CHAPTER XXIIIAFTER THE TRAGEDY
Mary Randall stood beside the dead body of Carter Anson. Such tragedy had not entered into her plans, nor had she conceived what it might be to see a man die bearing the bullet intended for her own intrepid heart. A strange numbness possessed her faculties.
She heard the voice of Mrs. Welcome beside her. The mother was speaking with anguished entreaty to Elsie. The girl had risen to her feet and was gazing with a dreadful fascination at Druce, writhing in the grasp of the officers who seized him.
“Come, Miss Randall,” one of her police aids said to the reformer. “This is no place for you—now.”
“There must be something I can do,” she spoke with a flash of her usual energy, then laid her hand on Mrs. Welcome’s arm.
“Harvey Spencer is here,” she said. “There he is trying to get through the crowd to us now. Perhaps he can help you to persuade your daughter to go away with you.”
Elsie Welcome looked at Mary Randall, who was destined never to forget the pitiful revelation of the girl’s dark eyes. Mary Randall read that despair of the lost mingled with woman’s intense clinging to the man she has chosen,—her strange stubborn clinging, when, entangled, she hears an echo of happier and purer love.
“How dare you meddle in people’s affairs like this and put us into such dreadful trouble?” Elsie asked of the one who would help her. Then to her mother, pulling away from her longing clasp, “You understand that at a time like this my place is with my husband.”
Elsie doubled under the arms which would have detained her and ran out of the cafe.
“Go to Millville, Mrs. Welcome, back to your old home, as soon you can. Let me look after Elsie. Go to this boarding-house (handing her a card). Go there with Patience tonight,and I will send you some money tomorrow.” Miss Randall spoke quickly, and before Mrs. Welcome realized it, had hurried in pursuit of Elsie.
But Elsie Welcome had disappeared.
Mary Randall found herself standing, as all who work for those who sin and suffer must often stand, baffled by evil’s resistance. Saddened by somewhat of a divine sadness, Mary went across to the rendezvous where her faithful Anna awaited her and left the field.
Harvey Spencer came to her downtown office early next day. He found her surrounded by her strongest allies, already in conference as to the best means of pursuing their crusade which had aroused Chicago with the startling news of The Raid of Mary Randall on the Cafe Sinister, headlined in the morning newspapers.
Harvey Spencer had taken Mrs. Welcome to the boarding-house designated by Miss Randall where she was joined by Patience—and of Patience you shall know presently. The remainder of the night, or most of it, he spent trying to learn what had become of Elsie.
“I thought she might be still in that—hotel, as they call it,” Harvey, haggard with his night’s search, told Miss Randall. “I went to the jail too, but of course they would not let her inside there so late, even if she had wanted to.”
“She is sure to go there today to see Druce. Try again, Mr. Spencer, when you go out from here,” said Miss Randall.
“And keep you eye on Druce. Nobody will suspect you of being a detective. You can telephone here if you see any activity around him,” said a clever special from headquarters.
“Good scheme,” commended the journalist, another of Mary Randall’s strongest aids.
Harvey Spencer made notes of the right steps to take and, thanking Miss Randall with a curious humility, went out again on his quest.
“Now we must learn what the vice-moneymakers will try to do next,” said a former high official in the municipality. “Our one safe bet is that they will all get together and that John Boland, the boss of the bunch, will map out the fight against us.”
“Is it a losing fight?” asked a famousbanker, known among his intimates as the hard-headed enthusiast.
“Right against wrong can never be permanently a losing fight,” quietly said a small muscular clergyman from the northwest side.
“It has taken two thousand years for mankind to begin this fight against buying and selling young virgins who can be coaxed or thrust into the market-place,” said Mary Randall. “We must fight on, even in one seemingly losing field. It is not to be believed that the people of this nation will be content to submit very much longer to the presence of a band of prowling wolves tolerated by courts and protected by rascally lawyers whose acknowledged trade is to destroy virtue,—the latent motherhood of young women,—whose whole activity is directed to the exploitation of our little lost sisters.”
“Chicago has to lead the fight, as she has been one of the leaders in the trade,” said the banker. “Now, for our next step!”
CHAPTER XXIV“THE HIGHWAY OF THE UPRIGHT”
Up to the moment when he heard the report of Druce’s pistol and saw Carter Anson fall, Harry Boland’s whole being had been concentrated in a consuming horror at sight of Patience Welcome in the Cafe Sinister.
The crack of the pistol restored his composure. He saw clearly the infamy of the plot against her,—and against himself. One of the conspirators was already dead on the scene of this last of many crimes. Druce was struggling with the police, taking him for murder of Anson, his partner.
John Boland, the third conspirator, faced his son in a desperate composure.
“Come, Harry, we must get out of here. It will never do to be seen here—”
“For you!” Harry shook off his father’s hand upon his arm. “Go, by all means! Ishall take care of myself.” He walked towards the singers’ platform beyond the seething crowd.
John Boland believed of himself afterwards that he would have followed Harry, but at the moment he saw a bowed and gray-haired woman before him, great fear and horror on her face, pressing her way in from scrubbing in the booths beyond. The mop and bucket with which she had been working were in either hand. At sight of his face she dropped her tools of toil and clutched his coat. It was Tom Welcome’s widow.
He uttered a cry like a beast of prey as he shook her off; but he felt himself shiver, conscience making him a coward, and he hurried out, reaching by an exit the alley leading to a side street.
A police lieutenant suddenly barred his way.
“Not so fast there,” said the functionary.
Boland recognized the man as an officer whom he had once placed under obligation to him.
“Good evening, Murphy.”
“Mr. Boland!”
“Yes. I was passing and heard the shot. You understand, of course, that I wish to avoid being seen here. Do you know where I can find a taxi?”
The policeman turned and summoned a taxicab with a gesture. Boland got in at the open door. He leaned forward and spoke with peculiar force, although very low:
“If my son, Harry Boland, happens to pass by here, see that he gets into a taxi whose driver will bring him to my house, to my house, remember, no matter what address he gives.”
“I understand, sir.” Probably the young man’s been misbehaving, was what he thought.
“Pay the driver—in advance—with this, or part of it,” continued Mr. Boland.
“Thank you, sir; thank you. I understand.”
Boland’s car scuttled away into the darkness.
Harry Boland, pushing through the crowd to Patience, saw the futile effort of Mrs. Welcome to take Elsie from the place. He heard Mary Randall’s brief direction and spoke reassuringly to the anguished mother ashe pressed a friendly hand on her slight shoulder.
“I will see that Spencer takes you to that boarding-house, where you will be comfortable until you can get away. I will bring Patience. We may get there before you arrive.”
As John Boland foresaw, it was but a few moments after his own departure before Harry Boland reached the street looking for a conveyance. He was assisting Patience Welcome. Rather, she was clinging to him, sobbing like a frightened child. The shooting that had interrupted her pathetic attempt to sing was only part of the tragedy to her.
“I—I saw my little sister in there,” she sobbed. “She called me by name. And such a pathetic cry. Did you hear it?” Patience was sadly unnerved and ill.
“Hush, dear one,” Harry soothed her. “Your mother, Harvey and Miss Randall are there, you know. Whatever can be done, they will do. You are my one and only care, and just now, dearest girl, you’re ill. I’ll take you to the place where your mother is going.Now, please stop crying; try—try—everything will be all right.”
A taxicab appeared, the chauffeur seemingly having anticipated that he was wanted. Harry got in, half carrying Patience, and expecting to be stopped by an officer. But no policeman seemed to see or hear him as he gave the driver the address of the old-fashioned boarding-house selected by Mary Randall.
They rode in silence. Patience sat apart from him, breathing deeply of the fresh air at the window of the car as they rushed swiftly through the city streets. Slowly he felt the tension of the situation released. It was as if the dazed girl were freed from the physical mesh which had been thrown about her.
Then she spoke quite calmly, in her natural voice, but very slowly:
“Harry, I once dreamed that I was in terrible trouble and that you came and helped me. Are you sure I am not dreaming now?”
“Is it a happy dream, if you are, my darling?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered Patience. “It is wonderful to be here with—you.”
“Do you trust me, Patience? Do you trust me when I tell you that I care more for you than I ever knew I could care for anybody?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I want to make you happy. I want to love you and work for you and have you for my wife, and make a home with you.”
“Harry!” She slipped her hand into his.
“Harry, I still feel afraid. It was such a dreadful thing to see. Was that man killed? It was he who asked me to sing. They had been disappointed about getting a singer, he said, and he gave me ten dollars. All that money for a few songs—it seemed like stealing. But I took it. Mother helped put on this dress they gave me to sing in. You know I went there to help mother clean the place. And to think we saw a murder!”
“My poor darling!” Something in his voice caused her to put her hand up to his face. He felt her finger tips on his eyelids, then down his wet cheeks.
“My poor darling!” She put her arm around his neck—then their trembling lips met.
Harry was the first to speak. “All that you have gone through brings us closer together than anything else in life possibly could, Patience. I am so proud of you and so down on myself that I ever let you out of my sight—”
“You must not be down on my—”
“Say it, dear! I want to hear my sweetheart say the word.”
“I was going to say ‘my dearest,’ but I’ll say,—if you want me to,—my—my husband.”
“You dear, sweet wife!” responded Harry.
After a few moments Harry observed that they were being taken farther than he had directed the man to go. The boarding-house was rather close to town. He found that they were well on the north side, nearing the quarter of his father’s house. He called to stop the driver, but the man remained deaf to his efforts, except to increase the speed, and presently drew up at the Boland mansion.
“How dare you bring me here?” Harry demanded, stepping out of the car to remonstrate.
“Orders.”
“Orders! I ordered you where I wanted you to go. Here, if you need two fares for one job, you swindler! Hold on—”
“Driver! Come here.”
Harry heard his father’s stern voice from the opened doorway. “Driver! Take that girl wherever she wants to go. Harry, come in here! It’s time for a show-down.”
“It certainly is time for a show-down!” Harry assisted Patience from the car. “You may wait and earn the fare I just paid you or go to jail,” he said to the driver, and boldly led Patience into his father’s house.
The elder Boland turned into a den at the right of the front hallway and closed the door. He looked at Patience with an appraising glance, then kindly at his son.
“I suppose you must be humored in this affair,” he said in an indulgent manner, “while you haven’t sense to see that the present is scarcely the time to devote yourself to any such young woman. What do you say to a trip to California? I’ll foot all the bills, and later I will settle what you ask for on you.” He spoke to Patience.
“Thank you.” She spoke without a tremor. “You may do something substantial for my mother, because you—took—my poor father’s invention. Do you know, sir, that my poor father never recovered from that loss?”
“Hell’s fire!” yelled John Boland, “I—”
“You see, sir,” interrupted Harry deliberately, “it really is time for a show-down. I wouldn’t go away from Chicago at present, even for the wedding journey which we will pretend you were honestly offering us. I am going to stay and fight it out. You will have to stay and fight it out, too.”
“Me?” blustered Boland. “What have I got to fight out?”
“You know very well why you were at Druce’s cafe tonight. You were in a plot against me, leagued with that fellow, Druce, and his tribe, too, against the crusade started by Mary Randall to protect girls. You prefer to make money exploiting them. Not directly, perhaps, but conspicuously indirect.”
“So you are turning traitor in—politics?” sneered his father. “Taking sides with a crazy fanatic, whose presence at the cafe caused thedeath of a good citizen of Chicago. Druce did not mean to shoot Anson.”
“I see your line of defense. It’s you who have turned traitor—to all that is right in you as a man. See, here is the anonymous letter which summoned me to the cafe tonight. I wish you could tell me that you do not know who wrote that note.”
Boland read the letter scornfully. “How should I know who writes you letters? Young men who make alliances with women who frequent such places must expect such messages,” he sneered.
“Stop!” Harry’s eyes blazed with anger. “We have borne all that we shall of that sort from you. One more such syllable and I shall not be able to speak to you as to my father—even in outward respect.”
“You seem already to have forgotten that completely.”
Harry let the sneer pass. “It is up to you, sir, to decide now—this moment—whether or not I ever look upon you as my father again. I have myself decided that I shall no longer be a party to your crimes.”
“Crimes! My God, this is too much!”
“You are too shrewd a man to have a fool for a son. I see plainly that you were leagued with Druce and Anson to blacken the woman I love. But right is might and love is right. The whole dastardly affair enlightens me as to the nature of your alliance with that dive. Why did you renew the lease to Druce against my protest? I never realized until tonight the horror of your extensive holdings of tenderloin property. I don’t want another cent from such sources.”
“Very well.” The elder Boland shook with anger. “Get out of this house, you and your—fitting mate. Never let me see your face again. Tomorrow I will undertake a campaign which will brand you among your friends as a son who turned traitor to his father in his hour of stress. All my power, all my money, will be against you. I will crush you as I have every man who has dared oppose me. Get out of my house!”
Harry gazed at his father in a tumult of pity and wrath, but he did not speak.
Patience, her eyes filled with tears, herhands nervously clutching her ’kerchief, walked up to the angry man.
“I am sorry for you,” she said, “just as I always used to be sorry for my poor father when he was drunk as you are now with your own anger. You know that Iama fitting mate for your son. I don’t understand your enmity unless it’s because we’re not rich like you.”
Harry caught Patience in his arms. “Remember, it makes no difference to me what my father says. I’m a man and able to choose my own wife.” He looked at his father. “We are going now,” he said firmly.
There was no reply.
The door closed behind his son. John Boland staggered to a couch and falling down beside it buried his face in his arms.
CHAPTER XXVTHE INTERESTS VERSUS MARY RANDALL
If John Boland was shaken by the interview with his son, there was no evidence of it in his bearing when he appeared at the offices of the Electric Trust the following morning. As he took his accustomed place at his desk he looked tired, but he wore what La Salle street knew as his fighting face.
Boland had scarcely established himself for the day when he discovered that his decision to remain in Chicago had been anticipated by those who knew him well in affairs. A dozen messages were waiting for him. The forces opposed to Mary Randall and her reforms looked to him for leadership.
As soon as the details of the raid on the Cafe Sinister had become definitely known, there had been a quick general movement on the part of the leaders of the Levee to get together. They met in secret places to deplorethe taking off of Anson, to form alliances against their common enemy. From these meetings went appeals for protection to the forces higher up.
Aid was invoked of the great financial interests involved, directly and indirectly, in the traffic in souls. Political overlords of the city sent word that the protection demanded should not be wanting. Within twelve hours they had effected an organization whose ramifications extended into wholly unexpected places. Then, having formed the machine, they turned with one accord to John Boland to guide it.
His acceptance of this leadership was unavoidable, even if he had wished to avoid it. To reject it would have been treason to the forces which had fought side by side with him in many a former and desperate campaign. To give Boland credit, his courage was equal to the task he had no wish to avoid. He knew the situation was dangerous, but he was a fighter born.
Having made up his mind to give battle, Boland addressed himself to the task of outlining his campaign. He was too shrewd, toothoroughly familiar with all the elements making up Chicago, to underestimate his enemy. He knew that Mary Randall was appealing passionately to a public morality which hated the vice system with a wholehearted hatred. He knew, too, that when the light of truth fell upon his followers they would scurry to shelter. His first step was to exclude from his offices every employe of whose loyalty he could not be completely certain. He had his bitter lesson on that score, certainly, he told himself.
By telephone and by private messenger he proceeded to summon his chief allies to a conference. These men arrived within an hour. One was a United States Senator, two were bankers of impeccable reputation. One was a political boss whose authority was a by-word in one of the great parties, another a philanthropist whose spectacular gratuities to public institutions came from huge dividends made for him by underpaid employes, and with him a clergyman managed by this philanthropist and the bankers and a newspaper publisher whose little soul had been often bought andsold, so that certain of his profession were wont to say one could see thumb-marks of Mammon on him as he passed by.
Boland did not invite Grogan to this meeting. He intended at first to ask him, but his friend had shown too much sympathy of late with sentiment in life.
John Boland’s council of war was in session for five hours. Every phase of the situation was taken up and discussed with thoroughness characteristic of these leaders of men, with thoroughness, too, that showed full familiarity with all the conditions of commercialized vice in Chicago. The evasions and bombast wherewith these citizens were accustomed to adorn their public addresses before vice commission inquiries were strangely lacking. They spoke among themselves plainly and without pretenses.
Towards the close of this conference John Boland offered his plan of action:
“Gentlemen,” he addressed the others from the head of his directors’ table in his inner office. “We all agree that what we have most to fear is publicity. In fact, if these reformershad no publicity they would be without weapons. As you are aware, the extent to which we can control the newspapers is limited. If news comes to them in the regular way they are bound to print it, so if we are to avoid disastrous publicity we must stop it at its source.
“At this moment the ‘news’ of the situation centers about Druce and those of his employes who are now in jail. We can’t prevent his being indicted, we can’t prevent his case coming to trial, if we allow him to remain in jail.
“My friends, I need not tell you that such a trial would fill the newspapers with what they call ‘exposures’ of vice conditions that would be calamitous. You all agree with me that vice is a terrible thing. We know—none better, as our discussions have indicated—how great this evil is in our city. But there is something more menacing than vice,—namely, an ill-controlled and hysterical anti-vice crusade, rushing on and intoxicating itself with its own sensations, and shaking the business fabric of the city.
“Think of the want that will come to thepoor in Chicago if confidence in our leading business men should be seriously shaken! It is our duty as pillars—if I may say so—of Chicago’s financial structure to avoid, to prevent, public trials of vice cases.
“How are we to go about suppressing the excitement of a trial of Martin Druce? Various expedients suggest themselves to us all. Is not the most feasible to have Druce released on bail?”
“Yes, to any amount!” called two voices.
“I believe the matter can be arranged,” replied John Boland, graciously. “Indeed, I have taken the liberty to discuss that phase of the situation with Judge Grundell. He is of opinion that Druce can be freed. My own attorneys have given the subject some consideration also. As I understand it, Druce is booked for murder—”
“Is murder a bailable offense in Chicago?”
“Ordinarily, no. But in this case it can be shown that there were extenuating circumstances. We can make a showing of facts to demonstrate that the killing of Carter Anson was purely accidental.”
“Druce was only trying to shoot Mary Randall, as I heard it,” said a grim voice.
“H’m! Suppose we say instead that Druce thought some one was creating a disturbance in his place of business, became excited and fired. The bullet hit Anson. Our opponents are not expecting, probably, any move by us towards the release of Druce on bail. It is unlikely that they will resist the application. In any event, I have already taken up the matter with the judge.
“With Druce freed and resting in safe seclusion, I consider it advisable to place him in possession of facilities that will enable him to remain at liberty for an indefinite period—until this excitement has blown over, you understand.”
“We can send him out to China on business,” said one.
“Exactly. My attorney has a young man who will see that he is rightly started on his journey, avoiding all publicity. The cases of his employes will come on for trial; but with Druce out of the way, it will be extremely difficult for our opponents to obtain any convictions.Thus this whole sensation will fall flat and the reform crusaders will find themselves discredited before the public.”
Applause welcomed John Boland’s summing up of the situation and his formulation of a practical plan. Members of the conference rose smiling cheerfully, shook hands all around and made it plain that each was ready to pay, pay, pay. The door had not closed behind them before John Boland set in motion the machinery which was to set Martin Druce free.
CHAPTER XXVIOUT ON BAIL
When Martin Druce heard the news that bail had been raised for his release and that all arrangements were being made for his flight and concealment, it was exactly half an hour before the bail bond was signed and the order sent to the prison that he should be set at liberty.
Broken by his incarceration, terrified by his murderous experience of the last night at the cafe, red-eyed and restless, the dive-keeper was pacing up and down his cell. A pickpocket whom he knew and who, through his own political pull was serving a term as a trusty, brought the information to him scrawled on a bit of cigarette paper which, with a little warning whistle, he dropped through the bars of the steel cage.
Druce picked up the note and read it furtively. He waited for the trusty to pass himagain, then beckoning him, he whispered, “See if my gal isn’t outside somewhere. She just left here. Tell her to wait. She can get into the automobile which they will be sure to send for me.”
It was not affection, but cowardice, that led Druce to think of Elsie first. Since he had been locked up he had crumbled under his trouble. He was so much shaken in mind and body by the killing of Anson and by his arrest that he was actually afraid to go out of the jail alone.
After what seemed an eternity of waiting he heard footsteps in the corridor. A guard appeared and unlocked the iron door, beckoned to Druce, and he passed out.
In a little waiting-room an iron-faced jail attendant handed him his watch and knife and some money taken from him when he was locked up. A lawyer whom he knew signaled him to follow.
Another steel door stood open and Druce found himself outside the prison, breathing the free air of night. An automobile stood there. Druce saw that Elsie was already within.
“The driver has instructions,” said the lawyer. “Later you will hear further from me.”
“What to hell are they going to do for me?” growled Druce.
“No time to argue,” said the lawyer. “Here!” He pressed something in his hand. “Your game is to get away while the getting is good.” He slammed the door as Druce got in. The car turned the corner and went north.
“Where are we going?” Elsie asked.
Druce mumbled an unintelligible answer.
“Where?”
“Shut up your ranting at me!” He shook off her hand. “I guess you’ll get your three squares a day.”
Nothing more was said for several moments. Elsie lay back with her eyes closed. By the light from occasional street lamps Druce was counting a roll of bills.
“Here, kid, look at this.” He spoke with just a touch of softness and bravado. “That young guy slipped it to me. My backers got to give me a nice trip to foreign lands. There’ll be plenty of kale. I’m going to take youalong, see.” He did not add that her too great knowledge of his methods made others desirous that she, too, should be far away when the trial of the dive’s employes came to pass. Elsie opened her eyes.
“I should think you would show that you feel a little bit glad that I’m out,” he whined. “Think of those days in that jail.”
Elsie would not have dared fail to express sympathy for him, but he was in need of a match for the cigarette he held. Hailing the chauffeur, he had the next instant forgotten his demand.
They drove in silence until they reached the house that had been prepared for their hiding-place. “Furnished rooms—Light Housekeeping” was inscribed on a card, tacked conspicuously in the doorway.
A woman near middle age, inclined to be fleshy, with large features that reflected the dim hall light, met them, her arms akimbo.
“Everything’s all right for you folks. Upstairs front. There’s a gas stove in the closet if you all—
“We ain’t pikers—we’ll get our eats sent in.Here, take this.” Druce put a slip of paper and a greenback into Elsie’s hand.
“Go to the drug-store there at the corner and get this prescription filled,” he ordered. “It’s morphine. I’ve got to sleep tonight.”
Elsie obeyed passively. When she returned Druce was pacing the room wild with impatience. His greenbacks and a bottle of absinthe lay on the table.
He lost no time in resorting to the morphine. “Absinthe is the stuff to put life in your body; but it’s the good old dope to make you forget all your troubles,” he soliloquized, Very shortly he was on the bed, sound asleep.
Elsie paced softly back and forth in the room for a long time. Then she went out into the dark hallway. She opened the window and stood looking into the street. It was quiet there. The stars looked down on a deserted way.
That big bright star over there! Was it not the one she and her sister used to choose when wishing from their bedroom window at Millville! How long ago that seemed; how wide and dreadful life’s abyss between!
“If I had known, if I had known!” Elsie shuddered and glanced towards the closed door. “I was bound to have my own way. My—own—way. That’s it. There was something in me—” She faced her actions, she probed into her thoughts from the hour she first met Martin Druce. She marshalled her scathing shames before the judgment bar of her womanhood. In the flaming fires of tortured conscience she stood and suffered.
Then she began to wonder about the future. Where was she bound? Where would he be sent? What strange lands might she see?
How could she go with him? How could she stay behind? The street—the dreadful streets of night!
Elsie shuddered, remembering those nights in the Levee, the fear and horror, and at last the shameful, gnawing hunger that drove her to him again.
Back in the room where the dive-keeper lay in stupor Elsie spread a quilt on the floor and went wearily to her broken rest.
When she awoke Druce was trying nervously to roll a cigarette. The paper broke.
“Here, you, it’s morning. It’s time you woke up. Take this money. Get me some cigarettes. I can’t roll them.”
He was a being frightening to see by this time. The morphine and the French poison had torn his nerves to fragments. His eyes glared like coals in his pasty white face.
Elsie did not try to talk to him. She saw that he was beyond that. She took some money from the table and went out again to buy the cigarettes and food. When she returned Druce refused to eat. He took up the bottle of absinthe and drank from it, swallowing the burning liquid with animal-like gulps that made Elsie shudder.
“You’ll kill yourself,” said Elsie. “Take some of this milk.”
“Mind your own damn business,” returned Druce, hoarsely. “You stick to milk. I’ll stick to absinthe.”
Again he lay down and again he slept. The long day passed. Night came and with a wild wind and a beating rain.
Druce woke in a half delirium.
“More absinthe, more absinthe,” he muttered.The bottle on the table was empty. “Why didn’t you have another bottle here? What have you been doing, eh?”
“Do you think you better take any more?” asked Elsie.
Druce stood glaring at her. His eyes flamed as he rushed across the room like a madman. Before she could get out of his way he struck her a brutal blow that felled her to the floor, and kicked her as she struggled. He reached for the empty bottle and brandished it over her.
“Damn you, get out of here quick and get me that dope!”
Elsie got to her feet.
“I’ll go,” she said, faintly.
CHAPTER XXVIIHARVEY SPENCER TAKES UP THE TRAIL
Harvey had waited about the jail for days. He was certain that Elsie Welcome would return to Druce, and he was resolved to make a great effort to induce her to leave him.
In his unsubtle makeup the measure of his devotion was as great as the measure of his unspoiled manhood. The girl he wished to make his wife had been taken from him. She had removed herself far from his kindness and care, but he could not cease to offer her the care she needed more poignantly than before.
The personal interest of so conspicuous a person as Mary Randall, in Elsie’s case, had undoubtedly urged Harvey on—when otherwise he might have given up. Even so, his courage and persistency, and personal sacrifices, were wonderful to behold.
On the night when Druce was at lastremoved from the jail Harvey was standing in an alley opposite the public entrance to the jail watching the automobile which stood awaiting the coming of someone from within.
Finally he saw the slender figure of a woman emerge from a doorway and enter the automobile. He knew that figure. He ran across the street and around the car. He noted its number with one of those keen flashes of memory, conscious at the moment that he should remember that number as long as he drew breath.
He flung open the door on the further side of the automobile.
Elsie faced him. “What are you doing here?” she asked in an icy little voice.
“I—no—Won’t you come to your mother, Elsie? Won’t you come away from this man? Your mother and Patience love you so much and have been trying so hard to find you and—”
“I can’t, Harvey—I—perhaps—Oh! Go away. Druce is coming. He will—hurt you.”
“It doesn’t matter about me. It’s you.”
“I—I must stand by my husband.”
“Husband! He isn’t your husband. He fooled you with a marriage license. Anybody can get a license in Chicago, but Druce’s license was never returned. He likely got some fellow to pretend to perform the marriage. Elsie, it wasn’t legal, I can prove it.”
For an instant Elsie’s spirit flamed in her eyes and her burning cheeks paled. Then she saw Druce coming and she turned towards him wearily, a strange quivering and drooping of her eyelids alone showing that she had heard. In the presence of her master she grew meek as a little child.
Harvey drifted back into the shadows of the jail, powerless to help her, and saw her driven away with the man who had ruined her earthly life.
Fighting his grief and despair, he went to the nearest drug-store and telephoned Miss Randall of what he had seen.
“Druce out on bail! A murderer out on bail in Chicago!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Harvey, if only you had thought to jump into a taxicab and follow them to see where they have been taken.”
“I’m no detective. I am going back to Millville. Perhaps I can get back my old job in the grocery store,” he answered grimly.
“Hello! Miss Randall! Hello! I remember the number of the machine.” He gave it.
“Good! Wait a minute till I see whose that is. Hold the wire.” She consulted her list of the automobile numbers entered in Illinois and found that this one belonged to a professional bondsman named Comstock.
She gave Harvey the man’s residence number.
“Go out there first thing in the morning and see if you can find out from the chauffeur where the machine went tonight. Keep a stiff upper lip, Mr. Spencer, you have really done splendidly.”
Harvey went early next day to the address given him, a residence of the type called stone-fronted, in a district no longer fashionable. There was a garage, but no automobile. Harvey made a careful survey of the premises without gaining ground. He saw another of Mary Randall’s aids come, linger about and go away; but remembering her advice aboutkeeping a stiff upper lip, he stayed on. He was to be rewarded late in the afternoon.
A car rumbled into the garage. Its colored driver immediately began washing it and Harvey sauntered back into the yard. The number on it was the one printed on his memory.
From somewhere back in his tired brain came the impulse to say,
“I’m a repair man from Gavin’s garage. Mr. Comstock told me to come over and take a look at his car. Said he had it out in the rain last night and it wasn’t working right.”
“Yes, sah; that car certainly has been drove last night. Some of the battery connections got wet.” The chauffeur was glib enough.
“Lights and ignition out of order?” Harvey pretended to examine the car, asking seemingly careless questions and gaining from the negro the information that the car had gone from the jail with Druce to an obscure street far out on the northwest side. The man could not give the number of the house, but said it was one of three in the middle of “a short little street.”
Harvey made the excuse that he must go back to the garage where he was employed to get his tools, and hurried away.
It was growing dark and a wild, stormy rain-wind was blowing when he reached the remote neighborhood described for him by the bondsman’s talkative servant. He was gazing at the three forbidding dwellings standing near the center of the block, trying to make up his mind which to approach first, when he saw Elsie in her long rain-coat come out of the middle house, hesitate a moment, then hurry down the steps into the street.
He slipped into the shadow of a house, his heart thumping.
“Elsie!” he called softly in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
She stopped, startled.
“Is it Harvey?” Elsie peered doubtingly into the darkness, then stepped trustingly towards him as he replied,
“Yes, it’s sure Harvey.” He caught the sadness in her words and his voice shook. “Won’t you come away with me now? Your mother wants you!”
“Your life is in danger with him. Why don’t you leave him?” he added earnestly.
“Leave him,” she repeated. “Oh, if I only could! My mother and Patience—how are they?”
“They are well and safe, only they want you. They’re going back to Millville, to the same cottage. It’s going to be all fixed over. Patience is going to be married—Mr. Harry Boland.”
Tears streamed from Elsie’s eyes. She leaned against the iron fence that skirted the sidewalk.
“Don’t you see, Harvey, I just couldn’t go home? I couldn’t bear to make Patience—ashamed of me. Don’t tell her that, though, will you? Tell them that I have to stay with my—my—oh, don’t let mother know you saw me. Don’t let her know any different.”
“You poor little thing—”
She looked about her in alarm. “I mustn’t stay here. You mustn’t, either. It’s no use, Harvey. The life’s got me—I can’t turn back.”
The next moment she was running down the street as if hurrying from a pursuer.
Harvey saw her enter the corner drug-store, waited a little while, then decided he too had business in the drug-store. He would telephone Miss Randall—but he must be careful. Elsie was receiving a package from the drug clerk, as he entered the ’phone booth—and left while he was talking. Harvey was standing with his face to the wall, speaking in a whisper, lest his message would be overheard. He did not see Elsie depart.
He got the reformer herself on the telephone.
“I have found them,” he said.
“Good!” Joy and relief were in her tones. “Watch them carefully, won’t you? We’ll have detectives there in a jiffy with a new warrant for Druce. This time for white slavery. He will not escape us again.”
Harvey gave the number of the house where Druce and Elsie had been hidden, appointed a rendezvous with the detective and returned at once to watch the house. He decided that Elsie had hurried back while he was at the telephone.
In less than an hour an automobile rushedup to the house. Two men got out and hurried into the place. One of them he recognized as the lawyer he had seen at the entrance of the jail. There were not his detectives.
The storm had increased and the rain was driving in blinding torrents across the street.
Harvey saw a group of people suddenly emerge from the house. The chauffeur jumped down and took part with the struggling little crowd. He could hear Druce swearing loudly, calling out Elsie’s name with words of abuse. The men pushed the drunken man into the car, and got in after him.
Harvey looked about for some sort of a vehicle, but none was in sight and the auto was actually starting. He sprang on the rear, spring and, crouching, hung on desperately. They drove for a long time; to him it seemed hours as his hands grew numb and his muscles ached from clinging to his precarious hold. Fortunately the storm had subsided.
The driver turned into a dark, cobble paved street. The auto swayed and jolted like a ship on the rocks. The road was full of pitch-holes and as the wheels slipped into them ablinding spray of muddy water was flung into Harvey’s face. The machine put on more speed and swung around a corner. Another hole! The car careened, almost turned over, and Harvey was thrown into the street.
As he struggled to his feet the red rear light of the automobile was two blocks away. But he went on, gasping for breath, stumbling. Presently he found himself in the district near the river, close to the north side water front, which is deserted after night-fall.
He had hurried on like a man in a dream. Now he came to the edge of the river and stood staring down into the water.
Out in the stream he could see the shadowy outline of a boat. Looking more closely, he saw that he was scarcely two hundred feet from the craft. The darkness had multiplied the distance; it was now penetrated by a lantern light moving on the deck, evidently in the hand of someone who was standing aft on the boat.
There was distinct, loud talking and swearing between men.
Harvey thought that it was a fishing smack.Its demonstrative passengers were bent upon waking up the night and almost woke him up to the purpose of his night’s errand when he heard a loud voice say:
“Cut that out, Druce. No more boozing, d’you hear?”
“D-r-u-c-e.”
Harvey was as near fainting as a healthy young man might be with the shock of this surprise after his tremendous exertions and his fall. He stood as if petrified.
But his ears still caught the sound of swearing and he saw men moving quickly about on the deck, then the gray white of sails spreading like gaunt ghosts. The swish of water told him that the boat was moving, that his quarry was slipping into pitch-blackness ahead.
That was the finish of his courage.
Harvey felt his limbs trembling, felt something trickle down his face. He was beaten.