Their destination, one of the score of tango tea-rooms which had sprung
to mushroom popularity within the year, was soon reached. Leaning
heavily upon his stick, limping like his aged model, and spluttering
impatiently, Shirley was assisted by the uniformed door man into the
lobby. Helene followed meekly. Four hat boys from the check-room made
the conventional scramble for his greatcoat, hat and stick, nearly
upsetting him in their eagerness. Then Shirley led the way into the half
light of the tropical, indoor garden, picking a way through the tables
to a distant wall seat, embowered with electric grapes and artificial
vines.
“Sit down, my darling child,” said the pseudo Grimsby, as he dropped
into a seat behind the table, which was protected from the lights, and
furthest away from any possible visitors. “We are early, avoiding the
crush. Soon the crowd will be here. We must have some champagne at once,
to assist me in my defensive tactics. You will have to do most of the
talking. Remember, we are going to the Winter Garden musical review when
we leave here: you may tell this to whom you will.”
Helene looked about curiously, as the big tea-room began to fill with
its usual late afternoon crowd of patrons,--young, old and indeterminate
in age. Women of maturely years, young misses from “finishing” schools,
demimondaine, social “bounders” deluded by the glitter of their own
jewelry and the thrill of their wasted money that they were climbing
into New York society--these and other curious types rubbed elbows in
this melting pot of folly. The tinkle of glasses, the increasing buzz
of conversation, the empty laughter of too many emptied cocktail glasses
mingled with the droning music of an Hawaiian string quartette in the
far corner.
Suddenly, with banging tampani and the crash of cymbals, rattle of
tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the
dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known
law of harmony--swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling
rhythm of a maxixe.
“How strange!” murmured Helene, as the waiter brought them some
champagne and indigestible pastries--the true ingredients of 'dansant
the'.
“Yes, on with the dance-let joy be unrefined! The fall of the Roman
Empire was the bounce of a rubber nursery ball, compared with this New
York avalanche of luxurious satiation! Now, my child, old Da-da, is
going to become too intoxicated to talk three words to any of these
gallants and their lassies. Grimsby did not write a monologue for me,
so I must pantomime: you will have to carry the speaking part of our
playlet. Flatter them--but don't leave my side to dance!”
The first bottle of wine had been carried away by the waiter, (half
emptied it is true,) as he filled a second order. Shirley shielded his
face beneath a drooping spray of artificial blooms from the top of
their wallbower. Several young men were approaching them, and the
criminologist noted with relief that they evidenced their afternoon
libations even so early. Eyes dulled with over-stimulus were the less
analytical. Chance was favoring him. The newcomers were garbed in that
debonair and “cultured” modishness so dear to the hearts of magazine
illustrators. Faces, weak with sunken cheek lines, strong in creases
of selfishness, darkened by the brush strokes of nocturnal excesses and
seared, all of them with the brand mark of inbred rascality, identified
them to Shirley as members of that shrewd class of sycophants who feast
on the follies of the more amateurish moths of the Broadway Candles.
“Hello, old pop Grimsby!”
“You're in the dark of the moon, Grimmie! I couldn't make you out but
for those horn rimmed head lights.”
“Welcome to the joy-parlor, old scout.”
The greetings of the juvenile buzzards varied only in phraseology: their
portent was identical: “Open wine.”
“Poor Mr Grimsby is so ill this afternoon, but sit down and have
something with us,” volunteered Helene tremulously.
The bees gathered about the table to feast on the vinous honey, while
Shirley, mumbling a few words, maintained his partial obscurity, with
one hand to his forehead.
“Fine boysh, m'deah. Boysh, meet little Bonbon--my protashsh!”
Little Bonbon was a pronounced attraction. Her vivacious charm drew the
eyes away from Shirley, who studied the expressions of the weasel faces
about him. The girl's heart sickened under the brutal frankness of a
dozen calculating eyes, yet she valiantly maintained her part,
while Shirley marveled at her clever simulation of silly, giggly,
semi-intoxication. One youth deserted them to disappear through
the distant dining room entrance. The comments about the table were
interesting to the keen-eared masquerader.
“Old Grimsby's picked a live one, this time!”--“What show is she
with?”--“Won't Pinkie be sore?” The criminologist was not left to wonder
as to the identity of “Pinkie,” for an older man, walking behind a
red-headed girl in a luridly modern gown, approached the table with the
absent guest. The men were talking earnestly, the girl staring angrily
at Shirley's, beautiful companion.
“Hey, here come's Reggie! Sit down, Reg. Pop has passed away, but his
credit is still strong.”
“There's Pinkie--come, my dear, and join the Ladies' Aid Society and
have a lemonade,” jested another youth, making a place for the girl in
the aisle.
Pinkie's dark-haired companion sank somewhat unsteadily into a chair
next the girl. He frowned and rubbed his forehead, as though to clear
his mind for needed concentration. He shook Shirley's arm, and spoke
sharply.
“Look up; Grimmie. I never saw you feel your wine so early in the
afternoon. It was a lucky day for me on Wall Street, so I celebrated
myself. You are here earlier than usual. Everybody have some champagne
with me.”
As he beckoned to the waiter, the red-haired girl bestowed a murderous
look upon Helene, who was sniffing some flowers which she had drawn from
the vase on the table.
“Who's that Jane?” she demanded, her voice-shaking with jealousy.
“Grimmie, you act as if you were doped. Introduce us to your swell
friend. Wake him, Reg Warren.”
Helene's jeweled white hand protected the safety-first dozing of her
companion, as, through the interstices of his fingers, he studied the
inscrutable difference between the face of Warren and the other youths
about them.
“Let Pop dream of a new way to make a million!” laughed one young man.
“His money grows while he sleeps.”
“Yes, let him dream on,” laughed Helene, with a shrill giggle. “When he
makes that extra million he can star me on Broadway, in my own show. He,
he!”
“You'll have to spend half of it at John the Barber's getting your voice
marceled and your face manicured,” snarled Pinkie. “Come, Reg, and dance
with me: these bounders bore me.”
“Run along, Pinkie, and fox-trot your grouch away with Shine Taylor.
Here comes the wine I ordered--What's your name, girlie? Where did you
meet Grimsby?”
“Oh, we're old friends,” and Helene maliciously spilled a bottle over
the interrogator's waistcoat, as she reached forward to shake his hand.
“My name's Bonbon, you wouldn't believe me if I told you my real name,
anyway. Who are you?”
“I'm not Neptune,” he retorted, as he mopped the bubbles with a napkin.
“You've started in badly.” Shirley mentally disagreed. His stupor still
obsessed him, but he noted with interest that Warren paid the check
for his bottle with a new one-hundred dollar bill. Warren could elicit
nothing from Helene but silly laughter, and so he arose impatiently,
as Shine Taylor returned to whisper something in his ear. “I must be
getting back to my apartment. Bring Grimsby up to it to-night: a little
bromo will bring him back to the land of the living. I'll have a jolly
crowd there--top floor of the Somerset, on Fifty-sixth Street, you know,
near Sixth Avenue. Come up after the show.”
“We're going to the Winter Garden,” suggested Helene, at a nudge from
Shirley, and Warren nodded.
“I'll try to see you later, anyway. Goodbye!”
Losing interest in the proceedings, as the time for reckoning the bill
approached, the other gallants followed these two. Alone, again, Shirley
ordered some black coffee, and smiled at his assistant.
“He told the truth for once.”
“What do you mean?”
“He will try to see us later. That man is a member of the murderous
clan whom we seek. 'To-night is the night' for the exit of William
Grimsby--but, perhaps we may have a stage wait which will surprise
them.”
Gradually the guests thinned out in the tea-room, but Shirley cautiously
waited until the last.
“Do you believe these young men are all members of the gang?” asked the
girl. “Why do you suppose these men are all criminals? They surely look
a bad lot.”
“There are two general reasons why men go wrong. One is hard luck, aided
by tempting opportunity--they hope to make a success out of failure, and
then keep on the straight path for the rest of their lives. Such men
are the absconders, the forgers, the bank-wreckers, and even the petty
thieves. But once branded with the prison bars and stripes, they seldom
find it possible to turn against the tide in which they find themselves:
so they become habitual offenders. They are the easiest criminals to
detect. The second class are the born crooks, who are lazy, sharp-witted
and without enough will-power to battle against the problems of
honesty in work. It is easy enough to succeed if a man is clever and
unscrupulous without a shred of generosity. The hard problem is to be
affectionate, human, and conquer every-day battles by remaining actively
honest, when your rivals are not straight. The born crook is safer from
prison than the weakling of the first class.” He looked down at the
coffee, and then continued.
“I do not believe all these young men are in this curious plot. They are
merely the small fry of the fishing banks: they are petty rascals, with
occasional big game. But somewhere, behind this sinister machine, is a
guiding hand on the throttle, a brain which is profound, an eye which
is all-seeing and a heart as cold as an Antartic mountain. There is the
exceptional type of criminal who is greedy--for money and its luxurious
possibilities; selfish--with regard for no other heart in the world;
crafty--with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and
cruelty; refined and vainglorious--with pride in his skill to thwart
justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope
of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the
way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I
am the wriggling little angle worm who will dangle before his eyes
to-night. But I do not expect to land him--I merely purpose to learn his
identity, to draw the net of the law about him, in such a way as to keep
the Grimsby and Van Cleft names from the case.”
“And how can that be done?”
“That, young lady, is my 'fatal secret.' The subplot developing within
my mind is still nebulous with me,--you would lose all interest, as
would I, if you knew what was going to happen. But the time has passed,
and now we can go to the theatre. I bought the tickets by messenger
this afternoon. I will let you do the talking to the chauffeur and the
usher.”
They left the tea-room, the last guests out.
It was a touching sight to see the elderly gentleman supported on one
side by a fat French waiter, and on the opposite, by the solicitous
girl. The old Civil War wound was unusually troublesome.