THE WITCH LAUGHS

David was at his desk early the next day, working closely in the effort to shut out his own problems; it was not a very successful effort. All morning he avoided Esther strictly; that was much easier. She was avoiding him, too, but he did not guess that.

During the noon hour he had a caller; Dick Holden, if you please, a Dick who was plainly perturbed.

“Davy,” quoth he, “have I done you some favors?”

“You have,” said David.

“One good turn deserves another. It has to do with St. Mark’s. Something queer’s stirring there. My wires won’t work. You’re pretty thick with Jim Blaisdell. Get him to put in a word, a good strong word, for me, will you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Dick,” said David, “very consistently.”

“Why not?”

“The fact is, I think Jim is putting in his best words for me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I have plans in there myself.”

“The devil!” Dick stared. “I thought you were out of the game.”

“I’m back in to this extent.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t suppose you would be interested.”

“Are your plans any good?”

“I think so,” said David.

“Then I bet you’re the one that’s blocking me there.” Dick shook his head reproachfully. “Davy, I’m disappointed in you. I call it playing it low down on me. You might at least have told me, so I could know what to meet. It isn’t fair. It isn’t friendly. And after all I’ve done for you! I didn’t think you could do it.” Dick sighed sorrowfully, his faith in human nature evidently shattered.

“I’m sorry, Dick,” said David. “I supposed you put all your faith in your wires.”

Dick thought a few minutes.

“Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he offered at last. “When friends find themselves competing, they should meet half-way. We’ll pool on your plans I’ll take a chance on them, sight unseen. I’ll throw my pull over to you. Then we’ll split the spoils, two and one. The two to me, of course.”

“Why the two to you of course?”

“The prestige of my name,” said Dick with dignity, “is worth something, I think. We’ll have to get busy at once, because the committee meets this afternoon.”

“I’m afraid, Dick, I’ll have to say no. You had a chance at my plans before I thought of putting them in. You could have had them for almost nothing, but you didn’t think them worth looking over. I think I’ll stand or fall with them.”

“That’s final? After all I’ve ”

“Yes, Dick, final. But it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful ”

With a gesture Dick waived that. “Very well,” he said sadly, rising. “I thought there was such a thing as friendship in business. I see I was mistaken.”

David wondered if Dick were losing his punch.

That afternoon came a wire.

“Am packing up now. Love. Shirley.”

He tore the yellow paper slowly to bits. “Poor Shirley!” he muttered.

Poor Shirley, with her house of toys! Frightened now, no doubt, into thinking that she wanted what she did not really want, as he had been driven, by resentment at her blindness, into saying what he did not really mean. She at least would never miss what he could no longer give. She would be content with the hollow pretense their life together would be, missing only her good times. But he must have her beside him, to remind him that he was not free and never should be free to go browsing in the green fields of love.

She would never know. Still, poor Shirley none the less!

He set wearily to work once more.

The afternoon came to an end somehow. The clamor of machinery from the shop was stilled. The other offices became silent. He supposed the others had gone. A janitor made the rounds, closing the windows. Doggedly David stuck to his table until he had completed the design he was working on. Then he put the table in order for the night, donned his hat and coat and started to leave.

But the corridor door of the adjoining office was open. He looked in and saw Esther, hatted, but still on her high stool by the desk, looking out into the street. She heard him, started and turned, then said:

“Oh, I thought every one was gone.”

“Yes, I thought so, too.”

They fell silent, awkwardly silent. The easy comradeship was no more.

Then she smiled; no one but David could have told that the smile was forced.

“I was just thinking isn’t it funny? that I’ll be sorry to say good-by to that dingy, rackety street. I’ll hate to leave this office. I’ve been here two years and ”

“You are leaving, then? I didn’t know.”

“Yes. At the end of the week.”

He commanded his feet to go on. And they went toward her. He rested his folded arms heavily on the tall desk.

“I’ll miss you,” he said. “I’ll miss you very much. It won’t seem the same here without you.”

“But maybe you’ll be leaving, too. If your plans are taken, you know.”

“I’d forgotten them. I don’t seem to care so much about them as I ought now they’re out of my hands. And I can’t count on them. I suppose we’ll not see each other very often after you leave here. I’ll be leaving your aunt’s in a few days. My my people are coming home.”

“Oh! You’ll be glad of that.”

“Yes.” And again, “Yes.”

He let his eyes dwell hungrily on her, as though this were indeed their farewell, drinking in every detail of her the dark curling wisps straying from under her hat, the slate-gray eyes, a little sad just then, the slender girlish figure that seemed so frail. For that moment there were no Shirley, no law, no honor.

“I’ll miss you,” he said again and fumbled at his collar. “One way and another I owe you a great deal. I shan’t forget that. I shan’t forget you. I’ll remember that I came here to prison, I thought and found some good friends. One very good friend who ”

“Don’t!” The little hand lying on the desk clenched tightly. “Don’t talk about it. I ” She got slowly down from the stool. “I must be going now.”

But her eyes did not leave his. They went suddenly dark. And in them he read the same hurt that was in his own heart. He saw with a fierce blinding joy then with horror and then with joy again.

“Esther! You, too! Oh, I never wanted that. I hoped you Oh, Esther!”

She gave him no answer but stood looking at him piteously. No one, seeing them, could have failed to understand. The man who had come to the door saw and understood.

It was Jonathan.

They saw him. No word passed then; there was nothing to say. She moved slowly out of the room by another door, the men, both as if in a daze, following her with their eyes. When her footsteps had died away, they looked at each other helplessly.

“David!” Jonathan’s voice broke like a boy’s. “David! What have you done?”

After a little that cry reached David’s understanding. “I never knew ” He turned away from the stricken accusing face.

He heard Jonathan start away at last, then turn and come toward him. A letter was laid on the desk.

“I was bringing this to you,” said Jonathan’s choking voice. And again, “David! David!”

That time Jonathan did not return.

Mechanically David took up and opened the letter. He had to read it twice before he grasped its import.

“The committee of St. Mark’s has selected your plans. . . . We shall want you to supervise the work . . . usual terms . . . congratulations.”

The letter fluttered from his hands to the floor, St. Mark’s from his mind.

So he was not to have even the consolation of knowing that no one but himself had been hurt. It would be on his soul that he had hurt her, too cruelly, hopelessly hurt her. And he could not help her, only run away and leave her to face it alone. And Jonathan, his kind friend the meaning of the grief on that homely face was plain.

The cup of David’s misery ran over. He fell forward on the desk, her desk, pillowing his head on his arms.

“Esther!”

As if summoned by the cry, another little imp took stand by David’s ear. And his tongue was specious and honeyed, and he had the trick of making black seem white and gray a golden splendor.

Why run away and leave her to face it alone? . . .

He was there a long time. It grew dark. The street, deserted by its daylight toilers, grew quiet except for the tramping of an occasional heavy-footed watchman or policeman. David did not stir. He was slowly draining his bitter cup and listening to the eloquent imp. Once to nearly every man comes an hour when he stands on a high mount and is shown the kingdom of his desire, to be his if he will at a price. There David stood that evening. And he fell. He listened and looked too long. He did not haggle with his tempter over the price but agreed to pay, if only he might have his beautiful kingdom.

He did not hear stealthy footsteps along the corridor, nor the rustling of cautiously drawn shades in Jonathan’s office.

The visitor, too, supposed that he had the building to himself. But he worked by the light of a dark-lantern and tiptoed instinctively. Very carefully, as his former cell-mate had taught him, he made his preparations, substituting a sixty- for a six-ampere fuse which would give him, the old cracksman had said, “juice” enough to cut through the ribs of a war-ship and clamping one strand of his extension wire to the safe door. This done, he unscrewed all the light bulbs from their sockets lest, when he turned the switch, a sudden glow through the shades arouse some prowling watchman’s curiosity. Then he took up the other strand of his wire, to which was attached a carbon electrode, knelt on the floor and gingerly, for so much juice suggested many possibilities to a novice touched the carbon to the safe door.

He drew back hastily, almost unnerved. The old cracksman had not warned him of that blinding flash or that sputtering, loud enough, so it seemed, to be heard a block away. But he remembered that Jonathan often kept money overnight in the safe. He forced himself to make the contact again.

David heard a shuffling sound from a near-by office. He straightened stiffly, wondering dully who the newcomer was. The watchman probably, on a round of inspection. Or perhaps Jonathan, who came to his office sometimes of nights to work off odds and ends that his lack of system allowed to pile up on him. Jonathan, his friend, who had been hurt, whose stricken, accusing, contemptuous face danced before him. David’s heart gave a sharp twinge at that. He hoped it was not Jonathan. He did not want to face Jonathan just then.

He started at a sudden crackling report that resounded through the lonely building, followed by a strange continued sputtering. He went slowly into the corridor and to Jonathan’s office. At the door he stopped, staring in stupid surprise at the intent kneeling figure dimly outlined in the glow of hot metal and the bluish crackling flame. Then, with a vague notion that it was the wrong thing to do but his overwrought brain not quite grasping the situation, he took two steps into the room.

“Get out of here whoever you are.”

With a muttered ejaculation the intruder turned his head to look, then sprang back from the safe, breaking the contact. Instantly the room became black. David stared, still stupidly, at the dull red spot on the safe until it faded into blackness. Then he realized. He stood very still, muscles tense, senses sharply alert. He heard a faint rustling but he could not make out from what part of the room it came.

Smith crouched, rigid and breathless, waiting for a shot. It did not come. Slowly, as silently as possible, he reached for the sheath knife he carried and drew it. He had a gun, but a knife, the old cracksman had said, was much better for a fight in the dark and it had the superlative virtue of noiselessness. He became motionless again, his eyes vainly straining to pierce the darkness, waiting for the other to make a move. The silence and inaction became unbearable. He gathered his nerve and muscles for a rush to where the door ought to be and leaped forward. At the third step a fist struck out and caught him on the neck. He recoiled a little, then lashed out blindly with the knife. He heard a sharp gasp and a body crumpling to the floor. But Smith waited no longer. Groping his way to the door, he sped along the corridor and through the shop to the rear window where he had entered.

A quarter of an hour later a watchman espied the open window. He whistled a policeman to his aid and together, after a period of timorous deliberation, they entered and with many discreet pauses tiptoed over the building. They found David in the corridor, where he had given up crawling, weakly trying to stanch the flowing blood.

The policeman was young and new to his job. He mopped his brow nervously at sight of so much blood.

“Are yez much hurted, d’yez think?” he inquired anxiously.

“More scared than hurt, probably.” David smiled wanly. “But, just the same, I think you’d better call up a doctor.”