“You are a very imprudent person,” said Luella, smiling, yet with a most charming trace of anxiety under the smile.
“What have I been doing now?” I asked.
“That is what you are to tell me. Papa told us a little about your saving his life and his plans this morning, but he was so very short about it. Let me know the whole story from your own mouth. Was this the arm that was hurt?”
I started to give a brief description of my morning's adventure, but there was something in my listener's face that called forth detail after detail, and her eyes kindled as I told the tale of the battle that won Omega in the stock Board, and the fight that rescued the fruits of victory in the office of the company.
“There is something fine in it, after all,” she said when I was through. “There is something left of the spirit of the old adventurers and the knights. Oh, I wish I were a man! No, I don't either. I'd rather be the daughter of a man—a real man—and I know I am that.”
I thought of the Doddridge Knapp that she did not know, and a pang of pity and sorrow wrenched my heart.
She saw the look, and misinterpreted it.
“You do not think, do you,” she said softly, “that I don't appreciate your part in it? Indeed I do.” I took her hand, and she let it lie a moment before she drew it away.
“I think I am more than repaid,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said she, changing her tone to one of complete indifference. “Papa said he had made you a director.”
“Yes,” I said, taking my cue from her manner. “I have the happiness to share the honor with three other dummies. Your father makes the fifth.”
“How absurd!” laughed Luella. “Do you want to provoke me?”
“Oh, of course, I mean that your father does the thinking, and—”
“And you punch the head he points out to you, I suppose,” said Luella sarcastically.
“Exactly,” I said. “And—”
“Don't mind me, Henry,” interrupted the voice of Mrs. Knapp.
“But I must,” said I, giving her greeting. “What service do you require?”
“Tell me what you have been doing.”
“I have just been telling Miss Luella.”
“And what, may I ask?”
“I was explaining this morning's troubles.”
“Oh, I heard a little of them from Mr. Knapp. Have you had any more of your adventures at Borton's and other dreadful places?”
I glanced at Luella. She was leaning forward, her chin resting on her hand, and her eyes were fixed on me with close attention. “I should like to hear of them, too,” she said.
I considered a moment, and then, as I could see no reason for keeping silent, I gave a somewhat abridged account of my Livermore trip, omitting reference to the strange vagaries of the Doddridge Knapp who traveled by night.
I had reason to be flattered by the attention of my audience. Both women leaned forward with wide-open eyes, and followed every word with eager interest.
“That was a dreadful danger you escaped,” said Mrs. Knapp with a shudder. “I am thankful, indeed, to see you with us with no greater hurt.”
Luella said nothing, but the look she gave me set my heart dancing in a way that all Mrs. Knapp's praise could not.
“I do hope this dreadful business will end soon,” said Mrs. Knapp. “Do you think this might be the last of it?”
“No,” said I, remembering the note I had received from the Unknown on my return, “there's much more to be done.”
“I hope you are ready for it,” said Mrs. Knapp, with a troubled look upon her face.
“As ready as I ever shall be, I suppose,” I replied. “If the guardian angel who has pulled me through this far will hold on to his job, I'll do my part.”
Mrs. Knapp raised a melancholy smile, but it disappeared at once, and she seemed to muse in silence, with no very pleasant thought on her mind. Twice or thrice I thought she wished to speak to me, but if so she changed her mind.
I ventured a few observations that were intended to be jocose, but she answered in the monosyllables of preoccupation, and I turned to Luella.
She gave back flashes of brightness, but I saw on her face the shadow of her mother's melancholy, and I rose at an early hour to take my leave.
“I wonder at you,” said Luella softly, as we stood alone for a moment.
“You have little cause.”
“What you have done is much. You have conquered difficulties.”
I looked in her calm eyes, and my soul came to the surface.
“I wish you might be proud of me,” I said.
“I—I am proud of such a friend—except—” She hesitated.
“Always an 'except,'” I said half-bitterly.
“But you have promised to tell me—”
“Some day. As soon as I may.” Under her magnetic influence, I should have told her then had she urged me. And not until I was once more outside the house did I recall how impossible it was that I could ever tell her.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” was the refrain that ran through my brain insistently, as the battle between love and duty rose and swelled. And I was sorely tempted to tell the Unknown to look elsewhere for assistance, and to bury the memory of my dead friend and the feud with Doddridge Knapp in a common grave.
“Here's some one to see you, sir,” said Owens, as I reached the walk, and joined the guards I had left to wait for me. The rain had ceased, but the wind, which had fallen during the day, was freshening once more from the south.
“Yes, sor, you're wanted at Mother Borton's in a hurry,” said another voice, and a man stepped forward. “There's the divil to pay!”
I recognized the one-eyed man who had done me the service that enabled me to escape from Livermore.
“Ah, Broderick, what's the matter?”
“I didn't get no orders, sor, so I don't know, but there was the divil's own shindy in the height of progression when I left. And Mother Borton says I was to come hot-foot for you, and tell you to come with your men if ye valued your sowl.”
“Is she in danger?”
“I reckon the thought was heavy on her mind, for her face was white with the terror of it.”
We hastened forward, but at the next corner a passing hack stood ready for passengers, and we rolled down the street, the horses' hoofs outstripped by my anxiety and apprehensions.
One of the men was sent to bring out such of my force as had returned, and I, with the two others, hurried on to Borton's.
There was none of the sounds of riot I had expected to hear as we drew up before it. The lantern blinked outside with its invitation to manifold cheer within. Lights streamed through the window and the half-opened door, and quiet and order reigned.
As I stepped to the walk, I found the explanation of the change in the person of a policeman, who stood at the door.
“Holy St. Peter! the cops is on!” whispered Broderick.
I failed to share his trepidation in the presence of the representative of law and order, and stepped up to the policeman.
“Has there been trouble here, officer?” I asked.
“Oh, is it you, sor?” said Corson's hearty voice. “I was wondering about ye. Well, there has been a bit of a row here, and there's a power of broken heads to be mended. There's wan man cut to pieces, and good riddance, for it's Black Dick. I'm thinking it's the morgue they'll be taking him to, though it was for the receiving hospital they started with him. It was a dandy row, and it was siventeen arrists we made.”
“Where is Mother Borton?”
“The ould she-divil's done for this time, I'm a-thinking. Whist, I forgot she was a friend of yours, sor.”
“Where is she—at the receiving hospital? What is the matter with her?”
“Aisy, aisy, sor. It may be nothing. She's up stairs. A bit of a cut, they say. Here, Shaughnessy, look out for this door! I'll take ye up, sor.”
We mounted the creaking stairs in the light of the smoky lamp that stood on the bracket, and Corson opened a door for me.
A flickering candle played fantastic tricks with the furniture, sent shadows dancing over the dingy walls, and gave a weird touch to the two figures that bent over the bed in the corner. The figures straightened up at our entrance, and I knew them for the doctor and his assistant.
“A friend of the lady, sor,” whispered Corson.
The doctor looked at me in some surprise, but merely bowed.
“Is she badly hurt?” I asked.
“I've seen worse,” he answered in a low voice, “but—” and he completed the sentence by shrugging his shoulders, as though he had small hopes for his patient.
Mother Borton turned her head on the pillow, and her gaunt face lighted up at the sight of me. Her eyes shone with a strange light of their own, like the eyes of a night-bird, and there was a fierce eagerness in her look.
“Eh, dearie, I knew you would come,” she cried.
The doctor pushed his way to the bedside.
“I must insist that the patient be quiet,” he said with authority.
“Be quiet?” cried Mother Borton. “Is it for the likes of you that I'd be quiet? You white-washed tombstone raiser, you body-snatcher, do you think you're the man to tell me to hold my tongue when I want to talk to a gentleman?”
“Hush!” I said soothingly. “He means right by you.”
“You must lie quiet, or I'll not be responsible for the consequences,” said the doctor firmly.
At these well-meant words Mother Borton raised herself on her elbow, and directed a stream of profanity in the direction of the doctor that sent chills chasing each other down my spine, and seemed for a minute to dim the candle that gave its flickering gloom to the room.
“I'll talk as I please,” cried Mother Borton. “It's my last wish, and I'll have it. You tell me I'll live an hour or two longer if I'm quiet, but I'll die as I've lived, a-doin' as I please, and have my say as long as I've got breath to talk. Go out, now—all of you but this man. Go!”
Mother Borton had raised herself upon one elbow; her face, flushed and framed in her gray and tangled hair, was working with anger; and her eyes were almost lurid as she sent fierce glances at one after another of the men about her. She pointed a skinny finger at the door, and each man as she cast her look upon him went out without a word.
“Shut the door, honey,” she said quietly, lying down once more with a satisfied smile. “That's it. Now me and you can talk cozy-like.”
“You'd better not talk. Perhaps you will feel more like it to-morrow.”
“There won't be any to-morrow for me,” growled Mother Borton. “I've seen enough of 'em carved to know when I've got the dose myself. Curse that knife!” and she groaned at a twinge of pain.
“Who did it?”
“Black Dick—curse his soul. And he's roasting in hell for it this minute,” cried Mother Borton savagely.
“Hush!” I said. “You mustn't excite yourself. Can't I get you a minister or a priest?”
Mother Borton spat out another string of oaths.
“Priest or minister! Not for me! Not one has passed my door in all the time I've lived, and he'll not do it to-night. What could he tell me that I don't know already? I've been on the road to hell for fifty years, and do you think the devil will let go his grip for a man that don't know me? No, dearie; your face is better for me than priest or minister, and I want you to close my eyes and see that I'm buried decent. Maybe you'll remember Mother Borton for something more than a vile old woman when she's gone.”
“That I shall,” I exclaimed, touched by her tone, and taking the hand that she reached out to mine. “I'll do anything you want, but don't talk of dying. There's many a year left in you yet.”
“There's maybe an hour left in me. But we must hurry. Tell me about your trouble—at Livermore, was it?”
I gave her a brief account of the expedition and its outcome. Mother Borton listened eagerly, giving an occasional grunt of approval.
“Well, honey; I was some good to ye, after all,” was her comment.
“Indeed, yes.”
“And you had a closer shave for your life than you think,” she continued. “Tom Terrill swore he'd kill ye, and it's one of the miracles, sure, that he didn't.”
“Well, Mother Borton, Tom Terrill's laid up in Livermore with a broken head, and I'm safe here with you, ready to serve you in any way that a man may.”
“Safe—safe?” mused Mother Borton, an absent look coming over her skinny features, as though her mind wandered. Then she turned to me impressively. “You'll never be safe till you change your work and your name. You've shut your ears to my words while I'm alive, but maybe you'll think of 'em when I'm in my coffin. I tell you now, my boy, there's murder and death before you. Do you hear? Murder and death.”
She sank back on her pillow and gazed at me with a wearied light in her eyes and a sibyl look on her face.
“I think I understand,” I said gently. “I have faced them and I ought to know them.”
“Then you'll—you'll quit your job—you'll be yourself?”
“I can not. I must go on.”
“And why?”
“My friend—his work—his murderer.”
“Have you got the man who murdered Henry Wilton?”
“No.”
“Have you got a man who will give a word against—against—you know who?”
“I have not a scrap of evidence against any one but the testimony of my own eyes,” I was compelled to confess.
“And you can't use it—you dare not use it. Now I'll tell you, dearie, I know the man as killed Henry Wilton.”
“Who was it?” I cried, startled into eagerness.
“It was Black Dick—the cursed scoundrel that's done for me. Oh!” she groaned in pain.
“Maybe Black Dick struck the blow, but I know the man that stood behind him, and paid him, and protected him, and I'll see him on the gallows before I die.”
“Hush,” cried Mother Borton trembling. “If he should hear you! Your throat will be cut yet, dearie, and I'm to blame. Drop it, dearie, drop it. The boy is nothing to you. Leave him go. Take your own name and get away. This is no place for you. When I'm gone there will be no one to warn ye. You'll be killed. You'll be killed.”
Then she moaned, but whether from pain of body or mind I could not guess.
“Never you fear. I'll take care of myself,” I said cheerily.
She looked at me mournfully. “I am killed for ye, dearie.”
I started, shocked at this news.
“There,” she continued slowly, “I didn't mean to let you know. But they thought I had told ye.”
“Then I have two reasons instead of one for holding to my task,” I said solemnly. “I have two friends to avenge.”
“You'll make the third yourself,” groaned Mother Borton, “unless they put a knife into Barkhouse, first, and then you'll be the fourth belike.”
“Barkhouse—do you know where he is?”
“He's in the Den—on Davis Street, you know. I was near forgetting to tell ye. Send your men to get him to-night, for he's hurt and like to die. They may have to fight. No,—don't leave me now.”
“I wasn't going to leave you.”
Mother Borton put her hand to her throat as though she choked, and was silent for a moment. Then she continued:
“I'll be to blame if I don't tell you—Imusttell you. Are you listening?”
Her voice came thick and strange, and her eyes wandered anxiously about, searching the heavy shadows with a look of growing fear.
The candle burned down till it guttered and flickered in its pool of melted tallow, and the shadows it threw upon wall and ceiling seemed instinct with an impish life of their own, as though they were dark spirits from the pit come to mock the final hours of the life that was ebbing away before me.
“I am listening,” I replied.
“You must know—you must—know,—I must tell you. The boy—the woman is—”
On a sudden Mother Borton sat bolt upright in bed, and a shriek, so long, so shrill, so freighted with terror, came from her lips that I shrank from her and trembled, faint with the horror of the place.
“They come—there, they come!” she cried, and throwing up her arms she fell back on the bed.
The candle shot up into flame, sputtered an instant, and was gone. And I was alone with the darkness and the dead.
I sprang to my feet. The darkness was instinct with nameless terrors. The air was filled with nameless shapes. A spiritual horror surrounded me, and I felt that I must reach the light or cry out. But before I had covered the distance to the door, it was flung open and Corson stood on the threshold; and at the sight of him my courage returned and my shaken nerves grew firm. At the darkness he wavered and cried:
“What's the matter here?”
“She is dead.”
“Rest her sowl! It's a fearsome dark hole to be in, sor.”
I shuddered as I stood beside him, and brought the lamp from the bracket in the hall.
Mother Borton lay back staring affrightedly at the mystic beings who had come for her, but settled into peace as I closed her eyes and composed her limbs.
“She was a rare old bird,” said Corson when I had done, “but there was some good in her, after all.”
“She has been a good friend to me,” I said, and we called a servant from below and left the gruesome room to his guardianship.
“And now, there's another little job to be done. There's one of my men a prisoner down on Davis Street. I must get him out.”
“I'm with you, sor,” said Corson heartily. “I'm hopin' there's some heads to be cracked.”
I had not counted on the policeman's aid, but I was thankful to accept the honest offer. In the restaurant I found five of my men, and with this force I thought that I might safely attempt an assault on the Den.
The Den was a low, two-story building of brick, with a warehouse below, and the quarters of the enemy, approached by a narrow stairway, above.
“Step quietly,” I cautioned my men, as we neared the dark and forbidding entrance. “Keep close to the shadow of the buildings. Our best chance is in a surprise.”
There was no guard at the door that stood open to the street, and we halted a moment before it to make sure of our plans.
“It's a bad hole,” whispered Corson.
“A fine place for an ambush,” I returned dubiously.
“Well, there's no help for it,” said the policeman. “Come on!” And drawing his club and revolver he stole noiselessly up the stairs.
I felt my way up step by step, one hand against the wall and my shoes scraping cautiously for a resting-place, while my men followed in single file with the same silent care.
But in spite of this precaution, we were not two-thirds the way up the flight before a voice shot out of the darkness.
“Who's there?”
We stopped and held our breath. There was a minute of silence, but it was broken by the creak of a board as one of the men shifted his weight.
“There's some one here!” cried the voice above us. “Halt, or I'll shoot! Peterson! Conn! Come quick!”
There was no more need for silence, and Corson and I reached the landing just as a door opened that let the light stream from within. Two men had sprung to the doorway, and another could be seen faintly outlined in the dark hall.
“Holy Mother! it's the cops!” came in an awe-stricken voice at the sight of Corson's star.
“Right, my hearty!” cried Corson, making a rush for the man, who darted down the hall in an effort to escape. The two men jumped back into the room and tried to close the door, but I was upon them before they could swing it shut. Four of my men had followed me close, and with a few blows given and taken, the two were prisoners.
“Tie them fast,” I ordered, and hastened to see how Corson fared.
I met the worthy policeman in the hall, blown but exultant. Owens was following him, and between them they half-dragged, half-carried the man who had given the alarm.
“He made a fight for it,” puffed Corson, “but I got in wan good lick at him and he wilted. You'll surrinder next time when I tell ye, won't ye, me buck?”
“Aren't there any more about?” I asked. “There were more than three left in the gang.”
“If there had been more of us, you'd never have got in,” growled one of the prisoners.
“Where's Barkhouse?” I asked.
“Find him!” was the defiant reply.
We began the search, opening one room after another. Some were sleeping-rooms, some the meeting-rooms, while the one we had first entered appeared to be the guard-room.
“Hello! What's this?” exclaimed Corson, tapping an iron door, such as closes a warehouse against fire.
“It's locked, sure enough,” said Owens, after trial.
“It must be the place we are looking for,” I said. “Search those men for keys.”
The search was without result.
“It's a sledge we must get,” said Owens, starting to look about for one.
“Hould on,” said Corson, “I was near forgetting. I've got a master-key that fits most of these locks. It's handy for closing up a warehouse when some clerk with his wits a-wandering forgits his job. So like enough it's good at unlocking.”
It needed a little coaxing, but the bolt at last slid back and the heavy doors swung open. The room was furnished with a large table, a big desk, and a dozen chairs, which sprang out of the darkness as I struck a match and lit the gas. It was evidently the council-room of the enemy.
“This is illigant,” said the policeman, looking around with approval; “but your man isn't here, I'd say.”
“Well, it looks as though there might be something here of interest,” I replied, seizing eagerly upon the papers that lay scattered about upon the desk. “Look in the other rooms while I run through these.”
A rude diagram on the topmost paper caught my eye. It represented a road branching thrice. On the third branch was a cross, and then at intervals four crosses, as if to mark some features of the landscape. Underneath was written:
“From B—follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road—3 or 5.”
The paper bore date of that day, and I guessed that it was meant to show the way to the supposed hiding-place of the boy.
Then, as I looked again, the words and lines touched a cord of memory. Something I had seen or known before was vaguely suggested. I groped in the obscurity for a moment, vainly reaching for the phantom that danced just beyond the grasp of my mental fingers.
There was no time to lose in speculating, and I turned to the work that pressed before us. But as I thrust the papers into my pocket to resume the search for Barkhouse, the elusive memory flashed on me. The diagram of the enemy recalled the single slip of paper I had found in the pocket of Henry Wilton's coat on the fatal night of my arrival. I had kept it always with me, for it was the sole memorandum left by him of the business that had brought him to his death. I brought it out, very badly creased and rumpled from much carrying, but still quite as legible as on the night I had first seen it.
Placed side by side with the map I had before me, the resemblance was less close than I had thought. Yet all the main features were the same. There was the road branching thrice; a cross in both marked the junction of the third road as though it gave sign of a building or some natural landmark; and the other features were indicated in the same order. No—there was a difference in this point; there were five crosses on the third road in the enemy's diagram, while there were but four in mine.
In the matter of description the enemy had the advantage, slight as it was.
“Third road—cockeyed barn—iron cow,” and the confused jumble of drunken letters and figures that Henry had written—I could make nothing of these.
“From B—follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road—3 or 5”—this was at least half-intelligible.
Then it came on me like a blow,—was this the mysterious “key” that the Unknown had demanded of me in her letter of this morning? I turned sick at heart at the thought that my ignorance and inattention had put the boy in jeopardy. The enemy had perhaps a clue to the hiding-place that the Unknown did not possess. The desertion of these headquarters swelled my fears. Though Terrill, disabled by wounds, was groaning with pain and rage at Livermore, and the night's arrests at Borton's had reduced the numbers of the band, Darby Meeker was still on the active list. And Doddridge Knapp? He was free now to follow his desperate plot to its end without risking his schemes of fortune. The absence of Meeker, the date of to-day upon the map, suggesting that it had but just come into the hands of the enemy, and the lack of a garrison in the Den, raised the apprehension that fresh mischief was afoot.
I was roused from my reverie of fears by confused shouts from down the hall, and sprang hastily to the door, with the thought that the forces of the enemy were upon us.
“Here he is! they've found him,” cried an excited voice.
“Yes, sir! here he comes!”
It was truly the stalwart guard; but two days had made a sad change in him. With head bound in a bloody rag, and face of a waxy yellow hue, he staggered limply out of one of the rear rooms between Corson and Owens.
“Brace up, me boy! You're worth ten dead men,” said the policeman encouragingly. “That's right! you'll be yourself in a jiffy.”
Barkhouse was soon propped up on the lounge in the guard-room, and with a few sips of whisky and a fresh bandage began to look like a more hopeful case.
“'Twas a nasty cut,” said one of the men sympathetically.
“How did you get it?” I asked.
“I don't rightly know,” said Barkhouse faintly. “'Twas the night you went to Mother Borton's last week. After I leaves you, I walks down a piece towards the bay, and as I gets about to Drumm Street, I guess, a fellow comes along as I takes to be a sailor half-loaded. 'Hello, mate,' he says, a-trying to steady himself, 'what time did you say it was?' 'I didn't say,' says I, for I was too fly to take out my watch, even if it is a nickel-plater, for how could he tell what it was in the dark? and it's good for a dozen drinks at any water-front saloon. 'Well, what do you make it?' he says; and as I was trying to reckon whether it was nearer twelve or one o'clock, he lurches up agin' me and grabs my arms as if to steady himself. Then three or four fellows jumps from behind a lot of packing-boxes there, and grabs me. I makes a fight for it, and gives one yell, and the next I knows I was in a dark room here with the sorest head in San Francisco. An' I reckon I've been here about six days, and another would have finished me.”
Barkhouse's “six days” estimate provoked a smile.
“If you could get paid on your time reckoning,” remarked Owens in a humorous tone, “you'd be well off, Bob. 'Twas night before last you got took in.”
Barkhouse looked incredulous, but I nodded my support of Owens' remarkable statement.
“However, you'll be paid on your own reckoning, and better, too,” I said; and he was thereby consoled.
“Now, we must get out of here,” I continued. “Take turns by twos in helping Barkhouse. We had better not risk staying here.”
“Right,” said Corson, “and now we'll just take these three beauties along to the station.”
“On what charge?” growled the man addressed as Conn.
“Disturbing the peace—you've disturbed ours for sure—resisting an officer, vulgar language, keeping a disorderly house, carrying a pistol without a permit, and anything else I can think up between here and the station-house. If that doesn't satisfy ye, I'll put ye down for assault and robbery on Barkhouse's story, and ye may look out for a charge of murder before ye git out.”
The men swore at this cheerful prospect, but as their hands were bound behind them, and Corson walked with his club in one hand and his pistol in the other, they took up the march at command, and the rest of us slowly followed.
When we reached the entrance to our quarters on Montgomery Street the rain had once more begun to fall, gently now, but the gusts of damp wind from the south promised more and worse to follow.
“Hello!” cried the first man, starting back. “What's this?”
The line stopped, and I moved forward.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A message for you, Mr. Wilton,” said a voice suddenly from the recess of the doorway.
“Give it to me,” I said.
A slip of paper was thrust into my hand, and I passed up the stairs.
“I'll wait for you,” said the messenger, and at the first gas-jet that burned at the head of the stairs I stopped to read the address.
It was in the hand of the Unknown, and my fatigue and indifference were gone in a moment. I trembled as I tore open the envelope, and read:
“Follow the bearer of this note at 12:30. Come alone and armed. It is important.”
There was no signature.
If this meant anything it meant that I was to meet the Unknown, and perhaps to search the heart of the mystery. I had been heavy with fatigue and drowsy with want of sleep, but at this thought the energies of life were once more fresh within me.
With my new-found knowledge it might be more important than even the Unknown was aware, that we should meet. To me, the map, the absence of Darby Meeker and his men, the mysterious hints of murder and death that had come from the lips of Mother Borton, were but vaguely suggestive. But to the Unknown, with her full knowledge of the objects sought by the enemy and the motives that animated their ceaseless pursuit, the darkness might be luminous, the obscurity clear.
The men had waited a minute for me as I read the note.
“Go to your rooms and get some rest,” I said. “I am called away. Trent will be in charge, and I will send word to him if I need any of you.”
They looked at me in blank protest.
“You're not going alone, sir?” cried Owens in a tone of alarm.
“Oh, no. But I shall not need a guard.” I hoped heartily that I did not.
The men shook their heads doubtfully, and I continued:
“Corson will be down from the Central Station in fifteen or twenty minutes. Just tell him that I've been sent for, and to come to-morrow if he can make it in his way.”
And bidding them good night I ran hastily down the stairs before any of the men could frame his protest into words.
“Are you ready, sir?” asked the messenger.
“It is close on half-past twelve,” I answered. “Where is she?”
“It's not far,” said my guide evasively.
I understood the danger of speech, and did not press for an answer.
We plunged down Montgomery Street in the teeth of the wind that dashed the spray in our faces at one moment, lulled an instant the better to deceive the unwary, and then leaped at us from behind corners with the impetuous rush of some great animal that turned to vapor as it reached us. The street was dark except for the newspaper offices, which glowed bright with lights on both sides of the way, busy with the only signs of life that the storm and the midnight hour had left.
With the lighted buildings behind us we turned down California Street. Half-way down the block, in front of the Merchants' Exchange, stood a hack. At the sight my heart beat fast and my breath came quick. Here, perhaps, was the person about whom centered so many of my hopes and fears, in whose service I had faced death, and whose words might serve to make plain the secret springs of the mystery.
As we neared the hack my guide gave a short, suppressed whistle, and passing before me, flung open the door to the vehicle and motioned me to enter. I glanced about with some lack of confidence oppressing my spirits. But I had gone too far to retreat, and stepped into the hack. Instead of following, the guide closed the door gently; I heard him mount the seat by the driver, and in a moment we were in motion.
Was I alone? I had expected to find the Unknown, but the dark interior gave no sign of a companion. Then the magnetic suggestion of the presence of another came to my spirit, and a faint perfume put all my senses on the alert. It was the scent that had come to me with the letters of the Unknown. A slight movement made me certain that some one sat in the farther corner of the carriage.
Was it the Unknown or some agent? And if it proved to be the Unknown, was she the lady I had met in cold business greeting in the courtyard of the Palace Hotel? I waited impatiently for the first street-lamp to throw a gleam of light into the carriage. But when it came I was little the wiser. I could see faintly the outlines of a figure shrouded in black that leaned in the corner, motionless save for the swaying and pitching of the hack as it rolled swiftly down the street.
The situation became a little embarrassing. Was it my place to speak first? I wondered. At last I could endure the silence no longer.
“Quite an unpleasant evening,” I remarked politely.
There was a rustle of movement, the sound of a short gasp, and a soft, mournful voice broke on my ear.
“Mr. Dudley—can you forgive me?”
The astonishment I felt to hear my own name once more—the name that seemed now to belong to a former state of existence—was swallowed up as the magnetic tones carried their revelation to my mind.
I was stricken dumb for a moment at the discovery they had brought. Then I gasped:
“Mrs. Knapp!”
“Yes, Mrs. Knapp,” she said with a mournful laugh. “Did you never suspect?”
I was lost in wonder and confusion, and even yet could not understand.
“What brings you out in this storm?” I asked, completely mystified. “I thought I was to meet another person.”
“Indeed?” said Mrs. Knapp with a spark of animation. “Well, I am the other person.”
I was paralyzed in mind and nerve for a moment with the astonishment of the disclosure. Even yet I could not believe.
“You!” I exclaimed at last. “Are you the protector of the boy? The employer—” Then I stopped, the tangle in my mind beginning to straighten out.
“I am she,” said Mrs. Knapp gently.
“Then,” I cried, “who is he? what is he? what is the whole dreadful affair about? and what—”
Mrs. Knapp interrupted me.
“First tell me what has become of Henry Wilton?” she said with sorrow in her voice.
The dreadful scene in the alley flashed before my mind.
“He is dead.”
“Dead! And how?”
“Murdered.”
“I feared so—I was certain, or he would have let me know. You have much to tell me. But first, did he leave no papers in your hands?”
I brought out the slip that bore the blind diagram and the blinder description that accompanied it. Nothing could be made of it in the darkness, so I described it as well as I could.
“We are on the right track,” said Mrs. Knapp. “Oh, why didn't I have that yesterday? But here—we are at the wharf.”
The hack had stopped, and a hand was fumbling at the door.
The darkness, the dash of water, the wind whistling about the crazy wooden buildings and through the rigging of ships, made the water-front vocal with the shouting of the storm demons as we alighted.
My guide was before us, and we followed him down the pier, struggling against the gusts.
“Do we cross the bay?” I asked, as Mrs. Knapp clung to my arm. “It's not safe for you in a small boat.”
“There's a tug waiting for us,” Mrs. Knapp explained.
A moment later we saw its lights, and the fire of its engine-room shot a cheerful glow into the storm. The little vessel swung uneasily at its berth as we made our way aboard, and with shouts of men and clang of bells it was soon tossing on the dark waters of the bay. Out from the shelter of the wharves the wind buffeted us wildly, and the black waves were threshed into phosphorescent foam against the sides of the tug, while their crests, self-luminous, stretched away in changing lines of faint, ghostly fire.
The cabin of the tug was fitted with a shelf table, and over it swung a lamp of brass that gave a dim light to the little room. Mrs. Knapp seated herself here, as the boat pitched and tossed and trembled at the strokes of the waves and quivered to the throbbing of the screw, spread out the paper I had given her, and studied the diagram and the jumble of letters with anxious attention.
“It is the same,” she said at last; “in part, at least.”
“The same as what?” I asked.
“As the one I got word of to-night, you know,” she replied.
“No—I didn't know.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Knapp. “But you might have guessed that I got my summons after you left, this evening. I should have spoken to you then if I had known. I was near coming to an explanation, as it was.”
“There are a good many things I haven't guessed,” I confessed.
“But,” she continued, returning to the map, “this gives a different place. I was to go to the cross-road here,”—indicating the mark at the last branch.
“I'm glad to hear that,” said I, taking out the diagram I had found in the citadel of the enemy. “This seems to point to a different place, too, and I really hope that the gentleman who drew this map is a good way off from the truth.”
“Where did you get this?” exclaimed Mrs. Knapp.
I described the circumstances in as few words as I could command.
“They are ahead of us,” she said in alarm.
“They have started first, I suppose,” was my suggestion.
“And they have the right road.”
“Then our only hope is that they may not know the right place.”
“God grant it,” said Mrs. Knapp.
She was silent for a few minutes, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
I was moved by her signs of feeling. I thought they were for the boy and was about to ask what would happen to him in case he was found by the enemy, when she said:
“Now tell me about Henry Wilton—how he died and when.”
Again the vision of my first dreadful night in San Francisco rose before me, the cries for help from my murdered friend rang in my ears, and the scene in the alley and the figure in the morgue burned before my eyes.
I told the tale as it had happened, and as I told it I read in the face before me the varying emotions of alarm, horror and grief that were stirred by its incidents.
But one thing I could not tell her. The wolf-face I had seen in the lantern flash in the alley I could not name nor describe to the wife of Doddridge Knapp. Yet at the thought the dark mystery grew darker, yet, and I began to doubt what my eyes had seen, and my ears had heard.
Mrs. Knapp bowed her head in deep, gloomy thought.
“I feared it, yet he would not listen to my warnings,” she murmured. “He would work his own way.” Then she looked me suddenly straight in the face.
“And why did you take his place, his name? Why did you try to do his work when you had seen the dreadful end to which it had brought him?”
I confessed that it was half through the insistence of Detective Coogan that I was Henry Wilton, half through the course of events that seemed to make it the easiest road to reach the vengeance that I had vowed to bring the murderer of my friend.
“You are bent on avenging him?” asked Mrs. Knapp thoughtfully.
“I have promised it.”
“You shall have the chance. Strange thought!” she said gloomily, “that the dead hand of Henry Wilton may reach out from beyond the grave and strike at his slayer when he least expects it.”
I was more than ever mystified at these words. I had not expected her to take so philosophically to the idea of hanging Doddridge Knapp, and I thought it best to hold my tongue.
“I have marveled at you,” said Mrs. Knapp after a pause. “I marvel at you yet. You have carried off your part well.”
“Not well enough, it seems, to deceive you,” I said, a little bitterly.
“You should not have expected to deceive me,” said Mrs. Knapp. “But you can imagine the shock I had when I saw that it was not Henry Wilton who had come among us that first night when I called you from Mr. Knapp's room.”
“You certainly succeeded in concealing any surprise you may have felt,” I said. “You are a better actor than I.”
Mrs. Knapp smiled.
“It was more than surprise—it was consternation,” she said. “I had been anxious at receiving no word from Henry. I suppose you got my notes. And when I saw you I was torn with doubts, wondering whether anything had happened to Henry, whether he had sent you in his stead as a practical joke, whether you knew much or little or nothing of our affairs—in short, I was overwhelmed.”
“I didn't suppose I was quite so poor an impostor,” I said apologetically, with a qualm at the word. “Though I did get some hint of it,” I added, with a painful recollection of the candid statement of opinion I had received from the daughter of the house.
“Oh, you did very well,” said Mrs. Knapp kindly, “but no one could have been successful in that house. Luella was quite outraged over it, but I managed to quiet her.”
“I hope Miss Knapp has not retained the unfavorable impressions of—er—” I stammered in much confusion.
Mrs. Knapp gave me a keen glance.
“You know she has not,” she said.
I felt the subconscious impression somehow that after all Mrs. Knapp would have been better pleased if Luella had kept nearer to her first impressions of me.
“Well,” continued Mrs. Knapp, “when I saw you and guessed that something had happened to Henry Wilton, and found that you knew little of what was going on, I changed the plan of campaign. I did not know that you were one to be trusted, but I saw that you could be used to keep the others on a false scent, for you deceived everybody but us.”
“There was one other,” I said.
“Mother Borton?” inquired Mrs. Knapp. “Yes, I learned that she knew you. But to every one else in the city you were Henry Wilton. I feared, though, you would make some mistake that would betray you and spoil my plans. But you have succeeded marvelously.”
Mrs. Knapp paused a moment and then continued slowly. “It was cruel of me. I knew that it was sending you to face death. But I was alarmed, angry at the imposition, and felt that you had brought it on yourself. Can you forgive me?”
“I have nothing to forgive,” I said.
“I would have spoken when I found you for what you are,” said Mrs. Knapp, “but I thought until the Livermore trip that you could serve me best as you were doing.”
“It was blind work,” I said.
“It was blind enough for you, not for me. I was deceived in one thing, however; I thought that you had no papers—nothing from Henry that could help or hurt. The first night you came to us I had Henry's room thoroughly searched.”
“Oh, I was indebted to you for that attention,” I exclaimed. “I gave our friends of the other house the credit.”
Mrs. Knapp smiled again.
“I thought it necessary. It was the chance that you did not sleep there that night that kept this paper out of my hands weeks ago.”
“I have always kept it with me,” I said.
“I did not need it till Sunday,” continued Mrs. Knapp. “I have been worried much at the situation of the boy, but I did not dare go near him. Henry and I decided that his hiding-place was not safe. We had talked of moving him a few days before you came. When I found that Henry had disappeared I was anxious to make the change, but I could not venture to attempt it until the others were out of town, for I knew I was watched. Then I was assured from Mother Borton that they did not know where the boy was hidden, and I let the matter rest. But a few days ago—on Saturday—she sent me word that she thought they had found the place. Then it came to me to send you to Livermore with the other boy—oh, I hope no harm came to the little fellow,” she exclaimed anxiously.
“He's safe at my rooms in charge of Wainwright,” I said. “He got back on the morning train, and can be had for the asking.”
“Oh, I'm so glad,” said Mrs. Knapp. “I was afraid something would happen to him, but I had to take desperate chances. Well, you see my plan succeeded. They all followed you. But when I went to the hiding-place the boy was gone. Henry had moved him weeks ago, and had died before he could tell me. Then I thought you might know more than you had told me—that Henry Wilton might have got you to help him when he made the change, and I wrote to you.”
“And the key,” I said, remembering the expression of the note, “Did you mean this diagram?”
“No,” said Mrs. Knapp. “I meant the key to our cipher code. I was looking over Henry's letters for some hint of a hiding-place and could not find the key to the cipher. I thought you might have been given one. I found mine this afternoon, though, and there was no need of it, so it didn't matter after all.”
The pitching and tossing of the boat had ceased for some minutes, and at this point the captain of the tug opened the cabin.
“Excuse me,” he said apologetically, uncertain whether to address Mrs. Knapp or me, and including us both in the question, “but where did you want to land?”
“At Broadway,” said Mrs. Knapp.
“Then you're there,” said the captain.
And, a minute later, with clang of bells and groan of engine we were at the wharf and were helped ashore.
On this side of the bay the wind had fallen, and there were signs of a break in the clouds. The darkness of the hour was dimly broken by the rays from the lines of street-lamps that stretched at intervals on both sides of Broadway, making the gloom of the place and hour even more oppressive.
“Tell the captain to wait here for us with fires up,” said Mrs. Knapp. “The carriage should be somewhere around here,” she continued, peering anxiously about as we reached the foot of the wharf.
The low buildings by the railroad track were but piles of blackness, and about them I could see nothing.
“This way,” said a familiar voice, and a man stepped from the shadow.
“Dicky Nahl!” I exclaimed.
“Mr. Wilton!” mimicked Dicky. “But it's just as well not to speak so loud. Here you are. I put the hack's lights out just to escape unpleasant remark. We had better be moving, for it's a stiffish drive of six or seven miles. If you'll get in, I'll keep the seat with the driver and tell him the way to go.”
Mrs. Knapp entered the carriage, and called to me to follow her.
I remembered Mother Borton's warnings and my doubts of Dicky Nahl.
“You're certain you know where you are going?” I asked him in an undertone.
“No, I'm not,” said Dicky frankly. “I've found a man who says he knows. We are to meet him. We'll get there between three and four o'clock. He won't say another word to anybody but her or you. I guess he knows what he is about.”
“Well, keep your eyes open. Meeker's gang is ahead of us. Is the driver reliable?”
“Right as a judge,” said Dicky cheerfully, “Now, if you'll get in with madam we won't be wasting time here.”
I stepped into the carriage. Dicky Nahl closed the door softly and climbed on the seat by the driver, and in a moment we were rolling up Broadway in the gloomy stillness of the early morning hour.