A Suspicious Gift
Blake had been in very low water for months--almost under water part ofthe time--due to circumstances he was fond of saying were no fault ofhis own; and as he sat writing in his room on "third floor back" of aNew York boarding-house, part of his mind was busily occupied inwondering when his luck was going to turn again.It was his room only in the sense that he paid the rent. Two friends,one a little Frenchman and the other a big Dane, shared it with him,both hoping eventually to contribute something towards expenses, but sofar not having accomplished this result. They had two beds only, thethird being a mattress they slept upon in turns, a week at a time. Agood deal of their irregular "feeding" consisted of oatmeal, potatoes,and sometimes eggs, all of which they cooked on a strange utensil theyhad contrived to fix into the gas jet. Occasionally, when dinner failedthem altogether, they swallowed a little raw rice and drank hot waterfrom the bathroom on the top of it, and then made a wild race for bed soas to get to sleep while the sensation of false repletion was stillthere. For sleep and hunger are slight acquaintances as they well knew.Fortunately all New York houses are supplied with hot air, and they onlyhad to open a grating in the wall to get a plentiful, if not a wholesomeamount of heat.Though loneliness in a big city is a real punishment, as they hadseverally learnt to their cost, their experiences, three in a small roomfor several months, had revealed to them horrors of quite another kind,and their nerves had suffered according to the temperament of each. But,on this particular evening, as Blake sat scribbling by the only windowthat was not cracked, the Dane and the Frenchman, his companions inadversity, were in wonderful luck. They had both been asked out to arestaurant to dine with a friend who also held out to one of them achance of work and remuneration. They would not be back till late, andwhen they did come they were pretty sure to bring in supplies of onekind or another. For the Frenchman never could resist the offer of aglass of absinthe, and this meant that he would be able to help himselfplentifully from the free-lunch counters, with which all New York barsare furnished, and to which any purchaser of a drink is entitled to helphimself and devour on the spot or carry away casually in his hand forconsumption elsewhere. Thousands of unfortunate men get their solesubsistence in this way in New York, and experience soon teaches where,for the price of a single drink, a man can take away almost a meal ofchip potatoes, sausage, bits of bread, and even eggs. The Frenchman andthe Dane knew their way about, and Blake looked forward to a supper moreor less substantial before pulling his mattress out of the cupboard andturning in upon the floor for the night.Meanwhile he could enjoy a quiet and lonely evening with the room all tohimself.In the daytime he was a reporter on an evening newspaper of sensationaland lying habits. His work was chiefly in the police courts; and in hisspare hours at night, when not too tired or too empty, he wrote sketchesand stories for the magazines that very rarely saw the light of day ontheir printed and paid-for sentences. On this particular occasion he wasdeep in a most involved tale of a psychological character, and had justworked his way into a sentence, or set of sentences, that completelybaffled and muddled him.He was fairly out of his depth, and his brain was too poorly suppliedwith blood to invent a way out again. The story would have beeninteresting had he written it simply, keeping to facts and feelings, andnot diving into difficult analysis of motive and character which wasquite beyond him. For it was largely autobiographical, and was meant todescribe the adventures of a young Englishman who had come to grief inthe usual manner on a Canadian farm, had then subsequently becomebar-keeper, sub-editor on a Methodist magazine, a teacher of French andGerman to clerks at twenty-five cents per hour, a model for artists, asuper on the stage, and, finally, a wanderer to the goldfields.Blake scratched his head, and dipped the pen in the inkpot, stared outthrough the blindless windows, and sighed deeply. His thoughts keptwandering to food, beefsteak and steaming vegetables. The smell ofcooking that came from a lower floor through the broken windows was aconstant torment to him. He pulled himself together and again attackedthe problem." . . . for with some people," he wrote, "the imagination is so vivid asto be almost an extension of consciousness. . . ." But here he stuckabsolutely. He was not quite sure what he meant by the words, and how tofinish the sentence puzzled him into blank inaction. It was a difficultpoint to decide, for it seemed to come in appropriately at this point inhis story, and he did not know whether to leave it as it stood, changeit round a bit, or take it out altogether. It might just spoil itschances of being accepted: editors were such clever men. But, to rewritethe sentence was a grind, and he was so tired and sleepy. After all,what did it matter? People who were clever would force a meaning intoit; people who were not clever would pretend--he knew of no otherclasses of readers. He would let it stay, and go on with the action ofthe story. He put his head in his hands and began to think hard.His mind soon passed from thought to reverie. He fell to wondering whenhis friends would find work and relieve him of the burden--heacknowledged it as such--of keeping them, and of letting another manwear his best clothes on alternate Sundays. He wondered when his "luck"would turn. There were one or two influential people in New York whomhe could go and see if he had a dress suit and the other conventionaluniforms. His thoughts ran on far ahead, and at the same time, by a sortof double process, far behind as well. His home in the "old country"rose up before him; he saw the lawn and the cedars in sunshine; helooked through the familiar windows and saw the clean, swept rooms. Hisstory began to suffer; the psychological masterpiece would not make muchprogress unless he pulled up and dragged his thoughts back to thetreadmill. But he no longer cared; once he had got as far as that cedarwith the sunshine on it, he never could get back again. For all hecared, the troublesome sentence might run away and get into someoneelse's pages, or be snuffed out altogether.There came a gentle knock at the door, and Blake started. The knock wasrepeated louder. Who in the world could it be at this late hour of thenight? On the floor above, he remembered, there lived anotherEnglishman, a foolish, second-rate creature, who sometimes came in andmade himself objectionable with endless and silly chatter. But he was anEnglishman for all that, and Blake always tried to treat him withpoliteness, realising that he was lonely in a strange land. Butto-night, of all people in the world, he did not want to be bored withPerry's cackle, as he called it, and the "Come in" he gave in answer tothe second knock had no very cordial sound of welcome in it.However, the door opened in response, and the man came in. Blake did notturn round at once, and the other advanced to the centre of the room,but without speaking. Then Blake knew it was not his enemy, Perry, andturned round.He saw a man of about forty standing in the middle of the carpet, butstanding sideways so that he did not present a full face. He wore anovercoat buttoned up to the neck, and on the felt hat which he held infront of him fresh rain-drops glistened. In his other hand he carried asmall black bag. Blake gave him a good look, and came to the conclusionthat he might be a secretary, or a chief clerk, or a confidential man ofsorts. He was a shabby-respectable-looking person. This was thesum-total of the first impression, gained the moment his eyes took inthat it was not Perry; the second impression was less pleasant, andreported at once that something was wrong.Though otherwise young and inexperienced, Blake--thanks, or curses, tothe police court training--knew more about common criminalblackguardism than most men of fifty, and he recognised that there wassomewhere a suggestion of this undesirable world about the man. Butthere was more than this. There was something singular about him,something far out of the common, though for the life of him Blake couldnot say wherein it lay. The fellow was out of the ordinary, and in somevery undesirable manner.All this, that takes so long to describe, Blake saw with the first andsecond glance. The man at once began to speak in a quiet and respectfulvoice."Are you Mr. Blake?" he asked."I am.""Mr. Arthur Blake?""Yes.""Mr. Arthur Herbert Blake?" persisted the other, with emphasis on themiddle name."That is my full name," Blake answered simply, adding, as he rememberedhis manners; "but won't you sit down, first, please?"The man advanced with a curious sideways motion like a crab and took aseat on the edge of the sofa. He put his hat on the floor at his feet,but still kept the bag in his hand."I come to you from a well-wisher," he went on in oily tones, withoutlifting his eyes. Blake, in his mind, ran quickly over all the people heknew in New York who might possibly have sent such a man, while waitingfor him to supply the name. But the man had come to a full stop and waswaiting too."A well-wisher of mine?" repeated Blake, not knowing quite what elseto say."Just so," replied the other, still with his eyes on the floor. "Awell-wisher of yours.""A man or--" he felt himself blushing, "or a woman?""That," said the man shortly, "I cannot tell you.""You can't tell me!" exclaimed the other, wondering what was comingnext, and who in the world this mysterious well-wisher could be who sentso discreet and mysterious a messenger."I cannot tell you the name," replied the man firmly. "Those are myinstructions. But I bring you something from this person, and I am togive it to you, to take a receipt for it, and then to go away withoutanswering any questions."Blake stared very hard. The man, however, never raised his eyes abovethe level of the second china knob on the chest of drawers opposite. Thegiving of a receipt sounded like money. Could it be that some of hisinfluential friends had heard of his plight? There were possibilitiesthat made his heart beat. At length, however, he found his tongue, forthis strange creature was determined apparently to say nothing moreuntil he had heard from him."Then, what have you got for me, please?" he asked bluntly.By way of answer the man proceeded to open the bag. He took out a parcelwrapped loosely in brown paper, and about the size of a large book. Itwas tied with string, and the man seemed unnecessarily long untying theknot. When at last the string was off and the paper unfolded, thereappeared a series of smaller packages inside. The man took them out verycarefully, almost as if they had been alive, Blake thought, and set themin a row upon his knees. They were dollar bills. Blake, all in aflutter, craned his neck forward a little to try and make out theirdenomination. He read plainly the figures 100."There are ten thousand dollars here," said the man quietly.The other could not suppress a little cry."And they are for you."Blake simply gasped. "Ten thousand dollars!" he repeated, a queerfeeling growing up in his throat. "Ten thousand. Are you sure? Imean--you mean they are for me?" he stammered. He felt quite sillywith excitement, and grew more so with every minute, as the manmaintained a perfect silence. Was it not a dream? Wouldn't the man putthem back in the bag presently and say it was a mistake, and they weremeant for somebody else? He could not believe his eyes or his ears. Yet,in a sense, it was possible. He had read of such things in books, andeven come across them in his experience of the courts--the erratic andgenerous philanthropist who is determined to do his good deed and to getno thanks or acknowledgment for it. Still, it seemed almost incredible.His troubles began to melt away like bubbles in the sun; he thought ofthe other fellows when they came in, and what he would have to tellthem; he thought of the German landlady and the arrears of rent, ofregular food and clean linen, and books and music, of the chance ofgetting into some respectable business, of--well, of as many things asit is possible to think of when excitement and surprise fling wide openthe gates of the imagination.The man, meanwhile, began quietly to count over the packages aloud fromone to ten, and then to count the bills in each separate packet, alsofrom one to ten. Yes, there were ten little heaps, each containing tenbills of a hundred-dollar denomination. That made ten thousand dollars.Blake had never seen so much money in a single lump in his life before;and for many months of privation and discomfort he had not known the"feel" of a twenty-dollar note, much less of a hundred-dollar one. Heheard them crackle under the man's fingers, and it was like crisplaughter in his ears. The bills were evidently new and unused.But, side by side with the excitement caused by the shock of such anevent, Blake's caution, acquired by a year of vivid New York experience,was meanwhile beginning to assert itself. It all seemed just a littletoo much out of the likely order of things to be quite right. The policecourts had taught him the amazing ingenuity of the criminal mind, aswell as something of the plots and devices by which the unwary arebeguiled into the dark places where blackmail may be levied withimpunity. New York, as a matter of fact, just at that time was literallyundermined with the secret ways of the blackmailers, the green-goodsmen, and other police-protected abominations; and the only weak pointin the supposition that this was part of some such proceeding was theselection of himself--a poor newspaper reporter--as a victim. It didseem absurd, but then the whole thing was so out of the ordinary, andthe thought once having entered his mind, was not so easily got rid of.Blake resolved to be very cautious.The man meanwhile, though he never appeared to raise his eyes from thecarpet, had been watching him closely all the time."If you will give me a receipt I'll leave the money at once," he said,with just a vestige of impatience in his tone, as if he were anxious tobring the matter to a conclusion as soon as possible."But you say it is quite impossible for you to tell me the name of mywell-wisher, or why she sends me such a large sum of money in thisextraordinary way?""The money is sent to you because you are in need of it," returned theother; "and it is a present without conditions of any sort attached. Youhave to give me a receipt only to satisfy the sender that it has reachedyour hands. The money will never be asked of you again."Blake noticed two things from this answer: first, that the man was notto be caught into betraying the sex of the well-wisher; and secondly,that he was in some hurry to complete the transaction. For he was nowgiving reasons, attractive reasons, why he should accept the money andmake out the receipt.Suddenly it flashed across his mind that if he took the money and gavethe receipt before a witness, nothing very disastrous could come ofthe affair. It would protect him against blackmail, if this was, afterall, a plot of some sort with blackmail in it; whereas, if the man werea madman, or a criminal who was getting rid of a portion of hisill-gotten gains to divert suspicion, or if any other improbableexplanation turned out to be the true one, there was no great harm done,and he could hold the money till it was claimed, or advertised for inthe newspapers. His mind rapidly ran over these possibilities, though,of course, under the stress of excitement, he was unable to weigh any ofthem properly; then he turned to his strange visitor again and saidquietly--"I will take the money, although I must say it seems to me a veryunusual transaction, and I will give you for it such a receipt as Ithink proper under the circumstances.""A proper receipt is all I want," was the answer."I mean by that a receipt before a proper witness--""Perfectly satisfactory," interrupted the man, his eyes still on thecarpet. "Only, it must be dated, and headed with your address here inthe correct way."Blake could see no possible objection to this, and he at once proceededto obtain his witness. The person he had in his mind was a Mr. Barclay,who occupied the room above his own; an old gentleman who had retiredfrom business and who, the landlady always said, was a miser, and keptlarge sums secreted in his room. He was, at any rate, a perfectlyrespectable man and would make an admirable witness to a transaction ofthis sort. Blake made an apology and rose to fetch him, crossing theroom in front of the sofa where the man sat, in order to reach the door.As he did so, he saw for the first time the other side of hisvisitor's face, the side that had been always so carefully turned awayfrom him.There was a broad smear of blood down the skin from the ear to theneck. It glistened in the gaslight.Blake never knew how he managed to smother the cry that sprang to hislips, but smother it he did. In a second he was at the door, his kneestrembling, his mind in a sudden and dreadful turmoil.His main object, so far as he could recollect afterwards, was to escapefrom the room as if he had noticed nothing, so as not to arouse theother's suspicions. The man's eyes were always on the carpet, andprobably, Blake hoped, he had not noticed the consternation that musthave been written plainly on his face. At any rate he had uttered nocry.In another second he would have been in the passage, when suddenly hemet a pair of wicked, staring eyes fixed intently and with a cunningsmile upon his own. It was the other's face in the mirror calmlywatching his every movement.Instantly, all his powers of reflection flew to the winds, and hethought only upon the desirability of getting help at once. He toreupstairs, his heart in his mouth. Barclay must come to his aid. Thismatter was serious--perhaps horribly serious. Taking the money, orgiving a receipt, or having anything at all to do with it became animpossibility. Here was crime. He felt certain of it.In three bounds he reached the next landing and began to hammer at theold miser's door as if his very life depended on it. For a long time hecould get no answer. His fists seemed to make no noise. He might havebeen knocking on cotton wool, and the thought dashed through his brainthat it was all just like the terror of a nightmare.Barclay, evidently, was still out, or else sound asleep. But the othersimply could not wait a minute longer in suspense. He turned the handleand walked into the room. At first he saw nothing for the darkness, andmade sure the owner of the room was out; but the moment the light fromthe passage began a little to disperse the gloom, he saw the old man, tohis immense relief, lying asleep on the bed.Blake opened the door to its widest to get more light and then walkedquickly up to the bed. He now saw the figure more plainly, and notedthat it was dressed and lay only upon the outside of the bed. It struckhim, too, that he was sleeping in a very odd, almost an unnatural,position.Something clutched at his heart as he looked closer. He stumbled over achair and found the matches. Calling upon Barclay the whole time to wakeup and come downstairs with him, he blundered across the floor, adreadful thought in his mind, and lit the gas over the table. It seemedstrange that there was no movement or reply to his shouting. But it nolonger seemed strange when at length he turned, in the full glare of thegas, and saw the old man lying huddled up into a ghastly heap on thebed, his throat cut across from ear to ear.And all over the carpet lay new dollar bills, crisp and clean like thosehe had left downstairs, and strewn about in little heaps.For a moment Blake stood stock-still, bereft of all power of movement.The next, his courage returned, and he fled from the room and dasheddownstairs, taking five steps at a time. He reached the bottom and torealong the passage to his room, determined at any rate to seize the manand prevent his escape till help came.But when he got to the end of the little landing he found that his doorhad been closed. He seized the handle, fumbling with it in his violence.It felt slippery and kept turning under his fingers without opening thedoor, and fully half a minute passed before it yielded and let him inheadlong.At the first glance he saw the room was empty, and the man gone!Scattered upon the carpet lay a number of the bills, and beside them,half hidden under the sofa where the man had sat, he saw a pair ofgloves--thick, leathern gloves--and a butcher's knife. Even from thedistance where he stood the blood-stains on both were easily visible.Dazed and confused by the terrible discoveries of the last few minutes,Blake stood in the middle of the room, overwhelmed and unable to thinkor move. Unconsciously he must have passed his hand over his forehead inthe natural gesture of perplexity, for he noticed that the skin felt wetand sticky. His hand was covered with blood! And when he rushed interror to the looking-glass, he saw that there was a broad red smearacross his face and forehead. Then he remembered the slippery handle ofthe door and knew that it had been carefully moistened!In an instant the whole plot became clear as daylight, and he was sospellbound with horror that a sort of numbness came over him and he camevery near to fainting. He was in a condition of utter helplessness, andhad anyone come into the room at that minute and called him by name hewould simply have dropped to the floor in a heap."If the police were to come in now!" The thought crashed through hisbrain like thunder, and at the same moment, almost before he had time toappreciate a quarter of its significance, there came a loud knocking atthe front door below. The bell rang with a dreadful clamour; men'svoices were heard talking excitedly, and presently heavy steps began tocome up the stairs in the direction of his room.It was the police!And all Blake could do was to laugh foolishly to himself--and wait tillthey were upon him. He could not move nor speak. He stood face to facewith the evidence of his horrid crime, his hands and face smeared withthe blood of his victim, and there he was standing when the police burstopen the door and came noisily into the room."Here it is!" cried a voice he knew. "Third floor back! And the fellowcaught red-handed!"It was the man with the bag leading in the two policemen.Hardly knowing what he was doing in the fearful stress of conflictingemotions, he made a step forward. But before he had time to make asecond one, he felt the heavy hand of the law descend upon bothshoulders at once as the two policemen moved up to seize him. At thesame moment a voice of thunder cried in his ear--"Wake up, man! Wake up! Here's the supper, and good news too!"Blake turned with a start in his chair and saw the Dane, very red in theface, standing beside him, a hand on each shoulder, and a little furtherback he saw the Frenchman leering happily at him over the end of thebed, a bottle of beer in one hand and a paper package in the other.He rubbed his eyes, glancing from one to the other, and then got upsleepily to fix the wire arrangement on the gas jet to boil water forcooking the eggs which the Frenchman was in momentary danger of lettingdrop upon the floor.
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