Adventurer had left Danglar--handcuffed to the fire escape! The smile
vanished. The humor of the situation was not long-lived; it ended there.
Danglar was as cunning as the proverbial fox; and Danglar, at that
moment, in desperate need of explaining his predicament in some
plausible way to the police, had, as the expression went, run true to
form. Danglar's story, as reported by the papers, even rose above his
own high-water mark of vicious cunning, because it played upon a chord
that appealed instantly to the police; and it rang true, not only
because what the police could find out about him made it likely,
but also because it contained a modicum of truth in itself; and,
furthermore, Danglar had scored on still another count in that his story
must stimulate the police into renewed activities as his unsuspecting
allies in the one thing, the one aim and object that, at that moment,
must obsess him above all others--the discovery of herself, the White
Moll.
It was ingeniously simple, Danglar's smooth and oily lie! He had been
walking along the street, he had stated, when he saw a woman, as she
passed under a street lamp, who he thought resembled the White Moll.
To make sure, he followed her--at a safe distance, as he believed. She
entered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of the
place, which bore out his first impression that the woman was the one
he thought she was; but he did not want to make a fool of himself by
calling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so he
finally followed her inside, and heard her go upstairs, and crept up
after her in the dark. And then, suddenly, he was set upon and hustled
into a room. It was the White Moll, all right; and the shots came from
her companion, a man whom he described minutely--the description
being that of the Adventurer, of course. They seemed to think that he,
Danglar, was a plain-clothes man, and tried to sicken him of his job by
frightening him. And then they forced him through the window and down
the fire escape, and fastened him there with handcuffs to mock the
police, and the White Moll's companion had deliberately fired some more
shots to make sure of bringing the police to the scene, and then the two
of them had run for it.
Rhoda Gray's eyes darkened angrily. The newspapers said that Danglar had
been temporarily held by the police, though his story was believed to be
true, for certainly the man would make no mistake as to the identity of
the White Moll, since his life, what the police could find out about it,
coincided with his own statements, and he would naturally therefore have
seen her many times in the Bad Lands when she was working there under
cover of her despicable role of sweet and innocent charity. Danglar had
made no pretensions to self-righteousness--he was too cute for that. He
admitted that he had no “specific occupation,” that he hung around the
gambling hells a good deal, that he followed the horses--that, frankly,
he lived by his wits. He had probably given some framed-up address to
the police, but, if so, the papers had not stated where it was. Rhoda
Gray's face, under the grime of Gypsy Nan's disguise, grew troubled
and perplexed. Neither had the papers, even the evening papers, stated
whether Danglar had as yet been released--they had devoted the rest of
their space to the vilification of the White Moll. They had demanded
in no uncertain tones a more conclusive effort on the part of the
authorities to bring her, and with her now the man in the case, as they
called the Adventurer, to justice, and...
The thought of the Adventurer caused her mind to swerve sharply off at
a tangent. Where he had piqued and aroused her curiosity before, he
now, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. It
was strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and hers, had become
interwoven! She had owed him much; but last night she had repaid him and
squared accounts. She had told him so. She owed him nothing more. If a
sense of gratitude had once caused her to look upon him with--with--She
bit her lips. What was the use of that? Had it become so much a part of
her life, so much a habit, this throwing of dust in the eyes of others,
this constant passing of herself off for some one else, this constant
deception, warranted though it might be, that she must now seek to
deceive herself! Why not frankly admit to her own soul, already in the
secret, that she cared in spite of herself--for a thief? Why not admit
that a great hurt had come, one that no one but herself would ever know,
a hurt that would last for always because it was a wound that could
never be healed?
A thief! She loved a thief. She had fought a bitter, stubborn battle
with her common sense to convince herself that he was not a thief.
She had snatched hungrily at the incident that centered around those
handcuffs, so opportunely produced from the Adventurer's pocket. She had
tried to argue that those handcuffs not only suggested, but proved, he
was a police officer in disguise, working on some case in which Danglar
and the gang had been mixed up; and, as she tried to argue in this wise,
she tried to shut her eyes to the fact that the same pocket out of which
the handcuffs came was at exactly the same moment the repository of as
many stolen banknotes as it would hold. She had tried to argue that the
fact that he was so insistently at work to defeat Danglar's plans was
in his favor; but that argument, like all others, came quickly and
miserably to grief. Where the “leak” was, as Danglar called it, that
supplied the Adventurer with foreknowledge of the gang's movements, she
had no idea, save that perhaps the Adventurer and some traitor in the
gang were in collusion for their own ends--and that certainly did not
lift the Adventurer to any higher plane, or wash from him the stigma of
thief.
She clenched her hands. It was all an attempt at argument without the
basis of a single logical premise. It was silly and childish! Why hadn't
the man been an ordinary, plain, common thief and criminal--and looked
like one? She would never have been attracted to him then even through
gratitude! Why should he have all the graces and ear-marks of breeding?
Why should he have all the appearances of gentleman? It seemed a
needlessly cruel and additional blow that fate had dealt her, when
already she was living through days and nights of fear, of horror, of
trepidation, so great that at times it seemed she would literally lose
her reason. If he had not looked, yes, and at times, acted, so much like
a thorough-bred gentleman, there would never have come to her this hurt,
this gulf between them that could not now be spanned, and in a personal
way she would never have cared because he was--a thief.
Her mental soliloquy ended abruptly. She had reached the narrow driveway
that led in, between the two blocks of down-at-the-heels tenements, to
the courtyard at the rear that harbored Shluker's junk shop. And now,
unlike that other night when she had first paid a visit to the place,
she made no effort at concealment as she entered the driveway. She
walked quickly, and as she emerged into the courtyard itself she saw a
light in the window of the junk shop.
Rhoda Gray nodded her head. It was still quite early, still almost
twilight--not more than eight o'clock. Back there, on that squalid
doorstep where the old woman and the old man had stood, it had still
been quite light. The long summer evening had served at least to sear,
somehow, those two faces upon her mind. It was singular that they should
intrude themselves at this moment! She had been thinking, hadn't she,
that at this hour she might naturally expect to find Shluker still in
his shop? That was why she had come so early--since she had not cared to
come in full daylight. Well, if that light meant anything, he was there.
She felt her pulse quicken perceptibly as she crossed the courtyard, and
reached the shop. The door was open, and she stepped inside. It was
a dingy place, filthy, and littered, without the slightest attempt at
order, with a heterogeneous collection of, it seemed, every article one
could think of, from scraps of old iron and bundles of rags to cast-off
furniture that was in an appalling state of dissolution. The light, that
of a single and dim incandescent, came from the interior of what was
apparently the “office” of the establishment, a small, glassed-in
partition affair, at the far end of the shop.
Her first impression had been that there was no one in the shop, but
now, from the other side of the glass partition, she caught sight of
a bald head, and became aware that a pair of black eyes were fixed
steadily upon her, and that the occupant was beckoning to her with his
hand to come forward.
She scuffled slowly, but without hesitation, up the shop. She intended
to employ the vernacular that was part of the disguise of Gypsy Nan.
If Shluker, for that was certainly Shluker there, gave the slightest
indication that he took it amiss, her explanation would come glibly and
logically enough--she had to be careful; how was she supposed to know
whether there was any one else about, or not!
“'Ello!” she said curtly, as she reached the doorway of the little
office, and paused on the threshold. Shifty little black eyes met hers,
as the bald head fringed with untrimmed gray hair, was lifted from a
battered desk, and the wizened face of an old man was disclosed under
the rays of the tin-shaded lamp. He grinned suddenly, showing discolored
teeth--and instinctively she drew back a little. He was an uninviting
and exceedingly disreputable old creature.
“You, eh, Nan!” he grunted. “So you've come to see old Jake Shluker,
have you? 'Tain't often you come! And what's brought you, eh?”
“I can read, can't I?” Rhoda Gray glanced furtively around her, then
leaned toward the other. “Say, wot's de lay? I been scared stiff all
day. Is dat straight wot de papers said about youse-know-who gettin'
pinched?”
A scowl settled over Shluker's features as he nodded.
“Yes; it's straight enough,” he answered. “Damn 'em, one and all! But
they let him out again.”
“Dat's de stuff!” applauded Rhoda Gray earnestly. “Where is he, den?”
Shluker shook his head.
“He didn't say,” said Shluker.
“He didn't say?” echoed Rhoda Gray, a little tartly. “Wot d'youse mean,
he didn't say? Have youse seen him?”
Shluker jerked his hand toward the telephone instrument on the desk.
“He was talkin' to me a little while ago.”
“Well, den”--Rhoda Gray risked a more peremptory tone--“where is he?”
Shluker shook his head again.
“I dunno,” he said. “I'm tellin' you, he didn't say.”
Rhoda Gray studied the wizened and repulsive old creature, that, huddled
in his chair in the dirty, boxed-in little office, made her think of
some crafty old spider lurking in its web for unwary prey. Was the man
lying to her? Was he in any degree suspicious? Why should he be? He
had given not the slightest sign that her uncouth language was either
unexpected or unnecessary. Perhaps to Shluker, and perhaps to all the
rest of the gang--except Danglar!--Gypsy Nan was accepted at face
value as just Gypsy Nan; and, if that were so, the idea of playing up
a natural wifely anxiety on Danglar's behalf could not be used unless
Shluker gave her a lead in that direction. But, all that apart, she was
getting nowhere. She bit her lips in disappointment. She had counted a
great deal on this Shluker here, and Shluker was not proving the fount
of information, far from it, that she had hoped he would.
She tried again-even more peremptorily than before.
“Aw, open up!” she snapped. “Wot's de use bein' a clam! Youse heard me,
didn't youse? Where is he?”
Shluker leaned abruptly forward, and looked at her in a suddenly
perturbed way.
“Is there anything wrong?” he asked in a tense, lowered voice. “What
makes you so anxious to know?”
Rhoda Gray laughed shortly.
“Nothin'!” she answered coolly. “I told youse once, didn't I? I got a
scare readin' dem papers--an' I ain't over it yet. Dat's wot I want to
know for, an' youse seem afraid to open up!”
Shluker sank back again in his chair with an air of relief.
“Oh!” he ejaculated. “Well, that's all right, then. You were beginning
to give me a scare, too. I ain't playin' the clam, and I dunno where he
is; but I can tell you there's nothing to worry you any more about the
rest of it. He was after the White Moll last night, and it didn't come
off. They pulled one on him instead, and fastened him to the fire escape
the way the papers said. Skeeny and the Cricket, who were in on the play
with him, didn't have time to get him loose before the bulls got there.
So Danglar told them to beat it, and he handed the cops the story that
was in the papers. He got away with it, all right, and they let go him
to-day; but he phoned a little while ago that they were still stickin'
around kind of close to him, and that I was to pass the word that the
lid was to go down tight for the next few days, and--”
Shluker stopped abruptly as the telephone rang, and reached for the
instrument.
Rhoda Gray fumbled unnecessarily with her shawl, as the other answered
the call. Failure! A curious bitterness came to her. Her plan then, for
to-night it least, was a failure. Shluker did not know where Danglar
was. She was quite convinced of that. Shluker was--She glanced suddenly
at the wizened little old man. From an ordinary tone, Shluker' s voice
had risen sharply in protest about something. She listened now:
“No, no; it does not matter what it is!
“What?...No! I tell you, no! Nothing! Not to-night! Those are the
orders....No, I don't know! Nan is here now....Eh?....You'll pay for
it if you do!” Shluker was snarling threateningly now. “What?....Well,
then, wait! I'll come over....No, you can bet I won't be long! You wait!
Understand?”
He banged the receiver on the hook, and got up from his chair hurriedly.
“Fools!” he muttered savagely. “No, I won't be long gettin' there!” He
grabbed Rhoda Gray's arm. “Yes, and you come, too! You will help me put
a little sense into their heads, if it is possible--eh? The fools!”
The man was violently excited. He half pulled Rhoda Gray down the length
of the shop to the front door. Puzzled, bewildered, a little uneasy, she
watched him lock the door, and then followed him across the courtyard,
while he continued to mutter constantly to himself.
“Wot's de matter?” she asked him twice.
But it was not until they had reached the street, and Shluker was
hurrying along as fast as he could walk, that he answered her.
“It's the Pug and Pinkie Bonn!” he jerked out angrily. “They're in the
Pug's room. Pinkie went back there after telephonin'. They've nosed
out something they want to put through. The fools! And after last
night nearly havin' finished everything! I told 'em--you heard me--that
everybody's to keep under cover now. But they think they've got a soft
thing, and they say they're goin' to it. I've got to put a crimp in it,
and you've got to help me. Y'understand, Nan?”
“Yes,” she said mechanically.
Her mind was working swiftly. The night, after all, perhaps, was not to
be so much of a failure! To get into intimate touch with all the members
of the clique was equally one of her objects, and, failing Danglar
himself to-night, here was an “open sesame” to the re-treat of two of
the others. She would never have a better chance, or one in which risk
and danger, under the chaperonage, as it were, of Shluker here, were,
if not entirely eliminated, at least reduced to an apparently negligible
minimum. Yes; she would go. To refuse was to turn her back on her own
proposed line of action, and on the decision which she had made herself.
XII. CROOKS Vs. CROOKS
It was not far. Shluker, hastening along, still muttering to himself,
turned into a cross street some two blocks away, and from there again
into a lane; and, a moment later, led the way through a small door
in the fence that hung, battered and half open, on sagging and broken
hinges. Rhoda Gray's eyes traveled sharply around her in all directions.
It was still light enough to see fairly well, and she might at some
future time find the bearings she took now to be of inestimable worth.
Not that there was much to remark! They crossed a diminutive and
disgustingly dirty backyard, whose sole reason for existence seemed to
be that of a receptacle for old tin cans, and were confronted by the
rear of what appeared to be a four-story tenement. There was a back door
here, and, on the right of the door, fronting the yard, a single window
that was some four or five feet from the level of the ground.
Shluker, without hesitation, opened the back door, shut it behind them,
led the way along a black, unlighted hall, and halting before a door
well toward the front of the building, knocked softly upon it--giving
two raps, a single rap, and then two more in quick succession. There
was no answer. He knocked again in precisely the same manner, and then
a footstep sounded from within, and the door was flung open. “Fools!”
growled Shluker in greeting, as they stepped inside and the door was
closed again. “A pair of brainless fools!”
There were two men there. They paid Shluker scant attention. They both
grinned at Rhoda Gray through the murky light supplied by a wheezy and
wholly inadequate gas-jet.
“Hello, Nan!” gibed the smaller of the two. “Who let you out?”
“Aw, forget it!” croaked Rhoda Gray.
Shluker took up the cudgels.
“You close your face, Pinkie!” he snapped. “Get down to cases! Do you
think I got nothing else to do but chase you two around like a couple
of puppy dogs that haven't got sense enough to take care of themselves?
Wasn't what I told you over the phone enough without me havin' to come
here?”
“Nix on that stuff!” returned the one designated as Pinkie
imperturbably. “Say, you'll be glad you come when we lets you in on
a little piece of easy money. We ain't askin' your advice; all we're
askin' you to do is frame up the alibi, same as usual, for me an' the
Pug here in case we wants it.”
Shluker shook his fist.
“Frame nothing!” he spluttered angrily. “Ain't I tellin' you that the
orders are not to make a move, that everything is off for a few days?
That's the word I got a little while ago, and the Seven-Three-Nine is
goin' out now. Nan'll tell you the same thing.”
“Sure!” corroborated Rhoda Gray, picking up the obvious cue. “Dat's de
straight goods.”
The two men were lounging beside a table that stood at the extreme end
of the room, and now for a moment they whispered together. And, as they
whispered, Rhoda Gray found her first opportunity to take critical stock
both of her surroundings and of the two men themselves. Pinkie, a short,
slight little man, she dismissed with hardly a glance; he was the common
type, with low, vicious cunning stamped all over his face--an ordinary
rat of the underworld. But her glance rested longer on his companion.
The Pug was indeed entitled to his moniker! His face made her think of
one. It seemed to be all screwed up out of shape. Perhaps the eye-patch
over the right eye helped a little to put the finishing touch of
repulsiveness upon a countenance already most unpleasant. The celluloid
eye-patch, once flesh-colored, was now so dirty and smeared that its
original color was discernible only in spots, and the once white elastic
cord that circled his head and kept the patch in place was in equal
disrepute. A battered slouch hat came to the level of the eye-patch in
a forbidding sort of tilt. His left eyelid drooped until it was scarcely
open at all, and fluttered continually. One nostril of his nose was
entirely closed; and his mouth seemed to be twisted out of shape, so
that, even when in repose, the lips never entirely met at one corner.
And his ears, what she could see of them in the poor light, and on
account of the slouch hat, seemed to bear out the low-type criminal
impression the man gave her, in that they lay flat back against his
head.
She turned her eyes away with a little shudder of repulsion, and gave
her attention to an inspection of the room. There was no window,
except a small one high up in the right-hand partition wall. She quite
understood what that meant. It was common enough, and all too unsanitary
enough, in these old and cheap tenements; the window gave, not on the
out-of-doors, but on a light-well. For the rest, it was a room she
had seen a thousand times before--carpetless, unfurnished save for the
barest necessities, dirt everywhere, unkempt.
Pinkie Bonn broke in abruptly upon her inspection.
“That's all right!” he announced airily. “We'll let Nan in on it, too.
The Pug an' me figures she can give us a hand.”
Shluker's wizened little face seemed suddenly to go purple.
“Are you tryin' to make a fool of me?” he half screamed. “Or can't you
understand English? D'ye want me to keep on tellin' you till I'm hoarse
that there ain't nobody goin' in with you, because you am't goin' in
yourself! See? Understand that? There's nothing doin' to-night for
anybody--and that means you!”
“Aw, shut up, Shluker!” It was the Pug now, a curious whispering
sibilancy in his voice, due no doubt to the disfigurement of his lips.
“Give Pinkie a chance to shoot his spiel before youse injure yerself
throwin' a fit! Go on, Pinkie, spill it.”
“Sure!” said Pinkie eagerly. “Listen, Shluk! It ain't any crib we're
wantin' to crack, or nothin' like that. It's just a couple of crooks
that won't dare open their yaps to the bulls, 'cause what we're after
'll be what they'll have pinched themselves. See?”
Shluker's face lost some of its belligerency, and in its place a dawning
interest came.
“What's that?” he demanded cautiously. “What crooks?”
“French Pete an' Marny Day,” said Pinkie--and grinned.
“Oh!” Shluker's eyebrows went up. He looked at the Pug, and the Pug
winked knowingly with his half-closed left eyelid. Shluker reached out
for a chair, and, finding it suspiciously wobbly, straddled it warily.
“Mabbe I've been in wrong,” he admitted. “What's the lay?”
“Me,” said Pinkie, “I was down to Charlie's this afternoon havin' a
little lay-off, an'--”
“One of these days,” interrupted Shluker sharply, “you'll go out
like”--he snapped his fingers--“that!” “Can't you leave the stuff
alone?”
“I got to have me bit of coke,” Pinkie answered, with a shrug of his
shoulders. “An', anyway, I'm no pipe-hitter.
“It's all the same whatever way you take it!” retorted Shluker. “Well,
go on with your story. You went down to Charlie's dope parlors, and
jabbed a needle into yourself, or took it some other old way. I get you!
What happened then?”
“It was about an hour ago,” resumed Pinkie Bonn with undisturbed
complacency. “Just as I was beatin' it out of there by the cellar, I
hears some whisperin' as I was passin' one of the end doors. Savvy? I
hadn't made no noise, an' they hadn't heard me. I gets a peek in, 'cause
the door's cracked. It was French Pete an' Marny Day. I listens. An'
after about two seconds I was goin' shaky for fear some one would come
along an' I wouldn't get the whole of it. Take it from me, Shluk, it was
some goods!”
Shluker grunted noncommittingly.
“Well, go on!” he prompted.
“I didn't get all the fine points,” grinned Pinkie; “but I got enough.
There was a guy by the name of Dainey who used to live somewhere on the
East Side here, an' he used to work in some sweat-shop, an' he worked
till he got pretty old, an' then his lungs, or something, went bad on
him, an' he went broke. An' the doctor said he had to beat it out of
here to a more salubrious climate. Some nut filled his ear full 'bout
gold huntin' up in Alaska, an' he fell for it. He chewed it over with
his wife, an' she was for it too, 'cause the doctor 'd told her her old
man would bump off if he stuck around here, an' they hadn't any money
to get away together. She figured she could get along workin' out by the
day till he came back a millionaire; an' old Dainey started off.
“I dunno how he got there. I'm just fillin' in what I hears French Pete
an' Marny talkin' about. I guess mostly he beat his way there ridin' the
rods; but, anyway, he got there. See? An' then he goes down sick there
again, an' a hospital, or some outfit, has to take care of him for a
couple of years; an' back here the old woman got kind of feeble an' on
her uppers, an there was hell to pay, an'--”
“Wot's bitin' youse, Nan?” The Pug's lisping whisper broke sharply in
upon Pinkie Bonn's story.