CHAPTER XIX
THE FACE AT THE WINDOW
“I’ll give you a description of Tom Drake first, so you will not fail to know him if you should ever see him,” John Loker said when Editha motioned him to begin.
“He’s a scamp, if there ever was one abroad in the world, and it would be a good thing for the public if he should yet have to serve a term of years somewhere.
“He is a tall, broad-shouldered, burly-looking man, with an ugly face on him, square, heavy jaws, and fierce black eyes.
“His hair is red, too—something you don’t often see with black eyes. There is a piece gone, too, from the lobe of his left ear, where he was once shot by a policeman, and came near losing his life. He has a scar under his right eye, and the little finger on his left hand is missing; that was done in blowing open a safe at one time.”
Editha did not think she could fail to know him after this description, and she already felt a sort of creeping horror in her veins as in her mind’s eye she saw this dreadful man.
“Well, miss,” the invalid continued, “about that robbery; we’d planned to do the thing—or, rather, he’d planned it all, and I was to help do the dirty work, a long, long time before we found a chance to carry it out. We’d got all the bearings, and knew just how every room in the house lay before we ever entered it.
“On that night—it was cloudy and dark, if you remember—Tom cut out a pane of glass from one of the area windows with a diamond he has on purpose, while I watched to see that no one was around.
“We then easily entered by that window, and made as short work as possible of clearing out everything of value that we could lay our hands on in the house.
“It was about the neatest and most profitable job that was ever done in a private house, and not a soul awoke through it all.
“There were the silver spoons and gold-lined salt cellars, and a lot of other stuff in the china closet out of the dining room, all clean, solid silver, too. We cracked the safe in the library, and, though we did not get much money, we got a lot of diamonds belonging to your mother, miss, like enough, and then we went upstairs to see what we could find there.
“I didn’t much mind taking the things we found below; I’d got hardened to stealing a good while before that; but when we came to your room where you lay asleep, looking so innocent and pretty, with all that soft stuff ruffled round your neck and wrists, my heart failed me, for I thought of Milly here, whom I suppose I love just as well as rich folks love their children, and I knew just how she’d have loved all the pretty things we saw laying about you. I begged Tom to leave your rings and trinkets, and knick-knacks, but he growled at my nonsense and grabbed everything he could lay his hands upon, holding the lantern and revolver all the while.
“Once I thought what should I do if you awoke and found us there? And, miss, I’d have shot him, bad as I was myself, and about as much to blame for that dirty business, before I would have let him lay so much as a finger upon you.”
The sick man was here seized with a violent fit of coughing, which so exhausted him that it was some time before he could resume his confession again.
Editha beckoned Milly to bring him some more of the warm broth, which she did, and this appearing to revive him, he was soon able to go on.
“Have you got all I have told you written down?” he asked, glancing at the paper in her lap.
“Yes, everything,” Editha answered.
She had had ample time to do so, for he was obliged to stop every little while to rest and recover his breath.
“That is right,” he said; “don’t leave out anything, for I must make a clean breast of it all, now that I have begun; and, miss, if the thing can be done, I want that handsome young chap—and he’s a lawyer, I hear—to bring Tom Drake to justice, for a bigger rascal does not walk the earth. Why, miss, if you will believe me, he pocketed all the swag, and I never got so much as a penny’s worth of it for my share in that night’s job.”
“But I thought you told me that you wore it concealed upon your person at the time of Mr. Wayne’s trial?” Editha said, regarding him in surprise, and thinking his statements did not correspond very well.
“And so we did, miss—the diamonds—we didn’t dare hide them with the other stuff, for fear they might happen to be found, and so they were sewed into the lining of our vests; but after a while, Tom said he’d found a chance to send them off and turn them into money, and took those I had away from me. I’ve never seen anything of them since—he never would tell me whether he had sold them or not, and I’ve never had a dollar for my share in that job. I was raving mad over it until I had that fall, and then since I’ve been sick and had a chance to think it all over, I’ve been glad that I didn’t get anything.”
The invalid was here interrupted by another coughing turn, and, while Editha was waiting for it to pass, she happened to cast her eye toward the window back of the bed, and there a sight greeted her that seemed to stop the beating of her heart, and freeze the blood in her veins, and a numbness seized her limbs, rendering her powerless to move for the time being. It was the face of a man—and such a face!—pressed close against the pane, and his ear—an ear with part of the lobe gone—covering a small hole in the glass.
He was a “burly-looking man,” with an “ugly face” on him, “heavy jaws,” and “fierce,” restless “black eyes.”
His hair, too, was red, and—there could be but one person in the world answering to that description.
In an instant—in that one flash of her eyes, Editha had recognized Tom Drake, the burglar and midnight robber!
How long had he been there? How much had he heard, and did he recognize her as John Loker had done? were the thoughts that flashed through her brain during that brief moment when her quick, startled glance rested upon that appalling sight. Her first impulse was to cry out with fright, but with an effort she controlled it, and glanced hastily at the other occupants of her room, to see whether they were in any danger of also discovering the presence of the listener.
She was glad to find that she alone was conscious of it.
Milly, overcome by the genial warmth after her exposure to the cold, and also by the effective quietus of a full stomach, had fallen asleep by the stove, her head resting against the side of the house, while Mrs. Loker still kept her motionless position by the bedside, her head buried in the clothes; whether she also was asleep or not, Editha could not tell, but she earnestly hoped she was, for she feared, she knew not what, if the man at the window should become aware that his presence was discovered.
The window was at the head of the bed; so, of course, the invalid was wholly unconscious of, and in no danger of knowing, that he had another listener to his confession. The man himself, Editha thought, had not seen her glance that way, for his ear had been laid against the hole in the glass, and he appeared to be listening intently.
After the first excess of fright had passed the stagnated blood rushed through her veins in a swift torrent, sending sharp, tingling pains throughout her whole body, until it seemed as if she was literally swathed in nettles.
But she gave no outward sign. Her thoughts flew to Earle, her manly lover across the sea.
She held in her hands the evidence which, a little more complete, and signed by the man before her, would vindicate his honor and restore him the respect and confidence of all who knew him.
So she resolved to sit quietly there until this was accomplished, though she wondered if her weak and trembling fingers would be able to hold the pencil and trace the words that yet remained to be spoken.
She did not even dare to consider how she was to get home in the fast-gathering gloom with that precious paper in her possession; she did not dare to think whether that dreadful creature outside would allow her to leave that place and carry with her the evidence that would serve to doom him to a felon’s cell for a long and tedious term of years.
She only found herself wondering how he had attained his position at that window, for she knew they were in the second story of the building, and it seemed a marvel to her that he should be there at all.
Had he seen and recognized her while she was talking with Milly outside, and then, fearing what would follow, obtained a ladder and climbed to the window?
It was a puzzle to her, but she did not know of the low building attached to the house, and which rendered it very easy for anyone to climb and look in upon that poverty-stricken family within.
Neither could she know that it had of late been a custom with that wicked man to go there every few nights to see how fast the only person in the world who knew his dread secrets was dying.
Tom Drake longed to be rid of the accomplice who knew so much of his evil course, and whom he constantly feared would turn against him.
He had heard that day that John Loker was dying, and, determined to see for himself how near he was to his end, he had, as soon as the darkness favored him, climbed to his usual post.
His consternation can be better imagined than described as he beheld and recognized Editha Dalton, of all persons in the world the last one he expected to find there, sitting by the dying man’s bedside, writing the confession that branded him the thief and robber that he was.
And Editha, notwithstanding that every nerve in her body was vibrating with pain from her startling discovery still sat there, apparently calm and unmoved, waiting to hear the rest.
She even turned in her chair a little at last, as if carelessly changing her position.
But it was done with a purpose.
She was afraid if she sat directly opposite that window the magnetism and fascination, horrible though it was, of that terrible face and those fierce eyes, which affected her as face and eyes had never done before, would irresistibly draw her glance in that direction and betray her knowledge of the presence there.
“Well, miss,” the sick man resumed at length—and the sound of his voice breaking the silence that had been so fraught with horror to her sent a painful shock through her whole being—“we got out of the house with our booty, which we carried in a bag, without disturbing anyone, and we were congratulating ourselves that we had done a wonderful, neat and profitable job, when, just as we came around the corner by the front entrance, a young chap pounced out upon us and felled Tom to the ground with a swinging, unexpected blow.
“He then came for me as brave as a young giant, and I grappled with him. He gave me a tough struggle of it, I can tell you; but, I knew the boxing game better than he, and it wasn’t long before I had him laid out as flat as a flounder.
“I did it just in the nick of time, too, for a ‘cop’ having got wind that something wrong was up, came running down the street; so I just dropped a bracelet, which Tom had made me stuff in my pocket, down beside the fallen hero, to turn the scent upon him, and took to my heels.
“Tom served me a mean trick, though,” the man went on, with a scowl, “for he had only been slightly stunned by his fall, and while I was fighting with the young chap, instead of coming to my help, he picked up the bag, cleared out and hid it, and it was only a piece of good luck that I got off at all. He said afterward he thought I was able to take care of myself, and he was afraid if he did not slip off with the booty the noise of the rumpus would bring a cop along, and we’d lose it all. But he’d got it hidden before I found him, and I never saw anything of it afterward, except the diamonds.
“I coaxed, begged, and threatened, but he kept putting me off with excuses; and, of course, I’d been with him so much in his dirty work that he knew I would not dare turn against him, for I should only get as deep into the mire as he would.
“As long as I was well, and able to help him in his plots, I managed to squeeze enough out of him to keep us tolerably comfortable, but after I got sick we all began to suffer.
“Miss Dalton,” the man said, excitedly, “Tom Drake is a rich man; he’s got money and swag enough hidden up to keep a dozen families handsome all their lives. Why, those diamonds o’ your mother’s were a fortune in themselves, and we’ve been starving and freezing here for the last two months; he’s known it, too, and wouldn’t give us a dime to buy a loaf of bread with.
“But I am dying now; he can’t harm me, and the law can’t touch me, and I’ve outwitted him at last; his meanness is half that’s made me want to show him up, and if you will only bring him to justice, you’ll do the world a favor, besides clearing that fine young chap, who was as brave as a lion, from disgrace; for I tell you Tom Drake is one of the worst robbers in the United States.”
He paused, and Editha thought he had got through. She hoped he had, for she felt she could not sit there much longer; it was as much as she could do to keep in her chair and feel that that fearful face, with those fierce, restless black eyes, was looking down upon her, watching her every movement.
But the invalid resumed, after resting a moment:
“We, Tom and me, went to court every day while the youngster was being tried for the robbery we had committed; and we thought it fine fun that the scent had been so completely turned from us to him. It was as clear a case of circumstantial evidence as I ever heard of, and many’s the joke we’ve cracked at that poor fellow’s expense. But, miss, I must confess I’ve had mighty uncomfortable dreams over it since lying here sick and thinking of him locked in behind those bolts and bars for three long years, and he as innocent as a baby all the time, and we abroad doing more of the devil’s work.”
He really appeared deeply moved, and Editha knew that he must have suffered on account of it.
“I’ve been a bad man,” he continued with a sigh of regret, “and I suppose I’ll get my deserts where I’m going; but I know I shall deserve it all, whatever it may be.
“Have you written everything just as I’ve told you?” he asked again, anxiously, turning his sunken eyes upon the closely written sheets in her lap.
“Yes; I have everything correct, I think,” Editha answered, longing to know if that dreadful face was still glaring upon them, yet not daring to look.
“Then give me the pencil and hold the paper while I sign it. I want this business off my mind; then perhaps I’ll feel easier,” he said, eagerly, and holding out his thin hand for the pencil.
Editha placed it between his fingers, and then holding her books with the paper laid on them so that he could write, he laboriously scrawled beneath what she had already written:
“I swear that this is the living truth. John Loker.”
“Thank you,” Editha said, with a breath of relief, hastily folding the paper, and wondering where and how she should hide it from those fierce, restless eyes above her.
She ventured to flash one swift glance out of the corners of her eyes toward the window, and, to her intense relief, she found that there was nothing there.
Tom Drake had disappeared as silently and as suddenly as he had come.
But her heart instinctively told her that that was not the last of him.
Perhaps he was even now hiding somewhere near, waiting to pounce upon her when she should go out of that wretched place, and wrest that precious confession from her.
But he should not have it—he must not have it; she would make a bold fight, frail woman though she was, before she would yield up the only thing in the world that would clear her betrothed lover’s name from dishonor.
She had one hope, else her courage would have failed her utterly—the policeman whom she had asked to have a care for her safety and who had been so civil to her.
But she had been gone much longer than she had told him she would be, and possibly he had become tired of waiting for her and gone away.
A tumult of thoughts like these filled her mind and nearly bewildered her, but above and overall was a stern determination never to part with that paper until all the world should know of its contents.
Convinced that the face no longer glared upon her, she slipped it within her bosom and buttoned her dress close over it. Then she arose to go.
Yes, she could not bear to leave that dying man, perhaps never to see him alive again, without a few comforting words. His own last words had told her that he feared the future—that he dreaded to go forth into the great and mysterious eternity, and she longed to give him a little cheer, even though she knew that every moment’s delay but increased her own danger.
“I must leave you now,” she said, gently, and bending nearer to him, a great pity shining on her lovely face; “and I thank you more than I can tell you for the act of justice that you have at last done.”
“I thank you, miss,” he said, feebly, and with quivering lips, “for being so kind and gentle to me, and I hope you’ll forgive me as well for my share in that night’s business,” he concluded, humbly.
Could she forgive it?
Editha’s heart gave a little startled leap at the humble request. She could readily forgive the robbery, and the loss of so much that was valuable; but could she forgive the wrong done to Earle? Could she ever overlook those long, weary days of suffering which he had borne—the scorn, insult, and abuse heaped upon him, and the disgrace which had followed him ever since?
But he was to be free from it all at last. To be sure, those years could not be given back to him, but all other fetters were to drop from him. She held the key that was to unlock them, and John Loker, the man now asking so meekly for pardon, had given it to her.
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
The divine words came to her like a message of light.
“Yes, I do forgive you,” she said, sweetly; “and God will forgive you even more freely, and take away all the dread you have of the future if you ask Him.”
“Thank you again, miss; those are good words,” he said, with a sigh of relief and thankfulness that she had forgiven him.
“And cannot you believe them,” she asked—“that God will forgive you, too?”
He shook his head wearily.
“My mother used to teach me about God when I was a boy, but I’ve forgotten Him, and been bad for so long, that I guess I ain’t of much account to Him now.”
The pathos with which he said it, and the look of stony despair in his eyes, made Editha’s heart ache for him.
“Do you not regret that your life has been so full of wrong, and such a failure?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed, miss,” he replied, earnestly; “I’m bitter sorry, and I’ve thought it all over and over again the long nights I’ve had to lie awake here with the cough, but I couldn’t see any way out of it.”
“Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light,” came involuntarily from Editha’s lips.
“Yes, I’ve heard that more times than I can count, but I can’t understand it, some way,” he said, with a perplexed look.
Editha sighed.
What could she say to comfort him? And the thought came to her that, after all, she would rather be in Earle’s place, who had patiently and innocently suffered a great wrong, even though the cloud which now overshadowed him should never be dissipated until that day when all things shall be revealed, than to be lying here like this guilty one, upon the borders of eternity, with no hope beyond, even though his life of sin had escaped all worldly chastisement.
“If you were in some dark and dangerous place,” she said again, and speaking very slowly and earnestly, “and I should tell you to take my hand, for I knew the way, and would lead you safely out, would you refuse to do as I asked you?”
“Truth, no, miss; and you would not have to ask me more than once, either. But the future is mighty dark to me, and you can’t lead me through that.”
“No; but the Friend of sinners can.”
“Friend of sinners!” he repeated, feebly. “That sounds pleasant.”
“That is just what Jesus Christ is,” Editha answered, eagerly. “Put your hand in His; it is always held out to all who need help; and He will lead you safely out of all danger.”
Another deep-drawn sigh was all the reply she received to this; and, after waiting a moment, she said again:
“I must not stay longer now, but I will come and see you again soon.”
“You’ll not find me here, miss, I fear,” he said, with a wistful look at her, as if to see her again would do him good; “but they’ll be here, and you have said you’ll be good to them,” indicating by a glance his wife and child, who were both now heavily sleeping.
“Yes; I will see that they are made comfortable, and I will leave this, so that if you need anything you can send Milly for it.”
Editha put a five-dollar note in his wasted hand as she spoke, and then, with a kind goodnight to him, she aroused his wife, after which she went away alone into the dark and dismal night.
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