"THE MILLS OF THE GODS"
After Druce left Elsie he went back to his favorite station behind the
musicians' stand. He had been there only a moment when he saw the elder
Boland enter. Boland came in quietly through a side door and stood
looking about inquiringly.
Druce silently summoned a waiter and sent him to Boland with a message. A
little later the two men were in Druce's private office alone and the
door was closed. They sat down at a table.
"Well," said Druce, "I see you're on time."
"Yes," replied Boland coldly. "I make it a point to keep my engagements.
Your arrangements are complete, I suppose. I haven't heard a word from
you all week."
There was a petulance in his tone the reason for which Druce did not
comprehend.
"It's going to work out all right. One of the Welcome girls is here now.
I'm expecting the other." He pushed an electric button. A waiter
appeared.
"Go out and ask the professor if that new entertainer I'm expecting has
arrived," he ordered.
The waiter was gone but a few seconds.
"She's come," he reported. "She's up on the stand and will go on right
after the intermission."
"That's her," said Druce to Boland. The waiter vanished.
"Good," said Boland. "Druce," he went on, "I'm pleased with the way
you've handled this. Here's something to prove it." He took a document
from his breast pocket and passed it across the table. It was the lease.
"Thanks," said Druce, keenly pleased by an inspection of the papers,
"that looks good to me."
"It's yours," returned Boland, "but of course I expect you to carry out
your part of the contract."
"How about Harry?"
"No need to worry about that. He'll be here."
"Well, we're waiting on him."
There was a pause. Neither man seemed to know how to continue the
conversation. Druce broke the silence.
"Boland," he asked, "what have you got against this girl?"
Boland resented the question, but was compelled to answer.
"She wants to marry my son. I don't think she's fit to marry him. If she
were, she wouldn't be in a place like this."
Druce laughed unpleasantly.
"You know very well," he replied, "that she wouldn't be here if I hadn't
managed it for you."
Boland made no reply for this. Druce went on.
"Tell me," he demanded, "on the square, now, is that all you've got
against this girl?"
"Just what do you mean by that, Druce?" demanded Boland, eying him
calmly.
"Didn't you know the Welcomes before this girl came into your son's
life?"
Boland turned very pale.
"That's an idiotic question," he answered. "How would a man in my
position know people like the Welcomes?"
"When I was in Millville," replied Druce evenly, "I heard a good deal
about old Tom Welcome. It seems that someone stole an invention from
him."
"Just why should I be interested in that story?"
"I don't know," replied Druce. "It just struck me that you might be.
There was no harm in asking, was there?"
Boland ignored the question.
"Look here," he said, changing the subject, "suppose you get this lease
from me, are you sure you can continue doing business as you are without
police interference?"
Druce laughed and picked up the receiver of the telephone which stood on
the table. There was an attachment that enabled Boland to hear at the
same time. He handed the second receiver to the master of the Electric
Trust.
"What's the idea?" inquired Boland.
"I'm just going to answer your question."
He called for a number.
"That's police station R," said Boland.
"I know," replied Druce, "just listen."
"Hello," he said presently, "is this you, Cap?"
Boland heard a familiar voice answer affirmatively.
"This is Druce talking," the dive-owner went on, "Druce of the Cafe
Sinister. Say, we'll be open all night tonight. Don't make any trouble
for us, you understand. Just let your fellows know that they're not to
hear anything that goes on in this beat. I'll send McEdwards around in
the morning with a special envelope for you. Get me?"
Druce cut off the two telephones.
"Well," he asked triumphantly, "what do you think of that?"
Boland laughed cynically.
"Rather good," he answered. "I know your friend, the captain. The fact
is, I know him rather well. We belong to the same church." He chuckled
over his own joke. "However," he went on, "I didn't come here to be
entertained, nor to be initiated into the mysteries of the police
department. Let's get down to business. I've got to get out of town
tonight. I'm going to 'Frisco."
"To 'Frisco?"
"Yes, I'm in a mess. Mary Randall--"
"Randall! Boland, don't tell me you're scared of that woman, too."
"Man alive, haven't you heard? She got into my office in disguise and
stole a lot of my papers. I don't know just yet what she's got, but I've
decided to hunt seclusion for a while."
"She was disguised?"
"Yes, she came into my office as private secretary. I trusted her
implicitly. You'll remember her. She gave the name of Miss Masters."
Druce stood up with an exclamation. His face had gone white and he
clutched at the table for support. Boland stared at him in astonishment.
"What's hit you?" he demanded.
Druce made no reply. Through his mind was passing the panorama of how he
had delivered himself bound hand and foot to the girl he thought he was
entrapping. Suddenly, he turned and dashed in a frenzy out of the room.
He was bound, with murder in his heart, for Miss Masters' suite.
As he came tearing out of the office he found himself suddenly seized and
halted.
"Let me go," screamed Druce, "damn you, let me go."
He fought to release himself, but vainly. He looked up into the face of
Harry Boland.
"What's your hurry?" inquired young Boland coolly. "Don't be in a rush. I
want to ask you a few questions."
He produced a letter from his pocket. Druce recognized it at a glance as
the anonymous note he had written to lure young Boland to the cafe.
"Did you write that?" demanded Boland.
Druce struggled in a frenzy.
"To hell with you and your questions," he yelled. "Let me by or I'll kill
you."
He grappled with Boland and the two men wrestled out to the edge of the
big drinking room.
"You wrote it," Boland hissed in his ear.
"It's a lie. I'm going to give you the beating of your life."
The elder Boland, who had followed Druce, fell upon his son. Harry turned
and recognized his father.
"You here?" he demanded, facing his parent.
"Yes," replied John Boland, "I'm here. I came, because I had been
informed that you were to meet a woman of the tenderloin in this place;
and when I find you, I find you fighting with a dive-keeper."
Harry dropped the struggling Druce and turned on his father.
"What do you mean?" he asked, defiantly.
"I mean just that," replied John Boland. He turned toward the musicians'
stand and pointed dramatically at Patience Welcome, who, her face almost
as pale as her white lace gown, was advancing toward the front of the
platform to sing.
Harry Boland's face went white as hers.
The words he gasped were drowned by a cry, Elsie Welcome, coming for the
first time since her return to Druce into the drinking room, saw her
sister standing upon the rostrum, poised to sing.
"Patience! Patience!" she screamed in a voice of despair. "Oh, my sister,
what brought you to this place?"
She fell to the floor fainting. The whole cafe was in an uproar.
Carter Anson, roused to fury by the disturbance, fought his way through
the crowd to the place where he had seen her fall.
Druce, escaped from Harry Boland, struggled from another angle to make
his way through the mob. As if by magic half a score of policemen
suddenly hemmed in the fighting mass. Druce, struggling blindly to make a
pathway for himself, suddenly looked up to see Mary Randall standing on a
table on the opposite side of the room directing the police. A wave of
maniacal anger overwhelmed him. In a flash his hand went to his pocket
and reappeared with a pistol.
There was an explosion, a man's yell of rage, followed by a choking gulp
of mortal anguish. Druce was seized and flung to the floor.
At the same moment Mary Randall, leaping down from her table, ran to the
center of the room. Carter Anson lay there, struggling through his last
throes,--the bullet in his brain.