Out of the Dark: Tales of Terror by Robert W. Chambers. Robert W. Chambers
the man’s head sank on his crimson jersey, and he muttered, muttered to himself of God and love and compassion, until I saw that the fierce heat of the city had touched his brain, and I went away and left him prating of mysteries that none but such as he dare name.
So I passed on through dust and heat; and the hot breath of men touched my cheek and eager eyes looked into mine. Eyes, eyes, that met my own and looked through them, beyond – far beyond to where gold glittered amid the mirage of eternal hope. Gold! It was in the air where the soft sunlight gilded the floating motes, it was under foot in the dust that the sun made gilt, it glimmered from every window pane where the long red beams struck golden sparks above the gasping gold-hunting hordes of Wall Street.
High, high, in the deepening sky the tall buildings towered, and the breeze from the bay lifted the sun-dyed flags of commerce until they waved above the turmoil of the hives below – waved courage and hope and strength to those who lusted after gold.
The sun dipped low behind Castle William as I turned listlessly into the Battery, and the long straight shadows of the trees stretched away over greensward and asphalt walk.
Already the electric lights were glimmering among the foliage although the bay shimmered like polished brass and the topsails of the ships glowed with a deeper hue, where the red sun rays fall athwart the rigging.
Old men tottered along the sea-wall, tapping the asphalt with worn canes, old women crept to and fro in the coming twilight – old women who carried baskets that gaped for charity or bulged with moldy stuffs – food, clothing? – I could not tell; I did not care to know.
The heavy thunder from the parapets of Castle William died away over the placid bay, the last red arm of the sun shot up out of the sea, and wavered and faded into the sombre tones of the afterglow. Then came the night, timidly at first, touching sky and water with gray fingers, folding the foliage into soft massed shapes, creeping onward, onward, more swiftly now, until color and form had gone from all the earth and the world was a world of shadows.
And, as I sat there on the dusky sea-wall, gradually the bitter thoughts faded and I looked out into the calm night with something of that peace that comes to all when day is ended.
The death at my very elbow of the poor blind wretch in the Park had left a shock, but now my nerves relaxed their tension and I began to think about it all – about the letters and the strange woman who had given them to me. I wondered where she had found them – whether they really were carried by some vagrant current in to the shore from the wreck of the fated Lorient.
Nothing but these letters had human eyes encountered from the Lorient, although we believed that fire or berg had been her portion; for there had been no storms when the Lorient steamed away from Cherbourg.
And what of the pale-faced girl in black who had given these letters to me, saying that my own heart would teach me where to place them?
I felt in my pockets for the letters where I had thrust them all crumpled and wet. They were there, and I decided to turn them over to the police. Then I thought of Cusick and the City Hall Park and these set my mind running on Jamison and my own work – ah! I had forgotten that – I had forgotten that I had sworn to stir Jamison’s cold, sluggish blood! Trading on his fiancée’s reported suicide – or murder! True, he had told me that he was satisfied that the body at the Morgue was not Miss Tufft’s because the ring did not correspond with his fiancée’s ring. But what sort of man was that! – to go crawling and nosing about morgues and graves for a full-page illustration which might sell a few extra thousand papers. I had never known he was such a man. It was strange too – for that was not the sort of illustration that the Weekly used; it was against all precedent – against the whole policy of the paper. He would lose a hundred subscribers where he would gain one by such work.
‘The callous brute!’ I muttered to myself, ‘I’ll wake him up – I’ll—’
I sat straight up on the bench and looked steadily at a figure which was moving toward me under the spluttering electric light.
It was the woman I had met in the Park.
She came straight up to me, her pale face gleaming like marble in the dark, her slim hands outstretched.
‘I have been looking for you all day – all day,’ she said, in the same low thrilling tones – ‘I want the letters back; have you them here?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have them here – take them in Heaven’s name; they have done enough evil for one day!’
She took the letters from my hand; I saw the ring, made of the double serpents, flashing on her slim finger, and I stepped closer, and looked her in the eyes.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘I? My name is of no importance to you,’ she answered.
‘You are right,’ I said, ‘I do not care to know your name. That ring of yours—’
‘What of my ring?’ she murmured.
‘Nothing – a dead woman lying in the Morgue wears such a ring. Do you know what your letters have done? No? Well I read them to a miserable wretch and he blew his brains out!’
‘You read them to a man!’
‘I did. He killed himself.’
‘Who was that man?’
‘Captain d’Yniol—’
With something between a sob and a laugh she seized my hand and covered it with kisses, and I, astonished and angry, pulled my hand away from her cold lips and sat down on the bench.
‘You needn’t thank me,’ I said sharply; ‘if I had known that – but no matter. Perhaps after all the poor devil is better off somewhere in other regions with his sweetheart who was drowned – yes, I imagine he is. He was blind and ill – and broken-hearted.’
‘Blind?’ she asked gently.
‘Yes. Did you know him?’
‘I knew him.’
‘And his sweetheart, Aline?’
‘Aline,’ she repeated softly, ‘—she is dead. I come to thank you in her name.’
‘For what? – for his death?’
‘Ah, yes, for that.’
‘Where did you get those letters?’ I asked her, suddenly.
She did not answer, but stood fingering the wet letters.
Before I could speak again she moved away into the shadows of the trees, lightly, silently, and far down the dark walk I saw her diamond flashing.
Grimly brooding, I rose and passed through the Battery to the steps of the Elevated Road. These I climbed, bought my ticket, and stepped out to the damp platform. When a train came I crowded in with the rest, still pondering on my vengeance, feeling and believing that I was to scourge the conscience of the man who speculated on death.
At last the train stopped at 28th Street, and I hurried out and down the steps and away to the Morgue.
When I entered the Morgue, Skelton, the keeper, was standing before a slab that glistened faintly under the wretched gas jets. He heard my footsteps, and turned around to see who was coming. Then he nodded, saying, ‘Mr Hilton, just take a look at this here stiff – I’ll be back in a moment – this is the one that all the papers take to be Miss Tufft – but they’re all off, because this stiff has been here now for two weeks.’
I drew out my sketching-block and pencils.
‘Which is it, Skelton?’ I asked, fumbling for my rubber.
‘This one, Mr Hilton, the girl what’s smilin’. Picked up off Sandy Hook, too. Looks as if she was asleep, eh?’
‘What’s she got in her hand – clenched