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Maria contended that the lash of the whip hurt the most; Trina, that the butt did the most injury. Maria showed Trina the holes in the walls and the loosened boards in the flooring where Zerkow had been searching for the gold plate. Of late he had been digging in the back yard and had ransacked the hay in his horse-shed for the concealed leather chest he imagined he would find.
On this particular evening, about a week after the child's burial, in the wretched back room of the Junk shop, Zerkow had made Maria sit down to the table opposite him the whiskey bottle and the red glass tumbler with its broken base between them and had said: "Now, then, Maria, tell us that story of the gold dishes again." Maria stared at him, an expression of perplexity coming into her face.
Zerkow had come to believe in this story infallibly. He was immovably persuaded that at one time Maria or Maria's people had possessed these hundred golden dishes. In his perverted mind the hallucination had developed still further. Not only had that service of gold plate once existed, but it existed now, entire, intact; not a single burnished golden piece of it was missing.
She sold the junk to Zerkow, the rags-bottles-sacks man, who lived in a filthy den in the alley just back of the flat, and who sometimes paid her as much as three cents a pound. The stone jugs, however, were worth a nickel.
She's all right on everything else, but just start her on that service of gold plate and she'll talk you deaf. She can describe it just as though she saw it, and she can make you see it, too, almost. Now, you see, Maria and Zerkow have known each other pretty well.
I guess it's the first and only offer she ever received, and it's just turned her head." "But what DO those two see in each other?" cried Trina. "Zerkow is a horror, he's an old man, and his hair is red and his voice is gone, and then he's a Jew, isn't he?" "I know, I know; but it's Maria's only chance for a husband, and she don't mean to let it pass.
She suddenly appeared from the unknown, a strange woman of a mixed race, sane on all subjects but that of the famous service of gold plate; but unusual, complex, mysterious, even at her best. But what misery Zerkow endured as he listened to her tale!
Zerkow had taken Maria home to his wretched hovel in the alley back of the flat, and the flat had been obliged to get another maid of all work. Time passed, a month, six months, a whole year went by. At length Maria gave birth to a child, a wretched, sickly child, with not even strength enough nor wits enough to cry.
You know she isn't quite right in her head, anyhow. I'm awfully sorry for poor Maria. But I can't see what Zerkow wants to marry her for. It's not possible that he's in love with Maria, it's out of the question. Maria hasn't a sou, either, and I'm just positive that Zerkow has lots of money." "I'll bet I know why," exclaimed Trina, with sudden conviction; "yes, I know just why.
What did he say?" asked the people on the outskirts of the group. Those in front passed the answer back. "He says they'll get him all right, easy enough." The group looked at the policeman admiringly. "He's skipped to San Jose." Where the rumor started, and how, no one knew. But every one seemed persuaded that Zerkow had gone to San Jose. "But what did he kill her for? Was he drunk?"
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