Blindfolded by Earle Ashley Walcott (page 3)

pricks up my ears at this. ‘Why?’ says I. ‘Oh, he’ll be killed,’ says he, ‘and I’ll git the derndest lickin’,’ says he. ‘What’s up?’ says I, makin’ a grab for him. But he ducks an’ blubbers. ‘Gimme that letter,’ says I, ‘and you just kite back to the folks that sent you, and tell them what’s the matter. I’ll give your note to your man if he comes while I’m on the beat,’ says I. I knows too much to try to git anything more out of him. I says to meself that Mr. Wilton ain’t in the safest place in the world, and this kid’s folks maybe means him well, and might know some other place to look for him. The kid jaws a bit, an’ then does as I tells him, an’ cuts away. That’s half an hour ago, an’ here you are, an’ here’s your letter.”

I hesitated for a little before saying anything. It was with quick suspicion that I wondered why Mother Borton had secured again that gloomy and deserted house for the interview she was planning. That mystery of the night, with its memories of the fight in the bar-room, the escape up the stair, the fearsome moments I had spent locked in the vacant place, came on me with nerve-shaking force. It was more likely to be a trap than a meeting meant for my advantage. There was, indeed, no assurance that the note was written by Mother Borton herself. It might well be the product of the gentlemen who had been lending such variety to an otherwise uninteresting existence.

All these considerations flashed through my mind in the seconds of hesitation that passed before my reply to Policeman Corson’s account.

“That was very kind of you. You didn’t know what was in the letter then?”

“No, sor,” replied Corson with a touch of wounded pride. “It’s not me as would open another man’s letter, unless in the way of me duty.”

“Do you know Mother Borton?” I continued.

“Know her? know her?” returned Corson in a tone scornful of doubt on such a point. “Do I know the slickest crook in San Francisco? Ah, it’s many a story I could tell you, Mr. Wilton, of the way that ould she- divil has slipped through our fingers when we thought our hands were on her throat. And it’s many of her brood we have put safe in San Quentin.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said I dryly. “But the woman has done me a service–saved my life, I may say–and I’m willing to forget the bad in her.”

“That’s not for me to say, sor; but there’s quare things happens, no doubt.”

“This note,” I continued, “is written over her name. I don’t know whether it came from her, or not; but if she sent it I must see her. It may be a case of life or death for me.”

“An’ if it didn’t come from her?” asked the policeman shrewdly.

“Then,” said I grimly, “it’s likely to be a case of death if I venture alone.”

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Wilton,” said Corson after a pause. “If you’ll wait a bit, I’ll go with you–that is, if there isn’t somebody else you’d like better to have by your side to-night. You don’t look to have any of your friends about.”

“Just the thing,” I said heartily. “There’s no one I’d rather have. We’ll go down as soon as we can get a bite to eat.”

“I’ll have to wait a bit, sor, till my relief comes. He’ll be along soon. As for getting a bite, you can’t do better than wait till you get to Mother Borton’s. It’s a rough place, but it’s got a name for good cooking.”

I was bewildered.

“I guess there’s not much to be got in the way of eating in the house. There was nothing left in it yesterday morning but the rats.” I spoke with considerable emphasis.

“That’s square, now,” he said, looking to see if there was a jest behind the words. “But ’twas all there when McPherson and I put a club to a drunk as was raising the Ould Nick in the place and smashing the bottles, not six hours ago. When we took him away in the ixpriss wagon the ould woman was rowling out those long black curses in a way that would warm the heart of the foul fiend himself.”

There was some fresh mystery about this. I held my tongue with the reflection that I had better let it straighten itself out than risk a stumble by asking about things I ought to know.

Corson’s relief soon appeared. “It’s a nasty night,” he said, buttoning up his overcoat closely, as Corson gave him a brief report of the situation on the beat.

“It’s good for them as likes it dark,” said Corson.

“It’s just such a night as we had when Donaldson was murdered. Do you mind it?”

“Do I mind it? Am I likely to forgit it? Well, a pleasant time to you, me boy. Come along, sor. We’d better be moving. You won’t mind stepping up to the hall with me, will ye, while I report?”

“Certainly not,” I said with a shiver, half at the grim suggestion of murder and half at the chill of the fog and the cutting wind that blew the cold vapor through to the skin.

“You’ve no overcoat,” said Corson. “We’ll stop and get one. I’ll have mine from the station.”

The silence of the house of mystery was no less threatening now than on the night when Henry Wilton was walking through the halls on the way to his death. But the stout-hearted policeman by my side gave me confidence, and no sign showed the presence of an enemy as I secured Henry’s heavy overcoat and the large revolver he had given me, and we took our way down the stairs.

A short visit to the grimy, foul-smelling basement of the City Hall, where a few policemen looked at me wonderingly, a brisk walk with the cutting wind at our backs and the fog currents hurrying and whirling in eddies toward the bay, and I felt rather than saw that we were in the neighborhood of the scene of my adventures of a night that had come so near costing me my life. I could not be certain of my bearings, but I trusted to the unconscious guidance of Corson, with a confused idea that we were bearing away from the place. Then with relief combined with bewilderment, I saw the lantern sign give forth its promise of the varied entertainment that could be had at Borton’s.

“Here we are,” said Corson.

We pushed open the door and entered. The place had the same appearance as the one to which I had been taken by Dicky Nahl.

“A fine night, Mother Borton,” said Corson cheerily, as he was the first to enter, and then added under his breath, “–for the divil’s business.”

Mother Borton stared at him with a black look and muttered a curse.

“Good evening,” I hastened to say. “I took the liberty to bring a friend; he doesn’t come as an officer to-night.”

The effect on the hag’s features was marvelous. The black scowl lightened, the tight-drawn lips relaxed, and there was a sign of pleasure in the bright eyes that had flashed hatred at the policeman.

“Ah, it’s you, is it?” she said sharply, but with a tone of kindness in her greeting. “I didn’t see ye. Now sit down and find a table, and I’ll be with ye after a bit.”

“We want a dinner, and a good one. I’m half-starved.”

“Are ye, honey?” said the woman with delight.

“Then it’s the best dinner in town ye shall have. Here, Jim! Put these gentlemen over there at the corner table.”

And if the cooking was not what we could have had at the Maison Doree and the service was a little off color, neither of us was disposed to be critical.

“It’s not the aristocracy of stoile ye get here,” said Corson, lighting his pipe after the coffee, “but it’s prime eating.”

I nodded in lazy contentment, and then started up in remembrance of the occasion of our being in this place as the shadow of Mother Borton fell across the table. Her keen eyes fixed on me and her sharp beak nodding toward me gave her the uncanny aspect of a bird of prey, and I felt a sinking of courage as I met her glance.

“If you will go upstairs,” she said sourly. “You know the way. I guess your friend can spare you.”

“Is there anything that can’t be told before him?” I asked.

The features of the old woman hardened.

“You’ll be safer in my care than in his,” she said, with warning in her tone.

“Yes, yes, I know I am safe here, but how is it with my friend if I leave him here? We came together and we’ll go together.”

The crone nodded with a laugh that ended in a snarl.

“If the gang knew he was here there would be more fun than you saw the other night.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Wilton,” said Corson with a grin. “I’ve stood her crowd off before, and I can do it again if the need comes. But I’d rather smoke a poipe in peace.”

“You can smoke in peace, but it’s not yourself you can thank for it,” said Mother Borton sharply. “There’ll be no trouble here to-night. Come along.” And the old woman started for the door.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Corson in a low voice. “There’s men gone up those stairs that came down with a sheet over them.”

“It’s all right–that is, unless there’s any danger to you in leaving you here.”

“No. Go ahead. I’ll wait for ye. I’d as lief sit here as anywheres.”

I hastened after Mother Borton, who was glowering at me from the doorway, and followed her footsteps in silence to the floor above. There was a dim light and a foul smell in the upper hall, both of which came from a lamp that burned with a low flame on a bracket by the forward stair. There were perhaps a dozen doors to be seen, all closed, but all giving the discomforting suggestion that they had eyes to mark my coming.

Mother Borton walked the passage cautiously and in silence, and I followed her example until she pushed open a door and was swallowed up in the blackness. Then I paused on the threshold while she lighted a candle; and as I entered, she swiftly closed and locked the door behind me.

“Sit down,” she said in a harsh voice, motioning me to a chair by the stand that held the candle. Then this strange creature seated herself in front of me, and looked steadily and sternly in my face for a full minute. The gaze of the piercing, deep-sunken eyes of the old hag, the evil lines that marked the lean, sharp features, gaining a still more sinister meaning from the wavering, flickering light thrown upon her face by the candle, gave me a feeling of anything but ease in my position.

“What have you done that I should help you?” she broke forth in a harsh voice, her eyes still fixed on my face.

“I really couldn’t say,” I replied politely. “You have done me one or two services already. That’s the best reason I know why you should do me another.”

The hard lines on the face before me relaxed at the sound of my voice, and the old woman nodded approvingly.

“Ay, reason enough, I guess. Them as wants better can find it themselves. But why did you sneak out of the house the other night like a cop in plain clothes? Didn’t I go bail you were safe? Do you want any better word than mine?” she had begun almost softly, but the voice grew higher and harsher as she went on.

“Why,” I said, bewildered again, “the house sneaked away from me–or, at least you left me alone in it.”

“How was that?” she asked grimly. And I described graphically my experience in the deserted building.

As I proceeded with my tale an amused look replaced the harsh lines of suspicion on Mother Borton’s face.

“Oh, my lud!” she cried with a chuckle. “Oh, my lud! how very green you are, my boy. Oh ho! oh ho!” And then she laughed an inward, self- consuming laugh that called up anything but the feeling of sympathetic mirth.

“I’m glad it amuses you,” I said with injured dignity.

“Oh, my liver! Don’t you see it yet? Don’t you see that you climbed into the next house back, and went through on to the other street?” And she relapsed into her state of silent merriment.

I felt foolish enough as the truth flashed over me. I had lost my sense of direction in the strange house, and had been deceived by the resemblance of the ground plan of the two buildings.

“But what about the plot?” I asked. “I got your note. It’s very interesting. What about it?”

“What plot?”

“Why, I don’t know. The one you wrote me about.”

Mother Borton bent forward and searched my face with her keen glance.

“Oh,” she said at last, “the one I wrote you about. I’d forgotten it.”

This was disheartening. How could I depend on one whose memory was thus capricious?

“Yes,” said I gloomily; “I supposed you might know something about it.”

“Show me the note,” she said sharply.

I fumbled through my pockets until I found it. Mother Borton clutched it, held it up to the candle, and studied it for two or three minutes.

“Where did you get it?”

I described the circumstances in which it had come into my possession, and repeated the essentials of Corson’s story. Mother Borton’s sharp, evil face was impassive during my recital. When it was done she muttered:

“Gimme a fool for luck.” Then she appeared to consider for a minute or more.

“Well?” said I inquiringly.

“Well, honey, you’re having a run of the cards,” she said at last. “Between having the message trusted to a fool boy, and having a cop for your friend, an’ maybe gitting this note before you’re expected to, you’re setting here genteel-like having agreeable conversation along with me, instead of being in company you mightn’t like so well–or maybe floating out toward Fort Point.”

“So you didn’t write it?” I said coolly. “I had an idea of the kind. That’s why my friend Corson is smoking his pipe down stairs.”

Mother Borton gave me a pleased look and nodded. I hoped I had made her regret the cruel insinuation in her application of the proverb to me as the favorite of fortune.

“I see,” I said. “I was to be waylaid on the road here and killed.”

“Carried off, more likely. I don’t say as it wouldn’t end in killin’ ye. But, you see, you’d be of mighty small use in tellin’ tales if you was dead; but you might be got to talk if they had ye in a quiet place.”

“Good reasoning. But Henry Wilton was killed.”

“Yes,” admitted Mother Borton; “they thought he carried papers, and maybe they ain’t got over the idea yit. It’s jest as well you’re here instid of having a little passear with Tom Terrill and Darby Meeker and their pals.”

“Well,” said I, as cheerfully as I could under the depressing circumstances, “if they want to kill me, I don’t see how I can keep them from getting a chance sooner or later.”

Mother Borton looked anxious at this, and shook her head.

“You must call on your men,” she said decidedly. “You must have guards.”

“By the way,” I said, “that reminds me. The men haven’t been paid, and they’re looking to me for money.”

“Who’s looking to you for money?”

“Dicky Nahl–and the others, I suppose.”

“Dicky Nahl?”

“Why, yes. He asked me for it.”

“And you gave it to him?” she asked sharply.

“No-o–that is, I gave him ten dollars, and told him he’d have to wait for the rest. I haven’t got the money from the one that’s doing the hiring yet, so I couldn’t pay him.”

Mother Borton gave an evil grin, and absorbed another inward laugh.

“I reckon the money’ll come all right,” said Mother Borton, recovering from her mirth. “There’s one more anxious than you to have ’em paid, and if you ain’t found out you’ll have it right away. Now for guards, take Trent–no, he’s hurt. Take Brown and Porter and Barkhouse and Fitzhugh. They’re wide-awake, and don’t talk much. Take ’em two and two, and never go without ’em, night or day. You stop here to-night, and I’ll git ’em for you to-morrow.”

I declined the proffered hospitality with thanks, and as a compromise agreed to call for my bodyguard in the early morning. Rejoining Corson, I explained Mother Borton’s theory of the plot that had brought me thither.

“She’s like to be right,” said the policeman. “She knows the gang. Now, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll let the rats have your room for this night, and come along up to some foine hotel.”

The advice appeared good, and fifteen minutes later Corson was drinking my health at the Lick House bar, and calling on the powers of light and darkness to watch over my safety as I slept.

Whether due to his prayers or not, my sleep was undisturbed, even by dreams of Doddridge Knapp and his charming but scornful daughter; and with the full tide of life and business flowing through the streets in the morning hours I found myself once more in Mother Borton’s dingy eating-room, ordering a breakfast.

Mother Borton ignored my entrance, and, perched on a high stool behind the bar and cash-drawer, reminded me of the vulture guarding its prey. But at last she fluttered over to my table and took a seat opposite.

“Your men are here,” she said shortly. And then, as I expressed my thanks, she warmed up and gave me a description by which I should know each and led me to the room where, as she said, they were “corralled.”

“By the way,” I said, halting outside the door, “they’ll want some money, I suppose. Do you know how much?”

“They’re paid,” she said, and pushed open the door before I could express surprise or ask further questions. I surmised that she had paid them herself to save me from annoyance or possible danger, and my gratitude to this strange creature rose still higher.

The four men within the room saluted me gravely and with Mother Borton’s directions in mind I had no hesitation in calling each by his name. I was pleased to see that they were robust, vigorous fellows, and soon made my dispositions. Brown and Barkhouse were to attend me during daylight, and Fitzhugh and Porter were to guard together at night. And, so much settled, I hastened to the office.

No sign of Doddridge Knapp disturbed the morning, and at the noon hour I returned to the room in the house of mystery that was still my only fixed abode.

All was apparently as I had left it, except that a letter lay on the table.

“I must get a new lock,” was my comment, as I broke the seal. “This place is getting too public when every messenger has a key.” I was certain that I had locked the door when Corson and I had come out on the evening before.

The letter was from my unknown employer, and read:

“Richmond has paid the men. Be ready for a move at any moment. Leave your address if you sleep elsewhere.”

And now came three or four days of rest and quiet after the merry life I had been leading since my arrival in San Francisco.

No word did I get from Doddridge Knapp. I kept close watch of the stock market, and gossiped with speculators and brokers, for I wished to know at once if he had employed another agent. My work would lie in another direction if such should prove to be the case. But there was no movement in Omega, and I could hear no hint of another deal that might show a trace of his dexterous hand. “Quiet trading,” was the report from all quarters.

“Fact is,” said Wallbridge on the fourth day, trying to look doleful, “I haven’t made enough this week to pay for the gas–and I don’t burn any.”

In the interval I improved my time by getting better acquainted with the city. Emboldened by my body-guard, I slept for two nights in Henry’s room, and with one to watch outside the door, one lying on a mattress just inside, and a new lock and bolt, I was free from disturbance.

Just as I had formed a wild idea of looking up Doddridge Knapp in his home, I came to the office in the morning to find the door into Room 16 wide open and the farther door ajar.

“Come in, Wilton,” said the voice of the King of the Street; and I entered his room to find him busied over his papers, as though nothing had occurred since I had last met him.

“The market has had something of a vacation.” I ventured, as he failed to speak.

“I have been out of town,” he said shortly. “What have you done?”

“Nothing.”

He gave a grunt of assent.

“You didn’t expect me to be buying up the market, did you?” The yellow- gray mustache went up, and the wolf-fangs gleamed from beneath.

“I reckon it wouldn’t have been a very profitable speculation,” he replied.

Then he leaned back in his chair and looked meditatively at the wall.

“It was for one fellow, though,” he continued, mellowing as he mused in his recollections. “It was at the time of the Honest Injun deal–I guess you don’t remember that. It must have been ten years ago. Well, I had a fellow named–why, what was his name?–oh, Riggs, or Rix, I forget which,–and he was handling about a hundred thousand dollars for me. We had Honest Injun run up from one dollar till it was over twenty dollars a share. I had to go up to Nevada City, and left ten thousand shares with him with orders to sell at twenty-five.”

“Yes,” I said, as the King of the Street paused and seemed inclined to drop the story. “At twenty-five.”

“Well,” he continued at this encouragement, “when I came back, Honest Injun was down to ten cents, or somewhere around there, which was just about as I expected. Riggs comes up to me as proud as a spotted pup, and tells me that he’d sold at thirty dollars, and cleared fifty thousand more than I’d expected.”

“A pretty good deal,” I suggested.

“It happened that way, but it wouldn’t happen so once in ten years. The stock had gone up to thirty-one or thirty-two before it broke, and he had sold just in time.”

“Did he get a reward?” I asked, as my employer appeared to wait for an observation from me.

“He did,” said the Wolf with a growl. “I discharged him on the spot. And hanged if I didn’t tell him that the fifty thousand was his–and let him have it, too. Oh, he was playing in great luck! That combination wouldn’t come twice in a thousand years. The next man who tried it went to jail,” he added with a snap of the jaws.

“Quite correct,” I said. “Orders must be obeyed.”

“Just remember that,” he said significantly. “Have you heard anything more of Decker?”

“I’ve heard enough to satisfy me that he’s the man who got the Omega stock.”

“What other deal is he in?” asked the King of the Street.

“I don’t know.”

The King of the Street smiled indulgently.

“Well, you’ve got something to learn yet. I’ll give you till next week to find the answer to that question.”

I was convinced from his air that he had information on both these points himself, and was merely trying my knowledge.

“I’ll not be back before next Wednesday,” he concluded.

“Going away again?” I asked in surprise.

“I’m off to Virginia City,” he replied after considering for a little. “I’m not sure about Omega, after all–and there’s another one I want to look into. You needn’t mention my going. When I come back we’ll have a campaign that will raise the roof of every Board in town. No orders till then unless I telegraph you. That’s all.”

The King of the Street seemed straightforward enough in his statement of plans, and it did not occur to me to distrust him while I was in his presence. Yet, once more in my office, with the locked door between, I began to doubt, and tried to find some hidden meaning in each word and look. What plan was he revolving in that fertile brain? I could not guess. The mystery of the great speculator was beyond my power to fathom. And we worked, each in ignorance of the other’s purposes, and went the appointed road.

CHAPTER XV

I AM IN THE TOILS

“Welcome once more, Mr. Wilton,” said Mrs. Doddridge Knapp, holding out her hand. “Were you going to neglect us again?”

“Not at all, madam,” said I with unblushing mendacity. “I am always at your command.”

Mrs. Knapp bowed with regal condescension, and replied with such intimations of good will that I was glad I had come. I had vowed I would never set foot again in the place. The hot blood of shame had burned my cheeks whenever I recalled my dismissal from the lips of the daughter of the house. But I had received a letter from Mrs. Bowser, setting forth that I was wanted at the house of Doddridge Knapp, and her prolixity was such that I was unable to determine whether she, or Mrs. Knapp, or Luella, wished to see me. But as all three appeared to be concerned in it I pocketed pride and resentment, and made my bow with some nervous quavers at the Pine Street palace.

As I was speaking I cast my eyes furtively about the room. Mrs. Knapp interpreted my glance.

“She will be in presently.” There was to my ear a trace of mocking laughter in her voice as she spoke, but her face betokened only a courteous interest.

“Thanks–I hope so,” I said in a little confusion. I wished I knew whether she meant Luella or Mrs. Bowser.

“You got the note?” she asked.

“It was a great pleasure.”

“Mrs. Bowser wished so much to see you again. She has been singing your praises–you were such an agreeable young man.”

I cursed Mrs. Bowser in my heart.

“I am most flattered,” I said politely.

There was a mischievous sparkle in Mrs. Knapp’s eye, but her face was serenely gracious.

“I believe there was some arrangement between you about a trip to see the sights of Chinatown. Mrs. Bowser was quite worried for fear you had forgotten it, so I gave her your address and told her to write you a note.”

I had not been conscious of expecting anything from my visit, but at this bit of information I found that I had been building air-castles which had been invisible till they came tumbling about my ears. I could not look for Miss Knapp’s company on such an expedition.

“Oh,” said I, with an attempt to conceal my disappointment, “the matter had slipped my mind. I shall be most happy to attend Mrs. Bowser, or to see that she has a proper escort.”

We had been walking about the room during this conversation, and at this point had come to an alcove where Mrs. Knapp motioned me to a seat.

“I may not get a chance to talk with you alone again this evening,” she continued, dropping her half-bantering tone, “and you come so little now. What are you doing?”

“Keeping out of mischief.”

“Yes, but how?” she persisted. “You used to tell me everything. Now you tell me nothing.”

“Mr. Knapp’s work–” I began.

“Oh, of course I don’t expect you to tell me about that. I know Mr. Knapp, and you’re as close-mouthed as he, even when he’s away.”

“I should tell you anything of my own, but, of course, another’s–“

“I understand.” Mrs. Knapp, sitting with hands clasped in her lap, gave me a quick look. “But there was something else. You were telling me about your adventures, you remember. You told me two or three weeks ago about the way you tricked Darby Meeker and sent him to Sierra City.” And she smiled at the recollection of Darby Meeker’s discomfiture.

“Oh, yes,” I said, with a laugh that sounded distressingly hollow to my ears. “That was a capital joke on Meeker.”

Here was a fine pack of predicaments loosed on my trail. It was with an effort that I kept my countenance, and the cold sweat started on my forehead. How much had Henry told of his business? Had he touched on it lightly, humorously, or had he given a full account of his adventures to the wife of the man with whose secrets he was concerned, and whose evil plans had brought him to his death? The questions flashed through my mind in the instant that followed Mrs. Knapp’s speech.

“How did it turn out?” asked Mrs. Knapp with lively interest. “Did he get back?”

I decided promptly on a judicious amount of the truth.

“Yes, he got back, boiling with wrath, and loaded to the guards with threats–that is, I heard so from my men. I didn’t see him myself, or you might have found the rest of it in the newspaper.”

“What did he do? Tell me about it.” Mrs. Knapp gave every evidence of absorbed interest.

“Well, he laid a trap for me at Borton’s, put Terrill in as advance guard, and raised blue murder about the place.” And then I went on to give a carefully amended account of my first night’s row at Borton’s, and with an occasional question, Mrs. Knapp had soon extorted from me a fairly full account of my doings.

“It is dreadful for you to expose yourself to such dangers.”

I was privately of her opinion.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said I airily. “A man may be killed any day by a brick falling from a building, or by slipping on an orange peel on the crossing.”

“But it is dreadful to court death so. Yet,” she mused, “if I were a man I could envy you your work. There is romance and life in it, as well as danger. You are doing in the nineteenth century and in the midst of civilization what your forefathers may have done in the days of chivalry.”

“It is a fine life,” I said dryly. “But it has its drawbacks.”

“But while you live no one can harm the child,” she said. There was inquiry in her tone, I thought.

I suppressed a start of surprise. I had avoided mention of the boy. Henry had trusted Mrs. Knapp further than I had dreamed.

“He shall never be given up by me,” I replied with conviction.

“That is spoken like a true, brave man,” said Mrs. Knapp with an admiring look.

“Thank you,” I said modestly.

“Another life than yours depends on your skill and courage. That must give you strength,” she said softly.

“It does indeed,” I replied. I was thinking of Doddridge Knapp’s life.

“But here come Luella and Mrs. Bowser,” said Mrs. Knapp. “I see I shall lose your company.”

My heart gave a great bound, and I turned to see the queenly grace of Luella Knapp as she entered the room in the train of Mrs. Bowser.

Vows of justice and vengeance, visions of danger and death, faded away as I looked once more on the mobile, expressive face of the girl who had claimed so great a share of my waking thoughts and filled my dreams from the first moment her spirit had flashed on mine. I rose and my eyes followed her eagerly as I stood by the curtain of the alcove, oblivious of all else in the room.

Was it fancy, or had she grown paler and thinner since I had last seen her? Surely those dark hollows under her eyes that told of worry and lost sleep were not there when her brightness had chained my admiration. I could guess that she was grieving for Henry, and a jealous pang shot through my heart. She gave no glance in my direction as she walked into the room and looked about her. I dreaded her eye as I hungered for a look.

“Luella!” called Mrs. Knapp. I fancied she gave a low, musical laugh as she spoke, yet a glance showed me that her face was calm and serious. “Luella, here is some one you will like to see.”

Luella Knapp turned and advanced. What was the look that lighted up her face and sparkled from her eyes? Before I could analyze the magnetic thrill that came from it, it was gone. A flush passed over her face and died away as she came.

“You honor our poor house once more?” she said, dropping a mock courtesy. “I thought you had deserted us.”

I was surprised at this line of attack, and for a moment my little army of ideas was thrown into confusion. I felt, rather than heard, the undertone that carried the real meaning of her words.

“Not I,” said I stoutly, recovering myself, and holding out my hand. I saw there was a little play to be carried on for the benefit of Mrs. Knapp. For some reason she had not confided in her mother. “Not I. I am always your very humble knight.”

I saw that Mrs. Knapp was looking at us curiously, and pressed my advantage. Luella took my hand unwillingly. I was ready to dare a good deal for the clasp of her fingers, but I scarcely felt the thrill of their touch before she had snatched them away.

“There’s nothing but pretty speeches to be had from you–and quotations at that,” she said. There was malice under the seeming innocence of a pretended pout.

“There’s nothing that could be so becoming in the circumstances.”

“Except common sense,” frowned Luella.

“The most uncommon of qualities, my dear,” laughed Mrs. Knapp. “Sit down, children. I must see to Mr. Carter, who is lost by the portiere and will never be discovered unless I rescue him.”

“Take him to dear Aunt Julia,” said Luella as her mother left us.

“Dear Aunt Julia,” I inferred, was Mrs. Bowser.

I was certain that Mr. Carter would not find the demands of conversation too much for him if he was blest with the company of that charming dame.

Luella took a seat, and I followed her example. Then, with chin in hand and elbow on the arm of her chair, the young woman looked at me calmly and thoughtfully.

I grew a little uncomfortable as my self-possession melted away before this steady gaze. I had no observations to make, being uncertain about the weather, so I had the prudence to keep silent.

“Well,” said Luella at last, in a cutting voice, “why don’t you talk?”

“It’s your lead,” said I gloomily. “You took the last trick.”

At this reference to our meeting, Luella looked surprised. Then she gave a little rippling laugh.

“Really,” she said, “I believe I shall begin to like you, yet.”

“That’s very kind of you; but turn about is fair play.”

“You mustn’t do that,” said she severely, “or I shan’t.”

“I meant it,” said I defiantly.

“Then you ought to know better than to say it,” she retorted.

“I’m in need of lessons, I fear.”

“How delightful of you to confess it! Then shall I tell you what to do?”

This was very charming. I hastened to say:

“Do, by all means.”

The young woman sank back in her chair, clasped her hands in her lap as her mother had done, and glanced hastily about. Then in a low voice she said:

“Be yourself.”

It was an electric shock she gave me, not more by the words than by the tone.

I struggled for a moment before I regained my mental balance.

“Don’t you think we could get on safer ground?” I suggested.

“No,” said Luella. “There isn’t any safe ground for us otherwise.”

The sudden heart-sickness at the reminder of my mission with which these words overwhelmed me, tied my tongue and mastered my spirits. It was this girl’s father that I was pursuing. It was to bring him to the halter that I must keep up my masquerade. It was to bring her to sorrow and disgrace that I was bound by the dead hand of my murdered friend. Oh, why was this burden laid upon me? Why was I to be torn on the rack between inclination and duty?

Luella watched my face narrowly through the conflict in my mind, and I felt as though her spirit struggled with mine to win me to the course of open, honest dealing. But it was impossible. She must be the last of all to know.

Her eyes sank as though she knew which had won the victory, and a proud, scornful look took the place of the grave good humor that had been there a moment before. Then, on a sudden, she began to speak of the theaters, rides, drives and what-not of the pleasures of the day. To an observer it would have seemed that we were deep in friendly discourse; but I, who felt her tone and manner, knew that she was miles away from me and talking but for the appearance of courtesy. Suddenly she stopped with a weary look.

“There’s Aunt Julia waiting for you,” she said with a gleam of malicious pleasure. “Come along. I deliver you over a prisoner of war.”

“Wait a minute,” I pleaded.

“No,” she said, imperiously motioning me. “Come along.” And with a sigh I was given, a helpless, but silently protesting, captive, to the mercies of Mrs. Bowser.

That eloquent lady received me with a flutter of feathers, if I may borrow the expression, to indicate her pleasure.

“Oh, Mr. Wilton, you’ll pardon my boldness, I’m sure,” she said with an amiable flirt of the head, as I seated myself beside her and watched Luella melt away into the next room; “but I was afraid you had forgotten all about us poor women, and it’s a dreadful thing to be in this great house when there isn’t a man about, though of course there are the servants, but you can’t count them as men, besides some of them being Chinamen. And we–I–that is, I really did want to see you, and we ought to have so much to talk over, for I’ve heard that your mother’s first cousin was a Bowser, and I do so want to see that dear, delightful Chinatown that I’ve heard so much about, though they do say it’s horrid and dirty, but you’ll let us see that for ourselves, won’t you, and did you ever go through Chinatown, Mr. Wilton?”

Mrs. Bowser pulled up her verbal coach-and-six so suddenly that I felt as though she must have been pitched off the box.

“Oh,” said I carelessly, “I’ve seen the place often enough.”

“How nice!” Then suddenly looking grave, Mrs. Bowser spoke from behind her fan. “But I hope, Mr. Wilton, there’s nothing there that a lady shouldn’t see.”

I hastened to assure her that it was possible to avoid everything that would bring a blush to the cheek of a matron of her years.

Mrs. Bowser at this rattled on without coming to any point, and, after waiting to learn when she expected to claim my services, and seeing no prospect of getting such information without a direct question, I allowed my eyes and attention to wander about the room, feeding the flow of speech, when it was checked, with a word or two of reply. I could see nothing of Luella, and Mrs. Knapp appeared to be too much taken up with other guests to notice me. I was listening to the flow of Mrs. Bowser’s high-pitched voice without getting any idea from it, when my wandering attention was suddenly recalled by the words, “Mr. Knapp.”

“What was that?” I asked in some confusion. “I didn’t catch your meaning.”

“I was saying I thought it strange Mr. Knapp wouldn’t go with us, and he got awfully cross when I pressed him, and said–oh, Mr. Wilton, he said such a dreadful word–that he’d be everlastingly somethinged if he would ever go into such a lot of dens of–oh, I can’t repeat his dreadful language–but wasn’t it strange, Mr. Wilton?”

“Very,” I said diplomatically; “but it isn’t worth while to wait for him, then.”

“Oh, laws, no!–he’ll be home to-morrow, but he won’t go.”

“Home to-morrow!” I exclaimed. “I thought he wasn’t to come till Wednesday.”

Mrs. Bowser looked a little uncomfortable.

“I guess he’s old enough to come and go when he likes,” she said. But her flow of words seemed to desert her.

“Very true,” I admitted. “I wonder what’s bringing him back in such a hurry.”

Mrs. Bowser’s beady eyes turned on me in doubt, and for a moment she was dumb. Then she followed this miracle by another, and spoke in a low tone of voice.

“It’s not for me to say anything against a man in his own house, but I don’t like to talk of Doddridge Knapp.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “A little rough in his speech? Oh, Mrs. Bowser, you should make allowances for a man who has had to fight his way in the roughest business life in the world, and not expect too much of his polish.”

“Oh, laws, he’s polite enough,” whispered Mrs. Bowser. “It ain’t that– oh, I don’t see how she ever married him.”

I followed the glance that Mrs. Bowser gave on interrupting herself with this declaration, and saw Mrs. Knapp approaching us.

“Oh,” she exclaimed cheerily, “is it all settled? Have you made all the arrangements, Cousin Julia?”

“Well, I declare! I’d forgotten all about telling him,” cried Mrs. Bowser in her shrillest tone. “I’d just taken it for a fact that he’d know when to come.”

“That’s a little too much to expect, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Knapp, smiling gaily at Mrs. Bowser’s management. “I see that I shall have to arrange this thing myself. Will Monday night suit you, Henry?”

“As well as another,” said I politely, concealing my feelings as a victim of feminine diplomacy.

“You have told him who are going, haven’t you?” said Mrs. Knapp to Mrs. Bowser.

“Laws, no! I never thought but what he knew.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Knapp. “What a gift as a mind-reader Mr. Wilton ought to have! Well, I suppose I’d better not trust to that, Henry. There’s to be Mrs. Bowser, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Carter, and Mr. Horton, and–oh, yes–Luella.”

My heart gave a jump, and the trip to Chinatown suddenly became an object of interest.

“I, mama?” said an inquiring voice, and Luella herself stood by her mother.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Knapp. “It’s the Chinatown expedition for Monday night.”

Luella looked annoyed, and tapped her foot to the floor impatiently.

“With Mr. Wilton,” there was the slightest emphasis on the words, “to accompany the party, I shouldn’t think it would be necessary for me to go.”

“It is either you or I,” said Mrs. Knapp.

“You will be needed to protect Mr. Horton,” said I sarcastically.

“Oh, what a task!” she said gaily. “I shall be ready.” And she turned away before I could put in another word, and I walked down the room with Mrs. Knapp.

“And so Mr. Knapp is coming home to-morrow?” I said.

Mrs. Knapp gave me a quick look.

“Yes,” she said. There was something in her tone that set me to thinking that there was more than I knew behind Mr. Knapp’s sudden return.

“I hope he is not ill,” I said politely.

Mrs. Knapp appeared to be considering some point deeply, and did not answer for a little. Then she shook her head as though the idea was not to her liking.

“I think you will find him all right when you see him. But here–you must meet Mr. and Mrs. Carter. They are just from the East, and very charming people, and as you are to do them the honors on Monday evening, you should know them.”

Mr. and Mrs. Carter had pleasant faces and few ideas, and as the conversational fire soon burned low I sought Mrs. Knapp and took my leave. Luella was nowhere to be seen.

“You must be sure that you are well-guarded,” said Mrs. Knapp. “It quite gives me the terrors to think of those murderous fellows. And since you told me of that last plot to call you down to Borton’s, I have a presentiment that some special danger is ahead of you. Be cautious as well as brave.”

She had followed me into the hall, and spoke her warning freely. There was a sadness in her eyes that seemed as though she would dissuade me from my task.

I thanked her as she pressed my hand, and, with no Luella awaiting me by the stair, I took my way down the stone steps, between the bronze lions, and joined Porter and Barkhouse on the sidewalk.

CHAPTER XVI

AN ECHO OF WARNING

“All quiet?” I asked of my guards, as we took our way down the street.

“All quiet,” said Porter.

“You’d better tell him,” said Barkhouse.

“Oh, yes,” said Porter, as if in sudden recollection. “Dicky Nahl was along here, and he said Terrill and Meeker and the other gang was holding a powwow at Borton’s, and we’d best look out for surprises.”

“Was that all?”

“Well, he said he guessed there was a new deal on hand, and they was a- buzzin’ like a nest of hornets. It was hornets, wasn’t it, Bob?”

“Hornets was what he said,” repeated Barkhouse stolidly.

“Where’s Dicky now?” I asked.

“I ain’t good at guessing,” said Porter, “and Bob’s nothing at all at it.”

“Well,” said I, “we had better go down to Borton’s and look into this matter.”

There was silence for a time. My guards walked beside me without speaking, but I felt the protest in their manner. At last Barkhouse said respectfully:

“There’s no use to do that, sir. You’d better send some one that ain’t so likely to be nabbed, or that won’t matter much if he is. We’d be in a pretty fix if you was to be took.”

“Here comes Dicky, now,” said Porter, as a dark figure came swinging lightly along.

“Hullo!” cried Dicky, halting and shading his eyes from the gaslight. “I was just going up to look for you again.”

“What’s up, Dicky?”

“I guess it’s the devil,” said Dicky, so gravely that I broke into a laugh.

“He’s right at home if he’s come to this town,” I said.

“I’m glad you find it so funny,” said Dicky in an injured tone. “You was scared enough last time.”

I had put my foot in it, sure enough. I might have guessed that the devil was not his Satanic Majesty but some evil-minded person in the flesh whom I had to fear.

“Can it be Doddridge Knapp?” flashed across my mind but I dismissed the suspicion as without foundation. I spoke aloud:

“Well, I’ve kept out of his claws this far, and it’s no use to worry. What’s he trying to do now?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out all the evening. They’re noisy enough, but they’re too thick to let one get near where there’s anything going on–that is, if he has a fancy for keeping a whole skin.”

“Suppose we go down there now,” I suggested. “We might find out something.”

Dicky stopped short.

“Caesar’s ghost!” he gasped; “what next? Wouldn’t you like to touch off a few powder-kegs for amusement? Won’t you fire a pistol into your mouth to show how easy you can stop the bullet?”

“Why, you have been down there and are all right,” I argued.

“Well, there’s nothing much to happen to me, but where would you be if they got hold of you? You’re getting off your _cabesa_, old fellow,” said Dicky anxiously.

“If I could see Mother Borton I could fix it,” I said confidently.

“What! That she-devil?” cried Dicky. “She’d give you up to have your throat cut in a minute if she could get a four-bit piece for your carcass. I guess she could get more than that on you, too.”

Mother Borton’s warnings against Dicky Nahl returned to me with force at this expression of esteem from the young man, and I was filled with doubts.

“I came up to tell you to look out for yourself,” continued Dicky. “I’m afraid they mean mischief, and here you come with a wild scheme for getting into the thick of it.”

“Well, I’ll think better of it,” I said. “But see if you can find out what is going on. Come up and let me know if you get an inkling of their plans.”

“All right,” said Dicky. “But just sleep on a hair-trigger to-night.”

“Good night,” I said, as I turned toward my room, and Dicky, with an answering word, took his way toward the Borton place.

I had grown used to the silent terrors of my house. The weird fancies that clung around the gloomy halls and dark doorways still whispered their threatening tales of danger and death. The air was still peopled with the ghosts of forgotten crimes, and the tragedy of the alley that had changed my life was heavy on the place. But habit, and the confidence that had come to me with the presence of my guards, had made it a tolerable spot in which to live. But as we stumbled up the stairway the apprehensions of Dicky Nahl came strong upon me, and I looked ahead to the murky halls, and glanced at every doorway, as though I expected an ambush. Porter and Barkhouse marched stolidly along, showing little disposition to talk.

“What’s that?” I exclaimed, stopping to listen.

“What was it?” asked Barkhouse, as we stopped on the upper landing and gazed into the obscurity.

“I thought I heard a noise,” said I. “Who’s there?”

“It was a rat,” said Porter. “I’ve heard ’em out here of nights.”

“Well, just light that other gas-jet,” I said. “It will help to make things pleasant in case of accidents.”

The doors came out of the darkness as the second jet blazed up, but nothing else was to be seen.

Suddenly there was a scramble, and something sprang up before my door. Porter and I raised the revolvers that were ready in our hands, but Barkhouse sprang past us, and in an instant had closed with the figure and held it in his arms.

There was a volley of curses, oaths mingled with sounds that reminded me of nothing so much as a spitting cat, and a familiar voice screamed in almost inarticulate rage:

“Let me go, damn ye, or I’ll knife ye!”

“Good heavens!” I cried. “Let her go, Barkhouse. It’s Mother Borton.”

Mother Borton freed herself with a vicious shake, and called down the wrath of Heaven and hell on the stalwart guard.

“You’re the black-hearted spawn of the sewer rats, to take a respectable woman like a bag of meal,” cried Mother Borton indignantly, with a fresh string of oaths. “It’s fire and brimstone you’ll be tasting yet, and you’d ‘a’ been there before now, you miserable gutter- picker, if it wasn’t for me. And this is the thanks I git from ye!”

“I’ll apologize for his display of gallantry,” said I banteringly. “I’ve always told him that he was too fond of the ladies.”

I was mistaken in judging that this tone would be the most effective to restore her to good humor. Mother Borton turned on me furiously.

“Oh, it’s you that would set him on a poor woman as comes to do you a service. I was as wide-awake as any of ye. I never closed my eyes a wink, and you has to come a-sneakin’ up and settin’ your dogs on me.” Mother Borton again drew on an apparently inexhaustible vocabulary of oaths. “Oh, you’re as bad as him,” she shouted, “and I reckon you’d be worse if you knowed how.” And she spat out more curses, and shook her fist in impotent but verbose rage.

“Come in,” I said, unlocking the door and lighting up my room. “You can be as angry as you like in here, and it won’t hurt anything.”

Mother Borton stormed a bit, and then sullenly walked in and took a chair. Silence fell on her as she crossed the threshold, but she glowered on us with fierce eyes.

“It’s quite an agreeable surprise to see you,” I ventured as cheerfully as I could, as she made no move to speak. My followers looked awkward and uncomfortable.

At the sound of my voice, Mother Borton’s bent brows relaxed a little.

“If you’d send these fellows out, I reckon we could talk a bit better,” she said sourly.

“Certainly. Just wait in the hall, boys; and close the door.”

Porter and Barkhouse ambled out, and Mother Borton gave her chair a hitch that brought us face to face.

“You ain’t so bad off here,” she said, looking around critically. “Can any one git in them winders?”

I explained that the west window might be entered from the rear stairway by the aid of the heavy shutter, if it were swung back and the window were open. I added that we kept it closed and secured.

“And you say there’s a thirty-foot drop from this winder?” she inquired, pointing to the north.

I described the outlook on the alley.

She nodded as if satisfied.

“I reckon you don’t think I come on a visit of perliteness?” she said sharply, after a brief silence.

I murmured something about being glad to entertain her at any time.

“Nonsense!” she sniffed. “I’m a vile old woman that the likes of you would never put eyes on twice if it wasn’t for your business–none knows it better than me. I don’t know why I should put myself out to help ye.” Her tone had a touch of pathos under its hardness.

“I know why,” I said, a little touched. “It’s because you like me.”

She turned a softened eye on me.

“You’re right,” she said almost tenderly, with a flash of womanly feeling on her seamed and evil face. “I’ve took a fancy to ye and no mistake, and I’d risk something to help ye.”

“I knew you would,” I said heartily. “And that’s what I come to do,” she said, with a sparkle of pleasure in her eye. “I’ve come to warn ye.”

“New dangers?” I inquired cheerfully. My prudence suggested that I had better omit any mention of the warning from Dicky Nahl.

“The same ones,” said Mother Borton shortly, “only more of ’em.”

Then she eyed me grimly, crouching in her chair with the appearance of an evil bird of prey, and seemed to wait for me to speak.

“What is the latest plot?” I asked gravely, as I fancied that my light manner grated on my strange guest.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

“But you know something,” I argued.

“Maybe you know what I know better than I knows it myself,” growled Mother Borton with a significant glance.

I resigned myself to await her humor.

“Not at all,” said I carelessly. “I only know that you’ve come to tell me something, and that you’ll tell it in your own good time.”

“It’s fine to see that you’ve learned not to drive a woman,” she returned with grim irony. “It’s something to know at your age.”

I smiled sympathetically upon her, and she continued:

“I might as well tell ye the whole of it, though I reckon my throat’s jist as like to be slit over it as not.”

“I’ll never breathe a word of it,” I replied fervently.

“I’d trust ye,” she said. “Well, there was a gang across the street to- night–across from my place, I mean–and that sneaking Tom Terrill and Darby Meeker, and I reckon all the rest of ’em, was there. And they was runnin’ back and forth to my place, and a-drinkin’ a good deal, and the more they drinks the louder they talks. And I hears Darby Meeker say to one feller, ‘We’ll git him, sure!’ and I listens with all my ears, though pretendin’ to see nothin’. ‘We’ll fix it this time,’ he said; ‘the Old Un’s got his thinkin’ cap on.’ And I takes in every word, and by one thing and another I picks up that there’s new schemes afoot to trap ye. They was a-sayin’ as it might be an idee to take ye as you come out of Knapp’s to-night.”

“How did they know I was at Knapp’s?” I asked, somewhat surprised, though I had little reason to be when I remembered the number of spies who might have watched me.

“Why, Dicky Nahl told ’em,” said Mother Borton. “He was with the gang, and sings it out as pretty as you please.”

This gave me something new to think about, but I said nothing.

“Well,” she continued, “they says at last that won’t do, fer it’ll git ’em into trouble, and I reckon they’re argyfying over their schemes yit. But one thing I finds out.”

Mother Borton stopped and looked at me anxiously.

“Well,” I said impatiently, “what was it?”

“They’re a-sayin’ as how, if you’re killed, the one as you knows on’ll have to git some one else to look after the boy, and mebbe he won’t be so smart about foolin’ them.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” said I. “If they only knew that I was the other fellow they could see at once what a bright scheme they had hit upon.”

“Maybe they ain’t a-goin’ to do it,” said Mother Borton. “There’s a heap o’ things said over the liquor that don’t git no further, but you’ll be a fool if you don’t look out. Now, do as I tell you. You just keep more men around you. Keep eyes in the back of your head, and if you see there’s a-goin’ to be trouble, jest you shoot first and ax questions about it afterward. They talked of getting you down on the water-front or up in Chinatown with some bogus message and said how easy it would be to dispose of you without leaving clues behind ’em. Now, don’t you sleep here without three or four men on guard, and don’t you stir round nights with less than four. Send Porter out to git two more men, and tell him to look sharp and see if the coast’s clear outside. I reckon I’ll slide out if no one’s lookin’.”

“I’ve got some men on the next floor,” I said. “I thought it would be just as well to have a few around in case of emergencies. I’ll have two of them out, and send Porter to reconnoiter.”

“Who told you to git your men together?”

“A little idea of my own.”

“You’ve got some sense, after all.”

The reinforcements were soon ready to take orders, and Porter returned to bring word that no suspicious person was in sight in the street.

“I reckon I’d best go, then,” said Mother Borton. “I don’t want no knife in me jest yit, but if there’s no one to see me I’m all right.”

I pressed Mother Borton to take two of my men as escort, but she sturdily refused.

“They’d know something was up if I was to go around that way, and I’d be a bloody ghost as soon as they could ketch me alone,” she said. “Well, good night–or is it mornin’? And do take keer of yourself, dearie.” And, so saying, Mother Borton muffled herself up till it was hard to tell whether she was man or woman, and trudged away.

Whatever designs were brewing in the night-meeting of the conspirators, they did not appear to concern my immediate peace of body. The two following days were spent in quiet, and, in spite of warnings, I began to believe that no new plan of action had been determined on.

“Don’t you feel too sure of yourself,” said Dicky Nahl, to whom I confided this view of the situation. “You won’t feel so funny about it if you get prodded in the ribs with a bowie some dark night, or find your head wrapped up in a blanket when you think you’re just taking a ‘passy-ar’ in Washington Square in the evening.”

Dicky looked very much in earnest, and his bright and airy manner was gone for the moment.

“You seem to get along well enough with them,” I suggested tartly, remembering Mother Borton’s stories with some suspicion.

“Of course,” said Dicky. “Why shouldn’t I? They’re all right if you don’t rub the fur the wrong way. But I haven’t got state secrets in my pockets, so they know it’s no use to pick ’em.”

I was not at all sure of Dicky’s fidelity, in spite of his seeming earnestness, but I forbore to mention my doubts, and left the garrulous young man to go his way while I turned to the office that had been furnished by Doddridge Knapp. I hardly expected to meet the King of the Street. He had, I supposed, returned to the city, but he had set Wednesday as the day for resuming operations in the market, and I did not think that he would be found here on Monday.

The room was cold and cheerless, and the dingy books in law-calf appeared to gaze at me in mute protest as I looked about me.

The doors that separated me from Doddridge Knapp’s room were shut and locked. What was behind them? I wondered. Was there anything in Doddridge Knapp’s room that bore on the mystery of the hidden boy, or would give the clue to the murder of Henry Wilton? As I gazed on the panels the questions became more and more insistent. Was it not my duty to find the answer? The task brought my mind to revolt. Yet the thought grew on me that it was necessary to my task. If vengeance was to be mine; if Doddridge Knapp was to pay the penalty of the gallows for the death of Henry Wilton, it must be by the evidence that I should wrest from him and his tools. I must not stop at rummaging papers, nor at listening at keyholes. I had just this morning secured the key that would fit the first door. I had taken the impression of the lock and had it made without definite purpose, but now I was ready to act.

With a sinking heart but a clear head I put the key cautiously to the lock and gently turned it. The key fitted perfectly, and the bolt flew back as it made the circle. I opened the door into the middle room. The second door, as I expected, was closed. Would the same key fit the second lock, or must I wait to have another made? I advanced to the second door and was about to try the key when a sound from behind it turned my blood to water.

Beyond that door, from the room I had supposed to be empty, I heard a groan.

I stood as if petrified, and, in the broad daylight that streamed in at the window, with the noise and rush of Clay Street ringing in my ears, I felt my hair rise as though I had come on a ghost. I listened a minute or more, but heard nothing.

“Nonsense!” I thought to myself; “it was a trick of the imagination.”

I raised my hand once more to the lock, when the sound broke again, louder, unmistakable. It was the voice of one in distress of body or mind.

What was it? Could it be some prisoner of Doddridge Knapp’s, brought hither by the desperate band that owned him as employer? Was it a man whom I might succor? Or was it Doddridge Knapp himself, overwhelmed by recollection and remorse, doing penance in solitude for the villainy he had done and dared not confess? I listened with all my ears. Then there came through the door the low, stern tones of a man’s voice speaking earnestly, pleadingly, threateningly, but in a suppressed monotone.

Then the groan broke forth again, and it was followed by sobs and choked sounds, as of one who protested, yet, strangely, the voice was the same. There was one man, not two. It was self-accusation, self- excuse, and the sobs seemed to come in answer to self-reproaches.

Then there was sound as of a man praying, and the prayer was broken by sobs; and again I thought there were two men. And then there was noise of a man moving about, and a long smothered groan, as of one in agony of spirit. Fearful that the door might be flung open in my face, I tiptoed back to my room, and silently turned the key, as thoroughly mystified as ever I had been in the strange events that had crowded my life since I had entered the city.

CHAPTER XVII

IN A’ FOREIGN LAND

I stood long by my own door, irresolute, listening, hoping, fearing, my brain throbbing with the effort to seize some clue to the maze of mysteries in which I was entangled. Was the clue behind those locked doors? Did the man whose groans and prayers had startled me hold the heart of the mystery?

The groans and prayers, if they continued, could be heard no longer through the double doors, and I seated myself by the desk and took account of the events that had brought me to my present position. Where did I stand? What had I accomplished? What had I learned? How was I to reach the end for which I struggled and bring to justice the slayer of my murdered friend? As I passed in review the occurrences that had crowded the few weeks since my arrival, I was compelled to confess that I knew little more of the mysteries that surrounded me than on the night I arrived. I knew that I was tossed between two opposing forces. I knew that a mysterious boy was supposed to be under my protection, and that to gain and keep possession of him my life was sought and defended. I knew that Doddridge Knapp had caused the murder of Henry Wilton, and yet for some unfathomable reason gave me his confidence and employment under the belief that I was Henry Wilton. But I had been able to get no hint of who the boy might be, or where he was concealed, or who was the hidden woman who employed me to protect him, or why he was sought by Doddridge Knapp. Mother Borton’s vague hints seemed little better than guess-work. If she knew the name of the boy and the identity of the woman, she had some good reason for concealing them. It flashed over my mind that Mother Borton might herself be the mysterious employer. I had never yet seen a line of her handwriting, and the notes might have come from her. It was she who first had told me that my men were already paid, and a few hours later I had found the note from my employer assuring me that the demands were fully settled. Could it be that she was the woman with whom Doddridge Knapp was battling with a desperate purpose that did not stop at murder? The idea was gone as soon as it came. It was preposterous to suppose that these two could feel so overwhelming an interest in the same child.

How long I sat by the desk waiting, thinking, planning, I know not. One scheme of action after another I had considered and rejected, when a sound broke on my listening ears. I started up in feverish anxiety. It was from the room beyond, and I stole toward the door to learn what it might mean.

Again it came, but, strain as I might, I could not determine its cause. What could be going on in the locked office? If two men were there was it a personal encounter? If one man, was he doing violence upon himself? Was the heart of the mystery to be found behind those doors if I had the courage to throw them open? Burning with impatience, I thrust aside the fears of the evil that might follow hasty action. I had drawn the key and raised it once more to the slot, when I heard a step in the middle room. I had but time to retreat to my desk when a key was fitted in the lock, the door was flung open, and Doddridge Knapp stepped calmly into the room.

“Ah, Wilton,” said the King of the Street affably. “I was wondering if I should find you here.”

There was no trace of surprise or agitation in the face before me. If this was the man whose prayers and groans and sobs had come to me through the locked door, if he had wrestled with his conscience or even had been the accusing conscience of another, his face was a mask that showed no trace of the agony of thoughts that might contort the spirit beneath it.

“I was attending to a little work of my own,” I answered, after greeting. If I felt much like a disconcerted pickpocket I was careful to conceal the circumstance, and spoke with easy indifference. “You have come back before I expected you,” I continued carelessly.

“Yes,” said the King of the Street with equal carelessness. “Some family affairs called me home sooner than I had thought to come.”

I had an inward start. Mrs. Knapp’s troubled look, Mrs. Bowser’s confusion, and the few words that had passed, returned to me. What was the connection between them?

“Mrs. Knapp is not ill, I trust?” I ventured.

“Oh, no.”

“Nor Miss Knapp?”

“Oh, all are well at the house, but sometimes you know women-folks get nervous.”

Was it possible that Mrs. Knapp had sent for her husband? What other meaning could I put on these words? But before I could pursue my investigations further along this line, the wolf came to the surface, and he waved the subject aside with a growl.

“But this is nothing to you. What you want to know is that I won’t need you before Wednesday, if then.”

“Does the campaign reopen?” I asked.

“If you don’t mind, Wilton,” said the Wolf with another growl, “I’ll keep my plans till I’m ready to use them.”

“Certainly,” I retorted. “But maybe you would feel a little interest to know that Rosenheim and Bashford have gathered in about a thousand shares of Omega in the last four or five days.”

Doddridge Knapp gave me a keen glance.

“There were no sales of above a hundred shares,” he said.

“No–most of them ran from ten to fifty shares.”

“Well,” he continued, looking fixedly at me, “you know something about Rosenheim?”

“If it won’t interfere with your plans,” I suggested apologetically.

The Wolf drew back his lips over his fangs, and then turned the snarl into a smile. “Go on,” he said, waving amends for the snub he had administered.

“Well, I don’t know much about Rosenheim, but I caught him talking with Decker.”

“Were the stocks transferred to Decker?”

“No; they stand to Rosenheim, trustee.”

“Well, Wilton, they’ve stolen a march on us, but I reckon we’ll give ’em a surprise before they’re quite awake.”

“And,” I continued coolly, “Decker’s working up a deal in Crown Diamond and toying a little with Confidence–you gave me a week to find out, you may remember.”

“Very good, Wilton,” said the King of the Street with grudging approval. “We’ll sell old Decker quite a piece of Crown Diamond before he gets through. And now is there anything more in your pack?”

“It’s empty,” I confessed. “Well, you may go then.”

I was puzzled to know why Doddridge Knapp should wish to get me out of the office. Was there some secret locked in his room that he feared I might surprise if I stayed? I looked at him sharply, but there was nothing to be read on that impassive face.

Doddridge Knapp followed me to the door, and stood on the threshold as I walked down the hall. There was no chance for spying or listening at keyholes, if I were so inclined, and it was not until I had reached the bottom stair that I thought I heard the sound of a closing door behind me.

As I stood at the entrance, almost oblivious of the throng that was hurrying up and down Clay Street, Porter joined me.

“Did you see him?” he asked.

“Him? Who?”

“Why, Tom Terrill sneaked down those stairs a little bit ago, and I thought you might have found him up there.”

Could it be possible that this man had been with Doddridge Knapp, and that it was his voice I had heard? This in turn seemed improbable, hardly possible.

“There he is now,” whispered Porter.

I turned my eyes in the direction he indicated, and a shock ran through me; for my eye had met the eye of a serpent. Yes, there again was the cruel, keen face, and the glittering, repulsive eye, filled with malice and hatred, that I had beheld with loathing and dread whenever it had come in my path. With an evil glance Terrill turned and made off in the crowd.

“Follow that man, Wainwright,” said I to the second guard, who was close at hand. “Watch him to-night and report to me to-morrow.”

I wondered what could be the meaning of Terrill’s visit to the building. Was it to see Doddridge Knapp and get his orders? Or was it to follow up some new plan to wrest from me the secret I was supposed to hold? But there was no answer to these questions, and I turned toward my room to prepare for the excursion that had been set for the evening.

It was with hope and fear that I took my way to the Pine Street palace. It was my fear that was realized. Mrs. Bowser fell to my lot–indeed, I may say that I was surrounded by her in force, and surrendered unconditionally–while Luella joined Mr. Carter, and Mrs. Carter with Mr. Horton followed.

Corson was waiting for us at the old City Hall. I had arranged with the policeman that he should act as our guide, and had given him Porter and Barkhouse as assistants in case any should be needed.

“A fine night for it, sor,” said Corson in greeting. “There’s a little celebration goin’ on among the haythens to-night, so you’ll see ’em at their best.”

“Oh, how sweet!” gushed Mrs. Bowser. “Is it that dear China New Year that I’ve heard tell on, and do they take you in to dinner at every place you call, and do they really eat rats? Ugh, the horrid things!” And Mrs. Bowser pulled up short in mid career.

“No, ma’am,” said Corson, “leastways it ain’t Chaney New Year for a couple of months yet. As for eatin’ rats, there’s many a thing gets eaten up in the dens that would be better by bein’ turned into a rat.”

Looking across the dark shrubbery of Portsmouth Square and up Washington Street, the eye could catch a line of gay-colored lanterns, swaying in the light wind, and casting a mellow glow on buildings and walks.

“Oh, isn’t it sweet! So charming!” cried Mrs. Bowser, as we came into full view of the scene and crossed the invisible line that carries one from modern San Francisco into the ancient oriental city, instinct with foreign life, that goes by the name of Chinatown. Sordid and foul as it appears by daylight, there was a charm and romance to it under the lantern-lights that softened the darkness. Windows and doors were illuminated. Brown, flat-nosed men in loose clothing gathered in groups and discussed their affairs in a strange singsong tongue and high- pitched voices. Here, was the sound of the picking of the Chinese banjo-fiddle; there, we heard a cracked voice singing a melancholy song in the confusion of minor keys that may pass for music among the brown men; there, again, a gong with tin-pan accompaniment assisted to reconcile the Chinese to the long intervals between holidays. Crowds hurried along the streets, loitered at corners, gathered about points of interest, but it seemed as though it was all one man repeated over and over.

“Why, they’re all alike!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowser. “How do they ever tell each other apart?”

“Oh, that’s aisy enough, ma’am,” replied Corson with a twinkle in his eye. “They tie a knot in their pigtails, and that’s the way you know ’em.”

“Laws! you don’t say!” said Mrs. Bowser, much impressed. “I never could tell ’em that way.”

“It is a strange resemblance,” said Mr. Carter. “Don’t you find it almost impossible to distinguish between them?”

“To tell you the truth, sor, no,” said Corson. “It’s a trick of the eye with you, sor. If you was to be here with ’em for a month or two you’d niver think there was two of ’em alike. There’s as much difference betwixt one and another as with any two white men. I was loike you at first. I says to meself that they’re as like as two pease. But, now, look at those two mugs there in that door. They’re no more alike than you and me, as Mr. Wilton here can tell you, sor.”

The difference between the two Chinese failed to impress me, but I was mindful of my reputation as an old resident.

“Oh, yes; a very marked contrast,” I said promptly, just as I would have sworn that they were twins if Corson had suggested it.

“Very remarkable!” said Mr. Carter dubiously.

In and out we wound through the oriental city–the fairy-land that stretched away, gay with lanterns and busy with strange crowds, changing at times as we came nearer to a tawdry reality, cheap, dirty, and heavy with odors. Here was a shop where ivory in delicate carvings, bronze work that showed the patient handicraft and grotesque fancy of the oriental artist, lay side by side with porcelains, fine and coarse, decorated with the barbaric taste in form and color that rules the art of the ancient empire. Beyond, were carved cabinets of ebony and sandal-wood, rich brocades and soft silks and the proprietor sang the praises of his wares and reduced his estimate of their value with each step we took toward the door. Next the rich shop was a low den from whose open door poured fumes of tobacco and opium, and in whose misty depths figures of bloused little men huddled around tables and swayed hither and thither. The click of dominoes, the rattling of sticks and counters, and the excited cries of men, rose from the throng.

“They’re the biggest gamblers the Ould Nick iver had to his hand,” said Corson; “there isn’t one of ’em down there that wouldn’t bet the coat off his back.”

“Dear me, how dreadful!” said Mrs. Bowser. “And do we have to go down into that horrible hole, and how can we ever get out with our lives?”

“We’re not going down there, ma’am,” interrupted Corson shortly.

“And where next?” asked Luella.

The question was addressed to the policeman, not to me. Except for a formal greeting when we had met, Luella had spoken no word to me during the evening.

“Here’s the biggest joss-house in town,” said Corson. “We might as well see it now as any time.”

“Oh, do let us see those delightfully horrible idols,” cried Mrs. Bowser. “But,” she added, with a sudden access of alarm at some recollection of the reading of her school-days, “do they cut people’s hearts out before the wicked things right in the middle of the city?”

The policeman assured her that the appetite of the joss for gore remained unsatisfied, and led the way into the dimly-lighted building that served as a temple.

I lingered a moment by the door to see that all my party passed in.

“There’s Wainwright,” whispered Porter, who closed the procession.

“Where?” I asked, a dim remembrance of the mission on which I had sent him in pursuit of the snake-eyed man giving the information a sinister twist.

Porter gave a chirrup, and Wainwright halted at the door.

“He’s just passed up the alley here,” said Wainwright in a low voice.

“Who? Terrill?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Wainwright. “I’ve kept him in sight all the evening.”

“Hasn’t he seen you?” asked Porter. “I spied you as soon as you turned the corner.”

“Don’t know,” said Wainwright; “but something’s up. There he goes now. I mustn’t miss him.” And Wainwright darted off.

I looked searchingly in the direction he took, but could see no sign of the snake-eyed enemy.

The presence of Terrill gave me some tremors of anxiety, for I knew that his unscrupulous ferocity would stop at nothing. I feared for the moment that some violence might threaten the party, and that perhaps Luella was in danger. Then I reflected that the presence of Doddridge Knapp’s daughter was a protection against an attack from Doddridge Knapp’s agents, and I followed the party into the heathen temple without further apprehensions.

The temple was small, and even in the dim, religious light that gave an air of mystery to the ugly figure of the god and the trappings of the place, the whole appeared cheap–a poor representative of the majesty of a religion that claims the devotion of four hundred million human beings.

“That’s one of the richest carvings ever brought into this country,” said Corson, pointing to a part of the altar mounting. “Tin thousand dollars wouldn’t touch one side of it.”

“You don’t say!” cried Mrs. Bowser, while the rest murmured in the effort to admire the work of art. “And is that stuff burning for a disinfectant?”

She pointed to numerous pieces of punk, such as serve the small boy on the Fourth of July, that were consuming slowly before the ugly joss.

“No, ma’am–not but they needs it all right enough,” said Corson, “but that’s the haythen way of sayin’ your prayers.”

This information was so astonishing that Corson was allowed to finish his explanation without further remarks from Mrs. Bowser.

“I’ll show you the theater next,” said he, as he led the way out of the temple with Mrs. Bowser giving her views of the picturesque heathen in questions that Corson found no break in the conversation long enough to answer. As I lingered for a moment in some depression of spirit, waiting for the others to file out, a voice that thrilled me spoke in my ear.

“Our guide is enjoying a great favor.” It was Luella, noticing me for the first time since the expedition had started.

“He has every reason to be delighted,” I returned, brightening at the favor I was enjoying.

“Foreign travel is said to be of great value in education,” said Luella, taking my arm, “but it’s certainly stupid at times.”

I suspected that Mr. Carter had not been entirely successful in meeting Miss Knapp’s ideas of what an escort should be.

“I didn’t suppose you could find anything stupid,” I said.

“I am intensely interested,” she retorted, “but unfortunately the list of subjects has come to an end.”

“You might have begun at the beginning again.”

“He did,” she whispered, “so I thought it time he tried the guide or Aunt Julia.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank him, you mean,” she said gaily. “Now don’t be stupid yourself, so please change the subject. Do you know,” she continued without giving me time to speak, “that the only way I can be reconciled to this place and the sights we have seen is to imagine I am in Canton or Peking, thousands of miles from home? Seen there, it is interesting, instructive, natural–a part of their people. As a part of San Francisco it is only vile.”

“Ugh!” said I, as a whiff from an underground den floated up on the night air, and Luella caught her handkerchief to her face to get her breath. “I’m not sure that this rose would smell any sweeter by the name of Canton.”

“I’m afraid your argument is too practical for me to answer,” she laughed. “Yet I’m certain it would be more poetic seven thousand miles away.”

“Come this way,” said Corson, halting with the party at one of the doors. “I’ll show you through some of the opium dens, and that will bring us to the stage door of the theater.”

“How close and heavy the air is!” said Luella, as we followed the winding passage in the dim illumination that came from an occasional gas-jet or oil lamp.

“The yellow man is a firm believer in the motto, ‘Ventilation is the root of all evil,'” I admitted.

The fumes of tobacco and opium were heavy on the air, and a moment later we came on a cluster of small rooms or dens, fitted with couches and bunks. It needed no description to make the purpose plain. The whole process of intoxication by opium was before me, from the heating of the metal pipe to the final stupor that is the gift and end of the Black Smoke. Here, was a coolie mixing the drug; there, just beyond him, was another, drawing whiffs from the bubbling narcotic through the bamboo handle of his pipe; there, still beyond, was another, lying back unconscious, half-clad, repulsive, a very sorry reality indeed to the gorgeous dreams that are reputed to follow in the train of the seductive pipe.

“Do they really allow them to smoke that dreadful stuff?” asked Mrs. Bowser shrilly. “Why, I should think the governor, or the mayor, or you, Mr. Policeman, would stop the awful thing right off. Now, why don’t you?”

“Oh, it’s no harm to the haythen,” said Corson. “It’s death and destruction to the white man, but it’s no more to the yellow man than so much tobacco and whiskey. They’ll be all right to-morrow. We niver touches ’em unless they takes the whites into their dens. Then we raids ’em. But there’s too much of it goin’ on, for all that.”

“This is depressing,” said Luella, with a touch on my arm. “Let’s go on.”

“Turn to the right there,” Corson called out, as we led the way while he was explaining to Mr. Carter the method of smoking.

“Let us get where there is some air,” said Luella. “This odor is sickening.”

We hastened on, and, turning to the right, soon came on two passages. One led up a stair, hidden by a turn after half a dozen steps. The other stretched fifty or seventy-five feet before us, and an oil lamp on a bracket at the farther end gave a smoky light to the passage and to a mean little court on which it appeared to open.

“We had better wait for the rest,” said Luella cautiously.

As she spoke, one of the doors toward the farther end of the passage swung back, and a tall heavy figure came out. My heart gave a great bound, and I felt without realizing it at the moment, that Luella clutched my arm fiercely.

In the dim light the figure was the figure of the Wolf, the head was the head of the Wolf, and though no light shone upon it, the face was the face of the Wolf, livid, distorted with anger, fear and brutal passions.

“Doddridge Knapp!” I exclaimed, and gave a step forward.

It flashed on me that one mystery was explained. I had found out why the Doddridge Knapp of plot and counterplot, and the Doddridge Knapp who was the generous and confidential employer, could dwell in the same body. The King of the Street was a slave of the Black Smoke, and, like many another, went mad under the influence of the subtle drug.

As I moved forward, Luella clung to me and gave a low cry. The Wolf figure threw one malignant look at us and was gone.

“Take me home, oh, take me home!” cried Luella in low suppressed tones, trembling and half-falling. I put my arm about her to support her.

“What is it?” I asked.

She leaned upon me for one moment, and the black walls and gloomy passage became a palace filled with flowers. Then her strength and resolution returned, and she shook herself free.

“Come; let us go back to the others,” she said a little unsteadily. “We should not have left them.”

“Certainly,” I replied. “They ought to be here by this time.”

But as we turned, a sudden cry sounded as of an order given. There was a bang of wood and a click of metal, and, as we looked, we saw that unseen hands had closed the way to our return. A barred and iron-bound door was locked in our faces.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BATTLE IN THE MAZE

For an instant I was overwhelmed with terror and self-reproach. The bolted door before me gave notice of danger as plainly as though the word had been painted upon its front. The dark and lowering walls of the passage in which the Wolf figure of Doddridge Knapp had appeared and disappeared whispered threats. The close air was heavy with the suggestion of peril, and the solitary lamp that gave its dim light from the end of the passage flashed a smoky warning. And I, in my folly and carelessness, had brought Luella Knapp into this place and exposed her to the dangers that encircled me. It was this thought that, for the moment, unnerved me.

“What does this mean?” asked Luella in a matter-of-fact tone.

“It is a poor practical joke, I fear,” said I lightly. I took occasion to shift a revolver to my overcoat pocket.

“Well, aren’t you going to get me out of here?” she asked with a little suggestion of impatience.

“That is my present intention,” I replied, beating a tattoo on the door.

“You’ll hurt your fists,” she said. “You must find some way besides beating it down.”

“I’m trying to bring our friends here,” said I. “They should have been with us before now.”

“Isn’t there another way out?” asked Luella.

“I suspect there are a good many ways out,” I replied, “but, unfortunately, I don’t know them.” And I gave a few resounding kicks on the door.

“Where does this stairway go, I wonder?” said Luella.

“Into the celestial regions, I suppose,” I ventured.

Matters were in too serious a position for the jest to be appreciated, and Luella continued:

“It can’t be the way out. Isn’t there another?”

“We might try the passage.”

She gave a shudder and shrank toward me.

“No, no,” she cried in a low voice. “Try the door again. Somebody must hear you, and it may be opened.”

I followed her suggestion with a rain of kicks, emphasized with a shout that made the echoes ring gloomily in the passage.

I heard in reply a sound of voices, and then an answering shout, and the steps of men running.

“Are you there, Mr. Wilton?” cried the voice of Corson through the door.

“Yes, all safe,” I answered.

“Well, just hold on a bit, and we’ll–“