The last mail had not yet arrived at Dragon Court.
Five people awaited it--Dulcie Soane, behind the desk in the entrance
hall, already wandering drowsily with Barres along the fairy
borderland of sleep; Thessalie Dunois in Barres' studio, her
rose-coloured evening cloak over her shoulders, her slippered foot
tapping the dance-scarred parquet; Barres opposite, deep in his
favourite armchair, chatting with her; Soane on the roof, half stupid
with drink, watching them through the ventilator; and, lurking in the
moonlit court, outside the office window, the dimly sinister figure of
the one-eyed man. He wore a white handkerchief over his face, with a
single hole cut in it. Through this hole his solitary optic was now
fixed upon the back of Dulcie's drowsy head.
As for the Prophet, perched on the desk top, he continued to gaze upon
shapes invisible to all things mortal save only such as he.
* * * * *
The postman's lively whistle aroused Dulcie. The Prophet, knowing him,
observed his advent with indifference.
"Hello, girlie," he said;--he was a fresh-faced and flippant young
man. "Where's Pop?" he added, depositing a loose sheaf of letters on
the desk before her and sketching in a few jig steps with his feet.
"I don't know," she murmured, patting with one slim hand her pink and
yawning lips, and watching him unlock the post-box and collect the
outgoing mail. He lingered a moment to caress the Prophet, who endured
it without gratitude.
"You better go to bed if you want to grow up to be a big, sassy girl
some day," he advised Dulcie. "And hurry up about it, too, because I'm
going to marry you if you behave." And, with a last affable caress for
the Prophet, the young man went his way, singing to himself, and
slamming the iron grille smartly behind him.
Dulcie, rising from her chair, sorted the mail, sleepily tucking each
letter and parcel into its proper pigeon-hole. There was a thick
letter for Barres. This she held in her left hand, remembering his
request that she call him up when the last mail arrived.
This she now prepared to do--had already reseated herself, her right
hand extended toward the telephone, when a shadow fell across the
desk, and the Prophet turned, snarled, struck, and fled.
At the same instant grimy fingers snatched at the letter which she
still held in her left hand, twisted it almost free of her desperate
clutch, tore it clean in two at one violent jerk, leaving her with
half the letter still gripped in her clenched fist.
She had not uttered a sound during the second's struggle. But
instantly an ungovernable rage blazed up in her at the outrage, and
she leaped clean over the desk and sprang at the throat of the
one-eyed man.
His neck was bony and muscular; she could not compass it with her
slender hands, but she struck at it furiously, driving a sound out of
his throat, half roar, half cough.
"Give me my letter!" she breathed. "I'll kill you if you don't!" Her
furious little hands caught his clenched fist, where the torn letter
protruded, and she tore at it and beat upon it, her teeth set and her
grey Irish eyes afire.
Twice the one-eyed man flung her to her knees on the pavement, but she
was up again and clinging to him before he could tear free of her.
"My letter!" she gasped. "I shall kill you, I tell you--unless you
return it!"
His solitary yellow eye began to glare and glitter as he wrenched and
dragged at her wrists and arms about him.
"Schweinstueck!" he panted. "Let los, mioche de malheur! Eh! Los!--or I
strike! No? Also! Attrape!--sale gallopin!----"
His blow knocked her reeling across the hall. Against the whitewashed
wall she collapsed to her knees, got up half stunned, the clang of the
outer grille ringing in her very brain.
With dazed eyes she gazed at the remnants of the torn letter, still
crushed in her rigid fingers. Bright drops of blood from her mouth
dripped slowly to the tessellated pavement.
Reeling still from the shock of the blow, she managed to reach the
outer door, and stood swaying there, striving to pierce with confused
eyes the lamplit darkness of the street. There was no sign of the
one-eyed man. Then she turned and made her way back to the desk,
supporting herself with a hand along the wall.
Waiting a few moments to control her breathing and her shaky limbs,
she contrived finally to detach the receiver and call Barres. Over the
wire she could hear the gramophone playing again in the studio.
"Please may I come up?" she whispered.
"Has the last mail come? Is there a letter for me?" he asked.
"Yes ... I'll bring you w-what there is--if you'll let me?"
"Thanks, Sweetness! Come right up!" And she heard him say: "It's
probably your letter, Thessa. Dulcie is bringing it up."
Her limbs and body were still quivering, and she felt very weak and
tearful as she climbed the stairway to the corridor above.
The nearer door of his apartment was open. Through it the music of the
gramophone came gaily; and she went toward it and entered the
brilliantly illuminated studio.
Soane, who still lay flat on the roof overhead, peeping through the
ventilator, saw her enter, all dishevelled, grasping in one hand the
fragments of a letter. And the sight instantly sobered him. He tucked
his shoes under one arm, got to his stockinged feet, made nimbly for
the scuttle, and from there, descending by the service stair, ran
through the courtyard into the empty hall.
"Be gorry," he muttered, "thot dommed Dootchman has done it now!" And
he pulled on his shoes, crammed his hat over his ears, and started
east, on a run, for Grogan's.
Grogan's was still the name of the Third Avenue saloon, though Grogan
had been dead some years, and one Franz Lehr now presided within that
palace of cherrywood, brass and pretzels.
Into the family entrance fled Soane, down a dim hallway past several
doors, from behind which sounded voices joining in guttural song; and
came into a rear room.
The one-eyed man sat there at a small table, piecing together
fragments of a letter.
"Arrah, then," cried Soane, "phwat th' devil did ye do, Max?"
The man barely glanced at him.
"Vy iss it," he enquired tranquilly, "you don'd vatch Nihla Quellen by
dot wentilator some more?"
"I axe ye," shouted Soane, "what t'hell ye done to Dulcie!"
"Vat I haff done already yet?" queried the one-eyed man, not looking
up, and continuing to piece together the torn letter. "Vell, I tell
you, Soane; dot kid she keep dot letter in her handt, und I haff to
grab it. Sacre saligaud de malheur! Dot letter she tear herself in
two. Pas de chance! Your kid she iss mad like tigers! Voici--all zat
rests me de la sacre-nom-de sacreminton de lettre----"
"Ah, shut up, y'r Dootch head-cheese!--wid y'r gillipin' gallopin'
gabble!" cut in Soane wrathfully. "D'ye mind phwat ye done? It's not
petty larceny, ye omadhoun!--it's highway robbery ye done--bad cess to
ye!"
The one-eyed man shrugged:
"Pourtant, I must haff dot letter----" he observed, undisturbed by
Soane's anger; but Soane cut him short again fiercely:
"You an' y'r dommed letter! Phwat do you care if I'm fired f'r this
night's wurruk? Y'r letter, is it? An' what about highway robbery, me
bucko! An' me off me post! How'll I be explaining that? Ah, ye sicken
me entirely, ye Dootch square-head! Now, phwat'll I say to them? Tell
me that, Max Freund! Phwat'll I tell th' aygent whin he comes runnin'?
Phwat'll I tell th' po-lice? Arrah, phwat't'hell do you care,
anyway?" he shouted. "I've a mind f'r to knock the block off ye----"
"You shall say to dot agent you haff gone out to smell," remarked Max
Freund placidly.
"Smell, is it? Smell what, ye dom----"
"You smell some smoke. You haff fear of fire. You go out to see. Das
iss so simble, ach! Take shame, you Irish Sinn Fein! You behave like
rabbits!" He pointed to his arrangement of the torn letter on the
table: "Here iss sufficient already--regardez! Look once!" He laid one
long, soiled and bony finger on the fragments: "Read it vat iss
written!"
"G'wan, now!"
"I tell you, read!"
Soane, still cursing under his breath, bent over the table, reading as
Freund's soiled finger moved:
"Fein plots," he read. "German agents ... disloyal propa ... explo ...
bomb fac ... shipping munitions to ... arms for Ireland can be ...
destruction of interned German li ... disloyal newspapers which ...
controlled by us in Pari ... Ferez Bey ... bankers are duped.... I
need your advi ... hounded day and ni ... d'Eblis or Govern ... not
afraid of death but indignant ... Sinn Fei----"
Soane's scowl had altered, and a deeper red stained his brow and
neck.
"Well, by God!" he muttered, jerking up a chair from behind him and
seating himself at the table, but never taking his fascinated eyes off
the torn bits of written paper.
Presently Freund got up and went out. He returned in a few moments
with a large sheet of wrapping paper and a pot of mucilage. On this
paper, with great care, he arranged the pieces of the torn letter,
neatly gumming each bit and leaving a space between it and the next
fragment.
"To fill in iss the job of Louis Sendelbeck," remarked Freund, pasting
away industriously. "Is it not time we learn how much she knows--this
Nihla Quellen? Iss she sly like mice? I ask it."
Soane scratched his curly head.
"Be gorry," he said, "av that purty girrl is a Frinch spy she don't
look the parrt, Max."
Freund waved one unclean hand:
"Vas iss it to look like somedings? Nodding! Also, you Sinn Fein Irish
talk too much. Why iss it in Belfast you march mit drums und music? To
hold our tongues und vatch vat iss we Germans learn already first!
Also! Sendelbeck shall haff his letter."
"An' phwat d'ye mean to do with that girrl, Max?"
"Vatch her! Vy you don'd go back by dot wentilator already?"
"Me? Faith, I'm done f'r th' evenin', an' I thank God I wasn't pinched
on the leads!"
"Vait I catch dot Nihla somevares," muttered Freund, regarding his
handiwork.
"Ye'll do no dirty thrick to her? Th' Sinn Fein will shtand f'r no
burkin', mind that!"
"Ach, wass!" grunted Freund; "iss it your business vat iss done to
somebody by Ferez? If you Irish vant your rifles und machine guns,
leaf it to us Germans und dond speak nonsense aboud nodding!" He
leaned over and pushed a greasy electric button: "Now ve drink a glass
bier. Und after, you go home und vatch dot girl some more."
"Av Misther Barres an' th' yoong lady makes a holler, they'll fire me
f'r this," snarled Soane.
"Sei ruhig, mon vieux! Nihla Quellen keeps like a mouse quiet! Und she
keeps dot yoong man quiet! You see! No, no! Not for Nihla to make
some foolishness und publicity. French agents iss vatching for her
too--l'affaire du _Mot d'Ordre_. She iss vat you say, 'in Dutch'! Iss
she, vielleicht, a German spy? In France they believe it. Iss she a
French spy? Ach! Possibly some day; not yet! And it iss for us Germans
to know always vat she iss about. Dot iss my affair, not yours,
Soane."
A heavy jowled man in a soiled apron brought two big mugs of beer and
retired on felt-slippered feet.
"Hoch!" grunted Freund, burying his nose in his frothing mug.
Soane, wasting no words, drank thirstily. After a long pull he shoved
aside his sloppy stein, rose, cautiously unlatched the shutter of a
tiny peep-hole in the wall, and applied one eye to it.
"Bad luck!" he muttered, "there do be wan av thim secret service lads
drinkin' at the bar! I'll not go home yet, Max."
"Dot big vone?" inquired Freund, mildly interested.
"That's the buck! Him wid th' phony whiskers an' th' Dootch get-up!"
"Vell, vot off it? Can he do somedings?"
"And how should I know phwat that lad can do to th' likes o' me, or
phwat the divil brings him here at all, at all! Sure, he's been around
these three nights running----"
Freund laughed his contempt for all things American, including police
and secret service, and wiped his chin with the back of his hand.
"Look, once, Soane! Do these Yankees know vat it iss a police, a
gendarme, a military intelligence? Vat they call secret service, wass
iss it? I ask it? Schweinerei! Dummheit? Fantoches! Imbeciles! Of the
Treasury they haff a secret service; of the Justice Department also
another; and another of the Army, and yet another of the Posts! Vot
kind of foolish system iss it?--mitout no minister, no chef, no
centre, no head, no organisation--und everybody interfering in vot
efferybody iss doing und nobody knowing vot nobody is doing--ach wass!
Je m'en moque--I make mock myself at dot secret service which iss too
dam dumm!" He yawned. "Trop bete," he added indistinctly.
Soane, reassured, lowered the shutter, came back to the table, and
finished his beer with loud gulps.
"Lave us go up to the lodge till he goes out," he suggested. "Maybe
th' boys have news o' thim rifles."
Freund yawned again, nodded, and rose, and they went out to an
unlighted and ill-smelling back stairway. It was so narrow that they
had to ascend in single file.
Half way up they set off a hidden bell, by treading on some concealed
button under foot; and a man, dressed only in undershirt and trousers,
appeared at the top of the stairs, silhouetted against a bright light
burning on the wall behind him.
"Oh, all right," he said, recognising them, and turned on his heel
carelessly, pocketing a black-jack.
They followed to a closed door, which was made out of iron and painted
like quartered oak. In the wall on their right a small shutter slid
back noiselessly, then was closed without a sound; and the iron door
opened very gently in their faces.
The room they entered was stifling--all windows being closed--in
spite of a pair of electric fans whirling and droning on shelves. Some
perspiring Germans were playing skat over in a corner. One or two
other men lounged about a centre table, reading Irish and German
newspapers published in New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee. There
were also on file there copies of the _Evening Mail_, the _Evening
Post_, a Chicago paper, and a pile of magazines, including numbers
of _Pearson's_, _The Fatherland_, _The Masses_, and similar
publications.
Two lithograph portraits hung side by side over the fireplace--Robert
Emmet and Kaiser Wilhelm II. Otherwise, the art gallery included
photographs of Von Hindenburg, Von Bissing, and the King of Greece.
A large map, on which the battle-line in Europe had been pricked out
in red pins, hung on the wall. Also a map of New York City, on a very
large scale; another map of New York State; and a map of Ireland. A
dumb-waiter, on duty and astonishingly noiseless, slid into sight,
carrying half a dozen steins of beer and some cheese sandwiches, just
as Soane and Freund entered the room, and the silent iron door closed
behind them of its own accord and without any audible click.
The man who had met them on the stairs, in undershirt and trousers,
went over to the dumb-waiter, scribbled something on a slate which
hung inside the shelf, set the beer and sandwiches beside the skat
players, and returned to seat himself at the table to which Freund and
Soane had pulled up cane-bottomed chairs.
"Well," he said, in rather a pleasant voice, "did you get that letter,
Max?"
Freund nodded and leisurely sketched in the episode at Dragon Court.
The man, whose name was Franz Lehr, and who had been born in New York
of German parents, listened with lively interest to the narrative. But
he whistled softly when it ended:
"You took a few chances, Max," he remarked. "It's all right, of
course, because you got away with it, but----" He whistled again,
thoughtfully.
"Sendelbeck must haff his letter. Yess? Also!"
"Certainly. I guess that was the only way--if she was really going to
take it up to young Barres. And I guess you're right when you conclude
that Nihla won't make any noise about it and won't let her friend,
Barres, either."
"Sure, I'm right," grunted Freund. "We got the goots on her now. You
bet she's scared. You tell Ferez--yess?"
"Don't worry; he'll hear it all. You got that letter on you?"
Freund nodded.
"Hand it to Hochstein"--he half turned on his rickety chair and
addressed a squat, bushy-haired man with very black eyebrows and
large, angry blue eyes--"Louis, Max got that letter you saw Nihla
writing in the Hotel Astor. Here it is----" taking the pasted
fragments from Freund and passing them over to Hochstein. "Give it to
Sendelbeck, along with the blotter you swiped after she left the
writing room. Dave Sendelbeck ought to fix it up all right for Ferez
Bey."
Hochstein nodded, shoved the folded brown paper into his pocket, and
resumed his cards.
"Is thim rifles----" began Soane; but Lehr laid a hand on his
shoulder:
"Now, listen! They're on the way to Ireland now. I told you that. When
I hear they're landed I'll let you know. You Sinn Feiners don't
understand how to wait. If things don't happen the way you want and
when you want, you all go up in the air!"
"An' how manny hundred years would ye have us wait f'r to free th'
ould sod!" retorted Soane.
"You'll not free it with your mouth," retorted Lehr. "No, nor by
drilling with banners and arms in Cork and Belfast, and parading all
over the place!"
"Is--that--so!"
"You bet it's so! The way to make England sick is to stick her in the
back, not make faces at her across the Irish Channel. If your friends
in the Clan-na-Gael, and your poets and professors who call themselves
Sinn Feiners, will quit their childish circus playing and trust us,
we'll show you how to make the Lion yowl."
"Ah, bombs an' fires an' shtrikes is all right, too. An' proppygandy
is fine as far as it goes. But the Clan-na-Gael is all afire f'r to
start the shindy in Ireland----"
"You start it," interrupted Lehr, "before you're really ready, and
you'll see where it lands the Clan-na-Gael and the Sinn Fein! I tell
you to leave it to Berlin!"
"An' I tell ye lave it to the Clan-na-Gael!" retorted Soane,
excitedly. "Musha----"
"For why you yell?" yawned Freund, displaying a very yellow fang. "Dot
big secret service slob, he iss in the bar hinunter. Perhaps he hear
you if like a pig you push forth cries."
Lehr raised his eyebrows; then, carelessly:
"He's only a State agent. Johnny Klein is keeping an eye on him. What
does that big piece of cheese expect to get by hanging out in my
bar?"
Freund yawned again, appallingly; Soane said:
"I wonder is that purty Frinch girrl agin us Irish?"
"What does she care about the Irish?" replied Lehr. "Her danger to us
lies in the fact that she may blab about Ferez to some Frenchman, and
that he may believe her in spite of all the proof they have in Paris
against her. Max," he added, turning to Freund, "it's funny that Ferez
doesn't do something to her."
"I haff no orders."
"Maybe you'll get 'em when Ferez reads that letter. He's certainly
not going to let that girl go about blabbing and writing letters----"
Soane struck the table with doubled fist:
"Ye'll do no vi'lence to anny wan!" he cut in. "The Sinn Fein will
shtand for no dirrty wurruk in America! Av you set fires an' blow up
plants, an' kidnap ladies, an' do murther, g'wan, ye Dootch
scuts!--it's your business, God help us!--not ours.
"All we axe of ye is machine-goons, an' rifles, an' ships to land
them; an' av ye don't like it, phway th' divil d'ye come botherin' th'
likes of us Irish wid y'r proppygandy! Sorra the day," he added, "I
tuk up wid anny Dootchman at all at all----"
Lehr and Freund exchanged expressionless glances. The former dropped a
propitiating hand on Soane's shoulder.
"Can it," he said good-humouredly. "We're trying to help you Irish to
what you want. You want Irish independence, don't you? All right.
We're going to help you get it----"
A bell rang; Lehr sprang to his feet and hastened out through the iron
door, drawing his black-jack from his hip pocket as he went.
He returned in a few moments, followed by a very good-looking but
pallid man in rather careless evening dress, who had the dark eyes of
a dreamer and the delicate features of a youthful acolyte.
He saluted the company with a peculiarly graceful gesture, which
recognition even the gross creatures at the skat table returned with
visible respect.
Soane, always deeply impressed by the presence of Murtagh Skeel,
offered his chair and drew another one to the table.
Skeel accepted with a gently preoccupied smile, and seated himself
gracefully. All that is chivalrous, romantic, courteous, and brave in
an Irishman seemed to be visibly embodied in this pale man.
"I have just come," he said, "from a dinner at Sherry's. A common
hatred of England brought together the dozen odd men with whom I have
been in conference. Ferez Bey was there, the military attaches of the
German, Austrian, and Turkish embassies, one or two bankers, officials
of certain steamship lines, and a United States senator."
He sipped a glass of plain water which Lehr had brought him, thanked
him, then turning from Soane to Lehr:
"To get arms and munitions into Ireland in substantial quantities
requires something besides the U-boats which Germany seems willing to
offer.
"That was fully discussed to-night. Not that I have any doubt at all
that Sir Roger will do his part skilfully and fearlessly----"
"He will that!" exclaimed Soane, "God bless him!"
"Amen, Soane," said Murtagh Skeel, with a wistful and involuntary
upward glance from his dark eyes. Then he laid his hand of an
aristocrat on Soane's shoulder. "What I came here to tell you is this:
I want a ship's crew."
"Sorr?"
"I want a crew ready to mutiny at a signal from me and take over their
own ship on the high seas."
"Their own ship, sorr?"
"Their own ship. That is what has been decided. The ship to be
selected will be a fast steamer loaded with arms and munitions for the
British Government. The Sinn Fein and the Clan-na-Gael, between them,
are to assemble the crew. I shall be one of that crew. Through
powerful friends, enemies to England, it will be made possible to
sign such a crew and put it aboard the steamer to be seized.
"Her officers will, of course, be British. And I am afraid there may
be a gun crew aboard. But that is nothing. We shall take her over when
the time comes--probably off the Irish coast at night. Now, Soane, and
you, Lehr, I want you to help recruit a picked crew, all Irish, all
Sinn Feiners or members of the Clan-na-Gael.
"You know the sort. Absolutely reliable, fearless, and skilled men
devoted soul and body to the cause for which we all would so
cheerfully die.... Will you do it?"
There was a silence. Soane moistened his lips reflectively. Lehr,
intelligent, profoundly interested, kept his keen, pleasant eyes on
Murtagh Skeel. Only the droning electric fans, the rattle of a
newspaper, the slap of greasy cards at the skat table, the slobbering
gulp of some Teuton, guzzling beer, interrupted the sweltering quiet
of the room.
"Misther Murtagh, sorr," said Soane with a light, careless laugh,
"I've wan recruit f'r to bring ye."
"Who is he?"
"Sure, it's meself, sorr--av ye'll sign the likes o' me."
"Thanks; of course," said Skeel, with one of his rare smiles, and
taking Soane's hand in comradeship.
"I'll go," said Lehr, coolly; "but my name won't do. Call me Grogan,
if you like, and I'll sign with you, Mr. Skeel."
Skeel pressed the offered hand:
"A splendid beginning," he said. "I wanted you both. Now, see what you
can do in the Sinn Fein and Clan-na-Gael for a crew which, please God,
we shall require very soon!"