CHARITY AND THE MULTITUDE OF SINS
In the outer office of William Trubus an amiable little scene was being
enacted, far different from the harrowing ones which had made up the
last twelve hours for poor Mary.
Miss Emerson, the telephone girl, was engaged in animated repartee with
that financial genius of the "Mercantile Agency," with whose workings
the reader may have a slight familiarity, located on the floor below of
the same Fifth Avenue building.
"Yes, dearie, during business hours I'm as hard as nails, but when I
shut up my desk I'm just as good a fellow as the next one. All work
and no play gathers no moss," remarked Mr. John Clemm.
"You're a comical fellow, Mr. Clemm. I'd just love to go out to-night,
as you suggest. And if you've got a gent acquaintance who is like you,
I have the swellest little lady friend you ever seen. Her name is
Clarice, and she is a manicure girl at the Astor. We might have a
foursome, you know."
"That's right, girlie," responded Clemm, as he ingratiatingly placed an
arm about her wasp-like waist. "But two's company, and four's too much
of a corporation for me."
"Oh, Mr. Clemm--nix on this in here--Mr. Trubus is in his office, and
he'll get wise...."
As she spoke, not Mr. Trubus, but his estimable wife interrupted the
progress of the courtship. She walked into the doorway, from the
elevator corridor, holding Mary's arm.
As she saw the lover-like attitude of the plump Mr. Clemm, she gasped,
and then burst out in righteous indignation.
"Why, you shameless girl, what do you mean by such actions in the
office of the Purity League? I shall tell my husband at once!"
Miss Emerson sprang away from the amorous entanglement with Mr. Clemm
and tried to say something. She could think of nothing which befitted
the occasion; all her glib eloquence was temporarily asphyxiated. Mr.
Clemm stammered and looked about for some hole in which to conceal
himself. He, too, seemed far different from the pugnacious,
self-confident dictator who reigned supreme on the floor below.
"William! William Trubus!" called the philanthropist's wife angrily.
Her husband heard from within, and he opened the door with a thoroughly
startled look.
"My dear wife!" he began, purring and somewhat uncertain as to the
cause of the trouble. Mary, nervous as she was, observed a curious
interchange of glances between the two men.
"William, I find this brazen creature standing here hugging this man,
as though your office, the Purity League's headquarters, were some
Lover's Lane! It is disgusting."
"Well, well, my dear," stammered Trubus. "Don't be too harsh."
"I am not harsh, but I have too much respect for you and the high
ideals for which I know you battle every hour of the day to endure such
a thing. Suppose the Bishop had come in instead of myself? Would he
consider such actions creditable to the great purpose for which the
church takes up collections twice each year throughout his diocese?"
Trubus tilted back and forth on his toes and tapped the ends of his
plump fingers together. He was sparring for time. The girl looked at
him saucily, and the offending visitor shrugged his shoulders as he
quietly started for the door.
"Tut, tut, my dear! I shall reprimand the girl."
"You shall discharge her at once!" insisted Mrs. Trubus, her eyes
flashing. "She will disgrace the office and the great cause."
Trubus was in a quandary. He looked about him. Miss Emerson, with a
confident smile, walked toward the general office on the left.
"I should worry about this job. I'm sick of this charity stuff anyway.
I'm going to get a cinch job with a swell broker I know. He runs a lot
of bunco games, too--but he admits. Don't let the old lady worry about
me, Mr. Trubus, but don't forget that I've got two weeks' salary coming
to me. And you just raised my weekly insult to twenty-five dollars
last Saturday, you know, Mr. Trubus."
With this Parthian shot, she slammed the door of the general
stenographers' room, and left Mr. Trubus to face his irate wife.
"You pay that girl twenty-five dollars for attending to a telephone,
William? Why, that's more money than you earned when we had been
married ten years. Twenty-five dollars a week for a telephone girl!"
"There, my dear, it is quite natural. She is especially tactful and
worth it," said Trubus, in embarrassment. "You are not exactly tactful
yourself, my dear, to nag me in front of an employee. As the
Scriptures say, a gentle wife...."
Mrs. Trubus gave the philanthropist one deep look which seemed to cause
aphasia on the remainder of the Scriptural quotation.
For the first time Trubus noticed Mary Barton, standing in embarrassed
silence by the door, wishing that she could escape from the scene.
"Who is this young person, my dear?"
"This is a young girl who is in deep trouble, and without a position
through no fault of her own. I brought her down to your office to have
you help her, William."
"But, alas, our finances are so low that we have no room for any
additional office force," began Trubus.
"There, that will do. If you pay twenty-five dollars a week to the
telephone operator no wonder the finances are low. You have just
discharged her, and I insist on your giving this young lady an
opportunity."
Trubus reddened, and tried to object.
But his good wife overruled him.
"Have you ever used a switchboard, miss?" he began.
"Yes, sir. In my last position I began on the switchboard, and worked
that way for nearly two months. I am sure I can do it."
Trubus did not seem so optimistic. But, at his wife's silent
argument--looks more eloquent than a half hour of oratory, he nodded
grudgingly.
"Well, you can start in. Just hang your hat over on the wall hook.
Come into my office, my dear wife."
They entered, and Mary sat down, still in a daze. She had been so
suddenly discharged and then employed again that it seemed a dream.
Even the terrible hours of the night seemed some hideous nightmare
rather than reality.
Miss Emerson came from the side room, attired in a street garb which
would have brought envy to many a chorus girl.
"Oh, my dear, and so you are to follow my job. Well, I wish you joy,
sweetie. Tell Papa Trubus that I'll be back after lunch time for my
check. And keep your lamps rolling on the old gink and he'll raise
your salary once a month. He's not such a dead one if he is strong on
this charity game. Life with Trubus is just one telephone girl after
another ... ta, ta, dearie. I'm off stage."
And she departed, leaving simple Mary decidedly mystified by her
diatribe.
A few minutes brought another diversion. This time it was Sylvia
Trubus and Ralph Gresham, her fiance, come for a call.
"Is my father in?" she asked, absorbed in the well groomed, selfish
young man. Mary rang the private bell and announced Miss Trubus. Her
father hurried to the door, and when he saw his prospective son-in-law
his face wreathed in smiles.
"Ah, Mr. Gresham, Ralph, I might say, I am delighted! Come right in!"
Mary was startled as she heard the name of the young girl's sweetheart.
"I'm afraid that she will not be as happy as she thinks, if daddy has
told me right about Ralph Gresham. But, oh, if I could hear something
from Bobbie about Lorna. I believe I will call him up."
She was just summoning the courage for a private call when the private
office door opened, and Gresham, Sylvia, her mother and Trubus emerged.
"I will return in ten minutes, Miss," said Trubus. "If there are any
calls just take a record of them. Allow no one to go into my private
office."
"Yes, sir."
Mary waited patiently for a few moments, when suddenly a telephone bell
began to jangle inside the private office.
"That's curious," she murmured, looking at her own key-board. "There's
no connection." Again she heard it, insistent, yet muffled.
She walked to the door and opened it. As she did so the wind blew in
from the open casement, making a strong draught. Half a dozen papers
blew from Trubus' desk to the floor. Frightened lest her
inquisitiveness should cause trouble, Mary hurriedly stooped and picked
up the papers, carrying them back to the desk. As she leaned over it
she noticed a curious little metal box, glass-covered. Under this
glass an automatic pencil was writing by electrical connection.
"What on earth can that be?" she wondered. The bell tinkled, in its
muffled way, once more.
The moving pencil went on. She watched it, fascinated, even at the
risk of being caught, hardly realizing that she was doing what might be
termed a dishonorable act.
"Paid Sawyer $250. Girl safe, but still unconscious."
Mary's heart beat suddenly. The thought of her own sister was so
burdensome upon her own mind that the mention by this mysterious
communication of a girl, "safe but still unconscious," strung her
nerves as though with an electric shock. She leaned over the little
recording instrument, which was built on a hinged shelf that could be
cunningly swung into the desk body, and covered with a false front. As
she did so she saw a curious little instrument, shaped somewhat like
the receiver of a telephone receiver. Mary's experience with her
father's work told her what that instrument was.
"A dictagraph!" she exclaimed.
Instinctively she picked it up, and heard a conversation which was so
startling in its import to herself that her heart seemed to congeal for
an instant.
"I tell you, Jack, the girl is still absolutely out of it. We can risk
shipping her anywhere the way she is now. I chloroformed her in the
auto as soon as we got away from the candy store. But that Burke
nearly had us, for I saw him coming."
"You will have to dispose of her to-day, Shepard. Give her some strong
coffee--a good stiff needleful of cocaine will bring her around. Do
something, that's all, or you don't get a red cent of the remaining
three hundred. Now, I'm a busy man. You'll have to talk louder, too,
my hearing isn't what it used to be."
"Say, Clemm, quit this kidding about your ears. I've tried you out and
you can hear better than I can. There's some game you're working on me
and if there is, I'll...."
"Can the tragedy, Shepard. Save it for that famous whipping stunt of
yours. Beat this girl up a bit, and tell me where she is."
"I'll do that in an hour, and not a minute sooner, and I've got to have
the other three hundred."
Mary dropped the receiver. She wanted to know where that conversation
could come from. Down the side of the desk she traced a delicate wire.
Under the rug it went, and across to the window. She looked out. A
fire escape passed the window. It was open. She saw the little wire
cross through the woodwork to the outside brick construction and down
the wall. Softly she clambered down the fire-escape until she could
peer through the window on the floor below.
There at a desk, in the private office of the "Mercantile" association,
sat the man who had been hugging her predecessor at Trubus'
switchboard, the man who had exchanged the curious looks with the
philanthropist. Talking to him was the man who had taken her sister
away from the candy store the day before!
Hurriedly she climbed back up the fire escape into the window, out
through the door of the private office, closing it behind her.
She telephoned Bobbie at the station house. Fortunately he was there.
She gave him her address, and before he could express his surprise
begged him to hurry to the doorway of the building and wait for her.
He promised.
Mary kept her nerves as quiet as she could, praying that the man Sawyer
would not leave before she could follow him with Bobbie. In a few
minutes one of the girls from the stenography room came out. Seeing
that she was the new girl the young woman spoke: "Do you want me to
relieve you while you go to lunch. I'm not going out to-day. I'm so
glad to see anyone here but that fresh Miss Emerson that it will be a
pleasure."
"Thank you. I do want to go now," said Mary nervously. She hurriedly
donned her hat and rushed down to the street. Bobbie was waiting for
her, as he had lost not a minute.
They waited behind the big door column for several minutes. Suddenly a
man came swinging through the portal. It was Sawyer.
Bobbie remembered him instantly, while Mary gripped his arm until she
pinched it.
"We'll follow him," said Burke, for the girl had already told of the
dictagraph conversation.
Follow him they did. Up one street and down another. At last the man
led them over into Burke's own precinct. He ascended the iron steps of
an old-fashioned house which had once been a splendid mansion in
generations gone by.
"Ah, that's where Lorna is hidden, as sure as you're standing here,
Mary. From what he said no harm has come to her yet. Hurry with me to
the station house, and we'll have the reserves go through that house in
a jiffy."
It took not more than ten minutes for the police to surround the house.
But disappointment was their only reward. Somehow or other the rascals
had received a tip of premonition of trouble; perhaps Shepard was
suspicious of his principals, and wished to move the girl out of their
reach.
The house was empty, except for a few pieces of furniture.
"Look!" cried Mary, as she went through the rooms with Bob. "There is
a handkerchief. She snatched it up. It was one of her own, with the
initials "M. B." in a monogram.
"Lorna has been here," she exclaimed. "I remember handing her that
very handkerchief when we were in the store yesterday."
"What's to be done now?" thought Bobbie. "We had better go up to your
father and tell him what we know--it is not as bad as it might have
been."
"Precious little comfort," sighed Mary, exhausted beyond tears.
They reached the desolate home, and Bob broke the news to the old man.
As Mary poured forth her story of the discovery in Trubus' office, her
father's face lighted with renewed hope.
To their surprise he laughed, softly, and then spoke:
"Mary, my child, my long hours of study and labor on my own invention
have not been in vain. My dictagraph-recorder--this very model here,
which I have just completed shall be put to its first great test to
save my own daughter. Heaven could reward me in no more wonderful
manner than to let it help in the rescue of little Lorna--why did I not
think of it sooner?"
"What shall we do, father?" breathlessly cried Mary.
"Can I help, Mr. Barton?"
"Describe the arrangement of the offices."
Mary rapidly limned the plan of the headquarters of the Purity League.
Her father nodded and his lips moved as he repeated her words in a
whisper.
"I have it now. You must put the instrument under the telephone
switchboard table," he directed. "Pile up a waste-basket, or something
that is handy to keep it out of view. I have already adjusted enough
fresh cylinders to record at least one hour of conversation. This
machine is run by an automatic spring, which you must wind like a
clock. Here I will wind it myself to have all in readiness."
He rolled his chair swiftly to his work table, and turned the little
crank, continuing his plan of attack.
"Now, take the long wire, and run it through the door of the private
office up close to the desk. Attach this disc to the dictagraph
receiver. It is so small, and the wiring so fine that it will not be
noticed if it is done correctly. Here, Burke. I will do it now to
this loose dictagraph receiver. Watch me."
The old man worked swiftly.
Burke scrutinized each move, and nodded in understanding.
"Be careful to cover the wire along the floor with a rug--he must never
be allowed to see that, you know. After you have all this prepared,
Mary, you must start the mechanism going, and then get the reproduction
of the conversation as it comes on the dictagraph."
"All right, father--but how shall we get it there without Mr. Trubus
knowing about it? He is very watchful of that room."
Barton patted Bobbie's broad shoulder, with a confident smile.
"I think Officer 4434 can devise a way for that. He has had harder
tasks and won out. Now, hurry down with the machine. It is a bit
heavy. You had better take it in a taxicab. You will spend all your
money on taxicabs, my boy, I am afraid."
"Well, sir, a little money now isn't important enough to worry about if
it means happiness for the future--for us all."
Mary's face reddened, and she dropped her eyes. There was an
understanding between the three which needed no words for explanation.
So it is that the sweetest love creeps into its final nestling place.
"God bless you, my boy. I'm an old man and none too good, but I shall
pray for your success."
"Good bye," said Bobbie, as he and Mary left with the mechanism.
Bobbie stopped the taxicab which carried them half a block east of the
office building which was their goal.
"Mary, I will take this machine up on the floor above Trubus' office,
and hide it in the hall. Then you go to your place in the office and I
will manage a way to draw Mr. Trubus out in a hurry. We will work
together after that, and spread the electric trap for him."
Mary went direct to the office, where she found Trubus storming about
angrily.
"What do you mean by staying nearly two hours out at luncheon time?" he
cried. "I am very busy and I want you to be here on duty regularly,
even if my wife did foolishly intercede in your behalf, young woman."
"I am sorry--I became ill, and was delayed. I will not be late with
you again, sir."
The president of the Purity League retired to his sanctum, slightly
mollified. Mary had not been at her post long when a messenger came in
with a telegram.
"Mr. Trubus!" he said, shoving the envelope at her.
She signed his book, and knocked at the door. There was a little
delay, and the worthy man opened it impatiently. "I do not want to be
interrupted, I am going over my accounts."
She handed him the telegram, and he tore it open hastily.
"What's this?" he muttered in excitement. Then he went back for his
silk hat, and left, slamming the door of his private office and
carefully locking it.
"I wonder what took him out so quickly?" thought Mary. But even as she
mused Bobbie Burke came into the outer office, with the precious
machine wrapped in yellow paper.
"What took Trubus out, Bobbie?" she asked, as she helped him arrange
the machine behind the wastebasket, near the telephone switchboard.
"Just a telegram, signed 'Friend,' advising him to watch the men who
came in the front door, downstairs, for ten minutes, but not to visit
Clemm's office. That will keep him away, and he can't possibly guess
who did it."
"But, look, Bob, he has locked his door with a peculiar key. If you
force it he will be able to tell."
"I thought he might do as much, Mary. I wouldn't risk tampering with
the lock. Instead, I found an empty room on the floor above. I have a
rope, and I will take the receiver of your father's machine with the
disc, and part of the wiring which I had already cut. There is no fire
escape from the floor above for some reason. He will suspect all the
less, then, for he would not think of anyone coming through the
headquarters on the floor below. I will go down hand over hand, you
shove the wire under the door to me, and I'll attach it. Then I'll go
up the ladder, and we'll let the dictagraph do its work."
Thus it was accomplished. Mary covered the machine and its wiring in
the outer office, although several times she had to quit at inopportune
times to answer the telephone, or make a connection.
Burke, from the room above, climbed down hurriedly, adjusted the
instrument as he had been told to do by John Barton. Then he was out,
barely drawing himself and the rope away from the window view before
Trubus entered.
Mary thought that it was all discovered, but breathed a sigh of relief
when the president opened the door and entered without a remark.
It was lucky for Burke that the day was so warm, for the president had
left the window open when he left, otherwise Burke could not possibly
have carried out his plan so opportunely.
The telephone bell rang. Mary answered and was greeted by Bob's voice.
"Is it you, Mary?" he exclaimed hurriedly.
"Yes."
"Then start your machine, for I saw this man Shepard go upstairs to the
floor beneath you."
"All right, Bob," said Mary softly.
"When the records are run out, unless I telephone you sooner, call one
of the girls to take your place, tell her you are sick, and smuggle out
the records--don't bother about the machine, we'll get that later. I
will be downstairs waiting for you."
"Yes. I understand."
The time dragged horribly, but at last the hour had passed, and Mary
wrapped up the precious wax cylinders and hurried downstairs.
Bob was pacing up and down anxiously.
"Shepard has eluded me. I was afraid to leave you, and he took an
auto, and disappeared over toward the East Side. I have telephoned
Captain Sawyer to have a phonograph ready for us. Come, we'll get over
to the station at once. I hope your records give us the clue. If they
don't, I'm afraid the trail is lost."
They hurried to the station house. In the private office of the
Captain they found that officer waiting with eagerness.
"What's it all about, Bob?" he cried. "Why this phonograph?"
"It will explain itself, Captain," answered 4434. "Let's fix these
records in the regular way, and then we will run them in order."
They did so in absolute silence. The Captain listened, first in
bewilderment, then in great excitement.
"Great snakes! Where did you get those? That is a conversation
between a bunch of traffickers. Listen, they are buying and selling,
making reports and laying out their work for the night."
"Sssh!" cautioned Bob. "There's something important we want to get."
Suddenly Mary gripped his hand.
"That's Shepard's voice. I'd never forget it."
They listened. The man told of the condition of Lorna, mentioning her
by name now. She had returned to consciousness, and was detained in
the room of a house not five blocks from the police station.
"I'll break her spirit now. None of this stage talk any more, Clemm,"
droned the voice in the phonograph. "When I get my whip going she'll
be glad enough to put on the silk dresses. She screamed and cried a
while ago, but I'm used to that sort of guff."
"Don't mark her up with the whip, Shepard. That's a weakness of yours,
and makes us lose money. Go over now and get her ready for to-night.
They want a girl like her for a party up-town to-night. Get her
scared, and then slip a little cocaine,--that eases 'em up. Then some
champagne, and it will be easy."
Mary began to sob. Burke held her hand in his firm manner.
"Don't cry, little girl, we'll attend to her. Captain Sawyer, this is
a record of a conversation we took on a new machine in the offices of
the Purity League. It connects with the 'Mercantile' office
downstairs, which is a headquarters for the white slave business. Now
we know the address of the house where this young girl is kept. Can I
have the reserves to help me raid it?"
"Ah, can you? Why, you will lead it my boy. Run out and order four
machines from that garage next door. We'll be there in two minutes."
The reserves were summoned from their lounging room with such speed
that Mary was bewildered.
"Oh, may I go along?" she begged. "I want to be the first to greet my
little sister."
"Yes!" cried Sawyer. "All out now, boys. We'll work this on time. I
know the house. It has a big back yard, and a fire-escape in the rear.
Half you fellows follow the sergeant, and go to the front--but stay
down by the corner until exactly four-thirty. Then break into the
front door with axes. The other half--you men in that second file"
(they were lined up with military precision in the big room of the
station house)--"go with Bob Burke. I want you to go up over the roof.
Use your night sticks if there is any gun play, shoot--but not to kill,
for we want to send these men to prison."
They started off. Mary's heart fluttered with excitement, with hope.
There was something so reassuring about the husky manhood of these
blue-coats and the nonchalance and even delight with which they faced
the dangers before them.
"Can I go in with them?" she cried eagerly.
"No, young lady, you stay with the sergeant, and sit in the automobile
when the men leave it. You're apt to get shot, and we want you to take
care of your sister."
They were off on the race to save Lorna!
Now the machines sped down the street. They separated at one
thoroughfare, and the men with Burke went down another street to
approach the house from the rear. This they did, quietly but rapidly,
through the basement of an old house whose frightened tenants feared
that they were to be arrested and lynched on the spot, to judge from
their terror.
"Keep quiet," said Burke, "and don't look out of the windows, or we
will arrest you."
Burke and his men peered at the building which was the object of their
attack. The fire escape came only down to the second story.
"Well, you fellows will have to give me a boost, and I'll jump for the
lower rungs. Then toss up one more man and I'll catch his hand. We
can go up together. You watch the doors."
At exactly four thirty they dashed across the yard, scrambled over the
fence, and like Zouaves in an exhibition drill, tossed Burke up to the
lowest iron bar of the fire escape. He failed the first time. He
tumbled back upon them. The second time was successful. Patrolman
White was given a lift and Burke helped to pull him upon the
fire-escape.
"Up, now, White! We will be behind the other fellows in the front!"
They lost not a second. It was an ape-like climb, but the two trained
athletes made it in surprising time.
As they reached the top of the building a man scrambled out of the trap
which led from the skylight.
"Grab him," yelled Burke.
White did so. This was prisoner number one.
Down the ladder, through the opening Burke went and found himself in a
dingy garret, at the top of a rickety stair-case. He heard screams.
He descended the steps half a floor and peering from the angle, through
the transom of a room which led from the hall, he saw a fat old woman
standing with her hands on her hips, laughing merrily, while Shepard
was swinging a whip upon the shoulders of a screaming girl. Her
clothes were half torn from her back, and the whip left a red welt each
time it struck.
Downstairs Burke heard the crashing of breaking doors. The raid was
progressing rapidly. Burke dashed down to the floor level and flung
himself upon the locked door. The first lunge cracked the lock. The
second swung the door back on its hinges.
He half fell into the room.
As he did so Lorna Barton saw him and in a flash of recognition,
screamed: "Oh, save me, Mr. Burke!"
She staggered forward, and Shepard missed his aim, striking the fat
woman who squealed with pain.
"I've got _you_ now!" cried Burke, rushing for the ruffian with his
stick.
"No, you haven't!" hissed Shepard, a fighting animal to the last. He
had whipped out a magazine gun from his coat pocket, and began firing
point-blank. Burke threw his stick at the man, but it went wild.
His own revolver was out now, and he sent a bullet into the fellow's
shoulder.
Shepard's left arm dropped limply. He dashed toward the door and
forced his way past, firing wildly at such close range that it almost
burst the gallant policeman's ear drums.
Up the ladder he scurried like a wild animal, firing as he climbed.
Burke was right behind him.
Shepard ran for the fire-escape. Burke was after him. Each man was
wasting bullets. But as Shepard reached the edge of the roof Burke
took the most deliberate aim of his life, and sent a bullet into the
villain's breast.
Shepard gasped, his hands went up, and he toppled over the cornice to
the back yard below.
He died as he had lived, with a curse on his lip, murder in his heart,
and battling like a beast!