IT was dark in the cell, quite dark. There was just the faint glimmer that crept in from the night lights along the iron galleries, and came up from the main corridor two tiers below. It must have been hours since he had left Millman in the prison library—and yet he was not sure. Perhaps it was even still early, for he hadn't heard old Tony talking and whispering to himself through the bars to-night yet.
Dave Henderson's head, cupped in hands whose fingers dug with a brutal grip into the flesh of his cheeks, came upward with a jerk, and he surged to his feet from the hinged shelf that he called cot and bed. What difference did it make whether it was dark or light, or late or early, or whether old Tony had babbled to himself or not! It was pitifully inconsequential. It was only his brain staggering off into the byways again, as though, in some sneaking, underhand way, it wanted to steal rest and respite.
His hands went up above his head, and held there, and his fists clenched. He was the fool of fools, the prince of fools! He saw it now! His laugh purled low, in hollow mirth, through the cell—a devil's laugh in its bitter irony. Yes, he saw it now—when it was too late.
Millman! Damn Millman to the pit! Damn Millman for the smoothest, craftiest hypocrite into whom God had ever breathed the breath of life! He had been trapped! That had been Millman's play, two years of cunning play—to win his confidence; two years of it, that always at the end the man might get that hundred thousand dollars. And he had fallen into Millman's trap!
He did not believe Millman's story, or in Millman's innocence now—when it was too late! He couldn't reach Millman now. There were bars of iron, and steel doors, and walls of stone between himself and Millman's cell; and in the morning Millman would be gone, and Millman would have sixty-two—no, sixty-one days—to get that money and put the width of the world between them before he, Dave Henderson, was free.
Sixty-one days! And in the space of one short moment, wrecking all that the toil and agony of years was to have stood for, he had told Millman what Millman wanted to know! And that was the moment Millman had been waiting for through two long years with cunning patience—and he, Dave Henderson, because he was shaken to the soul with desperation, because he was alone with his back to the wall, in extremity, ready to grasp at any shred of hope, and because he was sick in body, and because the sudden, overwhelming uplift at Millman's offer had numbed and dulled his faculties in a mighty revulsion of relief, had fallen into the traitor's trap.
And it had been done so quickly! The guard had been there and had intervened, and there hadn't been time for his mind to win back its normal poise and reason logically. He hadn't reasoned in that brief instant; he had only caught and grasped the outflung hand of one whom, for two years, he had trusted and believed was a friend. He hadn't reasoned then; he had even stepped out of the prison library more lighthearted than he had been almost from the moment they had put these striped clothes upon him five years before; but he had barely stood locked in his cell here again when, like some ghastly blight falling upon him, reason had come and left him a draggled weakling, scarcely able physically to stand upon his feet. And then that had passed, and he had been possessed of an insensate fury that had bade him fling himself at the cell door, and, with superhuman strength, wrench and tear the bars asunder that he might get at Millman again. He had checked that impulse amidst the jeers and mockeries of impish voices that rang in his ears and filled the cell with their insane jabberings—voices that laughed in hellish glee at him for being a fool in the first place, and for his utter impotence in the second.
They were jeering and chuckling now, those insane demon voices!
He swung from the center of the cell, and flung himself down on the cot again. They might well mock at him, those voices! For two years, though he had had faith in Millman, he had kept the secret of the hiding place of that money to himself because, believing Millman to be an honest man, it would have been unfair to Millman to have told him, since, as an honest man, Millman then would either have had to inform the authorities—or become a dishonest man. It was clear enough, wasn't it? And logical enough? And yet in one unguarded moment he had repudiated his own logic! He had based all, his faith and trust and confidence in Millman, on the belief that Millman was an honest man. Well, anhonestman wouldn't voluntarily aid and abet a thief in getting away with stolen money, nor make himself an accomplice after the fact, nor offer to help outwit the police, nor agree to participate in what amounted to stealing the money for a second time, and so make of himself a criminal! And if the man was thendishonest, and for two years had covered that dishonesty with a mask of hypocrisy, it was obvious enough, since the hypocrisy had been solely for his, Dave Henderson's, benefit, that Millman had planned it all patiently from the beginning, and now meant to do him cold, to get the money and keep it.
He could not remain still. He was up on his feet again from the cot. Fury had him in its grip once more. Five years! Five years of hell in this devil's hole! And a branded name! He had thrown everything into the balance—all he had! And now—this!Tricked! That was it—tricked! Tricked by a Judas!
All the passion of the man was on the surface now. Lean and gaunt, his body seemed to crouch forward as though to spring; his hands, with fingers crooked like claws reaching for their prey, were outstretched before him. Sixty-one days' start Millman had. But Millman would need more than that! The only man in the world whom he had ever trusted, and who had then betrayed him, would need more than sixty-one days to escape the reckoning that was to come. Millman might hide, Millman might live for years in lavish ease on that money, and in the end there might be none of that money left, but sooner or later Millman would pay a bigger price than—a hundred thousand dollars. He would get Millman. The world wasn't big enough for the two of them. And when that day came——
His muscles relaxed. The paroxysm of fury left him, and suddenly he moaned a little as though in bitter hurt. There was another side to it. He could not help thinking of that other side. There had been two years of what he had thought was friendship—and the friendship had been hypocrisy. It was hard to believe. Perhaps Millman meant to play square after all, perhaps Millman would keep that rendezvous in New York on June twenty-fourth at eight o'clock in the evening at the St. Lucian Hotel. Perhaps Millman would. It wasn't only on account of the money that he hoped Millman would—there were those two years of what he had thought was friendship.
He leaned suddenly against the wall of the cell, the palms of his hands pressed against it, his face crushed into his knuckles. No! What was the use of that! Why try to delude himself again? Why try to make himself believe what hewantedto believe? He could reason now coolly and logically enough. If Millman was honest he would not do what he had offered to do; and being, therefore, dishonest, his apparent honesty had been only a mask, and the mask had been only for his, Dave Henderson's, benefit, and that, logically, could evidence but one thing—that Millman had deliberately set himself to win the confidence that would win for Millman the stake of one hundred thousand dollars. There was no other conclusion, was there?
His head came up from his hands, and he stood rigid, tense. Wait! Wait a minute, until his brain cleared. There was another possibility. He had not thought of it before! It confused and staggered him now. Suppose that Millman stood in with the police! Suppose that the police had used Millman for just the purpose that Millman had accomplished! Or—why not?—suppose that Millman was even one of the police himself! It was not so tenable a theory as it was to assume that Millman had acted as a stool-pigeon; but it was, even at that, well within the realm of possibility. A man would not count two years ill spent on a case that involved the recovery of a hundred thousand dollars—nor hesitate to play a convict's part, either, if necessary. It had been done before. Until Barjan had come last night, the police had made no sign for years—unless Millman were indeed one of them, and, believing at the last that he was facing failure, had called in Barjan. Millman hadn't had a hard time of it in the penitentiary. His education had been the excuse, if it were an excuse, for all the soft clerical jobs. Who was to know if Millman ever spent the nights in his cell?
Dave Henderson crushed his fists against his temples. What did it matter! In the long run, what did it matter! Crook, or informant, or an officer, Millman had wrecked him, and he would pay his debt to Millman! He laughed low again, while his teeth gnawed at his lip. There was Barjan and Bookie Skarvan—and now Millman! And Baldy Vickers and the underworld!
There wasn't much chance, was there? Not much to expect now in return for the eternities in which he had worn these prison stripes, not much out of the ruin of his life, not much for the all and everything he had staked and risked! Not much—only to make one last fight, to make as many of these men pay as dearly as he could. Fight! Yes, he would fight. He had never hedged. He would never hedge. They had him with his back to the wall. He knew that. There wasn't much chance now; there wasn't any, if he looked the situation squarely in the face. He stood alone, absolutely alone; there was nowhere to turn, no single soul to turn to. His hand was against every other man's. But he was not beaten. They would never beat him. A knife thrust or a black-jack from Bookie Skarvan's skulking pack, though it might end his life, would not beat him; a further term here behind these walls, though it might wither up the soul of him, would not beat him!
And Millman! Up above his head his hands twisted and knotted together again, and the great muscular shoulders locked back, and the clean, straight limbs grew taut. And he laughed. And the laugh was very low and sinister. A beast cornered was an ugly thing. And the dominant instinct in a beast was self-preservation—and a leap at its enemy's throat. A beast asked no quarter—and gave none. Fie was a beast. They had made him a beast in here, an animal, a numbered thing, not a man; they had not even left him with a name—just one of a herd of beasts and animals. But they had not tamed him. He was alone, facing them all now, and there wasn't much chance because the odds were overwhelming; but if he was alone, he would not godownalone, and—
He turned his head suddenly, and his hands dropped to his sides. There had come a cry from somewhere. It was not very loud, but it rang in a startling way through the night silence of the prison. It was a cry as of sudden fear and weakness. It came again; and in a bound Dave Henderson reached the bars of his door, and beat upon them furiously with his fists. He would get into trouble for it undoubtedly, but he had placed that cry now. Old Tony wasn't whispering tonight. There was something wrong with the old bomb-thrower. Yes, he remembered—old Tony's strange appearance that afternoon. He rattled again and again on the bars. Old Tony was moaning now.
Footsteps on the run sounded along the iron gallery. A guard passed by; another paused at the door.
“Get back out of there!” growled the guard. “Beat it! Get back to your cot!”
Dave Henderson retreated to the center of the cell. He heard old Tony's door opened. Then muffled voices. And then a voice that was quite audible—one of the guard's:
“I guess he's snuffed out. Get the doc—and, yes, tell the warden, if he hasn't gone to bed yet.”
Snuffed out! There was a queer, choking sensation in Dave Henderson's throat. A guard ran along the gallery. Dave Henderson edged silently close up to the door of his cell again. He couldn't see very much—only a gleam of light from Lomazzi's cell that fell on the iron plates of the gallery. There was no sound from within the other cell now.
Snuffed out! The thought that old Tony was dead affected him in a numbed, groping sort of way. It had come with such startling suddenness! He had not grasped it yet. He wondered whether he should be sorry or glad for old Tony—death was the lifer's goal. He did not know. It brought, though, a great aching into his own soul. It seemed to stamp with the ultimate to-night the immeasurable void in his own life. Old Tony was the last link between himself and that thing of priceless worth that men called friendship. Millman had denied it, outraged it, betrayed it; and now old Tony had swerved in his allegiance, and turned away at the call of a greater friend. Yes, death could not be anything but a friend to Tony. There seemed to be no longer any doubt of that in his mind.
Footsteps, several of them, came again along the iron gallery, racketing through the night, but they did not pass his cell this time; they came from the other direction, and went into Lomazzi's cell. It was strange that this should have happened to-night! There would be no more shoulder-touch in the lock-step for the few days that were left; no smile of eyes and lips across the carpenter shop; no surreptitious, intimate little gestures of open-hearted companionship! It seemed to crown in an appalling way, to bring home to him now with a new and appalling force what, five minutes ago, he had thought he had already appreciated to its fullest and bitterest depths—loneliness. He was alone—alone—alone.
The murmur of voices came from the other cell. Time passed. He clung there to the bars. Alone—without help! The presence of death seemed to have infused itself into, and to have become synonymous with that thought. It seemed insidiously to eat into his soul and being, to make his mind sick and weary, whispering to him to capitulate because he was alone, ringed about with forces that would inevitably overwhelm his puny single-handed defiance—because he was alone—and it would be hopeless to go further alone—without help.
He drew back suddenly from the door, conscious for the first time that he must have been clutching and straining at the bars with all his strength. His fingers, relaxed now, were stiff, and the circulation seemed to have left them. A guard was opening the door. Behind the guard, that white-haired man was the warden. He had always liked the warden. The man was stern, but he was always just. He did not understand why the warden had come to his cell.
It was the warden who spoke:
“Lomazzi is dying. He has begged to be allowed to say good-by to you. I can see no objection. You may come.”
Dave Henderson moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
“I—I thought I heard them say he was dead,” he mumbled.
“He was unconscious,” answered the warden briefly. “A heart attack. Step quickly; he has not many minutes.”
Dave Henderson stepped out on the iron gallery; and paused an instant before the door of the adjoining cell. A form lay on the cot, a form with a pasty-colored face, a form whose eyes were closed. The prison doctor, a hypodermic syringe still in his hand, stood a little to one side. Dave Henderson swept his hand across his eyes—there was a sudden mist there that blurred the scene—and, moving forward, dropped down on his knees beside the cot.
A hand reached out and grasped his feebly; the dark eyes opened and fixed on him with a flicker of the old fire in their depths; and the lips quivered in a smile.
Old Tony was whispering—old Tony always talked and whispered to himself here in his cell every night—but old Tony never disturbed anybody—it was hard to hear old Tony even when one listened attentively. Dave Henderson brushed his hand across his eyes again, and bent his head to the other's lips to catch the words.
“You make-a da fool play when you come in here, Dave—for me. But I never, never forget. Old Tony no forget. You no make-a da fool play when you go out. Old Tony knows. You need-a da help. Listen—Nicolo Capriano—'Frisco. You understand? Tony Lomazzi send-a you. Tony Lomazzi take-a da life prison for Nicolo. Nicolo will pay back to Tony's friend. You did not think that”—the voice was growing feebler, harder to understand, and it was fluttering now—“that, because old Tony call-a you da fool, he did—did not—remember—and—and——”
Some one disengaged Dave Henderson's hand from the hand that was clasped around it, and that had suddenly twitched and, with a spasmodic clutch, had seemed as though striving to maintain its hold.
The prison doctor's voice sounded muffled in the cell:
“He is dead.”
Dave Henderson looked up at the touch of a guard's hand on his shoulder. The guard jerked his head with curt significance in the direction of the door.
WAS that a shadow cast by the projection of the door porch out there across the street, or was itmorethan a shadow? It was true that, to a remarkable degree, one's eyes became accustomed to the murk, almost akin to blackness, of the ill-lighted street; but the mind did not accommodate itself so readily—a long and sustained vigil, the brain spurred into abnormal activity and under tense strain, produced a mental quality of vision that detracted from, rather than augmented, the dependence to be placed upon the physical organs of sight. It peopled space with its own imaginations; it created, rather than descried. Dave Henderson shook his head in grim uncertainty. He could not be sure what it was out there. With the black background of the unlighted room behind him he could not be seen at the window by any one on the street, which was two stories below, and he had been watching here since it had grown dark. In that time he had seen a dozen shadows that he could have sworn were not shadows—and yet they were no more than that after all. He was only sure of one thing—that out there somewhere, perhaps nowhere within eye range of his window, perhaps even half a block away, but somewhere, some one was watching. He had been sure of that during every hour of his new-found freedom, since he had reached 'Frisco that noon. He had been sure of it intuitively; but he had failed signally to identify any one specifically as having dogged or followed him.
Freedom! He laughed a little harshly. There weren't any stone walls any more; this window in front of him wasn't grated, nor the door of the room steel-barred, nor out there in the corridor was there any uniformed guard—and so it was freedom.
The short, harsh laugh was on his lips again. Freedom! It was a curious freedom, then! He could walk at will out there in the streets—within limits. But he did not dare go yet to that shed where Mrs. Tooler's old pigeon-cote was. The money probably wasn't there anyhow—Millman almost certainly had won the first trick and had got away with it; but it was absolutely necessary that he should be sure.
He had freedom; but he had dared go nowhere to procure a steel jimmy, for instance, or a substitute for a steel jimmy, with which to force that shed door; nor had he dared to go anywhere and buy a revolver with which to arm himself, and of which he stood desperately in need. He had only a few dollars, but he knew where, under ordinary circumstances, he could obtain those things without any immediate outlay of money—only it was a moral certainty that every move he made was watched. If he procured, say, a chisel, if he procured, say, a revolver, he was not fool enough to imagine such facts would be hidden long from those who watched. They would be suspicious facts. It was his play now to create no suspicion. He could make no move until he had definitely and conclusively identified and placed those who were watching him; and then, with that point settled, it should not be very hard to throw the watchers off the track long enough to enable him to visit Mrs. Tooler's pigeon-cote, and, far more important, his one vital objective now, old Tony Lomazzi's friend—Capriano.
His jaws locked. He meant to force that issue tonight, even if he could not discriminate between shadows and realities out there through the window! He had a definite plan worked out in his mind—including a visit to Square John Kelly's. He hadn't been to Square John's yet. To have gone there immediately on reaching San Francisco would have been a fool play. It would have been, not only risky for himself, but risky for Square John; and he had to protect Square John from the searching and pertinent questions that would then have certainly ensued. He was going there to-night, casually, as simply to one of many similar places—that was part of his plan!
And now he smiled in mingled bitterness and menace. The underworld had complimented him once on being the possessor of potentialities that could make of him the slickest crook in the United States. He had not forgotten that. The underworld, or at least a section of it in the persons of Baldy Vickers and his gang, was leagued against him now, as well as the police. He would strive to merit the underworld's encomium!
He turned suddenly away from the window, walked in the darkness to the table in the center of the room, and, groping for his hat, made his way to the door. He had not expected much from this vigil at the window, but there had always been the possibility that it would be productive, and the earlier hours of the evening could have been employed in no better way. It was dark enough now to begin his night's work in earnest. It must be between half-past nine and ten o'clock.
There was a dim light in the corridor, but, dim though it was, it did not hide the ragged, threadbare state of the carpet on the hallway and stairs, nor the lack of paint, or even of soap and water, on doors and woodwork. Pelatt's Hotel made no pretentious claims. It was as shabby as the shabby quarter in which it was located, and as shabby as the shabby patrons to whom it catered. But there were not many places where a man with close-cropped hair and wearing black clothes of blatant prison cut could go, and he had known Pelatt in the old days, and Pelatt, in lieu of baggage, hadn't demanded any cash in advance—he had even advanced Dave Henderson a little cash himself.
Dave Henderson reached the ground floor, and gained the street through a small, dingy office that was for the moment deserted. He paused here for an instant, the temptation strong upon him to cross the street and plunge into those shadows at the side of that porch just opposite to him. His lips grew tight. The temptation was strong, almost overpoweringly strong. He would much rather fight that way!
And then he shrugged his shoulders, and started along the street. Since he had left the penitentiary, he had not given the slightest sign that he had even a suspicion he was being watched; and, more than ever, he could not afford to do so now. There were two who could play at the game of laying traps! And, besides, the chances were a thousand to one that there were nothing but shadows over there; and there were the same odds that some one who was not a shadow would see him make the tell-tale investigation. He could not afford to take a chance. He could not afford to fail now. He had to identify beyond question of doubt the man, or men, who were on his trail, if there were any; or, with equal certainty, establish it as a fact that he was letting what he called his intuition run away with him.
There came a grim smile to his lips, as he went along. Intuition wasn't all he had to guide him, was it? Barjan had not minced words in making it clear that he would be watched; and Bookie Skarvan had made an even more ominous threat! Who was it tonight, then—the police, or the underworld, or both?
He had given no sign that he had any suspicions. He had gone to Pelatt's openly; after that, in an apparently aimless way, as a man almost childishly interested in the most trivial things after five years of imprisonment, he had roamed about the streets that afternoon.
But his wanderings had not been entirely aimless! He had located Nicolo Capriano's house—and, strangely enough, his wanderings had quite inadvertently taken him past that house several times! It was in a shabby quarter of the city, too. Also, it was a curious sort of house; that is, it was a curious sort of house when compared with its neighbors. It was one of a row of frame houses in none too good repair, and it was the second house from the corner—the directory had supplied him with the street and number. The front of the house differed in no respect from those on each side of it; it was the rear that had particularly excited his attention. He had not been able to investigate it closely, of course, but it bordered on a lane, and by walking down the cross street one could see it. It had an extension built on that reached almost to the high fence at the edge of the lane, and the extension, weather-beaten in appearance, looked to be almost as old as the house itself. Not so very curious, after all, except that no other house had that extension—and except that, in view of the fact that one Nicolo Capriano lived there, it was at least suggestive. Its back entrance was extremely easy of access!
Dave Henderson turned abruptly in through the door of a saloon, and, leaning against the bar—well down at the far end where he could both see and be seen every time the door was opened—ordered a drink.
He had thought a good deal about Nicolo Capriano in the two months since old Tony Lomazzi had ended his life sentence. He hadn't “got” it all at the moment when the old bomb-thrower had died. It had been mostly old Tony himself who was in his thoughts then, and the reference to Capriano had seemed no more than just a kindly thought on old Tony's part for a friend who had no other friend on earth. But afterwards, and not many hours afterwards, it had all taken on a vastly different perspective. The full significance of Tony's words had come to him, and this in turn had stirred his memories of earlier days in San Francisco; and he remembered Nicolo Capriano.
The barkeeper slid a bottle and whisky glass toward him. Dave Henderson half turned his back to the street door, resting his elbow negligently on the bar. He waited for a moment until the barkeeper's attention was somewhat diverted, then his fingers cupped around the small glass, completely hiding it; and the bottle, as he raised it in the other hand, was hidden from the door by the broad of his back. He poured out a few drops—sufficient to rob the glass of its cleanness. The barkeeper looked around. Dave Henderson hastily set the bottle down, like a child caught in a misdemeanor, hastily raised the glass to his lips, threw back his head, and gulped. The barkeeper scowled. It was the trick of the saloon vulture—not only a full glass, but a little over for good measure, when, through practice, the forefinger and thumb became a sort of annex to the rim. Dave Henderson stared back in sullen defiance, set the glass down on the bar, drew the back of his hand across his lips—and went out.
He hesitated a moment outside the saloon, as though undecided which way to go next, while his eyes, under the brim of his slouch hat, which was pulled forward almost to the bridge of his nose, scanned both sides of the street and in both directions. He moved on again along the block.
Yes, he remembered Nicolo Capriano. Capriano must be a pretty old man now—as old as Tony Lomazzi.
There had been a great deal of talk about a gang of Italian black-handers in those days, when he, Dave Henderson, was a boy, and Capriano had been a sort of hero-bandit, he remembered; and there had been a mysterious society, and bomb-throwing, and a reign of terror carried on that had paralyzed the police. They had never been able to convict Nicolo Capriano, though it was common knowledge that the police believed him to be the brains and front of the organization. Always something, or some one, had stood between Capriano and prison bars—like Tony Lomazzi, for instance!
He did not remember Lomazzi's trial, nor the details of the particular crime for which Lomazzi was convicted; but that, perhaps, had put an end to the gang's work. Certainly, Capriano's activities were a thing of the past; it was all a matter of years ago. Capriano was never heard of now; but even if the man through force of circumstances, was obliged to live a retired existence, that in no way robbed him of his cleverness, nor made him less valuable as a prospective ally.
Capriano was the one man who could help him. Capriano must still possess underground channels that would be of incalculable value in aiding him to track Millman down.
His fists, hidden in the side pockets of his coat, clenched fiercely. That was it—Millman! There wasn't a chance but that Millman had taken the money from the pigeon-cote. He would see, of course, before many more hours; but there wasn't a chance. It was Millman he wanted now. The possibility that had occurred to him in prison of Millman being a stool-pigeon, or even one of the police, no longer held water, for if the money had been recovered it would be publicly known. It hadn't been recovered. Therefore, it was Millman he must find, and it was Nicolo Capriano's help he wanted. But he must protect Capriano. He would owe Capriano that—that it should not be known there was anything between Nicolo Capriano and Dave Henderson. Well, he was doing that now, wasn't he? Neither Square John Kelly nor Nicolo Capriano would in any way be placed under suspicion through his visits to them to-night!
The saloons appeared to be Dave Henderson's sole attraction in life now. He went from one to another, and he passed none by, and he went nowhere else—and he left a trail of barkeepers' scowls behind him. One drink in each place, with five fingers curled around the glass, hiding the few drops the glass actually contained, while it proclaimed to the barkeeper the gluttonous and greedy imposition of the professional bum, wore out his welcome as a customer; and if the resultant scowl from behind the bar was not suggestive enough, it was augmented by an uncompromising request to “beat it!” He appeared to be possessed of an earnest determination to make a night of it—and also of an equally earnest determination to get as much liquor for as little money as possible. And the record he left behind him bore unimpeachable testimony to that purpose!
He appeared to grow a little unsteady on his feet; he was even lurching quite noticeably when, an hour later, the lighted windows of Square John Kelly's Pacific Coral Saloon, his first real objective, flung an inviting ray across his path. He stood still here full in the light, both of the window and a street lamp, and shook his head in well-simulated grave and dubious inebriety. He began to fumble in his pockets. He fished out a dime from one, and a nickel from another—a further and still more industrious search apparently proved abortive. For a long time he appeared to be absorbed in a lugubrious contemplation of the two coins that lay in the palm of his hand—but under his hat brim his eyes marked a man in a brown peaked cap who was approaching the door of the saloon. This was the second time in the course of the last half hour—since he had begun to show signs that the whisky was getting the better of him—that he had seen the man in the brown peaked cap!
There were swinging wicker doors to the saloon, and the man pushed these open, and went in—but he did not go far. Dave Henderson's lips thinned grimly. The bottom of the swinging doors was a good foot and a half above the level of the sidewalk—but, being so far gone in liquor, he would hardly be expected to notice the fact that the man's boots remained visible, and that the man was standing there motionless!
Dave Henderson took the street lamp into his confidence.
“Ol' Kelly,” said Dave Henderson thickly. “Uster know Kelly—Square John. Gotta have money. Whatsh matter with touching Kelly? Eh—whatsh matter with that?”
He lurched toward the swinging doors. The boots retreated suddenly. He pushed his way through, and stood surveying the old-time familiar surroundings owlishly. The man with the brown cap was leaning against the bar close to the door; a half dozen others were ranged farther down along its length; and at its lower end, lounging against the wall of the little private office, was a squat, paunchy man with a bald head, and florid face, and keen gray eyes under enormously bushy gray eyebrows. It was Kelly, just as Kelly used to be—even to the massive gold watch chain stretched across the vest, with the massive gold fraternity emblem dangling down from the center.
“'Ello, Kelly!” Dave Henderson called out effusively, and made rapid, though somewhat erratic progress across the room to Kelly's side. “Glad t'see you, ol' boy!” He gave Kelly no chance to say anything. He caught Kelly's hand, and pumped it up and down. “Sure, you know me! Dave Henderson—ol' days at the track, eh? Been away on a vacation. Come back—broke.” His voice took on a drunkenly confidential tone—that could be heard everywhere in the saloon, “Shay, could I see you a minute in private?”
A man at the bar laughed. Dave Henderson wheeled belligerently. Kelly intervened.
Perplexity, mingling with surprise and disapproval, stamped Kelly's florid face.
“Yes, I know you well enough; but I didn't expect to see you like this, Dave!” he said shortly. He jerked his hand toward the door of the private office. “I'll talk to you in there.”
Dave Henderson entered the office.
Kelly shut the door behind them.
“You're drunk!” he said sternly.
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“No,” he said quietly. “I'm followed. Do you think I'm a fool, John? Did you ever see me drunk? They're shadowing me, that's all; and I had to get my money from you, and keep your skirts clean, and spot the shadow, all at the same time.”
Kelly's jaw sagged helplessly.
“Good God!” he ejaculated heavily. “Dave, I———”
“Don't let's talk, John—now,” Dave Henderson interrupted. “There isn't time. It won't do for me to stay in here too long. 'You've got my money ready, haven't you?”
Kelly nodded—still a little helplessly.
“Yes,” he said; “it's ready. I've been looking for you all afternoon. I knew you were coming out today.” He went over to a safe in the corner, opened it, took out a long envelope, and handed the envelope to Dave Henderson. “It's all there, Dave—and five years' interest, compounded. A little over four thousand dollars—four thousand and fifteen, as near as I could figure it. It's all in five-hundreds and hundreds, except the fifteen; I didn't think you'd want to pack a big wad.”
“Good old Square John!” said Dave Henderson softly. He opened the envelope, took out the fifteen dollars, shoved the large bills into his pocket, tucked a five-dollar bill into another pocket, and held out the remaining ten to Kelly. “Go out there and get me ten dollars from the cash register, John, will you?” he said. “Let them see you doing it. Get the idea? I'd like them to know you came across, and that I've got something to spend.”
Kelly's eyes puckered in an anxious way, as they scrutinized Dave Henderson's face; but the anxiety, it was obvious enough, was all for Dave Henderson.
“You mean there's some one out there now?” he asked, as he moved toward the door.
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson, with a grim little smile. “See if you know that fellow with the brown peaked cap up at the front end of the bar.”
Kelly was gone a matter of two or three minutes. He came back and returned the ten dollars to Dave Henderson.
“Know the man?” asked Dave Henderson.
“Yes,” said Kelly. “His name's Speen—he's a plain-clothesman.” He shook his head in a troubled way, and suddenly laid both hands on Dave Henderson's shoulders. “Dave, what are you going to do?”
Dave Henderson laughed shortly.
“Do you want to know?” He flung out the words in a sort of bitter gibe. “Well, I'll tell you—in confidence. I'm going to blow the head off afriendof mine.”
Dave Henderson felt the hands on his shoulders tighten.
“What's the use, Dave?” said Square John Kelly quietly. “I suppose it has something to do with that Tydeman wad; but what's the use? You've got four thousand dollars. Why not start clean again? The other don't pay, Dave, and——” He stopped.
Dave Henderson's face had hardened like flint.
“There's a good deal you don't know,” he said evenly. “And I guess the less you know the safer you'll be. I owe you a lot, John; and the only way I can square it now is to tell you to stand from under. What you say, though I know you mean it, doesn't make any dint in five years of hell. I've got a debt to pay, and I'm going to pay it. Maybe I'll see you again—maybe I won't. But even a prison bird can say God bless you, and mean it; and that's what I say to you. They won't have any suspicions that there's anything of any kind between you and me; but they'll naturally come here to see if they can get any information, when that fellow Speen out there turns in his report. You can tell them you advised me to start clean again, and you can tell them that I swear I don't know where that hundred thousand dollars is. They won't believe it, and you don't believe it. But let it go at that! I don't know what's going to break loose, but you stand from under, John. I'm going now—to get acquainted with Mr. Speen. It wouldn't look just right, in my supposed condition, for you to let me have another drink in your place, after having staked me; but I've got to make at least a bluff at it. You stay here for a few minutes—and then come out and chase me home.” He held out his hand, wrung Square John Kelly's in a hard grip, turned abruptly away—and staggered out into the barroom.
Clutching his ten dollars in his hand, and glancing furtively back over his shoulder every step or two, Dave Henderson neared the door. Here, apparently reassured that his benefactor was not watching him, and apparently succumbing to an irresistible temptation, he sidled up to the bar—beside the man with the brown peaked cap.
“Kelly's all right—s'il right,” he confided thickly to the other. “Ol' friend. Never turns down ol' friend in hard luck. Square John—betcher life! Have a drink?”
“Sure!” said the man in the brown peaked cap.
The drink was ordered, and as Dave Henderson, talking garrulously, poured out his whisky—a genuine glassful this time—he caught sight, in the mirror behind the bar, and out of the corner of his eye, of Kelly advancing down the room from the private office. And as he lifted his glass, Kelly's hand, reaching from behind, caught the glass, and set it back on the bar.
“You promised me you'd go home, and cut this out!” said Kelly in sharp reproof. “Now, go on!” He turned on the detective. “Yes, and you, too! Get out of here! You ought to know better! The man's had enough! Haven't you got anything else to do than hang around bumming drinks? I know you, and I've a mind to report you! Get out!”
Dave Henderson slunk out through the door without protest. On the sidewalk the man with the brown peaked cap joined him.
“Kelly's sore.” Dave Henderson's tones were heavy with tolerant pity and magnanimous forgiveness. “Ol' friend—be all right to-morrow. Letsh go somewhere else for a drink. Whatsher shay?”
“Sure!” said the man in the brown peaked cap.
The detective was complacently agreeable to all suggestions. It was Dave Henderson who acted as guide; and he began a circuit of saloons in a direction that brought him sensibly nearer at each visit to the street and house occupied by one Nicolo Capriano. In the same block with Capriano's house he had noticed that there was also a saloon, and if Capriano's house had an exit on the lane, so, likewise, it was logical to presume, had the saloon. And that saloon now, barring intermediate stops, was his objective. But he was in no hurry. There was one point on which he had still to satisfy himself before he gave this man Speen the slip in that saloon and, by the lane, gained the rear door of Nicolo Capriano's house. He knew now that he was dealing with the police; but was Speen detailedaloneto the case, or did Speen have assistance at hand in the background—assistance enough, say, to have scared off any move on the part of Bookie Skarvan's and Baldy Vickers' gang, of whom, certainly, he had seen nothing as yet?
A half hour passed. Several saloons were visited. Dave Henderson no longer cupped his hand around his glass. Having had nothing to start with, he could drink frankly, and a shaky hand could be trusted to spill any over-generous portions. They became confidential. He confided to Speen what Speen already knew—that he, Dave Henderson,wasDave Henderson, and just out from the penitentiary. Speen, stating that his name was Monahan, reciprocated with mendacious confidences that implied he was puritanical in neither his mode of life nor his means of livelihood—and began to throw out hints that he was not averse to a share in any game that Dave Henderson might have on hand.
Dave Henderson got along very badly now between the various oases that quenched his raging thirst. He leaned heavily on Speen, he stumbled frequently, and, in stumbling, obtained equally frequent views of both sides of the street behind him. No one seemed to be paying any attention to his companion or himself, and yet once or twice he had caught sight of skulking figures that, momentarily at least, had aroused his suspicions. But in this neighborhood there were many skulking figures! Again he could not be sure; but the saloon in Capriano's block was the next one ahead now, and certainly nothing had transpired that would seem to necessitate any change being made in his plans.
Speen, too, was feigning now a certain degree of intoxication. They reached the saloon, reeled through the door arm in arm, and ranged up alongside the bar.
Dave Henderson's eyes swept his surroundings, critical of every detail. It was an unpleasant and dirty place; and the few loungers, some seated at little tables, some hanging over the bar itself, were a hard and ugly looking lot.
The clientele, however, interested Dave Henderson very little—at the rear of the room, and but a few yards from the end of the bar, there was an open door, disclosing a short passage beyond, that interested him a great deal more! Beyond that passage was undoubtedly the back yard, and beyond that again was the lane. He had no desire to harm Speen, none whatever; but if any one of a dozen pretexts, that he might make to elude the man for the moment or two that was necessary to gain the yard unobserved, did not succeed, and Speen persisted in following him out there into the yard—well, so much the worse for Speen, that was all!
He was arguing now with Speen, each claiming the right to pay for the drink—but his mind was sifting through those dozen pretexts for the most plausible one to employ. He kept on arguing. Customers slouched in and out of the place; some sat down at the tables, some came to the bar. One, a hulk of a man, unshaven, with bull-breadth shoulders, with nose flattened over on one side of his cheek, stepped up to the bar beside Speen. Speen's back was turned, but the man grinned hospitably at Dave Henderson over Speen's shoulder, as he listened to the argument for a moment.
“Put away your money, son, an' have a drink with me,” he invited.
Speen turned.
The grin on the battered face of the newcomer faded instantly, as he stared with apparently sudden recognition into Speen's face; and a black, ugly scowl spread over the already unhandsome features.
“Oh, it'syou, is it?” he said hoarsely, and licked his lips. “By God, you got a nerve to come down here—you have! You dirty police spy!”
Speen was evidently not easily stampeded. He eyed the other levelly.
“I guess you've got the wrong man, haven't you?” he returned coolly enough. “My name's Monahan, and I don't know you.”
“You lie!” snarled the other viciously. “Your name's Speen! And you don't know me—don't you?”
“No!” said Speen.
“You don't, eh?” The man thrust his face almost into Speen's. “You don't remember a year ago gettin' me six months on a fake plant, either, I suppose!”
“No!” said Speen.
“You don't, eh?” snarled the man again. “A hell of a bad memory you've got, ain't you? Well, I'll fix it for you so's you won't forget me so easy next time, and——-”
It came quick, without warning—before Dave Henderson could move. He saw a great, grimy fist whip forward to the point of Speen's jaw, and he caught a tiny reflected gleam of light from an ugly brass knuckleduster on one of the fingers of the clenched fist; and Speen's knees seemed to crumple up under him, and he went down in a heap to the floor.
Dave Henderson straightened up from the bar, a hard, grim smile twisting across his lips. It had been a brutal act. Speen might be a policeman, and Speen, lying there senseless, solved a certain little difficulty without further effort on his, Dave Henderson's, part; but the brutality of the act had him in its grip. There was a curious itching at his finger tips for a clutch that would maul this already battered bruiser's face beyond recognition. His eyes circled the room. The men at the tables had risen to their feet; some were pushing forward, and one, he saw over his shoulder, ran around the far end of the bar and disappeared. Speen lay inert, a huddled thing on the floor, a crimson stream spilling its way down over the man's white collar.
The twisted smile on Dave Henderson's lips deepened. The bruiser was watching him like a cat, and there was a leer on the other's face that seemed to possess some hidden significance. Well, perhaps he would change that leer, with whatever its significance might be, into something still more unhappy! He moved a few inches out from the bar. He wanted room for arm-play now, and——
The street door opened. Four or five men were crowding in. He caught a glimpse of a face among them that he knew—a little wizened face, crowned with flaming red hair—Runty Mott.
And then the lights went out.
Quick as a lightning flash Dave Henderson dropped to his hands and knees. There was a grunt above him, as though from the swing of a terrific blow that, meeting with no resistance, had over-reached itself in midair—then the forward lunge of a heavy body, a snarl, an oath, as the bruiser stumbled over Dave Henderson's crouched form—and then a crash, as Dave Henderson grappled, low down at the other's knees, and the man went to the floor. But the other, for all his weight and bulk, was lithe and agile, and his arms, flung out, circled and locked around Dave Henderson's neck.
The place was in pandemonium. Feet scuffled; chairs and tables toppled over in the darkness. Shouts, yells and curses made a din infernal. Dave Henderson wrenched and tore at the arms around his neck. He saw it all now—all. The police had trailed him; Baldy Vickers' gang had trailed the police. The bruiser was one of the gang. They had to get rid of the police, in the person of Speen, to cover their own trail again before they got him, Dave Henderson. And they, too, had thought him drunk, and an easy prey. With Speen unconscious from a quarrel that even Speen, when he recovered, would never connect with its real purpose, they meant to kidnap him, Dave Henderson, and get him away in the confusion without any of the innocent bystanders in the place knowing what was going on. That was why the lights had gone off—that man he had seen running around the upper end of the room—he remembered now—the man had come in just behind the bruiser—that accounted for the lights—they wouldn't dare shoot—he had that advantage—dead, he wasn't any good to them—they wanted that—hundred—thousand—dollars.
He was choking. Instead of arms, steel fingers had sunk into his throat. He lunged out with all his strength. His fist met something that, though it yielded slightly, brought a brutal twinge of pain across his knuckles. His fist shot out again, whipped to its mark with everything that was in him behind the blow; and it was the bruiser's face he hit. He hit it again, and, over the mad fury that was upon him, he knew an unholy joy as his blows crashed home.
The steel fingers around his throat relaxed and fell away. He staggered to his feet.
A voice from somewhere close at hand spoke hoarsely:
“Scrag him, Mugsy! See that he's knocked cold before we carry him out!”
There was no answer from the floor.
Dave Henderson's lips were no longer twisted in a smile, they were thinned and straight; he knew why there was no answer from the floor! He crouched, gathering himself for a spring. Dark, shadowy forms were crowding in around him. There was only one chance—the door now, the rear door, and the lane! Voices growled and cursed, seemingly almost in his ears. They had him hemmed against the bar without knowing it, as they clustered around the spot where they expected he was being strangled into unconsciousness on the floor.
“Mugsy, d'ye hear! Damn you, d'ye hear! Why don't you——”
Dave Henderson launched himself forward. A wild yell went up. Hands clutched at him, and tore at his clothing, and struck at his face; forms flung themselves at his shoulders, and clung around his legs. He shook them off—and gained a few yards. He was fighting like a madman now—and now the darkness was in his favor.
They came on again in a blind rush. The door could not be far away! He stumbled over one of the small tables, recovered himself, and, snatching up the table, whirled it by one of its legs in a sweep around his head. There was a smash of impact that almost knocked the table from his grasp—and, coincidentally, a scream of pain. It cleared a space about him. He swung again, whirling the table around and around his head, gaining impetus—and suddenly sent it catapulting from him full into the shadowy forms in front of him, and, turning, made a dash for the end of the room.
He reached the wall, and groped along it for the door. The door! Where was it? He felt the warm, blood trickling down over his face. He did not remember when that had happened! He could not see—but they would turn on the lights surely now in an instant if they were not fools—and he must find the door first or he was trapped—that was his only chance—the place was a bedlam of hideous riot—curse the blood, it seemed to be running into his eyes now—Runty Mott—if only he could have settled with the skulking——
His fingers touched and felt around the jamb of the open door—and he surged, panting, through the doorway. The short passage ended in another door. He opened this, found the yard in front of him, dashed across it, and hurled himself over the fence into the lane.
The uproar, the yells, the furious shouts from behind him seemed suddenly to increase in volume. He ran the faster. They had turned the lights on—and found him gone! From somewhere in the direction of the street there came the shrill cheep-cheep of a patrolman's whistle. Yes, he quite understood that, too—there would be a riot call pulled in a minute, but that made little difference to him. It was the gangsters, who were now probably pouring out of the saloon's back door in pursuit of him, with whom he had to reckon. But he should be safe now—he was abreast of Capriano's house, which he could distinguish even in the darkness because the extension stuck out like some great, black looming shadow from the row of other houses.
There was a gate here somewhere, or a door in the fence, undoubtedly; but he had no time to hunt for gate or door, perhaps only to find it locked! The fence was quicker and easier. He swung himself up, and over—and, scarcely a yard away, found himself confronted with what looked like an enclosed porch or vestibule to the Italian's back door.
He was quick now, but equally silent in his movements. From the direction of the saloon, shouts reached him, the voices no longer muffled, but as though they were out in the open—in the back yard of the saloon perhaps, or perhaps by now in the lane itself. He stepped inside the porch, and knocked softly on the door. He knocked again and again. It seemed as though the seconds dragged themselves out into immeasureable periods of time. He swept the blood out of his eyes once more, and, his ears strained laneward, continued to knock insistently, louder and louder.
A light footstep, hurried, sounded from within. It halted on the other side of the closed door. He had a feeling that somehow, even through that closed door, and even in the darkness, he was under inspection. The next instant he was sure of it. Above his head a small incandescent bulb suddenly flooded the porch with light, and fell full upon him as he stood there, a ghastly object, he realized, with blood-stained face, and torn and dishevelled clothes.
From behind the closed door came a girl's startled gasp of dismay and alarm; from up the lane now unmistakably came the pound of racing feet.
“Quick!” whispered Dave Henderson hoarsely. “I'm from Tony Lomazzi. For God's sake, put out that light!”