The Scarlet Car
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Scarlet Car
"Yes," said the owner of the car patiently. "You needn't
worry any longer. We got the water."
III
THE KIDNAPPERS
During the last two weeks of the "whirlwind" campaign,
automobiles had carried the rival candidates to every election
district in Greater New York.
During these two weeks, at the disposal of Ernest Peabody--on
the Reform Ticket, "the people's choice for
Lieutenant-Governor--" Winthrop had placed his Scarlet Car,
and, as its chauffeur, himself.
Not that Winthrop greatly cared for Reform, or Ernest Peabody.
The "whirlwind" part of the campaign was what attracted him;
the crowds, the bands, the fireworks, the rush by night from
hall to hall, from Fordham to Tompkinsville. And, while
inside the different Lyceums, Peabody lashed the Tammany
Tiger, outside in his car, Winthrop was making friends with
Tammany policemen, and his natural enemies, the bicycle cops.
To Winthrop, the day in which he did not increase his
acquaintance with the traffic squad, was a day lost.
But the real reason for his efforts in the cause of Reform,
was one he could not declare. And it was a reason that was
guessed perhaps by only one person. On some nights Beatrice
Forbes and her brother Sam accompanied Peabody. And while
Peabody sat in the rear of the car, mumbling the speech he
would next deliver, Winthrop was given the chance to talk with
her. These chances were growing cruelly few. In one month
after election day Miss Forbes and Peabody would be man and
wife. Once before the day of their marriage had been fixed,
but, when the Reform Party offered Peabody a high place on its
ticket, he asked, in order that he might bear his part in the
cause of reform, that the wedding be postponed. To the
postponement Miss Forbes made no objection. To one less
self-centred than Peabody, it might have appeared that she
almost too readily consented.
"I knew I could count upon your seeing my duty as I saw it,"
said Peabody much pleased, "it always will be a satisfaction
to both of us to remember you never stood between me and my
work for reform."
"What do you think my brother-in-law-to-be has done now?"
demanded Sam of Winthrop, as the Scarlet Car swept into Jerome
Avenue. "He's postponed his marriage with Trix just because he
has a chance to be Lieutenant-Governor. What is a
Lieutenant-Governor anyway, do you know? I don't like to ask
Peabody."
"It is not his own election he's working for," said Winthrop.
He was conscious of an effort to assume a point of view both
noble and magnanimous.
"He probably feels the `cause' calls him. But, good Heavens!"
"Look out!" shrieked Sam, "where you going?"
Winthrop swung the car back into the avenue.
"To think," he cried, "that a man who could marry--a girl, and
then would ask her to wait two months. Or, two days! Two
months lost out of his life, and she might die; he might lose
her, she might change her mind. Any number of men can be
Lieutenant-Governors; only one man can be----"
He broke off suddenly, coughed and fixed his eyes miserably on
the road. After a brief pause, Brother Sam covertly looked at
him. Could it be that "Billie" Winthrop, the man liked of all
men, should love his sister, and--that she should prefer
Ernest Peabody? He was deeply, loyally indignant. He
determined to demand of his sister an immediate and abject
apology.
At eight o'clock on the morning of election day, Peabody, in
the Scarlet Car, was on his way to vote. He lived at
Riverside Drive, and the polling-booth was only a few blocks
distant. During the rest of the day he intended to use the
car to visit other election districts, and to keep him in
touch with the Reformers at the Gilsey House. Winthrop was
acting as his chauffeur, and in the rear seat was Miss Forbes.
Peabody had asked her to accompany him to the polling-booth,
because he thought women who believed in reform should show
their interest in it in public, before all men. Miss Forbes
disagreed with him, chiefly because whenever she sat in a box
at any of the public meetings the artists from the newspapers,
instead of immortalizing the candidate, made pictures of her
and her hat. After she had seen her future lord and master
cast his vote for reform and himself, she was to depart by
train to Tarrytown. The Forbes's country place was there, and
for election day her brother Sam had invited out some of his
friends to play tennis.
As the car darted and dodged up Eighth Avenue, a man who had
been hidden by the stairs to the Elevated, stepped in front of
it. It caught him, and hurled him, like a mail-bag tossed
from a train, against one of the pillars that support the
overhead tracks. Winthrop gave a cry and fell upon the
brakes. The cry was as full of pain as though he himself had
been mangled. Miss Forbes saw only the man appear, and then
disappear, but, Winthrop's shout of warning, and the wrench as
the brakes locked, told her what had happened. She shut her
eyes, and for an instant covered them with her hands. On the
front seat Peabody clutched helplessly at the cushions. In
horror his eyes were fastened on the motionless mass jammed
against the pillar. Winthrop scrambled over him, and ran to
where the man lay. So, apparently, did every other inhabitant
of Eighth Avenue; but Winthrop was the first to reach him and
kneeling in the car tracks, he tried to place the head and
shoulders of the body against the iron pillar. He had seen
very few dead men; and to him, this weight in his arms, this
bundle of limp flesh and muddy clothes, and the purple-bloated
face with blood trickling down it, looked like a dead man.
Once or twice when in his car, Death had reached for Winthrop,
and only by the scantiest grace had he escaped. Then the
nearness of it had only sobered him. Now that he believed he
had brought it to a fellow man, even though he knew he was in
no degree to blame, the thought sickened and shocked him. His
brain trembled with remorse and horror.
But voices assailing him on every side brought him to the
necessity of the moment. Men were pressing close upon him,
jostling, abusing him, shaking fists in his face. Another
crowd of men, as though fearing the car would escape of its
own volition, were clinging to the steps and running boards.
Winthrop saw Miss Forbes standing above them, talking eagerly
to Peabody, and pointing at him. He heard children's shrill
voices calling to new arrivals that an automobile had killed a
man; that it had killed him on purpose. On the outer edge of
the crowd men shouted: "Ah, soak him," "Kill him," "Lynch
him."
A soiled giant without a collar stooped over the purple,
blood-stained face, and then leaped upright, and shouted:
"It's Jerry Gaylor, he's killed old man Gaylor."
The response was instant. Every one seemed to know Jerry
Gaylor.
Winthrop took the soiled person by the arm.
"You help me lift him into my car," he ordered. "Take him by
the shoulders. We must get him to a hospital."
"To a hospital? To the Morgue!" roared the man. "And the
police station for yours. You don't do no get-away."
Winthrop answered him by turning to the crowd. "If this man
has any friends here, they'll please help me put him in my
car, and we'll take him to Roosevelt Hospital."
The soiled person shoved a fist and a bad cigar under
Winthrop's nose.
"Has he got any friends?" he mocked. "Sure, he's got friends,
and they'll fix you, all right."
"Sure!" echoed the crowd.
The man was encouraged.
"Don't you go away thinking you can come up here with your
buzz wagon and murder better men nor you'll ever be and----"
"Oh, shut up!" said Winthrop.
He turned his back on the soiled man, and again appealed to
the crowd.
"Don't stand there doing nothing," he commanded. "Do you want
this man to die? Some of you ring for an ambulance and get a
policeman, or tell me where is the nearest drug store."
No one moved, but every one shouted to every one else to do as
Winthrop suggested.
Winthrop felt something pulling at his sleeve, and turning,
found Peabody at his shoulder peering fearfully at the figure
in the street. He had drawn his cap over his eyes and hidden
the lower part of his face in the high collar of his motor
coat. "I can't do anything, can I?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not," whispered Winthrop. "Go back to the car and
don't leave Beatrice. I'll attend to this."
"That's what I thought," whispered Peabody eagerly. "I
thought she and I had better keep out of it."
"Right!" exclaimed Winthrop. "Go back and get Beatrice away."
Peabody looked his relief, but still hesitated.
"I can't do anything, as you say," he stammered, "and it's sure
to get in the `extras,' and they'll be out in time to lose us
thousands of votes, and though no one is to blame, they're
sure to blame me. I don't care about myself," he added
eagerly, "but the very morning of election--half the city has
not voted yet--the Ticket----"
"Damn the Ticket!" exclaimed Winthrop. "The man's dead!"
Peabody, burying his face still deeper in his collar, backed
into the crowd. In the present and past campaigns, from
carts and automobiles he had made many speeches in Harlem, and
on the West Side, lithographs of his stern, resolute features
hung in every delicatessen shop, and that he might be
recognized, was extremely likely.
He whispered to Miss Forbes what he had said, and what
Winthrop had said.
"But you DON'T mean to leave him," remarked Miss Forbes.
"I must," returned Peabody. "I can do nothing for the man,
and you know how Tammany will use this--They'll have it on the
street by ten. They'll say I was driving recklessly; without
regard for human life. And, besides, they're waiting for me
at headquarters. Please hurry. I am late now."
Miss Forbes gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Why, I'm not going," she said.
"You must go! _I_ must go. You can't remain here alone."
Peabody spoke in the quick, assured tone that at the first had
convinced Miss Forbes his was a most masterful manner.
"Winthrop, too," he added, "wants you to go away."
Miss Forbes made no reply. But she looked at Peabody
inquiringly, steadily, as though she were puzzled as to his
identity, as though he had just been introduced to her. It
made him uncomfortable.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
Her answer was a question.
"Are you going?"
"I am!" returned Peabody. He added sharply: "I must."
"Good-by," said Miss Forbes.
As he ran up the steps to the station of the elevated, it
seemed to Peabody that the tone of her "good-by" had been most
unpleasant. It was severe, disapproving. It had a final,
fateful sound. He was conscious of a feeling of
self-dissatisfaction. In not seeing the political importance
of his not being mixed up with this accident, Winthrop had
been peculiarly obtuse, and Beatrice, unsympathetic.
Until he had cast his vote for Reform, he felt distinctly
ill-used.
For a moment Beatrice Forbes sat in the car motionless,
staring unseeingly at the iron steps by which Peabody had
disappeared. For a few moments her brows were tightly drawn.
Then, having apparently quickly arrived at some conclusion,
she opened the door of the car and pushed into the crowd.
Winthrop received her most rudely.
"You mustn't come here!" he cried.
"I thought," she stammered, "you might want some one?"
"I told--" began Winthrop, and then stopped, and added--"to
take you away. Where is he?"
Miss Forbes flushed slightly.
"He's gone," she said.
In trying not to look at Winthrop, she saw the fallen figure,
motionless against the pillar, and with an exclamation, bent
fearfully toward it.
"Can I do anything?" she asked.
The crowd gave way for her, and with curious pleased faces,
closed in again eagerly. She afforded them a new interest.
A young man in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was
kneeling beside the mud-stained figure, and a police officer
was standing over both. The ambulance surgeon touched lightly
the matted hair from which the blood escaped, stuck his finger
in the eye of the prostrate man, and then with his open hand
slapped him across the face.
"Oh!" gasped Miss Forbes.
The young doctor heard her, and looking up, scowled
reprovingly. Seeing she was a rarely beautiful young woman,
he scowled less severely; and then deliberately and expertly,
again slapped Mr. Jerry Gaylor on the cheek. He watched the
white mark made by his hand upon the purple skin, until the
blood struggled slowly back to it, and then rose.
He ignored every one but the police officer.
"There's nothing the matter with HIM," he said. "He's dead
drunk."
The words came to Winthrop with such abrupt relief, bearing so
tremendous a burden of gratitude, that his heart seemed to
fail him. In his suddenly regained happiness, he
unconsciously laughed.
"Are you sure?" he asked eagerly. "I thought I'd killed him."
The surgeon looked at Winthrop coldly.
"When they're like that," he explained with authority, "you
can't hurt 'em if you throw them off the Times Building."
He condescended to recognize the crowd. "You know where this
man lives?"
Voices answered that Mr. Gaylor lived at the corner, over the
saloon. The voices showed a lack of sympathy. Old man Gaylor
dead was a novelty; old man Gaylor drunk was not.
The doctor's prescription was simple and direct.
"Put him to bed till he sleeps it off," he ordered; he swung
himself to the step of the ambulance. "Let him out, Steve,"
he called. There was the clang of a gong and the rattle of
galloping hoofs.
The police officer approached Winthrop. "They tell me Jerry
stepped in front of your car; that you wasn't to blame. I'll
get their names and where they live. Jerry might try to hold
you up for damages."
"Thank you very much," said Winthrop.
With several of Jerry's friends, and the soiled person, who
now seemed dissatisfied that Jerry was alive, Winthrop helped
to carry him up one flight of stairs and drop him upon a bed.
"In case he needs anything," said Winthrop, and gave several
bills to the soiled person, upon whom immediately Gaylor's
other friends closed in. "And I'll send my own doctor at once
to attend to him."
"You'd better," said the soiled person morosely, "or, he'll try
to shake you down."
The opinions as to what might be Mr. Gaylor's next move seemed
unanimous.
From the saloon below, Winthrop telephoned to the family
doctor, and then rejoined Miss Forbes and the Police officer.
The officer gave him the names of those citizens who had
witnessed the accident, and in return received Winthrop's
card.
"Not that it will go any further," said the officer
reassuringly. "They're all saying you acted all right and
wanted to take him to Roosevelt. There's many," he added with
sententious indignation, "that knock a man down, and then run
away without waiting to find out if they've hurted 'em or
killed 'em."
The speech for both Winthrop and Miss Forbes was equally
embarrassing.
"You don't say?" exclaimed Winthrop nervously. He shook the
policeman's hand. The handclasp was apparently satisfactory
to that official, for he murmured "Thank you," and stuck
something in the lining of his helmet. "Now, then!" Winthrop
said briskly to Miss Forbes, "I think we have done all we can.
And we'll get away from this place a little faster than the
law allows."
Miss Forbes had seated herself in the car, and Winthrop was
cranking up, when the same policeman, wearing an anxious
countenance, touched him on the arm. "There is a gentleman
here," he said, "wants to speak to you." He placed himself
between the gentleman and Winthrop and whispered: "He's
`Izzy' Schwab, he's a Harlem police-court lawyer and a Tammany
man. He's after something, look out for him."
Winthrop saw, smiling at him ingratiatingly, a slight, slim
youth, with beady, rat-like eyes, a low forehead, and a
Hebraic nose. He wondered how it had been possible for Jerry
Gaylor to so quickly secure counsel. But Mr. Schwab at once
undeceived him.
"I'm from the Journal," he began, "not regular on the staff,
but I send 'em Harlem items, and the court reporter treats me
nice, see! Now about this accident; could you give me the
name of the young lady?"
He smiled encouragingly at Miss Forbes.
"I could not!" growled Winthrop. "The man wasn't hurt, the
policeman will tell you so. It is not of the least public
interest."
With a deprecatory shrug, the young man smiled knowingly.
"Well, mebbe not the lady's name," he granted, "but the name
of the OTHER gentleman who was with you, when the accident
occurred." His black, rat-like eyes snapped. "I think HIS
name would be of public interest."
To gain time Winthrop stepped into the driver's seat. He
looked at Mr. Schwab steadily.
"There was no other gentleman," he said. "Do you mean my
chauffeur?" Mr. Schwab gave an appreciative chuckle.
"No, I don't mean your chauffeur," he mimicked. "I mean," he
declared theatrically in his best police-court manner, "the
man who to-day is hoping to beat Tammany, Ernest Peabody!"
Winthrop stared at the youth insolently.
"I don't understand you," he said.
"Oh, of course not!" jeered "Izzy" Schwab. He moved excitedly
from foot to foot. "Then who WAS the other man," he
demanded, "the man who ran away?"
Winthrop felt the blood rise to his face. That Miss Forbes
should hear this rat of a man, sneering at the one she was to
marry, made him hate Peabody. But he answered easily:
"No one ran away. I told my chauffeur to go and call up an
ambulance. That was the man you saw."
As when "leading on" a witness to commit himself, Mr. Schwab
smiled sympathetically.
"And he hasn't got back yet," he purred, "has he?"
"No, and I'm not going to wait for him," returned Winthrop.
He reached for the clutch, but Mr. Schwab jumped directly in
front of the car.
"Was he looking for a telephone when he ran up the elevated
steps?" he cried.
He shook his fists vehemently.
"Oh, no, Mr. Winthrop, it won't do--you make a good witness.
I wouldn't ask for no better, but, you don't fool `Izzy'
Schwab."
"You're mistaken, I tell you," cried Winthrop desperately.
"He may look like--like this man you speak of, but no Peabody
was in this car."
"Izzy" Schwab wrung his hands hysterically.
"No, he wasn't!" he cried, "because he run away! And left an
old man in the street--dead, for all he knowed--nor cared
neither. Yah!" shrieked the Tammany heeler. "HIM a
Reformer, yah!"
"Stand away from my car," shouted Winthrop, "or you'll get
hurt."
"Yah, you'd like to, wouldn't you?" returned Mr. Schwab,
leaping, nimbly to one side. "What do you think the
Journal'll give me for that story, hey? `Ernest Peabody,
the Reformer, Kills an Old Man, AND RUNS AWAY.' And hiding
his face, too! I seen him. What do you think that story's
worth to Tammany, hey? It's worth twenty thousand votes!"
The young man danced in front of the car triumphantly,
mockingly, in a frenzy of malice. "Read the extras, that's
all," he taunted. "Read 'em in an hour from now!"
Winthrop glared at the shrieking figure with fierce, impotent
rage; then, with a look of disgust, he flung the robe off his
knees and rose. Mr. Schwab, fearing bodily injury, backed
precipitately behind the policeman.
"Come here," commanded Winthrop softly. Mr. Schwab warily
approached. "That story," said Winthrop, dropping his voice
to a low whisper, "is worth a damn sight more to you than
twenty thousand votes. You take a spin with me up Riverside
Drive where we can talk. Maybe you and I can `make a little
business.'"
At the words, the face of Mr. Schwab first darkened angrily,
and then, lit with such exultation that it appeared as though
Winthrop's efforts had only placed Peabody deeper in Mr.
Schwab's power. But the rat-like eyes wavered, there was
doubt in them, and greed, and, when they turned to observe if
any one could have heard the offer, Winthrop felt the trick
was his. It was apparent that Mr. Schwab was willing to
arbitrate.
He stepped gingerly into the front seat, and as Winthrop
leaned over him and tucked and buckled the fur robe around his
knees, he could not resist a glance at his friends on the
sidewalk. They were grinning with wonder and envy, and as the
great car shook itself, and ran easily forward, Mr. Schwab
leaned back and carelessly waved his hand. But his mind did
not waver from the purpose of his ride. He was not one to be
cajoled with fur rugs and glittering brass.
"Well, Mr. Winthrop," he began briskly. "You want to say
something? You must be quick--every minute's money."
"Wait till we're out of the traffic," begged Winthrop
anxiously "I don't want to run down any more old men, and I
wouldn't for the world have anything happen to you, Mr.--" He
paused politely.
"Schwab--Isadore Schwab."
"How did you know MY name?" asked Winthrop.
"The card you gave the police officer"
"I see," said Winthrop. They were silent while the car swept
swiftly west, and Mr. Schwab kept thinking that for a young
man who was afraid of the traffic, Winthrop was dodging the
motor cars, beer vans, and iron pillars, with a dexterity that
was criminally reckless.
At that hour Riverside Drive was empty, and after a gasp of
relief, Mr. Schwab resumed the attack.
"Now, then," he said sharply, "don't go any further. What is
this you want to talk about?"
"How much will the Journal give you for this story of
yours?" asked Winthrop.
Mr. Schwab smiled mysteriously.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," said Winthrop, "I think I could offer you something
better."
"You mean," said the police-court lawyer cautiously, "you will
make it worth my while not to tell the truth about what I
saw?"
"Exactly," said Winthrop.
"That's all! Stop the car," cried Mr. Schwab. His manner was
commanding. It vibrated with triumph. His eyes glistened
with wicked satisfaction.
"Stop the car?" demanded Winthrop, "what do you mean?"
"I mean," said Mr. Schwab dramatically, "that I've got you
where I want you, thank you. You have killed Peabody dead as
a cigar butt! Now I can tell them how his friends tried to
bribe me. Why do you think I came in your car? For what
money YOU got? Do you think you can stack up your roll
against the New York Journal's, or against Tammany's?" His
shrill voice rose exultantly. "Why, Tammany ought to make me
judge for this! Now, let me down here," he commanded, "and
next time, don't think you can take on `Izzy' Schwab and get
away with it."
They were passing Grant's Tomb, and the car was moving at a
speed that Mr. Schwab recognized was in excess of the speed
limit.
"Do you hear me?" he demanded, "let me down!"
To his dismay Winthrop's answer was in some fashion to so
juggle with the shining brass rods that the car flew into
greater speed. To "Izzy" Schwab it seemed to scorn the earth,
to proceed by leaps and jumps. But, what added even more to
his mental discomfiture was, that Winthrop should turn, and
slowly and familiarly wink at him.
As through the window of an express train, Mr. Schwab saw the
white front of Claremont, and beyond it the broad sweep of the
Hudson. And, then, without decreasing its speed, the car like
a great bird, swept down a hill, shot under a bridge, and into
a partly paved street. Mr. Schwab already was two miles from
his own bailiwick. His surroundings were unfamiliar. On the
one hand were newly erected, untenanted flat houses with the
paint still on the window panes, and on the other side,
detached villas, a roadhouse, an orphan asylum, a glimpse of
the Hudson.
"Let me out," yelled Mr. Schwab, "what you trying to do? Do
you think a few blocks'll make any difference to a telephone?
You think you're damned smart, don't you? But you won't feel
so fresh when I get on the long distance. You let me down,"
he threatened, "or, I'll----"
With a sickening skidding of wheels, Winthrop whirled the car
round a corner and into the Lafayette Boulevard, that for
miles runs along the cliff of the Hudson.
"Yes," asked Winthrop, "WHAT will you do?"
On one side was a high steep bank, on the other many trees,
and through them below, the river. But there were no houses,
and at half-past eight in the morning those who later drive
upon the boulevard were still in bed.
"WHAT will you do?" repeated Winthrop.
Miss Forbes, apparently as much interested in Mr. Schwab's
answer as Winthrop, leaned forward. Winthrop raised his voice
above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing wind and
scattering pebbles.
"I asked you into this car," he shouted, "because I meant to
keep you in it until I had you where you couldn't do any
mischief. I told you I'd give you something better than the
Journal would give you, and I am going to give you a happy
day in the country. We're now on our way to this lady's
house. You are my guest, and you can play golf, and bridge,
and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and
after that you can go to the devil. If you jump out at this
speed, you will break your neck. And, if I have to slow up
for anything, and you try to get away, I'll go after you--it
doesn't matter where it is--and break every bone in your
body."