Little Lost Sister Part 44

"Good!" Joy and relief were in her tones. "Watch them carefully, won't you? We'll have detectives there in a jiffy with a new warrant for Druce.

This time for white slavery. He will not escape us again."

Harvey gave the number of the house where Druce and Elsie had been hidden, appointed a rendezvous with the detective and returned at once to watch the house. He decided that Elsie had hurried back while he was at the telephone.

In less than an hour an automobile rushed up to the house. Two men got out and hurried into the place. One of them he recognized as the lawyer he had seen at the entrance of the jail. There were not his detectives.

The storm had increased and the rain was driving in blinding torrents across the street.

Harvey saw a group of people suddenly emerge from the house. The chauffeur jumped down and took part with the struggling little crowd. He could hear Druce swearing loudly, calling out Elsie's name with words of abuse. The men pushed the drunken man into the car, and got in after him.

Harvey looked about for some sort of a vehicle, but none was in sight and the auto was actually starting. He sprang on the rear, spring and, crouching, hung on desperately. They drove for a long time; to him it seemed hours as his hands grew numb and his muscles ached from clinging to his precarious hold. Fortunately the storm had subsided.

The driver turned into a dark, cobble paved street. The auto swayed and jolted like a s.h.i.+p on the rocks. The road was full of pitch-holes and as the wheels slipped into them a blinding spray of muddy water was flung into Harvey's face. The machine put on more speed and swung around a corner. Another hole! The car careened, almost turned over, and Harvey was thrown into the street.

As he struggled to his feet the red rear light of the automobile was two blocks away. But he went on, gasping for breath, stumbling. Presently he found himself in the district near the river, close to the north side water front, which is deserted after night-fall.

He had hurried on like a man in a dream. Now he came to the edge of the river and stood staring down into the water.

Out in the stream he could see the shadowy outline of a boat. Looking more closely, he saw that he was scarcely two hundred feet from the craft. The darkness had multiplied the distance; it was now penetrated by a lantern light moving on the deck, evidently in the hand of someone who was standing aft on the boat.

There was distinct, loud talking and swearing between men.

Harvey thought that it was a fis.h.i.+ng smack. Its demonstrative pa.s.sengers were bent upon waking up the night and almost woke him up to the purpose of his night's errand when he heard a loud voice say:

"Cut that out, Druce. No more boozing, d'you hear?"

"D-r-u-c-e."

Harvey was as near fainting as a healthy young man might be with the shock of this surprise after his tremendous exertions and his fall. He stood as if petrified.

But his ears still caught the sound of swearing and he saw men moving quickly about on the deck, then the gray white of sails spreading like gaunt ghosts. The swish of water told him that the boat was moving, that his quarry was slipping into pitch-blackness ahead.

That was the finish of his courage.

Harvey felt his limbs trembling, felt something trickle down his face. He was beaten.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FORCES THAT CONQUER

When the tenderloin learned that Martin Druce had been released on a bond for thirty thousand dollars, the tenderloin laughed.

The laugh was low and cunning and there was more than the suggestion of a sneer in it. It rang from one end of the district to the other, convulsing dive-keepers who for days had been as funereal as undertakers.

It sounded in dance halls and bagnios, in barrooms and gambling dens.

It eddied up into Chicago's higher air and found an echo in clubs frequented by distinguished financier-politicians.

John Boland had won! The brain that had never failed had proved its resourcefulness once again in this hour of dire trouble. Druce was gone.

He would never be heard of in Chicago again. It had cost thirty thousand dollars, but what was thirty thousand dollars? Mary Randall and her crusaders were crushed. Anson was dead. Druce was gone.

What mattered it now how much evidence Mary Randall had gathered in against the Cafe Sinister! There would be a period of quiet. The tenderloin would carefully observe all the proprieties. Then the case of the State against Martin Druce would be called and Druce would not respond to that summons. And so Mary Randall's sensation would die an unnatural death--death from smothering, death from lack of expression.

Afterward the tenderloin would resume its old operations. No wonder the tenderloin laughed!

John Boland felt none of this exultation when he returned to his office on the morning following Druce's release. An indefinable oppression weighed him down. He had won, he knew--and yet the air about him seemed charged with prescience of evil. He tried to shake it off and could not.

He was anxious, too, about Harry. Why, he asked himself, should he worry about an ungrateful son. John Boland did not know the answer, yet the answer was very plain. His son Harry was his own flesh and blood and no man can cut himself off from his own flesh and blood without feeling some sort of reaction.

John Boland, the man of brain and iron was only human after all. He loved his son.

He was in a state of gloomy meditation when he opened his desk and resumed his day's work. The telephone bell jangled constantly. The councillors who had partic.i.p.ated in the conference over Druce's case which had resulted so happily were calling up to congratulate Boland on the success of his maneuver. Somehow these felicitations did not please him as his fellow advisers had expected.

His mood was gloomy. He could not shake it off. Constantly the same question returned to his mind he had won, yes, but what difference did it make? Was he any happier? Was the world any better? Boland had never been worried by questions of this sort before. He could not answer them.

He was still in this gray mood when the guardian of his door announced the arrival of Grogan. Michael Grogan was, perhaps, Boland's most intimate friend. He had not taken Grogan into his confidence when he planned his coup to release Druce. He felt that Grogan would not be in sympathy with his campaign for destroying the work of the reformers.

Still he was glad to see Grogan. After all he was a friend. And this morning John Boland, for the first time, perhaps, in his life, felt the need of a friend.

"John," said Grogan taking a seat, "I see you've 'sprung' Druce?"

"Yes? Mike you're an inveterate reader of the newspapers."

"They're yelling about it this morning."

"Let them yell."

"You did it?"

"Well Mike, I'm a modest man. I had something to do with it."

"It's a rotten business!"

"What!"

"I said it was a rotten business."

"The commercial interests of the city demanded it. Do you think I will stand idly by and see a bunch of half-baked reformers shake down the business inst.i.tutions of Chicago?"

"John, they are right."

"O yes, I suppose if you take the mamby-pamby, hysterical, sentimental end of it, any campaign that hits at vice is right."

"It was a great movement. Mary Randall is a fine girl. You'll live to regret that you helped to thwart her."

"Pshaw, what's the matter with you, man? You're blood seems to be turning to milk. The papers will howl for a few days and then they'll forget it.

We'll invite them to. We'll suggest that if they don't forget it the interests we represent may feel called upon to cut down their advertising. They'll forget it all right."