The Deaves Affair

Somewhere behind him the door was open. Putting his head down he charged for it. Instantly half a dozen pairs of hands seized him. He was borne back until he crashed against a wall. He felt of it gratefully. A deep instinctive need was supplied by the feeling of something solid at his back.

"Take your hands off him," said the principal voice.

Evan was freed, but he knew they still stood close beside him. The voice went on peremptorily. "Stand still if you don't want to be pinned against the wall like an insect."

"Unbind my eyes!" cried Evan. "Let me see what's coming to me."

The voice replied in its grim drawl: "Sorry, but we can't let you take mental pictures of us even to the other side."

"You're afraid to face me, you cowards!"

"Maybe. If you want to send any messages I'll transmit them."

Evan snatched at the chance. "I'd like to send a letter."

"All right." There was a pause while the speaker presumably found pencil and paper. "Go ahead."

Evan dictated Charley Straiker's address. "Dear Charl: I have cut loose. I have taken to the trail. You will not see me again. I leave everything I have in my room to you. It will not make you rich. With one exception. I want to send my least-bad picture to a friend. It's the one I call 'Green and Gold,' the view of the Square from my window in the morning light. There's a little frame that fits it. Write on the back of it – write – Oh, don't write anything. Wrap it up and address it to Miss Corinna Playfair. Take it to the steamboat Ernestina which will be lying at the pier foot of East Twentieth street on Saturday morning up to Nine-Thirty. Be good, old son. Here's how. Evan."

"Are you ready?" demanded the harsh voice unexpectedly close.

"Shoot and be damned to you!" said Evan.

He felt a little rim of cold steel pressed against his temple. With that touch all Evan's agony rolled away. After all, what was life but a jest? Thank God! he was not a coward!

The other man was still speaking – Good God would he never have done! – "I will give you the word." Then he began to count: "One, two, three – !"

Evan cried gaily: "So long, all!"

"Fire!"

There was a deafening crash. Everything went from him.

CHAPTER XVI

BACK TO EARTH

Like a thin, torn wrack of cloud scurrying across the night sky; like music so far away that the instrument and the air were alike unrecognisable; like an underexposed photograph; like the kiss of wind – such were Evan's vague impressions. "What existence is this?" he asked himself. Consciousness was sweet and he was afraid to question it for fear of slipping back into nothingness. He lay exulting in his sensations.

As these sensations became stronger the questioning spirit would not be denied. "I breathe," he thought. "I feel my breast rise. Therefore I have a body. I hear a sound like the stirring of a breeze among leaves, and another sound, a strange, faint hum. And I see, though I am surrounded by darkness. It is night and out-of-doors."

The feeling of having awakened in a new existence wore off. He accepted that which surrounded him as the same old world. He found that he was lying on a soft bed of leaves in a wood. He was wrapped in a bed covering, a cotton coverlet in fact. He did not recognise it. He instinctively felt about for his hat and found it near. He stood erect, and found that his legs were able to perform their office. He started to walk blindly through the wood. There were no stars.

A certain part of his brain had stopped working. It was that part which reasoned from memory. He remembered nothing. He did things without knowing why he did them. He came to a road; he knew it was a road, and knew what roads were for. He followed it. He was dimly conscious that he was not in a normal condition, but the fact did not distress him: on the contrary he experienced a fine lightness of spirit; it was enough for him that the blood was stirring in his veins, and the night air was cool and sweet.

Presently he heard a whirring sound familiar to his senses, and saw the oscillating reflection of a bright light around a bend in the road; an automobile. He hastily dived into the underbrush at the side. He had no reason to be afraid, but he felt a shivering repugnance to showing himself to his fellow-creatures in his present state.

When the car had passed he returned to the road. A few paces further on the trees at his right hand opened up, and a wonderful panorama was spread before him; a great, dark, gleaming river far below, and on the other side myriads upon myriads of fairy-like white lights like fireflies arrested in mid-flight. From this direction came the faint hum he had remarked.

Evan knew instinctively that this was the city, and that he must get there. He saw further that he was bound in the wrong direction. The way he was heading the lights were thinning out; the thickest clusters were behind him. His instinct further told him that where the lights were thick he would find a means of crossing the river. So he retraced his steps.

Bye and bye houses began to rise alongside the road, all dark-windowed and still. "It is very late," thought Evan. Finally the road came to an end at the gates of a ferry-house. Evan automatically produced a coin to pay his fare, and passed on board the boat. There were but few passengers. He gave them a wide berth.

Reaching the other shore he started walking towards the centre of the city. Coming to a place where trains of cars passed to and fro on a trestle overhead, he climbed a flight of steps to a station, and producing another coin, took a seat in the first train that came. He was perfectly able to see, to hear, to read the advertising cards in the train, but it was all new and inexplicable to him. Some power outside of his consciousness was directing his steps. In the brightly-lighted car he shivered under the gaze of his fellow-passengers, but nobody paid him any special regard.

At a certain station something stirred his feet, and they bore him off the train, down the steps and through certain streets to a certain door facing upon a little Park. Fronted by this door his hand dived into his pocket and brought forth a key which opened it. Like a sleep-walker he mounted to the top of the house and entered a room there. Something in the aspect of this room caused a deep sigh of satisfaction to escape him; he knew where everything was without lighting the gas. Undressing and climbing into bed he fell into a dreamless sleep.

He was awakened by a pillow flung at his head. He beheld a grinning, sharp-featured face under a shock of lank, molasses-candy-coloured hair, a face as dear and familiar to him as the room, and he knew that the owner of it was called Charley.

"Aren't you going to get up to-day?"

"Go to Hell!" said Evan, grinning back. Oh but the sight of his friend was good to his eyes! Something real, something familiar, something that identified this poor wandering soul and gave it a locus.

"You must have made a night of it," remarked Charley.

Some deep instinct still bade Evan to conceal his condition. "What's for breakfast?" he cried, jumping up.

"Same old stunt! Beggs and acon."

"Gee! I'm as hungry as a hunter. Break me three Humpty-dumpties and fry them sunny side up."

Charley perceived nothing amiss. Breakfast was partaken of to the accompaniment of the usual airy persiflage. Evan knew very well that Charley could supply the clues to his lost identity, but he couldn't bring himself to ask him directly. He kept his ears open for any chance remarks that might throw light on the matter, but Charley's style was so flowery he didn't get much. Charley finally departed on some errand of his own.

Left alone, Evan went about his room, touching the familiar objects, looking into everything, trying to fill in that blank space in his mind. As soon as he saw the paraphernalia he knew he was a painter. His pictures interested him greatly. He knew they were his own pictures, but he had lost all sense of kinship with them. In a way it was a great advantage; he brought a fresh point of view to bear.

"I see what's the matter with them," he said to himself. "You have been trying to convey the inner spirit of things without being sufficiently sure of their outward form. What you've got to do is to study the outsides of things further, and invite the spirit to express itself."

So interested was he that he put a fresh canvas on his easel on the spot, and started to paint. Any object would serve to prove his new theory; their brown pitcher with a broken spout and a green bowl beside it on the table. An hour passed without his noticing its flight.

Charley returned.

"Hello!" he said. "Had another row with your old man?"

"Old man!" thought Evan. "Oh, nothing much," he said aloud.

"Well, I must say you take your job pretty lightly," said Charley.

Evan thought: "So I have a job."

Charley went on: "There was a story in the paper this morning about one of your lot. I brought it in. Sounds fishy."

Evan pricked up his ears.

Charley read: "A reporter assigned to police headquarters happened to see Inspector Durdan, chief of the Detective Bureau, and five plain clothes men climbing into a covered motor van on Mulberry street yesterday, and scenting a good story, followed in a taxi-cab. Naturally the Inspector does not personally take part except in raids of some importance. The chase led to No. 11 Van Dorn street. Van Dorn is an obscure little street on the far West side. An agitated individual was discovered on the steps of this house whom the reporter recognised as Mr. George Deaves, son of the multi-millionaire. He cried out to the police: 'He's gone in! He's gone in!' The police forced their way into the house. One was left at the door, and the reporter was not allowed to enter. Through the open door he saw other police inside, who must have entered from the back. They were searching the house. One called down-stairs: 'They've gone over the roofs towards MacDougall street,' whereupon several of the police started to run down the block to the corner of MacDougall and the reporter followed. He was just in time to see two men issue from a tenement house carrying what looked like the corpse of a third between them. The body was wrapped in an old cotton comforter. They threw it in a waiting taxi and made a getaway though the police fired in the air, and ordered them to stop. At police headquarters all information was refused. At Mr. Deaves' residence word was sent out that Mr. Deaves had not been out that morning. The woman who keeps the Van Dorn street house, a Mrs. Patten, either would not or could not tell what had happened."

At this point in the story Charley looked up to see how Evan was taking it. Seeing Evan's expression he forgot to read the rest. Evan was staring into vacancy as if he saw a ghost. As a matter of fact complete recollection had returned in a great flash, and the reaction was dizzying. His first conscious act was to feel of his temple. It was whole.

"What's the matter with you?" cried Charley.