"A gunniff is a juvenile institution peculiar to our bloomin' hold Hengland."
"Leave out some of your bloomings, won't you, especially about England."
"W'y not, chummy? Ain't it in the dic? Is it a wulgar word?"
Robert did not reply, but he thought how many words as sacred and beautiful as this have been profaned to foul uses or cheapened to the vapidity of a Frenchman's "Mon Dieu."
"Hi beg your bloomin' pardon, Bobbs. If it's wulgar, Hi drop it, and with your leave Hi'll resume my hinterrupted hautobiography."
"You call yourself a gunniff?"
"Gunniff in general, but more particularly Hi was a snatcher, w'ich takes precedence of the mob by reason of the difficulty of 'is duties, of the taker as well as of the blokie and the moke."
"What's the English for blokie and moke?"
"The Henglish? W'y, Hi'm amazed. Don't tell me you bilked 'em all so 'andily on settin' that 'ouse afire. Hi won't believe it of a chummy as hasks me wot a blokie and a moke is."
"I never heard the words before."
"W'y, the mokes do the scrappin' wen the gent 'as been relieved of 'is pocketbook, w'ich is too heavy for 'im to carry, by the willin' and accommodatin' little snatcher, w'ich was me."
"You began as a pickpocket?"
"Pickpocket? Wot does that mean? Hi never 'eard that word. We were hexpress boys. Is pickpocket the bloomin' Americanese for that? Hi'm a-winkin' at you, Bobbs."
This conclusion was invariably the prelude to a burst of laughter, which was so droll and self-satisfied that it put Robert in good humor in spite of everything.
"Four of us, Bobbs, and that makes a mob. First we picked out our gent, always a hold gent or a bloomin' swell, a-standin' in the crowd. Four of us playin', rompin', friskin', about 'im, as hinnocent little fellows will, bless 'em all, w'en, hall of a sudden, one bumps up against the bloomin' gent's pocket not with 'is 'ands, you know? The bloomin' gent might fancy ee was a hobject of hinterest to us if ee used 'is 'ands, w'ich ee hisn't, ho, no! That's the blokie wot does the bumpin'. Ee wears a thin shirt and a huncommonly hintelligent spine w'ich can feel a 'ard lump in a gent's pocket surprisin'."
"The blokie ascertains where his purse is located?"
"And the snatcher, w'ich was Wicked Willie, relieves 'im of it gently."
"How?"
"'Ow? By makin' a hopportunity. There's nothin' in this world like makin' a hopportunity for yourself, Bobbs. And if two little fellers get a-scrappin' and jostle a hold gent hover, and a crowd comes and the hold gent gets hinterested in separatin' the little fellers, and givin' them a moral lecture, 'ow's ee a-goin' to know w'ere 'is valuables went, unless ee reaches to present 'em with a 'alf-crown apiece, w'ich he don't."
"Is that common in London?"
"Run into the ground, Bobbs, completely wulgarized. No self-respectin' gent would bring up 'is bantams in that line nowadays. But hafterward, w'en Hi was alightin' my 'Avana cigars with the old lady's ten-pun notes, Hi always looked back on my rompin's with the mob as the beginnin's, 'umble but 'onorable, of a great and useful career."
During the talk it had seemed to Robert that the cracksman's voice was coming nearer.
"What's making that noise, Dobbs?"
"Wot noise, chummy?"
"That little scraping."
"You can 'ear it?"
"It's close to the chink."
"That's a rat's tooth gnawin'. Hi'm a-winkin' at you, Bobbs."
"Are you cutting into the wall?"
"Look 'ere, chummy. Dobbs 'as given hall the confidence so far, and Bobbs 'as given none. 'Ow is Dobbs to know Bobbs is true blue?"
This was a puzzler. Robert did not feel prepared to abet prison-breach yet, if that was the cracksman's aim, though his own feeling toward the authorities was anything but submissive.
"Hi'm 'urt, Bobbs. Hi've a sensitive nature and a large bump of curiosity, both of w'ich is offended by my chummy's lack of confidence in me. But Hi'll prove Hi'm true blue, wotever Bobbs says. Chummies is chummies and bobbies is bobbies, there's the distinction Hi draw. Do you 'ear the tooth?"
The gnawing sound became louder at Robert's ear.
"That's a hinstrument Hi hown w'ich Hi wouldn't show to the Pelican 'imself, but Bobbs shall see it and feel it if he likes."
"Is it a file?"
"A wery little file."
"How did you smuggle it in?"
"Just in a little plug o' smoke, Bobbs, w'ich a friend sent me for my 'ealth, w'ich is poor, as my bloomin' associates around me 'ere frequently observe. Nobody'd look for a little rat's tooth laid crossways in a little plug o' smoke, with the 'andle alongside of it, would they, Bobbs?"
"Are you sawing the bars?"
"Ham I? It's all done."
"You've sawed them through?"
"And poor little hinnocent Bobbs never 'eard me."
Dobbs went off in a peal of laughter.
"But how do you hide the cuts in the bars when any one comes?"
"Wot'll stop a leak in a gas-pipe? Soap. Wot'll 'ide a slice in a sawed bar? Gum."
"Gum?"
"You see, chummy, the wentilation is poor in 'ere. There's a green mildew on my floor and the bloomin' spiders is too silent to be sociable company. But you never 'eard me 'ollerin', Bobbs."
Indeed, he always lay low during the outbreaks. His methods were more secretive. He was the villain by trade.
"But my sympathy is with the bloomin' mutineers hall the time. So I pick away with my rat's tooth w'en the others is 'ollerin' and even green little hinnocent Bobbs cawn't 'ear me."
The rasping sound illustrated his meaning.
"Ee won't trust me, but Hi trust 'im. We'll see who can keep a secret, and who leaks."
There was a sound as if something had been slid out of the wall on the other side and of a sudden Dobbs' whisper became startlingly distinct.
"Honly a few minutes, Bobbs. Hi 'old the plaster in my pockets, and the rat's tooth in my fingers w'ile Hi gnaw and gnaw." The tool began working rapidly and dexterously. In a short time Dobbs spoke again:
"Tap 'em till you feel it 'ollow, and shove on the 'ollow spot."
Robert tapped the wall.
"Shove 'arder."
Robert gave a stiff push with his elbow. The brick was loosened and gave way.
"Now, catch it, chummy."
Slowly the Englishman shoved the brick toward Robert, till it protruded from his side of the cell. It would have fallen on the bed if Robert had not caught it. After the brick came a hand and the striped sleeve of a convict's arm. It was a characteristic hand, broad, with spatulate fingernails and a black star on the fleshy ball between forefinger and thumb. But the cracksman must have fallen out with his own likeness as Iago, for his thumb-nail was clean as a whistle. Between the fingers lay a tiny file of rarest workmanship. Its teeth were set almost as sharply as those of a saw, and the steel was tempered to the hardness of adamant.
"'Ow's that for a tooth, Bobbs?"
Floyd took it for a moment, but a step was heard coming along the corridor. It was Longlegs.
"Quick, Bobbs, put back the brick."
Dobbs' voice grew hoarse with excitement. Robert replaced the block on his side, and heard the convict doing the same on the other. As Longlegs passed, Dobbs fell into a tremendous spasm of coughing. The turnkey hastened to the end of the corridor, jangling his keys as if deriding the derision with which he was greeted all the way. He had run his gantlet too often to heed the jeers and grimaces he met. There was a sound as if he were unlocking the farther door and then relocking it from the outside.
"That's a very useful cough," whispered Dobbs to Floyd. It had ceased all of a sudden. "It drives undesirable acquaintances about their business and it procures me admission to the 'ospital, w'ich is a sociable and communicative quarter. Hi'm a-winkin'."
Robert was beginning to understand things. The cracksman was malingering. It was through the hospital that he communicated with his friends outside.
"And Hi 'ope that Dobbs 'as given ample proof to Bobbs that ee his deservin' of 'is confidence."
Robert looked down and started at the temptation before him. The file lay in his hand.
The life of Emily Barlow during this balmy month of summer might be described as an oscillation in criss-cross between her home and the studio in one direction, and Shagarach's office and the state prison in the other. For in spite of Robert's protest she had returned several times to pour the sunlight of her sympathy into his cell, and the convicts, either because the latent manhood in them went out to a brave girl doing battle for her lover, or because Dobbs had exercised his influence in her behalf, offered no repetition of their first affront.
The point of intersection between these two much-traveled routes was a certain down-town corner, where Emily was already becoming a familiar figure to the policeman who escorted ladies over the crossing. A more disagreeable feature of her passage of this point was the frequent appearance there of Mr. Arthur Kennedy Foxhall. But Emily, like other golden-haired girls, was accustomed to rude glances from men, and had learned to tolerate them as we accept turbid weather, muddy streets and the other unavoidable miseries of life.
She had been riding in the steam car fully fifteen minutes before she could determine in what direction the hostile influence lay. It could not be the mere uncertainty of her journey. Even if Bertha were not with the Arnolds at Hillsborough, it did not follow that her sweetheart was lost. At first broadly pervasive, like an approaching fog, the malign presence had gradually begun to locate itself near her, and it was with a sudden shock, like the first splash of a long-delayed shower, that she realized she was under observation from the passenger in front.
He had never turned around since they had left the station. To all appearances he was buried in a magazine. There was not even a sidewise position to indicate that he was keeping her within the field of his vision. Yet Emily knew that every sense of the man was alert in her direction, and that by a sort of diffused palpation, like that of the blind, he was aware of her slightest gesture. She thought of moving back to escape the oppression, or forward into another car. But the station platforms on either side lay in full view of the windows, and she felt that the relief would be only temporary. He would follow her out.
Who was the stranger? She was certain she had never seen his round, shaven face before, yet she felt that it was some one whose fortunes were bound in with hers, some one whom she would recognize, when his name was uttered, as a familiar. All efforts to dispel this dim fear were fruitless. She tried to gaze out at the skimming landscape, but some subtle force gripped her muscles and turned her head to the front. She closed her eyes, but the image still floated before her and she knew it was there to thwart her purpose and work her lover harm.
Fully fifty minutes of the ride had been rendered wretched to Emily by these doubts and fears, when the conductor entered to collect the tickets for Hillsborough. The man in front seemed to jerk himself out of his fit of absorption. He fumbled for his oblong blue card, on which Emily espied the lettering "Hillsborough." But the hand which delivered it struck a numbness in her heart. It was broad and fleshy, with the fingernails which are said to betray the professional criminal, and a star worked in black ink on the protuberance between forefinger and thumb. Robert had described this peculiarity in his cell-acquaintance, Bill Dobbs. If it were he, this was a strange situation in which to find the solitary cracksman. Perhaps it was one of his "hospital days."
"Hillsborough! Hillsborough!" came the announcement from both ends of the car, followed by the usual banging of doors. Emily started for the rear exit, which was the nearer. Once alighted, she walked leisurely forward along the platform. A side glance upward revealed Bill Dobbs just leaving his seat and passing to the rear, exactly in her footsteps. When he caught her eye he smiled. It was true. He was pursuing her. Her spirits sank, and she did not quicken her pace. The engine stood champing like an impatient horse beside her, for she was almost abreast of the tender.
"All aboard!" the uniformed trainmen were crying. Emily glanced around. Bill Dobbs was just entering the station door, apparently taking no more notice of her than of the drivers soliciting his custom. But she knew that her least movement was under his cognizance. With a quick jump she placed her foot on the step, and, catching a conductor's hand, remounted the moving train. A backward glance, as she sunk into her seat, discovered Bill Dobbs sauntering up the road.
An interval of regret seized Emily when she reviewed her conduct calmly. Had she, indeed, escaped some unknown danger? Or was she the victim of a girl's foolish illusion? She was beginning to chide herself as a prey to superstition when the realities of her predicament suddenly forced themselves upon her by the reappearance of the conductor.
"What is the next station, please?"
"Elmwood."
"How far is that?"
"Two miles."
Two miles. To be carried two miles beyond Hillsborough into the neighboring township! Possibly the Arnold estate lay midway between, but it was more probable that she would be footsore and spent before she reached the house where Bertha was supposed to be living. There was an extra fare to pay, a brief whirling glimpse of woodland and meadow, and then the engine slacked up again before a cottage-like, rustic station.
A circle of 12-year-olds desisted from their romp to watch the sweet lady approaching them.
"Little boy, could you direct me to the Arnold mansion?" she said to the oldest.
"Arnold mansion? Don't know any Arnolds round here."
"They live in Hillsborough. How far is that?"
"Oh, I know," put in a tot in tires. "That's the lady that has the gardens way over on the Hillsborough line."
"'Bout five miles from here, isn't it, Chester?" said another.
"Can't I get a carriage to drive me there?" Emily felt equal to five miles or twenty, now that she was once started, but if feasible she would have preferred to let some four-footed creature do the walking.
"Well," said Chester, "you see the coach is up at the academy and I guess it won't come down till the game is over. You might get a wagon."
"Oh, well, somebody may give me a ride. Which way does Hillsborough lie?"
"Follow this road straight along, till you come to the bridge. That's the Hillsborough line and I guess anybody over there will tell you."
Emily thanked her guides and sped off on her long trudge. Behind her she heard the boys' shrill chirps, mingled with the light soprano of girlhood, running up and down the bright gamut of pleasure. How melodious their joyous inflections were, compared with the harsh syllables she was accustomed to hear from the children of the pavements. How much richer and deeper this country stillness than the everlasting murmur of the city, which makes silence only a figure of speech to the dwellers within its walls.
But is not all silence figurative and relative, thought Emily, a mere hint at some magnificent placid experience, only possible in its purity to the inhabitants of outer space? Even the countryside was not still. Plump sparrows, dusting themselves in the road, never ceased their brawling. The shy brown thrush swerved across her path at intervals and bubbled his song from the thickets. The meadowlark left his tussock-hidden nest to greet the world proudly from the pasture rock, and far away the phoebe's plaintive utterance of his lost love's name pierced the sibilance of the trees.
"There's a loam for you," said an old gardener, spading an oval plot on a lawn. His bulbs and potted sproutings were arranged at one side. "Feel. 'Twouldn't soil a queen's hands. Dry as meal and brown as a berry. Same for two feet down."
Emily took up a handful to please the old man. It crumbled between her fingers like the soft brown sugar which grocers display in crocks, though not, as youthful customers sometimes think, to be scooped and paddled with by idle hands.
"I can see roses in that, miss," said the gardener, turning up a deep spadeful for her inspection. But time was precious and she shortened the commonplaces, breaking away toward Hillsborough.
All that was visible of Elmwood was a cluster of cottages about the station and a few outlying farms. A brick building crowning its highest hill was probably the academy to which her guides had referred. On both sides the country opened out in great reaches of level fertility, groves of dark trees rising at intervals where the pools lay that nourished their roots. Now they sprung up by the roadside and overarched her with drooping boughs.
Looking upward, as she walked, almost alone, Emily felt herself the center of a greater mystery, embracing, as it were, that in which her sweetheart was entangled. Nights of vigil had begun to overstring her nerves. That strange doubling of impressions which attacks us in such moods, making a kind of mirage of the mind, came over her. Everything about her seemed familiar, as old as her infancy, as the world itself. Elmwood! She had babbled the name in her cradle days, her earliest rambles had been through its grassy paths. Yonder silver-birch, whose delicately scalloped foliage rose and drooped in long strings, as if the foamy spurt of a fountain should be frozen in its fall, had it not printed itself on her memory somewhere a thousand times before? The three urchins passing her from behind, surely their faces were not strange.
It may be Emily was right about the urchins and that there was no mirage in her recollection of them. She had been present on the morning when Ellen's body was found and they may have stood by her side in the crowd.
"I'm stiff, Whistler," said one of them in the broad drawl of the city gamin.
"Don't expect to be limber after ridin' twenty miles on a car truck, do yer, Turkey? What place is this, anyway?"
"I'll stump yez to come over in the swamp and get some little frogs," said urchin number three, who was no other than our crabbed young acquaintance, Toot Watts.
Emily wondered, as she saw them disappear down in the meadows, whether they had really been her fellow-passengers all the way from the city. How dingy they were! Not a point of color except the peachy cheeks of Whistler and the golden glow at the end of Turkey's cigarette.
When she reached the academy playground she thought she must have covered two miles. There was a game in progress between two baseball clubs of rival academies and the sight of sportive youths and cheering onlookers was welcome to her after so long a spell of solitude. She was unhappily ignorant of the rudiments of that most scientific of games. "Fly" and "grounder" to her were simply undistinguishable terms of a barbaric technical jargon. But the sparkle of eager eyes and the motion of active limbs, set off by graceful costumes, was, perhaps, more apparent to her than if appreciation of the spectacle had been overwhelmed by interest in the match.
What breeding in the salute, in the very tones, when one of the outfielders, chasing a hit out of bounds, begged pardon for jostling against her ever so little. For a moment, admiring the liberal swing of his arm, as he made the long throw home, though the most womanly of women, she envied men the bodily freedom which they deny to their sisters. Presumably the play was successful, for its result was greeted with plaudits, and the club afield closed in toward the plate.
Beyond the ball ground, under a clump of willows, Emily was surprised to come upon her three fellow-passengers once more. They must have cut through the meadows on the other side of the academy. The grove made a screen completely hiding them from the playground, and there was no one else about. Against a rocky wall three bicycles were resting.
"Let's take a ride, fellers," said the one who had been addressed as "Turkey."
"Cheese it. There's somebody comin'," protested the Whistler.
"Come on. I'm sick of this. Them fellers can't play a little bit."
"On'y a little ride around. They'll never know," added Toot.
Turkey boldly led the way, mounting like a veteran. Toot followed quickly, and finally the Whistler, finding himself abandoned by his comrades, swallowed his scruples and joined them. His was a girl's wheel, but he overtook his companions easily.
"Boys! Stop!" Emily found herself calling out a remonstrance. All three turned their heads at this shrill command, but it only made them speed away more rapidly. The road was downhill here, and the pedals whirled around like the crank-shaft of a flying locomotive. Should she turn back and give the alarm? It was a good stretch for limbs already weary and with an unknown number of miles before them. Besides, this was probably nothing worse than a boyish prank. If only city-street boys were like country-academy boys, she sighed. Perhaps they would be if they all had natty uniforms to wear and a bicycle apiece. No doubt the gamins would soon turn about, although they acted as though her outcry had frightened them; and the last she saw of them they were pedaling for dear life toward the city, twenty miles away.
Circumstances were to be greatly altered when Emily met these young racers again.
Is there in all the world a sight more wholesome and comforting to the tired wayfarer than a loaded hay-cart? When Emily spied one ahead of her she felt a little throb of pleasure in her bosom and at once hastened her step to overtake it. The farmer was asleep on the seat, with a sundown over his face.
"Perhaps I had better wake him," thought Emily. "Won't your horse run away?"
"Run away?" The peaked old face was wide open of a sudden. "Guess not, miss, not with that load on. Dobbin ain't no pony. Step aboard? How far are you baound?"
"I am looking for the Arnold mansion."
"Arnold mansion? This is just the kerridge you want to take. Mrs. Arnold's a putty close neighbor of aours."
Grateful for the offer, Emily climbed into the creaky seat under the fragrant, overhanging load.
"You b'long in Foxtaown, I s'pose?"
"No. I'm from the city."
"All the way from the city? Well, I declare. I thot I knew all the Elmwood leddies. I s'pose things are putty brisk in taown these days?"
"Oh, yes. We always have plenty of excitement. Too much, I fear. Some of us miss the quiet you enjoy out here among the meadows."
The rustic meditated upon this a moment, chewing a straw.
"Speakin' of medders, haow's hay sellin'?"
"I don't know, really," answered Emily. She was not informed on this utilitarian side of the subject.
"Just been shavin' my ten-acre lot daown the road. Did most o' the mowin' ourselves, me and Ike, that's my brother, with the Loomis boy. But he ain't good for much except forkin' it on. You wouldn't s'pose there was a clean ton o' hay on this wagon, would you?"
"No, indeed," answered Emily. This was true. She would not have ventured any supposition at all as to the weight of the hay.
"Good medder-grass, too."
"Do you live in Hillsborough?"
"Aour haouse jest abaout straddles the line, but wife goes to meetin' in Elmwood."
"I suppose she likes the services better?"
"Nao. You see the Elmwood parson takes all our eggs, and wife thinks 'twouldn't do to spile a payin' customer. Woa! Here comes wife's nephew, Silas Tompkins."
"Evenin' uncle," nodded the young man in the buggy.
"Evenin', Silas. Been down to the pasture?"
"Yaas."
"Well, haow are the oats lookin'?"
"Comin' putty green, Uncle Silas," drawled the other, speeding by.
Emily was wondering if a life of agricultural labor always gives such a vegetable cast to people's minds, when a clatter of hoofs behind caused her to turn her head. The cavalier was clothed in velvet of a soft, rich bulrush-brown. Just as he passed them his eye caught something afar and he shouted to the farmer:
"Here's a runaway! Hug the right of the road!"
They were turning a bend, but across the angle through the bushes a pair of coal-black horses could be seen heading toward them. The farmer's jerking at the reins was comical but effective. In a twinkling he had his nag squeezed against the wall which bounded the narrow road.
"Get up, Aladdin!" whispered the rider, and the horse, a powerful roadster or steeplechaser, yet with limbs like a stag's, cantered forward, as if to meet the wild blacks. But suddenly his master turned him about and began trotting gently back, keeping to the other side of the road and turning his head over his left shoulder toward the approaching runaways. As they slewed around the bend their coachman was flung from his seat into the grass border of the roadside.
"Rosalie!" exclaimed the waiting cavalier, cutting his horse over the flanks. It bounded away abreast of the team. Emily remembered a vague whirl of spangled reins and a frightened face of rare beauty blushing through its silver veil.
"He's killed!" she cried, dismounting and running toward the coachman. But the grass was like a cushion in its midsummer thickness, and he had already picked himself up uninjured, save for bruises and a tattered sleeve.
"It was the gobbler frightened 'em," he said, starting off at a lame dog-trot after the retreating carriage. Emily turned just in time to witness a rare exhibition of coolness and skill. The chestnut had kept abreast of the blacks with ease. At the right moment his rider, clinging to the saddle and stirrup like a cossack, reached over with his left hand and caught the reins of the foaming pair. Then gradually he slowed up his steeplechaser, jerking powerfully at the bridles. The added weight was too much for the runaways to pull, and all three were ambling peacefully when they faded from sight in a cloud of dust.
"I guess we'll start for hum," said the farmer. Emily was standing with her finger on her lip, unconscious of his presence.
"Putty slick on a horse, ain't he?"
"Who?"
"Young Arnold. He kin stick on like a clothes-pin, I tell yew."
"Is that Harry Arnold?"
"'Tain't no one else."
Emily remembered how his expression had changed when he recognized the lady in peril as "Rosalie," and felt like asking the farmer if he knew her. But Griggs (she now learned his name) was prosing on about his new barn, and she relapsed into silence. The rest of their road was an avenue of elms. Through their interstices smiled the calm blue of the late afternoon sky, tempered by contrast with the green of the foliage. It was the first time she had ever observed this rare harmony of colors.
"Woa! There!" said Griggs. "I'll set you daown here. The Arnolds' house is up yonder over the hill. They ain't p'ticler friends of aours, but the help come over and buy wife's cream."
"Have they a girl in help named Bertha Lund?"
"I s'pose wife knows the women-folks. I don't," replied the old man, energetically reaching for his rake.
"A new servant, this is."
As if to answer her question, there came a loud bark from the little woody knoll on the right of the road, and a great St. Bernard came bounding down. It was Sire, who had recognized Emily. She knew that he had been left in Bertha's charge and probably the housemaid was behind him.
"Sire! Sire!" her cheerful voice was heard calling through the stillness. How fresh she looked with her soft country bloom and a golden tan.
"Is it you, Miss Barlow?" cried Bertha, opening her eyes in amazement. A cream pitcher in one hand revealed her errand, but Farmer Griggs was already half-way to his new barn, which lay fifty yards off the left of the road.
"Yes, Bertha," answered Emily, fondling Sire, who seemed almost to know that she bore him a message from his master. "I have come all the way out to meet you."
"How is poor Mr. Robert?"
"Not very well contented with his present quarters."
"He is still in jail? Ah, poor young man! What a shame! And Ellen gone, too! It was the beginning of trouble for all of us when the old professor died."
"It wasn't easy to find you, Bertha. You didn't leave your address with Mrs. Christenson."
"Indeed I did not." Bertha gave an independent toss of her head. "I had no wish to be chased by her and coaxed to come back, and I'm very well satisfied where I am, with my $5 and light duties and out of the city and as kind treatment as if I was a visitor."
Emily thought she might understand the reason of this bountiful hospitality.
"Mr. Shagarach, the lawyer, who is defending Robert, suggested that I come and see you. You were so near the fire when it broke out, he thought that you might know something that would help our side."
"That I'll tell heartily. They sha'n't tie my tongue."
"You don't believe Robert set the fire?"
"No more than I did or Sire."
Emily looked at the dog, who was crouched before them. He had lifted his head at the mention of his name.
"Ah, Sire, you know the solution of all this mystery, don't you? And you'd tell it if you could."
Sire barked an answer to this appeal and turned his head away, blinking, as old dogs do.
"But who could have done it, Bertha?"
"Nobody in all the world. It just happened, like the other fire before."
"Was there another fire before?" asked Emily, all eagerness.
"Two or three years ago we had a fire in the study."
"Tell me about it."
"Oh, the professor had just gone upstairs a minute and when I went in the big waste basket was blazing up."
"There wasn't much damage then?"
"If I hadn't opened the window and thrown it out on the sidewalk the whole house might have been burned. Why, the study was nothing but a tinder-box with the books on the shelves and magazines and papers always thrown about."
"After the fire had once started, I can see how it would spread. But the mystery is, how did it start? You never followed the first fire up?"
"Indeed we did. The professor was careful to follow it up, but they could find nobody then and they'll find nobody now. It was just the will of heaven."
"I wish you could have told about this other fire at the examination, Bertha."
"I had it in my mind to tell, but the little thread of a man made me so cross with his nagging, it all flew out of my head."
"Robert—was Robert in the house when the other fire happened?"
"Yes. I remember calling him, and he flew downstairs four at a time and stamped out the sparks on the carpet."
"What time of day was it?"
"I'm not good to remember time. It was daytime, I know."
"Forenoon or afternoon?"
Bertha's knitted forehead brought no clarity to her recollections.
"I've forgotten, Miss Barlow. I know it was the hot summer time, but forenoon or afternoon, that's all gone from me now."
"But you will try to bring it back, Bertha? It may be important. Mr. Shagarach is a wonderfully wise man who could build up a great explanation out of a little thing like that. You will tell him all you know if he comes to see you?"
"I'll be as free-spoken as I choose, and forty inspectors won't stop me."
"Could you describe the study again, Bertha, just as it looked when you were dusting it, with Robert standing over the hearth?"
"Why, you know the room, Miss Barlow—square, high-studded, with two windows, the professor's desk at one and the bird cage before the other. Shelves and books all round, hundreds of them, and magazines and papers scattered about. Chairs, pictures, the safe and the professor's things just as he left them—his slippers on the floor, his spectacles and bible on the desk, his dressing-gown over the back of the arm-chair——"
"And a waste-basket?"
"Oh, yes, the big waste-basket always beside his desk. The professor had so much writing to do."
"Was it full?"
"All full of black wrapping paper that came off of his books. The professor got so many books."
"And his safe with the papers in it?"
"Nobody ever touched it but the professor. At least, I never meddled with it."
Emily noticed the emphasis Bertha laid on the first person, but an unwelcome interruption prevented further disclosures.
The knoll which Bertha and Sire had descended made a grade like the pitch of an old gable roof. Toward the top a tempting tussock of clover lay in sight, scenting the atmosphere and titillating the nostrils of the horse attached to Farmer Griggs' hay-cart. Dobbin was ordinarily a staid and trustworthy animal, who might be left alone for hours; but on this occasion his carnal appetite overmastered his sense of duty and led him gradually higher and higher up the grade toward the odorous herbage. The first hint the two girls had of the peril which was imminent was when they heard the voice of the farmer shouting from the barn.
Turning in that direction, they beheld him running toward them, hat in hand, as if racing for a guerdon, and brandishing a pitchfork. Whether they or some one else were the object of his outcries they could not in the confusion of the moment determine. But the doubt was speedily settled by the occurrence of the very catastrophe which Farmer Griggs was hastening to avert.
Dobbin had just climbed within reach and was relishing the first morsel of his stolen supper, when suddenly the top of the hay load, which was tipped up to an exceedingly steep angle by his ascent of the knoll, slid down like a glacier and deposited itself at the feet of the startled girls.
But this was not all. From the midst of it the figure of a man, badly shaken but unhurt, arose and straightened itself out.
Both girls gave a shriek in unison. Emily recognized, to her astonishment and dismay, the face of her train companion, the supposed Bill Dobbs. But Bertha's surprise was quickly converted into merriment.
"Why, Mr. McCausland, what a tumble!" she laughed, just as Farmer Griggs arrived.
"McCausland!"
Emily bit off the exclamation just a moment too late. This, then, was the interesting convict who had tried to worm himself into Robert's confidence. This was Shagarach's vaunted opponent, the evil genius arrayed against the good, in mortal combat for her sweetheart's life. With Sire worrying his heels, Bertha holding her side in unchecked laughter, and Emily eying him with an expression of amazement gradually turning to scorn, the detective looked for a moment as if he would have resigned his whole reputation to be elsewhere. But suddenly he righted himself and led the horse around to the road, snatched Griggs' pitchfork and was tossing the spilled hay back into place before the fuming farmer realized what he was about.
"This is Miss Barlow," said Bertha. "But I suppose you don't need an introduction."
"We were fellow-passengers on the train coming down."
"Don't tell me, after that, we servants are the only keyhole listeners."
"Mr. McCausland makes eavesdropping a science," added Emily, who was not at all disposed to spare him.
"There!"
The inspector had finished his task. As the old farmer led his recovered property back to the barn he never relaxed his hold on the bridle and vented his wrath all the way on the offending beast. When he had disappeared inside his barn, they could still hear him scolding.
"Tarnal idiot! Yer fool, yer! I'll shorten yer fodder for yer! I'll teach yer to stand! Woa!"
"Eavesdropping! What nonsense!" said McCausland, smiling. Shorn of its mustache his face looked more ferret-like than ever and one could excuse Tristram March's estimate of its owner's villainy. "I had to leave Hillsborough on the 6:21, and natural impatience led me to follow the lazy girl who went after the cream for my supper."
"It took you a long time to make up that fib," retorted Bertha, but she took the hint and went over to the farmhouse to fill her pitcher.
"Perhaps you will join me at lunch, Miss Barlow. You may be taking the same train and I shall have the pleasure of your company to the station in Mrs. Arnold's carriage."
"No, I thank you. I will not trouble Mrs. Arnold either for lunch or for the carriage."
"Or, Mr. McCausland?"
"Or Mr. McCausland."
Emily spoke in a tone which was meant to convey that there were too many unforgiven injuries between them to permit her to accept favors from either of them. She looked at her watch. It was 5:30.
"There is no other conveyance from here and the station is three miles," urged the inspector, with good humor.
"I can walk there in an hour."
"You must have walked a part of the way from Elmwood."
"Please do not press me, Mr. McCausland."
He muttered something about "spunk" as he looked after the girl's slight figure retreating. Then he gallantly relieved Bertha of her foaming pitcher and sauntered with her back to the Arnold mansion.
When Emily reached the Hillsborough station she was indeed a footsore girl, fully convinced that country miles are as indefinite as nautical knots, but in the few moments she had to spare before the train came by she purchased a lunch of fruit, which refreshed her a little. Before they were well out of the station Inspector McCausland came up and asked permission to occupy the seat at her side.
During her walk Emily had come around to a gentler view of the detective's behavior. She could not look back on the afternoon's events without a certain complacency. For the true aspect of the case against Robert, as a grand chess duel between the criminal lawyer and the detective, was gradually dawning upon her, and surely in the discovery of Bertha's hiding-place and the unmasking of Bill Dobbs, white, her champion, had gained two positive advantages over black, the enemy's color. Besides, loyal as she was to her sweetheart, with that singleness of heart which we sometimes call womanly prejudice, there was a genial persistency in McCausland few could resist. So she forbore to fire upon his flag of truce and assented to the request.
They talked for the most part of irrelevant matters, and she herself did not like to broach the subject of all subjects. Only once did he appear to glance at his official relation to her.
"The fisherman, Miss Barlow, doesn't enjoy the death struggles of the mackerel in his nets," he said. "But he is obliged to see that they do not escape."
"Then you do disagreeable work from a sense of public duty?"
"And for the support of my family," he added. "But as we've arrived at the city perhaps I'd better return these now."
So saying, he laid Emily's watch, pocketbook and brooch in her lap. Dumfounded, she felt of her bodice, where these articles should be. The neck-clasp was missing, the watch-pocket empty. McCausland had picked her pockets while they were conversing.
"Set a thief to catch a thief," said the detective, still smiling, but raising his hat with respect. Emily smiled herself, less at the prank he had played than because she thought she had good reasons to be cheerful. But she did not communicate them to Richard McCausland, alias William Dobbs.
It happened that her course through town took her by Shagarach's office. It was nearly 7:30, but there was a light in his window still, and an impulse seized her to convey the glad tidings of her successful journey to the lawyer. So she picked her way across the street and tripped light-heartedly up the stairs.
"You bring good news, Miss Barlow," said Shagarach, a little heavily. He was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and his back turned, but there was power in his very carelessness. If he could not pick pockets he could master men.
"How could you know?" she asked.
"I simply heard you coming. There is mood in a footstep," he answered, facing her and offering a chair, while he sat himself at the table with his arms folded expectantly. Through the open window where he had been standing Emily felt the cool evening air, dim with dew it held in suspension; and far away the hill-built capitol of the city, printed darkly against the blood-orange sunset, seemed lifted into the uppermost heavens, at an immeasurable height from earth. Had this been the object of Shagarach's contemplation?
"What is the result?"
"Bertha is found again."
"At Arnold's?"
"At Arnold's."
Knowing his taste for brevity, she condensed the story of her day's wanderings, not omitting, however, the incidents which seemed to connect McCausland with the pretended English cracksman.
Toward the end of the narrative she perceived an unwonted wandering of attention in her listener. A trio of street minstrels, with flute, violin and harp, had set up a passionate Spanish dance tune, just far enough away to afford that confused blending of harmonies which adds so much to the effect of carelessly rendered music. Shagarach's eyes had left Emily's face and strayed toward the window. Twice he had asked her to repeat, as though he were catching up a lost thread. At last he arose abruptly and shut down the sash, muffling the minstrelsy at the height of its wildest abandon.
"Our street troubadours distract you?" asked Emily.
"The violinist is a gypsy," said the lawyer, shutting his eyes. Emily remembered this saying afterward, and even now she began to understand why a certain compassion, mingled with the fear and admiration which this man so gifted, but so meanly surrounded, aroused.
"That is all?" he said. She thought it amounted to a good deal. "I fear Miss Barlow may not descend the stairs as gayly as she mounted them."
"What have I done? How have I blundered?" she asked herself.
"To have caught McCausland napping was a pleasant diversion, but of little practical value. He is merely playing the nest-egg game."
"The nest-egg game?"
"Dressing up as a convict, locating himself in the adjoining cell and confessing some enormity himself so as to induce his bird to lay. The trick has an excellent basis in psychology, since the second law of life is to imitate."
"And the first?"
"To devour. You think that crude?" he added, noting Emily's look. "Ah, fact is crude, and we must never shirk fact. But since Floyd is innocent it could have availed McCausland little to continue his harmless efforts to wheedle a confession out of him—which I presume you will now interrupt."
"Not necessarily," answered Emily, who would by no means be sorry to prolong the joke at the expense of the subtle inspector.
"But that our discovery of Bertha's hiding-place should be known to McCausland is a little unfortunate. She may be removed at once, this time beyond our reach."
"Is he so suspicious a man?"
"When fighting wealth."
"But we are not rich."
"You forget the $5,000,000 and McCausland's point of view."
Emily colored slightly. This was the bitter fruit of her wasted afternoon, her six miles' walk, her long fast. But she kept these things to herself. And Shagarach did not look at all perturbed. John Davidson had told her that he was accounted by some a trifle slack in the preparation of his matter, trusting overmuch to his power in the cross-examination to bring out the truth. His record, however, showed that he did not overrate his own skill. As certain clever exhibitors, blindfolded, will take the arm of a reluctant guide, and, by noting his resistances, compel him to lead them to some article in hiding, so Shagarach followed the windings and subterfuges of unwilling testimony, bringing witnesses at last face to face with the truth they had striven to conceal.
"Our cause has assumed a novel aspect," said the lawyer, opening a drawer and producing three or four letters. "I am the victim of an anonymous correspondent."
Emily glanced at the envelopes. Their penmanship appeared to be that of an illiterate person, the "Shagarach" in particular bearing a strong resemblance to the four priceless if illegible autographs which are the only relics left us bearing the immediate personal impress of the man of Stratford.
"The earlier epistles merely threaten me with death in its least desirable forms if I do not surrender my brief for Robert Floyd. The writer appears to cherish a grievance against your friend. Had he any enemies?"
"Not that I know of."
"Very well. It appears I was to suffer martyrdom for his sake. Today's mail, however, discloses a change of policy. The handwriting is the same, but sloped backward to disguise it."
He passed a letter over so that Emily might read the wretched scrawl.
"Dear Mr. Shagarach: I mean to let you know that I have discovered a important klew which will save your cliant. Pleeze be at the bridge, the Pere leading over to the island Fort, at 8 o'clock (8 P. M.) sharp To-morrow, and I mean to let you know my klew for nothing. If you do not cum, yore life is not worth living. You will be torn into on site."
"Dear Mr. Shagarach: I mean to let you know that I have discovered a important klew which will save your cliant. Pleeze be at the bridge, the Pere leading over to the island Fort, at 8 o'clock (8 P. M.) sharp To-morrow, and I mean to let you know my klew for nothing. If you do not cum, yore life is not worth living. You will be torn into on site."
A rude skull and crossbones was figured in place of a signature.
"Don't you think the writer's brain has a flaw in it?" asked Emily.
"Possibly. There is something not entirely consistent in the promise to rend me in two if I do not accept his assistance."
"Or hers?"
"You do not recognize the handwriting?"
"It might be that of any very ignorant person. There is almost no style or character."
"Rather masculine. It may be some irresponsible being, as you say. But there is a singular accent of sincerity in the earlier letters; a genuine hatred of Floyd."
"You will not venture to the meeting-place at that hour?"
"I hardly fear Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones."
Shagarach drew a delicate revolver from his lowest drawer. It lay like a toy in his small white palm, but Emily could not repress a shudder.
"You do not value my advice. You ask it, but you will not follow it?"
"The chance of seeing and studying my correspondent is too good to be lost."
"Do you really read minds, Mr. Shagarach?" asked Emily.
"Not in the charlatan's sense, certainly not. But the dominant thought in every man's soul—self, money, pleasure, fame—is written plainly on his face. The trained psychologist can predict much from a photograph."
Eight! The ringing bells recalled Emily to thoughts of home. Almost simultaneously a knock on the door ushered in a visitor, who proved to be Mr. Arthur Kennedy Foxhall. The opium-eater was feathered in peacock fashion this evening, but no brilliancy of plumage could offset the undervitalized appearance of his tenuous form and sallow cheeks. He started on recognizing Emily and appeared confused, but lifted his hat with a sweep meant to be grandly courteous.
"I beg pardon. Shall I be so fortunate as to have the privilege of an introduction?"
"I was just about to leave," said Emily, passing him without a glance. "Good-evening, Mr. Shagarach."
"Good-evening."
Shagarach attended her to the door with the deference he habitually showed, and she felt his strong presence like a zone of protection thrown around her.
"You are punctual, Kennedy," said Shagarach, returning to the newcomer. He had clicked his desk to and donned a hat and coat while the other was drawling out an answer.
"The Dove-Cote is just about on."
Meanwhile Emily, as Shagarach predicted, had descended the stairs much more doubtfully than she had mounted them. But she clung to her woman's faith that even the interrupted conversation with Bertha might yield items which would germinate at a later stage; and, empty though it were, her victory over the great McCausland was one of those successes which give cheer to a young campaigner.
Sustained by these hopes, she rode home at last and related the whole story of her day's adventures and misadventures to her wondering mother over the supper that had been cold for two hours.
"Here we are!" cried Kennedy.
The sudden flood of light dazzled Shagarach's eyes. Glittering chandeliers threw prismatic reflections upon the twenty or thirty occupants of the room, many of them in full evening dress, like his escort, and several adding the sparkle of diamonds to the iridescence of mirrors and cut glass around them. Across one corner stretched an arc-shaped bar, from which two colored waiters served liquors to the patrons, while others at intervals disappeared behind curtains and reappeared balancing platters of light delicious viands for the men who chatted at the tables. These were octagon-topped and covered with plush. The carpeted floor yielded like turf to the feet. The conversation ran low. The servants whispered their requests and answers. It was an atmosphere of stealth and suppression.
The getting there had been a story in two brief chapters. This palace of fortune owed its name to its location on the uppermost floor of one of those tall, slender structures, like dominoes set on end, which illustrate the reaching upward for space in our cities when horizontal expansion becomes no longer possible. It fronted on a blind passageway in the heart of the hotel district. Its proprietor was a jovial man-about-town, rather prone than averse to the society of police captains. On the ground floor a commercial agency conducted its business quietly. Tailors rented the second and third flights, but the fourth story was always unoccupied and never advertised for hire. Applicants covetous of its advantages were frightened away by the rental asked. It was at the head of the stairs leading from this landing up that Kennedy had pressed the three white bell buttons in the massive door.
The door immediately swung open, and the pair found themselves in front of a second door, similar to the first except that the opaque panels were replaced by glass. Through these the stairs could be seen beyond. Kennedy repeated his signal, this time, however, reversing the order and beginning with the lowest knob. A slide opened at the head of the stairs, and the two men were the object of scrutiny for awhile. Shagarach's sponsor was evidently persona grata to the sentinel, for the second door now swung in and they were free to mount the stairs.
"Sure it's true-blue, Kennedy?" said the sentinel, when they passed him.
"Sure," answered the manikin, but his smirk was forced. "Wine, Sambo."
Kennedy began breaking the ice in this manner for his companion.
"Not a life-long votary of the fickle goddess, I should judge," remarked a man introduced as Mr. Faught.
"This is my initiation into her mysterious rites," answered Shagarach, sweeping the room for Harry Arnold.
"Ah, then, it is not too late for you to withdraw. The ceremonies are trying. I myself am only a neophyte of low degree. Perhaps, being a student of character, you have observed as much from my appearance?"
"I should have known that you had not lost a fortune this evening, at least."
"There is one simple rule to escape that."
"Not to bring one here?"
"Precisely."
Shagarach had indeed been contrasting Faught with the other habitues, most of them men of fashion, still young in years, but middle-aged in the lines of their faces. Several beardless youths appeared to be college students. Two or three wore the style of confidential bookkeepers or bank cashiers. As many more were flush-faced veterans, with wrinkled pouches under their worldly eyes and gray mustaches of knowing twist. Against such a gathering, smiling, but irritable withal underneath from the nervous tension, the large man of bland visage and ironical phrase certainly struck a discordant note.
"Come to the altar and I will explain our ritual."
They moved toward the table in the middle of the room, which was the center of all interest. If men appeared to be chatting absently in a corner, their heads were constantly swiveled this way, their ears caught the announcement of every result.
"None of that, Perley. It was on Stuart's spot," cried a harsh voice from behind the table.
"The needle was on the line," protested Perley, reckless-looking and sadly young. "I say, the needle was on the line, Reddy."
He had missed the prize by a hair. Perhaps the bill he had laid down for this turn was his last. But a friend led him away, still muttering, by the arm, and the gap in the circle which his removal made was quickly closed. The man called Reddy gathered the pile of bills together, separated a small portion, which he swept into the till, and passed the remainder to Stuart.
"Reddy runs things," whispered Faught, not so low but that the bank-tender heard and looked the newcomer over suspiciously. "Comes from the west, a desperado. Just the man to keep them down."
"The bad blood breaks out sometimes?"
"Would if there wasn't a strong hand at the needle."
There was certainly nothing weak about Reddy. He sprawled sidewise in his chair, with his left elbow on the table and his right arm free for a variety of uses—a big-boned ruffian with a sandy face and an eye apparently riveted on the disk before him, but really sweeping in the whole compass of the room. Overhanging eyebrows veiled these furtive glances. As a rule he spoke quietly, in a sepulchral bass, warning the players to adjust their stakes more evenly on the spots, or announcing the winners of the prizes. The recent jar with Perley was something uncommon in the mute and decorous chamber over which Reddy presided.
"It's a new game—roletto; simple as odd or even," explained Faught. "The circle is segmented off into black and white rays, or spots, as we call them——"
"And red?"
"Those are used, too. You see, they are numbered like the others. But they are specially colored for the game with the bank. In the ordinary game some one proposes a stake and puts it down on its lucky number. Then the rest follow suit. Would you like to try this round? It's only a $10 trick."
"Very well."
Shagarach laid his stake down on one of the spaces.
"That starts it. See them join in. Twenty-four spaces, black and white, and twenty-three filled. My ten spot quits it out. Now thank your stars if you see that bill again."
The gamblers stood near while Reddy reached toward the needle. A squad of grenadiers at attention would not be more rigid. They were frozen with suspense. But something paralyzed Reddy's wrist. He had caught the full glance of Shagarach. It was several seconds before he twisted the pointer. For several more it spun around, gradually slowing up and coming to a rest over Shagarach's number.
"Twenty!" called Reddy.
"Mine!"
Shagarach coolly smoothed out the bills and folded them in his pocket, while the unsuccessful players eyed him greedily. Eleven-twelfths of the stakes went to the winner, and 2,000 per cent would be considered a fair profit in any speculation. But the return to the bank was still more liberal, being the steady harvest of two-spots. It was easy to see how the luxuries and free accessories of the Dove-Cote could be provided.
"Try again," said Faught, shaking Shagarach's hand.
"Perhaps that is enough for an experiment," answered the lawyer, a little undecided still whether Faught were a decoy of the establishment.
"A hundred dollars even I come out whole to-night!" cried a voice at the door. It was Harry Arnold.
"A little quieter, gentlemen," said Reddy, tapping on his desk. "This isn't the stock exchange."
"It's a more respectable place," answered Harry, surrendering his wraps to a servant.
"I take you," said several, picking up the gantlet he had thrown down. Faught had spoken first and Kennedy was chosen stake-holder. Shagarach, meanwhile, had retired to a table in the corner and ordered some wine.
"One thousand to ten I break the bank," called Harry as loudly as before.
"I will debar any man who uses that tone again," said Reddy, never moving a muscle. His eyes were as cold and steady as the barrels of two Derringers in the hands of a Texan train robber, and the young bravo, though his lip curled, did not reply. His second bet was taken and the game resumed amid its former silence.
The losers repaired to the sideboard now and then and renewed their courage with stimulants, but one or two who called for brandy were told that no strong liquors were allowed. The little outbreak over Perley's protest showed the wisdom of this rule. Harry Arnold's purse seemed to be well lined to-night, for he led the play higher and higher.
Shagarach held his wineglass toward the chandelier, so as to shield a searching glance at the young man's face. Under the artificial light it was brilliantly beautiful, the face of a man who could say to almost any woman "Come" and she would follow him to the ends of the earth.
"Do you know young Arnold?" asked Faught of Shagarach, who had just lowered his wineglass. He began to take some notice of this large, quiet man, who, all unobserved, was making the rounds of the room.
"By sight," he answered, suppressing a yawn. "You took his bet, I noticed?"
"Only a hundred, and as good as mine already. He's bucking the reds."
"Gad, Harry, you have nerve," Kennedy's pipe was heard exclaiming.
"I see you don't understand," continued Faught. "There are four red spots, you remember. Ordinarily these are not used. In the common game it is impossible for the bank to lose, though one of the players may win."
He smiled in allusion to Shagarach's maiden try.
"But sometimes the bank condescends to take a risk. Then the stakes are high. Each player lays a thousand opposite one of the four reds. If the needle stops over white or black, Reddy scoops the pot. But if it favors a red the man on the spot opposite gets $5,000 from the bank and the others quit whole. You see it's perfectly fair. Twenty blacks and whites and four reds, that makes the odds five to one against the players. So the bank, if red wins, quintuples the stakes all round."
"But the bank twists the needle," said Shagarach.
"Oh, that's all open and above board."
"Do you see Reddy looking down?"
"He is watching the checker board."
"Why not a mirror under the table?"
"What would it show?"
"Two slender bar magnets crossed under the disk. His foot can rotate them so as to underlie any four of the spots; and the needle is of steel." Faught opened his eyes.
"Bravo!" an exclamation burst from the crowd.
"That's number one," Harry Arnold was heard exulting. Followed by Kennedy and the taker of his second bet, he crossed over to the bar.
"Has Arnold set the place on fire?" asked Shagarach. It was said during a pause of the hum and he raised his voice. In one of the facets of his wineglass he saw Harry, who had just passed him, start and turn, but it was impossible to tell whether the expression of his face had altered. Certainly it was no more than a glance and he took no notice of Shagarach. The lawyer's low stature diminished at a distance the effect of his splendid head and eyes, which were so powerful at short range. On the present occasion, if disguise were at all his purpose, this insignificance was useful.
"He has beaten the bank," said Faught.
"A Pyrrhic victory," answered Shagarach, "and a Parthian flight." His companion rose and sauntered behind Reddy, but either the mirror was hidden or the bank-tender was too wary to be caught. Suddenly his harsh voice was heard again.
"Put that down, Perley."
Every one looked in the direction of the youthful gambler, who had been the center of the dispute when Shagarach and Kennedy entered. He had brooded moodily since his loss, sitting alone at a corner table, and was just raising a revolver to his temple when Reddy's command checked and bewildered him. Instantly Harry Arnold, who was nearest, wrenched his wrist and some one else secured the weapon. Perley writhed like a madman, so that it took several minutes to quiet him. When at last his contortions were helpless his spirit seemed to give suddenly and he burst into tears.
Shagarach felt a deep pity in his breast. The youth looked weak rather than wicked. Possibly others, whom he loved, would suffer by his recklessness this night. An aversion to the whole tinseled exterior, gilding over soul-destroying corruption, came upon him and he longed for the sight of something wholesome and pure—if only a basketful of speckled eggs or a clothes-press hung with newly lavendered linen. But his purpose in coming was still unfulfilled, so he merely stopped the youth as he was passing out in dejection, accompanied by a friend.
"I was luckier than you," he said, taking out the roll of bills he had won. "Will you accept my first winnings as a loan?"
Perley halted irresolutely.
"They amount to $200 or so. You may have them on one condition."
"What is it?"
"That you go immediately home."
"I will," said Perley.
From now on the play became more and more exciting, as the champagne began to work in the veins of the gamblers. Once again Harry Arnold won, then lost and lost again. Still he laid down bill after bill from a bulky roll, sometimes leading at the simple game, oftener challenging the bank. As luck turned against him (if luck it were) his temper changed. He grew hilarious, but at the same time savage. Once or twice his differences with Reddy promised to culminate in a serious quarrel, but each time the coolness of the experienced bank-tender prevailed. Shagarach paid no attention to Kennedy, little to Faught. He was studying the soul of Prince Charming.
When Harry came over and demanded brandy and struck the bar with his clenched fist because he could not have it, every one knew that his wad of crisp bills had shrunken to almost nothing. But still he would not surrender.
"The whole pile," he cried, laying the roll down opposite a red spot. It was the same one he had played all the evening. Reddy counted the money coolly.
"A thousand is all we go," he said, returning one bill to Arnold—the last poor remnant of Rabofsky's loan.
"I challenge you to play higher. I dare you to give me my revenge."
"There's only a hundred over and you'll need more than that to settle your outside bets with," answered Reddy, as if victory for the bank were a foregone conclusion. Three others, carried away by the force of play, put down stakes of $1,000 each and all of the reds were covered. Reddy snapped the needle with his forefinger as carelessly as a schoolboy twirling a card on a pin. Four necks craned over, four lungs ceased to draw breath, while it slowly, slowly paused.
"Mine!" exulted Harry, stretching forth his hand; but Reddy intercepted it.
"The bank!" he growled.
"It's on the line," said Harry, flushing.
"By the rules I am judge, and I say the bank!" Reddy lowered his voice to its most sepulchral register, while Harry raised his to a shriek.
"Between man and man, but not between a player and the bank. I leave it to these gentlemen if it wasn't on the line."
"Always," answered Reddy. He snapped the needle again. Whether the bar-magnets below had been carelessly adjusted, whether the pointer had really rested over the line, that was a matter upon which arbitration was now rendered forever impossible. Then he reached for the money.
"You swindler!" shrieked Harry, striking at his face across the table. Instantly Reddy's right hand, the free hand, opened a drawer and presented a cocked revolver. His finger was on the trigger to pull, when Shagarach gave the shout of warning.
"Spies!" he cried. It was a word to strike terror. Perhaps it saved Harry's life.
During the confusion, observed of none but Shagarach, a whistle had been heard from the outside, and the quiet man, Faught, had passed over to one of the windows. There were only two, and these were protected by iron shutters, which closed with a latch. The first sound heard was Faught lifting the latch and throwing the shutters apart. A uniformed man dropped into the room, followed by another and another. Faught rushed behind Reddy and the second window was soon opened. All the officers carried lanterns and clubs.
"The first man who moves his little finger dies," said the foremost of the invaders, advancing. His tone was easy and his pistol covered Reddy. The whole room looked toward the desperado as if expecting him to do something. He turned his revolver's muzzle quickly as if from Arnold to the officer, but instantly his right hand was knocked up by Faught. With his left he pressed an electric button for some daring purpose. Then the pistol shot rang out, a moment too late, and the room was in total darkness.
The slides of the officer's lanterns, however, were opened at once, and in a jiffy the door was guarded. Through the yellowish light Shagarach could see tussling groups and hear cries of anger and pain. He himself was seized and handcuffed. Presently the uproar quieted down and the voice of the spokesman was heard ordering one of the negroes to light up.
But it was a different sight that met Shagarach's eye when the chandeliers blazed again. The roletto table had disappeared, probably carried downstairs by a trapdoor at Reddy's touch of the button. This was the use for which the vacant fourth story was reserved. All around among the smaller tables the gamblers stood like lambs, trembling and pale in the grip of the law. In the middle of the floor lay Reddy, the blood bubbling from a pea-sized hole that divided his left eyebrow and gathering in a thick pool on the carpet. McCausland's bullet had flown true to its target.