Part 11

Rockwell went at once to a telephone to call up a neighbouring garage.

Merriam took a cigarette and lighted it and again walked up and down. His thoughts now ran unbidden upon Mollie June. Images of her crowded his mind: Mollie June rosy and bright-eyed as he had seen her last at the dinner table in the alcove of the Peacock Cabaret; Mollie June by his "sick" bed, standing over him after he had impulsively declared his love, her hand hovering above his hair, tears upon her face, turning bravely away from him; Mollie June above the roses, as he had first seen her that morning--was it only that morning?--lifting the wet stems from the bowl; Mollie June confronting Mayor Black, refusing in angered innocence to leave the room; Mollie June in the Peacock Cabaret the night before; Mollie June in the front row in "Senior Algebra" back in Riceville. Ah, he _did_ belong to Mollie June, heart and soul. There was no doubt of that, and all the Jennies in the world were of no account whatever.

So it was a young man in a very laudable frame of mind indeed--waiving the fact that Mollie June was a married woman!--whom Rockwell presently bundled into the taxi he had summoned. Father Murray was already inside. Rockwell followed, leaving Simpson to speak to the chauffeur.

It puzzled Merriam to find Simpson thus placed in command, as it were, and his thoughts came back to the present adventure. He listened closely.

"Stop first at Rankin's Hardware Store," Simpson said to the chauffeur, "on Forty-Third Street."

In a couple of minutes, it seemed, they stopped before Rankin's emporium. Simpson alone descended. The other three remained in the taxicab, Rockwell openly smiling at the puzzled inquiry on Merriam's face but vouchsafing no enlightenment. Merriam would not ask questions.

The hardware shop was closed, but there was a light within and a man. Simpson pounded at the door till he gained admittance, and in a few minutes returned bearing--a small stepladder!

"What on earth----?" The words were almost starting from Merriam's lips, but he managed to swallow them, and listened again for Simpson's direction to the driver.

It was an address: "612 Dalton Place." That meant nothing to Merriam.

Again a brief drive, Merriam laboriously cogitating, with bewildered eyes on the small ladder--an affair of some six steps,--which Simpson had brought into the cab and was holding upright between them.

Father Murray asked the question which Merriam had so manfully (and youthfully) repressed:

"What's that for?"

"You'll see," said Rockwell, grinning, enjoying the mystery.

Simpson remained as silent and grave as an undertaker.

The taxicab had turned several corners and covered perhaps a couple of miles of streets. Now it slowed down, stopped.

"There ain't no 612," said the driver through the tube.

Rockwell took command again.

"Isn't there?" he said. "Let's see."

He got out. Peering through the open door of the taxicab, Merriam could see that the house before which they had stopped was numbered 608.

"612's a vacant lot," he heard the chauffeur say.

"So it seems," Rockwell replied. "Well, we'll get out here anyway."

Merriam eagerly took this cue, and the other two followed, Simpson bringing his ladder. Rockwell was handing a couple of green bills to the driver.

"Drive on opposite where 612 ought to be," he said, "and wait. We'll be back by and by."

"This way," he added, and started with Merriam and Father Murray down the street past the vacant lot. Simpson, carrying his small stepladder as unobtrusively as possible at his side, followed laggingly behind.

The square beyond the next avenue seemed to be occupied entirely by a huge block of apartments. They did not cross the avenue but turned the corner and walked on down one side of the great flat building but on the opposite side of the street. Their side held a miscellany of small detached houses.

Merriam glanced at Rockwell. He was slowing his steps and seemed to be watching a couple of men who were moving in the same direction as their own on the other side of the street immediately under the apartments.

A moment later these two men turned in at one of the entrances of the flat building. After perhaps twenty feet more Rockwell glanced over his shoulder. Merriam involuntarily did likewise. Half a block behind them was Simpson with his ladder. There was no one else in sight.

Rockwell stopped for a second, then said, "Come!" and quickly crossed the street and entered another door of the flat building.

Within the vestibule he stopped again.

"We must wait for Simpson," he said.

He began reading the names below the battery of bells. Merriam and Father Murray stared at each other.

In a moment Simpson joined them with his ladder. Rockwell promptly opened the inner door of the vestibule and proceeded to ascend the stairs. Simpson trudged after him, and Merriam and the priest followed perforce.

They reached the second floor and the third and continued on up to the fourth, which was the top floor.

Arriving there, Merriam found Rockwell pointing to a sort of trapdoor in the ceiling above the landing at the head of the stairs.

"Right!" he whispered.

Simpson calmly set his ladder down, separated its legs, and planted it firmly beneath the trap. He and Rockwell paid no attention to the doors of the two apartments which opened off the landing within a few feet of them. Simpson amended the ladder and, exerting his strength, pushed the trap door up. It moved with a grating sound, startlingly loud in their quasi-burglarious situation The night air rushed in. The trap gave upon the roof of the building.

Simpson did not hesitate but pulled himself up on to the roof.

Rockwell followed.

"You're to come too," he said as he looked down at Merriam gleefully and winked. He was evidently pleased with himself. "You wait here, Father Murray. Remember, if any one comes you're a roof inspector. That's next door to a sky pilot anyway!"

The priest groaned but made no protest, well knowing, doubtless, that rebellion now would avail him naught, and Merriam quickly followed Rockwell on to the roof.

It was a flat tar-and-gravel roof--not an unpleasant place to be in the starry April night. They circled about chimneys and miscellaneous pipe heads and stepped across brick ledges, which seemed to separate different sections of the building from one another.

Presently they were approaching the opposite side of the building, having circled the interior court and light wells. They came to another trap-door, a twin of the one by which they had ascended.

Simpson was about to open this second trap when Rockwell spoke:

"Wait a minute!"

Stooping lower and lower till at last he seemed to be almost sitting on his heels as he walked, he made his way to the edge of the roof on the new street and peeped over the parapet--a dozen feet perhaps beyond the trapdoor. For a moment only he looked, then returned in the same cautious and laborious manner.

"We were right," he said to Simpson.

"Watchers?" Simpson asked.

"Two of them. And half way down the block a taxi."

But now Simpson was carefully raising the trap-door. After listening for a minute he put his head down and looked.

"Coast is clear," he reported.

"Go ahead, then," said Rockwell.

So Simpson put his legs down inside, hung, and dropped into the vestibule. Rockwell and Merriam followed.

Straightening himself up inside, Merriam found Rockwell facing the door of the right-hand apartment.

"This is Jennie's!" he whispered.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*JENNIE*

Rockwell knocked twice. A girl with a thin, dark face peeped out.

"Hello, Margery," said Rockwell.

"Oh, how d'you do?" said the girl, recognizing the speaker. Relief was mingled in her tone with continuing caution. "Who's with you?"

"Friends," said Rockwell. "Mr. Merriam, the Senator's double. And Simpson."

"Simpson can't come here!" said Margery sharply.

Merriam glanced at Simpson and was amazed to see how moved he was. He had a sense that the man could hardly keep himself from trembling.

"He's come to help take Norman away," said Rockwell. "He need go no farther than the hall. Come, Margery, let us in. We can't stand here all night. I'll explain to both of you inside. I'm George's friend, you know."

"Well!" Still unwillingly Margery released the chain and moved back, opening the door for them.

As they stepped inside she stared at Merriam.

"The devil!" she exclaimed.

"No," said the young man, "my name's Merriam. How do you do, Miss Milton?"

He looked at Margery almost as curiously as she was looking at him. He was really as innocent as Mollie June--more so, in fact, not being married,--and Margery was the first member of the demi-monde or the near demimonde with whom he had ever had personal contact. He found her disappointing. She was thin to the point of angularity, in a trying yellow negligee, with straight black hair, black eyes that were unpleasantly direct, and a lean dark face that was undeniably hard.

For a moment only she stared. Then she shut the door and spoke to Simpson:

"You stay here!"

"Yes," said Simpson, with more than servitorial humility.

Rockwell was advancing into the sitting room, which opened immediately off the tiny hall, and Merriam, feeling himself dismissed by Miss Milton, followed.

Merriam's sole first impression of the sitting room was of a soft, rather agreeable harmony in yellow. The wall paper, the hangings, the upholstery of chairs and davenport, the shades of lights were all in mild tints of that pleasant colour. Probably Margery's yellow negligee was intended to fit into this ensemble.

But he had no time for detailed observation. For as they stepped forward the yellow portieres at one side of the room parted, and another girl appeared between them--undoubtedly Jennie.

This time he was surprised but hardly disappointed. The figure between the portieres was that of a stage parlour maid--just the right height for a soubrette and just pleasantly, youthfully slender, yet rounded, in a trim-fitting dress of some black material, cut rather low at the throat and edged with white, with a ridiculously small, purely ornamental, white apron with pockets. Black-silk-stockinged ankles and black, high-heeled satin pumps completed a picture that was both chic and demure. Merriam remembered that it was as a parlour maid that Norman had first known Jennie and guessed that this costume had been assumed for his benefit.

In a moment the portieres closed behind her. She was looking at the older man, having barely glanced at Merriam.

"How do, Mr. Rockwell," she said.

Merriam, almost with alarm, recognised the tones that had so piqued him over the telephone.

Then she turned to him.

"This is---- Gee, but you're like him! I wouldn't have believed it."

"Miss Higgins, Mr. Merriam," said Rockwell tardily.

Merriam responded awkwardly:

"How do you do, Miss----"

"'Miss Jennie' will do," interrupted Jennie.

(Merriam remembered uncomfortably how Mollie June had hit upon a similar "compromise.")

"I ain't partial to 'Higgins,'" Jennie added. "I'm thinking of changing it to 'Montmorency.' Wouldn't 'Jennie Montmorency' be nice, Mr. Rockwell?"

"I don't think it fits very well," said Rockwell. "You'd better change it to Simpson."

Jennie coloured. She coloured easily, as Merriam was to learn. Now that she had turned again to Rockwell he had a chance to look at her face. She was an exceedingly pretty blonde. Her throat was attractively rounded, her shoulders also. Those shoulders might be unpleasant when she was older and stouter, but at present they were charming. Her chin and cheeks were also daintily full--quite the opposite of Margery Milton's. The cheeks were pink, slightly heightened with rouge perhaps but not with paint. The eyes were softly, brightly blue. The hair fair and smoothly wavy, if one may attempt to express a nuance by combining contradictory terms. In short, she was, as some of her admirers undoubtedly expressed it, "not a bit hard to look at."

For a moment Jennie's colour flooded. Then came her retort to Rockwell:

"Mind your own business," she said.

The words were sharp, but somehow the tone was not. The voice was still soft and--warm. It is the only word. It was the voice one might attribute to a kitten, if a kitten were gifted with articulate speech.

Rockwell only laughed. At the same moment Margery Milton entered from the hall, where she had presumably been impressing upon Simpson the necessity of remaining in strict hiding.

Jennie glanced at her friend.

"Well," she said, "may as well sit down."

She dropped into a chair and crossed one leg over the other.

"You've come to take Georgie away," she continued as the others sat down.

"Yes," said Rockwell. "Listen, Jennie. You too, Margery," and he began to explain the new situation which had resulted primarily from Margery's confidences to Thompson. He did not soften this point in his relation.

"See what your gabbling's done," said Jennie, without anger, to her friend when he had finished. "You always talk too much."

"I can talk if I please," said Margery sullenly.

"It will pay you better to keep still this time," said Rockwell.

"Pay me? How much?" demanded Margery promptly.

"Say a hundred dollars."

"A hundred----! I'm mum as a stone image. When do I get it, though?"

"Here's twenty now on account." Rockwell held out a yellow-backed bill, which Margery quickly accepted. "You get the rest when this is all over."

"How do I know I get the rest?"

"Shut up, Marge," said Jennie. "You know Mr. Rockwell."

"We've no time to lose," Rockwell continued, looking at his watch. "It's twenty-five minutes to ten now. Thompson said ten, but he might come a bit sooner. We must get Norman away at once. You understand that you're to let Mr. Merriam go to bed in his stead. When Thompson comes you must admit him. You can pretend to be unwilling to do so, but you must let him in without too much fuss. You're to tell him that Norman's not here and has not been here--that there's a man here who looks tremendously like Norman and that at first you fooled Margery into thinking it was Norman."

While Rockwell was issuing these instructions Jennie's cheeks had grown hot.

"I'm not that kind," she cried. "I've never had any one but George." Margery also glowered.

"I know that, my dear," said Rockwell, mendaciously perhaps but promptly. "But you've got to do what I tell you to-night. You don't care what a fellow like Thompson thinks. He always thinks the worst anyhow. It's to save George. He'll be ruined unless we can fool Thompson completely to-night. It's for George," he repeated. "You'd do a lot for George."

Jennie's colour was subsiding. She had uncrossed her legs and was sitting erect. She looked fixedly at Rockwell.

"I _have_ done a lot for him," she said.

"I know," said Rockwell. "And you'll do this to-night." He was using his most persuasive tones.

Jennie stole an almost timid glance at Merriam.

The latter's youthful chivalry was aroused. He was filled with pity for her, mingled with something like admiration on account of her prettiness. He saw her, more or less correctly, as a pathetic victim of real love and a false social system. He smiled at her reassuringly.

"It'll be all right," he said. "I shan't trouble you at all."

Jennie's glance lingered on his face--the face that was so much like Norman's. She saw him for the clean, innocent, naive boy that he was. He was what George Norman might once have been, long years ago. I am afraid that something akin to interest crept into her look. She dropped her eyes.

"All right," she said curtly to Rockwell. "I suppose I will."

"Jennie, you're a fool!" cried Margery.

"Shut up, Marge," said Jennie, with whom this seemed to be a frequent locution.

Rockwell had already risen.

"Is George dressed?" he asked.

"No," said Jennie. "He's too sick."

"Come, then," said Rockwell to Merriam. "We must help him into his things."

He crossed the small room and passed through the yellow portieres. Having been at the apartment earlier in the day with Aunt Mary, he was acquainted with its geography.

Merriam rose to follow, but he felt that something more ought to be said to relieve the half-hostile awkwardness of the situation. Jennie's eyes were still cast down.

"Is he pretty sick?" he asked as he moved across the room. He was not much concerned about Senator Norman, but he could think of no other remark.

Jennie raised her eyes and looked at him--an unreadable glance.

"Pretty sick," she said, almost indifferently.

Merriam paused a moment before the portieres, looking back, still meeting her eyes.

Then he turned his own away and pushed the portieres aside. He found himself in a dining room, done entirely in blue, as the sitting room was in yellow. Rockwell was already opening a door on the further side. Merriam quickened his steps and was close behind the older man in entering a small white bedroom.

On a single bed therein lay Senator George Norman. Evidently he had heard their voices in the sitting room, for he had raised himself on his elbow.

He and Merriam stared at each other in the amazement that is inevitable to two men who find themselves really bearing a striking physical resemblance to each other, however much they may have been forewarned. We are so accustomed to the idea that each of us has a sort of exclusive copyright on his own particular exterior that we cannot seriously believe in anything approaching a replica unless actually confronted with it.

The Senator did not look especially "boyish" as he lay there. His ruffled hair was indeed practically untouched with gray, but his cheeks were haggard and feverish, and there were many little wrinkles about his mouth and eyes. For all that Merriam could hardly believe he was not looking into a mirror. The experience was hardly pleasant for either man. "This is what I shall be like some time when I am old and ill," Merriam thought; and the Senator can hardly have escaped the bitter reflection of the man who has left many years behind him: "That is what I was once." Looking closer, Merriam could detect slight differences. The lips and nostrils of his distinguished relative were undoubtedly a little fuller than his own, and--yes, he surely was not flattering himself in thinking that the chin was rounder and weaker. But above all such trivial points the likeness rose overwhelmingly, incredibly complete. Merriam even recognised a similarity of movement as the sick man impatiently twisted himself on the bed.

Rockwell was standing silent, also no doubt inspecting the resemblance of which he had made such remarkable use.

The Senator was the first to find his tongue.

"So you're my virtuous double," he said, with a sort of petulant scorn.

"The voice, too!" Rockwell thought. He almost dreaded to hear Merriam's reply, which would echo the very quality and timbre of the other's speech, as if he were mocking him. But Merriam did not seem to notice. The fact is one cannot judge the sound of one's own voice nor appreciate the similarity in another's tones or in an imitation.

"I'm the double," Merriam was saying.

For a moment longer the Senator stared. Then he laughed. He evidently laughed more easily than Merriam, and somewhat differently. Merriam made a mental note that if he should be involved in any further impersonation he must be careful of his laugh.

"Well, it's rather convenient just this minute," said Norman, none too courteously, "though it may be damned inconvenient in the end."

"We'll help you dress," said Rockwell. "We've come to take you to the hotel, you know."

"Yes, I know that all right," said Norman. "If I'm to be a damned reformer, I must get out of this." He laughed again. "Hand me those trousers, will you?"

He put his legs out of the bed. He had already dressed himself as far as his shirt. Then he had apparently given the job up and got back into bed.

"I'm weak as a kitten," he continued, "and I've the deuce of a fever, but I guess I can make it. You've a taxi, of course?"

"Yes," said Rockwell.

He did not tell Norman that the road to the taxi lay through two trapdoors and across a roof. Neither did he mention the fact that Merriam was to stay at Jennie's or allude to Thompson's coming. Perhaps he feared that if Norman knew of Thompson's approach he would prefer to stay where he was and join forces with him again.

In a very few minutes Norman was fully dressed--in the evening clothes in which he had left the hotel the night before, on his way, as he supposed, to Mayor Black's. Rockwell tied his white bow for him.

During the process of dressing he and Merriam were continually glancing at each other. Neither could resist the attraction. Several times they caught each other at it.

At about their third mutual detection, which happened during the tying of the bow, Norman laughed again.

"We're certainly a pair," he said. "Whether aces or deuces remains to be seen, eh?

"Gad, but I'm weak," he added, sinking on to the bed as Rockwell finished his job. "You may have to carry me downstairs."

"We'll carry you all right," said Rockwell. "We're all ready, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," said Norman.

Rockwell stooped and picked him up in his arms, exerting himself only moderately, apparently, in so doing. The Senator was light on account of his carefully preserved slenderness, and Rockwell was really very strong.

"Bring his hat, Merriam," said the latter.

Rockwell carried him through the blue dining room into the sitting room, Merriam following with the silk hat. Both Jennie and Margery were standing.

Norman waved his hand limply to Jennie over Rockwell's shoulder.

"Bye-bye, pet," he said. "I'm all in, you see. Sorry to have bothered you like this when I wasn't fit."

"Georgie boy!" cried Jennie.

With a little run she came up behind Rockwell, caught Norman's hand, and kissed it.

"You'll let me know how you are? You'll come back?"

"Course I will," said Norman, though he had promised Aunt Mary that afternoon that he would "cut out" Jennie and the whole of that part of his life to which she belonged.

It may be that Jennie suspected something of the sort. There were tears in her bright, soft eyes, and her cheeks were pale enough to make her slight rouging obvious.

"You will, won't you?" she said. "Come soon, Georgie boy!"

Norman only smiled at her and feebly waved again. Rockwell meanwhile was moving towards the hallway. Jennie followed closely, though Margery tried to prevent her.

"Let them go, Jen!" whispered Margery.

"Shut up, Marge!" said Jennie almost fiercely.

And then the catastrophe which Margery had been trying to forestall, and which Rockwell had not sufficiently foreseen or else had not cared to prevent, occurred: Jennie came face to face with Simpson in the little hallway. She stopped short.

"You!" she said.

"Yes, Miss Jennie," said Simpson, looking at her steadily. "I didn't mean you should see me. I came to help take Mr. Norman away. It was me that discovered the plan to catch him here."

Jennie knew from Rockwell's earlier explanation that this was true. She tried to give Simpson what she herself would probably have called the "once-over"--a scornful survey from head to foot. But her histrionic purpose failed her. Her eyes fell too quickly.

"Well, be quick about it," she said. For the first time her voice was harsh.

Rockwell meanwhile had carried Norman on into the outer hall--for Simpson had already opened the door--and set him down leaning against the banister.

"Margery!" he called sharply.

Margery, glad of any diversion, advanced quickly:

"What do you want?"

"A stepladder. Got one?"

"Why--yes!"

"Go with her, Simpson, and get it," Rockwell commanded.

"Yes, Mr. Rockwell."