 CHAPTER IX. No. 11 Another five minutes, and in her own personality now, a slim, trim figure, neatly gloved, the heavy veil affording ample protection to her features, wrote a gray emerged from the shed and the lane, and started rapidly toward Lower Sixth Avenue. As she walked, her mind, released for the moment from that consideration of her immediate venture, began again, as it had so many times in the last three days, its striving and its searching after some loophole of escape from her own desperate situation. But only, as it ever did, confusion came, a chaos of things, contributory things and circumstances, and the personalities of those with whom this impossible existence had thrown her into contact. Little by little she was becoming acquainted with the personnel of the gang, in an impersonal way, mostly. Apart from Dangler there was Schlucker, who must of necessity be one of them, and Skeeney, the man who had been with Dangler in Schlucker's room, and the cricket whom she had never seen, and besides these there were those who were mentioned in the cipher message to-night, and detailed to the performance of the various acts and scenes that were to lead up to the final climax, which, she supposed, was the object and the reason for the cipher message, in order that even those not actually employed be thoroughly conversant with the entire plan, and ready to act intelligently if called upon. For there were others, of course, as witness herself, or rather Gypsy Nan, whose personality she had so unwillingly usurped. It was vital, necessary, that she should know them all, and more than in an impersonal way, if she counted upon ever freeing herself of the guilt attributed to her. For she could see no other way but one, that of exposing and proving the guilt of this vile clique who now surrounded her, and who actually instigated and planned the crime of which she was accused. It was not an easy task. And then there were those outside this unholy circle who kept forcing their existence upon her consciousness, because they, too, played an intimate part in the sored drama which revolved around her, and whose inn she could not foresee. There was, for instance, the adventurer. She drew in her breath quickly. She felt the color creep slowly upward, and tinge her throat and cheeks. And then the little chin, strong and firm, was lifted in a sort of self-defying challenge. True, the man had been a great deal in her thoughts, but that was only because her curiosity was peaked, and because, on two occasions now, she had had very real cause for gratitude to him. If it had not been for the adventurer, she would even now be behind prison bars. Why shouldn't she think of him? She was not an ingrate. Why shouldn't she be interested? There was something peakingly mysterious about the man, who called himself an adventurer. She would even have given a good deal to know who he really was, and how he, too, came to be so conversant with Dangler's plans, as fast as they were matured, and why, on those two particular occasions, he had not only gone out of his way to be of service to her, but had done so at very grave risk to himself. Of course she was interested in him, in that way. How could she help it? But in any other way, the little chin was still tilted defiantly upward, even the suggestion was absurd. The man might be chivalrous, courageous, yes, outwardly, even a gentleman in both manner and appearance. He might be all of those things, and indeed was, but he was a thief, a professional thief, and crook. It seemed very strange, of course, but she was judging him, not alone from the circumstances under which they had met and been together, but from what he had given her to understand about himself. The defiance went suddenly from her face, and for a moment her lips quivered a little helplessly. It was all so very strange, and so forbidding, and perhaps she hadn't the stout heart that a man would have, but she did not understand, and she could not see her way through the darkness that was like a pall wrapped about her, and it was hard just to grope out amidst surroundings that revolted her and made her soul sick. It was hard to do this, and still she kept her courage and her faith. She shook her head presently as she went along, shook it reprovingly at herself, and the little shoulders squared resolutely back. There must be, and there would be a way out of it all, and meanwhile her position, bad as it was, was not without at least a certain compensation. There had been the sparrow the other night, whom she had been able to save, and to-night there was Nicky Viner. She could not be blind to that. Who knew? It might be for just such very purposes that her life had been turned into these new channels. She looked around her sharply now. She had reached the lower section of Sixth Avenue. Viner's office, according to the address given, was still a little further on. She walked briskly. It was very different to-night, thanks to her veil. It had been horrible the other night, when she had to venture out as the White Mall, and had been forced to keep to the dark alleys and lanes, and the unfrequented streets. And now, through a jeweler's window, she noted the time, and knew a further sense of relief. It was even earlier than she had imagined. It was not quite ten o'clock. She would, at least, be close on the heels of Pearlmer's departure from his office, if not actually ahead of time, and therefore she would be first on the scene, and—yes, there was the place. Here was Pearlmer's name, amongst those on the name-plate at the street entrance of the small three-storey building. She entered the hallway and found it deserted. It was a rather dirty and unkempt place, and very poorly lighted. A single incandescent alone burned in the hall. Pearlmer's room, so the name-plate indicated, was number eleven, and on the next floor. She mounted the stairs, and paused on the landing to look around her again. Here too the hallway was lighted by but a single lamp, and here too an air of desertion was in evidence. The office tenants, it was fairly obvious, were not habitual night-workers, for not a ray of light came from any of the glass-paneled doors that flanked both sides of the passage. She nodded her head sharply in satisfaction. It was equally obvious that Pearlmer had already gone. It would take her but a moment, then, unless the skeleton keys gave her trouble. She had never used a key of that sort, but—she moved quietly down the hallway, and looking quickly about her to assure herself again that she was not observed, stopped before the door of room number eleven. A moment she hung there, listening, then she slipped the skeleton keys from her pocket, and, in the act of inserting one of them tentatively into the key-hole, she tried the door, and with a little gasp of surprise returned the keys hurriedly to her pocket. The door was unlocked. It had even been open an inch already under her hand. Again she looked around her, a little startled now, and instinctively her hand in her pocket exchanged the keys for her revolver. But she saw nothing, heard nothing, and it was certainly dark inside there, and therefore only logical to conclude that the room was unoccupied. Re-assured, she pushed the door cautiously and noiselessly open, and stepped inside, and closed the door behind her. She stood still for an instant, and then the round white ray of her flashlight went dancing inquisitively around the office. It was a medium-sized room, far from ornate in its appointments. Baird floor, the furniture of the cheapest, Perlmer's clientele did not insist on oriental rugs and mahogany. Her appraisal of the room, however, was a bit cursory. She was interested only in the flat-top desk in front of her. She stepped quickly around it, and stopped, and a low cry of dismay came from her as she stared at the floor. The lower drawer had been completely removed, and now lay upturned beside the swivel chair, its contents strewn around in all directions. And for a moment she stared at the scene, non-plus, discomfited. She had been so sure that she would be first, and she had not been first. There was no need to search amongst those papers on the floor. They told their own story. The ones she wanted were already gone. In a numbed way, mechanically, she retreated to the door, and with the flashlight playing upon it she noticed for the first time that the lock had been roughly forced. It was but corroborative of the despoiled drawer, and at the same time the obvious reason why the door had not been re-locked when whoever had come here had gone out again. Whoever had come here. She could have laughed out hysterically. Was there any doubt as to who it was? One of Dangler's emissaries, the cricket perhaps, or perhaps even Dangler himself. They had seen to it that lack of prompt action, at least, would not be the cause of marring their plan. A little dazed, overwrought, confused at the ground being cut from under her, where she had been so confident of sure footing, she made her way out of the building and to the street, and for a block walked almost aimlessly along. And then suddenly she turned hurriedly into a cross-street and headed over toward the east side. The experience had not been a pleasant one, and it had upset most thoroughly all her calculations, but it was very far, after all, from being disastrous. It meant simply that she must find Nicky Viner himself and warn the man, and there was ample time in which to do that. The code message specifically stated midnight as the hour at which they proposed to favor old Viner with their unhallowed attentions, and as it was but a little after ten now, she had nearly a full two hours in which to accomplish what should not have taken more than a few minutes. Rhoda Gray's lips tightened a little as she hurried along. Old Nicky Viner still lived in the same disreputable tenement in which he had lived on that night of that murder two years ago, and she could not ward off the thought that it had been, yes, and was, an ideal place for a murder, from the murderer's standpoint. The neighborhood was one of the toughest in New York, and the tenement itself was frankly nothing more than a den of crooks. True, she had visited there more than once, had visited Nicky Viner there, but she had gone there then as the White Mall, to whom even the most abandoned would have touched his cap. But it was very different. She went there as a woman. And yet, after all, she amended her own thoughts, smiling a little seriously. Surely she could disclose herself as the White Mall there again to-night, if the actual necessity arose, for surely crooks, poke- getters, shillibers, and lags though they were, and though the place teemed with the drags of the underworld, no one of them, even for the reward that might be offered, would inform against her to the police. And yet, again the mental pendulum swung the other way, she was not so confident of that as she would like to be. In a general way there could be no question, but the chi could count on the loyalty of those who lived there. But there were always those upon whom one could never count, those who were dead to all sense of loyalty, and alive only to selfish gain and interest, a human trait that, all too unfortunately, was not confined to those alone who lived in that shadow-land outside the law. Her face, beneath the thick veil, relaxed a little. Well, she certainly did not intend to make a test case of it, and disclose herself there as the White Mall, if she could help it. She would enter the tenement unnoticed if she could, and make her way to Nicky Viner's two miserable rooms on the second floor as secretively as she could. And knowing the place as she did, she was quite satisfied that, if she were careful enough, and cautious enough, she could enter and leave without being seen by any one except, of course, Nicky Viner. She walked on quickly, five minutes, ten minutes past, and now in the narrow street, lighted mostly by the dull, yellow glow that seeped up from the sidewalk through basement entrances, queer and forbidding portals to sinister interiors, or filtered through the dirty windows of uninviting little shops that ran the gamut from Chinese laundries to oyster dens, she halted, drawn back in the shadows of a doorway and studied the tenement building that was just ahead of her. That was where old Nicky Viner lived. A smile of grim whimsicality touched her lips. Not a light showed in the place from top to bottom. From its exterior it might have been uninhabited, even long deserted. But to one who knew it, it was quite the normal condition, quite what one would expect. Those who lived there confined their activities mostly to the night, and their exodus to their labours began when the labours of the world at large ended, with the fall of darkness. For a little while she watched the place, and kept glancing up and down the street, and then, seizing her opportunity, when for half a block or more the street was free of pedestrians, she stole forward and reached the tenement door. It was half open, and she slipped quickly inside into the hall. She stood here for a moment motionless, listening, striving to accommodate her eyes to the darkness, and instinctively her hand went to her pocket for a reassuring touch of her revolver. It was black back there in the hallway of Gypsy Nan's lodging. She had not thought that any greater degree of blackness could exist, but it was blacker here. Only the sense of touch promised to be of any avail. If one could have moved as noiselessly as a shadow moves, one could have passed another within arm's length unseen. And so she listened, listened intently, and there was very little sound. Once she detected a footstep from the interior of some room as it moved across the bare floor, once she heard a door-creek somewhere upstairs, and once, from some indeterminate direction, she thought she heard voices whispering together for a moment. She moved suddenly, then, abruptly, almost impulsively, but careful not to make the slightest noise. She dared not remain another instant inactive. It was what she had expected, what she had counted upon as an ally, this darkness, but she was not one who laughed, even in daylight at its psychology. It was beginning to attack her now, her imagination to magnify even the actual dangers that she knew to be around her. And she must fight it off before it got a hold upon her, and before panicked voices out of the blackness began to shriek and clammer in her ears, as she knew they would do with pitiful little provocation, urging her to turn and flee incontinently. The staircase she remembered was at her right, and feeling out before her with her hands she reached the stairs, and began to mount them. She went slowly, very slowly. They were bare, the stairs, and unless one were extremely careful they could creak out through the silence with a noise that could be heard from top to bottom of the tenement. But she was not making any noise. She dared not make any noise. Halfway up she halted, and pressed her body close against the wall. Was that somebody coming? She held her breath in expectation. There wasn't a sound now, but she could have sworn that she heard a footstep on the hallway above, or on the upper stairs. She bit her lips in vexation. Panicked noises? That's what they were. That and the thumping of her heart. Why was it that alarms and exaggerated fancies came and tried to unnerve her? What, after all, was there really to be afraid of? She had almost a clear two hours before she need even anticipate any actual danger here, and if Nicky Viner were in she would be away from the tenement again in another fifteen minutes at the latest. Rhoda Gray went on again, and gaining the landing halted once more. And here she smiled at herself with the tolerant chiding she would have accorded a child that was frightened without warrant. She could account for those whisperings and that footstep now. The door to the left, the one next to Nicky Viner's squalid two-room apartment, was evidently partially open, and occasionally someone moved within, and the voices came from there too and low toned to begin with were naturally muffled into whispers by the time they reached her. She had only then to step the five or six feet across the narrow hall in order to reach Nicky Viner's door, and unless by some unfortunate chance whoever was in that room happened to come out into the hall at the same moment she would—yes, it was all right. She was trying Nicky Viner's door now. It was unlocked, and as she opened it for the space of a crack there showed a tiny chink of light, so faint and meager that it seemed to shrink timorously back again as though to put route to the masked blackness, but it was enough to evidence the fact that Nicky Viner was at home. It was all simple enough now. Old Viner would undoubtedly make some exclamation at her sudden and stealthy entrance, but once she was inside without those in the next room either having heard or seen her it would not matter. Another inch she pushed the door open, another and then another, and then quickly, silently, she tiptoed over the threshold and closed the door softly behind her. The light came from the inner room and shone through the connecting door which was open, and there was a movement from within and a low, grumbling voice, petulant, whining as though an old man were mumbling complainingly to himself. She smiled coldly. It was very much like Nicky Viner, it was a habit of his to talk to himself, she remembered, and also she had never heard Nicky Viner do anything else but grumble and complain. But she could not see fully into the other room, only into a corner of it, for the two doors were located diagonally across from one another, and her hand, in a startled way, went suddenly to her lips, as though mechanically, to help choke back and stifle the almost overpowering impulse to cry out that rose within her. Nicky Viner was not alone in there. A figure had come into her line of vision in that other room, not Nicky Viner, not any of the gang, and she stared now in incredulous amazement, scarcely able to believe her eyes, and then, suddenly, cool and self-possessed again, relieved in a curious way because the element of personal danger was a consequence eliminated, she began to understand why she had been forestalled in her efforts at Pearlmer's office, when she had been so sure that she would be the first upon the scene. It was not Dangler, or the Cricket, or Skeeny, or any of the band who had forestalled her. It was the adventurer. That was the adventurer standing in there now, side-faced to her, in Nicky Viner's inner room. End of Chapter 9 CHAPTER X On the Brink Rhoda Gray moved quietly, inch by inch, along the side of the wall to gain a vantage point, more nearly opposite the lighted doorway. And then she stopped again. She could see quite clearly now, that is, there was nothing now to obstruct her view, but the light was miserable and poor, and the single-gas jet that wheeled and flickered did little more than disperse the shadows from its immediate neighborhood in that inner room. But she could see enough. She could see the bent and ill-clad figure of Nicky Viner, as she remembered him, an old, gray-bearded man, wringing his hands in groveling misery, while the mumbling voice, now whining and pleading, now servile, now plucking up courage to indulge in abuse, kept on without even, it seemed, a pause for breath. She could see the adventurer, quite unmoved, quite debonair, a curiously patient smile on his face, standing there, much nearer to her, his right hand in the pocket of his coat, a somewhat significant habit of his, his left hand holding a sheaf of folded, legal-looking documents. And then she heard the adventurer speak. What a flow of words, said the adventurer, in a bored voice! You will forgive me, my dear Mr. Viner, if I appear to be facetious, which I am not, but money talks. You were a thief, a robber, the old gray-bearded figure rocked on its feet, and kept wringing its hands. Get out of here! Get out! Do you hear? Get out! You come to steal from a poor man, and—must we go over all that again? Interrupted the adventurer wearily? I have not come to steal anything. I have simply come to sell you these papers, which I am quite sure, once you control yourself, and give the matter a little calm consideration, you are really most anxious to buy, at any price. It's a lie, the other croaked, hoarsely. The papers are a lie. I am innocent. I haven't got any money, none. I haven't any. I am poor, an old man, and poor. Rota Gray felt the blood flush hotly in her cheeks. Somehow she could feel no sympathy for that cringing figure in there, but she felt a hot resentment toward that dapper, immaculately dressed, and self-possessed young man, who stood there, silently now, tapping the papers with provoking coolness against the edge of the plain-deal table in front of him. And somehow the resentment seemed to take on a most peculiar phase. She resented the fact that she should feel resentment, no matter what the man did or said. It was as though, instead of anger, impersonal anger, at this low, miserable act of his, she felt ashamed of him. Her hand clenched fiercely as she crouched against the wall. It wasn't true. She felt nothing of the sort. Why should she be ashamed of him? What was he to her? He was frankly a thief, wasn't he? And he was at his pitiful calling now, down to the lowest dregs of it. What else did she expect? Because he had the appearance of a gentleman, was it that her sense of gratitude for what she owed him had made her, deep down in her soul, actually cherish the belief that he really was one, made her hope it, and nourished that hope into belief? Tighter her hand clenched. Her lips parted, and her breath came in short, hard inhalations. Was it true? Was it all only an added misery where it had seemed there could be none to add to her life in these last few days? Was it true that there was no price she would not have paid to have found him in any role but this abased one that he was playing now? The adventurer broke the silence. Wait so, my dear Mr. Viner, he agreed smoothly. It would appear, then, from what you say that I have been mistaken. Even stupidly so, I am afraid. And in that case I can only apologize for my intrusion, and as you so delicately put it, get out. He slipped the papers with a philosophic shrug of his shoulders into his inside coat pocket, and then took a backward step toward the door. I bid you good night, then, Mr. Viner. The papers, as you state, are doubtlessly of no value to you. So you can, of course, have no objection to my handing them over to the police, who, no, no, wait, wait, the other whispered wildly. Wait! Ah, murmured the adventurer. I, I'll—the bent old figure was clawing at his beard. I'll— Buy them? Suggested the adventurer pleasantly? Yes, I'll—I'll buy them. I—I've got a little money—only a little. All I've been able to save in years—uh, a hundred dollars. How much did you say? Inquired the adventurer coldly? Two hundred. The voice was a modlin' whine. The adventurer took another step backward toward the door. Three hundred. Another step. Five. A thousand. The adventurer laughed suddenly. That's better, he said. Where you keep a thousand, you keep the rest. Where is the thousand, Mr. Viner? The bent figure hesitated a moment, and then, with what sounded like a despairing cry, pointed to the table. It's there, he whimpered. God's curses on you, for the thief you are! Rhoda Gray found her eyes fixed in sudden, strained fascination on the table, as she imagined the adventurers were too. It was bare of any covering, nor were there any articles on its surface, nor, as far as she could see, was there any drawer. Now the adventurer, his right hand still in his coat pocket, and bulging there where she knew quite well at Grasp's revolver, stepped abruptly to the table, facing the other with the table between them. The bent old figure hesitated, and then, with the despairing cry again, grasped the top of the table, and jerked it toward him. The surface seemed to slide sideways a little, a matter of two or three inches, and then stick there, but the adventurer, in an instant, had thrust the fingers of his left hand into the crevice. He drew out a number of loose bank-notes, and thrust his fingers in again for a further supply. Open it whiter, he commanded, curtly. I—I'm trying to, the other mumbled, and bent down to peer under the table. It stuck, the catches underneath, and— It seemed to rode a gray, gazing into the dimly-lighted room, as though she were suddenly held spellbound, as in some horrible and amazing trance. Like a hideous jack in the box, the gray head popped above the level of the table again, and as quick as a flash, a revolver was thrust into the adventurer's face. And the adventurer, caught at a disadvantage, since his hand, in his coat-pocket, was below the intervening tabletop, stood there as though instantaneously transformed into some motionless, inanimate thing, his fingers still gripping at another sheaf of bank-notes, that he had been in the act of scooping out from the narrow aperture. But then again rode a gray stared, and stared now, as though bereft of her senses, and upon her, crept, cold and deadly, a fear and a terror that seemed to engulf her very soul itself. The head that looked like a jack in the box was gone, the gray beard seemed to suddenly be shorn away, and the gray hair too, and to fall and flutter to the table, and the bent shoulders were not bent any more, and it wasn't Nicky Viner at all. Really a clever, a wonderfully clever impersonation that had been helped out by the poor and meager light. A terror gripped her again, for it wasn't Nicky Viner. Those narrowed eyes, that leering, gloating face, those working lips, were danglers. And as from some far distance, dulled because her consciousness was dulled, she heard danglers speak. Perhaps you'll take your hand out of that right coat-pocket of yours now, sneered dangler, and take it out empty. The adventurer's face, as nearly as Rhoda could see, had not moved a muscle. He obeyed now, coolly with a shrug of his shoulders. Dangler appeared to experience no further trouble with the surface of the table now. He suddenly jerked it almost off, displaying what Rhoda Gray now knew to be the remainder of a large package of banknotes he had taken from the garret earlier that evening. Help yourself to the rest, he invited costically. There isn't fifty thousand there, but you're quite welcome to all there is, in return for those papers. The adventurer was apparently obsessed with an inspection of his fingernails. He began to polish those of one hand with the palm of the other. Quite so, dangler, he said, coolly. I admit it. I am ashamed of myself. I hate to think I could be caught by you, but I suppose I can find some self-extinuating circumstances. You seem to have risen to an amazingly high order of intelligence. In fact, for you, dangler, it's not bad at all. He went on polishing his nails. Would you mind taking that out of my face? Even you ought to be able to handle it effectively a few inches further away. Under the studied insult, dangler's face had grown a modelled red. Damn you, he snarled. I'll take it away when I get good and ready, and by that time I have you talking out of the other side of your mouth. See, do you know what you're up against, you slick dude? I have a fairly good imagination," replied the adventurer smoothly. You have, A, mimicked, dangler, wickedly. Well, you don't need to imagine anything. I'll give you the straight goods, so as there won't be any chance of a mistake. And never mind about the higher order of intelligence. It was high enough, and a little to spare, to make you walk into the trap. I hoped I'd get you both, you and that she-pow the white-mall, that you'd come here together. But I'm not kicking. It's a pretty good start to get you. Is it necessary to make a speech? Complained the adventurer monotonously. I can't help listening, of course. You can make up your mind for yourself when I'm through, whether it's necessary or not, retorted dangler viciously. I've got a little proposition to put to you, and maybe it'll help you to add two and two together, if I let you see all the cards. Understand? You've had your run of luck lately, quite a bit of it, haven't you? You and the white-mall? Well it's my turn now. You've been querying our game to the limit, curse you? Dangler thrust his working face a little further over the table, and nearer to the adventurer. Well, what was the answer? Where did you get the dope you've made your plays with? It was a cinch, wasn't it, that there was a leak somewhere in our crowd? He laughed out suddenly. You poor fool! Did you think you could pull that sort of stuff forever? Did you? Well then, how do you like the leak tonight? You get the idea, don't you? Everybody, every last soul that is in this with us, got the details of what they thought was a straight play tonight, and it leaked to you, as I knew it would, and you walked into the trap, as I knew you would, because the bait was good and juicy, and looked the easiest thing to annex that ever happened. $50,000. $50,000 nothing. All you had to do was get a few papers that it wouldn't bother any crook to get, even a near crook like you, and then come here and screw the money out of a helpless old man, who was supposed to have been discovered to be a miser. Easy, wasn't it? Only old Nicky Viner wasn't a miser. We chose Nicky because of what happened two years ago. It made things look pretty near right, didn't it? Looked straight, that part about Perlmer, too, didn't it? That was the come-on. Perlmer never saw those papers you've got in your pocket. I doped them out, and we planted them nice and handy, where you could get them without much trouble in the drawer of Perlman's desk, and— It's a long story, interrupted the adventurer, with quiet insolence. It's got a short ending, said Dangler, with an ugly leer. We could have bumped you off when you went for those papers, but if you went that far, you'd come further, and that wasn't the place to do it, and we couldn't cover ourselves there the way we could here. This is the place. We brought that trick table here a while ago, as soon as we got rid of Nicky Viner. That was the only bit of stage-setting we had to do, to make the story ring true right up to the curtain, in case it was necessary. It wouldn't have been necessary, if you and the White Mall had both come together, for then you would neither of you got any further than that other room. It would have ended there. But we weren't taking any chances. I'll pay you the compliment of admitting that we weren't counting on getting you off your guard any too easily if, as it happened, you came alone. For being alone, or if either of you were alone, there was that little proposition that had to be settled, instead of just knocking you on the head in the dark in that other room. And so, as I say, we weren't overlooking any bets on account of the little trouble it took to plant that table and the money. We tried to think of everything. Dangler paused for a moment to mock the adventurer with narrowed eyes. That's the story. Here's the end. I hoped I'd get you both together, you and the White Mall. I didn't. But I've got you. I didn't get both of you, and that's what gives you a chance for your life, because she's worth more to us than you are. If you'd been together, you would have gone out together. As it is, I'll see that you don't do any more harm anyway. But you get one chance. Where is she? If you answer that, you will, of course, answer a minor question and locate that leak for me that I was speaking about a moment ago. But we'll take the main thing first. And you can take your choice between a bullet and a straight answer. There is the White Mall. Rota Gray's hand felt out along the wall for support. Was this a dream, some ghastly, soul-terrifying nightmare? Dangler? Those working lips? That callous viciousness? That leer in the degenerate face? It seemed to bring a weakness to her limbs, and seek to rob her of her strength to stand. She could not even hope against hope. She knew that Dangler was in deadly earnest. There would not have the slightest compunction, let alone hesitation, in carrying out his threat. Terrified now, her eyes sought the adventurer. Didn't the adventurer know Dangler as she knew him? Didn't he realize there was deadly earnest behind Dangler's words? Was the man mad that he stood there utterly unmoved, as though he had no consideration on earth other than those carefully manicured fingernails of his? And then Dangler spoke again. Do you notice anything special about this gun I'm holding on you? He demanded in low menace. The adventurer did not even look up. Oh, yes, he said indifferently. I fancy you got it out of a dime novel, didn't you? One of those silencer things? Yes, said Dangler grimly. One of those silencer things. Where is she? The adventurer made no answer. The color in Dangler's face deepened. I'll make things even a little plainer to you, he said, with brutal coolness. There are two men in our organization, from whom it is absolutely impossible that that leak could have come. Those two men followed you from Pearlmer's office to this place. They are in the next room now, waiting for me to get through with you, and ready for anything if they are needed. But they won't be needed. That's not the way it works out. This gun won't make much noise, and it isn't likely to arouse the inmates of this dive. But even if it does, it doesn't matter very much. We aren't going out by the front door. The two of them, the minute they hear the shot, slip in here and lock the door. You see, it's got a good husky bolt on it. And then we beat it by the fire escape that runs past the window there. Get the idea? And don't kid yourself into thinking that I am taking any risk with the consequences on account of the coroner having got busy because a man was found dead on the floor. Nicky Viner stands for that. It isn't the first time he's been suspected of murder. See? Nicky was easy. He'd crawl on his hands and knees from the battery to Harlem any time if I held a little money in front of his nose. He's been fooled up to the eyes with a faked up message that he's supposed to deliver secretly to some faked up crooks out west. He's just about starting away on the train now. And that's where the police snab him, running away from the murder he's pulled in his room here to-night. Looks kind of bad for Nicky Viner, eh? We should worry. It cost a hundred dollars and his ticket. Cheap, wasn't it? I guess you're worth that much to us. A dull whore seized upon Rota Gray. It seemed to clog and confuse her mind. She fought it frantically, striving to think, and to think clearly. Every detail seemed to have been planned with satanic, foresight, and ingenuity, and yet, and yet—yes, in one little thing, Dangler had made a mistake. That was why she was here now. That was why those men in the next room had not been out in the hall on guard, or even in the street, on watch for her. Dangler had naturally gone upon the supposition that the adventurer and herself worked hand in glove, whereas they were as much in the dark concerning each other's movements as Dangler himself was. Therefore Dangler, and logically enough from his view, had jumped to the conclusion that, since they had not come together, only one of them, the adventurer, was acting in the affair to-night, and Dangler's voice was rasping in her ears. I'm not going to stand here all night, he snarled. You've got one chance. I've told you what it is. You're lucky to have it. We'd sooner have you out of the way for keeps. I'd rather drop you in your tracks than let you live. Where is the White Mall? The adventurer was side-faced to the doorway again, and wrote a gray saw him smile contemptuously at Dangler now. Really, he said blandly, I haven't the slightest idea in the world. Dangler laughed, ironically. You lie! He flung out hoarsely. Do you think you can get away with that? Well think again. Sooner or later it will be all the same whether you talk or not. We'll catch you tonight in a trap. We'll catch her in another. Our hand doesn't show here. She'll think that Nicky Viner was a little too much for you. That's all. Come on. Quick! Are you fool enough to misunderstand? The don't know stuff won't get you by. The misunderstanding seems to be on your side. There was a cold, irritating deliberation in the adventurer's voice. I repeat, that I do not know where the young lady you refer to can be found, but I do not make that statement with any idea that you would believe it. To occur, I suppose that it is necessary to add that even if I did know, I should take pleasure in seeing you damned before I told you. Dangler's face was like a devil's. His revolver held a steady beat on the adventurer's head. I'll give you one last chance, he said, through closed teeth. I'll fire when I count three. One. A horrible fascination held, wrote a gray. If she cried out, it was more likely than not to cause Dangler to fire on the instant. It would not save the adventurer in any case. It would be but the signal, too, for those two men in the next room to rush in here. Two. It seemed as though, not in the hope that it would do any good, but because she was going mad with horror, that she would scream out until the place rang and rang again with her outcries. Even her soul was in frantic panic. Quick! Quick! She must act. She must. But how? Was there only one way? She was conscious that she had drawn her revolver as though by instinct, Dangler's life or the adventurer's. But she shrank from taking life. Her lips were breathing a prayer. They had called her a crack shot back there in South America when she had hunted and ridden with her father. It was easy enough to hit Dangler, but it might mean Dangler's life. It was not easy to hit Dangler's arm or Dangler's hand or the revolver Dangler held, and if she risked that and missed, she— Three! There was the roar of a report that was racketing through the silence like a cannon shot, and the short, vicious-tongued flame from Rhoda Gray's revolver muzzle stabbed through the black. There was a scream of mingled surprise and fury and the revolver in Dangler's hand clattered to the floor. She saw the adventurer's spring, quick as a panther, at the other, and she saw him whip-blow after blow with terrific force into Dangler's face. She heard a rush of feet coming from the corridor behind her, and she flung herself forward into the room, and panting, snatched at the door and slammed it shut, and groping for the bolt, found it, and shot it home in its grooves. As she stood there, weak for a moment, and drew her hands across her eyes, and behind her they pounded on the door, there came a burst of oaths, and in front of her the adventurer was smiling gravely as he covered Dangler with Dangler's own revolver, and Dangler, as though dazed and half-stunned from the blows that he had received, rocked unsteadily upon his feet. And then her eyes widened a little. The pounding on the door, the shouts, the noise, was beginning to arouse what inmates there were in the tenement, and there wasn't an instant to lose. But the adventurer was now calmly gathering up, to the last one, and pocketing them, the banknotes with which Dangler had baited his trap. And he crammed the money into his pockets as he spoke to her, with a curious softness, a great, strange gentleness in his voice. I owe you my life, Miss Gray. That was a wonderful shot. You knocked the revolver from his hand without even grazing his fingers. A wonderful shot, and, will you let me say, you are a very wonderful woman. Oh, quick! She whispered wildly. I am afraid this door will not hold. There is the window and the fire escape, so our friend here was good enough to inform me, said the adventurer, as he composedly pocketed the last dollar. Will you open the window, Miss Gray, if you please? I am afraid I hit Mr. Dangler a little urgently, and he is still somewhat groggy. I fancy he will need a little assistance. I imagine, he caught Dangler suddenly by the collar of his coat as Rhodogray ran to the window and flung it up and rushed the man unceremoniously across the room. I imagine it would be a mistake to leave him behind. He might open the door, or even be unpleasant enough to throw something down on us from above. Also he should serve very well as a hostage. Will you go first, please, Miss Gray? She climbed quickly over the sill to the iron platform. Dangler was dragged through by the adventurer, mumbling, and evidently still in a half-dazed condition. Windows were opening here and there. From back inside the room the blows rained more heavily upon the door, and now there came a rip and a rind of wood as though a panel had crashed in. Hurry, please, Miss Gray, prompted the adventurer. It was dark, almost too dark to see her footing. She felt her way down. It was only one story above the ground, and it did not take long, but it seemed hours since she had fired that shot, though she knew the time had been measured by scarcely more than a minute. And now, on the lower platform, waiting for that queer, double-twisting shadow of the two men to join her, she heard the adventurer's voice ring out sharply. This is your chance, Dangler. I didn't waste time to bring you along because it afforded me any amusement. They found their heads at last and gone to the next window instead of wasting time at the door. They can't reach the firescape there, but if they fire a shot, you go out. You'd better tell them so, and tell them quick. And then Dangler's voice shrieked out in sudden. For God's sake, don't shoot! They were all on the lower platform together now. The adventurer was pressing the muzzle of his revolver into the small of Dangler's back, and was still supporting the man by the collar of his coat. I think, said the adventurer abruptly, that we can now dispense with Mr. Dangler's services, and I'm sure a little cool night air out here on the firescape will adieu him good. Miss Gray, would you mind? There's a pair of handcuffs in my left-hand coat pocket. Handcuffs. She could have laughed out idiotically. Handcuffs. They seemed the most incongruous things in the world for the adventurer to have, and she felt mechanically in his pocket and handed them to him. There was a click as the cuff snapped over Dangler's wrist, another as the other cuff snapped shut around the ironed hand railing of the firescape. The act seemed to arouse Dangler, both mentally and physically. He tore and wrenched at the steel links now, and burst suddenly raving into oaths. Hold your tongue, Dangler, ordered the adventurer in cold menace, and as the other, cowed, obeyed, the adventurer swung himself over the platform and dropped to the ground. Come, Miss Gray, drop, I'll catch you, he called in a low voice. One step takes us around the corner of the tenement into the lane, and Mr. Dangler won't let them fire at us before we can make that, when we could still fire at him. She obeyed, swinging at arm's length. She felt his hands fold about her in a firm grasp as she let go of her hold, and she caught her breath suddenly. She did not know why, as she felt the hot blood sweep her face, and then she was standing on the ground. Now he whispered, together. They sped around the corner of the tenement. A yell from Dangler followed them. An echoing yell from above answered, and then a fusillade of abortive shots, and the sound as of boot-heels clattering on the iron rungs of the fire escape. And then, more faintly, for they were putting distance behind them as fast as they could run, an excited outburst of profanity and exclamations. They won't follow, panted the adventurer. Those shots of theirs outdoors will have alarmed the police, and they'll try and get Dangler free first. Its luckier shot inside wasn't heard by that patrolman on the beat. I was afraid of that, but we're safe now, from Dangler's crowd at least. But still they ran. They crossed an intersecting street and continued on along the lane. Then, swerving into the next intersecting street, moderated their pace to a rapid walk, and stopped finally as Rhoda Gray drew suddenly into the shadows of another alleyway and held out her hand. They were both safe now, as he had said, and there were so many reasons why, though her resolution faltered a little, she should go the rest of the way alone. She was not sure that she trusted this strange gentleman, who was a thief, with his pockets crammed even now with the money that had lured him almost to his death, but she was not altogether sure that she distrusted him. But all that was secondary. She must, as soon as she could, get back to Gypsy Nan's garret. Like the other night, she dare not take the risk that Dangler, by any chance, might return there and find her gone after what had just happened. The man would be beside himself with fury, suspicious of everything, and suspicion would be fatal in its consequences for her. And so she must go. And she could not become Gypsy Nan again with the adventurer looking on. We part here, she said, a little unsteadily. Good night. Oh, I say, Miss Gray, he protested quickly. You don't mean that. Why, look here, I haven't had a chance to tell you what I think, or what I feel, about what you've done tonight, for me. She shook her head. There is nothing you need say, she answered quietly. We are quits. You have done quite as much for me. But see here, Miss Gray, he pleaded, can't we come to some understanding? We seem to have a jolly lot in common. Is it quite necessary, really necessary, that you should keep off at an arm's length? Couldn't you let down the bars just a little? Couldn't you tell me, for instance, where I could find you in case of real necessity? She shook her head again. No, she said, it is impossible. He drew a little closer. A sudden earnestness deepened his voice, made it a little rasp, as though it were not wholly within control. And suppose, Miss Gray, that I refuse to leave you, or let you go, now that I have you here, unless you give me more of your confidence? What then? The other night, she said slowly, you informed me, among other things, that you were a gentleman. I believed the other things. He did not answer for a moment, and then he smiled whimsically. You score, Miss Gray, he murmured. Good night, then, she said again, I will go by the alley here, you by the street. No, wait, he said gravely. If nothing will change your mind, and I shall not be importunate, for we have met three times now, through the same peculiar chain of circumstances, I know we shall meet again. I have something to tell you, before you go. As you already know, I went to Gypsy Nans the night after I first saw you, because I felt you needed help. I went there in the hope that she would know where to find you, and, failing that, I left a message for you in the hope that, since she had tricked Rourke in your behalf, you would find means of communicating with her again. But all that is entirely changed now. Your participation in that Hayden Bond affair the other night makes Gypsy Nans place the last in all New York to which you should go. Rhoda Gray stared through the semi-darkness, suddenly startled, searching the adventurer's face. What do you mean, she demanded quickly? Just this, he answered, that where before I hoped you would go there, I have spent nearly all the time since in haunting the vicinity of Gypsy Nans' house to warn you away in case you should try to reach her. I—I don't understand, she said, a little uncertainly. It's simple enough, he said, Gypsy Nans is now one of those you have most to fear. Gypsy Nans is merely a disguise. She is no more Gypsy Nans than you are. Rhoda Gray caught her breath. Not Gypsy Nans, she repeated, and fought to keep her voice in control. Who is she then? The adventurer laughed shortly. She is quite closely connected to that gentleman we left airing himself on the fire-escape, he said grimly. Gypsy Nans is Dangler's wife. It was very strange, very curious. The alleyway seemed suddenly to be revolving around and around, and it seemed to bring her a giddiness and a faintness. The adventurer was standing there before her, but she did not see him any more. She could only see, as from a brink upon which she tottered, a gulf, abysmal in its horror, that yawned before her. Thank you. Thank you for the warning. Was that her voice speaking so calmly and dispassionately? I will remember it. And I must go now. Good night again! He said something. She did not know what. She only knew that she was hurrying along the alleyway now, and that he had made no effort to stop her, and that she was grateful to him for that, and that her composure, strained to the breaking-point, would have given away if she had remained with him another instant. Dangler's wife? It was dark in the alleyway, and she did not know where it led. But did it matter? And she stumbled as she went along. But it was not the physical inability to see that made her stumble. It was a brain blindness that fogged her soul itself. His wife? Gypsy Nans was Dangler's wife? End of CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI of THE WHITE MALL. THE WHITE MALL by Frank L. Packard CHAPTER XI. Some of the lesser breed. Dangler's wife? It had been a night of horror, a night without sleep, a night after the guttering candle had gone out, when the blackness of the garret possessed added terrors created by imagination which ran riot and which she could not control. She could have fled from it, screaming in panic-stricken hysteria, but there had been no other place as safe as that was. Safe! The words seemed to reach the uttermost depths of irony. Safe! Well, it was true, wasn't it? She had not wanted to return there. Her soul itself had revolted against it. She had dared to do nothing else. And all through the night, huddled on the edge of the cot bed, her fingers clinging tenaciously to her revolver, as though afraid, for even an instant to relinquish it from her grasp. Listening. Listening. Always listening for a footstep that might come up from the dark hall below. The footstep that would climax all the terrors that had surged upon her, her mind had kept on reiterating, always reiterating those words of the adventurer. Gypsy Nan is Dangler's wife. And they were still wither those words. Daylight had come again, and passed again, and it was evening once more, but those words remained insensible to change, immutable in their foreboding. And Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, shuddered now as she shuffled along a shabby street deep in the heart of the east side. She was Dangler's wife, by proxy. At dawn that morning the Gray had come creeping into the miserable attic, through the small and dirty window-panes. She had fallen on her knees and thanked God she had been spared that footstep. It was strange. She had poured out her soul in passionate thankfulness then that Dangler had not come, and now she was deliberately on her way to seek Dangler himself. But the daylight had done more than dispense the actual physical darkness of the past night. It had brought, if not a measure of relief, at least a sense of guidance and a final decision, perilous though it was, which she meant now to put into execution. There was no other way, unless she was willing to admit defeat, to give up everything, her own good name, her father's name, to run far from it all, and live henceforth in hiding in some obscure place far away, branded in the life she would have left behind as a despicable criminal and a thief. And she could not, would not, do this, while her intuition at least inspired her with faith to believe that there was still a chance of clearing herself. It was a throw of the dice, perhaps, but there was no other way. Dangler and those with him were at the bottom of the crimes for which she was held guilty. She could not go on as she had been doing, merely in the hope of stumbling upon some clue that would serve to exonerate her. There was not enough time for that. Dangler's trap set for herself and the adventurer last night in old Nicky Viner's room proved that. And the fact that the woman who had originally masqueraded at Gypsy Nan, as she wrote a gray, was masquerading now, was Dangler's wife, proved it a thousandfold more. She could no longer remain passive, arguing with herself that it took all her wits and all her efforts to maintain herself in the role of Gypsy Nan, which temporarily was all that stood between her and prison bars. To do so meant the certainty of disaster sooner or later, and if it meant that, the need for immediate action was an offensive sort of imperative. And so her mind was made up. Her only chance was to find her way into the full intimacy of the criminal band of which Dangler was apparently the head, to search out its lair and its personnel, to reach to the heart of it, to know Dangler's private movements, and discover where he lived so that she might watch him. It surely was not such a hopeless task. True, she knew by name and sight scarcely more than three of this crime-click, but at least she had a starting point from which to work. There was Schluckers' junk-shop where she had turned the tables on Dangler and Skeeney on the night they had planned to make the sparrow their pawn. It was obvious, therefore, that Schlucker himself, the proprietor of the junk-shop, was one of the organization. She was going to Schluckers now. Rota Gray halted suddenly, and stared wonderingly a little way up the block ahead of her. As though by magic a crowd was collecting around the doorway of a poverty-stricken, tumbled-down frame-house that made the corner of an alleyway. And where but an instant before the street's jostling humanity had been immersed in its wrangling with push-cart men who lined the curb, the carts were now deserted by everyone save their owners, whose caution exceeded their curiosity, and the crowd grew momentarily larger in front of the house. She drew Gypsy Nan's black, greasy shawl a little more closely around her shoulders, and moved forward again. And now on the outskirts of the crowd she could see quite plainly. There were two or three steps that led up to the doorway, and a man and a woman were standing there. The woman was wretchedly dressed, but with most strange incongruity she held in her hand, obviously subconsciously, obviously quite oblivious to it, a huge basket full to overflowing, with, as nearly as Rota Gray could judge, all sorts of purchases, as though out of the midst of abject poverty a golden shower had suddenly descended upon her. And she was gray and well beyond middle-age, and crying bitterly, and her free hand, whether to support herself or with the instinctive idea of supporting her companion, was clutched tightly around the man's shoulders. And the man rocked unsteadily on his feet. He was tall and angular and older than the woman and cadaverous of feature and miserably thin of shoulder and blood trickled over his forehead and down one ashen hollow cheek, and above the excited exclamations of the crowd Rota Gray heard him cough. Rota Gray glanced around her. Where scarcely a second before she had been on the outer fringes of the crowd, she now appeared to be at the very center of it. Women were pushing up behind her, women who wore shawls as she did, only the shawls were mostly of gaudy colors, and men pushed up behind her, mostly men of swarthy countenance, who wore circlets of gold in their ears, and, brushing her skirts, seeking vantage points, ragged ill-clad children, wriggled and wormed their way deeper into the press. It was a crowd composed entirely of the foreign element which inhabited this quarter, and the crowd clattered and just deculated with ever-increasing violence. She did not understand. And she could not see so well now. That pitiful tableau, in the doorway, was being shut off from her by a man, directly in front of her, who had hoisted a half- naked tot of three or four to a reserved seat upon his head. And then a young man, one whom, from her years in the Badlands as the White Mall, she recognized as a hangar on, at a gambling-hell in Chatham Square District, came toward her, plowing his way, contemptuous of obstructions, out of the crowd. Wrote a gray as Gypsy Nan hailed him out of the corner of her mouth. Say, what's to row, she demanded. The young man grinned. Somebody pinched a million from the old guy. He shifted his cigarette with a deaf movement of his tongue, from one side of his mouth to the other, and grinned again. Can you beat it? According to him, he had enough coin to annex the whole of New York. Demalls his wife. He went out to Helen, gone somewhere, for a few years hunting gold while the old girl starved. Then he comes back, and blows in to-day with his pockets full, and the old girl grabs a handful, and goes out to buy all to grub in sight, because she ain't had none for so long. When she comes back, she finds the old geezer gagged, tied to a chair, and some guys hit him a crack on the bean, and flown to coop with the Mazuma. But Yusid better get out of here before Yus gets run over. This ain't no place for an old skirt like Yus. The bulls will be down here in the hop of a minute, and when this mob starts sprinkling the street with their fleet and footsteps, Yusid likely to get hurt. See? The young man started to force his way through the crowd again. Yusid better cut loose, mother. He warned over his shoulder. It was good advice. Rota Gray took it. She had scarcely reached the next block when the crowd behind her was being scattered, pell-mell, and without ceremony, in all directions by the police, as the young man had predicted. She went on. There was nothing that she could do. The man's face and the woman's face haunted her. They had seemed stamped with abject misery and despair. But there was nothing that she could do. It was one of those sore and grievous cross-sections out of the lives of the swarming thousands down here in this quarter, which she knew so intimately and so well. And there were so many, many of those cross-sections. Once in a small, pitifully meager and restricted way she had been able to help some of these hurt lives. But now her lips tightened a little. She was going to Schlucker's junk-shop. Her forehead gathered in little furrows as she walked along. She had weighed the pros and cons of this visit a hundred times already during the day. But even so, instinctively, to reassure herself lest some apparently minor but nevertheless fatal, vital point might have been overlooked, her mind reverted to it again. From Schlucker's viewpoint, whether Gypsy Nan was in the habit of mingling with, or visiting the other members of the gang or not, a matter upon which she could not even hazard a guess, her visit tonight must appear entirely logical. There was last night, and a natural corollary, her equally natural anxiety of her supposed husband's account, providing, of course, that Schlucker was aware that Gypsy Nan was Dangler's wife. But even if Schlucker didn't know that, he at least knew that Gypsy Nan was one of the gang, and, as such, he must equally accept it as natural that she should be anxious and disturbed over what had happened. She would be on safe ground either way. She would pretend to know only what had appeared in the papers, in other words, that the police, attracted to the spot by the sound of revolver shots, had found Dangler handcuffed to the fire-escape of a well-known thieves' resort in an all too well-known and questionable locality. A smile came spontaneously. It was quite true. That was where the adventurer had left Dangler. Handcuffed to the fire-escape. The smile vanished. The humor of the situation not long lived. It ended there. Dangler was as cunning as the proverbial fox, and Dangler, at the moment, in desperate need of explaining his predicament in some plausible way to the police, had, as the expression went, run true to form. Dangler's story, as reported by the papers, even rose above his high water-mark of vicious cunning, because it played upon a cord that appealed instantly to the police. And it rang true not only because what the police found out about him made it likely, but also because it contained a modicum of truth in itself. And furthermore, Dangler had scored on still another count, and that his story must stimulate the police into renewed activities as his unsuspecting allies in the one thing, the one aim and object that, at the moment, must obsess him above all others. The discovery of herself, the White Mall. It was ingeniously simple. Dangler's smooth and oily lie. He had been walking along the street, he had stated, when he saw a woman, as she passed under a street-lamp, who he thought resembled the White Mall. To make sure he followed her, at a safe distance, as he believed, she entered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of the place which bore out his first impression that the woman was the one that he thought she was. But he did not want to make a fool of himself by calling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so he finally followed her inside and heard her go upstairs and crept up after her in the dark. And then suddenly he was set upon and hustled into a room. It was the White Mall, all right, and the shots came from her companion, a man whom he described minutely, the description being that of the adventurer, of course. They seemed to think that he, Dangler, was a plain closed man and tried to sicken him of his job by frightening him. And then they forced him through the window and down the fire-escape and fastened him there with handcuffs to mock the police, and the White Mall's companion had deliberately fired some more shots to make sure of bringing the police to the scene, and then the two of them had run for it. Wrote a gray's eyes darkened angrily. The newspaper said that Dangler had been temporarily held by the police, though his story was believed to be true, for certainly the man would make no mistake as to the identity of the White Mall, since his life, what the police could find out about it, coincided with his statements, and he would naturally have seen her many times in the Badlands when she was working under cover of her despicable role of sweet and innocent charity. Dangler made no pretensions to self-righteousness. He was too cute for that. He admitted that he had no specific occupation, that he hung around the gambling-hauls a good deal, that he followed the horses, that, frankly, he lived by his wits. He would probably give some framed-up address to the police, but if so, the papers had not stated where it was. Wrote a gray's face under the grime of Gypsy Nan's disguise grew troubled and perplexed. Neither had the papers, even the evening papers, stated whether Dangler had as yet been released. They had devoted the rest of the space to the vilification of the White Mall. They had demanded in no uncertain tones a more conclusive effort on the part of the authorities to bring her, and with her now the man in the case, as they called the adventurer, to justice, and the thought of the adventurer caused her mind swerve sharply off at a tangent. Where he had peaked and aroused her curiosity before, he now, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. It was strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and hers, had become interwoven. She had owed him much, but last night she had repaid him and squared accounts. She had told him so. She owed him nothing more. If a sense of gratitude had once caused her to look upon him with—with—she bit her lips. What was the use of that? Had it become so much a part of her life, so much a habit, this throwing of dust in the eyes of others, this constant passing herself off for someone else, this constant deception warranted though it might be that she must now seek to deceive herself? Why not frankly admit to her own soul, already in the secret that she cared in spite of herself? For a thief? Why not admit a great hurt had come, one that no one but herself would ever know, a hurt that would last for always, because it was a wound that could never be healed? A thief. She loved a thief. She fought a bitter, stubborn battle with her common sense to convince herself that he was not a thief. She had snatched hungrily at the incident that centered around those handcuffs, so opportunally produced from the adventurer's pocket. She tried to argue that those handcuffs not only suggested but proved that he was a police officer in disguise, working on some case in which Dangler and the gang had been mixed up, and as she tried to argue in this wise she tried to shut her eyes to the fact that the same pocket out of which the handcuffs came was at exactly the same moment the repository of as many stolen banknotes as it would hold. She had tried to argue that the fact that he was so insistently at work to defeat Dangler's plans was in his favour, but that argument, like all others, came quickly and miserably to grief. Where the leak was, as Dangler called it, that supplied the adventurer with foreknowledge of the gang's movements, she had no idea, save that perhaps the adventurer and some trader in the gang were in collusion for their own ends, and that certainly did not lift the adventurer to any higher plane or wash from him the stigma of a thief. She clenched her hands. It was all an attempt at an argument without the basis of a single logical premise. It was silly and childish. Why hadn't the man been an ordinary plain common thief and criminal, and looked like one? She would never have been attracted to him then, even through gratitude. Why should he have all the grace and earmarks of breeding? Why should he have all the appearances of a gentleman? It seemed a needlessly cruel and additional blow that fate had dealt her when already she was living through days and nights of fear, of whore, of trepidation, so great that at times it seemed she would literally lose her reason. If he had not looked, yes, and at times acted, so much like a thoroughbred gentleman, there would never have come to her this hurt, this gulf between them that could not now be spanned, and in a personal way she would never have cared because he was a thief. Her mental soliloquy ended abruptly. She had reached the narrow driveway that led in between two blocks of down-at-the-heels tenements to the courtyard at the rear that harbored Schlucker's junk-shop. And now, unlike that other night when she had first paid a visit to the place, she made no effort at concealment as she entered the driveway. She walked quickly, and as she emerged into the courtyard itself she saw a light in the window of the junk-shop. Wrote a gray knot at her head. It was still quite early, still almost twilight, not more than eight o'clock. Back there, on the squalid door-step, where the old woman and the old man had stood, it had still been quite light. The long summer evening that had served at last to sear, somehow, those two faces upon her mind. It was singular that they should intrude themselves at this moment. She had been thinking, hadn't she, that at this hour she might naturally expect to find Schlucker still in his shop. That was why she had come so early, since she had not cared to come in full daylight. Well, if light meant anything, he was there. She felt her pulse quicken perceptibly as she crossed the courtyard and reached the shop. The door was open, and she stepped inside. It was a dingy place, filthy and littered, without the slightest attempt at order, with a heterogeneous collection of, it seemed, every article one could think of, from scraps of old iron and bundles of rags, to cast off furniture that was in an appalling state of dissolution. The light, that of a single and dim incandescent, came from the interior of what apparently was the office of the establishment, a small, glassed-in partition affair at the far end of the shop. Her first impression had been that there was no one in the shop. But now, from the other side of the glass partition, she caught sight of a bald head, and became aware that a pair of black eyes were fixed steadily upon her, and that the occupant was beckoning her with his hand to come forward. She shuffled slowly, but without hesitation, up the shop. She intended to employ the vernacular that was part of the disguise of Gypsy Nan. If Schlucker, for that was certainly Schlucker there, gave the slightest indication that he took it amiss, her explanation would come glibly and logically enough. She had to be careful. How was she supposed to know whether there was any one else about or not? "'Ello,' she said curtly, as she reached the doorway of the little office, and paused on the threshold. She little black eyes met hers, as the bald head, fringed with untrimmed gray hair, was lifted from a battered desk, and the wizened face of an old man was disclosed under the rays of the tin-shaded lamp. He grinned suddenly, showing discolored teeth, and instinctively she drew back a little. He was an uninviting and exceedingly disreputable old creature. "'You, ain't Anne,' he grunted, "'so you've come to see old Jake Schlucker, have you? Taked often you come. This brought you, eh?' "'I can read, can't I?' wrote a gray, glanced fruitively around her, then leaned toward the other. "'So what's delay? I've been scared stiff all day. Is that straight what the paper said about you's know-who getting pinched?' A scowl settled over Schlucker's features as he nodded. "'Yes, it's straight enough,' he answered, dammit, one and all. But they let him out again. "'That's distuff,' applauded wrote a gray earnestly. "'Where is he, Dan?' Schlucker shook his head. "'He didn't say,' said Schlucker. "'He didn't say,' echoed wrote a gray a little tartly. "'What do you mean, he didn't say. Have you seen him?' Schlucker jerked his head toward the telephone instrument on the desk. "'He was talking to me a little while ago.' "'Well, then,' wrote a gray, risk a more preemptory tone. "'Where is he?' Schlucker shook his head again. "'I don't know,' he said. "'I'm telling you, he didn't say.' Wrote a gray studied the wizened and repulsive old creature that, huddled in his chair in the dirty, boxed-in little office, made her think of some crafty old spider lurking in its web for unwary prey. Was the man lying to her? Was he in any degree suspicious? Why should he be? He had not given the slightest sign that her uncouth language was either unexpected or unnecessary. Perhaps to Schlucker, and perhaps to all the rest of the gang except Dangler, Gypsy Nan was accepted at face value as Gypsy Nan, and, if that were so, the idea of playing up a natural wifely anxiety on Dangler's behalf could not be used unless Schlucker gave her a lead in that direction. But all that apart she was getting nowhere. She bit her lips in disappointment. She had counted a great deal on this Schlucker here and Schlucker was not proving the font of information, far from it, that she had hoped he would. She tried again even more preemptorily than before. Ah, open up! She snapped. What's to use being a clam? Use heard me, didn't you? Where is he? Schlucker leaned abruptly forward and looked at her in a suddenly perturbed way. Is there anything wrong? He asked in a tense, lowered voice. What makes you so anxious to know? What a gray laughed shortly. Nothing, she answered coolly. I told you once, didn't I? I got a scare reading them papers. And I ain't over it yet. That's what I want to know for. And you seem afraid to open up. Schlucker sank back again in his chair with an air of relief. Oh! He ejaculated. Well, that's all right, then. You were beginning to give me a scare, too. I ain't playing the clam, and I don't know where he is. But I can tell you there's nothing to worry you any more about the rest of it. He was after the White Mall last night, and it didn't come off. They pulled one on him instead, and fastened him to the fire-escape, the way the paper said. Skeeny and the Cricket, who were in on the play with him, didn't have time to get him loose before the bulls got there. So Dangler told them to beat it, and he handed the cops the story that was in the papers. He got away with it all right, and they let him go to-day, but he phoned a little while ago that they were still sticking around kind of close to him, and that I was to pass on the word that the lid was to go down tight for the next few days, and--" Schlucker stopped abruptly as the phone rang, and reached for the instrument. Rhoda Gray fumbled unnecessarily with her shaw, as the other answered the call. Failure. A curious bitterness came to her. Her plan, then, for to-night at least, was a failure. Schlucker did not know where Dangler was. She was quite convinced of that. Schlucker was. She glanced suddenly at the whizzened little old man. From an ordinary tone Schlucker's voice had risen sharply in protest about something. She listened now. No, no. It doesn't matter what it is. What? No. I tell you no. Nothing. Not to-night. Those are orders. No, I don't know. Nan is here now, eh? You'll pay for it if you do," Schlucker was snarling, threateningly now. What? Well, then wait. I'll come over. No, you can bet I won't be long. You wait. Understand? He banged the receiver on the hook, and got up from his chair hurriedly. Fools! He muttered savagely. No, I won't be long getting there. He grabbed Rhoda Gray's arm. Yes, you come, too. You will help me put a little sense in their heads, if it is possible. Eh? Fools! The man was violently excited. He half pulled Rhoda Gray down the length of the shop to the front door. Puzzled, bewildered, a little uneasy, she watched him lock the door, and then followed him across the courtyard, while he continued to mutter constantly to himself. What's to matter, she asked him twice. But it was not until they had reached the street, and Schlucker was hurrying along as fast as he could walk that he answered her. It's the pug and Pinkie Bond. He jerked out angrily. They're in the pug's room. Pinkie went back there after telephoning. They've nosed out something they want to put through, the Fools. And after last night nearly haven't finished everything. I told them, you heard me, that everybody's to keep under cover now. But they think they've got a soft thing, and they say they're going to do it. I've got to put a crimp in it, and you've got to help me. You understand, man? Yes, she said mechanically. Her mind was working swiftly. The night, after all, perhaps was not to be so much of a failure. To get into intimate touch with all members of the clique was equally one of her objects, and failing Dangler himself to-night here was an open sesame to the retreat of two of the others. She would never have a better chance, or one in which risk and danger under the chaperone as it were of Schlucker here were, if not entirely eliminated, at least reduced to an apparently negligible minimum. Yes, she would go. To refuse was to turn her back on her own proposed line of action, and on the decision which she had made herself. CHAPTER XII. Crooks versus Crooks. It was not far. Schlucker, hastening along, still muttering to himself, turned into a cross-street some two blocks away, and from there again into a lane, and a moment later led the way through a small door in the fence that hung battered in half-open, on sagging broken hinges. Rota Gray's eyes traveled sharply around her in all directions. It was still light enough to see fairly well, and she might at some future time find the bearings she took now to be of inestimable worth. Not that there was much to remark. They crossed a diminutive and disgustingly dirty back-yard, whose sole reason for existence seemed to be that of a receptacle of four old tin cans, and were confronted by the rear of what appeared to be a four-story tenement. There was a back door here, and on the right of the door, fronting the yard, a single window that was some four or five feet from the level of the ground. Groudschlucker, without hesitation, opened the back door, shut it behind them, led the way along the black, unlighted hall, and halting before a door well toward the front of the building, knocked softly upon it, giving two wraps, a single wrap, and then two more in quick succession. There was no answer. He knocked again in precisely the same manner, and then footsteps sounded from within, and the door flung open. Fools! Groudschlucker, in greeting, as they stepped inside and the door was closed again. A pair of brainless fools! There were two men there. They paid Schlucker scant attention. They both grinned at Rota Gray, through the murky light supplied by a wheezy and wholly inadequate gas-jet. Hello, Nan, jibed the smaller of the two. Who let you out? Ah, forget it, croaked Rota Gray. Schlucker took up the cudgels. Close your face, Pinky, he snapped. Get down to cases. Do you think I got nothing to do but chase you two around like a couple of puppy-dogs that haven't got sense enough to take care of themselves? Wasn't what I told you over the phone enough without me having to come here? Nicks, on that stuff, returned the one designated as Pinky improturbably. Say, you'll be glad you came, when we let you in on a little piece of easy money. We ain't asking your advice, all we're asking you to do is frame up the alibi, same as usual, for me and the pug here in case we want it. Schlucker shook his fist. Frame nothing, he sputtered angrily. Ain't I telling you that orders are not to make a move, that everything is off for a few days? That's the word I got a little while ago, and the seven-three-nine is going out now. Nan'll tell you the same thing. Sure, corroborated Rota Gray, picking up the obvious cue. That's to straight goods. The two men were lounging beside a table that stood at the extreme end of the room, and now for a moment they whispered together. And as they whispered, Rota Gray found her first opportunity to take critical stock of both her surroundings and the two men themselves. Pinky, a short, slight little man, she dismissed with hardly a glance. He was the common type, with low, vicious cunning stamped all over his face, an ordinary rat of the underworld. But her glance rested longer on his companion. The pug was indeed entitled to his moniker. His face made her think of one. It seemed to be all screwed up and out of shape. Perhaps the eye-patch over his right eye helped a little to put the finishing touch of repulsiveness upon accountants already most unpleasant. The celluloid eye-patch, once flesh-colored, was now so dirty and smeared that its original color was discernible only in spots. The once white elastic cord that circled his head and kept the patch in place was an equal disrepute. A battered slouch-hat came to the level of the eye-patch in a forbidding sort of tilt. His left eyelid drooped until it was scarcely open at all and fluttered continually. One nostril of his nose was entirely closed and his mouth seemed to be twisted out of shape so even in repose the lips never entirely met at one corner. And his ears, which he could see of them in the poor light, even on account of the slouched hat, seemed to bear out the low-type criminal impression the man gave her and that they lay flat back against his head. She turned her eyes away with a little shudder of repulsion and gave her attention to an inspection of the room. There was no window except a small one high up on the right-hand partition wall. She quite understood what that meant. It was common enough and all too unsanitary enough in these old and cheap tenements. The window gave, not on the out-of-doors, but on a light well. For the rest it was a room she had seen a thousand times before. Carpetless, unfurnished, save for the barest necessities, dirt everywhere, unkempt. Pinky Bond broke in abruptly upon her inspection. That's all right, he announced airily. We'll let Nanen on it too. The pug and me figures she can give us a hand. Sculper's wizened little face seemed suddenly to go purple. Are you trying to make a fool of me, he half screamed? Or can't you understand English? Do you want me to keep on telling you till I'm hoarse that there ain't nobody going in with you because you ain't going in yourself? See? Understand that. There's nothing doing to-night for anybody, and that means you. Ah, shut up, Sculper. It was the pug now, a curious whispering sibilancy in his voice. Do no doubt to the disfigurement of his lips. Give Pinky a chance to shoot a spele before you injure yourself throwing a fit. Go on, Pinky, spill it. Sure, said Pinky eagerly. Listen, Shluck, it ain't any crib we're wanting to crack, or nothing like that. It's just a couple of crooks that won't dare open up their yaps to the bulls, because what we're after will be what they'll have pinched themselves, see? Shlucker's face lost some of its belligerency, and in its place a dawning interest came. Once that he demanded cautiously, what crooks? French Pete and Marnie Day, said Pinky, and grinned. Oh! Shlucker's eyebrows went up. He looked at the pug, and the pug winked knowingly with his half closed left eyelid. Shlucker reached for a chair, and finding it suspiciously wobbly straddled it wearily. Maybe I've been wrong, he admitted. What's the lay? Me, said Pinky, I was down at Charlie's this afternoon, having a little lay-off, and one of these days interrupted Shlucker sharply, as he'll go out like he snapped his fingers. That! Can't you leave that stuff alone? I got to have me a bit of coke, Pinky answered, with a shrug of his shoulders, and anyway, I ain't no pipe-hitter. It's all the same whatever way you take it, retorted Shlucker. Well, go on with your story. You went down to Charlie's dope parlors, and jabbed a needle into yourself, or took it some other old way. I get you. What happened then? It was about an hour ago, resumed Pinky Bond with undisturbed complacency. Just as I was beating it out of there by the cellar, I hear some whispering as I was passing one of the inn doors. Savvy? I hadn't made no noise, and they hadn't heard me. I get a peek in because the doors cracked. It was French Pete and Marnie Day. I listened, and after about two seconds I was going shaky for fear someone would come along, and I wouldn't get the whole of it. Take it from me, Shluck. It was some goods. Shlucker grunted noncommittally. Well, go on, he prompted. I didn't get all the fine points, Grand Pinky, but I got enough. There was a guy by the name of Dany, who used to live somewhere on the east side here, and used to work in some sweatshop, and he worked till he got pretty old, and then his lungs or something went bad on him, and he went broke. And the doctor said he had to beat it out of here to a more salubrious climate. Some nut filled his ear about gold-hunting up in Alaska, and he fell for it. He chewed it over with his wife, and she was for it, too, because the doctor had told her her old man would bump off if he stuck around here, and they hadn't any money to get away together. She figured she could get along working out by day till he came back a millionaire, and old Dany started off. I don't know how he got there. I'm just filling in what I hear French Pete and Marnie talking about. I guess mostly he beat his way there riding the rods. Anyway, he got there. See? And then he goes down sick there again, and a hospital or some outfit has to take care of him for a couple of years, and back here the old woman's got kind of feeble, and on her uppers, and there was hell to pay, and— What's biting your nose, Nan? The pug's lisping whisper broke sharply in upon Pinkybond's story. Rota Gray started. She was conscious now that she had been leaning forward, staring in a startled way at Pinky as he talked, conscious now for that for a moment she had forgotten that she was Gypsy Nan. But she was mistress of herself on the instant, and she scowled blackly at the pug. Maybe it's me soft-heart that's touched. She flung out acidly. Use closure trap and let Pinky talk. Yes, shut up, said Pinky. What was I saying? Oh, yes. And the old guy makes a strike. Can you beat it? I don't know nothing about the way they pull them things, but he's off by his lonesome, out somewhere, and he finds gold, and he stakes out his claim. But he takes sick again, and he can't work it, and it's all he can do to get back alive to civilization. He keeps his mouth shut for a while, figuring he'll get strong again. But it ain't no good, and he gets a letter from the old woman telling how bad she is, and then he shows some of the stuff he found. After that there's nothing to it. Everybody's beaten it for the place. But at that, old Daney comes out all right, and goes crazy with joy, because some guy offers him $25,000 for his claim, and throws in the expenses home for good luck. He gets the money in cash, $25,000 bills, and the chicken feed for expenses, and starts back here to the old woman. But this time he don't keep his mouth shut about it when he'd have been better off if he had, see? He was telling about it on the train. I guess he was telling about it all the way across. But anyway, he tells about it come from Philly this afternoon, and French Pete and Marnie Day happens to be on the train, and they hears it, and frames up to annex the coin before morning, because he's got in too late to get the money into any bank today. Pinkybond paused, and stuck his finger significantly in his cheek. Sculker was rubbing his hands together now in a sort of unctuous way. It sounds pretty good, he murmured, only there's dangler. You sleep dangler to me, broke in the pug. As soon as we hands one of them two boobs and gets to cash, Pinky can beat it back here with the coin, and wait for me while I find dangler and squares it with him. He ain't going to put up a holler at that. We ain't running to gang into nothing. This here is private business, see? So use just take a sneak with yourself, and fix a nice alibi for us so as we won't be taken any chances. Sculker frowned. But what's the good of that, he demirred. Wish Pete and Marnie Dale see you anyway. Will day scoffed the pug? Guess once more. A couple of handkerchiefs over our mugs is good enough for dem, if use holds your end up. And they wouldn't talk for publication anyway, would they? Sculker smiled now, almost ingratiatingly. And how much is my end worth, he inquired softly. One of dem thousand-dollar engravings, stated pug promptly, and pinkie'll run around and slip it to you's before morning. All right, said Sculker, after a moment. It's half-past eight now. From nine o'clock on you can beat any jury in New York to it that you were both at the same old place, as long as you keep decently undercover. That'll do it, won't it? I'll fix it. But I don't see. Wrote a gray as Gypsy Nan for the first time projected herself into the discussion. She cackled suddenly, injuring mirth. I thought something was wrong with her, whispered the pug, with mock anxiety. Maybe she ain't well. Tell us about it, Nan. When I do, she said complacently, maybe you's'll smile out at the utter corner at that mouth of yours. She turned to Sculker. Use needn't lay awake waiting for that thousand, Sculker, because you'll never see it. The little game's all off, because it's already been pulled. See? There was a near riot as I passed along the street going to your place, and I gets piped off at what's up, and it's the same story that Pinky told, and the cribs cracked, and the money's gone. That's all. Sculker's face fell. I said you were fools when I first came here. He burst out suddenly, wheeling on Pinky Bond and the pug. I'm sure of it, now. I was wondering a minute ago how you were going to keep your lamps on Pete and Marnie from here, or know when they were going to pull their stunt, or where to find them. Pinky Bond, ignoring Sculker, leaned toward Rhoda Gray. Say, Nan, is that straight? He inquired anxiously. You sure? Sure, I'm sure, Rhoda Gray asserted tersely. The one thought in her head now was that her information would naturally deprive these men here of any further interest in the matter, and that she would get away as quickly as possible, and in some way or another see that the police were tipped off to the fact that it was French Pete and Marnie Day that had taken the old couple's money. Those two old faces rose before her again, blotting out most curiously the face of Pinky Bond just in front of her. She felt strangely glad, glad that she had heard all of old Dany's story, because she could see now an ending to it other than the miserable, hopeless one of despair that she had read in the Dany's faces just a little while ago. Sure, I'm sure, she repeated with finality. How long ago was it, prodded Pinky? Out of no, she answered, I just went to Schluckers, and then we comes over here. You can figure it out for yourself. And then Rhoda Gray stared at the other with sudden misgiving. Pinky Bond's face was suddenly wreathed in smiles. I'll answer you now, Schluck, he grinned. What do you think? That were nuts me and Pug? Well forget it. We didn't have to stick around watching Pete and Marnie. We just had to wait until they had collected the dough. That was the most trouble we had, wondering when that would be. Well, we don't have to wonder any more. We know that the cherries are ripe, see? And now we'll go and pick them. Where? Where do you suppose? Down at Charlie's, of course. I hear some talking about that, too. They ain't so foolish. They're out for an alibi themselves. Get the idea? They was to sneak out of Charlie's without anybody seeing them, and if everything broke right for them, they was to sneak back again, and spend the night there. They ain't so foolish. I guess they ain't. There ain't no place in New York you can get in and out of without nobody knowing it, like Charlie's, if you know the way, and---- I'll write it down in your memoirs. Interpose the Pug, impatiently, and move to the door. It's all right, Schlucker, all the way. Now everybody beat it, and get on to job. Nan, you sticks with Pinky and me. Luda Gray, her mind in confusion, found herself being crowded hurriedly through the doorway by the three men. Still in a mentally confused condition, she found herself a few minutes later, Schlucker having parted company with them, walking along the street between Pinky Bond and the Pug. She was fighting desperately to obtain a rip upon herself. The information she had volunteered had had an effect diametrically opposed to that which she had intended. She seemed terribly impotent, as though she were being swept from her feet and borne onward by some swift and remorseless current whether she would or no. The Pug, in his curious whisper, was talking to her. Pinky nosed away in. We don't want any row in there on account of Charlie. We ain't for putting his place on to rough and getting him raided by the Bulls. Charlie's altered a good. See? Well, that's what'd likely happen if me and Pinky busts in on Pete and Marnie would out-sendin' in our visitin'-cards first, polite like. They would pull their guns, and though we'd get the coin just the same, there'd be hell to pay for Charlie, and a whole place would go up in fireworks right off the bat. Well, this is where use come in. Use are the visitin'-card. Use gets in their bunk room, pretend and use have made a mistake, and use leave the door open behind use. They don't know use, and bein' a woman, they won't pull no gun on use. But then use breaks it gently to them, that there's a couple of gents outside, and just about then they looks up and sees me and Pinky and our guns, and I guess that's all. Get it? Sure, wrote a gray mumbled. The pug talked on. She did not hear him. It seemed as though her brain ached literally with an acute physical pain. What was she to do? What could she do? She must do something. There must be some way for her to save herself from being drawn into the very center of this vortex toward which she was being swept closer with every second that passed. The two old faces, haggard in their despair and misery rose before her again. She felt her heart sink. She had counted, only a few minutes before, on getting their money back for them, through the police. The police. How could she get any word to the police now, without first getting away from these two men? And suppose she did get away, and found some means of communicating with the authorities. It would be Pinky Bond here, and the pug who would fall into the meshes of the law quite as much as French Pete and Marnie Day, and to have Pinky and the pug apprehended now, just as they seem to be opening up the gateway for her to the inner secrets of the gang meant ruined to her own hopes and plans. And to refuse to go with them now, as one of them, would certainly excite their suspicions. And suspicion of Gypsy Nan was the end of everything for her. Her hands under her shawl clenched until her nails bit into her palms. She couldn't do anything. And there was the money, too, for those two old people. Wasn't there any? She caught her breath. Yes, yes. Perhaps there was a way to save the money. Yes, and at the same time to place herself on a firmer footing of intimacy with these two men here, if she went on with this. But she shook her head. She could afford no buts now. They must take care of themselves afterwards. She would play Gypsy Nan now without reservation. These two men here, like Schlucker, were obviously ignorant that Gypsy Nan was Dangler's wife, so she was. Pinky Bond's hand was on her arm. She had stumbled. Look out for yourself. He cautioned under his breath. Don't make a sound. They had drawn into a very dark and narrow way between two buildings. And now Pinky kept his touch upon her as he led the way along. What was this Charlie's? She did not know, except that, from what had been said, it was a drug-dive of some kind, patronized extensively by the denizens of the underworld. She did not know where she was now, save that she had suddenly left one of the out-of-the-way east side streets. Pinky halted suddenly, and bending down, lifted up what was evidently a half-section of the folding trapdoor to a cellar entrance. There's only a few of us regulars wise to this, whispered Pinky. Watch yourself. There's five steps. Count them so she won't trip. Keep hold of me all the way, and nix on the noise, or we won't get away with it inside. Leave the trap open, Pug, for our getaway. We ain't going to be long. Come on. It was horribly dark. Wrote a gray with her hand on Pinky Bond's shoulder, descended the five steps. She felt the pug keeping touch behind by holding the corner of her shawl. They went forward softly, slowly, stealthily. She felt her knees shake a little, and suddenly panic seized her, and she wanted to scream out. What was she doing? Where was she going? Was she mad that she had ventured into this trap of blackness? Blackness! It was hideously black. She looked behind her. She could not see the pug close as he was to her. And dark as she had thought it outside, there at the cellar entrance, it appeared by contrast to have been light, for she could even distinguish now the opening through which they had come. They were in a cellar that was damp underfoot, and the soft earth deadened the sound as they walked upon it, and they seemed to be walking interminably. It was too far, much too far. She felt her nerve failing her. She looked behind her again. That opening, still discernible to her straining eyes beckoned her, lured her. Better to—Pinky halted again. She bumped into him. And then she felt his lips press against her ear. Here they are. He breathed. They got the end room on the right, so as they could get in and out without being seen, and so as even Charlie'd swear there was here all the time. You're too old a bird to fall down, Nan. If the door's locked, knock, and give them any old kind of song and dance till you get some off their guard. The Puggan Meals see you through. Go it. Before Rhoda Gray could reply, Pinky had stepped suddenly to one side. A door in front of her, a sliding door it seemed to be, opened noiselessly, and she could see a faintly lighted, narrow, and very short passage ahead of her. It appeared to make a right-angled turn just a few yards in, and what light there was seemed to filter in from around the corner. And on each side of the passage, before it made the turn, there was a door, and from the one on the right, through a cracked panel, a tiny thread of light seeped out. Her lips moved silently, after all, it was not so perilous. Nobody would be hurt. Pinky and the Pug would cover those two men in there, and take the money, and run for it, and the Pug gave her an encouraging push from behind. She moved forward mechanically. There were many sounds now, but they came muffled and indeterminate from around the corner ahead, all save a low murmuring of voices from the door with the cracked panel on the right. It was only a few feet away. She found herself crouched before the door, but she did not knock upon it. Instead, her blood seemed suddenly to run cold in her veins, and she beckoned frantically to her two companions. She could see through the crack in the panel. There were two men in there, French Pete and Marnie Day undoubtedly, and they sat on opposite sides of a table, and a lamp burned on the table, and one of the men was counting out a sheaf of crisp, yellow-back banknotes. But the other, while apparently engrossed in the first man's occupation, and while he leaned forward in apparent eagerness, was edging one hand stealthily toward the lamp, and his other hand, hidden from his companion's view by the table, was just drawing a revolver from his pocket. There was no mistaking the man's murderous intentions. A dull horror that numbed her brain seized upon Rhoda Gray. The low-type, brutal faces under the rays of the lamp seemed to assume the aspect of two monstrous gargoyles, and to spin around and around before her vision. And then it could only have been but a fraction of a second since she had begun to beckon to Pinky, and the pug she felt herself pulled unceremoniously away from the door, and the pug leaned forward in her place, his eye to the crack in the panel. She heard a low, quick-muttered exclamation from the pug, and then suddenly, as the lamp was obviously extinguished, the crack of light in the panel had vanished. But in an instant, curiously like a jagged lightning-flash, light showed through the crack again, and vanished again. It was the flash of a revolver shot from within, and the roar of the report came like a roll of thunder on its heels. Rhoda Gray was back against the opposite wall. She saw the pug fling himself against the door. It was a flimsy affair. It crashed inward. Shoot your flash on the table and grab the coin. I'll fix the other guy. Were eternities passing? Her eyes were fascinated by the interior beyond the broken wall. It was utterly dark inside there, save the ray of a flashlight played now on the table, and a hand reached out and snatched up the scattered sheaf of banknotes. And on the outer edge of the ray two shadowed forms struggled, and one went down, then the flashlight went out. She heard pug speak. Beat it! Commotion came now, cries and footsteps from around the corner in the passage. The pug grasped her by the shoulders, and rushed her back into the cellar. She was conscious, it seemed, only in a dazed and mechanical way. There were men in the passage running toward them, and then the passage had disappeared. Pinky Bond had shut the connecting door. Hoppet-like blazes whispered the pug, as they ran for the faint glimmer of light that located the cellar exit. Separate the minute we're outside, he ordered. There's murder in there. Pete shot Marnie. I put Pete to sleep with a punch on the jaw, but the bunch knows there was someone else there, and Pete'll swear it was us, though he don't know who we was that did the shooting. I gotta make this straight right off the bat with Dangler. His whispering voice was labored, panting. They were climbing up the steps now. Use take the money to my room, Pinky, and wait for me. I won't be much more than half an hour. Nan, use beat it for your garret, and stay there. They were outside. The pug had disappeared in the darkness. Pinky was closing, and evidently fastening the trap door. The other way, Nan, he flung out, as she started to run. That takes you to the other street, and they can't get around that way without going around the whole block. Leave for a fence I know about, and we give them a merry laugh. Go on. She ran, ran breathlessly, stumbling, half falling. Her hands stretched out before her to serve almost in lieu of her eyes, for she could make out scarcely anything in front of her. She emerged upon a street. It seemed abnormal. The quiet, the lack of commotion, the laughter, the unconcerned voices of the passers-by among whom she suddenly found herself. She hurried from the neighborhood.