Part 17

And, as he stopped and stepped aside, he saw a man pause on the sidewalk across the street and move back cautiously into the shadow of a facade opposite.

There was nothing significant in the occurrence; Barres merely happened to notice it; then he turned his eyes toward Soane and Freund, who now were crossing Fifth Avenue. And he went after them, with no definite idea in his head.

Soane and Freund walked on eastward; a tramcar on Madison Avenue stopped them once more; and, as Barres also halted behind them and stepped aside into the shadows, there, just across the street, he saw the same man again halt, retire, and stand motionless in a recess between two shop windows.

Barres tried to keep one eye on him and the other on Soane and Freund. The two latter were crossing Madison Avenue; and as soon as they had crossed, still headed east, the man on the other side of the street came out of his shadowy recess and started eastward, too.

Then Barres also started, but now he was watching the man across the street as well as keeping Soane and Freund in view--watching the former solitary individual with increasing curiosity.

Was that man keeping an eye on him? Was he following Soane and Freund? Was he, in fact, following anybody, and had the lively imagination of Barres begun to make something out of nothing?

At Park Avenue Freund and Soane paused, not apparently because of any vehicular congestion impeding their progress, but they seemed to be engaged in vehement conversation, Soane's excitable tones reaching Barres, where he had halted again beside the tradesmen's gate of a handsome private house.

And once more, across the street the solitary figure also halted and stood unstirring under a porte-cochere.

Barres, straining his eyes, strove to make out details of his features and dress. And presently he concluded that, though the man did turn and glance in his direction occasionally, his attention was principally fixed on Soane and Freund.

His movements, too, seemed to corroborate this idea, because as soon as they started across Park Avenue the man on the opposite side of the street was in instant motion. And Barres, now intensely curious, walked eastward once more, following all three.

At Lexington Avenue Soane sheered off and, despite the clutch of Freund, went into a saloon. Freund finally followed.

As usual, across the street the solitary figure had stopped. Barres, also immobile, kept him in view. Evidently he, too, was awaiting the reappearance of Soane and Freund.

Suddenly Barres made up his mind to have a good look at him. He walked to the corner, walked over to the south side of the street, turned west, and slowly sauntered past the man, looking him deliberately in the face.

As for the stranger, far from shrinking or avoiding the scrutiny, he on his part betrayed a very lively interest in the physiognomy of Barres; and as that young man approached he found himself scanned by a brilliant and alert pair of eyes, as keen as a fox-terrier's.

In frank but subtly hostile curiosity their glances met and crossed. Then, in an instant, a rather odd smile glimmered in the stranger's eyes, twitched at his pleasant mouth, just shaded by a tiny moustache:

"If you please, sir," he said in a low, amused voice, "you will not--as they say in New York--butt in."

Barres, astonished, stood quite still. The young man continued to regard him with a very intelligent and slightly ironical expression:

"I do not know, of course," he said, "whether you are of the city police, the State service, the Post Office, the Department of Justice, the Federal Secret Service"--he shrugged expressive shoulders--"but this I do know very well, that through lack of proper coordination in the branches of all your departments of City, State, and Federal surety, there is much bungling, much working at cross purposes, much interference, and many blunders.

"Therefore, I beg of you not to do anything further in the matter which very evidently occupies you." And he bowed and glanced across at the saloon into which Soane and Freund had disappeared.

Barres was thinking hard. He drew out his cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, came to his conclusions:

"You are watching Freund and Soane?" he asked bluntly.

"And you, sir? Are you observing the stars?" inquired the young man, evidently amused at something or other unperceived by Barres.

The latter said, frankly and pleasantly:

"I _am_ following those two men. It is evident that you are, also. So may I ask, have you any idea where they are going?"

"I can guess, perhaps."

"To Grogan's?"

"Of course."

"Suppose," said Barres quietly, "I put myself under your orders and go along with you."

The strange young man was much diverted:

"In your kind suggestion there appears to be concealed a germ of common sense," he said. "In which particular service are you employed, sir?"

"And you?" inquired Barres, smilingly.

"I imagine you may have guessed," said the young man, evidently greatly amused at something or other.

Sheer intuition prompted Barres, and he took a chance.

"Yes, I have ventured to guess that you are an Intelligence Officer in the French service, and secretly on duty in the United States."

The young man winced but forced a very bland smile.

"My compliments, whether your guess is born of certainty or not. And you, sir? May I inquire your status?"

"I'm merely a civilian with a season's Plattsburg training as my only professional experience. I'm afraid you won't believe this, but it's quite true. I'm not in either Municipal, State, or Federal service. But I don't believe I can stand this Hun business much longer without enlisting with the Canadians."

"Oh. May I ask, then, why you follow that pair yonder?"

"I'll tell you why. I am a painter. I live at Dragon Court. Soane, an Irishman, is superintendent of the building. I have reason to believe that German propagandists have been teaching him disloyalty under promise of aiding Ireland to secure political independence.

"Coming out of the branch post office this evening, where I had taken some letters, I saw Soane and that fellow, Freund. I really couldn't tell you exactly what my object was in following them, except that I itched to beat up the German and refrained because of the inevitable notoriety that must follow.

"Perhaps I had a vague idea of following them to Grogan's, where I knew they were bound, just to look over the place and see for myself what that German rendezvous is like.

"Anyway, what kept me on their trail was noticing _you_; and your behaviour aroused my curiosity. That is the entire truth concerning myself and this affair. And if you believe me, and if you think I can be of any service to you, take me along with you. If not, then I shall certainly not interfere with whatever you are engaged in."

For a few moments the young Intelligence Officer looked intently at Barres, the same amused, inexplicable smile on his face. Then:

"Your name," he said, with malicious gaiety, "is Garret Barres."

At that Barres completely lost countenance, but the other man began to laugh:

"Certainly you are Garry Barres, a painter, a celebrated Beaux Arts man of----"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Barres, "_you_ are Renoux! You are little Georges Renoux, of the atelier Ledoux!--on the architect's side!--you are that man who left his card for me this evening! I've seen you often! You were a little devil of a nouveau!--but you were always the centre of every bit of mischief in the rue Bonaparte! You put the whole Quarter en charette! I saw you do it."

"I saw _you_," laughed Renoux, "on one notorious occasion, teaching jiu-jitsu to a policeman! Don't talk to me about my escapades!"

Cordially, firmly, in grinning silence, they shook hands. And for a moment the intervening years seemed to melt away; the golden past became the present; and Renoux even thrilled a little at the condescension of Barres in shaking hands with him--the _nouveau_ honoured by the _ancien_!--the reverence never entirely forgotten.

"What are you, anyway, Renoux?" asked Barres, still astonished at the encounter, but immensely interested.

"My friend, you have already guessed. I am Captain: Military Intelligence Department. You know? There are no longer architects or butchers or bakers in France, only soldiers. And of those soldiers I am a very humble one."

"On secret duty here," nodded Barres.

"I need not ask an old Beaux Arts comrade to be discreet and loyal."

"My dear fellow, France is next in my heart after my own country. Tell me, you are following that Irishman, Soane, and his boche friend, Max Freund, are you not?"

"It happens to be as you say," admitted Renoux, smilingly. "A job for a 'flic,' is it not?"

"Shall I tell you what I know about those two men?--what I suspect?"

"I should be very glad----" But at that moment Soane came out of the saloon across the way, and Freund followed.

"May I come with you?" whispered Barres.

"If you care to. Yes, come," nodded Renoux, keeping his clear, intelligent eyes on the two across the street, who now stood under a lamp-post, engaged in some sort of drunken altercation.

Renoux, watching them all the while, continued in a low voice:

"Remember, Barres, if we chance to meet again here in America, I am merely Georges Renoux, an architect and a fellow Beaux Arts man."

"Certainly.... Look! They're starting on, those two!"

"Come," whispered Renoux.

Soane, unsteady of leg and talkative, was now making for Third Avenue beside Freund, who had taken him by the arm, in hopes, apparently, of steadying them both.

As Renoux and Barres followed, the latter cautiously requested any instructions which Renoux might think fit to give.

Renoux said in his cool, agreeable voice:

"You know it's rather unusual for an officer to bother personally with this sort of thing. But my people--even the renegade Germans in our service--have been unable to obtain necessary information for us in regard to Grogan's.

"It happened this afternoon that certain information was brought to me which suggested that I myself take a look at Grogan's. And that is what I was going to do when I saw you on the street, carefully stalking two well-known suspects."

They both laughed cautiously.

Grogan's was now in sight on the corner, its cherrywood magnificence and its bilious imitation of stained glass aglow with electricity. And into its "Family Entrance" swaggered Soane, followed by the lank figure of Max Freund.

Renoux and Barres had halted fifty yards away. Neither spoke. And presently came to them a short, dark, powerfully built man, who strolled up casually, puffing a large, rank cigar.

Renoux named him to Barres:

"Emile Souchez, one of my men." He added: "Anybody gone in yet?"

"Otto Klein, of Gerhardt, Klein & Schwartzmeyer went in an hour ago," replied Souchez.

"Oho," nodded Renoux softly. "That signifies something really interesting. Who else went in?"

"Small fry--Dave Sendelbeck, Louis Hochstein, Terry Madigan, Dolan, McBride, Clancy--all Clan-na-Gael men."

"Skeel?"

"No. He's still at the Astor. Franz Lehr came out about half an hour ago and took a taxi west. Jacques Alost is following in another."

Renoux thought a moment:

"Lehr has probably gone to see Skeel at the Hotel Astor," he concluded. "We're going to have our chance, I think."

Then, turning to Barres:

"We've decided to take a sport-chance to-night. We have most reliable information that this man Lehr, who now owns Grogan's, will carry here upon his person papers of importance to my Government--and to yours, too, Barres.

"The man from whom he shall procure these papers is an Irish gentleman named Murtagh Skeel, just arrived from Buffalo and stopping overnight at the Hotel Astor.

"Lehr, we were informed, was to go personally and get those papers.... Do you really wish to help us?"

"Certainly."

"Very well. I expect we shall have what you call a mix-up. You will please, therefore, walk into Grogan's--not by the family entrance, but by the swinging doors on Lexington Avenue. Kindly refresh yourself there with some Munich beer; also eat a sandwich at my expense, if you care to. Then you will give yourself the pains to inquire the way to the wash-room. And there you will possess your soul in amiable patience until you shall hear me speak your name in a very quiet, polite tone."

Barres, recognising the familiar mock seriousness of student days in Paris, began to smile. Renoux frowned and continued his instructions:

"When you hear me politely pronounce your name, mon vieux, then you shall precipitate yourself valiantly to the aid of Monsieur Souchez and myself--and perhaps Monsieur Alost--and help us to hold, gag and search the somewhat violent German animal whom we corner inside the family entrance of Herr Grogan!"

Barres had difficulty in restraining his laughter. Renoux was very serious, with the delightful mock gravity of a witty and perfectly fearless Frenchman.

"Lehr?" inquired Barres, still laughing.

"That is the animal under discussion. There will be a taxicab awaiting us----" He turned to Souchez: "Dis, donc, Emile, faut employer ton coup du Pere Francois pour nous assurer de cet animal la."

"B'en sure," nodded Souchez, fishing furtively in the side pocket of his coat and displaying the corner of a red silk handkerchief. He stuffed it into his pocket again; Renoux smiled carelessly at Barres.

"Mon vieux," he said, "I hope it will be like a good fight in the Quarter--what with all those Irish in there. You desire to get your head broken?"

"You bet I do, Renoux!"

"Bien! So now, if you are quite ready?" he suggested. "Merci, monsieur, et a bientot!" He bowed profoundly.

Barres, still laughing, walked to Lexington Avenue, crossed northward, and entered the swinging doors of Grogan's, perfectly enchanted to have his finger in the pie at last, and aching for an old-fashioned Latin Quarter row, the pleasures of which he had not known for several too respectable years.

XX

GROGAN'S

The material attraction of Grogan's was principally German beer; the aesthetic appeal of the place was also characteristically Teutonic and consisted of peculiarly offensive decorations, including much red cherry, much imitation stained glass, many sprawling brass fixtures, and many electric lights. Only former inmates of the Fatherland could have conceived and executed the embellishments of Grogan's.

There was a palatial bar, behind which fat, white-jacketed Teutons served slopping steins of beer upon a perforated brass surface. There was a centre table, piled with those barbarous messes known to the undiscriminating Hun as "delicatessen"--raw fish, sour fish, smoked fish, flabby portions of defunct pig in various guises--all naturally nauseating to the white man's olfactories and palate, and all equally relished by the beer-swilling boche.

A bartender with Pekinese and apoplectic eyes and the scorbutic facial symptoms of a Strassburg liver, took the order from Barres and set before him a frosty glass of Pilsner, incidentally drenching the bar at the same time with swipes, which he thriftily scraped through the perforated brass strainer into a slop-bucket underneath.

Being a stranger there, Barres was furtively scrutinised at first, but there seemed to be nothing particularly suspicious about a young man who stopped in for a glass of Pilsner on a July night, and nobody paid him any further attention.

Besides, two United States Secret Service men had just gone out, followed, as usual, by one Johnny Klein; and the Germans at the tables at the bar, and behind the bar were still sneeringly commenting on the episode--now a familiar one and of nightly occurrence.

So only very casual attention was paid to Barres and his Pilsner and his rye-bread and sardine sandwich, which he took over to a vacant table to desiccate and discuss at his leisure.

People came and went; conversation in Hunnish gutturals became general; soiled evening newspapers were read, raw fish seized in fat red fingers and suckingly masticated; also, skat and pinochle were resumed with unwiped hands, and there was loud slapping of cards on polished table tops, and many porcine noises.

Barres finished his Pilsner, side-stepped the sandwich, rose, asked a bartender for the wash-room, and leisurely followed the direction given.

There was nobody in there. He had, for company, a mouse, a soiled towel on a roller, and the remains of some unattractive soap. He lighted a cigarette, surveyed himself in the looking glass, cast a friendly glance at the mouse, and stood waiting, flexing his biceps muscles with a smile of anticipated pleasure in renewing the use of them after such a very long period wasted in the peaceful pursuit of art.

For he was still a boy at heart. All creative minds retain something of those care-free, irresponsible years as long as the creative talent lasts. As it fails, worldly caution creeps in like a thief in the night, to steal the spontaneous pleasures of the past and leave in their places only the old galoshes of prudence and the finger-prints of dull routine.

Barres stood by the open door of the wash-room, listening. The corridor which passed it led on into another corridor running at right angles. This was the Family Entrance.

Now, as he waited there, he heard the street door open, and instantly the deadened shock of a rush and struggle.

As he started toward the Family Entrance, straining his ears for the expected summons, a man in flight turned the corner into his corridor so abruptly that he had him by the throat even before he recognised in him the man with the thick eye-glasses who had hit him between the eyes with a pistol--the "Watcher" of Dragon Court!

With a swift sigh of gratitude to Chance, Barres folded the fleeing Watcher to his bosom and began the business he had to transact with him--an account too long overdue.

The Watcher fought like a wildcat, but in silence--fought madly, using both fists, feet, baring his teeth, too, with frantic attempts to use them. But Barres gave him no opportunity to kick, bite, or to pull out any weapon; he battered the Watcher right and left, swinging on him like lightning, and his blows drummed on him like the tattoo of fists on a punching bag until one stinging crack sent the Watcher's head snapping back with a jerk, and a terrific jolt knocked him as clean and as flat as a dead carp.

There were papers in his coat, also a knuckle-duster, a big clasp-knife, and an automatic pistol. And Barres took them all, stuffed them into his own pockets, and, dragging his still dormant but twitching victim by the collar, as a cat proudly lugs a heavy rat, he started for the Family Entrance, where Donnybrook had now broken loose.

But the silence of the terrific struggle in that narrow entry, the absence of all yelling, was significant. No Irish whoops, no Teutonic din of combat shattered the stillness of that dim corridor--only the deadened sounds of blows and shuffling of frantic feet. It was very evident that nobody involved desired to be interrupted by the police, or call attention to the location of the battle field.

Renoux, Souchez, and a third companion were in intimate and desperate conflict with half a dozen other men--dim, furious figures fighting there under the flickering gas jet from which the dirty globe had been knocked into fragments.

Into this dusty maelstrom of waving arms and legs went Barres--first dropping his now inert prey--and began to hit out enthusiastically right and left, at the nearest hostile countenance visible.

His was a flank attack and totally unexpected by the attackees; and the diversion gave Renoux time to seize a muscular, struggling opponent, hold him squirming while Souchez passed his handkerchief over his throat and the third man turned his pockets inside out.

Then Renoux called breathlessly to Barres:

"All right, mon vieux! Face to the rear front! March!"

For a moment they stiffened to face a battering rush from the stairs. Suddenly a pistol spoke, and an Irish voice burst out:

"Whist, ye domm fool! G'wan wid yer fishtin' an' can th' goon-play!"

There came a splintering crash as the rickety banisters gave way and several Teutonic and Hibernian warriors fell in a furious heap, blocking the entry with an unpremeditated obstacle.

Instantly Souchez, Barres and the other man backed out into the street, followed nimbly by Renoux and his plunder.

Already a typical Third Avenue crowd was gathering, though the ominous glimmer of a policeman's buttons had not yet caught the lamplight from the street corner.

Then the door of Grogan's burst open and an embattled Irishman appeared. But at first glance the hopelessness of the situation presented itself to him; a taxi loaded with French and American franc-tireurs was already honking triumphantly away westward; an excited and rapidly increasing throng pressed around the Family Entrance; also, the distant glitter of a policeman's shield and buttons now extinguished all hope of pursuit.

Soane glared at the crowd out of enraged and blood-shot eyes:

"G'wan home, ye bunch of bums!" he said thickly, and slammed the door to the Family Entrance of Grogan's notorious cafe.

At 42d Street and Madison Avenue the taxi stopped and Souchez and Alost got out and went rapidly across the street toward the Grand Central depot. Then the taxi proceeded west, north again, then once more west.

Renoux, busy with a bleeding nose, remarked carelessly that Souchez and Alost were taking a train and were in a hurry, and that he himself was going back to the Astor.

"You do not mind coming with me, Barres?" he added. "In my rooms we can have a bite and a glass together, and then we can brush up. That was a nice little fight, was it not, mon ami?"

"Fine," said Barres with satisfaction.

"Quite like the old and happy days," mused Renoux, surveying wilted collar and rumpled tie of his comrade. "You came off well; you have merely a bruised cheek." His eyes began to sparkle and he laughed: "Do you remember that May evening when your very quarrelsome atelier barricaded the Cafe de la Source and forbade us to enter--and my atelier marched down the Boul' Mich' with its Kazoo band playing our atelier march, determined to take your cafe by assault? Oh, my! What a delightful fight that was!"

"Your crazy comrades stuffed me into the fountain among the goldfish. I thought I'd drown," said Barres, laughing.

"I know, but your atelier gained a great victory that night, and you came over to Mueller's with your Kazoo band playing the Fireman's March, and you carried away our palms and bay-trees in their green tubs, and you threw them over the Pont-au-Change into the Seine!----"

They were laughing like a pair of schoolboys now, quite convulsed and holding to each other.

"Do you remember," gasped Barres, "that girl who danced the Carmagnole on the Quay?"

"Yvonne Tete-de-Linotte!"

"And the British giant from Julien's, who threw everybody out of the Cafe Montparnasse and invited the Quarter in to a free banquet?"

"McNeil!"

"What ever became of that pretty girl, Doucette de Valmy?"

"Oh, it was she who cheered on your atelier to the assault on Muellers!----"

Laughter stifled them.

"What crazy creatures we all were," said Renoux, staunching the last crimson drops oozing from his nose. Then, more soberly: "We French have a grimmer affair over there than the joyous rows of the Latin Quarter. I'm sorry now that we didn't throw every waiter in Mueller's after the bay-trees. There would have been so many fewer spies to betray France."

The taxi stopped at the 44th Street entrance to the Astor. They descended, Renoux leading, walked through the corridor to Peacock Alley, turned to the right through the bar, then to the left into the lobby, and thence to the elevator.

In Renoux's rooms they turned on the electric light, locked the door, closed the transom, then spread their plunder out on a table.