Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

than protection against light-fingered servants. To his skill it was a mere toy, a thing of straw and pasteboard. The money was as good as in his hands. With his clamps he could draw the knob, punch the tumblers and open the door in two minutes. Perhaps, in another way, he might open it in one.

Kneeling upon the floor, he laid his ear to the combination plate, and slowly turned the knob. As he had surmised, it was locked at only a “day com.”⁠—upon one number. His keen ear caught the faint warning click as the tumbler was disturbed; he used the clue⁠—the handle turned. He swung the door wide open.

The interior of the safe was bare⁠—not even a scrap of paper rested within the hollow iron cube.

Doctor James rose to his feet and walked back to the bed.

A thick dew had formed upon the dying man’s brow, but there was a mocking, grim smile on his lips and in his eyes.

“I never⁠—saw it before,” he said, painfully, “medicine and⁠—burglary wedded! Do you⁠—make the⁠—combination pay⁠—dear Doctor?”

Than that situation afforded, there was never a more rigorous test of Doctor James’s greatness. Trapped by the diabolic humor of his victim into a position both ridiculous and unsafe, he maintained his dignity as well as his presence of mind. Taking out his watch, he waited for the man to die.

“You were⁠—just a shade⁠—too⁠—anxious⁠—about that money. But it never was⁠—in any danger⁠—from you, dear Doctor. It’s safe. Perfectly safe. It’s all⁠—in the hands⁠—of the bookmakers. Twenty⁠—thousand⁠—Amy’s money. I played it at the races⁠—lost every⁠—cent of it. I’ve been a pretty bad boy, Burglar⁠—excuse me⁠—Doctor, but I’ve been a square sport. I don’t think⁠—I ever met⁠—such an⁠—eighteen-carat rascal as you are, Doctor⁠—excuse me⁠—Burglar, in all my rounds. Is it contrary⁠—to the ethics⁠—of your⁠—gang, Burglar, to give a victim⁠—excuse me⁠—patient, a drink of water?”

Doctor James brought him a drink. He could scarcely swallow it. The reaction from the powerful drug was coming in regular, intensifying waves. But his moribund fancy must have one more grating fling.

“Gambler⁠—drunkard⁠—spendthrift⁠—I’ve been those, but⁠—a doctor-burglar!”

The physician indulged himself to but one reply to the other’s caustic taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler’s fast crystallizing gaze, he pointed to the sleeping lady’s door with a gesture so stern and significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, with his remaining strength, to see. He saw nothing; but he caught the cold words of the doctor⁠—the last sounds he was to hear:

“I never yet⁠—struck a woman.”

It were vain to attempt to con such men. There is no curriculum that can reckon with them in its ken. They are offshoots from the types whereof men say, “He will do this,” or “He will do that.” We only know that they exist; and that we can observe them, and tell one another of their bare performances, as children watch and speak of the marionettes.

Yet it were a droll study in egoism to consider these two⁠—one an assassin and a robber, standing above his victim; the other baser in his offences, if a lesser lawbreaker, lying, abhorred, in the house of the wife he had persecuted, spoiled, and smitten, one a tiger, the other a dog-wolf⁠—to consider each of them sickening at the foulness of the other; and each flourishing out of the mire of his manifest guilt his own immaculate standard⁠—of conduct, if not of honor.

The one retort of Doctor James must have struck home to the other’s remaining shreds of shame and manhood, for it proved the coup de grâce. A deep blush suffused his face⁠—an ignominious rosa mortis; the respiration ceased, and, with scarcely a tremor, Chandler expired.

Close following upon his last breath came the negress, bringing the medicine. With a hand gently pressing upon the closed eyelids, Doctor James told her of the end. Not grief, but a hereditary rapprochement with death in the abstract, moved her to a dismal, watery snuffling, accompanied by her usual jeremiad.

“Dar now! It’s in de Lawd’s hands. He am de jedge ob de transgressor, and de suppo’t of dem in distress. He gwine hab suppo’t us now. Cindy done paid out de last quarter fer dis bottle of physic, and it nebber come to no use.”

“Do I understand,” asked Doctor James, “that Mrs. Chandler has no money?”

“Money, suh? You know what make Miss Amy fall down and so weak? Stahvation, sub. Nothin’ to eat in dis house but some crumbly crackers in three days. Dat angel sell her finger rings and watch mont’s ago. Dis fine house, suh, wid de red cyarpets and shiny bureaus, it’s all hired; and de man talkin’ scan’lous about de rent. Dat debble⁠—‘scuse me, Lawd⁠—he done in Yo’ hands fer jedgment, now⁠—he made way wid everything.”

The physician’s silence encouraged her to continue. The history that he gleaned from Cindy’s disordered monologue was an old one, of illusion, wilfulness, disaster, cruelty and pride. Standing out from the blurred panorama of her gabble were little clear pictures⁠—an ideal home in the far South; a quickly repented marriage; an unhappy season, full of wrongs and abuse, and, of late, an inheritance of money that promised deliverance; its seizure and waste by the dog-wolf during a two months’ absence, and his return in the midst of a scandalous carouse. Unobtruded, but visible between every line, ran a pure white thread through the smudged warp of the story⁠—the simple, all-enduring, sublime love of the old negress, following her mistress unswervingly through everything to the end.

When at last she paused, the physician spoke, asking if the house contained whiskey or liquor of any sort. There was, the old woman informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the dog-wolf.

“Prepare a toddy as I told you,” said Doctor James. “Wake your mistress; have her drink it, and tell her what has happened.”

Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by old Cindy’s arm. She appeared to be a little stronger since her sleep and the stimulant she had taken. Doctor