The White Moll

by Frank L. Packard

  VIII. THE CODE MESSAGE

  It was strange! Most strange! Three days had passed, and to Gypsy Nan'slodging no one had come. The small crack under the partition that hadbeen impressed into service as a letter-box had remained empty. Therehad been no messages--nothing--only a sinister, brooding isolation.Since the night Rhoda Gray had left Danglar, balked, almost a madman inhis fury, in the little room over Shluker's junk shop, Danglar had notbeen seen--nor the Adventurer--nor even Rough Rorke. Her only visitantsince then had been an ugly premonition of impending peril, which cameand stalked like a hideous ghost about the bare and miserable garret,and which woke her at night with its whispering voice--which was thevoice of intuition.

  Rhoda Gray drew her shawl closer around her shoulders and shivered, asnow, from shuffling down the block in the guise of Gypsy Nan, she haltedbefore the street door of what fate, for the moment, had thrust upon heras a home; and shivered again, as, with abhorrence, she pushed the dooropen and stepped forward into the black, unlighted hallway. Soul, mindand body were in revolt to-night. Even faith, the simple faith in Godthat she had known since childhood, was wavering. There seemed nothingbut horror around her, a mental horror, a physical horror; and the solemeans of even momentary relief and surcease from it had been a pitifulprowling around the streets, where even the fresh air seemed to bedenied to her, for it was tainted with the smells of squalor that ruled,rampant, in that neighborhood.

  And to-night, stronger than ever, intuition and premonition ofapproaching danger lay heavy upon her, and oppressed her with a sense ofnearness. She was not a coward; but she was afraid. Danglar would leaveno stone unturned to get the White Moll. He had said so. She rememberedthe threat he had made--it had lived in her woman's soul ever since thatnight. Better anything than to fall into Danglar's hands! She caught herbreath a little, and shivered again as she groped her way up the darkstairs. But, then, she never would fall into Danglar's power. There wasalways an alternative. Yes, it was quite as bad as that--death at herown hands was preferable. Balked, outwitted, the plans of the criminalcoterie, of which Danglar appeared to be the head, rendered again andagain abortive, and believing it all due to the White Moll, all ofDanglar's shrewd, unscrupulous cunning would be centered on the taskof running her down; and if, added to this, he discovered that shewas masquerading as Gypsy Nan, one of their own inner circle, it meanthat--She closed her lips in a hard, tight line. She did not wantto think of it. She had fought all day, and the days before, againstthinking about it, but premonition had crept upon her stronger andstronger, until to-night, now, it seemed as though her mind could dwellon nothing else.

  On the landing, she paused suddenly and listened. The street door hadopened and closed, and now a footstep sounded on the stairs behind her.She went on again along the hall, feeling her way; and reaching theshort, ladder-like steps to the garret, she began to mount them. Whowas it there behind her? One of the unknown lodgers on the lower floor,or--? She could not see, of course. It was pitch black. But she couldhear. And as she knelt now on the narrow landing, and felt with herfingers along the floor for the aperture, where, imitating the customof Gypsy Nan, she had left her key when she went out, she heard thefootsteps coming steadily on, passing the doors below her, and makingtoward the garret ladder. And then, stifling a startled little cry, herhand closed on the key, and closed, as it had closed on that first nightwhen she had returned here in the role of Gypsy Nan, on a piece ofpaper wrapped around the key. The days of isolation were ended withclimacteric effect; the pendulum had swung full the other way--to-nightthere was both a visitor and a message!

  The paper detached from the key and thrust into her bodice, she stood upquickly. A form, looming up even in the darkness, showed on the garretstairs. "Who's dere?" she croaked.

  "It's all right," a voice answered in low tones. "You were just ahead ofme on the street. I saw you come in. It's Pierre."

  Pierre! So that was his name! It was only the voice she recognized.Pierre--Danglar! She fumbled for the keyhole, found it, and inserted thekey. "Well, how's Bertha to-night?"

  There seemed to be a strange exhilaration in the man's voice. He wasstanding beside her now, close beside her, and now his hand played witha curiously caressing motion on her shoulder. The touch seemed to scorchand burn her. Who was this Danglar, who was Pierre to her, and to whomshe was Bertha? Her breath came quickly in spite of herself; there came,too, a frenzy of aversion, and impulsively she flung his hand away, andwith the door unlocked now, stepped from him into the garret.

  "Feeling a bit off color, eh?" he said with a short laugh, as hefollowed her, and shut the door behind him. "Well, I don't know as Iblame you. But, look here, old girl, have a heart! It's not my fault.I know what you're grouching about--it's because I haven't been aroundmuch lately. But you ought to know well enough that I couldn't help it.Our game has been crimped lately at every turn by that she-devil, theWhite Moll, and that dude pal of hers." He laughed out again--insavage menace now. "I've been busy. Understand, Bertha? It was eitherourselves, or them. We've got to go under--or they have. And we won't! Ipromise you that! Things'll break a little better before long, and I'llmake it up to you."

  She could not see him in the blackness of the garret. She breathed aprayer of gratitude that he could not see her. Her face, in spite ofGipsy Nan's disguising grime, must be white, white as death itself. Itseemed to plumb some infamous depth from which her soul recoiled, thisapology of his for his neglect of her. And then her hands at hersides curled into tight-clenched little fists as she strove to controlherself. His words, at least, supplied her with her cue.

  "Of course!" she said tartly, but in perfect English--the vernacular ofGypsy Nan was not for Danglar, for she remembered only too well howonce before it had nearly tripped her up. "But you didn't come here toapologize! What is it you want?"

  "Ah, I say, Bertha!" he said appeasingly. "Cut that out! I couldn't helpbeing away, I tell you. Of course, I didn't come here to apologize--Ithought you'd understand well enough without that. The gang's out ofcash, and I came to tap the reserves. Let me have a package of the longgreen, Bertha."

  It was a moment before she spoke. Her woman's instinct prompted her tolet down the bars between them in no single degree, that her protectionlay in playing up to the full what Danglar, jumping at conclusions, hadassumed was a grouch at his neglect. Also, her mind worked quickly.Her own clothes were no longer in the secret hiding place here inthe garret; they were out there in that old shed in the lane. It wasperfectly safe, then, to let Danglar go to the hiding place himself,assuming that he knew where it was--which, almost of necessity, he must.

  "Oh!" she said ungraciously. "Well, you know where it is, don't you?Suppose you go and get it yourself!"

  "All right!" returned Danglar, a sullenness creeping into his voice."Have it your own way, Bertha! I haven't got time to-night to coaxyou out of your tantrums. That's what you want, but I haven't gottime--to-night."

  She did not answer.

  A match crackled in Danglar's hand; the flames spurted up through thedarkness. Danglar made his way over to the rickety washstand, found thecandle that was stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, lighted it, heldthe candle above his head, and stared around the garret.

  "Why the devil don't you get another lamp?" he grumbled--and startedtoward the rear of the garret.

  Rhoda Gray watched him silently. She did not care to explain that shehad not replaced the lamp for the very simple reason that it gave fartoo much light here in the garret to be safe--for her! She watched him,with her hand in the pocket of her greasy skirt clutched around anotherlegacy of Gypsy Nan--her revolver. And now she became conscious thatfrom the moment she had entered the garret, her fingers, hidden in thatpocket, had sought and clung to the weapon. The man filled her withdetestation and fear; and somehow she feared him more now in what he wastrying to make an ingratiating mood, than she had feared him in the fullflood of his rage and anger that other night at Shluker's place.

  She drew back a little toward the c
ot bed against the wall, drew back togive him free passage to the door when he should return again, her eyesstill holding on the far end of the garret, where, with the slope of theroof, the ceiling was no more than shoulder high. There seemed somethinghorribly weird and grotesque in the scene before her. He had pushed thenarrow trap-door in the ceiling upward, and had thrust candle andhead through the opening, and the faint yellow light, seeping back anddownward in flickering, uncertain rays, suggested the impression ofa gruesome, headless figure standing there hazily outlined in thesurrounding murk. It chilled her; she clutched at her shawl, drew itmore closely about her, and edged still nearer to the wall.

  And then Danglar closed the trap-door again, and came back with thecandle in one hand, and one of the bulky packages of banknotes from thehiding place in the other. He set the candle down on the washstand, andbegan to distribute the money through his various pockets.

  He was smiling with curious complacency.

  "It was your job to play the spider to the White Moll if she ever showedup again here in your parlor," he said. "Maybe somebody tipped her offto keep away, maybe she was too wily; but, anyway, since you have notsent out any word, it is evident that our little plans along thatline didn't work, since she has failed to come back to pay a call ofgratitude to you. I don't suppose there's anything to add to that, eh,Bertha? No report to make?"

  "No," said Rhoda Gray shortly. "I haven't any report to make."

  "Well, no matter!" said Danglar. He laughed out shortly. "There areother ways! She's had her fling at our expense; it's her turn to paynow." He laughed again--and in the laugh now there was somethingboth brutal in its menace, and sinister in its suggestion of gloatingtriumph.

  "What do you mean?" demanded Rhoda Gray quickly. "What are you going todo?"

  "Get her!" said Danglar. The man's passion flamed up suddenly; he spokethrough his closed teeth. "Get her! I made her a little promise. I'mgoing to keep it! Understand?"

  "You've been saying that for quite a long time," retorted Rhoda Graycoolly. "But the 'getting' has been all the other way so far. How areyou going to get her?"

  Danglar's little black eyes narrowed, and he thrust his head forward andout from his shoulders savagely. In the flickering candle light, withcontorted face and snarling lips, he looked again the beast to which shehad once likened him.

  "Never mind how I'm going to get her!" he flung out, with an oath. "Itold you I'd been busy. That's enough! You'll see--"

  Rhoda Gray, in the semi-darkness, shrugged her shoulders. Was the man,prompted by rage and fury, simply making wild threats, or had he at lastsome definite and perhaps infallible plan that he purposed putting intooperation? She did not know; and, much as it meant to her, she didnot dare take the risk of arousing suspicion by pressing the question.Failing, then, to obtain any intimation of what he meant to do, the nextthing most to be desired was to get rid of him.

  "You've got the money. That's what you came for, wasn't it?" shesuggested coldly.

  He stared at her for a moment, and then his face gradually lost itsscowl.

  "You're a rare one, Bertha!" he exclaimed admiringly. "Yes; I've got themoney--and I'm going. In fact, I'm in a hurry, so don't worry! You gotthe dope, like everybody else, for to-night, didn't you? It was sent outtwo hours ago."

  The dope! It puzzled her for the fraction of a second--and then sheremembered the paper she had thrust into the bodice of her dress. Shehad not read it. She lunged a little in the dark.

  "Yes," she said curtly.

  "All right!" he said-and moved toward the door. "That explains why I'min a hurry--and why I can't stop to oil that grouch out of you. But I'llkeep my promise to you, too, old girl. I'll make up the last few days toyou. Have a heart, eh, Bertha! 'Night!"

  She did not answer him. It seemed as though an unutterable dread hadsuddenly been lifted from her, as he passed out of the door and beganto descend the steps to the hall below. Her "grouch," he had calledit. Well, it had served its purpose! It was just as well that he shouldthink so! She followed to the door, and deliberately slammed it with abang. And from below, his laugh, more an amused chuckle, echoed back andanswered her.

  And then, for a long time she stood there by the door, a little weakwith the revulsion of relief upon her, her hands pressed hard againsther temples, staring unseeingly about the garret. He was gone. He filledher with terror. Every instinct she possessed, every fiber of her beingrevolted against him. He was gone. Yes, he was gone--for the time being.But--but what was the end of all this to be?

  She shook her head after a moment, shook it helplessly and wearily, as,finally, she walked over to the washstand, took the piece of paper fromthe bodice of her dress, and spread it out under the candle light. Aglance showed her that it was in cipher. There was the stub of a pencil,she remembered, in the washstand drawer, and, armed with this, and apiece of wrapping paper that had once enveloped one of Gypsy Nan's ginbottles, she took up the candle, crossed the garret, and sat down on theedge of the cot, placing the candle on the chair in front of her.

  If the last three days had been productive of nothing else, they had atleast furnished her with the opportunity of studying the notebook shehad found in the secret hiding place, and of making herself conversantwith the gang's cipher; and she now set to work upon it. It was anumerical cipher. Each letter of the alphabet in regular rotation wasrepresented by its corresponding numeral; a zero was employed to set offone letter from another, and the addition of the numerals between thezeros indicated the number of the letter involved. Also, there being buttwenty-six letters in the alphabet, it was obvious that the addition ofthree nines, which was twenty-seven, could not represent any letter,and the combination of 999 was therefore used to precede any of thearbitrary groups of numerals which were employed to express phrases andsentences, such as the 739 that she had found scrawled on the piece ofpaper around her key on the first night she had come here, and which,had it been embodied in a message and not preceded by the 999, wouldhave meant simply the addition of seven, three and nine, that is,nineteen--and therefore would indicate the nineteenth letter of thealphabet, S.

  Rhoda Gray copied the first line of the message on the piece of wrappingpaper:

  321010333203202306663103330111102210444202101112052110761

  Adding the numerals between the zeros, and giving to each itscorresponding letter, she set down the result:

  6010110505022090405014030509014 f a k e e v i d e n c e i n

  It was then but a matter of grouping the letters into words; and,decoded, the first line read:

  Fake evidence in......

  She worked steadily on. It was a lengthy message, and it took her a longtime. It was an hour, perhaps more, after Danglar had gone, before shehad completed her task; and then, after that, she sat for still a longtime staring, not at the paper on the chair before her, but at theflickering shadows thrown by the candle on the opposite wall.

  Queer and strange were the undercurrents and the cross-sections oflife that were to be found, amazingly contradictory, amazinglyincomprehensible, once one scratched beneath the surface of the povertyand the squalor, and, yes, the crime, amongst the hiving thousands ofNew York's East Side! In the days--not so very long ago--when, asthe White Moll, she had worked amongst these classes, she had on oneoccasion, when he was sick, even kept old Viner in food. She had not, atthe time, failed to realize that the man was grasping, rapacious, evenunthankful, but she had little dreamed that he was a miser worth fiftythousand dollars!

  Her mind swerved off suddenly at a tangent. The tentacles of this crimeoctopus, of which Danglar seemed to be the head, reached far and intomost curious places to fasten and hold and feed on the progeny of humanfoibles! She could not help wondering where the lair was from whichemanated the efficiency and system that, as witness this code messageto-night, kept its members, perhaps widely scattered, fully informed ofits every movement.

  She shook her head. That was something she had not yet learned; but itw
as something she must learn if ever she hoped to obtain the evidencethat would clear her of the crime that circumstances had fastened uponher. And yet she had made no move in that direction, because--well,because, so far, it had seemed all she could do to protect and safeguardherself in her present miserable existence and surroundings, which,abhorrent as they were, alone stood between her and a prison cell.

  Her forehead gathered into little furrows; and, reverting to the codemessage, her thoughts harked back to a well-known crime, the authorshipof which still remained a mystery, and which had stirred the East Sidesome two years ago. A man--in the vernacular of the underworld a "stagehand"--by the name of Kroner, credited with having a large amount ofcash, the proceeds of some nefarious transaction, in his possessionon the night in question, was found murdered in his room in an old andtumble-down tenement of unsavory reputation. The police net had gatheredin some of the co-tenants on suspicion; Nicky Viner, referred to in thecode message, amongst them. But nothing had come of the investigation.There had been no charge of collusion between the suspects; but Perlmer,a shyster lawyer, had acted for them all collectively, and, one and all,they had been discharged. In what degree Perlmer's services had been ofactual value had never been ascertained, for the police, through lackof evidence, had been obliged to drop the case; but the underworld hadwhispered to itself. There was such a thing as suppressing evidence,and Perlmer was known to have the cunning of a fox, and a code of moralsthat never stood in the way, or restricted him in any manner.

  The code message threw a new light on all this. Perlmer must have knownthat old Nicky Viner had money, for, according to the code message,Perlmer prepared a fake set of affidavits and forged a chain of fakeevidence with which he had blackmailed Nicky Viner ever since; and NickyViner, known as a dissolute, shady character, innocent enough of thecrime, but afraid because his possession of money if made public wouldtell against him, and frightened because he had already been arrestedonce on suspicion for that very crime, had whimpered--and paid. Andthen, somehow, Danglar and the gang had discovered that the old, seedy,stoop-shouldered, bearded, down-at-the-heels Nicky Viner was not allthat he seemed; that he was a miser, and had a hoard of fifty thousanddollars--and Danglar and the gang had set out to find that hoard andappropriate it. Only they had not succeeded. But in their search theyhad stumbled upon Perlmer's trail, and that was the key to the plan theyhad afoot to-night. If Perlmer's fake and manufactured affidavits wereclever enough and convincing enough to wring money out of Viner forPerlmer, they were more than enough to enable Danglar, employed asDanglar would employ them, to wring from Nicky Viner the secret of wherethe old miser hid his wealth; for Viner would understand that Danglarwas not hampered by having to safeguard himself on account of havingbeen originally connected with the case in a legal capacity, or anycapacity, and therefore in demanding all or nothing, would have no causefor hesitation, failing to get what he wanted, in turning the evidenceover to the police. In other words, where Perlmer had to play his mancautiously and get what he could, Danglar could go the limit and getall. As it stood, then, Danglar and the gang had not found out thelocation of that hoard; but they had found out where Perlmer kept hisspurious papers--stuffed in at the back of the bottom drawer of his deskin his office, practically forgotten, practically useless to Perlmerany more, for, having once shown them to Viner, there was no occasionto call them into service again unless Viner showed signs of gettinga little out of hand and it became necessary to apply the screws oncemore.

  For the rest, it was a very simple matter. Perlmer had an office in asmall building on lower Sixth Avenue, and it was his custom to go tohis office in the evenings and remain there until ten o'clock or so.The plan then, according to the code message, was to loot Perlmer'sdesk some time after the man had gone home for the night, and then, atmidnight, armed with the false documents, to beard old Nicky Viner inhis miserable quarters over on the East Side, and extort from the oldmiser the neat little sum that Danglar estimated would amount to somefifty thousand dollars in cash.

  Rhoda Gray's face was troubled and serious. She found herself wishingfor a moment that she had never decoded the message. But she shook herhead in sharp self-protest the next instant. True, she would have evadedthe responsibility that the criminal knowledge now in her possession hadbrought her; but she would have done so, in that case, deliberately atthe expense of her own self-respect. It would not have excused herin her own soul to have sat staring at a cipher message that she wassatisfied was some criminal plot, and have refused to decode it simplybecause she was afraid a sense of duty would involve her in an effort tofrustrate it. To have sat idly by under those circumstances would havebeen as reprehensible--and even more cowardly--than it would be to sitidly by now that she knew what was to take place. And on that latterscore to-night there was no argument with herself. She found herselfaccepting the fact that she would act, and act promptly, as the onlynatural corollary to the fact that she was in a position to do so.Perhaps it was that way to-night, not only because she had on a previousoccasion already fought this principle of duty out with herself, butbecause to-night, unlike that other night, the way and the means seemedto present no insurmountable difficulties, and because she was now farbetter prepared, and free from all the perplexing, though enormouslyvital, little details that had on the former occasion reared themselvesup in mountainous aspect before her. The purchase of a heavy veil, forinstance, the day after the Hayden-Bond affair, would enable her now tomove about the city in the clothes of the White Moll practically at willand without fear of detection. And, further, the facilities for makingthat change, the change from Gypsy Nan to the White Moll, were nowalready at hand--in the little old shed down the lane.

  And as far as any actual danger that she might incur to-night wasconcerned, it was not great. She was not interested in the fiftythousand dollars in an intrinsic sense; she was interested only inseeing that old Nicky Viner, unappealing, yes, and almost repulsive bothin personality and habits as the man was, was not blackmailed out ofit; that Danglar, yes, and hereafter, Perlmer too, should not preylike vultures on the man, and rob him of what was rightfully his.If, therefore, she secured those papers from Perlmer's desk, itautomatically put an end to Danglar's scheme to-night; and if, later,she saw to it that those papers came into Viner's possession, that, too,automatically ended Perlmer's persecutions. Indeed, there seemed littlelikelihood of any danger or risk at all. It could not be quite ten oclock yet; and it was not likely that whoever was delegated by Danglarto rob Perlmer's office would go there much before eleven anyway, sincethey would naturally allow for the possibility that Perlmer might staylater in his office than usual, a contingency that doubtless accountedfor midnight being set as the hour at which they proposed to lay oldNicky Viner by the heels. Therefore, it seemed almost a certaintythat she would reach there, not only first, but with ample time at herdisposal to secure the papers and get away again without interruption.She might even, perhaps, reach the office before Perlmer himself hadleft--it was still quite early enough for that--but in that case sheneed only remain on watch until the lawyer had locked up and gone away.Nor need even the fact that the office would be locked dismay her.In the secret hiding-place here in the garret, among those many otherevidences of criminal activity, was the collection of skeleton keys,and--she was moving swiftly around the attic now, physically as activeas her thoughts.

  It was not like that other night. There were few preparations to make.She had only to secure the keys and a flashlight, and to take with herthe damp cloth that would remove the grime streaks from her face, andthe box of composition that would enable her to replace them when shecame back--and five minutes later she was on the street, making her waytoward the lane, and, specifically, toward the deserted shed where shehad hidden away her own clothing.