Roving Commissions
After the Chief left, Moore gave me my instructions for that night. We
were to leave the room separately. I was to get into the same taxi
which I would find waiting and I was to pick up Moore at the corner of
Waverley Place and Fifth Avenue.
I followed instructions, found the taxi waiting and told the man to
drive to Washington Square. Five minutes later my driver stopped
without being told and Moore jumped in beside me. The driver started
off uptown at once.
Moore turned to me with a smile. “Well, I guess you’ll do. You caught
the idea like a shot. Now let’s get to business, for we’ve got one
heluva lot to talk about.”
“Fire ahead.”
“One of the first things I am to impress on you is the fact that from
now on both our lives may depend upon eternal vigilance. A single
false step, a single unguarded word or glance may easily
mean—finish—for us. Stow that away in your brain and don’t forget it.
Take it out and look at it every five minutes if you can.” He paused a
moment. “I’m not fussy myself, Clayton. I’ve gone into this game for
my own reasons. But this is the meanest-looking job I’ve ever tackled,
and that’s the truth. And I don’t want to get bumped off before we’ve
put the job through.”
“I’ll remember,” I told him, “and I’m just as eager to put it through
as you are.”
“I know,” he answered. “Well, I want to tell you something about the
plan for you and me, so far as we’ve mapped it out. The Chief told you
his theory—that these abductions and the smuggled drugs are the work
of the same gang. And he told you his reasons for believing that the
gang is highly placed, or has members highly placed, socially.”
I nodded.
“Well, that’s where you and I come in. He wants us to work together.
And he wants us to be regular lounge lizards, worming our way into all
sorts of social circles, fast, slow and medium. His idea is that
sooner or later we’ll run across something in the nature of a clew.
And when that happens we’re to follow it up like grim death.”
“Seems pretty vague stuff to work on,” I observed.
“It is and it isn’t. As far as the girls are concerned, we haven’t
anything very definite to go on until after the event—and then it’s
too late, for they will have covered up their tracks, in their
skillful way. But it’s different with the drug business. For there
there ought to be something to work on, if we’re smart enough to see
it. And if the Chief is right about it being the same gang, why that
helps us with the other affair, do you see!”
“If he _is_ right!” I said.
“Well, I think he is. Anyhow it seems reasonable and it’s about all we
have got. But here’s another thing. We had a talk yesterday before you
turned up, and the Chief agreed with me that it might be better for us
not to know each other. I mean, of course, we may meet casually, but
it’s highly probable that they have their suspicions about me as it
is, and it’s no use dragging you down with me. For if we’re pretty
thick, they’ll suspect you too if they suspect me. That business in
your rooms that night looked bad, for I haven’t any other enemies that
I can think of.”
“But look here,” I told him, “we’ll have to work together to some
extent—compare notes and all that—and besides, I’m quite ready to
stand in with you on the risk and that sort of thing.”
Moore shook his head and smiled. “Spoken like a pal,” he said. “But
this is a business proposition, Clayton, and a tough one. And if we
don’t work together, why that leaves you all the freer to step in and
haul me out, if I get in a tight corner, don’t you see?”
I didn’t like it very much, but there was no point in arguing about it
just then. He knew more about the game than I did, anyway. And I found
out very soon how wise his decision had been.
“Then,” he went on, “although we’re not connected in any way in the
public eye, we’ve got to fix up some method of getting in touch with
each other at any time, on the instant and privately. Now this is what
I doped out to that end. I thought I’d take a room or rooms somewhere
near you. Perhaps I might take one in the same building, anyway in the
same block, so that we had no street between. Then, with the aid of
that young Irishman of yours, we ought to be able to lay a private
wire between your room and mine. What do you think of it?”
I laughed at the reference to Larry. “Sounds all right to me,” I
answered, “if you can get the room. They’re pretty hard to find
nowadays. But that building I’m in seems to have quite a number of
bachelor apartments. I don’t see that your being in the same building
would connect us any, unless we blew into each other’s rooms when some
one was watching. That private wire sounds good, but I don’t see how
we’re going to lay it where it won’t be seen, or without being seen
doing it.”
“Do it at night. That’s easy enough. But we will have to dope out some
way so that it won’t be found, except on the wildest of bad luck. Of
course they’re always making repairs and putting in telephones in
those apartment houses, and we’ll have to watch out for that.”
“Did the Chief mention any particular sets in New York that he wanted
us to go for? There are so many thousands of cliques and social groups
that we might wander around for years without striking the right one.
And then we might not know it for the right one if we saw it.”
“No. He left it pretty much up to us. But he did suggest leaning
toward the faster semi-Bohemian sets as being more likely to indulge
in drugs.”
Moore paused a moment. “Anyhow, Clayton, that’s the gist of it. Work
all your introductions for all you’re worth. I thought at first that
it might be well for you to change your name and begin all over again,
on account of the gang knowing that you had lost your sister, and
therefore suspecting you of being still on their trail. But that would
mean giving up all your introductions and losing a lot of time, and
also the possibility of running into people that you’d known before,
which would make complications. So the Chief decided that it would be
better to run the risk of their suspicion, because your principal
value in the search is your actual and potential social _entrée_.”
“Did he map out any particular attitude he wanted me to take—sort of
character line?”
“No. But he thought you might let it escape you that you had given up
all hope of finding your sister, and that you were broken by it and
letting yourself go to the dogs as the easiest way out. That would
serve your ends both ways. For taking to drugs would be the most
natural thing in the world for a man in your position, and before you
could do that, you would have to get hold of the drugs. So that gives
you a line to work on.”
“Pretty smart of the Chief, I think.”
“Oh, he’s no slouch. Now I’m going to bed. But before I go, take
this.” He drew from his pocket a tiny golden panther strung on a black
cord. “Wear it where you can get at it, but where no one else would
see it or could pick your pocket for it. And if any one shows you one
like it, trust him. It’s the symbol for this particular job. I won’t
see you in the morning at all. But to-morrow night suppose you meet me
upstairs in a little chop-suey joint in Broadway at 39th Street. The
tables are screened off and no one will notice us. We can talk there
in peace and quiet and make some more definite plans for keeping in
touch with each other. In the meantime try to get started on the
social stuff. Dig up all your old friends and start things going.
Maybe that Mrs. Furneau might be a good one to start on. After all you
don’t know much about her.”
Moore got up. “Well, meet me at that chop-suey joint, remember.
Broadway at 39th at eight, and we’ll have another powwow. In the
meantime, good luck!”
He gave me a quick handshake, rapped on the window of the cab and as
the vehicle slowed up, flung open the door and slipped out. A moment
later he had disappeared among the shifting pedestrians on the Avenue.
When I got back I found that Larry was disposed to consider his
feelings hurt. The affliction took the form of an attitude of
exaggerated servitude which was irritating in the extreme. He wanted
as much disciplining as a puppy.
However, something occurred almost at once that brought him out of it
with a bump.
I asked him whether anything had happened in my absence.
“No, sir,” he answered in the true butler manner. “Nothing of any
moment, sir.” His English was excellent when he wanted to make it so.
“What do you mean—nothing of any moment?” I demanded curiously.
“Why, nothing, sir, nothing happened at all.” He bowed deferentially.
“Have you breakfasted, sir?”
I felt like kicking him. “Drop it, Larry,” I told him. “I don’t know
what’s biting you and I haven’t the time to bother to find out. But if
you take my advice, you’ll drop that butler business, you ignoramus.
Now get out of it.”
Larry departed and I went to my desk to look up the address of some of
my one-time friends and to drop a line to Mrs. Furneau. A moment later
I rang for Larry.
“How many times have I told you to leave my desk alone?” I demanded.
Larry scratched his head. “Sure, times and thin times,” he answered.
“But faith, I haven’t so much as laid a finger on it.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I left these papers under that folded map of New
York. Now the papers are all mixed up and the paper-weight is on them.
I found the map over here—and, by golly, you’ve even unfolded it and
folded it up again the wrong way. What do you mean by it?”
Larry’s butler manner dropped from him now like a garment. “Faith,
thin, sor, I haven’t so much as touched the desk, that I haven’t!” he
declared earnestly. “Maybe you forgot, like, the way you left things.”
I shook my head and stood staring at him a moment. “Are you sure?” I
demanded.
“Sure and sartin, sor. I haven’t touched it.”
“Well then, Larry, somebody else has!” I told him. “I thought you said
nothing had happened. Who’s been here, anyway?”
“Not a soul, sor,” he answered quickly.
“Have you been here all the time yourself?” I demanded.
“Ivery minute, sor, except for a walk round yesterday afternoon and a
trip to the corner last night, to lay in a bit of bread and meat
like.”
I had never known Larry to lie about anything at all serious, and he
was obviously speaking the truth this time. “All right, never mind,
Larry. No harm done,” I told him. And again Larry took himself off,
thoroughly crestfallen now.
But I stowed away another bit of news for Moore that night. For I was
certain that my papers had been tampered with in my absence, although,
fortunately, they were merely personal letters and bills.
I wrote to Mrs. Furneau, asking her whether she had heard anything at
all in the way of possible clews, and whether I might call and talk
things over with her once more, adding that I had practically given up
hope. It went against the grain a little, in view of my earlier
distrust, but perhaps she was as good a starting-place as any for my
social career. And perhaps, in view of the Chief’s wild suspicion of
her, she was a shade better than most people, as being at least
remotely connected with Margaret’s disappearance.
Later in the day, I told Larry that the search was to continue and
that Moore was going to help. I also told him that he was to let Moore
in at any time and ask no questions, but that if he should happen to
meet him outside in any way, he was not to know him at all.
Traces of the green-eyed monster became apparent in Larry at once.
“Oh,” said he, “’tis himself will find her no doubt, when we could
not. But I’m thinkin’ he’s a mysterious kind of a man altogether. Sure
the next toime I let him in, I’ll be keepin’ an eye on him pretty
close, the way he wouldn’t be bringin’ in some more of his murtherin’
friends.”
This would never do. “Now look here, Larry,” I told him, “this man
Moore is my very good friend. And as such he’s your very good friend
too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and don’t forget it. I can’t
tell you as much about things as I’d like to at present, but I can
tell you that this search is running us up against something pretty
stiff—and Moore’s a mighty good friend to have in a pinch. If you
don’t want to put the whole thing on the fritz, do just what I’ve told
you to, and help Moore in any way possible. This is serious!”
Larry shifted from one foot to the other and then suddenly he grinned
in a sheepish way. “Sure, I was only foolin’,” he said, and took
himself off.
Never, from the beginning of our acquaintance, have I had any doubts
of Larry.
At eight that night I met Moore and we compared notes over our dinner.
I told him about finding that my papers had been disturbed, and also
that I had written to Mrs. Furneau. Then he told me his news.
“Well, Clayton, I’ve taken a couple of rooms in the house that is back
to back with your apartment house. It’s an old-fashioned place and I
had no difficulty in getting the rooms. Unfortunately, as you’re way
up on the eighth floor and I’m on the second in this place, we’ll have
some trouble running that wire. I think as soon as we get through here
we’d better get started on it. Then we can take care of the outdoor
part of it later in the night.”
We were sitting in a sort of cubicle against the wall, shut off from
the others like it by the high wooden backs of the seats. Each table
was lit by a softly shaded electric globe, which threw little light
beyond the table, and the rest of the room was but dimly lit.
In the middle of our conversation about our house-to-house wire, I
looked up to order our coffee, and suddenly saw that the soft-footed
Chinese boy was standing quite close to Moore, although beyond the end
of the seat, so that I could only see his elbow. We had spoken in very
low tones and I thought nothing about it at the time. But I had cause
to remember that Chinese boy later on.
A few moments later we left the restaurant separately and made our way
by separate routes to Moore’s new rooms, to begin work on our private
wire. It seemed like making defensive preparations in advance before
declaring war. For even after Moore’s warning I failed to realize
fully that, with our murderous visitor that night and the subsequent
search of my papers, if such it was, war had already been declared—and
not by us.