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"There doesn't seem to be many people about to-night," Fred observed, casually. Storch sneered. "To-day is Good Friday, I believe... Everyone has grown suddenly pious." Fred turned his attention to the windows of a tawdry candy shop, filled with unhealthy-looking chocolates and chromatic sweets. He was wondering whether Ginger would pass again to-night.
It was not that Storch was unable to discover a score of men ready and willing to murder Hilmer, but he was finding an ironic diversion in shoving a weary soul to the brink. He liked to confirm his faith in the power of sorrow and misery and bitterness ... he liked to triumph over that healing curse of indifference which time accomplished with such subtlety.
And if he were to sit again about that round table of violence and despair he felt that, while he might find much to stir hatred, he would never again give scope to contempt. "You want to go home, eh?" Storch was repeating, almost with a note of obscene mirth. "Well, our walk has been quieting, at all events." Fred Starratt said nothing. He was not in a mood for talk.
He guessed at once that it would not do for him to betray the fact that suddenly he realized how completely he had been snared. Yet his trepidation must have communicated itself, for Storch leaned forward with the diabolical air of an inquisitor and said: "Does it matter in the least whether there is one victim or six?"
But at this moment, standing in the light-flooded entrance to Ginger's lodgings, waiting for Storch to lead him back to his figurative cell, he knew that a man could be a murderer and a saint and a bricklayer and a thousand other things besides.
Storch looked at him steadily. "The door is open, my friend." Fred gave a little gesture of resignation. "You know perfectly well that I'm not built to betray the man who gives me shelter." "Oh, I'm not sheltering you for love!" "You have some purpose, of course. I understand that. But you're wasting time."
Fred made no reply. Indeed, the meal was finished in silence. Presently Storch's disciples began to drift in. The meeting lasted almost until midnight. They were all at fever heat, strung tensely by Storch's unerring pressure. At the last moment the man who had previously put the question concerning Hilmer prodded Storch again. Storch fixed Fred suddenly with a gaze that pierced him through.
There were times when the room seemed crowded with strange people who came and went and gesticulated, people gathering close to the dim lamp which Storch lighted at nightfall. The visions of Monet were a curious mixture of shadow and reality. Sometimes he seemed very elusive, but, again, his face would grow clear to the point of dazzling brightness.
And again, watching Storch at night, touching the quivering cords which might otherwise have rusted in inactive silence, he remembered further the introduction to this contemptuous phrase: "I like to get my recruits when they're bleeding raw. I like them when the salt of truth can sting deep..." How Storch lived Fred could only guess.
He did not lift his head. Fred went softly into a corner and sat down... Finally, after a while, Storch laid his book aside. He gave one searching look at Fred's face. "Well, have you decided?" he asked, with calm directness. Fred's hands gave a flourish of resignation. "Yes... I'll do it!" he answered in a whisper. Storch picked up his book again and went on reading.
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