PETER LOVEMAN
Clifford’s first business was to make up for the opportunity he had
just let slip, and find Mary Regan. At once he decided that his best
source of information was her brother, “Slant-Face,” once a pickpocket
of amazing skill, now the manager of a little motion-picture house. He
turned uptown to Slant-Face’s theater.
On the way he was feverishly alive with questions. Clifford’s thoughts
had really not been off Mary Regan from the moment he had seen her come
down the stairway; and now Uncle George’s vague warning--he knew Uncle
George would not have spoken even so indefinitely unless there existed
a very real situation--banished all else from his mind. Why hadn’t Mary
Regan sent him word? What was behind her return in such a manner? What
decision had she come to in regard to herself during these months? What
decision in regard to him?
And this danger that Uncle George had hinted at--did it rise chiefly
from the plans and influence of other persons? And who might these
other persons be? And what might be the danger? Or might the danger
rise partly out of the complexities, the contradictions, of her own
nature?--that nature which had always so baffled and eluded him. But
the doubt which lay behind this last question seemed disloyal, and
he forcibly drove it from his mind. Mary Regan, he emphatically told
himself, was the woman he had believed her to be! She could explain
everything. Whatever might be wrong was due to the unknown other
persons.
Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He
hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; but Slant-Face was not there, and
his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford
began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him
standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass
of buttermilk--a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean
face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left
corner of his mouth.
“I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the
matter?”
“Bradley.”
“Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?”
“Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out
of the Department. He just waited--and laid his plans. While films
were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my
place, or had people say their pockets were picked--pulled this three
times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of
Licenses, and he closed my joint.”
“That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory--and a
long arm!”
“This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half
growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some
one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly:
“Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight
for a year. The straight game don’t pay--not for me. So I’m through. I
guess you understand what comes next.”
“See here, Slant-Face, don’t be--”
“I’m through!” There was the snap of absolute finality in the low,
quiet voice.
Clifford knew that mere words could not change the decision made behind
that lean, grim visage; so he turned to the matter that had brought him
there.
“Have you seen your sister to-day?”
“Haven’t seen Mary in six months.”
“You mean you don’t know where she’s staying?” exclaimed Clifford.
“Down South in the woods somewhere,--God knows why,--doing a stretch of
self-imposed solitary.”
The obviously honest answer sharpened Clifford’s already poignant
uneasiness. “Slant-Face, I saw her an hour ago.”
“In New York?”
“At the Grand Alcazar.” And then he added: “She was with Peter Loveman.”
Even the stoic Slant-Face started. “With Peter Loveman!--the lawyer
that beat Bradley’s case for him! What the devil does that mean?”
“Just what I’m wondering myself.”
“You mean you didn’t ask her anything--didn’t speak to her?”
“No.”
Slant-Face looked his bewilderment. He had had his own private guess at
what had been the situation between Clifford and his sister. But he did
not ask the “why” of this to him strange behaviour on Clifford’s part.
“Mary with Peter Loveman!” he repeated. “Either Mary is trying to put
something across--in the old way, you understand; or else she’s--well,
it looks like queer doings to me!”
“That’s why I looked you up. Some one should step in, and stop what’s
under way. I supposed you knew where she was.”
“I’m going to begin to try to find out,” said Slant-Face. “And you?”
“Same here. By the way, would your Uncle Joe know anything?”
“Didn’t you know? He’s sold out everything here and bought himself a
fruit farm in California.”
“Then there’s just one man we’re certain does know. That’s Loveman,
and I’m going after Loveman. Let me know if you get next to anything,
Slant-Face. So-long.”
Clifford and the once master pickpocket clasped hands.
“And Slant-Face,” Clifford added, “about that other matter--getting
money in the old way. Don’t do it.”
“I’m not promising,” said Slant-Face quietly.
Clifford privately asked Police Commissioner Thorne to help in locating
Mary Regan. Also he hunted up little Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly, one
hundred and twenty pounds of grit and daring, head of the Tenderloin
Squad that free-lanced through the hotels, restaurants, and resorts
of Broadway, and of Jimmie he asked the same help. He himself, for
two days and nights, now and then seeing Uncle George and Slant-Face,
trailed Peter Loveman from office to courts and back again--and
particularly about the restaurants and theaters and after-theater
theaters, which comprised Loveman’s especial habitat.
But not again did Clifford see Loveman with Mary Regan. The second
night, however, he did see Loveman with young Morton, and with the two
a middle-aged man with a masterful face. Morton’s father, Clifford
guessed.
And yet, though he saw nothing, all his senses assured him with growing
insistence that great forces were at their hidden work--those subtle,
complex forces that operate indirectly, patiently, with infinite
cunning, behind the alluring and often innocent visage of brilliant Big
Pleasure. And also he had a growing sense that this was not primarily a
detective’s puzzle; but primarily a matter of the eternal human mystery
of how human beings react, and how they may be artfully stimulated. He
felt himself just a human being in the midst of a human problem whose
outlines he could not yet discern.
On the third day of failure it came to Clifford that there was a
chance--a bare chance--that Loveman had no design involving Mary Regan,
and he decided to go openly to him. At Loveman’s lavish downtown
offices he was told Loveman had telephoned he would not appear that
morning. Twenty minutes later Clifford, after having sent in his card
by the Japanese butler-valet, was in Loveman’s study. The room, the
studio of an apartment designed for an artist, was furnished with a
disordered luxury and culture which Clifford knew to be a genuine
characteristic of the strange little notable on whom he waited. Here
were rows and rows of first editions; old Dutch etchings, among them
several original Rembrandts; a helter-skelter gallery of autographed
photographs of favorite actresses. For a score of years, as Clifford
knew, Loveman had not missed an important first night.
Whatever might be the outcome of this interview, Clifford knew that
sometime, somehow, between him and Loveman there would be a conflict
of wits. So he looked swiftly and curiously around the room, for
concerning this room there were current many fables. This study, and
not the downtown office, was said to be Loveman’s real workshop. Here
were created those astute plans, in which the influence of Loveman was
never traceable, that brought to his downtown office those big-fee’d
domestic cases, to be fought brilliantly and sensationally in the
courts or to be settled discreetly in private. He was New York’s ablest
representative of a type of lawyer that modern social conditions have
produced: a specialist in domestic affairs--and one, when profitable
dissension or threatening scandal did not exist, who knew how to create
such. It was gossiped that he kept a careful record of all tangled
relations among the rich, of the details of every delicate situation,
and watched and bided his time until at length the affair threatened to
explode into a scandal--and then he acted. In this study there was a
huge “Scandal File,” so gossip had it; but Clifford, looking about, saw
no such fabled article of furniture.
At that moment Loveman entered, his tonsured head and rope-girdled
dressing-gown giving him the appearance of a somewhat jolly and rakish
monk.
“Good-morning, Clifford,” he exclaimed, cordially holding out his hand.
“Mightily like a Christian of you, looking an old tramp up.”
“They told me at your office that you were sick.”
Loveman waved Clifford into a chair, took one himself and crossed his
small, exquisitely slippered feet. “That’s what I told the office,
but I didn’t tell ’em what sort of sickness it was. My boy,”--with a
frank, engaging grin, which was one of the many qualities that made
this strange man so popular,--“do you perceive any adequate excuse for
a man of my supposedly sensible years starting in at 11.30 P.M. on a
mixed-drink Marathon?”
“I can’t say,” smiled Clifford, “without a knowledge of the prior--”
“Don’t be legally cautious with an incautious lawyer. There was no
excuse.” Loveman shook his round head solemnly. “There was provocation,
though. You bet there was provocation. Were you at the opening last
night of ‘Orange Blossoms’?”
“No.”
“Congratulations. It’s a dam’ rotten show! And Nina Cordova--she’s
all there off the stage, pretty, and clever, and one wise little
girl, don’t you forget it!--but a dam’ rotten star and the voice
of a guinea-hen that’s got the quinsy. And it cost sixty thousand
dollars to get the curtain up last night, and I put up twenty thousand
dollars of that boodle. Tell me, oh, why”--with a quaver of mock
self-sympathy--“am I always going out of my own line and letting myself
be played as a sucker by some manager or actress that wants extra
backing? Twenty thousand honest-to-God dollars! I kissed ’em good-bye
the very minute Nina first opened that dam’ pretty mouth, and her first
note rasped across the footlights! Ain’t I the boob!”
Clifford smiled at the grotesquely disconsolate figure, but did
not answer; he knew no answer was expected. But while he smiled,
waiting, part of his brain was remarking that these seemingly reckless
ventures of Loveman were in truth sound investments on which, by
the devious methods of his art, he later realized sumptuously. That
twenty thousand, which would make the vain Nina regard him as her
disinterested friend and adviser, wasn’t money thrown away--not in view
of the whispered affair between the voiceless prima donna, and--
“Why should I be blowing my roll,” continued Loveman, “on these dam’
musical comedies--_musical_, say there’s some irony for you!--when what
I’d have liked would have been to help back a show like ‘Justice.’
Or the Russian ballet. Nijinsky--there’s some artist for you!” His
last words were vividly sincere; there was nothing more sincere about
the little man than his admiration for the highest endeavors in art.
“And yet my coin goes into ‘Orange Blossoms’! Is there an artistic
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?--there is, and I’m the party--and that’s why
my stomach, esophagus, palate, tongue, mouth, and all appertaining
thereunto, are this A.M. composed of a faded and dusty Brussels carpet.
But, my boy, you didn’t come here to listen to my woes. What can I do
for you?”
His humorously bewailing manner had suddenly dropped from him; he was
brisk and alert, and his over-large eyes were fixed upon Clifford
keenly. Clifford knew that there was little chance of deceiving this
holder of the threads of destiny in a direct encounter.
“I came here, Loveman, to ask you for the address of Mary Regan.”
Loveman looked puzzled. “Mary Regan--do I know her?”
Was there something behind this evasion? “You remember her if you
remember getting Bradley off. She was in that case.”
“Oh, yes, I remember: slender--dark--handsome. But I haven’t seen her
since the trial.”
“I don’t mean to call you anything, Loveman,--but I was told you were
recently seen with her in public.”
“Where?”
“At the Grand Alcazar--for dinner--three nights ago.”
Loveman smiled. “You’ve caught me. I own up. But my fib was a
gentleman’s lie.”
“How so?”
“She didn’t want it known that she was in New York.”
“Why not?”
“Search me. Perhaps just a girl’s whim.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“Haven’t the slightest idea. I was with her more or less by accident. I
was taking care of her merely for a couple of hours--substituting for a
friend of hers.”
Clifford felt sure the little man was lying; but he also felt sure he
could get out of Loveman nothing Loveman preferred not to tell. All the
brains of the Bar Association had not been able to do this when Loveman
had been before that body on charges of unprofessional conduct.
“By the by, Clifford, what’s your interest in the young lady?”
“Her family heard she was back, and engaged me to locate her.”
Loveman, looking keenly at Clifford, did not betray whether or not he
recognized this as prevarication. Clifford stood up.
“Well, as you were my only clue, I might as well give the matter up.
Sorry to have bothered you. Good-morning.”
“Oh, you’ll find her--you have the reputation of doing whatever you
start out to do. Don’t hurry away. I’ve got some new first editions
I want to show you. But pardon me for just a moment.” He scratched a
line upon a sheet of paper, rang, and handed the folded sheet to the
Japanese butler, who silently withdrew. “Now!” he cried briskly, and
began to talk enthusiastically over half a dozen stained and musty
volumes.
Half an hour later the noiseless butler appeared, bearing a card.
Loveman begged Clifford to excuse him, and withdrew--to reënter in five
minutes.
“Something rather curious has just happened, Clifford. A gentleman with
whom I’ve had some dealings just called--I had an inspiration--I made a
suggestion, and-- Well, let him speak for himself. Come right in!”
At this, through the door Loveman had left open, stepped the square,
solid figure of Bradley.
“I believe you two are acquainted with each other,” remarked Loveman
with his amiable briskness.
The two men nodded, and for a moment stood silent. Clifford tried to
read Bradley’s purpose, but Bradley’s powerful face, with its small,
brilliant eyes, was as controlled and reticent as in the days, now
over a year gone, when Bradley used to give him orders at Police
Headquarters.
“H’are you, Clifford.” The voice was the same even, heavy bass.
“First-class, Bradley.”
“Chairs, gentlemen,” put in Loveman; and when they were seated: “Shall
I say it, Bradley, or will you?”
“I’ll say it.” Without preface, or reference to the past, Bradley was
in the midst of things. “I’m building up a big business, Clifford.
Another year or so, and it’ll be the biggest private detective agency
in the country. It’s already getting too big for one man to manage;
besides, there are certain kinds of cases that another man can handle
better than I can. I’ve been looking over the field for the right man.
Clifford, I’ve decided you’re this right man, and I want to ask you if
you’d be willing to go into partnership.”
“Don’t speak yet--think it over for a minute,” put in Loveman. “You two
have had your little differences, but it ought to be plain to both of
you that there’s more in it for you two working together than fighting
each other.”
Clifford managed to maintain a composed exterior, but within he was
bewilderment. Certainly Bradley was a most amazing man!
Clifford thought swiftly, if somewhat dazedly. Was this a trap? It
might be--probably was, in view of what had previously passed between
them.
But then again--it might not be a trap. Bradley’s offer, on the face
of it, was a good business proposition, advantageous to both parties.
It was a commonplace of business and politics and police affairs, that
competitors and even deadly enemies may scratch the past off the books
and combine in a common effort when they vision a profit sufficiently
large in such a procedure.
And profit there certainly would be in Bradley’s proposition--big
profit. First, would be the original profit of the large fees which
clients would pay to have information secured for them. And second,--if
the agency were to be run as most other private detective agencies, and
on this Bradley would doubtless insist,--there would be the usual large
profits secured through the pleasant and easy device of blackmailing
clients by threatening to reveal to the public the scandals they
had been paid privately to uncover and corroborate. Beyond a doubt,
tremendous profits!
Yes, it might not be a trap. It might be just a plain business
proposition. It might be--
Another thought: It might be a bribe!
Yes, whatever else it might be, it also was certainly a bribe. But to
buy him away from what?... From what?...
“It’s a good proposition--yes?” prompted Loveman.
Though Clifford had taken time to think, his decision had been made the
very moment he had understood Bradley’s proposition.
“As you say, Bradley, there’s big money in it, and it’s a great chance
for the right party. I want to thank you for considering me and
offering me the chance. But I never expect to build up a big business,
and such cases as I do take on I want to handle personally and in my
own way.”
Bradley’s square face showed not the slightest change. “That’s your
privilege, to do things the way you like. Glad I spoke to you about it,
though.”
“That’s another good inspiration I had that’s gone on the rocks,”
humorously complained Loveman--“as bum a guesser here as when I backed
Nina Cordova in ‘Orange Blossoms.’” He followed Clifford to the door, a
hand upon his arm. “Anyhow, I may want to be shoving some business your
way.”
“Thanks.” Clifford nodded to Bradley, and Bradley nodded back, his face
the same grim mask as ever.