CHAPTER XXI

I INTERVIEW HIS MAJESTY

I was disappointed. In the head of this crime trust I had looked for one who bore some outward and visible sign of that subtle and keen intelligence which undoubtedly ruled the affairs of the Company; I had expected a fine Toledo blade, as it were, and found only a crude bludgeon.

Even before asking that question of Roupell, I had guessed that Varney wasn't the Black King, that I had been correct in believing he had no guilty connection with the Black Company. Yet a personality and intelligence such as his would have fitted in more with my idea of what the head of such an organization should be like. It is true, of course, that some of the most effective weapons are not impressive to look upon, and this man was effective in his own way.

I may state here what I learned subsequently, that rather than Scallon being a victim of the "system," as I had always imagined, he had been the fountain whence flowed all the corruption and iniquity that made Philadelphia a byword ten years ago. He had all the vices and none of the virtues of the old-time political boss; none of the qualities with which I, in my ignorance, had credited him.

That genial smile of his was a mask, precisely like Roupell's; he was spawn of the gutter, the bad "get" of a bad breed. Moreover, I learned also why and how he had dropped out of the public eye, why I had heard nothing about him for years; the crusade that broke up his "ring" landed him in the penitentiary for three years, after a legal battle that cost him most of his ill-gotten gains. It was said, too, that he had more than one murder to his account, though he had escaped conviction.

There was something ludicrous in the thought that, of all people, I should have selected Tim Scallon as the one person able to tell me the truth about Fremstad and Varney. I thought of Blunt's remark about my being such an excellent judge of character. What irony! Conscious, of course, on his part; for Blunt must have known Scallon's true record if I did not. Yes, I was a superb judge of character; there was no getting away from it. I had even believed in Arnold Frean. I looked at Scallon now, a great lumbering hog of a man with sagging jowls, and marveled at my obtuseness. How had I been able to conceive him as anything but what he so obviously looked? He was overdressed as usual; there were diamonds on his short, hairy fingers; and another big lump of ice on his shirt front. A black cigar was tilted at an aggressive angle in a corner of his loose mouth. He personified brute force. Yes, a crude bludgeon.

But if Tim Scallon was a crude bludgeon, he was also an effective one, and if he hadn't the subtlety to devise, say, that secret code, he was precisely the sort to command the criminal intelligence that could. He was the Black King, the Boss, the great Bull Elephant whose trumpet made the lesser predatory animals tremble.

It was clear to me now that the nucleus of the Black Company was composed evidently of former henchmen, who, perhaps, had shared his disgrace and punishment. Perhaps, too, he was revenging himself now on society, though, for that matter, he had always lived by theft and violence pursued under the euphemistic name of politics. At any rate, I couldn't have fallen into worse hands, for he symbolized the spirit of the Black Company.

"Well, Mr. Nosey Parker, bong swor, as the French say. You ain't lookin' like I last seen you. Pretty nice place this, ain't it?"

"Yes, not so bad; much better than the company."

"How's that detective bureau you were workin' for gettin' on, not to mention my old friend Bill Harrigan? Fancy Bill sendin' you to see me about old Varney! Real thoughtful of Bill!" He laughed and thumped me jovially on the shoulder. "Some little investigator, you are! Oh, I should shay sho."

"My mistake, Scallon," I said. "I never thought you were half the scoundrel you look. I'm learning."

"You are," he replied with sudden ferocity. "And take it from me, you'll learn a lot more before you and me see the last of each other. You ain't learned yet, you big tramp, to watch your own soup and leave other folks' alone. But I'm gonna learn you. See?"

"Indeed."

"Yes, indeed and in fact. Guys like you gimme the royal pip. Livin' off dough that some stiff swiped in his day, and then because you ain't had the nerve to swipe it yourself, or the guts to work for it--yeah, I know you silk-stockin' reformers and philanthropists like a book. Vermin, that's what y'are; dirty, crawlin' vermin! There ain't one of you fit to lick the boots of the good boys you've sent to the pen by your love for buttin' in and free advertisin'; and there ain't a crook in the pen who wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with you. Yah!"

"I'm pleased to be classed as a philanthropist and reformer, Scallon. I've been called everything but that."

"You and your dirty money!" he bellowed. "Usin' it against me, ain't you?"

"I've a right to protect myself. You started this show; for I'm sure I can thank you for what happened to me in Philly."

"Yeah, and it ain't a marker to what's gonna happen to you. See? You started this by buttin' in where you wasn't wanted; I'd have let you alone if you'd let me alone. Now you've gone too far. You started it, but I'm gonna finish it. See?"

He stopped trumpeting long enough to remove his cigar and level it at me like a weapon. "I gotta bone to pick too with that comic-supplement, gum-shoe boob you've hired to sew us up. There's been one standin' on his plate for ten years, since the days when he was a bull at headquarters here. He's gonna get what that boob you sent to Philly got, and you're gonna help him get it, see?"

"Am I?"

"Yes, y'are. You're gonna bait the trap, Mr. Buttinsky. You're gonna write the nice little letter that'll bring him here."

"Oh, no, I'm not, Mr. Scallon."

"And I say y'are! I come through on every play I make, and when I tell you you're gonna do as I say, you're gonna do it. See? If you don't see, I'll show you--just like this."

He sucked voraciously at the cigar until the white ash tumbled off and the end glowed crimson, then calmly applied the hot end to my cheek. "Next time I'll plunk it in your eye," he said, as I squirmed and bit back a scream. "We'll spoil your beauty, son, all right--make you a little more ugly than y'are. That's only a little taste of what's comin', if you're minded to keep your tail up. Now I'll leave you to mull it over; I got other fish to fry. Next time I come in here you want to be in a responsive mood. See? I ain't gonna argue with you; you do as I say or your lamps won't be fit for nothin else but ash trays. Bong swor, as the French say, for the present."

To my infinite disgust, Corby came in as Scallon and Roupell went out, and, to my further disgust, he showed no signs of turning out the light and going to bed--there was a military cot by the window--like any reasonable human being. Of course it was necessary for my scheme that he should go to sleep, or at least that the room should be in darkness. If he sat there quietly, with the room lighted, the mice themselves would give the show away.

So much had happened since my leaving the Claremont, that perhaps I thought the night more spent than it actually was; yet it could not be far from midnight. I hoped that the eye strain produced by reading--Corby had settled himself with a book--would make him sleepy, and I began to help the good work along by yawning energetically. It is well known that this is very infectious, but somehow it had no effect on his perverse and abnormal nature.

"Can't you ease these ropes a bit and give me a chance to sleep?" I complained at length, not daring to say anything about the light. "Or is that part of the game?"

"No," he said, "I guess you may sleep all you want to--if you can. Go ahead; don't mind me. I hope my reading isn't disturbing you. A very pleasant book this, Mr. Lawton; 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.' Have you read it?"

"Oh, yes. A cheerful work, as you say. Have you ever read 'Forty Buckets of Blood?' I'm sure you would enjoy that, too. Did you know Poe?"

"He died long before my time. How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know. I thought Poe must have known you, for the principal character in that book you're reading seems to have been drawn from you."

"You mean the ape? Fie, Mr. Lawton; that's hardly complimentary."

"Well, if you're not an ape, Corby, show me. Now what's the use of all this Bowery melodrama? What is it going to bring you? Let us have a common-sense talk; you've only to name your price, and I give you my word----"

"Oh, fie, sir! You are trying to corrupt me. But my virtue is laid up in a place where moth and rust--you know the quotation. It's no use, Mr. Lawton; there are some things your money can't buy and I happen to be one of them. I won't talk to you any more; you're a bad man, sir." And he resumed his reading. So I saw my beautiful scheme going all to pot.

Presently I heard the throb of a motor which seemed to stop opposite the house. The night being very warm, the window was open, and Corby, switching off the light, stuck his head out--an excellent position if only I had been foot-loose. Then a door banged downstairs, there came the sound of voices, and finally silence. Evidently there was other business afoot, which accounted for my comparative neglect. Perhaps the other fish which Scallon had to fry had arrived.

Corby switched on the light and took up his infernal book. "I suppose you are wondering who that is?" he said.

"Am I?"

"Yes, I'm sure you are. Well, I'll tell you; it's Mr. Varney. It would be a pity not to satisfy your inveterate curiosity."

The knowledge that the Black King was Tim Scallon pointed a probable solution to the mystery of Theodore Varney's connection with this crime trust. Although at this time I knew nothing of the jail sentence that Scallon had received, or how his ring had been broken up, his words to me had shown obviously a bitter hatred of reformers and philanthropists. It was quite possible that for some reason he had become Varney's deadly enemy, just as he was Blunt's--something I had never suspected. Perhaps Blunt and Varney had supplied evidence against him.

I had to bear in mind that all Varney's work for the public good was done clandestinely, and that therefore in any case his name would not have figured in the case publicly. Yet the theory that Scallon was out for revenge against him, while logical enough, did not explain everything. I had yet to find where Joyce fitted in, and Frean too, for that matter. If merely to decoy Varney into the hands of Scallon, they could have accomplished it weeks ago. No, there was an important, an all-important part of the puzzle which I had missed completely.

Even while I thus assured myself, there came from below the awful tortured cry of a man goaded by pain to the point beyond human endurance. It sent the echoes of the old house on the rampage, and then died away as suddenly.

"Ah, Mr. Varney is tuning up his pipes. Must have slipped his gag," said Corby composedly, but with the voracious sparkle in his dead eye. "Your turn next, Mr. Lawton. Get all the rest you can; you'll need it."

All my fear had returned, and with that dreadful cry ringing in my ears, I was convinced that it was Varney. At the thought of that frail old man being put to the torture by these ghouls, I went berserk. I strained at my bonds in a sort of insane fury, putting forth all my strength, and suddenly the ropes about my wrists snapped. The mice had done their work.