As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a little knot of people around her. The Street was getting the night’s news.
He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the country. He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day. He went to Schwitter’s first. Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill was scrubbing the porch, and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass into a box. The dead lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on the hill came the staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
“Where’s Schwitter?”
“At the barn with the missus. Got a boy back there.”
Bill grinned. He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch, shoved a chair on it.
“Sit down. Well, how’s the man who got his last night? Dead?”
“No.”
“County detectives were here bright and early. After the lady’s husband. I guess we lose our license over this.”
“What does Schwitter say?”
“Oh, him!” Bill’s tone was full of disgust. “He hopes we do. He hates the place. Only man I ever knew that hated money. That’s what this house is—money.”
“Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?”
A sort of haze came over Bill’s face, as if he had dropped a curtain before his eyes. But his reply came promptly:
“Surest thing in the world. Close to him as you are to me. Dark man, about thirty, small mustache—”
“Bill, you’re lying, and I know it. Where is he?”
The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
“I don’t know anything about him.” He thrust his mop into the pail. K. rose.
“Does Schwitter know?”
“He doesn’t know nothing. He’s been out at the barn all night.”
The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the house. K. put his hand on Bill’s shirt-sleeved arm.
“We’ve got to get him away from here, Bill.”
“Get who away?”
“You know. The county men may come back to search the premises.”
“How do I know you aren’t one of them?”
“I guess you know I’m not. He’s a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, I followed him here; but I was too late. Did he take the revolver away with him?”
“I took it from him. It’s under the bar.”
“Get it for me.”
In sheer relief, K.‘s spirits rose. After all, it was a good world: Tillie with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe safe, and, without the revolver, secure from his own remorse. Other things there were, too—the feel of Sidney’s inert body in his arms, the way she had turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, this last, but it was worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; it had stopped on the hillside. The men were drinking out of a bucket that flashed in the sun.
There was one thing wrong. What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless a thing? K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne. He noted his tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his ears. Barkeepers know men: that’s a part of the job. After his survey he went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
K. thrust it into his pocket.
“Now,” he said quietly, “where is he?”
“In my room—top of the house.”
K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had sat waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie’s slow step coming down. And last night he himself had carried down Wilson’s unconscious figure. Surely the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery. None of it paid. No one got away with it.
The room under the eaves was stifling. An unmade bed stood in a corner. From nails in the rafters hung Bill’s holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and a cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the windowsill.
Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window. When the door swung open, he looked up. He showed no interest on seeing K., who had to stoop to enter the low room.
“Hello, Joe.”
“I thought you were the police.”
“Not much. Open that window, Bill. This place is stifling.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, indeed.”
“I wish I’d killed him!”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re damned glad you didn’t, and so am I.”
“What will they do with me?”
“Nothing until they find you. I came to talk about that. They’d better not find you.”
“Huh!”
“It’s easier than it sounds.”
K. sat down on the bed.
“If I only had some money!” he said. “But never mind about that, Joe; I’ll get some.”
Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room. As he closed the door behind him, K.‘s voice took on a new tone: “Joe, why did you do it?”
“You know.”
“You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who was with him?”
“Yes, and so do you. Don’t go into that. I did it, and I’ll stand by it.”
“Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?”
“Go and tell that to somebody who’ll believe you!” he sneered. “They came here and took a room. I met him coming out of it. I’d do it again if I had a chance, and do it better.”
“It was not Sidney.”
“Aw, chuck it!”
“It’s a fact. I got here not two minutes after you left. The girl was still there. It was some one else. Sidney was not out of the hospital last night. She attended a lecture, and then an operation.”
Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
“If he is that sort, he deserves what he got,” said the boy grimly.
And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spent alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time that he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees—his descent of the staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to walk back and surrender himself at Schwitter’s, so that there could be no mistake as to who had committed the crime.
“I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself,” he told K. “But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And—”
After a pause: “Does she know who did it?”
“Sidney? No.”
“Then, if he gets better, she’ll marry him anyhow.”
“Possibly. That’s not up to us, Joe. The thing we’ve got to do is to hush the thing up, and get you away.”
“I’d go to Cuba, but I haven’t the money.”
K. rose. “I think I can get it.”
He turned in the doorway.
“Sidney need never know who did it.”
“I’m not ashamed of it.” But his face showed relief.
There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve between men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K. The boy rose and followed him to the door.
“Why don’t you tell her the whole thing?—the whole filthy story?” he asked. “She’d never look at him again. You’re crazy about her. I haven’t got a chance. It would give you one.”
“I want her, God knows!” said K. “But not that way, boy.”
Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
“Five hundred gross,” the little man hastened to explain. “But you’re right, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It’s going hard with her, just now, that she hasn’t any women friends about. It’s in the safe, in cash; I haven’t had time to take it to the bank.” He seemed to apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending an entire day’s gross receipts on no security. “It’s better to get him away, of course. It’s good business. I have tried to have an orderly place. If they arrest him here—”
His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walked down the Street, and eyed Its poplars with appraising eyes—a far way. Now he had a son, and the child’s mother looked at him with tragic eyes. It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that night to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to a railroad station. But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.