The President Part 38

"Be you Steamboat Dan?" chirped the gamin, fixing the eye of a sparrow upon that tapster.

"Well, s'ppose I be?" said Dan, not too well pleased with the sparrow-eyed.

"Then this is for you," quoth the gamin, thrusting a note across the bar.

Dan glanced at the note; next he smote the bar, accompanying the smiting with soft curses.

"What's the row?" asked one of the loungers.

"Nothin'," said Dan, his face clearing into a look of easy craft.

"Here's a pal of mine gets himself run over an' fractured by the cable cars, an' is took to the hospital. You hold down the bar, Jimmy, while I go look him over."

The person addressed as Jimmy had no objection to an arrangement that meant free drinks, and once he was installed Dan put on his hat and moved rapidly up the street. A turn or two and a brisk walk of ten minutes found him in Mulberry Bend. Dan walked more slowly, and was rewarded by the sight of Inspector Val sauntering along half a block ahead. The great thief-taker rounded a corner, and albeit Dan made no effort to overtake him, he was scrupulous to make the same turn. As he came into the cross-street he glanced about for Inspector Val; that personage was nowhere to be seen. Dan kept on his way, and before he had journeyed another block Inspector Val caught up with him from the rear, and pa.s.sed him. Two doors further and Inspector Val entered an Italian restaurant; Dan, after going fifty yards beyond and returning, stepped into the same place. As he laid his hand on the restaurant's door, he shot a swift look up and down the street. There was no one in view whom he knew, and Dan brought a breath of relief.

"This bein' a stool ain't no hit with me," sighed Dan, "but will any sport show me how to sidestep it?"

As no sport was there to hear the plaint of Dan, the latter must have despaired of a reply before he put the question. Once more he cheerfully greeted Inspector Val, and the two withdrew to a private room.

"Dan," said Inspector Val, when they were seated at a table with a flask of chianti between them, "I needn't tell you that you're still wanted for that trick you turned in Chicago, or remind you of the many little things I've overlooked in your case in New York."

"No, Inspector," replied Dan, sorrowfully tasting his chianti, "I'm dead onto 'em all. What is it? Give it a name."

"Do you know what that black-bearded man wanted in your place?"

"No," said Dan, "I don't."

"He came to meet London Bill, and you floor-managed the play."

"But I don't know what he wanted of Bill," said Dan, a bit staggered.

"Well, I know what he wanted of Bill. And I know what he will want of you. I'll tell you what you are to do; and if you cross me, or fall down, it will mean several s.p.a.ces in Joliet, so have a care. I'll put you easy on one point. Neither you, nor London Bill, nor any of the pals you'll put into this game about the middle of May, will get the collar.

You have my word for that."

"Your word goes with me, Inspector," interjected Dan, plainly relieved, and bending to his chianti as though after all it might not be red poison.

"Good; my word goes with you--which is fortunate for you. These are your orders: You're to say never a word; and you're to proceed with this as though nothing queer was in the wind. As fast as you know anything, you will find that I'll call for it. Do whatever this black-bearded party asks; go with him as far as he wants to go, and go with your eyes shut.

I'll step in and get him when the time comes; he's the one I'm after.

Now you understand: say nothing, do whatever the black-beard desires; and when I want to see you I'll send. And be careful about London Bill; he's foxy. That was why I let you go by me a moment ago; I didn't know but Bill was fly enough to tail you here. He'll be gone, however, in a day, or at the most two, and then you'll have no more risk with Bill."

"How did you know Bill was goin' to-morrow? It wasn't settled thirty minutes ago."

"I know it just as I know that you, about May fifteenth, will pick up a dozen or more pals who are whole crooks and half sailors; that you will then leave on a boat, probably a steam yacht, May twenty-sixth, bound for Washington; and that the job of bin-cracking you will engage in is to be pulled off May twenty-seventh to twenty-ninth inclusive."

"You know more'n me, Inspector," observed Dan, with wonder undisguised.

"If I didn't I wouldn't be telling you what to do. That's all, Dan; have you got your orders straight?"

"Straight as a gun," declared Dan, wiping the last drops of the chianti from his mouth.

"Screw out then," commanded Inspector Val, "and come only when I send for you."

Two days later, a laborer, clean-shaven and of rather superior exterior, fastened a tape measure to the iron cover of a manhole that opened into the drain that ran by the side of the Treasury Building. Tape fastened, the laborer unwound its length along the asphalt for perhaps one hundred feet. Then he began to re-wind the tape into its circular box. As he followed the incoming tape towards the end that was fastened to the manhole cover, winding as he went, he paused for the ghost of a second squarely opposite the little bas.e.m.e.nt door-way in the Treasury Building, where the old watchman stood smoking his pipe on the evening that Storri was told of the gold inside. The old watchman, being on day duty now, was standing in that same door-way, smoking the self-same pipe, and had his ignorant eye listlessly fixed upon the laborer, busy with his measurements. As the laborer paused abreast of the door, he glanced down at the tape.

"The even seventy feet from the center of that manhole," he murmured, as though he thus registered the figures in his mind.

And the old watchman, and the pedestrians hurrying along the pavement, thought the laborer busy with his measurements from the manhole to the little Treasury door had been at work for the public.

That night, had it not been for the moonless dark of it, you might have seen the same laborer who had been so concerned with tape-measures and distances near the Treasury Building, a long shallow basket stoutly woven of willow on his arm, making secretly for the mouth of the drain that once witnessed the investigations of Storri. The basket concealed a short pickax of the sort that miners use, a little spade such as children play with on the seash.o.r.e, but very strong, and a pinch-bar, or "jimmy," about two feet long. Besides these suspicious implements, there were food, a flask of whisky, another of coffee, and a bicycle lamp, to make up the basket's furniture.

The laborer entered the drain's mouth, and when beyond chance of observation from without, he paused as aforetime had Storri to light his lamp. As the match illuminated his face, you would have identified the features of London Bill, celebrated safe-blower, box-worker, and 'peter-man, presently about to begin his first night's work on that thirty-million-dollar job over which he and Storri had shaken hands.

Having lighted his lamp, London Bill journeyed on his way until the same bend in the great drain that had hidden Storri shut him out from view.

London Bill splashingly proceeded to the second turn in the drain; from that point he counted the manholes until he stood beneath the one from which you saw him measuring with the tape. As nearly as he might, London Bill, going northward in the drain, slowly paced off seventy feet from the manhole; then he halted and drove two large spikes between the bricks that formed the walls, using the pinch-bar to do the driving. On these nails he hung his basket and fixed his lamp, the latter so as to light the opposite wall. Being disenc.u.mbered of the basket, London Bill took the tape and again made his measurements, this time more accurately than might be done by pacing.

London Bill got to work, breast-high and where the lamplight fell, on the wall of the drain nearest the Treasury, and with the point of the pinch-bar began taking out the bricks. Our cracksman worked slowly and surely, laying the bricks in the bottom of the drain so as to form a floor on which to stand. In this way he soon found himself above the water, which thereafter muttered about the bricks instead of his boots, as was the former uncomfortable condition.

After three hours of toil, the last brick was removed; a circular hole four feet in diameter showed in the wall of the drain. Beyond was the earth--gray clay, as Storri had said. Seizing the little spade, London Bill threw a handful into the water; it was instantly dissolved and washed away.

"There's current enough," said London Bill, in a satisfied whisper, "to clear away the dirt as fast as I dig it, which is a chunk of luck my way."

London Bill, being fairly launched upon his great work, crept into the drain every night and crept forth every morning, and the hours of his creeping were respectively eleven and four. Through the day he lay in convenient, non-inquisitive lodgings, which he cared for himself. London Bill did not go about the town, having no wish for company, being of the bloodhound inveterate breed that, once embarked upon an enterprise, does nothing, thinks nothing, save said enterprise until it is accomplished.

It was this dogged, single-hearted persistency, coupled with his cunning and his desperate courage, that made London Bill the foremost figure of his old but criminal guild of 'peter-men.

There was a rich man's son who infested the club; and, being a sn.o.b with a liking for n.o.ble nearnesses, Croesus Jr. had wormed himself into Storri's regards as far as Storri would permit. Croesus Jr., fond of display, bought a little steam yacht--one hundred tons. After two costly months of yachting, Croesus Jr., waxing thrifty and bewailing expense, laid up the yacht in a shipyard on the Harlem River. The yacht's name was _Zulu Queen_. The _Zulu Queen_ measured one hundred and ten feet over all, and since she was of unusual beam, her draught was light. In a beam sea the _Zulu Queen_ would all but roll her stacks overboard; in a head sea she pounded until one feared for her safety; in smooth water, full steam ahead, she could snap off seventeen knots. She had a twenty-foot launch, equal to fourteen knots, that made no more noise than a sewing machine. Altogether there were worse as well as better boats upon the sea than was the _Zulu Queen_.

Croesus Jr., disliking expense as noted, did not care to keep the _Zulu Queen_ in commission. And yet the rust of retirement was eating into her value! A yacht, a horse, and a woman, to keep at their best, should be constantly in commission. Croesus Jr. offered the _Zulu Queen_ to Storri for the spring and summer, Storri to foot the bills. This was a sagacious move on the part of Croesus Jr. and meant to kill a brace of birds with one stone. He would keep the _Zulu Queen_ steamed up at another's cost, thereby avoiding the wharf rent as well as the rust of her banishment; also he would please a n.o.bleman. Storri accepted the disinterested offer of the _Zulu Queen_ from Croesus Jr.; that was just before he met London Bill.

After meeting that eminent bandit, Storri drove to Harlem, and gave orders for overhauling the _Zulu Queen_, as well as for storing and coaling her to the limit of her lockers and bunkers. She was to be made ready for the crew and cruise by May first. Storri was armed with the written order of Croesus Jr., and the shipyard people offered no demur; since they charged all bills in true maritime fashion to the _Zulu Queen_, and neither to Storri nor yet Croesus Jr., the latter provident young person must finally face the expense--a financial disaster which Croesus Jr. never foresaw, albeit Storri was not so blind. As London Bill plies darksome spade and pick and pinch-bar, the Harlem shipmen are furnishing and coaling and storing the _Zulu Queen_.

Storri said nothing of London Bill and the _Zulu Queen_ to the San Reve.

He had well-nigh given up the club, being willing to postpone all chance of meeting either Mr. Harley or Richard, and was, therefore, a more frequent visitor to Grant Place--a social situation that pleased the San Reve vastly.

The San Reve used to dog Storri when he left her; and, inasmuch as she never once traced him to the Harley house or its vicinity, her jealousy began to sleep. But the San Reve, while she haunted the steps of Storri, could not always follow his thoughts, and they went often to the Harleys. Storri had the Harleys ever on his mind; each day served to intensify his hatred for Mr. Harley, and to render more sultry that pa.s.sion for Dorothy which was both love and hate. Little by little his lawless imagination suggested methods by which he might have revenge on Mr. Harley and gain possession of Dorothy; and the methods so suggested, like the ingenious cogs of a wheel, mashed into that other enterprise of gold which had enlisted the _Zulu Queen_ and London Bill. The thought of revenge on Mr. Harley, and a physical conquest of Dorothy the beautiful, grew and broadened and extended itself like some plant of evil in Storri's heart. It worked itself out into leaf and twig and bud of sinful detail until the execution thereof seemed the thing feasible; with that the face of Storri began to wear a look of criminal triumph in antic.i.p.ation.

The San Reve observed this latter phenomenon and read it for a good sign, holding it to be evidence of the contentment born of their happier relations, and also of clearing skies of stocks. It spoke of fair weather in both love and business, and the San Reve was at considerable care not to disturb Storri with either query or comment.

To show how wrong was the San Reve, glance at this fragment of the thought of Storri.

"What should be better," mused Storri, with that leer which Satan gave him, "than to carry away the gold of these pig Americans, and the daughter of one of them, on the same night? We should be off the coast of Africa in a fortnight, and were I to tire of her I could sell her to the Moors. Who would hear of her after that?"

Thus did Storri rear his sinful castles in the air; and as he brooded his black designs, smoking his cigars and tossing off his brandy in silence, the San Reve sat drinking him in with adoring gray-green eyes, pleasing herself by conjecturing his meditations, and going miles to leeward of the truth. Had the San Reve but guessed them, there might have descended an interruption, and Storri's purposes suffered a postponement at once grisly and grim.

Richard, about this time, troubled the club with his presence no oftener than did Storri--and that was natural enough. He must see so much of Dorothy at either her own house or Bess Marklin's, he was left scanty time for clubs. It is wonderful how love will engage the hours and occupy the faculties of a man.

One evening as Richard was coming from the Harley house he met Inspector Val. Richard, wrapped in visions whereof the const.i.tuent elements were roses and music with starlight over all, was careless of routes, and Inspector Val led him past the Treasury Building, across the White Lot between the Monument and the White House, until they stood at the drain's mouth, of which you have heard so much. The stream was rushing forth a clayey gray.

"Do you see?" asked Inspector Val, pointing to the stream.