The White Moll Part 27

She pushed the remains of her frugal meal away from her, stood up abruptly from the rickety washstand at which she had been seated, and commenced to pace nervously up and down the stark, bare garret. Where was the line of demarcation between right and wrong? Was it a grievous sin, or an infinitely human thing to do, to warn the man she loved, and give him a chance to escape the net she meant to furnish the police? He was a thief, even a member of the gang--though he used the gang as his puppets. Did ethics count when one who had stood again and again between her and peril was himself in danger now? Would it be a righteous thing, or an act of despicable ingrat.i.tude, to trap him with the rest?

She laughed out shortly. Warn him! Of course, she would warn him! But then--what? She shivered a little, and her face grew drawn and tired.

It was the old, old story of the pitcher and the well. It was almost inevitable that sooner or later, for some crime or another, the man she loved would be caught at last, and would spend the greater portion of his days behind prison bars. That was what the love that had come into her life held as its promise to her! It was terrible enough without her agency being the means of placing him there!

She did not want to think about it. She forced her mind into other channels, though they were scarcely less disquieting. Why was it that during the day just past there had been not a sign from Danglar or any one of the gang, when every plan of theirs had gone awry last night, and she had failed to keep her appointment in the role of Danglar's wife?

Why was it? What did it mean? Surely Danglar would never allow what had happened to pa.s.s unchallenged, and--was that some one now?

She halted suddenly by the door to listen, her hand going instinctively to the wide, voluminous pocket of her greasy skirt for her revolver.

Yes, there was a footstep in the hall below, but it was descending now to the ground floor, not coming up. She even heard the street door close, but still she hung there in a strained, tense way, and into her face there came creeping a gray dismay. Her pocket was empty.

The revolver was gone! Its loss, pregnant with a hundred ominous possibilities, seemed to bring a panic fear upon her, holding her for a moment inert--and then she rushed frantically to the cot. Perhaps it had fallen out of her pocket during the hours she had lain there asleep.

She searched the folds of the soiled and crumpled blanket, that was the cot's sole covering, then s.n.a.t.c.hed the blanket completely off the cot and shook it; and then, down on her knees, she searched the floor under the cot. There was no sign of the revolver.

Rhoda Gray stood up, and stared in a stunned way about her. Was this, then, the explanation of her having seemingly been left undisturbed here all through the day? Had some one, after all, been here, and--? She shook her head suddenly with a quick, emphatic gesture of dissent.

The door was still locked, she could see the key on the inside; and, besides, as a theory, it wasn't logical. They wouldn't have taken her revolver and left her placidly asleep!

The loss of the revolver was a vital matter. It was her one safeguard; the one means by which she could first gain and afterwards hold the whip-hand over Danglar in the interview she proposed to have with him; the one means of escape, the last resort, if she herself were cornered and fell into his power. It had sustained her more than once, that resolution to turn it against herself if she were in extremity. It meant everything to her, that weapon, and it was gone now; but the panic that had seized upon her was gone too, and she could think rationally and collectively again.

Last night, or rather this morning, when she had made her way back to the shed out there in the lane behind the garret, she had been in a state of almost utter exhaustion. She had changed from the clothes of the White Moll to those of Gypsy Nan, but she must have done so almost mechanically for she had no concrete recollection of it. It was quite likely then, even more than probable, that she had left the revolver in the pocket of her other clothes; for she had certainly had, not only her revolver, but her flashlight and her skeleton keys with her when she had visited old Luertz's place last night, and later on too, when she had jumped into that automobile in front of the Silver Sphinx, she had had her revolver, for she had used it to force the chauffeur out of the car--and she had no one of those articles now.

Of course! That was it! She stepped impulsively to the door, and, opening it, made her way quickly down the stairs to the street. The revolver was undoubtedly in the pocket of her other skirt, and she felt a surge of relief sweep upon her; but a sense of relief was far from enough. She would not feel safe until the weapon was again in her possession, and intuitively she felt that she had no time to lose in securing it. She had already been left too long alone not to make a break in that unaccountable isolation they had accorded her as something to be expected at any moment. She hurried now down the street to the lane that intervened between Gypsy Nan's house and the next corner, glanced quickly about her, and, seeing no one in her immediate vicinity, slipped into the lane. She gained the deserted shed some fifty yards along the lane, entered through the broken door that hung, half open, on sagging hinges, and, dropping on her knees, reached in under the decayed and rotting flooring. She pushed aside impatiently the package of jewels, at whose magnificence she had gazed awe-struck and bewildered the night before, and drew out the bundle that comprised her own clothing. Her hand sought the pocket eagerly. Yes, it was here--at least the flashlight was, and so were the skeleton keys. That was what had happened! She had been near utter collapse last night, and she had forgotten, and--Rhoda Gray, unconscious even that she still held the clothing in her hands, rose mechanically to her feet. There was a sudden weariness in her eyes as she stared unseeingly about her. Yes, the flashlight and the keys were here--but the revolver was not! Her brain harked back in lightning flashes over the events of the preceding night.

She must have lost it somewhere, then. Where? She had had it in the automobile, that she knew positively; but after that she did not remember, unless--yes, it must have been that! When she had jumped from the car and flung herself down at the roadside! It must have fallen out of her pocket then.

Her heart seemed to stand still. Suppose they had found it! They would certainly recognize it as belonging to Gypsy Nan! They were not fools.

The deduction would be obvious--the ident.i.ty of the White Moll would be solved. Was that why no one had apparently come near her? Were they playing at cat-and-mouse, watching her before they struck, so that she would lead them to those jewels under the flooring here that were worth a king's ransom? They certainly believed that the White Moll had them.

The Adventurer's note, so ironically true, that he had intended as an alibi for himself, and which he had exchanged for the package in old Luertz's place, would have left no doubt in their minds but that the stones were in her possession. Was that it? Were they--She held her breath. It seemed as though suddenly her limbs were refusing to support her weight. In the soft earth outside she had heard no step, but she saw now a shadow fall athwart the half-open door-way. There was no time to move, even had she been capable of action. It seemed as though even her soul had turned to stone, and, with the White Moll's clothes in her hands, she stood there staring at the doorway, and something that was greater than fear, because it mingled horror, ugly and forbidding, fell upon her. It was still just light enough to see. The shadow moved forward and came inside. She wanted to scream, to rush madly in retreat to the farthest corner of the shed; but she could not move. It was Danglar who was standing there. He seemed to sway a little on his feet, and the dark, sinister face seemed blotched, and he seemed to smile as though possessed of some unholy and perverted sense of humor.

She was helpless, at his mercy, unarmed, saved for her wits. Her wits!

Were wits any longer of avail? She could believe nothing else now except that he had been watching her--before he struck.

"What are you doing here, and what are those clothes you've got in your hands?" he rasped out.

She could only fence for time in the meager hope that some loophole would present itself. She forced an a.s.sumed defiance into her tones and manner, that was in keeping with the sort of armed truce, which, from her first meeting with Danglar, she had inaugurated as a barrier between them.

"You have asked me two questions," she said tartly. "Which one do you want me to answer first?"

"Look here," he snapped, "you cut that out! There's one or two things need explaining--see? What are those clothes?"

Her wits! Perhaps he did not know as much as she was afraid he did! She seemed to have become abnormally contained, her mind abnormally acute and active. It was not likely that the woman, his wife, whom he believed she was, had worn her own clothes in his presence since the day, some two years ago, when she had adopted the disguise of Gypsy Nan; and she, Rhoda Gray, remembered that on the night Gypsy Nan, re-a.s.suming her true personality, had gone to the hospital, the woman's clothes, like these she held now, had been of dark material. It was not likely that a man would be able to differentiate between those clothes and the clothes of the White Moll, especially as the latter hung folded in her hands now, and even though he had seen them on her at the Silver Sphinx last night.

"What clothes do you suppose they are but my own?--though I haven't had a chance to wear them much lately!" she countered crisply.

He scowled at her speculatively.

"What are you doing with them out here in this hole, then?" he demanded.

"I had to wear them last night, hadn't I?" she retorted. "I'd have looked well coming out of Gypsy Nan's garret dressed as myself if any one had seen me!" She scowled at him in turn. She was beginning to believe that he had not even an inkling of her ident.i.ty. Her safest play was to stake everything on that belief. "Say, what's the matter with you?" she inquired disdainfully. "I came out here and changed last night; and I changed into these rags I'm wearing now when I got back again; and I left my own clothes here because I was expecting to get word that I could put them on again soon for keeps--though I might have known from past experience that something would queer the fine promises you made at Matty's last night! And the reason I'm out here now is because I left some things in the pocket, amongst them"--she stared at him mockingly--"my marriage certificate."

Danglar's face blackened.

"Curse you!" he burst out angrily. "When you get your tantrums on, you've got a tongue, haven't you! You'd have been wearing your clothes now, if you'd have done as you were told. You're the one that queered things last night." His voice was rising; he was rocking even more unsteadily upon his feet. "Why in h.e.l.l weren't you at the Silver Sphinx?"

Rhoda Gray squinted at him through Gypsy Nan's spectacles. She knew an hysterical impulse to laugh outright in the sure consciousness of supremacy over him now. The man had been drinking. He was by no means drunk; but, on the other hand, he was by no means sober--and she was certain now that, though she did not know how he had found her here in the shed, not the slightest suspicion of her had entered his mind.

"I was at the Silver Sphinx," she announced coolly.

"You lie!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "You weren't! I told you to be there at eleven, and you weren't. You lie! What are you lying to me for--eh? I'll find out, you--you--"

Rhoda Gray dashed the clothes down on the floor at her feet, and faced the man as though suddenly overcome in turn herself with pa.s.sion, shaking both closed fists at him.

"Don't you talk to me like that, Pierre Danglar!" she shrilled. "I lie, do I? Well, I'll prove to you I don't! You said you were going to have supper with Cloran at about eleven o'clock, and perhaps I was a few minutes after that, but maybe you think it's easy to get all this Gypsy Nan stuff off me face and all, and rig up in my own clothes that I haven't seen for so long it's a wonder they hold together at all. I lie, do I? Well, just as I got to the Silver Sphinx, I saw a woman breaking her neck to get down the steps with you after her. She jumped into the automobile it was doped out I was to take, and you jumped into the other one, and both beat it down the street. I thought you'd gone crazy. I was afraid that Cloran would come out and recognize me, so I turned and ran, too. The safest thing I could do was to get back into the Gypsy Nan game again, and that's what I did. And I've been lying low ever since, waiting to get word from some of you, and not a soul came near me.

You're a nice lot, you are! And now you come sneaking here and call me a liar! How'd you get to this shed, anyway?"

Danglar pushed his hand in a heavy, confused way across his eyes.

"My G.o.d!" he said heavily. "So that's it, is it?" His voice became suddenly conciliating in its tones. "Look here, Bertha, old girl, don't get sore. I didn't understand, see? And there was a whole lot that looked queer. We even lost the jewels at old Luertz's last night. Do you know who that woman was? It was the White Moll! She led us a chase all over Long Island, and--"

"The White Moll!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rhoda Gray. And then her laugh, short and jeering, rang out. The tables were turned. She had him on the defensive now. "You needn't tell me I She got away again, of course! Why don't you hire a detective to help you? You make me weary! So, it was the White Moll, was it? Well, I'm listening--only I'd like to know first how you got here to this shed."

"There's nothing in that!" he answered impatiently. "There's something more important to talk about. I was coming over to the garret, and just as I reached the corner I saw you go into the lane. I followed you; that's all there is to that."

"Oh!" she sniffed. She stared at him for a moment. There was something in which there was the uttermost of irony now, it seemed, in this meeting between them. Last night she had striven to meet him alone, and she had meant to devote to-night to the same purpose; and she was here with him now, and in a place than which, in her wildest hopes, she could have imagined one no better suited to the reckoning she would have demanded and forced. And she was helpless, powerless to make use of it.

She was unarmed. Her revolver was gone. Without that to protect her, at an intimation that she was the White Moll she would never leave the shed alive. The spot would be quite as ideal under those circ.u.mstances for him, as it would have been under other circ.u.mstances for her. She shrugged her shoulders. Danglar's continued silence evidently invited further comment on her part. "Oh!" she sniffed again. "And I suppose, then, that you have been chasing the White Moll ever since last night at eleven, and that's why you didn't get around sooner to allay my fears, even though you knew I must be half mad with anxiety at the way things broke last night. She'll have us down and out for keeps if you haven't got brains enough to beat her. How much longer is this thing going on?"

Danglar's little black eyes narrowed. She caught a sudden glint of triumph in them. It was Danglar now who laughed.

"Not much longer!" His voice was arrogant with malicious satisfaction.

"The luck had to turn, hadn't it? Well, it's turned! I've got the White Moll at last!"

She felt the color leave her face. It seemed as though something had closed with an icy clutch upon her heart. She had heard aright, hadn't she?--that he had said he had got the White Moll at last. And there was no mistaking the mans s sinister delight in making that announcement.

Had she been premature, terribly premature, in a.s.suring herself that her ident.i.ty was still safe as far as he was concerned? Did it mean that, after all, he had been playing at cat-and-mouse with her, as she had at first feared?

"You--you've got the White Moll?" She forced the words from her lips, striving to keep her voice steady and in control, and to infuse into it an ironical incredulity.

"Sure!" he said complacently. "The showdown comes to-night. In another hour or so we'll have her where we want her, and--"

"Oh!" She laughed almost hysterically in relief. "I thought so! You haven't got her yet. You're only going to get her--in another hour or so! You make me tired! It's always in 'another hour or so' with you--and it never comes off!"

Danglar scowled at her under the taunt.

"It'll come off this time!" he snarled in savage menace. "You hold that tongue of yours! Yes, it'll come off! And when it does"--a sweep of fury sent the red into his working face--"I'll keep the promise I made her once--that she'd wish she had never been born! D'ye hear, Bertha?"

"I hear," she said indifferently. "But would you mind telling me how you are going to do it? I might believe you then--perhaps!"

"d.a.m.n you, Bertha!" he exploded. "Sometimes I'd like to wring that pretty neck of yours; and sometimes!"--he moved suddenly toward her--"I would sell my soul for you, and--"

She retreated from him coolly.

"Never mind about that! This isn't a love scene!" she purred caustically. "And as for the other, save it for the White Moll. What makes you think you've got her at last?"