"She"s not happy with d.i.c.k. There was trouble at the bank, and he lost his job. Jenny"s wretched. But she"s got a baby boy to live for--a poor little thing, born dumb. The sight of you will make things harder."
Perhaps Teano might have had strength to remain in the background if an old fellow-lodger had not whispered what "people were saying about d.i.c.k Mayne." It was a.s.serted that for years he had led a "double life."
Nothing had been actually proved against him, except, that he was a dope fiend. But gossip had it that he was a dope-seller as well, a receiver of stolen goods, and a friend of thieves and gunmen. There was likely to be an awful "bust-up" and then--Heaven help Jenny!
Naturally Teano went to the address given him--that of a tenement house a long way east of Fifth Avenue. There, Fate stage-managed him into the midst of a scene destined to change the course of two lives and put an end to one. His knock was unanswered; but something was happening in the kitchen of the wretched flat. The door was not locked; it had been forgotten. Teano burst in, to find Jenny fighting for her life with a madman. Mayne had s.n.a.t.c.hed a bread-knife from the table, and Jenny"s hand dripped blood. Without a word Teano sprang to her defence; but Mayne slipped out of his grasp. Darting to an adjoining room, he rushed back with a Colt revolver. To save Teano, Jenny flung herself between the two men; but Paul caught and put her behind him, leaping on Mayne with a spring of a tiger. Then came a life and death tussle. The revolver went off as both fought to get it, and Mayne fell, shot through the heart.
"You"d have thought things couldn"t have been worse with us than they were," the detective groaned. "But you"d have thought wrong. We were up against it, Jenny and me. If I stayed and gave evidence, she was afraid of a scandal. If I made a getaway, she argued, she would be all right, on a plea of self-defence; because it was known by the neighbours what her husband was. I thought the same myself; and she persuaded me for her sake to disappear. That was the mistake of my life. What happened after I went, I don"t know. I can only guess.
But something caused Jenny to change her mind. I got off without being seen, and lay low to watch the papers. But if you believe me, for three days there was nothing! Then came out a paragraph about Mayne"s body being discovered by some friend, who pounded in vain on the door, and at last broke it in, to find the man dead. Doctors testified that he"d been a corpse for forty-eight hours. The revolver lay beside him.
The verdict was suicide. He was known for his habits, you see; and just by pulling the catch down, Jenny could get out, leaving the door locked on the _inside_. Folks thought she"d deserted him--and that and other troubles, brought on by himself, had preyed upon his mind. She and I hadn"t been cool enough to plan a stunt like that, in the minutes before she forced me out of the place. But _somebody"d_ helped her; and things that happened later put me on to guessing who.
"Never a word or a line has Jenny sent me from that day to this. Do you know why? Because a pack of thieves got hold of her and the child.
One of Mayne"s secret pals must have come along and offered to save her and the boy. I don"t believe she knew what she was letting herself in for, till she was in. But--well, a girl called "Three-Fingered Jenny"
travelled with a gang of international thieves last year in France, and I bounced over there like a bomb when I heard. You see, when I found her struggling with Mayne, he"d been trying to cut off her finger, because she _would_ stick to an old ring of mine; refused to give it up. She"d just time to tell me that and show me what he"d done. I saw the poor finger would have to come off. My poor little Jenny! She"d loved her pretty hands! The European war broke out just as I was getting on her track--or thought I was--and I lost her again. I"d stake my life she never stole a red cent"s worth. But they may have forced her to act as a decoy--using the child to bring her up to time.
I"ve always felt the gang"s game would be to train the boy for a dip.
It was a frame-up on Jenny from the first. Why, the little chap would do star turns, and never spill. He"s dumb. Made for the job. I"ve seen babies in the business, sharp as traps! Now you see, my lord, what a knockout I had, finding those finger-marks on the window-sill:--three, of a small left hand, the third finger missing; and traces that a child had been let out of the window by a rope. The footprints are below in the court. "Jenny and her boy," I said to myself. I"ve prayed G.o.d I might find them; but it"s the devil has sent them to me at last."
"I"m not so sure of that," I said, and told Teano where and how I had seen a slender little woman with big, scared eyes and a left hand with its third finger missing.
When I had explained my rapidly developed theory, we discussed the means of proving it. We might as well batter at the gates of Paradise as those of the Grey Sisterhood. We would be turned away, as with a flaming sword. Trust the Head Sister for that! But we were not at the end of our resources.
That evening towards dusk, two ruddy-faced coastguards left a somewhat dilapidated car in charge of a local youth. They walked for a short distance, where a group of pines on a promontory had suggested the name "Pine Cliff." They rang a gate bell, although aware that tradesmen were the only males of the human species allowed to cross the threshold. When their summons remained unanswered, they tugged again with violence, until a _grille_ opened like a shutter. "Who is there?"
questioned a timid voice.
The elder of the coastguards, seeing his companion start at the sound of her voice, answered, to give his comrade breathing s.p.a.ce. They had come, he announced, by order, to search the garden for a suspected hiding hole of smuggled opium. Not that the Sisterhood was implicated!
This was an old place, and had been used by dope smugglers. The coast police had received the "tip" that this had happened again.
The veiled eyes behind the _grille_ vanished; and a moment later another voice took up the argument. As Teano had recognised Jenny"s voice, I knew the Head Sister"s. The idea was _absurd_, said the latter. We could not be admitted. I stepped aside, not trusting my disguise, and Teano held out a folded doc.u.ment to which we had given an official semblance.
"I don"t want to make trouble for you, ladies, but----" he hinted. The paper and a glimpse of a red seal said the rest. Bolts slid back indignantly, and the gate was flung open. I beheld the Head Sister, tall and formidable. Behind her I glimpsed a group of other forms less imposing, among them Maida, flowers in her hands, and surrounded with children. As for Teano, no doubt he saw only the shy figure retiring from the gate.
"This is preposterous!" exclaimed the Head Sister. "But search the garden if you must. You will find _nothing_." She moved away to join her satellites, motioning to the door-keeper that the gate might be closed. Before the gesture could be obeyed, however, Teano put himself between the tall woman and the little one.
"Beg pardon, madam. I admit we"ve got in on false pretences," he said sharply; "but we"re detectives sent to arrest Three-Fingered Jenny, and here"s our warrant."
He flourished the faked doc.u.ment. Before the mistress of infinite resource had time to collect her forces--we had swept Jenny outside the gate, and slammed it. We raced with her to Teano"s waiting car, and--cruel to be kind--stopped to explain nothing till Pine Cliff was more than a mile away.
I took the wheel and gave Paul a place by Jenny. I heard him plead, "Don"t you _know_ me, Jen?" But not once did I turn my head until Teano spoke my name.
"She"s my Jenny," he said, "and she _cares_, but she doesn"t _want_ to be rescued! It"s a question of her boy. She won"t give him up."
"Quite right," I agreed. "Why should she give him up? Has she left him in the Sisterhood House?"
"No, he"s lost," Jenny answered. "I don"t know where he is--since this morning. But the House has been our home for weeks. The Head Sister took us in, and promised to save Nicky from bad people and bad ways.
He"ll go back there, and----"
"But where is he now?" I cut in, having slowed down the car. "Can"t we head him off? The child has money, I know. Where would he go and spend his earnings?"
"I--can"t tell," she stammered. "He"s always wanted me to take him to Coney Island--to some amus.e.m.e.nt park. But----"
"To Coney Island we"ll go," I exclaimed.
What followed was a wild adventure. I had never been to Coney Island.
But I seemed to have been born knowing that it was a place dedicated to the people"s pleasure. No doubt it was a toss-up which amus.e.m.e.nt ground to choose. By hazard, we began with Constellation Park; and almost at once came upon traces of Nicky. "A little dumb boy with black eyes, all alone, with plenty of money, and a grin when asked if he were lost?" Oh, yes, he was doing every stunt. We tracked him through peanuts and ice cream, lions" dens and upside-down houses, to the Maze of Mystery.
The name was no misnomer. Hampton Court, and the Labyrinth of Crete itself could have "nothing on it." In a bewildered procession Teano, Jenny and I wandered through streets of mirrors, complicated groves, walled concentric alley ways, with unexpected and disappointing outlets until at last a pair of elf-eyes stared at me from a distant and unreachable surface of gla.s.s. I cried out; so did Jenny and Teano, for all of us had had the same glimpse and quickly lost it.
"_Nicky_," gasped Jenny, just behind my back. "And, oh, _Red Joe"s got hold of him_! It"s all up--if we can"t get between them. It"s Red Joe I stole him back from when we went into the Sisterhood."
I looked back to console her--and she was gone. Teano, too, had suddenly separated from us, whether accidentally or for a purpose, I could not tell. But the maze would have put any rabbit warren to shame. When you thought you were in one place, you found to your astonishment that you were in another, with no visible way of getting out.
Then again, eyes looked at me from a mirror which might be far off or within ten yards. There were mirrors within mirrors, dazzling and endless vistas of mirrors. Child"s eyes, mischievous as a squirrel"s, met mine, peering from between crowding forms of grown-ups. The man Jenny had spoken of as "Red Joe" (I picked him out by a ferret face and rust-red hair) was trying to push past a fat father of a family, to reach the child in grey. Whether Nicky knew that he was a p.a.w.n in a game of chess, who could tell? There was but one thing certain. He was having "the time of his life."
"If I could get him for Jenny, what would Jenny do for me in return?" I asked myself. It might turn out that she could unlock the door that had shut between me and Maida Odell.
A desperate, a selfish desire to beat Red Joe, seized me; but now the mirrors told, if they did not deceive, that gla.s.sy depths of distance between us were increasing in s.p.a.ce and mystery. Suddenly I reached a turning-point. Nicky was straight ahead. He paused, looked, made ready to dart away like a trout from the hook. But--inspiration ran with my blood.
I pulled a wad of greenbacks from my pocket and smiled. Red Joe had flattened pater familias unmercifully, and was squeezing past. A hand, a thief"s hand if I ever saw one, caught at Nicky"s collar. But he dipped from under, slipped between a surprised German"s legs, and--I grabbed him in my arms.
EPISODE III
THE GIRL ON THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR
When Teano first spoke to me of his sister, nothing was further from my thoughts than a meeting with the telephone girl at the Priscilla Alden, a hotel sacred to ladies. But unexpected things happen in the best regulated lives, especially in New York, as anyone may learn by the Sunday papers. Not many days after the gate of the Sisterhood House shut for the second time between Maida and me, I changed my residence from New York to a hotel about five miles from Pine Cliff. Roger Odell and Roger"s bride had gone to South America on one of those business trips which financiers seem to take as nonchalantly as we cross a street. His last words to me were: "You know, I rely on you to look after Maida, as well as she can be looked after, under that brute of a woman"s thumb."
I did the best I could; but whether my wounds or my love sickness were to blame, the fact was that something had made me a bundle of raw nerves.
I slept badly, and my dreams were of some hideous thing happening to Maida; or else of the mummy-case being stolen. In my waking hours I chased back and forth between town and country, trying to find in New York the "Egyptian-looking man" who had disturbed Maida"s peace of mind, and who had reasons for wishing me to forget the number of his automobile: trying to make sure on Long Island if a connection existed between this man and the head of the Sisterhood.
At last I realised that I was in no fit state of nerves for a guardian.
The hotel people recommended me to a celebrated doctor practising on Long Island; and one morning, ashamed of myself as a "molly-coddle," I went to keep an appointment with him. Thorne was his name and he lived in a grey-shingled house set back from the road behind a small lawn.
The place was outside the village; but since abandoning my crutch, I had begun to take as much exercise as possible. I walked, therefore, to the doctor"s, rather than use the car presented to me by Roger.
This seems a small detail to note, but deductions following certain events proved it to have been important.
I was received by the keen-eyed Thorne, in his private office, and during the catechism to which he subjected me, I thought nothing of what went on in the outer room through which I had pa.s.sed. I should ill have earned Roger Odell"s nickname ("the gilded amateur detective"), however, if I hadn"t ferreted it out afterwards and "put two and two together."
It was an ordinary room, with a desk at which sat a young woman who answered the door and kept the doctor"s appointments cla.s.sified. I was vaguely aware that I had interrupted her business of stamping letters, which a boy would post. She had not finished when a few minutes later the next patient arrived. This person gave his name as Mr. Genardius, and confessed that he had no appointment; but his face--covered with bandages--presented such a pitiful appearance that the girl agreed to let him wait. "When the gentleman who"s in the office now goes away,"
she explained, "the doctor"s hour for receiving is over. But he may give you a few minutes."
"Isn"t the gentleman an English officer, Lord John Hasle?" inquired the would-be patient, whose face as seen under a wide-brimmed, old-fashioned felt hat, and between linen wrappings, consisted of deep-set black eyes, wide nostrils, and a long-lipped mouth.
"Why, yes, he is," admitted the young woman, to whom I had given my name. "Do you know him?"
"Not at all," replied Mr. Genardius, who appeared to her a rather unusual figure in his quaint hat and an equally quaint overcoat. "But as I got out of my automobile I saw him at the gate. I recognised him from portraits in newspapers. He was an army aviator, I believe, who got leave on account of wounds, and came over to see a play produced."