"You know the town pretty well, eh?"
"Fairly well, sir."
"Is there acafésomewhere a bit out of the way—something quiet, you know?"
"Sure, across the square. Shall I drive you there?"
"Yes."
The cabby clucked to his horse, and they wheeled about and crossed the White Way again. The pedestrians were thinning out. The rain had ceased, the clouds had parted, and the sky was sprinkled with brightly burning stars. Up in the Times Tower the afternoon before one of the editorial writers had polished up a "war-whoop" such as, he had said to himself, would make the Japanese emperor scratch his head. It was a half-column "drip" in the nature of a "Godspeed" to the first volunteer regiment to start for the front. He liked the Twelfth, and had been in it himself under Ralston. The thought had reminded him that he ought to give his old captain a bit of a send-off as well, and he had penned a dozen lines to be inserted after the other, and headed "A Wise Appointment," ending his short paragraph with the words: "The nation is to be sincerely congratulated on the wisdom of the Executive's selection."
Twenty-five stories below, the subject of his encomium was now entering the side door of a shabbycafé, followed by his cabby. They seated themselves at a table in the corner of the sawdust-covered floor.
"The situation is this," began Ralston, after the waiter had picked up his tip and retired. "I must, inside of six hours, turn up a man who is somewhere in the city. He doesn't know enough to want to be found. He must belocated without outside help—quietly. The only clew I have to his whereabouts is that he knows a young woman named Florence Davenport. She lives in that house we stopped at. She has gone out with a man named Sullivan. I don't know the fellow, but the chances are he won't help me. But whether he will or not, I don't know where he is, and I must find him in order to find her."
He looked at the cabby inquiringly.
"I know him, all right," said the cabby. "A big 'harp' with a sandy mustache. I know her, too. I took 'em both out this very night."
"Took them out!" exclaimed Ralston. "Why, in Heaven's name, didn't you say so before!" Then he remembered and laughed at the absurdity of his question. The fatigue of a severe day was dissipated in a moment.
"Sure," continued the cabby, "I took 'em out just before I answered your call. She uses the same stable."
"Where did they go?"
"Proctor's."
"Where do you suppose they are now?"
"You can search me!" responded the cabby, now thoroughly interested. "The chances are about even between Shanley's and the Martin, but you tried Shanley's. Better hike right down to the other place."
Ralston started swiftly to his feet, made his way to the cab, and in a moment more they were galloping down Broadway.
The electric timepiece on the roofs marked four minutes past one as they rattled past. What people were still awake were most of them inside the shining windows of the restaurants, and the big porters were leaning sleepily against the doorposts of their hostelries. In thecab Ralston wondered what the President would say if he could see him then, chasing all over the town after a young woman and her male escort. He was dreadfully sleepy, and the cushions of the cab were so soft—soft—sof——
He pulled himself together as the cab reined up sharply at the Twenty-sixth Street entrance of the Café Martin. His driver did not need to be told to wait, and Ralston hurriedly pushed his way through the revolving doors into the hot, scented air of the waiting hall. If it was late on Broadway, it was early enough inside the Martin.
On the right, in a crowdedcafé, two hundred soldier boys and civilians with their sweethearts sat noisily discussing broiled lobsters, Welsh rarebits, caviare sandwiches, and such less important matters as were suggested by the last news from Washington. The air reeked with the fumes of hot food, cigarette smoke, and steam heat. When the side door opened, and the draught pulled through from the main dining room, one caught a whiff of rice powder and violets. The chatter and clatter were deafening.
To Ralston the chances seemed in favor of the other and more conspicuous company in the front room, so he turned back and crossed the hall. At the door of the main dining room he paused. At fully eighteen out of the twenty-five tables which were presented to his view sat an equal number of young women who might have qualified as Miss Florence Davenport. There was more room here, the music was louder, and the men had on either uniforms or evening dress. The confusion was even greater than in thecafé, due to the greater amount of light and music and the variation of color. Here andthere at the larger tables sat groups of officers, indulging in pompous patriotic toasts.
Ralston moved toward the center of the room, eagerly scanning the tables in search of a blond man with a light mustache, but he saw none to correspond with the cabby's description. Then from behind him he heard his name called, and he turned to be greeted by a chorus of congratulatory welcome from a party of his old comrades of the Twelfth, who crowded around him, drew him into a chair and ordered more bottles.
Ralston protested but feebly. He was out of sorts with the whole miserable business.
"Here's to you, old man!" exclaimed Peyton, one of Duer's lieutenants. "Boys, here's to the next Secretary of the Navy, and then, who knows—well, here's to Dick Ralston, the best ever—bumpers!"
"Fellows," answered Ralston, "it's very good of you. It's very good of the President. I hope I'll do him credit, but the best any of us can do is the right way as each of us sees it at the moment—and no one knows where it may lead us. Here's to being on the level—here's to the right way and thewhiteway!" He started to drink off the toast when a man's head and shoulders arose behind Peyton, and a thick voice cried:
"That for mine! Th' White Way—th' Great White Way!" and he raised a goblet and drained it. The men in the group laughed, and the laugh was echoed from several of the tables. As the fellow stumbled back into his seat Ralston realized suddenly that he had found his man. A red face and a blond mustache! The elusive Sullivan at last!
For a moment our hero chatted animatedly with his friends, while taking note of the position of the table atwhich the fellow sat. As yet he could not see whether Sullivan had a companion, for the table was in a recess and behind a stand of artificial palms. Then he leaned across the shoulder of the man next him and caught sight of a gray silk dress and a rose-trimmed hat. Who the lady was it was impossible for him to discover, as her head was completely hidden by the paper foliage toward which her companion was bending. They were, apparently, by no means near the end of their supper, so that there was time to consider the situation and to decide upon a course of action. But the situation itself was a novel one to Ralston.
Now the mere accosting of a young lady in a public restaurant is not a very serious matter, even if she be accompanied by a male escort, so long as the matter be done decently and in order. But to suddenly burst upon atête-à-têtecouple from behind a bunch of palms, and demand what has been done with a young man, especially if it be nearly three in the morning, is somewhat different. One mistaken move, and the search would have to be abandoned. How was he to introduce himself to a strange woman and compel her to divulge information which she might have no intention of disclosing, and how, moreover, could this be accomplished in the presence of a person of the type of Mr. Sullivan? He had no claim on either of them. Even assuming that the bounder did not object to his having speech with the lady, it was unlikely that she would admit any intimacy with Steadman in the presence of her companion. No, he must speak to the girl by herself—that was clear enough. But how? Obviously, he could not invite her escort to step out into the next room for a few moments. Neither was it at all likely that she would accede to any request of his (carried by a waiter)either to speak to him or to get rid of her companion. Again he was, in the vernacular, "up against it" as his cabby had suggested on a previous occasion.
Meantime the moments were slipping by, with Ralston trying hard to keep up his end of the conversation. Ten minutes more, and he had determined definitely that there was no course open but to trust to the girl herself for a solution. All he could do was to throw his hand down, face up, before her, and let her decide. In the event of his request being ignored, he must face it boldly out with both of them.
Borrowing a pencil he wrote upon his visiting card: "Miss Davenport will place the writer under the greatest possible obligation by allowing him to speak to her privately upon a matter of the utmost importance. He is in civilian dress at the next table." Underneath his name he wrote: "Second Assistant Secretary of the Navy." Summoning the head waiter he instructed the latter to carry it to the lady behind the palm in such a manner that it should be unobserved by her companion.
He felt instantly relieved—the relief the rider feels the moment he has decided to take the jump and his horse rises beneath him. He plunged anew into the banter going on about him. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, his messenger circle the room, approach the couple from the other side, address Mr. Sullivan, call his attention to something behind him, and slip the card into his companion's lap. Then the attendant moved on.
Several moments passed. He began to feel that nothing had been accomplished when there came a crash of glass, the palm rocked, and the lady in some confusion sprang to her feet, shaking her dress. Her escort arose more slowly, cursing the nearest waiters in a comprehensive manner. The hubbub in the restaurant ceased momentarily, but quickly began again as the manager and his aids hurried forward to offer their assistance.
They had hard work to appease Mr. Sullivan, however. He wanted to see the proprietor, and insisted loudly, although irrelevantly, that he was an "American gentleman." The table was righted, and the head waiter promised that a second supper should be instantly forthcoming, but Sullivan remained in a state of defiance. He insisted on seeing "Monseer Martin"—"my fren' Monseer Martin," and called loudly for a "garsoon" to take him there.
Apparently the lady herself was indignant, and was not at all averse to having her escort see his "fren' Monseer Martin." Then, with his head high in air like a red harvest moon, the rampant Sullivan made his way toward the main door of the dining room, followed by the apologetic and deprecatory head waiter.
As the two passed out Ralston arose.
"Going?" inquired Peyton.
"Not very far. I'll be right back," replied our friend.
The others watched him curiously.
In a moment he was behind the palm, and had sunk into Sullivan's vacant seat.
"How d'y do, Mr. Second Assistant Secretary of the Navy?" remarked the young woman nonchalantly. "Glad to know you. Rather a noisy introduction, eh?"
"I'm surprised you thought it worth while," answered Ralston. "Our friend has probably polished off Martin by this time, and is already on his way back. Then he'll be ready to polish offme!"
"I guess you're able to take care of yourself, all right," replied the girl. "What is it you want?"
"I don't know that it's wise for me to tell you on this short acquaintance."
"Short? Yes. I suppose it is. But, you see, I knowyou. And if I can help Mr. Ralston, why Iwill."
"Thank you," said Ralston. The words sounded entirelymalaproposand inadequate. "Tell me, then—tell me where to find John Steadman."
Instantly the girl's whole manner changed and she drew back.
"Steadman!" she exclaimed uneasily.
"Yes, Steadman! John Steadman. I must find himto-night!"
"You can't!" she cried in some agitation. "You can't. I've no business to tell you even that, but youcan't."
Ralston's face settled into a grim mask.
"Iwill!" he answered steadily. "And you're going to help me."
"I can't, Mr. Ralston. I can't. I don't know where he is."
Ralston's heart fell again.
"But you canhelpme?" he asked.
"I can't. I swear I can't," she replied almost hysterically, and Ralston could see that she was speaking the truth.
"Tell me," he said, "tell me, and I'll give you anything you ask—doesSullivanknow?"
As he spoke the girl's face turned pale under the electric light. She nodded her head slightly, while at the same moment a thick hand descended on Ralston's shoulder and a heavy, wine-laden voice growled in his ear:
"Whatcher doin' in my seat?"
Ralston sprang to his feet and shook off the hand.
"Whatcher doin' talkin' to this lady?" inquired the other, his eyes blazing with anger. His voice rang loudly above the roar of conversation.
"Miss Davenport is a friend of mine," replied Ralston as quietly as he could.
"Frien' nothin'!" cried Sullivan. "I'll teach you to mind your own business." He took a step backward and began to pull off his dinner jacket.
"Don't, Jim!" cried the girl. "Don't! Please! Please don't!"
"Shut up!" snarled Sullivan. "I'll attend to you later!"
There was a great uproar in the restaurant. At the same instant Sullivan led heavily at Ralston's head. Almost automatically, with every ounce of his body at the end of an arm trained into a steel rod, Ralston ducked and countered. His fist caught Sullivan squarely on the chin, and the man went down and backward like a duck shot on the wing. His head struck on a corner of the table, and he lay motionless.
The next instant Ralston was the center of an excited, jostling crowd. Peyton had his arm around him and was whispering: "Get out quick, old man. Awfully unfortunate. Get out while there's time."
"Some one ring for an ambulance!" shouted a civilian at a nearby table.
"Is there a doctor here?" inquired the head waiter mechanically, hurrying toward the door.
Ralston's head reeled. The President's latest appointee mixed up in a drunken brawl at a public hostelry! Worse than that, if possible, he had, perhaps, killed the only man who knew where Steadman could be found. It had all happened so quickly that he saw it like the scenesof a vitagraph, with little twinkles of light glinting all about. Then a girl's voice whispered in his ear:
"Get away! You mustn't be mixed up in this. Get away while you can!"
Somebody began to fling water in Sullivan's face and to rip off his collar. The crowd forced itself almost upon the prostrate man. "Get away," he heard Peyton repeating. "Don't be a fool! Think of the Administration!"
Men were climbing upon tables to see what was going on. There was a deafening hubbub from the main hall, into which the crowd from the other room was pouring. Ralston was thinking as quickly as he could. He saw his whole public career shattered by a single blow. He saw Ellen's anxious face and heard her words: "Please find Steadman." He ground his teeth. The only clew to Steadman lay like a log before him, struck down by his own hand.
Some one in the back of the room shouted: "Send for the police—a man has been shot!" and he heard the silly cry repeated in the outer corridor. Less than half a minute had passed, but to Ralston it had already seemed twenty, when he decided upon the only course Fate had left open to him.
How he managed to do it he never really knew. Afterwards it appeared absurdly impossible, but Peyton said that at the time it seemed reasonable enough. There had been a moment when, in the confusion, the crowd had blocked its own efforts to get closer, a moment when no one apparently had known what to do, a moment which Ralston, in his businesslike and rather autocratic fashion, had turned to his own advantage.
A hurried whisper to Peyton, and with the help of one of their brother officers they had raised Sullivan from thefloor and, followed by the girl, had carried him to the Fifth Avenue entrance. "Keep back the crowd!" Peyton had cried to the head waiter. "We must give this man air," and in a moment more they had staggered with Sullivan's limp form to the ever-ready hansom, which had wheeled quickly to their assistance, and shoved him in.
In another moment there had appeared around the corner of the building a throng of men and women in evening dress, among whom were mingled waiters, pedestrians, and cabmen.
"To the hospital!" cried Ralston, and pushing in the girl, sprang after her himself. The cabman cut furiously at his horse, the bystanders parted, and the hansom leaped forward like a chariot in a Roman amphitheater, with Ralston, who had snatched the reins from above his head, guiding the excited animal down Fifth Avenue.
A policeman made an ineffectual attempt to stop them at Twenty-third Street, but quickly stepped aside to avoid being run down.
"Hully gee!" shouted the cabman inconsequently, "Hully gee!" while the girl, staring abstractedly at the motionless face beside her, murmured excitedly, "A clean get-away! A clean get-away!"
They turned west at Eighth Street and crossed Sixth Avenue at a slow trot. Ralston had surrendered the reins to the driver and was now racking his brains for a solution of his extraordinary and sensational predicament. The girl had taken Sullivan's motionless head into her lap.
"Where to, sir?" inquired the cabby through the manhole.
"I don't know," answered Ralston. "Lose us if you can, that's all. Lose us so we won't be able to find our own way back."
They continued west, following narrow, dimly lit streets, under the shadow of high warehouses. Sullivan had given as yet no sign of life and the girl had not spoken since Twenty-third Street. The strain of the situation began to tell.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" inquired Ralston with an attempt at jocularity. The girl did not reply, and as he heard her sobbing softly a pang of remorse touched him. What business had he to force this young woman into being an accessory after the fact in what might be heralded as a crime?
"Miss Davenport," he said, "I'm awfully sorry to have dragged you into this. Indeed, I am. Let me drive you home. I'll look after Sullivan, and if necessary take him to a hospital."
"And leave you to stick this out by yourself? Not on your life!" she replied. "It's a bad mix-up, but we've got to pull it off somehow. But first we've got to do something for Jim. Look, there's a drug store over there and a night light."
"But that won't do," expostulated Ralston. "We never could explain to the officer on post. We'll have to go somewhere else. You know about these things. Where?"
"Yes, yes—I know."
"Well, quickly!"
The cabman was peering down through the manhole.
"Do you know Commerce Street?" asked the girl.
"Sure I do," said the cabby.
"Well, go to No. 589."
The cabman jerked around his horse. They were in Greenwich Village now, and not far from the old New York Central freight depot. Trim little brick houses with white portals and tiny eves lined the streets. Slender lanes led away into black distances. The night was silent save for the rush and roar of the elevated and the clack of their own horse's hoofs. Not a window was agleam. In this respectable neighborhood folks went to bed betimes, and got up early.
The cool night air soothed Ralston's nerves, but with it he felt limp and tired. The excitement at the restaurant, the wild dash down Fifth Avenue, the presence with them of a man who might perhaps be dead, the fear of pursuit, the extraordinary situation in which he, a man of so much recent prominence, found himself, the strange way in which this girl had become a partner in his fortunes, dazed and bewildered him.
"He can't be dead," muttered Ralston. "He can't be dead!"
The cab turned into a little street lined with irregularly shaped houses. A few gnarled and distorted trees, whose trunks burst out of the concrete pavement, raised their dust-laden branches, prehensile and unnatural, into the starlight. A hundred feet from where the street began it turned sharply to the left, forming a right angle, and debouched again into another thoroughfare. Had one of the ends of it been closed it would have formed a naturalcul-de-sac—an appendix to one of the great canals of the city. And with curious impropriety the city fathers had named this "accidental" Commerce Street, leaving it to the imagination as to what sort of commerce had been intended. A rickety gas lamp leaned dangerously toward a flight of high wooden steps in the angle of the street. Strangely enough, when the street turned the house turned, too, so that half its front faced north and half east. The natural inference was that the inside of the house was shaped like a piece of pie, with its partially bitten point abutting on the corner.
Ralston took charge of Sullivan and the girl sprang down and stepped into the area. Somewhere at a great distance a bell rang once, and then, more faintly, a second time. They waited in silence. On the main thoroughfare beyond the gnarled trees a policeman slowly sauntered across the street. At the top of one of the opposite houses a window was raised cautiously and voices could be heard whispering. Again the bell jangled loosely in the distance, then came the sound of iron bars rattling and bolts being shot back. A grating creaked rustily.
"It's me—Floss. Let me in."
The girl ran back to the cab and a match flared in thegrating. Ralston thought he saw a wrinkled face behind the light.
"All right. Bring him in," said the girl.
Ralston and the cabman lifted the lank form of Sullivan to the sidewalk and half carried, half dragged him into the area. At their feet lay a small flight of steps upon which played a feeble light from the inside. Down this they pulled the victim of Ralston's strange quest. A passage opened before them, in the middle of which stood a tiny, wrinkled Jewish woman, who watched them with snapping, restless eyes, like those of a blackbird.
The girl pushed by them and, taking the candle from the woman, opened a door leading to the right. The air was close and unwholesome. A bed with only a mattress covering the springs stood in the corner, and upon this Ralston and the cabman placed the still unconscious form of Mr. Sullivan.
"That'll do for the present," said the girl. "Now you" (addressing the cabman) "wait outside. If the cop asks what you are doin', you're waiting for a fare in another house, see?"
The cabman retired, and the Jewish woman lit a kerosene lamp. The girl disappeared and returned with a wet sponge and a bottle of ammonia. She now opened Sullivan's shirt and sponged his face with perfect confidence. Then she poured some ammonia upon the sponge and applied it to his nostrils. Ralston, leaning over the bed, coughed in spite of himself.
Sullivan opened his eyes a little; the girl removed the sponge and put her head close to his face.
"He's breathing—he'll come round all right," she said. "He stays 'out' an awful long time."
She gave him the ammonia again and the patientgasped audibly. Ralston heaved a great sigh of relief. Although he had known himself to be absolutely in the right he was aware that this body-snatching was, to say the least, irregular. Had the fellow died it would have made a nasty story for the papers. He sank back on a horsehair rocking chair and the room grew black with little pricking stars. The next moment he felt the sponge thrust in his face.
"You're almost out yourself, Mr. Ralston. I'll have a cup of coffee ready for you in a minute. Lie down on the sofa."
Ralston indeed felt sick and faint, the lids of his eyes seemed like lead, pulled down by invisible but powerful strings. The man was not dead! But Steadman—he'd think of Steadman in a moment, after he had rested his eyes a little——
He leaned back his head—and slept. A light touch on his forehead awakened him half an hour later, and he opened his eyes upon a strange picture. The room was stuffy and warm as ever. The lamp cast but an uncertain light on the walls, which, he noticed, were quite bare of ornament. Over the windows were heavy wooden shutters, bolted on the inside. On the bed lay Sullivan, breathing heavily. The floor was covered by a dirty rag carpet, and the only articles of furniture besides the bed itself were a horsehair-covered lounge, a small table, and two horsehair-covered chairs, and in the midst of these uncouth surroundings stood a girl in shimmering evening dress, her white shoulders shining in the lamplight, offering him a cup of hot and fragrant coffee.
"You're a brick," said Ralston feebly.
The girl smiled.
"Kind of funny, ain't it? To think of you and meand him"—she pointed over her shoulder—"being here. What a rumpus the police'll make when they can't find him at any hospital. It's a queer mix-up, now, ain't it?"
"I should say itwas!" echoed Ralston. He gulped down the coffee. "Do you live here?" he asked, sweeping the room again with his eyes. The girl smiled.
"Not generally," she said.
"But this house—whose is it?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"They've never been able to find out at the tax office," she said.
"You're a good girl," said Ralston inconsequently.
The smile on the girl's face changed. She started to speak. Then she closed her eyes and covered them with her hands.
The figure in the bed gave vent to a long-drawn-out snort and tossed heavily. The girl dabbed her eyes with her wrists and turned with an anxious look.
"He's waking up," she whispered. "He'll be crazy when he sees you here."
"But I brought him here," said Ralston, "and it was his own fault. Besides, he is going to find Steadman for me."
"Find Steadman for you?" she exclaimed.
"Why, certainly! Why not?"
The girl looked at him in amazement.
"And that's why you carried him off?"
"Yes—naturally—of course. What did you think?"
She gave a low laugh and clapped her hands softly together.
"And I thought all along it was just to get yourself out of the mess you were in—to avoid the publicity and all. I didn't see your game. I thought it was all up foryou—and the best you could do was to get out of having to go to court! But they can't count you out, can they? My, youhavegot a nerve!" she finished enthusiastically.
Ralston shrugged his shoulders.
"I assure you it wasn't as clearly thought out as all that. It was like clutching at whatever was left. Sullivan's my only clew. How can I force a statement from this fellow? What has he done? What hold can I get on him?"
The girl looked at him half frightened yet full of admiration.
"Don't try it, Mr. Ralston," she whispered. "Give it up. You can't do it. It's too late. Besides, Sullivan's a dangerous man—a man who stands in with all the politicians—a bad fellow to threaten. He's done things enough, God knows, to send him to jail a dozen times—but leave him alone! You've done enough for Steadman. If you try to monkey with Sullivananythingmight happen to you. You mightn't leave this house alive. Get away before it's too late. You're probably due in Washington about now. This night's work will blow over, and Steadman isn't worth the powder to blow his brains out." She clasped her hands with a gesture of entreaty.
"No," said Ralston. "I've begun, and I must finish the job. I mightn't have gone into it if I had known what it was going to cost, but it's too late to back out now. Besides, I've nothing to lose. I'm done for. This 'Martin' business would kill the Administration if I didn't resign. In fact, the public need never know that I have accepted. Fancy! The police looking for the Second Assistant Secretary of the Navy as a fugitive from justice! Why, the papers will be full of it. Butthat doesn't help me with Steadman. I've got to force this fellow here to give up. Tell me something to use as a lever."
The man on the bed groaned loudly and elevated one knee high in the air. The girl hesitated, evidently torn between various conflicting claims of loyalty.
"Tell him," she whispered after a moment—"tell him you know all about Shackleton and the Mercantile bonds. If that isn't enough, say you'll hand him over for the Masterson deal—that'll fetch him, but be careful and don't get him angry. He may not know where Steadman is, after all. But I heard him say that the gang had almost finished trimming Steadman and were going to finish him up to-night—at cards I think. They've gotten almost every cent he has already——"
Sullivan gave a harsh cough and arose to a sitting position.
"Shackleton—Mercantile bonds—Masterson deal," murmured Ralston to himself.
"Huh! That you, Floss?" grunted Sullivan. "What are we doin' here? Where's the old woman?"
"Sh-h! It's all right, Jim," said the girl. "We made a clean get-away. You came near running in the lot of us."
"Whatcher talking about?" mumbled Sullivan. "'Bout 'getaways'?" Then he caught sight of Ralston. "Who's this feller?"
"All right, Mr. Sullivan, I'm a friend of yours," said Ralston quietly.
Sullivan looked fixedly at him for a moment without speaking.
"I've seen you before," he muttered. "Somewheres."
"Sure," said Ralston with a laugh. "You tried to do me up at 'The Martin' not over an hour ago."
Sullivan glared at him.
"You that feller?"
"I am."
"Whatcher doin' here?"
"Same thing I was going to do at 'The Martin' if you'd given me the chance—have a talk with you."
Sullivan looked puzzled and rubbed the back of his head. He had none of the resplendency of his earlier appearance.
"Must ha' fallen an' hit my head," said he in an explanatory manner. "Say, did anyoneclubme?"
"No," said Ralston. "But you got a pretty rough deal."
"Say," repeated Sullivan, "how'd you come to bring me to the old woman's?"
"I had to take you somewhere," said Ralston. There was a pause of several seconds, during which Sullivan endeavored to readjust himself.
"What's yer name?" he inquired.
"Sackett," said Ralston.
"Sackett," repeated Sullivan. "I don't know Sackett. What's yer business?"
"Oh, I'm a detective," answered Ralston lightly.
Sullivan started and clutched at the mattress.
"Detective!" he muttered. "What d'yer want?"
"I don't want anything," said Ralston. "I know quite a lot about you, Mr. Sullivan, but it stays where it is. All I want is a little help."
"You go to hell!" growled Sullivan.
"No—no!" replied Ralston. "Not yet. I want you to tell me where I can find Steadman. You see, his folks are anxious, and it's worth quite a little to me to locate him. It needn't interfere with any of yourplans. Besides, I imagine you're about through with him, eh?"
The color returned to Sullivan's face and he snarled angrily.
"None of that to me, see? I am on to you, understand? You'd better get out of here, while you're still able."
The girl, who had remained silent, now spoke again:
"Be careful, Jim; this man can make trouble for us."
Sullivan looked sharply at her, but evidently nothing about her appearance or speech excited his suspicions.
"Mr. Sullivan," continued Ralston from his seat in the horsehair rocker, "I don't mean you any harm. In fact, I can do you a good turn now and then if you'll help me out. All I want is my coin for turning up this chap Steadman. I know he's no good. He's anybody's money. He's nothing to me. But it's all in my day's work. Now, don't think me disagreeable. I want Steadman, you want—well, you don't want certain little incidents of your career to get to the ears of the district attorney—the Shackleton bonds, for example. Now, don't be alarmed. I haven't the slightest intention of giving you away, but, come now, let's be on the level with each other."
Sullivan cast an evil look at him.
"You think you've got something on me, eh? Prove it! What bonds did you say?"
Ralston saw that he had nearly made a slip.
"Quite right," said he. "I said Shackleton bonds—I wasthinkingof Shackleton. Of course I meant the Mercantile bonds. But if you have any doubt about my sincerity I might go into the Masterson matter——"
But Sullivan was on his feet, his eyes staring, and his face as pale as it had been on the floor of "The Martin."
"For Heaven's sake!" he implored.
Ralston rose.
"Come! Come! Is it a bargain? You help me and I help you. Where is he?"
"I'll go with you," muttered Sullivan. "Where's my coat?" He looked around anxiously. There was no doubt as to the effectiveness of the reference to the Masterson case.
"Get me a coat," he ordered of the girl. Florence Davenport left the room, leaving the two men facing one another—the criminal and the gentleman. It would have been hard to say which looked the more haggard. The light of the dim lamp made the rings around Ralston's eyes look like huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and his mouth was drawn to a thin line. Inside his head was beginning to sing and the corners of his lids to twitch. He knew the symptoms. He was beginning to "fade out." But he was getting warm now and he paid no heed to himself.
The girl returned, bringing in her arms a pile of new silk-lined black overcoats. Ralston remembered the incident afterwards, but at the time it did not impress him. It is doubtful whether he knew definitely the meaning of the term—"a fence."
Mechanically he selected a coat to fit him and Sullivan did the same. The Davenport girl put on the smallest.
"Gimme a hat," said Sullivan.
Again the girl departed and presently returned with an odd collection of old felt hats of various styles. Now, fully arrayed, Sullivan felt his way gingerly to the door. A pale gleam filtered through the grating. The bolt was shot back and Ralston found himself in the fresh morning air.
A white, misty light filled the sky like a diaphanous, pulsating sheet. If you looked for it it was gone, but as you watched the opposite houses you knew it to be there. Night was struggling with the day, and the cohorts of darkness were barely in the ascendant. The tang of the breeze told the story, filtering in from the river. But the lamps showed brighter than ever. On his box the cabman slumbered, while his steed did likewise in cabhorse fashion.
Sullivan reached up and shook the man roughly. Across the end of the street heavy vans were making their way eastward, filling the little niche in which they stood with a deafening clatter.
"Drive up Broadway," ordered Sullivan.
The cabman removed his hat, ran his finger around the sweatband and replaced it on his head.
"Hully gee!" he repeated reminiscently. Several yanks were required to hoist the horse into a position appropriate to locomotion, and when action was achieved the animal started as if walking on eggs. Sullivan and Ralston took Miss Davenport in her black overcoat between them. Ralston could not tell whether the sky above was white or blue.
Slowly they dragged out into Barrow Street and turned into Green Street. Once or twice they passed a lonely pedestrian or a stray policeman. Soon they saw the lights of the elevated structure at Jefferson Market and caught the moving windows of the trains. A line of truck wagons was moving slowly southward, the drivers sleeping, unmindful of their route. Milk wagons jangling from Hudson Avenue added a livelier note. There was a smell of morning everywhere.
Suddenly Ralston knew he saw white and not blueabove the housetops. The thought filled him with a nervous anxiety to lose no time, and he pushed up the manhole and ordered the cabby to make haste.
"What do you think I am—a bloomin' steamboat?" inquired the cabby in sleepy wrath.
They wheeled into Sixth Avenue and Ralston noticed that the surface cars which passed already had some passengers. Men were standing in twos and threes upon the street corners. Most of them were smoking clay pipes. He wondered what manner of men went to work at this hour. They passed Fourteenth Street and found many persons walking westward—at nightfall they would plod back. It was a long, long way to go to work. No one had spoken in the cab as yet.
"Funny how small the city seems at night," said the girl.
Although there was a germ of psychological truth in the remark, Ralston could think of nothing in reply. He had often noticed the same phenomenon. Of an afternoon, with Fifth Avenue crowded to the curbs, the distance from his club to Forty-second Street appeared immense. By night it seemed no more than a block or two. Now, as they rode northward in the graying light, the distances which his mental cyclometer ticked off seemed small and their pace inordinately slow.
Sullivan had maintained a consistent silence. The Masterson affair had effectually put a quietus upon his belligerency. Ralston was overwhelmed with sleep. There was a weight behind each of his eyeballs that seemed forcing them downward and outward, and the humming in the back of his head had returned. A faint odor of violets and rice powder emanated from the overcoat beside him. Now and again the small head, with itspiles of brown hair and old slouch hat, would begin to incline gradually and gently in his direction, only to be raised again when the brim of the hat touched his shoulder. He leaned his own head in the corner and closed his eyes.
Instantly a heavy curtain, warm, fragrant, deliciously soothing, seemed drawn over him. He found himself talking to Ellen in Miss Evarts's drawing-room. He felt again the elation of his appointment, the gratefulness of appreciation. The man was painting in his name on the blackboard—the man in the yellow-and-black sweater, and he heard the crowd spelling it out and repeating it. Once again he experienced the thrill it had occasioned him the night before. He realized anew the extent to which his selection had brought him into the public eye—the influence which the success or failure of his appointment would have upon the Administration.
The President had been already severely criticised for giving important places to comparatively young and untried men—men of the silk-stocking class—and the President had but a doubtful hold upon the people. Several canards had been started which, in the face of recent socialistic propaganda, had made considerable headway. The yellow journals were denouncing the war as imperialistic, as an excuse for an ambitious executive to play the part of a Cæsar or a Napoleon. They charged that he was surrounding himself with the rich and powerful, and their sons. He was contrasted with Lincoln and Jefferson. In a word, the Administration was in a ticklish position.
Then upon Ralston's wearied brain flashed the picture of his meeting with Colonel Duer; the tawdry, tarnished environment of his search for the worthless Steadman;his arrival at "The Martin" at two in the morning; his open solicitation of a woman's acquaintance, and the consequent free fight in which, so far as the onlookers knew, he might have killed her companion; then, and most unpleasant of all, his flight, bearing away his victim with him. How could he explainthat? Why, the thing must have been wired to every morning paper in the country. He could see the headlines:
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY KILLS MANFIGHT AROSE OVER WOMAN IN RESTAURANTA NEW SCANDAL FOR THE PRESIDENT TO HUSH UP
He shuddered at the thought of it. If he gave himself up and declared that he had struck in self-defense, how could he explain having dashed away with the woman in a hansom? Where had he gone?Whyhad he gone there? His lips were sealed. Hecouldmake no statement without publicly avowing the whole object of his night's work—the necessity for finding Steadman, and Steadman's relations with Ellen. He saw column after column of interviews with himself, real and imaginary. The most sacred passages of Ellen's life would be made public property, dressed up to suit the editor's fancy, and sold on the corner for a penny.
The possibility sickened him. There was nothing to be done but to resign and go away. In that way only could the Administration be relieved from a most embarrassing situation, and by no other means could Ellen be saved from the humiliation incident to a truthful explanation of the affair. Then, too, he must continue his search. He could not give it up now. He must find Steadman, even while a fugitive from justice himself. Hewouldfind him.
He opened his eyes. They were still following Sixth Avenue beneath the elevated tracks. It had grown brighter. Sullivan had lighted a cigar. Ralston found himself trembling with excitement. A sweat had broken out all over him. Across the way, on the opposite corner, he saw the lights of a telegraph office, and he raised the manhole and told the cabby to stop.
"What's up?" inquired Sullivan, removing his cigar.
"I've got to send a telegram," said Ralston unsteadily.
Sullivan looked at him with suspicion.
"You ain't givin' me the double cross, eh?"
"I give you my word I'm not," replied Ralston. "It's only a matter of private business."
"Guess it can wait, can't it?"
Ralston smiled in spite of himself. He wished he could tell Sullivan the purport of this telegram which gave him so much anxiety. Simultaneously it occurred to him that it was undesirable to leave the cab even for a moment Sullivan might take it into his head to disappear.
"Oh, well," he retorted, "it doesn't entirely suit my book to allow you a chance to side-step me either, so we'll settle it by letting Miss Davenport send the wire for me. In that way we can each continue in the other's company. Much more agreeable, of course. Miss Davenport, may I ask you to get me a blank from inside?"
The girl sprang down and quickly returned with a sheaf of blanks and a pencil. Ralston scribbled on his knee a hasty message: