of the window. She ran against the bed. But this afforded her something by which to guide herself. She kept her touch upon it, her hand trailing along its edge. And then, halfway down its length, what seemed to be a piece of string caught in her extended, groping fingers. It seemed to cling, but also to yield most curiously, as she tried to shake it off; and then something, evidently from under the mattress, came away with a little jerk, and remained, suspended, in her hand.
It didn’t matter, did it? Nothing mattered except to reach the window. Yes, here it was now! And the roller shade was drawn down; that was why the room was so dark. She raised the shade quickly – and suddenly stood there as though transfixed, her face paling, as in the faint light by the window she gazed, fascinated, at the object that still dangled by a cord from her hand.
And it seemed as if an inner darkness were suddenly riven as by a bolt of lightning – a hundred things, once obscure and incomprehensible, were clear now, terribly clear. She understood now how the Adventurer was privy to all the inner workings of the organization; she understood now how it was, and why, the Adventurer had a room so close to that other room across the hall. That dangling thing on an elastic cord was a smeared and dirty celluloid eye-patch that had once been flesh-colored! The Adventurer and the Pug were one!
Her wits! Quick! He must not know! In a frenzy of haste she ran for the bed, and slipped the eye-patch in under the mattress again; and then, still with frenzied speed, she climbed to the window sill, drew the roller shade down again behind her, and dropped to the ground.
Through the back yard and lane she gained the street, and sped on along the street – but her thoughts outpaced her hurrying footsteps. How minutely every detail of the night now seemed to explain itself and dovetail with every other one! At the time, when Shluker had been present, it had struck her as a little forced and unnecessary that the Pug should have volunteered to seek out Danglar with explanations after the money had been secured. But she understood now the craft and guile that lay behind his apparently innocent plan. The Adventurer needed both time and an alibi, and also he required an excuse for making Pinkie Bonn the custodian of the stolen money, and of getting Pinkie alone with that money in the Pug’s room. Going to Danglar supplied all this. He had hurried back, changed in that room from the Pug to the Adventurer, and proposed in the latter character to relieve Pinkie of the money, to return then across the hall, become the Pug again, and then go back, as though he had just come from Danglar, to find his friend and ally, Pinkie Bonn, robbed by their mutual arch-enemy – the Adventurer!
The Pug-the Adventurer! She did not quite seem to grasp its significance as applied to her in a personal way. It seemed to branch out into endless ramifications. She could not somehow think logically, coolly enough now, to decide what this meant in a concrete way to her, and her to-morrow, and the days after the to-morrow.
She hurried on. To-night, as she would lay awake through the hours that were to come, for sleep was a thing denied, perhaps a clearer vision would be given her. For the moment there – there was something else – wasn’t there? The money that belonged to the old couple.
She hurried on. She came again to the street where the old couple lived. It was a dirty street, and from the curb she stooped and picked up a dirty piece of old newspaper. She wrapped the banknotes in the paper.
There were not many people on the street as she neared the mean little frame house, but she loitered until for the moment the immediate vicinity was deserted; then she slipped into the alleyway, and stole close to the side window, through which, she had noted from the street, there shone a light. Yes, they were there, the two of them – she could see them quite distinctly even through the shutters.
She went back to the front door then, and knocked. And presently the old woman came and opened the door.
“This is yours,” Rhoda said, and thrust the package into the woman’s hand. And as the woman looked from her to the package uncomprehendingly, Rhoda Gray flung a quick “good-night” over her shoulder, and ran down the steps again.
But a few moments later she stole back, and stood for an instant once more by the shuttered window in the alleyway. And suddenly her eyes grew dim. She saw an old man, white and haggard, with bandaged head, sitting in a chair, the tears streaming down his face; and on the floor, her face hidden on the other’s knees, a woman knelt – and the man’s hand stroked and stroked the thin gray hair on the woman’ s head.
And Rhoda Gray turned away. And out in the street her face was lifted and she looked upward, and there were myriad stars. And there seemed a beauty in them that she had never seen before, and a great, comforting serenity. And they seemed to promise something – that through the window of that stark and evil garret to which she was going now, they would keep her dreaded vigil with her until morning came again.
XIV. THE LAME MAN
Another night – another day! And the night again had been without rest, lest Danglar’s dreaded footstep come upon her unawares; and the day again had been one of restless, abortive activity, now prowling the streets as Gypsy Nan, now returning to the garret to fling herself upon the cot in the hope that in daylight, when she might risk it, sleep would come, but it had been without avail, for, in spite of physical weariness, it seemed to Rhoda Gray as though her tortured mind would never let her sleep again. Danglar’s wife! That was the horror that was in her brain, yes, and in her soul, and that would not leave her.
And now night was coming upon her once more. It had even begun to grow dark here on the lower stairway that led up to that wretched, haunted garret above where in the shadows stark terror lurked. Strange! Most strange! She feared the night – and yet she welcomed it. In a little while, when it grew a little darker, she would steal out again and take up her work once more. It was only during the night, under the veil of darkness, that she could hope to make any progress in reaching to the heart and core of this criminal clique which surrounded her, whose members accepted her as Gypsy Nan, and, therefore, as one of themselves, and who would accord to her, if they but even suspected her to be the White Mall, less mercy than would be shown to a mad dog.
She climbed the stairs. Fear was upon her now, because fear was always there, and with it was abhorrence and loathing at the frightful existence fate had thrust upon her; but, somehow, to-night she was not so depressed, not so hopeless, as she had been the night before. There had been a little success; she had come a little farther along the way; she knew a little more than she had known before of the inner workings of the gang who were at the bottom of the crime of which she herself was accused. She knew now the Adventurer’s secret, that the Pug and the Adventurer were one; and she knew where the Adventurer lived, now in one character, now in the other, in those two rooms almost opposite each other across that tenement hall.
And so it seemed that she had the right to hope, even though there were still so many things she did not know, that if she allowed her mind to dwell upon that phase of it, it staggered her – where those code messages came from, and how; why Rough Rorke of headquarters had never made a sign since that first night; why the original Gypsy Nan, who was dead now, had been forced into hiding with the death penalty of the law hanging over her; why Danglar, though Gypsy Nan’s husband, was comparatively free. These, and a myriad other things! But she counted now upon her knowledge of the Adventurer’s secret to force from him everything he knew; and, with that to work on, a confession from some of the gang in corroboration that would prove the authorship of the crime of which she had seemingly been caught in the act of committing.
Yes, she was beginning to see the way at last – through the Adventurer. It seemed a sure and certain way. If she presented herself before him as Gypsy Nan, whom he believed to be not only one of the gang, but actually Danglar’s wife, and let him know that she was aware of the dual role he was playing, and that the information he thus acquired as the Pug he turned to his own account and to the undoing of the gang, he must of necessity be at her mercy. Her mercy! What exquisite irony! Her mercy! The man her heart loved; the thief her common sense abhorred! What irony! When she, too, played a double role; when in their other characters, that of the Adventurer and the White Moll, he and she were linked together by the gang as confederates, whereas, in truth, they were wider apart than the poles of the earth!
Her mercy! How merciful would she be – to the thief she loved? He knew, he must know, all the inner secrets of the gang. She smiled wanly now as she reached the landing. Would he know that in the last analysis her threat would be only an idle one; that, though her future, her safety, her life depended on obtaining the evidence she felt he could supply, her threat would be empty, and that she was powerless – because she loved him. But he did not know she loved him – she was Gypsy Nan. If she kept her secret, if he did not penetrate her disguise as she had penetrated his, if she were Gypsy Nan and Danglar’s wife to him, her threat would be valid enough, and – and he would be at her mercy!
A flush, half shamed, half angry, dyed the grime that was part of Gypsy Nan’s disguise upon her face. What was she saying to herself? What was she thinking? That he did not know she loved him! How would he? How could he? Had a word, an act, a single look of hers ever given him a hint that, when she had been with him as the White Moll, she cared! It was unjust, unfair, to fling such a taunt at herself. It seemed as though she had lost nearly everything in life, but she had not yet lost her womanliness and her pride.
She had certainly lost her senses, though! Even if that word, that look, that act had passed between them, between the Adventurer and the White Moll, he still did not know that Gypsy Nan was the White Moll – and that was the one thing now that he must not know, and…
Rhoda Gray halted suddenly, and stared along the hallway ahead of her, and up the short, ladder-like steps that led to the garret. Her ears – or was it fancy? – had caught what sounded like a low knocking up there upon her door. Yes, it came again now distinctly. It was dusk outside; in here, in the hall, it was almost dark. Her eyes strained through the murk. She was not mistaken. Something darker than the surrounding darkness, a form, moved up there.
The knocking ceased, and now the form seemed to bend down and grope along the floor; and then, an instant later, it began to descend the ladder-like steps – and abruptly Rhoda Gray, too, moved forward. It wasn’t Danglar. That was what had instantly taken hold of her mind, and she knew a sudden relief now. The man on the stairs – she could see that it was a man now – though he moved silently, swayed in a grotesquely jerky way as though he were lame. It wasn’t Danglar! She would go to any length to track Danglar to his lair; but not here – here in the darkness – here in the garret. Here she was afraid of him with a deadly fear; here alone with him there would be a thousand chances of exposure incident to the slightest intimacy he might show the woman whom he believed to be his wife – a thousand chances here against hardly one in any other environment or situation. But the man on the stairs wasn’t Danglar.
She halted now and uttered a sharp exclamation, as though she had caught sight of the man for the first time.
The other, too, had halted – at the foot of the stairs. A plaintive drawl reached her:
“Don’t screech, Bertha! It’s only your devoted brother-in-law. Curse your infernal ladder, and my twisted back!”
Danglar’s brother! Bertha! She snatched instantly at the cue with an inward gasp of thankfulness. She would not make the mistake of using the vernacular behind which Gypsy Nan sheltered herself. Here was some one who knew that Gypsy Nan was but a role. But she had to remember that her voice was slightly hoarse; that her voice, at least, could not sacrifice its disguise to any one. Danglar had been a little suspicious of it until she had explained that she was suffering from a cold.
“Oh!” she said calmly. “It’s you, is it? And what brought you here?”
“What do you suppose?” he complained irritably. “The same old thing, all I’m good for – to write out code messages and deliver them like an errand boy! It’s a sweet job, isn’t it? How’d you like to be a deformed little cripple?”
She did not answer at once. The night seemed suddenly to be opening some strange, even premonitory, vista. The code messages! Their mode of delivery! Here was the answer!
“Maybe I’d like it better than being Gypsy Nan!” she flung back significantly.
He laughed out sharply.
“I’d like to trade with you,” he said, a quick note of genuine envy in his voice. “You can pitch away your clothes; I can’t pitch away a crooked spine. And, anyway, after to-night, you’ll be living swell again.
She leaned toward him, staring at him in the semi-darkness. That premonitory vista was widening; his words seemed suddenly to set her brain in tumult. After to-night! She was to resume, after to-night, the character that was supposed to lay behind the disguise of Gypsy Nan! She was to resume her supposedly true character – that of Pierre Danglar’s wife!
“What do you mean?” she demanded tensely.
“Aw, come on!” he said abruptly. “This isn’t the place to talk. Pierre wants you at once. That’s what the message was for. I thought you were out, and I left it in the usual place so you’d get it the minute you got back and come along over. So, come on now with me.”
He was moving down the hallway, blotching like some misshapen toad in the shadowy light, lurching in his walk, that was, nevertheless, almost uncannily noiseless. Mechanically she followed him. She was trying to think; striving frantically to bring her wits to play on this sudden and unexpected denouement. It was obvious that he was taking her to Danglar. She had striven desperately last night to run Danglar to earth in his lair. And here was a self-appointed guide! And yet her emotions conflicted and her brain was confused. It was what she wanted, what through bitter travail of mind she had decided must be her course; but she found herself shrinking from it with dread and fear now that it promised to become a reality. It was not like last night when of her own initiative she had sought to track Danglar, for then she had started out with a certain freedom of action that held in reserve a freedom to retreat if it became necessary. To-night it was as though she were deprived of that freedom, and being led into what only too easily might develop into a trap from which she could not retreat or escape.
Suppose she refused to go?
They had reached the street now, and now she obtained a better view of the misshapen thing that lurched jerkily along beside her. The man was deformed, miserably deformed. He walked most curiously, half bent over; and one arm, the left, seemed to swing helplessly, and the left hand was like a withered thing. Her eyes sought the other’s face. It was an old face, much older than Danglar’s, and it was white and pinched and drawn; and in the dark eyes, as they suddenly darted a glance at her, she read a sullen, bitter brooding and discontent. She turned her head away. It was not a pleasant face; it struck her as being both morbid and cruel to a degree.
Suppose she refused to go?
“What did you mean by ‘after to-night’?” she asked again.
“You’ll see,” he answered. “Pierre’ll tell you. You’re in luck, that’s all. The whole thing that has kept you under cover has bust wide open your way, and you win. And Pierre’s going through for a clean-up. To-morrow you can swell around in a limousine again. And maybe you’ll come around and take me for a drive, if I dress up, and promise to hide in a corner of the back seat so’s they won’t see your handsome friend!”
The creature flung a bitter smile at her, and lurched on.
He had told her what she wanted to know – more than she had hoped for. The mystery that surrounded the character of Gypsy Nan, the evidence of the crime at which the woman who had originated that role had hinted on the night she died, and which must necessarily involve Danglar, was hers, Rhoda Gray’s, now for the taking. As well go and give herself up to the police as the White Moll and have done with it all, as to refuse to seize the opportunity which fate, evidently in a kindlier mood toward her now, was offering her at this instant. It promised her the hold upon Danglar that she needed to force an avowal of her own innocence, the very hold that she had but a few minutes before been hoping she could obtain through the Adventurer.
There was no longer any question as to whether she would go or not.
Her hand groped down under the shabby black shawl into the wide, voluminous pocket of her greasy skirt. Yes, her revolver was there. She knew it was there, but the touch of her fingers upon it seemed to bring a sense of reassurance. She was perhaps staking her all in accompanying this cripple here to-night – she did not need to be told that – but there was a way of escape at the last if she were cornered and caught. Her fingers played with the weapon. If the worst came to the worst she would never be at Danglar’s mercy while she possessed that revolver and, if the need came, turned it upon herself.
They walked on rapidly; the lurching figure beside her covering the ground at an astounding rate of speed. The man made no effort to talk. She was glad of it. She need not be so anxiously on her guard as would be the case if a conversation were carried on, and she, who knew so much and yet so pitifully little, must weigh her every word, and feel her way with every sentence. And besides, too, it gave her time to think. Where were they going? What sort of a place was it, this headquarters of the gang? For it must be the headquarters, since it was from there the code messages would naturally emanate, and this deformed creature, from what he had said, was the “secretary” of the nefarious clique that was ruled by his brother. And was luck really with her at last? Suppose she had been but a few minutes later in reaching Gypsy Nan’s house, and had found, instead of this man here, only the note instructing her to go and meet Danglar! What would she have done? What explanation could she have made for her nonappearance? Her hands would have been tied. She would have been helpless. She could not have answered the summons, for she could have had no idea where this gang-lair was; and the note certainly would not contain such details as street and number, which she was obviously supposed to know. She smiled a little grimly to herself. Yes, it seemed as though fortune were beginning to smile upon her again – fortune, at least, had supplied her with a guide.
The twisted figure walked on the inside of the sidewalk, and curiously seemed to seek as much as possible the protecting shadows of the buildings, and invariably shrank back out of the way of the passers-by they met. She watched him narrowly as they went along. What was he afraid of? Recognition? It puzzled her for a time, and then she understood: It was not fear of recognition; the sullen, almost belligerent stare with which he met the eyes of those with whom he came into close contact belied that. The man was morbidly, abnormally sensitive of his deformity.
They turned at last into one of the East Side cross streets, and her guide halted finally on a corner in front of a little shop that was closed and dark. She stared curiously as the man unlocked the door. Perhaps, after all, she had been woefully mistaken. It did not look at all the kind of place where crimes that ran the gamut of the decalogue were hatched, at all the sort of place that was the council chamber of perhaps the most cunning, certainly the most cold-blooded and unscrupulous, band of crooks that New York had ever harbored. And yet – why not? Wasn’t there the essence of cunning in that very fact? Who would suspect anything of the sort from a ramshackle, two-story little house like this, whose front was a woe-begone little store, the proceeds of which might just barely keep the body and soul of its proprietor together?
The man fumbled with the lock. There was not a single light showing from the place, but in the dwindling rays of a distant street lamp she could see the meager window display through the filthy, unwashed panes. It was evidently a cheap and tawdry notion store, well suited to its locality. There were toys of the cheapest variety, stationery of the same grade, cheap pipes, cigarettes, tobacco, candy – a package of needles.
“Go on in!” grunted the man, as he pushed the door – which seemed to shriek out unduly on its hinges – wide open. “If anybody sees the door open, they’ll be around wanting to buy a paper of pins – curse ’em! – and I ain’t open to-night.” He snarled as he shut and locked the door. “Pierre says you’re grouching about your garret. How about me, and this job? You get out of yours to-night for keeps. What about me? I can’t do anything but act as a damned blind for the rest of you with this fool store. just because I was born a freak that every gutter-snipe on the street yells at!”
Rhoda Gray did not answer.
“Well, go on!” snapped the man. “What are you standing there for? One would think you’d never been here before!”
Go on! Where? She had not the faintest idea. It was quite dark inside here in the shop. She could barely make out the outline of the other’s figure.
“You’re in a sweet temper to-night, aren’t you?” she said tartly. “Go on, yourself! I’m waiting for you to get through your speech.”
He moved brusquely past her, with an angry grunt. Rhoda Gray followed him. They passed along a short, narrow space, evidently between a low counter and a shelved wall, and then the man opened a door, and, shutting it again behind them, moved forward once more. She could scarcely see him at all now; it was more the sound of his footsteps than anything else that guided her. And then suddenly another door was opened, and a soft, yellow light streamed out through the doorway, and she found that she was standing in an intervening room between the shop and the room ahead of her. She felt her pulse quicken, and it seemed as though her heart began to thump almost audibly. Danglar ! She could see Danglar seated at a table in there. She clenched her hands under her shawl. She would need all her wits now. She prayed that there was not too much light in that room yonder.
XV. IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
The man with the withered hand had passed through into the other room. She heard them talking together, as she followed. She forced herself to walk with as nearly a leisurely defiant air as she could. The last time she had been with Danglar – as Gypsy Nan – she had, in self-protection, forbidding intimacy, played up what he called her “grouch” at his neglect of her.
She paused in the doorway. Halfway across the room, at the table, Danglar’s gaunt, swarthy face showed under the rays of a shaded oil lamp. Behind her spectacles, she met his small, black ferret eyes steadily.
“Hello, Bertha!” he called out cheerily. “How’s the old girl to-night?” He rose from his seat to come toward her. “And how’s the cold?”
Rhoda Gray scowled at him.
“Worse!” she said curtly-and hoarsely. “And a lot you care! I could have died in that hole, for all you knew! She pushed him irritably away, as he came near her. “Yes, that’s what I said! And you needn’t start any cooing game now! Get down to cases!” She jerked her hand toward the twisted figure that had slouched into a chair beside the table. “He says you’ve got it doped out to pull something that will let me out of this Gypsy Nan stunt. Another bubble, I suppose!” She shrugged her shoulders, glanced around her, and, locating a chair – not too near the table – seated herself indifferently. “I’m getting sick of bubbles!” she announced insolently. “What’s this one?”
He stood there for a moment biting at his lips, hesitant between anger and tolerant amusement; and then, the latter evidently gaining the ascendency, he too shrugged his shoulders, and with a laugh returned to his chair.
“You’re a rare one, Bertha!” he said coolly. “I thought you’d be wild with delight. I guess you’re sick, all right – because usually you’re pretty sensible. I’ve tried to tell you that it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t go near you, and that I had to keep away from -“
“What’s the use of going over all that again?” she interrupted tartly. “I guess I -“
“Oh, all right!” said Danglar hurriedly. “Don’t start a row! After to-night I’ve an idea you’ll be sweet enough to your husband, and I’m willing to wait. Matty maybe hasn’t told you the whole of it.”
Matty! So that was the deformed creature’s name. She glanced at him. He was grinning broadly. A family squabble seemed to afford him amusement. Her eyes shifted and made a circuit of the room. It was poverty-stricken in appearance, bare-floored, with the scantiest and cheapest of furnishings, its one window tightly shuttered.
“Maybe not,” she said carelessly.
“Well, then, listen, Bertha!” Danglar’s voice was lowered earnestly. “We’ve uncovered the Nabob’s stuff! Do you get me? Every last one of the sparklers!”
Rhoda Gray’s eyes went back to the deformed creature at Danglar’s side, as the man laughed out abruptly.
“Yes,” grinned Matty Danglar, “and they weren’t in the empty money-belt that you beat it with like a scared cat after croaking Deemer!”
How queer and dim the light seemed to go suddenly – or was it a blur before her own eyes? She said nothing. Her mind seemed to be groping its way out of darkness toward some faint gleam of light showing in the far distance. She heard Danglar order his brother savagely to hold his tongue. That was curious, too, because she was grateful for the man’s gibe. Gypsy Nan, in her proper person, had murdered a man named Deemer in an effort to secure – Danglar’s voice came again:
“Well, to-night we’ll get that stuff, all of it – it’s worth a cool half million; and to-night we’ll get Mr. House-Detective Cloran for keeps – bump him off. That cleans everything up. How does that strike you, Bertha?”
Rhoda Gray’s hands under her shawl locked tightly together. Her premonition had not betrayed her. She was face to face to-night with the beginning of the end.
“It sounds fine!” she said derisively.
Danglar’s eyes narrowed for an instant; and then he laughed.
“You’re a rare one, Bertha!” he ejaculated again. “You don’t seem to put much stock in your husband lately.”
“Why should I?” she inquired imperturbably. “Things have been breaking fine, haven’t they? – only not for us!” She cleared her throat as though it were an effort to talk. “I’m not going crazy with joy till I’ve been shown.”
Danglar leaned suddenly over the table.
“Well, come and look at the cards, then,” he said impressively. “Pull your chair up to the table, and I’ll tell you.”
Rhoda Gray tilted her chair, instead, nonchalantly back against the wall – it was quite light enough where she was!
“I can hear you from here,” she said coolly. “I’m not deaf, and I guess Matty’s suite is safe enough so that you won’t have to whisper all the time!”
The deformed creature at the table chortled again.
Danglar scowled.
“Damn you, Bertha!” he flung out savagely. “I could wring that neck of yours sometimes, and -“
“I know you could, Pierre,” she interposed sweetly. “That’s what I like about you – you’re so considerate of me! But suppose you get down to cases. What’s the story about those sparklers? And what’s the game that’s going to let me shed this Gypsy Nan stuff for keeps?”
“I’ll tell her, Pierre,” grinned the deformed one. “It’ll keep you two from spitting at one another; and neither of you have got all night to stick around here.” He swung his withered hand suddenly across the table, and as suddenly all facetiousness was gone both from his voice and manner. “Say, you listen hard, Bertha! What Pierre’s telling you is straight. You and him can kiss and make up to-morrow or the next day, or whenever you damned please; but to-night there ain’t any more time for scrapping. Now, listen! I handed you a rap about beating it with the empty money-belt the night you croaked Deemer with an overdose of knockout drops in the private dining-room up at the Hotel Marwitz, but you forget that! I ain’t for starting any argument about that. None of us blames you. We thought the stuff was in the belt, too. And none of us blames you for making a mistake and going too strong with the drops, either; anybody might do that. And I’ll say now that I take my hat off to you for the way you locked Cloran into the room with the dead man, and made your escape when Cloran had you dead to rights for the murder; and I’ll say, too, that the way you’ve played Gypsy Nan and saved your skin, and ours too, is as slick a piece of work as has ever been pulled in the underworld. That puts us straight, you and me, don’t it, Bertha?”
Rhoda Gray blinked at the man through her spectacles; her brain was whirling in a mad turmoil. “I always liked you, Matty,” she whispered softly.
Danglar was lolling back in his chair, blowing smoke rings into the air. She caught his eyes fixed quizzically upon her.
“Go on, Matty!” he prompted. “You’ll have her in a good humor, if you’re not careful!”
“We were playing more or less blind after that.” The withered hand traced an aimless pattern on the table with its crooked and half-closed fingers, and the man’s face was puckered into a shrewd, reminiscent scowl. “The papers couldn’t get a lead on the motive for the murder, and the police weren’t talking for publication. Not a word about the Rajah’s jewels. Washington saw to that! A young potentate’s son, practically the guest of the country, touring about in a special for the sake of his education, and dashed near ‘ending it in the river out West if it hadn’t been for the rescue you know about, wouldn’t look well in print; so there wasn’t anything said about the slather of gems that was the reward of heroism from a grateful nabob, and we didn’t get any help that way. All we knew was that Deemer came East with the jewels, presumably to cash in on them, and it looked as though Deemer “were pretty clever; that he wore the money-belt for a stall, and that he had the sparklers safe somewhere else all the time. And I guess we all got to figuring it that way, because the fact that nothing was said about any theft was strictly along the lines the police were working anyway, and a was a toss-up that they hadn’t found the stuff among his effects. Get me?”
Get him! This wasn’t real, was it, this room here; those two figures sitting there under that shaded lamp? Something cold, an icy grip, seemed to seize at her heart, as in a surge there swept upon her the full appreciation of her peril through these confidences to which she was listening. A word, in act, some slightest thing, might so easily betray her; and then – Her fingers under the shawl and inside the wide pocket of her greasy skirt, clutched at her revolver. Thank God for that! It would at least be merciful! She nodded her head mechanically.
“But the police didn’t find the jewels – because they weren’t there to be found. Somebody got in ahead of us. Pinched ’em, understand, may be only a few hours before you got in your last play, and, from the way you say Deemer acted, before he was wise to the fact that he’d been robbed.”
Rhoda Gray let her chair come sharply down to the floor. She must play her role of “Bertha” now as she never had before. Here was a question that she could not only ask with safety, but one that was obviously expected.
“Who was it?” she demanded breathlessly.
“She’s coming to life!” murmured Danglar, through a haze of cigarette smoke. “I thought you’d wake up after a while, Bertha. This is the big night, old girl, as you’ll find out before we’re through.”
“Who was it?” she repeated with well-simulated impatience.
“I guess she’ll listen to me now,” said Danglar, with a little chuckle. “Don’t over-tax yourself any more, Matty. I’ll tell you, Bertha; and it will perhaps make you feel better to know it took the slickest dip New York ever knew to beat you to the tape. It was Angel Jack, alias the Gimp.”
“How do you know?” Rhoda Gray demanded.
“Because,” said Danglar, and lighted another cigarette, “he died yesterday afternoon up in Sing Sing.”
She could afford to show her frank bewilderment. Her brows knitted into furrows, as she stared at Danglar.
“You – you mean he confessed?” she said.
“The Angel? Never!” Danglar laughed grimly, and shook his head. “Nothing like that! It was a question of playing one ‘fence’ against another. You know that Witzer, who’s handled all our jewelry for us, has been on the look-out for any stones that might have come from that collection. Well, this afternoon he passed the word to me that he’d been offered the finest unset emerald he’d ever seen, and that it had come to him through old Jake Luertz’s runner, a very innocent-faced young man who is known to the trade as the Crab.”
Danglar paused – and laughed again. Unconsciously Rhoda Gray drew her shawl a little closer about her shoulders. It seemed to bring a chill into the room, that laugh. Once before, on another night, Danglar had laughed, and, with his parted lips, she had likened him to a beast showing its fangs. He looked it now more than ever. For all his ease of voice and manner, he was in deadly earnest; and if there was merriment in his laugh, it but seemed to enhance the menace and the promise of unholy purpose that lurked in the cold glitter of his small, black eyes.
“It didn’t take long to get hold of the Crab” – Danglar was rubbing his hands together softly – “and the emerald with him. We got him where we could put the screws on without arousing the neighborhood.”
“Another murder, I suppose!” Rhoda Gray flung out the words crossly.
“Oh, no,” said Danglar pleasantly. “He squealed before it came to that. He’s none the worse for wear, and he’ll be turned loose in another hour or so, as soon as we’re through at old Jake Luertz’s. He’s no more good to us. He came across all right – after he was properly frightened. He’s been with old Jake as a sort of familiar for the last six years, and -“
“He’d have sold his soul out, he was so scared!” The withered hand on the table twitched; the deformed creature’s face was twisted into a grimace; and the man was chuckling with unhallowed mirth, as though unable. to contain himself at, presumably, the recollection of a scene which he had witnessed himself. “He was down on his knees and clawing out with his hands for mercy, and he squealed like a rat. ‘It’s the sixth panel in the bedroom upstairs,’ he says; ‘it’s all there. But for God’s sake don’t tell Jake I told. It’s the sixth panel. Press the knot in the sixth panel that -‘” He stopped abruptly.
Danglar had pulled out his watch and with exaggerated patience was circling the crystal with his thumb.
“Are you all through, Matty?” he inquired monotonously. “I think you said something a little while ago about wasting time. Bertha’s looking bored; and, besides, she’s got a little job of her own on for to-night.” He jerked his watch back into his pocket, and turned to Rhoda Gray again. “The only one who knew all the details Angel Jack, and he’ll never tell now because he’s dead. Whether he came down from the West with Deemer or not, or how he got wise to the stones, I don’t know. But he got the stones, all right. And then he tumbled to the fact that the police were pushing him hard for another job he was ‘wanted’ for, and he had to get those stones out of sight in a hurry. He made a package of them and slipped them to old Luertz, who had always done his business for him, to keep for him; and before he could duck, the bulls had him for that other job. Angel Jack went up the river. See? Old Jake didn’t know what was in that package; but he knew better than to monkey with it, because he always thought something of his own skin. He knew Angel Jack, and he knew what would happen if he didn’t have that package ready to hand back the day Angel Jack got out of Sing Sing. Understand? But yesterday Angel Jack died-without a will; and old Jake appointed himself sole executor-without bonds! He opened that package, figured he’d begin turning it into money – and that’s how we get our own back again. Old Jake will get a fake message to-night calling him out of the house on an errand uptown; and about ten o’clock Pinkie Bonn and the Pug will pay a visit there in his absence, and – well, it looks good, don’t it, Bertha, after two years?”
Rhoda Gray was crouched down in her chair. She shrugged her shoulders now, and infused a sullen note into her voice.
“Yes, it’s fine!” she sniffed. “I’ll be rolling in wealth in my garret – which will do me a lot of good! That doesn’t separate me from these rags, and the hell I’ve lived, does it – after two years?”
“I’m coming to that,” said Danglar, with his short, grating laugh. “We’ve as good as got the stones now, and we’re going through to-night for a clean-up of all that old mess. We stake the whole thing. Get me, Bertha – the whole thing ! I’m showing my hand for the first time. Cloran’s the man that’s making you wear those clothes; Cloran’s the only one who could go into the witness box and swear that you were the woman who murdered Deemer; and Cloran’s the man who has been working his head off for two years to find you. We’ve tried a dozen times to bump him off in a way that would make his death appear to be due purely to an accident, and we didn’t get away with it; but we can afford to leave the ‘accident’ out of it to-night, and go through for keeps – and that’s what we’re going to do. And once he’s out of the way – by midnight – you can heave Gypsy Nan into the discard.”
It seemed to Rhoda Gray that horror had suddenly taken a numbing hold upon her sensibilities. Danglar was talking about murdering some man, wasn’t he, so that she could resume again the personality of a woman who was dead? Hysterical laughter rose to her lips. It was only by a frantic effort of will that she controlled herself. She seemed to speak involuntarily, doubtful almost that it was her own voice she heard.
“I’m listening,” she said; “but I wouldn’t be too sure. Cloran’s a wary bird, and there’s the White Moll.”
She caught her breath. What suicidal inspiration had prompted her to say that! Had what she had been listening to here, the horror of it, indeed turned her brain and robbed her of her wits to the extent that she should invite exposure? Danglar’s face had gone a mottled purple; the misshapen thing at Danglar’s side was leering at her most curiously.
It was a moment before Danglar spoke; and then his hand, clenched until the white of the knuckles showed, pounded upon the table to punctuate his words.
“Not to-night!” he rasped out with an oath. “There’s not a chance that she’s in on this to-night – the she-devil! But she’s next! With this cleaned up, she’s next! If it takes the last dollar of to-night’s haul, and five years to do it, I’ll get her, and get -“
“Sure!” mumbled Rhoda Gray hurriedly. “But you needn’t get excited! I was only thinking of her because she’s queered us till I’ve got my fingers crossed, that’s all. Go on about Cloran.”
Danglar’s composure did not return on the instant. He gnawed at his lips for a moment before he spoke.
“All right!” he jerked out finally. “Let it go at that! I told you the other night in the garret that things were beginning to break our way, and that you wouldn’t have to stay there much longer, but I didn’t tell you how or why – you wouldn’t give me a chance. I’ll tell you now; and it’s the main reason why I’ve kept away from you lately. I couldn’t take a chance of Cloran getting wise to that garret and Gypsy Nan.” He grinned suddenly. “I’ve been cultivating Cloran myself for the last two weeks. We’re quite pals! I’m for playing the luck every time! When the jewels showed up to-day, I figured that to-night’s the night – see? Cloran and I are going to supper together at the Silver Sphinx at about eleven o’clock -and this is where you shed the Gypsy Nan stuff, and show up as your own sweet self. Cloran’ll be glad to meet you!”
She stared at him in genuine perplexity and amazement.
“Show myself to Cloran!” she ejaculated heavily. “I don’t get you!”
“You will in a minute,” said Danglar softly. “You’re the bait -see? Cloran and I will be at supper and watching the fox-trotters. You blow in and show yourself – I don’t need to tell you how, you’re clever enough at that sort of thing yourself – and the minute he recognizes you as the woman he’s been looking for that murdered Deemer, you pretend to recognize him for the first time too, and then you beat it like you had the scare of your life for the door. He’ll follow you on the jump. I don’t know what it’s all about, and I sit tight, and that lets me out. And now get this! There’ll be two taxicabs outside. If there’s more than two, it’s the first two I’m talking about. You jump into the one at the head of the line. Cloran won’t need any invitation to grab the second one and follow you. That’s all! It’s the last ride he’ll take. It’ll be our boys, and not chauffeurs, who’ll be driving those cars to-night, and they’ve got their orders where to go. Cloran won’t come back. Understand, Bertha’?”
There was only one answer to make, only one answer that she dared make. She made it mechanically, though her brain reeled. A man named Cloran was to be murdered; and she was to show herself as this – this Bertha – and…
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” said Danglar. He pulled out his watch again. “All right, then! We’ve been here long enough.” He rose briskly. “It’s time to make a move. You hop it back to the garret, and get rid of that fancy dress. I’ve got to meet Cloran uptown first. Come on, Matty, let us out.”
The place stifled her. She got up and moved quickly through the intervening room. She heard Danglar and his crippled brother talking earnestly together as they followed her. And then the cripple brushed by her in the darkness, and opened the front door – and Danglar had drawn her to him in a quick embrace. She did not struggle; she dared not. Her heart seemed to stand still. Danglar was whispering in her ear:
“I promised I’d make it up to you, Bertha, old girl. You’ll see – after to-night. We’ll have another honey-moon. You go on ahead now – I can’t be seen with Gypsy Nan. And don’t be late – the Silver Sphinx at eleven.”
She ran out on the street. Her fingers mechanically clutched at her shawl to loosen it around her throat. It seemed as though she were choking, that she could not breathe. The man’s touch upon her had seemed like contact with some foul and loathsome thing; the scene in that room back there like some nightmare of horror from which she could not awake.
XVI. THE SECRET PANEL
Rhoda Gray hurried onward, back toward the garret, her mind in riot and dismay. It was not only the beginning of the end; it was very near the end! What was she to do? The Silver Sphinx – at eleven! That was the end – after eleven – wasn’t it? She could impersonate Gypsy Nan; she could not, if she would, impersonate the woman who was dead! And then, too, there were the stolen jewels at old Jake Luertz’s! She could not turn to the police for help there, because then the Pug might fall into their hands, and – and the Pug was – was the Adventurer.
And then a sort of fatalistic calm fell upon her. If the masquerade was over, if the end had come, there remained only one thing for her to do. There were no risks too desperate to take now. It was she who must strike, and strike first. Those jewels in old Luertz’s bedroom became suddenly vital to her. They were tangible evidence. With those jewels in her possession she should be able to force Danglar to his knees. She could get them – before Pinkie Bonn and the Pug – if she hurried. Afterward she would know where to find Danglar – at the Silver Sphinx. Nothing would happen to Cloran, because, through her failure to cooperate, the plan would be abortive; but, veiled, as the White Moll, she could pick up Danglar’s trail again there. Yes, it would be the end – one way or the other – between eleven o’clock and daylight!
She quickened her steps. Old Luertz was to be inveigled away from his home about ten o’clock. At a guess, she made it only a little after nine now. She would need the skeleton keys in order to get into old Luertz’s place, and, yes, she would need a flashlight, too. Well, she would have time enough to get them, and time enough, then, to run to the deserted shed in the lane behind the garret and change her clothes.
Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, went on as speedily as she dared without inviting undue attention to herself, reached the garret, secured the articles she sought, hurried out again, and went down the lane in the rear to the deserted shed. She remained longer here than in the attic, perhaps ten minutes, working mostly in the darkness, risking the flashlight only when it was imperative; and then, the metamorphosis complete, a veiled figure, in her own person, as Rhoda Gray, the White Moll, she was out on the street again, and hastening back in the same general direction from which she had just come.
She knew old Jake Luertz’s place, and she knew the man himself very intimately by reputation. There were few such men and such places that she could have escaped knowing in the years of self-appointed service that she had given to the worst, and perhaps therefore the most needy, element in New York. The man ostensibly conducted a little secondhand store; in reality he probably “shoved” more stolen goods for his clientele, which at one time or another undoubtedly embraced nearly every crook in the underworld, than any other “fence” in New York. She knew him for an oily, cunning old fox who lived alone in the two rooms over his miserable store – unless, of late, his young henchman, the Crab, had taken to living with him; though, as far as that was concerned, it mattered little to-night, since the Crab, for the moment, thanks to the gang, was eliminated from consideration.
She reached the secondhand store – and walked on past it. There was a light upstairs in the front window. Old Luertz therefore had not yet gone out in response to the gang’s fake message. She knew old Luertz’s reputation far too well for that; the man would never go out and leave a gas jet burning – which he would have to pay for!
There was nothing to do but wait. Rhoda Gray sought the shelter of a doorway across the street. She was nervously impatient now. The minutes dragged along. Why didn’t ‘the man hurry and go out? “About ten o’clock,” Danglar had said – but that was very indefinite. Pinkie Bonn and the Pug might be as late as that; but, equally, they might be earlier!
It seemed an interminable time. And then, her eyes strained across the street upon that upper window, she drew still farther back into the protecting shadows of the doorway. The light had gone out.
A moment more passed. The street door of the house opposite to her – a door separate from that of the secondhand store-opened, and a bent, gray-bearded man, stepped out, peered around, locked the door behind him, and scuffled down the street.
Rhoda Gray scanned the dingy and ill-lighted little street. It was virtually deserted. She crossed the road, and stepped into the doorway from which the old “fence” had just emerged. It was dark here, well out of the direct radius of the nearest street lamp, and, with luck, there was no reason why she should be observed – if she did not take too long in opening the door! She had never actually used a skeleton key in her life before, and…
She inserted one of her collection of keys in the lock. It would not work. She tried another, and still another-with mounting anxiety and perplexity. Suppose that – yes! The door was open now! With a quick glance over her shoulder, scanning the street in both directions to make sure that she was not observed, she stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it again.
Her flashlight stabbed through the darkness. Narrow stairs immediately in front of her led upward; at her right was a connecting door to the secondhand shop. Without an instant’s hesitation she ran up the stairs. There was no need to observe caution since the place was temporarily untenanted; there was need only of haste. She opened the door at the head of the stairs, and, with a quick, eager nod of satisfaction, as the flashlight swept the interior, stepped over the threshold. It was the room she sought – old Luertz’s bedroom.
And now the flashlight played inquisitively about her. The bed occupied a position by the window; across one corner of the room was a cretonne hanging, that evidently did service as a wardrobe; across another corner was a large and dilapidated washstand; there were a few chairs, and a threadbare carpet; and, opposite the bed, another door, closed, which obviously led into the front room.
Rhoda Gray stepped to this door, opened it, and peered in. She was not concerned that it was evidently used for kitchen, dining-room and the stowage of everything that overflowed from the bedroom; she was concerned only with the fact that it offered no avenue through which any added risk or danger might reach her. She closed the door as she had found it, and gave her attention now to the walls of old Luertz’s bedroom.
She smiled a little whimsically. The Crab had used a somewhat dignified term when he had referred to “panels.” True, the, walls were of stained wood, but the wood was of the cheapest variety of matched boards, and the stain was of but a single coat, and a very meager one at that! The smile faded. There were a good many knots; and there were four corners to the room, and therefore eight boards, each one of which would answer to the description of being the “sixth panel.”
She went to the corner nearest her, and dropped down on her knees. As well start with this one! She had not dared press Danglar, or Danglar’s deformed brother, for more definite directions, had she? She counted the boards quickly from the corner to her right; and then, the flashlight playing steadily, she began to press first one knot after another, in the board before her, working from the bottom up. There were many knots; she went over each one with infinite care. There was no result.
She turned then to the sixth board from the corner to her left. The result was the same. She stood up, her brows puckered, a sense of anxious impatience creeping upon her. She had been quite a while over even these two boards, and it might be any one of the remaining six!
Her eyes traversed the room, following the ray of the flashlight. If she only knew which one, it would – Was it an inspiration? Her eyes had fixed on the cretonne hanging across one of the far corners from the door, and she moved toward it now quickly. The hanging might very well serve for an other purpose than that of merely a wardrobe! It seemed suddenly to be the most likely of the four corners because it was ingeniously concealed.
She parted the hanging. A heterogeneous collection of clothing hung from pegs and nails. Eagerly, hastily now, she brushed these aside, and, close to the wall, dropped down on her knees again. The minutes passed. Twice she went over the sixth board from the corner to her right. She felt so sure now that it was this corner. And then, still eagerly, she turned to the corresponding board at her left.
It was warm and close here. The clothing hanging from the pegs and nails enveloped her, and, with the cretonne hanging itself, shut out the air, what little of it there was, that circulated through the room.
Over the board, from the tiniest knot to the largest, her fingers pressed carefully. Had she missed one anywhere? She must have missed one! She was sure the panel in question was here behind this hanging. Well, she would try again, and…
What was that?
In an instant the flashlight in her hand was out, and she was listening tensely. Yes, there was a footstep – two of them – not only on the stairs, but already just outside the door. It seemed as though a deadly fear, cold and numbing, settled upon her and robbed her of even the power of movement. She was caught! If it was Pinkie Bonn and the Pug, and if this corner hid the secret panel as she still believed it did, this was the first place to which they would come, and they would find her here amongst the clothing – which had evidently been the cause of deadening any sound on those stairs out there until it was too late.
She held her breath, her hands tight upon her bosom. There was no time to reach the sanctuary of the other room – the footsteps were already crossing the threshold from the head of the stairs. And then a voice reached her – the Pug’s. It was the Pug and Pinkie Bonn.
“Strike a light, Pinkie! Dere’s no use messin’ around wid a flash. De old geezer’11 be back on de hop de minute he finds out he’s been bunked, an’ de quicker we work de better.”
A match crackled into flame. An air-choked gas jet, with a protesting hiss, was lighted. And then Rhoda Gray’s drawn face relaxed a little, and a strange, mirthless smile came hovering over her lips. What was she afraid of? The Pug was the Adventurer, wasn’t he? This was one of the occasions when he could not escape the entanglements of the gang, and must work for the gang instead of appropriating all the loot for his own personal and nefarious ends; but he was the Adventurer. The White Moll need not fear him, even though he appeared, linked with Pinkie Bonn, in the role of the Pug! So there was only Pinkie Bonn to fear.
Rhoda Gray took her revolver from her pocket. She was well armed – and in more than a material sense. The Adventurer did not know that she was aware of the Pug’s identity. Her smile, still mirthless, deepened. She might even turn the tables upon them, and still secure the stolen stones. She had turned the tables upon Pinkie Bonn last night; to-night, if she used her wits, she could do it again!
And then, suddenly, she stifled an exclamation, as the Pug’s voice reached her again:
“Wot are youse gapin’ about? Dere ain’t anything else worth pinchin’ around here except wot’s in de old gent’s safety vault. Get a move on! We ain’t got all night! It’s de corner behind de washstand. Give us a hand to move de furniture!”
It wasn’t here behind the cretonne hanging! Rhoda Gray bit her lips in a crestfallen little way. Well, her supposition had been natural enough, hadn’t it? And she would have tried every corner before she was through if she had had the opportunity.
She moved now slightly, without a sound, parting the clothing away from in front of her, and moving the cretonne hanging by the fraction of an inch where it touched the side wall of the room. And now she could see the Pug, with his dirty and discolored celluloid eye-patch, and his ingeniously contorted face; and she could see Pinkie Bonn’s pasty-white, drug-stamped countenance
It was not a large room. The two men in the opposite corner along the wall from her were scarcely more than ten feet away. They swung the washstand out from the wall, and the Pug, going in behind it, began to work on one of the wall boards. Pinkie Bonn, an unlighted cigarette dangling from his lip, leaned over the washstand watching his companion.
A minute passed – another. It was still in the room, except only for the distant sounds of the world outside – a clatter of wheels upon the pavement, the muffled roar of the elevated, the clang of a trolley bell. And then the Pug began to mutter to himself. Rhoda Gray smiled a little grimly. She was not the only one, it would appear, who experienced difficulty with old Jake Luertz’s crafty hiding place!
“Say, dis is de limit!” the Pug growled out suddenly. “Dere’s more damned knots in dis board dan I ever save in any piece of wood in me life before, an’ -” He drew back abruptly from the wall, twisting his head sharply around. “D’ye hear dat, Pinkie!” he whispered tensely. “Quick! Put out de light! Quick! Dere’s some one down at de front door!”
Rhoda Gray felt the blood ebb from her face. She had heard nothing save the rattle and bump of a wagon along the street below; but she had had reason to appreciate on a certain occasion before that the Pug, alias the Adventurer, was possessed of a sense of hearing that was abnormally acute. If it was some one else – who was it? What would it mean to her? What complication here in this room would result? What…
The light was out. Pinkie Bonn had stepped silently across the room to the gas jet near the door. Her eyes, strained, she could just make out the Adventurer’s form kneeling by the wall, and then – was she mad! Was the faint night-light of the city filtering in through the window mocking her? The Adventurer, hidden from his companion by the washstand, was working swiftly and without a sound – or else it was a phantasm of shadows that tricked her! A door in the wall opened; the Adventurer thrust in his hand, drew out a package, and, leaning around, slipped it quickly into the bottom of the washstand, where, with its little doors, there was a most convenient and very commodious apartment. He turned again then, seemed to take something from his pocket and place it in the opening in the wall, and then the panel closed.
It had taken scarcely more than a second.
Rhoda Gray brushed her hand across her eyes. No, it wasn’t a phantasm! She had misjudged the Adventurer – quite misjudged him! The Adventurer, even with one of the gang present – to furnish an unimpeachable alibi for him! – was plucking the gang’s fruit again for his own and undivided enrichment!
Pinkie Bonn’s voice came in a guarded whisper from the doorway.
“I don’t hear nothin’!” said Pinkie Bonn anxiously.
The Pug tiptoed across the room, and joined his companion. She could not see them now, but apparently they stood together by the door listening. They stood there for a long time. Occasionally she heard them whisper to each other; and then finally the Pug spoke in a less guarded voice.
“All right,” he said. “I guess me nerves are gettin’ de creeps. Shoot de light on again, an’ let’s get back on de job. An’ youse can take a turn dis time pushin’ de knots, Pinkie; mabbe youse’ll have better luck.”
The light went on again. Both men came back across the room, and now Pinkie Bonn knelt at the wall while the Pug leaned over the washstand watching him. Pinkie Bonn was not immediately successful; the Pug’s nerves, of which he had complained, appeared shortly to get the better of him.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, hurry up!” he urged irritably. “Or else lemme take another crack at it, Pinkie, an’…
A low, triumphant exclamation came from Pinkie Bonn, as the small door in the wall swung suddenly open.
“There she is, my bucko!” he grinned. “Some nifty vault, eh? The old guy-” He stopped. He had thrust in his hand, and drawn it out again. His fingers gripped a sheet of notepaper – but he was seemingly unconscious of that fact. He was leaning forward, staring into the aperture. “It’s empty!” he choked.
“Wot’s dat?” cried the Pug, and sprang to his companion’s side. “Youse’re crazy, Pinkie! He thrust his head toward the opening – and then turned and stared for a moment helplessly at Pinkie Bonn. “So help me!” he said heavily. “It’s – it’s empty.” He shook his fist suddenly. “De Crab’s handed us one, dat’s wot! But de Crab’ll get his fer -“
“It wasn’t the Crab!” Pinkie Bonn was stuttering his words. He stood, jaws dropped, his eyes glued now on the paper in his hand.
The Pug, his face working, the personification of baffled rage and intolerance, leered at Pinkie Bonn. “Well, who was it, den?” he snarled.
Pinkie Bonn licked his lips.
“The White Moll!” He licked his lips again.
“De White Moll!” echoed the Pug incredulously.
“Yes,” said Pinkie Bonn. “Listen to what’s on this paper that I fished out of there I Listen! She’s got all the nerve of the devil! ‘With thanks, and my most grateful appreciation – the White Moll.'”
The Pug snatched the paper from Pinkie Bonn’s hand, as though to assure himself that it was true. Rhoda Gray smiled faintly. It was good acting, very excellently done – seeing that the Pug had written the note and placed it in the hiding place himself!
“My God!” mumbled Pinkie Bonn thickly. “I ain’t afraid of most things, but I’m gettin’ scared of her. She ain’t human. Last night you know what happened, and the night before, and -” He gulped suddenly. “Let’s get out of here !” he said hurriedly. The Pug made no reply, except for a muttered growl of assent and a nod of his head.
The two men crossed the room. The light went out. Their footsteps echoed back as they descended the stairs, then died away.
And then Rhoda Gray moved for the first time. She brushed aside the cretonne hanging, ran to the washstand, possessed herself of the package she had seen the Pug place there, and then made her way, cautious now of the s1ightest sound, downstairs.
She tried the door that led into the secondhand shop from the hall, found it unlocked, and with a little gasp of relief slipped through, and closed it gently behind her. She did not dare risk the front entrance. Pinkie Bonn and the Pug were not far enough away yet, and she did not dare wait until they were. Too bulky to take the risk of attempting to conceal it about his person while with Pinkie Bonn, the Pug, it was obvious, would come back alone for that package, and it was equally obvious that he would not be long in doing so. There was old Luertz’s return that he would have to anticipate. It would not take wits nearly so sharp as those possessed by the Pug to find an excuse for separating promptly from Pinkie Bonn!
Rhoda Gray groped her way down the shop, groped her way to a back door, unbolted it, working by the sense of touch, and let herself out into a back yard. Five minutes later she was blocks away, and hurrying rapidly back toward the deserted shed in the lane behind Gypsy Nan’s garret.
Her lips formed into a tight little curve as she went along. There was still work to do to-night – if this package really contained the stolen legacy of gems left by Angel Jack. She had first of all to reach a place where she could examine the package with safety; then a place to hide it where it would be secure; and then – Danglar!
She gained the lane, stole along it, and disappeared into the shed through the broken door that hung, partially open, on sagging hinges. Here she sought a corner, and crouched down so that her body would smother any reflection from her flashlight. And now, eagerly, feverishly, she began to undo the package; and then, a moment later, she gazed, stupefied and amazed, at what lay before her. Precious stones, scores of them, nestled on a bed of cotton; they were of all colors and of all sizes – but each one of them seemed to pulsate and throb, and from some wondrous, glorious depth of its own to fling back from the white ray upon it a thousand rays in return, as though into it had been breathed a living and immortal fire.
And Rhoda Gray, crouched there, stared – until suddenly she grew afraid, and suddenly with a shudder she wrapped the package up again. These were the stones for whose fabulous worth the woman whose personality she, Rhoda Gray, had usurped, had murdered a man; these were the stones which were indirectly the instrumentality – since but for them Gypsy Nan would never have existed – that made her, Rhoda Gray, to-night, now, at this very moment, a hunted thing, homeless, friendless, fighting for her very life against police and underworld alike!
She rose abruptly to her feet. She had no longer any need of a flashlight. There was even light of a sort in the place – she could see the stars through the jagged holes in the roof, and through one of these, too, the moonlight streamed in. The shed was all but crumbling in a heap. Underfoot, what had once been flooring, was now but rotting, broken boards. Under one of these, beside the clothing of Gypsy Nan which she had discarded but a little while before, she deposited the package; then stepped out into the lane, and from there to the street again.
And now she became suddenly conscious of a great and almost overpowering physical weariness. She did not quite understand at first, unless it was to be attributed to the reaction from the last few hours – and then, smiling wanly to herself, she remembered. For two nights she had not slept. It seemed very strange. That was it, of course, though she was not in the least sleepy now – just tired, just near the breaking point.
But she must go on. To-night was the end, anyhow. To-night, failing to keep her appointment as “Bertha,” the crash must come; but before it came, as the White Moll, armed with the knowledge of the crime that had driven Danglar’s wife into hiding, and which was Danglar’s crime too, and with the evidence in the shape of those jewels in her possession, she and Danglar would meet somewhere – alone. Before the law got him, when he would be close-mouthed and struggling with all his cunning to keep the evidence of other crimes from piling up against him and damning whatever meager chances he might have to escape the penalty for Deemer’s murder, she meant – yes, even if she pretended to compound a felony with him – to force or to inveigle from him, it mattered little which, a confession of the authorship and details of the scheme to rob Skarbolov that night when she, Rhoda Gray, in answer to a dying woman’s pleading, had tried to forestall the plan, and had been caught, apparently, in the very act of committing the robbery herself! With that confession in her possession, with the identity of the unknown woman who had died in the hospital that night established, her own story would be believed.
And so, if she were weary, what did it matter? It was only until morning. Danglar was at the Silver Sphinx now with the man he meant that she should help him murder, only – only that plan would fail, because there would be no “Bertha” to lure the man to his death, and she, Rhoda Gray, had only to keep track of Danglar until somewhere, where he lived perhaps, she should have that final scene, that final reckoning with him alone.
It was a long way to the Silver Sphinx, which she knew, as every one in the underworld, and every one in New York who was addicted to slumming knew, was a combination dance-hall and restaurant in the Chatham Square district. She tried to find a taxi, but with out avail. A clock in a jeweler’s window which she passed showed her that it was ten minutes after eleven. She had had no idea that it was so late. At eleven, Danglar had said. Danglar would be growing restive! She took the elevated. If she could risk the protection of her veil in the Silver Sphinx, she could risk it equally in an elevated train!
But, in spite of the elevated, it was, she knew, well on towards half past eleven when she finally came down the street in front of the Silver Sphinx. From under her veil, she glanced, half curiously, half in a sort of grim irony, at the taxis lined up before the dancehall. The two leading cars were not taxis at all, though they bore the ear-marks, with their registers, of being public vehicles for hire; they were large, roomy, powerful, and looked, with their hoods up, like privately owned motors. Well, it was of little account! She shrugged her shoulders, as -she mounted the steps of the dance-hall. Neither “Bertha” nor Cloran would use those cars to-night!
XVII. THE SILVER SPHINX
A Bedlam of noise smote Rhoda Gray’s ears as she entered the Silver Sphinx. A jazz band was in full swing; on the polished section of the floor in the center, a packed mass of humanity swirled and gyrated and wriggled in the contortions of the “latest” dance, and laughed and howled immoderately; and around the sides of the room, the waiters rushed this way and that amongst the crowded tables, mopping at their faces with their aprons. It seemed as though confusion itself held sway!
Rhoda Gray scanned the occupants of the tables. The Silver Sphinx was particularly riotous to-night, wasn’t it? Yes, she understood! A great many of the men were wearing little badges. Some society or other was celebrating – and was doing it with abandon. Most of the men were half drunk. It was certainly a free-and-easy night! Everything went!
Danglar! Yes, ‘there he was – quite close to her, only a few tables away – and beside him sat a heavy built, clean-shaven man of middle age. That would be Cloran, of course – the man who was to have been lured to his death. And Danglar was nervous and uneasy, she could see. His fingers were drumming a tattoo on the table; his eyes were roving furtively about the room; and he did not seem to be paying any but the most distrait attention to his companion, who was talking to him.
Rhoda Gray sank quickly into a vacant chair. Three men, linked arm in arm, and decidedly more than a little drunk, were approaching her. She turned her head away to avoid attracting their attention. It was too free and easy here to-night, and she began to regret her temerity at having ventured inside; she would better, perhaps, have waited until Danglar came out – only there were two exits, and she might have missed him – and…
A cold fear upon her, she shrank back in her chair. The three men had halted at the table, and were clustered around her. They began a jocular quarrel amongst themselves as to who should dance with her. Her heart was pounding. She stood up, and pushed them away.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” hiccoughed one of the three. “Gotta see your – hic! – pretty face, anyhow!”
She put up her hands frantically and clutched at her veil – but just an instant too late to save it from being wrenched aside. Wildly her eyes flew to Danglar. His attention had been attracted by the scene. She saw him rise from his seat; she saw his eyes widen – and then, stumbling over his chair in his haste, he made toward her. Danglar had recognized the White Moll!
She turned and ran. Fear, horror, desperation, lent her strength. It was not like this that she had counted on her reckoning with Danglar! She brushed the roisterers aside, and darted for the door. Over her shoulder she glimpsed Danglar following her. She reached the door, burst through a knot of people there, and, her torn veil clutched in her hand, dashed down the steps. She could only run – run, and pray that in some way she might escape.
And then a mad exultation came upon her. She saw the man in the chauffeur’s seat of the first car in the line lean out and swing the door open. And in a flash she grasped the situation. The man was waiting for just this – for a woman to come running for her life down the steps of the Silver Sphinx. She put her hand up to her face, hiding it with the torn veil, raced for the car, and flung herself into the tonneau.
The door slammed. The car leaped from the curb. Danglar was coming down the steps. She heard him shout. The chauffeur, in a startled way, leaned out, as he evidently recognized Danglar’s voice – but Rhoda Gray was mistress of herself now. The tonneau of the car was not separated from the driver’s seat, and bending forward, she wrenched her revolver from her pocket, and pressed the muzzle of her weapon to the back of the man’s neck.
“Don’t stop!” she gasped, struggling for her breath. “Go on! Quick!”
The man, with a frightened oath, obeyed. The car gained speed. A glance through the window behind showed Danglar climbing into the other car.
And then for a moment Rhoda Gray sat there fighting for her self-control, with the certain knowledge in her soul that upon her wits, and her wits alone, her life depended now. She studied the car’s mechanism over the chauffeur’s shoulder, even as she continued to hold her revolver pressed steadily against the back of the man’s neck. She could drive a car – she could drive this one. The presence of this chauffeur, one of the gang, was an added menace; there were too many tricks he might play before she could forestall them, any one of which would deliver her into the hands of Danglar behind there – an apparently inadvertent stoppage due to traffic, for instance, that would bring the pursuing car alongside – that, or a dozen other things which would achieve the same end.
“Open the door on your side!” she commanded abruptly. “And get out – without slowing the car! Do you understand?”
He turned his head for a half incredulous, half frightened look at her. She met his eyes steadily – the torn veil, quite discarded now, was in her pocket. She did not know the man; but it was quite evident from the almost ludicrous dismay which spread over his face that he knew her.
“The – the White Moll!” he stammered. “It’s the White Moll!”
“Jump!” she ordered imperatively – and her revolver pressed still more significantly against the man’s flesh.
He seemed in even frantic haste to obey her. He whipped the door open, and, before she could reach to the wheel, he had leaped to the street. The car swerved sharply. She flung herself over into the vacated seat, and snatched at the wheel barely in time to prevent the machine from mounting the curb.
She looked around again through the window of the hood. The man had swung aboard Danglar’s car, which was only a few yards behind.
Rhoda Gray drove steadily. Here in the city streets her one aim must be never to let the other car come abreast of her; but she could prevent that easily enough by watching Danglar’s movements, and cutting across in front of him if he attempted anything of the sort. But ultimately what was she to do? How was she to escape? Her hands gripped and clenched in a sudden, almost panic-like desperation at the wheel. Turn suddenly around a corner, and jump from the car herself? It was useless to attempt it; they would keep too close behind to give her a chance to get out of sight. Well, then, suppose she jumped from the car, and trusted herself to the protection of the people on the street. She shook her head grimly. Danglar, she knew only too well, would risk anything, go to any length, to put an end to the White Moll. He would not hesitate an instant to shoot her down as she jumped and he would be fairly safe himself in doing it. A few revolver shots from a car that speeded away in the darkness offered an even chance of escape. And yet, unless she forced an issue such as that, she knew that Danglar would not resort to firing at her here in the city. He would want to be sure that was the only chance he had of getting her, before he accepted the risk that he would run of being caught for it by the police.
She found herself becoming strangely, almost unnaturally, cool and collected now. The one danger, greater than all others, that menaced her was a traffic block that would cause her to stop, and allow those in the other car behind to rush in upon her as she sat here at the wheel. And sooner or later, if she stayed in the city, a block such as that was inevitable. She must get out of the city, then. It was only to invite another risk, the risk that Danglar was in the faster car of the two but there was no other way.
She drove more quickly, made her way to the Bridge, and crossed it. The car behind followed with immutable persistence. It made no effort to close the short gap between them; but, neither, on the other hand, did it permit that gap to widen.
They passed through Brooklyn; and then, reaching the outskirts, Rhoda Gray, with headlights streaming into the black, with an open Long Island road before her, flung her throttle wide, and the car leaped like a thing of life into the night. It was a sudden start, it gained her a hundred yards but that was all.
The wind tore at her and whipped her face; the car rocked and reeled as in some mad frenzy. There was not much traffic, but such as there was it cleared away from before her as if by magic, as, seeking shelter from the wild meteoric thing running amuck, the few vehicles, motor or horse, that she encountered hugged; the edge of the road, and the wind whisked to her ears fragments of shouts and execrations. Again and again she looked back two fiery balls of light blazed behind her always those same two fiery balls.
She neither gained nor lost. Rigid, like steel, her little figure was crouched over the wheel. She did not know the road. She knew nothing save that she was racing for her life. She did not know the end; she could not see the end. Perhaps there would be some merciful piece of luck for her that would win her through a break-down to that roaring thing, with its eyes that were balls of fire, behind.
She passed through a town with lighted streets and lighted windows or was it only imagination? It was gone again, anyhow, and there was just black road ahead. Over the roar of the car and the sweep of the wind, then, she caught, or fancied she caught, a series of faint reports. She looked behind her. Yes, they were firing now. Little flashes leaped out above and at the sides of those blazing headlights.
How long was it since she had left the Silver Sphinx? Minutes or hours would not measure it, would they? But it could not last much longer! She was growing very tired; the strain upon her arms, yes, and upon her eyes, was becoming unbearable. She swayed a little in her seat, and the car swerved, and she jerked it back again into the straight. She began to laugh a little hysterically and then, suddenly, she straightened up, tense and alert once more.
That swerve was the germ of an inspiration! It took root swiftly now. It was desperate – but she was desperate. She could not drive much more, or much longer like this. Mind and body were almost undone. And, besides, she was not outdistancing that car behind there by a foot; and sooner or later they would hit her with one of their shots, or, perhaps what they were really trying to do, puncture one of her tires.
Again she glanced over her shoulder. Yes, Danglar was just far enough behind to make the plan possible. She began to allow the car to swerve noticeably at intervals, as though she were weakening and the car was getting beyond her control – which was, indeed, almost too literally the case. And now it seemed to her that each time she swerved there came an exultant shout from the car behind. Well, she asked for nothing better; that was what she was trying to do, wasn’t it? – inspire them with the belief that she was breaking under the strain.
Her eyes searched anxiously down the luminous pathway made by her high-powered headlights. If only she could reach a piece of road that combined two things – an embankment of some sort, and a curve just sharp enough to throw those headlights behind off at a tangent for an instant as they rounded it, too, in following her.
A minute, two, another passed. And then Rhoda Gray, tight-lipped, her face drawn hard, as her own headlights suddenly edged away from the road and opened what looked like a deep ravine on her left, while the road curved to the right, flung a frenzied glance back of her. It was her chance – her one chance. Danglar was perhaps a little more than a hundred yards in the rear. Yes – now! His headlights were streaming out on her left as he, too, touched the curve. The right-hand side of her car, the right-hand side of the road were in blackness. She checked violently, almost to a stop, then instantly opened the throttle wide once more, wrenching the wheel over to head the machine for the ravine; and before the car picked up its momentum again, she dropped from the right-hand side, darted to the far edge of the road, and flung herself flat down upon the ground.
The great, black body of her car seemed to sail out into nothingness like some weird aerial monster, the headlights streaming uncannily through space – then blackness – and a terrific crash.
And now the other car had come to a stop almost opposite where she lay. Danglar and the two chauffeurs, shouting at each other in wild excitement, leaped out and rushed to the edge of the embankment. And then suddenly the sky grew red as a great tongue-flame shot up from below. It outlined the forms of the three men as they stood there, until, abruptly, as though with one accord, they rushed pell-mell down the embankment toward the burning wreckage. And as they disappeared from sight Rhoda Gray jumped to her feet, sprang for Danglar’s car, flung herself into the driver’s seat, and the car shot forward again along the road.
A shout, a wild chorus of yells, the reports of a fusillade of shots reached her; she caught a glimpse of forms running insanely after her along the edge of the embankment – then silence save for the roar of the speeding car.
She drove on and on. Somewhere, nearing a town, she saw a train in the distance coming in her direction. She reached the station first, and left the car standing there, and, with the torn veil over her face again, took the train.
She was weak, undone, exhausted. Even her mind refused its functions further. It was only in a subconscious way she realized that, where she had thought never to go to the garret again, the garret and the role of Gypsy Nan were, more than ever now, her sole refuge. The plot against Cloran had failed, but they could not blame that on “Bertha’s” non-appearance; and since it had failed she would not now be expected to assume the dead woman’s personality. True, she had not, as had been arranged, reached the Silver Sphinx at eleven, but there were a hundred excuses she could give to account for her being late in keeping the appointment so that she had arrived just in time, say, to see Danglar dash wildly in pursuit of a woman who had jumped into the car that she was supposed to take!
The garret! The garret again – and Gypsy Nan! Her surroundings seemed to become a blank to her; her actions to be prompted by some purely mechanical sense. She was conscious only that finally, after an interminable time, she was in New York again; and after that, long, long after that, dressed as Gypsy Nan, she was stumbling up the dark, ladder-like steps to the attic.
How her footsteps dragged! She opened the door, staggered inside, locked the door again, and staggered toward the cot, and dropped upon it; and the gray dawn came in with niggardly light through the grimy little window panes, as though timorously inquisitive of this shawled and dissolute figure prone and motionless, this figure who in other dawns had found neither sleep nor rest – this figure who lay there now as one dead.
XVIII. THE OLD SHED
Rhoda Gray opened her eyes, and, from the cot upon which she lay, stared with drowsy curiosity around the garret – and in another instant was sitting bolt upright, alert and tense, as the full flood of memory swept upon her.
There was still a meager light creeping in through the small, grimy window panes, but it was the light of waning day. She must have slept, then, all through the morning and the afternoon, slept the dead, heavy sleep of exhaustion from the moment she had flung herself down here a few hours before daybreak.
She rose impulsively to her feet. It was strange that she had not been disturbed, that no one had come to the garret! The recollection of the events of the night before were crowding themselves upon her now. In view of last night, in view of her failure to keep that appointment in the role of Danglar’s wife, it was very strange indeed that she had been left undisturbed!
Subconsciously she was aware that she was hungry, that it was long since she had eaten, and, almost mechanically, she prepared herself something now from the store the garret possessed; but, even as she ate, her mind was far from thoughts of food. From the first night she had come here and self-preservation had thrust this miserable role of Gypsy Nan upon her, from that first night and from the following night when, to save the Sparrow, she had been whirled into the vortex of the gang’s criminal activities, her mind raced on through the sequence of events that seemed to have spanned some vast, immeasurable space of time until they had brought her to – last night.
Last night! She had thought it was the end last night, but instead – The dark eyes grew suddenly hard and intent. Yes, she had counted upon last night, when, with the necessary proof in her possession with which to confront Danglar with the crime of murder, she could wring from the man all that now remained necessary to substantiate her own story and clear herself in the eyes of the law of that robbery at Skarbolov’s antique store of which she was held guilty – and instead she had barely escaped with her life. That was the story of last night.
Her eyes grew harder. Well, the way was still open, wasn’t it? Last night had changed nothing in that respect. To-night, as the White Moll, she had only to find and corner Danglar as she had planned to do last night. She had still only to get the man alone somewhere.
Rhoda Gray’s hands clenched tightly. That was all that was necessary – just the substantiation of her own story that the plot to rob Skarbolov lay at the door of Danglar and his gang; or, rather, perhaps, that the plot was in existence before she had ever heard of Skarbolov. It would prove her own statement of what the dying woman had said. It would exonerate her from guilt; it would prove that, rather than having any intention of committing crime, she had taken the only means within her power of preventing one. The real Gypsy Nan, Danglar’s wife, who had died that night, bad, even in eleventh-hour penitence, refused to implicate her criminal associates. There was a crime projected which, unless she, Rhoda Gray, would agree to forestall it in person and would give her oath not to warn the police about it and so put the actual criminals in jeopardy, would go on to its fulfillment!
She remembered that night in the hospital. The scene came vividly before her now. The woman’s pleading, the woman’s grim loyalty even in death to her pals. She, Rhoda Gray, had given her oath.
It became necessary only to substantiate those facts. Danglar could be made to do it. She had now in her possession the evidence that would convict him of complicity in the murder of Deemer, and for which murder the original Gypsy Nan had gone into hiding; she even had in her possession the missing jewels that had prompted that murder; she had, too, the evidence now to bring the entire gang to justice for their myriad depredations; she knew where their secret hoard of ill-gotten gains was hidden – here in this attic, behind that ingeniously contrived trap-door in the ceiling. She knew all this; and this information placed before the police, providing only it was backed by the proof that the scheme to rob Skarbolov was to be carried out by the gang, as she, Rhoda Gray, would say the dying woman had informed her, would be more than enough to clear her. She had not had this proof on that first night when she had snatched at the mantle of Gypsy Nan as the sole means of escape from Rough Rorke, of headquarters; she did not have it now – but she would have it, stake all and everything in life she had to have it, for it, in itself, literally meant everything and all – and Danglar would make a written confession, or else – or else – She smiled mirthlessly. That was all! Last night she had failed. To-night she would not fail. Before morning came, if it were humanly within her power, she and Danglar would have played out their game – to the end.
And now a pucker came and gathered her forehead into little furrows, and anxiety and perplexity crept into her eyes. Another thought tormented her. In the exposure that was to come the Adventurer, alias the Pug, was involved. Was there any way to save the man to whom she owed so much, the splendidly chivalrous, high-couraged gentleman she loved, the thief she abhorred?
She pushed the remains of her frugal meal away from her, stood up abruptly from the rickety washstand at which she had been seated, and commenced to pace nervously up and down the stark, bare garret. Where was the line of demarcation between right and wrong? Was it a grievous sin, or an infinitely human thing to do, to warn the man she loved, and give him a chance to escape the net she meant to furnish the police? He was a thief, even a member of the gang – though he used the gang as his puppets. Did ethics count when one who had stood again and again between her and peril was himself in danger now? Would it be a righteous thing, or an act of despicable ingratitude, to trap him with the rest?
She laughed out shortly. Warn him! Of course, she would warn him! But then – what? She shivered a little, and her face grew drawn and tired. It was the old, old story of the pitcher and the well. It was almost inevitable that sooner or later, for some crime or another, the man she loved would be caught at last, and would spend the greater portion of his days behind prison bars. That was what the love that had come into her life held as its promise to her! It was terrible enough without her agency being the means of placing him there!
She did not want to think about it. She forced her mind into other channels, though they were scarcely less disquieting. Why was it that during the day just past there had been not a sign from Danglar or any one of the gang, when every plan of theirs had gone awry last night, and she had failed to keep her appointment in the role of Danglar’s wife? Why was it? What did it mean? Surely Danglar would never allow what had happened to pass unchallenged, and – was that some one now?
She halted suddenly by the door to listen, her hand going instinctively to the wide, voluminous pocket of her greasy skirt for her revolver. Yes, there was a footstep in the hall below, but it was descending now to the ground floor, not coming up. She even heard the street door close, but still she hung there in a strained, tense way, and into her face there came creeping a gray dismay. Her pocket was empty.
The revolver was gone! Its loss, pregnant with a hundred ominous possibilities, seemed to bring a panic fear upon her, holding her for a moment inert – and then she rushed frantically to the cot. Perhaps it had fallen out of her pocket during the hours she had lain there asleep. She searched the folds of the soiled and crumpled blanket, that was the cot’s sole covering, then snatched the blanket completely off the cot and shook it; and then, down on her knees, she searched the floor under the cot. There was no sign of the revolver.
Rhoda Gray stood up, and stared in a stunned way about her. Was this, then, the explanation of her having seemingly been left undisturbed here all through the day? Had some one, after all, been here, and -? She shook her head suddenly with a quick, emphatic gesture of dissent. The door was still locked, she could see the key on the inside; and, besides, as a theory, it wasn’t logical. They wouldn’t have taken her revolver and left her placidly asleep!
The loss of the revolver was a vital matter. It was her one safeguard; the one means by which she could first gain and afterwards hold the whip-hand over Danglar in the interview she proposed to have with him; the one means of escape, the last resort, if she herself were cornered and fell into his power. It had sustained her more than once, that resolution to turn it against herself if she were in extremity. It meant everything to her, that weapon, and it was gone now; but the panic that had seized upon her was gone too, and she could think rationally and collectively again.
Last night, or rather this morning, when she had made her way back to the shed out there in the lane behind the garret, she had been in a state of almost utter exhaustion. She had changed from the clothes of the White Moll to those of Gypsy Nan, but she must have done so almost mechanically for she had no concrete recollection of it. It was quite likely then, even more than probable, that she had left the revolver in the pocket of her other clothes; for she had certainly had, not only her revolver, but her flashlight and her skeleton keys with her when she had visited old Luertz’s place last night, and later on too, when she had jumped into that automobile in front of the Silver Sphinx, she had had her revolver, for she had used it to force the chauffeur out of the car – and she had no one of those articles now.
Of course! That was it! She stepped impulsively to the door, and, opening it, made her way quickly down the stairs to the street. The revolver was undoubtedly in the pocket of her other skirt, and she felt a surge of relief sweep upon her; but a sense of relief was far from enough. She would not feel safe until the weapon was again in her possession, and intuitively she felt that she had no time to lose in securing it. She had already been left too long alone not to make a break in that unaccountable isolation they had accorded her as something to be expected at any moment. She hurried now down the street to the lane that intervened between Gypsy Nan’s house and the next corner, glanced quickly about her, and, seeing no one in her immediate vicinity, slipped into the lane. She gained the deserted shed some fifty yards along the lane, entered through the broken door that hung, half open, on sagging hinges, and, dropping on her knees, reached in under the decayed and rotting flooring. She pushed aside impatiently the package of jewels, at whose magnificence she had gazed awe-struck and bewildered the night before, and drew out the bundle that comprised her own clothing. Her hand sought the pocket eagerly. Yes, it was here – at least the flashlight was, and so were the skeleton keys. That was what had happened! She had been near utter collapse last night, and she had forgotten, and – Rhoda Gray, unconscious even that she still held the clothing in her hands, rose mechanically to her feet. There was a sudden weariness in her eyes as she stared unseeingly about her. Yes, the flashlight and the keys were here – but the revolver was not! Her brain harked back in lightning flashes over the events of the preceding night. She must have lost it somewhere, then. Where? She had had it in the automobile, that she knew positively; but after that she did not remember, unless – yes, it must have been that! When she had jumped from the car and flung herself down at the roadside! It must have fallen out of her pocket then.
Her heart seemed to stand still. Suppose they had found it! They would certainly recognize it as belonging to Gypsy Nan! They were not fools. The deduction would be obvious – the identity of the White Moll would be solved. Was that why no one had apparently come near her? Were they playing at cat-and-mouse, watching her before they struck, so that she would lead them to those jewels under the flooring here that were worth a king’s ransom? They certainly believed that the White Moll had them. The Adventurer’s note, so ironically true, that he had intended as an alibi for himself, and which he had exchanged for the package in old Luertz’s place, would have left no doubt in their minds but that the stones were in her possession. Was that it? Were they – She held her breath. It seemed as though suddenly her limbs were refusing to support her weight. In the soft earth outside she had heard no step, but she saw now a shadow fall athwart the half-open door-way. There was no time to move, even had she been capable of action. It seemed as though even her soul had turned to stone, and, with the White Moll’s clothes in her hands, she stood there staring at the doorway, and something that was greater than fear, because it mingled horror, ugly and forbidding, fell upon her. It was still just light enough to see. The shadow moved forward and came inside. She wanted to scream, to rush madly in retreat to the farthest corner of the shed; but she could not move. It was Danglar who was standing there. He seemed to sway a little on his feet, and the dark, sinister face seemed blotched, and he seemed to smile as though possessed of some unholy and perverted sense of humor.
She was helpless, at his mercy, unarmed, saved for her wits. Her wits! Were wits any longer of avail? She could believe nothing else now except that he had been watching her – before he struck.
“What are you doing here, and what are those clothes you’ve got in your hands?” he rasped out.
She could only fence for time in the meager hope that some loophole would present itself. She forced an assumed defiance into her tones and manner, that was in keeping with the sort of armed truce, which, from her first meeting with Danglar, she had inaugurated as a barrier between them.
“You have asked me two questions,” she said tartly. “Which one do you want me to answer first?”
“Look here,” he snapped, “you cut that out! There’s one or two things need explaining – see? What are those clothes?”
Her wits! Perhaps he did not know as much as she was afraid he did! She seemed to have become abnormally contained, her mind abnormally acute and active. It was not likely that the woman, his wife, whom he believed she was, had worn her own clothes in his presence since the day, some two years ago, when she had adopted the disguise of Gypsy Nan; and she, Rhoda Gray, remembered that on the night Gypsy Nan, re-assuming her true personality, had gone to the hospital, the woman’s clothes, like these she held now, had been of dark material. It was not likely that a man would be able to differentiate between those clothes and the clothes of the White Moll, especially as the latter hung folded in her hands now, and even though he had seen them on her at the Silver Sphinx last night.
“What clothes do you suppose they are but my own? – though I haven’t had a chance to wear them much lately!” she countered crisply.
He scowled at her speculatively.
“What are you doing with them out here in this hole, then?” he demanded.
“I had to wear them last night, hadn’t I?” she retorted. “I’d have looked well coming out of Gypsy Nan’s garret dressed as myself if any one had seen me! She scowled at him in turn. She was beginning to believe that he had not even an inkling of her identity. Her safest play was to stake everything on that belief. “Say, what’s the matter with you?” she inquired disdainfully. “I came out here and changed last night; and I changed into these rags I’m wearing now when I got back again; and I left my own clothes here because I was expecting to get word that I could put them on again soon for keeps – though I might have known from past experience that something would queer the fine promises you made at Matty’s last night! And the reason I’m out here now is because I left some things in the pocket, amongst them” – she stared at him mockingly -” my marriage certificate.”
Danglar’s face blackened.
“Curse you!” he burst out angrily. “When you get your tantrums on, you’ve got a tongue, haven’t you! You’d have been wearing your clothes now, if you’d have done as you were told. You’re the one that queered things last night.” His voice was rising; he was rocking even more unsteadily upon his feet. “Why in hell weren’t you at the Silver Sphinx?”
Rhoda Gray squinted at him through Gypsy Nan’s spectacles. She knew an hysterical impulse to laugh outright in the sure consciousness of supremacy over him now. The man had been drinking. He was by no means drunk; but, on the other hand, he was by no means sober – and she was certain now that, though she did not know how he had found her here in the shed, not the slightest suspicion of her had entered his mind.
“I was at the Silver Sphinx,” she announced coolly.
“You lie!” he said hoarsely. “You weren’t! I told you to be there at eleven, and you weren’t. You lie! What are you lying to me for – eh? I’ll find out, you – you -“
Rhoda Gray dashed the clothes down on the floor at her feet, and faced the man as though suddenly overcome in turn herself with passion, shaking both closed fists at him.
“Don’t you talk to me like that, Pierre Danglar!” she shrilled. “I lie, do I? Well, I’ll prove to you I don’t! You said you were going to have supper with Cloran at about eleven o’clock, and perhaps I was a few minutes after that, but maybe you think it’s easy to get all this Gypsy Nan stuff off me face and all, and rig up in my own clothes that I haven’t seen for so long it’s a wonder they hold together at all. I lie, do I? Well, just as I got to the Silver Sphinx, I saw a woman breaking her neck to get down the steps with you after her. She jumped into the automobile it was doped out I was to take, and you jumped into the other one, and both beat it down the street. I thought you’d gone crazy. I was afraid that Cloran would come out and recognize me, so I turned and ran, too. The safest thing I could do was to get back into the Gypsy Nan game again, and that’s what I did. And I’ve been lying low ever since, waiting to get word from some of you, and not a soul came near me. You’re a nice lot, you are! And now you come sneaking here and call me a liar! How’d you get to this shed, anyway?”
Danglar pushed his hand in a heavy, confused way across his eyes.
“My God!” he said heavily. “So that’s it, is it?” His voice became suddenly conciliating in its tones. “Look here, Bertha, old girl, don’t get sore. I didn’t understand, see? And there was a whole lot that looked queer. We even lost the jewels at old Luertz’s last night. Do you know who that woman was? It was the White Moll! She led us a chase all over Long Island, and -“
“The White Moll!” ejaculated Rhoda Gray. And then her laugh, short and jeering, rang out. The tables were turned. She had him on the defensive now. “You needn’t tell me I She got away again, of course! Why don’t you hire a detective to help you? You make me weary! So, it was the White Moll, was it? Well, I’m listening – only I’d like to know first how you got here to this shed.”
“There’s nothing in that!” he answered impatiently. “There’s something more important to talk about. I was coming over to the garret, and just as I reached the corner I saw you go into the lane. I followed you; that’s all there is to that.”
“Oh!” she sniffed. She stared at him for a moment. There was something in which there was the uttermost of irony now, it seemed, in this meeting between them. Last night she had striven to meet him alone, and she had meant to devote to-night to the same purpose; and she was here with him now, and in a place than which, in her wildest hopes, she could have imagined one no better suited to the reckoning she would have demanded and forced. And she was helpless, powerless to make use of it. She was unarmed. Her revolver was gone. Without that to protect her, at an intimation that she was the White Moll she would never leave the shed alive. The spot would be quite as ideal under those circumstances for him, as it would have been under other circumstances for her. She shrugged her shoulders. Danglar’s continued silence evidently invited further comment on her part. “Oh!” she sniffed again. “And I suppose, then, that you have been chasing the White Moll ever since last night at eleven, and that’s why you didn’t get around sooner to allay my fears, even though you knew I must be half mad with anxiety at the way things broke last night. She’ll have us down and out for keeps if you haven’t got brains enough to beat her. How much longer is this thing going on?”