Stevie played the doctor. And old Hayden-Bond of course grants his
prison-bird chauffeur's request to spend the night with his mother, who
the doctor says is taken worse, because the old guy knows there is a
mother who really is sick. Only Mr. Hayden-Bond, and the police with
him, will maybe figure it a little differently in the morning when they
find the safe looted, and that the Sparrow, instead of ever going near
the poor old dame, has flown the coop and can't be found. And in case
there's any lingering doubt in their minds, that piece of paper with the
grease-smudges and the Sparrow's greasy finger-prints on it, that you
remember we copped a few days ago in the garage, will set them straight.
The Cricket slipped it in among the papers he pulled out of the safe
and tossed around on the floor. It looks as though a tool had been wiped
with it while the safe was being cracked, and that it got covered over
by the stuff that was emptied out, and had been forgotten. I guess they
won't be long in comparing the finger-prints with the ones the Sparrow
kindly left with them when they measured him for his striped suit the
time they sent him up the river--eh?”
Rhoda Gray could see now. Her eyes were on a level with the landing, and
diagonally across from the head of the stairs was the open doorway of a
lighted room. She could not see all of the interior, but she could see
quite enough. Two men sat, side face to her, one at each end of a rough,
deal table--Danglar, and an ugly, pock-marked, unshaven man, in a peaked
cap that was drawn down over his eyes, who whittled at a stick with a
huge jack-knife. The latter was Skeeny, obviously; and the jack-knife
and the stick, quite as obviously, explained Danglar's facetious
reference to wood-carving. And then her eyes shifted, and widened as
they rested on a huddled form that she could see by looking under and
beyond the table, and that lay sprawled out against the far wall of the
room.
Skeeny pushed the peak of his cap back with the point of his
knife-blade.
“What's the haul size up at?” he demanded. “Anything in the safe besides
the shiners?”
“A few hundred dollars,” Danglar replied. “I don't know exactly how
much. I told the Cricket to divide it up among the boys who did the
rough work. That's good enough, isn't it, Skeeny? It gives you a little
extra. You'll get yours.”
Skeeny grunted compliance.
“Well, let's have a look at the white ones, then,” he said.
Rhoda Gray was standing upright in the little hallway now, and now,
pressed close against the wall, she edged toward the door-jamb. And a
queer, grim little smile came and twisted the sensitive lips, as she
drew her revolver from her pocket. The merciless, pitiless way in which
the newspapers had flayed the White Moll was not, after all, to be
wholly regretted! The cool, clever resourcefulness, the years of
reckless daring attributed to the White Moll, would stand her in good
stead now. Everybody on the East Side knew her by sight. These men knew
her. It was not merely a woman ambitiously attempting to beard two men
who, perhaps, holding her sex in contempt in an adventure of this
kind, might throw discretion to the winds and give scant respect to her
revolver, for behind the muzzle of that revolver was the reputation of
the White Moll. They would take her at face value--as one who not only
knew how to use that revolver, but as one who would not hesitate an
instant to do so.
From the room she heard Skeeny whistle low under his breath, as though
in sudden and amazed delight--and then she was standing full in the open
doorway, and her revolver in her outflung, gloved hand covered the two
men at the table.
There was a startled cry from Skeeny, a scintillating flash of light as
a magnificent string of diamonds fell from his hand to the table. But
Danglar did not move or speak; only his lips twitched, and a queer
whiteness came and spread itself over his face.
“Put up your hands-both of you!” she ordered, in a low, tense voice.
It was Skeeny who spoke, as both men obeyed her. “The White Moll, so
help me!” he mumbled, and swallowed hard.
Danglar's eyes never seemed to leave her face, and they narrowed now,
full of hatred and a fury that lie made no attempt to conceal. She
smiled at him coldly. She quite understood! He had already complained
that evening that the White Moll for the last few weeks had been robbing
them of the fruits of their laboriously planned schemes. And now-again!
Well, she would not dispel his illusion! He had given the White Moll
that role--and it was the safest role to play.
She stepped forward now, and with her free hand suddenly pulled the
table toward her out of their reach; and then, as she picked up the
necklace, she appeared for the first time to become aware of the
presence of the huddled form on the floor near the wall. She could see
that the Sparrow was bound and gagged, and as he squirmed now he turned
his face toward her.
“Why, it's the Sparrow, isn't it?” she exclaimed sharply; then, evenly,
to the two men: “I had no idea you were so hospitable! Push your chairs
closer together--with your feet, not your hands! You are easier to watch
if you are not too far apart.”
Dangler complied sullenly. Skeeny, over the scraping of his chair legs,
cursed in a sort of unnerved abandon, as he obeyed her.
“Thank you!” said Rhoda Gray pleasantly--and calmly tucked the necklace
into her bodice.
The act seemed to rouse Danglar to the last pitch of fury. The blood
rushed in an angry tide to his face, and, suffusing, purpled his cheeks.
“This isn't the first crack you've made!” he flung out hoarsely. “You've
been getting wise to a whole lot lately somehow, you and that dude pal
of yours, but you'll pay for it, you female devil! Understand? By God,
you'll pay for it! I promise you that you'll pray yet on your bended
knees for the chance to take your own life! Do you hear?”
“I hear,” said Rhoda Gray coldly.
She picked up the jack-knife from the table, and keeping both men
covered, stepped backward to the wall. Here, kneeling, she reached
behind her with her left hand, and felt for, and cut the heavy cord that
bound the Sparrow's arms; then, pushing the knife into the Sparrow's
hands that he might free himself from the rest of his bonds, she stood
up again.
A moment more, and the Sparrow, rubbing the circulation back into his
wrists, stood beside her. There was a look on the young, white face that
was not good to see. He circled dry lips with the tip of his tongue and
then his thumb began to feel over the blade of the big jack-knife in a
sort of horribly supercritical appraisal of its edge. He spoke thickly
for the gag that had been in his mouth.
“You dirty skates!” he whispered. “You were going to bump me off, were
you? You planted me cold, did you? Oh, hell!” His laugh, like the laugh
of one insane, jangling, discordant, rang through the room. “Well,
it's my turn now, and”--his body was coiling itself in a slow, curious,
almost snake-like fashion--“and you'll--”
Rhoda Gray laid her hand on the Sparrow's arm.
“Not that way, Marty,” she said quietly. She smiled thinly at Danglar,
who, with genuinely frightened eyes now, seemed fascinated by the
Sparrow's movements. “I wouldn't care to have anything happen to Mr.
Danglar--yet. He has been invaluable to me, and I am sure he will be
again.”
The Sparrow brushed his hands across his eyes, and stared at her. He
licked his lips again. He appeared to be obsessed with the knife-blade
in his hand--dazed in a strange way to all else.
“There's enough cord there for both of them,” said Rhoda Gray crisply.
“Tie them in their chairs, Marty.”
For a moment the Sparrow hesitated; and then, with a sort of queer
reluctancy, he dropped the knife on the table, and went and picked up
the strands of cord from the floor.
No one spoke. The Sparrow, with twitching lips as he worked, and worked
not gently, bound first Danglar and then Skeeny to their respective
chairs. Skeeny for the most part kept his eyes on the floor, casting
only furtive glances at Rhoda Gray's revolver muzzle. But Danglar was
smiling now. He had very white teeth. There was something of primal,
insensate fury in the hard-drawn, parted lips. Somehow he seemed to
remind Rhoda Gray of a beast, stung to madness, but impotent behind the
bars of its cage, as it showed its fangs.
“We'll go now, Marty,” she said softly, as the Sparrow finished.
She motioned the Sparrow with an imperious little nod of her head to the
door. And then, following the other, she backed to the door herself, and
halted an instant on the threshold.
“It has been a very profitable evening, Mr. Danglar,” she said coolly.
“I have you to thank for it. When your friends come, which I think I
heard you say would be in another hour or so, I hope you will not fail
to convey to them my--”
“You she-fiend!” Danglar had found his voice again. “You'll crawl for
this! Do you understand? and I'll show you inside of twenty-four hours
what you're up against, you--you--” His voice broke in its fury. The
veins were standing out on the side of his neck like whipcords. He could
just move his forearms a little, and his hands reached out toward her,
curved like claws. “I'll--”
But Rhoda Gray had closed the door behind her, and, with the Sparrow,
was retreating down the stairs.
VII. FELLOW THIEVES
Reaching the courtyard, Rhoda Gray led the way without a word through
the driveway, and finding the street clear, hurried on rapidly. Her
mind, strangely stimulated, was working in quick, incisive flashes.
Her work was not yet done. The Sparrow was safe, as far as his life was
concerned; but her possession of even the necklace would not save the
Sparrow from the law. There was the money that was gone from the safe.
She could not recover that, but--yes, dimly, she began to see a way. She
swerved suddenly from the sidewalk as she came to an alleyway--which had
been her objective--and drew the Sparrow in with her out of sight of the
street.
The Sparrow gripped at her hand.
“The White Moll!” he whispered brokenly. “God bless the White Moll! I
ain't had a chance to say it before. You saved my life, and I--I--”
In the semi-darkness she leaned forward and laid her fingers gently over
the Sparrow's lips.
“And there's no time to say it now, Marty,” she said quickly. “You are
not out of this yet.”
He swept his hand across his eyes.
“I know it,” he said. “I got to get those shiners back up there somehow,
and I got to get that paper they planted on me.”
She shook her head.
“Even that wouldn't clear you,” she said. “The safe has been looted of
money, as well; and you can't replace that. Even with only the money
gone, who would they first naturally suspect? You are known as a
safe-breaker; you have served a term for it. You asked for a night off
to stay with your mother who is sick. You left Mr. Hayden-Bond's, we'll
say, at seven or eight o'clock. It's after midnight now. How long would
it take them to find out that between eight and midnight you had not
only never been near your mother, but could not prove an alibi of any
sort? If you told the truth it would sound absurd. No one in their sober
senses would believe you.”
The Sparrow looked at her miserably.
“My God!” he faltered. He wet his lips. “That's true.”
“Marty,” she said quietly, “did you read in the papers that I had been
arrested last night for theft, caught with the goods on me, but had
escaped?”
The Sparrow hesitated.
“Yes, I did,” he said. And then, earnestly: “But I don't believe it!”
“It was true, though, Marty--all except that I wasn't a thief,” she said
as quietly as before. “What I want to know is, in spite of that, would
you trust me with what is left to be done to-night, if I tell you that I
believe I can get you out of this?”
“Sure, I would!” he said simply. “I don't know how you got wise about
all this, or how you got to know about that necklace, but any of our
crowd would trust you to the limit. Sure, I'd trust you! You bet your
life!”
“Thank you, Marty,” she said. “Well, then, how do you get into Mr.
Hayden-Bond's house when, for instance, you are out late at night?”
“I've got a key to the garage,” he answered. “The garage is attached to
the house, though it opens on the side street.”
She held Out her hand.
The Sparrow fished in his pocket, and extended the key without
hesitation.
“It's for the small door, of course,” he explained.
“You haven't got a flashlight, I suppose?” she smiled.
“Sure! There's plenty of 'em! Each car's got one with its tools under
the back seat.”
She nodded.
“And now, the library,” she said. “What part of the house is it in? How
is it situated?”
“It's on the ground floor at the back,” he told her. “The little short
passage from the garage opens on the kitchen, then the pantry, and then
there's a little cross hallway, and the dining-room is on the left, and
the library on the right. But ain't I going with you?”
She shook her head again.
“You're going home, Marty--after you've sent me a taxicab. If you were
seen in that neighborhood now, let alone by any chance seen in the
house, nothing could save you. You understand that, don't you? Now,
listen! Find a taxi, and send it here. Tell the chauffeur to pick me up,
and drive me to the corner of the cross street, one block in the rear of
Mr. Hayden-Bond's residence. Don't mention Hayden-Bond's name. Give the
chauffeur simply street directions. Be careful that he is some one who
doesn't know you. Tell him he will be well paid--and give him this to
begin with.” She thrust a banknote into the Sparrow's hand. “You're sure
to find one at some all-night cabaret around here. And remember,
when you go home afterward, not a word to your mother! And not a word
to-morrow, or ever-to any one! You've simply done as you told your
employer you were going to do--spent the night at home.”
“But you,” he burst out, and his words choked a little. “I--I can't let
you go, and--”
“You said you would trust me, Marty,” she said. “And if you want to help
me, as well, don't waste another moment. I shall need every second I
have got. Quick! Hurry!”
“But--”
She pushed him toward the street.
“Run!” she said tensely. “Hurry, Marty, hurry!”
She drew back into the shadows. She was alone now. The Sparrow's racing
footsteps died away on the pavement. Her mind reverted to the plan
that she had dimly conceived. It became detailed, concrete now, as the
minutes passed. And then she heard a car coming along the previously
deserted street, and she stepped out on the sidewalk. It was the taxi.
“You know where to go, don't you?” she said to the chauffeur, as the cab
drew up at the curb, and the man leaned out and opened the door.
“Yes'm,” he said.
“Please drive fast, then,” she said, as she stepped in.
The taxi shot out from the curb, and rattled forward at a rapid pace.
Rhoda Gray settled back on the cushions. A half whimsical, half weary
little smile touched her lips. It was much easier, and infinitely safer,
this mode of travel, than that of her earlier experience that evening;
but, earlier that evening, she had had no one to go to a cab rank
for her, and she had not dared to appear in the open and hail one for
herself. The smile vanished, and the lips became, pursed and grim. Her
mind was back on that daring, and perhaps a little dangerous, plan, that
she meant to put into execution. Block after block was traversed. It
was a long way uptown, but the chauffeur's initial and generous tip was
bearing fruit. The man was losing no time.
Rhoda Gray calculated that they had been a little under half an hour in
making the trip, when the taxi finally drew up and stopped at a corner,
and the chauffeur, again leaning out, opened the door.
“Wait for me,” she instructed, and handed the man another tip--and, with
a glance about her to get her location, she hurried around the corner,
and headed up the cross street.
She had only a block now to go to reach the Hayden-Bond mansion on the
corner of Fifth Avenue ahead--less than that to reach the garage,
which opened on the cross street here. She had little fear of personal
identification now. Here in this residential section and at this hour of
night, it was like a silent and deserted city; even Fifth Avenue, just
ahead, for all its lights, was one of the loneliest places at this hour
in all New York. True, now and then, a car might race up or down the
great thoroughfare, or a belated pedestrian's footsteps ring and echo
hollow on the pavement, where but a few hours before the traffic-squad
struggled valiantly, and sometimes vainly, with the congestion--but that
was all.
She could make out the Hayden-Bond mansion on the corner ahead of her
now, and now she was abreast of the rather ornate and attached little
building, that was obviously the garage. She drew the key from her
pocket, and glanced around her. There was no one in sight. She stepped
swiftly to the small door that flanked the big double ones where the
cars went in and out, opened it, closed it behind her, and locked it.
For a moment, her eyes unaccustomed to the darkness, she could see
nothing; and then a car, taking the form of a grotesque, looming shadow,
showed in front of her. She moved toward it, felt her way into
the tonneau, lifted up the back seat, and, groping around, found a
flashlight. She meant to hurry now. She did not mean to let that nervous
dread, that fear, that was quickening her pulse now, have time to get
the better of her. She located the door that led to the house, and in
another moment, the short passage behind her, she was in the kitchen,
the flashlight winking cautiously around her. She paused to listen here.
There was not a sound.
She went on again--through a swinging pantry door with extreme care, and
into a small hall. “On the right,” the Sparrow had said. Yes, here
it was; a door that opened on the rear of the library, evidently. She
listened again. There was no sound--save the silence, that seemed to
grow loud now, and palpitate, and make great noises. And now, in spite
of herself, her breath was coming in quick, hard little catches, and the
flashlight's ray, that she sent around her, wavered and was not steady.
She bit her lips, as she switched off the light. Why should she be
afraid of this, when in another five minutes she meant to invite
attention!
She pushed the door in front of her open, found it hung with a heavy
portiere inside, brushed the portiere aside, stepped through into the
room, stood still and motionless to listen once more, and then the
flashlight circled inquisitively about her.
It was the library. Her eyes widened a little. At her left, over against
the wall, the mangled door of a safe stood wide open, and the floor for
a radius of yards around was littered with papers and documents. The
flashlight's ray lifted, and she followed it with her eyes as it made
the circuit of the walls. Opposite the safe, and quite near the doorway
in which she stood, was a window recess, portiered; diagonally across
from her was another door that led, presumably, into the main hall
of the house; the walls were tapestried, and hung here and there with
clusters of ancient trophies, great metal shields, and swords, and
curious arms, that gave a sort of barbaric splendor to the luxurious
furnishings of the apartment.
She worked quickly now. In a moment she was at the window portieres,
and, drawing these aside, she quietly raised the window, and looked out.
The window was on the side of the house away from the cross street, and
she nodded her head reassuringly to herself as she noted that it gave on
a narrow strip of grass, it could not be called lawn, that separated the
Hayden-Bond mansion from the house next door; that the window was little
more than shoulder-high from the ground; and that the Avenue was within
easy and inviting reach along that little strip of grass between the two
houses.
She left the window open, and retraced her steps across the room, going
now to the littered mass of papers on the floor near the safe. She began
to search carefully amongst them. She smiled a little curiously as
she came across the plush-lined jeweler's case that had contained the
necklace, and which had evidently been contemptuously discarded by the
Cricket and his confederates; but it took her longer to find the paper
for which she was searching. And then she came upon it--a grease-smeared
advertisement for some automobile appliances, a well-defined greasy
finger-print at one edge--and thrust the paper into her pocket.
And now suddenly her heartbeat began to quicken again until its thumping
became tumultuous. She was ready now. She looked around her, using
the flashlight, and her eyes rested appraisingly on one of the great
clusters of shields and arms that hung low down on the wall between the
window and the door by which she had entered. Yes, that would do. Her
lips tightened. It would have been so easy if there had not been that
cash to account for! She could replace the necklace, but she could not
replace the cash--and one, as far as the Sparrow was concerned, was as
bad as the other. But there was a way, and it was simple enough. She
whispered to herself that it was not, after all, very dangerous, that
the cards were all in her own hands. She had only to pull down those
shields with a clatter to the floor, which would arouse some one of the
household, and as that some one reached the library door and opened
it, she would be disappearing through the window, and the necklace, as
though it had slipped from her pocket or grasp in her wild effort to
escape, would be lying behind her on the floor. They would see that
it was not the Sparrow; and there would be no question as to where the
money was gone, since the money had not been dropped. There was the
interval, of course, that must elapse between the accident that knocked
the shields from the wall and the time it would take any of the inmates
to reach the library, an interval in which a thief might reasonably be
expected to have had time enough to get away without being seen; but
the possibility that she had not fully accomplished her ends when the
accident occurred, and that she had stayed to make frantic and desperate
efforts to do so right up to the last moment, would account for that.
She moved now to an electric-light switch, and turned on the light.
They must be able to see beyond any question of doubt that the person
escaping through the window was not the Sparrow. What was she afraid of
now, just at the last! There was an actual physical discomfort in the
furious thumping of that cowardly little heart of hers. It was the only
way. And it was worth it. And it was not so very dangerous. People,
aroused out of bed, could not follow her in their night clothes; and in
a matter of but a few minutes, before the police notified by telephone
could become a factor in the affair, she would have run the block down
the Avenue, and then the other block down the cross street, then back to
the taxi, and be whirling safely downtown.
Yes, she was ready! She nodded her head sharply, as though in imperative
self-command, and running back, her footfalls soundless on the rich,
heavy rug, she picked up the plush-lined necklace case. She dropped this
again, open, on the floor, halfway between the safe and the window. With
the case apparently burst open as it fell, and the necklace also on the
floor, the stage would be set! She felt inside her bodice, drew out the
necklace--and as she stood there holding it, and as it caught the light
and flashed back its fire and life from a thousand facets, a numbness
seemed to come stealing over her, and a horror, and a great fear, and a
dismay that robbed her of power of movement until it seemed that she was
rooted to the spot, and a low, gasping cry came from her lips. Her eyes,
wide with their alarm, were fixed on the window. There was a man's
face there, just above the sill--and now a man's form swung through the
window, and dropped lightly to the floor inside the room. And she stared
in horrified fascination, and could not move. It was the Adventurer.
“It's Miss Gray, isn't it? The White Moll?” he murmured amiably. “I've
been trying to find you all night. What corking luck! You remember me,
don't you? Last night, you know.”
She did not answer. His eyes had shifted from her face to the glittering
river of gems in her hand.
“I see,” he smiled, “that you are ahead of me again. Well, it is the
fortune of war, Miss Gray. I do not complain.”
She found her voice at last; and, quick as a flash, as he advanced a
step, she dropped the necklace into her pocket, and her revolver was in
her hand.
“W--what are you doing here?” she whispered.
He shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“I take it that we are both in the same boat,” he said pleasantly.