The Derelict

Summary

A tarnished libertine, Teddy Brant, staggers out of a Jazz-Age speakeasy into an existential cul-de-sac: marriage’s noose chafes against his gin-soaked collar, so he stages a watery suicide, gifting Rose—his porcelain saint of a wife—and infant Helen a counterfeit grave and a fresh start. Years of hobo nights later, a spectral tramp with a face like a collapsed cathedral, he drifts into a depopulated depot where a tween girl drops a purse; the name inside detonates memory. Teddy shadows her through sodium-light streets, barges into a predator’s parlor, and throttles the genteel lecher with the desperation of a man strangling his own past. Helen stands trial for the blood on the Persian rug; Teddy, already a ghost, shuffles into court, exhales guilt like cigarette smoke, and hangs himself in a precinct lock-up, trading his last breath for the daughter he once traded away.

Synopsis

Finding that marriage conflicts with his carefree life, Teddy Brant, a dissolute man-about-town, fakes his own suicide, thus freeing Rose, his self-sacrificing wife, and his baby daughter Helen from life with an irresponsible drunk. Learning of her husband's alleged death, Rose remarries. Years later, Teddy, now a hopeless derelict, wanders the country until, unable to find a place to sleep one night, he strays into the waiting room of a train station. Here he sees a young girl being accosted by an elderly gentleman who entices her home. Teddy thinks nothing of the incident until he finds a purse lying on the seat and learns that the girl is his daughter Helen. Teddy hastens after them and in the ensuing fight, strangles Helen's assailant and then flees. Helen is arrested for the murder, but is acquitted when Teddy staggers into the police station and confesses to the crime, takes his life in his cell.