A strong, healthy young man done to death in this fashion only a few minutes after he had left her kitchen! Somehow she could not look upon him as a stranger. She had given him food; she had talked to him; she had even laughed with him. He was not like those dead she had seen in her reportorial days. Her orbit and Johnny Two-Hawks' had indeterminately touched; she had known old Gregory, or Gregor, who had been this unfortunate young man's friend. And he had hoped they might never meet again!

The murderous scoundrels had been watching. They must have entered the apartment shortly after he had entered hers. Conceivably they would have Gregor's key. And they had watched and waited, striking him down it may have been at the very moment he had crossed the sill of the window.

Her hand shook so idiotically that it was impossible for a time to tell if the man's heart was beating. All at once a wave of hot fury rushed over her—fury at the cowardliness of the assault—and the vertigo passed. She laid her palm firmly over Johnny Two-Hawks' heart. Alive! He was alive! She straightened his body and put a pillow under his head. Then she sought water and towels.

There was no cut on his forehead, only blood; but the top of his head had been cruelly beaten. He was alive, but without immediate aid he might die. The poor young man!

There were two physicians in the block; one or the other would be in. She ran to the door, to find it locked. She had forgotten. Next she found the telephone wire cut and the speaking tube battered and inutile. She would have to return to her own apartment to summon help. She dared not leave the light on. The scoundrels might possibly return, and the light would warn them that their victim had been discovered; and naturally they would wish to ascertain whether or not they had succeeded in their murderous assault.

As she was passing the first-landing windows she saw Cutty emerging from the elevator. She flew across the fire-escape platform with the resilient step of one crossing thin ice.

Probably the most astonished man in New York was the war correspondent when the door opened and a pair of arms were flung about him, and a voice smothered in the lapel of his coat cried: "Oh, Cutty, I never was so glad to see any one!"

"What in the name of—"

"Come! We'll handle this ourselves. Hurry!" She dragged him along by the sleeve.

"But—"

"It is life and death! No talk now!"

Cutty, immaculate in his evening clothes, very much perturbed, went along after her. As she passed through the kitchen window and beckoned him to follow he demurred.

"Kitty, what the deuce is going on here?"

"I'll answer your questions when we get him into my apartment. They tried to murder him; left him there to die!"

Cutty possessed a great art, an art highly developed only in explorers and newspaper reporters of the first order—adaptability; of being able to cast aside instantly the conventions of civilization and let down the bars to the primordial, the instinctive, and the natural. Thus the Cutty who stepped out beside Kitty into the drizzle was not the Cutty she had admitted into the apartment. She did not recognize this remarkable transition until later; and then she discovered that Cutty, the suave and lackadaisical in idleness, was a tremendous animal hibernating behind a crackle shell.

Ordinarily Cutty would have declined to come through this shell, thin as it was; he liked these catnaps between great activities. But this lovely creature was Conover's daughter, and she would have the seventh sense-divination of the born reporter. Something big was in the air.

"Go on!" he said, briskly. "I'm at your heels. And stoop as you pass those hall windows. No use throwing a silhouette for somebody in those rear houses to see.... Old Tommy Conover's daughter, sure pop!... There you go, under the ladder! You've dished the whole affair, whatever it is.... No, no! Just spoofing, Kitty. A long face is no good anywhere, even at a funeral.... This window? All right. Know where the lights are? Very good."

When Cutty saw the man on the floor he knelt quickly. "Nasty bang on the head, but he's alive. What's this? His cap. Poughkeepsie. By George, padded with his handkerchief! Must have known something was going to fall on him. Now, what's it all about?"

"When we get him to my apartment."

"Yours? Good Lord, what's the matter with this?"

"They tried to kill him here. They might return to see if they had succeeded. They mustn't find where he has gone. I'm strong. I can take hold of his knees."

"Tut! Neither of us could walk backward over that fire escape. He looks husky, but I'll try it. Now obey me without question or comment. You'll have to help me get him outside the window and in through yours. Between the two windows I can handle him alone. I only hope we shan't be noticed, for that might prove awkward. Now take hold. That's it. When I'm through the window just push his legs outside." Panting, Kitty obeyed. "All right," said Cutty. "I like your pluck. You run along ahead and be ready to help me in with him. A healthy beggar! Here goes."

With a heave and a hunch and another heave Cutty stood up, the limp body disposed scientifically across his shoulders. Kitty was quite impressed by this exhibition of strength in a man whom she considered as elderly—old. There was an underthought that such feats of bodily prowess were reserved for young men. With the naive conceit of twenty-four she ignored the actual mathematics of fifty years of clean living and thinking, missed the physiological fact that often men at fifty are stronger and tougher than men in the twenties. They never waste energy; their precision of movement and deliberation of thought conserve the residue against the supreme moment.

As a parenthesis: To a young woman what is a hero? Generally something conjured out of a book she has read; the unknown, handsome young man across the street; the leading actor in a society drama; the idol of the movie. A hero must of necessity be handsome; that is the first essential. If he happens to be brave and debonair, rich and aristocratic, so much the better. Somehow, to be brave and to be heroic are not actually accepted synonyms in certain youthful feminine minds. For instance, every maid will agree that her father is brave; but tell her he is a hero because he pays his bills regularly and she will accept the statement with a smile of tolerant indulgence.

Thus Kitty viewed Cutty's activities with a thrill of amazed wonder. Had the young man hoisted Cutty to his shoulders her feeling would have been one of exultant admiration. Let age crown its garnered wisdom; youth has no objections to that; but feats of physical strength—that is poaching upon youth's preserves. Kitty was not conscious of the instinctive resentment. At that moment Cutty was to her the most extraordinary old man in the world.

"Forward!" he whispered. "I want to know why I am doing this movie stunt." The journey began with Kitty in the lead. She prayed that no one would see them as they passed the two landing windows. Below and above were vivid squares of golden light. She regretted the drizzle; no clothes-laden lines intervened to obscure their progress. Someone in the rear of the houses in Seventy-ninth Street might observe the silhouettes. The whole affair must be carried off secretly or their efforts would come to nothing.

Once inside the kitchen Cutty shifted his burden into his arms, the way one carries a child, and followed Kitty into the unused bedroom. He did not wait for the story, but asked for the telephone.

"I'm going to call for a surgeon at the Lambs. He's just back from France and knows a lot about broken heads. And we can trust him absolutely. I told him to wait there until I called."

"Cutty, you're a dear. I don't wonder father loved you."

Presently he turned away from the telephone. "He'll be here in a jiffy. Now, then, what the deuce is all this about?"

Briefly Kitty narrated the episodes.

"Samaritan stuff. I see. Any absorbent cotton? I can wash the wound after a fashion. Warm water and Castile soap. We can have him in shape for Harrison."

Alone, Cutty took note of several apparent facts. The victim's flannel shirt was torn at the collar and there were marks of finger nails on the throat and chest. Upon close inspection he observed a thin red line round the neck—the mark of a thong. Had they tried to strangle him or had he carried something of value? Silk underwear and a clean body; well born; foreign. After a conscientious hesitance Cutty went through the pockets. All he found were some crumbs of tobacco and a soggy match box. They had cleaned him out evidently. There were no tailors' labels in any of the pockets; but there were signs that these had once existed. The man on the bed had probably ripped them out himself; did not care to be identified.

A criminal in flight? Cutty studied the face on the pillow. Shorn of that beard it would be handsome; not the type criminal, certainly. A bit of natural cynicism edged into his thoughts: Kitty had seen through the beard, otherwise she would have turned the affair over to the police. Not at all like her mother, yet equally her mother's match in beauty and intelligence. Conover's girl, whose eyes had nearly popped out of her head at the first sight of those drum-lined walls of his.

Two-Hawks. What was it that was trying to stir in his recollection? Two-Hawks. He was sure he had heard that name before. Hawksley meant nothing at all; but Two-Hawks possessed a strange attraction. He stared off into space. He might have heard the name in a tongue other than English.

A sound. It came from the lips of the young man. Cutty frowned. The poor chap wasn't breathing in a promising way; he groaned after each inhalation. And what had become of the old fellow Kitty called Gregory? A queer business.

Kitty came in with a basin and a roll of absorbent cotton.

"He is groaning!" she whispered.

"Pretty rocky condition, I should say. That handkerchief in his cap doubtless saved him. Now, little lady, I frankly don't like the idea of his being here. Suppose he dies? In that event there'll be the very devil to pay. You're all alone here, without even a maid."

"Am I all alone?"—softly.

"Well, no; come to think of it, I'm no longer your godfather in theory. Give me the cotton and hold the basin."

He was very tender. The wound bled a little; but it was not the kind that bled profusely. It was less a cut than a smashing bruise.

"Well, that's all I can do. Who was this tenant Gregory?"

"A dear old man. A valet at a Broadway hotel. Oh, I forgot! Johnny Two-Hawks called him Stefani Gregor."

"Stefani Gregor?"

"Yes. What is it? Why do you say it like that?"

"Say it like what?"—sparring for time.

"As if you had heard the name before?"

"Just as I thought!" cried Cutty, his nimble mind pouncing upon a happy invention. "You're romantic, Kitty. You're imagining all sorts of nonsense about this chap, and you must not let the situation intrigue you. If I spoke the name oddly—this Stefani Gregor—it was because I sensed in a moment that this was a bit of the overflow. Southeastern Europe, where the good Samaritan gets kicked instead of thanked. Now, here's a good idea. Of course we can't turn this poor chap loose upon the public, now that we know his life is in danger. That's always the trouble with this Samaritan business. When you commit a fine action you assume an obligation. You hoist the Old Man of the Sea on your shoulders, as it were. The chap cannot be allowed to remain here. So, if Harrison agrees, we'll take him up to my diggings, where no Bolshevik will ever lay eyes upon him."

"Bolshevik?"

"For the sake of a handle. They might be Chinamen, for all I know. I can take care of him until he is on his feet. And you will be saved all this annoyance.

"But I don't believe it's going to be an annoyance. I'm terribly interested, and want to see it through."

"If he can be moved, out he goes. No arguments. He can't stay in this apartment. That's final."

"Exactly why not?" Kitty demanded, rebelliously.

"Because I say so, Kitty."

"Is Stefani Gregor an undesirable?"

"You knew him. What do you say?" countered her godfather, evading the trap. The innocent child! He smiled inwardly.

Kitty was keen. She sensed an undercurrent, and her first attempt to touch it had failed. The mere name of Stefani Gregor had not roused Cutty's astonishment. She was quite positive that the name was not wholly unfamiliar to her father's friend.

Still, something warned her not to press in this direction. He would be on the alert. She must wait until he had forgotten the incident. So she drew up a chair beside the bed and sat down.

Cutty leaned against the footrail, his expression neutral. He sighed inaudibly. His delightful catnap was over. Stefani Gregor, Kitty's neighbour, a valet in a fashionable hotel! Stefani Gregor, who, upon a certain day, had placed the drums of jeopardy in the palms of a war correspondent known to his familiars as Cutty. And who was this young man on the bed?

"There goes the bell!" cried Kitty, jumping up.

"Wait!"

The ring was repeated vigorously and impatiently.

"Kitty, I don't quite like the sound of that bell. Harrison would have no occasion to be impatient. Somebody in a hurry. Now, attend to me. I'm going to steal out to the kitchen. Don't be afraid. Call if I'm needed. Open the door just a crack, with your foot against it. If it's Harrison he'll be in uniform. Call out his name. Slam the door if it is someone you don't know."

Kitty opened the door as instructed, but she swung it wide because one of the men outside was a policeman. The man behind him was a thickset, squat individual, with puffed, discoloured eyes and a nose that reminded Kitty of an alligator pear.

"What's going on here?" the policeman demanded to know.



CHAPTER VIII

A phrase, apparently quite irrelevant to the situation, shot into Kitty's head. Moribund perspectives. Instantly she knew, with that foretasting mind of hers, that the man peering over the policeman's shoulder and Johnny Two-Hawks had met somewhere that day. She was now able to compare the results, and she placed the victory on Two-Hawks' brow. Yonder individual somehow justified the instinct that had prompted her to play the good Samaritan. Whence had this gorilla come? He was not one of the men who had issued in such dramatic haste from the Gregor apartment.

"This man here saw you and another carrying someone across the fire escape. What's the rumpus?" The policeman was not exactly belligerent, but he was dutifully determined. And though he was ready to grant that this girl with the Irish eyes was beautiful, a man never could tell.

"There's been a tragedy of some kind," began Kitty. "This man certainly did see us carrying a man across the fire escape. He had been set upon and robbed in the apartment across the way."

"Why didn't you call in the police?"

"Because he might have died before you got here."

"Where's the man who helped you?"

"Gone. He was an outsider. He was afraid of getting mixed up in a police affair and ran away." Behind the kitchen door Cutty smiled. She would do, this girl.

"Sounds all right," said the policeman. "I'll take a look at the man."

"This way, if you please," said Kitty, readily. "You come, too, sir," she added as the squat man hesitated. Kitty wanted to watch his expression when he saw Johnny Two-Hawks.

Seed on rocky soil; nothing came of the little artifice. No Buddha's graven face was less indicative than the squat man's. Perhaps his face was too sore to permit mobility of expression. The drollery of this thought caused a quirk in one corner of Kitty's mouth. The squat man stopped at the foot of the bed with the air of a mere passer-by and seemed more interested in the investigations of the policeman than in the man on the bed. But Kitty knew.

"A fine bang on the coco," was the policeman's observation. "Take anything out of his pockets?"

"They were quite empty. I've sent for a military surgeon. He may arrive at any moment."

"This fellow live across the way?"

"That's the odd part of it. No, he doesn't."

"Then what was he doing there?"

"Probably awaiting the return of the real tenant who hasn't returned up to this hour"—with an oblique glance at the squat man.

"Kind o' queer. Say, you stay here and watch the lady while I scout round."

The squat man nodded and leaned over the foot of the bed. The policeman stalked out.

"I was in the kitchen," said Kitty, confidingly. "I saw shadows on the window curtain. It did not look right. So I started to inquire and almost bumped into two men leaving the apartment. They took to their heels when they saw me."

Again the squat man nodded. He appeared to be a good listener.

"Where were you when we crossed the fire escape?"

"In the yard on the other side of the fence." There was reluctance in the guttural voice.

"Oh, I see. You live there."

As this was a supposition and not a direct query, the squat man wagged his head affirmatively.

Kitty, her ears strained for disquieting sounds in the kitchen, laid her palm on the patient's cheek. It was very hot. She dipped a bit of cotton into the water, which had grown cold, and dampened the wounded man's cheeks and throat. Not that she expected to accomplish anything by this act; it relieved the nerve tension. This man was no fool. If her surmises were correct he was a strong man both in body and in mind. In a rage he would be terrible. However, had Johnny Two-Hawks done it—beaten the man and escaped? No doubt he had been watching all the time and had at length stepped in to learn if his subordinates had followed his instructions and to what extent they had succeeded.

"If he dies it will be murder."

"It is a big city."

"And so many terrible things happen like this every day. But sooner or later those who commit them are found out. Nemesis always follows on the heels of vengeance."

For the first time there was a flash of interest in the battered eyes of the intruder. Perhaps he saw that this was not only a pretty woman but a keen one, and sensed the veiled threat. Moreover, he knew that she had lied at one point. There had been no light in the room across the court.

But what in the world was happening out there in the kitchen? Kitty wondered. So far, not a sound. Had Cutty really taken flight? And why shouldn't he have faced it out at her side? Very odd on Cutty's part. Shortly she heard the heavy shoes of the policeman returning.

"Guess it's all right, miss. I'll report the affair at the precinct and have an ambulance sent over. You'll have to come along with me, sir."

"Is that legally necessary?" asked the squat man, rather perturbed.

"Sure. You saw the thing and I verified it," declared the policeman. "It won't take ten minutes. Your name and address, in case this man dies."

"I see. Very well."

Kitty wasn't sure, but the policeman seemed embarrassed about something. The directness was gone from his eyes and his speech was no longer brisk.

"My name is Conover," said Kitty.

"I got that coming in," replied the policeman. "We'll be on our way."

Not once again did the squat man glance at the man on the bed. He followed the policeman into the hall, his air that of one who had accepted a certain obligation to community welfare and cancelled it.

Kitty shut the door—and leaned against it weakly. Where had Cutty gone? Even as she expressed the query she smelt burning tobacco. She ran out into the kitchen, to behold Cutty seated in a chair calmly smoking his infamous pipe!

"And I thought you were gone! What did you say to that policeman?"

"I hypnotized him, Kitty."

"The newspaper?"

"No. Just looked into his eye and made a few passes with my hands."

"Of course, if you believe you ought not to tell me—" said Kitty, which is the way all women start their wheedling.

Cutty looked into the bowl of his pipe.

"Kitty, when you throw a cobble into a pond, what happens? A splash. But did you ever notice the way the ripples have of running on and on, until they touch the farthest shore?"

"Yes. And this is a ripple from some big stone cast into the pond of southeastern Europe. I understand."

"That's just the difficulty. If you understood nothing it would be much easier for me. But you know just enough to want to follow up on your own hook. I know nothing definitely; I have only suspicions. I calmed that policeman by showing him a blanket police power issued by the commissioner. I want you to pack up and move out of this neighbourhood. It's not congenial to you."

"I'm afraid I can't afford to move until May."

"I'll take care of that gladly, to get you out of this garlicky ruin."

"No, Cutty; I'm going to stay here until the lease is up."

"Gee-whiz! The Irish are all alike," cried the war correspondent, hopelessly. "Petticoat or pantaloon, always looking for trouble."

"No, Cutty; simply we don't run away from it. And there's just as much Irish in you as there is in me."

"Sure! And for thirty years I've gone hunting for trouble, and never failed to find it. I don't like this affair, Kitty; and because I don't I'm going to risk my Samson locks in your lily-white hands. I am going to tell you two things: I am a secret foreign agent of the United States Government. Now don't light up that way. Dark alleys and secret papers and beautiful adventuresses and bang-bang have nothing at all to do with my job. There isn't a grain of romance in it. Ostensibly I am a war correspondent. I have handled all the big events in Serbia and Bulgaria and Greece and southwestern Russia. Boiled down, I am a census taker of undesirables. Socialist, anarchist and Bolshevik—I photograph them in my mental 'fillums' and transmit to Washington. Thus, when Feodor Slopeski lands at Ellis Island with the idea of blowing up New York, he is returned with thanks. I didn't ask for the job; it was thrust upon me because of my knowledge of the foreign tongues. I accepted it because I am a loyal American citizen."

"And you left me because you' didn't know who might be at the door!"

"Precisely. I am known in lower New York under another name. I'm a rabid internationalist. Down with everything! I don't go out much these days; keep under cover as much as I can. Once recognized, my value would be nil. In a flannel shirt I'm a dangerous codger."

"And Gregor and this poor young man are in some way mixed up with internationalism!"

"Victims, probably."

"What is the other thing you wish to tell me?"

"Because your eyes are slate blue like your mother's. I loved your mother, Kitty," said Cutty, blinking into his pipe. "And the singular fact is, your father knew but your mother never did. I was never able to tell your mother after your father died. Their bodies were separated, but not their spirits."

Kitty nodded. So that was it? Poor Cutty!

"I make this confession because I want you to understand my attitude toward you. I am going to elect myself as your special guardian so long as I'm in New York. From now on, when I ask you to do something, understand that I believe it best for you. If my suspicions are correct we are not dealing with fools but with madmen. The most dangerous human being, Kitty, is an honest man with a half-baked or crooked idea; and that's what this world pother, Bolshevism, is—honest men with crooked ideas, carrying the torch of anarchism and believing it enlightenment. What makes them tear down things? Every beautiful building is only a monument to their former wretchedness; and so they annihilate. None of them actually knows what he wants. A thousand will-o'-the-wisps in front of them, and all alike. A thousand years to throw off the shackles, and they expect Utopia in ten minutes! It makes you want to weep. Socialism—the brotherhood of man—is a beautiful thing theoretically; but it is like some plays—they read well but do not act. Lopping off heads, believing them to be ideas!"

"The poor things!"

"That's it. Though I betray them I pity them. Democracy; slowly and surely. As prickly with faults as a cactus pear; but every year there are less prickles. We don't stand still or retrogress; we keep going on and up. Take this town. Think of It to-day and compare it with the town your father knew. There's the bell. I imagine that will be Harrison. If we can move this chap will you go to a hotel for the night?"

"I'm going to stay here, Cutty. That's final."

Cutty sighed.



CHAPTER IX

At the precinct station the squat man gave a name and an address to the bored sergeant at the desk, passed out a cigar, lit one himself, expressed some innocuous opinions upon one or two topics of the day, and walked leisurely out of the precinct. He wanted to laugh. These pigheads had never thought to question his presence in the backyard of the house in Seventy-ninth Street. It was the way he had carried himself. Those years in New York, prior to the war, had not been wasted. The brass-buttoned fools!

Serenely unconscious that he was at liberty by explicit orders, because the Department of Justice did not care to trap a werewolf before ascertaining where the pack was and what the kill, he proceeded leisurely to the corner, turned, and broke into a run, which carried him to a drug store in Eightieth Street. Here he was joined by two men, apparently coal heavers by the look of their hands and faces.

"They will take him to a hospital. Find where, then notify me. Remember, this is your business, and woe to you if you fail. Where is it?" One of the men extended an object wrapped in ordinary grocer's paper.

"Ha! That's good. I shall enjoy myself presently. Remember: telephone me the moment you learn where they take him. He is still alive, bunglers! And you came away empty-handed."

"There was nothing on him. We searched."

"He has hidden them in one of those rooms. I'll attend to that later. Watch the hospital for an hour or so, then telephone for information regarding his condition. Is that motor for me? Very good. Remember!"

Inside the taxicab the squat man patted the object on his knees, and chuckled from time to time audibly. It would be worth all that journey, all he had gone through since dawn that morning. Stefani Gregor! After these seven long years—the man who had betrayed him! To reach into his breast and squeeze his heart as one might squeeze a bit of cheese! Many things to tell, many pictures to paint. He rode far downtown, wound in and out of the warehouse district for a while, then dismissed the taxi and proceeded on foot to his destination—a decayed brick mansion of the 40's sandwiched in between two deserted warehouses. In the hall of the first landing a man sat in a chair under the gas, reading a newspaper. At the approach of the squat man he sprang to his feet, but a phrase dissipated his apprehension and he nodded toward a door.

"Unlock it for me and see that I am not disturbed."

Presently the squat man stood inside the room, which was dark. He struck a match and peered about for the candle. The light discovered a room barren of all furniture excepting the table upon which stood the candle, and a single chair. In this chair was a man, bound. He was small and dapper, his gray hair swept back a la Liszt. His chin was on his breast, his body limp. Apparently the bonds alone held him in the chair.

The squat man laid his bundle on the table and approached the prisoner.

"Stefani Gregor, look up; it is I!" He drummed on his chest like a challenging gorilla. "I, Boris Karlov!"

Slowly the eyelids of the prisoner went up, revealing mild blue eyes. But almost instantly the mildness was replaced by an agate hardness, and the body became upright.

"Yes, it is Boris, whom you betrayed. But I escaped by a hair, Stefani; and we meet again."

What good to tell this poor madman that Stefani Gregor had not betrayed him, that he had only warned those marked for death? There was no longer reason inside that skull. To die, probably in a few moments. So be it. Had he not been ready for seven years? But that poor boy—to have come all these thousands of miles, only to walk into a trap! Had he found that note? Had they killed him? Doubtless they had or Boris Karlov would not be in this room.

"We killed him to-night, Stefani, in your rooms. We threw out the food so he would have to seek something to eat. The last of that breed, stem and branch! We are no longer the mud; we ourselves are the heels. We are conquering the world. Today Europe is ours; to-morrow, America!"

A wintry little smile stirred the lips of the man in the chair. America, with its keen perceptions of the ridiculous, its withering humour!

"No more the dissolute opera dancers will dance to your fiddling, Stefani, while we starve in the town. Fiddler, valet, tutor, the rivers and seas of Russia are red. We roll east and west, and our emblem is red. Stem and branch! We ground our heels in their faces as for centuries they ground theirs in ours. He escaped us there—but I was Nemesis. He died to-night."

The body in the chair relaxed a little. "He was clean and honest, Boris. I made him so. He would have done fine things if you had let him live."

"That breed?"

"Why, you yourself loved him when he was a boy!"

"Stem and branch! I loved my little sister Anna, too. But what did they do to her behind those marble walls? Did you fiddle for her? What was she when they let her go? My pretty little Anna! The fires of hell for those damned green stones of yours, Stefani! She heard of them and wanted to see them, and you promised."

"I? I never promised Anna! ... So that was it? Boris, I only saw her there. I never knew what brought her. But the boy was in England then."

"The breed, the breed!" roared the squat man. "Ha, but you should have seen! Those gay officers and their damned master—we left them with their faces in the mud, Stefani; in the mud! And the women begged. Fine music! Those proud hearts, begging Boris Karlov for their lives—their faces in the mud! You, born of us in those Astrakhan Hills, you denied us because you liked your fiddle and a full belly, and to play keeper of those emeralds. The winding paths of torture and misery and death by which they came into the possession of that house! And always the proletariat has had to pay in blood and daughters. You, of the people, to betray us!"

"I did not betray you. I only tried to save those who had been kind to me."

A cunning light shot into Karlov's eyes. "The emeralds!" He struck his pocket. "Here, Stefani; and they shall be broken up to buy bread for our people."

"That poor boy! So he brought them! What are you going to do with me?"

"Watch you grow thin, Stefani. You want death; you shall want food instead. Oh, a little; enough to keep you alive. You must learn what it is to be hungry."

The squat man picked up the bundle from the table and tore off the wrapping paper. A violin the colour of old Burgundy lay revealed.

"Boris!" The man in the chair writhed.

"Have I waked you, Stefani?"—tenderly. "The Stradivarius—the very grand duke of fiddles! And he and his damned officers, how they used to call out—'Get Stefani to fiddle for us!' And you fiddled, dragged your genius though the mud to keep your belly warm!"

"To save a soul, Boris—the boy's. When I fiddled his uncle forgot to drag him into an orgy. Ah, yes; I fiddled, fiddled because I had promised his mother!"

"The Italian singer! She was lucky to die when she did. She did not see the torch, the bayonet, and the mud. But the boy did—with his English accent! How he escaped I don't know; but he died to-night, and the emeralds are in my pocket. See!" Karlov held the instrument close to the other's face. "Look at it well, this grand duke of fiddles. Look, fiddler, look!"

The huge hands pressed suddenly. There was brittle crackling, and a rare violin became kindling. A sob broke from the prisoner's lips. What to Karlov was a fiddle to him was a soul. He saw the madman fling the wreckage to the floor and grind his heels into the fragments. Gregor shut his eyes, but he could not shut his ears; and he sensed in that cold, demoniacal fury of the crunching heel the rising of maddened peoples.



CHAPTER X

Meanwhile, Captain Harrison of the Medical Corps entered the Conover apartment briskly.

"You old vagabond, what have you been up to? I beg pardon!"—as he saw Kitty emerge from behind Cutty's bulk.

"This is Miss Conover, Harrison."

"Very pleased, I'm sure. Luckily my case was in the coat room at the club. I took the liberty of telephoning for Miss Frances, who returned on the same ship with me. I concluded that your friend would need a nurse. Let me have a look at him."

Callously but lightly and skillfully the surgeon examined the battered head. "Escaped concussion by a hair, you might say. Probably had his cap on. That black eye, though, is an older affair. Who is he?"

"I suspect he's some political refugee. We don't know a thing about him otherwise. How soon can he be moved?"

"He ought to be moved at once and given the best of care."

"I can give him that in my eagle's nest. Harrison, this chap's life is in danger; and if we get him into my lofty diggings they won't be able to trace him. Not far from here there's a private hospital I know. It goes through from one street to the next. I know the doctor. We'll have the ambulance carry the patient there, but at the rear I'll have one of the office newspaper trucks. And after a little wait we'll shoot the stretcher into the truck. The police will not bother us. I've seen to that. I rather believe it falls in with some of my work. The main idea, of course, is to rid Miss Conover of any trouble."

"Just as you say," agreed the surgeon. "That's all I can do for the present. I'll run down to the entrance and wait for The nurse."

"Will he live?" asked Kitty.

"Of course he will. He is in good physical condition. Imagine he has simply been knocked out. Serious only if unattended. Your finding him probably saved him. Twelve hours will tell the story. May be on his feet inside a week. Still, it would be advisable to keep him in bed as long as possible. Fagged out, I should say, from that beard. I'll go down and wait for Miss Frances."

"And ring three tunes when you return," advised Cutty.

"All right. Did they try to strangle him or did he have something round his neck?"

"Hanged if I know."

"All out of the room now. I want it dark. Just as soon as the nurse arrives I'll return. Three rings." Harrison left the apartment.

Cutty spent a few minutes at the telephone, then he joined Kitty in the living room.

"Kitty, what was the stranger like?"

"Like a gorilla. He spoke English as if he had a cold."

Cutty scowled into space. "Have a scar over an eyebrow?"

"Good gracious, I couldn't tell! Both his eyes were black and his nose banged dreadfully. Johnny Two-Hawks probably did it."

"Bully for Two-Hawks! Kitty, you're a marvel. Not a flivver from the start. And those slate-blue eyes of yours don't miss many things."

"Listen!" she interrupted, taking hold of his sleeve. "Hear it?"

"Only the Elevated."

"Tumpitum-tump! Tumpitum-tump! Cutty, you hypnotized me this afternoon with your horrid drums."

"The emeralds?" He managed to repress the start.

"I don't know what it is; drums, anyhow. Maybe it is the emeralds. Something has been happening ever since you told me about them—the misery and evil that follow their wake."

"But the story goes that women are immune, Kitty."

"Nonsense! No woman is immune where a wonderful gem is concerned. And yet I've common sense and humour."

"And a lot more besides, Kitty. You're a raving, howling little beauty; and how you've remained out of captivity this long is a puzzler to me. Haven't you got a beau somewhere?"

"No, Cutty. Perhaps I'm one of those who are quite willing to wait patiently. If the one I want doesn't come—why, I'll be a jolly, philosophical old maid. No seconds or culls for me, as the magazine editor says."

"Exactly what do you want?" Cutty was keenly curious, for some reason he could not define. He did not care for diamonds as stones; but he admired any personality that flashed differently from each new angle exposed.

"Oh, a man, among other things. I don't mean one of those godlike chromos in the frontispiece of popular novels. He hasn't got to be handsome. But he must be able to laugh when he's happy, when he's hurt. I must be his business in life. He must know a lot about things I know. I want a comrade who will come to me when he has a joke or an ache. A gay man and whimsical. The law can make any man a husband, but only God can make a good comrade."

"Kitty," said Cutty, his fine eyes sparkling, "I shan't have to watch over you so much as I thought. On the other hand, you have described me to a dot."

"Quite possibly. Vanity has its uses. It keeps us in contact with bathtubs and nice clothes. I imagine that you would make both husband and comrade; or you would have, twenty years ago"—without intentional cruelty. Wasn't Cutty fifty-two?

"Kitty, you've touched a vital point. It took those twenty years to make me companionable. Experience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I possess all the necessary attributes save one."

"And what is that?"

"Youth, Kitty. And take the word of a senile old dotard, your young man, when you find him, will lack many of the attributes you require. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that these will develop as you jog along. The terrible pity of youth is that it has the habit of conferring these attributes rather than finding them. You put garlands on the heads of snow images, and the first glare of sunshine—pouf!"

"Cutty, I'm beginning to like you immensely"—smiling. "Perhaps women ought to have two husbands—one young and handsome and the other old and wise like yourself."

Cutty wished he were alone in order to analyze the stab. Old! When he knew that mentally and physically he could take and break a dozen Two-Hawks. Old! He had never thought himself that. Fifty-two years; they had piled up on him without his appreciation of the fullness of the score. And yet he was more than a match for any ordinary man of thirty in sinew and brain; and no man met the new morning with more zest than he himself met it. But to Kitty he was old! Lavender and oak leaves were being draped on his door knob. He laughed.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Oh, because—Hark!"

The two of them ran to the bedroom door.

"Olga! Olga!" And then a guttural level jumble of sounds.

Kitty's quick brain reached out for a similitude—water rushing over ragged boulders.

"Olga!" she whispered. "He is a Russian!"

"There are Serbian Olgas and Bulgarian Olgas and Rumanian Olgas. Probably his sweetheart."

"The poor thing!"

"Sounds like Russian," added Cutty, his conscience pricking him. But he welcomed that "Olga." It would naturally put a damper on Kitty's interest. "There's Harrison with the nurse."

Quarter of an hour later the patient was taken down to the ambulance and conveyed to the private hospital. Cutty had no way of ascertaining whether they were followed; but he hoped they would be. The knowledge that their victim was in a near-by hospital would naturally serve to relax the enemy vigilance temporarily; and this would permit safely and secretly the second leg of the journey—that to his own apartment.

He decided to let an hour go past; then Two-Hawks was taken through the building to the rear and transferred to the truck. Cutty sat with the driver while Captain Harrison and the nurse rode inside with the patient.

On the way Cutty was rather disturbed by the deep impression Kitty Conover had made upon his heart and mind. That afternoon he had looked upon her with fatherly condescension, as the pretty daughter of the two he had loved most. From the altitude of his fifty-two he had gazed down upon her twenty-four, weighing her as like all young women of twenty-four—pleasure-loving and beau-hunting and fashion-scorched; and in a flash she had revealed the formed mind of a woman of thirty. Altitude. He had forgotten that relative to altitudes there are always two angles of vision—that from the summit and that from the green valley below. Kitty saw him beyond the tree line, but just this side of the snows—and matched his condescension with pity! He chuckled. Doddering old ass, what did it matter how she looked at him?

Beautiful and young and full of common sense, yet dangerously romantical. To wait for the man she wanted, what did that signify but romance? And there was her Irish blood to consider. The association of pretty nurse and interesting patient always afforded excellent background for sentimental nonsense, the obligations of the one and the gratitude of the other. Well, he had nipped that in the bud.

And why hadn't he taken this Two-Hawks person—how easy it was to fall into Kitty's way of naming the chap!—why hadn't he taken him directly to the Roosevelt? Why all this pother and secrecy over a total stranger? Stefani Gregor, who lived opposite Kitty and who hadn't prospered particularly since the day he had exhibited the drums of jeopardy—he was the reason. These were volcanic days, and a friend of Stefani Gregor—who played the violin like Paganini—might well be worth the trouble of a little courtesy. Then, too, there was that mark of the thong—a charm, a military identification disk or something of value. Whatever it was, the rogues had got it. Murder and loot. And as soon as he returned to consciousness the young fellow would be making inquiries.

Perhaps Kitty's point of view regarding a certain duffer aged fifty-two was nearer the truth than the duffer himself realized. Second childhood! As if the drums of jeopardy would ever again see light, after that tempest of fire and death—that mud volcano!

One thing was certain—there would be no more cat-napping. The game was on again. He was assured of that side of it.

Green stones, the sunlight breaking against the flaws in a shower of golden sparks; green as the pulp of a Champagne grape; the drums of jeopardy! Murder and loot; he could understand.

Immediately after the patient was put to bed Cutty changed. A nondescript suit of the day-labourer type and a few deft touches of coal dust completed his make-up.

"I shan't be back until morning," he announced. "Work to do. Kuroki will be at your service through the night, Miss Frances. Strike that Burmese gong once, at any hour. Come along, Harrison."

"Want any company?" asked Harrison, with a belligerent twist to his moustache.

Cutty laughed. "No. You run along to your lambs. I'm running with the wolves to-night, old scout, and you might get that spick-and-span uniform considerably mussed up. Besides, it's raining."

"But what's to become of Miss Conover? She ought not to remain alone in that apartment."

"Well, well! I thought of that, too. But she can take care of herself."

"Those ruffians may call up the hospital and learn that we tricked them.

"And then?"

"Try to force the truth from Miss Conover."

"That's precisely the wherefore of this coal dust. On your way!"

Eleven o'clock. Kitty was in the kitchen, without light, her chair by the window, which she had thrown up. She had gone to bed, but sleep was impossible. So she decided to watch the Gregor windows. Sometimes the mind is like a movie camera set for a double exposure. The whole scene is visible, but the camera sees only half of it. Thus, while she saw the windows across the court there entered the other side of her mind a picture of the immaculate Cutty crossing the platform with Johnny Two-Hawks thrown over his shoulder. The mental picture obscured the actual.

She had called him old. Well, he was old. And no doubt he looked upon her as a child, wanting her to spend the night at a hotel! The affair was over. No one would bother Kitty Conover. Why should they? But it took strength to shoulder a man like that. What fun he and her father must have had together! And Cutty had loved her mother! That made Kitty exquisitely tender for a moment. All alone, at the age when new friendships were impossible. A lovable man like that going down through life alone!

Census taker of alien undesirables; a queer occupation for a man so famous as Cutty. Patriotism—to plunge into that seething revolutionary scum to sort the dangerous madmen from the harmless mad-men. Courage and strength and mental resource; yes, Cutty possessed these; and he would be the kind to laugh at a joke or a hurt.

One thing, however, was indelibly printed on her mind. Stefani Gregor—either Cutty had met and known the man or he had heard of him.

Suddenly she became conscious that she was blinking as one blinks from mirror-reflected sunlight. She cast about for the source of this phenomenon. Obliquely from between the interstices of the fire-escape platform came a point of moving white light. She craned her neck. A battery lamp! The round spot of light worked along the cement floor, vanished occasionally, reappeared, and then vanished altogether. Somebody was down there hunting for something. What?

Kitty remained with her head out of the window for some time, unmindful of the spatter of rain. But nothing happened. The man was gone. Of course the incident might not have the slightest bearing upon the previous adventures of this amazing night; still, it was suggestive. The young man had worn something round his neck. But if his enemies had it why should this man comb the court, unless he was a tenant and had knocked something off a window ledge?

She began to appreciate that she was very tired, and decided to go back to bed. This time she fell asleep. Her disordered thoughts rearranged themselves in a dazzling dream. She found herself wandering through a glorious translucent green cavern—a huge emerald. And in the distance she heard that unmistakable tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! It drew her irresistibly. She fought and struggled against the fascinating sound, but it continued to draw her on. Suddenly from round a corner came the squat man, his hair a la Fuzzy-Wuzzy. He caught her savagely by the shoulder and dragged her toward a fire of blazing diamonds. On the other side of that fire was a blonde young woman with a tiara of rubies on her head. "Save me! I am Olga, Olga!" Kitty struggled fiercely and awoke.

The light was on. At the side of her bed were two men. One of them was holding her bare shoulder and digging his fingers into it cruelly. They looked like coal heavers.

"We do not wish to harm you, and won't if you're sensible. Where did they take the man you brought?"



CHAPTER XI

Kitty did not wrench herself loose at once. She wasn't quite sure that this was not a continuance of her nightmare. She knew that nightmares had a way of breaking off in the middle of things, of never arriving anywhere. The room looked natural enough and the pain in her shoulder seemed real enough, but one never could tell. She decided to wait for the next episode.

"Answer!" cried the spokesman of the two, twisting Kitty's shoulder. "Where did they take him?"

Awake! Kitty wrenched her shoulder away and swept the bedclothes up to her chin. She was thoroughly frightened, but her brain was clear. The spark of self-preservation flew hither and about in search of expediencies, temporizations. She must come through this somehow with the vantage on her side. She could not possibly betray that poor young man, for that would entail the betrayal of Cutty also. She saw but one avenue, the telephone; and these two men were on the wrong side of the bed, between her and the door.

"What do you want?" Her throat was so dry she wondered whether the words were projected far enough for them to hear.

"We want the address of the wounded man you brought into this apartment."

"They took him to a hospital."

"He was taken away from there."

"He was?"

"Yes, he was. You may not know where, but you will know the address of the man who tricked us; and that will be sufficient."

"The army surgeon? He was called in by chance. I don't know where he lives."

"The man in the dress suit."

"He was with the surgeon."

"He came first. Come; we have no time to waste. We don't want to hurt you, and we hope you will not force us.

"Will you step out of the room while I dress?"

"No. Tell us where the man lives, and you can have the whole apartment to yourself."

"You speak English very well."

"Enough! Do you want us to bundle you up in the bedclothes and carry you off? It will not be a pleasant experience for a pretty young woman like yourself. Something happened to the man you knew as Gregory. Will that make you understand?"

"You know what abduction means?"

"Your police will not catch us."

"But I might give you the wrong address."

"Try it and see what happens. Young lady, this is a bad affair for a woman to be mixed up in. Be sensible. We are in a hurry."

"Well, you seem to have acquired at least one American habit!" said a gruff voice from the bedroom doorway. "Raise your hands quickly, and don't turn," went on the gruff voice. "If I shoot it will be to kill. It is a rough game, as you say. That's it; and keep them up. Now, then, young lady, slip on your kimono. Get up and search these men. I'm in a hurry, too."

Kitty obeyed, very lovely in her dishevelment. Repugnant as the task was she disarmed the two men and flung their weapons on the bed.

"Now something to tie their hands; anything that will hold."

Kitty could see the speaker now. Another coal heaver, but evidently on her side.

"Tie their hands behind them... I warn you not to move, men. When I say I'll shoot I mean it. Don't be afraid of hurting them, miss. Very good. Now bandage their eyes. Handkerchiefs."

But Kitty's handkerchiefs did not run to the dimensions' required; so she ripped up a petticoat. Torn between her eagerness to complete a disagreeable task and her offended modesty, Kitty went through the performance with creditable alacrity. Then she jumped back into bed, doubled her knees, and once more drew up the bedclothes to her chin, content to be a spectator, her eyes as wide as ever they possibly could be.

Some secret-service man Cutty had sent to protect her. Dear old Cutty! Small wonder he had urged her to spend the night at a hotel. The admiration of her childhood returned, but without the shackles of shyness. She had always trusted him absolutely, and to this trust was now added understanding. To have him pop into her life again in this fashion, all the ordinary approaches to intimacy wiped out by these amazing episodes; the years bridged in an hour! If only he were younger!

"Watch them, miss. Don't be afraid to shoot. I'll return in a moment"—still gruffly. The secret-service man pushed his prisoners into chairs and left the bedroom.

Kitty did not care how gruff the voice was; it was decidedly pleasant in her ears. Gingerly she picked up one of the revolvers. Kitty Conover with shooting irons in her hands, like a movie actress! She heard a whistle. After this an interval of silence, save for the ticking of the alarm clock on the stand. She eyed the blindfolded men speculatively, swung out of bed, and put on her stockings and sandals; then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the sequence. Kitty Conover was going to have some queer recollections to tell her grandchildren, providing she had any. That morning she had risen to face a humdrum normal day. And here she was, at midnight, hobnobbing with quiescent murder and sudden death! To-morrow Burlingame would ask her to hustle up the Sunday stuff, and she would hustle. She wanted to laugh, but was a little afraid that this laughter might degenerate into incipient hysteria.

There was still in her mind a vivid recollection of her dream—the fire of diamonds and the blonde girl with the tiara of rubies. Olga, Olga! Russian; the whole affair was Russian. She shivered. Always that land and people had appeared to her in sinister aspect; no doubt an impression acquired from reading melodramas written by Englishmen who, once upon a time, had given Russia preeminence as a political menace. Russia, in all things—music, art, literature—the tragic note. Stefani Gregor and Johnny Two-Hawks had roused the enmity of some political society with this result. Nihilist or Bolshevist or socialist, there was little choice; and Cutty sensibly did not want her drawn into the whirlpool.

What a pleasant intimacy hers and Cutty's promised to be! And if he hadn't casually dropped into the office that afternoon she would have surrendered the affair to the police, and that would have been the end of it. Amazing thought—you might jog along all your life at the side of a person and never know him half so well as someone you met m a tense episode, like that of the immaculate Cutty crossing the fire escape with Two-Hawks on his shoulders!

She heard the friendly coal heaver going down the corridor to the door. When he returned to the bedroom two men accompanied him. Not a word was said. The two men marched off with the prisoners and left Kitty alone with her saviour.

"Thank you," she said, simply.

"You poor little chicken, did you believe I had deserted you?" The voice wasn't gruff now.

"Cutty?" Kitty ran to him, flinging her arms round his neck. "Oh, Cutty!"

Cutty's heart, which had bumped along an astonishing number of million times in fifty-two years, registered a memorable bump against his ribs. The touch of her soft arms and the faint, indescribable perfume which emanates from a dainty woman's hair thrilled him beyond any thrill he had ever known. For Kitty's mother had never put her arms round old Cutty's neck. Of course he understood readily enough: Molly's girl, flesh of her flesh. And she had rushed to him as she would have rushed to her father. He patted her shoulder clumsily, still a little dazzled for all the revelation in the analysis. The sweet intimacy of it! The door of Paradise opened for a moment, and then shut in his face.

"I did not recognize you at all!" she cried, standing off. "I shouldn't have known you on the street. And it is so simple. What a wonderful man you are!"

"For an old codger?" Cutty's heart registered another sizable bump.

Kitty laughed. "Never call yourself old to me again. Are you always doing these things?"

"Well, I keep moving. I suspected something like this might happen. Those two will go to the Tombs to await deportation if they are aliens. Perhaps we can dig something out of them relative to this man Gregor. Anyhow, we'll try."

"Cutty, I saw a man in the court with a pocket lamp before I went to bed. He was hunting for something."

"I didn't find anything but a lot of fresh food someone had thrown out."

"It was you, then?"

"Yes. There was a vague possibility that your protege might have thrown out something valuable during the struggle."

"What?"

"Lord knows! A queer business, Kitty, you've lugged me into—my own! And there is one thing I want you to remember particularly: Life means nothing to the men opposed, neither chivalry nor ethics. Annihilation is their business. They don't want civilization; they want chaos. They have lost the sense of comparisons or they would not seek to thrust Bolshevism down the throats of the rest of the world. They say democracy has failed, and their substitute is murder and loot. Kitty, I want you to leave this roost."

"I shall stay until my lease expires."

"Why? In the face of real danger?"

"Because I intend to, Cutty—unless you kidnap me."

"Have you any good reason?"

"You'll laugh; but something tells me to stay here."

But Cutty did not laugh. "Very well. Tomorrow an assistant janitor will be installed. His name is Antonio Bernini. Every night he will whistle up the tube. Whistle back. If you are going out for the evening notify him where you intend to go and when you expect to be back. A wire from your bed to his cot will be installed. In danger, press the button. That's the best I can do for you, since you decide to stick. I don't believe anything more will happen to-night, but from now on you will be watched. Never come directly to my apartment. Break your journey two or three times with taxis. Always use Elevator Four. The boy is mine; belongs to the service. So our Bolshevik friends won't gather anything about you from him."

As a matter of fact, Cutty had now come to the conviction that it would be well to let Kitty remain here as a lure. He had urged her to leave, and she had refused, so his conscience was tolerably clear. Besides, she would henceforth be guarded with a ceaseless efficiency second only to that which encompasses a President of the United States. Always some man of the service would be watching those who watched her. This was going to develop into a game of small nets, one or two victims at a time. Because these enemies of civilization lacked coherence in action there would be slim chance of rounding them up in bulk. But from now on men would vanish—one here, a pair there, perhaps on occasion four or five. And those who had known them would know them no more. The policy would be that employed by the British in the submarine campaign—mysterious silence after the evanishment.

"It's all so exciting!" said Kitty. "But that poor old man Gregor! He had a wonderful violin, Cutty; and sometimes I used to hear him play folklore music—sad, haunting melodies."

"We'll know in a little while what's become of him. I doubt there is a foreign organization in the city that hasn't one or more of our men on the inside. A word will be dropped somewhere. I'm rarely active on this side of the Atlantic; and what I'm doing now is practically due to interest. But every active operative in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago is on the lookout for a man who, if left free, will stir up a lot of trouble. He has leadership, this Boris Karlov, a former intimate here of Trotzky's. We have reason to believe that he slipped through the net in San Francisco. Probably under a cleverly forged passport. Now please describe the man who came in with the policeman. I haven't had time to make inquiries at the precinct, where they will have a minute description of him."

"He made me think of a gorilla, just as I told you. His face was pretty well banged up. Naturally I did not notice any scar. A dreadfully black beard, shaven."

"Squat, powerful, like a gorilla. Lord, I wish I'd had a glimpse of him! He's one of the few topnotchers I haven't met. He's the spark, the hand on the plunger. The powder is all ready in this land of ours; our job is to keep off the sparks until we can spread the stuff so it will only go puff instead of bang. This man Karlov is bad medicine for democracy. Poor devil!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm honestly sorry for them. This fellow Karlov has suffered. He is now a species of madman nothing will cure. He and his kind have gained their ends in Russia, but the impetus to kill and burn and loot is still unchecked. Sorry, yes; but we can't have them here. They remind me of nothing so much as those blind deep-sea monsters in one of Kipling's tales, thrown up into air and sunlight by a submarine volcano, slashing and bellowing. But we can't have them here any longer. Keep those revolvers under your pillow. All you have to do is to point. Nobody will know that you can't shoot. And always remember, we're watching over you. Good-night."

"Mouquin's for lunch?"

"Well, I'll be hanged! But it can't be, Kitty. You and I must not be seen in public. If that was Karlov you will be marked, and so will any one who travels with you."

"Good gracious!"

"Fact. But come up to the roost—changing taxis—to-morrow at five and have tea."

Down in the street Cutty bore into the slanting rain, no longer a drizzle. With his hands jammed in his side pockets and his gaze on the sparkling pavement he continued downtown, in a dangerously ruminative frame of mind, dangerous because had he been followed he would not have known it.

Molly Conover's girl! That afternoon it had been Tommy Conover's girl; now she was Molly's. It occurred to him for the first time that he was one of those unfortunate individuals who are always able to open the door to Paradise for others and are themselves forced to remain outside. Hadn't he introduced Conover to Molly, and hadn't they fallen in love on the spot? Too old to be a hero and not old enough to die. He grinned. Some day he would use that line.

Of course it wasn't Kitty who set this peculiar cogitation in motion. It wasn't her arms and the perfume of her hair. The actual thrill had come from a recrudescence of a vanished passion; anyhow, a passion that had been held suspended all these years. Still, it offered a disquieting prospect. He was sensible enough to realize that he would be in for some confusion in trying to disassociate the phantom from the quick.

Most pretty young women were flitter-flutters, unstable, shallow, immature. But this little lady had depth, the sense of the living drama; and, Lord, she was such a beauty! Wanted a man who would laugh when he was happy and when he was hurt. A bull's-eye—bang, like that! For the only breed worth its salt was the kind that laughed when happy and when hurt.

The average young woman, rushing into his arms the way she had, would not have stirred him in the least. And immediately upon the heels of this thought came a taste of the confusion he saw in store for himself. Was it the phantom or Kitty? He jumped to another angle to escape the impasse. Kitty's coming to him in that fashion raised an unpalatable suggestion. He evidently looked fatherly, no matter how he felt. Hang these fifty-two years, to come crowding his doorstep all at once!

He raised his head and laughed. He suddenly remembered now. At nine that night he had been scheduled to deliver a lecture on the Italo-Jugoslav muddle before a distinguished audience in the ballroom of a famous hotel! He would have some fancy apologizing to do in the morning.

He stepped into a doorway, then peered out cautiously. There was not a single pedestrian in sight. No need of hiking any further in this rain; so he hunted for a taxi. To-morrow he would set the wires humming relative to old Stefani Gregor. Boris Karlov, if indeed it were he, would lead the way. Hadn't Stefani and Boris been boyhood friends, and hadn't Stefani betrayed the latter in some political affair? He wasn't sure; but a glance among his 1912 notes would clear up the fog.

But that young chap! Who was he? Cutty set his process of logical deduction moving. Karlov—always supposing that gorilla was Karlov—had come in from the west. So had the young man. Gregor's inclinations had been toward the aristocracy; at least, that had been the impression. A Bolshevik would not seek haven with a man like Gregor, as this young man had. But Two-Hawks bothered him; the name bothered him, because it had no sense either in English or in Russian. And yet he was sure he had heard it somewhere. Perhaps his notes would throw some light on that subject, too.

When he arrived home Miss Frances, the nurse, informed him that the patient was babbling in an outlandish tongue. For a long time Cutty stood by the bedside, translating.

"Olga!... Olga!... And she gave me food, Stefani, this charming American girl. Never must we forget that. I was hungry, and she gave me food.... But I paid for it. You, gone, there was no one else.... And she is poor.... The torches!... I am burning, burning!... Olga!"

"What does he say?" asked the nurse.

"It is Russian. Is it a crisis?" he evaded.

"Not necessarily. Doctor Harrison said he would probably return to consciousness sometime to-morrow. But he must have absolute quiet. No visitors. A bad blow, but not of fatal consequence. I've seen hundreds of cases much worse pull out in a fortnight. You'd better go to bed, sir."

"All right," said Cutty, gratefully. He was tired. The ball did not rebound as it used to; the resilience was petering out. But look alive, there! Big events were toward, and he must not stop to feel of his pulse.

Three o'clock in the morning.

The man in the Gregor bedroom sat down on the bed, the pocket lamp dangling from his hairy fingers. Not a nook or cranny in the apartment had he overlooked. In every cupboard, drawer; in the beds and under; the trunks; behind the radiators and the pictures; the shelves and clothes in the closets. What he sought he had not found.

His vengeance would not be complete without those green stones in his hands. Anna would call from her grave. Pretty little Anna, who had trusted Stefani Gregor, and gone to her doom.

All these thousands of miles, by hook and crook, by forged passports, by sums of money, sleepless nights and hungry days—for this! The last of that branch of the breed out of his reach, and the stones vanished! A queer superstition had taken lodgment in his brain; he recognized it now for the first time. The possession of those stones would be a sign from God to go on. Green stones for bread! Green stones for bread! The drums of jeopardy! In his hands they would be talismanic.

But wait! That pretty girl across the way. Supposing he had intrusted the stones to her? Or hidden them there without her being aware of it?



CHAPTER XII

Kitty Conover ate in the kitchen. First off, this statement is likely to create the false impression that there was an ordinary grain here, a wedge of base hemlock in the citron. Not so. She ate in the kitchen because she could not yet face that vacant chair in the dining room without choking and losing her appetite. She could not look at the chair without visualizing that glorious, whimsical, fascinating mother of hers, who could turn grumpy janitors into comedians and send importunate bill collectors away with nothing but spangles in their heads.

So long as she stayed out of the dining room she could accept her loneliness with sound philosophy. She knew, as all sensible people know, that there were ghosts, that memory had haunted galleries, and that empty chairs were evocations.

Her days were so busily active, there were so many first nights and concerts, that she did not mind such evenings as she had to spend alone in the apartment. Persons were in and out of the office all through the day, and many of them entertaining. For only real persons ever penetrated that well-guarded cubby-hole off the noisy city room. Many of them were old friends of her mother. Of course they were a little pompous, but this was less innate than acquired; and she knew that below they were worth while. She had come to the conclusion that successful actors and actresses were the only people in America who spoke English fluently and correctly.

Yes, she ate in the kitchen; but she would have been a fit subject for the fastidious Fragonard. Kitty was naturally an exquisite. Everything about her was dainty, her body and her mind. The background of pans and dishes, gas range and sink did not absorb Kitty; her presence here in the morning lifted everything out of the rut of commonplace and created an atmosphere that was ornamental. Pink peignoir and turquoise-blue boudoir cap, silk petticoat and stockings and adorable little slippers. No harm to tell the secret! Kitty was educating herself for a husband. She knew that if she acquired the habit of daintiness at breakfast before marriage it would become second nature after marriage. Moreover, she was determined that it should be tremendous news that would cause a newspaper to intervene. She had all the confidence in the world in her mirror.

She got her breakfast this morning, singing. She was happy. She had found a door out of monotony; theatrical drama had given way to the living. She had opened the book of adventure and she was going straight through to finis. That there was an undertow of the sinister escaped her or she ignored it.

In all high-strung Irish souls there is a bit of the old wife, the foreteller; the gift of prescience; and Kitty possessed this in a mild degree. Something held her here, when for a dozen reasons she should have gone elsewhere.

She strained the coffee, humming a tune out of The Mikado, the revival of which she had seen lately:

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time To make the punishment fit the crime. The punishment fit the crime. And make the prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment. Of innocent merriment!

And there you were! To make the punishment fit the crime. Wall in the Bolsheviki, the I.W.W.'s, the Red Socialist, the anarchists—and let them try it for ten years. Those left would be glad enough to embrace democracy and sanity. The poor benighted things, to imagine that they were going forward there in Russia! What kind of mentality was it that could conceive a blessing to humanity in the abolition of baths and work? And Cutty felt sorry for them. Well, as for that, so did Kitty Conover; and she would continue feeling sorry for them so long as they remained thousands of miles away. But next door!

"Grapefruit, eggs on toast, and coffee; mademoiselle is served!" she cried, gayly, sitting down and attacking her breakfast with the zest of healthy youth.

Often the eyes are like the lenses of a camera minus the sensitized plate; they see objects without printing them. Thus a dozen times Kitty's glance absently swept the range and the racks on each side of the stovepipe, one rack burdened with an empty pancake jug and the other cluttered with old-fashioned flatirons; but she saw nothing.

She was carefully reviewing the events of the night before. She could not dismiss the impression that Cutty knew Stefani Gregor or had heard of him; and in either case it signified that Gregor was something more than a valet. And decidedly Two-Hawks was not of the Russian peasantry.

By the time she was ready to leave for the office the Irish blood in her was seething and bubbling and dancing. She knew she would do crazy, impulsive things all day. It was easy to analyze this exuberance. She had reached out into the dark and touched danger, and found a new thrill in a humdrum world.

The Great Dramatist had produced a tremendous drama and she had watched curtain after curtain fall from the wrong side of the lights. Now she had been given a speaking part; and she would be down stage for a moment or two—dusting the furniture—while the stars were retouching their make-up. It was not the thought of Cutty, of Gregor, of Johnny Two-Hawks, of hidden treasure; simply she had arrived somewhere in the great drama.

When she reached the office she had a hard time of it to settle down to the day's work.

"Hustle up that Sunday stuff," said Burlingame. Kitty laughed. Just as she had pictured it. She hustled.

"I have it!" she cried, breaking a spell of silence.

"What—St. Vitus?" inquired Burlingame, patiently.

"No; the Morgue!"

"What the dickens—!"

But Kitty was no longer there to answer.

In all newspaper offices there is a department flippantly designated as the Morgue. Obituaries on ice, as it were. A photograph or an item concerning a great man, a celebrated, beauty or some notorious rogue; from the king calibre down to Gyp-the-Blood brand, all indexed and laid away against the instant need. So, running her finger tip down the K's, Kitty found Karlov. The half tone which she eventually exhumed from the tin box was an excellent likeness of the human gorilla who had entered her rooms with the policeman. She would be able to carry this positive information to Cutty that afternoon.

When she left the office at four she took the Subway to Forty-second Street. She engaged a taxi from the Knickerbocker and discharged it at the north entrance to the Waldorf, which she entered. She walked through to the south entrance and got into another taxi. She left this at Wanamaker's, ducking and dodging through the crowded aisles. She selected this hour because, being a woman, she knew that the press of shoppers would be the greatest during the day. Karlov's man and the secret-service operative detailed by Cutty both made the same mistake—followed Kitty into the dry-goods shop and lost her as completely as if she had popped up in China. At quarter to five she stepped into Elevator Number Four of the building which Cutty called his home, very well pleased with herself.



CHAPTER XIII

To understand Kitty at this moment one must be able to understand the Irish; and nobody does or can or will. Consider her twenty-four years, her corpuscular inheritance, the love of drama and the love of adventure. Imagine possessing sound ideas of life and the ability to apply them, and spiritually always galloping off on some broad highway—more often than not furnished by some engaging scoundrel of a novelist—and you will be able to construct a half tone of Kitty Conover.

That civilization might be actually on its deathbed, that positively half of the world was starving and dying and going mad through the reaction of the German blight touched her in a detached way. She felt sorry, dreadfully sorry, for the poor things; but as she could not help them she dismissed them from her thoughts every morning after she had read the paper, the way most of us do here in these United States. You cannot grapple with the misery of an unknown person several thousand miles away.

That which had taken place during the past twenty-four hours was to her a lark, a blindman's buff for grown-ups. It was not in her to tremble, to shudder, to hesitate, to weigh this and to balance that. Irish curiosity. Perhaps in the original that immortal line read: "The Irish rush in where angels fear to tread," and some proofreader had a particular grudge against the race.

When the elevator reached the seventeenth floor, the passengers surged forth. All except Kitty, who tarried.

"We don't carry to the eighteenth, miss.

"I am Miss Conover," she replied. "I dared not tell you until we were alone."

"I see." The boy nodded, swept her with an appraising glance, and sent the elevator up to the loft.

"You understand? If any one inquires about me, you don't remember."

"Yes, miss. The boss's orders."

"And if any one does inquire you are to report at once."

"That, too."

The boy rolled back the door and Kitty stepped out upon a Laristan runner of rose hues and cobalt blue. She wondered what it cost Cutty to keep up an establishment like this. There were fourteen rooms, seven facing the north and seven facing the west, with glorious vistas of steam-wreathed roofs and brick Matterhorns and the dim horizon touching the sea. Fine rugs and tapestries and furniture gathered from the four ends of the world; but wholly livable and in no sense atmospheric of the museum. Cutty had excellent taste.

She had visited the apartment but twice before, once in her childhood and again when she was eighteen. Cutty had given a dinner in honour of her mother's birthday. She smiled as she recalled the incident. Cutty had placed a box of candles at the side of her mother's plate and told her to stick as many into the cake as she thought best.

"Hello!" said Cutty, emerging from one of the doors. "What the dickens have you been up to? My man has just telephoned me that he lost track of you in Wanamaker's."

Kitty explained, delighted.

"Well, well! If you can lose a man such as I set to watch you, you'll have no trouble shaking the others."

"It was Karlov, Cutty."

"How did you learn?"

"Searched the morgue and found a half tone of him. Positively Karlov. How is the patient?"

"Harrison says he's pulling round amazingly. A tough skull. He'll be up for his meals in no time."

"How do you do it?" she asked with a gesture.

"Do what?"

"Manage a place like this? In a busy office district. It's the most wonderful apartment in New York. Riverside has nothing like it. It must cost like sixty."

"The building is mine, Kitty. That makes it possible. An uncle who knew I hated money and the responsibilities that go with it, died and left it to me."

"Why, Cutty, you must be rich!"

"I'm sorry. What can I do? I can't give it away."

"But you don't have to work!"

"Oh, yes, I do. I'm that kind. I'd die of a broken heart if I had to sit still. It's the game."

"Did mother know?"

"Yes."

With the toe of a snug little bronze boot Kitty drew an outline round a pattern in the rug.

"Love is a funny thing," was her comment.

"It sure is, old-timer. But what put the thought into your head?"

"I was thinking how very much mumsy must have been in love with father."

"But she never knew that I loved her, Kitty."

"What's that got to do with it? If she had wanted money you wouldn't have had the least chance in the world."

"Probably not! But what would you have done in your mother's place?"

"Snapped you up like that!" Kitty flashed back.

"You cheerful little—little—"

"Liar. Say it!" Kitty laughed. "But am I a cheerful little liar? I don't know. It would be an awful temptation. Somebody to wait on you; heaps of flowers when you wanted them; beautiful gowns and thingummies and furs and limousines. I've often wondered what I should do if I found myself with love and youth on one side and money and attraction on the other. I've always been in straitened circumstances. I never spent a dollar in all my days when I didn't think I ought to have held back three or four cents of it. You can't know, Cutty, what it is to be poor and want beautiful things and good times. Of course. I couldn't marry just money. There would have to be some kind of a man to go with it. Someone interesting enough to make me forget sometimes that I'd thrown away a lover for a pocket-book."

"Would you marry me, Kitty?"

"Are you serious?"

"Let's suppose I am."

"No. I couldn't marry you, Cutty I should always be having my mother's ghost as a rival."

"But supposing I fell in love with you?"

"Then I'd always be doubting your constancy. But what queer talk!"'

"Kitty, you're a joy! Lordy, my luck in dropping in to see you yesterday!"

"And a little whippersnapper like me calling a great man like you Cutty!"

"Well, if it embarrasses you, you might switch to papa once in a while."

Kitty's laughter rang down the corridor. "I'll remember that whenever I want to make you mad. Who's here?"

"Nobody but Harrison and the nurse. Both good citizens, and I've taken them into my confidence to a certain extent. You can talk freely before them."

"Am I to see the patient?"

"Harrison says not. About Wednesday your Two-Hawks will be sitting up. I've determined to keep the poor devil here until he can take care of himself. But he is flat broke."

"He said he had money."

"Well, Karlov's men stripped him clean."

"Have you any idea who he is?"

"To be honest, that's one of the reasons why I want to keep him here. He's Russian, for all his Oxford English and his Italian gestures; and from his babble I imagine he's been through seven kinds of hell. Torches and hobnailed boots and the incessant call for a woman named Olga—a young woman about eighteen."

"How did you find that out?"

"From a photograph I found in the lining of his coat. A pretty blonde girl."

"Good heavens!"—recollecting her dream. "Where was it printed?"

"Amateur photography. I'll pick it up on the way to the living room."

It was nothing like the blonde girl of her dream. Still, the girl was charming. Kitty turned over the photograph. There was writing on the back.

"Russian? What does it say?"

"'To Ivan from Olga with all her love.'"

Cutty was conscious of the presence of an indefensible malice in his tones. Why the deuce should he be bitter—glad that the chap had left behind a sweetheart? He knew exactly the basis of Kitty's interest, as utterly detached as that of a reporter going to a fire. On the day the patient could explain himself, Kitty's interest would automatically cease. An old dog in the manger? Malice.

"Cutty, something dreadful has happened to this poor young woman. That's what makes him cry out the name. Caught in that horror, and probably he alone escaped. Is it heartless to be glad I'm an American? Do they let in these Russians?"

"Not since the Trotzky regime. I imagine Two-Hawks slipped through on some British passport. He'll probably tell us all about it when he comes round. But how do you feel after last night's bout?"

"Alive! And I'm going on being alive, forever and ever! Oh, those awful drums! They look like dead eyes in those dim corners. Tumpitum-tump! Tumpitum-tump!" she cried, linking her arm in his. "What a gorgeous view! Just what I'm going to do when my ship comes in—live in a loft. I really believe I could write up here—I mean worth-while things I could enjoy writing and sell."

"It's yours if you want it when I leave."

"And I'd have a fine time explaining to my friends! You old innocent! ... Or are you so innocent?"

"We do live in a cramped world. But I meant it. Don't forget to whistle down to Tony Bernini when you get back home to-night."

"I promise.

"Why the gurgle?"

"Because I'm tremendously excited. All my life I've wanted to do mysterious things. I've been with the audience all the while, and I want to be with the actors."

"You'll give some man a wild dance."

"If I do I'll dance with him. Now lead me to the cookies."

She was the life of the tea table. Her wit, her effervescence, her whimsicalities amused even the prim Miss Frances. When she recounted the exploit of the camouflaged fan, Cutty and Harrison laughed so loudly that the nurse had to put her linger on her lips. They might wake the patient.

"I am really interested in him," went on Kitty. "I won't deny it. I want to see how it's going to turn out. He was very nice after I let him into the kitchen. A perfectly English manner and voice, and Italian gestures when off his guard. I feel so sorry for him. What strangers we races are to each other! Until the war we hardly knew the Canadians. The British didn't know us at all, and the French became acquainted with the British for the first time in history. And the German thought he knew us all and really knew nobody. All the Russians I ever saw were peasants of the cattle type; so that the word Russian conjures up two pictures—the grand duke at Monte Carlo and a race of men who wear long beards and never bathe except when it rains. Think of it! For the first time since God set mankind on earth peoples are becoming acquainted. I never saw a Russian of this type before.".

"A leaf in the whirlpool.—Anyhow, we'll keep him here until he's on his feet. By the way, never answer any telephone call—I mean, go anywhere on a call—unless you are sure of the speaker."

"I begin to feel important."

"You are important. You have suddenly become a connecting link between this Karlov and the man we wish to protect. I'll confess I wanted you out of that apartment at first; but when I saw that you were bent on remaining, I decided to make use of you."