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diff --git a/19735-8.txt b/19735-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd0f8cc --- /dev/null +++ b/19735-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8170 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phantom Wires, by Arthur Stringer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Phantom Wires + A Novel + +Author: Arthur Stringer + +Illustrator: Arthur William Brown + +Release Date: November 7, 2006 [EBook #19735] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOM WIRES *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "She turned with a start, though her loss of +self-possession lasted but a moment."] + + + + + + +PHANTOM WIRES + +A Novel + + +BY + +ARTHUR STRINGER + + + +Author of "The Wire Tappers," "The Loom of Destiny," etc. + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + + + + +Copyright, 1908, + +BY ARTHUR STRINGER. + + +Copyright, 1907, + +BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. + + +All Rights Reserved. + + + + + I + + _It's the bad that's in the best of us + Leaves the saint so like the rest of us: + It's the good in the darkest curst of us + Redeems and saves the worst of us._ + + + II + + _It's the muddle of hope and madness, + It's the tangle of good and badness, + It's the lunacy linked with sanity, + Makes up and mocks Humanity!_ + + + A. S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. THE END OF THE TETHER + II. THE AZURE COAST + III. THE SHADOWING PAST + IV. THE WIDENING ROAD + V. THE GREAT DIVIDE + VI. THE WOMAN SPEAKS + VII. OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY + VIII. "FOREIGNERS ARE FOOLS" + IX. THE LARK IN THE RUINS + X. THE TIGHTENING COIL + XI. THE INTOXICATION OF WAR + XII. THE DOORWAY OF SURPRISE + XIII. "THE FOLLY OF GRANDEUR" + XIV. AWAKENING VOICES + XV. WIRELESS MESSAGES + XVI. BROKEN INSULATION + XVII. THE TANGLED SKEIN + XVIII. THE SEVERED KNOT + XIX. THE ULTIMATE OUTCAST + XX. THE SPIDER AND THE FLY + XXI. THE PIT OF DESPAIR + XXII. THE ENTERING WEDGE + XXIII. THE WAKING CIRCUIT + XXIV. THE GHOSTS OF THOUGHT + XXV. THE RULING PASSION + XXVI. THE CROWN OF IRON + XXVII. THE STRAITS OF CHANCE + XXVIII. THE HUMAN ELEMENT + XXIX. THE LAST DITCH + XXX. ONE YEAR LATER--AN EPILOGUE + + + + +PHANTOM WIRES + + +CHAPTER I + +THE END OF THE TETHER + +Durkin folded the printed pages of the newspaper with no outward sign +of excitement. Then he took out his money, quietly, and counted it, +with meditative and pursed-up lips. + +His eyes fell on a paltry handful of silver, with the dulled gold of +one worn napoleon showing from its midst. He remembered, suddenly, +that it was the third time he had counted that ever-lightening handful +since partaking of his frugal coffee and rolls that morning. So he +dropped the coins back into his pocket, dolefully, one by one, and took +the deep breath of a man schooling himself to face the unfaceable. + +Then he looked about the room, almost vacuously, as though the +old-fashioned wooden bed and the faded curtains and the blank walls +might hold some oracular answer to the riddle that lay before him. +Then he went to the open window, and looked out, almost as vacuously, +over the unbroken blue distance of the Mediterranean, trembling into +soft ribbons of silver where the wind rippled its surface, yellowing +into a fluid gold towards the path of the lowering sun, deepening, +again, into a brooding turquoise along the flat rim of the sea to the +southward where the twin tranquilities of sky and water met. + +It was the same unaltering Mediterranean, the same expanse of eternal +sapphire that he had watched from the same Riviera window, day in and +day out, with the same vague but unceasing terror of life and the same +forlorn sense of helplessness before currents of destiny that week by +week seemed to grow too strong for him. He turned away from the soft, +exotic loveliness of the sea and sky before him, with a little gesture +of impatience. The movement was strangely like that of a feverish +invalid turning from the ache of an opened shutter. + +Durkin took up the newspaper once more, and unfolded it with listlessly +febrile fingers. It was the Paris edition of "The Herald," four days +old. Still again, and quite mechanically now, he read the familiar +advertisement. It was the same message, word for word, that had first +caught his eye as he had sipped his coffee in the little palm-grown +garden of the Hotel Bristol, in Gibraltar, nearly three weeks before. +"Presence of James L. Durkin, electrical expert, essential at office of +Stephens & Streeter, patent solicitors, etc., Empire Building, New York +City, before contracts can be culminated. Urgent." + +Only, at the first reading of those pregnant words, all the even and +hopeless monotony, all the dull and barren plane of life had suddenly +erupted into one towering and consuming passion for activity, for +return to his old world with its gentle anaesthesia of ever-widening +plans and its obliterating and absolving years of honest labor. + +He would never forget that moment, no matter into what ways or moods +life might lead him. The rhythmic pound and beat of a company of +British infantry, swarthy and strange-looking in their neutral-tinted +khaki, marched briskly by on the hard stone road, momentarily filling +the garden quietnesses with a tumult of noise. A bugle had sounded +from one of the fortified galleries high above him, had sounded clearly +out across the huddled little town at the foot of the Rock, +challenging, uncompromising, thrillingly penetrating, as the paper had +fluttered and shaken in his fingers. He had accepted it, in that first +moment of unreasoning emotionalism, as an auspicious omen, as the call +of his own higher life across the engulfing abysses of the past. He +had forgotten, for the time being, just where and what he was. + +But that grim truth had been forced on him, bitterly, bafflingly, after +he had climbed the narrow streets of that town which always seemed to +him a patchwork of nationalities, a polyglot mosaic of outlandish +tongues, climbed up through alien-looking lanes and courts, past +Moorish bazaars and Turkish lace-stores and English tobacco-shops, in +final and frenzied search of the American Consul. + +He had found the Consulate, at last, on what seemed a back street of +the Spanish quarter, a gloomy and shabby room or two, with the faded +American flags over the doorway clutched in the carven claws of a still +more faded eagle. And he had waited for two patient hours, enduring +the suspicious scowls of a lean and hawk-like Spanish housekeeper, to +discover, at the end, that the American Consul had been riding at +hounds, with the garrison Hunt Club. And when the Consul, having duly +chased a stunted little Spanish fox all the way from Legnia to +Algeciras, returned to his official quarters, in English +riding-breeches and irradiating good spirits, Durkin had seen his +new-blown hopes wither in the blossom. The Consul greatly regretted +that his visitor had been kept waiting, but infinitely greater was his +regret that an official position like his own gave him such limited +opportunity for forwarding impatient electrical inventors to their +native shores. No doubt the case was imminent; he was glad his visitor +felt so confident about the outcome of his invention; he had known a +man at home who went in for that sort of thing--had fitted up the +lights for his own country house on the Sound; but he himself had never +dreamed such a thing as a transmitting camera, that could telegraph a +picture all the way from Gibraltar to New York, for instance, was even +a possibility! . . . The Department, by the way, was going to have a +cruiser drop in at Mogador, to look into the looting of the Methodist +Missionary stores at Fruga. There was a remote chance that this +cruiser might call at the Rock, on the homeward journey. But it was +problematical. . . . And that had been the end of it all, the +ignominious end. And still again the despairing Durkin was being +confronted and challenged and mocked by this call to him from half way +round the world. It maddened and sickened him, the very thought of his +helplessness, so Aeschylean in its torturing complications, so ironic +in its refinement of cruelty. It stung him into a spirit of blind +revolt. It was unfair, too utterly unfair, he told himself, as he +paced the faded carpet of his cheap hotel-room, and the mild Riviera +sunlight crept in through the window-square and the serenely soft and +alluring sea-air drifted in between the open shutters. + +It meant that a new and purposeful path had been blazed through the +tangled complexities of life for him, yet he could make no move to take +advantage of it. It meant that the door of his delivery had been swung +wide, with its mockery of open and honest sunlight, and yet his feet +were to remain fettered in that underworld gloom he had grown to hate. +He must still stay an unwilling prisoner in this garden of studied +indolence, this playground of invalids and gamblers; he must still +dawdle idly about these glittering, stagnating squares, fringing a +crowd of meaningless foreigners, skulking half-fed and poorly housed +about this opulent showplace of the world that set its appeasing +theatricalities into motion only at the touch of ready gold. + +Durkin remembered, at that moment, that he was woefully hungry. He +also remembered, more gratefully, that the young Chicagoan, the lonely +and loquacious youth he had met the day before in the _café_ of the +"_Terrasse_," had asked him to take dinner with him, to view the +splendor of "_Ciro's_" and a keeper of the _vestiaire_ in scarlet +breeches and silk stockings. Afterwards they were to go to the little +bon-bon play-house up by the more pretentious bon-bon Casino. He was +to watch the antics of a band of actors toying with some mimic fate, +flippantly, to the sound of music, when his own destiny swung trembling +on the last silken thread of tortured suspense! Yet it was better than +moping alone, he told himself. He hated loneliness. And until the +last few weeks he had scarcely known the meaning of the word! There +had always been that other hand for which to reach, that other shoulder +on which to lean! And suddenly, at the sting of the memories that +surged over him, he went to the window that opened on its world of sea +and sunlight, and looked out. His hands clutched the sill, and his +unhappy eyes were intent and inquiring, as they swept the world before +him in a slow and comprehensive gaze. + +"_Wherever you wait, wherever you are, in all this wide world, Frank, +come here, to me, now, now, for I want you, need you!_" + +His lips scarcely murmured the vague invocation; it was more an +inarticulate wish phrasing itself somewhere in the background of his +clouded brain. + +But as he awoke to the tumult of his emotions, to the intensity of his +attitude, whilst he stood there projecting that vague call out into +space, he turned abruptly away, with the abashment of a reticent man +detected in an act of theatricality, and flung out of the room, down +into the crowded streets of Monte Carlo. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE AZURE COAST + +As Durkin and the young Chicagoan once more stepped out of the +brilliantly lighted theatre, into the balmy night air, a seductive +mingling of perfumes and music and murmuring voices blew in their hot +faces, like a cooling wave. Durkin was wondering, a little wearily, +just when he could be alone again. + +A group of gay and laughing women, with their aphrodisiac rustle of +silk and flutter of lace, floated carelessly past. + +"Who are _they_?" asked the youth. + +Durkin half-envied him his illusions and his ingenuousness of outlook; +he was treading a veritable amphitheatre of orderly disordered passions +with the gentle objective stare of a child looking for bright-colored +flowers on a battleground. Durkin wondered if, after all, it was not +the result of his mere quest of color, of his studying art in Paris for +a year or two. + +"I wonder who and what they are?" impersonally reiterated the younger +man, as his gaze still followed the passing group to where it drifted +and scattered through the lamp-strewn garden, like a cluster of golden +butterflies. + +"Those are the slaves who sand the arena!" retorted Durkin, studying +the softly waving palms, and leaving the other a little in doubt as to +the meaning of his figure. + +The younger man sighed; he was beginning to feel, doubtless, from what +different standpoints they looked out on life. + +"Oh, well, you can say what you like, but this is the centre of the +world, to _my_ way of thinking!" + +"The centre of--putrescence!" ejaculated Durkin. The younger man began +to laugh, with conciliatory good-nature, as he glanced appreciatively +back at the sweetmeat stateliness of the Casino front. But into the +older man's mind crept the impression that they were merely passing, in +going from crowded theatre to open garden and street, from one +playhouse to another. It all seemed to him, indeed, nothing more than +a transition of theatricalities. For that outer play-world which lay +along Monaco's three short miles of marble stairway and villa and +hillside garden appeared to him, in his mood of settled dejection, as +artificial and unnatural and unrelated as the life which he had just +seen pictured across the footlights of the over-pretty and +meringue-like little theatre. + +"Well, Monte Carlo's good enough for me, all right, all right!" +persisted the young Chicagoan, as they made their way down the +lamp-hung Promenade. And he laughed with a sort of luxurious +contentment, holding out his cigarette-case as he did so. + +The older man, catching a light from the proffered match, said nothing +in reply. Something in the other's betrayingly boyish laugh grated on +his nerves, though he paused, punctiliously, beside his chance-found +companion, while together they gazed down at the twinkling lights of +the bay, where the soft and violet Mediterranean lay under a soft and +violet sky, and the boatlamps were languidly swaying dots of white and +red, and the Promontory stood outlined in electric globes, like a +woman's breast threaded with pearls, the young art-student expressed +it, and the perennial, ever-cloying perfumes floated up from square and +thicket and garden. + +There was an eternal menace about it, Durkin concluded. There was +something subversive and undermining and unnerving in its very +atmosphere. It gave him the impression of being always under glass. +It made him ache for the sting and bite of a New England north-easter. +It screened and shut off the actualities and perpetuities of life as +completely as the drop and wings of a playhouse might. Its sense of +casual and careless calm, too, seemed to him only the rest of a +spinning top. Its unrelated continuities of appeal, its incessant +coquetries of attire, its panoramic beauty of mountain and cape and +sea-front, its parade of corporeal and egotistic pleasures, its +primordial and undisguised appeal to the carnival spirit, its frank, +exotic festivity, its volatile and almost too vital atmosphere, and, +above all, its glowing and over-odorous gardens and flowerbeds, its +overcrowded and grimly Dionysian Promenade, its murmurous and alluring +restaurants on steep little boulevards--it was all a blind, Durkin +argued with himself, to drape and smother the cynical misery of the +place. Underneath all its flaunting and waving softnesses life ran +grim and hard--as grim and hard as the solid rock that lay so close +beneath its jonquils and violets and its masking verdure of mimosa and +orange and palm. + +He hated it, he told himself in his tragic and newborn austerity of +spirit, as any right-minded and clean-living man should hate paper +roses or painted faces. Every foot of it, that night, seemed a muffled +and mediate insult to intelligence. The too open and illicit +invitation of its confectionery-like halls, the insipidly emphatic +pretentiousness of the Casino itself--Durkin could never quite decide +whether it reminded him of a hurriedly finished exposition building or +of a child's birthday cake duly iced and bedecked--the tinsel glory, +the hackneyed magnificence, of its legitimatized and ever-orderly +gaming dens, the eternal claws of greed beneath the voluptuous velvet +of indolence--it all combined to fill his soul with a sense of hot +revolt, as had so often before happened during the past long and lonely +days, when he had looked up at the soft green of olive and eucalyptus +and then down at the intense turquoise curve of the harbor fringed with +white foam. + +Always, at such times, he had marveled that man could turn one of +earth's most beautiful gardens into one of crime's most crowded haunts. +The ironic injustice of it embittered him; it left him floundering in a +sea of moral indecision at a time when he most needed some forlorn +belief in the beneficence of natural law. It outraged his +incongruously persistent demand for fair play, just as the sight of the +jauntily clad gunners shooting down pigeons on that tranquil and Edenic +little grass-plot at the foot of the Promontory had done. + +For underneath all the natural beauty of Monaco Durkin had been +continuously haunted by the sense of something unclean and leprous and +corroding. Under its rouge and roses, at every turn, he found the +insidious taint. + +And more than ever, tonight, he had a sense of witnessing Destiny +stalking through those soft gardens, of Tragedy skulking about its +regal stairways. + +For it was there, in the midst of those unassisting and enervating +surroundings, he dimly felt, that he himself was to choose one of two +strangely divergent paths. Yet he knew, in a way, that his decision +had already been forced upon him, that the dice had been cast and +counted. He had been trying to sweep back the rising sea with a broom; +he had been trying to fight down that tangled and tortuous past which +still claimed him as its own. And now all that remained for him was to +slip quietly and unprotestingly into the current which clawed and +gnawed at his feet. He had been tried too long; the test, from the +first, had been too crucial. He might, in time, even find some +solacing thought in the fitness between the act and its +environment--here he could fling himself into an obliterating Niagara, +not of falling waters, but of falling men and women. Yes, it was a +stage all prepared and set for the mean and sordid and ever recurring +tragedy of which he was to be the puppet. For close about him seethed +and boiled, as in no other place in the world, all the darker and more +despicable passions of humanity. He inwardly recalled the types with +which his stage was embellished; the fellow puppets of that gilded and +arrogant and idle world, the curled and perfumed princes, the waxed and +watching _boulevardiers_ side by side with virginal and unconscious +American girls, pallid and impoverished grand dukes in the wake of +painted but wary Parisians, stiff-mustached and mysterious Austrian +counts lowering at doughty and indignant Englishwomen; bejeweled beys +and pashas brushing elbows with unperturbed New England school-teachers +astray from Cook's; monocled thieves and gamblers and princelings, +jaded tourists and skulking parasites--and always the disillusioned and +waiting women. + +"That play got on your nerves, didn't it?" suddenly asked the lazy, +half-careless voice at his side. Durkin and the young Chicagoan were +in the musky-smelling Promenade by this time, and up past the stands at +the sea-front the breath of the Mediterranean blew in their faces, +fresh, salty, virile. + +"This whole place gets on my nerves!" said Durkin testily. Yes, he +told himself, he was sick of it, sick of the monotony, of the idleness, +of the sullen malevolence of it all. It was gay only to the eyes; and +to him it would never seem gay again. + +"Oh, that comes of not speaking the language, you know!" maintained the +other stoutly, and, at the same time, comprehensively. + +He was still very young, Durkin remembered. He had toyed with art for +two winters in Paris, so scene by scene he had been able to translate +the little drama that had appeared so farcical and Frenchy to his older +countryman in exile. + +Durkin's lip curled a little. + +"No--it comes of knowing _life_!" he answered, with a touch of +impatience. He felt the gulf that separated their two oddly diverse +lives--the one the youth eager to dip into experience, the other a +fugitive from a many-sided past that still shadowed and menaced him. +He listened with only half an ear as the Chicagoan expounded some glib +and ancient principle about the fairy tale being even truer than truth +itself. + +"Why," he continued argumentatively, "everything that happened in that +play might happen here, tonight, to you or me!" + +"Rubbish!" ejaculated Durkin, brusquely, remembering how lonely he must +indeed have been thus to attach himself to this youth of the studios. +But he added, as a matter of form: "You think, then, that life today +_is_ as romantic as it once was?" + +"_Mon Dieu_!" cried the other. "Look at Monte Carlo here! Of course +it is. It's more crowded, more rapid; it holds _more_ romance. We +didn't put it all off, you know, with doublet and hose!" + +"No, of course not," answered Durkin absently. Life, at that moment, +was confronting him so grimly, so flat and sterile and uncompromising +in its secret exactions, that he had no heart to theorize about it. + +"And a thing isn't romantic just because it's moss-grown!" continued +the child of the studios, warming to his subject. "It's romantic when +we've emotionalized it, when we've _felt_ it, when it's hit home with +us, as it were!" + +"If it doesn't hit too hard!" qualified the older man. + +"For instance," maintained the young Chicagoan, once more proffering +his cigarette-case to Durkin, "for instance, take that big Mercedes +touring-car with the canopy top, coming down through the crowd there. +You'll agree, at first sight, that such things mean good-bye to the +mounted knight, to chivalry, and all that romantic old horseman +business." + +"I suppose so." + +"But, don't you see, the horse and armor was only a frame, an +accidental setting, for the romance itself! It's up to date and +practical and sordid and commonplace, you'd say, that puffing thing +with a gasoline engine hidden away in its bowels. It's what we call +machinery. But, supposing, now, instead of holding Monsieur le Duc +Somebody, or Milord So-and-So, or Signor Comte Somebody-Else, with his +wife or his mistress--I say, supposing it held--well, my young sister +Alice, whom I left so sedately contented at Brighton! Supposing it +held my young sister, running away with an Indian rajah!" + +"And you would call that romance?" + +"Exactly!" + +Durkin turned and looked at the approaching car. + +"While, as a matter of fact," he continued, with his exasperatingly +smooth smile, "it seems to be holding a very much overdressed young +lady, presumably from the Folies-Bergère or the Olympia." + +The younger man, looking back from his place beside him, turned to +listen, confronted by the sudden excited comments of a middle-aged +woman, obviously Parisian, on the arm of a lean and solemn man with +dyed and waxed mustachios. + +"You're quite wrong," cried the young Chicagoan, excitedly. "It's +young Lady Boxspur--the new English beauty. See, they're crowding out +to get a glimpse of her!" + +"Who's Lady Boxspur?" asked Durkin, hanging stolidly back. He had seen +quite enough of Riviera beauty on parade. + +"She's simply ripping. I got a glimpse of her this afternoon in front +of the _Terrasse_, after she'd first motored over from Nice with old +Szapary!" He lowered his voice, more confidentially. "This Frenchman +here has just been telling his wife that she's the loveliest woman on +the Riviera today. Come on!" + +Durkin stood indifferently, under the white glare of the electric lamp, +watching the younger man push through to the centre of the roadway. +The slowly-moving touring-car, hemmed in by the languid midnight +movement of the street, came to a full stop almost before where he +stood. It shuddered and panted there, leviathan-like, and Durkin saw +the sea breeze sway back the canopy drapery. + +He followed the direction of the excited young Chicagoan's gaze, +smilingly, now, and with a singularly disengaged mind. + +He saw the woman's clear profile outlined against the floating purple +curtain, the quiet and shadowy eyes of violet, the glint of the +chestnut hair that showed through the back-thrust folds of the white +silk automobile veil swathing the small head, and the nervous, +bird-like movement of the head itself. + +He did not move; there was no involuntary, galvanic reaction; no sudden +gasp and flame of wonder. He simply held his cigarette still poised in +his fingers, half-way to his lips, with the minutest relaxing of the +smile that still hovered about them, while a dull and ashen grayness +crept into his face, second by waiting second. + +It was not until his eyes met hers that he took three wavering and +undecided steps toward her. + +With a silent movement--more of warning than of fright, he afterward +told himself--she pressed her gloved fingers to her lips. What her +intent eyes meant to say to him, in that wordless, telepathic message, +Durkin could not guess; all thought was beyond him. But in a moment or +two the roadway cleared, the car shook and plunged forward, the +floating curtains fluttered and trailed behind. + +Durkin turned blindly, and pushed and ran and dodged through the +languidly amazed promenaders, following after that sudden and +bewildering vision, as after his last hope in life. But the fine, +white, limestone Riviera dust from the fading car's tire-heels, and the +burnt gases from its engines, were all the road held for him, as it +undulated off into hillside quietnesses. + +He heard the young Chicagoan calling after him, breathless and anxious. +But he ran on until he came to a side street, shadowed with garden +walls and villas and greenery. Slipping into this, he immured himself +in the midnight silences, to be alone with the contending forces that +tore at him. + +If his companion was right, and such things as this made up Romance, +then, after all, the drama of life had lost none of its bewilderment. +For the woman he had seen between the floating purple curtains was his +own wife. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SHADOWING PAST + +Durkin's first tangible feeling was a passion to lose and submerge +himself in the muffling midnight silences, the silences of those +outwardly quiet gardens at heart so old in sin and pain. + +He felt the necessity for some sudden and sweeping readjustment, and +his cry for solitude was like that of the child wounded in spirit, or +that of the wild animal sorely hurt in body. Before he could face life +again, he felt, he had to build up about him the sustaining fabric of +some new and factitious faith. + +But as intelligence slowly emerged from the mist and chaos of utter +bewilderment, as reason crept haltingly back to her seat, his first +blind and indeterminate rage fell away from him. His first black and +blinding clouds of suspicion slowly subsided before practical and +orderly question and cross-question. Thought adjusted itself to its +new environment. Painfully, yet cautiously, he directed his ceaseless +artillery of interrogation toward the outer and darker walls of +uncertainty still so blankly confronting him. + +It was not that he had been consumed by any direct sense of loss, of +deprivation. It was not that he had feared open and immediate +treachery. If a rage had burned through him, at the sudden and +startling sight of his own wife thus secretly masquerading in an +unknown rôle, it was far from being a rage or mere jealousy and +distrust. + +They had, in other days, each passed through questionable and perilous +experiences. Both together and alone they had adventured unwillingly +along many of the more dubious channels of life. They had surrendered +to temptation; they had sown and reaped and suffered, and become weary +of it. They had struggled slowly yet stoically up towards +respectability; they had fought for fair-dealing; they had entered a +compact to stand by each other through that long and bitter effort to +be tardily honest and autumnally aboveboard. + +What now so disturbed and disheartened him was the sudden sense of +something impending, the vague apprehension of some momentous and +far-reaching intrigue which he could not even foreshadow. And it was +framing itself into being at a time when he had most prayed for their +untrammelled freedom, when he had most looked for their ultimate +emancipation from the claws of that too usurious past. + +But, above all, what had brought about the sudden change? Why had no +inkling of it crept to his ears? Why was she, the passionate pleader +for the decencies of life whom he had last watched so patiently and +heroically imparting the mastery of the pianoforte to seven little +English children in a squalid Paris _pension_, now lapsing back into +the old and fiercely abjured avenue of irresponsibility? Why had she +weakened and surrendered, when he himself, the oldtime weakling of the +two, had clung so desperately to the narrow path of rectitude? And +what was the meaning and the direction of it all? And what would it +lead to? But why, above all, had she kept silent, and given him no +warning? + +Durkin looked up and listened to the soft rustling of the palm +branches. The bray of a distant band saddened him with an unfathomable +sense of homesickness. Through an air that seemed heavy with languid +tropicality, and the waiting richness of life, he caught the belated +glimmer of lights and the throb and murmur of string music. It carried +in to him what seemed the essential and alluring note of all the +existence he had once known and lived. Yet day by day he had fought +back that sirenic call. It had not always been an open victory--the +weight of all the past lay too heavily upon him for that--but for _her_ +sake he had at least vacillated and hesitated and temporized, waiting +and looking for that final strength which would come with her first +wistful note of warning, or with her belated return to his side. + +Yet here was Opportunity lying close and thick about him; here Chance +had laid the board for its most tempting game. In that way, as the +young Chicagoan had said, they stood in the centre of the world. But +he had turned away from those clustering temptations, he had left +unbroken his veneer of honorable life, for her sake--while she herself +had surrendered, unmistakably, irrevocably, whatever strange form the +surrender might even at that moment be taking. + +All he could do, now, was to wait until morning. There would surely be +some message, some hint, some key to the mystery. While everything +remained so maddeningly enigmatic, he raked through the tangled past in +search of some casual seed of explanation for that still undeciphered +present. + +He recalled, period by period, and scene by scene, his kaleidoscopic +past career, his first fatal blunder as a Grand Trunk telegraph +operator, when one slip of the wrist brought a gravel train head-on +into an Odd Fellows' Excursion special, his summary dismissal from the +railroad, and his unhappy flight to New York, his passionate struggle +to work his way up once more, his hunger for money and even a few weeks +of leisure, that his long dreamed of photo-telegraphy apparatus might +be perfected and duly patented, his consequent fall from grace in the +Postal-Union offices, through holding up a trivial racing-return or two +until he and his outside confederate had been able to make their +illicit wagers, then his official ostracism, and his wandering +street-cat life, when, at last, the humbling and compelling pinch of +poverty had turned him to "overhead guerrilla" work and the dangers and +vicissitudes of a poolroom key-operator. He recalled his chance +meeting with MacNutt, the wire-tapper, and their partnership of +privateer forces in that strange campaign against Penfield, the alert +and opulent poolroom king, who had seemed always able to defy the +efforts and offices of a combative and equally alert district-attorney. + +Most vividly and minutely of all, he reviewed his first meeting with +Frances Candler, and the bewilderment that had filled him when he +discovered her to be an intimate and yet a reluctant associate with +MacNutt in his work--a bewilderment which lasted until he himself grew +to realize how easy was the downward trend when once the first false +step had been made. + +He brought back to mind their strange adventures and perils and escapes +together, day by day and week by week, their early interest that had +ripened into affection, their innate hatred of that underground life, +which eventually flowered into open revolt and flight, their impetuous +marriage, their precipitate journey from the shores of America. + +Then came to him what seemed the bitterest memories of all. It was the +thought of that first too fragile happiness which slowly but implacably +merged into discontent, still hidden and tacit, but none the less +evident. That interregnum of peace had been a Tantalus-like taste of a +draught which he all along knew was to be denied him. Yet, point by +point, he recalled their first quiet and hopeful weeks in England, when +their old ways of life seemed as far away as the America they had left +behind, when they still had unbounded faith in themselves and in the +future. Just how or where fell the first corroding touch he could +never tell. But in each of them there had grown up a secret unrest--it +was, he knew, the hounds of habit whimpering from their kennels. "No +one was ever reformed," he had once confided to Frances, "by simply +being turned out to grass!" So it was then that they had tried to drug +their first rising doubts with the tumult of incessant travel and +change. His wife had lured him to secluded places, she had struggled +to interest him in a language or two, she had planned quixotic courses +of reading--as though a man such as he might be remolded by a few +months of modern authors!--and carried him off to centres of gaiety--as +though the beat of Hungarian bands and outlandish dances could drive +that inmost fever out of his blood! + +He endured Aix-les-Bains and its rheumatics, with their bridge-whist +and late dinners and incongruous dissipations, for a fortnight. Then +they fled to the huddled little hotels and _pensions_ of the narrow and +dark wooded valley of Karlsbad, under skies which Frank declared to be +bluer than the blue of forget-me-nots, where, amid Brahmins from India +and royalty from Austria and audacious young duchesses from Paris and +students from Petersburg and Berlin, and undecipherable strangers from +all the remotest corners of the globe, it seemed to Durkin they were at +last alone. He confided this feeling to his wife, one tranquil morning +after they had drunk their Sprudel from long-handled cups, at the +spring where the comely, rubber-garmented native girls caught and doled +out the biting hot spray of the geyser. They were seated at the +remoter end of the glass-covered Promenade, and a band was playing. +Something in the music, for once, had saddened and dispirited Frank. + +"Alone?" she had retorted. "Who is ever alone?" + +"Well, our wires are down, for a little while, anyway!" laughed Durkin, +as he sipped the hot salt water from the china cup. It reminded him, +he had said, of all his past sins in epitome. Frank sighed wearily, +and did not speak for a minute or two. + +"But, after all," she said at last, in a meditative calmness of voice, +"there are always some sort of ghostly wires connecting us with one +another, holding us in touch with what we have been and done, with our +past, and with our ancestors, with all our forsaken sins and misdoings. +No, Jim, I don't believe we are _ever_ alone. There are always sounds +and hints, little broken messages and whispers, creeping in to us along +those hidden circuits. We call them Intuitions, and sometimes we speak +of them as Character, and sometimes as Heredity, and weakness of +will--but they are there, just the same!" + +The confession of that mood was a costly one, for before the week was +out they had, in some way, wearied of the sight of that daily +procession of nephritics and neurotics, and were off again, like a pair +of homeless swallows, to the Rhine salmon and the Black Forest venison +of Baden. From there they fled to the mountain air of St. Moritz, +where they were frozen out and driven back to Paris--but always +spending freely and thinking little of the vague tomorrow. Durkin, +indeed, recognized that taint of improvidence in his veins. He was a +spendthrift; he had none of the temperamental foresight and frugality +of his wife, who reminded him, from time to time, and with +ever-increasing anxiety, of their ever-melting letter of credit. But, +on the other hand, she stood ready to sacrifice everything, in order to +build some new wall of interest about him, that she might immure him +from his past. She still planned and schemed to shield him, not so +much from the world, as from himself. Yet he had seen, almost from the +first, that their pursuit of contentment was born of their common and +ever-increasing terror of the future. Each left unuttered the actual +emptiness and desolation of life, yet each nursed the bitter sting of +it. Day by day he had put on a bold face, because he had long since +learned how poignantly miserable his own misery could make her. And, +above all things, he hated to see her unhappy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WIDENING ROAD + +Under the softly-waving palms of that midnight garden, Durkin relived +their feverish past, month by remembered month, until they found the +need of money staring them in the face. He reviewed each increasing +dilemma, until, eventually, he had left her in her squalid Paris +pension with her music pupils and the last eighty francs, while he +clutched at the passing straw of an exporting house clerkship in +Marseilles. The exporting house, which was under American guidance, +had flickered and gone out ignominiously, and week by desperate week +each new promise of honest work seemed to wither into a chimera at his +feverish touch. He had been told of a demand for electrical experts at +Tangier, and had promptly worked his passage to that outlandish +sea-port on a Belgian coasting-steamer, only to find a week's +employment installing a burglar-alarm system in the ware-house of a +Liverpool shipping company. In Gibraltar, a week or two longer, he had +been able to supply his immediate wants through assisting in the +reconstruction of a moving-picture machine, untimely wrecked on the +outskirts of Fez by Moorish fanatics who had believed it to be the +invention of the Evil One. + +It was at Gibraltar, too, that his first mocking hopes for some renewal +of life had come to him, along with the vague hint that his +transmitting camera had at last been recognized, and perhaps even +marketed. But escape from that little seaport had been as difficult as +escape from gaol. He had finally effected a hazardous and +ever-memorable migration from Algeciras to Cimiez, but only by acting +as chauffeur for a help-abandoned, gout-ridden, and irritable-minded +ex-ambassador to Persia, together with a scrupulously inattentive +trained nurse, who, apparently, preferred diamonds to a uniform, and +smuggled incredible quantities of hand-made lace under the tonneau +seat-cushions. And then he had found himself at Monte Carlo, still +waiting for word from Paris, fighting against a grim new temptation +which, vampire-like, had grown stronger and stronger as its victim +daily had grown weaker and weaker. + +For along the sea-front, one indolent and golden afternoon, he had +learned that an American yacht in the harbor was sending ashore for a +practical electrician, since a defective generator had left its cabins +of glimmering white and gold in sudden darkness. Durkin, after a brief +talk with the second officer, had been taken aboard the tender and +hurried out to where the lightless steamer rocked and swung at her +anchor chain in the intense turquoise bay. He had hoped, at first, +that he was approaching his ship of deliverance, that luck was favoring +the luckless and at last the means of his escape were at hand. So he +asked, with outward unconcern, just what the yacht's course was. They +were bound for Messina, the second officer had replied, and from there +they went on to Corfu for a couple of weeks, and then on to Ragusa. + +He went on board and looked over the armature core. It was of the +slotted drum type, he at once perceived, built up of laminations of +soft steel painted to break up eddy currents, and as he tested the soft +amber mica insulation about the commutators of hard-rolled copper, he +knew that the defective generator could be repaired in three-quarters +of an hour. But certain scraps of talk that came to his ears amid the +clink of glasses, from one of the shadowy saloons, had stung into vague +activity his old, irrepressible hunger for the companionship of his own +kind, his own race. + +It was uncommonly pleasant, he had told himself as he had caught the +first drone of the lowered, confidential voices, to hear the old home +talk, and even broken snatches of old home interests. As he explored +the ship and minutely examined automatic circuit-breaker and +switchboard and fuse, he even made it a point to see that his +explorations took him into the pantry-like cabin next to the saloon +from which these droning voices drifted. As he gave apparently +studious and unbroken attention to a stretch of defective wiring, he +was in fact making casual mental note of the familiar tones of the +distant voices, listening impersonally and dreamily to each question +and answer and suggestion that passed between that quietly talking +group. One of the talkers, he soon found, was a Supreme Court judge on +his vacation, equable and deliberative in his occasional query or view +or criticism; another was apparently a secret agent from the office of +the New York district-attorney, still another two were either Scotland +Yard men or members of some continental detective bureau--this Durkin +assumed from their broad-voweled English voices and their seemingly +intimate knowledge of European criminal procedure. The fifth man he +could in no way place. But it was this man who interrupted the others, +and, apparently taking a slip of paper from some inside pocket or some +well-closed wallet, read aloud a list which, he first explained, had +been secured from some undesignated safe on the night of a certain raid. + +"Three hundred and twenty shares of National Bank of Commerce," read +the voice methodically, the reader checking off each item, obviously, +as he went along. "One certificate of forty-seven shares of United +States Steel Preferred; two certificates of one hundred shares each of +Erie Railroad First Preferred; eighteen personal cheques, with names +and amounts and banks attached; seven I. O. U.'s, with amounts and +dates and initials." + +"Probably worthless, from our point of view!" interposed a voice. + +The dreaminess suddenly went out of Durkin's eyes, as he listened. + +"Postal-Union Telegraph bonds, valued at $102,345," went on the reading +voice, and again the interrupting critic remarked: "Which, you see, we +may regard as very significant, since it both obviously and inferably +demonstrates that the telegraph company and the poolrooms are compelled +to stand together!" + +Durkin followed the list, with inclined head and uplifted hands, +forgetting even his simulation of work, until the end was reached. + +"In all, you see, one quarter of a million dollars in negotiable +securities, if we are to rely on this memorandum, which, as I stated +before, ought to be authentic, for it was taken from the Penfield safe +the night of the first raid." + +Durkin started, as though the circuit with which his fingers absently +toyed had suddenly become a live wire. + +"Penfield!" The word sent a little thrill through his body. +Penfield--the very name was a challenging trumpet to him. But again he +bent and listened to the drone of the nearby voices. + +"And Keenan, you say, is in Genoa?" asked one of the Englishmen. + +"If he's not there now he will be during the week," answered the +American. + +"You're sure of that?" + +"All I know is that our Milan man secured duplicates of his cables. +Three of them were in cipher, but he was able to make reasonably sure +of the Genoa trip!" + +"It would be rather hard to get at him, _there_!" + +"But if he strikes north, as you say, and goes first to Liverpool, and +gets home by the back door, as it were, by taking a steamer to Quebec +or Montreal----" + +"That's a mere blind!" + +"But why say that?" + +"Because he's too wise to stride British territory, before he unloads. +It's not a mere matter of stopping the transfer of this stock, or +whether or not all of it is negotiable. What we want is tangible and +incriminating evidence. The signatures of those cheques are----" + +That was the last word that came to Durkin's ears, for at that moment a +steward, with a tray of glasses, hurried into the pantry. His +suspicious eye saw nothing beyond a busy electrician replacing a +switchboard. But before the intruding steward had departed the second +officer was at Durkin's elbow, overlooking his labors, and no further +word or hint came to the ears of the listener. + +But he had heard enough. The flame had been applied to the dry acreage +of his too arid and idle existence. He had remained passive too long. +It was change that brought chance. And even though that change meant +descent, it would, after all, be only the momentary dip that preceded +the upward flight again. And as he gazed thoughtfully landward, where +Monte Carlo lay vivid and glowing under the sheltering Alpes-Maritimes, +like a golden lizard sunning itself on a shelf of gray rock, he felt +within him a more kindly and comprehensive feeling for that +flower-strewn arena of vast hazards. It was, after all, the great +chances of life that made existence endurable. Its only anodyne lay in +effort and feverish struggle. And his chance for work had come! + +Half an hour later he was rowed ashore, with a good Havana cigar +between his teeth and three good English sovereigns in his pocket. As +he made his way up to his hotel he could feel some inner part of him +still struggling and shrinking back from the enticing avenue of +activity which his new knowledge was opening up before him. + +He smiled, now, a little grimly, as he sat under the rustling palms and +thought of those old, unnecessary scruples. He had been holding +himself to a compact which no longer existed. And, all along, he had +been regarding himself as the weakling, the vacillator, when it was he +who had held out the longest! He had even, in those earlier hesitating +moments, consolingly recalled to his mind how Monsieur Blanc's modestly +denominated Société Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Étrangers +made it a point to proffer a railway ticket to any impending wreck, +such as himself, who might drift like a stain across its roads of +merriment, or leave a telltale blot upon one of its perennially +beautiful and ever-odorous flower-beds. But now, as he reviewed those +past weeks of hesitation and inward struggle, a sense of relapse crept +over him. As he recalled the picture of the clear-cut profile between +the floating purple curtains, a vague indifference as to the final +outcome of things took possession of him. + +He almost exulted in the meaning of the strange meeting, which, one +hour before, had seemed to bring the universe crashing down about his +head. Then, as his plans and thoughts took more definite shape, his +earlier recklessness merged into an almost pleasurable sense of relief +and release, of freedom after confinement. He felt incongruously +grateful for the lash that had awakened him to even illicit activity; +life, under the passion for accomplishment, under the zest for risk and +responsibility, seemed to take on its older and deeper meaning once +more. It was, he told himself, as if the foreign tongue which he had +so wearily heard on every side of him, for so long, had suddenly +translated itself into intelligibility, or as if the text beneath the +pictures in those ubiquitous illustrated papers from Paris, which he +had studied so blankly and so blindly, had suddenly become as plain as +his own English to him. + +But his moment of exaltation, his mood of careless emancipation, was a +brief one. He was no longer alone in life. His bitterness of heart +had blinded him to obligations. He had not yet fathomed the mystery of +Frank's appearance. He had not yet even made sure of her relapse. +Above all, he had not put forth a hand to help her in what might be an +inexplicable extremity. The morning could still bring some word from +her. He himself would spend the day in search of her. He would have +to proceed guardedly, but he would leave no stone unturned. It was +not, he told himself, that he was giving fate one last chance to treat +more kindly with him. It was, rather, that all his natural being +wanted and reached out for this woman who had first taught him the +meaning and purpose of life. . . . His mind went back, suddenly, to +one afternoon, months before, at Abbazia, when they had come up from +sea-bathing in the Adriatic. He had leaned down over her, to help her +up the Angiolina bath steps, wet and slippery with sea-water. The +mingled gold and chestnut of her thick hair was dank and sodden with +brine, the wistful face that she turned up to him was pinched and +colorless and blue about the lips. She seemed, of a sudden, as she +leaned heavily on his arm, a presaging apparition out of the dim +future, an adumbration of her own body grown frail and old, looking up +to him for help, calling forlornly to him for solace. And in that +impressionable moment his heart had gone out to her, in a burst of pity +that seemed deeper and stronger than love itself. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GREAT DIVIDE + +Durkin waited until, muffled and far away, the throb and drone of an +orchestra floated up to him. This was followed, scatteringly, by the +bells of the different _tables d'hôte_. They, too, sounded thin and +remote, drifting up through the soft, warm air that had always seemed +so exotic to him, so redolent of foreign-odored flowers, so burdened +with alien-smelling tobacco smoke, of unfamiliar sea scents +incongruously shot through with even the fumes of an unknown and +indescribable cookery. + +While that genial shrill and tinkle of many bells meant refreshment and +most gregarious frivolity for the chattering, loitering, laughing and +ever-spectacular groups so far below him--and how he hated their +outlandish gibberish and their arrogant European aloofness!--it meant +for him hard work, and hard work of a somewhat perilous and stimulating +nature. + +For, as the last of the demurely noisy groups made their way through +the deepening twilight to the different hotels and cafés that already +spangled the hillsides with scattering clusters of light, Durkin coolly +removed his shoes, twisted and knotted his two bath towels into a stout +rope, securely tied back his heavy French window-shutter of wood with +one of his sheets, and having attached his improvised rope to the base +of the shutters, swung himself deftly out. On the return swing he +caught the cast-iron water-pipe that scaled the wall from window tier +to window tier. Down this jointed pipe he went, gorilla-like, segment +by segment, until he reached what he knew to be the hotel's third +floor. Here he rested for a moment or two against the wall, feeling +inwardly grateful that a Mediterranean climate still made possible +Monaco's primitive outside plumbing--to the initiated, he inwardly +remarked, such things had always their unlooked-for advantages. He +also felt both relieved and grateful to see that the two windows +between him and his destination had been left shuttered against the +heat of the afternoon sun. The third window he could see, was not thus +barricaded, although, as he had expected, the sash itself was securely +locked. + +Once convinced of this, he dropped down, stealthily, and lay full +length on the balcony flooring, with his ear close against the casement +woodwork, listening. Reasonably satisfied, he rose to his knees, and +took from his vest pocket a small diamond ring. Holding this firmly +between his thumb and forefinger, he described a semi-circle on the +heavy window-glass. He listened again, intently. Then he took a small +cold-chisel from still another pocket, and having cut away the putty at +the base of the semicircle, smote the face of the glass one sharp +little tap. + +It cracked neatly, along the line of the circling diamond-scratch, so +that, with the help of a suction cap made from the back of a kid glove, +he was able to draw out the loosened segment of glass. Then he waited +and listened still again. As he thrust in through the little opening a +cautiously exploring hand the casual act seemed to take on the dignity +of a long-considered ritual. It was a ceremonial moment to him, he +felt, for it marked his transit, across some narrow moral divide, from +lonely ascent to lonely decline. + +The impression stayed with him only a second. He turned back to his +work, with a reckless little up-thrust of each resolute shoulder. His +searching fingers found the old-fashioned window lever, of hammered +brass, and on this he pressed down and back, quietly. A moment later +the sash swung slowly out, and he was inside the room, closing the +shutters and then the window after him. + +He stood there, in the dark quietness, for what must have been a full +minute. Then he took from his pocket a box of wax matches. He had +purchased them for the purpose, from the frugal old woman who month by +month and season by season carried on her quiet trade at the foot of +the Casino steps, catching, as it were, the tiny drippings from the +flaring tapers in that Temple of Gold. And day after day, one turn of +the roulette wheel took and gave more money than all her years of +frugal trade might amass! + +Taking one of the vestas, he struck a light, and holding it above his +head, carefully examined the room, from side to side. Then he tiptoed +to a door, which stood ajar. This, he saw by a second match, was a +sleeping-room; and the two rooms, obviously, made up the suite. A +door, securely locked, opened from the sleeping-room into the outer +hallway. The door which opened from the larger room was likewise +locked, but to make assurance doubly sure Durkin slid a second inside +bolt, for already his quick eye had caught the gleam of its polished +brass, just below the door-knob of the ordinary mortised lock. Then, +groping his way to the little switchboard, he touched a button, and the +room was flooded with light. He first looked about, carefully but +quickly, and then glanced at his watch. He had at least two hours in +which to do his work. Any time after that Pobloff might return. And +by midnight at least the Prince's valet would be back from Nice, to +begin packing his master's boxes. + +He slipped into the bedroom, and took from the bed a blanket and +comforter. These he draped above the hall door, to muffle any chance +sound. Then he turned to the northeast corner of the room, where stood +what seemed to be a dressing cabinet, with little shelves and a +plate-glass mirror above it. The lower part of it was covered by a +polished rosewood door. + +One sharp twist and pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outer +door away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood the +more formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of +relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the +sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he +had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with +the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the +cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. +But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin +at the first glance had seen--the sort of strong box which a Third +avenue cigar seller, at home, would scarcely care to keep on his +premises. Yet this was the deposit vault for which hotel guests, such +as Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, paid ten francs a day extra. + +The sound of footsteps passing down the hallway caused the intruder to +draw back and listen. He turned quickly, waited, and came to a quick, +new decision. Before doing so, however, he re-examined the room more +critically. + +This Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff was, obviously, a man of taste. +He was also a man of means--and Durkin wondered if in that fact alone +lay the reason why a certain young Belgian adventuress had followed him +from Tangier to Algeciras, and from Algeciras to Gibraltar, and from +Gibraltar still on to the Riviera. She had, at any rate, not followed +a scentless quarry. He was not the mere curled and perfumed impostor +so common to that little principality of shams. Even the garrulous +young Chicagoan, from whom Durkin had secured his first Casino tickets, +was able to vouch for the fact that Pobloff was a true _boyard_. He +was also something or other in the imperial diplomatic service--just +what it was Durkin could not at the moment remember. + +But he nursed his own personal convictions as to the moral stability of +this true _boyard_. He had quietly witnessed, at Algeciras, the +Prince's adroit card "riffling" in the sun-parlors of The Reina +Cristina, when the gouty ex-ambassador to Persia had parted company +with many cumbersome dollars. Durkin's only course, in that time of +adversity and humility, had been one of silence. But he had inwardly +and adventurously resolved, if ever Fate should bring him and the +Prince together under circumstances more untrammelled, he would not let +pass a chance to balance up that ledger of princely venality. For here +indeed was an adversary, Durkin very well knew, who was worthy of any +man's steel. + +So the intruder, opening and closing drawers as he went, glanced +quickly but appreciatively at the highly emblazoned cards lying on the +little red-leather-covered writing-table, at the litter of papers +bearing the red and blue and gold of the triple-crowned double eagle, +at the solid gold seal, at the row of splendid and regal-looking women +in silver photograph holders, above the reading-desk, and a decanter or +two of cut-glass. In one of the drawers of this desk he found an +ivory-handled revolver, a toy-like thirty-two caliber hammerless, of +English make. Durkin glanced at it curiously, noticed that each +chamber held its cartridge, turned it over in his hand, replaced it in +the drawer, and after a moment's thought, took it out once more and +slipped it into his hip pocket. Then his rapidly roving eye took in +the sable top-coat flung carelessly across the foot of the bed, the +neat little heelless Tunisian slippers beneath it, the glistening, +military-looking boots, each carefully nursing its English shoe-tree, a +highly embroidered smoking-cap, an ivory-handled shaving-set in its +stamped morocco case, one razor for each day of the week, and the +silver-mounted toilet bottles, so heavily chased. + +Having, apparently, made careful mental note of the rooms, Durkin once +more turned back to the switchboard, and prying loose the fluted +molding that concealed the lighting-wires, he scraped away the +insulating tissue and severed the thread of copper with a sweep or two +of his narrow file. He felt safer, in that enforced darkness, for the +work which lay before him. + +The black gloom was punctuated by the occasional flare of a match, and +the silence broken now and then, as he worked before the safe, by the +metallic click and scrape of steel against steel, and by the muffled +rasp and whine of his file against the wax-covered key which from time +to time he fitted into the unyielding safe lock. As he filed and +tested and refiled, with infinite care and patience, his preoccupied +mind ranged vaguely along the channel of thought which the events of +the last half-hour had opened up before him. He wondered why it was +that Fortune should so favor those who stood the least in need of her +smile. For four nights during the last seven, he knew, the Prince had +won, and won heavily, both in the Casino and in the Club Privé. Yet, +on the other hand, there was the little Bulgarian princess with rooms +just across the corridor from his own, and the rightful possessor of +the plain little diamond with which he had just cut his way into this +more sumptuous chamber. For a week past now, down at the Casino, she +had been losing steadily, as of course the vast and undirected majority +always must lose. Even her solitaire earrings had been taken to Nice +and pawned, Durkin knew. Three days before that, too, her maid--and +who is ever anybody on the Riviera without a maid?--had been +reluctantly and woefully discharged. At the Trente et Quarante table, +as well, Durkin had watched the last thousand-franc note of the +Princess wither away. "And this, my dear, will mean another three +months with my sweet old palsied Duc de la Houspignolle," she had +laughingly yet bitterly exclaimed, in excellent English, to the +impassive young Oxford man who was then dogging her heels. She was a +wit, and she had a beautiful hand, even though she was no better than +the rest of Monte Carlo, ruminated the safe-breaker easily, as he +squinted, under the flare of a match, at the ward indentations in his +wax-covered key-flange. + +His thoughts went back, as he worked, to the timely yet unexpected +scene at the stair-head, two hours before. There he had helped a slim +young _femme de chambre_ support the Princess to her room, that royal +lady having done her best to drown her ill fortune in absinthe and +American high-balls--which, he knew, was ever an impossible +combination. She had collapsed at the head of the stairs, and as he +had helped lift her he had first caught sight of the solitaire diamond +on the limp and slender finger. This reactionary mood, in the face of +the earlier more tragical hours of that day of wearing anxieties, was +almost one of facetiousness. He seemed to revel in the memory of what, +in time, he knew, would be humiliating to him. It was a puny little +diamond ring, of but three or four carats' weight, he mused, and yet +with it had come the actual, if not the moral, turn in the tide of all +his restless activities. It marked the moment when life seemed to fall +back to its older and darker areas; it was the first diminutive +milestone on his new road of adventure. But he would return the ring, +of that he stoutly reassured himself, for he still nursed his ironic +sense of justice in the smaller things. Yes, he would return the ring, +he repeated, with his ever-recurring inapposite scrupulosity, for the +young Princess was a lady of fortune under an unlucky star, like +himself. + +Durkin smiled a little, over his wax-covered key, as he still filed and +fitted and listened. Then he gave vent to an almost inaudible "Ah!" +for the bit of the key made the complete circuit, at last, and the +wards of the lock clicked back into place. + +He swung open the heavy iron door, cautiously, listened for a moment, +and then struck another match. + +That Pobloff might have the bank-notes with him was a contingency; that +he would carry about with him two thousand napoleons was an absurdity. +And Durkin knew the money had not been deposited--to ascertain that had +been part of his day's work. The Prince, of course, was a prodigal and +free-handed gentleman--how much of his winnings had already leaked +through his careless fingers it was impossible to surmise. Durkin even +resented the thought of that extravagance--as though it were a personal +and obvious injustice to himself. If it was all the fruit of blind +chance, if it came thus unearned and accidental, why should he not have +his share of it? Already Monte Carlo had taught him the mad necessity +for money. But now, of all times, it was necessary for him. One-half, +one-quarter, of the sum which this careless-eyed Slavic aristocrat had +carried so jauntily away from the Trente et Quarante table would endow +him with the means to come into his own once more. It was essential +that he secure his sinews of war, even before he could continue his +search for Frank, or rescue her from the dangers that beset her, if she +still wished for rescue. If he regretted the underground and underhand +steps through which that money could alone come into his possession, he +consoled his still protesting conscience with the claim that it was, +after all, only a battle of wit against disinterested wit. For, +self-delusively, he was beginning once more to regard all organized +society and its ways as a mere inquisitorial process which the +adventurous could ignore and the keen-witted could circumvent. +Warfare, such as his, must be a law unto itself! + +Then he gave all his attention to the work before him, as he lifted +from the safe, first a small steel despatch box, neatly initialed in +gold, "I. S. P.," and then a packet of blue-tinted envelopes, held +together by two rubber bands, and written on, here and there, in a +language which the intruder assumed to be Russian. Next came a +japanned-tin box, which proved to hold nothing but a file of quite +unintelligible, Seidlitz-powder-colored papers, and then what seemed, +to Durkin's exploring fingers, to be a few small morocco cases. The +question flashed through his mind: What if, after all, the money he was +looking for was not to be found! He struck still another match, with +impatient hands. His first fever of audacity had burned itself out, +and some indefinite cold reaction of disdain and disgust was setting +in. Stooping low, he peered into the safe once more. + +Then he gave a little sigh of relief. For there, behind a row of books +that looked like small ledgers or journals, he caught sight of a stout +leather bag, tied with a corded silk rope. He dropped the burned-out +end of the match, and, thrusting in an arm, lifted out the bag. As he +placed it on the floor the muffled click of metal smote on his ear. He +wiped the sweat from his forehead, with a sense of relief. He had +risked too much to go away empty-handed. + +He tore at the carefully knotted cord, first with his fingers and then +with his teeth. It was not so heavy as he had hoped it might be. On +more collected second thoughts, indeed, it was woefully light. But the +knot defied his efforts. He took out a second match, and was on the +point of striking it. + +Instead of doing so, he stood suddenly erect, and then backed +noiselessly into the remotest corner of the room. For a key had been +thrust into the lock of the anteroom door, and already the handle was +being slowly turned back. + +Durkin's breath quickened and shortened, and his hand swung back to his +hip pocket. Then he waited, with his revolver in his hand. + +He counted and weighed his chances, quickly, one by one, as he stood +there, in the black silence. He caught the diffused glimmer of the +reflected light from the outer room as the door opened and closed, +sharply. But the momentary half-light did not give him a glimpse of +who or what was before him, for in a second all was blackness again. +His first uneasy thought was that it was a very artful move. He and +that Other were alone there, in the utter darkness. Neither, now, +would have the advantage. He had been a fool to leave one of the doors +without its double lock, of some sort. He had once been told that it +was always through the more trivial contingency that the criminal was +ultimately trapped. + +He strained his ears, and listened. He could hear nothing. Yet he was +positive that he could feel some approaching presence. It may have +been a minute vibration of flooring; it may have been through the +operation of some occult sixth sense. But he was sure of that +mysterious Other, coming closer and closer to him. + +Suddenly something seemed to stir and move in the darkness. He +crouched, with every nerve and muscle ready, and a moment later he +would have relieved the tension with some sort of cry, had he not +realized that it was the wooden Swiss clock above the cabinet, +beginning to strike the hour. + +The sound came to an end, and Durkin was assuring himself that it could +now be neither Pobloff nor the valet, when a second sound sent a tingle +of apprehension through his frame. + +It was the blue spurt of a match that suddenly cut the blackness before +him. The fool--he was striking a light! + +Durkin crouched lower, and watched the flame as it grew on the +darkness. The direct glare of it made him blink a little, but he swung +his revolver barrel just above it, and a little to the right. He was +more confident now, and quite collected. However it all turned out, it +could not be much worse than starving to death, unknown and alone in +some public square of Monaco. + +As the tiny luminous circle flowered into wider flame the match was +held higher. Durkin could see the rose-like glow between the phalanges +of the fingers shielding the light. Then, of a sudden, a face grew out +of the blackness, a white face shadowed by a plumed hat. It was a +woman's face. Durkin lowered his revolver, slowly, inch by inch. + +It was his wife who stood there in the darkness, not six paces away +from him. + +"_You_!" he gasped involuntarily, incredibly. Sheer wonder survived +his instinctive recoil. It was the bolt, striking twice in the same +spot. + +The two white faces looked at each other, gaped at each other, +insanely. He could see her breath come and go, shortly, and the +deathly pallor of her face, and the relaxed lower jaw that had fallen a +little away from the drooping upper lip. But she neither moved nor +spoke. The match burned to her finger-ends, and fell to the floor. +Darkness enveloped them again. + +"You!" he repeatedly vacuously. The blackness and the silence seemed +to blanket and smother him, like something tangible to the touch. He +took three steps toward where she still stood motionless, and in an +agonized whisper cried out to her: + +"_My God, Frank, what is it_?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WOMAN SPEAKS + +"Ssssh!" said the woman under her breath, as she clutched Durkin's arm. + +He shook her hand off, impatiently, although the act seemed at +cross-purposes with his own will. + +"But you--here!" he still gasped. + +"Oh, Jim!" she half-moaned, inadequately. Yet an _aura_ of calmness +seemed to surround her. So great was his own excitement that the words +burst from him of their own will, apparently, and sounded like the +utterance of a voice not his own. + +"What's it mean! How'd you get here?" + +He could hear her shuddering, indrawn sigh. + +"What, in the name of heaven, do _you_ want in here? Why don't you +speak?" + +There was a moment of unbroken silence. For the first time it seemed +to come home to him that this woman who confronted him was his own +wife, in the flesh and blood. + +"What are _you_ doing here?" she demanded at last. + +He responded, even in his mood of hot antagonism, to some note of +ever-sustained appeal about her. Even through the black gloom that +blanketed and blinded him some phantasmal and sub-conscious medium, +like the imaginary circuit of a multiplex telegraph system, seemed to +carry to his mind some secondary message, some thought that she herself +had not uttered. She, too, was suffering, but she had not shown it, +for such was her way, he remembered. A wave of sympathy obliterated +his resentment. He caught her in his arms, hungrily, and kissed her +abandonedly. He noticed that her skin was cold and moist. + +"Oh, Jim," she murmured again, weakly. + +"It's so long, isn't it?" + +Then she added, with a little catch of the breath, as though even that +momentary embrace were a joy too costly to be countenanced, "Turn on +the lights, quick!" + +"I can't," he told her. "I've cut the wires." + +He felt at her blindly, through the muffling blackness. She was +shaking a little now, on his arm. It bewildered him to think how his +hunger for her could still obliterate all consciousness of time and +place. + +"Why didn't you write?" she pleaded pitifully. + +"I did write--a dozen times. Then I telegraphed!" + +"Not a word came!" she cried. + +"Then I wrote twice to London!" + +"And _those_ never came. Oh, everything was against me!" she moaned. + +"But how did you get here?" he still demanded. + +She did not answer his question. Instead, she asked him: "Where did +you send the Paris letters?" + +"To 11 bis avenue Beaucourt." + +She groaned a little, impatiently. + +"That was foolish--I wrote you that I was leaving there--that I _had_ +to go!" + +"Not a line reached me!" + +He heard her little gasp of despair before she spoke. + +"I was put out of there," she went on, hurriedly and evenly, yet with a +_vibrata_ of passion in her crowded utterance. "There wasn't a penny +left--the pupils I had gave up their lessons. What they had heard or +found out I don't know. Then I got a tiny room in the rue de Sèvres. +I sold my last thing, then our wedding ring, even, to get it." + +"And then what?" + +"I still waited--I thought you would know, or find out, and that in +some way or other I should still hear from you. I would have gone to +the police, or advertised, but I knew it wouldn't be safe." + +Once more the embittering consciousness of some dark coalition of +forces against them swept over him. Fate, at every step, had +frustrated them. + +"I advertised twice, in the Herald?" + +"Where would I see the Herald?" + +"But you must have known I was trying to find you--that I was doing +everything possible!" + +"I knew nothing," she answered, in her poignantly emotionless voice. +And the thought swept through Durkin that something within her had +withered and died during those last grim weeks of suffering. + +"But here--how did you get here--and what's this Lady Boxspur +business?" he still insisted. + +"Yes, yes," she almost moaned, "if you'll only wait I'll tell you. But +is it safe to stay here? Have you thought where we are?" + +"Yes; it's safe, quite safe, for an hour yet." + +"Why didn't you send me money, or help me?" she asked, in her dead and +unhappy monotone. + +"I did, eighty francs, all I had. I hadn't a penny left. I didn't +know the damned language. I prowled about like a cat in a strange +garret, but I tried everything, from the American consul at Nice to a +_Herald_ correspondent at San Remo. Then I got word of a consumptive +young writer from New York, at Mentone--but he died the day I was to +meet him. Then I heard of the new Marconi station up the coast, and +worked at wireless for two weeks, and made twenty dollars, before they +sacked me for not being able to send a message out to a Messina +fruit-steamer, in Italian. Then I chanced on the job of doctoring up a +generator on an American yacht down here in the bay." + +"Yes, yes--I know how hard it is!" + +"But listen! When I was on board at work I overheard a Supreme Court +judge and a special agent from the Central Office in New York and two +English detectives talking over the loss of certain securities. And +those securities belong to Richard Penfield!" + +He knew that she had started, at the sound of that name. + +"Penfield!" she gasped. "What of him?" + +"When the district-attorney's men raided Penfield's New York gambling +club, one of Penfield's new men got away with all his papers. They had +been withdrawn from the Fifth Avenue Safe Deposit Company, for they +were mostly cheques and negotiable securities, worth about two hundred +and fifty thousand dollars. But beyond all their face value, they +constituted _prima facie_ evidence against the gambler." + +"But what's all this to us, now?" + +"They were smuggled to New Jersey. There the Jersey City chief of +police took action, and this agent of Penfield's carried the documents +across the North River and up to Stamford. From there he got back to +New York again, by night, where he met a second agent, who had secured +passage on the _Slavonia_ for Naples. The first man is MacNutt." + +"MacNutt!" ejaculated the listening woman. + +"Yes, MacNutt! He compromised with Penfield and swung in with him when +the district-attorney started pounding at them both. The second man is +a lawyer named Keenan, who was disbarred for conspiracy in the Brayton +divorce case. Keenan and his papers are due at Genoa on Friday. I +found some of this out on board the yacht. I thought it over--and it +was the only way open for me. I couldn't stand out against it all, any +longer. I thought I could make the plunge, without your ever knowing +it--and perhaps get enough to keep you out of any more messes like +this!" + +"You had given me up?" she cried, reprovingly. + +"No--no--no--I'd only given up waiting for chances to _find you_. My +God, don't you suppose I knew you needed me!" + +"It would have been too late!" she said, in her dead voice. "It's too +late, already!" + +"Then you don't care?" he demanded, almost brokenly. + +"I'll never complain, or whine, again!" she answered with dreary +listlessness. + +"Then why _are_ you in this room?" + +"_I mean that I've given up myself_. I'm in it, now, as deep as you! +I couldn't fight it back any longer--it _had_ to come!" + +"But why, and how! Why don't you explain?" + +He could feel her groping away from him in the darkness. + +"Wait," she whispered. + +"But why should I wait?" he demanded. + +"Listen! That second room door is still unlocked, and there's danger +enough here, without inviting it." + +He groped after her into the bedroom. He could hear the gentle scrape +of the key and the muffled sound of the lock as she turned it, followed +by the cautious slide of the brass bolt, lower on the door. He waited +for her, standing at the foot of the bed. He could hear her sigh of +weariness as she sat down on the edge of the disordered mattress. +Then, remembering that he had cut the wires of only the larger room, he +felt his way to the button at the head of the bed. He snapped the +current open and instantly the blinding white light flooded the chamber. + +"_Is_ it safe here, any longer?" she asked restlessly, pausing a moment +to accustom her eyes to the light, and then gazing up at him with an +impersonal studiousness of stare that seemed to wall and bar her off +from him. Still again he was oppressed by some sense of alienation, of +looming tragedy between them. She, too, must have known some shadow of +that feeling, for he saw the look of troubled concern, of unspoken +pity, that crept over her face; and he turned away brusquely. + +She spoke his name, quietly; and his gaze coasted round to her again. +She watched him with wide and hungry eyes. + +Her breast heaved, at his silence, but all she said was: "Is it safe, +Jim?" + +"Yes, it's perfectly safe. So tell me what you have to say. It +doesn't mean any greater risk. We would only have to come back +again--for I've work to do in this room yet!" + +The return of the light seemed to give a new cast of practicality to +his thoughts. + +"What sort of work?" his wife was asking him. + +"Seventeen hundred napoleons in gold to find," he answered grimly. + +"Oh, it's not that, not _that_!" she said, starting up. "It's the +papers, the Gibraltar papers!" + +"Papers?" he repeated wonderingly. + +"Yes, the imperial specifications. Pobloff's a paid agent in the +French secret service. They say he was the man who secured Kitchener's +Afghanistan frontier plans, and in some way or other had a good deal to +do with the Curzon resignation." + +"Ah, I _thought_ there was something behind our _boyard_!" + +"A year ago last March he was arrested in Jamaica, by the British +authorities, for securing secret photographs of the Port Royal +fortifications. They court-martialed one of the non-commissioned +officers for helping him get an admission to the fortress, but the +officer shot himself, and Pobloff had the plates spirited away, so the +case fell through. Now he's got duplicates of every Upper Gallery and +every new fortification of the Rock at Gibraltar." + +"But why waste time over these things?" + +"Pobloff got them through an English officer's wife. She was weak--and +worse--she lost her head over him. I can't tell you more now. But +there is an order for five hundred pounds waiting for me at the British +Embassy, in Rome, from the Foreign Office, if I secure those papers!" + +"That's twenty-five hundred dollars?" + +"Yes, almost." + +"And I was on the point of crawling away with a few napoleons!" said +Durkin in a whisper. He began to succumb to the intoxication of this +rapidity of movement which life was once more taking on. He was +speed-mad, like a motorist on a white and lonely road. Yet an +ever-recurring dismay and distrust of the end kept coming to him. + +"But how did you come to find all this out? What happened after the +rue de Sèvres?" + +"Oh, it was all easy and natural enough, if I could only put it into +words. After a few days, when I was hungry and sick, I went to one of +the English hotels. I would have taken anything, even a servant's +work, I believe." + +He cursed himself to think that it was through him that she had come to +such things. + +"But I was lucky," she went on, hurriedly. "One afternoon I stumbled +on a weeping lady's maid, on the verge of hysterics, who found enough +confidence in me, in time, to tell me that her mistress had gone mad in +her room and was clawing down the wallpaper and talking about killing +herself. It was true enough, in a way, I soon found out, for it was an +English noblewoman who had fought with her husband two weeks before in +London, and had run away to Paris. What she had dipped into, and gone +through, and suffered, I could only guess; but I know this: that that +afternoon she had drunk half a pint of raw alcohol when the frightened +maid had locked her in the bath-room. So I pushed in and took charge. +First I wired to the woman's husband, Lord Boxspur, who sent me money, +at once, and an order to bring her home as quietly as possible. He met +us at Calais. It was a terrible ordeal for me, all through, for she +tried to jump overboard, in the Channel, and was so insane, so +hopelessly insane, that a week after we reached London she was +committed to some sort of private asylum." + +"And then?" asked Durkin. + +"Then Boxspur thought that possibly I knew too much for his personal +comfort. I rather think he looked on me as dangerous. He put me off +and put me off, until I was glad to snatch at a position in a +next-of-kin agency. But in a fortnight or two I was even more glad to +leave it. Then I went back to Lord Boxspur, who this time sent me +helter-skelter back to Paris, to bribe a blackmailing newspaper woman +from giving the details of his wife's misfortunes to the Continental +correspondent of a London weekly. But even when that was done, and I +had been duly paid for my work, I was only secure for a few weeks, at +the outside. All along I kept writing for you, frantically. So, when +things began to get hopeless again, I went to the British Embassy. I +had to lie, terribly, I'm afraid, before I could get an audience, first +with an under secretary, and then with the ambassador himself. He said +that he regretted he could do nothing for me, at least, officially. He +looked at my clothes, and laughed a little, and said that of course, in +cases of absolute destitution he sometimes felt compelled to come to +the help of his fellow-countrymen. I told him that I knew the world, +and was willing to undertake work of any sort. He answered that such +cases were usually looked after at the consulate, and advised me to go +there. But I didn't give him up, at once. I told him I was +resourceful, and experienced, and might undertake even minor official +tasks for him, until I had heard from my husband. Then he hesitated a +little, and asked me if I knew the Continent well, and if I was averse +to traveling alone. Then he called somebody up on his telephone, and +in a few minutes came out and shook his head doubtfully, and advised me +to apply at the consulate. Instead of that, I went not to the English, +but to the American consul first. He told me that in five weeks a +sea-captain friend of his was sailing from Havre to New York, and that +it might not be impossible to have me carried along." + +"That's what they always say!" + +"It was the best he could do. Then I went to the British consul. He +spoke about references, which left me blank; and tried to pump me, +which left me frightened. But he could do nothing, he told me, except +in the way of a personal donation, and that, he assumed, was out of the +question. So I went back to the Embassy once more. I don't know why, +but this time, for some reason or other, the ambassador believed in me. +He gave me a week's trial as a sort of second deputy private secretary, +indexing three-year-old correspondence and copying Roumanian +agricultural reports. Then he put me on ordinance-report work. Then +something happened--I can't go into details now--to arouse my +suspicions. I rummaged through the storage closet in my temporary +office and looped his telephone wire with twenty feet of number twelve +wire from a broken electric fan, and an unused transmitter. Then, +scrap by scrap, I picked up my first inklings of what was at that +moment worrying the Foreign Office and the people at the Embassy as +well. It was the capture of the Gibraltar specifications by Prince +Slevenski Pobloff. When a Foreign Office secret agent telephoned in +that Pobloff had been seen in Nice, I fought against the temptation for +half a day, then I went straight to the ambassador and told him what I +knew, but not how I came to know it. He gave me two hundred francs and +a ticket to Monte Carlo, with a letter to deliver in Rome, if by any +chance I should succeed." + +"That would give us the show we want! _That_ would give us a chance!" + +She did not understand him. "A chance for what?" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY + +Durkin was pacing up and down the small room in his stockinged feet, +looking at her, from time to time, with a detached, but ever studiously +alert glance. Then he came to a stop, and confronted her. The memory +of the night before, in the Promenade, with the sudden glimpse of her +profile against the floating automobile curtain, came back to his mind, +with a stab of pain. + +"But what has all this to do with Lady Boxspur?" he suddenly demanded, +wondering how long he should be able to have faith in that inner, +unshaken integrity of hers which had passed through so many trials and +survived so many calamities. But she hurried on, as though unconscious +of both his tone and his attitude. + +"That has more to do with the next-of-kin agency. I left it out, of +course, but if you _must_ know it now, and here, I can tell you in a +word or two." + +"One naturally wants to know when one's wife ascends into the +aristocracy!" + +"And a Mercedes touring car as well! But, oh, Jim, surely you and I +don't need to go back to all that sort of thing, at this stage of the +game," she retorted wearily. She felt wounded, weighed down with a +perverse sense of injury at his treatment, of injustice at his +coldness, even in the face of the incongruous circumstances under which +they had met. + +But she went on speaking, resolutely, as though to purge her soul, for +all time, of explanation and excuse. + +"That next-of-kin agency was a dingy little office up two dingy stairs +in Chancery Lane. For a few days their work seemed bearable enough, +though it hurt me to see that all their income was being squeezed out +of miserably poor people--always the miserably poor, the submerged +souls with romantic dreams of impending good fortune, which, of course, +always just escaped them. That, I could endure. But when I found that +the agency was branching out, and was actually trying to present me for +inspection as a titled heiress, in sore need of a secret and immediate +marriage, I revolted, at once. Then they calmly proposed that I embark +for America, as some sort of bogus countess--and while they were still +talking and debating over what mild and strictly limited extravagances +they would stand for, and just what expenses they would allow, I +bolted! But their scheming and plotting had given me the hint, for I +knew, if the worst came to the worst, I would not be altogether under +the thumb of Lord Boxspur. So when I came South from Paris I simply +assumed the title--it simplified so many things. It both gave me +opportunities and protected me. If, to gain my ends and to reconnoitre +my territory, I became the occasional guest--remember, Jim, the most +discreet and guarded guest!--of Count Anton Szapary--who carried a +hundred thousand crowns away from the Vienna Jockey Club a month or two +ago--you must simply try to make the end justify the means. I was +still trying to get in touch with you. One of his automobiles was +always politely placed at my disposal. It was a chance, well, scarcely +to be missed. For, you see, it was my intention to meet His Highness, +the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, under slightly different +circumstances than would prevail if he and his valet should quietly +step through that door at the present moment!" + +She laughed, a little bitterly, with a reckless shrug of the shoulders. +Durkin, nettled by the sound of tragedy in her voice, did not like the +sound of that laugh. Then, as he looked at her more critically, he saw +that she was white and worn and tired. But it was the words over which +she had laughed which sent him abruptly hurrying into the next room +with a lighted match, to read the hour from the little Swiss clock +above the cabinet. + +"If we're after anything here we've got to get it!" he said, with +conscious roughness. "It's later than I thought." + +"Very well," she answered, quietly enough. + +Then she turned to him, as he waited with his hand on the bedroom +light-button, before switching it off. + +"You need never be afraid that I will bother you with any more of my +hesitations, and scruples, and half-timid qualms, as I once did. All +that is over and done with. I feel, now, that we're both in this sort +of work from necessity, and not by accident. It has gripped and +engulfed us, now, for good." + +He raised a hand to stop her, stung to the quick by the misery and +bitterness of her voice, still asking himself if it was not only the +bitter cry of love for some neglectful love's reply. But she swept on, +abandonedly. + +"There's no use quibbling and fighting against it. We've got to keep +at it, and wring out of it what we can, and always go back to it, and +bend to it, and still keep at it, to the bitter end!" + +"Frank, you mustn't say this!" he cried. + +"But it's truth, pure truth. We're only going to live once. If we +can't be happy without doing the things we ought not to do--then we'll +simply _have to be criminals_. But I want my share of the joy of +living--I want my happiness! I want _you_! I lost you once, and +almost forever, by hoping it could be the other way--but it's too late!" + +"Frank!" he pleaded. + +"I want you to see where we are," she said, with slow and terrible +solemnity. "If I am to be saved from it, now, or ever again, _you_ +must do it--_you--you_!" + +She drew herself together, with a little shiver. + +"Come," she said, "we've got our work to do!" + +He looked at her white face for one moment, in silence, bewildered, and +then he snapped shut the button. + +"We had better look through the safe at once," she went on +apathetically. Something in her tone, if not her words themselves, as +she had spoken, sent a wave of what was more than startled misery +through her husband. He once more felt, although he felt it vaguely, +the note of impending tragedy which she was so premonitarily sounding. +It brought to him a dim and hurried vision of that far-off but +inevitable catastrophe which lay, somewhere, at the end of the road +they were traveling. Their only hope and solace, it seemed to him, +must thereafter lie in feverish and sustained activity. They must lose +themselves in the dash and whirl of daring moments. And it was not +from pleasure or from choice, now; it was to live. They must act or +perish; they must plot and counterplot, or be submerged. Yet he would +do what he could to save himself, as she, in turn, must do what she +could for herself--if they came to the end of their rope. + +A minute later they were bending together over the contents of the +dismantled safe. He was striking matches. By this time they were both +on their knees. + +"You run through these papers, while I see what can be done with the +despatch box," he whispered to her. Then he put the little package of +vestas between them, so they might work by their own light. From time +to time the soft spurt of the lighting match broke the silence, as +Frank hurriedly ran her eye over the different packets, and as +hurriedly flung them back into the safe. + +It was a relief to Durkin to think that he at least had someone beside +him who could read French. Busy as he was, he incongruously recalled +to his mind how he once used to study the little printed announcements +in his hotel rooms, wondering, ruefully, if the delphic text meant that +lights and fires were extra, and if baths must be paid for, and vainly +trying to discover what his last basket of wood might cost. + +Yes, he told himself, he was a hunter out of his domain. He would +always feel intimidated and insecure in this land of aliens and +unknowns. He even sympathetically wondered who it was that had said: +"Foreigners are fools!" Then a sudden, irrational, inconsequential +sense of gratitude took possession of him, as he felt and heard the +woman at work so close beside him. There was a feeling of +companionship about it that made the double risk worth while. + +"There's nothing here!" Frank was saying, under her breath. + +"Then it _must_ be the box!" he told her. + +Durkin knew it was already too late to file and fit a skeleton key. +His first impulse was to bury the box under a muffling pile of bedding +and send a bullet or two through the lock. But his wandering eye +caught sight of a Morocco sheath-knife above them on the wall, and a +moment later he had the point of it under the steel-bound lid, and as +he pried it flew open with a snap. + +He waited, listening, and lighting matches, while Frank went through +the papers, with nervous and agile fingers, mumbling the inscriptions +as she hurriedly read and cast them away from her. + +"I thought so!" she said at last, crisply. + +The packet held half a dozen blueprints, together with some twelve or +fourteen sheets of plans and specifications, on tinted "flimsy." +Durkin noticed they were drawn up in red and black ink, and that at the +bottom of each document were paragraphs of finely-penned, +scholarly-looking writing. One glance was enough for them both. + +Frank refolded them and caught them together with a rubber band. Then +she thrust them into the bosom of her dress. Both rose to their feet, +for both were filled with the selfsame sudden passion to get into the +open once more. + +"That must go back, now!" whispered Frank, for Durkin was stooping down +again, over the leather bag that held the napoleons. + +"Thank heaven," he answered gratefully, "it's not _that_!" + +"Not _yet_!" she whispered back, bitterly, as she heard the chink and +rattle of metal in the darkness. But some day it might be. + +Then she heard another sound, which caused her to catch quickly at +Durkin's arm. It was the sound of a key turning in the lock, followed +by an impatient little French oath, and the weight of a man's body +against the resisting door. Then the oath was repeated, and a second +key was turned, this time in the nearer door. + +"It's Pobloff!" she whispered. + +She had felt the almost galvanic, precautionary response of Durkin's +body; now she could hear his whispered ejaculation as he clutched at +her and thrust her back. + +"_You_ must get away, quick, whatever happens," he said hurriedly. +There was a second tremor and rattle of the door; it might come in at +any moment. + +"Don't think of me," she whispered. "It's _you_!" + +"But, my God, how'll you get out of this?" he demanded, in a quick +whisper. He was trying to force her back into the little anteroom. + +"No, no; don't!" she answered him. "I can manage it--more easily than +you!" + +"But how?" + +He was still crowding and elbowing her back, as though mere retreat +meant more assured safety. + +"No, _no_!" she expostulated, under her breath. "I can shift for +myself. It's _you_--you must get away!" + +She was forcing the packet from her bosom into his hands. + +"Take care of these, quick! Now here's the window ready. Oh, Jim, get +away while you've got the chance!" + +"I can't do it!" he protested. + +"You _must_, I tell you. I wouldn't lie to you! On my honor, I +promise you I'll come out of this room, unharmed and free! But quick, +or we'll both lose!" + +Even in that moment of peril the thought that she was still ready to +face this much for him filled his shaken body with a glow that was more +keenly exhilarating than wine itself. There was no time for words or +demonstration: the action carried its own eloquence. + +He was already halfway through the opened window, but he turned back. + +"Do you care, then?" he panted. + +He could hear the quick catch of her breath. + +"Good or bad, I love you, Jim! You know that! Now, hurry, oh, hurry!" + +He caught her hand in his--that was all there was time for--while with +his free hand Durkin thrust the packet down into his pocket. + +"If it turns out wrong--I mean if anything should happen to me, go +straight to the Embassy with them, in Rome. Good-bye!" + +"Ah, then you _do_ expect danger!" he retorted, already back at the +window again. + +"No--no!" she whispered, resolutely, barring his ingress. "Hurry! +Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye," he whispered, as he slipped down on his hands and knees and +crawled along the balcony, like a cat, through the darkness. + +Then the woman closed the window, and waited. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"FOREIGNERS ARE FOOLS" + +Frances Durkin, as she turned back into the darkness of the room, +desperately schooled herself to calmness. She warned herself that, +above all, she must remain clear-headed and collected, and act coolly +and decisively, when the moment for action arrived. + +But as the seconds slipped by, and the silence remained unbroken, a +shred of forlorn hope came back to her. Each moment meant more assured +safety to her husband--he, at least, was getting away unscathed and +unsuspected. And that left her almost satisfied. + +She still waited and listened. Perhaps, after all, the Prince had +taken his departure. Perhaps he had gone back to the _portier's_ +office, for explanations. Perhaps it had not even been Pobloff--merely +a drunken stranger, mistaken in his room number, or servants with a +message or with linen. + +She groped softly across the room, until she came to the door. She +found it draped and covered with a heavy blanket. Holding this back, +she slipped under it, and peered through the keyhole into the +illuminated hallway. There seemed to be nobody outside. + +"It is a rule of the game, I believe, never to shoot the rabbit until +it is on the run!" + +The words, spoken in excellent English, and barbed with a touch of +angry cynicism, smote on her startled ears like an Alpine thunderclap. + +She emerged from under the blanket, slowly, ignominiously, ashamed of +even her Peeping-Tom abandonment of dignity. + +As she did so she saw herself being looked at with keen but placid +eyes. The owner of the eyes in one hand held a lighted bedroom lamp. +In his other hand he held a flat, short-barreled pocket revolver, of +burnished gun-metal, and she could see the lamplight glimmer along its +side as it menaced her. + +She did not gasp--nor did she shrink away, for with her the situation +was not so novel as her antagonist might have imagined. Indeed, as she +gazed back at him, motionless, she saw the look of increasing wonder +which crept, almost involuntarily, over his white, lean, Slavic-looking +face. + +Frances Durkin knew it was Pobloff. He was tall, exceptionally tall, +and she noticed that he carried off his faultlessness of attire with +that stiff but tranquil _hauteur_ which seems to come only with a +military training. The forehead was high and white and prominent, with +oddly marked depressions, now thrown into shadow by the lamp light, +above and behind the highly-arched eyebrows, on each extremity of the +frontal bone. The nose was long and narrow-bridged, and the face +itself was unusually long and narrow, and now quite colorless. This +gave a darker hue to the thin mustache and the trim imperial, through +which she caught a glint of white teeth, in what seemed half a smile +and half a snarl. The hair was parted almost in the centre, a little +to the right, and but for the pebbled shadows about the sunken, yet +still bright eyes, he would be called a youthful-looking man. She +understood why women would always speak of him as a handsome man. + +"I am sorry, but I was compelled to force the bolt," he said, slowly, +with his enigmatic smile. + +She still looked at him in silence, from under lowered brows. Her +fingers were locking and unlocking nervously. + +"And to what do I owe this visit?" he demanded mockingly. He was quite +close to her by this time. + +She took a step backward. She could even smell brandy on his breath. + +"Your English is admirable!" she answered, as mockingly. + +"As your energy!" he retorted, taking a step nearer the still open +door. Then he looked about the room, slowly and comprehensively. On +his face, in the strong sidelight, she could see mirrored each fresh +discovery, as step by step he covered the course of the completed +invasion. She followed his gaze, which now rested on the rifled safe. + +A little oath, in Russian, suddenly escaped his lips. + +Then he turned and strode into the anteroom, and she could hear him +making fast and locking the outer hall door. Then he withdrew the key, +and came back to her. + +"I must still regard you, of course, as my guest," he said slowly, with +his easy menace. + +"You Europeans always give us lessons in the older virtues!" she +retorted, as mockingly as before, in her soft contralto. + +He looked at her, for a moment, in puzzled wonder. Then he held the +lamp closer to her face. He nursed no illusions about women. Frances +Durkin knew that for years now he had made them his tools and his +accomplices, never his dictators and masters. But as he looked into +the pale face, with the shadowy, almost luminous violet eyes, and the +soft droop of the full red lips, and the still girlish tenderness of +line about the brow and chin, and then at the betraying fulness of +throat and bosom, the mockery died out of his smile. + +It was supplanted by a look more ominously purposeful, more grimly +determined. + +"What, madam, did you come here for?" he demanded. + +She shrugged an apparently careless shoulder. + +"His Highness, the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, has always been the +recipient of much flattering attention!" She found it still safest to +mock him. + +"We have had enough of this! What is it? Money? Or jewelry?" + +She spurned the leather bag on the floor with the toe of her shoe. He +could hear the clink and rattle of the napoleons that followed the +movement. He started suddenly forward and bent over the broken +despatch box. His long white fingers were running dexterously through +the once orderly little packets. + +"_Or something more important_?" he went on, as he came to the end of +his stock. + +Then he gave a little half-cry, half-gasp; and from the look on his +face the woman saw that he realized what was missing. He peered at +her, with alert and narrow eyes, for a full minute of unbroken silence. +Then, with a little movement of finality, he turned away and put down +the lamp. + +"I regret it, but I must ask you for this--this document, without +equivocation and without delay." + +She opened her lips to speak, but he cut in before any sound fell from +them. + +"Let there be no misunderstanding between us. I know precisely what +you have taken; and it will be in my hands _before you ever leave this +room_!" + +She had a sense of destiny shaping itself before her, while she stood a +helpless and disinterested spectator of the vague but implacable +transformation which, in the end, must in one way or the other so +vitally concern her. + +"I have nothing," she answered simply. + +He waved her protest aside. + +"Madam, have you thought, or do you now know, what the cost of this +will be to you?" + +He was towering over her now. She was wondering whether or not there +was a ghost of a chance for her to snatch at his pistol. + +"I can pay only what I owe," she maintained evasively. + +He looked at her, and then at the locked door. His face took on a +sudden and crafty change. The rage and anger ebbed out of him. He +placed the lamp on the dressing-table of polished rosewood. Then his +lean, white fingers meditatively adjusted his tie, and even more +meditatively stroked at the narrow black imperial, before he spoke +again. + +"What greater crown may one hope for, in any activity of life, than a +beautiful woman?" he asked quietly. + +There was a moment of unbroken silence. + +For the first time a touch of fear came to her shadowy eyes, and they +were veiled by a momentary look of furtiveness. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean, madam, simply that you will now remain with me!" + +"That is absurd!" + +She noticed, for the first time, that he had put away his revolver. + +"It is not absurd; it is essential. Permit me. In my native country +we have a secret order which I need not name. If the secrets of this +order came to be known by an individual not already a member, one of +two things happened. He either became a member of the order, or he +became a man who--who could impart no information!" + +"And that means----?" + +"It means, practically, that from this hour you are, either willing or +unwilling, a partner in my activities, as you now are in my possession +of certain papers. Pardon me. The penalty may seem heavy, but the +case, you will understand, is exceptional. Also, the nature of your +visit, and the thoroughness of your preparations"--he swept the +dismantled room with his grim but mocking glance--"have already +convinced me that the partnership will not be an impossible one." + +"But I repeat, this is theatrical, and absurd. You cannot possibly +keep me a--a prisoner here, forever!" + +He looked at her, and suddenly she shrank back from his glance, white +to the lips. + +"You will not be a prisoner!" + +"I am quite aware of that!" + +"You will not be a prisoner, for then you would not be a partner. The +coalition between us must be as silent as it is essential. But first, +permit me!" + +She still shrank back from his touch, consumed with a new and +unlooked-for fear of him. And all the while she was telling herself +that she must remain calm, and make no mistake. + +The remembrance came to her, as she stood there, of how she had once +thought it possible to approach him in a more indirect and adroit +fashion, as the wayward and life-loving Lady Boxspur. She shuddered a +little, as she recalled that foolish mistake, and pictured the perils +into which it might have led her. She could detect more clearly now +the odor of brandy on his quickening breath. His face, death-like in +its pallor, flashed before and above her like a semaphoric sign of +imminent danger. Action of some sort, however obvious, was necessary. + +"I want a drink," she gasped, with a movement toward the cabinet. + +He turned and caught up the heavy glass brandy-decanter, emitting a +nervous and irresponsible laugh. + +In one hand he held the decanter, in the other the half-filled tumbler. +That, at least, implied an appreciable space of time before those hands +could be freed. In that, she felt, lay her hope. + +Quicker than thought she darted to the door over which still swung the +shrouding blanket. She knew the key had already been turned in the +lock, from the outside; the only thing between her and the freedom of +the open hall was one small bolt shaft. + +But before she could open the door Pobloff, with a little grunt of +startled rage, was upon her. She fought and scratched like a cat. The +blanket tumbled down and curtained them, the plumed hat fell from the +woman's disheveled head, a chair was overturned. But he was too strong +and too quick for her. With one lithe arm he pinioned her two hands +close down to her sides, crushing the very breath out of her body. +With his other he beat off the muffling blanket, and dragged her away +from the door. Then he shook her, passionately, and held her off from +him, and glared at her. + +One year earlier in her career she knew she would surely have fainted +from terror and exhaustion. Even as it was, she seemed about to school +herself for some relieving and final surrender to the inevitable, only, +her vacantly staring eyes, looking past him, by accident caught sight +of a little movement which brought her drooping courage into life again. + +For she had seen the window-shutter slowly widen, and then a cautious +hand appear on the ledge. She watched the shutter swing in, further +and further, and then the stealthy figure, with its padded feet, emerge +out of the darkness into the half-lighted room. She could even see the +pallor of the intruder's face, and his quick movement of warning that +reminded her of the part she must play. + +"I give up!" she gasped, in simulated surrender, falling and drooping +with all her weight in Pobloff's arms. + +He caught her and held her, bewildered, triumphant. + +"You mean it?" he cried, searching her face. + +"Yes, I mean it!" she murmured. Then she shuddered a little, +involuntarily, for she had seen Durkin catch up one of his shoes, +hammer-like, where it protruded from the side pocket of his coat--and +she knew only too well how he would make use of it. + +As Pobloff bent over her, unwarned, unsuspecting, almost wondering for +what she was waiting with such confidently closed eyes, Durkin crossed +the carpeted floor. It was then that the woman flung up her own arms +and encircled the stooping Russian in a fierce and passionate grasp. +He laughed a little, deep in his throat. She told herself that she was +at least imprisoning his hands. + +Durkin's blow caught the bending figure just at the base of the skull, +behind the ear. The impact whipped the head back, and sent the +relaxing body forward and down. It struck the floor, and lay there, +huddled, face down. The woman scrambled to her feet, breathing hard. + +"Close the shutters!" said Durkin quickly. + +Then he turned the unconscious man over on his back. Then he caught up +a couple of towels and securely tied, first the inert wrists and then +the feet. Quickly knotting a third towel, he wedged and drilled a +sharp knuckle joint into the flesh of the colorless cheek, between the +upper and lower incisors. When the jaw had opened he thrust the knot +into the gaping mouth, securely tying the ends of the towel at the back +of the neck. + +"Have you everything?" whispered Frank, who had once more pinned on the +plumed hat, and was already listening at the panel of the hall door. +There was no time to be lost in talk. + +"Yes, I think so." + +"Your baggage?" + +"My baggage will have to be left, but, God knows, there's little enough +of it!" + +He wiped his forehead, and looked down at the bound figure, already +showing signs of returning consciousness. They heard laughter, and the +sound of footsteps passing down the hall without. + +Durkin stood beside his wife, and they listened together behind the +closed door. + +"Not for a minute--not yet," he whispered. Then he looked at her +curiously. + +"I wonder if you know just what a close call that was!" + +"Yes, I know," she said, with her ear against the panel. + +He peered back at the figure, and took a deep breath. + +"And this is only an intermission--this is only an overture, to what we +may have to face! Now's our chance. For the love of heaven, let's get +out of here. We've got hard work ahead of us, at Genoa--and we've got +only till Friday to get there!" + +He did not notice her look, her momentary look of mingled reproof and +weariness and disdain. + +"Now, quick!" she merely said, as she flung the door open and stepped +out into the hall. Luckily, it was empty, from end to end. + +Durkin, with assumed nonchalance, walked quietly away. She waited to +turn the key in the door, and withdrew it from the lock. Then she +followed her husband down the corridor, and a minute or two later +rejoined him in the fragrant and balmy midnight air of Monaco. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LARK IN THE RUINS + +It was not until Frances Durkin and her husband were installed in an +empty first-class compartment, twining and curling and speeding on +their way to Genoa, that even a comparative sense of safety came to +them. It was Durkin's suggestion that it might not be amiss for them +to give the impression of being a newly-married couple, on their +honeymoon journey; and, to this end, he had half-filled the compartment +with daffodils and jonquils, with carnations and violets and roses, +purchased with one turn of the hand from a midnight flower-vender, on +his way down from the hills for any early morning traffic that might +offer. + +So as they sped toward the Italian frontier, in the white and mellow +Mediterranean moonlight, threading their way between the tranquil +violet sea bejeweled with guardian lights and the steep and silent +slopes of the huddled mountains, they lounged back on their hired +train-pillows, self-immured, and unperturbed, and quietly contented +with themselves and their surroundings. At least, so it seemed to the +eyes of each scrutinizing guard and official, who, after one sharp +glance at the flower-filled compartment and the crooning young English +lovers, passed on with a laugh and a shrug or two. + +Yet, at heart, Durkin and Frank were anything but happy. As they sped +on, and his wife pointed out to him that the selfsame road they were +taking between confining rock and sea was the same narrow passage, so +time-worn and war-scarred, once taken by Greeks and Ligurians, Romans +and Saracens, it seemed to Durkin that his first fine estimate of the +life of war and adventure had been a false one. His old besetting +doubts and scruples began to awake. It was true that the life they had +plunged into would have its dash and whirl. But it would be the dash +of a moment, and the whirl of a second. Then, as it always must be, +there would come the long interval of flight and concealment, the +wearying stretch of inactivity. He felt, as he gazed out the car +window and saw town and village and hamlet left behind them, that the +same wave of excitement that cast him up would forever in turn drag him +down--and it all resulted, he told himself, in his passing distemper of +fatigue and anxiety, in a little further abrasion, in a little sterner +denudation of their tortured souls! + +It was at Ventimiglia that the _capostazione_ himself appeared at the +door of their compartment, accompanied by a uniformed official. The +two fugitives, with their hearts in their mouths, leaned back on their +cushions with assumed unconcern, cooing and chattering hand in hand +among their flowers, while a volley of quick and angry questions, in +Italian, was flung in at them from the opened compartment door. To +this they paid not the slightest attention, for several moments. Frank +turned to her interrogators, smiled at them gently and impersonally, +and then shook her head impatiently, with an outthrust of the hands +which was meant to convey to them that each and every word they uttered +was quite incomprehensible to her. + +The _capostazione_, who, by this time, had pushed into their +compartment, was heatedly demanding either their passports or their +tickets. + +Frank, who had buried her face raptly in her armful of jonquils, looked +up at him with gentle exasperation. + +"We are English," she said blankly. "English! We can't understand!" +And she returned to her flowers and her husband once more. + +The two uniformed intruders conferred for a moment, while the +_conduttore_, on the platform outside, naturally enough expostulated +over the delay of the train. + +"These fools--these aren't the two!" Frank heard the _capostazione_ +declare, in Italian, under his breath, as they swung down on the +station platform. Then the shrill little thin-noted engine-whistle +sounded, the wheels began to turn, and they were once more speeding +through the white moonlight, deeper and deeper into Italy. + +"I wonder," said Frank, after a long silence, "how often we shall be +able to do this sort of thing? I wonder how long luck--mere luck, will +be with us?" + +"_Is_ it luck?" asked her husband. She was still leaning back on his +shoulder, with her hand clasping his. Accompanying her consciousness +of escape came a new lightness of spirit. There seemed to come over +her, too, a new sense of gratitude for the nearness of this sentient +and mysterious life, of this living and breathing man, that could both +command and satisfy some even more mysterious emotional hunger in her +own heart. + +"Yes," she answered, as she laughed a little, almost contentedly; +"we're like the glass snake. We seem to break off at the point where +we're caught, and escape, and go on again as before. I was only +wondering how many times a glass snake can leave its tail in its +enemy's teeth, and still grow another one!" + +And although she laughed again Durkin knew how thinly that covering of +facetiousness spread over her actual sobriety of character. It was +like a solitary drop of oil on quiet water--there was not much of it, +but what there was must always be on the surface. + +In fact, her mood changed even as he looked down at her, troubled by +the shadow of utter weariness that rested on her colorless face. + +"What would we do, Jim," she asked, after a second long and unbroken +silence, "what would we do if this thing ever brought us face to face +with MacNutt again?" + +"But why should we cross that bridge before we come to it?" was +Durkin's answer. + +She seemed unable, however, to bar back from her mind some disturbing +and unwelcome vision of that meeting. She felt, in a way, that she +possessed one faculty which the rapid and impetuous nature of her +husband could not claim. It was almost a weakness in him, she told +herself, the subsidiary indiscretion of a fecund and grimly resourceful +mind. Like a river in flood, it had its strange and incongruous back +currents, born of its very oneness of too hurrying purpose. It +considered too deeply the imminent and not the remoter and seemingly +more trivial contingency. + +"But can't you see, Jim, that the further we follow this up the closer +and closer it's bringing us to MacNutt?" + +"MacNutt is ancient history to us now! We're over and done with him, +for all time!" + +"You are wrong there, Jim. You misjudge the situation, and you +misjudge the man. That is one fact we have to face, one hard fact; +MacNutt is not over and done _with us_!" + +"But haven't you made a sort of myth of him? Isn't he only a fable to +us now? And haven't we got real facts to face?" + +"Ah," she said protestingly, "there is just the trouble. You always +refuse to look _this_ fact in the face!" + +"Well, what are the facts?" he asked conciliatingly, coercing his +attention, and demanding of himself what allowance he must make for +that morbid perversion of view which came of a too fatigued body and +mind. + +"The facts are these," she began, with a solemnity of tone that +startled him into keener attentiveness. "You found me in MacNutt's +office when he was planning and plotting and preparing for the biggest +wire-tapping _coup_ in all his career. You were dragged into that plot +against your will, almost, just as I had been. But MacNutt gave us our +parts, and we worked together there. Then--then you made love to +me--don't deny it, Jim, for, after all, it was the happiest part of all +my life!--and we both saw how wrong we were, and we both wanted to +fight for our freedom. So I followed you when you revolted against +MacNutt and his leadership." + +"No, Frank, it was _you_ who led--if it hadn't been for you there would +never have been any revolt!" he broke in. + +"We fought together, then, tooth and nail, and in the end we +surrendered everything but our own liberty--just to start over with +free hands. But it wasn't our mere escape to freedom that maddened +MacNutt; it was the thought that we had beaten him at his own game, +that we had stalked him while he was so busy stalking Penfield. Then +he trapped us, for a moment, and it was sheer good luck that he didn't +kill me that afternoon in his dismantled operating-room, before Doogan +and his men attacked the house. But, as you know, he kept after us, +and he cornered you again, and you would have killed _him_, in turn, if +I hadn't saved you from the sin of it, and the disgrace of it. Then we +thought we were safe, just because the world was big and wide; because +we had made our escape to Europe we thought that we were out of his +circuit, that we were beyond his key-call--but here we are being led +and dragged back to him, through Keenan. But now, just because there +is still an ocean between us, you begin to believe that he has given up +every thought of getting even!" + +"Well, isn't it about time he did? We've beaten him twice, at his own +game, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do it again!" + +"But how often can we be the glass snake? I mean, how many times can +we afford to leave something behind, and break away, and hope to grow +whole and sound again? And when will MacNutt get us where we can't +break away? I tell you, Jim, you don't know this man as I know him! +You haven't understood yet what a cruelly designing and artful and +vindictive and long-waiting enemy he can be. You haven't seen him +break and crush people, as I once did. It's the memory of that makes +me so afraid of him!" + +"There's just the trouble, Frank," cried Durkin. "The man has +terrified and intimidated you, until you think he is the only enemy you +have. I don't deny he isn't dangerous, but so is Pobloff, and so is +Doogan, for that matter, and this man Keenan as well!" + +"But they would never crush and smash you, as MacNutt will, if the +chance comes!" she persisted passionately. "You don't see and +understand it, because you are so close to it and so deep in it. It's +like traveling along this little Riviera railway. It's so crooked and +tunneled and close under the mountains that even though we went up and +down it, for a year, from Nice to Nervi, we could never say that we had +seen the Riviera!" + +Durkin looked out at the terraced hills, at the undulating fields and +the heaped masses of blue mountains under the white Italian moonlight, +and did not speak for several seconds. + +He had always carried, while with her, the vague but sustained sense of +being shielded. Until then her hand had always seemed to guard him, +impersonally, as the hand of a busy seeker guards and shelters a +candle. Now, for some mysterious reason, he felt her brooding +guardianship to be something less passive, to be something more +immediate and personal. He knew--and he knew it with a full +appreciation of the irony that lurked in the situation--that her very +timorousness was now endowing him with a new and reckless courage. So +he took her hand, gratefully, before he spoke again. + +"Well, whatever happens, we are now in this, not from choice, as you +said before, but from necessity. If it has dangers, Frank, we must +face them." + +"It is nothing _but_ danger!" + +"Then we must grin and bear it. But as I said, I see no reason why we +should cross our bridges before we come to them. And we'll soon have a +bridge to cross, and a hard one." + +"What bridge?" + +"I mean Keenan, and everything that will happen in Genoa!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE TIGHTENING COIL + +Henry Keenan, of New York, had leisurely finished his cigar, and had as +leisurely glanced through all the three-day-old London papers. He had +even puzzled, for another half-hour, over the pages of a _Tribuna_. +Then, after gazing in an idle and listless manner about the empty and +uninviting hotel reading-room, he decided that it was time for him to +go up to his room. He made his leisurely way to the lift, ascended to +the fourth floor, stepped out, and drew his room-key from his pocket, +as he walked down the hall, in the same idle and listless manner. + +As he turned the corner the listlessness went from his face, and a +change came in his languid yet ever-restless and covert eyes. + +For a young woman was standing before his door, trying to fit a key to +the lock. This, he decided as he paused three paces from her and +studied her back, she was doing quite openly, with no slightest sense +of secrecy. She wore a plumed hat, and a dark cloth tailor-made suit +that was unmistakably English. She still struggled with the key, +unconscious of his presence. His tread on the thick carpet had been +light; he had intended to catch her, beyond equivocation, in the act. +But now something about the lines of her stooping figure caused Henry +Keenan to remove his hat, respectfully, before speaking to her. + +"Could I assist you, madam?" he asked, close to her side by this time. + +She turned, with a start, though her loss of self-possession lasted but +a moment. But as she turned her startled eyes to him Keenan's last +doubt as to whether or not it was a mere mistake withered away from his +mind. He knew, from the hot flush that mounted to her cheeks and from +the mellow contralto of her carefully modulated English voice, that she +belonged to that vaguely denominated yet rigidly delimited type that +would always be called a woman of breeding. + +"If you please," she said shortly, stepping back from the door. + +He bent over the key which she had left still in the lock. + +As he did so he glanced at the number which the key, protruding from +the lock, bore stamped on its flat brass bow. The number was +Thirty-seven, while the number which stood before his eyes on the door +was Forty-one. + +Under ordinary circumstances the apparent accident would never have +given him a second thought. But all that day he had been oppressed by +a sense of hidden yet continual espionage. This feeling had followed +him from the moment he had landed in Genoa. He had tried to argue it +down, inwardly protesting that such must be merely the obsession of all +fugitives. And now, even to find an unknown and innocent-appearing +young woman trying to force an entrance into his room aroused all his +latent cautiousness. Yet a moment later he felt ashamed of his +suspicions. + +"Why, this is room Forty-one," she cried, over his shoulder. He +withdrew the key and looked at it with a show of surprise. + +"And your key, I see, is Thirty-seven," he explained. + +She was laughing now, a little, through her confusion. It was a very +pleasant laugh, he thought. She looked a frank and companionable +woman, with her love for the merriment of life touched with a sort of +autumnal and wistful sobriety that in no way estranged it from a sense +of youth. But, above all, she was a beautiful woman, thought the +listless and lonely man. He looked at her again. It was his suspicion +of being spied upon, he felt, that had first blinded him to the charm +of her appearance. + +"It was the second turn in the corridor that threw me out," she +explained. He found himself walking with her to her door. + +She had thought to find some touch of the Boweryite about him, some +outcropping of the half-submerged bunco-steerer. Instead of that, both +his look and his tone carried some tinge of quiet yet dominant +gentility, reminding her, as she had so often been taught before, that +the criminal is not a type in himself, that only fanciful and +far-stretched generalizations could detach him as a species, or immure +and mark him off from the rest of his kind. + +She glanced at him still again, at the seemingly melancholic and +contemplative face, that strangely reminded her of Dürer's portrait of +himself. As she did so there was carried to her memory, and imprinted +on it, the picture of a wistful and lonely man, his countenance +touched, for all its open Irish smile, with some wordless sorrow, some +pensive isolation of soul, lean and gaunt with some undefined hunger, a +little furtive and covert with some half-concealed restlessness. + +"Aren't you an American?" he was asking, almost hopefully, it seemed to +her. + +"Oh, no," she answered, with her sober, slow smile. "I'm an +Englishwoman!" + +He shook his head, whimsically. + +"Indeed, I'm sorry for that!" said the Celt. + +She joined in his laugh. + +"But I've lived abroad so much!" she added. + +"Then you must know Italy pretty well, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes; I've traveled here, winter after winter." + +She picked out a card from her pocket-book, on which was inscribed, in +Spencerian definiteness of black and white, "Miss Barbara Allen." It +had been the card of Lady Boxspur's eminently respectable maid--and +Frances Durkin had saved it for just such a contingency. + +He read the name, slowly, and then placed the card in his vest pocket. +If he noticed her smile, he gave no sign of it. + +"And you like Genoa? I mean, _is_ there anything to like in this +place?" he asked companionably. "I'll be hanged if I've seen anything +but a few million mementoes of Christopher Columbus!" + +"There's the Palazzo Bianco, and the Palazzo Rosso, and, of course, +there's the Campo Santo!" + +"But who cares for graveyards?" + +"All Europe is a graveyard, of its past!" she answered lightly. "That +was what I thought you Americans always came to see!" + +He laughed a little, in turn, and she both liked him better for it and +found it easier to go on. She felt, from his silences, that no great +span of his life had been spent in talking with women. And she was +glad of it. + +"I like the Riggi," she added pregnantly. + +"The Riggi--what's that, please?" + +"That's the restaurant up on the hill." She hesitated and turned back, +before unlocking her door. "It's charming!" + +He was on the point, she knew, of making the plunge and asking if they +might not see the Riggi together, when something in her glance, some +precautionary chilliness of look, checked him. For she had seen that +even now things might advance too hurriedly. It would be wiser, and in +the long run it would pay, she warned herself, to draw in--for as she +still lingered and chatted with him she more and more felt that she was +face to face with a resourceful and strong-willed opponent. She +noticed, through all the outward Celtic gentleness, the grim and +passionate mouth, the keenness of the shifty yet penetrating hazel-gray +eyes, the touch of almost bull-dog tenaciousness about the +loose-jointed, high-shouldered figure, and, above all, the audacity of +the careless Irish-American smile. That smile, she felt, trailed like +a flippant and fluttering tail to the kite of his racial solemnity and +stubbornness of purpose, enabling it to rise higher even while seeming +to weigh it down. + +"And you always travel alone?" he finally asked, shaking off the last +of his reserve. + +"Oh, I'm a bit of a globe-trotter--that's what you'd call me on your +side of the ocean, isn't it? You see, I go about Southern Europe +picking up things for a London art firm!" + +"And where do you go next?" + +"Oh, perhaps to Milan, perhaps to Naples; it may even be to Rome, or it +might turn out to be Syracuse or Taormina. With me, everything +depends, first on the weather, and, next, on what instructions are sent +on." + +She inwardly marveled at the glibness and spontaneity with which the +words fell from her tongue. She even took a sort of secret joy in the +dramatic values which that scene of play-acting presented to her. + +"And do you ever go to New York?" + +"Yes, such a thing might happen, any time." + +It was as well, she told herself, to leave the way well paved. + +"_That's_ the city for you!" he declared, with a commending shake of +the head. + +Of the truth of that fact Frances Durkin was only too well aware; but +this was a conviction to which she did not give utterance. + +As they stood chatting together in the deserted hallway, a man, turning +the corner, brushed by them. He merely gave them one casual glance of +inquiry, and then looked away, apparently at the room-numbers on the +lintels. + +The young woman chanced to be tapping half-carelessly, half-nervously, +with her key on the panel of her door. It meant nothing to her +comrade, but to the passing man it resolved itself into an intelligible +and coherent message. For it was in Morse, and to his trained and +adept ear it read: "This--is--Keenan--keep--away!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE INTOXICATION OF WAR + +It was two days later,--and they had been days of blank suspense for +him,--that Durkin made his way to Frank's room, unobserved. His first +resolution had been to wait for a clearer coast, but his anxiety overcame +him, and he could hold off no longer. + +As he opened the door and stepped noiselessly inside he caught sight of +her by the window, her face ruminative and in repose. It looked, for the +moment, unhappy and tired and hard. She seemed to stand before him with +a mask off, a designing and disillusioned woman, no longer in love with +the game of life. Or it was, he imagined, as she would look ten years +later, when her age had begun to tell on her, and her still buoyant +freshness was gone. It was the same feeling that had come to him on the +Angiolina steps, at Abbazia. He even wondered if in the stress of the +life they were now following she would lose the last of her good looks, +if even her ever-resilient temperament would deaden and harden, and no +longer rise supreme to the exacting moment. Or could it be that she was +acting a part for him? that all this fine _bravado_ was an attitude, a +rôle, a pretense, taken on for his sake? Could it be--and the sudden +thought stung him to the quick--that she was deliberately and consciously +degrading herself to what she knew was a lower plane of thought and life, +that the bond of their older companionship might still remain unsevered? + +But, as her startled eyes caught sight of him, a welcoming light came +into her relaxed face. With her first spoken word some earlier touch of +moroseness seemed to slip away from her. If it required an effort to +shake herself together, she gave no outward sign of it. She had promised +that there should be no complaining and no hesitations from her; and +Durkin knew she would adhere to that promise, to the bitter end. + +She went to him, and clung to him, a little hungrily. There seemed +something passionate in her very denial of passion. For when he lifted +her drooping head, with all its wealth of chestnut shot through with +paler gold, and gazed at her upturned face between his two hands, with a +little cry of endearment, she shut her mouth hard, on a sob. + +"You're back--and safe?" he asked. + +She forced a smile. + +"Yes, back safe and sound!" + +"But tired, I know?" + +"Yes--a little. But--" + +She broke off, and he could see that she was rising from her momentary +luxury of relaxation as a fugitive rises after a minute's breathing-spell. + +"Well?" he asked anxiously. + +"_Pobloff has found us_!" she said, in her quiet contralto. + +"He's here, you mean?" + +"He's in Genoa. I caught sight of him in a cab, hurrying from the French +Consulate to the Cafe Jazelli. I slipped into a silversmith's shop, as +he raced past, and escaped him." + +"And then what?" + +"Then several things happened. But first, tell me this: did you get a +chance to look over Keenan's room?" + +"I was bolted inside twenty minutes after you and he had left the hotel. +His trunk was even unlocked; I looked through everything!" + +"Which, of course, was charming work!" she interpolated, with not +ungentle scorn. + +He shrugged his shoulders deprecatively. "Not quite as charming as +dining with your new friend!" + +"I almost like him!" admitted the woman frankly, femininely rejoicing at +the note of jealousy in the other's voice. + +"And no worse than some of the work we've done, or may soon have to do!" + +Then he went on, with rising passion: "And I'll tell you this, Frank +whatever we do, and whatever we have to go through, we've got to get +those securities out of Keenan! We've got to have them, now! We've got +to pound at it, and dog him, and fight him, and outwit him, until we +either win or lose and go under! It's a big game, and it has big risks, +but we're in it too deep, now, to talk about drawing back, or to complain +about the dirty work it leads to!" + +"I wasn't complaining," she reproved, in her dead voice. "I only spoke a +bald truth. But you don't tell me what you've found." + +"I got nothing--absolutely nothing; not one shred of information even. +There's nothing in the room. It stands to reason, then, as I told you +from the first, that he is carrying the papers about with him!" + +"That will make it harder," she murmured monotonously. "And you're sure +your telegram has sent the Scotland Yard men to Como?" + +"It must have, or we'd be running into them. The New Yorker is a +Pinkerton man." + +He started pacing back and forth in front of her, frowning with mingled +irritation and impatience. + +"Then what about Pobloff?" he suddenly asked. + +"Five minutes after we had stepped out of the hotel he met us, face to +face. With Keenan, I had no chance of getting away. So I simply faced +it out. Then Pobloff shadowed us to the Riggi, watched us all through +luncheon, and followed us down to the city again. And here's the strange +part of it all. Keenan saw that we were being shadowed, from the first, +and I could see him fretting and chafing under it, for he imagines that +it's all because of what he's carrying with him. So, on the other hand, +Pobloff has concluded Keenan and I are fellow-conspirators, for he let me +go to the lift alone, just to keep his eye on Keenan, who told me he had +business at the steamship agency." + +"But why should we be afraid of Pobloff, then?" + +"It's a choice of two evils, I should venture to say. But that's not +all. As soon as I was free from each of them, and had left them there, +carrying out that silent and ridiculous advance and retreat between them, +I had to think both hard and fast. I decided that the best thing for me +to do would be to slip down to Rome, at once, and make my visit to the +Embassy." + +"Yes, I found your note, telling me that." + +"When I saw that I was being followed at the station I bought a ticket +for Busalla, as a blind, and went in one door of my compartment and then +out the other. My _wagon lit_ was standing on the next track. I didn't +change from the one train to the other until the train for Rome started +to move. Then I slipped out, and jumped for the moving platform, and was +bundled into my right carriage by a guard, who thought I was trying to +commit an Anna Karenina suicide--until I gave him ten francs. Whether I +got away unnoticed or not I can't say for sure. But Pobloff will have +resources here that we know nothing of. From now on, you may be sure, he +will have Keenan watched by one of his agents, night and day!" + +"Then, good heavens, we've got to step in and save Keenan from Pobloff!" + +"It amounts to that," admitted Frank. "Yet, in some way, if we could +only manage it, the two of them ought to fight our battle out for us, +between themselves!" + +"That's true--but _did_ you get to Rome?" + +"Yes, without trouble." + +"And you got the money?" + +"Only half of it. They hedged, and said the other half could not be paid +until Pobloff's arrest. Jim, we must be on our guard against that man." + +"Pobloff doesn't count!" ejaculated Durkin impatiently. "It's Keenan we +have to have our fight with--_he's_ the man, the offender, we +want!--_that_ means only two hundred and fifty pounds!" + +"But that is money honestly made!" + +"And so will this be money honestly made. The one was legalized by the +government authority; the other, in the end, will be recognized as--well, +as detectional and punitive expediency. That's why I say Pobloff doesn't +count!" + +"But Pobloff _does_ count," persisted Frank. "He's a vindictive and +resourceful man, and he has a score against us to wipe out. Besides all +that, he's a master of intrigue, and he has the entire secret service of +France behind him, and he knows underground Europe as well as any spy on +the Continent. He will keep at us, I tell you, until he thinks he is +even!" + +"Then let him--if he wants to," scoffed Durkin. "My work is with Keenan. +If Pobloff tries interfering with us, the best thing we can do is to get +the British Foreign Office after him. _They_ ought to be big enough for +him!" + +"It's not a matter of bigness. _He_ won't fight that way. He would +never fight in the open. He knows his chances, and the country, and just +where to turn, and just how far to go--and where to hide, if he has to!" + +"That's true enough, I suppose. But oh, if I only had him in New York, +I'd fight him to a finish, and never edge away from him and keep on the +run this way!" + +"Of course; but, as you say, is it worth while? After all, he's only an +accident in the whole affair now, though a disagreeable one. And, what's +more, Pobloff will never follow us out of Europe. This is his stamping +ground. He had misfortune in America, and he's afraid of it. As I said +before, Pobloff and Keenan are the acid and the alkali that ought to make +the neutral salts. I mean, instead of trying to save them from each +other, we ought to fling them together, in some way. Let Pobloff do the +hunting for us--then let us hunt Pobloff!" + +"But Keenan is wary, and shrewd, and far-seeing. How is he to be caught, +even by a Pobloff?" + +"That only time and Pobloff can tell. It will never be by +brigandage--Keenan will never go far enough afield to give him a chance +for that. But I feel it in my bones--I feel that there is danger +impending, for us all." + +Durkin turned and looked at her, wondering if her woman's intuition was +to penetrate deeper into the unknown than his own careful analysis. + +"What danger?" he asked. + +"Impending dangers cease to be dangers when they can be defined. It's +nothing more than a feeling. But the strangest part of the whole +situation is the fact that not one of us, from any corner of the +triangle, dares turn to the police for one jot of protection. None of us +can run crying to the arms of constituted authority when we get hurt!" + +A consciousness of their lonely detachment from their kind, of their +isolation, crept through Durkin's mind. He felt momentarily depressed by +a sense of friendlessness. It was like reverting to primordial +conditions, wherein it was ordained that each life, alone and unassisted, +should protect and save itself. He wondered if primitive man, or if even +wild animals, did not always walk with that vague consciousness of +continual menace, where lupine viciousness seemed eternally at war with +vulpine wariness. + +"Then what would you suggest?" he asked the woman, who sat before him +rapt in thought. + +"That we watch Keenan, continuously, night and day. He has been hunted +and followed now for over two months, and he is only waiting for a clear +field to take to his heels. And when he goes he is going for America. +That I know. If we lose sight of him, we lose our chance." + +Durkin walked to the window, and looked out at the tiled roofs and the +squat chimney-pots, above which he could catch a glimpse of bursting +sky-rockets and the glow of Greek fire from the narrow canyons of the +streets below. + +"What are all the fireworks for?" he asked her casually. + +"It's a Saint's Day, of some sort, they told me at the office," she +explained. + +He was about to turn and speak to her again, after a minute's silence, +when a low knock sounded on the door. He remained both silent and +motionless, and the knock was repeated. + +"In a moment!" called the woman, as she motioned Durkin to the door of +her clothes-closet. He drew back, with a shake of the head. He revolted +momentarily against the ignominy of the movement. But she caught him by +the arm and thrust him determinedly in, closing the door on him. Then +she hurriedly let her wealth of chestnut hair tumble about her shoulders. +Then she answered the knock, with the loosened strands of chestnut in one +abashed hand. + +It was Keenan himself who stood in the hall before her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE DOORWAY OF SURPRISE + +"May I speak to you a moment?" asked Keenan, taking a step nearer to her +as he spoke. She seemed able, even under his quiet composure, to detect +some note of alarm. + +"Will you come in?" she asked, holding the door wide for him. + +"If you don't mind the intrusion." + +She had closed the door, and stood facing him, interrogatively. + +"What I am going to ask you, Miss Allen, is something unusual. But this +past week has shown me that you are an unusual woman." He hesitated, in +doubt as to how to proceed. + +"In America," she said, laughing a little, to widen his avenue of +approach, "you would call me emancipated, wouldn't you?" + +He bowed and laughed a little in return. + +"But let me explain," he went on. "I am in what you might call a +dilemma. For some reason or other certain persons here are watching and +following me, night and day. In America--which, thank God, is a land of +law and order--this sort of thing wouldn't disturb me. But here"--he +gave a little shrug--"well, you know what they say about Italy!" + +"Then I wasn't mistaken!" she cried, with a well-rung note of alarm. + +He looked at her, narrowly. + +"Ah, I suspected you'd have an inkling! But what I have here makes the +case exceptional--and, perhaps, a little dangerous!" + +He drew from his pocket a yellow-tinted manila envelope, of "legal" size. +Frank's quick glance told her that it was by no means empty. + +"It may sound theatrical, and you may laugh at me, but will you take +possession of these papers for me, for a few days? No, let me explain +first. They are important, I confess, for, although valueless +commercially, they contain personal and private letters that are worth a +good deal to me!" + +"But this means a great responsibility," demurred Frank. + +"Yes; but no danger--at least to you, since you are in no way under +suspicion. You said that in five days you would probably be in Naples. +Supposing that I arrange to meet you at, say, the Hôtel de Londres there, +and then repay you for your trouble." + +"But it's so unusual; so almost absurd," still demurred the acting woman. +The eavesdropper from the closet felt that it was an instance of diamond +cutting diamond. How hard and polished and finished, he thought, actor +and actress confronted each other. + +"Will you take the risk?" the man was asking. + +She looked from him to the packet and then back to him again. + +"Yes, if you insist--if it is really helping you out!" she replied, with +still simulated bewilderment. + +He thanked her with something more than his professional, placid +crispness, and put the packet in her outstretched hand. + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes, everything." + +"In Naples, in five days?" + +"Yes; the Hôtel de Londres. And now I must leave you." + +He startled her by taking her hand and wringing it. She was still +looking down at the packet as he withdrew, and the door closed behind him. + +She listened for a moment, and then turned the key in the lock. Durkin, +stepping from his place of concealment, confronted her. They stood +gazing at each other in blank astonishment. + +Frank's first impulse was to tear open the envelope. But on second +thoughts she flew to her alcohol tea-lamp and lighted the flame. It was +only a minute or two before a jet of steam came from the tiny kettle +spout. Over this she shifted and held the gummed envelope-flap, until +the mucilage softened and dissolved. Then, holding her breath, she +peeled back the flap, and from the envelope drew three soiled but +carefully folded copies of the London _Daily Chronicle_. The envelope +held nothing more. + +A little cry of disappointment escaped Durkin, while Frank turned the +papers over in her fingers, in speechless amazement. The very audacity +of the man swept her off her feet. + +It was both a warning and a challenge, grim with its suggestiveness, +eloquent with careless defiance. That was her first thought. + +"The fool--he's making fun of you!" said Durkin, with a second passionate +oath. + +Frank was slowly refolding the papers, and replacing them in the envelope. + +"I don't believe that's it," she said, meditatively. "I believe he is +trying me--making this a test!" + +She carefully moistened the gum and resealed the envelope, so that it +bore no trace of having revealed its contents. She stood gazing at her +husband with studious and unseeing eyes. + +"If he comes back I'll know that I am right," she cried, with sudden +conviction. "If he finds that I am still here, and that his packet is +still intact and safe, he'll do what he wants to do. And that is, he'll +trust me with the whole of his securities!" + +She quenched the alcohol flame and replaced the lamp in its case. + +"If he comes back," mocked Durkin. "Do you know what you and I ought to +be doing, at this moment? We ought to be following that man every step +he takes." + +"But where?" She shook her head, slowly, in dissent. + +"That's for us to find out. But can't you feel that he's left us in the +lurch, that we're shut up here, while he's giving us the laugh and +getting away?" + +"Jim, listen to me. During this past week I've seen more of Keenan than +you have." + +"Yes, a vast sight more!" he interjected, heatedly. + +"And I feel sure," she went on evenly, "that he is more frightened and +worried than he pretends to be. He is, after all, only a tricky and +ferrety Irish lawyer, who is afraid of every power outside his own little +circuit of experience. He's afraid of Italy. I suppose he has +nightmares about _brigantaggio_, even! He's afraid of foreigners--afraid +of this sort of conspiracy of silence that seems surrounding him. He's +even afraid to take his precious documents and put them in a safe-deposit +vault in any one of the regularly established institutions here in Genoa. +There are plenty of them, but he isn't big and bold enough to do his +business that way. He's been a fugitive so long his only way of warfare +now is flight. And besides, he can never forget that his work is +underground and illicit. That is why he carries his documents about with +him, on him, in his pockets, like a sneak thief with a pocketful of +stolen goods. I don't mean to say that he isn't smooth and crafty, and +that he won't fight like a rat when he's cornered! But I do believe that +if he and Penfield could get in touch today, here in Genoa, he would hand +over every dollar of those securities, and give up the job, and get back +to his familiar old lairs among the New York poolrooms and wardheelers +and petty criminals where he knows his enemies and his friends!" + +Durkin strode toward the door impatiently. He hesitated for a moment, +but had already stretched out his hand to turn the key when he drew back, +silently, step by step. + +For a second time, on the panel, without, the low knock was sounding. + +Frank watched the closet door draw to and close on Durkin; then she +called out, with assumed and cheery unconcern, "Come in." + +She did not look up for a moment, for she was still busy with her hair. + +The door opened and closed. + +"I trust I do not intrude?" + +Frank's brush fell from her hand, before she even slowly wheeled and +looked, for it was the suave and well-modulated baritone of Pobloff. + +"What does this mean?" she demanded vacantly, retreating before his +steady and scornful gaze. + +"Simply, madam, that you and I seem seldom able to anticipate each +other's calls!" + +She made a pretense of going to the electric signal. + +"It is quite useless," explained the Russian quietly. "The wires are +disconnected." + +He took out his watch and glanced at it. "Indeed, as a demonstration +that others enjoy privileges which you sometimes exert, in two minutes +every light in this room will be cut off!" + +The woman was panting a little by this time, for her thoughts were of +Durkin and his danger, as much as of herself. She struggled desperately +to regain her self-possession, for there was no mistaking the quiet but +grim determination written on the Russian's pallid face. And she knew he +was not alone in whatever plot he had laid. + +She would have spoken, only the sudden flood of blackness that submerged +her startled her into silence. The lights had gone out. + +She demanded of herself quickly, what should be her first move. + +While she stood in momentary suspense, a knock sounded still once more on +her door. + +"Come in," she called out quickly, loudly, now alert and alive to every +movement. + +It was Keenan who stepped in from the half-lighted hall. He would have +paused, in involuntary amazement, at the utter darkness that greeted him, +only footsteps approaching and passing compelled him to act quickly. + +He stepped inside and closed and locked the door. + +She had not been mistaken. He _had_ come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"THE FOLLY OF GRANDEUR" + +There flashed through Frances Durkin's mind, in the momentary silence +that fell over that strange company, the consciousness that the +triangle was completed; that there, in one room, through a +fortuitousness that seemed to her more factitious than actual, stood +the three contending and opposing forces. The thought came and went +like a flash, for it was not a time for meditation, but for hurried and +desperate action. The sense of something vast and ominous seemed to +hang over the darkness, where, for a second or two, the silence of +absolute surprise reigned. + +The last-comer, too, seemed to feel this sense of something impending, +for a moment later his voice rang out, clear and unhesitating, with a +touch of challenge in it. + +"Miss Allen, are you here? And is anything wrong?" + +"Stand where you are!" the voice of the woman answered, through the +darkness, firm and clear. "Yes. I am here. But there is another +person in this room. He is a man who means harm, I believe, to both of +us!" + +"Ah!" said the voice near the door. + +The woman was speaking again, her voice high and nervous, from the +continued suspense of that darkness and silence combined, a dual +mystery from which any bolt might strike. + +"Above all things," she warned him, "you must watch that door!" + +Her straining ears heard a quiet click-click; she had learned of old +the meaning of that pregnant sound. It was the trigger of a revolver +being cocked. + +"All right--I'm ready," said the man at the door, grimly. Then he +laughed, perhaps a little uneasily. "But why are we all in darkness +this way?" + +"The wires have been cut--that is a part of his plan!" + +Keenan took a step into the room and addressed the black emptiness +before him. + +"Will the gentleman speak up and explain?" + +No answer came out of the darkness. Frank knew, by this time, that +Keenan would make no move to desert her. + +"Have you a lamp, or a light of any kind, Miss Allen?" was the next +curt, businesslike question. + +"Oh, be careful, sir!" she warned him, now in blind and unreasoning +terror. + +"Have you a light?" repeated Keenan authoritatively. + +"I have only an alcohol lamp; it gives scarcely any light--it is for +boiling a teapot!" + +"Then light it, please!" + +"Oh, I dare not!" she cried, for now she was possessed of the +unreasoning fear that one step in any direction would bring her in +contact with death itself. + +"Light it, please!" commanded Keenan. "Nothing will happen. I have in +my hand here, where I stand, a thirty-eight calibre revolver, loaded +and cocked. If there is one movement from the gentleman you speak of, +I will empty it into him!" + +Both Keenan and Frank started, and peered through the blackness. For a +careless and half-derisive, half-contemptuous laugh sounded through the +room. Pobloff, obviously, had never moved from where he stood. + +Frank slowly groped to the wall of her room, and felt with blind and +exploring hands until she came to her bureau. Then sounded the clink +of nickel as the lamp was withdrawn from its case and the dry rattle of +German safety-matches. Then the listeners heard the quick scrape and +flash of the match against the side of the little paper box, and the +puff of the wavering blue flame as the match-end came in contact with +the alcohol. + +After all, it was good to have a light! Incongruously it flashed +through her mind, as wayward thoughts and ideas would at such moments, +how relieved primitive man amid his primitive night must have been at +the blessed gift of the first fire. + +The wavering blue flame widened and heightened. In a moment the inky +room was pallidly suffused with its trembling half-light. Outside, +through the night, sounded muffled street noises, and the boom and hiss +and spurt of fireworks. + +The two peering faces turned slowly, until their range of vision had +swept the entire room. Then they paused, for motionless against the +west wall, between the closet door and the corner, stood Pobloff. His +arms were folded, and he was laughing a little. + +Frank drew nearer Keenan, instinctively, wondering what the next +movement would be. + +It was Pobloff's voice that first broke the silence. + +"This woman lies," he said, in his suavely scoffing baritone. "This +woman----" + +"Why don't you say something--why don't you do something!" cried Frank, +hysterically, turning to Keenan. + +"Ring the bell!" commanded Keenan. + +"It's useless--the wires are cut," she panted. She could see that, +above and beyond all his craftiness, his latent Irish fighting-blood +was aroused. + +"Then, by God, I'll put him out myself. If there's any fight between +him and me "--he turned on Pobloff--"we won't drag a woman into it!" + +The tall, gaunt Russian against the wall was no longer laughing. + +"Pardon me," he said, advancing a step. "This woman has in her +possession a packet of papers--of personal and private papers, which +concern neither you nor her!" + +"But what if it _does_ concern me?" demanded Keenan. + +"The gentleman is talking nonsense," said Pobloff, unperturbed. Yet he +leaned forward and studied him more closely, through the half-light, +studied him as the deliberating terrier might study the captured rat +that had dared to bite back at him. "This woman, I repeat, has certain +papers about her!" + +"And what of that?" cried Keenan blindly. Frank saw, to her joy, that +he was misled. + +"Simply this: that if the lady I speak of hands those papers to me, +here, the matter is closed, for all time!" + +"And if she doesn't?" + +"Then she will do so later!" + +A grunt of sheer rage broke from Keenan's lips. But he checked it, +suddenly, and wheeled on the woman. + +"Give him the package," he ordered. She hesitated, for at the moment +the thought of Keenan's trust had passed from her mind. + +"Do as I say," he repeated curtly. + +Frank, remembering, drew the yellow manila envelope from her bosom, and +with out-stretched arm handed it to Pobloff. + +The Russian took it in silence. Then with a few quick strides he +advanced to the alcohol lamp. As he did so both Keenan and Frank +noticed for the first time the blunt little gun-metal revolver he held +in his right hand. + +"Again you will pardon me," said Pobloff, with his ever-scoffing +courtliness. "A mere glance will be necessary, to make sure that we +are not--mistaken!" + +He tore open the envelope with one long forefinger, and stooped to draw +forth the contents. + +It was then that Keenan sprang at him. Frank at the moment, was +marveling at the unbroken continuity of evidence linking her with her +uncomprehending opponent. + +The sudden leap and cry of Keenan sent a tingle of apprehension up and +down her body. She asked herself, vaguely, if all the rest of her life +was to be made up of this brawling and fighting in unlighted chambers +of horror; if, now that they were in the more turgid currents for which +they had longed, there were to come no moments of peace amid all their +tumult and struggling. + +Then she drew in her breath with a little gasp, for she saw Pobloff, +with a quick writhe of his thin body, free his imprisoned right arm, +and strike with the metal butt of his revolver. + +He struck twice, three times, and the sound of the metal on the +unprotected head was sickening to the listening woman. She staggered +to the closet door as the man fell to the floor, stunned. + +"Jim! Oh, Jim, quick!--he's killing him!--I tell you he's killing him!" + +Durkin said "'Ssssh!" under his breath, and waited. + +For in the dim half-light they could see that the Russian had ripped +open Keenan's coat and vest, and from a double-buttoned pocket on the +inside of the inner garment was drawing out a yellow manila envelope, +the fellow to that which had already been thrust into his hands. It +was then that Durkin sprang forward. + +Pobloff saw him advance. He had only time to reverse his hold on the +little gun-metal revolver and fire two shots. + +The first shot went wide, tearing deep into the plastered wall. The +second cut through the flap of his assailant's coat-pocket, just over +the left hip, scattering little flecks of woollen cloth about. But +there was no time for a third shot. + +It seemed brutal to Frank, but she allowed herself time for neither +thought nor scruples. All she remembered was that it was +necessary--though once again she asked herself if all her life, from +that day on, was to be made up of brawling and fighting. + +For Durkin had brought down on the half-turned head the up-poised +bedroom chair with all his force. Pobloff, with a little inarticulate +cry that was almost a grunt, buckled and pitched forward. + +"That settles _you_!" the stooping man said, heartlessly, as he watched +him relax and half roll on his side. + +Frank watched him, too, but with no sense of triumph or success, with +no emotion but slowly awakening disgust, against which she found it +useless to struggle. She watched him with a sense of detachment and +aloofness, as if looking down on him from a great height, while he tore +upon the manila envelope and gave vent to a little cry of satisfaction. +They at last possessed the Penfield securities. Then she went over and +replenished the waning flame in the alcohol lamp. + +"We've got to get away from here now," said Durkin quickly. "And the +sooner the better!" + +She looked about her, a little helplessly. Then she glanced at Keenan. +"See, he's coming to!" + +"Are you ready?" Durkin demanded sharply. + +"Yes," she answered, in her dead and resigned voice, as she took up her +hat and coat. "But where are we going?" + +"I'll tell you on the way down. Only you must get what you want, and +hurry!" + +"But is it safe now?" she demurred, "and for _you_?" + +He thought for a moment, with his hand on the doorknob. Then he turned +back. + +"You'd better keep this, then, until I find what we have to face, +outside here!" + +He passed into her hand the manila envelope, and stepped out into the +hall. + +A moment later she had secreted the packet, along with Pobloff's +revolver, which she picked up from the floor. Then she ran to the +door, and locked it. She would fight like a hornet, now, she inwardly +vowed, for what she held. + +Then she caught her breath, behind the locked door, for the sounds that +crept in from the hallway told her that her fear had not been +groundless. + +She heard Durkin's little choked cry of pain and surprise, for he had +been seized, she knew, and pinned back against the door. It was +Pobloff's men, she told herself. They had him by the throat, she knew +by the sound of the guttural oaths which they were trying to choke +back. She could hear the kick and scrape of feet, the movement of his +writhing and twisting body against the door, as on a sounding-board. +She surmised that they had his arms held, otherwise he would surely +have used his revolver. She was conscious of a sort of wild joy at the +thought that he could not, for they were going through him, from the +quieted sounds, pocket by pocket, and she knew he would have shot them +if he could. + +"There's nothing here!" said a voice in French. Frank, listening so +close to them, could hear the three men breathe and pant. + +"Then the woman has it!" answered the other voice, likewise in French. + +"Shut up! She'll get on!" And Frank could hear them tear and haul at +Durkin as they dragged him down the hall--just where, she could not +distinguish. + +She ran over to Keenan and shook him roughly. He looked at her a +little stupidly, but did not seem able to respond to her entreaties. + +"Quick!" she whispered, "or it will be too late!" + +She flung her pitcher of water in his face and over his head, and +poured brandy from her little leather-covered pocket-flask down his +throat. + +That seemed to revive him, for he sat up on the carpeted floor, +mumblingly, and glowered at her. Then he remembered; and as she bathed +his bruised head with a wet towel he caught at her hand foolishly. + +"Have we lost them?" he asked huskily, childishly. + +"No, they are here! See, intact, and safe. But you must take them +back. Neither of us can go through that hall with them!" + +"Why not?" + +"We're watched--we're prisoners here!" + +"Then what'll we do?" he asked weakly, for he was not yet himself. + +"You must take them, and get out of this room. There is only one way!" + +"What is it?" + +"You see this rope. It's meant for a fire-escape. You must let +yourself down by it. You'll find yourself in a court, filled with +empty barrels. That leads into a bake-shop--you can see the oven +lights and smell the bread. Give the man ten _lira_, and he's sure to +let you pass. Can you do it? Do you understand?" + +"Yes," he said, still a little bewildered. "But where will I meet you?" + +She pondered a moment. + +"In Trieste, a week from tomorrow. But can you manage the rope?" + +He laughed a little. "I ought to! I've been through a poolroom raid +or two, over home!" + +"In Trieste then, a week from morrow!" + +She handed him her brandy-flask. + +"You may need it," she explained. He was on his feet by this time, +struggling to pull himself together. + +"But you can't face that alone," he remonstrated, with a thumb-jerk +toward the hall. "I won't see you touched by those damned rats!" + +"'Ssssh!" she warned him. "They can't do anything to me now, except +search me for those papers!" + +"But even that!" + +"I'll wait until I see you're safely down, then I'll run for the +stairs. They've shut off all the lights outside, in this wing, but if +they in any way attempt to ill-treat me, before I get to the main +corridor, I'll scream for help!" + +"But even to search you"--began Keenan again. + +"Yes, I know!" she answered evenly. "It's not pleasant. But I'll face +it"--she turned her eyes full upon him--"for you!" + +They listened for a moment together at the opened window. The red +lights were still burning here and there about the city in the streets +below, and the carnival-like cries and noises still filled the air. + +And she watched him anxiously as he and his packet of documents went +down the dangling hemp rope, reached the stone paving of the little +court, and disappeared in the square of light framed by the bake-shop +window. + +Then she turned back into the room, startled by a weak and wavering +groan from Pobloff. She went to him, and tried to lift him up on the +bed, but he was too heavy for her overtaxed strength. She wondered, as +she slipped a pillow under his head, why she should be afraid of him in +that comatose and helpless state--why even his white and passive face +looked so vindictive and sinister in the dim light of the room. + +But as he moved a little she started back, and caught up what things +she could fling into her Gladstone bag, and put out the light, and +groped her way across the room once more. + +Then she flung open the door and stepped out into the hall, with a +feeling that her heart was in her mouth, choking her. + +She ceased running as she came to the bend in the hall, for she heard +the sound of voices, and the light grew stronger. She would have +dodged back, but it was too late. + +Then she saw that it was Durkin, beside three jabbering and +gesticulating Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza. + +"Oh, there you are!" said his equable and tranquil voice, as he removed +his hat. + +She did not speak, accepting silence as safer. + +"I brought these gentlemen, for someone told me there was a drunken +Englishman in the halls, annoying you, and I was afraid we might miss +our train!" + +She looked at the _gendarmes_ and then on to the excited servants at +their heels, in bewilderment. She was to escape, then, in safety! + +"Explain to these gentlemen just what it was," she heard the warningly +suave voice of her husband saying to her, "while I hurry down and order +the carriage!" + +She was nervous and excited and incoherent, yet as they followed at her +side down the broad marble staircase she made them understand dimly +that their protection was now unnecessary. No, she had not been +insulted; not directly. But she had been affronted. It was +nothing--only the shock of seeing a drunken quarrel; it had alarmed and +upset her. She paused, caught at the balustrade, then wavered a +little; and three solicitous arms in dark cloth and metal buttons were +thrust out to support her. She thanked them, in her soft contralto, +gratefully. The drive through the open air, she assured them, would +restore her completely. + +But all the while she was thinking how needlessly and blindly and +foolishly she had surrendered and lost a fortune. Her path of escape +had been an open one. + + * * * * * * + +"Won't they find out, and everything be known, before we can get to the +station?" she asked, as the fresh night air fanned her throbbing face +and brow. + +"Of course they will!" said Durkin. "But we're not going to the +station. We're going to the waterfront, and from there out to our +steamer!" + +"For where?" she asked. + +"I scarcely know--but anywhere away from Genoa!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AWAKENING VOICES + +Frances Durkin's memory of that hurried flight from Genoa always +remained with her a confusion of incongruous and quickly changing +pictures. She had a recollection of stepping from her cab into a +crowded sailors' _café chantant_, of pushing past chairs and tables and +hurrying out through a side door, of a high wind tearing at her hair +and hat, as she and Durkin still hurried down narrow, stone-paved +streets, of catching the smell of salt water and the musky odor of +shipping, of a sharp altercation with an obdurate customs officer in +blue uniform and tall peaked cap, who stubbornly barred their way with +a bare and glittering bayonet against her husband's breast, while she +glibly and perseveringly lied to him, first in French, and then in +English, and then in Italian. + +She remembered her sense of escape when he at last reluctantly allowed +them to pass, while they stumbled over railway tracks, and the rough +stones of the quay pavement, and the bundles of merchandise lying +scattered about them. Then she heard the impatient lapping of water, +and the outside roar of the waves, and saw the harbor lights twinkling +and dancing, and caught sight of the three great white shafts of light +that fingered so inquisitively and restlessly along the shipping and +the city front and the widening bay, as three great gloomy Italian +men-of-war played and swung their electric searchlights across the +night. + +Then came a brief and passionate scene with a harbor ferryman, who +scorned the idea of taking his boat out in such a sea, who eloquently +waved his arms and told of accidents and deaths and disasters already +befallen the bay that night, who flung down his cap and danced on it, +in an ecstasy of passionate argumentation. She had a memory of Durkin +almost as excited as the dancing harbor orator himself, raging up and +down the quay with a handful of Italian paper money between his +fingers, until the boatman relented. Then came a memory of tossing up +and down in a black and windy sea, of creeping under a great shadow +stippled with yellow lights, of grating and pounding against a ship's +ladder, of an officer in rubber boots running down to her assistance, +of more blinking lights, and then of the quiet and grateful privacy of +her own cabin, smelling of white-lead paint and disinfectants. + +She slept that night, long and heavily, and it was not until the next +morning when the sun was high and they were well down the coast, that +she learned they were on board the British coasting steamer _Laminian_, +of the Gallaway & Papyani Line. They were to skirt the entire coast of +Italy, stopping at Naples and then at Bari, and then make their way up +the Adriatic to Trieste. These stops, Durkin had found, would be +brief, and the danger would be small, for the _Laminian_ was primarily +known as a freighter, carrying out blue-stone and salt fish, and on her +return cruise picking up miscellaneous cargoes of fruit. So her +passenger list, which included, outside of Frank and Durkin, only a +consumptive Welsh school-teacher and a broken-down clergyman from +Birmingham, who kept always to his cabin, was in danger of no +over-close scrutiny, either from the Neapolitan Guardie Municipali on +the one hand, or from any private agents of Keenan and Penfield on the +other. + +Even one short day of unbroken idleness, indeed, seemed to make life +over for both Frank and Durkin. Steeping themselves in that +comfortable sense of security, they drew natural and easy breath once +more. They knew it was but a momentary truce, an interregnum of +indolence; but it was all they asked for. They could no longer nurse +any illusions as to the trend of their way or the endlessness of their +quest. They must now always keep moving. They might alter the manner +of their progression, they might change their stroke, but the +continuity of effort on their part could no more be broken than could +that of a swimmer at sea. They must keep on, or go down. + +So, in the meantime, they plucked the day, with a touch of wistfulness +born of their very distrust of the morrow. + +The glimmering sapphire seas were almost motionless, the days and +nights were without wind, and the equable, balmy air was like that of +an American mid-summer, so that all of the day and much of the night +they spent on deck, where the Welsh schoolmaster eyed them covertly, as +a honeymoon couple engulfed in the selfish contentment of their own +great happiness. It reminded Frank of earlier and older days, for, +with the dropping away of his professional preoccupations, Durkin +seemed to relapse into some more intimate and personal relationship +with her. It was the first time since their flight from America, she +felt, that his affection had borne out the promise of its earlier +ardor. And it taught her two things. One was that her woman's natural +hunger for love was not so dead as she had at times imagined. The +other was that Durkin, during the last months, had drifted much further +away from her than she had dreamed. It stung her into a passionate and +remorseful self-promise to keep closer to him, to make herself always +essential to him, to turn and bend as he might bend and turn, but +always to be with him. It would lead her downward and still further +downward, she told herself. But she caught solace from some blind +belief that all women, through some vague operation of their +affectional powers, could invade the darkest mires of life, if only it +were done for love, and carry away no stain. In fact, what would be a +blemish in time would almost prove a thing of joy and pride. And in +the meantime she was glad enough to be as happy as she was, and to be +near Durkin. It was not the happiness she had once looked for, but it +sufficed. + +They caught sight of a corner of Corsica, and on the following night +could see the glow of the iron-smelting fires on Elba, and the twinkle +of the island shore-lights. From the bridge, too, through one of the +officers' glasses, Frank could see, far inland across the Pontine +Marshes, the gilded dome of St. Peter's, glimmering in the pellucid +morning sunlight. + +She called Durkin, and pointed it out to him. + +"See, it's Rome!" she cried, with strangely mingled feelings. "It's +St. Peter's!" + +"I wish it was the Statue of Liberty and New York," he said, moodily. + +She realized, then, that he was not quite so happy as he had pretended +to be. And she herself, from that hour forward, shared in his secret +unrest. For as time slipped away and her eye followed the heightening +line of the Apennines, she knew that tranquil Tyrrhenian Sea would not +long be left to her. + +It was evening when they rounded the terraced vineyards of Ischia. A +low red moon shone above the belching pinnacle of Vesuvius. Frank and +Durkin leaned over the rail together, as they drifted slowly up the +bay, the most beautiful bay in all the world, with its twilight sounds +of shipping, its rattle of anchor chains, its far-off cries and echoes, +and its watery, pungent Southern odors. + +They watched the ship's officer put ashore to obtain _pratique_, and +the yellow flag come down, and heard the signal-bells of the +engine-room, as the officer returned, with a great cigar in one corner +of his bearded mouth. + +There was nothing amiss. There were neither Carabinieri nor Guardie di +Pubblica Sicurezza to come on board with papers and cross-questions. +Before the break of day their discharged cargo would be in the lighters +and they would be steaming southward for the Straits of Messina. + +That night, on the deserted deck, at anchor between the city and the +sea, they watched the glimmering lights of Naples, rising tier after +tier from the _Immacolatella Nuova_ and its ship lamps to the _Palazzo +di Capodimonte_ and its near-by _Osservatorio_. And when the lights of +the city thinned out and the crowning haze of gold melted from its +hillsides, with the advancing night, Frank and Durkin sat back in their +steamer-chairs and looked up at the stars, talking of Home, and of the +future. + +Yet the beauty of that balmy and tranquil night seemed to bring little +peace of mind to Durkin. There were reasons, of late, when moments of +meditation were not always moments of contentment to him. His wife had +noticed that ever-increasing trouble of soul, and although she said +nothing of it, she had watched him narrowly and not altogether +despondently. For she knew that whatever the tumult or contest that +might be taking place within the high-walled arena of his own Ego, it +was a clash of forces of which she must remain merely a spectator. So +she went below, leaving him in that hour of passive yet troubled +thought, to stare up at the tranquil southern stars, as he meditated on +life, and the meaning of life, and what lay beyond it all. She knew +men and the world too well to look for any sudden and sweeping +reorganization of Durkin's disturbed and restless mind. But she nursed +the secret hope that out of that spiritual ferment would come some +ultimate clearness of vision. + +It was late when he called her up on deck again, ostensibly to catch a +glimpse of Vesuvius breaking and bursting into flame, above _Barra_ and +_Portici_. She knew, however, that slumbering and subterranean fires +other than Vesuvius had erupted into light and life. She could see it +by the new misery on his moonlit face, as she sat beside him. Yet she +sat there in silence; there was so little that she could say. + +"Do you know, you've changed, Frank, these last few months!" he at last +essayed. + +"Haven't there been reasons enough for it?" she asked, making no effort +to conceal the bitterness of her tone. + +"You're not happy, are you?" + +"Are _you_?" she asked, in turn. + +"Who can be happy, and think?" + +She waited, passively, for him to go on again. + +"You said you didn't much care what happened, so long as it kept us +together, and left us satisfied." + +"Isn't that enough?" she broke in, hotly, yet thrilling with the +thought that he was about to tear away the mockery behind which she had +tried to mask herself. + +"No, it isn't enough! And now we're out of the dust of it, these last +few days, I can see that it never can be enough. I've just been +wondering where it leads to, and what it amounts to. I've had a +feeling, for days, now, that there's something between us. What is it?" + +"Ourselves!" she answered, at last. + +"Exactly! And that is what makes me think you're wrong when you cry +that you'll stoop every time I stoop. Every single crime that seems to +be bringing us together is only keeping us apart. It's making you hate +yourself, and because of that, hate me as well!" + +"I couldn't do _that_!" she protested, catching at his hands. + +"But I can see it with my own eyes, whether you want to or not. It +can't be helped. It's beginning to frighten me, this very willingness +of yours to do the things we oughtn't to. Why, I'd be happier, even, +if you did them under protest!" + +"But what is the difference, if I still _do_ them?" + +"It would show me that you weren't as bad as I am--that you hadn't +altogether given up." + +"I couldn't altogether give up, and live!" she cried, with sudden +passion. + +"But you told me as much, that night in Monte Carlo?" + +"I didn't _mean_ it. I was tired out that night; I was embittered, and +insane, if you like! I _want_ to be good! No woman wants sin and +wrongdoing! But, O Jim, can't you see, it's you, you, I want, before +everything else!" + +He smote the palms of his hands together, in a little gesture of +impotent misery. + +"That's just it--you tried to make me save myself for my own sake,--and +it couldn't be done. It was a failure. And now you're trying to make +me save myself for your sake----" + +"It's not your salvation I want--it's _you_!" + +"But it's only through being honest that I can hold and keep you; can't +you see that? If I can't trust myself, I can't possibly trust _you_!" + +"Couldn't we try--once more?" Her voice was little more than a whisper. + +He looked up at the soft and velvet stars that peered down so +voluptuously from a soft and velvet sky. He looked at them for many +moments, before he spoke again. + +"If I got back to my work again, my right and honest work, I _could_ be +honest!" he declared, vehemently. + +"But we _are_ going back," she assuaged. + +"Yes, but see what we have to go through, first!" + +"I know," she admitted, unhappily. "But even then, we could say that +it was to be for the last time." + +"As we said before--and failed!" + +"But this time we needn't fail. Think what it will mean if you have +your work on your transmitting camera waiting for you--months and years +of hard and honest work--work that you love, work that will lead to +bigger things, and give you the time, yes, and the money, you need to +perfect your amplifier. But outside of that, even to have your +work--surely that's enough!" + +"I'd have to have you, as well!" he said, out of the silence that had +fallen upon them. + +"You always will, Jim, you know that!" + +"But I'm afraid of myself! I'm afraid of my moods--I'm afraid of my +own distrust. I have a feeling that it may hurt you, sometime, almost +beyond forgiveness!" + +"I'll try to understand!" she murmured. And again silence fell over +them. + +"I'm afraid of making promises," he said, half whimsically, half +weakly, after many minutes of thought. + +"I don't want you to promise--only _try_!" she pleaded, swept by a wave +of gratitude that seemed to fling her more intimately than ever before +into her husband's arms. Yet it was a wave, and nothing more. For it +receded as it came, leaving her, a moment later, chilled and +apprehensive before their over-troubled future. With a little muffled +cry of emotion, almost animal-like in its inarticulate intensity, she +turned to her husband, and strained him in her arms, in her human and +unhappy and unsatisfied arms. + +"Oh, love me!" she pleaded, brokenly. "Love me! Love me--for I need +it!" + +They seemed strangely nearer to each other, after that night, and the +peacefulness of their cruise to Bari remained uninterrupted. And once +clear of that port Durkin's nervousness somewhat lightened, for he had +figured out that they would be able to connect with one of the Cunard +liners at Trieste. From there, if only they escaped attention and +detection in the harbor, they would be turning homeward in two days. + +One thing, and one thing only, lay between Frank and her husband: She +had not yet found courage to tell him of the loss of the Penfield +papers. And the more she thought of it, the more she dreaded it, +teased and mocked by the very irony of the situation, disquieted and +humiliated at the memory of her own pleadings for honesty while she +herself was so far astray from the paths she was pointing out. + +That sacrifice of scrupulosity on the altar of expediency, trivial as +it was, was the heritage of her past life, she told herself. And she +felt, vaguely, that in some form or another it would be paid for, and +dearly paid for, as she had paid for everything. + +It was only as they steamed into the harbor of Trieste, in the teeth of +a _bora_ and a high-running sea, that this woman who longed to be +altogether honest allowed herself any fleeting moment of self-pity. +For as she gazed up at the bald and sterile hills behind that clean and +wind-swept Austrian city, she remembered they had been thus denuded +that their timbers might make a foundation for Venice. She felt, in +that passing mood, that her own life had been denuded, that all its +softening and shrouding beauties had been cut out and carried away, +that from now on she was to be torn by winds and scorched by open +suns--while the best of her slept submerged, beyond the reach of her +unhappy hands. + +But Durkin, at her side, through the driving spray and rain, pointed +out to her the huge rolling bulk and the red funnels of the Cunarder. + +"Thank heaven!" he said, with a sigh of relief, "we'll be in time to +catch her!" + +The _Laminian_ dropped anchor to the windward of the liner, and as dusk +settled down over the harbor Frank took a wordless pleasure in studying +the shadowy hulk which was to carry her back to America, to her old +life and her old associations. But she was wondering how she should +tell him of the loss of the Penfield securities. It was true that the +very crimes that should have bound them together were keeping them +apart! + +Suddenly she ran to the companionway and called down to her husband. + +"Look!" she said, under her breath, as he came to the rail, "they're +talking with their wireless!" + +She pointed to the masthead of the Cunarder, where, through the +twilight, she could "spell" the spark, signal by signal and letter by +letter, as the current broke from the head of the installation wires to +the hollow metal mast, from which ran the taut-strung wires connecting, +in turn, with the operating office just aft and above the engine-rooms. + +"Listen," she said, for in the lull of the wind they could hear the +short, crisp spit of the spark as it spelt out its mysterious messages. + +Durkin caught her arm, and listened, intently, watching the little +appearing and disappearing green spark, spelling off the words with +narrowing eyes. + +"They're talking with the station up on the mainland. Do you hear what +it is? Can't you make it out?" + +It was, of course, the Continental, and not the Morse, code, and it was +not quite the same as stooping over and listening to the crisp, +incisive pulsations of a "sounder." But Frank heard and saw and pieced +together enough of the message to clutch, in turn, at Durkin's arm, and +wait with quickened breath for the answering spark-play. + +"No--such--persons--on--board--send--fuller--description." + +There was a silence of a minute or two, and then the mysterious +Hertzian voice lisped out once more. + +"Description--not--forwarded--by--Embassy--man--and--wife--are wanted-- +for robbery--at--Monte--Carlo--also--at--Genoa--name--Durgin--or-- +Durkin." + +The listening man and woman looked at each other, and still waited. + +"Oh, this _is_ luck!" said the listener, fervently, as he drew a deep +breath. "This _is_ luck!" + +"Listen, they're answering again!" cried Frank. + +"Why--not--confer--with--Trieste--authorities--will--you--please-- +telephone--our--agents--to--send--out--tender--to take--off--Admiral-- +Stuart." + +Then came the silence again. + +"Yes," sounded the minute electric tongue from the mountain-top, so +many miles away. "Good--night!" + +"Good--night!" replied the articulate mass of heaving steel, swinging +at her anchor chains. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WIRELESS MESSAGES + +"What are we to do?" asked Frances Durkin, turning from the masthead to +her husband's studious face. + +"We've got to jump at our chance, and get on board the _Slavonia_ over +there!" + +"In the face of those messages?" + +"It's the messages that simplify things for us. All we now have to do +is to get on board in such a manner that the ship's officers will have +no suspicions. They mustn't dream of linking us with the runaway +couple who are being looked for. That means that we must not, in the +first place, appear together, and, in the second, of course, that we +must travel and appear as utter strangers!" + +"But supposing Keenan himself is on board that steamer?" parried Frank. + +"It is obvious that he isn't, for then it would be quite unnecessary to +send out any such messages by wireless." + +"But supposing it's Pobloff?" + +"Didn't you say that Pobloff would never follow us out of Europe?" + +"But even if it's Keenan?" she persisted. + +"Then you must remember that you are Miss Allen, at your old trade of +picking up little art relics for wealthy families in England and +America. You will have yourself rowed directly over to the +_Slavonia's_ landing ladder--you can see it there, not two hundred feet +away--and go on board and secure a stateroom from the purser. The +clearing papers can be attended to later. I'll have the _Laminian_ +dingey take me ashore, somewhere down near Barcola, if it can possibly +be done in this wind. Then I'll come out to the _Slavonia_ later, +having, you see, just arrived on the train from Venice!" + +She shook her head doubtfully. An inapposite and irrational dread of +seeing him return to the dangers of land took possession of her. She +knew it would be impossible for her to put this untimely feeling into +words, so that he would see and understand it; and, such being the +case, she argued with him stubbornly to alter his plan, and to allow +her to be the one to go ashore, while he went immediately to the liner. + +He consented to this at last, a little reluctantly, but the thought +that he was safely installed in his cabin, as she made her way +shoreward through the dusk, in the pitching and dripping little dingey, +consoled her for the sense of loneliness and desertion which her +position brought to her. The wind had increased, by this time, and the +rain was coming down in slanting and stinging sheets. But her spirit +did not fail her. + +From the water-front, deserted and rain-swept, she called a passing +street carriage, and drove to the Hotel Bristol. There she sent the +driver to ask if any luggage had arrived from Venice for Miss Allen. +None had arrived, and Miss Allen, naturally, appeared in great +perturbation before the sympathetic but helpless hotel manager. She +next inquired if it was possible to ascertain when the Cunard steamer +sailed. + +"The _Slavonia_, madam, leaves the harbor at daybreak!" + +"At daybreak! Then I must go on board tonight, at once!" + +"I fear it is impossible, madam. The _bora_ is blowing, as you see, +and the harbor is empty!" + +"But I _must_ get on board!" she cried, and this time her dismay and +despair were not mere dissimulation. + +The landlord shrugged his shoulders, while Frank, calling out a +peremptory order, in Italian, to her driver, left him at the curb +looking after her through the driving rain, in bewilderment. + +She went first to the steamship offices. They were closed. Then she +sought out the Cunard tender--it was lightless and deserted. Then she +hurried to the water-front, driving up and down along that lonely +stretch of deserted quays, back and forth, coaxing, wheedling, trying +to bribe indifferent and placid-eyed boatmen to row her out to her +steamer. It was useless. It could not be done. It was not worth +while to risk either their boats or their lives, even in the face of +the fifty, one hundred, two hundred _lira_ which she flaunted in their +unperturbed faces. + +Grating and rocking against the quayside, above the heads of the group +about her, she caught sight of a white-painted steam launch, with a +high-standing bow, and on it a uniformed officer, smoking in the rain. + +She approached him without hesitation. Could he, in any way, carry her +out to her steamer? She pointed to where the lights of the _Slavonia_ +shone and glimmered through the gray darkness. They looked +indescribably warm and homelike to her peering eyes. + +The officer looked her up and down in stolid Austrian amazement, trying +to catch a glimpse of her face through her wet and flattened traveling +veil. Could he take her out to her steamer? No; he was afraid not. +Yes, it was true he had steam up, and that his crew were aboard, but +this was the official patrol of the Captain of the Port--it was not to +carry passengers--it was solely for the imperial service of the +Austrian Government. + +She pleaded with him, weeping. He was sorry, but the Captain of the +Port would permit no such irregularity. + +"Where is the Captain of the Port, then?" she demanded. + +The officer puffed his cigar slowly, and looked her up and down once +more. He was in his office in the Administration Building--but the +officer's shrug and smile told her that it was, in his eyes, no easy +thing to secure admission to the Captain of the Port. The very phrase, +"the Captain of the Port," that had been bandied back and forth for the +last few minutes, became odious to her; it seemed to designate the +title of some august and supernatural and tyrannous power who held her +life and death in his hands. + +She turned on her heel and drove at once to the Administration +Building. Here, at the entrance, she was confronted by a uniformed +sentry, who, after questioning her, passed her on to still another +uniformed personage, who called an orderly, and sent that somewhat +bewildered messenger and his charge to the anteroom of the Captain of +the Port's private secretary. Frank had a sense of hurrying down long +and jail-like corridors, of ascending stairs and passing sentries, of +questionings and consultations, of at last being ushered into a +softly-lighted, softly-carpeted room, where a white-bearded, +benignant-browed official sat in a swivel-chair before a high walnut +desk. + +He shook his head mournfully as he listened to her story. But she did +not give up. She even amazed him a little by the sheer impetuosity of +her speech. + +"Is there much at stake, _signorina_?" he asked, at last, as she paused +for breath. + +"_A man's soul is at stake_!" was the answering cry that rang through +the quiet room. + +The Captain of the Port smiled a little cynically, scarcely +understanding. + +Yet something almost fatherly about his sad and wistful face steeled +her to still further persistence, and she afterward remembered, always +a little shamefaced, that she had wept and clung to his arm and wept +still again, before she melted and bent him from his official +determination. She saw, through blurred and misty eyes, his hand go +out and touch an electric button at his side. She saw him write three +lines on a sheet of paper, an attendant appear, and heard an order +briefly and succinctly given. She had gained her end. + +The Captain of the Port rose as she turned to go from the room. + +"Good night, and also good-bye, _signorina_!" he said quietly, with his +stately, old-world bow. + +She paused at the door, wordlessly demeaned, momentarily ashamed of +herself. She felt, in some way, how miserable and low and self-seeking +she stood beneath him, how high and firm he stood above her, with his +calm and disinterested kindliness. + +She turned back to him once more. + +"Good-bye," she said inadequately, in her tearful and tremulous +contralto. "Good-bye, and thank you, again and again!" + +He bowed from where he stood in the center of his quiet and sheltered +office, seeming, to her, a strangely old-time and courtly figure, a +proud yet unpretentious student of life at peace with his own soul. +The years would come and go, the years that would so age and wear and +torture _her_, but he would reign on in that quiet office unchanged, +contented, still at peace with himself and all his world. "Good-bye," +she said for the third time, from the doorway. + +Then she hurried down to her waiting carriage and raced for the quay. +There she took an almost malicious delight in the bustle and +perturbation to which her return gave sudden rise. The sleepy and +sullen crew were stirred out, signals were clanged, ropes were cast +off; and down in her little narrow cabin, securely shut off from the +driving spray, she could feel and hear the boat lurch and pound through +the waves. Then came shrill calls of the whistle above, the sound of +gruff voices, the rasp and scrape of heaving woodwork against woodwork, +the grind of the ladder against the boat-fenders, the cry of the +officer telling her to hurry. + +She walked up the _Slavonia's_ ladder steadily, demurely, for under the +lights of the promenade deck she could see the clustering, inquisitive +heads, where a dozen crowding passengers tried to ascertain just who +could be coming aboard with such ceremony. + +Leaning over the rail, with a cigar in his mouth, she caught sight of +her husband. As she passed him, at the head of the ladder, he spoke +one short sentence to her, under his breath. + +It was a commonplace enough little sentence, but as the purport of it +filtered through her tired mind it stung her into both a new wariness +of attitude and thought and a new gratefulness of heart. + +For as she passed him, without one betraying emotion or one glance +aside, he had whispered to her, under his breath: + +"_Keenan is here, on board. Be careful!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +BROKEN INSULATION + +The _Slavonia_ was well down the Adriatic before Keenan was seen on +deck. Both Frank and Durkin, by that time, had met in secret more than +once, and had talked over their predicament and decided on a plan of +action. + +"Whatever you do," Durkin warned her, "don't let Keenan suspect who I +am! Don't let him get a glimpse of you with me. My part now has got +to be what you'd call 'armed neutrality.' If anything unforeseen turns +up--and that can only be at Palermo or Gibraltar--I'll be watching near +by to come to your help in some way--but, whatever you do, don't let +Keenan suspect this!" + +"You mean that we mustn't even look at each other?" she cried, in mock +dismay. + +"Precisely," he continued. + +"What if an officer should introduce you to me?" She laughed a little. + +The untimeliness of her laughter disturbed him. More and more often, +during the last few weeks, he had beheld the signs of some callousing +and hardening process going on within her. + +"Oh, in that case," he answered, "you'll find me very glum and +uncongenial. You'll probably be only too glad to leave me alone!" + +She nodded her head in meditative assent. Her problem was a difficult +one. + +"Jim," she said suddenly, "why should we play this waiting and +retreating game during the next two weeks? Here we have Keenan on +board, with nothing to interfere with our operations. Why can't we +work a little harder to win his confidence?" + +"We?" asked the other. + +"Well, why couldn't _I_? All along, during those days in Genoa, I had +the feeling that he would have believed in me, if some little outside +accident had only confirmed his faith in me. We can't tell, of course, +just what he found out after that Pobloff affair, or just how he +interpreted it, or whether he is as much in the dark as ever. If that +is the case, we may stand just where we were before with Keenan!" + +"But I thought you wanted to get away from this sort of thing?" + +"I do--when the time comes," she evaded, tortured by the thought that +she had withheld anything from him. "I do--but are we to let Keenan +go, when we have him so close to us?" + +"Then go ahead and both capture and captivate him!" said Durkin, with a +voice that was gruff only because it was indifferent. Still again he +was oppressed by the feeling that she was passing beyond his power. + +"But see, Jim--I'm getting so old and ugly!" And again she laughed, +with her own show of indifference, though her husband knew, by the +wistfulness of her face, that she was struggling to hold back some +deeper and stronger current of feeling. So he thrust his hands deep in +his pockets, and refused to meet her eyes for a second time. + +"I don't see why we should be afraid of either Palermo or Gibraltar," +Durkin went on at last, with a half-impatient business-is-business +glance about him. "Keenan is alone in this. He has no agents over +here, that we know of, and he daren't put anything in the hands of the +authorities. He's a runaway, a fugitive with the district-attorney's +office after him, and he has to move just as quietly as we do. Mark my +words, where he will make his first move, and do anything he's going to +do, will be in New York!" + +"Then why can't I prepare the ground for the New York situation, +whatever it may be?" she demanded. + +"You mean by standing pat with Keenan?" + +"Precisely." + +"Then how will you begin?" + +"By sending him a note at once, telling him how I slipped away from +Genoa to Venice, and asking him the meaning of the Pobloff attack--in +other words, by appearing so actively suspicious of _him_ that he'll +forget to be suspicious of _me_." + +"And what do you imagine he will answer?" + +"I think he will send me back word to say absolutely nothing about the +Genoa episode--he may even claim that it's quite beyond his +comprehension. That will give us a chance to meet more naturally, and +then we can talk things over more minutely, at our leisure." + +Durkin wheeled on her, half-angrily. Through all their career, he had +remained strangely unschooled to any such concession as this. It was +an affront to his dormant and masculine spirit of guardianship; it +seemed a blow in the teeth of his nurturing instinct, an overriding of +his prerogatives of a man and a husband. + +"While you're making love to him on the bridge-deck, on moonlight +nights!" he flung back at her, bitterly. + +"Do you think I could?" she murmured, with a ghost of a sigh. + +Durkin emitted a little impatient oath. + +"Don't swear, Jim!" she reproved him. + +The vague prescience that some day he should lose her, that in some +time yet to be she should pass beyond his reach and control, still +again filtered through his consciousness, like a dark and corroding +seepage. He caught her by the arm roughly, and looked into her face, +for one silent and scrutinizing minute. + +"Do you care?" she asked, and it seemed to him there was a tremor of +happiness in her tone. + +"I _hate_ this part of the business!" he cried, with still another oath. + +"Oh, do you care?" she reiterated, as her arms crept about him +valiantly, yet a little timidly. + +He surrendered, against his will, to the gentle artillery of her tears. +They startled and unmanned him for a little, they came so unexpectedly, +for as he crushed her in his sudden responding embrace, the impulse, at +that time and in that place, seemed the incongruous outcropping of some +deeply submerged stratum of feeling. + +"If you _do_ care, Jim, why do you never tell me so?" she demanded of +him, in gentle reproof. He then noticed, for the first time, the +hungry and unsatisfied look that brooded over her face. He confessed +to himself unhappily that something about him was altered. + +"This cursed business knocks that sort of thing out of you," he +expiated, discomforted at the thought that a feeling so long +disregarded could grip him so keenly. And all the while he was torn by +the misery of two contending impressions; one, the dim, subliminal +foreboding that she was ordained for worthier and cleaner hands than +his, the other, that this upheaval of the emotions still had the power +to shake and bewilder and leave him so wordlessly unhappy. It was the +ever-recurring incongruity, the repeated syncretism, which made him +vaguely afraid of himself and of the future. Then, as he looked down +into her face once more, and studied the shadowy violet eyes, and the +low brow, and the short-lipped mobile mouth so laden with impulse, and +the soft line of the chin and throat so eloquent of weakness and +yielding, a second and stronger wave of feeling surged through him. + +"I love you, Frank; I tell you I do love you!" he cried, with a voice +that did not seem his own. And as she lay back in his arms, weak and +surrendering, with the heavy lashes closed over the shadowy eyes, he +stooped and kissed her on her red, melancholy mouth. + +Yet as he did so the act seemed to take on the touch of something +solemn and valedictory, though he fought back the impression with his +still reiterated cry of "I love you!" + +"Then why are you unkind to me?" she asked, more calmly now. + +"Oh, can't you see I want you--all of you?" he cried. + +"Then why do you leave me where so much must be given to other things, +to hateful things?" she asked, with her mild and melancholy eyes still +on his face. + +"God knows, I've wanted you out of it, often enough!" he avowed, +desolately. And she made no effort to alleviate his suffering. + +"Then why not take me out of it, and keep me out of it?" she demanded, +with a cold directness that brought him wheeling about on her. + +He suddenly caught her by the shoulders, and held her away from him, at +arms' length. She thought, at first, that it was a gesture of +repudiation; but she soon saw her mistake. "I swear to God," he was +saying to her, with a grim tremor of determination in his voice as he +spoke, "I swear to God, once we are out of this affair, _it will be the +last_!" + +"It will be the last!" repeated the woman, broodingly, but her words +were not so much a declaration as a prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE TANGLED SKEIN + +It was the _Slavonia's_ last night at sea. In another twelve hours the +pilot would be aboard, Quarantine would be passed, the engines would be +slowed down, and the great steamer would be lying at her berth in the +North River, discharging her little world of life into the scattered +corners of a waiting continent. Already, on the green baize +bulletin-board in the companionway the purser had posted the customary +notice to the effect that the steamer's operator was now in connection +with New York City, and that wireless messages might be received for +all points in Europe and America. + +There was a chill in the air, and to Frances Durkin, sitting beside +Keenan on the promenade deck, there seemed something restless and +phantasmal and ghostlike in the thin, North Atlantic sunlight, after +the mellow and opulent gold of the Mediterranean calms. It seemed to +her to be a presage of the restless movement and tumult which she felt +to be before her. + +She had not been altogether amiss in her predictions of what the past +fortnight would bring forth. She had erred a little, she felt, in her +estimate of Keenan's character; yet she had not been mistaken in the +course of action which he was to pursue. + +For, from the beginning, after the constraint of their first meeting on +board had passed away, he had shown her a direct and open friendliness +which now and then even gave rise to a vague and uneasy suspicion in +her own mind. This friendliness had brought with it an easier exchange +of confidences, then a seeming intimacy and good-fellowship which, at +times, made it less difficult for Frank to lose herself in her rôle. + +Keenan, one starlit night under the shadow of a lifeboat amidships, had +even acknowledged to her the dubiousness of the mission that had taken +him abroad. Later, he had outlined to her what his life had been, +telling her of his struggles when a penniless student of the City law +school, of his early and unsavory criminal-court efforts, and his +unhappy plunge into the morasses of Eighth-ward politics, of his +campaign against the "Dave Kelly" gang, and the death of his political +career which came with that opposition, of his swinging round to the +tides of the times and taking up with bucket-shop work, of his "shark" +lawyer practices and his police-court legal trickeries, of his gradual +identification with the poolroom interests and his first gleaning of +gambling-house lore, of his drifting deeper and deeper into this life +of unearned increment, of his fight with the Bar Association, which was +taken and lost before the Judiciary Committee of Congress, and of his +final offer of retainer from Penfield, and private and expert services +after the second raid on that gambler's Saratoga house. Frank could +understand why he said little of the purpose that took him to Europe. +Although she waited anxiously for any word he might let fall on that +subject, she respected his natural reticence in the matter. He was a +criminal, low and debased enough, it was true; but he was a criminal of +such apparent largeness of mind and such openness of spirit that his +very life of crime, to the listening woman, seemed to take on the +dignity of a Nietzsche-like abrogation of all civic and social ties. + +Yet, in all his talk, he was open and frank enough in his confession of +attitude. He had seen too much of criminal life to have many illusions +or to make many mistakes about it. He openly admitted that the end of +all careers of crime was disaster--if not open and objective, at least +hidden and subjective. He had no love for it all. But when once, +through accident or necessity, in the game, he protested, there was but +one line of procedure, and that was to bring to illicit activity that +continuous intelligence which marked the conduct of those who stood +ready to combat it. Society, he declared, owed its safety to the fact +that the criminal class, as a rule, was made up of its least +intelligent members. When criminality went allied with a shrewd mind +and a sound judgment--and a smile curled about Keenan's melancholy +Celtic mouth as he spoke--it became transplanted, practically, to the +sphere and calling of high finance. + +But if the defier of the Establish Rule preferred the simpler order of +things, he continued, his one hope lay in the power of making use of +his fellow-criminals, by applying to the unorganized smaller fry of his +profession some particular far-seeing policy and some deliberate +purpose, and through doing so standing remote and immune, as all +centres of generalship should stand. + +This, he went on to explain, was precisely what Penfield had done, with +his art palaces and his European jaunts and his doling out of political +patronage and his prolonged defiance of all the police powers of a +great and active city. He had organized and executed with Napoleonic +comprehensiveness; he had fattened on the daily tribute of less +imaginative subordinates in sin. And now he was fortified behind his +own gold. He was being harassed and hounded for the moment--but the +emotional wave of reform that was calling for his downfall would break +and pass, and leave him as secure as ever. + +"Now, my belief is," Keenan told the listening woman, "that if you find +you cannot possibly be the Napoleon of the campaign, it is well worth +while to be the Ney. I mean that it has paid me to attach myself to a +man who is bigger than I am, instead of going through all the dangers +and meannesses and hardships of a petty independent operator. It pays +me in two ways. I get the money, and I get the security." + +"Then you believe this man Penfield will never be punished?" + +He thought over the question for a moment or two. + +"No, I don't think he ever will. He stands for something that is as +active and enduring in our American life as are the powers arrayed +against him. You see, the district-attorney's office represents the +centripetal force of society. Penfield stands for the centrifugal +force. They fight and battle against one another, and first one seems +to gain, and then the other, and all the while the fight between the +two, the struggle between the legal and the illegal, makes up the +balance of everyday life." + +"You mean that we're all gamblers, at heart?" + +"I mean that every Broadway must have its Bowery, that the world can +only be so good--if you try to make it better, it breaks out in a new +place--and the master criminal is a man who takes advantage of this +nervous leakage. We call him the Occasional Offender--and he's the +most dangerous man in all society. In other words, the passion, as you +say, for gambling, is implanted in all of us; the thought of some vast +hazard, of some lucky stroke of fate, is in your head as often as it is +in mine. You tell me you are a hard-working art collector, making a +decent living by gadding about Europe picking up knick-knacks. Now, +suppose I came to you with a proposal like this: Suppose I told you +that without any greater personal discomfort, without any greater +danger or any harder work, you might, say, join forces with me and at +one play of the game haul in fifty thousand dollars from men who no +more deserve this money than we do, I'll warrant that you'd think over +it pretty seriously." + +The woman at his side laughed a little, and then gave a significantly +careless shrug of her small shoulders. + +"Who wouldn't?" she said, and their eyes met questioningly, in the +uncertain light. + +"Women, as a rule, are timid," he said at last. "They usually prefer +the slower and safer road." + +"Sometimes they get tired of it. Then, too, it isn't always safe just +because it's slow!" + +It seemed to give him the opening for which he had been waiting. He +looked at her with undisguised yet calculating admiration. + +"I'll wager _you_ would never be afraid of a thing, if you once got +into it, or wanted to get into it!" he cried. + +She laughed again, a self-confident and reassuring little laugh. + +"I've been through too many things," she admitted simply, "to talk +about being thin-skinned!" + +"I knew as much!" + +"Why do you say that?" + +"I could see it from the first. You've got courage, and you're shrewd, +and you know the world--and you've got what's worth all the rest put +together. I mean that you're a fine-looking woman, and you've never +let the fact spoil you!" + +There was no mistaking the pregnancy of the glance and question which +she next directed toward him. + +"Then why couldn't you take me in with you?" she asked, with a +quiet-toned solemnity. + +She had the sensations of a skater on treacherously thin ice, as she +watched the slow, cautious scrutiny of his unbetraying face. But now, +for some reason, she knew neither fear nor hesitation. + +"And what if we did?" he parried temporizingly. + +"Well, what if we did?--men and women have worked together before this!" + +Even in the dim light that surrounded them she could notice the color +go out of his intent and puzzled face. From that moment, in some +mysterious way, she lost the last shred of sympathy for his abject and +isolated figure, and yet she was the one, she knew, who had been most +unworthy. + +"And do you understand what it would imply--what it would mean?" he +asked slowly and with significant emphasis. + +She could not repress her primal woman's instinct of revolt from the +thoughts which his quiet interrogation sent at her, like an arrow. But +she struggled to keep down the little shudder which woke and stirred +within her. He had done nothing more than respond to her tacit +challenge. But she feared him, more and more. Until then she had +advanced discreetly and guardedly, and as she had advanced and taken +her new position he had as guardedly fallen back and held his own. It +had been a strange and silent campaign, and all along it had filled +Frank with a sense of stalking and counter-stalking. Now they were +plunging into the naked and primordial conflict of man against woman, +without reservations and without indirections--and it left her with a +vague fear of some impending helplessness and isolation. She had a +sudden prompting to delay or evade that final step, to temporize and +wait for some yet undefined reinforcements. + +"And you realize what it means?" he repeated. + +"Yes," she said in her soft contralto. A feeling of revulsion that was +almost nausea was consuming her. This, then, she told herself, was the +bitter and humiliating price she must pay for her tainted triumph. + +"And would you accept and agree to the conditions--the only +conditions?" he demanded, in a voice now hatefully tremulous with some +rising and controlling emotion. She had the feeling, as she listened, +that she was a naked slave girl, being jested over and bidden for on +the auction block of some barbaric king. She felt that it was time to +end the mockery; she no longer even pitied him. + +"Listen!" she suddenly cried, "they are beginning to send the wireless!" + +They listened side by side, to the brisk kick and spurt and crackle of +the fluid spark leaping between the two brass knobs in the little +operating-room just above where they sat. They could hear it +distinctly, above the drone of the wind and the throb of the engines +and the quiet evening noises of the orderly ship--spitting and +cluttering out into space. To the impatient man it was nothing more +than the ripple of unintelligent and unrelated sounds. + +To the wide-eyed and listening woman it was a decorous and coherent +march of dots and dashes, carrying with it thought and meaning and +system. And as each word fluttered off on its restless Hertzian wings, +like a flock of hurrying carrier-pigeons through the night, the woman +listened and translated and read, word by word. + +"Then we go it together--you and I--for all it's worth!" Keenan was +saying, with his face near hers and his hand on her motionless arm. + +"Listen," she said sharply. "It--it sounds like a bag of lightning +getting loose, doesn't it?" + +For the message which was leaping from the lonely and dipping ship to +the receiving wires at the Highland Heights Station was one that she +intended to read, word by word. + +It was a simple enough message, but as it translated itself into +intelligible coherence it sent a creeping thrill of conflicting fear +and triumph through her. For the words which sped across space from +key to installation-pole read: + +"Woman--named--Allen--will--bring--papers--to--P--Field's--downtown-- +house--I--will--wait--word--from--you--at--Philadelphia--advise--me-- +of--situation--there--and--wire--D--in--time--Kerrigan." + +It was only then that she was conscious of the theatricalities from +which she had emerged, of the man so close beside her, still waiting +for her play-acting word of decision. It was only then, too, that she +fully understood the adroitness, the smooth and supple alertness, of +her ever-wary and watchful companion. + +But she rose to the situation without a visible sign of flinching. +Taking one deep breath, as though it were a final and comprehensive +gulp of unmenaced life, she turned to him, and gazed quietly and +steadily into his questioning eyes. + +"Yes, if you say it, I'm with you now, whether it's for good or bad!" + +"And this is final!" he demanded. "If you begin, you'll stick to it!" + +"To the bitter end!" she answered grimly. And there was something so +unemotionally decisive in her tone that he no longer hesitated, no +longer doubted her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE SEVERED KNOT + +It was in the gray of the early morning, as the _Slavonia_ steamed from +the Upper Bay into the North River and the serrated skyline of +Manhattan bit into the thin rind of sunrise to the east, that Durkin +and Frank came suddenly together in a deserted companionway. She had +been praying for one hour more, and then all would be set right. + +"I want to see you!" he said sharply. + +She looked about to make sure they were unobserved. + +"I know it--but I daren't run the risk--now!" + +"Why not now? What has changed?" he demanded. + +"I tell you we can't, Jim! We might be seen here, any minute!" + +"What difference should that make?" + +"It makes every difference!" + +"By heaven, I've _got_ to see you!" For the first time she realized +the force of the dull rage that burned within him. "I want to know +what's before us, and how we're going to act!" + +"I tell you, Jim, I can't talk to you here!" + +"You mean you don't care to!" he flashed out. + +"Can't you trust me?" she pleaded. + +"Trust you? What has trust to do in a business like ours?" + +"It is _your_ business--until you put an end to it!" And her voice +shook with the repressed bitterness of her spirit. "I tried to see you +quietly, last night, but you had gone to your cabin. I have a feeling +that we're under the eye of every steward on this ship--I _know_ we are +being watched, all the time. And if you were seen here with me, it +would only drag you in, and make it harder to straighten out, in the +end. Can't you see what's going on?" + +"Yes, I _have_ been seeing what's going on--and I'm sick of it!" + +"Oh, not _that_, Jim!" she cried, in a little muffled wail. "You know +it would never be that!" + +His one dominating feeling was that which grew out of the stinging +consciousness that she wanted to escape him, that the moment had come +when she could make an effort to evade him. But he was only paying the +penalty! He had sowed, he told himself, and it was only natural that +in time he should reap! Already he was losing her! Already, it might +be, he had lost her! + +"Won't you be reasonable?" she was saying, and her voice sounded faint +and far away. "I've got to see this through now, and one little false +move would spoil everything! I must land by myself. I'll write you, +at the Bartholdi, when and where to meet me!" + +The noise of approaching footsteps sounded down the carpeted +passageway. He had caught her by the arm, but now he released his grip +and turned away. + +"Quick," she whispered, "here's somebody coming!" + +She was struggling with the ends of her veil, and Durkin was aimlessly +pacing away from her, when the hurrying steward brushed by them. A +moment later he returned, followed by a second steward, but by this +time Durkin had made his way to the upper deck, and was looking with +quiescent rage at the quays and walls and skyscrapers of New York. + +Before the steamer wore into the wharf Frank had seen Keenan and a last +few words had passed between them. She sternly schooled herself to +calmness, for she felt her great moment had come. + +At his request that her first mission be to deliver a sealed packet at +the office of Richard Penfield, in the lower West Side, she evinced +neither surprise nor displeasure. It was all in the day's work, she +protested, as Keenan talked on, giving her more definite instructions +and still again impressing on her the need for secrecy. + +She took the sealed package without emotion--the little package for +which she had worked so hard and lost so much and waited so long--and +as apathetically secreted it. Equally without emotion she passed +Durkin, standing at the foot of the gangway. Something in his face, +however, warned her of the grim mood that burned within him. She +pitied him, not for his suffering, but for his blindness. + +"Don't follow me!" she muttered, between her teeth, as she swept +unbetrayingly by him, and hurriedly made her way out past the customs +barrier. It was not until she had reached the closed carriage Keenan's +steward had already ordered for her that she realized how apparently +cursory and precipitate had been that hurried word of warning. But +there was time for neither explanation nor display of emotion. It +could all be made clear and put right, later. + +She heard the nervous trample of hoofs on the wooden flooring, the +battle of truck-wheels, the muffled sound of calling voices, and she +leaned back in the gloomy cab and closed her eyes with a great sense of +escape, with a sense of relief tinged with triumph. + +As she did so the door of her turning cab was opened, and the sudden +square of light was blocked by a massive form. She gave a startled +little cry as the figure swung itself up into the seat beside her. +Then the curtained door swung shut, with a slam. It seemed like the +snap of a steel trap. + +"Hello, there, Frank!--I've been looking out for you!" said the +intruder, with a taunt of mockery in his easy laugh. + +_It was MacNutt_. She gaped at him stupidly, with an inarticulate +throaty gasp, half of protest, half of bewilderment. + +"You see, I know you, Frank, and Keenan doesn't!" And again she felt +the sting of his scoffing laughter. + +She looked at the subdolous, pale-green eyes, with their predatory +restlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy, +animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous of +gin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with their +purplish veinings. It seemed like a ghost out of some long-past and +only half-remembered life. It came back to her with all the +hideousness of a momentarily forgotten nightmare, made newly hideous by +the sanities of ordered design and open daylight in which it intruded. +And her heart sank and hope burned out of her. + +"You! How dare _you_ come here?" she demanded, with a show of hot +defiance. + +He looked at her collectedly and studiously, with an approving little +side-shake of the bull-dog, pugnacious-looking head. + +"You're the same fine looker!" was all he said, with an appreciative +clucking of the throat. Oh, how she hated him, and everything for +which he stood! + +By this time they had threaded their way out of the tangled traffic of +West street, and were rumbling cityward through the narrower streets of +Greenwich village. + +Frank's first intelligible feeling was one of gratitude at the thought +that Durkin had escaped the trap into which she herself had fallen. +That did not leave the situation quite so hopeless. Her second feeling +was one of fear that he might be following her, then one that he might +not, that he would not be near her in the coming moment of need--for +she knew that now of all times MacNutt held her in the hollow of his +hand--that now, as never before, he would frustrate and crush and +obliterate her. There were old transgressions to be paid for; there +were old scores to be wiped out. Keenan and his Penfield wealth were +nothing to her now--she was no longer plotting for the future, but +shrinking away from her dark and toppling present, that seemed about to +buckle like a falling wall and crush her as it fell. Month after +month, in Europe, she had known visions of some such meeting as this, +through nightmare and troubled sleep. And now it was upon her. + +MacNutt seemed to follow her line of flashing thought, for he emitted a +short bark of a laugh and said: "It's pretty small, this world, isn't +it? I guessed that we'd be meetin' again before I'd swung round the +circle!" + +"Where are we going?" she demanded, trying to lash her disordered and +straggling thoughts into coherence. + +"We're goin' to the neatest and completest poolroom in all Manhattan!" + +"Poolroom?" she cried. + +"Yes, my dear; I mean that we're drivin' to Penfield's brand-new +downtown house, where, as somewhat of a hiker in the past, you'll see +things done in a mighty whole-souled and princely fashion!" + +"But why should I go there? And why with you?" + +"Oh, I'm on Penfield's list, just at present, kind o' helpin' to soothe +some of the city police out o' their reform tantrums. And you've got +about a quarter of a million of Penfield's securities on you--so I +thought I'd kind o' keep an eye on you--this time!" + +Her first impulse was to throw herself headlong from the cab door. But +this, she warned herself, would be both useless and dangerous. Through +the curtained window she could see that they were now in the more +populous districts of the city, and that the speed at which they were +careering down the empty car-tracks was causing early morning +foot-passengers to stop and turn and gaze after them in wonder. It was +now, or never, she told herself, with a sudden deeper breath of +determination. + +With a quick motion of her hand she flung open the door, and leaning +out, called shrilly for the driver to stop. He went on unheeding, as +though he had not heard her cry. + +She felt MacNutt's fierce pull at her leaning shoulder, but she +struggled away from him, and repeated her cry. A street boy or two ran +after the carriage, adding to the din. She was tearing and fighting in +MacNutt's futile grasp by this time, calling desperately as she fought +him back. As the cab swerved about an obstructing delivery-wagon a +patrolman sprang at the horses' heads, was jerked from his feet, and +was carried along with the careering horse. But in the end he brought +them to a stop. Before he could reach the cab door a crowd had +collected. + +A hansom dashed up as the now infuriated officer brushed and elbowed +the crowd aside. Above the surging heads, in that hansom, Frank could +see the familiar figure, as it leaped to the ground and dove through +the closing gap of humanity, after the officer. + +It was Durkin; and now, in a sudden passion of blind fear for him she +sprang from the cab-step and tried to beat him back with her naked +hands, foolishly, uselessly, for she knew that if once together MacNutt +and he would fall on one another and fight it out to the end. + +The patrolman caught her back, roughly, and held her. + +"What's all this, anyway?" It surprised him a little, as he held her, +to find that the woman was not inebriate. + +"I want this woman!" cried Durkin, and at the sound of his voice +MacNutt leaned forward from the shadows of the half-closed carriage, +and the eyes of the two men met, in one pregnant and contending stare. + +A flash of inspiration came to the trembling woman. + +"I will give everything up to him, officer, if he'll only not make a +scene!" She was fumbling at a package in the bosom of her dress. + +"He can have his stuff, every bit of it--if he'll let it go at that!" + +Durkin caught his cue as he saw the color of one corner of the sealed +yellow manila envelope. + +"Stand back there!" howled the officer to the crowding circle. "And +you, shut up!" he added to MacNutt, now horrible to look upon with +suppressed rage. + +"This woman lifted a package of mine, officer," said Durkin quickly. +"If it's intact, why, let her go!" + +His fingers closed, talon-like, on the manila envelope. He flashed the +unbroken red seal at the officer, with a little laugh of triumph. That +laugh seemed to madden MacNutt, as he made a second ineffectual effort +to break into that tense and rapid cross-fire of talk. + +"And you don't want to lay a charge?" the policeman demanded, as he +angrily elbowed back the ever intruding circle. + +"Let 'em go!" said Durkin, backing toward his cab. + +"But what's the papers, and what t'ell does _she_ want with 'em?" +interrogated the officer. + +"Correspondence!" said Durkin easily, almost lightheartedly. "Kind of +personal stuff. They're--_he's_ drunk, anyway!" For stumbling angrily +out of the cab, MacNutt was crying that it was all a pack of lies, that +they were a quarter of a million in money and that the officer should +arrest Durkin on the spot, or he'd have him "broke." + +"And then you'll chew me up an' spit me out, won't you, you blue-gilled +Irish bull-dog?" jeered the irate officer, already out of temper with +the unruly crowd jostling about him. + +"I say arrest that man!" screamed the claret-faced MacNutt. + +"And I say I'll run _you_ in, and run you in mighty quick, if you don't +get rid o' them jim-jams pretty soon!" + +"By God, I'll take it out of _you_ for this, when my turn comes!" raved +MacNutt, turning, purplish gray of face, on the deprecating Durkin. +"I'll take it out of you, by God!" + +"There--there! He's simply drunk, officer; and the woman has squared +herself. I don't want to press any charge. But you'd better take his +name!" + +"Drunk, am I? You'll be drunk when I finish with you. You won't have +a name, you'll have a number, when I'm through with you!" repeated the +infuriated MacNutt. + +"Look here, the two o' you!" suddenly exclaimed the outraged arm of the +law, "you climb into that hack and clear out o' here, as quick as you +can, or I'll run you both in!" + +MacNutt still expostulated, still begged for a private audience in the +street-corner saloon, still threatened and pleaded and protested. + +The exasperated officer turned to the cab-driver, as he slung the +street loafers from him to right and left. + +"Here, you get these fares o' yours out o' this--get them away mighty +quick, or I'll have you soaked for breakin' the speed ord'nance!" + +Then he turned quickly, for the frightened woman had emitted a sharp +scream, as her bull-necked companion, with the vigor of a new and +desperate resolution, bodily caught her up and thrust her into the +gloom of the half-curtained carriage. + +"Oh, Jim, Jim, don't let him take me!" she cried mysteriously to the +man she had just robbed. But the man she had just robbed looked at her +with what seemed indifferent eyes, and said nothing. + +"Don't you know where he's taking me? Can't you see? It's to +Penfield's!" she cried, through her weakening struggles. + +A new and strange paralysis of all his emotions seemed to have crept +over Durkin, as he watched the cab door slammed shut and the horses go +plunging and curveting out through the crowd. + +"You'd better get away as quiet as you can!" said the policeman, in an +undertone, for Durkin had slipped a ten-dollar bill into his +unprotesting fingers. "You'd better slide, for if the colonel happens +along I can't do much to help you out!" + +Then, with his hand on Durkin's cab door he said, with unfeigned +bewilderment: "Say, what's the game of your actress friend, anyway?" + +Durkin turned away in disgust, without answering. She was no longer +his friend; she was his enemy, his betrayer! He had lived by the +sword, and by the sword he should die! He had triumphed through crime, +and through crime he was being undone! He had led her into the paths +of duplicity; he had taught her wrong-doing and dishonor; and with the +very tools he had put in her hand she had cut her way out to liberty, +and turned and defeated him! + +Then he remembered the scene on the _Slavonia_, and her passionate cry +for him, for his love. In the wake of this came the memory of still +earlier scenes and still more passionate cries for what he had so +scantily given her. + +Then suddenly he smote his knees with his clenched fists, and said +aloud: + +"It can't be true! It can't be true!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ULTIMATE OUTCAST + +Any passion so neutral and negative as jealousy soon burned itself out +in an actively positive brain like Durkin's. And it left, as so often +had happened with him, manifold gray ash-heaps of regret for past +misdeeds. It also brought with it the customary revulsion of feeling, +and a prowling hunger for some amendatory activity. Yet with that +hunger came a new and disturbing sense of fear. He was realizing, +almost too late, the predicament into which he and Frank had stumbled, +the danger into which he had passively permitted his wife to drift. + +It was not until after two hours of fierce and troubled thought, +however, that Durkin left the Bartholdi, and taking a hansom, drove +down that man-crowded crevasse where lower Broadway flaunted its +Semitic signboards to the world, directly to the Criminal Courts +building in Centre street. + +Once there, he made his way to the office of the district-attorney. As +he thoughtfully waited for admission into that democratized court of +last appeal there passed through his mind the dangers and the chances +that lay before him. The situation had its menaces, both obvious and +unforeseen, but the more he thought it over the more he realized that +the emergency called for action, at once decisive and immediate. He +had already bungled and hesitated and misjudged. Blind feeling had +warped his judgment. Until then he had blocked out his path of action +only crudely; there had been little time for the weighing of +consequences and the anticipation of contingencies. He had acted +quickly and blindly. He had both succeeded and been defeated. + +Still again the actual peril hanging over his wife came home to him. +In the dust and tumult of battle, and in the black depths of the +jealous vapors that had so blinded and sickened him, he had for the +moment forgotten just what she meant to him, just how handicapped and +helpless he stood without her. + +If the thought of their separation touched him, because of more +emotional reasons, it was already too early in his mood of reaction to +admit it to his own shamefaced inner self. Yet he felt, now, that +through it all she was true gold. It was only when the tie stood most +strained and tortured that the sense of its actual strength came home +to him. + +As these thoughts and feelings swept disjointedly through his busy head +word was sent out to him that he might see the district-attorney. + +The office he stepped into was curtain-draped and carpeted, and hung +with framed portraits, and strewn with heavy and comfortable-looking +leather arm-chairs. Durkin had expected it to look like an +iron-grilled precinct police-station, and he was a little startled by +the sense of luxury and well-being pervading the place. + +Tilted momentarily back in a leather chair, behind a high-backed +hardwood desk, the visitor caught a glimpse of one of those nervously +alert, youngish-old figures which always seemed to him so typically +American. + +The man behind the high-backed desk paused in his task of checking a +list of typewritten names, and motioned Durkin to a seat. The visitor +could see that he was with an official who would countenance no +profligate waste of time. So he plunged straight into the heart of his +subject. + +"This office is at present carrying on a campaign against Richard +Penfield, the poolroom operator and gambler." + +The district-attorney put down his paper. + +"This office is carrying on a campaign against every lawbreaker brought +to its attention," he corrected, succinctly. Then he caught up another +type-written sheet. "How much have you lost?" he asked over his +shoulder. + +"I'm not a gambler," retorted Durkin as crisply. His earlier timidity +had faded away, and more and more he felt the relish of this adventure +with the powers that were opposing him. + +"I suppose not--but how much were your losses?" + +"I've lost nothing!" Durkin was growing impatient of this curtly +condescending tone. It was the ponderosity of officialdom, he felt, +grown playful, in the face of a passing triviality. + +The district-attorney turned over the card which had been brought in to +him, with a deprecating uplift of the eyebrows. + +"Most of the people who come here to talk about Penfield and his +friends come to tell me how much they've lost." He leaned back, and +sent a little cloud of cigarette smoke ceilingward. "And, of course, +it's part of this office's duty to keep a fool and his money +together--as long as possible. What is it I can do for you?" + +"I want your help to get a woman out of Penfield's new downtown house!" + +"What woman?" + +"She is--well, she is a very near friend of mine! She's being held a +prisoner there!" + +"By the police?" + +"No, by certain of Penfield's men." + +"What men?" + +"MacNutt, the wire tapper, is one of them!" + +"And you would like us to get after MacNutt?" + +"Yes, I would!" + +"On the charge of wire tapping?" + +"That should be one of them!" + +"Then I can only refer you to the decision of the Court of Appeals in +the McCord case, and the Appellate Division's reversal of the +'green-goods' conviction of 1900! In other words, sir, there is no law +under which a wire tapper can be prosecuted." + +"But it's not a conviction I want, as much as the woman. I want to +save _her_." + +"Is she a respectable woman?" + +Durkin felt that his look was answer enough. + +"Is she a frequenter of poolrooms?" + +Durkin hesitated, this time, and weighed his answer. + +"I don't think so." + +"She's not a frequenter?" + +"No!" + +"Some rather nice women are, you know, at times!" + +"She may have been, once, I suppose, but I know not recently." + +"Ah! I see! And what do you want us to do?" + +"I want your help to get her out of there, today, before any harm comes +to her." + +"What sort of harm?" + +Durkin found it hard to put his fears and feelings into satisfactory +words. He was on dangerous seas, but he made his way doggedly on, +between the Charybdis of reticence and the Scylla of plain-spoken +suggestion. + +"I see--in other words, you want the police to raid Penfield's downtown +gambling establishment before two o'clock this afternoon, and release +from that establishment a young lady who drove there, and probably not +for the first time, in an open cab in the open daylight, because +certain ties which you do not care to explain bind you to the young +lady in question?" + +The brief and brusque finality of tone in the other man warned Durkin +that he had made no headway, and he caught up the other's half-mocking +and tacit challenge. + +"For which, I think, this office will be adequately repaid, by being +brought into touch with information which will help out its previous +action against Penfield!" + +"Who will give us this?" + +Durkin looked at his cross-examiner, nettled and impatient. + +"I could!" + +"But will you?" + +"Yes, on the condition I have implied!" + +"In other words, you stand ready to bribe us into a doubtful and +hazardous movement against the strongest gambler in all New York, on +the expectation of an adequate bribe! This office, sir, accepts no +bribes!" + +"I would not call it bribery!" + +"Then how would you describe it?" + +"Oh, I might be tempted to call it--well, coöperation!" + +Some tinge of scorn in his words nettled the officer of the law. + +"It all amounts to the same thing, I presume. Now, let me tell you +something. Even though you came to me today with a drayful of crooked +faro layouts and doctored-up roulette wheels from Penfield's house, it +would be practically impossible, at this peculiar juncture of municipal +administration, to take in my men and carry out a raid over Captain +Kuttrell's head!" + +"Ah, I see! You regard Penfield as immune!" + +"Penfield is _not_ immune!" said the public prosecutor. The +oldish-young face was very flushed and angry by this time. "Don't +misunderstand me. As a recognized and respected citizen, you always +have the right to call on the officers of the law, to secure protection +and punishment of crime. But this must be sought through the natural +and legitimate channels." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean go to the police." + +"But to lay a charge with the police would be impracticable, in this +case." + +"Why would it?" + +"Simply because it wouldn't get at Penfield, and it would only lead +to--to embarrassing publicity!" + +"Exactly so! And you may be sure, young man, that Penfield is quite +aware of that fact. To be candid, it is just such things as this that +allow him to be operating today. If you start the wheels, you must +stand the racket!" + +"Then you allow a notorious gambler to break every law of the land and +say you can give me no help whatever in balking what amounts to a +criminal abduction?" + +The swivel-chair creaked peremptorily, as the public prosecutor turned +sharply back to his desk. + +"You'd better try the police!" he bit out impatiently. + +Durkin strode to the door. He was halfway through it, when he was +called sharply back. + +"Don't carry away the impression, young man, that we're not fighting +this man Penfield as hard as we can!" + +"It looks like it!" mocked the man in the doorway. + +"One moment--we have been after this man Penfield, and his kind, and +we're still after them. But we don't pretend to accomplish miracles. +This city is made up of mere human beings, and human beings still have +the failing of breaking out, morally, now in one place, now in another. +We can compress and segregate those infectious blots, but until you can +show us the open sore we can't put on the salve. If you are convinced +you are the object of some criminal activity, and are willing to hold +nothing back, I can detail two plain-clothes men from my own office to +go with you and help you out." + +Durkin laughed, a little recklessly, a little scoffingly. Two +plain-clothes men to capture a steel-bound fortress! + +"Don't trouble them. They might make Penfield mad--they might get +themselves talked about--and there's no use, you know, making a mess of +one's mayoralty chances!" + +And he was through the door indignantly, and as indignantly out, before +the district-attorney could so much as flick the ash off his +cigarette-end. + +But after doing so, he touched an electric button, and it was at once +answered by an athletic-looking clerk with all the earmarks of the +collegian about him. + +"Tell Barney to follow that man who just went out. Tell him to keep +him under his eye, closely, and report to me tonight! Hurry these +papers back to the Fire Commissioner. Then get that window up, and let +the Mott Street Merchants' Protective Association in!" + +Durkin, in the meantime, hurried uptown in his hansom, consumed with a +feeling of resentment, torn by a fury of blind revolt against all +organized society, against all law and authority and order. Still once +more it seemed that some dark coalition of forces silently confronted +and combated him at every turn. The consciousness that he must now +fight, not only alone, but in the face of this unjust coalition brought +with it a desperate and almost intoxicating sense of audacity. If the +law itself was against him, he would take fate into his own hands, and +go to his own ends, in his own way. If the machinery of justice ground +so loosely and so blindly, there remained no reason why he himself, +however recklessly he went his way, should not in the end disregard its +engines and evade its ever-impending cogs. + +He would show them! He would teach them that red-tape and officialism +could only blunder blindly on at the heels of his elusive and +lightfooted wariness. If they were bound to hold him down and +delegitimatize him and keep him a pariah and a revolter against order, +he would show them what he, alone, could do in his own behalf. + +And as he drove hurriedly through the crowded city streets, still +lashing himself into a fury of resentment against organized society; he +formulated his plan of action, and mentally took up, point by point, +each new move and what it might mean. As he pictured, in his mind, +each anticipated phase of the struggle he felt come over him, for the +second time, a sort of blind and irrational fury, the fury of a rat in +a corner, fighting for its life and the life of its mate. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE SPIDER AND THE FLY + +"And here's where we two hang out!" It was MacNutt who spoke. + +Frances Durkin was neither protesting nor struggling when he drew up in +front of what she knew to be Penfield's lower gambling club. It stood +in that half-squalidly residential and half-heartedly commercial +district, lying south of Washington Square, a little to the west of +Broadway's great artery of traffic. A decorous and unbetraying door, +bearing only the modest sign, "The Neptune Club," and a narrow stairway +leading to an equally decorous and uncompromising hall, gave no hint, +to the uninitiated, of what the great gloomy walls of the building +might hold. + +But on one side of the narrow door she could make out an incongruously +ornate and showy cigarstore; on the other, an equally unlooked-for +woman's hair-dressing and manicuring parlor. + +In the one, indeed, you might sedately purchase a perfecto, and take +your peaceful departure, never dreaming of how closely you had skirted +the walls of the busiest poolroom south of all Twenty-third street. In +the other you might have your hair quietly shampooed and Marcelled and +dressed, and return to your waiting automobile, utterly oblivious of +the fact that within thirty feet of you fortunes were being still +staked and lost and won and again swept away at one turn of a wheel, or +one stroke of a chalk on a red-lined blackboard. + +It was through the hair-dressing parlor that MacNutt led the dazed and +unprotesting Frank, pinning her to his side by the great arm that was, +seemingly, so carelessly linked through hers. He gave a curt nod to +the capped and aproned attendant, who touched a button on her desk, +without so much as a word of challenge or inquiry. The machine-like +precision with which each advance was watched and guarded, disheartened +the imprisoned woman. + +"I'm boss here for a while, and I'm goin' to clean out the building, so +that you can have this little picnic all to your lonely!" remarked +MacNutt, as he pushed her on. + +A door to the rear of the second parlor swung open, and as she was led +through it she noticed that it was sheathed with heavy steel plating. +Still another door, which opened as promptly to MacNutt's signal, was +armored with steel, and it was not until this door had closed behind +them that her guardian released the cruel grip on her arm. Then he +chuckled a little, gutturally, deep in his pendent and flaccid throat. + +"We're up to date, you see, doin' business in a regular armor-clad +office!" + +Frank looked about her, with widening eyes. MacNutt laughed again, at +the sense of surprise which he read on her face. + +It was obviously a poolroom, but it was unlike anything she had ever +before seen. It was heavily carpeted, and, for a place of its +character, richly furnished. The walls were windowless, the light +being shed down from twelve heavily ornamented electroliers, each +containing a cluster of thirty lamps. These walls, which were +upholstered with green burlap, bordered at the bottom with a rich +frieze of lacquered and embossed _papier-mâché_, were divided into +panels, and dotted here and there with little canvases and etchings. +On the east end of the room hung one especially large canvas, crowned +with a green-shaded row of electric lamps. + +MacNutt, with a chuckle of pride, touched a button near the door, and +the huge canvas and Bouguereau-looking group of bathing women painted +upon it disappeared from view, disclosing to Frank's startled eyes a +bulletin blackboard, such as is used in almost every poolroom, for the +chalking up of entries and the announcement of jockeys and weights and +odds. + +MacNutt pressed a second button, and the twelve electric fans of +burnished brass hummed and sang and droned, and filled the room with a +stir of air. + +"A little diff'rent, my dear, from the way they did business when you +and me were pikers, up in the West Forties, eh?" + +Frank remained silent, as the bathing women, with a methodic click of +the mechanism, once more dropped down through the slit in the picture +frame, and hid the red-lined bulletin board from view. + +"Gamblers, like us, always were weak on art," gibed MacNutt. "There's +Dick Penfield, spendin' a hundred thousand a year on pictures an' vases +an' rugs, and Sam Brucklin makin' his Saratoga joint more like a second +Salon than a first-class bucket-shop, and Larry Wintefield, who knows +more about a genuine Daghestan than you or me knows about a Morse +sounder, and Al MacAdam, who can't buy chinaware fast enough! As for +me, I must say I have a weakness for a first-class nood!" The woman +beside him shuddered. "That's all right--but I guess a heap o' these +painters would be quittin' the profession if it wasn't for folks of our +callin'!" + +Frank's roving but unresponding eyes were taking in the huge mahogany +table, in the centre of the room, the empty, high-backed chairs +clustered around it, the countless small round tables, covered with +green cloth, which flanked the walls, and the familiar Penfield symbol, +of three interlaced crescents, which she saw stamped or embossed on +everything. + +He went to one of the five cherry-wood desks which were strewn about +the room, and still again touched a button. + +"Blondie," he said to the capped and aproned attendant who answered the +call from the hair-dressing parlors, "I want you to meet this lady +friend of mine! Miss Frances Candler, this is Miss Blondie Bonnell, +late of Wintefield's Saratoga Sanitarium for sick purses, and still +later of MacAdam's Mott Street branch! Now, Blondie, like a good girl, +run along and get the lady something to drink!" + +This proffered refreshment the outraged lady in question silently +refused, staring tight-lipped at the walls about her. But MacNutt, on +this score, made ample amends, for having gulped down one ominously +generous glass of the fiery liquid, he poured another, and still +another, into the cavern of his pendulous throat, with repeated +grateful smacks of the thick and purplish lips. + +"Now, I'm goin' to show you round a bit, just to make it plain to you, +before business begins for the day. I want you to see that you're not +shut up in any quarter-inch cedar bandbox!" + +He took her familiarly by the arm and led her to a door which, like the +others, was covered with a plating of steel, and heavily locked and +barred. + +"Necessity, you see, is still the mother of invention," he said, as his +finger played on the electric signal and released the obstructing door. +"If we're goin' to do poolroom work, nowadays, we've got to do it big +and comprehensive, same as Morgan or Rockefeller would do their line o' +business. You've got to lay out the stage, nowadays, to carry on the +show, or something'll swallow you up. Why, when we worked our last +wire-tapping scheme with a hobo from St. Louis, who was rotten with +money, we escorted him, on two hours' notice, into as neat a lookin' +Postal-Union branch office as you'd care to see, with half a dozen fake +keys a-goin' and twenty actors and supers helpin' to carry off the act. +_That's_ the up-to-date way o' doin' it! That's how a man like +Penfield makes this kind o' graftin' respectable and aboveboard and +just about as honest as bein' down in the Cotton Exchange!" + +He was leading her down a narrow hallway, four feet wide, with unbroken +walls on either side of them. At the end of this still another armored +door led into a medium-sized room, as bald and uninviting as a +dentist's waiting-room. Here he led her to two horizontal slits in the +wall and told her to look down. + +She did so, and found herself peering below, out into the well-stocked +cigar-store, with a clear view of the entrance. + +"That's the conning-tower of this here little floating fortress," +chuckled MacNutt, at her shoulder. "This place you're in is +steel-lined, and it would take three hours o' chisel and sledge work +for anybody, from Eggers up to Braugham himself, to get inside, even +though he did find us out, and even though he did escape the sulphuric +bottles between the bricks. Each one o' these little slits is in line +with a nice gilded cigar sign on the shop side of the wall. So no one +down there, you see, knows who's eyin' them. _We_ don't need any +lookout, hangin' round the street-front and tippin' us off. Our man +down below sizes up everyone who comes into that shop. If he's all +right, the button's touched, and the white light flashes, and he gets +through. If he's not, the cigar clerk rings another button, just under +his counter, and we know what to do. If it's a case o' raid, our +lookout flashes the red light through each o' the four rooms, with one +push of the button, and then our second man throws back the switch and +puts out every light in the buildin'. Then with another button push, +the locks of every door are thrown shut, and they're four inches thick, +most of them, and of good oak and steel. If the electricity should +give out, here, you see, are the hand bolts, which can be run out at +any time. Then we've got a little mercerized steel office, which you +won't see, where our cashier and our sheet-writers work!" + +Frank said nothing, but her still roving eyes took in each detail, bit +by bit, as she warned and schooled herself to note and remember each +door and room and passage. + +"And now, in case you may be lookin' for it without my help, I'm goin' +to take you down and show you the way out. We go through this little +passage, and then we take up this steel trapdoor. It's heavy, you see! +Then we go down this nice little grill-work iron ladder--don't pull +back, I've got you!--and then we open this next very fine steel +door--so; and here we are in what you'd call the safety-deposit vaults. +It's a mighty handsome-lookin' safe, all laid in Portland cement, as +you can see, but we're not goin' to tarry lookin' into that just now." + +He was already feeling his way ahead of her, and she was still +desperately struggling to impress each detail on her distracted mind. + +"You see, if we want to get out, we go through this hall, and follow +this little passageway, one end openin' up right under the sidewalk, in +the refractin' glass manhole. Leading to the back, here, is a second +passage, all barred, the same as the others. So, if our front is shut +off, and they're hot on our trail, we shut everything after us as we +go, and then open this neat little steel trapdoor, and find ourselves +smellin' fresh air and five lines full of washin' from that Dago +tenement just above us!" + +"And why are you showing me all this?" demanded Frank. + +He looked at her out of his pale-green furtive eyes, and locked the +door with a vindictive snap of the bolts. + +"I'll tell you why, my gay young welcher, for we may as well understand +one another, from the start. Now that Penfield's shut up his Newport +place and is coolin' his heels up in Montreal for a few months, I'm +runnin' this nickel-plated ranch myself. And I've got a few old scores +to wipe out--some old scores between that enterprisin' husband o' yours +an' myself!" + +"What has he ever done to you? Why, should you want to punish _him_?" +argued Frank, helplessly. + +"I'm not goin' to punish him!" declared MacNutt, with a little laugh. +"That's just where the damned fine poetic justice of the thing comes +in. _He's goin' to punish himself_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE PIT OF DESPAIR + +Frances Durkin looked at the jeering man before her, studiously, +belligerently. + +"What do you mean by saying he'll punish himself?" she demanded. + +She seemed like a woman who had just awakened. Her earlier comatose +expression had altogether passed away. There was life, now, in every +line of her body. + +"I mean that Durkin's got his quarter of a million in securities, all +right, all right, but, by God, I've got _you_! And I mean that he's +goin' to, that he's _got_ to, make a choice between them and you. So +we'll just wait and find out which he loves best, his beau or his +dough!" And he laughed harshly at the feeble witticism, as he added, +in his guttural undertone: "And I guess we get the worth of our money, +whichever way it goes!" + +Frank's impression was that he was half drunk, that he was mumbling +vaguely of revenges which grew up and died in their utterance. Her +look of open scorn stung him into a sudden tremor of anger. + +"Oh, don't think I'm spoutin' wind! If Durkin's the man you think he +is, and I hope he is, _he'll be tryin' to nose his way into this place +before midnight tonight_!" + +"And he will," cried Frank, exultantly, "and with the whole precinct +police force behind him!" + +"He daren't!" retorted MacNutt. "He daren't get within a hundred yards +of the Central Office, and he daren't show his nose inside a precinct +station-house! And that's not all, either. There's no captain on this +side of New York who's goin' to buck against the whole Tammany machine +an' poke into this Penfield business. If that young man with the +butterfly necktie over on Centre street thinks he can keep us movin', +he's got to do a heap less talkin' and a heap more convictin' before he +can put _our_ lights out! That air is good enough for politics--but +it's never goin' to break this here Penfield combination! Oh, no, +Jimmie Durkin knows how the land lays. He's one o' your bold and +brainy kind, who likes to shut himself up in a garret for a week, and +make maps of what he's goin' to do, an' how he's goin' to do it, and +then trip off by his lonely and do his huntin' in the dark! And he's +goin' to try to get in here, before midnight, tonight, and what's more, +_he's goin' to find it uncommonly easy to do_!" + +"You mean you'll entice him and trap him here?" + +"No, I won't lay a finger on him. You'll do the enticin', and he'll do +the trappin'! I won't even be round to see--till afterward!" + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean we're holdin' open house tonight," mocked MacNutt, "and that +Durkin will maybe drop in!" + +"And then what will it be?" + +"Come this way, my beauty, and I'll show you. First thing, though, +just notice this fact. We're not goin' to make it too hard and +discouragin' for Durkin. This trap-door will be left unlocked. Also, +that front manhole will be left kind of temptingly open, with a few +chunks o' loose coal lyin' round it, so that even a Mercer street +roundsman couldn't help fallin' into it! Oh, yes, he'll find it easy +enough!" + +Frank followed him without a word, as he made his way through the low +and narrow steel-lined tunnel leading to the vault-room. + +"Now, my dear, I guess this is the only way he'll be able to get at +you, unless he comes in a flyin' machine, and the first place he'll +nose through will be this room. So, bein' old at the business, he's +sure to try a crack at our safe. At least, he'll go gropin' around for +a while. Not an invitin'-lookin' piece o' furniture, I grant you, but +that's neither here nor there. It's not the safe that'll be detainin' +Durkin, or any other housebreaker who tries to get gay on these +premises. If you look hard, maybe you'll be able to see what's a +damned sight more interestin'!" + +Frank looked, but she saw nothing beyond the great vault and the +burnished copper guard-rail that surrounded it, like the fender about a +marine engine. + +"You don't notice anything strikin'?" he interrogated wickedly. + +She did not. + +He emitted a guttural little growl of a laugh, and stepped over to a +half-hidden switchboard, high up on the wall. He threw the lever out +and down, and the kiss of the meeting metals sounded in a short and +malevolent spit of greenish light. + +"Are you on?" taunted MacNutt. + +Frank's slowly comprehending eyes were riveted on the burnished copper +railing, on which, only a moment before, her careless fingers had +rested. There was no sign, no alteration in the shining surface of +that polished metal. But she knew that a change, terrible and +malignant, had taken place. It was no longer a mild and innocent +guard-rail. It was now an instrument of destruction, an unbuoyed +channel of death. She stood staring at it, with fixed and horrified +eyes, until it wavered before her, a glimmering and meandering rivulet +of refracted light. + +"Are you on?" reiterated the watching man. + +The wave of pallor that swept over her face seemed to change her eyes +from violet to black, although, for a moment, their gaze remained as +veiled and abstracted as a sleep-walker's. Then a movement from her +companion lashed and restored her to lucidity of thought. For, from +where it leaned against the wall, MacNutt had caught up a heavy +door-sheathing of pressed steel. It was painted a Burgundy red, to +match the upholstery of the upper room where it had once done service, +and on the higher of the two panels was embossed the Penfield triple +crescent. + +This great sheet of painted steel MacNutt held above his head, as a +hesitating waiter might hold a gigantic tray. Then he stepped toward +the shimmering guard-rail, and stood in front of it. + +"Now, this luxurious-lookin' rear-admiral's rail-fence is at present +connected with a tapped power circuit, or a light circuit, I don't know +which. All I know is that it's carryin' about a twenty-eight-hundred +alternatin' current. And just to show that it's good and ready to eat +up anything that tries monkeyin' round it, watch this!" + +He raised the Burgundy-red door-sheathing vertically above his head, +and stepping quickly back, let it descend, so that as it fell it would +strike the metal of the sunken vault-top and the copper guardrail as +well. + +The very sound of that blow, as it descended, was swallowed up in the +sudden, blinding, lightning-like flash, in the hiss and roar of the +pale-green flame, as the sheet of steel, tortured into sudden +incandescence, bridged and writhed and twisted, warping and collapsing +like a leaf of writing-paper on the coals of an open fire. A sickening +smell of burning paint, mingling with the subtler gaseous odors of the +corroding metal, filled the little dungeon. + +"Don't! That's enough!" gasped the woman, groping back toward the +support of the wall. + +MacNutt shut off the current, and kicked the charred door-sheathing, +already fading from incandescence into ashen ruin, with his foot. The +smell of burning leather filled the room, and he laughed a little, +turning on the woman a face crowned with a look of Belial-like triumph, +with dark and sunken circles about the vindictive, deep-set eyes. + +Once, in an evening paper, she had pored over the picture of an +electrocution at Sing Sing, a haunting and horrible scene, with the +dangling wires reaching down to the prisoner, strapped and bound in his +chair, the applied sponges at the base of the spine, the buckled thongs +about the helpless ankles, the grim and waiting gaol officials, the +boyish-looking reporters, with watches in their hands, the bald and +ugly chamber, and in the background the dim figure of Retributive +Justice, with uplifted arm, where an implacable finger was about to +touch the fatal button. Time and time again that vision had brought +terror to her midnight dreams, and had left her weak and panting, +catching at her startled husband with feverish and passionate hands and +holding him and drawing him close to her, as though that momentary +guardianship could protect him from some far and undefined danger. + +"Oh, Mack," she burst out hysterically, over-wrought by the scene +before her, "for the love of God, don't make him die this way! Give +him a fighting chance! Give him a show! Do what you like with _me_, +but don't blot him out, like a dog, without a word of warning!" + +"It's not my doin'!" broke in her tormentor. + +"It's inhuman--it's fiendish!" she went on. "I can't stand the thought +of it!" + +MacNutt laughed his mirthless laugh once more. + +"Oh, I guess you'll stand it!" + +"But I can't!" she moaned. + +"Oh, yes; you'll stand it, and you'll see it, too! You'll be right +here, where you can take the whole show in, this time! It won't be a +case o' foolin' the old man, like it was last time!" + +"I will be here?" she gasped. + +"You'll be right on the spot--and you'll see the whole performance!" + +She drew her hands down, shudderingly, over her averted face, as though +to shut something even from her imagination. + +"And do you know what'll be the end of it all?" MacNutt went on, in his +frenzied mockery. "It'll all end in a little paragraph or two in the +_Morning Journal_, to the effect that some unknown safecracksman or +other accidentally came in contact with a live wire, and was shocked to +death in the very act of breaking into a pious and unoffendin' +cigar-store vault! And you'll be the only one who'll know anything +different, and I guess you won't do much squealin' about it!" + +She wheeled, as though about to spring on him. + +"I will! I will, although I wither between gaol walls for it--although +I die for it! I'm no weak and foolish woman! I've known life bald to +the bone; I've fought and schemed and plotted and twisted all my days +almost, and I can die doing it! And if you kill this man, if you +murder him--for it is murder!--if you bring this dog's death on him, I +will make you pay for it, in one way or another--I'll make you mourn +it, David MacNutt, as you've made me mourn the first day I ever saw +your face!" + +She was in a blind and unreasoning passion of vituperative malevolence +by this time, her face drawn and withered with fear, her eyes luminous, +in the dungeon-like half-lights, with the inner fire of her hate. + +"Keep cool, my dear, keep cool!" mocked MacNutt, without a trace of +trepidation at all her vague threats. "Durkin's not dead yet!" + +She caught madly at the slender thread of hope which swung from his +mockery. + +"No! No, he's _not_ dead yet, and he'll die hard! He's no +fool--you've found that out in the past! He will give you a fight +before he goes, in some way, for he's fought you and beaten you from +the first--and he'll beat you again--I know he'll beat you again!" + +Her voice broke and merged into a paroxysm of sobbing, and MacNutt +looked at her bent and shaken figure with meditative coldness. + +"He may have beaten me, once, long ago--but he'll never do it again. +He won't even go out fightin'! He'll go with his head hangin' and his +nose down, like a sneak! And you'll see him go, for you'll be tied +there, with a gag in your pretty red mouth, and you'll neither move nor +speak. And there'll be no light, unless he gets so reckless as to +strike a match. But when the light does come, my dear, it'll be a +flash o' blue flame, with a smell o' something burnin'!" + +The woman covered her face with her hands, and swayed back and forth +where she stood. + +Then MacNutt held back his guttural laugh, suddenly, for she had fallen +forward on her face, in a dead faint. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE ENTERING WEDGE + +It was at least four o'clock in the afternoon--as the janitor of the +building later reported to the police--when a Postal-Union lineman, +carrying a well-worn case of tools, made his way up through the halls +and stairways of one of those many Italian apartment houses just south +of Washington Square and west of Broadway. + +This lineman worked on the roof, apparently, for some twenty minutes. +Then he came down again, chatted for a while with the janitor in the +basement, and giving him a cigar, borrowed an eight-foot step-ladder, +for the purpose of scaling some twelve feet of brick wall, where the +adjoining office building towered its additional story above the +apartment-house roof. + +If the janitor had been less averse to mounting his five flights of +stairway, or less indifferent as to the nature of the work which took +the busy telegraph official up to his roof, he might, that afternoon, +have witnessed both a delicate and an interesting electrical operation. + +For once up on the second roof, and sure that he was under no immediate +observation, the lineman in question carefully unpacked his bag of +tools. His first efforts were directed toward the steel transom which +covered the trapdoor opening out on the roof. This, he discovered with +a grunt of disappointment, resisted even his short, curved steel lever, +pointed at one end, like a gigantic tack-drawer. Restoring this lever +to the bottom of his leather tool-bag, he made his way to the southeast +corner of the building, where a tangle of insulated wires, issuing from +the roof beneath his feet, merged into one compact cable, which, in +turn, entered and was protected by a heavy lead pipe, leading, +obviously, to the street below, and thence to the cable galleries of +Broadway itself. + +It took him but a minute or two to cut away a section of this +protecting pipe. In doing so, he exposed to view the many wires making +up an astonishingly substantial cable, for so meager an office +building. He then turned back to his tool-case and lifted therefrom, +first a Bunnell sounder, and then a Wheatstone bridge, of the +post-office pattern, a coil of KK wire, a pair of lineman's pliers, and +a handful or two of other tools. Still remaining in the bottom of his +bag might have been found two small rubber bags filled with +nitroglycerine, a cake of yellow soap, a brace and bit, a half-dozen +diamond-pointed drills, a box of timers, and a coil fuse, three +tempered-steel chisels, a tiny sperm-oil lantern and the steel "jimmy" +which had already been tested against the obdurate transom. + +Then, skilfully relaxing the metallic cable strands, he as carefully +graduated his current and attached his sounder, first to one wire and +then to another. Each time that the little Bunnell sounder was +galvanized into articulate life he bent his ear and listened to the +busy cluttering of the dots and dashes, as the reports of races, as the +weights and names of jockeys, and lists of entries and statements of +odds and conditions went speeding into the busy keys of the big +poolroom below, where men and women waited with white and straining +faces, and sorrowed and rejoiced as the ever-fluctuant goddess of +chance brought them ill luck or success. + +But Durkin paid little attention to these flying messages winging +cityward from race-tracks so many miles away. What he was in search of +was the private wire leading from Penfield's own office, whereon +instructions and information were secretly hurried about the city to +his dozen and one fellow-operators. It was from this wire that Durkin +hoped, without "bleeding" the circuit, to catch some thread of fact +which might make the task before him more lucid and direct. + +He worked for an hour, connecting and disconnecting, testing and +listening and testing still again, before the right wire fell under his +thumb. Then he listened intently, with a little start, for he knew he +was reading an operator whose bluff, heavy, staccato "send" was as +familiar to his long-practiced ear as a well-known face would be to his +watching eyes. + +It was MacNutt himself who was "sending." His first intercepted +message was an order, to some confederate unknown, to have a carriage +call for him at eight. That, Durkin told himself, was worth knowing. +His second despatch was a warning to a certain "Al" Mackenzie not to +fail to meet Penfield in Albany, Sunday, at midnight. The third +message was brief, and seemed to be an answer to a question which had +escaped the interloper. + +"Yes, got her here, and here she stays. Things will happen tonight." + +"Ah!" ejaculated Durkin, as he wiped his moist forehead, while the +running dots and dashes resolved themselves into the two intelligible +sentences. + +Then he looked about him, at the leaden sky, at the roofs and walls and +windows of the crowded and careless city, as a _sabreur_ about to enter +the arena might look about him on life for perhaps the last time. + +"Yes," he said, with a meditative stare at the transom before him, +"things _will_ happen tonight." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE WAKING CIRCUIT + +It was a thick and heavy night, with a drizzle of fine rain blanketing +the city. Every now and then a lonely carriage spluttered along the +oily and pool-strewn pavement of the cross-street. Every now and then, +too, the rush and clang of the Broadway cars echoed down the canyon of +rain-swept silence. + +Durkin waited until the lights of the cigar-store went out. Then he +once more circled the block, keeping to the shadows. As he passed the +darkened cigar-store for the second time his foot, as though by +accident, came sharply in contact with the refracting-prismed manhole +cover which had sounded so hopefully hollow to his previous tread. As +he had half-suspected, it was loose. + +He stooped quickly, to turn up his trousers. As he did so three +exploring fingers worked their way under the ledge of the unsecured +circle of iron and glass. + +It came away without resistance. He looked about him cautiously, +without straightening up; then by its shoulder-strap he carefully +lowered his leather tool-bag into the passage below, and as guardedly +let himself down after it. + +He waited and listened for a minute or two, before replacing the cover +above him. From the river, in the distance, he could hear the booming +and tooting of the steam craft through the fog. A hurrying car rumbled +and echoed past on the Broadway tracks. Two drunken wanderers went +singing westward in the drizzling rain. Then everything was silence +again. + +Durkin replaced the covering, noiselessly, and feeling to right and +left with his outstretched hands, crept inward through the narrow +tunnel in which he found himself. His fingers came in touch with the +chilly surface of a steel-faced door. It sounded heavy and unyielding +to his tentative tap, and his left hand was already reaching back for +the tool-bag which hung by its strap over his shoulder when his +questioning right hand, pushing forward, discovered that the door was +unlocked, and swung easily outward without resistance. + +He felt and fondled the heavy bolts, thoughtfully, puzzled why it +should be so, until he remembered seeing the half-dozen pieces of +anthracite lying about the manhole on the sidewalk above. That, he +told himself, possibly explained it. Some careless wagon-driver, +delivering his load, had left the place unlocked. + +But before he crept into the wider and higher passage before him he +paused to take out the revolver which he carried in his hip pocket, to +unlimber it, and carefully feel over the chambered cylinder, to make +sure every cartridge-head stood there, in place. This done, he +replaced it, not at his hip, but loose and free, in the righthand +pocket of his coat. Then he once more began feeling his way along the +smooth cement floor. He was enveloped in a darkness as absolute as +though he had been shrouded in black velvet--even the glimmer of the +refracted street lamps did not penetrate further than the doorway of +the first tunnel. There was a smell of dampness in the air, as of +mouldy plaster. It was the smell of underground places. Durkin hated +it. + +He had to feel his way about the entire circle of that second narrow +chamber before he came to where the inner doorway stood. It, too, was +unlocked, and for the first time some sense of betrayal, some +intimidation of being trapped, some latent suspicion of artfully +concealed duplicity, flashed through his questioning mind. + +He listened, and was greeted by nothing but silence. + +Then he swung the door softly and slowly open. As he did so he leaped +back, and to one side, with his right hand in his coat pocket. For +there suddenly smote on his ears the sharp clang and tinkle of metal. + +He stood there, crouched, for a waiting minute, and then he laughed +aloud, for he knew it was only the sound of some piece of falling iron, +striking on the cement. To make sure of it, he groped about the floor, +and stumbled on the little bar of steel that had fallen. Yet why it +had been there, leaning against the door, he could not comprehend. Was +it there by accident? Or had it been meant as a signal? It showed him +one thing, however; its echoing fall had demonstrated to him that the +room he had entered was both higher and larger than the one he had +left. It might be nothing more than a furnace-room, yet he told +himself that he must be on his guard, that from now on his perils began. + +Then he wondered why he should feel this premonitory sense, and in what +lay the dividing line, and where lay the difference. + +Yet as he stood there, with his back against the wall, he felt +something dormant and deep-seated stirring within him. It was not a +sense of danger; it arose from no outward and tangible manifestations. +But somewhere, and persistently, at the root of his being, he heard +that subliminal and submerged voice which could be neither silenced nor +understood. + +He took three groping paces forward, as if to put distance between +himself and this foundationless emotion which some part of him seemed +struggling to defy. But for the second time he stood stockstill, +weighed down by the feeling of some presence, oppressed by the sense of +something vaguely hanging over him. He felt, as Frank had once said, +how like a half-articulate key, at the end of an impoverished circuit, +consciousness really was; how the spirit so often, in this only +half-intelligible life of theirs, flutters feebly with hints and +suggestions to which it could never give open and unequivocal +utterance. Even language, and language the most artful and finished, +was, after all, merely a sort of clumsy Morse--its unwieldy dots and +dashes left many a mood of the soul unknown and inarticulate. + +As he stood there, in doubt, questioning himself and that vague but +disturbing something which stood before him, he decided to put a +summary end to the matter. Fumbling in his pocket, and disregarding +any risk which the movement might entail, he caught up a match and +struck it. + +As he shaded the flame and threw it before him, his straining eyes +caught only the glimmer of burnished metal--a guard-rail of some +description--and the dark and ponderous mass of what seemed a deposit +vault. + +The match burned down, and dropped from his upthrust fingers. He +decided to grope to the rail, and feel along the metal until he reached +some point of greater safety. He extended his fingers before him, as a +blind man might, and took one shuffling step forward. + +Then a thought came to him, with the suddenness and the shock of an +electric current, as a radiating tingle of nerves, followed by a +strangely sickening sense of hollowness about the chest, swept through +his body. _Could it be Frank herself in danger, and wanting him_? + +More than once, in the past, he had felt that mysterious medium, more +fluid and unfathomable than electricity itself, carry its vague but +vital message in to him. He had felt that call of Soul to Soul, across +space, along channels less tangible than Hertzian waves themselves, yet +bearing its broken message, which later events had authenticated and +still later cross-questioning had doubly verified. + +He had felt, at such moments, that there were ghostly and phantasmal +wires connecting mind with mind; that across these telepathic wires one +anxious spirit could in some way hold dim converse with the other; that +the Soul itself had its elusive "wireless," and forever carried and +gave out and received its countless messages--if only the fellow-Soul +had learned to await the signal and disentangle the dark and runic +Code. Yes, he told himself, as he stood there, thoughtfully, as though +bound to the spot by some Power not himself,--yes, consciousness was +like that little glass tube which electricians called a coherer, and +all his vague impressions and mental-gropings were those disorderly, +minute fragments of nickel and silver which only leaped into continuity +and order under the shock and impact of those fleet and foreign +electric waves, which floated from some sister consciousness aching +with its undelivered messages. And the woman who had so often called +to him across space and silence, in the past, was now sounding the +mystic key across those ghostly wires. But what the messages was, or +from what quarter it came, he could not tell. + +He stood there tortured and puzzled, torn by fear, thrilled and stirred +through every fiber of his anxious body. This was followed by a sense +of terror, sub-conscious and wordless and irrational, the kind of +terror that comes to a child in unknown places, in the dead of some +unknown night. + +"_For the love of God, what is it_?" his dry lips demanded, speaking +aloud into the emptiness about him. + +He waited, almost as if expecting some answering voice, as distinct and +tangible as his own. But nothing broke the black silence that +blanketed him in from the rest of all the world and all its living +things. The sweat of agony came out on his face; his body hung +forward, relaxed and expectant. + +"_What is it you want to say_?" he repeated, in a hoarse and muffled +scream, no longer able to endure that silent and nameless Something +which surrounded him. "_What is it you want to say_?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE GHOSTS OF THOUGHT + +In the ensuing silence, as the unbroken seconds dragged themselves on, +Durkin called himself a fool, and, struggling bitterly with that +indeterminate uneasiness which possessed him, pulled himself together +for some immediate and decisive action. + +He could waste no more time, he told himself, in foolish spiritualistic +seances with his own shadow. He had too much before him, and too short +a time in which to do it. His troubles, when he came to face them, +would be realities, and not a train of vapid and morbid self-vaporings. + +He advanced further into the darkness of the room, slowly, with his +hands outstretched before him. He would feel for the friendly support +and guidance of the metal railing, and then grope his way onward. For +as yet he had only carried the enemy's outposts. Then, for a second +time, and for no outward reason, he came to a dead halt. He felt as if +some elusive influence, some unnamable force, was holding and barring +him back. Again he struck a match, recklessly, and again he saw +nothing but the burnished metal railing and the dark mass of the vault. + +It was with almost a touch of exasperation that he stood there in his +tracks, and slowly, methodically, thoroughly, surveyed the four +quarters of the lightless room in which he found himself. He +scrutinized the heavy, enmuffling gloom with straining eyes, first in +one direction and then in another. + +There was nothing to be seen, and not a sound reached his ears. He had +been in the room perhaps not three minutes, yet it seemed to him as +many hours. Then he peered about him still again, wondering, for the +first time, by what psychological accident his eyes turned in one +particular direction, slightly above and before him, to the right of +the direction in which he was advancing. + +To rid himself of this new idea, and to decentralize the illusion, he +shifted his position. But still his gaze, almost against his will, +turned back toward the former point, as though the blanketing blackness +held some core, some discernible central point, toward which he was +compelled to look, as the magnetic needle is compelled to swing toward +the North. Surrendering to this impulse, he gaped through the darkness +at it, with a little oath of impatience. + +As he did so he began to feel stir at the base of his spine a tiny +tremor of apprehension. This tremor seemed suddenly to explode into a +mounting shudder of fear, flashing and leaping through his body until +the very hair of his head was stirred and moved with it. + +The next moment the startled body responded to clamoring volition, and +he turned and fled blindly back into the outer passageway, with a +ludicrous and half-articulate little howl of terror. + +For growing out of the utter blackness he had seen two vague points of +light, two luminous spots, side by side, taking on, as he faced them, +all the mysteries of all the primeval night which man ever faced. He +felt like a hunter, in some jungled midnight, a midnight breathless and +soundless, who looks before him, and slowly discerns two glowing and +motionless balls of fire--who can see nothing else, in all his +world--but from those two phosphorescent points of light knows that he +is being watched and stalked and hunted by some padded Hunger lurking +behind them. + +In the unbroken and absolute silence which seemed to mock at his +foolish and stampeding fears, an immediate reaction of spirit set it. +He felt almost glad for this material target against which to fling his +terrors, for this precipitation of apprehension into something tangible. + +He groped through his bag, hurriedly yet cautiously, for his little +sperm-oil lantern. Then he took up the revolver that lay loosely in +his coat pocket. A moment later a thin little shaft of light danced +and fingered about the inner room. + +He could, at first, see nothing but the line of burnished copper +stretching across his path and flashing the light back in his eyes. +Behind this, a moment later, he made out the dark and gloomy mass of +the black safe. Then he looked deeper, with what was still again a +flutter of enigmatical fear about his heart, for that twin and +ghostlike glow which had filled him with such precipitate terror. + +But there was no longer anything to be seen. He played his +interrogative finger of light up and down, and it was a full minute +before his slowly-adjusting sight penetrated to the remoter and higher +area of the surrounding walls. + +It was then, and not till then, that he discovered the fact that the +wall on his right opened and receded, some five feet above the +floor-level, into a dimly-outlined alcove. As he looked closer he made +out that this alcove had, obviously, been filled by the upper portion +of a heavy iron staircase, leading to the floor above. The entire +lower half of this stairway, where once it must have obtruded into the +vault chamber, had been cut away. It was on the remaining upper +portion of this dismantled stairway that his pencil of light played +nervously and his gaze was closely riveted. + +For there, above his natural line of vision, half-hidden back in the +heavy shadows, his startled eyes made out a huddled and shadowy figure. +It was a woman's figure, in black, and motionless. It was bound hand +and foot to the iron stair-stanchions. + +He did not notice, in that first frenzied glance, the white band that +cut across the lower part of her face, so colorless was her skin. But +as he looked for the second time, he emitted a sudden cry, half-pity, +half-anger, for slowly and thinly it filtered into his consciousness +just what and who that watching figure was. + +And then, and then only, did he speak. And when he did so he repeated +his earlier cry. + +"My God, Frank, what is it?" + +There was no response, no answering movement or gesture. He called to +her again, but still absolute silence confronted him. + +As he crept closer to her, step by step, he saw and understood. + +The two luminous eyes, burning through the dark, had been his wife's. +She had been imprisoned and tied there; but bound and muffled as she +was, the strength of her desire, the supremacy of will, had created its +new and mysterious wire of communication. Some passion of want, some +sheer intensity of feeling, had found and used its warning semaphore. +She had spoken to him, without sound or movement. Yet for what? + +Yet for what? That was the thought that seemed to dance back and forth +across the foreground of his busy brain. That was what he wondered and +demanded of himself as he clambered and struggled and panted up the +wall into the narrow and dusty alcove, and cut away the sodden gag +between her aching jaws. The tender flesh was indented and livid, +where the tightened band had pressed in under the cheek-bones. The +salivated throat was swollen, and speechless. The tongue protruded +pitifully, helpless in its momentary paralysis. + +"Oh, he'll smart for this! By heaven, he'll smart for this!" declared +Durkin, as he stooped and cut away the straps that bound her ankles to +the obdurate iron, and severed the bands that bruised and held her +white wrists. Even then she could not speak, though she smiled a +little, faintly and forlornly and gratefully. She struggled to say one +word, but it resolved itself into a cacophonous and inarticulate +mumble, half-infantile, half-imbecile. + +"Oh, he'll pay for this!" repeated the raging man, as he lowered her, +limp and inert, to the floor below and leaped down beside her. She +sank back with a happy but husky gasp of weakness, for the benumbed +muscles refused to obey, and the cramped and stiffened limbs were +unable to support her. + +All she could do was to hold her husband's hand in her own, in a +grateful yet passionate grip. She must have been imprisoned there, he +surmised, at least an hour, perhaps two hours, perhaps even longer. + +He started up, in search for water. It might be, he felt, that a lead +water-pipe ran somewhere about them. He would cut it without +compunction. + +He took two steps across the room, when an audible and terrified note +of warning broke from her swollen lips. He darted back to her, in +wonder, searching her straining face with his little shaft of lantern +light. + +She did not speak; but he followed her eyes. They were on the +burnished copper railing refracting the thin light that danced back and +forth across that dungeon-like chamber. He questioned her fixed gaze, +but still he did not understand her. She caught his hand, and retained +it fiercely. He thought, from her pallor, that she was on the point of +fainting, and he would have placed her full length on the hard cement, +but she struggled against it, and still kept her hold on his hand. + +Then she took the tiny lantern from his fingers, and bending low, +tapped with it on the cement. Durkin, listening closely, knew she was +sounding the telegrapher's double "I"--the call for attention, implying +a message over the wire. + +Slowly he spelt out the words as she gave them to him in Morse, +irregular and wavering, but still decipherable. + +"The--railing--is--charged!" + +"Charged?" he repeated, as the last word shaped itself in his +questioning brain. + +He took the lantern from her hand, and swung the shaft of light on the +glimmering copper. From there he looked back at her face once more. + +Then, in one illuminating flash of comprehension, it was all clear to +him. With a stare of blank wonder he saw and understood, and fell back +appalled at the demoniacal ingenuity of it all. + +"I see! I see!" he repeated, vacuously, almost. + +Then, to make sure of what he had been told, he crossed the room and +picked up the bar of steel that had fallen at his feet as he first +entered the door. This bar he let fall so that one end would rest on +the metal vault-covering and the other on the rail of copper. + +There was a report, a sudden leap of flame, and the continued hissing +fury of the short-circuited current, until the bar, heated to +incandescence, twisted and writhed where it lay like a thing of life. +He drew a deep breath, and watched it. + +That was the danger he had so closely skirted? That was the fate which +he had escaped! + +He stood gazing at the insidious yet implacable agent of death, +spluttering its tongue of flame at him like an angry snake; and, as he +looked, his face was beaded with sweat, and seemed ashen in color. + +Then a sense of the dangers still surrounding them returned to his +mind. He shook himself together, and, making a circuit of the room, +found the switch and turned off the current. As he did so he gave a +little muffled cry of gratitude, for across the rear corner of the room +ran two leaden water-pipes. Into one of these he cut and drilled with +his pocket-knife, ruthlessly, without a moment's hesitation. He was +suddenly rewarded by a thin jet of water spraying him in the face. He +caught his hat full of it, and carried it to Frank, who drank from it, +feverishly and deeply. It not only brought her strength back to her; +but, after it, she could speak a little, though huskily, and with +considerable pain. + +"Can you walk?" + +She signalled, yes. + +"We've got to get out of here, at once!" + +He could see that she understood. + +"Can you come now?" he asked. + +She nodded her head, and he helped her to her feet. Together, the one +leaning heavily on the other's arm, they paced up and down the already +flooded floor, until power came back to her aching limbs, and +steadiness to her tired nerves. + +"It would be better not to go together. I'll help you out and give you +fifty yards' start. If anything should happen, remember that I'm +behind you, and that, after this, I'm ready to shoot, and shoot without +a quaver." + +Again she nodded her head. + +"But listen. When you get up through the sidewalk grating, keep +steadily on for two blocks, toward the west. Then turn north for half +a block, and go into the family entrance at Kieffer's. If nothing +happens, I'll join you there. If anything does occur to keep me back, +give them to understand that you've missed the last train for your home +in East Orange; put this five-dollar bill down and ask for a front room +on the second floor. From there you must watch for me. If it's +anything dangerous I'll signal you in passing." + +By this time he had led her down the narrow, tunnel-like passageway and +was helping her up into the rain-swept street. + +"Whatever happens, remember that I'm behind you!" he repeated. + +Their struggles, as he assisted her up through the narrow opening, were +ungainly and ludicrous; yet, incongruously enough, there came to him a +fleeting sense of joy in even that accidental and impersonal contact of +her hand with his. + +Then he braced himself against the narrow brick walls where he stood, +appearing a strange and grotesque and bodiless head above the level of +the street. + +Thus peering out, he watched her as she beat her way down the +wind-swept sidewalk. Already, through the drifting midnight rain, the +outline of her figure was losing its distinctness. He was reaching +down for his wet and sodden hat, to follow her, when something happened +that left him transfixed, a motionless and bodiless head on which +startled horror had suddenly fallen. + +For out of the quiet and shadowy south side of the street, where it had +been silently patrolling under lowered speed, swerved and darted a +wine-colored, surrey-built touring car with a cape top. Durkin +recognized it at a glance; it was Penfield's huge machine. Its +movement, as it swung in toward the startled woman, seemed like the +swoop of a hawk. It appeared to stop only for a moment, but in that +moment two men leaped from the wide-swung tonneau door. When they +clambered into it once more Durkin saw that Frank was between them. +And one of the men was MacNutt, and the other Keenan. + +He heard the one sharp scream that reverberated down the empty street, +followed by the fading pulsations of the departing car, when with an +oath of fury, he was already working his arms up through the narrow +manhole. As he did so he heard a second, hoarser cry, succeeded by the +heavy tramp of hurrying feet, and then a peremptory challenge. + +Turning sharply, he caught sight of a patrolling roundsman, bearing +down on him from the corner of Broadway; and he saw that the officer +was drawing his revolver as he charged across the wet pavement. + +It was already too late to free himself. With an instinctive movement +of the hands he caught up the manhole cover, shield-like. As he did so +he saw the glimmer of the polished steel and heard the repeated +challenge. But he neither paused nor hesitated. He let his knees +break under him, and as he fell he saw to it that the rim of the +manhole dropped into its waiting circular groove. Then he heard the +sound of a shot, of a second and a third, from the policeman's pistol. +But as he secured the cover with its chainlock, and dropped down into +the tunnel below, the reports seemed thin and muffled and far away to +Durkin. + +A moment later, however, he heard the ominous and vibrant echo of the +officer's night-stick, on the asphalt, frenziedly rapping for +assistance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE RULING PASSION + +Beyond that first involuntary little cry of terror Frances Durkin +uttered no sound, as she found herself in the hooded tonneau, wedged in +between MacNutt and Keenan. That first outcry, indeed, had been +unwilled and automatic, the last reactionary movement of an overtried +and exhausted body. + +A wave of care-free passivity now seemed to inundate her. She made no +attempt to struggle; she nursed no sense of open resentment against her +captors. The battery of her vital forces was depleted and depolarized. +She experienced only a faintly poignant sense of disappointment, of +indeterminate pique, as she realized that she was no longer a free +agent. Leaning back in the cushioned gloom, inert, impassive, with her +eyes half-closed, she seemed to be drifting through an eddying veil of +gray. The voices so close beside her sounded thin and far off. An +impression of unreality clung to her, an impression that she was +floating through an empty and rain-swept world from which all life and +warmth had withered. + +"It's not _her_ I want--it's Durkin!" MacNutt was saying, with an oath, +as they swung around the corner into the blinking and serried lights of +Eighth avenue. "It's that damned groundhog I'm goin' to dig out yet!" + +"Well, you can't go back _there_ after him!" protested Keenan. + +"Can't I? Well, I'm goin' back, and I'm goin' to get that man, and I'm +goin' to fry him in his own juices!" + +He pushed the woman's inert weight away from him, and leaned out from +under the cape, with a sharp word or two to Penfield's chauffeur. Then +he suddenly whistled and waved his arm. + +"What are you doing that for?" Keenan demanded of him. + +Keenan had caught the drooping figure, and was making an effort to +support it. His face, for some unknown reason, was almost as colorless +as the face that lay so passively against his rain-soaked shoulder. + +"I'm goin' back!" declared MacNutt. + +"Is it worth while--now?" demurred the other. + +"I'm goin' to get my hooks on Durkin, even if I have to wade through +every raidin' gang in the precinct!" + +"And then what?" deprecated Keenan. + +"Then I'll meet you at Penfield's house, uptown, and the show will come +to a finish!" + +"And what am I expected to do?" demanded Keenan, impatiently. For the +approaching four-wheeler had come to a standstill beside them, and +MacNutt was already out in the rain. + +"You take care o' _that_!" he pointed a contemptuous finger toward the +motionless woman, "and mighty good care!" + +"But how's all this going to help us out?" + +"I'll show you, when the time comes. Here's the key for Penfield's +house. You'll find it nice and quiet and secluded there, and if I _do_ +bring Durkin back with me, by heaven, you'll have the privilege o' +seein' a lurid end to this uncommonly lurid game!" + +He tossed the key into the tonneau. Keenan picked it up in silence. + +They heard the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the wet asphalt, the +sharp closing of the cab door, the rattle of the wheel-tires across the +steel car-tracks, and he was gone. A moment later they were dipping up +the avenue between two long rows of undulating lights, with the rain +drifting in on their faces. + +Then Keenan turned and looked down at the woman beside him. During +several minutes of unbroken silence Frank nursed the dim consciousness +of his keen and scrutinizing glance. But her mind seemed encaged in a +body that was already dead; she had neither the will nor the power to +look up at him. + +Then, with no warning word or gesture, he stooped down and kissed her +on her heavy red mouth. + +At any other time, she knew, she would have fought against that +tainting touch; every drop of red blood in her body would have risen to +combat it. But now she neither repulsed it nor responded to it. She +seemed submerged and smothered in a tide of terrible indifference. She +even found herself weighing the meaning of that affront to all that was +not ignoble in her. + +She even caught at it, with an inward gasp of enlightenment. It meant +more than she had at first seen. It brought a new scene to the +shifting drama; it meant a new turn to the hurrying game. It meant +that if she only waited, and could be wise and wary and calculating, +she still might hug to her breast some tattered hope for the impending +end. + +She knew that Keenan was still watching her; she knew that he was, in +some manner, being torn between contending feelings, that some +obliterating impulse was falling between him and that grim concert of +forces of which he was a member. It was the shadow of passion falling +across the paths of duty--it was the play and the problem as old as the +world. + +And what was she, then? That was the question she asked herself, with +a little sobbing gasp--what was she, trading thus, even in thought, on +her bruised and wearied body? What had she fallen to, what was it that +had deadened all that was softer and better and purer within her, that +she could thus see slip away from her the last solace and dignity of +her womanhood? + +There, she told herself bitterly, lay the degradation and the ultimate +danger of the life she had led. It was there that the grimmer tragedy +came into her career. The surrender of ever greater and greater +hostages to expediency, the retreat to ever meaner and meaner +instruments of activity, the gradual induration of heart and soul, the +desperate and ever more desperate search for self-deceiving +extenuations, for self-blinding condonement, for pitiful and distorting +self-propitiation--in these lay the inward corruption, more implacably +and more terribly tragic than any outward blow! She had once deluded +herself with the thought that a life of crime might lose at least half +of its evil by losing all of its grossness. She had even consoled +herself with the thought that it was the offender against life who saw +deepest into life. It was but natural, she had always argued with +herself, that the thwarted consciousness, that the erring and suffering +heart, should yield deeper insight into the dark and complicated ranges +of spiritual truth than could the soul forever untried and unshaken. +The tempted and troubled heart, from its lonely towers of unhappiness, +must ever see further into the meaning of things than could those +comfortably normal and healthy souls who suffered little because they +ventured little. She had ventured much, and she had lost much. She +had thought to hold some inmost self aloof and immune. She had dreamed +that some inward irreproachability of thought, some light-hearted tact +of open conduct, might leave still untainted that deeper core of +thought and feeling which she had long thought of as conscience, while +some deceiving and sophistical transmutation of values whispered to her +adroitly that in some way all good might be bad, and that all bad might +in some way be good. + +But that, she now knew, was a mockery. She was the sum of all that she +had thought and acted. She was a disillusioned and degraded and +unscrupulous woman, steeped in enormities so dark that it appalled and +sickened her even to recall them. She was only the empty and corroded +shell of a woman, all that once aspired and lived and hoped in her +eaten away by the acid currents of that underground world into which +she had fallen. + +Yet rather than it should end in that slow and mean and sordid inner +tragedy of the spirit, she told herself fiercely, she would fling open +her last arsenal of passion and come to her end in some ironic blaze of +glory that would at least lend sinister radiance to a timelessly base +and sorry eclipse. So she lay back in Keenan's clasp quiescently, +unresistingly, but watchfully. For she knew that the end, whatever it +might be, was not far away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CROWN OF IRON + +Durkin's first feeling, as he scrambled to his feet and half-stumbled, +half-groped his way along the narrow, tunnel-like passage, was an +untimely and impotent and almost delirious passion to get out into the +open and fight--fight to the last, if need be, for all that narrowing +life still held for him. This feeling was followed by a quick sense of +frustration as he realized his momentary helplessness and how +comprehensive and relentless seemed the machinery of intrigue opposing +him. + +Yet, he told himself with that lightning-like rapidity of thought which +came to him at such moments of peril, however intricate and vast the +machinery, however carefully planned the line of impending campaign, +the human element would be an essential part of it. And his last +forlorn hope, his final fighting chance, lay in the fact that wherever +the human element entered there also entered weakness and passion and +the possibility of accident. + +What now remained to him, he warned himself as he hurriedly locked and +barred the two steel doors which shut off the first and second +passageway, was to think quickly and act decisively. Somewhere, at +some unforeseen moment, his chance might still come to him. + +As for himself, he felt that he was safe enough, for the time being. +The officer who had detected him in the manhole would be sure to follow +up a case so temptingly suspicious. The police, in turn, could take +open advantage of an intrusion so obviously unauthorized and ominous as +his own, and find in it ample excuse for investigating a quarter which +for many months must have been under suspicion. But, under any +circumstances, well guarded as that poolroom fortress stood, its +resistance could be only a matter of time, and of strictly limited +time, once the reserves were on the scene. + +Durkin's first thought, accordingly, was of the roof, for, so far as he +knew, all escape from the ground floor was even then cut off. Yet the +first door leading from the vault chamber he found to be steel-bound +and securely locked. He surmised, with a gasp of consternation, that +the doors above him would be equally well secured. He remembered that +Penfield never did things by halves, and he felt that his only escape +lay in that upward flight. + +So he saw that it was to be a grim race in demolition; that while he +was to gnaw and eat his way upward through steel and brick, like a +starving rat boring its passage up through the chambers of a huge +granary, his pursuers would be pounding and battering at the lower +doors in just as frenzied pursuit. + +He no longer hesitated, but moved with that clear-thoughted rapidity of +action which often came to him in his moments of half-delirium. +Turning to his tool-bag and scooping out his bar of soap, he kneaded +together enough of the nitroglycerine from one of the stout rubber bags +to make a mixture of the consistency of liquid honey. This he quickly +but carefully worked into the crack of the obstructing door. Then he +attached his detonator, and shortened and lighted his fuse, scuttling +back to the momentary shelter of the outer passage, making sure to be +beyond the deadly "feathered radius" of the nitro. + +There he waited behind the steel-bound door for the coming detonation. +The sound of it smote him like a blow on the chest, followed by a rush +of air and a sudden feeling of nausea. + +But he did not wait. He groped his way in, relocked the passage door +and crawled on all fours through the smoke and heavy, malodorous gases. + +The remnants of the blasted door hung, like a tattered pennon, on one +twisted hinge, and his way now lay clear to the ladder of grilled +ironwork leading to the floor above. But here the steel trapdoor again +barred his progress. One sharp twist and wrench with his steel lever, +however, tore the bolt-head from its setting, and in another +half-minute he was standing on the closed door above, shutting out the +noxious smoke from the basement. + +Between him and the stairway stood still another fortified door, +heavier than the others. He did not stop to knead his paste, for +already he could hear the crash of glass and the sound of sledges on +the door at the rear of the cigar-shop. Catching up a strand of what +he knew to be the most explosive of all guncottons--it was +cellulose-hexanitrate--he worked it gently into the open keyhole and +again scuttled back to safety as the fuse burnt down. + +He could feel the building shake with the tremor of the detonation, +shake and quiver like a ship pounded by strong head seas. A remote +window splintered and crashed to the floor, sucked in by the +atmospheric inrush following the explosion-vacuum. He noticed, too, as +he mounted the narrow stairs before him, that he was bleeding at the +nose. But this, he told himself, was no time for resting. For at the +head of the second stairway still another sheet of armored steel +blocked his passage, and still again the hurried, hollow detonation +shook the building. The ache in his head, behind and above the eyes, +became almost unbearable; his stomach revolted at the poisonous gases +through which he was groping. But he did not stop. + +As he twisted and pried with his steel lever at the lock of the +trapdoor that stood between him and the open air of the housetop, he +could already hear the telltale splintering of wood and sharp orders +and muffled cries and the approaching, quick tramping of feet. He +fought at the lock like a madman, for by this time the trampling feet +were mounting the upper stairs, and doors were being battered and +wrenched from their hinges. He had at least made their work easy for +them; he had torn open the heart of Penfield's stronghold; he had +blazed a path for those officers of the law who had bowed before the +inaccessibility of the building he had disrupted single-handed! + +"Good!" he cried, in his frenzied delight. "Give it to them good! +Wreck 'em, once for all; put 'em out of business!" + +Then he gave a sudden relieving "Ah!"--for the sullen wood had +surrendered its bolts, and the door swung open to his upward push. The +night wind, cold and damp and clean, swept his hot and grimy face as he +pulled himself up through the opening. + +Even as he did so he heard the gathering sounds below him growing +clearer and clearer. He squatted low in the darkness, and with a +furtive eye ever on the dismantled trapdoor, groped his way, +gorilla-like, closer and closer to the wall against which he knew the +janitor's ladder to be still leaning. + +Then he dropped flat on his face, and wormed his way toward the nearest +chimney, not twelve feet from him, for a wet helmet had emerged from +the trap opening. A moment later a lantern was flashing and playing +about the rainy roof. + +"We've got 'em! Quick, Lanigan; we've got 'em!" cried the helmeted +head exultantly, from the trapdoor, to someone below. + +The next moment Durkin, prone on his face, heard the crack of a +revolver and the impact of the ball as it ricochetted from the +roof-tin, not a yard from his feet. + +He no longer tried to conceal himself, but, rolling and tumbling toward +the eave-cornice, let himself over, and hung and clung there by his +hands, while a second ball whistled over him. + +He felt desperately along the flat brick surface, with his kicking +feet, wondering if he had misjudged his direction, sick with a fear +that he might be dangling over an open abyss. He shifted the weight of +his body along the cornice ledge, still pawing and feeling, feverishly +and ridiculously, with his gyrating limbs. Then a joy of relief swept +through him. The ladder was there, and his feet were already on its +second step. + +As he ran, cat-like, across the lower apartment-house roof, he knew +that he stood in full range of his pursuers above, and he knew that by +this time they were already crowding out to the cornice-ledge. There +was no time for thought. He did not pause to look back at them, to +weigh either the problem or the possible consequences in his mind; he +only remembered that that afternoon he had noticed five crowded lines +of washing swinging in multi-colored disarray at the back of that +many-familied hive of life. He hesitated only once, at the sheer edge +of the roof, to make sure, in the uncertain half-light, that he was +above those crowded lines. + +"Let him have it--there he goes!" cried a voice above, and at that too +warning note his hesitation took wing. + +Durkin leaped out into space, straddling the first line of sodden +clothes as he fell. Even in that brief flight the thought came to his +mind that it would have been infinitely better for him if the falling +rain had not weighted and flattened those sagging lines of washing. +Then he remembered, more gratefully, that it was probably only because +of the rain that they still swung there. + +As his weight came on the first line it snapped under the blow, as did +the second, which he clutched with his hands, and the third, which he +doubled over, limply, and the fourth, which cut up under his arm-pit. +But as he went downward he carried that ever-growing avalanche of +cotton and woolen and linen with him, so that when his sprawling figure +smote the stone court it fell muffled and hidden in a web of tangled +garments. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE STRAITS OF CHANCE + +How his flight ended Durkin never clearly remembered. He had a dim and +uneasy memory of the lapse of time, either great or little, the +confused recollection of waking to his senses and fighting his way free +from a smothering weight of wet and clinging clothes. As he struggled +to his feet a stab of pain shot through his left hand, and up through +his forearm. It was so keen and penetrating that he surmised, in his +blank and unreasoning haste, that he must have torn a chord or broken a +bone in his wrist. But on a matter like that, he felt, he could now +waste no time. + +If he had, indeed, been unconscious, he concluded, it had been but +momentary. For as he groped about in search of his hat, dazed and +bruised, he found himself still alone and unmolested. Creeping through +the apartment-house cellar, and out past the door of the snoring and +still undisturbed janitor, he crouched for a waiting moment or two +behind an overloaded garbage-can, in the area. + +Hearing nothing, he staggered up the narrow stairs to the level of the +sidewalk, wet and ragged and disheveled, blackened and soiled and +begrimed. The street seemed deserted. + +He felt sick and faint and shaken, but he would not give up. He +half-stumbled, half-staggered along, splashing through little pools of +rain held in depressions of the stone sidewalk, supporting himself on +anything that offered, hoping, if this were indeed the end, that he +might crawl away into some dark and secluded corner of the city, to +hide the humiliating ignominy of it all. + +In front of a Chinese laundry window he saw that he could go no +further. His first impulse was to creep inside, and make an effort to +bribe his way to secrecy, although he knew that within another quarter +of an hour the tightening cordon of the police would entirely surround +the block. + +As he swayed there, hesitating, he heard the thunder of hoofs and the +rumble of wheel-tires on the soggy asphalt. His first apprehensive +thought was that it would prove to be a patrol-wagon, with police +reserves from some neighboring precinct. But as he blinked through the +darkness he made out a high-platformed Metropolitan Milk Company's +delivery-wagon swinging down toward him. + +He staggered, with a slow and heavy wading motion, out to the centre of +the street, a strange and spectral figure, with outstretched arms, +uttering a sharp and halting cry or two. + +The driver pulled up, thirty long and dreary feet past him. + +"What in hell d'you want?" he demanded irately, raising his whip to +start his team once more, as he caught a clearer view of the seemingly +drunken figure. + +"I'll give you a fiver," said Durkin thickly, "if you'll gi' me a lift!" + +He held the money in his hand, as he stumbled and panted to the +wagon-step. That put an end to all argument. + +"Climb in, then--quick!" cried the big driver, as he caught his +passenger by a tattered coat sleeve and helped him up into the +high-perched seat. + +"But for the love o' God, who's been doin' things to you?" he went on, +in amazement, as he saw the bruised and bleeding and ash-colored face. + +"They threw me out o' their damned dope shop!" cried Durkin, with an +only half-simulated thickness of utterance, as he jerked a shaking +thumb toward the lights of the Chinese laundry. "And I guess--I'm--I'm +a bit knocked out!" + +For he felt very weak and faint and weary, though the cold rain and the +open night air beat on his upturned face with a sting that was +gratefully refreshing. + +"They certainly did make a mess o' you!" chortled the unmoved driver, +as they rumbled westward and took the corner with a skid of the great +wheels that struck fire from even the wet car-tracks. He tucked the +bill down in his oil-coat pocket. + +"Feelin' sick, ain't you?" + +"Yes!" + +"Where d'you want to go?" he asked more feelingly. + +"Where d'you go?" parried Durkin. + +"Hoboken Ferry, for th' Lackawanna Number Eight!" + +"Then that'll do me," answered the other weakly. + +He leaned back in his high and rocking seat, grasping the back rail +with his right hand. He felt as if the waves of a troubled and +tumultuous sea were throwing him up, broken and torn, on some island of +possible safety. He felt dizzy, as though he were being tossed and +plunged forward to some narrow bar of impending release and rest. He +did not ask of himself just what seas boomed and thundered on the +opposing side of that narrow stretch of promised security. He knew +that they were there, and he knew that the time would soon come when he +must face and feel them about him. He had once demanded rest; but he +knew that there now could be no rest for him, until the end. He might +hide for a day or two, like a hunted animal with its hurt, but the +hounds of destiny would soon be at his heels again. All he asked, he +told himself, was his man's due right of momentary relapse, his +breathing spell of quietness. He was already too stained and scarred +with life to look for the staidly upholstered sanctuaries, the padded +seclusions of simple and honest wayfarers. He was broken and undone, +but his day would come again. + +He looked at his limp and trailing left hand. To his consternation, he +saw that it dripped blood. He tried to push back his coat sleeve, but +the pain was more than he could endure. So with his right hand he +lifted the helpless arm up before his eyes, as though it were something +not his own flesh and blood, and for the first time saw the splinter of +bone that protruded from the torn flesh, just below the wrist-joint. + +He felt for his handkerchief, dizzily, and tried to bandage the wound. +This he never accomplished, for with a sudden little gasp he fainted +away, and fell prone across the oil-skinned lap of the big driver. + +That astounded person drew up in alarm at the side entrance of a +street-corner saloon. He was on the point of repeating his sturdy call +for help, when a four-wheeler swung in beside his wagon-step, and +delivered itself of a square-shouldered, heavy-jawed figure, muffled to +the ears in a rain-coat. The newcomer took in the situation with a +rapid and comprehensive glance of relief. + +"So there he is, at last!" he said, as he came forward and caught up +the relaxed and still unconscious figure. + +"Where'd you get a license for buttin' in on this?" expostulated the +surprised driver. + +"Buttin' in?" cried the man in the raincoat, as he lifted the limp +figure in his great, gorilla-like arms. "This isn't buttin' in--this +is takin' care o' my own friends!" + +"Friend o' yours, then, is he?" queried the weakening driver. + +"A friend o' mine!" cried the other angrily, for his man was already +safely in the cab. "You damned can-slinger, d'you suppose I'm wastin' +cab-fare doin' church rescue work? Of course he's a friend o' mine. + +"And not only that," he added, under his breath, as he swung up into +the cab and gave the driver the number of Penfield's uptown house, "and +not only that--he's a friend o' mine who's worth just a little over a +quarter of a million to me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE HUMAN ELEMENT + +It was slowly, almost reluctantly, that Durkin returned to full and +clear-thoughted consciousness. Even before he had opened his eyes he +realized that he was in a hurrying carriage, for he could feel every +sway and jolt of the thinly cushioned seat. He could also hear the +beat of the falling rain on the hood-leather, and on the glass of the +door beside him, as he lay back in the damp odors of wet and sodden +upholstery. + +Then he half-opened his eyes, slowly, and saw that it was MacNutt +beside him. + +The discovery neither moved nor startled him; he merely let the heavy +lids fall over his tired eyes once more, and lay there, without a +movement or a sign. + +Tatter by tatter he pieced together the history of the past few hours, +and as memory came tardily back to him he knew, in a dim and shadowy +way, that he would soon need every alertness of mind and body which he +could summon to his help. But still he waited, passive and +unbetraying, fighting against a weakness born of great pain and fatigue. + +He was keenly conscious of the cab's abrupt stopping, of the passing of +money between MacNutt and the lean and dripping night-hawk holding the +reins, of being half-carried and half-dragged, in the great, bear-like +grasp of his captor, across the wet sidewalk, to the foot of a flight +of brownstone steps. These steps were wide and ponderous, and led up +to an equally wide and ponderous-looking doorway crowned with +ornamental figures of marble on a sandstone background. These carven +figures, wet and glistening in the light of the street-lamps, stood out +incongruously gloomy and ghostly, like the high relief on a sarcophagus. + +Instead of mounting the steps, however, MacNutt hauled his captive +limply in under their shadow, to the basement door opening off the +stone-flagged area. There, after fumbling with his keys for a moment +or two, he quietly unlocked the heavy outer grating of twisted ironwork +and then the inner door of oak. Durkin made a mental note of the fact +that both of these doors were in turn locked after them. + +The two then made their way through the darkness down what must have +been a long passage. Its floor was padded with carpet, and some +fugitive and indefinable odor seemed to suggest to the prisoner an +atmosphere of well-being, of a house both carefully furnished and +scrupulously managed. + +MacNutt softly opened a door on the right, and, after listening for a +cautious moment or two, as softly entered the room into which this door +led. And still again a key was turned and withdrawn from the lock. + +Even with his eyes closed Durkin, as he lay there husbanding his +strength, was conscious of the sudden light that flooded the room. +Covertly opening that eye which remained in the heavy shadow, +separating the lashes by little more than the width of a hair, he could +make out a large room, upholstered and carpeted in green, with +green-shaded electroliers above two billiard tables that stood ghastly +and bier-like beneath their blanketing covers of white cotton. Against +the walls stood massive, elephantine club chairs of green fumed oak, +and it was into one of these that MacNutt had dropped the inert and +unresponding Durkin. At the far end of the room the stealthy observer +could make out what was assuredly the entrance to an electric elevator. +In fact, as he looked closer he could see the two mother-of-pearl +buttons which controlled the apparatus; for it was plain that this +elevator was one of those automatic lifts not uncommon in city +residences of the more palatial order. + +Then, as he quietly but busily speculated on the significance of this +discovery, Durkin suddenly caught sight of a triple crescent carved on +the arm of the chair against which he leaned. And as he made out that +familiar device he knew that he was in Penfield's uptown house once +used as his residence and later as his private clubrooms. + +At this discovery his alert but well-veiled glance went back to +MacNutt. He saw his captor fling off his wet and draggled raincoat and +then shake the water from a dripping hat-brim. This he seemed to do +without haste and without emotion. + +Durkin next saw his enemy gaze about the entire circle of the room +scrutinizingly, the subdolous green eyes coming to a rest only when +they fell on his own relaxed figure. + +"And this is where the music starts!" muttered MacNutt aloud, as he +strode toward Durkin. + +Even before he had uttered that half-articulate little sentence his +captive was possessed by a sudden conviction of approaching climax. He +knew, somewhere deep in the tangled roots of consciousness, that either +he or the other must go down that night, that one was destined to win +and that the other was destined to lose, that the ancient fight was +about to be settled, and settled for all time. + +In that agonized and hurried and yet lucid-thoughted summing up of +ultimate values Durkin realized that it would be useless to resist what +was immediately before him. He was too shaken and weak for any crude +battle of brute strength against brute strength. With his wounded +hand, which even then sent throbbing spears of pain from finger-tip to +shoulder, and with his bruised and weary and stiffened body, he knew +that any test of strength in the muscular and ape-like arms of MacNutt +was out of the question. So he lay back, weak and unresisting, every +now and then emitting from his half-opened lips a little moan of pain. + +But behind the torn and battered ramparts of the seemingly comatose +body his vigilant mind paced and watched and kept keenly awake. As he +felt the great hands pad and feel about his body, and the searching +fingers go through his clothes, pocket after pocket, some sentinel +intelligence seemed to watch and burn and glow like a coal deep within +the ashes of all his outer fatigue. He waited quiescent, as he felt +the heated, animal-like breath on his face, as the ruthlessly exploring +hands tore open his vest, as they ripped away the inner pocket which +had been so carefully sewn together at the top, as they drew out the +tied and carefully sealed packet of papers for which he had been +searching. + +More than once Durkin thought that if ever those documents, for which +he had endured and suffered and lost so much, were again wrested from +him, it would be only after some moment of transcendent conflict, after +some momentous battle of life's forlornest last reserves. Yet now, +impassively and ignominiously, he was surrendering them to the +conqueror, supinely, meanly, without even the solace of some supreme if +vain resistance! He listened to MacNutt's gloating little "Ah!" of +triumph without a sign or movement. But, even then, in that moment of +seeming frustration, Durkin's subterranean yet terrible +pertinaciousness, his unparaded bull-dog indefatigability, glowed and +burned at its brightest. They were not yet in their last ditch. + +"That's _one_ part of it!" muttered MacNutt, as he stowed away the +packet and rebuttoned his coat. + +It was a shadowed and lupine eye which Durkin cautiously opened as he +felt more than heard MacNutt's quick footsteps on the carpeted floor. +Covertly, and without moving, he saw the other man walk to the +elevator, saw the play of his finger on the mother-of-pearl button, saw +the automatic door noiseless slide away, and the descended and waiting +cage locked on a level with the floor. He saw MacNutt step inside, and +the finger again play on one of a row of five pearl buttons set in the +polished wood of the cage-wall, and the elevator noiselessly ascend. + +The moment it went up Durkin was on his feet. + +He first ran to the two doors at the opposite end of the billiard-room. +They were both securely locked; and they were his only means of escape. +Then he hurriedly circled the two huge tables, in search of some +implement of defense. But the denuded room offered nothing. + +Then he dashed to the elevator shaft. As he had surmised, it was an +automatic electric lift, operating from the cellar below to the top of +the house. The cage, so far as he could make out, now stood opposite +the third floor. The controlling apparatus, the motor into which the +power wires led, was, of course, in the cellar beneath him. It would +be easy enough to twist one of the billiard-table covers into a rope, +and drop down to the shaft-bottom, twelve feet below. There he could +tie a bit of string to the emergency switch, watch the first movement +of the descending cage, and shut off the current at the right moment. +That would mean that the descending cage, robbed of its power, would +hang a dead weight in its steel channel, the safety brake would +automatically apply itself, and anybody within the cage would remain +locked and imprisoned there, halfway between floors, helpless to +descend or ascend, hemmed in by the four blank walls of the shift. + +He decided not even to waste time on twisting up a table-cover. He +would hang by his right hand, and drop to the bottom. But a sudden +glint and flutter of light reminded him of his danger. The cage was +descending. + +It was only a matter of seconds before MacNutt stepped once more from +the cage into the billiard-room, yet as he did so he saw nothing but +the still limp and relaxed form of Durkin, huddled back in his huge +chair, emitting from between his half-parted lips an occasional weak +groan of pain. + +A gloating and half-demoniacal chuckle broke from the newcomer's lips. +In one hand he carried a decanter of brandy, in the other a seltzer +siphon. Durkin could hear the gurgle and ripple of the liquid into the +glass; a moment later he knew that MacNutt was bending over him. + +"Here, you, wake up out o' that!" he said, with still another chuckle +of ominous glee. + +He shook the relaxed figure roughly. + +"Get awake, there! This is _too_ good--this is something you can't +afford to miss, you damned welcher!" + +He poured the scalding liquor down the other's throat. Some of it +spilled and ran into the hollow of his neck; some of it dribbled on his +limp collar and his coat lapels. But Durkin took what he could, and +was glad of it. The pain of his wounded arm was very acute. + +"Kind o' recalls our first meetin', eh?" demanded MacNutt, as he +watched the other slowly open his wondering eyes. "Kind o' remind you +of the day I loosened you up with brandy and seltzer, that first time I +had to drag and coax you into this dirty business?" + +And again his captor laughed, wickedly, mirthlessly. + +"Go on, take some more! I'm goin' to give you enough to light you all +to glory!" he gloated. And still he poured the liquor down the +unresisting man's throat. + +He dragged the other to his feet. + +"Come on now, quick! There's a little scene waitin' for you +upstairs--something that'll kind o' soothe and console you for gettin' +so done up!" + +They were in the elevator by this time, mounting noiselessly upward. +Durkin could feel the fire of the brandy soar up to his brain and sing +through his veins. MacNutt supported him as they stepped from the +elevator cage into a darkened room. On the far side of this room, from +between two heavy portières, a gash of light cut into the otherwise +unbroken gloom. + +A sound of voices floated out to them and MacNutt tightened his grip on +the other's arm, as they stood and listened, for it was Frances Durkin +and Keenan talking together, hurriedly, impetuously, earnestly. + +"But does it make any difference what I have been, or who I am?" the +woman's voice was asking. "I did my part; I did my work for you. Now +you ought to give me a chance!" + +Still holding the other back, MacNutt circled sidewise, until they came +into the line of vision with the unsuspecting pair in the other room. +Keenan, they could see, held one heavy hand on the woman's shoulder, +intimately; and she, in turn, looked up into his face, in an attitude +as open and intimate. + +"You know, now, what I have known before you!" whispered MacNutt, into +the ear of the tortured Durkin. + +"You lie!" murmured Durkin's lips, but no sound came from them, for his +staring eyes were still on the scene before him. + +"Listen then, you fool!" was all his tempter whispered back. And they +stood together, listening. + +"But I _am_ giving you a chance," Keenan next replied, and his long, +melancholy Celtic face was white and colorless with emotion. "I'm +giving you the only chance that life holds for both of us!" + +"I know it!" said the woman. + +Keenan's arms went out to her, and she did not draw back. Instead, she +reached up her own seemingly wearied and surrendering arms, without a +word, and held him there in her obliterating embrace. He swayed a +little, where he stood, and for a moment neither moved nor spoke. + +MacNutt, narrowly watching the shadowy face of Durkin, saw pictured on +that pallid and changing countenance fear and revolt, one momentary +touch of despairing doubt, and then a mounting and all-consuming +passion of blind rage. + +In that drunken rage seemed to culminate all his misgivings, his +suspicions, his apparent betrayals of the past. He trembled and shook +like a man in a vertigo; the fingers of his upraised right hand opened +and closed spasmodically; his flaccid lips fell apart, vacuously, +insanely. + +"I'll kill her!" he ejaculated under his breath. MacNutt knew that his +moment had come. + +Without a spoken word he caught his revolver up from his coat pocket. +Then he thrust it, craftily, into the other man's hand. + +The insane fingers closed on the handle of it, the glaring and +expressionless eye peered along the steadying barrel. MacNutt held his +breath, and waited. It must be soon, he knew, before the moment of +madness had burnt itself out. + +The woman under the white light of the electrolier drew back from +Keenan, with her eyes still on his face, so that her head and shoulders +stood out, a target of black against the white fore-ground. Then she +drew one hand quickly across her forehead, and, wheeling slowly, let +her puzzled glance sweep the entire circle of the room, until once more +her eyes rested upon the expectant eyes of Keenan. + +Durkin, through all his rage, shut his teeth on a sudden sob. It was +all over. It was the end. + +A change suddenly swept across the woman's face, a light of exaltation +leaped into her dilated pupils, and her hand went up to her heart. + +Was it some small sound or movement that she had heard, or was it some +minute vibration of floor that she had felt? + +"_Jim, it's you_!" she shrilled out suddenly, into the heavy silence, +in a tense and high soprano, with a voice not like her own. + +"_Jim, where are you_?" she called passionately, as she beat Keenan +impotently back with her naked hands. "Help me, quick! Can't you see +I need you? Can't you see this is _killing me_?" + +Keenan fell back before her, aghast. + +"You fool, you weak fool!" she shrieked at him madly. "Do you think I +meant that? Do you dream I could respect or care for an animal like +you! Do you imagine I would endure the touch of your hands, if it +wasn't to save me till this? Do you dream----?" + +She stopped suddenly, for with one sweep of his advancing arm Durkin +tore the heavy portière from its curtain-rings, and he stood before +them, in the flat white light of the electrics. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE LAST DITCH + +Durkin advanced into the room quickly, the revolver in his right hand. +It was a short-barreled bull-dog gun of heavy caliber, ugly and +menacing as it swung from his out-thrust wrist, held low, with the +right elbow pressed close in to his side. In the doorway stood +MacNutt. His eyes were staring, his bullock head thrown back, +bewildered at the sudden change that one sweep of an arm had brought to +the scene. + +As Durkin edged craftily round, with his back to the side wall, so that +his eye commanded the silent trio before him, Frank made a movement to +draw away from Keenan, who stood grotesquely petrified, his lean jaw +fallen, the melancholy Celtic face touched more with wonder than with +fear. + +"Don't move!" commanded her husband, as he saw the motion. "Stay where +you are!" + +She looked at him, as bewildered as the others. + +"That man, you'll find, is armed." + +"You lie--you fool!" + +"That man, I say, is armed!" + +Keenan laughed, scoffingly. + +"Take his revolver from him!" commanded Durkin. + +A momentary hesitation held her back. + +"Take it, I say! And, by God, if he so much as moves a finger, I'll +blow the top of his head off!" + +The woman confronted Keenan once more, but he fell back a step or two. + +"There's no need of that," he broke in angrily. "If you want the gun, +I'll give it to you!" + +And as he spoke his arm swung down and back to his hip pocket. + +"Stop that!" cried Durkin sharply, as he saw the movement. "Keep those +hands up, or, by heaven, I'll let you have it!" + +His arm, by this time, was tense and rigidly out-stretched, and his +steady pistol-barrel pointed just between the other man's ludicrously +blinking eyes. In the silence that followed the woman reached back, +and without further hesitation drew the revolver from the motionless +man's pocket. + +It was a formidable, long-barreled "Colt," which, with one sharp motion +of the fingers, she promptly unlimbered, exposing the breech. In each +cylinder chamber, she saw, lay a loaded cartridge. Once assured of +this, she snapped shut the breech and balanced the gun in the +purposeful embrace of her fingers. + +"Now what?" she asked, with her eyes turned to her husband. But the +triumph suddenly died out of her face. + +She was only in time to hear Durkin's sharp cry of anger, and to see +his quick spring through the wide door-way, as the guard-door of the +elevator closed and the cage shot up into space. + +"We've missed him!" he gasped, with a cry of rage, as he ran to the +door through which MacNutt, in that moment of excitement, had +disappeared. + +Frank kept her eyes on Keenan. She, too, began to feel the sense of +some vast finality in their moves and actions that night. + +Keenan laughed. It was a dry and joyless laugh, but it was +discouraging. + +"What's on the floor above?" demanded Durkin, wheeling on him. + +"The floor above," slowly responded the other, "is Richard Penfield's +private offices, where his safe is, and where your friend, no doubt, is +now depositing his valuables, behind a burglar-proof time-lock!" + +"Oh, that's it, is it!" cried Durkin. He turned to the woman sharply. + +"Frank, quick! Leave Keenan to me!" + +"Yes!" she answered, with coerced attention. + +"MacNutt must not get out of this house! We must stop him before he +gets down this shaft. You go down by the stairs, quick, to the lowest +basement. You'll find the motor operating the elevator. What you must +do is to get to the switch, and shut off the power before this car can +get past us! Quick!" + +He still faced Keenan, but his eye followed her to the door. + +"If he does come, kill him; shoot him down, I say, like a dog--_or +he'll kill you_!" + +He could hear, through those silent hallways, the muffled rustling of +her skirts and the sound of her flying feet on the waxed and polished +wood. Then the silence suddenly became oppressive. + +It was the unseen foe that he was afraid of, the undiscerned force that +he feared. His uneasy and alert mind struggled to grasp the problem of +how and where MacNutt would strike, if strike he did, out of the +darkness of that silent and deserted house. + +Durkin decided that above all things he must render impossible the +descent of the elevator cage. But for a moment he could think of no +bar that might be flung across the path of that complex and almost +irresistible machinery, once awakened into its full power. Then the +solution of the riddle came to him. + +Still menacing the silent Keenan with his revolver, he flung over, with +one quick and reckless push of his foot, the heavy mahogany table that +stood in the centre of the room. + +Then he turned to Keenan. + +"Push that table out into the elevator shaft!" he ordered. The other +man did not move. And time was precious; every second was precious! + +Durkin repeated his command. + +"Furniture-moving is not my vocation!" answered Keenan, folding his +arms. + +As Durkin sprang forward, there was no mistaking his meaning. + +"I'll count ten," he said, white-lipped. "Unless the table goes out, +_you_ go out!" And he began counting, silently, numeral by numeral. + +"Well, if you insist!" said Keenan, with a shrug. + +Even as Keenan, at the menace of his reiterated command to hurry, threw +open the guard door, Durkin was wondering, in his feverish activity of +mind, just how soon MacNutt's next move would come, and just how and +where he would strike. + +The answer to that question came more quickly than he had expected. +And it came grimly, and in a manner most unlooked for. + +For even as the reluctant Keenan stooped over the heavy table, not ten +feet from the shaft, the elevator cage descended. It flashed by the +open door without stopping on its hurried course. But as it winged +past that square of open light a revolver shot rang out and reëchoed +through the room. + +Durkin, peering across the curling smoke, saw Keenan pitch forward on +his hands, struggle and thrash to his feet once more, like a wounded +rabbit. Then he fell again, prone on his face, close beside the shaft +door. There he lay, breathing in little gurgles. + +Durkin, with little beads of sweat on his pallid face, realized what it +meant. That flying shot had been intended for _him_. MacNutt, in that +desperate and hurried and unreasoning last chance, had delivered his +blow, but had been mistaken in his man! + +This knowledge flashed through his mind with the rapidity of a +kinetoscope plate, and a moment later was obliterated by still another +hurrying impression. For, through the deserted house rang two short +and terrified screams, high-pitched and piercing. They were a woman's +screams, and he knew they could come from no one but Frank. + +He turned and hurled himself down the stairway, without even waiting to +recover the revolver that had fallen a minute before from his startled +fingers. He was conscious only of flinging the weight of his sliding +body on the flume-like surface of the smooth balustrade, with his feet +clattering on the polished steps as he went. He turned and dashed on +to the head of the next stairway, and in the same manner flung himself +to the floor beneath, and then to the next, and the next, until he was +in the gloom of the basement itself. + +Breathless and panting, he groped his way through the darkness, to +where a glimmer of light came from what he hurriedly took to be the +engine-room. + +There, as he darted through the narrow doorway, into the circle of dim +light from the one tinted globe in the lowered elevator cage, a strange +sight met his eyes. It shocked and flung him into a second or two of +blank indecision, of volitionless and thoughtless inactivity. For one +moment of ominous calm it smote and held him there, before the sudden +blind, cyclonic rush of brain and body which the vision gave rise to. + +For at the door of the open cage MacNutt and Frank fought and struggled +and panted together. The man was inside, on the bottom of the cage, +the woman was outside it. Her huddled but still resisting body was +locked and jammed halfway across the narrow door. One of her +opponent's great, ape-like strangling arms was about her neck. But the +fingers at the end of it were caught between her strong white +carnivorous teeth; and they became stained with blood as, in her +frenzy, she fought and bit and struggled, with the blind fury of some +final despair. Her revolver she had been unable to use; it lay out of +her reach, behind them on the floor of the cage. + +MacNutt, as he strained and tore at her resisting body, was fighting +and edging his way with her back into the cage, to where that waiting +revolver lay. He himself was already well within the narrow opening, +sprawled out red and disheveled and Titanesque on the cage floor. But +she was resisting him, inch by inch, fighting desperately, like a +cornered cat, for her very life, yet knowing there could be only one +end to that uneven conflict. + +Durkin, after one comprehending glance, followed his first animal +impulse of offense, and descended on MacNutt, beating at the prone, +bull-like head, with its claret-colored bald spot, across which ran one +livid scratch. He pounded on the clustered fingers of the gorilla-like +hand, crushing and bruising them against the gilded iron grill-work, +through which was interwoven the Penfield triple crescent. + +The clutching arms relaxed, but only for a moment. In that moment, +however, Durkin had stooped and with the one hand that remained with +him to use, struggled to tear Frank away from the deadly clutch. This +he would surely have done had not MacNutt seen his chance, and with his +free hand suddenly caught at the wounded wrist that hung stained and +limp at his enemy's side. That sudden, savage torture of the lacerated +flesh was more than the weak and exhausted body of Durkin could endure. +He emitted one little involuntary cry; then every protesting nerve and +sinew capitulated, a white light seemed to flash and burn at the base +of his very brain, and then go out. He fell fainting on the hard maple +floor. + +For a moment or two, like a defeated prize-fighter, he panted and +struggled, ludicrously yet pathetically, to rise to his feet, but the +effort was futile. + +It was as he found himself ebbing down through some soft and feathery +emptiness that he seemed to hear a pitiful and imploring voice call +thinly out, "_Mack_!" Still fainter he seemed to hear it, "_Mack_! +_Come up_! _I'm dying_!" He remembered, lazily, that it sounded like +the distant voice of Keenan--but where was Keenan? + +Then he seemed to hear the purr and murmur of distant machinery, +followed by a gentle puff of sound and what he hazily dreamed was the +smell of powder smoke. Then he remembered no more. + + * * * * * * + +Just how or at what juncture he lost consciousness he could never +clearly remember. But his first tangible impression was the knowledge +that his wife was once more pouring brandy down his throat and +imploring him to hurry. Then the sound of muffled blows echoed from +above. + +"Quick, Jim, oh, quick, or it will be too late. No, not that way. We +can't go by the front--that's cut off. By the back--this way--I've got +everything open!" + +"But what's the noise?" asked Durkin weakly. + +"That's the police, with a fireman's axe, breaking in the front door. +But, see, it's not too late! These steps take us up to the back court, +and this iron gate opens on a lane that runs from the supply department +of the hotel there, right through to the open street!" + +He shambled after her, white and tottering. + +"Quick, Jim, quick!" she reiterated, as she supported him through the +low gate, and kept her arm in his as they passed down the dark lane, +with its homely smells of early cookery and baking bread. Only one +passion possessed them--the blind and persistent and unreasoning +passion for escape, for freedom. + +"But MacNutt--where's MacNutt?" demanded Durkin, coming to a stop. + +"No--no--quick!" gasped Frank, tugging at his arm. + +"I tell you I've got to have it out with that man!" protested the +pitiably dazed but dogged combatant at her side. + +"You can't, Jim!" + +"But I've got to!" + +"You can't--you can't," she moaned, "for he's dead!" + +A sudden sickening fear crept through his aching bones, seeming to +leave them fluid, like wax. + +"You--you did it?" he asked unsteadily. The face he gazed into looked +aged and worn and pallid in the dim half-light of the breaking morning. +A sudden great pity for her tore at his heart. + +"No," she cried fiercely. "No--not me!" + +But she was still tugging insanely at his obdurate arm. "I tell you, +Jim, you must hurry, or it will be too late!" + +"Thank God!" he gasped, scarcely hearing her pleadings. + +They were skirting three early delivery-wagons, waiting to unload at +the supply door of the hotel. A boy passing in the street beyond was +shrilly whistling "Tammany." + +"Tell me--now!" demanded Durkin. + +"When you fainted MacNutt reached back for the revolver. He would have +shot you, only Keenan called for him. He cried down the shaft that he +was dying. He--he must have pushed the button as he fell. MacNutt was +still on the floor of the cage, leaning out to take aim at us. Then +the steel of the shaft-door and the steel of the elevator cage as it +went up came to--oh--I _can't_ tell you now!" + +Durkin came to a stop, swaying against her. + +"You mean the cage worked automatically, that it went up, with MacNutt +still leaning out?" + +"Yes!" gasped the woman brokenly; and Durkin felt the shiver of the +tortured body on which he leaned. + +He was silent as they swung into the open street. His exhausted and +uncoördinating brain was idly busy with some vague impression of the +poignant irony of that end, of how that uncomprehending yet ineluctable +power with which this man had toyed and played and sinned had, at the +ultimate moment, established its authority and exacted its right. + +He pulled himself up with a fluttering gasp, weak, sick, overcome, and +was wordlessly grateful for the sustaining arm at his side. + +For, once in the open, they were walking eastward, without a sense, +momentarily, of either direction or destination. + +Above the valley of the mist-hung street a thin and yellow light showed +where morning was coming on, tardily, thickly. The boy whistling +"Tammany" passed out of hearing. + +"Thank God! oh, thank God!" Frank suddenly sobbed out, tossed and +exalted on a wave of blind gratitude. + +"God?" moaned the defeated and unhappy man at her side, dragging +painfully on with his bruised and bitter body. "What has God to do +with all this--or with us?" + +She could not answer. She saw only a wide and gloomy vista of tangled +crime and offense, stretching back into the past, as the tumbled and +huddled waves of a sea run out to its crowding skyline. But it was the +sea that had delivered them. + +Broken, frustrated and defeated, hunted and homeless, without +consolation for her Yesterday or respect for her Today, she looked up +at the slowly wakening morning with a feeling that seemed to fuse and +blend into the fiercest of joy. + +Then the momentary exaltation died out of her weary body. They had +life--but life was not enough! A sense of something within her falling +and crumbling away, a silence of dark questioning and indecision, took +possession of her. + +Then out of her misery she cried still again, passionately, +persistently, as she clutched and clung to him, her mate for whom and +with him she was once destined to be a wanderer over the face of the +earth: + +"There must be a God! I tell you, there _must_ be a God. He has let +us escape!" + +The man looked at her, questioningly. + +"Don't you understand? This is the last?" + +"The last?" + +"Yes--yes, the last! You said it would be never again, if once you +escaped from this!" + +He had forgotten. But the woman at his side, holding him up, had +remembered. + +"Come!" she said. And they went on again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +ONE YEAR LATER--AN EPILOGUE + +Frances waited for her husband, walking slowly up and down under the row +of pallid city maples. She preferred the open light of the Square to the +gloom of the street that cut like a canyon between the towering +office-buildings on either side of it. There was a touch of autumn in +the air, and a black frost of the night before had left the sidewalks +carpeted with the mottled roans and yellows and russets of the fallen +leaves. + +Summer was over and gone. And all life, in some way, seemed to have aged +with the ageing of the year. There was something mournful, to the ears +of the waiting woman, in the very rustle of the dry leaves under her +feet, as she paced the Square. The sight of the half-stripped +tree-branches, here and there, depressed her idle mind with the thought +of skeletons. The smell of the dying leaves made her heart heavy. They +seemed to be whispering of Death, crying out to her at the mutability of +all things that lived and breathed. And she had so wanted always to live +and exult in living; she had so trembled at the thought of these creeping +changes and the insidious passing away of youth and all it meant to her! +"I hate autumn, most awfully," she had confessed to her husband that +morning, dolefully. + +She went on, passing from under the shadow of the trees, grateful for the +reassuring thin sunshine of the late afternoon, that touched the roofs +and the tree-tops with gilt, and bathed the more towering +office-buildings in a brazen glory of light, and left the street-dust +swimming in a vapor of pale gold. The city noises seemed muffled and +quiescent. A sense of fulfillment, of pensive maturity, of tranquillity +after tumult, lay over even the urban world before her. She scarcely +knew why or how it was, but it left her melancholy, lonely, homesick for +things she could not name. + +The waiting woman looked up, and saw her husband. Suddenly, with one +deep breath, all the emptiness of life was a thing, if not of the past, +at least of the background of consciousness. + +He was quite close to her by this time, and as she stood there, waiting, +she swept him with her quick and searching gaze. He appeared before her, +in that fleeting moment of impersonal vision, strangely objective, as +completely and acutely visualized as though she had looked upon him for +the first time. + +Something in his face wrung her heart, foolishly, something in the +wordless, Rembrandt-like poignancy with which it stood out, through the +cold autumn sunlight of the late afternoon, in its mortal isolation of +soul, its sense of being detached and denied the companionship of its +kind. He looked old and tired. He, too, was voyaging towards some +melancholy autumnal maturity, some sorrowful denudation of youth, that +left him pitiful to her impotently aching heart. He, too, stood in want +of some greater love than even she could ever bring to him, as surely as +she still cried out for the solace of some companionship, not closer than +his, but of a different fiber. She had found herself, of late, vaguely +hungering for some influence less autumnal, less vesper-like, to hold and +wall her back from those grayer hours of retrospection which crept into +her life. Yet this was a secret she had kept always locked in her own +holy of holies. For even in the face of that indeterminate feeling, it +still stabbed her like a knife to think of any thought or life coming +between her and her husband. + +She hurried to him, with her habitual little throaty cry, and caught his +arm in hers. The gesture was almost a passionate one. + +"Jim, you're working too hard!" she said, as they went on again, arm in +arm. + +He studied her upturned face. The pale oval under the great heavy crown +of glinting chestnut seemed paler than usual, the violet eyes seemed more +shadowy. There clung to her a puzzling and unfamiliar sense of fragility. + +"What is it?" he asked, coming to a stop. + +"I'm worried about _you_!" she cried. "This is the fourth, almost the +fifth month, you've shut yourself up with that transmitter!" + +"But it's _work_!" he answered, unmoved. + +"Yes, I know, but work without a holiday, without rest----" + +"But think what it's going to be to us! All I've got to do now is to get +my selenium cell simplified enough for commercial purposes! And another +month will do it!" + +"But eight months ago you said that!" + +"There's nothing left to stick us _now_. Once I get this cell the way I +want it, we'll start manufacturing, for all we're worth. In less than +six months we'll be filling contracts here in America. Two months later +we'll be introducing into seven different countries in Europe a fully +protected and patented transmitting camera as far ahead of the +old-fashioned photophone as a Bell telephone is ahead of a tin +speaking-tube." + +"I know, Jim; but you must be more careful! You must, in some way, stop +working so hard!" + +"Who could help it, at this sort of work?" he protested, contentedly. +She felt that he, too, had stumbled upon that timeless and mysterious +paradox of existence, that incongruous law which ordains that as one +surrenders and relinquishes and gives, so one shall live the richer and +deeper. + +"I tell you, Frank," her husband was saying, "the more I know of +electricity the more I bow down before it, in wonder, the prouder I am to +be mixed up in its mysteries! Just think of what it's come to be, this +thing we call Electricity, since the day primitive man first rubbed a +piece of amber and beheld the puny miracle of magnetic attraction! Why, +today it harnesses tides and waterfalls, and tames and orders force, and +leaves power docile and patient, swinging meek and ready from a bit of +metal thread! It lightens cities, at a turn of the wrist; it hurls your +voice half way round the world, it guides sailors and measures and weighs +the stars; it threads empires together with its humming wires; it's the +shuttle that's woven all civilization into one compact fabric! It's the +light of our night-time, and the civilizer of our world. It explodes +mines, and heals sickness. It creeps as silent as death through a +thousand miles of sea, and yet it's the very tongue of our world! It +prints and carves and beautifies; it rises to the most stupendous tasks, +and then it stoops to the most delicate work!" + +"And it lets me ring you up, my beloved own, and hear your voice, your +living voice!" Even beyond her laughter he could catch the rapt note as +she spoke. He responded to that note by catching at her gloved hand, and +keeping it in his gratefully. + +"Yes, but it does even more than annihilate space and turn wheels and +despatch trains. Think what it's doing with wireless alone! And _that_ +is only the beginning! Why, the whole world is alive and athrob with +energy, with stored-up power aching to be used--and some day it will be +electricity that will teach all nature how to work and toil for man! As +yet we don't even know what it is! It's formless, to us, bodiless, +invisible, imponderable! It's still unknown--as unknown as God!--and +almost as mysterious!" + +"Oh!" she reproved. + +"I've sometimes wondered if those lightning flashes and those terrifying +things that used to fill the temples in the Eleusinian Mysteries didn't +simply mean that those old priests of Apollo knew more about electric +currents than we imagine." + +"And even Jove's bolts were only electricity, weren't they?" she +assented. "So you're right, in a way--their god and their power _were_ +electricity! Perhaps it was electricity Prometheus stole!" + +"No, it's older than Prometheus, it's older than Adam, it's mixed up in +some way with the very origin of life itself! It's the most mysterious +thing in the world--and the most beautiful!" he concluded, with solemn +conviction. + +They walked on in silence for a moment or two. A dead leaf fell and +drifted between them. The afternoon deepened into twilight. + +"O, Jim, not the most beautiful!" said Frank, suddenly, thrilled and +shaken with some wayward passion of gratitude, as acute as it was +unheralded. + +He looked down at her, puzzled. + +"Oh, I'm glad, Jim; glad!" she cried, irrelevantly. + +"Glad for what?" + +"For this--for you--for everything!" + +His face clouded a little, for a moment, with the shadow of the past that +could and would not be altogether past. + +"I thought we'd decided to let that--stay closed?" he said. There was a +note of reproof in his voice. + +"Do you know what _I_ think is the most beautiful thing in all the world, +Jim?" she went on, as irrelevantly as before, but holding his arm still +more tightly entangled in hers. "I think it's Redemption!" + +"Redemption?" + +"Yes--I think there's nothing ever done, or made, or written of, or sung +of by poets, more beautiful than a soul, a poor, unhappy human soul, +coming into its own once more! Oh, I don't believe I can ever make you +feel it as I feel it--but I don't believe there's an adventure or a +movement in all life more beautiful than the rehabilitation--that's the +only word I can use!--of a man's heart, or a woman's! Think of it, +Jim!--what can be lovelier than the restoration of sanity and beauty and +meaning to a suffering and tortured life? Health after sickness is +lovely, and so is healing after disease, and quietness after unrest, and +peace after struggle. But that, Jim, is only for the body. It's only +for something of a day or two, or a year or two. When a soul is +redeemed, it's something that leaves you face to face with--with +Eternity!" + +Again he studied her rapt and mournful eyes, at sea, wondering to what +new turn the sacrificial instinct of her sex was leading her. + +"What has made you think of all this?" he demanded of her, a little +unhappily, a little afraid of the old wounds that were healing so slowly. +"Why should you remind me of how hard it is, and how little I've been +able to do?" + +She was silent for several minutes again, as they walked on, slowly, +under the spectral autumn trees, with the rustling dead leaves at their +feet. She found it hard to answer him. + +"'The saints are only the sinners who kept on trying!'" she quoted to +him, for the second time in their lives. Then she came to a full stop. + +"Oh, Jim, I need you so much, now!" she cried out, at last, pitifully, +and still again he could not bridge the abyss that lay between one +thought and another. + +"Need me?" + +"Yes, need you!" + +Again a dead leaf fluttered and drifted between them. + +"What is it?" he asked, more gently. + +She put her hand on his shoulder, and when she spoke her voice was little +more than a whisper. + +And he, the man who had spoken of trivial mysteries, bowed before that +supremest mystery which broods and centres in the thought of motherhood. + +"We'll have to be good now--terribly good!" she wailed. And she tried to +laugh up at him, with a touch of her old bravery, in a futile effort to +make light of her tears. + + + + +"30" + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Phantom Wires, by Arthur Stringer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOM WIRES *** + +***** This file should be named 19735-8.txt or 19735-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/3/19735/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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