The Crevice Part 23

"Who was that?" asked Morrow.

Pennold hesitated and then replied with dogged reluctance.

"I dunno what that's got to do with it, but the feller's name is Paddington, an' he's the worst kind of a crook--a 'tec gone wrong. At least, that's what they say about him, but I ain't got nothin' on him; I don't believe I ever seen the man, that I know of. He's worked on a lot of shady cases; I know that much, an' he's clever. More'n a dozen crooks are floatin' around town that would be up the river if he told what he knew about 'em; so naturally, he owns 'em, body an' soul. Not that Charley's one that'd go up--he's only in it for the coin--but I'd rather see him get pinched an' do time for pullin' off somethin' on his own account, than runnin' around doin' dirty work for a man who ain't in his father's cla.s.s, or mine. He's a disgrace; that's what Charley is--a plain disgrace."

Pennold's voice rang out in highly virtuous indignation. Morrow forbore to smile at the oblique moral viewpoint of the old crook.

"What does he look like?" he asked. "Short and slim, isn't he, with a small dark mustache?"

"That's him!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Pennold disgustedly. "Dresses like a dude, an' chases after a bunch of skirts! Spreads himself like a ward politician when he gets a chance! He's my nephew, all right, but as long as he won't run straight, same as I'm doin' now, I'd rather he'd crack a crib than play errand boy for a man I wouldn't trust on look-out!"

"Where does Charley live?" asked Morrow.

"How should I know? He hangs out at Lafferty's saloon, down on Sand Street, when he ain't off on some steer or other--leastways he used to."

Morrow folded the warrant slowly, in the pause which ensued, and returned it to his pocket while the couple watched him tensely.

"All right, Pennold," he said, at last. "I guess I won't have to use this now. If you've been square, an' told me all you know, you won't be bothered about that matter of the Mortimer Chase silver plate. If you've kept anything back, Blaine will find it out, and then it's good-night to you."

"I ain't!" returned Pennold, with tremendous eagerness. "I've told you everything you asked, an' I don't savvy what you're gettin' at, anyway. If you're tryin' to mix Jimmy Brunell up in any new case you're dead wrong; he's out of the game for good. As for Charley, he wouldn't know enough to pick up a pocket-book if he saw one lyin' on the sidewalk, unless he was told to!"

"Well, I may as well warn both of you that you're watched, and if you try to make a get-away, you'll be taken up--and it won't be on suspicion, either. Play fair with Blaine, and he'll be square with you, but don't try to put anything over on him, or it'll be the worse for you. It can't be done."

Morrow closed the door behind him, leaving the couple as they had been almost throughout the interview--the woman erect and stony of face, the man miserable and shaken, crouched dejectedly over the table. But scarcely had he descended the steps of the ramshackle little porch when the voice of Mame Pennold reached him, pitched in a shrill key of emotional exultation.

"Oh, Wally, Wally! Thank G.o.d you ain't a snitcher! Thank G.o.d you didn't tell!"

The voice ceased suddenly, as if a hand had been laid across her lips, and after a moment's hesitation, Morrow swung off down the path, conscious of at least one pair of eyes watching him from behind the soiled curtains of the front room.

What had the woman meant? Pennold obviously had kept something back, but was it of sufficient importance to warrant his returning and forcing a confession? Whether it concerned Brunell or their nephew Charley mattered little, at the moment. He had achieved the object of his visit; he knew that Pennold himself had no connection with the Lawton forgeries, nor knowledge of them, and at the same time he had learned of Charley's affiliation with Paddington. The couple back there in the little house could tell him scarcely more which would aid him in his investigation, but the dapper, viciously weak young stool-pigeon, if he could be located at once, might be made to disclose enough to place Paddington definitely within the grasp of the law.

Guy Morrow boarded a Sand Street car, and behind the sporting page of a newspaper he kept a sharp look-out for Lafferty's saloon. He came to it at last--a dingy, down-at-heel resort, with much faded gilt-work over the door, and fly-specked posters of the latest social function of the district's political club showing dimly behind its unwashed windows.

He rode a block beyond--then, alighting, turned back and entered the bar. It was deserted at that hour of the morning, save for a disconsolate-looking individual who leaned upon one ragged elbow, gazing mournfully into his empty whisky gla.s.s at the end of the narrow, varnished counter. The bartender emerged from a door leading into the back room, with a tall, empty gla.s.s in his hand, and Morrow asked for a beer. As he stood sipping it, he watched the bartender replenish the empty unwashed gla.s.s he had carried with a generous drink of doubtful looking absinthe and a squirt from a syphon.

"b.u.m drink on a cold morning," he observed tentatively. "Have a whisky straight, on me?"

"I will that!" the bartender returned heartily. "This green-eyed fairy stuff ain't for me; it's for a dame in the back room--one of the regulars. She's been hittin' it up all the morning, but it don't seem to affect her--funny, too, for she ain't a boozer, as a general thing.

Her guy's gone back on her, an' she's sore. I'll be with you in a minute."

He vanished into the back room with the gla.s.s, and before he returned, the disconsolate individual had slunk out, leaving Morrow in sole possession. If this place was indeed the rendezvous of the gang of minor criminals with which Charley Pennold had allied himself, he had obviously come at the wrong time to obtain any information concerning him, unless the voluble bartender could be made to talk, and that would be a difficult matter.

"Look here!" Morrow decided on a bold move, as the bartender reappeared and placed a bottle of whisky between them. He leaned forward, after a quick, furtive glance about him, and spoke rapidly, with a disarming air of confidential frankness. "I'm in an awful hole.

I'm new at this game, and I've got to find a fellow I never saw, and find him quick. He hangs out here, and the big guy sent me for him."

"What big guy?" The cordiality faded from the bartender's ruddy countenance and he stepped back significantly.

"You know--Pad!" Morrow shot back on a desperate bluff. "The fellow's name's Charley Pennold, and Pad wants him right away. He didn't tell me to ask you about him, but he made it pretty plain to me that he'd got to get him."

"Say!" The bartender approached cautiously. He rested one hand upon the counter, keeping the other well below it, but Morrow did not flinch. "What's your lay?"

"Anything there's coin in," returned the operative, with a knowing leer. "Anything from planting divorce evidence to shoving the queer.

I've been working for a pal of Pad's in St. Louis for three or four years--that's why I'm strange around here. Pad's up in the air about something, and wants this Charley-boy right away, and he tells me to look here for him and not come back without him, see? This is on the level. If you know where he is, be a good fellow and come across, will you?"

The bartender felt under the counter for the shelf, and then raised his hand, empty, toward the bottle.

"I guess you're all right," he remarked. "Anyway, I'll take a chance.

What's your moniker?"

"Guy the Blinker," returned Morrow promptly. "Guess you've heard of me, all right. I pulled off--but I haven't got time to chin now. I got to find this boy if I want to keep in with Pad, and there's coin in it."

"Sure there is," the bartender affirmed. "But he's a queer one--the big guy, as you call him. What's his game? Why, only this morning, he tipped Charley off to beat it, and Charley did. Maybe he thinks the kid's double-crossed him."

Morrow's heart leaped in sudden excitement at this astounding news, but he controlled himself, and replied nonchalantly:

"Search me. He told me I'd find this Charley-boy here; that's all I know. He isn't talking for publication--not Pad."

"You bet not!" The bartender nodded. Then he jerked a grimy thumb in the direction of the back room. "Why, the dame in there, cryin' into her absinthe, is Charley's girl. She's a queen--straight as they make 'em, if she does work the shops now and then--and Charley was fixin'

to hook up with her next month, preacher-fas.h.i.+on, and settle down. Now he gets the office and skips without a word to her, and she's all broke up over it!"

The door at the rear opened suddenly, and a girl stood upon the threshold. She was tall and slender, and her face showed traces of positive beauty, although it was bloated and distorted with weeping and dissipation, and her big black eyes glittered feverishly.

"What's that you're sayin' about Charley?" she demanded half-hysterically.

"He's gone! He's left me! I don't believe Pad gave him the office, and if he did, Charley's a fool to beat it! They've got nothin' on him--it's Pad who's got to save his own skin!"

"Shut up, Annie!" advised the bartender, not unkindly. "Pad's sent this here feller for him, now!"

"Then it was a lie--a lie! Pad didn't tell him to beat it--he's gone on his own account, gone for good! But I'll find him; I'll--"

The girl suddenly burst into a storm of sobs, and, turning, reeled back into the inner room.

"You see!" the bartender observed, confidentially, as the door swung shut behind her. "She thinks he's gone off with another skirt; that's the way with women! I knew Pad had given him the office, though. I got it straight. You're right about Pad bein' up in the air. He must have bitten off more than he can chew, this time. I heard Reddy Thursby talkin' to Gil Hennessey about it, right where you're standin', not two hours ago. They're both Pad's men--met 'em yet?"

Morrow shook his head, not trusting himself to speak, and the loquacious bartender went on.

"It was Reddy brought the word for Charley to skip, and he dropped somethin' about a raid on some plant up in the Bronx. Know anything about it?"

For a moment the rows of bottles on their shelves seemed to reel before Morrow's eyes, and his heart stood still, but he forced himself to reply:

"Oh, that? I know all about it, of course. Wasn't I in on the ground floor? But that's only a fake steer; this Charley-boy hasn't got anything to do with it, that I know of. Maybe the big guy thought he hadn't got out of the way, and sent me to find out. No use my hanging round here any longer, anyhow. I'll amble back and tell Pad he's gone.

Swell dame, that Annie--some queen, eh? Let's have one more drink and I'll blow!"

With a.s.surances of an early return, Morrow contrived to beat a retreat without arousing the suspicions of the bartender, but he went out into the pale, wintry, sunlight with his brain awhirl. To his apprehensive mind a raid on a plant in the Bronx could mean only one place--the little map-making shop of Jimmy Brunell. Something had happened in his absence; some one had betrayed the old forger. And Emily--what of her?

Morrow sped as fast as elevated and subway could carry him to the Bronx. Anxious as he was about the girl he loved, he did not go directly to the house on Meadow Lane, but made a detour to the little shop a few blocks away.

Morrow's instinct had not misled him. Before he had approached within a hundred feet of the shop he knew that his fears had been justified.