For a space Val sat in the onyx and gold lobby of the Giltmore and consumed numerous cigarettes, the while he decided on his course of action. For action it had to be; he was not the man to take a passive part in the melodrama that was wrapping itself around the woman he loved. Here was love and adventure.
He knew that Jessica Pomeroy was determined on her course; he could see that she had a high sense of duty and obligation—and if her duty and her sense of obligation led her even to the point of marrying the loathsome object that had no hands, why, she would do it. He knew that. It was not a question of whether she cared for him, Valentine Morley. How could a perfect creature like Jessica Pomeroy care for an ordinary man like him?
But he would make her care! And the first way to do that was to release her from her assumed obligation to marry this Ignace Teck. She had intimated that if it was proved to her that he had murdered Mat Masterson she would reconsider her determination—she would not be bound to marry a murderer. But how to prove that?
He considered this for a short time and it came to him suddenly. Why, what a fool he had been! By the books, of course.
“If I can find out that he has the books,” quoth Val, “it stands to reason that he must be implicated in the murder of poor old Mat—and it’s a sure thing he has ’em.” He was thankful that he had found out his address from Miss Pomeroy. That would help. If he had the books they were very probably in his apartment on the East Side.
There, then, was where Val must look. There was another important reason for getting those books. Very possibly there was a clue in them, somehow, to the lost wealth of the girl’s father. Otherwise, why should Teck be so anxious to get them back that he would even commit murder for them? That money belonged to Jessica Pomeroy, and Val decided that it was up to him to see that she got it.
Lost treasure! The love of a beautiful woman! The dark villainy of an unscrupulous scoundrel! It was good to be alive and to be caught up in the swirl of this affair, Val’s blood tingled in his veins, and he rose hastily, smiling gently. There was no time like the present. Ignace Teck, to be sure, was at Jessica’s—he called her that privately—home. That being the case, what was there to prevent Val from making a raid on the handless one’s rooms. Nothing. Teck had done that to him, so there was no ethical reason why he should not now return the compliment.
He walked out of the Giltmore and engaged Eddie Hughes in conversation.
“Eddie,” he said, “haven’t we got an automatic or two somewhere?”
Eddie brightened. He nodded. “At home,” he answered laconically. “Whom do you want croaked?”
“Nobody,” grinned Val. “We might need them for protection, though. Let’s go home and get them.”
He jumped in. “Hustle,” he shouted. The car turned the corner on two wheels and nearly ran down a traffic policeman. It was out of sight before the policeman had a chance to reach into his pocket and pull out a summons.
“Well, I might be needin’ it fer somewan else,” muttered the guardian of the city’s traffic. He kept it out where he could get to it again quickly in case it was necessary.
“I’m going to burgle a little to-night, Eddie, “announced Val. He was sitting with the driver, in front. Eddie looked at him impassively. Nothing that his amazing employer said to him startled him. He could have announced that he was going to work and it would scarcely have shocked the callous, impervious Eddie.
“That’s not included in your contract, Eddie, so you can stay in the apartment and keep the home fires burning until I get back,” he continued. “Not that I don’t think the exercise wouldn’t do you some good. A little night work, such as I propose⸺”
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I decline to stay home,” interrupted Eddie. “If you think that I’m going to slave my life away for you and then, when there is a chance for a little recreation, be left at home like a cook, why⸺”
“You’re waxing impertinent, Edward,” said Val severely. “I really ought to discharge you. Your recommendations said nothing about your being a good burglar. How do I know that you’re any good at the job—this is something that requires experience. You can get a good chauffeur or valet anywhere, but where can you get an efficient burglar Eddie, have you ever burgled?”
“No, sir,” replied Eddie. “But I’m willing to learn.”
“Ah, my boy, you have struck on the keynote of our American life. The reason America has forged ahead so fast is because Americans are willing to learn. We have no deep rooted prejudices to eradicate—if anything worthwhile comes along, like burgling, or pinochle, we are ‘willing to learn,’” he went on growing expansive. “It is what has made us what we are to-day⸺”
“What are we to-day, sir?” asked Eddie mildly. Val turned and looked at him in astonishment.
“Why, we are—er—we are—damn it! Eddie, don’t you read your history and your newspapers. Why, we are—Eddie, I sincerely trust you are not being insolent enough to poke fun at me or at our institutions.”
“No, sir,” replied Eddie. “About this—er—burgling job, then, we can consider that I am going along, sir, I take it?” He noted the look of indecision in Val’s face, the while he missed a truck by an inch. Val saw no particular reason for exposing Eddie Hughes to whatever dangers there were attending this job. “Of course,” went on Eddie, “if you refuse, and thus make it necessary for me to notify the police of your—er—midnight exercise, why, it will be⸺”
“Pinked!” ejaculated Val. “I’ll come down. Eddie, you’re one of us to-night. But if you get killed, don’t blame me.”
“I won’t, sir,” said Eddie.
“Ah—very good, Eddie! Now that you’re a member of the party. I’ll tell you what I propose to do.”
He told and Eddie listened without comment.
“How does it look to you?” he inquired at the conclusion of the recital of his proposed deeds.
“All right, sir,” returned his man. “Except that it seems to me that it would be better if we went in a taxicab, because this big car is sure to attract attention if we leave it standing for any length of time in that East Side street. And then, we can have the cab and the chauffeur waiting for us with the engine running, so that we can get away on the jump when we come out. We might be in a hurry, sir,” he suggested.
Val nodded. “You’ve struck twelve, Eddie.” They were home now. “Put the car away and get a taxi. I’ll go upstairs and get the guns.”
•••••••
At about ten thirty that evening a taxicab carrying Val and Eddie came to a grinding stop at the corner of a small, narrow, ill-smelling alley.
“Are we there?” asked Val, popping his head out of the door.
“Dunno,” replied the driver. “I think it’s around here somewhere, though. Maybe one of these fellers can tell us. Hey!” he called to them.
A small tough came forward, unshaven, rat faced, and sharp, beady eyes that seemed to look in two different directions at once. His derby, which was too small for him, a sort of brown bowler, was perched perilously on one side of his unkempt hair, and he spat viciously into the gutter under the taxicab before opening his mouth to speak.
“Whatcher want?” he asked, eyeing the occupants of the taxicab sharply, and then addressing himself to them.
“Can you tell me where 22 Delancey Place is?” asked Val.
The other looked at him searchingly for an instant. “Dis here’s Delancey Place,” he replied. “Yer number’s at de other end. What name you lookin’ fer?” he asked, with an assumption of confidential familiarity.
“Why?” asked Val.
The other did not meet his direct gaze. He spat again, this time on the hub of the taxi’s rear wheel, and regarded his marksmanship admiringly for a moment or two before answering.
“Oh, nothin’,” he said at length. “Just thort I might help you, dat’s all.” Val gave him a quarter, which he accepted in a dignified manner, much as a shopkeeper accepts money for merchandise. He turned and went back to lounge with his friends, paying no more attention to Val and his party.
Telling the taxi driver to wait for them there, and to be ready to start at an instant’s notice, Val and his man proceeded up the alley to number 22, Eddie carrying a suitcase in which to take away the books, if they found them. Val had his plans made, sketchily. They were simply this: To knock on the door. If Teck was in, which was not likely, they were to enter and by a show of force search his rooms. If he was not in, they were to find a way to force their entrance into the rooms. That was all. The legality of the proceeding, to say nothing of the danger of it, did not bother Val in the least, and it bothered Eddie less. He was satisfied, if Val was. If his conscience smote him a bit—that is, Val’s conscience, for Eddie had none except in Val’s name—he silenced it by the reflection that after all, they were his own books and they had been stolen from him. As the English say, he was merely getting back “a bit of his own.”
It was a mean looking alley, Delancey Place, and no mistake. Early, comparatively, as it was, the sidewalks of Delancey Place were bare and deserted. With the exception of one lamppost burning bleakly at the beginning of the alley, there were no lights. Windows were barred and although here and there a shaft of yellow light escaped through a ramshackle shutter, it did little but accentuate the general gloom and dispiritedness of the place. It was a location to take the heart out of a man who had no legitimate business there—nor did it look, on the other hand, as though any one who lived there could have any legitimate business.
They found the house they were looking for at the far end; it was a three-story frame house—one of the few frame houses still in existence on the East Side. There was no front door, though the hinges were still there to show that at some happier and far distant time there had been such an affair at the entrance. The hall yawned blackly before them.
“Got your flash?” queried Val. The other handed it to him. “Looks like midnight inside a cow’s belly,” commented Val.
“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie, impassively.
They entered the house. By working his flashlight diligently, Val discovered that there was a door to an apartment on each side of the hall. He knocked on one of them, loudly. There was no answer. He knocked again. There was a sound of moving around, and he heard a low, guttural, feminine voice cursing wholeheartedly. The door was opened a crack, as far as a stout chain would permit.
“Can you tell me where Teck lives?” asked Val.
“One flight up, on the left, in the rear,” grunted the woman, and banged the door. People evidently did not keep their doors open any longer than they could help in this neighborhood, meditated Val. Ah, well. It occurred to him that if he lived there he wouldn’t have kept his door open any longer, either.
They made their way up the creaking, uncovered stairs, with the aid of the invaluable flashlight. A musty, filthy smell, the fetid, odorous accumulation of many years’ cooking, a composite smell of perhaps thirty years standing, greeted their nostrils. On the wall, to the left of the stairs, the plaster had come off in great gobs, exposing the bare lath underneath. At the head of the stairs, to the left, they found the door they were looking for.
“This must be it, sir,” whispered Eddie.
“Correct,” whispered Val. He knocked softly. There was no answer, as he had expected.
He knocked again, louder this time. Still no answer.
“Where’s that cold chisel?” he asked in a whisper. Eddie produced it silently and handed it to him.
“Now for a little plain and fancy burgling,” announced Val. “A moving picture entitled ‘Breaking the Law’ in six parts.” The door did not fit well. Probably, at the beginning, many years before, it had fitted snugly, but that day was long years agone. It was badly warped by now and it was a simple matter to find room for the chisel. There was a sharp straining of wood against iron, a dull rasping sound, another push, and the door swung open.
“If this is the burglar’s art,” said Val, “it’s very easy. “They entered the room silently, and the flashlight showed them that it was a fairly large living room, with another smaller room, probably a bedroom, on one side. In a moment or two he made certain that there was nobody in the apartment.
He located the gaslight in the center of the room. “Close the door and pull down the shades, Eddie, and I’ll light up so we can have a look around.” Eddie did so, and Val lighted the gas.
They were surprised at the comfort and good taste shown in the furnishing of the room. The room they had entered was evidently a combined living room and library, with deep leather chairs, a reading lamp, a walnut library table, and rather fine prints and etchings on the walls. The first thing that struck Val’s attention, however, was a bundle of books on the library table. Even before he advanced to them he knew that they were the ones he was looking for.
“Ah, we have with us to-day, Eddie, pieces of eight, doubloons and Spanish gold, as exemplified in yon books—maybe,” he waved his hand to the books. He looked them over briefly, perfunctorily. A second glance told him that he was correct.
“Are they the ones?” asked Eddie. Val nodded.
Eddie opened the suitcase and placed the books within carefully. “Let’s go.”
“Right—oh! Let us stagger homeward, my good man,” smiled Val. “Sorry we cannot wait until our good friend, Iggy Teck, comes back. It would be nice to visit him, but⸺”
The door opened silently, and four men stood in the door, quiet, grim, revolvers leveled. Only one spoke. It was the little cross-eyed man who had directed them to this address.
“Reach fer a cloud, men,” he said. “Grab yerself a star!”
“I take it that you mean⸺” began Val.
“Damn right, kid!” snapped the gangster. “Stick ’em up—an’ don’t let me have ter tell yer again, neither.”
Slowly Val’s hands went up into the air. “To what are we indebted for the honor of this—er—visitation,” lie asked. “You didn’t—er—send up your cards, nor were you announced by the butler,” he bantered, sparring for time, but his eyes were contracted to pinpoints and his square jaw had hardened angularly.
“Never mind all that guff,” ordered the gangster. “Stand right where you are and be quiet. Come in boys,” he called to the rest of the gang. “Keep them up there, you!” he directed Eddie, who was standing a little to the left of Val and had shown signs of being tired of the position. “If this here cannon goes off, you’re liable ter git an awful headache, t’say nothin’ of catchin’ cold account ’er th’ air bein’ let through yer.”
“Just what can I do to oblige you boys?” asked Val pleasantly. “If there is any little thing I can do, any little favor, why, just say the word⸺”
“Yes, yer kin keep mum an’ move over here till I relieves yer of any stray gats yer may have about yer poison, git me?” Val nodded, his hands up in the air, and half turned to glance at Eddie, who had remained suspiciously quiet and immobile. Their eyes met, and in that brief glance he told him to be ready to jump for it at an instant’s notice—to hold himself prepared for anything.
The men gathered around them as Val moved forward the center of the room, right under the gas jet. He made a motion as though to lower his hands.
“Keep dem fins up a minit you!” ordered the little unshaven tough sharply. Like lightning Val’s hands shot up. He had gauged the distance exactly, and his right hand came in contact with the cock of the gas jet. With a snap of his fingers he turned it, leaving the room in instant black darkness.
“Jump for it, Eddie!” he shouted, jumping from his own place instantly. It was well that he did so, because the blackness of the room was punctured by a vivid barking flash as a gun went off, filling the room with acrid smoke.
In an instant the six men in the room were a tangle of striking arms and legs, each fearing to shoot, not knowing which was friend and which was foe. With a fearful, vivid joy, Val and Eddie plunged into the mass, striking, throwing aside, kicking.
Val picked up a cursing body and threw it, knocking down furniture and men. He jumped into the thick of the struggling humans, pounding viciously with his ham-like fist and his revolver butt. At the door the mix-up was thickest. A figure jumped at Eddie. There was the sharp crack of a human fist on bone, and the man slumped down unconscious, as clean a knockout as was ever made.
“Through the door, boss!” shouted Eddie.
“Righto!” shouted Val, plunging for the entrance. A figure blocked his way. He picked it up and threw it through the door. It struck the stairs half way down and rolled on.
“Now for it, young feller me lad!” shouted Val. Down the stairs they plunged, Val and Eddie. A revolver barked three times after them, but they felt nothing. The doors in the apartments were closed—it was not a good time to open doors.
Out into the street they burst, both of them, with a couple of shouting men in pursuit. New figures popped out of doors and took up the chase.
“To the taxi, Eddie!” shouted Val.
“Yes, sir,” returned Eddie, and fifty yards ahead of their pursuers, they made speed. They rounded the corner to the car.
The corner was bare of automobiles. The taxi had gone.
They glanced back for an instant. The pursuit was hot, and the pursuers’ numbers had been augmented.
“Stop thief!” some one shouted, and the neighborhood, which a moment before had been silent and slumberous, suddenly became a living maelstrom of humanity, swirling, streaming after the fugitives.
“To the subway, Mr. Morley!” panted Eddie. They turned at an acute angle and headed for the subway kiosk, two blocks away.
Through the night streets of the East Side they thundered, with the crowd after them, but nobody stopped their progress because, in the excitement, Val had forgotten to put away his gun, and he was still brandishing it as he ran. At last, still fifty yards to the good, they reached the kiosk.
Down the stairs they clattered, only to see the tail lights of a train pulling out. Too late!
A thunderous noise made itself heard in the tunnel.
“The other side!” panted Eddie. “There’s a train coming in.”
They leaped over the turnstiles, jumped down to the tracks, and scrambled up on the other side just as a train thundered in, missing them by little more than the proverbial hair. The doors of the train opened, Val and Eddie, the only oncoming passengers, entered, and the gates clanged shut again. The bell rang the length of the car, and with a grinding of flat wheels the train started. Through the glass of the car platform Val and Eddie could see the foremost of the pursuing gang plunge into the station and look up and down for their quarry.
Val kissed his hand to them as the train pulled out.
“Rather close, what!” commented Val, and for the first time he was able to turn to Eddie. He gave a gasp of surprise.
In his hand Eddie Hughes held carefully the suitcase containing the books they had gone after.
•••••••
Before a crackling blaze in the grate Val sat sunk deep in an easy chair, examining the books which were strewed around him. He was feeling better, more exhilarated with life, than he had felt for many a day. To-morrow he would have something to tell Jessica Pomeroy. He recounted to himself the several aspects of the story he would have to tell her. It was good. She could hardly keep on with Ignace Teck, now that he⸺”
“Anything more to-night, sir?” asked Eddie respectfully, at the door. Val half turned.
“Nothing, Eddie, except that you’re a good boy and in my report to G.H.Q. I’ll recommend you for conspicuous coolness and daring under fire. You ought to get a citation for it, you know.”
“Yes sir. Very good, sir,” grinned Eddie impassively.
“Good night, Eddie,” said Val.
“Good night, sir,” He went to his room.
Val turned to the books again. Carefully he went through the one he held in his hand, page by page. It was a volume of E. P. Roe’s.
“Imagine finding anything worth while in this!” he muttered, and threw it aside to pick up another. For half or three quarters of an hour he sat before his fire, going through book after book. Not knowing what he was looking for, he found nothing. He could not seem to get on the track of anything that looked promising.
It was a puzzle, but he did not have the key. It would have been hard enough even if he had known what he wanted, but he did not know even that. He had decided that the books had something to do with the money that old Peter Pomeroy had cached somewhere—but in what way? That he could not tell, and the books he had examined left him just as much in the dark.
Now, if he only could unearth that money and hand it over to Jessica Pomeroy! The thought of the name brought him around to her, and he smiled gently. Was there ever a girl like her before? There was not, he decided. She was the recapitulation of the eternal beauty of the world.
And the way she had smiled at him to-night at times! Why, it was like spring coming suddenly on a cold winter’s day, the sun breaking through a bleak cloud, flowers poking their gay heads through the snow blankets, stars in June skies, oases—was that the proper plural?—in the Sahara, a fugitive moment of happiness⸺
At this stage the telephone rang insistently. He turned impatiently to the offending instrument, exasperated at being interrupted just at the moment when he was about to think of the best figure of speech of all. But Eddie had retired to a well earned rest and he had to answer the call himself. He picked up the receiver.
It was the hall boy. “There’s a man wants to see you, sir?” came to him over the wires.
“To see me—at this time of night?” queried Val. “What’s he want?”
“I don’t know, sir. He’s a chauffeur and he says he has an important message for you personally.”
“Well, send him in,” directed Val, putting down the receiver.
An important message for him at this time of night! There was only one thing that was important enough to break the night for him, and that was⸺ Why, to be sure, perhaps it was from Jessica! He remembered now he had told her to look to him at any time of the day or night if she needed him. Why, perhaps she was in trouble. He hastened to the door and opened it.
A chauffeur came out of the lobby and hurried to him.
“Mr. Morley?” he asked respectfully.
Val nodded. “You have a message for me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the chauffeur. “From Miss Pomeroy, sir.”
A warm glow went through Val. She needed him, and she was sending for him. That was good.
She wants you to come right away, sir—my taxi is downstairs,” added the chauffeur. “Come in,” said Val, and he preceded the man into his apartment, peeling off his dresing robe as he did so.
“What’s the matter with Miss Pomeroy?” he asked.
The driver shook his head negatively. “Dunno, sir. I was cruisin’ around without no fare in me cab when I passed through her street. She called to me from the window and I come up. Then she told me to come to you and ask you to come at once. That’s all I know, sir. Said I was to say it was very important.”
“All right—be right with you,” snapped Val, going for his coat.
He slipped his automatic into his pocket for the second time that night.
“Might need it,” he muttered. He decided not to wake Eddie. He was tired and had done his share for that night. Probably he would not be necessary, anyway. Women get funny notions in the middle of the night, you know, and probably Jessica didn’t need him so badly as she thought she did. But he felt exhilarated just the same. He glowed all over with the thought, the feeling that she had instinctively turned to him when she needed assistance.
“Let’s go!” he snapped to the chauffeur.
A shabby taxi was waiting outside and the driver jumped for the wheel.
“Never mind the speed laws, young man,” directed Val. “Let ’er out.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the driver of the car, which with a coughing of her exhaust, shot into high at once.
Through the darkened streets they fled across town, leaving belated warfarers staring after them in astonishment as they shot along. Corners meant no slackening of the speed, and within the car Val, for all his bulk, rattled around like a pebble.
“Give er the gas!” he shouted out to the driver. “Faster! Can’t you go faster!”
The driver said nothing, but the maker of the car would have been glad to get his testimonial of the speed of which it was capable. It was not something for any automobile manufacturer to be ashamed of. Now that he had time to think of it, Val was beginning to be alarmed for the girl. Surely, it must be something of vast importance that would cause her to send for him so late at night.
She was in danger! Perhaps, even now, whatever it was that was menacing her had overtaken her. Perhaps by now she was lying white and still⸺”
“Speed ’er up!” he shouted to the driver, who grunted something unintelligible in reply. Val’s strained, white face gazed at the backward flying, slumberous streets; his soul was leaping far ahead of the car, straining to get to the side of his well-beloved. The car swept around a corner into Jessica’s street, and with a grind of brakes slowed up in front of the house.
“Here y’are, sir,” said the driver.
Val banged the door open and leaped out.
“Wait here!” he directed and plunged for the dark vestibule.
He turned to the bells to find the name of Pomeroy. It was so dark he could not make it out, and he leaned forward further.
Suddenly a million constellations burst before his eyes. Flowers bloomed and birds sang—or perhaps flowers sang and birds bloomed—it was all the same to Val. An inert mass of unthinking, unconscious flesh, he lay crumpled up, unconscious to a busy world, in the vestibule of the house of Jessica Pomeroy.
Above him a large figure, grinning malevolently in the gloom, reared itself.