He wore a stiff wing collar and a big genuine-looking pearl stickpin—the one in the picture, I think. But it was the face that held me; it moved slightly as those strange gray eyes searched us, frisked us, examined our skins for scars, I could almost believe. I had to drop my eyes to get away from his, faking an interest in my own shoes, and the action made my face flush and made me feel guilty. This was Inspector29 of Police Thomas Byrnes of the New York Police Department, its most famous or notorious member by far; and if he had personally come to take us away, then this was no ordinary arrest and I felt a steady thrill of sharp fright. Trying, I suppose, to fight it off, to stand up to this man, I asked a question I meant to sound hard and assured. But it didn't come out that way; it sounded half humorous in intent as though I were ready to claim I was only kidding. I said, "Well? Aren't you going to warn us of our Constitutional rights?" Nothing changed in his face, but the gray eyes moved rapidly over mine, extracting whatever meaning there might be in this boldness. He saw there was none, and without expression he answered in a ludicrous mixture of half-illiterate speech and a strange broad "a" of what I suppose he took to be upper-class talk. "I'll warn you; keep your half-witted [only he pronounced it "hoffwitted"] remarks to yourself, or I'll show yiz the fat end of a sap." Strange talk from Inspector Byrnes but I didn't laugh, even inwardly. And then we rode in silence for a dozen blocks, down Third Avenue under the El, rattling30 and swaying over the cobbles, occasionally lurching or sluing a little sideways through patches of snow. Julia stared out the little round window beside her, angry, refusing to look at Byrnes. I sat, occasionally looking up at him but mostly at the floor or out at the street. The day was overcast31 and the stores we passed were lighted only feebly, the lights generally far back in the store, yellow and steady if the gas flame was mantled32, reddish and flickering33 if not. A good many stores hadpermanent wooden awnings34 built out to posts at the edge of the walks, and once again as I had before, I tried to interest myself in the knowledge that because of this and the frequent hitching35 posts, Third Avenue in 1882 looked very like a set for a Western movie. But I wasn't interested at all. We passed Cooper Institute, looking just as I'd seen it last, as far as I could tell, then curved left where Third and Fourth merge36 into the Bowery. We jounced along a few blocks farther under the El; a train darkened the day even more as it clattered37 over us, and a little shower of sparks and red embers dropped from the engine, one of them striking the horse's rump and lodging39 there for a moment, turning gray, but the horse gave no sign of feeling it. "Anything to tell me?" Byrnes said suddenly and I nearly jumped, then shook my head, and so did Julia. A typical Byrnes trick, I thought—the long long silence, then the sudden question that would startle us into talking, if we'd known what he wanted us to talk about. But I was wrong; he was way ahead of me. He had a reason I don't think I could ever have anticipated. A couple blocks, then we swung right, onto Bleecker. Three short blocks down Bleecker,thenlefto(more) nto—I saw the painted glass sign around the panes40 of the streetlamp— Mulberry Street. Halfway42 down the block we stopped on the left, and I saw two great square lamps flanking the steps leading up into a four-story stone building; the panes of the lamps were green, and I knew this was a police building. The driver was on the walk opening the carriage door, Byrnes gestured, and Julia stepped out. The driver—in derby and tan overcoat, but a cop—was waiting, and as her foot touched the walk he took her arm, firmly. Byrnes motioned me out, and was right behind me, a hand tight around my wrist. Quickly up the steps, and as the plainclothes cop with Julia opened one of the big double doors, I read the gilt43 letters, heavily shaded in black, on the large plain fanlight over the doors: NEW-YORK POLICE HEADQUARTERS. Inside, walking very fast, down a wooden-floored hall past a uniformed very stout44 cop at a desk, I saw worn floors, stained and chipped porcelain45 cuspidors, dirty dark-green plaster walls, and I smelled the smell, whatever it's made up of, of this kind of much-used building. Moving just short of a run—why, why do cops habitually46 and meaninglessly act nastily, as though it were a kind of instinct?—we were hustled47 down a flight of stairs, and then into a dingy48, low-ceilinged, brick-walled basement room. In it stood a small table; an ordinary wooden kitchen chair; a perforated gas pipe backed by a reflector and mounted on a stand, and connected to a gas outlet49 by a flexible tube snaking across the wood floor; and, on a wooden tripod, an enormous camera of reddish polished wood, brass50, and black leather. Three plainclothes cops in shirt-sleeves followed us right in; one was bald, the other two wore their hair parted on the left like the inspector's, and two of them wore walrus mustaches, though smaller than his. At a gesture from Byrnes, Julia and I took off our coats and hats, and piled them on the table by the door. One of the men had walked immediately to the camera and begun fiddling51 with it. The other two stood waiting at the chair before the camera—to hold me down in it, I realized, if need be.
I had no chance of resisting successfully and I knew it, and yet it was the same Constitution now as in my time, and I had to say something. I said, "I want to know why I'm here. I want to know what I'm charged with. I want to consult an attorney. And I refuse to be photographed before I do." Byrnes nodded to the two cops. "You heard the gent; tell him why he's here." They grabbed both my arms, one on each side of me, one shot up his knee, kicking me right at the tailbone with tremendous force—Julia cried out—sending me stumbling across the room toward the chair; I'd have fallen if they hadn't had hold of me. They whirled me instantly around, twisting my arms in the shoulder sockets53; then, each with a hand on a shoulder, they slammed me down into the chair so hard the wood groaned54 and the chair slid on the wood floor. My mouth was open in a soundless gasp55, the pain forcing tears to my eyes. One of the men bent56 over to bring his mouth close to my ear, and his voice was gleeful with the pleasure of what he'd done and was doing. He said, "You're here, sir, because we want you here!" I turned fast, spitting the words into his face before he could draw back. "You stinking57 son of a bitch!" His hand shot forward to grip my throat and hold my head so I couldn't move out of the path of his other fist drawing back fast to strike, but Byrnes spoke58 quickly. "No, I don't want him marked." After a moment the fist dropped, the hand at my throat squeezed hard, then dropped. My rebellion hadn't helped, and I'd known it wouldn't. But I was willing to have made it. Beside me the two men stood ready for more resistance, their faces hoping I'd offer it, but once was enough. The man at the camera had a kitchen match in his hand, and now he lifted one leg and swiped the match across the tightened59 cloth of the seat of his pants; the match snapped into flame, and I smelled the sulphur. He turned a brass valve, gas hissed60 from his standing61 light, then he touched the match to the perforations, and it popped into flickering red flame. He turned the valve, lowering the gas, and the dozens of little tongues shrank to a steady blue, and the light from the shiny reflector behind it was hot on the skin and bright to the eyes, and I squeezed them nearly closed. "None of that!" A hand on my shoulder shook me, a lot harder than necessary so that my teeth clicked. "Open your eyes!" I forced them open, and the man at the camera was stooped under his black cloth. The camera bellows62 slid forward, stopped, moved slightly back; then I saw his hand squeeze a bulb. "Got him," he said, and then it was Julia's turn. I was glad to see that no one touched her when she sat down. I might have felt I had to do something if they'd been rough with her, and been beaten to the ground. The photographer squeezed the bulb, and when his head ducked out from under the black cloth, Byrnes's extended arm and forefinger63 were pointing at him. "Now," said Byrnes, and the man murmured a quick yessir, and actually trotted64 from the room with his plates. One of the other two men had his notebook out, and Byrnes glanced at me. "Twenty-eight to thirty," he said, and the man wrote quickly. "About five-ten, a hundred and fawty," Byrnes said,and the man's pencil flickered65. Byrnes described me and my clothes, including hat and overcoat, then Julia and her clothes; and the man with the notebook hurried out. Byrnes beckoned66 to me, and I walked over. He said, "Give me your wallet," and I reached into my inside coat pocket for it, feeling I'd never see it again. With my other hand I brought out the little handful of change I had in my pants pocket, and contemptuously held both change and wallet out to Byrnes. "Keep the change!" he said, smiling at his own joke, and the plainclothesman snickered. Byrnes didn't touch my wallet; he shook his head, and said, "Count it first." I did: I had forty-three dollars. When I finished, Byrnes was scribbling67 in a little notebook, then he looked up. "How much?" I told him, he filled in the amount, tore out the little page, and gave it to me, a handwritten receipt for forty-three dollars, signed Thomas Byrnes, Inspector. "We're not petty thieves here," he said, then turned to Julia, and told her to count the money in her purse. He took the bills—she had nine dollars—gave her a receipt, handed the purse back, and Julia thanked him drily and asked why he'd taken our money. "You might try to escape," he said, shrugging. "But you wouldn't go nowhere much without money, would yez?" Back into the carriage then, Byrnes facing us again, watching, waiting. Over to Fifth Avenue, then we turned uptown. I said, "Where are we going?" "I think you can guess." "No, I can't." "Then wait and see." Our carriage rolled through Washington Square, looking then as now except that there was no arch; even a lot of the buildings were the same, especially along one side of the square, and for a moment it seemed impossible that in the next second or two I wouldn't see a car somewhere. Block after block then, trundling up Fifth behind the endless clop-clop-clop-clop of our horse. From time to time Julia's eyes met mine, and I'd try to smile reassuringly68, and so did she. Then I'd look out the windows, trying to be interested in the people and buildings we passed, but the certainty that somehow we were in serious trouble wouldn't let go my attention. When finally we stopped, between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Streets, I'd guessed where we were going—so had Julia, I could see when she glanced at me—but I couldn't possibly imagine why. There it stood across the sidewalk from our carriage door: Andrew Carmody's Fifth Avenue mansion69 looking almost exactly like the old Flood mansion still standing on San Francisco's Nob Hill, even to the magnificent stone-and-bronze fence around its patch of lawn. The carriage door was open, the driver gesturing us out, waiting to take Julia's elbow, Byrnes reaching for my wrist. On the wide front porch, the cop rang the bell, and we all stood waiting. Did Carmody think, when he'd seen Julia and me burst out of the boarded-up room beside Jake's office, that we'd somehow been part of the blackmail70 scheme? Was he going to accuse us of it now?
A maid opened the door; she wore a long black dress with sleeves to the wrists, an enormous white apron71, and a complicated white lace cap. She was a girl, no more than fifteen, cheeks as red as though they'd just been scrubbed. "Please come in, gentlemen and miss; you are expected," she said so respectfully she seemed frightened. Neither Byrnes nor the cop said anything as they started us forward, and I smiled at the girl and thanked her, to show up what louts the cops were. Facing us across a wide hall as we stepped in was a pair of magnificent staircases of dark polished wood, curving in opposite directions. As I followed the maid my head was turning, trying in spite of what was happening to us to see all I could of the immense hall stretching off into the distance on each side of the stairs. I saw tremendous rugs on a tiled floor, walls ornate with molded plaster, globed light brackets, tables, chairs, flowers in vases. Through a vaulted72 doorway73, down a short hall of polished parquet74 flooring, through another high doorway, and into a room as different from Aunt Ada's parlor as two rooms could ever be. It was four times as large, with french doors along one side, and its furnishings were entirely75 French, in the style, I think, of one of the Louis'—graceful, and so light and dainty they hardly seemed usable. The white woodwork and the backs of the two tall doors from the hall were heavy with gilt ornamentation. Framed paintings hung on the walls; white marble busts77 stood in arched niches78. A white-and-gilt grand piano, or possibly a harpsichord79, stood near the windows. It was a beautiful room, all soft colors, and standing in it as though it were a setting for her— posed before a small white-manteled fireplace—stood Mrs. Andrew Carmody in a long loose-sleeved pink dress, holding a folded fan of ivory. Her face was precisely80 as Julia and I had seen it last night in her box at the Charity Ball, as composed as though she had never in her life had a doubt. "Good afternoon, Inspector: Mr. Carmody has been told you are here and will be down in a moment." She smiled at Byrnes, as easily unconscious of the rest of us as though she actually didn't see us. "Good awfternoon, Modom Carmody. I trust he ain't suffering?" "His burns are painful, but ..." She moved a shoulder slightly, and smiled at him brilliantly in a way that said the conversation was over. Her fan spreading open as she lifted it, she moved it once or twice before her face, and to cover the truth that he hadn't been asked to sit down, Byrnes stepped over to a marble bust76 of Marie Antoinette, and bent forward to inspect it. Steps were sounding slowly down one of the entrance-hall staircases, then along the parqueted81 floor of the hall. They reached the open doorway and as I turned to look, the steps became soundless as the shockingly bandaged man slowly crossed the great rug toward a chaise longue. The white bandages crossed his forehead, covered both temples and cheeks, and wrapped snug82 around his throat. But the nose and the narrow strips of flesh between it and the bandage edges were so red and swollen83, so terribly burned, that whatever film of horribly damaged skin was left seemed hardly enough to hold in check the blood that seemed ready to break through just behind it.
His hair was completely gone, burned off, the top of his head swollen and crusted. His eyes were inflamed84, and he constantly blinked or momentarily squeezed them shut. One heavily bandaged arm hung in a black sling85, and the finger ends protruding86 from it were swelled87 huge and split. At the chaise longue he lay back as though exhausted88. He wore black pants faintly striped in white, and a dark-blue braided smoking jacket. A folding table beside the chaise held a glass, a pitcher89, an open cardboard pillbox, and a fever thermometer. For a few moments he lay silent, eyes closed, then he opened them, said, "As—" and coughed heavily several times, wheezing90 deep in his chest. Then he tried again, keeping his voice so subdued91 in order not to start up the coughing again that it was nearly a whisper. "As you see, I have been burned; in the fire yesterday. I was fortunate to escape with my life." He drew a sudden deep breath, his hand rising quickly to his chest as though he were about to cough, but he swallowed twice and repressed it. For a moment or two he lay motionless, eyes closed. Then he opened them, glanced at Julia, glanced at me, then nodded several times to Byrnes. "Yes," he said, almost whispering it, "it is they. Thank you, Inspector. Please sit down." "Oh," Byrnes said as though he were standing only because he'd absent-mindedly forgotten to sit. He pulled a small chair to the chaise and sat down. "Now, sir, pray tell what has happened." We stood listening while he told Byrnes about the letter Pickering had sent, and the meeting in City Hall Park. "I didn't doubt he had documents; as a contractor92 I'd done honest work for City Hall for which there were undoubtedly records of payment. Not everything done for the city while Tweed was in power was dishonest." "Of cawss." "And yet his documents had slight value. I am engaged in certain delicate business negotiationsinvolvingmillions,which(a) could be upset by gossip and slander93, however false. So I had the man followed. Pickering made no attempt to avoid this, and the gumshoe easily learned that he lived at 19 Gramercy Park. I had him ascertain94 the names of the other occupants, too. For all I knew, some of them might also be involved in this absurd scheme. Yesterday morning I met Pickering, who took me to his secret office in the old World Building; and I brought a thousand in currency, prepared to pay it merely to be rid of the man. If he'd insisted on one cent more, I'd have had you arrest him at his home." "Quate rate," said Byrnes, and it took me a moment to understand that he meant quite right. It was a pretty good story, I thought; altered about as I'd have done, I supposed, if I'd been in his shoes. Stopping occasionally to cough, he went on to say that Pickering reluctantly agreed to accept a thousand dollars, knowing he had no proof of crookedness95; that Pickering had explained what the boarded-up doorway was about; and that while Pickering was pulling documents from his files in exchange for the thousand dollars, a fire broke out in the next-door elevator shaft, he had no idea how. To his absolute astonishment97 we—he pointed at us—had burst through the boarded-up doorway, I had sprung at Pickering and grappled with him, while Julia began stuffing the money in her clothes. He could hear the crackle of flames, see smoke rolling up the shaft, hearshouts of "Fire!" and hear people running; he had to run for his life. He began to cough heavily, and Mrs. Carmody, glaring at us, hurried over, and held the glass of water from his table while he sipped98 at it. I could only stare at him; then I turned to Julia as she turned to me, both of us mystified. Why Carmody wanted to involve us I couldn't begin to imagine—and then I thought I might have a hint, because the bandaged head was shaking angrily as he pushed the glass aside, pulling himself upright on the chaise. "I escaped down the Nassau-street stairs," he said in a harsh whisper that was the equivalent of a shout. "One of the very last to do so, I suspect. At the cost of burns about the face and head and of one hand and arm that my physician says"—his voice was bitter—"will disfigure me for life." His face would be distorted forever, he said, and permanently99 reddened; very little hair would ever again grow on his face or head. "And they are responsible!" he said, his finger shooting out at us, and I felt he almost believed it, and that certainly he blamed us for his terrible injuries and hated us. Obviously, he finished, we'd known about Pickering's scheme. As of course we had; at least I had. Of the people at Pickering's house, we were the only two who matched the descriptions and ages of the pair who'd burst into Pickering's office; that's why he'd had Byrnes bring us over for identification. He lay back in his chair. "And if Pickering is still missing, then they are responsible for his death. Except for their interference, he could have escaped with me." Byrnes turned to look at us. "Pickering is still missing." "Then there stand his murderers." I'd never faced such hate as came from the reddened eyes blazing at us from between the bandages. Was there any use in my protesting the truth: that he had started the fire; that he, not we, had struggled with Pickering; that Pickering's death was Carmody's fault? I wanted to yell it out, but in that case how could I account for our hiding next to Pickering's office? By telling Byrnes all about Danziger and the project? There was no explanation for our being there. Byrnes was looking at me. "Well?" he said. "Anything to tell me now?" And after a moment I shook my head. The doorbell rang. We heard steps toward the front door, the door opening, the maid's voice, then a man's. Footsteps approached along the hall; then the maid stopped at the doorway, and the cop we'd left at 19 Gramercy Park came walking in carrying his helmet under one arm. He actually bowed, head ducking humbly100, then took a step backward, a finger rising to smooth his mustache. The bandaged head on the chaise nodded regally in return, and Mrs. Carmody graciously inclined her head. The little ceremony actually took several seconds, and if I hadn't known this before, I'd have known now that this was a place of wealth and power and that both these cops understood it. "Well?" Byrnes said then, and his voice indicated his standing in this room, far superior to that of the uniformed cop.
"Yes, sor." The sergeant unfastened the two brass buttons of his uniform coat just over his belt. He shoved a hand in; then with the instinctive101 feeling for drama that everyone of this time seemed to be born with, he walked over to the table beside Carmody's chaise longue. Not till he reached it did he pull out a thick paper-banded stack of greenbacks and slap them down on the table. "Found this, sor, in his room." He nodded at me. "The landlady102 showed me the room, and the money was in his carpetbag, hidden under some clothes." I was paralyzed, almost literally103; I couldn't move or speak. Byrnes had crossed to the table, to lean over and examine the stack of greenbacks. "And is this your money, sir?" The bandaged head turned as though it hurt, and the inflamed blinking eyes looked down at the money. "Yes, the bills are marked. My bank will identify them, every one." And Byrnes picked up the packet, turned, and walked over to Julia and me, tucking the bills into an inside coat pocket. "Well?" He stopped before me almost cheerfully, and for the third time said, "Anything to tell me now?" "There's nothing to tell." I shrugged104. "He's lying, and the money is a frame-up to support the lie." I didn't know whether the word "frame-up" was in use yet, but if not he understood me all the same, and nodded. "We never touched that money—" I stopped suddenly; I'd thought of something. "Have you examined it for fingerprints105?" I said excitedly. "You'll find his, all right!" I pointed to the chaise longue. "But you won't find mine or Miss Charbonneau's!" "Won't find what?" "Our fingerprints!'' "I don't know what you're talking about." He didn't. I could see that he didn't. I didn't know when the use of fingerprints as identification was discovered, but obviously it was not yet. "Never mind. He's lying. That's all I have to say." "Well, that's possible," Byrnes answered. The sergeant walked over to him and whispered in his ear. Byrnes nodded, and the sergeant left. Byrnes looked at me speculatively106 for a moment, then rubbed his chin as though genuinely considering the possibility that I was telling the truth. "We have a chawge and a denial. If you two done it, nobody but Mr. Carmody seen you. Tell me this: Were you there at all? Hiding next to Pickering's office? For some innocent reason, perhawps?" He smiled invitingly107. But I'd had time to understand that it was impossible to admit even being there. How could we explain it? If I admitted we were there but couldn't say why, Carmody's charge seemed true. I shook my head immediately. "No. The only connection between Pickering and us is that we lived in the same boardinghouse. We don't know anything about his blackmailing108 this man. Or whether it's even true that he was. I begin to suspect that maybe Mr. Carmody here killed Pickering. And left him to burn. He's afraid the truth will come out, and wants a scapegoat109 before questions startbeing asked. Since we lived where Pickering did, he hides the money in my bag or has someone else do it, and accuses us." Byrnes was nodding sympathetically. "Quate possible, if you wasn't in the World Building at all yesterday. And you say you wasn't?" I nodded, and Byrnes stepped to the doorway. "Sergeant!" he called down the hall. Footsteps sounded immediately on the parquet flooring of the hall; then the sergeant stopped in the doorway, his helmet still under his arm like a football. A man walked past him into the room, and I realized that I knew him but for a few seconds couldn't place him. He nodded politely to Mrs. Carmody, then glanced at the bandaged figure on the chaise, but looked quickly away. He stared closely at Julia and me for several seconds, then nodded to Byrnes. "Yes, it is they." He glanced at a pair of photographs in his hand, and I recognized them; they were copies of the police photographs of Julia and me taken earlier. "I recognized them from your photographs," he was saying, handing them to Byrnes. "As Dr. Prime told you, they escaped as he did; I helped them climb into my office." He looked at Julia and me again, his eyes genuinely troubled. "I am sorry if they are in trouble," he said, and it was an apology to us for the necessity of doing what he'd done. Byrnes thanked him, and J. Walter Thompson, into whose office we'd climbed from the burning World Building yesterday morning, nodded around the room and left. In spite of what he'd just had to do, he was a nice man and I almost wished I could call after him, and assure him that his little one-man business was going to succeed, and even grow. We were deeply in trouble now. Anything to tell me? Byrnes had asked in the carriage on the way to Police Headquarters, and several times afterward110. And certainly if we'd been in the World Building fire at all, we had something to say to an inspector of police unless we were hiding something. He'd pointedly111 offered us the chance to speak, I was sure now, in the certainty that it would make any explanation we made after we'd been accused seem like an obvious lie. He'd pinned us nicely, and I knew that in spite of the absurd way he talked this was a dangerous man. "Congratulations, sir," he was saying, offering the credit to the bandaged man on the chaise. "Appears like you caught a pair of murderers." "Thanks to you. When I am somewhat recovered, and back on Wall Street, I should like to thank you again. In my office. You still retain your well-known interest in the Street, Inspector?" "Oh, yas, indeed." "Splendid; we all appreciate it. Not a pickpocket112, not a troublemaker113 down there since you established the John Street deadline. I will let you go now, Inspector. I know you will be fully52 occupied in making entirely certain this pair does not escape justice. Once that is done ... come see me at my office." "Count on both those things, sir."I was hypnotized, listening to these two bargaining over us. And I was scared. But when I looked at Julia to smile reassuringly at her, it wasn't false; we were in trouble but I knew that for Carmody to prove anything against us in a courtroom, his word against ours, would be a lot different from persuading Inspector Byrnes. And in less than a minute I learned that Byrnes thought so, too, and I began to feel almost cheerful. We were hustled out of the house, the sergeant between us, one hand gripping an arm of each of us, Byrnes behind us. At the curb Byrnes stepped forward to open the carriage door. But then, a hand on the door handle, he stopped, and turned to look at us thoughtfully. He said, "In the cawtroom, he'd charge and you'd deny. There's the money found in your room and Thompson's identification. But there is the smell of Tweed Ring scandal around Carmody too, isn't there? And he did pay blackmail, howsomever small." For moment he silent, looking at us consideringly;thenheopenedthecarriagedoor."Jum(a) pin,Sergeant!"he(was) said, and the sergeant looked surprised but he let go our arms and did what he was told. Then Byrnes turned to us, his back to the sergeant, and spoke quietly; neither the sergeant nor the driver could hear him, I'm certain. "Constitutional rights, you say," he murmured as though the novel sound of the phrase intrigued114 him. "Well, all right; I think it's too soon to arrest you. I think we have to find more evidence." For a moment longer he stared at us, then seemed to reach a decision. "On your way," he said. "But you're not to leave the city, understand?" We looked at him, not entirely sure he meant what he seemed to be saying. "Be off with you!" he said almost kindly115, smiling with a kind of fatherly affection for Julia, at least as well as that hard face could manage. It was no time to wait till he changed his mind, I thought, and I took Julia's arm, and we walked away, fast, south on Fifth in the opposite direction from the way the carriage was headed. A dozen steps, twenty steps, thirty, and he hadn't changed his mind and called after us. I couldn't resist looking back. He was still standing by the carriage watching us. "Sergeant!" he yelled suddenly, and yanked open the carriage door. Then he pointed after us: "Our prisoners are escaping!" I stopped, my hand on Julia's arm swinging her around with me, and we stood staring. My mind wouldn't translate what was happening into sense. Because the sergeant's helmeted head had appeared out the street-side window of the carriage, and he was pointing at us, his arm extended, his forefinger aiming. But it wasn't his finger at all, because I saw it flash, heard it roar, felt the zing of the bullet split the air near our heads. Our minds worked then; we were running for our lives, and we heard the explosion of the sergeant's revolver, the high-pitched zing, and I saw a chip fly out of the balustrade of the brownstone house just ahead. Again the astonishingly loud explosion of the big revolver, then we were at the street corner, and in the instant of hurling116 ourselves around it I had to look back once again: Byrnes was in the street, his hand on the sergeant's wrist forcing the gun straight upward; not to save us, I knew that, but because there were too many startled citizens now, stopped and staring, between us and the gun.
We were around the corner on Forty-seventh Street running hard, Julia with her skirt gathered up in one hand, people gaping117. Across the street a man on the steps of the Windsor Hotel suddenly ran down and across the cobbles toward us, his hand raised in a "halt" gesture, saying something, I couldn't tell what. But I raised a fist, and he stopped at the curb and watched us tear past. It was a long crosstown block, an endless row of identical brownstones, and halfway down it Julia gasped118, "I can't, I have to stop!" We slowed to a walk, and I looked behind. But though people were turned to stare after us, others leaning out of carriage windows or looking back from the drivers' seats of delivery wagons119, no one was chasing us and there was no sign of Byrnes or the sergeant, I didn't know why. We reached Madison Avenue. A horsecar traveling south was just past the far corner, and we stepped out into the street, and I helped Julia up onto the rear platform as it moved past, then swung up after her. It was rolling along about as fast as we could have traveled on foot unless we'd run full speed without letup, which was impossible; and this was a lot less noticeable. I paid our fares, we sat down and stared out the window, getting our wind back and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. But no one looked at us. People sat staring out their windows at the quiet street. I'd walked along here in the sun, with Felix's camera, day before yesterday. People coughed, yawned, and got on or off the car, crunching121 down the aisle122 through the ankle-deep straw that was supposed to keep your feet warm and didn't. At Forty-fourth Street and again at Forty-third, I looked down the short block to our left at Grand Central Station standing exactly where it was supposed to stand, and where I'd seen it countless123 times. Only now it was red brick and white stone, and only three stories high. Forty-second Street just ahead was busy, noisy; we could hear the endless clatter38 of iron-tired wheels over cobble paving, and two cops stood out in the street directing traffic. One was short, the other tall, but both had great protruding stomachs bellying124 the blue cloth of their long uniform coats. Our tracks curved east onto Forty-second Street, and the tall cop beside the tracks glanced toward our car, then took off his helmet and peered into it. We drew abreast126 of him, starting to take the curve, and when he was directly beside our window I leaned across Julia's lap to peer down into his helmet and see what he was looking at. I don't think I've ever been more astonished. There, jammed down into the deep crown of his felt helmet, lay my face looking up at me. Beside it lay Julia's—our police photographs again, mounted on heavy cardboard—and now I understood why Byrnes's photographer had actually run from the little basement room with his plates. From that moment on, fast he could work, photographs were being duplicated. And as we'djoggedblockafter(as) blocku(as) ptown in the carriage,(our) as we'd stood listening to Carmody, to Byrnes, to Thompson, these photos were being rushed to very possibly every cop on duty in the city—the warning to look for us already out while we were still in custody127. Now in the instant of our passing, the cop on Forty-second Street looked up from the helmet in his hand. And I knew too late that for an hour or more he'd been checking our photographed images with the faces of all the pedestrians128 crossing before him and of the passengers in each car passing his post; there was probably a promotion129 for the man who got us. Our eyes met and, a footfrom mine, I saw his widen in startled recognition and—this astonished me—in sudden sharp fear. What he'd been told about how dangerous I was, I didn't know, but—we were a car length past him now—I heard the urgency in his voice as he turned and shouted at the other cop. He answered—I couldn't make out what he said—and they both began to run down the middle of the street after us. They were twenty yards behind, and they didn't gain—running heavily, flat-footedly, heads far back, each with a hand on his jiggling belly125. It was a scene in every way precisely like many another I'd seen in old-time silent-movie comedies. They weren't shouting now; they needed all their breath to run. But the short one pulled out the long nightstick hanging from a loop of his wide leather belt, held it high over his head, brandishing130 it threateningly, and the resemblance to the Keystone Cops—they even wore mustaches—was complete. Except that there was nothing funny about them. They were absolutely real, and I knew that if they caught us, we could end up in Sing Sing prison. Neither driver nor conductor had seen them, though a couple of passengers had turned as Julia and I had, to stare back at them. At Grand Central Station just ahead the car would stop, I was sure, and they'd catch up with it in seconds. I was sliding from my seat toward the aisle, a hand on Julia's wrist; and looking as serene131 and innocent as I could manage, I walked on toward the front of the car, Julia right behind me. We passed the conductor, I smiled at him vaguely132, then we stepped out onto the open front platform. Directly before Grand Central Station, high over the center of the street, stood the little wooden gabled building of an El station, stairs leading up to it from each side of Forty-second Street. It was a spur line apparently133, leading to the main line of the Third Avenue El, I supposed, and I had only one vague plan, if it could be called even that. There were four flights of steps leading up to that station, two on each side of the street, and the station stood directly at the end of the spur-line track. Any one of the four flights could be reached through the station, and if we ran up one of those flights we had an exactly even chance—two cops, each coming up one flight of steps after us—of running down one of the other two flights and escaping them. It was all I could think of, and standing on the platform, I murmured, "Jump off and run when I do," and Julia smiled and nodded as though at a casual remark of mine. I was watching the driver, I saw his mittened134 hands draw back on the reins, felt my body lean slightly forward as the car began to slow; then I nudged Julia, and we jumped off and ran hard. Down the center of the street alongside the horse, then cutting before him, ducking between two wagons, one of them piled high with barrels, up onto the sidewalk, and then pounding up the stairs two at a time, Julia in the lead and running as fast as I was. People coming down paid us no particular attention, merely stepping aside to let us pass, and I realized that people running up or down these steps at Grand Central were no unusual sight. I heard shouts behind us, turned at the top of the flight, and saw the taller of the cops hit the first step—he was moving faster than I'd thought—then we ran on into the station. Inside we walked. I put on a smile as we approached the ticket booth, pulling two nickels from my pocket. Julia was tugging135 at my sleeve, I looked at her, she gestured with her chin, and as we stopped and stood waiting while the man in the booth leisurely136 tore two tickets from his roll, I looked out and saw aone-car train standing on the track, engine first with its front end nearly touching137 the station house here at the end of the single track. Inside the car an old man, his clasped hands and chin resting comfortably on the top of his cane138, sat quietly waiting till it was time for the train to start. At the far end of the car the conductor sat staring out the window toward the other side of the street. It was momentarily tempting139 but as I took our tickets I shook my head at Julia. To be caught inside that car, a cop entering at each end, just couldn't be risked. We walked quickly out onto the platform, and passing the engine, I turned to look back toward the head of the stairs we'd come up, and saw the helmet rising into view, then the cop's face, and saw his head turn and catch sight of us. Then Julia and I ran along the platform toward the stairs at its opposite end, and as we passed the car, I heard the conductor slam the waist-high metal gate of its open platform. The tiny steam engine behind the car tootled, and I turned to see its miniature drive-shaft move; then the car was rolling past us and Julia moaned—we could have been on it! But it was too late now. Chuff-chuff, chuff-chuff—the engine, moving backward behind the car on this return run down the single track, was picking up speed, the conductor at the back of the car slamming the back-platform gate closed, and the second cop's helmet rose into sight at the head of the stairs we were racing140 toward. They'd outguessed us. I swung around, and the other cop, belly jouncing, a hand holding his helmet on, was running along the platform toward us not fifty feet away. I've never really been one of the people who think fast in an emergency. I think fast enough, that is, but usually what I think of is the wrong thing to do. This time, hardly thinking at all, I did precisely the right thing. Both cops running toward us now, I turned to Julia beside me. My arms, swinging in toward her waist like giant claws, gripped her, raised her high off her feet, and dropped her down on the other side of the waist-high gate on the rear platform of the car rolling past us. Then—the short cop grabbing at me, his hand raking down the back of my coat as I turned —I jumped into the open doorway of the engine cab as it passed, swung around fast, and the cop running at me ran his face right into the heel of my hand. He staggered, then stood staring after us as we rolled past the end of the station platform. Across the little engine cab from me, the engineer, leaning out his window to stare down the track ahead, had neither seen nor heard me jump on, over the rattle141 and rapid huff of his engine. Standing there in the engine's open doorway, I was completely oriented; I knew I was directly above the center of Forty-second Street, moving east just past Grand Central Station. The sketch142— just below—is one I've made showing our train just after leaving Grand Central Station and the El platform. Third Avenue, toward which we are moving, is off to the right, and that's Forty-second Street below our train.
I looked up and saw only the gray and empty winter sky in the space I'd always before seen filled by the soaring needle-spired tower of the Chrysler Building. I glanced down, and where the base of the Chrysler Building belonged stood the round little red-brick-and-white-stone tower you see in my sketch, no more than a dozen feet taller than our tracks. And in that moment—the moment of my sketch—moving through this partly familiar yet utterly143 strange and now suddenly hostile city, I felt a rush of homesickness nearly overwhelm me; I had to close my eyes for a moment to fight it off. Within seconds we were slowing down, backing in between the twin arms of the station platform at the other end of the two-block spur line. It wasn't impossible that the two cops could hurry along Forty-second Street for those two blocks, even commandeering a carriage or wagon120 for all I knew, and I stood in the doorway of the engine cab staring ahead at the Third Avenue line, hoping a train we could transfer to would be just coming in. But there was none even in sight, and the moment the wooden floor of the station platform appeared beside me, I hopped144 off the engine —I don't think the engineer ever did see me—and let my own momentum145 carry me trotting146 forward to the slowing car just ahead. Julia was standing at the gate, the conductor right behind her. "That's against the law, you know!" he said angrily to me. I wasn't sure whether he meant lifting Julia over the gate or riding the engine, and I said I was sorry, and handed him our tickets. Then—I wanted to yell at him to open the gate but was afraid if I did that he'd be deliberately147 slower than ever—he got out his punch, carefully punched both tickets, handed them back to me, and I thanked him. And only then did he open the gate and let Julia off. Then we ran for the stairs. I think the two cops could have been there if they'd really tried, waiting for us to step down off the stairs onto the walk at Third and Forty-second. But they'd have had to move faster than they'd done in some years, and no one grabbed us. But across the street a cop walking his beat looked into a saloon over the tops of the two waist-high latticed doors of the entrance, then strolled to the curbat the corner, and stood, skillful as a professional entertainer, bouncing and twirling his club at the end of its thong148. I had the feeling that he'd given far more time to club twirling than crook96 catching149, and as we turned and walked south on Third Avenue, moving away from him as fast as we could without obviously hurrying, I was glad that this was his beat. Julia was looking at me questioningly, and I understood. Were our photographs in his helmet, too? I shrugged; if not, they would be soon. Every cop in the city would have them, to be passed on to the next shift, and with extra cops and probably plainclothesmen out, too. The reward Carmody had almost openly offered Byrnes would be big if we were caught and convicted, or "killed while escaping"; it wouldn't matter which. Because Byrnes was clever: Our "escape" and flight, of course, would be accepted as confession150. The cop on the corner was half a block behind now and hadn't even glanced at us. But the next one could be different, and if he wasn't, then the one after that. We simply could not walk through the streets for block after block; we'd be caught within minutes. And any public transportation would be as bad. We had to get off the streets right now: into a hansom, it occurred to me longingly151, where we could sit back and move unseen through the streets with time to think. But Byrnes knew the problems of people trying to hide; it takes money, and he had ours. "Julia, have you any friends who'd hide you for a few days, lend you some money?" "In Brooklyn, yes; we lived there up until two years ago. But the only friend here I could ask to do that lives at Lexington and Sixty-first, and—" "Too far, too far!" I got rattled152. "Where are we, Julia, Forty-first? What's the nearest bridge? Maybe they aren't guarding them yet, and we can still—" "Si, there's only one bridge, Brooklyn, and it's way downtown." I nodded, glancing at store windows we passed, trying to see whether they reflected anyone following or about to challenge us. More than ever before, I was realizing that Manhattan is an island and not a very big one, either; you can walk its circumference153 in a day. "I don't want us to be trapped sitting on a ferry like a couple of pigeons. We need money, dammit! To hole up in a hotel where they can supply our meals. Suppose we telephoned your aunt—" I stopped. "Did what?" "Never mind." But she'd heard me. "I don't know anyone who has a telephone. Or who has even seen one." "I know, I know!" "We could send a messenger boy; there's an office near here." "But we'd have to wait there for the reply?""Yes." "When the boy came back, the cop that I'm certain must be watching the house would be right along with him. God, how I wish there were movies! Between us we probably have the price of a cheap one, and we could sit and wait till dark." "Movies?" I'd lose my mind if this kept up. I said, "We've got to separate, Julia. Till dark. They're looking for the pair of us; let's not make it easy for them. It'll be dark in forty minutes, an hour at most. And I'll try to sneak154 in and out of the house then; I've got money in my room. Meet me in a hour and a half at—where's the nearest good place from the house?—in Madison Square. Walk through it as though you're going somewhere, and I'll follow you out. If I'm not there, try again in half an hour. Then give me up, and"—I shrugged—"do your best. Okay?" Before she could answer I looked at the windows of a store we were passing; the entranceway passed between double display windows, one pane41 of each set at a 45-degree angle to the walk. It reflected the half block or so behind us and I saw a man running silently toward us. He was in plainclothes, wearing a derby and a long topcoat, but nothing could disguise the truth that he was a cop. He was running on his toes without a sound, and he was about the length of a football field behind. Without turning around I spoke quietly and very rapidly. "Julia. You must run. To the corner, and around it, and keep on. Do it now, now!" She didn't hesitate or waste time looking back, but gathered up her skirts and ran. I turned and walked straight out into the street. There I turned to face the sidewalk and stood waiting. And now the man running toward us had a choice to make between me or going after Julia, leaving me behind his back, and not sure what I'd do. He had to choose me, and he did it cleverly, running right past me as though going for Julia, as I thought he was for a moment. Then he whirled in a fast right-angle turn and came at me. But I'd picked a metal pillar of the El tracks to stand near, and I stepped over to it. For a moment or so we stood, both of us balanced on our toes, the pillar between us, trying to out-feint each other. Then he lunged, I shoved off hard from the post, and he was after me. But he could shoot and probably would if I began outracing him, and at this distance he wouldn't miss. Running on was pointless, and I did the only other thing left to do. I whirled and literally threw myself at his ankles in an action he may not ever have seen before—a football tackle, though this was from the front. I'd played a little football in high school before the players got too big for me. And now I hit his shins with my left shoulder, my arms wrapping tight around his knees in a tackle so illegal it would have drawn155 a hundred-yard penalty—and he went right on forward over my shoulders and down onto cobbles. I thought my shoulder was broken—the numbness156 reminded me of why I'd had to quit the game—but I was up right away and running in the opposite direction. I looked back; he was still lying on the street. Fifteen more running steps right down the middle of the street, wagon drivers turning to stare, then I looked back again. He was on his knees, turning to face me and pulling a big nickel-plated revolver from his back pocket. I stayed on the side of the line of pillars opposite him, and kept glancing over my shoulder in aseries of fast peeks157. Using both hands, he was aiming carefully; he wanted me, all right. I slowed suddenly, then sprinted158, trying to throw his aim off; he fired, and the bullet struck a pillar, making a surprisingly loud clang. People stood frozen on the walks, but none of them seemed to want to come out into the street. At the corner I turned and ran east in the direction opposite from Julia's, and the gun roared again, and I mentally examined myself and decided159 I hadn't been hit. I was around the corner now, out of his line of fire. He was far behind, probably just getting to his feet, and I knew I'd make it to Second Avenue if my wind held out. I had to walk the last dozen yards gasping160, looking behind me, but he was nowhere in sight. At Second I turned south, knowing that—no radios, no patrol cars, hardly any phones—I was temporarily safe again. Four blocks down I walked into a saloon, ordered a stein of beer, took a couple of sips161, then walked back through a dim hallway to the toilet, and killed six or seven minutes just standing there. I came back and had a couple more sips of beer; there were half a dozen men standing at the bar, paying me no attention. Then I walked to the free-lunch table and took a ham sandwich, with two hard-boiled eggs and a dill pickle162, back to the bar, and ate them with the rest of my beer. And when I left I had two more hard-boiled eggs, and a thick cheese sandwich, which I'd sneaked163 into my overcoat pocket. I spent fifteen minutes standing in an alley164 in a locked doorway; occasionally, in case anyone was watching from an upper story somewhere, I hauled out my watch and looked at it, as though waiting for someone. Then I walked again, down Second. Twice a horsecar passed but I was keeping off them now; I wanted to be ready to move in any of four directions. At Thirty-seventh Street I saw a cop ahead, and turned off Second and went back to Third, then headed south again. Seven or eight blocks, and a cop came walking out of Twenty-ninth Street not ten yards ahead, looked toward me, said, "Hey!" and began to walk quickly in my direction. I stopped. He was far too close for me to run; I'd have been shot in the back. A few steps ahead and at the outer edge of the walk near the curb, a man and a woman had stopped, too. And now the cop, pulling off his helmet, stopped before them. As I walked past—my steps as quiet as I could make them—trying to shrink myself into invisibility, he took his photographs out of the helmet, and I saw that the couple was young and that the girl's dress, the hem1 visible under her coat, was the same color as Julia's though not the same shade and the man's overcoat was vaguely like mine. But they matched the description Byrnes had dictated165, and as I turned onto Twenty-ninth Street I heard the cop order the man to turn his head, and I knew he was comparing his face to my photograph. As fast as I could without drawing attention, I walked over to Lexington Avenue. There a pair of lamplighters were moving down the street, touching each lamp into light, and before I reached Gramercy Park, at Twenty-first Street, it was dark. The fenced-in rectangle of Gramercy Park lay between me and Number 19. I stood in the shadows between two streetlamps, and through the bare branches and black iron bars of the fence I looked across its snow-covered grass and bushes to watch the house. The lower-floor windows— parlor, dining room, kitchen—were all lighted, and so were two of the upper windows. I'd seen someone, either Byron Doverman or Felix Grier, pass a front lower window, a newspaper in his hand. And now a light upstairs went out. Then, barely visible through the intervening shrubs166,fencing, and trees, I saw the cop on the other side of the square. He was walking slowly past the house. He walked on to the corner of the square, then turned and walked back just as slowly, on past the house again to the opposite corner. He turned to walk back, and I hauled out my watch and timed him. It took just about a minute and a half to walk past the house once more, up to the corner again, and turn; and it took the same time to walk back. Six times, watch in hand, I watched him walk that beat, back and forth167 in the same path, and as regular as my watch he did it in a minute and a half each time. If I timed my movements with his, it would be perfectly168 possible to walk around the corner of the square toward the house, and then—behind his back as he walked slowly past the house—to silently cross the street, hurry up the steps, and with my own key unlock the front door and slip inside before he turned to walk back again. Up the stairs to my room, the rest of my money in my hand within seconds. Then down again, watch the cop through the door crack, then out and across the street behind his back once more. But I didn't move: Was it really going to be that easy to outwit Byrnes? The man had set a trap for me and Julia, overlooking nothing so far. Was this cop, so easy to sneak past, only what he seemed? I stood watching him, and again he walked his beat in precisely the same way, and then again. Maybe he was what he seemed—just a cop, not Byrnes himself; a human being doing a tiresome169 job and falling into a regular pattern. I moved a few yards along my fence, stood watching again, and suddenly I saw him. Entirely motionless—he must have been chilled through no matter how many layers of clothes he wore—a man sat on a bench inside the park facing Number 19. He was dressed in dark clothes, his coat collar up, and, motionless in the darkness there inside the park, he was almost invisible. There he sat, waiting for me or Julia to cleverly time our movements to the slow metronome of the cop's walk and cross the street as he watched. Then, the street door closing, a low whistle, and the cop strolling the sidewalk suddenly turning to run to the house. I actually backed away from the park for a step or two, then I turned and walked off. It was only a few blocks to Madison Square, and though I walked them warily170 I knew now that we were going to be caught. Unless I simply deserted171 Julia, which I wasn't going to do, Byrnes had us— bottled up, trapped. Without money for food, even holing up somewhere was useless. He had us as planned; as he'd known he would since even before he'd picked us up. Did he want us killed? While "avoiding detention"? Maybe; it would be a simple and very quick way to the meeting in Carmody's Wall Street office. Or did he want us caught? It probably didn't matter to him; our "escape" proved our guilt28, or at least disproved any claim to innocence172. For two powerful people like Byrnes and Andrew Carmody to actually convict us of a charge of murder after our attempted escape wouldn't be hard in an 1882 courtroom. And all I could do about it was stick with Julia; I had to do that and just hope against hope, I didn't even know for what. I saw her enter the square from Fifth Avenue, walking briskly, purposefully, along the curve of a path, her long-skirted silhouette173 sharp against the light from an overhead standard, then blurring174 in the shadows, sharpening again as she walked into the next cone175 of pale yellow light. I met her at the downtown end of the park, she smiled with relief when she saw me, and I took herarm, and we walked toward the other end as though we knew where we were going. As we walked I told her what had happened, that we still had no money, and for a moment she closed her eyes, and said, "Oh, God." "What's wrong?" "I'm so tired, Si; I simply cannot continue endlessly walking." Then she smiled, squeezing my arm under hers, and I smiled back; I had nothing to encourage her about. She'd stopped at a messenger-service office, she said, soon after she'd left me, and sent a handwritten note by messenger boy to her aunt. She was all right, it had said; she'd be away for a time; she'd explain when she returned; meanwhile her aunt wasn't to worry. "Of course she will," Julia said, "but at least she's heard from me, and it was the best I could do. I wish—" Under my arm, hers moved sharply, and I saw the cops, a pair of them, crossing Fifth toward the square, and we turned right around to walk just as purposefully back in the direction we'd come from, hoping they hadn't yet seen us through the trees and shrubs. It seemed useless yet we instinctively176 postponed177 being caught. As we approached the south end of the park and could see Twenty-third Street, I saw a cop standing on the walk ahead. His back was to us, he didn't see us, was probably thinking of anything but us. If we walked out of the park past him, though, he'd see us, and once more we turned on the path. Up ahead, still two-thirds the long length of the park away from us, the cops were walking along toward us, talking. We could turn east or west now, it didn't seem to matter which, and we took the first intersecting path we came to, west toward Fifth. Julia hurried along with me, but when she spoke I knew she was close to crying. She said, "Si, I have to stop, I have to. Let me just sit down on a bench here, and you go ahead. Come back later, Si, and if I'm still here—" But I was shaking my head, pulling her along by force, making her walk, nearly running. Something about this path, the look of the trees and placement of the benches here, had become suddenly familiar. I'd walked here before, and—yes. We rounded the bend of the path and there ahead it came into sight, a dark nearly formless bulk obscured by the thick screen of bare trees, but I recognized it. As we completed the curve it came suddenly clear, dimly silhouetted178 against the dark sky: the immense right arm of the Statue of Liberty, the tip of its great torch high over the trees. We climbed the winding179 stairs fast and silently, and then at last we sat down, out on the circular railed platform at the base of the great metal flame. The ornamental180 railing concealed181 us but we could look out through it, and for as long as a minute, I suppose, we just sat in silence looking down on the dark city, listening to the sound and watching the dim swaying lights of Fifth Avenue traffic. It was chill. We felt the cold of the metal through our clothes. But for the moment —just sitting, no longer having to walk—being here was enough. If it occurred to anyone to climb up and look for us here, as it might, there'd be no escape. Byrnes had run us, if not precisely to ground, at least into a cul-de-sac. But for the moment we just didn't care. In the faint light from the lamps of the square, I could see the dull, very slightly iridescent182 glow of the shaped copper183 againstwhich Julia's head rested and I could see that she was smiling tiredly. "How good," she murmured, "how good just not to have to move." She opened her eyes, saw me watching her, and smiling again to show she didn't really mean this, she said, "Now, if we only had something to eat." I remembered, grinned, and brought out the mashed184 sandwich and mashed eggs, their shells cracked to particles, and handed them to her. She didn't even bother asking where they'd come from, but just shook her head, marveling, and began eating the sandwich. She offered me some, but I told her I'd eaten, and where, and made her eat it all. We spent the night inside, sitting near the top of the curved staircase out of the little wind that came up. We sat huddled185 together on the third or fourth step from the top so that, eyes level with the floor of the platform, we could look out under the railing at the city. I sat half facing Julia, my arms around her, her head on my chest. It was cold in here, but out of the wind it was tolerable, and I enjoyed it. Julia slept right away, but for a time I sat holding her and staring out at the city; all I saw was darkness sprinkled with a few dim lights. They disappeared, one or two at a time; presently there were no lights at all, the city outside nearly silent, and then I slept, too. Twice we awakened186, very stiff and cold, and stood up and stretched and flexed187 our fingers. The second time, careful to make very little sound, we went outside and walked around the circular platform half a dozen times, looking down onto the treetops and the silent lighted paths of the park, looking out over the low dark city. Inside again, huddled together for warmth, my arms around Julia once more, I knew I'd had all the sleep I was going to get for a while on a cold metal staircase. I was still tired but the sleep had helped. Presently Julia whispered, "Awake?" and as I nodded, the side of my jaw188 brushed her hair so that I knew she could feel it. "Me, too," she said. And then without planning it, without any thought at all before the quiet words began, I told Julia who I was and where I had come from; I felt that it was time, that it was her due. I told her about the project; about Rube, Dr. Danziger, Oscar Rossoff; about my life in that far-off time. My voice a steady murmur17 hardly audible beyond her ear, I talked about my preparations with Martin, my life at the Dakota, the first successful attempt, my arrival at her house. Twice she lifted her head to stare up at my face, searching it as well as she could in the barely relieved darkness, then lying back in my arms, and I wondered what she thought. I couldn't tell. I knew I was violating a fundamental rule of the project, and knew that no one in it could ever understand this. But I felt it was right. Finally I finished, and waited. I could feel her draw a deep breath, then she sighed, and said, "Thank you, Si. You're the most understanding man I've ever known. You've helped me through a long night; I haven't been so enthralled189 since I was a girl, and read Little Women. You should write that story down, and perhaps illustrate190 it. I'm certain Harper's would consider it. And now I think I can sleep again." "Good," I said, and sat grinning at myself in the darkness: a story made up and spun191 out to entertain her; what in the hell else was she supposed to think? And within a few minutes, four or five, I think, I was asleep, too, this time in the soundest sleep of all.
I woke up for good, knowing in the odd way you do that this was the last of the night, dawn not too far away now, and I was sorry. Uncomfortable as it had been, it had also been good, here with Julia. Now nothing lay ahead but a day we weren't going to get through. We'd be able to buy some sort of breakfast probably, then there was only more walking, all of yesterday's weariness back in our legs in an hour, until presently we were caught. Possibly, I thought, we ought to give ourselves up right away; at least we'd be warm then, and could stop running. There was no light, the first sun a long way off, yet the darkness was just faintly diluted192. Looking out, I could see the ornate pattern of the railing, and I hadn't been able to do that before. All over again the strangeness of where we were struck me. I had to say it to myself; incredibly we were here, high up in the arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. And then it occurred to me: Could it be made to happen? I considered it, and thought that maybe it could, and I carefully tightened my arms around Julia, pressing my cheek to the top of her head, holding her very close, making her as much a part of me as I was able. Then, in the technique Oscar Rossoff had taught me, I began to free my mind from the time I was in. For this, too, this great metal hand with its torch, was a part of both the New Yorks I had known, existing in each of them. And in my mind I allowed the twentieth century to come to life. Then I told myself where I was; where we were, Julia and I. And I felt it happen. My arms squeezed, holding Julia even tighter during that moment, so that she stirred and opened her eyes. She looked up at me blankly. "Where..." Then she glanced around her, realizing, said, "Oh," and smiled. I let her go, stood up stiffly, and she got up, too, and we walked out onto the platform. The darkness was going, a whiteness and lightness coming into the air, but we couldn't really see; we heard it instead. I was expecting it and recognized the sound first, glancing at Julia. I saw the look of bafflement come to her face, and she turned to me, frowning. "Waves?'' she said. "Si, I hear waves, I swear I do!" Then she sniffed193 the air. "And I can smell the sea." She was frightened. "Si, what—" I had my arm around her shoulders, saying softly, "Julia, we've escaped. The story I told you last night is true. It was the truth, Julia; I've brought you with me into my own time." She stared at my face, saw the truth in my eyes, and buried her face on my chest. "Oh, Si, I'm frightened! I can't look!" Ahead, the whole sky was light now, pinkening the horizon, the tiny whitecaps in the harbor far below suddenly just visible. "Yes, you can," I said, and took her chin, lifting her head, turning it toward the railing to the east. She looked out across it, saw the water and the harbor far below; then she turned to see the blue-green skin of verdigris194, the patina195 of decades, on the giant copper torch and flame behind us, and began to tremble. Under my arm her shoulders actually shook with fright—yet she couldn't stop looking. Her head turned endlessly from side to side, seeing it all; and all that she said over and again every few seconds was "Oh, Si!" in a frightened, excited, ecstatic wail196. Her face was dead-white, and her hand as she raised it to press tight against her cheek was trembling, but she'd begun to smile.
Far out, the first thin edge of sun suddenly touched the rim11 of the ocean, and now ships were visible. Then, the sun edging up over the horizon as we stared, I took Julia's arm, and we walked around our little railed circle. On the other side Julia stopped to stand stock-still, her breath suddenly caught motionless in her chest as she stared out across the harbor at the astonishing, soaring skyscrapers197 filling the tip of Manhattan Island, their tens of thousands of windows flashing orange in the dawn.
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1
hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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2
batter
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| v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员 | |
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3
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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4
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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5
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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6
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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8
egress
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| n.出去；出口 | |
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quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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15
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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16
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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18
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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heyday
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| n.全盛时期，青春期 | |
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20
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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21
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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22
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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23
sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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24
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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25
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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26
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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27
walrus
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| n.海象 | |
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28
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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29
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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30
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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31
overcast
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| adj.阴天的，阴暗的，愁闷的；v.遮盖，（使）变暗，包边缝；n.覆盖，阴天 | |
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32
mantled
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| 披着斗篷的，覆盖着的 | |
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33
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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34
awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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35
hitching
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| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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36
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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37
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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38
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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39
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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40
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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41
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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42
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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43
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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45
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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46
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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47
hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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48
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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49
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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50
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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51
fiddling
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| 微小的 | |
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52
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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53
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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54
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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55
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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56
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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57
stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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58
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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59
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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60
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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61
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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62
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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63
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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64
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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65
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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68
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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69
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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70
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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71
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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72
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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73
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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74
parquet
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| n.镶木地板 | |
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75
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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76
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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77
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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78
niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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79
harpsichord
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| n.键琴（钢琴前身） | |
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80
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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81
parqueted
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| v.镶木地板( parquet的过去式 )；（剧场的）正厅后排 | |
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82
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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83
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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84
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85
sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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86
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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87
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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88
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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89
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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90
wheezing
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
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91
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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92
contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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93
slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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94
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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95
crookedness
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| [医]弯曲 | |
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96
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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97
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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98
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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100
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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101
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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102
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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103
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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104
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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105
fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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106
speculatively
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| adv.思考地，思索地；投机地 | |
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107
invitingly
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| adv. 动人地 | |
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108
blackmailing
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的现在分词 ) | |
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109
scapegoat
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| n.替罪的羔羊，替人顶罪者；v.使…成为替罪羊 | |
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110
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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111
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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112
pickpocket
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| n.扒手；v.扒窃 | |
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113
troublemaker
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| n.惹是生非者，闹事者，捣乱者 | |
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114
intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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115
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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116
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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117
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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118
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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119
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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120
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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121
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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122
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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123
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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124
bellying
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| 鼓出部；鼓鼓囊囊 | |
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125
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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126
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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127
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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128
pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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129
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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130
brandishing
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| v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀 | |
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131
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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132
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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133
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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134
mittened
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| v.（使）变得潮湿，变得湿润( moisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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136
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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137
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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138
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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139
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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140
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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141
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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142
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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143
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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144
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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145
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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146
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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147
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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148
thong
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| n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带 | |
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149
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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150
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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151
longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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152
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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153
circumference
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| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
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154
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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155
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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156
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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157
peeks
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| n.偷看，窥视( peek的名词复数 )v.很快地看( peek的第三人称单数 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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158
sprinted
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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159
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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160
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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161
sips
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| n.小口喝，一小口的量( sip的名词复数 )v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的第三人称单数 ) | |
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162
pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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163
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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164
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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165
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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166
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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167
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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168
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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169
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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170
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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171
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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172
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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173
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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174
blurring
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| n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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175
cone
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| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
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176
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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177
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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178
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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179
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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180
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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181
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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182
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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183
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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184
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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185
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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186
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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187
flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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188
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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189
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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190
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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191
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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192
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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193
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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194
verdigris
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| n.铜锈；铜绿 | |
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195
patina
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| n.铜器上的绿锈，年久而产生的光泽 | |
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196
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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197
skyscrapers
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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