THE MAN WHO FORGOT (Thriller). Hay James
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was so subject to his own thoughts that he did not hear the street door open behind him. Not even the swish of a woman's evening gown came into his consciousness. Sullivan, leaving him staring at the glass, went to meet her. She was young, scarcely more than twenty, and tall and slender. She wore in her black hair a red rose, and her opera cloak, falling slightly away from her shoulders, showed her columnlike neck. As she stood, graceful even in her stillness, awaiting Sullivan's approach, her welcoming smile illumined the grave beauty of her face. She seemed to sense the tragedy.
"Is there anything very wrong?" she asked in a whisper.
She was all loveliness and fragrance and graciousness.
He's pretty sick, Miss Edith," the old man whispered back. "But don't you worry."
"Help him, can't you?" she questioned, and, seeing Sullivan's nod, added: "I came to see the matron. You know, I'm going to Washington tomorrow, and"
Smith, pointing once more at the glass, had begun to speak:
"It's my enemy!" his voice boomed forth. "It's the thing that stole my soul away!"
The girl, motioning Sullivan to go back to the sick man, stood and watched the scene.
"It's a million women's tears, the fountain of another million women's tears. Women's woe! It's full of the blue lips and twisted smiles of starving children. Children of hunger! It's the ruin of strong men whom it has cheated. Poor, ruined men!"
He snatched the glass from the desk, spilling the whisky, and held it far from him in his left hand. Without taking his eyes from it, he put the heavy grip of his right hand on Sullivan's shoulder.
"Ah, man!" he entreated. "Look at it! Can't you see? There! The thing that makes its home there! His hands are too white, and he's got ashes on his shoes—ashes of dead souls. Think where he walks! He's dancing with a woman. She's a pretty woman. Ah, watch! She's laughing. They're going out through that door—and the laughter freezes on her lips! Out into the long, dark corridor that leads to nowhere—forever! And in that corridor are ghosts, grim ghosts, ghosts of murdered loves, ghosts of great intellects, ghosts of ambition, ghosts of those once virtuous. And she will meet them, will sit in that congress of eternal woe, weep forever with that everlasting troop of torment!"
Sullivan, submitting to the grip on his shoulder, saw that the girl at the door leaned forward, her lips half-parted, her eyes wide with astonishment.
"Look quick!" John Smith was saying. "He's talking to a young man, telling him lies, charming lies! But his lips are too pale, and there are ugly stains under his fingernails. Did you hear that door slam? The young man's gone—gone! I heard one like him scream, up there on the edges of eternity."
His voice shrilled:
"Look how he works—lashing the backs of men, breaking the hearts of women, stealing away the laughter of children. Look at him—all ghoulish eyes.
His mouth's a grinning gap. And he's got ashes on his nice new shoes—ashes of dead souls."
He pushed Sullivan from him, and with both hands held the glass close against his chest, slopping over to the floor the last few drops of the whisky. There was no thunder left in his voice. Emotions played with him as high winds thresh the trees in November. All his old terror beat upon him.
"I'm afraid of him!" he shrieked, the sound bringing a half-stifled cry from the girl at the door.
His hands grew nerveless, and the glass dropped, unbroken, to the floor. He looked at Sullivan, the torches of terror relit in his eyes, and whispered hoarsely:
"Old man, that's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of him!"
On the end of that confession one great sob shook him, and he screamed, clapping his left hand to his shoulder:
"He's got me!" he lamented. "I've fled for a thousand years—and—he's got me!"
He stood, weak and uncertain on his feet, and wept, the tears flowing unheeded down his sunken cheeks. Then, suddenly, in a flash, fury tensed him, made him strong enough to grind the glass to pieces under the ragged sole of his shoe.
"Curse him! Curse him!" he yelled. "Damn him!"
Immediately, as quickly as it had come, the false strength left him.
"What's the use?" he moaned weakly. "He's got"
The girl, rushing forward, reached him as soon as Sullivan. Both of them caught him as he reeled and was about to fall.
"Oh!" she said, looking down upon the pallor of his face while they held him between them.
"He's in awful bad shape, Miss Edith," Sullivan explained, his voice lowered involuntarily.
Smith, with a desperate effort, stood upright, shaking off their support. He was unnaturally calm. An insane smile played with his lips.
"Look behind me," he said, his voice low and strained, his eyes fixed. "Look behind me and tell me exactly where he's standing—exactly. You can tell him by the ashes on his shoes."
The girl, putting a hand on his shoulder, leaned forward and tried to engage with her glance his unwavering gaze.
"Who are you?" she asked.
He was silent, the smile still playing with his lips.
'He don't know, Miss Edith, "volunteered Sullivan. Doesn't know?" she breathed, and urged him with a pressure on his shoulder: "Tell us. We want to help you. What's your name?"
There was no answer. Instead, Smith collapsed in Sullivan's arms, his lips still lifted to a smile, his bluish eyelids falling like thin curtains over the fixed, flaming eyes.
"Very white ashes on his shoes," he whispered; "ashes of dead souls—ashes of—poor, dead souls!"
FIVE YEARS GO OVER
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