forward, staring in a startled way at Pinkie as he talked; conscious now
that for a moment she had forgotten--that she was Gypsy Nan. But she was
mistress of herself on the instant, and she scowled blackly at the Pug.
“Mabbe it's me soft heart dat's touched!” she flung out acidly. “Youse
close yer trap, an' let Pinkie talk!”
“Yes, shut up!” said Pinkie. “What was I sayin'? Oh, yes! An' then the
old guy makes a strike. Can you beat it! I dunno nothing about the way
they pull them things, but he's off by his lonesome out somewhere, an'
he finds gold, an' stakes out his claim, but he takes sick again an'
can't work it, an' it's all he can do to get back alive to civilization.
He keeps his mouth shut for a while, figurin' he'll get strong again,
but it ain't no good, an' he gets a letter from the old woman tellin'
how bad she is, an' then he shows some of the stuff he'd found. After
that there's nothing to it! Everybody's beatin' it for the place; but,
at that, old Dainey comes out of it all right, an' goes crazy with joy
'cause some guy offers him twenty-five thousand bucks for his claim, an'
throws in the expenses home for good luck. He gets the money in cash,
twenty-five one-thousand-dollar bills, an' the chicken feed for the
expenses, an' starts for back here an' the old woman. But this time he
don't keep his mouth shut about it when he'd have been better off if he
had. See? He was tellin' about it on the train. I guess he was tellin'
about it all the way across. But, anyway, he tells about it comm' from
Philly this afternoon, an' French Pete an' Marny Day happens to be on
the train, an' they hears it, an' frames it up to annex the coin before
morning, 'cause he's got in too late to get the money into any bank
to-day.”
Pinkie Bonn paused, and stuck his tongue significantly in his cheek.
Shluker was rubbing his hands together now in a sort of unctuous way.
“It sounds pretty good,” he murmured; “only there's Danglar--”
“Youse leave Danglar to me!” broke in the Pug. “As soon as we hands one
to dem two boobs an' gets de cash, Pinkie can beat it back here wid de
coin an wait fer me while I finds Danglar an' squares it wid him. He
ain't goin' to put up no holler at dat. We ain't runnin' de gang into
nothin'. Dis is private business--see? So youse just take a sneak wid
yerself, an' fix a nice little alibi fer us so's we won't be takin' any
chances.”
Shluker frowned.
“But what's the good of that?” he demurred. “French Pete and Marny Day
'll see you anyway.”
“Will dey!” scoffed the Pug. “Guess once more! A coupla handkerchiefs
over our mugs is good enough fer dem, if youse holds yer end up. An' dey
wouldn't talk fer publication, anyway, would dey?”
Shluker smiled now-almost ingratiatingly.
“And how much is my end worth?” he inquired softly.
“One of dem thousand-dollar engravin's,” stated the Pug promptly. “An'
Pinkie'll run around an' slip it to youse before mornin'.”
“All right,” said Shluker, after a moment. “It's half past eight now.
From nine o'clock on, you can beat any jury in New York to it that you
were both at the same old place--as long as you keep decently under
cover. That'll do, won't it? I'll fix it. But I don't see--”
Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, for the first time projected herself into the
discussion. She cackled suddenly in jeering mirth.
“I t'ought something was wrong wid her!” whispered the Pug with mock
anxiety. “Mabbe she ain't well! Tell us about it, Nan!”
“When I do,” she said complacently, “mabbe youse'll smile out of de
other corner of dat mouth of yers!” She turned to Shluker. “Youse
needn't lay awake waitin' fer dat thousand, Shluker, 'cause youse'll
never see it. De little game's all off--'cause it's already been pulled.
See? Dere was near a riot as I passes along a street goin' to yer place,
an' I gets piped off to wot's up, an' it's de same story dat Pinkie's
told, an' de crib's cracked, an' de money's gone--dat's all.”
Shluker's face fell.
“I said you were fools when I first came in here!” he burst out
suddenly, wheeling on Pinkie Bonn and the Pug. “I'm sure of it now. I
was wonderin a minute ago how you were goin' to keep your lamps on Pete
and Marny from here, or know when they were goin' to pull their stunt,
or where to find 'em.”
Pinkie Bonn, ignoring Shluker, leaned toward Rhoda Gray.
“Say, Nan, is that straight?” he inquired anxiously. “You sure?”
“Sure, I'm sure!” Rhoda Gray asserted tersely. The one thought in her
head now was that her information would naturally deprive these men here
of any further interest in the matter, and that she would get away as
quickly as possible, and, in some way or other, see that the police were
tipped off to the fact that it was French Pete and Marny Day who had
taken the old couple's money. Those two old faces rose before her again
now--blotting out most curiously the face of Pinkie Bonn just in front
of her. She felt strangely glad--glad that she had heard all of old
Dainey's story, because she could see now an ending to it other than
the miserable, hopeless one of despair that she had read in the Daineys'
faces just a little while ago. “Sure, I'm sure!” she repeated with
finality.
“How long ago was it?” prodded Pinkie.
“I dunno,” she answered. “I just went to Shluker's, an' den we comes
over here. Youse can figure it fer yerself.”
And then Rhoda Gray stared at the other--with sudden misgiving. Pinkie
Bonn's face was suddenly wreathed in smiles.
“I'll answer you now, Shluk,” he grinned. “What do you think? That
we're nuts, me an' Pug? Well, forget it! We didn't have to stick around
watchin' Pete an' Marny; we just had to wait until they had collected
the dough. That was the most trouble we had--wonderin' when that
would be. Well, we don't have to wonder any more. We know now that the
cherries are ripe. See? An' now we'll go an' pick 'em! Where? Where d'ye
suppose? Down to Charlie's, of course! I hears 'em talkin' about that,
too. They ain't so foolish! They're out for an alibi themselves. Get the
idea? They was to sneak out of Charlie's without anybody seem' 'em,
an' if everything broke right for 'em, they was to sneak back again an'
spend the night there. No, they ain't so foolish--I guess they ain't!
There ain't no place in New York you can get in an' out of without
nobody knowin' it like Charlie's, if you know the way, an--”
“Aw, write de rest of it down in yer memoirs!” interposed the Pug
impatiently--and moved toward the door. “It's all right, Shluker--all
de way. Now, everybody beat it, an' get on de job. Nan, youse sticks wid
Pinkie an' me.”
Rhoda Gray, her mind in confusion, found herself being crowded hurriedly
through the doorway by the three men. Still in a mentally confused
condition, she found herself, a few minutes later--Shluker having parted
company with them--walking along the street between Pinkie Bonn and
the Pug. She was fighting desperately to obtain a rip upon herself. The
information she had volunteered had had an effect diametrically opposite
to that which she had intended. She seemed terribly impotent; as though
she were being swept from her feet and borne onward by some swift and
remorseless current, whether she would or no.
The Pug, in his curious whisper, was talking to her: “Pinkie knows de
way in. We don't want any row in dere, on account of Charlie. We ain't
fer puttin' his place on de rough, an' gettin' him raided by de bulls.
Charlie's all to de good. See? Well, dat's wot 'd likely happen if
me an' Pinkie busts in on Pete an' Marny widout sendin' in our
visitin'-cards first, polite-like. Dey would pull deir guns, an' though
we'd get de coin just de same, dere'd be hell to pay fer Charlie, an' de
whole place 'd go up in fireworks right off de bat. Well, dis is where
youse come in. Youse are de visitin'-card. Youse gets into deir bunk
room, pretendin' youse have made a mistake, an' youse leaves de door
open behind youse. Dey don't know youse, an', bein' a woman, dey won't
pull no gun on youse. An' den youse breaks it gently to dem dat dere's
a coupla gents outside, an' just about den dey looks up an' sees me an'
Pinkie an' our guns-an' I guess dat's all. Get it?”
“Sure!” mumbled Rhoda Gray.
The Pug talked on. She did not hear him. It seemed as though her brain
ached literally with an acute physical pain. What was she to do? What
could she do? She must do something! There must be some way to save
herself from being drawn into the very center of this vortex toward
which she was being swept closer with every second that passed. Those
two old faces, haggard in their despair and misery, rose before her
again. She felt her heart sink. She had counted, only a few moments
before, on getting their money back for them--through the police. The
police! How could she get any word to the police now, without first
getting away from these two men here? And suppose she did get away,
and found some means of communicating with the authorities, it would be
Pinkie Bonn here, and the Pug, who would fall into the meshes of the law
quite as much as would French Pete and Marny Day; and to have Pinkie and
the Pug apprehended now, just as they seemed to be opening the gateway
for her into the inner secrets of the gang, meant ruin to her own hopes
and plans. And to refuse to go on with them now, as one of them, would
certainly excite their suspicions--and suspicion of Gypsy Nan was the
end of everything for her.
Her hands, under her shawl, clenched until the nails bit into her palms.
Couldn't she do anything? And there was the money, too, for those two
old people. Wasn't there any--She caught her breath. Yes, yes! Perhaps
there was a way to save the money; yes, and at the same time to place
herself on a firmer footing of intimacy with these two men here--if she
went on with this. But--She shook her head. She could not afford “buts”
now; they must take care of themselves afterwards. She would play Gypsy
Nan now without reservation. These two men here, like Shluker, were
obviously ignorant that Gypsy Nan was Danglar's wife; so she was--Pinkie
Bonn's hand was on her arm. She had stumbled.
“Look out for yourself!” he cautioned under his breath. “Don't make a
sound!”
They had drawn into a very dark and narrow area way between two
buildings, and now Pinkie kept his touch upon her as he led the way
along. What was this “Charlie's”? She did not know, except that,
from what had been said, it was a drug dive of some kind, patronized
extensively by the denizens of the underworld. She did not know where
she was now, save that she had suddenly left one of the out-of-the--way
East Side streets.
Pinkie halted suddenly, and, bending down, lifted up what was evidently
a half section of the folding trapdoor to a cellar entrance.
“There's only a few of us regulars wise to this,” whispered Pinkie.
“Watch yourself! There's five steps. Count 'em, so's you won't trip.
Keep hold of me all the way. An' nix on the noise, or we won't get away
with it inside. Leave the trap open, Pug, for our getaway. We ain't
goin' to be long. Come on!”
It was horribly dark. Rhoda Gray, with her hand on Pinkie Bonn's
shoulder, descended the five steps. She felt the Pug keeping touch
behind by holding the corner of her shawl. They went forward softly,
slowly, stealthily. She felt her knees shake a little, and suddenly
panic seized her, and she wanted to scream out. What was she doing?
Where was she going? Was she mad, that she had ventured into this trap
of blackness? Blackness! It was hideously black. She looked behind her.
She could not see the Pug, close as he was to her; and dark as she had
thought it outside there at the cellar entrance, it appeared by contrast
to have been light, for she could even distinguish now the opening
through which they had come.
They were in a cellar that was damp underfoot, and the soft earth
deadened all sound as they walked upon it--and they seemed to be walking
on interminably. It was too far--much too far! She felt her nerve
failing her. She looked behind her again. That opening, still
discernible to her straining eyes, beckoned her, lured her. Better to...
Pinkie had halted again. She bumped into him. And then she felt his lips
press against her ear.
“Here we are!” he breathed. “They got the end room on the right, so's
they could get in an' out with out bein' seen, an so's even Charlie'd
swear they was here all the time. You're too old a bird to fall down,
Nan. If the door's locked, knock--an' give 'em any old kind of a song
an' dance till you gets 'em off their guard. The Pug an' me 'll see you
through. Go it!”
Before Rhoda Gray could reply, Pinkie had stepped suddenly to one
side. A door in front of her, a sliding door it seemed to be, opened
noiselessly, and she could see a faintly lighted, narrow, and very short
passage ahead of her. It appeared to make a right-angled turn just a few
yards in, and what light there was seemed to filter in from around the
corner. And on each side of the passage, before it made the turn, there
was a door, and from the one on the right, through a cracked panel, a
tiny thread of light seeped out.
Her lips moved silently. After all, it was not so perilous. Nobody would
be hurt. Pinkie and the Pug would cover those two men in there--and take
the money--and run for it--and...
The Pug gave her an encouraging push from behind.
She moved forward mechanically. There were many sounds now, but they
came muffled and indeterminate from around that corner ahead--all save
a low murmuring of voices from the door with the cracked panel on the
right.
It was only a few feet. She found herself crouched before the door--but
she did not knock upon it. Instead, her blood seemed suddenly to run
cold in her veins, and she beckoned frantically to her two companions.
She could see through the crack in the panel. There were two men in
there, French Pete and Marny Day undoubtedly, and they sat on opposite
sides of a table, and a lamp burned on the table, and one of the men
was counting out a sheaf of crisp yellow-back banknotes--but the other,
while apparently engrossed in the first man's occupation, and while he
leaned forward in apparent eagerness, was edging one hand stealthily
toward the lamp, and his other hand, hidden from his companion's view
by the table, was just drawing a revolver from his pocket. There was no
mistaking the man's murderous intentions. A dull horror, that numbed her
brain, seized upon Rhoda Gray; the low-type brutal faces under the rays
of the lamp seemed to assume the aspect of two monstrous gargoyles, and
to spin around and around before her vision; and then--it could only
have been but the fraction of a second since she had begun to beckon to
Pinkie and the Pug--she felt herself pulled unceremoniously away from
the door, and the Pug leaned forward in her place, his eyes to the crack
in the panel.
She heard a low, quick-muttered exclamation from the Pug; and then
suddenly, as the lamp was obviously extinguished, that crack of light
in the panel had vanished. But in an instant, curiously like a jagged
lightning flash, light showed through the crack again--and vanished
again. It was the flash of a revolver shot from within, and the roar of
the report came now like the roll of thunder on its heels.
Rhoda Gray was back against the opposite wall. She saw the Pug fling
himself against the door. It was a flimsy affair. It crashed inward. She
heard him call to Pinkie:
“Shoot yer flash on de table, an' grab de coin! I'll fix de other guy!”
Were eternities passing? Her eyes were fascinated by the interior beyond
that broken door. It was utterly dark inside there, save that the ray
of a flashlight played now on the table, and a hand reached out and
snatched up a scattered sheaf of banknotes; and on the outer edge of the
ray two shadowy forms struggled and one went down. Then the flashlight
went out She heard the Pug speak:
“Beat it!”
Commotion came now; cries and footsteps from around that corner in the
passage. The Pug grasped her by the shoulders, and rushed her back into
the cellar. She was conscious, it seemed, only in a dazed and mechanical
way. There were men in the passage running toward them--and then the
passage had disappeared. Pinkie Bonn had shut the connecting door.
“Hop it like blazes!” whispered the Pug, as they ran for the faint
glimmer of light that located the cellar exit. “Separate de minute we're
outside!” he ordered. “Dere's murder in dere. Pete shot Marny. I put
Pete to sleep wid a punch on de jaw; but de bunch knows now some one
else was dere, an' Pete'll swear it was us, though he don't know who we
was dat did de shootin'. I gotta make dis straight right off de bat wid
Danglar.” His whispering voice was labored, panting; they were climbing
up the steps now. “Youse take de money to my room, Pinkie, an' wait
fer me. I won't be much more'n half an hour. Nan, youse beat it fer yer
garret, an' stay dere!”
They were outside. The Pug had disappeared in the darkness. Pinkie was
closing, and evidently fastening, the trap-door.
“The other way, Nan!” he flung out, as she started to run. “That takes
you to the other street, an' they can't get around that way without
goin' around the whole block. Me for a fence I knows about, an' we gives
'em the merry laugh! Go on!”
She ran--ran breathlessly, stumbling, half falling, her hands stretched
out before her to serve almost in lieu of eyes, for she could make out
scarcely anything in front of her. She emerged upon a street. It seemed
abnormal, the quiet, the lack of commotion, the laughter, the unconcern
in the voices of the passers-by among whom she suddenly found herself.
She hurried from the neighborhood.
XIII. THE DOOR ACROSS THE HALL
It was many blocks away before calmness came again to Rhoda Gray,
and before it seemed, even, that her brain would resume its normal
functions; but with the numbed horror once gone, there came in its
place, like some surging tide, a fierce virility that would not be
denied. The money! The old couple on that doorstep, stripped of their
all! Wasn't that one reason why she had gone on with Pinkie Bonn and
the Pug? Hadn't she seen a way, or at least a chance, to get that money
back?
Rhoda Gray looked quickly about her. On the corner ahead she saw a drug
store, and started briskly in that direction. Yes, there was a way! The
idea had first come to her from the Pug's remark to Shluker that, after
they had secured the money, Pinkie would return with it to the Pug's
room, while the Pug would go and square things with Danglar. And also,
at the same time, that same remark of the Pug's had given rise to a
hope that she might yet trace Danglar to night through the Pug--but the
circumstances and happenings of the last few minutes had shattered that
hope utterly. And so there remained the money. And, as she had walked
with Pinkie and the Pug a little while ago, knowing that Pinkie would,
if they were successful, carry the money back to the Pug's room, just
as was being done now precisely in accordance with the Pug's original
intentions, she had thought of the Adventurer. It had seemed the only
way then; it seemed the only way now--despite the fact that she would be
hard put to it to answer the Adventurer if he thought to ask her how, or
by what means, she was in possession of the information that enabled
her to communicate with him. But she must risk that--put him off, if
necessary, through the plea of haste, and on the ground that there was
not time to-night for an unnecessary word. He had given her, believing
her to be Gypsy Nan, his telephone number, which she, in turn, was to
transmit to the White Moll--in other words, herself! But the White
Moll, so he believed, had never received that message--and it must
of necessity be as the White Moll that she must communicate with him
to-night! It would be hard to explain--she meant to evade it. The one
vital point was that she remembered the telephone number he had given
her that night when he and Danglar had met in the garret. She was not
likely to have forgotten it!
Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, scuffled along. Was she inconsistent? The
Adventurer would be in his element in going to the Pug's room, and in
relieving Pinkie Bonn of that money; but the Adventurer, too, was
a thief-wasn't he? Why, then, did she propose, for her mind was now
certainly made up as to her course of action, to trust a thief to
recover that money for her?
She smiled a little wearily as she reached the drug store, stepped into
the telephone booth, and gave central her call. Trust a thief! No, it
wasn't because her heart prompted her to believe in him; it was because
her head assured her she was safe in doing so. She could trust him in an
instance such as this because--well, because once before, for her sake
he had foregone the opportunity of appropriating a certain diamond
necklace worth a hundred times the sum that she would ask him--yes, if
necessary, for her sake--to recover to-night. There was no...
She was listening in a startled way now at the instrument. Central had
given her “information”; and “information” was informing her that the
number she had asked for had been disconnected.
She hung up the receiver, and went out again to the street in a dazed
and bewildered way. And then suddenly a smile of bitter self-derision
crossed her lips. She had been a fool! There was no softer word--a fool!
Why had she not stopped to think? She understood now! On the night the
Adventurer had confided that telephone number to her as Gypsy Nan, he
had had every reason to believe that Gypsy Nan would, as she had already
apparently done, befriend the White Moll even to the extent of accepting
no little personal risk in so doing. But since then things had taken a
very different turn. The White Moll was now held by the gang, of which
Gypsy Nan was supposed to be a member, to be the one who had of late
profited by the gang's plans to the gang's discomfiture; and the
Adventurer was ranked but little lower in the scale of hatred, since
they counted him to be the White Moll's accomplice. Knowing this,
therefore, the first thing the Adventurer would naturally do would be to
destroy the clew, in the shape of that telephone number, that would lead
to his whereabouts, and which he of course believed he had put into the
gang's hands when he had confided in Gypsy Nan. Had he not told her, no
later than last night, that Gypsy Nan was her worst enemy? He did not
know, did he, that Gypsy Nan and the White Moll were one! And so that
telephone had been disconnected--and to-night, now, just when she needed
help at a crucial moment, when she had counted upon the Adventurer to
supply it, there was no Adventurer, no means of reaching him, and no
means any more of knowing where he was!
Rhoda Gray walked on along the street, her lips tight, her face drawn
and hard. Failing the Adventurer, there remained--the police. If she
telephoned the police and sent them to the Pug's room, they would of a
certainty recover the money, and with equal certainty restore it to its
rightful owners. She had already thought of that when she had been with
Pinkie and the Pug, and had been loath even then to take such a step
because it seemed to spell ruin to her own personal plans; but now there
was another reason, and one far more cogent, why she should not do
so. There had been murder committed back there in that underground
drug-dive, and of that murder Pinkie Bonn was innocent; but if Pinkie
were found in possession of that money, and French Pete, to save his own
skin from the consequences of a greater crime, admitted to its original
theft, Pinkie would be convicted out of hand, for there were the others
in that dive, who had come running along the passage, to testify that
an attack had been made on the door of French Pete and Marny Day's
room, and that the thieves and murderers had fled through the cellar and
escaped.
Her lips pressed harder together. And so there was no Adventurer upon
whom she could call, and no police, and no one in all the millions in
this great pulsing city to whom she could appeal; and so there remained
only--herself.
Well, she could do it, couldn't she? Not as Gypsy Nan, of course--but as
the White Moll. It would be worth it, wouldn't it? If she were sincere,
and not a moral hypocrite in her sympathy for those two outraged old
people in the twilight of their lives, and if she were not a moral
coward, there remained no question as to what her decision should be.