The Silent Bullet Part 35

"That other voice said to Gennaro, 'Sit down while I count this.'"

"s.h.!.+ he's talking again."

"If it is a penny less than ten thousand or I find a mark on the bills I'll call to Enrico, and your daughter will be spirited away again,"

translated Luigi.

"Now, Gennaro is talking," said Craig. "Good--he is gaining time. He is a trump. I can distinguish that all right. He's asking the gruff voiced fellow if he will have another bottle of wine. He says he will. Good.

They must be at Prince Street now we'll give them a few minutes more, not too much, for word will be back to Albano's like wildfire, and they will get Gennaro after all. Ah, they are drinking again. What was that, Luigi? The money is all right, he says? Now, Vincenzo, out with the lights!"

A door banged open across the street, and four huge dark figures darted out in the direction of Albano's.

With his finger Kennedy pulled down the other switch and shouted: "Gennaro, this is Kennedy! To the street! Polizia! Polizia!"

A scuffle and a cry of surprise followed. A second voice, apparently from the bar, shouted, "Out with the lights, out with the lights!"

Bang! went a pistol, and another.

The dictograph, which had been all sound a moment before, was as mute as a cigar-box.

"What's the matter?" I asked Kennedy, as he rushed past me.

"They have shot out the lights. My receiving instrument is destroyed.

Come on, Jameson; Vincenzo, stay back, if you don't want to appear in this."

A short figure rushed by me, faster even than I could go. It was the faithful, Luigi.

In front of Albano's an exciting fight was going on. Shots were being fired wildly in the darkness, and heads were popping out of tenement windows on all sides. As Kennedy and I flung ourselves into the crowd we caught a glimpse of Gennaro, with blood streaming from a cut on his shoulder, struggling with a policeman while Luigi vainly was trying to interpose himself between them. A man, held by another policeman, was urging the first officer on. "That's the man," he was crying. "That's the kidnapper. I caught him."

In a moment Kennedy was behind him. "Paoli, you lie. You are the kidnapper. Seize him--he has the money on him. That other is Gennaro himself."

The policeman released the tenor, and both of them seized Paoli. The others were beating at the door, which was being frantically barricaded inside.

Just then a taxicab came swinging up they street. Three men jumped out and added their strength to those who were battering down Albano's barricade.

Gennaro, with a cry, leaped into the taxicab. Over his shoulder I could see a tangled ma.s.s of dark brown curls, and a childish voice lisped "Why didn't you come for me, papa? The bad man told me if I waited in the yard you would come for me. But if I cried he said he would shoot me.

And I waited, and waited--"

"There, there, Una; papa's going to take you straight home to mother."

A crash followed as the door yielded, and the famous Paoli gang was in the hands of the law.

XI. The Artificial Paradise

It was, I recall, at that period of the late unpleasantness in the little Central American republic of Vespuccia, when things looked darkest for American investors, that I hurried home one evening to Kennedy, bursting with news.

By way of explanation, I may add that during the rubber boom Kennedy had invested in stock of a rubber company in Vespuccia, and that its value had been shrinking for some time with that elasticity which a rubber band shows when one party suddenly lets go his end. Kennedy had been in danger of being snapped rather hard by the recoil, and I knew he had put in an order with his broker to sell and take his loss when a certain figure was reached. My news was a first ray of light in an otherwise dark situation, and I wanted to advise him to cancel the selling order and stick for a rise.

Accordingly I hurried unceremoniously into our apartment with the words on my lips before I had fairly closed the door. "What do you think, Craig" I shouted. "It is rumoured that the revolutionists have captured half a million dollars from the government and are sending it to--" I stopped short. I had no idea that Kennedy had a client, and a girl, too.

With a hastily mumbled apology I checked myself and backed out toward my own room. I may as well confess that I did not retreat very fast, however. Kennedy's client was not only a girl, but a very pretty one, I found, as she turned her head quickly at my sudden entrance and betray a lively interest at the mention of the revolution. She was a Latin-American, and the Latin-American type of feminine beauty is fascinating at least to me. I did not retreat very fast.

As I hoped, Kennedy rose to the occasion. "Miss Guerrero," he said, "let me introduce Mr. Jameson, who has helped me very much in solving some of my most difficult cases. Miss Guerrero's father, Walter, is the owner of a plantation which sells its product to the company I am interested in."

She bowed graciously, but there was a moment of embarra.s.sment until Kennedy came to the rescue.

"I shall need Mr. Jameson in handling your case, Miss Guerrero," he explained. "Would it be presuming to ask you to repeat to him briefly what you have already told me about the mysterious disappearance of your father? Perhaps some additional details will occur to you, things that you may consider trivial, but which, I a.s.sure you, may be of the utmost importance."

She a.s.sented, and in a low, tremulous, musical voice bravely went through her story.

"We come," she began, "my father and I--for my mother died when I was a little girl--we come from the northern part of Vespuccia, where foreign capitalists are much interested in the introduction of a new rubber plant. I am an only child and have been the constant companion of my father for years, ever since I could ride a pony, going with him about our hacienda and on business trips to Europe and the States.

"I may as well say at the start, Mr. Jameson, that although my father is a large land-owner, he has very liberal political views and is deeply in sympathy with the revolution that is now going on in Vespuccia. In fact, we were forced to flee very early in the trouble, and as there seemed to be more need of his services here in New York than in any of the neighbouring countries, we came here. So you see that if the revolution is not successful his estate will probably be confiscated and we shall be penniless. He is the agent--the head of the junta, I suppose you would call it--here in New York."

"Engaged in purchasing arms and ammunition," put in Kennedy, as she paused, "and seeing that they are s.h.i.+pped safely to New Orleans as agricultural machinery, where another agent receives them and attends to their safe transit across the Gulf."

She nodded and after a moment resumed

"There is quite a little colony of Vespuccians here in New York, both revolutionists and government supporters. I suppose that neither of you has any idea of the intriguing that is going on under the peaceful surface right here in your own city. But there is much of it, more than even I know or can tell you. Well, my father lately has been acting very queerly. There is a group who meet frequently at the home of a Senora Mendez--an insurrecto group, of course. I do not go, for they are all much older people than I. I know the senora well, but I prefer a different kind of person. My friends are younger and perhaps more radical, more in earnest about the future of Vespuccia.

"For some weeks it has seemed to me that this Senora Mendez has had too much influence over my father. He does not seem like the same man he used to be. Indeed, some of the junta who do not frequent the house of the senora have remarked it. He seems moody, works by starts, then will neglect his work entirely. Often I see him with his eyes closed, apparently sitting quietly, oblivious to the progress of the cause--the only cause now which can restore us our estate.

"The other day we lost an entire s.h.i.+pment of arms--the Secret Service captured them on the way from the warehouse on South Street to the steamer which was to take them to New Orleans. Only once before had it happened, when my father did not understand all the things to conceal.

Then he was frantic for a week. But this time he seems not to care. Ah, senores," she said, dropping her voice, "I fear there was some treachery there."

"Treachery?" I asked. "And have you any suspicions who might have played informer?"

She hesitated. "I may as well tell you just what I suspect. I fear that the hold of Senora Mendez is somehow or other concerned with it all. I even have suspected that somehow she may be working in the pay of the government that she is a vampire, living on the secrets of the group who so trust her. I suspect anything, everybody--that she is poisoning his mind, perhaps even whispering into his ear some siren proposal of amnesty and his estate again, if he will but do what she asks. My poor father--I must save him from himself if it is necessary. Argument has no effect with him. He merely answers that the senora is a talented and accomplished woman, and laughs a vacant laugh when I hint to him to beware. I hate her."

The fiery animosity of her dark eyes boded ill, I felt, for the senora.

But it flashed over me that perhaps, after all, the senora was not a traitress, but had simply been scheming to win the heart and hence the hacienda of the great land-owner, when he came into possession of his estate if the revolution proved successful.

"And finally," she concluded, keeping back the tears by an heroic effort, "last night he left our apartment, promising to return early in the evening. It is now twenty-four hours, and I have heard not a word from him. It is the first time in my life that we have ever been separated so long."

"And you have no idea where he could have gone?" asked Craig.

"Only what I have learned from Senor Torreon, another member of the junta. Senor Torreon said this morning that he left the home of Senora Mendez last night about ten o'clock in company with my father. He says they parted at the subway, as they lived on different branches of the road. Professor Kennedy," she added, springing up and clasping her hands tightly in an appeal that was irresistible, "you know what steps to take to find him. I trust all to you--even the calling on the police, though I think it would be best if we could get along without them. Find my father, senores, and when we come into our own again you shall not regret that you befriended a lonely girl in a strange city, surrounded by intrigue and danger." There were tears in her eyes as she stood swaying before us.

The tenseness of the appeal was broken by the sharp ringing of the telephone bell. Kennedy quickly took down the receiver.

"Your maid wishes to speak to you," he said, handing the telephone to her.

Her face brightened with that nervous hope that springs in the human breast even in the blackest moments. "I told her if any message came for me she might find me here," explained Miss Guerrero. "Yes, Juanita, what is it--a message for me?"

My Spanish was not quite good enough to catch more than a word here and there in the low conversation, but I could guess from the haggard look which overspread her delicate face that the news was not encouraging.