Chapter 11

"Uh-huh," agreed the detective sourly, "I guess that's a hot one, too." He scowled blackly in Maitland's amazed face and seemed abruptly to swell with mysterious rage. "My name's Hickey," he informed him venomously, "and don't yeh lose sight of that after this. It's somethin' it won't hurt yeh to remember. Guess yer mem'ry's taking a vacation, huh?"

"My dear man," said Maitland, "you speak in parables and--if you'll pardon my noticing it--with some uncalled-for spleen. Might I suggest that you moderate your tone? For," he continued, facing the man squarely, "if you don't, it will be my duty and pleasure to hoist you into the street."

"I got a photergrapht of yeh doing it," growled Hickey. "Still, seeing as yeh never saw me before, I guess it won't do no harm for yeh to connect with this." And he turned back his coat, uncovering the official shield of the detective bureau.

"Ah!" commented Maitland politely. "A detective? How interesting!"

"Fire-escape winder's broke, all right." This was the policeman, returned. "And some one's let down the bottom length of ladder, but there ain't nobody in sight."

"No," interjected Hickey, "'nd there wouldn't 've been if you'd been waitin' in the back yard all night."

"Certainly not," Maitland agreed blandly; "especially if my burglar had known it. In which case I fancy he would have chosen another route--by the roof, possibly."

"Yeh know somethin' about roofs yehself, donchuh?" suggested Hickey. "Well, I guess yeh'll have time to write a book about it while yeh--"

He stepped unexpectedly to Maitland's side and bent forward. Something cold and hard closed with a snap around each of the young man's wrists. He started up, face aflame with indignation, forgetful of the girl hidden in the alcove.

"What the devil!" he cried hotly, jingling the handcuffs.

"Ah, come off," Hickey advised him. "Yeh can't bluff it for ever, you know. Come along and tell the sarge all about it, Daniel Maitland, _Es_-quire, _alias_ Handsome Dan Anisty, gentleman burglar.... Ah, cut that out, young fellow; yeh'll find this ain't no laughin' matter. Yeh're foxy, all right, but yeh've pushed yer run of luck too hard."

Hickey paused, perplexed, finding no words wherewith adequately to voice the disgust aroused in him by his prisoner's demeanor, something far from seemly, to his mind.

The humor of the situation had just dawned upon Maitland, and the young man was crimson with appreciation.

"Go on, go on!" he begged feebly. "Don't let _me_ stop you, Hickey. Don't, please, let me spoil it all.... Your Sherlock Holmes, Hickey, is one of the finest characterizations I have ever witnessed. It is a privilege not to be underestimated to be permitted to play Raffles to you.... But seriously, my dear sleuth!" with an unhappy attempt to wipe his eyes with hampered fists, "don't you think you're wasting your talents?"

By this time even the policeman seemed doubtful. He glanced askance at the detective and shuffled uneasily. As for the cabby, who had blustered in at first with intent to demand his due in no uncertain terms, apparently Maitland's bearing, coupled with the inherent contempt and hatred of the nighthawk tribe for the minions of the law, had won his sympathies completely. Lounging against a door-jamb, quite at home, he genially puffed an unspeakable cigarette and nodded approbation of Maitland's every other word.

But Hickey--Hickey bristled belligerently.

"Fine," he declared acidly; "fine and dandy. I take off my hat to yeh, Dan Anisty. I may be a bad actor, all right, but yeh got me beat at the post."

Then turning to the policeman, "I got him right. Look here!" Drawing a folded newspaper from his pocket, he spread it open for the officer's inspection. "Yeh see them pictures? Now, on the level, is it _natural_?"

The patrolman frowned doubtfully, glancing from the paper to Maitland. The cabby stretched a curious neck. Maitland groaned inwardly; he had seen that infamous sheet.

"Now listen," the detective expounded with gusto. "Twice to-day this here Maitland, or Anisty, meets me. Once on the stoop here, 'nd he's Maitland 'nd takes me to lunch--see? Next time it's in Harlem, where I've been sent with a hot tip from the C'mmiss'ner's office to find Anisty, 'nd he's still Maitland 'nd surprised to see me. I ain't sure then, but I'm doin' some heavy thinkin', all right. I lets him go and shadows him. After a while he gives me the slip 'nd I chases down here, waitin' for him to turn up. Coming down on the car I buys this paper 'nd sees the pictures, and then I'm _on_. See?"

"Uh-huh," grunted the patrolman, scowling at Maitland. The cabby caressed his nose with a soiled forefinger reflectively, plainly a bit prejudiced by Hickey's exposition.

"One minute," Maitland interjected, eyes twinkling and lips twitching. "How long ago was it that you began to watch this house, sleuth?"

"Five minutes before yeh come home," responded Hickey, ignoring the insult. "Now--"

"Took you a long time to figure this out, didn't it? But go on, please."

"Well, I picked the winner, all right," flared the detective. "I guess that'll be about all for yours."

"Not quite," Maitland contradicted brusquely, wearying of the complication. "You say you met me on the stoop here. At what o'clock?"

"One; 'nd yeh takes me to lunch at Eugene's."

"Ah! When did I leave you?"

"I leaves yeh there at two."

"Well, O'Hagan will testify that he left me in these rooms, in dressing-gown and slippers at about one. At four he found me on this divan, bound and gagged, by courtesy of your friend, Mr. Anisty. Now, when was I with you in Harlem?"

"At seven o'clock, to the minute, yeh comes--"

"Never mind. At ten minutes to seven I took a cab from here to the Primordial Club, where I dined at seven precisely."

"And what's more," interposed the cabman eagerly, "I took yer there, sir."

"Thank you. Furthermore, sleuth, you say that you followed me around town from seven o'clock until--when?"

"I said--" stammered the plain-clothes man, purple with confusion.

"No matter. I didn't leave the Primordial until a quarter to eleven. But all this aside, as I understand it, you are asserting that, having given you all this trouble to-day, and knowing that you were after me, I deliberately hopped into a cab fifteen minutes ago, came up Fifth Avenue at such breakneck speed that this officer thought it was a runaway, and finally jumped out and ran up-stairs here to fire a revolver three times, for no purpose whatsoever beyond bringing you gentlemen about my ears?"

Hickey's jaw sagged. The cabby ostentatiously covered his mouth with a huge red paw and made choking noises.

"Pass it up, sarge, pass it up," he whispered hoarsely.

"Shut yer trap," snapped the detective. "I know what I'm doin'. This crook's clever all right, but I got the kibosh on him this time. Lemme alone." He squared his shoulders, blustering to save his face. "I don't know why yeh done it----"

"Then I'll tell you," Maitland cut in crisply. "If you'll be good enough to listen." And concisely narrated the events of the past twenty-four hours, beginning at the moment when he had discovered Anisty in Maitland Manor. Save that he substituted himself for the man who had escaped from Higgins and eliminated all mention of the grey girl, his statement was exact and convincing. As he came down to the moment when he had called up from the Bartholdi and heard mysterious sounds in his flat, substantiating his story by indicating the receiver that dangled useless from the telephone, even Hickey was staggered.

But not beaten. When Maitland ceased speaking the detective smiled superiority to such invention.

"Very pretty," he conceded. "Yeh c'n tell it all to the magistrate to-morrow morning. Meantime yeh'll have time to think up a yarn explainin' how it come that a crook like Anisty made three attempts in one day to steal some jewels, 'nd didn't get 'em. Where were they all this time?"

"In safe-keeping," Maitland lied manfully, with a furtive glance toward the alcove.

"Whose?" pursued Mr. Hickey truculently.

"Mine," with equanimity. "Seriously--_sleuth!_--are you trying to make a charge against me of stealing my own property?"

"Yeh done it for a blind. 'Nd that's enough. Officer, take this man to the station; I'll make the complaint."

The policeman hesitated, and at this juncture O'Hagan put in an appearance, lugging a heavy brown-paper bundle.

"Beg pardon, Misther Maitland, sor----?"

"Well, O'Hagan?"

"The crowd at the dure, sor, is dishpersed," the janitor reported. "A couple av cops kem along an' fanned 'em. They're askin' fer the two av yees," with a careless nod to the policeman and detective.

"Yeh heard what I said," Hickey answered the officer's look.

"I'm thinkin'," O'Hagan pursued, calmly ignoring the presence of the outsiders, "thot these do be the soot that domned thafe av the worruld stole off ye the day, sor. A la-ad brought ut at ayeleven o'clock, sor, wid particular rayquist thot ut be daylivered to ye at once. The paper's tore, an'----"

"O'Hagan," Maitland ordered sharply, "undo that parcel. I think I can satisfy you now, sleuth. What kind of a suit did your luncheon acquaintance wear?"

"Grey," conceded Hickey reluctantly.

"An' here ut is," O'Hagan announced, arraying the clothing upon a chair. "Iv'ry domn' thing, aven down to the socks.... And a note for ye, sor."

As he shook out the folds of the coat a square white envelope dropped to the floor; the janitor retrieved and offered it to his employer.

"Give it to the sleuth," nodded Maitland.

Scowling, Hickey withdrew the inclosure--barely glancing at the superscription.

"'Dear Mr. Maitland,'" he read aloud; "'As you will probably surmise, my motive in thus restoring to you a portion of your property is not altogether uninfluenced by personal and selfish considerations. In brief, I wish to discover whether or not you are to be at home to-night. If not, I shall take pleasure in calling; if the contrary, I shall feel that in justice to myself I must forego the pleasure of improving an acquaintance begun under auspices so unfavorable. In either case, permit me to thank you for the use of your wardrobe,--which, quaintly enough, has outlived its usefulness to me: a fat-headed detective named Hickey will tell you why,--and to extend to you expression of my highest consideration. Believe me, I am enviously yours, Daniel Anisty'--Signed," added Hickey mechanically, his face working.

"Satisfied, Sleuth?"

By way of reply, but ungraciously, the detective stepped forward and unlocked the handcuffs.

Maitland stood erect, smiling. "Thank you very much, sleuth. I shan't forget you ... O'Hagan," Tossing the janitor the keys from his desk, "you'll find some--ah--lemon-pop and root-beer in the buffet, this officer and his friends will no doubt join you in a friendly drink downstairs. Cabby, I want a word with you.... Good morning, gentlemen, _Good Morning,_ sleuth."

And he showed them the door. "I shall be at your service officer," he called over the janitor's shoulder, "at any time to-morrow morning. If not here, O'Hagan will tell you where to find me. And, O'Hagan!" The Janitor fell back. "Keep them at least an hour," Maitland told him guardedly, "and say nothing."

The Irishman pledged his discretion by a silent look. Maitland turned back to the cabby.

"You did me a good turn, just now," he began.

"Don't mention it, sir; I've carried you hoften before this evenin', and--excuse my sayin' so--I never _'ad_ a fare as tipped 'andsomer. It's a real pleasure, sir, to be of service."

"Thank you," returned Maitland, eying him in speculative wise. "I wonder--"

The man was a rough, burly Englishman of one of the most intelligent, if not intellectual, kind; the British cabby, as a type, has few superiors for sheer quickness of wit and understanding. This man had been sharpened and tempered by his contact with American conditions. His eyes were shrewd, his face honest if weather-beaten, his attitude respectful.

"I've another use for you to-night," Maitland decided, "if you are at liberty and--discreet?" The final word was a question, flung over his shoulder as he turned toward the escritoire.

"Yes, sir," said the man thoughtfully. "I allus can drive, sir, even when I'm drinkin' 'ardest and can't see nothink."

"Yes? You've been drinking to-night?" Maitland smiled quietly, standing at the small writing-desk and extracting a roll of bills from a concealed drawer.

"I'm fair blind, sir."

"Very well." Maitland turned and extended his hand, and despite his professed affliction, the cabby's eyes bulged as he appreciated the size of the bill.

"My worrd!" he gasped, stowing it away in the cavernous depths of a trousers pocket.

"You will wait outside," said Maitland, "until I come out or--or send somebody for you to take wherever directed. Oh, that's all right--not another word!"

The door closed behind the overwhelmed nighthawk, and the latch clicked loudly. For a space Maitland stood in the hallway, troubled, apprehensive, heart strangely oppressed, vision clouded by the memory of the girl as he had seen her only a few minutes since: as she had stood beneath the chandelier, after acting upon her primary clear-headed impulse to give her rescuer the aid of the light.

He seemed to recall very clearly her slight figure, swaying, a-quiver with fright and solicitude,--care for him!--her face, sensitive and sweet beneath its ruddy crown of hair, that of a child waking from evil dreams, her eyes seeking his with their dumb message of appeal and of.... He dared not name what else.

Forlorn, pitiful, little figure! Odd it seemed that he should fear to face her again, alone, that he should linger reluctant to cross the threshold of his study, mistrustful and afraid alike of himself and of her--a thief.

For what should he say to her, other than the words that voiced the hunger of his heart? Yet if he spoke ... words such as those to--to a thief ... what would be the end of it all?

What did it matter? Surely he, who knew the world wherein he lived and moved and had his being, knew bitter well the worth of its verdicts. The world might go hang, for all he cared. At least his life was his own, whether to make or to mar, and he had not to answer for it to any power this side of the gates of darkness. And if by any act of his the world should be given a man and a woman in exchange for a thief and an idler, perhaps in the final reckoning his life might not be accounted altogether wasted....

He set back his shoulders and inspired deeply, eyes lightening; and stepped into the study, resolved. "Miss--" he called huskily; and stopped, reminded that not yet did he even know her name.

"It is safe now," he amended, more clearly and steadily, "to come out, if you will."

He heard no response. The long gleaming folds of the portières hung motionless. Still, a sharp and staccato clatter of hoofs that had risen in the street, might have drowned her voice.

"If you please--?" he said again, loudly.

The silence sang sibilant in his ears; and he grew conscious of a sense of anxiety and fear stifling in its intensity.

At length, striding forward, with a swift gesture he flung the hangings aside.

XII

ON RECONSIDERATION

Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.

He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move the temperate soul.

"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."

And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.

The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow. Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very violent exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again he saw fit to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled bandana with grim abandon.

At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh profoundly--not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress, but the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has drunk deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.

Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire, unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking," transfers; or--yet a third possibility--with the prevailing rate of wage as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one hand, and Jamaica, Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the other.

A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside, entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that illicit hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose sloppy imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were set about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of sleepy-eyed, case-hardened habitués.

Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George.... Nah," in response to a concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."

Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chairback, another on the table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar, puffy hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by the side of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his mind the one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.

"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself.... He's wise enough.... Yeh can't fool Hickey all the time.... I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r it's the sidewalks f'r mine.... Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest livin'.... 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"

The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment of engraved arabesques.

"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for mine. 'Nd _he_ had a wad like a ham ... _on_ him.... 'Nd I might've had it all for my very own if...." His brow clouded blackly.

"_Sleuth!_" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth. And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"

Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and, rising, waddled hastily out into the night.

It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to save his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.

"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but ... I'll _get_ him all right."

And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings, squat, swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the Tenderloin; and so on toward Maitland's rooms--morose, misunderstood, malignant, coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical of the force he represented.

On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his dour mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully familiar to his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he took to be the beginning of a street brawl.

XIII

FLIGHT

In the alcove the girl waited, torn in the throes of incipient hysteria: at first too weak from reaction and revulsion of feeling to do anything other than lean heavily against the wall and fight with all her strength and will against this crawling, shuddering, creeping horror of nerves, that threatened alike her self-control, her consciousness, and her reason.

But insensibly the tremor wore itself away, leaving her weary and worn but mistress of her thoughts and actions. And she dropped with gratitude into a chair, bending an ear attentive to the war of words being waged in the room beyond the portières.

At first, however, she failed to grasp the import of the altercation. And when in time she understood its trend, it was with incredulity, resentment, and a dawning dread lest a worse thing might yet befall her, worse by far than aught that had gone before. But to be deprived of his protection, to feel herself forcibly restrained from the shelter of his generous care--!

A moment gone she had been so sure that all would now be well with her, once Maitland succeeded in ridding himself of the police. He would shut that door and----and then she would come forth and tell him, tell him everything, and, withholding naught that damned her in her own esteem, throw herself upon his mercy, bruised with penitence but serene in the assurance that he would prove kind.

She had such faith in his tender and gentle kindness now.... She had divined so clearly the motive that had permitted Anisty's escape in order that she might be saved, not alone from Anisty, not alone from the shame of imprisonment, but from herself as well--from herself as Maitland knew her. The burglar out of the way, by ruse, evasion, or subterfuge she would be secreted from the prying of the police, smuggled out of the house and taken to a place of safety, given a new chance to redeem herself, to clean her hands of the mire of theft, to become worthy of the womanhood that was hers....

But now--she thrust finger-nails cruelly into her soft palms, striving to contain herself and keep her tongue from crying aloud to those three brutal, blind men the truth: that she was guilty of the robbery, she with Anisty; that Maitland was--Maitland: a word synonymous with "man of honor."

In the beginning, indeed, all that restrained her from doing so was her knowledge that Maitland would be more pained by her sacrifice than gladdened or relieved. He was so sure of clearing himself.... It was inconceivable to her that there could be men so stupid and crassly unobservant as to be able to confuse the identity of the two men for a single instant. What though they did resemble each other in form and feature? The likeness went no deeper: below the surface, and rising through it with every word and look and gesture, lay a world-wide gulf of difference in every shade of thought, feeling, and instinct.

She herself could never again be deceived--no, never! Not for a second could she mistake the one for the other.... What were they saying?

The turmoil of her indignation subsided as she listened, breathlessly, to Maitland's story of his adventures; and the joy that leaped in her for his frank mendacity in suppressing every incident that involved her, was all but overpowering. She could have wept for sheer happiness; and at a later time she would; but not now, when everything depended on her maintaining the very silence of death.