UP and down the small, ill-furnished room Dave Henderson paced back and forward, as, not so very long ago, he had paced by the hour from the rear wall of his cell to the barred door that opened on an iron gallery without. And he paced the distance now with the old nervous, pent-up energy that rebelled and mutinied and would not take passively to restraint, even when that restraint, as now, was self-imposed.
It had just grown dark. The window shade was tightly drawn. On the table, beside the remains of the supper that Emmanuel had brought him some little time before, a small lamp furnished a meager light, and threw the corners of the room into shadow.
He had seen no one save Emmanuel since last night, when he had left Nicolo Capriano's. He had not heard from Nicolo Capriano. It was the sense of personal impotency, the sense of personal inactivity that filled him with a sort of savage, tigerish impatience now. There were many things to do outside in that world beyond the drawn window shade—and he could only wait! There was the pigeon-cote in Tooler's shed, for instance. All during the day the pigeon-cote had been almost an obsession with him. There was a chance—one chance in perhaps a million—that for some reason or other Millman had not been able to get there. It was a gambling chance—no more, no less—with the odds so heavily against Millman permitting anything to keep him from getting his hands on a fortune in ready cash that, from a material standpoint, there was hardly any use in his, Dave Henderson, going there. But that did not remove the ever present, and, as opposed to the material, the intangible sense of uncertainty that possessed him. He expected to find the money gone; he would be a fool a thousand times over to expect anything else. But he had to satisfy himself, and he would—if that keen old brain of Nicolo Capriano only succeeded in devising some means of throwing the police definitely off the trail.
But it was not so easy to throw the police definitely off the trail, as Nicolo Capriano himself had said. He, Dave Henderson, was ready to agree in that with the crafty old Italian; and, even after these few hours, cooped up in here, he was even more ready to agree with the other that the mere hiding of himself away from the police was utterly abortive as far as the accomplishment of any conclusive end was concerned.
It was far from easy; though, acting somewhat as a panacea to his impatience, the old Italian had inspired him with faith as being more than a match for the police, and yet——
He gnawed at his lips. He, too, had not been idle through the day; he, too, had tried to find some way, some loophole that would enable him, once he went out into the open again, to throw Barjan, and all that Barjan stood for, conclusively and forever off his track. And the more he had thought of it, the more insurmountable the difficulty and seeming impossibility of doing so had become. It had even shaken his faith a little in Nicolo Capriano's fox-like cunning proving equal to the occasion. He couldn't, for instance, live all his life in disguise. That did very well perhaps as a piece of fiction, but practically it offered very little attraction!
He frowned—and laughed a little harshly at himself. He was illogical again. He had asked only for three or four days, for a fighting chance, just time enough to get on Millman's trail, hadn't he? And now he was greedy for a permanent and enduring safe-conduct from the police, and his brain mulled and toiled with that objective alone in view, and he stood here now employed in gnawing his lips because he could not see the way, or see how Nicolo Capriano could find it, either. He shrugged his shoulders. As well dismiss that! If he could but reach Millman—and, after Millman, Bookie Skarvan—just to pay the debts he owed, then——
His hand that had curled into a clenched fist, with knuckles showing like white knobs under the tight-stretched skin, relaxed, as, following a low, quick knock at the door, Emmanuel stepped into the room.
“I gotta da message for you from Nicolo,” Emmanuel announced; “an' I gotta da letter for you from Nicolo, too. You get-a damn sick staying in here, eh? Well, Nicolo say you go to his place see him tonight. We take-a da car by-an'-by, an' go.”
“That's the talk, Emmanuel!” said Dave Henderson, with terse heartiness. “You're all right, Emmanuel, and so is your room and your grub, but a little fresh air is what I am looking for, and the sooner the better!”
He took the envelope that Emmanuel extended, crossed over to the lamp, and turned his back on the other, as he ripped the envelope open. Nicolo Capriano's injunction had been to say nothing to Emmanuel, and—— He was staring blankly at the front page of the evening newspaper, all that the envelope contained, and which he had now unfolded before him. And then he caught his breath sharply. He was either crazy, or his eyes were playing him tricks. A thrill that he suppressed by an almost superhuman effort of will, a thrill that tore and fought at the restraint he put upon it, because he was afraid that the mad, insane uplift that it promised was but some fantastic hallucination, swept over him. There was a lead pencil circle drawn around the captions of one of the columns; and three written words, connected to the circle by another pencil stroke, leaped up at him from the margin of the paper:
“You are dead.”
He felt the blood surging upward in his veins to beat like the blows of a trip-hammer at his temples. The words were not blurred and running together any more, the captions, instead, inside that circle, seemed to stand out in such huge startling type that they dominated the entire page:
Dave Henderson glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, Emmanuel was clatteringly piling up the supper dishes on the tray. He turned again to the newspaper, and read Nicolo Capriano's story, all of it now—and laughed. He remembered the old Italian's tale of the man Ignace Ferroni and his bomb. Nicolo Capriano, for all his age and infirmity, was still without his peer in craft and cunning! The ingenious use of enough of what was true had stamped the utterly false as beyond the shadow of a suspicion that it, too, was not as genuine as the connecting links that held the fabric together. He warmed to the old Italian, an almost hysterical admiration upon him for Nicolo Capriano's guile. But transcending all other emotions was the sense of freedom. It surged upon him, possessing him; it brought exhilaration, and it brought a grim, unholy vista of things to come—a goal within possibility of reach now—Millman first, and then Bookie Skarvan. He was free—free as the air. He was dead. Dave Henderson had passed out of the jurisdiction of the police. To the police he was now but a memory—he was dead.
“You are dead.” A queer tight smile thinned his lips, as his eyes fell again upon the penciled words at the margin of the paper.
“It's no wonder they never got anything on old Capriano!” he muttered; and began to tear the paper into shreds.
He was free! He was dead! He was impatient now to exercise that freedom. He could walk out on the streets with no more disguise than these cast-off clothes he had on, plus the brim of his hat to shade his face—for Dave Henderson was dead. Neither Bookie Skarvan, nor Baldy Vickers would be searching for a dead man any more—nor would the police. He swung around, and faced Emmanuel.
“I am to go to Nicolo Capriano's, eh?” he said. “Well, then, let's go; I'm ready.”
“No make-a da rush,” smiled Emmanuel. “Capriano say you gotta da time, plenty time. Capriano say come over by-an'-by in da car.”
Dave Henderson shook his head impatiently.
“No; we'll go now,” he answered.
Emmanuel in turn shook his head.
“I gotta some peep' downstairs in da restaurant,” he said. “I gotta stay maybe an hour yet.”
Dave Henderson considered this for a moment. He could walk out on the streets now quite freely. It was no longer necessary that he should be hidden in a car. But Nicolo Capriano had told Emmanuel to use the car. Emmanuel would not understand, and he, Dave Henderson, had no intention of enlightening the other why a car was no longer necessary. Neither was Emmanuel himself necessary—there was Mrs. Tooler's pigeon-cote. If he went there before going to Nicolo Capriano! His brain was racing now. Yes, the car,without Emmanuel, would be a great convenience.
“All right!” he said crisply. “You stay here, and look after your restaurant. There's no need for you to come. I'll take the car myself.”
“You drive-a da car?” asked Emmanuel dubiously. Dave Henderson laughed quietly. The question awakened a certain and very pertinent memory. There were those who, if they chose to do so, could testify with some eloquence to his efficiency at the wheel of a car!
“Well, I have driven one,” he said. “I guess I can handle that old bus of yours.”
“But”—Emmanuel was still dubious—“Capriano say no take-a da risk of being seen on——”
“I'm not looking for any risk myself,” interposed Dave Henderson coolly. “It's dark now, and there's no chance of anybody recognizing me while I'm driving a car. Forget it, Emmanuel! Come on! I don't want to stick around here for another hour. Here!”—from his pocket he produced a banknote, and pushed it across the table to the other.
Emmanuel grinned. His doubts had vanished.
“Sure!” said Emmanuel. He tiptoed to the door, looked out, listened, and jerked his head reassuringly in Dave Henderson's direction. “Getta da move on, then! We go down by da back stairs. Come on!”
They gained the back yard, and the small shed that did duty for a garage—and in a few moments more Dave Henderson, at the wheel of the car, was out on the street.
He drove slowly at first. He had paid no attention to the route taken by Emmanuel when they had left Nicolo Capriano's the night before, and as a consequence he had little or no idea in what part of the city Emmanuel's restaurant was located; but at the expiration of a few minutes he got his bearings, and the speed of the car quickened instantly.
TEN minutes later, the car left at the curb half a block away, Dave Henderson was crouched in the darkness at the door of old Tooler's shed that opened on the lane. There was a grim set to his lips. There seemed a curious analogy in all this—this tool even with which he worked upon the door to force it open, this chisel that he had taken from the kit under the seat of Emmanuel's car, as once before from under the seat of another car he had taken a chisel—with one hundred thousand dollars as his object in view. He had got the money then, and lost it, and had nearly lost his life as well, and now————
He steeled himself, as the door opened silently under his hand; steeled himself against the hope, which somehow seemed to be growing upon him, that Millman might never have got here after all; steeled himself against disappointment where logic told him disappointment had no place at all, since he was but a fool to harbor any hope. And yet—and yet there were a thousand things, a thousand unforeseen contingencies which might have turned the tables upon Millman! The moneymightstill be here. And if it were! He was dead now—and free to use it! Free! His lips thinned into a straight line.
The door closed noiselessly behind him. The flashlight in his hand, also borrowed from Emmanuel's car, played around the shed. It was the same old place, perhaps a little more down-at-the-heels, perhaps a little dirtier, a little more cumbered up with odds and ends than it had been five years before, but there was no other change. And there was the door of the pigeon-cote above him, that he could just reach from the ground.
He moved toward it now with a swift, impulsive step, and snarled in sudden anger at himself, as he found his hand trembling with excitement, causing the flashlight to throw a jerky, wavering ray on the old pigeon-cote door. What was the use of that! He expected nothing, didn't he? The pigeon-cote would be empty; he knew that well enough. And yet he was playing the fool. He knew quite well it would be empty; he had prepared himself thoroughly to expect nothing else.
He reached up, opened the door, and felt inside. His hand encountered a moldy litter of chaff and straw. He reached further in, with quick eagerness, the full length of his arm. He remembered that he had pushed the package into the corner, and had covered it with straw.
For a minute, for two full minutes, his fingers, by the sense of touch, sifted through the chaff, first slowly, methodically, then with a sort of frantic abandon; and then, in another moment, he had stooped to the floor, seized an old box, and, standing upon it, had thrust head and shoulders into the old pigeon-cote, while the flashlight's ray swept every crevice of the interior, and he pawed and turned up the chaff and straw where even it lay but a bare inch deep and only one bereft of his senses could expect it to conceal anything.
He withdrew himself from the opening, and closed the pigeon-cote door again, and stood down on the floor. He laughed at himself in a low, bitter, merciless way. He had expected nothing, of course; he had expected only to find what he had found—nothing. He had told himself that, hadn't he? Quite convinced himself of it, hadn't he? Well, then, what did it matter? His hands, clenched, went suddenly above his head.
“I paid five years for that,” he whispered. “Do you hear, Millman—five years—five years! And I'll get you—Millman! I'll get you for this, Millman—are you listening?—whether you are in New York—or hell!”
He put the box upon which he had stood back in its place, went out of the shed, closed the door behind him, and made his way back to the car. He drove quickly now, himself driven by the feverish, intolerant passion that had him in its grip. He was satisfied now. There were not any more doubts. He knew! Well, he would go to Nicolo Capriano's, and then—his hands gripped fiercely on the steering wheel. He was dead! Ha, ha! Dave Henderson was dead—but Millman was still alive!
It was not far to Capriano's. He left the car where Emmanuel had awaited him the night before, and gained the back porch of Nicolo Capriano's house.
Teresa's voice from the other side of the closed door answered his knock.
“Who's there?” she asked.
He laughed low, half in facetiousness, half in grim humor. He was in a curious mood.
“The dead man,” he answered.
There was no light in the porch to-night. She opened the door, and, as he stepped inside, closed it behind him again. He could not see her in the darkness—and somehow, suddenly, quite unreasonably, he found the situation awkward, and his tongue, as it had been the night before, awkward, too.
“Say,” he blurted out, “your father's got some clever head, all right!”
“Has he?” Her voice seemed strangely quiet and subdued, a hint of listlessness and weariness in it.
“But you know about it, don't you?” he exclaimed. “You know what he did, don't you?”
“Yes; I know,” she answered. “But he has been waiting for you, and he is impatient, and we had better go at once.”
It was Tony Lomazzi! He remembered her grief when he had told her last night that Tony was dead. That was what was the matter with her, he decided, as he followed her along the passageway. She must have thought a good deal of Tony Lomazzi—more even than her father did. He wished again that he had not broken the news to her in the blunt, brutal way he had—only he had not known then, of course, that Tony had meant so much to her. He found himself wondering why now. She could not have had anything to do with Tony Lomazzi for fifteen years, and fifteen years ago she could have been little more than a child. True, she might perhaps have visited the prison, but——
“Well, my young friend—eh?” Nicolo Capriano's voice greeted him, as he followed Teresa into the old Italian's room. “So Ignace Ferroni has done you a good turn—eh? And old Nicolo! Eh—what have you to say about old Nicolo? Did I not tell you that you could leave it to old Nicolo to find a way?”
Dave Henderson caught the other's outstretched hand, and wrung it hard.
“I'll never forget this,” he said. “You've pulled the slickest thing I ever heard of, and I——”
“Bah!” Nicolo Capriano was chuckling delightedly.
“Never mind the thanks, my young friend. You owe me none. The old fingers had the itch in them to play the cards against the police once more. And the police—eh?—I do not like the police. Well, perhaps we are quits now! Ha, ha! Do you know Barjan? Barjan is a very clever little man, too—ha, ha!—Barjan and old Nicolo have known each other many years. And that is what Barjan said—just what you said—that he would not forget. Well, we are all pleased—eh? But we do not stop at that. Old Nicolo does not do things by halves. You will still need help, my young friend. You will go at once to New York—eh? That is what you intend to do?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“And you will find your man—and the money?”
“Yes!” Dave Henderson's lips thinned suddenly. “If he is in New York, as I believe he is, I will find him; if not—then I will find him just the same.”
Again Nicolo Capriano nodded.
“Ah, my young friend, I like you!” he murmured. “If I had had you—eh?—fifteen years ago! We would have gone far—eh? And Tony went no farther than a prison cell. But we waste time—eh? Old Nicolo is not through yet—a Capriano does not do things by halves. You will need help and friends in New York. Nicolo Capriano will see to that. And money to get to New York—eh? You will need some ready money for that?”
Dave Henderson's eyes met Teresa's. She stood there, a slim, straight figure, just inside the door, the light glinting on her raven hair. She seemed somehow, with those wondrous eyes of hers, to be making an analysis of him, an analysis that went deeper than a mere appraisal of his features and his clothes—and a little frown came and puckered the white brow—and, quick in its wake, with a little start of confusion, there came a heightened tinge of color to her cheeks, and she lowered her eyes.
“Teresa, my little one,” said Nicolo Capriano softly, “go and get some paper and an envelope, and pen and ink.”
Dave Henderson watched her as she left the room.
Nicolo Capriano's fingers, from plucking at the counterpane, tapped gently on Dave Henderson's sleeve.
“We were speaking of money—for your immediate needs,” Nicolo Capriano suggested pleasantly.
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“I have enough to keep me going for a while,” he answered.
The old bomb king's eyebrows were slightly elevated.
“So! But you are just out of prison—and you said yourself that the police had followed you closely.”
Dave Henderson laughed shortly.
“That wasn't very difficult,” he said. “I had a friend who owed me some money before I went to the pen—some I had won on the race-track. I gave the police the slip without very much trouble last night in order to get here, and it was a good deal more of a cinch to put it over them long enough to get that money.”
“So!” said Nicolo Capriano again. “And this friend—what is his name?”
Dave Henderson hesitated. He had seen to it that Square John Kelly was clear of this, and he was reluctant now, even to this man here to whom he owed a debt beyond repayment, to bring Square John into the matter at all; yet, on the other hand, in this particular instance, it could make very little difference. If Square John was involved, Nicolo Capriano was involved a hundredfold deeper. And then, too, Nicolo Capriano might very well, and with very good reason, be curious to know how he, Dave Henderson, could, under the circumstances, have come into the possession of a sum of money adequate for his present needs.
“I'd rather keep his name out of it,” he said frankly; “but I guess you've got a right to ask about anything you like, and if you insist I'll tell you.”
Nicolo Capriano's eyes were half closed—and they were fixed on the foot of the bed.
“I think I would like to know,” he said, after a moment.
“All right! It was Square John Kelly,” said Dave Henderson quietly—and recounted briefly the details of his visit to the Pacific Coral Saloon the night before.
Nicolo Capriano had propped himself up in bed. He leaned over now as Dave Henderson finished, and patted Dave Henderson's shoulder in a sort of exultant excitement.
“Good! Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Ah, my young friend, I begin to love you! It brings back the years that are gone. But—bah!—I shall get well again—eh? And I am not yet too old—eh? Who can tell—eh?—who can tell! We would be invincible, you and I, and——” He checked himself, as Teresa reentered the room. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Well, then, as far as money is concerned, you are supplied; but friends—eh?—are sometimes more important than money. You have found that out already—eh? Listen, then, I will give you a letter to a friend in New York whom you can trust—and I promise you he will stop at nothing to carry out my orders. You understand? His name is Georges Vardi, but he is commonly known as Dago George; and he, too, was one of us in the old days. You will want somewhere to go. He keeps a little hotel, a veryquietlittle hotel off the Bowery, not far from Chatham Square. Any one will tell you there where to find Dago George. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Dave Henderson.
Nicolo Capriano motioned his daughter abruptly to a small table on the opposite side of the bed.
“Teresa will write the letter, and put it in Italian,” he said, as she seated herself at the table. “I do not write as easily as I used to. They say old Nicolo is a sick man. Well, maybe that is so, but old Nicolo's brain is not sick, and old Nicolo's fingers can at least still sign his name—and that is enough. Ha, ha, it is good to be alive again! Well”—he waved his hand again toward his daughter—“are you ready, my little one?”
“Yes, father,” she answered.
“To Dago George, then,” he said. “First—my affectionate salutations.”
Her pen scratched rapidly over the paper. She looked up.
“Yes, father?”
Nicolo Capriano's fingers plucked at the coverlet.
“You will say that the bearer of this letter—ah! Yes!” He turned with a whimsical smile to Dave Henderson. “You must have a name, eh, my young friend—since Dave Henderson is dead! We shall not tell Dago George everything. Fools alone tell all they know! What shall it be?”
Dave Henderson shrugged his shoulders.
“Anything,” he said. “It doesn't matter. One is as good as another. Make it Barty Lynch.”
“Yes, that will do. Good!” Nicolo Capriano gestured with his hand in his daughter's direction again. “You will say that the bearer of this letter is Barty Lynch, and that he is to be treated as though he were Nicolo Capriano himself. You understand, my little one? Anything that he asks is his—and I, Nicolo Capriano, will be responsible. Tell him, my little one, that it is Nicolo Capriano's order—and that Nicolo Capriano has yet to be disobeyed. And particularly you will say that if our young friend here requires any help by those who know how to do what they are told and ask no questions, the men are to be supplied. You understand, Teresa?”
She did not look up this time.
“Yes, father.”
“Write it, then,” he said. “And see that Dago George is left with no doubt in his mind that he is at the command of our young friend here.”
Teresa's pen scratched rapidly again across the paper.
Nicolo Capriano was at his interminable occupation of plucking at the counterpane.
Dave Henderson pushed his hand through his hair in a curiously abstracted sort of way. There seemed to be something strangely and suddenly unreal about all this—about this man, with his cunning brain, who lay here in this queer four-poster bed; about that trim little figure, who bent over the table there, and whose profile only now was in view, the profile of a sweet, womanly face that somehow now seemed to be very earnest, for he could see the reflection of a puckered brow in the little nest of wrinkles at the corner of her eye.
No, there wasn't anything unreal about her. She was very real.
He remembered her as she had stood last night on the threshold there, and when in the lighted doorway he had seen her for the first time. He would never forget that—nor the smile that had followed the glorious flood of color in her cheeks, and that had lighted up her eyes, and that had forgiven him for his unconscious rudeness.
That wasn't what was unreal. All that would remain living and vibrant, a picture that would endure, and that the years would not dim. It was unreal that in the space of a few minutes more everything here would have vanished forever out of his existence—this room with its vaguely foreign air, this four-poster bed with its strange occupant, whose mental vitality seemed to thrive on his physical weakness, that slimmer figure there bending over the table, whose masses of silken hair seemed to curl and cluster in a sort of proudly intimate affection about the arched, shapely neck, whose shoulders were molded in soft yielding lines that somehow invited the lingering touch of a hand, if one but had the right.
His hand pushed its way again through his hair, and fumbled a little helplessly across his eyes. And, too, it was more than that that was unreal. A multitude of things seemed unreal—the years in the penitentiary during which he had racked his brain for a means of eluding the police, racked it until it had become a physical agony to think, were now dispelled by this man here, and with such ease that, as an accomplished, concrete fact, his mind somehow refused to accept it as such. He was dead. It was very strange, very curious! He sank back a little in his chair. There came a vista of New York—not as a tangible thing of great streets and vast edifices, but as a Mecca of his aspirations, now almost within his grasp, as an arena where he could stand unleashed, and where the iron of five years that had entered his soul should have a chance to vent itself. Millman was there! There seemed to come an unholy joy creeping upon him. Millman was there—and he, Dave Henderson, was dead, and in Dave Henderson's place would be a man in that arena who had friends now at his back, who could laugh at the police. Millman! He felt the blood sweep upward to his temples; he heard his knuckles crack, as his hand clenched in a fierce, sudden surge of fury. Millman! Yes, the way was clear to Millman—but there was another, too. Bookie Skarvan!
His hand unclenched. He was quite cool, quite unconcerned again. Teresa had finished the letter, and Nicolo Capriano was reading it now. He could afford to wait as far as Bookie Skarvan was concerned—he could not afford to wait where Millman was concerned. And, besides, there was his own safety. Bookie Skarvan was here in San Francisco, but the further he, Dave Henderson, got from San Francisco for the present now, and the sooner, the better it would be. In a little while, a few months, after he had paid his debt to Millman—he would pay his debt to Bookie Skarvan. He was not likely to forget Bookie Skarvan!
His eyes fell on Teresa. He might come back to San Francisco in a few months. With ordinary caution it ought to be quite safe then. Dave Henderson would have been dead quite long enough then to be utterly forgotten. They would not be talking on every street corner about him as they were to-night, and——
Nicolo Capriano was nodding his head approvingly over the letter.
“Yes, yes!” he said. “Excellent! With this, my young friend, you will be a far more important personage in New York than you imagine. Old Nicolo's arm still reaches far.” He stared for a moment musingly at Dave Henderson through half closed eyes. “You have money, and this letter. I do not think there is anything else that old Nicolo can do for you—eh?—except to give you a little advice. You will leave here shortly, and from that moment you must be very careful. Anywhere near San Francisco you might be recognized. Travel only by night at first—make of yourself a tramp and use the freight trains, and hide by day. After two or three days, which should have taken you a good many miles from here, you will be able to travel more comfortably. But still do not use the through express trains—the men on the dining and sleeping cars have all started from here, too, you must remember. You understand? Go slowly. Be very careful. You are not really safe until you are east of Chicago. I do not think there is anything else, unless—eh?—you are armed, my young friend?”
Dave Henderson shook his head.
“So!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano, and pursed his lips. “And it would not be safe for you to buy a weapon to-night—eh?—and it might very well be that to-night you would need it badly. Well, it is easily remedied.” He turned to his daughter. “Teresa, my little one, I think we might let our young friend have that revolver upstairs in the bottom of the old box—and still not remain defenseless ourselves—eh? Yes, yes! Run and get it, Teresa.”
She rose from her seat obediently, and turned toward the door—but her father stopped her with a quick impulsive gesture.
“Wait!” he said. “Give me the pen before you go, and I will sign this letter. Dago George must be sure that it came from Nicolo Capriano—eh?”
She dipped the pen in the ink, and handed it to him. Nicolo Capriano propped the letter on his knees, as he motioned her away on her errand. His pen moved laboriously across the paper. He looked up then, and beckoned Dave Henderson to lean over the bed.
“See, my young friend,” he smiled—and pointed to his cramped writing. “Old Nicolo's fingers are old and stiff, and it is a long while since Dago George has seen that signature—but, though I am certain he would know it again, I have made assurance doubly sure. See, I have signed: 'Con Amore, Nicolo Capriano.' You do not know Italian—eh? Well, it is a simple phrase, a very common phrase. It means—'with love.' But to Dago George it means something else. It was a secret signal in the old days. A letter signed in that way by any one of us meant—'trust to the death!' You understand, my young friend?” He smiled again, and patted Dave Henderson's arm. “Give me die envelope there on the table.”
He was inserting the letter in the envelope, as Teresa entered the room again. He sealed the envelope, reached out to her for the revolver which she carried, broke the revolver, nodded as he satisfied himself that it was loaded—and handed both envelope and weapon to Dave Henderson. He spread out his hands then, and lifted his shoulders in a whimsical gesture of finality.
“It is only left then to say good-by—eh?—my young friend—who was the friend of Tony Lomazzi. You will have good luck, and good fortune, and——”
Dave Henderson was on his feet. He had both of the old Italian's hands in his.
“I will never forget what you have done—and I will never forget Nicolo Capriano,” he said in a low tone, his voice suddenly choked.
The old bomb king's eyelids fluttered down. It was like a blind man whose face was turned to Dave Henderson.
“I am sure of that, my young friend,” he said softly. “I am sure that you will never forget Nicolo Capriano. I shall hear of you through Dago George.” He released his hands suddenly. His eyes opened—they were inscrutable, almost dead, without luster. “Go,” he said, “I know what you would say. But we are not children to sob on one another's neck. Nicolo is not dead yet. Perhaps we will meet again—eh? We will not make a scene—Teresa will tell you that it might bring on an attack. Eh? Well, then, go! You will need all the hours from now until daylight to get well away from the city.” He smiled again, and waved Dave Henderson from the bed.
In an uncertain, reluctant way, as though conscious that his farewell to the old Italian was entirely inadequate, that his gratitude had found no expression, and yet conscious, too, that any attempt to express his feelings would be genuinely unwelcome to the other, Dave Henderson moved toward the door. Teresa had already passed out of the room, and was standing in the hall. On the threshold Dave Henderson paused, and looked back.
“Good-by, Nicolo Capriano!” he called.
The old Italian had sunk back on the pillows, his fingers busy with the counterpane.
“The wine of life, my young friend”—it was almost as though he were talking to himself—“ha, ha!—the wine of life! The old days back again—the measured blades—the fight, and the rasp of steel! Ha, ha! Old Nicolo is not yet dead! Good-by—good-by, my young friend! It is old Nicolo who is in your debt; not you in his. Good-by, my young friend—good-by!”
Teresa's footsteps were already receding along the passageway toward the rear door. Dave Henderson, with a final wave of his hand to the old Italian, turned and walked slowly along the hall. He heard the porch door ahead of him being opened. He reached it, and halted, looking around him. It was dark, as it always was here, and he could see nothing—not even a faint, blurred outline of Teresa's form. Surprised, he called her name softly. There was no answer—only the door stood wide open.
He stepped out into the porch. There was still no sign of her. It was very strange! He called her again—he only wanted to say good-by, to thank her, to tell her, as he had told her father, that he would not forget. And, yes, to tell her, too, if he could find the words, that some day he hoped that he might see her again. But there was no answer.
He was frowning now, piqued, and a little angry. He did not understand—only that she had opened the door for him, and in some way had deliberately chosen to evade him. He did not know why—he could find no reason for it. He moved on through the porch. Perhaps she had preceded him as far as the lane.
At the lane, he halted again, and again looked around him—and stood there hesitant. And then there reached him the sound of the porch door being closed and locked.
He did not understand. It mystified him. It was not coquetry—there was no coquetry in those steady, self-reliant eyes, or in that strong, sweet face. And yet it had been deliberately done, and about it was something of finality—and his lips twisted in a hurt smile, as he turned and walked from the lane.
“Beat it!” said Dave Henderson to himself. “You're dead!”
TERESA'S fingers twisted the key in the lock of the porch door that she had closed on Dave Henderson. There was a queer, tight little smile quivering on her lips.
“There was no other way,” she whispered to herself. “What could I do? What could I say?”
Behind her, and at one side of the passage, was a small panel door, long out of use now, a relic of those days when Nicolo Capriano's dwelling had been a house of mystery. She had hidden there to let Dave Henderson pass by; she closed it now, as she retraced her steps slowly to her father's room. And here, on the threshold, she paused for a moment; then reached in quietly to close the door, and retire again. Her father lay back on the bed, his eyes closed, and his hands, outstretched on the coverlet, were quiet, the long, slim fingers motionless. He was asleep. It was not uncommon. He often did that. Sleep came at the oddest times with the old man, even if it did not last long, and——
“Teresa—eh—what are you doing?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes half opened, and fixed on his daughter. “Eh—what are you doing?”
“I thought you were asleep, father,” she murmured. “Asleep! Bah! I have been asleep for fifteen years—is that not long enough? Fifteen years! Ha, ha! But I am awake now! Yes, yes, old Nicolo has had enough of dreams! He is awake now! Come here, Teresa. Come here, and sit by the bed. Has our clever young friend gone?”
“Yes, father,” she told him, as she took the chair at the bedside.
Nicolo Capriano jerked his head around on his pillows, and studied her face for a moment, though his black eyes, with their smoldering, introspective expression, seemed not at all concerned with her.
“And what do you think of him—eh—Teresa, my little one—what do you think of him?”
She drew back in her chair with a little start.
“Why—what do you mean, father?” she asked quickly.
“Bah!” There was a caustic chuckle in the old bomb king's voice. “We do not speak of love—I suppose! I do not expect you to have fallen in love just because you have seen a man for a few minutes—eh? Bah! I mean just what I say. I called him clever. You are a Capriano, and you are clever; you are the cleverest woman in San Francisco, but you do not get it from your mother—you are a Capriano. Well, then, am I right? He is clever—a very clever fellow?”
Her voice was suddenly dull.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano. “He was caught five years ago, but it was not his fault. He was double-crossed, or he would never have seen the inside of a penitentiary. So you agree, then, that he is clever? Well, then, he has courage, too—eh? He was modest about his fight at Vinetto's—eh? You heard it all from Vinetto himself when you went there this morning. Our young friend was modest—eh?”
Teresa's eyes widened slightly in a puzzled way. She nodded her head.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” said Nicolo Capriano—and the long, slim fingers began to twine themselves together, and to untwine, and to twine together again. “Well, then, my little one, with his cleverness and his courage, he should succeed—eh—in New York? Old Nicolo does not often make a mistake—eh? Our young friend will find his money again in New York—eh?”
She pushed back her chair impulsively, and stood up.
“I hope not,” she answered in a low voice.
“Eh?” Nicolo Capriano jerked himself sharply up on his pillows, and his eyes narrowed. “Eh—what is that you say? What do you mean—you hope not!”
“It is not his money now any more than it was before he stole it,” she said in a dead tone. “It is stolen money.”
“Well, and what of it?” demanded Nicolo Capriano. “Am I a fool that I do not know that?” Sudden irascibility showed in the old Italian's face and manner; a flush swept his cheeks under the white beard, the black eyes grew lusterless and hard—and he coughed. “Well, am I a fool?” he shouted.
She looked at him in quick apprehension.
“Father, be careful!” she admonished. “You must not excite yourself.”
“Bah!” He flung out his hand in a violent gesture. “Excite myself! Bah! Always it is—'do not excite yourself!' Can you find nothing else to say? Now, you will explain—eh?—you will explain! What is it about this stolen money that Nicolo Capriano's daughter does not like? You hear—I call you Nicolo Capriano's daughter!”
It was a moment before she answered.
“I do not like it—because it has made my soul sick to-night.” She turned her head away. “I hid behind the old panel when he went out. I do not like it; I hate it. I hate it with all my soul! I did not understand at first, not until your talk with him to-night, that there was any money involved. I thought it was just to help him get away from the police who were hounding him even after his sentence had been served, and also to protect him from that gang who tried to get him in Vinetto's place—and that we were doing it for Tony's sake. And then it all seemed to come upon me in a flash, as I went toward the door to let him out to-night—that there was the stolen money, and that I was helping him, and had been helping him in everything that was done here, to steal it again. I know what I should have done. It would have done no good, it would have been utterly useless; I realized that—but I would have been honest with myself. I should have protested there and then. But I shrank from the position I was in. I shrank from having him ask me what I had to do with honesty, I, who—and you have said it yourself but a moment ago—I, who was Nicolo Capriano's daughter; I, who, even if I protested on one score, had knowingly and voluntarily done my share in hoodwinking the police on another. He would have had the right to think me mad, to think me irresponsible—and worse. I shrank from having him laugh in my face. And so I let him go, because I must say that to him or nothing; for I could not be hypocrite enough to wish him a smiling good-by, to wish him good fortune and success—I couldn't—I tell you, I couldn't—and so—and so I stepped behind the panel, and let him pass.”
Nicolo Capriano's two hands were outthrust and clenched, his lips had widened until the red gums showed above his teeth, and he glared at his daughter.
“By God!” he whispered hoarsely, “it is well for you, you kept your mouth shut! Do you hear, you—you——-” A paroxysm of coughing seized him, and he fell back upon the pillows.
In an instant, Teresa was bending over him anxiously.
He pushed her away, and struggled upward again, and for a moment he shook his fists again at his daughter—and then his eyes were half veiled, and his hands opened, and he began to pat the girl's arm, and his voice held a soft, purring note.
“Listen! You are not a fool, my little one. I have not brought you up to be a fool—eh? Well, then, listen! We have a little money, but it is not much. And he will get that hundred thousand dollars. Do you understand? He is clever, and he has the courage. Do you think that I would have tricked the police for him, otherwise? Eh—do you think old Nicolo Capriano does not know what he is about?”
She stared at him, a sort of dawning dismay in her eyes.
“You mean,” she said, and the words seemed to come in a hard, forced way from her lips, “you mean that if he gets that money again, you are to have a share?”
“A share! Ha, ha!” The old Italian was rocking backward and forward in glee. “No, my little one, not a share—Nicolo Capriano does not deal in shares any more. All—my little one—all! One hundred thousand dollars—all! And my little black-eyes will have such gowns as——”
“Father!” It came in a startled, broken cry of amazed and bitter expostulation.
Nicolo Capriano stopped his rocking, and looked at her. A sudden glint of fury leaped from the smoldering eyes.
“Bah!” he said angrily. “Am I mistaken after all? Is it that you are your mother—and not a Capriano! Perhaps I should not have told you; but now you will make the best of it, and behave yourself, and not play the child—eh? Do you think I risked myself with the police for nothing! Yes—all! All—except that I must pay that leech Dago George something for looking after our young friend—con amore—con amore, Nicolo Capriano—eh?—since I signed the letter so.”
She stood an instant, straight and tense, but a little backward on her heels, as though she had recoiled from a blow that had been struck her—and then she bent swiftly forward, and caught both her father's wrists in her strong young grasp, and looked into his eyes for a long minute, as though to read deep into his soul.
“You signed that lettercon amore!” Her voice was colorless. “You signed it—con amore—the code word of the old, horrible, miserable days when this house was a den of outlaws, the code word that marked out the victim who was to be watched and hounded down!”
The old bomb king wrenched himself still further up in bed. He shook his wrists free.
“What is it to you!” he screamed in a blaze of fury—and fell into a second, and more violent paroxysm of coughing—and now caught at his breast with his thin, blue-tipped fingers, and now in unbridled passion waved his arms about like disjointed flails. “Yes—I signed it that—con amore. And it is the old signal! Yes, yes! And Dago George will obey. And he will watch our young friend—watch—watch—watch! And in the end—bah!—in the end our young friend will supply Nicolo Capriano with that hundred thousand dollars. Ha! And in the end we will see that our young friend does not become troublesome. He is a pawn—a pawn!” Old Nicolo's face, between rage and coughing, had grown a mottled purple. “A pawn! And when a pawn has lost its usefulness—eh?—it is swept from the board—eh?Con amore!The old days again! The finger of Nicolo Capriano lifted—and the puppets jump!Con amore!I will see that Dago George knows what to do with a young man who brings him Nicolo Capriano's letter! Ha, ha! Yes, yes; I will take care of that!”
She had not moved, except to grow a little straighter in her poise, and except that her hands now were clenched at her sides.
“I cannot believe it!” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. “I cannot believe it! I cannot believe that you would do this! It is monstrous, horrible!”
It seemed as though Nicolo Capriano could not get his breath, or at least one adequate enough to vent the access of fury that swept upon him. He choked, caught again at his breast, and hooked fingers ripped the nightdress loose from his throat.
“Out of the room!” he screamed at last. “Out of it! I will teach you a chit of a girl's place! Out of it!”
“No; I will not go out—not yet,” she said, and steadied her voice with an effort. “I will not go until you tell me that you will not do this thing. You can't do it, father—you can't—you can't!” Even the semblance of calmness was gone from her now, and, instead, there was a frantic, almost incoherent pleading in her tones. “He came—he came from Tony Lomazzi. Father, are you mad? Do you not understand? He came from Tony Lomazzi, I tell you!”
“And I tell you to get out of this room, and hold your tongue, you meddling little fool!” screamed Nicolo Capriano again. “Tony Lomazzi! He came from Tony Lomazzi, did he? Damn Tony Lomazzi—damn him—damn him! What do I owe Tony Lomazzi but the hell of hate in a man's soul that comes only in one way! You hear! It was the prison walls only that saved Lomazzi from my reach—from these fingers of mine that are strong, strong at the throat, and never let go! Do you think I was blind that I could not see, that I did not know—eh?—that I did not know what was between your mother and that accursed Lomazzi! But he died—eh?—he died like a rat gnawing, gnawing at walls that he could not bite through!”
Teresa's face had gone suddenly a deathly white, and the color seemed to have fled her lips and left them gray.
“It is a lie—a hideous lie!” she cried—and all the passion of her father's race was on the surface now. “It is a lie! And you know it is—you know it is! My mother loved you, always loved you, and only you—and you broke her heart—and killed her with the foul, horrible life of crime that seethed in this house! Oh, my God! Are you trying to make me hate you, hateyou, my father! I have tried to be a good daughter to you since she died. She made me promise that I would, on that last night. I have tried to love you, and I have tried to understand why she should have loved you—but—but I do not know. It is true that Tony Lomazzi loved her, but, though he was one of you in your criminal work, his love was the love of a brave, honest man. It is true, perhaps, that it was for her, rather than for you, that it was because of his love, a great, strong, wonderful love, and to save her from horror and despair because she lovedyou, that he gave his life for you, that he went to prison in your stead, voluntarily, on his own confession, when he was less guilty than you, and when the police offered him his freedom if he would only turn evidence against you, the man they really wanted. But that is what he did, nevertheless. He kept you together.” She was leaning forward now, her eyes ablaze, burning. “That was his love! His love for my mother, and for me—yes, for me—for he loved me too, and I, though I, was only a little girl, I loved Tony Lomazzi. And he gave his life—and he died there in prison. And now—now—you mean to betray his trust—to betray his friend who believed in you because he believed in Tony, who trusted you and sent him here. And you tricked him, and tricked the police for your own ends! Well, you shall not do it! You shall not! Do you hear? You shall not!”
Nicolo Capriano's face was livid. A fury, greater than before, a fury that was unbalanced, like the fury of a maniac, seized upon him. He twisted his hands one around the other with swift insistence, his lips moved to form words—and he coughed instead, and a fleck of blood tinged the white beard.
“You dare!” he shrieked, catching for his breath. “You, a girl, dare talk to me like that, to me—Nicolo Capriano! I shall not—eh? You say that to me! I shall not! And who will stop me?”
“I will!” she said, through tight lips. “If you will not stop it yourself—then I will. No matter what it costs, no matter what it means—to you, or to me—I will!”
Nicolo Capriano laughed—and the room rang with the pealing laughter that was full of unhinged, crazy, shuddering mirth.
“Fool!” he cried. “You will stop it—eh? And how will you stop it? Will you tell the police? Ha, ha! Then you, too, would betray dear Tony's friend! You would tell the police what they want to know—that Dave Henderson can be found in New York, and that he has gone there to get the money back. Or perhaps you will write another letter—and tell Dago George to pay no attention to my orders? Ha, ha! And it is too bad that our young friend himself has gone, and left you no address so that you could intercept him!”
Teresa drew back a little, and into her eyes came trouble and dismay. And Nicolo Capriano's laugh rang out again—and was checked by a spasm of coughing—and rang out once more, ending in a sort of triumphant scream.
“Well, and what do you think now about stopping it—eh? Do you imagine that Nicolo Capriano sees no farther than his nose? Stop it! Bah! No one will stop it—and, least of all, you!”
She seemed to have overcome the dismay that had seized upon her, though her face had grown even whiter than before.
“It is true, what you say,” she said, in a low, strained voice. “But there is one way left, one way to find him, and warn him, and I will take that way.”
“Hah!” Nicolo Capriano glared at her. His voice dropped. “And what is that way, my little one?” he purred, through a fit of coughing. “Old Nicolo would like to know.”
“To go where Dave Henderson is going,” she answered. “To go where he can be found, to go to New York, to keep him from going to Dago George's, or, if I am too late for that, to warn him there before Dago George has had time to do him any harm, and——”
Her words ended in a startled cry. Nicolo Capriano's long, slim fingers, from the bed, had shot out, locked about her waist, and were wrenching at her in a mad-man's fury.
“You—you would do that!” the old Italian screamed. “By God! No! No!No!Do you hear? No!” His hands had crept upward, and, with all his weight upon her, he was literally pulling himself out of the bed. “No!” he screamed again. “No! Do you hear? No!”
“Father!” she cried out frantically. “Father, what are you doing? You will kill yourself!”
The black eyes of the old man were gleaming with an insane light, his face was working in horrible contortions.
“Hah!” He was out of the bed now, struggling wildly with her. “Hah! Kill myself, will I? I would kill you—you—before I would let you meddle with my plans! It is the old Nicolo again—Nicolo Capriano of the years when——”
The room seemed to swirl around her. The clutching fingers had relaxed. It was she now who struggled and grasped at the man's body and shoulders—to hold him up. He was very heavy, too heavy for her. He seemed to be carrying her downward with him—until he fell back half across the bed. And she leaned over him then, and stared at him for a long time through her hands that were tightly held to her face—and horror, a great, blinding horror came, and fear, a fear that robbed her of her senses came, and she staggered backward, and stumbled over the chair at the bedside, and clutched at it for support.
She did not speak. Nicolo Capriano had left his bed for the first time in three years—to die.
Her father was dead. That was the theme of the overwhelming horror, and the paralyzing fear that obsessed her brain. It beat upon her in remorseless waves—horror—fear. Time did not exist; reality had passed away. She was in some great, soundless void—soundless, except for that strange ringing in her ears. And she put her hands up to her ears to shut out the sound. But it persisted. It became clearer. It became a tangible thing. It was the doorbell.
Habit seemed to impel her. She went automatically to the hall, and, in a numbed sort of consciousness, went along the hall, and opened the door, and stared at a short, fat man, who stood there and chewed on the butt of a cigar that dangled from one corner of his mouth.
“My name's MacBain,” said Bookie Skarvan glibly. “And I want to see Nicolo Capriano. Very important. You're his daughter, aren't you?”
She did not answer him. Her brain floundered in that pit of blackness into which it had been plunged. She was scarcely aware of the man's presence, scarcely aware that she was standing here in the doorway.
“Say, you look scared, you do; but there's nothing to be scared about,” said Bookie Skarvan ingratiatingly. “I just want to see Nicolo Capriano for a few minutes. You go and tell him a reporter wants to see him about that bomb explosion, and 'll give him a write-up that'll be worth while.”
She drew back a little, forcing herself to shake her head.
“Aw, say, go on now, there's a good girl!” wheedled Bookie Skarvan. “The paper sent me here, and I've got to see him. There's nothing for you to look so white about. I'm only a reporter. I ain't going to hurt him—see?”
Teresa shivered. How cold the night was! This man here—what was it he had said? That he wanted to see Nicolo Capriano? Strange that words came with such curious difficulty to her tongue—as though, somehow, she had been dumb all her life, and was speaking now for the first time.
“Nicolo Capriano is dead,” she said—and closed the door in Bookie Skarvan's face.