"Now tell me straight, George," said Bill in seeming friendly tones; "what's bitin' you?"
"A-ah!" said the young man, his features writhen with pain; "Melanie's been out of Woburn a month, and I ain't heard from her."
"But I understood it was all off between you two," said Bill.
"All off, nothing!" said George violently. "I'm her husband. It'll never be all off while I'm living."
"But she's got somepin to say to that too, ain't she?"
"I'll believe it when I hear her say it."
"I'm not on the inside," said Bill. "I on'y know what I hear. This is the way I understand it; if I'm wrong, put me right. As you was on the outside, and Melanie was on the inside, the Boss said you couldn't come together, the two crowds of us being forbidden to mix. So you and Melanie run away together anyhow, and got married, forgetting the first rule of the organisation, which is, that nobody can ever leave it for any reason whatsoever."
"We on'y asked to be let alone," said George sullenly.
"I know, I know," said Bill. "I don't say as I blame you. But the say-so of the boss always goes. That's what keeps the organisation together. And so you had to be disciplined. At least Melanie was; she was sent up to Woburn, but you got clean away. But before Melanie was sent up, as I understand it, she said she'd be a good girl, and she wrote you a letter sayin' she was done with you."
"She had to write it," muttered George.
"Maybe so," said Bill. "But she must have made fresh promises to be good, or they wouldn't have got her out of Woburn."
"If Melanie's in good standing with the organisation, what they want another girl for?" George demanded, looking at Jessie.
"Oh, hell, the business is always growin'!" said Bill.
"There's something wrong! There's something wrong!" said George, beating the little table softly with his clenched fists. "Melanie would know that I wouldn't take that letter she wrote on its face. She's always been on the square with me. Suppose she means to stick to the organisation. All right. But she wouldn't let me go on eating my heart out all these weeks. She'd find some way of sending me word—unless she was chained up."
This shot in the dark made both Bill and Jessie (for different reasons) exquisitely uneasy. Bill showed it in his face, but George, apparently, was not much of a physiognomist.
"Maybe she don't know how to reach you," suggested Bill.
"She has a way of reaching me."
"Maybe she forgot the address."
"Huh! Likely!" said George.
"George, I'd do any thin' I could to help you, short of gettin' in Dutch myself," said Bill. "Yours is an onusual case, George. We all feel sorry for you. It was the real thing between you and Melanie; you couldn't help yourselves. In a manner of speaking, you had the right to come together. But on the other hand you run up against a stone wall in the rules of the organisation. It certainly was a shame all around."
George had his suspicions of Bill, but the tortured heart could not stand out against this pretended sympathy. He partly broke down.
"Thanks, Bill," he muttered, hanging his head. "You always was the decentest of the lot. You don't know what I been through. Nobody knows. It's driven me clean out of my mind! ... If I knew Melanie was all right I could bear it. It's not knowing. It's suspecting that they're torturing her somehow on my account. She's had nothing but trouble through me.... Oh, God! if I don't get some relief I'll take an axe and smash down the door of that damned house, and see for myself. What do I care what happens to me?"
Jessie was deeply enraged to see the unfortunate young fellow's honest feelings thus made a mock of, and her friendly feelings towards Bill dried up for the time being. However, George was getting true sympathy from her.
"Maybe I could bring you to a meeting with her somehow," said Bill, with a crafty sidelong look at George.
The young fellow looked at him with a wild hope in his eyes.
Jessie was seized with panic. Oh, God! if he falls for this, how can I save them? how can I save them? she asked herself.
"Of course we can't do nothin' with Black Kate, that's certain," Bill went on smoothly, "and when she's out of the house the key of the front door is held by that little ——, Skinny Sam. You couldn't trust him neither. But Pap or Fingy, or Abie, would never interfere. Nor Jess here."
"You bet I wouldn't!" said Jessie.
If George had ever looked down he would have seen Jessie feverishly tracing with a finger on the knee that was invisible to Bill:
KEEP AWAY! KEEP AWAY!
KEEP AWAY!
But George's strained eyes were fixed on Bill's face. Jessie ventured to touch his knee, and he glanced down abstractedly, but instantly returned his gaze to Bill's face. She dared not do it again.
"The thing to do," Bill went on, "is, sometime when Kate is out, to get Sam interested in doin' somepin, and then lift the key off him for a short while. We'll have Melanie waitin' for you, just inside the front door..."
"Yes ... yes!" said George breathlessly.
"I'll egg Sam on to a game of pinochle with Pap, by putting up a wager, see? You may not know it, but I started life as pickpocket. Ain't had much practice lately, but my fingers are still souple enough for that. He carries the key in his back pant pockets. I seen it often. I'll prig it when the game starts, and Jess'll post as a scout in the lower hall, to watch that he don't miss it."
"Now we gotta arrange some signal to you when the coast's clear," Bill went on. "Lookee, Kate's got a couple of new statooettes on the mantel in the parlour. Little bronze guys with battle-axes,
you
know. I'll stand one of them in the window, see? when it's all right to come. That is, if it's day. And if it's night, I'll light the gas out in the hall. That jet is never lighted when Kate's home. Don't forget; the statooette in the window by day, or the light in the hall by night When you get the signal you tap on the door light, and I'll be right there with Melanie. She won't be sorry to see you, I guess. Oh no! Don't ring the bell, of course."
If he had thought for a moment, if he had been capable of thinking, George must have seen through this clumsy lure. But the madness to see Melanie had him in its grip. He could think of nothing else. Jessie felt half sick with apprehension. She could save George, of course, at any moment, by speaking out. But in that case she could never return to the house herself. Then how about poor Melanie, left chained and defenceless? Was there ever such a cursed coil of circumstances?
George was so completely mesmerised by his wild hope, that Bill ventured to go a step further. "Lookee," he said, "I gotta idea Kate is out this afternoon. There's no time like the present. You just give Jess and me fifteen or twenty minutes to get home, and get things fixed up, then you stroll down past the house, and maybe I'll have the signal for you already."
"All right!" said George breathlessly. "I'll wait here."
"That's understood then," said Bill. "C'mon, Jess."
He got up. With the idea of gaining time; of getting a chance, perhaps, to give George a signal, Jessie said:
"Can I have a box of candy?"
Bill was in high good humour again. "Sure!" he said, "the best in the shop!"
But while they were at the counter, George never looked around. And when the purchase was completed, Bill stood back to let Jessie pass out of the store ahead of him; so she could not even give George a backward warning look. They left him sitting at the little table.
When they had passed out of the range of George's vision, Bill exclaimed gleefully: "By God! that was a lucky chance! That fellow, George Mullen, is the only man who ever defied the boss and got away with it. If I can land him, the boss will give me anything I ask for! He'll put me ahead of Kate in the house! I'm a made man.... You don't think he'll get cold feet, do you, and not come?" he broke off to ask anxiously.
"I think he'll come," said Jessie.
"Sure, he'll come!" said Bill confidently. "He's out of his senses to see that girl."
It was only too true. Jessie felt desperate. A dozen plans for saving Melanie and George had occurred to her, but none of them feasible. And she had no time! She had no time!
"Say," said Bill suddenly, "how the hell did you get off Melanie's description so pat?"
"I saw her," said Jessie shortly. Bill's conversation robbed her of what moments for thinking she still had.
"Saw her?" he echoed, astonished.
"I knew some one was locked in that room, from seeing Pap carry food up. So when I was in the bathroom, I stuck a broom out of the window to attract her attention."
Bill turned a face of angry concern on her. "Good God! if Kate knew that, it would be all up with you!" he cried. "Can't I never teach you to let things alone that don't concern you!"
"Well, it's lucky I did see her," said Jessie.
"Oh, as it happens, it is," said Bill. "I'm telling you for the future."
The little candy store was three short blocks from 723. As they crossed the last street before coming to the house, Jessie played her only card:
"We oughtn't to walk up to the door together," she said.
"Sure, that's right," agreed Bill. "The neighbours might get to guessing who your big beau was."
"You walk on," said Jessie. "I'll hang back till you turn the corner."
"No, I'll turn down Charlton to Hudson, and come back on Vandam," said Bill. "That's my usual beat."
Jessie breathed a little more freely. He turned down the side street. Jessie walked on a few steps, then waited, leaning against the railings of one of the old houses, pressing a hand against her heart to still it. She gave him a minute, then peeped around the corner. He was trudging down the block unconcernedly. She walked back across the street at a sober gait, so that if he glanced around his eye would not be caught by a running figure. When she passed the corner house, she gathered up all her forces, and ran like a deer back to the little candy store.
George was still sitting as they had left him. Jessie leaned on the table. "Listen!" she whispered urgently. "For God's sake, don't go to that house. It's a plot to get you and Melanie both. She's there—locked in an upper room. They're only keeping her alive as a decoy to bring you there. Keep away, and I'll save her for you. Keep away, and I promise to have a letter from her put into your hands within a day or two."
George stared at her wildly. It is doubtful if he got the full sense of her breathless words, but he was impressed by them. It only needed the spoken word to bring him to the sense of his danger. Jessie dared not wait to make sure of the effect. She ran out of the store, and back down the street at the top of her speed.
Sam let her in the house with a spiteful look. As he did not address her, she was not obliged to speak. With a great effort of the will, she concealed from him how she was panting for breath. She went directly to her own room and, closing the door, sat down on the bed to let her breast quiet down. She had been there a minute or two before the bell sounded which announced Bill's entrance through the sliding door. A great thankfulness filled her.
She went downstairs with a serene face. A growing excitement filled the house at Bill's story. They were all home, including Black Kate, and all of them were united for once by their common detestation of George Mullen. Human loyalty takes curious forms sometimes. The bronze statuette was placed in the window, and everybody waited, biting their fingers in their impatience.
While everybody's attention was concentrated on the ground floor, Jessie had a good opportunity to communicate with Melanie from the bathroom. She sent up a little note on the broom:
"I must see you to-night. Drop me the rope when I give you the signal."
Melanie nodded.
Back in her own room, Jessie carefully folded the wrapping-paper from the candy-box, to serve Melanie as paper on which to write the letter to George.
There is no need to detail the various stages in the emotions of that household as they waited for the man who never came. From a savage anticipation they passed to a still more savage disappointment. When it became clear that he was not coming, they began to quarrel among themselves, as usual. Black Kate expressed a contemptuous disbelief in Bill's whole story, and Bill forced Jessie to corroborate it. Jessie did so, careful not to take sides.
When the others were not around, Bill continued to air his grievance to Jessie, spiced with strings of oaths, until she was fair tired of it. Human patience has its limits.
"You showed your hand too plain," she said.
"Yah! that's right! Rub it in!" snarled Bill "Maybe you're glad he didn't come."
"Well, since you ask me, I am glad," she said coolly. "I don't hanker to assist at a murder."
"'Tain't murder!" cried Bill. "It's justice! What right has the like of him to defy the organisation?"
However, after that he shut up about it.
The message that the so-called Jessie Seipp sent over the telephone, when she slipped away from Bill Combs, was to me, Bella Brickley, as you have, no doubt, already guessed. This is what my mistress said to me:
"Quick! Notebook and pencil, Bella. Take down all I say, so you can't forget ... I am pushed for time.
"I have reached a point in my work where I must have outside assistance; a woman that I can associate with in the character of Jessie Seipp. I must have some one who is absolutely A1; everything depends on it. The best woman operative we ever employed is Madge Caswell. You have her address. Get in touch with her at once. I know she's available, because she called me up just before I disappeared, and said she'd be in town all summer, and wanted work. Engage her exclusive services at her own terms until further notice.
"She is to play the part of Canada Annie Watkin, Jessie Seipp's pal. She hasn't got time to bone up a tough New York accent; that's why I have her hail from Canada. Let her talk in her own natural voice, and they won't know the difference. Let her portray a keen, long-headed little thief, without any sex allure, who works and thinks like a man. She should dress primly, and keep a close mouth. Let her story be that after she had made a successful haul in Montreal, a year ago, the Canadian city became too hot for her, and she's been living under cover in New York since. She and Jessie turned a trick together last spring. I'll supply the details of that.