CHAPTER XIX A DEN OF THE UNDERWORLD
After dragging the Zoo telephone from its box and taking the scrap ofblack cardboard from a shelf, Johnny sat down to tell his story. He toldit, too, from beginning to end; from the school fire to the discovery ofBen Zook, dead upon his island.
When the story had ended Pant sat for a long time slumped down in hischair. From his motionless attitude and his staring eyes, one might havethought him in a trance.
He came out of this with a start and at once began to reel off to Johnnythe story he had just been told; only now there was association,connection, and a proper sequence to it all. He had put the puzzletogether, piece by piece. No, it was more than that. The fires were onepuzzle; Johnny's affairs at the island another; and those at the marshstill another. After solving each of these separately and putting eachsmall part in its place, Pant had joined them all in one three-foldpuzzle board that was complete to the last letter.
"Sounds great!" said Johnny breathlessly as Pant concluded. "If all thatis true we have only to find the man."
"Find that man!" said Pant in a tone that carried conviction.
Twelve o'clock the following night found Johnny and Pant in a strangeplace. Standing with their backs against the unpainted and decaying sideof a frame building, they were watching a door.
The frame building formed one wall to an alley which was in reality morepath than an alley; a path of hard-beaten mud that ran between twobuildings. Although the path ran through from street to street, the hardbeaten part of the path ended before the door which the two boys werewatching.
"Here comes another," Pant whispered, drawing Johnny back into theshadows.
"And another," Johnny whispered back.
Two shadow-like creatures, appearing to hug the darkness, came flittingdown the hard-trodden path. As each reached the end of the path the dooropened slightly, the shadows flitted in, and again the door went dark.
"Like shades of evil ones entering their last, dark abode," whisperedJohnny with a shudder.
They were watching that door because they had seen a certain man enterit--a tall, stooping, slouching figure of a man who walked with a decidedlimp. They had picked up his trail in a more prosperous neighborhood andhad followed him at a distance through less and less desirableneighborhoods, down dark streets and rubbish strewn alleys, past barkingdogs and beggars sleeping beneath doorsteps, until of a sudden he hadturned up this path and entered this door.
"Come on," Johnny whispered impatiently, "it's only a cheap eating place.I heard the dishes rattle and caught the aroma of coffee. They'll pay noattention to us."
"I'm not so sure of that," Pant grumbled. "Looks like something else tome. But--all right, come on. Only," he continued, "take a table near thedoor."
The place did prove to be some sort of eating place. There were smallround tables and steel framed chairs placed about the room. Around someof these tables men and women were seated, playing cards. Openly roaringat good fortune or cursing an evil turn of the deck, they paid noattention whatever to the newcomers.
The card players were for the most part situated in the back of the room.Tables at the front were covered with dishes. Men and women, engaged ineating, smoking and talking, swarmed about these tables.
Indeed, the place was so crowded that for a time Johnny and Pant were atgreat difficulty to find chairs. At last, as they were backing to a placeagainst the wall, a small animated being, a slender girl with dark,vivacious eyes, rose and beckoned them to her table. She had been sittingthere alone sipping dark coffee.
Bowing his thanks, Johnny accepted a chair and motioned Pant to another.The table was not as near the door as he might have liked, but "beggarscannot be choosers."
A waiter appeared.
"Coffee and something hot in a bowl," said Johnny. "You know the kind,red Mex. with plenty of pepper."
"Make it the same," said Pant.
"And waiter," Johnny put out a hand, "something nice for her," he noddedhis head toward the girl. "Anything she'd like."
"The gentlemen are kind," said the girl in a foreign accent, "but I haveno need. I will have none."
Since their new-found friend did not accept of their hospitality and didnot start a conversation, the two boys sat silently staring about them.
It was a strange and motley throng that was gathered there. Dark Italiansand Greeks; a few Irish faces; some Americans; two Mexicans in broadsombreros; three mulatto girls at a table by themselves and a greatnumber of men and women of uncertain nationality.
"There! There he is," whispered Johnny, casting his eyes at the farcorner. "And there, by all that's good, is Knobs, the New York firebug!They're at the same table. See! I can't be mistaken. There's the samehooked nose, the identical stoop to his shoulders."
"Together!" exclaimed Pant. "That changes my conclusions a little."
"Don't appear to see them," whispered Johnny. "What are we to do?"
"I don't know. Perhaps a police raid. But not yet; I want to study them."
Their bowls of steaming red Mulligan had arrived. They had paid theirchecks and had begun to sip the fiery stuff, when of a sudden there camecries of "Jensie! Jensie!" and every eye was turned in their direction.
Johnny felt his face suddenly grow hot. Had he been recognized? Thisbeyond doubt was a den of the underworld. Was this a cry which was but asignal for a "Rush the bulls"?
Since he could not tell, and since everyone remained in his seat, he didnot move.
"If the gentlemen will please hold their bowls," said the girl, smilingas she handed each his bowl.
What did this mean? They were soon to see. Stepping with a fairy-likelightness from floor to chair, and chair to table, the girl made a lowbow and then as a piano in a corner struck up a lively air she began adance on the table top.
It was such a wild, whirling dance as neither of the boys had seenbefore. It seemed incredible that the whole affair could be performedupon so small a table top. Indeed, at one time Johnny did feel a slightpat upon his knee and realized in a vague sort of way that the velvetslippered foot of this little enchantress had rested there for aninstant.
No greater misfortune could have befallen the two boys than this beingseated by the dancer's table. It focussed all eyes upon them. Theirdetection was inevitable. They expected it. But, coming sooner than theycould dream, it caught them unawares. With a suddenness that wasterrible, at the end of the applause that followed the girl'sperformance, there came a death-like pause, broken by a single hissed-outword.
The next instant a huge man with a great knife gleaming in his handlaunched himself at Pant.
Taken entirely unawares, the boy must have been stabbed through andthrough had it not been for a curious interference. The man's arm, struckby a sudden weight, shot downward to drive the knife into the floor.
The next instant, as a tremendous uproar began, there came a sudden andterrible flash of light followed by darkness black as ink.
Johnny, having struggled to his feet, was groping blindly about him whena hand gripped his shoulder and a voice whispered:
"This way out."
At the same moment he felt a tug at the back of his coat.
Moving forward slowly, led by Pant and being tugged at from behind, he atlast came to the door and ten seconds later found himself in the outersemi-darkness of the street.
Feeling the tug at his coat lessening, he turned about to see Jensie, thedancing girl.
"Do you know that she saved your life?" he whispered to Pant. "She leapedsquarely upon that big villain's arm."
"Rode it like I might a mule," laughed the girl. "And you, Mister," sheturned to Pant, "you are a Devil. You make a terrible light, you thenmake terrible night. You are a wonderful Devil!" and with a flash of herwhite teeth she was gone.
"Now what?" asked Johnny.
"We cannot do better than to follow. They will be out at us like a packof rats in another minute."
"How abou
t a police raid?"
"Not to-night. It wouldn't do any good. The birds have flown."
At this Pant led the way rapidly out of the narrow alley into morefrequented and safer ways.
Little did Johnny dream as he crept beneath the covers that night thatthe following night would see the end of all this little drama in whichhe had been playing a part. Yet so it was to be.
As for Pant, who slept upon a cot in one corner of Johnny's room, he wasdreaming of a slender figure and of big, dark, Gypsy eyes. He wasindulging in romantic thoughts--the first of his life. That Gypsy-likegirl of the underworld den had somehow taken possession of his thoughts.Many times before had he barely escaped death, but never before had hislife been saved by a girl.
"She's a Gypsy," he whispered to himself, "only a Gypsy girl. But me; whoam I? Who knows? Perhaps I am Gypsy myself."
Through his mind there passed a wish that was more than half prayer: "Maythe time come when I can repay her." This wish was to be granted, farsooner than he knew.