Chapter 11. Mr. Feuerstein's Climax

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_ CHAPTER XI. MR. FEUERSTEIN'S CLIMAX

When Otto came to see Hilda that evening she was guiltily effusive in her greeting and made up her mind that, as soon as they were alone, she must tell him what she had all but done. But first there was the game of pinochle which Otto must lose to her father. As they sat at their game she was at the zither-table, dreamily playing May Breezes as she watched Otto and thought how much more comfortable she was in his strong, loyal love than in the unnatural strain of Mr. Feuerstein's ecstasies. "'Work and love and home,'" she murmured, in time to her music. "Yes, father is right. They ARE the best."

August came in and said: "Hilda, here are two men who want to see you."

As he spoke, he was pushed aside and she, her father and Otto sat staring at the two callers. They were obviously detectives--"plain clothes men" from the Fifth-Street Station House. There could be no chance of mistake about those police mustaches and jaws, those wide, square-toed, police shoes.

"My name is Casey and this is my side-partner, Mr. O'Rourke," said the shorter and fatter of the two as they seated themselves without waiting to be asked. Casey took off his hat; O'Rourke's hand hesitated at the brim, then drew his hat more firmly down upon his forehead. "Sorry to break in on your little party," Casey went on, "but the Cap'n sent us to ask the young lady a few questions."

Hilda grew pale and her father and Otto looked frightened.

"Do you know an actor named Feuerstein?" asked Casey.

Hilda trembled. She could not speak. She nodded assent.

"Did you see him to-day?"

"Yes," almost whispered Hilda.

Casey looked triumphantly at O'Rourke. Otto half rose, then sank back again. "Where did you see him?" asked Casey.

"Here."

"Where else?"

Hilda nervously laced and unlaced her fingers. "Only here," she answered after a pause.

"Ah, yes you did. Come now, lady. Speak the truth. You saw him at Meinert's."

Hilda started violently. The detectives exchanged significant glances. "No," she protested. "I saw him only here."

"Were you out of the store this afternoon?"

A long pause, then a faint "Yes."

"Where did you go?" Casey added.

The blood flew to Hilda's face, then left it. "To Meinert's," she answered. "But only as far as the door."

"Oh!" said Casey sarcastically, and O'Rourke laughed. "It's no use to hold back, lady," continued Casey. "We know all about your movements. You went in Meinert's--in at the family entrance."

"Yes," replied Hilda. She was shaking as if she were having a chill. "But just to the door, then home again."

"Now, that won't do," said Casey roughly. "You'd better tell the whole story."

"Tell them all about it, Hilda," interposed her father in an agonized tone.

"Don't hold back anything."

"Oh--father--Otto--it was nothing. I didn't go in. He--Mr. Feuerstein--came here, and he looked so sick, and he begged me to come over to Meinert's for a minute. He said he had something to say to me. And then I went. But at the door I got to thinking about all he'd done, and I wouldn't go in. I just came back home."

"What was it that he had done, lady?" asked O'Rourke.

"I won't tell," Hilda flashed out, and she started up. "It's nobody's business. Why do you ask me all these questions? I won't answer any more."

"Now, now, lady," said Casey. "Just keep cool. When you went, what did you take a knife from the counter for?"

"A knife!" Hilda gasped, and she would have fallen to the floor had not Otto caught her.

"That settles it!" said Casey, in an undertone to O'Rourke. "She's it, all right. I guess she's told us enough?"

O'Rourke nodded. "The Cap'n'll get the rest out of her when he puts her through the third degree."

They rose and Casey said, with the roughness of one who is afraid of his inward impulses to gentleness: "Come, lady, get on your things. You're going along with us."

"No! No!" she cried in terror, flinging herself into her father's arms.

Brauner blazed up. "What do you mean?" he demanded, facing the detectives.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Casey in a blustering tone. "The less fuss you make, the better it'll be for you. She's got to go, and that's all there is to it."

"This is an outrage," interrupted Otto, rushing between Hilda and the detectives.

"You daren't take her without telling her why. You can't treat us like dogs."

"Drop it!" said Casey contemptuously. "Drop it, Dutchy. I guess we know what we're about."

"Yes--and I know what _I_'m about," exclaimed Otto. "Do you know Riordan, the district leader here? Well, he's a friend of mine. If we haven't got any rights you police are bound to respect, thank God, we've got a 'pull'."

"That's a bluff," said Casey, but his tone was less insolent. "Well, if you must know, she's wanted for the murder of Carl Feuerstein."

Hilda flung her arms high above her head and sank into a chair and buried her face. "It's a dream!" she moaned. "Wake me--wake me!"

Otto and Brauner looked each at the other in horror. "Murder!" whispered Brauner hoarsely. "My Hilda--murder!"

Otto went to Hilda and put his arms about her tightly and kissed her.

"She's got to come," said Casey angrily. "Now, will she go quietly or shall I call the wagon?"

This threat threw them into a panic. "You'd better go," said Otto in an undertone to Hilda. "Don't be frightened, dear. You're innocent and they can't prove you guilty. You're not poor and friendless."

At the pressure of his arms Hilda lifted her face, her eyes shining at him through her tears. And her heart went out to him as never before. From that moment it was his, all his. "My love, my dear love," she said. She went to the closet and took out her hat. She put it on before the mirror over the mantelpiece. "I'm ready," she said quietly.

In the street, she walked beside Casey; her father and Otto were close behind with O'Rourke. They turned into Sixth Street. Half a block down, in front of Meinert's, a crowd was surging, was filling sidewalk and street. When they came to the edge of it, Casey suddenly said "In here" and took her by the arm. All went down a long and winding passage, across an open court to a back door where a policeman in uniform was on guard.

"Did you get her, Mike?" said the policeman to Casey.

"Here she is," replied Casey. "She didn't give no trouble."

The policeman opened the door. He let Casey, Hilda and O'Rourke pass. He thrust back Brauner and Otto. "No, you don't," he said.

"Let us in!" commanded Otto, beside himself with rage.

"Not much! Get back!" He had closed the door and was standing between it and them, one hand meaningly upon the handle of his sheathed club.

"I am her father," half-pleaded, half-protested Brauner.

"Cap'n's orders," said the policeman in a gentler voice. "The best thing you can do is to go to the station house and wait there. You won't get to see her here."

Meanwhile Casey, still holding Hilda by the arm, was guiding her along a dark hall. When they touched a door he threw it open. He pushed her roughly into the room. For a few seconds the sudden blaze of light blinded her. Then--

Before her, stretched upon a table, was--Mr. Feuerstein. She shrank back and gazed at him with wide, fascinated eyes. His face was turned toward her, his eyes half-open; he seemed to be regarding her with a glassy, hateful stare--the "curse in a dead man's eye." His chin was fallen back and down, and his lips exposed his teeth in a hideous grin. And then she saw-- Sticking upright from his throat was a knife, the knife from their counter. It seemed to her to be trembling as if still agitated from the hand that had fiercely struck out his life.

"My God!" moaned Hilda, sinking down to the floor and hiding her face.

As she crouched there, Casey said cheerfully to Captain Hanlon, "You see she's guilty all right, Cap'n."

Hanlon took his cigar from between his teeth and nodded. At this a man sitting near him burst out laughing. Hanlon scowled at him.

The man--Doctor Wharton, a deputy coroner--laughed again. "I suppose you think she acts guilty," he said to Hanlon.

"Any fool could see that," retorted Hanlon.

"Any fool would see it, you'd better say," said Doctor Wharton. "No matter how she took it, you fellows would wag your heads and say 'Guilty.'"

Hanlon looked uneasily at Hilda, fearing she would draw encouragement from Wharton's words. But Hilda was still moaning. "Lift her up and set her in a chair," he said to Casey.

Hilda recovered herself somewhat and sat before the captain, her eyes down, her fluttering hands loose in her lap. "What was the trouble between you and him?" Hanlon asked her presently in a not unkindly tone.

"Must I tell?" pleaded Hilda, looking piteously at the captain. "I don't know anything about this except that he came into our store and told me he was going to--to--"

She looked at Feuerstein's dead face and shivered. And as she looked, memories flooded her, drowning resentment and fear. She rose, went slowly up to him; she laid her hand softly upon his brow, pushed back his long, yellow hair. The touch of her fingers seemed to smooth the wild, horrible look from his features. As she gazed down at him the tears welled into her eyes. "I won't talk against him," she said simply. "He's dead--it's all over and past."

"She ought to go on the stage," growled Casey.

But Wharton said in an unsteady voice, "That's right, Miss. They can't force you to talk. Don't say a word until you get a lawyer."

Hanlon gave him a furious look. "Don't you meddle in this," he said threateningly.

Wharton laughed. "The man killed himself," he replied. "I can tell by the slant of the wound. And I don't propose to stand by and see you giving your third degree to this little girl."

"We've got the proof, I tell you," said Hanlon. "We've got a witness who saw her do it--or at least saw her here when she says she wasn't here."

Wharton shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't say a word," he said to Hilda. "Get a lawyer."

"I don't want a lawyer," she answered.

"I'm not guilty. Why should I get a lawyer?"

"Well, at any rate, do all your talking in court. These fellows will twist everything you say."

"Take her to the station house," interrupted Hanlon.

"But I'm innocent," said Hilda, clasping her hands on her heart and looking appealingly at the captain.

"Take her along, Casey."

Casey laid hold of her arm, but she shook him off. They went through the sitting-room of the saloon and out at the side door. When Hilda saw the great crowd she covered her face with her hands and shrank back. "There she is! There she is! They're taking her to the station house!" shouted the crowd.

Casey closed the door. "We'll have to get the wagon," he said.

They sat waiting until the patrol wagon came. Then Hilda, half-carried by Casey, crossed the sidewalk through a double line of blue coats who fought back the frantically curious, pushed on by those behind. In the wagon she revived and by the time they reached the station house, seemed calm. Another great crowd was pressing in; she heard cries of "There's the girl that killed him!" She drew herself up haughtily, looked round with defiance, with indignation.

Her father and Otto rushed forward as soon as she entered the doors. She broke down again. "Take me home! Take me home!" she sobbed. "I've not done anything." The men forgot that they had promised each the other to be calm, and cursed and cried alternately. The matron came, spoke to her gently.

"You'll have to go now, child," she said.

Hilda kissed her father, then she and Otto clasped each the other closely. "It'll turn out all right, dear," he said. "We're having a streak of bad luck. But our good luck'll be all the better when it comes."

Strength and hope seemed to pass from him into her. She walked away firmly and the last glimpse they had of her sad sweet young face was a glimpse of a brave little smile trying to break through its gray gloom. But alone in her cell, seated upon the board that was her bed, her disgrace and loneliness and danger took possession of her. She was a child of the people, brought up to courage and self-reliance. She could be brave and calm before false accusers, before staring crowds. But here, with a dim gas-jet revealing the horror of grated bars and iron ceiling, walls and floor--

She sat there, hour after hour, sleepless, tearless, her brain burning, the cries of drunken prisoners in adjoining cells sounding in her ears like the shrieks of the damned. Seconds seemed moments, moments hours. "I'm dreaming," she said aloud at last. She started up and hurled herself against the bars, beating them with her hands. "I must wake or I'll die. Oh, the disgrace! Oh! the shame!"

And she flung herself into a corner of the bench, to dread the time when the darkness and the loneliness would cease to hide her. _

Read next: Chapter 12. Exit Mr. Feuerstein

Read previous: Chapter 10. Mr. Feuerstein Is Consistent

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