RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on a public domain Christmas wallpaper
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on a public domain Christmas wallpaper
A Man Ruined by Shame Lends an Ear to a Grim Proposition.
THE doorbell, with a repeated and broken rhythm, pressed on the brain of Dufferin and brought him out of an unhappy dream into the truth of the day. Beyond the bedroom window he saw Dec. 24 dropping a fleecy blanket of snow across the city.
The bell kept on ringing, and finally Dufferin swung out of bed. A glass chattered on the table beside him; the fag-end of a highball sloshed around and made him taste the night before at the roots of his tongue and between his eyes. The window was open, but the room was too warm; the steam radiator kept wheezing and burping.
He went to the door and opened it. Eddie Painter was there and Rex McMahon still had his patient finger on the bell. Behind them stood Dago Joe. Even in the dimness of the hall there was a highlight on the oily sleekness of his face.
"Hello, Duff." said Painter, brushing past. "When you sleep, you sleep."
"Merry Christmas and all that," answered Dufferin, closing the door behind Dago Joe.
"That's what we're bringing you. The Christmas and the Merry," said Red McMahon. And his smile was as big as a laugh. His eyes made his glasses twinkle.
"Give us a shot of something," directed Eddie Painter.
"What time is it?" asked Dufferin.
"Two-thirty," said Painter.
"I don't serve drinks till 5," declared Dufferin. He looked down at his bare feet. These fellows were an index to show him the depth of his fall. But when a man has lost his nerve he spends the rest of his life in the gutter. Dufferin knew that. Three years ago he had lost his nerve.
"Look in the kitchenette, Dago," commanded Painter.
Dufferin sat down on his bed. His toes squeaked as he wriggled them.
"If you're gonna cook for yourself, why don't you wash dishes for yourself, too?" asked Dago Joe from the kitchenette. He same out bringing glasses and whisky and a siphon. They mixed their drinks to suit themselves. Dufferin took nothing. He lighted a cigarette and felt it bump his heart and sicken his stomach. Eddie Painter took a lot of whisky and one squirt from the siphon. "We're declaring you in," he said. "Look at this. And we got some more of the same."
He threw a letter into the hand of Dufferin. It was a thick letter. The paper was gray-blue and covered with a woman's sprawling, big hand. As Dufferin read, furrows ploughed his face, up and down. He got out a handkerchief and scrubbed some flakes of cigarette tobacco off his upper lip. He blew some more bits off the tip of his tongue and went on reading. After a while he restacked the letter, folded it, shoved it carefully back into its envelope.
"Is that hot?" asked Red. "And that ain't nothing, kid. Finish it? Here's some more. Give him some more, Eddie."
"It's gone sour on him or something," said Eddie.
"Well, tell him," said Red.
Painter shuffled a dozen letters together. "For this well take about 20,000 berries," he said. "And we count you in. Five grand for your Christmas present, Duff. We can use you, maybe. Anyway, we like you, Duff. We're counting you in."
Red said, "The gal that wrote the letters is engaged to marry a rich bird by name of J. Burleigh Wilbur—Look, Eddie. Duff took that name in a big way. Likely he played ping-pong with J. Burleigh in the boyhood days—what I mean, Duff, this young widow is gonna take over J. Burleigh Wilbur, which is two or three million, eh?"
"Yes—or 10 or 15," said Dufferin, watching the end of his cigarette eat away.
"Say!" said Red. "Did you hear that, Eddie?"
"Shut up," said Painter. "I told you the kid would know. Who's the young widow, Duff? Who's Mrs. Thomas Crandall?"
"I don't know," he said. "If she ain't heeled now, she will be. A promissory note is all I'd want out of J. Burleigh's wife.
"Wait a minute," said Dufferin. "You know what those letters are?
"Sure we know what they are. They're hot," answered Painter.
"They're letters written to a psychoanalyst," explained Dufferin.
"I've heard of them guys in the papers." remarked Red McMahon. "But who cares who she wrote 'em to?"
"Listen, Dago." said Dufferin. "You'll understand this. Suppose that you're feeling pretty low. Nothing looks right to you. You feel like a worm. You're sick at yourself all day, every day. Well, you'd go to a priest, wouldn't you? And after you talked things over you'd feel better."
"I know guys who done that," admitted Dago.
"Here's a girl that was clear down and about out," said Dufferin. "She felt as though she were going crazy and she went to see a psychoanalyst. He wants her to write to him, tell him all her troubles and most of all to tell him about her dreams."
"Yeah and what a dreamer that baby is!" cried Red.
Dufferin looked up at McMahon and he ached to hang a hard one on his ugly jaw. But there was no good starting anything that he couldn't finish. His nerve was gone, and the rest of his life had to be in the gutter. So he endured that braying laughter.
"Shut up, Red," directed Painter. "The kid has something on his mind. And we may need him."
"These letters are pretty strong stuff," said Dufferin, "but girl the that wrote them may be the best and the rightest in the world." Dufferin's voice was soft, his words slow, but his mind was running in fast and angry circles. He didn't know how much to let these hoods know. This girl—this Mrs. Crandall—he knew her, knew her very well. She'd even been there at the moment of his everlasting disgrace, that day when he lost his nerve.
Duff Decides to Go With the Boys to Deliver the Christmas Present.
TED MCMAHON was looking down at Dufferin with an expression of crude distaste. "So the widow Crandall is a straight-shooter," he said sneeringly. "So all right. So, what? Her letters still say what they say, don't they?"
Dufferin looked away from MacMahon, turned to Eddie Painter and Dago Joe. "I'd lay my money that she's one of the best," he continued quietly, "because see how honest she is. Suppose that any man or woman had to write down every mean and rotten idea that jumps into the brain—wouldn't we all seem dogs? Then think what happens when we dream and all the guards are down."
"Yeah, even if I could dream like the widow," said Eddie Painter, "it would be good enough for me."
"Listen, Eddie," protested Dufferin, "she had to grit her teeth when she wrote that stuff down. She was crying with shame—But she told the psychoanalyst the truth—all of it. A girl like that is one of the best."
"Yeah?" mid Painter. "Now just an eye on this one. Wait a minute. Yeah, this is the one. I've read it ten times, I guess, and it's a baby."
"Keep it!" said Dufferin suddenly.
"Hey, looka!" observed Red, in wonder. "The Kid's getting mean! Can you beat that? You fat head, we're dealing you in."
"Deal me out!" said Dufferin.
"He's out—and he means it," observed Painter. "Not even for Christmas, be don t want any part of it. Well, that's that. But you're sure you don't know this Mrs. Thomas Crandall? She's right from your part of the world, kid, Take a look."
He tossed a picture, and Dufferin found in his hand Mary Jessup, smiling, lifting her pretty head. Just as he had seen her at the steeplechase three years before on the day—the last day of all for Dufferin—when the world had seen him shamed. He could still hear the shout of astonishment and anger as be had pulled his horse back from the jam. She had been married and widowed in the meantime, she had had her taste of hell, and now these three were ready to sweep her into the gutter.
He stood up and gave the picture back.
"Yes," he said. "I know her. And you can count me in."
"Looka!" said Red, laughing "He don't like her. Naughty girl, she gave him the slip at the dancing class when they were kids or something."
Dufferin got dressed slowly. The others had whisky and a brightening future before them and there was no hurry. When he knotted his tie he took good heed of himself. The weakness no longer showed in his face, he thought three years had written in plenty of sorrow, and in this cruel world sadness that is endured cannot seem weak. But no matter what the outside might seem, the core of him was rotten, he knew: for a man who has lost his nerve has lost everything. That was why even these three hoodlums accepted him with a sort of contemptuous amusement. Before the start he knew that he could accomplish nothing but he was going to try.
At the street they got into Eddie Painter's big runabout, all nose and tail with a sort of pilot's cabin in the middle. Joe drove because he was a mechanical expert at anything from automobiles to guns; he used his hands, not his head. Eddie Painter sat with him as a matter of course, and Dufferin was in the rumble seat with big Red McMahon, after giving exact directions as to how the Jessup house could be reached.
They went downtown with the pulse of the traffic, the heavy car contented with its own lane and never raising its voice above a muttering. The snowfall had ended. People moved on the sidewalk with bulky packages. The women were always smiling and every one of them towed a child that was not willing to leave; the men had anxious faces.
Red McMahon said: "You know the biggest racket in the world? Santa Claus. How would you like to be Mr. Christmas?"
They turned from the avenue onto a crosstown street where the cars kept nosing and squawking for better positions. At last they were lifted onto the easy arch of the bridge so high that Dufferin could look eye to eye with the glimmer of lower Manhattan. He remembered that when he was a youngster those aspiring heights had made him look up and expand his soul, but for three years there had been no nonsense like that.
They got through Brooklyn and into the open, with a clearing sky above them, greenish toward the horizon. Snow filled the ditches and bordered the road with a wavering, dirty margin of ice. Dufferin and Red leaned together to look through the two glasses at the road the narrowed to nothing beyond the headlights. The glass was as frosted as a cocktail shaker and Joe seemed to feel his way with marvellous surety through the mist.
"Scared, kid?" asked Red McMahon
Dufferin turned his head and grinned. Afterward he was sorry that he had done this because the bigness of his eyes must have betrayed him; they were so strained that they became dry and hurt him.
He looked up end thought that sparks were flying overhead. Then be realised that the full night had descended. Eddie Painter was gesturing in the front seat. The car turned through an open gate and swept up a drive. The naked trees glistened in the headlights and went past with a whishing sound. The car stopped.
The old Jessup place had not changed. Its wooden face seemed a little smaller, a trifle more dingy, that was all. He saw a red and black dappling of light and shadow and the big library window and he remembered that old Mrs. Jessup had said once: "Leave the shades up and let a little Christmas out into the world."
"Go on ahead," said Eddie Painter. "You know her. If she's here, you can get hold of her for us."
When Dufferin rang the bell a big, thick-necked maid opened it to him; she had a Christmas smile painted into the red of her face.
"Oh, Mr. Dufferin!" she exclaimed. "I didn't known you were coming to the party. Come right in—"
She had the door wide before the sight of the other three stopped her. "I'm not one of the party, Charlotte." said Dufferin, "but I was just stopping by with some friends and I thought I might see Miss Mary. She's Mrs Thomas Crandall now?"
"Well, that didn't last long, that wretched man!" said Charlotte "She's here indeed and I'll tell her you're waiting."
Duff, Having Been Dealt In, Decides to Play the Hand His Own Way.
A WARMTH and fragrance like pine wood in Summer filled the big hall of the Jessup house and when Dufferin heard the bubbling of children's voices out of the distance he was carried far back to a red scooter with "Overland Express" in gilt letters across it.
Charlotte, the maid, put them in the small room that had been the library before the addition was built on. It had been used as a Christmas workshop on this day and on the floor were jumbles of red tissue paper, golden and silver-gilt string, a foolish, empty-eyed Santa Claus mask, and a toy pistol with a long, bright, dangerous barrel.
Eddie Painter was a little nervous. He had defensively thrust his chin forward and pinched his eyes and his lips; Dago Joe stood in a corner, in his usual featureless lethargy, but Red McMahon was enjoying this.
"There's too many of us," said Painter. "One man is better with a girl. You kind of make her feel easy even if you're gonna murder her."
"But four men shows her that this is dead serious." argued Red "She cuts 20 grand by four and sees that it ain't so much."
"Where did yon say the rich cluck lives? The J. Burleigh?" asked Painter.
"On the other side of the Giveny Hills—that's what these hills are called—on the crossroad you went by a big iron gate," said Dufferin.
"When the girl comes," suggested Red, "you break the ground. Duff. Leave Eddie do the talking."
"And remember," said Painter, "if she gets hard and bawls us out, she's not the last chance we've got. There's J. Burleigh himself, and if he don't get 10 or 15 thousand dollars' worth of reading out of these letters. I'm a dummy."
"Listen!" said Dufferin.
Her voice came suddenly into the hall and he knew it as well as he would have known any face. "I'm coming right up to change." she called. "Charlotte," she added, "why didn't you take them right into the library? Father is there."
She stepped into the doorway in riding-clothes with the flush of cold air in her cheeks and the sheen of the clear night in her eyes. Unlike most, in her riding outfit she still looked a woman. She lifted her head and smiled for him exactly as the picture did and there was only a slight shadowing around her eyes, enough to show that time had touched without spoiling her. She came to him with her hand out, saying: "My dear old Duff, how happy I am!"
That was for Christmas, no doubt. On the other days of the year she would remember the jam in the steeplechase, and his shame.
He ignored her hand, walked past her, and closed the door. Her startled glance followed him and then he heard Painter saying: "We got some business to talk to you, Mrs. Crandall. Not pretty business, either. So we better get at it."
Paper rustled. Dufferin pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
"You wrote these letters to Dr. Bliss Ellinger," said Painter. "Remember 'em?"
Her face flushed. She put her hand against the heat of it and kept looking at Dufferin.
"What are you doing to me, Duff?" she asked.
"Talk to me, please," said Painter. "We all figure that this batch of stuff has a reputation in it. It's for sale. We offer you the first bid: J. Burleigh Wilbur gets the second crack. And $20,000 is our price. That's because it's Christmas and we want to make things easy for you."
Her head dropped and rose in the effort of swallowing.
"Those are letters to a doctor," she said.
"I know a publisher who'd use them," said Painter.
She looked at Dufferin with sick wonder. "You know the Jessups haven't any money. Tell them, Duff."
Dufferin tried to speak, but his lips were numb, and his weighted eyes went down to her riding boots. There was a deep scar on one of them. When the hounds were running she was always in the first flight. Now the pack was coming at her and she had no place to go.
"You don't need a penny—now," said Painter. "A promissory note will do fine. Date it six months ahead. By that time you'll be floating in a river of hard cash. Just bail out a few drops to pay the note. What's easier than that?"
"Duff," said the girl, "tell them why I can't!"
"They wouldn't understand," said Dufferin, faintly.
"What wouldn't we understand?" asked Painter of Dufferin. "And what are you trying to pull, anyway?"
Dago Joe made a small step; he considered Dufferin with a singular curiosity.
"Get this," said Painter to the girl. He raised his hand and stabbed a finger at her. "You pay or we go straight to Burleigh Wilbur. You re not a baby. You know the score. Now talk turkey."
The argument was so precise and convincing that Red McMahon nodded his profound agreement.
She looked down at the floor and the bending of her head made her no larger than a child.
"It's rotten—lousy rotten!" cried a voice from the throat of Dufferin. "Don't do it, Mary. Don't do it!"
Her head came up again. "Open the door for them. Duff," she said.
"Wait a minute," grunted Red McMahon. "Hey, wait a minute." Anger pulled his face out of shape as though it were putty. "How do you get this way, you rat?" he shouted at Dufferin.
"I've got letters here that are a three-column spread in a newspaper I know," said Painter. He went across the room gradually, driven by his argument. "When we get through with you you'll wish you was dead."
"Duff. I can't look at them. Send them away, Duff," whispered the girl.
That stopped Painter.
He said: "Oh, all right! All right!"
"Wait a minute." pleaded Red. "You ain't explained—"
"Shut up and get out. Can't you see we're through here?" asked Painter. "Get out, Dago."
On the threshold Painter waited an instant after the others had gone. He turned to Dufferin.
"I'll be seeing you, punk," he said. It was hard for him to pull his eyes away from Dufferin, but he finally turned to the girl.
"If I can't sell any Christmas to Mr. J. Burleigh Wilbur," he said, "I'm gunna give him some."
He went out behind the others and closed the door hard after him.
With the Hand of Fear Squeezing His Heart, Duff Sets a Course in Courage.
AS the heavy oak door of the old Jessup mansion closed behind MacMahon and Painter and Dago Joe, Dufferin slowly lifted his head; forced his eyes to meet Mary Crandall's.
There was a dark, unspoken question in her warm white face; incredulity in the depths of her blue eyes. What does it mean, Duff—you're being with them?
"I came down hoping that I could stop them. But you know what happened. Three years ago you saw me quit like a dog in the steeplechase. And tonight I wasn't man enough to fight them."
Some of the misery and doubt which had narrowed her eyes now relaxed and let them open on him. She put her hand on the lapel of his coat and gripped until her hand was white. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He felt pity, and shame that was not all for himself, then and then a great, dissolving love.
"There's no one else," she said. "Think for me, Duff."
"You ought to telephone to Burleigh Wilbur."
She shook her head.
"I couldn't stop him. He'd read the letters," she said.
"He'll understand that you were a sick girl."
"He won't understand,"
"If you love him you can make him understand."
"I can't make him understand."
"But he loves you."
"For furniture in his big house. It's just one of those things, Duff."
It was true. Fat-faced Burleigh Wilbur would read those letters and, what was more, he would talk about their contents afterward. With a curling lip, he would read those letters and let some hints drop as to his reasons for breaking his engagement; and one unclean suspicion will cling to a woman and ruin her more than newspaper headlines.
They heard a motor start outside, the scuffing of gravel, a rising and dying whine as the car departed. The car would sweep down the long slopes to the edge of the sea and take the rounding curves of the boulevard for a distance, then pick up the crossroad toward the house of Burleigh Wilbur.
Burleigh had a fine, red, hearty face, but the eyes were too small and too pale.
Dufferin moved uneasily. His foot kicked the empty mask of Santa Claus against the toy pistol. The vacant eye of Santa Claus and the fat red cheeks of the mask smiled up at his. His idea flickered rapidly before him like something seen through trees that are passed at high speed; then in the naked open he saw the full terror of it. If he waited, resolution would be frozen in him. Be picked up the flexible mask and silly gun and thrust them in his pocket.
"I've got it," said Dufferin. "They've got to go clear around the Giveny Hills, and I can short-cut across with a horse. There's such a thing as robbing the robbers."
She pushed herself away to arm's length, saying: "Are you out of your wits, Duff?"
"No, it's the answer, and I've found it!" cried Dufferin. "They're tied to the road. In the hills here a man on a horse is like a hawk over a henyard. I can strike 'em where I please and they can't follow when I run."
Having spoken the words committed him, dropped him into a fathomless pit of fear. He strode away from the room in haste, with a feeling that if he escaped from the girl he would escape from his promise also.
Beyond the front door, a gust of wind checked his body and made his spirit brittle as ice. The girl overtook him. "You can't try such a crazy thing!" she said. "They have guns—they'd shoot. And the hills are covered with ice and snow—and the way's blind by this light. You can't get there—and they have guns—"
"They haven't any guns," said Dufferin.
He thought of Dago Joe. The only thing that made the Dago smile was a gun.
Dufferin ran for the barn. It lay up the hill a bit. The trees that cooled it in Summer were bare now, and he saw through the branches the stars that jiggled as he ran. His thoughts jumbled and tangled in his mind like the stars in the confused branches of the trees.
When he got into the barn and pulled the electric switch, the first thing he saw was the head of old Buster with his unforgettable Roman nose. He was an honest hunter and the wind of his speed might well have worn the bald spots on his face, thought Dufferin. He had saddle and bridle and was running toward the stall when Mary came in. She was in a frenzy, beating her hands together and stamping her feet.
"You cant go, Duff. They'll kill you; they'll kill you! The one that didn't speak; the one they called Dago. He'll kill you."
Dufferin's fingers fumbled on the strap of the cinch. She could not know that Dago was the gunman par excellence, but a strength of prophecy comes to people, now and then; and this was a touch of second sight. He could see the picture of his fall; he could feel the agony tearing his body. He would lie on the road kicking himself around in a circle like a dying chicken. They would drive on with two of them locking back through the rear window.
"Then I'll go, too!" the girl was crying.
That was no good. He had to get away first; in the dark of the hills he could go more slowly; he could come back saying that he had made his try and that he had been too late. But Buster was gripping his teeth and fighting to keep out the bit, throwing up his fool head ten feet into the air. He got fingers into Buster's mouth and pried it open, but the Irish hunter backed away from the bridle and the whole business had to start over again.
That was why, when he got the big grey into the open, he could hear the girl's horse trotting after him across the sounding floor.
He whipped into the saddle eagerly. Down the hill the red Christmas lights made the house warm. Life is warm, Dufferin thought, too, and shame is better than death. People with faith possess their heavens; but for the Dufferins death would be like this night, empty except for cold and wind; empty and without the watching of the stars. But, mechanically, he was driving the horse in the promised direction, and over the brow of the hill. Buster struck ice and skidded most of the way to the bottom of the slope. Terror lifted the heart of Dufferin into his throat and held it up there on beating wings.
With the Spilling of a Little Blood Duff
Finds a New Man Rising Up Within Him.
THIS moment in which he was riding was like the very future itself, Dufferin thought, as he felt the rhythm of Buster's giant strides in his thighs. And it was not the cold of Christmas Eve but the chill of eternity that frosted his hands end stung his eyes. The girl, Mary Crandall, following him and calling out, she was the sad beauty of life which soon would blow away to nothing.
The big, dark shoulders of the hills flowed away behind him. Rattling hoofs clattered over the ground. And there was the girl. shouting something about a new fence.
He saw it when he was almost at it, a huge flat-faced stone wall that looked like regular masonry. And suddenly he was glad. If he could get Buster to try the thing, if he could spill on the earth beyond, of course he could stop this mad journey afterwards. Men are not killed by falls very often; but Dago Joe never missed.
He gave Buster a good run. The old horse steadied, settled himself and heaved up his forelegs with a mighty good will. But there was no chance. Dufferin saw that he was launched into the air, but he did not care. The forehoofs bumped: the rear legs caught; Buster slewed sideways and crashed; the ground jumped up and Dufferin slammed full length on its iron hardness.
The only strength that lived in him for a moment was in his right hand, which kept a grip on the reins as Buster started clambering to his feet. The only wit in Dufferin kept telling him that this was the end of the perilous adventure.
The girl ought to come galloping up from some easier place which she had jumped in the wall. She ought to come and find him heroically stunned and this adventure ended. But the noise of hoofs did not approach and the cold of the ground began to eat into him.
He got to his hands and knees. It had been a good, hard whang, after all. Pain stung the side of his head and a warm trickle ran down over his face. He licked his lips and tasted blood, salty and slick. It fed something in him that needed nourishing like those old Grecian ghosts that had neither substance nor voice until they had drunk blood. Somewhere in his past there was memory of another happening like this; the first blow of a fist fight which melted away the rigid terror and left a warmth of confidence. The fear of fear was gone from him and he stood up.
Old Buster was prancing a little, but not pulling to get away, and Dufferin looked down the declining slopes of the hills, modeled in black and in starlit snow, and saw headlights swinging from the boulevard onto the crossroad toward Burleigh Wilbur's house. The three of them were behind those lights, of course, with their jaws set. He saw their faced. Their voices came intimately close to him. They were dangerous as wild animals are dangerous; but beasts can be controlled and so, could they.
A red stop signal glowed where the main highway cut the crossroad. He remembered hearing Dago Joe say that it was never worth while to run through a traffic light.
The red shine of the signal entered the brain of Dufferin. The night was no longer cold. He licked his lips again and swung up on Buster.
There was not much distance to cover. The gray horse made it in a dash and Dufferin paused behind tall shrubbery. The traffic light was green now. Some of the stain of it dripped over the ice-encrusted, bent branches. He took out the Santa Claus mask and fitted it over his face; he touched the toy gun in his pocket. Then headlights swept the thicket, he heard the rising whine of the motor, and the crossroad signal turned red once more. The car stopped.
He never could have walked out to do the thing; cavalry has the easier part in battle; the horses go on. From a stand Buster jumped the brush. The iced branches crackled against those trailing hoofs. Little, sparkling bits flew up around the head of Dufferin. Then Buster skidded on the pavement, recovered himself and careened to a halt beside the car. Dufferin swung to the ground.
Through the misted window he made out the pallor of three faces. He opened the door. It washed a stench of warm cigarette smoke into his face.
"Nothln' here for you. Mr. Christmas," said Eddie Painter. "This is kind of funny, Joe, if he only knew! I never seen a beggar on horseback before."
Painter sat nearest. Dufferin pushed the toy gun into his ribs.
"Shove your hands up, all of you!" he commanded. He kept has voice low, but the huskiness in it was not an affectation. Painter and Red jumped their hands into the sir. Joe was a fraction slower. "Dago, don't try nothing!" gasped Painter.
The hands of Dago Joe rose with a reluctant pulsation, fighting against the will which drove them upward. Dufferin began to poke his hands into pockets. He got Painter's wallet, his watch, his gold knife. He reached the crisp rustling of the letter packet and drew that out also. "Just some private letters from my wife," said Painter. "You wouldn't want those, brother. Just some letters from my wife and the kiddies. About all I've got to make this a Christmas. You wouldn't take those, would you?"
"We'll see about it," answered Dufferin. He was going through Red with more speed. He only searched the nearest side of Dago; it was too long a reach, and, besides, all he wanted was the gun. So far as he knew, that was the only weapon in the crowd.
The butt of the automatic was rough; the gun was heavy. And who could have mistaken the gaudy flash of his own toy pistol for the authentic, dim luster of the real weapon? He shifted, it into hie right hand.
"He's got my gun," said Dago Joe. His voice was low to start with, but it ran up the scale and gathered speed quickly. "He's got my gun! You dummies, is the world gonna know that three of us was done by one—"
"Shut up, you fool!" cried Painter. "Listen, brother—listen to me, buddie, will you? The only letters I got from my dead wife are in there, in that package. What good would they do you? Give them back to me, and we won't even report this holdup."
"He's got my gun—you dirty punks!" cried Dago Joe. And be pitched himself forward across the laps of both the others, grabbing with both hands. Quickly Dufferin slammed the door and swung up Buster.
Wherein a Fellow and a Girl Erase Their Pasts—
One With Blood and One With Fire.
DUFFERIN had the packet of letters; he felt their crinkly presence in his breast pocket as his body flung hard down into the saddle and his heels touched lightly against Buster's great flanks.
But even as he secured his hold on the reins he saw the car door open again like a huge mouth to spew out Dago Joe. The automatic Dufferin had taken from his was not the only gun. Even in his headlong dive across the laps of MacMahon and Painter Dago had produced another—and he fired as he spilled to the ground.
Buster started, sprawled suddenly until his belly almost touched the icy pavement, and then recovered with a long forward lurch.
The footing was bad; it was a wide, infinitely wide, world of white shining ice and snow—but suddenly, with the crashing reports of Dago's gun, the horizon of the starlit night seemed to rush in an confine as in a small room that world of murderous sound. The noise beat into Dufferin's ears. Something jerked like plucking fingers at his hat.
Then Buster left the road and the dropped behind the shining sprays of shrubbery. The gunshots were like knocking on an iron door. But Buster seemed to gallop as though he were knee-deep in mud, with wrenching, laboring efforts. He seemed to work on a treadmill, but the noise of the gun slid away into distance, and ended suddenly.
Dufferin discovered then that Buster was legging it like a steeplechaser, blowing the wound in Dufferin's head cold with the wind of the gallop. He waited to feel the racing of a panic-stricken heart, now that the danger was ending, but to his amazement there was only a hard, steady pounding in his breast, as honest as the beat of Buster's hoofs. He realised that fear had been knocked out of him when he hit the ground under the big wall. It was gone, and the taste of his own blood was still in his mouth.
When he looked back he could see the silhouettes of the three at the fence, outlined against the glow of their own headlights. One of them threw up his arms in gesture of great surrender; then he heard the girl coming athwart the hill. "Duff!" she was crying. "Oh, Duff! Duff!"
She came swiftly up to him.
"I'm all right." he said. "I've got the stuff and everything's all right."
They went back by the lower way; they struck the lane that led straight towards the barn and as they rode her face kept lifting to him. The starlight was very clear; he could see more than the full sun had ever showed him.
"Duff, are you all right—honestly?" she kept asking.
"Not a scratch," he said.
They reached the old gate, sagging on its hinges, and he dismounted to open it. "It's cold! B-r-r!" said the girl.
"Here's a way of getting warm," said Dufferin, and straightway crumpled one of her letters and touched a match to it. She jumped down and spread her hands above the flame and pretended to be warmed by it.
"Oh. Santa, what a beautiful Christmas you've brought to me!" she said.
He, quite forgetting, pulled the Santa Claus mask from his face and laughed at her. And then he remembered the wound and the blood. He put up his hand, but it was all across his face. He heard the intake of her breath and saw the crazy widening of her eyes, but he got his hand over her scream.
"It's a scratch," he swore to her. "Not from a bullet, but where I hit the ground on the other side of that wall. I can wash the red away in ten seconds. Look, Mary, when I put my head down you can see the cut's nothing. Is there light enough?"
He dropped another crumpled letter into the blaze, and the fire rose.
"Yes there's light enough," said the girl slowly. "It's not a very big Christmas bonfire, but there's light enough for me to see that I love Duff."
He dropped the rest of the letters on the flame and it was almost smothered. They stood for a moment in a wavering of darkness and of light. But he could see the shining eyes of Buster and of the girl.
"Steady!" said he. "If you so much as smile at me. Mary. I'll be dizzy the rest of my life."
He watched her smiling.
"We're seeing each other by the light of my past, so to speak," said the girl. "It's kind of like burning up a lot of unhappiness, Duff."
"Do you know that I've been at the very bottom of the heap?" he asked her.
"I can see it in your sad old face, Duff."
"If you let me kiss you you'll have to marry me, even if there's murder to be done afterward."
"No murder, Duff, but only that you'll have to help me compose a letter to Burleigh saying that have a previous engagement."
He took her in his arms.
"I haven't a bean in the world," said Dufferin.
"That makes it perfect," said the girl.
Beyond her he saw the wind toss the flames of the burning letters as far as the gaudy cloth mask of Santa Claus, but it defied the fire and continued to smile up at him with empty, contented eyes.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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