THE NILE-GREEN ROADSTER
"I hope you slept well, sir," said Benson, as I sat down to my
breakfast of iced Casaba and eggs O'Brien, a long month later.
"Like a top, thank you," I was able to announce to that anxious-eyed
old retainer of mine.
"That sounds like old times, sir," ventured Benson, caressing his own
knuckle-joints very much as though he were shaking hands with himself.
"It _feels_ like old times," I briskly acknowledged. "And this
morning, Benson, I'd like you to clear out my study and get that
clutter of Shang and Ming bronzes off my writing-desk."
"Very good, sir."
"And order up a ream or two of that Wistaria Bond I used to use. For I
feel like work again, Benson, and that's a feeling which I don't think
we ought to neglect."
"Quite so, sir," acquiesced Benson, with an approving wag of the head
which he made small effort to conceal.
It was the truth that I had spoken to Benson. The drought seemed to
have ended. The old psychasthenic inertia had slipped away. Life, for
some unaccountable reason or other, still again seemed wonderful to me,
touched with some undefined promise of high adventure, crowned once
more with the fugitive wine-glow of romance. Gramercy Square, from my
front windows, looked like something that Maxfield Parrish might have
drawn. A milk-wagon, just beyond the corner, made me suddenly think of
Phaethon and his coursers of the stellar trails. I felt an itching to
get back to my desk, to shake out the wings of creation. I wanted to
write once more. It would never again be about those impossible
Alaskan demigods of the earlier days, but about real men and women,
about the people I had met and known and struggled into an
understanding of. Life, I began to feel, was a game, a great game, a
game well worth watching, doubly well worth trying to interpret.
So when I settled down that day I wrote feverishly and I wrote
joyously. I wrote until my fingers were cramped and my head was empty.
I surrendered to a blithe logorrhea that left me contentedly limp and
lax and in need of an hour or two of open air.
So I sallied forth, humming as I went. It was a sparkling afternoon of
earliest spring, and as I paced the quiet streets I turned pleasantly
over in that half-torpid brain of mine certain ideas as to the value of
dramatic surprise, together with a carefully registered self-caution as
to the author's over-use of the long arm of Coincidence.
Coincidences, I told myself, were things which popped up altogether too
often on the printed page, and occurred altogether too seldom in actual
life. It was a lazy man's way of reaching his end, that trick of
riding the bumpers of Invention, of swinging and dangling from the
over-wrenched arm-socket of Coincidence. It was good enough for the
glib and delusive coggery of the moving-pictures, but--
And then I stopped short. I stopped short, confronted by one of those
calamitous street-accidents only too common in any of our
twentieth-century cities where speed and greed have come to weigh life
so lightly.
I scarcely know which I noticed first, the spick-and-span cloverleaf
roadster sparkling in its coat of Nile-green enamel, or the girl who
seemed to step directly in its path as it went humming along the smooth
and polished asphalt. But by one of those miraculously rapid
calculations of which the human mind is quite often capable I realized
that this same softly-humming car was predestined to come more or less
violently into contact with that frail and seemingly hesitating figure.
My first impulse was to turn away, to avoid a spectacle which instinct
told me would be horrible. For still again I felt the beak of
cowardice spearing my vitals. I had the odynephobiac's dread of blood.
It unmanned me; it sickened my soul. And I would at least have covered
my face with my hands, to blot out the scene, had I not suddenly
remembered that other and strangely similar occasion when a car came
into violent collision with a human body. And it had been my car. On
that occasion, I only too well knew, I had proved unpardonably
vacillating and craven. I had run away from the horror I should have
faced like a man. And I had paid for my cowardice, paid for it at the
incredibly extortionate price of my self-respect and my peace of mind.
So this time I compelled myself to face the music. I steeled myself to
stand by, even as the moving car struck the hesitating body and threw
it to the pavement. My heart jumped up into my throat, like a
ball-valve, and I shouted aloud, in mortal terror, for I could see
where the skirted body trailed in under the running-gear of the
Nile-green roadster, dragging along the pavement as the two white hands
clung frantically to the green-painted spring-leaves. But I didn't run
away. Instead of running away, in fact, I did exactly the opposite. I
swung out to the side of the fallen girl, who stiffened in my arms as I
picked her up. Then I spread my overcoat out along the curb, and
placed the inert body on top of it, for in my first unreasoning panic I
assumed that the woman was dead. I could see saliva streaked with
blood drooling from her parted lips. It was horrible. And I had just
made sure that she was still alive, that she was still breathing, when
I became conscious of the fact that a second man, who had run along
beside the car shaking his fist up at its driver, was standing close
beside me. He was an elderly man, a venerable-looking man, a man with
silvery hair and a meek and threadbare aspect. He was wringing his
hands and moaning in his misery as he stared down at the girl stretched
out on my overcoat.
"They've killed her!" he cried aloud. "O God, they've killed her!"
"Do you know this girl?" I demanded as I did my best to loosen the
throat of her shirt-waist.
"Yes--yes! She's my Babbie. She's my niece. She's all I have," was
his reply. "But they've killed her."
"Acting that way won't help things!" I told him, almost angrily. Then
I looked up, still angrily, to see what had become of the Nile-green
car. It had drawn in close beside the curb, not thirty feet away. I
could see a woman stepping down from the driving-seat. All I noticed,
at first, was that her face seemed very white, and that as she turned
and moved toward us her left hand was pressed tight against her breast.
It struck me, even in that moment of tension, as an indescribably
dramatic gesture.
Then the long arm of the goddess known as Coincidence swung up and
smote me full in the face, as solidly as a blacksmith's hammer smites
an anvil. For the woman I saw walking white-faced yet determined
toward where I knelt at the curb-side was Mary Lockwood herself.
I stood up and faced her in the cruel clarity of the slanting afternoon
sunlight. For only a moment, I noticed, her stricken eyes rested on
the figure of the woman lying along the curb-edge. Then they rose to
my face. In those eyes, as she stared at me, I could read the
question, the awful question, which her lips left unuttered. Yet it
was not fear; it was not cowardice, that I saw written on that
tragically colorless brow. It was more a dumb protest against
injustice without bounds, a passionate and unarticulated pleading for
some delivering sentence which she knew could not be given to her.
"No, she's not dead," I said in answer to that unspoken question. "She
may not even be seriously hurt. But--"
I stared down at the telltale saliva streaked with blood. But the
silvery-haired old man at my side put an end to any such efforts at
prevarication.
"She's killed," he excitedly proclaimed.
"She's no such thing," I just as excitedly retorted.
"But you saw what they did to her?" he demanded, clutching at my
shoulder. "You saw it. They ran her down, like a dog. They've ruined
her; they've broken her body, for life!"
I could see Mary Lockwood's hand go out, as though in search for
support. She was breathing almost as quickly, by this time, as the
reviving girl on the curb-edge.
"Shut up," I curtly commanded the old man as he started in once more on
his declamations, for the customary city crowd was already beginning to
cluster about us. "It isn't talk we want now. We must get this girl
where she can be taken care of."
It was then that Mary Lockwood spoke for the first time. Her voice was
tremulous, but the gloved hand that hung at her side was no longer
shaking.
"Couldn't I take her home?" she asked me. "To my home?"
I was busy pushing back the crowd.
"No," I told her, "a hospital's best. I'll put her in your car there.
Then you run her over to the Roosevelt. That's even better than
waiting for an ambulance."
I stooped over the injured girl again and felt her pulse. It struck me
as an amazingly strong and steady pulse for any one in such a
predicament. And her respiration, I noticed, was very close to normal.
I examined each side of her face, and inspected her lips and even her
tongue-tip, to see if some cut or abrasion there couldn't account for
that disturbing streak of blood. But I could find neither cut nor
bruise, and by this time the old man was again making himself heard.
"You'll take her to no pest-house," he was excitedly proclaiming.
"She'll come home with me--what's left of her. She _must_ come home
with me!"
Mary Lockwood stared at him with her tragic and still slightly
bewildered eyes.
"Very well," she quietly announced. "I'll take her home. I'll take
you both home."
And at this the old man seemed immensely relieved.
"Where is it you want to go?" I rather impatiently demanded of him.
For I'd decided to get them away from there, for Mary's sake, before
the inevitable patrolman or reporter happened along.
"On the other side of Brooklyn," explained the bereft one, with a vague
hand-wave toward the east. I had to push back the crowd again, before
I was able to gather the limp form up from its asphalted resting-place.
"And what's your name?" I demanded as the old man came shuffling along
beside us on our way to the waiting car.
"Crotty," he announced. "Zachary Crotty."
It wasn't until I'd placed the injured girl in the softly-upholstered
car-seat that that name of "Crotty," sent like a torpedo across the
open spaces of distraction, exploded against the hull-plates of memory.
Crotty! The very name of Crotty took my thoughts suddenly winging back
to yet another street-accident, an accident in which I myself had
figured so actively and so unfortunately. For Crotty was the name of
the man, I remembered, who had confirmed my chauffeur Latreille's
verdict as to the victim of that never-to-be-forgotten Hallow-e'en
affair. Crotty was the individual who had brought word to Latreille
that we had really killed a man. And Crotty was not a remarkably
common name. And now, oddly enough, he was figuring in another
accident of almost the same nature.
Something prompted me to reach in and feel the hand of the still
comatose girl. That hand, I noticed, was warm to the touch. Then I
turned and inspected the venerable-looking old man who was now weeping
volubly into a large cotton handkerchief.
"You'll have to give us your street and number," I told him, as a mask
to cover that continued inspection of mine.
He did so, between sobs. And as he did so I failed to detect any trace
of actual tears on his face. What was more, I felt sure that the eye
periodically concealed by the noisily-flourished handkerchief was a
chronically roving eye, an unstable eye, an eye that seemed averse to
meeting your own honestly inquiring glance.
That discovery, or perhaps I ought to say that suspicion, caused me to
turn to Mary, who was already in her place in the driving-seat.
"Wouldn't it be better if I went with you?" I asked her, stung to the
heart by the mute suffering which I could only too plainly see on her
milk-white face.
"No," she told me as she motioned for the girl's uncle to climb into
the car. "This is something I've got to do myself."
"And it's something that'll have to be paid for, and well paid for,"
declaimed our silvery-haired old friend as he stowed away his cotton
handkerchief and took up his slightly triumphant position in that
Nile-green roadster.
It was not so much this statement, I think, as the crushed and hopeless
look in Mary Lockwood's eyes that prompted me to lean in across the
car-door and meet the gaze of those eyes as they stared so unseeingly
down at me.
"I wish you'd let me go with you," I begged, putting my pride in my
pocket.
"What good would that do?" she demanded, with a touch of bitterness in
her voice. Her foot, I could see, was already pressing down on the
starter-knob.
"I might be able to help you," I rather inadequately ventured. Even as
I spoke, however, I caught sight of the blue-clad figure of a patrolman
pushing his way through the crowd along the curb. I imagine that Mary
also caught sight of that figure, for a shadow passed across her face
and the pulse of the engine increased to a drone.
"I can't wait," she said in a sort of guilty gasp. "This girl needs
help. And she needs it quickly."
Unconsciously my eyes fell to the other girl sitting back so limply in
the padded seat. She was, clearly, coming round again. But as she
drifted past my line of vision with the movement of the car I made a
trivial and yet a slightly perplexing discovery. I noticed that the
relaxed hand posed so impassively along the door-top bore a distinct
yellow stain between the tips of the first and second fingers. That
yellow stain, I knew, was customarily brought about by the use of
cigarettes. It was a mark peculiar to the habitual smoker. Yet the
meek and drab-colored figure that I had lifted into that car-seat could
scarcely be accepted as a consumer of "coffin-nails." It left a
wrinkle which the iron of Reason found hard to eradicate.
It left me squinting after that departing roadster, in fact, with
something more than perplexity nibbling at my heart. I was oppressed
by a feeling of undefined conspiracies weaving themselves about the
tragic-eyed girl in the Nile-green car. And a sudden ache to follow
after that girl, to stand between her and certain activities which she
could never comprehend, took possession of me.
Any such pursuit, however, was not as easy as it promised. For I first
had to explain to that inquiring patrolman that the accident had been a
trivial one, that I hadn't even bothered about taking the
license-number of the car, and that I could be found at my home in
Gramercy Square in case any further information might be deemed
necessary. Then, once clear of the neighborhood, I hesitated between
two possible courses. One was to get in touch with Mary's father over
the phone, with John Lockwood. The other was to hurry down to Police
Headquarters and talk things over with my good friend Lieutenant
Belton. But either movement, I remembered, would have stood
distasteful to Mary herself. It meant publicity, and publicity was one
thing to be avoided. So I solved the problem by taking an altogether
different tack. I did what deep down in my heart I had been wanting to
do all along. I hailed a passing taxicab, hopped in, and made straight
for that hinterland district of Brooklyn where Crotty had described his
home as standing.
I didn't drive directly to that home, but dismissed my driver at a
near-by corner and approached the house on foot. There was no longer
any Nile-green car in sight. And the house itself, I noticed, was a
distinctly unattractive-looking one, a shabby one, even a sordid one.
I stood in the shadow of the side-entrance to one of those
gilt-lettered corner-saloons which loom like aromatic oases out of
man's most dismal Saharas, studying that altogether repellent
house-front. And as I stood there making careful note of its minutest
characteristics a figure came briskly down its broken sandstone steps.
What made me catch my breath, however, was the fact that the figure was
that of a man, and the man was Latreille, my ex-chauffeur. And still
again, I remembered, the long arm of Coincidence was reaching out and
plucking me by the sleeve.
But I didn't linger there to meditate over this abstraction, for I
noticed that Latreille, sauntering along the opposite side of the
street, had signaled to two other men leisurely approaching my
caravansary from the near-by corner. One of these, I saw, was the old
man known as Crotty. And it was obvious that within two minutes' time
they would converge somewhere disagreeably close to the spot where I
stood.
So I backed discreetly and quietly through the side-entrance of that
many-odored beer-parlor. There I encountered an Hibernian bartender
with an empty tray and an exceptionally evil eye. I detained him,
however, with a fraternal hand on his sleeve.
"Sister," I hurriedly explained, "I've got a date with a rib here. Can
you put me under cover?"
It was patois, I felt sure, which would reach his understanding. But
it wasn't until he beheld the five-spot which I'd slid up on his tray
that the look of world-weary cynicism vanished from his face.
"Sure," he said as he promptly and impassively pocketed the bill. Then
without a word or the blink of an eye he pushed in past a room crowded
with round tables on iron pedestals, took the key out of a door opening
in the rear wall, thrust it into my fingers, and offhandedly motioned
me inside.
I stepped in through that door and closed and locked it. Then I
inspected my quarters. They were eloquent enough of sordid and ugly
adventure. They smelt of sour liquor and stale cigar-smoke, with a
vague over-tone of orris and patchouli. On one side of the room was an
imitation Turkish couch, on the other an untidy washstand and a
charred-edged card-table. Half-way between these there was a
"speak-easy," a small sliding wall-panel through which liquid
refreshments might be served without any undue interruption to the
privacy of those partaking of the same. This speak-easy, I noticed as
I slid it back the merest trifle, opened on the "beer parlor," at the
immediate rear of the bar-room itself, the "parlor" where the thirsty
guest might sit at one of the little round tables and consume his
"suds" or his fusel-oil whisky at his leisure. And the whole place
impressed me as the sort of thing that still made civilization a
mockery and suburban recreation a viper that crawled on its belly.
I was, in fact, still peering through my little speak-easy slit in the
wall when I became conscious of the three figures that came sidling
into that empty room with the little round tables. I could see them
distinctly. There was the silvery-haired old Crotty; there was
Latreille; and there was a rather unkempt and furtive-eyed individual
who very promptly and unmistakably impressed me as a drug-addict. And
repugnant as eavesdropping was to me, I couldn't help leaning close to
my speak-easy crevice and listening to that worthy trio as they seated
themselves within six feet of where I stood, Latreille and old Crotty
with their backs to me, the untidy individual whom they addressed as
The Doc sitting facing the wall that shielded me.
"Swell kipping!" contentedly murmured one of that trio, out of their
momentary silence. And at that I promptly pricked up my ears, for I
knew that swell kipping in the vernacular of the underworld stood for
easy harvesting.
"What'll it be, boys?" interrupted a voice which I recognized as the
bartender's.
"Bourbon," barked Latreille.
"A slug o' square-face, Mickey," companionably announced the old
gentleman known as Crotty.
"Deep beer," sighed he who was designated as The Doc. Then came the
sound of a match being struck, the scrape of a chair-leg, and the clump
of a fist on the table-top, followed by a quietly contented laugh.
"It's a pipe!" announced a solemnly exultant voice. And I knew the
speaker to be my distinguished ex-chauffeur. "It's sure one grand
little cinch!"
"Nothing's a cinch until you get the goods in your jeans," contended
Crotty, with the not unnatural skepticism of age.
"But didn't she hand her hundred and ten over to The Doc, just to cover
running-expenses? Ain't that worth rememberin'? And ain't she got the
fear o' Gawd thrown into her? And ain't she comin' back to-night wit'
that wine-jelly and old Port and her own check-book?"
This allocution was followed by an appreciative silence.
"But it's old Lockwood who's got o' come across," that individual known
as The Doc finally reminded his confreres.
This brought a snort of contempt from Latreille. "I tell you again old
Lockwood'll fight you to the drop of the hat. The girl's your meat.
She's your mark. You've got her! And if you've only got the brains to
milk her right she's good for forty thousand. She's weakened already.
She's on the skids. And she's got a pile of her own to pull from!"
"Forty thousand?" echoed the other, with a smack of the lips.
"That's thirteen thousand a-piece," amended Latreille largely, "with
one over for Car-Step Sadie."
"Cut out that name," commanded Crotty.
"Well, Babbie then, if that suits you better. And it's a landslide for
her!"
"Ain't she earned it?" demanded her silvery-haired old guardian.
"Strikes me as being pretty good pay for gettin' bunted over with a
play-car and not even a shin-bruise."
"Well, ain't her trainin' worth something, in this work?"
"Sure it is--but how 'n hell did she get that blood streakin' across
her face so nice and life-like?"
The silvery-haired old gentleman chuckled as he put down his glass of
square-face.
"That's sure our Babbie's one little grand-stand play! You see, she
keeps the pulp exposed in one o' her back teeth. Then a little suck
with her tongue over it makes it bleed, on a half-minute notice.
That's how she worked the hemorrhage-game with old Bronchial Bill all
last winter, before the beak sent him up the river."
I stood there, leaning against the soiled shelf across which must have
passed so much of the liquid that cheers depressed humanity. But never
before, I feel sure, did anything quite so cheering come through that
sordid little speak-easy. I was no longer afraid of that
malignant-looking trio so contentedly exulting over their ill-gotten
victory.
"Well, it's a cinch," went on the droning voice, "if The Doc'll only
cut out the dope for a couple o' days and your Babbie doesn't get to
buckin' over the footboard!"
"It ain't Babbie I'm worryin' over," explained old Crotty. "That
girl'll do what's expected of her. She's got to. I've wised her up on
that. What's worryin' me more is that cuff-shooter who butted in over
there on the Island."
Still again I could hear Latreille's little snort of open contempt.
"Well, you can put that bug out of your head," quietly averred my
ex-chauffeur. "You seem to 've forgotten that guy, Zachy. That's the
boob we unloaded the Senator's town car on. And that's the Hindoo I
framed, away back on Hallow-e'en Night. You remember that, don't you?"
I leaned closer, with my heart pounding under my midriff and a singing
in my ears. But old Crotty didn't seem to remember.
"On Hallow-e'en Night?" he ruminated aloud.
"Why, the stiff I asked you to stand ready to give the glad word to, if
he happened round for any habeas-corpus song and dance!" prompted the
somewhat impatient voice of Latreille. "Don't you mind, back on last
Hallow-e'en, how the Big Hill boys stuffed that suit of old clothes
with straw and rags, and then stuck it up in the street? And how we
hit that dummy, and how I made the chicken-hearted pen-wiper think that
he'd killed a man and coyoted off the scene?"
I don't know what old Crotty's reply to those questions were. I wasn't
interested in his reply. It wasn't even rage that swept through me as
I stood listening to those only too enraging words.
The first thing that I felt was a sense of relief, a vague yet vast
consciousness of deliverance, like a sleepy lifer with a governor's
pardon being waved in his face. I was no longer afraid for Mary. I
was no longer afraid of life, afraid of myself, afraid of my fellows.
My slate was clean. And above all, I was in no way any longer afraid
of Latreille. _I_ was the chicken-hearted pen-wiper--and I hated him
for that word--who had been "framed." _I_ was the over-timorous victim
of their sweet-scented conspiracies. _I_ was the boob who had been
made to shuffle and suffer and sweat. But that time was over and done
with, forever. And the great wave of relief that swept through me
surged back again, this time crested with anger, and then still again
towered and broke in a misty rush of pity for Mary Lockwood. I thought
of her as something soft and feathered in the triple coils of those
three reptilious conspirators, as something clean and timid and
fragile, being slowly slathered over by the fangs which were to fasten
themselves upon her innocence, which were to feed upon her goodness of
heart. And I decided that she would never have to go through what I
had been compelled to go through.
I didn't wait for more. There was, in fact, nothing more to wait for,
so far as I and my world were concerned. I had found out all I wanted
to find out. Yet I had to stand there for a full minute, coercing
myself to calmness. Then I tiptoed across the room to a second door
which stood in the rear wall, unlocked it, and stepped out into the
narrow and none too well-lighted hallway. This led to a washroom which
in turn opened on another narrow passageway. And from this I was able
to circle back into the bar-room itself.
I didn't tarry to make any explanations to the worthy called Mickey, or
to advertise my exit to his even worthier friends. I slipped quietly
and quickly out of that unclean street-corner fester-spot, veered off
across the street where the early spring twilight was already settling
down, and went straight to the house which I knew to be Crotty's.
I didn't even wait to ring. I tried the door, found it unlocked, and
stepped inside. There, no sign of life confronted me. But that didn't
for a moment deter my explorations. I quietly investigated the ground
floor, found it as unprepossessing as its proprietor, and proceeded
noiselessly up the narrow stairway for an examination of the upper
regions.
It wasn't until I reached the head of the stairs that I came to a stop.
For there I could hear the muffled but unmistakable sound of somebody
moving about. It took me several minutes to determine the source of
these movements. But once I had made sure of my ground I advanced to
the door at the back of the half-darkened hall and swung it open.
On the far side of the room into which I stood staring I saw a girl in
house-slippers and a faded rose-colored _peignoir_ thrown over a none
too clean night-dress of soiled linen. In one hand she held a lighted
cigarette. With the other hand she was stirring something in a small
graniteware stew-pan over a gas-heater. Her hair was down and her
shoulders were bare. But all her attention seemed concentrated on that
savory stew, which she sniffed at hungrily, almost childishly, between
puffs on her cigarette. Then she fell to stirring her pot again, with
obvious satisfaction.
I had the door shut behind me, in fact, before she so much as surmised
that any one else was in the room with her. And when she looked up and
saw me there her eyes slowly widened and she slowly and deliberately
put her spoon down on the soiled dresser-top beside her. It wasn't
exactly fear that I saw creep into her face. It was more the craft of
the long-harried and case-hardened fugitive.
"Bab," I said, addressing her in the language which I imagined would
most forcibly appeal to her. "I don't want to butt in on your slough.
But time's precious and I'm going to talk plain."
"Shoot!" she said after a moment of hesitation followed by another
moment of silent appraisal.
"The cops are rounding up The Doc and old Crotty for claim faking.
They're also coming here, Bab, to gather up a girl called Car-Step
Sadie for dummy-chucking under the car of that Lockwood woman and
bleeding her for one hundred and ten bones, and--"
"Those bulls 've got nuttin' on me!" broke out the disturbingly
dishabille figure in soiled linen, as she stood staring at me with a
sort of mouse-like hostility in her crafty young eyes.
"But they're bringing a police-surgeon along with 'em," I went glibly
on, "for they claim, Bab, you've got a hollow tooth you can start
bleeding any time you need to stall on that internal-injury stuff. And
they've dug up a couple of cases that aren't going to sound any too
good over in the District Attorney's office. Now, I'm not here to give
advice. This is merely a rumble. And you can do what you like about
it. But if you're wise, you'll slide while the sliding is good."
She stood once more silently studying me.
"What's all this to yuh, anyway?" she suddenly demanded.
"It's so little, my dear," I airily acknowledged, "that you can do
exactly as you like about it. But--"
"Where's The Doc?" was her next quick question. "Where's Crotty?"
I had to think fast.
"They've ducked," I asserted, amazed at my own newly-discovered
facility in fictioneering.
"Who said they'd ducked?"
"Do you know Mickey's, over there on the corner?" I ventured.
She nodded as she darted across the room and threw aside the faded
_peignoir_. The movement made my thoughts flash back to another and
earlier scene, to the scene wherein one Vinnie Brunelle had played the
leading role.
"Latreille," I explained to the girl across the room, "dropped in at
Mickey's and tipped Crotty and The Doc off, not more than a quarter of
an hour ago."
"And they rabbited off wit'out throwin' me a sign?" she indignantly
demanded.
"They did," I prevaricated.
She suddenly stopped, swinging about and viewing me with open suspicion.
"Where'd yuh ever know that Latreille guy?" she demanded.
"Latreille worked with me, for months," I declared, speaking with more
truth, in fact, than I had intended.
"Then me for the tall timber!" announced that hard-faced little
adventuress as she began to scramble into her clothes.
"Don't you want me to get you a taxi?" I inquired, backing discreetly
away until I stood in the open door.
"Taxi nuttin'!" she retorted through the shower of soiled lingerie mat
cascaded about her writhing white shoulders. "What d'yuh take me for,
anyway? A ostrich? When I get under cover, I go there me own way, and
not wit' all Brooklyn bawlin' me out!"
And she went her own way. She went, indeed, much more expeditiously
than I had anticipated, for in five minutes' time she was dressed and
booted and hatted and scurrying off through the now darkened streets.
Which trail she took and what cover she sought didn't in the least
interest me once I had made sure of the fact she was faring in an
opposite direction to Mickey's thirst-appeasing caravansary. But she
went. She shook the dust of that house off her febrile young heels;
and that was the one thing I desired of her. For that night, I knew,
still held a problem or two for me which would be trying enough without
the presence of the redoubtable Lady Babbie and her sanguinary bicuspid.
Yet once she was clear of that house, I decided to follow her example.
This, however, was not so easy as it had promised to be. For I had
scarcely reached the foot of the stairway when I heard the sound of
voices outside the street door. And I promptly recognized them as
Crotty's and Latreille's.
That discovery sent me groping hurriedly backward into the darkened
hallway. By the time the door opened I had felt my way to a second
flight of steps which obviously led to the basement. I could hear the
voice of the man known as The Doc, for the three men were now
advancing, and advancing none too quietly, into their musty-aired
harborage. But my own flight down those basement stairs was quiet
enough, for I realized now the expediency of slipping away and putting
in a call for help.
It was only after a good deal of groping about, however, that I was
able to reach the door opening on the basement-area, directly under the
street-steps. A huge brass key, fortunately, stood in place there. So
as I passed out I took the trouble to relock that door after me and
pocket the key.
In five minutes I had found a side-street grocery-store with a
sufficiently sequestered telephone. And by means of this telephone I
promptly called up Headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Belton.
He listened to what I had to say with much more interest than I had
anticipated.
"Witter," he called back over the wire, "I believe you've stumbled
across something big."
"Then supposing you stumble over here after it," was my prompt
suggestion. But Belton wasn't to be stampeded into the over-hasty
action of the amateur.
"If that isn't that bunch Headquarters has been wanting to interview
for the last three months, I miss my one best bet. But in this
business, Witter, you've got to _know_. So I'll slip over to the
Bureau and look up mugs and records. If that faint-spiller is Bab
Nadeau, _alias_ Car-Step Sadie, there's no doubt about your man being
Crotty."
"She _is_ Car-Step Sadie," I told him.
"Then we'll be out there with bells on," he calmly announced.
"But what do you expect me to do, in the meantime?" I somewhat
peevishly demanded.
"Just keep 'em guessing," he tranquilly retorted, "keep 'em guessing
until we amble over there and take 'em off your hands!"
That was easy enough to say, I remembered as I made my way back to
Crotty's broken-faced abode, but the problem of holding that unsavory
trio in subjection didn't impress me as an over-trivial one. Yet I
went back with a new fortitude stiffening my backbone, for I knew that
whatever might happen that night, I now had the Law on my side.
That casual little flicker of confidence, however, was not destined to
sustain me for long. A new complication suddenly confronted me. For
as I guardedly approached the house from which I'd sent Bab Nadeau
scampering off into the night I noticed the Nile-green car already
drawn up close beside the curb. And this car, I further noticed, was
empty.
So it was with a perceptibly quickened pulse that I sidled down into
the unclean area, unearthed my brass key, and let myself silently into
the unlighted basement. Then I just as quietly piloted my way in
through the darkness, found the stairway, and ascended to the ground
floor.
The moment I reached the hallway I could hear the sound of voices
through a door on my left. I could hear Mary Lockwood's voice, and
then the throaty tones of that opianic old impostor known as The Doc.
... "No doubt of the fact at all, my dear young lady. The spine has
been injured, very seriously injured. Whether or not it will result in
paralysis I can't tell until I consult with my colleague, Doctor
Emmanuel Paschall. But we must count on the poor girl being helpless
for life, Crotty, helpless for life!"
This was followed by a moment or two of silence. And I could imagine
what that moment or two was costing Mary Lockwood.
"But I want to see the girl," she said in a somewhat desperate voice.
"I _must_ see her."
"All in good time, my dear, all in good time," temporized her bland old
torturer. This was followed by a lower mumble of voices from which I
could glean nothing intelligible. But those three conspirators must
have consulted together, for after a moment of silence I caught the
sound of steps crossing the floor.
"He'll just slip up and make sure the patient can be seen," I heard the
suave old rascal intone. And I had merely time to edge back and dodge
about the basement stairhead as the room-door was flung open and
Latreille stepped out in the hall. The door closed again as he
vanished above-stairs.
When he returned, he didn't step back into the room, but waited outside
and knocked on the closed door. This brought old Crotty out in answer
to the summons. Just what passed between that worthy trio, immured in
their whispering consultation in that half-lighted hallway, failed to
reach my ears. But this in no way disturbed me, for I knew well enough
that Latreille had at least passed on to them the alarming news that
their much needed patient was no longer under that roof. And what was
more, I knew that this discovery would serve to bring things to a
somewhat speedier climax than we had all anticipated. There was a sort
of covert decisiveness about their movements, in fact, as they stepped
back into the room and swung the door shut behind them. So I crept
closer, listening intently. But it was only patches and shreds of
their talk that I could overhear. I caught enough, however, to know
they were protesting that their patient was too weak to be interviewed.
I could hear Crotty feelingly exclaim that it wasn't kind words which
could help this poor child now, but only something much more
substantial, and much more mundane.
"Yes, it's only money that can talk in a case like this," pointedly
concurred The Doc, clearly spurred on to a more open boldness of
advance. And there were further parleyings and arguments and
lugubrious enumerations of possibilities from the man of medicine. I
knew well enough what they were doing. They were conjointly and
cunningly brow-beating and intimidating that solitary girl who, even
while she must have gathered some inkling of their worldliness,
comprehended nothing of the wider plot they were weaving about her.
And I further knew that they were winning their point, for I could hear
her stifled little gasp of final surrender.
"Very well," her strained voice said. "I'll give you the check."
This pregnant sentence was followed by an equally pregnant silence.
Then came a series of small noises, among which I could distinguish the
scrape of a chair-leg and steps crossing the floor. And I surmised
that Mary was seating herself at a desk or table, to make out and sign
the precious little slip of paper which they were so unctuously
conspiring for. So it was at this precise moment that I decided to
interfere.
I opened the door, as quietly as I could, and stepped into the room.
It was Latreille who first saw me. The other two men were too intently
watching the girl at the desk. They were still watching her as she
slowly rose from her chair, with a blue-tinted oblong of paper between
her fingers. And at the same moment that Mary Lockwood stood up
Latreille did the same. He rose slowly, with his eyes fixed on my
face, backing just as slowly away as he continued to stare at me. But
that retreat, I very promptly realized, wasn't prompted by any sense of
fear.
"Mary," I called out sharply to the girl who still stood staring down
at the slip of blue paper.
She looked up as she heard that call, peering at me with half
incredulous and slightly startled eyes. I don't know whether she was
glad or sorry to see me there. Perhaps it was both. But she neither
moved nor spoke.
"Mary," I cried out to her, "don't give that up!"
I moved toward her, but she in turn moved away from me until she stood
close beside the ever watchful Latreille.
"This is something which you don't understand," she said, much more
calmly than I had expected.
"But I _do_," I hotly contended.
"It's something which you can't possibly understand," she repeated in
tones which threw a gulf yawning between us.
"But it's _you_ who don't," I still tried to tell her. "These three
here are claim fakers; nothing but criminals. They're bleeding you!
They're blackmailing you!"
A brief but portentous silence fell on that room as the bewildered girl
looked from one face to the other. But it lasted only a moment. The
tableau was suddenly broken by a movement from Latreille. And it was a
quick and cat-like movement. With one sweep of the hand he reached out
and snatched the oblong of blue paper from Mary Lockwood's fingers.
And as I beheld that movement a little alarm-gong somewhere up at the
peak of my brain went off with a clang. Some remote cave-man ancestor
of mine stirred in his grave. I saw red.
With one unreasoned and unreasoning spring I reached Latreille, crying
to the girl as I went: "Get out of this house! Get out--quick!"
That was all I said. It was all I had a chance to say, for Latreille
was suddenly taking up all my attention. That suave brigand, instead
of retreating, caught and held the slip of paper between his teeth and
squared for combat. And combat was what he got.
We struck and countered and clenched and went to the floor together,
still striking blindly at each other's faces as we threshed and rolled
about there. We sent a chair spinning, and a table went over like a
nine-pin. We wheezed and gasped and clumped against the baseboard and
flopped again out into open space. Yet I tore that slip of paper from
between Latreille's teeth, and macerated it between my own, as we
continued to pound and thump and writhe about the dusty floor. And I
think I would have worsted Latreille, if I'd been given half a chance,
for into that onslaught of mine went the pent-up fury of many weeks and
months of self-corroding hate. But that worthy known as The Doc deemed
it wise to take a hand in the struggle. His interference assumed the
form of a blow with a chair-back, a blow which must have stunned me for
a moment or two, for when I was able to think clearly again Latreille
had me pinned down, with one knee on my chest and old Crotty stationed
at the door with a Colt revolver in his hand. The next moment
Latreille forced my wrists down in front of me, jerked a handkerchief
from my pocket, and with it tied my crossed hands close together. Then
he turned and curtly motioned to Crotty.
"Here," he commanded. "Bring that gun and guard this pin-head! If he
tries anything, let him have it, and have it good!"
Slowly and deliberately Latreille rose to his feet. He paused for a
moment to wipe the blood and dust from his face. Then he turned to
Mary Lockwood, who stood with her back against the wall and her tightly
clenched fists pressed close to her sides. She was very white, white
to the lips. But it wasn't fear that held her there. It was a sort of
colorless heat of indignation, a fusing of rage and watchfulness which
she seemed at a loss to express in either word or action.
"Now you," barked out Latreille, motioning her to the desk, "make good
on that paper. And do it quick!"
Mary surveyed him, silently, studiously, deliberately. He was,
apparently, something startlingly new in her career, something which
she seemed unable to fathom. But he'd by no means intimidated her.
For, instead of answering him, she spoke to me.
"Witter," she called out, watching her enemy as she spoke. "Witter,
what do you want me to do?"
I remembered Lieutenant Belton and his message. I remembered my own
helplessness, and the character of the men confronting us. And I
remembered that time was a factor in Mary's favor and mine.
"Do what he tells you," I called up to her. And I knew that she had
stepped slowly across to the desk again. Yet what she did there I
failed to understand, for my attention was once more centered on the
old scoundrel covering me with the Colt revolver and repeatedly and
blasphemously threatening to plug me through the heart if I so much as
made one finger-move to get off that floor. So I lay there studying
him. I studied his posture. I studied the position of his weapon. I
studied my own length of limb. I studied the furniture overturned
about the room. And then I once more studied old Crotty.
Then I laughed aloud. As I did so I suddenly twisted my head and
stared toward the door.
"_Smash it in, Sam!_" I shouted exultantly, and with all the strength
of my lungs.
It startled them all, as I had intended it should. But it also did
something else which I had expected it to do. It caused Crotty to
glance quickly over his shoulder toward the door in question. And at
the precise moment that he essayed this movement I ventured one of my
own.
I brought my outstretched leg up, in one quick and vicious kick. I
brought my boot-sole in one stinging blow against the stock of the
firearm and the fingers clustered about it. And the result was
practically what I had anticipated. It sent the revolver cascading up
into the air, like a circus-tumbler doing a double-twister over an
elephant's back. There was the bark of an exploding cartridge as it
went. But I had both timed and placed its fall, and before either one
of that startled couple could make a move I had given a quick twist and
roll along the dusty floor and caught up the fallen weapon in my own
pinioned right hand. Another quick wrench and twist freed my bound
wrist, and before even a second shout of warning could escape from any
of them I was on my feet with the revolver balanced in my right hand
and fire in my eye.
"Back up, every one o' you," I commanded. For I was hot now, hot as a
hornet. And if one of that worthy trio had ventured a move not in
harmony with my orders I am morally certain that I should have sent a
bullet through him. They too must have been equally assured of my
determination, for side by side they backed away, with their hands
slightly above their heads, like praying Brahmans, until the wall
itself stopped their retreat.
"Stand closer," I told them. And they shuffled and side-stepped
shoulder to shoulder, ludicrously, like the rawest of rookies on their
first day of drill. As I stood contemplating them, with disgust on my
face, I was interrupted by the voice of Mary.
"Witter," she demanded in a voice throaty with excitement yet not
untouched with some strange exultation which I couldn't take time to
analyze, "what shall I do this time?"
I couldn't turn and face her, for I still had to keep that unsavory
trio under inspection.
"I want you to go down to your car," I told her over my shoulder, "and
get in it, and then go straight home. And then--"
"That's absurd," she interrupted.
"I want you to do it."
"But I don't intend to," she said, ignoring my masterfulness.
"Why?"
"I've been too cowardly about this already. It's been quite bad
enough, without leaving you here like that. So be good enough to tell
me what I can do."
I liked her for that, and I was on the point of telling her so, when
down below I heard the quick stamp and clump of feet. And I felt in my
bones that it must be Belton and his men. Then I remembered Mary and
her question.
"I'll tell you what you can do," I said, pointing toward Latreille.
"You can ask this man what it was I ran down in my car last
Hallow-e'en."
She was moving forward, with a face quite without fear by this time.
But her brow clouded, at that speech of mine, and she came to a sudden
stop.
"I don't need to ask him," she slowly acknowledged.
"Why not?"
"Because I know already."
"_He_ told you?" I demanded, with a vicious and quite involuntary jab
of my barrel-end into one of Latreille's intercostal spaces.
"Not directly," replied the ever-truthful Mary. "But it was through
him that I found out. I know now it was through him."
"I thought so," I snorted. "And through him you're now going to find
out that he was a liar and a slanderer. So be good enough to explain
to her, Latreille, that it was a straw-stuffed dummy we ran down, a
street-crowd's scare-crow, and nothing else!"
Latreille didn't answer me. He merely stood there with studious and
half-closed eyes, a serpent-like squint of venom on his colorless face.
It was, in fact, old Crotty who broke the silence.
"We'll do our talkin', young fellow, when the right time comes. And
when we do, you're goin' to pay for an outrage like this, for an
unprovoked assault on decent citizens!"
"Well, the time's come right now," I promptly announced, for I had
caught the sound of Belton's quick step on the stairs. And the next
moment the door swung open and that stalwart officer stood staring
intently yet cautiously about the corner of the jamb. He stood there
squinting in, in fact, for several seconds, calmly inspecting each face
and factor of the situation. It wasn't until he stepped in through the
open door, however, that I noticed the ugly-looking service-revolver in
his own right hand.
"That's the bunch we want, all right," proclaimed the officer of law
and order as he turned back to the still open door. "Come up, boys,
and take 'em down," he called cheerfully and companionably out through
the darkness.
Mary, at the answering tumult of those quick-thumping feet, crept a
little closer to my side. Alarm, I suppose, had at last seeped through
and crumbled the last of her Lockwood pride. The flash of waiting
firearms, the strange faces, the still stranger experiences of that
night, seemed to have brought about some final and unlooked for
subjugation of her spirit. At least, so I thought.
"Couldn't you take me away, Witter?" she asked a little weakly and also
a little wistfully. Yet there was something about the very tone of her
voice which sent a thrill through my tired body. And that thrill gave
me boldness enough to reach out a proprietory arm and let the weight of
her body rest against it.
"You won't want us, will you, Belton?" I demanded, and that long-legged
young officer stared about at us abstractedly, for a moment or two,
before replying. When he turned away he did so to hide what seemed to
be a slowly widening smile.
"_These_ are the folks I want," he retorted, with a hand-wave toward
his three prisoners. And without wasting further breath or time on
them I helped Mary out and down to the Nile-green roadster.
"No; let me," she said as she noticed my movement to mount to the
driver's seat. But she was silent for several minutes as we threaded
our way out through the quiet and shadowy streets.
"Witter," she said at last and with a gulp, "you must think I'm an--an
awful coward."
"_I_ was the coward," I proclaimed out of my sudden misery of mind.
For there were certain things which would be terribly hard to forget.
"You?" she cried. "After what I've just seen? After what you've saved
me from? Oh, how you must despise me!"
"No," I said with a gulp of my own. "That's not the word."
"It's not," she absently agreed.
"It's not," I repeated, "for I love you!"
She made no response to that foolish and untimely declaration. All her
attention, in fact, seemed directed toward her driving.
"But I was so cowardly in that other thing," she persisted, out of this
second silence. "Judging without understanding, condemning something I
was only too ready to do myself!"
"And it made you hate me?"
"No--no. I hate myself!" And her gesture was one of protest,
passionate protest.
"But you _must_ have hated me."
"Witter," she said, speaking quite low and leaning a little closer to
the wheel as she spoke, as though all her thoughts were on the shadowy
road ahead of her, "I never hated you--never! I couldn't even make
myself."
"Why?" I asked, scarcely knowing I had spoken.
"Because _I've always loved you_," she said in a whisper, big with
bravery. And I heard a silvery little bell begin to ring in my heart,
like a bird in an orchard, heralding spring.
"Stop the car!" I suddenly commanded, once the real, the glorious
meaning of those six words of Mary's had sunk through to that strange
core of things we call our Soul.
"What for?" demanded Mary, mechanically releasing the clutch and
throwing the brake-pedal down. She sat staring startled into my face
as we came to a stop. "What _for_?" she repeated.
"Because we must never run anything down again," I solemnly informed
her.
"But I don't see," she began, "why--"
"It's because I'm going to kiss you, my beloved," I said as I reached
out for her. "And something tells me, Mary, that it's going to be a
terribly long one!"
THE END
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Initials Only. By Anna Katharine Green.
In Another Girl's Shoes. By Berta Ruck.
Inner Law, The. By Will N. Harben.
Innocent. By Marie Corelli.
Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer.
In the Brooding Wild. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Intrigues, The. By Harold Bindloss.
Iron Trail, The. By Rex Beach.
Iron Woman, The. By Margaret Deland.
Ishmael. (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
Island of Regeneration, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
Island of Surprise, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
Japonette. By Robert W. Chambers.
Jean of the Lazy A. By B. M. Bower.
Jeanne of the Marshes. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Jennie Gerhardt. By Theodore Dreiser.
Joyful Heatherby. By Payne Erskine.
Jude the Obscure. By Thomas Hardy.
Judgment House, The. By Gilbert Parker.
Keeper of the Door, The. By Ethel M. Dell.
Keith of the Border. By Randall Parrish.
Kent Knowles: Quahaug. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
King Spruce. By Holman Day.
Kingdom of Earth, The. By Anthony Partridge.
Knave of Diamonds, The. By Ethel M. Dell.
Lady and the Pirate, The. By Emerson Hough.
Lady Merton, Colonist. By Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
Landloper, The. By Holman Day.
Land of Long Ago, The. By Eliza Calvert Hall.
Last Try, The. By John Reed Scott.
Last Shot, The. By Frederick N. Palmer.
Last Trail, The. By Zane Grey.
Laughing Cavalier, The. By Baroness Orczy.
Law Breakers, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Lighted Way, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Lighting Conductor Discovers America, The. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
Lin McLean. By Owen Wister.
Little Brown Jug at Kildare, The. By Meredith Nicholson.
Lone Wolf, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Long Roll, The. By Mary Johnson.
Lonesome Land. By B. M. Bower.
Lord Loveland Discovers America. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Lost Ambassador. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Lost Prince, The. By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Lost Road, The. By Richard Harding Davis.
Love Under Fire. By Randall Parrish.
Macaria. (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
Maids of Paradise, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
Maid of the Forest, The. By Randall Parrish.
Maid of the Whispering Hills, The. By Vingie E. Roe.
Making of Bobby Burnit, The. By Randolph Chester.
Making Money. By Owen Johnson.
Mam' Linda. By Will N. Harben.
Man Outside, The. By Wyndham Martyn.
Man Trail, The. By Henry Oyen.
Marriage. By H. G. Wells.
Marriage of Theodora, The. By Mollie Elliott Seawell.
Mary Moreland. By Marie Van Vorst.
Master Mummer, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Max. By Katherine Cecil Thurston.
Maxwell Mystery, The. By Caroline Wells.
Mediator, The. By Roy Norton.
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.
Mischief Maker, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Miss Gibbie Gault. By Kate Langley Bosher.
Miss Philura's Wedding Gown. By Florence Morse Kingsley.
Molly McDonald. By Randall Parrish.
Money Master, The. By Gilbert Parker.
Money Moon, The. By Jeffery Farnol.
Motor Maid, The. By C. N and A. M. Williamson.
Moth, The. By William Dana Orcutt.
Mountain Girl, The. By Payne Erskine.
Mr. Single. By George Barr McCutcheon.
Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo. By E. Philips Oppenheim.
Mr. Pratt. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Mr. Pratt's Patients. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Mrs. Balfame. By Gertrude Atherton.
Mrs. Red Pepper. By Grace S. Richmond.
My Demon Motor Boat. By George Fitch.
My Friend the Chauffeur. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
My Lady Caprice. By Jeffery Farnol.
My Lady of Doubt. By Randall Parrish.
My Lady of the North, By Randall Parrish
My Lady of the South. By Randall Parrish.
Ne'er-Do-Well, The. By Rex Beach.
Net, The. By Rex Beach.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Who Couldn't Sleep, by Arthur Stringer