"'Lo, Bergen," he greeted the man. "Yeh know me—I'm Hickey, Central Office. Yeh're jus' in time. Anisty's in this buildin'—'r was ten minutes ago. We want all the help we c'n get."
By way of reply the officer stooped and drummed a loud alarm on the sidewalk with his night-stick.
"Say," he panted, rising, "you're a wonder, Hickey—if you get him."
"Uh-huh," grunted the detective with a sidelong glance at Maitland."C'm 'long."
The lobby of the building was quite deserted as they entered, the night-watchman invisible, the night elevator on its way to the roof—as was discovered by consultation of the indicator dial above the gate. Hickey punched the night call bell savagely.
"Me 'nd him," he said, jerking the free thumb at Maitland, "'ll go up and hunt him out. Begin at th' top floor an' work down. That's th' way, huh? 'Nd," to the policeman, "yeh stay here an' hold up anybody 't tries tuh leave th' buildin'. There ain't no other entrance, I s'pose, what?"
"Basement door an' ash lift's round th' corner," responded the officer."But that had ought tuh be locked, night."
"Well, 'f anybody else comes along yeh put him there, anyway, for luck…. What 'n hell's th' matter with this elevator?"
The detective settled a pudgy index-finger on the push button and elicited a far, thin, shrill peal from the annunciator above. But the indicator arrow remained as motionless as the car at the top of the shaft. Another summons gained no response, in likewise, and a third was also disregarded.
Hickey stepped back, face black as a storm-cloud, summed up his opinion of the management of the building in one soul-blistering phrase, produced his bandana and used it vigorously, uttered a libel on the ancestry of the night-watchman and the likes of him, and turned to give profane welcome to the policeman who had noticed the cab at Twenty-third Street and who now panted in, blown and perspiring.
Much to his disgust he found himself assigned to stand guard over the basement exits, and waddled forth again into the street.
Meanwhile the first officer to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers, and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable grooves,—who were drifting in at the entrance to line the lobby walls with blank, curious faces. Forerunners of that mysterious rabble which is apparently precipitated out of the very air by any extraordinary happening in city streets, if allowed to remain they would in five minutes have waxed in numbers to the proportions of an unmanageable mob; and the policeman, knowing this, set about dispersing them with perhaps greater discretion than consideration. They wavered and fell back, grumbling discontentedly; and Maitland, his anxiety temporarily distracted by the noise they made, looked round to find his erstwhile cabby at his elbow. Of whom the sight was inspiration. Ever thoughtful, never unmindful of her whose influence held him in this coil, he laid an arresting hand on the man's sleeve.
"You've got your cab—?"
"Yessir, right houtside."
"Drive round the corner, away from the crowd, and wait for me. If she—the young lady—comes without me, drive her anywhere she tells you and come to my rooms to-morrow morning for your pay."
"Thankee, sir."
Maitland turned back, to find the situation round the elevator shaftin status quo. Nothing had happened, save that Hickey's rage and vexation had increased mightily.
"But why don't you go up after him?"
"How 'n blazes can I?" exploded the detective. "He's got th' night car. 'F I takes the stairs, he comes down by th' shaft, 'nd how'm I tuh trust this here mutt?" He indicated his associate but humbler custodian of the peace with a disgusted gesture.
"Perhaps one of the other cars will run—" Maitland suggested.
"Ah, they're all dead ones," Hickey disagreed with disdain as the young man moved down the row of gates, trying one after another. "Yeh're only wastin'—"
He broke off with a snort as Maitland, somewhat to his own surprise managing to move the gate of the third shaft from the night elevator, stepped into the darkened car and groped for the controller. Presently his fingers encountered it, and he moved it cautiously to one side. A vicious blue spark leaped hissing from the controller-box and the cage bounded up a dozen feet, and was only restrained from its ambition to soar skywards by an instantaneous release of the lever.
By discreet manipulation Maitland worked the car down to the street floor again, and Hickey with a grunt that might be interpreted as an apology for his incredulity, jumped in.
"Let 'er rip!" he cried exultantly. "Fan them folks out intuh th' street, Bergen, 'nd watch ow-ut!"
Maitland was pressing the lever slowly wide of its catch, and the lighted lobby dropped out of sight while the detective was still shouting admonitions to the police below. Gradually gaining in momentum the car began to shoot smoothly up into the blackness, safety chains clanking beneath the floor. Hickey fumbled for the electric light switch but, finding it, immediately shut the glare off again and left the car in darkness.
"Safer," he explained, sententious. "Anisty'll shoot, 'nd they says he shoots straight."
Floor after floor in ghostly strata slipped silently down before their eyes. Half-way to the top, approximately, Hickey's voice rang sharply in the volunteer operator's ear.
"Stop 'er! Hold 'er steady. T'other's comin' down."
Maitland obeyed, managing the car with greater ease and less jerkily as he began to understand the principle of the lever. The cage paused in the black shaft, and he looked upward.
Down the third shaft over, the other cage was dropping like a plummet, a block of golden light walled in by black filigree-work and bisected vertically by the black line of the guide-rail.
"Stop that there car!"
Hickey's stentorian command had no effect; the block of light continued to fall with unabated speed.
The detective wasted no more breath. As the other car swept past, Maitland was shocked by a report and flash beside him. Hickey was using his revolver.
The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four floors below, but at once resumed its downward swoop.
"Down, down! After 'em!" Hickey bellowed. "I dropped one, by God!T'other can't—"
"How many in the car?" interrupted Maitland, opening the lever with a firm and careful hand. "Only two, same's us, I hit th' feller what was runnin' it—"
"Steady!" cautioned Maitland, decreasing the speed, as the car approached the lower floor.
The other had beaten them down; but its arrival at the street level was greeted by a short chorus of mad yells, a brief fusillade of shots—perhaps five in all—and the clang of the gate. Then, like a ball rebounding, the cage swung upwards again, hurtling at full speed.
Evidently Anisty had been received in force which he had not bargained for.
Maitland instinctively reversed the lever and sent his own car upward again, slowly, waiting for the other to overtake it. Peering down through the iron lattice-work he could indistinctly observe the growing cube of light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller, braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the dark car.
Hickey, by firing prematurely, lent him adventitious aid. The criminal replied with spirit, aiming at the flash, his bullet spattering against the back wall of the shaft. Hickey's next bullet rang with a bell-like note against the metal-work, Anisty's presumably went wide—though Maitland could have sworn he felt the cold kiss of its breath upon his cheek. And the lighted cage rocketed past and up.
Maitland needed no admonition to pursue; his blood was up, his heart singing with the lust of the man-hunt. Yet Anisty was rapidly leaving them, his car soaring at an appalling pace. Towards the top he evidently made some attempt to slow up, but either he was ignorant of the management of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth, could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third tremendous jar, shaking the building, the car halted.
Hickey and Maitland were then some five floors below. "Stop 'er at Nineteen," ordered the detective. There was a lilt of exultancy in his voice. "We got him now, all right, all right. He'll try to get down by—There!" Overhead the crash of a gate forced open was followed by a scurry of footsteps over the tiling. "Stop 'er and we'll head him off. So now—_eee_asy!"
Maitland shut off the power as the car reached the nineteenth floor. Hickey opened the gate and jumped out. "Shut that," he commanded sharply as Maitland followed him, "in case he gets past us."
He paused a moment in thought, heavy head on bull-neck drooping forward as he stared toward the rear of the building. He was fearless and resourceful, for all his many deficiencies. Maitland found time, quaintly enough, to regard him with detached curiosity, a rare animal, illustrating all that was best and worst in his order. Endowed with unexceptionable courage, his address in emergencies seemed altogether admirable.
"Yeh guard them stairs," he decided suddenly. "I'll run through this hall, 'nd see what's doing. Don't hesitate to shoot if he tries to jump yeh." And was gone, clumping briskly down the corridor to the rear.
Maitland, yielding the initiative to the other's superior generalship, stood sentinel, revolver in hand, until the detective returned, overheated and sweating, from his tour, to report "nothin' doin'," with characteristic brevity. He had the same report to make on both the twentieth and twenty-first floors, where the same procedure was observed; but as the latter was reached unexpected and very welcome reinforcements were gained by the arrival of a third car, containing three patrolmen and one roundsman. Yet numbers created delay; Hickey was seized and compelled to pant explanations, to his supreme disgust.
And, suddenly impatient beyond endurance, Maitland left them and alone sprang up the stairs.
That this was simple foolhardiness may be granted without dispute. But it must be borne in mind that he was very young and ardent, very greatly perturbed on behalf of an actor in the tragedy in whom the police, to their then knowledge, had no interest whatsoever. And if in the heat of chase he had for an instant forgotten her, now he remembered; and at once the capture of Anisty was relegated to the status of a matter of secondary importance. The real matter at stake was the safety of the girl whom Anisty, by exercise of an infernal ingenuity that passed Maitland's comprehension, had managed to spirit into this place of death and darkness and whispering halls. Where she might be, in what degree of suffering and danger,—these were the considerations that sent him in search of her without a thought of personal peril, but with a sick heart and overwhelmed with a stifling sense of anxiety.
More active than the paunch-burdened detective, he had sprinted down and back through the hallway of the twenty-second floor, without discovering anything, ere the police contingent had reached an agreement and the stairhead.
There remained two more floors, two final flights. A little hopelessly he swung up the first. And as he did so the blackness above him was riven by a tongue of fire, and a bullet, singing past his head, flattened itself with a vicious spat against the marble dado of the walls. Instinctively he pulled up, finger closing upon the trigger of his revolver; flash and report followed the motion, and a panel of ribbed glass in a door overhead was splintered and fell in clashing fragments, all but drowning the sound of feet in flight upon the upper staircase.
A clamor of caution, warning, encouragement, and advice broke out from the police below. But Maitland hardly heard. Already he was again in pursuit, taking the steps two at a leap. With a hand upon the newel-post he swung round on the twenty-third floor, and hurled himself toward the foot of the last flight. A crash like a rifle-shot rang out above, and for a second he fancied that Anisty had fired again and with a heavier weapon. But immediately he realized that the noise had been only the slamming of the door at the head of the stairs,—the door whose glazed panel loomed above him, shedding a diffused light to guide his footsteps, its opalescent surface lettered with the name of
HENRY M. BANNERMANAttorney & Counselor-at-Law
the door of the office whose threshold he had so often crossed to meet a friend and adviser. It was with a shock that he comprehended this, a thrill of wonder. He had all but forgotten that Bannerman owned an office in the building, in the rush, the urge of this wild adventure. Strange that Anisty should have chosen it for the scene of his last stand,—strange, and strangely fatal for the criminal! For Maitland knew that from this eyrie there was no means of escape, other than by the stairs.
Well and good! Then they had the man, and—
The thought was flashing in his mind, illumining the darkness of his despair with the hope that he would be able to force a word as to the girl's whereabouts from the burglar ere the police arrived; Maitland's foot was on the upper step, when a scream of mortal terror—hervoice!—broke from within. Half maddened, he threw himself bodily against the door, twisting the knob with frantic fingers that slipped upon its immovable polished surface.
The bolt had been shot, he was barred out, and, with only the width of a man's hand between them, the girl was in deathly peril and terror.
A sob that was at the same time an oath rose to his lips. Baffled, helpless, he fell back, tears of rage starting to his eyes, her accents ringing in his ears as terribly pitiful as the cry of a lost and wandering soul.
"God!" he mumbled incoherently, and in desperation sent the pistol-butt crashing against the glass. It was tough, stout, stubborn; the first blow scarcely flawed it. As he redoubled his efforts to shatter it, Hickey's hand shot over his shoulder to aid him…. And with startling abruptness the barrier seemed to dissolve before their eyes, the glass falling inward with a shrill clatter.
Quaintly, with the effect of a picture cast by a cinematograph in a darkened auditorium, there leaped upon Maitland's field of vision the picture of Anisty standing at bay, face drawn and tense, lips curled back, eyes lurid with defiance and despair. He stood, poised upon the balls of his feet, like a cat ready to spring, in the doorway between the inner and outer offices. He raised his hand with an indescribably swift and vicious gesture, and a flame seemed to blaze out from his finger-tips.
At the same instant Hickey's weapon spat by Maitland's cheek; the young man felt the hot furnace breath of it.
The burglar reeled as though from a tremendous blow. His inflamed features were suddenly whitened, and his right arm dropped limply from the shoulder, revolver falling from fingers involuntarily relaxing.
Hickey covered him. "Surrender!" he roared. And fired again. For Anisty had gone to his knees, reaching for the revolver with his uninjured arm.
The detective's second bullet winged through the doorway, over Anisty's head, and bit through the outer window. As Anisty, with a tremendous strain upon his failing powers, struggled to his feet, Maitland, catching the murderous gleam in the man's eye, pulled trigger. The burglar's answering shot expended itself as harmlessly as Maitland's. Both went wide of their marks.
And of a sudden Hickey had drawn the bolt, and the body of police behind forced Maitland pell-mell into the room. As he recovered he saw Hickey hurling himself at the criminal's throat—one second too late. True to his pledge never to be taken alive, Anisty had sent his last bullet crashing through his own skull.
A cry of horror and consternation forced itself from Maitland's throat. The police halted, each where he stood, transfixed. Anisty drew himself up, with a trace of pride in his pose; smiled horribly; put a hand mechanically to his lips….
And died.
Hickey caught him as he fell, but Maitland, unheeding, leaped over the body that had in life resembled him so fatally, and entered Bannerman's private office.
The grey girl lay at length in a corner of the room, shielded from observation by one of the desks. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks wore the hue of death; the fair young head was pillowed on one white and rounded forearm, in an attitude of natural rest, and the burnished hair, its heavy coils slipping from their fastenings, tumbled over her head and shoulders in shimmering glory, like a splash of living flame.
With a low and bitter cry the young man dropped to his knees by her side. In the outer office the police were assembled in excited conclave, blind to all save the momentous fact of Anisty's last, supremely consistent act. For the time Maitland was utterly alone with his great and aching loneliness.
After a little while timidly he touched her hand. It lay upturned, white slender fingers like exotic petals curling in upon the rosy hollow of her palm. And it was soft and warm.
He lifted it tenderly in both his own, and so held it for a space, brooding, marveling at its perfection. And inevitably he bent and touched it with his lips, as if their ardent contact would warm it to sentience….
The fingers tightened upon his own, slowly, surely; and in the blinding joy of that moment he was made conscious of the ineffable sweetness of opening, wondering eyes.
"Hm, hrumm!" Thus Hickey, the inopportunely ubiquitous, lumbering hastily in from the other office and checking, in an extreme of embarrassment, in the middle of the floor.
Maitland glanced over his shoulder, and, subduing a desire to flay the man alive, released the girl's hand.
"I say, Hickey," he observed, carefully suppressing every vestige of emotion, "will you lend me a hand here? Bring a chair, please, and a glass of water."
The detective stumbled over his feet and brought the chair at the risk of his neck. Then he went away and returned with the water. In the meantime the girl, silently enough for all that her eyes were speaking, with Maitland's assistance arose and seated herself.
"You will have to stay here a few minutes," he told her, "until—er—"
"I understand," she told him in a choking tone.
Hickey awkwardly handed her the glass. She sipped mechanically.
"I have a cab below," continued Maitland. "And I'll try to arrange it so that we can get out of the building without having to force a way through the crowd."
She thanked him with a glance.
"There's th' freight elevator," suggested Hickey helpfully.
"Thank you…. Is there anything I can do for you, anything you wish?" continued Maitland to the girl, standing between her and the detective.
She lifted her face to his and shook her head, very gently. "No," she breathed through trembling lips.
"You—you've been—" But there was a sob in her throat, and she hung her head again.
"Not a word," ordered Maitland. "Sit here for a few minutes, if you can, drink the water and—ah—fix up your hat, you know," (damn Hickey! Why the devil did the fellow insist on hanging round so!) "and I will go and make arrangements."
"Th-thank you," whispered the small voice shakily.
Maitland hesitated a moment, then turned upon Hickey in sudden exasperation. His manner was enough; even the obtuse detective could not ignore it. Maitland had no need to speak.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said, standing his ground manfully but with a trace more of respect in his manner than had theretofore characterized it, "but there's uh gentleman—uh—your fren' Bannerman's outside 'nd wants tuh speak tuh yeh."
"Tell him to—"
"Excuseme. He says he's gottuh see yeh. If yeh don't come out, he'll come after yeh. I thought yeh'd ruther—"
"That's kindly thought of," Maitland relented. "I'll be there in a minute," he added meaningly.
Hickey took an impassive face to the doorway, where, whether or not with design, he stood precisely upon the threshold, filling it with his burly shoulders. Maitland bent again over the girl, and took her hand.
"Dearest," he said gently, "please don't run away from me again."
Her eyes were brimming, and he read his answer in them. Quickly—it was no time to harry her emotions further; but so much he had felt he must say—. he brushed her hand with his lips and joined Hickey. Thrusting the detective gently into the outer room, with a not unfriendly hand upon his shoulder, Maitland closed the door.
"Now, see here," he said quietly and firmly, "you must help me arrange to get this lady away without her becoming identified with the case, Hickey. I'm in a position to say a good word for you in the right place; she had positively nothing to do with Anisty," (this, so far as he could tell, was as black a lie as he had ever manufactured under the lash of necessity), "and—there's a wad in it for the boys who help me out."
"Well…." The detective shifted from one foot to the other, eying him intently. "I guess we can fix it,—freight elevator 'nd side entrance. Yeh have the cab waitin', 'nd—"
"I'll go with the lady, you understand, and assume all responsibility. You can come round at your convenience and arrange the details with me, at my rooms, since you will be so kind."
"I dunno." Hickey licked his lips, watching with a somber eye the preparations being made for the removal of Anisty's body. "I'd 've give a farm if I could've caught that son of a gun alive!" he added at apparent random, and vindictively. "All right. Yeh be responsible for th' lady, if she's wanted, will yeh?"
"Positively."
"I gottuh have her name 'nd add-ress."
"Is that essential?"
"Sure. Gottuh protect myself 'n case anythin' turns up. Yeh oughttuh know that."
"I—don't want it to come out," Maitland hesitated, trying to invent a plausible lie.
"Well, any one can see how you feel about it."
Maitland drew a long breath and anticipated rashly. "It's Mrs.Maitland," he told the man with a tremor.
Hickey nodded, unimpressed. "Uh-huh. I knowed that all along," he replied. "But seein' as yeh didn't want it talked about…." And, apparently heedless of Maitland's startled and suspicious stare: "If yeh're goin' to see yer fren', yeh better get a wiggle on. He won't last long."
"Who? Bannerman? What the deuce do you mean?"
"He's the feller I plugged in the elevator, that's all. Put a hole through his lungs. They took him into an office on the twenty-first floor, right opp'site the shaft."
"But what in Heaven's name has he to do with this ghastly mess?"
Hickey turned a shrewd eye upon Maitland. "I guess he can tell yeh better'n me."
With a smothered exclamation, Maitland hurried away, still incredulous and impressed with a belief, firmer with every minute, that the wounded man had been wrongly identified.
He found him as Hickey had said he would, sobbing out his life, supine upon the couch of an office which the janitor had opened to afford him a place to die in. Maitland had to force a way through a crowded doorway, where the night-watchman was holding forth in aggrieved incoherence on the cruel treatment he had suffered at the hands of the lawbreakers. A phrase came to Maitland's ears as he shouldered through the group.
"….grabbed me an' trun me outer the cage, inter the hall, an' then the shootin' begins, an' I jumps down-stairs t' the sixteent' floor…."
Bannerman opened dull eyes as Maitland entered, and smiled faintly.
"Ah-h, Maitland," he gasped; "thought you'd … come."
Racked with sorrow, nothing guessing of the career that had brought the lawyer to this pass, Maitland slipped into a chair by the head of the couch and closed his hand over Bannerman's chubby, icy fingers.
"Poor, poor old chap!" he said brokenly. "How in Heaven—"
But at Bannerman's look the words died on his lips. The lawyer moved restlessly. "Don't pity me," he said in a low tone. "This is what I might have … expected, I suppose … man of Anisty's stamp … desperate character … it's all right, Dan, my just due…."
"I don't understand, of course," faltered Maitland.
Bannerman lay still a moment, then continued: "I know you don't. That's why I sent for you…. 'Member that night at the Primordial? When the deuce was it? I … can't think straight long at a time…. That night I dined with you and touched you up about the jewels? We had a bully salad, you know, and I spoke about the Graeme affair…."
"Yes, yes."
"Well … I've been up to that game for years. I'd find out where the plunder was, and … Anisty always divided square…. I used to advise him…. Of course you won't understand,—you've never wanted for a dollar in your life…."
Maitland said nothing. But his hand remained upon the dying man's.
"This would never have happened if … Anisty hadn't been impatient. He was hard to handle, sometimes. I wasn't sure, you know, about the jewels; I only said I thought they were at Greenfields. Then I undertook to find out from you, but he was restive, and without saying anything to me went down to Greenfields on his own hook—just to have a look around, he said. And so … so the fat was in the fire."
"Don't talk any more, Bannerman," Maitland tried to soothe him. "You'll pull through this all right, and—You need never have gone to such lengths. If you'd come to me—"'
The ghost of a sardonic smile flitted, incongruously, across the dying man's waxen, cherubic features.
"Oh, hell," he said; "you wouldn't understand. Perhaps you weren't born with the right crook in your nature,—or the wrong one. Perhaps it's because you can't see the fun in playing the game. It's that that counts."
He compressed his lips, and after a moment spoke again. "You never did have the true sportsman's love of the game for its own sake. You're like most of the rest of the crowd—content with mighty cheap virtue, Dan…. I don't know that I'd choose just this kind of a wind-up, but it's been fun while it lasted. Good-by, old man."
He did not speak again, but lay with closed eyes.
Five minutes later Maitland rose and unclasped the cold fingers from about his own. With a heavy sigh he turned away.
At the door Hickey was awaiting him. "Yer lady," he said, as soon as they had drawn apart from the crowd, "is waitin' for yeh in the cab down-stairs. She was gettin' a bit highsteerical 'nd I thought I'd better get her away…. Oh, she's waitin' all right!" he added, alarmed by Maitland's expression.
But Maitland had left him abruptly; and now, as he ran down flight after echoing flight of marble stairs, there rested cold fear in his heart. In the room he had just quitted, a man whom he had called friend and looked upon with affectionate regard, had died a self-confessed and unrepentant liar and thief.
If now he were to find the girl another time vanished,—if this had been but a ruse of hers finally to elude him,—if all men were without honor, all women faithless,—if he had indeed placed the love of his life, the only love that he had ever known, unworthily,—if she cared so little who had seemed to care much….
But the cab was there; and within it the girl was waiting for him.
The driver, after taking up his fare, had at her direction drawn over to the further curb, out of the fringe of the rabble which besieged the St. Luke Building in constantly growing numbers, and through which Maitland, too impatient to think of leaving by the basement exit, had elbowed and fought his way in an agony of apprehension that brooked no hindrance, heeded no difficulty.
He dashed round the corner, stopped short with a sinking heart, then as the cabby's signaling whip across the street caught his eye, fairly hurled himself to the other curb, pausing at the wheel, breathless, lifted out of himself with joy to find her faithful in this ultimate instance.
She was recovering, whose high spirit and recuperative powers were to him then and always remained a marvelous thing; and she was bending forth from the body of the hansom to welcome him with a smile that in a twinkling made radiant the world to him who stood in a gloomy side street of New York at three o'clock of a summer's morning,—a good hour and a half before the dawn. For up there in the tower of the sky-scraper he had as much as told her of his love; and she had waited; and now—and now he had been blind indeed had he failed to read the promise in her eyes. Weary she was and spent and overwrought; but there is no tonic in all the world like the consciousness that where one has placed one's love, there love has burgeoned in response. And despite all that she had suffered and endured, the happiness that ran like soft fire in her Veins, wrapping her being with its beneficent rapture, had deepened the color in her cheeks and heightened the glamour in her eyes.
And he stood and stared, knowing that in all time to no man had ever woman seemed more lovely than this girl to him: a knowledge that robbed his mind of all other thought and his tongue of words, so that to her fell the task of rousing him.
"Please," she said gently—"please tell the cabby to take me home, Mr.Maitland."
He came to and in confusion stammered: Yes, he would. And he climbed up on the step with no other thought than to seat himself at her side and drive away for ever. But this time the cabby brought him to his senses, forcing him to remember that some measure of coherence was demanded even of a man in love.
"Where to, sir?"
"Eh, what? Oh!" And bending to the girl: "Home, you said—?"
She told him the address,—a number on Park Avenue, above Thirty-fourth Street, below Forty-second. He repeated it mechanically, unaware that it would remain stamped for ever on his memory, indelibly,—the first personal detail that she had granted him: the first barrier down.
He sat down. The cab began to move, and halted again. A face appeared at the apron,—Hickey's, red and moon-like and not lacking in complacency: for the man counted of profiting variously by this night's work.
"Excuse me, Mr. Maitland, 'nd"—touching the rim of his derby—"yeh, too, ma'am, f'r buttin' in—"
"Hickey!" demanded Maitland suddenly, in a tone of smoldering wrath, "what the—what do you want?"
"Yeh told me tuh call round to-morrow, yeh know. When'll yeh be in?"
"I'll leave a note for you with O'Hagan. Is that all?"
"Yep—that is, there's somethin' else…."
"Well?"
"Excuse me for mentionin' it, but I didn't know—it ain't generally known, yeh know, 'nd one uh th' boys might've heard me speak tuh yer lady by name 'nd might pass it on to a reporter. What I mean's this," hastily, as the Maitland temper showed dangerous indications of going into active eruption: "I s'pose yeh don't want me tuh mention't yeh're married, jes' yet? Mrs. Maitland here," with a nod to her, "didn't seem tuh take kindly tuh the notion of it's bein' known—"
"Hickey!"
"Ah, excuseme!"
"Drive on, cabby—instantly! Do you hear?"
Hickey backed suddenly away and the cab sprang into motion; whileMaitland with a face of fire sat back and raged and wondered.
Across Broadway toward Fourth Avenue dashed the hansom; and from the curb-line Hickey watched it with a humorous light in his dull eyes. Indeed, the detective seemed in extraordinary conceit with himself. He chewed with unaccustomed emotion upon his cold cigar, scratched his cheek, and chuckled; and, chuckling, pulled his hat well down over his brows, thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, and shambled back to the St. Luke Building—his heavy body vibrating amazingly with his secret mirth.
And so, shuffling sluggishly, he merges into the shadows, into the mob that surges about the building, and passes from these pages.
In the clattering hansom, steadying herself with a hand against the window-frame, to keep from being thrown against the speechless man beside her, the girl waited. And since Maitland in confusion at the moment found no words, from this eloquent silence she drew an inference unjustified, such as lovers are prone to draw, the world over, and one that lent a pathetic color to her thoughts, and chilled a little her mood. She had been too sure….
But better to have it over with at once, rather than permit it to remain for ever a wall of constraint between them. He must not be permitted to think that she would dream of taking him upon his generous word.
"It was very kind of you," she said in a steady, small voice, "to pretend that we—what you did pretend, in order to save me from being held as a witness. At least, I presume that is why you did it? "—with a note of uncertainty.
"It is unnecessary that you should be drawn into the affair," he replied, with some resumption of his self-possession. "It isn't as if you were—"
"A thief?" she supplied as he hesitated.
"A thief," he assented gravely.
"But I—I am," with a break in her voice.
"But you are not," he asserted almost fiercely. And, "Dear," he said boldly, "don't you suppose Iknow?"
"I … what do you know?"
"That you brought back the jewels, for one minor thing. I found them almost as soon as you had left. And then I knew … knew that you cared enough to get them from this fellow Anisty and bring them back to me, knew that I cared enough to search the world from end to end until I found you, that you might wear them—if you would."
But she had drawn away, had averted her face; and he might not see it; and she shivered slightly, staring out of the window at the passing lights. He saw, and perforce paused.
"You—you don't understand," she told him in a rush. "You give me credit beyond my due. I didn't break into your flat again, to-night, in order to return the jewels—at least, not for that alone."
"But you did bring back the jewels?"
She nodded.
"Then doesn't that prove what I claim, prove that you've cleared yourself—?"
"No," she told him firmly, with the firmness of despair; "it does not. Because I did not come for that only. I came with another purpose,—to steal, as well as to make restitution. And I … I stole."
There was a moment's silence, on his part incredulous. "I don't know what you mean. What did you steal? Where is it?"
"I have lost it—"
"Was it in your hand-bag?"
"You found that?"
"You dropped it in the trunk-closet. I found it there. There is something of mine in it?"
Dumb with misery, she nodded; and after a little, "You didn't look, of course."
"I had no right," he said shortly.
"Other men wo-would have thought they had the right. I th-think you had, the circumstances considered. At all events," steadying her voice, "I say you have, now. I give you that right. Please go and investigate that hand-bag, Mr. Maitland. I wish you to."
He turned and stared at her curiously. "I don't know what to think," he said. "I can not believe—"
"You mu-must believe. I have no right to profit by your disbelief…. Dear Mr. Maitland, you have been kind to me, very kind to me; do me this last kindness, if you will."
The young face turned to him was gravely and perilously sweet; very nearly he forgot all else. But that she would not have.
"Do this for me…. What you will find will explain everything. You will understand. Perhaps"—timidly—"perhaps you may even find it in your heart to forgive, when you understand…. If you should, my card-case is in the bag, and …." She faltered, biting her lip cruelly to steady a voice quivering with restrained sobs. "Please, please go at once, and—and see for yourself!" she implored him passionately.
Of a sudden he found himself resolved. Indeed, he fancied that it were dangerous to oppose her; she was overwrought, on the verge of losing her command of self. She wished this thing, and though with all his soul he hated it, he would do as she desired.
"Very well," he assented quietly. "Shall I stop the cab now?"
"Please."
He tapped on the roof of the hansom and told the cabby to draw in at the next corner. Thus he was put down not far from his home,—below the Thirty-third Street grade.
Neither spoke as he alighted, and she believed that he was leaving her in displeasure and abhorrence; but he had only stepped behind the cab for a moment to speak to the driver. In a moment he was back, standing by the step with one hand on the apron and staring in very earnestly and soberly at the shadowed sweetness of her pallid face, that gleamed in the gloom there like some pale, shy, sad flower.
Could there be evil combined with such sheer loveliness, with features that in every line bodied forth the purity of the spirit that abode within? In the soul of him he could not believe that a thief's nature fed canker-like at the heart of a woman so divinely, naively dear and desirable. And … he would not.
"Won't you let me go?"
"Just a minute. I … I should like to…. If I find that you have done nothing so very dreadful." he laughed uneasily, "do you wish to know?"
"You know I do." She could not help saying that, letting him see that far into her heart. "You spoke of my calling, I believe. That means to-morrow afternoon, at the earliest. May I not call you up on the telephone?"
"The number is in the book," she said in a tremulous voice.
"And your name in the card-case?"
"Yes."
"And if I should call in half an hour—?"
"O, I shall not sleep until I know!… Good night!"
"Good night!… Drive on, cabby."
He stood, smiling queerly, until the hansom, climbing the Park Avenue hill, vanished over its shoulder. Then swung about and with an eager step retraced his way to his rooms, very confident that God was in His Heaven and all well with the world.
The cab stopped. The girl rose and descended to the walk. The driver touched his hat and reined the horse away. "Goodnight, ma'am," he bade her cheerfully. And she told him "Good night" in her turn.
For a moment she seemed a bit hesitant and fearful, left thus alone. The house in front of which she stood, like its neighbors, reared a high façade to the tender, star-lit sky, its windows, with drawn shades and no lights, wearing a singular look of blind patience. It had a high stoop and a sunken area. There was a dull glow in one of the basement windows.
It was very late,—or extremely early. The moon was down, though its place was in some way filled by the golden disk of the clock in the Grand Central Station's tower. The air was impregnated with the sweet and fragrant breath of the new-born day. In the tunnel beneath the street a trolley-car rumbled and whined and clanked lonesomely. A stray cat wandered out of a cross-street with the air of a seasoned debauchee; stopped, scratched itself with inimitable abandon, and suddenly, mysteriously alarmed at nothing, turned itself into a streak of shadow that fled across the street and vanished. And, as if affected by its terror, the grey girl slipped silently into the area and tapped at the lighted window.
Almost immediately the gate was cautiously opened. A woman's head looked out, with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There ain't—hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a fidget."
The girl laughed quietly and passed through the gateway (which was closed behind her) into the basement hall, where she lingered a brief moment.
"My father, Annie?" she inquired.
"He ain't—hasn't stirred since you went out, Miss Sylvia. He's sleepin' peaceful as a lamb."
"Everything is all right, then?"
"Now that you're home, it is, praises be!" The servant secured the inner door and turned up the gas. "Not if I was to be given notice to-morrow mornin'," she announced firmly, "will I ever consent to be a party to such goin's-on another night."
"There will be no occasion, Annie," said the girl. "Thank you, and—good night."
A resigned sigh,—"Good night, Miss Sylvia,"—followed her up the stairs.
She went very cautiously, careful to brush against no article of movable furniture in the halls, at pains to make no noise on the stairs. At the door of her father's room on the second floor she stopped and listened for a full moment; but he was sleeping as quietly, as soundly, as the servant had declared. Then on, more hurriedly, up another flight, to her own room, where she turned on the electric bulb in panic haste. For it had just occurred to her that the telephone bell might ring before she could change her clothing and get down-stairs and shut herself into the library, whose closed door would prevent the bell from being audible through the house.
In less than ten minutes she was stealing silently down to the drawing-room floor again, quiet as a spirit of the night. The library door shut without a sound: for the first time she breathed freely. Then, pressing the button on the wall, she switched on the light in the drop-lamp on the center-table. The telephone stood beside it.
She drew up a chair and sat down near the instrument, ready to lift the receiver off its hook the instant the bell began to sound; and waited, the soft light burning in the loosened tresses of her hair, enhancing the soft color that pulsed in her cheeks, fading before the joy that lived in her eyes when she hoped….
For she dared hope—at times; and at times could not but fear. So greatly had she dared, who greatly loved, so heavy upon her untarnished heart was the burden of the sin that she had put upon it, because she loved…. Perhaps he would not call; perhaps the world was to turn cold and be for ever grey to her eyes. He was even then deciding; at that very moment her happiness hung in the scales of his mercy. If he could forgive….
There was a click. And her face flamed scarlet, as hastily she lifted the receiver to her ear. The armature buzzed sharply. Then Central's voice cut the stillness.
"Hello! Nine-o-five-one?"
"Yes…."
"Wait a minute."
She waited, breathless, in a quiver. The silence sang upon the wire, the silence of the night through which he was groping toward her….
"Hello! Is this Nine-o—"
"Yes, yes!"
"Is this the residence of Alexander C. Graeme?"
"Yes." The syllable almost choked her.
"Is this Miss Graeme at the 'phone?"
"It is."
"Miss Sylvia Graeme?"
"Yes."
"This is Daniel Maitland … Sylvia!"
"As if I did not know your voice!" she cried involuntarily.
There followed a little pause; and in her throat the pulses tightened and drummed.
"I have opened the bag, Sylvia…."
"Please go on."
"And I've sounded the depths of your hideous infamy!"
"Oh!" He was laughing.
"I've done more. I've made a burnt offering, within the last five minutes. Can you guess what it is?"
"I—I—don't want to guess! I want to be told."
"A burnt offering on the altar of your happiness, dear. The papers in the case of the Dougherty Investment Company no longer exist."
"Dan!"
"Sylvia…. Does it please you?"
"Don't youknow?… How can it do anything but please me? If you knew how I have suffered because my father suffered, fearing the…. No, but you must listen! Dan, it was wearing him down to his grave, and I thought—"
"You thought that if you could get the papers and give them to him—"
"Yes. I could see no harm, because he was as innocent as you—"
"Of course. But why didn't you ask me?"
"Hedid, and you refused."
"But how could I tell, Sylvia, that you were his daughter, and that I should—"
"Hush! Central will hear!"
"Central's got other things to do, besides listening to early morning confabulations. I love you."
"Dan…."
"Yes?"
"I love—to hear you say so, dear."
"Please say that last word over again. I didn't get it."
"Dear…."
"And that means that you'll marry me?"
A pause.
"I say, that means—"
"I heard you, Dan.""But it does, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Whenever you please."
"I'll come up now."
"Don't be a silly."
"Well, when then? To-day?"
"Yes—no!"
"But when?"
"To-morrow—I mean next week—I mean next month."
"No; to-day at four. I'll call for you."
"But, Dan…."
"Sweetheart!"
"But you mustn't!… How can I—"
"Easily enough. There's the Little-Church-Around-the-Corner—"
"But I've nothing to wear!"
"Oh!"
Another pause.
"Dan…. You don't wish it—truly?"
"I do wish it, truly. To-day, at four. The Church of the Transfiguration. Yes, I'll scare up a best man if you'll find bridesmaids. Now you will, won't you?"
"I—if you wish it, dear."
"I'll have to ask you to repeat that."
"I shan't. There!"
"Very well," meekly. "But will you tell me one thing, please?"
"What is it?"
"Where on earth did you get hold of that kit of tools?"
She laughed softly. "My big Brother caught a burglar once, and kept the kit for a remembrance. I borrowed them."
"Give me your big brother's address and I'll send 'em back with my thanks—No, by George! I won't, either. I've as much right to keep 'em as he has onthatprinciple."
And again she laughed, very gently and happily. Dear God, that such happiness could come to one!
"Sylvia?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Do you love me?"
"I think you may believe it, when I sit here at four o'clock in the morning, listening to a silly boy talk nonsense over a telephone wire."
"But I want to hear you say so!"
"But Central—"
"I tell you Central has other things to do!"
At this juncture the voice of Central, jaded and acidulated, broke in curtly:
"Are you through?"