XV. IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
The man with the withered hand had passed through into the other room.She heard them talking together, as she followed. She forced herself towalk with as nearly a leisurely defiant air as she could. The last timeshe had been with Danglar--as Gypsy Nan--she had, in self-protection,forbidding intimacy, played up what he called her "grouch" at hisneglect of her.
She paused in the doorway. Halfway across the room, at the table,Danglar's gaunt, swarthy face showed under the rays of a shaded oillamp. Behind her spectacles, she met his small, black ferret eyessteadily.
"Hello, Bertha!" he called out cheerily. "How's the old girl to-night?"He rose from his seat to come toward her. "And how's the cold?"
Rhoda Gray scowled at him.
"Worse!" she said curtly-and hoarsely. "And a lot you care! I could havedied in that hole, for all you knew!" She pushed him irritably away, ashe came near her. "Yes, that's what I said! And you needn't start anycooing game now! Get down to cases!" She jerked her hand toward thetwisted figure that had slouched into a chair beside the table. "He saysyou've got it doped out to pull something that will let me out of thisGypsy Nan stunt. Another bubble, I suppose!" She shrugged hershoulders, glanced around her, and, locating a chair--not too near thetable--seated herself indifferently. "I'm getting sick of bubbles!" sheannounced insolently. "What's this one?"
He stood there for a moment biting at his lips, hesitant between angerand tolerant amusement; and then, the latter evidently gaining theascendency, he too shrugged his shoulders, and with a laugh returned tohis chair.
"You're a rare one, Bertha!" he said coolly. "I thought you'd be wildwith delight. I guess you're sick, all right--because usually you'repretty sensible. I've tried to tell you that it wasn't my fault Icouldn't go near you, and that I had to keep away from--"
"What's the use of going over all that again?" she interrupted tartly."I guess I--"
"Oh, all right!" said Danglar hurriedly. "Don't start a row! Afterto-night I've an idea you'll be sweet enough to your husband, and I'mwilling to wait. Matty maybe hasn't told you the whole of it."
Matty! So that was the deformed creature's name. She glanced at him. Hewas grinning broadly. A family squabble seemed to afford him amusement.Her eyes shifted and made a circuit of the room. It was poverty-strickenin appearance, bare-floored, with the scantiest and cheapest offurnishings, its one window tightly shuttered.
"Maybe not," she said carelessly.
"Well, then, listen, Bertha!" Danglar's voice was lowered earnestly."We've uncovered the Nabob's stuff! Do you get me? Every last one of thesparklers!"
Rhoda Gray's eyes went back to the deformed creature at Danglar's side,as the man laughed out abruptly.
"Yes," grinned Matty Danglar, "and they weren't in the empty money-beltthat you beat it with like a scared cat after croaking Deemer!"
How queer and dim the light seemed to go suddenly--or was it a blurbefore her own eyes? She said nothing. Her mind seemed to be groping itsway out of darkness toward some faint gleam of light showing in thefar distance. She heard Danglar order his brother savagely to hold histongue. That was curious, too, because she was grateful for the man'sgibe. Gypsy Nan, in her proper person, had murdered a man named Deemerin an effort to secure--Danglar's voice came again:
"Well, to-night we'll get that stuff, all of it--it's worth a coolhalf million; and to-night we'll get Mr. House-Detective Cloran forkeeps--bump him off. That cleans everything up. How does that strikeyou, Bertha?"
Rhoda Gray's hands under her shawl locked tightly together. Herpremonition had not betrayed her. She was face to face to-night with thebeginning of the end.
"It sounds fine!" she said derisively.
Danglar's eyes narrowed for an instant; and then he laughed.
"You're a rare one, Bertha!" he ejaculated again. "You don't seem to putmuch stock in your husband lately."
"Why should I?" she inquired imperturbably. "Things have been breakingfine, haven't they?--only not for us!" She cleared her throat as thoughit were an effort to talk. "I'm not going crazy with joy till I've beenshown."
Danglar leaned suddenly over the table.
"Well, come and look at the cards, then," he said impressively. "Pullyour chair up to the table, and I'll tell you."
Rhoda Gray tilted her chair, instead, nonchalantly back against thewall--it was quite light enough where she was!
"I can hear you from here," she said coolly. "I'm not deaf, and I guessMatty's suite is safe enough so that you won't have to whisper all thetime!"
The deformed creature at the table chortled again.
Danglar scowled.
"Damn you, Bertha!" he flung out savagely. "I could wring that neck ofyours sometimes, and--"
"I know you could, Pierre," she interposed sweetly. "That's what I likeabout you--you're so considerate of me! But suppose you get down tocases. What's the story about those sparklers? And what's the gamethat's going to let me shed this Gypsy Nan stuff for keeps?"
"I'll tell her, Pierre," grinned the deformed one. "It'll keep you twofrom spitting at one another; and neither of you have got all nightto stick around here." He swung his withered hand suddenly across thetable, and as suddenly all facetiousness was gone both from his voiceand manner. "Say, you listen hard, Bertha! What Pierre's telling you isstraight. You and him can kiss and make up to-morrow or the next day, orwhenever you damned please; but to-night there ain't any more time forscrapping. Now, listen! I handed you a rap about beating it with theempty money-belt the night you croaked Deemer with an overdose ofknockout drops in the private dining-room up at the Hotel Marwitz, butyou forget that! I ain't for starting any argument about that. None ofus blames you. We thought the stuff was in the belt, too. And none ofus blames you for making a mistake and going too strong with the drops,either; anybody might do that. And I'll say now that I take my hat offto you for the way you locked Cloran into the room with the dead man,and made your escape when Cloran had you dead to rights for the murder;and I'll say, too, that the way you've played Gypsy Nan and saved yourskin, and ours too, is as slick a piece of work as has ever been pulledin the underworld. That puts us straight, you and me, don't it, Bertha?"
Rhoda Gray blinked at the man through her spectacles; her brain waswhirling in a mad turmoil. "I always liked you, Matty," she whisperedsoftly.
Danglar was lolling back in his chair, blowing smoke rings into the air.She caught his eyes fixed quizzically upon her.
"Go on, Matty!" he prompted. "You'll have her in a good humor, if you'renot careful!"
"We were playing more or less blind after that." The withered handtraced an aimless pattern on the table with its crooked and half-closedfingers, and the man's face was puckered into a shrewd, reminiscentscowl. "The papers couldn't get a lead on the motive for the murder, andthe police weren't talking for publication. Not a word about the Rajah'sjewels. Washington saw to that! A young potentate's son, practicallythe guest of the country, touring about in a special for the sake of hiseducation, and dashed near 'ending it in the river out West if it hadn'tbeen for the rescue you know about, wouldn't look well in print; sothere wasn't anything said about the slather of gems that was the rewardof heroism from a grateful nabob, and we didn't get any help that way.All we knew was that Deemer came East with the jewels, presumably tocash in on them, and it looked as though Deemer were pretty clever;that he wore the money-belt for a stall, and that he had the sparklerssafe somewhere else all the time. And I guess we all got to figuringit that way, because the fact that nothing was said about any theft wasstrictly along the lines the police were working anyway, and a was atoss-up that they hadn't found the stuff among his effects. Get me?"
Get him! This wasn't real, was it, this room here; those two figuressitting there under that shaded lamp? Something cold, an icy grip,seemed to seize at her heart, as in a surge there swept upon her thefull appreciation of her peril through these confidences to which shewas listening. A word, in act, some slightest thing, might so easilybetray
her; and then--Her fingers under the shawl and inside the widepocket of her greasy skirt, clutched at her revolver. Thank God forthat! It would at least be merciful! She nodded her head mechanically.
"But the police didn't find the jewels--because they weren't there to befound. Somebody got in ahead of us. Pinched 'em, understand, may be onlya few hours before you got in your last play, and, from the way you sayDeemer acted, before he was wise to the fact that he'd been robbed."
Rhoda Gray let her chair come sharply down to the floor. She must playher role of "Bertha" now as she never had before. Here was a questionthat she could not only ask with safety, but one that was obviouslyexpected.
"Who was it?" she demanded breathlessly.
"She's coming to life!" murmured Danglar, through a haze of cigarettesmoke. "I thought you'd wake up after a while, Bertha. This is the bignight, old girl, as you'll find out before we're through."
"Who was it?" she repeated with well-simulated impatience.
"I guess she'll listen to me now," said Danglar, with a little chuckle."Don't over-tax yourself any more, Matty. I'll tell you, Bertha; and itwill perhaps make you feel better to know it took the slickest dip NewYork ever knew to beat you to the tape. It was Angel Jack, alias theGimp."
"How do you know?" Rhoda Gray demanded.
"Because," said Danglar, and lighted another cigarette, "he diedyesterday afternoon up in Sing Sing."
She could afford to show her frank bewilderment. Her brows knitted intofurrows, as she stared at Danglar.
"You--you mean he confessed?" she said.
"The Angel? Never!" Danglar laughed grimly, and shook his head. "Nothinglike that! It was a question of playing one 'fence' against another. Youknow that Witzer, who's handled all our jewelry for us, has been on thelook-out for any stones that might have come from that collection.Well, this afternoon he passed the word to me that he'd been offered thefinest unset emerald he'd ever seen, and that it had come to him throughold Jake Luertz's runner, a very innocent-faced young man who is knownto the trade as the Crab."
Danglar paused--and laughed again. Unconsciously Rhoda Gray drew hershawl a little closer about her shoulders. It seemed to bring a chillinto the room, that laugh. Once before, on another night, Danglar hadlaughed, and, with his parted lips, she had likened him to a beastshowing its fangs. He looked it now more than ever. For all his ease ofvoice and manner, he was in deadly earnest; and if there was merrimentin his laugh, it but seemed to enhance the menace and the promise ofunholy purpose that lurked in the cold glitter of his small, black eyes.
"It didn't take long to get hold of the Crab"--Danglar was rubbing hishands together softly--"and the emerald with him. We got him where wecould put the screws on without arousing the neighborhood."
"Another murder, I suppose!" Rhoda Gray flung out the words crossly.
"Oh, no," said Danglar pleasantly. "He squealed before it came to that.He's none the worse for wear, and he'll be turned loose in another houror so, as soon as we're through at old Jake Luertz's. He's no more goodto us. He came across all right--after he was properly frightened. He'sbeen with old Jake as a sort of familiar for the last six years, and--"
"He'd have sold his soul out, he was so scared!" The withered hand onthe table twitched; the deformed creature's face was twisted into agrimace; and the man was chuckling with unhallowed mirth, as thoughunable to contain himself at, presumably, the recollection of a scenewhich he had witnessed himself. "He was down on his knees and clawingout with his hands for mercy, and he squealed like a rat. 'It's thesixth panel in the bedroom upstairs,' he says; 'it's all there. But forGod's sake don't tell Jake I told. It's the sixth panel. Press the knotin the sixth panel that--'" He stopped abruptly.
Danglar had pulled out his watch and with exaggerated patience wascircling the crystal with his thumb.
"Are you all through, Matty?" he inquired monotonously. "I think yousaid something a little while ago about wasting time. Bertha's lookingbored; and, besides, she's got a little job of her own on for to-night."He jerked his watch back into his pocket, and turned to Rhoda Grayagain. "The only one who knew all the details Angel Jack, and he'llnever tell now because he's dead. Whether he came down from the Westwith Deemer or not, or how he got wise to the stones, I don't know. Buthe got the stones, all right. And then he tumbled to the fact that thepolice were pushing him hard for another job he was 'wanted' for, andhe had to get those stones out of sight in a hurry. He made a packageof them and slipped them to old Luertz, who had always done his businessfor him, to keep for him; and before he could duck, the bulls had himfor that other job. Angel Jack went up the river. See? Old Jake didn'tknow what was in that package; but he knew better than to monkey withit, because he always thought something of his own skin. He knew AngelJack, and he knew what would happen if he didn't have that package readyto hand back the day Angel Jack got out of Sing Sing. Understand? Butyesterday Angel Jack died-without a will; and old Jake appointed himselfsole executor-without bonds! He opened that package, figured he'd beginturning it into money--and that's how we get our own back again. OldJake will get a fake message to-night calling him out of the house on anerrand uptown; and about ten o'clock Pinkie Bonn and the Pug will pay avisit there in his absence, and--well, it looks good, don't it, Bertha,after two years?"
Rhoda Gray was crouched down in her chair. She shrugged her shouldersnow, and infused a sullen note into her voice.
"Yes, it's fine!" she sniffed. "I'll be rolling in wealth in mygarret--which will do me a lot of good! That doesn't separate me fromthese rags, and the hell I've lived, does it--after two years?"
"I'm coming to that," said Danglar, with his short, grating laugh."We've as good as got the stones now, and we're going through to-nightfor a clean-up of all that old mess. We stake the whole thing. Getme, Bertha--the whole thing! I'm showing my hand for the first time.Cloran's the man that's making you wear those clothes; Cloran's the onlyone who could go into the witness box and swear that you were the womanwho murdered Deemer; and Cloran's the man who has been working his headoff for two years to find you. We've tried a dozen times to bump himoff in a way that would make his death appear to be due purely to anaccident, and we didn't get away with it; but we can afford to leave the'accident' out of it to-night, and go through for keeps--and that's whatwe're going to do. And once he's out of the way--by midnight--you canheave Gypsy Nan into the discard."
It seemed to Rhoda Gray that horror had suddenly taken a numbing holdupon her sensibilities. Danglar was talking about murdering some man,wasn't he, so that she could resume again the personality of a woman whowas dead? Hysterical laughter rose to her lips. It was only by afrantic effort of will that she controlled herself. She seemed to speakinvoluntarily, doubtful almost that it was her own voice she heard.
"I'm listening," she said; "but I wouldn't be too sure. Cloran's a warybird, and there's the White Moll."
She caught her breath. What suicidal inspiration had prompted her to saythat! Had what she had been listening to here, the horror of it, indeedturned her brain and robbed her of her wits to the extent that sheshould invite exposure? Danglar's face had gone a mottled purple; themisshapen thing at Danglar's side was leering at her most curiously.
It was a moment before Danglar spoke; and then his hand, clenched untilthe white of the knuckles showed, pounded upon the table to punctuatehis words.
"Not to-night!" he rasped out with an oath. "There's not a chance thatshe's in on this to-night--the she-devil! But she's next! With thiscleaned up, she's next! If it takes the last dollar of to-night's haul,and five years to do it, I'll get her, and get--"
"Sure!" mumbled Rhoda Gray hurriedly. "But you needn't get excited!I was only thinking of her because she's queered us till I've got myfingers crossed, that's all. Go on about Cloran."
Danglar's composure did not return on the instant. He gnawed at his lipsfor a moment before he spoke.
"All right!" he jerked out finally. "Let it go at that! I told you theother night in the garret that things
were beginning to break our way,and that you wouldn't have to stay there much longer, but I didn't tellyou how or why--you wouldn't give me a chance. I'll tell you now; andit's the main reason why I've kept away from you lately. I couldn'ttake a chance of Cloran getting wise to that garret and Gypsy Nan." Hegrinned suddenly. "I've been cultivating Cloran myself for the last twoweeks. We're quite pals! I'm for playing the luck every time! Whenthe jewels showed up to-day, I figured that to-night's the night--see?Cloran and I are going to supper together at the Silver Sphinx at abouteleven o'clock--and this is where you shed the Gypsy Nan stuff, and showup as your own sweet self. Cloran'll be glad to meet you!"
She stared at him in genuine perplexity and amazement.
"Show myself to Cloran!" she ejaculated heavily. "I don't get you!"
"You will in a minute," said Danglar softly. "You're the bait--see?Cloran and I will be at supper and watching the fox-trotters. You blowin and show yourself--I don't need to tell you how, you're clever enoughat that sort of thing yourself--and the minute he recognizes you asthe woman he's been looking for that murdered Deemer, you pretend torecognize him for the first time too, and then you beat it like you hadthe scare of your life for the door. He'll follow you on the jump. Idon't know what it's all about, and I sit tight, and that lets me out.And now get this! There'll be two taxicabs outside. If there's more thantwo, it's the first two I'm talking about. You jump into the one at thehead of the line. Cloran won't need any invitation to grab the secondone and follow you. That's all! It's the last ride he'll take. It'll beour boys, and not chauffeurs, who'll be driving those cars to-night,and they've got their orders where to go. Cloran won't come back.Understand, Bertha'?"
There was only one answer to make, only one answer that she dared make.She made it mechanically, though her brain reeled. A man namedCloran was to be murdered; and she was to show herself as this--thisBertha--and...
"Yes," she said.
"Good!" said Danglar. He pulled out his watch again. "All right, then!We've been here long enough." He rose briskly. "It's time to make amove. You hop it back to the garret, and get rid of that fancy dress.I've got to meet Cloran uptown first. Come on, Matty, let us out."
The place stifled her. She got up and moved quickly through theintervening room. She heard Danglar and his crippled brother talkingearnestly together as they followed her. And then the cripple brushedby her in the darkness, and opened the front door--and Danglar had drawnher to him in a quick embrace. She did not struggle; she dared not. Herheart seemed to stand still. Danglar was whispering in her ear:
"I promised I'd make it up to you, Bertha, old girl. You'll see--afterto-night. We'll have another honey-moon. You go on ahead now--I can't beseen with Gypsy Nan. And don't be late--the Silver Sphinx at eleven."
She ran out on the street. Her fingers mechanically clutched at hershawl to loosen it around her throat. It seemed as though she werechoking, that she could not breathe. The man's touch upon her had seemedlike contact with some foul and loathsome thing; the scene in that roomback there like some nightmare of horror from which she could not awake.