MARY PLANS ANEW
The following morning Clifford called at the Grantham and asked if Mrs.
Morton was in.
The clerk examined the hotel’s file of guests. “There is no Mrs. Morton
staying here.”
So, after all, they had not registered. He recalled that Mary had
formerly been known here as Mrs. Gardner.
“May I see Mrs. Gardner, then?” he asked.
“Mrs. Gardner moved from the Grantham early this morning,” replied the
clerk. “I’d just come on duty when she left.”
“Was there a--was her brother with her?”
“She was alone.”
“If you will kindly give me her new address--”
“She left no address.”
Clifford walked out of the Grantham in deep thought. Mary had realized
her situation, she had acted promptly. But what was her plan?--for
undoubtedly she had evolved a plan during the night. And where had she
gone?
And how was it all going to work out? To be sure, the penetration
of the designs of Loveman and Bradley was his real business; but he
could not help himself, he was vastly more interested in what Mary
might be doing, and in what was to be the end of it all for her. He
called on Slant-Face; but her brother still had not seen or heard
from her directly since her return to New York. He kept Loveman under
surveillance, and also Bradley; the maneuvers of either might lead him
to her. And also he kept watch upon Hilton, whose eyes had suddenly
lighted when he had seen Mary quickly thrust her rings into her gloves.
But he picked up nothing.
Clifford might have been greatly helped in his search for Mary by
Commissioner Thorne: a general alarm might quickly have located her.
But he did not want Mary brought before the general attention of the
police. However questionable the ethics of the course her ambition had
planned, there was in it nothing that was legally criminal.
For a week he kept close surveillance upon Loveman, Bradley, and the
dark young man; and learned not a thing about Mary and not a thing
about the plans of the others. Then one day he ran across the elder
Morton, who had just returned to the city after a trip to Chicago.
“You won’t believe it when I tell you,” said the older man, “but Jack’s
gone to work.”
“Where?”
“In my New York offices. Been working there a week--and they tell me
he’s been as regular as a clock. Remarkable change!” His voice lowered.
“But here’s a point that seems odd: though he’s kept his rooms at the
Biltmore, the people there have hardly seen him.”
The finding of Mary now seemed simple enough. But Clifford realized
that mere knowledge of her whereabouts would not satisfy him. Clifford
considered rapidly how he might achieve a private meeting with her.
Half an hour later he was sitting with Uncle George in Monsieur Le
Bain’s Grand Alcazar, and was telling this wise old man of Broadway all
that had happened.
“Certainly some little situation for Mary Regan!” Uncle George looked
at Clifford with his shrewd old lashless eyes. “But, son, I hope your
motor’s not missing fire over her--and her a married woman?”
“I’m concerned because I’m certain Loveman is planning to use her. I
can protect her better, and I stand a better chance to land Loveman, if
I know where she is.”
“H’m. And is that the three-mile limit of your interest?”
“I’m human enough to want to know what she’s done and how she’s planned
to meet the future. Knowing that will help me against Loveman.”
“Well, son, be sure you’re not passing phony money off on
yourself--which is what the average citizen does when he thinks he has
one of these here righteous thoughts. I suppose you’ve got me fitted
into some nice little idea?”
“You’re going to help me meet her.”
“Oh, that’s all, is it!” the old man said dryly. “All I’ve got to
do is to step out on Broadway, touch her on the sleeve, and say,
‘Good-afternoon, Mary; Bob Clifford wants to one-step with you to a bit
of nice chin-music’--and in she’ll come wearing a smile on all four
sides, you being so popular with her!”
“All you’ve got to do, Uncle George, is something else. Jack likes you;
Mary considers you one of her best friends. You go into that telephone
booth, call up Jack at his father’s office, and learn where she is--and
after you’ve learned that we’ll dope out the rest.”
“I didn’t think that in my old age I’d sink to be a stool for a
copper,” sighed Uncle George, with mock mournfulness.
He heaved his big body up and crossed to a booth. Five minutes later he
swayed back to Clifford’s side.
“I got a line on her. But it’s up to me to do some of this here
super-delicate detective work. Sit where you are--though it’s an awful
risk to leave you alone and unprotected right over a wine cellar. I may
be back in an hour. So-long.”
He was back in half an hour. “She’s having tea over at the Ritz. Come
on. I got a taxi waiting outside.”
He led the way out and across the sidewalk, bulking large before
Clifford. “May God pity an old sinner for what’ll be comin’ to him for
this!” he murmured. At the door of the taxi he stepped aside. “Get in
first,” he said to Clifford; and, as Clifford obeyed, he smartly closed
the door on Clifford’s back. “All right,” he called to the chauffeur.
As the taxi moved away, a startled voice within the car exclaimed:
“You!”
Clifford then saw that he was sitting beside Mary. “Miss Regan!” he
ejaculated, forgetting her new name.
“Uncle George told me we were to pick up Jack.”
“I hope you’ll forgive the deception. Don’t blame Uncle George. Blame
me.”
“What does this mean?” she demanded.
“I felt I had to see you at once.”
“Why?”
“You see, I could hardly help wanting to know what you had done.”
He had thought it more than likely that she would be angry. Her dark
eyes did flash at him; but when she spoke she spoke very calmly.
“There’s no reason why you should not know; and I have no objections to
telling you everything. What do you wish to know first?”
“What you did first.”
She considered, then spoke with a cold frankness that was in keeping
with her recent attitude toward him--to show him her calculating
worldliness, stark, unexcused.
“I thought I had passed through the Golden Doors,--that’s a phrase of
mine,--but after that night at the Grantham when I saw you, I realized
that I still stood far without them. I saw that I had either to
vanish--or be willing to wait my time, perhaps a long time, if I would
see it through. I decided on the latter.”
“Yes,” Clifford prompted.
“That meant,” the unsparing voice went on, “that for a long time Jack
and I would hardly dare be seen openly together, that we had to live
in seclusion. I made Jack see things as I saw them, so we sublet an
apartment on Riverside Drive, and we’re known there as Mr. and Mrs.
Grayson.”
“And what about Jack’s going to work?”
“I thought that if through my influence Jack should settle down, it
would help when his father finds out.”
“I see.”
“I realize perfectly,” the cold voice continued, “another problem that
I have to face. Jack likes gay company; further, you said it is not his
nature to care for one woman long. Well, I must make Jack like me for a
long time, and make him like me despite the solitude. I shall do it.”
She paused, then added: “I believe that is everything.”
They rode on in silence, Clifford covertly eyeing the erect, contained
figure beside him--guessing at what it must have cost her to give up
her dreamed-of pleasure, to be forced into seclusion, to be forced to
undertake the responsibility of sobering down a joyous spendthrift.
Life certainly had not given her what she had expected in her bargain.
Again the question rose: how was it all coming out?
The next afternoon Clifford, following Hilton, saw his quarry enter
the Mordona, the great apartment house on the Drive before which he
had left Mary the night before. He followed into the lobby just as his
man disappeared into an elevator. He had no doubt on whom the dark
gentleman was calling, or for what reason he called.
Opening into the elaborate lobby, for whose gilded ostentation the
tenants were assessed a goodly portion of their rent, was a florist’s
shop. Into the comparative privacy of this Clifford stepped to wait
until his man came down: a move that was just in time, for from a
descended elevator, which must have passed the one bearing Hilton
aloft, stepped the square, solid figure of Bradley. Again Clifford had
no doubt on whom the call had been made, or why.
At last he had picked up a warm and very busy trail. Under pretense
of an indecision over the flowers he should purchase, he waited for
his man to come down, trying to reproduce the scene that was now going
on in the “Graysons’” apartment, and the scene prior to it in which
Bradley had figured. A quarter of an hour passed, then the debonair
Hilton emerged from an elevator and strode out with a jaunty, smiling
air.
The next moment Clifford was in an elevator, shooting upward, and two
minutes later Mary’s maid was bearing his card through a curtained
doorway. He caught Mary’s voice sounding as though it were two rooms
away, finishing what was obviously a telephone conversation: “You’ll
come as soon as you can get here? That’s most kind of you. Good-bye.”
There was a delay; he guessed that Mary was surprised at this third
successive call; then he was shown through the curtained doorway into
the drawing-room. His swift impression of the room was that it was
large for a New York apartment, and that its prodigal furnishings
bespoke wealth rather than taste on the part of its absent lessee.
The next moment Mary came in through a door which he judged led
from the library. There was now in her bearing nothing of the cold
frankness which she had shown him the day before. She was taut with
controlled excitement, which he knew to be the product of the so recent
interviews. Her manner was challenging.
“What do _you_ want?”
He tried to speak in a steady, impersonal tone. “Mr. Bradley was here a
few minutes ago. I’d be obliged if you’d tell me what he came for.”
“Pardon me for not obliging you--but that is my own affair. Is this
all?”
“Another gentleman just called on you. Would you tell me what he
wanted?”
“That also is my own affair.”
“It might help me greatly if I knew exactly what he asked for,”
Clifford urged.
“Perhaps. But that cannot concern me.”
“Then you will not tell?”
“No.”
“Are you aware who this man is?”
“He’s a friend of Jack’s.”
“Not much of a friend, I hope.” Clifford still spoke in his steady,
impersonal tone. “Mr. Hilton is one of several men that I am
after--and he’s one of the cleverest and most dangerous of the lot.
It is the easiest thing in the world for a crook who is well-dressed,
well-mannered, and who can dance, to make acquaintances wherever he
likes. The regular game of these crooks is to pick out a woman with
money, or who can get money, make her acquaintance, gain her confidence
and some of her secrets, and then lead her into a situation where she
must pay or be exposed. This is your last visitor’s special line. You
might help me a lot if you would tell me what Mr. Hilton wanted from
you.”
“He came to see me about a personal matter of no importance,” she
replied.
“Pardon me if I do not believe you,” he said.
She made no response.
“You will not tell?” he demanded.
“I have nothing to tell,” was her steady answer.
“I might force you to tell--” he snapped at her, but instantly cut
himself off.
“Since you won’t tell me,” he said, stepping more squarely before her,
“then I’ll tell you. Bradley came here to blackmail you; blackmail is
one of Bradley’s big side-lines just now. Hilton was a follow-up man on
the same business. If he wasn’t in this particular game before, he got
next the other night at the Grantham. He saw you slip off your rings
and hide them when Jack’s father was coming to your table. He guessed
what that action meant, and it was easy for him to dig up the rest.”
Clifford paused. “I’m right so far, yes?” he demanded.
But she did not speak.
“And I can tell you just what he said,” Clifford continued, “and how he
said it--for he’s a most gentle-spoken party. It would cause him very
great regret to have to tell Mr. Morton that his son had contracted a
secret marriage, and it would cause him even greater regret to have to
tell both the Mortons just who Mary Regan has been and just who are the
members of her family. The only way he can be saved from inflicting
upon himself this regret is for you to come across with a large sum of
money. Well, isn’t that about it? Now will you help me out?”
“I can say no more than I have said,” she replied.
“Then I shall have to get him alone,” Clifford said, with grim quiet.
“Him and the others.”
He left her with no further word. On the way down in the elevator he
recalled the fragment he had heard over the telephone; and again he
stepped into the convenient privacy of the florist’s shop. Not more
than two minutes had passed when he saw Peter Loveman enter one of
the elevators. So it was Loveman she had been telephoning to. She had
doubtless sent for the little lawyer to ask his advice--the irony of it!
Clifford waited for Loveman to descend. Fifteen minutes passed--it
was now getting on toward six; then into the lobby, walking eagerly,
came Jack Morton. And then in the entrance, watching but discreetly
unobtrusive, appeared Jack’s father. Jack’s elevator had made its trip
up and had just descended, when the elder Morton crossed the lobby and
addressed the elevator-man. The florist’s door stood open, so Clifford
heard every word.
“By the way,” said Mr. Morton, “what is the name of the gentleman, your
only passenger, that you just took up? I thought I recognized him as an
acquaintance.”
“Mr. Grayson, sir.”
“He lives here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I suppose he has one of your bachelor apartments?”
“No, sir. He lives here with Mrs. Grayson.”
“To be sure. I didn’t know Mrs. Grayson’s health had permitted her to
come back from California. Please don’t mention my having been here;
they might feel hurt at my not having come up.”
He slipped the man a bill and went out. Clifford realized that Mr.
Morton had been engaged upon a bit of private sleuthing on his own
account: which might lead to--what?
Clifford thought a moment. Then he sought out the superintendent of
the building, and after some very confidential talk, and a showing of
credentials, which the superintendent verified by calling up Police
Headquarters, he departed, bearing with him a pass-key to all the
apartments of the Mordona.