Chapter XVI.The Final AttemptI fumbled for a cigar, keeping my head down so that he would not see my face, for I was pretty close to the breaking-point. I sat down opposite him and waited, shading my face with my hand and trying to fix my thoughts on what he was about to say. It was hard to do even that.“Listen, Clayton,” he said, after a moment or two. “I went to see what I could find about Miss Van Cleef this afternoon, because you were so vitally interested. But I had little hope of learning anything. This gang is much too cute to leave any traces behind them.“But in the meantime I have other news for you. I have received powers from Washington that no police officer, whatever his other affiliations or sympathies, would dare ignore or disobey.“But those powers will only be of use to us when we learn who the people are against whom we can direct them. We’ve got to find the headquarters of this gang and break it up. Individual rescues are all right, of course, but, as you have seen, they don’t accomplish much. You see, knowing what she did, the ganghadto recapture Miss Van Cleef, whether they wanted to or not.“Now, as I see it,” Pride went on, leaning back in his chair and stroking a bony chin, “the only clew we have to the whereabouts of their headquarters is based on the assumption that these girls are used as decoys. If that is the case, they are probably located in the house where these orgies are given. That means a big house and big parties, several of them. And that means publicity—in town.”I started up. “You mean that the headquarters is somewhere out of town?”“Exactly,” he nodded. “They could not give more than one or, at most, two parties of that nature and on such a scale without the police and the newspapers getting wind of it.”“Well, then——”“Well, then, it means that if we searched or investigated all the houses of any size near New York which are within the radius of a two-hour run in a high-powered car, we would be at the job for months, we would warn them well in advance and they would skip and set up their establishment elsewhere.”“They would have to take the girls with them.”Pride dropped his eyes. “Not necessarily,” he said, in a low voice. “They could get more.”I felt as though I were struggling in the grip of a nightmare. “My God! do you mean—murder?”Pride gave an impatient gesture. “How can I tell, man? This is a big gang and a fearless one—and utterly unscrupulous. They are after power, it seems. They have a lot of it now. And they might not let a thing like that stop them.”I got up and began to pace the floor. “Well, then,” I demanded childishly, “what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?” The helpless feeling of the early months of my search returned, magnified a hundred times. “My God, what kind of a Secret Service and police force have we got, anyway!”Pride hesitated. “That’s not quite fair, Clayton,” he answered at last, gravely. “We’ve done some pretty good work in the past. But we are working under the disadvantage of a certain amount of publicity. The gang got at one of our members or more and learned all about us long before we knew they existed. And we’re trying to find them, not they us.”“I know,” I answered, dropping into a chair. “I beg your pardon. I had no business to say that. But these last weeks—and now to-day——”“That’s all right. I don’t blame you.” Pride paused a moment. “But here’s what I’m getting at. If we can locate this gang we can round them up and run them in without any formality. And if we get them we’ll keep them. But we’ve got to find them first. And the only way I can think of to find them is to get taken to one of their parties.”I laughed. “We’ve tried that,” I said.“We’ve got to try it again, then.”“How?” I demanded.Pride leaned forward. “You got pretty thick with that Russian, Ivanovitch, wasn’t it, who served that doped tea?”“I tried to, but I don’t know how well it worked.”“Is there anything to connect you in his mind with the Department? Was he at Mrs. Fawcette’s the day Miss Van Cleef was captured?”“I don’t know. I think so.”“Was he one of the men who turned up when you rescued her?”“No, he wasn’t!”“Do you think the men who came that night recognized you?”“I don’t see how they could. They might have described me to Mrs. Fawcette or Ivanovitch himself, however.”“Well,” Pride answered, “it’s only a chance, of course. But if Ivanovitch is hand in glove with Mrs. Fawcette and Vining, he’ll know about their having you arrested. So, if you go to see him, he’ll probably try again to have you arrested. If he doesn’t do that, it’s a fair presumption that he does not suspect you. Then you can try to get him to take you on one of the parties. I’ll have you followed, adequately this time, and follow you myself. It will be pretty poor work if they give us the slip again.”“Well,” I said, “I’ll try it. I’ll try anything. You can be sure of that. But can’t you have these birds followed anyway? Has Vining been followed, shadowed all the time? And Ivanovitch? And Mrs. Fawcette?”Pride smiled. “Followed! I should say they have. But we’ve had to use police plain-clothes men. They lost track of both Vining and Mrs. Fawcette the day Moore was captured. Since then I’ve called off the man I had watching Ivanovitch because I did not want him to know that he was under suspicion and they’re too clever for these plain-clothes men.”“Well, isn’t there any one else suspected? Isn’t there any one else we could follow?” And suddenly I remembered the little book I had found in Vining’s desk. I had left it under the blotter on my table. “Look here, I have something, I think!” and I told him about that little book and the names in it.When I had finished, Pride gave me a droll look. “Is there any other little detail you have omitted to mention?” he asked dryly. “That book may be absolutely invaluable to us. What was in it exactly?”I told him of the names and the numbers after them. “What could they mean?” I asked.“Might mean anything. Members and dues, perhaps, in some club. But the names themselves would tell us something. Where is the book?”I told him and received another droll look. “Well, if there was anything important in it, you don’t suppose it’s there now, do you?” he asked. “But I’ll get in there and see. I’ve got to get into your apartment anyway.”“What for? Oh, for my clothes, of course.”“Exactly. You can’t call on Ivanovitch in those duds.”I got up again. “When do I go to see him?” I demanded.“Why not drop in to-morrow afternoon? That will give me time to get your clothes and to plant a man in the house perhaps. At any rate it will give me time to arrange about having you closely followed. Wait—I’ll drive you there myself. The car has been loaned you by a friend who is out of town and I’m your friend’s chauffeur. That is, if he asks. What do you think of that plan?”“Oh, it sounds all right,” I answered. “It’s action, anyway. But I wish I could get my hands on those brutes.”Pride smiled and was silent for a moment. Then he glanced up suddenly. “Look here, Clayton,” he said, “I’m going to play fair with you. I think we’ve been underestimating this gang all along. I think any such attempt as this would be underestimating them. But I’m banking on one thing. I’m banking on my own powers to trace you. For I think it’s quite possible that he’ll take you with him on a party if you ask him to. But not because he does not suspect you. I think he and the rest of the gang know all about you. But I also think that they underestimate us. And I think that they are afraid of you as long as you are at liberty.”I stared at him in amazement. “But then what’s the use of my going there?”“Because, as I say, I think he’ll play his wits against ours. I think, for the sake of getting you under lock and key, in their hands, he’ll try to kidnap you, ostensibly to go on a party, and trust to shaking off any pursuit you may have arranged.”I whistled. “Oh, that’s what you’ve had up your sleeve. I’m to be the bait, eh?”He nodded gravely. “That’s it exactly, Clayton.”“Well,” I laughed, “if he agrees to take me, it’s up to you! But, by gad, I’d be glad to go anyway. If I ever get to their hang-out and get loose, I’ll make things warm for them.”Pride rose to his feet. “That’s what we’ve been doing all along—what you’re doing when you say that. You’re not giving them credit for much brains and they’ve got plenty. Look at the way they had Miss Van Cleef guarded and the arrangements for calling for help. It wasn’t long in coming either. No, if they get you there, you won’t be in any condition to do much damage. Be sure of that.”“Unless I can make them underestimate me. They ought to have a pretty poor opinion of me now, after the mess I’ve made of things.”Pride laughed. “Well, I’m going up to your place now. You’d better go to bed and get a good night’s rest. Your face isn’t anything to look at yet. But it will be better in the morning and your head is about healed.” He opened the door. “Good-night and don’t worry. I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he went out.I spent the rest of the evening up to midnight alternately sitting down and trying to read or walking the floor. Before I went to bed I put some stuff Pride had brought me on my face and hands. It had wonderful healing qualities and I was already beginning to look more like a human being, so that I hoped to look at least respectable by morning.True to his promise, Pride turned up after breakfast the next morning. He was carrying a suit-case, which he flung on my bed. He grinned at me and banged down into one of the landlady’s plush horrors with which my room was furnished.“There’s your clothes, my lad. And a sweet time I had getting them. There’s a cop still in charge of your apartment, and the landlord up there is nearly crazy because all of his tenants are leaving on account of the disgrace. The cop put up an argument about my taking your things, and I did not want to tell him who I am because Lord knows he may be hand in glove with these birds. But I got Captain Peters on the wire finally, and the poor cop fairly groveled. But—your little book is strangely missing.” He treated me to another of his droll glances. “I dare say your friend Mrs. Fawcette got away with that too, along with your card-case.”“All right,” I told him. “Don’t rub it in. What’s the program now?”“Well,” he answered, “here’s my idea. I’m going out presently to hire a big car. I’m not going to get it from the Police Department of course, because they would spot the license. Then I’ll take your suit-case with me and pick you up near by here.“It will be a closed car and you will have to contrive to change your clothes on the way, because you can’t call on Ivanovitch in those duds, and you can’t walk out of this house in your good ones. It would give the landlady heart failure.“When you’ve changed, I’ll drive you to his house, and you can make a casual call and broach the subject of a party. I’ll wait outside for you, and you can tell him that the car belongs to a friend who has gone out of town and lent it to you while he’s away.”I assented, and we left it at that. The rest of the morning and over our lunch we discussed the best method of supplying additional tracers, in case Ivanovitch agreed to take me and Pride failed to follow the car we went in. Pride decided to have two police cars in readiness and a couple of motorcycle cops also, to make doubly sure.As the time approached for us to start, I felt my spirits rising a little with the thought of action. And when at last I was struggling to change into a stiff shirt and a frock-coat in the confines of Pride’s hired limousine, kneeling on the floor most of the time, I began to feel nearly normal again, in spite of a terrible anxiety about Natalie and Moore and Larry.I was ready, with my workman’s clothes neatly packed in the suit-case and the latter under the seat, by the time we reached the house of Ivanovitch. Pride was driving himself and was attired in the usual chauffeur’s livery. He pulled up nearly in front of the house and even got down and opened the door for me. “Good luck!” he whispered as I mounted the steps.To my delight, Ivanovitch’s slant-eyed servant told me that his master was at home and he would inquire whether he was disengaged. A moment later he was back again. “Walk after me, sar. My master will look at you.”“I’ll bet he will!” I thought, and followed the Jap or whatever he was. A moment after he left, Ivanovitch appeared.“Well, Mr. Clayton! This is charming of you! I have thought of you so often lately” (I grinned to myself, staring at him), “and wondered what had become of you! I have been intending to try to locate you!”Could all this be coincidence? I wondered. Or was the man laughing at me? It was impossible to tell from his glittering and quite meaningless smile.“That’s mighty nice of you!” I told him. “But if you tried to find me,” I added, laughing, “you did not succeed very well.” I saw no reason why two could not play at the game of double meanings.He shook his head. “No, but this is even better, you see. For you have come to me!”He had me there. “Yes,” I answered, “I have been bored with a lot of irritating details of which life seems to be made up nowadays, and I thought of you at once as an antidote. So here I am!”He bowed. “As kind as ever! Let me give you a cocktail, shall I? I have something rather special which I think will surprise you.”If this was meant to get me to display hesitation about accepting his booze, it failed. “I don’t know anything I’d like better,” I answered, “if you’ll join me. I can’t have you bothering to mix a drink for me alone.”He gave me a swift, noncommittal glance. “But of course I’ll join you,” he answered, and went away to mix the drinks.When he returned, we fell into an animated conversation over the cocktails, which were excellent, and presently he asked me of his own volition whether I had found anything like the type of entertainment in which I had expressed an interest to him.“Not a thing,” I told him. “And, frankly, that’s a minor reason for looking you up again. I hoped you might have heard of something new and amusing, such as this modern Baghdad ought to offer, if one could only find it.”He laughed. “Your coming to me to-day is certainly a coincidence, my friend. For I am going to just such an entertainment this very night.”I leaned forward eagerly. “Can you take me with you?” I urged. “I assure you, you will save my life if you do!”“Hardly that,” he laughed, shaking his head. “But of course I can take you, if you have the—er—price, as I think you call it. The admission fee is 200 dollars.”“Phew!” I whistled. “Is that a season ticket?”“No, that is for one evening. And I think you will find,” he added, turning away to the tray, “that one evening will go a long way. Everything else will seem tame to you afterwards.”I thought that the conversation was taking a distinctly gruesome tone; but of course I did not tell him so. “I must go home and dress then,” I told him. “What time do we start and where do I meet you?”He laughed again. “Come, come, there is no need to dress, I am going as I am. We have a long drive ahead of us, and we shall have to start in an hour at the latest. Besides that, I am not going to let you leave again, now that you have come at last!”I swallowed that too. “All right. If you’re sure it’s all right to go like this. But I have not that much money on me. I’ll have to go and cash a check.”“Give me your check and I shall pay for your admission. That will be all right, my friend. And now let us talk about Europe. I am sick to death of the crudity of this country and it is a real pleasure to talk with one who has traveled and knows other countries also. Do you not find your country crude?”I assured him heartily that my country bored me to death, lacking as it did any really artistic preception of the refined possibilities of vice. And we went on like that for some time. But presently it began to get dark outside. I got up, went to his desk and drew him a personal check for 200 dollars. He took it, rose and rang for his servant.“Get the car ready, Niko,” he told the Jap, “and see that it has plenty of gas. I shall drive it myself to-night. This gentleman is going with me.”The servant glanced at me impassively. “Very well, sar,” he told his master and vanished, silently.“Wait a minute,” I ventured. “I have a car out here myself. Why not go in mine? It is comfortable, fully enclosed and has plenty of gasoline.”Ivanovitch shook his head, smiling his meaningless smile. “You do not understand, my friend,” he answered. “I must take you in a special car. There is much secrecy about this club; except to members the whereabouts of it are quite unknown. And as the type of entertainment is not exactly approved by the laws of your country, they must remain unknown. No, I shall be obliged to insist upon your accepting the hospitality of my car.” He paused and walked to the window. “And as you will not need your car, you will wish to dismiss it,n’est-ce pas? I shall send Niko.”“Oh, don’t trouble,” I answered casually; “I have some instructions to give the driver. I’ll tell him now.” And I walked into the hall.But when I had the front door open, I found Ivanovitch at my side. And he proceeded to accompany me down the steps to where Pride was sitting in full regalia in the hired limousine.“How charming is the evening air,” Ivanovitch observed suavely.“Tom,” I said pleasantly, as we came up to Pride, “this gentleman is taking me for a ride to-night, so I won’t need you any longer. I should be glad if you would see my man before you go home and tell him to get the place cleaned up, and,” I laughed, “to follow my instructions a little more closely this time. Tell him, too, that I shall probably not be home to-night!” I turned to Ivanovitch for confirmation and he nodded.“Tell him to expect you when he sees you,” he laughed.I was beginning to dislike Ivanovitch.
I fumbled for a cigar, keeping my head down so that he would not see my face, for I was pretty close to the breaking-point. I sat down opposite him and waited, shading my face with my hand and trying to fix my thoughts on what he was about to say. It was hard to do even that.
“Listen, Clayton,” he said, after a moment or two. “I went to see what I could find about Miss Van Cleef this afternoon, because you were so vitally interested. But I had little hope of learning anything. This gang is much too cute to leave any traces behind them.
“But in the meantime I have other news for you. I have received powers from Washington that no police officer, whatever his other affiliations or sympathies, would dare ignore or disobey.
“But those powers will only be of use to us when we learn who the people are against whom we can direct them. We’ve got to find the headquarters of this gang and break it up. Individual rescues are all right, of course, but, as you have seen, they don’t accomplish much. You see, knowing what she did, the ganghadto recapture Miss Van Cleef, whether they wanted to or not.
“Now, as I see it,” Pride went on, leaning back in his chair and stroking a bony chin, “the only clew we have to the whereabouts of their headquarters is based on the assumption that these girls are used as decoys. If that is the case, they are probably located in the house where these orgies are given. That means a big house and big parties, several of them. And that means publicity—in town.”
I started up. “You mean that the headquarters is somewhere out of town?”
“Exactly,” he nodded. “They could not give more than one or, at most, two parties of that nature and on such a scale without the police and the newspapers getting wind of it.”
“Well, then——”
“Well, then, it means that if we searched or investigated all the houses of any size near New York which are within the radius of a two-hour run in a high-powered car, we would be at the job for months, we would warn them well in advance and they would skip and set up their establishment elsewhere.”
“They would have to take the girls with them.”
Pride dropped his eyes. “Not necessarily,” he said, in a low voice. “They could get more.”
I felt as though I were struggling in the grip of a nightmare. “My God! do you mean—murder?”
Pride gave an impatient gesture. “How can I tell, man? This is a big gang and a fearless one—and utterly unscrupulous. They are after power, it seems. They have a lot of it now. And they might not let a thing like that stop them.”
I got up and began to pace the floor. “Well, then,” I demanded childishly, “what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?” The helpless feeling of the early months of my search returned, magnified a hundred times. “My God, what kind of a Secret Service and police force have we got, anyway!”
Pride hesitated. “That’s not quite fair, Clayton,” he answered at last, gravely. “We’ve done some pretty good work in the past. But we are working under the disadvantage of a certain amount of publicity. The gang got at one of our members or more and learned all about us long before we knew they existed. And we’re trying to find them, not they us.”
“I know,” I answered, dropping into a chair. “I beg your pardon. I had no business to say that. But these last weeks—and now to-day——”
“That’s all right. I don’t blame you.” Pride paused a moment. “But here’s what I’m getting at. If we can locate this gang we can round them up and run them in without any formality. And if we get them we’ll keep them. But we’ve got to find them first. And the only way I can think of to find them is to get taken to one of their parties.”
I laughed. “We’ve tried that,” I said.
“We’ve got to try it again, then.”
“How?” I demanded.
Pride leaned forward. “You got pretty thick with that Russian, Ivanovitch, wasn’t it, who served that doped tea?”
“I tried to, but I don’t know how well it worked.”
“Is there anything to connect you in his mind with the Department? Was he at Mrs. Fawcette’s the day Miss Van Cleef was captured?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Was he one of the men who turned up when you rescued her?”
“No, he wasn’t!”
“Do you think the men who came that night recognized you?”
“I don’t see how they could. They might have described me to Mrs. Fawcette or Ivanovitch himself, however.”
“Well,” Pride answered, “it’s only a chance, of course. But if Ivanovitch is hand in glove with Mrs. Fawcette and Vining, he’ll know about their having you arrested. So, if you go to see him, he’ll probably try again to have you arrested. If he doesn’t do that, it’s a fair presumption that he does not suspect you. Then you can try to get him to take you on one of the parties. I’ll have you followed, adequately this time, and follow you myself. It will be pretty poor work if they give us the slip again.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll try it. I’ll try anything. You can be sure of that. But can’t you have these birds followed anyway? Has Vining been followed, shadowed all the time? And Ivanovitch? And Mrs. Fawcette?”
Pride smiled. “Followed! I should say they have. But we’ve had to use police plain-clothes men. They lost track of both Vining and Mrs. Fawcette the day Moore was captured. Since then I’ve called off the man I had watching Ivanovitch because I did not want him to know that he was under suspicion and they’re too clever for these plain-clothes men.”
“Well, isn’t there any one else suspected? Isn’t there any one else we could follow?” And suddenly I remembered the little book I had found in Vining’s desk. I had left it under the blotter on my table. “Look here, I have something, I think!” and I told him about that little book and the names in it.
When I had finished, Pride gave me a droll look. “Is there any other little detail you have omitted to mention?” he asked dryly. “That book may be absolutely invaluable to us. What was in it exactly?”
I told him of the names and the numbers after them. “What could they mean?” I asked.
“Might mean anything. Members and dues, perhaps, in some club. But the names themselves would tell us something. Where is the book?”
I told him and received another droll look. “Well, if there was anything important in it, you don’t suppose it’s there now, do you?” he asked. “But I’ll get in there and see. I’ve got to get into your apartment anyway.”
“What for? Oh, for my clothes, of course.”
“Exactly. You can’t call on Ivanovitch in those duds.”
I got up again. “When do I go to see him?” I demanded.
“Why not drop in to-morrow afternoon? That will give me time to get your clothes and to plant a man in the house perhaps. At any rate it will give me time to arrange about having you closely followed. Wait—I’ll drive you there myself. The car has been loaned you by a friend who is out of town and I’m your friend’s chauffeur. That is, if he asks. What do you think of that plan?”
“Oh, it sounds all right,” I answered. “It’s action, anyway. But I wish I could get my hands on those brutes.”
Pride smiled and was silent for a moment. Then he glanced up suddenly. “Look here, Clayton,” he said, “I’m going to play fair with you. I think we’ve been underestimating this gang all along. I think any such attempt as this would be underestimating them. But I’m banking on one thing. I’m banking on my own powers to trace you. For I think it’s quite possible that he’ll take you with him on a party if you ask him to. But not because he does not suspect you. I think he and the rest of the gang know all about you. But I also think that they underestimate us. And I think that they are afraid of you as long as you are at liberty.”
I stared at him in amazement. “But then what’s the use of my going there?”
“Because, as I say, I think he’ll play his wits against ours. I think, for the sake of getting you under lock and key, in their hands, he’ll try to kidnap you, ostensibly to go on a party, and trust to shaking off any pursuit you may have arranged.”
I whistled. “Oh, that’s what you’ve had up your sleeve. I’m to be the bait, eh?”
He nodded gravely. “That’s it exactly, Clayton.”
“Well,” I laughed, “if he agrees to take me, it’s up to you! But, by gad, I’d be glad to go anyway. If I ever get to their hang-out and get loose, I’ll make things warm for them.”
Pride rose to his feet. “That’s what we’ve been doing all along—what you’re doing when you say that. You’re not giving them credit for much brains and they’ve got plenty. Look at the way they had Miss Van Cleef guarded and the arrangements for calling for help. It wasn’t long in coming either. No, if they get you there, you won’t be in any condition to do much damage. Be sure of that.”
“Unless I can make them underestimate me. They ought to have a pretty poor opinion of me now, after the mess I’ve made of things.”
Pride laughed. “Well, I’m going up to your place now. You’d better go to bed and get a good night’s rest. Your face isn’t anything to look at yet. But it will be better in the morning and your head is about healed.” He opened the door. “Good-night and don’t worry. I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he went out.
I spent the rest of the evening up to midnight alternately sitting down and trying to read or walking the floor. Before I went to bed I put some stuff Pride had brought me on my face and hands. It had wonderful healing qualities and I was already beginning to look more like a human being, so that I hoped to look at least respectable by morning.
True to his promise, Pride turned up after breakfast the next morning. He was carrying a suit-case, which he flung on my bed. He grinned at me and banged down into one of the landlady’s plush horrors with which my room was furnished.
“There’s your clothes, my lad. And a sweet time I had getting them. There’s a cop still in charge of your apartment, and the landlord up there is nearly crazy because all of his tenants are leaving on account of the disgrace. The cop put up an argument about my taking your things, and I did not want to tell him who I am because Lord knows he may be hand in glove with these birds. But I got Captain Peters on the wire finally, and the poor cop fairly groveled. But—your little book is strangely missing.” He treated me to another of his droll glances. “I dare say your friend Mrs. Fawcette got away with that too, along with your card-case.”
“All right,” I told him. “Don’t rub it in. What’s the program now?”
“Well,” he answered, “here’s my idea. I’m going out presently to hire a big car. I’m not going to get it from the Police Department of course, because they would spot the license. Then I’ll take your suit-case with me and pick you up near by here.
“It will be a closed car and you will have to contrive to change your clothes on the way, because you can’t call on Ivanovitch in those duds, and you can’t walk out of this house in your good ones. It would give the landlady heart failure.
“When you’ve changed, I’ll drive you to his house, and you can make a casual call and broach the subject of a party. I’ll wait outside for you, and you can tell him that the car belongs to a friend who has gone out of town and lent it to you while he’s away.”
I assented, and we left it at that. The rest of the morning and over our lunch we discussed the best method of supplying additional tracers, in case Ivanovitch agreed to take me and Pride failed to follow the car we went in. Pride decided to have two police cars in readiness and a couple of motorcycle cops also, to make doubly sure.
As the time approached for us to start, I felt my spirits rising a little with the thought of action. And when at last I was struggling to change into a stiff shirt and a frock-coat in the confines of Pride’s hired limousine, kneeling on the floor most of the time, I began to feel nearly normal again, in spite of a terrible anxiety about Natalie and Moore and Larry.
I was ready, with my workman’s clothes neatly packed in the suit-case and the latter under the seat, by the time we reached the house of Ivanovitch. Pride was driving himself and was attired in the usual chauffeur’s livery. He pulled up nearly in front of the house and even got down and opened the door for me. “Good luck!” he whispered as I mounted the steps.
To my delight, Ivanovitch’s slant-eyed servant told me that his master was at home and he would inquire whether he was disengaged. A moment later he was back again. “Walk after me, sar. My master will look at you.”
“I’ll bet he will!” I thought, and followed the Jap or whatever he was. A moment after he left, Ivanovitch appeared.
“Well, Mr. Clayton! This is charming of you! I have thought of you so often lately” (I grinned to myself, staring at him), “and wondered what had become of you! I have been intending to try to locate you!”
Could all this be coincidence? I wondered. Or was the man laughing at me? It was impossible to tell from his glittering and quite meaningless smile.
“That’s mighty nice of you!” I told him. “But if you tried to find me,” I added, laughing, “you did not succeed very well.” I saw no reason why two could not play at the game of double meanings.
He shook his head. “No, but this is even better, you see. For you have come to me!”
He had me there. “Yes,” I answered, “I have been bored with a lot of irritating details of which life seems to be made up nowadays, and I thought of you at once as an antidote. So here I am!”
He bowed. “As kind as ever! Let me give you a cocktail, shall I? I have something rather special which I think will surprise you.”
If this was meant to get me to display hesitation about accepting his booze, it failed. “I don’t know anything I’d like better,” I answered, “if you’ll join me. I can’t have you bothering to mix a drink for me alone.”
He gave me a swift, noncommittal glance. “But of course I’ll join you,” he answered, and went away to mix the drinks.
When he returned, we fell into an animated conversation over the cocktails, which were excellent, and presently he asked me of his own volition whether I had found anything like the type of entertainment in which I had expressed an interest to him.
“Not a thing,” I told him. “And, frankly, that’s a minor reason for looking you up again. I hoped you might have heard of something new and amusing, such as this modern Baghdad ought to offer, if one could only find it.”
He laughed. “Your coming to me to-day is certainly a coincidence, my friend. For I am going to just such an entertainment this very night.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “Can you take me with you?” I urged. “I assure you, you will save my life if you do!”
“Hardly that,” he laughed, shaking his head. “But of course I can take you, if you have the—er—price, as I think you call it. The admission fee is 200 dollars.”
“Phew!” I whistled. “Is that a season ticket?”
“No, that is for one evening. And I think you will find,” he added, turning away to the tray, “that one evening will go a long way. Everything else will seem tame to you afterwards.”
I thought that the conversation was taking a distinctly gruesome tone; but of course I did not tell him so. “I must go home and dress then,” I told him. “What time do we start and where do I meet you?”
He laughed again. “Come, come, there is no need to dress, I am going as I am. We have a long drive ahead of us, and we shall have to start in an hour at the latest. Besides that, I am not going to let you leave again, now that you have come at last!”
I swallowed that too. “All right. If you’re sure it’s all right to go like this. But I have not that much money on me. I’ll have to go and cash a check.”
“Give me your check and I shall pay for your admission. That will be all right, my friend. And now let us talk about Europe. I am sick to death of the crudity of this country and it is a real pleasure to talk with one who has traveled and knows other countries also. Do you not find your country crude?”
I assured him heartily that my country bored me to death, lacking as it did any really artistic preception of the refined possibilities of vice. And we went on like that for some time. But presently it began to get dark outside. I got up, went to his desk and drew him a personal check for 200 dollars. He took it, rose and rang for his servant.
“Get the car ready, Niko,” he told the Jap, “and see that it has plenty of gas. I shall drive it myself to-night. This gentleman is going with me.”
The servant glanced at me impassively. “Very well, sar,” he told his master and vanished, silently.
“Wait a minute,” I ventured. “I have a car out here myself. Why not go in mine? It is comfortable, fully enclosed and has plenty of gasoline.”
Ivanovitch shook his head, smiling his meaningless smile. “You do not understand, my friend,” he answered. “I must take you in a special car. There is much secrecy about this club; except to members the whereabouts of it are quite unknown. And as the type of entertainment is not exactly approved by the laws of your country, they must remain unknown. No, I shall be obliged to insist upon your accepting the hospitality of my car.” He paused and walked to the window. “And as you will not need your car, you will wish to dismiss it,n’est-ce pas? I shall send Niko.”
“Oh, don’t trouble,” I answered casually; “I have some instructions to give the driver. I’ll tell him now.” And I walked into the hall.
But when I had the front door open, I found Ivanovitch at my side. And he proceeded to accompany me down the steps to where Pride was sitting in full regalia in the hired limousine.
“How charming is the evening air,” Ivanovitch observed suavely.
“Tom,” I said pleasantly, as we came up to Pride, “this gentleman is taking me for a ride to-night, so I won’t need you any longer. I should be glad if you would see my man before you go home and tell him to get the place cleaned up, and,” I laughed, “to follow my instructions a little more closely this time. Tell him, too, that I shall probably not be home to-night!” I turned to Ivanovitch for confirmation and he nodded.
“Tell him to expect you when he sees you,” he laughed.
I was beginning to dislike Ivanovitch.