"Yes," replied the other voice, evidently of a young man. "I came in with the swells to keep my eye peeled on what was going on."
The voice itself was unfamiliar, yet it had a tough accent which denoted infallibly the section of the city where it was acquired. It was one of the gangsters.
"What"s up, Ike?" demanded Langhorne suspiciously.
Craig looked at me significantly. It was Ike the Dropper!
The other lowered his voice. "I don"t mind telling you, Mr. Langhorne.
You"re in the organization and we ain"t got no grudge against you. It"s Carton."
"Carton?" repeated Langhorne, and one could feel the expectant catch in his breath, as he added quickly: "You mean you fellows are going to try to get him right?"
"Bet your life," swaggered Ike, believing himself safe. "How?"
The gangster hesitated, then rea.s.sured by Langhorne, said: "He"s ordered a taxicab. We got it for him--a driver who is a right guy and"ll drive him down where there"s a bunch of the fellows. They ain"t goner do nothing serious--but--well, he won"t campaign much from a hospital cot," he added sagely. "Say--here he comes now with that girl.
I better beat it."
Langhorne also managed to get away apparently, or else Carton and Miss Ashton were too engrossed in one another to notice him, for we heard no word of greeting.
A moment later Carton"s and Miss Ashton"s voices were audible.
"Must you go?" she was saying.
"I"m afraid so," he apologized. "I"ve a speech to prepare for to-morrow and I"ve had several hard days. It"s been a splendid evening, Miss Ashton--splendid. I"ve enjoyed it ever so much and I think it has accomplished more than a hundred meetings--besides the publicity it will get for the cause. Shall I see you to-morrow at headquarters?"
"I shall make it a point to drop in," she answered in a tone as unmistakable.
"Mr. Carton--your cab is waiting, sir," announced a servant with an apology for intruding. "At the side entrance, sir, so that you can get away quietly, sir."
Carton thanked him.
I looked at Kennedy anxiously. If Carton slipped away in this fashion before we could warn him, what might not happen? We could hardly expect to get around and through the press of the dancers in time.
"I hate to go, Miss Ashton," he was adding. "I"d stay--if I saw any prospect of the others going. But--you see--this is the first time to-night--that I"ve had a word with you--alone."
It was not only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy"s eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton"s love affairs was quite another thing from Langhorne"s.
Quickly Craig turned the lever all the way over.
"Carton--Miss Ashton--this is Kennedy," he called. "Back of the big palm you"ll find a vocaphone. Don"t take that cab! They are going to stick you up. Wait--I"ll explain all in a moment!"
XVIII
THE WALL STREET WOLF
It was a startled couple that we found when we reached the conservatory. As we made our hasty explanation, Carton overwhelmed us with thanks for the prompt and effective manner in which Kennedy had saved him from the machinations of the defeated gangsters.
Miss Ashton, who would have kept her nerves under control throughout any emergency, actually turned pale as she learned of the danger that had been so narrowly averted. I am sure that her feelings, which she made no effort to conceal, must have been such as to rea.s.sure Carton if he had still any doubt on that score.
The delay in his coming out, however, had been just enough to arouse suspicion, and by the time that we reached the side entrance to the house both Ike and the night-hawk taxicab which had evidently been drafted into service had disappeared, leaving no clue.
The result of the discovery over the vocaphone was that none of us left Miss Ashton"s until much later than we had expected.
Langhorne, apparently, had gone shortly after he left the conservatory the last time, and Mrs. Ogleby had preceded him. When at last we managed to convince Miss Ashton that it was perfectly safe for Carton to go, nothing would suffice except that we should accompany him as a sort of bodyguard to his home. We did so, without encountering any adventure more thrilling than seeing an argument between a policeman and a late reveller.
"I can"t thank you fellows too much," complimented Carton as we left him. "I was hunting around for you, but I thought you had found a suffrage meeting too slow and had gone."
"On the contrary," returned Kennedy, equivocally, "we found it far from slow."
Carton did not appreciate the tenor of the remark and Craig was not disposed to enlighten him.
"What do you suppose Mrs. Ogleby meant in her references to Carton?"
mused Kennedy when we reached our own apartment.
"I can"t say," I replied, "unless before he came to really know Miss Ashton, they were intimate."
Kennedy shook his head. "Why will men in a public capacity get mixed up with women of the adventuress type like that, even innocently?" he ruminated. "Mark my words, she or someone else will make trouble for him before we get through."
It was a thought that had lately been in my own mind, for we had had several hints of that nature.
Kennedy said no more, but he had started my mind on a train of speculative thought. I could not imagine that a woman of Mrs. Ogleby"s type could ever have really appealed to Carton, but that did not preclude the possibility that some unscrupulous person might make use of the intimacy for base purposes. Then, too, there was the threat that I had heard agreed on by both Langhorne and herself over the vocaphone.
What would be the next step of the organization now in its sworn warfare on Carton, I could not imagine. But we did not have long to wait. Early the following forenoon an urgent message came to Kennedy from Carton to meet him at his office.
"Kennedy," he said, "I don"t know how to thank you for the many times you have pulled me through, and I"m almost ashamed to keep on calling on you."
"It"s a big fight," hastened Craig. "You have opponents who know the game in its every crooked turn. If I can be only a small cog on a wheel that crushes them, I shall be only too glad. Your face tells me that something particularly unpleasant has happened."
"It has," admitted Carton, smoothing out some of the wrinkles at the mere sight of Craig.
He paused a moment, as if he were himself in doubt as to just what the trouble was.
"Someone has been impersonating me over the telephone," he began. "All day long there have been reports coming into my office asking me whether it was true that I had agreed to accept the offer of Dorgan that Murtha made, you know,--that is, practically to let up on the organization if they would let up on me."
"Yes," prompted Kennedy, "but, impersonation--what do you mean by that?"
"Why, early to-day someone called me up, said he was Dorgan, and asked if I would have any objection to meeting him. I said I would meet him--only it would do no good. Then, apparently, the same person called up Dorgan and said he was myself, asking if he had any objection to meeting me. Dorgan said he"d see. Whoever it was, he almost succeeded in bringing about the fool thing--would have done it, if I hadn"t got wise to the fact that there was something funny about it. I called up Dorgan. He said he"d meet me, as long as I had approached him first. I said I hadn"t. We swore a little and called the fake meeting off. But it was too late. It got into the papers. Now, you"d think it wouldn"t make any difference to either of us. It doesn"t to him. People will think he tried to slip one over on ME. But it does make a difference to me. People will think I"m trying to sell out."
Carton showed plainly his vexation at the affair.
"The old scheme!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That"s the plan that has been used by a man down in Wall Street that they call, "the Wolf." He is a star impersonator--will call up two sworn enemies and put over something on them that double-crosses both."
"Wall Street," mused Carton. "That reminds me of another batch of rumours that have been flying around. They were that I had made a deal with Langhorne by which I agreed to support him in his fight to get something in the contracts of the new city planning scheme in return for his support of the part of the organization he could swing to me in the election,--another lie."