The Pawns Count Part 31

He stepped back, and brought a candle from the table at which he had been seated. Fischer helped him light it, and by degrees the interior of the little apartment was illuminated. Its contents were almost negligible--there was simply a foul piece of rug in the corner, and a broken chair. With his back to the wall crouched a slim, apparently young man, with a perfectly bloodless face and black eyes under which were blue lines. His clothes were torn and covered with dust, as though he had dragged himself about the floor, and one of his hands was bleeding.

"The gentleman's on business, Jake," his host repeated.

"Give me some whisky," the young man mumbled.

The Irishman shaded his eyes.

"Holy Moses! why, you've finished that bottle!" he exclaimed.

"It's like water," the fugitive replied in a hot whisper, "I drink and I feel nothing; I taste nothing--I forget nothing! Give me something stronger."

He tossed off without hesitation the tumbler half full of whisky which his guardian fetched him. Then he came out.

"I'm sick of this," he declared. "I'll sit at your table. It's no use talking to me of jobs," he went on. "I couldn't get out of here. I made for the docks, but they headed me off. They know where I am. They'll have me sooner or later."

"Yes, they'll have you right enough," the Irishman a.s.sented; "but if there was any chance in the world, this gent could give it to you. He's got a job he wants done up amongst the swells in Fifth Avenue, and there's money enough in it to buy Anna herself, if you want her. Anna's our real toff down here," he explained, turning to Fischer, "and all the boys are crazy about her."

Jake shook his head, unimpressed. He fixed his eyes upon Fischer, moistened his lips a little, and spoke in a sort of croaky whisper.

"Money's no use to me," he said, "nor women either--I'm through with them. You know what I done? I killed my girl. That's what I'm going to the chair for. But if I could get out of this, I'd do your job. I'm kind of hating people. I can't get my girl's face out of my mind.

Perhaps if I did your job I'd have another one to think about."

"Pleasant company, ain't he?" the Irishman grunted. "He's the real goods."

Fischer stared at the young man as though fascinated. He seemed beyond and outside human comprehension. Their host was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his feet on another chair. The braces hung from his shoulders upon the floor, his collarless s.h.i.+rt had fallen a little open. His face, with its little tuft of red side whiskers and unshaven chin, was reminiscent of the forests.

"If you want this job fixed, Mr. Stranger," he said, "I don't know as Jake here couldn't take it on. It'd have to be done like this. Jake's a real toney chauffeur--drive anything. If you had your automobile at a spot I could tell you of one evening, just at dusk, I might get him that far, in a set of chauffeur's clothes. Once on the box of your auto, he'd be out of this and could give 'em the slip for a bit. It's the only way I can think of, to get him near the game."

"The arrangement would suit me," Fischer admitted.

Jake suddenly showed a gleaming set of unexpectedly white teeth. His eyes stared more than ever.

"I'm game! I'm on to this," he cried fiercely. "You can have all there is coming to me, Sullivan, if I get nabbed, but I'm going to take my risk. I hate this hole! It's a rat's den."

"Then get you back to your cupboard, Jake," the Irishman enjoined.

"I've got to talk business to the gent."

The young man rose to his feet. He took the bottle of whisky under his arm. His face was still ashen, but his tone was steady. He gripped Fischer by the arm.

"I will do your job," he promised. "I will do it thoroughly."

He slouched across the floor, entered his cupboard, and disappeared.

Fischer was suddenly aware of the moisture upon his forehead. There was something animallike, absolutely inhuman, about this creature with whom he had made his murderous bargain.

"I have no money here, of course," he reminded his companion.

"Don't know as I blame you, guv'nor," the other observed with a grin.

"I saw my toughs lay out a guy only the other day for flas.h.i.+ng a smaller wad than you'd carry. You know the rules, and I guess I'll ring up the bank to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock. Does that go?"

"You'll find the deposit there," Fischer promised. "You'd better let me know when he's ready to take the job on."

The Irishman walked to the foot of the steps with his visitor.

"Give Joe the double knock on the trapdoor," he directed, "and get out of the saloon as quick as you can. There's a Dago about there keeps our hands full. Got anything with you?"

Fischer nodded. His hand stole out of his overcoat pocket.

"Better give them one if they look like trouble," his host advised.

"They've plenty of s.p.u.n.k, but I can tell you they make tracks for their holes if they hear one of those things bark."

"They shall hear it fast enough, if they try to hustle me," Fischer observed grimly.

"You've some pluck," the Irishman declared, as he watched his departing guest ascend the steps. "Sure, this is no place for cowards, anyway.

And good night and good luck to you! Jake will do your job slick, if any one could."

Fischer beat his little tattoo upon the trapdoor, crawled through it and underneath the flap in the counter, out into the saloon. He paused for a moment to look around, on his way to the door. The fight was apparently over, for every one was standing at the counter, drinking with a swarthy-faced man whose cheeks were stained with blood. From a distant corner came the sound of groans. The air seemed heavier than ever with foul tobacco smoke. The man at the piano still thrashed out his unmelodious chords. Some women in a corner were pretending to dance. One or two of them looked curiously at Fischer, but he pa.s.sed out, unchallenged. Even the air of the slum outside seemed pure and fresh after the heated den he had left. He reached the corner of the street in safety and stepped quickly into his car. He threw both windows wide open and murmured an order to the chauffeur. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. He was a man not overburdened with imagination, but it seemed to him just then that he would never be able altogether to forget the face of that ghastly, dehumanised creature, crouching like some terrified wild animal in his fetid refuge.

CHAPTER XXII

Mrs. Theodore Hastings was forty-eight years old, which her friends said was the reason why her mansion on Fifth Avenue was furnished and lit with the delicate sombreness of an old Italian palace. There was about it none of the garishness, the almost resplendent brilliancy a.s.sociated with the abodes of many of our neighbours. Although her ma.s.seuse confidently a.s.sured her that she looked twenty-eight, Mrs.

Hastings preferred not to put the matter to the test. She received her carefully selected dinner guests in a great library with cedarwood walls, furnished with almost Victorian sobriety, and illuminated by myriads of hidden lights. Pamela, being a relative, received the special consideration of an affectionately bestowed embrace.

"Pamela, my child, wasn't it splendid I heard that you were in New York!" she exclaimed. "Quite by accident, too. I think you treat your relatives shamefully."

Her niece laughed.

"Well, anyhow, you're the first of them I've seen at all, and directly Jim told me he was coming to you, I made him ring up in case you had room for me."

"Jimmy was a dear," Mrs. Hastings declared, "and, of course, there couldn't be a time when there wouldn't be room for you. Even now, at the last moment, though, I haven't quite made up my mind where to put you. Choose, dear. Will you have a Western bishop or a rather dull Englishman?"

"What is the name of the Englishman?" Pamela asked, with sudden intuition.

"Lutchester, dear. Quite a nice name, but I know nothing about him. He brought letters to your uncle. Rather a queer time for Englishmen to be travelling about, we thought, but still, there he is. Seems to have found some people he knows--and I declare he is coming towards you!"

"I met him in London," Pamela whispered, "and I never could get on with bishops."

The dinner table was large, and arranged with that wonderful simplicity which Mrs. Hastings had adopted as the keynote of her New York parties.

She had taken, in fact, simplicity under her wing and made a new thing of it. There were more flowers than silver, and cut gla.s.s than heavy plate. There seemed to be an almost ostentatious desire to conceal the fact that Mr. Hastings had robbed the American public of a good many million dollars.

"Of course," Pamela declared, as they took their places, and she nodded a greeting to some friends around the table, "fate is throwing us together in the most unaccountable manner."

"I accept its vagaries with resignation," Lutchester replied. "Besides, it is quite time we met again. You promised to show me New York, and I haven't seen you for days."

"I don't even remember the promise," Pamela laughed, "but in any case I have changed my mind. I am not sure that you are the nice, simple-minded person you profess to be. I begin to have doubts about you."