Breathless by Felix Joseph epub vk download

Broadway on dry nights, or rather that part known as the Great White Way, is a crowded thoroughfare, dominated by lofty buildings, the sky-line studded with constellations of colored signs pencilled in fire. Broadway on wet, rain-drenched nights is the fairy concourse of the Wonder City of the World, its asphalt splashed with liquid jewels afloat in molten gold.

Across this flood of frenzied brilliance surge hurrying mobs, dodging the ceaseless traffic, trampling underfoot the wealth of the Indies, striding through pools of quicksilver, leaping gutters filled to the brim with melted rubies-horse, car, and man so many black silhouettes against a tremulous sea of light.

Along this blinding whirl blaze the playhouses, their wide portals aflame with crackling globes, toward which swarm bevies of pleasure-seeking moths, their eyes dazzled by the glare. Some with heads and throats bare dart from costly broughams, the mountings of their sleek, rain-varnished horses glittering in the flash of the electric lamps. Others spring from out street cabs. Many come by twos and threes, their skirts held high. Still others form a line, its head lost in a small side door. These are in drab and brown, with worsted shawls tightly drawn across thin shoulders. Here, too, wedged in between shabby men, the collars of their coats muffling their chins, their backs to the grim policeman, stand keen-eyed newsboys and ragged street urchins, the price of a gallery seat in their tightly closed fists.

Soon the swash and flow of light flooding the street and sidewalks shines the clearer. Fewer dots and lumps of man, cab, and cart now cross its surface. The crowd has begun to thin out. The doors of the theatres are deserted; some flaunt signs of "Standing Room Only." The cars still follow their routes, lunging and pausing like huge beetles; but much of the wheel traffic has melted, with only here and there a cab or truck between which gold-splashed umbrellas pick a hazardous way.

With the breaking of the silent dawn, shadowed in a lonely archway or on an abandoned doorstep the wet, bedraggled body of a hapless moth is sometimes found, her iridescent wings flattened in the mud. Then for a brief moment a cry of protest, or scorn, or pity goes up. The passers-by raise their hands in anger, draw their skirts aside in horror, or kneel in tenderness. It is the same the world over, and New York is no better and, for that matter, no worse.

On one of these rain-drenched nights, some ten years or more ago, when the streets were flooded with jewels, and the sky-line aflame, a man in a slouch hat, a wet mackintosh clinging to his broad shoulders, stood close to the entrance of one of the principal playhouses along this Great White Way. He had kept his place since the doors were opened, his hat-brim, pulled over his brow, his keen eye searching every face that passed. To all appearances he was but an idle looker-on, attracted by the beauty of the women, and yet during all that time he had not moved, nor had he been in the way, nor had he been observed even by the door man, the flap of the awning casting its shadow about him. Only once had he strained forward, gazing intently, then again relaxed, settling into his old position.

Not until the last couple had hurried by, breathless at being late, did he refasten the top button of his mackintosh, move clear of the nook which had sheltered him, and step out into the open.

For an instant he glanced about him, seemed to hesitate, as does a bit of driftwood blocked in the current; then, with a sudden straightening of his shoulders, he wheeled and threaded his way down-town.

At Herald Square, he mounted with an aimless air a flight of low steps, peered though the windows, and listened to the crunch of the presses chewing the cud of the day's news. When others crowded close he stepped back to the sidewalk, raising his hat once in apology to an elderly dame who, with head down, had brushed him with her umbrella.

By the time he reached 30th Street his steps had become slower. Again he hesitated, and again with an aimless air turned to the left, the rain still pelting his broad shoulders, his hat pulled closer to protect his face. No lights or color pursued him here. The fronts of the houses were shrouded in gloom; only a hall lantern now and then and the flare of the lamps at the crossings, he alone and buffeting the storm-all others behind closed doors. When Fourth Avenue was reached he lifted his head for the first time. A lighted window had attracted his attention-a wide, corner window filled with battered furniture, ill-assorted china, and dented brass-one of those popular morgues that house the remains of decayed respectability.

Pausing automatically, he glanced carelessly at the contents, and was about to resume his way when he caught sight of a small card propped against a broken pitcher. "Choice Articles Bought and Sold-Advances Made."

Suddenly he stopped. Something seemed to interest him. To make sure that he had read the card aright, he bent closer. Evidently satisfied by his scrutiny, he drew himself erect and moved toward the shop door as if to enter. Through the glass he saw a man in shirt-sleeves, packing. The sight of the man brought another change of mind, for he stepped back and raised his head to a big sign over the front. His face now came into view, with its well-modelled nose and square chin-the features of a gentleman of both refinement and intelligence. A man of forty-perhaps of forty-five-clean-shaven, a touch of gray about his temples, his eyes shadowed by heavy brows from beneath which now and then came a flash as brief and brilliant as an electric spark. He might have been a civil engineer, or some scientist, or yet an officer on half pay.

"Otto Kling, 445 Fourth Avenue," he repeated to himself, to make sure of the name and location. Then, with the quick movement of a man suddenly imbued with new purpose, he wheeled, leaped the overflowed gutter, and walked rapidly until he reached 13th Street. Half-way down the block he entered the shabby doorway of an old-fashioned house, mounted to the third floor, stepped into a small, poorly furnished bedroom lighted by a single gas-jet, and closed the door behind him. Lifting his wet hat from his well-rounded head, with its smoothly brushed, closely trimmed hair-a head that would have looked well in bronze-he raised the edge of the bedclothes and from underneath the narrow cot dragged out a flat, sole-leather trunk of English make. This he unlocked with a key fastened to a steel chain, took out the tray, felt about among the contents, and drew out a morocco-covered dressing-case, of good size and of evident value, bearing on its top a silver plate inscribed with a monogram and crest. The trunk was then relocked and shoved under the bed.

At this moment a knock startled him.

"Come in," he called, covering the case with a corner of the cotton quilt.

A bareheaded, coarse-featured woman with a black shawl about her shoulders stood in the doorway. "I've come for my money," she burst out, too angry for preliminaries. "I'm gittin' tired of bein' put off. You're two weeks behind."

"Only two weeks? I was afraid it was worse, my dear madame," he answered calmly, a faint smile curling his thin lips. "You have a better head for figures than I. But do not concern yourself. I will pay you in the morning."

"I've heard that before, and I'm gittin' sick of it. You'd 'a' been out of here last week if my husband hadn't been laid up with a lame foot."

"I am sorry to hear about the foot. That must be even worse than my being behind with your rent."

"Well, it's bad enough with all I got to put up with. Of course I don't want to be ugly," she went on, her fierceness dying out as she noticed his unruffled calm, "but these rooms is about all we've got, and we can't afford to take no chances."

"Did you suppose I would let you?"

"Let me what?"

"Let you take chances. When I become convinced that I cannot pay you what I owe you, I will give you notice in advance. I should be much more unhappy over owing you such a debt than you could possibly be in not getting your money."

The answer, so unlike those to which she had been accustomed from other delinquents, suddenly rekindled her anger. "Will some of them friends of yours that never show up bring you the money?" she snapped back.

"Have you met any of them on the stairs?" he inquired blandly.

"No, nor nowhere else. You been here now goin' on three months, and there ain't come a letter, nor nothin' by express, and no man, woman, or child has asked for you. Kinder queer, don't you think?"