The White Moll

by Frank L. Packard

  XI. SOME OF THE LESSER BREED

  Danglar's wife! It had been a night of horror; a night without sleep;a night, after the guttering candle had gone out, when the blackness ofthe garret possessed added terrors created by an imagination which ranriot, and which she could not control. She could have fled from it,screaming in panic-stricken hysteria--but there had been no other placeas safe as that was. Safe! The word seemed to reach the uttermost depthsof irony. Safe! Well, it was true, wasn't it?

  She had not wanted to return there; her soul itself had revolted againstit; but she had dared to do nothing else. And all through that night,huddled on the edge of the cot bed, her fingers clinging tenaciously toher revolver as though afraid for even an instant to relinquish it fromher grasp, listening, listening, always listening for a footstep thatmight come up from that dark hall below, the footstep that wouldclimax all the terrors that had surged upon her, her mind had kept onreiterating, always reiterating those words of the Adventurer--"GypsyNan is Danglar's wife."

  And they were still with her, those words. Daylight had come again, andpassed again, and it was evening once more; but those words remained,insensible to change, immutable in their foreboding. And Rhoda Gray, asGypsy Nan, shuddered now as she scuffled along a shabby street deep inthe heart of the East Side. She was Danglar's wife--by proxy. At dawnthat morning when the gray had come creeping into the miserable atticthrough the small and dirty window panes, she had fallen on her kneesand thanked God she had been spared that footstep. It was strange! Shehad poured out her soul in passionate thankfulness then that Danglarhad not come--and now she was deliberately on her way to seek Danglarhimself! But the daylight had done more than disperse the actual,physical darkness of the past night; it had brought, if not a measure ofrelief, at least a sense of guidance, and the final decision, perilousthough it was, which she meant now to put into execution.

  There was no other way--unless she were willing to admit defeat, to giveup everything, her own good name, her father's name, to run from it alland live henceforth in hiding in some obscure place far away, brandedin the life she would have left behind her as a despicable criminal andthief. And she could not, would not, do this while her intuition, atleast, inspired her with the faith to believe that there was still achance of clearing herself. It was the throw of the dice, perhaps--butthere was no other way. Danglar, and those with him, were at the bottomof the crime of which she was held guilty. She could not go on as shehad been doing, merely in the hope of stumbling upon some clew thatwould serve to exonerate her. There was not time enough for that.Danglar's trap set for herself and the Adventurer last night in oldNicky Viner's room proved that. And the fact that the woman whohad originally masqueraded as Gypsy Nan--as she, Rhoda Gray, wasmasquerading now--was Danglar's wife, proved it a thousandfold more. Shecould no longer remain passive, arguing with herself that it took allher wits and all her efforts to maintain herself in the role of GypsyNan, which temporarily was all that stood between her and prison bars.To do so meant the certainty of disaster sooner or later, and if itmeant that, the need for immediate action of an offensive sort wasimperative.

  And so her mind was made up. Her only chance was to find her way intothe full intimacy of the criminal band of which Danglar was apparentlythe head; to search out its lair and its personnel; to reach to theheart of it; to know Danglar's private movements, and to discover wherehe lived so that she might watch him. It surely was not such a hopelesstask! True, she knew by name and sight scarcely more than three of thiscrime clique, but at least she had a starting point from which to work.There was Shluker's junk shop where she had turned the tables on Danglarand Skeeny on the night they had planned to make the Sparrow their pawn.It was obvious, therefore, that Shluker himself, the proprietor of thejunk shop, was one of the organization. She was going to Shluker's now.

  Rhoda Gray halted suddenly, and stared wonderingly a little way up theblock ahead of her. As though by magic a crowd was collecting aroundthe doorway of a poverty-stricken, tumble-down frame house that madethe corner of an alleyway. And where but an instant before the street'sjostling humanity had been immersed in its wrangling with the push-cartmen who lined the curb, the carts were now deserted by every one savetheir owners, whose caution exceeded their curiosity--and the crowd grewmomentarily larger in front of the house.

  She drew Gypsy Nan's black, greasy shawl a little more closely aroundher shoulders, and moved forward again. And now, on the outskirts of thecrowd, she could see quite plainly. There were two or three low stepsthat led up to the doorway, and a man and woman were standing there. Thewoman was wretchedly dressed, but with most strange incongruity she heldin her hand, obviously subconsciously, obviously quite oblivious of it,a huge basket full to overflowing with, as nearly as Rhoda Gray couldjudge, all sorts of purchases, as though out of the midst of abjectpoverty a golden shower had suddenly descended upon her. And she wasgray, and well beyond middle age, and crying bitterly; and her freehand, whether to support herself or with the instinctive idea ofsupporting her companion, was clutched tightly around the man'sshoulders. And the man rocked unsteadily upon his feet. He was talland angular, and older than the woman, and cadaverous of feature, andmiserably thin of shoulder, and blood trickled over his forehead anddown one ashen, hollow cheek--and above the excited exclamations of thecrowd Rhoda Gray heard him cough.

  Rhoda Gray glanced around her. Where scarcely a second before she hadbeen on the outer fringe of the crowd, she now appeared to be in thevery center of it. Women were pushing up behind her, women who woreshawls as she did, only the shawls were mostly of gaudy colors; andmen pushed up behind her, mostly men of swarthy countenance, who worecirclets of gold in their ears; and, brushing her skirts, seekingvantage points, ragged, ill-clad children wriggled and wormed their waydeeper into the press. It was a crowd composed almost entirely of theforeign element which inhabited that quarter--and the crowd chatteredand gesticulated with ever-increasing violence. She did not understand.And she could not see so well now. That pitiful tableau in the doorwaywas being shut out from her by a man, directly in front of her, who hadhoisted a half-naked tot of three or four to a reserved seat upon hishead.

  And then a young man, one whom, from her years in the Bad Lands as theWhite Moll, she recognized as a hanger-on at a gambling hell in theChatham Square district, came toward her, plowing his way, contemptuousof obstructions, out of the crowd.

  Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, hailed him out of the corner of her mouth.

  "Say, wot's de row?" she demanded.

  The young man grinned.

  "Somebody pinched a million from de old guy!" He shifted his cigarettewith a deft movement of his tongue from one side of his mouth to theother, and grinned again. "Can youse beat it! Accordin' to him, he hadenough coin to annex de whole of Noo Yoik! De moll's his wife. He wentout to hell-an'-gone somewhere for a few years huntin' gold while deold girl starved. Den back he comes an' blows in to-day wid his pocketsfull, an' de old girl grabs a handful, an' goes out to buy up all degrub in sight 'cause she ain't had none for so long. An' w'en she comesback she finds de old geezer gagged an' tied in a chair, an' some guy'shit him a crack on de bean an' flown de coop wid de mazuma. But yousehad better get out of here before youse gets run over! Dis ain't noplace for an old skirt like youse. De bulls'll be down here on de hop ina minute, an' w'en dis mob starts sprinklin' de street wid deir fleetin'footsteps, youse are likely to get hurt. See?" The young man startedto force his way through the crowd again. "Youse had better cut loose,mother!" he warned over his shoulder.

  It was good advice. Rhoda Gray took it. She had scarcely reached thenext block when the crowd behind her was being scattered pell-mell andwithout ceremony in all directions by the police, as the young man hadpredicted. She went on. There was nothing that she could do. The man'sface and the woman's face haunted her. They had seemed stamped with suchabject misery and despair. But there was nothing that she could do. Itwas one of those sore and grievous cross-sections out of the livesof the swarming thousa
nds down here in this quarter which she knewso intimately and so well. And there were so many, many of thosecross-sections! Once, in a small, pitifully meager and restricted way,she had been able to help some of these hurt lives, but now--Her lipstightened a little. She was going to Shluker's junk shop.

  Her forehead gathered in little furrows as she walked along. She hadweighed the pros and cons of this visit a hundred times already duringthe day; but even so, instinctively to reassure herself lest someapparently minor, but nevertheless fatally vital, point might have beenoverlooked, her mind reverted to it again. From Shluker's viewpoint,whether Gypsy Nan was in the habit of mingling with or visiting theother members of the gang or not--a matter upon which she could not evenhazard a guess--her visit to-night must appear entirely logical. Therewas last night--and, a natural corollary, her equally natural anxiety onher supposed husband's account, providing, of course, that Shluker wasaware that Gypsy Nan was Danglar's wife. But even if Shluker did notknow that, he knew at least that Gypsy Nan was one of the gang, and, assuch, he must equally accept it as natural that she should be anxiousand disturbed over what had happened. She would be on safe ground eitherway. She would pretend to know only what had appeared in the papers;in other words, that the police, attracted to the spot by the sound ofrevolver shots, had found Danglar handcuffed to the fire escape of awell-known thieves' resort in an all too well-known and questionablelocality.

  A smile came spontaneously. It was quite true. That was where theAdventurer had left Danglar--handcuffed to the fire escape! The smilevanished. The humor of the situation was not long-lived; it ended there.Danglar was as cunning as the proverbial fox; and Danglar, at thatmoment, in desperate need of explaining his predicament in someplausible way to the police, had, as the expression went, run true toform. Danglar's story, as reported by the papers, even rose above hisown high-water mark of vicious cunning, because it played upon a chordthat appealed instantly to the police; and it rang true, not onlybecause what the police could find out about him made it likely,but also because it contained a modicum of truth in itself; and,furthermore, Danglar had scored on still another count in that his storymust stimulate the police into renewed activities as his unsuspectingallies in the one thing, the one aim and object that, at that moment,must obsess him above all others--the discovery of herself, the WhiteMoll.

  It was ingeniously simple, Danglar's smooth and oily lie! He had beenwalking along the street, he had stated, when he saw a woman, as shepassed under a street lamp, who he thought resembled the White Moll.To make sure, he followed her--at a safe distance, as he believed. Sheentered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of theplace, which bore out his first impression that the woman was the onehe thought she was; but he did not want to make a fool of himself bycalling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so hefinally followed her inside, and heard her go upstairs, and crept upafter her in the dark. And then, suddenly, he was set upon and hustledinto a room. It was the White Moll, all right; and the shots came fromher companion, a man whom he described minutely--the descriptionbeing that of the Adventurer, of course. They seemed to think that he,Danglar, was a plain-clothes man, and tried to sicken him of his job byfrightening him. And then they forced him through the window and downthe fire escape, and fastened him there with handcuffs to mock thepolice, and the White Moll's companion had deliberately fired some moreshots to make sure of bringing the police to the scene, and then the twoof them had run for it.

  Rhoda Gray's eyes darkened angrily. The newspapers said that Danglar hadbeen temporarily held by the police, though his story was believed to betrue, for certainly the man would make no mistake as to the identity ofthe White Moll, since his life, what the police could find out about it,coincided with his own statements, and he would naturally therefore haveseen her many times in the Bad Lands when she was working there undercover of her despicable role of sweet and innocent charity. Danglar hadmade no pretensions to self-righteousness--he was too cute for that. Headmitted that he had no "specific occupation," that he hung around thegambling hells a good deal, that he followed the horses--that, frankly,he lived by his wits. He had probably given some framed-up address tothe police, but, if so, the papers had not stated where it was. RhodaGray's face, under the grime of Gypsy Nan's disguise, grew troubledand perplexed. Neither had the papers, even the evening papers, statedwhether Danglar had as yet been released--they had devoted the rest oftheir space to the vilification of the White Moll. They had demandedin no uncertain tones a more conclusive effort on the part of theauthorities to bring her, and with her now the man in the case, as theycalled the Adventurer, to justice, and...

  The thought of the Adventurer caused her mind to swerve sharply off ata tangent. Where he had piqued and aroused her curiosity before, henow, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. Itwas strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and hers, had becomeinterwoven! She had owed him much; but last night she had repaid him andsquared accounts. She had told him so. She owed him nothing more. If asense of gratitude had once caused her to look upon him with--with--Shebit her lips. What was the use of that? Had it become so much a part ofher life, so much a habit, this throwing of dust in the eyes of others,this constant passing of herself off for some one else, this constantdeception, warranted though it might be, that she must now seek todeceive herself! Why not frankly admit to her own soul, already in thesecret, that she cared in spite of herself--for a thief? Why not admitthat a great hurt had come, one that no one but herself would ever know,a hurt that would last for always because it was a wound that couldnever be healed?

  A thief! She loved a thief. She had fought a bitter, stubborn battlewith her common sense to convince herself that he was not a thief.She had snatched hungrily at the incident that centered around thosehandcuffs, so opportunely produced from the Adventurer's pocket. She hadtried to argue that those handcuffs not only suggested, but proved, hewas a police officer in disguise, working on some case in which Danglarand the gang had been mixed up; and, as she tried to argue in this wise,she tried to shut her eyes to the fact that the same pocket out of whichthe handcuffs came was at exactly the same moment the repository of asmany stolen banknotes as it would hold. She had tried to argue that thefact that he was so insistently at work to defeat Danglar's plans wasin his favor; but that argument, like all others, came quickly andmiserably to grief. Where the "leak" was, as Danglar called it, thatsupplied the Adventurer with foreknowledge of the gang's movements, shehad no idea, save that perhaps the Adventurer and some traitor in thegang were in collusion for their own ends--and that certainly did notlift the Adventurer to any higher plane, or wash from him the stigma ofthief.

  She clenched her hands. It was all an attempt at argument without thebasis of a single logical premise. It was silly and childish! Why hadn'tthe man been an ordinary, plain, common thief and criminal--and lookedlike one? She would never have been attracted to him then even throughgratitude! Why should he have all the graces and ear-marks of breeding?Why should he have all the appearances of gentleman? It seemed aneedlessly cruel and additional blow that fate had dealt her, whenalready she was living through days and nights of fear, of horror, oftrepidation, so great that at times it seemed she would literally loseher reason. If he had not looked, yes, and at times, acted, so much likea thorough-bred gentleman, there would never have come to her this hurt,this gulf between them that could not now be spanned, and in a personalway she would never have cared because he was--a thief.

  Her mental soliloquy ended abruptly. She had reached the narrow drivewaythat led in, between the two blocks of down-at-the-heels tenements, tothe courtyard at the rear that harbored Shluker's junk shop. And now,unlike that other night when she had first paid a visit to the place,she made no effort at concealment as she entered the driveway. Shewalked quickly, and as she emerged into the courtyard itself she saw alight in the window of the junk shop.

  Rhoda Gray nodded her head. It was still quite early, still almosttwilight--not more th
an eight o'clock. Back there, on that squaliddoorstep where the old woman and the old man had stood, it had stillbeen quite light. The long summer evening had served at least to sear,somehow, those two faces upon her mind. It was singular that they shouldintrude themselves at this moment! She had been thinking, hadn't she,that at this hour she might naturally expect to find Shluker still inhis shop? That was why she had come so early--since she had not cared tocome in full daylight. Well, if that light meant anything, he was there.

  She felt her pulse quicken perceptibly as she crossed the courtyard, andreached the shop. The door was open, and she stepped inside. It wasa dingy place, filthy, and littered, without the slightest attempt atorder, with a heterogeneous collection of, it seemed, every article onecould think of, from scraps of old iron and bundles of rags to cast-offfurniture that was in an appalling state of dissolution. The light, thatof a single and dim incandescent, came from the interior of what wasapparently the "office" of the establishment, a small, glassed-inpartition affair, at the far end of the shop.

  Her first impression had been that there was no one in the shop, butnow, from the other side of the glass partition, she caught sight ofa bald head, and became aware that a pair of black eyes were fixedsteadily upon her, and that the occupant was beckoning to her with hishand to come forward.

  She scuffled slowly, but without hesitation, up the shop. She intendedto employ the vernacular that was part of the disguise of Gypsy Nan.If Shluker, for that was certainly Shluker there, gave the slightestindication that he took it amiss, her explanation would come glibly andlogically enough--she had to be careful; how was she supposed to knowwhether there was any one else about, or not!

  "'Ello!" she said curtly, as she reached the doorway of the littleoffice, and paused on the threshold. Shifty little black eyes met hers,as the bald head fringed with untrimmed gray hair, was lifted from abattered desk, and the wizened face of an old man was disclosed underthe rays of the tin-shaded lamp. He grinned suddenly, showing discoloredteeth--and instinctively she drew back a little. He was an uninvitingand exceedingly disreputable old creature.

  "You, eh, Nan!" he grunted. "So you've come to see old Jake Shluker,have you? 'Tain't often you come! And what's brought you, eh?"

  "I can read, can't I?" Rhoda Gray glanced furtively around her, thenleaned toward the other. "Say, wot's de lay? I been scared stiff allday. Is dat straight wot de papers said about youse-know-who gettin'pinched?"

  A scowl settled over Shluker's features as he nodded.

  "Yes; it's straight enough," he answered. "Damn 'em, one and all! Butthey let him out again."

  "Dat's de stuff!" applauded Rhoda Gray earnestly. "Where is he, den?"

  Shluker shook his head.

  "He didn't say," said Shluker.

  "He didn't say?" echoed Rhoda Gray, a little tartly. "Wot d'youse mean,he didn't say? Have youse seen him?"

  Shluker jerked his hand toward the telephone instrument on the desk.

  "He was talkin' to me a little while ago."

  "Well, den"--Rhoda Gray risked a more peremptory tone--"where is he?"

  Shluker shook his head again.

  "I dunno," he said. "I'm tellin' you, he didn't say."

  Rhoda Gray studied the wizened and repulsive old creature, that, huddledin his chair in the dirty, boxed-in little office, made her think ofsome crafty old spider lurking in its web for unwary prey. Was the manlying to her? Was he in any degree suspicious? Why should he be? Hehad given not the slightest sign that her uncouth language was eitherunexpected or unnecessary. Perhaps to Shluker, and perhaps to all therest of the gang--except Danglar!--Gypsy Nan was accepted at facevalue as just Gypsy Nan; and, if that were so, the idea of playing upa natural wifely anxiety on Danglar's behalf could not be used unlessShluker gave her a lead in that direction. But, all that apart, she wasgetting nowhere. She bit her lips in disappointment. She had counted agreat deal on this Shluker here, and Shluker was not proving the fountof information, far from it, that she had hoped he would.

  She tried again-even more peremptorily than before.

  "Aw, open up!" she snapped. "Wot's de use bein' a clam! Youse heard me,didn't youse? Where is he?"

  Shluker leaned abruptly forward, and looked at her in a suddenlyperturbed way.

  "Is there anything wrong?" he asked in a tense, lowered voice. "Whatmakes you so anxious to know?"

  Rhoda Gray laughed shortly.

  "Nothin'!" she answered coolly. "I told youse once, didn't I? I got ascare readin' dem papers--an' I ain't over it yet. Dat's wot I want toknow for, an' youse seem afraid to open up!"

  Shluker sank back again in his chair with an air of relief.

  "Oh!" he ejaculated. "Well, that's all right, then. You were beginningto give me a scare, too. I ain't playin' the clam, and I dunno where heis; but I can tell you there's nothing to worry you any more about therest of it. He was after the White Moll last night, and it didn't comeoff. They pulled one on him instead, and fastened him to the fire escapethe way the papers said. Skeeny and the Cricket, who were in on the playwith him, didn't have time to get him loose before the bulls got there.So Danglar told them to beat it, and he handed the cops the story thatwas in the papers. He got away with it, all right, and they let go himto-day; but he phoned a little while ago that they were still stickin'around kind of close to him, and that I was to pass the word that thelid was to go down tight for the next few days, and--"

  Shluker stopped abruptly as the telephone rang, and reached for theinstrument.

  Rhoda Gray fumbled unnecessarily with her shawl, as the other answeredthe call. Failure! A curious bitterness came to her. Her plan then, forto-night it least, was a failure. Shluker did not know where Danglarwas. She was quite convinced of that. Shluker was--She glanced suddenlyat the wizened little old man. From an ordinary tone, Shluker' s voicehad risen sharply in protest about something. She listened now:

  "No, no; it does not matter what it is!

  "What?...No! I tell you, no! Nothing! Not to-night! Those are theorders....No, I don't know! Nan is here now....Eh?....You'll pay forit if you do!" Shluker was snarling threateningly now. "What?....Well,then, wait! I'll come over....No, you can bet I won't be long! You wait!Understand?"

  He banged the receiver on the hook, and got up from his chair hurriedly.

  "Fools!" he muttered savagely. "No, I won't be long gettin' there!" Hegrabbed Rhoda Gray's arm. "Yes, and you come, too! You will help me puta little sense into their heads, if it is possible--eh? The fools!"

  The man was violently excited. He half pulled Rhoda Gray down the lengthof the shop to the front door. Puzzled, bewildered, a little uneasy, shewatched him lock the door, and then followed him across the courtyard,while he continued to mutter constantly to himself.

  "Wot's de matter?" she asked him twice.

  But it was not until they had reached the street, and Shluker washurrying along as fast as he could walk, that he answered her.

  "It's the Pug and Pinkie Bonn!" he jerked out angrily. "They're in thePug's room. Pinkie went back there after telephonin'. They've nosedout something they want to put through. The fools! And after lastnight nearly havin' finished everything! I told 'em--you heard me--thateverybody's to keep under cover now. But they think they've got a softthing, and they say they're goin' to it. I've got to put a crimp in it,and you've got to help me. Y'understand, Nan?"

  "Yes," she said mechanically.

  Her mind was working swiftly. The night, after all, perhaps, was not tobe so much of a failure! To get into intimate touch with all the membersof the clique was equally one of her objects, and, failing Danglarhimself to-night, here was an "open sesame" to the re-treat of two ofthe others. She would never have a better chance, or one in which riskand danger, under the chaperonage, as it were, of Shluker here, were,if not entirely eliminated, at least reduced to an apparently negligibleminimum. Yes; she would go. To refuse was to turn her back on her ownproposed line of action, and on the decision which she had made herself.