THE light in the porch went out. From within, as though with slow, dubious hesitation, a key turned in the lock. The door opened slightly, and from a dark interior the girl's voice reached Dave Henderson again.
“Tony Lomazzi sent you, you say!” she exclaimed in a puzzled way; and then, a sudden apprehension in her voice: “You are all covered with blood—what is the matter? What do you want?”
From the lane, the sound of pounding, racing feet seemed almost opposite the Italian's porch now. Dave Henderson, without ceremony, pushed at the door. It yielded, as the girl evidently retreated backward abruptly, and he stepped inside, closed the door softly behind him, and, feeling for the key, turned it swiftly in the lock. He could see nothing, but out of the darkness near him came a sharp, quick-drawn intake of breath.
“I'm sorry!” said Dave Henderson quietly. “But it was a bit of a close call. I'm not quite sure whether they are running after me, or running from the police, but, either way, it would have been a little awkward if I had been seen.”
She seemed to have regained her composure, for her voice, as she spoke again, was as quiet and as evenly modulated as his own.
“What do you want?” she asked once more. “Why did Tony Lomazzi send you here?”
He did not answer at once. From somewhere in the front of the house, muffled, but still quite audible, there came the voices of two men—one high-pitched, querulous, curiously short-breathed, the other with a sort of monotonous, sullen whine in it. He listened automatically for an instant, as his eyes searched around him. It was almost black inside here as he stood with his back to the door, but, grown more accustomed to the darkness now, he could make out a faint, blurred form, obviously that of the girl, a few feet away from him.
“I want to see Nicolo Capriano,” he said.
It was her turn now to pause before she answered.
“Is it necessary?” she asked finally.
“To me—yes,” said Dave Henderson.
“My father has already had far too much excitement to-night,” she said in a low voice. “He is a very sick man. There is some one with him now. If you could give me the message it would be better. As for any help you need, for you appear to be hurt, I will gladly attend to that myself. You may be assured of that, if you come from Tony Lomazzi.”
She was Nicolo Capriano's daughter, then! It struck him as a passing thought, though of no particular consequence, that she spoke excellent English for an Italian girl.
“I'm afraid that won't do,” said Dave Henderson seriously. “It is practically a matter of life and death to me to see Nicolo Capriano, and——”
From the front of the house the querulous voice rose suddenly in a still higher pitch:
“Teresa! Teresa!”
“Yes, I am coming!” the girl cried out; and then, hurriedly, to Dave Henderson: “Wait here a moment. I will tell him. What is your name?”
Dave Henderson smiled a little queerly in the darkness.
“If he is alone when you tell him, it is Dave Henderson,” he said dryly. “Otherwise, it is Smith—John Smith.”
She was gone.
He listened as her footsteps died away in the darkness; and then he listened again at the door. There was still a great deal of commotion out there in the lane, but certainly there was nothing to indicate that he and Nicolo Capriano's back porch had in any way been suspected of having had anything in common; it was, rather, as though the entire saloon up there had emptied itself in haste into the lane, and was running pell-mell in an effort to be anywhere but in that vicinity when the police arrived. Well, so much the better! For the moment, at least, he had evaded the trap set for him both by Bookie Skarvan's pack and by the police—and the next move depended very largely upon Nicolo Capriano, or, perhaps even more, upon this daughter of his, since the old man, it seemed, was sick. The girl's name was apparently Teresa—which mattered very little. What mattered a great deal more was that she evidently had her wits about her—an inheritance possibly from the old man, whose reputation, in his day, as one of the coolest and shrewdest of those outside the pale of the law, was at least substantiated by the fact that he had been able to stand off the police for practically a lifetime.
Dave Henderson raised his hand, and felt gingerly over his right temple. The blood had stopped flowing, but there was a large and well-defined lump there. He did not remember at just what particular stage of the fight that had happened. From his head, his hand felt over his clothing. He nodded a little ruefully to himself. He had come off far from scathless—his coat had almost literally been torn from his back.
Voices reached him again from the front of the house; he heard the girl speaking quietly in Italian; he heard some response in the sullen whine that he had remarked before; and then the street door opened and closed. There was silence then for what seemed a long time, until finally he caught the sound of the girl's step coming toward him again.
“My father will see you,” she said. “But I want to warn you again that he is a very sick man—sicker than he imagines he is. It is his heart.”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
“Come with me, then,” she said tersely. “There is a door here—the passage turns to the right. Can you see?”
It was a queer place—with its darkness, and its twisted passage! Quite queer for so small and ordinary a dwelling—but, if rumor were true, it had been queerer still in the years gone by! A grim smile crossed Dave Henderson's lips, as he followed the shadowy form of his conductor. It augured well, at all events! The surroundings at least bore out Nicolo Capriano's record, which was a record much to be desired by a man in his, Dave Henderson's, straits.
The light from an open door beyond the turn in the passage dispelled the darkness. The girl was standing there now, motioning him to enter—but suddenly, for a moment, he stood and stared at her. This was queer, too! Everything about the place was queer! Somehow he had pictured in the darkness an Italian girl, pretty enough perhaps in a purely physical way, with gold rings in her ears, perhaps, such as the men wore, and slatternly, with feet shod in coarse, thick boots; the only kind of an Italian girl he had ever remembered having seen—a girl that hauled at the straps of a hand-organ, while the man plodded along the streets between the shafts. She wasn't like that, though—and he stared at her; stared at the trim, lithe, daintily dressed little figure, stared at the oval face, and the dark, steady, self-reliant eyes, and the wealth of rich, black hair that crowned the broad, white forehead, and glinted like silken strands, as the light fell upon it.
The color mounted in her cheeks.
And then, with a start, he pushed his hand across his eyes, and bit his lips, and flushed a deeper red than hers.
Her eyes, that had begun to harden as they met his gaze, softened in an instant, and she smiled. His confusion had been his apology, his acquittal of any intended offense.
She motioned again to him to enter, and, as he stepped forward across the threshold, she reached in and rested her hand on the doorknob.
“You can call when you need me, father,” she said—-and closed the door softly.
Dave Henderson's eyes swept the room with a swift, comprehensive glance; and then held steadily on a pair of jet-black eyes, so black that they seemed to possess no pupils, which were in turn fixed on him by a strange-looking figure, lying on a quaint, old-fashioned, four-poster bed across the room. He moved forward and took a chair at the bedside, as the other beckoned to him.
So this was Nicolo Capriano! The man was propped upright in bed by means of pillows that were supported by an inverted chair behind them; both hands, very white, very blue under the nails of the long, slender fingers, lay out-stretched before him on an immaculately white coverlet; the man's hair was silver, and a white beard and mustache but partially disguised the thin, emaciated condition of his face. But it was the eyes that above all else commanded attention. They were unnaturally bright, gleaming out from under enormously white, bushy eyebrows; and they were curiously inscrutable eyes. They seemed to hold great depths beneath which might smolder a passion that would leap without warning into flame; or to hold, as they did now, a strange introspective stare, making them like shuttered windows that gave no glimpse of the mind within.
“I am Nicolo Capriano,” said the man abruptly, and in perfect English. “My daughter tells me that you gave your name as Dave Henderson. The name seems familiar. I have heard it somewhere. I remember, it seems to me, a little matter of one hundred thousand dollars some five years ago, for which a man by that name went to the penitentiary.”
Dave Henderson's eyes wandered for a moment around the room again. He found himself wondering at the man's English—as he had at the girl's. Subconsciously he was aware that the furnishings, though plain and simple and lacking in anything ornate, were foreign and unusual, but that the outstanding feature of the room was a sort of refreshing and immaculate cleanliness—like the coverlet. He forced his mind back to what Nicolo Capriano had said.
Were all his cards to go face up on the table for Nicolo Capriano to see?
He had intended to make no more of a confidant of the other than was absolutely necessary; but, equally, he had not expected to find in Nicolo Capriano a physically helpless and bed-ridden man. It made a difference—a very great difference! If Millman, for instance, had been bed-ridden, it—— He caught himself smiling a little mirthlessly.
“That's me—Dave Henderson,” he said calmly.
The old Italian nodded his head.
“And the hundred thousand dollars has never been recovered,” he observed shrewdly. “The police are interested in your movements, eh? It is for that reason you have come to me, is it not so? And Tony Lomazzi foresaw all this—and he sent you here?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson—and frowned suddenly. It was bothering him again—the fact that this Italian and his daughter should speak English as though it were their own tongue.
Nicolo Capriano nodded his head again. And then, astutely:
“Something is disturbing you, my young friend,” he said. “What is it?”
Dave Henderson straightened in his chair with a little start—and laughed shortly. Very little, evidently, escaped Nicolo Capriano!
“It's not much,” he said. “Just that you and your daughter speak pretty good English for Italians.”
Nicolo Capriano smiled softly.
“I should speak pretty good English,” he said; “and Teresa should speak it even better. We both learned it as children. I, in a certain part of London, as a boy; and Teresa here in San Francisco, where she was born. Her mother was American, and, though I taught Teresa Italian, we always spoke English while her mother was alive, and afterwards my daughter seemed to think we should continue to do so.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But you came from Lomazzi,” he prompted. “Tell me about Lomazzi. He is well?”
“He is dead,” said Dave Henderson quietly.
The thin hands, outstretched before the other, closed with a quick twitching motion—then opened, and the fingers began to pluck abstractedly at the coverlet. There was no other sign of emotion, or movement from the figure on the bed, except that the keen, black eyes were veiled now by half closed lids.
“He died—fifteen years ago—when he went up there—for life”—the man seemed to be communing with himself. “Yes, yes; he is dead—he has been dead for fifteen years.” He looked up suddenly, and fixed his eyes with a sharp, curiously appraising gaze on Dave Henderson. “You speak of actual death, of course,” he said, in a low tone. “Do you know anything of the circumstances?”
“It was two months ago,” Dave Henderson answered. “He was taken ill one night. His cell was next to mine. He was my friend. He asked for me, and the warden let me go to him. He died in a very few minutes. It was then, while I was in the cell, that he whispered to me that I would need help when I got out, and he told me to come to you, and to say that he sent me.”
“And to the warden, and whoever else was in the cell, he said—nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano's eyes were hidden again; the long, slim fingers, with blue-tipped nails, plucked at the coverlet. It was a full minute before he spoke.
“I owe Tony Lomazzi a great debt,” he said slowly; “and I would like to repay it in a little way by helping you since he has asked it; but it is not to-day, young man, as it was in those days so long ago. For fifteen years I have not lifted my hand against the police. And it is obviously for help from the police that you come to me. You have served your term, and the police would not molest you further except for a good reason. Is it not so? And the reason is not far to seek, I think. It is the money which was never recovered that they are after. You have it hidden somewhere. You know where it is, and you wish to outwit the police while you secure it. Am I not right?”
Dave Henderson glanced at the impassive face propped up on the pillows. Old Nicolo Capriano in no way belied his reputation for shrewdness; the man's brain, however physically ill he might be otherwise, had at least not lost its cunning.
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson, with a short, sudden laugh, “you are right—but also you are wrong. It is the police that I want to get away from, and it is on account of that money, which, it is also true, I hid away before I went up; but it is not only the police, it is the gang of crooks who put me in wrong at the trial who are trying to grab it, too—only, as it stands now, I don't know where the money is myself. I trusted a fellow in the jug, who got out two months ahead of me—and he did me.”
The white bushy eyebrows went up.
“So!” ejaculated the old Italian. “Well, then, what is the use!”
“A whole lot!” returned Dave Henderson grimly. “To get the fellow if I can! And I can't do that with the police, and a gang of crooks besides, at my heels, can I?”
Nicolo Capriano shook his head meditatively.
“I have my daughter to think of,” he said. “Listen, young man, it has not been easy to stand square with the police during these years as it is, and that without any initiative act on my part that would stir them up against me again. Old associations and old records are not so easily got rid of. I will give you an example. There was a man here to-night—when you came. His name is Ignace Ferroni. He was one of us in the old days—do you understand? When the trouble came for which Tony Lomazzi suffered, Ignace managed to get away. I had not seen him from that day to this. He came back here to-night for help—for a very strange kind of help. He was one of us, I have said, and he had not forgotten his old ways. He had a bomb, a small bomb in his pocket, whose mechanism had gone wrong. He had already planted it once to-night, and finding it did not explode, he picked it up again, and brought it to me, and asked me to fix it for him. It was an old feud he had with some one, he would not tell me who, that he had been nursing all this time. I think his passion for vengeance had perhaps turned his head a little. I refused to have anything to do with his bomb, of course, and he left here in a rage, and in his condition he is as likely to turn on me as he is to carry out his original intention. But, that apart, what am I to do now? He was one of us, I cannot expose him to the police—he would be sentenced to a long term. And yet, if his bomb explodes, to whom will the police come first? To me!” Nicolo Capriano suddenly raised his hands, and they were clenched—and as suddenly caught his breath, and choked, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. The next instant he was smiling mirthlessly with twitching lips. “Yes, to me—to me, whom some fool amongst them once called the Dago Bomb King, which they will never forget! It is always to me they come! Any crime that seems to have the slightest Italian tinge—and they come to Nicolo Capriano!” He shrugged his shoulders. “You see, young man, it is not easy for me to steer my way unmolested even when I am wholly innocent. But I, too, do not forget! I do not forget Tony Lomazzi! Tell me exactly what you want me to do. You think you can find the man and the money if you can throw the police and the others off your trail?”
“Yes!” said Dave Henderson, with ominous quiet. “That's my job in life now! If I could disappear for three or four days, I guess that's all the start I'd need.” There was a tolerant smile now on the old bomb king's lips.
“Three or four days would be a very easy matter,” he answered. “But after that—what? It might do very well in respect to this gang of crooks; but it would be of very little avail where the police are concerned, for they would simply do what the crooks could not do—see that every plain-clothesman and officer on this continent was on the watch for you. Do you imagine that, believing you know where the money is, the police will forget all about you in three or four days?”
“No,” admitted Dave Henderson, with the same ominous quiet; “but all I ask is a fighting chance.” Nicolo Capriano stared in speculative silence for a moment.
“You have courage, my young friend!” he said softly. “I like that—also I do not like the police. But three or four days!” He shook his head. “You do not know the police as I know them! And this man you trusted, and who, as I understand, got away with the money, do you know where to find him?”
“I think he is in New York,” Dave Henderson answered.
“Ah! New York!” Nicolo Capriano nodded. “But New York is a world in itself. He did not give you his address, and then rob you, I suppose!”
Dave Henderson did not answer for a moment. What Nicolo Capriano said was very true! But the rendezvous that Millman had given was, on the face of it, a fake anyhow. That had been his own opinion from the start; but during the two years Millman and he had been together in prison there had been many little inadvertent remarks in conversation that had, beyond question of doubt, stamped Millman as a New Yorker. Perhaps Millman had remembered that when he had given the rendezvous in New York—to give color to its genuineness—because it was the only natural place he could propose if he was to carry out logically the stories he had told for two long years.
“You do not answer?” suggested Nicolo Capriano patiently.
It was on Dave Henderson's tongue to lay the whole story bare to the date, day and hour of that hotel rendezvous, but instead he shook his head. He was conscious of no distrust of the other. Why should he be distrustful! It was not that. It seemed more an innate caution, that was an absurd caution now because the rendezvous meant nothing anyhow, that had sprung up spontaneously within him. He felt that he was suddenly illogical. Fie found himself answering in a savage, dogged sort of way.
“That's all right!” he said. “I haven't got his address—but New York is good enough. He spilled too much in prison for me not to know that's where he hangs out. I'll get him—if I can only shake the police.”
Nicolo Capriano's blue-tipped fingers went straggling through the long white beard.
“The police!” He was whispering—seemingly to himself. “It is always the police—a lifetime of the cursed police—and I have my daughter to think of—but I do not forget Tony Lomazzi—Teresa would not have me forget.” He spoke abruptly to Dave Henderson. “Tell me about to-night. My daughter says you came here like a hunted thing, and it is very evident that you have been in a fight. I suppose it was with the police, or with this gang you speak of; but, in that case, you have ruined any chance of help from me if you have led them here—if, for instance, they are waiting now for you to come out again.”
“I do not think they are waiting!” said Dave Henderson, with a twisted smile. “And I think that the police end of to-night, and maybe some of the rest of it as well, is in the hospital by now! It's not much of a story—but unless that light in your back porch, which was on for about two seconds, could be seen up the lane, there's no one could know that I am here.”
The old Italian smiled curiously.
“I do not put lights where they act as beacons,” he said whimsically. “It does not show from the lane; it is for the benefit of thoseinsidethe house. Tell me your story.”
“It's not much,” said Dave Henderson again. “The police shadowed me from the minute I left the penitentiary to-day. To-night I handed them a little come-on, that's all, so as to make sure that I had side-tracked them before coming here. And then the gang, Baldy Vickers' gang——”
“Vickers—Baldy Vickers! Yes, yes, I know; they hang out at Jake Morrissey's place!” exclaimed the old bomb king suddenly. “Runty Mott, and——”
“It was Runty Mott that butted in to-night,” said Dave Henderson, with a short laugh. “I had the fly-cop going, all right. I let him pick me up in a saloon over the bar. He thought I was pretty drunk even then. We started in to make a night of it—and the fly-cop was going to get a drunken man to spill all the history of his life, and incidentally get him to lead the way to where a certain little sum of money was! Understand? I kept heading in this direction, for I had looked the lay of the land over this afternoon. That saloon up the street was booked as my last stopping place. I was going to shake the fly-cop there, and——” Dave Henderson paused.
Nicolo Capriano was leaning forward in his bed, and there was a new, feverish light in the coal-black eyes—like some long-smoldering flame leaping suddenly into a blaze.
“Go on!” he breathed impatiently. “Go on! Ah! I can see it all!”
“Runty Mott and his crowd must have been trailing me.” Dave Henderson smiled grimly. “They thought both the fly-cop and myself were drunk. But to cover their own game and make their play at me they had to get the fly-cop out of the road first. One of the gang came into the saloon, faked a quarrel with the fly-cop, and knocked him out. I didn't know what was up until then, when I caught sight of Runty Mott and the rest of his crowd pushing in through the door.” Dave Henderson's smile grew a little grimmer. “That's all! They started something—but they didn't finish it! They had it all framed up well enough—the lights switched off, and all that, so as to lay me out and kidnap me, and then stow me away somewhere and make me talk.” He jerked his hand toward his torn garments. “There was a bit of a fight,” he said quietly. “I left them there pawing the air in the dark, and I was down here in your porch before any of them got out to the lane. I fancy there's some little row up there now on account of that fly-cop they put to sleep.”
Nicolo Capriano's hand reached out, and began to pat excitedly at Dave Henderson's sleeve.
“It is like the old days!” he said feverishly. “It is like the young blood warming up an old man's veins again. Yes, yes; it is like the old days back once more! Ah, my young friend, if I had had you on the night that Tony Lomazzi was trapped, instead of—but that is too late, eh? Yes—too late! But you are clever, and you use your head, and you have the courage. That is what I like! Yes, assuredly, I will help you, and not only for Tony Lomazzi's sake, but for your own. You shall have your chance, your fighting chance, my young friend, and you will run down your man”—his voice was rising in excitement—“and the money—eh! Yes, yes! And Nicolo Capriano will help you!” He raised his voice still higher. “Teresa! Here, Teresa!” he shouted.
The door opened; the girl stood on the threshold.
“Father,” she said reprovingly, “you are exciting yourself again.”
The old bomb king's voice was instantly subdued.
“No, I am not! You see—my little one! You see, I am quite calm. And now listen to me. This is Tony Lomazzi's friend, and he is therefore our friend. Is it not so? Well, then, listen! He is in need of help. The police must not get him. So, first, he must have some clothes instead of those torn ones. Get him some of mine. They will not fit very well—but they will do. Then you will telephone Emmanuel that I have a guest for him who does not like the police, a guest by the name of Smith—that is enough for him to know. And tell Emmanuel that he is to come with his car, and wait a block below the lane. And after that again you will go out, Teresa, and let us know if all is safe, and if there is still any police, or any one else, in the lane. Eh? Well, run then!”
“Yes,” she said. She was looking at Dave Henderson now, and there was a friendly smile in the dark, steady eyes, though she still addressed her father. “And what news does he bring us of Tony?”
“You will know by and by, when there is time,” her father answered with sudden brusqueness. “Run, now!”
She was back in a few moments with an armful of clothes; then once more left the room, this time closing the door behind her.
Nicolo Capriano pointed to a second door at the side of the room.
“There is the bathroom, my young friend,” he said crisply. “Go in there and wash the blood off your face, and change your clothes.”
Dave Henderson hesitated.
“Do you think it is safe for her, for your daughter, to go out there?” he demurred. “There was more of a row than perhaps I led you to imagine, and the police——”
“Safe!” The old Italian grinned suddenly in derision. “Listen, my young friend, you need have no fear. My daughter is a Capriano—eh? Yes, and like her father, she is more than a match for all the police in San Francisco. Go now, and change! It will not take Emmanuel long to get here.”
It took Dave Henderson perhaps ten minutes to wash and bathe his bruises, and change into the Italian's clothes. At the expiration of that time, he surveyed the result in a small mirror that hung on the wall. The clothes were ready-made, and far from new; they were ill-fitting, and they bulged badly in places. His appearance was not flattering! He might have passed for an Italian navvy in hard luck and—— He smiled queerly, as he turned from the mirror and transferred the money he had received from Square John Kelly, together with his few belongings, from the pockets of his discarded suit to those of the one he now had on. He stepped out into the bedroom.
Nicolo Capriano in turn surveyed the metamorphosis critically for a moment—and nodded his head in approval.
“Good!” ejaculated the old bomb king. “Excellent!” He rubbed his thin fingers together. “Yes, yes, it is like the old days again! Ha, ha, old Nicolo still plays a hand in the game, and old Nicolo's head is still on his shoulders. Three or four days! That would be easy even for a child! Emmanuel will take care of that. But we must do better than that—eh? And that is not so simple! To hide away from the police is one thing, and to outwit them completely is another! Is it not so? You must give the old man, whose brain has grown rusty because it has been so long idle, time to think, eh? It will do you no good if you always have to hide—eh? But, listen, you will hide while old Nicolo thinks—you understand? You can trust Emmanuel—but tell him nothing. He keeps a little restaurant, and he will give you a room upstairs. You must not leave that room, you must not show yourself, until you hear from me. You quite understand?”
“You need not worry on that score!” said Dave Henderson grimly.
“Good!” cried the old Italian again. “Only my daughter and myself will know that you are there. You can leave it to old Nicolo to find a way. Yes, yes”—excitement was growing upon the man again; he rocked his body to and fro—“old Nicolo and the police—ha, ha! Old Nicolo, who is dying in his bed—eh? And——” His voice was hushed abruptly; he lowered himself back on his pillows. “Here is Teresa!” he whispered. “She will say I am exciting myself again. Bah! I am strong again with the old wine in my veins!” His hands lay suddenly quiet and composed on the coverlet before him, as the door opened, and the girl stood again on the threshold. “Well, my little one?” he purred.
“Emmanuel has come,” she said. “There are some police up in Vinetto's saloon, but there is no one in the lane. It is quite safe.”
Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“And Emmanuel understands?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Go, then!” The old Italian was holding out his hand to Dave Henderson. “Go at once! My daughter will take you to Emmanuel.”
Dave Henderson caught the other's hand.
“Yes, but look here,” he said, a sudden huskiness in his voice, “I——”
“You want to thank me—eh?” said the old bomb king, shaking his head. “Well, my young friend, there will be time enough for that. You will see me again—eh? Yes! When old Nicolo sends for you, you will come. Until then—you will remember! Do not move from your room! Now, go!”
Teresa spoke from the doorway.
“Yes, hurry, please!” she said quietly. “The lane was empty a few minutes ago, but——” She shrugged her shoulders significantly.
Dave Henderson, with a final nod to the propped-up figure in the bed, turned and followed Teresa along the passage, and out into the porch. Here she bade him wait while she went out again into the lane; but in a minute more she called out to him in a whisper to join her.
They passed out of the lane, and into the cross street. A little ahead of them, Dave Henderson could see a small car, its hood up, standing by the curb.
She stopped suddenly.
“Emmanuel has seen me,” she said. “That is all that is necessary to identify you.” She held out her hand. “I—I hope you will get out of your danger safely.”
“If I do,” said Dave Henderson fervently, “I'll have you and your father to thank for it.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You will have to thank Tony Lomazzi.”
He wanted to say something to detain her there for a moment or two longer, even under those most unauspicious of circumstances—but five years of prison had not made him glib of tongue, or quick of speech. She was very pretty—but it was not her prettiness alone that made her appeal. There was something of winsomeness about the lithe, graceful little figure, and something to admire in the quiet self-reliance, and the cool composure with which, for instance, she had just accepted the danger of possible, and decidedly unpleasant, interference by the police in the lane.
“But I can't thank Tony Lomazzi, since he is dead,” he blurted out—and the next instant cursed himself for a raw-tongued, blundering fool. In the rays of the street lamp a little way off, he saw her face go deathly white. Her hand that was in his closed with a quick, involuntary clutch, and fell away—and there came a little moan of pain.
“Dead!” she said. “Tony—dead!” And then she seemed to draw her little form erect—and smiled—but the great dark eyes were wet and full of tears.
“I——” Her voice broke. “Good-night!” she said hurriedly—and turned abruptly away.
He watched her, gnawing viciously at his lip, cursing at himself again for a blundering fool, until she disappeared in the lane; and then he, too, turned, and walked to the waiting car.
A man in the driver's seat reached out and opened the door of the tonneau.
“Me Emmanuel,” he said complacently, in broken English. “You no give-a da damn tor da police anymore. I gotta da room where you hide—safe. See? Over da restaurant. You eat, you sleep, you give-a da cops da laugh.”
Dave Henderson stepped into the car. His mind was in a chaotic whirl. A thousand diverse things seemed struggling for supremacy—the police and Runty Mott—Millman—Capriano, the queer, sick Capriano—the girl, the girl with the wondrous face, who cried because Tony Lomazzi was dead—a thousand things impinging in lightning flashes that made a vortex of his brain. They found expression in a sort of debonair facetiousness.
“Some boy, Emmanuel!” he said—and flung himself down on the seat. “Go to it!”
NICOLO CAPRIANO'S eyes were closed; the propped-up form on the pillows was motionless—only the thin fingers plucking at the coverlet with curiously patient insistence bore evidence that the man was not asleep.
Suddenly he smiled; and his eyes opened, a dreamy, smoldering light in their depths. His hand reached out for the morning paper that lay on the bed beside him, and for the second time since Teresa had brought him the paper half an hour before, he pored for a long while over a leading “story” on the front page. It had nothing to do with the disturbance in Vinetto's saloon of the night before; it dealt with a strange and mysterious bomb explosion in a downtown park during the small morning hours, which, besides awakening and terrifying the immediate neighborhood, had, according to the newspaper account, literally blown a man, and, with the man, the bench on which he had evidently been sitting under an arc light, to pieces. The victim was mutilated beyond recognition; all that the police had been able to identify were fragments of a bomb, thus establishing the cause of the accident, or, more likely, as the paper hinted, murder.
“The fool!” Nicolo Capriano whispered. “It was Ignace Ferroni—the fool! And so he would not listen to old Nicolo—eh?” He cackled out suddenly, his laugh shrill and high echoing through the room. “Well, perhaps it is as well, eh, Ignace? Perhaps it is as well—perhaps you will be of some service, Ignace, now that you are dead, eh, Ignace—which is something that you never were when you were alive!”
He laid the paper down, and again his eyes closed, and again the blue-tipped fingers resumed their interminable plucking at the coverlet—but now he whispered constantly to himself.
“A hundred thousand dollars.... It is a great deal of money.... We worked for much less in the old days—for very much less.... I am old and sick, am I?... Ha, ha!... But for just once more, eh—just once more—to see if the old cunning is not still there.... And if the cards are thrust into one's hands, does it not make the fingers itch to play them!... Yes, yes, it makes young again the blood in the old veins.... And Tony is dead.... Yes, yes, the young fellow is clever, too—clever enough to find the money again if the police do not meddle with him.... And the gang, Baldy Vickers' gang—bah!—they are already no longer to be considered—they have not long arms, they do not reach far—they do not reach to New York—eh—where the police reach—and where old Nicolo Capriano reaches, too.... Ignace—the fool!.... So he would not listen, to me, eh—and he sat out there under the park light trying to fix his old bomb, and blew himself up.... The fool—but you have no reason to complain, eh, Nicolo?.... It will bring the police to the door, but for once they will be welcome, eh?.... They will not know it—but they will be welcome.... We will see if Nicolo Capriano is not still their match!”
Outside somewhere in the hall he could hear Teresa moving about, busy with her morning work. He listened intently—not to his daughter's movements, but for a footstep on the pavement that, instead of passing by, would climb the short flight of steps to the front door.
“Well, why do they not come—eh?” he muttered impatiently. “Why do they not come?”
He relapsed into silence, but he no longer lay there placidly with his eyes closed. A strange excitement seemed to be growing upon him. It tinged the skin under his beard with a hectic flush, and the black eyes glistened and glinted abnormally, as they kept darting objectiveless glances here and there around the room.
Perhaps half an hour passed, and then the sick man began to mutter again:
“Will they make me send for them—the fools!” He apostrophized the foot of the bed viciously. “No, no—it would not be as safe. If they do not come in another hour, there will be time enough then for that. You must wait, Nicolo. The police have always come before to Nicolo Capriano, if they thought old Nicolo could help them—and with a bomb—ha, ha—to whom else would they come—eh?—to whom———-”
He was instantly alert. Some one was outside there now. He heard the door bell ring, and presently he heard Teresa answer it. He caught a confused murmur of voices. The thin fingers were working with a quick, jubilant motion one over the other. The black eyes, half closed again, fixed expectantly on the door of the room opposite to the foot of the bed. It opened, and Teresa stepped into the room.
“It is Lieutenant Barjan, father,” she said, in a low tone. “He wants to talk to you about that bomb explosion in the park.”
“So!” A queer smile twitched at the old bomb king's lips. He beckoned to his daughter to approach the bed, and, as she obeyed, he pulled her head down to his lips. “You know nothing, Teresa—nothing! Understand? Nothing except to corroborate anything that I may say. You did not even know that there had been an explosion until he spoke of it. You know nothing about Ignace. You understand?”
“Yes,” she said composedly.
“Good!” he whispered. “Well, now, go and tell him that I do not want to see him. Tell him I said he was to go away. Tell him that I won't see him, that I won't be bothered with him and his cursed police spies! Tell him that”—he patted his daughter's head confidentially—“and leave the door open, Teresa, little one, so that I can hear.”
“What do you mean to do, father?” she asked quickly.
“Ha, ha—you will see, my little one—you will see!” Capriano patted her head again. “We do not forget our debt to Tony Lomazzi. No! Well, you will see! Tell the cunning, clever Barjan to go away!”
He watched as she left the room; and then, his head cocked on one side to listen, the blue-tipped fingers reached stealthily out and without a sound slid the newspaper that was lying in front of him under the bed covers.
“I am very sorry,” he heard Teresa announce crisply; “but my father positively refuses to see you.”
“Oh, he does—does he?” a voice returned in bland sarcasm. “Well, I'm very sorry myself then, but I guess he'll have to change his mind! Pardon me, Miss Capriano, if I——”
A quick, heavy step sounded in the hallway. Nicolo Capriano's alert and listening attitude was gone in a flash. He pushed himself up in the bed, and held himself there with one hand, and the other outflung, knotted into a fist, he shook violently in the direction of the door, as the figure of the plain-clothesman appeared on the threshold.
Old Nicolo Capriano was apparently in the throes of a towering passion.
“Get out of here!” he screamed. “Did my daughter not tell you to get out! Go away! I want nothing to do with you! Curse you—and all the rest of the police with you! Can you not leave old Nicolo Capriano to die in peace—eh?”
“That's all right!” said Barjan coolly. He glanced over his shoulder. Teresa was standing just outside in the hall behind him. “Pardon me,” he said again—and closed the door upon her. “Now then”—he faced Nicolo Capriano once more—“there's no use kicking up all this dust. It won't get you anywhere, Nicolo. There's a little matter that I want to talk to you about, and that I'm going to talk to you about whether you like it or not—that's all there is to it. And we'll get right to the point. What do you know about that affair in the park last night?”
Nicolo Capriano sank back on his pillows, with a furious snarl. He still shook his fist at the officer.
“What should I know about your miserable affairs!” he shouted. “I know nothing about any park! I know nothing at all! Why do you not leave me in peace—eh? For fifteen years this has gone on, always spying on Nicolo Capriano, and for fifteen years Nicolo Capriano has not lifted a finger against the law.”
“That is true—as far as we know,” said Barjan calmly. “But there's a little record that goes back beyond those fifteen years, Nicolo, that keeps us a little chummy with you—and you've been valuable at times, Nicolo.”
“Bah!” Nicolo Capriano spat the exclamation viciously at the other.
“About last night,” suggested Barjan patiently. “It's rather in your line. I thought perhaps you might be able to give us a little help that would put us on the right track.”
“I don't know what you're talking about!” snapped Nicolo Capriano.
“I'm talking about the man that was blown to pieces by a bomb.” Barjan was still patient.
Nicolo Capriano's eyes showed the first gleam of interest.
“I didn't know there was any man blown up.” His tone appeared to mingle the rage and antagonism that he had first exhibited with a new and suddenly awakened curiosity. “I didn't know there was any man blown up,” he repeated.
“That's too bad!” said Barjan with mock resignation—and settled himself deliberately in a chair at the bedside. “I guess, then, you're the only man in San Francisco who doesn't.”
“You fool!” Nicolo Capriano rasped in rage again. “I've been bed-ridden for three years—and I wish to God you had been, too!” He choked and coughed a little. He eyed Barjan malevolently. “I tell you this is the first I've heard of it. I don't hang about the street corners picking up the news! Don't sit there with your silly, smirking police face, trying to see how smart you can be! What information do you expect to get out of me like that? When I know nothing, I can tell nothing, can I? Who was the man?”
“That's what we want to know,” said Barjan pleasantly. “And, look here, Nicolo, I'm not here to rile you. All that was left was a few fragments of park bench, man, arc-light standard, and a piece or two of what was evidently a bomb.”
“What time was this?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes were on the foot of the bed.
“Three o'clock this morning,” Barjan answered.
The old bomb king's fingers began to pluck at the coverlet. A minute passed. His eyes, from the foot of the bed, fixed for an instant moodily on Barjan's face—and sought the foot of the bed again.
Barjan broke the silence.
“So you do know something about it, eh, Nicolo?” he prodded softly.
“I didn't know anything had happened until you said so,” returned Nicolo Capriano curtly. “But seeing it has happened, maybe I——” He cut his words off short, and eyed the plain-clothesman again. “Is the man dead?” he demanded, with well-simulated sudden suspicion. “You aren't lying to me—eh? I trust none of you!”
“Dead!” ejaculated Barjan almost hysterically. “Good God—dead! Didn't I tell you he was blown into unrecognizable atoms!”
The sharp, black eyes lingered a little longer on Barjan's face. The result appeared finally to allay Nicolo Capriano's suspicions.
“Well, all right, then, I'll tell you,” he said, but there was a grudging note still in the old bomb king's voice. “It can't do the man any harm if he's dead. I guess you'll know who it is. It's the fellow who pulled that hundred thousand dollar robbery about five years ago on old man Tydeman—the fellow that went by the name of Dave Henderson. I don't know whether that's his real name or not.”
“What!” shouted Barjan. He had lost his composure. He was up from his chair, and staring wildly at the old man on the bed. “You're crazy!” he jerked out suddenly. “Either you're lying to me, or you're off your nut! You——”
Nicolo Capriano was in a towering rage in an instant.
“You get out of here!” he screamed. “You get to hell out of here! I didn't ask you to come, and I don't give a damn whether it was Dave Henderson or a polecat! It's nothing to do with me! It's your hunt—so go and hunt somewhere else! I'm lying, or I'm off my nut, am I? Well, you get to hell out of here! Go on!” He shook a frantic fist at Barjan, and, choking, coughing, pulled himself up in bed again, and pointed to the door. “Do you hear? Get out!”
Barjan shifted uneasily in alarm. Nicolo Capriano's coughing spell had developed into a paroxysm that was genuine enough.
“Look here,” said Barjan, in a pacifying tone, “don't excite yourself like that. I take back what I said. You gave me a jolt for a minute, that's all. But you've got the wrong dope somehow, Nicolo. Whoever it was, it wasn't Dave Henderson. The man was too badly smashed up to be recognized, but there was at least some of his clothing left. Dave Henderson was followed all day yesterday by the police from the minute he left the penitentiary, and he didn't buy any clothes. Dave Henderson had on a black prison suit—and this man hadn't.”
Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders in angry contempt.
“I'm satisfied, if you are!” he snarled. “Go on—get out!”
Barjan frowned a little helplessly now.
“But I'm not satisfied,” he admitted earnestly. “Look here, Nicolo, for the love of Mike, keep your temper, and let's get to the bottom of this. For some reason you seem to think it was Dave Henderson. I know it wasn't; but I've got to know what started you off on that track. Those clothes——”
“You're a damn fool!” Nicolo Capriano, apparently slightly mollified, was jeering now. “Those clothes—ha, ha! It is like the police! And so old Nicolo is off his nut—eh? Well, I will show you!” He raised his voice and called his daughter. “Teresa, my little one,” he said, as the door opened and she appeared, “bring me the clothes that young man had on last night.”
“What's that you say!” exclaimed Barjan in sudden excitement.
“Wait!” said Nicolo Capriano ungraciously.
Teresa was back in a moment with an armful of clothing, which, at her father's direction, she deposited on the foot of the bed.
Nicolo Capriano waved her from the room. He leered at Barjan.
“Well, are those the clothes there that you and your police are using to blindfold your eyes with, or are they not—eh? Are those Dave Henderson's clothes?”
Barjan had already pounced upon the clothing, and was pawing it over feverishly.
“Good God—yes!” he burst out sharply.
“And the clothes that the dead man had on—let me see”—Nicolo Capriano's voice was tauntingly triumphant, as, with eyes half closed, visualizing for himself the attire of one Ignace Ferroni, he slowly enumerated the various articles of dress worn by the actual victim of the explosion. He looked at Barjan maliciously, as he finished. “Well,” he demanded, “was there enough left of what the man had on to identify any of those things? If so——” Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders by way of finality.
“Yes, yes!” Barjan's excitement was almost beyond his control. “Yes, that is what he wore, but—good Lord, Capriano!—what does this mean? I don't understand!”
“About the clothes?” inquired Nicolo Capriano caustically. “But I should know what he had on since they weremyclothes—eh? And you have only to look at the ones there on the bed to find out for yourself why I gave him some that, though I do not say they were new, for I have not bought any clothes in the three damnable and cursed years that I have lain here, were at least not all torn to pieces—eh?”
Barjan was pacing up and down the room now. When the other's back was turned, Nicolo Capriano permitted a sinister and mocking smile to hover on his lips; when Barjan faced the bed, Nicolo Capriano eyed the officer with a sour contempt into which he injected a sort of viciously triumphant self-vindication.
“Come across with the rest!” said Barjan abruptly. “How did Dave Henderson come here to you? And what about that bomb? Did you give it to him?” Nicolo Capriano's convenient irascibility was instantly at his command again. He scowled at Barjan, and his scranny fist was flourished under Barjan's nose.
“No, I didn't!” he snarled. “And you know well enough that I didn't. You will try to make me out the guilty man now—eh—just because I was fool enough to help you out of your muddle!”
Barjan became diplomatic again.
“Nothing of the kind!” he said appeasingly. “You're too touchy, Nicolo! I know that you're on the square all right, and that you have been ever since your gang was broken up and Tony Lomazzi was caught. That's good enough, isn't it? Now, come on! Give me the dope about Dave Henderson.”
Nicolo Capriano's fingers plucked sullenly at the coverlet. A minute passed.
“Bah!” he grunted finally. “A little honey—eh—when you want something from old Nicolo! Well, then, listen! Dave Henderson came here last night in those torn clothes, and with his face badly cut from a fight that he said he had been in. I don't know whether his story is true or not—you can find that out for yourself. I don't know anything about him, but this is what he told me. He said that his cell in the prison was next to Tony Lomazzi's; that he and Tony were friends; that Tony died a little while ago; and that on the night Tony died he told this fellow Henderson to come to me if he needed any help.”
“Yes!” Barjan's voice was eager. He dropped into the chair again, and leaned attentively over the bed toward Nicolo Capriano. “So he came to you through Tony Lomazzi, eh? Well, so far, I guess the story's straight. I happen to know that Henderson's cell was next to Lomazzi's. But where did he get the bomb? He certainly didn't have it when he left the prison, and he was shadowed——”
“So you said before!” interrupted Nicolo Capriano caustically. “Well, in that case, you ought to know whether the rest of the story is true, too, or not. He said he met a stranger in a saloon last night, and that they chummed up together, and started in to make a night of it. They went from one saloon to another. Their spree ended in a fight at Vinetto's place up the block here, where Henderson and his friend were attacked by some of Baldy Vickers' gang. Henderson said his friend was knocked out, and that he himself had a narrow squeak of it, and just managed to escape through the back door, and ran down the lane, and got in here. I asked him how he knew where I lived, and he said that during the afternoon he had located the house because he meant to come here last night anyway, only he was afraid the police might be watching him, and he had intended to wait until after dark.” Nicolo Capriano's eyelids drooped to hide a sudden cunning and mocking gleam that was creeping into them. “You ought to be able to trace this friend of Henderson's if the man was knocked out and unconscious at Vinetto's, as Henderson claimed—and if Henderson was telling the truth, the other would corroborate it.”
“We've already got him,” said Barjan, with a hint of savagery in his voice. The “friend,” alias a plain-clothesman, had proved anything but an inspiration from the standpoint of the police! “Go on! The story is still straight. You say that Dave Henderson said he intended to come here anyway, quite apart from making his escape from Vinetto's. What for?”
Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders.
“Money, I dare say,” he said tersely. “The usual thing! At least, I suppose that's what he had originally intended to come for—but we didn't get as far as that. The fight at Vinetto's seemed to have left him with but one idea. When he got here he was in a devil's rage. The only thing that seemed to be in his mind was to get some clothes that wouldn't attract attention, instead of the torn ones he had on, and to get out again as soon as he could with the object of getting even with this gang of Baldy's. He said they were the ones that 'sent him up' on account of their evidence at his trial, and that they were after him again now because of the stolen money that they believed he had hidden somewhere. He was like a maniac. He said he'd see them and everybody else in hell before they got that money, and he swore he'd get every last one of that gang—and get them in a bunch. I didn't know what he meant then. I tried to quiet him down, but I might as well have talked to a wild beast. I tried to get him to stay here and go to bed—instead, he laughed at me in a queer sort of way, and said he'd wipe every one of that crowd off the face of the earth before morning. I began to think he was really crazy. He put on the clothes I gave him, and went out again.”
Barjan nodded.
“You don't know it,” he said quietly; “but that's where the police lost track of him—when he ran in here.”
“I didn't even know the police were after him,” said Nicolo Capriano indifferently. “He came back here again about two o'clock this morning, and he had a small clockwork bomb with him. The fool!” Nicolo Capriano cackled suddenly. “He had found Baldy's gang all together down in Jake Morrissey's, and he had thrown the thing against the building. The fool! Of course, it wouldn't go off! He thought it would by hitting it against something. The only way to make it any good was to open the casing and set the clockwork. When he found it didn't explode, he picked it up again, and brought it back here. He wanted me to fix it for him. I asked him where he got it. All I could get out of him was that Tony Lomazzi had told him where he had hidden some things. Ha, ha!” Nicolo Capriano cackled more shrilly still, and began to rock in bed with unseemly mirth. “One of Tony's old bombs! Tony left the young fool a legacy—a bomb, and maybe there was some money, too. I tried to find out about that, but all he said was to keep asking me to fix the bomb for him. I refused. I told him I was no longer in that business. That I went out of it when Tony Lomazzi did—fifteen years ago. He would listen to nothing. He cursed me. I did not think he could do any harm with the thing—and I guess he didn't! A young fool like that is best out of the way. He went away cursing me. I suppose he tried to fix it himself under that arc light on the park bench.” Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders again. “I would not have cared to open the thing myself—it was made too long ago, eh? The clockwork might have played tricks even with me, who once was——”
“Yes,” said Barjan. He stood up. “I guess that's good enough, and I guess that's the end of Dave Henderson—and one hundred thousand dollars.” He frowned in a meditative sort of way. “I don't know whether I'm sorry, or not,” he said slowly. “We'd have got him sooner or later, of course, but——” He pointed abruptly to the prison clothes on the bed. “Hi, take those,” he announced briskly; “they'll need them at the inquest.”
“There's some paper in the bottom drawer of that wardrobe over there,” said Nicolo Capriano unconcernedly. “You can wrap them up.”
Barjan, with a nod of thanks, secured the paper, made a bundle of the clothes, and tucked the bundle under his arm.
“We won't forget this, Nicolo,” he said heartily, as he moved toward the door.
“Bah!” said Nicolo Capriano, with a scowl. “I know how much that is worth!”
He listened attentively as Teresa showed the plain-clothesman out through the front door. As the door closed again, he called his daughter.
“Listen, my little one,” he said, and his forefinger was laid against the side of his nose in a gesture of humorous confidence. “I will tell you something. Ignace Ferroni, who was fool enough to blow himself up, has become the young man whom our good friend Tony Lomazzi sent to us last night.”
“Father!” Her eyes widened in sudden amazement, not unmixed with alarm.
“You understand, my little one?” He wagged his head, and cackled softly. “Not a word! You understand?”
“Yes,” she said doubtfully.
“Good!” grunted the old bomb king. “I think Barjan has swallowed the hook. But I trust no one. I must be sure—you understand—sure!Go and telephone Emmanuel, and tell him to find Little Peter, and send the scoundrel to me at once.”
“Yes, father,” she said; “but——”
“It is for Tony Lomazzi,” he said.
She went from the room.
Nicolo Capriano lay back on the pillows, and closed his eyes. He might have been asleep again, for the smile on his lips was as guileless as a child's; and it remained there until an hour later, when, after motioning Teresa, who had opened the door, away, he propped himself up on his elbow to greet a wizened, crafty-faced little rat of the underworld, who stood at the bedside.
“It is like the old days to see you here, Little Peter,” murmured Nicolo Capriano. “And I always paid well—eh? You have not forgotten that? Well, I will pay well again. Listen! I am sure that the man who was killed with the bomb in the park last night was a prison bird by the name of Dave Henderson; and I told the police so. But it is always possible that I have made a mistake. I do not think so—but it is always possible—eh? Well, I must know, Little Peter. The police will investigate further, and so will Baldy Vickers' gang—they had it in for the fellow. You are a clever little devil, Little Peter. Find out if the police have discovered anything that would indicate I am wrong, and do the same with Baldy Vickers' gang. You know them all, don't you?”
The wizened little rat grinned.
“Sure!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Youse can leave it to me, Nicolo. I'm wise.”
Nicolo Capriano patted the other's arm approvingly, and smiled the man away.
“You have the whole day before you, Little Peter,” he said. “I am in no hurry.”
Once more Nicolo Capriano lay back on his pillows, and closed his eyes, and once more the guileless smile hovered over his lips.
At intervals through the day he murmured and communed with himself, and sometimes his cackling laugh brought Teresa to the door; but for the most part he lay there through the hours with the placid, cunning patience that the school of long experience had brought him.
It was dusk when Little Peter stood at the bedside again.
“Youse called de turn, Nicolo,” he said. “Dat was de guy, all right. I got next to some of de fly-cops, an' dey ain't got no doubt about it. Dey handed it out to de reporters.” He flipped a newspaper that he was carrying onto the bed. “Youse can read it for yerself. An' de gang sizes it up de same way. I pulled de window stunt on 'em down at Morrissey's about an hour ago. Dey was all dere—Baldy, an' Runty Mott, an' all de rest—an' another guy, too. Say, I didn't know dat Bookie Skarvan pulled in wid dat mob. Dey was fightin' like a lot of stray cats, an' dey was sore as pups, an' all blamin' de other one for losin' de money. De only guy in de lot dat kept his head was Bookie. He sat dere chewin' a big fat cigar, an' wigglin' it from one corner of his mouth to de other, an' he handed 'em some talk. He give 'em hell for muss-in' everything up. Say, Nicolo, take it from me, youse want to keep yer eye peeled for him. He says to de crowd: 'It's a cinch dat Dave Henderson's dead, thanks to de damned mess youse have made of everything,' he says; 'an' it's a cinch dat Capriano's story in de paper is straight—it's too full of de real dope to be anything else. But if Dave Henderson told old Ca-priano dat much, he may have told him more—see? Old Capriano's a wily bird, an' wid a hundred thousand in sight de old Dago wouldn't be asleep. Anyway, it's our last chance—dat Capriano got de hidin' place out of Dave Henderson. But here's where de rest of youse keeps yer mitts off. If it's de last chance, I'll see dat it ain't gummed up. I'll take care of Capriano myself.'”
Little Peter circled his lips with his tongue, as Nicolo Capriano extracted a banknote of generous denomination from under his pillow, and handed it to the other.
“Very good, Little Peter!” he said softly. “Yes, yes—very good! But you have already forgotten it all—eh? Is it not so, Little Peter?”
“Sure!” said Little Peter earnestly. “Sure—youse can bet yer life I have!”
“Good-by then, Little Peter,” said Nicolo Capriano softly again.
He stared for a long while at the door, as it closed behind the other—stared and smiled curiously, and plucked with his fingers at the coverlet.
“And so they would watch old bed-ridden Nicolo, would they—while Nicolo watches—eh—somewhere else!” he muttered. “Ha, ha! So they will watch old Nicolo—will they! Well, well, let them watch—eh?” He looked around the room, and raised himself up in bed. He began to rock to and fro. A red tinge crept into his cheeks, a gleam of fire lighted up the coal-black eyes. “Nicolo, Nicolo,” he whispered to himself, “it is like the old days back again, Nicolo—and it is like the old wine to make the blood run quick in the veins again.”