with her a few hours ago, when he had believed he was talking to Gypsy
Nan. And now he stood before her for the second time a self-confessed
thief. In the same boat-fellow-thieves! A certain cold composure came to
her. “You mean you came to steal this necklace? Well, you shall not have
it! And, furthermore, you have no right to class me with yourself as a
thief.”
He had a whimsical and very engaging smile. His eyebrows lifted.
“Miss Gray perhaps forgets last night,” he suggested.
“No, I do not forget last night,” she said slowly, “And I do not forget
that I owe you very much for what you did. And that is one reason why I
warn you at once that, as far as the necklace is concerned, it will
do you no good to build any hopes on the supposition that we are
fellow-thieves, and that I am likely either to part with it, or, through
gratitude, share it. In spite of appearances last night, I was not a
thief.”
“And to-night, Miss Gray--in spite of appearances?” he challenged.
He was regarding her with eyes that, while they appraised shrewdly,
held a lurking hint of irony in their depths. And somehow, suddenly,
self-proclaimed crook though she held him to be, she found herself
seized with an absurd, unreasonable, but nevertheless passionate, desire
to make good her words.
“Yes, and to-night, too!” she asserted. “I did not steal this necklace.
I--never mind how--I--I got it. It was planned to put the theft on an
innocent man's shoulders. I was trying to thwart that plan. Whether you
believe me or not, I did not come here to steal the necklace; I came
here to return it.”
“Quite so! Of course!” acknowledged the Adventurer softly. “I am afraid
I interrupted you, then, in the act of returning it. Might I suggest,
therefore, Miss Gray, that as it's a bit dangerous to linger around here
unnecessarily, you carry out your intentions with all possible haste,
and get away.”
“And you?” she queried evenly.
“Myself, of course, as well.” He shrugged his shoulders philosophically.
“Under the circumstances, as a gentleman--will you let me say I prefer
that word to the one I know you are substituting for it--what else can I
do?”
She bit her lips. Was he mocking her? The gray eyes were inscrutable
now.
“Then please do not let me detain you!” she said sharply. “And in my
turn, let me advise you to go at once. I intend to knock one of
those shields down from the wall before I go, in order to arouse the
household. I will, however, in part payment for last night, allow you
three full minutes from the time you climb out of that window, so that
you may have ample time to get away.”
He stared at her in frank bewilderment.
“Good Lord!” he gasped. “You--you're joking, Miss Gray.”
“No, I am not,” she replied coolly. “Far from it! There was money stolen
that I cannot replace, and the theft of the money would be put upon
the same innocent shoulders. I see no other way than the one I have
mentioned. If whoever runs into this room is permitted to get a glimpse
of me, and is given the impression that the necklace, which I shall
leave on the floor, was dropped in my haste, the supposition remains
that, at least, I got away with the money. I am certainly not the
innocent man who has been used as the pawn; and if I am recognized as
the White Moll, what does it matter--after last night?”
He took a step toward her impetuously--and stopped quite as impetuously.
Her revolver had swung to a level with his head.
“Pardon me!” he said.
“Not at all!” she said caustically.
For the first time, as she watched him warily, the Adventurer appeared
to lose some of his self-assurance. He shifted a little uneasily on
his feet, and the corners of his eyes puckered into a nest of perturbed
wrinkles.
“I say, Miss Gray, you can't mean this!” he protested. “You're not
serious!”
“I have told you that I am,” she answered steadily. “Those three minutes
that I gave you are going fast.”
“Then look here!” he exclaimed earnestly. “I'll tell you something. I
said I had been trying to find you to-night. It was the truth. I went to
Gypsy Nan's--and might have been spared my pains. I told her about last
night, and that I knew you were in danger, and that I wanted to help
you. I mention this so that you will understand that I am not just
speaking on the spur of the moment, now that I have an opportunity of
repeating that offer in person.”
She looked at him impassively for a moment. He had neglected to state
that he had also told Gypsy Nan he desired to enter into a partnership
with her--in crime.
“It is very kind of you,” she said sweetly. “I presume, then, that you
have some suggestion to make?”
“Only what any--may I say it?--gentleman would suggest under the
circumstances. It is far too dangerous a thing for a woman to attempt;
it would be much less dangerous for me. I realize that you are in
earnest now, and I will agree to carry out your plan in every detail
once I am satisfied that you are safely away.”
“The idea being,” she observed monotonously, “that, being safely away,
and the necklace being left safely on the floor, you are left safely in
possession of--the necklace. Well, my answer is--no!”
His face hardened a little.
“I'm sorry, then,” he said. “For in that case, in so far as your project
is concerned, I, too, must say--no!”
It was an impasse. She studied his face, the strong jaw set a little
now, the lips molded in sterner lines, and for all her outward show of
composure, she knew a sick dismay. And for a moment she neither moved
nor spoke. What he would do next, she did not know; but she knew
quite well that he had not the slightest intention of leaving her here
undisturbed to carry out her plan, unless--unless, somehow, she could
outwit him. She bit her lips again. And then inspiration came. She
turned, and with a sudden leap gained the wall, and the next instant,
holding him back with her revolver as she reached up with her left hand,
she caught at the great metal shield with its encircling cluster of
small arms, and wrenched it from its fastenings. It crashed to the floor
with a din infernal that, in the night silence, went racketing through
the house like the reverberations of an explosion.
“My God, what have you done!” he cried out hoarsely.
“What I said I'd do!” she answered. She was white-faced, frightened at
her own act, fighting to maintain her nerve. “You'll go now, I imagine!”
she flung at him passionately. “You haven't much time.”
“No!” he said. His composure was instantly at command again. “No,”
he repeated steadily; “not until after you have gone. I
refuse--positively--to let you run any such risk as that. It is far too
dangerous.”
“Yes, you will!” she burst out wildly. “You will! You must! You shall!
I--I--” The house itself seemed suddenly to have awakened. From above
doors opened and closed. Indistinctly there came the sound of a voice.
She clenched her hand in anguished desperation. “Go, you--you coward!”
she whispered frantically.
“Miss Gray, for God's sake, do as I tell you!” he said between his
teeth. “You don't realize the danger. It's not the pursuit. They are not
coming down here unarmed after that racket. I know that you came in by
that door there. Go out that way. I will play the game for you. I swear
it!”
There were footsteps, plainly audible now, out in the main hall.
“Quick!” he urged. “Are we both to be caught? See!” He backed suddenly
toward the window.
“See! I am too far away now to touch that necklace before they get here.
Throw it down, and get behind the portiere of the rear door!”
Mechanically she was retreating. They were almost at the other door now,
those footsteps outside in the main hall. With a backward spring she
reached the portiere. The door handle across the room rattled. She
glanced at the Adventurer. He was close to the window. It was true,
he could not get the necklace and at the same time hope to escape. She
whipped it from her pocket, tossed it from her to the floor near the
plush-lined case--and slipped behind the portiere.
The door opposite to her was wrenched violently open. She could
see through the corner of the portiere. There was a sharp, excited
exclamation, as a gray-haired man, in pajamas, evidently Mr. Hayden-Bond
himself, sprang into the room. He was followed by another man in equal
dishabille.
And the Adventurer was leaping for the window.
There was a blinding flash, the roar of a report, as the millionaire
flung up a revolver and fired; it was echoed by the splatter and tinkle
of falling glass. The Adventurer was astride the window sill now, his
face deliberately and unmistakably in view.
“A foot too high, and a bit to the right!” said the Adventurer
debonairly--and the window sill was empty.
Rhoda Gray stole silently through the doorway behind her. She could hear
the millionaire and his companion, the butler, probably, rush across the
library to the window. As she gained the pantry, she heard another shot.
Tight-lipped, using her flashlight, she ran through the kitchen. In a
moment more, she was standing at the garage door, listening, peering
furtively outside. The street itself was empty; there were shouts,
though, from the direction of the Avenue. She stepped out on the side
street, and walking composedly that she might not attract attention,
though very impulse urged her to run with frantic haste, she reached the
corner and the waiting taxicab. She gave the chauffeur an address that
would bring her to the street in the rear of Gypsy Nan's and within
reach of the lane where she had left her clothes, and, with an
injunction to hurry, sprang into the cab.
And then for a long time she sat there with her hands tightly clasped in
her lap. Her mind, her brain, her very soul itself seemed in chaos and
turmoil. There was the Sparrow, who was safe; and Danglar, who would
move heaven and hell to get her now; and the Adventurer, who--Her mind
seemed to grope around in cycles; it seemed to moil on and on and arrive
at nothing. The Adventurer had played the game--perhaps because he had
had to; but he had not risked that revolver shot in her stead because
he had had to. Who was he? How had he come there? How had he found her
there? How had he known that she had entered by that rear door behind
the portiere? She remembered how that he had offered not a single
explanation.
Almost mechanically she dismissed the taxi when at last it stopped;
and almost mechanically, as Gypsy Nan, some ten minutes later, she let
herself into the garret, and lighted the candle. She was conscious, as
she hid the White Moll's clothes away, that she was thankful she had
regained in safety even the questionable sanctuary of this wretched
place; but, strangely, thoughts of her own peril seemed somehow to be
temporarily relegated to the background.
She flung herself down on the bed--it was not Gypsy Nan's habit to
undress--and blew out the light. But she could not sleep. And hour after
hour in the darkness she tossed unrestfully. It was very strange! It
was not as it had been last night. It was not the impotent, frantic
rebellion against the horrors of her own situation, nor the fear and
terror of it, that obsessed her to-night. It was the Adventurer who
plagued her.
VIII. THE CODE MESSAGE
It was strange! Most strange! Three days had passed, and to Gypsy Nan's
lodging no one had come. The small crack under the partition that had
been impressed into service as a letter-box had remained empty. There
had been no messages--nothing--only a sinister, brooding isolation.
Since the night Rhoda Gray had left Danglar, balked, almost a madman in
his fury, in the little room over Shluker's junk shop, Danglar had not
been seen--nor the Adventurer--nor even Rough Rorke. Her only visitant
since then had been an ugly premonition of impending peril, which came
and stalked like a hideous ghost about the bare and miserable garret,
and which woke her at night with its whispering voice--which was the
voice of intuition.
Rhoda Gray drew her shawl closer around her shoulders and shivered, as
now, from shuffling down the block in the guise of Gypsy Nan, she halted
before the street door of what fate, for the moment, had thrust upon her
as a home; and shivered again, as, with abhorrence, she pushed the door
open and stepped forward into the black, unlighted hallway. Soul, mind
and body were in revolt to-night. Even faith, the simple faith in God
that she had known since childhood, was wavering. There seemed nothing
but horror around her, a mental horror, a physical horror; and the sole
means of even momentary relief and surcease from it had been a pitiful
prowling around the streets, where even the fresh air seemed to be
denied to her, for it was tainted with the smells of squalor that ruled,
rampant, in that neighborhood.
And to-night, stronger than ever, intuition and premonition of
approaching danger lay heavy upon her, and oppressed her with a sense of
nearness. She was not a coward; but she was afraid. Danglar would leave
no stone unturned to get the White Moll. He had said so. She remembered
the threat he had made--it had lived in her woman's soul ever since that
night. Better anything than to fall into Danglar's hands! She caught her
breath a little, and shivered again as she groped her way up the dark
stairs. But, then, she never would fall into Danglar's power. There was
always an alternative. Yes, it was quite as bad as that--death at her
own hands was preferable. Balked, outwitted, the plans of the criminal
coterie, of which Danglar appeared to be the head, rendered again and
again abortive, and believing it all due to the White Moll, all of
Danglar's shrewd, unscrupulous cunning would be centered on the task
of running her down; and if, added to this, he discovered that she
was masquerading as Gypsy Nan, one of their own inner circle, it mean
that--She closed her lips in a hard, tight line. She did not want
to think of it. She had fought all day, and the days before, against
thinking about it, but premonition had crept upon her stronger and
stronger, until to-night, now, it seemed as though her mind could dwell
on nothing else.
On the landing, she paused suddenly and listened. The street door had
opened and closed, and now a footstep sounded on the stairs behind her.
She went on again along the hall, feeling her way; and reaching the
short, ladder-like steps to the garret, she began to mount them. Who
was it there behind her? One of the unknown lodgers on the lower floor,
or--? She could not see, of course. It was pitch black. But she could
hear. And as she knelt now on the narrow landing, and felt with her
fingers along the floor for the aperture, where, imitating the custom
of Gypsy Nan, she had left her key when she went out, she heard the
footsteps coming steadily on, passing the doors below her, and making
toward the garret ladder. And then, stifling a startled little cry, her
hand closed on the key, and closed, as it had closed on that first night
when she had returned here in the role of Gypsy Nan, on a piece of
paper wrapped around the key. The days of isolation were ended with
climacteric effect; the pendulum had swung full the other way--to-night
there was both a visitor and a message!
The paper detached from the key and thrust into her bodice, she stood up
quickly. A form, looming up even in the darkness, showed on the garret
stairs. “Who's dere?” she croaked.
“It's all right,” a voice answered in low tones. “You were just ahead of
me on the street. I saw you come in. It's Pierre.”
Pierre! So that was his name! It was only the voice she recognized.
Pierre--Danglar! She fumbled for the keyhole, found it, and inserted the
key. “Well, how's Bertha to-night?”
There seemed to be a strange exhilaration in the man's voice. He was
standing beside her now, close beside her, and now his hand played with
a curiously caressing motion on her shoulder. The touch seemed to scorch
and burn her. Who was this Danglar, who was Pierre to her, and to whom
she was Bertha? Her breath came quickly in spite of herself; there came,
too, a frenzy of aversion, and impulsively she flung his hand away, and
with the door unlocked now, stepped from him into the garret.
“Feeling a bit off color, eh?” he said with a short laugh, as he
followed her, and shut the door behind him. “Well, I don't know as I
blame you. But, look here, old girl, have a heart! It's not my fault.
I know what you're grouching about--it's because I haven't been around
much lately. But you ought to know well enough that I couldn't help it.
Our game has been crimped lately at every turn by that she-devil, the
White Moll, and that dude pal of hers.” He laughed out again--in
savage menace now. “I've been busy. Understand, Bertha? It was either
ourselves, or them. We've got to go under--or they have. And we won't! I
promise you that! Things'll break a little better before long, and I'll
make it up to you.”
She could not see him in the blackness of the garret. She breathed a
prayer of gratitude that he could not see her. Her face, in spite of
Gipsy Nan's disguising grime, must be white, white as death itself. It
seemed to plumb some infamous depth from which her soul recoiled, this
apology of his for his neglect of her. And then her hands at her
sides curled into tight-clenched little fists as she strove to control
herself. His words, at least, supplied her with her cue.
“Of course!” she said tartly, but in perfect English--the vernacular of
Gypsy Nan was not for Danglar, for she remembered only too well how
once before it had nearly tripped her up. “But you didn't come here to
apologize! What is it you want?”
“Ah, I say, Bertha!” he said appeasingly. “Cut that out! I couldn't help
being away, I tell you. Of course, I didn't come here to apologize--I
thought you'd understand well enough without that. The gang's out of
cash, and I came to tap the reserves. Let me have a package of the long
green, Bertha.”
It was a moment before she spoke. Her woman's instinct prompted her to
let down the bars between them in no single degree, that her protection
lay in playing up to the full what Danglar, jumping at conclusions, had
assumed was a grouch at his neglect. Also, her mind worked quickly.
Her own clothes were no longer in the secret hiding place here in
the garret; they were out there in that old shed in the lane. It was
perfectly safe, then, to let Danglar go to the hiding place himself,
assuming that he knew where it was--which, almost of necessity, he must.
“Oh!” she said ungraciously. “Well, you know where it is, don't you?
Suppose you go and get it yourself!”
“All right!” returned Danglar, a sullenness creeping into his voice.
“Have it your own way, Bertha! I haven't got time to-night to coax
you out of your tantrums. That's what you want, but I haven't got
time--to-night.”
She did not answer.
A match crackled in Danglar's hand; the flames spurted up through the
darkness. Danglar made his way over to the rickety washstand, found the
candle that was stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, lighted it, held
the candle above his head, and stared around the garret.
“Why the devil don't you get another lamp?” he grumbled--and started
toward the rear of the garret.
Rhoda Gray watched him silently. She did not care to explain that she
had not replaced the lamp for the very simple reason that it gave far
too much light here in the garret to be safe--for her! She watched him,
with her hand in the pocket of her greasy skirt clutched around another
legacy of Gypsy Nan--her revolver. And now she became conscious that
from the moment she had entered the garret, her fingers, hidden in that
pocket, had sought and clung to the weapon. The man filled her with
detestation and fear; and somehow she feared him more now in what he was
trying to make an ingratiating mood, than she had feared him in the full
flood of his rage and anger that other night at Shluker's place.
She drew back a little toward the cot bed against the wall, drew back to
give him free passage to the door when he should return again, her eyes
still holding on the far end of the garret, where, with the slope of the
roof, the ceiling was no more than shoulder high. There seemed something
horribly weird and grotesque in the scene before her. He had pushed the
narrow trap-door in the ceiling upward, and had thrust candle and
head through the opening, and the faint yellow light, seeping back and
downward in flickering, uncertain rays, suggested the impression of
a gruesome, headless figure standing there hazily outlined in the
surrounding murk. It chilled her; she clutched at her shawl, drew it
more closely about her, and edged still nearer to the wall.
And then Danglar closed the trap-door again, and came back with the
candle in one hand, and one of the bulky packages of banknotes from the
hiding place in the other. He set the candle down on the washstand, and
began to distribute the money through his various pockets.
He was smiling with curious complacency.
“It was your job to play the spider to the White Moll if she ever showed
up again here in your parlor,” he said. “Maybe somebody tipped her off
to keep away, maybe she was too wily; but, anyway, since you have not
sent out any word, it is evident that our little plans along that
line didn't work, since she has failed to come back to pay a call of
gratitude to you. I don't suppose there's anything to add to that, eh,
Bertha? No report to make?”
“No,” said Rhoda Gray shortly. “I haven't any report to make.”
“Well, no matter!” said Danglar. He laughed out shortly. “There are
other ways! She's had her fling at our expense; it's her turn to pay
now.” He laughed again--and in the laugh now there was something
both brutal in its menace, and sinister in its suggestion of gloating
triumph.
“What do you mean?” demanded Rhoda Gray quickly. “What are you going to
do?”
“Get her!” said Danglar. The man's passion flamed up suddenly; he spoke
through his closed teeth. “Get her! I made her a little promise. I'm
going to keep it! Understand?”
“You've been saying that for quite a long time,” retorted Rhoda Gray
coolly. “But the 'getting' has been all the other way so far. How are
you going to get her?”
Danglar's little black eyes narrowed, and he thrust his head forward and
out from his shoulders savagely. In the flickering candle light, with
contorted face and snarling lips, he looked again the beast to which she
had once likened him.
“Never mind how I'm going to get her!” he flung out, with an oath. “I
told you I'd been busy. That's enough! You'll see--”
Rhoda Gray, in the semi-darkness, shrugged her shoulders. Was the man,
prompted by rage and fury, simply making wild threats, or had he at last
some definite and perhaps infallible plan that he purposed putting into
operation? She did not know; and, much as it meant to her, she did
not dare take the risk of arousing suspicion by pressing the question.
Failing, then, to obtain any intimation of what he meant to do, the next
thing most to be desired was to get rid of him.
“You've got the money. That's what you came for, wasn't it?” she
suggested coldly.
He stared at her for a moment, and then his face gradually lost its
scowl.
“You're a rare one, Bertha!” he exclaimed admiringly. “Yes; I've got the
money--and I'm going. In fact, I'm in a hurry, so don't worry! You got
the dope, like everybody else, for to-night, didn't you? It was sent out
two hours ago.”
The dope! It puzzled her for the fraction of a second--and then she
remembered the paper she had thrust into the bodice of her dress. She
had not read it. She lunged a little in the dark.
“Yes,” she said curtly.
“All right!” he said-and moved toward the door. “That explains why I'm
in a hurry--and why I can't stop to oil that grouch out of you. But I'll
keep my promise to you, too, old girl. I'll make up the last few days to
you. Have a heart, eh, Bertha! 'Night!”
She did not answer him. It seemed as though an unutterable dread had
suddenly been lifted from her, as he passed out of the door and began
to descend the steps to the hall below. Her “grouch,” he had called
it. Well, it had served its purpose! It was just as well that he should
think so! She followed to the door, and deliberately slammed it with a
bang. And from below, his laugh, more an amused chuckle, echoed back and
answered her.