The Big-Town Round-Up Part 16

Jerry was a known man in New York. It had been easy for Clay to find out the location of his saloon and the hotel where he lived. The cattleman had done some quiet sleuthing, but he had found no trace of Kitty. Now he knew that she had turned to him in her need and cried for help.

That she was in trouble did not surprise him. The girl was born for it as naturally as the sparks fly upward. She was a provocation to those who prey. In her face there was a disturbing quality quite apart from her prettiness. Back of the innocence lay some hint of slumberous pa.s.sion. Kitty was one of those girls who have the misfortune to stir the imaginations of men without the ability to keep them at arm's length. Just what her present difficulty was Clay did not know, but he was quite sure it had to do with a man. Already he had decided to rescue her. He had promised to be her friend. It never occurred to him to stand back when she called.

He had an engagement that afternoon to walk with Beatrice Whitford.

She was almost the only girl in her set who knew how to walk and had the energy for it. In her movement there was the fluent, untamed grace that expressed a soul not yet stunted by the claims of convention. The golden little head was carried buoyantly. In her step was the rhythm of perfect ease. The supple resilience of her was another expression of the spiritual quality that spoke in the vivid face.

Clay, watching her as she moved, thought of a paragraph from Mark Twain's "Eve's Diary":

She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadow on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the waste of s.p.a.ce.

But the thing that tantalized him about her and filled him with despair was that, though one moment she might be the first woman in the birthday of the world filled with the primitive emotions of the explorer, the next she was a cool, Paris-gowned-and-shod young modern, about as competent to meet emergencies as anything yet devised by heaven and a battling race.

They crossed to Morningside Park and moved through it to the northern end where the remains of Fort Laight, built to protect the approach to the city during the War of 1812, can still be seen and traced.

Beatrice had read the story of the earthworks. In the midst of the telling of it she stopped to turn upon him with swift accusation, "You're not listening."

"That's right, I wasn't," he admitted.

"Have you heard something about your cigarette girl?"

Clay was amazed at the accuracy of her center shot.

"Yes." He showed her the newspaper.

She read. The golden head nodded triumphantly. "I told you she could look out for herself. You see when she had lost you she knew enough to advertise."

Was there or was there not a faint note of malice in the girl's voice?

Clay did not know. But it would have neither surprised nor displeased him. He had long since discovered that his imperious little friend was far from an angel.

At his rooms he found a note awaiting him.

Come to-night after eleven. I am locked in the west rear room of the second story. Climb up over the back porch. Don't make any noise.

The window will be unbolted. A friend is mailing this. For G.o.d's sake, don't fail me.

The note was signed "Kitty." Below were given the house and street number. Clay studied the letter a long time--the wording of it, the formation of the letters, the spirit that had actuated the writer. It was written upon a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a pad. The envelope was one of those sold at the post-office already stamped.

Was the note genuine? Or did it lead to a trap? He could not tell.

It might be a plant or it might be a wail of real distress. There was only one way to find out unless he went to the police. That way was to go through with the adventure. The police! Clay went back to the thought of them several times. The truth was that he had put himself out of court there. He was in bad with the bluecoats and would probably be arrested if he showed up at headquarters.

He decided to play a lone hand except for such help as Johnnie could give him.

Clay took a downtown car and rode to the cross-street mentioned in the letter for a preliminary tour of investigation. The street designated was one of plain brownstone fronts with iron-grilled doors. The blank faces of the houses invited no confidence. It struck him that there was something sinister about the neighborhood, but perhaps the thought was born of the fear. Number 121 had windows barred with ornamental grilles. This might be to keep burglars out. It would serve equally well to keep prisoners in.

At the nearest grocery store Clay made inquiries. He was looking, he said, for James K. Sanger. He did not know the exact address. Could the grocery man help him run down his party? How about the folks living at Number 121?

"Don't know 'em. They've been in only for a few days. They don't trade here."

Clay tried the telephone, but Information could tell him only that there was no 'phone at 121.

On the whole Clay inclined to think that the letter was not a forgery.

In his frank, outdoor code there was no reason why Durand should hate him enough to go to such trouble to trap him. The fellow had more than squared accounts when he had beaten him up outside the Sea Siren. Why should he want to do anything more to him? But he had had two warnings that the ex-prize-fighter was not through with him--both of them from members of the police force, one direct from the sergeant who had helped rescue him, the other by way of the Runt from headquarters.

When he recalled the savage hatred of that flat, pallid face he did not feel so sure of immunity. Clay had known men in the West, wolf-hearted killers steeped in a horrible l.u.s.t for revenge, who never forgot or forgave an injury--until their enemy had paid the price in full. Jerry Durand might be one of this stamp. He was a man of a bad reputation, one about whom evil murmurs pa.s.sed in secret. Not many years ago he had been tried for the murder of one Paddy Kelly, a rival gangsman in his neighborhood, and had been acquitted on the ground of self-defense.

But there had been a good deal of talk about evidence framed in his behalf. Later he had been arrested for graft, but the case somehow had never been acted upon by the district attorney's office. The whisper was that his pull had saved him from trial.

The cattleman did not linger in that street lined with houses of sinister faces. He did not care to call attention to his presence by staying too long. Besides, he had some arrangements to make for the night at his rooms.

These were simple and few. He oiled and loaded his revolver carefully, leaving the hammer on the one chamber left empty to prevent accidents after the custom of all careful gunmen. He changed into the wrinkled suit he had worn when he reached the city, and subst.i.tuted for his shoes a pair of felt-soled gymnasium ones.

The bow-legged little puncher watched his friend, just as a faithful dog does his master. He asked no questions. In good time he knew he would be told all it was necessary for him to know.

As they rode from the Bronx, Clay outlined the situation and told his plans so far as he had any.

"So I'm goin' to take a whirl at it, Johnnie. Mebbe they're lyin' low up in that house to get me. Mebbe the note's the real thing. You can search me which it is. The only way to find out is to go through with the thing. Yore job is to stick around in front of the hacienda and wait for me. If I don't show up inside of thirty minutes, get the police busy right away breakin' into the place. Do you get me, Johnnie?"

"Lemme go with you into the house, Clay," the little man pleaded.

"No, this is a one-man job. If the note is straight goods I've got to work on the Q.T. Do exactly as I say. That's how you can help me best."

"What's the matter with me goin' into the house instead o' you? It don't make no difference much if they do gun me. I'm jest the common run of the pen. But you--you're graded stock," argued the Runt.

"Nothin' doin', old-timer. This is my job, and I don't reckon I'll let anybody else tackle it. Much obliged, just the same. You're one sure-enough white man, Johnnie."

The little fellow knew that the matter was settled. Clay had decided and what he said was final. But Johnnie worried about it all the way.

At the last moment, when they separated at the street corner, he added one last word.

"Don't you be too venturesome, son. If them guys got you it sure would break me all up."

Clay smiled cheerfully. "They're not goin' to get me, Johnnie. Don't forget to remember not to forget yore part. Keep under cover for thirty minutes; then if I haven't shown up, holler yore head off for the cops."

They were pa.s.sing an alley as Clay finished speaking. He slipped into its friendly darkness and was presently lost to sight. It ran into an inner court which was the center of tortuous pa.s.sages. The cattleman stopped to get his bearings, selected the likeliest exit, and brought up in the shelter of a small porch. This, he felt sure, must be the rear of the house he wanted.

A strip of lattice-work ran up the side of the entrance. Very carefully, testing every slat with his weight before trusting himself to it, he climbed up and edged forward noiselessly upon the roof. On hands and knees he crawled to the window and tried to peer in.

The blind was down, but he could see that the room was dark. What danger lurked behind the drawn blind he could not guess, but after a moment, to make sure that the revolver beneath his belt was ready for instant use, he put his hand gently on the sash.

His motions were soundless as the fall of snowflakes. The window moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, under the pressure of his hands. It gave not the faintest creak of warning. His fingers found the old-fas.h.i.+oned roller blind and traveled down it to the bottom. With the faintest of clicks he released the spring and guided the blind upward.

Warily he lifted one leg into the room. His head followed, then the rest of his body. He waited, every nerve tensed.

There came to him a sound that sent cold finger-tips laying a tattoo up and down his spine. It was the intake of some one's cautious breathing.

His hand crept to the b.u.t.t of the revolver. He crouched, poised for either attack or retreat.

A bath of light flooded the room and swallowed the darkness. Instantly Clay's revolver leaped to the air.