Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

Maybe O’Rourke was right. Maybe he was only a dog, and not a man. Maybe there was something wrong with all Scotchmen, the way O’Rourke said.

It was queer and sort of horrible the way Chatham was kissing the girl on the bed, hard, her head pressed back by the force of each kiss.

He kept saying: “Charlotte!... Ah God!... Charlotte!”

O’Rourke took him by the hair of the head and pulled.

“Listen! Chatham! She ain’t dead! She’s only fainted! Listen! She’ll be all right if you don’t let her bleed to death.”

Then Chatham dropped her back on the bed, roughly, and snatched up some of the length of linen which he had prepared. The blood was pumping out of the inside mouth of the wound. The heart pressure was fisting the blood out in jets.

Someone came dodging back into the room through the policemen. That was Vivian Tydings. Her eyes were wonderfully small and bright. Campbell caught her by one wrist and said: “What’s the matter? What do you aim to do?”

She pointed with her other arm.

“I’m going to send Gene Chatham to the electric chair!” she cried.

“That’s the stuff,” said Campbell numbly.

“The hypocrite!... Gene, do you hear me? Do you hear? I’m going to tell them everything! I’m going to see that you get the chair! I’m going to be there to see that you burn in it!”

He said, without turning his head: “Get the scrawny little fool out of here, will you?”

“Ah!” said Vivian Tydings.

“I want to talk to you,” said Campbell. “I want to hear everything.”

“Do you?” she said, with a remarkable sweetness. “I wonder if you want to hear it half as much as I want to tell? Good night, Sergeant. Good night, Sergeant O’Rourke.”

She went to the door, turned and smiled back at them, and went out.

O’Rourke said: “What a gal!”

Chatham said: “Hold the leg up.”

The girl on the bed moaned. Chatham was putting force on the bandaging, perhaps.

O’Rourke assisted him, holding up the leg.

Some of the policemen were still there by the door. One of them had a young face. He seemed to Campbell too young to be in that room, staring. Campbell said: “Go on out, all of you! Get a move on you! Shake it up.”

The policemen crowded back through the doorway.

The bed was all blood. Some of the blood was dripping off the edge and down onto the floor.

The bandaging was finished. Chatham took off the bloody silk stocking. His big hands were delicate. He slipped the stocking off and it came away like a delicate extra skin. It slumped to nothing on the floor. Chatham washed the stained leg. The flesh puffed beside the bandage. Chatham put his hand on the puff of flesh. Then he drew a soft, knitted throw over the girl’s body.

She said: “Gene!”

“I’m here,” said Chatham. He stuck his big head out over her.

“Will they hang us both?” said the girl.

“Be still!” said Chatham, with no breath in his voice.

He half rose. He kept one hand spread out on the breast and shoulder of the girl, and he turned his head and looked with the eyes of a wild beast at the two detectives.

O’Rourke said: “We didn’t hear that, Chatham.”

“Damn you!” said Chatham.

O’Rourke walked right up to the monster.

He said: “Listen to me, Chatham: We didn’t hear that. We didn’t hear anything — no more’n a priest would of heard anything.”

Chatham said nothing. His eyes digested the words, though, and changed in expression.

He dropped on his knees beside the bed. One arm he slipped in under the girl’s body. The other hand began to go over her face. Campbell had seen a blind man touch a face the way Chatham was doing, drinking it in with his fingers.

“Gene,” said the girl.

“Be still,” said Chatham.

“Did you kiss me?” she asked.

“No,” said Chatham.

“Gene,” she said.

“Well?”

“Did you kiss me?”

“Yes,” he answered.

She turned her face towards him and smiled. She put out a hand and slipped the fingers into his hair.

“Is there much pain?” said Chatham.

Her forehead clouded a little.

“No. Not much,” she said. “Iodine has a horrible smell, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Chatham.

“I wish you’d wash your face,” said the girl.

“I shall — now,” said he.

“No, don’t do it,” said the girl.

“All right,” said Chatham.

O’Rourke came to Campbell and said: “Let’s get a drink.”

O’Rourke looked sick. “All right,” said Campbell.

He picked up his wallet from the table. He pinched the soft leather between thumb and forefinger. He had felt the stealing of that wallet just as though it had been part of his flesh, and that was a funny thing.

He went behind O’Rourke out of the room.

“We oughtn’t to leave him on the loose,” said Campbell.

“Don’t be a damn fool,” answered O’Rourke.

Somehow, O’Rourke was able to speak from an elevation. He seemed to be in command.

They went down to the dining room and through to the pantry. There was white wine cooling in the icebox, there. And in the wine pantry there were all sorts of things. Rich people pour funny stuff into themselves. It would be like going to school again to learn the names of all the sorts of things they drink, and the way they mix them.

O’Rourke did not hesitate. He found some Bushmill’s, Black Label.