THE SEARCH
Henry Blaine, the man of decision, wasted no time in vain thought.
Instantly, upon his discovery that the signature of Pennington Lawton
had been forged, and that it had been done by an old and well-known
offender, he touched the bell on his desk, which brought his
confidential secretary.
"Has Guy Morrow returned yet from that blackmail case in Denver?"
"Yes, sir. He's in his private office now, making out his report to
you."
A moment later, there entered a tall, dark young man, strong and
muscular in build, but not apparently heavy, with a smooth face and
firm-set jaw.
"I haven't finished my report yet, sir--"
"The report can wait. You remember James Brunell, the forger?"
"James Brunell?" Morrow repeated. "He was before my time, of course,
but I've heard of him and his exploits. Pretty slick article, wasn't
he! I understand he has been dead for years--at least nothing has been
heard of his activities since I have been in the sleuth game."
"Did you ever hear of any of his associates?"
"I can't say that I have, sir, except Crimmins and Dolan; Crimmins
died in San Quentin before his time was up; Dolan after his release
went to Japan."
"I want to find Brunell. His closest associate was Walter Pennold. I
think Pennold is living somewhere in Brooklyn, and through him you may
be able to locate Brunell--"
Morrow shrugged his shoulders.
"A retired crook in the suburbs. That's going to take time."
"Not the way we'll work it. Listen."
The next morning, a tall, dark young man, strong and muscular in
build, with a smooth face and firm-set jaw, appeared at the Bank of
Brooklyn & Queens, and was immediately installed as a clerk, after a
private interview with the vice-president.
His fellow clerks looked at him askance at first, for they knew there
had been no vacancy, and there was a long waiting list ahead of him,
but the young man bore himself with such a quiet, modest air of
_camaraderie_ about him that by the noon hour they had quite accepted
him as one of themselves.
During the morning a package came to the bank and a letter which read
in part:
... I am returning these securities to you in the hope that
you may be able to place them in the possession of Jimmy
Brunell. They belong to him, and my conscience is responsible
for their return. I don't know where to find him. I do know
that at one time he did some banking at the Brooklyn & Queens
Institution. If he does not do so now, kindly hold these
securities for Jimmy Brunell until called for, and in the
meantime see Walter Pennold of Brooklyn.
With the package and letter came a request from Henry Blaine which
those in power at the Brooklyn & Queens Bank were only too glad to
accede to, in order to ingratiate themselves with the great
investigator.
In accordance with this request, therefore, the affair was made known
by the bank-officials to the clerks as a matter of long standing
which had only just been rediscovered in an old vault, and the
subordinates discussed it among themselves with the gusto of those
whose lives were bounded by gilt cages, and circumscribed by rules of
silence. It was not unusual, therefore, that the new clerk, Alfred
Hicks, should have heard of it, but it was unusual that he should find
it expedient to make a detour on his way to work the next morning
which would take him to the gate of Walter Pennold's modest home.
Perhaps the fact that Alfred Hicks' real name was Guy Morrow and that
a letter received early that morning from Henry Blaine's office,
giving Pennold's address and a single line of instruction may have had
much to do with his matutinal visit.
Be that as it may, Morrow, the dapper young bank-clerk, found in the
Pennold household a grizzled, middle-aged man, with shifty,
suspicious eyes and a moist hand-clasp; behind him appeared a
shrewish, thin-haired wife who eyed the intruder from the first
with ill-concealed animosity.
He smiled--that frank, winning smile which had helped to land more men
behind the bars than the astuteness of many of his seniors--and said:
"I'm a clerk in the Brooklyn & Queens Bank, Mr. Pennold, and we have a
box of securities there evidently belonging to one Jimmy Brunell. No
one knows anything about it and no note came with it except a line
which read: 'Hold for Jim Brunell. See Walter Pennold of Brooklyn.'
Now you're the only Walter Pennold who banks with the B. & Q. and I
thought you might like to know about it. There are over two hundred
thousand dollars in securities and they have evidently been left there
by somebody as conscience-money. You can go to the bank and see the
people about it, of course. In fact, I understand they are going to
write you a letter concerning it, but I thought you might like to know
of it in advance. In case this Mr. Brunell is alive, they will pay him
the money on demand, or if dead, to his heirs after him."
The middle-aged man with the shifty eyes spat cautiously, and then,
rubbing his stubby chin with a hairy, freckled hand, observed:
"Well, young man, I'm Pennold, all right. I do some business with the
Brooklyn & Queens people--small business, of course, for we poor
honest folk haven't the money to put in finance that the big
stock-holders have. I don't know where you can find this man Brunell,
haven't heard of him in years, but I understand he went wrong. Ain't
that so, Mame?"
The hatchet-faced woman nodded her head in slow and non-committal
thought.
Pennold edged a little nearer his unknown guest and asked in a tone of
would-be heartiness. "And what might your name be? You're a
bright-looking feller to be a bank-clerk--not the stolid, plodding
kind."
Morrow chuckled again.
"My name is Hicks. I live at 46 Jefferson Place. It's only a little
way from here, you know." He swung his lunch-box nonchalantly. "Of
course, bank-clerking don't get you anywhere, but it's steady, such as
it is, and I go out with the boys a lot." He added confidentially:
"The ponies are still running, you know, even if the betting-ring is
closed--and there are other ways--" He paused significantly.
"I see, a sport, eh?" Pennold darted a quick glance at his wife.
"Well, don't let it get the best of you, young feller. Remember what I
told you about Jimmy Brunell--at least, what the report of him was. If
I hear anything of where he is, I'll let the bank know."
"I'll be getting on; I'm late now--" Morrow paused on the bottom step
of the little porch and turned. "See you again, Mr. Pennold, and your
wife, if you'll let me. I pass by here often--I've been boarding with
Mrs. Lindsay, on Jefferson Place, for some time now. By the way, have
you seen the sporting page of the _Gazette_ this morning? Al Goetz
edits it, you know, and he gives you the straight dope. There'll be
nothing to that fight they're pulling off Saturday night at the Zucker
Athletic Club--Hennessey'll put it all over Schnabel in the first
round. Good-by! If you hear anything of this Brunell, be sure you let
me or the bank know!"
For a long moment after his buoyant stride had carried him out of
sight around the corner, Walter Pennold and his wife sat in thoughtful
silence. Then the woman spoke.
"What d'ye think of it all, Wally?"
"Dunno." The gentleman addressed drew from his pocket a blackened,
odoriferous pipe and sucked upon it. "Must be some lay, of course.
I'll go up to the bank and find out what I can, but I don't think that
young feller, Hicks, is in on it. I've been in the game for forty
years, and if I'm a judge, he's no 'tec. Fool kid spendin' more'n he
earns and out for what coin he can grab. I'll look up that landlady of
his, too, Mame; and if he's on the level there, and at the bank--"
"And if those securities are at the bank, he ought to be willin' to
come in with us on a share," the wife supplemented shrewdly. "But it
seems like some kind of a gag to me. You knew all Jimmy Brunell's jobs
till he got religion or somethin', and turned honest--I can't think of
any old crook who'd turn over that money to him, two hundred thousand
cold, because his conscience hurt him, can you? You know, too, how
decent and respectable Jimmy's been livin' all these years, putting up
a front for the sake of that daughter of his; suppose this was a
put-up game to catch him--what do the bulls want him for?"
"I ain't no mind-reader. I'll look up this business of securities, and
then if the young feller's talked straight, we'll try to work it
through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I
ain't lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We'll be as good,
sorrowing heirs as ever Jimmy Brunell could find anywheres."
Before Walter Pennold could reach the bank, however, an unimpeachably
official letter arrived from that institution, confirming the news
imparted by the bank-clerk concerning the securities left for James
Brunell. Pennold, going to the bank ostensibly to assure those in
authority there of his cordial willingness to assist in the search for
the heir, incidentally assured himself of Alfred Hicks' seemingly
legitimate occupation. A later visit to Mrs. Lindsay of 46 Jefferson
Place convinced him that the young man had lived there for some months
and was as generous, open-handed, easy-going a boarder as that
excellent woman had ever taken into her house. Just what price was
paid by Henry Blaine to Mrs. Lindsay for that statement is immaterial
to this narrative, but it suffices that Walter Pennold returned to the
sharp-tongued wife of his bosom with only one obstacle in his thoughts
between himself and a goodly share of the coveted two hundred thousand
dollars.
That obstacle was an extremely healthy fear of Jimmy Brunell. It was
true that there had been no connection between them in years, but he
remembered Jimmy's attitude toward the "snitcher," as well as toward
the man who "held out" on his pals; and behind his cupidity was a
lurking caution which was made manifest when he walked into the
kitchen and found Mrs. Pennold with her shriveled arms immersed in the
washtub.
"Say, Mame, the young feller, Hicks, is all right, and so is the bank;
but how about Jimmy himself? If I can fix the young feller, and we can
pull it off with the bank, that's all well and good. But s'pose Jimmy
should hear of it? Know what would happen to us, don't you?"
"If he ain't heard of them securities all this time they've been lyin'
forgotten in the bank, it's safe he won't hear of 'em now unless you
tell him," retorted his shrewder half, dryly. "Of course, if he's
lived straight, as he has for near twenty years as far as we know, and
he finds it out, he'll grab everything for himself. Why shouldn't he?
But s'pose the bulls are after him for somethin', and the bank's
hood-winked as well as us, where are we if we mix up in this? Tell me
that!"
"There's another side of it, too, Mame."
Pennold walked to the window, and regarded the sordid lines of washed
clothes contemplatively. "What if Jimmy has been up to somethin' on
the quiet, that the bulls ain't on to, and this bunch of securities is
on the level? If I went to him on the square, and offered him a
percentage to play dead, wouldn't he be ready and willin' to divide?"
"Of course he would; he's no fool," returned Mrs. Pennold shortly.
"But let me tell you, Wally, I don't like the look of that 'See Walter
Pennold of Brooklyn,' on the note in the bank. S'pose they was trying
to trace him through us?"
"You're talkin' like a blame' fool, Mame. Them securities has been
there for years, forgotten. Everybody knows that me and Brunell was
pals in the old days, but no one's got nothin' on us now, and he give
up the game years ago."
"How d'you know he did?" persisted his wife doggedly. "That's what you
better find out, but you've gotter be careful about it, in case this
whole thing should be a plant."
"You don't have to tell me!" Pennold grumbled. "I'll write him first
and then wait a few days, and if anyone's tailing me in the meantime,
they'll have a run for their money."
"Write him!"
"Of course. You may have forgotten the old cipher, but I haven't. You
know yourself we invented it, Jimmy and me, and the police tried their
level best to get on to it, but failed."
"You can't address it in cipher, and if you're tailed you won't get a
chance to mail it, Wally. Better wait and try to see him without
writing."
For answer Pennold opened a drawer in the table, drew forth a grimy
sheet of paper and an envelope, and bent laboriously to his task. It
was long past dusk when he had finished, and tossed the paper across
the table for his wife's perusal. This is what she saw:
[Illustration: An image of a coded message is shown here in the text.]
When she had gazed long at the characters, she shook her head at him,
and a slow smile came over her face.
"You've forgotten a little yourself, Wally. You made a mistake in the
_k_."
He glanced half-incredulously at it, and then laid his huge, rough
hand on her thin hair in the first caress he had given her in years.
"By God, old girl, you're a smart one! You're right. Now listen.
You've got to do the rest for me, the hardest part. Mail it."
"How? If we're tailed--"
"There'll be only one on the job, if we are, and I'll keep him busy
to-morrow morning. You go to the market as usual, then go into that
big department store, Ahearn & McManus'. There's a mail chute there,
next the notion counter on the ground floor. Buy a spool of thread or
somethin', and while you're waitin' for change, drop the letter in the
box. You used to be pretty slick in department stores, Mame--"
"Smoothest shoplifter in New York until I got palsy!" she interrupted
proudly, an unaccustomed glow on her sallow face. "I'll do it, Wally;
I know I can!"
The next morning Alfred Hicks was a little late in getting to his work
at the bank--so late, in fact, that he had only time to wave a cordial
greeting to his new friends in their cages as he passed. He paused,
however, that evening, with a pot of flowering bloom for Mrs.
Pennold's dingy, not over-clean window-sill, and a packet of tobacco
which he shared generously with his host. He talked much, with the
garrulous self-confidence of youth, but did not mention the matter of
the securities, and left the crafty couple completely disarmed.
Neither on entering nor leaving did Hicks appear to notice a short,
swarthy figure loitering in the shadow of a dejected-looking ailanthus
tree near the corner. It would have appeared curious, therefore, that
the lurking figure followed the bank-clerk almost to his lodgings, had
it not been for the fact that just before Jefferson Place was reached
the figure sidled up to Hicks' side and whispered:
"No news yet, Morrow. Pennold went this morning to old Loui the
Grabber and tried to borrow money from him, but didn't get it. I heard
the whole talk. Then he went to Tanbark Pete's and got a ten-spot.
After that, he divided his time between two saloons, where he played
dominoes and pinochle, and his own house. I've got to report to H. B.
when I'm sure the subject is safe for the night. Have you found
anything yet?"
"Only that I've got him on the run. If he knows where our man is,
Suraci, he'll go after him in a day or two. Meantime, tell H. B., in
case I don't get a chance to let him know, that the securities stunt
went, all right, and my end of it is O. K."
The next day, and the following, Pennold did indeed set for the young
Italian detective a swift pace. He departed upon long rambles, which
started briskly and ended aimlessly; he called upon harmless and
tedious acquaintances, from Jamaica to Fordham; he went--apparently
and ostentatiously to look for a position as janitor--to many
office-buildings in lower Manhattan, which he invariably entered and
left by different doors. In the evenings he sat blandly upon his own
stoop, smoking and chatting amiably if monosyllabically with his wife
and their new-found friend, Alfred Hicks, while his indefatigable
shadow glowered apparently unnoticed from the gloom of the ailanthus
tree.
On Thursday morning, however, Pennold betook himself leisurely to the
nearest subway station, and there the real trial of strength between
him and his unseen antagonist began. From the Brooklyn Bridge station
he rode to the Grand Central; then with a speed which belied his
physical appearance, he raced across the bridge to the downtown
platform, and caught a train for Fourteenth Street. There he swiftly
turned north to Seventy-second Street--then to the Grand Central,
again to Ninety-sixth, and so on, doubling from station to station
until finally he felt that he must be entirely secure from pursuit.
He alighted at length at a station far up in the Bronx, and after
looking carefully about he started off toward the west, where the
mushroom growth of the new city sprang up in rows of rococo brick and
stone houses with oases of green fields and open lots between. He
turned up a little lane of tiny frame houses, each set in its trim
garden, and stopped at the fourth cottage.
With a last furtive backward glance, Pennold mounted the steps and
rang the bell nervously. The door was opened from within so suddenly
that it seemed as if the man who faced his visitor on the threshold
must have been awaiting the summons. He stepped quickly out, shutting
the door behind him, and for a short space the two stood talking in
low tones--Pennold eagerly, insistently, the other man evasively,
slowly, as if choosing his words with care. He was as erect as Pennold
was shambling and stoop-shouldered, and although gray and lined of
features, his eyes were clear and more steady, his chin more firm, his
whole bearing more elastic and forceful.
He did not invite his visitor to enter, and the colloquy between them
was brief. It was significant that they did not shake hands, but
parted with a brief though not unfriendly nod. The tall man turned and
re-entered his house, closing the door again behind him, while
Pennold scuttled away, without a farewell glance. It might have been
well had he looked once more over his shoulder, for there, crouching
against the veranda rail where he had managed to overhear the last of
the conversation, was that short, swarthy figure which had followed so
indefatigably on his trail for three days--which had clung to him,
closely but unseen, through all his devious journey of that morning.
Suraci had not failed.
He tailed Pennold to his home, then went in person with his report to
the great Blaine himself, who heard him through in silence, and then
brought his mighty fist down upon his desk with a blow which made the
massive bronze ink-well quiver.
"That's our man! You've got him, Suraci. Good work! Now wait a little;
I want you to take some instructions yourself over to Morrow."
The next day the Pennolds missed the cheery greeting of their new
friend, the bank-clerk. Since the acquaintanceship had been so
recently formed, it was odd that they should have been as deeply
concerned over his defection as they were. They said little that
evening, but when his absence continued the second day, Pennold
himself ambled down to the Brooklyn & Queens Bank and reluctantly
deposited twenty dollars, merely for the pleasure of a chat with young
Hicks. The latter's cheery face failed to greet him, however, within
its portals, and a craftily worded inquiry merely elicited the
information that he was no longer connected with that institution.
"What do you make of it, Mame?" he asked anxiously of his wife when he
reached home. His step was more shambling than ever, and his hands,
clutching his hat-brim, trembled more than her gnarled, palsied ones.
"I'll tell you what I think when I've been around to Mrs. Lindsay's
this afternoon--to 46 Jefferson Place."
"What're you goin' to do there? You can't ask for him, very well,"
objected her spouse.
"Do?" she retorted tartly. "What would I do in a boarding-house? Look
for rooms for us, of course, and inquire about the other lodgers to be
sure it's respectable for a decent, middle-aged, married couple. Do
you think I'm goin' lookin' for a long-lost son? The life must be
gettin' you at last, Wally! Your head ain't what it used to be."
But Mrs. Pennold's vaunted astuteness gained her little knowledge
which could be of value to her in their late acquaintance. Mrs.
Lindsay was a beetle-browed, enormously stout old lady, with a stern
eye and commanding presence, who looked as if in her younger days she
might well have been a police-matron--as indeed she had been. She had
two double rooms and a single hall bedroom to show for inspection, and
she waxed surprisingly voluble concerning the vacancy of the latter,
at the first tentative mention of her other lodgers, by her visitor.
"As nice a young man as ever you'd wish to see, ma'am. I don't have
none but the most refined people in my house. Lived with me a year and
a half, Mr. Hicks did, except for his vacation--regular as clockwork
in his bills, and free and open-handed with his tips to Delia. Of
course, he wasn't just what you might call steady in his goings-out
and comings-in, but there never was nothin' objectionable in his
habits. You know what young men is! He had a fine position in a bank
here in Brooklyn, but I don't think the company he kep' was all that
it might have been. Kind of flashy and sporty, his friends was, and I
guess that's what got him into trouble. For trouble he was in, ma'am,
when he paid me yesterday in full even to the shavin' mug which I'd
bought for his dresser, and meant him to keep for a present--and
picked up bag and baggage and left. I always did think Friday was an
unlucky day! He stood in the vestibule and shook both my hands, and
there wasn't a dry eye in his head or mine!
"'Mis' Lindsay!' he says to me, just like I'm tellin' it to you. 'Mis'
Lindsay, I can't stay here no longer. I wisht to heavings I could, for
you've given me a real home,' he says, 'but I'm not at the bank no
more, and I'm going away. I'm in trouble!' he says. 'I needn't tell
you where I'm goin' for I ain't got a friend who'll ask after me or
care, but I just want to thank you for all your kindness to me, an' to
ask you to accept this present, and give this dollar-bill to Delia,
when she comes in from the fish-store.'
"This is what he give me as a present, ma'am!" Mrs. Lindsay pointed
dramatically to a German silver brooch set with a doubtful garnet, at
her throat. "And I was so broke up over it all, that I forgot and give
Delia the whole dollar, instead of just a quarter, like I should've
done. I s'pose I'd ought to write to his folks, but I don't know where
they are. He comes from up-State somewheres, and I never was one to
pry in a boarder's letters or bureau-drawers. I'm just worried sick
about it all!"
Mrs. Lindsay would have made a superb actress.
When the interview was at an end and Mrs. Pennold had rejoined her
husband, they discussed the disappearance of Alfred Hicks from every
standpoint and came finally to the conclusion that the young
bank-clerk's sporting proclivities had brought him to ruin.
Meanwhile, in a modest cottage in Meadow Lane, in the Bronx, a small
card reading "Room to Let" had been removed from the bay window, and
just behind its curtains a young man sat, his eyes fastened upon the
house across the way--the fourth from the end of the line. He was a
tall, dark young man with a smooth face and firm-set jaw, and his new
land-lady knew him as Guy Morrow.
All at once, as he sat watching, the door of the cottage opened, and a
girl came out. There was nothing remarkable about her; she was quite a
common type of girl: slender, not too tall, with a wealth of red-brown
hair and soft hazel eyes; yet there was something about her which made
Guy Morrow catch his breath; and throwing caution to the winds, he
parted the curtains and leaned forward, looking down upon her. As she
reached the gate, his gaze drew hers, and she lifted her gentle eyes
and looked into his.
Then her lids drooped swiftly; a faint flush tinged her delicate face,
and with lowered head she walked quickly on.
Guy Morrow sank back in his chair, and after the warm glow which had
surged up so suddenly within him, a chill crept about his heart. What
could that slender, brown-haired, clear-eyed girl be to the man he had
been sent to spy upon--to Jimmy Brunell, the forger?