The man was a rough, burly Englishman of one of the most intelligent, if not intellectual, kind; the British cabby, as a type, has few superiors for sheer quickness of wit and understanding. This man had been sharpened and tempered by his contact with American conditions. His eyes were shrewd, his face honest if weather-beaten, his attitude respectful.
"I've another use for you to-night," Maitland decided, "if you are at liberty and—discreet?" The final word was a question, flung over his shoulder as he turned toward the escritoire.
"Yes, sir," said the man thoughtfully. "I allus can drive, sir, even when I'm drinkin' 'ardest and can't see nothink."
"Yes? You've been drinking to-night?" Maitland smiled quietly, standing at the small writing-desk and extracting a roll of bills from a concealed drawer.
"I'm fair blind, sir."
"Very well." Maitland turned and extended his hand, and despite his professed affliction, the cabby's eyes bulged as he appreciated the size of the bill.
"My worrd!" he gasped, stowing it away in the cavernous depths of a trousers pocket.
"You will wait outside," said Maitland, "until I come out or—or send somebody for you to take wherever directed. Oh, that's all right—not another word!"
The door closed behind the overwhelmed nighthawk, and the latch clicked loudly. For a space Maitland stood in the hallway, troubled, apprehensive, heart strangely oppressed, vision clouded by the memory of the girl as he had seen her only a few minutes since: as she had stood beneath the chandelier, after acting upon her primary clear-headed impulse to give her rescuer the aid of the light.
He seemed to recall very clearly her slight figure, swaying, a-quiver with fright and solicitude,—care for him!—her face, sensitive and sweet beneath its ruddy crown of hair, that of a child waking from evil dreams, her eyes seeking his with their dumb message of appeal and of…. He dared not name what else.
Forlorn, pitiful, little figure! Odd it seemed that he should fear to face her again, alone, that he should linger reluctant to cross the threshold of his study, mistrustful and afraid alike of himself and of her—a thief.
For what should he say to her, other than the words that voiced the hunger of his heart? Yet if he spoke … words such as those to—to a thief … what would be the end of it all?
What did it matter? Surely he, who knew the world wherein he lived and moved and had his being, knew bitter well the worth of its verdicts. The world might go hang, for all he cared. At least his life was his own, whether to make or to mar, and he had not to answer for it to any power this side of the gates of darkness. And if by any act of his the world should be given a man and a woman in exchange for a thief and an idler, perhaps in the final reckoning his life might not be accounted altogether wasted….
He set back his shoulders and inspired deeply, eyes lightening; and stepped into the study, resolved. "Miss—" he called huskily; and stopped, reminded that not yet did he even know her name.
"It is safe now," he amended, more clearly and steadily, "to come out, if you will."
He heard no response. The long gleaming folds of the portières hung motionless. Still, a sharp and staccato clatter of hoofs that had risen in the street, might have drowned her voice.
"If you please—?" he said again, loudly.
The silence sang sibilant in his ears; and he grew conscious of a sense of anxiety and fear stifling in its intensity.
At length, striding forward, with a swift gesture he flung the hangings aside.
Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.
He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move the temperate soul.
"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."
And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.
The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow. Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very violent exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again he saw fit to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled bandana with grim abandon.
At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh profoundly—not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress, but the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has drunk deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.
Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire, unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking," transfers; or—yet a third possibility—with the prevailing rate of wage as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one hand, and Jamaica, Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the other.
A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside, entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that illicit hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose sloppy imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were set about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of sleepy-eyed, case-hardened habitués.
Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George…. Nah," in response to a concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."
Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chairback, another on the table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar, puffy hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by the side of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his mind the one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.
"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself…. He's wise enough…. Yeh can't fool Hickey all the time…. I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r it's the sidewalks f'r mine…. Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest livin'…. 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"
The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment of engraved arabesques.
"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for mine. 'Ndhehad a wad like a ham …onhim…. 'Nd I might've had it all for my very own if…." His brow clouded blackly.
"Sleuth!" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth. And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"
Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and, rising, waddled hastily out into the night.
It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to save his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.
"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but …I'llgethim all right."
And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings, squat, swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the Tenderloin; and so on toward Maitland's rooms—morose, misunderstood, malignant, coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical of the force he represented.
On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his dour mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully familiar to his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he took to be the beginning of a street brawl.
In the alcove the girl waited, torn in the throes of incipient hysteria: at first too weak from reaction and revulsion of feeling to do anything other than lean heavily against the wall and fight with all her strength and will against this crawling, shuddering, creeping horror of nerves, that threatened alike her self-control, her consciousness, and her reason.
But insensibly the tremor wore itself away, leaving her weary and worn but mistress of her thoughts and actions. And she dropped with gratitude into a chair, bending an ear attentive to the war of words being waged in the room beyond the portières.
At first, however, she failed to grasp the import of the altercation. And when in time she understood its trend, it was with incredulity, resentment, and a dawning dread lest a worse thing might yet befall her, worse by far than aught that had gone before. But to be deprived of his protection, to feel herself forcibly restrained from the shelter of his generous care—!
A moment gone she had been so sure that all would now be well with her, once Maitland succeeded in ridding himself of the police. He would shut that door and——and then she would come forth and tell him, tell him everything, and, withholding naught that damned her in her own esteem, throw herself upon his mercy, bruised with penitence but serene in the assurance that he would prove kind.
She had such faith in his tender and gentle kindness now…. She had divined so clearly the motive that had permitted Anisty's escape in order that she might be saved, not alone from Anisty, not alone from the shame of imprisonment, but from herself as well—from herself as Maitland knew her. The burglar out of the way, by ruse, evasion, or subterfuge she would be secreted from the prying of the police, smuggled out of the house and taken to a place of safety, given a new chance to redeem herself, to clean her hands of the mire of theft, to become worthy of the womanhood that was hers….
But now—she thrust finger-nails cruelly into her soft palms, striving to contain herself and keep her tongue from crying aloud to those three brutal, blind men the truth: that she was guilty of the robbery, she with Anisty; that Maitland was—Maitland: a word synonymous with "man of honor."
In the beginning, indeed, all that restrained her from doing so was her knowledge that Maitland would be more pained by her sacrifice than gladdened or relieved. He was so sure of clearing himself…. It was inconceivable to her that there could be men so stupid and crassly unobservant as to be able to confuse the identity of the two men for a single instant. What though they did resemble each other in form and feature? The likeness went no deeper: below the surface, and rising through it with every word and look and gesture, lay a world-wide gulf of difference in every shade of thought, feeling, and instinct.
She herself could never again be deceived—no, never! Not for a second could she mistake the one for the other…. What were they saying?
The turmoil of her indignation subsided as she listened, breathlessly, to Maitland's story of his adventures; and the joy that leaped in her for his frank mendacity in suppressing every incident that involved her, was all but overpowering. She could have wept for sheer happiness; and at a later time she would; but not now, when everything depended on her maintaining the very silence of death.
How dared they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of them! Her anger raged high again … and as swiftly was quenched, extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare suggestion thrown out by Hickey.
"…explainin' how a crook like Anisty made three tries in one day to steal some jewels and didn't get 'em. Where were they, all this time?"
Maitland's cool retort was lost upon her. What matter? If they disbelieved him, persisted in calling him Anisty, in natural course they would undertake to search the flat. And if she were found…. Oh, she must spare him that! She had given him cause for suffering enough. She must get away, and that instantly, before…. From a distance, to-morrow morning,—to-night, even,—by telegraph, she could communicate with him.
At this juncture O'Hagan entered with his parcel. The rustle of the paper as he brushed against the door-jamb was in itself a hint to a mind keyed to the highest pitch of excitement and seeking a way of escape from a position conceived to be perilous. In a trice the girl had turned and sped, lightfooted, to the door opening on the private hall.
Here, halting for a brief reconnaissance, she determined that her plan was feasible, if hazardous. She ran the risk of encountering some one ascending the stairs from the ground floor; but if she were cautious and quick she could turn back in time. On the other hand, the men whom she most feared were thoroughly occupied with their differences, dead to all save that which was happening within the room's four walls. A curtain hung perhaps a third of the way across the study door, tempering the light in the hall; and the broad shoulders of the cabby obstructed the remainder of the opening.
It was a chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and—the rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity to escape, by drowning the noise of her movements.
For two eternal seconds she was edging stealthily down toward the outer door; then, in no time at all, found herself on the landing and—confronted by a fresh complication, one unforeseen: how to leave the house without being observed, stopped, and perhaps detained until too late? There would be men at the door, beyond doubt; possibly police, stationed there to arrest all persons attempting to leave….
No time for weighing chances. The choice of two alternatives lay before her: either to return to the alcove or to seek safety in the darkness of the upper floors—untenanted, as she had been at pains to determine. The latter seemed by far the better, the less dangerous, course to pursue. And at once she took it.
There was no light on the first-floor landing—it having presumably been extinguished by the janitor early in the evening. Only a feeble twilight obtained there, in part a reflected glow from the entrance hall, partly thin and diffused rays escaping from Maitland's study. So it was that the first few steps upward took the girl into darkness so close and unrelieved as to seem almost palpable.
At the turn of the staircase she paused, holding the rail and resting for an instant, the while she listened, ere ascending at a more sedate pace to a haven of safety more complete in that it would be more remote from the battle-ground below.
And, resting so, was suddenly chilled through and through with fear, sheer childish dread of the intangible and unknown terrors that lurked in the blackness above her. It was as if, rendered supersensitive by strain and excitement, the quivering filaments of her subconsciousness, like spiritual tentacles feeling ahead of her, had encountered and recoiled from a shape of evil, a specter of horror obscene and malign, crouching, ready to spring, there, in the shadow of night. . . .
And her breath was smothered in her throat and her heart smote so madly against the frail walls of its cage that they seemed like to burst, while she stood transfixed, frozen in inaction, limbs stiffening, roots of her hair stirring, fingers gripping the banister rail until they pained her; and with eyes that stared wide into the black heart of nothingness, until the night seemed pricked with evanescent periods of dim fire, peopled with monstrous and terrible shadows closing about her. . . .
Yet—it was absurd! She must not yield to such puerile superstitions.
There was nothing there. . . .
Therewassomething there . . . something that like an incarnation of hatred was stalking her. . . .
If only she dared scream! If only she dared turn and fly, back to the comfort of light and human company!…
There arose a trampling of feet in the hallway; and she heard Maitland's voice like a far echo, as he bade the police good night. And distant and unreachable as he seemed, the sound of his words brought her strength and some reassurance, and she grew slightly more composed. Yet, the instant that he had turned away to talk to the cabman, her fright of that unspeakable and incorporeal menace flooded her consciousness like a great wave, sweeping her—metaphorically—off her feet. And indeed, for the time, she felt as if drowning, overwhelmed in vast waters, sinking, sinking into the black abyss of syncope….
Then, as a drowning person—we're told—clutches at straws, she grasped again at the vibrations of his voice…. What was he saying?
"You will wait outside, please, until I come out or send somebody, whom you will take wherever directed…."
——Speaking to the cabman, thinking of her, providing for her escape!Considerate and fore-sighted as always! How she could have thanked him!The warmth of gratitude that enveloped her almost unnerved her; she wasput to it to restrain her impulse to rush down the stairs and….
But no; she must not risk the chance of rebuff. How could she foretell what was in his mind and heart, how probe the depths of his feeling toward her? Perhaps he would receive her protestations in skeptic spirit. Heaven knew he had cause to! Dared she…. To be repulsed!…
But no. He had provided this means for flight; she would advantage herself of it and … and thank him by letter. Best so: for he must ever think the worst of her; she could never undeceive him—pride restraining and upholding her.
Better so; she would go, go quickly, before he discovered her absence from the flat.
And incontinently she swung about and flew down the stairs, silently, treading as lightly on the heavily padded steps as though she had been thistledown whirled adrift by the wind, altogether heedless of the creeping terror she had sensed on the upper flight, careless of all save her immediate need to reach that cab before Maitland should discover that she had escaped.
The door was just closing behind the cabby as she reached the bottom step; and she paused, considering that it were best to wait a moment, at least, lest he should be surprised at the quickness with which his employer found work for him; paused and on some mysterious impulse half turned, glancing back up the stairs.
Not a thought too soon; another instant's hesitation and she had been caught. Some one—a man—was descending; and rapidly. Maitland? Even in her brief glance she saw the white shield of a shirt bosom gleam dull against the shadows. Maitland was in evening dress. Could it be possible…?
No time now for conjecture, time now only for action. She sprang for the door, had it open in a trice, and before the cabby was really enthroned upon his lofty box, the girl was on the step, fair troubled face upturned to him in wild entreaty.
"Hurry!" she cried, distracted. "Drive off, at once! Please—oh, please!"
Perhaps the man had expected something of the sort, analyzingMaitland's words and manner. At all events he was quick to appreciate.This was what he had been engaged for and what he had been paid forroyally, in advance.
Seizing reins and whip, he jerked the startled animal between the shafts out of its abstraction and——
"I say, cabby! One moment!"
The cabman turned; the figure on the stoop of the house was undoubtedly Maitland's—Maitland as he had just seen him, with the addition of a hat. As he looked the man was at the wheel, clambering in.
"Changed my mind—I'm coming along, cabby," he said cheerfully. "Drive us to the St. Luke Building, please and—hurry!"
"Yessir!"
Bitter as poverty the cruel lash cut round the horse's flanks; and as the hansom shot out at break-neck speed toward Fifth Avenue, the girl cowered back in her corner, shivering, staring wide-eyed at the man who had so coolly placed himself at her side.
This, then, was that nameless danger that had stalked her on the staircase, this the personality whose animosity toward her had grown so virulent that, even when consciously ignorant of its proximity, she had been repelled and frightened by its subtle emanations! And now—and now she was in his power!
Dazed with fear she started up, acting blindly on the primitive instinct to fly; and in another moment, doubtless, would have thrown herself boldly from the cab to the sidewalk, had her companion not seized her by the forearm and by simple force compelled her to resume her seat.
"Be still, you little fool!" he told her sharply. "Do you think thatI'm going to let you go a third time? Not till I'm through with you….And if you scream, by the powers, I'll throttle you!"
She sank back, speechless. Anisty glanced her up and down without visible emotion, then laughed unpleasantly,—the hard and unyielding laugh of brute man brutishly impassioned.
"This silly ass, Maitland," he observed, "isn't really as superfluous as he seems.Ifind him quite a convenience, and I suppose that ought to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste to resemble me…. Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab! What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent heart! fixes it all up for me…. And so," concluded the criminal with ironic relish,—"and so I've gotyou, my lady."
He looked at her in sidelong fashion, speculative, calculating, relentless. And she bowed her head, assenting, "Yes—"
"You're dead right, little woman. Got you. Um-mmm."
She made no reply; she could have made none aside from raising an outcry, although now she was regaining something of her shattered poise, and with it the ability to accept the situation quietly, for a little time (she could not guess how long she could endure the strain), pending an opportunity to turn the tables on this, her persecutor.
"What is it," she said presently, with some effort—"what is it you wish with me?"
"I have my purpose," with a grim smile.
"You will not tell me?"
"You've guessed it, my lady; I will not—just yet. Wait a bit."
She spurred her flagging spirit until it flashed defiance. "Mr. Anisty!"
"Yes?" he responded with a curling lip, cold eyes to hers.
"I demand—"
"No you don't!" he cut her short with a snarl. "You're not in a position to demand anything. Maybe it would be as well for you to remember who you're dealing with."
"And——?"—heart sinking again.
"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a crook—like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed—kindness of you and your Maitland. Now—I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?"
"What—?" she asked breathlessly.
"I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat—something a copper would never think of—and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tête-à-tête Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks. Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion. "I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore.
The girl tried to nerve herself. "It—it doesn't seem to strike you," she argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue."
For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to repeat it, with added emphasis.
"You try it on, my lady, and see what happens."
She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to know me well enough to know…."
"What?" she breathed, in spite of herself.
Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat.
"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my hands. Now I guess you understand,"—and turning his head he fixed her with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,—"that one squeal out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and—I'll take you with me for company."
"You—you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous.
"Like a dog," he returned with unction.
"You, a man, would—would shoot a woman?"
"You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man:I'ma crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have overlooked that. Amateurs often do…. To-night I made you a fair proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty. Now you see the other side of the picture."
Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly reptile.
He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably strong and malevolent.
"And there is one other reason why you will think twice before making a row," he clinched his case. "If you did that, and I weakly permitted the police to nab and walk us off, the business would get in the papers—your name and all; and—what'd Maitland think of you then, my lady? What'd he think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company with the little woman he'd been making eyes at—whom he was going, in his fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter and redeem and—and all that slush? Eh?"
And again his low evil laugh made her shudder. "Now, you won't risk that. You'll come with me and behave, I guess, all right."
She was dumb, stupefied with misery.
He turned upon her sharply.
"Well?"
Her lips moved in soundless assent,—lips as pallid and bloodless as the wan young face beneath the small inconspicuous hat.
The man grunted impatiently; yet was satisfied, knowing that he had her now completely under control: a condition not hard to bring about in a woman who, like this, was worn out with physical fatigue and overwrought with nervous strain. The conditions had been favorable, the result was preeminently comfortable. She would give him no more trouble.
The hansom swerved suddenly across the car-tracks and pulled up at the curb. Anisty rose with an exclamation of relief and climbed down to the sidewalk, turning and extending a hand to assist the girl.
"Come!" he said imperatively. "We've no time to waste."
For an instant only she harbored a fugitive thought of resistance; then his eyes met hers and held them, and her mind seemed to go blank under his steadfast and domineering regard. "Come!" he repeated sharply. Trembling, she placed a hand in his and somehow found herself by his side. Regardless of appearances the man retained her hand, merely shifting it beneath his arm, where a firm pressure of the elbow held it as in a vise.
"You needn't wait," he said curtly to the cabby; and swung about, the girl by his side.
"No nonsense now," he warned her tensely, again thrusting a hand in his breast pocket significantly.
"I understand," she breathed faintly, between closed teeth.
She had barely time to remark the towering white façade of upper Broadway's tallest sky-scraper ere she was half led, half dragged into the entrance of the building.
The marble slabs of the vestibule echoed strangely to their footsteps—those slabs that shake from dawn to dark with the tread of countless feet. They moved rapidly toward the elevator-shaft, passing on their way deserted cigar- and news-stands shrouded in dirty brown clothes. By the dark and silent well, where the six elevators (of which one only was a-light and ready for use) stood motionless as if slumbering in utter weariness after the gigantic exertions of the day, they came to a halt; and a chair was scraped noisily on the floor as a night-watchman rose, rubbing his eyes and yawning, to face them.
Anisty opened the interview brusquely. "Is Mr. Bannerman in now?" he demanded.
The watchman opened his eyes wider, losing some of his sleepy expression; and observed the speaker and his companion—the small, shrinking, frightened-looking little woman who bore so heavily on her escort's arm, as if ready to drop with exhaustion. It appeared that he knew Maitland by sight, or else thought that he did.
"Oh, ye're Mister Maitland, ain't yous?" he said. "Nope; if MistherBannerman's in his offis, I dunno nothin' about it."
"He was to meet me here at two," Anisty affirmed. "It's a very important case. I'm sure he must be along, immediately, if he's not up-stairs. You're sure—?"
"Nah, I ain't sure. He may've been there all night, f'r all I know. ButI'll take yous up 'f you want," with a doubtful glance at the girl.
"This lady is one of Mr. Bannerman's clients, and in great trouble." The self-styled Maitland laid his hand in a protecting gesture over the fingers on his arm; and pressed them cruelly. "I think we will go up, thank you. If Bannerman's not in, I can 'phone him. I've a pass-key."
The watchman appeared satisfied: Maitland's social standing was guaranty enough.
"All right, sir. Step in."
The girl made one final effort to hang back. Anisty's brows blackened."By God!" he told her in a whisper. "If you dare…!"
And somehow she found herself at his side in the steel cage, the gate's clang ringing loud in her ears. The motion of the car, shooting upwards with rapidly increasing speed, made her slightly giddy. Despite Anisty's supporting arm she reeled back against the wall of the cage, closing her eyes. The man observed this with covert satisfaction.
As the speed decreased she began to feel slightly stronger; and again opened her eyes. The floor numbers, black upon a white ground, were steadily slipping down; the first she recognized being 19. The pace was sensibly decreased. Then with a slight jar the elevator stopped at 22.
"Yous know the way?"
"Perfectly," replied Anisty. "Two flights up—in the tower."
"Right. When yous wants me, ring."
The car dropped like a plummet, leaving them in darkness—or rather in a thick gloom but slightly moderated by the moonlight streaming in at windows at either end of the corridor. Anisty gripped the girl more roughly.
"Now, my lady! No shennanigan!"
A futile, superfluous reminder. Temporarily at least she was become as wax in his hands. So complex had been the day's emotions, so severe her nervous tension, so heavy the tax upon her stamina, that she had lapsed into a state of subjective consciousness, in which she responded without purpose, almost dreamily, to the suggestions of the stronger will.
Wearily she stumbled up the two brief flights of stairs leading to the tower-like cupola of the sky-scraper: two floors superimposed upon the roof with scant excuse save that of giving the building the distinction of being the loftiest in that section of the city—certainly not to lend any finishing touch of architectural beauty to the edifice.
On the top landing a door confronted them, its glass panel shining dimly in the darkness. Anisty paused, unceremoniously thrusting the girl to one side and away from the head of the staircase; and fumbled in a pocket, presently producing a jingling bunch of keys. For a moment or two she heard him working at the lock and muttering in an undertone,—probably swearing,—and then, with a click, the door swung open.
The man thrust a hand inside, touched an electric switch, flooding the room with light, and motioned the girl to enter. She obeyed passively, thoroughly subjugated: and found herself in a large and well-furnished office, apparently the outer of two rooms. The glare of electric light at first partly blinded her; and she halted instinctively a few steps from the door, waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the change.
Behind her the door was closed softly; and there followed a thud as a bolt was shot. An instant later Anisty caught her by the arm and, roughly now and without wasting speech, hurried her into the next room. Then, releasing her, he turned up the lights and, passing to the windows, threw two or three of them wide; for the air in the room was stale and lifeless.
"And now," said the criminal in a tone of satisfaction, "now we can talk business, my dear."
He removed his overcoat and hat, throwing them over the back of a convenient chair, drew his fingers thoughtfully across his chin, and, standing at a little distance, regarded the girl with a shadow of a saturnine smile softening the hard line of his lips.
She stood where he had left her, as if volition was no longer hers. Her arms hung slack at her sides and she was swaying a trifle, her face vacant, eyes blank: very near the breaking-down point.
The man was not without perception; and recognized her state—one in which, he felt assured, he could get very little out of her. She must be strengthened and revived before she would or could respond to the direct catechism he had in store for her. In his own interest, therefore, more than through any yielding to motives of pity and compassion, he piloted her to a chair by a window and brought her a glass of clear cold water from the filter in the adjoining room.
The cold, fresh breeze blowing in her face proved wonderfully invigorating. She let her head sink back upon the cushions of the easy, comfortable leather chair and drank in the clean air in great deep draughts, with a sense of renewing vigor, both bodily and spiritual. The water helped, too: she dabbled the tip of a ridiculously small handkerchief in it and bathed her throbbing temples. The while, Anisty stood over her, waiting with discrimination if with scant patience.
What was to come she neither knew nor greatly cared; but, with an instinctive desire to postpone the inevitable moment of trial, she simulated deadly languor for some moments after becoming conscious of her position: and lay passive, long lashes all but touching her cheeks,—in which now a faint color was growing,—gaze wandering at random out over a dreary wilderness of flat rectangular roofs, livid in the moonlight, broken by long, straight clefts of darkness in whose depths lights gleamed faintly. Far in the south the sky came down purple and black to the horizon, where a silver spark glittered like a low-swung star: the torch of Liberty.
"I think," Anisty's clear-cut tones, incisive as a razor edge, crossed the listless trend of her thoughts: "I think we will now get down to business, my lady!"
She lifted her lashes, meeting his masterful stare with a look of calm inquiry. "Well?"
"So you're better now? Possibly it was a mistake to give you that rest, my lady. Still, when one's a gentleman-cracksman——!" He chuckled unpleasantly, not troubling to finish his sentence.
"Well?" he mocked, seating himself easily upon an adjacent table. "We're here at last, where we'll suffer no interruptions to our little council of war. Beyond the watchman, there's probably not another soul in the building; and from that window there it is a straight drop of twenty-four stories to Broadway, while I'm between you and the door. So you may be resigned to stay here until I get ready to let you go. If you scream for help, no one will hear you."
"Very well," she assented mechanically, turning her head away with a shiver of disgust. "What is it you want?"
"The jewels," he said bluntly. "You might have guessed that."
"I did…."
"And have saved yourself and me considerable trouble by speaking ten minutes ago."
"Yes," she agreed abstractedly.
"Now," he continued with a hint of anger in his voice, "you are going to tell."
She shook her head slightly.
"Oh, but you are, my lady." And his tone rasped, quickened with the latent brutality of the natural criminal. "And I know that you'll not force me to extreme measures. It wouldn't be pleasant for you, you know; and I promise you I shall stop at nothing whatever to make you speak."
No answer; in absolute indifference, she felt, lay her strongest weapon. She must keep calm and self-possessed, refusing to be terrified into a quick and thoughtless answer. "This afternoon," he said harshly, "you stole from me the Maitland jewels. Where are they?"
"I shall not tell."
He bent swiftly forward and took one of her hands in his. Instinctively she clenched it; and he wrapped his strong hard fingers around the small white fist, then deliberately inserted a hard finger joint between her second and third knuckles, slowly increasing the pressure. And watched with absolute indifference the lines of agony grave themselves upon her smooth unwrinkled forehead, and the color leave her cheeks, as the pain grew too exquisite. Then, suddenly discontinuing the pressure, but retaining her hand, he laughed shortly.
"Will you speak, my lady, or will you have more?"
"Don't," she gasped, "please…!"
"Where are the jewels? Will you?"
"No."
"Have you given them to Maitland?"
"No."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know."
"Stop that nonsense unless…. Where did you leave them?"
"I won't tell—I won't…. Ah, please,please!"
"Tell me!"
"Never…. Ah-h!…"
An abrupt and resounding hammering at the outer door forced him to leave off. He dropped her hand with an oath and springing to his feet drew his revolver; then, with a glance at the girl, who was silently weeping, tears of pain rolling down her cheeks, mouth set in a thin pale line of determination, strode out and shut the door after him.
As it closed the girl leaped to her feet, maddened with torture, wild eyes casting about the room for a weapon of some sort, of offense or defense; for she could not have endured the torture an instant longer. If forced to it, to fight, fight she would. If only she had something, a stick of wood, to defend herself with…. But there was nothing, nothing at all.
The room was a typical office, well but severely furnished. The rug that covered the tile floor was of rich quality and rare design. The neutral-tinted walls were bare, but for a couple of steel engravings in heavy wooden frames. There were three heavily upholstered leather arm-chairs and one revolving desk-chair; a roll-top desk, against the partition wall, a waste-paper basket, and a flat-topped desk, or table. And that was all.
Or not quite all, else the office equipment had not been complete.There was the telephone!
But he would hear! Or was the partition sound-proof?
As if in contradiction of the suggestion, there came to her ears very clearly the sound of the hall door creaking on its hinges, and then a man's voice, shrill with anger and anxiety.
"You fool! Do you want to ruin us both? What do you mean——"
The door crashed to, interrupting the protest and drowning Anisty's reply.
"I was passing," the new voice took up its plaintive remonstrance, "and the watchman called me in and said that you were telephoning for me——"
"Damn the interfering fool!" interrupted Anisty.
"But what's this insanity, Anisty? What's this about a woman? What——"The new-comer's tones ascended a high scale of fright and rage.
"Lower your voice, you ass!" the burglar responded sternly. "And——"
He took his own advice; and for a little time the conference was conducted in guarded tones that did not penetrate the dividing wall save as a deep rumbling alternating with an impassioned squeak.
But long ere this had come to pass the girl was risking all at the telephone. Receiver to ear she was imploring Central to connect her with Ninety-eighty-nine Madison. If only she might get Maitland, tell him where the jewels were hidden, warn him to remove them—then she could escape further suffering by open confession..
"What number?" came Central's languid query, after a space. "Did you say Nine-ought-nine-eight?"
"No, no, Central. Nine-o-eight-nine Madison, please, and hurry———hurry!"
"Ah, I'm ringin' 'em. They ain't answered yet. Gimme time…. There they are. Go ahead."
"Hello, hello!"
"Pwhat is ut?"
Her heart sank: O'Hagan's voice meant that Maitland was out.
"O'Hagan—is that you?… Tell Mr. Maitland———"
"He's gawn out for the noight an'———"
"Tell him, please———"
"But he's out. Ring up in the marnin'."
"But can't you take this message for him? Please…."
The door was suddenly jerked open and Anisty leaped into the room, face white with passion. Terrified, the girl sprang from the desk, carrying the instrument with her, placing the revolving chair between her and her enemy.
"The brass bowl, please,—tell him that," she cried clearly into the receiver.
And Anisty was upon her, striking the telephone from her grasp with one swift blow and seizing her savagely by the wrist. As the instrument clattered and pounded on the floor she was sent reeling and staggering half-way across the room.
As she brought up against the flat-topped desk, catching its edge and saving herself a fall, the burglar caught up the telephone.
"Who is that?" he shouted imperatively into the transmitter.
Whatever the reply, it seemed to please him. His brows cleared, the wrath that had made his face almost unrecognizable subsided; he even smiled. And the girl trembled, knowing that he had solved her secret; for she had hoped against hope that the only words he could have heard her speak would have had too cryptic a significance for his comprehension.
As, slowly and composedly, he replaced the receiver on its hook and returned the instrument to the desk, a short and rotund figure of a man, in rumpled evening dress and wearing a wilted collar, hopped excitedly into the room, cast at the girl one terrified glance out of eyes that glittered with excitement like black diamonds, set in a face the hue of yeast, and clutched the burglar's arm.
"Oh, Anisty, Anisty!" he cried piteously. "What is it? What is it? Tell me!"
"It's all right," returned the burglar. "Don't you worry, little man.Pull yourself together." And laughed.
"But what—what——" stammered the other.
"Only that she's given herself away," chuckled Anisty: "beautifully and completely. 'The brass bowl,' says she,—thinking I never saw one on Maitland's desk!—and 'O'Hagan, and who the divvle are you?' says the man on the other end of the wire, when I ask who he is."
"And? And?" pleaded the little man, dancing with worry.
"And it means that my lady here returned the jewels to Maitland by hiding them under a brass ash-receiver on his desk—ass that I was not to know!… You are 'cute, my lady!" with an ironic salute to the girl, "but you've met your match in Anisty."
"And," demanded the other as the burglar snatched up his hat and coat, "what will you do, Anisty?"
"Do?"—contemptuously. "Why, what is there to do but go and get them? We've risked too much and made New York too hot for the two of us, my dear sir, to get out of the game without the profits."
"But I beg of you——"
"You needn't,"—grimly. "It won't bring you in any money."
"But Maitland—"
"Is out. O'Hagan answered the 'phone. Don't you understand?"
"But he may return!"
"That's his lookout. I'm sorry for him if he does." Anisty produced the revolver from his pocket, and twirled the cylinder significantly. "I owe Mr. Maitland something," he said, nodding to the white-faced girl by the table, "and I shouldn't be sorry to——"
"And what," broke in the new-comer, "what am I going to do meanwhile?"
"Devil the bitIcare! Stay here and keep this impetuous female from calling up Police Headquarters, for a good guess…. Speaking of which, I think we had best settle this telephone business once and for all."
The burglar turned again to the desk and began to work over the instrument with a small screwdriver which he produced from his coat pocket, talking the while.
"Our best plan, my dear Bannerman, is for you to come with me, at least as far as the nearest corner. You can wait there, if you're too cowardly to go the limit, like a man…. I'll get the loot and join you, and we can make a swift hike for the first train that goes farthest out of town…. A pity, for we've done pretty well, you and I, old boy: you with your social entrée and bump of locality to locate the spoils, me with my courage and skill to lift 'em, and an equitable division…. Oh, don't worry abouther, Bannerman! She's as deep in it as either of us, only she happens to be sentimental, and an outsider on this deal. She won't blab. Besides, you're ruined anyway, as far as New York's concerned…. Come along. That's finished: she won't send any important messages over that wire to-night, I guess."
"My dear young lady!" Rising and throwing the overcoat over his arm, he waved his hat at her in sardonic courtesy. "I can't say it has been a pleasure to know you but—you have made it interesting, I admit. And I bid you a very good night. The charwoman will let you out when she comes to clean up in the morning. Adieu, my dear!"
The little man bustled after him, bleating and fidgeting; and the lock clicked.
She was alone … utterly and forlornly alone … and had lost … lost all, all that she had prized and hoped to win, even … even him….
She raised fluttering, impotent white hands to her temples, trying to collect herself. In the outer room a clock was ticking. Unconsciously she moved to the doorway and stood looking for a time at the white, expressionless dial. It was some time—a minute or two—before she deciphered the hour.
Ten minutes past two!… Ah, the lifetime she had lived in the past seventy minutes! And the futility of it all!
Slowly Maitland returned to the study and replaced the lamp upon his desk; and stood briefly in silence, long fingers stroking his well-shaped chin, his face a little thin and worn-looking, a gleam of pain in his eyes. He sighed.
So she was gone!
He laughed a trace harshly. This surprise was nothing more than he might have discounted, of course; he had been a fool to expect anything else of her, he was enjoying only his just deserts both for having dared to believe that the good in human nature (and particularly in woman's nature) would respond to decent treatment, and for having acted on that asinine theory.
So she was gone, without a word, without a sign!…
He sat down at the desk, sidewise, one arm extended along its edge, fingers drumming out a dreary little tune on the hard polished wood; and thought it all over from the beginning. Nor spared himself.
Why, after all, should it be otherwise? Why should she have stayed? Why should he compliment himself by believing that there was aught about him visible through the veneer acquired in a score and odd years of purposeless existence, to attract a young and pretty woman's heart?
He enumerated his qualities specifically; and condemned them all. Imprimis, he was a conceited ass. A fascinating young criminal had but to toss her head at him to make him think that she was pleased with him, to make him forget that she was what she was and believe that, because he was willing to stoop, she was willing to climb. And he had betrayed himself so mercilessly! How she must have laughed in her sleeve all the time, while he pranced and bridled and preened himself under her eyes, blinded to his own idiocy by the flame of a sudden infatuation—how shemusthave laughed!
Undoubtedly she had laughed; and, measuring his depth,—or his shallowness,—had determined to use him to her ends. Why not? It had been her business, her professional duty, to make use of him in order to accomplish her plundering. And because she had not dared to ask him for the jewels when he left her in the morning, she had naturally returned in the evening to regain them, very confident, doubtless, that even if surprised a second time, she would get off scot-free. Unfortunately for her, this fellow Anisty had interfered. Maitland presumed cynically that he ought to be grateful to Anisty…. The unaccountable scoundrel! Why hadhereturned?
How the girl had contrived to escape was, of course, more easy to understand. Maitland recalled that sudden clatter of hoofs in the street, and he had only to make a trip to the window to verify his suspicion that the cab was gone. She had simply overheard his concluding remarks to the cabby, and taken pardonable advantage of them. Maitland had footed the bill…. She was welcome to that, however. He, Maitland, was well rid of the whole damnable business…. Yes, jewels and all!
What were the jewels to him?… Beyond their sentimental associations, he did not hold them greatly in prize. Of course, since they had been worn by his mother, he would spare no expense or effort to trace and re-collect them, for that dim sainted memory's sake. But in this case, at least, the traditional usage of the Maitland's would never be carried out. It had been faithfully observed when, after his mother's death, the stones had been removed from their settings and stored away; but now they would never be reset, even should he contrive to reassemble them, to adorn the bride of the Maitland heir. For he would never marry. Of course not….
Maitland was young enough to believe, and to extract a melancholy satisfaction from this.
Puzzled and saddened, his mind harked back for ever to that carking question: Why had she returned? What had brought her back to the flat? If she and Anisty were confederates, as one was inclined at times to believe,—if such were the case, Anisty had the jewels, and there was nothing else of any particular value so persistently to entice such expert and accomplished burglars back to his flat. What else had they required of him? His peace of mind was nothing that they could turn into cash; and they seemed to have reaved him of nothing else.
But they had that; unquestionably they had taken that.
And still the riddle haunted him: Why had she come back that night? And, whatever her reason, had she come in Anisty's company, or alone? One minute it seemed patent beyond dispute that the girl and the great plunderer were hand-in-glove; the next minute Maitland was positively assured that their recent meeting had been altogether an accident. From what he had heard over the telephone, he had believed them to be quarreling, although at the time he had assigned to O'Hagan the masculine side to the dispute. But certainly there must have arisen some difference of opinion between Anisty and the girl, to have drawn from her that frantic negative Maitland had heard, to have been responsible for the overturning of the chair,—an accident that seemed to argue something in the nature of a physical struggle; the chair itself still lay upon its side, mute witness to a hasty and careless movement on somebody's part….
But it was all inexplicable. Eventually Maitland shook his head, to signify that he gave it up. There was but one thing to do,—to put it out of mind. He would read a bit, compose himself, go to bed.
Preliminary to doing so, he would take steps to insure the flat against further burglarizing, for that night, at least. The draught moving through the hall stirred the portière and reminded him that the window in the trunk-room was still open, an invitation to any enterprising sneak-thief or second-story man. So Maitland went to close and make it fast.
As he shut down the window-sash and clamped the catch he trod on something soft and yielding. Wondering, he stooped and picked it up, and carried it back to the light. It proved to be the girl's hand-bag.
"Now," admitted Maitland in a tone of absolute candor, "I am damned. How the dickens did this thing get there, anyway? What was she doing in my trunk-closet?"
Was it possible that she had followed Anisty out of the flat by that route? A very much mystified young man sat himself down again in front of his desk, and turned the bag over and over in his hands, keenly scrutinizing every inch of it, and whistling softly.
That year the fashion in purses was for capacious receptacles of grained leather, nearly square in shape, and furnished with a chain handle. This which Maitland held was conspicuously of the mode,—neither too large, nor too small, constructed of fine soft leather of a gun-metal shade, with a framework and chain of gun-metal itself. It was new and seemed well-filled, weighing a trifle heavy in the hand. One face was adorned with a monogram of cut gun-metal, the initials "S" and "G" and "L" interlaced. But beyond this the bag was irritatingly non-committal.
Undoubtedly, if one were to go to the length of unsnapping the little, frail clasp, one would acquire information; by such facile means would much light be shed upon the darkness. But Maitland put a decided negative to the suggestion.
No. He would give her the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even if—even if….
It was something to be smoked over…. Strange how it affected him to have in his hands something that she had owned and touched!
Opening a drawer of the desk, Maitland produced an aged pipe. A brazen jar, companion piece to the ash receiver, held his tobacco. He filled the pipe from the jar, with thoughtful deliberation. And scraped a match beneath his chair and ignited the tobacco and puffed in contemplative contentment, deriving solace from each mouthful of grateful, evanescent incense. Meanwhile he held the charred match between thumb and forefinger.
Becoming conscious of this fact, he smiled in deprecation of his absent-minded mood, looked for the ash-receiver, discovered it in place, inverted beneath the book; and frowned, remembering. Then, with an impatient gesture,—impatient of his own infirmity of mind: for he simply could not forget the girl,—he dropped the match, swept the book aside, lifted the bowl….
After a moment of incredulous awe, the young man rose, with eyes a-light and a jubilant song in the heart of him. Now he knew, now understood, now believed, and now was justified of his faith!
After which depression came, with the consciousness that she was gone, for ever removed beyond his reach and influence, and that by her own wilful act. It was her intelligible wish that they should never meet again, for, having accomplished her errand, she had flown from the possibility of his thanks.
It was so clear, now! He perceived it all, plainly. Somehow (though it was hard to surmise how) she had found out that Anisty had stolen the jewels; somehow (and one wondered at what risk) she had contrived to take them from him and bring them back to their owner. And Anisty had followed.
Poor little woman! What had she not suffered, what perils had she not braved, to prove that there was honor even in thieves! It could have been at no inconsiderable danger,—a danger not incommensurate with that of robbing a tigress of her whelps,—that she had managed to filch his loot from that pertinacious and vindictive soul, Anisty!
But she had accomplished it; and all for him!
If only he could find her,now!
There was a clue to his hand in that bag, of course, but by this act she had for ever removed from him the right to investigatethat.
If he could only find that cabby.
Perhaps if he tried at the Madison Square rank, immediately….
Besides, it was clearly his duty not to remain in the flat alone with the jewels another night. There was but one attainable place of safety for them; and that the safe of a reputable hotel. He would return to the Bartholdi at once, merely pausing on his way to inquire of the cabmen if they could send their brother-nighthawk to him.
Maitland shook himself into his topcoat, jammed hat upon head, dropped the jewels into one pocket, the cigarette case into another, and—on impulse—Anisty's revolver, with its two unexploded cartridges, into a third; and pressed the call button for O'Hagan, not waiting, however, for that worthy to climb the stairs, but meeting him in the entry hall.
"I'm going back to the Bartholdi, O'Hagan, for the night. You may bring me my letters and any messages in the morning. I should like you to sleep in the flat to-night and answer any telephone calls."
"Yiss, Misther Maitland, sor."
"Have the police gone, O'Hagan?"
"There's a whole bottle full yet, sor."
"You've not been drinking, I trust?"
The Irishman shuffled. "Shure, sor, an' wud that be hosphitible?"
Laughing, Maitland bade him good night and left the house, turning west to gain Fifth Avenue, walking slowly because he was a little tired, and enjoying the rather unusual experience of being abroad at that hour without company. The sky seemed cleaner than ordinarily, the city quieter than ever he had known it, and in the air was a sweet smell, reminiscent of the country-side … reminding one unhappily of the previous night when one had gone whistling to one's destiny along a perfumed country road….
"Good 'eavings, Mister Maitland, sir! It carn't be you!"
Maitland looked up, bewildered for the instant. The voice that hailed him out of the sky was not unfamiliar….
A cab that he had waited on the corner to let pass, was reined back suddenly. The driver leaned down from the box and in a thunderstruck tone advertised his stupefaction.
"It aren't in nature, sir—if yer'll pardon my mentionin' it. But 'ere I leaves you not ten minutes ago at the St. Luke Building and finds yer 'ere, when you 'aven't 'ad time—"
Maitland woke up. "What's that?" he questioned sharply. "You left me where ten minutes—?"
"St. Luke Buildin', corner Broadway an'—."
"I know it," excited, "but—"
"—'avin' took yer there with the young lady—"
"Young lady!"
"—that comes outer the 'ouse with yer, sir—"
"The devil!" Maitland hesitated no longer: his foot was on the step as he spoke. "Drive me there at once, and drive for all you're worth!" he cried. "If there's an ounce of speed in that plug of yours and you don't get it out—"
"Never fear, sir! We'll make it in five minutes!"
"It'll be worth your while."
"Right-O!"
Maitland dropped into his seat, dumbfounded. "Good Lord!" he whispered; and then savagely: "In the power of that infamous scoundrel———!" And felt of the revolver in his pocket.
The cab had been headed north; the St. Luke rears its massive bulk south of Twenty-third Street. The driver expertly swung his vehicle almost on dead center. Simultaneously it careened with the impact of a heavy bulk landing upon the step and falling in a heap on the deck.
"My worrd, what's that?" came from aloft. Maitland was altogether too startled to speak.
The heap sat up, resolving itself into the semblance of a man; who spoke in decisive tones:
"If yeh're goin' there, I'm goin' with yeh, 'r yeh don't go—see?"
"The sleuth!" gasped Maitland, astounded.
"Ah, cut that, can't yeh?" Hickey got on all fours, found his cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and fell into place at Maitland's side.
"Hickey, I mean. But how—"
"If yeh're Maitland, 'nd Anisty's at the St. Luke Buildin', tell that fool up there to drive!"
Maitland had no need to lift the trap; the cabby had already done that.
"All right," the young man called. "It's Detective Hickey. Drive on!"
The lash leaped out over the roof—cr-rack!—and the horse, presumably convinced that no speed other than a dead-run would ever again be demanded of it, tore frantically down the Avenue, the hansom rocking like a topsail-schooner in a heavy gale.
Maitland and the detective were battered against the side and back of the vehicle and slammed against one another with painful regularity. Under such circumstances speech was difficult; yet they managed to exchange a few sentences.
"Yeh gottuh gun?"
"Anisty's—two good cartridges."
"Jus' as well I'm along, I guess."
And again: "How'd yeh s'pose Anisty got this cab?"
"I don't know—must've been in the house—I told cabby to wait—Anisty seems to have walked out right on your heels."
"Hell!" And a moment later: "What's this about a woman in the case?"
Maitland took swift thought on her behalf.
"Too long to go into now," he parried the query. "You help me catch this scoundrel Anisty and I'll put in a good word for you with the deputy commissioner."
"Ah, yeh helpmenab him," grunted the detective, "'nd I won't need no good word with nobody."
The hansom swung into Broadway, going like a whirlwind; and picked up an uniformed officer in front of the Flatiron Building, who, shouting and using his locust stridently, sprinted after them. A block further down another fell into line; and he it was who panted at the step an instant after the cab had lurched to a stop before the entrance to the St. Luke Building.
Hickey had rolled out before the policeman had a chance to bluster.