The Millionth Chance/Chapter 2
II
I SENT my bags to the station at six. Upset by Billy’s diagnosis of my nervous trouble, and so unable as yet to obey his injunction not to think about myself, I could not trust my disobedient nerves aboard cab or street-car. The subway was a horror not to be considered for a moment. So I walked from my apartment on West Seventy-fourth Street, through the still swirling snow, to the Grand Central Station.
That I hated and despised myself for my cravenness goes without saying. If a man may be pardoned for referring to his courage, I think I may honestly state that until recently no one, not even myself, had had any cause to doubt mine. A man with a yellow streak might make one varsity crew; he would never make three.
I knew perfectly well, even as I endured the discomforts of the storm rather than face the intangible dread that the cars held for me, that if some gangster were to at tempt holding me up now I would tear into him with both hands. I felt my shoulders square involuntarily at the thought. I would like such an opportunity to regain my self-respect.
But the thought of being herded into a train with scores of other humans—I had read something of psycho-neurosis, the disease of fear. I knew that the ailment had two rough subdivisions, agoraphobia, the fear of the open places, and claustrophobia, the fear of being shut in. It was this latter dread that had come to claim me as its victim. I knew that it was a disease whose victims became more numerous every day. Heretofore, I had laughed at the new ailment. I had thought it some invention of the physicians to comfort the self-respect of patients who were natural-born cowards. But now, as I plunged through the drifts, my laugh was bitter.
The grinding years on Newspaper Row, with their irregular habits of eating and sleeping, plus the worry, financial and other wise, that had been mine when first I with drew from newspaper work to create Weatherbee Jones, had suddenly taken toll of me. Outwardly as strong as ever in my life, apparently perfectly fit, to the casual eye at least, my nerves were water and my will was milk.
It was this very reading about the disease that made me so meekly accept Billy Odlin’s orders. I knew that my claustrophobia, my fear of the shut-in places, would, unless checked, spread. Soon I would be come nervous about my food. I would dread that the cook had been careless and used unfit ingredients for my meal. I would become nervous about little scratches, always dreading infection. I would begin to fear any sharp instrument. Even now, I remembered, I had acquired a distaste for letting a barber cut my hair. How soon before I would become afraid to shave myself?
Oh, Billy was right and I was doing the sensible thing to try and nip my ailment in its first beginnings. But it was hard to be young and successful and doomed to exile from the city I loved best. Yet that exile must end sometime. I would not forever be a prey to fear. I must get well!
It was with this thought that I shook the snow from my great-coat and pounded my checked cap against my thigh, ridding it of the encrusted ice. I entered the Grand Central and glanced at a clock. Ten minutes of eight. I had just ten minutes then in which to buy my ticket and claim my bags in the parcel-room.
I walked swiftly to the ticket-agent’s window. I stopped a yard away, waiting for a young woman to gather up gloves, change and tickets from the little glass counter before the window. Evidently she had heard my approach, for she made haste in sweeping her change into a hand-bag.
She moved aside, giving me room before the window. As she did so, she half-turned and I recognized her. It was the girl of the theater and the subway, the witness to my panic on those two occasions. I felt my cheeks burn with shame. I turned quickly away and shoved a bill hastily under the grating that protected the agent.
“A ticket to Folly Cove, Maine, via Portland,” I said. “And a section as far as Portland.”
He selected a strip of pasteboard from a rack, stamped it with that deftness of hands that is common to ticket-sellers and soda-clerks, and shoved it, with my change, across the counter.
“Get your section at the next window,” he told me.
As there were windows on either side of him, I drew back to read the signs above them, for, like every other long-suffering New Yorker, I dislike asking the wrong person for whatever it is that I need. Those who have experienced the superciliousness of those supposed to serve in Manhattan will understand.
And as I backed away from the ticket-seller’s window, the girl flashed across my line of vision again. I could not help but see, in my brief glance, that she was looking at me, only now her glance was not as it had been in the subway. Instead of a wondering contempt, her expression seemed to be that of puzzled chagrin.
That she recognized me I could readily understand, having drawn her attention to me rather forcibly twice in the last twenty-four hours. But that she should be alarmed—alarm fitted her expression better than chagrin—at seeing me, I could not understand. I noticed, too, that the white-haired, elderly gentleman who had been with her at the theater and in the subway, still accompanied her, and that she had drawn his attention to me, as witness the gloved hand on his arm and his keen glance at me.
Then, out of the tail of my eye, as I continued to the Pullman ticket-window, I saw him pat her hand reassuringly. My flush became more vivid, I felt.
I guessed at why her features showed alarm. I had seemed like a crazy man to her twice before. She felt uneasy at the close proximity of a man not normal. I cursed the ambition that had made me work so hard in the years gone by; I cursed even Weatherbee Jones, the fiction character that had brought me a bit of fame, and a not inconsiderable income. What good was fame, what use was money, when the two had been traded for one’s self-control, lack of which made one appear a dangerous maniac in the eyes of a most charming young lady?
Hastily I purchased my section to Portland and with my eyes rigidly fixed upon the clock high up on the station wall—I would not meet the eyes of the girl again—I passed by them and hurried to the parcel-room. As I turned a corner of the mammoth station, I let my eyes fall. Thank God I was going away to be cured of the ailment that made me an object of fright to lovely young girls.
There was some delay in getting out my two stout suit-cases, tightly packed, and I feared that I would miss my train. But I didn’t. I dodged between the train-gates, just as they were being closed, and started down the platform.
No station-porter had been handy, so I carried the suit-cases myself. One of them swung forward and struck my knee. I stumbled and dropped it. As I picked it up a commotion at the gate through which I had passed attracted my attention.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw a man expostulating with the gate-tender. Then a cry from the train-porter, impatiently awaiting my arrival, made me for get the belated traveler at the gate. I hurried down the platform.
“Portland, boss? Jes’ in time,” grinned the porter. “Hustle abo’d, boss, she’s goin’ staht dis blessed minute. I’ll toss yo’ bags on.”
But I clung to one of them and scrambled up the car steps. As I reached the top I felt the train start. I looked back; the grinning darky with my other bag swung aboard.
“That was a tight squeeze, boss,” he chuckled. “What’s yo’ car?”
“Seven,” I told him. “Section nine.”
“You struck de right car, den, boss. Dis is seben. But I don’t think yo’ section is made up yet. Does yo’ wish to go to bed right away?”
“As soon as possible,” said I.
My more than two-mile tramp through the storm, added to my nervousness throughout the day, had about exhausted me. I felt tired and, though not yet sleepy, had no doubt but that Billy Odlin’s morphin pellet would bring sleep.
“I’ll wait in the smoking compartment,” I said. “Let me know as soon as my berth is ready.”
“Dat I will, boss,” said the negro.
He passed into the car, swaying beneath the burden of my two bags and the slow motion of the train. He pushed through the swinging doors that partitioned off the wash- and smoke-room and disappeared within the body of the car. I walked to the window and sat down upon the narrow leather-cushioned seat between two wash basins. As I did so I heard a clamor out side. I looked through the glass.
There, on the platform, by a desperate effort keeping pace with the train, ran a man, shouting at the top of his lungs. It was, I guessed, the man who had been late at the train-gate. Evidently he had persuaded the guard to let him through, but the argument had used up too much time.
The train had started before he could pass by the three cars and engine of an other train, probably destined later to Commuter-Land, that had been occupying the first stretch of the track on which had stood the Portland train.
I had time merely to notice that the man wore a rough blue greatcoat, somewhat like my own, and a checked cap similar to the one on my head, when the train gained headway. His desperate spurt had availed him nothing. Either no porter had heard his cries, or, hearing them, had refused to let the man risk life and limb by opening the vestibuled doors and letting down the steps.
The running man seemed to slip back. He disappeared. I felt sympathy for him. He had made a good fight and deserved to win.
But there were other trains to Portland; other days on which to travel. I didn’t waste much thought on him. My own troubles were too close at hand. In a moment we must begin passing through the tunnel, and all my fears, forgotten in the haste of getting my tickets and bags and making the train, came back to me. I knew that the next ten or twelve minutes were to be fraught with terror for me. And the only way to lessen my silly dread of passing through the tunnel was to occupy myself with something, if possible.
I WAITED until my car entered the tunnel. Then I withdrew pipe and tobacco and matches from my jacket pocket. As deliberately as possible I filled the pipe. As fussily as might be I tamped the tobacco down into the bowl. Then, with the greatest concentration and care, I applied a lighted match to the tobacco. I had used up three minutes.
But I will not dwell on my torments during the next seven or eight minutes. Only those who have suffered from my ailment can possibly understand it; others will only jeer. Suffice it to say that the train emerged unscathed from the tunnel.
My hands ceased shaking and the perspiration dried upon my forehead. Of course, the long dark night lay ahead of me, but the tunnel was the thing I had dreaded most. I could endure the rest, especially as I hoped to sleep through it.
I finished my pipe and looked at my watch. It was twenty after eight. I decided to smoke once more before turning in. And I was half-way through this smoke when some one pushed through the swinging doors.
For a moment I did not look up. Then that queer feeling that tells us that we are spied upon, that hold-over from primitive instincts, made me look up. The elderly gentleman who was the companion of the brown-eyed girl was looking at me.
He looked immediately away and sat down on the seat across the wash-room. He pulled out a cigar and lighted it. I looked out the window. Yet every now and then I drew my glance inward, letting it roam about the car, falling upon him. And each time I had the impression that he had been studying me from beneath his shaggy white brows and had turned away as I moved my head.
Slowly I became impatient of this scrutiny. Yet the man was indubitably a gentleman and I had not actually caught him spying upon me. And if I had—what then? I had made myself absurd in the eyes of himself and his daughter—I could not conceive it possible that she was his wife—twice already. Why shouldn’t he, considering me not entirely sane, perhaps, eye me once in a while. For all he knew I might become violent. I could not blame him, yet I could not remain and feel his eyes upon me. I knocked the dottle from my pipe and rose.
And as I pushed through the doors I heard him rise, too, and follow me. I was angry enough to turn and assure him that I was entirely harmless, but, of course, did nothing of the sort. Indeed, I felt ashamed, apologetic. A fine state of affairs, when my entrance into the sleeper was enough to cause an elderly gentleman to throw away the half of a cigar whose aroma suggested that it had cost at least twenty-five cents!
I could only fervently pray, as I stumbled past bulging draperies of made-up berths, that I would never see him again after tonight. Then, as I reached my section, and beyond it saw two sections not made up as yet, in one of which sat the elderly gentleman’s companion, I retracted my prayer. I did want to see her again, some time when my nerves were well, and I could explain to her why I seemed so queer. But until that longed-for time, I hoped our paths would not cross.
At my section I remembered that I had not yet taken Billy Odlin’s pellet. I turned, squeezing myself against the curtains of my berth, to let the old man pass. He did so without looking at me, and I walked back to the wash-room. There I put the morphine pellet on my tongue, washed it down with a glass of water, and came back to the car.
I stepped inside my curtains, drew them close, buttoned them and drew off my clothing. From one of the suit-cases I abstracted pajamas; then I managed clumsily to shove both of them beneath my berth. My pocketbook, which contained money and several newspaper clippings, about crimes which had interested me because I thought that they might be put to fiction uses and serve as mediums for further adventures of Weatherbee Jones, I placed beneath my pillow. There were no cards or other papers in it.
I settled myself in the narrow berth. The train jolted through the storm.
To keep myself from thinking of anything that might happen, to get my thoughts away from my almost ever-present fears, I tried to think up an unique plot for the Weatherbee Jones story that must not be written for at least six months, if I were to obey Billy Odlin. Of course, it was against his orders for me to work, but tonight, traveling, my cure not yet having been begun, I thought it would do no harm.
But soon Weatherbee Jones drifted out of my head. Scenes in which I played the hero’s part, with the brown-eyed girl as heroine, silly scenes of valor such as might fill the drowsy brain of a callow youth, formulated, morphin-induced, I imagine, in my brain.
IT WAS light when I awoke. It had ceased to snow, as I saw through the window at my side. I looked at my watch; it said ten o’clock. With a gasp of amazement, I sat upright and began feverishly removing my pajamas. Then I quieted down.
The train was moving, so, though it was past the hour when we should have reached Portland, there was no occasion for alarm. We were evidently quite late, doubtless because of the blizzard, and the considerate porter had permitted me to sleep as long I chose.
I dressed, with the exception of shirt and collar, leisurely. Then, stepping into the curtains, I reached under the berth for my aisle, but shielded from sight by my bulging suit-case, to pull out a fresh shirt and collar.
It seemed to me that the bag for which I reached was not in the same position as I had placed it last night. True, it was still on top of the other bag, but seemed placed at a different angle. Slightly puzzled, I lifted it to my berth and opened it. It was not locked, as I had not bothered to lock it after removing my pajamas from it last night.
I stared down at its contents. Everything was neatly arranged, but, it seemed to me, not arranged as I had seen them last night. Unless recollection entirely failed me, my hair-brushes had been on the side nearest the lock, not at the farther side, by the hinges of the cover. Yet nothing was missing. I shook my head, puzzled.
Then I smiled at myself. My shoes were freshly shined. In reaching under the berth for them the porter had probably knocked this suitcase off the other one. In replacing it he had tilted the bag, causing the brushes to slide over.
“Weatherbee Jones himself couldn't have done better,” I chuckled.
I placed my pajamas inside the bag, also my discarded shirt and collar and tie, and took out fresh apparel. Then I slipped my jacket on, gathered up the fresh linen and unbuttoned the curtains preparatory to going to the wash-room. But I remembered my pocketbook. I reached under the pillow for it. In a purely mechanical fashion I opened it to note if its contents were intact.
They were; but once again I noticed something queer. My newspaper clippings were not folded exactly as they had been last night. At least, the corners of them were bent over as if they had been hastily placed in the pocketbook. But I had not placed them there in a hurry. I had put them in most carefully.
I counted my money. It was all there. And yet, I could not rid myself of the feeling that some one had been at that pocket-book during the night. Then, for the second time, I laughed at my suspicions. I had slept with the thing beneath my head. What more natural than that movements of my head during the night had pressed the contents of the pocketbook, had rumpled them?
Good Heavens, was my mental condition to take an added twist? Was I to become old-womanish, suspicious of every little thing? I say, I laughed at myself. But the scornful, self-directed mirth died away as I glimpsed, upon the pillow on which my head had reposed during the night, something that assuredly I had never dropped there.
I put the pocketbook inside my coat, unbuttoned the final fastening, and stepped out into the aisle. Evidently I was the deepest sleeper of all, for every other berth had been turned into a seat, or folded, if an upper, into the angle between wall and roof of the car.
Right next to me, back to me, sat the girl of the brown hair and eyes. The elderly man, who was talking quietly with her and facing toward me, lifted his eyes as I emerged from the curtains, then looked incuriously away. But I looked at the girl’s hair and saw what, somehow, I had expected to see there, from the moment I glimpsed the object on my pillow.
But I stood there only a second. Then I turned and made my way to the washroom.
The porter entered just as I had finished my toilet.
“Yo’ sure got a easy conscience, sah,” he greeted me. “Yo’ certainly am the finest-sleepin’ gemman ever I see. Jes’ fo’ yo’ sake, sah, because you was havin’ sech a fine rest, I’m glad the train’s late. I’d hated to wake yo’ up, sah.”
I smiled.
“I did have a good rest, thank you,” I told him. “And how late are we?”
“’Fraid we won’t get in much befo’ noon, sah. Big storm, sah.”
“Is there a diner with us? Any chance for breakfast?”
“I can make some cawffee, sah. I’ve made quite a bit already, and people has had to get along with that, sah. Sorry, but dat’s de best I can do.”
“That will do nicely,” I assured him. “Oh, by the way, porter,” I said, as he started from the compartment, “is the linen on the berths changed every trip?”
“Why, mos’ certainly, sah,” he answered aggrievedly. “Was yo’ thinkin’ things wasn’t clean, sah?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “I was just curious.”
“Yes, sah, you jes’ bet dey’s fresh every single trip. Make de cawffee right away, sah.”
The train was not crowded. The only man I had seen on my way to the wash room was the elderly gentleman. All the other passengers were women. And there were only half a dozen of these, not one of them, I judged, being younger than middle-age.
A writer has to be somewhat of a judge of character. Meager as had been my glimpse of these passengers, I yet felt that I could safely assume that not one of those women was other than she appeared to be, a travel-weary woman, harmless, inoffensive, capable of not a single impulse more powerful than to scold the grocer about the last dozen eggs. Certainly not one of them could have it in her to play a part, the part, in the drama which, from cells of either recollection or of dreams, pieced out by what Weatherbee Jones would have been made by me to call “suspicious circumstances,” or “clues,” was in process of construction—reconstruction—in my brain.
I remained in the wash-room until the train reached Portland at about noon. There I drank my coffee and smoked the first of the three smokes Billy Odlin had allowed me—it was a cigar—while I put the drama together. I was undisturbed by any one. Doubtless the elderly gentleman didn’t smoke before luncheon. Over and over again I puzzled what the thing might mean.
Grant that the recollection inspired by the finding of the little object on my pillow was but the remembrance of a dream. Grant that I had not been awakened from my morphin-induced sleep during the middle of the night, to glimpse, in the light of the electric lamp that I had left burning by my head all night, the face of the brown haired girl, only, morphin-stupefied, to go back to sleep at once. Grant that I had not even dreamed that she bent above me, but, in some curious fashion understood by psychologists, had, upon finding the little object upon my pillow, imagined that I dreamed her nocturnal visit.
Grant that the porter’s clumsiness accounted for the disarray of my suitcase; grant that my own head had pressed the corners of the newspaper clippings in my pocketbook, and not the hasty return of them to the wallet by another hand. Grant all these things and still remained the vital fact. Some one, and that some one a woman, had dropped upon my pillow the object which I now held in my hand, as we lumbered toward Portland.
That object was an amber-colored hairpin, of the sort known, I believe, to women as “bone hairpins,” though made of some composition. How, unless dropped from a woman’s hair, had that hairpin got there? And the brown-haired girl wore this kind of pin. I had noticed that on leaving my section.
Into the mouth of Weatherbee Jones I had put this maxim—
“Look with suspicion upon too many coincidences!”
The finding of the hair-pin was the last of several coincidences.
I tried to dismiss the matter from my mind. The previous suspicious circumstances I had explained—the disarray of the bag, the pressed-down corners of the clippings. The dream, or recollection, might yield to the psychological explanation I have hinted at above. And the hairpin? Well, it might have remained, from some previous woman passenger, somewhere in my section. It might have fallen upon my pillow during the night. It might have done so. And yet, there was the logic of my own creation, Weatherbee Jones—
“Look with suspicion upon too many coincidences!”
Yet why should the brown-haired girl have rifled my bag and pocketbook during the night? How would she dare take such chances? Especially as financial gain could not have been her object, as witness my intact cash?
I was absurd, an utter idiot, suspicious of everything. I prayed that after the train got to Portland I’d not see her again. That is, not until I was better, and—but why did I want ever to see again a girl who was a potential thief? For I did want to; I could not deny it, although I was trying to when at last the train stopped.