He found himself in a small room, not more than eight feet square, with a ceiling so low that he could barely stand erect. As for the furnishings and the arrangement, it was more like the inside of a safe than anything else. There were, to be sure, three little stools, but nothing else that one would expect to find in an apartment. For the rest there was nothing but a series of steel drawers and strong chests, lining the walls of the room and leaving in the center very little room in which one might move about.
He had only a moment to see all of this. Ruth Tolliver, hooded in an evening cloak, but with the light gleaming in her coppery hair, was shaking him by the arm and leaning a white face close to him.
"Hurry!" she was saying. "There isn"t a minute to lose. You must start now, at once. They will find out--they will guess--and then--"
"John Mark?" he asked.
"Yes," she exclaimed, realizing that she had said too much, and she pressed her hand over her mouth, looking at Ronicky Doone in a sort of horror.
Jerry Smith had come to his feet at last, but he remained in the background, staring with a befuddled mind at the lovely vision of the girl. Fear and excitement and pleasure had transformed her face, but she seemed trembling in an agony of desire to be gone. She seemed invincibly drawn to remain there longer still. Ronicky Doone stared at her, with a strange blending of pity and admiration. He knew that the danger was not over by any means, but he began to forget that.
"This way!" called the girl and led toward an opposite door, very low in the wall.
"Lady," said Ronicky gently, "will you hold on one minute? They won"t start to go through the smoke for a while. They"ll think they"ve choked us, when we don"t come out on the rush, shooting. But they"ll wait quite a time to make sure. They don"t like my style so well that they"ll hurry me." He smiled sourly at the thought. "And we got time to learn a lot of things that we"ll never find out, unless we know right now, p.r.o.nto!"
He stepped before the girl, as he spoke. "How come you knew we were in there? How come you to get down here? How come you to risk everything you got to let us out through the treasure room of Mark"s gang?"
He had guessed as shrewdly as he could, and he saw, by her immediate wincing, that the shot had told.
"You strange, mad, wild Westerner!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me you want to stay here and talk? Even if you have a moment to spare you must use it. If you knew the men with whom you are dealing you would never dream of--"
In her pause he said, smiling: "Lady, it"s tolerable clear that you don"t know me. But the way I figure it is this: a gent may die any time, but, when he finds a minute for good living, he"d better make the most of it."
He knew by her eyes that she half guessed his meaning, but she wished to be certain. "What do you intend by that?" she asked.
"It"s tolerable simple," said Ronicky. "I"ve seen square things done in my life, but I"ve never yet seen a girl throw up all she had to do a good turn for a gent she"s seen only once. You follow me, lady? I pretty near guess the trouble you"re running into."
"You guess what?" she asked.
"I guess that you"re one of John Mark"s best cards. You"re his chief gambler, lady, and he uses you on the big game."
She had drawn back, one hand pressed against her breast, her mouth tight with the pain. "You have guessed all that about me?" she asked faintly.
"That means you despise me!"
"What folks do don"t matter so much," said Ronicky. "It"s the reasons they have for doing a thing that matters, I figure, and the way they do it. I dunno how John Mark hypnotized you and made a tool out of you, but I do know that you ain"t changed by what you"ve done."
Ronicky Doone stepped to her quickly and took both her hands. He was not, ordinarily, particularly forward with girls. Now he acted as gracefully as if he had been the father of Ruth Tolliver. "Lady," he said, "you"ve saved two lives tonight. That"s a tolerable lot to have piled up to anybody"s credit. Besides, inside you"re snow-white. We"ve got to go, but I"m coming back. Will you let me come back?"
"Never, never!" declared Ruth Tolliver. "You must never see me--you must never see Caroline Smith again. Any step you take in that direction is under peril of your life. Leave New York, Ronicky Doone. Leave it as quickly as you may, and never come back. Only pray that his arm isn"t long enough to follow you."
"Leave Caroline?" he asked. "I"ll tell you what you"re going to do, Ruth. When you get back home you"re going to tell Caroline that Jerry, here, has seen the light about Mark, and that he has money enough to pay back what he owes."
"But I haven"t," broke in Jerry.
"I have it," said Ronicky, "and that"s the same thing."
"I"ll take no charity," declared Jerry Smith.
"You"ll do what I tell you," said Ronicky Doone. "You been bothering enough, son. Go tell Caroline what I"ve said," he went on to the girl.
"Let her know that they"s no chain on anybody, and, if she wants to find Bill Gregg, all she"s got to do is go across the street. You understand?"
"But, even if I were to tell her, how could she go, Ronicky Doone, when she"s watched?"
"If she can"t make a start and get to a man that loves her and is waiting for her, right across the street, she ain"t worth worrying about," said Ronicky sternly. "Do we go this way?"
She hurried before them. "You"ve waited too long--you"ve waited too long!" she kept whispering in her terror, as she led them through the door, paused to turn out the light behind her, and then conducted them down a pa.s.sage like that on the other side of the treasure chamber.
It was all deadly black and deadly silent, but the rustling of the girl"s dress, as she hurried before them, was their guide. And always her whisper came back: "Hurry! Hurry! I fear it is too late!"
Suddenly they were climbing up a narrow flight of steps. They stood under the starlight in a back yard, with houses about them on all sides.
"Go down that alley, and you will be on the street," said the girl.
"Down that alley, and then hurry--run--find the first taxi. Will you do that?"
"We"ll sure go, and we"ll wait for Caroline Smith--and you, too!"
"Don"t talk madness! Why will you stay? You risk everything for yourselves and for me!"
Jerry Smith was already tugging at Ronicky"s arm to draw him away, but the Westerner was stubbornly pressing back to the girl. He had her hand and would not leave it.
"If you don"t show up, lady," he said, "I"ll come to find you. You hear?"
"No, no!"
"I swear!"
"Bless you, but never venture near again. But, oh, Ronicky Doone, I wish ten other men in the whole world could be half so generous and wild as you!" Suddenly her hand was slipped from his, and she was gone into the shadows.
Down the alley went Jerry Smith, but he returned in an agony of dread to find that Ronicky Doone was still running here and there, in a blind confusion, probing the shadowy corners of the yard in search of the girl.
"Come off, you wild man," said Jerry. "They"ll be on our heels any minute--they may be waiting for us now, down the alley--come off, idiot, quick!"
"If I thought they was a chance of finding her I"d stay," declared Ronicky, shaking his head bitterly. "Whether you and me live, don"t count beside a girl like that. Getting soot on one tip of her finger might mean more"n whether you or me die."
"Maybe, maybe," said the other, "but answer that tomorrow; right now, let"s start to make sure of ourselves, and we can come back to find her later."
Ronicky Doone, submitting partly to the force and partly to the persuasion of his friend, turned reluctantly and followed him down the alley.
Chapter Twenty-two
_Mark Makes a Move_
Pa.s.sing hurriedly out of the cloakroom, a little later, Ruth met Simonds, the lieutenant of Frederic Fernand, in the pa.s.sage. He was a ratfaced little man, with a furtive smile. Not an unpleasant smile, but it was continually coming and going, as if he wished earnestly to win the favor of the men before him, but greatly doubted his ability to do so. Ruth Tolliver, knowing his genius for the cards, knowing his cold and unscrupulous soul, detested him heartily.