“If I turn you over to the police,” Mrs. Grady said gravely, “it will be very bad for you. I suppose you have a record.”
“I’ve been mentioned,” Tobin said laconically.
“Robbing the mails. It’s quite a serious charge. You’d be put behind bars for a long time. How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
She seemed to be stricken by this. She said it to herself. Twenty. It was a tragedy.
“But then,” she said, “if I let you go, who knows what innocent person might suffer for it?”
“Perhaps no one would suffer,” the youth said suddenly.
Mrs. Grady felt elated. But she dared not show it. She studied him, testing his sincerity. She tried to appear casual, lest her thoughts be revealed in her face.
“How do I know you mean that?” she asked.
“I’ve been in jail before,” Tobin said. “I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t like it. I don’t want to go back, ever. I suppose eventually I will go back, if I keep on like this.”
“So, you do see that much,” Mrs. Grady said. She felt a flicker of excitement. “Are you man enough to make a promise and hold to it?”
“Yes,” the youth said.
“To promise to change your ways and lead a decent life?”
“Yes,” the youth said. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s never been put to me this way before. I feel you really mean it, that it means something to you to have me go straight.”
“It does,” Mrs. Grady said. “I can’t hear the thought of you going around hitting people over the head.”
“I’ll be honest with you — it won’t be easy.”
“But you will try?”
Change your ways, Tobin, old boy, the youth thought. Find the right path and adhere to it. The new life. It amused him, in a sardonic way.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll try.”
Mrs. Grady didn’t know what to do. Her mind devoted itself completely to the problem. It became extraordinarily complex. She saw the whole world involved. It was as though she were to make a judgment of universal proportions. She began to wonder if fate wasn’t taking unfair advantage of her, considering the magnitude of this dilemma; but then she realized that a duty had fallen upon her and that she would have to make a decision.
She frowned like a magistrate. She did not want to send this youth to jail. His destiny was now in her hands. This great power made her feel humble. Then she thought: What would Oliver do? Oliver had been a very stern man. But he also had his compassionate side. He had often announced that men did not have sufficient understanding for each other. She looked up at where Oliver was frowning from the wall in a tarnished gold frame. But his expression never changed. The problem remained with Mrs. Grady.
She had the youth’s promise. Suppose it was a genuine promise? Suppose she sent him to jail at the very moment he was seeking to redeem himself? If this happened, then such an action on her part would be unforgivable.
The youth spoke. “Are you going to turn me over to the cops?” he asked.
The question flustered Mrs. Grady. It pushed her forward to her decision before it had quite matured in her mind.
Mrs. Grady knew quite well that some people became helplessly caught up in a life of crime. She also knew that some found such a life irresistible.
“Do you realize what you’re promising?” she said.
“Of course.”
“You’re promising to change your way of life. Perhaps it might be asking too much of you.”
Tobin looked at her dubiously.
“At least promise me you’ll stop hitting people over the heads, and stop carrying those awful knives and guns,” she said.
“Why sure,” the youth said.
Mrs. Grady clasped her hands. She was immensely pleased.
“You’ll be doing yourself a great service,” she said. “Oh, dear, I must sound like some old lady preacher or something. Has the water cooled? Here, I’ll heat some more. You just sit there and relax. You’re going to be all right now. I can just see that you’re going to be all right.” She took the pan away.
Tobin watched her. When she had gone into the kitchen, he braced his arms and pushed himself forward, up from the great chair. He kicked away the footstool and carefully got to his feet. He let gradual weight shift to the injured foot. To his immense delight he could stand on it with a minimum of pain. He took a few steps and pronounced himself healed. Quickly then he put on his sock and shoe, lacing the shoe with lightning fingers. He straightened up, and his eyes began to fly about the room. Spotting a bureau he went to it and opened the top drawer. A flat tin box lay in one corner. He opened it and a wave of excitement swept over him as he saw jewelry resting regally on some fluffy cotton. He lifted a sparkling bracelet and let it dangle before his greedily appreciative eyes. He dropped it into his pocket. Then he took up the rest of the jewelry.
When he turned around he saw Mrs. Grady standing in the doorway watching him, the pan of water held before her. Her face was filled with dismay. For a moment he felt ashamed; but that soon melted.
“All right, mom,” Tobin said. He moved toward her. He had a slight limp, but that was a minor impediment now with the jewelry burning in his pocket like a torch. He picked up the open switch blade. “I don’t want to hurt you, mom,” he said. The knife lay loose in his hand, the light glancing off the blade.
Mrs. Grady’s eyes filled with reproach. “Why must you carry that horrible weapon?” she demanded. “Why don’t you throw it away?”
“I’m getting out of here,” the youth said. “I want to leave quietly. I want you to keep your mouth shut until I’m gone. You gave me a break and now I’m giving you one. If you say a word to the cops about me I’ll come back and get you.” With this ugly threat on his lips he backed toward the door. They stared at each other with the intensity of duelists, Mrs. Grady still with the pan of water held up before her like an offering. Then he was gone. She heard him running down the stairs.
Mrs. Grady gasped and put down the pan of water and rushed to the bureau. She knew what she would find. She looked into the gaping top drawer, into the empty tin box, at the cotton cushion where the jewelry had rested. She clasped her hands.
“Oh,” she said aloud. “Oh, damn him.”
Tobin stepped out into the glaring sun. He looked up at the old woman’s windows. He expected to hear a scream at any moment. So he ran. He ran one block and turned a corner, running with a perceptible limp. This grotesque appearance — a man running with a limp suggested the darkest of devious behavior — attracted the attention of two policemen in a squad car. They set after him immediately. They jerked to the curb just ahead of him and leaped out of wide-flung doors. Tobin gasped. Then he cursed to himself.
Shortly after, he was sitting in the police station, a figure of dejection.
“We found this on him,” said one officer, dropping the switch blade onto his superior’s desk. And now the officer said something that he had evidently been preparing as a great presentation, for he said it as though introducing a royal person. “And these.” Following this pronouncement he laid on the desk before his startled superior a handful of splendid jewelry.
The superior officer almost leaped.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” he whispered.
“It checks out,” said the officer who had presented the jewelry, smiling like the father of twins. “Some of it’s the Hascomb stuff. And the rest looks like it’s from some of the other Long Island jobs.”