while behind her in there — in there — in there—
Heise started back from the sudden apparition of a white-lipped woman in a blue dressing-gown that seemed to rise up before him from his very doorstep.
'Well, Mrs. McTeague, you did scare me, for—'
'Oh, come over here quick.' Trina put her hand to her neck; swallowing something that seemed to be choking her. 'Maria's killed — Zerkow's wife — I found her.'
'Get out!' exclaimed Heise, 'you're joking.'
'Come over here — over into the house — I found her — she's dead.'
Heise dashed across the street on the run, with Trina at his heels, a trail of spilled whittlings marking his course. The two ran down the alley. The wild-game peddler, a woman who had been washing down the steps in a neighboring house, and a man in a broad-brimmed hat stood at Zerkow's doorway, looking in from time to time, and talking together. They seemed puzzled.
'Anything wrong in here?' asked the wild-game peddler as Heise and Trina came up. Two more men stopped on the corner of the alley and Polk Street and looked at the group. A woman with a towel round her head raised a window opposite Zerkow's house and called to the woman who had been washing the steps, 'What is it, Mrs. Flint?'
Heise was already inside the house. He turned to Trina, panting from his run.
'Where did you say — where was it — where?'
'In there,' said Trina, 'farther in — the next room.' They burst into the kitchen.
'LORD!' ejaculated Heise, stopping a yard or so from the body, and bending down to peer into the gray face with its brown lips.
'By God! he's killed her.'
'Who?'
'Zerkow, by God! he's killed her. Cut her throat. He always said he would.'
'Zerkow?'
'He's killed her. Her throat's cut. Good Lord, how she did bleed! By God! he's done for her in good shape this time.'
'Oh, I told her — I TOLD her,' cried Trina.
'He's done for her SURE this time.'
'She said she could always manage — Oh-h! It's horrible.'
'He's done for her sure this trip. Cut her throat. LORD, how she has BLED! Did you ever see so much — that's murder — that's cold-blooded murder. He's killed her. Say, we must get a policeman. Come on.'
They turned back through the house. Half a dozen people — the wild-game peddler, the man with the broad- brimmed hat, the washwoman, and three other men — were in the front room of the junk shop, a bank of excited faces surged at the door. Beyond this, outside, the crowd was packed solid from one end of the alley to the other. Out in Polk Street the cable cars were nearly blocked and were bunting a way slowly through the throng with clanging bells. Every window had its group. And as Trina and the harness-maker tried to force the way from the door of the junk shop the throng suddenly parted right and left before the passage of two blue-coated policemen who clove a passage through the press, working their elbows energetically. They were accompanied by a third man in citizen's clothes.
Heise and Trina went back into the kitchen with the two policemen, the third man in citizen's clothes cleared the intruders from the front room of the junk shop and kept the crowd back, his arm across the open door.
'Whew!' whistled one of the officers as they came out into the kitchen, 'cutting scrape? By George! SOMEBODY'S been using his knife all right.' He turned to the other officer. 'Better get the wagon. There's a box on the second corner south. Now, then,' he continued, turning to Trina and the harness-maker and taking out his note-book and pencil, 'I want your names and addresses.'
It was a day of tremendous excitement for the entire street. Long after the patrol wagon had driven away, the crowd remained. In fact, until seven o'clock that evening groups collected about the door of the junk shop, where a policeman stood guard, asking all manner of questions, advancing all manner of opinions.
'Do you think they'll get him?' asked Ryer of the policeman. A dozen necks craned forward eagerly.
'Hoh, we'll get him all right, easy enough,' answered the other, with a grand air.
'What? What's that? What did he say?' asked the people on the outskirts of the group. Those in front passed the answer back.
'He says they'll get him all right, easy enough.'
The group looked at the policeman admiringly.
'He's skipped to San Jose.'
Where the rumor started, and how, no one knew. But every one seemed persuaded that Zerkow had gone to San Jose.
'But what did he kill her for? Was he drunk?'
'No, he was crazy, I tell you — crazy in the head. Thought she was hiding some money from him.'
Frenna did a big business all day long. The murder was the one subject of conversation. Little parties were made up in his saloon — parties of twos and threes — to go over and have a look at the outside of the junk shop. Heise was the most important man the length and breadth of Polk Street; almost invariably he accompanied these parties, telling again and again of the part he had played in the affair.
'It was about eleven o'clock. I was standing in front of the shop, when Mrs. McTeague — you know, the dentist's wife — came running across the street,' and so on and so on.
The next day came a fresh sensation. Polk Street read of it in the morning papers. Towards midnight on the day of the murder Zerkow's body had been found floating in the bay near Black Point. No one knew whether he had drowned himself or fallen from one of the wharves. Clutched in both his hands was a sack full of old and rusty pans, tin dishes — fully a hundred of them — tin cans, and iron knives and forks, collected from some dump heap.
'And all this,' exclaimed Trina, 'on account of a set of gold dishes that never existed.'
CHAPTER 17
One day, about a fortnight after the coroner's inquest had been held, and when the excitement of the terrible affair was calming down and Polk Street beginning to resume its monotonous routine, Old Grannis sat in his clean, well-kept little room, in his cushioned armchair, his hands lying idly upon his knees. It was evening; not quite time to light the lamps. Old Grannis had drawn his chair close to the wall — so close, in fact, that he could hear Miss Baker's grenadine brushing against the other side of the thin partition, at his very elbow, while she rocked gently back and forth, a cup of tea in her hands.
Old Grannis's occupation was gone. That morning the bookselling firm where he had bought his pamphlets had taken his little binding apparatus from him to use as a model. The transaction had been concluded. Old Grannis had received his check. It was large enough, to be sure, but when all was over, he returned to his room and sat there sad and unoccupied, looking at the pattern in the carpet and counting the heads of the tacks in the zinc guard that was fastened to the wall behind his little stove. By and by he heard Miss Baker moving about. It was five o'clock, the time when she was accustomed to make her cup of tea and 'keep company' with him on her side of the partition. Old Grannis drew up his chair to the wall near where he knew she was sitting. The minutes passed; side by side, and separated by only a couple of inches of board, the two old people sat there together, while the afternoon grew darker.
But for Old Grannis all was different that evening. There was nothing for him to do. His hands lay idly in his lap. His table, with its pile of pamphlets, was in a far corner of the room, and, from time to time, stirred with an uncertain trouble, he turned his head and looked at it sadly, reflecting that he would never use it again. The absence of his accustomed work seemed to leave something out of his life. It did not appear to him that he could be the same to Miss Baker now; their little habits were disarranged, their customs broken up. He could no longer fancy himself so near to her. They would drift apart now, and she would no longer make herself a cup of tea and 'keep company' with him when she knew that he would never again sit before his table binding uncut pamphlets. He had sold his happiness for money; he had bartered all his tardy romance for some miserable banknotes. He had not
