Mortmain Part 31

"Guess it can wait, can't it?"

Ralston smiled in spite of himself. He wished he could tell Sullivan the purport of this telegram which gave him so much anxiety. Simultaneously it occurred to him that it was undesirable to leave the cab even for a moment Sullivan might take it into his head to disappear.

"Oh, well," he retorted, "it doesn't entirely suit my book to allow you a chance to side-step me either, so we'll settle it by letting Miss Davenport send the wire for me. In that way we can each continue in the other's company. Much more agreeable, of course. Miss Davenport, may I ask you to get me a blank from inside?"

The girl sprang down and quickly returned with a sheaf of blanks and a pencil. Ralston scribbled on his knee a hasty message:

To the President, White House, Was.h.i.+ngton. Am forced, after all, to decline appointment. See morning papers.

Am writing fully.

RALSTON.

He handed her half a dollar and she reentered the office.

Now Miss Davenport was a young person wise in her generation. She had seen many men in many situations, and she realized that the man who had handed her this particular telegram was in a condition bordering on collapse. Had she seen fit to use a sporting term she would have said that Ralston was "groggy" with nervousness and excitement. In addition she was not devoid of the usual amount of feminine curiosity. At any rate, her first move was to read the telegram.

"He's crazy!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Why, he doesn't even know whether they got his name! And Jim's all right." She turned the message over in her hand.

"I guess that telegram _can_ wait. There won't be anything in the papers. The presses are locked at one o'clock."

"Say," she remarked to the sleepy operator, "what's the rate to Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.?"

"Twenty-five for ten words, and two cents a word over."

"Change that for me, will you? Let me have some coppers?"

The man fished out the small change and went back to his accounts.

Miss Davenport slipped the paper into her pocket and returned to the cab.

"Nineteen cents change," she said, handing it to Ralston.

"Where to?" asked the cabby mechanically.

"West Forty-fifth Street," said Sullivan.

They started on. The street lamps were fast paling beneath the dawn. At Thirty-third Street and Broadway a newsboy was hopping on the cars and shouting his items. A strange thrill of determination had seized Ralston. The die was cast now. There was nothing more to consider.

"Here's your _Morning Journal_!" cried the boy as the cab swung by. "New a.s.sistant Secretary of the Navy. Twelfth Regiment starts with a full quota of officers!" He waved his sheets at them.

Inside the cab Ralston set his teeth.

"I'll make it a full quota!" he muttered.

They turned down Thirty-third Street into Fifth Avenue.

"Look here," said Sullivan suddenly, "all I do is to show him to you, see? Understand, I don't get into no mix-up myself! My job ends when I give you the pa.s.s."

"All right," said Ralston. "Just show him to me. That's all I ask."

"All right," repeated Sullivan.

They pa.s.sed Forty-second Street and turned into Forty-fifth, just as the lights in the crosstown cars had been put out.

VIII

The house before which they stopped was an old-fas.h.i.+oned brownstone front. A brownstone flight of steps with a heavy brownstone bal.u.s.trade and huge, carved newel post of the same depressing material led to a pair of ponderous stained doors tight shut with the air of finality possible only to a brownstone side street. The shades on the four rows of windows of this impenetrable mansion were smoothly drawn. At the grated window in the area the lower half of a bird cage, just visible beneath the screen, was the only indication of occupancy. The whole aspect of the place was that of somnolent respectability. One could imagine the door being swung wide, the rug shaken, the broom making a fict.i.tious pa.s.sage through the vestibule, the curtains going up unevenly in the front parlor, the shades raised in the area, the canary thrilling in response to the shaking of the kitchen range, and _Paterfamilias_ coming down the steps at about eight twenty-five in a square Derby hat, to go to his real estate office. This is what occurs at four homes out of five in this locality every morning from the first day of October to the first day of July.

But no eye within the last ten years had beheld a shade raised in this particular establishment. The census taker had never entered its doors.

No woman had ever pa.s.sed its threshold. No child had ever played within its halls. Once a year a load of wines was deposited there and once a month a grocer's wagon paused outside. The coal was put in during the summer--forty tons, C. O. D. and five per cent off. The milkman was the only matutinal visitor, and the milkman left his wares upon the flagging of the servants' entrance. At eleven o'clock a colored man emerged from the area and departed in the direction of Sixth Avenue with a basket upon his arm. In half an hour he returned. This was the chief occurrence of the day. At seven in the evening two hansom cabs drew up before the door to allow four men to enter the house--also by the area. That was all, except that the ice wagon stopped daily, but the colored man took the ice off the hooks at the door.

The visitors at the house arrived in cabs between the hours of eight and twelve P.M., and departed between the latter hour and five in the morning. There are forty similar _menages_ north of Thirty-third Street and east of Long Acre Square.

"He's in here," said Sullivan. "But I ain't goin' inside."

"You're not, eh?" remarked Ralston. "Very well, we stay here together then until he comes out--and then you go down to headquarters with _me_."

"Look here, Sackett," whined Sullivan, "how can I go in? They'd see me and know I'd sold 'em out. I can't do it. It would finish me. Don't be unreasonable."

"Well, how do I know he's here?" asked Ralston. "Don't be unreasonable yourself."

"Well, I _know_ he's here," said Sullivan. "I tell you what I'll do.

I'll go into the hall, and when you're satisfied I ain't givin' you the double-cross, I'll slip out. Suppose I showed you Steadman, that would satisfy you, wouldn't it?"

"It certainly would," said Ralston.

Sullivan looked up and down the street and then clambered out in a disjointed and rheumatic fas.h.i.+on.

"I'm sorry, Miss Davenport, I can't let you have the cab," said Ralston.

"I shall need it--I hope."

Sullivan was on the sidewalk, looking at the house.

The girl suddenly seized Ralston's hand.

"Mr. Ralston," she said, "be careful while you are in that house. Don't mention a word of what I've told you about Sullivan. They're a reckless lot. Watch yourself and them. Play it easy, and good luck to you. Some time, I hope, I'll see you again."

Ralston pressed her hand.

He climbed down.

"Where to?" mumbled the cabby.

"Stay right _here_ until I come out--if it's six hours!" directed Ralston.