all. The whole thing that has kept you under cover has bust wide open
your way, and you win. And Pierre's going through for a clean-up.
To-morrow you can swell around in a limousine again. And maybe you'll
come around and take me for a drive, if I dress up, and promise to hide
in a corner of the back seat so's they won't see your handsome friend!”
The creature flung a bitter smile at her, and lurched on.
He had told her what she wanted to know--more than she had hoped for.
The mystery that surrounded the character of Gypsy Nan, the evidence of
the crime at which the woman who had originated that role had hinted
on the night she died, and which must necessarily involve Danglar, was
hers, Rhoda Gray's, now for the taking. As well go and give herself up
to the police as the White Moll and have done with it all, as to refuse
to seize the opportunity which fate, evidently in a kindlier mood toward
her now, was offering her at this instant. It promised her the hold upon
Danglar that she needed to force an avowal of her own innocence, the
very hold that she had but a few minutes before been hoping she could
obtain through the Adventurer.
There was no longer any question as to whether she would go or not.
Her hand groped down under the shabby black shawl into the wide,
voluminous pocket of her greasy skirt. Yes, her revolver was there. She
knew it was there, but the touch of her fingers upon it seemed to bring
a sense of reassurance. She was perhaps staking her all in accompanying
this cripple here to-night--she did not need to be told that--but there
was a way of escape at the last if she were cornered and caught. Her
fingers played with the weapon. If the worst came to the worst she would
never be at Danglar's mercy while she possessed that revolver and, if
the need came, turned it upon herself.
They walked on rapidly; the lurching figure beside her covering the
ground at an astounding rate of speed. The man made no effort to talk.
She was glad of it. She need not be so anxiously on her guard as would
be the case if a conversation were carried on, and she, who knew so much
and yet so pitifully little, must weigh her every word, and feel her way
with every sentence. And besides, too, it gave her time to think. Where
were they going? What sort of a place was it, this headquarters of the
gang? For it must be the headquarters, since it was from there the code
messages would naturally emanate, and this deformed creature, from what
he had said, was the “secretary” of the nefarious clique that was ruled
by his brother. And was luck really with her at last? Suppose she had
been but a few minutes later in reaching Gypsy Nan's house, and had
found, instead of this man here, only the note instructing her to go and
meet Danglar! What would she have done? What explanation could she have
made for her nonappearance? Her hands would have been tied. She would
have been helpless. She could not have answered the summons, for she
could have had no idea where this gang-lair was; and the note certainly
would not contain such details as street and number, which she was
obviously supposed to know. She smiled a little grimly to herself.
Yes, it seemed as though fortune were beginning to smile upon her
again--fortune, at least, had supplied her with a guide.
The twisted figure walked on the inside of the sidewalk, and curiously
seemed to seek as much as possible the protecting shadows of the
buildings, and invariably shrank back out of the way of the passers-by
they met. She watched him narrowly as they went along. What was
he afraid of? Recognition? It puzzled her for a time, and then
she understood: It was not fear of recognition; the sullen, almost
belligerent stare with which he met the eyes of those with whom he
came into close contact belied that. The man was morbidly, abnormally
sensitive of his deformity.
They turned at last into one of the East Side cross streets, and her
guide halted finally on a corner in front of a little shop that was
closed and dark. She stared curiously as the man unlocked the door.
Perhaps, after all, she had been woefully mistaken. It did not look at
all the kind of place where crimes that ran the gamut of the decalogue
were hatched, at all the sort of place that was the council chamber
of perhaps the most cunning, certainly the most cold-blooded and
unscrupulous, band of crooks that New York had ever harbored. And
yet--why not? Wasn't there the essence of cunning in that very fact? Who
would suspect anything of the sort from a ramshackle, two-story little
house like this, whose front was a woe-begone little store, the proceeds
of which might just barely keep the body and soul of its proprietor
together?
The man fumbled with the lock. There was not a single light showing from
the place, but in the dwindling rays of a distant street lamp she could
see the meager window display through the filthy, unwashed panes. It was
evidently a cheap and tawdry notion store, well suited to its locality.
There were toys of the cheapest variety, stationery of the same grade,
cheap pipes, cigarettes, tobacco, candy--a package of needles.
“Go on in!” grunted the man, as he pushed the door--which seemed to
shriek out unduly on its hinges--wide open. “If anybody sees the door
open, they'll be around wanting to buy a paper of pins--curse 'em!--and
I ain't open to-night.” He snarled as he shut and locked the door.
“Pierre says you're grouching about your garret. How about me, and this
job? You get out of yours to-night for keeps. What about me? I can't do
anything but act as a damned blind for the rest of you with this fool
store, just because I was born a freak that every gutter-snipe on the
street yells at!”
Rhoda Gray did not answer.
“Well, go on!” snapped the man. “What are you standing there for? One
would think you'd never been here before!”
Go on! Where? She had not the faintest idea. It was quite dark inside
here in the shop. She could barely make out the outline of the other's
figure.
“You're in a sweet temper to-night, aren't you?” she said tartly. “Go
on, yourself! I'm waiting for you to get through your speech.”
He moved brusquely past her, with an angry grunt. Rhoda Gray followed
him. They passed along a short, narrow space, evidently between a
low counter and a shelved wall, and then the man opened a door, and,
shutting it again behind them, moved forward once more. She could
scarcely see him at all now; it was more the sound of his footsteps
than anything else that guided her. And then suddenly another door was
opened, and a soft, yellow light streamed out through the doorway, and
she found that she was standing in an intervening room between the shop
and the room ahead of her. She felt her pulse quicken, and it seemed as
though her heart began to thump almost audibly. Danglar! She could see
Danglar seated at a table in there. She clenched her hands under her
shawl. She would need all her wits now. She prayed that there was not
too much light in that room yonder.
XV. IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
The man with the withered hand had passed through into the other room.
She heard them talking together, as she followed. She forced herself to
walk with as nearly a leisurely defiant air as she could. The last time
she had been with Danglar--as Gypsy Nan--she had, in self-protection,
forbidding intimacy, played up what he called her “grouch” at his
neglect of her.
She paused in the doorway. Halfway across the room, at the table,
Danglar's gaunt, swarthy face showed under the rays of a shaded oil
lamp. Behind her spectacles, she met his small, black ferret eyes
steadily.
“Hello, Bertha!” he called out cheerily. “How's the old girl to-night?”
He rose from his seat to come toward her. “And how's the cold?”
Rhoda Gray scowled at him.
“Worse!” she said curtly-and hoarsely. “And a lot you care! I could have
died in that hole, for all you knew!” She pushed him irritably away, as
he came near her. “Yes, that's what I said! And you needn't start any
cooing game now! Get down to cases!” She jerked her hand toward the
twisted figure that had slouched into a chair beside the table. “He says
you've got it doped out to pull something that will let me out of this
Gypsy Nan stunt. Another bubble, I suppose!” She shrugged her
shoulders, glanced around her, and, locating a chair--not too near the
table--seated herself indifferently. “I'm getting sick of bubbles!” she
announced insolently. “What's this one?”
He stood there for a moment biting at his lips, hesitant between anger
and tolerant amusement; and then, the latter evidently gaining the
ascendency, he too shrugged his shoulders, and with a laugh returned to
his chair.
“You're a rare one, Bertha!” he said coolly. “I thought you'd be wild
with delight. I guess you're sick, all right--because usually you're
pretty sensible. I've tried to tell you that it wasn't my fault I
couldn't go near you, and that I had to keep away from--”
“What's the use of going over all that again?” she interrupted tartly.
“I guess I--”
“Oh, all right!” said Danglar hurriedly. “Don't start a row! After
to-night I've an idea you'll be sweet enough to your husband, and I'm
willing to wait. Matty maybe hasn't told you the whole of it.”
Matty! So that was the deformed creature's name. She glanced at him. He
was grinning broadly. A family squabble seemed to afford him amusement.
Her eyes shifted and made a circuit of the room. It was poverty-stricken
in appearance, bare-floored, with the scantiest and cheapest of
furnishings, its one window tightly shuttered.
“Maybe not,” she said carelessly.
“Well, then, listen, Bertha!” Danglar's voice was lowered earnestly.
“We've uncovered the Nabob's stuff! Do you get me? Every last one of the
sparklers!”
Rhoda Gray's eyes went back to the deformed creature at Danglar's side,
as the man laughed out abruptly.
“Yes,” grinned Matty Danglar, “and they weren't in the empty money-belt
that you beat it with like a scared cat after croaking Deemer!”
How queer and dim the light seemed to go suddenly--or was it a blur
before her own eyes? She said nothing. Her mind seemed to be groping its
way out of darkness toward some faint gleam of light showing in the
far distance. She heard Danglar order his brother savagely to hold his
tongue. That was curious, too, because she was grateful for the man's
gibe. Gypsy Nan, in her proper person, had murdered a man named Deemer
in an effort to secure--Danglar's voice came again:
“Well, to-night we'll get that stuff, all of it--it's worth a cool
half million; and to-night we'll get Mr. House-Detective Cloran for
keeps--bump him off. That cleans everything up. How does that strike
you, Bertha?”
Rhoda Gray's hands under her shawl locked tightly together. Her
premonition had not betrayed her. She was face to face to-night with the
beginning of the end.
“It sounds fine!” she said derisively.
Danglar's eyes narrowed for an instant; and then he laughed.
“You're a rare one, Bertha!” he ejaculated again. “You don't seem to put
much stock in your husband lately.”
“Why should I?” she inquired imperturbably. “Things have been breaking
fine, haven't they?--only not for us!” She cleared her throat as though
it were an effort to talk. “I'm not going crazy with joy till I've been
shown.”
Danglar leaned suddenly over the table.
“Well, come and look at the cards, then,” he said impressively. “Pull
your chair up to the table, and I'll tell you.”
Rhoda Gray tilted her chair, instead, nonchalantly back against the
wall--it was quite light enough where she was!
“I can hear you from here,” she said coolly. “I'm not deaf, and I guess
Matty's suite is safe enough so that you won't have to whisper all the
time!”
The deformed creature at the table chortled again.
Danglar scowled.
“Damn you, Bertha!” he flung out savagely. “I could wring that neck of
yours sometimes, and--”
“I know you could, Pierre,” she interposed sweetly. “That's what I like
about you--you're so considerate of me! But suppose you get down to
cases. What's the story about those sparklers? And what's the game
that's going to let me shed this Gypsy Nan stuff for keeps?”
“I'll tell her, Pierre,” grinned the deformed one. “It'll keep you two
from spitting at one another; and neither of you have got all night
to stick around here.” He swung his withered hand suddenly across the
table, and as suddenly all facetiousness was gone both from his voice
and manner. “Say, you listen hard, Bertha! What Pierre's telling you is
straight. You and him can kiss and make up to-morrow or the next day, or
whenever you damned please; but to-night there ain't any more time for
scrapping. Now, listen! I handed you a rap about beating it with the
empty money-belt the night you croaked Deemer with an overdose of
knockout drops in the private dining-room up at the Hotel Marwitz, but
you forget that! I ain't for starting any argument about that. None of
us blames you. We thought the stuff was in the belt, too. And none of
us blames you for making a mistake and going too strong with the drops,
either; anybody might do that. And I'll say now that I take my hat off
to you for the way you locked Cloran into the room with the dead man,
and made your escape when Cloran had you dead to rights for the murder;
and I'll say, too, that the way you've played Gypsy Nan and saved your
skin, and ours too, is as slick a piece of work as has ever been pulled
in the underworld. That puts us straight, you and me, don't it, Bertha?”
Rhoda Gray blinked at the man through her spectacles; her brain was
whirling in a mad turmoil. “I always liked you, Matty,” she whispered
softly.
Danglar was lolling back in his chair, blowing smoke rings into the air.
She caught his eyes fixed quizzically upon her.
“Go on, Matty!” he prompted. “You'll have her in a good humor, if you're
not careful!”
“We were playing more or less blind after that.” The withered hand
traced an aimless pattern on the table with its crooked and half-closed
fingers, and the man's face was puckered into a shrewd, reminiscent
scowl. “The papers couldn't get a lead on the motive for the murder, and
the police weren't talking for publication. Not a word about the Rajah's
jewels. Washington saw to that! A young potentate's son, practically
the guest of the country, touring about in a special for the sake of his
education, and dashed near 'ending it in the river out West if it hadn't
been for the rescue you know about, wouldn't look well in print; so
there wasn't anything said about the slather of gems that was the reward
of heroism from a grateful nabob, and we didn't get any help that way.
All we knew was that Deemer came East with the jewels, presumably to
cash in on them, and it looked as though Deemer were pretty clever;
that he wore the money-belt for a stall, and that he had the sparklers
safe somewhere else all the time. And I guess we all got to figuring
it that way, because the fact that nothing was said about any theft was
strictly along the lines the police were working anyway, and a was a
toss-up that they hadn't found the stuff among his effects. Get me?”
Get him! This wasn't real, was it, this room here; those two figures
sitting there under that shaded lamp? Something cold, an icy grip,
seemed to seize at her heart, as in a surge there swept upon her the
full appreciation of her peril through these confidences to which she
was listening. A word, in act, some slightest thing, might so easily
betray her; and then--Her fingers under the shawl and inside the wide
pocket of her greasy skirt, clutched at her revolver. Thank God for
that! It would at least be merciful! She nodded her head mechanically.
“But the police didn't find the jewels--because they weren't there to be
found. Somebody got in ahead of us. Pinched 'em, understand, may be only
a few hours before you got in your last play, and, from the way you say
Deemer acted, before he was wise to the fact that he'd been robbed.”
Rhoda Gray let her chair come sharply down to the floor. She must play
her role of “Bertha” now as she never had before. Here was a question
that she could not only ask with safety, but one that was obviously
expected.
“Who was it?” she demanded breathlessly.
“She's coming to life!” murmured Danglar, through a haze of cigarette
smoke. “I thought you'd wake up after a while, Bertha. This is the big
night, old girl, as you'll find out before we're through.”
“Who was it?” she repeated with well-simulated impatience.
“I guess she'll listen to me now,” said Danglar, with a little chuckle.
“Don't over-tax yourself any more, Matty. I'll tell you, Bertha; and it
will perhaps make you feel better to know it took the slickest dip New
York ever knew to beat you to the tape. It was Angel Jack, alias the
Gimp.”
“How do you know?” Rhoda Gray demanded.
“Because,” said Danglar, and lighted another cigarette, “he died
yesterday afternoon up in Sing Sing.”
She could afford to show her frank bewilderment. Her brows knitted into
furrows, as she stared at Danglar.
“You--you mean he confessed?” she said.
“The Angel? Never!” Danglar laughed grimly, and shook his head. “Nothing
like that! It was a question of playing one 'fence' against another. You
know that Witzer, who's handled all our jewelry for us, has been on the
look-out for any stones that might have come from that collection.
Well, this afternoon he passed the word to me that he'd been offered the
finest unset emerald he'd ever seen, and that it had come to him through
old Jake Luertz's runner, a very innocent-faced young man who is known
to the trade as the Crab.”
Danglar paused--and laughed again. Unconsciously Rhoda Gray drew her
shawl a little closer about her shoulders. It seemed to bring a chill
into the room, that laugh. Once before, on another night, Danglar had
laughed, and, with his parted lips, she had likened him to a beast
showing its fangs. He looked it now more than ever. For all his ease of
voice and manner, he was in deadly earnest; and if there was merriment
in his laugh, it but seemed to enhance the menace and the promise of
unholy purpose that lurked in the cold glitter of his small, black eyes.
“It didn't take long to get hold of the Crab”--Danglar was rubbing his
hands together softly--“and the emerald with him. We got him where we
could put the screws on without arousing the neighborhood.”
“Another murder, I suppose!” Rhoda Gray flung out the words crossly.
“Oh, no,” said Danglar pleasantly. “He squealed before it came to that.
He's none the worse for wear, and he'll be turned loose in another hour
or so, as soon as we're through at old Jake Luertz's. He's no more good
to us. He came across all right--after he was properly frightened. He's
been with old Jake as a sort of familiar for the last six years, and--”
“He'd have sold his soul out, he was so scared!” The withered hand on
the table twitched; the deformed creature's face was twisted into a
grimace; and the man was chuckling with unhallowed mirth, as though
unable to contain himself at, presumably, the recollection of a scene
which he had witnessed himself. “He was down on his knees and clawing
out with his hands for mercy, and he squealed like a rat. 'It's the
sixth panel in the bedroom upstairs,' he says; 'it's all there. But for
God's sake don't tell Jake I told. It's the sixth panel. Press the knot
in the sixth panel that--'” He stopped abruptly.
Danglar had pulled out his watch and with exaggerated patience was
circling the crystal with his thumb.
“Are you all through, Matty?” he inquired monotonously. “I think you
said something a little while ago about wasting time. Bertha's looking
bored; and, besides, she's got a little job of her own on for to-night.”
He jerked his watch back into his pocket, and turned to Rhoda Gray
again. “The only one who knew all the details Angel Jack, and he'll
never tell now because he's dead. Whether he came down from the West
with Deemer or not, or how he got wise to the stones, I don't know. But
he got the stones, all right. And then he tumbled to the fact that the
police were pushing him hard for another job he was 'wanted' for, and
he had to get those stones out of sight in a hurry. He made a package
of them and slipped them to old Luertz, who had always done his business
for him, to keep for him; and before he could duck, the bulls had him
for that other job. Angel Jack went up the river. See? Old Jake didn't
know what was in that package; but he knew better than to monkey with
it, because he always thought something of his own skin. He knew Angel
Jack, and he knew what would happen if he didn't have that package ready
to hand back the day Angel Jack got out of Sing Sing. Understand? But
yesterday Angel Jack died-without a will; and old Jake appointed himself
sole executor-without bonds! He opened that package, figured he'd begin
turning it into money--and that's how we get our own back again. Old
Jake will get a fake message to-night calling him out of the house on an
errand uptown; and about ten o'clock Pinkie Bonn and the Pug will pay a
visit there in his absence, and--well, it looks good, don't it, Bertha,
after two years?”
Rhoda Gray was crouched down in her chair. She shrugged her shoulders
now, and infused a sullen note into her voice.
“Yes, it's fine!” she sniffed. “I'll be rolling in wealth in my
garret--which will do me a lot of good! That doesn't separate me from
these rags, and the hell I've lived, does it--after two years?”
“I'm coming to that,” said Danglar, with his short, grating laugh.
“We've as good as got the stones now, and we're going through to-night
for a clean-up of all that old mess. We stake the whole thing. Get
me, Bertha--the whole thing! I'm showing my hand for the first time.
Cloran's the man that's making you wear those clothes; Cloran's the only
one who could go into the witness box and swear that you were the woman
who murdered Deemer; and Cloran's the man who has been working his head
off for two years to find you. We've tried a dozen times to bump him
off in a way that would make his death appear to be due purely to an
accident, and we didn't get away with it; but we can afford to leave the
'accident' out of it to-night, and go through for keeps--and that's what
we're going to do. And once he's out of the way--by midnight--you can
heave Gypsy Nan into the discard.”
It seemed to Rhoda Gray that horror had suddenly taken a numbing hold
upon her sensibilities. Danglar was talking about murdering some man,
wasn't he, so that she could resume again the personality of a woman who
was dead? Hysterical laughter rose to her lips. It was only by a
frantic effort of will that she controlled herself. She seemed to speak
involuntarily, doubtful almost that it was her own voice she heard.
“I'm listening,” she said; “but I wouldn't be too sure. Cloran's a wary
bird, and there's the White Moll.”
She caught her breath. What suicidal inspiration had prompted her to say
that! Had what she had been listening to here, the horror of it, indeed
turned her brain and robbed her of her wits to the extent that she
should invite exposure? Danglar's face had gone a mottled purple; the
misshapen thing at Danglar's side was leering at her most curiously.
It was a moment before Danglar spoke; and then his hand, clenched until
the white of the knuckles showed, pounded upon the table to punctuate
his words.
“Not to-night!” he rasped out with an oath. “There's not a chance that
she's in on this to-night--the she-devil! But she's next! With this
cleaned up, she's next! If it takes the last dollar of to-night's haul,
and five years to do it, I'll get her, and get--”
“Sure!” mumbled Rhoda Gray hurriedly. “But you needn't get excited!
I was only thinking of her because she's queered us till I've got my
fingers crossed, that's all. Go on about Cloran.”
Danglar's composure did not return on the instant. He gnawed at his lips
for a moment before he spoke.