On their way to the station, and during their long journey to New York, Nora drew back from any attempt of Garth's in the direction of sentiment. Frequently he stared at her with a whimsical despair. It was clear enough that he was not distasteful to her. He fancied, moreover, that he had through his very persistence softened perceptibly the girl's regret for Kridel; had remodeled to an extent her earlier attitude of a widow. Would he, however, he asked himself, be able to go the whole way?
Now she wished to talk of trivial things, to make a lark of their luncheon in Boston, to get as far away as she could from the dangerous and uncertain profession which had taken Kridel from her, and which might, even before she could resolve her own feelings, involve Garth in some fatal accident. Once he recurred to the gray mask, and spoke of Slim and George, whose trial would soon begin. She trembled slightly, he thought. She wouldn't let him go on. Her fear, he was certain, was not for herself. That much encouraged. Yet this rivalry with one who had been for some time dead often brought him a sensation of complete helplessness; for Nora was not one to pose. She was honest with herself, with Garth, with the dead man. Perhaps some grave sacrifice would resolve her doubts. He felt himself capable of that. He fell into her mood at last, and found the journey home too short. In retrospect it assumed an increased value. During a long period he saw practically nothing of Nora.
For a month or more he found no comfort in his work. Headquarters, he remarked many times, was a rest cure for anybody who wanted one.
All at once that altered, as such things happen, without warning. He had spent an hour or so on an unimpressive case, and it was nearly midnight when he turned south from the frontier of Harlem.
From time to time a light snow fell, and always there was a vaporous quality about the cold night air which added to the waywardness of his unexpected experience.
He walked for a long time, scarcely aware of the landmarks of the neighbourhood, rehearsing thoughts which, these last few weeks, had grown familiar and unpalatable. Now, as always, they failed to guide him to any explanation of Nora's abrupt abandonment of her routine. His recent visits at the flat had thrown him into the hospitable hands of the inspector, who, however, had maintained an incomprehensible silence as to his daughter's whereabouts. Garth could read in this attitude no antagonism to his own ambitions. He was confident that the result of his campaign for Nora's heart depended wholly on the girl herself.
He realized it was growing late. Absent-mindedly he turned into a side street, intending to reach Third Avenue and climb the steps of the nearest elevated station.
It was the discreet murmuring of a motor that routed finally his preoccupation. A limousine of an extravagant type had halted close to the curb at the end of the block. It pointed a contrast which stirred the detective's curiosity. The street, he noticed now, in common with many this far up-town, was inadequately lighted, but, in spite of the veils placed by the snow and the haze over the few gas lamps, a glance informed him that fashion had not invaded this far. The buildings, with high stoops and sunken areaways, were of a depressing, tasteless similarity—doubtless cheap boarding-houses or dreary converted apartments. He wondered what such an automobile did here, unless, perhaps, the chauffeur, alone, had some object. But he saw that, while the chauffeur retained his seat, the door was opened from the inside and a tall man, in a high hat and a fur coat, which exposed an evening shirt, stepped with nervous haste to the sidewalk.
Garth slackened his pace. He kept to the shadows near the house line. He watched with increasing interest while the man crossed the pavement, and, instead of climbing the steps, stooped to place an object on the ground. He saw him rise then and take something from his pocket which he tossed in the air. He was not surprised when the man failed to catch it. He heard it, whatever it was, strike the sidewalk, clicking metallically.
The man dropped to his knees and with wide gestures searched the flagging and the gutter. After a moment the chauffeur exclaimed—angrily, Garth fancied—then descended from his seat and joined the hunt.
Garth, speculating on this unconventional performance, stepped casually into an areaway, as if, indeed, it was his destination. From this shelter he observed the outcome.
The chauffeur picked up something which he thrust into the other's hand. After glancing quickly around he sprang to his seat while the man in evening clothes straightened, returned to the limousine, and closed the door. The car rolled almost silently up the street.
What, Garth questioned, had been left with such care on the sidewalk in front of the corner house? What object, probably similar, had occasioned the search?
When the car was nearly opposite him the man inside tapped on the pane. On a subdued note the chauffeur exclaimed again, then pulled the car to the curb and stopped it.
Once more the well-dressed man left the limousine and crossed the sidewalk. For the second time he bent and placed something carefully on the ground. It lay within Garth's reach, but just outside his line of vision. In fact, Garth could have grasped the other, so close was he; and he could see, in spite of the inefficient light, that he was young and probably good-looking. His inspection, however, was limited, for the other arose, breathing harshly, as if he were labouring under an unfamiliar excitement, and returned to the car.
As the driver set his gears and let the clutch in Garth reached through the areaway railing and fumbled about the sidewalk for the object. His fingers found it—round, flat, hard—not at all puzzling in itself, yet completely unintelligible as a clue to the young man's motive in placing it there. It was a piece of money.
Garth slipped from the areaway. He held his find up to the nearest lamp. The piece of money was a five dollar gold piece. He glanced along the street. The automobile had just swung from sight. He started quickly after it, because it had occurred to him that if such a performance were repeated in Park Avenue, his curiosity would make him stop the machine, would suggest a number of questions to the young man in the fur coat, would seek an explanation of the chauffeur's furtive impatience.
When he turned the corner he was not surprised to find the limousine halted again, to see the young man returning from a third excursion to the house line where, doubtless, he had with an extreme anxiety placed another piece of money.
Garth broke into a run. The chauffeur glanced over his shoulder and muttered quickly to the man, who sprang in. As soon as the door was closed the car started with a speed almost affirmative of flight.
Garth held up his hand with the gold piece and shouted. The car went faster. He hastened to read the license number on its rear. As he wrote it in his pocket book he watched the red of the tail light diminish and disappear.
He walked over and picked up a twenty-five cent piece. Why then had the young man left five dollars around the corner? He stared at the two coins, his bewilderment growing. What could be the explanation of this trail of money, left with a scrupulous care on New York pavements? Of what abnormal diligence could such an eccentricity be an echo? How pronounced was its significance?
Almost certainly another coin lay close to Lexington Avenue where the car had first stopped. It was not probable that a third exhibit would reflect any light on the affair, still he wanted to learn the denomination of that coin, and evidently it was the final goal of his curiosity to-night.
As soon as he turned the corner he saw that he would be too late. The discovery heightened his interest. Breathlessly, he slipped into an areaway and watched.
A singularly small figure of a man shuffled across Lexington Avenue and, as if with an assured purpose, made for the corner stoop. The arc light down there, while it emphasized few details, sharpened Garth's wonder at the size and shape of the newcomer. He was inclined to explain him as a small boy, masquerading in mature clothing. Yet there was about the shoulders a thickness and a curve which did not belong to youth. The face was concealed by the turned-up collar of a diminutive overcoat and by a felt hat, drawn low over the eyes. Even at a distance the figure projected an air of the lawless and sinister.
The man bent and picked up the coin. Afterwards he continued towards Garth, not, however, in a straight line. He shuffled stealthily, his feet scarcely leaving the ground, in a series of zig-zags across the sidewalk. And always his shoulders remained bowed, the eyes lowered, as if he examined with a vital solicitude every inch of his path.
It was obvious to Garth that there was some connection between the young man in the limousine and this stunted, clandestine figure who followed his trail with such anxious vigilance. Therefore he felt justified in setting a small trap. If its issue involved him in a mistake a laugh would extricate him. But he foresaw no mistake. The deformed thing approaching was not to be explained as a peaceful, if tipsy, citizen, bound for home. So he placed the five dollar gold piece just outside the railing. He removed his gloves. He took his pocket lamp from his coat and held it ready. If the other saw the money and tried to pick it up he would be quite at the mercy of Garth's lamp and hands.
That would happen, for the man had evidently caught the pallid gleaming of the gold. Without increasing his pace he shuffled across and stooped, stretching out his hand. Up to this point the other's activity had worn an established air. Garth proceeded to rout its complacence. He reached through the railing, and as the hand was about to close over the money grasped it with all his strength.
He had been prepared for fright, for a struggle, but scarcely for the shrill, animal cry that greeted his surprise, nor for the violent and unnatural strength that quivered through the little body as it tried to break away.
And at first Garth combatted a quick impulse to let go. The quality of the bare hand in his own revolted him. The fingers were long, slender, and hard. The skin was dry. It gave him an impression that there was no flesh between it and the bones it covered.
"Steady, my friend," he muttered. "That's my money in your claw. Let's have a look at you."
The other's squirming increased. The scream was not repeated. Only a difficult, sobbing sound came recurrently from the man's throat.
At last Garth managed to twist the small wrist so that practically he controlled the fellow's movements. Then he pressed the button of his lamp. The light shone mercilessly upon an abhorrent face.
The skin was yellow, and tight, like parchment, across the high cheek bones. The tiny eyes lay far back in rounded sockets. In the lamplight they were deceptively reminiscent of the eyes of a cat. But it was on the head, from which the hat had fallen, that Garth's glance lingered with the most distaste. A queue was curled about it. It gave the last touch to the fantasy of the snow, the mist, the deserted street of old houses—a fitting setting for the night's vagaries.
For him the coil of hair gleamed like a serpent, carefully poised and awaiting the most favorable moment for its stroke. As the yellow head moved spasmodically the coil appeared to writhe. It provoked Garth's imagination. With quiet eloquence it symbolized a vicious conservatism, publicly dead. It suggested secret ceremonials in forbidden shrines. In a broader sense it was the outward survival, properly snake-like, of unconquerable and scarcely apprehended customs.
Garth shuddered. He found it more difficult than before to cling to that bony hand. He arose, snapped off the light, and grasped the Oriental by the shoulder.
"How did you know you'd find this money on the sidewalk?" he asked.
The other shivered, as if for the first time the cold had reached him.
"Talk up," Garth ordered. "Who's the fashion-plate that left it?"
The Chinaman made a last effort to escape. Garth subdued him.
"No talk-ee, eh? All right, little one. Then you'll have a nice free ride downtown—just as a suspicious character."
For a possibility had occurred to him from which he shrank. Still, since it existed, it dictated a clear enough duty. He stepped from the areaway.
"Hustle along, sonny."
The other exploded into a torrent of Chinese. Garth understood not a word, yet the shrill voice, rising and falling, cried to him a fear and a despair that were tragic.
"Bluff away," he muttered, "though I don't see what good it will do you. Plenty of interpreters at headquarters. Point is, are you coming peaceably, or will I have to wake up a patrolman to get a wagon?"
The Chinaman was on the point of collapse. Garth practically carried him to the corner. He experienced a feeling of remorse, which, however, vanished before the recollection of the queue, glistening, serpent-like.
He was relieved to turn his man over at headquarters. He saw him placed in an empty detention cell.
"Sleep tight," he called as the key turned. "Maybe you'll learn English by morning."
His own sleep was untroubled, save by his persistent uneasiness about Nora.
As soon as he was up the next morning he telephoned the Bureau of Licenses and apparently ran his one clue into a dead wall. The limousine, he found, belonged to Thomas Black, a young man of more than ordinary wealth and position. Garth flushed uncomfortably. He began to suspect that he had been guilty of an indiscretion, for Black, some years ago, had married the sister of Rufus Manford, whose recent selection as head of the Society for Social Justice had set in motion a cumbersome amount of self-satisfied and unusually ill-designed activity against crime. Still Garth knew that Manford was working with the inspector now on some urgent cases about which little was said at headquarters. It was possible, then, that the trail of coins had been arranged by Manford in the society's office for a purpose which his interference might have destroyed.
But the growing day diminished the importance of the whole adventure. That returned to it only when the telephone summoned him as he was about to leave his rooms.
"Hello!" he called.
The voice that answered was gruff, disapproving, almost reproachful, he would have said.
"It's Ed, at headquarters. Say, you've got me in bad. Hustle on down. Inspector's on his ear and wants you."
"What's up, Ed?"
"That pigtail of yours. Can't make out the chief. Might be a member of his own family."
"What are you driving at, Ed? What's the matter with the pigtail?"
"Dead—that's all."
"Dead!" Garth echoed.
"Yup. Must have done it right after you left. Choked himself to heaven with his bloomin' queue. Now if he'd had it cut off proper—"
For the first time Garth entered the inspector's office with the discomfort of a culprit. Yet he could not accuse himself justly of blundering. Nevertheless the brief telephone conversation with the doorman had informed him that the inspector attached an uncommon importance to the chance capture of the Chinaman. Because of it he would place the blame for the suicide where it fell most conveniently.
When he opened the door he appreciated that there was more than that out of the way at headquarters this morning. A woman bent, ancient, poor, sat in a chair to the right of the inspector's desk. He could hazard no more concerning her, because of an intricately-patterned shawl which was draped over her head and nearly covered her face. Her presence was less astonishing than her bearing in this room, terrible alike to wrong-doers and to the reluctant witnesses of crime. Her attitude, indeed, was expectant. Her lack of distrust impressed him as aggressive. Moreover, its customary rumble had left the inspector's voice which had flowed, Garth had remarked, with a conciliatory blandness.
It paused shortly as Garth entered. The huge man turned slowly in his chair. His eyes, somnolent as a rule, fixed Garth with a lively reproach.
"Shut the door," he grumbled.
Garth obeyed.
"Here's a pretty mess! Why did you bring him in at all?"
"The chink?" Garth asked mildly.
"No," the inspector roared. "Queen Lilliokulani! Who do you suppose I mean? How many mugs have you brought in since I saw you last? Maybe you thought the big Chinese population was unhealthy."
"I never dreamed he'd do that," Garth protected himself.
"Why didn't you warn the boys to keep an eye on him?" the inspector demanded.
Garth threw up his hands.
"How could I tell? I only brought him in on a chance. I knew you were after the funny medicine crowd. He was up to some queer business last night, and I thought he looked the type."
"Yes," the inspector agreed drily, "he certainly looked the type, so much so that I'd gamble that wizzened brain of his held all I want to know."
He seized a paper weight and commenced to toss it ponderously from fist to fist.
"That's what you've let get away from you. Maybe you'll be accommodating enough to tell me how you happened to pick him up."
Garth glanced questioningly at the woman.
"Don't fret," the inspector said scornfully. "She won't give you away even if you have made an ass of yourself."
Garth reddened. Impulsively he turned on his heel. Later he would be ashamed, since he understood the inspector thoroughly. But for the moment he surrendered himself to pride. The sound of the chair shoved back by the inspector was not unexpected, nor did he fail to catch the note of apology, the appeal for terms in the gruff voice.
"Come back here. Where are you going?"
But it was another voice that swung him sharply.
"Jim! Don't lose your temper."
The inspector's fist scattered the papers on his desk top.
"Who's running this office?"
Garth scarcely heard. He strode to the woman. He snatched the intricately-patterned shawl from her head. The face beneath was old, stained, and wrinkled; but there was no disguising the dark, young eyes which smiled up at him.
"So that's why?" he gasped. "You've done it well, Nora. Now maybe I can know something about it."
She laughed.
"Not if you resign. So much dignity!"
He laughed back.
"Nor if I'm fired."
The inspector grinned.
"I'm glad you let me in this on some basis."
The disclosure of the girl's personality had scattered Garth's revolt, and her eyes, now that they were no longer concealed, seemed to have rebuked the inspector to a milder humour.
"Understand," he said, "Nora doesn't tell me any too much how she's working, and she's been at this off and on for a long time. It's only the last two weeks that it's gotten serious. She had to see me to-day. That's why I'm on my ear about the Chinaman. He might have saved her a good deal. You see, she's working on that case."
Garth's heart sank.
"Dope!" he cried. "It isn't safe. I tell you she's fighting desperate people, inspector. Look at that Chinaman, whether he's mixed up with the traffic or not, if a brute like him suspected her!"
The inspector returned to his chair. He waved his hands helplessly.
"Talk to Nora. I've told her all that. Once or twice I've wanted her to use her brain in cases where there wasn't any risk. Nothing doing. When this rotten business came up she would go into it on her own hook. I guess that's because she knows Manford and his high-brow, meddling society have got the district attorney behind them, and they've put it up to me hard."
Nora shook her head, smiling a trifle wistfully.
"No, father, I did it to save souls and bodies. You see, Jim, they can handle the little fellows under the new laws, but everybody knows there's this one place up-town, marvelously hidden and guarded—a distributing center, the heart of the whole surviving drug traffic. When I found out from father that everybody else had failed I just had to try. My conscience kept at me. Success would turn so much misery into happiness, so much sickness into health, so much crime into usefulness. And to-night, I believe, if we're lucky—Jim! I want you to be there."
"She thinks she's spotted the house," the inspector said softly. "That's what she had to see me about. She wants a raid arranged for to-night."
Garth's voice was anxious.
"How are you working, Nora? I don't like it. I wish you were out of it."
But Nora would tell him nothing, and he realized instinctively that in her crusade she had taken desperate chances and would face more, probably the worst, to-night.
"You must tell us," she said, "how you found the Chinaman. I've no doubt he was one of them. In itself his death was a confession—a pitifully silent one."
Garth told his story of the man in the limousine, of the trailing Oriental, of what he had learned at the Bureau of Licenses. Nora offered no interpretation, but she smiled sympathetically at the inspector's rage. He saw in the affair more than Garth. To him it meant an underhanded attempt on the part of the society to trap a material witness.
"They put it up to me," he grumbled, "then they want to put it over me. Manford gets a line of his own and keeps it to himself. Out for a little glory and advertising! What happens every time I work with these silk-stockinged, fur-coated societies that think they know more about vice than the police. And to think, Garth, you snitched him away from them, then let him croak!"
Nora arose.
"No use crying over spilt milk, father."
She prepared to leave. Garth followed her to the hallway. He urged her to let him share her plans, to give him a more pronounced part in the risks. She shook her head.
"It's best to let me work this alone until the last minute, Jim."
His one grain of comfort was her insistence that he should be in the van of the raiding party. So he watched her leave, her grace and beauty transformed by an inspired ingenuity into the bent lines and the haggard distortion of a crone.
The day lingered interminably. Whatever Nora had told her father he guarded with an unqualified stubbornness. Aside from the fact that he was to join the inspector in an up-town precinct house at ten o'clock, Garth walked into the affair wholly ignorant of plans or probabilities.
When finally the hour struck and he kept the appointment, he found Manford, in evening clothes, leaning against the desk while he tested the inspector's temper with a smiling face and an insinuating conversation.
Garth had never before seen this amateur in social justice. His first glance furnished him a share in the inspector's resentment, for clearly Manford's illusions as to his importance were all of a happy character. His moustache, arranged with a studied precision, his ruddy complexion, his eyes, noticeably sarcastic, testified to measureless pride in a success which, Garth knew, had arisen almost of its own power from his inheritance. It was not to be doubted that his selection as its head had given the society in his eyes a majestic and peculiar value.
The fact that the inspector failed to counter impressed Garth. Probably it would be a sufficient revenge for him to accomplish the raid and smash the gang with Manford as a witness, yet without his active assistance.
A number of detectives and some men in uniform were grouped about the two. The inspector's commands were brief and delivered with an excited anticipation which he could not conceal. At last he announced the number of the house. It was in the centre of the block east of that in which Garth had captured the Chinaman. Some of the men were to reach the back yard. Others were to guard the roof. The remainder would form the attacking party at the front.
"When these people find they can't get through," the inspector warned, "it's a good bet they'll show fight. So look out for yourselves, and impress on them that your guns aren't watch charms."
Garth, Manford, and the inspector led the way. Garth's misgivings were far more profound than if the chief risk had been his own. Where was Nora now? What would such conscienceless men do to her if they found at the last moment she was responsible for their hopeless predicament?
They walked slowly to give the others time to reach their posts. At last the inspector glanced at his watch, snapped it shut, and quickened his pace.
"Come on, boys," he muttered. "The season's open."
The house presented an uncommunicative front. They climbed the steps. No lights showed in the hall. The windows appeared to be shuttered. The inspector pulled the old-fashioned bell handle. After an undisturbed wait he tried again.
"Guess we haven't got the combination, Chief," Garth whispered.
"No time for experiments," the inspector said. He put his shoulder to the door.
"Give a hand here, boys. Bring that ax."
The lock snapped under their assault. They stumbled through into the vestibule. Garth choked. He was aware of fine particles of dust in his nose and his throat. The inspector had been similarly affected.
"Filthy lot!" he sneered. "One more door."
They attacked the inner door. They burst through into a black hallway. The dust rose in clouds. The inspector snapped his flashlight and fell back with an exclamation, disappointed and surprised.
The light shone on bare floors and walls. Its power was radically diminished by the long accumulated dust their entrance had disturbed. As far as the first floor was concerned they stood in an empty house.
Manford sneered.
"A fine plan of yours, inspector!"
The inspector glared his dislike.
"I'm beginning to think you were jealous a minute ago, young man."
"Then you've quite disarmed my unworthy emotion," Manford laughed.
Garth had read more than dislike in the inspector's manner. It had veiled, he was sure, a positive, an increasing fear; and the scorn of his voice had not thoroughly cloaked its uncertainty.
"Get up stairs," he snarled to his men. "Scour every inch of this place."
He turned back to Manford.
"I'll swear they were here this afternoon. This house was used as a dive no later than this afternoon."
Manford chuckled, indicating the dust which still whirled in the rays of the flash light.
The plain-clothes men returned almost at once. There was not a person in the house—not a piece of furniture. The grime on the walls, the thick dust testified to its long disuse.
Manford's superior wisdom appeared justified. The intolerance of a position and a success, both inherited, shone in his eyes, expressed itself in his voice. He drew his coat closer about him. He touched his hat. It assumed a jauntier air.
"Good night, inspector," he drawled. "I cut the opera to take in this example of police efficiency. I hope my society, on its own initiative, will be able to make more progress with the case. Maybe I'll find some amusement chatting with the lieutenant at the station house. At least I can learn from the police what sins to omit."
The inspector strangely, did not answer. Manford lighted a cigarette, grinning, and strolled down the steps.
Garth marvelled at the inspector's lack of belligerency. He looked at him more closely. The big man's jaw had fallen. He stared without purpose at the blank walls. The picture made Garth afraid. He grasped the inspector's arm. He drew him to one side.
"How were you so sure?" he asked under his breath. "Because Nora gave you this number?"
The inspector shook his head. His great shoulders trembled.
"No. She had no number to give me. But this afternoon I saw her enter this house. I watched the door close behind her, and, Garth—she has never come out."
Garth with frantic haste explored the place himself from roof to cellar. There was no question. It had remained uninhabited for many months, perhaps years. Yet Nora had told her father that, while its location had been kept from her, she had arranged a certain entry to the evil house that afternoon. She had told him to follow her. He had seen the door close behind her.
Garth scarcely dared open his mind to full comprehension. If Nora had been directed to this deserted building and admitted, it was clear that her connection with the police had been discovered. It was logically certain that she had walked into an elaborately plotted ambush.
He hurried to the sidewalk where he found the inspector braced heavily against the rail.
"What can I do, Garth?" the big man asked hoarsely.
What to do, indeed! Garth thrust his hands in his pockets. He stared helplessly up the street. His glance rested on the corner house of the next block where last night the man in the fur coat had left the first coin. Suddenly his breath sharpened. His mind, planning blindly, paused, drew back, dared again to face the single chance that had risen from the shadows of the corner house.
He wet his lips. He touched the inspector's shoulder. He understood that on a bare possibility he would place his entire career in the scales. Since, however, it balanced Nora's rescue from such unspeakable hands, he did not hesitate.
"Chief," he whispered, "take your men back to the station house and keep them ready. I'll telephone you there in a few minutes, fifteen or twenty at the outside."
"What are you going to do, Garth?"
"Take one chance to get Nora back," he answered quickly, "probably say good-bye to New York. It was something I thought of last night. It seemed common sense to forget it this morning. Now I'm going to make sure. No time to talk."
He ran swiftly west, past the house on the corner, past the areaway where he had secreted himself last night, into Park Avenue, always on the course taken by the limousine. And, when he came to Black's number, he saw the limousine drawn up, waiting. In the upper story of the small but expensive house lights burned. He pressed the electric button, sighing his relief. He was grimly determined to see the thing through. His resolution was stimulated by his memory of the queue, coiled like a serpent, watching to strike with fangs bearing the poison of degradation and death. Nora stood within reach of that, perhaps, was already its victim. So when the door was opened by a sleek serving-man, he did not hesitate.
"I must see Mr. Black."
The servant displayed a mild astonishment at his tone.
"I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Black is not at home."
The lights he had noticed upstairs and the limousine gave Garth confidence.
"Mr. Black," he said, "is the brother-in-law of the president of the Society for Social Justice."
The servant nodded.
"Then he will see me."
The other was shocked.
"Really, sir—"
Garth gave him a glimpse of his badge, pushed past, and entered the reception hall. The servant turned, staring at him with insolent eyes.
"You'll have to get out of here. Mr. Black has no official connection with the society. What do you mean by forcing—"
Garth called:
"Mr. Black! Mr. Black!"
The servant tried to catch his arm.
"This is outrageous."
"Mr. Black!" Garth called again.
And the response he had prayed for, the response he had made up his mind to force at all hazards, came quavering from the upper floor.
"Who is that? What's all this row, Arnold?"
Garth sprang up the stairs, eager and relieved at the quality of the voice. The young man of the limousine stood at the head, bending anxiously over, backed against the railing, as if to repel an assault.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Black," Garth said hurriedly. "I have to speak to you about something too important for delay."
He paused, embarrassed, reluctant to go on, for in the brightly lighted doorway of the living-room a woman had appeared, small, with an extraordinary grace of figure, and a face which, in a trivial, light-hearted way, impressed him as rarely beautiful. She wore evening dress. A wrap was draped across her arm. Her resemblance to Manford established her identity beyond debate. She glanced at Garth with an amused curiosity quite at variance with her husband's emotion. She smiled tolerantly.
"Quite like a bearer of evil tidings in a play, but even they don't come upstairs, unannounced."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Black," Garth said apologetically. "Your man drew the long bow. I couldn't be put off."
But the smiling, graceful figure was a defence, almost incontestable. Nothing short of Nora's danger could have armed him to overcome it. He would, however, spare Black's wife as far as possible.
"I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Black, privately."
He turned back to the woman.
"You see I come from your brother, the head of the Society for Social Justice."
"What can he want at this time of night?" she said.
She advanced to the head of the staircase.
"It makes no difference, John. You weren't coming anyway. I'll tell Aunt Sarah why—business!"
She laughed lightly and passed on down the stairs.
Garth breathed more freely. He waited until the front door had slammed, until he had heard the motor whir, until he was sure she was started for her reception or dance, unsuspecting the desolation he had brought into her home. Then he swung on Black.
"Come in here."
He indicated the living-room.
Black followed with uncertain steps. The light shone on his sallow face out of which heavy eyes looked distrustfully.
"What do you want?" he asked. "What does Manford want?"
"Don't trouble to sit down, Mr. Black," Garth directed. "I've little time—just enough to tell you that I'm on to you."
Black with an odd, halting motion reached the centre table. His fingers shaking, he lifted a cigarette from a silver box and essayed to strike a match. The wood splintered. He fumbled aimlessly about the table. He took the unlighted cigarette from his mouth. He stammered.
"Wh—what the devil do you mean?"
"No use bluffing," Garth said. "You give yourself away. But don't get too scared. I'm the only one who knows."
The other's voice was scarcely audible.
"Who are you?"
Garth threw back his coat lapel, displaying momentarily his badge.
Black's voice rose on a shrill note.
"It's a lie! It's a lie!"
Garth shook his head.
"I watched you last night," he said, "planting money here and there—a pretty, generous fancy, just to give people the joy of finding it. Men don't do such things in their right senses. I've heard of it, but the fact that you were the brother-in-law of the head of an organization that was after these cases offered a more likely explanation. Put me off the track. Thought you were working for him. Now that I've had a good look at you, there's no question."
Black made a last pitiful effort.
"This is blackmail."
"I have my price," Garth admitted.
Black sat on the table edge.
"I'll put them on to you down town—through Manford."
Garth laughed outright.
"You! You'd never have the nerve. Give a police surgeon one good look at you!"
Black fumbled in one of the drawers. He lifted out a cheque book.
"How much?" he asked with dry lips.
"Not money," Garth said.
He felt every nerve in his body tighten.
"When I saw you making a fool of yourself last night," he went on, "you had come straight from a house you are going to get me in to-night."
The cheque book fluttered to the floor.
"Wh-what for?"
"To save a woman," Garth answered. "It's enough for you to know that they've trapped her there, and that she means too much to me—"
Black turned on him with a snarl.
"You mean you love her. Then maybe you can understand. What about my wife?"
"Black," Garth said quietly, "you stand a better chance of sparing your wife if you meet my price. I promise to do all I can to keep you out of the scandal. I'll get you away clean if it can be done. All I ask is, that for your wife's sake, you'll try to be a man. But now you listen. By gad, if you refuse to do this thing, I'll raise a scandal that will finish you once for all. I'll shout the thing from the housetops. I'll take you to a cell within the next ten minutes. What about your wife then? Look at me. I'm not bluffing. I hate it, but I've no choice. It's life and death to me, and, since it's all I've got, I'm going to use your reputation to make it life."
Black sank into a chair, covering his face.
"You do mean it. I can't do it. I tell you I can't do it."
Garth stood over the man. As he fought, there came back to him with an advocacy not to be denied, the memory of Nora's altered face, out of which, however, her eyes, unalterable, had glanced at him with a definite appeal.
"Yes you can," he said savagely. "They'll let you vouch for a—friend. And if you don't, you'll give the game away to a jury and a crowded courtroom."
Black's hands dropped. He stared straight ahead. He did not answer.
Garth reached out and grasped the telephone. Black stumbled to his feet and tore at Garth's arm.
"What are you going to do?"
"Call for a patrol wagon to drive up to your exalted home."
"No, no, no!"
"Then you agree?"
"You'll come with me alone?"
"Yes."
"Then I agree."
The gleam in Black's eye was revealing. It retarded Garth's relief. It warned him that, entering the place alone, he could be handled, as, perhaps, Nora had been handled.
"I'll get my hat and coat," Black said.
"No," Garth answered. "From now on you'll stick to me like a brother."
He took the receiver from the telephone and got the inspector at the station house. While Black protested, he instructed the inspector to have a man follow Black and himself, and, no matter what house they entered, to surround that entire block and to keep a watch on every house front. If he could communicate in no other way, Garth promised to fire his revolver twice, if possible, from a front window.
Black shrank back.
"But you said—alone."
"Alone," Garth answered, "but that's what's going to happen once I'm in. I'm not throwing my life away. Are you ready, or do you prefer the cell and your picture in the morning papers?"
Black led the way without further protests down the staircase. At the foot he broke down again. Garth warned him and helped him on with his overcoat.
"You leave me no choice," Black whimpered. "No choice."
Garth drew him to the sidewalk.
"If you waste time steering me wrong," he said, "I'm through. And don't forget I have a gun. Try to throw me down once we're in, I'll use it."
Black made an effort to square his shoulders. He crossed the avenue with a lurching gait. Garth glanced back. A dark figure skulked after them. So that was all right. The inspector would know their destination immediately.
"One thing," Garth asked. "How did you have the nerve to drive your limousine to the place last night?"
"I didn't," Black answered. "I picked it up in Third Avenue."
He did not speak again, and Garth no longer urged him. He walked straight for the block in which he had been at his folly last night. But he did not pause there. He continued across Lexington Avenue and made confidently for the deserted, dust-filled house which just now had mocked the police. Garth, amazed, followed him to the basement door.
Black took a key from his pocket, and with the ease of long habit inserted it through the obscurity in the lock. The door opened and Garth walked into the blackness with a quickening suspense. His apprehension was for Nora rather than himself. What had happened to her when she had stepped into the dusty hall? Her only chance was that he would not be caught in this somber pit as she had probably been. He put his hand on his revolver.
"Go first," he whispered.
The darkness was so complete that Garth had to keep his fingers on the other's arm to avoid stumbling against the walls. Yet his guide went with a quick assurance to the rear door which he opened with another key. They stepped beneath a rough shelter of corrugated iron such as is hastily thrown up for the protection in summer of washboards, or, in winter, for the storing of wood. Black proceeded beneath this shelter along the fence to the corner. Garth noticed a large accumulation of rubbish in the yard, souvenirs, doubtless, of indolent and utilitarian neighbors.
Black stooped. Evidently he had given a signal which Garth had not seen or heard, for straightway he arose and leant against the fence, waiting.
"What now?" Garth asked.
Black raised his finger to his lips.
Garth looked down at a rustling among the rubbish. A thin piece of flagging had opened at his feet as if hinged like a trap-door, leaving visible the top of a flight of rough wooden steps.
Black stepped down and Garth followed. The steps led diagonally under the angle of the fence. Others rose into the corner of the adjacent yard. If this was their destination it was neither to one side nor directly behind the empty house used as an entrance. Garth marvelled at the simplicity of the contrivance. Two men in half a day could have accomplished the entire excavation and arranged the steps. Moreover, without a definite clue the police would never suspect such an entrance.
While Black carefully lowered the flag on the other side Garth glanced around. They stood in the kitchen shed of a house which, of course, faced the next street. Garth had no doubt that the place was masked with a physician's office, or, perhaps, an appeal for boarders, who, nevertheless, would always fail to find rooms available at the hour of their application. He saw nothing of the man who had admitted them by raising the flag. He was more disturbed than before, since he could picture the inspector's bewilderment on learning that he had entered the house which had been so recently raided and combed.
Garth had small time for speculation. He saw Black press an electric button. Faintly he heard the response from a muffled bell—two rings short, and one long. Almost at once the door opened a crack, but no gleam of light came through. Black muttered something unintelligible to Garth, and led him into a darkness as complete as that which had oppressed him in the empty house. Yet in spite of it he was sure it was a woman who had admitted them.
"This way," Black said.
Garth followed, scarcely breathing. Where would he find Nora? How would he find her?
A door opened ahead, and at last there was a light—a subdued, brown light, unhealthy, suggestive of a melancholy repose.
Black went first, then Garth, into an inner hallway, which was saturated with this aberrant radiance.
Garth turned sharply to inspect the woman who had followed them in. He drew back. He controlled his gasp of relief and gratitude, for it was Nora herself who had opened the door for them and who stood now on the threshold of the hall. Yet he saw that his presence, instead of bringing to them a grateful welcome, had drawn into her eyes a fear which quickly approached despair.
She wore the apron and the cap of a housemaid, transparent hints as to how she had found an entrance and remained here, unmolested. Her features, in addition, were subtly changed, so that one, less acquainted with them than Garth, might have passed her unrecognizing.
His astonishment had held him longer than was discreet. He turned at a sound to find his conductor gone. He knew what that portended. He cursed his carelessness.
Nora took his arm.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered tensely. "Go before it's too late. I knew they suspected trouble to-night, but I never dreamed of your getting in here alone. Go—the way you came."
"To be caught in the yard?" he scoffed. "That fellow's given me away by this time. They'll watch that exit first."
He ran along the hallway. The strange brown light appeared to have given the air a substantial resistance. He breathed it with distaste. It choked him. At the foot of the stairs Nora caught his arm again.
"Where are you going?"
"Up there," he answered. "I haven't the ghost of a show in this suffocating basement. They'll look for me here first."
He climbed the stairs. She followed him.
"Jim," she breathed, "it's hopeless. They'll never let you out."
He turned at the head of the stairs. The same dim, unreal light was repugnant in his lungs here. A repellent odor, not to be classified, crept into his nostrils, made him want to cough. Heavy purple hangings were draped across two doorways.
"Tell me the lay-out," he whispered. "Quick! The yard isn't the only getaway?"
"Except the roof and the front," she whispered back, "and they're locked. The head one keeps the keys. For God's sake, Jim, try to get out of this house before it's too late."
He pointed to one of the draped doorways. It was at the end of the hall, but the hall appeared to him too short.
"Is that the front door?"
She shook her head.
"Only leads to the front of the house. That's planted, of course—a boarding house. I tell you that door's locked."
"Then how can I get to a front window?"
"You can't, Jim."
He tried to plan.
"Then how am I—"
A heavy step seemed to set the thick, brown air in lazy motion. It came from a nearby room. It approached. Garth glanced at the purple hangings, expecting them to part on one who would discipline without mercy his presumption.
"Jim! They've got you, and if they see me with you—"
She spread her arms.
"They know you're a detective. Your only hope is that they shouldn't suspect me. And I can't lose all I've done. Hit me, Jim."
"Nora!"
"Trust me," she begged, "and we've a chance. They mustn't doubt me. Hit me, Jim. Take hold of me. Clap your hand over my mouth. Quick!"
He drew back. He knew she was right, but he couldn't, all at once, bring himself to obey.
"I've my gun," he muttered.
"It's worthless."
The footsteps were nearer. They had persisted with a measured, an unhurried purpose. Garth drew his revolver. The curtains waved.
Suddenly Nora screamed. She flung herself upon him tigerishly.
"Jim!" she whispered. "Now!"
The contact swept him with a bitter, distorted content. He had to force himself to grasp her shoulders, and to bend them back. Her hand rose. Scarcely understanding her intention, he saw her strike herself sharply across the face. An ugly, reddish mark survived. There was a suggestion of tears in her voice.
"You coward, Jim!"
The curtains were wider, but always, as he forced her back, he combatted the desire to draw her closer instead, to heal with his lips the scar with which his precipitancy had marked her.
She cried out again. He glanced at the curtains. He let her go, staring with a sense of loathing at a yellow, wrinkled face, which protruded from the purple, and permitted him to see, glistening above it, a braid of hair, serpent-like and perilous.
The leering face was withdrawn. Garth heard a low whistle modulated on an unfamiliar, minor interval.
"Don't resist them, Jim," Nora whispered. "I'll do what I can."
Then she turned and ran, screaming, through the curtains.
Garth dashed for the hidden door which led to the front of the house. If only he could break through there, reach a window, and signal the inspector, but when he tore the curtains back he faced panels of an exceptional stoutness, unquestionably built to deaden sound as well as to form a competent barricade. He surrendered to the realization that he was caught in the heart of this evil house. He wondered if Nora's strategy retarded his captors.
A stealthy shuffling turned him from the door so that he faced the hall. He had heard that same sound last night when the diminutive Chinaman had approached him. Now he saw three of the same mold whose queues appeared to writhe in the brown and stifling light as they glided along the hall, their talon-like hands outstretched.
He guessed that the picture was intended to terrify, to impress upon him the futility of resistance, yet while he had his revolver the success of such an attack was remote.
"Stay where you are," he said, puzzled, trying to understand. "Come any closer and I'll shoot."
The yellow mouths grinned. Then, when it was too late, Garth understood the trick. A rush of colder air on his back informed him that the heavy door was open. He stood between two fires. In fact, before he could turn, his wrists were grasped. Two leering faces were close to him, but as the revolver was wrenched from his hand, he pulled the trigger twice. With the great door open those explosions might penetrate beyond the house wall, might carry even to the inspector's men on the sidewalk.
They had at least aroused in the thick brown twilight of the house a restless, incoherent stirring. Voices muttered. Steps pattered here and there. A muffled bell commenced to complain. Through the curtains from the inner room stepped a man—a white man with cruelly intelligent features. Garth realized that he probably faced the head of this organization which for so long had outwitted the police.
Garth laughed with an effort at bravado.
"That was a signal," he said. "Block's surrounded. They'll be in here before you can light a joss stick. Call these things off, or you're as good as in the chair."
Upstairs the stirrings increased. Someone shrieked.
Nora appeared at the man's elbow. Her face was twisted with an abandoned terror.
"Men in the yard!" she gasped.
Garth guessed that it was a part of her scheme to turn the hunt from him, to give him that one moment he needed. And it worked. He felt his hands released. The Chinamen crouched along the wall, as if trying to conceal themselves, whining pitifully.
Garth jumped through the front hall. The vestibule door was locked and the key was missing. There was no time to conquer locks. His opportunity was limited. So he ran into the front room. The window catch baffled him. He didn't dare wait to fumble with it. He raised his fists and crashed them through the glass. His hands, scratched and bleeding a little, waved a frantic appeal. He shouted. And he heard answering voices and the pounding of feet. He saw figures glide into view and spring up the steps. The battering of shoulders filled the house with a turmoil that drowned its own increasing agitation.
He went back to the inner hall.
"Nora!" he called.
He pushed through the curtains into a room fantastic with Oriental furnishings. Black, in a panic, had Nora in his grasp. The girl struggled mutely.
"Drop her, Black!"
Black turned.
"That ends our bargain," Garth said harshly.
"She tried to stop me," Black quavered.
"He's the brother-in-law," Garth said scornfully, "of the very man who's been trying in his useless way to smash this gang. What do you think of that?"
Nora came forward. She was shocked, but it was clear she failed to share his scorn. As the front door yielded she put her hand on his arm.
"Have you ever seen his wife, Jim?" she asked simply.
He nodded.
"So have I," she went on. "She's the one I'm thinking of. She's too young, too happy, to have her whole life stained by this thing."
But Garth's anger persisted. Black, however, in response to Nora's nod, slipped behind the window curtains. The inspector, Manford, and a number of detectives rushed in.
"Get your men through the house," Nora advised.
The inspector motioned the men to go. He lumbered over to Nora. He put his arms around her. An excessive gratitude moistened his eyes and thickened his voice.
"Thank the Lord!"
"Thank Jim," she said, "although he risked everything by appearing here."
"If you'd told us more of your plans," Garth said, "we would have worked better together."
"I didn't dare," she answered. "I knew so little myself. So much depended on success."
Manford's fragile fingers pulled at his moustache. The humor in his eyes did not quite veil a real admiration.
"Well!" he said gaily. "Let me congratulate you, inspector. The policehaveput something worth while over—through a woman."
Garth, whose eagerness had carried him closer to the girl, noticed for the first time on her neck a bruise left by Black's urgent fingers. A sudden, unreasoning temper swept him with the necessity for atonement. Impulsively he burst out:
"Inspector, one of the beasts you want is behind those curtains." Nora cried out.
"Jim! You might have let me have that. His wife!"
The inspector glanced from one to the other.
"What's on your mind, Nora?"
Manford laughed easily.
"No sentiment in this game, young woman. If we thought of the wives there'd be few arrests."
With an air of satisfaction, as if the climactic feature of the raid had been reserved for his importance, he snatched the curtains open. Black cowered in the embrasure of the boarded window, glaring out at his brother-in-law. He moistened his lips.
"Don't let them tell Anna, Billy."
Manford's satisfaction, founded on a self-imposed superiority, suddenly expired. He became rather pitifully human. His cheeks darkened. His insinuating antagonism for the inspector dwindled and faltered, finally, into a passionate mendicancy. He would meet any terms to spare his sister's entanglement in the destroying scandal.
"I'm afraid you might think the police didn't do its duty," the inspector said softly. "I just heard your own motto—no sentiment for the wives."
Garth had not shifted his glance from Nora. Her disapproval more and more impressed him, yet, with the bruise still eloquent on her white neck, he forced himself only with distaste to bargain.
"He's my prisoner, Manford. If the inspector says the word we'll tamper with the law and get him away and home. There's one condition. He does as I say for the next couple of years—takes any treatment I suggest."
"Don't worry. I'll see to that," Manford said. "It's good of you, Garth."
He turned to his brother-in-law.
"Are you willing, John?"
Black stumbled from the embrasure. He reached out his hands appealingly.
"Yes, yes. I want to—with all my heart."
"Then, inspector—" Manford began.
The inspector winked good-humouredly.
"Since we're all such old friends I agree. I've never had a come-back yet from reading a little humanity and mercy into the law. You've a good deal to learn about police work, young man. Let's start your education now. We'll see what the boys have bagged."
When the crowded police van had left, Nora, Garth, and the inspector stepped into the crisp night air.
"Garth," the inspector said, "you and Nora ought to have medals or something. That pale-face at the head of the gang is Jerry Smith. He must have been sent on from San Francisco. If there's a country-wide syndicate of crime he's on the board of directors along with your old friend Slim."
"Some day," Garth said, "that syndicate will be tapped properly."
Nora, after her experience in the heavy, repellent atmosphere of the house, was anxious to remain in the air. She proposed that they walk down town.
Garth, aware of her displeasure, scarcely dared suggest an answer to his curiosity, but the inspector, in a happier mood, did not hesitate.
"Maybe, Nora, you'll tell us how you got in that dive as a first class housemaid."
"There was only one way I could think of," she answered. "The place was bound to make cases for Bellevue, so I went to the head nurse and took her into my confidence. She kept me posted. At every chance I went there and was apparently ill myself of the same dreadful illness as the patient in the next cot. About two weeks ago the head nurse telephoned me a case had come in which looked promising. I've been there since. I'll confess, the best I hoped for was the number of the house, but this girl grew confidential finally. She had actually worked there. When she found she couldn't go back for a long time, and learned that I was about to be discharged as cured, she whispered a telephone number and a name. She said they would want somebody and it was hard to get just the right kind. I called up last night and told them about her and my anxiety for the place. A meeting was arranged with Smith in a café. He wouldn't give me the address, but he agreed to take me there this afternoon. You see he wouldn't have let me out again until he was sure of me—no afternoons off there."
"Clever, Nora," the inspector muttered.
She shook her head.
"Only choosing the best chance. I knew I couldn't trace them in any obvious fashion. They were too careful. Few customers had the run of the place. The stuff was taken to the rest. The way they had Black followed last night to make sure he left no trail shows how they accounted for everything. He had evidently been seen answering to that generous symptom of his before."
Garth noticed that she did not speak to him directly, but her resentment could not completely veil her relief at his safety, her appreciation of the courage that had urged him to her rescue, her gratitude that his daring had brought about the end she had so ardently desired. He hoped, moreover, that there was, about her quiet manner, something to be followed to that necessary but impulsive moment in the brown radiance of the evil house.
Yet that illusion she did not permit him to hold for long. He left the inspector and her at the flat with an uncomfortable feeling of having failed to measure up to the idea of him she had developed. She did not mention Black again, but her restraint persisted. Sooner or later, he tried to tell himself, something would destroy that—probably another case that would throw them together, that would make them depend one upon the other.
At headquarters one day the doorman told him that the inspector had been taken ill. The detective satisfied himself that nothing serious was to be feared, so he smiled, thinking the situation might offer something useful for himself.
It was really the trivial fact of the inspector's cold that involved Nora and Garth in the troubles of Addington Alsop. Those gathered into one of the most daring and dangerous cases headquarters had had since the commencement of the period of reconstruction.
To begin with, the inspector's indisposition confined him to his flat. It held Nora there in the part of a nurse. It drew Garth, who would have braved the most virulent contagion to be near her. Most important of all, it allowed the mighty Alsop to apply for police help without fear of detection by the reporters and agents constantly swarming at headquarters.
When Garth entered the flat that afternoon, he was, unknowingly, already on the threshold of the strange case; for he had read in the noon editions the brief paragraph which recited an accident to all appearances common enough. A man had been picked up unconscious in the middle of a quiet street. Evidently he had been struck by an automobile. Two details, however, arrested Garth's attention. The victim, Ralph Brown, he knew as a successful private detective. Moreover, the outrage had occurred during the slack hours before the dawn. Apparently no clue as to its perpetrators remained. Garth spoke of that casually to the inspector. The huge, suffering man was scarcely intrigued. Wrapped in an ancient dressing-gown, his throat smothered beneath flannel, he sat in an easy chair, facing the fire, whose coals he perpetually reproved with a frown. He groaned. There was utter despair in the rumbling, animal-like note. Nora laughed.
"Laugh away," the inspector roared, "but make Garth forget he's a detective if he can't do better than hound a sick man with a cheap automobile case."
From her dark and striking face Nora's quiet eyes smiled sympathetically at Garth.
"These unimportant things, father, are sometimes the most important of all," she said. "Jim's right. It's odd no witnesses can be found."
As if there had been something prophetic in her words and her attitude, a muffled knock came from the outer door.
"Why doesn't he ring?" the inspector growled. "You haven't had the bell disconnected, Nora? Good Lord! Am I as sick as that?"
Nora, a trifle bewildered, moved towards the door. "Queer! And I think there are two in the hall."
Garth, as he always did, marveled at her acute perception. For, although he had heard no footsteps, no voices, two men followed Nora into the living room. The one in advance was young, with a frightened and apprehensive face. His companion was older and portlier, with narrow eyes and full-blooded cheeks. And those eyes were uneasy. For Garth they did not quite veil a sense of sheer terror. With a growing discomfort he guessed the cause of this visit.
Nora's voice betrayed none of the amazement Garth knew she felt.
"It's Mr. Alsop, father," she said—"Mr. Addington Alsop."
The inspector had already struggled to rise. He conceded the importance of this unexpected call. He apologized for his failure.
"Nora's got me wound up like a mummy—"
Alsop broke in rapidly.
"No politeness, inspector. I must speak to you. I'm up against it. They're after me."
He sat down heavily. The young man, whom he introduced as his secretary, Arthur Marvin, lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers. Garth watched them both while the inspector explained that they might speak freely before him and Nora. Alsop, he knew, because of his genius for organizing money and industry, and his utter ruthlessness in dealing with those whom necessity had thrown within his power, had made dangerous and active enemies. Garth was aware, moreover, that recently Alsop had publicly defied certain organizations which had asked what he believed to be too much. The detective could understand the financier's position. His death might be a cheap risk for outside fanatics to take to destroy his leadership against the forces of radicalism, for there were few men strong enough to replace him. Alsop had a newspaper in his hand now, and was holding it out to the inspector, while with his forefinger he tapped the paragraph which told of Brown's accident.
"No accident," he muttered. "That man worked for me—a precaution any fool would take. Well, he must have found out what he was after last night, and they got him, and thought they had killed him. They tell me at the hospital he's still unconscious."
Nora smiled at her father.
"A cheap automobile case!" she reminded him softly.
Alsop handed Garth a crumpled, torn, and soiled post-card.
"That came in the noon mail. Must have been picked up by somebody and dropped in a post box. I figure Brown, before they got him, threw it out of a window, or some such thing. Anyway that settled it. It brought me here for a quiet talk."
Garth read the card. A single line, almost undecipherable, sprawled across the back:
"Danger to-morrow night. Brown."
"That means to-night," Garth said. "Had you planned anything important for to-night?"
Marvin laughed a little. Alsop spread his hands.
"The conference with capitalists and politicians at which we settle on certain legislation that will put some of these foreign anarchists on the skids, snatch American labor beyond their influence, and give the honest business man a chance to make a fair profit by driving his men as he should. See here, inspector. I'm not afraid of good Americans. They may put me out of business, but if they do, I'll know I've been beaten in a fair fight. It's these damned foreign anarchists and some sore central Europeans I'm afraid of. I expect some important men from Wall Street and Washington to-night. I can't let them walk into a bomb, and I don't want any high explosives myself."
The inspector grunted.
"Nasty situation. I'm no politician. Fight crime. We'll see what we can do. It's a good thing you found Garth here."
Garth, who had not ceased to study Alsop's face, realized that the man had more to report—something which he shrank, however, from mentioning.
"What is it, Mr. Alsop?" he asked. "You've something else to tell us."
Nora, who had clearly noticed the same symptoms, nodded approvingly. Alsop flushed and glanced at Marvin. The secretary knocked the ashes from his cigarette. The trembling of his fingers was more apparent.