Part 13

Sullivan started and clutched at the mattress.

"Detective!" he muttered. "What d'yer want?"

"I don't want anything," said Ralston. "I know quite a lot about you, Mr. Sullivan, but it stays where it is. All I want is a little help."

"You go to hell!" growled Sullivan.

"No--no!" replied Ralston. "Not yet. I want you to tell me where I can find Steadman. You see, his folks are anxious, and it's worth quite a little to me to locate him. It needn't interfere with any of your plans. Besides, I imagine you're about through with him, eh?"

The color returned to Sullivan's face and he snarled angrily.

"None of that to me, see? I am on to you, understand? You'd better get out of here, while you're still able."

The girl, who had remained silent, now spoke again:

"Be careful, Jim; this man can make trouble for us."

Sullivan looked sharply at her, but evidently nothing about her appearance or speech excited his suspicions.

"Mr. Sullivan," continued Ralston from his seat in the horsehair rocker, "I don't mean you any harm. In fact, I can do you a good turn now and then if you'll help me out. All I want is my coin for turning up this chap Steadman. I know he's no good. He's anybody's money. He's nothing to me. But it's all in my day's work. Now, don't think me disagreeable. I want Steadman, you want--well, you don't want certain little incidents of your career to get to the ears of the district attorney--the Shackleton bonds, for example. Now, don't be alarmed. I haven't the slightest intention of giving you away, but, come now, let's be on the level with each other."

Sullivan cast an evil look at him.

"You think you've got something on me, eh? Prove it! What bonds did you say?"

Ralston saw that he had nearly made a slip.

"Quite right," said he. "I said Shackleton bonds--I was _thinking_ of Shackleton. Of course I meant the Mercantile bonds. But if you have any doubt about my sincerity I might go into the Masterson matter----"

But Sullivan was on his feet, his eyes staring, and his face as pale as it had been on the floor of "The Martin."

"For Heaven's sake!" he implored.

Ralston rose.

"Come! Come! Is it a bargain? You help me and I help you. Where is he?"

"I'll go with you," muttered Sullivan. "Where's my coat?" He looked around anxiously. There was no doubt as to the effectiveness of the reference to the Masterson case.

"Get me a coat," he ordered of the girl. Florence Davenport left the room, leaving the two men facing one another--the criminal and the gentleman. It would have been hard to say which looked the more haggard. The light of the dim lamp made the rings around Ralston's eyes look like huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and his mouth was drawn to a thin line. Inside his head was beginning to sing and the corners of his lids to twitch. He knew the symptoms. He was beginning to "fade out." But he was getting warm now and he paid no heed to himself.

The girl returned, bringing in her arms a pile of new silk-lined black overcoats. Ralston remembered the incident afterwards, but at the time it did not impress him. It is doubtful whether he knew definitely the meaning of the term--"a fence."

Mechanically he selected a coat to fit him and Sullivan did the same. The Davenport girl put on the smallest.

"Gimme a hat," said Sullivan.

Again the girl departed and presently returned with an odd collection of old felt hats of various styles. Now, fully arrayed, Sullivan felt his way gingerly to the door. A pale gleam filtered through the grating. The bolt was shot back and Ralston found himself in the fresh morning air.

A white, misty light filled the sky like a diaphanous, pulsating sheet. If you looked for it it was gone, but as you watched the opposite houses you knew it to be there. Night was struggling with the day, and the cohorts of darkness were barely in the ascendant. The tang of the breeze told the story, filtering in from the river. But the lamps showed brighter than ever. On his box the cabman slumbered, while his steed did likewise in cabhorse fashion.

Sullivan reached up and shook the man roughly. Across the end of the street heavy vans were making their way eastward, filling the little niche in which they stood with a deafening clatter.

"Drive up Broadway," ordered Sullivan.

The cabman removed his hat, ran his finger around the sweatband and replaced it on his head.

"Hully gee!" he repeated reminiscently. Several yanks were required to hoist the horse into a position appropriate to locomotion, and when action was achieved the animal started as if walking on eggs. Sullivan and Ralston took Miss Davenport in her black overcoat between them. Ralston could not tell whether the sky above was white or blue.

Slowly they dragged out into Barrow Street and turned into Green Street. Once or twice they passed a lonely pedestrian or a stray policeman. Soon they saw the lights of the elevated structure at Jefferson Market and caught the moving windows of the trains. A line of truck wagons was moving slowly southward, the drivers sleeping, unmindful of their route. Milk wagons jangling from Hudson Avenue added a livelier note. There was a smell of morning everywhere.

Suddenly Ralston knew he saw white and not blue above the housetops. The thought filled him with a nervous anxiety to lose no time, and he pushed up the manhole and ordered the cabby to make haste.

"What do you think I am--a bloomin' steamboat?" inquired the cabby in sleepy wrath.

They wheeled into Sixth Avenue and Ralston noticed that the surface cars which passed already had some passengers. Men were standing in twos and threes upon the street corners. Most of them were smoking clay pipes. He wondered what manner of men went to work at this hour. They passed Fourteenth Street and found many persons walking westward--at nightfall they would plod back. It was a long, long way to go to work. No one had spoken in the cab as yet.

"Funny how small the city seems at night," said the girl.

Although there was a germ of psychological truth in the remark, Ralston could think of nothing in reply. He had often noticed the same phenomenon. Of an afternoon, with Fifth Avenue crowded to the curbs, the distance from his club to Forty-second Street appeared immense. By night it seemed no more than a block or two. Now, as they rode northward in the graying light, the distances which his mental cyclometer ticked off seemed small and their pace inordinately slow.

Sullivan had maintained a consistent silence. The Masterson affair had effectually put a quietus upon his belligerency. Ralston was overwhelmed with sleep. There was a weight behind each of his eyeballs that seemed forcing them downward and outward, and the humming in the back of his head had returned. A faint odor of violets and rice powder emanated from the overcoat beside him. Now and again the small head, with its piles of brown hair and old slouch hat, would begin to incline gradually and gently in his direction, only to be raised again when the brim of the hat touched his shoulder. He leaned his own head in the corner and closed his eyes.

Instantly a heavy curtain, warm, fragrant, deliciously soothing, seemed drawn over him. He found himself talking to Ellen in Miss Evarts's drawing-room. He felt again the elation of his appointment, the gratefulness of appreciation. The man was painting in his name on the blackboard--the man in the yellow-and-black sweater, and he heard the crowd spelling it out and repeating it. Once again he experienced the thrill it had occasioned him the night before. He realized anew the extent to which his selection had brought him into the public eye--the influence which the success or failure of his appointment would have upon the Administration.

The President had been already severely criticised for giving important places to comparatively young and untried men--men of the silk-stocking class--and the President had but a doubtful hold upon the people. Several canards had been started which, in the face of recent socialistic propaganda, had made considerable headway. The yellow journals were denouncing the war as imperialistic, as an excuse for an ambitious executive to play the part of a Cæsar or a Napoleon. They charged that he was surrounding himself with the rich and powerful, and their sons. He was contrasted with Lincoln and Jefferson. In a word, the Administration was in a ticklish position.

Then upon Ralston's wearied brain flashed the picture of his meeting with Colonel Duer; the tawdry, tarnished environment of his search for the worthless Steadman; his arrival at "The Martin" at two in the morning; his open solicitation of a woman's acquaintance, and the consequent free fight in which, so far as the onlookers knew, he might have killed her companion; then, and most unpleasant of all, his flight, bearing away his victim with him. How could he explain _that_? Why, the thing must have been wired to every morning paper in the country. He could see the headlines:

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY KILLS MAN

FIGHT AROSE OVER WOMAN IN RESTAURANT

A NEW SCANDAL FOR THE PRESIDENT TO HUSH UP

He shuddered at the thought of it. If he gave himself up and declared that he had struck in self-defense, how could he explain having dashed away with the woman in a hansom? Where had he gone? _Why_ had he gone there? His lips were sealed. He _could_ make no statement without publicly avowing the whole object of his night's work--the necessity for finding Steadman, and Steadman's relations with Ellen. He saw column after column of interviews with himself, real and imaginary. The most sacred passages of Ellen's life would be made public property, dressed up to suit the editor's fancy, and sold on the corner for a penny.

The possibility sickened him. There was nothing to be done but to resign and go away. In that way only could the Administration be relieved from a most embarrassing situation, and by no other means could Ellen be saved from the humiliation incident to a truthful explanation of the affair. Then, too, he must continue his search. He could not give it up now. He must find Steadman, even while a fugitive from justice himself. He _would_ find him.

He opened his eyes. They were still following Sixth Avenue beneath the elevated tracks. It had grown brighter. Sullivan had lighted a cigar. Ralston found himself trembling with excitement. A sweat had broken out all over him. Across the way, on the opposite corner, he saw the lights of a telegraph office, and he raised the manhole and told the cabby to stop.

"What's up?" inquired Sullivan, removing his cigar.

"I've got to send a telegram," said Ralston unsteadily.

Sullivan looked at him with suspicion.

"You ain't givin' me the double cross, eh?"

"I give you my word I'm not," replied Ralston. "It's only a matter of private business."

"Guess it can wait, can't it?"

Ralston smiled in spite of himself. He wished he could tell Sullivan the purport of this telegram which gave him so much anxiety. Simultaneously it occurred to him that it was undesirable to leave the cab even for a moment Sullivan might take it into his head to disappear.

"Oh, well," he retorted, "it doesn't entirely suit my book to allow you a chance to side-step me either, so we'll settle it by letting Miss Davenport send the wire for me. In that way we can each continue in the other's company. Much more agreeable, of course. Miss Davenport, may I ask you to get me a blank from inside?"

The girl sprang down and quickly returned with a sheaf of blanks and a pencil. Ralston scribbled on his knee a hasty message:

To the President, White House, Washington. Am forced, after all, to decline appointment. See morning papers. Am writing fully.

RALSTON.

He handed her half a dollar and she reëntered the office.

Now Miss Davenport was a young person wise in her generation. She had seen many men in many situations, and she realized that the man who had handed her this particular telegram was in a condition bordering on collapse. Had she seen fit to use a sporting term she would have said that Ralston was "groggy" with nervousness and excitement. In addition she was not devoid of the usual amount of feminine curiosity. At any rate, her first move was to read the telegram.

"He's crazy!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Why, he doesn't even know whether they got his name! And Jim's all right." She turned the message over in her hand.

"I guess that telegram _can_ wait. There won't be anything in the papers. The presses are locked at one o'clock."

"Say," she remarked to the sleepy operator, "what's the rate to Washington, D. C.?"

"Twenty-five for ten words, and two cents a word over."

"Change that for me, will you? Let me have some coppers?"

The man fished out the small change and went back to his accounts.

Miss Davenport slipped the paper into her pocket and returned to the cab.

"Nineteen cents change," she said, handing it to Ralston.

"Where to?" asked the cabby mechanically.

"West Forty-fifth Street," said Sullivan.

They started on. The street lamps were fast paling beneath the dawn. At Thirty-third Street and Broadway a newsboy was hopping on the cars and shouting his items. A strange thrill of determination had seized Ralston. The die was cast now. There was nothing more to consider.

"Here's your _Morning Journal_!" cried the boy as the cab swung by. "New Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Twelfth Regiment starts with a full quota of officers!" He waved his sheets at them.

Inside the cab Ralston set his teeth.

"I'll make it a full quota!" he muttered.

They turned down Thirty-third Street into Fifth Avenue.

"Look here," said Sullivan suddenly, "all I do is to show him to you, see? Understand, I don't get into no mix-up myself! My job ends when I give you the pass."

"All right," said Ralston. "Just show him to me. That's all I ask."

"All right," repeated Sullivan.

They passed Forty-second Street and turned into Forty-fifth, just as the lights in the crosstown cars had been put out.

VIII

The house before which they stopped was an old-fashioned brownstone front. A brownstone flight of steps with a heavy brownstone balustrade and huge, carved newel post of the same depressing material led to a pair of ponderous stained doors tight shut with the air of finality possible only to a brownstone side street. The shades on the four rows of windows of this impenetrable mansion were smoothly drawn. At the grated window in the area the lower half of a bird cage, just visible beneath the screen, was the only indication of occupancy. The whole aspect of the place was that of somnolent respectability. One could imagine the door being swung wide, the rug shaken, the broom making a fictitious passage through the vestibule, the curtains going up unevenly in the front parlor, the shades raised in the area, the canary thrilling in response to the shaking of the kitchen range, and _Paterfamilias_ coming down the steps at about eight twenty-five in a square Derby hat, to go to his real estate office. This is what occurs at four homes out of five in this locality every morning from the first day of October to the first day of July.

But no eye within the last ten years had beheld a shade raised in this particular establishment. The census taker had never entered its doors. No woman had ever passed its threshold. No child had ever played within its halls. Once a year a load of wines was deposited there and once a month a grocer's wagon paused outside. The coal was put in during the summer--forty tons, C. O. D. and five per cent off. The milkman was the only matutinal visitor, and the milkman left his wares upon the flagging of the servants' entrance. At eleven o'clock a colored man emerged from the area and departed in the direction of Sixth Avenue with a basket upon his arm. In half an hour he returned. This was the chief occurrence of the day. At seven in the evening two hansom cabs drew up before the door to allow four men to enter the house--also by the area. That was all, except that the ice wagon stopped daily, but the colored man took the ice off the hooks at the door.

The visitors at the house arrived in cabs between the hours of eight and twelve P.M., and departed between the latter hour and five in the morning. There are forty similar _ménages_ north of Thirty-third Street and east of Long Acre Square.

"He's in here," said Sullivan. "But I ain't goin' inside."

"You're not, eh?" remarked Ralston. "Very well, we stay here together then until he comes out--and then you go down to headquarters with _me_."

"Look here, Sackett," whined Sullivan, "how can I go in? They'd see me and know I'd sold 'em out. I can't do it. It would finish me. Don't be unreasonable."

"Well, how do I know he's here?" asked Ralston. "Don't be unreasonable yourself."

"Well, I _know_ he's here," said Sullivan. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll go into the hall, and when you're satisfied I ain't givin' you the double-cross, I'll slip out. Suppose I showed you Steadman, that would satisfy you, wouldn't it?"

"It certainly would," said Ralston.

Sullivan looked up and down the street and then clambered out in a disjointed and rheumatic fashion.

"I'm sorry, Miss Davenport, I can't let you have the cab," said Ralston. "I shall need it--I hope."

Sullivan was on the sidewalk, looking at the house.

The girl suddenly seized Ralston's hand.

"Mr. Ralston," she said, "be careful while you are in that house. Don't mention a word of what I've told you about Sullivan. They're a reckless lot. Watch yourself and them. Play it easy, and good luck to you. Some time, I hope, I'll see you again."

Ralston pressed her hand.

He climbed down.

"Where to?" mumbled the cabby.

"Stay right _here_ until I come out--if it's six hours!" directed Ralston.

The dawn was flushing the chocolate-colored fronts before them and a milk wagon was working gradually down the block. Ralston felt weak in the knees, but he pounded his feet on the pavement and stepped quickly after Sullivan, who had started up the steps.

"I needn't warn you that there must be no funny business, Sullivan," said Ralston, as the other fumbled in his trousers pocket. "Our bargain holds. Your life for mine and Steadman's."

"You needn't worry," replied Sullivan. "Homicide isn't in our business. I wish I could turn Steadman over to you bound hand and foot, but I can't. You've got _him_ to deal with. The rest is easy. The gang's pretty near through with him. But you've got to handle _him_ yourself."

Sullivan inserted the key and turned the handle of the door, which swung open as if on greased hinges.

As Ralston crossed the threshold it occurred to him forcibly that although the house in which he now stood was not over three blocks from his lodgings, and that his round-the-clock chase had brought him, like a man lost in the woods, back almost to his starting point, the fact that he had actually struck Steadman's trail at all, to say nothing of having run him to earth, was in itself no less than a miracle. Fate had certainly favored him upon the one hand, if it had dashed his hopes upon the other. He was the same Ralston that had jumped into the same cab just around the corner some seven hours before, but in that short passage of time the current of his existence had gone swirling off in an entirely unexpected direction. The hopes and ambitions of the evening had faded to fair dreams lingering on after a disappointing awakening. Apart from his utter exhaustion a pall had fallen upon his spirit--he had become undervitalized physically and psychically. He did not care what might happen before he regained the street, and he knew that almost anything might happen. The gamblers had been in an ugly mood for a long time. Yet he knew that his hold on Sullivan, fictitious as it was, was for the time being a sure one. Moreover, the experiences of the night had not lessened his confidence in his capacity to handle any new situation as it might arise.

Sullivan now addressed himself to the inner door, which opened as easily as its predecessor, and an old-fashioned hall disclosed itself before them. On the right a pair of heavy _portières_ concealed the entrance to what was, or at least some time had been, the drawing-room. The usual steep flight of carpeted walnut stairs ascended to the usual narrow hallway on the second floor. A massive walnut hatrack supported a huge mirror and a collection of Inverness coats and tall hats. A bronze gas chandelier burned brightly, and a colored man lay extended at full length upon the floor with his head resting upon the bottom stair. The air was close and heavy and filled with the thin blue smoke of distant cigars. Apart from the audible repose of the negro the house was as silent as a New England Sabbath morning.

Sullivan strode toward the recumbent figure upon the floor and administered a stout kick, at which the sleeper suddenly raised his head and drew up his knees.

"Here you, Marcus, wake up!" growled Sullivan. "Where's Mr. Farrer?"

The negro rubbed his eyes and gazed stupidly at the two figures before him without replying.

"Where's Mr. Farrer?" repeated Sullivan.

Marcus pointed over his shoulders and up the stairs.

"He's in de back room, boss."

"Who's up there?"

"Jes' a single game--five gen'lemen."

"How long they been playin'?"

"Couple days, Ah reckon."

"How long have you been asleep?"

"Couple days, Ah reckon, boss," repeated Marcus.

"Is Mr. Steadman up there?"

"He de gen'leman they calls Mr. X?" asked Marcus with more interest.

"I think so," answered Sullivan.

"Yes, sir, he's up dere. Say, boss, what day is this?" asked Marcus. "Sunday, ain't it? We began playin' Satudy, but Ah reckon Ah done got 'fused 'bout de time."

But Sullivan did not reply. Instead he turned to Ralston and said:

"Look here, I don't see any way out of my having to introduce you to the game. After I've done that you'll have to manage the thing for yourself."

He started laboriously upstairs. Marcus returned to his previous picture of elegant repose. At the top of the first flight they turned and, passing along the hall, ascended another. The smoke grew thicker as they progressed. The only light came from the gas brackets, for the skylight over the wall was draped with a sheet of black cloth. At the top of the second flight Ralston caught the faint click of chips.

"It's up to you," said Sullivan, "if you want to go in."

"I'll take the responsibility," answered Ralston, but his heart began to beat faster, a phenomenon he attributed to the fact that there was no elevator.

At the top of the last flight they paused. The sound of chips and low voices came distinctly from beneath the door of the room in the back. Then followed a pause, during which some one cursed his luck loudly.

Sullivan pushed open the door and Ralston entered at his elbow. At first he could see nothing, owing to the thick haze that hung like a cloud throughout the room. Then he made out the figures of five men in their shirt-sleeves seated at a medium-sized table. These started to their feet at the interruption, and one of them, larger than the others, cried out:

"What do you want?"

"It's only me--little, tiny me," said Sullivan with a laugh. "I've brought a new come-on that thinks he knows the game. Can you let him sit in?"

Ralston was watching Sullivan narrowly for the first sign of betrayal, but it was clear that Sullivan was living up to his bargain.

A drawling voice came from the table. "Five's the gambler's game--we're nearly through, anyhow."

The tall man hesitated.

"We're nearly through, as Mr. X says," he remarked, not impolitely. "It's quite late. Of course, if you're a friend of Sullivan's----"

"Oh, let me take a stack. I've made a night of it and I want to get my bait back. I guess I've still got the price," said Ralston. He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket.