hour was late. It must be already after eleven o'clock. Her eyes grew
perturbed. Perhaps it was only one of the unknown tenants of the floor
below going to his or her room; but, on the other hand, no one had come
near the garret since last night, when that strange and, yes, sinister
trick of fate had thrust upon her the personality of Gypsy Nan, and it
was hoping for too much to expect such seclusion to obtain much longer.
There were too many who must be interested, vitally interested, in Gypsy
Nan! There was Rough Rorke, of headquarters; he had given no sign, but
that did not mean he had lost interest in Gypsy Nan. There was the death
of the real Gypsy Nan, which was pregnant with possibilities; and though
the newspapers, that she, Rhoda Gray, had bought and scanned with such
tragic eagerness, had said nothing about the death of one Charlotte
Green in the hospital, much less had given any hint that the identity
Gypsy Nan had risked so much to hide had been discovered, it did not
mean that the police, with their own ends in view, might not be fully
informed, and were but keeping their own counsel while they baited a
trap.
Also, and even more to be feared, there were those of this criminal
organization to which Gypsy Nan had belonged, and to which she, Rhoda
Gray, through a sort of hideous proxy, now belonged herself! Sooner or
later, they must show their hands, and the test of her identity would
come. And here her danger was the greater because she did not know who
any of them were, unless the man who had stepped in between Rough Rorke
and herself last night was one of them--which was a question that had
harassed her all day. The man had been no more drunk than she had been,
and he had obviously only played the part to get her out of the clutches
of Rough Rorke; but, against this, he had seen her simply as herself
then, the White Moll, and what could the criminal associates of Gypsy
Nan have cared as to what became of the White Moll?
A newspaper, to procure which had been the prime motive that had lured
her out of her retreat that afternoon, caught her eye now, and she
shivered a little as, from where it lay on the floor, the headlines
seemed to leer up at her, and mock, and menace her. “The White
Moll....The Saint of the East Side Exposed....Vicious Hypocrisy....Lowly
Charity for Years Cloaks a Consummate Thief...” They had not spared her!
Her lips firmed suddenly, as she listened. The stealthy footfall had not
paused in the hall below. It was on the short, ladder-like steps now,
leading up here to the garret--and now it had halted outside her door,
and there came a low, insistent knocking on the panels.
“Who's dere?” demanded Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, in a grumbling tone,
as, getting up from the bed, she moved the chair noiselessly a few feet
farther away, so that the bed would be beyond the immediate radius of
the candle light. Then she shuffled across the floor to the door. “Who's
dere?” she demanded again, and her hand, deep in the voluminous pocket
of Gypsy Nan's greasy skirt, closed tightly around the stock of Gypsy
Nan's revolver.
The voice that answered her expostulated in a plaintive whisper:
“My dear lady! And after all the trouble I have taken to reach here
without being either seen or heard!”
For an instant Rhoda Gray hesitated--there seemed something familiar
about the voice--then she unlocked the door, and retreated toward the
bed.
The door opened and closed softly. Rhoda Gray, reaching the edge of the
bed, sat down. It was the fashionably-attired, immaculate young man,
who had saved her from Rough Rorke last night. She stared at him in
the faint light without a word. Her mind was racing in a mad turmoil of
doubt, uncertainty, fear. Was he one of the gang, or not? Was she, in
the role of Gypsy Nan, supposed to know him, or not? Did he know that
the real Gypsy Nan, too, had but played a part, and, therefore, when she
spoke must it be in the vernacular of the East Side--or not? And then
sudden enlightenment, with its incident relief, came to her.
“My dear lady”--the young man's soft felt hat was under his arm, and he
was plucking daintily at the fingers of his yellow gloves as he removed
them--“I beg you to pardon the intrusion of a perfect stranger. I offer
you my very genuine apologies. My excuse is that I come from a--I hope I
am not overstepping the bounds in using the term--mutual friend.” Rhoda
Gray snorted disdainfully.
“Aw, cut out de boudoir talk, an' get down to cases!” she croaked. “Who
are youse, anyway?”
The young man had gray eyes--and they lighted up now humorously.
“Boudoir? Ah--yes! Of course! Awfully neat!” His eyes, from the chair
that held the candle, strayed around the scantily furnished, murky
garret as though in search of a seat, and finally rested inquiringly on
Rhoda Gray.
“Youse can put de candle on de floor, if youse like,” she said
grudgingly. “Dat's de only chair dere is.”
“Thank you!” he said.
Rhoda Gray watched him with puckered brow, as he placed the gin bottle
with its candle on the floor, and appropriated the chair. He might,
from his tone, have been thanking her for some priceless boon. He wore
a boutonniere. His clothes fitted him like gloves. He exuded a certain
studied, almost languid fastidiousness--that was wholly out of keeping
with the quick, daring, agile wit that he had exhibited the night
before. She found her hand toying unconsciously with the weapon in her
pocket. She was aware that she was fencing with unbuttoned foils. How
much did he know--about last night?
“Well, why don't youse spill it?” she invited curtly. “Who are youse?”
“Who am I?” He lifted the lapel of his coat, carrying the boutonniere to
his nose. “My dear lady, I am an adventurer.”
“Youse don't say!” observed Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan. “An' wot's dat
w' en it's at home?”
“In my case, first of all a gentleman, I trust,” he said pleasantly;
“after that, I do not quarrel with the accepted definition of the
term--though it is not altogether complimentary.”
Rhoda Gray scowled. As Rhoda Gray, she might have answered him; as Gypsy
Nan, it was too subtle, and she was beyond her depth.
“Youse look to me like a slick crook!” she said bluntly.
“I will admit,” he said, “that I have at times, perhaps, taken liberties
with the law.”
“Well, den,” she snapped, “cut out de high-brow stuff, an' come across
wid wot brought youse here. I ain't holdin' no reception. Who's de
friend youse was talkin' about?”
The Adventurer looked around him, and lowered his voice.
“The White Moll,” he said.
Rhoda Gray eyed the man for a long minute; then she shook her head.
“I take back wot I said about youse bein' a slick crook,” she announced
coolly. “I guess youse're a dick from headquarters. Well, youse have got
de wrong number--see? Me fingers are crossed. Try next door!”
The Adventurer's eyes were fixed on the newspaper headlines on the
floor. He raised them now significantly to hers.
“You helped her to get away from Rough Rorke last night,” he said
gently. “Well, so did I. I am very anxious to find the White Moll, and,
as I know of no other way except through you, I have got to make you
believe in me, if I can. Listen, my dear lady--and don't look at me so
suspiciously. I have already admitted that I have taken liberties with
the law. Let me add now that last night there was a little fortune of
quite a few thousand dollars that I had already made up my mind was
as good as in my pocket. I was on my way to get it--the newspaper
will already have given you the details--when I found that I had been
forestalled by the young lady, who, the papers say, is known as the
White Moll.” He smiled whimsically. “Even though one might be a slick
crook as you suggest, it is no reason why he should fail in his duty to
himself--as a gentleman. What other course was open to me? I discovered
a very charming young lady in the grip of a hulking police brute. She
also, apparently, took liberties with the law. There was a bond between
us. I--er--took it upon myself to do what I could. And, besides, I was
not insensible to the fact that I was under a certain obligation to her,
quixotic as it may sound, in view of the fact that we were evidently
competitors after the same game. You see, if she had not forestalled me
and been caught herself, I should most certainly have walked into the
trap that our friend of headquarters had prepared. I--er--as I say, did
what I could. She got away; but somehow Rough Rorke later discovered her
here in this room, I understand that he was not happy over the result;
that, thanks to you, she escaped again, and has not been heard of since.”
Rhoda Gray dropped her chin in her grime-smeared hand, staring
speculatively at the other. The man sat there, apparently a
self-confessed crook and criminal, but, also, he sat there as the man
to whom she owed the fact that at the present moment she was not behind
prison bars. He proclaimed himself in the same breath both a thief and
a gentleman, as far as she could make out. They were characteristics
which, until now, she had never associated together; but now, curiously
enough, they did not seem so utterly at variance. Of course they were
at variance, must of necessity be so; but in the personality of this man
the incongruity seemed somehow lost. Perhaps it was a sense of gratitude
toward him that modified her views. He looked a gentleman. There was
something about him that appealed. The gray eyes seemed full of cool,
confident, self-possession; and, quiet as his manner was, she sensed a
latent dynamic something lurking near the surface all the time--that she
was conscious she would much prefer to have enlisted on her behalf than
against her. The strong, firm chin bore this out. He was not handsome,
but--with a sort of mental jerk, she forced her mind back to the stark
realities of her surroundings. She could not thank him for what he had
done last night. She could not tell him that she was the White Moll.
She could only play out the role of Gypsy Nan until--until--Her hand
tightened with a fierce, involuntary pressure upon her chin until it
brought a physical hurt. Until what? God alone knew what the end of this
miserable, impossible horror, in which she found herself engulfed, would
be!
Her eyes sought his face again. The Adventurer was tactfully engaged
in carefully smoothing out the fingers of his yellow gloves. Thief
and gentleman, whatever he might be, whatever he might choose to call
himself, what, exactly, was it that had brought him here to-night? The
White Moll, he had said; but what did he want with the White Moll?
He answered her unspoken question now, almost as though he had read her
thoughts.
“She is very clever,” he said quietly. “She must be exceedingly clever
to have beaten the police the way she has for the last few years;
and--er--I worship at the shrine of cleverness--especially if it be
a woman's. The idea struck me last night that if she and I
should--er--pool our resources, we should not have to complain of the
reward.”
“Oh, so youse wants to work wid her, eh?” sniffed Rhoda Gray. “So dat's
it, is it?”
“Partially,” he said. “But, quite apart from that, the reason I want to
find her is because she is in very great danger. Clever as she is, it is
a very different matter to-day now that the police have found her out.
She has been forced into hiding, and, if alone and without any friend
to help her, her situation, to put it mildly, must be desperate in
the extreme. You befriended her last night, and I honor you for the
unselfishness with which you laid yourself open to the future attentions
of that animal Rorke, but that very fact has deprived her of what might
otherwise have been a refuge and a quite secure retreat here with you. I
do not wish to intrude, or force myself upon her, but I believe I could
be of very material help, and so I have come to you, as I have said,
because you are the only source through which I can hope to find
her, and because, through your act of last night, I know you to be a
trustworthy, and, perhaps, even an intimate, friend of hers.”
“Aw, go on!” said Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, deprecatingly. “Dat don't
prove nothin'! I'd have done as much for a stray cat if de bulls was
chasm' her. See? I told youse once youse had de wrong number. She didn't
leave no address. Dat's flat, an' dat's de end of it.”
“I'm sorry,” said the Adventurer gravely. “Perhaps I haven't made out a
good enough case. Or perhaps, even believing me, you consider that
the White Moll, and not yourself, should be the judge as to whether my
services are acceptable or not?”
“Youse can dope it out any way youse likes,” said Rhoda Gray
indifferently. “Me t'roat's gettin' hoarse tellin' youse dere's nothin'
doin'!”
“I'm sorry,” said the Adventurer again. He smiled suddenly, and tucking
his gloves into his pocket, leaned forward and tore off a small piece
from the margin of the newspaper on the floor--but his head the while
was now cocked in a curious listening attitude in the direction of the
door. “You will pardon me, my dear lady, if I confess that, in spite of
what you say, I still harbor the belief that you know where to reach
the White Moll; and so--” He stopped abruptly, and she found his glance,
sharp and critical, upon her. “You are expecting a visitor, perhaps?” he
inquired softly.
Rhoda Gray stared in genuine perplexity.
“Wot's de answer?” she demanded.
“There is some one on the stairs,” replied the Adventurer.
Rhoda Gray listened--and her perplexity deepened. She could hear
nothing.
“Youse must have good ears!” she scoffed.
“I have,” returned the Adventurer coolly. “My hearing is one of the
resources that I wanted to pool with the White Moll.”
“Well, den, mabbe it's Rough Rorke.” Her tone still held its scoffing
note; but her words voiced the genuine enough, that had come flashing
upon her. “An' if it is, after last night, an' he finds youse an' me
together, dere'll be--”
“My dear lady,” interposed the Adventurer calmly, “if there were the
remotest possibility that it could be Rough Rorke, I would not be here.”
“Wot do youse mean?” She had unconsciously towered her voice.
The Adventurer shrugged his shoulders whimsically. He had laid the piece
of paper on his knee, and, with a small gold pencil which he had taken
from his pocket, was writing something upon it.
“The fact that I can assure you that, whoever else it may be, the person
outside there cannot be Rough Rorke, is simply a proof that, if I had
the opportunity, I could be of real assistance to the White Moll,”
he said imperturbably. “Well”--a grim little smile flickered suddenly
across his lips--“do you hear any one now?”
Quite low, but quite unmistakably, the short, ladder-like steps just
outside the door were voicing a creaky protest now as some one mounted
them. Rhoda Gray did not move. It seemed as though she could hear the
sudden thumping of her own heart. Who was it this time? How was she to
act? What was she to say? It was so easy to make the single little slip
of word or manner that would spell ruin and disaster.
“Rubber heels and rubber soles,” murmured the Adventurer. “But, at that,
it is extremely well done.” He held out the torn piece of paper to Rhoda
Gray.
“If”--he smiled significantly--“if, by any good fortune, you see the
White Moll again, please give her this and let her decide for herself.
It is a telephone number. She can always reach me there by asking
for--the Adventurer.” He was still extending the piece of paper.
“Quick!” he whispered, as the door knob rattled.
V. A SECOND VISITOR
Mechanically Rhoda Gray thrust the paper into the pocket of her skirt.
The door swung open. A tall man, well dressed, as far as could be seen
in the uncertain light, a slouch hat pulled far down over his eyes,
stood on the threshold, surveying the interior of the garret.
The Adventurer rose composedly to his feet--and moved slightly back out
of the direct radius of the candlelight.
There was silence for a moment, and then the man in the doorway laughed
unpleasantly.
“Hello!” he flung out harshly. “Who's the dude, Nan?”
Rhoda Gray, on the edge of the bed, shrugged her shoulders. The
Adventurer was standing quite at his ease, his soft hat tucked under his
right arm, his hand thrust into the side pocket of his coat. She could
no longer see his face distinctly.
“Well?” There was a snarl in the man's voice as he advanced from the
doorway. “You heard me, didn't you? Who is he?”
“Why don't youse ask him yerself?” inquired Rhoda Gray truculently. “I
dunno.”
“You don't, eh?” The man had halted close to where the candle stood on
the floor between himself and the Adventurer. “Well, then, I guess we'll
find out!” He was peering in the Adventurer's direction, and now there
came a sudden savage scowl to his face. “It seems to me I've seen those
clothes somewhere before, and I guess now we'll take a look at your face
so that there won't be any question about recognition the next time we
meet.”
The Adventurer laughed softly.
“There will be none on my part,” he said calmly. “It's Danglar, isn't
it? I am surely not mistaken. Parson Danglar, alias--ah! Please don't do
that!”
It seemed to Rhoda Gray that it happened in the space of time it might
take a watch to tick: The newcomer stooping to the floor, and lifting
the candle with the obvious intention of thrusting it into the
Adventurer's face--a glint of metal, as the Adventurer whipped a
revolver from the side pocket of his coat--and then, how they got there
she could not tell, it was done so adroitly and swiftly, the thumb and
forefinger of the Adventurer's left hand had closed on the candle wick
and snuffed it out, and the garret was in darkness.
There was a savage oath, a snarl of rage from the man whom the
Adventurer had addressed as Danglar; then an instant s silence; and then
the Adventurer's voice--from the doorway:
“I beg of you not to vent your disappointment on the lady--Danglar. I
assure you that she is in no way responsible for my visit here, and, as
far as that goes, never saw me before in her life. Also, it is only fair
to tell you, in case you should consider leaving here too hurriedly,
that I am really not at all a bad shot--even in the dark. I bid you
good-night, Danglar--and you my dear lady!”
Danglar's voice rose again in a flood of profane rage. He stumbled and
moved around in the dark.
“Damn it!” he shouted. “Where are the matches? Where's the lamp? This
cursed candle's put enough to the bad already! Do you hear? Where's the
lamp?”
“It's over dere on de floor, bust to pieces,” mumbled Rhoda Gray.
“Youse'll find the matches on de washstand, an--”
“What's the idea?” There was a sudden, steel-like note dominating the
angry tones. “What are you handing me that hog-wash language for? Eh?
It's damned queer! There's been damned queer doings around here ever
since last night! See? What's the idea?”
Rhoda Gray felt her face whiten in the darkness. It was the slip she
had feared; the slip that she had had to take the chance of making, and
which, if it were not retrieved, and instantly retrieved, now that it
was made, meant discovery, and after that--She shivered a little.
“You needn't lose your head, just because you've lost your temper!” she
said tartly, in a guarded whisper. “The door into the hall is still wide
open, isn't it?”
“Oh, all right!” he said, his tones a sort of sullen admission that her
retort was justified. “But even now your voice sounds off color.”
Rhoda Gray bridled.
“Does it?” she snapped at him. “I've got a cold. Maybe you'd get one
too, and maybe your voice would be off color, if you had to live in a
dump like this, and--”
“Oh, all right, all right!” he broke in hurriedly. “For Heaven's sake
don't start a row! Forget it! See? Forget it!” He walked over to the
door, peered out, swore savagely to himself, shut the door, held the
candle up to circle the garret, and scowled as its rays fell upon the
shattered pieces of the lamp in the corner then, returning, he set the
candle down upon the chair and began to pace restlessly, three or four
steps each way, up and down in front of the bed.
Rhoda Gray, from the edge of the bed, shifted back until her shoulders
rested against the wall. Danglar, too, was dressed like a gentleman--but
Danglar's face was not appealing. The little round black eyes were
shifty, they seemed to possess no pupils whatever, and they roved
constantly; there was a hard, unyielding thinness about the lips, and
the face itself was thin, almost gaunt, as though the skin had had to
accommodate itself to more than was expected of it, and was elastically
stretched over the cheek-bones.
“Well, I'm listening!” jerked out the man abruptly. “You knew our game
at Skarbolov's was queered. You got the 'seven-three-nine,' didn't you?”
“Yes, of course, I got it,” answered Rhoda Gray. “What about it?”
“For two weeks now, yes, more than two weeks”--the man's voice rasped
angrily--“things have been going wrong, and some one has been butting in
and getting away with the goods under our noses. We know now, from last
night, that it must have been the White Moll, for one, though it's not
likely she worked all alone. Skeeny dropped to the fact that the police
were wise about Skarbolov's, and that's why we called it off, and the
'seven-three-nine' went out. They must have got wise through shadowing
the White Moll. See? Then they pinch her, but she makes her get-away,
and comes here, and, if the dope I've got is right, you hand Rough
Rorke one, and help her to beat it again. It looks blamed funny--doesn't
it?--when you come to consider that there's a leak somewhere!”
“Is that so!” Rhoda Gray flashed back. “And did you know before last
night that it was the White Moll who was queering our game?”
“If I had,” the man gritted between his teeth, “I'd--”
“Well, then, how did you expect me to know it?” demanded Rhoda Gray
heatedly. “And if the White Moll happens to know Gypsy Nan, as she knows
everybody else through her jellies and custards and fake charity, and
happens to be near here when she gets into trouble, and beats it for
here with the police on her heels, and asks for help, what do you expect
Gypsy Nan's going to do if she wants to stand any chance of sticking
around these parts--as Gypsy Nan?”
The man paused in his walk, and, jerking back his hat, drew his hand
nervously across his forehead.
“You make me tired!” said Rhoda Gray wearily. “Do you think you could
find the door without too much trouble?”
Danglar resumed his pacing back and forth, but more slowly now.
“Oh, I know! I know, Bertha!” he burst out heavily. “I'm talking through
my hat. You've got the roughest job of any of us, old girl. Don't mind
what I'm saying. Something's badly wrong, and I'm half crazy. It's
certain now that the White Moll's the one that's been doing us, and what
I really came down here for to-night was to tell you that your job from
now on was to get the White Moll. You helped her last night. She doesn't
know you are anybody but Gypsy Nan, and so you're the one person in New
York she'll dare try to communicate with sooner or later. Understand?
That's what I came for, not to talk like a fool--but that fellow I found
here started me off. Who is he? What did he want?”
“He wanted the White Moll, too,” said Rhoda Gray, with a short laugh.
“Oh, he did, eh!” Danglar's lips twisted into a sudden, merciless smile.
“Well, go on! Who is he?”
“I don't know who he is,” Rhoda Gray answered a little impatiently. “He
said he was an adventurer--if you can make anything out of that. He said
he got the White Moll away from Rough Rorke last night, after Rorke had
arrested her; and then he doped the rest out the same as you have--that
he could find the White Moll again through Gypsy Nan. I don't know what
he wanted her for.”
“That's better!” snarled Danglar, the merciless smile still on his lips.
“I thought she must have had a pal, and we know now who her pal is. It's
open and shut that she's sitting so tight she hasn't been able to get
into touch with him, and that's what's worrying Mr. Adventurer.”
Rhoda Gray, save for a nod of her head, made no answer.
Danglar laughed suddenly, as though in relief; then, coming closer to
the bed, plunged his hand into his coat pocket, and tossed handful of
jewelry carelessly into Rhoda Gray's lap.
“I feel better than I did!” he said, and laughed again. “It's a cinch
now that we'll get them both through you, and it s a cinch that the
White Moll won't cut in to-night. Put those sparklers away with the rest
until we get ready to 'fence' them.”
Rhoda Gray did not speak. Mechanically, as though she were living
through some hideous nightmare, she began to scoop up the gems from her
lap and allow them to trickle back through her fingers. They flashed and
scintillated brilliantly, even in the meager light. They seemed alive
with some premonitory, baleful fire.