Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Professor’s Awakening-4

“You did want to see the children, Jane?”

She nodded.

“Jane,” he says, “can't you see I'm the better man?”

The perfessor, he was woke up after all them years of scientifics, and he didn't want to see her go. “Look at him,” he says, pointing to the feller with the brown beard, “he's scared stiff right now.”

Which I would of been scared myself if I'd a-been ketched that-a-way like Henry was, and the perfessor's voice sounding like you was chopping ice every time he spoke. I seen the perfessor didn't want to have no blood on the carpet without he had to have it, but I seen he was making up his mind about something, too. Jane, she says:

“You a better man? You? You think you've been a model husband just because you've never beaten me, don't you?”

“No,” says the perfessor, “I've been a blamed fool all right. I've been a worse fool, maybe, than if I had beaten you.” Then he turns to Henry and he says:

“Duels are out of fashion, aren't they? And a plain killing looks bad in the papers, doesn't it? Well, you just wait for me.” With which he gets up and trots out, and I heard him running down stairs to his labertory.

Henry, he'd ruther go now. He don't want to wait. But with Jane a-looking at him he's shamed not to wait. It's his place to make some kind of a strong action now to show Jane he is a great man. But he don't do it. And Jane is too much of a thoroughbred to show him she expects it. And me, I'm getting the fidgets and wondering to myself, “What is that there perfessor up to now? Whatever it is, it ain't like no one else. He is looney, that perfessor is. And she is kind o' looney, too. I wonder if they is anyone that ain't looney sometimes? I been around the country a good 'eal, too, and seen and hearn of some awful remarkable things, and I never seen no one that wasn't more or less looney when the search us the femm comes into the case. Which is a Dago word I got out'n a newspaper and it means: Who was the dead gent's lady friend?' And we all set and sweat and got the fidgets waiting fur that perfessor to come back.

“Which he done with that Sister Estelle grin on to his face and a pill box in his hand. They was two pills in the box. He says, placid and chilly: “Yes, sir, duels are out of fashion. This is the age of science. All the same, the one that gets her has got to fight for her. If she isn't worth fighting for, she isn't worth having. Here are two pills. I made 'em myself. One has enough poison in it to kill a regiment when it gets to working well—which it does fifteen minutes after it is taken. The other one has got nothing harmful in it. If you get the poison one, I keep her. If I get it, you can have her. Only I hope you will wait long enough after I'm dead so there won't be any scandal around town.”

Henry, he never said a word. He opened his mouth, but nothing come of it. When he done that I thought I hearn his tongue scrape agin his cheek on the inside like a piece of sandpaper. He was scared, Henry was.

“But you know which is which,” Jane sings out. “The thing's not fair!”

“That is the reason my dear Jane is going to shuffle these pills around each other herself,” says the perfessor, “and then pick out one for him and one for me. You don't know which is which, Jane. And as he is the favorite, he is going to get the first chance. If he gets the one I want him to get, he will have just fifteen minutes to live after taking it. In that fifteen minutes he will please to walk so far from my house that he won't die near it and make a scandal. I won't have a scandal without I have to. Everything is going to be nice and quiet and respectable. The effect of the poison is similar to heart failure. No one can tell the difference on the corpse. There's going to be no blood anywhere. I will be found dead in my house in the morning with heart failure, or else he will be picked up dead in the street, far enough away so as to make no talk.” Or they was words to that effect.

He is rubbing it in considerable, I thinks, that perfessor is. I wonder if I better jump in and stop the hull thing. Then I thinks: “No, it's between them three.” Beside, I want to see which one is going to get that there loaded pill. I always been intrusted in games of chance of all kinds, and when I seen the perfessor was such a sport, I'm sorry I been misjudging him all this time.

Jane, she looks at the box, and she breathes hard and quick.

“I won't touch 'em,” she says. “I refuse to be a party to any murder of that kind.”

“Huh? You do?” says the perfessor. “But the time when you might have refused has gone by. You have made yourself a party to it already. You're really the main party to it.

“But do as you like,” he goes on. “I'm giving him more chance than I ought to with those pills. I might shoot him, and I would, and then face the music, if it wasn't for mixing the children up in the scandal, Jane. If you want to see him get a fair chance, Jane, you've got to hand out these pills, one to him and then one to me. You must kill one or the other of us, or else I'll kill him the other way. And you had better pick one out for him, because I know which is which. Or else let him pick one out for himself,” he says.

Henry, he wasn't saying nothing. I thought he had fainted. But he hadn't. I seen him l*****g his lips. I bet Henry's mouth was all dry inside.

Jane, she took the box and she went round in front of Henry and she looked at him hard. She looked at him like she was thinking: “Fur God's sake, spunk up some, and take one if it does kill you!” Then she says out loud: “Henry, if you die I will die, too!”

And Henry, he took one. His hand shook, but he took it out'n the box. If she had of looked like that at me mebby I would of took one myself. Fur Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't know whether I would of or not. When she makes that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor. What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin: “Mebby I better jump in now and stop this thing.” And then I thinks agin: “No, it is between them three and Providence.” Beside, I'm anxious to see who is going to get that pill with the science in it. I gets to feeling just like Providence hisself was in that there room picking out them pills with his own hands. And I was anxious to see what Providence's ideas of right and wrong was like. So fur as I could see they was all three in the wrong, but if I had of been in there running them pills in Providence's place I would of let them all off kind o' easy.

Henry, he ain't eat his pill yet. He is just looking at it and shaking.

The perfessor reaches for his watch, and don't find none. Then he reaches over and takes Henry's watch, and opens it, and lays it on the table. “A quarter past one,” he says. “Mr. Murray, are you going to make me shoot you after all? I didn't want any blood nor any scandal,” he says. “It's up to you,” he says, “whether you want to take that pill and get your even chance, or whether you want to get shot. The shooting way is sure, but looks bad in the papers. The pill way don't implicate any one,” he says. “Which?” And he pulls a g*n.

Henry he looks at the g*n.

Then he looks at the pill.

Then he swallows the pill.

The perfessor puts his'n into his mouth. But he don't swallow it. He looks at the watch, and he looks at Henry. “Sixteen minutes past one,” he says. “Mr. Murray will be dead at exactly fourteen minutes to two. I got the harmless one. I can tell by the taste of the chemicals.”

And he put the pieces out into his hand to show that he chewed his'n up, not being willing to wait fifteen minutes for a verdict from his digestive ornaments. Then he put 'em back into his mouth and chewed 'em and swallowed 'em down like it was coughdrops.

Henry has got sweat breaking out all over his face, and he tries to make fur the door, but he falls down on to a sofa.

“This is murder,” he says, weaklike. And he tries to get up agin, but this time he falls to the floor in a dead faint.

“It's a dern short fifteen minutes,” I thinks to myself. “That perfessor must of put more science into Henry's pill than he thought he did fur it to of knocked him out this quick. It ain't skeercly three minutes.”

When Henry falls the woman staggers and tries to throw herself on top of him. The corners of her mouth was all drawed down, and her eyes was turned up. But she don't yell none. She can't. She tries, but she just gurgles in her throat. The perfessor won't let her fall acrost Henry. He ketches her. “Sit up, Jane,” he says, with that Estelle look on to his face, “and let us have a talk.”

She looks at him with no more sense in her face than a piece of putty has got. But she can't look away from him.

And I'm kind o' paralyzed, too. If that feller laying on the floor had only jest kicked oncet, or grunted, or done something, I could of loosened up and yelled, and I would of. I just needed to fetch a yell. But Henry ain't more'n dropped down there till I'm feeling just like he'd always been there, and I'd always been staring into that room, and the last word anyone spoke was said hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

“You're a murderer,” says Jane in a whisper, looking at the perfessor in that stare-eyed way. “You're a murderer,” she says, saying it like she was trying to make herself feel sure he really was one.

“Murder!” says the perfessor. “Did you think I was going to run any chances for a pup like him? He's scared, that's all. He's just fainted through fright. He's a coward. Those pills were both just bread and sugar. He'll be all right in a minute or two. I've just been showing you that the fellow hasn't got nerve enough nor brains enough for a fine woman like you, Jane,” he says.

Then Jane begins to sob and laugh, both to oncet, kind o' wildlike, her voice clucking like a hen does, and she says:

“It's worse then, it's worse! It's worse for me than if it were a murder! Some farces can be more tragic than any tragedy ever was,” she says. Or they was words to that effect.

And if Henry had of been really dead she couldn't of took it no harder than she begun to take it now when she saw he was alive, but just wasn't no good. But I seen she was taking on fur herself now more'n fur Henry. Women is made unlike most other animals in many ways. When they is foolish about a man they can stand to have that man killed a good 'eal better than to have him showed up ridiculous right in front of them. They will still be crazy about the man that's killed, but they don't never forgive the lobster. I seen that work out before this. You can be most any thing else and get away with it, but if you're a lobster it's all off even if you can't help being a lobster. And when the perfessor kicks Henry in the ribs and he comes to and sneaks out, Jane she never even looks at him.

“Jane,” says the perfessor, when she quiets down some, “you got a lot to forgive me. But do you s'pose I learned enough sense so we can make a go of it if we start over again?”

But Jane never said nothing.

“Jane,” he says, “Estelle is going back to New England to stay there for good.”

She begins to take a little interest then. “Did Estelle tell you so?” she says.

“No,” says the perfessor, “Estelle don't know it yet. But she is. I'm going to tell her in the mornin'.”

But she still hates him. She's making herself. She wouldn't of been a female woman if she'd of been coaxed that easy. Pretty soon she says, “I'm going upstairs and go to bed. I'm tired.” And she went out looking like the perfessor was a perfect stranger.

After she left the perfessor set there quite a while and he was looking tired out, too; and there wasn't no mistake about me. I was asleep all through my legs, and I kept a wondering to myself, suppose them pills had one of them been loaded sure enough, which one would of got it? And when the perfessor leaves I says to myself, I reckon I better light a rag. So I goes to the front window and opens it easy; but I thinks about Henry's watch on the table, every one else having forgot it, and I thinks I better hunt him up and give it to him.

And then I thinks why should I give him pain, for that watch will always remind him of an unpleasant time he once had.

And if it hadn't been for me sitting in that window looking at that watch I wouldn't a-been writing this, for I wouldn't of been in jail now.

I tried to explain my intentions was all right, but the police says it ain't natural to be seen coming out of a front window at two in the morning in a striped sweater and a dinky dinner suit with a gold watch in your hand; if you are hunting the owner you are doing it peculiar.

One of them reporters he says to me to write the truth about how I got into jail; nobody else never done it and stuck to facts. But this is the truth so help me; it was all on account of that watch, which my intentions with regard to was perfectly honorable, and all that goes before leads up to that watch. There wasn't no larceny about it; it was just another mistake on the part of the police. If I'd of been stealing wouldn't I stole the silverware a week before that?

The more I travel around the more dumb people I see that can't understand how an honest and upright citizen can get into circumstantial evidence and still be a honest and upright citizen.