I--THE DOOR ON THE LANE
WAS that a shadow cast by the projection of the door porch out there
across the street, or was it _more_ than a shadow? It was true that, to
a remarkable degree, one's eyes became accustomed to the murk, almost
akin to blackness, of the ill-lighted street; but the mind did not
accommodate itself so readily--a long and sustained vigil, the brain
spurred into abnormal activity and under tense strain, produced a
mental quality of vision that detracted from, rather than augmented, the
dependence to be placed upon the physical organs of sight. It peopled
space with its own imaginations; it created, rather than descried. Dave
Henderson shook his head in grim uncertainty. He could not be sure what
it was out there. With the black background of the unlighted room behind
him he could not be seen at the window by any one on the street, which
was two stories below, and he had been watching here since it had grown
dark. In that time he had seen a dozen shadows that he could have sworn
were not shadows--and yet they were no more than that after all. He was
only sure of one thing--that out there somewhere, perhaps nowhere within
eye range of his window, perhaps even half a block away, but somewhere,
some one was watching. He had been sure of that during every hour of his
new-found freedom, since he had reached 'Frisco that noon. He had been
sure of it intuitively; but he had failed signally to identify any one
specifically as having dogged or followed him.
Freedom! He laughed a little harshly. There weren't any stone walls any
more; this window in front of him wasn't grated, nor the door of the
room steel-barred, nor out there in the corridor was there any uniformed
guard--and so it was freedom.
The short, harsh laugh was on his lips again. Freedom! It was a curious
freedom, then! He could walk at will out there in the streets--within
limits. But he did not dare go yet to that shed where Mrs. Tooler's old
pigeon-cote was. The money probably wasn't there anyhow--Millman almost
certainly had won the first trick and had got away with it; but it was
absolutely necessary that he should be sure.
He had freedom; but he had dared go nowhere to procure a steel jimmy,
for instance, or a substitute for a steel jimmy, with which to force
that shed door; nor had he dared to go anywhere and buy a revolver with
which to arm himself, and of which he stood desperately in need. He had
only a few dollars, but he knew where, under ordinary circumstances, he
could obtain those things without any immediate outlay of money--only
it was a moral certainty that every move he made was watched. If he
procured, say, a chisel, if he procured, say, a revolver, he was not
fool enough to imagine such facts would be hidden long from those who
watched. They would be suspicious facts. It was his play now to
create no suspicion. He could make no move until he had definitely and
conclusively identified and placed those who were watching him; and
then, with that point settled, it should not be very hard to throw the
watchers off the track long enough to enable him to visit Mrs. Tooler's
pigeon-cote, and, far more important, his one vital objective now, old
Tony Lomazzi's friend--Capriano.
His jaws locked. He meant to force that issue tonight, even if he could
not discriminate between shadows and realities out there through the
window! He had a definite plan worked out in his mind--including a visit
to Square John Kelly's. He hadn't been to Square John's yet. To have
gone there immediately on reaching San Francisco would have been a fool
play. It would have been, not only risky for himself, but risky for
Square John; and he had to protect Square John from the searching and
pertinent questions that would then have certainly ensued. He was going
there to-night, casually, as simply to one of many similar places--that
was part of his plan!
And now he smiled in mingled bitterness and menace. The underworld had
complimented him once on being the possessor of potentialities that
could make of him the slickest crook in the United States. He had not
forgotten that. The underworld, or at least a section of it in the
persons of Baldy Vickers and his gang, was leagued against him now, as
well as the police. He would strive to merit the underworld's encomium!
He turned suddenly away from the window, walked in the darkness to the
table in the center of the room, and, groping for his hat, made his way
to the door. He had not expected much from this vigil at the window, but
there had always been the possibility that it would be productive, and
the earlier hours of the evening could have been employed in no better
way. It was dark enough now to begin his night's work in earnest. It
must be between half-past nine and ten o'clock.
There was a dim light in the corridor, but, dim though it was, it did
not hide the ragged, threadbare state of the carpet on the hallway and
stairs, nor the lack of paint, or even of soap and water, on doors and
woodwork. Pelatt's Hotel made no pretentious claims. It was as shabby as
the shabby quarter in which it was located, and as shabby as the shabby
patrons to whom it catered. But there were not many places where a man
with close-cropped hair and wearing black clothes of blatant prison cut
could go, and he had known Pelatt in the old days, and Pelatt, in lieu
of baggage, hadn't demanded any cash in advance--he had even advanced
Dave Henderson a little cash himself.
Dave Henderson reached the ground floor, and gained the street through a
small, dingy office that was for the moment deserted. He paused here
for an instant, the temptation strong upon him to cross the street and
plunge into those shadows at the side of that porch just opposite
to him. His lips grew tight. The temptation was strong, almost
overpoweringly strong. He would much rather fight that way!
And then he shrugged his shoulders, and started along the street. Since
he had left the penitentiary, he had not given the slightest sign that
he had even a suspicion he was being watched; and, more than ever, he
could not afford to do so now. There were two who could play at the game
of laying traps! And, besides, the chances were a thousand to one that
there were nothing but shadows over there; and there were the same odds
that some one who was not a shadow would see him make the tell-tale
investigation. He could not afford to take a chance. He could not afford
to fail now. He had to identify beyond question of doubt the man, or
men, who were on his trail, if there were any; or, with equal certainty,
establish it as a fact that he was letting what he called his intuition
run away with him.
There came a grim smile to his lips, as he went along. Intuition wasn't
all he had to guide him, was it? Barjan had not minced words in making
it clear that he would be watched; and Bookie Skarvan had made an
even more ominous threat! Who was it tonight, then--the police, or the
underworld, or both?
He had given no sign that he had any suspicions. He had gone to Pelatt's
openly; after that, in an apparently aimless way, as a man almost
childishly interested in the most trivial things after five years of
imprisonment, he had roamed about the streets that afternoon.
But his wanderings had not been entirely aimless! He had located Nicolo
Capriano's house--and, strangely enough, his wanderings had quite
inadvertently taken him past that house several times! It was in a
shabby quarter of the city, too. Also, it was a curious sort of
house; that is, it was a curious sort of house when compared with its
neighbors. It was one of a row of frame houses in none too good repair,
and it was the second house from the corner--the directory had supplied
him with the street and number. The front of the house differed in
no respect from those on each side of it; it was the rear that had
particularly excited his attention. He had not been able to investigate
it closely, of course, but it bordered on a lane, and by walking down
the cross street one could see it. It had an extension built on that
reached almost to the high fence at the edge of the lane, and the
extension, weather-beaten in appearance, looked to be almost as old as
the house itself. Not so very curious, after all, except that no other
house had that extension--and except that, in view of the fact that
one Nicolo Capriano lived there, it was at least suggestive. Its back
entrance was extremely easy of access!
Dave Henderson turned abruptly in through the door of a saloon, and,
leaning against the bar--well down at the far end where he could both
see and be seen every time the door was opened--ordered a drink.
He had thought a good deal about Nicolo Capriano in the two months since
old Tony Lomazzi had ended his life sentence. He hadn't “got” it all at
the moment when the old bomb-thrower had died. It had been mostly old
Tony himself who was in his thoughts then, and the reference to Capriano
had seemed no more than just a kindly thought on old Tony's part for a
friend who had no other friend on earth. But afterwards, and not many
hours afterwards, it had all taken on a vastly different perspective.
The full significance of Tony's words had come to him, and this in
turn had stirred his memories of earlier days in San Francisco; and he
remembered Nicolo Capriano.
The barkeeper slid a bottle and whisky glass toward him. Dave Henderson
half turned his back to the street door, resting his elbow negligently
on the bar. He waited for a moment until the barkeeper's attention
was somewhat diverted, then his fingers cupped around the small glass,
completely hiding it; and the bottle, as he raised it in the other hand,
was hidden from the door by the broad of his back. He poured out a
few drops--sufficient to rob the glass of its cleanness. The barkeeper
looked around. Dave Henderson hastily set the bottle down, like a child
caught in a misdemeanor, hastily raised the glass to his lips, threw
back his head, and gulped. The barkeeper scowled. It was the trick of
the saloon vulture--not only a full glass, but a little over for good
measure, when, through practice, the forefinger and thumb became a sort
of annex to the rim. Dave Henderson stared back in sullen defiance,
set the glass down on the bar, drew the back of his hand across his
lips--and went out.
He hesitated a moment outside the saloon, as though undecided which way
to go next, while his eyes, under the brim of his slouch hat, which was
pulled forward almost to the bridge of his nose, scanned both sides of
the street and in both directions. He moved on again along the block.
Yes, he remembered Nicolo Capriano. Capriano must be a pretty old man
now--as old as Tony Lomazzi.
There had been a great deal of talk about a gang of Italian
black-handers in those days, when he, Dave Henderson, was a boy, and
Capriano had been a sort of hero-bandit, he remembered; and there had
been a mysterious society, and bomb-throwing, and a reign of terror
carried on that had paralyzed the police. They had never been able to
convict Nicolo Capriano, though it was common knowledge that the police
believed him to be the brains and front of the organization. Always
something, or some one, had stood between Capriano and prison bars--like
Tony Lomazzi, for instance!
He did not remember Lomazzi's trial, nor the details of the particular
crime for which Lomazzi was convicted; but that, perhaps, had put an end
to the gang's work. Certainly, Capriano's activities were a thing of the
past; it was all a matter of years ago. Capriano was never heard of now;
but even if the man through force of circumstances, was obliged to live
a retired existence, that in no way robbed him of his cleverness, nor
made him less valuable as a prospective ally.
Capriano was the one man who could help him. Capriano must still possess
underground channels that would be of incalculable value in aiding him
to track Millman down.
His fists, hidden in the side pockets of his coat, clenched fiercely.
That was it--Millman! There wasn't a chance but that Millman had taken
the money from the pigeon-cote. He would see, of course, before many
more hours; but there wasn't a chance. It was Millman he wanted now.
The possibility that had occurred to him in prison of Millman being a
stool-pigeon, or even one of the police, no longer held water, for if
the money had been recovered it would be publicly known. It hadn't been
recovered. Therefore, it was Millman he must find, and it was Nicolo
Capriano's help he wanted. But he must protect Capriano. He would owe
Capriano that--that it should not be known there was anything between
Nicolo Capriano and Dave Henderson. Well, he was doing that now, wasn't
he? Neither Square John Kelly nor Nicolo Capriano would in any way be
placed under suspicion through his visits to them to-night!
The saloons appeared to be Dave Henderson's sole attraction in life now.
He went from one to another, and he passed none by, and he went nowhere
else--and he left a trail of barkeepers' scowls behind him. One drink
in each place, with five fingers curled around the glass, hiding the few
drops the glass actually contained, while it proclaimed to the barkeeper
the gluttonous and greedy imposition of the professional bum, wore out
his welcome as a customer; and if the resultant scowl from behind the
bar was not suggestive enough, it was augmented by an uncompromising
request to “beat it!” He appeared to be possessed of an earnest
determination to make a night of it--and also of an equally earnest
determination to get as much liquor for as little money as possible.
And the record he left behind him bore unimpeachable testimony to that
purpose!
He appeared to grow a little unsteady on his feet; he was even lurching
quite noticeably when, an hour later, the lighted windows of Square
John Kelly's Pacific Coral Saloon, his first real objective, flung an
inviting ray across his path. He stood still here full in the
light, both of the window and a street lamp, and shook his head in
well-simulated grave and dubious inebriety. He began to fumble in his
pockets. He fished out a dime from one, and a nickel from another--a
further and still more industrious search apparently proved abortive.
For a long time he appeared to be absorbed in a lugubrious contemplation
of the two coins that lay in the palm of his hand--but under his hat
brim his eyes marked a man in a brown peaked cap who was approaching the
door of the saloon. This was the second time in the course of the last
half hour--since he had begun to show signs that the whisky was getting
the better of him--that he had seen the man in the brown peaked cap!
There were swinging wicker doors to the saloon, and the man pushed these
open, and went in--but he did not go far. Dave Henderson's lips thinned
grimly. The bottom of the swinging doors was a good foot and a half
above the level of the sidewalk--but, being so far gone in liquor,
he would hardly be expected to notice the fact that the man's boots
remained visible, and that the man was standing there motionless!
Dave Henderson took the street lamp into his confidence.
“Ol' Kelly,” said Dave Henderson thickly. “Uster know Kelly--Square
John. Gotta have money. Whatsh matter with touching Kelly? Eh--whatsh
matter with that?”
He lurched toward the swinging doors. The boots retreated suddenly.
He pushed his way through, and stood surveying the old-time familiar
surroundings owlishly. The man with the brown cap was leaning against
the bar close to the door; a half dozen others were ranged farther down
along its length; and at its lower end, lounging against the wall of the
little private office, was a squat, paunchy man with a bald head, and
florid face, and keen gray eyes under enormously bushy gray eyebrows.
It was Kelly, just as Kelly used to be--even to the massive gold watch
chain stretched across the vest, with the massive gold fraternity emblem
dangling down from the center.
“'Ello, Kelly!” Dave Henderson called out effusively, and made rapid,
though somewhat erratic progress across the room to Kelly's side.
“Glad t'see you, ol' boy!” He gave Kelly no chance to say anything. He
caught Kelly's hand, and pumped it up and down. “Sure, you know me!
Dave Henderson--ol' days at the track, eh? Been away on a vacation.
Come back--broke.” His voice took on a drunkenly confidential tone--that
could be heard everywhere in the saloon, “Shay, could I see you a minute
in private?”
A man at the bar laughed. Dave Henderson wheeled belligerently. Kelly
intervened.
Perplexity, mingling with surprise and disapproval, stamped Kelly's
florid face.
“Yes, I know you well enough; but I didn't expect to see you like
this, Dave!” he said shortly. He jerked his hand toward the door of the
private office. “I'll talk to you in there.”
Dave Henderson entered the office.
Kelly shut the door behind them.
“You're drunk!” he said sternly.
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“No,” he said quietly. “I'm followed. Do you think I'm a fool, John? Did
you ever see me drunk? They're shadowing me, that's all; and I had to
get my money from you, and keep your skirts clean, and spot the shadow,
all at the same time.”
Kelly's jaw sagged helplessly.
“Good God!” he ejaculated heavily. “Dave, I------”
“Don't let's talk, John--now,” Dave Henderson interrupted. “There isn't
time. It won't do for me to stay in here too long. 'You've got my money
ready, haven't you?”
Kelly nodded--still a little helplessly.
“Yes,” he said; “it's ready. I've been looking for you all afternoon. I
knew you were coming out today.” He went over to a safe in the corner,
opened it, took out a long envelope, and handed the envelope to Dave
Henderson. “It's all there, Dave--and five years' interest, compounded.
A little over four thousand dollars--four thousand and fifteen, as near
as I could figure it. It's all in five-hundreds and hundreds, except the
fifteen; I didn't think you'd want to pack a big wad.”
“Good old Square John!” said Dave Henderson softly. He opened the
envelope, took out the fifteen dollars, shoved the large bills into his
pocket, tucked a five-dollar bill into another pocket, and held out the
remaining ten to Kelly. “Go out there and get me ten dollars from the
cash register, John, will you?” he said. “Let them see you doing it.
Get the idea? I'd like them to know you came across, and that I've got
something to spend.”
Kelly's eyes puckered in an anxious way, as they scrutinized Dave
Henderson's face; but the anxiety, it was obvious enough, was all for
Dave Henderson.
“You mean there's some one out there now?” he asked, as he moved toward
the door.
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson, with a grim little smile. “See if you know
that fellow with the brown peaked cap up at the front end of the bar.”
Kelly was gone a matter of two or three minutes. He came back and
returned the ten dollars to Dave Henderson.
“Know the man?” asked Dave Henderson.
“Yes,” said Kelly. “His name's Speen--he's a plain-clothesman.” He
shook his head in a troubled way, and suddenly laid both hands on Dave
Henderson's shoulders. “Dave, what are you going to do?”
Dave Henderson laughed shortly.
“Do you want to know?” He flung out the words in a sort of bitter gibe.
“Well, I'll tell you--in confidence. I'm going to blow the head off a
_friend_ of mine.”
Dave Henderson felt the hands on his shoulders tighten.
“What's the use, Dave?” said Square John Kelly quietly. “I suppose it
has something to do with that Tydeman wad; but what's the use? You've
got four thousand dollars. Why not start clean again? The other don't
pay, Dave, and----” He stopped.
Dave Henderson's face had hardened like flint.
“There's a good deal you don't know,” he said evenly. “And I guess the
less you know the safer you'll be. I owe you a lot, John; and the only
way I can square it now is to tell you to stand from under. What you
say, though I know you mean it, doesn't make any dint in five years of
hell. I've got a debt to pay, and I'm going to pay it. Maybe I'll see
you again--maybe I won't. But even a prison bird can say God bless you,
and mean it; and that's what I say to you. They won't have any
suspicions that there's anything of any kind between you and me; but
they'll naturally come here to see if they can get any information, when
that fellow Speen out there turns in his report. You can tell them you
advised me to start clean again, and you can tell them that I swear I
don't know where that hundred thousand dollars is. They won't believe
it, and you don't believe it. But let it go at that! I don't know what's
going to break loose, but you stand from under, John. I'm going now--to
get acquainted with Mr. Speen. It wouldn't look just right, in my
supposed condition, for you to let me have another drink in your place,
after having staked me; but I've got to make at least a bluff at it. You
stay here for a few minutes--and then come out and chase me home.” He
held out his hand, wrung Square John Kelly's in a hard grip, turned
abruptly away--and staggered out into the barroom.
Clutching his ten dollars in his hand, and glancing furtively back over
his shoulder every step or two, Dave Henderson neared the door. Here,
apparently reassured that his benefactor was not watching him, and
apparently succumbing to an irresistible temptation, he sidled up to the
bar--beside the man with the brown peaked cap.
“Kelly's all right--s'il right,” he confided thickly to the other. “Ol'
friend. Never turns down ol' friend in hard luck. Square John--betcher
life! Have a drink?”
“Sure!” said the man in the brown peaked cap.
The drink was ordered, and as Dave Henderson, talking garrulously,
poured out his whisky--a genuine glassful this time--he caught sight,
in the mirror behind the bar, and out of the corner of his eye, of Kelly
advancing down the room from the private office. And as he lifted his
glass, Kelly's hand, reaching from behind, caught the glass, and set it
back on the bar.
“You promised me you'd go home, and cut this out!” said Kelly in sharp
reproof. “Now, go on!” He turned on the detective. “Yes, and you, too!
Get out of here! You ought to know better! The man's had enough! Haven't
you got anything else to do than hang around bumming drinks? I know you,
and I've a mind to report you! Get out!”
Dave Henderson slunk out through the door without protest. On the
sidewalk the man with the brown peaked cap joined him.
“Kelly's sore.” Dave Henderson's tones were heavy with tolerant pity and
magnanimous forgiveness. “Ol' friend--be all right to-morrow. Letsh go
somewhere else for a drink. Whatsher shay?”
“Sure!” said the man in the brown peaked cap.
The detective was complacently agreeable to all suggestions. It was Dave
Henderson who acted as guide; and he began a circuit of saloons in a
direction that brought him sensibly nearer at each visit to the street
and house occupied by one Nicolo Capriano. In the same block with
Capriano's house he had noticed that there was also a saloon, and if
Capriano's house had an exit on the lane, so, likewise, it was logical
to presume, had the saloon. And that saloon now, barring intermediate
stops, was his objective. But he was in no hurry. There was one point on
which he had still to satisfy himself before he gave this man Speen the
slip in that saloon and, by the lane, gained the rear door of Nicolo
Capriano's house. He knew now that he was dealing with the police; but
was Speen detailed _alone_ to the case, or did Speen have assistance at
hand in the background--assistance enough, say, to have scared off any
move on the part of Bookie Skarvan's and Baldy Vickers' gang, of whom,
certainly, he had seen nothing as yet?
A half hour passed. Several saloons were visited. Dave Henderson no
longer cupped his hand around his glass. Having had nothing to start
with, he could drink frankly, and a shaky hand could be trusted to spill
any over-generous portions. They became confidential. He confided to
Speen what Speen already knew--that he, Dave Henderson, _was_ Dave
Henderson, and just out from the penitentiary. Speen, stating that his
name was Monahan, reciprocated with mendacious confidences that
implied he was puritanical in neither his mode of life nor his means
of livelihood--and began to throw out hints that he was not averse to a
share in any game that Dave Henderson might have on hand.
Dave Henderson got along very badly now between the various oases that
quenched his raging thirst. He leaned heavily on Speen, he stumbled
frequently, and, in stumbling, obtained equally frequent views of both
sides of the street behind him. No one seemed to be paying any attention
to his companion or himself, and yet once or twice he had caught
sight of skulking figures that, momentarily at least, had aroused his
suspicions. But in this neighborhood there were many skulking figures!
Again he could not be sure; but the saloon in Capriano's block was the
next one ahead now, and certainly nothing had transpired that would seem
to necessitate any change being made in his plans.
Speen, too, was feigning now a certain degree of intoxication. They
reached the saloon, reeled through the door arm in arm, and ranged up
alongside the bar.
Dave Henderson's eyes swept his surroundings, critical of every detail.
It was an unpleasant and dirty place; and the few loungers, some seated
at little tables, some hanging over the bar itself, were a hard and ugly
looking lot.
The clientele, however, interested Dave Henderson very little--at the
rear of the room, and but a few yards from the end of the bar, there was
an open door, disclosing a short passage beyond, that interested him a
great deal more! Beyond that passage was undoubtedly the back yard, and
beyond that again was the lane. He had no desire to harm Speen, none
whatever; but if any one of a dozen pretexts, that he might make to
elude the man for the moment or two that was necessary to gain the yard
unobserved, did not succeed, and Speen persisted in following him out
there into the yard--well, so much the worse for Speen, that was all!
He was arguing now with Speen, each claiming the right to pay for the
drink--but his mind was sifting through those dozen pretexts for the
most plausible one to employ. He kept on arguing. Customers slouched in
and out of the place; some sat down at the tables, some came to the bar.
One, a hulk of a man, unshaven, with bull-breadth shoulders, with nose
flattened over on one side of his cheek, stepped up to the bar beside
Speen. Speen's back was turned, but the man grinned hospitably at Dave
Henderson over Speen's shoulder, as he listened to the argument for a
moment.
“Put away your money, son, an' have a drink with me,” he invited.
Speen turned.
The grin on the battered face of the newcomer faded instantly, as he
stared with apparently sudden recognition into Speen's face; and a
black, ugly scowl spread over the already unhandsome features.
“Oh, it's _you_, is it?” he said hoarsely, and licked his lips. “By God,
you got a nerve to come down here--you have! You dirty police spy!”
Speen was evidently not easily stampeded. He eyed the other levelly.
“I guess you've got the wrong man, haven't you?” he returned coolly
enough. “My name's Monahan, and I don't know you.”
“You lie!” snarled the other viciously. “Your name's Speen! And you
don't know me--_don't you?_”
“No!” said Speen.
“You don't, eh?” The man thrust his face almost into Speen's. “You don't
remember a year ago gettin' me six months on a fake plant, either, I
suppose!”
“No!” said Speen.
“You don't, eh?” snarled the man again. “A hell of a bad memory you've
got, ain't you? Well, I'll fix it for you so's you won't forget me so
easy next time, and-----”
It came quick, without warning--before Dave Henderson could move. He
saw a great, grimy fist whip forward to the point of Speen's jaw, and he
caught a tiny reflected gleam of light from an ugly brass knuckleduster
on one of the fingers of the clenched fist; and Speen's knees seemed to
crumple up under him, and he went down in a heap to the floor.
Dave Henderson straightened up from the bar, a hard, grim smile twisting
across his lips. It had been a brutal act. Speen might be a policeman,
and Speen, lying there senseless, solved a certain little difficulty
without further effort on his, Dave Henderson's, part; but the brutality
of the act had him in its grip. There was a curious itching at his
finger tips for a clutch that would maul this already battered bruiser's
face beyond recognition. His eyes circled the room. The men at the
tables had risen to their feet; some were pushing forward, and one,
he saw over his shoulder, ran around the far end of the bar and
disappeared. Speen lay inert, a huddled thing on the floor, a crimson
stream spilling its way down over the man's white collar.
The twisted smile on Dave Henderson's lips deepened. The bruiser was
watching him like a cat, and there was a leer on the other's face that
seemed to possess some hidden significance. Well, perhaps he would
change that leer, with whatever its significance might be, into
something still more unhappy! He moved a few inches out from the bar. He
wanted room for arm-play now, and----
The street door opened. Four or five men were crowding in. He caught
a glimpse of a face among them that he knew--a little wizened face,
crowned with flaming red hair--Runty Mott.
And then the lights went out.
Quick as a lightning flash Dave Henderson dropped to his hands and
knees. There was a grunt above him, as though from the swing of a
terrific blow that, meeting with no resistance, had over-reached itself
in midair--then the forward lunge of a heavy body, a snarl, an oath,
as the bruiser stumbled over Dave Henderson's crouched form--and then
a crash, as Dave Henderson grappled, low down at the other's knees, and
the man went to the floor. But the other, for all his weight and bulk,
was lithe and agile, and his arms, flung out, circled and locked around
Dave Henderson's neck.
The place was in pandemonium. Feet scuffled; chairs and tables toppled
over in the darkness. Shouts, yells and curses made a din infernal. Dave
Henderson wrenched and tore at the arms around his neck. He saw it all
now--all. The police had trailed him; Baldy Vickers' gang had trailed
the police. The bruiser was one of the gang. They had to get rid of the
police, in the person of Speen, to cover their own trail again before
they got him, Dave Henderson. And they, too, had thought him drunk, and
an easy prey. With Speen unconscious from a quarrel that even Speen,
when he recovered, would never connect with its real purpose, they meant
to kidnap him, Dave Henderson, and get him away in the confusion without
any of the innocent bystanders in the place knowing what was going
on. That was why the lights had gone off--that man he had seen running
around the upper end of the room--he remembered now--the man had come
in just behind the bruiser--that accounted for the lights--they
wouldn't dare shoot--he had that advantage--dead, he wasn't any good to
them--they wanted that--hundred--thousand--dollars.
He was choking. Instead of arms, steel fingers had sunk into his throat.
He lunged out with all his strength. His fist met something that,
though it yielded slightly, brought a brutal twinge of pain across his
knuckles. His fist shot out again, whipped to its mark with everything
that was in him behind the blow; and it was the bruiser's face he hit.
He hit it again, and, over the mad fury that was upon him, he knew an
unholy joy as his blows crashed home.
The steel fingers around his throat relaxed and fell away. He staggered
to his feet.
A voice from somewhere close at hand spoke hoarsely:
“Scrag him, Mugsy! See that he's knocked cold before we carry him out!”
There was no answer from the floor.
Dave Henderson's lips were no longer twisted in a smile, they were
thinned and straight; he knew why there was no answer from the floor!
He crouched, gathering himself for a spring. Dark, shadowy forms were
crowding in around him. There was only one chance--the door now, the
rear door, and the lane! Voices growled and cursed, seemingly almost
in his ears. They had him hemmed against the bar without knowing it,
as they clustered around the spot where they expected he was being
strangled into unconsciousness on the floor.
“Mugsy, d'ye hear! Damn you, d'ye hear! Why don't you----”
Dave Henderson launched himself forward. A wild yell went up. Hands
clutched at him, and tore at his clothing, and struck at his face; forms
flung themselves at his shoulders, and clung around his legs. He shook
them off--and gained a few yards. He was fighting like a madman now--and
now the darkness was in his favor.
They came on again in a blind rush. The door could not be far away! He
stumbled over one of the small tables, recovered himself, and, snatching
up the table, whirled it by one of its legs in a sweep around his head.
There was a smash of impact that almost knocked the table from his
grasp--and, coincidentally, a scream of pain. It cleared a space about
him. He swung again, whirling the table around and around his head,
gaining impetus--and suddenly sent it catapulting from him full into the
shadowy forms in front of him, and, turning, made a dash for the end of
the room.
He reached the wall, and groped along it for the door. The door! Where
was it? He felt the warm, blood trickling down over his face. He did not
remember when that had happened! He could not see--but they would turn
on the lights surely now in an instant if they were not fools--and
he must find the door first or he was trapped--that was his only
chance--the place was a bedlam of hideous riot--curse the blood, it
seemed to be running into his eyes now--Runty Mott--if only he could
have settled with the skulking----
His fingers touched and felt around the jamb of the open door--and he
surged, panting, through the doorway. The short passage ended in another
door. He opened this, found the yard in front of him, dashed across it,
and hurled himself over the fence into the lane.
The uproar, the yells, the furious shouts from behind him seemed
suddenly to increase in volume. He ran the faster. They had turned the
lights on--and found him gone! From somewhere in the direction of the
street there came the shrill cheep-cheep of a patrolman's whistle. Yes,
he quite understood that, too--there would be a riot call pulled in a
minute, but that made little difference to him. It was the gangsters,
who were now probably pouring out of the saloon's back door in pursuit
of him, with whom he had to reckon. But he should be safe now--he was
abreast of Capriano's house, which he could distinguish even in the
darkness because the extension stuck out like some great, black looming
shadow from the row of other houses.
There was a gate here somewhere, or a door in the fence, undoubtedly;
but he had no time to hunt for gate or door, perhaps only to find it
locked! The fence was quicker and easier. He swung himself up, and
over--and, scarcely a yard away, found himself confronted with what
looked like an enclosed porch or vestibule to the Italian's back door.
He was quick now, but equally silent in his movements. From the
direction of the saloon, shouts reached him, the voices no longer
muffled, but as though they were out in the open--in the back yard of
the saloon perhaps, or perhaps by now in the lane itself. He stepped
inside the porch, and knocked softly on the door. He knocked again
and again. It seemed as though the seconds dragged themselves out into
immeasureable periods of time. He swept the blood out of his eyes once
more, and, his ears strained laneward, continued to knock insistently,
louder and louder.
A light footstep, hurried, sounded from within. It halted on the other
side of the closed door. He had a feeling that somehow, even through
that closed door, and even in the darkness, he was under inspection. The
next instant he was sure of it. Above his head a small incandescent
bulb suddenly flooded the porch with light, and fell full upon him as he
stood there, a ghastly object, he realized, with blood-stained face, and
torn and dishevelled clothes.
From behind the closed door came a girl's startled gasp of dismay and
alarm; from up the lane now unmistakably came the pound of racing feet.
“Quick!” whispered Dave Henderson hoarsely. “I'm from Tony Lomazzi. For
God's sake, put out that light!”
II--SANCTUARY
THE light in the porch went out. From within, as though with slow,
dubious hesitation, a key turned in the lock. The door opened slightly,
and from a dark interior the girl's voice reached Dave Henderson again.
“Tony Lomazzi sent you, you say!” she exclaimed in a puzzled way; and
then, a sudden apprehension in her voice: “You are all covered with
blood--what is the matter? What do you want?”
From the lane, the sound of pounding, racing feet seemed almost opposite
the Italian's porch now. Dave Henderson, without ceremony, pushed at the
door. It yielded, as the girl evidently retreated backward abruptly, and
he stepped inside, closed the door softly behind him, and, feeling for
the key, turned it swiftly in the lock. He could see nothing, but out of
the darkness near him came a sharp, quick-drawn intake of breath.
“I'm sorry!” said Dave Henderson quietly. “But it was a bit of a close
call. I'm not quite sure whether they are running after me, or running
from the police, but, either way, it would have been a little awkward if
I had been seen.”
She seemed to have regained her composure, for her voice, as she spoke
again, was as quiet and as evenly modulated as his own.
“What do you want?” she asked once more. “Why did Tony Lomazzi send you
here?”
He did not answer at once. From somewhere in the front of the house,
muffled, but still quite audible, there came the voices of two men--one
high-pitched, querulous, curiously short-breathed, the other with a
sort of monotonous, sullen whine in it. He listened automatically for
an instant, as his eyes searched around him. It was almost black inside
here as he stood with his back to the door, but, grown more accustomed
to the darkness now, he could make out a faint, blurred form, obviously
that of the girl, a few feet away from him.
“I want to see Nicolo Capriano,” he said.
It was her turn now to pause before she answered.
“Is it necessary?” she asked finally.
“To me--yes,” said Dave Henderson.
“My father has already had far too much excitement to-night,” she said
in a low voice. “He is a very sick man. There is some one with him now.
If you could give me the message it would be better. As for any help you
need, for you appear to be hurt, I will gladly attend to that myself.
You may be assured of that, if you come from Tony Lomazzi.”
She was Nicolo Capriano's daughter, then! It struck him as a passing
thought, though of no particular consequence, that she spoke excellent
English for an Italian girl.
“I'm afraid that won't do,” said Dave Henderson seriously. “It is
practically a matter of life and death to me to see Nicolo Capriano,
and----”
From the front of the house the querulous voice rose suddenly in a still
higher pitch:
“Teresa! Teresa!”
“Yes, I am coming!” the girl cried out; and then, hurriedly, to Dave
Henderson: “Wait here a moment. I will tell him. What is your name?”
Dave Henderson smiled a little queerly in the darkness.
“If he is alone when you tell him, it is Dave Henderson,” he said dryly.
“Otherwise, it is Smith--John Smith.”
She was gone.
He listened as her footsteps died away in the darkness; and then he
listened again at the door. There was still a great deal of commotion
out there in the lane, but certainly there was nothing to indicate that
he and Nicolo Capriano's back porch had in any way been suspected of
having had anything in common; it was, rather, as though the entire
saloon up there had emptied itself in haste into the lane, and was
running pell-mell in an effort to be anywhere but in that vicinity when
the police arrived. Well, so much the better! For the moment, at least,
he had evaded the trap set for him both by Bookie Skarvan's pack and
by the police--and the next move depended very largely upon Nicolo
Capriano, or, perhaps even more, upon this daughter of his, since
the old man, it seemed, was sick. The girl's name was apparently
Teresa--which mattered very little. What mattered a great deal more was
that she evidently had her wits about her--an inheritance possibly from
the old man, whose reputation, in his day, as one of the coolest
and shrewdest of those outside the pale of the law, was at least
substantiated by the fact that he had been able to stand off the police
for practically a lifetime.
Dave Henderson raised his hand, and felt gingerly over his right temple.
The blood had stopped flowing, but there was a large and well-defined
lump there. He did not remember at just what particular stage of the
fight that had happened. From his head, his hand felt over his clothing.
He nodded a little ruefully to himself. He had come off far from
scathless--his coat had almost literally been torn from his back.
Voices reached him again from the front of the house; he heard the girl
speaking quietly in Italian; he heard some response in the sullen whine
that he had remarked before; and then the street door opened and closed.
There was silence then for what seemed a long time, until finally he
caught the sound of the girl's step coming toward him again.
“My father will see you,” she said. “But I want to warn you again that
he is a very sick man--sicker than he imagines he is. It is his heart.”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
“Come with me, then,” she said tersely. “There is a door here--the
passage turns to the right. Can you see?”
It was a queer place--with its darkness, and its twisted passage! Quite
queer for so small and ordinary a dwelling--but, if rumor were true, it
had been queerer still in the years gone by! A grim smile crossed Dave
Henderson's lips, as he followed the shadowy form of his conductor. It
augured well, at all events! The surroundings at least bore out Nicolo
Capriano's record, which was a record much to be desired by a man in
his, Dave Henderson's, straits.
The light from an open door beyond the turn in the passage dispelled the
darkness. The girl was standing there now, motioning him to enter--but
suddenly, for a moment, he stood and stared at her. This was queer, too!
Everything about the place was queer! Somehow he had pictured in the
darkness an Italian girl, pretty enough perhaps in a purely physical
way, with gold rings in her ears, perhaps, such as the men wore, and
slatternly, with feet shod in coarse, thick boots; the only kind of an
Italian girl he had ever remembered having seen--a girl that hauled
at the straps of a hand-organ, while the man plodded along the streets
between the shafts. She wasn't like that, though--and he stared at her;
stared at the trim, lithe, daintily dressed little figure, stared at the
oval face, and the dark, steady, self-reliant eyes, and the wealth of
rich, black hair that crowned the broad, white forehead, and glinted
like silken strands, as the light fell upon it.
The color mounted in her cheeks.
And then, with a start, he pushed his hand across his eyes, and bit his
lips, and flushed a deeper red than hers.
Her eyes, that had begun to harden as they met his gaze, softened in
an instant, and she smiled. His confusion had been his apology, his
acquittal of any intended offense.
She motioned again to him to enter, and, as he stepped forward across
the threshold, she reached in and rested her hand on the doorknob.
“You can call when you need me, father,” she said---and closed the door
softly.
Dave Henderson's eyes swept the room with a swift, comprehensive glance;
and then held steadily on a pair of jet-black eyes, so black that
they seemed to possess no pupils, which were in turn fixed on him by a
strange-looking figure, lying on a quaint, old-fashioned, four-poster
bed across the room. He moved forward and took a chair at the bedside,
as the other beckoned to him.
So this was Nicolo Capriano! The man was propped upright in bed by means
of pillows that were supported by an inverted chair behind them; both
hands, very white, very blue under the nails of the long, slender
fingers, lay out-stretched before him on an immaculately white coverlet;
the man's hair was silver, and a white beard and mustache but partially
disguised the thin, emaciated condition of his face. But it was the eyes
that above all else commanded attention. They were unnaturally bright,
gleaming out from under enormously white, bushy eyebrows; and they were
curiously inscrutable eyes. They seemed to hold great depths beneath
which might smolder a passion that would leap without warning into
flame; or to hold, as they did now, a strange introspective stare,
making them like shuttered windows that gave no glimpse of the mind
within.
“I am Nicolo Capriano,” said the man abruptly, and in perfect English.
“My daughter tells me that you gave your name as Dave Henderson. The
name seems familiar. I have heard it somewhere. I remember, it seems to
me, a little matter of one hundred thousand dollars some five years ago,
for which a man by that name went to the penitentiary.”
Dave Henderson's eyes wandered for a moment around the room again. He
found himself wondering at the man's English--as he had at the girl's.
Subconsciously he was aware that the furnishings, though plain and
simple and lacking in anything ornate, were foreign and unusual, but
that the outstanding feature of the room was a sort of refreshing and
immaculate cleanliness--like the coverlet. He forced his mind back to
what Nicolo Capriano had said.
Were all his cards to go face up on the table for Nicolo Capriano to
see?
He had intended to make no more of a confidant of the other than was
absolutely necessary; but, equally, he had not expected to find in
Nicolo Capriano a physically helpless and bed-ridden man. It made a
difference--a very great difference! If Millman, for instance, had been
bed-ridden, it---- He caught himself smiling a little mirthlessly.
“That's me--Dave Henderson,” he said calmly.
The old Italian nodded his head.
“And the hundred thousand dollars has never been recovered,” he observed
shrewdly. “The police are interested in your movements, eh? It is for
that reason you have come to me, is it not so? And Tony Lomazzi foresaw
all this--and he sent you here?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson--and frowned suddenly. It was bothering him
again--the fact that this Italian and his daughter should speak English
as though it were their own tongue.
Nicolo Capriano nodded his head again. And then, astutely:
“Something is disturbing you, my young friend,” he said. “What is it?”
Dave Henderson straightened in his chair with a little start--and
laughed shortly. Very little, evidently, escaped Nicolo Capriano!
“It's not much,” he said. “Just that you and your daughter speak pretty
good English for Italians.”
Nicolo Capriano smiled softly.
“I should speak pretty good English,” he said; “and Teresa should speak
it even better. We both learned it as children. I, in a certain part of
London, as a boy; and Teresa here in San Francisco, where she was born.
Her mother was American, and, though I taught Teresa Italian, we always
spoke English while her mother was alive, and afterwards my daughter
seemed to think we should continue to do so.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“But you came from Lomazzi,” he prompted. “Tell me about Lomazzi. He is
well?”
“He is dead,” said Dave Henderson quietly.
The thin hands, outstretched before the other, closed with a quick
twitching motion--then opened, and the fingers began to pluck
abstractedly at the coverlet. There was no other sign of emotion, or
movement from the figure on the bed, except that the keen, black eyes
were veiled now by half closed lids.
“He died--fifteen years ago--when he went up there--for life”--the man
seemed to be communing with himself. “Yes, yes; he is dead--he has been
dead for fifteen years.” He looked up suddenly, and fixed his eyes with
a sharp, curiously appraising gaze on Dave Henderson. “You speak of
actual death, of course,” he said, in a low tone. “Do you know anything
of the circumstances?”
“It was two months ago,” Dave Henderson answered. “He was taken ill one
night. His cell was next to mine. He was my friend. He asked for me, and
the warden let me go to him. He died in a very few minutes. It was then,
while I was in the cell, that he whispered to me that I would need help
when I got out, and he told me to come to you, and to say that he sent
me.”
“And to the warden, and whoever else was in the cell, he said--nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano's eyes were hidden again; the long, slim fingers, with
blue-tipped nails, plucked at the coverlet. It was a full minute before
he spoke.
“I owe Tony Lomazzi a great debt,” he said slowly; “and I would like to
repay it in a little way by helping you since he has asked it; but it is
not to-day, young man, as it was in those days so long ago. For fifteen
years I have not lifted my hand against the police. And it is obviously
for help from the police that you come to me. You have served your term,
and the police would not molest you further except for a good reason. Is
it not so? And the reason is not far to seek, I think. It is the money
which was never recovered that they are after. You have it hidden
somewhere. You know where it is, and you wish to outwit the police while
you secure it. Am I not right?”
Dave Henderson glanced at the impassive face propped up on the pillows.
Old Nicolo Capriano in no way belied his reputation for shrewdness; the
man's brain, however physically ill he might be otherwise, had at least
not lost its cunning.
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson, with a short, sudden laugh, “you are
right--but also you are wrong. It is the police that I want to get away
from, and it is on account of that money, which, it is also true, I hid
away before I went up; but it is not only the police, it is the gang
of crooks who put me in wrong at the trial who are trying to grab it,
too--only, as it stands now, I don't know where the money is myself. I
trusted a fellow in the jug, who got out two months ahead of me--and he
did me.”
The white bushy eyebrows went up.
“So!” ejaculated the old Italian. “Well, then, what is the use!”
“A whole lot!” returned Dave Henderson grimly. “To get the fellow if I
can! And I can't do that with the police, and a gang of crooks besides,
at my heels, can I?”
Nicolo Capriano shook his head meditatively.
“I have my daughter to think of,” he said. “Listen, young man, it has
not been easy to stand square with the police during these years as it
is, and that without any initiative act on my part that would stir them
up against me again. Old associations and old records are not so easily
got rid of. I will give you an example. There was a man here
to-night--when you came. His name is Ignace Ferroni. He was one of us in
the old days--do you understand? When the trouble came for which Tony
Lomazzi suffered, Ignace managed to get away. I had not seen him from
that day to this. He came back here to-night for help--for a very
strange kind of help. He was one of us, I have said, and he had not
forgotten his old ways. He had a bomb, a small bomb in his pocket, whose
mechanism had gone wrong. He had already planted it once to-night, and
finding it did not explode, he picked it up again, and brought it to me,
and asked me to fix it for him. It was an old feud he had with some one,
he would not tell me who, that he had been nursing all this time. I
think his passion for vengeance had perhaps turned his head a little. I
refused to have anything to do with his bomb, of course, and he left
here in a rage, and in his condition he is as likely to turn on me as he
is to carry out his original intention. But, that apart, what am I to do
now? He was one of us, I cannot expose him to the police--he would be
sentenced to a long term. And yet, if his bomb explodes, to whom will
the police come first? To me!” Nicolo Capriano suddenly raised his
hands, and they were clenched--and as suddenly caught his breath, and
choked, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. The next instant he was
smiling mirthlessly with twitching lips. “Yes, to me--to me, whom some
fool amongst them once called the Dago Bomb King, which they will never
forget! It is always to me they come! Any crime that seems to have the
slightest Italian tinge--and they come to Nicolo Capriano!” He shrugged
his shoulders. “You see, young man, it is not easy for me to steer my
way unmolested even when I am wholly innocent. But I, too, do not
forget! I do not forget Tony Lomazzi! Tell me exactly what you want me
to do. You think you can find the man and the money if you can throw the
police and the others off your trail?”
“Yes!” said Dave Henderson, with ominous quiet. “That's my job in life
now! If I could disappear for three or four days, I guess that's all the
start I'd need.” There was a tolerant smile now on the old bomb king's
lips.
“Three or four days would be a very easy matter,” he answered. “But
after that--what? It might do very well in respect to this gang of
crooks; but it would be of very little avail where the police are
concerned, for they would simply do what the crooks could not do--see
that every plain-clothesman and officer on this continent was on the
watch for you. Do you imagine that, believing you know where the money
is, the police will forget all about you in three or four days?”
“No,” admitted Dave Henderson, with the same ominous quiet; “but all I
ask is a fighting chance.” Nicolo Capriano stared in speculative silence
for a moment.
“You have courage, my young friend!” he said softly. “I like that--also
I do not like the police. But three or four days!” He shook his head.
“You do not know the police as I know them! And this man you trusted,
and who, as I understand, got away with the money, do you know where to
find him?”
“I think he is in New York,” Dave Henderson answered.
“Ah! New York!” Nicolo Capriano nodded. “But New York is a world in
itself. He did not give you his address, and then rob you, I suppose!”
Dave Henderson did not answer for a moment. What Nicolo Capriano said
was very true! But the rendezvous that Millman had given was, on the
face of it, a fake anyhow. That had been his own opinion from the start;
but during the two years Millman and he had been together in prison
there had been many little inadvertent remarks in conversation that
had, beyond question of doubt, stamped Millman as a New Yorker. Perhaps
Millman had remembered that when he had given the rendezvous in New
York--to give color to its genuineness--because it was the only natural
place he could propose if he was to carry out logically the stories he
had told for two long years.
“You do not answer?” suggested Nicolo Capriano patiently.
It was on Dave Henderson's tongue to lay the whole story bare to the
date, day and hour of that hotel rendezvous, but instead he shook his
head. He was conscious of no distrust of the other. Why should he be
distrustful! It was not that. It seemed more an innate caution, that was
an absurd caution now because the rendezvous meant nothing anyhow, that
had sprung up spontaneously within him. He felt that he was suddenly
illogical. Fie found himself answering in a savage, dogged sort of way.
“That's all right!” he said. “I haven't got his address--but New York
is good enough. He spilled too much in prison for me not to know that's
where he hangs out. I'll get him--if I can only shake the police.”
Nicolo Capriano's blue-tipped fingers went straggling through the long
white beard.
“The police!” He was whispering--seemingly to himself. “It is always the
police--a lifetime of the cursed police--and I have my daughter to think
of--but I do not forget Tony Lomazzi--Teresa would not have me forget.”
He spoke abruptly to Dave Henderson. “Tell me about to-night. My
daughter says you came here like a hunted thing, and it is very evident
that you have been in a fight. I suppose it was with the police, or with
this gang you speak of; but, in that case, you have ruined any chance
of help from me if you have led them here--if, for instance, they are
waiting now for you to come out again.”
“I do not think they are waiting!” said Dave Henderson, with a twisted
smile. “And I think that the police end of to-night, and maybe some of
the rest of it as well, is in the hospital by now! It's not much of a
story--but unless that light in your back porch, which was on for about
two seconds, could be seen up the lane, there's no one could know that I
am here.”
The old Italian smiled curiously.
“I do not put lights where they act as beacons,” he said whimsically.
“It does not show from the lane; it is for the benefit of those _inside_
the house. Tell me your story.”
“It's not much,” said Dave Henderson again. “The police shadowed me
from the minute I left the penitentiary to-day. To-night I handed them
a little come-on, that's all, so as to make sure that I had side-tracked
them before coming here. And then the gang, Baldy Vickers' gang----”
“Vickers--Baldy Vickers! Yes, yes, I know; they hang out at Jake
Morrissey's place!” exclaimed the old bomb king suddenly. “Runty Mott,
and----”
“It was Runty Mott that butted in to-night,” said Dave Henderson, with
a short laugh. “I had the fly-cop going, all right. I let him pick me
up in a saloon over the bar. He thought I was pretty drunk even then.
We started in to make a night of it--and the fly-cop was going to get a
drunken man to spill all the history of his life, and incidentally
get him to lead the way to where a certain little sum of money was!
Understand? I kept heading in this direction, for I had looked the lay
of the land over this afternoon. That saloon up the street was booked as
my last stopping place. I was going to shake the fly-cop there, and----”
Dave Henderson paused.
Nicolo Capriano was leaning forward in his bed, and there was a new,
feverish light in the coal-black eyes--like some long-smoldering flame
leaping suddenly into a blaze.
“Go on!” he breathed impatiently. “Go on! Ah! I can see it all!”
“Runty Mott and his crowd must have been trailing me.” Dave Henderson
smiled grimly. “They thought both the fly-cop and myself were drunk. But
to cover their own game and make their play at me they had to get the
fly-cop out of the road first. One of the gang came into the saloon,
faked a quarrel with the fly-cop, and knocked him out. I didn't know
what was up until then, when I caught sight of Runty Mott and the rest
of his crowd pushing in through the door.” Dave Henderson's smile grew
a little grimmer. “That's all! They started something--but they didn't
finish it! They had it all framed up well enough--the lights switched
off, and all that, so as to lay me out and kidnap me, and then stow me
away somewhere and make me talk.” He jerked his hand toward his torn
garments. “There was a bit of a fight,” he said quietly. “I left them
there pawing the air in the dark, and I was down here in your porch
before any of them got out to the lane. I fancy there's some little row
up there now on account of that fly-cop they put to sleep.”
Nicolo Capriano's hand reached out, and began to pat excitedly at Dave
Henderson's sleeve.
“It is like the old days!” he said feverishly. “It is like the young
blood warming up an old man's veins again. Yes, yes; it is like the old
days back once more! Ah, my young friend, if I had had you on the night
that Tony Lomazzi was trapped, instead of--but that is too late, eh?
Yes--too late! But you are clever, and you use your head, and you have
the courage. That is what I like! Yes, assuredly, I will help you, and
not only for Tony Lomazzi's sake, but for your own. You shall have your
chance, your fighting chance, my young friend, and you will run down
your man”--his voice was rising in excitement--“and the money--eh! Yes,
yes! And Nicolo Capriano will help you!” He raised his voice still
higher. “Teresa! Here, Teresa!” he shouted.
The door opened; the girl stood on the threshold.
“Father,” she said reprovingly, “you are exciting yourself again.”
The old bomb king's voice was instantly subdued.
“No, I am not! You see--my little one! You see, I am quite calm. And
now listen to me. This is Tony Lomazzi's friend, and he is therefore
our friend. Is it not so? Well, then, listen! He is in need of help. The
police must not get him. So, first, he must have some clothes instead of
those torn ones. Get him some of mine. They will not fit very well--but
they will do. Then you will telephone Emmanuel that I have a guest for
him who does not like the police, a guest by the name of Smith--that is
enough for him to know. And tell Emmanuel that he is to come with his
car, and wait a block below the lane. And after that again you will go
out, Teresa, and let us know if all is safe, and if there is still any
police, or any one else, in the lane. Eh? Well, run then!”
“Yes,” she said. She was looking at Dave Henderson now, and there was a
friendly smile in the dark, steady eyes, though she still addressed her
father. “And what news does he bring us of Tony?”
“You will know by and by, when there is time,” her father answered with
sudden brusqueness. “Run, now!”
She was back in a few moments with an armful of clothes; then once more
left the room, this time closing the door behind her.
Nicolo Capriano pointed to a second door at the side of the room.
“There is the bathroom, my young friend,” he said crisply. “Go in there
and wash the blood off your face, and change your clothes.”
Dave Henderson hesitated.
“Do you think it is safe for her, for your daughter, to go out there?”
he demurred. “There was more of a row than perhaps I led you to imagine,
and the police----”
“Safe!” The old Italian grinned suddenly in derision. “Listen, my young
friend, you need have no fear. My daughter is a Capriano--eh? Yes, and
like her father, she is more than a match for all the police in San
Francisco. Go now, and change! It will not take Emmanuel long to get
here.”
It took Dave Henderson perhaps ten minutes to wash and bathe his
bruises, and change into the Italian's clothes. At the expiration of
that time, he surveyed the result in a small mirror that hung on
the wall. The clothes were ready-made, and far from new; they were
ill-fitting, and they bulged badly in places. His appearance was not
flattering! He might have passed for an Italian navvy in hard luck
and---- He smiled queerly, as he turned from the mirror and transferred
the money he had received from Square John Kelly, together with his few
belongings, from the pockets of his discarded suit to those of the one
he now had on. He stepped out into the bedroom.
Nicolo Capriano in turn surveyed the metamorphosis critically for a
moment--and nodded his head in approval.
“Good!” ejaculated the old bomb king. “Excellent!” He rubbed his thin
fingers together. “Yes, yes, it is like the old days again! Ha, ha, old
Nicolo still plays a hand in the game, and old Nicolo's head is still on
his shoulders. Three or four days! That would be easy even for a child!
Emmanuel will take care of that. But we must do better than that--eh?
And that is not so simple! To hide away from the police is one thing,
and to outwit them completely is another! Is it not so? You must give
the old man, whose brain has grown rusty because it has been so long
idle, time to think, eh? It will do you no good if you always have
to hide--eh? But, listen, you will hide while old Nicolo thinks--you
understand? You can trust Emmanuel--but tell him nothing. He keeps a
little restaurant, and he will give you a room upstairs. You must not
leave that room, you must not show yourself, until you hear from me. You
quite understand?”
“You need not worry on that score!” said Dave Henderson grimly.
“Good!” cried the old Italian again. “Only my daughter and myself will
know that you are there. You can leave it to old Nicolo to find a way.
Yes, yes”--excitement was growing upon the man again; he rocked his body
to and fro--“old Nicolo and the police--ha, ha! Old Nicolo, who is dying
in his bed--eh? And----” His voice was hushed abruptly; he lowered
himself back on his pillows. “Here is Teresa!” he whispered. “She will
say I am exciting myself again. Bah! I am strong again with the old wine
in my veins!” His hands lay suddenly quiet and composed on the coverlet
before him, as the door opened, and the girl stood again on the
threshold. “Well, my little one?” he purred.
“Emmanuel has come,” she said. “There are some police up in Vinetto's
saloon, but there is no one in the lane. It is quite safe.”
Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“And Emmanuel understands?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Go, then!” The old Italian was holding out his hand to Dave Henderson.
“Go at once! My daughter will take you to Emmanuel.”
Dave Henderson caught the other's hand.
“Yes, but look here,” he said, a sudden huskiness in his voice, “I----”
“You want to thank me--eh?” said the old bomb king, shaking his head.
“Well, my young friend, there will be time enough for that. You will see
me again--eh? Yes! When old Nicolo sends for you, you will come. Until
then--you will remember! Do not move from your room! Now, go!”
Teresa spoke from the doorway.
“Yes, hurry, please!” she said quietly. “The lane was empty a few
minutes ago, but----” She shrugged her shoulders significantly.
Dave Henderson, with a final nod to the propped-up figure in the bed,
turned and followed Teresa along the passage, and out into the porch.
Here she bade him wait while she went out again into the lane; but in a
minute more she called out to him in a whisper to join her.
They passed out of the lane, and into the cross street. A little ahead
of them, Dave Henderson could see a small car, its hood up, standing by
the curb.
She stopped suddenly.
“Emmanuel has seen me,” she said. “That is all that is necessary to
identify you.” She held out her hand. “I--I hope you will get out of
your danger safely.”
“If I do,” said Dave Henderson fervently, “I'll have you and your father
to thank for it.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You will have to thank Tony Lomazzi.”
He wanted to say something to detain her there for a moment or two
longer, even under those most unauspicious of circumstances--but five
years of prison had not made him glib of tongue, or quick of speech.
She was very pretty--but it was not her prettiness alone that made her
appeal. There was something of winsomeness about the lithe, graceful
little figure, and something to admire in the quiet self-reliance, and
the cool composure with which, for instance, she had just accepted the
danger of possible, and decidedly unpleasant, interference by the police
in the lane.
“But I can't thank Tony Lomazzi, since he is dead,” he blurted out--and
the next instant cursed himself for a raw-tongued, blundering fool. In
the rays of the street lamp a little way off, he saw her face go deathly
white. Her hand that was in his closed with a quick, involuntary clutch,
and fell away--and there came a little moan of pain.
“Dead!” she said. “Tony--dead!” And then she seemed to draw her little
form erect--and smiled--but the great dark eyes were wet and full of
tears.
“I----” Her voice broke. “Good-night!” she said hurriedly--and turned
abruptly away.
He watched her, gnawing viciously at his lip, cursing at himself again
for a blundering fool, until she disappeared in the lane; and then he,
too, turned, and walked to the waiting car.
A man in the driver's seat reached out and opened the door of the
tonneau.
“Me Emmanuel,” he said complacently, in broken English. “You no give-a
da damn tor da police anymore. I gotta da room where you hide--safe.
See? Over da restaurant. You eat, you sleep, you give-a da cops da
laugh.”
Dave Henderson stepped into the car. His mind was in a chaotic whirl. A
thousand diverse things seemed struggling for supremacy--the police and
Runty Mott--Millman--Capriano, the queer, sick Capriano--the girl, the
girl with the wondrous face, who cried because Tony Lomazzi was dead--a
thousand things impinging in lightning flashes that made a vortex of his
brain. They found expression in a sort of debonair facetiousness.
“Some boy, Emmanuel!” he said--and flung himself down on the seat. “Go
to it!”
III--NICOLO CAPRIANO PLAYS HIS CARDS
NICOLO CAPRIANO'S eyes were closed; the propped-up form on the pillows
was motionless--only the thin fingers plucking at the coverlet with
curiously patient insistence bore evidence that the man was not asleep.
Suddenly he smiled; and his eyes opened, a dreamy, smoldering light in
their depths. His hand reached out for the morning paper that lay on the
bed beside him, and for the second time since Teresa had brought him
the paper half an hour before, he pored for a long while over a leading
“story” on the front page. It had nothing to do with the disturbance
in Vinetto's saloon of the night before; it dealt with a strange and
mysterious bomb explosion in a downtown park during the small
morning hours, which, besides awakening and terrifying the immediate
neighborhood, had, according to the newspaper account, literally blown a
man, and, with the man, the bench on which he had evidently been
sitting under an arc light, to pieces. The victim was mutilated
beyond recognition; all that the police had been able to identify were
fragments of a bomb, thus establishing the cause of the accident, or,
more likely, as the paper hinted, murder.
“The fool!” Nicolo Capriano whispered. “It was Ignace Ferroni--the fool!
And so he would not listen to old Nicolo--eh?” He cackled out suddenly,
his laugh shrill and high echoing through the room. “Well, perhaps it is
as well, eh, Ignace? Perhaps it is as well--perhaps you will be of some
service, Ignace, now that you are dead, eh, Ignace--which is something
that you never were when you were alive!”
He laid the paper down, and again his eyes closed, and again the
blue-tipped fingers resumed their interminable plucking at the
coverlet--but now he whispered constantly to himself.
“A hundred thousand dollars.... It is a great deal of money.... We
worked for much less in the old days--for very much less.... I am old
and sick, am I?... Ha, ha!... But for just once more, eh--just once
more--to see if the old cunning is not still there.... And if the cards
are thrust into one's hands, does it not make the fingers itch to play
them!... Yes, yes, it makes young again the blood in the old veins....
And Tony is dead.... Yes, yes, the young fellow is clever, too--clever
enough to find the money again if the police do not meddle with him....
And the gang, Baldy Vickers' gang--bah!--they are already no longer to
be considered--they have not long arms, they do not reach far--they do
not reach to New York--eh--where the police reach--and where old Nicolo
Capriano reaches, too.... Ignace--the fool!.... So he would not listen,
to me, eh--and he sat out there under the park light trying to fix his
old bomb, and blew himself up.... The fool--but you have no reason to
complain, eh, Nicolo?.... It will bring the police to the door, but for
once they will be welcome, eh?.... They will not know it--but they will
be welcome.... We will see if Nicolo Capriano is not still their match!”
Outside somewhere in the hall he could hear Teresa moving about, busy
with her morning work. He listened intently--not to his daughter's
movements, but for a footstep on the pavement that, instead of passing
by, would climb the short flight of steps to the front door.
“Well, why do they not come--eh?” he muttered impatiently. “Why do they
not come?”
He relapsed into silence, but he no longer lay there placidly with his
eyes closed. A strange excitement seemed to be growing upon him. It
tinged the skin under his beard with a hectic flush, and the black eyes
glistened and glinted abnormally, as they kept darting objectiveless
glances here and there around the room.
Perhaps half an hour passed, and then the sick man began to mutter
again:
“Will they make me send for them--the fools!” He apostrophized the foot
of the bed viciously. “No, no--it would not be as safe. If they do not
come in another hour, there will be time enough then for that. You must
wait, Nicolo. The police have always come before to Nicolo Capriano,
if they thought old Nicolo could help them--and with a bomb--ha, ha--to
whom else would they come--eh?--to whom-------”
He was instantly alert. Some one was outside there now. He heard the
door bell ring, and presently he heard Teresa answer it. He caught a
confused murmur of voices. The thin fingers were working with a quick,
jubilant motion one over the other. The black eyes, half closed again,
fixed expectantly on the door of the room opposite to the foot of the
bed. It opened, and Teresa stepped into the room.
“It is Lieutenant Barjan, father,” she said, in a low tone. “He wants to
talk to you about that bomb explosion in the park.”
“So!” A queer smile twitched at the old bomb king's lips. He beckoned to
his daughter to approach the bed, and, as she obeyed, he pulled her
head down to his lips. “You know nothing, Teresa--nothing! Understand?
Nothing except to corroborate anything that I may say. You did not even
know that there had been an explosion until he spoke of it. You know
nothing about Ignace. You understand?”
“Yes,” she said composedly.
“Good!” he whispered. “Well, now, go and tell him that I do not want to
see him. Tell him I said he was to go away. Tell him that I won't see
him, that I won't be bothered with him and his cursed police spies! Tell
him that”--he patted his daughter's head confidentially--“and leave the
door open, Teresa, little one, so that I can hear.”
“What do you mean to do, father?” she asked quickly.
“Ha, ha--you will see, my little one--you will see!” Capriano patted her
head again. “We do not forget our debt to Tony Lomazzi. No! Well, you
will see! Tell the cunning, clever Barjan to go away!”
He watched as she left the room; and then, his head cocked on one side
to listen, the blue-tipped fingers reached stealthily out and without
a sound slid the newspaper that was lying in front of him under the bed
covers.
“I am very sorry,” he heard Teresa announce crisply; “but my father
positively refuses to see you.”
“Oh, he does--does he?” a voice returned in bland sarcasm. “Well, I'm
very sorry myself then, but I guess he'll have to change his mind!
Pardon me, Miss Capriano, if I----”
A quick, heavy step sounded in the hallway. Nicolo Capriano's alert and
listening attitude was gone in a flash. He pushed himself up in the bed,
and held himself there with one hand, and the other outflung, knotted
into a fist, he shook violently in the direction of the door, as the
figure of the plain-clothesman appeared on the threshold.
Old Nicolo Capriano was apparently in the throes of a towering passion.
“Get out of here!” he screamed. “Did my daughter not tell you to get
out! Go away! I want nothing to do with you! Curse you--and all the rest
of the police with you! Can you not leave old Nicolo Capriano to die in
peace--eh?”
“That's all right!” said Barjan coolly. He glanced over his shoulder.
Teresa was standing just outside in the hall behind him. “Pardon me,”
he said again--and closed the door upon her. “Now then”--he faced Nicolo
Capriano once more--“there's no use kicking up all this dust. It won't
get you anywhere, Nicolo. There's a little matter that I want to talk to
you about, and that I'm going to talk to you about whether you like it
or not--that's all there is to it. And we'll get right to the point.
What do you know about that affair in the park last night?”
Nicolo Capriano sank back on his pillows, with a furious snarl. He still
shook his fist at the officer.
“What should I know about your miserable affairs!” he shouted. “I know
nothing about any park! I know nothing at all! Why do you not leave
me in peace--eh? For fifteen years this has gone on, always spying on
Nicolo Capriano, and for fifteen years Nicolo Capriano has not lifted a
finger against the law.”
“That is true--as far as we know,” said Barjan calmly. “But there's a
little record that goes back beyond those fifteen years, Nicolo, that
keeps us a little chummy with you--and you've been valuable at times,
Nicolo.”
“Bah!” Nicolo Capriano spat the exclamation viciously at the other.
“About last night,” suggested Barjan patiently. “It's rather in your
line. I thought perhaps you might be able to give us a little help that
would put us on the right track.”
“I don't know what you're talking about!” snapped Nicolo Capriano.
“I'm talking about the man that was blown to pieces by a bomb.” Barjan
was still patient.
Nicolo Capriano's eyes showed the first gleam of interest.