from which the child had eaten. It was to be wrapped in paper, and put
into my car--for Teano. (It has never mattered that a footman should
think his master, or his master's friends, insane!)
If the child messenger from the Sisterhood, and the child-thief in the
collapsible box were one, the dumbness was an obstacle. Nevertheless
Teano might catch him, I thought, little dreaming how my desire and
his, working into one, were to be brought about.
I was shown into Roger's den, and confessed the theft of the document
he had given me--luckily useless, without the plan. I told him also
the history of the night. "Two and two generally make four," I said,
"and though this affair is irritating, it may help eventually. The man
who frightened Miss Odell had the look of an Egyptian. Now, isn't it
more likely that a mummy should be wanted by an Egyptian than another?
Miss Odell's treasure is a mummy, in a painted mummy-case. You know
that several attempts have been made to break into the 'shrine,' as
Miss Odell calls it. With what other object than to get the mummy?
You've had its case protected with an ingenious system of electric
wiring. Now, you are going away with your wife. You give me the
secret of the mechanism. The same night somebody tries to steal it;
also he rubs off my shirt-cuff the number of the Egyptian-looking
fellow's car. Then, there's the directress of the Sisterhood. She
fascinates Miss Odell. She revives the glory of a dying order. She
takes an old ghost-ridden house by the seashore--where anything might
happen. And something _does_ happen. A dream--so vivid, that I
venture to believe it wasn't a dream but a trick. The woman tries to
induce a girl to bring all her possessions with her into seclusion.
'_All_ her possessions,' mind! That would have included the
mummy-case, if you hadn't put your foot down. Have I your leave to
repeat these ramblings to her?"
"She has heard them, Lord John!" I turned, and sprang to my feet.
Maida was at the door, with Grace.
"You were talking so fast, we didn't interrupt. And I _wanted_ to
hear. I thought you'd wish me to. You have a wonderful theory, but
it's _all_ a mistake so far as the Sisterhood is concerned. The Head
Sister is the _best_ woman I ever knew. I'm breaking my heart with
shame because I deserted my post. Oh, don't think I blame _you_ for
bringing me away, Lord John. I blame only myself. You were splendid.
And I'm grateful for everything. To convince you of that, I promise if
you can prove anything against the Sisterhood, I'll consider myself
free from my bond--even before the twelve months are up. That's a
_safe_ promise. You can't think what a beautiful letter the Head
Sister has sent me this morning. I'm eager to go back and earn her
forgiveness by helping in the work she'll give me to do. In justice to
her I _must_ tell you a secret. That mask you saw--which prejudiced
you--is to hide burns she got in saving a slum-child from death in a
great fife. The Sister wears it to spare others pain. As for the
_dream_--I have it everywhere, and often. Don't be anxious. I'll
write, and--_you_ can write if you will. Dear Roger, is the car ready?"
"No," said Roger bluntly. "I hoped John would make you see reason."
"I do see it," the girl answered. "I didn't last night."
"How I wish you weren't over twenty-one!" her adopted brother growled.
Maida laughed, almost gaily. "As it is, I'm an old maid, and must be
allowed to go my own way."
"May I motor you and Roger to Pine Cliff, if you must go?" I begged.
She gave me a long look before answering. Then she said, "Yes."
I shall never forget that run from New York to Long Island. I made the
most of every moment; but my heart turned to ice whenever a voice
seemed to mutter in my ear, "You're going to lose her. You've failed,
John Hasle, in the big crisis of her life and yours."
But I wouldn't believe the voice. So far as my own story was
concerned, I thought this chapter of it had come to a close with the
closing of the gate at the Sisterhood House between me and Maida Odell.
Yet after all it hadn't, quite. There was more to come.
A little veiled woman had opened the gate at the sound of the
motor-horn, evidently expecting Miss Odell. And the same little woman
shut us out when the new sister had gone in. I noticed her
particularly, because she shrank from our eyes, though her face was
covered with the conventional mist of gauze. And it seemed that she
was glad to get rid of us. Not rudely, but with eagerness, she pushed
the gate to; and as she did so I noticed her hand. The left hand it
was--small, daintily shaped, with delicate, tapering fingers; but the
third finger was missing.
Teano was not in my rooms when I arrived once more at my hotel; but
opening the door of 212 I found him at the telephone. So absorbed was
he that he did not hear me enter, and I stood still in order not to
disturb him. I supposed that he had called up the Agency, and was
talking of my business.
"If I could get out of the job, I would," he almost groaned. "But
they'd put another man on, and that would be worse for Jenny. Everyone
heard of 'Three-Fingered Jenny' at the time of the gang's getaway. The
only thing I can do is to keep her out of the business at any cost, and
go along on other lines. I'll call you up again, Nella, if I get
anything on my _own_, about Jenny."
"Who, pray, are Nella and Jenny, Mr. Teano?" I asked, realising that he
meant to play me false.
He jumped as if I had shot him, and dropped the receiver. "I--thought
I'd locked the door," he stammered.
"It's a good thing you didn't," I said. "I've heard enough to guess
you came on some clue you didn't expect. That's why you forgot to lock
the door, before you called up 'Nella.'"
"Nella's my sister," Teano blurted out. "She's employed in the
Priscilla Alden, the hotel where only ladies stay. She's the telephone
girl on the thirteenth floor."
"Thanks for the explanation," I replied with more coolness than I felt.
"As for 'Jenny'--well, before I ask more questions I'll tell you what I
think. 'Jenny' is the woman for whose sake you took up your
profession. You'd lost, and wanted to find her. Now, you have found
her--or rather, her fingerprints--unmistakable, because they happen to
be those of her left hand. Rather than get her into trouble, you'd
sacrifice my interests."
Teano remained dumb as the impish child, when I finished and waited for
him to speak; so I went on. "I don't want to hurt a woman; yet you see
I know so much I can carry on this case without you. Suppose we work
together? I'll begin by laying my cards on the table. I can save you
the trouble of a search if I choose. I know where 'Jenny' is, and can
take you to her."
"You--you're bluffing!" Teano stammered.
"I swear I'm not. Luckily you're a _private_ detective. The police
needn't get an inkling of this case, unless you fail me, and I turn to
them. All I want is to find out who instigated the affair of night
before last. Who carried it out isn't so important to me, though it
may be to you. And by the by, has 'Jenny' any personal interest in a
little boy of four or five who is dumb?"
"My God!" broke out the detective.
"Don't you think I can be as useful to you as you can to me?" I
insinuated. "Why not be frank about 'Jenny'? I promise to hold every
word in confidence. Hang up that receiver. You'd better sit down or
you'll fall! Now, let's have this out."
The man was at my mercy; yet I knew he was no traitor. "Probably," I
reflected, "I'd have done the same in his place."
We sat facing each other, across the bare little table; and Teano began
the story of Jenny. There was drama in it, and tragedy, though as yet
the story had no end. The sad music was broken; but I began to see, as
he went on, that he and I might find a way of ending it, on a different
key.
Paul Teano and his sister had come to relatives in New York when he was
nineteen and she twelve. That was ten years ago. Paul was now a
naturalised American citizen, but at the time of the Italian war in
Tripoli he hadn't taken out his papers. There had been other things to
think of--such as falling in love. In those days Paul was a budding
newspaper reporter. He had gone to "get" a fire, and incidentally had
saved a girl's life. Her name was Jenny Trent. It was a case of love
at first sight with both. The mother took lodgers, and Teano became
one. In a fortnight, Jenny and he were engaged in spite of a rival
with money and "position"--that of a bank clerk.
Mrs. Trent wanted Jenny to marry Richard Mayne, and Jenny had vaguely
entertained the idea before she met Teano. There was something
mysterious and different from the men she had known, about Mayne, which
piqued her interest. But the mystery ceased to attract her after the
Italian's appearance. Teano, afraid of Mrs. Trent's weakness for
Mayne--or his presents, would have married Jenny at once, and trusted
to luck for a living; but the girl's mother fell ill, and while Jenny
was nursing her, Italy's war broke out. Paul was called to the
colours, and sailed for "home" with thousands of other reservists. It
was hard luck, and harder still to be wounded and taken prisoner in his
first battle. Teano's adventures with his Arab captors would make a
separate story, as exciting as Slatin's though not so long, for he
suffered only a year and six months' imprisonment. At the end of that
time he escaped, made his way to Sicily, and thence back to America as
stoker in an Italian ship. His first thought was to see Jenny; but at
Mrs. Trent's he found himself taken for a ghost. The report had come
that he was dead; and Mrs. Trent had "thought it best" for Jenny to
accept Dick Mayne. "For Heaven's sake, keep away," pleaded her mother.
"She's not happy with Dick. There was trouble at the bank, and he lost
his job. Jenny's wretched. But she's got a baby boy to live for--a
poor little thing, born dumb. The sight of you will make things
harder."
Perhaps Teano might have had strength to remain in the background if an
old fellow-lodger had not whispered what "people were saying about Dick
Mayne." It was asserted that for years he had led a "double life."
Nothing had been actually proved against him, except, that he was a
dope fiend. But gossip had it that he was a dope-seller as well, a
receiver of stolen goods, and a friend of thieves and gunmen. There
was likely to be an awful "bust-up" and then--Heaven help Jenny!
Naturally Teano went to the address given him--that of a tenement house
a long way east of Fifth Avenue. There, Fate stage-managed him into
the midst of a scene destined to change the course of two lives and put
an end to one. His knock was unanswered; but something was happening
in the kitchen of the wretched flat. The door was not locked; it had
been forgotten. Teano burst in, to find Jenny fighting for her life
with a madman. Mayne had snatched a bread-knife from the table, and
Jenny's hand dripped blood. Without a word Teano sprang to her
defence; but Mayne slipped out of his grasp. Darting to an adjoining
room, he rushed back with a Colt revolver. To save Teano, Jenny flung
herself between the two men; but Paul caught and put her behind him,
leaping on Mayne with a spring of a tiger. Then came a life and death
tussle. The revolver went off as both fought to get it, and Mayne
fell, shot through the heart.
"You'd have thought things couldn't have been worse with us than they
were," the detective groaned. "But you'd have thought wrong. We were
up against it, Jenny and me. If I stayed and gave evidence, she was
afraid of a scandal. If I made a getaway, she argued, she would be all
right, on a plea of self-defence; because it was known by the
neighbours what her husband was. I thought the same myself; and she
persuaded me for her sake to disappear. That was the mistake of my
life. What happened after I went, I don't know. I can only guess.
But something caused Jenny to change her mind. I got off without being
seen, and lay low to watch the papers. But if you believe me, for
three days there was nothing! Then came out a paragraph about Mayne's
body being discovered by some friend, who pounded in vain on the door,
and at last broke it in, to find the man dead. Doctors testified that
he'd been a corpse for forty-eight hours. The revolver lay beside him.
The verdict was suicide. He was known for his habits, you see; and
just by pulling the catch down, Jenny could get out, leaving the door
locked on the _inside_. Folks thought she'd deserted him--and that and
other troubles, brought on by himself, had preyed upon his mind. She
and I hadn't been cool enough to plan a stunt like that, in the minutes
before she forced me out of the place. But _somebody'd_ helped her;
and things that happened later put me on to guessing who.
"Never a word or a line has Jenny sent me from that day to this. Do
you know why? Because a pack of thieves got hold of her and the child.
One of Mayne's secret pals must have come along and offered to save her
and the boy. I don't believe she knew what she was letting herself in
for, till she was in. But--well, a girl called 'Three-Fingered Jenny'
travelled with a gang of international thieves last year in France, and
I bounced over there like a bomb when I heard. You see, when I found
her struggling with Mayne, he'd been trying to cut off her finger,
because she _would_ stick to an old ring of mine; refused to give it
up. She'd just time to tell me that and show me what he'd done. I saw
the poor finger would have to come off. My poor little Jenny! She'd
loved her pretty hands! The European war broke out just as I was
getting on her track--or thought I was--and I lost her again. I'd
stake my life she never stole a red cent's worth. But they may have
forced her to act as a decoy--using the child to bring her up to time.
I've always felt the gang's game would be to train the boy for a dip.
It was a frame-up on Jenny from the first. Why, the little chap would
do star turns, and never spill. He's dumb. Made for the job. I've
seen babies in the business, sharp as traps! Now you see, my lord,
what a knockout I had, finding those finger-marks on the
window-sill:--three, of a small left hand, the third finger missing;
and traces that a child had been let out of the window by a rope. The
footprints are below in the court. 'Jenny and her boy,' I said to
myself. I've prayed God I might find them; but it's the devil has sent
them to me at last."
"I'm not so sure of that," I said, and told Teano where and how I had
seen a slender little woman with big, scared eyes and a left hand with
its third finger missing.
When I had explained my rapidly developed theory, we discussed the
means of proving it. We might as well batter at the gates of Paradise
as those of the Grey Sisterhood. We would be turned away, as with a
flaming sword. Trust the Head Sister for that! But we were not at the
end of our resources.
That evening towards dusk, two ruddy-faced coastguards left a somewhat
dilapidated car in charge of a local youth. They walked for a short
distance, where a group of pines on a promontory had suggested the name
"Pine Cliff." They rang a gate bell, although aware that tradesmen
were the only males of the human species allowed to cross the
threshold. When their summons remained unanswered, they tugged again
with violence, until a _grille_ opened like a shutter. "Who is there?"
questioned a timid voice.
The elder of the coastguards, seeing his companion start at the sound
of her voice, answered, to give his comrade breathing space. They had
come, he announced, by order, to search the garden for a suspected
hiding hole of smuggled opium. Not that the Sisterhood was implicated!
This was an old place, and had been used by dope smugglers. The coast
police had received the "tip" that this had happened again.
The veiled eyes behind the _grille_ vanished; and a moment later
another voice took up the argument. As Teano had recognised Jenny's
voice, I knew the Head Sister's. The idea was _absurd_, said the
latter. We could not be admitted. I stepped aside, not trusting my
disguise, and Teano held out a folded document to which we had given an
official semblance.
"I don't want to make trouble for you, ladies, but----" he hinted. The
paper and a glimpse of a red seal said the rest. Bolts slid back
indignantly, and the gate was flung open. I beheld the Head Sister,
tall and formidable. Behind her I glimpsed a group of other forms less
imposing, among them Maida, flowers in her hands, and surrounded with
children. As for Teano, no doubt he saw only the shy figure retiring
from the gate.
"This is preposterous!" exclaimed the Head Sister. "But search the
garden if you must. You will find _nothing_." She moved away to join
her satellites, motioning to the door-keeper that the gate might be
closed. Before the gesture could be obeyed, however, Teano put himself
between the tall woman and the little one.
"Beg pardon, madam. I admit we've got in on false pretences," he said
sharply; "but we're detectives sent to arrest Three-Fingered Jenny, and
here's our warrant."
He flourished the faked document. Before the mistress of infinite
resource had time to collect her forces--we had swept Jenny outside the
gate, and slammed it. We raced with her to Teano's waiting car,
and--cruel to be kind--stopped to explain nothing till Pine Cliff was
more than a mile away.
I took the wheel and gave Paul a place by Jenny. I heard him plead,
"Don't you _know_ me, Jen?" But not once did I turn my head until
Teano spoke my name.
"She's my Jenny," he said, "and she _cares_, but she doesn't _want_ to
be rescued! It's a question of her boy. She won't give him up."
"Quite right," I agreed. "Why should she give him up? Has she left
him in the Sisterhood House?"
"No, he's lost," Jenny answered. "I don't know where he is--since this
morning. But the House has been our home for weeks. The Head Sister
took us in, and promised to save Nicky from bad people and bad ways.
He'll go back there, and----"
"But where is he now?" I cut in, having slowed down the car. "Can't we
head him off? The child has money, I know. Where would he go and
spend his earnings?"
"I--can't tell," she stammered. "He's always wanted me to take him to
Coney Island--to some amusement park. But----"
"To Coney Island we'll go," I exclaimed.
* * * * *
What followed was a wild adventure. I had never been to Coney Island.
But I seemed to have been born knowing that it was a place dedicated to
the people's pleasure. No doubt it was a toss-up which amusement
ground to choose. By hazard, we began with Constellation Park; and
almost at once came upon traces of Nicky. "A little dumb boy with
black eyes, all alone, with plenty of money, and a grin when asked if
he were lost?" Oh, yes, he was doing every stunt. We tracked him
through peanuts and ice cream, lions' dens and upside-down houses, to
the Maze of Mystery.
The name was no misnomer. Hampton Court, and the Labyrinth of Crete
itself could have "nothing on it." In a bewildered procession Teano,
Jenny and I wandered through streets of mirrors, complicated groves,
walled concentric alley ways, with unexpected and disappointing outlets
until at last a pair of elf-eyes stared at me from a distant and
unreachable surface of glass. I cried out; so did Jenny and Teano, for
all of us had had the same glimpse and quickly lost it.
"_Nicky_," gasped Jenny, just behind my back. "And, oh, _Red Joe's got
hold of him_! It's all up--if we can't get between them. It's Red Joe
I stole him back from when we went into the Sisterhood."
I looked back to console her--and she was gone. Teano, too, had
suddenly separated from us, whether accidentally or for a purpose, I
could not tell. But the maze would have put any rabbit warren to
shame. When you thought you were in one place, you found to your
astonishment that you were in another, with no visible way of getting
out.
Then again, eyes looked at me from a mirror which might be far off or
within ten yards. There were mirrors within mirrors, dazzling and
endless vistas of mirrors. Child's eyes, mischievous as a squirrel's,
met mine, peering from between crowding forms of grown-ups. The man
Jenny had spoken of as "Red Joe" (I picked him out by a ferret face and
rust-red hair) was trying to push past a fat father of a family, to
reach the child in grey. Whether Nicky knew that he was a pawn in a
game of chess, who could tell? There was but one thing certain. He
was having "the time of his life."
"If I could get him for Jenny, what would Jenny do for me in return?" I
asked myself. It might turn out that she could unlock the door that
had shut between me and Maida Odell.
A desperate, a selfish desire to beat Red Joe, seized me; but now the
mirrors told, if they did not deceive, that glassy depths of distance
between us were increasing in space and mystery. Suddenly I reached a
turning-point. Nicky was straight ahead. He paused, looked, made
ready to dart away like a trout from the hook. But--inspiration ran
with my blood.
I pulled a wad of greenbacks from my pocket and smiled. Red Joe had
flattened pater familias unmercifully, and was squeezing past. A hand,
a thief's hand if I ever saw one, caught at Nicky's collar. But he
dipped from under, slipped between a surprised German's legs, and--I
grabbed him in my arms.
EPISODE III
THE GIRL ON THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR
When Teano first spoke to me of his sister, nothing was further from my
thoughts than a meeting with the telephone girl at the Priscilla Alden,
a hotel sacred to ladies. But unexpected things happen in the best
regulated lives, especially in New York, as anyone may learn by the
Sunday papers. Not many days after the gate of the Sisterhood House
shut for the second time between Maida and me, I changed my residence
from New York to a hotel about five miles from Pine Cliff. Roger Odell
and Roger's bride had gone to South America on one of those business
trips which financiers seem to take as nonchalantly as we cross a
street. His last words to me were: "You know, I rely on you to look
after Maida, as well as she can be looked after, under that brute of a
woman's thumb."
I did the best I could; but whether my wounds or my love sickness were
to blame, the fact was that something had made me a bundle of raw
nerves.
I slept badly, and my dreams were of some hideous thing happening to
Maida; or else of the mummy-case being stolen. In my waking hours I
chased back and forth between town and country, trying to find in New
York the "Egyptian-looking man" who had disturbed Maida's peace of
mind, and who had reasons for wishing me to forget the number of his
automobile: trying to make sure on Long Island if a connection existed
between this man and the head of the Sisterhood.
At last I realised that I was in no fit state of nerves for a guardian.
The hotel people recommended me to a celebrated doctor practising on
Long Island; and one morning, ashamed of myself as a "molly-coddle," I
went to keep an appointment with him. Thorne was his name and he lived
in a grey-shingled house set back from the road behind a small lawn.
The place was outside the village; but since abandoning my crutch, I
had begun to take as much exercise as possible. I walked, therefore,
to the doctor's, rather than use the car presented to me by Roger.
This seems a small detail to note, but deductions following certain
events proved it to have been important.
I was received by the keen-eyed Thorne, in his private office, and
during the catechism to which he subjected me, I thought nothing of
what went on in the outer room through which I had passed. I should
ill have earned Roger Odell's nickname ("the gilded amateur
detective"), however, if I hadn't ferreted it out afterwards and "put
two and two together."
It was an ordinary room, with a desk at which sat a young woman who
answered the door and kept the doctor's appointments classified. I was
vaguely aware that I had interrupted her business of stamping letters,
which a boy would post. She had not finished when a few minutes later
the next patient arrived. This person gave his name as Mr. Genardius,
and confessed that he had no appointment; but his face--covered with
bandages--presented such a pitiful appearance that the girl agreed to
let him wait. "When the gentleman who's in the office now goes away,"
she explained, "the doctor's hour for receiving is over. But he may
give you a few minutes."