第15章

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."Ithought 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 we're 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.