CHAPTER IIIPETER LOVEMAN
Clifford’sfirst business was to make up for the opportunity he had just let slip, and find Mary Regan. At once he decided that his best source of information was her brother, “Slant-Face,” once a pickpocket of amazing skill, now the manager of a little motion-picture house. He turned uptown to Slant-Face’s theater.
On the way he was feverishly alive with questions. Clifford’s thoughts had really not been off Mary Regan from the moment he had seen her come down the stairway; and now Uncle George’s vague warning—he knew Uncle George would not have spoken even so indefinitely unless there existed a very real situation—banished all else from his mind. Why hadn’t Mary Regan sent him word? What was behind her return in such a manner? What decision had she come to in regard to herself during these months? What decision in regard to him?
And this danger that Uncle George had hinted at—did it rise chiefly from the plans and influence of other persons? And who might these other persons be? And what might be the danger? Or might the danger rise partly out of the complexities, the contradictions, of her own nature?—that nature which hadalways so baffled and eluded him. But the doubt which lay behind this last question seemed disloyal, and he forcibly drove it from his mind. Mary Regan, he emphatically told himself, was the woman he had believed her to be! She could explain everything. Whatever might be wrong was due to the unknown other persons.
Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; but Slant-Face was not there, and his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass of buttermilk—a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left corner of his mouth.
“I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the matter?”
“Bradley.”
“Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?”
“Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out of the Department. He just waited—and laid his plans. While films were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my place, or had people say their pockets were picked—pulled this three times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of Licenses, and he closed my joint.”
“That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory—and a long arm!”
“This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly: “Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight for a year. The straight game don’t pay—not for me. So I’m through. I guess you understand what comes next.”
“See here, Slant-Face, don’t be—”
“I’m through!” There was the snap of absolute finality in the low, quiet voice.
Clifford knew that mere words could not change the decision made behind that lean, grim visage; so he turned to the matter that had brought him there.
“Have you seen your sister to-day?”
“Haven’t seen Mary in six months.”
“You mean you don’t know where she’s staying?” exclaimed Clifford.
“Down South in the woods somewhere,—God knows why,—doing a stretch of self-imposed solitary.”
The obviously honest answer sharpened Clifford’s already poignant uneasiness. “Slant-Face, I saw her an hour ago.”
“In New York?”
“At the Grand Alcazar.” And then he added: “She was with Peter Loveman.”
Even the stoic Slant-Face started. “With PeterLoveman!—the lawyer that beat Bradley’s case for him! What the devil does that mean?”
“Just what I’m wondering myself.”
“You mean you didn’t ask her anything—didn’t speak to her?”
“No.”
Slant-Face looked his bewilderment. He had had his own private guess at what had been the situation between Clifford and his sister. But he did not ask the “why” of this to him strange behaviour on Clifford’s part.
“Mary with Peter Loveman!” he repeated. “Either Mary is trying to put something across—in the old way, you understand; or else she’s—well, it looks like queer doings to me!”
“That’s why I looked you up. Some one should step in, and stop what’s under way. I supposed you knew where she was.”
“I’m going to begin to try to find out,” said Slant-Face. “And you?”
“Same here. By the way, would your Uncle Joe know anything?”
“Didn’t you know? He’s sold out everything here and bought himself a fruit farm in California.”
“Then there’s just one man we’re certain does know. That’s Loveman, and I’m going after Loveman. Let me know if you get next to anything, Slant-Face. So-long.”
Clifford and the once master pickpocket clasped hands.
“And Slant-Face,” Clifford added, “about that other matter—getting money in the old way. Don’t do it.”
“I’m not promising,” said Slant-Face quietly.
Clifford privately asked Police Commissioner Thorne to help in locating Mary Regan. Also he hunted up little Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly, one hundred and twenty pounds of grit and daring, head of the Tenderloin Squad that free-lanced through the hotels, restaurants, and resorts of Broadway, and of Jimmie he asked the same help. He himself, for two days and nights, now and then seeing Uncle George and Slant-Face, trailed Peter Loveman from office to courts and back again—and particularly about the restaurants and theaters and after-theater theaters, which comprised Loveman’s especial habitat.
But not again did Clifford see Loveman with Mary Regan. The second night, however, he did see Loveman with young Morton, and with the two a middle-aged man with a masterful face. Morton’s father, Clifford guessed.
And yet, though he saw nothing, all his senses assured him with growing insistence that great forces were at their hidden work—those subtle, complex forces that operate indirectly, patiently, with infinite cunning, behind the alluring and often innocent visage of brilliant Big Pleasure. And also he had a growing sense that this was not primarily a detective’s puzzle; but primarily a matter of the eternal human mystery of how human beings react, andhow they may be artfully stimulated. He felt himself just a human being in the midst of a human problem whose outlines he could not yet discern.
On the third day of failure it came to Clifford that there was a chance—a bare chance—that Loveman had no design involving Mary Regan, and he decided to go openly to him. At Loveman’s lavish downtown offices he was told Loveman had telephoned he would not appear that morning. Twenty minutes later Clifford, after having sent in his card by the Japanese butler-valet, was in Loveman’s study. The room, the studio of an apartment designed for an artist, was furnished with a disordered luxury and culture which Clifford knew to be a genuine characteristic of the strange little notable on whom he waited. Here were rows and rows of first editions; old Dutch etchings, among them several original Rembrandts; a helter-skelter gallery of autographed photographs of favorite actresses. For a score of years, as Clifford knew, Loveman had not missed an important first night.
Whatever might be the outcome of this interview, Clifford knew that sometime, somehow, between him and Loveman there would be a conflict of wits. So he looked swiftly and curiously around the room, for concerning this room there were current many fables. This study, and not the downtown office, was said to be Loveman’s real workshop. Here were created those astute plans, in which the influence of Loveman was never traceable, that brought to hisdowntown office those big-fee’d domestic cases, to be fought brilliantly and sensationally in the courts or to be settled discreetly in private. He was New York’s ablest representative of a type of lawyer that modern social conditions have produced: a specialist in domestic affairs—and one, when profitable dissension or threatening scandal did not exist, who knew how to create such. It was gossiped that he kept a careful record of all tangled relations among the rich, of the details of every delicate situation, and watched and bided his time until at length the affair threatened to explode into a scandal—and then he acted. In this study there was a huge “Scandal File,” so gossip had it; but Clifford, looking about, saw no such fabled article of furniture.
At that moment Loveman entered, his tonsured head and rope-girdled dressing-gown giving him the appearance of a somewhat jolly and rakish monk.
“Good-morning, Clifford,” he exclaimed, cordially holding out his hand. “Mightily like a Christian of you, looking an old tramp up.”
“They told me at your office that you were sick.”
Loveman waved Clifford into a chair, took one himself and crossed his small, exquisitely slippered feet. “That’s what I told the office, but I didn’t tell ’em what sort of sickness it was. My boy,”—with a frank, engaging grin, which was one of the many qualities that made this strange man so popular,—“do you perceive any adequate excuse for a man ofmy supposedly sensible years starting in at 11.30P.M.on a mixed-drink Marathon?”
“I can’t say,” smiled Clifford, “without a knowledge of the prior—”
“Don’t be legally cautious with an incautious lawyer. There was no excuse.” Loveman shook his round head solemnly. “There was provocation, though. You bet there was provocation. Were you at the opening last night of ‘Orange Blossoms’?”
“No.”
“Congratulations. It’s a dam’ rotten show! And Nina Cordova—she’s all there off the stage, pretty, and clever, and one wise little girl, don’t you forget it!—but a dam’ rotten star and the voice of a guinea-hen that’s got the quinsy. And it cost sixty thousand dollars to get the curtain up last night, and I put up twenty thousand dollars of that boodle. Tell me, oh, why”—with a quaver of mock self-sympathy—“am I always going out of my own line and letting myself be played as a sucker by some manager or actress that wants extra backing? Twenty thousand honest-to-God dollars! I kissed ’em good-bye the very minute Nina first opened that dam’ pretty mouth, and her first note rasped across the footlights! Ain’t I the boob!”
Clifford smiled at the grotesquely disconsolate figure, but did not answer; he knew no answer was expected. But while he smiled, waiting, part of his brain was remarking that these seemingly reckless ventures of Loveman were in truth sound investmentson which, by the devious methods of his art, he later realized sumptuously. That twenty thousand, which would make the vain Nina regard him as her disinterested friend and adviser, wasn’t money thrown away—not in view of the whispered affair between the voiceless prima donna, and—
“Why should I be blowing my roll,” continued Loveman, “on these dam’ musical comedies—musical, say there’s some irony for you!—when what I’d have liked would have been to help back a show like ‘Justice.’ Or the Russian ballet. Nijinsky—there’s some artist for you!” His last words were vividly sincere; there was nothing more sincere about the little man than his admiration for the highest endeavors in art. “And yet my coin goes into ‘Orange Blossoms’! Is there an artistic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?—there is, and I’m the party—and that’s why my stomach, esophagus, palate, tongue, mouth, and all appertaining thereunto, are thisA.M.composed of a faded and dusty Brussels carpet. But, my boy, you didn’t come here to listen to my woes. What can I do for you?”
His humorously bewailing manner had suddenly dropped from him; he was brisk and alert, and his over-large eyes were fixed upon Clifford keenly. Clifford knew that there was little chance of deceiving this holder of the threads of destiny in a direct encounter.
“I came here, Loveman, to ask you for the address of Mary Regan.”
Loveman looked puzzled. “Mary Regan—do I know her?”
Was there something behind this evasion? “You remember her if you remember getting Bradley off. She was in that case.”
“Oh, yes, I remember: slender—dark—handsome. But I haven’t seen her since the trial.”
“I don’t mean to call you anything, Loveman,—but I was told you were recently seen with her in public.”
“Where?”
“At the Grand Alcazar—for dinner—three nights ago.”
Loveman smiled. “You’ve caught me. I own up. But my fib was a gentleman’s lie.”
“How so?”
“She didn’t want it known that she was in New York.”
“Why not?”
“Search me. Perhaps just a girl’s whim.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“Haven’t the slightest idea. I was with her more or less by accident. I was taking care of her merely for a couple of hours—substituting for a friend of hers.”
Clifford felt sure the little man was lying; but he also felt sure he could get out of Loveman nothing Loveman preferred not to tell. All the brains of the Bar Association had not been able to do this when Loveman had been before that body on charges of unprofessional conduct.
“By the by, Clifford, what’s your interest in the young lady?”
“Her family heard she was back, and engaged me to locate her.”
Loveman, looking keenly at Clifford, did not betray whether or not he recognized this as prevarication. Clifford stood up.
“Well, as you were my only clue, I might as well give the matter up. Sorry to have bothered you. Good-morning.”
“Oh, you’ll find her—you have the reputation of doing whatever you start out to do. Don’t hurry away. I’ve got some new first editions I want to show you. But pardon me for just a moment.” He scratched a line upon a sheet of paper, rang, and handed the folded sheet to the Japanese butler, who silently withdrew. “Now!” he cried briskly, and began to talk enthusiastically over half a dozen stained and musty volumes.
Half an hour later the noiseless butler appeared, bearing a card. Loveman begged Clifford to excuse him, and withdrew—to reënter in five minutes.
“Something rather curious has just happened, Clifford. A gentleman with whom I’ve had some dealings just called—I had an inspiration—I made a suggestion, and— Well, let him speak for himself. Come right in!”
At this, through the door Loveman had left open, stepped the square, solid figure of Bradley.
“I believe you two are acquainted with eachother,” remarked Loveman with his amiable briskness.
The two men nodded, and for a moment stood silent. Clifford tried to read Bradley’s purpose, but Bradley’s powerful face, with its small, brilliant eyes, was as controlled and reticent as in the days, now over a year gone, when Bradley used to give him orders at Police Headquarters.
“H’are you, Clifford.” The voice was the same even, heavy bass.
“First-class, Bradley.”
“Chairs, gentlemen,” put in Loveman; and when they were seated: “Shall I say it, Bradley, or will you?”
“I’ll say it.” Without preface, or reference to the past, Bradley was in the midst of things. “I’m building up a big business, Clifford. Another year or so, and it’ll be the biggest private detective agency in the country. It’s already getting too big for one man to manage; besides, there are certain kinds of cases that another man can handle better than I can. I’ve been looking over the field for the right man. Clifford, I’ve decided you’re this right man, and I want to ask you if you’d be willing to go into partnership.”
“Don’t speak yet—think it over for a minute,” put in Loveman. “You two have had your little differences, but it ought to be plain to both of you that there’s more in it for you two working together than fighting each other.”
Clifford managed to maintain a composed exterior, but within he was bewilderment. Certainly Bradley was a most amazing man!
Clifford thought swiftly, if somewhat dazedly. Was this a trap? It might be—probably was, in view of what had previously passed between them.
But then again—it might not be a trap. Bradley’s offer, on the face of it, was a good business proposition, advantageous to both parties. It was a commonplace of business and politics and police affairs, that competitors and even deadly enemies may scratch the past off the books and combine in a common effort when they vision a profit sufficiently large in such a procedure.
And profit there certainly would be in Bradley’s proposition—big profit. First, would be the original profit of the large fees which clients would pay to have information secured for them. And second,—if the agency were to be run as most other private detective agencies, and on this Bradley would doubtless insist,—there would be the usual large profits secured through the pleasant and easy device of blackmailing clients by threatening to reveal to the public the scandals they had been paid privately to uncover and corroborate. Beyond a doubt, tremendous profits!
Yes, it might not be a trap. It might be just a plain business proposition. It might be—
Another thought: It might be a bribe!
Yes, whatever else it might be, it also was certainlya bribe. But to buy him away from what?... From what?...
“It’s a good proposition—yes?” prompted Loveman.
Though Clifford had taken time to think, his decision had been made the very moment he had understood Bradley’s proposition.
“As you say, Bradley, there’s big money in it, and it’s a great chance for the right party. I want to thank you for considering me and offering me the chance. But I never expect to build up a big business, and such cases as I do take on I want to handle personally and in my own way.”
Bradley’s square face showed not the slightest change. “That’s your privilege, to do things the way you like. Glad I spoke to you about it, though.”
“That’s another good inspiration I had that’s gone on the rocks,” humorously complained Loveman—“as bum a guesser here as when I backed Nina Cordova in ‘Orange Blossoms.’” He followed Clifford to the door, a hand upon his arm. “Anyhow, I may want to be shoving some business your way.”
“Thanks.” Clifford nodded to Bradley, and Bradley nodded back, his face the same grim mask as ever.