Rose was ill--she had been drinking too much for the past week--and
Violet, in her no longer fresh red kimona, was in the kitchen talking
to Cassie when, one morning, the new driver of the brewery-wagon
stopped at the door.
"Morning," he said with what at once struck Violet, who was now
constantly on the watch, as a visible effort at nonchalance.
Conrad Schultz was a tall, raw-boned German-American, with a long
nose and pale, sorrowful mustache, but with an eye in the cerulean
depths of which there lurked the cold fire of reliable strategy.
"Come in," said Violet, "an' have a drop of something."
"Thanks."
He came in cumbersomely, and took an uneasy seat.
"Some chilly for this season," he remarked, with a cool glance in the
direction of the ebony Cassie, hovering glumly in the background.
Violet thought she caught the meaning of the man, whom she knew was
Hermann Hoffmann's successor.
"It is chilly for this time of year," she said. "What will you have?
It better be something warming. There's whiskey here, or, if you
don't mind waiting till Cassie goes for it, there's some good brandy
in the cellar."
Schultz appeared to hesitate, and Violet, watching him, could not,
for a moment, decide whether there was, after all, any foundation for
the hope that his appearance had wakened.
"Well, if it ain't no trouble," he at last blurted, "I would like a
taste of real brandy."
"Cassie," said Violet, "bring up a fresh bottle of brandy for
Mr.--Mr.----"
"Schultz," prompted that individual.
"For Mr. Schultz, Cassie."
Cassie, however, seemed to have scented surrounding mystery.
"Ah reckon there's a bottle som'ares about yhere, Miss Vi'let," she
demurred.
"No, there isn't."
"But, Miss Vi'let, there was one jes' half empty las' night."
"Miss Rose took that to bed with her. Don't talk so much. Go down
an' get a fresh bottle for Mr. Schultz."
The girl left the room slowly and sullenly.
Schultz sat silent and motionless until a moment had followed the
closing of the door. Then the cold flame was relighted in his eye.
"She called you Miss Violet?" he asked, though still in the most
commonplace of tones.
"That's my name."
"Did you ever talk to the man that had my job before I had it?"
Violet, with the catlike quiet and ease that always characterized her
movements, stepped to the door through which Cassie had just passed.
She flung it quickly open. The black girl nearly fell headlong into
the room.
Without an instant's hesitation, Violet did the one effective thing.
She smacked the negress smartly across the face.
"I heard you!" she said, in tones that were all the more
awe-inspiring because they were low. "What do you mean by spying on
me, you black devil? Think I want to cheat the house? I'd not be so
clumsy about it, if I did! Think I'm trying to skidoo? I'd walk out
if I felt like it! I'll go right to Miss Rose about this, an' have
you fired so quick you won't have time to pack your duds!"
The servant remained as she had sprawled.
"Oh, please don', miss!" she wailed. "Please don' tell Miss Rose!
Ah wasn't tryin' to spy on youse. Ah jes' drapped somethin' yhere,
an' ah was jes' tryin' to fin'----"
"Don't you lie to me," said Violet, her cheeks, now always so wan in
the morning light, flushing to something like their former color.
"Get up off your knees."
"Miss Vi'let, please don' tell on me."
The black girl's voice threatened to rise to a dangerous wail.
"All right," said Violet, quickly. "I'll let it go this time; but
you hurry up and get that brandy, or I might change my mind. Pull
the cork while you're at it, and fetch a decent glass from the
dining-room."
Cassie, murmuring thanks with her thick lips, and wiping her eyes
with the big knuckles of her right fist, scrambled to her feet, and
started again upon her errand.
This time Violet left the door open. She waited till the servant was
out of earshot. Then she opened the door to the back stairway, which
she herself had twice used to excellent purpose, and, finding nobody
there, returned to Schultz.
"Got something for me?" she whispered.
But no haste upon her part would speed his Teutonic caution.
"I asked you," he said, as if he had not observed the little
encounter through which he had sat serene and unconcerned, "whether
you knew the man who had my job before what I had it."
"Yes--yes, I knew him. Quick!"
"And your name is Miss Violet?"
"You heard the girl call me that. Can't you hustle?"
"I don't want to hustle. If you're the girl I want, you've kept me
waitin' here three mornings already."
"Well, I'm the person all right. You know that now. Oh, won't you
please hurry? Don't you see how things are here?"
"I seen enough to make me want to go slow."
"You're going slow all right. What more do you want to know? I
talked to the man you're telling me about and he said he'd see what
he could do."
Her replies came with the rapidity of musketry, but Schultz spoke
with stubborn deliberation.
"Was that all he told you?"
"Sure it was."
"Nothin' more?"
"No.--Can't you hurry? Can't you believe me?--He didn't say no
more.--Quick!--Oh, yes, he said he'd talk to his girl Katie about
me.--Quick!--Hush-t! Here she comes!"
Cassie's step sounded only a few yards away, but Schultz, now
apparently satisfied of Violet's identity, displayed an unlooked for
speed. The heavy hand that had been clumsily reposing in the bulging
side-pocket of his coat shot free. Violet seized a fist that opened
and withdrew as her own fingers closed on a bit of paper.
Cassie entered to find them the width of the kitchen apart. Violet
was pouring herself a drink of whiskey into a soiled glass, and, if
her hand trembled, the silk swathed back that was presented to the
servant hid all tokens of nervousness.
She waited until Schultz had slowly drunk his brandy. She waited to
exchange a few more words and to see him go. She even waited a
little longer in order not to make her retreat too patently hurried
and in order to subdue by threats and cajolery whatever suspicions
might still be lingering in the black breast of the apparently
penitent Cassie. But at last she made her way to her own room and
unrolled the bit of paper.
It was a letter dated from Katie's address four days previous to the
day of its receipt, and it was couched in stiff and formal
phraseology. She read:
"Miss VIOLET,
"_Dear Miss Violet--_
"This is to inform you that I am Miss Katie Flanagan, particular
friend of Mr. Hermann Hoffmann, who used to drive the brewery-wagon
that left beer at your house. He told me about you and what you
want, and I told a lady friend, Miss Carrie Berkowicz, who is coming
to live with me. I have just got into a small job and Carrie has
just got out of one, and we don't know of none yet for you, but we'll
keep looking and sure will find one, and meantime we want you to come
here and stop with us just as soon as you can beat it from that place
where you are. Don't you lose your nerve, and don't bother to talk
about things when you get here, because we know how it is. You
needn't worry about how we feel, we have too many friends who had the
same bad luck as you, and least said soonest mended, we think. So
come right here first chance you get and stay as long as you like,
and if we're not home when you get here sit on the step till we do
get home, and if anybody asks any questions just say you're a friend
of ours, because you are, and that's none of their business anyhow,
and nobody won't bother you any more.
"Now keep your head cool and God bless you with best wishes!
"From your friend
"MISS KATIE FLANAGAN."
Without daring to lessen her courage by giving way to the feelings
that this letter stirred, Violet read it twice, tore off the address,
concealed it in one of the "rats" on which the structure of her
russet hair was founded, and then tore the rest of the epistle into
small bits, which she flung out of the narrow space between the
riveted shutters of her room. She was now almost ready to strike.
In her captivity, she had, after the first shock, made it her
business to learn what she could of those about her. She knew that
Wesley Dyker had once been what was called a straw-bail man, an agent
who, for a high consideration, provided bogus bail for such women as
the police, to keep up appearances, were forced from time to time to
arrest. She had been told that he was wont, for a still higher
consideration, to appear at court for these clients, in the rôle of a
defender of the wronged poor, and in a very different rôle in their
behalf with the dispensers of justice to the underworld. She had
gathered that his friendship with one political faction aided in
securing Rose the chance to purchase that expensive police-protection
toward which Angel, unknown to Dyker, assisted Rose through an
opposing faction. And she believed that his ambition was now to gain
a magistracy from which he could grant bail on bonds signed by his
own servants, secure for prisoners the legal service of men that
would return him a commission, and pronounce judgment or dispense
mercy for the furtherance of his own fortune and the strengthening of
his own power. Out of these threads of knowledge Violet resolved to
weave the net in which to catch freedom.
That afternoon Evelyn informed her that Rose was still abed and had
sent for her favorite, Wanda, to console her. This meant that she
would not descend to the ground floor or be visible to any visitors
before the next evening, and that the Englishwoman, promoted to
temporary command, would have to pass the night in that reception of
callers which necessitated the appearance of drinking much and the
fact of drinking almost nothing.
"She does that every time she goes on a bust, my dear," complained
Evelyn. "Of course she jolly well knows that she can trust me and
that I have some manners too, but I wish she would remember that I
also have a thirst and can't do without my drop of real liquor."
Violet's nerves tingled. With her best effort to bury all signs of
her mounting hope, she ventured:
"I wish I could help you."
"You, my dear?" Evelyn's eyebrows raised and her contralto voice
followed them. "Catch the madam letting anyone but me take charge!
You know you're none of you allowed down in the front hall unless
you're sent for. Things are ticklish enough, thank you, with that
new girl upstairs."
It was almost the first mention that had been made to Violet of the
latest captive since the recent day of Evelyn's exposition of the
entire traffic. Violet had not dared to ask any more questions than
those that she deemed necessary for the perfection of her own plans,
and she dared ask none now.
"I do hate the job," Evelyn was continuing, "even if it does mean a
few bits extra. Rose says that fellow Dyker is due to-night. She's
not fit to see him above all men, and he's the one I most
particularly hate to meet, because he was a friend of my friend the
doctor and used to call with him now and again at my flat. I always
fancy he's making comparisons under those narsty low lids of his."
Violet, in sudden reaction, felt choking with despair.
"I could see him," she said.
But Evelyn's honors sat heavily upon their possessor.
"You're not a trusty yet, my dear, by any manner of means," she
responded. "No, no; you will go to your own room after dinner and
stay there till you are wanted."
She tilted her sharp chin and strolled kitchenward for a drink; but,
though she left behind Her a Violet discouraged, it was not a Violet
beaten.
In fact, the girl made her own opportunity. Noticing that evening
that Evelyn took up a dignified position in the parlor and had Cassie
conduct all the guests thither, Violet quickly disposed of the first
person that claimed her attention, and, having made her best
toilet--having restored her cheeks to a resemblance of their pristine
glow, coiffed her russet hair, and donned her best of linen--she
descended quietly to the first landing on the stairway, there to take
up her watch. Before she was again in demand, she saw the servant
admit Wesley Dyker. She ran quickly downward and, just as Cassie
stepped forward to precede him, brushed by him in the rosy twilight
of the hall.
"Ask to see me," she whispered. "Ask to see Violet. Don't let on I
told you. I've heard something you want to know about O'Malley."
Before the man's shadowy figure could come to pause, she had passed
him and caught up to Cassie.
"Where have you been?" she asked. "I've been calling for you for
five minutes. I need some more water in my room."
She turned and reascended the stairs, but her door had not long been
closed before the servant was knocking upon the panel.
"Here's you' water, Miss Vi'let," said Cassie. "An' Miste' Dyker
wants fer to see you daown in de back parlor."
Violet took the useless pitcher, made sure that the remnant of
Katie's note was secure in its hiding-place, and hurried, with Cassie
following, to the garish room in which Dyker was awaiting her.
He was seated on the lazy, pillowed sofa on which Violet had fallen
asleep so soon after her arrival in this house. He was in
evening-clothes that served him, on the East Side, much as the
advertised portraits of certain patent-medicine makers serve their
proprietors, the flaccid whiteness of his face still bearing traces
of past beauty, the weakness of his mouth hidden by his crisp, short,
brown mustache, and his heavy lids concealing the secret of his
steel-gray eyes.
He half rose as she entered, but she motioned him to sit still.
"Hello!" she said, with the easy manner of the house, which always
seemed to presuppose a previous acquaintance. "Have you ordered
anything? I'm terribly dry."
He took her hand and caught her meaning,
"So am I, Miss Violet," he answered. "Let's have something."
Violet turned to the servant.
"Cassie," she said, "bring up a couple of bottles."
She waited for the door to close, and then sat down beside Dyker.
"Speak low," she cautioned. "That girl will listen if she can.
You'll have to pretend to be making love to me."
Dyker regarded her with smiling approval. Her blue eyes shone with
excitement and red blood fought through the rouge on cheek and fully
ripe mouth.
"What you ask will be both easy and pleasant," he answered.
"No, no; none of that. This is no time for bluffing. Put your arm
around my shoulder. That way. Now then, you heard what I told you
in the hall?"
Dyker, with his type's disinclination to take seriously anything that
any woman has to say upon serious matters, smiled assent.
"You seem to have been doing some listening yourself," he said, as
his lingers tightened unnecessarily upon her shoulder.
"Yes, I did, and it's lucky for you I did it. Will you promise not
to give me away?"
"Of course I promise."
"Not even to Miss Rose?"
"Not even to Rosie."
"And if I help you, will you do me a favor?"
"To look at you I should say that I'd do you any favor you asked, and
do it without expecting anything in return."
His pale lips were curled in a half-scoffing smile, but Violet's next
words brushed from his flaccid face all traces of amusement.
"You remember that night you told Miss Rose about what you wanted to
get at the next election? You said you were afraid of O'Malley
giving you the double cross."
Dyker stiffened.
"Did you hear that?" he demanded.
"Hush! Keep your voice down, or I won't tell you nothing of what I
know. Remember you're supposed to be making love to me."
"All right, all right; but I want an answer to my question."
"Well, then, of course, I heard it. I was at the keyhole
there--that's why I want you to whisper now.--And I heard more."
"What was that?"
"Wait a minute. You'll do me a favor if I tell you?"
"Anything," he smiled.
"But this is business. If I tell you something that it's worth your
while to know, will you promise not to blow on me to Miss Rose?"
"I promise."
"And to do something more that I'll ask you?"
Wesley was now certain that he must not stick at promises.
"Surely."
"Then sit tight. I don't know as much about O'Malley as I pretended
out there in the hall, but I do know about Miss Rose. I don't know
whether O'Malley is goin' to double-cross you or not, but I do know
that Miss Rose has given you the double-cross already."
She had thought that passion played a large part in his relations
with her mistress, and she had counted upon awakening his jealousy.
What, however, had far exceeded his affection was a poor pride of
possession, and when Violet's words, in addition to touching his
ambition, struck at that pride, they aroused an anger that was far
more dangerous than any sense of love betrayed.
"What's that?" he demanded.
Two red beacons flashed into his pale checks, and his heavy lids,
shooting upward for a single instant, disclosed hard, gray eyes gone
hot and malevolent.
"Be careful. Speak low, I tell you," she cautioned; "and remember
your promise."
"I don't believe----"
"Here's Cassie!"
They waited while the black opened the champagne and filled the
glasses.
Violet brushed Dyker's hair over his eyes and laughed at the effect.
Dyker caught the offending hand and kissed it by way of punishment.
"Cassie," he banteringly asked, "why didn't you ever tell me there
was such a nice little girl in this house? I had to get the news
from a friend on the outside."
He tossed the now grinning negress a dollar and, as soon as she had
left them, dropped the farce as promptly as did Violet.
"I say I can't believe you," he resumed, the two spots of anger still
glowering in his cheeks.
Violet knew that her whole hope rested upon her ability to force
conviction.
"You've got to believe me," she said. "I'll tell you all that you
told Miss Rose till I had to run away, that evening."
She did it, omitting scarcely a particular.
"That's right, ain't it?" she concluded.
"May be. But what does that prove? It only shows that you heard me."
"It shows that I can hear Miss Rose when she talks to somebody else.
And I did hear her."
"Whom was she talking to?"
"The man you asked her about. To Rafael Angelelli."
"Well, but I told her to talk to him."
"An' she did it. But the first time I heard her was just before you
told her to."
"That same night?"
"He was in the kitchen with her when you came in. Why, he's here all
the time! I don't care what she pretends to you, she's stuck on him,
an' every girl in the house knows it."
Rapidly, but as fully as she had sketched the dialogue between Rose
and Dyker, she now described the first conversation that she had
overheard between her mistress and the Italian.
"I'd come down to graft a drink," she said, "an' I heard them from
the stairs. That's how, after he'd left, I came to listen to you
too."
Dyker had quailed under the revelation, thus made to him, of
political danger. He now quivered in anger at the comments upon
himself, somewhat colored, that Violet had placed in the mouths of
Rose and Angel.
"I'll find out about this!" he said, struggling against the desperate
arms flung swiftly around him to keep him on the sofa. "Let me go!
By God, I'll have that drunken cat down here and squeeze the truth
out of her throat!"
All the caution, all the craft, all that she had counted upon as the
real Wesley Dyker seemed to have escaped him. His voice was still
low, but in every other respect he was a raging beast.
She fought with him, mentally and physically.
"You can't get anything out of her that way," Violet urged, as the
man twisted under her strong hands. "Of course she'll say it's all
lies. And you'd only be warning her. You don't want her to know
that you know; you want a chance to block her game."
Partly convinced by this argument and partly subdued by the physical
restraint that accompanied it, Dyker ceased his struggles.
"But I want to be sure," he muttered sullenly.
"You can't be sure by goin' to Miss Rose."
"Well, I ought to tell her." The high tide of his anger was slowly
subsiding, and the rocky Dyker that she had built on was beginning to
show its crest above the still hissing waves. "Look here, Violet,"
he said, "I'm sorry I behaved like such a fool. I beg your pardon,
but you must see that I have got to put this thing up to Rose."
"You forget your promise."
"No, I don't, but I must make sure."
Violet thought rapidly.
"Listen," she said; "I told you I wanted you to do something for me
an' you gave your word you'd do it.--Will you?"
"Of course I will, only I'm thinking a little about myself."
"This will help you, too."
"What do you want?"
Violet drew a long breath.
"I want you to go over to the avenue right away," she said, "and buy
me a long cloak and a hat and bring them back, and then take me out
of here without a word to anybody. You needn't walk more'n three
squares with me, an' then I won't bother you no more."
Dyker drew away and whistled softly. His face grew quite composed
again. The heavy lids fell over his eyes.
"So that's it, is it?" he asked.
"I want to get away," said Violet.
"And so you've cooked up this little mess of lies to make me the
goat, eh?"
Violet felt the sands slipping beneath her feet. She laced her
fingers together till the knuckles bruised her flesh.
"Don't do that," she pleaded; "don't take it that way; it's true,
what I told you, every word of it. I only want you to keep your
promise to me."
She stopped with a sob, and waited.
Wesley reached calmly for a glass of wine, drank it, put down the
glass, thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, and,
stretching out his long legs, regarded, humming, the toes of his
shining pumps.
"I don't believe you," he said at last.
"But, Mr. Dyker----"
"It's too thin."
"Even if it was a lie," Violet despairingly persisted, "you ought to
help me. Do you know who I am?"
"That's the point."
"Do you know how I was brought here?"
"I can guess."
"I was tricked. The man said he wanted to marry me. I didn't know.
I believed him. An' they beat me an' starved me and did things I
couldn't think about an' couldn't help thinkin' about. An' all I
want is just for you to do me this one little favor. I won't bother
you. I won't blow on you----"
"What's that?"
"Oh, you know I wouldn't blow on you! I couldn't. I want to forget
the whole thing. I've got friends to go to who'll get me work. I
only want you to get me out of the door and safe away."
Like most men of his sort Dyker, although ready enough to make a
living out of the results of cruelty, hated the sight of cruelty's
self. The girl's words touched, though lightly, his selfish heart.
"But I can't afford to help you," he protested. "You see how I'm
tied up here. I can't have Rose jump on me now."
"You know she's jumping on you already. You know she's knifing you
in the back. The only way you can stop her is by using what I've
told you."
"Of course," said Dyker in the tone of a man thinking aloud, "if she
really was playing both ends against the middle, I could pull her
teeth by going straight to O'Malley and telling him so."
Violet did not wholly understand this, but she agreed immediately.
"Of course you could," she said.
"And I suppose I could have her pinched then, if you'd testify
against her. Would you do that? Would you go into court?"
Violet's fingers closed spasmodically.
"Just give me the chanc't," she said fervently.
"And of course there are other girls who've been in the same scrape
here?"
"There's a new one upstairs this minute."
"There is? Um. That's good." He rattled the money in his pocket.
"Only, look here," he persisted, "if you have been telling the truth,
it will probably make me solid with O'Malley, but if you haven't,
I'll go clean to smash."
Violet saw the turn of affairs and, with hope's revival, her mind
cleared immediately.
"I haven't told you all," she said, "and I guess the rest will make
you sure enough."
"There's more then?"
"A lot."
"What is it?"
"Will you help me out of here?"
"If you convince me.--Let's see; the shops around here are still
open.--Yes, if you convince me, you'll be out of here in half an
hour."
It was her only chance. She did not hesitate. She told him the
whole of what she had heard of the later assuring interview between
Rose and Angelelli.
This time he listened quietly, his face inscrutable.
"That all?" he asked when she had ended.
"That's all," she said.
"It's the truth?"
"Ain't I sayin' it proof that it's true? How could I make it up? I
don't know all that it means."
"You knew enough to pass it on to me."
"Lucky for you I did, too; but I don't know all it means--how could
I?--and you do know, an' that ought to be proof enough that it's
God's truth, Mr. Dyker."
She stopped. Her case was with the jury.
Dyker rose.
"Cassie!" he called.
Violet leaped to her feet and laid her hands on his arm.
"What are you goin' to do?" she whispered.
He silenced her with a gesture.
"What you want," he said.
Cassie put her black head in at the door.
"Cassie," he continued, flipping the maid another dollar, "I'm a
little off my feed. I'm going to the drugstore on the corner and get
fixed up."
"Thank you, Miste' Dyker.--Ah kin go fer you, Miste' Dyker," said the
negress. "Thank you, sah."
"No, thanks, Cassie, I can go myself; I want the air. But you can do
something else for me. You can just not let this girl run away from
me. I know she would run if she could, but I like her too well to
let her, so if anybody wants her, just you say she's in here and
engaged for the evening by me. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
He left one door as the willingly assenting Cassie closed the other,
and Violet flung herself on the sofa and buried her face in the
cushions, now fearful that the servant, notwithstanding their
precautions, had overheard her, now afraid that Dyker would change
his purpose and fail to return, and again dreading that he might
betray her to Rose. Since the night she had waited for Max to
telephone in the café, since the terrible morning that had followed,
it was the longest quarter of an hour that she had known, but it at
last dragged its quivering length away. The doorbell rang. Cassie
passed through the room to find Violet sitting suddenly upright, and
at once returned with Dyker, his summer raincoat tossed across his
arm.
As the servant left them, he lifted the coat. Below it, not wrapped
in the paper usual to a new purchase, was a dark cloak. He unrolled
it, uncovered a beaver hat, and handed them both to the panting
Violet.
"Here you are," he said quietly.
She seized them and began to put them on.
"No," he cautioned, "on second thought, I guess I'd better carry
them. The parlor door's open, and Evelyn and Fritzie are in there
with a couple of men. I'll go ahead and open the vestibule door and
the front door. Then you come by as if you were going upstairs."
"Evelyn'll come out to see if I have any money."
"She'll never learn that, though here, by the way, is a ten-dollar
bill that will come in handy.--The doors will be open and I'll be on
the pavement. Keep only a yard behind me. Riley's at the other end
of his beat, and I have a cab at the curb. Ready?"
She could not speak, but she nodded her russet head.
He passed before her up the rosy twilight of the hall.
Violet, following, her lips tight, her breathing suspended, her heart
pounding against her breast, was dimly aware of her own soft
footfalls sounding hideously loud, of the blast of light and laughter
from the parlor.
Dyker flung wide the vestibule door.
"Good-night!" he called to Evelyn.
"Going? Good-night!" Violet heard the Englishwoman answer.
She heard Evelyn rise. She heard the front door open. She saw
Wesley raise his arm.
She hurried by the parlor door, and then, instead of turning to the
stairs, gathered up her red kimona and ran through the vestibule,
through a patch of soft, fresh darkness, and was tossed precipitately
into a cab into which Dyker followed her just as the horse, under a
quick blow, dashed madly up the street.
At the open cab-window the night air beat upon her fevered face. She
drank it deep into her thirsting lungs. It was the wine of freedom.