Friday, the Thirteenth: A Novel
the stock-gambling structure. The deafening roar of the brokers that had
broken the stillness following Robert Brownley’s fateful speech had
awakened echoes that threatened to shake down the Exchange walls. The
surging mob on the outside was roaring like a million hungry lions in an
Arbestan run at slaughter time.
Chapter X.
The instant after the gong sounded Bob Brownley was alone on the floor at
the foot of the president’s desk. His form was swaying like a reed on the
edge of the cyclone’s path. I jumped to his side. His brother, who had
during Bob’s harangue been vainly endeavouring to beat his way through the
crowd, was there first. “For God’s sake, Bob, hear me. Word came from your
house half an hour ago of the miracle: Beulah has awakened to her past.
Her mind is clear; the nurses are frantic for you to come to her.”
He got no further. With a mad bellow and a bound, like a tortured bull
that sees the arena walls go down, Bob rushed out through the nearest
door, which, I thanked God, was a side one leading to the street where the
crowd was thinnest. He cast a wild look around. His eyes lighted on an
empty automobile whose chauffeur had deserted to the crowd. It was the
work of a second to crank it; of another to jump into the front seat.
Quick as had been his movement, I was behind him in the rear seat. With a
bound the great machine leaped through the crowd.
“In the name of Christ, Bob, be careful,” I yelled, as he hurled the iron
monster through the throng, scattering it to the right and left as the
mower scatters the sheaves in the wheat fields. Some were crushed beneath
its wheels. Bob Brownley heard not their screams, heard not the curses of
those who escaped. He was on his feet, his body crouched low over the
steering-wheel, which he grasped in his vise-like hands. His hatless head
was thrust far out, as though it strove to get to Beulah Sands ahead of
his body. His teeth were set, and as I had jumped into the machine I had
noted that his eyes were those of a maniac, who saw sanity just ahead if
he could but get to it in time. His ears were deaf not only to the howl of
the terrified throng and the curses of the teamsters who frantically
pulled their horses to the curb, but to my warnings as well. He swung the
machine around the corner at New Street and into Wall as though it had
been the broadest boulevard in the park. He took Wall Street at a bound I
was sure would land us through the fence into Trinity’s churchyard. But
no. Again he turned the corner, throwing the Juggernaut on its outside
wheels from Wall Street into Broadway as the crowds on the sidewalk held
their breath in horror. I, too, was on my feet, but crouching as I hung to
the sides. Thank God, that usually crowded thoroughfare was free from
vehicles as far up as I could see, on beyond the Astor House. What could
it mean? Was that divinity which ’tis said protects the drunkard and the
idiot about to aid the mad rush of this love-frenzied creature to his
long-lost but newly returned dear one? I heard the frantic clang of gongs,
and as we shot by the World Building, I saw ahead of us two plunging
automobiles filled with men. ’Twas from them the gong clamour sounded. As
we drew nearer. I saw that these were the cars of the fire chiefs
answering a call. I thanked God again and again as I yelled into Bob’s
ear, “For Beulah’s sake, Bob, don’t pass; if you do, we’ll run into a
blockade. If we keep in the rear they’ll clear our way, and we may get to
her alive.” I do not know whether he heard, but he held the machine in the
rear of the other cars and did not try to pass. Away we went on our mad
rush through crowded Broadway. At Union Square we lost our way-clearers.
As our automobile jumped across Fourteenth Street into Fourth Avenue, Bob
must have opened her up to the last notch, for she seemed to leap through
the air. We sent two wagons crashing across the sidewalks into the
buildings. Cries of rage arose above the din of the machine, and seemed to
follow in our wake. Bob was dead to all we passed. His entire being seemed
set on what was ahead. I knew he was an expert in the handling of the
automobile, for since his misfortune, automobiling with Beulah Sands had
been his favourite pastime, but who could expect to carry that plunging,
swaying car to Forty-second Street! Bob seemed to be performing the
wondrous task. We shot from curb to curb and around and in front of
vehicles and foot passengers as though the driver’s eyes and hands were
inspired.
Across the square at last and on up Fourth Avenue to Twenty-sixth Street.
Then a dizzying whirl into Madison. Was he going to keep to it until he
got to Forty-second Street and try to make Fifth Avenue along that
congested block with its crush of Grand Central passengers and lines upon
lines of hacks and teams? No. His head must be clear. Again he threw the
great machine around the corner and into Fortieth Street. For a part of
the block our wheels rode the sidewalk, and I awaited the crash. It did
not come. Surely the new world Bob was speeding to must be a kind one,
else why should Hag Fate, who had been at the steer-wheel of his life-car
during the last five years, carry him safely through what looked a dozen
sure deaths? Without slacking speed a jot we swung around the corner of
Fortieth into Fifth Avenue. The road was clear to Forty-second; there a
dense jam of cars, teams, and carriages blocked the crossing. Bob must
have seen the solid wall for I heard his low muttered curse. Nothing else
to indicate that we were blocked with his goal in sight. He never touched
the speed controller, but took the two blocks as though shot from a
catapult. The two? No, one, and three-quarters of the next, for when
within a score of yards of the black wall he jammed down the brakes, and
the iron mass ground and shook as though it would rend itself to atoms,
but it stopped with its dasher and front wheels wedged in between a car
and a dray. It had not stopped when Bob was off and up the avenue like a
hound on the end-in-sight trail. I was after him while the astonished
bystanders stared in wonder. As we neared Bob’s house I could see people
on the stoop. I heard Bob’s secretary shout, “Thank God, Mr. Brownley, you
have come. She is in the office. I found her there, quiet and recovered.
She did not ask a question. She said, ‘Tell Mr. Brownley when he comes
that I should like to see him.’ Then she ordered me to get the afternoon
paper. I handed it to her an hour ago. I think she believes herself in her
old office. I shut off the floor as you instructed. I did not dare go to
her for fear she would ask questions. I have”—but Bob was up the stairs
two and three steps at a time.
My breath was almost gone and it took me minutes to get to the second
floor. My feet touched the top stair, when, O God! that sound! For five
long years I had been trying to get it out of my ears, but now more
guttural, more agonised than before, it broke upon my tortured senses. I
did not need to seek its direction. With a bound I was at the threshold of
Beulah Sands-Brownley’s office. In that brief time the groans had
stilled. For one instant I closed my eyes, for the very atmosphere of
that hall moaned and groaned death. I opened them. Yes, I knew it. There
at the desk was the beautiful gray-clad figure of five years ago. There
the two arms resting on the desk. There the two beautiful hands holding
the open paper, but the eyes, those marvellous gray-blue doors to an
immortal soul—they were closed forever. The exquisitely beautiful face
was cold and white and peaceful. Beulah Sands was dead. The hell-hounds of
the “System” had overtaken its maimed and hunted victim; it had added her
beautiful heart to the bags and barrels and hogsheads stored away in its
big “business-is-business” safe-deposit vaults. My eyes in sick pity
sought the form of my old schoolmate, my college chum, my partner, my
friend, the man I loved. He was on his knees. His agonised face was turned
to his wife. His clasped hands had been raised in an awful, heart-crushing
prayer as his Maker touched the bell. Bob Brownley’s great brown eyes were
closed, his clasped hands had dropped against his wife’s head, and in
dropping had unloosed the glorious golden-brown waves until in fond
abandon they had coiled around his arms and brow as though she for whom
he had sacrificed all was shielding his beloved head from the chills and
dark mists of the black river that laps the brink of the eternal rest. The
“System” had skewered Robert Brownley’s heart too. I staggered to his
side. As I touched his now fast-icing brow my eyes fell upon the great
black headlines spread across the top of the paper that Beulah Sands had
been reading when the all-kind God had cut her bonds:
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH
And beneath in one column:
TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN VIRGINIA
THE RICHEST MAN IN THE STATE, THOMAS REINHART, MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, WHILE
TEMPORARILY INSANE FROM THE LOSS OF HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER, AND OF HIS
ENORMOUS FORTUNE, WHICH WAS SHATTERED IN TO-DAY’S AWFUL PANIC, CUT HIS
THROAT. HIS DEATH WAS INSTANTANEOUS.
In another column:
ROBERT BROWNLEY CREATES THE MOST AWFUL PANIC IN HISTORY, AND SPREADS
WRECK AND RUIN THROUGHOUT THE CIVILISED WORLD.
* * * * *
Publisher’s Note
_The following are fac-similes of a few of the letters received by the
author during the serial publication of “Friday, the Thirteenth.”_
RESIDENCE OF
THE PAULIST FATHERS
2158 PINE STREET
San Francisco, CA
21 October 1906
My Dear Mr. Dawson
Kindly allow one of your countless admirers to express his extreme
gratification with the announcement that you will add fiction to your
distinguished literary achievements. Your gifts as a writer are so
wonderful and fascinating that I look forward eagerly to your work in this
new field—and I pray God to prosper you in all good.
Sincerely,
John Marus Haudly
70 Kirkland St., Cambridge
Dec. 26, 1906.
Mr. T. W. Lawson,
Boston, Mass.
My Dear Sir: Allow me to congratulate you on your last move and on your
story, “Friday, the Thirteenth”.
It is the best yet, not merely as a story but as an eye opener. I can
begin to see daylight in spots, where it looks like a remedy and a real
one. I can’t see how you will work it; but I think I do get a hint, and it
holds me tightly.
That story ought to be issued in a cheap (25¢) edition in paper, and every
man in American ought to read it. The third part is yet to come; but, if I
mistake not, it will make us all say “Hurrah!” In this form the facts go
home. They were too abstract before. Now they live and palpitate.
Sincerely yours,
[Illegible: H. W. Majorson]
Dowagiac, Mich., Dec 26, 1906.
Mr. T. Lawson,
Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir—
I have just finished reading your second installment of “Friday the 13th.”
It is one of the greatest stories I ever read. Your previous articles are
good, but this is a wonder. I believe you are sincere and cannot help
admiring your wonderful courage + grit in going up against big odds. I
have no axe to grind with you, simply think that no matter how big you may
be you like to know that what you write is appreciated by the majority of
good american citizens. So Here’s to you Mr Lawson + I back you to
eventually win. Smash ’em good.
Yours Truly
A. J. Hill.
Grinnell, Iowa, Nov. 3 1906
Thomas Lawson
Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir,
What did “Bob” hear when he picked up the receiver. Impossible to wait one
month to find out.
Yours truly,
A. W. Talbott
103 Stedman Street
Brookline Mass.
Dear Mr. Lawson:—
I have hit just read the first instalment of your serial “Friday the
13th.”
I was so interested, aroused and stirred, I felt I must express to you