CHAPTER VI
THE GAMBLING DEN
In spite of the agitation that was going on at the time in the city against gambling, we had no trouble in being admitted to the place in Forty-eighth Street. They seemed to recognise Warrington, for no sooner had the lookout at the door peered through a little grating and seen him than the light woodwork affair was opened.
To me, with even my slender knowledge of such matters, it had seemed rather remarkable that only such a door should guard a place that was so notorious. Once inside, however, the reason was apparent. It didn't. On the outside there was merely such a door as not to distinguish the house, a three-story and basement dwelling, of old brownstone, from the others in the street.
As the outside door shut quickly, we found ourselves in a sort of vestibule confronted by another door. Between the two the lookout had his station.
The second door was of the "ice-box" variety, as it was popularly called at the time, of heavy oak, studded with ax-defying bolts, swung on delicately balanced and oiled hinges, carefully concealed, about as impregnable as a door of steel might be.
There were, as we found later, some steel doors inside, leading to the roof and cellar, though not so thick. The windows were carefully guarded inside by immense steel bars. The approaches from the back were covered with a steel network and every staircase was guarded by a collapsible door. There seemed to be no point of attack that had been left unguarded.
Yet, unless one had been like ourselves looking for these fortifications, they would not have appeared much in evidence in the face of the wealth of artistic furnishings that was lavished on every hand. Inside the great entrance door was a sort of marble reception hall, richly furnished, and giving anything but the impression of a gambling house. As a matter of fact, the first floor was pretty much of a blind. The gambling was all upstairs.
We turned to a beautiful staircase of carved wood, and ascended. Everywhere were thick rugs into which the feet sank almost ankle deep. On the walls were pictures that must have cost a small fortune. The furniture was of the costliest; there were splendid bronzes and objects of art on every hand.
Gambling was going on in several rooms that we passed, but the main room was on the second floor, a large room reconstructed in the old house, with a lofty ceiling and exquisitely carved trim. Concealed in huge vases were the lights, a new system, then, which shed its rays in every direction without seeming to cast a shadow anywhere. The room was apparently windowless, and yet, though everyone was smoking furiously, the ventilation must have been perfect.
There was, apparently, a full-fledged poolroom in one part of the house, closed now, of course, as the races for the day were run. But I could imagine it doing a fine business in the afternoon. There were many other games now in progress, games of every description, from poker to faro, keno, klondike, and roulette. There was nothing of either high or low degree with which the venturesome might not be accommodated.
As Warrington conducted us from one room to another, Garrick noted each carefully. Along the middle of the large room stretched a roulette table. We stopped to watch it.
"Crooked as it can be," was Garrick's comment after watching it for five minutes or so.
He had not said it aloud, naturally, for even the crowd in evening clothes about it, who had lost or would lose, would have resented such an imputation.
For the most part there was a solemn quiet about the board, broken only by the rattle of the ball and the click of chips. There was an absence of the clink of gold pieces that one hears as the croupier rakes them in at the casinos on the continent. Nor did there seem to be the tense faces that one might expect. Often there was the glint of an eye, or a quick and muffled curse, but for the most part everyone, no matter how great a loser, seemed respectable and prosperous. The tragedies, as we came to know, were elsewhere.
We sauntered into another room where they were playing keno. Keno was, we soon found, a development or an outgrowth of lotto, in which cards were sold to the players, bearing numbers which were covered with buttons, as in lotto. The game was won when a row was full after drawing forth the numbers on little balls from a "goose."
"Like the roulette wheel," said Garrick grimly, "the 'goose' is crooked, and if I had time I could show you how it is done."
We passed by the hazard boards as too complicated for the limited time at our disposal.
It was, however, the roulette table which seemed to interest Garrick most, partly for the reason that most of the players flocked about it.
The crowd around the table on the second floor was several deep, now. Among those who were playing I noticed a new face. It was of a tall, young man much the worse, apparently, for the supposed good time he had had already. The game seemed to have sobered him up a bit, for he was keen as to mind, now, although a trifle shaky as to legs.
He glanced up momentarily from his close following of the play as we approached.
"Hello, W.," he remarked, as he caught sight of our young companion.
A moment later he had gone back to the game as keen as ever.
"Hello, F.," greeted Warrington. Then, aside to us, he added, "You know they don't use names now in gambling places if they can help it. Initials do just as well. That is Forbes, of whom I told you. He's a young fellow of good family—but I am afraid he is going pretty much to the bad, or will go, if he doesn't quit soon. I wish I could stop him. He's a nice chap. I knew him well at college and we have chummed about a great deal. He's here too much of the time for his own good."
The thing was fascinating, I must admit, no matter what the morals of it were. I became so engrossed that I did not notice a man standing opposite us. I was surprised when he edged over towards us slowly, then whispered to Garrick, "Meet me downstairs in the grill in five minutes, and have a bite to eat. I have something important to say. Only, be careful and don't get me 'in Dutch' here."
The man had a sort of familiar look and his slang certainly reminded me of someone we had met.
"Who was it?" I inquired under my breath, as he disappeared among the players.
"Didn't you recognize him?" queried Garrick. "Why, that was Herman,
Dillon's man,—the fellow, you know, who is investigating this place."
I had not recognized the detective in evening clothes. Indeed, I felt that unless he were known here already his disguise was perfect.
Garrick managed to leave Warrington for a time under the pretext that he wanted him to keep an eye on Forbes while we explored the place further. We walked leisurely down the handsome staircase into the grill and luncheon room downstairs.
"Well, have you found out anything?" asked a voice behind us.
We turned. It was Herman who had joined us. Without pausing for an answer he added, "I suppose you are aware of the character of this place? It looks fine, but the games are all crooked, and I guess there are some pretty desperate characters here, from all accounts. I shouldn't like to fall afoul of any of them, if I were you."
"Oh, no," replied Garrick, "it wouldn't be pleasant. But we came in well introduced, and I don't believe anyone suspects."
Several others, talking and laughing loudly to cover their chagrin over losses, perhaps, entered the buffet.
With the gratuitous promise to stand by us in trouble of any kind, Herman excused himself, and returned to watch the play about the roulette table.
Garrick and I leisurely finished the little bite of salad we had ordered, then strolled upstairs again.
The play was becoming more and more furious. Forbes was losing again, but was sticking to it with a grim determination that was worthy of a better cause. Warrington had already made one attempt to get him away but had not succeeded.
"Well," remarked Garrick, as we three made our way slowly to the coatroom downstairs, "I think we have seen enough of this for to-night. It isn't so very late, after all. I wonder if it would be possible to get into that ladies' poolroom on the next street? I should like to see that place."
"Angus could get us in, if anyone could," replied Warrington thoughtfully. "Wait here a minute. I'll see if I can get him away from the wheel long enough."
Five minutes later he came back, with Forbes in tow. He shook hands with us cordially, in fact a little effusively. Perhaps I might have liked the young fellow if I could have taken him in hand for a month or two, and knocked some of the silly ideas he had out of his head.
Forbes called a taxicab, a taxicab apparently being the open sesame. One might have gone afoot and have looked ever so much like a "good thing" and he would not have been admitted. But such is the simplicity of the sophistication of the keepers of such places that a motor car opens all locks and bolts.
It seemed to be a peculiar place and as nearly as I could make out was in a house almost in the rear of the one we had just come from.
We were politely admitted by a negro maid, who offered to take our coats.
"No," answered Forbes, apparently with an eye to getting out as quickly as possible, "we won't stay long tonight. I just came around to introduce my friends to Miss Lottie. I must get back right away."
For some reason or other he seemed very anxious to leave us. I surmised that the gambling fever was running high and that he had hopes of a change of luck. At any rate, he was gone, and we had obtained admittance to the ladies' pool room.
We strolled into one of the rooms in which the play was on. The game was at its height, with huge stacks of chips upon the tables and the players chatting gayly. There was no large crowd there, however. Indeed, as we found afterward, it was really in the afternoon that it was most crowded, for it was rather a poolroom than a gambling joint, although we gathered from the gossip that some stiff games of bridge were played there. Both men and women were seated at the poker game that was in progress before the little green table. The women were richly attired and looked as if they had come from good families.
We were introduced to several, but as it was evident that they were passing under assumed names, whatever the proprietor of the place might know of them, I made little effort to remember the names, although I did study the faces carefully.
It was not many minutes before we met Miss Lottie, as everyone called the woman who presided over this feminine realm of chance. Miss Lottie was a finely gowned woman, past middle age, but remarkably well preserved, and with a figure that must have occasioned much thought to fashion along the lines of the present slim styles. There seemed to be a man who assisted in the conduct of the place, a heavy-set fellow with a closely curling mustache. But as he kept discreetly in the offing, we did not see much of him.
Miss Lottie was frankly glad to see us, coming so well introduced, and outspokenly disappointed that we would not take a seat in the game that was in progress. However, Garrick passed that over by promising to come around soon. Excise laws were apparently held in puny respect in this luxurious atmosphere, and while the hospitable Miss Lottie went to summon a servant to bring refreshments—at our expense—we had ample opportunity to glance about at the large room in which we were seated.
Garrick gazed long and curiously at an arc-light enclosed in a soft glass globe in the center of the ceiling, as though it had suggested an idea of some sort to him.
Miss Lottie, who had left us for a few moments, returned unexpectedly to find him still gazing at it.
"We keep that light burning all the time," she remarked, noticing his gaze. "You see, in the daytime we never use the windows. It is always just like it is now, night or day. It makes no difference with us. You know, if we ever should be disturbed by the police," she rattled on, "this is my house and I am giving a little private party to a number of my friends."
I had heard of such places but had never seen one before. I knew that well-dressed women, once having been caught in the toils of gambling, and perhaps afraid to admit their losses to their husbands, or, often having been introduced through gambling to far worse evils, were sent out from these poker rendezvous to the Broadway cafes, there to flirt with men, and rope them into the game.
I could not help feeling that perhaps some of the richly gowned women in the house were in reality "cappers" for the game. As I studied the faces, I wondered what tragedies lay back of these rouged and painted faces. I saw broken homes, ruined lives, even lost honor written on them. Surely, I felt, this was a case worth taking up if by any chance we could put a stop or even set a limitation to this nefarious traffic.
"Have you ever had any trouble?" Garrick asked as we sipped at the refreshments.
"Very little," replied Miss Lottie, then as if the very manner of our introduction had stamped us all as "good fellows" to whom she could afford to be a little confidential in capturing our patronage, she added nonchalantly, "We had a sort of wild time a couple of nights ago."
"How was that?" asked Garrick in a voice of studied politeness that carefully concealed the aching curiosity he had for her to talk.
"Well," she answered slowly, "several ladies and gentlemen were here, playing a little high. They—well, they had a little too much to drink, I guess. There was one girl, who was the worst of all. She was pretty far gone. Why, we had to put her out—carry her out to the car that she had come in with her friend. You know we can't stand for any rough stuff like that—no sir. This house is perfectly respectable and proper and our patrons understand it."
The story, or rather, the version of it, seemed to interest Garrick, as
I knew it would.
"Who was the girl?" he asked casually. "Did you know her? Was she one of your regular patrons?"
"Knew her only by sight," returned Miss Lottie hastily, now a little vexed, I imagined, at Guy's persistence, "like lots of people who are introduced here—and come again several times."
The woman was evidently sorry that she had mentioned the incident, and was trying to turn the conversation to the advantages of her establishment, not the least of which were her facilities for private games in little rooms in various parts of the house. It seemed all very risque to me, although I tried to appear to think it quite the usual thing, though I was careful to say that hers was the finest of such places I had ever seen. Still, the memory of Garrick's questioning seemed to linger. She had not expected, I knew, that we would take any further interest in her story than to accept it as proof of how careful she was of her clientele.
Garrick was quick to take the cue. He did not arouse any further suspicion by pursuing the subject. Apparently he was convinced that it had been Rena Taylor of whom Miss Lottie spoke. What really happened we knew no more now than before. Perhaps Miss Lottie herself knew—or she might not know. Garrick quite evidently was willing to let future developments in the case show what had really happened. There was nothing to be gained by forcing things at this stage of the game, either in the gambling den around the corner or here.
We chatted along for several minutes longer on inconsequential subjects, treating as important those trivialities which Bohemia considers important and scoffing at the really good and true things of life that the demi-monde despises. It was all banality now, for we had touched upon the real question in our minds and had bounded as lightly off it as a toy balloon bounds off an opposing surface.
Warrington had kept silent during the visit, I noticed, and seemed relieved when it was over. I could not imagine that he was known here inasmuch as they treated him quite as they treated us.
Apparently, though, he had no relish for a possible report of the excursion to get to Miss Winslow's ears. He was the first to leave, as Garrick, after paying for our refreshments and making a neat remark or two about the tasteful way in which the gambling room was furnished, rescued our hats and coats from the negro servant, and said good-night with a promise to drop in again.
"What would Mrs. de Lancey think of THAT?" Garrick could not help saying, as we reached the street.
Warrington gave a nervous little forced laugh, not at all such as he might have given had Mrs. de Lancey not been the aunt of the girl who had entered his life.
Then he caught himself and said hastily, "I don't care what she thinks.
It's none of her—-"
He cut the words short, as if fearing to be misinterpreted either way.
For several squares he plodded along silently, then, as we had accomplished the object of the evening, excused himself, with the request that we keep him fully informed of every incident in the case.
"Warrington doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve," commented Garrick as we bent our steps to our own, or rather his, apartment, "but it is evident enough that he is thinking all the time of Violet Winslow."
CHAPTER VII
THE MOTOR BANDIT
Early the next morning, the telephone bell began to ring violently. The message must have been short, for I could not gather from Garrick's reply what it was about, although I could tell by the startled look on his face that something unexpected had happened.
"Hurry and finish dressing, Tom," he called, as he hung up the receiver.
"What's the matter?" I asked, from my room, still struggling with my tie.
"Warrington was severely injured in a motor-car accident late last night, or rather early this morning, near Tuxedo."
"Near Tuxedo?" I repeated incredulously. "How could he have got up there? It was midnight when we left him in New York."
"I know it. Apparently he must have wanted to see Miss Winslow. She is up there, you know. I suppose that in order to be there this morning, early, he decided to start after he left us. I thought he seemed anxious to get away. Besides, you remember he took that letter yesterday afternoon, and I totally forgot to ask him for it last night. I'll wager it was on account of that slanderous letter that he wanted to go, that he wanted to explain it to her as soon as he could."
There had been no details in the hasty message over the wire, except that Warrington was now at the home of a Doctor Mead, a local physician in a little town across the border of New York and New Jersey. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it was extremely unlikely that it could have been an accident, after all. Might it not have been the result of an attack or a trap laid by some strong-arm man who had set out to get him and had almost succeeded in accomplishing his purpose of "getting him right," to use the vernacular of the class?
We made the trip by railroad, passing the town where the report had come to us before of the finding of the body of Rena Taylor. There was, of course, no one at the station to meet us, and, after wasting some time in learning the direction, we at last walked to Dr. Mead's cottage, a quaint home, facing the state road that led from Suffern up to the Park, and northward.
Dr. Mead, who had telephoned, admitted us himself. We found Warrington swathed in bandages, and only half conscious. He had been under the influence of some drug, but, before that, the doctor told us, he had been unconscious and had only one or two intervals in which he was sufficiently lucid to talk.
"How did it happen?" asked Garrick, almost as soon as we had entered the doctor's little office.
"I had had a bad case up the road," replied the doctor slowly, "and it had kept me out late. I was driving my car along at a cautious pace homeward, some time near two o'clock, when I came to a point in the road where there are hills on one side and the river on the other. As I neared the curve, a rather sharp curve, too, I remember the lights on my own car were shining on the white fence that edged the river side of the road. I was keeping carefully on my own side, which was toward the hill.
"As I was about to turn, I heard the loud purring of an engine coming in my direction, and a moment later I saw a car with glaring headlights, driven at a furious pace, coming right at me. It slowed up a little, and I hugged the hill as close as I could, for I know some of these reckless young drivers up that way, and this curve was in the direction where the temptation is for one going north to get on the wrong side of the road—that is, my side—in order to take advantage of the natural slope of the macadam in turning the curve at high speed. Still, this fellow didn't prove so bad, after all. He gave me a wide berth.
"Just then there came a blinding flash right out of the darkness. Back of his car a huge, dark object had loomed up almost like a ghost. It was another car, back of the first one, without a single light, travelling apparently by the light shed by the forward car. It had overtaken the first and had cut in between us with not half a foot to spare on either side. It was the veriest piece of sheer luck I ever saw that we did not all go down together.
"With the flash I heard what sounded like a bullet zip out of the darkness. The driver of the forward car stiffened out for a moment. Then he pitched forward, helpless, over the steering wheel. His car dashed ahead, straight into the fence instead of taking the curve, and threw the unconscious driver. Then the car wrecked itself."
"And the car in the rear?" inquired Garrick eagerly.
"Dashed ahead between us safely around the curve—and was gone. I caught just one glimpse of its driver—a man all huddled up, his collar up over his neck and chin, his cap pulled forward over his eyes, goggles covering the rest of his face, and shrouded in what seemed to be a black coat, absolutely as unrecognizable as if he had been a phantom bandit, or death itself. He was steering with one hand, and in the other he held what must have been a revolver."
"And then?" prompted Garrick.
"I had stopped with my heart in my mouth at the narrowness of my own escape from the rushing black death. Pursuit was impossible. My car was capable of no such burst of speed as his. And then, too, there was a groaning man down in the ravine below. I got out, clambered over the fence, and down in the shrubbery into the pitch darkness.
"Fortunately, the man had been catapulted out before his car turned over. I found him, and with all the strength I could muster and as gently as I was able carried him up to the road. When I held him under the light of my lamps, I saw at once that there was not a moment to lose. I fixed him in the rear of my car as comfortably as I could and then began a race to get him home here where I have almost a private hospital of my own, as quickly as possible."
Cards in his pocket had identified Warrington and Dr. Mead remembered having heard the name. The prompt attention of the doctor had undoubtedly saved the young man's life.
Over and over again, Dr. Mead said, in his delirium Warrington had repeated the name, "Violet—Violet!" It was as Garrick had surmised, his desire to stand well in her eyes that had prompted the midnight journey. Yet who the assailant might be, neither Dr. Mead nor the broken raving of Warrington seemed to afford even the slightest clew. That he was a desperate character, without doubt in desperate straits over something, required no great acumen to deduce.
Toward morning in a fleeting moment of lucidity, Warrington had mentioned Garrick's name in such a way that Dr. Mead had looked it up in the telephone directory and then at the earliest moment had called up.
"Exactly the right thing," reassured Garrick. "Can't you think of anything else that would identify the driver of that other car?"
"Only that he was a wonderful driver, that fellow," pursued the doctor, admiration getting the better of his horror now that the thing was over. "I couldn't describe the car, except that it was a big one and seemed to be of a foreign make. He was crowding Warrington as much as he dared with safety to himself—and not a light on his own car, too, remember."
Garrick's face was puckered in thought.
"And the most remarkable thing of all about it," added the doctor, rising and going over to a white enameled cabinet in the corner of his office, "was that wound from the pistol."
The doctor paused to emphasize the point he was about to make. "Apparently it put Warrington out," he resumed. "And yet, after all, I find that it is only a very superficial flesh wound of the shoulder. Warrington's condition is really due to the contusions he received owing to his being thrown from the car. His car wasn't going very fast at the time, for it had slowed down for me. In one way that was fortunate—although one might say it was the cause of everything, since his slowing down gave the car behind a chance to creep up on him the few feet necessary.
"Really I am sure that even the shock of such a wound wasn't enough to make an experienced driver like Warrington lose control of the machine. It is a fairly wide curve, after all, and—well, my contention is proved by the fact that I examined the wreck of the car this morning and found that he had had time to shut off the gas and cut out the engine. He had time to think of and do that before he lost absolute control of the car."
Dr. Mead had been standing by the cabinet as he talked. Now he opened it and took from it the bullet which he had probed out of the wound. He looked at it a minute himself, then handed it to Garrick. I bent over also and examined it as it lay in Guy's hand.
At first I thought it was an ordinary bullet. But the more I examined it the more I was convinced that there was something peculiar about it. In the nose, which was steel-jacketed, were several little round depressions, just the least fraction of an inch in depth.
"It is no wonder Warrington was put out, even by that superficial wound," remarked Garrick at last. "His assailant's aim may have been bad, as it must necessarily have been from one rapidly approaching car at a person in another rapidly moving car, also. But the motor bandit, whoever he is, provided against that. That bullet is what is known as an anesthetic bullet."
"An anesthetic bullet?" repeated both Dr. Mead and myself. "What is that?"
"A narcotic bullet," Garrick explained, "a sleep-producing bullet, if you please, a sedative bullet that lulls its victim into almost instant slumber. It was invented quite recently by a Pittsburgh scientist. The anesthetic bullet provides the poor marksman with all the advantages of the expert gunman of unerring aim."
I marvelled at the ingenuity of the man who could figure out how to overcome the seeming impossibility of accurate shooting from a car racing at high speed. Surely, he must be a desperate fellow.
While we were talking, the doctor's wife who had been attending Warrington until a nurse arrived, came to inform him that the effect of the sedative, which he had administered while Warrington was restless and groaning, was wearing off. We waited a little while, and then Dr. Mead himself informed us that we might see our friend for a minute.
Even in his half-drowsy state of pain Warrington appeared to recognise
Garrick and assume that he had come in response to his own summons.
Garrick bent down, and I could just distinguish what Warrington was
trying to say to him.
"Wh—where's Violet?" he whispered huskily, "Does she know? Don't let her get—frightened—I'll be—all right."
Garrick laid his hand on Warrington's unbandaged shoulder, but said nothing.
"The—the letter," he murmured ramblingly. "I have it—in my apartment—in the little safe. I was going to Tuxedo—to see Violet—explain slander—tell her closing place—didn't know it was mine before. Good thing to close it—Forbes is a heavy loser. She doesn't know that."
Warrington lapsed back on his pillow and Dr. Mead beckoned to us to withdraw without exciting him any further.
"What difference does it make whether she knows about Forbes or not?" I queried as we tiptoed down the hall.
Garrick shook his head doubtfully. "Can't say," he replied succinctly.
"It may be that Forbes, too, has aspirations."
The idea sent me off into a maze of speculations, but it did not enlighten me much. At any rate, I felt, Warrington had said enough to explain his presence in that part of the country. On one thing, as I have said, Garrick had guessed right. The blackmailing letter and what we had seen the night before at the crooked gambling joint had been too much for him. He had not been able to rest as long as he was under a cloud with Miss Winslow until he had had a chance to set himself right in her eyes.
There seemed to be nothing that we could do for him just then. He was in excellent hands, and now that the doctor knew who he was, a trained nurse had even been sent for from the city and arrived on the train following our own, thus relieving Mrs. Mead of her faithful care of him.
Garrick gave the nurse strict instructions to make exact notes of anything that Warrington might say, and then requested the doctor to take us to the scene of the tragedy. We were about to start, when Garrick excused himself and hurried back into the house, reappearing in a few minutes.
"I thought perhaps, after all, it would be best to let Miss Winslow know of the accident, as long as it isn't likely to turn out seriously in the end for Warrington," he explained, joining us again in Dr. Mead's car which was waiting in front of the house. "So I called up her aunt's at Tuxedo and when Miss Winslow answered the telephone I broke the news to her as gently as I could. Warrington need have no fear about that girl," he added.
The wrecked car, we found, had not yet been moved, nor had the broken fence been repaired. It was, in fact, an accident worth studying topographically. That part of the road itself near the fence seemed to interest Garrick greatly. Two or three cars passed while we waited and he noted how carefully each of them seemed to avoid that side toward the broken fence, as though it were haunted.
"I hope they've all done that," Garrick remarked, as he continued to examine the road, which was a trifle damp under the high trees that shaded it.
As he worked, I could not believe that it was wholly fancy that caused me to think of him as searching with dilated nostrils, like a scientific human bloodhound. For, it was not long before I began to realize what he was looking for in the marks of cars left on the oiled roadway.
During perhaps half an hour he continued studying the road, above and below the exact point of the accident. At length a low exclamation from him brought me to his side. He had dropped down in the grease, regardless of his knees and was peering at some rather deep imprints in the surface dressing. There, for a few feet, were plainly the marks of the outside tires of a car, still unobliterated.
Garrick had pulled out copies of the photographs he had made of the tire marks that had been left at the scene of the finding of the unfortunate Rena Taylor's body, and was busy comparing them with the marks that were before him.
"Of course," Garrick muttered to me, "if the anti-skid marks of the tires were different, it would have proved nothing, just as in the other case where we looked for the tire prints. But here, too, a glance shows that at least it is the same make of tires."
He continued his comparison. It did not take me long to surmise what he was doing. He was taking the two sets of marks and, inch by inch, going over them, checking up the little round metal insertions that were placed in this style of tire to give it a firmer grip.
"Here's one missing, there's another," he cried excitedly. "By Jove, it can't be mere coincidence. There's one that is worn—another broken. They correspond. Yes, that MUST be the same car, in each case. And if it was the stolen car, then it was Warrington's own car that was used in pursuing him and in almost making away with him!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE EXPLANATION
We had not noticed a car which had stopped just past us and Garrick was surprised at hearing his own name called.
We looked up from contemplating the discovery he had made in the road, to see Miss Winslow waving to us. She had motored down from Tuxedo immediately after receiving the message over the telephone, and with her keen eye had picked out both the place of the accident and ourselves studying it.
As we approached, I could see that she was much more pale than usual. Evidently her anxiety for Warrington was thoroughly genuine. The slanderous letter had not shaken her faith in him, yet.
She had left her car and was walking back along the road with us toward the broken fence. Garrick had been talking to her earnestly and now, having introduced her to Dr. Mead, the doctor and he decided to climb down to inspect the wrecked car itself in the ravine below.
Miss Winslow cast a quick look from the broken fence down at the torn and twisted wreckage of the car and gave a suppressed little cry and shudder.
"How is Mortimer?" she asked of me eagerly, for I had agreed to stay with her while the others went down the slope. "I mean how is he really? Is he likely to be better soon, as Mr. Garrick said over the telephone?" she appealed.
"Surely—absolutely," I assured her, knowing that if Garrick had said that he had meant it. "Miss Winslow, believe me, neither Mr. Garrick nor Dr. Mead is concealing anything. It is pretty bad, of course. Such things are always bad. But it might be far worse. And besides, the worst now has passed."
Garrick had already promised to accompany her over to Dr. Mead's after he had made his examination of the wrecked car to confirm what the doctor had already observed. It took several minutes for them to satisfy themselves and meanwhile Violet Winslow, already highly unstrung by the news from Garrick, waited more and more nervously.
In spite of his careful examination of the wrecked car, Garrick found practically nothing more than Dr. Mead had already told him. It was with considerable relief that Miss Winslow saw the two again climbing up the slope in the direction of the road.
A few minutes later we were on our way back, Dr. Mead and Garrick leading the way in the doctor's car, while I accompanied Miss Winslow in her own car.
She said little, and it was plain to see that she was consumed by anxiety. Now and then she would ask a question about the accident, and although I tried in every way to divert her mind to other subjects she unfailingly came back to that.
Tempering the details as much as I could I repeated for her just what had happened to the best of our knowledge.
"And you have no idea who it could have been?" she asked turning those liquid eyes of hers on my face.
If there were any secret about it, it was perhaps fortunate that I did not know. I don't think I am more than ordinarily susceptible and I know I did not delude myself that Miss Winslow ever could be anything except a friend to either Garrick or myself. But I felt I could not resist the appeal in those eyes. I wondered if even they, by some magic intuition, might not pierce the very soul of man and uncover a lying heart. I felt that Warrington could not have been other than he said he was and still have been hastening to meet those eyes.
"Miss Winslow," I answered, "I have no more idea than you have who it could be."
I was telling the truth and I felt that I could meet her gaze.
There must have been something about how I had phrased my answer that caused her to look at me more searchingly than before. Suddenly she turned her face away and gazed at the passing landscape from the car.
She said nothing, but as I continued to watch her finely moulded features, I saw that she was making an effort to control herself. It flashed over me, somehow, that perhaps, after all, she herself suspected someone. It was not that she said anything. It was merely an indefinable impression I received.
Had Warrington any enemies, not in the underworld, but among those of his own set, rivals, perhaps, who might even stoop to secure the aid of those of the underworld who could be bought to commit any crime in the calendar for a price? I did not pause to examine the plausibility or the impossibility of such a theory. What interested me was whether in her mind there was such a thought. Had she, perhaps, really more of an idea than I who it could be? She betrayed nothing of what her intuition told her, but I felt sure that, even though she knew nothing, there was at least something she feared.
At last we arrived at Dr. Mead's and I handed her out of the car and into the tastefully furnished little house. There was an air of quietness about it that often indefinably pervades a house in which there is illness or a tragedy.
"May I—see him?" pleaded Miss Winslow, as Dr. Mead placed a chair for her.
I wondered what he would have done if there had been some good reason why he should resist the pleading of her deep eyes.
"Why—er—for a minute—yes," he answered. "Later, soon, he may see visitors longer, but just now I think for a few hours the less he is disturbed the better."
The doctor excused himself for a moment to look at his patient and prepare him for the visit. Meanwhile Miss Winslow waited in the reception room downstairs, still very pale and nervous.
Warrington was in much less pain now than he had been when we left and Dr. Mead decided that, since the nurse had made him so much more comfortable, no further drug was necessary. In fact as his natural vitality due to his athletic habits and clean living asserted itself, it seemed as if his injuries which at first had looked so serious were not likely to prove as bad as the doctor had anticipated.
Still, he was badly enough as it was. The new nurse smoothed out his pillows and deftly tried to conceal as much as she could that would suggest how badly he was injured and at last Violet Winslow was allowed to enter the room where the poor boy lay.
Miss Winslow never for a moment let her wonderful self-control fail her. Quickly and noiselessly, like a ministering angel, she seemed to float rather than walk over the space from the door to the bed.
As she bent over him and whispered, "Mortimer!" the simple tone seemed to have an almost magic effect on him.
He opened his eyes which before had been languidly closed and gazed up at her face as if he saw a vision. Slowly the expression on his face changed as he realized that it was indeed Violet herself. In spite of the pain of his hurts which must have been intense a smile played over his features, as if he realized that it would never do to let her know how serious had been his condition.
As she bent over her hand had rested on the white covers of the bed. Feebly, in spite of the bandages that swathed the arm nearest her, he put out his own brawny hand and rested it on hers. She did not withdraw it, but passed the other hand gently over his throbbing forehead. Never have I seen a greater transformation in an invalid than was evident in Mortimer Warrington. No tonic in all the pharmacopoeia of Dr. Mead could have worked a more wonderful change.
Not a word was said by either Warrington or Violet for several seconds. They seemed content just to gaze into each other's faces, oblivious to us.
Warrington was the first to break the silence, in answer to what he knew must be her unspoken question.
"Your aunt—gambling," he murmured feebly, trying hard to connect his words so as to appear not so badly off as he had when he had spoken before. "I didn't know—till they told me—that the estate owned it—was coming to tell you—going to cancel the lease—close it up—no one ever lose money there again—"
The words, jerky though they were, cost him a great physical effort to say. She seemed to realize it, but there was a look of triumph on her face as she understood.
She had not been mistaken. Warrington was all that she had thought him to be.
He was looking eagerly into her face and as he looked he read in it the answer to the questionings that had sent him off in the early hours of the morning on his fateful ride to Tuxedo.
Dr. Mead cleared his throat. Miss Winslow recognised it as a signal that the time was growing short for the interview.
Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from his, their eyes met another instant, and with a hasty word of sympathy and encouragement she left the room, conscious now that other eyes were watching.
"Oh, to think it was to tell me that that he got into it all," she cried, as she sank into a deep chair in the reception room, endeavouring not to give way to her feelings, now that the strain was off and she had no longer to keep a brave face. "I—I feel guilty!"
"I wouldn't say that," soothed Garrick. "Who knows? Perhaps if he had stayed in the city—they might have succeeded,—whoever it was back of this thing."
She looked up at Garrick, startled, I thought, with the same expression I had seen when she turned her face away in the car and I got the impression that she felt more than she knew of the case.
"I may—see—Mr. Warrington again soon?" she asked, now again mistress of her feelings after Garrick's interruption that had served to take her mind off a morbid aspect of the affair.
"Surely," agreed Dr. Mead. "I expect his progress to be rapid after this."
"Thank you," she murmured, as she slowly rose and prepared to make the return trip to her aunt's home.
"Oh, Mr. Garrick," she confided, as he helped her on with the wraps she had thrown carelessly on a chair when she entered, "I can't help it—I do feel guilty. Perhaps he thinks I am—like Aunt Emma—-"
"Perhaps it was quite as much to convince your aunt as you that he took the trip," suggested Garrick.
Miss Winslow understood. "Why is it," she murmured, "that sometimes people with the best intentions manage to bring about things that are—more terrible?"
Garrick smiled. Quite evidently she and her aunt were not exactly in tune. He said nothing.
As for Dr. Mead he seemed really pleased, for the patient had brightened up considerably after even the momentary glimpse he had had of Violet. Altogether I felt that although they had seen each other only for a moment, it had done both good. Miss Winslow's fears had been quieted and Warrington had been encouraged by the realisation that, in spite of its disastrous ending, his journey had accomplished its purpose anyway.
There was, as Dr. Mead assured us, every prospect now that Warrington would pull through after the murderous assault that had been made on him.
We saw Miss Winslow safely off on her return trip, much relieved by the promise of the doctor that she might call once a day to see how the patient was getting along.
Warrington was now resting more easily than he had since the accident and Garrick, having exhausted the possibilities of investigation at the scene of the accident, announced that he would return to the city.
At the railroad terminus he called up both the apartment and the office in order to find out whether we had had any visitors during our absence. No one had called at the apartment, but the office boy downtown said that there was a man who had called and was coming back again.
A half hour or so later when we arrived at the office we found McBirney seated there, patiently determined to find Garrick.
Evidently the news of the assault on Warrington had travelled fast, for the first thing McBirney wanted to know was how it happened and how his client was. In a few words Garrick told him as much about it as was necessary. McBirney listened attentively, but we could see that he was bursting with his own budget of news.
"And, McBirney," concluded Garrick, without going into the question of the marks of the tires, "most remarkable of all, I am convinced that the car in which his assailant rode was no other than the Mercedes that was stolen from Warrington in the first place."
"Say," exclaimed McBirney in surprise, "that car must be all over at once!"
"Why—what do you mean?"
"You know I have my own underground sources of information," explained the detective with pardonable pride at adding even a rumour to the budget of news. "Of course you can't be certain of such things, but one of my men, who is scouting around the Tenderloin looking for what he can find, tells me that he saw a car near that gambling joint on Forty-eighth Street and that it may have been the repainted and renumbered Warrington car—at least it tallies with the description that we got from the garage keeper in north Jersey.
"Did he see who drove it?" asked Garrick eagerly.
"Not very well. It was a short, undersized man, as nearly as he could make out. Someone whom he did not recognize jumped in it from the gambling house and they disappeared. Even though my man, his suspicions aroused, tried to follow them in a taxicab they managed to leave him behind."
"In what direction did they go?" asked Garrick.
"Toward the West Side—where those fly-by-night garages are all located."
"Or, perhaps, the Jersey ferries," suggested Garrick.
"Well, I thought you might like to know about this undersized driver," said McBirney a little sulkily because Garrick had not displayed as much enthusiasm as he expected.
"I do," hastened Garrick. "Of course I do. And it may prove to be a very important clew. But I was just running ahead of your story. The undersized man couldn't have figured in the case afterward, assuming that it was the car. He must have left it, probably in the city. Have you any idea who it could be?"
"Not unless he might be an employee or a keeper of one of those night-hawk garages," persisted McBirney. "That is possible."
"Quite," agreed Garrick.
McBirney had delivered his own news and in turn had received ours, or at least such of it as Garrick chose to tell at present. He was apparently satisfied and rose to go.
"Keep after that undersized fellow, will you?" asked Garrick. "If you could find out who he is and he should happen to be connected with one of those garages we might get on the right trail at last."
"I will," promised McBirney. "He's evidently an expert driver of motor cars himself; my man could see that."
McBirney had gone. Garrick sat for several minutes gazing squarely at me. Then he leaned back in his chair, with his hands behind his head.
"Mark my words, Marshall," he observed slowly, "someone connected with that gambling joint in some way has got wind of the fact that Warrington is going to revoke the lease and close it up. We've got to beat them to it—that's all."
CHAPTER IX
THE RAID
Garrick was evidently turning over and over in his mind some plan of action.
"This thing has gone just about far enough," he remarked meditatively, looking at his watch. It was now well along in the afternoon.
"But what do you intend doing?" I asked, regarding the whole affair so far as a hopeless mystery from which I could not see that we had extracted so much as a promising clew.
"Doing?" he echoed. "Why, there is only one thing to do, and that is to take the bull by the horns, to play the game without any further attempt at finessing. I shall see Dillon, get a warrant, and raid that gambling place—that's all."
I had no counter suggestion to offer. In fact the plan rather appealed to me. If any blow were to be struck it must be just a little bit ahead of any that the gamblers anticipated, and this was a blow they would not expect if they already had wind of Warrington's intention to cancel the lease.
Garrick called up Dillon and made an appointment to meet him early in the evening, without telling him what was afoot.
"Meet me down at police headquarters, Tom," was all that Garrick said to me. "I want to work here at the office for a little while, first, testing a new contrivance, or, rather, an old one that I think may be put to a new use."
Meanwhile I decided to employ my time by visiting some newspaper friends that I had known a long time on the Star, one of the most enterprising papers in the city. Fortunately I found my friend, Davenport, the managing editor, at his desk and ready to talk in the infrequent lulls that came in his work.
"What's on your mind, Marshall?" he asked as I sat down and began to wonder how he ever conducted his work in the chaotic clutter of stuff on the top of his desk.
"I can't tell you—yet, Davenport," I explained carefully, "but it's a big story and when it breaks I'll promise that the Star has the first chance at it. I'm on the inside—working with that young detective, Garrick, you know."
"Garrick—Garrick," he repeated. "Oh, yes, that fellow who came back from abroad with a lot of queer ideas. I remember. We had an interview with him when he left the steamer. Good stuff, too,—but what do you think of him? Is he—on the level?"
"On the level and making good," I answered confidently. "I'm not at liberty to tell much about it now, but—well, the reason I came in was to find out what you could tell me about a Miss Winslow,—Violet Winslow and her aunt, Mrs. Beekman de Lancey."
"The Miss Winslow who is reported engaged to young Warrington?" he repeated. "The gossip is that he has cut out Angus Forbes, entirely."
I had hesitated to mention all the names at once, but I need not have done so, for on such things, particularly the fortunes in finance and love of such a person as Warrington, the eyes of the press were all-seeing.
"Yes," I answered carefully, "that's the Miss Winslow. What do you know of her?"
"Well," he replied, fumbling among the papers on his desk, "all I know is that in the social set to which she belongs our society reporters say that of all the young fellows who have set out to capture her—and she's a deuced pretty girl, even in the pictures we have published—it seems to have come down to Mortimer Warrington and Angus Forbes. Of course, as far as we newspapermen are concerned, the big story for us would be in the engagement of young Warrington. The eyes of people are fixed on him just now—the richest young man in the country, and all that sort of thing, you know. Seems to be a pretty decent sort of fellow, too, I believe—democratic and keen on other things besides tango and tennis. Oh, there's the thing I was hunting for. Mrs. de Lancey's a nut on gambling, I believe. Read that. It's a letter that came to us from her this morning."
It was written in the stilted handwriting of a generation ago and read:
"To the Editor of the Star, Dear Sir:—I believe that your paper prides itself on standing for reform and against the grafters. If that is so, why do you not join in the crusade to suppress gambling in New York? For the love that you must still bear towards your own mother, listen to the stories of other mothers torn by anxiety for their sons and daughters, and if there is any justice or righteousness in this great city close up those gambling hells that are sending to ruin scores of our finest young men—and women. You have taken up other fights against gambling and vice. Take up this one that appeals to women of wealth and social position. I know them and they are as human as mothers in any other station in life. Oh, if there is any way, close up these gilded society resorts that are dissipating the fortunes of many parents, ruining young men and women, and, in one case I know of, slowly bringing to the grave a grey-haired widow as worthy of protection as any mother of the poor whose plea has closed up a little poolroom or policy shop. One place I have in mind is at —— West Forty-eighth Street. Investigate it, but keep this confidential.
"Sincerely,
"(MRS.) EMMA DE LANCEY."
"Do you know anything about it?" I asked casually handing the letter back.
"Only by hearsay. I understand it is the crookedest gambling joint in the city, at least judging by the stories they tell of the losses there. And so beastly aristocratic, too. They tell me young Forbes has lost a small fortune there—but I don't know how true it is. We get hundreds of these daintily perfumed and monogramed little missives in the course of a year."
"You mean Angus Forbes?" I asked.
"Yes," replied the managing editor, "the fellow that they say has been trying to capture your friend Miss Winslow."
I did not reply for the moment. Forbes, I had already learned, was deeply in debt. Was it part of his plan to get control of the little fortune of Violet to recoup his losses?
"Do you know Mrs. de Lancey?" pursued the editor.
"No—not yet," I answered. "I was just wondering what sort of person she is."
"Oh I suppose she's all right," he answered, "but they say she's pretty straight-laced—that cards and all sorts of dissipation are an obsession with her."
"Well," I argued, "there might be worse things than that."
"That's right," he agreed. "But I don't believe that such a puritanical atmosphere is—er—just the place to bring up a young woman like Violet Winslow."
I said nothing. It did not seem to me that Mrs. de Lancey had succeeded in killing the natural human impulses in Violet, though perhaps the girl was not as well versed in some of the ways of the world as others of her set. Still, I felt that her own natural common sense would protect her, even though she had been kept from a knowledge of much that in others of her set was part of their "education."
My friend's telephone had been tinkling constantly during the conversation and I saw that as the time advanced he was getting more and more busy. I thanked Davenport and excused myself.
At least I had learned something about those who were concerned in the case. As I rode uptown I could not help thinking of Violet Winslow and her apparently intuitive fear concerning Warrington. I wondered how much she really knew about Angus Forbes. Undoubtedly he had not hesitated to express his own feelings toward her. Had she penetrated beneath the honeyed words he must have spoken to her? Was it that she feared that all things are fair in war and love and that the favour she must have bestowed on Warrington might have roused the jealousy of some of his rivals for her affections?
I found no answer to my speculations, but a glance at my watch told me that it was nearing the time of my appointment with Guy.
A few minutes later I jumped off the car at Headquarters and met Garrick, waiting for me in the lower hall. As we ascended the broad staircase to the second floor, where Dillon's office was, I told him briefly of what I had discovered.
"The old lady will have her wish," he replied grimly as I related the incident of the letter to the editor. "I wonder just how much she really does know of that place. I hope it isn't enough to set her against Warrington. You know people like that are often likely to conceive violent prejudices—and then refuse to believe something that's all but proved about someone else."
There was no time to pursue the subject further for we had reached
Dillon's office and were admitted immediately.
"What's the news?" asked Dillon greeting us cordially.
"Plenty of it," returned Garrick, hastily sketching over what had transpired since we had seen him last.
Garrick had scarcely begun to outline what he intended to do when I could see from the commissioner's face that he was very sceptical of success.
"Herman tells me," he objected, "that the place is mighty well barricaded. We haven't tried raiding it yet, because you know the new plan is not only to raid those places, but first to watch them, trace out some of the regular habitues, and then to be able to rope them in in case we need them as evidence. Herman has been getting that all in shape so that when the case comes to trial, there'll be no slip-up."
"If that's all you want, I can put my finger on some of the wildest scions of wealth that you will ever need for witnesses," Garrick replied confidently.
"Well," pursued Dillon diffidently, "how are you going to pull it off, down through the sky-light, or up through the cellar?"
"Oh, Dillon," returned Garrick reproachfully, "that's unworthy of you."
"But, Garrick," persisted Dillon, "don't you know that it is a veritable National City Bank for protection. It isn't one of those common gambling joints. It's proof against all the old methods. Axes and sledgehammers would make no impression there. Why, that place has been proved bomb-proof—bomb-proof, sir. You remember recently the so-call 'gamblers' war' in which some rivals exploded a bomb on the steps because the proprietor of this place resented their intrusion uptown from the lower East Side, with their gunmen and lobbygows? It did more damage to the house next door than to the gambling joint."
Dillon paused a moment to enumerate the difficulties. "You can get past the outside door all right. But inside is the famous ice-box door. It's no use to try it at all unless you can pass that door with reasonable quickness. All the evidence you will get will be of an innocent social club room downstairs. And you can't get on the other side of that door by strategy, either. It is strategy-proof. The system of lookouts is perfect. Herman—-"
"Can't help it," interrupted Garrick, "we've got to go over Herman's head this time. I'll guarantee you all the evidence you'll ever need."
Dillon and Garrick faced each other for a moment.
It was a supreme test of Dillon's sincerity.
Finally he spoke slowly. "All right," he said, as if at last the die were cast and Garrick had carried his point, "but how are you going to do it? Won't you need some men with axes and crowbars?"
"No, indeed," almost shouted Garrick as Dillon made a motion as if to find out who were available. "I've been preparing a little surprise in my office this afternoon for just such a case. It's a rather cumbersome arrangement and I've brought it along stowed away in a taxicab outside. I don't want anyone else to know about the raid until the last moment. Just before we begin the rough stuff, you can call up and have the reserves started around. That is all I shall want."
"Very well," agreed Dillon, after a moment.
He did not seem to relish the scheme, but he had promised at the outset to play fair and he had no disposition to go back on his word now in favor even of his judgment.
"First of all," he planned, "we'll have to drop in on a judge and get a warrant to protect us."
Garrick hastily gave me instructions what to do and I started uptown immediately, while they went to secure the secret warrant.
I had been stationed on the corner which was not far from the Forty-eighth Street gambling joint that we were to raid. I had a keen sense of wickedness as I stood there with other loiterers watching the passing throng under the yellow flare of the flaming arc light.
It was not difficult now to loiter about unnoticed because the streets were full of people, all bent on their own pleasure and not likely to notice one person more or less who stopped to watch the passing throng.
From time to time I cast a quick glance at the house down the street, in order to note who was going in.
It must have been over an hour that I waited. It was after ten, and it became more difficult to watch who was going into the gambling joint. In fact, several times the street was so blocked that I could not see very well. But I did happen to catch a glimpse of one familiar figure across the street from me.
It was Angus Forbes. Where he kept himself in the daytime I did not know, but he seemed to emerge at night, like a rat, seeking what to him was now food and drink. I watched him narrowly as he turned the corner, but there was no use in being too inquisitive. He was bound as certainly for the gambling joint as a moth would have headed toward one of the arc lights. Evidently Forbes was making a vocation of gambling.
Just then a taxicab pulled up hurriedly at the curb near where I was standing and a hand beckoned me, on the side away from the gambling house.
I sauntered over and looked in through the open window. It was Garrick with Dillon sunk back into the dark corner of the cab, so as not to be seen.
"Jump in!" whispered Garrick, opening the door. "We have the warrant all right. Has anything happened? No suspicion yet?"
I did so and reassured Garrick while the cab started on a blind cruise around the block.
On the floor was a curiously heavy instrument, on which I had stubbed my toe as I entered. I surmised that it must have been the thing which Garrick had brought from his office, but in the darkness I could not see what it was, nor was there a chance to ask a question.
"Stop here," ordered Garrick, as we passed a drug store with a telephone booth.
Dillon jumped out and disappeared into the booth.
"He is calling the reserves from the nearest station," fretted Garrick. "Of course, we have to do that to cover the place, but we'll have to work quickly now, for I don't know how fast a tip may travel in this subterranean region. Here, I'll pay the taxi charges now and save some time."
A moment later Dillon rejoined us, his face perspiring from the closeness of the air in the booth.
"Now to that place on Forty-eighth Street, and we're square," ordered
Garrick to the driver, mentioning the address. "Quick!"
There had been, we could see, no chance for a tip to be given that a raid was about to be pulled off. We could see that, as Garrick and I jumped out of the cab and mounted the steps.
The door was closed to us, however. Only someone like Warrington who was known there could have got us in peacefully, until we had become known in the place. Yet though there had been no tip, the lookout on the other side of the door, with his keen nose, had seemed to scent trouble.
He had retreated and, we knew, had shut the inside, heavy door—perhaps even had had time already to give the alarm inside.
The sharp rap of a small axe which Garrick had brought sounded on the flimsy outside door, in quick staccato. There was a noise and scurry of feet inside and we could hear the locks and bolts being drawn.
Banging, ripping, tearing, the thin outer door was easily forced. Disregarding the melee I leaped through the wreckage with Garrick. The "ice-box" door barred all further progress. How was Garrick to surmount this last and most formidable barrier?
"A raid! A raid!" cried a passer-by.
Another instant, and the cry, taken up by others, brought a crowd swarming around from Broadway, as if it were noon instead of midnight.