None But Lucifer

Chapter I

Hale had plenty of reason for panic. Most men, lying sick, broke, and alone in a cheap, filthy rooming house, would have been terrified. But Hale wasn't. He was sick, broke, and alone, all right — only that was exactly how he wanted to be. A long time ago he had planned it. Having achieved what superficially appears to be an easy goal, he felt rather successful. He waited impatiently for the next step in his campaign.

He listened to the stairs. He had been listening since early morning. His hungry, wan face brightened. They were creaking, in the exact manner he had anticipated.

The two pairs of feet plodded irresolutely toward his door. Then they halted. Hale listened impatiently for the creaking to resume. Instead he heard muffled, excited whispering.

He fought down his exasperation. If he had dared to expose his eagerness, he would have cried: "I know it's you and your wife, Burke, coming to dispossess men, if you can get me out while you put a slug in my lock. Don't worry about that. Don't waste time thinking up clever schemes to lure me out. I've waited for years for the courage to put myself in this position. You're not going to fail me because of a little pity, are you? Please, man ... my destiny's getting restless."

Naturally, he kept silent. He knew the vigilance of his oppressor too well; he had spent years coaching himself against such revealing outbursts. But in spite of himself he dragged his head off the hot pillow. "Come on!" he wished feverishly. "Don't make me wait!"

He glared at the door, as if that would make it open sooner. What was keeping them? — he ranted to himself. Was it their business that he had to be dispossessed? They were only janitors. They'd had to do it before.

They wouldn't have to trick him out. He'd just get up, dress, and leave. Perhaps he should make some feeble protest, for the sake of appearance. That was all. And he'd be on the street, penniless with no idea of what to do next — just as he'd planned so minutely — just as he wanted so whole-heartedly that he could hardly keep still.

The stairs creaked again. "Come on, come on," he willed furiously. "Don't stop. Please don't stop —"

Mrs. Burke was fumbling through her apron pockets for the keys. Hale could hear the rustle of enamel-stiff starch, the strangled clink of the keys, and Mr. Burke's hoarse, adenoidal mouth-breathing. The grim janitress searched the ring for the exact key. Hale suspected that a toothpick would have worked as well. The owner of the house spent damned little time worrying about his tenants' possessions, and less money on locks.

Eager as he was to be put out, Hale was flattered by the janitors' reluctance. It couldn't be habitual with them, or they wouldn't have been superintendents for twenty-five years. It meant that they liked and pitied him. He could have enjoyed the sensation of being liked, except that it was hindering instead of helping him just now.

"Stop fumbling!" he hissed under his breath.

The lock clicked boldly, as if it actually served to hold the door closed, and then the door was swinging back on its own flimsy weight. Like two pall-bearers who had embarrassingly arrived before the patient was dead, the Burkes edged into the dark little room.

"How ... gh —" Mrs. Burke gulped. "How are you, sir?"

"I'm fine, but what's the matter with you?" Hale's thin voice rose to feeble irascibility. "You could have been here hours ago."

Burke closed his perpetually dry mouth for a much-needed swallow. "It's hanged I'll be if I can make you out, Mr. Hale. You're sick as a dog. By rights you ought to be in a hospital —"

"Edgar!" his wife broke in.

"I know it ain't a nice thing to say. All the same, I want you to let me call an ambulance. It won't cost you anything, Mr. Hale. You'll go in the charity ward."

Mrs. Burke nodded. "We can't throw you out on the street right at the beginning of February. You come from a good family and you ain't used to the cold. Besides, you're real sick."

"Just a little flu," said Hale. "Please help me get my feet out of bed. They're rather heavy."

"Why don't you be reasonable, Mr. Hale?" Burke pleaded. "Molly here don't mind taking care of you, but, hell, she can't do it like a hospital can. In no time you'll be —"

"Will you help me get my feet out, or shall I do it myself?"

"Oh, nuts!" Burke grunted helplessly. "I got an idea you really want to be thrown out." He lifted Hale's legs around.

Hale froze in a sitting position. Was he being obvious? If Burke could suspect his impatience, his enemy certainly could.

"You're wrong," he said with deliberate primness. "I was brought up to believe in paying my way. I can't pay my rent, so I don't deserve to stay. And I won't take charity."

He was relieved to see that his logic stopped them temporarily. As firmly as he could, he stood up. The blood swooped down from his head and his knees sagged. He caught Burke's shoulder.

"Aw, don't be a fool," Burke implored.

Hale managed to shake his head. The temptation was enormous. He knew he needed a soft, clean bed, decent food, and medical attention. He wanted them so much.

He pushed himself erect. "I'm all right now." He took off his pajama jacket and let it slide to the floor. Mrs. Burke stood by uncertainly. When Hale reached for the pants tape, she went outside.

"Where you going when you get out of here?" Burke pursued doggedly.

Hale shrugged. "I have plans."

Gently, Burke helped him pull his underwear jersey over his head. "Yeah? What kind?"

"Business plans. I don't think it would be good luck to talk about them."

"I think you're nuts. It's delirious you are."

Bending over his shoes, Hale stopped short. That was a possibility, he had to admit.

Then he grinned up at Burke and went on tying his laces. Ridiculous! He went back over his recent past. Methodically, he had outlined a course of action. Following it scrupulously, he had given up a forty-a-week job-a very secure one, with the chance of rising to sixty and retiring eventually on half pay. His fiancée had been outraged, naturally. Even so, she trusted his judgment and had hung on.

Did he love her? Well, he had once. At least, she had appealed to him. She was pretty. And she was nice. Maybe that was the trouble. Too nice. Girls like that came in droves. For a nice fellow, a nice girl, a nice job, a nice future, a nice home, nice children.

But Hale couldn't be content with these nice things. He couldn't cut the coat of his ambition to fit his abilities.

So he had conceived his bizarre plan. He had carefully taken his savings and bought the most worthless stocks he could find. For a while he had feared being duped into making a profit. But his plan had worked, and he had succeeded in selling out just before the stocks in question went up. The memory of that nervous time still made him sweat. But playing the market had accomplished two major objectives: his embarrassing savings were gone, and Loretta with them. It had been worth the anxiety.

"All right?" Mrs. Burke called through the door.

"Yep. Come on in," Hale answered cheerfully.

She watched him writhe into his overcoat with obvious disapproval. Before he put his hat on, she looked encouragingly at her husband.

"See here, Mr. Hale," Burke suddenly blurted, "we ain't exactly millionaires, but we got hearts." He held out a five-dollar bill.

It was a tough moment for Hale. Instead of virtuously protesting, however, he drew several coins out of his own pocket, removed the single penny, and held out three quarters to Mrs. Burke.

"I know it doesn't repay you for the way you've taken care of me," he said clumsily, "but when I'm in a better position I'll really make it up to you. Please take it."

Mrs. Burke began to cry into her apron. "He's crazy!" she wailed. "Seventy-six cents is all he's got in the world. I know, because that's the change I brought him when I got his medicine. And he wants to keep a penny and give me seventy-five cents!"

Burke, looking shocked, moved determinedly toward Hale. "Take this! You're not leaving the house without it!"

"Please don't excite me," Hale gasped, retreating. "I can't take it. It would make me unhappy."

His agitation persuaded Mrs. Burke to call off her husband. His goggling horror of being forced to take the money was real enough to have convinced anyone.

Burke regretfully put the bill away. They stood around awkwardly. Hale, for all his peculiarities, lacked the consummate heartlessness to dash away abruptly, much as he wanted to be off.

"What about your luggage?" Mrs. Burke asked huskily.

"Why ... you're going to keep them, of course. I haven't paid my rent —"

Burke snapped his mouth closed. For several seconds he looked quite fierce, glowering with wounded pride at Hale. In the end, naturally, he was forced to open his mouth again to breathe. "None of that, now," he threatened.

"But it's your right to hold them," Hale protested.

"I don't care if it is. I won't."

Hale thought quickly. Perhaps the idea of getting sick hadn't been so good. It raised too many unforeseen problems, like this one. He had counted on having the superintendent of whatever rooming house he landed in confiscate his belongings.

"Well," he said hopefully, "how about keeping them until I can redeem them?"

"Not a chance!"

"Then until I call for them," Hale amended despairingly. "I'm not strong enough to carry them around."

Suspecting a trap, the Burkes hesitated, but at last agreed. "But no nonsense now!" said Mrs. Burke. "When you need anything, you come right here and get it."

"Certainly. You bet. It's awfully nice of you —" He moved toward the door.

Burke said, "You can't go looking for a job like that." He took Hale's feeble arm and guided him to the tiny square of mirror hanging over the unsteady chest of drawers. "It's like hell, you look. See?"

Hale had to smile triumphantly. His face was even better than he had hoped: thin, haggard cheeks; feverishly bright dark eyes; the skin of his high forehead stretched tautly over his skull; his large broken nose jutting out of a tangle of black whiskers; his dry, thin hair standing up. He nodded at the reflection. Excellent, he thought.

"You can use my razor," Burke offered.

Hale winced involuntarily. His stubble of beard was something to be observed at all costs. "No, thanks," he choked out.

He couldn't risk more offers of help by waiting around. Mrs. Burke's mouth was trembling with some suggestion. Before it could come out, Hale squeezed Burke's shoulder, kissed Mrs. Burke's large cheek, and fled.

On the street, he could feel really successful. The bitter wind slashed at him; he had only seventy-six cents and no place to sleep. He was getting somewhere!