Chapter 12

How dared they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of them! Her anger raged high again ... and as swiftly was quenched, extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare suggestion thrown out by Hickey.

"... _explainin' how a crook like Anisty made three tries in one day to steal some jewels and didn't get 'em. Where were they, all this time?_"

Maitland's cool retort was lost upon her. What matter? If they disbelieved him, persisted in calling him Anisty, in natural course they would undertake to search the flat. And if she were found.... Oh, she must spare him that! She had given him cause for suffering enough. She must get away, and that instantly, before.... From a distance, to-morrow morning,--to-night, even,--by telegraph, she could communicate with him.

At this juncture O'Hagan entered with his parcel. The rustle of the paper as he brushed against the door-jamb was in itself a hint to a mind keyed to the highest pitch of excitement and seeking a way of escape from a position conceived to be perilous. In a trice the girl had turned and sped, lightfooted, to the door opening on the private hall.

Here, halting for a brief reconnaissance, she determined that her plan was feasible, if hazardous. She ran the risk of encountering some one ascending the stairs from the ground floor; but if she were cautious and quick she could turn back in time. On the other hand, the men whom she most feared were thoroughly occupied with their differences, dead to all save that which was happening within the room's four walls. A curtain hung perhaps a third of the way across the study door, tempering the light in the hall; and the broad shoulders of the cabby obstructed the remainder of the opening.

It was a chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and--the rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity to escape, by drowning the noise of her movements.

For two eternal seconds she was edging stealthily down toward the outer door; then, in no time at all, found herself on the landing and--confronted by a fresh complication, one unforeseen: how to leave the house without being observed, stopped, and perhaps detained until too late? There would be men at the door, beyond doubt; possibly police, stationed there to arrest all persons attempting to leave....

No time for weighing chances. The choice of two alternatives lay before her: either to return to the alcove or to seek safety in the darkness of the upper floors--untenanted, as she had been at pains to determine. The latter seemed by far the better, the less dangerous, course to pursue. And at once she took it.

There was no light on the first-floor landing--it having presumably been extinguished by the janitor early in the evening. Only a feeble twilight obtained there, in part a reflected glow from the entrance hall, partly thin and diffused rays escaping from Maitland's study. So it was that the first few steps upward took the girl into darkness so close and unrelieved as to seem almost palpable.

At the turn of the staircase she paused, holding the rail and resting for an instant, the while she listened, ere ascending at a more sedate pace to a haven of safety more complete in that it would be more remote from the battle-ground below.

And, resting so, was suddenly chilled through and through with fear, sheer childish dread of the intangible and unknown terrors that lurked in the blackness above her. It was as if, rendered supersensitive by strain and excitement, the quivering filaments of her subconsciousness, like spiritual tentacles feeling ahead of her, had encountered and recoiled from a shape of evil, a specter of horror obscene and malign, crouching, ready to spring, there, in the shadow of night. . . .

And her breath was smothered in her throat and her heart smote so madly against the frail walls of its cage that they seemed like to burst, while she stood transfixed, frozen in inaction, limbs stiffening, roots of her hair stirring, fingers gripping the banister rail until they pained her; and with eyes that stared wide into the black heart of nothingness, until the night seemed pricked with evanescent periods of dim fire, peopled with monstrous and terrible shadows closing about her. . . .

Yet--it was absurd! She must not yield to such puerile superstitions.

There was nothing there. . . .

There _was_ something there . . . something that like an incarnation of hatred was stalking her. . . .

If only she dared scream! If only she dared turn and fly, back to the comfort of light and human company!...

There arose a trampling of feet in the hallway; and she heard Maitland's voice like a far echo, as he bade the police good night. And distant and unreachable as he seemed, the sound of his words brought her strength and some reassurance, and she grew slightly more composed. Yet, the instant that he had turned away to talk to the cabman, her fright of that unspeakable and incorporeal menace flooded her consciousness like a great wave, sweeping her--metaphorically--off her feet. And indeed, for the time, she felt as if drowning, overwhelmed in vast waters, sinking, sinking into the black abyss of syncope....

Then, as a drowning person--we're told--clutches at straws, she grasped again at the vibrations of his voice.... What was he saying?

"_You will wait outside, please, until I come out or send somebody, whom you will take wherever directed_...."

----Speaking to the cabman, thinking of her, providing for her escape! Considerate and fore-sighted as always! How she could have thanked him! The warmth of gratitude that enveloped her almost unnerved her; she was put to it to restrain her impulse to rush down the stairs and....

But no; she must not risk the chance of rebuff. How could she foretell what was in his mind and heart, how probe the depths of his feeling toward her? Perhaps he would receive her protestations in skeptic spirit. Heaven knew he had cause to! Dared she.... To be repulsed!...

But no. He had provided this means for flight; she would advantage herself of it and ... and thank him by letter. Best so: for he must ever think the worst of her; she could never undeceive him--pride restraining and upholding her.

Better so; she would go, go quickly, before he discovered her absence from the flat.

And incontinently she swung about and flew down the stairs, silently, treading as lightly on the heavily padded steps as though she had been thistledown whirled adrift by the wind, altogether heedless of the creeping terror she had sensed on the upper flight, careless of all save her immediate need to reach that cab before Maitland should discover that she had escaped.

The door was just closing behind the cabby as she reached the bottom step; and she paused, considering that it were best to wait a moment, at least, lest he should be surprised at the quickness with which his employer found work for him; paused and on some mysterious impulse half turned, glancing back up the stairs.

Not a thought too soon; another instant's hesitation and she had been caught. Some one--a man--was descending; and rapidly. Maitland? Even in her brief glance she saw the white shield of a shirt bosom gleam dull against the shadows. Maitland was in evening dress. Could it be possible...?

No time now for conjecture, time now only for action. She sprang for the door, had it open in a trice, and before the cabby was really enthroned upon his lofty box, the girl was on the step, fair troubled face upturned to him in wild entreaty.

"Hurry!" she cried, distracted. "Drive off, at once! Please--oh, please!"

Perhaps the man had expected something of the sort, analyzing Maitland's words and manner. At all events he was quick to appreciate. This was what he had been engaged for and what he had been paid for royally, in advance.

Seizing reins and whip, he jerked the startled animal between the shafts out of its abstraction and----

"I say, cabby! One moment!"

The cabman turned; the figure on the stoop of the house was undoubtedly Maitland's--Maitland as he had just seen him, with the addition of a hat. As he looked the man was at the wheel, clambering in.

"Changed my mind--I'm coming along, cabby," he said cheerfully. "Drive us to the St. Luke Building, please and--hurry!"

"Yessir!"

Bitter as poverty the cruel lash cut round the horse's flanks; and as the hansom shot out at break-neck speed toward Fifth Avenue, the girl cowered back in her corner, shivering, staring wide-eyed at the man who had so coolly placed himself at her side.

This, then, was that nameless danger that had stalked her on the staircase, this the personality whose animosity toward her had grown so virulent that, even when consciously ignorant of its proximity, she had been repelled and frightened by its subtle emanations! And now--and now she was in his power!

Dazed with fear she started up, acting blindly on the primitive instinct to fly; and in another moment, doubtless, would have thrown herself boldly from the cab to the sidewalk, had her companion not seized her by the forearm and by simple force compelled her to resume her seat.

"Be still, you little fool!" he told her sharply. "Do you think that I'm going to let you go a third time? Not till I'm through with you.... And if you scream, by the powers, I'll throttle you!"

XIV

RETRIBUTION

She sank back, speechless. Anisty glanced her up and down without visible emotion, then laughed unpleasantly,--the hard and unyielding laugh of brute man brutishly impassioned.

"This silly ass, Maitland," he observed, "isn't really as superfluous as he seems. _I_ find him quite a convenience, and I suppose that ought to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste to resemble me.... Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab! What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent heart! fixes it all up for me.... And so," concluded the criminal with ironic relish,--"and so I've got _you_, my lady."

He looked at her in sidelong fashion, speculative, calculating, relentless. And she bowed her head, assenting, "Yes--"

"You're dead right, little woman. Got you. Um-mmm."

She made no reply; she could have made none aside from raising an outcry, although now she was regaining something of her shattered poise, and with it the ability to accept the situation quietly, for a little time (she could not guess how long she could endure the strain), pending an opportunity to turn the tables on this, her persecutor.

"What is it," she said presently, with some effort--"what is it you wish with me?"

"I have my purpose," with a grim smile.

"You will not tell me?"

"You've guessed it, my lady; I will not--just yet. Wait a bit."

She spurred her flagging spirit until it flashed defiance. "Mr. Anisty!"

"Yes?" he responded with a curling lip, cold eyes to hers.

"I demand--"

"No you don't!" he cut her short with a snarl. "You're not in a position to demand anything. Maybe it would be as well for you to remember who you're dealing with."

"And----?"--heart sinking again.

"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a crook--like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed--kindness of you and your Maitland. Now--I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?"

"What--?" she asked breathlessly.

"I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat--something a copper would never think of--and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tête-à-tête Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks. Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion. "I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore.

The girl tried to nerve herself. "It--it doesn't seem to strike you," she argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue."

For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to repeat it, with added emphasis.

"You try it on, my lady, and see what happens."

She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to know me well enough to know...."

"What?" she breathed, in spite of herself.

Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat.

"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my hands. Now I guess you understand,"--and turning his head he fixed her with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,--"that one squeal out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and--I'll take you with me for company."

"You--you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous.

"Like a dog," he returned with unction.

"You, a man, would--would shoot a woman?"

"You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man: _I'm_ a crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have overlooked that. Amateurs often do.... To-night I made you a fair proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty. Now you see the other side of the picture."

Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly reptile.

He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably strong and malevolent.

"And there is one other reason why you will think twice before making a row," he clinched his case. "If you did that, and I weakly permitted the police to nab and walk us off, the business would get in the papers--your name and all; and--what'd Maitland think of you then, my lady? What'd he think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company with the little woman he'd been making eyes at--whom he was going, in his fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter and redeem and--and all that slush? Eh?"

And again his low evil laugh made her shudder. "Now, you won't risk that. You'll come with me and behave, I guess, all right."

She was dumb, stupefied with misery.

He turned upon her sharply.

"Well?"

Her lips moved in soundless assent,--lips as pallid and bloodless as the wan young face beneath the small inconspicuous hat.

The man grunted impatiently; yet was satisfied, knowing that he had her now completely under control: a condition not hard to bring about in a woman who, like this, was worn out with physical fatigue and overwrought with nervous strain. The conditions had been favorable, the result was preeminently comfortable. She would give him no more trouble.

The hansom swerved suddenly across the car-tracks and pulled up at the curb. Anisty rose with an exclamation of relief and climbed down to the sidewalk, turning and extending a hand to assist the girl.

"Come!" he said imperatively. "We've no time to waste."

For an instant only she harbored a fugitive thought of resistance; then his eyes met hers and held them, and her mind seemed to go blank under his steadfast and domineering regard. "Come!" he repeated sharply. Trembling, she placed a hand in his and somehow found herself by his side. Regardless of appearances the man retained her hand, merely shifting it beneath his arm, where a firm pressure of the elbow held it as in a vise.

"You needn't wait," he said curtly to the cabby; and swung about, the girl by his side.

"No nonsense now," he warned her tensely, again thrusting a hand in his breast pocket significantly.

"I understand," she breathed faintly, between closed teeth.

She had barely time to remark the towering white façade of upper Broadway's tallest sky-scraper ere she was half led, half dragged into the entrance of the building.

The marble slabs of the vestibule echoed strangely to their footsteps--those slabs that shake from dawn to dark with the tread of countless feet. They moved rapidly toward the elevator-shaft, passing on their way deserted cigar- and news-stands shrouded in dirty brown clothes. By the dark and silent well, where the six elevators (of which one only was a-light and ready for use) stood motionless as if slumbering in utter weariness after the gigantic exertions of the day, they came to a halt; and a chair was scraped noisily on the floor as a night-watchman rose, rubbing his eyes and yawning, to face them.

Anisty opened the interview brusquely. "Is Mr. Bannerman in now?" he demanded.

The watchman opened his eyes wider, losing some of his sleepy expression; and observed the speaker and his companion--the small, shrinking, frightened-looking little woman who bore so heavily on her escort's arm, as if ready to drop with exhaustion. It appeared that he knew Maitland by sight, or else thought that he did.

"Oh, ye're Mister Maitland, ain't yous?" he said. "Nope; if Misther Bannerman's in his offis, I dunno nothin' about it."

"He was to meet me here at two," Anisty affirmed. "It's a very important case. I'm sure he must be along, immediately, if he's not up-stairs. You're sure--?"

"Nah, I ain't sure. He may've been there all night, f'r all I know. But I'll take yous up 'f you want," with a doubtful glance at the girl.

"This lady is one of Mr. Bannerman's clients, and in great trouble." The self-styled Maitland laid his hand in a protecting gesture over the fingers on his arm; and pressed them cruelly. "I think we will go up, thank you. If Bannerman's not in, I can 'phone him. I've a pass-key."

The watchman appeared satisfied: Maitland's social standing was guaranty enough.

"All right, sir. Step in."

The girl made one final effort to hang back. Anisty's brows blackened. "By God!" he told her in a whisper. "If you dare...!"

And somehow she found herself at his side in the steel cage, the gate's clang ringing loud in her ears. The motion of the car, shooting upwards with rapidly increasing speed, made her slightly giddy. Despite Anisty's supporting arm she reeled back against the wall of the cage, closing her eyes. The man observed this with covert satisfaction.

As the speed decreased she began to feel slightly stronger; and again opened her eyes. The floor numbers, black upon a white ground, were steadily slipping down; the first she recognized being 19. The pace was sensibly decreased. Then with a slight jar the elevator stopped at 22.

"Yous know the way?"

"Perfectly," replied Anisty. "Two flights up--in the tower."

"Right. When yous wants me, ring."

The car dropped like a plummet, leaving them in darkness--or rather in a thick gloom but slightly moderated by the moonlight streaming in at windows at either end of the corridor. Anisty gripped the girl more roughly.

"Now, my lady! No shennanigan!"

A futile, superfluous reminder. Temporarily at least she was become as wax in his hands. So complex had been the day's emotions, so severe her nervous tension, so heavy the tax upon her stamina, that she had lapsed into a state of subjective consciousness, in which she responded without purpose, almost dreamily, to the suggestions of the stronger will.

Wearily she stumbled up the two brief flights of stairs leading to the tower-like cupola of the sky-scraper: two floors superimposed upon the roof with scant excuse save that of giving the building the distinction of being the loftiest in that section of the city--certainly not to lend any finishing touch of architectural beauty to the edifice.

On the top landing a door confronted them, its glass panel shining dimly in the darkness. Anisty paused, unceremoniously thrusting the girl to one side and away from the head of the staircase; and fumbled in a pocket, presently producing a jingling bunch of keys. For a moment or two she heard him working at the lock and muttering in an undertone,--probably swearing,--and then, with a click, the door swung open.

The man thrust a hand inside, touched an electric switch, flooding the room with light, and motioned the girl to enter. She obeyed passively, thoroughly subjugated: and found herself in a large and well-furnished office, apparently the outer of two rooms. The glare of electric light at first partly blinded her; and she halted instinctively a few steps from the door, waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the change.

Behind her the door was closed softly; and there followed a thud as a bolt was shot. An instant later Anisty caught her by the arm and, roughly now and without wasting speech, hurried her into the next room. Then, releasing her, he turned up the lights and, passing to the windows, threw two or three of them wide; for the air in the room was stale and lifeless.

"And now," said the criminal in a tone of satisfaction, "now we can talk business, my dear."

He removed his overcoat and hat, throwing them over the back of a convenient chair, drew his fingers thoughtfully across his chin, and, standing at a little distance, regarded the girl with a shadow of a saturnine smile softening the hard line of his lips.

She stood where he had left her, as if volition was no longer hers. Her arms hung slack at her sides and she was swaying a trifle, her face vacant, eyes blank: very near the breaking-down point.

The man was not without perception; and recognized her state--one in which, he felt assured, he could get very little out of her. She must be strengthened and revived before she would or could respond to the direct catechism he had in store for her. In his own interest, therefore, more than through any yielding to motives of pity and compassion, he piloted her to a chair by a window and brought her a glass of clear cold water from the filter in the adjoining room.

The cold, fresh breeze blowing in her face proved wonderfully invigorating. She let her head sink back upon the cushions of the easy, comfortable leather chair and drank in the clean air in great deep draughts, with a sense of renewing vigor, both bodily and spiritual. The water helped, too: she dabbled the tip of a ridiculously small handkerchief in it and bathed her throbbing temples. The while, Anisty stood over her, waiting with discrimination if with scant patience.

What was to come she neither knew nor greatly cared; but, with an instinctive desire to postpone the inevitable moment of trial, she simulated deadly languor for some moments after becoming conscious of her position: and lay passive, long lashes all but touching her cheeks,--in which now a faint color was growing,--gaze wandering at random out over a dreary wilderness of flat rectangular roofs, livid in the moonlight, broken by long, straight clefts of darkness in whose depths lights gleamed faintly. Far in the south the sky came down purple and black to the horizon, where a silver spark glittered like a low-swung star: the torch of Liberty.

"I think," Anisty's clear-cut tones, incisive as a razor edge, crossed the listless trend of her thoughts: "I think we will now get down to business, my lady!"