The Penalty Part 32

Bubble's problem was to locate Harry West. And he wrestled with it, if trying to cover the whole of a scorching hot city on a pair of insufficient legs and a very limited amount of carfare may be called wrestling. His search took him into many odd places where you could not have expected to cross the trail of an honest man. He even made inquiries of a master-plumber, of a Fourth Avenue vender of antiques, of a hairy woman with one eye who ran a news-stand, of a bar-tender, of saloon-keepers and bootblacks. He drifted through a department store, and whispered to a pretty girl who sold "art pictures." She shook her head. He spoke a word to the negro sentinel of a house in the West Forties, and was admitted to quiet, padded rooms, containing everything which is necessary to separate hopeful persons from their money. In one room a number of book-makers were whiling away the hot afternoon with poker for small stakes. In another room, played upon by an electric fan, sat Mr. Lichtenstein, the proprietor. He was bent over a table on which he had a.s.sembled fifteen or twenty of the component parts of a very large picture-puzzle. He was small, plump and earnest. He may have been a Jew, but he had bright red hair and a pug nose. His eyes, bright, quick, small, brown, and kind, were very busy hunting among the brightly colored pieces of the puzzle.

"'Dafternoon, Mr. Liechtenstein," said Bubbles.

"'Dafternoon, Bubbles," said Mr. Lichtenstein, without looking up.

"How d'je know it was me?"

"I saw you in the looking-gla.s.s. What's the news?"

"It's for Harry."

"And Harry is--where?"

"Don't you know where Harry is?"

"I do. But you can't get to him." Mr. Lichtenstein lowered his voice.

"He's gone West, Bub, on the trail of O'Hagan. The plant the old one is growing hasn't put its head above ground yet, and the roots are in the West. Out in Utah they're teaching all kinds of Polacks to shoot rifles.

Why? O'Hagan is travelling from one mine to another as a common laborer.

Why? While here in little New York, the old one is sitting for his portrait and getting a perfectly innocent young girl talked about. No use to watch the old one till later."

"But," said Bubbles, "suppose some one was to find a secret pa.s.sage leading from the East River to--to--"

"To where?"

"He doesn't know where. He wanted to get Harry to go with him to find out."

"Where does the pa.s.sage begin, Bubbles?"

"Under Pier 31 A."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Dafternoon, Mr. Lichtenstein," said Bubbles]

"Come over here, Bub," said Mr. Lichtenstein and led the way to a mahogany table covered with green baize. Upon this he spread a folding-map of New York City that he took from his inside pocket. With the rapidity of thought his stubby forefinger found Pier 31A and pa.s.sed from it to the crook in Marrow Lane. And he said:

"Hum! The bee-line of it leads straight to Blizzard's place. There are two things to find out, Bub. Is the pa.s.sage straight? And how long is it? A light in the entrance to sight by will answer question No. 1, and a ball of twine to be unwound at leisure will answer No. 2."

"You'd ought to have a compa.s.s," Bubbles suggested, "to know just how she runs."

"True," said Mr. Lichtenstein. "Happy thought. And you could borrow one mounted in tiger's eye from a friend."

He laughed, took the little compa.s.s in question from its watch chain, and gave it to Bubbles. Then, his voice losing its bantering tone and taking on a kind of faltering sincerity, he asked:

"Do you want to play this hand, Bubbles, or do you want me to delegate some one else?"

"It's my graft," said Bubbles, "I'd like to see it through."

Mr. Lichtenstein looked upon the boy with a certain pride and tenderness. "I'd like to go with you," he said, "but I can't run _any_ risks. There's the strings of too many things in my head. In every battle there has to be a general who sits on a hill out of danger and orders other people to do brave things. Remember that you've worked for us ever since Harry came in and said, laughing, 'Governor, I've made friends with a bright baby that knows how to keep his mouth shut,'

You've only to step up to Blizzard and say, 'Abe Lichtenstein is the head,' to bring the gun-men down on me. But you'd die first."

The boy's breast swelled with pride and martial ardor. "Betcher life,"

he said, and then: "If I get the news will I bring it here?"

Mr. Lichtenstein considered for a minute. Then shook his head. "I'll be in Blicker's drug-store between 'leven and midnight," he said.

"If I don't show up it'll be because I can't."

Mr. Lichtenstein smiled encouragingly. "Don't look on the dark side of the future," he said, "but don't take any chances, and don't show a light till you have to."

XXIX

The night was hot, but the rising tide had brought in cold water from the ocean, and what with his excitement and trepidation it was a very shivery small boy that began to investigate the pa.s.sage under Pier 31A.

Mindful of Mr. Lichtenstein's advice not to show a light till he had to, Bubbles felt his way forward very slowly in the inky darkness, unrolling, as he went, a huge ball of twine. It would be time to take the bearings of the place by compa.s.s when he had ascertained its general extent and whether it was free from human occupants. On this score he felt comparatively safe, since it seemed likely that the pa.s.sage had been constructed with a view to emergency rather than daily use.

Having advanced a distance of about three short city blocks, it seemed to Bubbles as if the pa.s.sage had opened suddenly into a room. If so, he had to thank instinct for the knowledge, since he could see but an inch in the blackness. He had the feeling that walls were no longer pa.s.sing near him, and, groping cautiously this way and that, he found it to be fact and not fancy. During these gropings he lost his sense of direction, and, after considering the matter at some length, he concluded that the time had come to flash his torch. But first he listened for a long time. At last, satisfied that he was alone, his thumb began to press against the switch of his torch. A shaft of light bored into the darkness, and he saw two wildly bearded men, who sat with their backs against a wall of living rock and looked straight at him.

It was as if he had been suddenly frozen solid, so dreadful was his surprise and horror, but the men with the wild heads showed no emotion.

They had a pale, tired, hopeless look; and though one was dark and one blond, this expression, common to both, gave them an appearance of being twin brothers. They had gentle soft eyes in which was no sign of surprise or agitation. It seemed as if they were perfectly accustomed to having light suddenly flashed into them. One of the men leaned forward and began to run his hand this way and that over the hard dirt floor.

"Lost something?" said the other suddenly.

"Dropped my plug," said the first in a dull weary voice, and he continued to feel for and repeatedly just miss a half-cake of chewing-tobacco. Bubbles could see it distinctly, and another thing was clear to him: the men were both blind.

With this knowledge certain frayed and tattered fragments of courage returned to him, and, what was of much greater importance, his presence of mind.

The excavation in which he stood was nearly forty feet square. His torch showed him the pa.s.sage by which he had entered, and opposite this a flight of steps leading sharply upward. Here and there, leaning against the walls, were picks and shovels and other tools used in excavating.

Near the centre of the pa.s.sage was a tall pile of dirt and loose stones, together with two small wheelbarrows of sheet-iron.

Just as Bubbles had ascertained these facts and got himself into a much calmer state of mind, he had a fresh thrill of horror. The two blind men sighed, and as if moved by a common impulse got up, and the little boy saw that, like Blizzard, the beggar, they had no legs. With perfect accuracy of direction they turned to the great pile of dirt, and taking up two shovels which leaned against it began to fill the two little wheelbarrows.

They labored slowly as if time was of no moment, as if the work in hand was a form of punishment instead of something that it was intended to complete.

Bubbles had begun to wonder what they were going to do with the dirt, when one of them, having filled his barrow, trundled off with it into the pa.s.sageway leading to the river. And to Bubbles, feverishly listening, there came after what seemed a very long interval a sound as of earth being dumped into water.

The second excavator, having filled his barrow, waited the return of his companion, since the pa.s.sage was too narrow to admit of the two barrows meeting and pa.s.sing each other.

And that simple fact was very alarming to Bubbles, since virtually it made a prisoner of him. One man with his barrow full or empty was always in the pa.s.sage.

Nor was there any possibility of escape by the flight of stairs which he had noticed, for a hurried examination revealed a door of sheet-iron which did not give to his most determined efforts. There was nothing for it but to wait until the blind men should rest from their labors.

He got used to them gradually; lost his fear of them. Once in a while they spoke to each other, always with a kind of lugubrious gentleness in their voices. He began to feel sorry for them. He wished to be of service to them in some way or other. Their wild beards and s.h.a.ggy, matted hair no longer terrified him. They were two lambs made up to represent wolves, but the merest child must have seen through the disguis.e.m.e.nt.

Upon the ball of twine which Bubbles still held in his hand there was a sudden tug. It fell to the ground with a thump and rolled toward the blind laborer who had just filled his barrow. He was much startled and turned his blind eyes this way and that; then called to his mate, at that moment coming from the pa.s.sageway.

"I heard something drop," he said; "somebody dropped something. I thought I heard steps on the stairs, and now I know I did."