Produced by Polly Stratton
THE WHITE MOLL
By Frank Packard
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. NIGHT IN THE UNDERWORLD
II. SEVEN-THREE-NINE
III. ALIAS GYPSY NAN
IV. THE ADVENTURER
V. A SECOND VISITOR
VI. THE RENDEZVOUS
VII. FELLOW THIEVES
VIII. THE CODE MESSAGE
IX. ROOM NUMBER ELEVEN
X. ON THE BRINK
XI. SOME OF THE LESSER BREED
XII. CROOKS vs. CROOKS
XIII. THE DOOR ACROSS THE HALL
XIV. THE LAME MAN
XV. IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
XVI. THE SECRET PANEL
XVII. THE SILVER SPHINX
XVIII. THE OLD SHED
XIX. BREAD UPON THE WATERS
XX. A LONE HAND
XXI. THE RECKONING
I. NIGHT IN THE UNDERWORLD
It was like some shadowy pantomime: The dark mouth of an alleyway thrown
into murky relief by the rays of a distant street lamp...the swift,
forward leap of a skulking figure...a girl's form swaying and struggling
in the man's embrace. Then, a pantomime no longer, there came a half
threatening, half triumphant oath; and then the girl's voice, quiet,
strangely contained, almost imperious:
“Now, give me back that purse, please. Instantly!” The man, already
retreating into the alleyway, paused to fling back a jeering laugh.
“Say, youse've got yer nerve, ain't youse!”
The girl turned her head so that the rays of the street lamp, faint as
they were, fell full upon her, disclosing a sweet, oval face, out of
which the dark eyes gazed steadily at the man.
And suddenly the man leaned forward, staring for an instant, and then
his hand went awkwardly to touch his cap.
“De White Moll!” he mumbled deferentially. He pulled the peak of his
cap down over his eyes in a sort of shame-faced way, as though to avoid
recognition, and, stepping nearer, returned the purse.
“'Scuse me, miss,” he said uneasily. “I didn't know it was youse--honest
to Gawd, I didn't! 'Scuse me, miss. Good-night!”
For a moment the girl stood there motionless, looking down the alleyway
after the retreating figure. From somewhere in the distance came the
rumble of an elevated train. It drowned out the pound of the man's
speeding footsteps; it died away itself--and now there was no other
sound. A pucker, strangely wistful, curiously perturbed, came and
furrowed her forehead into little wrinkles, and then she turned and
walked slowly on along the deserted street.
The White Moll! She shook her head a little. The attack had not unnerved
her. Why should it? It was simply that the man had not recognized her
at first in the darkness. The White Moll here at night in one of the
loneliest, as well as one of the most vicious and abandoned, quarters
of New York, was as safe and inviolate as--as--She shook her head again.
Her mind did not instantly suggest a comparison that seemed wholly
adequate. The pucker deepened, but the sensitive, delicately chiseled
lips parted now in a smile. Well, she was safer here than anywhere else
in the world, that was all.
It was the first time that anything like this had happened, and, for the
very reason that it was unprecedented, it seemed to stir her memory now,
and awaken a dormant train of thought. The White Moll! She remembered
the first time she had ever been called by that name. It took her back
almost three years, and since that time, here in this sordid realm
of crime and misery, the name of Rhoda Gray, her own name, her actual
identity, seemed to have become lost, obliterated in that of the
White Moll. A “dip” had given it to her, and the underworld, quick and
trenchant in its “monikers,” had instantly ratified it. There was not
a crook or denizen of crimeland, probably, who did not know the White
Moll; there was, probably, not one to-day who knew, or cared, that she
was Rhoda Gray!
She went on, traversing block after block, entering a less deserted,
though no less unsavory, neighborhood. Here, a saloon flung a sudden
glow of yellow light athwart the sidewalk as its swinging doors jerked
apart; and a form lurched out into the night; there, from a dance-hall
came the rattle of a tinny piano, the squeak of a raspy violin, a
high-pitched, hectic burst of laughter; while, flanking the street
on each side, like interjected inanimate blotches, rows of squalid
tenements and cheap, tumble-down frame houses silhouetted themselves in
broken, jagged points against the sky-line. And now and then a man spoke
to her--his untrained fingers fumbling in clumsy homage at the brim of
his hat.
How strange a thing memory was! How strange, too, the coincidences that
sometimes roused it into activity! It was a man, a thief, just like the
man to-night, who had first brought her here into this shadowland of
crime. That was just before her father had died. Her father had been
a mining engineer, and, though an American, had been for many years
resident in South America as the representative of a large English
concern. He had been in ill health for a year down there, when, acting
on his physician's advice, he had come to New York for consultation, and
she had accompanied him. They had taken a little flat, the engineer had
placed himself in the hands of a famous specialist, and an operation had
been decided upon. And then, a few days prior to the date set for the
operation and before her father, who was still able to be about, had
entered the hospital, the flat had been broken into during the early
morning hours. The thief, obviously not counting on the engineer's
wakefulness, had been caught red-handed. At first defiant, the man had
finally broken down, and had told a miserable story. It was hackneyed
possibly, the same story told by a thousand others as a last defense in
the hope of inducing leniency through an appeal to pity, but somehow to
her that night the story had rung true. Pete McGee, alias the Bussard,
the man had said his name was. He couldn't get any work; there was the
shadow of a long abode in Sing Sing that lay upon him as a curse--a job
here to-day, his record discovered to-morrow, and the next day out on
the street again. It was very old, very threadbare, that story; there
were even the sick wife, the hungry, unclothed children; but to her it
had rung true. Her father had not placed the slightest faith in it,
and but for her intervention the Bussard would have been incontinently
consigned to the mercies of the police.
Her face softened suddenly now as she walked along. She remembered well
that scene, when, at the end, she had written down the address the man
had given her.
“Father is going to let you go, McGee, because I ask him to,” she had
said. “And to-morrow morning I will go to this address, and if I find
your story is true, as I believe it is, I will see what I can do for
you.”
“It's true, miss, so help me God!” the man had answered brokenly. “Youse
come an' see. I'll be dere-an'-an'-God bless youse, miss!”
And so they had let the man go free, and her father, with a whimsical,
tolerant smile, had shaken his head at her. “You'll never find that
address, Rhoda-or our friend the Bussard, either!”
But she had found both the Bussard and the address, and destitution
and a squalor unspeakable. Pathetic still, but the vernacular of the
underworld where men called their women by no more gracious names than
“molls” and “skirts” no longer strange to her ears, there came to her
again now the Bussard's words in which he had paid her tribute on that
morning long ago, and with which he had introduced her to a shrunken
form that lay upon a dirty cot in the barefloored room:
“Meet de moll I was tellin' youse about, Mag. She's white--all de way
up. She's white, Mag; she's a white moll--take it from me.”
The White Moll!
The firm little chin came suddenly upward; but into the dark eyes
unbidden came a sudden film and mist. Her father's health had been too
far undermined, and he had been unable to withstand the shock of the
operation, and he had died in the hospital. There weren't any relatives,
except distant ones on her mother's side, somewhere out in California,
whom she had never seen. She and her father had been all in all to each
other, chums, pals, comrades, since her mother's death many years ago.
She had gone everywhere with him save when the demands of her education
had necessarily kept them apart; she had hunted with him in South
America, ridden with him in sections where civilization was still in the
making, shared the crude, rough life of mining camps with him--and it
had seemed as though her life, too, had gone out with his.
She brushed her hand hastily across her eyes. There hadn't been any
friends either, apart from a few of her father's casual business
acquaintances; no one else--except the Bussard. It was very strange! Her
reward for that one friendly act had come in a manner little expected,
and it had come very quickly. She had sought and found a genuine relief
from her own sorrow in doing what she could to alleviate the misery in
that squalid, one-room home. And then the sphere of her activities had
broadened, slowly at first, not through any preconceived intention
on her part, but naturally, and as almost an inevitable corollary
consequent upon her relations with the Bussard and his ill-fortuned
family.
The Bussard's circle of intimates was amongst those who lay outside the
law, those who gambled for their livelihood by staking their wits, to
win against the toils of the police; and so, more and more, she had come
into close and intimate contact with the criminal element of New York,
until to-day, throughout its length and breadth, she was known, and,
she had reason to believe, was loved and trusted by every crook in the
underworld. It was a strange eulogy, self-pronounced! But it was none
the less true. Then, she had been Rhoda Gray; now, even the Bussard,
doubtless, had forgotten her name in the one with which he himself, at
that queer baptismal font of crimeland, had christened her--the White
Moll. It even went further than that. It embraced what might be called
the entourage of the underworld, the police and the social workers with
whom she inevitably came in contact. These, too, had long known her
as the White Moll, and had come, since she had volunteered no further
information, tacitly to accept her as such, and nothing more.
Again she shook her head. It wasn't altogether a normal life. She was
only a woman, with all the aspirations of a woman, with all the yearning
of youth for its measure of gayety and pleasure. True, she had not made
a recluse of herself outside her work; but, equally, on the other hand,
she had not made any intimate friends in her own station in life. She
had never purposed continuing indefinitely the work she was doing, nor
did she now; but, little by little, it had forced its claims upon
her until those claims were not easy to ignore. Even though the
circumstances in which her father had left her were barely more than
sufficient for a modest little flat uptown, there was still always a
little surplus, and that surplus counted in certain quarters for very
much indeed. But it wasn't only that. The small amount of money that she
was able to spend in that way had little to do with it. The bonds which
linked her to the sordid surroundings that she had come to know so well
were stronger far than that. There wasn't any money involved in this
visit, for instance, that she was going now to make to Gypsy Nan. Gypsy
Nan was...
Rhoda Gray had halted before the doorway of a small, hovel-like,
two-story building that was jammed in between two tenements, which,
relatively, in their own class, were even more disreputable than was the
little frame house itself. A secondhand-clothes store occupied a portion
of the ground floor, and housed the proprietor and his family as well,
permitting the rooms on the second floor to be “rented out”; the garret
above was the abode of Gypsy Nan.
There was a separate entrance, apart from that into the
secondhand-clothes store, and she pushed this door open and stepped
forward into an absolutely black and musty-smelling hallway. By feeling
with her hands along the wall she reached the stairs and began to make
her way upward. She had found Gypsy Nan last night huddled in the lower
doorway, and apparently in a condition that was very much the worse
for wear. She had stopped and helped the woman upstairs to her garret,
whereupon Gypsy Nan, in language far more fervent than elegant, had
ordered her to begone, and had slammed the door in her face.
Rhoda Gray smiled a little wearily, as, on the second floor now, she
groped her way to the rear, and began to mount a short, ladder-like
flight of steps to the attic. Gypsy Nan's lack of cordiality did not
absolve her, Rhoda Gray, from coming back to-night to see how the woman
was--to crowd one more visit on her already over-expanded list. She had
never had any personal knowledge of Gypsy Nan before, but, in a sense,
the woman was no stranger to her. Gypsy Nan was a character known
far and wide in the under-world as one possessing an insatiable and
unquenchable thirst. As to who she was, or what she was, or where she
got her money for the gin she bought, it was not in the ethics of
the Bad Lands to inquire. She was just Gypsy Nan. So that she did not
obtrude herself too obviously upon their notice, the police suffered
her; so that she gave the underworld no reason for complaint, the
underworld accepted her at face value as one of its own!
There was no hallway here at the head of the ladder-like stairs, just a
sort of narrow platform in front of the attic door. Rhoda Gray, groping
out with her hands again, felt for the door, and knocked softly upon it.
There was no answer. She knocked again. Still receiving no reply, she
tried the door, found it unlocked, and, opening it, stood for an instant
on the threshold. A lamp, almost empty, ill-trimmed and smoking badly,
stood on a chair beside a cheap iron bed; it threw a dull, yellow glow
about its immediate vicinity, and threw the remainder of the garret into
deep, impenetrable shadows; but also it disclosed the motionless form of
a woman on the bed.
Rhoda Gray's eyes darkened, as she closed the door behind her, and
stepped quickly forward to the bedside. For a moment she stood looking
down at the recumbent figure; at the matted tangle of gray-streaked
brown hair that straggled across a pillow which was none too clean; at
the heavy-lensed, old-fashioned, steel-bowed spectacles, awry now, that
were still grotesquely perched on the woman's nose; at the sallow face,
streaked with grime and dirt, as though it had not been washed for
months; at a hand, as ill-cared for, which lay exposed on the torn
blanket that did duty for a counterpane; at the dirty shawl that
enveloped the woman's shoulders, and which was tightly fastened around
Gypsy Nan's neck-and from the woman her eyes shifted to an empty bottle
on the floor that protruded from under the bed.
“Nan!” she called sharply; and, stooping over, shook the woman's
shoulder. “Nan!” she repeated. There was something about the woman's
breathing that she did not like, something in the queer, pinched
condition of the other's face that suddenly frightened her. “Nan!” she
called again.
Gypsy Nan opened her eyes, stared for a moment dully, then, in a
curiously quick, desperate way, jerked herself up on her elbow.
“Youse get t'hell outer here!” she croaked. “Get out!”
“I am going to,” said Rhoda Gray evenly. “And I'm going at once.” She
turned abruptly and walked toward the door. “I'm going to get a doctor.
You've gone too far this time, Nan, and--”
“No, youse don't!” Gypsy Nan's voice rose in a sudden scream. She sat
bolt upright in bed, and pulled a revolver out from under the coverings.
“Youse don't bring no doctor here! See! Youse put a finger on dat door,
an' it won't be de door yousel'l go out by!”
Rhoda Gray did not move.
“Nan, put that revolver down!” she ordered quietly. “You don't know what
you are doing.”
“Don't!” leered Gypsy Nan. The revolver held, swaying a little
unsteadily, on Rhoda Gray. There was silence for a moment; then Gypsy
Nan spoke again, evidently through dry lips, for she wet them again and
again with her tongue: “Say, youse are de White Moll, ain't youse?”
“Yes,” said Rhoda Gray.
Gypsy Nan appeared to ponder this for an instant.
“Well den, come back here an' sit down on de foot of de bed,” she
commanded finally.
Rhoda Gray obeyed without hesitation. There was nothing to do but humor
the woman in her present state, a state that seemed one bordering on
delirium and complete collapse.
“Nan,” she said, “you--”
“De White Moll!” mumbled Gypsy Nan. “I wonder if de dope dey hands out
about youse is all on de level? My Gawd, I wonder if wot dey says is
true?”
“What do they say?” asked Rhoda Gray gently.
Gypsy Nan lay back on her pillow as though her strength, over-taxed, had
failed her; her hand, though it still clutched the revolver, seemed to
have been dragged down by the weapon's weight, and now rested upon the
blanket.
“Dey say,” said Gypsy Nan slowly, “dat youse knows more on de inside
here dan anybody else--t'ings youse got from de spacers' molls, an' from
de dips demselves when youse was lendin' dem a hand; dey say dere ain't
many youse couldn't send up de river just by liftin' yer finger, but dat
youse're straight, an' dat youse've kept yer map closed, an' dat youse'
re safe.”
Rhoda Gray's dark eyes softened, as she leaned forward and laid a hand
gently over the one of Gypsy Nan that held the revolver.
“It couldn't be any other way, could it, Nan?” she said simply.
“Wot yer after?” demanded Gypsy Nan, with sudden mockery. “De gun? Well,
take it!” She let go her hold of the weapon. “But don't kid yerself dat
youse're kiddin' me into givin' it to youse because youse have got a
pretty smile an' a sweet voice! Savvy? I”--she choked suddenly, and
caught at her throat--“I guess youse're de only chance I got-dat's all.”
“That's better,” said Rhoda Gray encouragingly. “And now you'll let me
go and get a doctor, won't you, Nan?”
“Wait!” said Gypsy Nan hoarsely. “Youse're de only chance I got. Will
youse swear youse won't t'row me down if I tells youse somet'ing? I
ain't got no other way. Will youse swear youse'll see me through?”
“Of course, Nan,” said Rhoda Gray soothingly. “Of course, I will, Nan. I
promise.”
Gypsy Nan came up on her elbow.
“Dat ain't good enough!” she cried out. “A promise ain't good enough!
For Gawd's sake, come across all de way! Swear youse'll keep mum an' see
me through!”
“Yes, Nan”--Rhoda Gray's eyes smiled reassurance--“I swear it. But you
will be all right again in the morning.”
“Will I? You think so, do you? Well, I can only say that I wish I did!”
Rhoda Gray leaned sharply forward, staring in amazement at the figure
on the bed. The woman's voice was the same, it was still hoarse, still
heavy, and the words came with painful effort; but the English was
suddenly perfect now.
“Nan, what is it? I don't understand!” she said tensely. “What do you
mean?”
“You think you know what's the matter with me.” There was a curious
mockery in the weak voice. “You think I've drunk myself into this state.
You think I'm on the verge of the D.T.'s now. That empty bottle under
the bed proves it, doesn't it? And anybody around here will tell you
that Gypsy Nan has thrown enough empties out of the window there to
stock a bottle factory for years, some of them on the flat roof just
outside the window, some of them on the roof of the shed below, and some
of them down into the yard, just depending on how drunk she was and how
far she could throw. And that proves it, too, doesn't it? Well, maybe
it does, that's what I did it for; but I never touched the stuff, not a
drop of it, from the day I came here. I didn't dare touch it. I had to
keep my wits. Last night you thought I was drunk when you found me in
the doorway downstairs. I wasn't. I was too sick and weak to get up
here. I almost told you then, only I was afraid, and--and I thought that
perhaps I'd be all right to-day.”
“Oh, I didn't know!” Rhoda Gray was on her knees beside the bed. There
was no room to question the truth of the woman's words, it was in Gypsy
Nan's eyes, in the struggling, labored voice.
“Yes.” Gypsy Nan clutched at the shawl around her neck, and shivered.
“I thought I might be all right to-day, and that I'd get better. But I
didn't. And now I've got about a chance in a hundred. I know. It's my
heart.”
“You mean you've been alone here, sick, since last night?” There was
anxiety, perplexity, in Rhoda Gray's face. “Why didn't you call some
one? Why did you even hold me back a few minutes ago, when you admit
yourself that you need immediate medical assistance so badly?”
“Because,” said Gypsy Nan, “if I've got a chance at all, I'd finish it
for keeps if a doctor came here. I--I'd rather go out this way than
in that horrible thing they call the 'chair.' Oh, my God, don't you
understand that! I've seen pictures of it! It's a horrible thing--a
horrible thing--horrible!”
“Nan”--Rhoda Gray steadied her voice--“you re delirious. You do not know
what you are saying. There isn't any horrible thing to frighten you.
Now you just lie quietly here. I'll only be a few minutes, and--” She
stopped abruptly as her wrists were suddenly imprisoned in a frantic
grip.
“You swore it!” Gypsy Nan was whispering feverishly. “You swore it! They
say the White Moll never snitched. That's the one chance I've got, and
I'm going to take it. I'm not delirious--not yet. I wish to God it was
nothing more than that! Look!”
With a low, startled cry, Rhoda Gray was on her feet. Gypsy Nan was
gone. A sweep of the woman's hand, and the spectacles were off, the
gray-streaked hair a tangled wig upon the pillow--and Rhoda Gray found
herself staring in a numbed sort of way at a dark-haired woman who could
not have been more than thirty, but whose face, with its streaks of
grime and dirt, looked grotesquely and incongruously old.
II. SEVEN--THREE--NINE
For a moment neither spoke, then Gypsy Nan broke the silence with a
bitter laugh. She threw back the bedclothes, and, gripping at the edge
of the bed, sat up.
“The White Moll!” The words rattled in her throat. A fleck of blood
showed on her lips. “Well, you know now! You're going to help me, aren't
you? I--I've got to get out of here--get to a hospital.”
Rhoda Gray laid her hands firmly on the other's shoulders.
“Get back into bed,” she said steadily. “Do you want to make yourself
worse? You'll kill yourself!”
Gypsy Nan pushed her away.
“Don't make me use up what little strength I've got left in talking,”
she cried out piteously, and suddenly wrung her hands together. “I'm
wanted by the police. If I'm caught, it's--it's that 'chair.' I couldn't
have a doctor brought here, could I? How long would it be before he saw
that Gypsy Nan was a fake? I can't let you go and have an ambulance,
say, come and get me, can I, even with the disguise hidden away? They'd
say this is where Gypsy Nan lives. There's something queer here. Where
is Gypsy Nan? I've got to get away from here--away from Gypsy Nan--don't
you understand? It's death one way; maybe it is the other, maybe it'll
finish me to get out of here, but it's the only thing left to do. I
thought some one, some one that I could trust, never mind who, would
have come to-day, but-but no one came, and--and maybe now it s too late,
but there's just the one chance, and I've got to take it.” Gypsy Nan
tore at the shawl around her throat as though it choked her, and
flung it from her shoulders. Her eyes were gleaming with an unhealthy,
feverish light. “Don't you see? We get out on the street. I collapse
there. You find me. I tell you my name is Charlotte Green. That's all
you know. There isn't much chance that anybody at the hospital
would recognize me. I've got money. I take a private room. Don't you
understand?”
Rhoda Gray's face had gone a little white. There was no doubt about the
woman's serious condition, and yet--and yet--She stood there hesitant.
There must be some other way! It was not likely even that the woman had
strength enough to walk down the stairs to begin with. Strange things
had come to her in this world of shadow, but none before like this. If
the law got the woman it would cost the woman her life; if the woman did
not receive immediate and adequate medical assistance it would cost the
woman her life. Over and over in her brain, like a jangling refrain,
that thought repeated itself. It was not like her to stand hesitant
before any emergency, no matter what that emergency might be. She had
never done it before, but now...
“For God's sake,” Gypsy Nan implored, “don't stand there looking at me!
Can't you understand? If I'm caught, I go out. Do you think I'd have
lived in this filthy hole if there had been any other way to save my
life? Are you going to let me die here like a dog? Get me my clothes;
oh, for God's sake, get them, and give me the one chance that's left!”
A queer little smile came to Rhoda Gray's lips, and her shoulders
straightened back.
“Where are your clothes?” she asked.
“God bless you!” The tears were suddenly streaming down the grimy face.
“God bless the White Moll! It's true! It's true--all they said about
her!” The woman had lost control of herself.
“Nan, keep your nerve!” ordered Rhoda Gray almost brutally. It was the
White Moll in another light now, cool, calm, collected, efficient. Her
eyes swept Gypsy Nan. The woman, who had obviously flung herself down
on the bed fully dressed the night before, was garbed in coarse, heavy
boots, the cheapest of stockings which were also sadly in need of
repair, a tattered and crumpled skirt of some rough material, and,
previously hidden by the shawl, a soiled, greasy and spotted black
blouse. Rhoda Gray's forehead puckered into a frown. “What about your
hands and face-they go with the clothes, don't they?”
“It'll wash off,” whispered Gypsy Nan. “It's just some stuff I keep in a
box-over there--the ceiling-” Her voice trailed off weakly, then with
a desperate effort strengthened again. “The door! I forgot the door!
It isn't locked! Lock the door first! Lock the door! Then you take the
candle over there on the washstand, and--and I'll show you. You--you get
the things while I'm undressing. I--I can help myself that much.”
Rhoda Gray crossed quickly to the door, turned the key in the lock, and
retraced her steps to the washstand that stood in the shadows against
the wall on the opposite side from the bed, and near the far end of the
garret. Here she found the short stub of a candle that was stuck in
the mouth of a gin bottle, and matches lying beside it. She lighted the
candle, and turned inquiringly to Gypsy Nan.
The woman pointed to the end of the garret where the roof sloped sharply
down until, at the wall itself, it was scarcely four feet above the
floor.
“Go down there. Right to the wall--in the center,” instructed Gypsy Nan
weakly. And then, as Rhoda Gray obeyed: “Now push up on that wide board
in the ceiling.”
Rhoda Gray, already in a stooped position, reached up, and pushed at
a rough, unplaned board. It swung back without a sound, like a narrow
trap-door, until it rested in an upright position against the outer
frame of the house, disclosing an aperture through which, by standing
erect, Rhoda Gray easily thrust her head and shoulders.
She raised the candle then through the opening--and suddenly her dark
eyes widened in amazement. It was a hiding place, not only ingenious,
but exceedingly generous in expanse. As far as one could reach the
ceiling metamorphosed itself into a most convenient shelf. And it had
been well utilized! It held a most astounding collection of
things. There was a cashbox, but the cashbox was apparently wholly
inadequate--there must have been thousands of dollars in those piles of
banknotes that were stacked beside it! There was a large tin box, the
cover off, containing some black, pastelike substance--the “stuff,”
presumably, that Gypsy Nan used on her face and hands. There was a
bunch of curiously formed keys, several boxes of revolver cartridges,
an electric flashlight, and a great quantity of the choicest brands
of tinned and bottled fruits and provisions--and a little to one side,
evidently kept ready for instant use, a suit of excellent material,
underclothing, silk stockings shoes and hat were neatly piled together.
Rhoda Gray took the clothing, and went back to the bedside. Gypsy Nan
had made little progress in disrobing. It seemed about all the woman
could do to cling to the edge of the cot and sit upright.
“What does all this mean, Nan,” she asked tensely; “all those things up
there--that money?”
Gypsy Nan forced a twisted smile.
“It means I know how bad I am, or I wouldn't have let you see what you
have,” she answered heavily. “It means that there isn't any other way.
Hurry! Get these things off! Get me dressed!”
But it took a long time. Gypsy Nan seemed with every moment to grow
weaker. The lamp on the chair went out for want of oil. There was only
the guttering candle in the gin bottle to give light. It threw weird,
flickering shadows around the garret; it seemed to enhance the already
deathlike pallor of the woman, as, using the pitcher of water and the
basin from the washstand now, Rhoda Gray removed the grime from Gypsy
Nan's face and hands.
It was done at last--and where there had once been Gypsy Nan, haglike
and repulsive, there was now a stylishly, even elegantly, dressed woman
of well under middle age. The transformation seemed to have acted as
a stimulant upon Gypsy Nan. She laughed with nervous hilarity she even
tried valiantly to put on a pair of new black kid gloves, but, failing
in this, pushed them unsteadily into the pocket of her coat.
“I'm--I'm all right,” she asserted fiercely, as Rhoda Gray, pausing in
the act of gathering up the discarded garments, regarded her anxiously.
“Bring me a package of that money after you've put those things
away--yes, and you'll find a flashlight there. We'll need it going down
the stairs.”
Rhoda Gray made no answer. There was no hesitation now in her actions,
as, to the pile of clothing in her arms, she added the revolver that lay
on the blanket, and, returning to the little trap-door in the ceiling,
hid them away; but her brain was whirling again in a turmoil of doubt.
This was madness, utter, stark, blind madness, this thing that she was
doing! It was suicide, literally that, nothing less than suicide for
one in Gypsy Nan's condition to attempt this thing. But the woman would
certainly die here, too, with out medical assistance--only there was the
police! Rhoda Gray's face, as she stood upright in the little aperture
again, throwing the wavering candle-rays around her, seemed suddenly
to have grown pinched and wan. The police! The police! It was her
conscience, then, that was gnawing at her--because of the police!
Was that it? Well, there was also, then, another side. Could she turn
informer, traitor, become a female Judas to a dying woman, who had
sobbed and thanked her Maker because she had found some one whom she
believed she could trust? That was a hideous and an abominable thing to
do! “You swore it! You swore you'd see me through!”--the words came
and rang insistently in her ears. The sweet, piquant little face set in
hard, determined lines. Mechanically she picked up the flashlight and a
package of the banknotes, lowered the board in the ceiling into place,
and returned to Gypsy Nan.
“I'm ready, if there is no other way,” she said soberly, as she watched
the other tuck the money away inside her waist. “I said I would see you
through, and I will. But I doubt if you are strong enough, even with
what help I can give you, to get down the stairs, and even if you can, I
am afraid with all my soul of the consequences to you, and--”
Gypsy Nan blew out the candle, and staggered to her feet.
“There isn't any other way.” She leaned heavily on Rhoda Gray's arm.
“Can't you see that? Don't you think I know? Haven't you seen enough
here to convince you of that? I--I'm just spilling the dice for--for
perhaps the last time--but it's the only chance--the only chance. Go
on!” she urged tremulously. “Shoot the glim, and get me to the door.
And--and for the love of God, don't make a sound! It's all up if we're
seen going out!”
The flashlight's ray danced in crazy gyrations as the two figures swayed
and crept across the garret. Rhoda Gray unlocked the door, and, as they
passed out, locked it again on the outside.
“Hide the key!” whispered Gypsy Nan. “See--that crack in the floor under
the partition! Slip it in there!”
The flashlight guiding her, Rhoda Gray stooped down to where, between
the rough attic flooring and the equally rough boarding of the garret
partition, there was a narrow space. She pushed the key in out of sight;
and then, with her arm around Gypsy Nan's waist, and with the flashlight
at cautious intervals winking ahead of her through the darkness, she
began to descend the stairs.
It was slow work, desperately slow, both because they dared not make
the slightest noise, and because, too, as far as strength was concerned,
Gypsy Nan was close to the end of her endurance. Down one flight, and
then the other, they went, resting at every few steps, leaning back
against the wall, black shadows that merged with the blackness around
them, the flashlight used only when necessity compelled it, lest its
gleam might attract the attention of some other occupant of the house.
And at times Gypsy Nan's head lay cheek to Rhoda Gray's, and the other's
body grew limp and became a great weight, so heavy that it seemed she
could no longer support it.
They gained the street door, hung there tensely for a moment to make
sure they were not observed by any chance passer-by, then stepped out on
the sidewalk. Gypsy Nan spoke then:
“I--I can't go much farther,” she faltered. “But--but it doesn't matter
now we're out of the house--it doesn't matter where you find me--only
let's try a few steps more.”
Rhoda Gray had slipped the flashlight inside her blouse.
“Yes,” she said. Her breath was coming heavily. “It's all right, Nan. I
understand.”
They walked on a little way up the block, and then Gypsy Nan's grasp
suddenly tightened on Rhoda Gray's arm.
“Play the game!” Gypsy Nan's voice was scarcely audible. “You'll play
the game, won't you? You'll--you'll see me through. That's a good
name--as good as any--Charlotte Green--that's all you know--but--but
don't leave me alone with them--you--you'll come to the hospital with
me, won't you--I--”
Gypsy Nan had collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk.
Rhoda Gray glanced swiftly around her. In the squalid tenement before
which she stood there would be no help of the kind that was needed.
There would be no telephone in there by means of which she could summon
an ambulance. And then her glance rested on a figure far up the block
under a street lamp--a policeman. She bent hurriedly over the prostrate
woman, whispered a word of encouragement, and ran in the officer's
direction.
As she drew closer to the policeman, she called out to him. He turned
and came running toward, and, as he reached her, after a sharp glance
into her face, touched his helmet respectfully.
“What's wrong with the White Moll to-night?” he asked pleasantly.
“There's--there's a woman down there”--Rhoda Gray was breathless from
her run--“on the sidewalk. She needs help at once.”
“Drunk?” inquired the officer laconically.
“No, I'm sure it's anything but that,” Rhoda Gray answered quickly.
“She appears to be very sick. I think you had better summon an ambulance
without delay.”
“All right!” agreed the officer. “There's a patrol box down there in
the direction you came from. We'll have a look at her on the way.” He
started briskly forward with Rhoda Gray beside him. “Who is she d'ye
know?” he asked.
“She said her name was Charlotte Green,” Rhoda Gray replied. “That's all
she could, or would, say about herself.”
“Then she ain't a regular around here, or I guess you'd know her!”
grunted the policeman.
Rhoda Gray made no answer.
They reached Gypsy Nan. The officer bent over her, then picked her up
and carried her to the tenement doorway.
“I guess you're right, all right! She's bad! I'll send in a call,” he
said, and started on the run down the street.
Gypsy Nan had lost consciousness. Rhoda Gray settled herself on the
doorstep, supporting the woman's head in her lap. Her face had set
again in grim, hard, perplexed lines. There seemed something unnatural,
something menacingly weird, something even uncanny about it all. Perhaps
it was because it seemed as though she could so surely foresee the end.
Gypsy Nan would not live through the night. Something told her that. The
woman's masquerade, for whatever purpose it had been assumed, was over.
“You'll play the game, won't you? You'll see me through?” There seemed
something pitifully futile in those words now!
The officer returned.
“It's all right,” he said. “How's she seem?”
Rhoda Gray shook her head.
A passer-by stopped, asked what was the matter--and lingered curiously.
Another, and another, did the same. A little crowd collected. The
officer kept them back. Came then the strident clang of a gong and
the rapid beat of horses' hoofs. A white-coated figure jumped from
the ambulance, pushed his way forward, and bent over the form in Rhoda
Gray's lap. A moment more, and they were carrying Gypsy Nan to the
ambulance.
Rhoda Gray spoke to the officer:
“I think perhaps I had better go with her.”
“Sure!” said the officer.
She caught snatches of the officer's words, as he made a report to the
doctor:
“Found her here in the street...Charlotte Green...nothing else...the
White Moll, straight as God makes 'em...she'll see the woman through.”
He turned to Rhoda Gray. “You can get in there with them, miss.”
It took possibly ten minutes to reach the hospital, but, before that
time, Gypsy Nan, responding in a measure to stimulants, had regained
consciousness. She insisted on clinging to Rhoda Gray's hand as they
carried in the stretcher.
“Don't leave me!” she pleaded. And then, for the first time, Gypsy Nan's
nerve seemed to fail her. “I--oh, my God--I--I don't want to die!” she
cried out.
But a moment later, inside the hospital, as the admitting officer began
to ask questions of Rhoda Gray, Gypsy Nan had apparently recovered her
grip upon herself.
“Ah, let her alone!” she broke in. “She doesn't know me any more than
you do. She found me on the street. But she was good to me, God bless
her!”
“Your name's Charlotte Green? Yes?” The man nodded. “Where do you live?”
“Wherever I like!” Gypsy Nan was snarling truculently now. “What's it
matter where I live? Don't you ever have any one come here without a
letter from the pastor of her church!” She pulled out the package of
banknotes. “You aren't going to get stuck. This'll see you through
whatever happens. Give me a--a private room, and”--her voice was
weakening rapidly--“and”--there came a bitter, facetious laugh--“the
best you've got.” Her voice was weakening rapidly.
They carried her upstairs. She still insisted on clinging to Rhoda
Gray's hand.
“Don't leave me!” she pleaded again, as they reached the door of a
private room, and Rhoda Gray disengaged her hand gently.
“I'll stay outside here,” Rhoda Gray promised. “I won't go away without
seeing you again.”
Rhoda Gray sat down on a settee in the hall. She glanced at her wrist
watch. It was five minutes of eleven. Doctors and nurses came and went
from the room. Then a great quiet seemed to settle down around her. A
half hour passed. A doctor went into the room, and presently came out
again. She intercepted him as he came along the corridor.
He shook his head.
She did not understand his technical explanation. There was something
about a clot and blood stoppage. But as she resumed her seat, she
understood very fully that the end was near. The woman was resting
quietly now, the doctor had said, but if she, Rhoda Gray, cared to wait,
she could see the other before leaving the hospital.
And so she waited. She had promised Gypsy Nan she would.
The minutes dragged along. A quarter of an hour passed. Still another.
Midnight came. Fifteen minutes more went by, and then a nurse came out
of the room, and, standing by the door, beckoned to Rhoda Gray.
“She is asking for you,” the nurse said. “Please do not stay more than
a few minutes. I shall be outside here, and if you notice the slightest
change, call me instantly.”
Rhoda Gray nodded.
“I understand,” she said.
The door closed softly behind her. She was smiling cheerily as she
crossed the room and bent over Gypsy Nan.
The woman stretched out her hand.
“The White Moll!” she whispered. “He told the truth, that bull
did--straight as they make 'em, and--”
“Don't try to talk,” Rhoda Gray interrupted gently. “Wait until you are
a little stronger.”
“Stronger!” Gypsy Nan shook her head. “Don't try to kid me! I know. They
told me. I'd have known it anyway. I'm going out.”
Rhoda Gray found no answer for a moment. A great lump had risen in her
throat. Neither would she have needed to be told; she, too, would have
known it anyway--it was stamped in the gray pallor of the woman's face.
She pressed Gypsy Nan's hand.
And then Gypsy Nan spoke again, a queer, yearning hesitancy in her
voice:
“Do--do you believe in God?”
“Yes,” said Rhoda Gray simply.
Gypsy Nan closed her eyes.
“Do--do you think there is a chance--even at the last--if--if, without
throwing down one's pals, one tries to make good?”
“Yes,” said Rhoda Gray again.
“Is the door closed?” Gypsy Nan attempted to raise herself on her elbow,
as though to see for herself.
Rhoda Gray forced the other gently back upon the pillows.
“It is closed,” she said. “You need not be afraid.”
“What time is it?” demanded Gypsy Nan.
Rhoda Gray looked at her watch.
“Twenty-five minutes after twelve,” she answered.
“There's time yet, then,” whispered Gypsy Nan. “There's time yet.”
She lay silent for a moment, then her hand closed tightly around Rhoda
Gray's. “Listen!” she said. “There's more about--about why I lived like
that than I told you. And--and I can't tell you now--I can't go out like
a yellow cur--I'm not going to snitch on anybody else just because I'm
through myself. But--but there's something on to-night that I'd--I'd
like to stop. Only the police, or anybody else, aren't to know anything
about it, because then they'd nip my friends. See? But you can do
it--easy. You can do it alone without anybody knowing. There's time yet.
They weren't going to pull it until halfpast one--and there won't be any
danger for you. All you've got to do is get the money before they do,
and then see that it goes back where it belongs to-morrow. Will you? You
don't want to see a crime committed to-night if--if you can stop it, do
you?”
Rhoda Gray's face was grave. She hesitated for a moment.
“I'll have to know more than that before I can answer you, Nan,” she
said.
“It's the only way to stop it!” Gypsy Nan whispered feverishly. “I won't
split on my pals--I won't--I won't! But I trust you. Will you promise
not to snitch if I tell you how to stop it, even if you don't go there
yourself? I'm offering you a chance to stop a twenty-thousand-dollar
haul. If you don't promise it's got to go through, because I've got
to stand by the ones that were in it with me. I--I'd like to make
good--just--once. But I can't do it any other way. For God's sake, you
see that, don't you?”
“Yes,” said Rhoda Gray in a low voice; “but the promise you ask for is
the same as though I promised to try to get the money you speak of. If I
knew what was going on, and did nothing, I would be an accomplice to the
crime, and guilty myself.”
“But I can't do anything else!” Gypsy Nan was speaking with great
difficulty. “I won't get those that were with me in wrong--I won't! You
can prevent a crime to-night, if you will--you--you can help me to--to
make good.”
Rhoda Gray's lips tightened, “Will you give me your word that I can do
what you suggest--that it is feasible, possible?”
“Yes,” said Gypsy Nan. “You can do it easily, and--and it's safe. It--it
only wants a little nerve, and--and you've got that.”
“I promise, then,” said Rhoda Gray.
“Thank God!” Gypsy Nan pulled fiercely at Rhoda Gray's wrist. “Come
nearer-nearer! You know Skarbolov, old Skarbolov, who keeps the antique
store--on the street--around the corner from my place?” Rhoda Gray
nodded.
“He's rich!” whispered Gypsy Nan. “Think of it! Him--rich! But he gets
the best of the Fifth Avenue crowd just because he keeps his joint in
that rotten hole. They think they're getting the real thing in antiques!
He's a queer old fool. Afraid people would know he had money if he kept
it in the bank--afraid of a bank, too. Understand? We found out that
every once in a while he'd change a lot of small bills for a big
one--five-hundred-dollar bills--thousand-dollar bills. That put us
wise. We began to watch him. It took months to find where he hid it.
We've spent night after night searching through his shop. You can get in
easily. There's no one there--upstairs is just a storage place for his
extra stock. There's a big padlock on the back door, but there's a false
link in the chain--count three links to the right from the padlock--we
put it there, and--”
Gypsy Nan's voice had become almost inaudible. She pulled at Rhoda
Gray's wrist again, urging her closer.
“Listen--quick! I--my strength!” she panted. “An antique he never
sells--old escritoire against rear wall--secret drawer--take out wide
middle drawer--reach in and rub your hand along the top--you'll feel
the spring. We waited to--to get--get counterfeits--put counterfeits
there--understand? Then he'd never know he'd been robbed--not for a
long time anyway--discovered perhaps when he was dead--old wife--suffer
then--I--got to make good--make good--I--” She came up suddenly on both
her elbows, the dark eyes staring wildly. “Yes, yes!” she whispered.
“Seven-three-nine! Look out!” Her voice rang with sudden terror, rising
almost to a scream. “Look out! Can't you understand, you fool! I've told
you! Seven-three-nine! Seven-three...”
Rhoda Gray's arms had gone around the other's shoulders. She heard the
door open-and then a quick, light step. There wasn't any other sound
now. She made way mechanically for the nurse. And then, after a moment,
she rose from her knees. The nurse answered her unspoken question.
“Yes; it's over.”
III. ALIAS GYPSY NAN
Rhoda Gray went slowly from the room. In a curiously stunned sort of
way she reached the street, and for a few blocks walked along scarcely
conscious of the direction she was taking. Her mind was in turmoil. The
night seemed to have been one of harrowing hallucination; it seemed as
though it were utterly unreal, like one dreaming that one is dreaming.
And then, suddenly, she looked at her watch, and the straight little
shoulders squared resolutely back. The hallucination, if she chose to
call it that, was not yet over! It was twenty minutes of one, and there
was still Skarbolov's--and her promise.
She quickened her pace. She did not like this promise that she had
made; but, on the other hand, she had not made it either lightly or
impulsively. She had no regrets on that score. She would make it again
under the same conditions. How could she have done otherwise? It would
have been to stand aside and permit a crime to be committed which she
was assured was easily within her power to prevent. What excuse could
she have had for that? Fear wasn't an excuse. She did not like the
thought of entering the back door of a store in the middle of the night
like a thief, and, like a thief, taking away that hidden money. She knew
she was going to be afraid, horribly afraid--it frightened her now--but
she could not let that fear make a moral coward of her.
Her hands clenched at her sides. She would not allow herself to dwell
upon that phase of it! She was going to Skarbolov's, and that was all
there was to it. The only thing she really had to fear was that she
should lose even a single unnecessary moment in getting there. Halfpast
one, Gypsy Nan had said. That should give her ample time; but the
quicker she went, the wider the margin of safety.
Her thoughts reverted to Gypsy Nan. What had the woman meant by her last
few wandering words? They had nothing to do with Skarbolov's, that was
certain; but the words came back now insistently. “Seven-three-nine.”
What did “seven-three-nine” mean? She shook her head helplessly. Well,
what did it matter? She dismissed further consideration of it. She
repeated to herself Gypsy Nan's directions for finding the spring of the
secret drawer. She forced herself to think of anything that would bar
the entry of that fear which stood lurking at the threshold of her mind.
From time to time she consulted her watch--and each time hurried the
faster.