Part 19 (1/2)
The three guesses varied from 21 to 27. Either of these ages seems fabulously advanced from the standpoint of 14.
”Did you notice anything about his hands? Were they bare or did he wear gloves?”
”His right hand was bare,” answered the Whistler, ”'cause his fingernail scratched me when he thrun me--when he threw me down.”
s.h.a.garach drew forth the glove which Chandler had brought him and was studying it profoundly. Apparently he forgot the presence of the boys, so deep was his meditation. Then at last he started out of the reverie, thanked them again and with kind a.s.surances of friends.h.i.+p shook their hands in parting at the door.
”Ain't he a dandy bloke?” whispered Turkey on the stairs.
”Why didn't yer take it, Whistler?” said Toot.
But the Whistler held his peace.
CHAPTER XXIV.
DEATHBED REVELATIONS.
When Emily Barlow ran down to s.h.a.garach's office at noon this Sat.u.r.day she was accompanied by her friend, Beulah Ware. Beulah Ware was as dark as Emily was fair. In temperament, as in complexion, the two girls offered a contrast, Beulah's carriage having the recollected dignity of a nun's, while Emily's sensibilities were all as fine as those j.a.panese swords which are whetted so keenly they divide the light leaves that fall across their edges.
”We should like to leave a note with the flowers, Mr. Aronson. Could you furnish us paper?”
Aronson was only too eager to furnish not only paper, but envelope, ink-well and a ready-filled pen. When the young ladies went out he thought a cloud pa.s.sed over the arid chapters of his Pickering XII. This was the note, pinned to a graceful bouquet, that s.h.a.garach read on his return: ”My Dear Mr. s.h.a.garach: You must have read of the riot yesterday in which Robert behaved so n.o.bly. But he is even more pleased with a discovery which he made during the affair. It seems that one of the wounded convicts, who has been pa.s.sing under the name of Quirk, is no other than the coachman, Mungovan, whom none of us could find. Could you manage to call at the prison to-day? The poor fellow is seriously injured and may have important evidence in his possession. Yours truly, ”EMILY BARLOW.”
The violets seemed to move s.h.a.garach far more than the note, momentous as its revelation might be. His hand trembled when he reached to clasp the stems. Then he withdrew it and stood irresolute. A procession was pa.s.sing through the street below. From the window he could see the tilted necks of a line of fifers. Was it a horror of music that made him shut out these sounds so often? A dread of perfume and loveliness that made him leave the room at once with brief directions to Aronson? The casual observer would have said that he merely hurried to obey the suggestion of Emily's note, for he took his way at once to the state prison across the river.
When Col. Mainwaring took hold of the prison that morning it was expected that two out of every five of the convicts would have to be bastinadoed before peace could be restored. Against the advice of all the deputies, including Hawkins, he had summoned his wards to the rotunda and outlined his course of action in a cool speech. The burden of it was that he intended to begin with a clean sheet and to look out for their interests rather than their sensibilities, or, as he expressed it, ”to give them hard words but soft mattresses.”
The matter and manner of the address had a tranquillizing effect and some of the shops that day wore as quiet and decent an aspect as any factory-room in the state. Moreover, as soon as it became known that the colonel had resolved to adopt several of the reforms demanded in d.i.c.kon Harvey's pet.i.tion, even the moodiest of the ring-leaders felt that they could submit without any hurt to pride.
Stretched on a hospital cot, whispering with contrite eyes to a black-robed clergyman, lay Dennis Mungovan. The look on his face was peaceful and exalted. His hands were clasped. The groans of patients and the odor of drugs which filled the chamber did not reach his senses. He had just finished his deathbed confession and stood upon a secure footing on the terra firma of faith, awaiting the summons from above.
”A lawyer to speak with Quirk,” announced the attendant.
”Not Quirk, but Mungovan,” said the clergyman, making way.
”And must you lave me, father dear?” besought the patient, stretching out his hands as a cold man in winter reaches toward the fire.
”I have a wedding to perform, my son. Remember, your hours in this valley of tears are few, and you have left everything worldly behind you. Thank G.o.d, who in His infinite mercy has given you the grace of a happy death.”
”I do, father, I do,” cried the pallid sufferer.
”And an opportunity to repent of your sins. G.o.d bless you. Good-by.”
The clergyman bowed to s.h.a.garach and departed--from the deathbed to the wedding service, from the grave to the cradle of life, so wide was the compa.s.s of his ministrations.
”You are dying, then?” asked s.h.a.garach.
”Wid a bullet in me breast, misthur, that the doctors can't rache. Och, they murdhered me wid their probin'. And all for what? All for nawthin'. What was I to be mixin' in their riots for? Wirrasthrue! Wirrasthrue!”
”You know Robert Floyd is in the prison here?”
”Robert Floyd! For the love o' heaven, misthur, don't tell him it's me. Tell him I'm Quirk. Och, that lie is a sin on me sowl.”
”The truth will be best when you are so near death,” said s.h.a.garach, quietly. ”Perhaps it would be better at all times. Besides, Mr. Floyd knows you are here.”
”Misther,” the dying man drew s.h.a.garach toward him. ”Misther! Do me a favor for the love o' doin' good.”
”What is it?”
”Will you do it--an' I'll pray for your sowl before the throne, so help me----”
”I will if I can. What is it?”
”Keep it from Ellen.”
”Keep what?”
”My name, my disgrace. Never let the poor girl know. She was my wife.”
”Your wife?” s.h.a.garach was puzzled a moment. ”You mean Ellen Greeley?”
”Ellen Mungovan, before G.o.d.”
”Ellen Greeley is dead. She perished in the fire.”
The man started up in his bed so violently as to burst the bandage of his wound. His blood began to stain the linen and s.h.a.garach was obliged to call an attendant, who adjusted it and tucked the patient snugly in. Still his gla.s.sy eyes were fixed on s.h.a.garach and his muttering lips seemed to say over the word: ”Dead! Dead! Dead!”
”She was burned to death in the Arnold fire. Robert Floyd is accused of setting it and causing her death.”
”Burned to death!” The man's brain seemed bewildered.
”Didn't you know these things?”
”Shure, how would I know them, misther, all cooped in here like a bat in a cave?”
”How did you come here?”
”Och, the foolishness came over me, wid my head tangled in dhrink. What does a man know in dhrink? He can't tell his friend from his inimy. And me that had a dacent mother in the ould counthry and a dacent wife in the new, look at this, where it druv me.”
”What crime are you charged with?”
”Wid breakin' and enterin', misther; and, sure, it was the stableman put me up to it that night I was full, and they got away and I was caught wid the watches on me and I was so shamed of Ellen and me mother at home, says I, I'll niver disgrace them, says I, and so I gev in me name Quirk, and none of them could tell the differ.”