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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Keeban - - -Author: Edwin Balmer - - - -Release Date: August 23, 2021 [eBook #66114] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEBAN*** - - -E-text prepared by Charlene Taylor, Martin Pettit, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images -generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/keeban00balm - - - - - -KEEBAN - - - * * * * * * - -By Edwin Balmer - -RESURRECTION ROCK -THE BREATH OF SCANDAL -KEEBAN - -_In collaboration with_ William MacHarg - -THE BLIND MAN’S EYES -THE INDIAN DRUM - - * * * * * * - - -KEEBAN - -by - -EDWIN BALMER - - -[Illustration: Logo] - - - - - - -Boston -Little, Brown, and Company -1923 - -Copyright, 1923, -By Edwin Balmer. - -All rights reserved -Published April, 1923 - -Printed in the United States of America - - - - -CONTENTS - -CHAPTER PAGE - I MY BROTHER FINDS HIMSELF IN TWO PLACES - AT ONCE 1 - - II AND ESCAPES FROM BOTH 14 - - III I HAVE AN ENCOUNTER BY THE RIVER 31 - - IV I SIT IN ON FATE 48 - - V THE UNDERWORLD INTRUDES 60 - - VI AND I FAIL TO PREVENT A BUMP-OFF 72 - - VII I KEEP MY OWN COUNSEL 87 - - VIII A LADY DISCREDITS ME 98 - - IX I SEEK THE UNDERWORLD 107 - - X AND LEARN THE WAYS OF ITS LOGIC 116 - - XI THE THIEVES’ BALL 134 - - XII I DISCOVER “THE QUEER” 153 - - XIII AND LEARN THE SOOTHING EFFECTS OF FOND - DU LAC TWINS 173 - - XIV I TAKE GOVERNMENT ORDERS 185 - - XV IN WHICH I ASSIST A GET-AWAY 196 - - XVI I WALK INTO A PARLOR 210 - - XVII CHIEFLY DEVOTED TO A GAS CALLED KX 219 - -XVIII DORIS APPEARS AND VANISHES 239 - - XIX I HEAR OF THE GLASS ROOM 248 - - XX DORIS AND I ARE TAKEN TO IT 256 - - XXI DORIS ENTERS THE GLASS ROOM 267 - - XXII A CROAKING AND FINIS 287 - - - - -KEEBAN - - - - -I - -MY BROTHER FINDS HIMSELF IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE. - - -The quick, quiet unlocking and then the closing of the hall door on -the floor below told me that Jerry had come in; so I sat up, roused as -I always was when I felt him about. He put life into any place,--even -into an Astor Street marble mansion in the somnolence of two-thirty on -a morning after everybody else has gone to bed. - -Since my light was on, although it was only a shaded reading lamp and -although the double blinds before my window must have prevented more -than the merest glint outside, I was sure Jerry had noticed from the -street that I was awake; for he notices everything; and everything -bears to him a meaning which he has the clear head and the nervous -energy to make out. I never realized, till I began analyzing Jerry, how -much more you need than a brain for thinking; to get anywhere, you must -have a sort of habitual energy to tackle incidents and carry them in -your mind beyond the first, simple registry of the observed fact. - -Take that evening we came home late together, when my cousin Janet with -her new husband was stopping with us. They’d arrived only that day, -and Jerry hadn’t seen Janet since she married and he had never met -Lew Hollings at all or heard anything about him except that they were -married and were to visit us. It was a very hot night and they’d gone -to their rooms early to rest from the train. We’d given them our best -guest rooms,--the pair of bedrooms on the third floor in front with a -dressing room in between. I noticed, as we approached the house, that -the dressing room light was burning and the bedrooms both were dark -with the windows open. Somebody’d forgotten the light; that’s all it -meant to me. Jerry looked up at the house. - -“Why, that’s too bad, Steve!” he said. “That” was so plain to him that -it didn’t occur to him that he needed to explain when he finished. “I -thought Janet and Hollings were getting along all right.” - -“They are,” I said. “They’re perfectly happy. What gave you the sudden -idea they’re not?” - -“Oh, closed doors on a night when it’s eighty-eight and no breeze, -Steve. Neither has a door open, even to the dressing room; they don’t -know the light’s on. They’ve each shut themselves in one room without -opening a door even for a current of air to-night.” - -“You’re crazy, Jerry,” I said. “I had dinner with them. There’s nothing -the matter.” That was what my people thought too until Janet and Lew -separated, openly, a couple of weeks later. - -Jerry came into my room and, as soon as I saw him, I flung my book to -the foot of the bed; for it was perfectly plain, even to my sort of -wits, that something mighty amazing to him had happened. He was pale -and his blue eyes looked positively big; he has fine eyes, Jerry; you -like them, though they take hold of you and seem to look through you; -the reason you like them, in spite of this, is that while finding out -something of you, they grant you a good deal of him. So they told me -now that Jerry was afraid; and, though we have been companions for -twenty-eight years--that is, since we were babies--and though that -companionship includes service in the Argonne, I had never seen him so -afraid before. - -He’d come upstairs with his overcoat on, over his evening clothes, for -he’d been at Ina Sparling’s wedding, and he hadn’t even dropped his hat -downstairs. - -“How long you been home, Steve?” he asked, coming beside me. - -“Since half-past twelve,” I said. - -“Awake all the time?” - -“Yes, Jerry.” - -“Anybody call for me?” - -“No.” - -“You’ve not heard the ’phone at all?” - -“No. What’s the matter, old fellow?” - -“Dot!” said Jerry, staring down at me without now seeing me at all. - -“Dorothy Crewe?” I asked, in the way I have of asking perfectly obvious -questions. - -“Yes, Steve.” - -“Oh; you’ve quarrelled?” I said, imagining I saw a light. “That’s it.” - -“I’d trade a good many quarrels for what happened--probably, Steve.” - -“To her?” I said again, stupidly. - -He did not exactly nod his head but he inclined it a trifle lower. “The -damnedest thing, Steve; the queerest affair!” he said, looking quickly -at me again. He brushed my book to the floor and dropped on the foot of -the bed and sat there, staring straight ahead without speaking for a -minute while he listened for sounds in the street or below; but there -was nothing. - -He swung about and demanded of me suddenly, “You noticed Dot to-night?” - -“Of course, old fellow. Besides, she was with you most of the time.” - -He jerked, wincing at that; and Jerry’s not jerky. He’s excitable and -capable, I’ve always felt, even of violence. But he possesses not one -bad nerve; he might hit in anger but he would hit perfectly steadily if -he hit to kill. - -“Yes, of course she was with me. I was responsible for her to-night. -Did you notice what she was wearing, Steve?” - -“Blue dress, wasn’t it--pale blue? She certainly was stunning, Jerry.” - -“Her necklace, Steve; didn’t you see it? Those damned diamonds and -sapphires her father brought back from abroad with him!” - -“Of course I saw them. So--she lost them to-night, did she? Or they -were stolen? That’s it?” But I realized by this time it was far more -than that. - -“Steve, let’s go over it just as it happened,” Jerry entreated. “When -did you leave the Sparlings’?” - -“Twelve o’clock. Ten minutes after,” I added more precisely and he did -not question me further on that; he knows I always keep track of time. - -“You saw Dot about midnight?” - -“Within a quarter of an hour of the time I left, Jerry.” - -“When did you see me last?” - -He tried not to--I thought--but he could not help bending toward me a -little and he could not keep his voice from going a little up and down. - -“Why, at the door when I went, Jerry!” I said, my own voice cracking a -little, excited from him. - -“At the door of the Sparlings at ten minutes after twelve, Steve?” he -begged of me. - -“Why, yes, Jerry.” - -“I, Steve? You saw me there?” - -“Why not? What is it, Jerry? I’ve told you I did.” - -“You know me; or you ought to know me, if any one in the world does. -And you wouldn’t joke about it with me, would you, Steve? If all the -rest of them were doing it, if they’d sworn you in, too, in the hoax, -you’d tell me the truth now, wouldn’t you? For you see Dot’s taken! If -she’s not really taken, I believe she is; that’s the same to me! Oh, I -know you wouldn’t be in on anything like that against me!” - -“Dot taken? Where? How? What is it that’s happened?” - -“That’s what no one knows, Steve. Oh--we’ve got to go over it just -as it came on. Up to half-past eleven, you know everything. That is, -there’s nothing in particular to tell. We were all at the Sparlings’ -dancing about after the wedding; about half-past eleven people began -drifting over to the Drake to Casoway’s dance. Dot and I meant to go; -with Jim and Laura Townsend in their car. In the coat room I was held -up a few minutes finding my things; this was still at the Sparlings’, -Steve. When I came down to the carriage door, I couldn’t find Dot. The -Townsends were gone; somebody said she’d gone with them, so I followed -on in the next machine for the Drake. Don’t know whose it was; just -some people said, ‘Going to the Drake? Get in.’ So I got in and soon -as I got to the Drake went on a hunt for Dot but couldn’t find her -right away. Awful jam there, Steve; couldn’t find the Townsends for -twenty minutes; then they said they hadn’t brought Dot. Thought maybe -the Westmans might have; they came over at the same time. So I chased -up Sally Westman; she hadn’t brought Dot; but I ran on Tom Downs just -coming in; this was twelve o’clock then, Steve. - -“‘Hello, Jerry,’ he said to me. ‘How the devil’d you beat me over here?’ - -“‘When’d you leave the Sparlings’?’ I said. - -“‘Just now; oh, three minutes ago.’ - -“‘Was Dorothy Crewe over there?’ I said. - -“‘When I left?’ Tom said. ‘Why, certainly; she was with you. You said -you were coming over; but not right away. But you seem to have passed -me.’ - -“‘I’ve been here half an hour,’ I said, and he laughed and went on. -Thought I was joking and I thought he simply remembered seeing me with -Dot before I came over and he got mixed on his time. I wasn’t sure even -that Dot had stayed at the Sparlings’, so I asked some more people who -had just come over; and they’d just left her at the Sparlings’ with -_me_, Steve!” - -I didn’t try to say anything now; he was trying to tell me as quickly -as he could. - -“They were positive about it and wondered how I got over so quick. -Steve, I tell you it sent a shiver through me right then. I decided -to go back to the Sparlings’ to get her; so I ’phoned and Gibson, -Sparling’s man, you know, answered. I know his voice. I said: - -“‘Is Miss Crewe still there, Gibson?’ - -“‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Just in the next room.’ - -“‘Let me speak with her,’ I said. - -“‘Yes, sir,’ said Gibson. ‘Who shall I say?’ - -“‘Fanneal,’ I said. - -“‘Mr. Stephen Fanneal?’ said Gibson. - -“I thought everybody was going crazy; how could Gibson mix up your -voice and mine, Steve? ‘Jerry Fanneal,’ I told him, only to have him -come back with a ‘What, sir?’ So I told him again; and he gave me, ‘But -Mr. Jeremy Fanneal is here, sir.’ - -“That got a ‘what’ out of me, Steve. ‘Right there now?’ I got after -Gibson. - -“‘Yes, sir.’ - -“‘You can see him, Gibson?’ - -“‘Yes, sir; just this minute he passed in the hall with Miss Crewe.’ - -“‘Get him to the ’phone then, right away,’ I said. - -“‘What name shall I give him, sir?’ said Gibson. - -“‘Never mind the name. Tell him he’s wanted on the ’phone.’ And then, -by God, Steve, he talked to me!” - -I was leaning toward Jerry now. “Who?” - -“Myself, Steve! Don’t look at me as if I’m a loon. I tell you that -fellow who came to the ’phone gave me a jump higher than yours. -He didn’t talk exactly like me; I mean, didn’t say words I’d have -said--quite; but he said ’em the way I speak, Steve. After I’d heard -him, ‘Who in the devil are you?’ I said. - -“‘Jerry Fanneal,’ he said, cool. ‘Who’s this?’ - -“Of course that left me without a comeback! ‘You’re with Dorothy -Crewe?’ I said. ‘Let me talk to her!’ - -“‘All right,’ he said; and like a fool I waited three minutes for -somebody to come. Of course nobody did; and I couldn’t rouse anybody -else; he’d left the receiver off. But in four minutes I came to and -grabbed a cab and got over to the Sparlings’ to find I’d just gone -half a minute before with Dorothy. I’d taken her alone in a cab for -the Drake; they wanted to know what was the matter; why I’d come back? -Where was Dorothy? I didn’t wait to explain; I cut back to the Drake; -but she didn’t come; and I didn’t come! I mean the other fellow that -was me never showed up anywhere. Nobody saw more of us than me after -that. There I was, all right; where was Dorothy? - -“By God, Steve; it’s near three now; and she never came; she’s not -gone home or anywhere else where she would go. If it wasn’t for those -damned diamonds and sapphires they hung on her to-night, I might -believe there’s a chance for a joke somewhere. But she’s a couple of -hundred thousand on her neck to-night; or anyway, she had, Steve. And -the papers were telling all about it; ‘Harrison Crewe brings to Chicago -royal jewels’ and all that stuff; you saw it, Steve.--I’ve been to the -Crewes’; just came from them. They don’t think anything’s happened; -nothing’s ever happened in their family, you know. Things only happen -to other people--things like what may be happening to Dorothy, Steve! -Of course I couldn’t make myself awfully clear; all they feel what -has happened is that Dorothy, probably for good reasons of her own, -dropped me and went off from the Sparlings’ with somebody else and I’m -overexcited about it. They don’t think it’s time yet to call in the -police. You know them; I worried them but not to the point of having in -the police and the newspapers on an affair of their own. But I called -headquarters on my way out of their building, from the porter’s room -under their apartment. Told police to call me here; so you’ll take any -call for me, won’t you? I’m going out on the street again and I’ll -’phone you for report within every fifteen minutes. Have it now, Steve?” - -“Yes,” I said, to try to help him. It wasn’t true, yet truer, perhaps -than “no”; for I did have the essential fact which was that he -tremendously feared that harm had come to Dorothy Crewe through an -extraordinary event which he, himself, could not yet make out. - -“Get dressed then, Steve; and stay here for me.” - -I stood up; he stared me over again and started for the door but -caught at my telephone on the stand in the corner. It is an extension -of one of the instruments downstairs and the bell is below; but it -can be plainly heard in my room, especially at night. It had not even -jingled, I’m sure. So Jerry’s grab at the receiver was solely from his -impatience; and when he had it up, no one was on the line; he had to -give central the order: “Police; central detective bureau.” When he had -them, “This is Jeremy Fanneal, of ----” he gave our telephone number -and house number on Astor Street. “I called you a while ago asking you -to call me immediately if you---- _What?_” Then I was trying to get -to him; but he heard it first. “Steve! They have her! They found her -in the street in her blue dress and her light hair! Dot, Steve! Her -necklace is gone but there’s marks.--Oh, Steve, they’re waiting for me -to come and identify her.” - -I took hold of him. “She’s dead?” - -“They think so; or as good as dead.” - -I held to him. “You wait for me,” I said, “or I’ll not let you go. -You’ll save time in the end. Your word, Jerry.” - -He looked at me straight. “You’ll jump, Steve,” was all he said. - - - - -II - -AND ESCAPES FROM BOTH. - - -I got into my clothes in a minute; Jerry hadn’t been able to remain in -the house, but I found him walking up and down beside the cab which he -had kept. - -“Chicago Avenue police station,” he said to the driver, and he was in -ahead of me. “They took her there,” he told me, “from where they found -her--on West Division Street near the river.” - -He had no doubt whatever that she was Dorothy Crewe--his Dot whom he -had loved; and, for what had come to her, he was holding himself guilty. - -“Steve, she thought she was going with me!” he cried out. “It was my -Keeban! There is a Keeban, you see; my Keeban took her away and killed -her!” - -I jerked in spite of myself. You, of course, cannot understand -why without this word of explanation. Jerry and I, as most of our -acquaintances know--and the Chicago papers, in their occasional -discussions of the Fanneals, always veiledly refer to the fact--are not -blood brothers. It is a perfectly evident fact to any one who has seen -both of us; for I am the Fanneal type,--tall and with big bones, strong -and spare in flesh but slow moving; my features are Rhode Island Yankee -transplanted to Illinois, regular enough but too angular; too much -nose, a bit too much chin, also. My hair is sandy brown; my eyes blue. -Jerry’s eyes are blue but mine have no quality of the living color of -his; when I set the word down, it suggests that our eyes, at least, are -alike, whereas we are nowhere more different. Mine are merchants’ eyes, -come down from ten recorded generations of cautious traders; Jerry’s -are--who knows? Jerry’s long, graceful body is not so strong but twice -as quick as mine; Jerry’s clear, dark skin and his soft, black hair on -his daredevil head; his small-boned but strong hands; the laugh and -the lilt of him and his _élan_ are--French, perhaps? Or Spanish, or -Italian? All three together or none, but some other marvellous blend -of energetic, passionate people? No one can say, least of all, Jerry -himself. For one day, when I was about two years old and my nurse had -me playing carefully by myself in a selected and remote spot in Lincoln -Park, Jerry appeared under the trees and ran across the grass to play -with me. Of course my nurse immediately jumped to protect me from -contamination from a dark stranger, though it is remembered that he -was clean and nicely clothed; she tried to send him away and, when he -wouldn’t go but eluded her and hugged me--and I hugged him--she parted -us and tried to take him back to his mother. But she couldn’t find -his mother or any one else who claimed him; she couldn’t find even a -policeman. (Obviously I had no memory of my own about this but was told -it long afterwards.) Then my mother was driven by that way and found -Jerry and me together. - -It seemed that mother considered my nurse to blame for Jerry becoming -detached from his own party; my mother always fixed blame for -occurrences; also, she always felt responsibility. She felt that now -for Jerry and took him in her carriage and brought him home where she -kept him isolated in a guest room while she had the police notified -and advertisements put in the papers. She said she would persist in -efforts to return Jerry to his parents until she got results; the -authorities--she thought--were too careless about such matters and too -soon gave up, and merely sent a child to an institution. Accordingly, -Jerry remained at our house; and then, when my mother’s efforts -brought no result, she still kept him. A child’s specialist examined -him and found him reassuringly sound, with excellent development, -no ascertainable defects or hereditary taints, all senses acute, -and decidedly “bright.” Apparently, he was about two years old; “of -European parentage” was as far as the doctor would commit himself. - -“French,” my mother decided. “He says his name is ‘Jerry.’ I don’t -think that it is his name; it probably represents ‘mon cheri.’” - -“Spanish,” my father always said, for no reason, I believe, other than -he thought my mother was too positive and also he particularly liked -the Spanish. They couldn’t help liking Jerry, who knew, besides his -name, only the usual hundred or so ordinary words which a child picks -up first; English words, they were, at first spoken with a marked -French accent, my mother said. - -So they let Jerry and me play together; I was an only child. A -companion, therefore, was “good for me”; and we have been together -ever since. I cannot remember a time when there was not Jerry; he -cannot consciously recall any home previous to ours or any one previous -to us,--besides the nameless “mama” and “papa” whom he asked for, at -first, and “Keeban.” - -Keeban, apparently, was another child; a brother or sister; or perhaps -only a playmate. Jerry could not describe him, of course; he could only -go about looking for and asking for Keeban. Naturally, as time went on, -my mother and father replaced Jerry’s own nameless mama and papa; but I -never replaced Keeban; and Jerry never forgot him. As we became older, -Jerry’s idea of Keeban became at the same time more imaginary and more -definite; for Keeban changed from some one for whom Jerry searched to -some one always with us,--an imaginary companion, a third to us two, -interesting, always up to something and most convenient to accuse when -we were caught in heinous wrong. - -I can remember, when we were about seven, asking Jerry what Keeban was -like. I did not consider that Keeban represented a real person; he was, -to me, merely one of Jerry’s interesting imaginations. - -“Keeban,” said Jerry, “is another me. Don’t you never have a Keeban, -too?” - -“No,” I said; but I had Jerry’s--that other imaginary boy, the -duplicate of Jerry, who came to see us, whom we played with, who did -extraordinary things and went away. Then, gradually, we dropped him; -that is, Jerry ceased to mention him and we stopped having him “come.” -I think I forgot him until we were in Princeton University together; a -lot of us had been to New York over the week-end and after we’d been -back a few days, Jim Townsend dropped into Jerry’s and my room, when -Jerry was out, and said: - -“Steve, I wouldn’t say a word against Jerry to anybody but you; but you -ought to know how queer he is sometimes.” - -“When?” I said. - -“Last Saturday in New York; I was down on the east side with a bunch -of our class, just knocking about the ordinary way, when we ran on -Jerry in a rum lot, I tell you. He pretended not to recognize any of -us; in fact, he was in a bunch that tried to rough us; we had rather -a go. When it was over, I got at Jerry, he made me so damn mad going -in with that lot of muckers against us. I told him what I thought and -he looked at me as cool as could be. ‘Who do you think I am?’ he asked -me, as though I didn’t know him in Bowery ‘suitings’; for he had on -the whole get-up of his friends, Steve. I gave him up, I tell you; and -he wasn’t drunk, either. Since he didn’t know me, I decided I wouldn’t -know him, next time I saw him here; so I passed him outside just now -without speaking. He came after me and asked why. I told him; and what -do you suppose he did? Denied he’d even been on the east side Saturday; -he said I hadn’t seen him; that wasn’t he.” - -“It wasn’t, Jim,” I said. “Jerry was with me all Saturday on Broadway. -We never got east of Fifth Avenue at all.” - -“That’s right, Steve. Stand up for him; I would, too,” Jim said; and -nothing I could say would shake him that he’d seen Jerry. He was so -sure about it, and so were the rest of the bunch who’d been with him, -that it got me wondering, particularly when I remembered later that -Jerry hadn’t stayed with me all Saturday; we were separated for a -couple of hours. - -I said nothing to him about it; and it soon blew over until, a couple -of months later, another bunch of fellows from the college ran into -Jerry on the same side of town, but peacefully, this time; so -peacefully, in fact, that he borrowed a hundred dollars from them. Said -he would be in trouble down there unless he had the money. I heard -about this from several men and then from Jerry. - -“Tell me straight, Steve; do you believe I do queer things?” he asked -me suddenly one night. - -“Of course not,” I said. - -“I know you wouldn’t think it when I’m myself; but do you think there’s -a chance that sometimes I’m not myself and I go queer--like that fight -with Jim Townsend a few weeks ago; and borrowing a hundred dollars from -Davis in New York last Saturday. I swear to you, Steve, I haven’t the -slightest remembrance of even seeing Fred or any of the fellows with -him who saw me and saw him hand me the hundred.” - -“They must have gone queer themselves,” I said. - -“No,” said Jerry. “What they say is true. I don’t remember seeing them; -but I feel it.” - -“Feel what?” I said. - -“That they did meet me; for there’s another me about, Steve; you know -I’ve felt that. I know now he must be one of two things--either another -personality living in me which turns Jerry Fanneal off, sometimes, -and turns on--Keeban, Steve, like the dual personality cases in -the psychology books; or he must be a real, physical duplicate of -me--Keeban; that’s possible, too, of course. But the way I feel him -usually is another way; and the one way he can’t possibly be; he seems -to be me going on and growing up and living my life, as it would have -been, if I’d never come to you, Steve. So, that way, sometimes he seems -more me than myself; for I seem to be somebody else and he, when I -think of him that way, seems to be me.” - -We couldn’t get any further than that; Jerry and I went to New York -the next day and poked about the district where Davis claimed to have -met Jerry, but we couldn’t find trace of anybody like him. Jerry paid -the hundred to Davis, I remember; he considered himself in some way -responsible and soon the incident passed off as the fight had; Jerry -lived it down and nothing like it occurred again for years, until this -night when Jerry, at the Drake, talked to himself at the Sparlings and -he went back to the Sparlings to learn that he had just that moment -gone out with Dorothy Crewe. - -If what Jerry had just told me was exactly true, there was--of -course--no explanation of it but one; there existed, physically, -another Jerry. I could not say to myself that Jerry had not told me -the truth as he knew it; but I could not help wondering how much of it -he knew. Was he actually at the Drake at the same time “he” also was at -the Sparlings’; could he have talked to “himself”; and done the other -things he related? Or was there, living outside of him most of the -time, Keeban--the man he would have become had he never come to us--who -occasionally, at long intervals, could take command of Jerry’s body? -That idea had never seized me until to-night as I sat beside him in the -cab which was hurrying us to the police station where Dorothy Crewe -lay; for now I no longer doubted, either, that she was Dot. - -Ahead on the dark and still street showed lighted windows and a police -ambulance stood end to the curb; we saw it was empty and so we went at -once into the station. - -In a little, dingy room a girl lay on the stretcher by which she had -been carried; an ambulance doctor and two police detectives bent over -her. The police turned to us when we entered. - -Jerry stepped ahead of me but over his shoulder I saw Dorothy Crewe. -She lay almost as if she were asleep in her pale blue dress in which -she had danced that night; her hair was beautiful as ever--corn-color -hair, little disarranged; her face and neck and arms were white and run -with red where cuts and scratches showed. There were signs of street -soil on her dress but none on her body; some one had washed them away. - -“She’s not dead!” Jerry cried; then, in a whisper, “How is she?” - -Said the ambulance surgeon, “We don’t know.” - -“But she’s not dead!” - -“No; not yet, anyway.” - -Jerry’s face hovered over hers as he searched hers; then, very softly, -he kissed her. “You’ll not die!” he whispered to her; then, to the -surgeon, “Don’t let her die, doctor,” he said. - -“What’s happened here?” I asked the officers. - -It seemed that she’d been found in the street by a patrolman walking -his beat; he thought she was dead so he sent her to the station. Now, -having found life in her, the doctor was for taking her to a hospital; -but he honestly thought it no use at all. - -“What do you know?” the police came back at us. - -“She’s Dorothy Crewe,” Jerry told them, and added her father’s name and -number of his home. “To-night I took her to a dance at the Sparlings’. -She had a necklace--here.” - -Gently he touched her throat where were marks made by him who had -snatched at her necklace and torn it away. - -“Diamonds and sapphires,” Jerry went on and seemed to forget what he -said. - -A police captain named Mullaney kept at me. “When did she leave Mr. -Sparling’s?” - -“About half-past twelve,” I said. “She was going from there to a dance -at the Drake hotel given by Mr. Casoway. She never arrived there.” - -“Go on,” said the captain. - -Jerry went on. “She left the Sparlings’ wearing, besides what she has -on, a blue silk cloak and a necklace of diamonds and sapphires on a -platinum chain, which her father brought her from Paris.” - -“Perhaps you’ve read about it,” I put in. “They were supposed to be -worth a quarter million.” - -“I suppose,” said Jerry, “they were gone when you found her.” - -“She had on her a quarter million in stones!” the captain repeated. -“Well, that makes it some plainer, sir. They was off her when we found -her. Now go right on, Mr. Fanneal. She left Mr. Sparling’s big house on -the Drive to go to the Drake hotel at half-past twelve, you say? She -didn’t go off, at that hour, alone?” - -Jerry swung quickly and looked at me. “I’ll tell ’em, Steve!” - -“Go ahead,” I said. God knows, I didn’t want to. I had no idea how to -tell it; my thoughts, on the subject of Keeban, were absolutely a blob, -just then. - -“She did not leave alone, Captain,” Jerry told. “There is some -confusion over who she went with. That was why, when she did not come -to the Drake or return home, we became alarmed and I telephoned to you. -Some people thought she went away with me; but she did not.” - -“Go on,” said Mullaney again. - -“You’ll find a good many that say she went with me, Captain; Gibson, -the doorman, and probably Mrs. Sparling and some of the guests. But it -wasn’t me, Captain.” - -Mullaney squinted his eyes as he looked at Jerry and then he looked at -me. - -“Where was you, Mr. Steve Fanneal?” he challenged. - -“I’d gone home, then.” - -“Then where was you?” he swung back to Jerry. - -“I’d gone to the Drake.” - -“Leavin’ your partner at Mr. Sparling’s? I thought you said you took -her there.” - -“I did.” - -“Then why didn’t you take her away?” - -“I’ll tell him, Jerry,” I said; for I felt the sudden strength of his -suspicion. At first, he had spoken alike to Jerry and to me; but now he -treated me and my word in one way and Jerry and his word in another. I -was the known, actual son of Austin Fanneal; Jerry, as everybody knew, -was the waif of any blood from anywhere. - -“You can’t, Steve,” Jerry warned. - -But there, like the fool I was, I started to tell. - -Two big men in uniform came in and each took an arm of Jerry. - -The doctor was doing things during most of this time; now and then I -noticed a hypodermic needle. - -Dorothy Crewe breathed and her eyelids fluttered; she opened her eyes. - -Only the grimy ceiling was in her sight; she stared at this and then -saw a blue coat, and some realization and remembrance began to reach -her; and she jerked and shivered violently. - -Jerry started to her, pulling the two big men with him. The motion made -her turn her eyes and she saw Jerry; and she screamed! - -It sent me shaking; it dropped Jerry down, hiding his face. She was -convulsing in a spasm of hysteria. “He! He! He! He!----” She seemed to -try to cry “He did it” but she could only scream “he, he,” until it -went into a crazy laugh. - -The doctor tried to calm her; the big men dragged Jerry away. He was -making no resistance, God knows; he was limp. Could a man go against a -thing more awful than he’d just met? Here was the girl he loved; she’d -trusted herself to him and she believed that, for the diamonds about -her neck, he’d attacked her! - -She told something more in that scream of a laugh; she told a little, -at least, of how she had struggled before she’d been strangled and -knocked senseless and thrown into the street. And she had thought Jerry -did it! - -I stepped along beside him. “Keeban,” he whispered desperately to me. -“You see there’s Keeban.” - -It meant nothing at all to the police. To me? What did I know? - -“Go back to her, Steve,” Jerry begged. “But, old fellow!” he held me. - -“What?” - -“You’ll believe there’s Keeban? Think, Steve! If you don’t, you’ll -believe I did that!” - -“No! I know you couldn’t.” - -“And you’ll keep on knowing? You’ll always know?” - -“Jerry!” I cried. - -“Your word, Steve?” - -“Of course.” - -“Go back, now, to her.” - -I left him to be dragged, limp, down the corridor between the big, -uniformed men. - -In the grimy room, Dorothy Crewe had lost consciousness again; she was -quiet; there was nothing I could do for her. - -A pair of shots sounded; a couple more, almost together; and yells. - -I knew the trouble before they shouted it to us; Jerry had got away. -Instantly, without a jerk of warning, he had sprung from their hands as -they dragged him, all limp the second before; he was out of a door and -gone; and their loud bullets bagged them nothing. - -They were all about the streets and alleys searching for him when I -came out to the ambulance beside the stretcher on which was Dorothy -Crewe. - -“I’ll not go with you to the hospital,” I told the surgeon. “I’ll go -to her people; don’t ’phone them.” And so, while the police looked for -Jerry, I went to Dorothy’s people and tried to tell them--Keeban. - -Keeban? Of course they did not believe. Stunned themselves, they -thought me mildly maddened by what had happened. Keeban! What did I -truthfully know of him? I got back home at last and stopped at Jerry’s -room, which had always been next to mine; I opened the door and in the -dark looked in. “Keeban!” I said to myself. “By God, there’s a Keeban; -there has to be!” - -And, careful not to wake my own people, I went into my room. - - - - -III - -I HAVE ENCOUNTER BY THE RIVER. - - -As long as I stayed by myself, I had some luck at believing; but there -was morning and the newspapers and telephone calls. I had to tell my -father then, and mother; and they talked with the police. They talked -with Mrs. Sparling and Gibson and fifty others who were at the dance. -And also they talked with Dorothy. - -She was conscious now but in complete collapse, and her prostration, -added to what she said, gave the final proof against Jerry. She’d loved -him, too, it seemed; and he’d attacked and robbed her. - -There’s no sense in stringing here the sensations the papers spread; -they were perfectly plain and obvious. “Foster Son of Millionaire -Attacks and Robs Society Girl”; and “Foundling of Fanneals Turns -Brute”; and “Waif Reared to Riches Reverts to Original Savagery” and -all that tosh. They dogged my people and me, the servants and even our -office force. They ran articles by “professors,” cheap alienists, -psychoanalysts and the rest of the ruck running after sensation. - -Jerry had “reverted”; that was the seed of their stuff. He carried -in his blood a “complex” which suddenly caused him to cast off all -the restraints and habits of thought and conduct which our family had -drilled into him and to plan and effect the robbery of the jewels about -Dorothy Crewe’s neck. The dance and drink that night had inflamed him, -they said; then something flared up inside him and he forgot all that -we had grafted into him, forgot even his own obvious advantage in -remaining the son of Austin Fanneal, for the “primordial, overpowering -instinct for violence.” - -I found nothing to put against all this. I talked to the people whom -Jerry had told me he’d seen at the Drake at the time when Gibson and -the rest said he was at the Sparlings’. Townsend and Sally Westman and -Downs admitted they’d seen Jerry at the Drake but they all believed -they’d become confused in guessing at the time. It was earlier that -he was over there, they thought; then he must have gone back to the -Sparlings’ and taken Dorothy away. I got no help from them. - -How could I tell them of Keeban? My own mother was sorry for me when -I told her. She took the strong line she always does; she considered -herself to blame for having taken in Jerry, twenty-eight years ago, and -with no knowledge of his blood, rearing a child with unknown capacities -for crime and putting him into a position to harm others. - -Dorothy’s people that day proclaimed a reward of ten thousand dollars -for the taking of Jerry Fanneal, dead or alive; and my father, on that -same day, put up ten more. He sent pictures of Jerry to all the papers -and himself supplied the minute descriptions telegraphed to St. Louis, -Cleveland, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, everywhere. - -They set the whole world after Jerry while I--I, in those days, went -down to business and tried to do it, there in my office with my name on -the door, next to the door which had borne Jerry’s name. - -But now his name was gone. They dissolved it with acid, so that no one -could see that the gold leaf on the glass had ever formed his initial; -and they burned every sheet of paper with his name on it. So there by -day, beside his empty office, I tried to do business and, when the day -was over, I walked by the river. - -The Chicago River, as many may know, cuts the city like a great, wide -Y with long, narrow, irregular arms, one reaching northwest and the -other southwest from the top of the short, straight shank which is the -east-and-west channel from Lake Michigan. Not to the lake, remember, -for the Chicago River flows in the opposite direction from the natural -current, since men have turned it around to carry water from the lake -up the shank of the Y and then up the southwest branch to the drainage -canal and to the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers. It is a useful, -but not the most fervent Chicagoan can call it a pleasing stream, even -in its valuable reaches on the main channel east and west, and where -the south branch turns past the most precious property of the city. - -Here and there are modern warehouses with a hundred yards or so of -decent, new dock between the bridges which cross the channel every -block or so, but most of the buildings forming the river bank show -straight up-and-down walls of narrow, tall, none-too-clean windows and -cheap brick, badly painted. At the bottom of the wall, there may be -only a pile strip to support the structure, but more frequently the -buttress before the slow flow of the water is a couple of yards wide, -offering a loading platform for ships which may tie up alongside or for -the flat steam scows of the Merchants Lighterage Company which ply up -and down the river. - -Our building backs on the river, not far from its bend to the south -and frequently, at the end of the day’s work, Jerry and I would go -out by the river way and along on the strip of platform beside the -water. Instantly it took us from the world of streets and dust and -carts and trucks and taxicabs, from the traffic pound and clatter; -there a five-thousand-ton steamer, deep-laden, slips up beside one so -silently that you hardly hear the plash of the bow wave washing before -it and the lap of the eddies on the timber under your feet; you hear -the sudden, clear voices of seamen; bells sounding from engine-room -depths; now the whole air rumbles with a tremendous, unlandlike blast -as the vessel blows for the opening of the bridge, under which scurries -a black tug, lake bound, dipping her banded funnel for clearance. -Watermen scull an open boat across the oily current on river business -of their own. Before you and above reach the bridges bearing the -streets; but they seem now concerned with affairs of another world. - -No one else ever took that walk with Jerry and me; we had idled along -the river hours on end together, following the black band of the narrow -timber causeway above the water to which, here and there, elusive, -unidentified doors would open. Somewhere along there, if anywhere, -Jerry was likely to look for me, I thought, if he wanted me alone and -unwitnessed. So, after Jerry was gone, I kept up by myself the habit we -had formed together; and on the seventh night I came this way--it was -Monday evening and the ninth day after Jerry disappeared--one of those -doors to the water suddenly opened beside me. - -The hour, which was half-past five, was more afternoon than evening, -but the darkness was almost of night; for the month had turned to -November, and between the brick walls of the canyon where the black -river flowed there was less light from the sky than from the few -windows where yellow bulbs glowed. It was so cool as to feel frosty as -I walked against the fresh breeze blowing in from the lake. - -“Steve!” said a girl’s voice, hailing me. - -I turned, and, in the light which came through the doorway, I found -a trim young person gazing at me. As the illumination which came from -a single, unshaded electric bulb set on a blank wall opposite the -door was behind her, I could see at first only that she wore a dark, -tailored suit and a small, dark hat over hair which was unbobbed, -abundant and light in color--almost as light as Dorothy Crewe’s had -been. - -“Steve, do you want to talk with Jerry?” she asked me calmly. “Come in, -then.” - -She stepped back, and I stepped after her. As soon as I was in, she -closed the door; and there was Jerry standing in the corner back of the -door. - -“Hello, Steve,” he greeted me without emotion. - -“Hello, Jerry,” I said, and tried to show as little, but I was feeling -more than ever before in my life. For here we were, Jerry and I, who’d -spent all our lives together; here we were alone with that girl, who’d -evidently come with him. I looked at her again and made sure I didn’t -know her. - -“This is Christina, Steve,” Jerry told me in that same, dull voice, -purposely deadened to keep out emotion. “Christina,” he said to her, -“this is Steve.” - -“Who’s Christina, Jerry?” I said; stupid thing to ask. He knew it was -stupid and he smiled, as Jerry always did; he was used to my being -stupid. He simply nodded toward her to say, “You see; there she is.” - -I stared from her and looked about the room, which was a square, bare -place with whitewashed walls, corresponding to an ordinary cellar room. - -Considered from the street side of the building, a hundred feet or so -away, it was a cellar, though its riverside door was eight or ten feet -above the water. A single window, with a drawn blind, was beside that -door; in the opposite wall, beside the light, was another door, leading -either to a basement cavern which could have no outside light, or to a -stair; I could not know, for the door was closed and bolted. - -The floor was cracked cement, strewn with straw and wisps of excelsior; -old, open boxes and barrels stood about and a broken desk and chairs. -Evidently the place had once been used as a shipping room but had been -deserted. I tried to locate it in connection with some particular -building, but failed, for I had not kept track how far I’d walked. - -Suddenly Jerry told me, as though he’d seen my thought, “We’re back of -Linthrop’s old warehouse, Steve.” - -Then I knew that the building above us was empty; and I knew, as I -gazed at Jerry, that he’d chosen this place to stop me because of his -uncertainty of me. - -And here I stood before Jerry shaking with my uncertainty of him! He -saw it. An impulse swept over me to seize him and drag him through -that door to an arrest; for the instant, I stood before Jerry, not as -his brother who believed in him--I who had given my word to believe -in him--but as a representative of society which hunted him for his -treacherous, savage attack upon Dorothy Crewe. For the instant, I saw -him as others thought,--my brother with a beast inside him which had -struck, through him, at Dorothy Crewe. - -Then the sight of his face heaped upon me too many other memories of -Jerry and me through twenty-eight years. He was not quite as he had -been; how could he be? He was hunted for crime; for nine days he had -known that all his world--all the world which we had made his--believed -he had committed that attack on Dorothy Crewe. And she had believed! - -So it showed in his eyes; it lined his lip stiffer and more defiantly; -it cast something harder into his whole countenance. Of course his -clothes made him different, too, for he had on a heavy, badly cut suit -of cheap wool such as roustabouts and deckhands wear; he had a Mackinaw -coat and cap on the chair behind him. - -“I’ve got to get out, Steve,” he said to me. “That’s why I stopped you.” - -“You’ve been here all the time?” - -He nodded. “In Chicago,” he said. - -The girl had been keeping away from us, but she stepped up beside him; -and I saw again the corn color of her hair, which was like Dorothy -Crewe’s. She had blue eyes, too; otherwise, she was not like Dorothy. -She was pert and bold, this girl--a sort to get what she went after. -What was she to Jerry? I wondered. Where had he found her? What was her -business here to-night with him? - -“He’s got to have coin, Steve, don’t you see?” she said to me. - -“Why?” - -“Why?” She laughed at me. “Ain’t nobody after him? Oh, perhaps you -ain’t heard? You don’t read the papers; maybe you don’t read. Can’t -Steve read, Jerry?” - -Jerry made no reply but to shake his head a little at her; then he -watched me. - -“D’you suppose,” Christina continued to me, “it’s worth nothing to -nobody--whoever sees him or gives him a hand or a cot or a meal--to -do a squeal? Is everybody in this city so elegantly fixed that nobody -could possibly find any use for twenty thousand smackers?” - -“Keep still, Christina,” Jerry said. - -“How much do you need?” I asked him. - -“How much can you drag with you?” the girl kept at me. “When you got to -buy yourself past bulls and beefers, who can drag down twenty thou by -simply settin’ the squeal, how far do you suppose a dime’ll go toward -squarin’ ’em?” - -“Cut it, Christina,” Jerry said this time. “Steve doesn’t know how to -be mean.” - -“Don’t this time,” she shot at me. “Have it with you along here at ten -to-morrow night. If the old man can stick up ten thou to get him, can’t -you find something like it to help him away?” And she switched out the -light. - -I replied but stood in the dark and heard the door to the warehouse -unbolted; I heard their steps within, echoing away. Outside, on the -platform beside the river, somebody approached but did not stop. The -warehouse went quiet and there was nobody by the river, so I stepped -out. - -Here I was, where I had gone in, and I tried to think how I’d changed -from ten minutes before. I’d talked to Jerry; or hadn’t I? - -It was strange that never once, when he was before me and I was -speaking to him, I doubted he was Jerry; yet I’d sworn to him, on that -night they arrested him, that I’d believe Keeban existed also; I’d -believe Keeban robbed Dorothy Crewe and threw her into the street. -Consequently, I ought to believe that the man with Christina might be -Keeban. But I didn’t; I didn’t believe in Keeban at all just now; and -yet a few minutes ago, I did. - -I went home and said nothing to my people; I said nothing about this -to any one at all. I stayed by myself that evening and, about eleven -o’clock, I walked down by the edge of the lake beyond that strip of -park which turns in front of the homes on the Drive and near which we -live. - -“Steve!” a voice whispered to me; and I jumped about. - -Jerry had come up beside me at the edge of the lake. This time he was -alone. - -He was not in deckhand’s garb and Mackinaw coat; he wore a plain, dark -jacket and felt hat. I could not plainly see his face; the light from -the lamps on the Drive gave me only glints on his cheekbone and nose -and chin and in his eyes turned to mine, but enough to make me know -Jerry. - -Then I remembered I’d known the man in the warehouse basement for Jerry -when he was speaking to me. - -“Hello,” I said. - -“Steve, he called on you to-day!” - -“Who?” - -“Keeban!” - -I stopped and thought a minute; and I was shaking. “Oh,” I asked him, -“where was that?” - -“You know,” he came back. “I don’t; but didn’t he see you?” - -“Yes,” I said; and went right on. “What was over our old beds when we -slept together in the north room?” - -“You didn’t ask him that?” this fellow said. - -“No; but I’m asking you.” - -“Oh, a picture of the _Constitution_ fighting the _Guerrière_, Steve, -you old fool!” - -“Anything peculiar about it?” - -“I’d cracked the glass across the lower right corner, shooting my air -rifle in the room, disobeying mother. She never would have it mended.” - -“What was opposite?” - -“The charge up San Juan hill. Anything else?” - -“No; that’s enough. You’re--Jerry. How do you know about that other -meeting?” - -“I don’t; that’s why I’m asking you. But I’ve been waiting for it and I -got the hunch he’d reached you to-day.” - -“Keeban?” - -“He goes by the name of Vine just now; Harry Vine. There was somebody -with him?” - -“A girl,” I admitted. - -“Light haired?” - -“As light,” I said slowly and deliberately, “as Dorothy Crewe’s.” - -He had to draw breath deep after that. “Steve, how _is_ Dot?” - -“Don’t you see the papers?” - -“Of course.” - -“Well, they’ve told the truth about her condition.” - -Again he drew deep breath; then he struck his hands together. “I’ll -cure her, Steve, by the only way. I’ll show her Keeban! But we’ve got -to be careful--awfully, awfully careful, don’t you see? I’ve got to -catch him, not scare him away. Suppose he goes off forever; suppose -he’s drowned, body lost; suppose he’s burnt; suppose a dozen wrong -things, Steve, and I can never show him. Then I’ve got to be Keeban -forever; nobody but you will ever believe! Will they?” - -“Nobody,” I agreed. - -“Come, then; to-morrow’s our chance. No word to the ‘bulls’ or he’ll -hear it and not show up. We have to handle this ourselves and close. -Who was with him? Christina?” - -“That’s what he called her.” - -“She talked for him?” - -“Come to think of it, Jerry, she did, mostly.” - -“That’s why he had her; my voice gives him most trouble. Sometimes he -gets it perfectly; then he goes off into things I’d never say. He knows -it but doesn’t know what to say. He’s so near perfect for me that he -fooled you, you see; no wonder he fooled Dot.” - -“No.” - -“What did he ask of you?” - -“Money.” - -“How much?” - -“He left that to me but suggested--Christina did--ten thousand dollars.” - -“Um,” said Jerry and set to thinking. - -I did some myself. “What did he want with ten thousand dollars if he -has Dorothy’s diamonds?” I demanded. - -Jerry gazed at me and smiled; I could see the glisten of his teeth. -“Don’t you and the pater keep going down to business, Steve? Pater -could buy ten strings like Dot’s, if he’d a mind to, of course; but I -never saw him refuse a chance to pick up a few thousand more. What’re -you going to do, Steve?” - -“That’s what I was down here for, thinking it out.” - -“Get the money, Steve. Draw it yourself from the bank. He’ll have you -watched so he’ll know whether you have. Then have it; and tell nobody -else but go to meet him.” - -“Alone?” - -“I’ll be there. Now, don’t you see?” - -“Yes,” I said. - -“Then you’ll do it?” - -“Yes.” - -“Great! Your hand on it, Steve!” - -I gave it and he grabbed me. “Now I’ve got to go. Hamlet’s father’s -ghost has nothing whatever on me! For a certain term, I can walk the -night; then, ‘fare thee well!’ One minute; suppose you meet my friend -before I do, don’t forget; don’t bother him with the battles of the War -of 1812 or San Juan Hill or test him on Hamlet. Just try to interest -him, till I arrive.” - -He stepped from me. “Don’t follow,” he asked, and I let him go; and -once more, when he was gone, I wondered what I knew. Two of them there -were, he said; but I had not yet seen two. - -Why could not both be Jerry--clever, quick-seeing Jerry? Suppose he had -known, after he’d met me in the room beside the river, that I was bound -to doubt and waver; and so he’d come with this scheme, this clever -scheme, to lead me on and make me give my word. Anyway, here I was with -my word given and my hand on it. - - - - -IV - -I SIT IN ON FATE. - - -I got the money next day; I took it myself from the bank. Also I got my -revolver and spent the evening in the city. About half an hour before -ten, I went to our offices and roused the watchman to let me in. I -pretended to work for a while and then let myself out the river door -and started down the black, narrow walk above the water. - -No one was anywhere about at that hour; not a window in the walls on -either side was alight. Ships slid in and out; one minute deckhands, -sailors and mates on watch would glide by within ten feet of me; the -next I was alone with black, locked doors on one side, the water on the -other. - -I heard my name whispered in Jerry’s voice. “You’ve got it?” the voice -said; and some one was beside me. - -This was Jerry of the Mackinaw coat, of the basement room and of the -companionship of Christina. If he were Keeban, I must hold him; I must -not question nor show doubt. If he were Jerry, I had nothing to do. - -“Here I am, Jerry,” I said. - -“Give it to me.” - -I kept him walking beside me until the faint light, which trickled down -over the bridge at the end of the block, showed me his face, Jerry’s -face; but, for all of that, also Keeban’s. - -“Satisfied now?” he asked me, laughing. “Come, Steve!” And he put his -hand on my wrist. I drew back, thinking that, if he were Keeban, he’d -murder me for ten thousand dollars if, for her necklace, he attacked -Dorothy Crewe. I had my hand on my revolver, yet he had the advantage -of me, for he could strike without warning and I must wait to see what -he meant to do. - -Down the river, a steamer blew for bridges; and, “Come now!” he said -again to me. - -Then some one else was there; some one else of his sort and burly in a -Mackinaw coat; and my wrist was my own; no one had hold of me. - -They were grappled together and together went down. - -“Stay out of this, Steve!” Jerry’s voice said to me; and some one -choked; some one gasped for breath. I bent over them and in that -trickle of light from the bridge, I saw a face--one face, Jerry’s. I -could not see the other. Then they turned; the one on top was on the -bottom but they were over again before I could see. There was Jerry’s -face once more. - -“Stay out, Steve!” - -They were throttling each other as they rolled; they came to the edge -of the water and I pulled them back, hauling on one and dragging the -two. - -A light was coming; soon I would see; for the boat, which had been -blowing for the bridges, was slipping up. I looked about to it; and -something happened; a splash below me. One of the two was gone; the -other, gasping, stood on the edge of the timbers, staring down and -moving along this way and that while he watched. - -I had my gun out now and shoved it against him. - -“Steve, you old fool,” he cried. “He broke my hold; he’s in the water! -Watch; where is he?” - -“You tell me this,” I came back at him. “What was the book we kept -first in the case at the edge of your bed? What were you always -reading? Damn you, tell me quick!” - -He laughed, sucking for breath. “‘Westward Ho,’ Steve, you old fool!” - -“And the next one? You hardly knew which was better.” - -“‘Kidnapped!’” - -“Jerry!” - -“Here’s the boat!” Jerry cried. “Damn him, he’ll get away!” For the -big hull, with her lights, her sprays of steam, her splash of screws, -was beside us. “He’s swum under water to the other side; he’s come up -there. He’s got away,” Jerry finished. - -Of course we waited till the ship was past and waited and searched long -after but found no one for our trouble. - -“Where’s the money?” Jerry asked me then. “You didn’t give it to him?” - -“He’s the one that met me first?” I said. - -“Yes; of course. Did you give it to him?” - -“No; I didn’t have it. I’m not the complete fool, Jerry. I got it from -the bank and left it in our office.” - -“Let’s go there.” - -We entered our building by the river door and went up the back way to -my office. Jerry knew those stairs; he knew where to turn in the dark; -he found the light switch by feel and without fumbling. There was not -the slightest doubt, when the light came on, that I was with my brother -Jerry. My trouble was simply had I been with any one else? - -Of course I had seen some one else in a Mackinaw coat who had fought -with Jerry; but all I saw was his size and his coat; I never saw, -together, two faces which were Jerry’s. I could not help thinking this -as we sat down; I could not help wondering if all that business down -there beside the river was a set stage play of Jerry’s to fool me. - -He opened the drawer where I kept cigarettes and took one and lighted -it. “How’re sales?” he asked me. - -“Oh, fair.” - -“Tell me, did Smetsheen, in Minneapolis, pay his account?” - -“In full, yesterday. You keep on thinking about the office, Jerry?” - -“To tell the truth, not once till just now.” - -“Where have you been keeping yourself?” - -He smiled. “Moving mostly.” He walked to the door of the room which had -been his office and looked in. “Who’s there now?” - -“Nobody.” - -“Not waiting for me?” - -“I am,” I said. - -He shut the door, running his finger over the space where they’d -dissolved the gold letters of his name. “They’re right,” he commented. -“I’ll never be back--to stay; that is unless I’m caught before I catch -Keeban. He had a good idea for me on that money, Steve; I can use it. -Got it here?” - -I nodded. - -“Want to give it to me?” - -“There’s a squeal set against you which you’ve got to square?” I asked. - -“Who told you that?” - -“Christina.” - -“Haven’t you got us mixed now?” He looked at me. - -“Maybe,” I said, boldly. - -He got up. “Keep your damn money. By God, you, Steve----” - -I got up and pushed him down into his chair. “I don’t deserve that. You -know it.” - -He laughed. “You sure don’t. Old Top, I had a hundred on me that night -at the station; it’s spent. Problem; how to live? Bigger problem; how -to entertain? I might blow a peter, work a second story, stick up a -store, scratch some paper; but non-felonious endeavor, old Bean, is -absolutely closed to me. I’ll come to some of the big-time stuff; I’ll -have to, if I keep my place; but I can’t help a certain prejudice in -favor of postponing it as long as possible. Meantime, I’ve simply got -to entertain. I’m supposed to have rocks worth a quarter million, you -see.” - -“You mean, in the underworld, of course you’re Keeban.” - -He laughed. “Underworld’s good, Steve. Marvellous how the human race -laps up that ‘up’ and ‘down’ rot. We simply have to have it, heaven and -hell, above and below. Who believes in either as a place? Think it out -a second, Steve; where, exactly, d’you suppose is the underworld?” - -“Why,” I said. “South State Street, partly; and part of the west side. -Down in New York along the Bowery, in spots, and near the east end -docks.” - -Jerry shook his head, still smiling. - -“Where is it, then?” I retorted. - -“Where’s hell, Steve, these days?” - -“Why,” I said, “within one.” - -“That’s it; there’s where’s the underworld, too. Among those who carry -the underworld within their breasts, I’m Keeban; and therefore needing, -more or less immediately,” his tone trailed off practically, “as much -of ten thousand dollars as you’ve got in that peter behind you and -which you feel inclined to give. It’ll go to good use, Steve; great -use! No sense trying to tell you now. Take Christina, for an example. -You saw her last night.” - -“Of course.” - -“Recognize her?” - -“No,” I said, but I wondered; and at his hint, something stirred in my -memory. - -“Think red hair, not yellow.” - -I couldn’t, to any use; yet now I was sure I had seen her. More -than that, I’d known her, and I groped for her name and her right -association, in my memory. - -“Who is she, Jerry?” - -He shook his head. “Not now.” - -“Where’d I meet her before?” - -He smiled again. “In the underworld, one time you went there.” - -“You mean that time you and I went down South State Street to----” - -“There you go, thinking up a place again, whereas, old Top, the place -was most proper; polite, in fact, and almost in our highest circles. -The only underworld about was the bit she packed with her; but it was -quite a bit, believe me. And it’s growing.” - -“That means,” I guessed, “something’s going to happen where she is?” - -Jerry looked away and thought and looked again at me. “That’s one place -something’s fairly sure to happen soon; of course, there are several -others. It’s funny, Steve, to see ourselves now.” - -“From where you are, you mean?” - -“That’s it. Take me, for instance, as I was. Down there, in the east -end of New York, was my particular friend, Keeban. I knew nothing of -him; he knew nothing of me, probably, till a bunch from Princeton ran -onto him and took him for somebody they knew. They sure must have -puzzled him, but they started something in his head which he half tried -out by ‘touching’ another Princeton bunch for a hundred and getting it -from Davis. About that time--as long as eight years ago--Keeban ‘marked -up’ me.” - -“‘Marked up?’” I repeated. - -“Marked up my name on his board as good game for attention when he -could get around to me. What made him put it off so long, I don’t -know; probably he’d a lot of prospects chalked on his board ahead of -me; probably he felt he’d wait until he could put in the time to make -proper preparation to appear as me. He guessed he had a great chance -for a big haul; and--he made it.” - -Jerry went pale and looked down. “There’s many more marked up on -Keeban’s board and on others’. I know some of the names marked up and -something about what’s going to occur to them. It’s a little like -sitting in on fate, Steve,” he said, color coming back to his face, “to -see this man’s number and that creeping up to the top of the board; to -a limited extent, one knows what’s behind to-morrow, what’s going to -happen. Here’s a man you know and I know and, to all appearances, he’s -sitting secure; but on Harry Vine’s board, we’ll say, his number is up -toward the top. He doesn’t guess it and you can’t nor anybody else in -the city; but at a certain time, and at a certain place and exactly in -one way, he’s going to die; and that’s all there is to it.” - -“Who’re you talking about, Jerry?” I demanded. - -He changed swiftly. “Nobody; just talk. What was I up here for, -anyway?” - -“I left the money up here,” I reminded. “We came up to get it.” - -“Why don’t you, then?” - -I turned to the safe and spun the combination. When I touched the -banknotes, I thought to compromise with myself, give him some but not -all. Like Jerry, he guessed it. - -“All or none, Steve,” he said. - -I gave him all. - -“That’ll be useful.” - -“Wait!” I held him. - -“Want it back?” - -“No. You’re sitting in on fate, you said,” I went at him. “You know -what crimes are going to be committed; then why don’t you stop them?” - -He laughed. “After I’d stopped the first, wouldn’t I soon cease to -know? Old Top, a man in my position has rather to pick and choose. -He can stop one, perhaps; then let it be a good one! Besides, that’s -not my business now; I’m getting Keeban. Yet, if certain names get to -the top of the board, I’ll call you--perhaps. On your own wire. Now -Hamlet’s father’s ghost again. G’night, Steve.” He left me. - -Sometimes, when I thought it over, I believed Jerry and Keeban, -separate people, had met me that night; sometimes I was sure that Jerry -had worked ten thousand dollars out of me. I would analyze his talk -and realize how he led me along, shifting from direct discussion of -the money to his hints about Christina and the numbers coming “up” and -then, after making me interested in this, how he got the money from me. - -But one thing was true and undeniable; I did know Christina. Many times -during the following days I tried to place her, but never did until -that call reached me about the next “number up.” - - - - -V - -THE UNDERWORLD INTRUDES. - - -It came completely out of the blue. Ten minutes to twelve, noon, was -the time; and no doings could have been more dull and drab than mine -the minute before the buzzer under my desk rattled my “personal” call. -This meant my private wire, which did not run through the office -switchboard and which had no published number in the telephone book; -so, when my buzzer jerked, Miss Severns always left the call to me and -quietly rose and vanished from my room. - -She always acted as though I owned some enormous, private intrigue -into which her ear must not pry, whereas the truth was that line never -carried any conversation more bizarre than my mother’s voice reminding -me to meet Aunt Charlotte on the Lake Shore Limited; or perhaps mother -wanted to be sure I had my rubbers; or else Jim Townsend might be -after me for a round of golf at Indian Hill. Consequently I liked the -compliment of Miss Severns’s silent disappearance; but I bet she knew -the truth. Anyway, now she got out and so I was there alone. - -I had nothing at all on my mind; I had been just finishing a letter -to Red Wing about those five carloads of Minnesota potatoes which we -had found somewhat nipped by frost and I’d begun the phrasing, in my -head, of a crisp, businesslike note to Baraboo, Wisconsin, about a -shipment of presumably dried lima beans which must have been caught in -the rain somewhere. From which you may gather that Austin Fanneal and -Company are wholesalers, packers, canners and jobbers of food; a sound -profitable business and socially absolutely all right in Chicago, but -still it’s not the most enthralling pursuit here. I must admit it had -its dull spots, even for me; but I was up to my eyes in it; for, as -I’ve mentioned, I was the only child; father was over sixty; and I knew -that some day I must carry on. So there I was cheerily concentrating on -the most polite yet effective phrase for telling the Baraboo commission -house that their beans had got wet; and the world was to me a wan -expanse of farmers dragging bean vines, Wisconsin warehouses, city -grocery stores and delicatessens and flat buildings full of clamorous -families shrieking for food. Then that buzz; Miss Severns on her feet -and out of the office; the door shut and, as I spoke, I heard Jerry’s -voice: - -“Steve!” - -“Old fellow, hello! Where are you?” - -That was a foolish question, I knew before I got it out. He disregarded -it entirely. - -“Put your mind on Winton Scofield, Steve. Don’t let him ride home in -his own car to-night; make him take a taxi.” - -“Why?” I cut in before taking time to think. Of course, Jerry could not -tell me. It was perfectly plain from his voice that, wherever he was, -he had only a few seconds in which to speak to me; and if anything was -plainer, it was that his situation precluded explanations. - -“Make him!” Jerry repeated quickly. “And don’t let him know he’s being -made. Don’t say a word of this to any one, whatever happens!” - -And the wire at the other end went dead; but I continued to hold the -receiver until central’s voice briskly inquired, “Number, please?” - -So I hung up and sat staring down on the pile of correspondence about -potatoes and beans and canned cherries; but my world was no waste of -brown bean stalks and pickley delicatessen shops; nor was my world the -usual dreary array of my own social sort,--those who have big homes -on the Lake Shore Drive and on Astor Street and in Winnetka and Lake -Forest; who have coveys of servants, of course, and put up a parade -of cars and clubs and country places and everything else that looks -impressive from outside but inside is duller than Deuteronomy. - -They’ve pretty sets of silver and gold things about, naturally; and -they’ve a good deal of platinum, too, with diamonds and rubies and -sapphires and those green stones--oh, emeralds--stuck in. They’ve big -bank accounts and a lot of other venal environment too tiresome to give -you a thrill until you hear, all of a sudden, it has unduly tempted a -gentleman from a stratum quite different but yet extremely adjacent to -your own and the gentleman is likely to use some exceedingly direct, -not to say personal, methods of getting your environment--and you. - -For that was what Jerry’s call meant. Win Scofield’s name had crept to -the top of somebody’s board in the free society of the gentlemen--and -their lady friends--of the “gat” and the “soup job,” the “Hunk” -and the “bump off”; in that region, where Jerry had gone, Winton -Scofield’s number was “up”; he had been chalked for a “croaking.” -And as I sat there staring and wondering why and how, suddenly I -ceased to have difficulty in thinking red hair, instead of yellow, -upon Christina, the riverside companion of Keeban. I “placed” her and -knew her name and her association and where I had met her; for she -was Winton Scofield’s wife. Of course she was; that was it! What an -extension of the underworld into the polite world of my own! - -Of course I realized that, as Jerry had said, I was thinking like -a child; for the underworld’s not a compact, separate region; its -territory is wherever its citizens set foot; and this may be at your -office door? At the threshold of your servant’s hall? On the step of -your town car? Who knows? For obviously it’s not a place at all but a -contact, an association, a habit of conduct, an attitude toward life -and, more than incidentally, toward death. Why should I be surprised -that a citizeness had staked out a claim in the Scofield mansion? - -I tried not to be. “Old Win Scofield!” I thought. He was sitting -secure, if any one was, you’d say. But somewhere else Jerry was -sitting in on fate; he’d seen Win Scofield’s number come up to the top -of the rack at Keeban’s club; and his ’phoning me meant that an unusual -job was up. For Jerry had told me he would pick and choose and not try -to stop a job, unless it was a good one. - -“Say not a word to any one,” he’d told me; I took that to mean not to -say he’d warned me. It couldn’t mean that I wasn’t to get information. -So I took up my ’phone and called Fred, who was my particular friend in -the Scofield family. - -Winton, the old man, was his father; of course Christina, of the -alterable hair, wasn’t Fred’s mother; she was his father’s fourth, or -fifth wife. - -There was rather a lot of unpaid publicity about him when he got her; -and it turned on him, rather than on her, because he’d fallen for that -rejuvenation operation and, of course, he tried to have it secret. - -Naturally the newspapers learned and, as a result, Win Scofield -fled the town as soon as the hospital let him out. As secretly as -possible--that is, with only a few friends besides newspapermen and -film news service photographers present--he’d married Shirley Fendon, a -girl he’d met at a cabaret. Of course, being sixty-seven or so and she -twenty-two, he took her to Paris; but recently he’d slunk back to his -home city. - -Now it had never occurred to me until this moment that, in the general -excitement over Winton’s rejuvenation, nobody asked much about Shirley. -The spotlight simply wasn’t swung her way. - -There she was where several wives--three or four, I couldn’t -remember--had been before her and where, if rejuvenation really meant a -return to old Win’s youth, several more would stand again. - -The sons--they were Kenyon and Fred, about my own age and both by the -original Mrs. Winton Scofield--astutely realized this and did a little -deal in self-defense. They took over the grain business, when the old -man was honeymooning, retiring father on an income, leaving him no vote -or interest in the firm which a wife, past or present or future, could -attach. - -Perhaps this had something to do with his floating back to Chicago; -perhaps his present wife worked that for purposes about to become -plainer. - -I arranged for Fred to lunch with me and, as tactfully as possible, I -brought up the subject of father. - -When you’ve a pater who’s been flattered with the spread of news print -that had been lavished on Winton Scofield, he’s a bit difficult to -mention; but I managed to drift in a remark about him and I certainly -detonated something. Fred had been storing too much inside of him -concerning father and had required only the gentlest tap on the fuse to -cause him to explode. - -“Isn’t he absolutely ludicrous!” Fred shot at me. “Age, damn it, Steve, -age is no disgrace. It ought to be the noblest, most dignified stage of -a man’s development. What does Shakespeare say about age, ‘His silver -hairs will purchase good opinion!’ And Byron----” - -I let him rave on as it seemed to relieve him; I knew he wasn’t talking -to me so much as he was rehearsing father. - -“--he dyed his silver hairs twenty years back; and about the time the -tango came in, he began pumping his face full of paraffin. Occasionally -some of it slipped down in his cheek toward his chin.--Now I suppose -you’ve heard of his rejuvenation operation.” - -I thought for a while and admitted that I had. “Wasn’t it a success?” I -ventured. - -“A howling one--with father. He’s so young now he shouldn’t be married, -legally, not having his parents’ consent. He ought to go back and start -over at Andover Academy; in about four years, he’ll be ready for Yale -once more. Young? We’re the old men, Ken and me, Steve! He’s sure he’s -just fifteen; well, he surely acts it.” - -After this, I felt I could inquire, without seeming too personal, -“How’s he getting along with his new wife?” - -Fred jumped. “Good God! He hasn’t married again since yesterday -morning? I saw him then and----” - -“No,” I said. “I meant Shirley Fendon.” - -“Oh, you call her new?” Fred comprehended my peculiar point of view. -“He’s had her going on three months now.” - -“There’s trouble between them?” I persisted. - -“Of course,” said Fred, “being twenty-two, she’s a little old for him, -but they do bunny-dip beautifully together.” - -“Who was she?” I kept after Fred. - -“Who? Shirley? Why, you just said her name; Shirley Fendon she was.” - -“Wasn’t that just her cabaret name?” I inquired. - -“Well,” said Fred cautiously, “why go back of that? We were willing not -to.” - -“You’ve met any of her friends?” - -Fred shook his head. “That, at least, has been spared us.” - -I steered the talk around so I could ask after a while, “Your father -goes down to business now?” - -“You bet not! We see to that.” - -“Then what does he do?” - -“When he manages to break away from Shirley? Well, in spite of his -youth, he keeps up with some of his old friends; he likes his rubbers -of bridge, you know; so every other evening or so you’ll find the young -chap down at the club at his old place among the unrejuvenated.” - -“To-night, for instance?” - -“Friday; let’s see,” Fred considered. “Yes; he’ll be there to-night; -why?” - -Of course I didn’t tell him and I was more careful with my next remarks -which finally drew out the information that, on the nights when he -played bridge, Shirley, his wife--Christina, that was--herself drove -down with the chauffeur to bring him home. - -That made one thing clear to me, which was that the ride which Winton -Scofield must not take in his car to-night was the ride he would take -with his wife. I wanted to tell it all to Fred; but Jerry had warned me -not to. - -I was feeling quite comfortable over Jerry that day; I figured he -must be all right or he’d never have ’phoned me that warning. When I -returned to my office, I merely went through the motions of business -while I was waiting, really, for Jerry to call me again; but he did -not. So I set to working up a simple, obvious sort of scheme that any -one, in my place, might resort to. Likely enough, I thought, Jerry -would be satisfied with such a scheme; he would expect about that much -of me. - -I’d found out from Fred that his father’s bridge game broke up after -eleven; so at ten that night, to make my plan sure, I took my roadster -up through Lincoln Park and then up Sheridan Road to the big, new home -of Win Scofield. - -He’s had a new one for each new wife, each farther north by a mile or -so than the one just before; and as I went by them (the houses not the -wives, unless they happened to be in them) I checked up my count; four -before Shirley Fendon’s. - -She’d worked old Win for a wide, low, long shack of stone with plenty -of plate glass and colored decoration; stunning probably was the word -for it. The expense was patent. I didn’t know then that title to land -and building was in Fred and Ken; they were simply letting Win live in -the house on an allowance which certainly must have been liberal. - -The house had one front on the lake and another on the boulevard; and -at one end was a two-car garage. I parked my car below the house, went -by on foot and, looking into the garage, saw both cars within. - -It was easy to see, under the half-raised shades and between the -curtains of the house, that the mistress of the mansion was at home. - - - - -VI - -AND I FAIL TO PREVENT A BUMP-OFF. - - -Shirley was at her piano near a window facing the boulevard walk. As -the night was cool and therefore the window was down, I could not hear -what she played but her fingers moved over the keys and her red lips -parted and closed and her red head tossed with animation as she sang -her song. - -She sang to no one; at least, no one but she was visible from the walk. -Surely it was a light, happy song which she sang as she tossed her head -and smiled. Her hair was bobbed and it flung like fine spun bronze -about her pretty ears. I thought that if I could paint, I’d take a try -at her just now with the soft pink light of her piano lamp upon her. -I’d paint her as Youth--Youth and something else. Youth Enchained! - -No; that wouldn’t do. There should be something submissive, or at -least something pathetic about a young person enchained; and there -was nothing submissive about Shirley Fendon Scofield; and not the -slightest touch of pathos. Not at this moment, at least. Quite the -contrary. - -I am not a fanciful or figurative man; I can watch symbolic dancing -from Pavlova and Ukrainsky up and down and, unless I hold my programme -in a good light, the performance never brings to me any pervading sense -of “Dawn” or “Death,” of “The Swan” or “Wild Pansies.” But that dance -of Shirley Scofield’s gave me a thrill. - -It was a dance, almost, as she tossed and flung herself to the lilt of -the song I could not hear. Perhaps you say I took my thrill from the -programme which Jerry had furnished to me. Let it go at that; anyway, I -got it. Youth was set on snapping her chains to-night; and it was not -to be nice snapping. Not at all! Youth was wild, orgiastic, reckless -and bent on being free. - -I thought her over while I stood out there after her dance was done -and she had disappeared. Beyond any doubt, she was Christina. For her -appearance to me in that room beside the river, she’d assumed yellow -hair and a different dress and changed several other things; yet I was -sure of her. I wondered what was her place in the plot afoot to-night. - -I was looking in on a last act, I knew; the first had started long ago -when Win Scofield met her in some cabaret and she decided to marry him. -She might have been Keeban’s woman then, I thought; and he, hearing her -plan, had told her to go ahead. Or perhaps he had made the plan for -her, marking up Win Scofield on his board then; and to-night old Win’s -number had come to the top. - -I went down the street to my car and started the engine and kept it -going to be ready while I watched. Ten minutes past eleven, I saw a -light in Win Scofield’s garage; a black car came out and a girl got -into it. I waited until it was in the street and then, stepping on my -gas, I charged up the road and gave that black car all I had. - -It went into the curb and smashed a wheel and bent the axle too. I -wrecked my front, naturally. Shirley Scofield’s driver was out yelling -at me; he turned and opened the door of his car and switched on the -light and I saw Christina sitting in a corner. Youth snapping her -chains wasn’t there. A scared girl was, you’d think; but she wasn’t -scared. Not she! She was merely pretending to be frightened, while she -sat there mighty quiet and trying to size me up. - -She was wondering whether I recognized her from that room by the river, -I thought; she must have been wondering several other things. For one, -how did I happen to run into her just at this moment? For another, how -much did I know? - -One thing about me, I’m slow but I’m not expressive. I may be gradual -about getting a fact from somebody else but not many learn much from -me. In bridge, when I bid my hand, nobody’s sure whether I have the -cards or whether I’m just trying to force the other fellow up. To-night -I stepped up to the car as though I’d no idea who might be in it. - -“I hope you’re not hurt?” I started; and then, “Why, isn’t it Mrs. -Scofield?” - -She spoke my name; I said the obvious regrets and all that. She made -the ordinary replies. - -“I was going down after Mr. Scofield,” she mentioned and she spoke to -the chauffeur who had come about beside me. “Thurston, if you’ll get -out the other car now.” - -For a moment that stumped me; for if she was going to use another car, -I had to use another plan and I hadn’t another. My own machine, as I’ve -commented, was in no shape to respond to an encore on the act I’d just -finished. At this crisis, Thurston saved me. - -“You’re all shook up, Mrs. Scofield,” he told her; and then I was sure, -as I’d suspected before, that he was in on her game. He knew that I -hadn’t just accidentally run him down; and he had different ideas about -the advisability of trying their old plan with the other car. - -He was a thin, Cassius-looking driver of about thirty and of the sort -that smoke and dope, as well as think, too much. He was a smooth-shaven -chap and would be good looking if the bones of his cheeks were less -sharp. - -“I’m all right, Thurston,” she assured him; but I saw she was thinking -things over and sparring for time. - -“You’d better go back into the house and rest, Mrs. Scofield,” Thurston -suggested respectfully enough but strengthened the suggestion with a -jerk of his head which he supposed I didn’t see. - -Cars were stopping all about us and people piling out and asking -questions and offering help and so on. Shirley took Thurston’s tip and -let him and me assist her across the street into her house. - -She thanked me beautifully and tried at once to be rid of me; but -I said I’d stay awhile to make sure she suffered no bad effect from -my carelessness. So she gave up in a few minutes and telephoned her -husband, at his club, that she wasn’t coming down to-night and he’d -better take a taxi home. I waited till I was sure he’d started in that -taxi and then I left. - -I’d done fairly well, I thought; I didn’t fool myself into feeling that -I’d seen old Win out of danger absolutely but I did feel sure that I’d -pried his demise out of the present into the future. What’s the phrase -that surgeons use? I’d considerably prolonged his life, I thought; and, -so thinking and fairly much pleased with my plan after all, I went to -bed and to sleep. - -It was half-past four, as I learned after I got fully awake, when I was -roused by some one shaking me. It was father. - -“Wake up, Stephen!” he was saying to me. “Wake up! The police are -here. They want to talk to you. Jerry has just shot and killed Winton -Scofield.” - -I stumbled up, as you may imagine, with father’s words painting the -picture in my mind. Jerry was in that picture. Then I shook myself and -cast him out of the image and put Keeban, Harry Vine, in his place. - -“When was it, father?” I asked. - -“Less than an hour ago. The police roused your mother who woke me.” - -He was in pajamas and dressing gown, was father, with bedroom slippers -on. He was tall and gray and gaunt-looking in the glow of my reading -lamp which he’d lit. He shook a little and bent a little more; he -believed that Jerry did it. - -“Where was it?” - -“Jerry killed him at home.” - -“How?” - -“He shot him, I said; he shot him down in cold blood.” - -I began at this time to feel it; and what I felt was not that Jerry had -shot Win Scofield; no, not Jerry who’d grown up beside me as my brother -in this house. That duplicate of Jerry, whom I myself had mistaken -for Jerry when I found him in that basement room, that man and his -Christina, who then was with him, had “got” Win Scofield; and my rage -rose against her. She was his wife and, if she had not fired the shot, -she’d been in the plot. I thought how I had seen her last night singing -and exultant. I clenched my hands and shook. - -My father was going on. “He was seen and recognized by three persons. -There’s no doubt about it at all.” - -“Who saw him?” I said. - -“Mrs. Scofield.” - -I laughed at that and it must have seemed mad to father. “Who else?” I -asked him. - -“The chauffeur.” - -I laughed again. - -“And the butler,” father finished. - -I didn’t laugh at that. I hadn’t seen the butler but there was no -reason for believing he was not in the game. - -“They got him,” I thought to myself. “They got old Win Scofield.” - -His life was not an invaluable one, as perhaps you have gathered; but -that wasn’t the point with me. They--his wife and other people close -about him and upon whom he had a right to depend--had got him, and -certainly in some low, treacherous way. No wonder Jerry had warned me -to try and stop this; he’d told me he’d pick and choose, so when he -took the risk of warning, he’d warn against a more than ordinary crime. - -“Jerry killed Winton Scofield,” my father repeated just then; and I -came back at him now, “He didn’t.” - -I couldn’t tell him that Jerry had sent me to try to stop this murder. -I remembered in time that Jerry forbade me a word. There was no use -talking to father, anyway. - -“Get some clothes on,” was all he said to me. - -“Keeban did that!” I proclaimed; and father pulled up and faced me. - -“There’s no Keeban; don’t let me hear you say that again. This family -faces the fact; Jerry’s gone to crime. We face it and we do not shirk -our responsibility. Come to yourself, Stephen. Jerry’s picture is in -police headquarters in every city east or west; New York, Philadelphia, -San Francisco, Minneapolis, Baltimore, every headquarters has reported -the same; they have no criminal in their galleries who would be taken -for Jerry. There’s never been a Keeban in crime; it’s Jerry.” - -“Keeban, he goes by the name of Harry Vine,” I returned; “he’s not in -their galleries because he’s kept out of their hands. They’ve got to -catch a man before they can photograph him.” - -My father gave me up. “Come talk to the police,” he said and stalked -from my room. - -Downstairs I met Mullaney and a plain clothes man from the central -detective bureau who wanted to know how I happened to run into Mrs. -Scofield’s car at eleven in the evening. - -I wanted to know something before I answered this; I wanted to know -that the witnesses, Shirley and Thurston and the butler, were being -held by the police. - -All three were; so there could be no harm in keeping what I knew. You -can always tell what you’ve kept to yourself but never call back what -you’ve chattered. I thought, “When Jerry warned me of this murder, he -said ‘not a word to any one.’ If I say he warned me against Shirley, -and the news gets out, not only the police’ll be after him; the crowd -he trains with now will go for him and get him, surely.” So I said to -Mullaney about my collision with Shirley’s car, “You have the report on -that accident.” - -“So you stick to it that ’twas an accident?” - -I nodded. - -“Then tell us, please, what was you doing up that way alone at that -time so that you had the little accident?” - -I didn’t like his tone; I didn’t like it at all. - -There was no possibility of my convincing him of the existence of -Keeban; and the impossibility of it only made me surer of Keeban, -just as it always did when I argued with father. You see at that time, -it was a matter of faith with me; and nothing feeds up faith like -antagonism. I was slow but also stubborn, as perhaps you’ve perceived. -These men were here because they were sure Jerry had shot down Winton -Scofield; Jerry’d been seen doing it. I wouldn’t believe that; -therefore I had to believe in Keeban. - -“What are you getting at?” I asked Mullaney. - -He changed his tone. “Our cards are face up on your table, Mr. -Fanneal,” he said, respectfully enough. “We’re not accusin’ you of any -doin’s; but we think you know more about him who was Jerry Fanneal than -you are telling us.” - -“What do you think I know?” - -“We figure that you thought he was up by Mr. Scofield’s big house last -night and that’s why you was there; we think you was lookin’ for him -when you bumped into Mrs. Scofield comin’ out.” - -I could deny that directly and I did. “That’s wrong.” - -“You didn’t know he was there or you didn’t expect him there?” - -“No: that’s flat.” - -“Where may he be now? Do you know that?” - -“I do not.” - -“That’s flat too, sir?” - -“Absolutely.” - -They gave me up after a while; and the reporters arrived, bringing -details not mentioned to me by Mullaney or his companion. The reporters -had to see all the Fanneal household and learn what we thought of Jerry -now; they wanted fresh pictures, previously unpublished, of Jerry and -of the rest of us; they had no doubt at all that Jerry had committed -the murder. - -“Why would he?” I asked them. - -“Why?” was exactly what they wished most to know. They asked, “When -Jerry was one of your family and before he ‘reverted,’ had he ever -quarrelled with or taken a particular dislike to Winton Scofield?” - -They were all full of that “reversion” idea which they played up in -their papers. - -I went to my office that morning, not with an intention of doing any -business but to wait by my private wire on which yesterday Jerry had -called me. Likely enough it was being watched this morning, I thought; -surely I was being watched as a natural consequence of the police -knowledge that I was loyal to Jerry. Every few minutes, on the office -wire, a newspaper or some friend or some crank was calling me; once -mother called me on the private line; but otherwise it was silent. - -By midforenoon the newspapers were strewing all over the streets the -news that Jerry Fanneal, who had vanished since his attack upon Dorothy -Crewe, had reappeared in the rôle of murderer and shot down old Winton -Scofield, the recently rejuvenated. It gave them full flood tide for -all their sensation stuff with the sun of the new murder and the moon -of old scandals pulling the same way. Naturally they raked over the -robbery of Dorothy Crewe and the fate of old Win with his former wives. -You know those pages of pictures which every news sheet seems to have -these days,--three-quarters photographs of the people who stopped their -car on the railroad crossing, the lady who ate the poison and the lady -who sent it, the new back-stroke swimming champion and the tenor who -sang at the Auditorium. Well, the Fanneals and the Scofields, with -Win’s wives, pushed them all off the page that day; we had it solid. - -When I looked at the picture of Win’s last wife, Shirley of the yellow -hair, knowing she was also Christina, you may imagine I had some -arguments with myself about staying silent. - -A buyer was bothering me all through this time. I’d told the doorkeeper -and the telephone girl, “Turn off everybody you can.” But weak words -had taken no effect upon this gentleman who, by his own account, was -one Klangenberg, a keeper of a delicatessen on a fourth-rate street -off Larrabee. He demanded to see me personally about a claim over a -shipment of Hawaiian pineapple. - -“He will see you, sir,” my office manager reported. “He says you -promised to see him.” - -I shook my head. - -“He says to say to you, sir, if you don’t remember,” my manager -continued, “that when you promised, he asked you about Smetsheen of -Minneapolis.” - -I sat up at that; for Jerry was the one who had last asked me about -Smetsheen of Minneapolis. I went out to see Klangenberg, who was a -tall, phlegmatic Swede entirely positive on the subject of pineapple -and quite fluent about it until he had drawn me off alone with him. -Then he said, “‘Kidnapped’ and ‘Westward Ho’ says to Steve, ‘They -crossed us last night; but stick. Not a word; you can help and we’ll -get them. Stick, Steve.’” - -That was all he would say; when I asked him anything more, he went back -to pineapple; he was a buyer again, seeking satisfaction on a claim. - -This word, which surely was from Jerry, of course helped me to stick. -It meant to me that he’d tried to prevent the murder and, having been -“crossed” somewhere, had failed; but he counted on me to stick while he -kept after Keeban. - -A few minutes later, Fred Scofield ’phoned me and asked me to come up -to his father’s place. - - - - -VII - -I KEEP MY OWN COUNSEL. - - -When I arrived at the big gaudy house, where I had watched Shirley -singing last evening, the coroner’s men were filing out; they’d -completed their examination. Police were all about the doors, keeping -back a crowd; the officers passed me and Fred came down almost -immediately and took me into the long, gay room where Shirley had -played and sung. - -The shades were drawn to-day but as they were white they let in plenty -of light; the glass doors to the hall were closed and so, though we -could talk without being heard, we could be seen from the hall and we -could see most of the lower part of the house and also the stairs. - -Fred pointed first to a French window, which opened on the lawn upon -the lake side; it had been forced open and now was braced shut, with -the catch torn out, the screws hanging. - -“Here’s where he came in,” Fred told me. - -“Who?” I said. - -“Jerry.” - -“He was alone?” - -“Nobody else was seen. Apparently he went first to the sideboard in the -dining room.” Fred gazed across the hall. “He made a noise there.” - -When Fred stopped, I commented, “The papers say he made it -intentionally.” - -Fred nodded. “He wasn’t after silver. That was simply a bluff. He -brought a bag with him and emptied two drawers into it. There it is.” - -A canvas sack, like a mail pouch, lay in the corner and bulged half -full. I didn’t bother to examine it. I was trying to figure out Fred’s -attitude towards me: he wasn’t expressing much but keeping hold of -himself pretty firm. - -“Jerry made the rattle with the silver,” Fred went on, “to draw father -downstairs. He did it. - -“As father appeared on the landing, Jerry fired from here--from beside -this silk hanging. He fired twice; and neither before the shots nor -between them nor afterwards did Jerry make any attempt to hide, in -spite of the portière right there; and the light was on. He hit father -both times; and father’s pistol went off in his hand as he was falling; -father fired wild, undoubtedly, but in Jerry’s general direction.” Fred -showed the bullet hole near the door. “Jerry wasn’t hit; but he did a -complete job with his gun. He hit father first----” - -I stopped Fred. “I know from the papers,” I said. - -“Well, they had that right. Father lived about five minutes. He fell on -the landing and was dead before they carried him up.” - -Fred’s voice cracked; and I put my hand on his arm without saying -anything. Old Win, if he had played the fool towards the end of his -life, at least had showed good nerve at the finish; and when everything -else was said, he was Fred’s father. When Fred was a boy, Winton -Scofield had been a good father; no one called him a fool then. Every -one knows the thousand touches of memories of fondness from a father; -and Fred was thinking of them. - -He went on telling: “Shirley ran down to him as soon as he fell; she -must have been nearly behind him when he got the second bullet. She -wasn’t hurt but she certainly took a big chance to help father. Rowan -reached him maybe a minute later.” - -“Rowan, the butler?” I said. - -“That’s right.” - -“How long has he been in your family?” - -“I can’t remember when he hasn’t been.” - -“He saw the actual shooting, as the papers say?” - -“Not the firing of the shots. Father was down when Rowan arrived at the -top of the stairs; but Jerry wasn’t gone. Rowan saw him plainly. That’s -one of the surest things.” - -“What is?” - -“That Jerry showed himself; he made no effort either to hide when -father came down or to get away immediately afterwards.” - -“Where was Thurston when he saw Jerry?” - -“He’d just come in from the wing through that door.” - -“He shot at Jerry, they say.” - -“Yes; and missed. Jerry fired once at him and grazed him. Then Jerry -got out.” - -Fred and I looked each other over. I was thinking, “Jerry didn’t do -that but it is no use telling you so.” - -Fred said to me, “You ran into Shirley last night.” - -I admitted it. - -He went on. “After you’d had me to lunch to talk over father’s -affairs, Steve. I’ve not mentioned that to the reporters or even to the -police yet; but of course I’ve been thinking about it.” - -“Mentioning it?” I said. - -“I wanted this talk with you first, Steve. Why did you call me -yesterday and afterwards smash Shirley’s car? What did you know?” - -I stared at him and shook my head. - -“Yesterday at lunch,” Fred kept at me, “you asked me particularly about -father’s engagements for last night; you asked whether Shirley would -drive down to meet him. I told you she would.” - -I had nothing to do but to nod at this. - -Fred asked directly, “You smashed into her car to stop her?” - -I stared at him and kept thinking of Jerry’s “Not a word to any one” -and the message Klangenberg brought me from “Kidnapped” and “Westward -Ho” which begged me “to stick.” Yet I had to say something here or I -might as well, since my actions already had spoken for me. - -“Yes, Fred; I smashed into her to stop her from meeting your father.” - -“I was sure of it. You had reason to think, yesterday, that something -was going to happen to him?” - -There was nothing for it but another nod at this. - -“Where did you get your reason?” - -I might as well have told him; he told me that he knew I got it from -Jerry. He held the police theory with this variation; I had been having -some sort of communication with Jerry through which I had stumbled upon -the idea that something was going to happen to Winton Scofield. I had -got the notion that it was going to happen through his wife, and so, in -my stupid way, I’d driven up to the house deliberately to smash into -her car and scare her out of whatever plan she had in her mind. - -Fred was emotionally worked up, of course, he believed that I meant -well by what I tried to do; he didn’t doubt I meant well now. He didn’t -blame me for having supposed when I found something was planned against -his father that Shirley was in it. - -“That’s what I thought,” he told me, “when Rowan ’phoned me this -morning and got me out of bed to tell me, ‘Mr. Fred, your father’s -shot.’ - -“The family--Kenyon and I--always figured, naturally, that money was -what Shirley was after. That’s why we fixed his affairs so she could -never get much, even if father had wanted to give it to her. He didn’t -have it to give; we had him on an allowance. The only big sum she could -get in a lump was his life insurance, which he made over to her. He -carried it from the old days, nearly half a million.” - -Here was some of the stuff I’d come for. All morning my mind had been -reaching for a motive, you see,--why old Win Scofield had found a place -on Keeban’s board and why his number had come to the top just now. Fred -talked on and made it perfectly plain to me. - -While he talked, I put myself in Keeban’s place for a while and -tried to take things from his point of view. I went back a bit to do -this--back a few months to the time when old Win, divorced once more -and rejuvenated, had arrived again at the cabarets and resumed beau-ing -about with the girls. I thought that when Shirley--or Christina--had -met him, she talked him over with Keeban and they’d marked him down -between them for easy meat. She married him to get away with the big -money old Win was supposed to have but hadn’t; for Fred and Kenyon had -seen to that, as I’ve mentioned. Win took her to Paris and brought her -back to live with him on an allowance. - -Maybe from the first she had had her eyes on the old man’s insurance; -but I didn’t think so. I thought, “She got into this marriage with an -idea of an easy get-away with a pile; and when Ken and Fred fooled her, -she decided to fool them; she saw Keeban again and they decided to get -that insurance money. But they had a big difficulty with that; they had -to do more than merely ‘croak’ old Win; they had to do it so Shirley -would not possibly be connected and so the insurance money would be -paid over to her and she could get away with it.” - -There, surely, was a job for them when the family and friends thought -what they did of Shirley. - -Fred was saying to me, “Ken and I got bothered about that insurance. -In the first place, we didn’t want Shirley to have the money, half -a million for marrying father; then it was costing us over thirty -thousand a year to pay the premiums; and, also, we figured it might be -dangerous as a temptation. - -“Not that we thought Shirley’d kill father directly, Steve; but -there’s many a way to shorten a man’s life, indirectly. Father -played he was young again. Well, all she’d have to do would be to -over-encourage him with her eye on that half million. Anyway, Ken and I -decided to stop paying the premiums on that insurance--save ourselves -about thirty thousand a year and make father a little safer.” - -Of course, this told me why old Win’s number had jumped to the top -of the board just now; the sons were stopping his insurance. Fred -continued: - -“But since the insurance was still in force, I couldn’t help thinking -of that when Rowan called me; I couldn’t help thinking Shirley was -mixed up in that murder. Then Rowan told me it was Jerry Fanneal who’d -shot father and I knew Shirley couldn’t have anything to do with it.” - -Fred talked on; but I didn’t pay much attention for a few minutes; for -now I could see through the rest of Keeban’s scheme; I could see not -only why he had shot Win Scofield, but why he had done it himself and -why he had shown himself in the doing, making no attempt to hide. - -For he wanted to be seen; he wanted to be identified, particularly by -Rowan. For Rowan would identify him, as Rowan did, for Jerry Fanneal; -and, so identified, no one would connect Shirley with the murder. Who -was Jerry Fanneal, in these days? A wild, irresponsible criminal, a -man from nowhere who had betrayed the breeding bestowed upon him and -had “reverted.” As he had attacked and robbed Dorothy Crewe, now he -had entered Win Scofield’s house and shot him either wantonly or for -some old, brooded-over pique; that was what the newspapers assumed and -the police and even Win Scofield’s sons who had most hated and doubted -Shirley. - -Fred was feeling badly over how he’d ridiculed his father the last -time he’d talked with me and how he’d mistaken Shirley. “She was right -there beside father and she never thought of herself, Rowan says,” Fred -repeated to me. “She held him while he died and----” - -“How’s she now?” I asked. - -“Nearly collapsed. She gave her evidence to the police and afterwards -to the coroner. She’s in bed now.” - -“Can I see her?” - -“You?” said Fred. “Why?” - -“She’s accused Jerry.” - -“So has Rowan; why don’t you talk to him?” - -“I will,” I said, “afterwards. Do you mind asking her if she’ll see me?” - -He went up himself and came down with her excuses. But I had expected -them and I’d written on one of my cards “Bulls and Beefers”; just that -and I’d put it in an envelope unsealed. I knew Fred wouldn’t look in it -when he took it up to her. - -“She’ll see you,” said Fred when he came down again. - - - - -VIII - -A LADY DISCREDITS ME. - - -She was not in bed but was lying upon it in a negligee--a silk and -lace, pink and white creation which was originally no garment of grief. -She was pink and white herself, except for her bobbed hair of bronze -and for her big eyes which were blue. She displayed a good deal of -herself, especially the beauty of her bosom; she did this not with any -evident design of the moment but probably upon the general principle -that it was never a disadvantageous thing for her to do. - -She was alone in the room when I entered and Fred Scofield, who came -up with me, dropped back at the door. She gazed at me, making hardly a -motion, and waited for me to open the meeting. - -I did it formally, with that door open behind me; I said the stupid -tosh I felt expected to say. - -“Shut the door and sit down,” said Shirley. - -The first part was important, so I did it; then I strolled to the -foot of her bed and stood. She lay looking at me, one hand holding a -cigarette box which she tapped with her fingers; but she wasn’t smoking. - -I was realizing I had never met up with a murderess before--at least -not with a girl who’d done her bit in a bump off for money. - -Of course since I had, in my own right, a normal list of acquaintances -of fair size, I knew a woman or two who’d shot friend husband; but -the moving impulse was not financial. The widow--I mean the woman who -immediately made herself the widow--in one case happened upon husband -with another lady on the wrong landing; in the other case, she’d become -peeved about something purely private and so highly sensational when -sobbed out on the witness stand, and followed by an effective faint, -that the jury not only justified her but acquitted her with cheers. - -The widow Scofield, lying here on the bed before me, failed to fall in -that same class in my mind. I doubted if she would in the emotions of -any jury; and some doubt of this nature seemed to flit across the eyes -of blue which kept watching me. She was gambling, if not with her life -itself, at least with her liberty for life; and her stake, if she won, -was the neat little sum of five hundred thousand dollars to enhance her -joys of freedom. - -Elsewhere in this house the aged youth, her husband, lay dead; and -whatever was to happen, her chapter with him was concluded and she -could not contrive to conceal from me a certain relief at that. -Perhaps I imagined it, with my picture of her at her piano last night -still haunting my mind; yet I’m not imaginative. I felt her saying to -herself, as she gazed at me, “Well, whatever’s to come next, _that’s_ -over. Twenty-two with sixty-seven, rejuvenated!” - -She said aloud to me, “What did you mean by the words on your card?” - -“If you don’t know,” I said, “why did you change your mind, after you -had the card, and send for me?” - -She didn’t respond; she lay waiting, watchfully, and let me look her -over and think her over with all the deliberation I wanted. She seemed -to me not so slight as that Christina who’d met me at the river ledge -with Keeban; but I knew enough about the effect of negligee, and of a -figure loosed from a girdle, to allow for more fullness now. Her hair -was bronze; but yellow over that bronze would have been easy enough to -manage, especially in the dim light of that dock room. Her manner of -speech had changed; yet I was wholly sure she was Christina. - -At the next moment, she admitted it. “I know what you meant, Steve,” -she said, speaking my name as she had in that room by the river. “You -think you have something on me, do you?” - -“You’re Christina,” I said. - -“Right! Call in my step-son Fred and whoever else you care to; -I’ve something to confess which I should have told the police this -morning--but I didn’t. Yet it didn’t hurt anything to hold it back. -Call him in!” - -She sat straight and raised an arm and pointed to the door in some -cabaret imitation of a grand gesture. “Open the door,” she ordered me. - -I opened it and went out and found Fred. “She’s something to say to -us,” I told him. I decided to include nobody else just then, though -there were police enough everywhere and all keen to listen. Fred and -I went into her room and closed the door. She motioned us to seats -beside the bed as though she might be Madame Récamier on her couch -receiving a couple of her lesser courtiers. - -“Fred, I can tell more about the shooting last night; I’m going to do -it,” she said, looking at Fred, not at me. “You can decide how much -to give out to the police--to the ‘bulls,’” she added, deliberately -blunting her speech and gazing at me. She swung back to Fred. - -“I come from the cabarets, you know; maybe you’ve thought sometimes -that I come from worse. Anyway, you treated me like you did.” - -“I’m sorry,” said Fred and waited. - -“That I didn’t come from worse wasn’t any fault of Jerry Fanneal. He -was hot after me--hot after me.” - -Here was the start of a counter-attack on me; I felt it and demanded, -“When was that?” - -“Oh, before I married; long before the big surprise to his swell -friends and family when he threw Dorothy Crewe into the street. He was -comin’ down to the cabarets for a long time. Didn’t you know it, Mr. -Steve Fanneal?” - -“Yes;” I said. “Often I went with him.” - -“But often not; isn’t that so? Tell the truth!” This was a straight -challenge. - -“Sometimes not,” I granted. - -“I guess not! Well, you should’ve seen some of those ‘sometimes.’ The -boy was crazy; I seen it!” In her excitement, she was forgetting her -“g’s” and the tenses she could speak correctly when she tried to; she -was a cabaret Récamier now. “Clean crazy. He kept it under when he was -back with his swells and you; but when he was down with us, he blew the -lid some distance off, I’m telling you. I made him crazier than most, -for he couldn’t get me. He thought I’d fall for money. Not me! - -“I was glad to get married to a decent man, if he was a bit old; and -glad to get away, believe me! Then we made the mistake of comin’ back. -I didn’t want to, as you know; but the boys wanted father and me to cut -down expenses. So we had to come. Anyway, with me married and Jerry -mixed up with another skirt--and a swell one, too--I figured he’d -forget his old grief about me. But you know what he did to his lady -friend; well, when he’d made himself all lonely again, he seems to have -got me back on his busted brain. Anyway, he sent word to me to come -meet him.” - -“How did he send word?” This was from me. - -“Telephoned.” - -“Why didn’t you inform the police?” That was another interjection of -mine; and she came back at me through the wide, wide opening I’d left -her. “Why didn’t you, when he slipped word to you to meet him?” - -Fred failed to interrupt; he was too busy looking and listening. I -reserved my reply and she went on: - -“He mentioned to me that, if I set a squeal, I’d hear from it; also -that I’d better meet him. He wanted money to get away. Of course he -couldn’t sell those Crewe diamonds at any sort of price now; there was -too much danger in handling them, with everybody watching for ’em; and -too much loss if he had ’em cut. He wanted cash money and he thought I -could bring it. Remember, a couple a weeks ago,” she said to Fred, “I -tried to get some considerable cash from you?” - -Fred admitted that. - -She said, “That was to give to Jerry Fanneal. I got afraid of him. I -wanted him to get out. When I couldn’t raise the cash, I said I’d help -him get it from his own family; and so I put up the talk for him to -Steve Fanneal.” - -“What?” said Fred. - -She had to tell him again and when she was through she referred Fred to -me. “Let him tell it now.” - -She had me in the hole; and she knew it; and Fred saw it. I had no -chance at all of convincing Fred that the man I met with her was not -Jerry but Keeban. Here was she denying, like everyone else, that Keeban -could exist; here was she explaining how Jerry had come to do this -murder. I knew better than to try to tell my story. - -Shirley carried on. “Jerry and I met him and he got the money. Ten -thousand in cash, wasn’t it?” she examined me. “If he denies it, Fred, -ask the teller in his bank--last week Thursday he got it.” - -“Did you?” asked Fred. - -“I did,” I said. - -He nodded to Shirley. “Go on.” - -“He gave it to Jerry to go away.” - -“That’s right?” Fred asked me. - -“That’s right,” I had to admit. - -Shirley continued, “Then Jerry wanted me. He’s crazy, you see. -Sometimes he’s all right, like anybody else; then he’s like when he -took that necklace from Dorothy Crewe and tossed her into the street. -He said he’d get my husband and then me. Isn’t that true? Didn’t you -know Win was in danger?” Again she was at me. - -“Yes; but----” - -“But you tried to stop it, of course; with wonderful success! Well, -I’ve nothing on you there, I tried to stop it too!” - -Then she broke into crying; and a great chance I had. There she was, a -girl all white and pink in her negligee; and tears, real tears! I got -out and was lucky to be able to get. - - - - -IX - -I SEEK THE UNDERWORLD. - - -For sketching a situation, no one ever touched Shakespeare; and he has -a line which certainly described my state of dignity during the next -days. It’s in “Julius Cæsar”; Anthony has just been saying, in some -well chosen words which escape me for the moment, how important and -prominent a citizen Cæsar was before his last meeting with Brutus, -whereas afterwards there was “none so poor to do him reverence.” - -That’s the description which struck me. Lord knows, I was no Cæsar, not -even in Chicago; so my fall was not so far, yet the reception at bottom -was much the same. - -Of course, if you call the incorrigible habits of house servants -“reverence” I still had some from them; at least, they kept calling me -“sir” and “Mr. Stephen” and somebody sneaked in when nobody else was -looking, and turned down my bed, and Warner drew my bath and saw to my -shirts. Down at the office, Miss Severns continued to take my letters -in a resigned sort of way; but, in general, I was the joke of everybody -that knew I still believed in Jerry. - -For a while the police watched me, on the theory that Jerry, after -having worked me for ten thousand following his attack on Dorothy -Crewe, would probably come back and get me to give him twenty now; but -he didn’t. So the “bulls” left me alone to go wandering off, as soon as -I dared, into the northwest morass of Chicago in search of Klangenberg. - -I had that territory as part of my sales district in the days after -I had finished college, when father was starting me out in the bean -business. - -Previously I had gathered, in a theoretical way, that people who went -to Princeton or elsewhere to college in the east, and their parents, -sisters and other relatives could not provide the number of appetites, -locally and in the surrounding States, to account for everything we -sold. Not at all; it was perfectly plain that we must sell to any -number of people of sorts one would never meet in the general round -of sleeping and breakfasting on Astor Street, driving to the office, -lunching at the club, and dining on the Drive and dancing at the -Casino. In fact, father took occasion to impress upon me that the -caviar and truffle trade of Fanneal and Company would barely pay club -dues; what bought motors and butlers and opera boxes was the business -in beans--plain baked beans, with or without tomato sauce. And the -habit of dinner dances, jaunts to England and the Continent had become -family pleasures to the Fanneals solely because a large proportion -of the populace living on streets which only by error would ever be -listed in mother’s address book had taken to the taste of our soups and -spaghetti in preference to the purées and macaroni put out under other -brands. - -Naturally this started me out upon my first unconducted tour of the -tenement highways in a chastened and interested frame of mind. - -My generation began growing up just in the ebb of the worst lot of -social bunk which ever spread over this nation. The last wave of the -muck which taught that, if anybody had a million, he took it from -the poor by some scheme of social pickpocketing was just subsiding. -Some of it splashed over my youthful boots; I remember, particularly, -a cheerful cartoon which the Bolshevists still brandish probably, -and which pictured a lot of us dancing on a ballroom floor which was -supported on the bent backs of bowed-over men, women and children. To -give it a dramatic touch, the muscular fist of a revolutionist below -had broken through the floor and thrust up into the ballroom to the -consternation of the degenerate dancers, meant to be us. - -One thing is to be said for the experiments in Russia recently; they’ve -made that sort of tosh ridiculous; they’ve at least suggested, to the -brain open to any sort of observation, that the direction and the -judgment and the initiative exercised by a man who organizes and builds -up a business and keeps it going are in themselves productive factors -just as necessary as labor itself and entitled, fairly, to big reward. - -Father always taught me that this was where we got ours; we earned -it. So when I explored Halsted Street, I did not suffer from any -parlor-socialist conviction of personal guilt for housing conditions -and juvenile delinquency simply because I was selling these people soup -at a profit, net to us, of seven eighths of a cent a can. Naturally I -took things as they were, thought about them as little as possible, -gave a little more to the United Charities and the Salvation Army, and -kept as far away as I could after my city salesman period was past. - -Here I was going back again and with a decidedly new interest in these -streets of narrow, dingy, clapboard, three-story dwellings, of drab -and dun brick fronts, serving for a shop on the ground level and a -dozen tenements above; of “lofts” and ancient cottages--ancient for -Chicago--moved back, end to end, behind the buildings now holding the -edge of the sidewalk. - -I came to a place where the street, following this generation’s level -of the city, stands above the ground of original days; the walks and -roadway are graded up, leaving the disconsolate, paint-specked homes -of the first customers of Fanneal and Company down on the dirt where -were thrown fifty years ago, as now, our empty cans and papers. The -land is so low that the street rises almost even with the second -floors; one has to descend rickety steps to reach the doors of gray, -ill-lit emporiums of every sort which witness, by their very being, to -the amazing force of the proclivity to patronize a neighbor. Half a -league from Marshall Field’s, preposterous, mediæval peddlers whined -under windows shut to the chill smokiness of December city haze; women -raised the sash and, after bargaining, bought. Half a block from a -motor factory, a blacksmith hand-pumped his bellows to blow coals into -heat for shoeing a huckster’s horse; fortune tellers beckoned and won -business. - -I came upon Klangenberg’s and descended into an environment of -delicatessen where a madonna of the gray shawl--did Raphael or Leonardo -ever paint one; if they didn’t, it was because they didn’t see one--was -watching a patented pointer waver before the divisions of a cent on -the automatic calculator above the scale which weighed her purchase -of pig’s feet. A boy picked them up with unclean hands, wrapped them -untidily and made change, almost in one motion, on a register which -printed a receipt and said with flashing light, “come again; thank you.” - -The place was heated by a stove before which sat a male model for -Rembrandt, if he wanted to paint the “Dyke-keeper” or somebody else -strong and dour looking who might wind himself in a muffler. - -This was not Klangenberg; at least it was not the complainer about -pineapples who had spoken to me of “Kidnapped” and “Westward Ho.” -Accordingly, after the Madonna had climbed to the street, I asked the -boy for the proprietor. - -The “dyke-keeper” turned about, as though his interest in me began with -my voice. - -“Who wants to see him?” said the boy. - -For the emergency--if you don’t feel there was one, it’s my failure to -give you the dyke-keeper--I improvised and benefited by borrowing from -Klangenberg himself. - -“I’ve come to see him about his complaint on those pineapples,” I said. - -“What pineapples?” the youth asked. - -“I want to see him personally,” I replied. “Is he here?” - -“Maybe,” said the boy and locked the cash register before vanishing -rearward. Once he reappeared, evidently to view me for the purpose of -checking up on my description; he said nothing but after another minute -he came back and told me, “He’ll see you day after to-morrow.” - -“What time?” I said. - -“This time will do.” - -I thanked him, while he unlocked the cash register for the resumption -of business. - -One matter was off my mind when I went away; this was my qualm as -to whether I ought to inform the police of Jerry’s connection with -Klangenberg. They would pick up mighty small change at that address, I -thought; and when I returned two days later, I was sure of it. - -Though I entered the door at the precise time of my appointment, -neither the boy nor the dyke-keeper was there; a little girl of ten -years tended the cash register and piled the computing scales with -noodles. This child gave me no particular attention until she had -cleared the shop of customers, when she said, “That’s the door back -there.” - -I went through it to an area between the shop and an old moved-over -frame building. Some one--I didn’t know who--relieved the child in the -shop, for she came out to me and led me through a shed where a horse -was stabled. We sidled about another shed and climbed a tunnel of -wooden stairs, built on the outside of a clapboard house, and roofed -and walled against the weather. - -“That’s the door,” the child said, when we came to the top; obviously -she was speaking, as well as guiding, by instructions. She halted and -I went on and knocked at the door. - -“Come in,” said Jerry’s voice; and I opened and found Jerry before me. - - - - -X - -AND LEARN THE WAYS OF ITS LOGIC. - - -He had just risen from a bed upon which he had been seated,--a plain, -white, iron bed with a red quilt. He looked me over and, welcoming me, -waved me to a chair, a plain, wooden chair, not new. - -The room was ordinary with striped, cheap paper on the walls; it had -a floor of soft wood with a circle of rag carpet; besides the bed and -chair, there was a washstand boasting of a bowl and pitcher. Altogether -these were the furnishings which a person reared on Astor Street knows -to exist but which he has seen only when he has happened to pass an -express wagon heaped with the effects of a Halsted Street moving or -when, detouring by some strange road, he comes upon the fruit of an -“eviction.” - -By some amazing transmutation, the man before me fitted the furnishings -as he fitted the too “tailored” suit, too narrow in lapels, too belted -at the waist, too conspicuously “patch pocketed.” He wore a shirt of -too obvious silk and overdecorated shoes; and he wore them as if he had -been bred to aspire to them and to nothing else. - -A look at him and I knew why the police, in all the time they had -searched since the robbery of Dorothy Crewe, had never picked him up. -They had been searching for an Astor Street resident in some such -garments as Jerry had worn by the river; they had expected him, when -casting off his accustomed clothes, to don rough, contrasting attire; -no one would have expected him to outdo, in his garb, himself as he had -appeared before. I, least of all. - -Now I understood that this must be his costume when in daytime he had -to risk the streets; and I believed that a dozen detectives might meet -him, give another glance at his face, but after looking him over, they -would laugh at themselves for suspecting him. “Here’s a Halsted Street -flash,” they would say, “trying to make himself look like an Astor -Street swell. Jerry Fanneal, of Astor Street, would never do that.” An -officer, bringing in such a man, would make himself the smile of his -station. - -You would think that I would have said to myself, “This is Keeban.” -But the fact was I didn’t suspect him; I was sure at once that he -was Jerry. Noticing him more closely, I observed that he had carried -his change of caste even into the cut of his hair. No longer was it -“feathered” in back in the manner of a University Club barber; he was -clipped and shaven on the neck with his hair thickening toward the top -till it became almost a tossing mane on the crown. - -“This is your room, Jerry?” I said. I’d been wondering all the time -where and how he’d been living. - -“Mine just now,” he replied, looking up and down me. His eyes seemed -to find satisfaction in the sight of me; but he did not give me his -hand; he did not come closer to me than ordinary nearness in the room -made inevitable. I realized that he was deliberately holding away from -me and I realized why. Here he was not only hiding from the police, -with his life hanging upon every risk of recognition, but here he was -also playing the part of Keeban; and he could enter no more deadly -undertaking than this of impersonating Keeban, Harry Vine, and going -out among Keeban’s people. - -Of course he could have attained this perfection of nuance only through -constant keeping to it and he would be foolish to endanger it by -jumping in and out of character with each opening of his door. - -“We can talk here?” I asked. - -“What is it?” - -It was so much, so many things, that I could lump them all only in the -obvious, emotional statement, “I’ve come to see you.” - -“Why?” - -Since he seemed to demand a practical reason, “Shirley Scofield is -being paid the insurance money to-day.” - -He knew that. “Yes, she got a bunch of it this morning, some yesterday -and some a couple of days ago. That’s why you tried to look me up day -before yesterday, was it?” - -“Partly,” I said. - -“That’s all right about her getting the money.” - -“You mean she wasn’t in the scheme to get the money?” - -He spoke to me now like Jerry of Astor Street days, I was always slower -of wit than he and he was used to telling me obvious things as he did -now. “Of course she was after the money, Steve.” He stopped a moment -and then said, “But not that way.” - -“What way?” - -“By the ‘bump off’; she wasn’t up to it. That was shoved on her, Steve; -and she’s sore.” - -“At whom?” - -He tapped his chest. “Our friend. Sit down, Steve.” - -I sat on the chair; he on the bed. - -“He’s traveling fast, Steve.” - -“Who?” - -Again he said, “Our friend. So far as I can trace him back, he hadn’t -been worse than a ‘gun’ up to that job on Dorothy Crewe; that was a -borderland act for him. He started it out like a ‘gun’ and finished up -rough. With Win Scofield, he was all the way a ‘gorilla’!” - -“Gunman you mean by ‘gun’?” I asked. - -“Almost the opposite, Steve. A ‘gun’s’ a guy who gives action to his -brain instead of to his cannon; he gets by without the shootings. A -gorilla’s a guy that goes in for the rough stuff. A girl doesn’t worry -when she’s got a good ‘gun’ for her gentleman friend; she’s personally -as safe with him as with any church warden. He hasn’t any hankering for -doing a croak; and he hasn’t any habit of getting out of his troubles -that way. But when a guy that a girl goes with takes to being a -gorilla, the skirt’s got to watch her step with him. She knows it.” - -“Where is he now, Jerry?” - -“Do you suppose I know?” - -“You must know more than I do.” - -“That’s right.” He tossed me a box of cigarettes. “Smoke if you want. -Nobody’ll come for a while. I allowed us a little time, particularly -so you may become better acquainted with my friend--” again he tapped -his chest--“Keeban, my childhood companion, more recently the robber -of Dorothy Crewe and the bumper off of old Win Scofield. He seems not -to be indigenous to Chicago soil, Steve. Assuming that he was--and -therefore is--a twin of mine, it is likely that my parents were merely -visiting here when they loosed me in the park, and you and I met, old -Top. Anyway, they must have moved on to New York, for my friend made -his reputation there. - -“I haven’t been able to gather anything about my own people--no more -than you can judge from him and me. Maybe they turned us both loose at -the same time and I walked into the hands of a wholesale grocer while a -gerver picked him up.” - -“Gerver?” - -“Safe-blower, Steve. My friend seems to have made his start as a -‘peterman’ and then branched out. He’ll blow a peter yet, they say, -to keep his hand in; and he packs with him, when he thinks he’ll find -trouble, the peterman’s tube of his trade--a little, corked bottle of -soup for emergencies, Steve. Nitro-glycerine, that’s all. Interesting -idea, what?” - -“The nitro?” - -“No, that the difference between us is the direction we wandered when -we got loose--or were turned loose--twenty-five years ago in Lincoln -Park. I walked straight into the bean business and he into blowing -safes. Was that all there was to it--the angle our feet took across the -grass in the park? What do you think, Steve?” - -I shook my head. - -“A man likes to think with Shakespeare that he is master of his fate,” -Jerry went on, “and that fault or strength is in himself, not in his -stars. There is no bunch of bunk I hate worse than that environment is -to blame for crime and the individual has almost nothing to do with it.” - -“Give Shakespeare credit for thinking it out further,” I said. ‘Julius -Cæsar’ always was a favorite of mine and one thing I knew. “He said, -‘Men _at some time_ are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, -is not in our stars but in ourselves.’” - -Jerry nodded. “That’s right. My friend’s clever; he can see now, if he -couldn’t when he was younger. Then there’s something else--a twist in -his brain that’s not in mine? Yet I don’t know: maybe we’re identical, -inwardly as well as outside. Maybe the difference is that I never knew -what it was to want without being able, lawfully, to get. The cards are -stacked in this game of civilization which we play.” - -That hit one of my pet ideas, as I’ve mentioned; so I objected, “No, -they’re not.” - -“I remember what you think, Steve. I liked to think it too; but now -I’ve gone from the side the cards favor to the side that gets the worst -of the deal. What in the devil is law, Steve?” - -“Law?” I said. - -Again he laughed. “You said that, old Top, as though I’d asked ‘What -is the sun?’ It shines on you so, Steve; to ask about it is to you -the acme of foolish questions; but it’s not to the man who’s brought -up under the cloud. What is law? I never even looked up a dictionary -definition till I got talking to some of my present friends; now here’s -just what Webster says: ‘A rule of conduct established by an authority -able to enforce its will.’ That’s all there is to it--a set of rules -drawn up by the first men on the ground, who’ve grabbed everything -in sight, and who naturally want to perpetuate and increase their -possessions. Hence they fix up a lot of rules in their favor which they -call law. If you come along later, and are boob enough to believe it’s -best to work with them, you’re a good lawful citizen; if you carry a -few ideas of your own, and mean to get ahead without asking anybody’s -permission, you’re a lawbreaker.” - -That peeved me; he saw it and smiled. - -“I’m quoting, Steve; quoting.” - -“Quoting who?” - -“Oh, philosophers with any number of aliases. There’s no philosopher -like a flat-worker or a good gopher man. In the first place, they’ve -plenty of time to think; their hours of actual effort are short, if -rather intense; and between them are periods of leisure which may -become decidedly protracted, if they’re picked up. Those who complain -that the ancient Greek art of dialectics is declining simply confess -the constriction of their acquaintance. Socrates--so I am convinced, -Steve--was a burglar who’d served about two terms when he got so good -that Plato picked him up, covered his past and wrote him down. Possibly -you noticed in the delicatessen the other day a friend of mine not -lacking in muscular development----” - -“Oh, the dyke-keeper!” I said. - -“What?” - -I explained. - -Jerry smiled; he knew my ways. “Any time you’re overwhelmed with fear -that logic languishes, Steve, start a little argument with him. Now -imagine a little boy, like me in my white dress the day you picked me -up, walking into hands like his for education.” - -“Oh, that’s what you’re getting to!” - -“You’ve guessed it. Soon you’re likely to meet my friend Keeban -again--under circumstances which I confess I can’t completely foresee; -yet whatever they are, it can’t be anything but a help to better -understand his point of view. - -“Now here we are or were, Steve--my brother and I. I walked into the -bean business, with its logic, such as it is. What is the end and aim -of Fanneal and Company, Steve?” - -“Why,” I said, “why to----” - -“To what?” - -“To sell good food.” - -“Why?” - -“Why, for people to eat?” - -“Your effort is to increase the consumption of food, isn’t it?” - -“Of course.” - -“You do it for profit, don’t you?” - -“Of course.” - -“Now which is the fact--that most people, here in this country, eat too -much or too little?” - -“Too much.” - -“Which is a decided detriment to health and longevity, is it not?” - -“Yes.” - -“Then the actual result of your business, which you steadily push for -your own profit, is to lessen health and shorten life?” - -I laughed now. But he was at me. “Why the laugh, Steve?” - -“That’s bunk and you know it.” - -“Where’s it bunk, Steve? Where’s the flaw? Where, if anywhere, did -the fallacy creep in? Now let us leap to the safe-blowing business. -What, my foster-brother Stephen, is the fundamental curse of this -country at this time? I’m not asking you a question which seeks any -strange or heathen answer. Let us take only the answer that the pulpit -itself offers, let us quote not only Christ but the economists and -sociologists of our own and other leading conservative universities. -What has ruined more families, softened and destroyed the fiber of -more individuals, especially the young--who above all should be -preserved--than the accumulation of wealth? What else, Steve?” - -I had no answer. - -“Now where do men keep their accumulations of wealth?” - -“In safes.” - -“Exactly. So, in safes, lies the greatest danger to the individual -and to society. Consequently, what else does he do, who removes the -contents of the safe and dissipates it, than protect the accumulator -and society from the increasing menace of that wealth which, left in -the accumulator’s hands, would grow and grow till it destroyed all? Who -is the friend of society, Steve--he who confesses to increasing the -staggering sum of degenerative diseases brought on by overeating which -he encourages for his own profit, or he who, at tremendous risk to -himself, and with no hope of public favor when he succeeds, yet sets -himself to strike and strike again and again at the very source of -danger and decay?” - -Jerry caught his breath. “Let us remain for a moment, Steve, not in the -school of Astor Street but in that of my brother, Keeban. - -“I’ve often wondered, particularly during these last days, what went -through his head when he first discovered me. He got a hint of my -existence, you know, when we were at Princeton. He could have guessed -where I was; and maybe he came out a time or two, to look me over. I -wonder what he thought of me. I was to him a ‘toff,’ I suppose; to him, -I was running with those whom he despised. For hate and contempt comes -into all this, Steve. You’ve got to work up your feelings to carry on -any kind of war, and particularly the most personal war of all; you’ve -got to talk atrocities and have your hymn of hate. So probably he -started hating me. - -“But he was curious about me, too, I bet. Of course he saw a big chance -to make a great clean-up by suddenly becoming me some day--or night. -There I was, identical with him; I bet, while he was watching and -waiting, he wondered a lot about me. - -“He even had a girl like mine; you saw that Christina looked like -Dot. He came on here with Christina about six months ago and Win -Scofield met her at a cabaret and went crazy over her. We know what -happened from the Scofield point of view. From Christina’s and my -friend’s--well, he told her to go to it, pick up a million or so and -get out. Or maybe she’d do it nicely and legally, assert cruelty and -get a divorce with whopping alimony in the most proper way. - -“Then Fred and Kenyon thought they’d stop anything like that; they -whipsawed the old man out of his control of the company when he was -away and had him on an allowance when he got home. They thought they -were awfully smart. All they did was sentence their father; that’s all. -Meanwhile my friend turned some of his attention back to me, letting -the well-known mill of the gods do its bit of grinding on the Scofield -affair. - -“Harrison Crewe was arriving in dear old Chicago with a nice necklace -for daughter Dorothy. The newspapers not only appraised it but -advertised its first appearance with all details. I was to escort -daughter and necklace first to the Sparlings’ where there would be a -wedding, after which the line of march would be down the Boulevard to -the Drake. Probably my friend was still in Chicago; if he’d been called -to New York on business, he must have jumped the Century and come back -again with opportunity pounding on his door like that. - -“Well, he arrived and we know what he did.” - -Jerry looked down and then suddenly up at me. “Seen Dot recently, -Steve?” - -I nodded. - -“She still thinks it was me?” - -I had to nod again. - -“You’ve seen her since--” his voice hardened and he finished, “the -Scofield bump off?” - -“Yes.” - -“That was me, too?” - -“She thinks, you see,” I said, “you’re no longer yourself.” - -“Kind of her,” said he. “Very. Well, I’d gathered as much from the -papers. I don’t blame her. Where were we?” - -“He’d got the necklace.” - -“Oh, yes; and Fred and Ken Scofield were informing their father’s wife -that, after cutting off the old man with an allowance, they were also -going to let his insurance lapse. Now, about that time, a queer thing -was happening with that young wife--queer if you keep on staring at -just what you see from Astor Street. Christina got a hankering for -decency.” - -“You mean she liked Win Scofield?” - -“She liked being his wife--if only for the novelty. The old man, for -himself, was nothing to her. She was crazy about Keeban.” - -“Yet married Win Scofield.” - -“‘My friend’ told her to. Probably he was coming to one of the times -when he was getting tired of her, anyway; he took her up, off and on; -off times, he picked up with other girls. So, till he wanted her again, -he thought he’d park her with the Scofield family and let her gather -half a million for him.” - -“What did she think when she first saw you?” - -“Oh, she knew about me, sure enough. Part of ‘my friend’s’ plan in -planting her in society must have been to help his scheme with me; -she was his inside wire on that job and went through with her end so -smoothly that no one suspected, no one even mentioned her; she wasn’t -even “Among those present” printed in the paper after the Sparling -affair. Undoubtedly she’d have gone right through with the arrangement -rigged on old Win, if ‘my friend’ had stuck to original prospectus; but -Fred and Ken didn’t make that possible. And ‘my friend’, from his point -of view, was left with no other course than to croak old Win. If he was -to maintain any sort of discipline, he simply had to do it.” - -“Discipline of whom? Shirley?” - -“For one, among others. My brother,” said Jerry, avoiding his previous -euphemism of “friend” and speaking with a queer timbre of pride, “had -a leadership to maintain and improve, a certain record of success to -conserve. A man in his position must, above every one else, save his -face; he can let no one smile at him. Here he had let his girl go to -old Win Scofield to make him some money and Win’s sons had made it -impossible, unless somebody croaked Win; so Win had to be croaked; not -merely for the money, but to save ‘my friend’s’ face. - -“Now Shirley, on the square, tried to stop that; from the time I spoke -to you, she was never against you. It’s right for her to have the -insurance money that’s paid; she was not in the scheme of the croaking; -nobody can ever show she was.” - -“She accused you to me,” I said. - -Jerry nodded. “I’ve seen the papers. You’ll see something else -to-night. Win Scofield’s widow has her money; and Harry Vine, my friend -and yours, Steve--Keeban, we called him--he’s saving his face. At the -Flamingo Feather, the affair will be.” - -“Flamingo Feather?” - -“You don’t know it? Well, neither did I a few weeks ago. I dreamed, no -more than you, that such a spot existed; yet to-night it’s my place of -fate. For ‘my friend’s’ friends go there to-night, Steve, to see what -he can show them. It’s a date; he’s got to be present. The Flamingo -Feather’s a hall, Steve--one of those halls that the police raid with -the reserves in force, with half a dozen wagons, or leave severely -alone. There’s a masque ball on there to-night--with fancy figures and -favors. There’s a celebration on, you see; and something to expect.” - -“You going?” - -“I? He’ll be there, I said. Do you want to chance it, Steve?” - - - - -XI - -THE THIEVES’ BALL. - - -The approach to the floor of the Flamingo Feather was past a bakery, -a pawnshop, a drink parlor, all decorous and dreary. Then there was -a door distinguished by a bracket extending a black, iron basket in -which a yellow electric bulb glowed. Over the street, this and a single -iron feather painted flame color made a flaunt of festivity. From the -door stretched a hall, tinted Pompeian red and reaching toward gents’ -smoking rooms and the placarded penetralia of ladies; upward led iron -stairs to the ballroom, let by the hour or evening, at rates proclaimed -on a card. - -I realized, as I entered, that I had heard of this place--or at least -of its sister ballrooms--scores of times. For here revelled those -indefinite, intriguing organizations named, by their members, “The -Apollo Pleasure Club” and “The Brothers of Byzas” (whoever he was) -and “the Ten Terpsichoreans,” who from their handbill, pasted on the -Pompeian wall, evidently hoped to enroll, at a dollar per gent (ladies -with escort free) several hundred paying guests. In fact, few of the -coming social functions, advertised in this hall, appeared to be -exclusive. Yet I might be in error. - -Judging from to-night’s bill, which simply said--“Special--To-night: -Mask and Costume Ball; Get your tickets in Advance--Special”--one might -assume a catholicity of welcome not sustained by the manner of two -tall--and masked--gentlemen in the hall beside a little table at the -foot of the stairs. - -I did not doubt that to-night, at least, there had been an exercise -of selection by whomsoever (they were not named on the notice) sold -tickets in advance. And here, at the foot of the stairs, was a second -inspection. Each masker, or at least one in every group, lifted his -cover when passing the table. Jerry did that for the two of us; of -course he had tickets and we were passed and, after checking our outer -garments, we climbed to the ballroom where jazz was playing. - -Jerry was a courtier in doublet and jerkin; he was Sir Walter Raleigh -as much as any one else. I was a monk, Erasmus for choice, in robe and -cowl; both of us, as I’ve suggested, wore masks; about us everywhere -were maskers, wigged Colonials, Barbara Frietchies, Mary Pickfords, -Cæsars, Cromwells, Charlie Chaplins; then there were Aphrodites, -devils and sailors, sashed pirates, queens and kings addicted not so -much to any particular personage or period as to an impression of the -generically royal in their garb. Many, of both sexes, went in for mere -fantastic innovation, concealing electric batteries under silk bodice -or skirt, switching on green, red and blue lights in their hair, on -their shoulders and elbows while they danced. - -They betrayed a penchant for weaponry, too, keeping in decent -concealment the short, blue-barrelled automatics of contemporary -pattern but evidencing long, decorative--and yet not entirely -useless--daggers, rapiers and curved cutlasses. - -I had picked my costume partly on the presumption that it had enjoyed -a smaller popularity than other offerings at Leventhal’s, lessor of -garments; partly I was influenced by its exceptional qualities for -concealment. There appeared to have been, among the gentlemen who would -have been supposed to have obtained one of those tickets in advance, a -peterman similar to me in height and familiarly known as “Beets”--I am -not sure of the spelling, perhaps an “a” appertained--who had affected -the monastic in earlier revels. He was, fortunately, a taciturn -individual; so nobody expected me to talk much; and nobody talked much -to me. - -It was nearly eleven o’clock when we arrived, so the ball was already -rolling; “the thieves’ ball,” the papers dubbed it afterwards; yet, -of the three hundred persons in the hall at the hour of the swiftest -rolling, not fifty actually were thieves. Not fifty were either thieves -or worse; not if you counted both sexes, the shoplifters and lay -“wires”, along with the “guns” and “gervers.” - -So much I had gathered from Jerry during the afternoon. The actual -go-getter in any society is in the small minority; he, or she, supports -a host of hangers-on; it is only the armchair dreamer who flatters -himself that he who holds him up, who blows his safe, who forges his -name, must be a fugitive, hiding and cowering between his sallies -forth with gat, with “soup” or with pen. Of course, the gunman or the -gerver goes about his business, keeps his hours, surrounds himself by -friends and family even as you and I. He might frequent the Drake or -the Blackstone for his pleasure, also, but it would be too suggestive -of business. He, too, requires his leisure; so here he was with his -friends at the Flamingo Feather. - -Maybe a dozen knew what was on that night; not more than that, Jerry -told me. He vanished, Jerry did, after we’d been there an hour, leaving -me alone with ladies. - -I danced, to mighty good music, with a crowned queen of Tudorish -bodice, modified by electric lights on the sleeves; with a green-robed -girl of red hair with amber lights on her comb; with a white-shouldered -Cleopatra, lithe and soft in my arms. - -I danced again with Cleopatra and, after midnight, a couple of times -more and was having a better time with each encore. Also I was getting -acclimated to the diverting atmosphere of that ball. Its manners, -of course, were various and, as I explained to myself the different -developments, each masker made for himself a personal interpretation -of his rôle according to his costume; consequently I witnessed the -Puritanical portrayed in contrast with the piratical between which -extremes the private lighting plants extemporized pirouettes of their -own. - -There was plenty of cheek-to-cheek proximity of partners; plenty of -knee to knee. Occasionally a floor committeeman pried a couple a few -inches farther apart; but surely it is better to see that done than to -observe the need ignored. - -Jerry, unless he returned in some new costume, remained away from the -floor; and I gave up momentarily expecting him. I got to having a good -time on my own account, especially with Cleopatra. - -I could not see her face between her brow and lips. Through her mask, -I got glimpse enough of her irises to see that they were blue. Her -forehead was smooth and white and pretty; intelligent looking, too. Her -lips were bowed and smiled pleasantly and were not too much carmined; -she had a fine little chin, pretty and also firm. She’d a lovely neck -and shoulders, smooth as satin; and she’d small, strong little hands -with beautiful, pink nails, and slender, shapely feet. - -I’m not given to noticing quite so much about a girl; but with this -one, I couldn’t help it. She was an alluring little crook. I suppose -the vizor had something to do with it; the hidden always beckons a -fellow on; but what kept me coming was the thought,--what was she -doing there? What was her line or her lay? If she were merely a guest -of this ball, whose guest was she? - -Naturally, at a masque--and most naturally at that masque--people -dispensed with introductions. She was Cleopatra and no one gave her a -modern name; as Cleopatra she lacked a Cæsar, though many were present. -She lacked even an Anthony; a Magellanic mariner seemed to be her -rallying point. I don’t know why I called the gentleman Magellan; if -he’d been huskier I’d have called him Columbus. Somehow I’ve always -imagined Magellan quick and slight and more given to liquor than -Columbus. This mariner was; given to liquor, I mean. Cleopatra bothered -about him for a time and then blithely abandoned him, much to my -benefit. - -“What shall I call you?” she asked me. So far, we had got on without -names. - -“Erasmus,” I said, to try her as much as anything. - -To my amazement, she knew the old boy. “Holbein would be thrilled by -you.” And, as she danced with my arm about her, I could feel that she -was sizing me up anew. I had said “Erasmus” as I might have said -Claude or Skeezix; but since she knew Erasmus, naturally she wondered -how I knew. Beets, my predecessor in these garments, would not have -known; but Cleopatra had known for some time that I was not Beets. - -About that time came a diversion; in fact, _the_ diversion. Sir Walter -Raleigh, escorting an Elizabethan lady, appeared on the floor. Both -were masked; but under the garb of Raleigh were the limbs of Jerry; and -I knew the Elizabethan lady, too. Here was Christina, come to the ball. - -I looked again at her Raleigh, with rapier at his side, dagger at -his waist. Not Jerry, I told myself, with pulses thrilling; here was -Keeban. This was what I was to expect; Keeban, to show off, had carried -Christina to the ball. That day, she had won the last of her money; -this night he had regained her, he was to take her away; but before -going, here was his flourish, his defiance, his display! - -He put his arm about her, and, as they began to dance, I heard in the -buzz of voices the whisper of his name. Here was Harry Vine, they -were saying; here was Christina. Between them, they’d more than half -a million; he’d put over his job just as he schemed it. Nobody could -beat that boy; if they tried to, the sod for them. - -It looked like madness for them to be here to-night; but madness marks -the big job. - -Here was Keeban, Harry Vine. He had boasted that he would bring his -woman, whom some thought had gone away from him. Surely he had arranged -his get-away with her; but before he used it, here he was proving that -she was his. - -But she wasn’t his! At least, so Jerry had told me. She’d come with -him, but she was, in fact, no longer his. Something more was on -to-night than that rapiered and daggered Raleigh expected. I danced -with Cleopatra, watching them dance, and also I looked now for the -reappearance of the other Raleigh, who was Jerry. - -The number ended; now clapping; now encore. My arms circled Cleopatra; -I clasped her. Keeban clasped Christina. - -As I watched his arm go around her, so exactly as Jerry’s clasped his -partner in the dance, I got another jerk. Maybe he was Jerry! Maybe -what was to happen between Jerry and his “friend”, his brother, had -happened outside. I sent that thought out of my head and watched them. - -What a pair they made, she young, lithe, full of life, perfect in her -soft proportions. I thought of how I had seen her singing that night -before the shooting and how she received me--like Récamier, on her -couch--afterwards. But here she was dancing another theme. And he, -dancing with her, was quick, graceful, courtly. Clearly they had done -this dance often together. Some one cried out a request and they went -into a fancy figure. - -The rest of us cleared a circle in the center of the hall; we danced -slowly about the perimeter while they in the middle twined arms, -turned, confronted each other, flung each other away and circled back -to clasp again, dancing. - -They had become so professional now, that, watching their steps, I -forgot for the moment that he was the murderer of old Win and she had -been old Win’s wife, in the plot for the Scofield money. Jerry had told -me that, when the plot turned to murder of her husband, she had tried -to stop it. Had they fallen out? Well, I should see. This was a time -not to think, but to watch. - -Some one switched the lights off. It proved the signal for those who -had lights in their hair and on their dresses to gather inside the -circle and give their soft, colored glows to Christina and Harry, -dancing together. - -He seized her, tossed her away, caught her again and, before again he -tossed her, she altered the figure. As he caught at her, she eluded -him and, laughing, she snatched at the sheath on his belt. She had his -dagger; and the lights--blood-red, green and amber--glinted on the -flashing blade as she bared it, drew back and thrust at him. - -He caught her wrist, as girls about me gasped; he held and twisted at -her hand but she broke his hold and darted away from him. He stood a -moment, staring; then he grinned at her who, off at the edge of the -circle, again was dancing as if that thrust at him, his snatch just in -time, his twist and her breakaway all were part of the figure. But they -weren’t. He knew; I knew; many others knew. There, in that flash of -shining steel, she had stabbed at him to kill him. - -Why? Jerry’s words to me gave at least a clue. He was her man, who had -been a “gun” but who had become a “gorilla”; he had shot Win Scofield -in her sight, slaughtered him before her. She had tried to stop that -killing; and his murder of the old man in his house had been Harry -Vine’s answer. Also he had served notice for her to come back to him; -so she had done so,--to kill him. - -This was what Jerry meant I should see; this was the vengeance of -Shirley. Not vengeance alone; also an attempt at self-protection. She -knew, going back to a “gorilla”, that sooner or later he would kill -her. Perhaps she expected death from him only a little later that -night. So she had struck there before them all and, failing, made her -life surely forfeit. Now, without doubt, Keeban--Harry Vine--would kill -her. - -Not there, surrounded by that circle, as she would have slain him, had -her thrust gone home. A girl kills a man that way; but not a man his -woman. This rapiered Raleigh knew that. He made no motion to attack -her; he merely watched her, and he grinned while she danced and tried -to play it was all pretense. - -Now her partner started toward her; and everybody watched him, and -watched her, and nobody interfered. Nobody thought that, when he caught -her, immediately and there he would kill her. I, at least, did not even -imagine that. He was moving to capture her now and to carry her away; -and, to these maskers in the circle, that was all his own affair as, to -them, her stroke at him had been her business. I realized that had she -sent the dagger home, no one would have touched her as no one, after -she had failed and was doomed, would raise a hand to help her now. - -She knew it also; and she looked to no one for aid. She merely danced -away, his dagger in her hand, smiling and still playing at pretense. - -Fingers circled my wrist; they were Cleopatra’s. Small, strong, intense -fingers they were, half holding, half warning me. - -I had not been aware that I betrayed, through my mask and cowl, the -impulse which heated me. Of course I wanted to help that girl who had -struck and failed; I wanted to seize him who grinned and stole upon -her, and of course I knew I could not; and those slim fingers circling -my wrist doubly warned me. Here was business between two persons--girl -and man--which was their own. She still had chance to strike again and -kill him, if she could; he had his right to capture. - -She circled away and he followed about the edge of the ring, not -gaining upon her. Suddenly he snatched a cape from the shoulders of a -watcher; he wound it about his left arm and, with that arm forward to -take her stab, he darted on her. - -He did it so quickly, so surely, that it seemed prearranged. For the -moment, it seemed that the motion must have been practiced and it was -all play. Then he was on her; she made a stab and he caught it on that -bundled cape. With his other hand, he had her wrist; he had her. No -acting in that; no possible pretense. - -It was not play; he had her! The circle knew it was not play; some of -them would surely save her. I must have jerked again; for Cleopatra’s -fingers pressed tighter on my wrist. - -“Where’s Jerry?” I thought. “What’s he doing?” - -The light was lessening. A girl switched off the glows which burned -upon her head and dress; another did the same; another. “Lights!” -somebody called; but before the room lights could go on, other dancers -had darkened the colored bulbs they wore. - -The dagger rang on the floor; and, as she dropped it, Christina -surprised her partner out of his hold on her. She darted back. The -circle behind her opened and closed. She was through and the circle -was all dark. Then some one screamed. - -At that instant, I was sure it was Christina; I was sure he had -her again. Then, I did not know. There was a whistle outside. “The -bulls--bulls--bulls.” - -Cleopatra’s fingers freed my wrist. I groped for her but she was -gone. “Bulls--the bulls” men and girls said. No one cried again for -lights; no one turned them on. In the dark, I felt streams of escape in -opposite directions. Outside somebody was shooting; came shouts; now -the clanging of patrol cars. Surprise was gone. - -I felt myself sucked into an eddy of escape repulsed from one side and -cast upon the other. We reached air and iron stairs. Pistols flashed -before us; our van cleared the way. I came down to the alley pavement -and stumbled over a man shot or fallen. I crossed the alley and reached -a passage. A girl’s hand led me through and, a block down, we found -refuge. - -I didn’t know the girl. I never saw her face. It was dark and she left -the shed before me. I dropped my robe there; and when I walked out, the -circle of capture had closed and was still contracting, not expanding. -The police took, altogether, thirty-six persons,--twenty girls, -sixteen men. - -The “bulls” booked them all but proved able to hold nobody. They showed -prison records against seven but nothing then “out” against any one. -The pick-up, as shown on the picture pages, included a Tudor queen, two -of the lighting plants, a pirate, a Turk, a Cæsar but not Cleopatra; -not even Magellan. Not the Elizabethan Christina, not Raleigh, either -Jerry or Keeban. - -The raid was made to get Jerry and Christina; for some one had tipped -it that they’d be at the Flamingo Feather. The tip told even the time. - -I kept wondering about that tip and who gave it. Not Jerry, I thought; -but where, during the end of that evening, was Jerry? And I considered -that it was only after he had gone that Keeban had come in,--or the -man in mask whom I’d called Keeban, and who did that dagger dance with -Christina. - -She’d told me, at that time when she lay on her bed like Madame -Récamier, that Jerry had killed old Win; she showed no knowledge at all -of Keeban. - -You’ll understand I kept my thoughts to myself; and I kept to myself -that I’d danced at the Flamingo Feather that night of “the thieves’ -ball,” which was raided. The newspapers, always keen for the colorful, -played up the pictures they took of those twenty girls and sixteen -“crooks” in costume; but the papers did not even know of that dagger -dance. Much less could they give news of the final consequence of it. - -In my mind, when I thought of it, Keeban had caught Christina. In my -mind, he had her somewhere wholly in his power; at his own time, in his -own manner, he would punish her. Imagining this, I would get up and -walk about; I felt I had to do something. But where were they? Where -was Jerry? If he were not the Raleigh who had returned; if he were not -the man who had danced, where had he gone? What had happened to him? - -I learned, during those days, the completer truth of what Jerry had -told me of the underworld. It wasn’t a place; not at all. For the -places, they all remained. There was the Flamingo Feather, dull and -drab by daylight with its door beyond the bakery, the pawnshop, the -soft-drink parlor; its light was out; its iron basket rusted and -filled with wet, melting snow. At night “The Apollo Club”--giggling -clerks--consorted there; and then “The Brothers of Byzas,” who, if he -was like his kin, was a teamster, apparently. - -Gone, gone from the Flamingo Feather were my friends of the masque, -vanished as wholly as yesterday’s snow from the basket over the door. - -Nor could Klangenberg’s help me. There was the door within which stood -shelves heaped with delicatessen; but a strange child pondered over the -keys of the cash register which invited “come again.” He knew nothing -of Klangenberg who had “gone away.” Not even the “dyke-keeper” remained. - -Exploring the alley alone, I penetrated to the hooded stairs atop which -Jerry had greeted me. Now an old wigged woman, crippled and fluent of -Yiddish, kept vigil there. - -I sought Leventhal, the lessor of my Erasmus garb cast off in that shed -and never recovered. I came offering cash to pay for the robe. He took -the money, shaking his head; he would remember neither the robe nor me. -There was no tracing, through him, of others who wore his clothes that -night. They were vanished like Villon’s lovers: - - - Alas for lovers! Pair by pair - The wind has blown them all away; - The young and yare, the fond and fair, - Where are the Snows of Yesterday? - - -Young and yare; that was Cleopatra! Where was she? Who was she? More -than who, whose might she be? Well, what good for me to wonder and -worry? What good to feel, by remembrance, the softness of her hand in -mine when we danced; and then the iron warning of her fingers on my -wrist! What good to see in mind the beauty of her shoulder and the -smallness of her foot. They were gone, all gone; and, if I looked at -the whole business sensibly, I would see that somehow, in ways not -yet entirely clear, I had been of service in the game of getting for -Christina and her man insurance of five hundred thousand with which -they had got away; or he had, after taking it from her. - - - - -XII - -I DISCOVER “THE QUEER.” - - -Then Tom Downs was getting married and he asked me to usher, so there I -was in Caldon’s, picking out an after-dinner coffee set to be sent to -the bride; and a lot I knew about breeds and varieties of Hepplewhite -and Colonial and Queen Anne. Now if setter dogs could only be wedding -presents, or beans, I’d be right on the spot; or a bag of Rio coffee -would be all right; but the coffee container never meant anything to -me. So I was about to judge by the good old way, which has proved such -a help to the high cost of living, and order the most expensive when I -heard a voice that I knew and turned about. - -She wasn’t speaking to me but to the clerk at the watch-repair counter, -which was just opposite the coffee sets: - -“Bad?” she was saying. “Oh, you must mean counterfeit. Did I really -have one? How interesting; please let me see.” And she put a small -gloved hand across the counter for the bank note which he held. - -A new twenty, I noticed it was, and then I looked again at her. Without -any doubt, I knew her voice; I was absolutely certain I’d talked to -her; but her face was a complete surprise to me. A pleasant surprise, -right enough; she was rather a little thing, slender but with rounded -neck and arms, in actually beautiful proportions; about twenty-two in -age, I guessed. She had nice, clear white-and-pink skin; good, bold -little mouth and a sort of I-dare-you-chin. Her nose turned up the -barest trifle, darned attractively, and though I couldn’t from the side -get a view of her eyes, it was pretty plain they weren’t easy ones to -meet. Anyway, that clerk wobbled before her as he apologized that the -government that week had just warned the banks and all big business -houses in Chicago that new and unusually dangerous counterfeits of -twenty-dollar Federal Reserve Notes were in circulation. - -“Dangerous?” said my friend. “You mean the ink’s poisonous or something -like that?” She seemed glad she had her gloves on. - -The clerk laughed. “Oh, it’s quite safe that way, Miss Wellington. They -mean, it’s an unusually good job of counterfeiting; very hard indeed -to detect. In fact, they say in this case the printing and coloring is -actually perfect, to all practical purposes. It is only the paper which -is enough off so that an expert, like our cashier, suspected it.” - -Miss Wellington opened her hand bag. “How interesting! But would you -ask your clever cashier to look over these bills for me to make sure -they’re all right? Why, what a frightful place Chicago is; I got in -just this morning from Denver and bought a few things at Field’s and -along Michigan Avenue, breaking a hundred-dollar bill somewhere, I -can’t remember exactly where, and getting change----” - -I heard, of course, but didn’t actually pay any attention to the rest -she was saying. Miss Wellington of Denver! Now I didn’t know any Miss -Wellington of Denver or any other place; but I did know that girl; -her voice, anyway. She certainly had talked to me; and also, I was -sure, I knew her hands and her figure, if I didn’t know her face. She -had one glove off now, feeling the texture of the counterfeit bill in -comparison with the others in her hand bag, which proved to be quite -all right. Yes; I knew that pretty, slender, strong little hand. - -She was going out now, after having given to the cashier--who had come -up--the information that she _thought_ she had broken her hundred -dollars at Field’s and got her change there and supplying him with her -Chicago address as the Blackstone Hotel. - -“Beg pardon, sir,” said the coffee-set salesman, “did you make a -choice?” - -“Oh, shoot along the Queen Anne,” I said; and with the word “queen” -something caught me. - -“What name, sir?” said the salesman. - -“Cleopatra,” I said, for I had it; and I got under way without worry -over the impression I was leaving behind me. For now I had placed Miss -Wellington of Denver, and I knew why I was familiar with her voice, -with her hands, with her figure, and also why her face was a surprise -to me. For she was Cleopatra, my ci-devant partner of the dances at the -Flamingo Feather where I was ostensibly “Beets”, the safe blower in a -hired Erasmus get-up, and she was mate to a lightly built Magellanic -gent, who sopped up rather too much that evening and yet had proved -nimble as any on the getaway. - -I was absolutely sure of her; but she didn’t suspect me. I had been all -swaddled in robes and cowls that night, you remember. Of course she’d -heard my voice then, but she couldn’t have recognized it from anything -I’d muttered at Caldon’s. I’m one of those mute buyers. So here I was, -trailing her down Michigan Boulevard and wondering what in salvation to -do. - -From a Puritanical point of view, I had one plain duty; for I couldn’t -feel the slightest doubt that Cleopatra there a few steps in front -of me--present alias Miss Wellington of Denver--had never obtained -that dangerous twenty in change. If she had just participated in any -financial transaction at Field’s, I felt that Marshall III might just -as well mark himself down twenty dollars or forty (or some higher -multiple of twenty) on the total loss page of the day’s doings. -Unquestionably I should, by all rules of citizenship, hand her over to -the traffic officer at the approaching corner and ask him to blow his -whistle to call the wagon. - -On the other hand, my acquaintance with Cleopatra which now put me in -position to suspect her (of course suspect doesn’t half say it) had -been gained under circumstances which any one would call privileged. -The whole fact of my presence at that dance was under a sort of -sporting condition; and I couldn’t forget how this girl, herself, had -held on to my wrist, warning me and keeping me out of trouble. - -I actually owed something to her; but that wasn’t what I was thinking -of, as I followed her. I was watching what a wallop she was as she -went down the boulevard; much the neatest one in sight. She was rather -small, I’ve said; and trim; wonderfully turned, she was, and dressed in -plain, tailored things which always look the best, I think. I almost -collided with a couple of my friends--girls--from up the Drive and -around on Astor. We nearly crashed because they were looking, too. -Everybody was gazing, at least a bit, at Miss Wellington; yet she -wasn’t endeavoring at all to attract attention. Quite the opposite. She -simply couldn’t help it. - -She had me heeling her, therefore, without the least actual idea of -handing her over to any one; but also without any intention of letting -her go. For here I’d found her, after all that world of Jerry’s and of -the Flamingo Feather had vanished into air. - -I began to understand that of course they hadn’t really vanished. -They’d been about--those queens and ladies, those sailors, pirates and -lighting plants--but I simply had not known it when I saw them. - -Think of the time it took me to identify Cleopatra, whom I’d made my -chief companion that night. - -Now she meant to me, besides what she was herself, a chance for getting -into touch again with all that world. I got to thinking particularly of -her friend, Magellan, and looking for him in the offing. But if he were -about, I didn’t recognize him; she spoke to nobody and seemed not to -be expecting any one. She just kept on down the boulevard, minding her -own business and glancing, as any girl would, into show windows. Then -suddenly she stopped, entered a store and, during the six seconds she -was in ahead of me, she did an expert disappearing piece. She was gone; -absolutely! - -I stood and waited; I wandered about but drew a total blank. I taxied -down to the Blackstone where she said she was staying. I thought -I shouldn’t have believed that; yet it was true. There she was -registered--at least somebody was registered, “Doris Wellington and -maid, Denver.” - -By a little casual questioning, I made sure it was she; and by my -soul I couldn’t help liking her the better for it. Not only was she -stopping at our best, the Blackstone, but she had her own maid. “Doris -Wellington and maid!” - -She’d come in that morning from Denver; at least that was what she’d -told the hotel. She was checking out to leave for New York by the -Century that noon. - -The hotel people, knowing me, naturally supposed me her friend. If she -heard of my inquiry, I didn’t know what she’d suppose, so I asked them -not to mention it; and I beat it over to my bank to make ready for -contingencies in case it proved true that she was on her way to New -York by the Century. - -Also I wanted to work up a little knowledge on the counterfeiting game; -and I knew just the man to help me. Almost every big bank has its money -crank. Old Wally Bailey holds the post at mine. His father founded -the place and he has so much stock that, if the others won’t make him -vice-president, he’ll have himself elected chief; so they all vote him -vice, unanimously, at every election and put in half their thought -between times at keeping him so busy at other ideas that he can’t gum -up the banking game by having any time for business. - -They thank God over there whenever a well-raised check drifts in; -they rush it right around to Wally for it’ll make him forget to insult -customers for a whole day at a time. A good forgery sometimes saves -the other officers from practically all argument with Wally for a -week; while if they can just get a good counterfeiting job to occupy -him,--well, they hardly dare pray for good luck like that. - -Everything was humming so and borrowers were looking so relieved when -I wandered in that I knew Wally was happily engaged; and soon somebody -told me the good news. Fresh and unusually deceptive counterfeit bank -notes were in circulation. Wally wasn’t at his desk; he was in the -Directors’ Room which he had to himself, and all that the others had to -do to keep him harmless was to send him the new Federal Reserve notes -as they were pushed into the tellers’ windows. - -I found him with a catch of seven bad ones already this morning, and -the banking day yet was young; five twenties, he had on the table -before him, and two fifties. He greeted me with a happy glint in his -eyes and shoved the secret service circular at me. - -“Read that first”; so I read. - -“Twenty-dollar Federal Reserve Note on the Federal Reserve Bank of -New York; check letter ‘A’ plate No. 121; Carter Glass, Secretary of -the Treasury; John Burke, Treasurer of the United States; portrait of -Cleveland. - -“This counterfeit is a steel-plate production, with the exception of -numbering, and is a particularly close and excellent piece of work; -even the scrollwork of the borders is uniform and good. The numbering -is clean and clear, and appears to have been done serially, as no two -notes yet received bear the same number. It is printed on special paper -which when flat closely resembles the genuine, but is too brittle when -creased. - -“The face of the bill is unusually deceptive, the seal and numbering -being particularly good; the faults in the portrait are actually -microscopic, consisting in a slight broadening of portrait of -Cleveland; the texture of the paper, however, together with the -frequent bunching of the silk fiber inserted, should detect this -counterfeit.” - -Wally ecstatically brandished one of his twenties beside one of the -fifties before me. - -“They haven’t got out the circular on the fifty yet; they just ’phoned -round about it this morning; and I’ve these two already. Made by the -same gang, you see. Same good seal and numbering; printed on the -same paper; and also a steel-plate job. One of the old masters did -that, Steve; spent weeks and weeks engraving that plate to make that -reproduction. He’s none of your modern, lazy, loafing photo-engravers -running off notes on a hand press. That’s a Janvier job, I know. A -Chicago job, or a western job, anyway. I told Cantrell yesterday. -But he still thinks it’s a New York piece of work because the notes -appeared down there first. The photo-engraved jobs are done down there; -but not pure art like this, I told him. Broadway can’t produce it; look -here.” And he picked up a couple of fifty-dollar Federal Reserve notes -and went on with his talk. - -Up to that moment, money had just been money to me; of course I’d -noticed, especially since the Federal Reserve notes began coming out, -we’d been developing different varieties; and I was aware that each -style had figures of its own and that some one--usually a particularly -rotten penman--took it upon himself to sign each issue; also I had -observed, as a matter of course, that our money ran to pictures of -presidents, each labelled so you’d know him, and on the other side they -printed unlabelled but occasionally exciting little scenes in green -like the landing of Columbus or the wreck of the _Hesperus_. But the -fine points of the art work had escaped me. - -Now it appeared that the government hired expert engravers, not only -for esthetic purposes but to make counterfeiting harder. Each issue was -printed from steel plates, specially engraved and most particularly -guarded. The paper also was specially made by secret process. Now, many -years ago, occasionally a real artist and a patient and conscientious -workman turned counterfeiter and cut a steel plate as good as the -government’s, and then, if he had a fair paper to print on and good -ink, he gave the secret service a lot of trouble. - -“Janvier, some of whose fine work was still in circulation when I -started with the bank, was by all odds the best of these,” Wally told -me. “The secret service had got him about a year earlier; but his -souvenirs were still coming in. His paper betrayed him; he couldn’t -make that; he had to use the best he could get and imitate the silk -shred lines with colored ink; but his plates were almost perfect--even -to the scroll work of the borders, which the government makes by -special lathes; his seals and numbers were perfect, even under the -microscope; and his portraiture wonderful. He served ten years and then -got out and put another series of gold notes in circulation, almost a -thousand twenties in spite of being watched, before they got him again -for ten more years, at the end of which he engraved the famous ‘living -Cleveland’ plate from which the big counterfeit issue of 1912 was -printed. - -“He was watched, of course; so he couldn’t do the printing; he had to -give the plate to others who got better paper but not good enough; and -the government got them all. That trial was famous, Stephen; you must -have read about it.” - -I shook my head regretfully; I was interested in football in those -days. So Wally told me: - -“The government could not connect Janvier with the printing of the -money but accused him of making the plates. Janvier offered no defence; -he knew the secret service had him, but his attorneys put up the claim -that the plates hadn’t been counterfeited at all; they claimed that the -printers used government plates which had been stolen!” - -“Wait now!” I asked Wally, an old headline with a picture trickling -through my memory along with Brickley’s drop-kick scores. “I did read -that. Janvier--if that was his name--jumped up in the witness stand at -that and stopped the lawyer; he said he didn’t mind going back to jail -but he’d be damned if he’d see his own work classed with government -plates. When he engraved a portrait of a president, he made him look as -if he had once lived instead of----” my memory gave way just then so -Wally finished for me: - -“Instead of like a death mask with the eyes pried open. That was -Janvier; so they sent him back to the Federal prison where they kept -him till two years ago, when he went blind; they operated on him but -couldn’t help him; and, considering him harmless, released him. But he -must have got back his sight; anybody can see that. Why? For nine years -what have we had in the way of counterfeiting? Clumsy, photo-engravers’ -jobs. Some ordinary, dull dub takes a camera and photographs a -government bill, makes a half-tone and smears it with green ink and -runs off a batch of bills so coarse and blurred, compared to engraving -from a cut-steel plate, that a child can spot it. That’s the modern -way; easy enough, but they’re lucky to get a thousand dollars into -circulation before the secret service has them behind bars. But here -comes back a regular ‘old master,’ I say; looks like he’s a quarter -million passed already; and he’s Janvier, if he did lose his sight two -years ago. Cantrell doesn’t think so; he thinks it’s a new hand.” - -“Who’s Cantrell?” I asked. - -“He’s a secret service expert working here on this particular job.” - -It was about ten minutes after this, while I was still there, looking -and listening, that a girl, who proved to be Wally’s private secretary, -broke the monotony of the clerks bringing in bad twenties and fifties. - -“Hello, Miss Lane,” said Wally. “What have you?” - -“Doctor Lathrom, sir,” reported Miss Lane, glancing at a card in her -hand. - -“Lathrom, the big eye surgeon, Steve,” whispered Wally to me. “I’ve had -Miss Lane calling on the eye people since yesterday noon. Go on, Miss -Lane.” - -“He operated in August of last year on a short, stocky man, French or -Austrian, of about sixty-five, he thought, who gave the name of Gans -and who was almost totally blind from double cataract which had been -previously operated upon unsuccessfully. Doctor Lathrom restored his -sight. I showed the doctor the picture of Janvier among six other -pictures. He picked out Janvier’s.” - -Wally struck his hands together. “I told Cantrell so. I told him it was -another Janvier job; and that Janvier was in Chicago, too. He always -cut his plates in Chicago. He couldn’t work in the east.” - -“Does the doctor happen to remember anybody who might have been with -this Gans?” I asked Miss Lane. - -“Yes, sir. Not only Gans impressed the doctor, but his daughter, also. -Since Gans was blind when Doctor Lathrom first saw him, she brought him -to the doctor and made all the original arrangements. She was about -twenty--he thinks; he remembers her for unusually attractive, of the -active type. Dark hair; pert nose, he particularly recalled.” - -Wally wasn’t paying any attention to this; he already had what he -wanted and he was chatting on about the superior artistic inspiration -of Chicago over Manhattan, even in counterfeiting. - -“I told Cantrell it was a Chicago job on the plates, anyway; New York -is a photo-engravers’ town; an artist like Janvier couldn’t cut a -plate like that within five hundred miles of Broadway. He’d smear it, -if he tried to. Maybe they printed in the east; or made the paper, -there; probably did.” - -He was waiting for the switchboard operator to get a connection with -the secret service so he could scream his news at them. - -If he had learned what he wanted, I had, too. It was perfectly plain to -me, of course, that my partner Cleopatra--Doris Wellington, with maid, -from Denver--was this daughter of Janvier, engraver of government notes -without the government’s coöperation. Her bit in the business was--to -employ the convenient phrase of the Flamingo Feather--to blow out the -bad dough, to shove “the queer.” - -You may gather that this realization did not come exactly as a shock to -me; in fact, I felt rather a relief. Participation in that affair at -the Flamingo Feather might imply so many customs worse than the mere -personal issue of money that I drifted back to the Blackstone with -cheer. What I’d found about her family certainly might have been a lot -worse; yes, a whole lot. She’d stuck with her father, evidently. I -liked that. - -“Miss Wellington,” they called her at the hotel; that meant if Magellan -or any other young man were about, he was keeping his distance. Miss -Wellington proved to be in; she sent her maid down from her room to -fetch her mail. The maid, who was as French-looking and demure as -anybody’s, went back and forth from the elevator with eyes down. She -mailed a letter, which I didn’t see, and obtained an envelope which -bore the address of “The Antlers,” Colorado Springs. - -A guest hailed her. “Felice” he called her in Londonish tone. Obviously -he was an Englishman; you might put him down as a polo player off his -pony and in morning attire. He had on one of those pearl-gray velours -from “Scott’s,” hatters to H. M. the King, Piccadilly and Old Bond -Street. A genuine, that was; no counterfeit. I knew a bit about hats. -His cutaway and shoes were from Piccadilly, too--from tailor and booter -to H. M. the King, also, or at least to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales. -His manners were from the Mall. Apparently he was just arrived to meet -Miss Wellington, having heard she’d dropped in from “The Springs.” But -I knew him; he had been the mariner at the ball who’d impressed me as -being too light to class as Columbus. He was Magellan. - -After he’d sent Felice up with the news he was here, he dallied -before the elevators till Doris came down. She’d just left a mirror, -evidently; smartness and style couldn’t commence to suggest her. She -was a stunner. - -“George” she called him; and he called her “Doris”; and he led her into -the main dining room for luncheon, taking a table at a window directly -over the Avenue. I sat down alone a few tables away. It was nearly -twelve; and they went at luncheon lightly,--cold lobster, mainly. I -took the same and, to that extent, mingled. I didn’t like George; not -at all. I liked him even less than Magellan. He had a proprietorish way -with him which was more irritating now that he was sober and out of -costume. - -She didn’t exactly play up to him; she was polite, registering interest -in what he said, watching the parade of motor cars and pedestrians -below their window. Have I said it was a clear, chilly, pleasant winter -day? - -They never even so much as glanced idly toward the door through which -Cantrell and his government men might come. They seemed to think -nothing of that at all, and if either of them gave me a thought, -neither showed it. I heard Doris, in her clear, quick, amused voice, -telling to George how she had discovered a counterfeit twenty in her -change at Caldon’s. - -They finished and George paid the check. I finished and followed them -into the lobby in time to see Felice meeting Miss Wellington with a -receipted bill for their accommodations. Appeared also handbags and -a couple of small semi-trunks, semi suit cases of the “week-end box” -variety. Porters piled the luggage in front of a taxi. - -It became evident that George, having joined the party, was going right -along. He got into the taxi after Doris and Felice. “Century” he said -to the driver. - -The taxis are thick about the Blackstone just before train-time for -the Century to New York. I got a man without the least difficulty. -“Century, sir?” he said. - -“If that car goes there,” I told him. “If it doesn’t, follow it.” - - - - -XIII - -AND LEARN THE SOOTHING EFFECTS OF FOND DU LAC TWINS. - - -It went direct to the LaSalle Street station; and Doris and George and -Felice were standing in the carriage court watching porters pick up -their luggage, when I drove in. - -They glanced at me; that was all. At least it was all I saw, and they -went up to the train shed. I snatched a ticket and a coupon for an -“upper” from the Pullman window and went through the cars. Doris and -Felice had a compartment together about the middle of the train. George -wasn’t with them; he seemed to possess a section in a car near mine. He -possessed also a large, piggy, Trafalgar-Square-looking portmanteau, -yellow in color. I didn’t know where he picked it up. I hadn’t seen it -at the Blackstone; probably he’d had it sent direct to the train. - -I had lost a lot of my prejudice against George since I saw him parked -in a separate car from Doris. He looked at me, realized he had seen -me several times recently and half nodded. I nodded and went on. When -I glanced back, he was drifting rearward to the observation car where -he sat down and picked up an afternoon paper. With as much casualness -as I could manage, I dropped into a chair nearly opposite. The average -Chicago to New York twenty-hour-train travel filled the other chairs -with their varying degrees of self-consciousness and importance. -There were the usual clothing merchants vociferous over discounts -and braiding; there were a couple of advertising men lying--unless -they were Sarazen and Johnny Black in disguise--about how they did -the second nine at Skokie; there was a pleasant, middle-aged married -couple, happy to all appearances; there was a mother with a son under -her thumb; then there were half a dozen assorted males varying from -the emphatic, self-made-man type to mild, chinless youths who might be -either chorus men or bond salesmen. They always look alike to me. - -And they always irritate me so that I did not notice that another man -was beyond them until I observed that George was watching that far end -of the car. He wasn’t doing it conspicuously; he was so subtle about -it that if I had not been paying particular attention to him, I’d never -have guessed anybody here was worrying him. But some one was--one of -those bulldog-jaw, assertive sort of chaps that make you think right -away of the reform candidate, and who gives you, at the same glance, -the reason that reform administrations fail. Not a tactful face at all -but highly determined. He was about thirty-five and was young for his -type, I thought, until I considered that his type has to be younger -sometime. Anyway, there he was, solid and belligerent, and with a copy -of the _Iron Age_ before his face. - -I had to look at him eight or ten times before I became absolutely sure -that he wasn’t reading it but, in turn, was watching George when George -was looking the other way. - -So a man hunt--other than my own (if you called my operations a -hunt)--was on aboard this train; and the stalking was in process before -me. - -It was a woman hunt, too; for of course Doris and Felice, forward, -must be a part of the quarry; and as I reckoned their chances, I -thought that never a bulldog-jawed hound had run a quarry into a more -hopeless hollow log than the one into which this man of the _Iron -Age_ had run my friends of the Flamingo Feather when he followed them -on to the Century. He had them where and when he wanted them; they -simply couldn’t get away. Of course, I didn’t know whether or not he -was alone, in the sense whether he had other operatives with him; that -made no difference; he had the clothing merchants and the golfers; -the married pair, and mother and son; the assorted six with the bond -salesmen,--if you cared to count them; he had a hundred with him -whenever he wanted them. George and Doris, with Felice, had their wits -and themselves; and, since there could be no possible doubt of the -outcome of the stalking I was seeing, I couldn’t help wanting them to -give “Iron Age” a run before he got them. - -There’s something about authority--especially when it’s so satisfied -and certain and when it has all the odds on its side--which does that -to one. Doris Wellington was not in my sight now; but when I thought of -her as she was at the dance and as I had seen her walking down Michigan -Avenue, I simply couldn’t find any impulse to help old “Iron Age” over -there snap his handcuffs upon her and put that active, eager, pert -little thing behind jail bars to be locked up until she was ten years -older. - -Now if “Iron Age” could specialize on George, I could control my -emotions perfectly. I’d become somewhat more indulgent toward George, -I’ve told you; yet I was not wild over him, at all. However, if “Iron -Age” got George, by the same process he’d probably have Doris and maid -too. So I was feeling almost friendly with George when I noticed he was -standing up. He seemed absolutely casual about where he wanted to go. -He wandered down nearer “Iron Age” first, yawned and turned a few pages -of a _Harper’s_ on the desk there; that seemed to make him sleepier and -he strolled forward out of the car. - -I arose and drifted after him. Through two Pullmans he walked ahead -of me wholly unaware, so far as I could guess, that I was behind him; -then, in the vestibule of the third car--with doors closed before and -behind us--he half-turned his head. - -“Old dear, check him,” he said to me. “Here; this door’s jammed.” - -He opened the door before him as he spoke, he sidled through and, as he -shut it, he dropped something which engaged the bottom of the door. -His words certainly were true, then; that door was jammed. I couldn’t -open it. - -“Iron Age” could not budge it, when he replaced me at the knob. He must -have been half a car behind me but I hadn’t even suspected it till he -joined me. Together we were the better part of three minutes at the -door before we could enter the next car. George was then far forward. - -I stopped in the washroom of that Pullman; for I wanted a minute or so -alone to think over things since George had spoken to me. He had hailed -me, you see, as a sort of comrade; he’d counted on me being with him. - -Now I realized that after Doris had seen me at Caldon’s and then they -both had seen me at the Blackstone and here on the train, they must -have attached some significance to me. And it was becoming plain to me -that they made it a friendly significance; at least, they did not put -me down among their pursuers. Probably Doris recognized me, not in the -sense that she knew me for Steve Fanneal, but in the far more decoying -sense that she realized I had been her partner at the Flamingo Feather -and that, therefore, she could count on me when she needed help in -this emergency. - -I couldn’t decide how “Iron Age” had marked me down. He went forward -through a couple of cars but evidently lost George in some washroom or -compartment and he decided to give up George for the present--there was -no danger in that; we were skimming along about sixty-five miles the -hour. Anyway, “Iron Age” paid me the compliment of returning to me in -the Pullman smoking room and he plumped himself down, emphatically, and -went about the job of clearing up any doubts of me. - -“Now who are you?” he opened, with charming directness, a heavy hint of -federal prison at Leavenworth lurking in his tone. - -I gave him my business card without making any fuss and he looked me -over and reached, with a now-I’ve-got-you gesture, for a copy of the -_Chicago Tribune_ which somebody had left on the leather seat. - -He turned to the produce market page and questioned me temptingly: - -“What do you do in the firm, Mr. Fanneal?” - -“Oh, I buy a little,” I admitted. “Overlook sales some.” - -“You buy butter, eggs and cheeses, for instance?” - -“Absolutely.” - -“Good. Now what was centralized Chicago yesterday?” he sprung at me. - -“What score?” I said; and he was sure I was stalling. - -“Ninety-three,” he mentioned. - -“Not quoted,” I told him. - -“Ninety-two, then!” he dared me. - -“That was blob, too. But ninety was forty-seven and a half; eighty-nine -opened at forty-five and lifted a half. Ninety-three in New York was -fifty-five and was a half higher in Philadelphia. Butter to Chicago -retailers, best (ninety-two to ninety-four) tubs, fifty-three, prints -one and a half more, cartons yet a half higher. Good tubs----” - -He held up a hand. I’d looked up butter, he, figured; so he skipped -down the column. “Eggs?” he asked me. - -“Extras, first or miscellaneous?” I asked him. “Checks or dirties? -Forty-eight to forty-nine, and down to twenty-five.” - -I shook him; but that bulldog jaw was not for nothing. He still held -on. “Cheese!” he dared me. - -“Flats?” I came back at him. “Twins? Daisies? Double Daisies? -Longhorns or square prints? And Chicago? Or Fond du Lac? New York -or Philadelphia? Flats at Fond du Lac opened twenty-six and three -quarters; twins----” - -Never had I uttered anything more soothing; he had nothing whatever to -say. And I’ll say this for him, he may have been stubborn and hard to -convince, but once won over, he came all the way. - -“Now exactly who are you?” I inquired, as he dropped the paper. -“Private or government operative?” - -He refrained from laying back his coat impressively to display a -shining star. Apparently they do that only on the stage, or in the -“sets” out in Los Angeles. Also he lacked the scintillating line of -language I’d been led to expect by the Actors’ Equity. Somehow, since -actually playing about with Jerry’s friends, I’ve lost my feeling for -the crook drama. - -“You may consider me government, if you prefer; and you may call me -Dibley,” “Iron Age” confided indulgently and with complete trust. -Hereafter, when any one questions me, I’ll remember the stupifying -effect of cheese quotations. I never saw anything lull a mind so. The -trouble was--or perhaps it was an advantage--“Iron Age” now considered -me not only harmless but probably childish. - -“Have you any idea who that fellow was who wedged the door in front of -you?” he asked. - -“Did he wedge the door?” I asked, innocently. I wasn’t growing any -keener about “Iron Age” Dibley, but I saw no harm in gratifying him. - -“Didn’t you realize that? Well, he’s Stanley Sydenham--St. James -Stanley, he’s sometimes called--the title tapper.” - -“What?” I really didn’t know that. - -“Land swindler. He’s out of Colorado State penitentiary last April -after serving five years in the long house on his last irrigated-land -transaction. Has he talked to you?” - -“A few words,” I said truthfully. - -“Probably he’ll talk to you again,” Dibley suggested, in a tone which -hinted that he believed that George, having made a start with the -simplest person on the train, would probably continue imposing on a -good thing. “Also meet, if you can, Miss Doris Wellington and her maid -in compartment E of car No. 424. Then don’t let any of them see you -and me talking together.” - -“All right,” I agreed willingly. “But what particularly do you suspect?” - -“Exclude nothing,” Dibley said and got up, the soothing effect of the -double daisies and Fond du Lac twins still strong upon him. - -I wandered forward to my seat when I discovered that, in my absence, -I had acquired hand baggage; and I had sense enough not to question -anybody about it or show surprise; I just accepted it; for there it -was,--a neat, new, creditable-looking suit case under the forward seat -in the position usually assigned to the baggage of the passenger of an -upper berth; and it was, beyond any mistake of recognition, the neatest -and newest of the suit cases which, at the Blackstone, had been the -property of Doris Wellington. - -I bent down, after loafing in the seat for a while, and I tried the -locks in a careless sort of way, as though making sure I’d fastened my -luggage. The bag was locked; and I shoved it farther under the seat and -soon went forward. - -I was willing to wager that “Iron Age” had no hint of that transfer of -luggage to me; and this was no time to tell him about it. Besides, I -already was under government orders which I ought to be obeying. So I -stepped forward to car No. 424 and to the door labelled E and I tapped -upon it. - -Felice opened it, like the alert little maid she was. As I confronted -her, I tried again to place her in the Flamingo Feather; but I -couldn’t. She’d been one of the lighting plants, maybe. - -Then I saw Cleopatra of the Flamingo Feather, Doris Wellington of -Caldon’s and the Blackstone and Michigan Boulevard, the daughter of -Janvier, engraver of plates and herself shover of the queer. She was -alone with her maid in the compartment. - -“Can I come in?” I said, as she gazed up at me from her seat. - -“Why, certainly; come right in,” she said immediately, for all the -world as though she was doing nothing there but waiting for me. - - - - -XIV - -I TAKE GOVERNMENT ORDERS. - - -She nodded to Felice who admitted me and went out. Felice closed the -door and, as I remained standing, Doris invited me to sit down. - -“You remember me?” I asked her. - -“Erasmus?” she said. “The thriller of Holbein? Certainly.” - -I dropped upon the seat opposite her and, as I gazed at her, she gazed -at me and continued, “Also we were both at Caldon’s, as well as at the -Blackstone, weren’t we, Mr. Fanneal?” - -“You not only remember me but you know me, then.” - -“Certainly. Don’t you know me? Or what were you doing at the bank?” - -“How’d you know I went to the bank?” - -She smiled pleasantly--pleasantly as the Dickens. “Don’t you also know -me?” she repeated. - -“You’re Janvier’s daughter!” I blurted. - -“Excellent!” she approved me and I felt like a boy in school. - -She had been leaning slightly forward, not exactly tense, not at ease, -either. Poised was the word for it; she’d been poised ever since I -entered. Now she sat back more comfortably, being no longer in suspense -about how much I knew. - -“George was your friend Magellan?” I asked. - -“That’s what you named him.” - -“Felice also was present at the Feather?” - -“She was the one who led you into the shed.” - -“I’m indebted,” I acknowledged; and conversation languished. - -For a second more I stared at her, as gay and piquant a little thing as -ever a twenty-hour-train boasted; then, decidedly stumped as to my next -step, I stared a while out the window. - -Pleasant, Indiana winter scenery was skipping past us. There was clean, -light snow on the fields through which stuck brown cornstalks, in those -great, even patterns which so intriguingly alter as you dash past. -There were frozen brooks with ice-encased willows bent over them; there -were lots of agreeable looking farmhouses and farm people Fording to -and from little crossroads towns which looked idyllic, rather, whatever -the facts may be. - -“Has Sinclair Lewis spoiled this sort of landscape for you?” Doris -asked me suddenly, as though reading my mind. - -“I’m damned if he has for me!” I said sincerely. - -She brought her small hands together. “Good! Nor has he for me. Poor -fellow, if he really feels as he writes, what a world he lives in! I -imagine him riding through lovely country like this with shades drawn -or else emitting low, melancholy moans as each habitation heaves -in sight. Now I like to think of Willa Cather’s people when we’re -whistling through tank towns.” - -“So do I,” I said, agreeing again. “They’re there; they’re hearing the -whistle. You meet ’em. You ever been in a tank town?” - -“When I was a child, I lived in one,” she told me; “when father was -serving his second term in the ‘long house’ at Leavenworth.” - -She might have said his second term in the House of Congress, from -the way she spoke. No shame in it at all. Yet it brought me back to -business. For a minute she had been just a girl, mighty pretty and -bright and pleasant and with tastes and distastes, both, which I liked. - -She’d known about Erasmus and Holbein when we talked at the ball, you -remember; now she knew about the same books I’d been reading. Likely -she’d dipped into “This Freedom” too, in order to help herself decide -whether, after marriage, she should drop business for the sake of the -children or should keep right on to help husband. - -Probably, in Chicago, she’d seen “Lightnin’” and “The Hairy Ape” and -heard Galli-Curci and Chaliapin. Of course she had. A crook can’t be -crooking all the time; she’s at the normal round most of it. But I’d -never realized that till I took a little leisure to think it over. Now -when you say a person’s a counterfeiter, for instance, naturally you -think of him or her, or both of them, crouching somewhere covertly -together, printing off their money and then slipping out, with many -glances around, to convert it into groceries and some of our ordinary -authorized currency. But actually, very little of their time may be -spent so. Most of it goes into just living,--maybe looking at movies, -at dance halls or driving around; or at the Art Institute, a good -play or two, the opera, and maybe a lecture also, according to taste. -I’ve heard of a gerver, lately, who even made it a habit to attend -Sunday-evening club talks; and he was crazy over Burton Holmes. - -So here was a girl like any other I knew, only quite some little -quicker and pleasanter and better looking, with nothing really strange -about her except her proclivity for passing out the bank notes father -gave her. She knew it was wrong, of course, so very wrong that, for -it, she ought to be shut in the “long house” at Leavenworth herself, -serving her own long term. - -But I had not the smallest impulse to put her there; quite on the -contrary. In fact, I imagined, at that moment, that I heard somebody -trying to listen at the door; and, thinking it was old “Iron Age,” I -felt myself going definitely to her side. Nobody was going to shut this -girl up in prison for ten years. I was going to do something about her; -but not that. I had no idea of shifting responsibility. Not at all; I -was going to see to this business myself. - -I got up and opened the door, while she watched me. Nobody was there -and I sat down again. - -“I’ve called on you by orders, I think you ought to know,” I told her. - -“Government orders?” she said. - -“That’s it.” - -She feigned a shudder, prettily. “My soul!” she said. “What I’ve told -you! Now you’ll arrest us all, I suppose!” - -I laughed, for I felt mighty good. There was no denying it; I felt as -happy as ever I had in my life; happier on some counts; on others, of -course, there was my knowledge of her character and the chances she was -running. But the chances only made it more exciting for me to like her. - -Obviously, I’d let her see she’d hooked me; she could feel me on the -line. Yet she hadn’t me in the net--not quite. - -“I’d gladly arrest George,” I said. “And lock him up for life.” - -“Why?” - -“Because you care about him.” - -“Oh, do I?” - -And then, for no more reason than that--but you’d have understood it, -had you heard her voice--I felt better yet. I switched the subject -back to business. - -“I’ve accumulated some hand baggage,” I mentioned. - -“Yes. Don’t you want it?” - -“That part’s all right,” I said. “But what to do with it? It’s not a -gift, I take it.” - -“No.” - -“I see. You expect a search. Meanwhile I’m to have the bag and then -give it back to you.” - -She nodded; and there she proved she knew I was not in the net; for -instead of asking anything final, one way or the other, she merely -suggested, “Think it over a while, won’t you?” - -I promised and got up; for she’d put in that a hint of dismissal. Then -I remembered Dibley. After being in her compartment all this time, I -had to bring to him something more tellable than our talk so far. - -“George is in on this game with you?” I asked. - -“Why do you want to know?” - -“I want to,” I said; and she told me, “No; we’re just going on -together.” - -“He has a lay of his own, then?” - -She avoided direct answer to that. “Well, he’s still a young man,” she -said. “He hasn’t retired; so naturally you’d suppose so, wouldn’t you?” - -“All right. Now as well as I can guess, old “Iron Age”--you know who I -mean?” - -She nodded. - -I went on. “He’s aboard because George is. He knows him; but he doesn’t -know you. I’m here to find out about you. What shall I tell him?” - -“That we’re getting off at Cleveland, please.” - -“What?” I said. “Are you?” - -“Yes.” - -“And you want me to tell him that?” - -“If you’ll be so good.” - -I waited with my hand on the knob. “I’ll see you again.” - -“Oh, please do!” she invited; and, feeling flushed and mighty good, I -stepped into the corridor and drifted to the rear. - -My new baggage was still under my seat in my Pullman but George was -lost to sight. I wouldn’t have put it past Dibley to have locked him -up somewhere but that didn’t seem to be the case when I encountered -old “Iron Age” in the door of the smoking room of one of the last -Pullmans. Rather, he encountered me, reaching out and dragging me in -behind the curtains. - -“Now what have you found out?” he went after me with his delightful -tact. - -“She’s a charming girl,” I assured him. “I called at her compartment, -as you suggested, and pretended we had mutual acquaintances and got -away with it.” - -“You probably did not,” said Dibley, to take me down from the hang-over -of satisfaction which he detected on me. - -“She let you in because you look easy. What did she tell you?” - -“She’s a low opinion of Sin Lewis.” - -“Who?” said Dibley. - -“But she’s keen on Miss Cather.” - -“Who?” - -Sin Lewis, so put to him, seemed to suggest somebody, possibly one of -similar name who was on Dib’s list for rum-running or using the mails -to defraud; but Cather wasn’t on his cards at all. - -“They write books,” I explained. “We started talking about books.” I -thought it just as well to use the truth as long as possible. - -“Books!” he jeered me. - -I remained polite. “How would you have started?” I asked courteously. -“Something like this? ‘Good afternoon, Miss Wellington or whatever your -real name is. I suspect you’re a crook but for the moment don’t place -you. Now if you’ll just tell me----’” - -“Drop it,” said Dib, not agreeably. - -I obliged. - -“Now forget the start,” he told me. “What did you get to?” - -“Oh,” I said. “I found one thing out you want to know. They’re getting -off at Cleveland.” - -“What makes you think so?” - -“She told me so.” - -Old “Iron Age” gazed fixedly out of the window with the thought in -his head (if his expression meant anything) of pulling the cord to -stop the train if we happened to be passing an institution for the -feeble-minded; but all was farm scenery, so I was safe. - -“Thank you so much,” he said to me feelingly. “It was always possible -that they would try to escape at Cleveland; so it is of some advantage -to know they’re going on.” - -He released me after a few more words and I went to my section. I had -his permission to continue my acquaintance with Miss Wellington; but -it was plain that he wasn’t depending much on me. He was taking to -telegrams, scratching off any number of yellow sheets to go from the -next stop. - -It reminded me that, in my preoccupation at keeping Doris in sight -after I found she was leaving the city, I hadn’t ’phoned my office. I -had thought I’d wire; but now I decided not to. - -I didn’t want Dibley to have any chance to oversee the fact that this -trip was a last inspiration of mine. I immersed myself, ostensibly, in -cost estimates of our new can and bottling plant which I happened to -have in my pocket, while I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into -this game I’d entered with Cleopatra Doris Janvier. - - - - -XV - -IN WHICH I ASSIST A GET-AWAY. - - -She came into my car, blithe and smiling; at least she smiled at me. -Every one looked up and every one, seeing that smile for me, put me -down as lucky, I know. When she was past and out of the car, I could -feel them gazing at me and wondering what I’d done to deserve such a -smile. - -She was a gay, delightful maid. Suppose that, not having had the -advantage of acquaintance at the Flamingo Feather, I had met her in an -ordinary way. I’d have been mad over that girl. Heaven salvage my soul, -I was anyway. - -She had a trick of playing up to me, which probably she used with -everybody, but I never really saw it except with me. Anyway, she did -it with me; and nobody else ever did. It was her trick of looking -up quickly, when I was about to say something, and smiling in that -pleasant way of hers (pleasant doesn’t half do it; but it has to go at -that) as if she was always sure of something good every time I talked -and as if she liked my line and me. When you’re decidedly slow and -ordinary, that makes quite a hit. - -I sat figuring out her life. Put her down as twenty-two; then she was -born during the year Janvier was out after his first term in the “long -house” and while he was busy engraving the plates which sent him in -again. Some one--she hadn’t said who--took her into the country for ten -years. Maybe she had a mother then; maybe not; her mother had dropped -out somewhere. She was about twelve, then, when her father got out -again and began his famous “living Cleveland” series of engravings. - -Twelve, they say, is the child’s most impressionable age; the parent or -guardian molds the future then. - -Now I knew nothing about the guardian, when the parent was in the “long -house,” but I had considerable information about father; and I could -imagine him emerging from the pen all filled with eagerness to be back -at his game of showing up the government engravers and of getting away -with what he’d tried twice. - -Wally Bailey had given me a graphic glimpse of Janvier and his aim -which, from one point of view, was actually a pursuit of perfection. -What Wally suggested was that Janvier wanted, more than anything else, -the satisfaction of doing the thing which had stumped him. That was -what he wanted his sight back for,--to have a go at it again. And here -he had it. - -His daughter was helping him, naturally. She’d been born and bred to -his business and surely had caught something of the spirit of her -father who wouldn’t give in, in spite of three terms, till he’d shown -up the government. - -I thought of what Jerry had told me of the Socratic genius of gervers -and housemen; undoubtedly counterfeiters had their talent for -dialectics too. - -It might go something like this: the printing of a little extra money -would not directly injure any individual. In fact, there was quite an -argument whether it damaged people in general at all. - -Many highly approved people were openly in favor of a freer issue of -currency without bothering whether a gold or silver dollar was behind -every bank note. Mr. Ford and Mr. Edison themselves had spoken for a -scheme which, while not similar to Janvier’s system, yet had sent the -good bankers into frightful attacks of financial hydrophobia. - -Mightn’t Janvier show plenty of authority to suggest that he wasn’t in -a bad business at all? - -And suppose he compared it with other businesses; mine, for choice. -What was the harm in shoving out a little informal currency compared -with the damage in passing out drugged and adulterated food, which many -a first family has done? - -Then compare it with the coal brokerage business, from which many of -my firmest friends are fat. What did they do for their profits, during -a late, lamented shortage, but hold a few carloads of coal back from -the market and away from people freezing for it so they could whoop the -price a little more? Wouldn’t everybody be a bit ahead if these people, -who haven’t the slightest fear of any “long house,” had stayed out of -the coal business and simply printed their own money for their profits -and shoved it into circulation without harming anybody? - -You see, as I thought it over, it didn’t seem strange to me that -Doris Wellington could smile and smile at me and not feel herself a -villainess at all. - -I wondered, from time to time, exactly what was in that nice, new -suit case under my feet. A few hundred thousand in neat, new bills, I -thought; or possibly plates. Maybe both. - -That suit case kept bothering my bean-business conscience. It was -decidedly one matter to like Doris Wellington and wish her to stay -out of the clutches of old “Iron Age”; but it was something quite up -another street to take charge of that handbag full of cash and plates -and deliver them at destination for her. Obviously, this was what she -meant me to do. - -The day was waning; and all lights were on as we drew into Toledo, -where old “Iron Age” sent his sheaf of telegrams over to Western Union. -He received a couple of yellow envelopes too. I saw him strolling on -the platform, reading enclosures and watching the doors of the train. -He was developing a more menacing look. - -Neither Doris nor George got off; Felice did, flirting expertly with -one of the clothing merchants. “All aboard.” We were going again. -Cleveland, the next stop. - -In the observation car, I found “Iron Age” ponderously on duty beside -Doris who was reading _Harper’s_. A good touch that, I thought; -there’s something so disarming about _Harper’s_. But it wasn’t -_Harper’s_ alone which made the effect. There was George a couple of -seats away and he was reading the _Atlantic Monthly_, with Galsworthy’s -“Forsythe Saga” ready beside him for good measure, yet he didn’t appear -half so innocuous. - -This was probably because he wasn’t. The more I looked at George, the -more I questioned his general character; but the more I gazed at Doris, -the surer I was that--in all but one of the essential senses--she was a -“good” girl. Looseness of living simply wasn’t in her make-up. - -You couldn’t associate her with anything personally depraved or -disagreeable. She’d no more steal a diamond ring, left in the ladies’ -wash room, than my mother, I felt certain. No; I was confident that her -dereliction was highly specialized to the subject represented in that -suit case of hers under my seat. - -I wanted to talk to her about that and about other topics; but old -“Iron Age” was asserting a priority claim just now. - -He looked up at me and cut me dead, signifying of course that just now -he and I weren’t to know each other. Doris nodded to me and I to her -and I found a chair opposite. - -Watching Dibley, I perceived that he was in the throes of opening a -casual conversation. Of course Doris perceived it, too, and about a -minute after I sat down, she dropped her _Harper’s_. - -Old “Iron Age” dove for it and restored it to her, pompously. She -thanked him. - -He said, “You’re entirely welcome. You’re going to New York?” - -“Oh, no,” Doris told him. “We’re off at Cleveland.” - -“Iron Age” gave a glance at me, which eloquently said, “You see, you -believed that. Now watch me.” - -I watched them both and George, too. - -Evidently she’d told Dibley what she wished and she was at her -_Harper’s_ again, as though she enjoyed it. George was at his -_Atlantic_ but he was poised; oh, decidedly poised. - -“Iron Age” had two options, either to stay silent or start something -crude like an arrest. But I doubted whether, in spite of his telegrams, -he had enough evidence yet. So that was as far as he got in the light -talk; and he’d jeered at me! - -A waiter from the dining car appeared with the usual word for six -o’clock; and Doris got up. - -“We’re going in early,” she volunteered to me, “since we’re off at -Cleveland.” - -This gave Dib another cue to rehearse his superior glance at me. - -George followed her out of the car and Dibley beckoned me over to him. - -“Get her talking again,” he told me. “Leave him to me.” - -When I found her seated alone at a table for two in the dining car, I -interpreted Dib’s orders liberally. She smiled at me and, when I asked, -“How about my sitting here?” she said, “Oh, I’d like it!” So there I -was across the table from her, ordering her supper and mine together. - -There’s something about that--the breaking of bread together, you -know--which rather does more than you’d ever suspect unless you’ve -tried it under conditions like mine. We not only broke bread; we broke -a full portion of broiled white fish between us, another of cauliflower -au gratin. I served those while she poured our two cups of orange pekoe -from the same little pot and, for both of us, she mixed salad dressing -of her own in a bowl. The best dressing, by the way, I’d ever tasted. - -She’d the prettiest hands I’d ever seen; and to have them doing things -for me! - -Occasionally, but with rapidly lessening frequency, I wondered about -George,--why he didn’t show up for supper and to what I’d left him with -Dib. I ventured to ask Doris about him. - -“Oh, he’s not hungry,” she assured me. - -As I remembered him, he hadn’t looked it; he’d only looked worried, -whereas she didn’t at all. She had true nerve, you see. - -That dinner was so delightful that I longed to forget that she was -playing for her liberty for the next ten years. I didn’t want any other -element in this but just her and me. - -It ended with the check which she let me pay without silly argument; -then we had to get up, and never more reluctant feet than mine moved -from a dining car. - -She went through the Pullmans in front of me; at each door, I came -beside her, opened it; for a moment we were close. I hoped we were -going to her compartment; but she surprised me in the vestibule of the -third car rear from the diner. - -No one was following just then; the doors on both sides were tightly -shut. - -She turned and looked up at me. “Which is it?” she asked, straight. - -I knew what she meant; and at that second I suddenly decided. “I keep -your suit case,” I said. - -“And you’ll give it back to me?” - -“Where will you want it?” - -“New York. I’m off at Cleveland, as I said, but I’ll come to New York -later.” - -“I’ll take it there for you,” I said, and it was in the manner of an -agreement, “if I possibly can; and I will give it to you under one -condition.” I waited. - -“Nobody’s listening,” she urged me. - -I told her. “It’s this. I bring it to you, alone. I’ll be alone; you -must be. You must give me a chance then to talk to you.” - -“What about?” - -“Can’t you imagine?” - -She gazed into my eyes without wavering. “I reckon! You’ll give it back -and ask me to give it back again to you--to destroy! All right! That’s -a go! I’ll run that chance with you!” - -She held out her hand and I grasped it and she grasped mine, firmly -and well. Somebody came through; just an ordinary passenger; but of -course we dropped hands. When the doors were closed again, she went -into her bag. - -“Here’s the key to the suit case,” she offered it to me. “Sorry you -won’t find more for you to use inside; but there’s a new toothbrush, -anyway. Please have it!” - -“You’ve another?” We were suddenly particular about little things with -each other. - -“There’re more in Cleveland,” she replied. “Where do you stop in New -York?” - -“The Belmont.” - -“I’ll wire you my address.” - -“Where we’ll meet?” - -“That’s it. Can you remember this?” she asked. “Don’t put it down. -Take five from the first number, three from the second; one from the -third. That much for numbers. For words read from Webster’s Collegiate -Dictionary--they’re everywhere--first five up, second three down, third -one up, and so on. A street named after a number will be spelled in -syllables, taking the first in a word. You can find any syllable in the -dictionary. Now tell me that.” - -I told it to her; and still we had an instant there alone. - -“What do you know about happenings after the scatter from the Feather?” -I said to her. “Did Vine get Christina?” - -“No; she got away.” - -“He’s in Chicago?” - -“No; New York.” - -“What else do you know about him?” - -She shook her head and opened the door toward her car. “Don’t stay -about now,” she asked me; and she went into her compartment. - -I should have known that she wouldn’t talk over others’ affairs. She’d -said a good deal, all things considered. So Christina had escaped -Keeban and he was back in New York, whence he had come. Probably, -therefore, Jerry was in New York, too. - -I asked myself what Doris’s move to the east might have to do with -them; how might she be mixed in? - -Likely she was not mixed with them at all except when, more or less -by chance, her group encountered one of their group in business. I -could not possibly connect her with any scheme for murder. Christina, -herself, had refused such a scheme; how much more surely would Doris -have kept free from anything like that! - -With her key in my hand, I stood in the vestibule of the next car, -daydreaming about her. The train was bounding along too beautifully, -rushing us right into Cleveland. I wanted to see Doris again but she’d -dismissed me; I could only endanger her now by hanging around. - -When we stopped at Cleveland, at eight-thirty, old “Iron Age” again was -on the platform; and this time I tumbled off with him. I didn’t plan -anything quite so subtle as the succeeding event; really, I wasn’t up -to that at all. You see, what happened was this. - -I’d reported to him, on parting from Doris after dinner, that I was -sure they were leaving the train at Cleveland because she’d mentioned -the matter, quite definitely, again. Of course Dibley only regarded me -more in sorrow than otherwise; he was certain they were only playing -me. So when I was on the platform with him, for my benefit he was a -bit over-ostentatious in acting out his conviction that they were -staying on the train. He had a new sheaf of messages to clutter up the -telegraph office and Western Union had a boy burdened down with replies -for him; so Doris and George, with Felice, were off and started away -almost before “Iron Age” guessed it. - -They were all without baggage, of course. After he saw them, Dibley got -into action quickly. He yelled for guards to close in; he had out his -gun. But they were down the stairs and I didn’t need to grab that gun; -so I didn’t. Shots sounded below, however. I couldn’t tell who fired -them. I went down the stairs with Dibley and the rest of the drift from -the platform; but my three friends had doubled, dodged and were away. - -I waited as long as I dared; then I climbed and caught the train. -Dibley didn’t; but his orders overtook us. At Ashtabula, an hour or so -east, they stopped us and officers came aboard to take off all baggage -from compartment E, car No. 424, and also to capture George’s large, -piggy portmanteau. A special engine was about to start with all that -for Cleveland. - -During the stop, I rather expected a word or two might be said to me; -but it became plain that Dibley’s opinion of me continued true to form. -Nobody bothered me; the train went on; my berth was made and I took -that new suit case of Doris Janvier’s behind the curtains. - - - - -XVI - -I WALK INTO A PARLOR. - - -Naturally I debated about opening the bag. She’d given me the key; -she had told me to use it, “please!” to find her new toothbrush. But -I didn’t open it for that. She had meant, I thought, that I should -see what I was carrying. So at last I unlocked it and in the light of -the little berth lamp I came upon her own intimate attire--a kimono, -slippers and silk pajamas, ridiculous little lovely things; stockings, -some more gossamer silk which probably was what Field’s advertise as -an “envelope”, a mirror, a brush, a manicure set. There was the new -toothbrush and “This Freedom”, and below the book, tied together, a -pair of steel plates. After looking so far, I felt no harm in gazing -further, especially at these. - -One was engraved to print ten-dollar National Bank Notes; the other -was good--or bad--for the denomination of a hundred. I’m no judge of -engraving on steel but they looked like excellent plates to me. - -I rewrapped them and brigaded them with “This Freedom” and shoved them -back in the suit case, which I locked. I went to use the toothbrush and -also to think about those plates. “Well, wasn’t that what you expected -when you gave her your word?” I said to myself. The answer was that -then I hadn’t the plates in my hand and I was talking to Doris. - -Going to bed, I lay awake, mulling over all manner of doubts having to -do with Doris and Jerry and Keeban, Christina, and with me. I did some -practical speculating, too; I wondered whether old “Iron Age”, when he -rendezvoused Doris’s luggage returned from Ashtabula, was going to note -the omission of kimono, slippers, silk pajamas, envelope, mirror, brush -and “This Freedom” from the normal equipment of a young lady of the -day; I wondered if, missing them, he might feel strange suspicions of -me, which even the memory of my cheese quotations would not allay. But -evidently he did not. - -I got to sleep; when I awoke, Doris’s suit case and those plates -remained as they were. Nobody had disturbed them or me. - -Breakfasting beside the Hudson, I propped before me the _New York -Times_. It was innocent of knowledge of minor doings in the west, -such as a sudden getaway with shooting near the Lake Shore station at -Cleveland, but it played a special from Chicago on the front page. - -Janvier, the counterfeiter, had been taken with two of his new plates. -The _Times_ correspondent was feeling decidedly high up because of -it. Trust New York to respond to word that the financial structure -is just a bit more safe. Old Wally Bailey was gloriously bucked over -the business too; he had himself interviewed in two places; first he -certified that the plates, which had been captured, were the source -of the highly deceptive and dangerous twenty and fifty-dollar false -Federal Reserve notes recently put in circulation in great quantities; -second he sounded the alarm that Janvier had completed, also, a couple -of other plates, one for printing ten-dollar bills and one for striking -off notes of one-hundred dollar denomination. The police had evidence -that these plates existed but they had failed to find them. - -For the best of reasons! I had them tied up with “This Freedom” -underneath Doris’s lingerie. - -I carried her suit case myself across to the Belmont where I took it to -my room and then, after locking myself in, I gathered Janvier’s plates -from it and carried them, in my pocket, up to our bank where I had a -safe deposit box and I put them away there. Much happier in my head, -I wired Fanneal and Company, Chicago, not to expect me at the desk -that morning and dropped into our New York branch and pretended that -business had brought me on. - -Beans and butter never struck me so dull as upon this morning; and the -only thrill I could squeeze from Philadelphia double daisies and Fond -du Lac twins was the second-hand memory of yesterday. I kept ’phoning -the Belmont inquiring for telegrams; but nothing came in for me. - -What was happening in Cleveland? I wondered. Was Doris going back to -Chicago, now that her father was taken; or would she stick to her plan -to come on? - -Vine--Keeban--was here, she said; Christina was here. So, if Jerry was -anywhere, probably he also was here; and, if any of his old habits -clung to him, he’d know I’d arrived, too. There is a column printed -every day, you know, giving the news of arrivals of out-of-town buyers -in every line of trade. My name, with New York address, was in the -papers that afternoon. Jerry used to glance over the arrivals in our -line. - -I felt lonely as Crusoe that day, particularly when dinner time -approached. I imagined I’d make myself better by drifting over to dine -with some friends I’d met on Fifth. There was a daughter, there, about -Doris’s age and size; a popular girl,--a deb of a couple of years’ -standing. Sitting and smoking, I mean, rather. - -I bored the poor dear. I always had, so why not now? She never flicked -a stir in me. Not that she tried; she didn’t. That was it. “Well, old -Steve, we’ll struggle through with the meal somehow!” Such was the -sensation underlying the ennui; so, naturally, she made it mutual with -me. - -Thank God, she didn’t try to mix salad dressing at the table; so I kept -my memory clear. - -That night, when I returned to the hotel, I had a wire filed at -Buffalo; three words, no signature: “Seediness yonder thus.” - -You may suppose I had my Webster handy, and, counting my words up and -down, made out “See you Thursday.” - -That was to-morrow; so I had to figure out, during the night, what I -was to say. You see, I had to bring her those plates and give them to -her; but she had to give me a chance to argue her out of using them. - -Lying in bed, many a good way of putting my point of view came to me. -I got up several times and jotted them down; some I just talked over -with myself. I made rather a night of it; never was more earnest over -anything in my life. I looked to my talk with that girl as a sort of -turning point in her life, and for me, if I could simply make her see -matters straight. I was crazy over her; you’ve gathered that; and -trusted her, too, or would trust her with anything but a counterfeit -steel plate which her father had engraved. I figured I could make it so -I could trust her with that, too. - -About mid-morning, I got another wire; from Jersey City this: “Seven -three chess omnivorus noose.” - -No signature again; but the system, which Doris taught me in that -vestibule, gave me the place and the time. Up five from seven made -twelve; down three from three, zero. Up five from chess, first syllable -“cher” down three from omnivorous, “on”; up one from noose, “noon.” - -The telegram: “120 Cheron (Street) Noon.” - -Cheron proved to be one of those streets, turned at several angles, -down by Brooklyn Bridge. - -I rehearsed all my talk, went to the vault and withdrew that pair of -plates. I decided to make this meeting on foot, not in taxi, so I -took the subway from Grand Central to the Bridge and emerged in that -intriguing maze which radiates under the ramp of that old roadway -suspended above East River. - -Cheron Street showed itself on a corner full fifteen minutes before -noon. It was a sunny bit of city that clear, winter day; it was one -of those houses-and-stores streets with red-brick fronts, tall narrow -windows and iron stairs and railings. Children romped about; hucksters -were making sales to sets of the wisest buyers I ever saw. Price -quotations floated to me and I wondered how they could work so close to -cost. - -I was trying to make the time pass more swiftly by turning attention to -such trifles while I waited. For I would not call at No. 120 till noon. - -Of course I’d located the number and looked it over several times. It -was on one of the regular red brick fronts which owned windows cleaner -than most of its neighbors. Nice, old-fashioned curtains, stiffly -starched, showed their white patterns. It seemed a precise and prim -abode, not over-populated. - -During the minutes I watched, men, women and children went in and -out of the doors on each side,--practical looking men, who might be -mechanics engaged in car repairs at a garage around the corner; in ways -which I’ve mentioned, the women proved they were frugal housewives; the -play of the children added to the decent domesticity of the street. - -There was absolutely nothing sinister in sight and nothing and nobody -menacing like the dyke-keeper in Klangenberg’s delicatessen. - -No one went in or out of Number 120; and I imagined it the abode of -some aging, female relative of Doris; an aunt possibly, who might have -been her guardian in some country town during Doris’s childhood and -who now had moved to the city and who probably took support from the -proceeds of Janvier’s plates but had nothing more to do with them. - -When noon came, and Doris had not appeared, I realized that she must be -waiting me within; and I went up and rang the bell. - -An old woman admitted me, a nice-appearing, wrinkled and gray-haired -thing. - -“Come in,” she said to me immediately, before I could ask for anyone. -Plainly I had been expected; and she motioned me into the prim, -red-plush parlor with an ancient piano and crayon enlargements on the -wall; and also faded, plush hangings in the door. - -These were particularly important furnishings; for it was when I was -stepping between them that I was hit on the head; and not by that old -woman nor by any infirm or failing person. The hit was wholly vigorous -and expert; and right at the base of the back of my head. - -Of course, I realized all this afterwards; at the time, I knew nothing. -I was walking into that prim, red-plush parlor quite strong and happy; -I passed the portières and instantaneously I was “out.” I was also down -but didn’t know it; I went “out” while still on my feet; but naturally, -when I found myself again, I was on the floor. - - - - -XVII - -CHIEFLY DEVOTED TO A GAS CALLED KX. - - -A good many persons of both sexes have put into writing the mental -confusion usually concomitant to the process of “coming to.” The -descriptions which I’ve happened to read were done by good writers, -certainly; but the writers don’t impress me now as people who’d been -personally hit on the head. At least, they lacked treatment under -the hand of a pluperfect, postgraduate performer upon the _medulla -oblongata_. - -The trouble with those descriptions is that they are too advanced and -intricate. The subject generally is seized with some figurative image, -which is quite all right from my experience; but whereas others seem to -have come to consciousness through flights of fancy similar to stanzas -in “Spoon River Anthology” or Carl Sandberg’s best, I woke up repeating -to myself the simplest of verse. In fact: - - - “Will you walk into my parlor? - Said the spider to the fly; - It’s the prettiest little parlor, - That ever you did spy.” - - -The psycho-analyst says that the subconscious, which is always with us, -working, never is actually foolish; it is interpretive, if you have the -insight to understand it. Well, this was my subconscious expression. It -was interpretive, true enough. - -Now the spider, in my complex, was not that old woman; Doris was doing -the spider in my dream. - -Upon becoming aware that, though I lay on the edge of a red-plush -parlor, I was not physically a fly, I felt over myself to find what was -missing. - -There should be something hard and heavy and extremely important under -my coat in my right inside pocket. That region was soft and pliable -now. Plates were lacking; that was it,--nice, new, counterfeit plates -which I’d procured from under Doris Janvier’s lingerie in that Pullman -on the Century and which I’d put in my pocket to return to her here at -Number 120 Cheron Street with an idea of evangelizing her out of using -them. - -Phrases and periods from that talk I’d prepared for her came into -my mind and mixed into the parade of other ideas which followed the -spider-and-fly act. They gave me a laugh, anyway. - -I lay, looked and listened. After a few minutes, I sat up. Apparently -I had the house to myself. Also I had my watch and other personal -possessions, everything except those plates. - -I took a chance on rising; and still nobody disturbed me. Possibly -I might have poked all over that house but I felt no overmastering -impulse. The door and that street, on the other side of the pane with -these nice, prim, old-fashioned curtains, looked very good to me. I got -out and shut the door behind me. Over by the bridge I found a patrolman -and asked him to take me to the nearest police station. - -That was the place where I sketched to interested ears the essentials -of what I’d done since leaving Chicago. I gave them all,--how I’d -suspected her before she took the train, how I helped her get away -at Cleveland; how I’d carried on the plates and went to return them, -trusting to the patent leather platitudes I’d prepared to turn her to -the paths of rectitude. - -I gave them, with that last particularly, the laugh of their lives. -They wanted to know if I actually expected she would meet me alone in a -parlor to talk ethics with me. - -They might have at least arrested me; but they didn’t even do that. -They did detail an officer to accompany me; but he felt himself -distinctly as one charged to keep me from further harm. They rushed -a squad over to Number 120 Cheron Street, of course, and surrounded -the house properly before closing in. But nobody, not even the old -woman, was there. The house was empty and so eminently proper to all -appearances that, for a while, a theory prevailed that I had invented -my whole story. - -Then they began hearing from Dibley and confirmed the first part; about -two days later, there was plenty of proof of the rest. The prints from -those missing Janvier plates began making their début at the banks all -over New York; Philadelphia reported a few; soon Boston was heard from. - -They were so good that some of the experts at the banks wired -Washington for a check on serial numbers before throwing Janvier’s work -out. Naturally, all this made me popular. - -I didn’t care about returning home; I didn’t drop into our New York -office. I stayed in my room, mostly, where old “Iron Age” Dibley, -among others, visited me. - -He informed me that Doris and George and Felice all completed their -get-away at Cleveland; and he didn’t feel himself in the least to blame -for that. No; he’d shifted any chagrin, which he might have felt, right -on to me. Doris undoubtedly had come on afterwards, counting upon my -chronic fatuity to respond to feeding by her telegrams; undoubtedly--to -Dibley’s mind--she personally arranged the _medulla oblongata_ -performance for me. - -Of course, I’d felt that; but when old “Iron Age” got gloating over it, -he cheered me into a question or two. Had she? Was I sure? - -Well, I’d certainly indicated to the police that I was; and no one -developed any further ideas upon the subject. Number 120 Cheron Street -was deserted of Doris and her crowd as the Flamingo Feather after the -ball. The issue of those new Janvier tens and hundreds seemed to shift -to the south; Atlanta reported rather more than its share; Nashville -and Memphis broke into the column of complaints and New Orleans was not -overlooked. - -I was about convinced that my friends of the Flamingo and Cheron Street -had shifted base again when I received, through the mails at the -hotel, a note in Jerry’s handwriting. - - - “Steve: Here’s your chance,” I read. “Get to T. M. Teverson - at once and talk to him; or Sencort. Prevent any meeting in - Sencort Directors’ room. Make this absolutely sure. Examine pipe, - particularly. J.” - - -Jerry’s writing and his manner with me, beyond doubt. He was still -alive then and, if that postmark meant anything, he was in New York -City at ten o’clock last night. - -Of course, I’d never seen Keeban’s writing. It might be identical with -Jerry’s; Keeban might try this with me for some scheme of his own. -But I didn’t think it. In the first place, this started with such an -understanding of me. - -“Steve: Here’s your chance!” - -Now Jerry, alive and looking on at me from somewhere in New York, -naturally would start with that thought for me. He’d be feeling, from -the first moment I’d stuck with him after he was accused and when I -continued to stick through that affair of the Scofields’, how I’d had -a steady run of results against me. He’d have heard how, out of that -Flamingo Feather ball, I’d gone deeper into disrepute; and he’d been -thinking just that for me: “Here’s your chance, Steve.” He meant, of -course, my chance to rehabilitate my reputation somewhat. - -“Get to T. M. Teverson at once!” That meant to get to the big man of -the moment in New York. Officially, he was first vice-president of the -Sencort Trust; but unofficially he was a sort of financial vice-regent -of Europe for the time being. You see, that was the instant of the -particular crisis in international affairs when the Sencort Trust took -the load, and “carried” two of the major powers, along with seven or -eight of the minors, for the sake of the peace of the world and to -postpone, for a while anyway, the rush of the Fourth Horseman of the -Apocalypse over the rest of Europe. - -Teverson personally was packing tremendous responsibilities; and -naturally every one, whose impulse in difficulty is to slip out from -under and loot and destroy, was keen to take a pot shot at him. - -Jerry’s note must mean that he’d run on the trail of an especially -capable plot which involved the employment of pipes running into the -directors’ room at the Sencort Trust. Suggestive, that mention of -pipes; and he had emphasized the need to see Teverson at once. - -I had the note just after breakfast; and the _Times_ this morning told -that Lord Strathon, for England, and F. L. Géroud, for France, were -arriving on the _Majestic_ for immediate conference with the Sencort -committee about loans and reparations. That meeting, this morning, -undoubtedly was booked for the directors’ room at the Sencort Trust,--a -big bag, sure enough, for whoever was going gunning through the pipes -this morning. - -I’d no time to lose, so I rushed to Wall Street and up in the old Trust -Building to Teverson’s office. He was down meeting the _Majestic_, -which was just docking; so I sent in my card to Sencort. - -Now I knew the old man slightly; he had, among a thousand other flyers, -his venture in beans, netting himself something too. Also, Fanneal and -Company had supplied on some foreign-food contracts he’d financed; so I -was sure he’d know my name. - -He did; he sent out word he couldn’t see me and told the girl to -explain that he was expecting Lord Strathon and M. Géroud momentarily. - -“Tell him that’s why I have to see him now,” I urged the girl. - -She brought out word that the Sencort Trust would not let the -contracts on the supplies to be bought with proceeds of the new loans; -and, if they did, I’d have to see him later. - -I said to that girl, “You read the papers?” - -Of course she did; and, when I asked, she granted that she’d seen -considerable mention of me, recently. - -“That’s good,” I said. “Will you ask Mr. Sencort if he has, too? And, -if he has, assure him I’ve called on nothing connected with my usual -business, but something else of direct importance to him.” - -“Rising out of your--” she hesitated and then said--“your -counterfeiter’s connection, Mr. Fanneal?” - -“Rising from it,” I told her, “but not stopping there. Now I leave it -to you to get me in to see Mr. Sencort.” - -I saw, by this time, she was curious, if not a little impressed. It’s -queer how a short and conspicuously unsuccessful connection with crime -produces an effect which a lifetime in a creditable business can not -do,--at least not the bean business. That girl disappeared and when she -was back again, it was to ask me into Mr. Sencort’s office. - -The old man was at his desk and alone, and I saw at once that the girl -had gone the distance for me with him; I had much to make good, so I -went to it immediately. - -“I’ve come to ask you not to have any meetings in your directors’ room -to-day.” - -Of course he asked why; and I told him, “I’ve word, which I feel sure -is reliable, that there is a plot against your meeting.” - -“Hmm!” said Sencort, evidently disappointed. “Much obliged for your -trouble.” - -Plainly, he wasn’t interested. - -I said, “You’ll not meet in that room this morning?” - -He was looking at papers on his desk. “Why not? I’ve had it examined. -I’ve been warned before, Fanneal; so we’ve already taken precautions. -These threats never amount to anything. Much obliged to you, however.” - -“You’ve examined the pipes in that room?” I asked. - -“Pipes?” he repeated. There’s always something about definiteness which -claims the attention. He pressed a button on his desk. - -The girl, who had got me in, reappeared. “Ask Reed and Weston whether -they’ve particularly examined the pipes in the directors’ room,” he -said; and when the girl was gone, he nodded to me. “Sit down, Fanneal.” - -Some one rang him on the ’phone, just then; and when he was through -talking, the girl gave word: “Not particularly, Mr. Sencort. They’re -going over them now.” - -Again she left us alone. - -“Rather rotten situation in Europe,” I commented conversationally. - -“Hmm,” Sencort grunted, chewing his cigar, with as little interest in -my reactions on the European trouble as in my warning to him. He gave -me the impression that, having read about my performance with those -counterfeit plates, he was willing to refresh his memory upon the sort -of citizen who did that sort of thing. - -His girl reentered and reported, “Mr. Teverson is here with Lord -Strathon and M. Géroud, sir.” - -Sencort nodded. “Heard from Reed?” - -“He’s outside, sir.” - -“Send him in.” - -Reed proved to be a tall, keen-looking chap, evidently alert and -undoubtedly dependable. He was one of the bank detectives, not in -uniform. - -“We’ve gone over the whole room again, sir; and also the rooms -adjoining. Everything is in order,” he reported. - -“Particularly the pipes?” Sencort asked. - -“There’s nothing wrong with the pipes, sir.” - -“Very well,” Sencort dismissed him; and then he looked at me. “Much -obliged, Fanneal,” he thanked me again. - -Of course, he was dismissing me, but I held my ground. “The warning -which reached me, Mr. Sencort, did not advise mere examination of -the room,” I insisted. “It said to prevent its use. I must urge you, -whatever you think, not to meet in that room.” - -“Fanneal, if I governed my movements according to cautions of -well-meaning friends, I’d have put myself and family and friends in a -steel safe thirty years ago. Reed says that room is clear; it is on the -fifth floor, so attack from the street is impossible. Here’s Teverson -now.” - -Another hint for me, but I stuck, and just then Teverson came in to see -what was so absorbing in here, and old Sencort, in explaining why he -was preferring a chat with me to a conference with M. Géroud and Lord -Strathon at that hour, of course dragged in the mad idea I’d brought -along. But Teverson wasn’t amused by it at all. - -“Reed and Weston have both examined the room,” Sencort repeated, “and -found all in order.” - -“All was in order over at Ed Costrelman’s the other night, not only -before but after the--the occurrence,” Teverson mentioned in a -thoughtful sort of brooding manner which sparked up old Sencort. - -“What occurrence?” he came back loudly; of course Teverson had the door -shut after him. - -“Good Lord,” said Teverson, “didn’t you know that Ed Costrelman’s dead?” - -“Certainly,” said Sencort. “I also know that his butler is dead and -most of his party was sick but have recovered; from something wrong in -the wine or vermuth. What has that to do with us? We’re not serving -liqueur at directors’ meeting.” - -“It wasn’t in the wine or vermuth,” Teverson came back calmly. “It -wasn’t in the food either; everything they’d drunk or tasted has been -analyzed. Everything, I tell you, was in order.” - -“What was it, then?” Sencort went at him, still with more impatience -than interest. “Simultaneous, group indigestion?” - -“A poison, a definite, lethal agent, reached Costrelman and the -butler--Swan--in fatal amount and the rest in less quantity. The -post-mortem on Ed and Swan was completed this morning; there was -definite, characteristic destruction of motor nerve centers.” - -“Characteristic of what?” This was old Sencort--yielding, pliable -nature, he had, you see--at Teverson again. - -“A cheerful little chemical composition which the infernal-machine and -poison squad of the secret service call KX.” - -“What?” - -“In your school days, how did you designate algebraically an unknown -quantity?” Teverson asked old Sencort, evidently knowing that the way -to handle the old boy was by going to the good old Socratic. - -“By the later letters of the alphabet,” Sencort grunted. - -“That is the X in the name of this; it means they haven’t an iota of -information on one ingredient, except by its effect; by K, they mean -they can halfway guess at the other; it seems to be the masterpiece -of an Austrian chemist known as Stenewisc who hides himself most -successfully somewhere on the East Side here. If he’d been born in the -Borgias’ time, he’d have been Lucretia’s favorite; for his stuff killed -Costrelman and Swan and almost killed half a dozen more without giving -the slightest warning till the physical seizure came, and without -leaving an external trace.” - -“Poison to kill has to get into one,” Sencort came back, not giving up -yet. “If it wasn’t in the food or in the drink, where was it?” - -“What,” returned Teverson, sticking to the Socratic, “goes into one’s -body beside food and drink?” - -“Air’s all I can think of.” - -“All I can,” Teverson admitted. “And, with that in mind, I believe I’ll -have a look around our directors’ room myself, if you’ll hold, up our -meeting for a few minutes.” - -“Damn foolishness,” acceded Sencort graciously. - -“Pipes were what I was particularly warned against,” I said to Teverson. - -“Come along,” he invited me; so I went with him to the fifth floor, -passed Weston and Reed on guard outside to see that nobody carted in -time bombs since they’d last reported the room clear, and we stepped -into the regular, long-tabled, black-walnut panelled mausoleum sort of -room which directors picked for their deliberations a generation or so -ago. - -There it was, with two windows to the street and both closed; it was -winter, you see, and Sencort wasn’t the only near octogenarian to -rally round that walnut. It had electric lights and nothing else but a -steam radiator, carpet and chairs and five old etchings on the walls. -Everything was clear; nothing was wrong in the drawers or under the -tables or chairs or even under the carpet. Reed had carefully tested -the radiators and steam pipes. They were absolutely in order. - -But I kept poking about the room and, behind an etching, I found the -capped head of an old gas pipe which evidently brought illuminating gas -to the room in the days before electric lighting. - -It was capped, I say, and looked quite all right, but I happened to put -my fingers behind the cap. Then I called Teverson; and he felt, and -called Reed. - -“What do you think of _that_?” he asked. - -_That_ was a slot--rather a series of slots--cut through the pipe -behind the cap on the right wall. You couldn’t see them from the front; -you hardly could see them when you pressed cheek to the wall but you -could feel them top, bottom and sides of the pipe cut through, leaving -just enough metal to hold the cap in place; and freshly cut; for the -edges were sharp to your fingers and shining to your eyes. But of -course every scrap and shaving of the metal had been cleaned away. The -pipe behind the cap back of an etching on the opposite wall was exactly -like this. - -“It was to come that way, I guess,” I said carefully to Teverson. - -“Was?” he repeated as carefully. “What makes you think it isn’t yet to -come? Not in the middle of our meeting now, but to whoever is here, -which means you and me.” But he did not move away; instead, he walked -to the window and stood there looking down. I glanced down too and into -Wall Street and got a glimpse of that part which seemed particularly to -bear a message for us this morning--that strip between Morgan’s offices -and the sub-treasury where people were peacefully passing and feeling -absolutely secure that summer noon, not so long ago, when without -warning at all that infernal no-one-yet-knows-what went off and did -what nobody about Wall Street will ever forget. - -Of course, what had strewed the street had been gathered up and the -pavement repaired and flushed and swept and the buildings restored -long ago; yet this neighborhood wasn’t precisely the best spot to -disregard a threat of terrorism,--especially when you’ve found -ancestral gas pipes freshly chiselled for no use you wish to put them -to. - -“We’ve expected trouble from radicals about this stage in our foreign -financing, Fanneal,” Teverson said to me. “We’ve guarded Géroud and -Strathon from the minute they passed quarantine; we’ve double-guarded -these premises with special men who are watching every stranger who -comes in to-day; we’ve taken every precaution--or thought we had. -That’s why Sencort was so sure nothing could happen.” - -He stepped nearer to the window and I realized that he was not standing -there merely to think, but he was intentionally showing himself to -convince any watcher that the room was occupied. He turned about and -went on, “No one knows where the other ends of these pipes are now; of -course they haven’t been used for decades. They might stop anywhere or -they might have been led on indefinitely. If what killed Costrelman -came through the air--and it seems certain it did--and if those pipes -are conveyors for more of it, they could have pumped it in and nobody -suspected till somebody fell over; it might be coming now on us. Do -you feel any movement of air from that pipe?” - -“I can’t be sure,” I said. - -“Come out now,” said Teverson, pulling at me absolutely unnecessarily; -he didn’t have to put up any argument. “I may be a damn fool, as -Sencort suggests, but then I’ve rather a longer life expectancy--away -from slotted gas pipes--than he. Besides, I’m beginning to feel some of -this is personal against me. I was invited to Costrelman’s dinner and -was expected, though I didn’t get there.... Weston, get help at once -and try to cover the places where these pipes may run to; they may be -entirely outside the building, of course. Jump! Reed, post men here to -see no one uses this room or room next to it to-day. Leave the electric -lights burning as if the room was being used and send some one, on -the run, to that animal store the other side of Broadway in a cellar, -Thames Street, I think, and buy four or five guinea pigs; if he gets -back with them in fifteen minutes, cover your head, hold your breath, -and put them inside this door; close it. If he doesn’t get back that -soon, don’t even go near the door. Wait here, Fanneal.” He left me in -an office near by and himself rushed away. - -“Now you tell me,” he went at me three minutes later, “how much you -know about this?” - - - - -XVIII - -DORIS APPEARS AND VANISHES. - - -I was a changed man, as you may imagine. Yesterday and up to this -minute of this morning, I was the laugh of the locality. “F. P. A.” -had put in a little paragraph about me; the librettists of the running -revues also had tamped in a line or two of appropriate personal -reference to the Chicago vendor of beans, with two nice, new money -plates packed in his jeans. - -It was music to me to hear any one address me as Teverson was doing. - -“You know nearly all that I do,” I told him. “Maybe you’ve heard I’ve -been in a little mix-up with counterfeiters and others recently. I got -my tip out of that.” - -“Who sent the tip?” - -I shook my head; it was hopeless to go into the question of Jerry with -him; and Teverson was not inclined to waste time impractically. - -“Pipes!” he repeated. “They were going to use the pipes; that’s all you -knew of their method?” - -“That’s all.” - -“What do you want to do now?” he asked me, almost deferentially. “Stay -here?” - -“I’d like to see this through, of course,” I said. “I’d like to know -what happens to those guinea pigs.” - -“Whatever you like,” he answered, and shook hands with me. I could see -he was getting uneasy about Strathon and Géroud. He went out and I, -having nothing to do but wait, wandered in the hall. - -A door opened at the rear and showed an enclosed stairway lit by yellow -electricity; a girl had come up the stairs and now was standing in the -dimness of the hall. - -During the second she showed herself in the lighted doorway, before the -door closed again, I had a glimpse of her outline. She was little and -trim; like Doris, I thought. - -I stepped down by her and she went to the side of the hall and stood. -Then I had the instinct to seize her; and there, in the quarter-light, -I saw what I was feeling with my hands. She was Doris Janvier. - -With the realization, my head seemed to hurt where I’d been hit; but my -fingers held firm to her, giving her no chance to get away. - -“What are you doing here?” I challenged. - -She was quick! “I came up to see Mr. Teverson!” she said to me. “They -wouldn’t let me see him downstairs. I heard he was up here!” - -I half shook her. “You came up to see if they were meeting in the -directors’ room. You’re the “wire” inside to-day! You came to see if -everybody was placed! Well, nobody’ll be in that room but guinea pigs -this morning. I don’t mind telling you, for you’ll not get back to tell -them.” - -“Oh!” she said. That was all, just then. “Oh!” - -I kept hold of her, not knowing what else to do or say. - -“Where are they?” I asked her, after a half-minute. - -“Who?” - -“Your crowd.” - -She waited half a minute herself and then said, “I don’t know.” - -“Never mind; we’ll find them. We’re following your pipes,” I assured -her. I dragged her toward the front of the hall and had a better look -at her. - -“They’re not my pipes!” she denied. - -“That’s true,” I admitted. “You found them in place; all you had to do -was to make new openings.” - -“Steve!” she said to me. - -“Don’t try it,” I asked her. - -I could see her face now,--her lips straight and thin, her eyes fixed -on me, her forehead damp with those tiny drops of perspiration which -you know are cold. She was wearing, not the same suit she’d had on the -train; but one as smart, with fur collar and cuffs. She was the same -neat little thing who had so completely fooled me; but she wouldn’t -again. - -“Steve!” she repeated my name. “I came here to find Mr. Teverson to -warn him. Since he’s been warned, I don’t care.” - -“I do!” I retorted and held her. She’d spoken as if I’d let her walk -away. - -Reed was back at the door of the directors’ room with little furry -things in his hands. Somebody opened the door, he entered and came out -quickly without the guinea pigs. He saw me and stepped up. - -“Who’s this, Mr. Fanneal?” he asked me, respectfully enough, gazing at -Doris. - -I didn’t reply and he answered himself. “Oh, it’s her who was asking -for Mr. Teverson downstairs.” - -“I’ll see to her,” I said to Reed, and I led her into a room which I -found empty. - -“Now you’d better tell me all you know,” I advised her. - -“What’ll you do, if I don’t?” - -“You’ll not get out of this!” I promised her. “Not out of this!” - -Nothing yet had really happened in “this”; we’d discovered nothing -actual but those slotted pipes. Not even the guinea pigs had been -killed yet; but the certainty of the plot, which had convinced Teverson -too, turned me sick when I thought of it. And this girl, whom I held, -was in the scheme. - -True, she had stopped, on a lower floor, to inquire for Teverson; -but that proved nothing in her favor. I thought how I’d trusted her -before and how I’d been hit on the back of the head when I went to that -meeting place where I was to have my chance to argue with her, alone. - -I held to her; and she gazed at me and I felt her breathing slowly and -deeply. The little clock on the desk near us turned to eleven; and we -both heard steps and talk in the hall. - -“What are they doing?” she asked me. - -I opened our door; and we both saw two men, whose figures looked like -Weston and Reed. They had hooded affairs, of gas-mask pattern over -their heads, and they were at the door of the directors’ room. - -“Don’t go in!” Doris cried to them. “No mask’s any good! Don’t let them -in!” she cried to me. - -Apparently they did not hear and Doris jerked toward them. I held her -and shoved her back of me. “Don’t go in, Reed!” I called and at that -moment, though I did not know it, I must have let Doris go. - -I was watching the men and calling to them again; they had the door -open a little; now they dropped back, but they could look in. - -“They’re dead,” said Reed’s voice. - -“Sure,” said the other. Then I missed Doris; and when I saw her, she -was at the top of the stairs where she had first appeared. She had the -door open and she was standing in it, looking back; then she slammed -it. I was after her, but she had too good a lead. On the third floor, -she entered the Sencort offices and left me on the back stairs with a -bolted door between us. - -I beat upon it and shouted and then realized, too late, that my best -chance was to go to the ground and head her off. Of course I never -headed her; she was gone. - -When I returned upstairs, Reed had ventilated the directors’ room by -opening the windows from the outside ledge. He had taken out the four -guinea pigs he had left penned on the top of the directors’ table. They -were all dead without visible hurt or reason. - -Teverson came out of his conference, which was being held on the third -floor; and he turned the limp guinea pigs over thoughtfully. - -“There’s only one reason those aren’t Strathon and Géroud and Sencort -and me, Fanneal,” he said, looking at me. “You want to do one more big -thing for us and against--them?” He moved his head toward the wall; I -knew whom he meant. - -“What’s that?” I asked. - -“Keep this all quiet. It’s asking something, I know.” - -I guess I got red at that. He meant I’d played rather prominently as a -goat and it was something to ask me to conceal the one thing I’d put -through. - -“It’s the only thing to do,” I agreed. - -He gave me his hand again. “We’ll all know,” he said. - -“How about the men you have tracing the pipes?” I asked. - -“Nothing from them yet.” - -And there was nothing until a good deal later, when they found that -those old gas pipes had been extended into an unused basement room in -the building to the left. When they entered this room, they found proof -that recently it had been occupied; men had been doing things there -with reference to the end of that extended gas pipe, but everybody had -got away. - -I kept quiet, of course; the Sencort people hushed their clerks. Lord -Strathon, for England, and M. Géroud, for France, met with Sencort and -Teverson and made their agreements as everybody read. Nobody read of -that near success at gassing them dead as those guinea pigs which had -been penned on their table. - -Nobody knew, but the Sencort people and I and those who had slotted the -pipes and killed the four guinea pigs from that next-door basement room. - -“Get out of New York, Steve! Stay away!” said another note to me in -Jerry’s handwriting. - -It arrived the second day after the gassing of the guinea pigs and I -was thinking it over, when walking on Park Avenue and, being far from -my hotel, I gave in to a taxi driver who offered his cab at the curb. - -“Belmont!” I told him; and he started in the right direction; then he -swung to the east and was over Third Avenue. He was up an alley while I -was rapping at his window. - -I realized then and opened the door and jumped out while the cab was -still moving; but I was near his destination. A gat was at my midriff -before I’d stopped slipping in the muck underfoot; and as I looked into -the faces of the gents surrounding me, I understood that, upon the rack -of their club, my number to-day had arrived at the top. - - - - -XIX - -I HEAR OF THE GLASS ROOM. - - -They were not masked; it was daylight. The hour was late in the -afternoon, to be sure; but I saw them plainly as they made no attempt -at concealment. And I could guess at the significance of this. They -showed themselves, without care, for they felt absolutely sure I would -never have a chance to give evidence against them. - -I used to wonder why a man doesn’t put up a fight, in spite of having -a gun shoved against him, when he knows he’s in for the worst possible -after he surrenders to such a circle as met me. The fact is, at the -moment, the gun at your belt is wholly convincing; you aren’t competent -to imagine incidents subsequent to the occasion of its going off. So -you don’t force the occasion. - -“Step in there,” somebody said to me; and I stepped. “There” was a door -in the rear of a building; it led into an empty room and to another -door indicated as my destination. - -Here was a closet without further portal and without window; its light -came through the door by which I entered; and it was so dark that, when -I was thrust in and the door slammed and bolted, I supposed myself -alone. - -I stood still, with my hand on the door panel, while the after-images -of light faded from my retinas and became replaced by the blackness of -pitch dark. I indulged myself--or attempted to--in some of that logic -said by Jerry, a little time ago, to be the present prerogative of -gervers, guns and gorillas, and in which I felt certain that pumpers of -poison gas would not be found lacking. - -The last step on their ladder of reason was not difficult for my mind -to ascend. I had spoiled their great scheme at the Sencort Trust; -therefore now I was to be punished. Perhaps, in contemplation of the -certainty of this, I should have been satisfied; but I had to go about -the gathering up of earlier starts and sequences. - -I felt myself caught in a continuity, frequently suggested but not -finally convincing, until suddenly that gat at my stomach summed up -everything for me. “Here you are!” it spoke. “You’ve gone this way and -that; but now you’ve come to it!” - -I got to thinking what Jerry told me of “his friend”--Keeban, -his strange, sinister twin--“sitting in with destiny” by knowing, -in advance, what he was going to do to others. I’d thought of him -sitting in with destiny on Dorothy Crewe and old Win Scofield and on -Jerry himself; but I hadn’t thought of him sitting in with destiny -on me. Stupid, now that I came to see it; for of course I was in his -calculations all along; he’d used me, as long as I proved profitable -and now that I’d failed him, he’d finish me. - -For I knew than that Keeban had me. He had not shown himself in that -circle of reception in the alley. No; every face there had been unknown -to me, unless one was the dyke-keeper of Klangenberg’s delicatessen. -They were normal-appearing, good-looking youths who made the majority -in that circle. - -I’d often noticed--haven’t you--how indistinguishable our felons are -from the philanthropists of the day. Mix up the captions--as the -best of newspapers sometimes do--accompanying the illustrated page -pictures of the gentry who last night did “Fanny’s First Play” for the -Presbyterian Home and the guests and ladies who last night failed to -start their Fiat promptly after they had it all filled from the ring -and wrist-watch trays in Caldon’s windows, and who could be sure which -words went with which faces? - -Admit the truth; you’d hire most murderers on sight. Others do; why not -you? They look normal. - -Nero was normal, H. G. Wells says; he had a little peculiarity, to -be sure, but that was merely incidental to his position, not to his -nature. He was so placed, you see, that the ideas, which remain mere -passing black thoughts and impulses with the rest of us, could without -any trouble or personal effort at all become actual deeds with him. -That was the secret of Nero. Before a man condemns Nero as being of a -separate species from himself, he should examine very carefully his own -secret thoughts. This is Wells’s own advice and monition. - -It occurred to me there in the dark in reference to the normals on the -other side of the door. They looked all right; but they showed signs -of an education decidedly deficient on inhibitions, and altogether too -prodigal at translating dark thoughts and impulses into action. - -I wondered about Jerry and how much he might be knowing of my present -position; twice, recently, you remember, I’d had word from him. I did -the drowning-man acts,--both of them; I caught at the straw that -somehow he might save me, and I reviewed, if not my entire life, yet -several significant epochs of it; and I got to thinking about Doris. - -She was in with the worst, I was now sure; she not only had had me hit -on the head, when I came to see her, but she’d worked in that scheme to -gas Sencort and his guests. I kept thinking about her and the dances -we’d had together at the Flamingo Feather and our dinner on the train -when I’d had the best time ever in my life. - -Meanwhile I was listening and I began to realize that there was a -soft, regular sound separate from and nearer than those which reached -me through the door. It was the zephyr of breath. Some one was in the -closet with me. - -“Hello,” I whispered. “Who’s here?” - -A hand touched my side and I seized it,--a small, firm hand mighty like -Doris’s. - -“Hello; who’re you?” I asked. - -“Hello, Steve,” she said. “Doris! By Christopher, Doris!” - -“Anybody else in here?” I asked. That sounds stupider now than at the -time; for after this, I was ready for anything. - -“No,” she said. - -“What’re you doing here?” I asked her; and she said, “What d’you -suppose?” - -That was it; what did I suppose? Here she was with me. I was there -because I’d run down and showed Teverson those slotted pipes and -spoiled the best of Keeban’s schemes. Now why should she be here except -for the same reason? - -“They saw you down on Wall Street,” I said. - -“Yes.” - -“I see,” I whispered. - -“Do you?” she asked me. - -I bent at the same time that my hands, which had been holding hers, -felt up her arms, over her shoulders and located her cheeks. I held her -between my hands and, bending, kissed her. On the lips, it was; I found -them fair. She helped, perhaps, a little. - -“How long you been here,” I asked her, my lips burning like flame; and -how I liked it! - -“What time is it?” she asked. - -“’Bout five when they shoved me in.” - -“I came at three.” - -I kissed her again at that; I was still bending and had her cheeks -between my hands. - -“How’d they get you? You take a cab?” - -“That’s how they got you?” - -“Me,” I said. “But you--you weren’t so easy, were you?” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” she temporized. - -Queer--wasn’t that--how she wanted to show consideration for me? “I -should have told you,” she blamed herself, “that they’d be watching the -Sencort building, and when they bumped off just guinea pigs, they’d lay -for who fooled ’em.” - -“I had a tip to skip out,” I said. “But I didn’t start in time. Where -did they get you?” - -Now she told me, “They took me out of my room by the back way.” - -I held to her but differently--oh, entirely differently--from my hold -of her in that Sencort room. For I knew not only that she’d not been in -that scheme, not only that she’d gone there to warn Teverson, as she -said, but also I knew she’d nothing to do with that blow on my _medulla -oblongata_ at Cheron Street. - -“Vine’s doing this, I suppose,” I whispered. - -“Yes.” - -“He sent me both those telegrams?” - -“No; only the second; I came on, as I wired you. He grabbed me when I -arrived and threw you the second wire. I didn’t see the street till he -was through with you.” - -“What’d he do to you?” - -“Me? Oh, he was all right about me, then.” - -“He didn’t hurt you at all?” - -She knew what I meant and replied, “He did not! Christina saw to that.” - -“Oh, she’s back with him?” - -“Umhm. That’s why she saw to it.” - -“All right,” I said; and kept hold of her. My property, she was; mine. - -“You’re forgiving me?” I said. - -“For what?” - -“Down on Wall Street; and what I did after I’d been hit.” - -“Oh, that was you, Steve, just you.” - -Pretty soon, then, I asked her, “What’s Vine’s idea for us now?” - -You’d have thought I would have asked that the first thing. But -question any doctor; inquire how patients act when they know there’s no -hope for them. Do they say right away, “What is it, doctor?” They do -not; they say, “Lovely weather; and what a view from this window!” - -Doris was like a doctor in that, when I got around to asking her, she -did her stalling, too; but finally she told me, “Well, I guess for us -it’s the ‘glass room’.” - - - - -XX - -DORIS AND I ARE TAKEN TO IT. - - -When she said “for us,” I got another thrill there in the dark, and -right away I got quite the opposite when she said “the glass room.” - -I had not heard of it before. No; that was the première for the -phrase with me; but it was one of those phrases which carry their own -connotation; and this was decidedly an uncomfortable one. - -“What’s the ‘glass room’?” I asked her. - -“Never mind,” she said, and it was like a mother to a child. You’ve -heard something of the sort when a visitor let slip, before the -children, a remark about the feature atrocity in the morning paper. -“Never mind,” Doris said again to me. - -“Well, I’m grown,” I said. “And since I’m apparently a candidate for -it, why not tell me--unless you prefer to have it come as a complete -surprise to me?” - -“Don’t!” she asked me; and we stood in silence in the dark. - -“You’ve explored the cavern, I suppose between three and five,” I said, -starting up the small talk again. - -“Yes.” - -“It runs to solid walls, I take it?” - -“Very solid.” - -“Nothing like a trap door in the floor, by any chance?” - -“Not by any.” - -“Now a noise would probably be one of the worst advised projects -possible, don’t you think?” - -“It wouldn’t change the end at all,” Doris said, “and would only put -us worse off now. They’d tie and gag us--or else let us yell for their -amusement.” - -“Of course some one’s just outside.” - -“Of course.” - -We were silent again and I listened. “Yet we don’t know. I hear nobody -now.” - -I threw my weight against the panels, bracing my feet as firmly as I -could. The wood creaked but did not break. Hearing some one at the -other side, I relaxed and the door opened. - -“Who’s so crazy to come out?” one of the normals said to me. “Come -along.” He punched me with his pistol. I came. - -He slammed the door on Doris and threw over the bolt. Without another -word to me, but guiding me by punches of his automatic against my side, -he herded me into another closet, equipped with a heavy door. Here I -was alone. - -Standing alone in the dark, I wondered why they put me in with Doris, -first; and I wondered now that it was too late to ask her again, -exactly what “the glass room” was. Then my two perplexities partly -answered each other. - -She, having been caught doing a “double cross” on her crowd, knew what -was going to happen to her; and they put me with her so she would -tell me and so, while I waited, I would have the benefit of my own -anticipations of the “glass room.” - -Suggestive sort of name, wasn’t it? - -I stood in that closet, or sat on the floor, for three hours. It turned -out to be not yet nine when the normals removed me. Of course it seemed -several times longer; many more than three hours’ thoughts went through -my head. - -“Ready for the ‘glass room’ now?” one of the normals said to me. - -I said something in the manner of “Go ahead.” - -“Come along then,” he said; and prodded me as before. But this time, -as they were taking me out, they did a little more. They tied my hands -and stuffed my mouth full of cotton and bound it in. After they had -prodded me into their car, they threw a rope around my feet and pulled -it tight. - -I did not see Doris at all, then. I had no idea whether they already -had attended to her, or whether she was next or whether they were -leaving her behind. - -In the car, the curtains were down; I couldn’t see out, yet I had -some idea of where we were going. First we headed east, running with -the long blocks, then we swung to the right and went with the short -squares, crossing many streets and stopping many times at traffic -signals. - -That was one of the queerest features of the ride, to feel that the -car, carrying me bound and gagged to the glass room, was halting, with -the most punctilious, to obey the street regulations. - -The three normals said little to me and not much more to each other. -Altogether it was a quiet ride and, in itself, uneventful. We turned -east again after our run south and I knew that we were in that bulge of -the city below the numbered streets. - -We went on to a bridge,--the Williamsburg bridge, I thought; and when -we were off it, and had taken a couple of turns, I lost all reckoning. -I wasn’t particularly up on Long Island City and Brooklyn. - -When we reached our terminus, they threw the noose from my feet -and prodded me to precede them from the car. Others were there -waiting,--other normals, I mean. I saw nobody else in my fix. We were -between two large, dark buildings which seemed to compose a factory of -some sort. I saw corrugated, sheet-steel shutters covering the windows, -not only next to the ground but upon the upper floors. The factory unit -to the right communicated with the one to the left by a bridge-of-sighs -effect about twenty feet from the ground. The whole place had a shut -and deserted look which was intensified by the distance of the nearest -night lamps. - -There was a dark, overcast sky. I remember glancing up to get a glimpse -of a star or so, if I could; but nothing like one was showing. So I -took a long deep breath of the outside air, as the next best thing to -do, before following some of the normals, and preceding others, into an -aperture which developed a door somewhat farther along. - -We were in a large, wide space of a character familiar to me; it was -bare of furniture, except for many long, low tables, several chairs -and stools and, here and there, a desk. Chutes slanted down upon the -tables. These were for the delivery of goods in the days when the -factory was working; here the shipments had been made up and dispatched. - -I saw all this in the yellow glow from a couple of old electric bulbs -in fixtures on the sides of the great supporting columns which stood -in rows through the room. Although these lights proved that current -was coming into the building, the state of this shipping floor was -conclusive that the factory was shut down. It was an easy trick, I -knew, for one of the normals to “cut in” the current which had been -turned off by the company. - -Several empty boxes, ready for goods which never slid down the chutes, -were piled up on one side and I passed near enough to read the -stencilling on their ends. - -“Stamby-Temke Chemical Company,” they said. - -I had a dim notion of the name. It seemed to me that this was one -of the plants which had boomed during the war and afterwards had -continued, with the idea that German dyes and chemicals would not -again compete in the American market. They had quoted us coloring -matter and synthetic fruit flavors; but we weren’t interested. - -The normals walked me upon the broad platform of a freight elevator. I -saw by the city license framed on its side that this was operated by -electric power. A normal moved a lever and we slowly rose past one dark -floor, two, three, four. Upon the fifth, we stepped out. Several lights -were burning here and better ones than below,--bright Mazdas, these -were. We were in another wide room but this had rows of desks and work -benches; big bottles and carboys gleamed from shelves. The glass in the -windows reflected the lights like mirrors, for they were black behind, -with steel shutters tight screening them. None of this light escaped. - -One of the normals jerked the binder from before my mouth and I coughed -out the cotton without hindrance. From this floor, no shout could -escape; nor could a shot be heard outside. - -They watched me but let me alone. I sat on the edge of a desk and -looked about at them. Just now, they were doing nothing. - -It was plain, of course, that they had complete control of this empty -plant. Probably Stamby-Temke had a watchman but the normals either -overpowered him, terrorized him or bought him over. Perhaps he was one -of them, who had applied for the job for the purpose of obtaining these -buildings for their use. Evidently they were quite at home here. - -They were so at ease, indeed, that they must be sure that no one would -disturb them. I attempted a pose “at ease” but with my hands tied back -of me, and more particularly with the feeling I had, I certainly made a -poor pretense at it. - -Something was going to happen to me here, I knew; and I was going to -have nothing to say about it. The occurrence would be of that sort -which precedes the finding of a body in a deserted building. - -You’ve read in the papers, as I had, how the vice-president of the -John Doe Company, making an inspection of a disused building prior to -reopening it, was shocked to come upon the body of a man, evidently -dead for some time. His clothing and so on; marks of identification and -so on. The police state that the man undoubtedly met a violent end and -prior to his death and so on. It is evident that the man was brought -there by several others who used the building for--well, here I was to -find out for what these normals used this building. - -The elevator, which had descended after depositing us, reappeared with -another group of normals and with a girl. Doris! Yes; there she was! If -they had tied and gagged her while bringing her here, they had loosed -her again; she stepped off the elevator and moved a little away from -the normals. Not even her hands were tied; but she was in the same fix -I was; that was clear. - -They were letting her go to see what she would try to do, as they had -let me. I got up from my seat on the desk; she came toward me. “Hello,” -I said; and she said the same and sat in a chair near me. I slumped -down again on the edge of the desk. - -There was an average of eight of the normals about us in that big -office; some kept sifting in and out, from and to a farther room, where -there appeared to be somebody or something particularly important. - -Doris glanced that way several times and they watched her; I watched -her, too. She appeared alert and on edge with eyes bright and with -lips thin and tight; but she didn’t show fright. - -I’m not sure what I showed but I know what I felt. I was dull, not -alert like her. One sort of nature seems to dull itself when in for -what it can’t prevent; that was mine. I guessed that the “glass room” -was over in that farther end of this floor. - -During those three hours alone in that closet, I had spent a good deal -of thought on the “glass room”; and, knowing that the scheme at the -Sencort Trust had employed gas, naturally I set to fitting gas in the -arrangements of the “glass room.” So now that I had seen this was a -chemical factory, I was sure I was right. They had some ritual with gas -for Doris and me. A rather elaborate ritual, if one were to judge by -the time it took them to make ready. Or perhaps they were waiting for -somebody. - -A telephone instrument stood on the desk beside me. The last time I’d -sat down, I had placed myself next it. Now I didn’t take it up; I -merely moved my hand and lifted the receiver from the hook. - -One of the normals saw me and made no move. He had no reason for worry; -there was no response in the wire; the circuit was dead. - -“Know anything to do?” I asked Doris in a whisper. - -“Not now,” she replied. - -The normals did not care; they did not even come closer to hear what we -said. - -“This is the place, I suppose,” I continued. - -She nodded. - -“What’s your idea for later?” I asked her. - -“I’ll have it--later,” she said. - -So that was it. She had no better plan than I who had none at all. - -Just then Jerry came in. That is, I thought at first he was Jerry. -My heart leaped at the sight of him; physically it leaped; I felt it -pounding in me. I thought he was Jerry, you see. I thought he had come -here as Keeban; I believed he was playing the part of Keeban but that -really he was Jerry who had come to try to save me. - - - - -XXI - -DORIS ENTERS THE GLASS ROOM. - - -You see, I had remained sure up to this time that there were two of -them. Now and then, for short periods, I had questioned myself about -it; but always my certainty of Jerry, as somebody distinct from Keeban, -won over my doubt. I would never grant that Jerry, my brother, could be -guilty of what Keeban had done. - -Then, if they were only one, why would Jerry warn me and send me to -prevent the plan of Keeban, as he had sent me to the Sencort Trust? - -“Here’s Jerry!” I said to myself, and that jump of my heart encouraged -me. “He’s playing Keeban. He’s come for me.” - -The normals nodded or gazed at him; he gave hardly a glance at them. He -looked to Doris and came over to me. - -My pulse had stopped jumping then, when I saw him closer. “He’s not -Jerry!” I warned myself. “He’s Keeban!” And then my senses did another -roundabout. “He’s Keeban and Jerry, too!” For here was a body which -I was sure was Jerry’s and some one else possessed it. That some one -must be the soul we’d called Keeban--Jerry and I. Here was Keeban who’d -robbed Dorothy Crewe and thrown her in the street; here was Keeban -who had shot Win Scofield for his insurance and had knocked me on the -head when I called at Cheron Street; here was Keeban who had tried to -kill, by poison gas, Strathon, Géroud and Teverson and the Sencort -directors in their room. And here--in the sense, at least, that I felt -him physically present--was Jerry, who had been brother of mine for -twenty-five years. And his present purpose was to finish me. - -“Well, Steve,” he said, “You did a good job.” - -“All right, I guess,” I replied. - -“Damn good,” he granted to me. “You got any idea of what you beat me -out of?” - -“No,” I said, doing my best to stand up to him; and while I talked to -him, I thought, “He warned me. He told me to do it. That wasn’t Keeban, -of course. Jerry had the body then. Jerry must come into him at times. -Then Jerry knows and goes horrified at what Keeban does. Jerry himself -sent me that warning to try to stop him. He did the same in the -killing of Win Scofield.” - -He went on talking, “You beat me out of more than you’d make in the -bean business if you lived as many more years as you’re going to live -minutes. You like that girl over there?” - -I didn’t reply to that; but he went on as if I had. - -“Good you do. She’s traveling right along with you. Plenty of space for -two in the old glass room. Now Stenewisc, he was simply a fool.” - -“Stenewisc, who made the gas?” I asked him. I was trying to keep him -talking for the general reason that every minute gained was another -minute lived; and besides, below everything else in my mind, was the -idea that something might turn this body back from Keeban to Jerry -again. I got to figuring like this: - -“Years ago, when we were at college, he started being Keeban for a -couple of short periods which confused him afterwards. He was Jerry -nearly all the time. Then he stopped turning into Keeban until that -night of the Sparlings’ dance. He became Keeban for a time, then he -was Jerry again when he came home to talk to me, after which he went -back to being Keeban. He has stayed Keeban most of the time since, -especially through that Scofield business; but once or twice he became -Jerry. But now, except when he sent those two notes to me, he’s been -Keeban all the time.” - -“Stenewisc, he never had any sense,” he went on to me. “He had the gas -during the war. But would he sell it to the army or to the English or -the French or, if he didn’t like that side, would he sell to the other? -He would not. He wouldn’t help any government anywhere; he wouldn’t -help a government even to wipe out the rest. He was set to do the -wiping himself, personally. He had his big idea.” - -I kept quiet; and he stood close. This was like Jerry himself, this -impulse to talk on. - -“He figured he could croak everybody--give him a little more time and -plenty of gas. Everybody in New York, anyway.” Keeban laughed. “Lot of -good that would do. Get up!” he told me. - -I got up. - -“Get up!” he said to Doris; and she arose. - -The normals formed before us and behind; and so we started to march to -the glass room. - -There was an ordinary wood and plaster partition first which set off -another large room at the end of this floor. The usual employment -of this place was plain enough, even to me with only college -course knowledge of chemical matters. Here were the laboratories -for experimentation and research where a commercial firm, such as -Stamby-Temke, would keep a covey of chemists testing their products, -analyzing the goods of competitors and making experiments to improve -their own formulæ for colors, caustics, preservatives, antiseptics, -poisons, solvents, reagents and what not. - -Most of these tests would be simple enough and involve no danger to any -one; but some would generate gases, poisonous or otherwise noxious, -which should not be allowed in an open room; therefore the firm had -installed, at the end of this laboratory, a special compartment which -was, beyond any doubt, “the glass room.” - -Its outer wall was not of glass; rather, it was not all glass, though -there were two windows in it. No blinds were drawn before them but they -were black from the steel shutters outside. The other three walls were -of glass from floor to ceiling and, as the normals brought us nearer, I -could see that the glass was heavy, clear plate such as is used in show -windows and that it was carefully and evenly joined in steel framing. - -Where the glass met the frame, and about the single, glass door, -the joints were caulked and sealed, making the place air-tight and -gas-tight, undoubtedly. There was a way of ventilating it without using -the windows, I saw; for cords communicated with ceiling traps. The -traps were open now; the blackness above was the darkness of the sky. -One set of cords hung inside the room, another hung just outside the -glass. - -I guessed that, when Stamby-Temke had the building, the chemists who -worked in the glass room used the inner set when they wished to clear -the air of their cabinet; the outer cords must be for emergencies, in -case the chemists in the outer laboratory saw the experimenters in the -cabinet overcome; then the rescuers could open the ceiling before going -into the glass room. - -The fact that the traps now were up suggested that the cabinet recently -had been used. For whom? I wondered. I was sure of the purpose of the -cabinet. Here was the place of punishment and of discipline. - -Keeban strode into the glass room and pulled the cords. The ceiling -closed and he came out. His normals stood about him, grinning. They -took on an additional detachment of manner which I didn’t like at all; -it was detachment from us--from Doris and me--that I mean. - -She was keeping her nerve and she was standing steady. She was gazing -into the glass room with a look which made me think that, though she’d -known about this cabinet, she had never actually seen it before. - -I haven’t mentioned its furnishings. The room had a bench with nothing -on it; there was a table in the middle of the cabinet. Nothing was on -that either, but from its position, and from the way that Doris and the -normals looked at that, it had a much more menacing suggestion. - -It was a narrow table, no wider than a couch; it was about the length -of a couch. And somehow, though it was perfectly flat and hard, it -suggested a couch. At least, I imagined myself spread out upon it. The -reason I fancied this was simple. I was sure that they meant to put -me into that cabinet; and the only place they could put me and tie me -safely would be to bind me to that table. - -Then they would pump in Stenewisc’s gas--his KX, which so competently -had accounted for Costrelman and his butler and for the four guinea -pigs which, but for me, might have been Lord Strathon and M. Géroud and -Sencort and Teverson. But for Doris and me, I mean; for I knew--and -Keeban and his normals knew--that if I had failed to warn Teverson, -Doris was there to do it. Consequently, we were to get the gas now; and -we were not to get it simply, but impressively as a part of a ceremony -of punishment and discipline. - -For Doris had done the double cross; she had “speiled” and “spouted”; -and not only had she spoiled the biggest job this crowd ever had “on” -but by her squeal or her willingness to squeal had made every man here -a candidate for the electric chair. That was their judgment and their -sentence against her. - -It was not a fair judgment, nor a fair sentence, even from their own -point of view, I thought. It was strange that, standing there and -staring into the glass room, I angered at this more than anything else, -that their sentence of her wasn’t fair. She never could have agreed to -mix in murder; she had mixed with them only for counterfeiting, for her -shoving of “the queer”; and through that contact, she had learned of -the plot to kill which she could not stand for. - -Other flashes of comprehension came to me there, too. Keeban was fast -developing, I understood. He’d started, so far as I knew, only with -robbery; then he’d run to shooting of old Win Scofield and, from that, -to his attempt at the simultaneous gassing of the group appointed to -gather in the Sencort directors’ room. Keeban had tried to carry Doris -with him from counterfeiting into killing; he had failed. He must have -been carrying some, or most, of these normals with him from smaller -offenses into those which threatened “the chair.” - -He could not simply have happened upon a group of normals going the -exact gait he was going; he had to speed up some of them and keep them -with him and impress them with the certainty of something worse than -“the chair”, if any failed him. So he was giving “the glass room” to -Doris and me, not merely for our punishment, but for an example to the -others. And more of the others were arriving now. I heard footsteps -and voices, a girl’s voice among them and her laugh. I turned about. -Shirley, Win Scofield’s widow, had come with two young men beside her. - -The sight of her brought me images of recollection. How I had seen -her sing in her house that night before the shooting! How, like a -cabaret Récamier, she had received me after her husband was dead! How I -witnessed her dance at the Flamingo Feather that night she had stabbed -at her partner, Keeban! - -Sometimes, since, I had doubted the authenticity of my own witnessing -that night; I wondered if, actually, she had tried, in that sudden, -swift dart of the dagger, to kill Keeban, her partner. Now I wondered -that no longer. - -She came in smiling; but her smile was too like Doris’s when she now -smiled at me. For a moment I thought that Shirley was with us; she, -also, was to be a guest of the glass room. Then I realized that this -was not so. She had come only to see us entertained within the glass. I -realized that it was for her we had been waiting. She had come but not -of her own will. She had been brought to see this entertainment which -was planned for her. - -I got a glimpse of Keeban’s face; and there I saw a leer which seemed -to say: - -“You stabbed at me. I let you get away with it. But watch your step. -Now see what I can do.” - -She kept on smiling. She looked at Doris but didn’t speak. She didn’t -even nod at Doris, indeed; and Doris took no heed of her. She gazed -at me, did Shirley Scofield,--Christina. And she smiled at me as she -had at Keeban, and she smiled at the normals, too. That smile meant -nothing; no more than their grins in reply to her. - -Keeban spoke aloud. “Everybody’s here.” It seemed to be a prearranged -signal. Two of the normals came up to me and took my arms; two more -placed themselves in position similarly to escort Doris. - -“What’s the big rush, boys?” said Keeban then. “Didn’t they show us -something new down on Wall Street? Don’t we show it back to them?” - -He laughed; and how he looked like Jerry when he laughed! But he didn’t -sound like Jerry. Not at all. That other person possessed the body. - -“Where are they?” he asked the nearest of his normals. - -“Oh!” said the normal, remembering. “In there.” - -“Get them,” said Keeban. - -The fellow stepped to a locker at the side of the room; he stooped, -and, reaching in, he brought out a pair of white rabbits in one hand, -another pair hung by their ears from his other fist. - -“Rabbits,” said Keeban, with a sort of play at apology to Doris and me. -“I know you got guinea pigs; but rabbits do just as well and they show -better.” - -He took them from the man who held them and he stepped again into the -glass room and tossed the four white rabbits upon the table. Carefully -he closed the door when he came out. - -He went to the end of the cabinet where now I noticed, when he touched -it, a thin pipe with a cock right against the glass. He twisted the -cock and he returned to us. - -The end of the pipe pierced the glass, I saw; but now that the cock was -turned, nothing visible came from it. Stenewisc’s gas was colorless and -odorless, I remembered. I did not expect to smell it through the glass -of the cabinet; but I could not help expecting the rabbits, on the -table there, to show some alarm. They discerned nothing threatening, -however. - -Timidly they tried this end of the table and now that. They hopped -about, nosing each other, naturally enough. Nothing at all seemed to -be happening. Then a lethargy crept over them. They did not sleep; -they remained awake but became slower and slower in their motions. -Yet nothing alarmed them; they seemed to sense nothing at all but -the difficulty of motion. They nosed up, seeming to search for this -intangible thing which was restraining them. They drooped, as though -pressed down; but they remained awake and gave not a squeal nor a -quiver of pain. - -Surely it was painless, as well as invisible and intangible, too,--this -amazing death from Stenewisc’s gas. - -“No trouble at all, you see,” said Keeban to me. “You never know it.” - -He knew how horrible that gradual, invisible death was; a shot or a -knife, or anything sudden, would have been ten times more merciful. -It’s a strange thing to say, but I’m sure that pain--some pain, at -least--would have made it less terrible. It was uncanny, you see. - -“They’d never have suspected it,” he spoke again to me. “They’d each -thought the rest were getting thick in the head and nobody would’ve -tried to get up from the table--till they couldn’t.” - -He was speaking of the four, who would have been in the Sencort -directors’ room, if I hadn’t interfered; and his words, and this sight -of the rabbits before me, made me see how the Englishman and the -Frenchman and Teverson and Sencort would have gone, without feeling, -without knowing, with nothing really to alarm them till too late. - -“Great stuff,” said Keeban again and not to me but to the normals. -“We’ll make it worth millions yet--millions! We’ll get the next bunch -and then sell Wall Street the gas--at our own price! Boys, the curtain -raiser’s over.” - -For the rabbits had drooped into death. There was not a mark nor a -twist on them to show it. Keeban shut off the gas, where he had turned -it on; he pulled the cords to open the ceiling. - -“Perfectly safe in two minutes,” he assured Doris and me. “It’s light; -the stuff rises.” - -Doris and I looked at each other. What had been done had been planned -of course to break our nerve. I can’t say what cracks showed in mine, -nor how much satisfaction I was giving them. I can say that what she -was supplying them was mighty small. - -We had two minutes, one of us or both of us; and she wasn’t for wasting -them. Nor was I thinking of things far away. I couldn’t; and I didn’t -want to. - -I felt my flashes of home; of my mother and my father. I felt flashes -of Jerry, as he used to be when he was my brother. To see him here -beside me now stopped these old sensations. My mind brought to me the -night he’d come and told me how “Keeban” must have taken away Dorothy -Crewe; it brought me to the police station where, that same night, -he broke away; it brought me to the Flamingo Feather where I danced -with Doris, calling her Cleopatra. It brought me to Caldon’s, where I -happened on her “shoving the queer”; it took me to the Blackstone and -the train and to that supper with her again. It took me to that closet -where I’d kissed her, as I had never kissed any girl before. - -Here we were, caught together, with Keeban going once more into the -glass room. He went himself and picked up the rabbits and flung them at -our feet on the floor. - -“How about it now?” he said to me. “What’s the order? The lady first?” - -I swore at him. He had my nerve, you see. I swore and strained at the -cords on my hands. A lot of good it did me. He laughed. - -“All right, Steve!” said Doris to me. “All right!” Quickly but calmly -she said it. Calmly is not the word. It doesn’t do at all. No word -would. “All right, Steve!” - -“All right, Doris!” I said in reply. Of course nothing was right, -except one thing; and that was whatever held her to me. - -“Margaret’s my name,” she told me; and she touched me. They let her; -they weren’t holding her just then. - -“Margaret,” I said. “Thanks. I like that name.” - -Keeban nodded to his normals; and they took, and tied her. Then he, -himself, carried her in. - -They tied her to the table, much as I had seen they would. They came -out and closed the door. He twisted that cock on the pipe; I saw his -wrist go around and around. - -I stood and stared and waited. There was just one thing that I might -try; and it was not yet time for that. - -Doris--Margaret--lay on her back, each wrist and each ankle looped to a -leg of the table. She lay looking up at the closed ceiling, not moving -except for the rise and fall of her bosom with breathing. She had tried -her cords and found the uselessness of struggle; so she lay and waited. - -I watched her and waited for my moment. I would have known it was not -much to wait for, if I had thought it out. But you don’t think out -affairs like that; when there is only one thing to do, you have to -take a chance on whatever it is. So I stood, with Keeban beside me and -Christina a few feet away and the eleven normals beyond us and between -and I watched the girl on the table breathing. - -They watched her, too. Christina, Shirley Scofield,--with what sort of -feelings? And the normals about us, what were they thinking, too? I -didn’t even try to wonder about Jerry who had become Keeban and who was -doing this thing. - -My hands, tied together, grasped the top of the back of a chair against -which I leaned; and my muscles went tight to raise it and, spinning, to -swing it upon him and kill him. Yet I knew I would not do that; I might -knock him down; that was all. It would not help my girl at all. - -She half turned her head toward me and then, quickly, she faced to the -ceiling again. She wanted to look at me, I thought; and then she had -thought it must seem like an appeal to me, which I could not bear when -I could not help her. - -I held on to the back of that chair and waited, watching her bosom rise -and fall. I kept saying to myself something that Teverson told me. When -Costrelman and his butler had been killed by the gas, others in the -room had been affected but had recovered. An under-dose was not deadly, -therefore; that is, if this were the same gas. - -I could see nothing; smell nothing; sense nothing going on in that -cabinet; but neither had I when the rabbits had died. - -My plan depended entirely upon time. There must be gas in the cabinet, -but not too much gas,--not enough to kill my girl in there. - -She breathed more slowly, I thought; I stared and seemed sure of it. At -the same time, Keeban began looking at me. He suspected I was about to -act; and I did it. I lifted that heavy chair behind me and, spinning, I -swung it against the glass side of the cabinet and smashed it through. -I followed it myself and was inside, smashing, kicking, demolishing -glass. A girl screamed. - -Keeban started after me; I felt--or I had felt--his hand grabbing me; -but now his clutch was gone. He was away from that break in the glass. -I heard him call and cough, “Beat it! Duck! Don’t suck it in!” Shirley, -for it was Shirley, screamed again. - -I thought, “He knows. A little kills. I’ve got it. Cleopatra, Doris, -Margaret; she’s got it, too.” But I had her and I hardly cared. The -rest of them had got away. - -My smash of the glass, with Keeban’s yell--and more than that, his -example--had given the start. Now shots were speeding them along. I -didn’t know who was shooting; they were out of the laboratories; and -still they were going away. - -I had that ceiling over the glass room open; I did that before I cut my -cords. Now, by sawing against the glass, I freed my wrists and I had -off Doris’s cords. - -The fight outside--still I did not know who was fighting--had passed -from that wide room where the elevator was; it went farther or it went -down. - -I got out of the glass room and around to that cock in the pipe which -Keeban had turned. - -The valve was turned tight; no doubt about it; for I twisted it half a -turn open and twisted it back again to make sure. “He didn’t give you -the gas!” I called to Doris. “It wasn’t turned on!” - -Then he came back into the room, bloody and leaping; and he was Jerry! -The change, which I’d given up hoping for, had come over him. - -“Steve!” he called to me. “Steve! Come down and see him. I’ve got him. -Christina croaked him cold! And I’ve got him! Come down and see him!” - -“Who?” I said; for I was shaky; and in my mind, then, there was only -one of them. - -“Keeban!” he told me. “He’s cold, downstairs where Christina croaked -him.” - - - - -XXII - -A CROAKING AND FINIS. - - -Doris was up and she was steady. “You didn’t get the gas,” Jerry was -telling her. - -She said nothing to him. It was harder for her than for me to -understand what he had done; yet she got it before I did. - -“You’re Jerry Fanneal,” she said to him. - -“That’s me.” - -He went to a window and threw up the sash and flung back the shutter. -He fired three shots in the air. - -“You were here--not Harry Vine--just now.” - -“He’s been cold for half an hour. That’s what delayed you.” - -“What?” - -“Christina stopped to croak him, Harry Vine, Keeban. She wouldn’t take -a chance.” - -He was wiping blood from his shoulder where he’d been hurt. I was -bloody in several spots and Margaret was wiping that off me. - -“Come along,” said Jerry: and he took us downstairs. And there he -lay--himself in duplicate--dead on the floor. He had been stabbed -through the throat. - -I bent over him and, with Jerry himself bending beside me, still I got -a shock at seeing him. “Two of you,” I said over and over. “Two of -you.” I was still shaken, you see. - -“Two of us!” said Jerry, and he touched that body so identical with his -own. “The difference between us was this: when he was turned loose, he -walked the wrong way across the Lincoln Park grass.” - -“Two of you!” I said and straightened, my arm on Jerry’s shoulder. “See -here! When we were boys, with our beds side by side, what was the book -you kept underneath to read in the mornings?” - -“The Wonder Clock,” he told me. - -“And the story you liked best of all?” - -“‘One Good Turn Deserves Another.’” - -“Jerry!” I cried to him; and I stood there holding to him, staring down -at Keeban. - -“I didn’t kill him,” Jerry said to me. “I came here to get him; I meant -to bag him. Christina came with him but she worked with me. She knew -I was here. She meant to kill him. I didn’t know that till after I’d -stepped out and went at him. She gave him the steel; she wanted to -croak him. She thought he’d get her, if she didn’t.” - -Doris said: “He would have. Where’s she now?” - -“Gone,” said Jerry; and Doris asked no more. - -Jerry ceased to stare down at Keeban. “We were twins, I suppose; that -must be it; and he walked the wrong way across Lincoln Park. That was -all there was to it.” His mind kept going back to that. “Steve,” he -said to me. - -“What?” I asked; I thought again he was turned to philosophy; but he -said, - -“Upstairs, you swung your chair hard, old top. I thought you’d never do -it.” - -“I see now,” I replied. “You were waiting for me to do that.” - -He nodded. “You had to make the move; then I could do the rest. You got -to it just in time, old fellow!” - -“In time?” I said stupidly. “The pipe wasn’t turned on.” - -“Yet you were just in time; in a minute more, they’d got wise that it -wasn’t.” - -We heard men downstairs now. “Who’s that?” I said. - -“Must be the bulls; his gang,” Jerry glanced at Keeban again, “got out; -all that will ever get. Well, come on, bulls; a lot you can hurt me -now!” - -He looked up from his brother and straightened; and I felt for him -perhaps one thousandth of his relief from what had been on him since -that night he came into my room, after the Sparlings’ dance, and said -Keeban had come and gone with Dorothy Crewe. - -I put my hand on him while we waited, Doris and he and I, for the -approaching steps of the bulls. - -“You can go back to anybody now; you can go back to Dorothy Crewe.” - -“I’ll not go back,” he told me. - -“You wouldn’t,” I said. - -“Are you going back, Steve?” - -“Where?” I asked. - -“To the bean business and--your Dorothy Crewe?” - -“I don’t know about going back to the bean business,” I said. “And I -never had any Dorothy Crewe; but if I had I wouldn’t go back to her. -No; I know that!” - -The bulls came on us. We were in the light, but they flashed their own -lanterns in our faces. “Up with ’em!” They had our hands over our heads -at the points of their pistols. And when they saw Jerry, they felt sure -of a haul. - -“Here’s _him_!” they called to those behind. “Here’s him who’s wanted -from Chi to the Street! Here’s him!” - -“Take a look at the floor,” Jerry advised them. “And when you take me -along, have him with us.” - -“How’s this, Mr. Fanneal? How’s this?” And then I reaped one advantage -of my previous notoriety. They knew me; and there, with Jerry beside me -and Keeban on the floor, I tried to tell them. - -Of course, they took us to the station for the second telling, which -was not the last by any means. They held Jerry that night; but they did -not hold Margaret and me. Of her, they knew nothing; and what I knew of -her, I did not tell them. - -If I told them all the truth about her, one section of this truth ought -to make up for the other; her trying to warn Teverson, and taking the -risk she ran, surely was full compensation for her passing “the queer.” -I felt that; but not being certain that others would so judge, I kept -to myself what I knew. And I kept her to myself, too. - -I had her in a cab; and this was no stray taxi, you may be sure. This -was certain to go where I ordered it; and the number I gave was that of -my friend on the Avenue. - -“We can both go there and stay,” I said. “That’s one use for friends.” - -“No,” said Doris. “Not for me.” - -“Oh, yes,” I said; and, being alone with her in the back of that taxi, -I firmly and forcibly held her. Also I kissed her, several times. - -“Don’t!” She fought with me; and furiously, too. - -“I love you,” I repeated to her. “And you love me. God knows why, but -you kissed me in that closet; and you----” - -She told me then and there that none of that counted. She had thought -we were going to be killed, you see, or she never would have shown any -interest in me. Now we weren’t killed, she said; and certainly that was -true. We’d have to go back to our own lines, me to the bean business -and she to “shoving the queer.” - -“You can’t do that,” I told her. - -“Why not?” she came back at me. - -“You’ve no more of the queer to shove. Your father’s taken.” - -“And you’re glad of that!” she accused me. - -“I’m not glad!” I denied. “I’d do anything to free him.” - -“You wouldn’t shove the queer with me!” she retorted. - -“Didn’t I do it--just about?” - -“But you didn’t want to. You didn’t like it!” - -“I never liked anything so much as that trip on the train, except when -I had you later.” - -“Well, that’s over now!” she said. - -“I guess not. You and I have just started!” - -“We’ve not....” - -That’s how we argued in that cab. I was wild about her; she did love -me; and after a while I made her remember it. Naturally we had quite a -time; we’d just been under rather a strain together. - -I took her to my friend’s that night; and the second day I took her to -the Church Around the Corner and married her. I waited till the second -day so Jerry could be best man. - - -Jerry has not yet gone back to the bean business; I think he never will -return. One of many results of his finding Keeban is that Jerry found -his mother--an old woman who, when she was young, had twin boys one of -whom wandered away; and for twenty-five years she has known only the -one who turned to crime. Now she knows Jerry; he knows her. Naturally -he’s bewildered a bit about his future. - -I am back in the bean business; that’s where I belong. I’m at my desk. -I’ve returned. - -But I’ve returned rather like the soldier Kipling sings about who -returned to Hackensack “but not the same.” And I’m not the same for a -similar reason. - - - “Things ’ave transpired which made me learn, - The size and meanin’ of the game.” - - -I’ve thought about that a lot, these days. My parents picked up Jerry -and adopted him to “broaden” me and immediately set about the business -of making him as much like ourselves as possible. They succeeded to the -point where we both would have gone through life bean merchants, and -happy at it, but for Keeban. - -He’s the one that did things to us. - -But for him, the game would have been my club and golf course, the -Drive, the Drake, the other items I’ve mentioned. - -I’d have married, I suppose, some girl with my exact previous notions -of the game. - -Now, as I’ve mentioned, I’m married to Doris. And I have, I know, the -best wife in the world. Certainly the most interesting. - -Some of the family friends, who know the facts, feel there is something -fundamentally wrong with my wife. - -There is not; and there never was anything wrong--except counterfeiting. - -She doesn’t admit that was wrong. She concedes that now that she’s -married to me there is no actual occasion for anyone in the family -engraving a steel plate but she makes this concession in a way which -suggests that, should occasion ever arise, she will not be without -recourse as a breadwinner. - -The interesting part, for me, is I don’t know how much she means it. So -I’m playing that bean business safe to keep the occasions down below -and quite out of her reach. - -If one ever blows the lid off, I’ll tell you. - - - - -+-------------------------------------------------+ -|Transcriber’s note: | -| | -|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+ - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEBAN*** - - -******* This file should be named 66114-0.txt or 66114-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/6/1/1/66114 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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