DOCTOR REID REMOVES A SOURCE OF INFORMATION
For a block or so I still felt a little queer and giddy; but air and
movement soon set all to rights; and after a walk back to the Club and a
comfortable bath, I felt as well as ever, and rather wondered at my
sudden upset. Evidently it had been only the heat and the nervous
excitement of the day; and I had been foolish to take Scotch with my
luncheon in such weather. I remembered that I had been out of gear a bit
since the morning; Maclean's revelation must have shaken me more than I
had admitted to myself; and it only wanted the startling coincidence of
a "spirit" called Miriam to cap the climax. Besides, if you sit for two
hours in a dark and stuffy room waiting for something strange to happen,
something usually will. At any rate I had had an interesting experience.
For a moment, it occurred to me that the episode might have been
prearranged by Mac, with the idea of conveying to me in that way
something which he did not wish to tell; but that was not like him, and
was absurdly far-fetched besides. If the name had been taken somehow
from my own thoughts, it was a remarkable case of telepathy; but no, it
had been the professor, not the medium, who had named the voice; and by
his tone, this had been a familiar one often heard before. If the name
had any other than a chance connection with my affair, I could not
fathom it.
There must be in all of us an instinct for the occult, an affinity for
illicit short-cuts through difficulty that comes of mental and moral
indolence--the instinct that causes the school-boy to look up the answer
to his problem in the back of the book, and sends ignorance running to
the soothsayer. Here was I, an educated man with what I hoped was not
less than ordinary intelligence, in the grip of a crushing question; and
instead of seeking certainty through rational search, I was mulling over
a mummery which purported to be a communication from another world. I
was no better than a kitchen-maid at her dream-book and fortune-teller.
Carucci had said that Lady was secretly Reid's wife--or rather that he
had gone through a false form of marriage with her, having already a
wife or an entanglement abroad. It was too horrible and too ruinous to
all that I most hoped for to be true; it was not like the people
concerned; but it was unbearably like all that I knew them to have said
and done. I must know what the truth was; and the more I shrank from
knowing, the more need for me to understand fully and at once. To sit
still and wonder was mere cowardice. I was here to watch Carucci on Mr.
Tabor's account: before he should leave the country, I would make it my
business to question him on my own.
By the time I had shaken myself into so much common sense, the afternoon
was far gone; and after a very early meal, I set out again for the East
Side with the strained calmness of a man who walks into the jaws of a
crisis to escape the devils that dance with their shadows behind him.
There was a mockery of evening freshness in the air, though the heat
still poured upward relentlessly from the sun-baked uncleanliness
underfoot. The streets were so crowded with the weary turmoil of
released workers, that I made my way against the stream with some
difficulty; and as I neared my destination the difficulty increased. An
eddying mass of humanity filled the narrow sidewalks and overflowed into
the street among rumbling drays and trampling, scrambling horses: gangs
of workmen with their tools, nervous and preoccupied business men,
pallid clerks and stenographers, and droves of factory hands, men and
women together, clamoring in a very Babel of languages. I noticed but
one other man going toward the waterside--a heavily built fellow with a
red handkerchief about his neck, some yards in front of me; and
presently, as he turned sidewise to avoid being jostled into a
lamp-post, I saw that it was Carucci. There could be no mistake: it was
he, in his best clothes apparently, and alone, a dozen blocks from his
own street. Sheila was nowhere in sight: however he had become separated
from her, with or against her will, it was my business to follow him.
Here was my chance for a talk with him alone; and as he passed his own
corner and still kept on his way southward, it began to look as if I
should be killing two birds with one stone.
I found it no very hard matter to keep him in sight; for the peculiar
brightness of the handkerchief at his neck marked him a block away.
There were other Italians, to be sure, but none so gorgeously bedecked,
nor whose gait was so wondrous a combination of a roll, a stagger, and a
strut. To overtake him, however, among that crowd was not so easy; and
I was afraid besides that coming suddenly upon him from behind might
spoil my whole opportunity by making him angrily suspicious. I followed,
accordingly, as best I might, for some distance; and when at last, with
a swagger of grimy magnificence, he pushed through a pair of swinging
doors, I thought that my chance had arrived. I waited a moment outside,
that I might not seem too patently to have followed him; and as I stood
there, a precocious small boy came up and looked me over.
"Yu're a fly cop, ain't yu?" he ventured, after a familiar inspection.
I smiled, and shook my head, somehow vaguely flattered.
"Aw come off, y'are too. I watched yu trailin' de guinea fer de las'
four blocks."
"Shhh!" I whispered melodramatically.
"Sure t'ing. Yu can't fool me. Wot's de game, havin' yu're pal chase
along so far behind?"
"You can search me," I said, frankly puzzled. "Is some one else
following?"
"Surest t'ing you know. He's right on de job."
I looked the youngster over; he seemed to be telling the truth. But the
detectives, I knew, were off the case; and besides them and Sheila, who
could have the slightest interest in Carucci? He might, to be sure, have
committed crimes of which I knew nothing; but then, the police could
have known nothing further against him at the time of our encounter in
the field, and he could hardly have done anything since. I glanced in
the direction in which I had come, and saw the unmistakable jerky figure
of Doctor Reid coming around the corner.
Without stopping for a second look, I plunged inside. It was one of
these really enormous halls which are scattered through the lower East
Side, places half saloon, half music-hall, where tables fill a great
floor space, where dusty, dyed palm trees vaunt a degraded splendor
about the walls, and upon a low stage at the far end of the room,
rouge-smeared slatterns dance in dreary simulation of a long-departed
youth and mirth. A very fat and flabby woman was upon the stage as I
entered, and the smoky air quivered to her raucous singsong and the
jangle of a battered piano. Carucci was seated near by, watching the
stumbling fingers of the pianist with the greatest interest and
amiability. It pleased me vaguely that the woman did not interest him.
Even when she had finished her crime against harmony, and clambered
from the stage to beg for treats about the room and so swell the bar
receipts of the house, she only received a grinning and good-natured
negative from Carucci. He seemed much pleased with the place, nodding
and marking time to the music, and plainly puffed up at the grudging
attentions of the waiter.
I had seated myself in an obscure corner near the door, where a person
entering would pass me by unnoticed and where Carucci must have turned
full about to see me. If Reid had really been following me, he would
have appeared by this time; yet I could hardly imagine what other errand
might have brought him to this part of town. If he had been following
me, instead of Carucci--the very possibility made me angry. And just
then Doctor Reid walked in at the door. There was another man with him,
a very large man with a broken nose and what is known among the sporting
fraternity as a cauliflower ear. They stood together, looking about them
for a moment; and I bowed my head upon my folded arms. I did not want to
talk to Doctor Reid in that place--or in any place, for that matter.
When I looked up again, they were seated at Carucci's table, and the
waiter was bringing up drinks for all three. They seemed to be talking
with the greatest good fellowship. Reid, I noticed, barely tasted his
drink, and watched his chance to pour the rest with a certain medical
accuracy into the cuspidor beneath the table. I smiled to see how
pleased he was with the way he was carrying off a perfectly evident
part. Every minute or so he would reach forth his hand and give the
Italian a couple of staccato pats in the region of his shoulder, pulling
back his hand as quickly, and beaming the while with a radiance of stagy
friendliness. The giant with him took things more as a matter of course.
He wasted none of his drink, but drained each glass as soon as it was
set before him, leaning between whiles with mighty elbows upon the
table, his great disfigured hands cradling his brutal face. He seemed
the last person in the world that a man of Reid's type would sit at
table with. Perhaps Reid had reason to be afraid of Carucci and had
employed this fellow as a sort of bodyguard.
Another human mockery was upon the stage; a tall, scrawny creature with
some remnant of good looks and a voice that retained a surprising
sweetness and charm. She sang unhappily, with an occasional scowl at the
piano, where the sot on the stool jangled his notes tirelessly. Carucci
was getting very drunk; he was commencing to wave his arms about, and
now and then the splutter of his words reached even my far corner. As
for Reid, he was plainly embarrassed and somewhat frightened. His hand
rested beseechingly upon the Italian's arm, and he looked at his burly
companion with evident appeal.
The big man grinned, and gave his order to the waiter with a leer that
ended with thrown-back head and closed eyes. The waiter grinned in his
turn and hurried off. I was getting more than a little interested.
Carucci tossed off the fresh drink at a gulp, and pushed back his chair.
"I know," he shouted. "I knowa da troub' with all you. You can'ta fool
Antonio, _non cio-e_?"
Reid had grown suddenly rigid in his seat. I got up from my table, and
hurried across to them.
"Sit down," said the giant, and pushed Carucci back into his chair with
a thud.
Carucci scowled sullenly. "Well, gimme da mon'. Gimme da mon'," he
growled. "I needa da mon'," and he poured forth a torrent of Italian,
threats for the most part about a secret he knew which he proposed to
shout to the world unless somebody paid him well. The room was fairly
empty, but here and there people at the tables had begun to stare. The
woman on the stage stumbled in her song, and paused wearily. Reid
glanced again at his companion.
"Ah, give it to him, he's a good feller," laughed the giant. "Just play
he's a bank, an' make a deposit."
Reid drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and began slowly counting
them off. The giant grew impatient.
"Ah, hell," he said, "here, give 'em to me," and he snatched the roll
from Reid's hand and gathered up the money from the table, crushing the
whole into a bulging wad. "Here, you; take it all. That'll hold you for
a while."
Reid got up in protest.
"Sit down, you dope," the other growled, "let him have it for a while."
Carucci grinned drunkenly, and crammed the handful carelessly into a
deep pocket, swaying to his feet.
"Graz'. Alia ri'." His mouth opened loosely, and he slumped to the floor
in a heap.
The waiter had come up, and with the giant's help lifted Carucci; and
between them they half carried him to a doorway at the side of the room.
They moved for all the world like three boon companions, arm in arm. The
door closed behind them, and I glanced around. Nobody appeared to be
concerned in the least; and even Reid, almost dancing with nervousness,
no longer attracted attention.
"See here," I said, "did you people drug that fellow, Reid?"
He whirled upon me. "You keep out of this, Crosby," he stuttered;
"nothing to do with you, nothing whatever."
"Well," I answered, "Mr. Tabor asked me to keep an eye on him, that's
all. What am I to report? What are you going to do with him?"
"Um, humph! That's why you're here, then. Beg pardon, I'm sure, but you
startled me. Bad business. Bad business. But the man had to be made sure
of. Getting dangerous. Man with me drugged him. Chloral, you know. Won't
harm him. Not at all."
The giant was coming back. "Here's your roll, mister," he said, with an
unfriendly glance at me. "Count 'em. I took out my twenty."
"Is he all right?" Reid asked.
"Sure!" grinned the other. "He won't wake up till morning, and then
he'll be out o' sight o' land. I got a nice ship picked out fer him."