leg after him when he walks, an’ he’s got a funny habit of looking over his shoulder whenever he goes to speak about anything. He’s got a dry sort of cough that gives me the creeps, and the boys say he’s always a prayin’ when he’s in his room.”

“Poor devil, he’s got all the marks of the jailbird about him. I wonder what he was in for,” mused Hogan, more to himself than to the others. “I’ll send ‘A. Kempis’ down to him; it might give him some consolation.”

“I don’t believe he’ll get a chance to read it,” said Bill, “because the fellers say that there’s a gang goin’ in town to-night to get drunk, an’ they’re goin’ to put him out, bag and baggage, when they come back. In the morning no one will know who done it, an’ the Colonel can’t fire them all, for there’s about ninety of them in the house.”

There was silence now, but Hogan looked at Ikey, Ikey looked at Higgins, and a glance full of meaning passed between the three men.

“What’s the man’s name?” asked Higgins, breaking the silence at last.

“I didn’t ask his name,” answered Bill. “I only know what the boys have been telling me. I’m glad the mutt ain’t in this house.”

“Why?” asked Hogan. “What would a roughneck like you be afraid of?”

“Well, I have some good clothes an’ a fine gold watch, some few trinkets an’ little things that I’d like to keep,” he replied.

“Who’d take ’em?” asked Hogan.

“Ignorance is an awful thing,” put in Ikey. “‘Twould do you good to read Schopenhauer.”

“’Pon me soul, it would,” agreed Hogan, with spirit.

“I’m going out for a few minutes,” suddenly exclaimed Higgins, and he glanced meaningly at Ikey.

“I’ll move that trunk out,” said Ikey, “and put up that other bedstead, an’ then I’ll only have one mattress to sleep on, but that’s more than many people have.”

“True enough,” said Hogan. “Why don’t the Colonel put a guy like that off in a place by himself, and build a little house for him? It wouldn’t cost the Commission much, an’ it would save the men a lot of trouble,” put in Bill.

“If the Colonel was to build a house for all the jailbirds on the Isthmus,” said Ikey, “it would cost the Commission more than the diggin’ of the canal.”

At this point in the conversation Higgins put on his hat and went out, and Ikey went to his room. Hogan walked restlessly to and fro, while Wiley, stretching himself luxuriously, once more picked up “Three Weeks” and became deeply interested. More than an hour passed, during which time not a word was spoken by the men on the veranda.

Finally Ikey came back and sat down, with the air of a man who has been working, and in a few minutes Higgins came in, whistling. Accompanying Higgins was a tall, gaunt man, who had wild, staring eyes, a pale, refined face, and white hair.

“Mr. Frayer, meet Mr. Hogan, Mr. Wiley and Mr. Gillstein,” said Higgins, leading the man forward.

Bill Wiley nodded his head coldly and grunted, but Hogan and Ikey extended their hands, and then they pushed forward toward the stranger a rocking-chair.

“Mr. Frayer is tired,” said Higgins, as he himself sat down. “He has been on the Isthmus only two weeks, and he has had very little sleep since he came.”

“I have the bed all ready for him,” said Ikey. “It’s got clean sheets on it, and he can turn in whenever he likes.”

“Thank you,” said the man, quietly, “but I’d rather sit here and smoke a little before turning in.”

“Help yourself,” said Hogan, pushing a box of tobacco toward him; “and here’s matches.”

For some moments the men smoked in silence, Bill Wiley eyeing the stranger meanwhile.

“You men are mighty civil to me,” suddenly spoke up the stranger. “I did not think there was any one on the Isthmus that had any heart. I’ll take that back, though, for there is one man who has been pretty nice to me. He had trouble himself once, poor fellow.”

“They used you purty rough over in 9, didn’t they?” asked Bill Wiley, speaking for the first time.

“They surely did. They didn’t let me sleep nights. My roommate would not let me stay in the room nights with him. When I’d manage to doze off for a few minutes he would throw things at me and wake me up.

“I’ve seen some rough men in the course of twenty-five years in Sing Sing, but none of them could beat that crowd for viciousness and general all-around cussedness.

“For a while I lived on the stuff I could get from the Chinese shops, because they said that I would not be allowed to go into the mess hall, but when my little hoard of money was used up I went hungry.”

“Poor devil,” muttered Hogan, under his breath.

“How did you happen to get into Sing Sing?” asked Bill Wiley, suspiciously.

“I was convicted of killing a girl,” said the man from Number 9, with a shudder.

“But you didn’t do it, I know,” said Ikey, who had been an interested listener to the conversation which had gone on before.

“Since you men are so kind as to take me in, I will tell you about it if you will listen,” said the new man, hesitatingly.

“Go ahead,” said Wiley. “I’m anxious to hear about it. I came near killing a lady myself once.”

The men filled their pipes, drew their chairs close to the man from Number 9, and waited expectantly.

“I was sentenced to be hanged twenty-five years ago for murdering a girl who is to-day alive and happy,” he began. As he spoke, he dropped his voice to a low, intense whisper, and looked over his shoulder in such a horrified way as to make Higgins and Hogan each grasp one of his hands and hold it firmly.

“Why didn’t they hang you?” asked Ikey, childishly.

“While I was in the death house,” went on the man, as though he had not heard the question, but answering it, nevertheless, “some women got interested in me, and they engaged one of the best criminal lawyers in New York State to take up my case, and he finally had the sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

“To go back,” he went on, “I was a printer by trade, and when my father died he left me enough money to buy a little printing plant that would have made me independently rich. It was in one of the biggest towns in the western part of New York State, and I was making money.

“I had a fine saddle horse, and in summer I used to ride out about twenty miles to a cottage that my father bought before he died. It was in a very lonely place, with nothing about it but woods.

“About three miles away from the cottage was the summer home of some people from New York City, and five miles away the Sheriff lived. My habit was to ride out to the house, sleep there all night on a cot bed, and ride back to town in the morning about sunrise.

“I used to meet a girl on horseback sometimes when riding in the early mornings, and she would ride along with me to a branch road, where she would turn and leave me.

“I met her every morning that was fine for about three months, and at times she would chat and laugh pleasantly, but she never allowed me to become very well acquainted with her. I told her all about myself, but when I would ask her her name and something about herself, she would frown and turn the conversation.

“Finally I found myself in love with her, and one morning I told her so. Then she looked very serious, and said she was sorry, but she loved another man, and that her love for the man had brought nothing but trouble into her life. When we came to the cross-roads she reached out her hand to me and said, ‘Goodbye.’

“I felt something like a shot in my side, right under my heart, as I turned away from her, and the touch of her hand thrilled me, so I stopped the horse and looked after her.

“She had a peculiar, mysterious face that appealed strangely to me that morning, and although I felt hurt and resentful, I galloped after her, overtook her, and said: ‘Girl, if you ever need a friend, call on me,’ and I handed her a card, which had my town address on it. The only answer she made was to rein in her horse and look searchingly into my face.

“I could see that something was moving her strangely, and I said: ‘What is the matter? I feel that you are in some trouble. What can I do to help you now?’

“‘Give me the keys to your cottage,’ she said finally, ‘and don’t ride out here for a few days. I want to hide there until my husband comes for me.’

“‘You have a husband?’ I blurted out in surprise.

“‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was married a year ago, but no one must know it now. I live with my father and stepmother.’

“While she was speaking the tears were running down her cheeks, and I was too hurt to speak, but I handed her the key, and rode away as quickly as I could. I never saw her again until three months ago.

“Two weeks later I was arrested for having murdered her. I was in my office one morning, when the sheriff came and took me to view the spot where the deed was supposed to have been committed. She was supposed to have been killed by me while in her bed. The cottage door was locked, and the key to it was in my vest pocket. I had had two keys to the front door of the place, the one I gave her and the one which helped to convict me.

“Her trinkets were found in a bedroom, some clothing, a pair of slippers, and my business card. There was blood on the straw matting in the bedroom which the girl had occupied; there was blood on the chairs, on the dresser, and on the stairs; in the front hall as far as the front door, and on the front porch, as if some one bleeding had walked or had been carried down the stairs and out upon the front veranda. Every door and window was carefully bolted, so it was evident that the murderer had entered through the door with the help of a key, and had carefully locked the door behind him in going out. A sheet had been torn to shreds, and some of it was missing.

“I told my story, but it had no weight in court. The girl had never been away from home, according to her father and the servants, except mornings for a short ride, when it was proven that she had met me. More than twenty people testified that I had been to the cottage every night. They had seen me riding out, according to my custom, and they had seen me ride back in the morning.

“As a matter of fact, I had taken a ride on horseback every night and every morning, but never in the direction of the cottage while she was there.

“At the trial there were people who testified in my behalf, and many people believed in my innocence. Among them was a black servant, who said that the lady had had a secret lover before she ever saw me, and the girl’s stepmother testified that the girl had acted queerly for many months; that she used to ride to the postoffice every morning and night, because she feared that her letters would fall into the hands of her father.

“In spite of all this, my guilt was made to appear perfectly clear, and the jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, and, as I told you before, I was sentenced to be hanged.

“The Sheriff had had a horse taken a few nights before when they searched my cottage, and when his dogs had begun to bark and give the alarm, he said to the court, he had fired the contents of his shotgun at a man who was galloping away from his barn. He told the court that the man he had fired at was me. In the morning the horse was found in the Sheriff’s field, with blood on its side and mane. The prosecuting attorney brought out at the trial that the horse was used to convey the body of the murdered girl to the place which I had secured as a grave for her.

“No motive was ever given for my having killed her. If I had ruined her, there would even then have been no motive, as the girl was of a higher class of society than I, and as her father had lots of money, it would have been to his advantage to hush the matter up, rather than to try to make trouble for me.

“That was the argument of my lawyer. He showed that I had everything to gain by having the girl alive, if she had liked me well enough to meet me in that lonely cottage, and I had everything to lose by making away with her.”

“A darned queer thing. I remember readin’ all about it,” interrupted John Hogan, while the man from Number 9 moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and looked over his shoulder in the frightened way he had.

“Well,” said Bill Wiley, “if the woman was alive, why didn’t she show up and clear you? If it was in the papers, she should have seen it.”

“It was in the papers,” said Hogan, “and a picture of him was in the New York World.”

“I have that right here,” said the man, touching his breast.

“How did you get out of Sing Sing after twenty-five years, when you got life?” asked Ikey, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

“The woman came back, I suppose,” put in Higgins.

“Look at these,” said the man from Number 9. The four men bent eagerly forward, each with his hand outstretched to take the packet of papers which the man held in his trembling hands. “Look at this postmark--‘1885, Panama.’”

John Hogan gently took the yellow letter and unfolded it, while the other men bent forward, their eyes fairly bulging from their sockets. It read: ‘My Dear Mr. Frayer; Please forgive us for the condition in which you found your house. My husband came for me on the night of the 21st of September, and he stopped to take a horse for me to ride from the Sheriff’s place. The Sheriff shot at him, and he was wounded in the arm--a very bad scratch. Did you think that some one had been killed? The wound bled a great deal, but I bound it up so well that he was all right until he could see a doctor in New York City. He says I would make a good surgeon. We left New York on the following Monday and came on one of the Panama Railroad steamers to Panama. Our destination is Chile. Please accept this trifle from my husband and me.’

“This is it,” said the man, with a harsh laugh, and he drew from the faded envelope a slip of paper.

“A check for one thousand dollars,” said the four listeners in turn, and as each man looked at the check the man from Number 9 gave another harsh laugh.

“This is the key to the cottage,” said he, drawing from the envelope a rusty Yale lock latchkey. Then John Hogan read on: “I trust to you to keep my whereabouts a secret. I am never coming back to New York again. Let us hear from you. We expect to live at No. 12 Sacramento Street, Valparaiso, Chile.

“I know my people will make a search for me, but I feel sure that you will keep silent about me. I am very happy. Your grateful friend, Ada Bermugues.”

John Hogan threw the letter to Ikey and looked into space for some time, while the man from Number 9 drew a table toward him and placed upon it some other papers which he took from the inside pocket of his coat. The four men bent forward and watched him as, one by one, he unfolded the various letters and papers which were in some way connected with the story of his life. One was a pretentious-looking document with two red seals. It was his acquittal from the Governor of New York for the crime he had never committed, and was dated May 1st, 1910. Another was the petition which Ada Bermugues had presented to the Governor in behalf of the man who had been imprisoned for her supposed murder. There was not a word spoken while the papers were being perused. One would read a letter or newspaper clipping, and in silence hand it to another, until all were read and reread. The men made a weird picture in the soft moonlight, as they sat, with anxious, set faces. “You see,” the man from Number 9 continued, when the last paper was read and folded by Higgins, from whose forehead great beads of perspiration dropped, “the woman came back after a few years and lived in New York City. She didn’t know that I had ever been put in jail, because she never went about any one she had ever known before. About three months ago her father died, and she read of his death in the newspapers. Then she went to their family lawyer and made herself known to him, and when he told her about me she went straight to the Governor and had the case opened, and, after a lot of red tape, I was released. I found that letter which she wrote me from Panama twenty-five years ago in the pocket of the rain coat that I wore just before the sheriff arrested me. As I look back now, I remember that these three letters were handed to me just before the Sheriff put his hand on my shoulder to tell me I was under arrest.”

The man from Number 9 picked up the three letters indicated. “One,” he went on, “is, you will see, a bill from a horseshoer; one is from a tailor, and the other from her. I left the raincoat in my office that morning and forgot all about the letters. When I was let out of Sing Sing a cousin of mine took me to his home in my old home town. He told me that he had all the things that were in the office at the time of my arrest, and among them was the raincoat, with the letters in the pocket that might have gained me my freedom. My cousin had never looked in the pockets, and, therefore, didn’t know that they were there.”

“My God!” said John Hogan; “and the Bible says that not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without His knowledge.” “Bible, your foot!” grunted Ikey. “If God knows everything, why didn’t he make this man think about the three letters in the pocket of the rain coat? Why didn’t He put it into the Sheriff’s mind to hunt for evidence the way they do in the story-books? He never did anything to God that most other men ain’t doing every day. He tried to do a good act. There was a girl in some trouble, and he helped her out by giving her the key of his house. It helped her, because she got away from her folks. They must have been cussed mean, like mine were when I got away from them. God can’t give back to this man his youth and health. He can’t give him the sons and daughters that he might have had if he had been left his freedom. He can’t give him anything now that will compensate for the twenty-five years in Sing Sing.” “But there’s another life,” said the man from Number 9 with awful calmness. “I have had visions of it, and have prayed to God on my bare knees, and asked Him to bring the girl back, and He brought her, didn’t He?” “Yes,” said John Hogan, “He did after twenty-five years.” “I prayed that she’d come back and tell me that she regretted that she hadn’t loved me, and she did.” “And she just said that because she thought it would make you feel good. She was sorry for you. Women can feel sorry for their worst enemies if they are in trouble,” said Ikey, cynically. “I prayed to God for peace, and He gave me peace; and I got used to Sing Sing, and would have been content to live there the rest of my life, if the girl hadn’t come back,” went on the man from Number 9.

“God can’t do more for a man than give him contentment, and I had that for many years. I had no desires like I used to have when I was a young man. I had nothing to lose. There was nothing around me that I would want to covet. I envied no human being, and no one envied me. Why, I used to lie in my narrow cell at night and wonder to myself why I was ever foolish enough to covet the silly things that I used to covet before I went to jail, and gradually everything that was most dear to me became only a memory, and the simple things of my prison life became dear to me. I was a sort of leader among the prisoners, and the worst ones among them believed that I was innocent.” “That was the potency of right and truth,” said Higgins, interrupting him for the first time.

“Schopenhauer says that truth is the only God there is, and that’s all I believe in,” said Ikey.

“After what we guys heard to-night,” said John Hogan, “I’m beginning to think that old Schuppy was more of a prophet than we give him credit for.” “You have invited me over here from Number 9,” said the man, “and I must ask you men not to say things that might have a tendency to kill my faith, because that’s all I have left.” “You have more than we have,” said Higgins, “and we are going to try to strengthen your faith, rather than weaken it.”

“We’ll try to,” said Ikey. “Better go to bed now,” said John Hogan; “you look tired. Ikey’s room is the coolest in the house. Show him his bed.” “Good night. Thank you for your kindness, men,” said the man from Number 9, as he followed Ikey to his room. “Good night,” said Higgins and Hogan. “Poor devil!” said Bill Wiley, as the man disappeared into Ikey’s room.

“He’s got the right dope on religion,” said John Hogan, “and is happy in it.” “He bears no ill-feeling for the woman who ruined his life,” said Higgins. “Why pity him? He’s happy because he believes in a living God.” “That check he’s got must be worth good money by now,” said Ikey, returning. “Why don’t the darn fool cash it in?”

THE CANAL ZONE ARCHITECT’S WEDDING

In Germany, before the days of the American occupation at Panama, there lived with her mother a beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed girl named Hulda Schneider. The Schneiders were very poor, but they had held their own, for they had been fighters. But of what use are fighters there nowadays, except as bodyguards to the Kaiser’s numerous off-spring? Hulda had tastes inherent in such people, and, having no means of gratifying them, she chafed in her environment. “I’ll tell you what to do,” said a sophisticated girl friend, who had lived for a time at Hoboken, N. J. “Put an ad in a New York City newspaper, saying that you are young and pretty and just dying to make some good American happy.”

“Shall I get a millionaire, do you think?” asked the innocent Hulda.

“You may,” said her adviser. “If you don’t, you may get a Jew, and that’s almost the same thing.”

“But I don’t want a Jew,” said Hulda. “I want an American who is rich, young and handsome.”

Accordingly, an advertisement was sent to a New York Sunday paper announcing that a good-looking girl in Germany was pining to marry a rich American. Meanwhile, blue-eyed, golden-haired Hulda settled down to await a reply.

Now we must go back about seven hundred years, to the time when the Danes invaded Ireland. There was one Dane in particular, named Vickenstadt, who married a descendant of Brian Boru. It so happened that a descendant of this Dane and the great Brian read Hulda’s advertisement and decided to answer it. He was an ambitious man, of temperate habits and aesthetic tastes. He studied hard, for he was wont to say, “If there’s one thing in the world that I like better than another, it is intelligence.” He was a draftsman by profession, but he called himself “architect of the Canal Zone.” To use his own words, he was “well fixed,” and what he most desired was a golden-haired, blue-eyed, slender young girl to share his fortune and his ancient name. As a matter of fact, his name had undergone some radical changes during the intervening years, and was now written Brian McVickins. His associates called him “Mickey” Vickens for short, and by this cognomen he was generally known. He was an American citizen, but first saw the light of day in a little town in County Clare fifty years before the incidents in this story occurred.

‘Tis a far cry from Hulda’s home town on the Rhine to Ancon, C. Z., but the finger of fate is ever pointing this way and that, else “Mickey” Vickins would never have seen her advertisement on that unlucky Sunday morning. “Be jabers,” said he, “here’s the last thing I want now. I’ll answer this ad this very day, or my name is not Brian Boru Vickingstadt. If the others object to me Irish accint, divil a bit the difference ’ill this one know, and by the toime she gets to know the ropes she’ll be so attached to me that she’ll hate to leave me. The German wimmin do be that way. I’ll write under me right and proper name, an’ shure they’ll know I’m Danish anyway.” So he sat down and wrote that he was of Danish descent, an architect, an American, well fixed financially, and thirty-four years of age.

“I’d better tell her what sort of a complected man I am whilst I’m about it,” so he wrote, “dark-complected, with blue eyes an’ fair skin.” “Me hair is turnin’ fast,” said he to himself, as he gazed at his reflection in the looking-glass, “but,” he added, “if she objects, a bit of dye will fix that all right.” He told her that it would be six months before he would be able to procure “married quarters,” and he advised her to go to school where English was being taught so that she might be able to converse with him should she decide to accept him as her future husband. “An’ bedad! I haven’t been with the Jews in Chicago for nothing,” said the scheming wooer, “an’ me plan ought to be to ask her to give me the address of the schoolmaster, an’ I’ll send the old blaguard the money in checks. Thin I’ll have a hold upon the creature in case she has some young lads to meet her. Shure a man can never be after thinkin’ what a young heifer might be havin’ in her mind.” At length the letter was finished and was duly dispatched to the waiting Hulda. There was a clipping enclosed which read that Brian Boru Vickingstadt had lectured to a large audience on the Panama Canal at Hoboken, N. J. There was a postscript added, to the effect that the writer wished to communicate with the mother of the fair Hulda. That he had persuasive powers may be inferred from the fact that Hulda’s mother answered the letter as soon as it was received. The schoolmaster wrote that Hulda could begin her studies at once, and that great pains would be taken to fit her to become the wife of so prominent a person as the “architect of the Canal Zone.” There was a picture of the girl included.