Part 13

A hurried whisper to Peyton, and with the help of one of their brother officers they had raised Sullivan from the floor and, followed by the girl, had carried him to the Fifth Avenue entrance. "Keep back the crowd!" Peyton had cried to the head waiter. "We must give this man air," and in a moment more they had staggered with Sullivan's limp form to the ever-ready hansom, which had wheeled quickly to their assistance, and shoved him in.

In another moment there had appeared around the corner of the building a throng of men and women in evening dress, among whom were mingled waiters, pedestrians, and cabmen.

"To the hospital!" cried Ralston, and pushing in the girl, sprang after her himself. The cabman cut furiously at his horse, the bystanders parted, and the hansom leaped forward like a chariot in a Roman amphitheater, with Ralston, who had snatched the reins from above his head, guiding the excited animal down Fifth Avenue.

A policeman made an ineffectual attempt to stop them at Twenty-third Street, but quickly stepped aside to avoid being run down.

"Hully gee!" shouted the cabman inconsequently, "Hully gee!" while the girl, staring abstractedly at the motionless face beside her, murmured excitedly, "A clean get-away! A clean get-away!"

VII

They turned west at Eighth Street and crossed Sixth Avenue at a slow trot. Ralston had surrendered the reins to the driver and was now racking his brains for a solution of his extraordinary and sensational predicament. The girl had taken Sullivan's motionless head into her lap.

"Where to, sir?" inquired the cabby through the manhole.

"I don't know," answered Ralston. "Lose us if you can, that's all. Lose us so we won't be able to find our own way back."

They continued west, following narrow, dimly lit streets, under the shadow of high warehouses. Sullivan had given as yet no sign of life and the girl had not spoken since Twenty-third Street. The strain of the situation began to tell.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" inquired Ralston with an attempt at jocularity. The girl did not reply, and as he heard her sobbing softly a pang of remorse touched him. What business had he to force this young woman into being an accessory after the fact in what might be heralded as a crime?

"Miss Davenport," he said, "I'm awfully sorry to have dragged you into this. Indeed, I am. Let me drive you home. I'll look after Sullivan, and if necessary take him to a hospital."

"And leave you to stick this out by yourself? Not on your life!" she replied. "It's a bad mix-up, but we've got to pull it off somehow. But first we've got to do something for Jim. Look, there's a drug store over there and a night light."

"But that won't do," expostulated Ralston. "We never could explain to the officer on post. We'll have to go somewhere else. You know about these things. Where?"

"Yes, yes--I know."

"Well, quickly!"

The cabman was peering down through the manhole.

"Do you know Commerce Street?" asked the girl.

"Sure I do," said the cabby.

"Well, go to No. 589."

The cabman jerked around his horse. They were in Greenwich Village now, and not far from the old New York Central freight depot. Trim little brick houses with white portals and tiny eves lined the streets. Slender lanes led away into black distances. The night was silent save for the rush and roar of the elevated and the clack of their own horse's hoofs. Not a window was agleam. In this respectable neighborhood folks went to bed betimes, and got up early.

The cool night air soothed Ralston's nerves, but with it he felt limp and tired. The excitement at the restaurant, the wild dash down Fifth Avenue, the presence with them of a man who might perhaps be dead, the fear of pursuit, the extraordinary situation in which he, a man of so much recent prominence, found himself, the strange way in which this girl had become a partner in his fortunes, dazed and bewildered him.

"He can't be dead," muttered Ralston. "He can't be dead!"

The cab turned into a little street lined with irregularly shaped houses. A few gnarled and distorted trees, whose trunks burst out of the concrete pavement, raised their dust-laden branches, prehensile and unnatural, into the starlight. A hundred feet from where the street began it turned sharply to the left, forming a right angle, and debouched again into another thoroughfare. Had one of the ends of it been closed it would have formed a natural _cul-de-sac_--an appendix to one of the great canals of the city. And with curious impropriety the city fathers had named this "accidental" Commerce Street, leaving it to the imagination as to what sort of commerce had been intended. A rickety gas lamp leaned dangerously toward a flight of high wooden steps in the angle of the street. Strangely enough, when the street turned the house turned, too, so that half its front faced north and half east. The natural inference was that the inside of the house was shaped like a piece of pie, with its partially bitten point abutting on the corner.

Ralston took charge of Sullivan and the girl sprang down and stepped into the area. Somewhere at a great distance a bell rang once, and then, more faintly, a second time. They waited in silence. On the main thoroughfare beyond the gnarled trees a policeman slowly sauntered across the street. At the top of one of the opposite houses a window was raised cautiously and voices could be heard whispering. Again the bell jangled loosely in the distance, then came the sound of iron bars rattling and bolts being shot back. A grating creaked rustily.

"It's me--Floss. Let me in."

The girl ran back to the cab and a match flared in the grating. Ralston thought he saw a wrinkled face behind the light.

"All right. Bring him in," said the girl.

Ralston and the cabman lifted the lank form of Sullivan to the sidewalk and half carried, half dragged him into the area. At their feet lay a small flight of steps upon which played a feeble light from the inside. Down this they pulled the victim of Ralston's strange quest. A passage opened before them, in the middle of which stood a tiny, wrinkled Jewish woman, who watched them with snapping, restless eyes, like those of a blackbird.

The girl pushed by them and, taking the candle from the woman, opened a door leading to the right. The air was close and unwholesome. A bed with only a mattress covering the springs stood in the corner, and upon this Ralston and the cabman placed the still unconscious form of Mr. Sullivan.

"That'll do for the present," said the girl. "Now you" (addressing the cabman) "wait outside. If the cop asks what you are doin', you're waiting for a fare in another house, see?"

The cabman retired, and the Jewish woman lit a kerosene lamp. The girl disappeared and returned with a wet sponge and a bottle of ammonia. She now opened Sullivan's shirt and sponged his face with perfect confidence. Then she poured some ammonia upon the sponge and applied it to his nostrils. Ralston, leaning over the bed, coughed in spite of himself.

Sullivan opened his eyes a little; the girl removed the sponge and put her head close to his face.

"He's breathing--he'll come round all right," she said. "He stays 'out' an awful long time."

She gave him the ammonia again and the patient gasped audibly. Ralston heaved a great sigh of relief. Although he had known himself to be absolutely in the right he was aware that this body-snatching was, to say the least, irregular. Had the fellow died it would have made a nasty story for the papers. He sank back on a horsehair rocking chair and the room grew black with little pricking stars. The next moment he felt the sponge thrust in his face.

"You're almost out yourself, Mr. Ralston. I'll have a cup of coffee ready for you in a minute. Lie down on the sofa."

Ralston indeed felt sick and faint, the lids of his eyes seemed like lead, pulled down by invisible but powerful strings. The man was not dead! But Steadman--he'd think of Steadman in a moment, after he had rested his eyes a little----

He leaned back his head--and slept. A light touch on his forehead awakened him half an hour later, and he opened his eyes upon a strange picture. The room was stuffy and warm as ever. The lamp cast but an uncertain light on the walls, which, he noticed, were quite bare of ornament. Over the windows were heavy wooden shutters, bolted on the inside. On the bed lay Sullivan, breathing heavily. The floor was covered by a dirty rag carpet, and the only articles of furniture besides the bed itself were a horsehair-covered lounge, a small table, and two horsehair-covered chairs, and in the midst of these uncouth surroundings stood a girl in shimmering evening dress, her white shoulders shining in the lamplight, offering him a cup of hot and fragrant coffee.

"You're a brick," said Ralston feebly.

The girl smiled.

"Kind of funny, ain't it? To think of you and me and him"--she pointed over her shoulder--"being here. What a rumpus the police'll make when they can't find him at any hospital. It's a queer mix-up, now, ain't it?"

"I should say it _was_!" echoed Ralston. He gulped down the coffee. "Do you live here?" he asked, sweeping the room again with his eyes. The girl smiled.

"Not generally," she said.

"But this house--whose is it?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

"They've never been able to find out at the tax office," she said.

"You're a good girl," said Ralston inconsequently.

The smile on the girl's face changed. She started to speak. Then she closed her eyes and covered them with her hands.

The figure in the bed gave vent to a long-drawn-out snort and tossed heavily. The girl dabbed her eyes with her wrists and turned with an anxious look.

"He's waking up," she whispered. "He'll be crazy when he sees you here."

"But I brought him here," said Ralston, "and it was his own fault. Besides, he is going to find Steadman for me."

"Find Steadman for you?" she exclaimed.

"Why, certainly! Why not?"

The girl looked at him in amazement.

"And that's why you carried him off?"

"Yes--naturally--of course. What did you think?"

She gave a low laugh and clapped her hands softly together.

"And I thought all along it was just to get yourself out of the mess you were in--to avoid the publicity and all. I didn't see your game. I thought it was all up for you--and the best you could do was to get out of having to go to court! But they can't count you out, can they? My, you _have_ got a nerve!" she finished enthusiastically.

Ralston shrugged his shoulders.

"I assure you it wasn't as clearly thought out as all that. It was like clutching at whatever was left. Sullivan's my only clew. How can I force a statement from this fellow? What has he done? What hold can I get on him?"

The girl looked at him half frightened yet full of admiration.

"Don't try it, Mr. Ralston," she whispered. "Give it up. You can't do it. It's too late. Besides, Sullivan's a dangerous man--a man who stands in with all the politicians--a bad fellow to threaten. He's done things enough, God knows, to send him to jail a dozen times--but leave him alone! You've done enough for Steadman. If you try to monkey with Sullivan _anything_ might happen to you. You mightn't leave this house alive. Get away before it's too late. You're probably due in Washington about now. This night's work will blow over, and Steadman isn't worth the powder to blow his brains out." She clasped her hands with a gesture of entreaty.

"No," said Ralston. "I've begun, and I must finish the job. I mightn't have gone into it if I had known what it was going to cost, but it's too late to back out now. Besides, I've nothing to lose. I'm done for. This 'Martin' business would kill the Administration if I didn't resign. In fact, the public need never know that I have accepted. Fancy! The police looking for the Second Assistant Secretary of the Navy as a fugitive from justice! Why, the papers will be full of it. But that doesn't help me with Steadman. I've got to force this fellow here to give up. Tell me something to use as a lever."

The man on the bed groaned loudly and elevated one knee high in the air. The girl hesitated, evidently torn between various conflicting claims of loyalty.

"Tell him," she whispered after a moment--"tell him you know all about Shackleton and the Mercantile bonds. If that isn't enough, say you'll hand him over for the Masterson deal--that'll fetch him, but be careful and don't get him angry. He may not know where Steadman is, after all. But I heard him say that the gang had almost finished trimming Steadman and were going to finish him up to-night--at cards I think. They've gotten almost every cent he has already----"

Sullivan gave a harsh cough and arose to a sitting position.

"Shackleton--Mercantile bonds--Masterson deal," murmured Ralston to himself.

"Huh! That you, Floss?" grunted Sullivan. "What are we doin' here? Where's the old woman?"

"Sh-h! It's all right, Jim," said the girl. "We made a clean get-away. You came near running in the lot of us."

"Whatcher talking about?" mumbled Sullivan. "'Bout 'getaways'?" Then he caught sight of Ralston. "Who's this feller?"

"All right, Mr. Sullivan, I'm a friend of yours," said Ralston quietly.

Sullivan looked fixedly at him for a moment without speaking.

"I've seen you before," he muttered. "Somewheres."

"Sure," said Ralston with a laugh. "You tried to do me up at 'The Martin' not over an hour ago."

Sullivan glared at him.

"You that feller?"

"I am."

"Whatcher doin' here?"

"Same thing I was going to do at 'The Martin' if you'd given me the chance--have a talk with you."

Sullivan looked puzzled and rubbed the back of his head. He had none of the resplendency of his earlier appearance.

"Must ha' fallen an' hit my head," said he in an explanatory manner. "Say, did anyone _club_ me?"

"No," said Ralston. "But you got a pretty rough deal."

"Say," repeated Sullivan, "how'd you come to bring me to the old woman's?"

"I had to take you somewhere," said Ralston. There was a pause of several seconds, during which Sullivan endeavored to readjust himself.

"What's yer name?" he inquired.

"Sackett," said Ralston.

"Sackett," repeated Sullivan. "I don't know Sackett. What's yer business?"

"Oh, I'm a detective," answered Ralston lightly.

Sullivan started and clutched at the mattress.

"Detective!" he muttered. "What d'yer want?"

"I don't want anything," said Ralston. "I know quite a lot about you, Mr. Sullivan, but it stays where it is. All I want is a little help."

"You go to hell!" growled Sullivan.

"No--no!" replied Ralston. "Not yet. I want you to tell me where I can find Steadman. You see, his folks are anxious, and it's worth quite a little to me to locate him. It needn't interfere with any of your plans. Besides, I imagine you're about through with him, eh?"

The color returned to Sullivan's face and he snarled angrily.

"None of that to me, see? I am on to you, understand? You'd better get out of here, while you're still able."

The girl, who had remained silent, now spoke again:

"Be careful, Jim; this man can make trouble for us."

Sullivan looked sharply at her, but evidently nothing about her appearance or speech excited his suspicions.

"Mr. Sullivan," continued Ralston from his seat in the horsehair rocker, "I don't mean you any harm. In fact, I can do you a good turn now and then if you'll help me out. All I want is my coin for turning up this chap Steadman. I know he's no good. He's anybody's money. He's nothing to me. But it's all in my day's work. Now, don't think me disagreeable. I want Steadman, you want--well, you don't want certain little incidents of your career to get to the ears of the district attorney--the Shackleton bonds, for example. Now, don't be alarmed. I haven't the slightest intention of giving you away, but, come now, let's be on the level with each other."

Sullivan cast an evil look at him.

"You think you've got something on me, eh? Prove it! What bonds did you say?"

Ralston saw that he had nearly made a slip.

"Quite right," said he. "I said Shackleton bonds--I was _thinking_ of Shackleton. Of course I meant the Mercantile bonds. But if you have any doubt about my sincerity I might go into the Masterson matter----"

But Sullivan was on his feet, his eyes staring, and his face as pale as it had been on the floor of "The Martin."

"For Heaven's sake!" he implored.

Ralston rose.

"Come! Come! Is it a bargain? You help me and I help you. Where is he?"

"I'll go with you," muttered Sullivan. "Where's my coat?" He looked around anxiously. There was no doubt as to the effectiveness of the reference to the Masterson case.

"Get me a coat," he ordered of the girl. Florence Davenport left the room, leaving the two men facing one another--the criminal and the gentleman. It would have been hard to say which looked the more haggard. The light of the dim lamp made the rings around Ralston's eyes look like huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and his mouth was drawn to a thin line. Inside his head was beginning to sing and the corners of his lids to twitch. He knew the symptoms. He was beginning to "fade out." But he was getting warm now and he paid no heed to himself.

The girl returned, bringing in her arms a pile of new silk-lined black overcoats. Ralston remembered the incident afterwards, but at the time it did not impress him. It is doubtful whether he knew definitely the meaning of the term--"a fence."

Mechanically he selected a coat to fit him and Sullivan did the same. The Davenport girl put on the smallest.

"Gimme a hat," said Sullivan.

Again the girl departed and presently returned with an odd collection of old felt hats of various styles. Now, fully arrayed, Sullivan felt his way gingerly to the door. A pale gleam filtered through the grating. The bolt was shot back and Ralston found himself in the fresh morning air.

A white, misty light filled the sky like a diaphanous, pulsating sheet. If you looked for it it was gone, but as you watched the opposite houses you knew it to be there. Night was struggling with the day, and the cohorts of darkness were barely in the ascendant. The tang of the breeze told the story, filtering in from the river. But the lamps showed brighter than ever. On his box the cabman slumbered, while his steed did likewise in cabhorse fashion.

Sullivan reached up and shook the man roughly. Across the end of the street heavy vans were making their way eastward, filling the little niche in which they stood with a deafening clatter.

"Drive up Broadway," ordered Sullivan.

The cabman removed his hat, ran his finger around the sweatband and replaced it on his head.

"Hully gee!" he repeated reminiscently. Several yanks were required to hoist the horse into a position appropriate to locomotion, and when

## action was achieved the animal started as if walking on eggs. Sullivan

and Ralston took Miss Davenport in her black overcoat between them. Ralston could not tell whether the sky above was white or blue.

Slowly they dragged out into Barrow Street and turned into Green Street. Once or twice they passed a lonely pedestrian or a stray policeman. Soon they saw the lights of the elevated structure at Jefferson Market and caught the moving windows of the trains. A line of truck wagons was moving slowly southward, the drivers sleeping, unmindful of their route. Milk wagons jangling from Hudson Avenue added a livelier note. There was a smell of morning everywhere.

Suddenly Ralston knew he saw white and not blue above the housetops. The thought filled him with a nervous anxiety to lose no time, and he pushed up the manhole and ordered the cabby to make haste.

"What do you think I am--a bloomin' steamboat?" inquired the cabby in sleepy wrath.

They wheeled into Sixth Avenue and Ralston noticed that the surface cars which passed already had some passengers. Men were standing in twos and threes upon the street corners. Most of them were smoking clay pipes. He wondered what manner of men went to work at this hour. They passed Fourteenth Street and found many persons walking westward--at nightfall they would plod back. It was a long, long way to go to work. No one had spoken in the cab as yet.

"Funny how small the city seems at night," said the girl.

Although there was a germ of psychological truth in the remark, Ralston could think of nothing in reply. He had often noticed the same phenomenon. Of an afternoon, with Fifth Avenue crowded to the curbs, the distance from his club to Forty-second Street appeared immense. By night it seemed no more than a block or two. Now, as they rode northward in the graying light, the distances which his mental cyclometer ticked off seemed small and their pace inordinately slow.

Sullivan had maintained a consistent silence. The Masterson affair had effectually put a quietus upon his belligerency. Ralston was overwhelmed with sleep. There was a weight behind each of his eyeballs that seemed forcing them downward and outward, and the humming in the back of his head had returned. A faint odor of violets and rice powder emanated from the overcoat beside him. Now and again the small head, with its piles of brown hair and old slouch hat, would begin to incline gradually and gently in his direction, only to be raised again when the brim of the hat touched his shoulder. He leaned his own head in the corner and closed his eyes.

Instantly a heavy curtain, warm, fragrant, deliciously soothing, seemed drawn over him. He found himself talking to Ellen in Miss Evarts's drawing-room. He felt again the elation of his appointment, the gratefulness of appreciation. The man was painting in his name on the blackboard--the man in the yellow-and-black sweater, and he heard the crowd spelling it out and repeating it. Once again he experienced the thrill it had occasioned him the night before. He realized anew the extent to which his selection had brought him into the public eye--the influence which the success or failure of his appointment would have upon the Administration.

The President had been already severely criticised for giving important places to comparatively young and untried men--men of the silk-stocking class--and the President had but a doubtful hold upon the people. Several canards had been started which, in the face of recent socialistic propaganda, had made considerable headway. The yellow journals were denouncing the war as imperialistic, as an excuse for an ambitious executive to play the part of a Cæsar or a Napoleon. They charged that he was surrounding himself with the rich and powerful, and their sons. He was contrasted with Lincoln and Jefferson. In a word, the Administration was in a ticklish position.