The Man Who Couldn't Sleep

mporized and dallied along, dreading the ordeal. Twice I had even bowed to tacit blackmail, suavely disguised as mere advances of salary. Almost daily, too, I had been s

bsence. I could have forgiven the loss of the cigars, and the disappearance of the cognac, but the foot-marks on my treasured old

e. I had learned to stand less timorous before its darker sides and its rougher seams. I could show that designing chauffeur I was no longer in his power by showing that I was no l

taring at me with surprised y

e discharged, now. And the sooner you

risk?" he demanded, studying

m, "are matters which concern me alone. Turn your keys and service-clothes a

emanded, wi

where you belo

here's

ind

as he saw me go out to the door and fli

nnounced, slowly and pregnantly, and with an

y turn t

ng," I acknowledged. "But now

tay that way,

e. I could feel my fighting b

t you?" I told him. "You hear

his, for a full half minute. Then he turne

was carrying away with him something precious. He was carryi

aces, the necessity for physical freedom and fresh air. And it was that, I suppose, which took me wandering off toward the water-front, wh

no impression of its movement about my immediate neighborhood, I feel sure, until my self-absorbed meditations were broken into by the discovery that the stranger on the same wharf w

ld. This perplexity grew into bewilderment, for as I studied the lean figure with its loose-fitting paddock-coat flapping in the wharf-end breeze I was reminded of something disturbing, of something awesome. The gaunt form so voluminously draped, the cadaverous face

string-piece, and on top of this again placed his hat. Then he laughed audibly. I looked away, dreading that some spoken triviality might spoil a picture so appealingly mysterious. When

e with his hands and sway back with a tragically helpless mutter of "I can't do it!"

stranger who was still peering down at the slip-water. I was startled, a minute or two later, to hear him emit a throat-chuckle that was as defiant as it was disagreeabl

ife so dry that he thought of tossing it away like an orange-skin was worth following. He seemed a contradiction to everything in the city that surrounded us, in that mad city where every m

f indifferency. More things than his mere apparel assured me he was not a "crust-thrower." I kept close at his heels until we came to Broadway, startl

ht-strewn channel of Broadway. I noticed his eye waver on a passing figure or two, whom he seemed about to accost. Then,

ouch of the supernatural in that encounter, as though two wondering gho

toward the fa?ade of a mirrored and pillared caravansary wherein, I knew, it was the wont of the homeless New Yorker to purchase a three-hour lease o

s in silence, too, that I followed him in through the wide doorway and seated myself opposite him at one of the rose-

crowds was now eddying. It held nothing either new or appealing to me. It was not the first time I had witnessed the stars of stageland sitting in perigean torpor through their seven-coursed suppers

of bare shoulders, as white and soft as a flurry of gull-wings, I saw that he had already ordered a meal that was

t with each breath of time the bubble of mystery was growing bigger and bigger. The whole thing was something more than the dare-devil adventure of a man a

ing almost Heraclitean in the thin-lipped and satyric mouth. The skin on the sunken cheeks seemed as tight as the vellum across a snare-drum. From the corner of his eyes, which were shadowed by a smooth and pallid frontal-bone, radiated a network of minutely small wrinkles. His hands, I could see, were almost femininely white, as womanish in their fragility as they were disquieting in t

ed, with the vehemence of a Socialist confronted by th

, following his gaze about that quite un

he avowed, "are harpies, and

umstances, even a voluminous paddock-coat would be reckoned as adequate payment for

retorted. "I'm f

ated territory left me so much in doubt that I had

red, "and if I'd stayed there I

scend criticism I merely turned back to h

ard across the table, staring me in the eyes as he spok

e, with a shadow of disappointment on his lean face, I

h of the last rope-e

rating condition," I remarke

sharp cackl

-sweep about the cluster of dishes, "is some music I'll have to face al

tured, "sounds almost

ed. "It's more than

ying mining-stock?" was my flippant suggestion. His manner o

quick solemnity. "I'

sumed, were far removed fr

or a moment or two. Then he

ar of a wire-tap

ften," I

o one of their nice, gold-plated traps and have them shake you d

ad to confess, which had n

and races and the string that Keene sent south last winter, he struck something that was pretty close to me, for that's what we go in for down home-horse-breeding and stock-farming. Then he told me how the assistant superintendent of the Western Union, the man who managed their racing department, was an old friend of his. He also allowed this friend of his was ready to phone him some early track-returns, for what he called a big rakeoff. He even

ry familiar," I

t for him to bother with small bets. But he said he'd try out the plan that afternoon. So my traveler friend took me up to a pool-room with racing-sheets and blackboards and half a dozen telegraph keys and twic

thetic rejoinder, as I sat listening

the woman who called herself the sist

s she like?"

-sweep over the flurry of gull-wing backs and the garden of finery that surrounde

d his mirthless an

er next day, and I saw her calling up a few of her Wall Street friends, I kind of forgot m

that odious and flamboyant type o

ld it end her

dollars of other people's money

what

ould go home with t

any reason why you should lie

he averred. "Ev

much like Francis the First after the Batt

ooked up, almost angrily, at my movement of impatienc

ang behind the bars," was the answer I flu

lroom's one of those dirigible kind that move on when the police appear. Then they'd claim I was as bad as they were, trying

I found something," I decla

ght. And I don't suppose she'd

d in any way get me in t

to have her arrested myself. The officer t

ere she lives?" I

had caught him unawares. Then he mentioned one

at's he

itated befor

elle, Vinnie Brunelle. That's the name she answered to up ther

t tell until

oined, as his earlier listless look returned to his face.

. "We're going to meet here to-m

?" he pr

nd if I can be of any service to you it will be a very great pleasure to me

grass grow under my feet. Two minutes at the telephone and ten more in a taxicab brought me in touch with my old friend D

t a woman named Vinnie

he shook his head. The name

ething more

She keeps up a very good front, and now and

Andrus used as a come-on for his Mexican mine

else?" I

wrapt in thought f

ncommonly clever woman, about the cleverest

r record-a

s what cleverness is, my boy, maintaining you

ained, "but you haven't helped me out of my

him down at Headquarters. He's with the Bankers' Association now, but he was

aw Doyle write: "Please tell him

couldn't see

oked at

Riverside. And I'll give you odds you'll find the o

ing. He sat there dealing out the cards, at one o'clock in the morning,

his fingers, looked at me, and

trouble?" was hi

d of mine has, I'm sorry to say. And I

ch did

thousand dolla

was th

en one of those so-cal

arrangement. She soon came to the end of her rope there. Then she came home-I've an idea she tried the stage and couldn't make it go. Then she was a pearl-agent in London. Then she played a variation of the 'lost-heir' game in what was called the Southam case, working under an English confidence-man calle

ed for a moment or two, stud

n she took to going to Europe every month or so. I won't say she was a steamship gambler. I don't think she was. But she made friends-and she could play a game of bridge that'd bring your back hair up on end. Then she worked with a mining share man

know of? Would they have her picture,

old in the study of

woman until you get

was involved in a numbe

impersonality that suddenly became as Olympian as it was

o have her arrested. Why," I demanded, nettled by his satiric

On the other hand, I guess she's helped our

ly an informer, what

when they threw her down, threw her flat. Then she did a bit of secret service work for Wilkie'

cs and pull, then, will let a woman rob a man

e doesn't need to. They just blink and hand it over. The

sound quite reason

nly at his cigar-end befor

u seen h

eplied as I rose to

meant anything. But I did not linger to find out. I was too impressed with the need

widening curiosity to see this odd and interesting woman who, as Do

t only slept badly; I had also dreamed of myself as a flagellant monk sent across scorching sands to beg a bar

red the last tendril of romance from my quixotic crusade. It was only by assuring myself, not so much that I was espousing the cause of the fal

inquisitorial eye resting on my abashed person for the smallest fraction of a second. I almost suspected that in that eye might b

from her morning ride in the

the tempered autumn sun from the opened windows, where a double row of scarlet geranium-tops stood nodd

Had she not sat there already inundated by the corroding acids of an earlier p

set wide apart under a Pallas Athena brow, that might have been called serene, but for some spirit of rebellion vaguely refracted from the lower part of the face. The vividness

that her hands were large and white, that her mouth, for all its brooding discontent, was not without humor, and, strange

rect gaze of those searching and limpid eyes, which proclaimed that few of the poppied illusions of life could flower in their neighborhood. This discomforting sense of mental clarity, in fact, fo

nd glance showed me that she was eating a breakfast of iced

ch," I a

inquired, breaking

young gentleman who has just parted c

d heavy coils of dark hair, and glan

ld I possibly

in her unruffled calmness. But I did not intend to

gested, "return th

tive challenge in her glance a

I even know who you

ho you are," was my prompt a

it seemed very thick and

cking the toast-crumbs fr

in the Southam heir case. You're the wife of a Haytian half-caste Jew with a Spanish title. You're the woman who worked with Andrus, the wildcat mine-swindler

nburdened myself of this unsavory pedigree. Her s

all true?" she final

udacities were something new to my experience. She seemed still in the feral state. Her mere presence, as she sat there

?" she quie

in the one point where it impinges on my personal intere

my tone seemed o

sing I really was a cog in some such machinery as you speak of, how mu

ts methods. All I know is a tremendous wrong

, with that barbaric immediac

I mean from the standpoint of that rathe

gain. I had the feeling of being taken up and turned ov

who lost his money on what

e discomfited at the recollection of

you known

d to confess t

nd the case, thro

do," was my

to break into an answering flash of anger.

ying look which I began most keenly to resent. She swept the room with a glance of contempt. "If all those hay-tossers

w a touch of deeper color mark her cheek. I had been conscious of a certain duality in her

ft. And we may as well keep to cases. I don't think

feeling that she had in some dim way scored against me. And this w

ou'll find me very matter-of-fact. A woman can't see as much of the w

e, as though she had concluded the up

windmills I'm trying to be tr

tested. "Yet for all that," she added, as an afterth

es rested on my face. Her next words

your windmills. You're doing it out of noth

on her pleased me a little more, I think, th

hink, at this very moment, that I'm the one who sees crooked, that I'm the one who's lost my perspective on th

hat is

u how wrong you've be

d as she again sat i

ng there at her full height. The deep flow of color in her loosely draped gown gave her an almost pontifical stateliness. Instinctively I rose as she did. And I could see b

e very Rubicon of her life. But a moment later she laughed aloud, and with

completely left my sight. Then she returne

quietly asked as she

, the man I had followed from the North River pier-end the night before. A second glance showed me that the

expectation unfulfilled, puzzled me. I saw nothing

to save from the clutches of a wire-tapper

edged tha

nature written acros

ibed there I read: "Sincerely

to you?" she asked, watching my face as I looked fr

ng at the moment how her face in the strong side-light from

are trying to save from Coke W

sible!" was m

e thing's nothing more than a plant, a frame-up. And you may as wel

n to t

you in. And now, you see, the machinery is

ulous, dazed, trying

nd talked to last night is act

d, "if you care to

won't believe it until you

with a half-listless mo

e's called Coke Wh

id

He's killing himself with the use of drugs. He's making everything impossibl

looked at a tin

rd me saving what I am at this moment, he would kill m

the good of

id his ropes for this wire-tapping story? Can't you see the part I was to play, to follow his lead and show you how we could never bring his money back, but that we could face the gang with their

letcherize what seemed a remar

g back from the flattering consciousness that we had a secret

t decided it's th

r w

r m

e you dec

trying to keep him up when he insists on dropping lower, lower and lower every day. Don't imagine, because you've got certain ideas of me and my life, that I haven't common sense, that I can't see what

time and was moving re

ing. I tell you, a woman with a reputation like mine has got to pay, and keep on paying. She's got to pay twice over for the decencies of life. She's got to pay twice over for protection. Unless you're respectable you c

e was speaking the truth. I could see truth written on her face. I tried to imagine myself in her place, I tried to see life as she had seen it during those past years, which no charity could transla

d, humiliated by the inadequacy of

an effort. I want to be. I prefer it. I've found how much easier it makes life. It's not my past I've been afraid of. It's that one dru

slowly rise to her feet and look undecidedly about the four corners of

in little more than a w

uld stride into the room, the woman in front of me sank back into her chair. Over her face came a change, a veil, a quickl

prompt as his startled eyes fell on me calmly seated within those

he flashed at her, the look which demanded as

ones, "is the altruistic gentleman who objects to your losing thirty

was taking more time to adjust himself to his r?le. He was less finished in his a

eveling a shaking finger at her. "And I'm goin

e windows and closed

I didn't get it. It's not my fault. You know as well as I do that McGowan and Noyes will never open up unless you're in a position to make them. It's a case of dog eat dog, of fig

see, even as he delivered his lines, that his mind wa

in Gramercy Square where we can go and have a conference. I've phoned for a telegraph op

hat do me?" demanded

s much as he likes, to get as much back from McG

he money?" demande

he important thing is to get your plan settled and your wire tapped. And if Mr. Kerfoot

wung an equipoise phone-

that moment the door abruptly opened. The maid in th

and the twin badges of servitude made doubly incongruous her att

e quick steps

t. She never phoned for an operator. That's a lie. She's throwing yo

ther woman. She w

hite apron-straps. "Look at how she's treated you! Look at your picture there, that she cinched her talk with! She

. For she saw, even as I did, the hollow-eyed, mum

volver in it. "You lying welcher!" he cried, in a thi

the taller of the two. And she was standing, now, with her back flat against the wall. She made

le shower of mortar that rained on her bar

caught up the nickeled coffee-pot by its ebony handle. The lunatic with the smoking revolver saw my su

was useless to try to reach him. I simply brought my arm forward and let the metal p

even move. But as he fell the woman in the cap and apron dropped on her knees beside him. She knelt there with an inarticulate cry like that of an anim

. Her arm was quite thin, and not overly strong. I first twisted it so the gun-barrel pointed outward. The pain, as I continued to twist, must have been intense. B

pathetically, as I got to my feet and stooped in alarm over the unconscious

d, with more a touch of childli

s only s

t h

he forehead. He'll be ar

he multitudinous rustle

white coverlet, I saw the woman unsheathe her writhing body of its rose-colored wrapping. From that flurry of warmth h

crossed the room. "I mus

asked as she stepped o

Headquarters," was her

smoothness of her skin, the baby-like whiteness of her rounded bare arms. Then wholly unabashed by my pres

ith which she swept through the flimsy reservations of sex. She was as unconscious of my predicament as a cave woman might have been. And the next moment she was crushing l

in and crammed into it jewel boxes of dark plush and cases of different colored k

whe

Eur

ad pinned on a hat and veil as

id, as she struggled into her

wn for a moment at the woman moaning and whimpering on the coffee-sta

em?" I said as I stepped back in

ned over the bed where Whelan's

ust be s

help him. I can't help him. He's got his o

crammed a further article or two do

the boy who had come for the bags.

," she said to me. "The

ay?" I

e answered as sh

in until we were at t

d American Wha

y-boat, and the clanging of the landing-float's pawl-and-rachet told us we were no longer on that shrill and narrow island where the feve

sly, oppressed by the worlds t

gainst her lip. But the next minute she wa

ely as before, knowing the uselessness

said, struggling t

at

hard to b

t woman in the world!" was the on