The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure Part 7

"Very well, then, I'll leave by the front way. Now go!"

Van Dam half shoved the young man toward the door.

"Thanks," murmured the fugitive. "You seem to be the right sort. If I live, I sha'n't forget." The next instant he was gone.

Roly watched him race across the yard, squeeze through the hedge; then, an instant later, saw his form as he mounted the fence to the wagon inclosure where the Spider had gone to his destruction earlier in the afternoon. It was a risky route to safety, he reflected, but, in view of what Emile had said about his pursuers, it was infinitely preferable to any other.

Why he had helped the fellow Van Dam scarcely knew, unless it was because of his sympathy for the under dog. Whatever the boy had done, he possessed a reckless bravery that was commendable, and he still held his mother's love.

Roly was about to close the door when he saw a second man, in a long, black domino, briefly silhouetted above the fence. Then he heard a whistle. The fellow dropped over into the tracks of Emile, leaving the New-Yorker amazed at the apparition. A sickening fear clutched Van Dam, but he knew it was useless to cry out. Could it be that he had sent the young fellow to his death?

When a moment, then another, had pa.s.sed with no sound from that quarter, he closed the kitchen door and retraced his steps swiftly to the front of the house.

As he came to the library entrance he found it closed, and, from inside, he heard a tinkle as if a telephone hook was being violently agitated.

Inclining his ear, a low, agonized voice came to him:

"... Le Duc again.... Why haven't you sent the police?... Robbery.... My cousin Emile ... murder me.... G.o.d above! They are slow!... He will escape...."

Van Dam tried the door. It was locked. Then he called, sweetly: "Alfred!

My dear cousin Alfred!"

The voice at the telephone ended in a shriek. There came a crash as the instrument fell from the old man's fingers.

So the police were on their way! Escape, then, must be but a matter of moments. With his heart pounding, Van Dam stepped into the drawing-room and reconnoitered from a front window. What he saw did not rea.s.sure him, particularly in view of Emile's words; for, directly opposite, he beheld a masked man in a black domino who looked very much like the Black Wolf.

Scattered up and down the block were others, all idling about in a seemingly objectless manner. Evidently the house was surrounded. He dared not risk the back way, after what he had seen. He could not remain. From the library again came that faint, frantic tinkling.

Van Dam dropped his mask, tore the flimsy robe from his back, and strode to the front door. Under any other circ.u.mstances he would have preferred to remain and to take the consequences, but for Madelon's sake he dare not risk an explanation to the police. Besides--how could he explain that twenty thousand dollars, in clean, crisp ten-dollar notes, that she had in her possession? He flung the portal wide, stepped out, then turned and bowed as if to some one inside. "Good-by!" he called, cheerily. "Had a delightful afternoon." The door closed with a click, and he was in the open air. He extracted a cigarette from his jeweled case, noting from the corner of his eye that, with one accord, the maskers were closing in upon him. Descending the steps, he turned to the left, walking briskly.

His one chance now depended upon whether these men knew Emile by sight.

If so, he felt that he was reasonably safe. If not--

He was approaching two of them. They separated to let him pa.s.s between.

From beneath their fatuously smiling masks he saw eyes staring at him curiously. The flesh along his spine crinkled and rippled, but he did not turn his head or falter, even when he knew they had halted. He could feel the puzzled gaze of many eyes upon him, and imagined the mystification his appearance had excited. In the midst of their indecision there sounded the faint clamor of a gong. It grew rapidly until, with wild clangor, a patrol-wagon reeled into the street and drew up in front of the house Van Dam had just quitted. He turned as a half-dozen blue-coats tumbled out of it and rushed up the steps; incidentally, he saw that the black-clad figures were melting away in various directions.

Roly did not wait to observe what followed. He turned the first corner, then quickened his gait, at the next corner swinging once more to the left. His pulses were jumping, his ears were roaring, he found the muscles of his jaw were aching from the strain. A close call, surely!

But he had come through it all safely; he was whole, and on his way out of this mysterious neighborhood. Once more his promptness and resource had saved him. Here was the very street up which he and Madelon had fled; yonder was the entrance to the blind alley that led into the stable-yard.

He noticed that a little crowd was congregated there, many of its members in the costume of merrymakers. He reflected that Emile might have found their presence awkward in making his escape. They seemed greatly excited or shocked over something, he noted, as he approached.

They completely blocked the alley entrance. In among them he forced his way, then paused, staring down with startled eyes at what he saw. A babble of voices smote his ears, but he heard nothing. He was elbowed aside, but his gaze remained riveted upon the body of a man in a black domino. It lay sprawled in the dirt, and covering the face was a mask which smiled placidly up at the beholders; on the left breast was pinned a solitary gardenia, crimson with blood. It had been pierced with a dagger, and out of it had trickled a bright-red arterial stream.

Van Dam continued to stare at the gruesome sight while his wits whirled dizzily. Why, it was but a moment ago that this boy had left him, in the full flower of his youth! The body was still warm. It seemed inconceivable that the grim reaper could have worked this grisly change in so short a time! How had it happened? He recalled that somber figure as he had seen it scaling the fence; he recalled that warning whistle.

At the memory he turned sick. Was it possible that he had been to blame for this? He shook the notion from him, reflecting that Emile's fate would have been the same, or worse, had he chosen any other course.

Arrest, he knew, would have been no more welcome than this.

Roly felt a great desire to shout the truth at these people who stood about so stupidly; he longed to set them on the trail of the Black Wolf and his pack, but he refrained. How little he really knew, after all!

Who was the Black Wolf? Who was this Emile? What had the young scapegoat done to place himself not only outside the law, but outside the good graces of those conspirators? What intricate network of hatred and crime was here suggested? The desire to know the truth overcame all thought of his own safety, so he began to question those around him, heedless of the fact that he was being hunted in this very block.

The crowd was growing. An officer returned after sending a call for an ambulance, and began to force the people back.

Van Dam discovered a voluble old woman, evidently a shopkeeper, who seemed better informed than the others, and to her he applied himself.

"Do I know him, indeed?" she cried, shrilly, in answer to his question.

"And who should know him better than I, Emile Le Duc--a fine boy, sir, of the very best family. Think of it! To be murdered like this! Ah!

That's what comes of a bad life, sir. But right at my own doorstep, as you might say, and in the light of day! Well! Well! What can you expect?

He must have been mad to return, with the whole city knowing him so well." She was greatly excited, and her voice broke under the stress of her feelings. "It doesn't help the neighborhood, you understand, to have such things happen," she ran on, "although n.o.body can say it's not as quiet and respectable hereabouts as the next place. You've noticed as much yourself, I dare say. Nothing ever happens. A misfortune to all of us, I call it. Why, it's barely two hours ago that they brought a poor fellow out of this very alley with his head lolloping around like a ball on a string. He fell and hurt himself, I hear, although he looked perfectly dead to me. Think of that! Two in one day. Oh, it doesn't help the neighborhood, although there's n.o.body in the whole block as would do another an injury, unless it might be that poor boy's cousin, the old rip who lives in the fine house through yonder. He's a bad one, far worse than Emile, if I do say it who never speaks ill of my neighbors.

And there's others besides me who'll be sorry it isn't him instead of the young man who lies there with a hole through his ribs. Why, I thought he was some masquerader, up to his carnival pranks, or drunk, perhaps, until I noticed him all over blood."

Van Dam drew the speaker into her shop, which was near by, then handed her a bank-note. "Come! I want you to tell me all you know."

"Ho! A detective, eh? Not that I wouldn't tell you all I know without this--Ten dollars, is it? Peace and love! You _are_ generous! Well, then, he has stood right in your tracks, in this very store, many's the time. Law! What a lad he was! Nothing bad about him, but just reckless, we used to think. Of course that was before we learned the truth."

"What do you mean?"

"You must be a stranger. Why, the whole world knows the scandal. It made a commotion, I can tell you. But the poor lad! He's paid for all his evil deeds. Why, sir, he was dead when he walked out into the street. He must have been a corpse even when I took him for a merrymaker. Strange things do happen on these carnival days. They must have finished him with one stroke. Ugh!"

"They? Whom do you mean?"

The old woman winked, and wagged her head sagely. "Oh! You'll never learn who, but we know. You think the gang was broken up when Emile went to prison, but where do all these counterfeits come from, eh? Answer me that. There's not a week goes by that one of them doesn't find its way into my store. They're perfect, or nearly so; it would take a bank-teller to find a flaw. I'm always frightened to death till I work them off again. For all I know, this very ten-dollar bill you gave me is bad, but I'll risk it. Some people don't seem to mind them at all, and so long as there's a chance to get rid of them, why, I don't object. But that's how it all came about--through counterfeit money, sir. They used Emile for a cat's-paw, so I've heard, but when he was caught they let him take his punishment. It was his cousin, Alfred Le Duc, who got him to confess, under promise of a light sentence. They do say the old rascal fooled him into it, for what reason n.o.body ever knew. Anyhow, they sent Emile away for ten years. He threatened to turn state's evidence, and perhaps he would have done so if he hadn't escaped."

"Ah! So he broke jail?"

"Exactly! And they've been hunting him ever since, with a reward on his head, and all the time the counterfeits are still coming in, and the police are as far from the truth as ever. Poor boy! There he lies, dead, with a flower over his heart. And I saw him fall! This will kill his mother. She's blind, you know, and very feeble."

"He has a cousin, Madelon, I believe," Roly ventured.

"Eh? Then you know her? A blessed angel, with a face like a picture and a heart of pure gold. Hark!" The old lady listened. "There go the clocks striking six. That means masks off and the end of the carnival. Too bad!

Too bad! And Emile with a flower over his heart."

Like one in a dream Roland Van Dam emerged from the foreign quarter into the broad reaches of Ca.n.a.l Street. He had been gone nearly three hours.

The pavements were strewn with confetti and the litter of a Mardi Gras crowd, but nowhere was a masker to be seen. Directly ahead of him loomed the Grunewald, a splendid tower of white brick and terra-cotta. Inside were his friends, awaiting him, perhaps. He realized, with a sinking sensation, that Eleanor Banniman was among them and that he had asked her to be his wife. What a change three hours had brought to him! Why, in that brief interval he had lived through all those very emotions the existence of which they had both denied earlier in the day. Life had opened for him, and he had seen it in the raw. On his hands was the blood of a fellow-man; on his lips the fragrance of a kiss that set his veins afire.

"I say, Roly, where _have_ you been?" Miss Banniman's strident voice demanded, as he entered the cafe.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed her father, waving his prospective son-in-law to a chair with a pudgy hand. "We thought you were lost in the tall gra.s.s. You missed tea, but you're in time for a c.o.c.ktail. Eleanor is quite cranky if she misses hers."

"Beastly stupid place, don't you think?" Miss Banniman inquired of her sweetheart.

"Um-m! I haven't found it so," Roly said, with a sigh of relief. "Fact is, I've been quite entertained."

"You have _such_ absurd tastes. A dash of absinthe in mine, if you please, waiter. Papa has ordered the car attached to the evening train, and we're dining aboard. What d'you say to Pinehurst and a week of golf?"

Roly felt a sudden distaste for Pinehurst, for golf, for all the places and people he had known. "Lovely!" he managed to say; then, summoning his courage: "I'll join you later, perhaps. Sorry to break up the party, but I've a little business here that will take a day or so."

"Business? _You?_ How funny!" exclaimed Eleanor.

"Too bad!" her father said. "It's blooming hot here, and the flies are awful."