CHAPTER XI
THE NILE-GREEN ROADSTER
"I hope you slept well, sir," said Benson, as I sat down to mybreakfast of iced Casaba and eggs O'Brien, a long month later.
"Like a top, thank you," I was able to announce to that anxious-eyedold retainer of mine.
"That sounds like old times, sir," ventured Benson, caressing his ownknuckle-joints very much as though he were shaking hands with himself.
"It _feels_ like old times," I briskly acknowledged. "And thismorning, Benson, I'd like you to clear out my study and get thatclutter of Shang and Ming bronzes off my writing-desk."
"Very good, sir."
"And order up a ream or two of that Wistaria Bond I used to use. For Ifeel like work again, Benson, and that's a feeling which I don't thinkwe ought to neglect."
"Quite so, sir," acquiesced Benson, with an approving wag of the headwhich he made small effort to conceal.
It was the truth that I had spoken to Benson. The drought seemed tohave ended. The old psychasthenic inertia had slipped away. Life, forsome unaccountable reason or other, still again seemed wonderful to me,touched with some undefined promise of high adventure, crowned oncemore with the fugitive wine-glow of romance. Gramercy Square, from myfront windows, looked like something that Maxfield Parrish might havedrawn. A milk-wagon, just beyond the corner, made me suddenly think ofPhaethon and his coursers of the stellar trails. I felt an itching toget back to my desk, to shake out the wings of creation. I wanted towrite once more. It would never again be about those impossibleAlaskan demigods of the earlier days, but about real men and women,about the people I had met and known and struggled into anunderstanding of. Life, I began to feel, was a game, a great game, agame well worth watching, doubly well worth trying to interpret.
So when I settled down that day I wrote feverishly and I wrotejoyously. I wrote until my fingers were cramped and my head was empty.I surrendered to a blithe logorrhea that left me contentedly limp andlax and in need of an hour or two of open air.
So I sallied forth, humming as I went. It was a sparkling afternoon ofearliest spring, and as I paced the quiet streets I turned pleasantlyover in that half-torpid brain of mine certain ideas as to the value ofdramatic surprise, together with a carefully registered self-caution asto the author's over-use of the long arm of Coincidence.
Coincidences, I told myself, were things which popped up altogether toooften on the printed page, and occurred altogether too seldom in actuallife. It was a lazy man's way of reaching his end, that trick ofriding the bumpers of Invention, of swinging and dangling from theover-wrenched arm-socket of Coincidence. It was good enough for theglib and delusive coggery of the moving-pictures, but--
And then I stopped short. I stopped short, confronted by one of thosecalamitous street-accidents only too common in any of ourtwentieth-century cities where speed and greed have come to weigh lifeso lightly.
I scarcely know which I noticed first, the spick-and-span cloverleafroadster sparkling in its coat of Nile-green enamel, or the girl whoseemed to step directly in its path as it went humming along the smoothand polished asphalt. But by one of those miraculously rapidcalculations of which the human mind is quite often capable I realizedthat this same softly-humming car was predestined to come more or lessviolently into contact with that frail and seemingly hesitating figure.
My first impulse was to turn away, to avoid a spectacle which instincttold me would be horrible. For still again I felt the beak ofcowardice spearing my vitals. I had the odynephobiac's dread of blood.It unmanned me; it sickened my soul. And I would at least have coveredmy face with my hands, to blot out the scene, had I not suddenlyremembered that other and strangely similar occasion when a car cameinto violent collision with a human body. And it had been my car. Onthat occasion, I only too well knew, I had proved unpardonablyvacillating and craven. I had run away from the horror I should havefaced like a man. And I had paid for my cowardice, paid for it at theincredibly extortionate price of my self-respect and my peace of mind.
So this time I compelled myself to face the music. I steeled myself tostand by, even as the moving car struck the hesitating body and threwit to the pavement. My heart jumped up into my throat, like aball-valve, and I shouted aloud, in mortal terror, for I could seewhere the skirted body trailed in under the running-gear of theNile-green roadster, dragging along the pavement as the two white handsclung frantically to the green-painted spring-leaves. But I didn't runaway. Instead of running away, in fact, I did exactly the opposite. Iswung out to the side of the fallen girl, who stiffened in my arms as Ipicked her up. Then I spread my overcoat out along the curb, andplaced the inert body on top of it, for in my first unreasoning panic Iassumed that the woman was dead. I could see saliva streaked withblood drooling from her parted lips. It was horrible. And I had justmade sure that she was still alive, that she was still breathing, whenI became conscious of the fact that a second man, who had run alongbeside the car shaking his fist up at its driver, was standing closebeside me. He was an elderly man, a venerable-looking man, a man withsilvery hair and a meek and threadbare aspect. He was wringing hishands and moaning in his misery as he stared down at the girl stretchedout on my overcoat.
"They've killed her!" he cried aloud. "O God, they've killed her!"
"Do you know this girl?" I demanded as I did my best to loosen thethroat of her shirt-waist.
"Yes--yes! She's my Babbie. She's my niece. She's all I have," washis reply. "But they've killed her."
"Acting that way won't help things!" I told him, almost angrily. ThenI looked up, still angrily, to see what had become of the Nile-greencar. It had drawn in close beside the curb, not thirty feet away. Icould see a woman stepping down from the driving-seat. All I noticed,at first, was that her face seemed very white, and that as she turnedand moved toward us her left hand was pressed tight against her breast.It struck me, even in that moment of tension, as an indescribablydramatic gesture.
Then the long arm of the goddess known as Coincidence swung up andsmote me full in the face, as solidly as a blacksmith's hammer smitesan anvil. For the woman I saw walking white-faced yet determinedtoward where I knelt at the curb-side was Mary Lockwood herself.
I stood up and faced her in the cruel clarity of the slanting afternoonsunlight. For only a moment, I noticed, her stricken eyes rested onthe figure of the woman lying along the curb-edge. Then they rose tomy face. In those eyes, as she stared at me, I could read thequestion, the awful question, which her lips left unuttered. Yet itwas not fear; it was not cowardice, that I saw written on thattragically colorless brow. It was more a dumb protest againstinjustice without bounds, a passionate and unarticulated pleading forsome delivering sentence which she knew could not be given to her.
"No, she's not dead," I said in answer to that unspoken question. "Shemay not even be seriously hurt. But--"
I stared down at the telltale saliva streaked with blood. But thesilvery-haired old man at my side put an end to any such efforts atprevarication.
"She's killed," he excitedly proclaimed.
"She's no such thing," I just as excitedly retorted.
"But you saw what they did to her?" he demanded, clutching at myshoulder. "You saw it. They ran her down, like a dog. They've ruinedher; they've broken her body, for life!"
I could see Mary Lockwood's hand go out, as though in search forsupport. She was breathing almost as quickly, by this time, as thereviving girl on the curb-edge.
"Shut up," I curtly commanded the old man as he started in once more onhis declamations, for the customary city crowd was already beginning tocluster about us. "It isn't talk we want now. We must get this girlwhere she can be taken care of."
It was then that Mary Lockwood spoke for the first time. Her voice wastremulous, but the gloved hand that hung at her side was no longershaking.
"Couldn't I take her home?" she asked me. "To my home?"
I was busy pushing back the crowd.
&n
bsp; "No," I told her, "a hospital's best. I'll put her in your car there.Then you run her over to the Roosevelt. That's even better thanwaiting for an ambulance."
I stooped over the injured girl again and felt her pulse. It struck meas an amazingly strong and steady pulse for any one in such apredicament. And her respiration, I noticed, was very close to normal.I examined each side of her face, and inspected her lips and even hertongue-tip, to see if some cut or abrasion there couldn't account forthat disturbing streak of blood. But I could find neither cut norbruise, and by this time the old man was again making himself heard.
"You'll take her to no pest-house," he was excitedly proclaiming."She'll come home with me--what's left of her. She _must_ come homewith me!"
Mary Lockwood stared at him with her tragic and still slightlybewildered eyes.
"Very well," she quietly announced. "I'll take her home. I'll takeyou both home."
And at this the old man seemed immensely relieved.
"Where is it you want to go?" I rather impatiently demanded of him.For I'd decided to get them away from there, for Mary's sake, beforethe inevitable patrolman or reporter happened along.
"On the other side of Brooklyn," explained the bereft one, with a vaguehand-wave toward the east. I had to push back the crowd again, beforeI was able to gather the limp form up from its asphalted resting-place.
"And what's your name?" I demanded as the old man came shuffling alongbeside us on our way to the waiting car.
"Crotty," he announced. "Zachary Crotty."
It wasn't until I'd placed the injured girl in the softly-upholsteredcar-seat that that name of "Crotty," sent like a torpedo across theopen spaces of distraction, exploded against the hull-plates of memory.
Crotty! The very name of Crotty took my thoughts suddenly winging backto yet another street-accident, an accident in which I myself hadfigured so actively and so unfortunately. For Crotty was the name ofthe man, I remembered, who had confirmed my chauffeur Latreille'sverdict as to the victim of that never-to-be-forgotten Hallow-e'enaffair. Crotty was the individual who had brought word to Latreillethat we had really killed a man. And Crotty was not a remarkablycommon name. And now, oddly enough, he was figuring in anotheraccident of almost the same nature.
Something prompted me to reach in and feel the hand of the stillcomatose girl. That hand, I noticed, was warm to the touch. Then Iturned and inspected the venerable-looking old man who was now weepingvolubly into a large cotton handkerchief.
"You'll have to give us your street and number," I told him, as a maskto cover that continued inspection of mine.
He did so, between sobs. And as he did so I failed to detect any traceof actual tears on his face. What was more, I felt sure that the eyeperiodically concealed by the noisily-flourished handkerchief was achronically roving eye, an unstable eye, an eye that seemed averse tomeeting your own honestly inquiring glance.
That discovery, or perhaps I ought to say that suspicion, caused me toturn to Mary, who was already in her place in the driving-seat.
"Wouldn't it be better if I went with you?" I asked her, stung to theheart by the mute suffering which I could only too plainly see on hermilk-white face.
"No," she told me as she motioned for the girl's uncle to climb intothe car. "This is something I've got to do myself."
"And it's something that'll have to be paid for, and well paid for,"declaimed our silvery-haired old friend as he stowed away his cottonhandkerchief and took up his slightly triumphant position in thatNile-green roadster.
It was not so much this statement, I think, as the crushed and hopelesslook in Mary Lockwood's eyes that prompted me to lean in across thecar-door and meet the gaze of those eyes as they stared so unseeinglydown at me.
"I wish you'd let me go with you," I begged, putting my pride in mypocket.
"What good would that do?" she demanded, with a touch of bitterness inher voice. Her foot, I could see, was already pressing down on thestarter-knob.
"I might be able to help you," I rather inadequately ventured. Even asI spoke, however, I caught sight of the blue-clad figure of a patrolmanpushing his way through the crowd along the curb. I imagine that Maryalso caught sight of that figure, for a shadow passed across her faceand the pulse of the engine increased to a drone.
"I can't wait," she said in a sort of guilty gasp. "This girl needshelp. And she needs it quickly."
Unconsciously my eyes fell to the other girl sitting back so limply inthe padded seat. She was, clearly, coming round again. But as shedrifted past my line of vision with the movement of the car I made atrivial and yet a slightly perplexing discovery. I noticed that therelaxed hand posed so impassively along the door-top bore a distinctyellow stain between the tips of the first and second fingers. Thatyellow stain, I knew, was customarily brought about by the use ofcigarettes. It was a mark peculiar to the habitual smoker. Yet themeek and drab-colored figure that I had lifted into that car-seat couldscarcely be accepted as a consumer of "coffin-nails." It left awrinkle which the iron of Reason found hard to eradicate.
It left me squinting after that departing roadster, in fact, withsomething more than perplexity nibbling at my heart. I was oppressedby a feeling of undefined conspiracies weaving themselves about thetragic-eyed girl in the Nile-green car. And a sudden ache to followafter that girl, to stand between her and certain activities which shecould never comprehend, took possession of me.
Any such pursuit, however, was not as easy as it promised. For I firsthad to explain to that inquiring patrolman that the accident had been atrivial one, that I hadn't even bothered about taking thelicense-number of the car, and that I could be found at my home inGramercy Square in case any further information might be deemednecessary. Then, once clear of the neighborhood, I hesitated betweentwo possible courses. One was to get in touch with Mary's father overthe phone, with John Lockwood. The other was to hurry down to PoliceHeadquarters and talk things over with my good friend LieutenantBelton. But either movement, I remembered, would have stooddistasteful to Mary herself. It meant publicity, and publicity was onething to be avoided. So I solved the problem by taking an altogetherdifferent tack. I did what deep down in my heart I had been wanting todo all along. I hailed a passing taxicab, hopped in, and made straightfor that hinterland district of Brooklyn where Crotty had described hishome as standing.
I didn't drive directly to that home, but dismissed my driver at anear-by corner and approached the house on foot. There was no longerany Nile-green car in sight. And the house itself, I noticed, was adistinctly unattractive-looking one, a shabby one, even a sordid one.I stood in the shadow of the side-entrance to one of thosegilt-lettered corner-saloons which loom like aromatic oases out ofman's most dismal Saharas, studying that altogether repellenthouse-front. And as I stood there making careful note of its minutestcharacteristics a figure came briskly down its broken sandstone steps.
What made me catch my breath, however, was the fact that the figure wasthat of a man, and the man was Latreille, my ex-chauffeur. And stillagain, I remembered, the long arm of Coincidence was reaching out andplucking me by the sleeve.
But I didn't linger there to meditate over this abstraction, for Inoticed that Latreille, sauntering along the opposite side of thestreet, had signaled to two other men leisurely approaching mycaravansary from the near-by corner. One of these, I saw, was the oldman known as Crotty. And it was obvious that within two minutes' timethey would converge somewhere disagreeably close to the spot where Istood.
So I backed discreetly and quietly through the side-entrance of thatmany-odored beer-parlor. There I encountered an Hibernian bartenderwith an empty tray and an exceptionally evil eye. I detained him,however, with a fraternal hand on his sleeve.
"Sister," I hurriedly explained, "I've got a date with a rib here. Canyou put me under cover?"
It was patois, I felt sure, which would reach his understanding. Butit wasn't until he beheld the five-spot which I'd slid up on his tr
aythat the look of world-weary cynicism vanished from his face.
"Sure," he said as he promptly and impassively pocketed the bill. Thenwithout a word or the blink of an eye he pushed in past a room crowdedwith round tables on iron pedestals, took the key out of a door openingin the rear wall, thrust it into my fingers, and offhandedly motionedme inside.
I stepped in through that door and closed and locked it. Then Iinspected my quarters. They were eloquent enough of sordid and uglyadventure. They smelt of sour liquor and stale cigar-smoke, with avague over-tone of orris and patchouli. On one side of the room was animitation Turkish couch, on the other an untidy washstand and acharred-edged card-table. Half-way between these there was a"speak-easy," a small sliding wall-panel through which liquidrefreshments might be served without any undue interruption to theprivacy of those partaking of the same. This speak-easy, I noticed asI slid it back the merest trifle, opened on the "beer parlor," at theimmediate rear of the bar-room itself, the "parlor" where the thirstyguest might sit at one of the little round tables and consume his"suds" or his fusel-oil whisky at his leisure. And the whole placeimpressed me as the sort of thing that still made civilization amockery and suburban recreation a viper that crawled on its belly.
I was, in fact, still peering through my little speak-easy slit in thewall when I became conscious of the three figures that came sidlinginto that empty room with the little round tables. I could see themdistinctly. There was the silvery-haired old Crotty; there wasLatreille; and there was a rather unkempt and furtive-eyed individualwho very promptly and unmistakably impressed me as a drug-addict. Andrepugnant as eavesdropping was to me, I couldn't help leaning close tomy speak-easy crevice and listening to that worthy trio as they seatedthemselves within six feet of where I stood, Latreille and old Crottywith their backs to me, the untidy individual whom they addressed asThe Doc sitting facing the wall that shielded me.
"Swell kipping!" contentedly murmured one of that trio, out of theirmomentary silence. And at that I promptly pricked up my ears, for Iknew that swell kipping in the vernacular of the underworld stood foreasy harvesting.
"What'll it be, boys?" interrupted a voice which I recognized as thebartender's.
"Bourbon," barked Latreille.
"A slug o' square-face, Mickey," companionably announced the oldgentleman known as Crotty.
"Deep beer," sighed he who was designated as The Doc. Then came thesound of a match being struck, the scrape of a chair-leg, and the clumpof a fist on the table-top, followed by a quietly contented laugh.
"It's a pipe!" announced a solemnly exultant voice. And I knew thespeaker to be my distinguished ex-chauffeur. "It's sure one grandlittle cinch!"
"Nothing's a cinch until you get the goods in your jeans," contendedCrotty, with the not unnatural skepticism of age.
"But didn't she hand her hundred and ten over to The Doc, just to coverrunning-expenses? Ain't that worth rememberin'? And ain't she got thefear o' Gawd thrown into her? And ain't she comin' back to-night wit'that wine-jelly and old Port and her own check-book?"
This allocution was followed by an appreciative silence.
"But it's old Lockwood who's got o' come across," that individual knownas The Doc finally reminded his confreres.
This brought a snort of contempt from Latreille. "I tell you again oldLockwood'll fight you to the drop of the hat. The girl's your meat.She's your mark. You've got her! And if you've only got the brains tomilk her right she's good for forty thousand. She's weakened already.She's on the skids. And she's got a pile of her own to pull from!"
"Forty thousand?" echoed the other, with a smack of the lips.
"That's thirteen thousand a-piece," amended Latreille largely, "withone over for Car-Step Sadie."
"Cut out that name," commanded Crotty.
"Well, Babbie then, if that suits you better. And it's a landslide forher!"
"Ain't she earned it?" demanded her silvery-haired old guardian.
"Strikes me as being pretty good pay for gettin' bunted over with aplay-car and not even a shin-bruise."
"Well, ain't her trainin' worth something, in this work?"
"Sure it is--but how 'n hell did she get that blood streakin' acrossher face so nice and life-like?"
The silvery-haired old gentleman chuckled as he put down his glass ofsquare-face.
"That's sure our Babbie's one little grand-stand play! You see, shekeeps the pulp exposed in one o' her back teeth. Then a little suckwith her tongue over it makes it bleed, on a half-minute notice.That's how she worked the hemorrhage-game with old Bronchial Bill alllast winter, before the beak sent him up the river."
I stood there, leaning against the soiled shelf across which must havepassed so much of the liquid that cheers depressed humanity. But neverbefore, I feel sure, did anything quite so cheering come through thatsordid little speak-easy. I was no longer afraid of thatmalignant-looking trio so contentedly exulting over their ill-gottenvictory.
"Well, it's a cinch," went on the droning voice, "if The Doc'll onlycut out the dope for a couple o' days and your Babbie doesn't get tobuckin' over the footboard!"
"It ain't Babbie I'm worryin' over," explained old Crotty. "Thatgirl'll do what's expected of her. She's got to. I've wised her up onthat. What's worryin' me more is that cuff-shooter who butted in overthere on the Island."
Still again I could hear Latreille's little snort of open contempt.
"Well, you can put that bug out of your head," quietly averred myex-chauffeur. "You seem to 've forgotten that guy, Zachy. That's theboob we unloaded the Senator's town car on. And that's the Hindoo Iframed, away back on Hallow-e'en Night. You remember that, don't you?"
I leaned closer, with my heart pounding under my midriff and a singingin my ears. But old Crotty didn't seem to remember.
"On Hallow-e'en Night?" he ruminated aloud.
"Why, the stiff I asked you to stand ready to give the glad word to, ifhe happened round for any habeas-corpus song and dance!" prompted thesomewhat impatient voice of Latreille. "Don't you mind, back on lastHallow-e'en, how the Big Hill boys stuffed that suit of old clotheswith straw and rags, and then stuck it up in the street? And how wehit that dummy, and how I made the chicken-hearted pen-wiper think thathe'd killed a man and coyoted off the scene?"
I don't know what old Crotty's reply to those questions were. I wasn'tinterested in his reply. It wasn't even rage that swept through me asI stood listening to those only too enraging words.
The first thing that I felt was a sense of relief, a vague yet vastconsciousness of deliverance, like a sleepy lifer with a governor'spardon being waved in his face. I was no longer afraid for Mary. Iwas no longer afraid of life, afraid of myself, afraid of my fellows.My slate was clean. And above all, I was in no way any longer afraidof Latreille. _I_ was the chicken-hearted pen-wiper--and I hated himfor that word--who had been "framed." _I_ was the over-timorous victimof their sweet-scented conspiracies. _I_ was the boob who had beenmade to shuffle and suffer and sweat. But that time was over and donewith, forever. And the great wave of relief that swept through mesurged back again, this time crested with anger, and then still againtowered and broke in a misty rush of pity for Mary Lockwood. I thoughtof her as something soft and feathered in the triple coils of thosethree reptilious conspirators, as something clean and timid andfragile, being slowly slathered over by the fangs which were to fastenthemselves upon her innocence, which were to feed upon her goodness ofheart. And I decided that she would never have to go through what Ihad been compelled to go through.
I didn't wait for more. There was, in fact, nothing more to wait for,so far as I and my world were concerned. I had found out all I wantedto find out. Yet I had to stand there for a full minute, coercingmyself to calmness. Then I tiptoed across the room to a second doorwhich stood in the rear wall, unlocked it, and stepped out into thenarrow and none too well-lighted hallway. This led to a washroom whichin turn opened on another narrow passageway. And from t
his I was ableto circle back into the bar-room itself.
I didn't tarry to make any explanations to the worthy called Mickey, orto advertise my exit to his even worthier friends. I slipped quietlyand quickly out of that unclean street-corner fester-spot, veered offacross the street where the early spring twilight was already settlingdown, and went straight to the house which I knew to be Crotty's.
I didn't even wait to ring. I tried the door, found it unlocked, andstepped inside. There, no sign of life confronted me. But that didn'tfor a moment deter my explorations. I quietly investigated the groundfloor, found it as unprepossessing as its proprietor, and proceedednoiselessly up the narrow stairway for an examination of the upperregions.
It wasn't until I reached the head of the stairs that I came to a stop.For there I could hear the muffled but unmistakable sound of somebodymoving about. It took me several minutes to determine the source ofthese movements. But once I had made sure of my ground I advanced tothe door at the back of the half-darkened hall and swung it open.
On the far side of the room into which I stood staring I saw a girl inhouse-slippers and a faded rose-colored _peignoir_ thrown over a nonetoo clean night-dress of soiled linen. In one hand she held a lightedcigarette. With the other hand she was stirring something in a smallgraniteware stew-pan over a gas-heater. Her hair was down and hershoulders were bare. But all her attention seemed concentrated on thatsavory stew, which she sniffed at hungrily, almost childishly, betweenpuffs on her cigarette. Then she fell to stirring her pot again, withobvious satisfaction.
I had the door shut behind me, in fact, before she so much as surmisedthat any one else was in the room with her. And when she looked up andsaw me there her eyes slowly widened and she slowly and deliberatelyput her spoon down on the soiled dresser-top beside her. It wasn'texactly fear that I saw creep into her face. It was more the craft ofthe long-harried and case-hardened fugitive.
"Bab," I said, addressing her in the language which I imagined wouldmost forcibly appeal to her. "I don't want to butt in on your slough.But time's precious and I'm going to talk plain."
"Shoot!" she said after a moment of hesitation followed by anothermoment of silent appraisal.
"The cops are rounding up The Doc and old Crotty for claim faking.They're also coming here, Bab, to gather up a girl called Car-StepSadie for dummy-chucking under the car of that Lockwood woman andbleeding her for one hundred and ten bones, and--"
"Those bulls 've got nuttin' on me!" broke out the disturbinglydishabille figure in soiled linen, as she stood staring at me with asort of mouse-like hostility in her crafty young eyes.
"But they're bringing a police-surgeon along with 'em," I went gliblyon, "for they claim, Bab, you've got a hollow tooth you can startbleeding any time you need to stall on that internal-injury stuff. Andthey've dug up a couple of cases that aren't going to sound any toogood over in the District Attorney's office. Now, I'm not here to giveadvice. This is merely a rumble. And you can do what you like aboutit. But if you're wise, you'll slide while the sliding is good."
She stood once more silently studying me.
"What's all this to yuh, anyway?" she suddenly demanded.
"It's so little, my dear," I airily acknowledged, "that you can doexactly as you like about it. But--"
"Where's The Doc?" was her next quick question. "Where's Crotty?"
I had to think fast.
"They've ducked," I asserted, amazed at my own newly-discoveredfacility in fictioneering.
"Who said they'd ducked?"
"Do you know Mickey's, over there on the corner?" I ventured.
She nodded as she darted across the room and threw aside the faded_peignoir_. The movement made my thoughts flash back to another andearlier scene, to the scene wherein one Vinnie Brunelle had played theleading role.
"Latreille," I explained to the girl across the room, "dropped in atMickey's and tipped Crotty and The Doc off, not more than a quarter ofan hour ago."
"And they rabbited off wit'out throwin' me a sign?" she indignantlydemanded.
"They did," I prevaricated.
She suddenly stopped, swinging about and viewing me with open suspicion.
"Where'd yuh ever know that Latreille guy?" she demanded.
"Latreille worked with me, for months," I declared, speaking with moretruth, in fact, than I had intended.
"Then me for the tall timber!" announced that hard-faced littleadventuress as she began to scramble into her clothes.
"Don't you want me to get you a taxi?" I inquired, backing discreetlyaway until I stood in the open door.
"Taxi nuttin'!" she retorted through the shower of soiled lingerie matcascaded about her writhing white shoulders. "What d'yuh take me for,anyway? A ostrich? When I get under cover, I go there me own way, andnot wit' all Brooklyn bawlin' me out!"
And she went her own way. She went, indeed, much more expeditiouslythan I had anticipated, for in five minutes' time she was dressed andbooted and hatted and scurrying off through the now darkened streets.Which trail she took and what cover she sought didn't in the leastinterest me once I had made sure of the fact she was faring in anopposite direction to Mickey's thirst-appeasing caravansary. But shewent. She shook the dust of that house off her febrile young heels;and that was the one thing I desired of her. For that night, I knew,still held a problem or two for me which would be trying enough withoutthe presence of the redoubtable Lady Babbie and her sanguinary bicuspid.
Yet once she was clear of that house, I decided to follow her example.This, however, was not so easy as it had promised to be. For I hadscarcely reached the foot of the stairway when I heard the sound ofvoices outside the street door. And I promptly recognized them asCrotty's and Latreille's.
That discovery sent me groping hurriedly backward into the darkenedhallway. By the time the door opened I had felt my way to a secondflight of steps which obviously led to the basement. I could hear thevoice of the man known as The Doc, for the three men were nowadvancing, and advancing none too quietly, into their musty-airedharborage. But my own flight down those basement stairs was quietenough, for I realized now the expediency of slipping away and puttingin a call for help.
It was only after a good deal of groping about, however, that I wasable to reach the door opening on the basement-area, directly under thestreet-steps. A huge brass key, fortunately, stood in place there. Soas I passed out I took the trouble to relock that door after me andpocket the key.
In five minutes I had found a side-street grocery-store with asufficiently sequestered telephone. And by means of this telephone Ipromptly called up Headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Belton.
He listened to what I had to say with much more interest than I hadanticipated.
"Witter," he called back over the wire, "I believe you've stumbledacross something big."
"Then supposing you stumble over here after it," was my promptsuggestion. But Belton wasn't to be stampeded into the over-hastyaction of the amateur.
"If that isn't that bunch Headquarters has been wanting to interviewfor the last three months, I miss my one best bet. But in thisbusiness, Witter, you've got to _know_. So I'll slip over to theBureau and look up mugs and records. If that faint-spiller is BabNadeau, _alias_ Car-Step Sadie, there's no doubt about your man beingCrotty."
"She _is_ Car-Step Sadie," I told him.
"Then we'll be out there with bells on," he calmly announced.
"But what do you expect me to do, in the meantime?" I somewhatpeevishly demanded.
"Just keep 'em guessing," he tranquilly retorted, "keep 'em guessinguntil we amble over there and take 'em off your hands!"
That was easy enough to say, I remembered as I made my way back toCrotty's broken-faced abode, but the problem of holding that unsavorytrio in subjection didn't impress me as an over-trivial one. Yet Iwent back with a new fortitude stiffening my backbone, for I knew thatwhatever might happen that night, I now had the Law on my side.
That casua
l little flicker of confidence, however, was not destined tosustain me for long. A new complication suddenly confronted me. Foras I guardedly approached the house from which I'd sent Bab Nadeauscampering off into the night I noticed the Nile-green car alreadydrawn up close beside the curb. And this car, I further noticed, wasempty.
So it was with a perceptibly quickened pulse that I sidled down intothe unclean area, unearthed my brass key, and let myself silently intothe unlighted basement. Then I just as quietly piloted my way inthrough the darkness, found the stairway, and ascended to the groundfloor.
The moment I reached the hallway I could hear the sound of voicesthrough a door on my left. I could hear Mary Lockwood's voice, andthen the throaty tones of that opianic old impostor known as The Doc.
... "No doubt of the fact at all, my dear young lady. The spine hasbeen injured, very seriously injured. Whether or not it will result inparalysis I can't tell until I consult with my colleague, DoctorEmmanuel Paschall. But we must count on the poor girl being helplessfor life, Crotty, helpless for life!"
This was followed by a moment or two of silence. And I could imaginewhat that moment or two was costing Mary Lockwood.
"But I want to see the girl," she said in a somewhat desperate voice."I _must_ see her."
"All in good time, my dear, all in good time," temporized her bland oldtorturer. This was followed by a lower mumble of voices from which Icould glean nothing intelligible. But those three conspirators musthave consulted together, for after a moment of silence I caught thesound of steps crossing the floor.
"He'll just slip up and make sure the patient can be seen," I heard thesuave old rascal intone. And I had merely time to edge back and dodgeabout the basement stairhead as the room-door was flung open andLatreille stepped out in the hall. The door closed again as hevanished above-stairs.
When he returned, he didn't step back into the room, but waited outsideand knocked on the closed door. This brought old Crotty out in answerto the summons. Just what passed between that worthy trio, immured intheir whispering consultation in that half-lighted hallway, failed toreach my ears. But this in no way disturbed me, for I knew well enoughthat Latreille had at least passed on to them the alarming news thattheir much needed patient was no longer under that roof. And what wasmore, I knew that this discovery would serve to bring things to asomewhat speedier climax than we had all anticipated. There was a sortof covert decisiveness about their movements, in fact, as they steppedback into the room and swung the door shut behind them. So I creptcloser, listening intently. But it was only patches and shreds oftheir talk that I could overhear. I caught enough, however, to knowthey were protesting that their patient was too weak to be interviewed.I could hear Crotty feelingly exclaim that it wasn't kind words whichcould help this poor child now, but only something much moresubstantial, and much more mundane.
"Yes, it's only money that can talk in a case like this," pointedlyconcurred The Doc, clearly spurred on to a more open boldness ofadvance. And there were further parleyings and arguments andlugubrious enumerations of possibilities from the man of medicine. Iknew well enough what they were doing. They were conjointly andcunningly brow-beating and intimidating that solitary girl who, evenwhile she must have gathered some inkling of their worldliness,comprehended nothing of the wider plot they were weaving about her.And I further knew that they were winning their point, for I could hearher stifled little gasp of final surrender.
"Very well," her strained voice said. "I'll give you the check."
This pregnant sentence was followed by an equally pregnant silence.Then came a series of small noises, among which I could distinguish thescrape of a chair-leg and steps crossing the floor. And I surmisedthat Mary was seating herself at a desk or table, to make out and signthe precious little slip of paper which they were so unctuouslyconspiring for. So it was at this precise moment that I decided tointerfere.
I opened the door, as quietly as I could, and stepped into the room.
It was Latreille who first saw me. The other two men were too intentlywatching the girl at the desk. They were still watching her as sheslowly rose from her chair, with a blue-tinted oblong of paper betweenher fingers. And at the same moment that Mary Lockwood stood upLatreille did the same. He rose slowly, with his eyes fixed on myface, backing just as slowly away as he continued to stare at me. Butthat retreat, I very promptly realized, wasn't prompted by any sense offear.
"Mary," I called out sharply to the girl who still stood staring downat the slip of blue paper.
She looked up as she heard that call, peering at me with halfincredulous and slightly startled eyes. I don't know whether she wasglad or sorry to see me there. Perhaps it was both. But she neithermoved nor spoke.
"Mary," I cried out to her, "don't give that up!"
I moved toward her, but she in turn moved away from me until she stoodclose beside the ever watchful Latreille.
"This is something which you don't understand," she said, much morecalmly than I had expected.
"But I _do_," I hotly contended.
"It's something which you can't possibly understand," she repeated intones which threw a gulf yawning between us.
"But it's _you_ who don't," I still tried to tell her. "These threehere are claim fakers; nothing but criminals. They're bleeding you!They're blackmailing you!"
A brief but portentous silence fell on that room as the bewildered girllooked from one face to the other. But it lasted only a moment. Thetableau was suddenly broken by a movement from Latreille. And it was aquick and cat-like movement. With one sweep of the hand he reached outand snatched the oblong of blue paper from Mary Lockwood's fingers.And as I beheld that movement a little alarm-gong somewhere up at thepeak of my brain went off with a clang. Some remote cave-man ancestorof mine stirred in his grave. I saw red.
With one unreasoned and unreasoning spring I reached Latreille, cryingto the girl as I went: "Get out of this house! Get out--quick!"
That was all I said. It was all I had a chance to say, for Latreillewas suddenly taking up all my attention. That suave brigand, insteadof retreating, caught and held the slip of paper between his teeth andsquared for combat. And combat was what he got.
We struck and countered and clenched and went to the floor together,still striking blindly at each other's faces as we threshed and rolledabout there. We sent a chair spinning, and a table went over like anine-pin. We wheezed and gasped and clumped against the baseboard andflopped again out into open space. Yet I tore that slip of paper frombetween Latreille's teeth, and macerated it between my own, as wecontinued to pound and thump and writhe about the dusty floor. And Ithink I would have worsted Latreille, if I'd been given half a chance,for into that onslaught of mine went the pent-up fury of many weeks andmonths of self-corroding hate. But that worthy known as The Doc deemedit wise to take a hand in the struggle. His interference assumed theform of a blow with a chair-back, a blow which must have stunned me fora moment or two, for when I was able to think clearly again Latreillehad me pinned down, with one knee on my chest and old Crotty stationedat the door with a Colt revolver in his hand. The next momentLatreille forced my wrists down in front of me, jerked a handkerchieffrom my pocket, and with it tied my crossed hands close together. Thenhe turned and curtly motioned to Crotty.
"Here," he commanded. "Bring that gun and guard this pin-head! If hetries anything, let him have it, and have it good!"
Slowly and deliberately Latreille rose to his feet. He paused for amoment to wipe the blood and dust from his face. Then he turned toMary Lockwood, who stood with her back against the wall and her tightlyclenched fists pressed close to her sides. She was very white, whiteto the lips. But it wasn't fear that held her there. It was a sort ofcolorless heat of indignation, a fusing of rage and watchfulness whichshe seemed at a loss to express in either word or action.
"Now you," barked out Latreille, motioning her to the desk, "make goodon that paper. And do it quick!"
> Mary surveyed him, silently, studiously, deliberately. He was,apparently, something startlingly new in her career, something whichshe seemed unable to fathom. But he'd by no means intimidated her.For, instead of answering him, she spoke to me.
"Witter," she called out, watching her enemy as she spoke. "Witter,what do you want me to do?"
I remembered Lieutenant Belton and his message. I remembered my ownhelplessness, and the character of the men confronting us. And Iremembered that time was a factor in Mary's favor and mine.
"Do what he tells you," I called up to her. And I knew that she hadstepped slowly across to the desk again. Yet what she did there Ifailed to understand, for my attention was once more centered on theold scoundrel covering me with the Colt revolver and repeatedly andblasphemously threatening to plug me through the heart if I so much asmade one finger-move to get off that floor. So I lay there studyinghim. I studied his posture. I studied the position of his weapon. Istudied my own length of limb. I studied the furniture overturnedabout the room. And then I once more studied old Crotty.
Then I laughed aloud. As I did so I suddenly twisted my head andstared toward the door.
"_Smash it in, Sam!_" I shouted exultantly, and with all the strengthof my lungs.
It startled them all, as I had intended it should. But it also didsomething else which I had expected it to do. It caused Crotty toglance quickly over his shoulder toward the door in question. And atthe precise moment that he essayed this movement I ventured one of myown.
I brought my outstretched leg up, in one quick and vicious kick. Ibrought my boot-sole in one stinging blow against the stock of thefirearm and the fingers clustered about it. And the result waspractically what I had anticipated. It sent the revolver cascading upinto the air, like a circus-tumbler doing a double-twister over anelephant's back. There was the bark of an exploding cartridge as itwent. But I had both timed and placed its fall, and before either oneof that startled couple could make a move I had given a quick twist androll along the dusty floor and caught up the fallen weapon in my ownpinioned right hand. Another quick wrench and twist freed my boundwrist, and before even a second shout of warning could escape from anyof them I was on my feet with the revolver balanced in my right handand fire in my eye.
"Back up, every one o' you," I commanded. For I was hot now, hot as ahornet. And if one of that worthy trio had ventured a move not inharmony with my orders I am morally certain that I should have sent abullet through him. They too must have been equally assured of mydetermination, for side by side they backed away, with their handsslightly above their heads, like praying Brahmans, until the wallitself stopped their retreat.
"Stand closer," I told them. And they shuffled and side-steppedshoulder to shoulder, ludicrously, like the rawest of rookies on theirfirst day of drill. As I stood contemplating them, with disgust on myface, I was interrupted by the voice of Mary.
"Witter," she demanded in a voice throaty with excitement yet notuntouched with some strange exultation which I couldn't take time toanalyze, "what shall I do this time?"
I couldn't turn and face her, for I still had to keep that unsavorytrio under inspection.
"I want you to go down to your car," I told her over my shoulder, "andget in it, and then go straight home. And then--"
"That's absurd," she interrupted.
"I want you to do it."
"But I don't intend to," she said, ignoring my masterfulness.
"Why?"
"I've been too cowardly about this already. It's been quite badenough, without leaving you here like that. So be good enough to tellme what I can do."
I liked her for that, and I was on the point of telling her so, whendown below I heard the quick stamp and clump of feet. And I felt in mybones that it must be Belton and his men. Then I remembered Mary andher question.
"I'll tell you what you can do," I said, pointing toward Latreille."You can ask this man what it was I ran down in my car lastHallow-e'en."
She was moving forward, with a face quite without fear by this time.But her brow clouded, at that speech of mine, and she came to a suddenstop.
"I don't need to ask him," she slowly acknowledged.
"Why not?"
"Because I know already."
"_He_ told you?" I demanded, with a vicious and quite involuntary jabof my barrel-end into one of Latreille's intercostal spaces.
"Not directly," replied the ever-truthful Mary. "But it was throughhim that I found out. I know now it was through him."
"I thought so," I snorted. "And through him you're now going to findout that he was a liar and a slanderer. So be good enough to explainto her, Latreille, that it was a straw-stuffed dummy we ran down, astreet-crowd's scare-crow, and nothing else!"
Latreille didn't answer me. He merely stood there with studious andhalf-closed eyes, a serpent-like squint of venom on his colorless face.It was, in fact, old Crotty who broke the silence.
"We'll do our talkin', young fellow, when the right time comes. Andwhen we do, you're goin' to pay for an outrage like this, for anunprovoked assault on decent citizens!"
"Well, the time's come right now," I promptly announced, for I hadcaught the sound of Belton's quick step on the stairs. And the nextmoment the door swung open and that stalwart officer stood staringintently yet cautiously about the corner of the jamb. He stood theresquinting in, in fact, for several seconds, calmly inspecting each faceand factor of the situation. It wasn't until he stepped in through theopen door, however, that I noticed the ugly-looking service-revolver inhis own right hand.
"That's the bunch we want, all right," proclaimed the officer of lawand order as he turned back to the still open door. "Come up, boys,and take 'em down," he called cheerfully and companionably out throughthe darkness.
Mary, at the answering tumult of those quick-thumping feet, crept alittle closer to my side. Alarm, I suppose, had at last seeped throughand crumbled the last of her Lockwood pride. The flash of waitingfirearms, the strange faces, the still stranger experiences of thatnight, seemed to have brought about some final and unlooked forsubjugation of her spirit. At least, so I thought.
"Couldn't you take me away, Witter?" she asked a little weakly and alsoa little wistfully. Yet there was something about the very tone of hervoice which sent a thrill through my tired body. And that thrill gaveme boldness enough to reach out a proprietory arm and let the weight ofher body rest against it.
"You won't want us, will you, Belton?" I demanded, and that long-leggedyoung officer stared about at us abstractedly, for a moment or two,before replying. When he turned away he did so to hide what seemed tobe a slowly widening smile.
"_These_ are the folks I want," he retorted, with a hand-wave towardhis three prisoners. And without wasting further breath or time onthem I helped Mary out and down to the Nile-green roadster.
"No; let me," she said as she noticed my movement to mount to thedriver's seat. But she was silent for several minutes as we threadedour way out through the quiet and shadowy streets.
"Witter," she said at last and with a gulp, "you must think I'm an--anawful coward."
"_I_ was the coward," I proclaimed out of my sudden misery of mind.For there were certain things which would be terribly hard to forget.
"You?" she cried. "After what I've just seen? After what you've savedme from? Oh, how you must despise me!"
"No," I said with a gulp of my own. "That's not the word."
"It's not," she absently agreed.
"It's not," I repeated, "for I love you!"
She made no response to that foolish and untimely declaration. All herattention, in fact, seemed directed toward her driving.
"But I was so cowardly in that other thing," she persisted, out of thissecond silence. "Judging without understanding, condemning something Iwas only too ready to do myself!"
"And it made you hate me?"
"No--no. I hate myself!" And her gesture was one of protest,passionate protest.
/>
"But you _must_ have hated me."
"Witter," she said, speaking quite low and leaning a little closer tothe wheel as she spoke, as though all her thoughts were on the shadowyroad ahead of her, "I never hated you--never! I couldn't even makemyself."
"Why?" I asked, scarcely knowing I had spoken.
"Because _I've always loved you_," she said in a whisper, big withbravery. And I heard a silvery little bell begin to ring in my heart,like a bird in an orchard, heralding spring.
"Stop the car!" I suddenly commanded, once the real, the gloriousmeaning of those six words of Mary's had sunk through to that strangecore of things we call our Soul.
"What for?" demanded Mary, mechanically releasing the clutch andthrowing the brake-pedal down. She sat staring startled into my faceas we came to a stop. "What _for_?" she repeated.
"Because we must never run anything down again," I solemnly informedher.
"But I don't see," she began, "why--"
"It's because I'm going to kiss you, my beloved," I said as I reachedout for her. "And something tells me, Mary, that it's going to be aterribly long one!"
THE END