The Seventh Noon

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His voice was as hard as black ice and as cold. He looked more like a
magnetized corpse than he did a man.

"I wish," he continued evenly, "I wish I might have been knocked over
the head before it came to this. If I had known I had to face you, I
would have let it come to that. But I didn't expect this, Beefy."

"If this story is on the level, you 'd better shut up," warned Saul.
"What you say will be used against you."

"Thanks for reminding me, but things have come out so wrong that I
can't even shut up. If you should go inside that house with the dream
you sprang on me, you 'd drive the boy crazy and kill the girl. The
boy has been in a bad way, but he's all straight again now, and yet you
might make him believe he did these jobs when out of his head. And
then--and then--why, it would kill them both! That's why I could n't
let you do it. That's why you _must n't_ do anything like that."

Saul did not answer. He waited.

"So I might as well make a clean breast of it. Do you remember when
the last job was?"

"Last Saturday morning."

"Remember where you were at that time?"

"Why--that was the morning I went out with you!"

"Just so," answered Donaldson, his eyes leveled over Saul's head. "I
hate to tell you, but--but it was necessary to do that in order to keep
you away from headquarters."

Saul reached for his throat, pushing him back a step.

"You played me traitor like that?" he demanded.

"It was part of the game," answered Donaldson indifferently. Saul,
fearful of himself, drew back.

The latter tried to reason it out. A man can change a good deal in a
year, but even with opium it seemed impossible for Donaldson so to
abuse a friendship. But he was checked in his recollection of the man
as he had known him by the memory of that very morning. He had been
suspicious even then that something was wrong. Donaldson had appeared
nervous and altered.

"Donaldson," he burst out, "I 'd give up my rank to be out of this
mess."

He added impulsively,

"Tell me it's all a damned lie, Don!"

"No," replied Donaldson, "the sooner it's over the better. I 'm all
through now."

Still Saul hesitated. But there seemed nothing left.

"Come on," he growled.

Donaldson followed him to the cab. He was like a man too tired to care.

"Had n't you better make up some sort of a story for them in there?"
asked Saul, with a jerk of his head towards the house.

"That's so," answered Donaldson. "Will you trust me for a few minutes?"

"Take your time," said Saul.

Donaldson went back up the path and found both Arsdale and his sister
in the library.

"I 'll have to ask you to excuse me for to-night," he said. "I 've
just had word from a friend who wishes me to spend the night with him."

They both looked disappointed.

"He 's waiting out there for me now."

"Perhaps you will come back later," suggested Arsdale.

"Not to-night. Perhaps in the morning. I 'll drop you a word if I 'm
kept longer."

He spoke lightly, with no trace of anything abnormal in his bearing.

"All right, but we 'll miss you," answered Arsdale.

The girl said nothing but her face grew suddenly sober.

They went to the door with him and watched him step into the cab.

Saul had prayed that he would not return, and now looked more as though
it were he that was being led off. He chewed his unlighted cigar in
silence while the other sat back in his corner with his eyes closed.

Once on his way to headquarters he leaned forward, and clutching
Donaldson's knee, repeated his cry,

"Tell me it's all a lie," he begged. "There's time yet. I 'll hustle
you to the train and stake you to Canada. Just give me your word for
it."

Donaldson shook his head.

"It would only come back on Arsdale, and that is n't square."

"Then God help you," murmured Saul.

The cab stopped before headquarters and Saul, with lagging steps, led
his man in. The Chief listened to the story he told with his keen eyes
kindling like a fire through shavings. He saw the end to the bitter
invective heaped upon him during the last three weeks by the press.
Then he began his gruelling cross-examination.

The story Donaldson told was simple and convincing. He had come to New
York full of hope, had waited month after month, and had finally become
discouraged. In this extremity he had taken to a drug. His relations
with the Arsdales began less than a week ago and they knew nothing of
him save that he had been of some assistance in helping young Arsdale
straighten out. Arsdale had borrowed money of him, although doubtless
he could not remember it, and had taken it to go down to Tung's.
Feeling a sense of responsibility for the use the boy had made of this
money and out of regard to the sister, he had done his best to help him
pull out.

When pressed for further details of the crimes themselves, Donaldson
admitted that his memory was very much clouded. He had committed the
assaults when in a mental condition that left them in his memory only
as evil dreams. The substantiation of this must come through his
identification by the witnesses. He could remember nothing of what he
had done with the purses, or the jewels and papers which they
contained. He had used only the money.

An officer was sent to search his rooms at the hotel, and in the
meanwhile men were sent out to bring in the victims of the assaults.
It was for this test that Donaldson held in check all the reserve power
he had within him. If his story was weak up to this point, he realized
that this identification would substantiate it beyond the shadow of a
doubt. This he knew must be done in order to offset Arsdale's possible
attempt to give himself up when he should hear of this. As a student
he had been impressed with the unreliability of direct evidence, and
here would be an opportunity to test his theory that much of the
evidence to the senses is worthless. From the moment he had determined
upon this course he had based his hopes upon this test. Saul had made
it clear that the descriptions given by the witnesses were vague, and
now in the excitement of confronting their assailant they were apt to
be still more unsubstantial. If he could succeed in terrifying them,
he could convince them to a point where they would make all their
excited visions fit him to a hair.

And so as each man was brought before him, Donaldson looked at him from
beneath lowering brows with his mind fixed so fiercely upon the
determination to force them to see him as the shadowy brute who had
attacked them that he in reality looked the part. Two of the men
withdrew, wiping their foreheads, after making the identification
absolute.

The third witness, a woman, promptly fainted. When she revived she
said she was willing to take her oath that this was the man. Not only
was she sure of his height, weight, and complexion, but she recognized
the same malicious gleam which flashed from the demon's eyes as he had
stood over her. She shivered in fright.

The fourth victim was a man of fifty. He was slower to decide, but the
longer he stood in front of Donaldson, the surer he became. Donaldson,
with his arms folded, never allowed his eyes to move from the honest
eyes of this other. And as he looked he made a mental picture of the
act of creeping up behind this man, of lifting his weapon, finally of
striking. With the act of striking, his shoulders lifted, so intense
was his determination.

The man drew back from him.

"Yes," he said, "I am sure. This is the brute."

It was two hours later before Donaldson was finally handed over to the
officers of the Tombs, and Saul turned back reluctantly to give to the
eager reporters as meagre an outline of the story as he could.

CHAPTER XXIII

_When the Dead Awake_

Donaldson, without removing his clothes, tumbled across his bunk and
fell into a merciful stupor which lasted until morning. He was aroused
by a rough shaking and staggered to his feet to find Saul again
confronting him. The latter had evidently been some time at his task,
for he exclaimed,

"I thought you were dead! You certainly sleep like an honest man."

"Sleep? Where am I?"

"You are at present enjoying a cell in the Tombs. You seem to like it."

Donaldson pressed his hand to his aching eyes. Then slowly the truth
dawned upon him.

"What day is this?" he asked.

"Thursday."

"Yes. Yes. That's so. And to-morrow is Friday."

"That's a good guess. Do you remember what happened last night?"

"Yes, I remember. I 'm under arrest. I remember the terror in the
face of that woman!"

Saul laughed inhumanly.

"Of all the bogie men I ever saw you were the worst."

"I suppose I 'll be arraigned this morning."

"I doubt it, old man. In some ways you deserve it, but I'm afraid the
Chief won't satisfy your morbid cravings. Remember the story you told
him?"

"Yes."

"And you 're wide enough awake to understand what I 'm saying to you
now?"

"Perfectly," answered Donaldson, growing suspicious.

"Then," exploded Saul, "I want to ask you what the devil your blessed
game is?"

"I could n't sacrifice an honest man, could I?"

"Then," went on Saul with increasing vehemence, "I want to tell you
plainly that you 're a chump, because you sacrificed an honest man
after all."

"You have n't arrested Arsdale? Lord, Saul, you haven't done that,
have you?"

"No," answered Saul, "I was ass enough to arrest you."

"It would be wrong, dead wrong, to touch the boy. He didn't have
anything to do with this. There was no one with me."

Saul took a long breath.

"I 'm hanged if I ever saw a man _hanker_ after jail the way you do.
And you 've got the papers full of it. And pretty soon I 'll be
getting frantic messages from the girl. And you 've made all sorts of
an ass of yourself. Do you hear--you chump of a hero, you?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Donaldson.

"I mean just this; that we 've nailed the right man at last! Got him
with the goods on, so that we won't need the identification of a bunch
of hysterical idiots to prove it. We won't even need a loose-jointed
confession, because we caught him black-handed. But my guess wasn't
such a bad one--it was n't Arsdale, but it was Jacques Moisson, his
father's valet."

"Jacques Moisson?"

"The son of that old crone Marie there. He caught the dope habit
evidently from his master and has been to the bad ever since Arsdale
senior died. The old lady has been hiding him part of the time in the
garret of the house."

Donaldson's thoughts flew back to the bungalow; it was this fellow then
and not Arsdale who had attacked him,--if Saul's story was true.

Saul approached him with outstretched hand.

"You played a heavy game, Don."

Donaldson grew suspicious.

"I don't know what you 're talking about," he said, his lips coming
tightly together again.

"No. Of course not! That's right. Keep it up! But I 'll have my
revenge. I 'll give the newspaper boys every detail of it. I 'll see
your name in letters six inches higher than they were even this
morning. I will; I swear it!"

"Saul," said Donaldson quietly, "you 're doing your best to make me go
back upon my story. You can't do it."

Saul folded his arms.

"Of all the heroic liars," he gasped, his face beaming, "you 're the
prince. And," he continued in an undertone, "it 's all for the sake of
a girl."

Donaldson sprang to his feet.

"Don't bring in _her_ name, Saul," he commanded.

"All for the sake of a girl," continued Saul undisturbed. "It took me
some time to work it out, but now I see. Take my hand, won't you,
Donaldson? I want to say God bless you for it."

Donaldson hesitated. But Saul's eyes were honest.

"This is the truth you're telling me?" he trembled.

"The truth," answered the other solemnly.

"Then you won't touch the boy? There is no further suspicion resting
upon him?"

"To hell with the boy!" exploded Saul. "You 're free yourself! Don't
you get that?"

"Yes," answered Donaldson.

He passed his hand thoughtfully over his face. Then he glanced up with
a smile.

"I need a shave, don't I?" he asked.

"You sure do. Let's get out of here. And if I were you I 'd get back
to her about as soon as I could. It's early yet, so maybe she has n't
seen the papers. I gave the boys the real arrest, so that they could
get out an extra on it and take the curse off the first editions. And
now," he added, "and now I 'm going to give them the story of their
lives--the inside story of all this."

"Don't be a chump, Beefy!"

"I'll do it," answered Saul firmly. "I'll leave out the girl but I 'll
give them the rest. I 've got some rights in this matter after the way
you 've used me."

"I know," he apologized, "but there didn't seem any road out of it. If
you 'll just keep quiet about--"

"Not a word. You 'll take your medicine. Besides, the dear public
will think you were crazy if they don't learn the truth."

"I don't care about that, if--"

"Bah! Come on. I 'll get you past the bunch now, but you 'll have to
run for your life after this."

Saul put him with all possible despatch through the red tape necessary
to secure his acquittal, and then led him out by a side door. He
summoned a cab.

"They 're waiting," he chuckled. "Twenty of 'em with sharpened pencils
and,--Holy Smoke,--the story! The story!"

"Forget it, Saul. Forget it--"

But Saul only pushed him into the cab and hurried back to his joyous
mission.

Donaldson ordered the driver to the Waldorf. He must get a clean
shave, change his clothes and get back to the Arsdale house before the
first editions were out heralding his arrest. If Jacques had been
arrested at the house it was possible that the excitement might have
prevented them from learning anything at all of his part in the mess.

He found a letter from Mrs. Wentworth waiting for him. He tore it
open. She wrote:

"Oh, Peter Donaldson, I wish I had the gift to make you understand how
grateful I am for all you 've done. But I can't until you come up and
visit us. We reached here safely and found everything all right. The
deed was given to me and the money you put in the bank for me. The
house now is all clean and the children are playing out doors. My
heart is overflowing, Peter Donaldson. It is better than anything I
ever dreamed of here. My prayers are with you all the time and I know
they will be heard."

So she ran on and told him all about the place and what she had already
accomplished. Happiness breathed like a flower's fragrance from every
line of it, until it left him with a lump in his throat.

"That is something," he said to himself as he finished it. "It has n't
been all waste."

He went to the barber in better spirits and came back to his room to
read the letter again. It was like a tonic to him. He looked from his
window a moment, to breathe the fresh morning air.

The street below him was alive once more with its eager life. Men and
women passed to the right and left, the blind beggar still waited at
the corner, the world, expressed now through this one human being, had
abated not one tittle of its activity. The Others were still about
him. The pigeons still cut gray circles through the sunshine and the
girl still waited. As he stood there he heard the raucous cries of the
newsboys shouting "Extra," and knew that he must go on and face this
final crisis. He could not delay another minute.

When he reached the house he found his worst fears realized. She was
in the library with a crumpled paper in her hand and Arsdale was
bending over her. As he greeted them they both pushed back from him as
though one of the dead had entered. The boy was the first to recover
himself. He sprang to Donaldson's side with his hand out.

"I told her it was n't true," he exclaimed. "I told her it was all a
beastly lie!"

He grasped Donaldson's hand and dragged him towards his sister.

"See," he cried, "see, here he is! The papers lied about him!"

The girl tottered forward. Donaldson put out his arm and supported her.

"I 'm sorry you saw the papers," he said quietly. "I was in hopes I
should reach here before that."

"But what is the meaning of it?"

"The police made a mistake, that 's all," he explained.

Arsdale broke in,

"We 'll sue them for it, Donaldson! I 'll get the best legal talent in
the country and make them sweat for this! It's an outrage!"

"I 'm sorry you saw the paper," he repeated to the girl.

Her pale face and startled eyes frightened him. She had withdrawn from
his arm after a minute and now fell into a chair.

"The blasted idiots," raged the boy.

The telephone rang imperiously and Arsdale went to answer it, chewing
invectives.

Donaldson crossed to the side of the girl.

"Where is Marie?" he asked.

"She is in bed again. Her poor knees are troubling her."

"I have both good news and bad news for you," he said after a moment's
hesitation, "the real assailant has been found and it is Jacques
Moisson."

The girl recoiled.

"Jacques!"

"So the police feel sure. They say they caught him this morning in the
attempt to commit another robbery. The Arsdale curse is upon him."

"Oh," she cried, "that is terrible."

But as he had guessed, it was good news also. There was no longer any
doubt of who brought that wallet to the bungalow. There was no longer
the grim suspicion of who might have rifled her rooms. The spectres
which had seemed to be moving nearer and nearer her brother vanished
instantly. That burden at least was lifted from her shoulders, even
though it was replaced by another.

"Poor Marie! Poor Marie!" she moaned.

"I think she may suspect this," he said. "But it will be better for
you to tell her than the police."

"Yes, I must go to her at once."

Arsdale came to the door, his face strangely agitated. He paused there
a moment clinging to the curtains. Then, almost in awe, he came
unsteadily towards Donaldson. The latter straightened to meet him.
The boy started to speak, choked, and, finding Donaldson's hand, seized
it in both his own. Then with his eyes overflowing he found his voice.

"How am I ever going to repay you for this?" he exclaimed in a daze.

Elaine was at his side in an instant.

"What is it, Ben? What is it now?"

"What is it?" he faltered. "It's so much--it's so much, I can't say it
all at once."

Donaldson turned away from them both.

"He," panted the boy, "he gave himself up for me. They thought it was
I, and he went to jail for me."

"It was a mistake on their part," answered Donaldson. "They did n't
know."

"And so you shouldered it," she whispered.

"I knew it would come out all right," he faltered.

"A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale. "He told me the
whole thing. The papers are full of it. They--they say you 're great,
Donaldson, but they don't know _how_ great!"

"If you would n't talk about it," pleaded Donaldson.

"Talk about it? I want to scream it! I want to get out and stand in
Park Row and yell it. I want every living man and woman in the world
to know about it!"

"It's all over--it's done with!"

"No," answered Arsdale, "it's just begun. I feel weak in the knees. I
must go--I must be alone a minute and think this over."

He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said
gently, "Go to Marie now. She will need you."

"You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!"

He turned away his head and she left him there alone.

CHAPTER XXIV

_The Greater Master_

In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought
out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to
remain here in the house on this the day before the end.

In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the
possible danger to the girl, and his own growing passion. There was
but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet
time. It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening.

He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the
week.

At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for
even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time. Time was such
an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut! There was nothing of
it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful
than Samson to throw him in the end. Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless,
impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady's
dainty watch rising and falling upon her breast; sweeping away cities
and nursing to life violets; tearing down and building up; killing and
begetting; bringing laughter and tears, it is consistent in one thing
alone,--that it never ceases. There is but one word big enough to
express it, and that is God. Without beginning, without end, and never
ceasing. At times he grew breathless, so individualized did every
second become, so fraught with haste. Where was he being dragged, and
in the end would the seconds rest? No, they would go on just the same,
and he might hear them even in his grave.

With his decision came the even more vital question as to what he
should tell this girl. With the strength of his whole nature he craved
the privilege of standing white before her. He longed to tell her the
whole pitiful complication that he might stand before her without
shadow of hypocrisy. He could then leave with his head up to meet his
doom. But even this crumb of relief was refused him. To do this might
break down the boy and would leave her, if only as a friend, to bear
something of the ensuing hours. He must, then, leave her in darkness,
suffering the lesser stings of doubt and suspicion and bewilderment.
He must leave her in false colors to whatever she might imagine.

She came back again with her lips quivering.

"Poor Marie," she gasped. "She lies there broken hearted, praying to
die."

"I am sorry for her," he said gently.

"I feel the blame of it," she answered. "Why must the curse of the
house have fallen upon her?"

"It is difficult to work out such matters," he replied. "But I don't
think you should shoulder the responsibility. We each of us must bear
the burden of our own acts. It makes it even harder when another tries
to relieve us of this."

"But I can't relieve her. That is the pity of it. She turns away her
head from me for she has taken upon herself all the responsibility for
Jacques."

"That is the mother in her. There is nothing you can do."

"She will die of grief."

"Then she will be dead. So her relief will come."

The girl drew back a little.

"She must not die. I must not let her die."

She looked up at him as though she expected him even in this emergency
to suggest some way out of it. But he was speechless.

"I must go back to her," she said after a minute. "I must go and
comfort her."

"Yes," he said, "that is the best you can do. Take her hand and hold
it. That is all you can do. Ben is upstairs?"

"Yes. I have n't told him yet."

"Tell him," he advised. "It will help him to have an opportunity to
help another."

"Then you will excuse me?"

"Of course. But there is something that I must tell you before you go.
I must leave you both now."

"You will come back to dinner with us?"

"I 'm afraid I shall be unable. I start on a long journey. I must say
good bye."

She fixed her eyes upon him in a new alarm, waiting for what he should
say next. But that was all. That was all he had to say. In those two
words, "Good bye," he bounded all that was in the past, all that was in
the future.

"You have had some sudden call?"

"Yes."

"But you will come back again. Don't--don't make it sound so final."

"I have no hope of coming back."

"Oh," she cried, "I thought that now you might find a little rest."

"Perhaps I shall. I do not know. But before I go I wish to insist
again that you and Ben leave this house and get back into the country
somewhere. Don't think I am presuming, but I should feel better if I
knew you had this in mind. I see so clearly that it is the thing for
you to do."

"Don't speak as though you were going so far," she shuddered. "What
will Ben do without you?"

"Get him away from these old surroundings. Let him make
friends--clean, wholesome friends. Let him pursue his hobby. There
are other places besides New York where he is needed. If he is kept
busy I do not fear for him."

She tried to pierce the white mask he wore. It was quite useless. She
knew that there was something in him now that she could not reach. Yet
she felt that there was need of it. She felt that there was need that
she of all women in the world should force her way into his soul and
there comfort him as he had bidden her comfort Marie. She felt this
with an insurge of passion that left her girlhood behind forever. It
swept away all thoughts of Ben, all thoughts of Marie, all thoughts of
herself. She heard his voice as though in the distance.

"It is better," he was saying, "to be direct--to be as honest as
possible at such a time as this. We can't say some things very gently,
try as we may, because they are brutal facts in themselves. But I am
going to tell you all I can as simply as I can. I must leave you. It
is n't of my own free will that I go, though at the beginning it was.
Now I go because I must. Perhaps you will never again hear of me. If
you don't you must remember me as you know me now. Do you understand
that, Miss Arsdale? You know me now as I am--as no other human being
knows me. Will you cling to this?"

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