I
Clifford had had two conferences that day. First, his old friend Tarleton had sent for him--that popular man-about-town, whose law office was merely a
pleasant den wherein he loitered for an hour or two reading the papers and attending to his social correspondence. Of late, a strain of weakness that Clifford had always known to be latent in his good-natured friend, had emerged in a distressing manner: since Tarleton's wife had left the city for the summer, Tarleton, as is too frequently the practice of his kind, had found an understudy for the months that society retreats to seashore and mountains; and this substitute was no other than Clarice Langhorne, of whom Clifford knew more than he thought wise to tell Tarleton while so ruled by his infatuation. That day Clifford had expostulated with Tarleton; had told him he was spending far beyond his limited income; had urged him to end the affair, for his wife's sake. Tarleton, beneath the surface of his easy manner, had seemed harassed, but had laughed Clifford's advice aside and had said that he had sent for Clifford to ask if there was not another affair in which he might assist, which would help him fill these tedious days. It had been a futile and disturbing interview.
Then there had been the conference with Commissioner Thorne; and it was to the problems brought up in this second conference that Clifford, as he sat in his tiny bachelor apartment, was giving that thought which was the necessary preface to action. Undoubtedly, some plan was at this moment under way against Thorne, as the Commissioner had declared; for the fertile-brained Bradley was always dreaming large dreams and always scheming bold schemes. Clifford wondered just what the plan might be--deep and daring, of a certainty. His trained sense informed him infallibly that he was nearing the crisis of one of those great feuds within the police department, generally waged silently, and of which the public as a rule hears nothing. His mind ranged over the police officials from Inspector Byrnes onward (only from hearsay did he know of that day, twenty years back, when Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt had unmasked the then famous Byrnes, and Byrnes had walked out of Headquarters in the worst rain policemen could recall, alone, disgraced, broken)--who had used their great official powers for their private ends. They were many, and almost all of them had escaped detection and conviction--favored by a kindlier fortune than had been Inspector Byrnes'. And of all that long list of strong men, Bradley was the strongest.
Clifford went swiftly over Bradley's character and his methods, trying to find in them a clue to the man's possible hidden campaign. Bradley, at the outset of his police career, had fallen in with the bad element in the Department--where there were intrigue, and "double-crossing," and "framing," and secret fighting of each other, and partnership with law-breaking forces: and it had become part of his blood and his bones to win promotion by these means. Instinctively, though privately, he regarded the police department, its functions, and all the persons it touched through its far-reaching powers, as his property and his subjects, to be used as he might will. And in addition to the vast arbitrary powers of his position, Bradley knew how to put the screws on all sorts of persons--from the cheapest thief to perhaps the richest and highest man in New York society. The secrets and scandals of the great city flowed naturally to him. He remembered them all--waited his time. And when his time came, he either won his people by doing them a favor, or forced them to do his wish by threat of exposure.
And yet, despite his pirate's point of view, Bradley always sought,. in whatever he did, to twist and color the affair so that the public would approve: this partly because the vanity of the man demanded the gratification of public applause, and partly because he knew that his strength and success depended upon his standing with the public. Bradley was a master at handling the public through the newspapers. Right here was the reason Commissioner Thorne had not dared act against him: Bradley was so popular with the public, that Thorne could do nothing until he had proof which the
public would be compelled to accept.
Certainly, the man was a marvel!
Excitedly following his train of thought, Clifford came to what seemed to him would be, in the present case, Bradley's probable method. The primary essential of Bradley's scheme, whatever the scheme might be, required that Thorne be discredited before the public. And Clifford realized that the cleverest method would be to base a plan upon the obvious, the commonplace. The public generally believed that police officials were grafters, and were easily stirred into volcanic indignation by graft scandals; therefore the simplest and surest principle on which to base a plan to do away with Thorne was to expose him as a grafter.
Yes, that would most likely be the method. But in what concrete way would that method be worked out--for that principle had a thousand variations. Well, he could only watch--and watch--and keep on watching!
And Clifford came to another decision: he would follow two plans of attack. While he was trying to uncover this secret plan of Bradley, he would again try to secure proof of the criminal practices in which he knew Bradley was always participating. In the language of the prize-ring, he would try to beat Bradley to the punch. So much Clifford had decided, when toward nine o'clock the bell of his apartment rang. He opened the door and a messenger handed him a note. It was from Mary Regan, whom he had not seen since the final night of the affair of the Gordon masterpieces, and it requested him to call at once.
II
Wondering what lay behind Mary's brief colorless sentences, Clifford was admitted to the old mansion down near Washington Square, and was immediately shown up to the rear drawing-room where he had first seen the Barbizon pictures. As he entered, a handsome--almost too handsome--young woman rose from her chair, lithe, exquisitely gowned, with large brown eyes that flashed with mocking laughter. Clifford went suddenly hard with disapproval and suspicion: what did it mean, Mary Regan being in the company of, and on seeming terms of intimacy with, Clarice Langhorne?
The young woman said good-by to Mary Regan and gave Clifford an over-courteous ironic smile--she suspected that Clifford had tried to argue Tarleton out of his infatuation
for her--and swept by him, her every movement instinct with supple grace, her person inclosed, as with an impalpable garment, in a soft perfume of a sophisticated, hothouse spring--heliotrope, he recognized it to be. With a formal, tentative "Good-evening, Miss Regan," Clifford took the chair Mary silently indicated and looked at her with sharp curiosity. Her direct gaze gave him no hint of her purpose, or of her feeling toward himself save that as yet she regarded him with no open friendliness.
She spoke almost at once, making no reference to the matter of the Barbizon painters.
"I wanted to see you about my brother."
"Yes?" said Clifford. "How 's his motion-picture business?" For Slant-Face, after his acquittal at his trial for murder, had become the manager of a motion-picture theater on upper Broadway.
"His theater is closed, and his license has been revoked."
"What for?" exclaimed Clifford.
Her voice was low, and coldly even.
"Two of Bradley's detectives arrested him for carrying concealed weapons. They found two pistols on him."
"What did he mean," demanded Clifford, exasperated at the man he had tried to help, "by carrying guns just after he had beaten a murder charge?"
"Jim wasn't carrying any guns. The pistols were planted on him by Bradley's men when they arrested him."
"You mean Slant-Face was framed?"
"Was anybody ever framed better? Jim barely got out of those two big shooting scrapes--right afterward he's found with two pistols on him-- two policemen to swear against him--what chance does he have? Jim says the least he'll get will be the limit."
"Where is he now?"
"He's out on bail."
"But what's behind the frame-up?"
"Mr. Bradley has some deep reason," she answered in her even tone. "To upset Mr. Bradley, --that's the only way I see to save my brother. I know you are after Mr. Bradley, and I sent for you because I want to help you."
Something within Clifford leaped at this announcement of the entirely unexpected purpose that had prompted her note. She wanted that they should work together! But he restrained the warm words which tried to press indiscreetly past his lips. "I'll be glad to have you," he said, as calmly as he could. "Your brother is not the only person Bradley is after. He's after Commissioner Thorne, and he's after me."
"Why?"
"He's after the Commissioner because he wants the Commissioner's job--and wants the increased money there.would be in a more free alliance with criminals. And he's after me for the simple reason that he doesn't love me."
"Have you any idea what his plan is?"
"Not definitely. But whatever Bradley's plan may be," Clifford went on, "it will show us one thing, if we find our way inside it: and that is, how a great police official can twist people and events to his purposes."
Mary Regan did not at once respond. She had kept her face composed and cold, but now there was a look which caught Clifford's eye and puzzled him--an ever so slight a twitching of her features, as though she might be experiencing a momeent of irresolution. Clifford wondered what was going on within that strange young mind--and his thoughts flashed over her career, her upbringing. She had been--still was, perhaps--a philosophic, principled transgressor against property. The sophistries and arguments which, in her early girlhood, she had heard put forward by the little court that had gathered about her father, "Gentleman Jim" Regan, and about her uncle, Joe Russell--these she had passionately accepted and passionately believed.
Clifford wondered whether she still held to this gospel--or whether his endeavors to influence her proud spirit indirectly had brought some change. And he wondered, too, what behind that cold front was her attitude toward himself. Clifford's mind had ranged much territory, but Mary Regan had actually been silent for no more than a moment. "When I offered to help you, Mr. Clifford, against Mr. Bradley I had a definite plan."
"Yes?"
"I don't need to tell you that the gamblers want to open up for business again."
"Yes, I know how sore they are at Thorne for rigidly enforcing the law."
"It's about one of these gamblers that I wanted to see you."
"Which one?"
"Philip Morgan."
"Philip Morgan!"
Clifford started at the name of the most famous of New York gamblers--the intimate of national politicians and of millionaire sportsmen--the art connoisseur whose collection of paintings would doubtless, some day, in some manner, find place in the Metropolitan Museum. If Morgan was doing anything, it would certainly be big!
"What about Morgan?" he asked. "He's negotiating with Mr. Bradley for protection to enable him to open up."
"How do you know this?"
"Mr. Morgan isn't the only one concerned. There is a syndicate forming. When several persons are concerned there is likely to be a leak."
"And your Uncle Joe? I beg pardon," Clifford said hastily. "I had no right to ask about him."
"Uncle Joe has been approached," she returned in her unvarying neutral tone. "I don't know what he's going to do. But if he went into it, I wouldn't do anything to cross him."
At that moment a servant entered the drawing-room and told Mary that she was wanted on the telephone. She returned within a few minutes.
"It was a message for Uncle Joe. It said tell him to be at The Sultan's Garden on Surf Avenue at eleven o'clock."
"Surf Avenue--that's Coney Island!" Clifford glanced at his watch. "it's ten now!" he cried hastily. "I don't want to mess up Joe Russell--but this may lead to something, and I'll have to hurry. Good night."
"Wait. I told you I also was after Mr. Bradley, and I want a share in his punishment. I'm going, too, and we'll go in my car"--and before Clifford could put in a word she was telephoning the garage.
III
Two minutes afterward, in the big touring car which she and her uncle had hired by the month as an item of their soberly pretentious establishment, they were purring through East Side streets--across Manhattan Bridge, below it the city a wide field a-blossom with lights--and soon they were running along Ocean Parkway, the great car hardly more murmurous than the summer wind. All the while Mary Regan, wordless, sat looking straight before her, her face now mistily obscured, now eclipsed, by her fluttering veil. But during those minutes of swift flight Clifford did not mind her silence. The present situation was the very apex, the very quintessence, of his immediate desire-- to work with Mary Regan against Chief Bradley! His eager brain, leaping forward, perceived bold and dear possibilities developing from this new intimacy.
They swept into the glare, the crude color, the vast uproar of mechanical music, the jostling of half a million pleasure-seekers--which constitute the outer personality of Coney Island upon a warm night. The Sultan's Garden was one of those flimsy stucco palaces wherein a very thin beer is hurriedly served the multitude by sweat-beaded waiters; and wherein, as Clifford knew, superior drink and superior food can be had by the initiate. Clifford, his senses now all on the case, instinctively admired the keenness of this choice of a rendezvous: here all the world came together--any meeting, incongruous or suspicious elsewhere, would pass as mere coincidence.
Watching sharply, with Mary beside him, he started through the more select doorway, down a side street. But he suddenly halted, just as the doorman, dressed like the court chamberlain of a five-and-ten-cent store, was gesturing welcome. Across the great bright room he saw the tight-lipped, high-bred face of Phil Morgan; and with Morgan sat Joseph Russell. "Your uncle must have got the message after all!" Clifford ejaculated in a whisper.
"Yes," breathed Mary.
"I wish you'd keep him out of this thing."
"I will--even if he has to renege."
"Perhaps we'd better not run the risk of being seen here together--and even I'd prefer not to be seen."
Mary agreed; and, refusing Clifford's offer to accompany her, she went back to the car. Clifford, seemingly careless, stepped cautiously within. An orchestra of perspiring negroes, turbaned and in Turkish costumes, was twanging from those negroid instruments, the guitar and banjo, such native airs of Araby as were composed by Irving Berlin and his rivals for the rag-time kingship. The raison d'être of the restaurant's name of The Sultan's Garden, aided Clifford greatly--the rows of palms, abetted by incongruous privet trees. He slipped to a little iron table under the shelter of Turkish greenery from a Long Island nursery, and ordered a club sandwich and the necessary beer.
He watched Morgan and Russell closely, momentarily expecting to see Bradley join the pair with every appearance of surprised casualness. Clifford had small professional interest in the pair he observed; he preferred not to catch Joe Russell, if he honestly could avoid it; and he cared comparatively little about making out a case against Morgan. In fact, he was interested at the present moment very little in gambling; its proper handling was a problem for a later time, when the police force should be organized upon a sounder basis. Just now gambling interested him only as a means to an end--getting the goods on Bradley.
He saw Russell, with a gesture of parting, leave Morgan; and he wondered if Morgan was going, too--but a waiter bringing a pail of ice-entombed champagne, which Morgan ordered to remain unopened answered this question. As Clifford's own subterfuge of a supper was set before him, some one dropped into the opposite chair.
"I say, Tarleton," Clifford exclaimed, "what are you doing here?"
"Making investigations for my Ph.D. thesis, on the relation of the yeast cell of beer upon the human cell in the evolution of Aryan civilization." After the waiter had gone, with a bewildered look Tarleton leaned across the tiny table. "I'm here on business, Bob. Since you didn't give me a chance to kill dull care with a little amateur detecting, I got the chance with some one else."
"Who?"
"Commissioner Thorne."
"Oh!" Naturally Thorne would do anything, not conflicting with the Department's responsible work, to oblige his old friend Tarleton--concerning whose idle habits and inherent weaknesses, Clifford knew Thorne to be as much concerned as was he himself. "Mind telling me what you're doing?"
"Through playing around a bit with some of the big social sports, I've had a tip that some swell gambling joints are soon to open up. My job is to hang on with this bunch of spenders on the chance that I'll get some definite dope."
"No objection, I suppose, to putting me next to anything you pick up?"
"What's mine's yours, Bob. Motored out here with a crowd of them to-night, and I'd better be getting back to their table. So-long."
"So-long."
All this while Clifford had kept watch upon Morgan. He now saw a waiter come up and speak to the great gambler, and saw Morgan cross and enter a telephone booth. Presently Morgan emerged, immediately paid his bill, and walked with his usual repose, behind which Clifford sensed haste, out the wide main entrance.
With an appearance of equal repose, but with equal haste, Clifford got back to the car in which Mary waited, keeping an eye all the while on Morgan making toward a powerful limousine. A few quick words with Mary's chauffeur, and the chauffeur had ten dollars for an evening's diversion, and Clifford had on the chauffeur's dust-coat, cap and goggles--and he and Mary were in the front seats. Only then did Clifford speak of the telephone message.
"My guess is that it was from Bradley," he said, as they began to follow Morgan's car. "Perhaps Bradley changed his mind, and suggested meeting him another place. You were right--there's something doing--something big--no doubt of it!"
After a mile or two upon the Parkway, Morgan turned to the right--Clifford alertly behind him at a discreet distance, thankful for the silence of his admirable motor--and soon was threading the ill- lighted streets of that terra incognita to the average New Yorker, the far and scattered fringe of farthest Brooklyn. On and on the big car ahead of them went, bearing constantly toward the north and east--until in a dark and soundly sleeping street in Canarsie it came to a sudden pause. Just as sharply Clifford slowed down. From the doorway of an unlighted tenement some one crossed swiftly to Morgan's car and stepped into the open door, which instantly closed. But there was no mistaking that square powerful figure. "Bradley--you're right!" exulted Clifford, his every suspicion definitely confirmed by this remote and secret meeting.
The big limousine shot forward again, Clifford still at his discreet distance, and kept its tacking course toward the north and east. Clifford figured excitedly what the destination of the pair ahead might be--whether they were going to meet others in conference, and how he might manage to be an unseen auditor to the gigantic conference he now knew to be under way--when Morgan's car turned into that splendid highway which, leaving Manhattan over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, permeates with its innumerable arteries of polished macadam the far eastern reaches of Long Island. Instantly Morgan's car sprang away; Clifford turned on more power, and thrilled at the manner in which his car matched speed with speed. Thus they flashed through the night, mile after mile--until, without warning, Clifford's machine slowed down.
"What's the matter with the car?" cried Mary, in tones of dismay.
"The car's all right--it's a wonder. The trouble's with me--I only just now tumbled to their plan. They can ride Long Island for hours like that--talk things over--no one can get near them--and Morgan can drop Bradley wherever Bradley likes. We've learned all we're going to; it's home for us."
They rode back in what to Clifford was tonic nearness, through the magic of the summer night; and toward two o'clock Clifford left Mary at the old mansion near Washington Square.
"I'm sorry I got you out on such an empty piece of business," said Mary at parting.
"We'll win in the end!" he declared warmly. "You gave me the right start--I'd be nowhere without that!"
Under the stimulus of their long ride side by side--the first time, since their steamship days, that they had been together without latent or open hostility--under the stimulus of the late summer hour when she and he on the stoop seemed to inhabit the world alone, and when the shadows had mellowed the cold outlines of her face to a softer beauty--Clifford was almost mastered by an impulse to go on and say something more. But he held back the premature words and went away, in his heart a double hope and a double exultation.
IV
From the night of that drive Clifford discarded what had been his first purpose, to discover Bradley's secret plan against Commissioner Thorne; and concentrated upon his second purpose, to get the goods upon Bradley. The second would serve the same end; and furthermore, just now, it seemed more promising--even better, it gave him the chance to work with Mary Regan.
For the next five days, during every waking hour, every trained faculty of Clifford was directed to seeking the further developments of that secret conference in the flying car between Bradley and Morgan. He kept in touch with Tarleton; Tarleton, at his request, continued mixing with those free-spending men-about-town; Clifford had a hope that there might be unguarded words, and that Tarleton, in this company, might pick up valuable clues--and in fact Tarleton did bring him rumors that seemed more definite. Also Clifford engaged private detective agencies to keep him informed of Bradley's and Morgan's every move.
But it was not from his own tireless watching and thought, nor from any of these other sources, that Clifford got his next assistance. Again aid came from Mary Regan.
At ten o'clock on the fifth night, while Clifford sat in his little apartment waiting an expected call from Tarleton, his telephone rang. Mary Regan was on the wire. Rapidly she told him to get into old clothes and a rain-coat, and in ten minutes be waiting at an appointed corner.
Clifford reached the rendezvous just as the well-remembered car, its hood now up and rain-shield in place, swung in beside the curb. Mary Regan, alone in the car, was driving. Clifford stepped quickly in and took the wheel from her.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Pine Crest Manor."
"What's that, and where is it?"
"It's in New Jersey; we cross at the Fort Lee Ferry." And after Clifford had started the car northward she continued: "It's a suburb, or it started out to be. But after they built the land agent's office, the company failed, and the office is the only building on the property or near it. Mr. Bradley and Mr. Morgan are going to meet there at eleven o'clock."
"What! ... How did you find out?"
"You know things come to me. I only learned of this just before I called you up--I came myself because there was no time to waste. I really ought not to be telling you what I have, only "--there came a hard note in her voice--"I want to get square with Bradley!"
"Do you know the way to Pine Crest Manor?"
"Yes. Uncle Joe and I have been out there often. He thought of buying the place to turn it into a chicken-farm; he says he's going into chicken- farming some day. we've got to hurry, though--we should get there before the two men."
They crossed the ferry at One Hundred and Thirtieth Street, and after half an hour's run through the black windless summer rain, Mary directed Clifford into a neglected rutty driveway, and back into a thin plantation of scrawny second-growth pine. Here, at Mary's suggestion, their lamps dark, they remained in the machine waiting the arrival of the others. It was an admirable place for a secret meeting, Clifford subconsciously recorded--isolated, and far off the good roads frequented by automobiles.
Presently, through the soft silence of the rain, they heard a car purring down the driveway, and dead branches crackle beneath its wheels. A little later similar sounds announced that another car was arriving.
Mary and Clifford waited tensely for several minutes; then Mary whispered: "They'll be in the house by now--we 'd better go."
The light summer rain had stopped. With Mary leading the way, they crept through the tall, clinging weeds of what some bankrupt enthusiast had dreamed would be priceless building lots, until they neared a small square of blackness several tones deeper than the blackness of the night--and Clifford knew that they had reached the temporary office of what was to have been the exclusive suburb of Pine Crest Manor. Cautiously they got into the shelter of its walls. Through a break in the low-drifting clouds the moon shone briefly, and Clifford could make out that the office was the usual flimsy pine shack of its kind, its window panes all gone, probably through having served as targets for small boys bent upon improving youth's own variety of preparedness.
Crouched with Mary beneath one of the windows, Clifford heard voices within: the even, well modulated tones of Morgan, the gruffly resonant bass of Bradley. Clifford's conscious senses were all strained to catch the faintest word; but at the same time, a part of him rejoiced over this marvelous opportunity. Most successful detective work is careful, thoughtful, patient, sometimes dull, routine--just routine, and nothing more. But now and again, through what seems sheer good luck, the key, the very heart, the entire substance, of a case is laid in the police official's hands. This present seemed to Clifford to be one of those rare turns of fortune.
The pair within were already touching upon business. "Thought Joe Russell was to be here. what's the matter--ain't he coming in?" The voice that drifted through the shattered window was Bradley's heavy bass.
"I haven't been able to get Russell down to cases."
"But the others are sticking?"
"Yes. And they're the safest men in New York for a deal of this kind."
"Let Russell stay out then and be damned to him," growled Bradley.
"You've got everything worked out so we'll be protected? Thorne won't bother us--or that Clifford? "
"Thorne!" Bradley's voice was a snort of disgust. "Thorne don't know whether it's yesterday or day after to-morrow! And Clifford--you leave Clifford to me!" An instant's silence to let that assurance sink in, then: "Oh, you'll get all the protection you pay for--only you remember what I said. you've all got to run quiet, classy joints; and you've got to be mighty careful how you get your suckers in, and not bring in so many any night that they'll rouse the suspicions of some damned ordinary copper. Do it quiet, like I say, and the men I got assigned to this detail will never see nothing and will never bother you."
"We're all agreed on running things that way. But "--a little pause--" we all think ten thousand a month is too much to pay you for protection."
"Too much!" cried Bradley sharply. "You forget I've got to pass part of the dough on to some of my men."
"It's too much," Morgan repeated.
"What do you mean, damn you," snapped Bradley. "This town's better picking for you sure-thing guys than the Klondike in its wildest days. You know the place is belly-full of easy money--made over night on these here war profits--and most of it in the hands of money-drunk boobs who've won big once on a long shot, and are crazy to buck any kind of a game. It's the biggest and richest chance you've seen since you flipped your first card."
"Ten thousand 's too much," repeated Morgan's quiet voice.
"Damn you, Phil Morgan--just for saying that it's going to cost you fifteen thousand for every damned month in the damned year! Those are my terms, and I go to the mat with you on that proposition. And you try to open up, and I'll smash every joint and I'll put away every man I grab for the longest stretch I can get handed him."
They wrangled on for several minutes; Morgan quiet, Bradley belligerent; and in the end the figure settled on was fifteen thousand.
"What's more," continued Bradley, "you're going to pay that dough to me personally. Get that? In a big deal like this I'm not going to run the risk of any crooked collector crossing me or holding out part of the coin. And another thing, Morgan, this is the last time I'm going to sneak off and meet you in private. it's too dangerous. When I meet you again, I'll meet you in public."
"That suits me. But how'll you arrange it?"
"I guess if United States senators, and Wall Street pirates, and these society chiefs, ain 't hurt by being seen with you, it ain't going to hurt me a lot to open a bottle of mineral water at the table you're sitting at. Everything's settled; we've got nothing to talk about that it won't be safe for six million New Yorkers to listen in on. The only business left between us is collecting the dough."
"Yes, but how are you going to do that in public?"
"You'll be readied up with the first month's fifteen thousand by to-morrow night?"
"Yes."
"Be on the Olympic Roof at twelve o'clock. I join you. You offer me a cigar. I take it and stick it in my pocket and say I'll first finish the one I've just,lit. Now get this. The cigar which I'll have stuck in my clothes will be one of these toy-joke affairs--you've seen 'em--a paper shell, hollow, with a tobacco leaf wrapper. Inside that cigar you give me will be fifteen thousand bucks. And the whole damned roof, looking on, will only know that you've handed me a cigar."
There was further talk, but it concerned less important matters; and presently, first one car, then the other, started through the night toward New York. Clifford and Mary allowed a good margin of time for safety, then went back to their own machine and got under way.
Clifford was athrill with such elation as he had not known since he had first started on his long trail after Bradley. What Bradley had said about rich opportunities for big gamblers was perfectly true; what he had said about being able to give protection to resorts quietly conducted was also true; and the price he had mentioned was, considering the extraordinary conditions prevailing, a reasonable rake-off. It was all true--all solid. And capping this great clever scheme, was the idea of passing the money in public view. And the climax of the whole affair was that business of the hollow cigar.
It was wonderful! Bradley, though a scoundrel, was a genius, and this was Bradley's masterpiece! Only--Just as that fortune-loaded cigar was being slipped carelessly into a vest pocket, there would be a little arresting bee. And he, Robert Clifford, ex-lieutenant detective, discharged and dishonored by Bradley's machinations, would be fore-figure and main power of his great chief's gigantic downfall.
Mary Regan must have sensed Clifford's thoughts, for she said: "I'd like to be there when you make the arrest."
"You are invited to have supper with me tomorrow night on the Olmypic Roof," Clifford cried, almost gaily.
"Thank you." Then after another silence: "After what Bradley has done to him, don't you think Commissioner Thorne should be there too?"
"It wouldn't do for him to be one of our party. But sure--I'll see that the Commissioner is in on the finish!"
And when Clifford left Mary at the old house that night, he had never felt himself quite so near a perfect triumph.
V
Only mechanically did Clifford listen to the orchestra of the Olympic Roof, which was fiddling popular numbers from the hot-weather musical shows; and only mechanically did he note the "Dance of Summer" which was being executed in the cleared center of the roof by a dozen show-girls in costumes ranging from a bathing-suit worn with French heels, to complete and bewildering board-walk regalia; and only mechanically did he observe the audience of out-of-town buyers who were seeing New York as the old town really was--never guessing, these visitors, that life for the great mass of New Yorkers is a respectable, hard-working, home-staying business. All this was to Clifford only the setting for what was to be the final scene of his long conflict with Bradley. What he was acutely conscious of was Mary Regan across the table from him, and of the hope that in working together they had worked nearer to each other; and also of that finished gentleman, Philip Morgan, beyond a row of privet, alone, a second chair tilted suggestively forward against his little table--and reposing in his pocket that momentous cigar.
It was growing on toward Bradley's appointed hour of twelve when Tarleton came weaving toward them among the tables. Clifford noted that Tarleton looked harried, even more pale than usual; the life his old friend had slipped into was wasting him deplorably.
Tarleton bowed to Mary, then turned to Clifford. "Commissioner Thorne 'phoned me he was going to meet you here."
"He'll be showing up almost any time."
"I've got to hurry along, but I want to leave a message for the Commissioner." He handed Clifford a sealed envelope. "See that he gets that, though it's nothing very important. So-long, Bob."
"Wait." Clifford slipped the envelope into his pocket and led Tarleton aside. "Old man," he said gravely, "I hope you've broken with Clarice Langhorne as you promised?"
"I'm going to, Bob--don't you worry." He tried to speak lightly, but Clifford could discern worry and tense strain.
"You've got to do it at once, and do it the right way--or she'll make trouble between you and Margaret. And despite your infatuation for Miss Langhorne, I know Margaret means the world to you."
"You're some preacher, Bob!" Tarleton forced a laugh. "It's going to be all right, I tell you."
Clifford, uneasy in his mind, watched his friend walk away, then returned to Mary Regan. The showgirls, in single file, headed by the girl in bathing-suit and French heels, and brought up by the large parasolled blonde in full board-walk paraphernalia, were prancing through geometric designs, and singing, in the squawky nasal voices which managers judge to be the delight of out-of-town buyers, the refrain of "If You Had Your Pick of a Summer Girl, Now I Know you'd All Pick Me--Pick Me!" Mary was gazing at the routine coquettishness of the dozen with that reserved look which had so puzzled Clifford during the days of their partnership. He eyed her with his unquenchable curiosity--so much true instinct, so much fine emotion, so much individuality, so much perversity of view-point--and again he wondered which was going to rule her in the end.
But his attention had been off his real duty here no more than a moment. He glanced beyond the screen of privet: Morgan still sat imperturbably alone. Clifford looked at his watch; five minutes of twelve.
When Clifford looked up, Commissioner Thorne, in evening clothes, was approaching their table.
"Is everything going all right?" he asked, pausing, and bowing to Mary.
"Looks so," said Clifford. "Bradley is due almost any minute, and then there 'll be that stage play of the cigar."
"I'll be watching from my table; I have one reserved "--and. the Commissioner started on.
"Mr. Clifford," Mary put in quickly, "you are forgetting Mr. Tarleton's message."
"Oh, yes, Commissioner. Tarleton asked me to give you this," and Clifford handed over the envelope.
"What can Tarleton be wanting," remarked Thorne, starting to tear open the envelope.
"See, those girls are through," Mary Regan broke in, impulsively it seemed, "and the crowd is starting to dance. Mr. Tarleton said that letter wasn't important. Mr. Thorne," she challenged, "come on, let's show them how to dance."
Clifford was surprised at this overture from a law-breaker to the chief of police. Thorpe smiled--a distinguished and pleasant smile.
"I couldn't show them a thing, Miss Regan. I don't know these modern steps. Ask Mr. Clifford."
"I don't care to dance with Mr. Clifford. To tell the truth, I didn't really want to dance with you. I wanted a chance to talk with you a minute, alone."
"That's easy." Thorne slipped Tarleton's letter into an inner pocket of his coat.
"Excuse us, Clifford; Miss Regan and I are going to smell the flowers."
He gave Mary his arm and they moved apart to the high stone coping of the roof, topped with geraniums and daisies and ivy, and Mary began to talk rapidly in a low voice. Clifford wondered what the talk was about--and wondered again about the relationship between these two--and wondered what Thorne's interest was in this girl--and why Thorne, had assigned him to keep track of her activities. And tense as he was over the approaching scene with Bradley, he could not help remarking the clear lines of Mary's profile against the star-blooming sky. Clifford's attention was brought sharply from the pair by a nervous hand clutching his shoulder. There stood Tarleton, paler than before.
"I say, old man"--he began agitatedly, then stopped.
Thorne must have noted Tarleton's entrance, for with Mary Regan he was now back beside the table.
"What's the matter, Tarleton?"
"Bradley has broken loose," said Tarleton. "He's made two or three sudden raids."
"His old game," said Clifford--"a big splurge of virtue to hide his own crookedness. But why should that bother you?"
"I ran into him a few minutes ago--he threatened me--"
"But he can't do anything to you," interrupted Clifford.
"Of course not," said Thorne. "But what was his threat?"
"He said he'd get me."
"Get you? What for?"
"I don't know, unless it's because he knows I'm working with you two."
"See here, old man, don't let Bradley worry you--"
But Clifford's encouragement was broken off by Tarleton's suddenly backing away, taking shelter as in fear behind the group and staring beyond them. Clifford turned in the direction of Tarleton's gaze. There was Bradley, and not headed toward the waiting Philip Morgan, but bearing down upon them. And behind Bradley was a little group, all of whom Clifford knew: two star reporters from morning papers and a reporter from the City Press Association; three plain-clothesmen, and in their custody two gamblers--one that same Louis Gordon who, almost a year before, had played a part in Clifford's disgrace and discharge.
Bradley ignored Clifford. "Good-evening, Mr. Commissioner," he said with extreme respect. "I'm sorry to have to butt in like this. But I've got to do my duty."
"What do you want, Bradley?"
Bradley fixed his small brilliant eyes on Tarleton.
"I want you, Mr. Tarleton," he said in a low driving voice.
"Want Tarleton! What for?" demanded Clifford.
"He knows what for," returned Bradley. "Tarleton, are you going to show respect for your friends by coming along quietly?"
"You mean--I'm under arrest?" breathed Tarleton--and Clifford, bewildered, noted that Tarleton was yet more pale, and now was trembling.
"You sure are!" said Bradley.
Tarleton seemed to recover a degree of his confidence, though there was perceptible bluster in his voice.
"I demand to know on what charge?"
"You know what you've done, all right! Now are you going to come along quietly, or are you going to try to smear your friends by making a scene?"
"Wait a minute, Bradley," put in Thorne. "Tarleton has a right to know the charge. And if he has done anything, I'd like to know it, too."
"Just as you say, Mr. Commissioner. The fact is, Commissioner Thorne, your friend here"--he turned to Tarleton, his voice harshly accusatory-- "has been taking advantage of his friendship for you and has been smearing you in the crookedest, rottenest way that you could be smeared!"
"It's a lie!"
Clifford, gazing at his old friend, saw that a look of guilt had come into Tarleton's twitching, handsome face--and Clifford wondered, with sickening fear, what was about to break over the head of the man he had tried so earnestly to help. And his gaze, also taking in Mary Regan, noted that her erect figure was rigid and that she was breathing rapidly.
"What is it, Bradley?" Thorne sharply demanded.
"You know, Mr. Commissioner, that Mr. Tarleton has been spending beyond his income, has been hard up for cash."
"Go on."
"And you know how anxious the gamblers have been to open, with all this easy money begging to be picked up."
"Go on."
Clifford's mind tried to leap ahead, seeking the drift of this affair. Bradley, gazing hard at Tarleton, spoke more slowly, driving every word home. "Needing money, your screwy swell friend here doped out this game: He 'd been seen a lot in public with you--restaurants, in your car, other places. He built on that, and got in touch with gamblers, told them he had a pull with you, that he was your private representative--that he'd fix things so a few of them could open up and not be bothered by you, if they'd come across with enough dough. Commissioner, for over a month Tarleton has been pretending to be your collector and has collected protection money from a dozen gambling joints."
"It's a lie!" Tarleton exclaimed huskily.
There was a moment of silence. Tarleton's look, his manner--yes, and the remembrance of his strange behavior the last few days--all told Clifford that Tarleton was in some degree a guilty man. And whether Bradley's charge was true or not, Clifford realized that nothing would have been easier than for Tarleton to have done exactly what Bradley had charged--for the professional New York gambler has an eager ingrained desire to pay for protection to any man who possesses any semblance of authority or "pull."
"Tarleton, what have you got to say?" Thorne demanded.
"It's a lie!" Tarleton repeated.
"Mr. Commissioner, I just happen to have here two gamblers I pinched who have confessed to having paid Tarleton as your collector." He turned to the pair. "How about it?"
Both surlily admitted having paid.
"And it was all paid on Tarleton's definite promise that he would guarantee the privilege to run without interference from Commissioner Thorne. Besides," continued Bradley, "I have three other gamblers under arrest who have confessed to the same thing. And Officer Sampson, who is with the other squad, saw money passed this evening to Tarleton."
Thorne's features had grown more stern as the evidence piled up with Bradley's slow recital. And with the look now on Tarleton's face, no denial could have a moment's consideration.
"Tarleton!" exclaimed the Commissioner.
Tarleton slumped down into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.
"Tarleton," cried Thorne, and Clifford had never before seen him in such a withering anger, "I knew you were an idler and a spender, but I've tried to stand by you for old friendship's sake--and for your wife's sake--and because I believed you had at bottom some good qualities--and I hoped you'd sometime take a brace. And now, to think of your using my friendship to betray me personally, to betray my ideas and administration, all for the sake of some rotten money! Tarleton, you're cheaper than the cheapest thief, you're meaner than the most cowardly murderer, you're a damned--"
"Stop!" cried Tarleton, springing up. "I'll not stand that from you!"
"Stand what?"
"That's too much to take!" Tarleton cried wildly--and Clifford had a sickening premonition that something here was going very wrong. "I'd have gone through with this and have taken my medicine, and never said a word. I was willing to be the goat for you, but I'll be damned if I'll be your goat with your turning on me like that!"
"Be my goat?" repeated the Commissioner.
"Yes, your goat! I've been collecting--sure; I can't deny it, since I was caught with the goods on. But whatever I've done, I've done as your collector!"
"My collector," repeated Thorne, almost stupidly. Clifford now almost perceived whither this business was swiftly tending--but not quite. He saw that guests of the roof garden were crowding excitedly about; and he saw the three newspaper men press forward, with that alertness peculiar to star reporters when a big story is about to break.
"Your collector, yes!" Tarleton called across at Thorne. "I've done your dirty work long enough--you posing as a square chief! Why, every dollar I've collected, and I've collected thousands, I've turned over to you!"
"Close your trap, Tarleton!" Bradley snapped at him, roughly seizing his shoulder.
"Come along. You know you're lying."
"Oh, I'm lying, am I!" retorted Tarleton, in his frenzied manner. "Of course all you policemen hang together! Wait--wait," he cried frantically as Bradley tried to lead him away, "I can prove what I say ! Our regular plan has been for me to turn the money over to Clifford, and for Clifford to turn it over to Thorne. I gave Clifford money half an hour ago. If you want proof, look on Thorne or on Clifford!"
"Commissioner, I don't believe a word this rat says," put in Bradley.
"I tell you to look! I dare you to ask Clifford! Or ask Miss Regan!"
Clifford did not yet understand it all--but he infallibly sensed this, that Tarleton, driven by some resistless power gained over him by Bradley, had for days been doing, and was now doing, a carefully thought-out piece of acting--and he had a swift sense of the character of the envelope which Tarleton had passed to him and which he had passed to Thorne.
"After all, Commissioner," said Bradley apologetically, "perhaps the best way to quiet this lunatic, is to show him up for the liar that he is. Clifford, did he give you anything?"
Clifford kept his lips grimly closed.
"Very well, Clifford. Miss Regan, did you see Tarleton give Clifford anything?"
For the last few minutes Mary Regan had seemingly been no more than a looker-on at this scene, a forgotten supernumerary. Clifford now turned upon her. Her face had become, if anything, more strained, but she did not at once reply to Bradley's query. A faint but sharp suspicion leaped swiftly into life within Clifford.
"Miss Regan, you heard my question?" demnanded Bradley.
"I saw Mr. Tarleton give Mr. Clifford an envelope," said Mary.
"What did Mr. Clifford do with it?"
"I saw him give it to Mr. Thorne."
"Commissioner," Bradley said respectfully, "I think there's nothing but bluff--"
"Here it is." Thorne, pale but composed, drew the envelope from his coat and handed it to Bradley. "Open it."
"Since you say so--" and Bradley with a blunt forefinger ripped open the envelope. He drew forth a fold of bills. These he swiftly counted, then looked steadily at Thorne. "Commissioner, here are ten thousand dollars."
There was a moment of profound silence among the group. For that moment all was a blur to Clifford. Though even yet he could not understand the whole of it, at last he dazedly perceived the great essential fact. He and Thorne had been framed, admirably framed; and, in the persons of those three reporters, had been framed with all New York as witnesses to their guilt!
"Sorry, Mr. Commissioner," Bradley began in reluctant voice, "but--"
"Clifford and I'll go with you," Thorne interrupted sharply yet quietly. Through the blur Clifford became conscious that Mary Regan was looking at him: and he saw that the controlled look which had puzzled him so often these last few days was now discarded, and that she was openly smiling at him--smiling at him in vindictive triumph. That taunting smile was as an all-revealing flash of lightning in the night. He sprang forward and seized her bare forearm.
"So--you've been behind it all!" he exclaimed. He felt her tremble, the smile faded; then her body tensed, and the taunting smile returned, and she looked him squarely in the face. But she did not speak.
"So you've been fooling with me--double-crossing me! That ride to Coney Island--that night at Pine Crest Manor--it was just to draw me off the real case and pull me into this! You--you--" Clifford could not find words for his wrathful revulsion, and his anger could only vent itself by gripping her arm cruelly, brutally. But she did not flinch, though the pain must have been piercing.
"Come on, Clifford," put in the voice of Thorne.
"God--and I thought you were square!"
Roughly Clifford flung Mary's arm away, and giving the pale Tarleton a contemptuous glance, he strode from the roof behind his superior--leaving Mary standing stiff and very straight beside the table, the taunting smile still on her pale face.
VI
The next day, Clifford, released on heavy bail after having been held for General Sessions at his preliminary hearing, hurried to his little apartment. After a scrub--he could not scrub away that sensation of all-permeating uncleanness that a night in a cell deposits in the system of a normal human being--he sat down and went through the morning papers.
The newspapers had made of the affair the stupendous sensation he had foreseen. And what material they had! New York's Chief of Police, who pretended to advanced ideas, had been caught red-handed at the ancient game of graft. His chief agent had been his own friend, that well-known society man and lawyer, Stanley Tarleton--who, apprehended, and overcome by remorse, was now the chief witness for the state; and another of his chief agents was that discredited ex-Lieutenant Detective Clifford.
Chief of Detectives Bradley, tireless guardian of the public safety, had quite accidentally stumbled upon this astounding irregularity of his superior. Thorne would undoubtedly be removed; and the citizens of New York would certainly demand that Bradley be elevated to the position of Commissioner which by his service he so eminently deserved. The case, if all went as now seemed probable, would result in long prison sentences for Thorne and his alleged accomplice, Robert Clifford. ... Clifford had to admit that all that the papers stated as facts seemed facts, and that their prophecies (stated by innuendo, to avoid libel) would of a certainty have fulfilment--for he and Thorne had no scrap of evidence. Beyond a doubt Bradley would be the next head of the police department: the Mayor could not withstand the public demand, already mounting in a resistless wave.
Clifford crushed and flung the papers from him. With chagrin almost beyond bearing he realized, more clearly than before, that that scene at Coney Island, that scene at Pine Crest Manor--with their details so convincingly in keeping with the character of a crooked police official--had all been carefully planned by Bradley, and staged and acted, for the sole sake of their effect upon himself--to excite his attention and possible suspicion away from Bradley's real design. It had all just been pretense--yet tremendously real and significant in that it was an example, to be sure the most elaborate and perfect within his experience, of the cunning he knew to be constantly practised for private ends within the Department. Clifford felt something akin to murder in his heart--and yet he also felt something akin to admiration for Bradley's perverted genius.
Glowering, Clifford pondered the problems that confronted him. What lay behind Tarleton's strange action? Without doubt Bradley had made Tarleton his stool by gaining over him some compelling power--but what was that power? Search his mind as he would, Clifford could not discover what it might be.
But of a certainty, to have secured as the chief witness against Thorne and himself a man of social position and their own friend--that had been Bradley's master stroke. And what an effect it had had upon the public!
And Clifford wondered whence had come that ten thousand dollars in real money. Some one had been willing to risk that much, and possibly very much more, to bring about his own and Thorne's destruction. But who? And did Bradley dominate the unknown, or did the unknown dominate Bradley?
But most of all Clifford wondered at Mary Regan. One by one he went over all the details of the part that she had played; he saw how cleverly she had deceived him at every point; and he now perceived that her desire to speak to Thorne upon the Olympic Roof had been just a device to prevent the Commissioner from ruining Bradley's plan by opening the incriminating envelope. Why had she let herself become an instrument in this affair? Was it because she hated him? Was it from resentment for his balking her in various schemes? After his long and persistent hope that her criminal philosophy and her criminal intentions were not true expressions of her real nature, was her behavior final and indisputable evidence that these qualities, and treachery with them, were ineradicably the very fiber of her real self?
Clifford raged against himself for his foolishness in permitting himself to come to care for her, for his foolishness in treating her as he had done. His attempt to rouse the hypothetical good element in her to domination by preventing her from committing crime, by placing before her eyes crime's ugly side, had had only this for its direct result-- that she had turned against him and he was destroyed. God, what a fool of all fools he had been! . . .
VII
He was still raging, hours later, when the cell-like gloom of his little apartment was shattered by the ringing of his telephone. Mechanically he took up the receiver.
"Well, what do you want?" he growled.
The voice that came over the wire was Slant-Face Regan's.
"I want to see you."
"You--Slant-Face! I don't know that I want to see you, and I don't know that I want to see any of your kin! . . . Come along, though. You know my address."
"I want to see you here."
"Where are you?"
Slant-Face gave the number of the house down near Washington Square.
Clifford hesitated. Here was another surprise.
"All right," he said, and hung up.
Twenty minutes later he was admitted by a servant into the fine old mansion which Joseph Russell had leased furnished. The servant led Clifford up the broad carved staircase and into the shadowy rear drawing-room. As he entered, Slant-Face Regan rose from a chair.
"What is it, Slant-Face?" Clifford demanded.
The lean face, with its tilted mouth, of the ex-pickpocket met Clifford's hard gaze steadily.
"I want to say, Clifford, that I'm just as sore as you are at the bunch that jobbed you," he said in his quiet voice. "But I didn't send for you for myself. Mary,"--only now did Clifford see that Mary was present--"you come across!" And without another word Slant-Face walked out.
Mary was standing by the purple hangings of a tall window that gave out upon a tiny, old-fashioned garden. She looked at Clifford with fixed gaze; she did not speak, and there was a silence of several moments, each of the pair standing tensely motionless. Then for all his anger against her which for these dozen hours had eaten him like acid, Clifford moved to within a step of her. He now saw that the young face was grayish in its pallor, and that her eyes were wide and set in deep shadows. The face was reserved, controlled as always--but the old obstinate pride, the self-will, so ready to flare into contempt and revolt, seemed to have burned itself down to ashes.
"What is it?" he finally asked.
Only with an effort did she lift herself out of her deep silence--and her voice was low, mechanical, almost colorless.
"I did it in the first place because Mr. Bradley suggested it to me."
That stark opening statement, bare of all preliminaries, almost took Clifford's breath.
"I guessed as much," he said. "How? Why?"
Her forced voice went on with its rote: "Mr. Bradley knew I'd do anything for my brother. He framed my brother and arrested him, so that he'd have some lever to use on me. He came to see me. He said he had a strong case and would send Jim away, unless I'd help him against you. He said I--I had influence with you and could handle you. He said if I'd help, he'd get my brother off. I agreed."
"So--that's why you did it!" cried Clifford.
"That's how I came to get into it," the low voice went on, "but it was the smallest of my reasons for doing what I did. My big reason was" --she hesitated, then drove herself on--"I wanted to hurt you."
"Wanted to hurt me!" repeated Clifford.
"I thought it out, all last night--why I did it," she continued. "I had always kept telling myself that since you were a police officer you were the lowest kind of a crook--a hypocritical crook. I thought I was--very clever--and you kept coming in at the last and spoiling everything. I--I hated you." Dimly Clifford began to apprehend the possible drift of her talk--the possible magnitude of this quiet scene. He waited, breathless.
"I resented your trying to change me," the muffled voice went on, her gray eyes never leaving his face. "And yet, several times--after you made that young paying-teller and Uncle Joe and me take back that suit-case of money--after what you did for Slant-Face--after you kept me from being trapped by Hawkins in that bank burglary--after you kept me from carrying through the affair of those Barbizon pictures--several times there were strange feelings--feelings I didn't understand--and I was afraid I might change. I didn't want to change. I didn't want you to have any influence over me."
She paused--swallowed. Clifford put in no word. She continued: "So when Mr. Bradley made his proposition it seemed to me my big chance. All my old self said 'yes.' It seemed to me that if I could help ruin you, and then let you know what I had done--I'd get rid of those strange feelings, and the fear that I might change--and I'd get rid of you. And so--I did it." Her voice flickered out. Clifford, more and more awed as she had gone on, was too stirred to speak at once. Only now did it dawn upon him fully that this proud girl had sent for him to make a confession: such a confession as a proud woman might make--a confession for her own pride's sake--without sparing herself--and without any slightest touch of feminine emotion which might suggest that she confessed because she desired forgiveness. Clifford felt a swift leaping of the heart: the thing that he had striven for these many months was, perhaps, in some degree, after all coming to pass!
"Yes?" he prompted.
"While I was doing it, I would not let myself stop to think. But after it was all over, and I saw what I had done, I couldn't keep from thinking, and I--I was sick of myself. And I knew" --her voice trembled the least bit, then instantly regained its balance--"I knew that, for all my fighting, I had changed."
"Changed?" he repeated.
"I knew that I could not be what I used to be," she explained.
Again Clifford thrilled. At last he understood the true significance of her behavior the past few days: it had been the last stand, the final struggle of the pride of Mary Regan for her old creed. And he had been right from the beginning in his estimate of her! She had always been, at bottom, just a normal young woman--more clever, more proud than the average--whose code was something fastened upon her from without by early training. And here was the strangest twist of all--that the experience which was to awaken her true self, of which he had so often dreamed, was her endeavor to aid in his own destruction! In his unmastered eagerness, daring words sprang past his lips.
"And was another reason for doing what you did, that you cared for me and you wanted to destroy that caring?"
She gave no sign that she had even heard him.
"Another thing I wanted to tell you was that I'd like to undo what I have done. I think I can help you clear yourself--if you'd be willing to have me."
"Willing to have you!" cried Clifford. "It's a bargain--we'll do it together!" And eagerly he held out his hand.
She retained her rigid posture by the purple hangings, made no motion to accept his hand--and Clifford had a moment's fear that she was about to utter something cheap, inane, such as the repentant woman of the stage is forever saying. But she laid her hand in his, merely remarking: "This time, I'll be on the square."
Clifford, holding her hand, forgot that he was in disgrace, forgot the great struggle that lay ahead; was exultantly conscious, as he gazed into Mary's gray face with its steady dark eyes, of only one thing--that in his greatest defeat he had won at least the beginning of his greatest triumph.