CHALK FACE _BOOKS BY_ WALDO FRANK THE UNWELCOME MAN (1917) THE ART OF THE VIEUX COLOMBIER (1918) OUR AMERICA (1919) THE DARK MOTHER (1920) RAHAB (1922) CITY BLOCK (1922) HOLIDAY (1923) SALVOS (1924) CHALK FACE (1924) CHALK FACE BY WALDO FRANK [Illustration] BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS NEW YORK _Copyright, 1924, by_ BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. _Printed in the United States of America_ Dear Father: A weakness we have long shared, and nurtured together: our hankering after good mystery stories. We have opened many a volume that promised luridly--and failed to keep its promise. And whenever we did find a passable tale, our best pleasure in it was to pass it on to the other. In these exchanges, I have learned that you are more critical than I: so that as ever, in bringing you this book, I do so timidly. If it please you, I shall not need to worry about its other readers. I can foretell certain of your observations. “Chalk Face” may seem to you at least as much a Parable as a mystery story. But what indeed is the difference between them? What more lurid than the depths of desire, what more mysterious than the hinterlands of conscience? And what event is so great a mystery as life itself? I believe that every tale should be a mystery tale. I believe that the only stories that are not mystery stories are the shallow stories.... Howsoever, if you find in this book elements of moral and of wonder usually absent from tales of crime, these are ancestral traits which I have straight from you. So, in the impulse making me write my story as in the consequence, you have your share--and you must be indulgent. W. F. _Seville, February, 1924._ _CONTENTS_ _Part One_ The Man With the White Head _Part Two_ The Other Room _Part Three_ The Challenge “THEN THE LORD ANSWERED JOB OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND....” CHALK FACE _The man who writes the story of his life begins by trying to justify his impulse. But justification masks the true desire; and the sincerest confessions often start with falsehood. I could invent a reason for these pages, easily and plausibly enough. I could say, being a man of science and having failed in my elected sphere, that with my story I shall make amends: give to the world a document whose revelation may mean far more to it than any alienist’s career. This statement would perhaps be truth. My tale will add to that source of knowledge beyond the axioms of rational science from which to-morrow the true science of man may spring. But this statement would not be the truth: it would not express the extent nor the inwardness of my impulse in writing. For I am moved by a will far warmer than any altruism. I write, first of all, for myself._