Phantom Wires: A Novel

by Arthur Stringer

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE SEVERED KNOT

  It was in the gray of the early morning, as the _Slavonia_ steamed fromthe Upper Bay into the North River and the serrated skyline ofManhattan bit into the thin rind of sunrise to the east, that Durkinand Frank came suddenly together in a deserted companionway. She hadbeen praying for one hour more, and then all would be set right.

  "I want to see you!" he said sharply.

  She looked about to make sure they were unobserved.

  "I know it--but I daren't run the risk--now!"

  "Why not now? What has changed?" he demanded.

  "I tell you we can't, Jim! We might be seen here, any minute!"

  "What difference should that make?"

  "It makes every difference!"

  "By heaven, I've _got_ to see you!" For the first time she realizedthe force of the dull rage that burned within him. "I want to knowwhat's before us, and how we're going to act!"

  "I tell you, Jim, I can't talk to you here!"

  "You mean you don't care to!" he flashed out.

  "Can't you trust me?" she pleaded.

  "Trust you? What has trust to do in a business like ours?"

  "It is _your_ business--until you put an end to it!" And her voiceshook with the repressed bitterness of her spirit. "I tried to see youquietly, last night, but you had gone to your cabin. I have a feelingthat we're under the eye of every steward on this ship--I _know_ we arebeing watched, all the time. And if you were seen here with me, itwould only drag you in, and make it harder to straighten out, in theend. Can't you see what's going on?"

  "Yes, I _have_ been seeing what's going on--and I'm sick of it!"

  "Oh, not _that_, Jim!" she cried, in a little muffled wail. "You knowit would never be that!"

  His one dominating feeling was that which grew out of the stingingconsciousness that she wanted to escape him, that the moment had comewhen she could make an effort to evade him. But he was only paying thepenalty! He had sowed, he told himself, and it was only natural thatin time he should reap! Already he was losing her! Already, it mightbe, he had lost her!

  "Won't you be reasonable?" she was saying, and her voice sounded faintand far away. "I've got to see this through now, and one little falsemove would spoil everything! I must land by myself. I'll write you,at the Bartholdi, when and where to meet me!"

  The noise of approaching footsteps sounded down the carpetedpassageway. He had caught her by the arm, but now he released his gripand turned away.

  "Quick," she whispered, "here's somebody coming!"

  She was struggling with the ends of her veil, and Durkin was aimlesslypacing away from her, when the hurrying steward brushed by them. Amoment later he returned, followed by a second steward, but by thistime Durkin had made his way to the upper deck, and was looking withquiescent rage at the quays and walls and skyscrapers of New York.

  Before the steamer wore into the wharf Frank had seen Keenan and a lastfew words had passed between them. She sternly schooled herself tocalmness, for she felt her great moment had come.

  At his request that her first mission be to deliver a sealed packet atthe office of Richard Penfield, in the lower West Side, she evincedneither surprise nor displeasure. It was all in the day's work, sheprotested, as Keenan talked on, giving her more definite instructionsand still again impressing on her the need for secrecy.

  She took the sealed package without emotion--the little package forwhich she had worked so hard and lost so much and waited so long--andas apathetically secreted it. Equally without emotion she passedDurkin, standing at the foot of the gangway. Something in his face,however, warned her of the grim mood that burned within him. Shepitied him, not for his suffering, but for his blindness.

  "Don't follow me!" she muttered, between her teeth, as she sweptunbetrayingly by him, and hurriedly made her way out past the customsbarrier. It was not until she had reached the closed carriage Keenan'ssteward had already ordered for her that she realized how apparentlycursory and precipitate had been that hurried word of warning. Butthere was time for neither explanation nor display of emotion. Itcould all be made clear and put right, later.

  She heard the nervous trample of hoofs on the wooden flooring, thebattle of truck-wheels, the muffled sound of calling voices, and sheleaned back in the gloomy cab and closed her eyes with a great sense ofescape, with a sense of relief tinged with triumph.

  As she did so the door of her turning cab was opened, and the suddensquare of light was blocked by a massive form. She gave a startledlittle cry as the figure swung itself up into the seat beside her.Then the curtained door swung shut, with a slam. It seemed like thesnap of a steel trap.

  "Hello, there, Frank!--I've been looking out for you!" said theintruder, with a taunt of mockery in his easy laugh.

  _It was MacNutt_. She gaped at him stupidly, with an inarticulatethroaty gasp, half of protest, half of bewilderment.

  "You see, I know you, Frank, and Keenan doesn't!" And again she feltthe sting of his scoffing laughter.

  She looked at the subdolous, pale-green eyes, with their predatoryrestlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy,animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous ofgin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with theirpurplish veinings. It seemed like a ghost out of some long-past andonly half-remembered life. It came back to her with all thehideousness of a momentarily forgotten nightmare, made newly hideous bythe sanities of ordered design and open daylight in which it intruded.And her heart sank and hope burned out of her.

  "You! How dare _you_ come here?" she demanded, with a show of hotdefiance.

  He looked at her collectedly and studiously, with an approving littleside-shake of the bull-dog, pugnacious-looking head.

  "You're the same fine looker!" was all he said, with an appreciativeclucking of the throat. Oh, how she hated him, and everything forwhich he stood!

  By this time they had threaded their way out of the tangled traffic ofWest street, and were rumbling cityward through the narrower streets ofGreenwich village.

  Frank's first intelligible feeling was one of gratitude at the thoughtthat Durkin had escaped the trap into which she herself had fallen.That did not leave the situation quite so hopeless. Her second feelingwas one of fear that he might be following her, then one that he mightnot, that he would not be near her in the coming moment of need--forshe knew that now of all times MacNutt held her in the hollow of hishand--that now, as never before, he would frustrate and crush andobliterate her. There were old transgressions to be paid for; therewere old scores to be wiped out. Keenan and his Penfield wealth werenothing to her now--she was no longer plotting for the future, butshrinking away from her dark and toppling present, that seemed about tobuckle like a falling wall and crush her as it fell. Month aftermonth, in Europe, she had known visions of some such meeting as this,through nightmare and troubled sleep. And now it was upon her.

  MacNutt seemed to follow her line of flashing thought, for he emitted ashort bark of a laugh and said: "It's pretty small, this world, isn'tit? I guessed that we'd be meetin' again before I'd swung round thecircle!"

  "Where are we going?" she demanded, trying to lash her disordered andstraggling thoughts into coherence.

  "We're goin' to the neatest and completest poolroom in all Manhattan!"

  "Poolroom?" she cried.

  "Yes, my dear; I mean that we're drivin' to Penfield's brand-newdowntown house, where, as somewhat of a hiker in the past, you'll seethings done in a mighty whole-souled and princely fashion!"

  "But why should I go there? And why with you?"

  "Oh, I'm on Penfield's list, just at present, kind o' helpin' to soothesome of the city police out o' their reform tantrums. And you've gotabout a quarter of a million of Penfield's securities on you--so Ithought I'd kind o' keep an eye on you--this time!"

  Her first impulse was to throw herself headlong from the cab door. Butthis, she warned herself, would b
e both useless and dangerous. Throughthe curtained window she could see that they were now in the morepopulous districts of the city, and that the speed at which they werecareering down the empty car-tracks was causing early morningfoot-passengers to stop and turn and gaze after them in wonder. It wasnow, or never, she told herself, with a sudden deeper breath ofdetermination.

  With a quick motion of her hand she flung open the door, and leaningout, called shrilly for the driver to stop. He went on unheeding, asthough he had not heard her cry.

  She felt MacNutt's fierce pull at her leaning shoulder, but shestruggled away from him, and repeated her cry. A street boy or two ranafter the carriage, adding to the din. She was tearing and fighting inMacNutt's futile grasp by this time, calling desperately as she foughthim back. As the cab swerved about an obstructing delivery-wagon apatrolman sprang at the horses' heads, was jerked from his feet, andwas carried along with the careering horse. But in the end he broughtthem to a stop. Before he could reach the cab door a crowd hadcollected.

  A hansom dashed up as the now infuriated officer brushed and elbowedthe crowd aside. Above the surging heads, in that hansom, Frank couldsee the familiar figure, as it leaped to the ground and dove throughthe closing gap of humanity, after the officer.

  It was Durkin; and now, in a sudden passion of blind fear for him shesprang from the cab-step and tried to beat him back with her nakedhands, foolishly, uselessly, for she knew that if once together MacNuttand he would fall on one another and fight it out to the end.

  The patrolman caught her back, roughly, and held her.

  "What's all this, anyway?" It surprised him a little, as he held her,to find that the woman was not inebriate.

  "I want this woman!" cried Durkin, and at the sound of his voiceMacNutt leaned forward from the shadows of the half-closed carriage,and the eyes of the two men met, in one pregnant and contending stare.

  A flash of inspiration came to the trembling woman.

  "I will give everything up to him, officer, if he'll only not make ascene!" She was fumbling at a package in the bosom of her dress.

  "He can have his stuff, every bit of it--if he'll let it go at that!"

  Durkin caught his cue as he saw the color of one corner of the sealedyellow manila envelope.

  "Stand back there!" howled the officer to the crowding circle. "Andyou, shut up!" he added to MacNutt, now horrible to look upon withsuppressed rage.

  "This woman lifted a package of mine, officer," said Durkin quickly."If it's intact, why, let her go!"

  His fingers closed, talon-like, on the manila envelope. He flashed theunbroken red seal at the officer, with a little laugh of triumph. Thatlaugh seemed to madden MacNutt, as he made a second ineffectual effortto break into that tense and rapid cross-fire of talk.

  "And you don't want to lay a charge?" the policeman demanded, as heangrily elbowed back the ever intruding circle.

  "Let 'em go!" said Durkin, backing toward his cab.

  "But what's the papers, and what t'ell does _she_ want with 'em?"interrogated the officer.

  "Correspondence!" said Durkin easily, almost lightheartedly. "Kind ofpersonal stuff. They're--_he's_ drunk, anyway!" For stumbling angrilyout of the cab, MacNutt was crying that it was all a pack of lies, thatthey were a quarter of a million in money and that the officer shouldarrest Durkin on the spot, or he'd have him "broke."

  "And then you'll chew me up an' spit me out, won't you, you blue-gilledIrish bull-dog?" jeered the irate officer, already out of temper withthe unruly crowd jostling about him.

  "I say arrest that man!" screamed the claret-faced MacNutt.

  "And I say I'll run _you_ in, and run you in mighty quick, if you don'tget rid o' them jim-jams pretty soon!"

  "By God, I'll take it out of _you_ for this, when my turn comes!" ravedMacNutt, turning, purplish gray of face, on the deprecating Durkin."I'll take it out of you, by God!"

  "There--there! He's simply drunk, officer; and the woman has squaredherself. I don't want to press any charge. But you'd better take hisname!"

  "Drunk, am I? You'll be drunk when I finish with you. You won't havea name, you'll have a number, when I'm through with you!" repeated theinfuriated MacNutt.

  "Look here, the two o' you!" suddenly exclaimed the outraged arm of thelaw, "you climb into that hack and clear out o' here, as quick as youcan, or I'll run you both in!"

  MacNutt still expostulated, still begged for a private audience in thestreet-corner saloon, still threatened and pleaded and protested.

  The exasperated officer turned to the cab-driver, as he slung thestreet loafers from him to right and left.

  "Here, you get these fares o' yours out o' this--get them away mightyquick, or I'll have you soaked for breakin' the speed ord'nance!"

  Then he turned quickly, for the frightened woman had emitted a sharpscream, as her bull-necked companion, with the vigor of a new anddesperate resolution, bodily caught her up and thrust her into thegloom of the half-curtained carriage.

  "Oh, Jim, Jim, don't let him take me!" she cried mysteriously to theman she had just robbed. But the man she had just robbed looked at herwith what seemed indifferent eyes, and said nothing.

  "Don't you know where he's taking me? Can't you see? It's toPenfield's!" she cried, through her weakening struggles.

  A new and strange paralysis of all his emotions seemed to have creptover Durkin, as he watched the cab door slammed shut and the horses goplunging and curveting out through the crowd.

  "You'd better get away as quiet as you can!" said the policeman, in anundertone, for Durkin had slipped a ten-dollar bill into hisunprotesting fingers. "You'd better slide, for if the colonel happensalong I can't do much to help you out!"

  Then, with his hand on Durkin's cab door he said, with unfeignedbewilderment: "Say, what's the game of your actress friend, anyway?"

  Durkin turned away in disgust, without answering. She was no longerhis friend; she was his enemy, his betrayer! He had lived by thesword, and by the sword he should die! He had triumphed through crime,and through crime he was being undone! He had led her into the pathsof duplicity; he had taught her wrong-doing and dishonor; and with thevery tools he had put in her hand she had cut her way out to liberty,and turned and defeated him!

  Then he remembered the scene on the _Slavonia_, and her passionate cryfor him, for his love. In the wake of this came the memory of stillearlier scenes and still more passionate cries for what he had soscantily given her.

  Then suddenly he smote his knees with his clenched fists, and saidaloud:

  "It can't be true! It can't be true!"