CHAPTER XXII

STARTLING TRANSFORMATIONS

Some twenty blocks from the shack, in a south-westerly direction, well out of the city's business section, and just off a broad boulevard, there was a club. This was a very unusual club. Entrance was by card. The man at the door was old and very wise. He had lived in Sicily in the days of the Mafia.

The place went by the name of the "Seventy Club." It is not certainly known what the "seventy" stood for. There are those who said it was the club of seventy thieves. Others insisted that there were more than seventy members and that not all were thieves. Be that as it may, the police held no cards of admission, and were granted entrance only when accompanied by search warrants.

On several occasions the police had entered. Always they had found no cause for complaint. At the front of the place was a lobby and reading room; at the back, pool tables and other tables for card playing. In the center was a grill, where excellent food was served.

Men, for the most part of dark complexion, shot pool and shuffled cards at the back. They dined, often with ladies, in the grill and went to smoke in the lobby.

The manager, a short, broad-shouldered man, with deep set, gleaming eyes, presided at a desk near the door and scrutinized all comers.

To this man, on the very night of which we are speaking, there came a youth. This youth was dressed in a suit of modest gray. He wore a dark tie, a gray shirt and black shoes. He was dark complexioned with dark eyes and close cropped hair. He was very slender of build. His fingers were extremely long; his feet small.

In his hand this boy bore a card. In one corner of the card was a secret number done in red ink. Truth is, everyone who entered here possessed such a card, marked in just this manner. Without the card, they did not enter.

The manager questioned the boy in his native tongue, studying him the while. The boy replied politely in the same tongue.

The manager scribbled a note, gave it to him, then nodded toward the door at the back of the lobby.

The boy went back. Half an hour later he might have been found dressed in a dark brown suit trimmed in gold braid, clearing dishes from the tables in the grill. He had been given a position as bus boy.

The building in which the club was located rose only a single story from the ground. Did it have a basement? To all appearances it did not. The heating plant was situated back of the billiard room. There were no outside entrances to the place save the one at the front. There were no stairways leading down.

The grillroom possessed one slightly unusual feature. Six telephone booths, standing in a row, occupied one corner of the large grillroom. One would have said that one, or at most two booths, would have sufficed for such a place. But no; here were six. And, if one judged by the number of people who entered the booths, one might have said there were not too many, for people were constantly entering and leaving them.

Two things were strange about these booths. They were not constructed as other booths are. True, they were just as broad and just as tall; but they contained far less glass. The windows were narrow and high. In fact, once a person was inside and had closed the door, nothing at all could be seen of him.

This, one would say, was an improvement, for who wishes to be seen grinning and gesturing at a telephone, as one is forever doing?

The other feature was far more startling. It was a thing you might not notice until you had dined there many times. Did the new bus boy take cognizance of it on that first night of service?

If one were to hazard a guess one would answer, "He probably did." That guess, however, might easily be wrong; for, during the entire evening the boy rendered faultless service. He did not drop a dish, spill a glass of water, nor do any of those things one is so likely to do when startled.

The peculiarity of these six booths was that they did not always disgorge the identical persons who had entered them.

Now such a thing will seem strange under any circumstances. If a short dark man dressed in brown enters a telephone booth, and three minutes later a short blonde man in gray comes out, it might seem a curious circumstance. But when a short, broad, dark complexioned man in a blue suit enters and, after five minutes, a tall blonde lady in a pearl gray dress emerges, it is enough to cause the most phlegmatic person to stare.

As for the guests, they paid not the slightest attention to the succession of transformations that were being made in these booths. They went right on laughing and talking, drinking coffee and munching salad, just as if nothing unusual was happening in the world.