"'I dunno how you got there,' says Jerry, 'but, if I don't kill you for this later on, I'd like to shake hands with you. It was a good trick.'

"'The gent that taught me near busted me in two with the trick of it,' said Doone. 'S'pose I let you up. Is it to be a handshaking or fighting?'

"'My wind is gone for half an hour,' says Jerry, 'and my head is pretty near jarred loose from my spinal column. I guess it'll have to be hand-shaking today. But I warn you, Doone,' he says, 'someday I'll have it all out with you over again.'

"'Any time you mention,' says Doone, 'but, if you'd landed that left when you rushed in, I would have been on the carpet, instead of you.'

"And Jerry chuckles, feeling a pile better to think how near he'd come to winning the fight.

"'Wait till I jump under the shower,' says Jerry, 'and I'll be with you again. Have you had breakfast? And what brought you to me? And who the devil are you, Doone? Are you out of the West?'

"He piles all these questions thick and fast at Doone, and then I seen right off that him and Doone had made up to be pretty thick with each other. So I went away from the door and didn't listen any more, and in about half an hour out they walk, arm in arm, like old pals."

It was perfectly clear to John Mark that Ronicky had come there purposely to break the link between him and young Jerry Smith. It was perfectly plain why he wanted to do it.

"How much does Jerry owe me?" he asked suddenly.

The other drew out a pad and calculated for a moment: "Seven thousand eight hundred and forty-two," he announced with a grin, as he put back the pad. "That's what he's sold himself for, up to this time."

"Too much in a way and not enough in another way," replied John Mark. "Listen, if he comes back, which I doubt, keep him here. Get him away from Ronicky—dope him—dope them both. In any case, if he comes back here, don't let him get away. You understand?"

"Nope, but I don't need to understand. I'll do it."

John Mark nodded and turned toward the door.



Chapter Eighteen

The Spider's Web

Only the select attended the meetings at Fernand's. It was doubly hard to choose them. They had to have enough money to afford high play, and they also had to lose without a murmur. It made it extremely difficult to build up a clientele, but Fernand was equal to the task. He seemed to smell out the character of a man or woman, to know at once how much iron was in their souls. And, following the course of an evening's play, Fernand knew the exact moment at which a man had had enough. It was never twice the same for the same man. A rich fellow, who lost twenty thousand one day and laughed at it, might groan and curse if he lost twenty hundred a week later.

It was Fernand's desire to keep those groans and curses from being heard in his gaming house. He extracted wallets painlessly, so to speak.

He was never crooked; and yet he would not have a dealer in his employ unless the fellow knew every good trick of running up the deck. The reason was that, while Fernand never cheated in order to take money away from his customers, he very, very frequently had his men cheat in order to give money away.

This sounds like a mad procedure for the proprietor of a gaming house, but there were profound reasons beneath it. For one of the maxims of Fernand—and, like every gambler, he had many of them—was that the best way to make a man lose money is first of all to make him win it.

Such was Monsieur Frederic Fernand. And, if many compared him to Falstaff, and many pitied the merry, fat old man for having fallen into so hard a profession, yet there were a few who called him a bloated spider, holding his victims, with invisible cords, and bleeding them slowly to death.

To help him he had selected two men, both young, both shrewd, both iron in will and nerve and courage, both apparently equally expert with the cards, and both just as equally capable of pleasing his clients. One was a Scotchman, McKeever; the other was a Jew, Simonds. But in looks they were as much alike as two peas out of one pod. They hated each other with silent, smiling hatred, because they knew that they were on trial for their fortunes.

Tonight the Jew, Simonds, was dealing at one of the tables, and the Scotchman, McKeever, stood at the side of the master of the house, ready to execute his commissions. Now and again his dark eyes wandered toward the table where the Jew sat, with the cards flashing through his fingers. McKeever hungered to be there on the firing line! How he wished he could feel that sifting of the polished cardboard under his finger tips. They were playing Black Jack. He noted the smooth skill with which Simonds buried a card. And yet the trick was not perfectly done. Had he, McKeever, been there—

At this point he was interrupted by the easy, oily voice of M. Fernand. "This is an infernal nuisance!"

McKeever raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation. Two young men, very young, very straight, had just come into the rooms. One he knew to be Jerry Smith.

"Another table and dealer wasted," declared M. Fernand. "Smith—and, by heavens, he's brought some friend of his with him!"

"Shall I see if I can turn them away without playing?" asked McKeever.

"No, not yet. Smith is a friend of John Mark. Don't forget that. Never forget, McKeever, that the friends of John Mark must be treated with gloves—always!"

"Very good," replied McKeever, like a pupil memorizing in class.

"I'll see how far I can go with them," went on M. Fernand. He went straight to the telephone and rang John Mark.

"How far should I go with them?" he asked, after he had explained that Smith had just come in.

"Is there someone with him?" asked John Mark eagerly.

"A young chap about the same age—very brown."

"That's the man I want!"

"The man you want?"

"Fernand," said Mark, without explaining, "those youngsters have gone out there to make some money at your expense."

M. Fernand growled. "I wish you'd stop using me as a bank, Mark," he complained. "Besides, it costs a good deal."

"I pay you a tolerable interest, I believe," said John Mark coldly.

"Of course, of course! Well"—this in a manner of great resignation—"how much shall I let them take away?"

"Bleed them both to death if you want. Let them play on credit. Go as far as you like."

"Very well," said Fernand, "but—"

"I may be out there later, myself. Good-by."

The face of Frederic Fernand was dark when he went back to McKeever. "What do you think of the fellow with Jerry Smith?" he asked.

"Of him?" asked McKeever, fencing desperately for another moment, as he stared at Ronicky Doone.

The latter was idling at a table close to the wall, running his hands through a litter of magazines. After a moment he raised his head suddenly and glanced across the room at McKeever. The shock of meeting glances is almost a physical thing. And the bold, calm eyes of Ronicky Doone lingered on McKeever and seemed to judge him and file that judgment away.

McKeever threw himself upon the wings of his imagination. There was something about this fellow, or his opinion would not have been asked. What was it?

"Well?" asked Frederic Fernand peevishly. "What do you think of him?"

"I think," said the other casually, "that he's probably a Western gunman, with a record as long as my arm."

"You think that?" asked the fat man. "Well, I've an idea that you think right. There's something about him that suggests action. The way he looks about, so slowly—that is the way a fearless man is apt to look, you know. Do you think you can sit at the table with Ronicky Doone, as they call him, and Jerry Smith and win from them this evening?"

"With any sort of luck—"

"Leave the luck out of it. John Mark has made a special request. Tonight, McKeever, it's going to be your work to make the luck come to you. Do you think you can?"

A faint smile began to dawn on the face of McKeever. Never in his life had he heard news so sweet to his ear. It meant, in brief, that he was to be trusted for the first time at real manipulation of the cards. His trust in himself was complete. This would be a crushing blow for Simonds.

"Mind you," the master of the house went on, "if you are caught at working—"

"Nonsense!" said McKeever happily. "They can't follow my hands."

"This fellow Doone—I don't know."

"I'll take the chance."

"If you're caught I turn you out. You hear? Are you willing to take the risk?"

"Yes," said McKeever, very pale, but determined.

At the right moment McKeever approached Jerry and Ronicky, dark, handsome, smoothly amiable. He was clever enough to make no indirect effort to introduce his topic. "I see that you gentlemen are looking about," he said. "Yonder is a clear table for us. Do you agree, Mr. Smith?"

Jerry Smith nodded, and, having introduced Ronicky Doone, the three started for the table which had been indicated.

It was in an alcove, apart from the sweep of big rooms which were given over to the players. It lay, too, conveniently in range of the beat of Frederic Fernand, as he moved slowly back and forth, over a limited territory and stopped, here and there for a word, here and there for a smile. He was smoothing the way for dollars to slide out of wallets. Now he deliberately stopped the party in their progress to the alcove.

"I have to meet you," he said to Ronicky. "You remind me of a friend of my father, a young Westerner, those many years ago. Same brown skin, same clear eye. He was a card expert, the man I'm thinking about. I hope you're not in the same class, my friend!"

Then he went on, laughing thunderously at his own poor jest. Particularly from the back, as he retreated, he seemed a harmless fat man, very simple, very naive. But Ronicky Doone regarded him with an interest both cold and keen. And, with much the same regard, after Fernand had passed out of view, the Westerner regarded the table at which they were to sit.

In the alcove were three wall lights, giving an ample illumination—too ample to suit Ronicky Doone. For McKeever had taken the chair with the back to the light. He made no comment, but, taking the chair which was facing the lights, the chair which had been pointed out to him by McKeever, he drew it around on the far side and sat down next to the professional gambler.



Chapter Nineteen

Stacked Cards

The game opened slowly. The first, second, and third hands were won by Jerry Smith. He tucked away his chips with a smile of satisfaction, as if the three hands were significant of the whole progress of the game. But Ronicky Doone pocketed his losses without either smile or sneer. He had played too often in games in the West which ran to huge prices. Miners had come in with their belts loaded with dust, eager to bet the entire sum of their winnings at once. Ranchers, fat with the profits of a good sale of cattle, had wagered the whole amount of it in a single evening. As far as large losses and large gains were concerned, Ronicky Doone was ready to handle the bets of anyone, other than millionaires, without a smile or a wince.

The trouble with McKeever was that he was playing the game too closely. Long before, it had been a maxim with the chief that a good gambler should only lose by a small margin. That maxim McKeever, playing for the first time for what he felt were important stakes in the eyes of Fernand, followed too closely. Stacking the cards, with the adeptness which years of practice had given to him, he never raised the amount of his opponent's hand beyond its own order. A pair was beaten by a pair, three of a kind was simply beaten by three of a kind of a higher order; and, when a full house was permitted by his expert dealing to appear to excite the other gamblers, he himself indulged in no more than a superior grade of three of a kind.

Half a dozen times these coincidences happened without calling for any distrust on the part of Ronicky Doone, but eventually he began to think. Steady training enabled his eyes to do what the eyes of the ordinary man could not achieve, and, while to Jerry Smith all that happened in the deals of McKeever was the height of correctness, Ronicky Doone, at the seventh deal, awakened to the fact that something was wrong.

He hardly dared to allow himself to think of anything for a time, but waited and watched, hoping against hope that Jerry Smith himself would discover the fraud which was being perpetrated on them. But Jerry Smith maintained a bland interest in the game. He had won between two and three hundred, and these winnings had been allowed by McKeever to accumulate in little runs, here and there. For nothing encourages a gambler toward reckless betting so much as a few series of high hands. He then begins to believe that he can tell, by some mysterious feeling inside, that one good hand presages another. Jerry Smith had not been brought to the point where he was willing to plunge, but he was very close to it.

McKeever was gathering the youngster in the hollow of his hand, and Ronicky Doone, fully awake and aware of all that was happening, felt a gathering rage accumulate in him. There was something doubly horrible in this cheating in this place. Ronicky set his teeth and watched. Plainly he was the chosen victim. The winnings of Jerry Smith were carefully balanced against the losses of Ronicky Doone. Hatred for this smooth-faced McKeever was waxing in him, and hatred in Ronicky Doone meant battle.

An interruption came to him from the side. It came in the form of a brief rustling of silk, like the stir of wind, and then Ruth Tolliver's coppery hair and green-blue eyes were before him—Ruth Tolliver in an evening gown and wonderful to look at. Ronicky Doone indulged himself with staring eyes, as he rose to greet her. This, then, was her chosen work under the regime of John Mark. It was as a gambler that she was great. The uneasy fire was in her eyes, the same fire that he had seen in Western gold camps, in Western gaming houses. And the delicate, nervous fingers now took on a new meaning to him.

That she had won heavily this evening he saw at once. The dangerous and impalpable flush of the gamester was on her face, and behind it burned a glow and radiance. She looked as if, having defeated men by the coolness of her wits and the favor of luck, she had begun to think that she could now outguess the world. Two men trailed behind her, stirring uneasily about when she paused at Ronicky's alcove table.

"You've found the place so soon?" she asked. "How is your luck?"

"Not nearly as good tonight as yours."

"Oh, I can't help winning. Every card I touch turns into gold this evening. I think I have the formula for it."

"Tell me, then," said Ronicky quickly enough, for there was just the shadow of a backward nod of her head.

"Just step aside. I'll spoil Mr. McKeever's game for him, I'm afraid."

Ronicky excused himself with a nod to the other two and followed the girl into the next room.

"I have bad news," she whispered instantly, "but keep smiling. Laugh if you can. The two men with me I don't know. They may be his spies for all we can tell. Ronicky Doone, John Mark is out for you. Why, in Heaven's name, are you interfering with Caroline Smith and her affairs? It will be your death, I promise you. John Mark has arrived and has placed men around the house. Ronicky Doone, he means business. Help yourself if you can. I'm unable to lift a hand for you. If I were you I should leave, and I should leave at once. Laugh, Ronicky Doone!"

He obeyed, laughing until the tears were glittering in his eyes, until the girl laughed with him.

"Good!" she whispered. "Good-by, Ronicky, and good luck."

He watched her going, saw the smiles of the two men, as they greeted her again and closed in beside her, and watched the light flash on her shoulders, as she shrugged away some shadow from her mind—perhaps the small care she had given about him. But no matter how cold-hearted she might be, how thoroughly in tune with this hard, bright world of New York, she at least was generous and had courage. Who could tell how much she risked by giving him that warning?

Ronicky went back to his place at the table, still laughing in apparent enjoyment of the jest he had just heard. He saw McKeever's ferretlike glance of interrogation and distrust—a thief's distrust of an honest man—but Ronicky's good nature did not falter in outward seeming for an instant. He swept up his hand, bet a hundred, with apparently foolish recklessness, on three sevens, and then had to buy fresh chips from McKeever.

The coming of the girl seemed to have completely upset his equilibrium as a gambler—certainly it made him bet with the recklessness of a madman. And Frederic Fernand, glancing in from time to time, watched the demolition of Ronicky's pile of chips, with growing complacence.

Ronicky Doone had allowed himself to take heed of the room about him, and Frederic Fernand liked him for it. His beautiful rooms were pearls cast before swine, so far as most of his visitors were concerned. A moment later Ronicky had risen, went toward the wall and drew a dagger from its sheath.

It was a full twelve inches in length, that blade, and it came to a point drawn out thinner than the eye could follow. The end was merely a long glint of light. As for Ronicky Doone, he cried out in surprise and then sat down, balancing the weapon in his hand and looking down at it, with the silent happiness of a child with a satisfying toy.

Frederic Fernand was observing him. There was something remarkably likable in young Doone, he decided. No matter what John Mark had said—no matter if John Mark was a genius in reading the characters of men—every genius could make mistakes. This, no doubt, was one of John Mark's mistakes. There was the free and careless thoughtlessness of a boy about this young fellow. And, though he glanced down the glimmering blade of the weapon, with a sort of sinister joy, Frederic Fernand did not greatly care. There was more to admire in the workmanship of the hilt than in a thousand such blades, but a Westerner would have his eye on the useful part of a thing.

"How much d'you think that's worth?" asked McKeever.

"Dunno," said Ronicky. "That's good steel."

He tried the point, then he snapped it under his thumb nail and a little shiver of a ringing sound reached as far as Frederic Fernand.

Then he saw Ronicky Doone suddenly lean a little across the table, pointing toward the hand in which McKeever held the pack, ready for the deal.

McKeever shook his head and gripped the pack more closely.

"Do you suspect me of crooked work?" asked McKeever. He pushed back his chair. Fernand, studying his lieutenant in this crisis, approved of him thoroughly. He himself was in a quandary. Westerners fight, and a fight would be most embarrassing. "Do you think—" began McKeever.

"I think you'll keep that hand and that same pack of cards on the table till I've had it looked over," said Ronicky Doone. "I've dropped a cold thousand to you, and you're winning it with stacked decks, McKeever."

There was a stifled oath from McKeever, as he jerked his hand back. Frederic Fernand was beginning to draw one breath of joy at the thought that McKeever would escape without having that pack, of all packs, examined, when the long dagger flashed in the hand of Ronicky Doone.

He struck as a cat strikes when it hooks the fish out of the stream—he struck as the snapper on the end of a whiplash doubles back. And well and truly did that steel uphold its fame.

The dull, chopping sound of the blow stood by itself for an instant. Then McKeever, looking down in horror at his hand, screamed and fell back in his chair.

That was the instant when Frederic Fernand judged his lieutenant and found him wanting. A man who fainted in such a crisis as this was beyond the pale.

Other people crowded past him. Frightened, desperate, he pushed on. At length his weight enabled him to squeeze through the rapidly gathering crowd of gamblers.

The only nonchalant man of the lot was he who had actually used the weapon. For Ronicky Doone stood with his shoulders propped against the wall, his hands clasped lightly behind him. For all that, it was plain that he was not unarmed. A certain calm insolence about his expression told Frederic Fernand that the teeth of the dragon were not drawn.

"Gents," he was saying, in his mild voice, while his eyes ran restlessly from face to face, "I sure do hate to bust up a nice little party like this one has been, but I figure them cards are stacked. I got a pile of reasons for knowing, and I want somebody to look over them cards—somebody that knows stacked cards when he sees 'em. Mostly it ain't hard to get onto the order of them being run up. I'll leave it, gents, to the man that runs this dump."

And, leaning across the table, he pushed the pack straight to Frederic Fernand. The latter set his teeth. It was very cunningly done to trap him. If he said the cards were straight they might be examined afterward; and, if he were discovered in a lie, it would mean more than the loss of McKeever—it would mean the ruin of everything. Did he dare take the chance? Must he give up McKeever? The work of years of careful education had been squandered on McKeever.

Fernand looked up, and his eyes rested on the calm face of Ronicky Doone. Why had he never met a man like that before? There was an assistant! There was a fellow with steel-cold nerve—worth a thousand trained McKeevers! Then he glanced at the wounded man, cowering and bunched in his chair. At that moment the gambler made up his mind to play the game in the big way and pocket his losses.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said sadly, placing the cards back on the edge of the table, "I am sorry to say that Mr. Doone is right. The pack has been run up. There it is for any of you to examine it. I don't pretend to understand. Most of you know that McKeever has been with me for years. Needless to say, he will be with me no more." And, turning on his heel, the old fellow walked slowly away, his hands clasped behind him, his head bowed.

And the crowd poured after him to shake his hand and tell him of their unshakable confidence in his honesty. McKeever was ruined, but the house of Frederic Fernand was more firmly established than ever, after the trial of the night.



Chapter Twenty

Trapped!

"Get the money," said Ronicky to Jerry Smith.

"There it is!"

He pointed to the drawer, where McKeever, as banker, had kept the money. The wounded man in the meantime had disappeared.

"How much is ours?" asked Jerry Smith.

"All you find there," answered Ronicky calmly.

"But there's a big bunch—large bills, too. McKeever was loaded for bear."

"He loses—the house loses it. Out in my country, Jerry, that wouldn't be half of what the house would lose for a little trick like what's been played on us tonight. Not the half of what the house would lose, I tell you! He had us trimmed, Jerry, and out West we'd wreck this joint from head to heels."

The diffident Jerry fingered the money in the drawer of the table uncertainly. Ronicky Doone swept it up and thrust it into his pocket. "We'll split straws later," said Ronicky. "Main thing we need right about now is action. This coin will start us."

In the hall, as they took their hats, they found big Frederic Fernand in the act of dissuading several of his clients from leaving. The incident of the evening was regrettable, most regrettable, but such things would happen when wild men appeared. Besides, the fault had been that of McKeever. He assured them that McKeever would never again be employed in his house. And Fernand meant it. He had discarded all care for the wounded man.

Ronicky Doone stepped to him and drew him aside. "Mr. Fernand," he said, "I've got to have a couple of words with you."

"Come into my private room," said Fernand, eager to get the fighter out of view of the rest of the little crowd. He drew Ronicky and Jerry Smith into a little apartment which opened off the hall. It was furnished with an almost feminine delicacy of style, with wide-seated, spindle-legged Louis XV. chairs and a couch covered with rich brocade. The desk was a work of Boulle. A small tapestry of the Gobelins made a ragged glow of color on the wall. Frederic Fernand had recreated an atmosphere two hundred years old.

He seated them at once. "And now, sir," he said sternly to Ronicky Doone, "you are aware that I could have placed you in the hands of the police for what you've done tonight?"

Ronicky Doone made no answer. His only retort was a gradually spreading smile. "Partner," he said at length, while Fernand was flushing with anger at this nonchalance on the part of the Westerner, "they might of grabbed me, but they would have grabbed your house first."

"That fact," said Fernand hotly, "is the reason you have dared to act like a wild man in my place? Mr. Doone, this is your last visit."

"It sure is," said Ronicky heartily. "D'you know what would have happened out in my neck of the woods, if there had been a game like the one tonight? I wouldn't have waited to be polite, but just pulled a gat and started smashing things for luck."

"The incident is closed," Fernand said with gravity, and he leaned forward, as if to rise.

"Not by a long sight," said Ronicky Doone. "I got an idea, partner, that you worked the whole deal. This is a square house, Fernand. Why was I picked out for the dirty work?"

It required all of Fernand's long habits of self control to keep him from gasping. He managed to look Ronicky Doone fairly in the eyes. What did the youngster know? What had he guessed?

"Suppose I get down to cases and name names? The gent that talked to you about me was John Mark. Am I right?" asked Ronicky.

"Sir," said Fernand, thinking that the world was tumbling about his ears, "what infernal—"

"I'm right," said Ronicky. "I can tell when I've hurt a gent by the way his face wrinkles up. I sure hurt you that time, Fernand. John Mark it was, eh?"

Fernand could merely stare. He began to have vague fears that this young devil might have hypnotic powers, or be in touch with he knew not what unearthly source of information.

"Out with it," said Ronicky, leaving his chair.

Frederic Fernand bit his lip in thought. He was by no means a coward, and two alternatives presented themselves to him. One was to say nothing and pretend absolute ignorance; the other was to drop his hand into his coat pocket and fire the little automatic which nestled there.

"Listen," said Ronicky Doone, "suppose I was to go a little farther still in my guesses! Suppose I said I figured out that John Mark and his men might be scattered around outside this house, waiting for me and Smith to come out: What would you say to that?"

"Nothing," said Fernand, but he blinked as he spoke. "For a feat of imagination as great as that I have only a silent admiration. But, if you have some insane idea that John Mark, a gentleman I know and respect greatly, is lurking like an assassin outside the doors of my house—"

"Or maybe inside 'em," said Ronicky, unabashed by this gravity.

"If you think that," went on the gambler heavily, "I can only keep silence. But, to ease your own mind, I'll show you a simple way out of the house—a perfectly safe way which even you cannot doubt will lead you out unharmed. Does that bring you what you want?"

"It sure does," said Ronicky. "Lead the way, captain, and you'll find us right at your heels." He fell in beside Jerry Smith, while the fat man led on as their guide.

"What does he mean by a safe exit?" asked Jerry Smith. "You'd think we were in a smuggler's cave."

"Worse," said Ronicky, "a pile worse, son. And they'll sure have to have some tunnels or something for get-aways. This ain't a lawful house, Jerry."

As they talked, they were being led down toward the cellar. They paused at last in a cool, big room, paved with cement, and the unmistakable scent of the underground was in the air.

"Here we are," said the fat man, and, so saying, he turned a switch which illumined the room completely and then drew aside a curtain which opened into a black cavity.

Ronicky Doone approached and peered into it. "How does it look to you, Jerry?" he asked.

"Dark, but good enough for me, if you're all set on leaving by some funny way."

"I don't care how it looks," said Ronicky thoughtfully. "By the looks you can't make out nothing most of the time—nothing important. But they's ways of smelling things, and the smell of this here tunnel ain't too good to me. Look again and try to pry down that tunnel with your flash light, Jerry."

Accordingly Jerry raised his little pocket electric torch and held it above his head. They saw a tunnel opening, with raw dirt walls and floor and a rude framing of heavy timbers to support the roof. But it turned an angle and went out of view in a very few paces.

"Go down there with your lantern and look for the exit," said Ronicky Doone. "I'll stay back here and see that we get our farewell all fixed up."

The damp cellar air seemed to affect the throat of the fat man. He coughed heavily.

"Say, Ronicky," said Jerry Smith, "looks to me that you're carrying this pretty far. Let's take a chance on what we've got ahead of us?"

The fat man was chuckling: "You show a touching trust in me, Mr. Doone."

Ronicky turned on him with an ugly sneer. "I don't like you, Fernand," he said. "They's nothing about you that looks good to me. If I knew half as much as I guess about you I'd blow your head off, and go on without ever thinking about you again. But I don't know. Here you've got me up against it. We're going to go down that tunnel; but, if it's blind, Fernand, and you trap us from this end, it will be the worst day of your life."

"Take this passage, Doone, or turn around and come back with me, and I'll show some other ways of getting out—ways that lie under the open sky, Doone. Would you like that better? Do you want starlight and John Mark—or a little stretch of darkness, all by yourself?" asked Fernand.

Ronicky Doone studied the face of Fernand, almost wistfully. The more he knew about the fellow the more thoroughly convinced he was that Fernand was bad in all possible ways. He might be telling the truth now, however—again he might be simply tempting him on to a danger. There was only one way to decide. Ronicky, a gambler himself, mentally flipped a coin and nodded to Jerry.

"We'll go in," he said, "but man, man, how my old scars are pricking!"

They walked into the moldy, damp air of the tunnel, reached the corner, and there the passage turned and ended in a blank wall of raw dirt, with a little apron of fallen debris at the bottom of it. Ronicky Doone walked first, and, when he saw the passage obstructed in this manner, he whirled like a flash and fired at the mouth of the tunnel.

A snarl and a curse told him that he had at least come close to his target, but he was too late. A great door was sliding rapidly across the width of the tunnel, and, before he could fire a second time, the tunnel was closed.

Jerry Smith went temporarily mad. He ran at the door, which had just closed, and struck the whole weight of his body against it. There was not so much as a quiver. The face of it was smooth steel, and there was probably a dense thickness of stonework on the other side, to match the cellar walls of the house.

"It was my fool fault," exclaimed Jerry, turning to his friend. "My fault, Ronicky! Oh, what a fool I am!"

"I should have known by the feel of the scars," said Ronicky. "Put out that flash light, Jerry. We may need that after a while, and the batteries won't last forever."

He sat down, as he spoke, cross-legged, and the last thing Jerry saw, as he snapped out the light, was the lean, intense face and the blazing eyes of Ronicky Doone. Decidedly this was not a fellow to trifle with. If he trembled for himself and Ronicky, he could also spare a shudder for what would happen to Frederic Fernand, if Ronicky got away. In the meantime the light was out, and the darkness sat heavily beside and about them, with that faint succession of inaudible breathing sounds which are sensed rather than actually heard.

"Is there anything that we can do?" asked Jerry suddenly. "It's all right to sit down and argue and worry, but isn't it foolish, Ronicky?"

"How come?"

"I mean it in this way. Sometimes when you can't solve a problem it's very easy to prove that it can't be solved by anyone. That's what I can prove now, but why waste time?"

"Have we got anything special to do with our time?" asked Ronicky dryly.

"Well, my proof is easy. Here we are in hard-pan dirt, without any sort of a tool for digging. So we sure can't tunnel out from the sides, can we?"

"Looks most like we can't," said Ronicky sadly.

"And the only ways that are left are the ends."

"That's right."

"But one end is the unfinished part of the tunnel; and, if you think we can do anything to the steel door—"

"Hush up," said Ronicky. "Besides, there ain't any use in you talking in a whisper, either. No, it sure don't look like we could do much to that door. Besides, even if we could, I don't think I'd go. I'd rather take a chance against starvation than another trip to fat Fernand's place. If I ever enter it again, son, you lay to it that he'll get me bumped off, mighty pronto."

Jerry Smith, after a groan, returned to his argument. "But that ties us up, Ronicky. The door won't work, and it's worse than solid rock. And we can't tunnel out the side, without so much as a pin to help us dig, can we? I think that just about settles things. Ronicky, we can't get out."

"Suppose we had some dynamite," said Ronicky cheerily.

"Sure, but we haven't."

"Suppose we find some?"

Jerry Smith groaned. "Are you trying to make a joke out of this? Besides, could we send off a blast of dynamite in a closed tunnel like this?"

"We could try," said Ronicky. "Way I'm figuring is to show you it's bad medicine to sit down and figure out how you're beat. Even if you owe a pile of money they's some satisfaction in sitting back and adding up the figures so that you come out about a million dollars on top—in your dreams. Before we can get out of here we got to begin to feel powerful sure."

"But you take it straight, friend: Fernand ain't going to leave us in here. Nope, he's going to find a way to get us out. That's easy to figure out. But the way he'll get us out will be as dead ones, and then he can dump us, when he feels like it, in the river. Ain't that the simplest way of working it out?"

The teeth of Jerry Smith came together with a snap. "Then the thing for us to do is to get set and wait for them to make an attack?"

"No use waiting. When they attack it'll be in a way that'll give us no chance."

"Then you figure the same as me—we're lost?"

"Unless we can get out before they make the attack. In other words, Jerry, there may be something behind the dirt wall at the end of the tunnel."

"Nonsense, Ronicky."

"There's got to be," said Ronicky very soberly, "because, if there ain't, you and me are dead ones, Jerry. Come along and help me look, anyway."

Jerry rose obediently and flashed on his precious pocket torch, and they went down to pass the turn and come again to the ragged wall of earth which terminated the passage. Jerry held the torch and passed it close to the dirt. All was solid. There was no sign of anything wrong. The very pick marks were clearly defined.

"Hold on," whispered Ronicky Doone. "Hold on, Jerry. I seen something." He snatched the electric torch, and together they peered at the patch from which the dried earth had fallen.

"Queer for hardpan to break up like that," muttered Ronicky, cutting into the surface beneath the patch, with the point of his hunting knife. Instantly there was the sharp gritting of steel against steel.

The shout of Ronicky was an indrawn breath. The shout of Jerry Smith was a moan of relief.

Ronicky continued his observations. The thing was very clear. They had dug the tunnel to this point and excavated a place which they had guarded with a steel door, but, in order to conceal the hiding place, or whatever it might be, they cunningly worked the false wall of dirt against the face of it, using clay and a thin coating of plaster as a base.

"It's a place they don't use very often, maybe," said Ronicky, "and that's why they can afford to put up this fake wall of plaster and mud after every time they want to come down here. Pretty clever to leave that little pile of dirt on the floor, just like it had been worked off by the picks, eh? But we've found 'em, Jerry, and now all we got to do is to get to the door and into whatever lies beyond."

"We'd better hurry, then," cried Jerry.

"How come?"

"Take a breath."

Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with the pungent and unmistakable odor of burning wood!



Chapter Twenty-one

The Miracle

No great intelligence was needed to understand the meaning of it. Fernand, having trapped his game, was now about to kill it. He could suffocate the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make them rush blindly out. The moment they appeared, dazed and uncertain, the revolvers of half a dozen gunmen would be emptied into them.

"It's like taking a trap full of rats," said Ronicky bitterly, "and shaking them into a pail of water. Let's go back and see what we can."

They had only to turn the corner of the tunnel to be sure. Fernand had had the door of the tunnel slid noiselessly open, then, into the tunnel itself, smoking, slowly burning, pungent pieces of pine wood had been thrown, having been first soaked in oil, perhaps. The tunnel was rapidly filling with smoke, and through the white drifts of it they looked into the lighted cellar beyond. They would run out at last, gasping for breath and blinded by the smoke, to be shot down in a perfect light. So much was clear.

"Now back to the wall and try to find that door," said Ronicky.

Jerry had already turned. In a moment they were back and tearing with their fingers at the sham wall, kicking loose fragments with their feet.

All the time, while they cleared a larger and larger space, they searched feverishly with the electric torch for some sign of a knob which would indicate a door, or some button or spring which might be used to open it. But there was nothing, and in the meantime the smoke was drifting back, in more and more unendurable clouds.

"I can't stand much more," declared Jerry at length.

"Keep low. The best air is there," answered Ronicky.

A voice called from the mouth of the tunnel, and they could recognize the smooth tongue of Frederic Fernand. "Doone, I think I have you now. But trust yourselves to me, and all may still be well with you. Throw out your weapons, and then walk out yourselves, with your arms above your heads, and you may have a second chance. I don't promise—I simply offer you a hope in the place of no hope at all. Is that a good bargain?"

"I'll see you hung first," answered Ronicky and turned again to his work at the wall.

But it seemed a quite hopeless task. The surface of the steel was still covered, after they had cleared it as much as they could, with a thin, clinging coat of plaster which might well conceal the button or device for opening the door. Every moment the task became infinitely harder.

Finally Jerry, his lungs nearly empty of oxygen, cast himself down on the floor and gasped. A horrible gagging sound betrayed his efforts for breath.

Ronicky knelt beside him. His own lungs were burning, and his head was thick and dizzy. "One more try, then we'll turn and rush them and die fighting, Jerry."

The other nodded and started to his feet. Together they made that last effort, fumbling with their hands across the rough surface, and suddenly—had they touched the spring, indeed?—a section of the surface before them swayed slowly in. Ronicky caught the half-senseless body of Jerry Smith and thrust him inside. He himself staggered after, and before him stood Ruth Tolliver!

While he lay panting on the floor, she closed the door through which they had come and then stood and silently watched them. Presently Smith sat up, and Ronicky Doone staggered to his feet, his head clearing rapidly.

He found himself in a small room, not more than eight feet square, with a ceiling so low that he could barely stand erect. As for the furnishings and the arrangement, it was more like the inside of a safe than anything else. There were, to be sure, three little stools, but nothing else that one would expect to find in an apartment. For the rest there was nothing but a series of steel drawers and strong chests, lining the walls of the room and leaving in the center very little room in which one might move about.

He had only a moment to see all of this. Ruth Tolliver, hooded in an evening cloak, but with the light gleaming in her coppery hair, was shaking him by the arm and leaning a white face close to him.

"Hurry!" she was saying. "There isn't a minute to lose. You must start now, at once. They will find out—they will guess—and then—"

"John Mark?" he asked.

"Yes," she exclaimed, realizing that she had said too much, and she pressed her hand over her mouth, looking at Ronicky Doone in a sort of horror.

Jerry Smith had come to his feet at last, but he remained in the background, staring with a befuddled mind at the lovely vision of the girl. Fear and excitement and pleasure had transformed her face, but she seemed trembling in an agony of desire to be gone. She seemed invincibly drawn to remain there longer still. Ronicky Doone stared at her, with a strange blending of pity and admiration. He knew that the danger was not over by any means, but he began to forget that.

"This way!" called the girl and led toward an opposite door, very low in the wall.

"Lady," said Ronicky gently, "will you hold on one minute? They won't start to go through the smoke for a while. They'll think they've choked us, when we don't come out on the rush, shooting. But they'll wait quite a time to make sure. They don't like my style so well that they'll hurry me." He smiled sourly at the thought. "And we got time to learn a lot of things that we'll never find out, unless we know right now, pronto!"

He stepped before the girl, as he spoke. "How come you knew we were in there? How come you to get down here? How come you to risk everything you got to let us out through the treasure room of Mark's gang?"

He had guessed as shrewdly as he could, and he saw, by her immediate wincing, that the shot had told.

"You strange, mad, wild Westerner!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me you want to stay here and talk? Even if you have a moment to spare you must use it. If you knew the men with whom you are dealing you would never dream of—"

In her pause he said, smiling: "Lady, it's tolerable clear that you don't know me. But the way I figure it is this: a gent may die any time, but, when he finds a minute for good living, he'd better make the most of it."

He knew by her eyes that she half guessed his meaning, but she wished to be certain. "What do you intend by that?" she asked.

"It's tolerable simple," said Ronicky. "I've seen square things done in my life, but I've never yet seen a girl throw up all she had to do a good turn for a gent she's seen only once. You follow me, lady? I pretty near guess the trouble you're running into."

"You guess what?" she asked.

"I guess that you're one of John Mark's best cards. You're his chief gambler, lady, and he uses you on the big game."

She had drawn back, one hand pressed against her breast, her mouth tight with the pain. "You have guessed all that about me?" she asked faintly. "That means you despise me!"

"What folks do don't matter so much," said Ronicky. "It's the reasons they have for doing a thing that matters, I figure, and the way they do it. I dunno how John Mark hypnotized you and made a tool out of you, but I do know that you ain't changed by what you've done."

Ronicky Doone stepped to her quickly and took both her hands. He was not, ordinarily, particularly forward with girls. Now he acted as gracefully as if he had been the father of Ruth Tolliver. "Lady," he said, "you've saved two lives tonight. That's a tolerable lot to have piled up to anybody's credit. Besides, inside you're snow-white. We've got to go, but I'm coming back. Will you let me come back?"

"Never, never!" declared Ruth Tolliver. "You must never see me—you must never see Caroline Smith again. Any step you take in that direction is under peril of your life. Leave New York, Ronicky Doone. Leave it as quickly as you may, and never come back. Only pray that his arm isn't long enough to follow you."

"Leave Caroline?" he asked. "I'll tell you what you're going to do, Ruth. When you get back home you're going to tell Caroline that Jerry, here, has seen the light about Mark, and that he has money enough to pay back what he owes."

"But I haven't," broke in Jerry.

"I have it," said Ronicky, "and that's the same thing."

"I'll take no charity," declared Jerry Smith.

"You'll do what I tell you," said Ronicky Doone. "You been bothering enough, son. Go tell Caroline what I've said," he went on to the girl. "Let her know that they's no chain on anybody, and, if she wants to find Bill Gregg, all she's got to do is go across the street. You understand?"

"But, even if I were to tell her, how could she go, Ronicky Doone, when she's watched?"

"If she can't make a start and get to a man that loves her and is waiting for her, right across the street, she ain't worth worrying about," said Ronicky sternly. "Do we go this way?"

She hurried before them. "You've waited too long—you've waited too long!" she kept whispering in her terror, as she led them through the door, paused to turn out the light behind her, and then conducted them down a passage like that on the other side of the treasure chamber.

It was all deadly black and deadly silent, but the rustling of the girl's dress, as she hurried before them, was their guide. And always her whisper came back: "Hurry! Hurry! I fear it is too late!"

Suddenly they were climbing up a narrow flight of steps. They stood under the starlight in a back yard, with houses about them on all sides.

"Go down that alley, and you will be on the street," said the girl. "Down that alley, and then hurry—run—find the first taxi. Will you do that?"

"We'll sure go, and we'll wait for Caroline Smith—and you, too!"

"Don't talk madness! Why will you stay? You risk everything for yourselves and for me!"

Jerry Smith was already tugging at Ronicky's arm to draw him away, but the Westerner was stubbornly pressing back to the girl. He had her hand and would not leave it.

"If you don't show up, lady," he said, "I'll come to find you. You hear?"

"No, no!"

"I swear!"

"Bless you, but never venture near again. But, oh, Ronicky Doone, I wish ten other men in the whole world could be half so generous and wild as you!" Suddenly her hand was slipped from his, and she was gone into the shadows.

Down the alley went Jerry Smith, but he returned in an agony of dread to find that Ronicky Doone was still running here and there, in a blind confusion, probing the shadowy corners of the yard in search of the girl.

"Come off, you wild man," said Jerry. "They'll be on our heels any minute—they may be waiting for us now, down the alley—come off, idiot, quick!"

"If I thought they was a chance of finding her I'd stay," declared Ronicky, shaking his head bitterly. "Whether you and me live, don't count beside a girl like that. Getting soot on one tip of her finger might mean more'n whether you or me die."

"Maybe, maybe," said the other, "but answer that tomorrow; right now, let's start to make sure of ourselves, and we can come back to find her later."

Ronicky Doone, submitting partly to the force and partly to the persuasion of his friend, turned reluctantly and followed him down the alley.



Chapter Twenty-two

Mark Makes a Move

Passing hurriedly out of the cloakroom, a little later, Ruth met Simonds, the lieutenant of Frederic Fernand, in the passage. He was a ratfaced little man, with a furtive smile. Not an unpleasant smile, but it was continually coming and going, as if he wished earnestly to win the favor of the men before him, but greatly doubted his ability to do so. Ruth Tolliver, knowing his genius for the cards, knowing his cold and unscrupulous soul, detested him heartily.

When she saw his eyes flicker up and down the hall she hesitated. Obviously he wished to speak with her, and obviously he did not wish to be seen in the act. As she paused he stepped to her, his face suddenly set with determination.

"Watch John Mark," he whispered. "Don't trust him. He suspects everything!"

"What? Everything about what?" she asked.

Simonds gazed at her for a moment with a singular expression. There were conjoined cynicism, admiration, doubt, and fear in his glance. But, instead of speaking again, he bowed and slipped away into the open hall.

She heard him call, and she heard Fernand's oily voice make answer. And at that she shivered.

What had Simonds guessed? How, under heaven, did he know where she had gone when she left the gaming house? Or did he know? Had he not merely guessed? Perhaps he had been set on by Fernand or Mark to entangle and confuse her?

There remained, out of all this confusion of guesswork, a grim feeling that Simonds did indeed know, and that, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he was doing an unbought, a purely generous thing.

She remembered, now, how often Simonds had followed her with his eyes, how often his face had lighted when she spoke even casually to him. Yes, there might be a reason for Simonds' generosity. But that implied that he knew fairly well what John Mark himself half guessed. The thought that she was under the suspicion of Mark himself was terrible to her.

She drew a long breath and advanced courageously into the gaming rooms.

The first thing she saw was Fernand hurrying a late comer toward the tables, laughing and chatting as he went. She shuddered at the sight of him. It was strange that he, who had, a moment before, in the very cellar of that house, been working to bring about the death of two men, should now be immaculate, self-possessed.

A step farther and she saw John Mark sitting at a console table, with his back to the room and a cup of tea before him. That was, in fact, his favorite drink at all hours of the day or night. To see Fernand was bad enough, but to see the master mind of all the evil that passed around her was too much. The girl inwardly thanked Heaven that his back was turned and started to pass him as softly as possible.

"Just a minute, Ruth," he called, as she was almost at the door of the room.

For a moment there was a frantic impulse in her to bolt like a foolish child afraid of the dark. In the next apartment were light and warmth and eager faces and smiles and laughter, and here, behind her, was the very spirit of darkness calling her back. After an imperceptible hesitation she turned.

Mark had not turned in his chair, but it was easy to discover how he had known of her passing. A small oval mirror, fixed against the wall before him, had shown her image. How much had it betrayed, she wondered, of her guiltily stealthy pace? She went to him and found that he was leisurely and openly examining her in the glass, as she approached, his chin resting on one hand, his thin face perfectly calm, his eyes hazy with content. It was a habit of his to regard her like a picture, but she had never become used to it; she was always disconcerted by it, as she was at this moment.

He rose, of course, when she was beside him, and asked her to sit down.

"But I've hardly touched a card," she said. "This isn't very professional, you know, wasting a whole evening."

She was astonished to see him flush to the roots of his hair. His voice shook. "Sit down, please."

She obeyed, positively inert with surprise.

"Do you think I keep you at this detestable business because I want the money?" he asked. "Dear Heaven! Ruth, is that what you think of me?" Fortunately, before she could answer, he went on: "No, no, no! I have wanted to make you a free and independent being, my dear, and that is why I have put you through the most dangerous and exacting school in the world. You understand?"

"I think I do," she replied falteringly.

"But not entirely. Let me pour you some tea? No?"

He sighed, as he blew forth the smoke of a cigarette. "But you don't understand entirely," he continued, "and you must. Go back to the old days, when you knew nothing of the world but me. Can you remember?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Then you certainly recall a time when, if I had simply given directions, you would have been mine, Ruth. I could have married you the moment you became a woman. Is that true?" "Yes," she whispered, "that is perfectly true." The coldness that passed over her taught her for the first time how truly she dreaded that marriage which had been postponed, but which inevitably hung over her head.

"But I didn't want such a wife," continued John Mark. "You would have been an undeveloped child, really; you would never have grown up. No matter what they say, something about a woman is cut off at the root when she marries. Certainly, if she had not been free before, she is a slave if she marries a man with a strong will. And I have a strong will, Ruth—very strong!"

"Very strong, John," she whispered again. He smiled faintly, as if there were less of what he wanted in that second use of the name. He went on: "So you see, I faced a problem. I must and would marry you. There was never any other woman born who was meant for me. So much so good. But, if I married you before you were wise enough to know me, you would have become a slave, shrinking from me, yielding to me, incapable of loving me. No, I wanted a free and independent creature as my wife; I wanted a partnership, you see. Put you into the world, then, and let you see men and women? No, I could not do that in the ordinary way. I have had to show you the hard and bad side of life, because I am, in many ways, a hard and bad man myself!"

He said it, almost literally, through his teeth. His face was fierce, defying her—his eyes were wistful, entreating her not to agree with him. Such a sudden rush of pity for the man swept over her that she put out her hand and pressed his. He looked down at her hand for a moment, and she felt his fingers trembling under that gentle pressure.

"I understand more now," she said slowly, "than I have ever understood before. But I'll never understand entirely."

"A thing that's understood entirely is despised," he said, with a careless sweep of his hand. "A thing that is understood is not feared. I wish to be feared, not to make people cower, but to make them know when I come, and when I go. Even love is nothing without a seasoning of fear. For instance"—he flushed as the torrent of his speech swept him into a committal of himself—"I am afraid of you, dear girl. Do you know what I have done with the money you've won?"

"Tell me," she said curiously, and, at the same time, she glanced in wonder, as a servant passed softly across the little room. Was it not stranger than words could tell that such a man as John Mark should be sitting in this almost public place and pouring his soul out into the ear of a girl?

"I shall tell you," said Mark, his voice softening. "I have contributed half of it to charity."

Her lips, compressed with doubt, parted in wonder. "Charity!" she exclaimed.

"And the other half," he went on, "I deposited in a bank to the credit of a fictitious personality. That fictitious personality is, in flesh and blood, Ruth Tolliver with a new name. You understand? I have only to hand you the bank book with the list of deposits, and you can step out of this Tolliver personality and appear in a new part of the world as another being. Do you see what it means? If, at the last, you find you cannot marry me, my dear, you are provided for. Not out of my charity, which would be bitter to you, but out of your own earnings. And, lest you should be horrified at the thought of living on your earnings at the gaming table, I have thrown bread on the waters, dear Ruth. For every dollar you have in the bank you have given another to charity, and both, I hope, have borne interest for you!"

His smile faded a little, as she murmured, with her glance going past him: "Then I am free? Free, John?"

"Whenever you wish!"

"Not that I ever shall wish, but to know that I am not chained, that is the wonderful thing." She looked directly at him again: "I never dreamed there was so much fineness in you, John Mark, I never dreamed it, but I should have!"

"Now I have been winning Caroline to the game," he went on, "and she is beginning to love it. In another year, or six months, trust me to have completely filled her with the fever. But now enters the mischief-maker in the piece, a stranger, an ignorant outsider. This incredible man arrives and, in a few days, having miraculously run Caroline to earth, goes on and brings Caroline face to face with her lover, teaches Jerry Smith that I am his worst enemy, gets enough money to pay off his debt to me, and convinces him that I can never use my knowledge of his crime to jail him, because I don't dare bring the police too close to my own rather explosive record."

"I saw them both here!" said the girl. She wondered how much he guessed, and she saw his keen eyes probe her with a glance. But her ingenuousness, if it did not disarm him, at least dulled the edge of his suspicions.

"He was here, and the trap was laid here, and he slipped through it. Got away through a certain room which Fernand would give a million to keep secret. At any rate the fellow has shown that he is slippery and has a sting, too. He sent a bullet a fraction of an inch past Fernand's head, at one point in the little story.

"In short, the price is too high. What I want is to secure Caroline Smith from the inside. I want you to go to her, to persuade her to go away with you on a trip. Take her to the Bermudas, or to Havana—any place you please. The moment the Westerner thinks his lady is running away from him of her own volition he'll throw up his hands and curse his luck and go home. They have that sort of pride on the other side of the Rockies. Will you go back tonight, right now, and persuade Caroline to go with you?"

She bowed her head under the shock of it. Ronicky Doone had begged her to send Caroline Smith to meet her lover. Now the counterattack followed.

"Do you think she'd listen?"

"Yes, tell her that the one thing that will save the head of Bill Gregg is for her to go away, otherwise I'll wipe the fool off the map. Better still, tell her that Gregg of his own free will has left New York and given up the chase. Tell her you want to console her with a trip. She'll be sad and glad and flattered, all in the same moment, and go along with you without a word. Will you try, Ruth?"

"I suppose you would have Bill Gregg removed—if he continued a nuisance?"

"Not a shadow of a doubt. Will you do your best?"

She rose. "Yes," said the girl. Then she managed to smile at him. "Of course I'll do my best. I'll go back right now."

He took her arm to the door of the room. "Thank Heaven," he said, "that I have one person in whom I can trust without question—one who needs no bribing or rewards, but works to please me. Good-by, my dear."

He watched her down the hall and then turned and went through room after room to the rear of the house. There he rapped on a door in a peculiar manner. It was opened at once, and Harry Morgan appeared before him.

"A rush job, Harry," he said. "A little shadowing."

Harry jerked his cap lower over his eyes. "Gimme the smell of the trail, I'm ready," he said.

"Ruth Tolliver has just left the house. Follow her. She'll probably go home. She'll probably talk with Caroline Smith. Find a way of listening. If you hear anything that seems wrong to you—anything about Caroline leaving the house alone, for instance, telephone to me at once. Now go and work, as you never worked for me before."



Chapter Twenty-three

Caroline takes Command

Ruth left the gaming house of Frederic Fernand entirely convinced that she must do as John Mark had told her—work for him as she had never worked before. The determination made her go home to Beekman Place as fast as a taxicab would whirl her along.

It was not until she had climbed to Caroline Smith's room and opened the door that her determination faltered. For there she saw the girl lying on her bed weeping. And it seemed to the poor, bewildered brain of Ruth Tolliver, as if the form of Ronicky Doone, passionate and eager as before, stood at her side and begged her again to send Caroline Smith across the street to a lifelong happiness, and she could do it. Though Mark had ordered the girl to be confined to her room until further commands were given on the subject, no one in the house would think of questioning Ruth Tolliver, if she took the girl downstairs to the street and told her to go on her way.

She closed the door softly and, going to the bed, touched the shoulder of Caroline. The poor girl sat up slowly and turned a stained and swollen face to Ruth. If there was much to be pitied there was something to be laughed at, also. Ruth could not forbear smiling. But Caroline was clutching at her hands.

"He's changed his mind?" she asked eagerly. "He's sent you to tell me that he's changed his mind, Ruth? Oh, you've persuaded him to it—like an angel—I know you have!"

Ruth Tolliver freed herself from the reaching hands, moistened the end of a towel in the bathroom and began to remove the traces of tears from the face of Caroline Smith. That face was no longer flushed, but growing pale with excitement and hope.

"It's true?" she kept asking. "It is true, Ruth?"

"Do you love him as much as that?"

"More than I can tell you—so much more!"

"Try to tell me then, dear."

Talking of her love affair began to brighten the other girl, and now she managed a wan smile. "His letters were very bad. But, between the lines, I could read so much real manhood, such simple honesty, such a heart, such a will to trust! Ruth, are you laughing at me?"

"No, no, far from that! It's a thrilling thing to hear, my dear."

For she was remembering that in another man there might be found these same qualities. Not so much simplicity, perhaps, but to make up for it, a great fire of will and driving energy.

"But I didn't actually know that I was in love. Even when I made the trip West and wrote to him to meet the train on my return—even then I was only guessing. When he didn't appear at the station I went cold and made up my mind that I would never think of him again."

"But when you saw him in the street, here?"

"John Mark had prepared me and hardened me against that meeting, and I was afraid even to think for myself. But, when Ronicky Doone—bless him!—talked to me in your room, I knew what Bill Gregg must be, since he had a friend who would venture as much for him as Ronicky Doone did. It all came over me in a flash. I did love him—I did, indeed!"

"Yes, yes," whispered Ruth Tolliver, nodding and smiling faintly. "I remember how he stood there and talked to you. He was like a man on fire. No wonder that a spark caught in you, Caroline. He—he's a—very fine-looking fellow, don't you think, Caroline?"

"Bill Gregg? Yes, indeed."

"I mean Ronicky."

"Of course! Very handsome!"

There was something in the voice of Caroline that made Ruth look down sharply to her face, but the girl was clever enough to mask her excitement and delight.

"Afterward, when you think over what he has said, it isn't a great deal, but at the moment he seems to know a great deal—about what's going on inside one, don't you think, Caroline?"

These continual appeals for advice, appeals from the infallible Ruth Tolliver, set the heart of Caroline beating. There was most certainly something in the wind.

"I think he does," agreed Caroline, masking her eyes. "He has a way, when he looks at you, of making you feel that he isn't thinking of anything else in the world but you."

"Does he have that same effect on every one?" asked Ruth. She added, after a moment of thought, "Yes, I suppose it's just a habit of his. I wish I knew."

"Why?" queried Caroline, unable to refrain from the stinging little question.

"Oh, for no good reason—just that he's an odd character. In my work, you know, one has to study character. Ronicky Doone is a different sort of man, don't you think?"

"Very different, dear."

Then a great inspiration came to Caroline. Ruth was a key which, she knew, could unlock nearly any door in the house of John Mark.

"Do you know what we are going to do?" she asked gravely, rising.

"Well?"

"We're going to open that door together, and we're going down the stairs—together."

"Together? But we—Don't you know John Mark has given orders—"

"That I'm not to leave the room. What difference does that make? They won't dare stop us if you are with me, leading the way."

"Caroline, are you mad? When I come back—"

"You're not coming back."

"Not coming back!"

"No, you're going on with me!"

She took Ruth by the arms and turned her until the light struck into her eyes. Ruth Tolliver, aghast at this sudden strength in one who had always been a meek follower, obeyed without resistance.

"But where?" she demanded.

"Where I'm going."

"What?"

"To Ronicky Doone, my dear. Don't you see?"

The insistence bewildered Ruth Tolliver. She felt herself driven irresistibly forward, with or without her own will.

"Caroline," she protested, trying feebly to free herself from the commanding hands and eyes of her companion, "are you quite mad? Go to him? Why should I? How can I?"

"Not as I'm going to Bill Gregg, with my heart in my hands, but to ask Ronicky Doone—bless him!—to take you away somewhere, so that you can begin a new life. Isn't that simple?"

"Ask charity of a stranger?"

"You know he isn't a stranger, and you know it isn't charity. He'll be happy. He's the kind that's happy when he's being of use to others?"

"Yes," answered Ruth Tolliver, "of course he is."

"And you'd trust him?"

"To the end of the world. But to leave—"

"Ruth, you've kept cobwebs before your eyes so long that you don't see what's happening around you. John Mark hypnotizes you. He makes you think that the whole world is bad, that we are simply making capital out of our crimes. As a matter of fact, the cold truth is that he has made me a thief, Ruth, and he has made you something almost as bad—a gambler!"

The follower had become the leader, and she was urging Ruth Tolliver slowly to the door. Ruth was protesting—she could not throw herself on the kindness of Ronicky Doone—it could not be done. It would be literally throwing herself at his head. But here the door opened, and she allowed herself to be led out into the hall. They had not made more than half a dozen steps down its dim length when the guard hurried toward them.

"Talk to him," whispered Caroline Smith. "He's come to stop me, and you're the only person who can make him let me pass on!"

The guard hurriedly came up to them. "Sorry," he said. "Got an idea you're going downstairs, Miss Smith."

"Yes," she said faintly.

The fellow grinned. "Not yet. You'll stay up here till the chief gives the word. And I got to ask you to step back into your room, and step quick." His voice grew harsh, and he came closer. "He told me straight, you're not to come out."

Caroline had shrunk back, and she was on the verge of turning when the arm of Ruth was passed strongly around her shoulders and stayed her.

"She's going with me," she told John Mark's bulldog. "Does that make a difference to you?"

He ducked his head and grinned feebly in his anxiety. "Sure it makes a difference. You go where you want, any time you want, but this—"

"I say she's going with me, and I'm responsible for her."

She urged Caroline forward, and the latter made a step, only to find that she was directly confronted by the guard.

"I got my orders," he said desperately to Ruth.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked hotly.

"I know who you are," he answered, "and, believe me, I would not start bothering you none, but I got to keep this lady back. I got the orders."

"They're old orders," insisted Ruth Tolliver, "and they have been changed."

"Not to my knowing," replied the other, less certain in his manner.

Ruth seized the critical moment to say: "Walk on, Caroline. If he blocks your way—" She did not need to finish the sentence, for, as Caroline started on, the guard slunk sullenly to one side of the corridor.

"It ain't my doings," he said. "But they got two bosses in this joint, and one of them is a girl. How can a gent have any idea which way he ought to step in a pinch? Go on, Miss Smith, but you'll be answered for!"

They hardly heard the last of these words, as they turned down the stairway, hurrying, but not fast enough to excite the suspicion of the man behind them.

"Oh, Ruth," whispered Caroline Smith. "Oh, Ruth!"

"It was close," said Ruth Tolliver, "but we're through. And, now that I'm about to leave it, I realize how I've hated this life all these years. I'll never stop thanking you for waking me up to it, Caroline."

They reached the floor of the lower hall, and a strange thought came to Ruth. She had hurried home to execute the bidding of John Mark. She had left it, obeying the bidding of Ronicky Doone.

They scurried to the front door. As they opened it the sharp gust of night air blew in on them, and they heard the sound of a man running up the steps. In a moment the dim hall light showed on the slender form and the pale face of John Mark standing before them.

Caroline felt the start of Ruth Tolliver. For her part she was on the verge of collapse, but a strong pressure from the hand of her companion told her that she had an ally in the time of need.

"Tut tut!" Mark was saying, "what's this? How did Caroline get out of her room—and with you, Ruth?"

"It's idiotic to keep her locked up there all day and all night, in weather like this," said Ruth, with a perfect calm that restored Caroline's courage almost to the normal. "When I talked to her this evening I made up my mind that I'd take her out for a walk."

"Well," replied John Mark, "that might not be so bad. Let's step inside and talk it over for a moment."

They retreated, and he entered and clicked the door behind him. "The main question is, where do you intend to walk?"

"Just in the street below the house."

"Which might not lead you across to the house on the other side?"

"Certainly not! I shall be with her."

"But suppose both of you go into that house, and I lose two birds instead of one? What of that, my clever Ruth?"

She knew at once, by something in his voice rather than his words, that he had managed to learn the tenor of the talk in Caroline's room. She asked bluntly: "What are you guessing at?"

"Nothing. I only speak of what I know. No single pair of ears is enough for a busy man. I have to hire help, and I get it. Very effective help, too, don't you agree?"

"Eavesdropping!" exclaimed Ruth bitterly. "Well—it's true, John Mark. You sent me to steal her from her lover, and I've tried to steal her for him in the end. Do you know why? Because she was able to show me what a happy love might mean to a woman. She showed me that, and she showed me how much courage love had given her. So I began to guess a good many things, and, among the rest, I came to the conclusion that I could never truly love you, John Mark.

"I've spoken quickly," she went on at last. "It isn't that I have feared you all the time—I haven't been playing a part, John, on my word. Only—tonight I learned something new. Do you see?"

"Heaven be praised," said John Mark, "that we all have the power of learning new things, now and again. I congratulate you. Am I to suppose that Caroline was your teacher?"

He turned from her and faced Caroline Smith, and, though he smiled on her, there was a quality in the smile that shriveled her very soul with fear. No matter what he might say or do this evening to establish himself in the better graces of the girl he was losing, his malice was not dead. That she knew.

"She was my teacher," answered Ruth steadily, "because she showed me, John, what a marvelous thing it is to be free. You understand that all the years I have been with you I have never been free?"

"Not free?" he asked, the first touch of emotion showing in his voice. "Not free, my dear? Was there ever the least wish of yours since you were a child that I did not gratify? Not one, Ruth; not one, surely, of which I am conscious!"

"Because I had no wishes," she answered slowly, "that were not suggested by something that you liked or disliked. You were the starting point of all that I desired. I was almost afraid to think until I became sure that you approved of my thinking."

"That was long ago," he said gravely. "Since those old days I see you have changed greatly."

"Because of the education you gave me," she answered.

"Yes, yes, that was the great mistake. I begin to see. Heaven, one might say, gave you to me. I felt that I must improve on the gift of Heaven before I accepted you. There was my fault. For that I must pay the great penalty. Kismet! And now, what is it you wish?"

"To leave at once."

"A little harsh, but necessary, if you will it. There is the door, free to you. The change of identity of which I spoke to you is easily arranged. I have only to take you to the bank and that is settled. Is there anything else?"

"Only one thing—and that is not much."

"Very good."

"You have given so much," she ran on eagerly, "that you will give one thing more—out of the goodness of that really big heart of yours, John, dear!"

He winced under that pleasantly tender word.

And she said: "I want to take Caroline with me—to freedom and the man she loves. That is really all!"

The lean fingers of John Mark drummed on the back of the chair, while he smiled down on her, an inexplicable expression on his face.

"Only that?" he asked. "My dear, how strange you women really are! After all these years of study I should have thought that you would, at least, have partially comprehended me. I see that is not to be. But try to understand that I divide with a nice distinction the affairs of sentiment and the affairs of business. There is only one element in my world of sentiment—that is you. Therefore, ask what you want and take it for yourself; but for Caroline, that is an entirely different matter. No, Ruth, you may take what you will for yourself, but for her, for any other living soul, not a penny, not a cent will I give. Can you comprehend it? Is it clear? As for giving her freedom, nothing under Heaven could persuade me to it!"



Chapter Twenty-four

The Ultimate Sacrifice

She stared at him, as the blow fell, and then her glance turned slowly to Caroline who had uttered a sharp cry and sunk into a chair.

"Help me, Ruth," she implored pitifully. "No other person in the world can help me but you!"

"Do you see that," asked Ruth quietly of John Mark, "and still it doesn't move you?"

"Not a hairbreadth, my dear."

"But isn't it absurd? Suppose I have my freedom, and I tell the police that in this house a girl against her will—"

"Tush, my dear! You really do not know me at all. Do you think they can reach me? She may be a hundred miles away before you have spoken ten words to the authorities."

"But I warn you that all your holds on her are broken. She knows that you have no holds over her brother. She knows that Ronicky Doone has broken them all—that Jerry is free of you!"

"Ronicky Doone," said Mark, his face turning gray, "is a talented man. No doubt of it; his is a very peculiar and incisive talent, I admit. But, though he has broken all the old holds, there are ways of finding new ones. If you leave now, I can even promise you, my dear, that, before the next day dawns, the very soul of Caroline will be a pawn in my hands. Do you doubt it? Such an exquisitely tender, such a delicate soul as Caroline, can you doubt that I can form invisible bonds which will hold her even when she is a thousand miles away from me? Tush, my dear; think again, and you will think better of my ability."

"Suppose," Ruth said, "I were to offer to stay?"

He bowed. "You tempt me, with such overwhelming generosity, to become even more generous myself and set her free at once. But, alas, I am essentially a practical man. If you will stay with me, Ruth, if you marry me at once, why, then indeed this girl is as free as the wind. Otherwise I should be a fool. You see, my dear, I love you so that I must have you by fair means or foul, but I cannot put any chain upon you except your own word. I confess it, you see, even before this poor girl, if she is capable of understanding, which I doubt. But speak again—do you make the offer?"

She hesitated, and he went on: "Be careful. I have had you once, and I have lost you, it seems. If I have you again there is no power in you—no power between earth and heaven to take you from me a second time. Give yourself to me with a word, and I shall make you mine forever. Then Caroline shall go free—free as the wind—to her lover, my dear, who is waiting."

He made no step toward her, and he kept his voice smooth and clear. Had he done otherwise he knew that she would have shrunk. She looked to him, she looked to Caroline Smith. The latter had suddenly raised her head and thrown out her hands, with an unutterable appeal in her eyes. At that mute appeal Ruth Tolliver surrendered.

"It's enough," she said. "I think there would be no place for me after all. What could I do in the world except what you've taught me to do? No, let Caroline go freely, and I give my—"

"Stop!"

He checked her with his raised hand, and his eyes blazed and glittered in the dead whiteness of his face. "Don't give me your word, my dear. I don't want that chain to bind you. There might come a time when some power arose strong enough to threaten to take you from me. Then I want to show you that I don't need your promise. I can hold you for myself. Only come to me and tell me simply that you will be mine if you can. Will you do that?"

She crossed the room slowly and stood before him. "I will do that," she said faintly, half closing her eyes. She had come so close that, if he willed, he could have taken her in his arms. She nerved herself against it; then she felt her hand taken, raised and touched lightly against trembling lips. When she stepped back she knew that the decisive moment of her life had been passed.

"You are free to go," said John Mark to Caroline. "Therefore don't wait. Go at once."

"Ruth!" whispered the girl.

Ruth Tolliver turned away, and the movement brought Caroline beside her, with a cry of pain. "Is it what I think?" she asked. "Are you making the sacrifice all for me? You don't really care for him, Ruth, and—"

"Caroline!" broke in John Mark.

She turned at the command of that familiar voice, as if she had been struck with a whip. He had raised the curtain of the front window beside the door and was pointing up and across the street.

"I see the window of Gregg's room," he said. "A light has just appeared in it. I suppose he is waiting. But, if you wish to go, your time is short—very short!"

An infinite threat was behind the calmness of the voice. She could only say to Ruth: "I'll never forget." Then she fled down the hall and through the door, and the two within heard the sharp patter of her heels, as she ran down to the street.

It was freedom for Caroline, and Ruth, lifting her eyes, looked into the face of the man she was to marry. She could have held out, she felt, had it not been for the sound of those departing footsteps, running so blithely toward a lifetime of happiness. Even as it was she made herself hold out. Then a vague astonishment came to clear her mind. There was no joy in the face of John Mark, only a deep and settled pain.

"You see," he said, with a smile of anguish, "I have done it. I have bought the thing I love, and that, you know, is the last and deepest damnation. If another man had told me that I was capable of such a thing, I'd have killed him on the spot. But now I have done it!"

"I think I'll go up to my room," she answered, her eyes on the floor. She made herself raise them to his. "Unless you wish to talk to me longer?"

She saw him shudder.

"If you can help it," he said, "don't make me see the brand I have put on you. Don't, for Heaven's sake, cringe to me if you can help it."

"Very well," she said.

He struck his clenched hand against his face. "It's the price," he declared through his teeth, "and I accept it." He spoke more to himself than to her, and then directly: "Will you let me walk up with you?"

"Yes."

He took her passive arm. They went slowly, slowly up the stairs, for at each landing it seemed her strength gave out, and she had to pause for a brief rest; when she paused he spoke with difficulty, but with his heart in every word.

"You remember the old Greek fable, Ruth? The story about all the pains and torments which flew out of Pandora's box, and how Hope came out last—that blessed Hope—and healed the wounds? Here, a moment after the blow has fallen, I am hoping again like a fool. I am hoping that I shall teach you to forget; or, if I cannot teach you to forget, than I shall even make you glad of what you have done tonight."

The door closed on her, and she was alone. Raising her head she found she was looking straight across the street to the lighted windows of the rooms of Ronicky Doone and Bill Gregg. While she watched she saw the silhouette of a man and woman running to each other, saw them clasped in each other's arms. Ruth dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands.



Chapter Twenty-five

Unhappy Freedom

Once out in the street Caroline had cast one glance of terror over her shoulder at the towering facade of the house of John Mark, then she fled, as fast as her feet would carry her, straight across the street and up the steps of the rooming house and frantically up the stairs, a panic behind her.

Presently she was tapping hurriedly and loudly on a door, while, with her head turned, she watched for the coming of some swift-avenging figure from behind. John Mark had given her up, but it was impossible for John Mark to give up anything. When would he strike? That was the only question.

Then the door opened. The very light that poured out into the dim hall was like the reach of a friendly hand, and there was Ronicky Doone laughing for pure joy—and there was Bill Gregg's haggard face, as if he saw a ghost.

"I told you, Bill, and here she is!"

After that she forgot Ronicky Doone and the rest of the world except Gregg, as he took her in his arms and asked over and over: "How did it come about? How did it come about?"

And over and over she answered: "It was Ronicky, Bill. We owe everything to him and Ruth Tolliver."

This brought from Ronicky a sudden question: "And what of her? What of Ruth Tolliver? She wouldn't come?"

It pricked the bubble of Caroline's happiness, that question. Staring at the frowning face of Ronicky Doone her heart for a moment misgave her. How could she tell the truth? How could she admit her cowardice which had accepted Ruth's great sacrifice?

"No," she said at last, "Ruth stayed."

"Talk about that afterward, Ronicky," pleaded Bill Gregg. "I got about a million things to say to Caroline."

"I'm going to talk now," said Ronicky gravely. "They's something queer about the way Caroline said that. Will you let me ask you a few more questions?"

"Won't you wait?" asked Caroline, in an agony of remorse and shame. "Won't you wait till the morning?"

Ronicky Doone walked up and down the room for a moment. He had no wish to break in upon the long delayed happiness of these two. While he paced he heard Bill Gregg saying that they must start at once and put three thousand miles between them and that devil, John Mark; and he heard Caroline say that there was no longer anything to fear—the claws of the devil had been trimmed, and he would not reach after them—he had promised. At that Ronicky whirled sharply on them again.

"What made Mark change his mind about you?" he asked. "He isn't the sort to change his mind without a pretty good reason. What bought him off? Nothing but a price would change him, I guess."

And she had to admit: "It was Ruth."

"She paid the price?" he asked harshly. "How, Caroline?"

"She promised to marry him, Ronicky."

The bitter truth was coming now, and she cringed as she spoke it. The tall body of Ronicky Doone was trembling with excitement.

"She made that promise so that you could go free, Caroline?"

"No, no!" exclaimed Bill Gregg.

"It's true," said the girl. "We were about to leave together when John Mark stopped us."

"Ruth was coming with you?" asked Ronicky.

"Yes."

"And when Mark stopped you she offered herself in exchange for your freedom?"

"Y-yes!"

Both she and Bill Gregg looked apprehensively at the dark face of Ronicky Doone, where a storm was gathering.

But he restrained his anger with a mighty effort. "She was going to cut away from that life and start over—is that straight, Caroline?"

"Yes."

"Get the police, Ronicky," said Bill Gregg. "They sure can't hold no woman agin' her will in this country."

"Don't you see that it is her will?" asked Ronicky Doone darkly. "Ain't she made a bargain? Don't you think she's ready and willing to live up to it? She sure is, son, and she'll go the limit to do what she's said she'll do. You stay here—I'll go out and tackle the job."

"Then I go, too," said Bill Gregg stoutly. "You been through enough for me. Here's where I go as far as you go. I'm ready when you're ready, Ronicky."

It was so just an offer that even Caroline dared not cry out against it, but she sat with her hands clasped close together, her eyes begging Ronicky to let the offer go. Ronicky Doone nodded slowly.

"I hoped you'd say that, Bill," he said. "But I'll tell you what: you stay here for a while, and I'll trot down and take a look around and try to figure out what's to be done. Can't just walk up and rap at the front door of the house, you know. And I can't go in the way I went before. No doubt about that. I got to step light. So let me go out and look around, will you, Bill? Then I'll come back and tell you what I've decided."

Once in the street Ronicky looked dubiously across at the opposite house. He realized that more than an hour had passed since Caroline had left John Mark's house. What had happened to Ruth in that hour? The front of the house was lighted in two or three windows, but those lights could tell him nothing. From the inside of the house he could locate Ruth's room again, but from the outside it was impossible for him to do it.

The whole house, of course, was thoroughly guarded against his attack, for attack they knew he would. The only question was from what angle he would deliver his assault. In that case, of course, the correct thing was to find the unexpected means. But how could he outguess a band of trained criminals? They would have foreseen far greater subtleties than any he could attempt. They would be so keen that the best way to take them by surprise might be simply to step up to the house, ring the door bell and enter, if the door were opened.