Keeban

“ But you don't think out affairs like that; when there is only one thing to do, you have to take a chance on whatever it is. So I stood, with Keeban beside me and Christina a few feet away and the eleven normals beyond us and between and I watched the girl on the table breathing.
They watched her, too. Christina, Shirley Scofield,—with what sort of feelings? And the normals about us, what were they thinking, too? I didn't even try to wonder about Jerry who had become Keeban and who was doing this thing. ”

“ I said, "within one."
"That's it; there's where's the underworld, too. Among those who carry the underworld within their breasts, I'm Keeban; and therefore needing, more or less immediately," his tone trailed off practically, "as much of ten thousand dollars as you've got in that peter behind you and which you feel inclined to give. It'll go to good use, Steve; great use! ”

“ We heard men downstairs now. "Who's that?" I said.
"Must be the bulls; his gang," Jerry glanced at Keeban again, "got out; all that will ever get. Well, come on, bulls; a lot you can hurt me now!"
He looked up from his brother and straightened; and I felt for him perhaps one thousandth of his relief from what had been on him since that night he came into my room, after the Sparlings' dance, and said Keeban had come and gone with Dorothy Crewe.
I put my hand on him while we waited, Doris and he and I, for the approaching steps of the bulls. ”

“ But he didn't sound like Jerry. Not at all. That other person possessed the body.
"Where are they?" he asked the nearest of his normals.
"Oh!" said the normal, remembering. "In there."
"Get them," said Keeban.
The fellow stepped to a locker at the side of the room; he stooped, and, reaching in, he brought out a pair of white rabbits in one hand, another pair hung by their ears from his other fist.
"Rabbits," said Keeban, with a sort of play at apology to Doris and me. "I know you got guinea pigs; but rabbits do just as well and they show better." ”

“ I got back home at last and stopped at Jerry’s room, which had always been next to mine; I opened the door and in the dark looked in. “Keeban!” I said to myself. “By God, there’s a Keeban; there has to be!”
And, careful not to wake my own people, I went into my room.
[Pg 31]
III I HAVE ENCOUNTER BY THE RIVER.
As long as I stayed by myself, I had some luck at believing; but there was morning and the newspapers and telephone calls. I had to tell my father then, and mother; and they talked with the police. They talked with Mrs. Sparling and Gibson and fifty others who were at the dance. ”

“ Fred talked on; but I didn't pay much attention for a few minutes; for now I could see through the rest of Keeban's scheme; I could see not only why he had shot Win Scofield, but why he had done it himself and why he had shown himself in the doing, making no attempt to hide.
For he wanted to be seen; he wanted to be identified, particularly by Rowan. For Rowan would identify him, as Rowan did, for Jerry Fanneal; and, so identified, no one would connect Shirley with the murder. ”

“ For the rabbits had drooped into death. There was not a mark nor a twist on them to show it. Keeban shut off the gas, where he had turned it on; he pulled the cords to open the ceiling.
"Perfectly safe in two minutes," he assured Doris and me. "It's light; the stuff rises." ”

“ The newspapers, always keen for the colorful, played up the pictures they took of those twenty girls and sixteen "crooks" in costume; but the papers did not even know of that dagger dance. Much less could they give news of the final consequence of it.
In my mind, when I thought of it, Keeban had caught Christina. In my mind, he had her somewhere wholly in his power; at his own time, in his own manner, he would punish her. Imagining this, I would get up and walk about; I felt I had to do something. But where were they? Where was Jerry? If he were not the Raleigh who had returned ”

“ The number ended; now clapping; now encore. My arms circled Cleopatra; I clasped her. Keeban clasped Christina.
As I watched his arm go around her, so exactly as Jerry's clasped his partner in the dance, I got another jerk. Maybe he was Jerry! Maybe what was to happen between Jerry and his "friend", his brother, had happened outside. I sent that thought out of my head and watched them.
What a pair they made, she young, lithe, full of life, perfect in her soft proportions. ”

“ I've got to catch him, not scare him away. Suppose he goes off forever; suppose he's drowned, body lost; suppose he's burnt; suppose a dozen wrong things, Steve, and I can never show him. Then I've got to be Keeban forever; nobody but you will ever believe! Will they?"
"Nobody," I agreed.
"Come, then; to-morrow's our chance. No word to the 'bulls' or he'll hear it and not show up. We have to handle this ourselves and close. Who was with him? Christina?"
"That's what he called her."
"She talked for him?"
"Come to think of it, Jerry, she did, mostly." ”

“ How could I tell them of Keeban? My own mother was sorry for me when I told her. She took the strong line she always does; she considered herself to blame for having taken in Jerry, twenty-eight years ago, and with no knowledge of his blood, rearing a child with unknown capacities for crime and putting him into a position to harm others. ”

“ I warned myself. “He’s Keeban!” And then my senses did another roundabout. “He’s Keeban and [Pg 268] Jerry, too!” For here was a body which I was sure was Jerry’s and some one else possessed it. That some one must be the soul we’d called Keeban—Jerry and I. Here was Keeban who’d robbed Dorothy Crewe and thrown her in the street; here was Keeban who had shot Win Scofield for his insurance and had knocked me on the head when I called at Cheron Street; here was Keeban who had tried to kill, by poison gas, Strathon, Géroud and Teverson and the Sencort directors in their room. ”

“ Jerry went pale and looked down. "There's many more marked up on Keeban's board and on others'. I know some of the names marked up and something about what's going to occur to them. It's a little like sitting in on fate, Steve," he said, color coming back to his face, "to see this man's number and that creeping up to the top of the board; to a limited extent, one knows what's behind to-morrow, what's going to happen. Here's a man you know and I know and, to all appearances, he's sitting secure; but on Harry Vine's board, we'll say, his number is up toward the top. ”

“ While he talked, I put myself in Keeban's place for a while and tried to take things from his point of view. I went back a bit to do this—back a few months to the time when old Win, divorced once more and rejuvenated, had arrived again at the cabarets and resumed beauing about with the girls. ”

“ Old Top, a man in my position has rather to pick and choose. He can stop one, perhaps; then let it be a good one! Besides, that's not my business now; I'm getting Keeban. Yet, if certain names get to the top of the board, I'll call you perhaps. On your own wire. Now Hamlet's father's ghost again. G'night, Steve." He left me.
Sometimes, when I thought it over, I believed Jerry and Keeban, separate people, had met me that night; sometimes I was sure that Jerry had worked ten thousand dollars out of me. ”

“ Jerry's gone to crime. We face it and we do not shirk our responsibility. Come to yourself, Stephen. Jerry's picture is in police headquarters in every city east or west; New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Baltimore, every headquarters has reported the same; they have no criminal in their galleries who would be taken for Jerry. There's never been a Keeban in crime; it's Jerry."
"Keeban, he goes by the name of Harry Vine," I returned; "he's not in their galleries because he's kept out of their hands. They've got to catch a man before they can photograph him." ”

“ I could see nothing; smell nothing; sense nothing going on in that cabinet; but neither had I when the rabbits had died.
My plan depended entirely upon time. There must be gas in the cabinet, but not too much gas,—not enough to kill my girl in there.
She breathed more slowly, I thought; I stared and seemed sure of it. At the same time, Keeban began looking at me. He suspected I was about to act; and I did it. I lifted that heavy chair behind me and, spinning, I swung it against the glass side of the cabinet and smashed it through. ”

“ And as I sat there staring and wondering why and how, suddenly I ceased to have difficulty in thinking red hair, instead of yellow, upon Christina, the riverside companion of Keeban. I “placed” her and knew her name and her association and where I had met her; for she was Winton Scofield’s wife. Of course she was; that was it! What an extension of the underworld into the polite world of my own!
Of course I realized that, as Jerry had said, I was thinking like a child; for the underworld’s not a compact, separate region; its territory is wherever its citizens set foot ”

“ The doctor tried to calm her; the big men dragged Jerry away. He was making no resistance, God knows; he was limp. Could a man go against a thing more awful than he'd just met? Here was the girl he loved; she'd trusted herself to him and she believed that, for the diamonds about her neck, he'd attacked her!
She told something more in that scream of a laugh; she told a little, at least, of how she had struggled before she'd been strangled and knocked senseless and thrown into the street. And she had thought Jerry did it!
I stepped along beside him. "Keeban," he whispered desperately to me. ”

“ But when a guy that a girl goes with takes to being a gorilla, the skirt's got to watch her step with him. She knows it."
"Where is he now, Jerry?"
"Do you suppose I know?"
"You must know more than I do."
"That's right." He tossed me a box of cigarettes. "Smoke if you want. Nobody'll come for a while. I allowed us a little time, particularly so you may become better acquainted with my friend—" again he tapped his chest—"Keeban, my childhood companion, more recently the robber of Dorothy Crewe and the bumper off of old Win Scofield. He seems not to be indigenous to Chicago soil, Steve. ”

“ Here we were, caught together, with Keeban going once more into the glass room. He went himself and picked up the rabbits and flung them at our feet on the floor.
"How about it now?" he said to me. "What's the order? The lady first?"
I swore at him. He had my nerve, you see. I swore and strained at the cords on my hands. A lot of good it did me. He laughed.
"All right, Steve!" said Doris to me. "All right!" Quickly but calmly she said it. Calmly is not the word. It doesn't do at all. No word would. "All right, Steve!"
"All right, Doris!" ”

“ This was what Jerry meant I should see; this was the vengeance of Shirley. Not vengeance alone; also an attempt at self-protection. She knew, going back to a "gorilla", that sooner or later he would kill her. Perhaps she expected death from him only a little later that night. So she had struck there before them all and, failing, made her life surely forfeit. Now, without doubt, Keeban—Harry Vine—would kill her.
Not there, surrounded by that circle, as she would have slain him, had her thrust gone home. A girl kills a man that way; but not a man his woman. This rapiered Raleigh knew that. ”

“ About that time—as long as eight years ago—Keeban 'marked up' me."
"'Marked up?'" I repeated.
"Marked up my name on his board as good game for attention when he could get around to me. What made him put it off so long, I don't know; probably he'd a lot of prospects chalked on his board ahead of me; probably he felt he'd wait until he could put in the time to make proper preparation to appear as me. He guessed he had a great chance for a big haul; and—he made it." ”

“ Was Doris going back to Chicago, now that her father was taken; or would she stick to her plan to come on?
Vine—Keeban—was here, she said; Christina was here. So, if Jerry was anywhere, probably he also was here; and, if any of his old habits clung to him, he'd know I'd arrived, too. There is a column printed every day, you know, giving the news of arrivals of out-of-town buyers in every line of trade. ”

“ He would not. He wouldn’t help any government anywhere; he wouldn’t help a government even to wipe out the rest. He was set to do the wiping himself, personally. He had his big idea.”
I kept quiet; and he stood close. This was like Jerry himself, this impulse to talk on.
“He figured he could croak everybody—give him a little more time and plenty of gas. Everybody in New York, anyway.” Keeban laughed. “Lot of good that would do. Get up!” he told me.
I got up.
“Get up!” he said to Doris; and she arose.
The normals formed before us and behind; and so we started to march to the glass room. ”

“ I'm supposed to have rocks worth a quarter million, you see."
"You mean, in the underworld, of course you're Keeban."
He laughed. "Underworld's good, Steve. Marvellous how the human race laps up that 'up' and 'down' rot. We simply have to have it, heaven and hell, above and below. Who believes in either as a place? Think it out a second, Steve; where, exactly, d'you suppose is the underworld?"
"Why," I said. "South State Street, partly; and part of the west side. Down in New York along the Bowery, in spots, and near the east end docks."
Jerry shook his head, still smiling. ”

“ It's right for her to have the insurance money that's paid; she was not in the scheme of the croaking; nobody can ever show she was."
"She accused you to me," I said.
Jerry nodded. "I've seen the papers. You'll see something else to-night. Win Scofield's widow has her money; and Harry Vine, my friend and yours, Steve—Keeban, we called him—he's saving his face. At the Flamingo Feather, the affair will be." ”