Chapter Six

LIKE the little boy passing the cemetery, Doughface Jack tried to appear casual and still keep alert. But for all that he had to walk rapidly. He was sick at his stomach from the portent of doom which overhung him. Regardless of its mito-genetic powers, his brain was a maelstrom of confusion.

It was far beyond him to understand what had happened. He could only draw conclusions insofar as his experience would allow. He knew definitely that cops carried clubs and hit people over the head.

He had no great terror of jails. He had seen too many when booked for vagrancy. He had sometimes worked himself into jail when the nights were cold. But he knew that cops carried clubs and brakies carried clubs and in that lay his entire horror.

More than once his scalp had been bruised and bloodied by a nightstick and the resulting headaches had filled weeks with misery. And now he had another thing bothering him.

Pellman—and he still thought he could trust Pellman—had told him that he would have to be careful of a fall. “You get a dent in that tin skull you’ve got, Jack, and it’s liable to be the end of you.”

Of course the skull wasn’t tin. Tin that thick would have had some resistance. But tin rusted and so the skull was soft, pliable silver. One blow from a nightstick and he would be a dead man. Doughface Jack knew that. He had no faith in anything after a man’s lights went out and he was very anxious to stay on an earth which had been pleasant to him. One blow on the head and he was done.

Cops were such unreasonable people, he thought as he scurried along uptown. Could he help it if a couple dogs dropped dead and if a horse collapsed? Was it his fault? Did he do it on purpose?

No!

And had he asked those cops to bully him that way? And had he deliberately knocked them for a loop? And, therefore, was it his fault if they fell on their faces?

No!

But cops, he thought, were dumb. They couldn’t understand those things and the next one …

And there he was, standing on the corner swinging his nightstick and watching the parade of baby carriages go along the park walk.

Doughface Jack’s heart was a chunk of alum. He slowed down. He sauntered. He eyed the trees and sky and attempted to whistle. The officer had not yet heard the broadcast and though he thought that this pasty-faced little fat man was acting suspiciously, there wasn’t any real reason to accost him.

And so, for the instant, Doughface Jack got by.

Fifty feet ahead was a crossing and the lights were against Doughface. He was much too interested in the bluecoat behind him to see the truck coming. It was an enormous thing grumbling under the weight of great rolls of sheet iron. The driver was a New York truck driver. He had the weight and he had the right of way and so he stuck his broken nose in the air and sailed serenely along and let the pedestrians fall where they might.

Doughface heard the rumble when he was almost under the wheels of the juggernaut.

With a yelp of fright, the tramp skipped back.

“Watch where ya goin’,” snarled the truck driver in passing.

And then an awful thing happened. The driver collapsed over his wheel and the truck careened toward the curb. Pedestrians screamed as they scurried back. Over the curb went the truck, over the curb and over the sidewalk and straight into a plate-glass window the size of a billboard.

There was a splintering crash, the rending of metal and the sudden shriek of the patrolman’s whistle down the block.

Doughface Jack waited to see no more. He started to run and banged squarely into an officer coming from the other direction. He bounced off at an angle and that officer, thinking it was suspicious, tried to grab Doughface. Abruptly he was flat on the walk.

“Hey you!” bellowed the other one behind Doughface.

The tramp spun about. He wasn’t risking being either shot or struck from behind. He knew what he could do now. He glared and the patrolman banged to concrete with a grunt which faded out into a moan.

When Doughface took wing this time he barely touched pavement for blocks. He dashed over crossings and through crowds driven by terror and the necessity of finding refuge at the university.

He beat the mile record getting there, vowing with each sturdy puff that he would never again walk these streets if he got out of this scrape alive. If possible he would leave New York and return to the rods. Starvation was preferable to such danger.

So blind was he with sweat and exhaustion that he almost leaped up the steps of Professor Beardsley’s house without examining the ground. But sunlight hit on a brass button in the nick of time. Doughface dived for the shrubbery and peered carefully forth.

The front steps were an entire bank of blue cloth. Fortunately all the officers had been facing the door and they had missed him. They were not entering, it seemed, but waiting for their superiors to come out.

It was a chilling sight.

Doughface, panting as silently as he could, thought fast. He could not stay on the streets. His name had been plastered all over New York and his picture had appeared so often that he could never hope to escape exposure. He felt naked without strong walls around him.

He withdrew cautiously and hurried down the block. He turned the corner and then headed into an alley. He knew the back of Beardsley’s house because he had often had the pleasure of talking to the garbage man there. And so, with great stealth he tiptoed up the steps and eased into the kitchen. The officers would not search the house. They wouldn’t think he was here. And besides, Beardsley would help him out of this jam. Beardsley would tell them the truth.

He started to enter a hall when he heard voices in the study. He got down and put his eye to the keyhole and found that he was looking at Beardsley in profile at his desk.

“Gentlemen,” said Beardsley, “I tell you once more that he is not here. You can search the house if you like.”

“Maybe he’ll come back,” muttered a police captain.

“We’ll wait,” decided an inspector.

“Gentlemen,” said Beardsley, tears in his voice, “believe me when I tell you that I had no slightest inkling of his potentialities.”

“Yeah,” said the police captain.

“But believe me!” said Beardsley, polishing his pince-nez in agitation. “I took pity on him, a poor, helpless tramp.…”

“You made yourself famous with him,” stated the inspector.

“Gentlemen, in the interests of humanity, science will even condone vulgar publicity.”

“Y’didn’t tell the newsmen that,” said the captain. “See here, Professor, your university …”

“My university,” said Beardsley, “has no responsibility in the matter whatever and neither have I. There is in existence no contract establishing any connection for responsibility between the university and myself and this tramp. What he has done is regrettable, true. But to expect the university to act as guardian angel to a tramp—a mere tramp, gentlemen—that is going too far.”

“Y’mean you’ll turn him over to us?” said the inspector hopefully.

“He has broken the law,” stated the professor, growing bolder. “And for that he must suffer.”

“If them guys die,” growled the captain, “it’s the chair for him.”

“Justice must be served,” said Beardsley in a devout manner.

“Say, look,” said the captain, “how come you didn’t suspect that this hobo could kill things by just lookin’ at ’em?”

Beardsley took refuge in scientific lore. “Mito-genetic rays are almost wholly unknown. No great amount of work has been done upon them. We were experimenting. That was all. Evidently as long as this tramp is in a jolly frame of mind the rays are beneficial to the recipient. But when this man’s anger is aroused, then the rays become so intense that they not only kill all foreign bacteria and stimulate cells and tissue but they destroy those cells themselves. By destruction of such cells, a man is instantly made to suffer from acute anemia. And there is a telepathic factor which seems to enter. Generating fear, this tramp makes another man feel afraid at long last. Generating rage, he makes other men rage. Generating cheer, he makes others cheerful. Emotional telepathy, the commonest kind.…”

“I didn’t come here to listen to no lecture,” growled the captain. “All I want is to get my grub hooks on that hobo. We’ll show him a thing or two.”

“Perhaps,” said Beardsley, “if you make a cordon about any part of the city where his presence is known you can sneak up on him. I must warn you that if he is given a chance, no amount of police can cope with him.”

“You mind if we … ah … find it necessary to shoot your guinea pig?” said the inspector.

“It would be a loss to science,” said Beardsley. “But—the man is dangerous. We have no claim or hold upon him, no responsibility to him.…”

“Even though he got you a five-million-dollar donation,” said the disgusted captain. “C’mon, Inspector. The circles of the mighty make me sick to my stomach. Let’s go out and nail that tramp.”

“Professor,” said the inspector, “if he comes here, you will, of course, quietly call us?”

Beardsley pondered. It was dangerous to be in line with Doughface Jack now. “Inspector, I can probably find a way to put some heavy sleeping powder in his food.”

“Good,” said the inspector.

“Huh,” said the captain in disgust.

Doughface watched Beardsley’s eyes follow them to the door. Inside, the tramp was shaking like jelly. He saw Beardsley get up and approach the door and he scurried back into the kitchen and out into the alley.

“Them guys,” said Doughface as he went over the back fence, “is just a bunch of stuffed shirts after all. They’re y’pals until y’get in trouble—Pellman and all the rest of ’em!”