Triple Spies Part 20

The man waited in the hallway. He was doubtless prepared for another extended argument, but none came. Instead, the girl walked down the steps with him and into a waiting taxi.

It was a rather long ride they took. First speeding along between rows of apartment houses they at last dashed into the business section of the city. The stranger sat in one corner of the cab, not saying a word.

Pa.s.sing through the business section, they approached the river. It was then that Cio-Cio-San's heart began to be filled with dread. She had heard of many dark deeds done down by the river. But after all, what could they want of her, a poor j.a.panese girl, almost without funds?

The cab came to a stop with a jolt. A tall building loomed above them.

The strange j.a.panese held the door open that she might alight. She stepped to the sidewalk, and, at that instant, strong arms seized her, pinning her arms to her sides, while a coa.r.s.e cloth was drawn tightly over her mouth. She then felt herself being pushed through s.p.a.ce, and the next moment heard the m.u.f.fled echoes of the footsteps of her captors. They were in the bas.e.m.e.nt of some great deserted building, the sound told her that.

"Betrayed! Betrayed!" her mind kept repeating. "Betrayed by one of my own people!"

CHAPTER XVII

A THREE-CORNERED BATTLE

While Johnny and Hanada were being led away to the patrol box a young man came running up. He was a reporter, out scouting for news.

"Who's that?" he asked, as he caught a glimpse of Johnny's face.

"Johnny Thompson, you nut!" growled the policeman. "Didn't you never view that map of his before?"

"Yes, but Johnny Thompson's dead."

"All right, have it your own way."

"What's the charge?"

"Conspiracy. Now beat it."

The youth started on a run for the nearest telephone. He had hit upon a first page story. A half-hour later every newsboy in the downtown district was shouting himself hoa.r.s.e, and the words he shouted were these:

"All about Johnny Thompson. Johnny Thompson, featherweight champion.

Alive! Arrested for conspiracy! Extry!"

The theatre crowds were thronging the streets, and the newsies reaped a rich harvest. Among those in the throng was Mazie Mortimer, Johnny Thompson's one-time pal. She had gone to the theatre alone. When Johnny was in Chicago, she had gone with him, but now no one seemed to quite take his place.

As she hastened to the elevated station the shouts of the newsboys struck her ears. At first she heard only those two electrifying words, "Johnny Thompson." Then she listened and heard it all.

Had she not been held up and hurried along by the throng, she would have fallen in a faint. As it was her senses seemed to reel. "Johnny Thompson! Alive! Arrested! Conspiracy!" It could not be true.

Breaking away from the crowd, she s.n.a.t.c.hed a paper from a boy, flung him a half-dollar, then hurried to the corner, where, beneath an arclight she read the astounding news. Again it seemed that her senses would desert her. With an effort she made her way to a restaurant where a cup of black coffee revived her.

For a time she sat in a daze, utterly oblivious of the figure she cut--a well dressed, handsome young woman in opera cloak and silk gown, seated at the counter of a cheap restaurant.

Johnny Thompson alive, here in Chicago, arrested for conspiracy? What did it mean? Could it mean that Johnny had been a deserter, that he had become involved in the radical movement which, coming from Russia, seemed about to sweep the country off its feet? She could not quite believe that, but--

Suddenly a new thought sent her hurrying into the street. Hailing a taxi, she ordered the chauffeur to drive around the block until she gave him further orders. Her thoughts now were all shaped toward a definite end: Johnny Thompson, her good pal, was not dead. He was in Chicago and in trouble. If it were within her power, she must find him and help him.

Studying the newspaper, she noted the point at which he had been arrested. "Wells street bridge," she read. "That means the Madison Street police station."

Her lips were at the speaking tube in an instant. "Madison Street police station, and hurry!" she ordered. "An extra five for speed." The taxi whirled around a corner on two wheels; it shot by a policeman; dodged up an alley, and out on the other side, then stopped with a jolt that came near sending Mazie through the gla.s.s.

"Here you are." She thrust a bill in the driver's hand, then raced up the steps and into the forbidding police station.

A sergeant looked up from the desk as she entered.

"Johnny Thompson," she said excitedly. "I want to see Johnny Thompson!"

"I'd like to myself, miss," he said smiling. "There never was a featherweight like him. But he's dead."

"Dead?" Mazie caught at her throat.

"Sure. Didn't you read about it? Long time ago. Died in Russia."

"Oh!" Mazie sank limply into a chair. "Then you haven't heard? He isn't arrested? He isn't here?"

"Arrested?" The sergeant's face took on an amused and puzzled look; then he smiled again. "Oh, yes, there was something on the records tonight saying he and a j.a.p was wanted for conspiracy. But take it from me, lady, that's all pure bunk; some crook posing as Johnny Thompson, more than likely. I tell you, there never was a more loyal chap than this same Johnny; one of the first to enlist."

"I--I know," faltered Mazie. Now, for the first time, she noticed a man who had entered after her. He stepped to the desk and asked a question regarding a person she knew nothing of. Then he went silently out again.

Mazie sat quite still, then rising, she smiled faintly at the sergeant.

"I--I guess you must be right--but--but the papers are full of it."

"Oh, the papers!" The officer spread his hands out in a gesture of contempt. "They'd print anything!"

As Mazie stepped out into the street she was approached by a man, and with a little start, she noticed that it was the one who had entered the police station a few minutes before. Halting, she waited for him to speak.

"You were looking for Johnny Thompson?" He said the words almost in a whisper.

"Yes."

"Well, he is alive. He is not dead. He was arrested, but has been discharged. I can take you to him. Shall I?"

"Oh, will you?" Mazie's voice echoed her grat.i.tude.

"Sure. There's a taxi now," the man replied in a foreign accent.

Johnny had not been released; far from it. And yet it was true, he was at that very moment free. His freedom was only from moment to moment, however; the kind of freedom one gets who runs away from the police.

It was not Johnny's fault that he ran away either. They had been following the orders of the police to the letter, he and Hanada. They had gone across the bridge with them, had meekly submitted to being handcuffed, had been waiting for the patrol-wagon, when things happened.

Four men dashed suddenly from the darkness, and before the patrolmen could draw guns or clubs, before Johnny could realize what was happening, the officers were flat on the pavement, with hands and feet tied.

Johnny's brain worked rapidly. He understood all right. These men were Radicals. He was the prize they were after--he and the diamonds. Once let him be taken to the police station, there to be searched, the diamonds would be lost to them forever.