CHAPTER XVIII--THE HOUSE IN GAYLE STREET
The Janney party left the office soon after Molly and Esther. They haddecided to stay at the St. Boniface hotel where rooms had already beenengaged, and, with Suzanne swathed in veils and clinging to her mother'sarm, they were escorted to the elevator and cheered on their way by thetwo Whitneys. When the car slid out of sight the father and the son wentback into the old man's room.
It was now late afternoon, the sun, sinking in a fiery glow, glazed thewaters of the bay, seen from these high windows like a golden floor. Theday, which had opened fresh and cool, had grown unbearably hot; evenhere, far above the street's stifling level, the air was breathless. Themen, starting the electric fans, sat down to talk things over and wait.For the machinery of "the move" spoken of by Wilbur Whitney already hadbeen set in motion.
Immediately after Esther's telephone message O'Malley had been called upand, with an assistant, dispatched to watch the Gayle Street house. AsWhitney had told his clients, the news of the child's disappearance hadhardly surprised him. Chapman's anger and threats portended some violentaction of reprisal, and, even as the lawyer had questioned what form itmight take, came the answer. Chapman had stolen his own child and had ahiding place prepared and waiting for her reception. It was undoubtedlyonly a temporary refuge, he would hardly keep her in such sordidsurroundings. The Whitneys saw it as a night's bivouac before a longerflight. And that flight would never take place; every exit was undersurveillance, there was no possibility of escape. The two men, smokingtranquilly under the breath of the electric fans, were quietlyconfident. They would bring Chapman's vengeance to an abrupt end andavert an ignominious family scandal. Meantime they awaited O'Malley--whowas to return to the office for George--and as they waited discussed thekidnapping, knowledge supplemented by deductions.
When Chapman had decided on it he had instructed Esther, telling her toinform him when the opportunity offered. This she could do by letter,or, if time pressed, by telephone from a booth in the village. The tripto New York had been planned several days in advance and he had beenadvised of it, its details probably telephoned in the day before. He--orsome one in his pay--had driven the taxi. It had been stationed in therank near the house, where in the dead season there were few vehiclesand from whence the extra one needed by Suzanne would naturally betaken. That Esther, with a long list of commissions to execute, shouldleave the child in the cab was an entirely natural proceeding. Herexplanation of her subsequent actions was also disarmingly plausible,and the minutes thus expended gave the time necessary for the driver tomake his get-away. Before she had acquainted Suzanne with the news, thechild was hidden in the room at 76 Gayle Street.
Whether the room was taken for this purpose was a question. If it wasthen the idea had been in Chapman's mind for weeks--it was the "comingback" he had hinted at when he left Grasslands. If, however, it had beenhired as a place of rendezvous with his confederate, it had assistedthem in the carrying out of their plot--might indeed have suggested it.For as a lair in which to lie low it offered every advantage--secluded,inconspicuous, the rest of the floor untenanted. They could keep thechild there without rousing a suspicion, for if Chapman was withher--and they took for granted that he was--she would be contented andmake no outcry. She loved him and was happy in his society.
"Poor devil!" growled the old man. "You can't help being sorry for him,even if he did do it to hit back. It's his child and he's fond of her."
George gave a short laugh:
"I fancy it's more the hitting back than the fondness. Chapman's notshown up lately in a very sentimental light. It wouldn't surprise me ifhe'd ransom in the back of his mind. But we'll put an end to hisambitions or parental longings or whatever's inspiring him." He lookedat his watch, then rose. "It's a quarter past seven and O'Malley's dueat the half hour. It's understood we're to bring the child here first?"
His father gave an assenting grunt and hitched his chair into thecurrent of air from the fan.
George turned on the lights, their tempered radiance flooding the room,the windows starting out as black squares sewn with stars.
"I don't quite see what I'm going to say to him," he muttered, asidelong eye on his father.
"Say nothing," came the answer. "Bring the child back here--that's yourjob. Leave him to me. Mrs. Janney and I'll have it out with him when thetime comes."
On the tick of half-past seven O'Malley appeared. Trickles ofperspiration ran down his red face, and his collar was melted to asodden band.
"Gee," he panted as he ran a handkerchief round his neck, "it's like aTurkish bath down there in the street."
"Well," said George, impatient of all but the main issue, "is it allright?"
"Yep--I've left two men in charge--every exit's covered. And there'sonly one they could use--no way out back except over the fences andthrough other houses."
"He could hardly tackle that with a child."
"He couldn't tackle it alone and make it--not the way I've got thingsfixed. And I've worked out our line of action; Stebbins relieved me athalf-past six and I went and had a seance with the janitor. Said I wascoming round later with a man who was looking for a room--the room I'dbeen inquiring about. That'll let us in quiet; right up to the top floorand no questions asked."
"The only hitch possible can come from Chapman--he may be ugly and showhis teeth."
The old man answered:
"I guess he'll be tractable. If he's inclined to argue bring him alongwith you. It's after eight. I don't want to sit here half the night. Getbusy and go."
O'Malley had a taxi waiting and they slid off up the deserted regions ofBroadway. After a few blocks they swerved to the left, plunging into acongeries of mean streets where a network of fire-escapes encaged thehouse fronts. The lights from small shops illumined the sidewalks, thickwith sauntering people. The taxi moved slowly, children darting from itsapproach, swept round a corner and ran on through less animated lanes oftravel, upper windows bright, disheveled figures leaning on the sills,vague groupings on front steps. At intervals, like the threatening voiceof some advancing monster, came the roar of the elevated trains,sweeping across a vista with a rocking rush of light. O'Malley drewhimself to the edge of the sea and peered out ahead.
"We're not far off now," he muttered. "We'll stop at the corner of theblock--there's a bookbinding place there that's dark and quiet. If we goto the door they might catch on, get panicky, and make a row."
At one end of the street's length the lamp-spotted darkness ofWashington Square showed like a spangled curtain. The cab turned from itand crossed a wide avenue over which the skeleton structure of theelevated straddled like a vast centipede. Beyond stretched a darklingperspective touched at recurring intervals with the white spheres oflamps. It was a propitious time, the evening overflow dispersed, theloneliness of the deep night hours, when a footfall echoes loud and asolitary figure looms mysterious, not yet come.
The cab drew up at the curb by the shuttered face of the book binderyand the man alighted. With a low command to the driver, O'Malley, Georgebeside him, walked up the block. From a shadowy doorway a figuredetached itself, slunk by them with a whispered hail and vanished.Toward the street's far end they stopped at a door level with thesidewalk, and O'Malley, bending to scrutinize a line of push buttons,pressed one.
"Is this the place?" George whispered, in startled revulsion.
"This is the place. And a good one for Price's purpose as you'll seewhen you get in."
The young man noted the battered doorway, slightly out of plumb, thenstepped back and glanced at the facade. Many of the windows, uncurtainedand open, were lit up. Those of the top floor--dormers projecting from amansard roof--were dark. He was about to call O'Malley's attention tothis, when the sounds of footsteps within the house checked him.
There was a rattling of locks and bolts and the door swung opendisclosing a man, grimy, old and bent, a lamp in his hand. He squinteduncertainly at them, then growled irritably as he recognized O'Malley:
> "Oh, it's you. I thought you wasn't comin'? If you'd been any later youwouldn't 'a got me up."
O'Malley explained that the gentleman was detained--couldn't get awayany earlier, very sorry, but they'd be quick and make no noise--justwanted to see the rooms and get out.
In single file, the janitor leading, they mounted the stairs. To thearistocratic senses of George the place seemed abominable. Thestaircase, narrow and without balustrade, ran up steeply between wallsonce painted green, now blotched and smeared. At the end of the firstflight there was a small landing, a gas bracket holding aloft a tinypoint of flame. It was as hot as an oven, the stifling atmosphereimpregnated with mingled odors of cooking, stale cigar smoke, and themustiness of close, unaired spaces.
On the second landing one of the doors was open, affording a glimpse ofa squalid interior, and a man in his shirt sleeves bent over a tablewriting. He did not look up as they creaked by. From somewhere near,muffled by walls, came the thin, frail tinkling of guitar strings. Asthey ascended the temperature grew higher, the air held in the low atticstory under the roof, baked to a sweltering heat. The janitor mutteredan excuse--the top floor being vacant the windows were kept shut--itwould be cool enough when they were opened.
He had gained the last landing, which broadened into a small square ofhall cut by three doors. As he turned to one on the left, O'Malleyslipped by him and drew away toward that on the right. There was amoment of silence, broken by the clinking of the man's keys. He hadtrouble in finding the right one and set his lamp down on a chair, hishead bent over the bunch. George was aware of O'Malley's figure castinga huge wavering shadow up the wall, edging closer to the right handdoor.
The key was found and inserted in the lock and the janitor entered theroom, his lamp diffusing a yellow aura in the midst of which he moved, ablack, retreating shape. With his withdrawal the light in the hall,furnished by a bead of gas, faded to a flickering obscurity. O'Malley'sshadow disappeared, and George could see him as a formless oblong,pressed against the panel. There was a moment of intense stillness, theguitar tinkling faint as if coming through illimitable distances. Thedetective's voice rose in a whisper, vital and intimate, against themusic's spectral thinness:
"Queer. There's not a sound."
His hand stole to the handle, clasped it, turned it. Noiselessly thedoor opened upon darkness into which he slipped equally noiseless.
That slow opening was so surprising, so dreamlike in its quality of thetotally unexpected, that George stood rooted. He stared at the square ofthe door, waiting for voices, clamor, the anticipated in some form. Thenhe saw the darkness pierced by the white ray of an electric torch andheard a sound--a rumbled oath from O'Malley. It brought him to thethreshold. In the middle of the room, his torch sending its shaft overwalls and floor, stood the detective alone, his face, the light shiningupward on the chin and the tip of his nose, grotesque in its enrageddismay.
"Not here--d----n them!" and his voice trailed off into furious curses.
"Gone?" The surprise had made George forgetful.
"Gone--no!" The man almost shouted in his anger. "How could theygo?--Didn't I say every outlet was blocked. They ain't been here. Theyain't had her here. Get a match, light the gas--I got to see the placeanyway."
The torch's ray had touched a gas fixture on the wall and hung steadythere. As the men fumbled for matches, the janitor came clumping acrossthe hall, calling in querulous protest:
"Say--how'd you get in there? That ain't the place--it's rented."
_His face was ludicrous in its enraged enmity_]
He stopped in the doorway, scowling at them under the glow of his upheldlamp. A match sputtered over the gas and a flame burst up with awhistling rush. In the combined illumination the room was revealed asbleak and hideous, the walls with blistered paper peeling off in shreds,the carpet worn in paths and patches, an iron bed, a bureau, by the onewindow, a table. The janitor continuing his expostulations, O'Malleyturned on him and flashed his badge with a fierce:
"Shut up there. Keep still and get out. We've got a right here and ifyou make any trouble you'll hear from us."
The man shrank, scared.
"Police!" he faltered, then looking from one to the other. "But whatfor? There's no one here, there ain't ever been any one--it's took butit's been empty ever since."
O'Malley who had sent an exploring glance about him, made a dive for anewspaper lying crumpled on the floor by the bed. One look at it, and hewas at the man's side, shaking it in his face:
"What do you say to this? Yesterday's--how'd it get here? Blew inthrough the window maybe."
The janitor scanned the top of the page, then raised his eyes to thewatching faces. His fright had given place to bewilderment and he begana stammering explanation--if any one had been there he'd never known it,never seen no one come in or go out, never heard a sound from theinside.
"Did you see any one--any one that isn't a regular resident--come intothe house yesterday or to-day?" It was George's question.
He didn't know as he'd seen anybody--not to notice. The tenants hadfriends, they was in and out all day and part of the night. And anywayhe wasn't around much after he'd swept the halls and taken down thepails. Yesterday and to-day he guessed he'd stayed in the basement mostof the time. If anybody had been in the room--and it looked like theyhad--it was unbeknownst to him. The lady had the key; she could havecome in without him seeing; it wasn't his business to keep tab on thetenants. He showed a tendency to diverge to the subject of his dutiesand George cut him off with a greenback pushed into his grimy claw andan order to keep their visit secret.
Meantime O'Malley had started on an examination of the room. There wasmore than the paper to prove the presence of a recent occupant. The bedshowed the imprint of a body; pillow and counterpane were indented bythe pressure of a recumbent form. On its foot lay a book, an unworncopy, as if newly bought, of "The Forest Lovers." The table held an inkbottle, the ink still moist round its uncorked mouth, some paper andenvelopes and a pen. There was a scattering of pins on the bureau, twogilt hairpins and a black net veil, crumpled into a bunch. Pushed backtoward the mirror was the cover of the soap dish containing ashes andthe butts of four cigarettes.
O'Malley studied the bureau closely, ran the light of his torch back andforth across it, shook out the veil, sniffed it, and put it and the twohairpins carefully into his wallet. Then with the book and the paper inhis hand he straightened up, turned to George, and said:
"That about cleans it up. There's nothing for it now but to go back."
The janitor, anxiously watchful, followed on their heels as they wentdown the stairs. Their clattering descent was followed by the strains ofthe guitar, thinly debonair and mocking as if exulting over theirdiscomfiture. In the street the same shape emerged from the shadows andslouched toward them. A grunted phrase from O'Malley sent it driftingaway, spiritless and without response, like a lonely ghost come in timidexpectation and repelled by a rebuff.
O'Malley dropped into a corner of the taxi and as it glided off, said:
"That's the last of 76 Gayle Street as far as they're concerned."
"Why do you say that?"
In the darkness the detective permitted himself a sidelong glance ofscorn.
"You don't leave the door unlocked in that sort of place unless you'redone with it. They've got all they wanted out of it and quit."
"Abandoned it?"
"That's right--made a neat, quiet get-away. They didn't say they weregoing, didn't give up the key--it was on the inside of the door. Justslid out and vanished."
"Some one was there yesterday."
"Um," O'Malley's voice showed a pondering concentration of thought."Some one was lying on the bed reading; waiting or passing time."
"They couldn't have been there to-day--before your men were on the job?"
O'Malley drew himself to the edge of the seat, his chest inflated with asudden breath:
"Why couldn't they? Why couldn't _that_ have been the rendezvous? Whycouldn't
she have lost the child down here on Gayle Street instead ofopposite Justin's? Price was there beforehand: up she comes, tips himoff that the taxi's in the street, sees him leave and goes herself,across to Fifth Avenue where she picks up a cab. It's safer than theother way--no cops round, janitor in the basement, if she's seen nothingto be remarked--a lady known to have a room on the top floor." Hebrought his fist down on his knee. "That's what they did and it explainswhat's been puzzling me."
"What?"
"There was no dust on the top of the bureau; it had been wiped offto-day. There was no dust on that veil; it hadn't been there sinceyesterday. A woman fixed herself at that glass not so long ago. Pricehad a date with her to deliver the child and he was lying on the bedreading while he waited. When he heard her he threw down the book, gotthe good word and lit out. After he'd gone she took off her veil--whatfor? To get her face up to show to Mrs. Price--whiten it, make it lookright for the news she was bringing. When she left she was made up forthe part she was to play. And I take my hat off to her, for she playedit like a star."