daughter. They are distracted over her--disappearance. If you only knew
how terrible it is for a young girl like that to be lured away from home
where every one loves her, to be deceived, betrayed, dragged down
while----"
The earnestness of her tone more than the words she uttered, and the
strangeness of her appeal in that place, had impressed every one within
reach of her voice, and quite a throng of men and women had left the
tables and pressed forward listening to the conversation, and for the
most part listening in silence, the expression on their faces being
divided between wonder, sympathy, and expectancy, and a low murmur began
to be audible among the women, hardened as they were. Mr. Gallagin felt
that it was a crucial moment in his business. Suddenly from under the
fur came the fierce claw and made a dig to strike deep.
"To hell with you, you d----d ----! I know you and your d----d sort--I
know what you want, and you'll get it in one minute. Out of my place, or
I'll pitch you in the gutter or into a worse hole yet!" He made a
gesture with one hand such as a cat makes with its claws out.
A big man with a hard gleam in his eye moved along the edge of the bar,
his face stolid and his eyes on the newcomer, while the throng fell back
suddenly and left the girl standing alone with a little space about her,
her face pale, and her mouth drawn close under the unexpected assault.
In another second she would, without doubt, have been thrown out of the
place, or possibly borne off to that worse fate with which she had been
threatened. But from the throng to her side stepped out a short,
broad-shouldered man, with a sodden face.
"Speak her soft, Galley, ---- ---- you! You know who she is! That is the
Angel of the Lost Children. Speak her soft or ---- ---- you! you'll have
to throw me out, too." The sodden face took on suddenly a resolution
that gave the rough a look of power, the broad shoulders were those of
an athlete, and the steady eye was that of a man to be reckoned
with--and such was "Red Talman" when aroused.
[Illustration: "Speak her soft, Galley."]
The name he had given was repeated over the throng by many, doubtless,
who had not heard of her, but there were others who knew, and told of
the work that Eleanor Leigh had been doing in quarters where any other
woman of her class and kind had never showed her face; of help here and
there; a hand lent to lift a fallen girl; of succor in some form or
another when all hope appeared to be gone.
It was a strange champion who had suddenly stepped forward into the
arena to protect her, but the girl felt immediately that she was safe.
She turned to her champion.
"I thank you," she said simply. "If you wish to help me, help me get
hold of this poor girl whom I have come for. Ask him to let me see her,
if only for one moment, and I may save her a life of misery."
The man turned to the proprietor. "Why don't you let her see the girl?"
he said.
Gallagin scowled at him or winked, it could scarcely be told which.
"What the ---- is it to you? Why can't you keep your mouth for your own
business instead of interfering with other folks? You have seen trouble
enough doing that before."
"Let her see the girl."
"What business is it of yours whether I do or not?"
"Just this--that when I was away and my wife was starvin', and you never
givin' her nothin', and my little gal was dyin', this here lady came
there and took care of 'em--and that's what makes it my business. I
don't forgit one as helped me, and you know it."
"Well, I'll tell you this, there ain't no gal of that name here. I don't
know what she's talkin' about."
"Oh! Come off! Let her see the gal."
"You go up there and look for yourself," said the proprietor. "Take her
with you if you want to and keep her there."
"Shut your mouth, d----n you!" said Talman. He turned to Miss Leigh.
"She ain't here, lady. He'd never let me go up there if she was there.
But I'll help you find her if you'll tell me about her. You can go
home now. I'll see you safe."
"I am not afraid," said the girl. "My carriage is not far off," and with
a pleasant bow and a word of renewed supplication to the proprietor,
whose eye was resting on her with a curious, malign expression, she
turned and passed back through the room, with her gaze straight ahead of
her, while every eye in the room was fastened on her; and just behind
her walked the squatty figure of Red Talman. A few doors off a carriage
waited, and as she reached the door she turned and gave him the name of
the girl she was seeking, with a little account of the circumstances of
her disappearance and of her reason for thinking she might be at
Gallagin's place. She held out her hand to the man behind her.
"I don't know your name or what you alluded to, but if I can ever help
any of your friends I shall be very glad to do what I can for them."
"My name's Talman. You've already done me a turn."
"'Talman!' 'Red--'! Are you the father of my little girl?"
"That's me."
"What I said just now I mean. If you want help, let me know, or go and
see Mr. Marvel, the preacher, on the West side--you know him--and you
will get it. And if you can find anything of that poor girl I shall be
eternally grateful to you. Good-night."
"Good-night, ma'am."
The man watched the carriage until it had disappeared around the corner
and then he returned to the saloon. He walked up to the bar, and
Gallagin advanced to meet him.
"If you are lyin' to me," he said, "you better not let me know, but you
better git that gal out of your place and into her home, or the first
thing you know there will be a sign on that door."
The other gave a snarl.
"I am puttin' you wise," said Talman. "There's trouble brewing. That's
big folks lookin' for her."
"I guess Coll McSheen is somethin' in this town still. But for him you
wouldn' be walkin' around."
"But for--! He's a has-been," said Talman. "He's shot his bolt."
"You ought to know," sneered Gallagin.
"I do."
"That the reason you take no more jobs?"
"It's a good one."
"Have a drink," said Gallagin, with a sudden change of manner, and he
did him the honor to lift a bottle and put it on the bar.
"I ain't drinkin'. I've got work to do."
"Who's your new owner?"
"Never mind, he's a man. Send the gal home or you'll be pulled before
twenty-four hours."
"You're runnin' a Sunday-school, ain't you?"
"No, but I'm done workin' for some folks. That's all. So long. Git her
out of your house if she's here. Git her out of your house."
He walked down the room, and as he passed a table the big man with the
two women accosted him.
"Who's your friend?" he asked with a sneer. It was Wringman, who having
finished his labors for the day in proving to famished strikers how much
better off they were than formerly, was now refreshing himself in one of
his favorite haunts, at his favorite occupation.
Talman stopped and looked at him quietly, then he said: "That man up
there"--with his thumb over his shoulder he pointed toward the
bar--"that man there has been a friend of mine in the past and he can
ask me questions that I don't allow folks like you to ask me. See? I
have known a man to git his neck broke by buttin' too hard into other
folks' business. See?"
Wringman, with an oath, started to get out of his chair, but his
companions held him down, imploring him to be quiet, and the next moment
the big bouncer from the bar was standing beside the table, and after a
word with him Talman made his way through the crowd and walked out of
the door.
The bar-keeper beckoned to his bouncer and the two held a muttered
conference at the end of the bar. "He's gittin' too big for his
breeches," said the bar-keeper as he turned away. "He'll git back there
if he fools with me and pretty quick too."
XXXI
JOHN MARVEL'S RAID
Had any one of the many detectives who were engaged in all sorts of
work, legitimate and otherwise, in the limits of that great city, been
watching among the half-sodden group of loafers and night-walkers who
straggled through the side street on which opened the "Ladies' Entrance"
of Mr. Gallagin's establishment along toward the morning hours, he might
have seen a young woman brought from the door of the "ladies' entrance,"
supported by two persons, one a man and one a woman, and bodily lifted
into a disreputable looking hack of the type known as a "night-hawk,"
while the dingy passers-by laughed among themselves and discussed how
much it had taken to get the young woman as drunk as that. But there was
no detective or other officer on that street at that hour, and but for
the fact that a short, squatty man, nursing a grievance against an old
pal of his, and turning over in his mind the unexpected kindness of a
young woman and a threadbare preacher in an hour when all the rest of
the world--even his pals in iniquity--appeared to have turned against
him, was walking through the street with a dim idea of beginning a
quarrel with the man who had deserted him, the destination of the
drunken woman might never have been known. Red Talman's heart, however,
callous as it was, foul with crimes too many and black to catalogue, had
one single spot into which any light or feeling could penetrate. This
was the secret corner, sacred to the thought of his one child, a little
girl who alone of all the world truly thought him a good man. For John
Marvel, who had helped his wife and child when he lay in prison under
long sentence, and had been kind to him, he entertained a kindly
feeling, but for the young lady who had taken his little girl and taught
her and made her happy when the taunts of other children drove her from
the public school, he had more than a liking. She and John Marvel alone
had treated him in late years as a man and a friend, and a dim hope
began to dawn in his mind that possibly he might yet be able to save his
girl from the shame of ever truly knowing what he had been.
So, when the man, with his hat over his eyes, who had helped put the
young woman in the carriage, re-entered the house and the drunken woman
was driven off with her companion, Red Talman, after a moment of
indecision, turned and followed the cab. He was not able to keep up with
it, as, though the broken-kneed horses went at a slow gait, they soon
outdistanced him, for he had to be on the watch for officers; but he
knew the vehicle, and from the direction it took he suspected its
destination. He turned and went back toward Gallagin's. When he reached
the narrow, ill-lighted street, on which the side entrance opened, he
slipped into the shadow at a corner and waited. An hour later the hack
returned, a woman got out of it and, after a short altercation with the
driver, ran across the pavement and entered the door. As the hack
turned, Red Talman slipped out of the shadow and walked up to the front
wheel.
"Which way you goin'?" he asked the driver, who recognized him.
"Home," he said.
"Gimme a ride?"
"Git up." He mounted beside him and drove with him to a dirty saloon in
a small street at some little distance, where he treated him and let him
go. A half-hour afterward he rang the bell of the family hotel which I
had visited with an officer the day before, and asked to see the woman
of the house. She could not be seen, the woman said who opened the door.
"Well, give her this message, then. Tell her that Galley says to take
good care of the girl that he just sent around here and to keep her
dark."
"Which one?" demanded the woman.
"The one as was doped, that come in the hack."
"All right."
"That's all," said Talman, and walked off.
The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed down through the
dark street. How should he use his information? Hate, gratitude, and the
need for money all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a
feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his understrapper,
Gallagin. They had deserted him in his hour of need and he had come near
being hanged for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen's power had
kept him quiet. The desire for revenge and the feeling of gratitude
worked together. But how should he use his knowledge? It behooved him to
be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel Gallagin were powerful
forces in the world in which he moved. They could land him behind the
bars in an hour if they worked together. At last he solved it!
He would go to a man who had always been kind to him and his. Thus it
was, that just before light that morning John Marvel was awakened by a
knock on his door. A man was below who said a sick person needed his
services. When he came down into the street in the dim light of the
dawning day, there was a man waiting in the shadow. He did not recognize
him at first, but he recalled him as the man told the object of his
visit at such an hour, and John was soon wide-awake. Still he could
scarcely believe the story he was told.
"Why, she can't be there," he protested. "A friend of mine was there to
look for her day before yesterday with the police, and she was not
there."
"She is there now, and if you pull the place you'll get her all right,"
asserted the other.
"I'll go there myself."
"No use goin' by yourself."
"I'll get the police----"
"The police!" The other laughed derisively. "They don't go after the Big
Chief's friends--not when he stands by 'em."
"The 'Big Chief'?"
"Coll McSheen."
"Mr. McSheen!"
"He's _it_!"
"It? What? I don't understand."
"Well, don't bring me into this."
"I will not."
"He's at the bottom of the whole business. He's the lawyer 't gives the
dope and takes care of 'em. He owns the place--'t least, Mick Raffity
and Gallagin and Smooth Ally own the places; and he owns them. He knows
all about it and they don't turn a hand without him. Oh! I know him--I
know 'em all!"
"You think this is the girl the lady was looking for?"
"I don't know. I only know she went there, and Gallagin showed his
teeth, and then I called him down and got the gal out. I skeered him."
"Well, we'll see."
"Well, I must be goin'. I've told you. Swear you won't bring me into it.
Good-night."
"I will not."
The man gazed down the street one way, then turned and went off in the
other direction. John was puzzled, but a gleam of light came to him.
Wolffert! Wolffert was the man to consult. What this man said was just
what Wolffert had always insisted on: that "the White Slave traffic" was
not only the most hideous crime now existing on earth, but that it was
protected and promoted by men in power in the city, that it was, indeed,
international in its range. He remembered to have heard him say that a
law had been passed to deal with it; but that such law needed the force
of an awakened public conscience to become effective.
Thus it was, that that morning Wolffert was aroused by John Marvel
coming into his room. In an instant he was wide-awake, for he, too, knew
of the disappearance of Elsa, and of our fruitless hunt for her.
"But you are sure that this woman is Elsa?" he asked as he hurriedly
dressed.
"No--only that it is some one."
"So much the better--maybe."
An hour later Wolffert and John Marvel were in a lawyer's office in one
of the great new buildings of the city, talking to a young lawyer who
had recently become a public prosecutor, not as a representative of the
city, but of a larger power, that of the nation. He and Wolffert were
already friends, and Wolffert had a little while before interested him
in the cause to which he had for some time been devoting his powers. It
promised to prove a good case, and the young attorney was keenly
interested. The bigger the game, the better he loved the pursuit.
"Who's your mysterious informant, Mr. Marvel?" he asked.
"That I cannot tell you. He is not a man of good character, but I am
sure he is telling me the truth."
"We must make no mistakes--we don't want these people to escape, and the
net will catch bigger fish, I hope, than you suspect. Why not tell?"
"I cannot."
"Well, then I shall have to get the proof in some other way. I will act
at once and let you hear from me soon. In fact, I have a man on the case
now. I learned of it yesterday from my cousin, you know. She is deeply
interested in trying to break up this vile business, and a part of what
you say I already knew. But the clews lead to bigger doors than you
dream of."
John and Wolffert came away together and decided on a plan of their own.
Wolffert was to come to see me and get Langton interested in the case,
and John was to go to see Langton to send him to me. He caught Langton
just as he was leaving his house to come to my office and walked a part
of the way back with him, giving him the facts he had learned. He did
not know that Langton was already on the case, and the close-mouthed
detective never told anything.
When they parted, Langton came to my office, and together we went to the
district attorney's, who, after a brief talk, decided to act at once,
and accordingly had warrants issued and placed in the hands of his
marshal.
"I have been trying for some time to get at these people," he said, "and
I have the very man for the work--an officer whom Coll McSheen turned
out for making trouble for the woman who keeps that house."
Aroused by my interest in the Loewens and by what Langton had told me of
Miss Leigh's daring the night before, I secured the marshal's consent to
go along with them, the district attorney having, indeed, appointed me a
deputy marshal for the occasion.
The marshal's face had puzzled me at first, but I soon recognized him as
the officer I had met once while I watched a little child's funeral.
"They were too many for me," he said in brief explanation. "Mrs. Collis
had me turned out. She had a pull with the Big Chief. And when I went
for his friend, Smooth Ally, he bounced me. But I'm all right now, Mr.
Semmes knows me, and Coll McSheen may look out. I know him."
I do not know what might have happened had we been a little later in
appearing on the scene. As, after having sent a couple of men around to
the back of the block, we turned into the street we saw three or four
men enter the house as though in a hurry. We quickened our steps, but
found the door locked, and the voices within told that something unusual
was going on. The high pitched voice of a woman in a tirade and the low
growls of men came to us through the door, followed by the noise of a
scuffle and the smashing of furniture; a thunderous knock on the door,
however, brought a sudden silence.
As there was no response either to the knock or ring, another summons
even more imperative was made, and this time a window was opened above,
a woman thrust her head out and in a rather frightened voice asked what
was wanted. The reply given was a command to open the door instantly,
and as the delay in obeying appeared somewhat unreasonable, a different
method was adopted. The door was forced with an ease which gave me a
high idea of the officer's skill. Within everything appeared quiet, and
the only circumstance to distinguish the house from a rather tawdry
small hotel of a flashy kind was a man and that man, John Marvel, with a
somewhat pale face, his collar and vest torn and a reddish lump on his
forehead, standing quietly in the doorway of what appeared to be a
sitting-room where the furniture had been upset, and the woman whom I
had formerly seen when I visited the place with a police officer,
standing at the far end of the hall in a condition of fright bordering
on hysterics. I think I never saw men so surprised as those in our party
were to find a preacher there. It was only a moment, however, before the
explanation came.
"She's here, I believe," said John, quietly, "unless they have gotten
her away just now."
His speech appeared to have unchained the fury of the woman, for she
swept forward suddenly like a tornado, and such a blast of rage and
abuse and hate I never heard pour from a woman's lips. Amid tears and
sobs and savage cries of rage, she accused John Marvel of every crime
that a man could conceive of, asserting all the while that she herself
was an innocent and good woman and her house an absolutely proper and
respectable home. She imprecated upon him every curse and revenge which
she could think of. I confess that, outraged as I was by the virago's
attack, I was equally surprised by John Marvel's placidness and the
officer's quiet contempt. The only thing that John Marvel said was:
"There were some men here just now."
"Liar! Liar! Liar!" screamed the woman. "You know you lie. There is not
a man in this house except that man, and he came here to insult me--he
who comes here all the time--you know you do, ---- ---- ----!"
"Where are the men?" demanded the marshal quietly, but he got no answer
except her scream of denial.
"They were after me," said John, "but when you knocked on the door they
ran off."
Another outpour of denial and abuse.
"Come on, men," said the marshal.
John Marvel had been troubled by no such scruples as had appeared to me.
He was not afraid for his reputation as I had been for mine. And on his
way home he had had what he felt to be, and what, far be from me to say
was not, a divine guidance. A sudden impulse or "call" as he termed it,
had come to him to go straight to this house, and, having been admitted,
he demanded the lost girl. The woman in charge denied vehemently that
such a girl had ever been there or that she knew anything of her,
playing her part of outraged modesty with a great show of sincerity. But
when Marvel persisted and showed some knowledge of the facts, she took
another tack and began to threaten him. He was a preacher, she said, and
she would ruin him. She would call in the police, and she would like to
see how it would look when an account came out in the newspapers next
morning of his having visited what he thought a house of ill repute. She
had friends among the police, and bigger friends even than the police,
and they would see her through.
John quietly seated himself. A serene and dauntless resolution shone
from his eyes. "Well, you had better be very quick about it," he said,
"for I have already summoned officers and they will be here directly."
Then the woman weakened and began to cringe. She told him the same story
that she had told me and the policeman when we had called before. A
young woman had come there with a gentleman whom she called her husband,
but she would not let her stay because she suspected her, etc., etc.
"Why did you suspect her?"
"Because, and because, and because," she explained. "For other reasons,
because the man was a foreigner."
John Marvel, for all his apparent heaviness, was clear-headed and
reasonable. He was not to be deceived, so he quietly sat and waited.
Then the woman had gone, as she said, to call the police, but, as was
shown later, she had called not the police, but Gallagin and Mick
Raffity and the man who stood behind and protected both of these
creatures and herself, and the men who had come in response had been not
officers of the police, but three scoundrels who, under a pretence of
respectability, were among the most dangerous instruments used by Coll
McSheen and his heelers. Fortunately for John Marvel we had arrived in
the nick of time. All this appeared later.
Unheeding her continued asseverations and vituperation, the marshal
proceeded to examine the house. The entire lower floor was searched
without finding the woman. In the kitchen below, which was somewhat
elaborate in its appointments, a number of suspiciously attired and more
than suspicious looking young women were engaged, apparently, in
preparing to cook, for as yet the fire was hardly made, and in scrubbing
industriously. Up-stairs a number more were found. For the moment
nothing was said to them, but the search proceeded. They were all
manifestly in a state of subdued excitement which was painful to see, as
with disheveled hair, painted faces and heaving bosoms, they pretended
to be engaged in tasks which manifestly they had rarely ever attempted
before. Still there was no sign of Elsa, and as the proprietor declared
that we had seen every room except that in which her sick daughter was
asleep, it looked as though Elsa might not have been there after all.
"Let us see your daughter," said the officer.