XVII. IN WHICH A BOOK PLAYS A LEADING PART

When Mr. Brotherson came in that night, he noticed that the door of the room adjoining his own stood open. He did not hesitate. Making immediately for it, he took a glance inside, then spoke up with a ringing intonation:

"Halloo! coming to live in this hole?"

The occupant a young man, evidently a workman and somewhat sickly if one could judge from his complexion--turned around from some tinkering he was engaged in and met the intruder fairly, face to face. If his jaw fell, it seemed to be from admiration. No other emotion would have so lighted his eye as he took in the others proportions and commanding features. No dress--Brotherson was never seen in any other than the homeliest garb in these days--could make him look common or akin to his surroundings. Whether seen near or far, his presence always caused surprise, and surprise was what the young man showed, as he answered briskly:

"Yes, this is to be my castle. Are you the owner of the buildings? If so--"

"I am not the owner. I live next door. Haven't I seen you before, young man?"

Never was there a more penetrating eye than Orlando Brotherson's. As he asked this question it took some effort on the part of the other to hold his own and laugh with perfect naturalness as he replied:

"If you ever go up Henry Street it's likely enough that you've seen me not once, but many times. I'm the fellow who works at the bench next the window in Schuper's repairing shop. Everybody knows me."

Audacity often carries the day when subtler means would fail. Brotherson stared at the youth, then ventured another question:

"A carpenter, eh?"

"Yes, and I'm an A1 man at my job. Excuse my brag. It's my one card of introduction."

"I've seen you. I've seen you somewhere else than in Schuper's shop. Do you remember me?"

"No, sir; I'm sorry to be imperlite but I don't remember you at all.

Won't you sit down? It's not very cheerful, but I'm so glad to get out of the room I was in last night that this looks all right to me. Back there, other building," he whispered. "I didn't know, and took the room which had a window in it; but--" The stop was significant; so was his smile which had a touch of sickliness in it, as well as humour.

But Brotherson was not to be caught.

"You slept in the building last night? In the other half, I mean?"

"Yes, I--slept."

The strong lip of the other man curled disdainfully.

"I saw you," said he. "You were standing in the window overlooking the court. You were not sleeping then. I suppose you know that a woman died in that room?"

"Yes; they told me so this morning."

"Was that the first you'd heard of it?"

"Sure!" The word almost jumped at the questioner. "Do you suppose I'd have taken the room if--"

But here the intruder, with a disdainful grunt, turned and went out, disgust in every feature,--plain, unmistakable, downright disgust, and nothing more!

This was what gave Sweet.w.a.ter his second bad night; this and a certain discovery he made. He had counted on hearing what went on in the neighbouring room through the part.i.tion running back of his own closet.

But he could hear nothing, unless it was the shutting down of a window, a loud sneeze, or the rattling of coals as they were put on the fire.

And these possessed no significance. What he wanted was to catch the secret sigh, the muttered word, the involuntary movement. He was too far removed from this man still.

How should he manage to get nearer him--at the door of his mind--of his heart? Sweet.w.a.ter stared all night from his miserable cot into the darkness of that separating closet, and with no result. His task looked hopeless; no wonder that he could get no rest.

Next morning he felt ill, but he rose all the same, and tried to get his own breakfast. He had but partially succeeded and was sitting on the edge of his bed in wretched discomfort, when the very man he was thinking of appeared at his door.

"I've come to see how you are," said Brotherson. "I noticed that you did not look well last night. Won't you come in and share my pot of coffee?"

"I--I can't eat," mumbled Sweet.w.a.ter, for once in his life thrown completely off his balance. "You're very kind, but I'll manage all right. I'd rather. I'm not quite dressed, you see, and I must get to the shop." Then he thought--"What an opportunity I'm losing. Have I any right to turn tail because he plays his game from the outset with trumps? No, I've a small trump somewhere about me to lay on this trick.

It isn't an ace, but it'll show I'm not chicane." And smiling, though not with his usual cheerfulness, Sweet.w.a.ter added, "Is the coffee all made? I might take a drop of that. But you mustn't ask me to eat--I just couldn't."

"Yes, the coffee is made and it isn't bad either. You'd better put on your coat; the hall's draughty." And waiting till Sweet.w.a.ter did so, he led the way back to his own room. Brotherson's manner expressed perfect ease, Sweet.w.a.ter's not. He knew himself changed in looks, in bearing, in feeling, even; but was he changed enough to deceive this man on the very spot where they had confronted each other a few days before in a keen moral struggle? The looking-gla.s.s he pa.s.sed on his way to the table where the simple breakfast was spread out, showed him a figure so unlike the alert, business-like chap he had been that night, that he felt his old a.s.surance revive in time to ease a situation which had no counterpart in his experience.

"I'm going out myself to-day, so we'll have to hurry a bit," was Brotherson's first remark as they seated themselves at table. "Do you like your coffee plain or with milk in it?"

"Plain. Gosh! what pictures! Where do you get 'em? You must have a lot of coin." Sweet.w.a.ter was staring at the row of photographs, mostly of a very high order, tacked along the wall separating the two rooms. They were unframed, but they were mostly copies of great pictures, and the effect was rather imposing in contrast to the shabby furniture and the otherwise homely fittings.

"Yes, I've enough for that kind of thing," was his host's reply. But the tone was reserved, and Sweet.w.a.ter did not presume again along this line.

Instead, he looked well at the books piled upon the shelves under these photographs, and wondered aloud at their number and at the man who could waste such a lot of time in reading them. But he made no more direct remarks. Was he cowed by the penetrating eye he encountered whenever he yielded to the fascination exerted by Mr. Brotherson's personality and looked his way? He hated to think so, yet something held him in check and made him listen, open-mouthed, when the other chose to speak.

Yet there was one cheerful moment. It was when he noticed the careless way in which those books were arranged upon their shelves. An idea had come to him. He hid his relief in his cup, as he drained the last drops of the coffee which really tasted better than he had expected.

When he returned from work that afternoon it was with an auger under his coat and a conviction which led him to empty out the contents of a small phial which he took down from a shelf. He had told Mr. Gryce that he was eager for the business because of its difficulties, but that was when he was feeling fine and up to any game which might come his way. Now he felt weak and easily discouraged. This would not do. He must regain his health at all hazards, so he poured out the mixture which had given him such a sickly air. This done and a rude supper eaten, he took up his auger. He had heard Mr. Brotherson's step go by. But next minute he laid it down again in great haste and flung a newspaper over it. Mr.

Brotherson was coming back, had stopped at his door, had knocked and must be let in.

"You're better this evening," he heard in those kindly tones which so confused and irritated him.

"Yes," was the surly admission. "But it's stifling here. If I have to live long in this hole I'll dry up from want of air. It's near the shop or I wouldn't stay out the week." Twice this day he had seen Brotherson's tall figure stop before the window of this shop and look in at him at his bench. But he said nothing about that.

"Yes," agreed the other, "it's no way to live. But you're alone.

Upstairs there's a whole family huddled into a room just like this. Two of the kids sleep in the closet. It's things like that which have made me the friend of the poor, and the mortal enemy of men and women who spread themselves over a dozen big rooms and think themselves ill-used if the gas burns poorly or a fireplace smokes. I'm off for the evening; anything I can do for you?"

"Show me how I can win my way into such rooms as you've just talked about. Nothing less will make me look up. I'd like to sleep in one to-night. In the best bedroom, sir. I'm ambitious; I am."

A poor joke, though they both laughed. There Mr. Brotherson pa.s.sed on, and Sweet.w.a.ter listened till he was sure that his too attentive neighbour had really gone down the three flights between him and the street. Then he took up his auger again and shut himself up in his closet.

There was nothing peculiar about this closet. It was just an ordinary one with drawers and shelves on one side, and an open s.p.a.ce on the other for the hanging up of clothes. Very few clothes hung there at present; but it was in this portion of the closet that he stopped and began to try the wall of Brotherson's room, with the b.u.t.t end of the tool he carried.

The sound seemed to satisfy him, for very soon he was boring a hole at a point exactly level with his ear; but not without frequent pauses and much attention given to the possible return of those departed foot-steps. He remembered that Mr. Brotherson had a way of coming back on unexpected errands after giving out his intention of being absent for hours.

Sweet.w.a.ter did not want to be caught in any such trap as that; so he carefully followed every sound that reached him from the noisy halls.

But he did not forsake his post; he did not have to. Mr. Brotherson had been sincere in his good-bye, and the auger finished its job and was withdrawn without any interruption from the man whose premises had been thus audaciously invaded.

"Neat as well as useful," was the gay comment with which Sweet.w.a.ter surveyed his work, then laid his ear to the hole. Whereas previously he could barely hear the rattling of coals from the coal-scuttle, he was now able to catch the sound of an ash falling into the ash-pit.

His next move was to test the depth of the part.i.tion by inserting his finger in the hole he had made. He found it stopped by some obstacle before it had reached half its length, and anxious to satisfy himself of the nature of this obstacle, he gently moved the tip of his finger to and fro over what was certainly the edge of a book.

This proved that his calculations had been correct and that the opening so accessible on his side, was completely veiled on the other by the books he had seen packed on the shelves. As these shelves had no other backing than the wall, he had feared striking a spot not covered by a book. But he had not undertaken so risky a piece of work without first noting how nearly the tops of the books approached the line of the shelf above them, and the consequent unlikelihood of his striking the s.p.a.ce between, at the height he planned the hole. He had even been careful to a.s.sure himself that all the volumes at this exact point stood far enough forward to afford room behind them for the chips and plaster he must necessarily push through with his auger, and also--important consideration--for the free pa.s.sage of the sounds by which he hoped to profit.

As he listened for a moment longer, and then stooped to gather up the debris which had fallen on his own side of the part.i.tion, he muttered, in his old self-congratulatory way:

"If the devil don't interfere in some way best known to himself, this opportunity I have made for myself of listening to this arrogant fellow's very heartbeats should give me some clew to his secret. As soon as I can stand it, I'll spend my evenings at this hole."