MR. WEBSTER G. BURGESS, president of the White River National Bank, started slightly as he looked up from the letter he had been reading and found Hill, the Government detective, standing at the rail. Burgess dropped the letter into a drawer and said briskly:
“Hello, Hill—looking for me?”
“No; not yet!”
This was an established form of salutation between them and they both grinned. Burgess rose and leaned against the rail, while the detective summarized his latest counterfeiting adventure, which had to do with a clew furnished by a bad bill that had several weeks earlier got by one of the White River National tellers. Hill had bagged the maker of the bill, and he had just been satisfying himself that the teller would be ready to testify the next day before the Federal grand jury.
Hill visited the bank frequently and Burgess knew him well. The secret-service man was a veteran hunter of offenders against the peace and dignity of the United States, and, moreover, a capital story-teller. Burgess often asked him into his private office for an hour’s talk. He had once given a dinner in Hill’s honor, inviting a select coterie of friends who knew a good tale when they heard it and appreciated a shrewd, resourceful man when they saw him.
The White River National was one of the largest and strongest banks in the state, and Burgess was one of the richest men in his native city of Indianapolis; but these facts did not interfere with enjoyment of life according to his lights, which were not unluminous. Having been born on top, he was not without his sympathetic interest in the unfortunates whose lot is cast near the burnt bottom crust, and his generous impulses sometimes betrayed him into doing things that carping critics thought not wholly in keeping with his responsibilities and station in life.
These further facts may be noted: Burgess was the best-dressed man in Indianapolis—he always wore a pink carnation; and on occasions when he motored home for luncheon he changed his necktie—a fact that did not go unremarked in the bank cages. He belonged to hunting and fishing clubs in Canada, Maine and North Carolina, and visited them at proper seasons. There was a drop of adventurous blood in him that made banking the least bit onerous at times; and when he felt the need of air he disappeared to catch salmon or tarpon, or to hunt grouse or moose. Before his father had unkindly died and left him the bank and other profitable embarrassments, he had been obsessed with a passion for mixing in a South American revolution; he had chafed when the Spanish War most deplorably synchronized with the year of his marriage, and he could think of no valid excuse for leaving the newly kindled fire on his domestic altar to pose for Spanish bullets. Twice since his marriage he had looked death in the eye: once when he tumbled off a crag of the Canadian Rockies—he was looking for a mountain sheep; and again when he had been whistled down the Virginia capes in a hurricane while yachting with a Boston friend. Every one admitted that he was a good banker. If he got stung occasionally he did not whimper; and every one knew that the White River National could stand a good deal of stinging without being obliged to hang crape on its front door.
Burgess had always felt that some day something would happen to relieve the monotony of his existence as the chief pilot of an institution which panics always passed by on the other side. His wife cultivated bishops, men of letters and highbrows generally; and he was always stumbling over them in his home, sometimes to his discomfiture. With that perversity of human nature that makes us all pine for what is not, he grew restive under the iron grip of convention and felt that he would like to disappear—either into the wilderness to play at being a savage, or into the shadowy underworld to taste danger and share the experiences of men who fight on the farther side of the barricade.
“You always seem to get ’em, Tom,” he remarked to the detective in a familiar tone, bred of long acquaintance. “Just knowing you has made a better man of me. I’m bound to be good as long as you’re on the job here; but don’t you ever get tired of the game?”
“Well, when you’re up against a real proposition and are fencing with a man who’s as smart as you are, or smarter, it’s some fun; but most of my cases lately have been too tame. The sport isn’t what it was when I started. All the crooks are catalogued and photographed and dictagraphed these days; and when you go after ’em you merely send in your card and call a motor to joy-ride ’em to jail. It’s been a long time since I was shot at—not since those bill-raisers down in the Orange County hills soaked me with buckshot. When they turn a man loose at Leavenworth we know just about where he will bring up and who’s at home to welcome him; and you can usually calculate pretty well just when he will begin manufacturing and floating the queer again.”
“You hang on to the petrified idea that once a crook, always a crook—no patience with the eminent thinkers who believe that ‘while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return?’”
“Yep—return to jail! Well, I don’t say reform is impossible; and I’ve let a few get by who did keep straight. But it’s my business to watch and wait. My best catches have been through luck as much as good management—but don’t tell that on me; it would spoil my reputation.”
He turned away, glanced across the room and swung round into his former position with his arm resting on the railing by Burgess’s desk. He continued talking as before, but the banker saw that something had interested him.
“See that young woman at the paying-teller’s cage—halfway down the line—slight, trim, with a red feather in her hat? Take a look.”
It was nearing the closing hour and long lines had formed at all the windows. Burgess marked the red feather without difficulty. As the women patrons of the bank were accommodated at a window on the farther side of the lobby he surmised that the young woman was an office clerk on an errand for her employer. She was neatly dressed; there was nothing in her appearance to set her apart from a hundred office girls who visited the bank daily and stood—just as this young woman was standing—in the line of bookkeepers and messengers.
“Well,” said the banker, “what about her?”
While looking at the girl the detective drew out a telegram which he scanned and thrust back into his pocket.
“Her mother runs a boarding house, and her father, Julius Murdock, is a crook—an old yegg—a little crippled by rheumatism now and out of the running. But some of the naughty boys passing this way stop there to rest. The place is—let me see—787 Vevay Street.”
Burgess thoughtfully brushed a speck from his coat-sleeve, then looked up indifferently.
“So? Hardly a fashionable neighborhood! Is that what is called a fence?”
“Well, I believe the police did rip up the boarding house a while back, but there was nothing doing. Murdock’s able to make a front without visible means of support—may have planted enough stuff to retire on. He’s a sort of financial agent and scout for other crooks. They’ve been in town only a few months. The old man must feel pretty safe or he wouldn’t keep his money in a bank. Nellie, out there, is Murdock’s daughter, and she’s stenographer for the Brooks Lumber Company, over near where they live. When I came in she was at the receiving teller’s window with the lumber company’s deposit. She’s probably waiting to draw a little money now for her daddy. He’s one of the few fellows in his line of business who never goes quite broke. Just for fun, suppose you see what he has on the books. If I’m wrong I’ll decline that cigar you’re going to offer me from the box in your third left-hand drawer.” The banker scribbled the name on a piece of paper and sent a boy with it to the head bookkeeper. “And I’d be amused to know how much Nellie is drawing for Julius, too, while you’re about it,” added the detective, who thereupon sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs inside the railing and became absorbed in a newspaper.
Burgess strolled across the lobby, stopping to speak to acquaintances waiting before the several windows—a common practice of his at the busy hour. Just behind the girl in the red hat stood a man he knew well; and he shook hands and continued talking to him, keeping pace with his friend’s progress toward the window. The girl turned round once and looked at him. He had a very good view of her face, and she was beyond question a very pretty girl, with strikingly fine gray eyes and the fresh color of youth. The banker’s friend had been recounting an amusing story and Burgess was aware that the girl turned her head slightly to listen; he even caught a gleam of humor in her eyes. She wore a plain jacket, a year or two out of fashion, and the red feather in her cloth hat was not so crisp as it appeared at a distance. She held a check in her hand ready for presentation; her gloves showed signs of wear. There was nothing to suggest that she was other than a respectable young woman, and the banker resented the detective’s implication that she was the daughter of a crook and lived in a house that harbored criminals. When she reached the window Burgess, still talking to the man behind her, heard her ask for ten-dollar bills.
She took the money and thrust it quickly into a leathern reticule that swung from her arm. The banker read the name of the Brooks Lumber Company on the passbook she held in her hand.
“Pardon me,” said Burgess as she stepped away from the cage——“those are badly worn bills. Let me exchange them for you.”
“Oh, thank you; but it doesn’t matter,” she said.
Without parleying he stepped to the exchange window, which was free at the moment, and spoke to one of the clerks. The girl opened her reticule and when he turned round she handed him the bills. While the clerk went for the new currency Burgess spoke of the weather and remarked upon the menace of worn bills to public health. They always meant to give women fresh bills, he said; and he wished she would insist upon having them. He was a master of the art of being agreeable, and in his view it was nothing against a woman that she had fine eyes and an engaging smile. Her voice was pleasant to hear and her cheeks dimpled charmingly when she smiled.
“All money looks good to me,” she said, thrusting the new bills into her satchel; “but new money is certainly nicer. It always seems like more!”
“But you ought to count that,” Burgess protested, not averse to prolonging the conversation. “There’s always the possibility of a mistake.”
“Well, if there is I’ll come back. You’d remember——”
“Oh, yes! I’d remember,” replied Burgess with a smile, and then he added hastily: “In a bank it’s our business to remember faces!”
“Oh!” said the girl, looking down at her reticule.
Her “oh!” had in it the faintest, the obscurest hint of irony. He wondered whether she resented the idea that he would remember her merely because it was a bank’s business to remember faces. Possibly—but no! As she smiled and dimpled he put from him the thought that she wished to give a flirtatious turn to this slight chance interview there in the open lobby of his own bank. Reassured by the smite, supported by the dimples, he said:
“I’m Mr. Burgess; I work here.”
“Yes, of course—you’re the president. My name is Nellie Murdock.”
“You live in Vevay Street?” He dropped his voice. “I can’t talk to you here, but I’ve been asked to see a young man named Drake at your house. Please tell him I’ll be there at five-thirty today. You understand?”
“Yes, thank you. He hasn’t come yet; but he expected to get in at five.” Her lips quivered; she gave him a quick, searching glance, then nodded and walked rapidly out.
Burgess spoke to another customer in the line, with his eyes toward the street, so that he saw the red feather flash past the window and vanish; then he strolled back to where the detective sat. On the banker’s desk, face down, lay the memorandum he had sent to the bookkeeper. He turned this up, glanced at it and handed it to Hill.
“Balance $178.18; Julius Murdock,” Hill read. “How much did Nellie draw?”
“An even hundred. I stopped to speak to her a moment. Nice girl!”
“Gray eyes, fine teeth, nose slightly snub; laughs easily and shows dimples. Wears usually a gold chain with a gold heart-shaped locket—small diamond in center,” said Hill, as though quoting.
“Locket—yes; I did notice the locket,” frowned Burgess.
“And you didn’t overlook the dimples,” remarked the detective—“you can’t exactly. By-the-way, you didn’t change any money for her yourself?”
“What do you mean?” asked Burgess with a scowl. “Wait!” he added as the detective’s meaning dawned upon him.
He went back into the cages. The clerk who had brought the new bills from the women’s department found the old ones where they had been tossed aside by the teller. Burgess carried them to Hill without looking at them. He did not believe what he knew the detective suspected, that the girl was bold enough to try to palm off counterfeit money on a bank—on the president of a bank. He was surprised to find that he was really deeply annoyed by the detective’s manner of speaking of Nellie Murdock. He threw the bills down on his desk a little spitefully.
“There you are! That girl took those identical bills out of her satchel and gave them to me to change for new ones. She had plenty of time to slip in a bad bill if she wanted to.”
Hill turned round to the light, went over the bills quickly and handed them back to the banker with a grin.
“Good as wheat! I apologize. And I want you to know that I never said she wasn’t a pretty girl. And the prettiest ones are often the smartest. It does happen that way sometimes.”
“You make me tired, Hill. Everybody you see is crooked. With a man like you there’s no such thing as presumption of innocence. ’Way down inside of you you probably think I’m a bit off color too.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say just that!” said the detective, laughing and taking the cigar Burgess offered him from a box he produced from his desk. “I must be running along. You don’t seem quite as cheerful as usual this morning. I’ll come back tomorrow and see if I can’t bring in a new story.”
Burgess disposed of several people who were waiting to see him, and then took from his drawer the letter he had been reading when the detective interrupted him. It was from Ralph Gordon, a Chicago lawyer, who was widely known as an authority on penology. Burgess had several times contributed to the funds of a society of which Gordon was president, whose function it was to meet criminals on their discharge from prison and give them a helping hand upward.
The banker had been somewhat irritated today by Hill’s manner of speaking of the criminals against whom he was pitted; and doubtless Hill’s attitude toward the young woman he had pointed out as the daughter of a crook added to the sympathetic fading with which Burgess took up his friend’s letter for another reading. The letter ran:
Dear Old Man: You said last fall that you wished I’d put you in the way of knowing one of the poor fellows I constantly meet in the work of our society. I’m just now a good deal interested in a young fellow—Robert Drake by name—whose plight appeals to me particularly. He is the black sheep of a fine family I know slightly in New England. Drink was his undoing, and after an ugly scrape in college he went down fast—facilis descensus; the familiar story. The doors at home were closed to him, and after a year or two he fell in with one of the worst gangs of yeggs in the country. He was sent up for cracking a safe in a Southern Illinois post office. The agent of our society at Leavenworth has had an eye on him; when he was discharged he came straight to me and I took him into my house until we could plan something for him. I appealed to his family and they’ve sent me money for his use. He wants to go to the Argentine Republic—thinks he can make a clean start down there. But there are difficulties. Unfortunately there’s just now an epidemic of yegging in the Middle West and all suspects are being gathered in. Of course Drake isn’t safe, having just done time for a similar offense. I’ve arranged with Saxby—Big Billy, the football half-back—you remember him—to ship Drake south on one of the Southern Cross steamers. Saxby is, as you know, manager of the company at New Orleans. I wanted to send Drake down direct—but here’s the rub: there’s a girl in Indianapolis he wants to marry and take along with him. He got acquainted with her in the underworld, and her people, he confesses, are a shady lot. He insists that she is straight, and it’s for her he wants to take a fresh grip and begin over again. So tomorrow—that’s January twenty-third—he will be at her house in your city, 787 Vevay Street; and he means to marry her. It’s better for him not to look you up; and will you, as the good fellow you are, go to see him and give him cash for the draft for five hundred dollars I’m inclosing? Another five hundred—all this from his father—I’m sending to Saxby to give him in gold aboard the steamer. Drake believes that in a new country, with the girl to help him, he can make good.
Hoping this isn’t taking advantage of an old and valued friendship, I am always, dear old man—
Burgess put the letter in his pocket, signed his mail, entertained in the directors’ room a committee of the Civic League, subscribed a thousand dollars to a hospital, said yes or no to a number of propositions, and then his wife called him on the telephone, with an intimation that their regular dinner hour was seven. She reminded him of this almost daily, as Burgess sometimes forgot to tell her when he was to dine downtown.
“Anybody for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, Web,” she answered in the meek tone she reserved for such moments as this. “Do I have to tell you again that this is the day Bishop Gladding is to be here? He said not to try to meet him, as he didn’t know what train he’d take from Louisville, but he’d show up in time for dinner. He wrote he was coming a week ago, and you said not to ask anybody for dinner, as you liked to have him to yourself. You don’t mean to tell me——”
“No, Gertie; I’ll be there!” and then, remembering that his too-ready acquiescence might establish a precedent that would rise up and smite him later, he added: “But these are busy days; if I should be late don’t wait for me. That’s the rule, you know.”
“I should think, Web, when the bishop is an old friend, and saved your life that time you and Ralph Gordon were hunting Rocky Mountain sheep with him, and the bishop nearly died carrying you back to a doctor—I should think——”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” said Burgess; “but there’s a friend of Gordon’s in town I’ll have to look up after a little. No; he hasn’t time to come to the house. You know how it is, Gertie——”
She said she knew how it was. These telephonic colloquies were not infrequent between the Burgesses, and Mrs. Burgess was not without her provocation. He resolved to hurry and get through with Gordon’s man, Drake, the newly freed convict seeking a better life, that he might not be late to dinner in his own house, which was to be enlivened by the presence of the young, vigorous missionary bishop, who was, moreover, a sportsman and in every sense a man’s man.
He put on his ulster, made sure of the five hundred dollars he had obtained on Gordon’s draft, and at five-thirty went out to his car, which had waited an hour.
A thaw had been in progress during the day and hints of rain were in the air. The moon tottered drunkenly among flying clouds. The bank watchman predicted snow before morning as he bade Burgess good night.
Burgess knew Vevay Street, for he owned a business block at its intersection with Senate Avenue. Beyond the avenue it deteriorated rapidly and was filled with tenements and cheap boarding houses. Several blocks west ran an old canal, lined with factories, elevators, lumber yards and the like, and on the nearer bank was a network of railroad switches.
He thought it best not to approach the Murdock house in his motor; so he left it at the drug-store corner, and, bidding the chauffeur wait for him, walked down Vevay Street looking for 787. It was a forbidding thoroughfare and the banker resolved to complain to the Civic League; it was an outrage that such Stygian blackness should exist in a civilized city, and he meant to do something about it. When he found the number it proved to be half of a ramshackle two-story double house. The other half was vacant and plastered with For Rent signs. He struck a match and read a dingy card that announced rooms and boarding. The window shades were pulled halfway down, showing lights in the front room. Burgess knocked and in a moment the door was opened guardedly by a stocky, bearded man.
“Mr. Murdock?”
“Well, what do you want?” growled the man, widening the opening a trifle to allow the hall light behind him to fall on the visitor’s face.
“Don’t be alarmed. A friend of Robert Drake’s in Chicago asked me to see him. My errand is friendly.”
A woman’s voice called from the rear of the hall:
“It’s all right, dad; let the gentleman in.”
Murdock slipped the bolt in the door and then scrutinized Burgess carefully with a pair of small, keen eyes. As he bent over the lock the banker noted his burly frame and the powerful arms below his rolled-up shirtsleeves.
“Just wait there,” he said, pointing to the front room. He closed the hall door and Burgess heard his step on the stairs.
An odor of stale cooking offended the banker’s sensitive nostrils. The furniture was the kind he saw daily in the windows of furniture stores that sell on the installment plan; on one side was an upright piano, with its top littered with music. Now that he was in the house, he wondered whether this Murdock was after all a crook, and whether the girl with the red feather, with her candid eyes, could possibly be his daughter. His wrath against Hill rose again as he recalled his cynical tone—and on the thought the girl appeared from a door at the farther end of the room.
She bade him “Good evening!” and they shook hands. She had just come from her day’s work at the lumber company’s office, she explained. He found no reason for reversing his earlier judgment that she was a very pretty girl. Now that her head was free of the hat with the red feather, he saw that her hair, caught up in a becoming pompadour, was brown, with a golden glint in it. Her gray eyes seemed larger in the light of the single gas-burner than they had appeared by daylight at the bank. There was something poetic and dreamy about them. Her age he placed at about half his own, but there was the wisdom of the centuries in those gray eyes of hers. He felt young before her.
“There was a detective in the bank when I was in there this morning. He knew me,” she said at once.
“Yes; he spoke of you,” said Burgess.
“And he knows—what does he know?”
The girl’s manner was direct; he felt that she was entitled to a frank response.
“He told me your father had been—we will say suspected in times past; that he had only lately come here; but, unless he deceived me, I think he has no interest in him just now. The detective is a friend of mine. He visits the bank frequently. It was just by chance that he spoke of you.”
“You didn’t tell him that Mr. Gordon had asked you to come here?”
“No; Drake wasn’t mentioned.”
Nellie nodded; she seemed to be thinking deeply. Her prettiness was enhanced, he reflected, by the few freckles that clustered about her nose. And he was ready to defend the nose which the detective, reciting from his card catalogue, had called snub!
“Did your friend tell you Bob wants to be married before he leaves? I suppose you don’t know that?”
She blushed, confirming his suspicion that it was she whom Drake was risking arrest to marry.
“Yes; and if I guess rightly that you’re the girl I’d like to say that he’s an extremely fortunate young man! You don’t mind my saying that!”
He wondered whether all girls who have dimples blush to attract attention to them. The point interested Webster G. Burgess. The thought that Nellie Murdock meant to marry a freshly discharged convict, no matter how promising he might be, was distasteful to him; and yet her loyalty and devotion increased his admiration. There was romance here, and much money had not hardened the heart of Webster G. Burgess.
“It all seems too good to be true,” she said happily, “that Bob and I can be married after all and go away into a new world where nobody knows us and he can start all over again.” And then, coloring prettily: “We’re all ready to go except getting married—and maybe you can help us find a minister.”
“Easily! But I’m detaining you. Better have Drake come in; I want to speak to him, and then we can make all the arrangements in a minute.”
“I’m afraid he’s been watched; it’s brutal for them to do that when he’s done his time and means to live straight! I wonder——” She paused and the indignation that had flashed out in her speech passed quickly. “It’s asking a great deal, Mr. Burgess, but would you let us leave the house with you? The quicker we go the better—and a man of your position wouldn’t be stopped. But if you’d rather not——”
“I was just going to propose that! Please believe that in every way I am at your service.”
His spirits were high. It would give edge to the encounter to lend his own respectability to the flight. The idea of chaperoning Nellie Murdock and her convict lover through an imaginable police picket pleased him.
She went out and closed the door. Voices sounded in the hall; several people were talking earnestly. When the door opened a man dodged quickly into the room, the girl following.
“This is Robert Drake, Mr. Burgess. Bob, this is the gentleman Mr. Gordon told you about.”
Burgess experienced a distinct shock of repulsion as the man shuffled across the room to shake hands. A stubble of dark beard covered his face, his black hair was crumpled, and a long bang of it lying across his forehead seemed to point to his small, shifty blue eyes. His manner was anxious; he appeared decidedly ill at ease. Webster G. Burgess was fastidious and this fellow’s gray suit was soiled and crumpled, and he kept fingering his collar and turning it up round a very dirty neck.
“Thank you, sir—thank you!” he repeated nervously.
A door slammed upstairs and the prospective bridegroom started perceptibly and glanced round. But Burgess’s philosophy rallied to his support. This was the fate of things, one of life’s grim ironies—that a girl like Nellie Murdock, born and reared in the underworld, should be linking herself to an outlaw. After all, it was not his affair. Pretty girls in his own world persisted in preposterous marriages. And Bob grinned cheerfully. Very likely with a shave and a bath and a new suit of clothes he would be quite presentable. The banker had begun to speak of the route to be taken to New Orleans when a variety of things happened so quickly that Burgess’s wits were put to high tension to keep pace with them.
The door by the piano opened softly. A voice recognizable as that of Murdock spoke sharply in a low tone:
“Nellie, hit up the piano! Stranger, walk to the window—slow—and yank the shade! Bob, cut upstairs!”
These orders, given in the tone of one used to command, were quickly obeyed. It was in the banker’s mind the moment he drew down the shade that by some singular transition he, Webster G. Burgess, had committed himself to the fortunes of this dubious household. If he walked out of the front door it would likely be into the arms of a policeman; and the fact of a man of his prominence being intercepted in flight from a house about to be raided would not look well in the newspapers. Nellie, at the piano, was playing Schubert’s Serenade—and playing it, he thought, very well. The situation was not without its humor; and here, at last, was his chance to see an adventure through. He heard Bob take the stairs in three catlike jumps. Nellie, at the piano, said over her shoulder, with Schubert’s melody in her eyes:
“This isn’t funny; but they wouldn’t dare touch you! You’d better camp right here.”
“Not if I know myself!” said Burgess with decision as he buttoned his ulster.
She seemed to accept his decision as a matter of course and, still playing, indicated the door, still ajar, through which the disconcerting orders had been spoken. Burgess stepped into a room where a table was partly set for supper.
“This ain’t no place for you, stranger!” said Murdock harshly. “How you goin’ to get away?”
“I’ll follow Bob. If he makes it I can.”
“Humph! This party’s too big now. You ought to have kept out o’ this.”
There was a knock at the front door and Murdock pointed an accusing finger at Burgess.
“Either set down and play it out or skip!” He jerked his head toward the stairs. The music ceased at the knock. “Nellie, what’s the answer?”
Murdock apparently deferred to Nellie in the crisis; and as the knock was repeated she said:
“I’ll get Bob and this gentleman out. Don’t try to hold the door—let ’em in.”
Before he knew what was happening, Burgess was at the top of the stairway, with the girl close at his heels. She opened a door into a dark room.
“Bob!” she called.
“All right!” whispered Drake huskily.
Near the floor Burgess marked Bob’s position by a match the man struck noiselessly, shielding it in the curve of his hand at arm’s length. It was visible for a second only. Nellie darted lightly here and there in the dark. A drawer closed softly; Burgess heard the swish of her jacket as she snatched it up and drew it on. The girl undoubtedly knew what she was about. Then a slim, cold hand clutched his in a reassuring clasp. Another person had entered the room and the doorkey clicked.
“Goodby, mother!” Burgess heard the girl whisper.
The atmosphere changed as the steps of the three refugees echoed hollowly in an empty room. A door closed behind them and there was a low rumble as a piece of furniture was rolled against it. Burgess was amazed to find how alert all his senses were. He heard below the faint booming of voices as Murdock entertained the police. In the pitch-dark he found himself visualizing the room into which they had passed and the back stairway down which they crept to the kitchen of the vacant half of the house. As they paused there to listen something passed between Drake and Nellie.
“Give it to me—quick! I gotta shake that guy!” Drake whispered hoarsely.
The girl answered:
“Take it, but keep still and I’ll get you out o’ this.”
Burgess thought he had struck at her; but she made no sign. She took the lead and opened the kitchen door into a shed; then the air freshened and he felt rain on his face. They stood still for an instant. Some one, apparently at the Murdock kitchen door, beat three times on a tin pan.
“There are three of them!” whispered Nellie. “One’s likely to be at the back gate. Take the side fence!” She was quickly over; and then began a rapid leaping of the partition fences of the narrow lots of the neighborhood. At one point Burgess’s ulster ripped on a nail; at another place he dropped upon a chicken coop, where a lone hen squawked her terror and indignation. It had been some time since Webster G. Burgess had jumped fences, and he was blowing hard when finally they reached a narrow alley. He hoped the hurdling was at an end, but a higher barricade confronted them than the low fences they had already negotiated. Nellie and Bob whispered together a moment; then Bob took the fence quickly and silently. Burgess jumped for the top, but failed to catch hold. A second try was luckier, but his feet thumped the fence furiously as he tried to mount.
“Cheese it on the drum!” said Nellie, and she gave his legs a push that flung him over and he tumbled into the void. “Bob mustn’t bolt; he always goes crazy and wants to shoot the cops,” he heard her saying, so close that he felt her breath on his cheek. “I had to give him that hundred——”
A man ran through the alley they had just left. From the direction of Vevay Street came disturbing sounds as the Murdocks’ neighbors left their supper tables for livelier entertainment outside.
“If it’s cops they’ll make a mess of it—I was afraid it was Hill,” said the girl.
It already seemed a good deal of a mess to Burgess. He had got his bearings and knew they were in the huge yard of the Brooks Lumber Company. Great piles of lumber deepened the gloom. The scent of new pine was in the moist air. Nellie was already leading the way down one of the long alleys between the lumber. A hinge creaked stridently behind them. The three stopped, huddled close together. The opaque darkness seemed now to be diminishing slightly as the moon and a few frightened stars shone out of the clouds. Then the blackness was complete again.
“They’ve struck the yard!” said Nellie. “That was the Wood Street gate.”
“If they stop to open gates they’re not much good,” said the banker largely, in the tone of one who does not pause for gates.
The buttons had been snapped from his ulster at the second fence and this garment now hung loosely round him, a serious impediment to flight. He made a mental note to avoid ulsters in future. A nail had scraped his shin, and when he stopped to rub it he discovered an ugly rent in his trousers. Nellie kept moving. She seemed to know the ways of the yard and threaded the black lumber alleys with ease. They were close together, running rapidly, when she paused suddenly. Just ahead of them in a cross-alley a lantern flashed. It was the lumber company’s private watchman. He stopped uncertainly, swung his lantern into the lane where the trio waited, and hurried on.
They were halfway across the yard as near as Burgess could judge, hugging the lumber piles closely and stopping frequently to listen, when they were arrested by a sound behind. The moon had again swung free of clouds and its light flooded the yard. The distance of half a block behind a policeman stood in the alley they had just traversed. He loomed like a heroic statue in his uniform overcoat and helmet. His shout rang through the yard.
“Beat it!” cried Nellie.
Nellie was off as she gave the word. They struck a well-beaten cross-alley—a main thoroughfare of the yard—and sprinted off at a lively gait. It was in Burgess’s mind that it was of prime importance that Drake should escape—it was to aid the former convict that he had involved himself in this predicament; and even if the wedding had to be abandoned and the girl left behind it was better than for them all to be caught. He was keeping as close as possible to Bob, but the young man ran with incredible swiftness; and he now dodged into one of the narrower paths and vanished.
The yard seemed more intricate than ever with its network of paths, along which the lumber stacks rose fantastically. Looking over his shoulder, Burgess saw that the single policeman had been reenforced by another man. It was a real pursuit now—there was no belittling that fact. A revolver barked and a fusillade followed. Then the moon was obscured and the yard was black again. Burgess felt himself jammed in between two tall lumber piles.
“Climb! Get on top quick and lie down!”
Nellie was already mounting; he felt for the strips that are thrust between planks to keep them from rotting, grasped them and gained the top. It was a solid pile and it lifted him twenty feet above the ground. He threw himself flat just as the pursuers rushed by; and when they were gone he sat up and nursed his knees. He marked Nellie’s position by her low laugh. He was glad she laughed. He was glad she was there!
Fifty yards away a light flashed—a policeman had climbed upon a tall pile of lumber and was whipping about him with a dark lantern.
“It will take them all night to cover this yard that way,” she whispered, edging close. “They’re crossing the yard the way women do when they’re trying to drive chickens into a coop. They won’t find Bob unless they commit burglary.”
“How’s that?” asked Burgess, finding a broken cigar in his waistcoat pocket and chewing the end.
“Oh, I gave him the key to the office and told him to sit on the safe. It’s a cinch they won’t look for him there; and we’ve got all night to get him out.”
Burgess was flattered by the plural. Her good humor was not without its effect on him. The daughter of the retired yeggman was a new kind of girl, and one he was glad to add to his collection of feminine types. He wished she would laugh oftener.
The president of the White River National Bank, perched on a pile of lumber on a wet January evening with a girl he knew only as his accomplice in an escapade that it would be very difficult to explain to a cynical world, reflected that at about this hour his wife, hardly a mile distant, in one of the handsomest houses in town, was dressing for dinner to be ready to greet a guest, who was the most valiant member of the sedate House of Bishops. And Webster G. Burgess assured himself that he was not a bit frightened; he had been pursued by detectives and police and shot at—and yet he was less annoyed than when the White River National lost an account, or an ignorant new member preempted his favorite seat in the University Club dining room. He had lost both the sense of fear and the sense of shame; and he marveled at his transformation and delighted in it.
“How long will it be before that begins to bore them, Nellie?” he remarked casually, as though he were speaking to a girl he had known always, in a cozy corner at a tea.
The answer was unexpected and it did not come from Nellie. He heard the scraping of feet, and immediately a man loomed against the sky not thirty feet away and began sweeping the neighboring stacks with an electric lamp; its rays struck Burgess smartly across the face. He hung and jumped; and as he let go the light flashed again and an automatic barked.
“Lord! It’s Hill!” he gasped.
As he struck the ground he experienced a curious tingle on the left side of his head above the ear—it was as though a hot needle had been drawn across it. The detective yelled and fired another shot to attract the attention of the other pursuers. Nellie was already down and ready for flight. She grasped Burgess’s arm and hurried him over and between unseen obstacles. There seemed to be no method of locomotion to which he was not urged—climbing, crawling, running, edging in between seeming Gibraltars of lumber. From a low pile she leaped to a higher, and on up until they were thirty feet above the ground; then it seemed to amuse her to jump from pile to pile until they reached earth again. Running over uneven lumber piles in the dark, handicapped by an absurd ulster, does not make for ease, grace or security—and wet lumber has a disagreeable habit of being slippery.
They trotted across an open space and crept under a shingle shed.
“Good place to rest,” panted Nellie—and he dropped down beside her on a bundle of shingles. The rain fell monotonously upon the low roof of their shelter.
“That’s a pretty picture,” said the girl dreamily.
Burgess, breathing like a husky bellows, marveled at her. What had interested her was the flashing of electric lamps from the tops of the lumber piles, where the pursuers had formed a semicircle and were closing in on the spot where the quarry had disappeared. They were leaping from stack to stack, shooting their lamps ahead.
“The lights dancing round that way are certainly picturesque,” observed Burgess. “Whistler would have done a charming nocturne of this. I doubt whether those fellows know what a charm they impart to the mystical, moist night. The moving pictures ought to have this. What’s our next move?” he asked, mopping his wet face with his handkerchief.
“I’ve got to get Bob out of the office and then take a long jump. And right here’s a good time for you to skedaddle. You can drop into the alley back of this shed and walk home.”
“Thanks—but nothing like that! I’ve got to see you married and safely off. I’d never dare look Gordon in the face if I didn’t.”
“I thought you were like that,” she said gently, and his heart bounded at her praise. She stole away into the shadows, and he stared off at the dancing lights where the police continued their search.
Far away the banker saw the aura of the city, and he experienced again a sensation of protest and rebellion. He wondered whether this was the feeling of the hunted man—the man who is tracked and driven and shot at! He, Webster G. Burgess, had been the target of a bullet; and, contrary to every rule of the life in which he had been reared, he was elated to have been the mark for a detective’s gun. He knew that he should feel humiliated—that he owed it to himself, to his wife waiting for him at home, to his friends, to society itself, to walk out and free himself of the odium that would attach to a man of his standing who had run with the hare when his place by all the canons was with the hounds. And then, too, this low-browed criminal was not the man for a girl like Nellie to marry—he could not free himself of that feeling.
As he pondered this she stole back to his hiding-place. The ease, lightness and deftness with which she moved amazed him; he had not known she was near until he heard Drake’s heavier step beside her.
“Bob’s here, all right. We must march again,” she said.
She explained her plan and the three started off briskly, reached a fence—the world seemed to be a tangle of fences!—and dropped over into a coalyard. Burgess was well muddled again, but Nellie never hesitated. It had grown colder; heavier clouds had drifted across the heavens and snow began to fall. They reached the farther bound of the coalyard safely; and as they were about to climb out a dog yelped and rushed at them.
“I forgot about that dog! Over, quick! The watchman for this yard is probably back there playing with the police, or else he’s hiding himself,” said Nellie.
This proved to be the most formidable fence of the series for Burgess, and his companions got him over with difficulty just as a dog snapped at his legs. They landed in a tangle of ice-covered weeds and lay still a moment. Bob was in bad humor, and kept muttering and cursing.
“Chuck it, Bob!” said Nellie sharply.
They were soon jumping across the railroad switches and could see the canal stretching toward the city, marked by a succession of well-lighted bridges.
“They’ll pinch us here! Nellie, you little fool, if you hadn’t steered me to that office I’d ’a’ been out o’ this!”
He swore under his breath and Burgess cordially hated him for swearing at the girl. But, beyond doubt, the pursuers had caught the scent and were crossing the coalyard. They heard plainly the sounds of men running and shouting. Bob seized Nellie and there was a sharp tussle.
“For God’s sake, trust me, Bob! Take this; don’t let him have it!” And she thrust a revolver into Burgess’s hand. “Better be caught than that! Mind the bank here and keep close together. Good dog—he’s eating the cops!” And she laughed her delicious mirthful laugh. A pistol banged and the dog barked no more.
The three were now on the ice of the canal, spreading out to distribute their weight. The day had been warm enough to soften the ice and it cracked ominously as the trio sped along. Half a dozen bridges were plainly in sight toward the city and Burgess got his bearings again. Four blocks away was his motor and the big car was worth making a break for at any hazard. They stopped under the second bridge and heard the enemy charging over the tracks and out upon the ice. A patrol wagon clanged on a bridge beyond the coalyard and a whistle blew.
A sergeant began bawling orders and half a dozen men were sent to reconnoiter the canal. As they advanced they swept the banks with their electric lamps and conferred with scouts flung along the banks. The snow fell steadily.
“We can’t hold this much longer,” said Nellie; and as she spoke there was a wild shout from the party advancing over the ice. The lamps of several policemen shot wildly into the sky and there were lusty bawls for help.
“A bunch of fat cops breaking through the ice!” chuckled the girl, hurrying on.
They gained a third bridge safely, Nellie frequently admonishing Bob to stick close to her. It was clear enough to Burgess that Drake wanted to be rid of him and the girl and take charge of his own destiny. Burgess had fallen behind and was feeling his way under the low bridge; Nellie was ahead, and the two men were for the moment flung together.
“Gi’ me my gun! I ain’t goin’ to be pinched this trip. Gi’ me the gun!”
“Keep quiet; we’re all in the same boat!” panted Burgess, whose one hundred and seventy pounds, as registered on the club scales that very day after luncheon, had warned him that he was growing pulpy.
The rails on the bank began to hum, and a switch engine, picking up cars in the neighboring yards, puffed along the bank. Burgess felt himself caught suddenly round the neck and before he knew what was happening landed violently on his back. He struggled to free himself, but Bob gripped his throat with one hand and snatched the revolver from his pocket with the other. It was all over in a minute. The rattle of the train drowned the sound of the attack, and when Nellie ran back to urge them on Burgess was just getting on his feet and Bob had vanished.
“I couldn’t stop him—he grabbed the gun and ran,” Burgess explained. “He must have jumped on that train.”
“Poor Bob!” She sighed deeply; a sob broke from her. Her arms went around Burgess’s neck. “Poor Bob! Poor old Bob!”
The locomotive bell clanged remotely. It was very still, and Mr. Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, stood there under a canal bridge with the arms of a sobbing girl round his neck! Under all the circumstances it was wholly indefensible, and the absurdity of it was not lost upon him. Drake had bolted, and all this scramble with the ex-convict and his sweetheart had come to naught.
“He’ll get away; he was desperate and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t even wait for the money Gordon sent me!”
“Oh!”—she faltered, and her breath was warm on his cheek—“that wasn’t Drake!”
“It wasn’t Robert Drake?” Burgess blurted. “Not Drake?”
“No; it was Bob, my stepbrother. He got into trouble in Kentucky and came here to hide, and I was trying to help him; and I’ll miss Robert—and you’ve spoiled your clothes—and they shot at you!”
“It was poor shooting,” said Burgess critically as the red feather brushed his nose; “but we’ve got to clear out of this or we’ll be in the patrol wagon in a minute!”
It was his turn now to take the initiative. His first serious duty was to become a decent, law-abiding citizen again, and he meant to effect the transformation as quickly as possible. He began discreetly by unclasping the girl’s arms.
“Stop crying, Nellie—you did the best you could for Bob; and now we’ll get out of this and tackle Drake’s case. When that wagon that’s coming has crossed this bridge we’ll stroll over to Senate Avenue, where my car’s waiting, and beat it.”
The policemen had been pried out of the ice and the search continued, though the spirit seemed to have gone out of it. The scouting party had scattered among the grim factories along the railway tracks. Bob had presumably been borne out of the zone of danger and there was nothing more to be done for him.
They waited to make sure they were not watched and then crawled up the bank into Vevay Street. The rapidly falling snow enfolded them protectingly. Now that life had grown more tranquil Burgess became conscious that the scratch above his left ear had not ceased tingling. It was with real emotion that Webster G. Burgess reflected that he had escaped death by a hairbreadth. He meant to analyze that emotion later at his leisure. The grazing of his head by that bullet marked the high moment of his life; the memory of it would forever be the chief asset among all his experiences. There was a wet line down his cheek to his shirt collar that he had supposed to be perspiration; but his handkerchief now told another story. He turned up the collar of his buttonless ulster to hide any tell-tale marks of his sins and knocked his battered cap into shape. Glancing down at Nellie, he saw that the red feather had not lost its jauntiness, and she tripped along placidly, as though nothing unusual had happened; but as they passed opposite the Murdock house, where a lone policeman patrolled the walk, her hand tightened on his arm and he heard her saying, as though to herself:
“Goodby, house! Goodby, dad and mother! I’ll never be back any more.”
Burgess quickly shut the door of the tonneau upon Nellie; he had cranked the machine and was drawing on the chauffeur’s gauntlets, which he had found in the driver’s seat, when the druggist ran out and accosted him.
“Hello, Miller! Seen anything of my chauffeur?”
“I guess he’s out with the police,” the man answered excitedly; “they’ve been chasing a bunch o’ crooks over there somewhere. Two or three people have been shot. There was a woman mixed up in the scrimmage, but she got away.”
“Yes; it was a big fight—a whole gang of toughs! I took a short dash with the police myself, and fell over a dead man and scratched my ear. No, thanks; I’ll fix it up later. By-the-way, when my man turns up you might tell him to come home—if that harmonizes with his own convenience.” He stepped into the car. “Oh, has the plumber fixed that drain for you yet? Well, the agent ought to look after such things. Call me up in a day or two if he doesn’t attend to it.”
It was rather cheering, on the whole, to be in the open again, and he lingered, relishing his freedom, his immunity from molestation. The very brick building before which he stood gave him a sense of security; he was a reputable citizen and property owner—not to be trifled with by detectives and policemen. A newspaper reporter whom he knew jumped from a passing street car, recognized him and asked excitedly where the bodies had been taken.
“They’re stacked up like cordwood,” answered Burgess, “over in the lumber-yard. Some of the cops went crazy and are swimming in the canal. Young lady—guest of my wife—and I came over to look after sick family, and ran into the show. I joined the hunt for a while, but it wasn’t any good. You’ll find the survivors camped along the canal bank waiting for reenforcements.”
He lighted a cigarette, jumped in and drove the car toward home for half a dozen blocks—then lowered the speed so that he could speak to the girl. He was half sorry the adventure was over; but there yet remained his obligation to do what he could for Drake—if that person could be found.
“You must let me go now,” said Nellie earnestly; “the police will wake up and begin looking for me, and you’ve had trouble enough. And it was rotten for me to work you to help get Bob off! You’d better have stayed in the house; but I knew you would help—and I was afraid Bob would kill somebody. Please let me out right here!”
Her hand was on the latch.
“Oh, never in this world! I have no intention of letting the police take you—you haven’t done anything but try to help your brother, like the fine girl you are; and that’s all over. Where’s Drake?”
Her gravity passed instantly and her laugh greeted his ears again. He was running the car slowly along a curb, his head bent to hear.
“Listen! Robert telephoned just as I was leaving the office. I told him to keep away from the house. When I saw you in the bank I knew Bob was here, but I thought he’d be out of the way; but he wouldn’t go until dark, and I would have telephoned you but I was afraid. I really meant to tell you at the house that Robert wasn’t there and wouldn’t be there; but Bob was so ugly I made you go with us, because I wanted your help. I thought if they nailed us you would pull Bob through. And now you don’t really mind—do you?” she concluded tearfully.
“Well, what about Drake? If he’s still——”
She bent closer and he heard her murmurous laugh again.
“I told Robert I’d meet him at the courthouse—by the steps nearest the police station—at seven o’clock. That’s the safest place I could think of.”
Burgess nodded and the machine leaped forward.
“We’ve got ten minutes to keep that date, Nellie. But I’m going to be mighty late for dinner!”
As Nellie jumped from the car at the courthouse a young man stepped out of the shadows instantly. Only a few words passed between them. Burgess opened the door for them and touched his hat as he snapped on the electric bulb in the tonneau. Glancing round when he had started the car, Burgess saw that Drake had clasped Nellie’s hand; and there was a resolute light in the young man’s eyes—his face had the convict’s pallor, but he looked sound and vigorous. On the whole, Robert Drake fulfilled the expectations roused by Gordon’s letter—he was neatly dressed, and his voice and manner bespoke the gentleman. One or two questions put by the banker he answered reassuringly. He had reached the city at five o’clock and had not been interfered with in any way.
As they rolled down Washington Street a patrol passed them, moving slowly toward the police station. Burgess fancied there was dejection in the deliberate course of the wagon homeward, and he grinned to himself; but when he looked around Nellie’s face was turned away from the street toward the courthouse clock, to which she had drawn Drake’s attention as the wagon passed.
“Are you and Nellie going to be married? That’s the first question.”
“Yes, sir; it’s all on the square. There’s a lawyer here who got me out of a scrape once and he helped me get the license. If you’ll take us to a minister—that’s all we want.”
“Oh, the minister will be easy!”
“Now,” he said as they reached his home, “come along with me and do exactly what I tell you. And don’t be scared!”
The evening had been full of surprises, but he meant now to cap the series of climaxes, that had mounted so rapidly, with another that should give perfect symmetry to the greatest day of his life. They entered the house through a basement door and gained the second floor by the back stairs. Nora, his wife’s maid, came from one of the rooms and he gave her some orders.
“This is Miss Murdock. She’s just come in from a long journey and I wish you would help her touch up a bit. Go into Mrs. Burgess’s room and get anything you need. Miss Murdock has lost her bag, and has to be off again in half an hour; so fix up a suitcase for her—you’ll know how. It will be all right with Mrs. Burgess. How far’s the dinner got? Just had salad? All right. Come with me, Drake.”
In his own dressing room he measured the young man with his eye. Mindful of Gordon’s injunction that Drake might be picked up by the police, he went into the guest-room, tumbled over the effects of the Bishop of Shoshone and threw out a worn sackcoat, a clerical waistcoat and trousers, and handed them to his guest.
Webster G. Burgess prided himself on being able to dress in ten minutes; in fifteen on this occasion he not only refreshed himself with a shower but tended his bruises and fitted a strip of invisible plaster to the bullet scratch above his ear. His doffed business suit and ulster he flung into the laundry basket in the bathroom; then he went into the guest-room to speak to Drake.
“It was bully of you to stand by Nellie in her trouble!” said Drake with feeling. “I guess you came near getting pinched.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” remarked Burgess, shooting his cuffs with the air of a gentleman to whom a brush with the police is only part of the day’s work.
“Nellie told me about it, coming up in the machine. I guess you’re a good sport, all right.”
Webster G. Burgess was conscious of the ex-convict’s admiration; he was not only aware that Drake regarded him admiringly but he found that he was gratified by the approbation of this man who had cracked safes and served time for it.
“Nellie is a great girl!” said Burgess, to change the subject. “I believe you mean to be good to her. You’re a mighty lucky boy to have a girl like that ready to stand by you! Here’s some money Gordon asked me to give you. And here’s something for Nellie, a check—one thousand—Saxby will cash it for you at New Orleans. Please tell your wife tomorrow that it’s my wife’s little wedding gift, in token of Nellie’s kindness in keeping me out of jail. Now where’s that marriage license? Good! There’s a bishop in this house who will marry you; we’ll go down and pull it off in a jiffy. Then you can have a nibble of supper and we’ll take you to the station. There’s a train for the South at eight-twenty.”
Nellie was waiting in the hall when they went out. Nora had dressed her hair, and bestowed upon her a clean collar and a pair of white gloves. She had exchanged her shabby, wet tan shoes for a new pair Mrs. Burgess had imported from New York. The mud acquired in the scramble through the lumber-yard had been carefully scraped from her skirt. Voices were heard below.
“They’ve just come in from dinner,” said the maid, “Shall I tell Bridget to keep something for you?”
“Yes—something for three, to be on the table in fifteen minutes.”
Mrs. Webster G. Burgess always maintains that nothing her husband may do can shock her. When her husband had not appeared at seven she explained to her guest that he had been detained by an unexpected meeting of a clearing-house committee, it being no harder to lie to a bishop than to any one else when a long-suffering woman is driven to it. She was discussing with the Bishop of Shoshone the outrageously feeble support of missionaries in the foreign field when she heard steps on the broad stair that led down to the ample hall. A second later her husband appeared at the door with a young woman on his arm—a young woman who wore a hat with a red feather. This picture had hardly limned itself upon her acute intelligence before she saw, just behind her husband and the strange girl, a broad-shouldered young clergyman who bore himself quite as though accustomed to appearing unannounced in strange houses.
The banker stepped forward, shook hands with the bishop cordially, and carried off the introductions breezily.
“Sorry to be late, Gertie; but you know how it is!” Whereas, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Burgess did not know at all how it was. “Bishop, these young people wish to be married. Their time is short, as they have a train to make. Just how they came to be here is a long story, and it will have to wait. If you see anything familiar in Mr. Drake’s clothes please don’t be distressed, I’ve always intended doing something for your new cathedral, and you shall have a check and the price of a new suit early in the morning. And, Gertie”—he looked at his watch—“if you will find a prayerbook we can proceed to business.”
Mrs. Burgess always marveled at her husband’s plausibility, and now she had fresh proof of it. She blinked as he addressed the girl as Nellie; but this was just like Web Burgess!
The Bishop of Shoshone, having married cowboys and Indians in all manner of circumstances in his rough diocese, calmly began the service.
At the supper table they were all very merry except Nellie, whose face, carefully watched by Mrs. Burgess, grew grave at times—and once her eyes filled with tears; her young bridegroom spoke hardly at all. Burgess and the bishop, however, talked cheerfully of old times together, and they rose finally amid the laughter evoked by one of the bishop’s stories. Burgess said he thought it would be nice if they all went to the station to give the young people a good sendoff for their long journey; and afterward they could look in at a concert, for which he had tickets, and hear Sembrich sing.
“After a busy day,” he remarked, meeting Nellie’s eyes at one of her tearful moments, “there’s nothing like a little music to quiet the nerves—and this has been the greatest day of my life!”
The president of the White River National Bank was late in reaching his desk the next morning. When he crossed the lobby he limped slightly; and his secretary, in placing the mail before him, noticed a strip of plaster above his left ear. His “Good morning!” was very cheery and he plunged into work with his usual energy.
He had dictated a telegram confirming a bond deal that would net him fifty thousand dollars, when his name was spoken by a familiar voice. Swinging round to the railing with calculated deliberation he addressed his visitor in the casual tone established by their intimacy:
“Hello, Hill—looking for me?”
“Nope; not yet!”
Both men grinned as their eyes met.
“Has the charming Miss Murdock been in this morning?” asked the detective, glancing toward the tellers’ cages.
“Haven’t seen her yet. Hope you’re not infatuated with the girl.”
“Only in what you might call an artistic sense; I think we agreed yesterday that she’s rather pleasing to the jaded eyesight. See the papers?”
“What’s in the papers?” asked the banker, feeling absently for a report a clerk had laid on his desk.
“Oh, a nice little muss out on Vevay Street last night! The cops made a mess of it of course. Old Murdock’s son Bob shot a constable in Kentucky and broke for the home plate to get some money, and I’d had a wire to look out for him when I was in here yesterday. He handled some very clever phony money in this district a while back. I went out to Vevay Street to take a look at him—and found the police had beat me to it! The cash Nellie drew yesterday was for him.”
“Of course you got him!”
“No,” said Hill; “he made a getaway, all right. It was rather funny though——”
“The chase he gave us. You don’t mean you haven’t heard about it!”
Burgess clasped his hands behind his head and yawned.
“I’ve told you repeatedly, Hill, that I don’t read criminal news. It would spoil the fun of hearing you explain your own failures.”
“Well, I won’t bore you with this. I only want you to understand that it was the police who made a fluke of it. But I can’t deny those Murdocks do interest me a good deal.”
He bent his keen eyes upon the banker for a second and grinned. Burgess returned the grin.
“I’ve got to speak before the Civic League on our municipal government tomorrow night, and I’ll throw something about the general incompetence of our police force—it’s undoubtedly rotten!”
The detective lingered.
“By-the-way, I nearly overlooked this. Seems to be a silver card-case, with your name neatly engraved on the little tickets inside. I picked it up on the ice last night when I was skating on the canal. I’m going to keep one of the cards as a souvenir.”
“Perfectly welcome, Tom. You’d better try one of these cigars.”
Hill chose a cigar with care from the extended box and lighted it. Burgess swung round to his desk, turned over some letters, and then looked up as though surprised to find the detective still there.
“Looking for me, Tom?”
“No; not yet!”