the rage and antagonism that he had first exhibited with a new and
suddenly awakened curiosity. “I didn't know there was any man blown up,”
he repeated.
“That's too bad!” said Barjan with mock resignation--and settled himself
deliberately in a chair at the bedside. “I guess, then, you're the only
man in San Francisco who doesn't.”
“You fool!” Nicolo Capriano rasped in rage again. “I've been bed-ridden
for three years--and I wish to God you had been, too!” He choked and
coughed a little. He eyed Barjan malevolently. “I tell you this is the
first I've heard of it. I don't hang about the street corners picking up
the news! Don't sit there with your silly, smirking police face, trying
to see how smart you can be! What information do you expect to get out
of me like that? When I know nothing, I can tell nothing, can I? Who was
the man?”
“That's what we want to know,” said Barjan pleasantly. “And, look here,
Nicolo, I'm not here to rile you. All that was left was a few fragments
of park bench, man, arc-light standard, and a piece or two of what was
evidently a bomb.”
“What time was this?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes were on the foot of the
bed.
“Three o'clock this morning,” Barjan answered.
The old bomb king's fingers began to pluck at the coverlet. A minute
passed. His eyes, from the foot of the bed, fixed for an instant moodily
on Barjan's face--and sought the foot of the bed again.
Barjan broke the silence.
“So you do know something about it, eh, Nicolo?” he prodded softly.
“I didn't know anything had happened until you said so,” returned Nicolo
Capriano curtly. “But seeing it has happened, maybe I----” He cut his
words off short, and eyed the plain-clothesman again. “Is the man dead?”
he demanded, with well-simulated sudden suspicion. “You aren't lying to
me--eh? I trust none of you!”
“Dead!” ejaculated Barjan almost hysterically. “Good God--dead! Didn't I
tell you he was blown into unrecognizable atoms!”
The sharp, black eyes lingered a little longer on Barjan's face. The
result appeared finally to allay Nicolo Capriano's suspicions.
“Well, all right, then, I'll tell you,” he said, but there was a
grudging note still in the old bomb king's voice. “It can't do the man
any harm if he's dead. I guess you'll know who it is. It's the fellow
who pulled that hundred thousand dollar robbery about five years ago on
old man Tydeman--the fellow that went by the name of Dave Henderson. I
don't know whether that's his real name or not.”
“What!” shouted Barjan. He had lost his composure. He was up from his
chair, and staring wildly at the old man on the bed. “You're crazy!” he
jerked out suddenly. “Either you're lying to me, or you're off your nut!
You----”
Nicolo Capriano was in a towering rage in an instant.
“You get out of here!” he screamed. “You get to hell out of here! I
didn't ask you to come, and I don't give a damn whether it was Dave
Henderson or a polecat! It's nothing to do with me! It's your hunt--so
go and hunt somewhere else! I'm lying, or I'm off my nut, am I? Well,
you get to hell out of here! Go on!” He shook a frantic fist at Barjan,
and, choking, coughing, pulled himself up in bed again, and pointed to
the door. “Do you hear? Get out!”
Barjan shifted uneasily in alarm. Nicolo Capriano's coughing spell had
developed into a paroxysm that was genuine enough.
“Look here,” said Barjan, in a pacifying tone, “don't excite yourself
like that. I take back what I said. You gave me a jolt for a minute,
that's all. But you've got the wrong dope somehow, Nicolo. Whoever it
was, it wasn't Dave Henderson. The man was too badly smashed up to
be recognized, but there was at least some of his clothing left. Dave
Henderson was followed all day yesterday by the police from the minute
he left the penitentiary, and he didn't buy any clothes. Dave Henderson
had on a black prison suit--and this man hadn't.”
Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders in angry contempt.
“I'm satisfied, if you are!” he snarled. “Go on--get out!”
Barjan frowned a little helplessly now.
“But I'm not satisfied,” he admitted earnestly. “Look here, Nicolo, for
the love of Mike, keep your temper, and let's get to the bottom of
this. For some reason you seem to think it was Dave Henderson. I know it
wasn't; but I've got to know what started you off on that track. Those
clothes----”
“You're a damn fool!” Nicolo Capriano, apparently slightly mollified,
was jeering now. “Those clothes--ha, ha! It is like the police! And so
old Nicolo is off his nut--eh? Well, I will show you!” He raised his
voice and called his daughter. “Teresa, my little one,” he said, as the
door opened and she appeared, “bring me the clothes that young man had
on last night.”
“What's that you say!” exclaimed Barjan in sudden excitement.
“Wait!” said Nicolo Capriano ungraciously.
Teresa was back in a moment with an armful of clothing, which, at her
father's direction, she deposited on the foot of the bed.
Nicolo Capriano waved her from the room. He leered at Barjan.
“Well, are those the clothes there that you and your police are using
to blindfold your eyes with, or are they not--eh? Are those Dave
Henderson's clothes?”
Barjan had already pounced upon the clothing, and was pawing it over
feverishly.
“Good God--yes!” he burst out sharply.
“And the clothes that the dead man had on--let me see”--Nicolo
Capriano's voice was tauntingly triumphant, as, with eyes half closed,
visualizing for himself the attire of one Ignace Ferroni, he slowly
enumerated the various articles of dress worn by the actual victim of
the explosion. He looked at Barjan maliciously, as he finished. “Well,”
he demanded, “was there enough left of what the man had on to identify
any of those things? If so----” Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders
by way of finality.
“Yes, yes!” Barjan's excitement was almost beyond his control. “Yes,
that is what he wore, but--good Lord, Capriano!--what does this mean? I
don't understand!”
“About the clothes?” inquired Nicolo Capriano caustically. “But I should
know what he had on since they were _my_ clothes--eh? And you have only
to look at the ones there on the bed to find out for yourself why I gave
him some that, though I do not say they were new, for I have not bought
any clothes in the three damnable and cursed years that I have lain
here, were at least not all torn to pieces--eh?”
Barjan was pacing up and down the room now. When the other's back was
turned, Nicolo Capriano permitted a sinister and mocking smile to hover
on his lips; when Barjan faced the bed, Nicolo Capriano eyed the
officer with a sour contempt into which he injected a sort of viciously
triumphant self-vindication.
“Come across with the rest!” said Barjan abruptly. “How did Dave
Henderson come here to you? And what about that bomb? Did you give it
to him?” Nicolo Capriano's convenient irascibility was instantly at his
command again. He scowled at Barjan, and his scranny fist was flourished
under Barjan's nose.
“No, I didn't!” he snarled. “And you know well enough that I didn't. You
will try to make me out the guilty man now--eh--just because I was fool
enough to help you out of your muddle!”
Barjan became diplomatic again.
“Nothing of the kind!” he said appeasingly. “You're too touchy, Nicolo!
I know that you're on the square all right, and that you have been ever
since your gang was broken up and Tony Lomazzi was caught. That's good
enough, isn't it? Now, come on! Give me the dope about Dave Henderson.”
Nicolo Capriano's fingers plucked sullenly at the coverlet. A minute
passed.
“Bah!” he grunted finally. “A little honey--eh--when you want something
from old Nicolo! Well, then, listen! Dave Henderson came here last night
in those torn clothes, and with his face badly cut from a fight that he
said he had been in. I don't know whether his story is true or not--you
can find that out for yourself. I don't know anything about him, but
this is what he told me. He said that his cell in the prison was next to
Tony Lomazzi's; that he and Tony were friends; that Tony died a little
while ago; and that on the night Tony died he told this fellow Henderson
to come to me if he needed any help.”
“Yes!” Barjan's voice was eager. He dropped into the chair again, and
leaned attentively over the bed toward Nicolo Capriano. “So he came
to you through Tony Lomazzi, eh? Well, so far, I guess the story's
straight. I happen to know that Henderson's cell was next to Lomazzi's.
But where did he get the bomb? He certainly didn't have it when he left
the prison, and he was shadowed----”
“So you said before!” interrupted Nicolo Capriano caustically. “Well, in
that case, you ought to know whether the rest of the story is true, too,
or not. He said he met a stranger in a saloon last night, and that they
chummed up together, and started in to make a night of it. They went
from one saloon to another. Their spree ended in a fight at Vinetto's
place up the block here, where Henderson and his friend were attacked by
some of Baldy Vickers' gang. Henderson said his friend was knocked
out, and that he himself had a narrow squeak of it, and just managed to
escape through the back door, and ran down the lane, and got in here.
I asked him how he knew where I lived, and he said that during the
afternoon he had located the house because he meant to come here last
night anyway, only he was afraid the police might be watching him, and
he had intended to wait until after dark.” Nicolo Capriano's eyelids
drooped to hide a sudden cunning and mocking gleam that was creeping
into them. “You ought to be able to trace this friend of Henderson's
if the man was knocked out and unconscious at Vinetto's, as Henderson
claimed--and if Henderson was telling the truth, the other would
corroborate it.”
“We've already got him,” said Barjan, with a hint of savagery in his
voice. The “friend,” alias a plain-clothesman, had proved anything but
an inspiration from the standpoint of the police! “Go on! The story is
still straight. You say that Dave Henderson said he intended to come
here anyway, quite apart from making his escape from Vinetto's. What
for?”
Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders.
“Money, I dare say,” he said tersely. “The usual thing! At least, I
suppose that's what he had originally intended to come for--but we
didn't get as far as that. The fight at Vinetto's seemed to have left
him with but one idea. When he got here he was in a devil's rage. The
only thing that seemed to be in his mind was to get some clothes that
wouldn't attract attention, instead of the torn ones he had on, and to
get out again as soon as he could with the object of getting even with
this gang of Baldy's. He said they were the ones that 'sent him up' on
account of their evidence at his trial, and that they were after him
again now because of the stolen money that they believed he had hidden
somewhere. He was like a maniac. He said he'd see them and everybody
else in hell before they got that money, and he swore he'd get every
last one of that gang--and get them in a bunch. I didn't know what he
meant then. I tried to quiet him down, but I might as well have talked
to a wild beast. I tried to get him to stay here and go to bed--instead,
he laughed at me in a queer sort of way, and said he'd wipe every one of
that crowd off the face of the earth before morning. I began to think he
was really crazy. He put on the clothes I gave him, and went out again.”
Barjan nodded.
“You don't know it,” he said quietly; “but that's where the police lost
track of him--when he ran in here.”
“I didn't even know the police were after him,” said Nicolo Capriano
indifferently. “He came back here again about two o'clock this morning,
and he had a small clockwork bomb with him. The fool!” Nicolo Capriano
cackled suddenly. “He had found Baldy's gang all together down in Jake
Morrissey's, and he had thrown the thing against the building. The fool!
Of course, it wouldn't go off! He thought it would by hitting it against
something. The only way to make it any good was to open the casing and
set the clockwork. When he found it didn't explode, he picked it up
again, and brought it back here. He wanted me to fix it for him. I asked
him where he got it. All I could get out of him was that Tony Lomazzi
had told him where he had hidden some things. Ha, ha!” Nicolo Capriano
cackled more shrilly still, and began to rock in bed with unseemly
mirth. “One of Tony's old bombs! Tony left the young fool a legacy--a
bomb, and maybe there was some money, too. I tried to find out about
that, but all he said was to keep asking me to fix the bomb for him. I
refused. I told him I was no longer in that business. That I went out of
it when Tony Lomazzi did--fifteen years ago. He would listen to nothing.
He cursed me. I did not think he could do any harm with the thing--and I
guess he didn't! A young fool like that is best out of the way. He went
away cursing me. I suppose he tried to fix it himself under that arc
light on the park bench.” Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders again.
“I would not have cared to open the thing myself--it was made too long
ago, eh? The clockwork might have played tricks even with me, who once
was----”
“Yes,” said Barjan. He stood up. “I guess that's good enough, and
I guess that's the end of Dave Henderson--and one hundred thousand
dollars.” He frowned in a meditative sort of way. “I don't know whether
I'm sorry, or not,” he said slowly. “We'd have got him sooner or later,
of course, but----” He pointed abruptly to the prison clothes on the
bed. “Hi, take those,” he announced briskly; “they'll need them at the
inquest.”
“There's some paper in the bottom drawer of that wardrobe over there,”
said Nicolo Capriano unconcernedly. “You can wrap them up.”
Barjan, with a nod of thanks, secured the paper, made a bundle of the
clothes, and tucked the bundle under his arm.
“We won't forget this, Nicolo,” he said heartily, as he moved toward the
door.
“Bah!” said Nicolo Capriano, with a scowl. “I know how much that is
worth!”
He listened attentively as Teresa showed the plain-clothesman out
through the front door. As the door closed again, he called his
daughter.
“Listen, my little one,” he said, and his forefinger was laid against
the side of his nose in a gesture of humorous confidence. “I will tell
you something. Ignace Ferroni, who was fool enough to blow himself up,
has become the young man whom our good friend Tony Lomazzi sent to us
last night.”
“Father!” Her eyes widened in sudden amazement, not unmixed with alarm.
“You understand, my little one?” He wagged his head, and cackled softly.
“Not a word! You understand?”
“Yes,” she said doubtfully.
“Good!” grunted the old bomb king. “I think Barjan has swallowed the
hook. But I trust no one. I must be sure--you understand--_sure!_ Go
and telephone Emmanuel, and tell him to find Little Peter, and send the
scoundrel to me at once.”
“Yes, father,” she said; “but----”
“It is for Tony Lomazzi,” he said.
She went from the room.
Nicolo Capriano lay back on the pillows, and closed his eyes. He might
have been asleep again, for the smile on his lips was as guileless as
a child's; and it remained there until an hour later, when, after
motioning Teresa, who had opened the door, away, he propped himself
up on his elbow to greet a wizened, crafty-faced little rat of the
underworld, who stood at the bedside.
“It is like the old days to see you here, Little Peter,” murmured Nicolo
Capriano. “And I always paid well--eh? You have not forgotten that?
Well, I will pay well again. Listen! I am sure that the man who was
killed with the bomb in the park last night was a prison bird by the
name of Dave Henderson; and I told the police so. But it is always
possible that I have made a mistake. I do not think so--but it is
always possible--eh? Well, I must know, Little Peter. The police will
investigate further, and so will Baldy Vickers' gang--they had it in for
the fellow. You are a clever little devil, Little Peter. Find out if the
police have discovered anything that would indicate I am wrong, and do
the same with Baldy Vickers' gang. You know them all, don't you?”
The wizened little rat grinned.
“Sure!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Youse can leave it to
me, Nicolo. I'm wise.”
Nicolo Capriano patted the other's arm approvingly, and smiled the man
away.
“You have the whole day before you, Little Peter,” he said. “I am in no
hurry.”
Once more Nicolo Capriano lay back on his pillows, and closed his eyes,
and once more the guileless smile hovered over his lips.
At intervals through the day he murmured and communed with himself, and
sometimes his cackling laugh brought Teresa to the door; but for the
most part he lay there through the hours with the placid, cunning
patience that the school of long experience had brought him.
It was dusk when Little Peter stood at the bedside again.
“Youse called de turn, Nicolo,” he said. “Dat was de guy, all right. I
got next to some of de fly-cops, an' dey ain't got no doubt about it.
Dey handed it out to de reporters.” He flipped a newspaper that he was
carrying onto the bed. “Youse can read it for yerself. An' de gang sizes
it up de same way. I pulled de window stunt on 'em down at Morrissey's
about an hour ago. Dey was all dere--Baldy, an' Runty Mott, an' all de
rest--an' another guy, too. Say, I didn't know dat Bookie Skarvan pulled
in wid dat mob. Dey was fightin' like a lot of stray cats, an' dey was
sore as pups, an' all blamin' de other one for losin' de money. De only
guy in de lot dat kept his head was Bookie. He sat dere chewin' a big
fat cigar, an' wigglin' it from one corner of his mouth to de other, an'
he handed 'em some talk. He give 'em hell for muss-in' everything up.
Say, Nicolo, take it from me, youse want to keep yer eye peeled for him.
He says to de crowd: 'It's a cinch dat Dave Henderson's dead, thanks
to de damned mess youse have made of everything,' he says; 'an' it's a
cinch dat Capriano's story in de paper is straight--it's too full of de
real dope to be anything else. But if Dave Henderson told old Ca-priano
dat much, he may have told him more--see? Old Capriano's a wily bird,
an' wid a hundred thousand in sight de old Dago wouldn't be asleep.
Anyway, it's our last chance--dat Capriano got de hidin' place out of
Dave Henderson. But here's where de rest of youse keeps yer mitts off.
If it's de last chance, I'll see dat it ain't gummed up. I'll take care
of Capriano myself.'”
Little Peter circled his lips with his tongue, as Nicolo Capriano
extracted a banknote of generous denomination from under his pillow, and
handed it to the other.
“Very good, Little Peter!” he said softly. “Yes, yes--very good! But you
have already forgotten it all--eh? Is it not so, Little Peter?”
“Sure!” said Little Peter earnestly. “Sure--youse can bet yer life I
have!”
“Good-by then, Little Peter,” said Nicolo Capriano softly again.
He stared for a long while at the door, as it closed behind the
other--stared and smiled curiously, and plucked with his fingers at the
coverlet.
“And so they would watch old bed-ridden Nicolo, would they--while Nicolo
watches--eh--somewhere else!” he muttered. “Ha, ha! So they will watch
old Nicolo--will they! Well, well, let them watch--eh?” He looked around
the room, and raised himself up in bed. He began to rock to and fro. A
red tinge crept into his cheeks, a gleam of fire lighted up the
coal-black eyes. “Nicolo, Nicolo,” he whispered to himself, “it is like
the old days back again, Nicolo--and it is like the old wine to make the
blood run quick in the veins again.”
IV--THE MANTLE OF ONE IGNACE FERRONI
UP and down the small, ill-furnished room Dave Henderson paced back
and forward, as, not so very long ago, he had paced by the hour from the
rear wall of his cell to the barred door that opened on an iron gallery
without. And he paced the distance now with the old nervous, pent-up
energy that rebelled and mutinied and would not take passively to
restraint, even when that restraint, as now, was self-imposed.
It had just grown dark. The window shade was tightly drawn. On the
table, beside the remains of the supper that Emmanuel had brought him
some little time before, a small lamp furnished a meager light, and
threw the corners of the room into shadow.
He had seen no one save Emmanuel since last night, when he had left
Nicolo Capriano's. He had not heard from Nicolo Capriano. It was the
sense of personal impotency, the sense of personal inactivity that
filled him with a sort of savage, tigerish impatience now. There
were many things to do outside in that world beyond the drawn window
shade--and he could only wait! There was the pigeon-cote in Tooler's
shed, for instance. All during the day the pigeon-cote had been almost
an obsession with him. There was a chance--one chance in perhaps a
million--that for some reason or other Millman had not been able to
get there. It was a gambling chance--no more, no less--with the odds so
heavily against Millman permitting anything to keep him from getting his
hands on a fortune in ready cash that, from a material standpoint, there
was hardly any use in his, Dave Henderson, going there. But that did not
remove the ever present, and, as opposed to the material, the intangible
sense of uncertainty that possessed him. He expected to find the money
gone; he would be a fool a thousand times over to expect anything else.
But he had to satisfy himself, and he would--if that keen old brain of
Nicolo Capriano only succeeded in devising some means of throwing the
police definitely off the trail.
But it was not so easy to throw the police definitely off the trail, as
Nicolo Capriano himself had said. He, Dave Henderson, was ready to agree
in that with the crafty old Italian; and, even after these few hours,
cooped up in here, he was even more ready to agree with the other that
the mere hiding of himself away from the police was utterly abortive as
far as the accomplishment of any conclusive end was concerned.
It was far from easy; though, acting somewhat as a panacea to his
impatience, the old Italian had inspired him with faith as being more
than a match for the police, and yet----
He gnawed at his lips. He, too, had not been idle through the day; he,
too, had tried to find some way, some loophole that would enable him,
once he went out into the open again, to throw Barjan, and all that
Barjan stood for, conclusively and forever off his track. And the more
he had thought of it, the more insurmountable the difficulty and seeming
impossibility of doing so had become. It had even shaken his faith
a little in Nicolo Capriano's fox-like cunning proving equal to the
occasion. He couldn't, for instance, live all his life in disguise. That
did very well perhaps as a piece of fiction, but practically it offered
very little attraction!
He frowned--and laughed a little harshly at himself. He was illogical
again. He had asked only for three or four days, for a fighting chance,
just time enough to get on Millman's trail, hadn't he? And now he was
greedy for a permanent and enduring safe-conduct from the police, and
his brain mulled and toiled with that objective alone in view, and he
stood here now employed in gnawing his lips because he could not see the
way, or see how Nicolo Capriano could find it, either. He shrugged his
shoulders. As well dismiss that! If he could but reach Millman--and,
after Millman, Bookie Skarvan--just to pay the debts he owed, then----
His hand that had curled into a clenched fist, with knuckles showing
like white knobs under the tight-stretched skin, relaxed, as, following
a low, quick knock at the door, Emmanuel stepped into the room.
“I gotta da message for you from Nicolo,” Emmanuel announced; “an' I
gotta da letter for you from Nicolo, too. You get-a damn sick staying
in here, eh? Well, Nicolo say you go to his place see him tonight. We
take-a da car by-an'-by, an' go.”
“That's the talk, Emmanuel!” said Dave Henderson, with terse heartiness.
“You're all right, Emmanuel, and so is your room and your grub, but a
little fresh air is what I am looking for, and the sooner the better!”
He took the envelope that Emmanuel extended, crossed over to the lamp,
and turned his back on the other, as he ripped the envelope open. Nicolo
Capriano's injunction had been to say nothing to Emmanuel, and---- He
was staring blankly at the front page of the evening newspaper, all that
the envelope contained, and which he had now unfolded before him. And
then he caught his breath sharply. He was either crazy, or his eyes were
playing him tricks. A thrill that he suppressed by an almost superhuman
effort of will, a thrill that tore and fought at the restraint he put
upon it, because he was afraid that the mad, insane uplift that it
promised was but some fantastic hallucination, swept over him. There was
a lead pencil circle drawn around the captions of one of the columns;
and three written words, connected to the circle by another pencil
stroke, leaped up at him from the margin of the paper:
“_You are dead_.”
He felt the blood surging upward in his veins to beat like the blows
of a trip-hammer at his temples. The words were not blurred and running
together any more, the captions, instead, inside that circle, seemed
to stand out in such huge startling type that they dominated the entire
page:
MAN BLOWN TO PIECES BY BOMB IDENTIFIED
MYSTERY IS EXPLAINED
DAVE HENDERSON, EX-CONVICT,
VICTIM OF HIS OWN MURDEROUS INTENTIONS
Dave Henderson glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, Emmanuel was
clatteringly piling up the supper dishes on the tray. He turned again
to the newspaper, and read Nicolo Capriano's story, all of it now--and
laughed. He remembered the old Italian's tale of the man Ignace Ferroni
and his bomb. Nicolo Capriano, for all his age and infirmity, was still
without his peer in craft and cunning! The ingenious use of enough of
what was true had stamped the utterly false as beyond the shadow of a
suspicion that it, too, was not as genuine as the connecting links
that held the fabric together. He warmed to the old Italian, an
almost hysterical admiration upon him for Nicolo Capriano's guile. But
transcending all other emotions was the sense of freedom. It surged upon
him, possessing him; it brought exhilaration, and it brought a grim,
unholy vista of things to come--a goal within possibility of reach
now--Millman first, and then Bookie Skarvan. He was free--free as the
air. He was dead. Dave Henderson had passed out of the jurisdiction of
the police. To the police he was now but a memory--he was dead.
“You are dead.” A queer tight smile thinned his lips, as his eyes fell
again upon the penciled words at the margin of the paper.
“It's no wonder they never got anything on old Capriano!” he muttered;
and began to tear the paper into shreds.
He was free! He was dead! He was impatient now to exercise that freedom.
He could walk out on the streets with no more disguise than these
cast-off clothes he had on, plus the brim of his hat to shade his
face--for Dave Henderson was dead. Neither Bookie Skarvan, nor Baldy
Vickers would be searching for a dead man any more--nor would the
police. He swung around, and faced Emmanuel.
“I am to go to Nicolo Capriano's, eh?” he said. “Well, then, let's go;
I'm ready.”
“No make-a da rush,” smiled Emmanuel. “Capriano say you gotta da time,
plenty time. Capriano say come over by-an'-by in da car.”
Dave Henderson shook his head impatiently.
“No; we'll go now,” he answered.
Emmanuel in turn shook his head.
“I gotta some peep' downstairs in da restaurant,” he said. “I gotta stay
maybe an hour yet.”
Dave Henderson considered this for a moment. He could walk out on the
streets now quite freely. It was no longer necessary that he should be
hidden in a car. But Nicolo Capriano had told Emmanuel to use the car.
Emmanuel would not understand, and he, Dave Henderson, had no intention
of enlightening the other why a car was no longer necessary. Neither was
Emmanuel himself necessary--there was Mrs. Tooler's pigeon-cote. If he
went there before going to Nicolo Capriano! His brain was racing now.
Yes, the car, _without Emmanuel_, would be a great convenience.
“All right!” he said crisply. “You stay here, and look after your
restaurant. There's no need for you to come. I'll take the car myself.”
“You drive-a da car?” asked Emmanuel dubiously. Dave Henderson laughed
quietly. The question awakened a certain and very pertinent memory.
There were those who, if they chose to do so, could testify with some
eloquence to his efficiency at the wheel of a car!
“Well, I have driven one,” he said. “I guess I can handle that old bus
of yours.”
“But”--Emmanuel was still dubious--“Capriano say no take-a da risk of
being seen on----”
“I'm not looking for any risk myself,” interposed Dave Henderson coolly.
“It's dark now, and there's no chance of anybody recognizing me while
I'm driving a car. Forget it, Emmanuel! Come on! I don't want to stick
around here for another hour. Here!”--from his pocket he produced a
banknote, and pushed it across the table to the other.
Emmanuel grinned. His doubts had vanished.
“Sure!” said Emmanuel. He tiptoed to the door, looked out, listened, and
jerked his head reassuringly in Dave Henderson's direction. “Getta da
move on, then! We go down by da back stairs. Come on!”
They gained the back yard, and the small shed that did duty for a
garage--and in a few moments more Dave Henderson, at the wheel of the
car, was out on the street.
He drove slowly at first. He had paid no attention to the route taken by
Emmanuel when they had left Nicolo Capriano's the night before, and as a
consequence he had little or no idea in what part of the city Emmanuel's
restaurant was located; but at the expiration of a few minutes he got
his bearings, and the speed of the car quickened instantly.
V--CON AMORE
TEN minutes later, the car left at the curb half a block away, Dave
Henderson was crouched in the darkness at the door of old Tooler's shed
that opened on the lane. There was a grim set to his lips. There seemed
a curious analogy in all this--this tool even with which he worked upon
the door to force it open, this chisel that he had taken from the kit
under the seat of Emmanuel's car, as once before from under the seat of
another car he had taken a chisel--with one hundred thousand dollars
as his object in view. He had got the money then, and lost it, and had
nearly lost his life as well, and now--------
He steeled himself, as the door opened silently under his hand; steeled
himself against the hope, which somehow seemed to be growing upon him,
that Millman might never have got here after all; steeled himself
against disappointment where logic told him disappointment had no place
at all, since he was but a fool to harbor any hope. And yet--and yet
there were a thousand things, a thousand unforeseen contingencies which
might have turned the tables upon Millman! The money _might_ still be
here. And if it were! He was dead now--and free to use it! Free! His
lips thinned into a straight line.
The door closed noiselessly behind him. The flashlight in his hand, also
borrowed from Emmanuel's car, played around the shed. It was the same
old place, perhaps a little more down-at-the-heels, perhaps a little
dirtier, a little more cumbered up with odds and ends than it had been
five years before, but there was no other change. And there was the door
of the pigeon-cote above him, that he could just reach from the ground.
He moved toward it now with a swift, impulsive step, and snarled in
sudden anger at himself, as he found his hand trembling with excitement,
causing the flashlight to throw a jerky, wavering ray on the old
pigeon-cote door. What was the use of that! He expected nothing, didn't
he? The pigeon-cote would be empty; he knew that well enough. And yet
he was playing the fool. He knew quite well it would be empty; he had
prepared himself thoroughly to expect nothing else.
He reached up, opened the door, and felt inside. His hand encountered
a moldy litter of chaff and straw. He reached further in, with quick
eagerness, the full length of his arm. He remembered that he had pushed
the package into the corner, and had covered it with straw.
For a minute, for two full minutes, his fingers, by the sense of touch,
sifted through the chaff, first slowly, methodically, then with a sort
of frantic abandon; and then, in another moment, he had stooped to the
floor, seized an old box, and, standing upon it, had thrust head and
shoulders into the old pigeon-cote, while the flashlight's ray swept
every crevice of the interior, and he pawed and turned up the chaff and
straw where even it lay but a bare inch deep and only one bereft of his
senses could expect it to conceal anything.
He withdrew himself from the opening, and closed the pigeon-cote door
again, and stood down on the floor. He laughed at himself in a low,
bitter, merciless way. He had expected nothing, of course; he had
expected only to find what he had found--nothing. He had told himself
that, hadn't he? Quite convinced himself of it, hadn't he? Well, then,
what did it matter? His hands, clenched, went suddenly above his head.
“I paid five years for that,” he whispered. “Do you hear, Millman--five
years--five years! And I'll get you--Millman! I'll get you for this,
Millman--are you listening?--whether you are in New York--or hell!”
He put the box upon which he had stood back in its place, went out of
the shed, closed the door behind him, and made his way back to the car.
He drove quickly now, himself driven by the feverish, intolerant passion
that had him in its grip. He was satisfied now. There were not any more
doubts. He knew! Well, he would go to Nicolo Capriano's, and then--his
hands gripped fiercely on the steering wheel. He was dead! Ha, ha! Dave
Henderson was dead--but Millman was still alive!
It was not far to Capriano's. He left the car where Emmanuel had awaited
him the night before, and gained the back porch of Nicolo Capriano's
house.
Teresa's voice from the other side of the closed door answered his
knock.
“Who's there?” she asked.
He laughed low, half in facetiousness, half in grim humor. He was in a
curious mood.
“The dead man,” he answered.
There was no light in the porch to-night. She opened the door, and, as
he stepped inside, closed it behind him again. He could not see her in
the darkness--and somehow, suddenly, quite unreasonably, he found the
situation awkward, and his tongue, as it had been the night before,
awkward, too.
“Say,” he blurted out, “your father's got some clever head, all right!”
“Has he?” Her voice seemed strangely quiet and subdued, a hint of
listlessness and weariness in it.
“But you know about it, don't you?” he exclaimed. “You know what he did,
don't you?”
“Yes; I know,” she answered. “But he has been waiting for you, and he is
impatient, and we had better go at once.”
It was Tony Lomazzi! He remembered her grief when he had told her last
night that Tony was dead. That was what was the matter with her, he
decided, as he followed her along the passageway. She must have thought
a good deal of Tony Lomazzi--more even than her father did. He wished
again that he had not broken the news to her in the blunt, brutal way he
had--only he had not known then, of course, that Tony had meant so
much to her. He found himself wondering why now. She could not have had
anything to do with Tony Lomazzi for fifteen years, and fifteen years
ago she could have been little more than a child. True, she might
perhaps have visited the prison, but----
“Well, my young friend--eh?” Nicolo Capriano's voice greeted him, as he
followed Teresa into the old Italian's room. “So Ignace Ferroni has done
you a good turn--eh? And old Nicolo! Eh--what have you to say about old
Nicolo? Did I not tell you that you could leave it to old Nicolo to find
a way?”
Dave Henderson caught the other's outstretched hand, and wrung it hard.
“I'll never forget this,” he said. “You've pulled the slickest thing I
ever heard of, and I----”
“Bah!” Nicolo Capriano was chuckling delightedly.
“Never mind the thanks, my young friend. You owe me none. The old
fingers had the itch in them to play the cards against the police once
more. And the police--eh?--I do not like the police. Well, perhaps we
are quits now! Ha, ha! Do you know Barjan? Barjan is a very clever
little man, too--ha, ha!--Barjan and old Nicolo have known each other
many years. And that is what Barjan said--just what you said--that he
would not forget. Well, we are all pleased--eh? But we do not stop at
that. Old Nicolo does not do things by halves. You will still need help,
my young friend. You will go at once to New York--eh? That is what you
intend to do?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“And you will find your man--and the money?”
“Yes!” Dave Henderson's lips thinned suddenly. “If he is in New York, as
I believe he is, I will find him; if not--then I will find him just the
same.”
Again Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“Ah, my young friend, I like you!” he murmured. “If I had had
you--eh?--fifteen years ago! We would have gone far--eh? And Tony went
no farther than a prison cell. But we waste time--eh? Old Nicolo is not
through yet--a Capriano does not do things by halves. You will need help
and friends in New York. Nicolo Capriano will see to that. And money to
get to New York--eh? You will need some ready money for that?”
Dave Henderson's eyes met Teresa's. She stood there, a slim, straight
figure, just inside the door, the light glinting on her raven hair.
She seemed somehow, with those wondrous eyes of hers, to be making an
analysis of him, an analysis that went deeper than a mere appraisal of
his features and his clothes--and a little frown came and puckered the
white brow--and, quick in its wake, with a little start of confusion,
there came a heightened tinge of color to her cheeks, and she lowered
her eyes.
“Teresa, my little one,” said Nicolo Capriano softly, “go and get some
paper and an envelope, and pen and ink.”
Dave Henderson watched her as she left the room.
Nicolo Capriano's fingers, from plucking at the counterpane, tapped
gently on Dave Henderson's sleeve.
“We were speaking of money--for your immediate needs,” Nicolo Capriano
suggested pleasantly.
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“I have enough to keep me going for a while,” he answered.
The old bomb king's eyebrows were slightly elevated.
“So! But you are just out of prison--and you said yourself that the
police had followed you closely.”
Dave Henderson laughed shortly.
“That wasn't very difficult,” he said. “I had a friend who owed me some
money before I went to the pen--some I had won on the race-track. I gave
the police the slip without very much trouble last night in order to get
here, and it was a good deal more of a cinch to put it over them long
enough to get that money.”
“So!” said Nicolo Capriano again. “And this friend--what is his name?”
Dave Henderson hesitated. He had seen to it that Square John Kelly was
clear of this, and he was reluctant now, even to this man here to whom
he owed a debt beyond repayment, to bring Square John into the matter at
all; yet, on the other hand, in this particular instance, it could make
very little difference. If Square John was involved, Nicolo Capriano was
involved a hundredfold deeper. And then, too, Nicolo Capriano might very
well, and with very good reason, be curious to know how he, Dave
Henderson, could, under the circumstances, have come into the possession
of a sum of money adequate for his present needs.
“I'd rather keep his name out of it,” he said frankly; “but I guess
you've got a right to ask about anything you like, and if you insist
I'll tell you.”
Nicolo Capriano's eyes were half closed--and they were fixed on the foot
of the bed.
“I think I would like to know,” he said, after a moment.
“All right! It was Square John Kelly,” said Dave Henderson quietly--and
recounted briefly the details of his visit to the Pacific Coral Saloon
the night before.
Nicolo Capriano had propped himself up in bed. He leaned over now as
Dave Henderson finished, and patted Dave Henderson's shoulder in a sort
of exultant excitement.
“Good! Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Ah, my young friend, I begin to love
you! It brings back the years that are gone. But--bah!--I shall get
well again--eh? And I am not yet too old--eh? Who can tell--eh?--who can
tell! We would be invincible, you and I, and----” He checked himself, as
Teresa reentered the room. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Well, then, as far as
money is concerned, you are supplied; but friends--eh?--are sometimes
more important than money. You have found that out already--eh? Listen,
then, I will give you a letter to a friend in New York whom you can
trust--and I promise you he will stop at nothing to carry out my orders.
You understand? His name is Georges Vardi, but he is commonly known as
Dago George; and he, too, was one of us in the old days. You will want
somewhere to go. He keeps a little hotel, a very _quiet_ little hotel
off the Bowery, not far from Chatham Square. Any one will tell you there
where to find Dago George. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano motioned his daughter abruptly to a small table on the
opposite side of the bed.
“Teresa will write the letter, and put it in Italian,” he said, as she
seated herself at the table. “I do not write as easily as I used to.
They say old Nicolo is a sick man. Well, maybe that is so, but old
Nicolo's brain is not sick, and old Nicolo's fingers can at least still
sign his name--and that is enough. Ha, ha, it is good to be alive again!
Well”--he waved his hand again toward his daughter--“are you ready, my
little one?”
“Yes, father,” she answered.
“To Dago George, then,” he said. “First--my affectionate salutations.”
Her pen scratched rapidly over the paper. She looked up.
“Yes, father?”
Nicolo Capriano's fingers plucked at the coverlet.
“You will say that the bearer of this letter--ah! Yes!” He turned with
a whimsical smile to Dave Henderson. “You must have a name, eh, my young
friend--since Dave Henderson is dead! We shall not tell Dago George
everything. Fools alone tell all they know! What shall it be?”
Dave Henderson shrugged his shoulders.
“Anything,” he said. “It doesn't matter. One is as good as another. Make
it Barty Lynch.”
“Yes, that will do. Good!” Nicolo Capriano gestured with his hand in
his daughter's direction again. “You will say that the bearer of this
letter is Barty Lynch, and that he is to be treated as though he were
Nicolo Capriano himself. You understand, my little one? Anything that he
asks is his--and I, Nicolo Capriano, will be responsible. Tell him, my
little one, that it is Nicolo Capriano's order--and that Nicolo Capriano
has yet to be disobeyed. And particularly you will say that if our young
friend here requires any help by those who know how to do what they are
told and ask no questions, the men are to be supplied. You understand,
Teresa?”
She did not look up this time.
“Yes, father.”
“Write it, then,” he said. “And see that Dago George is left with no
doubt in his mind that he is at the command of our young friend here.”
Teresa's pen scratched rapidly again across the paper.
Nicolo Capriano was at his interminable occupation of plucking at the
counterpane.
Dave Henderson pushed his hand through his hair in a curiously
abstracted sort of way. There seemed to be something strangely and
suddenly unreal about all this--about this man, with his cunning brain,
who lay here in this queer four-poster bed; about that trim little
figure, who bent over the table there, and whose profile only now was in
view, the profile of a sweet, womanly face that somehow now seemed to be
very earnest, for he could see the reflection of a puckered brow in the
little nest of wrinkles at the corner of her eye.
No, there wasn't anything unreal about her. She was very real.
He remembered her as she had stood last night on the threshold there,
and when in the lighted doorway he had seen her for the first time. He
would never forget that--nor the smile that had followed the glorious
flood of color in her cheeks, and that had lighted up her eyes, and that
had forgiven him for his unconscious rudeness.
That wasn't what was unreal. All that would remain living and vibrant,
a picture that would endure, and that the years would not dim. It was
unreal that in the space of a few minutes more everything here would
have vanished forever out of his existence--this room with its vaguely
foreign air, this four-poster bed with its strange occupant, whose
mental vitality seemed to thrive on his physical weakness, that slimmer
figure there bending over the table, whose masses of silken hair seemed
to curl and cluster in a sort of proudly intimate affection about the
arched, shapely neck, whose shoulders were molded in soft yielding lines
that somehow invited the lingering touch of a hand, if one but had the
right.
His hand pushed its way again through his hair, and fumbled a little
helplessly across his eyes. And, too, it was more than that that
was unreal. A multitude of things seemed unreal--the years in the
penitentiary during which he had racked his brain for a means of eluding
the police, racked it until it had become a physical agony to think,
were now dispelled by this man here, and with such ease that, as an
accomplished, concrete fact, his mind somehow refused to accept it as
such. He was dead. It was very strange, very curious! He sank back a
little in his chair. There came a vista of New York--not as a tangible
thing of great streets and vast edifices, but as a Mecca of his
aspirations, now almost within his grasp, as an arena where he could
stand unleashed, and where the iron of five years that had entered
his soul should have a chance to vent itself. Millman was there! There
seemed to come an unholy joy creeping upon him. Millman was there--and
he, Dave Henderson, was dead, and in Dave Henderson's place would be a
man in that arena who had friends now at his back, who could laugh at
the police. Millman! He felt the blood sweep upward to his temples; he
heard his knuckles crack, as his hand clenched in a fierce, sudden
surge of fury. Millman! Yes, the way was clear to Millman--but there was
another, too. Bookie Skarvan!
His hand unclenched. He was quite cool, quite unconcerned again. Teresa
had finished the letter, and Nicolo Capriano was reading it now. He
could afford to wait as far as Bookie Skarvan was concerned--he could
not afford to wait where Millman was concerned. And, besides, there
was his own safety. Bookie Skarvan was here in San Francisco, but the
further he, Dave Henderson, got from San Francisco for the present now,
and the sooner, the better it would be. In a little while, a few months,
after he had paid his debt to Millman--he would pay his debt to Bookie
Skarvan. He was not likely to forget Bookie Skarvan!
His eyes fell on Teresa. He might come back to San Francisco in a few
months. With ordinary caution it ought to be quite safe then. Dave
Henderson would have been dead quite long enough then to be utterly
forgotten. They would not be talking on every street corner about him as
they were to-night, and----
Nicolo Capriano was nodding his head approvingly over the letter.
“Yes, yes!” he said. “Excellent! With this, my young friend, you will
be a far more important personage in New York than you imagine. Old
Nicolo's arm still reaches far.” He stared for a moment musingly at Dave
Henderson through half closed eyes. “You have money, and this letter.
I do not think there is anything else that old Nicolo can do for
you--eh?--except to give you a little advice. You will leave here
shortly, and from that moment you must be very careful. Anywhere
near San Francisco you might be recognized. Travel only by night at
first--make of yourself a tramp and use the freight trains, and hide by
day. After two or three days, which should have taken you a good many
miles from here, you will be able to travel more comfortably. But
still do not use the through express trains--the men on the dining and
sleeping cars have all started from here, too, you must remember. You
understand? Go slowly. Be very careful. You are not really safe
until you are east of Chicago. I do not think there is anything else,
unless--eh?--you are armed, my young friend?”
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“So!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano, and pursed his lips. “And it would not
be safe for you to buy a weapon to-night--eh?--and it might very well be
that to-night you would need it badly. Well, it is easily remedied.” He
turned to his daughter. “Teresa, my little one, I think we might let
our young friend have that revolver upstairs in the bottom of the old
box--and still not remain defenseless ourselves--eh? Yes, yes! Run and
get it, Teresa.”
She rose from her seat obediently, and turned toward the door--but her
father stopped her with a quick impulsive gesture.
“Wait!” he said. “Give me the pen before you go, and I will sign this
letter. Dago George must be sure that it came from Nicolo Capriano--eh?”
She dipped the pen in the ink, and handed it to him. Nicolo Capriano
propped the letter on his knees, as he motioned her away on her errand.
His pen moved laboriously across the paper. He looked up then, and
beckoned Dave Henderson to lean over the bed.
“See, my young friend,” he smiled--and pointed to his cramped writing.
“Old Nicolo's fingers are old and stiff, and it is a long while since
Dago George has seen that signature--but, though I am certain he would
know it again, I have made assurance doubly sure. See, I have signed:
'_Con Amore_, Nicolo Capriano.' You do not know Italian--eh? Well, it
is a simple phrase, a very common phrase. It means--'with love.' But to
Dago George it means something else. It was a secret signal in the old
days. A letter signed in that way by any one of us meant--'trust to the
death!' You understand, my young friend?” He smiled again, and patted
Dave Henderson's arm. “Give me die envelope there on the table.”
He was inserting the letter in the envelope, as Teresa entered the room
again. He sealed the envelope, reached out to her for the revolver which
she carried, broke the revolver, nodded as he satisfied himself that it
was loaded--and handed both envelope and weapon to Dave Henderson.
He spread out his hands then, and lifted his shoulders in a whimsical
gesture of finality.
“It is only left then to say good-by--eh?--my young friend--who was
the friend of Tony Lomazzi. You will have good luck, and good fortune,
and----”
Dave Henderson was on his feet. He had both of the old Italian's hands
in his.
“I will never forget what you have done--and I will never forget Nicolo
Capriano,” he said in a low tone, his voice suddenly choked.
The old bomb king's eyelids fluttered down. It was like a blind man
whose face was turned to Dave Henderson.
“I am sure of that, my young friend,” he said softly. “I am sure that
you will never forget Nicolo Capriano. I shall hear of you through Dago
George.” He released his hands suddenly. His eyes opened--they were
inscrutable, almost dead, without luster. “Go,” he said, “I know what
you would say. But we are not children to sob on one another's neck.
Nicolo is not dead yet. Perhaps we will meet again--eh? We will not
make a scene--Teresa will tell you that it might bring on an attack. Eh?
Well, then, go! You will need all the hours from now until daylight to
get well away from the city.” He smiled again, and waved Dave Henderson
from the bed.
In an uncertain, reluctant way, as though conscious that his farewell to
the old Italian was entirely inadequate, that his gratitude had found
no expression, and yet conscious, too, that any attempt to express his
feelings would be genuinely unwelcome to the other, Dave Henderson moved
toward the door. Teresa had already passed out of the room, and was
standing in the hall. On the threshold Dave Henderson paused, and looked
back.
“Good-by, Nicolo Capriano!” he called.
The old Italian had sunk back on the pillows, his fingers busy with the
counterpane.
“The wine of life, my young friend”--it was almost as though he were
talking to himself--“ha, ha!--the wine of life! The old days back
again--the measured blades--the fight, and the rasp of steel! Ha, ha!
Old Nicolo is not yet dead! Good-by--good-by, my young friend! It is
old Nicolo who is in your debt; not you in his. Good-by, my young
friend--good-by!”
Teresa's footsteps were already receding along the passageway toward
the rear door. Dave Henderson, with a final wave of his hand to the old
Italian, turned and walked slowly along the hall. He heard the porch
door ahead of him being opened. He reached it, and halted, looking
around him. It was dark, as it always was here, and he could see
nothing--not even a faint, blurred outline of Teresa's form. Surprised,
he called her name softly. There was no answer--only the door stood wide
open.
He stepped out into the porch. There was still no sign of her. It was
very strange! He called her again--he only wanted to say good-by, to
thank her, to tell her, as he had told her father, that he would not
forget. And, yes, to tell her, too, if he could find the words, that
some day he hoped that he might see her again. But there was no answer.
He was frowning now, piqued, and a little angry. He did not
understand--only that she had opened the door for him, and in some way
had deliberately chosen to evade him. He did not know why--he could
find no reason for it. He moved on through the porch. Perhaps she had
preceded him as far as the lane.
At the lane, he halted again, and again looked around him--and stood
there hesitant. And then there reached him the sound of the porch door
being closed and locked.
He did not understand. It mystified him. It was not coquetry--there was
no coquetry in those steady, self-reliant eyes, or in that strong, sweet
face. And yet it had been deliberately done, and about it was something
of finality--and his lips twisted in a hurt smile, as he turned and
walked from the lane.
“Beat it!” said Dave Henderson to himself. “You're dead!”
VI--THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY DRAWS ITS BLINDS
TERESA'S fingers twisted the key in the lock of the porch door that
she had closed on Dave Henderson. There was a queer, tight little smile
quivering on her lips.
“There was no other way,” she whispered to herself. “What could I do?
What could I say?”
Behind her, and at one side of the passage, was a small panel door, long
out of use now, a relic of those days when Nicolo Capriano's dwelling
had been a house of mystery. She had hidden there to let Dave Henderson
pass by; she closed it now, as she retraced her steps slowly to her
father's room. And here, on the threshold, she paused for a moment; then
reached in quietly to close the door, and retire again. Her father lay
back on the bed, his eyes closed, and his hands, outstretched on the
coverlet, were quiet, the long, slim fingers motionless. He was asleep.
It was not uncommon. He often did that. Sleep came at the oddest times
with the old man, even if it did not last long, and----
“Teresa--eh--what are you doing?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes half opened,
and fixed on his daughter. “Eh--what are you doing?”
“I thought you were asleep, father,” she murmured. “Asleep! Bah! I have
been asleep for fifteen years--is that not long enough? Fifteen years!
Ha, ha! But I am awake now! Yes, yes, old Nicolo has had enough of
dreams! He is awake now! Come here, Teresa. Come here, and sit by the
bed. Has our clever young friend gone?”
“Yes, father,” she told him, as she took the chair at the bedside.
Nicolo Capriano jerked his head around on his pillows, and studied
her face for a moment, though his black eyes, with their smoldering,
introspective expression, seemed not at all concerned with her.
“And what do you think of him--eh--Teresa, my little one--what do you
think of him?”
She drew back in her chair with a little start.
“Why--what do you mean, father?” she asked quickly.
“Bah!” There was a caustic chuckle in the old bomb king's voice. “We do
not speak of love--I suppose! I do not expect you to have fallen in love
just because you have seen a man for a few minutes--eh? Bah! I mean just
what I say. I called him clever. You are a Capriano, and you are clever;
you are the cleverest woman in San Francisco, but you do not get it from
your mother--you are a Capriano. Well, then, am I right? He is clever--a
very clever fellow?”
Her voice was suddenly dull.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano. “He was caught five years ago, but
it was not his fault. He was double-crossed, or he would never have seen
the inside of a penitentiary. So you agree, then, that he is clever?
Well, then, he has courage, too--eh? He was modest about his fight at
Vinetto's--eh? You heard it all from Vinetto himself when you went there
this morning. Our young friend was modest--eh?”
Teresa's eyes widened slightly in a puzzled way. She nodded her head.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” said Nicolo Capriano--and the long, slim fingers began to twine
themselves together, and to untwine, and to twine together again. “Well,
then, my little one, with his cleverness and his courage, he should
succeed--eh--in New York? Old Nicolo does not often make a mistake--eh?
Our young friend will find his money again in New York--eh?”
She pushed back her chair impulsively, and stood up.
“I hope not,” she answered in a low voice.
“Eh?” Nicolo Capriano jerked himself sharply up on his pillows, and his
eyes narrowed. “Eh--what is that you say? What do you mean--you hope
not!”
“It is not his money now any more than it was before he stole it,” she
said in a dead tone. “It is stolen money.”
“Well, and what of it?” demanded Nicolo Capriano. “Am I a fool that I do
not know that?” Sudden irascibility showed in the old Italian's face and
manner; a flush swept his cheeks under the white beard, the black
eyes grew lusterless and hard--and he coughed. “Well, am I a fool?” he
shouted.
She looked at him in quick apprehension.
“Father, be careful!” she admonished. “You must not excite yourself.”
“Bah!” He flung out his hand in a violent gesture. “Excite myself! Bah!
Always it is--'do not excite yourself!' Can you find nothing else to
say? Now, you will explain--eh?--you will explain! What is it about this
stolen money that Nicolo Capriano's daughter does not like? You hear--I
call you Nicolo Capriano's daughter!”
It was a moment before she answered.
“I do not like it--because it has made my soul sick to-night.” She
turned her head away. “I hid behind the old panel when he went out. I do
not like it; I hate it. I hate it with all my soul! I did not understand
at first, not until your talk with him to-night, that there was any
money involved. I thought it was just to help him get away from the
police who were hounding him even after his sentence had been served,
and also to protect him from that gang who tried to get him in Vinetto's
place--and that we were doing it for Tony's sake. And then it all seemed
to come upon me in a flash, as I went toward the door to let him out
to-night--that there was the stolen money, and that I was helping him,
and had been helping him in everything that was done here, to steal it
again. I know what I should have done. It would have done no good, it
would have been utterly useless; I realized that--but I would have been
honest with myself. I should have protested there and then. But I shrank
from the position I was in. I shrank from having him ask me what I had
to do with honesty, I, who--and you have said it yourself but a moment
ago--I, who was Nicolo Capriano's daughter; I, who, even if I protested
on one score, had knowingly and voluntarily done my share in hoodwinking
the police on another. He would have had the right to think me mad, to
think me irresponsible--and worse. I shrank from having him laugh in my
face. And so I let him go, because I must say that to him or nothing;
for I could not be hypocrite enough to wish him a smiling good-by,
to wish him good fortune and success--I couldn't--I tell you, I
couldn't--and so--and so I stepped behind the panel, and let him pass.”
Nicolo Capriano's two hands were outthrust and clenched, his lips had
widened until the red gums showed above his teeth, and he glared at his
daughter.
“By God!” he whispered hoarsely, “it is well for you, you kept your
mouth shut! Do you hear, you--you-----” A paroxysm of coughing seized
him, and he fell back upon the pillows.
In an instant, Teresa was bending over him anxiously.
He pushed her away, and struggled upward again, and for a moment he
shook his fists again at his daughter--and then his eyes were half
veiled, and his hands opened, and he began to pat the girl's arm, and
his voice held a soft, purring note.
“Listen! You are not a fool, my little one. I have not brought you up to
be a fool--eh? Well, then, listen! We have a little money, but it is not
much. And he will get that hundred thousand dollars. Do you understand?
He is clever, and he has the courage. Do you think that I would have
tricked the police for him, otherwise? Eh--do you think old Nicolo
Capriano does not know what he is about?”
She stared at him, a sort of dawning dismay in her eyes.
“You mean,” she said, and the words seemed to come in a hard, forced way
from her lips, “you mean that if he gets that money again, you are to
have a share?”
“A share! Ha, ha!” The old Italian was rocking backward and forward in
glee. “No, my little one, not a share--Nicolo Capriano does not deal
in shares any more. All--my little one--all! One hundred thousand
dollars--all! And my little black-eyes will have such gowns as----”
“Father!” It came in a startled, broken cry of amazed and bitter
expostulation.
Nicolo Capriano stopped his rocking, and looked at her. A sudden glint
of fury leaped from the smoldering eyes.
“Bah!” he said angrily. “Am I mistaken after all? Is it that you are
your mother--and not a Capriano! Perhaps I should not have told you; but
now you will make the best of it, and behave yourself, and not play the
child--eh? Do you think I risked myself with the police for nothing!
Yes--all! All--except that I must pay that leech Dago George something
for looking after our young friend--_con amore--con amore_, Nicolo
Capriano--eh?--since I signed the letter so.”
She stood an instant, straight and tense, but a little backward on
her heels, as though she had recoiled from a blow that had been struck
her--and then she bent swiftly forward, and caught both her father's
wrists in her strong young grasp, and looked into his eyes for a long
minute, as though to read deep into his soul.
“You signed that letter _con amore!_” Her voice was colorless. “You
signed it--_con amore_--the code word of the old, horrible, miserable
days when this house was a den of outlaws, the code word that marked out
the victim who was to be watched and hounded down!”
The old bomb king wrenched himself still further up in bed. He shook his
wrists free.
“What is it to you!” he screamed in a blaze of fury--and fell into a
second, and more violent paroxysm of coughing--and now caught at his
breast with his thin, blue-tipped fingers, and now in unbridled
passion waved his arms about like disjointed flails. “Yes--I signed it
that--_con amore_. And it is the old signal! Yes, yes! And Dago George
will obey. And he will watch our young friend--watch--watch--watch!
And in the end--bah!--in the end our young friend will supply Nicolo
Capriano with that hundred thousand dollars. Ha! And in the end we will
see that our young friend does not become troublesome. He is a pawn--a
pawn!” Old Nicolo's face, between rage and coughing, had grown a mottled
purple. “A pawn! And when a pawn has lost its usefulness--eh?--it is
swept from the board--eh? _Con amore!_ The old days again! The finger
of Nicolo Capriano lifted--and the puppets jump! _Con amore!_ I will see
that Dago George knows what to do with a young man who brings him Nicolo
Capriano's letter! Ha, ha! Yes, yes; I will take care of that!”
She had not moved, except to grow a little straighter in her poise, and
except that her hands now were clenched at her sides.
“I cannot believe it!” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. “I cannot
believe it! I cannot believe that you would do this! It is monstrous,
horrible!”
It seemed as though Nicolo Capriano could not get his breath, or at
least one adequate enough to vent the access of fury that swept upon
him. He choked, caught again at his breast, and hooked fingers ripped
the nightdress loose from his throat.
“Out of the room!” he screamed at last. “Out of it! I will teach you a
chit of a girl's place! Out of it!”
“No; I will not go out--not yet,” she said, and steadied her voice with
an effort. “I will not go until you tell me that you will not do
this thing. You can't do it, father--you can't--you can't!” Even the
semblance of calmness was gone from her now, and, instead, there was a
frantic, almost incoherent pleading in her tones. “He came--he came from
Tony Lomazzi. Father, are you mad? Do you not understand? He came from
Tony Lomazzi, I tell you!”
“And I tell you to get out of this room, and hold your tongue, you
meddling little fool!” screamed Nicolo Capriano again. “Tony Lomazzi! He
came from Tony Lomazzi, did he? Damn Tony Lomazzi--damn him--damn him!
What do I owe Tony Lomazzi but the hell of hate in a man's soul that
comes only in one way! You hear! It was the prison walls only that
saved Lomazzi from my reach--from these fingers of mine that are strong,
strong at the throat, and never let go! Do you think I was blind that
I could not see, that I did not know--eh?--that I did not know what was
between your mother and that accursed Lomazzi! But he died--eh?--he died
like a rat gnawing, gnawing at walls that he could not bite through!”
Teresa's face had gone suddenly a deathly white, and the color seemed to
have fled her lips and left them gray.
“It is a lie--a hideous lie!” she cried--and all the passion of her
father's race was on the surface now. “It is a lie! And you know it
is--you know it is! My mother loved you, always loved you, and only
you--and you broke her heart--and killed her with the foul, horrible
life of crime that seethed in this house! Oh, my God! Are you trying
to make me hate you, hate _you_, my father! I have tried to be a good
daughter to you since she died. She made me promise that I would,
on that last night. I have tried to love you, and I have tried to
understand why she should have loved you--but--but I do not know. It is
true that Tony Lomazzi loved her, but, though he was one of you in your
criminal work, his love was the love of a brave, honest man. It is true,
perhaps, that it was for her, rather than for you, that it was because
of his love, a great, strong, wonderful love, and to save her from
horror and despair because she loved _you_, that he gave his life for
you, that he went to prison in your stead, voluntarily, on his own
confession, when he was less guilty than you, and when the police
offered him his freedom if he would only turn evidence against you, the
man they really wanted. But that is what he did, nevertheless. He kept
you together.” She was leaning forward now, her eyes ablaze, burning.
“That was his love! His love for my mother, and for me--yes, for me--for
he loved me too, and I, though I, was only a little girl, I loved
Tony Lomazzi. And he gave his life--and he died there in prison.
And now--now--you mean to betray his trust--to betray his friend who
believed in you because he believed in Tony, who trusted you and sent
him here. And you tricked him, and tricked the police for your own ends!
Well, you shall not do it! You shall not! Do you hear? You shall not!”
Nicolo Capriano's face was livid. A fury, greater than before, a fury
that was unbalanced, like the fury of a maniac, seized upon him. He
twisted his hands one around the other with swift insistence, his lips
moved to form words--and he coughed instead, and a fleck of blood tinged
the white beard.
“You dare!” he shrieked, catching for his breath. “You, a girl, dare
talk to me like that, to me--Nicolo Capriano! I shall not--eh? You say
that to me! I shall not! And who will stop me?”
“I will!” she said, through tight lips. “If you will not stop it
yourself--then I will. No matter what it costs, no matter what it
means--to you, or to me--I will!”
Nicolo Capriano laughed--and the room rang with the pealing laughter
that was full of unhinged, crazy, shuddering mirth.
“Fool!” he cried. “You will stop it--eh? And how will you stop it? Will
you tell the police? Ha, ha! Then you, too, would betray dear Tony's
friend! You would tell the police what they want to know--that Dave
Henderson can be found in New York, and that he has gone there to get
the money back. Or perhaps you will write another letter--and tell Dago
George to pay no attention to my orders? Ha, ha! And it is too bad that
our young friend himself has gone, and left you no address so that you
could intercept him!”
Teresa drew back a little, and into her eyes came trouble and dismay.
And Nicolo Capriano's laugh rang out again--and was checked by a spasm
of coughing--and rang out once more, ending in a sort of triumphant
scream.
“Well, and what do you think now about stopping it--eh? Do you imagine
that Nicolo Capriano sees no farther than his nose? Stop it! Bah! No one
will stop it--and, least of all, you!”
She seemed to have overcome the dismay that had seized upon her, though
her face had grown even whiter than before.
“It is true, what you say,” she said, in a low, strained voice. “But
there is one way left, one way to find him, and warn him, and I will
take that way.”
“Hah!” Nicolo Capriano glared at her. His voice dropped. “And what is
that way, my little one?” he purred, through a fit of coughing. “Old
Nicolo would like to know.”
“To go where Dave Henderson is going,” she answered. “To go where he can
be found, to go to New York, to keep him from going to Dago George's,
or, if I am too late for that, to warn him there before Dago
George has had time to do him any harm, and----”
Her words ended in a startled cry. Nicolo Capriano's long, slim fingers,
from the bed, had shot out, locked about her waist, and were wrenching
at her in a mad-man's fury.
“You--you would do that!” the old Italian screamed. “By God! No! No!
_No!_ Do you hear? No!” His hands had crept upward, and, with all his
weight upon her, he was literally pulling himself out of the bed. “No!”
he screamed again. “No! Do you hear? No!”
“Father!” she cried out frantically. “Father, what are you doing? You
will kill yourself!”
The black eyes of the old man were gleaming with an insane light, his
face was working in horrible contortions.
“Hah!” He was out of the bed now, struggling wildly with her. “Hah! Kill
myself, will I? I would kill you--_you_--before I would let you meddle
with my plans! It is the old Nicolo again--Nicolo Capriano of the years
when----”
The room seemed to swirl around her. The clutching fingers had
relaxed. It was she now who struggled and grasped at the man's body
and shoulders--to hold him up. He was very heavy, too heavy for her.
He seemed to be carrying her downward with him--until he fell back half
across the bed. And she leaned over him then, and stared at him for
a long time through her hands that were tightly held to her face--and
horror, a great, blinding horror came, and fear, a fear that robbed her
of her senses came, and she staggered backward, and stumbled over the
chair at the bedside, and clutched at it for support.
She did not speak. Nicolo Capriano had left his bed for the first time
in three years--to die.
Her father was dead. That was the theme of the overwhelming horror,
and the paralyzing fear that obsessed her brain. It beat upon her in
remorseless waves--horror--fear. Time did not exist; reality had passed
away. She was in some great, soundless void--soundless, except for that
strange ringing in her ears. And she put her hands up to her ears to
shut out the sound. But it persisted. It became clearer. It became a
tangible thing. It was the doorbell.
Habit seemed to impel her. She went automatically to the hall, and, in a
numbed sort of consciousness, went along the hall, and opened the door,
and stared at a short, fat man, who stood there and chewed on the butt
of a cigar that dangled from one corner of his mouth.
“My name's MacBain,” said Bookie Skarvan glibly. “And I want to see
Nicolo Capriano. Very important. You're his daughter, aren't you?”
She did not answer him. Her brain floundered in that pit of blackness
into which it had been plunged. She was scarcely aware of the man's
presence, scarcely aware that she was standing here in the doorway.
“Say, you look scared, you do; but there's nothing to be scared about,”
said Bookie Skarvan ingratiatingly. “I just want to see Nicolo Capriano
for a few minutes. You go and tell him a reporter wants to see him
about that bomb explosion, and 'll give him a write-up that'll be worth
while.”
She drew back a little, forcing herself to shake her head.
“Aw, say, go on now, there's a good girl!” wheedled Bookie Skarvan. “The
paper sent me here, and I've got to see him. There's nothing for you
to look so white about. I'm only a reporter. I ain't going to hurt
him--see?”
Teresa shivered. How cold the night was! This man here--what was it he
had said? That he wanted to see Nicolo Capriano? Strange that words came
with such curious difficulty to her tongue--as though, somehow, she had
been dumb all her life, and was speaking now for the first time.
“Nicolo Capriano is dead,” she said--and closed the door in Bookie
Skarvan's face.