Part 13

My dearest girl was lying on a couch, fully dressed and unfettered, but strangely inert, stupefied. I was terrified by her aspect. However, her body was warm and she was breathing, though not naturally. She was not wholly unconscious. Her head moved on the pillow, and her misty eyes sought mine with a faint returning gleam of sentience. Obviously she had been drugged, and the effect was just now beginning to wear off.

I could not stop to restore her there. I gathered her up in my arms, snatched up her hat which was lying near, and ran out through the bedroom. I had no more than got the bedroom door locked behind me, when the door of the closet burst open, and the woman fell out into the room. She immediately threw herself against the other door, but as regarded that, my mind was easier. It was a much heavier affair, and it opened towards her. I need not point out that there is a considerable difference, between bursting a door out, and pulling it in.

I carried my precious burden down the stairs, murmuring phrases in her ear that I did not know I had at my command. She commenced to weep, a very encouraging sign. I believe I wept with her. She was dearer to me than my life.

I paused at the front door to try to bring her to somewhat before venturing out into the street. Unfortunately there was no water within reach. I was afraid to take much time. The woman up-stairs had obtained some kind of a weapon with which she was battering the door. In her insane passion she had forgotten all considerations of prudence. She finally managed to split one of the panels; the key, however, was safe in my pocket. She hurled imprecations after us.

I opened the outer door a little, and the fresh air revived my dearest girl marvellously. Presently she was able to stand with a little assistance. Her first conscious act was to pin on her hat with a piteous assumption of her usually composed manner. For a long time she could not speak, but she knew me now, and leaned on me trustfully.

I knew how best to reach her. "Brace up!" I whispered urgently. "Pull yourself together. I need you. Show me what you can do!"

She smiled as much as to say she was ready for anything. Such was her temper.

We went out, closing both doors behind us. I fully expected to see a knot of the curious on the steps, attracted by the strange sounds from within. But the street was still empty. There must be a lot of strange things happening that no one ever knows of. We did not meet anybody until we got around the corner. Here a policeman stood idly swinging his club and staring at the taxicab, speculating no doubt on the mystery of its apparent abandonment and wondering what he ought to do about it. The back room of the saloon was now closed.

I saluted him, inwardly praying that he would not be led to look down at my feet. I had managed to keep my cap through all vicissitudes, but I had no shoes on. I briskly opened the door, and helped Sadie in.

"Here you are, Miss," said I.

Then I ran completely around the car to avoid the bluecoat, and cranked her. Even then I could hear in the stillness the muffled sound of the woman's blows on the door. The policeman was apparently unaware of anything amiss. Fortunately my engine popped at the first turn. The policeman's suspicions of me were gathering, but he was a slow-thinking specimen.

"Hold on a minute, fellow," he said at last.

The car was then in motion, and I made believe not to hear him. Apparently he did not think it worth while to raise an alarm.

I cannot tell you with what a feeling of thankfulness I left that neighbourhood behind me.

I took Sadie direct to her sister's. We found that young woman in a pretty state of fluster. She was of an emotional type, very different from the matter-of-fact Sadie. Maybe she didn't give it to me for leading her darling into danger! But I was happy enough to be able to take it with a grin. Sadie by this time could speak for herself. She took my part.

I telephoned from here to English at his boarding-house as I had agreed. I still had more than half an hour to the good.

He gave a restrained whoop when he heard my voice. "You've got her!" he cried. "You're both all right?"

"Right as rain!"

"Ben, you're a wonder!"

At that moment I was quite prepared to believe it.

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

"Can't tell you now. The game is only starting."

"What am I to do?"

"Go to bed. Above all keep them from suspecting you. The whole case depends on you now. I will write you care Dunsany's on Monday."

"Take care of yourself!"

"Same to you!"

Warning the girls to be ready to start for the country in an hour, I borrowed a pair of brother-in-law's shoes and returned the taxi to its garage. I then went home and washed and dressed myself in my own clothes. Afterwards I got out my own little car and went back for Sadie. By this time the dawn was breaking. It was Sunday.

I found Sadie quite her own self again, and flatly rebellious at being ordered to give up the game and retire to the country. In vain I explained to her that these people had their backs against the wall now, and that our lives were not worth a farthing dip if they ever caught sight of us. Sister was now on my side, not, however, without a few back shots at the one who had first got her Sadie into the crooks' bad books. It was not until I said that I was myself going to lie low for a while that Sadie gave in. I'm afraid at that, that her opinion of me suffered a fall for the time being.

The dearest girl was furious when she learned that I had almost been frightened out of my wits by the message from her they had sent me, so much so that I had been prepared to drop the whole case to save her.

"That was what they were after!" she cried. "I had to write it, of course, because she held a pistol to my head. But I was sure you would understand. If I had thought for a moment that you would let it interfere with the case I would have let her shoot."

I shuddered. One did not know whether to praise or blame such game folly. However, I registered a little vow privately not to let Sadie's enthusiasm lead her into danger again. Meanwhile I hugged her right there with sister looking on. She promptly slapped my face--but not so hard as usual.

I took the sisters to that same little sanatorium at Amityville, Long Island, where Sadie had been before with Miss Hamerton. The doctor-proprietor was an old friend of mine. A single warning word to him, and I knew they would be as safe as I could guard them myself.

Notwithstanding Sadie's violent objections (she said she had been lured to Amityville under false pretenses), I motored right back to town. I did intend to lay off for a day or two but I had to put my office in order first. It was about eight o'clock when I got back to Manhattan. I put up my car and had an excellent breakfast. I thought if I was going to be plugged it might as well be on a full stomach. I did not deceive myself as to the risk I ran in visiting my office, but it was absolutely necessary for me to secure certain papers and destroy others.

I took a taxi down and ordered the man to wait. I cleaned everything up in case the place should be entered during my absence. What papers I meant to take with me I deposited in a satchel, and took the precaution of strapping it to my wrist. Then I locked up and returned down stairs. I found that my chauffeur had moved away from the doorway a little, consequently I was exposed for a moment or two on the sidewalk.

It was sufficient. I heard that deadly little "ping" and simultaneously a sound like a slap on bare flesh. I did not know I was hit, but I fell down. Then a pain like the searing of a hot iron passed through my shoulder.

"I'm shot!" I cried involuntarily.

I realised that I was not seriously hurt. However, I had no mind to get up and make myself a target for more. I made believe to close my eyes, and lay still. My mind worked with a strange clearness. I saw the woman across the street. She was poorly dressed with a shawl over her head, but I recognised the stature and the curves of my antagonist of the night before.

The usual gaping crowd gathered. Nobody had heard the shot but me. While all eyes were directed on me the woman coolly walked away across the park, tossing the gun into the middle of a bush as she went. I said nothing. It was no part of my game to have her arrested.

I suspected that the openmouthed crowd surrounding me was full of spies, so I made out to be worse hurt than I was, groaning and writhing a little. The wound helped me out by bleeding profusely. One youth with an evil face made to take my satchel as if to relieve me. The strap frustrated his humane purpose. He was afraid to proceed further under that circle of eyes.

Somebody had telephoned for an ambulance, and presently it came clanging up with a fresh crowd in its train. The white clad surgeon bent over me.

"I am not badly hurt," I whispered to him, "but please take me away quickly out of this mob."

I was carried to Bellevue Hospital where I engaged a private room. My wound, a slight affair, was cauterised--I had in mind the possibility of poison, and dressed. Afterwards I enjoyed my first sleep in twenty-four hours. I had left instructions that no one was to be admitted to see me, and that no information regarding my condition was to be given out.

By the next day I was quite myself again. I had already seen the reporters, and by the exercise of persuasion and diplomacy had managed to keep the affair from being unduly exploited in the papers. The police, good fellows, were hard at work on the case, but they could hardly be expected to accomplish anything without the evidence which I did not intend to let them have. The doctors who hate to see any one escape out of their hands so easily did their best to persuade me to stop a while in the hospital and "rest" but how could I rest with so much to do outside?

Having decided that I must leave the hospital, it was a matter of considerable concern to me how this was to be effected without exposing myself to a fresh danger. I had received a disguised telephone message from English to the effect that they were waiting for me. I decided to confide in the visiting surgeon, an understanding man.

"Sir," I said, "I am a private detective. I have a gang of crooks almost ready to be rounded up. Knowing it, they are desperate. That is the explanation of the attack on me. Now the chances are that the instant I step outside the hospital I'll stop another bullet. What would you do if you were me?"

"Call on the police," he said, of course.

"I can't do that without exploding my charges prematurely."

As I said, he was an understanding man. He didn't bother me with a lot of questions, but took the case as he found it. After thinking a while, he said:

"How would it do if I had you transferred in an ambulance to my private clinic on ---- Street. You see you'll be loaded on out of sight in the hospital yard here, and you will be driven right inside my place to be unloaded. You lie flat in the ambulance and no one can see inside without climbing on the step, and a surgeon sits there."

"Fine!" I said. "You're a man of resource."

He gave the order, and it was so done. Arrived at his private hospital I dressed myself in street clothes, borrowing a coat to replace my bloody one, and calling a taxi had myself carried to Oscar Nilson's shop.

23

I have mentioned, I believe, that Oscar Nilson was a wig-maker, the best in New York. His little shop on a quiet side street North of Madison Square is quaint enough to be the setting of an old-fashioned play. The walls are lined with old cuts of historical personages and famous Thespians as historical personages, all with particular attention to their hirsute features. On the counter stands a row of forms, each bearing some extraordinary kind of scalp. Oscar deals in make-up as a side line and the air bears the intoxicating odour of grease paint and cold cream.

Oscar's business is chiefly with the theatrical profession, but many an old beau and fading belle have found out that he knows more about restoring youth than the more fashionable beautifiers. Oscar loves his business. His knowledge, historical, artistic, scientific, is immense--but all in terms of human hair. He can tell you offhand how Napoleon wore his in 1803 or any other year of his career, and will make you an exact sketch of the toupee ordered by the Duke of Wellington when his fell out.

Oscar himself, strangely enough, or perhaps naturally, has next to no hair of his own, merely a little mousy fringe above the ears. He has a jolly rubicund face and is held in high affection and esteem by his customers. He flatters me by taking a particular interest in my custom. I am the only one of his clients in the criminal line.

He led me into one of the little cubicles where the trying-on takes place, and stood off to observe me from between narrowed lids.

"What will it be now?" he said. "I was sorry to read of your accident."

"A mere trifle. What would you suggest? It must stand sunlight and shadow, and be something I can keep up for a while if necessary."

"Let me think! Your head and face offer a good starting-point for so many creations!"

"In other words the Lord left me unfinished," I said, teasingly.

"Not at all! I meant that in your case there were no awkward malformations to be overcome."

From which it will be seen that Oscar is a diplomat.

"What would you say to a South American gentleman?" he asked. "New York is full of them in the summer."

I shook my head. "No time to bone up a Spanish accent."

"An officer of a liner on shore leave."

"On shore they look like anybody else."

"Well then, how about an Armenian fruit peddler?"

"That would restrict my activities too much. I must be able to go anywhere."

"I see you have an idea of your own," he said. "What is it?"

"We've used several rough-neck disguises," I said. "Suppose you fix me up as a swell this time. I have a mind to stop at a fashionable hotel."

"The very thing!" cried Oscar. "A curled toupee, slightly silvered; a wash for the skin to give an interesting pallour; a little touching up about the eyes for an expression of world weariness; waxed moustache, monocle----"

"Easy! The burning-glass would give me dead away. You have to be born to that."

"Well you don't have to have the monocle," said Oscar regretfully. "But it's very aristocratic. The costume must be exquisitely appointed--it will be expensive----"

"Expense is no object in this case," I said.

He set to work and an hour later I left his shop a changed man. In the event of such a contingency I had already secured from Mr. Dunsany the name of his tailor, and I now left him a rush order for several suits. Meanwhile I bought the best I could ready made. I went to the most fashionable outfitters and invested heavily. Until they displayed their stock here, I had no idea that men might indulge such extravagant tastes. All this was to be sent to the Hotel Rotterdam where I engaged an expensive suite. I believed that it would be the last place in town where the gang would think of looking for me.

I wished to persuade them that I had been scared off. After having the cryptogram receipt photographed, I returned it in a plain envelope to Jumbo's flat. By telephone I instructed Keenan to discharge all the operatives, close the Forty-second street office and advertise it for rent. This place had outlived its usefulness. Jumbo, Foxy, _et al._, had proved themselves more than a match for such operatives as could be hired.

This done, I went out to Amityville to spend a day with Sadie. I had promised to lay off for a little, and anyway I had to wait until my new clothes were done before being seen around town. After the mad excitement of the past few days, we spent a heavenly peaceful interlude under the oaks of my friend's big place.

While I was out there an interesting report from my sole remaining operative arrived.

REPORT OF J. M. #10

_June 27th._

As soon as I heard that you and S. F. were all right I went to bed as you instructed. It seemed to me that I had scarcely fallen asleep when I was awakened by my landlady at my door to say that a man wanted to see me. It was no more than daybreak then. Hard upon her knock Jumbo entered the room. I had barely time to pull on my false hair and fix it. Hereafter I shall have to sleep in it.

Jumbo was in a state of no little excitement. He gave me his version of what had happened. Lorina, having apparently just escaped from her room, had called him up about half an hour before. I am not sure but what Jumbo came to me because she had suggested a suspicion of me. However, I think it more likely that he just wanted moral support. He was badly frightened. Jumbo for all his bluff, is not a strong character. He is dependent both on Foxy and on the woman, and now seems disposed to lean on me. If he was suspicious my sleepiness and bad-temper upon being awakened must have reassured him.

I dressed and we went right up to the Lexington avenue house. Being Sunday, I had the day to myself. Mrs. Mansfield had gone out leaving word that we were to wait until she came in or telephoned. The maids believed that she had gone to consult the police. These two were full of highly-coloured accounts of the supposed robbery of the night before. The hulking black man, however, was silent and sullen. He knew. I wonder what you did to him. I don't think I ever saw a more repulsive human creature--or one more powerful.

Foxy arrived shortly after we did. I am now admitted to terms of the closest equality by these two. The understanding is that each knows enough to the discredit of the others to ensure faithfulness all around. We all chafed at the enforced inaction, but dared not go against Lorina's instructions. She is the boss. The other two half expected the police to descend on the house momentarily.

About ten o'clock Mrs. Mansfield returned in a taxi-cab. This taxi, by the way, is her property and the driver is one of the gang. The woman was handsomely dressed without disguise of any kind.

We had a conference in the sitting-room up-stairs. Mrs. Mansfield gave us some further details of the previous night. As soon as she succeeded in breaking out of her room after telephoning to Jumbo and Foxy she hastened up to S. F.'s house, also to your place, both of which addresses she knew. She said that she was disguised, so she must have some place outside where she changes her clothes. She found she was too late at both places. You had carried off S. F. in your automobile.

Mrs. Mansfield then went down to Fortieth street. From the park opposite, she watched your office for four hours. You got inside too quick for her, she said, but when you came out she spotted you. Her eyes gleamed like a devil's as she said it. Fancy how my heart went down.

She had then changed her clothes and come straight home. She couldn't tell how seriously she had wounded you. A general prayer went around the table that it would be your finish. She said we should hear presently.

She seems to have an unlimited number of men subject to her orders. While she waited for you at your office she had sent for several, and posted them near. They mixed in the crowd that surrounded you when you fell. One of them had been instructed to make away with your satchel. Another was to follow the ambulance to the hospital. A third was to recover her gun after the excitement was over and return it to her.

The first of these, an evil-looking young blackguard, came in while we talked. He reported no success. The satchel was strapped to your wrist, he said, and when he started to unfasten it the crowd began to murmur. He said that you had been shot in the shoulder, and had been carried to Bellevue. He gave it as his opinion that you were not as badly hurt as you made out. This cheered me greatly. Bitter disappointment was expressed around the table.

Later another of Lorina's men reported by telephone that he had learned through an orderly in the hospital that you had suffered only a slight flesh wound, and would be able to leave the hospital next day. On hearing this she gave her orders to have every exit from the hospital watched. Instructions were to shoot to kill. If it can be found out in advance what time you are going to leave, she means to be on hand herself.

As soon as I could get out without exciting suspicion, I sent you a warning by telephone.

J. M.

#11

_June 28th._

To-day I had to go to my work as usual, so I didn't see any of the gang until night. In our present state of excitement and uncertainty we have abandoned the Turtle Bay as a meeting place. I found my partners in anything but a good humour.

In the first place they had learned through the friendly orderly that in spite of all their measures, you had been safely spirited out of the hospital in an ambulance. It was learned by way of the ambulance driver that you had been carried to Dr. ----'s private hospital. It was then too late to do anything. By the time they got there, you had left, and the town had swallowed you up.

The entire strength of the gang, excepting me, has been devoted all day to picking up your trail, so far without any success. They have watched all your usual haunts, your flat, your restaurant, S. F.'s home and your office on Fortieth street. Foxy brought in word that the International Bureau on Forty-Second street had been closed, and all the operatives discharged. He trailed Keenan, the supposed manager to the office of the ---- Railway, where he was re-engaged for his old position.

Jumbo came in with the information that the piece of evidence which they regarded as of such importance had been returned to him. I don't know what this was. Lorina, examining it, said that it appeared to have the remains of paste on the corners, and that you had probably had it photographed.

Foxy gave it as his opinion that you had been scared off. "We know there is no one backing him," said he. "He has no financial resources. He can't keep it up."

Lorina would have none of it. Her eyes become incandescent with hatred when your name is mentioned now. "Don't you believe it," she snarled. "That man will never give up. I have seen his face and I know! He's a bull-dog. He will never rest until he has pulled us down, unless we stop him with a bullet."

Jumbo became panicky. His suggestion was for the gang to scatter and lie low for the time-being.

Lorina scorned him. She proceeded to point out to us all just where you stood. She appeared to know as well as you do. Her insight is uncanny. You have no case, she said, except possibly against Foxy. You are too conceited to be satisfied with one. You will not strike until you have a chance of landing the whole gang.

"But how about the kidnapping?" asked Jumbo.

"The police would have been here before this if Enderby wanted to proceed on that," she said. "Why, he watched me walk away after I shot him; and never said a word. No, I tell you he hasn't got the evidence yet, and we're safe until he gets it. He's aiming to make a grand haul of the whole gang together, and get his name in the headlines."

The others were considerably impressed. They asked for instructions.