X—GOD'S CHANCE

IT was a big house—like some vast, cavernous, deserted place. Footsteps, when there were footsteps, and voices, when there were voices, seemed to echo with strange loneliness through the great halls, and up and down the wide staircase. And in the dawn, as the light came gray, the pieces of furniture, swathed in their summer coverings of sheets, had seemed like weird and ghostlike specters inhabiting the place.

But the dawn had come hours ago.

Dave Henderson raised his head from his cupped hands. Was that the nurse now, or the doctor—that footstep up above? He listened a moment, and then his chin dropped back into his hands.

Black hours they had been—black hours for his soul, and hours full of the torment and agony of fear for Teresa.

From somewhere, almost coincident with their arrival at the house, a nurse had come. From some restaurant, a man had brought breakfast for the doctor, for the nurse, for Millman—and for him. He had eaten something—what, he did not know. The doctor had gone, and come again—the doctor was upstairs there now. Perhaps, when the doctor came down again, the doctor would allow him to see Teresa. Half an hour ago they had told him that she would get well. There was strange chaos in his mind. That agony of fear for her, that cold, icy thing that had held a clutch upon his heart, was gone; but in its place had come another agony—an agony of yearning—and now he was afraid—for himself.

Millman had tried to make him go to bed and sleep. Sleep! He could not have slept! He could not even have remained still for five minutes at a stretch! He had been half mad with his anxiety for Teresa. He had wanted to be somewhere where his restless movements would not reach Teresa in her room, and yet somewhere where he could intercept every coming and going of the doctor. And so for hours he had alternately paced up and down this lower hall here, and thrown himself upon this great, wide, sheet-covered divan where he sat now. And in those hours his mind, it seemed, had run the gamut of every emotion a human soul could know. It ached now—physically. His temples throbbed and hurt.

His eyes strayed around the hall, and held on a large sheet-draped piece of furniture over beyond the foot of the staircase. They had served other purposes, these coverings, than to make spectral illusions in the gray of dawn! Beneath that sheet lay the package of banknotes. It made a good hiding place. He had extracted the package from the valise, and had secreted it there during the confusion as they had entered the house. But it seemed to take form through that sheet now, as it had done a score of times since he had put it there, and always it seemed as though a crimson stain that was on the wrapper would spread and spread until it covered the entire package.

That package—and the crimson stain! It seemed to make of itself a curiously appropriate foreground for a picture that spread away into a vista of limitless years: An orphan school, with its cracked walls, and the painted mottoes whose scrolls gaped where the cracks were; a swirl of horses reaching madly down the stretch, a roar of hoarse, delirious shouts, elated oaths around the bookmaker's paying-stand, pinched faces on the outer fringes of this ring; a thirst intolerable, stark pain, the brutal jolting of a boxcar through the nights, hours upon hours of a horror that ended only with the loss of consciousness; walls that reared themselves so high that they seemed to stand sentinels against the invasion of even a ray of sunlight, steel bars, and doors, and bolts that clanged, and clanged, until the sound ate like some cancerous thing into the soul itself; and then wolves, human wolves, ravenous wolves, between two packs of them, the police on the one hand, the underworld on the other, that snarled and tore at him, while he fought them for his life.

All that! That was the price he had paid for that package there—that, and that crimson stain.

He swept his hand across his eyes. His face grew set, and his jaws locked hard together. No, he wasn't sure yet that even that was all—that the package there was even yet finally and irrevocably his—to do with as he liked. There was last night—The Iron Tavern—the police again. Was there a connecting link trailing behind him? What had become of the Scorpion? What story had the man perhaps told? Were the police looking for an unknown man—who was Dave Henderson; and looking for an unknown woman—who was Teresa?

Well, before long now, surely, he would know—when Millman got back. Millman, who had intimated that he had an inside pull somewhere that would get the straight police version of the affair, had gone out immediately after breakfast for that purpose.

That was what counted, the only thing that counted—to know where the police stood. Millman ought to be back now. He had been gone for hours. It was taking him an unaccountably long time!

Millman! He had called Millman a straight crook. He had tried to call Millman something else this morning—for what Millman had done for Teresa and himself last night. Only he wasn't any good at words. But Millman had seemed to understand, though Millman had not said much, either—just a smile in the gray eyes, and a long, steady clasp of both hands on his, Dave Henderson's, shoulders.

There was a footstep on the stairs now. He looked up. It was the doctor coming down. He jumped to his feet, and went eagerly to the foot of the stairs.

“Better!” said the doctor cheerily.

“I—I want to see her,” said Dave Henderson.

The doctor smiled, as he moved across the hall toward the front door.

“In a few minutes,” he said. “I've told the nurse to let you know when she's ready.”

The doctor went out.

He heard the doctor begin to descend the outer steps, and then pause, and then another footstep ascending; and then he caught the sound of voices. And then, after a little while, the front door opened, and Millman came into the reception hall.

Dave Henderson's lips tightened, as he stepped toward the other.

“What”—he found his voice strangely hoarse, and he cleared his throat—“what did you find out?”

Millman motioned toward the divan.

“Everything, I guess, Dave,” he answered, as he sat down.

“And——?” Dave Henderson flung himself down beside the other.

Millman shook his head.

“Better hear the whole story, Dave. You can size it up then for yourself.”

Dave Henderson nodded.

“Go on, then!” he said.

“I told you,” said Millman, “that I thought I could get inside information—the way the police looked at it. Well, I have. And I have got it from a source that is absolutely dependable. Understand, Dave?”

Dave Henderson nodded again.

“The police start with that telephone message,” said Millman. “They believe that it was authentic, and that it was Dago George who sent it. In fact, without it they wouldn't have known where to turn; while with it the whole affair appears to be simplicity itself.” He smiled a little whimsically. “They used it as the key to unlock the door. It's no discredit to their astuteness. With nothing to refute it, it is not only the obvious, but the logical solution. Bookie budded a great deal better than he knew—for Dave Henderson—when he used that telephone for his own dirty ends. It wouldn't have been so easy for the police to account for the death of three men in The Iron——”

“Three!” Dave Henderson strained suddenly forward. Three! There were—two; only two—Dago George and Bookie Skarvan. Only two dead—and a red-headed thing huddled at the foot of the stairs. Was that it? Was that the third one—Cunny the Scorpion? Had it ended with that? Had he killed a man? Last night he would have torn the fellow limb from limb—yes, and under the same circumstances, he would do it again—Teresa upstairs, who had been so close to death, justified that a thousand times over.

But——— “You mean Cunny the Scorpion—Cunny Smeeks?” he demanded tensely.

“Yes,” said Millman. And then, with a quick, comprehensive glance at Dave Henderson's face: “But you didn't do it, Dave.”

Dave Henderson's hands were clenched between his knees. They relaxed slowly.

“I'm glad of that,” he said in a low tone. “Go on, Millman.”

“The man had evidently revived just before the police got there,” Millman explained. “He was shot and killed instantly by the police while trying to escape. He had bruises on his head which the police attributed to a fight with Dago George. Dago George, the police assume, woke up to discover the men breaking into his room. They attacked him. He managed to shoot Bookie Skarvan, and grappled with Cunny the Scorpion—the Scorpion's clothing, somewhat torn, and the Scorpion's bruises, bear this out. But in order to account for the time it would have taken to crack the safe, the police believe that the Scorpion at this time only knocked Dago George out temporarily. Then, later, while the Scorpion worked at the safe, Dago George recovered sufficiently to rush and snatch at the phone, and shout his appeal for help into it; and then the Scorpion laid Dago George's head open with the blow that killed him, using one of the burglar's tools as the weapon. And then the Scorpion, staying to put the finishing touches on his work to get the safe open, and over-estimating the time it would take the police to get there, was finally unable to make his escape.”

“My God!” muttered Dave Henderson under his breath.

“That's not all,” said Millman, with a faint smile. “There was known enmity between Dago George and the Scorpion. The Scorpion had come to The Iron Tavern earlier in the evening, one of the waiters testified, and had brought the fat man with him. The fat man was given a room by Dago George. The waiter identified the fat man, an obvious accomplice therefore of the Scorpion, as the man who was shot. It dovetailed irrefutably—even the Scorpion's prior intentions of harm to Dago George being established. There was some money in the safe, quite a little, but the police are more inclined to attribute the motive to the settling of a gang feud, with the breaking of the safe more or less as a blind.”

Dave Henderson was staring across the hall. His lips were tight.

“That waiter!” he exclaimed abruptly. “Didn't the waiter say anything about anybody else who got rooms there last night?”

“I am coming to that,” Millman replied. “The police questioned the man, of course. He said that last night, at separate times, a man and a woman came there, presumably to get rooms since they had valises with them, and that they saw Dago George. He did not know whether Dago George had accommodated them or not. He thought not, both because he had neither carried nor seen the valises taken upstairs, and because Dago George invariably refused to give any rooms to strangers. Lots of people came there, imagining The Iron Tavern to be a hotel where they could get cheap accommodations, and were always turned away. Dago George had gone out of that end of the business. The waiter inclined to the belief that the man and woman in question had met the same fate; certainly, he had seen or heard nothing of them since.” Millman shrugged his shoulders. “The police searched the rooms upstairs, found no trace of occupancy except the hand-bag of the fat man, identified again by the waiter—and agreed with the waiter.”

“There was Maggot.” Dave Henderson seemed to be speaking almost to himself. “But Maggot was only a tool. All Maggot knew was that he was to get the safe open—for some money. I guess Maggot, when he finds out that the police don't know anything about him, will think he's lucky. I guess if there's any man in the world who'll keep his mouth shut for the sake of his own hide, it's Maggot. Maggot isn't going to run his head into a noose.” He turned sharply to Millman. “But there's still some one else—the doctor.”

“We have been friends, intimate friends, all our lives,” said Millman simply. “I have given him my word of honor that you had no hand in the death of any one of those three men, and that is sufficient.”

And then Dave Henderson laughed a little, a queer, strange, mirthless laugh, and stood up from the divan.

“Then I'm clear—eh—Millman?” he shot out.

“Yes,” said Millman slowly, “as far as I can see, Dave, you're clear.”

“And free?” There was fierce assertiveness, rather than interrogation, in Dave Henderson's voice. “It's taken five years, but I've got that money now. I guess I've paid for it; and I guess there's no one now to put a crimp in it any more, not even Bookie Skarvan—providing that little proposition of yours, Millman, that month, still stands.”

Millman's face, and Millman's eyes, sobered.

“It stands, Dave,” he said gravely.

“In a month,” said Dave Henderson, “even a fool could get far enough away to cover his trail—couldn't he, Millman? Well, then, there's only Teresa left. She's something like you, Millman. She's for sending that money back, but she's sort of put out of the running—for about a month, too!”

Millman made no answer.

“Five years,” said Dave Henderson, with a hard smile. “Well, it's mine now. Those years were a hell, Millman—a hell—do you understand? But they would only be a little hell compared with the hell to-day if I couldn't get away with that package now without, say, a policeman standing there in the doorway waiting for me.”

“Dave,” said Millman sharply, “what do you mean? What are you going to do?”

There was some one on the stairs again—some one all in white. Dave Henderson stared. The figure was beckoning to him. Yes, of course, it was the nurse.

“Dave,” Millman repeated, “what are you going to do?”

Dave Henderson laughed again—queerly.

“I'm going upstairs—to see Teresa,” he said.

“And then?” Millman asked.

But Dave Henderson scarcely heard him. He was walking now towards the stairs. The nurse's voice reached him.

“Just a few minutes,” warned the nurse. “And she must not be excited.”

He gained the landing, and looked back over the balustrade down into the great hall below. Millman had come to the foot of the staircase, and was leaning on the newel-post. And Dave Henderson looked, more closely. Millman's gray eyes were blurred, and, though they smiled, the smile came through a mist that had gathered in them. And then Millman's voice came softly.

“I get you, as we used to say 'out there,'” said Millman. “I get you, Dave. Thank God! It's two straight crooks—isn't it, Dave—two of us?”

Millman's face was blotted out—there was another face that Dave Henderson saw now through an open doorway, a face that lay upon the pillows, and that was very white. It must be the great, truant masses of black hair, which crowned the face, that made it look as white as that. And they said she was getting better! They must have lied to him—the face was so white.

He didn't see the face any more now, because he was kneeling down beside the bed, and because his own face was buried in the counterpane.

And then the great shoulders of the man shook.

His life! That was what she had bought—and that was what she had paid for almost with her own. That was why she lay here, and that was why her face was so white. Teresa! This was Teresa here.

He raised his head at last. Her dark eyes were fixed on him—and they smiled.

She was holding out her hand.

“Dave,” she said brightly, “the nurse told me she was going to let you see me for a few minutes—to cheer me up. And here I've been waiting—oh, ever so long. And you haven't spoken a word. Haven't you anything to say”—she was smiling teasingly with her lips now—“Dave?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes”—his voice choked—“more than I can ever say. Last night, Teresa, if it had not been for you, I—-”

Her finger tips could just reach his lips, and they pressed suddenly against them, and sealed them.

“Don't you know that we are not to talk about that, Dave—ever,” she said quickly. “If I did anything, then, oh, I am so glad—so glad. You're not to say another word.”

“But, I must,” he said hoarsely. “Do you think I——”

“Dave, I'll call the nurse!” she said in a low voice. “You'll—you'll make me cry.”

It was true. The dark eyes were swimming, full of tears. She hid them now suddenly with their long lashes.

Neither spoke for a moment.

“There's something else, then, Teresa,” he said at last. “I'm going to give that money back.”

There was no answer—only he felt her hand touch his head, and her fingers play gently through his hair.

“I knew it,” she told him.

“But do you know why?” he asked.

Again there was no answer.

Dave Henderson spoke again.

“I remember what I said last night—that I couldn't buy you that way. And—and I'm not trying to now. It's going back because I haven't any choice. A man can't take his life from a woman's hand, and from the hand of a friend take the life of the woman who has saved him—and throw them both down—and play the cur. I haven't any choice.” His voice broke suddenly. “It's going back, Teresa, whether it means you or not. Do you understand, Teresa? It's going back—either way.”

Her fingers had ceased their movements, and were quiet now.

“Yes,” she said.

Dave Henderson raised his bowed head. The dark eyes were closed. His shoulders squared a little.

“That—that puts it straight, then, Teresa,” he said. “That lets me say what I want to say now. I've done a lot of thinking in the last few hours when I thought that perhaps you weren't—weren't going to get better. I thought about what you said last night—about God giving one another chance if one wanted to take it. Teresa, would you believe me if I told you that I was going to take that chance—from now on?”

The dark eyes opened now.

“I don't think God ever meant that you would do anything else, Dave,” she said. “If He had, you would never have been caught and put in prison, and been through everything else that has happened to you, because it's just those things, Dave, that have made you say what you have just said. If you had succeeded in getting away with that money five years ago, you would have been living as a thief to-day, and—and you would have stolen more, perhaps, and—and at last you wouldn't even have been a man.” She turned her face away on the pillow, and fumbled for his hand. “But it isn't just you, Dave. I didn't say that last night. I said God offered us both a chance. It's not only you, Dave—both of us are going to take that chance.”

He leaned forward—his face tense, white almost as the white face on the bed.

“Together, Teresa?”

She did not answer—only her hand closed in a tighter clasp on his.

“Teresa!” He was bending over her now, smoothing back the hair from her forehead. The blood pounded in a mighty tide through his veins. “Teresa!”

She spoke then, as the wet lashes lifted for an instant and fell again.

“It's wonderful,” she whispered. “God's chance, Dave—together—from now on.”

Into his face came a great new light. Self-questioning and self-debate were gone. Teresa trusted him. He knew himself before God and his fellows henceforth an honest man. And he was rich—rich with a boundless, priceless love that would endure while life endured. Teresa! His lips pressed the white forehead, and the closed eyelids, and then her lips were warm upon his own—and then he was kneeling again, but now his arms were around her, folding her to him, and his head lay upon the pillow, and his cheek touched hers.

And presently Millman, coming up the stairs, paused abruptly on the landing, as, through the open doorway of the room that was just in front of him, his eyes fell upon Dave Henderson's kneeling figure. And he stood there. And Teresa's voice, very low, and as though she were repeating something, reached him. And creeping into Millman's gray eyes there came a light of understanding as tender as a woman's, and for a moment more he lingered there, and then he tiptoed softly away. And the words that he had heard seemed to have graven themselves deep into the great heart of the man, for, as he went slowly on down the hall, he said them over and over again to himself:

“From now on.... From now on....”

THE END