MRS1 The Under Dogs (7 page)

But she had already hung up. I ran in to tell my mistress the news.

All pretence of further work was abandoned. Mme. Storey sent word down to the door that no one but Melanie was to be brought up. I stood in the big window in her room watching the sidewalk. This handsome, projecting window was put in when the old house was reconditioned. It fills the whole end of the room, with six casements overlooking the park, and a narrower one at each end through which we are able to look up and down the street. Mme. Storey and Crider were behind me. They had to depend on me to identify the approaching girl.

That ten minutes or so had all the effect of an hour. Finally I saw her turn the corner down at Fourth Avenue, which is about three hundred yards away. "Here she comes!" I said, and the other two pressed up close to look over my shoulder. Melanie walked with a fine, free stride. She had gotten herself up with the greatest care, and at that distance she looked as smart as a debutante. There were even flowers at her waist.

There we stood, the three of us, and saw all that happened, powerless to aid our friend. The street was almost empty. I remember there was a nondescript woman behind Melanie, and there were two well-dressed men, members of one of the clubs in our block, walking towards her. Around the corner came a black taxi-cab, which looked no different from any other taxi. Passing Melanie, it swerved suddenly into the curb, and stopped. Two men tumbled out. They faced Melanie. She half turned as if to run, but a hand was raised holding a short, thick weapon. It descended, and Melanie crumpled.

The sound of a scream reached our ears. Not from Melanie, but from the woman behind her. The two well-dressed men started running towards the trio, but one of the attackers turned, and pointed a gun at them. They fell back. The other thug dragged Melanie's limp body to the open door of the taxi. Getting in first, he pulled her after. His friend, still covering the club-men, backed into the cab, and pulled the door to. They were off.

All this happened in less time than it takes to read it. At the first sign of danger, our Crider had started for the door. Before he got out in the street, the taxi was gone. Mme. Storey had snatched open the drawer of her desk where she keeps a pistol. Her object was to shoot at the tyres of the taxi. But it did not pass our windows. Turning on two wheels up the west side of the little square, it turned again into Twenty-First Street, and was gone.

When it became clear that we could do nothing to aid the girl, my strong and self-reliant mistress broke down. I had never before seen her so terribly moved. Her head hung down, and she gripped my wrist, as if for support.

"Oh, Bella! Bella! Bella!" she murmured heart-brokenly. "She put herself in my hands! She trusted in me. And I failed her!"

"No! No!" I cried. "It was not your fault. You could do nothing! The responsibility was hers until she got here!"

But Mme. Storey had already got her grip again. Her head was thrown up, and her dark eyes flashed. "By heaven, I'll make them pay!" she cried. "If it's my last act on earth they shall pay for this! Everything else shall be dropped. Government business or whatever it is. I will do nothing, I will think of nothing until I have avenged this poor girl.... Quick! call Crider back!"

Crider was down at the front door, looking this way and that, uncertain which way the taxicab had gone. From the window I made him a signal to come up.

Mme. Storey was pacing up and down the room, pressing her knuckles to her temples. "Get Police Headquarters," she said. "Inspector Rumsey on the phone. Tell the operator down there it is Miss Bessemer calling. Rumsey will know that name."

Inspector Rumsey was her old and loyal friend, and incidentally one of the best police officers in the country; a man superior to political considerations.

While I was getting my call through, Crider came in. Mme. Storey said: "They cannot know for sure whether we expected the girl. It is essential to them to find that out. Quick! Return downstairs, and tell the hall-boys that anybody who asks for me is to be brought up. If they said, 'Madame Storey is not seeing anybody,' that in itself would be suspicious. Warn the boys afresh to answer no questions. Take them into our confidence. Tell them that our friend was attacked on the way here, and the only chance of saving her life lies in concealing the fact that we expected her."

Crider ran out. I got the inspector on the wire.

"Write out a description of the girl," Mme. Storey said to me.

"My dear friend," she said to the inspector, "I am in the greatest distress. I cannot be frank over the telephone, but I will find a way to let you know the full particulars.... No, we cannot meet for the present, for I shall certainly be watched.... Listen! it is of the utmost importance that it should not be known that this information came to you from me, understand? ...

"The first thing to do is to send out a general alarm to every patrolman on the force. Word it this way: At four thirty-five this afternoon an unknown woman walking east on Twentieth Street was overtaken by a taxi-cab at a point a hundred feet or so east of Fourth Avenue. Two men jumped out of the cab; one of them struck the girl with a blackjack and dragged her into the cab, while the other with a pistol held off two men who ran to her assistance. The taxi then made off up the west side of Gramercy Park, and turned west in Twenty-First Street. We got the licence number." Mme. Storey read it to him.

"Here is the description of the girl," she went on, and read him from the pencilled memo. I handed her: "About twenty-six years old, but looks younger; taller than average, strong, graceful figure, and strikingly good-looking, in a bold dark style. Black hair, bobbed at her neck; large dark brown eyes. Was wearing a well-tailored blue suit, and small, black straw hat of the style known as
cloche
."

"As to the two men who attacked her," Mme. Storey went on, "I can only say that they were slender and active. They wore dark suits and tweed caps. There were several witnesses to the affair, and better descriptions of the men will, no doubt, reach you through the regular channels."

While Mme. Storey was talking, the buzzer sounded that announced the entrance of somebody into my room. She broke off, saying: "Send that out, and I'll call you up again in five minutes."

With quick nods she directed that Crider was to go in the back room, while I received our caller.

"Compose your face, Bella," she said sternly.

I put on my dark-rimmed glasses. They help me to look blank when I have need to do so. My heart was beating like a trip-hammer. In my room I found a slender, dark young man, who was apparently in the greatest excitement, but it was all put on, for his dark eyes were cool and hard. They bored me through like gimlets. Well, he got no change out of me.

"Is Mme. Storey in?" he cried, with seeming breathlessness.

"What do you want of her?" I asked.

"There's been a girl knocked on the head down the street and abducted in a car!" he cried.

I made haste to open the door, and he ran into my mistress's room. She was writing at her desk with admirable composure. She looked up in cool surprise. The young man repeated his announcement with added details.

"Good heavens! how terrible!" cried my mistress, springing up.

She turned to look out of the window, as was most natural, and I followed her. Quite a crowd had gathered on the spot where the outrage had taken place.

"Oh, they're gone," said the young man. "Made a clean getaway."

"Have the police been notified?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Sure, the cops arrived on the scene after everything was over."

"Why did you come to tell me?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Well, I heard somebody in the crowd say she was a friend of yours," he answered glibly.

I shall never forget the face of the speaker; sleek, sharp and insolent, with eyes as flat and expressionless as an animal's. He wasn't but eighteen or nineteen years old, but he looked
steeped
in evil.

"Good heavens!" cried Mme. Storey, opening her eyes very wide. "What sort of girl? Describe her?"

"I didn't see it myself," said the young man, "but I heard them talking." His description of the girl closely followed my own.

"That suggests nothing to me," said Mme. Storey, shaking her head. "I wasn't expecting anybody at this hour.... You should notify police headquarters. Use my phone."

But the man, acting as if distracted, turned and ran out of the room. Mme. Storey and I exchanged a look. Crider came in from the back room.

"That was one of the two who seized Melanie," said my mistress bitterly. "He had changed his hat, that was all. It was hard to let him go. After they had gone a block or so, he dropped off the car and came back to see what was doing. It's an old trick."

"I can pick him up," said Crider eagerly. "Let me trail him."

Mme. Storey shook her head. "He would lead you nowhere. And the risk is too great—to her, I mean. There is one chance in ten that she is still alive. She is very useful to them. But if they suspected that I had any knowledge of their activities, it would seal her death warrant."

Crider turned away, keenly disappointed.

I got Inspector Rumsey on the phone again.

To him Mme. Storey said: "I shall be working myself on this matter, but it will be underground, and you won't hear from me till the result is known. I want you to put the regular machinery in motion, because nothing must be neglected, but I must beg of you to use the greatest caution. Unless you can take them by surprise, you will only find the girl's dead body at the end of the trail.

"It is about our usual closing time here," she went on, "and I mean to walk home in my customary leisurely manner. I shall no doubt be followed. I'll have Bella stop in at the Arts Club, on her way home, if you can meet her there in half an hour's time. She may be watched, too, but no one could get into the club who had not legitimate business there...."

"You'll be there? Very good. Bella will go in at the Twentieth Street entrance, which is almost next door to our office. You enter from Nineteenth Street, and leave that way. You are not a member, are you? No. Well, ask for me, and they'll bring you to Bella. She will tell you the whole story. It's a very strange one, my friend. Better make no attempt to communicate with me through the usual channels. Good-bye."

To me she said: "You are to tell him the whole story of Melanie Soupert, so far as you know it. He's entitled to the facts. But warn him afresh to keep the real name of to-day's victim locked in his own breast. If it was published, it would be all up with her. Tell him that I promised to save the girl from serving out her two sentences, but if he gets hold of her, of course, he must be guided by his own conscience. At any rate, it would be better to have her back in Woburn than in her grave. And I guess you and I could get her out, Bella."

We still had some minutes before closing time, and she dictated letters to me for Secretary X., for Mrs. Van der Ventner and others, notifying them that she was obliged to drop all work on their respective cases for the present. She gave as her reason that her physician had ordered her to take a rest, and suggested that the work be given to an agency that she recommended.

"It's unfair and it's unprofessional," she said with a troubled brow, "but I can't help myself. At a moment like this all other considerations must give way."

She then dictated a notice to be given out to the press. "Madame Rosika Storey of — Gramercy Park, is sailing on the
Baratoria
on Saturday at noon for her usual vacation in Paris. She will be away three months."

"To-morrow morning," she went on, "go to the Brevard Line, and secure the best available room on C deck."

"But you're not
really
going!" I said, opening my eyes very wide.

She smiled. "I shall appear to go. That is, unless Rumsey recovers the girl before Saturday. That's not likely. He's a first-rate man, but in this case he will soon come up against the political barriers: 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther!'"

Full of amazement, I digested this announcement.

"I see no way of getting my man but by slow, patient stalking," she went on.

"Your man?" I said; "there is a whole gang."

"There is certain to be one," she said, "from whom all the others receive their impetus. He is my mark."

"You are going into danger!" I said, with a sinking heart.

She shrugged. "You'll hear from me," she said. "Thank God! the telephone is above suspicion. They can't tap my wires."

"Let me share it," I begged. "How could I remain here day after day in suspense. Not able to reach you—not knowing what was happening...."

"My dear Bella!" she said, laying her hand on mine for an instant. "These are only sickly fancies. Surely, of all women, I ought to be able to take care of myself. I can't take you with me, my dear; it would double the risk, and besides, I must have some one here that I can call on in time of need."

That silenced me, of course.

Nothing was omitted to create the illusion of Mme. Storey's departure for her usual three months in Paris. A brilliant group of her friends saw her off at the pier; including the Hon. Emmet Fogarty, Mrs. Cornelius Marquardt, Countess Montpellier, and others much in the public eye. All of which was commented on in the press. Mme. Storey herself gave out an interview, telling of her plans in detail, and she was photographed at least a dozen times on the sun deck of the
Baratoria
, for the rotogravure supplements.

A week later, her arrival in Paris was cabled back, and at intervals of two or three days thereafter, items appeared chronicling her appearance at Longchamps, at the Duchesse D'Uze's garden party, at a reception in the Elysée Palace, and so on. Even her costumes were described; all this was arranged for through an agent in Paris. For, of course, Mme. Storey never left New York.

With her departure, all activities at the office abruptly ceased, and my duties became merely perfunctory. I occupied myself chiefly with reading the newspapers and writing my stories. The newspapers never yielded a word that could be applied to our case. During the first few days I believe that I was followed wherever I went, but I was not sure, because Mme. Storey had warned me not to betray the least suspicion that I might be followed. At any rate, I had seen one or two men who seemed to ignore my existence rather self-consciously. One, a heavy, blond German with a pock-marked face and a lowering look, I had seen twice. But, after four days, nothing more of the sort had come under my notice, and I was beginning to hope that our efforts to convince the gang we had no interest in their doings had finally been successful.