I patted her wan cheek. “It's just your imagination. The only thing wrong is that my dearest, little mother isn't as well and strong as her good-for-nothing son.”
I kissed her again, and she smiled up at me. “I'm so glad,” she whispered. “I was worried.”
I almost choked when I got outside. If Helen should recover and be put on trial, it would kill mother, I felt sure. And I would be left alone in the world. Down-stairs, I asked Stella who had called, and she told me the reporters had been trying to find me all day.
During the drive to the hospital, I tried to focus my mind on Helen's defense, but all the force seemed to have been sapped out of me. I felt weak and miserable and unutterably lonely.
At the hospital, they received me with the quiet sympathy that strengthens you in spite of yourself and gives you hope. Doctor Forbes, who had operated on Helen the night before, was in the office. He had just come from Helen's room and he reported her condition to be “extremely satisfactory.”
“There is only one thing that worries me,” he said. “Your sister seems to have something on her mind that keeps her from resting as quietly as I could wish. It is some real or fancied danger that repeats itself over and over in her delirium. If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I should have every reason to believe she'd get well. I say this to you because you are her brother and are no doubt acquainted with what has happened to her in the last few weeks, and may be able to suggest what it is she fears.”
“Perhaps it is the accident itself,” I offered.
He shook his head. “It may be, but I think not. However, suppose you step into the room and listen to what she says. If we can only rid her of her fears and get her to rest quietly, I am positive she will recover.”
I shook his hand warmly and went upstairs to Helen's room. I knew what it was Helen feared. The consequences of her crime. The terrible fear of public prosecution for the murder of her husband was torturing her poor delirious brain. For a moment I forgave her everything and pitied her from the depths of my heart.
The smell of ether lay thick in the air as I walked down the long corridor to Helen's room. I knocked softly at the door and a white-capped nurse opened it a little way, her finger to her lips. I beckoned her outside and told her Doctor Forbes wished me to find out, if I could, what troubled my sister's mind.
As we entered, I saw Mary sitting by the bed, holding the hand of the poor white figure that lay, death-like, beneath the sheet. Helen's head was swathed in bandages, except for the oval of her face. She looked quite like some fair nun who had said her last “Ava.” It was impossible to believe that it was her hand that had fired the shot that killed Jim, and if she lived, that she would have to face the world a murderer.
Mary only glanced up at me for a moment and then turned her eyes again to Helen's lips to catch any sound that might pass them. As I watched her sitting there so patiently, a little pale from her cramped vigil by the bedside, a great tenderness welled up in my heart, for her. Just then Helen's lips began to move. At first the words were inaudible, although Mary leaned forward to catch them. Then with a half-cry, in which there was a perfect agony of fear——
“Look out, Jim! It's going to hit us! Oh-oh-oh——”
The voice died away and was succeeded by moans, low and trembling. Mary glanced up with a startled look in her eyes. The nurse went quickly to the bedside and soothed the impatient hand that was plucking at the sheets. As for me, my forehead was bathed in sweat and tears were running down my cheeks, but a joy throbbed and sang through my heart till I felt that I should suffocate unless I left that ether-filled room for the open air.
I tiptoed toward the door and caught a nod from Mary as I passed, which said she would join me later. For a second, after I closed the door, I couldn't move. My legs failed me and I felt I was going to faint. Gathering all my strength, I stumbled over to a chair by the window and sat down.
I think I should have dropped to my knees and thanked God right there, if I hadn't feared that my prayers would have been interrupted. That cry, “Look out, Jim!” proved not only that Helen had nothing whatever to do with Jim's death, but that she had tried to warn him of his danger. “It's going to hit us!” What could that mean but that my first theory was correct, that the men in the black limousine had recognized Jim's car and had tried to run him into the ditch? Schreiber and Zalnitch were at the bottom of it, after all, and Helen was innocent.
As I had hoped she would die, when I thought her guilty, now I hoped and prayed she would live. I recalled Doctor Forbes' words: “If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I would have every reason to believe she would get well.” I could at least tell him the cause of the fear and leave it to him to find a remedy. With Helen well, ready to testify as to the details of that tragic night, we would certainly bring Jim's murderers to trial.
The door opened and Mary came out. I rose and walked over to her, my eyes still betraying the emotion Helen's words had roused in me.
“You heard what she said?” Mary breathed.
“We knew she didn't do it, didn't we?”
“But, Warren, the things she says are all so weird and mixed up. Sometimes she talks of things that happened just recently and then again she babbles of things that took place a long time ago when we were kids. Once when the nurse came into the room, Helen began crying as though her heart would break and begged that we wouldn't think too harshly of her. Again she repeated over and over, 'He didn't do it—He didn't do it!'”
“Her other fears,” I replied, “probably had to do with Woods. But that cry to Jim to 'Look out!' is a real clue and I'm going to sift it to the bottom.”
“What are you going to do?” Mary demanded.
“I'm going to accuse Zalnitch of Jim's murder—going to accuse him to his face.”
“Oh, be careful, Bupps! Nothing must happen to you!”
The tone she used, her sweet anxiety for my safety, went to my head and I reached out to take her in my arms, but with a little protesting gesture she stopped me.
“Please don't be foolish, Warren!” Then as she saw my spirits droop, she added, “Not till Helen is well.”
CHAPTER TEN. I ACCUSE ZALNITCH
“Mr. Zalnitch is busy and can't see you.”
The girl, evidently a stenographer or secretary, looked coolly competent in her white shirt-waist and well-made skirt. I was surprised to find a young woman of her evident education and refinement in the employ of such a man.
“Did you give him my message?” I asked.
“Yes. He said he was not interested.”
I felt vaguely disappointed that my strategy had not worked. I had given the name of Anderson, and had represented myself as the head of the Steamfitters' Union of Cleveland, anxious for instructions on how to settle a labor problem in our local union. I had done this, feeling that if I gave my own name, he might refuse to see me. Apparently my alias was to have no better success.