Part 25

This gilded saloon on the evening of the day I called on John Marvel was, if anything, more crowded than usual, and into it just as it was beginning to grow gay and the clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke were beginning to turn the upper atmosphere to a dull gray; just as the earlier hum of voices was giving place to the shrieking laughter and high screaming of half-sodden youths of both sexes, walked a young woman. She was simply dressed in a street costume, but there was that about her trim figure, erect carriage, and grave face which marked her as different from the gaudy sisterhood who frequented that resort of sin, and as she passed up through the long room she instantly attracted attention.

The wild laughter subsided, the shrieks died down, and as if by a common impulse necks were craned to watch the newcomer, and the conversation about the tables suddenly hushed to a murmur, except where it was broken by the outbreak of some half-drunken youth.

"Who is she? What is she?" were questions asked at all tables, along with many other questions and answers, alike unprintable and incredible. The general opinion expressed was that she was a new and important addition to the soiled sisterhood, probably from some other city or some country town, and comments were freely bandied about as to her future destination and success. Among the throng, seated at one of the tables, was a large man with two bedizened young women drinking the champagne he was freely offering and tossing off himself, and the women stopped teasing him about his diamond ring, and rallied him on his attention to the newcomer, as with head up, lips compressed, eyes straight before her, and the color mounting in her cheek, she passed swiftly up the room between the tables and made her way to the magnificent bar behind which Mr. Gallagin presided, with his one eye ever boring into the scene before him. Walking up to the bar the stranger at once addressed Mr. Gallagin.

"Are you the proprietor here?"

"Some folks says so. What can I do for yer?"

"I have come to ask if there is not a young woman here--?" She hesitated a moment, as the bar-keepers all had their eyes on her and a number of youths had come forward from the tables and were beginning to draw about her. Mr. Gallagin filled in the pause.

"Quite a number, but not one too many. In fact, there is just one vacancy, and I think you are the very peach to fill it." His discolored teeth gleamed for a second at the murmur of approval which came from the men who had drawn up to the bar.

"I came to ask," repeated the girl quietly, "if there is not a young woman here named Elsa Loewen."

The proprietor's one eye fixed itself on her with an imperturbable gaze. "Well, I don't know as there is," he drawled. "You see, there is a good many young women here, and I guess they have a good many names among 'em. But may I ask you what you want with her?"

"I want to get her and take her back to her home."

Mr. Gallagin's eye never moved from her face.

"Well, you can look around and see for yourself," he said quietly.

"No, I don't think she would be here, but have you not a sort of a hotel attached to your place?"

"Oh! Yes," drawled Mr. Gallagin. "I can furnish you a room, if you have any friends--and if you haven't a friend, I might furnish you one or two of them."

"No, I do not wish a room."

"Oh!" ejaculated the proprietor.

"I wish to see Elsa Loewen, and I have heard that she is here."

"Oh! you have, and who may be your informant?" demanded the bar-keeper, coldly. "I'd like to know what gentleman has sufficient interest in me to make me the subject of his conversation."

"I cannot give you my informant, but I have information that she is here, and I appeal to you to let me see her."

"To me? You appeal to me?" Mr. Gallagin put his hand on his thin chest and nodded toward himself.

"Yes, for her mother; her father. She is a good girl. She is their only daughter. They are distracted over her--disappearance. If you only knew how terrible it is for a young girl like that to be lured away from home where every one loves her, to be deceived, betrayed, dragged down while----"

The earnestness of her tone more than the words she uttered, and the strangeness of her appeal in that place, had impressed every one within reach of her voice, and quite a throng of men and women had left the tables and pressed forward listening to the conversation, and for the most part listening in silence, the expression on their faces being divided between wonder, sympathy, and expectancy, and a low murmur began to be audible among the women, hardened as they were. Mr. Gallagin felt that it was a crucial moment in his business. Suddenly from under the fur came the fierce claw and made a dig to strike deep.

"To hell with you, you d----d ----! I know you and your d----d sort--I know what you want, and you'll get it in one minute. Out of my place, or I'll pitch you in the gutter or into a worse hole yet!" He made a gesture with one hand such as a cat makes with its claws out.

A big man with a hard gleam in his eye moved along the edge of the bar, his face stolid and his eyes on the newcomer, while the throng fell back suddenly and left the girl standing alone with a little space about her, her face pale, and her mouth drawn close under the unexpected assault. In another second she would, without doubt, have been thrown out of the place, or possibly borne off to that worse fate with which she had been threatened. But from the throng to her side stepped out a short, broad-shouldered man, with a sodden face.

"Speak her soft, Galley, ---- ---- you! You know who she is! That is the Angel of the Lost Children. Speak her soft or ---- ---- you! you'll have to throw me out, too." The sodden face took on suddenly a resolution that gave the rough a look of power, the broad shoulders were those of an athlete, and the steady eye was that of a man to be reckoned with--and such was "Red Talman" when aroused.

The name he had given was repeated over the throng by many, doubtless, who had not heard of her, but there were others who knew, and told of the work that Eleanor Leigh had been doing in quarters where any other woman of her class and kind had never showed her face; of help here and there; a hand lent to lift a fallen girl; of succor in some form or another when all hope appeared to be gone.

It was a strange champion who had suddenly stepped forward into the arena to protect her, but the girl felt immediately that she was safe. She turned to her champion.

"I thank you," she said simply. "If you wish to help me, help me get hold of this poor girl whom I have come for. Ask him to let me see her, if only for one moment, and I may save her a life of misery."

The man turned to the proprietor. "Why don't you let her see the girl?" he said.

Gallagin scowled at him or winked, it could scarcely be told which. "What the ---- is it to you? Why can't you keep your mouth for your own business instead of interfering with other folks? You have seen trouble enough doing that before."

"Let her see the girl."

"What business is it of yours whether I do or not?"

"Just this--that when I was away and my wife was starvin', and you never givin' her nothin', and my little gal was dyin', this here lady came there and took care of 'em--and that's what makes it my business. I don't forgit one as helped me, and you know it."

"Well, I'll tell you this, there ain't no gal of that name here. I don't know what she's talkin' about."

"Oh! Come off! Let her see the gal."

"You go up there and look for yourself," said the proprietor. "Take her with you if you want to and keep her there."

"Shut your mouth, d----n you!" said Talman. He turned to Miss Leigh.

"She ain't here, lady. He'd never let me go up there if she was there. But I'll help you find her if you'll tell me about her. You can go home now. I'll see you safe."

"I am not afraid," said the girl. "My carriage is not far off," and with a pleasant bow and a word of renewed supplication to the proprietor, whose eye was resting on her with a curious, malign expression, she turned and passed back through the room, with her gaze straight ahead of her, while every eye in the room was fastened on her; and just behind her walked the squatty figure of Red Talman. A few doors off a carriage waited, and as she reached the door she turned and gave him the name of the girl she was seeking, with a little account of the circumstances of her disappearance and of her reason for thinking she might be at Gallagin's place. She held out her hand to the man behind her.

"I don't know your name or what you alluded to, but if I can ever help any of your friends I shall be very glad to do what I can for them."

"My name's Talman. You've already done me a turn."

"'Talman!' 'Red--'! Are you the father of my little girl?"

"That's me."

"What I said just now I mean. If you want help, let me know, or go and see Mr. Marvel, the preacher, on the West side--you know him--and you will get it. And if you can find anything of that poor girl I shall be eternally grateful to you. Good-night."

"Good-night, ma'am."

The man watched the carriage until it had disappeared around the corner and then he returned to the saloon. He walked up to the bar, and Gallagin advanced to meet him.

"If you are lyin' to me," he said, "you better not let me know, but you better git that gal out of your place and into her home, or the first thing you know there will be a sign on that door."

The other gave a snarl.

"I am puttin' you wise," said Talman. "There's trouble brewing. That's big folks lookin' for her."

"I guess Coll McSheen is somethin' in this town still. But for him you wouldn' be walkin' around."

"But for--! He's a has-been," said Talman. "He's shot his bolt."

"You ought to know," sneered Gallagin.

"I do."

"That the reason you take no more jobs?"

"It's a good one."

"Have a drink," said Gallagin, with a sudden change of manner, and he did him the honor to lift a bottle and put it on the bar.

"I ain't drinkin'. I've got work to do."

"Who's your new owner?"

"Never mind, he's a man. Send the gal home or you'll be pulled before twenty-four hours."

"You're runnin' a Sunday-school, ain't you?"

"No, but I'm done workin' for some folks. That's all. So long. Git her out of your house if she's here. Git her out of your house."

He walked down the room, and as he passed a table the big man with the two women accosted him.

"Who's your friend?" he asked with a sneer. It was Wringman, who having finished his labors for the day in proving to famished strikers how much better off they were than formerly, was now refreshing himself in one of his favorite haunts, at his favorite occupation.

Talman stopped and looked at him quietly, then he said: "That man up there"--with his thumb over his shoulder he pointed toward the bar--"that man there has been a friend of mine in the past and he can ask me questions that I don't allow folks like you to ask me. See? I have known a man to git his neck broke by buttin' too hard into other folks' business. See?"

Wringman, with an oath, started to get out of his chair, but his companions held him down, imploring him to be quiet, and the next moment the big bouncer from the bar was standing beside the table, and after a word with him Talman made his way through the crowd and walked out of the door.

The bar-keeper beckoned to his bouncer and the two held a muttered conference at the end of the bar. "He's gittin' too big for his breeches," said the bar-keeper as he turned away. "He'll git back there if he fools with me and pretty quick too."

XXXI

JOHN MARVEL'S RAID

Had any one of the many detectives who were engaged in all sorts of work, legitimate and otherwise, in the limits of that great city, been watching among the half-sodden group of loafers and night-walkers who straggled through the side street on which opened the "Ladies' Entrance" of Mr. Gallagin's establishment along toward the morning hours, he might have seen a young woman brought from the door of the "ladies' entrance," supported by two persons, one a man and one a woman, and bodily lifted into a disreputable looking hack of the type known as a "night-hawk," while the dingy passers-by laughed among themselves and discussed how much it had taken to get the young woman as drunk as that. But there was no detective or other officer on that street at that hour, and but for the fact that a short, squatty man, nursing a grievance against an old pal of his, and turning over in his mind the unexpected kindness of a young woman and a threadbare preacher in an hour when all the rest of the world--even his pals in iniquity--appeared to have turned against him, was walking through the street with a dim idea of beginning a quarrel with the man who had deserted him, the destination of the drunken woman might never have been known. Red Talman's heart, however, callous as it was, foul with crimes too many and black to catalogue, had one single spot into which any light or feeling could penetrate. This was the secret corner, sacred to the thought of his one child, a little girl who alone of all the world truly thought him a good man. For John Marvel, who had helped his wife and child when he lay in prison under long sentence, and had been kind to him, he entertained a kindly feeling, but for the young lady who had taken his little girl and taught her and made her happy when the taunts of other children drove her from the public school, he had more than a liking. She and John Marvel alone had treated him in late years as a man and a friend, and a dim hope began to dawn in his mind that possibly he might yet be able to save his girl from the shame of ever truly knowing what he had been.

So, when the man, with his hat over his eyes, who had helped put the young woman in the carriage, re-entered the house and the drunken woman was driven off with her companion, Red Talman, after a moment of indecision, turned and followed the cab. He was not able to keep up with it, as, though the broken-kneed horses went at a slow gait, they soon outdistanced him, for he had to be on the watch for officers; but he knew the vehicle, and from the direction it took he suspected its destination. He turned and went back toward Gallagin's. When he reached the narrow, ill-lighted street, on which the side entrance opened, he slipped into the shadow at a corner and waited. An hour later the hack returned, a woman got out of it and, after a short altercation with the driver, ran across the pavement and entered the door. As the hack turned, Red Talman slipped out of the shadow and walked up to the front wheel.

"Which way you goin'?" he asked the driver, who recognized him.

"Home," he said.

"Gimme a ride?"

"Git up." He mounted beside him and drove with him to a dirty saloon in a small street at some little distance, where he treated him and let him go. A half-hour afterward he rang the bell of the family hotel which I had visited with an officer the day before, and asked to see the woman of the house. She could not be seen, the woman said who opened the door.

"Well, give her this message, then. Tell her that Galley says to take good care of the girl that he just sent around here and to keep her dark."

"Which one?" demanded the woman.

"The one as was doped, that come in the hack."

"All right."

"That's all," said Talman, and walked off.

The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed down through the dark street. How should he use his information? Hate, gratitude, and the need for money all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his understrapper, Gallagin. They had deserted him in his hour of need and he had come near being hanged for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen's power had kept him quiet. The desire for revenge and the feeling of gratitude worked together. But how should he use his knowledge? It behooved him to be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel Gallagin were powerful forces in the world in which he moved. They could land him behind the bars in an hour if they worked together. At last he solved it!

He would go to a man who had always been kind to him and his. Thus it was, that just before light that morning John Marvel was awakened by a knock on his door. A man was below who said a sick person needed his services. When he came down into the street in the dim light of the dawning day, there was a man waiting in the shadow. He did not recognize him at first, but he recalled him as the man told the object of his visit at such an hour, and John was soon wide-awake. Still he could scarcely believe the story he was told.

"Why, she can't be there," he protested. "A friend of mine was there to look for her day before yesterday with the police, and she was not there."

"She is there now, and if you pull the place you'll get her all right," asserted the other.

"I'll go there myself."

"No use goin' by yourself."

"I'll get the police----"

"The police!" The other laughed derisively. "They don't go after the Big Chief's friends--not when he stands by 'em."

"The 'Big Chief'?"

"Coll McSheen."

"Mr. McSheen!"

"He's _it_!"

"It? What? I don't understand."

"Well, don't bring me into this."

"I will not."

"He's at the bottom of the whole business. He's the lawyer 't gives the dope and takes care of 'em. He owns the place--'t least, Mick Raffity and Gallagin and Smooth Ally own the places; and he owns them. He knows all about it and they don't turn a hand without him. Oh! I know him--I know 'em all!"

"You think this is the girl the lady was looking for?"

"I don't know. I only know she went there, and Gallagin showed his teeth, and then I called him down and got the gal out. I skeered him."

"Well, we'll see."

"Well, I must be goin'. I've told you. Swear you won't bring me into it. Good-night."

"I will not."

The man gazed down the street one way, then turned and went off in the other direction. John was puzzled, but a gleam of light came to him. Wolffert! Wolffert was the man to consult. What this man said was just what Wolffert had always insisted on: that "the White Slave traffic" was not only the most hideous crime now existing on earth, but that it was protected and promoted by men in power in the city, that it was, indeed, international in its range. He remembered to have heard him say that a law had been passed to deal with it; but that such law needed the force of an awakened public conscience to become effective.

Thus it was, that that morning Wolffert was aroused by John Marvel coming into his room. In an instant he was wide-awake, for he, too, knew of the disappearance of Elsa, and of our fruitless hunt for her.

"But you are sure that this woman is Elsa?" he asked as he hurriedly dressed.

"No--only that it is some one."

"So much the better--maybe."

An hour later Wolffert and John Marvel were in a lawyer's office in one of the great new buildings of the city, talking to a young lawyer who had recently become a public prosecutor, not as a representative of the city, but of a larger power, that of the nation. He and Wolffert were already friends, and Wolffert had a little while before interested him in the cause to which he had for some time been devoting his powers. It promised to prove a good case, and the young attorney was keenly interested. The bigger the game, the better he loved the pursuit.

"Who's your mysterious informant, Mr. Marvel?" he asked.

"That I cannot tell you. He is not a man of good character, but I am sure he is telling me the truth."

"We must make no mistakes--we don't want these people to escape, and the net will catch bigger fish, I hope, than you suspect. Why not tell?"

"I cannot."

"Well, then I shall have to get the proof in some other way. I will act at once and let you hear from me soon. In fact, I have a man on the case now. I learned of it yesterday from my cousin, you know. She is deeply interested in trying to break up this vile business, and a part of what you say I already knew. But the clews lead to bigger doors than you dream of."

John and Wolffert came away together and decided on a plan of their own. Wolffert was to come to see me and get Langton interested in the case, and John was to go to see Langton to send him to me. He caught Langton just as he was leaving his house to come to my office and walked a part of the way back with him, giving him the facts he had learned. He did not know that Langton was already on the case, and the close-mouthed detective never told anything.

When they parted, Langton came to my office, and together we went to the district attorney's, who, after a brief talk, decided to act at once, and accordingly had warrants issued and placed in the hands of his marshal.

"I have been trying for some time to get at these people," he said, "and I have the very man for the work--an officer whom Coll McSheen turned out for making trouble for the woman who keeps that house."

Aroused by my interest in the Loewens and by what Langton had told me of Miss Leigh's daring the night before, I secured the marshal's consent to go along with them, the district attorney having, indeed, appointed me a deputy marshal for the occasion.

The marshal's face had puzzled me at first, but I soon recognized him as the officer I had met once while I watched a little child's funeral. "They were too many for me," he said in brief explanation. "Mrs. Collis had me turned out. She had a pull with the Big Chief. And when I went for his friend, Smooth Ally, he bounced me. But I'm all right now, Mr. Semmes knows me, and Coll McSheen may look out. I know him."

I do not know what might have happened had we been a little later in appearing on the scene. As, after having sent a couple of men around to the back of the block, we turned into the street we saw three or four men enter the house as though in a hurry. We quickened our steps, but found the door locked, and the voices within told that something unusual was going on. The high pitched voice of a woman in a tirade and the low growls of men came to us through the door, followed by the noise of a scuffle and the smashing of furniture; a thunderous knock on the door, however, brought a sudden silence.

As there was no response either to the knock or ring, another summons even more imperative was made, and this time a window was opened above, a woman thrust her head out and in a rather frightened voice asked what was wanted. The reply given was a command to open the door instantly, and as the delay in obeying appeared somewhat unreasonable, a different method was adopted. The door was forced with an ease which gave me a high idea of the officer's skill. Within everything appeared quiet, and the only circumstance to distinguish the house from a rather tawdry small hotel of a flashy kind was a man and that man, John Marvel, with a somewhat pale face, his collar and vest torn and a reddish lump on his forehead, standing quietly in the doorway of what appeared to be a sitting-room where the furniture had been upset, and the woman whom I had formerly seen when I visited the place with a police officer, standing at the far end of the hall in a condition of fright bordering on hysterics. I think I never saw men so surprised as those in our party were to find a preacher there. It was only a moment, however, before the explanation came.

"She's here, I believe," said John, quietly, "unless they have gotten her away just now."