The Max Brand Megapack (205 page)

“But I don’t dare go in. It will mean—”

“It will mean everything, but it’s too late to turn back now. Besides, in your heart of hearts, you don’t want to turn back, you know!”

Quickly he passed into the room and hurried to the bed of Bill Gregg. Under the biting grip of Doone’s hand Bill Gregg writhed to a sitting posture, with a groan. Still he was in the throes of his dream and only half awakened.

“I’ve lost her,” he whispered.

“You’re wrong, idiot,” said Ronicky softly, “you’re wrong. You’ve won her. She’s at the door now, waiting to come in.”

“Ronicky,” said Bill Gregg, suddenly awake, “you’ve been the finest friend a man ever had, but, if you make a joke out of her, I’ll wring your neck!”

“Sure you would. But, before you do that, jump into your clothes and open the door.”

Sleep was still thick enough in the brain of Bill Gregg to make him obey automatically. He stumbled into his clothes and then shambled dizzily to the door and opened it. As the light from the room struck down the hall Ronicky saw his friend stiffen to his full height and strike a hand across his face.

“Stars and Stripes!” exclaimed Bill Gregg. “The days of the miracles ain’t over!”

Ronicky Doone turned his back and went to the window. Across the street rose the forbidding face of the house of John Mark, and it threatened Ronicky Doone like a clenched hand, brandished against him. The shadow under the upper gable was like the shadow under a frowning brow. In that house worked the mind of John Mark. Certainly Ronicky Doone had won the first stage of the battle between them, but there was more to come—much more of that battle—and who would win in the end was an open question. He made up his mind grimly that, whatever happened, he would first ship Bill Gregg and the girl out of the city, then act as the rear guard to cover their retreat.

When he returned they had closed the door and were standing back from one another, with such shining eyes that the heart of Ronicky Doone leaped. If, for a moment, doubt of his work came to him, it was banished, as they glanced toward him.

“I dunno how he did it,” Bill Gregg was stammering, “but here it is—done! Bless you, Ronicky.”

“A minute ago,” said Ronicky, “it looked to me like the lady didn’t know her own mind, but that seems to be over.”

“I found my own mind the moment I saw him,” said the girl.

Ronicky studied her in wonder. There was no embarrassment, no shame to have confessed herself. She had the clear brow of a child. Suddenly, it seemed to Ronicky that he had become an old man, and these were two children under his protection. He struck into the heart of the problem at once.

“The main point,” he said, “is to get you two out of town, as quick as we can. Out West in Bill’s country he can take care of you, but back here this John Mark is a devil and has the strength to stop us. How quick can you go, Caroline?”

“I can never go,” she said, “as long as John Mark is alive.”

“Then he’s as good as dead,” said Bill Gregg. “We both got guns, and, no matter how husky John Mark may be, we’ll get at him!”

The girl shook her head. All the joy had gone out of her face and left her wistful and misty eyed. “You don’t understand, and I can’t tell you. You can never harm John Mark.”

“Why not?” asked Bill Gregg. “Has he got a thousand men around him all the time? Even if he has they’s ways of getting at him.”

“Not a thousand men,” said the girl, “but, you see, he doesn’t need help. He’s never failed. That’s what they say of him: ‘John Mark, the man who has never lost!’”

“Listen to me,” said Ronicky angrily. “Seems to me that everybody stands around and gapes at this gent with the sneer a terrible lot, without a pile of good reasons behind ’em. Never failed? Why, lady, here’s one night when he’s failed and failed bad. He’s lost you!”

“No,” said Caroline.

“Not lost you?” asked Bill Gregg. “Say, you ain’t figuring on going back to him?”

“I have to go back.”

“Why?” demanded Gregg.

“It’s because of you,” interpreted Ronicky Doone. “She knows that, if she leaves you, Mark will start on your trail. Mark is the name of the gent with the sneer, Bill.”

“He’s got to die, then, Ronicky.”

“I been figuring on the same thing for a long time, but he’ll die hard, Bill.”

“Don’t you see?” asked the girl. “Both of you are strong men and brave, but against John Mark I know that you’re helpless. It isn’t the first time people have hated him. Hated? Who does anything but hate him? But that doesn’t make any difference. He wins, he always wins, and that’s why I’ve come to you.”

She turned to Bill Gregg, but such a sad resignation held her eyes that Ronicky Doone bowed his head.

“I’ve come to tell you that I love you, that I have always loved you, since I first began writing to you. All of yourself showed through your letters, plain and strong and simple and true. I’ve come tonight to tell you that I love you, but that we can never marry. Not that I fear him for myself, but for you.”

“Listen here,” said Bill Gregg, “ain’t there police in this town?”

“What could they do? In all of the things which he has done no one has been able to accuse him of a single illegal act—at least no one has ever been able to prove a thing. And yet he lives by crime. Does that give you an idea of the sort of man he is?”

“A low hound,” said Bill Gregg bitterly, “that’s what he shows to be.”

“Tell me straight,” said Ronicky, “what sort of a hold has he got over you? Can you tell us?”

“I have to tell you,” said the girl gravely, “if you insist, but won’t you take my word for it and ask no more?”

“We have a right to know,” said Ronicky. “Bill has a right, and, me being Bill’s friend, I have a right, too.”

She nodded.

“First off, what’s the way John Mark uses you?”

She clenched her hands. “If I tell you that, you will both despise me.”

“Try us,” said Ronicky. “And you can lay to this, lady, that, when a gent out of the West says ‘partner’ to a girl or a man, he means it. What you do may be bad; what you are is all right. We both know it. The inside of you is right, lady, no matter what John Mark makes you do. But tell us straight, what is it?”

“He has made me,” said the girl, her head falling, “a thief!”

Ronicky saw Bill Gregg wince, as if someone had struck him in the face. And he himself waited, curious to see what the big fellow would do. He had not long to wait. Gregg went straight to the girl and took her hands.

“D’you think that makes any difference?” he asked. “Not to me, and not to my friend Ronicky. There’s something behind it. Tell us that!”

“There is something behind it,” said the girl, “and I can’t say how grateful I am to you both for still trusting me. I have a brother. He came to New York to work, found it was easy to spend money—and spent it. Finally he began sending home for money. We are not rich, but we gave him what we could. It went on like that for some time. Then, one day, a stranger called at our house, and it was John Mark. He wanted to see me, and, when we talked together, he told me that my brother had done a terrible thing—what it was I can’t tell even you.

“I wouldn’t believe at first, though he showed me what looked like proofs. At last I believed enough to agree to go to New York and see for myself. I came here, and saw my brother and made him confess. What it was I can’t tell you. I can only say that his life is in the hand of John Mark. John Mark has only to say ten words, and my brother is dead. He told me that. He showed me the hold that Mark had over him, and begged me to do what I could for him. I didn’t see how I could be of use to him, but John Mark showed me. He taught me to steal, and I have stolen. He taught me to lie, and I have lied. And he has me still in the hollow of his hand, do you see? And that’s why I say that it’s hopeless. Even if you could fight against John Mark, which no one can, you couldn’t help me. The moment you strike him he strikes my brother.”

“Curse him!” exclaimed Ronicky. “Curse the hound!” Then he added: “They’s just one thing to do, first of all. You got to go back to John Mark. Tell him that you came over here. Tell him that you seen Bill Gregg, but you only came to say good-by to him, and to ask him to leave town and go West. Then, tomorrow, we’ll move out, and he may think that we’ve gone. Meantime the thing you do is to give me the name of your brother and tell me where I can find him. I’ll hunt him up. Maybe something can be done for him. I dunno, but that’s where we’ve got to try.”

“But—” she began.

“Do what he says,” whispered Bill Gregg. “I’ve doubted Ronicky before, but look at all that he’s done? Do what he says, Caroline.”

“It means putting him in your power,” she said at last, “just as he was put in the power of John Mark, but I trust you. Give me a slip of paper, and I’ll write on it what you want.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Disarming Suspicion

From the house across the street Caroline Smith slipped out upon the pavement and glanced warily about her. The street was empty, quieter and more villagelike than ever, yet she knew perfectly well that John Mark had not allowed her to be gone so long without keeping watch over her. Somewhere from the blank faces of those houses across the street his spies kept guard over her movements. Here she glanced sharply over her shoulder, and it seemed to her that a shadow flitted into the door of a basement, farther up the street.

At that she fled and did not stop running until she was at the door of the house of Mark. Since all was quiet, up and down the street, she paused again, her hand upon the knob. To enter meant to step back into the life which she hated. There had been a time when she had almost loved the life to which John Mark introduced her; there had been a time when she had rejoiced in the nimbleness of her fingers which had enabled her to become an adept as a thief. And, by so doing, she had kept the life of her brother from danger, she verily believed. She was still saving him, and, so long as she worked for John Mark, she knew that her brother was safe, yet she hesitated long at the door.

It would be only the work of a moment to flee back to the man she loved, tell him that she could not and dared not stay longer with the master criminal, and beg him to take her West to a clean life. Her hand fell from the knob, but she raised it again immediately.

It would not do to flee, so long as John Mark had power of life or death over her brother. If Ronicky Doone, as he promised, was able to inspire her brother with the courage to flee from New York, give up his sporting life and seek refuge in some far-off place, then, indeed, she would go with Bill Gregg to the ends of the earth and mock the cunning fiend who had controlled her life so long.

The important thing now was to disarm him of all suspicion, make him feel that she had only visited Bill Gregg in order to say farewell to him. With this in her mind she opened the front door and stepped into the hall, always lighted with ominous dimness. That gloom fell about her like the visible presence of John Mark.

A squat, powerful figure glided out of the doorway to the right. It was Harry Morgan, and the side of his face was swathed in bandages, so that he had to twist his mouth violently in order to speak.

“The chief,” he said abruptly. “Beat it quick to his room. He wants you.”

“Why?” asked Caroline, hoping to extract some grain or two of information from the henchman.

“Listen, kid,” said the sullen criminal. “D’you think I’m a nut to blow what I know? You beat it, and he’ll tell you what he wants.”

The violence of this language, however, had given her clues enough to the workings of the chief’s mind. She had always been a favored member of the gang, and the men had whistled attendance on her hardly less than upon Ruth Tolliver herself. This sudden harshness in the language of Harry Morgan told her that too much was known, or guessed.

A sudden weakness came over her. “I’m going out,” she said, turning to Harry Morgan who had sauntered over to the front door.

“Are you?” he asked.

“I’m going to take one turn more up the block. I’m not sleepy yet,” she repeated and put her hand on the knob of the door.

“Not so you could notice it, you ain’t,” retorted Morgan. “We’ve taken lip enough from you, kid. Your day’s over. Go up and see what the chief has to say, but you ain’t going through this door unless you walk over me.”

“Those are orders?” she asked, stepping back, with her heart turning cold.

“Think I’m doing this on my own hook?”

She turned slowly to the stairs. With her hand on the balustrade she decided to try the effect of one personal appeal. Nerving herself she whirled and ran to Harry Morgan. “Harry,” she whispered, “let me go out till I’ve worked up my courage. You know he’s terrible to face when he’s angry. And I’m afraid, Harry—I’m terribly afraid!”

“Are you?” asked Morgan. “Well, you ain’t the first. Go and take your medicine like the rest of us have done, time and time running.”

There was no help for it. She went wearily up the stairs to the room of the master thief. There she gave the accustomed rap with the proper intervals. Instantly the cold, soft voice, which she knew and hated so, called to her to enter.

She found him in the act of putting aside his book. He was seated in a deep easy-chair; a dressing gown of silk and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles gave him a look of owlish wisdom, with a touch of the owl’s futility of expression, likewise. He rose, as usual, with all his courtesy. She thought at first, as he showed her to a chair, that he was going to take his usual damnable tack of pretended ignorance in order to see how much she would confess. However, tonight this was not his plan of battle.

The moment she was seated, he removed his spectacles, drew a chair close to hers and sat down, leaning far forward. “Now, my dear, foolish girl,” said the master thief, smiling benevolently upon her, “what have you been doing tonight to make us all miserable?”

She knew at once that he was aware of every move she had made, from the first to the last. It gave her firmness to tell the lie with suavity. “It’s a queer yarn, John,” she said.

“I’m used to queer yarns,” he answered. “But where have you been all this time? It was only to take five minutes, I thought.”