MRS1 The Under Dogs

by Hulbert Footner

  "This is not the girl," he said in surprise.

  "That's the one as brought the letter," said his mother.

  "Where did you get it?" he demanded suspiciously.

  "It was passed to me by a friend of mine, Jessie Seipp," I said.

  His face relaxed. "Yes, that's the one, Jessie," he said. "She promised it to me. Can you get an answer back?"

  "I can't say for certain," I said. "I'll try."

  He folded his letter, and was for slipping it in an envelope, but I said: "You'd better leave it open, if you don't mind. So if it was found on me, I could claim it as mine."

  "You're right," he said, handing it over.

  "You didn't name her, did you?" I asked. "Or yourself? Or say anything that could give others a lead if they read it?"

  "No," he said. "Read it. There's nothing in it but what a friend might read."

  I shook my head with a smile and put it away in my pocket-book.

  He suddenly seized my hand. "You're a good sort!" he said, deeply moved. "You have put new life in me. Isn't there something I could do for you?"

  "Not a thing in the world," I said. "I am repaid already." This was not exactly in character, but I couldn't help myself. The young man touched my heart. Any woman would have been glad to help his affair along.

  "I'll find a way," he said. "What's your name?"

  "Annie Watkin, I'm mostly called Canada Annie."

  "I shan't forget you."

  Two days later I got another telephone call.

  "I hope to drop in on you this afternoon. I understand Bill and I are going out. I want you to get me a heavy wire-cutting tool. It must be strong enough to cut chain of the same size that is used for tyre chains. Get that?"

  "Yes. How will I slip it to you?"

  "Listen. Go down to a candy store, at the foot of Seventh Avenue where it turns into Varick Street. It's in a little temporary shack on the right-hand side going down. Buy a two-pound box of their best chocolates. When you get home, empty out the chocolates, and pack the wire-cutters in the box with paper to keep them from jolting around. Then wrap the box up again in the same paper and string. Don't matter if it doesn't look exactly the same as when it left the shop, for the box is supposed to have been opened once."

  "I understand," I said. "I have an answer to that letter."

  "Splendid! Put the letter in the box with the wire-cutters. And listen! Put the box in the middle of your top bureau drawer."

  "I understand."

  When Jessie entered my room that afternoon (with Bill at her heels, as before) she carried under her arm an exact replica of the box which was then resting in my top bureau drawer. She immediately opened her box and passed it round.

  "Bill's present," said she. "Ain't he the generous guy!"

  We sat about, munching the chocolates amidst more or less facetious conversation, which I need not attempt to report, since it had little bearing on the real situation. Bill seemed to enjoy the chocolates as much as the women did.

  To-day I felt more assurance in my rôle; and I laid myself out to win Bill's favour by taking his part against Jessie; by appearing to recommend him to her. I was immediately successful; Bill turned the somewhat terrifying sunshine of his smile on me; and I am sure he was prepared to swear then that I was a fine little woman. It was a happy thought of mine; for it relieved the general situation very much, without committing my mistress to anything. Moreover, it had an important bearing on the final outcome, though, of course, I couldn't foresee that.

  Well! when it came time for them to go, Jessie wrapped up her box of candy again in its string and paper. She laid it on the edge of the bureau when she went to "fix-up"; and pulled open the top drawer to search for a make-up rag. (Even Canada Annie had to have a make-up rag!) With the rag in her hand, she bent over the open drawer to bring her face closer to the mirror while she repaired her complexion. In straightening up, she caught her elbow on the edge of the box, and knocked it into the drawer. She instantly pulled it out again; only it was not the same box but the other one! Then she dropped the rag in the drawer and closed it. I never saw anything more neatly done!

  The next telephone message that I received was the last one. This was two days later.

  "My number has come through."

  "Your number?" I echoed in confusion.

  "I have been given my first job, my dear."

  "Oh, heavens!" I gasped.

  "But this is what I have been working for. It is all turning out better than I could have hoped for. I am going to Tuxedo Park to-morrow morning, and I have permission to take you with me."

  "Am I in it, too?" I stammered.

  "Only the preliminaries," she said, with laughter in her voice. "Meet me at the Erie Station in Jersey City in time to get the 10.45 train. Another one of my new friends will be with me. Remember, you have not seen me lately, but I called you up to-day to make the appointment. Bring a suit-case with enough for three or four days' stay. You will learn the rest then. Ta-ta."

  I was thankful that there was no one in the lower hall of my rooming-house when I got that message. When I hung up, I had to sit down on the lowest step of the stairs for a moment, in order to recover myself. I understood, of course, that this "job" must be a robbery which had been entrusted to my mistress. And this would be no fake robbery, but a bona fide crime. I was simply appalled by the hideous danger.

  CHAPTER XX

  ON THE INSIDE

  I must go back a little way now, in order to make clear to you what was happening in the house on Varick Street, in the intervals of the telephone conversations between Jessie Seipp and Canada Annie. I did not witness these incidents, of course; they were reported to me by my mistress when we met.

  Her principal anxiety was on Melanie's account. She feared that, in their disappointment over the failure of Bill's ruse to draw George Mullen to the house, the gang might be led to do Melanie some hurt. Night and day she watched and listened for any move that might be made towards Melanie's room. But more prudent counsels prevailed; it was argued that as long as George had the least suspicion that Melanie was alive, and in that house, he must come sooner or later to find out. So they waited for him. In case he might be watching the house, they did not leave the bronze statuette exposed in the window continually, but carried it back and forth at intervals. However, as we know, George had an excellent reason for not coming.

  No change had been made in the conditions of Melanie's imprisonment. Jessie mitigated it as much as she could by passing up candy and what other little delicacies she could procure, on the broom. After the second occasion, Jessie made no further attempts to visit Melanie. The risk was too great. It had been agreed that no attempt could be made to get Melanie out of the house until Jessie was ready to go too. Now that they had the wire-cutters, Melanie could be freed at any moment. Suspecting that her room might be ransacked when she was out of the house, Jessie ripped a little hole in her mattress, and hid the wire-cutters there, afterwards sewing up the hole in a way to defy detection.

  The two girls exchanged frequent messages by aid of the broom. My mistress said, when she passed up George's letter to Melanie, the poor girl appeared to recover her lost youth. Her hollowed cheeks flushed, and seemed to fill out with happiness, and those great, agonised eyes were filled with a serene relief. She sent down a scribbled message:

  "I can stand anything now."

  To which Jessie replied: "Be careful not to let any change show in your face, or Black Kate will become suspicious. If they try to torment you again, make a racket, and I'll come. They wouldn't want me to see."

  Melanie wrote: "They have not tried to hurt me since you came."

  In respect to the other members of that curious household, no matter how intractable the material, Jessie never lost sight of her aim to win as many of them as she could. Black Kate was impossible; the middle-aged woman was filled with a hateful jealousy of the girl; and the fact that Jessie had been put under Bill's tutelage by a higher power, only i
ncreased her bitterness. Jessie kept out of her way as much as possible, and strove to give her no handle to use against her. Likewise, Jessie could do nothing with Kate's pitiful creature, Skinny Sam. There appeared to be no good in Sam's nature that she could get hold of. No matter how she tried to hide it, Sam's instinct told him that Jessie despised him as a man, and he was tormented with the spiteful malice of a small nature.

  In other directions Jessie was more successful than might have been thought possible. In the case of Big Bill Combs, of course, she was not obliged to exert herself. I have already told you enough to show how rapidly Bill was succumbing to her influence. He still quarrelled with her violently and sometimes cursed her, but she had him with a crook of her little finger. She led her supposed guide and teacher around by the nose.

  There had always been an unacknowledged bond between Jessie and little Abell. They were the most nearly civilised beings in that house. Jessie neglected no opportunity to strengthen the bond. Whenever they were alone together she encouraged Abell to talk to her about his wife and son, whom he loved in so piteous a fashion, and from whom he regarded himself as cut off for ever. It was Abell who used to return from his nocturnal errands with good things to eat for Jessie—most of which found their way to Melanie in her prison.

  Then there was Pap. Jessie had no difficulty in winning him. Her good-humour, her kindness, her humanity, enslaved the old man. Unfortunately, Pap was but a weak and broken creature, and Jessie saw clearly enough, that if a crisis ever arose, Pap would be bound to line up with the strongest party. She worked to make her party the strongest, so they could count on Pap, too.

  It was with Fingy Silo, that great, dull-witted brute, that Jessie had her greatest success. In view of her first encounter with him, Fingy might well have been regarded as hopeless material, but such was not the case. The situation, as regards him, can best be conveyed in his own words. He came up to Jessie in the dining-room one day, when the other men were not by, and said hoarsely:

  "Say, listen, Fuzzy-Wuz, I got somepin t' say to yeh."

  In spite of herself, Jessie looked wary. Fingy saw it and was aggrieved.

  "Hell! I ain't goin' to hurt yeh," he complained. "Ain't I got decent feelin's same as anybody else?"

  "Why, sure, Fingy?" she said quickly.

  "Say, listen," he began again. "I want to tell you I got some new idees about women from knowin' you. When you first come here, I thought as you'd pick out the best man amongst us, which is every woman's right, and so I fought with Bill for you, and he licked me. I thought as you'd be his woman after that, and I was just agoin' to bide my time till I could play Bill a dirty trick, and win you away from him.

  "And then I seen that you wasn't Bill's woman, and I couldn't make nottin' of that. You treated us all just the same. You was just as friendly to me as to Bill. Well, I want to say I appreciate that, Fuzzy-Wuz. I guess I kin respect a woman who's absolutely on the level, as well as any man. And I want to tell you as long as you don't mean to play no favourites in the house, you can count on me, see? And say, Fuzzy-Wuz, at that, this house is a damn sight comfitabler place to live since you come here."

  Jessie was genuinely moved. "You're all right, Fingy!" she cried heartily. "Put it there!"

  They gravely shook hands.

  Along about this time the household received a new addition in the person of Tim Helder. Tim was an elderly little rogue; alert, bright-eyed, and bearded like a hayseed. He had all the mannerisms that were popular in his youth; that is to say, he tipped his chair back, and stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his vest; he cocked his cigar up, and his hat down; when he had no cigar he chewed a straw. He loved to whittle a stick, and at other times he occupied himself by the hour with what he called "cork-work," a kind of tubular knitting, done on a spool with a hole in the middle.

  Jessie immediately realised that the coming of Tim had the highest significance for her. He had a great reputation as a confidence man, and all the others looked up to him. Jessie saw that she must win Tim or lose them all. And Tim was a professed scorner of women. With perfect effrontery, he told her so to her face, and cocked his hat still more defiantly over his eye whenever she came into the room.

  "Well, so much the better," said Jessie to herself, "he'll have to meet me on some other plane beside that of sex."

  She understood that Tim had been on a job out of town, which had been brilliantly successful. The details were not discussed in her presence. He was now going to "lie doggo" for awhile, he said. Jessie had this much to go on; he felt he had been done out of a fair share of the proceeds of his job, and was filled with a smouldering resentment. Moreover, he despised Black Kate.

  She had an uphill fight. Tim loved his affectations, chief of which was summed up in the oft-repeated boast that, "No woman had ever come anything over him." He was angered by the attention which Jessie commanded at the dining-table, where he formerly had reigned supreme. No matter how demure a part Jessie played, the other men would turn to her for her opinion.

  In the end Black Kate played right into Jessie's hands.

  This was the evening following Jessie's second visit to me at the house on Twentieth Street. It was after supper, and the men were all sitting around the kitchen in their shirt-sleeves, smoking and talking, when Jessie entered the room. Tim Helder said in tones of audible disgust:

  "Oh, Lor'!"

  Jessie coolly lit a cigarette. "What you got against me, Mr. Helder?" she asked good-naturedly.

  "I like men, and I like man-talk," the little old cock said with asperity. "When a woman comes around it spoils everything."

  "Go ahead with your man-talk," said Jessie. "My ears ain't too tender."

  "Yah!" he snarled, "you're one of the kind that wants to make out they're just like men! Monstrosities, I call them!"

  "You're hard to please," said Jessie, smiling.

  "Let her alone, Tim," growled Big Bill Combs. "She's got as much right here as any of us."

  "Cut it out, Bill," said Jessie quickly. "Mr. Helder's got a right to express his opinion. I can respect a man who says what he thinks."

  "Yen, that's right, turn on me now," said Bill, sore immediately.

  "I ain't turnin' on nobody," said Jessie. "I was goin' to say that Mr. Helder's opinion of women was no worse to me than the line of stuff I get from most men. I on'y ast him to forget I'm a woman, and treat me like a human being the same as himself."

  "Yah!" snarled Mr. Helder. "You ain't the first woman as asked me to treat her the same as a man. Them's the most insidious kind."

  Jessie ignored this. "I came down to hear the rest of the story about the guy who floated a loan of fifty thou. from a national bank and got away with it. Go ahead, Mr. Helder."

  "A-ah!" he said crossly.

  "You just got to the place where the guy switched the envelope containing; the good securities for the other one, and then Sam broke in on you, and I didn't hear the rest."

  "Well, fellas, it was this way," old Tim began, pointedly ignoring Jessie, but beginning the story, nevertheless.

  It was not destined to be finished that night, for Black Kate made one of her periodical descents on the kitchen, with Sam at her heels. She was in a grinding temper, and looked around spitefully for something to vent it on.

  "Huh! hanging around the men as usual," she said to Jessie.

  Whereat little Tim rose in her defence, as pugnacious as a terrier. That was the way he was.

  "A-ah! she's got as much right here as anybody!" he said.

  Jessie smiled to herself, and silently thanked Kate for aiding her thus.

  Kate ignored Tim. She would remember that speech later and pay him off. "Where you and Bill been to-day?" she demanded.

  Bill informed her with more force than politeness that it was none of her business.

  "We'll see about that!" snarled Kate. "You've been told to teach the girl what she ought to know, but I'm still the head of this house, and you're both subject to my orders, see? We'll see whether i
t's any of my business or not!"

  "Ain't nothin' to conceal," said Jessie mildly. "Me and Bill just walked around."

  "Walked around!" sneered Kate. "And what does he teach you, walkin' around?"

  "All about the different kinds of people," said Jessie, "and how to tell what they'll do, and how to handle them and all. He shows me all the different ways of effecting an entrance into houses and stores."

  "Does he teach you loyalty to the organisation?" demanded Kate.

  "Disloyalty" was Kate's bugbear. With her unbridled bad temper and tyrannous ways she made everybody in the house hate her, and then made believe to ascribe their black looks to "disloyalty."

  "Why, sure," said Jessie. "That goes without saying."

  "Oh, does it?" said Kate. "Not with me! Let me tell you, I'm far from satisfied with you, my girl. There's a look in your eyes that tells me you're a whole lot too big for your shoes. You've got to be taught your place before you'll be any good to us. You've got to learn that the organisation is everything, and you are nothing.... Come with me!"

  Jessie followed her out of the kitchen, wondering greatly what was in the wind now. Sam went with them, and Bill Combs brought up the rear, to make sure that no harm was intended Jessie. Up three flights to the top of the house they went without exchanging a word. Kate stopped in front of the door facing the top of the last flight, and producing a key, opened the door, and struck a match.

  In the sordid little room Melanie sat on the edge of her bed, elbows on knees, and head gripped between her hands. She did not look up at her visitors. Upon her right wrist was a heavy steel bracelet, from which a chain ran across the room to be fastened to a staple driven deep into the frame of the door. An ugly sore showed where the fetter had chafed her wrist. Her dress was unkempt, her hair tousled. It was a terrible picture, and doubly terrible in the uncertain light of the match, which only made a little pool of brightness in the obscurity of the room.