TERESA'S fingers twisted the key in the lock of the porch door that she had closed on Dave Henderson. There was a queer, tight little smile quivering on her lips.
“There was no other way,” she whispered to herself. “What could I do? What could I say?”
Behind her, and at one side of the passage, was a small panel door, long out of use now, a relic of those days when Nicolo Capriano's dwelling had been a house of mystery. She had hidden there to let Dave Henderson pass by; she closed it now, as she retraced her steps slowly to her father's room. And here, on the threshold, she paused for a moment; then reached in quietly to close the door, and retire again. Her father lay back on the bed, his eyes closed, and his hands, outstretched on the coverlet, were quiet, the long, slim fingers motionless. He was asleep. It was not uncommon. He often did that. Sleep came at the oddest times with the old man, even if it did not last long, and——
“Teresa—eh—what are you doing?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes half opened, and fixed on his daughter. “Eh—what are you doing?”
“I thought you were asleep, father,” she murmured. “Asleep! Bah! I have been asleep for fifteen years—is that not long enough? Fifteen years! Ha, ha! But I am awake now! Yes, yes, old Nicolo has had enough of dreams! He is awake now! Come here, Teresa. Come here, and sit by the bed. Has our clever young friend gone?”
“Yes, father,” she told him, as she took the chair at the bedside.
Nicolo Capriano jerked his head around on his pillows, and studied her face for a moment, though his black eyes, with their smoldering, introspective expression, seemed not at all concerned with her.
“And what do you think of him—eh—Teresa, my little one—what do you think of him?”
She drew back in her chair with a little start.
“Why—what do you mean, father?” she asked quickly.
“Bah!” There was a caustic chuckle in the old bomb king's voice. “We do not speak of love—I suppose! I do not expect you to have fallen in love just because you have seen a man for a few minutes—eh? Bah! I mean just what I say. I called him clever. You are a Capriano, and you are clever; you are the cleverest woman in San Francisco, but you do not get it from your mother—you are a Capriano. Well, then, am I right? He is clever—a very clever fellow?”
Her voice was suddenly dull.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano. “He was caught five years ago, but it was not his fault. He was double-crossed, or he would never have seen the inside of a penitentiary. So you agree, then, that he is clever? Well, then, he has courage, too—eh? He was modest about his fight at Vinetto's—eh? You heard it all from Vinetto himself when you went there this morning. Our young friend was modest—eh?”
Teresa's eyes widened slightly in a puzzled way. She nodded her head.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good!” said Nicolo Capriano—and the long, slim fingers began to twine themselves together, and to untwine, and to twine together again. “Well, then, my little one, with his cleverness and his courage, he should succeed—eh—in New York? Old Nicolo does not often make a mistake—eh? Our young friend will find his money again in New York—eh?”
She pushed back her chair impulsively, and stood up.
“I hope not,” she answered in a low voice.
“Eh?” Nicolo Capriano jerked himself sharply up on his pillows, and his eyes narrowed. “Eh—what is that you say? What do you mean—you hope not!”
“It is not his money now any more than it was before he stole it,” she said in a dead tone. “It is stolen money.”
“Well, and what of it?” demanded Nicolo Capriano. “Am I a fool that I do not know that?” Sudden irascibility showed in the old Italian's face and manner; a flush swept his cheeks under the white beard, the black eyes grew lusterless and hard—and he coughed. “Well, am I a fool?” he shouted.
She looked at him in quick apprehension.
“Father, be careful!” she admonished. “You must not excite yourself.”
“Bah!” He flung out his hand in a violent gesture. “Excite myself! Bah! Always it is—'do not excite yourself!' Can you find nothing else to say? Now, you will explain—eh?—you will explain! What is it about this stolen money that Nicolo Capriano's daughter does not like? You hear—I call you Nicolo Capriano's daughter!”
It was a moment before she answered.
“I do not like it—because it has made my soul sick to-night.” She turned her head away. “I hid behind the old panel when he went out. I do not like it; I hate it. I hate it with all my soul! I did not understand at first, not until your talk with him to-night, that there was any money involved. I thought it was just to help him get away from the police who were hounding him even after his sentence had been served, and also to protect him from that gang who tried to get him in Vinetto's place—and that we were doing it for Tony's sake. And then it all seemed to come upon me in a flash, as I went toward the door to let him out to-night—that there was the stolen money, and that I was helping him, and had been helping him in everything that was done here, to steal it again. I know what I should have done. It would have done no good, it would have been utterly useless; I realized that—but I would have been honest with myself. I should have protested there and then. But I shrank from the position I was in. I shrank from having him ask me what I had to do with honesty, I, who—and you have said it yourself but a moment ago—I, who was Nicolo Capriano's daughter; I, who, even if I protested on one score, had knowingly and voluntarily done my share in hoodwinking the police on another. He would have had the right to think me mad, to think me irresponsible—and worse. I shrank from having him laugh in my face. And so I let him go, because I must say that to him or nothing; for I could not be hypocrite enough to wish him a smiling good-by, to wish him good fortune and success—I couldn't—I tell you, I couldn't—and so—and so I stepped behind the panel, and let him pass.”
Nicolo Capriano's two hands were outthrust and clenched, his lips had widened until the red gums showed above his teeth, and he glared at his daughter.
“By God!” he whispered hoarsely, “it is well for you, you kept your mouth shut! Do you hear, you—you——-” A paroxysm of coughing seized him, and he fell back upon the pillows.
In an instant, Teresa was bending over him anxiously.
He pushed her away, and struggled upward again, and for a moment he shook his fists again at his daughter—and then his eyes were half veiled, and his hands opened, and he began to pat the girl's arm, and his voice held a soft, purring note.
“Listen! You are not a fool, my little one. I have not brought you up to be a fool—eh? Well, then, listen! We have a little money, but it is not much. And he will get that hundred thousand dollars. Do you understand? He is clever, and he has the courage. Do you think that I would have tricked the police for him, otherwise? Eh—do you think old Nicolo Capriano does not know what he is about?”
She stared at him, a sort of dawning dismay in her eyes.
“You mean,” she said, and the words seemed to come in a hard, forced way from her lips, “you mean that if he gets that money again, you are to have a share?”
“A share! Ha, ha!” The old Italian was rocking backward and forward in glee. “No, my little one, not a share—Nicolo Capriano does not deal in shares any more. All—my little one—all! One hundred thousand dollars—all! And my little black-eyes will have such gowns as——”
“Father!” It came in a startled, broken cry of amazed and bitter expostulation.
Nicolo Capriano stopped his rocking, and looked at her. A sudden glint of fury leaped from the smoldering eyes.
“Bah!” he said angrily. “Am I mistaken after all? Is it that you are your mother—and not a Capriano! Perhaps I should not have told you; but now you will make the best of it, and behave yourself, and not play the child—eh? Do you think I risked myself with the police for nothing! Yes—all! All—except that I must pay that leech Dago George something for looking after our young friend—con amore—con amore, Nicolo Capriano—eh?—since I signed the letter so.”
She stood an instant, straight and tense, but a little backward on her heels, as though she had recoiled from a blow that had been struck her—and then she bent swiftly forward, and caught both her father's wrists in her strong young grasp, and looked into his eyes for a long minute, as though to read deep into his soul.
“You signed that letter con amore!” Her voice was colorless. “You signed it—con amore—the code word of the old, horrible, miserable days when this house was a den of outlaws, the code word that marked out the victim who was to be watched and hounded down!”
The old bomb king wrenched himself still further up in bed. He shook his wrists free.
“What is it to you!” he screamed in a blaze of fury—and fell into a second, and more violent paroxysm of coughing—and now caught at his breast with his thin, blue-tipped fingers, and now in unbridled passion waved his arms about like disjointed flails. “Yes—I signed it that—con amore. And it is the old signal! Yes, yes! And Dago George will obey. And he will watch our young friend—watch—watch—watch! And in the end—bah!—in the end our young friend will supply Nicolo Capriano with that hundred thousand dollars. Ha! And in the end we will see that our young friend does not become troublesome. He is a pawn—a pawn!” Old Nicolo's face, between rage and coughing, had grown a mottled purple. “A pawn! And when a pawn has lost its usefulness—eh?—it is swept from the board—eh? Con amore! The old days again! The finger of Nicolo Capriano lifted—and the puppets jump! Con amore! I will see that Dago George knows what to do with a young man who brings him Nicolo Capriano's letter! Ha, ha! Yes, yes; I will take care of that!”
She had not moved, except to grow a little straighter in her poise, and except that her hands now were clenched at her sides.
“I cannot believe it!” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. “I cannot believe it! I cannot believe that you would do this! It is monstrous, horrible!”
It seemed as though Nicolo Capriano could not get his breath, or at least one adequate enough to vent the access of fury that swept upon him. He choked, caught again at his breast, and hooked fingers ripped the nightdress loose from his throat.
“Out of the room!” he screamed at last. “Out of it! I will teach you a chit of a girl's place! Out of it!”
“No; I will not go out—not yet,” she said, and steadied her voice with an effort. “I will not go until you tell me that you will not do this thing. You can't do it, father—you can't—you can't!” Even the semblance of calmness was gone from her now, and, instead, there was a frantic, almost incoherent pleading in her tones. “He came—he came from Tony Lomazzi. Father, are you mad? Do you not understand? He came from Tony Lomazzi, I tell you!”
“And I tell you to get out of this room, and hold your tongue, you meddling little fool!” screamed Nicolo Capriano again. “Tony Lomazzi! He came from Tony Lomazzi, did he? Damn Tony Lomazzi—damn him—damn him! What do I owe Tony Lomazzi but the hell of hate in a man's soul that comes only in one way! You hear! It was the prison walls only that saved Lomazzi from my reach—from these fingers of mine that are strong, strong at the throat, and never let go! Do you think I was blind that I could not see, that I did not know—eh?—that I did not know what was between your mother and that accursed Lomazzi! But he died—eh?—he died like a rat gnawing, gnawing at walls that he could not bite through!”
Teresa's face had gone suddenly a deathly white, and the color seemed to have fled her lips and left them gray.
“It is a lie—a hideous lie!” she cried—and all the passion of her father's race was on the surface now. “It is a lie! And you know it is—you know it is! My mother loved you, always loved you, and only you—and you broke her heart—and killed her with the foul, horrible life of crime that seethed in this house! Oh, my God! Are you trying to make me hate you, hate you, my father! I have tried to be a good daughter to you since she died. She made me promise that I would, on that last night. I have tried to love you, and I have tried to understand why she should have loved you—but—but I do not know. It is true that Tony Lomazzi loved her, but, though he was one of you in your criminal work, his love was the love of a brave, honest man. It is true, perhaps, that it was for her, rather than for you, that it was because of his love, a great, strong, wonderful love, and to save her from horror and despair because she loved you, that he gave his life for you, that he went to prison in your stead, voluntarily, on his own confession, when he was less guilty than you, and when the police offered him his freedom if he would only turn evidence against you, the man they really wanted. But that is what he did, nevertheless. He kept you together.” She was leaning forward now, her eyes ablaze, burning. “That was his love! His love for my mother, and for me—yes, for me—for he loved me too, and I, though I, was only a little girl, I loved Tony Lomazzi. And he gave his life—and he died there in prison. And now—now—you mean to betray his trust—to betray his friend who believed in you because he believed in Tony, who trusted you and sent him here. And you tricked him, and tricked the police for your own ends! Well, you shall not do it! You shall not! Do you hear? You shall not!”
Nicolo Capriano's face was livid. A fury, greater than before, a fury that was unbalanced, like the fury of a maniac, seized upon him. He twisted his hands one around the other with swift insistence, his lips moved to form words—and he coughed instead, and a fleck of blood tinged the white beard.
“You dare!” he shrieked, catching for his breath. “You, a girl, dare talk to me like that, to me—Nicolo Capriano! I shall not—eh? You say that to me! I shall not! And who will stop me?”
“I will!” she said, through tight lips. “If you will not stop it yourself—then I will. No matter what it costs, no matter what it means—to you, or to me—I will!”
Nicolo Capriano laughed—and the room rang with the pealing laughter that was full of unhinged, crazy, shuddering mirth.
“Fool!” he cried. “You will stop it—eh? And how will you stop it? Will you tell the police? Ha, ha! Then you, too, would betray dear Tony's friend! You would tell the police what they want to know—that Dave Henderson can be found in New York, and that he has gone there to get the money back. Or perhaps you will write another letter—and tell Dago George to pay no attention to my orders? Ha, ha! And it is too bad that our young friend himself has gone, and left you no address so that you could intercept him!”
Teresa drew back a little, and into her eyes came trouble and dismay. And Nicolo Capriano's laugh rang out again—and was checked by a spasm of coughing—and rang out once more, ending in a sort of triumphant scream.
“Well, and what do you think now about stopping it—eh? Do you imagine that Nicolo Capriano sees no farther than his nose? Stop it! Bah! No one will stop it—and, least of all, you!”
She seemed to have overcome the dismay that had seized upon her, though her face had grown even whiter than before.
“It is true, what you say,” she said, in a low, strained voice. “But there is one way left, one way to find him, and warn him, and I will take that way.”
“Hah!” Nicolo Capriano glared at her. His voice dropped. “And what is that way, my little one?” he purred, through a fit of coughing. “Old Nicolo would like to know.”
“To go where Dave Henderson is going,” she answered. “To go where he can be found, to go to New York, to keep him from going to Dago George's, or, if I am too late for that, to warn him there before Dago George has had time to do him any harm, and——”
Her words ended in a startled cry. Nicolo Capriano's long, slim fingers, from the bed, had shot out, locked about her waist, and were wrenching at her in a mad-man's fury.
“You—you would do that!” the old Italian screamed. “By God! No! No! No! Do you hear? No!” His hands had crept upward, and, with all his weight upon her, he was literally pulling himself out of the bed. “No!” he screamed again. “No! Do you hear? No!”
“Father!” she cried out frantically. “Father, what are you doing? You will kill yourself!”
The black eyes of the old man were gleaming with an insane light, his face was working in horrible contortions.
“Hah!” He was out of the bed now, struggling wildly with her. “Hah! Kill myself, will I? I would kill you—you—before I would let you meddle with my plans! It is the old Nicolo again—Nicolo Capriano of the years when——”
The room seemed to swirl around her. The clutching fingers had relaxed. It was she now who struggled and grasped at the man's body and shoulders—to hold him up. He was very heavy, too heavy for her. He seemed to be carrying her downward with him—until he fell back half across the bed. And she leaned over him then, and stared at him for a long time through her hands that were tightly held to her face—and horror, a great, blinding horror came, and fear, a fear that robbed her of her senses came, and she staggered backward, and stumbled over the chair at the bedside, and clutched at it for support.
She did not speak. Nicolo Capriano had left his bed for the first time in three years—to die.
Her father was dead. That was the theme of the overwhelming horror, and the paralyzing fear that obsessed her brain. It beat upon her in remorseless waves—horror—fear. Time did not exist; reality had passed away. She was in some great, soundless void—soundless, except for that strange ringing in her ears. And she put her hands up to her ears to shut out the sound. But it persisted. It became clearer. It became a tangible thing. It was the doorbell.
Habit seemed to impel her. She went automatically to the hall, and, in a numbed sort of consciousness, went along the hall, and opened the door, and stared at a short, fat man, who stood there and chewed on the butt of a cigar that dangled from one corner of his mouth.
“My name's MacBain,” said Bookie Skarvan glibly. “And I want to see Nicolo Capriano. Very important. You're his daughter, aren't you?”
She did not answer him. Her brain floundered in that pit of blackness into which it had been plunged. She was scarcely aware of the man's presence, scarcely aware that she was standing here in the doorway.
“Say, you look scared, you do; but there's nothing to be scared about,” said Bookie Skarvan ingratiatingly. “I just want to see Nicolo Capriano for a few minutes. You go and tell him a reporter wants to see him about that bomb explosion, and 'll give him a write-up that'll be worth while.”
She drew back a little, forcing herself to shake her head.
“Aw, say, go on now, there's a good girl!” wheedled Bookie Skarvan. “The paper sent me here, and I've got to see him. There's nothing for you to look so white about. I'm only a reporter. I ain't going to hurt him—see?”
Teresa shivered. How cold the night was! This man here—what was it he had said? That he wanted to see Nicolo Capriano? Strange that words came with such curious difficulty to her tongue—as though, somehow, she had been dumb all her life, and was speaking now for the first time.
“Nicolo Capriano is dead,” she said—and closed the door in Bookie Skarvan's face.
THE metamorphosis in Dave Henderson's appearance since the night, nine days ago, when he had left San Francisco and Nicolo Capriano's house, had been, by necessity, gradual; it had attained its finished state now, as he stepped from a train to one of the sub-level station platforms in the City of New York. Then, he had been attired in one of the old Italian's cast-off and ill-fitting suits, an object neither too respectable nor presentable; now, the wide-brimmed soft hat was new and good, and the dark tweed suit, of expensive material, was that of a well-groomed man.
It had taken time—all this. Nor had it been entirely simple of accomplishment, in spite of the ample funds received from Square John Kelly, funds that now, wary of unsavory corners into which a certain business that he had on hand might lead him here in New York, he had taken the precaution to secrete about his person in a money belt beneath his underclothing.
He had scarcely needed old Nicolo Capriano's warning to be careful. Dave Henderson had not changed so much in five years in prison that he could take liberties with the risk of recognition in that section of the country where, in the days before, he had been so familiar a figure on the local race-tracks. He had made his way out of California, and considerably beyond California, in the same way that, once before, he had attempted to elude the police—and on which former occasion would have succeeded, he was quite satisfied, had it not been for the wound that had finally robbed him of consciousness and placed him at their mercy.
He had traveled during three nights, and only at night, in boxcars, and on freight trains, stealing his way. But there had been no hurry. The night of the twenty-fourth of June, the date of the rendezvous that Millman had given him, had not been very far off, and though it had always obtruded itself upon him and never allowed itself to be forgotten from the moment he had heard it from Millman's lips, he had consistently told himself that the twenty-fourth of June was a consideration to be entirely disregarded. Since Millman was a thief and had double-crossed him, the rendezvous was blatantly a fake. It existed only as a sort of jeering, ironical barb with which Millman at times, out of the nowhere, like a specter, grinning maliciously, prodded and made devil's sport of him. He had no concern with Millman's twenty-fourth of June! He would meet Millman in due time—two hemispheres were not big enough, or wide enough apart, to prevent that—but the meeting would be by his, not Millman's, appointment.
And then he had passed out of the more critical danger zone, and got further east. But, even then, he had taken no chances. Dave Henderson was dead—the creation of one Barty Lynch was not a matter to be trifled with. He had taken no chances; if anything, he had erred on the side of extreme caution. The abrupt transition into respectability by one in misfitting, threadbare garments, and who looked, moreover, a disreputable tramp from his nights in the boxcars, was only to invite suspicion at any ordinary store where he might attempt to buy clothes. A second-hand suit, therefore, of fairly creditable appearance, first replaced Nicolo Capriano's discarded garments; later, at a more exclusive establishment still further east, in Chicago, to be exact, this was exchanged for the attire he now wore—while, here and there, he had stocked a dress-suit case with needed requirements. He had been deliberately leisurely in his progress east once he had felt it safe to dispense with his boxcar mode of travel—and this, actually, as a sort of defiance and challenge flung down by his common sense to that jeering prod with which Millman, and Millman's cynical rendezvous, plagued him in spite of himself. The evening of June twenty-fourth at the St. Lucian Hotel in New York was of no particular interest to him! It had taken him a week to reach Chicago. It was nine days now since he had left Nicolo Capriano's house. Nine days! He was now in New York, standing here on one of the station platforms—and it was the evening of the twenty-fourth of June!
He looked at his watch, as he made his way to the main section of the station. It was seven-thirty. He deposited his dress-suit case in the parcel-room, and went out to the street. Here, he asked a policeman to direct him to the St. Lucian Hotel.
He smiled a little grimly as he walked along. The much vaunted challenge of his common sense had gone down to rout and defeat, it seemed! He was on his way now to the St. Lucian Hotel—and he would be there at eight o'clock on the evening of June twenty-fourth. He laughed outright at himself, suddenly, mirthlessly.
Well, why not! And why not be entirely honest with himself? Despite self-argument to the contrary, he knew all along that he would be at the rendezvous at the appointed time. He was a fool—undoubtedly a fool. Nothing could come of it except, possibly, to afford Millman, if Millman had elected to watch from some safe vantage point in hiding, an amusing spectacle.
He was a fool—he offered nothing in defense of himself on that score. But, too, as far as any results had been obtained, he had been a fool to go searching the old pigeon-cote for the money, when he had beforehand already persuaded himself in his own mind that the money was gone! It was the same thing over again now—the elimination of doubt, that would always have crept insidiously into his mind; the substitution of doubt, however ill-founded, for an established certainty. He had felt better for that visit to the old pigeon-cote; he would feel better, even at the expense of pampering again to fantastic doubts, for his visit to the St. Lucian Hotel to-night. Millman would not be there, any more than the money had been in the pigeon-cote; but, equally, he, Dave Henderson, would have established that fact beyond the reach of any brain quibbling which, of late, had been, it seemed, so prone to affect him.
He stopped again to ask directions from an officer, and to ask this time another question as well—a question prompted by a somewhat unpleasant possibility which, having once decided to keep the rendezvous, he could not now ignore. What kind of a place was this St. Lucian Hotel?
“One of the best,” the officer answered. “There you are—two blocks ahead, and one to the left.”
Dave Henderson smiled with a sort of patient tolerance at himself. The locality alone should have been sufficient answer to his question. It was not the setting, very far from it, for a trap! His hand, that had un consciously closed around the stock of his revolver in the side pocket of his coat, was withdrawn and swung now at his side, as he walked along again.
He looked at his watch once more, as he turned the corner indicated. It was five minutes to eight. A half block ahead of him he saw the hotel. He walked slowly now, the short distance remaining. “The St. Lucian Hotel. Eight o'clock in the evening. June twenty-fourth.” The words seemed to mock at him now, and the gibe to sting. He had fallen for it, after all! He could call himself a fool again if he wished, but what was the use of that? It was obvious that he was a fool! He felt like one, as he passed a much bedecked functionary at the doorway, and found himself standing a moment later in the huge, luxuriously appointed rotunda of the hotel. He was not even recompensed by novelty, as he stared aimlessly about him. It was just the usual thing—the rug-strewn, tiled floor; the blaze of lights; the hum of talk; the hurry of movement; the wide, palm-dotted corridors, whose tables were crowded with men and women in evening dress at after-dinner coffee; the deep lounging chairs in his more immediate vicinity; the strains of an orchestra trying to make itself heard above the general hubbub.
A clock from the hotel desk behind him began to chime the hour. He turned mechanically in that direction, his eyes seeking the timepiece—and whirled suddenly around again, as a hand fell upon his shoulder. The police! The thought flashed swift as a lightning stroke through his mind. Somewhere, somehow he had failed, and they had found him out, and——
The rotunda, the lights, seemed to swirl before him, and then to vanish utterly, and leave only a single figure to fill all the space, a figure in immaculate evening clothes, a figure whose hand tightened its shoulder-grip upon him, a figure whose clear, gray eyes stared into his and smiled.
He touched his lips with the tip of his tongue.
“Millman!” he said hoarsely. “You!”
“Well,” said Millman easily, “this is the St. Lucian Hotel; it's eight o'clock, and June twenty-fourth—who did you expect to meet here?”
“You,” said Dave Henderson—and laughed unnaturally.
Millman's gray eyes narrowed, and his face clouded suddenly.
“What's the matter with you, Dave?” he demanded sharply.
Dave Henderson's hands, at his sides, were clenched. Millman—this was Millman! Millman, whom he hadn't expected to meet here! Millman, whom he had promised himself he would track down if it took a lifetime, and, once found, would settle with as he would settle with a mad dog! And Millman was here, smiling into his face! His mind groped out through a haze of bewilderment that robbed him of the power to reason; his tongue groped for words. It was as though he were dazed and groggy from a blow that had sent him mentally to his knees. He did not understand.
“There's nothing the matter with me,” he said mechanically.
He felt Millman's hand close on his arm.
“Come on up to my rooms,” said Millman quietly. “It's a little public here, isn't it?”
Dave Henderson did not disengage his arm from the other's hold, but his hand slipped unostentatiously into his coat pocket. A rift seemed to come breaking through that brain fog, as he silently accompanied Millman to the elevator. He had dismissed the probability of such a thing but a few minutes before, had even jeered at himself for considering it, but, in spite of the eminent respectability of the St. Lucian Hotel, in spite of its fashion-crowded corridors and lobby, the thought was back now with redoubled force—and it came through the process of elimination. If Millman was a crook, as he undoubtedly was, and had secured the money, as he undoubtedly had, why else should Millman be here? There seemed to be no other way to account for Millman having kept the rendezvous. Strange things, queer things, had happened in hotels that were quite as enviable of reputation as the St. Lucian—perhaps it was even the safest place for such things to happen, from the perpetrator's standpoint! His lips were tight now. Well, at least, he was not walking blindfold into—a trap!
They had ascended in silence. He eyed Millman now in cool appraisal, as the elevator stopped, and the other led the way and threw open the door to a suite of rooms. There was quite a difference between the prison stripes of a bare few months ago and the expensive and fashionably tailored evening clothes of to-night! Well, Millman had always claimed he was a gentleman, hadn't he? And he, Dave Henderson, had believed him—once! But that did not change anything. Millman was no less a crook for that! From the moment Millman had gone to that pigeon-cote and had taken that money, he stood out foursquare as a crook, and—— Dave Henderson felt his muscles tauten, and a chill sense of dismay seize suddenly upon him. There was still another supposition—one that swept upon him now in a disconcerting flash. Suppose Millman had not gone to that pigeon-cote, suppose it was not Millman who had taken the money, suppose that, after all, it had been found by some one else, that Tooler, for instance, had stumbled upon it by chance! And, instead of Millman having it, suppose that it was gone forever, without clue to its whereabouts, beyond his, Dave Henderson's, reach! It was not impossible—it was not even improbable. His brain was suddenly in turmoil—he scarcely heard Millman's words, as the other closed the door of the suite behind them.
“The family is in the country for the summer months,” said Millman with a smile, as he waved his hand around the apartment; “and I have gone back to my old habit—since I have been free to indulge my habits—of living here during that time, instead of keeping a town house open, too. Sit down there, Dave, by the table, and make yourself comfortable.”
It sounded plausible—most plausible! Dave Henderson scowled. Across his mind flashed that scene in the prison library when Millman had been plausible before—damnably plausible! His mind was in a sort of riot now; but, through the maze of doubt and chaos, there stood out clearly enough the memory of the hours, and days, and weeks of bitter resolve to “get” this man who now, offensively at his ease, and smiling, was standing here before him.
And then Dave Henderson laughed a little—not pleasantly.
Well, he was face to face with Millman now. It would be a showdown anyhow. Trap, or no trap, Millman would show his hand. He would know whether Millman had got that money, or whether somebody else had! He would know whether Millman was straight—or whether Millman was a crook!
He jerked his shoulders back sharply; his fingers closed a little more ominously on the revolver in his coat pocket. Was he quite crazy? Had he lost all sense of proportion? The chances were a thousand to one that it was Millman who had looted the pigeon-cote; the chances were one in a thousand that it could have been any one else.
“Yes,” he said coolly. “Nice rooms you've got here, and a bit of a change from—out West!” He jerked his head abruptly toward a door across the room. “I notice you've got a closed door there. I hope I'm not butting in, if you're entertaining friends, or anything like that!” He laughed again—raucously now. His nerves seemed suddenly to be raw and on edge. Millman was favoring him with what, whether it was genuine or not, was meant for a blank stare.
“Friends?” said Millman questioningly. And then his gray eyes softened. “Oh, I see!” he exclaimed. “It's hard to get over the habit, isn't it? No; there's no one there. But perhaps you'd feel better satisfied to look for yourself.”
“I would!” said Dave Henderson bluntly.
“Go ahead, then!” invited Millman readily, and waved his hand toward the door.
“I'll follow you,” said Dave Henderson curtly.
Millman turned toward the door, hesitated, and stopped.
“Dave, what's the matter with you?” he demanded for the second time.
“Nothing much!” replied Dave Henderson. “But we'll get this over first, eh? Go on, let's see the rest' of this suite of yours. It's good to know that an old pal is enjoying such pleasant surroundings.”
Without a word, Millman stepped across the room, and opened the door in question. It led into a bedroom, and from there to a bathroom; there was nothing else. Dave Henderson inspected these in silence. He eyed Millman, frowning in a renewed perplexity, as they returned to the outer room.
“All right!” he said gruffly. “You win the first trick. But how about a certain little package now? I'll trouble you to hand that over, Millman!”
Millman shook his head in a sort of tolerant expostulation.
“As we used to say 'out there,' I don't get you, Dave!” he said slowly. “You are acting very strangely. I've been looking forward to this meeting—and you haven't even a handshake for an old friend. I don't understand.”
“I don't myself!” returned Dave Henderson evenly. “There's a whole lot of things that don't fit. But it's five years since I've seen that package, and maybe I'm a trifle over-anxious about it. Suppose you come across with it!”
Millman shrugged his shoulders a little helplessly.
“You're a queer card, Dave,” he said. “Of course, I'll come across with it! What else in the world are we here for to-night?” He stepped to the table, pulled a drawer open, and produced a neatly tied parcel, which he laid on the table. “I took it out of the vault to-day, so as to have it ready for you to-night.”
From the package, Dave Henderson's eyes lifted, and held Millman's in a long stare. It was as though, somehow, the ground had been swept from under his feet. He had expected anything but the package. Logically, from every conclusion based on logic, Millman should not be handing over that package now. And this act now was so illogical that he could account for it on no other basis than one of trickery of some sort. He tried to read the riddle in the other's eyes; he read only a cool, imperturbable composure. His hand still toyed with the revolver in his pocket.
“There's an outside wrapper on it, I see,” he said in a low voice. “Take it off, Millman.”
Millman's brows knitted in a sort of amused perplexity.
“You're beyond me to-night, Dave,” he said, as he stripped off the outer covering. “Utterly beyond me! Well, there you are!”
The package lay there now on the table, intact, as it had been on the night it had found a hiding-place in the old pigeon-cote. The original brown-paper wrapper was still tied and sealed with its several bank seals in red wax; the corner, torn open in that quick, hasty examination in Martin K. Tydeman's library, still gaped apart, disclosing the edges of the banknotes within. It was the package containing one hundred thousand dollars, intact, untouched, undisturbed.
Dave Henderson sat down mechanically in the chair behind him that was drawn up close to the table. His hand came from his pocket, and, joined by the other, cupped his chin, his elbows resting on the table's edge, as he stared at the package.
“I'm damned!” said Dave Henderson heavily.
His mind refused to point the way. It left him hung up in midair. It still persisted in picturing the vengeance he had sworn against this man here, in picturing every stake he owned flung into the ring to square accounts with this man here—and the picture took on the guise now of grotesque and gigantic irony. But still he did not understand. That picture had had its inception in a logical, incontrovertible and true perspective. It was strange! He looked up now from the package to Millman, as he felt Millman's hand fall and press gently upon his shoulder. Millman was leaning toward him over the table.
“Well, Dave,” said Millman, and his smile disarmed his words, “you've treated me as though I were a thug up to the moment I opened that package, and now you act as though the sight of it had floored you. Perhaps you'll tell me now, if I ask you again, what's the matter?”
Dave Henderson did not answer for a moment. His hand went into his pocket and came out again—with his revolver balanced in its palm.
“I guess I made a mistake,” he said at last, with a queer smile. “Thug is right! I was figuring on pulling this on you—in another way.”
Millman drew a chair deliberately up to the opposite side of the table, and sat down.
“Go on, Dave,” he prompted quietly. “I'm listening.”
Dave Henderson restored the weapon to his pocket, and shrugged his shoulders in a way that was eloquent of his own perturbed state of mind.
“I guess you'll get the point in a word or two,” he said slowly. “The story you told me in the pen, and the way you acted for two years made me believe you, and made me think you were straight. Understand? And then that afternoon before you were going out, and I was up against it hard—you know—I told you where this money was. Understand? Well, I had hardly got back to my cell when I figured you had trapped me. If you were straight you wouldn't touch that money, unless to do me in by handing it back to the police, for it would be the same thing as stealing it again, and that would make a crook of you; if you were a crook then you weren't playing straight with me to begin with, since the story you told me was a lie, and the only reason I could see for that lie was to work me up to spilling the beans so that you could cop the loot and give me the slip. Either way, it looked raw for me, didn't it? Well, when I got out, the money hadn't gone back to the police, but it had gone! I swore I'd get you. Don't make any mistake about that, Millman—I swore I'd get you. I didn't expect to meet you here to-night. I called myself a fool even for coming. You were either straight or a crook, and there wasn't much room left for doubt as to which it was. See, Millman?”
Millman nodded his head gravely.
“I see,” he said, in the same quiet tones. “And now?”
Dave Henderson jerked his hand toward the package of banknotes that lay on the table before him.
“I guess that's the answer, isn't it?” he said, with a twisted smile. “There's the hundred thousand dollars there that you pinched from the old pigeon-cote.” He shoved out his hand impulsively to Millman. “I'm sorry, Millman. Shake! I've been in wrong all the time. But I never seemed to get that slant on it before; that you were—a straight crook.”
Millman's gray eyes, half amused, half serious, studied Dave Henderson for a long minute, as their hands clasped.
“A straight crook, eh?” he said finally, leaning back again in his chair. “Well, the deduction is fairly logical, Dave, I'll have to admit. And what's the answer to that?”
Dave Henderson jerked his hand toward the package of banknotes again.
“There's only one, isn't there?” he returned. “You've got a stake in that coin now. A fair share of it is yours, and I'll leave it to you to say what you want.”
Millman lighted a cigarette before he answered.
“All right!” he said, with a curious smile, as his eyes through the spiral of blue smoke from the tip of his cigarette fixed on Dave Henderson again. “All right! I'll accept that offer, Dave. And I'll take—all, or none.”
Dave Henderson drew sharply back in his chair. There was something in Millman's voice, a significance that he did not like, or quite understand, save that it denied any jocularity on Millman's part, or that the other was making a renunciation of his claim through pure generosity. His eyes narrowed. The money was here. Millman had come across with it. Those facts were not to be gainsaid; but they were facts so utterly at variance with what months of brooding over the matter had led him to expect they should be, that he had accepted them in a sort of stunned surprise. And now this! Was he right, after all—that there was some trickery here?
“What do you mean—all, or none?” he said, a hint of menace creeping into his voice.
“Just that,” said Millman, and his tones were low and serious now. “Just what I said—all, or none.”
Dave Henderson laughed shortly.
“Then I guess it'll be—none!” he said coolly.
“Perhaps,” admitted Millman slowly. “But I hope not.” He leaned forward now, earnestly, over the table. “Dave,” he said steadily, “let us get back to the old pal days again when we believed in each other, just man to man, Dave; because now you've got a chip on your shoulder. I don't want to knock that chip off; I want to talk to you. I want to tell you why I committed what you have rightly called theft in going to that pigeon-cote and taking that money. And I want to try and make you understand that my life in prison and the story that I told you there, in spite of the fact that I have 'stolen' the money now, was not a lie. There is not a soul on this wide earth, Dave, except yourself, who knows that Charles Millman served two years in the penitentiary with prison stripes on his back. If it were known I think it would mean ruin to me, certainly in a social sense, very probably in a commercial sense as well. And yet, Dave, I would rather you knew it than that you didn't. Does that sound strange? Well, somehow, I've never pictured the flaring headlines that would be in every paper in this city if I were exposed—because, well, because I couldn't picture it—not through you, Dave—and that's the only way it could come about. And so you see, Dave, I did not ask you for faith in me without reposing my own faith in you in the same full measure.”
Dave Henderson's brows gathered. He stared at the other. It was like the Charlie Millman of old talking now. But the whole business was queer—except that the money lay here now within reach of his hand after five years of hell and torture. He made no comment.
“And so, Dave, what could I do?” Millman went on. “As far as I could see then, and as far as I can see now, I had no choice but to offer to get that money from its hiding-place. I knew you meant literally what you said when you swore you'd fight for it if all the police in America were blocking your way, and that you'd either get it or go down and out. I knew you'd do that; I knew the police would watch you, and I feared for you either physical harm or another long prison sentence. And so I took the money and shared your guilt. But, Dave, once I was committed to that act, I was committed to another as well—I hadn't any choice there, either—I mean, Dave, the return of the money to the estate where it belongs.”
Dave Henderson was on his feet. His face, that had softened and relaxed as Millman was speaking, was suddenly hard and set again, and now a red, angry flush was dyeing his cheeks. He choked for his words.
“What's that you say!” he rasped out. “Return it!” He laughed raucously. “Have you been drinking, Millman—or are you just crazy?”
A strange, whimsical smile crept to Millman's lips. “No,” he said. “I guess I'm what you called me—just a straight crook. I can't see any other way out, Dave. I've stolen the money too, and it's up to me as well as you. It's got to go back.”
“By God—no!” said Dave Henderson through his teeth. “No! You understand—no!”
Millman shook his head slowly.
“Dave, it's no good,” he said quietly. “Apart from every other consideration, it won't get you anywhere. Listen, Dave, I——”
“No!” Dave Henderson interrupted savagely. “You can cut that out! You're going to preach; but that's no good, either! You're going to pull the goody-goody stuff, and then you're going to tell me that sooner or later I'll be caught, anyhow. Well, you can forget it—the preaching, because I don't want to listen to you; and the other, because there's nothing to it now.” He leaned across the table, and laughed raucously again, and stared with cynical humor at the other. “I'm dead—see? Dave Henderson is dead. A friend of mine pulled the trick on them in 'Frisco. They think Dave Henderson is dead. The book is closed, slammed shut forever—understand? I'm dead—but I've got this money now that I've fought for, and paid for with the sweat of hell, and it's going to pay me back now, Millman! Understand? It's going to pay the dividends now that I've earned—and that, by God, no man is going to take away from me!”
“Good old Dave!” said Millman softly. “That's what's the matter with you—you'd drop in your tracks before you'd let go. If only you weren't looking through the wrong glasses, Dave, you'd fight just as hard the other way. No, I don't want to preach to you, and I'm not going to preach; but there's a great big bond, two years of prison together, between you and me, and I want you to listen to me. You were never meant for a crook, Dave. There's not a crooked thing in the world about you, except this one distorted brain kink that's got hold of you. And now you're in wrong. Look at it from any angle that you like, and it doesn't pay. It hasn't paid you so far—and it never will.”
“Hasn't it!” snapped Dave Henderson. “Well, maybe not! But that's because it hasn't had the chance. But the chance is here now, and it's all bust wide open. You can forget everything else, Millman, except just this, and then you'll understand once for all where I stand: Here's the money—and I'm dead!”
“Your soul isn't,” said Millman bluntly.
Dave Henderson's jaws set.
“That's enough!” he flung out curtly. “Once for all—no!”
Millman did not answer for a moment, nor did he look at Dave Henderson—his eyes, through the curling cigarette smoke, were fixed on the package of banknotes.
“I'm sorry, Dave,” he said at last, in a low, strained way. “I'm sorry you won't take the biggest chance you'll ever have in your life, the chance you've got right now, of coming across a white man clean through. I thought perhaps you would. I hoped you would, Dave—and so I'm sorry. But that doesn't alter my position any. The money has got to go back to the estate, and it is going back.”
For an instant Dave Henderson did not move, then he thrust his head sharply forward over the table. The red had flooded into his face again, and his eyes were hard and full of menace.
“That's better!” he said through tight lips. “You're talking a language now that I understand! So that money is going back, is it? Well, you've talked a lot, and I've listened. Now you listen to me, and listen hard! I don't want to hurt you, Millman, as God is my judge, I don't want to hurt you, but it will be one or the other of us. Understand, Millman? One or the other of us, if you start anything like that! You get me, Millman? You've called a showdown, and that goes; but, by God, unless you've got a better hand than I have, you'll never send that money back!”
Millman's hand was resting on the package of banknotes. He pushed it now quietly across the table to Dave Henderson.
“Not this, Dave,” he said simply. “You settled that when I asked for all or none. This is yours—to do with as you like. Don't misunderstand me, Dave; don't make any mistake. You can put that package under your arm and leave here this minute, and I'll not lift a finger to stop you, or, after you are gone, say a word, or make any move to discredit your assumed death, or bring the police upon your heels. I told you once, Dave—do you remember?—that you could trust me. But, Dave, if you won't return the stolen money, then I will. I haven't any choice, have I? I stole it, too.”
Dave Henderson stared, frowning, into the steel-gray eyes across the table.
“I don't get you!” he said shortly. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I say, Dave,” Millman answered. “That if you won't return it yourself, I will pay it back out of my own pocket.”
For a minute Dave Henderson eyed the other incredulously, then he threw back his head and laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh.
“You will, eh!” he said. “Well, if you feel that way about it, go to it! Maybe you can afford it; I can't!”
“Yes,” said Millman soberly, “as far as that goes, I am a rich man, and I can afford it. But, Dave, I want to say this to you”—he was standing up now—“the richest man in the world couldn't afford to part with a nickel as well as you could afford to part with that hundred thousand dollars there. It isn't money that you've got at stake, Dave. Well, that's all. Either you pay—or I do. It's up to you, Dave.”
Dave Henderson's hands were clenching and unclenching, as he gripped at the edge of the table. Vaguely, dimly, he sensed an awakening something within him which seemed to be striving to give birth to some discordant element that sought to undermine and shake his resolution. It was not tangible yet, it was confused; his mind groped out in an effort to grasp it in a concrete way so that he might smother it, repudiate it, beat it down.
“No!” he shot out.
Millman shook his head.
“I don't ask you for an answer to-night,” he said gravely. “I don't think you're ready to give an answer now, and be fair to yourself. It's a pretty big stake, Dave. You'll never play for a bigger—and neither will I. I'm staking a hundred thousand dollars on the Dave Henderson I know—the chap that's dead for a while. It doesn't matter much now whether the money is back in the hands of the estate in a day, or a week, or a month from now. Take a month, Dave. If at the end of a month the estate has not received the money from you—and I shall know whether it has or not—it will receive a hundred thousand dollars in cash from me, anonymously, with the statement that it is to square the account for which Dave Henderson was convicted.”
Dave Henderson raised a clenched hand, and swept it, clenched, across his eyes. He had it now! He understood that thing within him that seemed quite as eager to offer battle as he was to give it. And it was strong, and insidious, and crafty. He cursed at it. It took him at a disadvantage. It placed him suddenly on the defensive—and it angered him. It placed him in a position that was not a nice one to defend. He cursed at it; and blind fury came as his defense. And the red that had surged into his face left it, and a whiteness came, and his lips thinned into a straight line.
“Damn you, Millman!” he whispered hoarsely. “I get you now! Damn you, you've no right to put the screws on me like this! Who asked you to offer your money as a sacrifice for me—to make me out a white-livered cur if I turned you down! But it doesn't go, understand? It's blackmail, that's what it is! It may be whitewashed with holiness, but it's blackmail just the same—and you can go to hell with it!”
He snatched up the package of banknotes, whipped the outer wrapping around it, and tucked it under his arm—and paused, as though awaiting or inviting some action on Millman's part. But Millman neither moved nor spoke. And then Dave Henderson, with a short laugh, crossed to the door, wrenched it open, stepped out of the room, and slammed the door behind him.