MRS1 The Under Dogs

by Hulbert Footner

A scratch on the window-sill brought Melanie's eager head out of the window above. The girls nodded and smiled at each other. They dared not exchange a word, for the windows of the dining-room below were open. Jessie tied the tool to the brush of the broom and sent it up to Melanie, together with the note. Her note said:

  "To-night I am sent out on my first job. I expect to be back before morning. But in case anything should happen, you must have the wire-cutters. If I don't come back, take the first chance to make a break for it, and go to his mother."

  Melanie nodded to show that she understood. Her lips shaped the words: "Good luck!" She put the note in her mouth. Jessie went back to her room.

  It occurred to her that it would be just as well to avoid seeing Bill Combs alone, if she could, and she determined to stay in her room until the crowd gathered for supper. But Bill, suspecting her intention, perhaps, came upstairs, and tapped respectfully at her door. She had to open it.

  "How about to-night?" he asked anxiously.

  "Everything's fixed."

  "What's the dope?"

  Jessie was in a quandary; whether she told him, or whether she refused to tell him, it would put him in a rage. "Ask Black Kate," she said.

  "A-ah!" said Bill. "Is that your all for one, and one for all!"

  "Shh!" warned Jessie. "She's in her room.... Don't you see I got to carry out instructions to-night, in order to put myself in a position where I can say somepin to them. This is a big job, Bill. It's the Russian Crown jewels."

  "Yeh, I know that," said Bill. "But I want to know if they're taking care of you right."

  "I can take care of myself," said Jessie.

  "That's no answer," said Bill in a furious whisper. "How you goin' to get in that house? That valet fellow is taking you in, ain't he? For a price. By God! do you think I'm goin' to stand for that? What are the Russian Crown jewels to me? I kept a hold on myself; I been on the square with yeh. What for? On'y to let the first——"

  "Easy, Bill, easy!" she implored. "You'll spoil everything. To-night I'm goin' to set you all free. Listen! do you think I'm a fool? Do you think I'd do that for the organisation? It's true, those were the orders that came through..."

  Bill clenched his great fist, and lurid, whispered curses issued between his teeth. "I'm through! I'm through!" he muttered. "I don't care what they do to me..."

  "Listen!" said Jessie. "I know a trick worth two of that. I got a plan of my own."

  She whispered in Bill's ear. The dark flush died out of his face, and a slow grin spread there.

  "By God! you got a head on you," he whispered. "You ought to be the boss of this organisation yourself!"

  At eight o'clock, Jessie prepared to leave the house. To her chagrin, Black Kate announced her intention of accompanying her. Jessie had been under espionage every moment since getting back, and had had no opportunity to make her most vital arrangements. There was no help for it. Kate remained at her side until they came within sight of the Sherman statue, and then watched from across the street, until she saw Jessie picked up by Alfred.

  Fortunately for Jessie, Alfred was like putty in her hands. The gentleman's gentleman was fairly trembling with eagerness, confident that his reward was in sight at last. Jessie said to him:

  "Before we go into your house I want to telephone to Ruby."

  He frowned. "A-ah! where is she?"

  "Here in town. She wouldn't stay up in Tuxedo without me. I'll just string her along, and then I'll be with you."

  They walked along Fifty-Ninth Street, until they came to a drug-store where there were telephone booths. Black Kate was not in sight. Jessie was well aware that she might still be watching, but it hardly mattered now. Things were started, and nothing could stop them until the end.

  Thus, at a few minutes before nine, after waiting on tenterhooks since three in the afternoon, I got my summons to the telephone.

  "Paper and pencil, Bella. Put everything down in order to avoid any possibility of mistake: Hire a car by the hour, so you can get around quickly. First: in case of a slip-up to-night, I have left the means of escape in our friend's hands, and have told her to go to Mrs. H. You must go to Mrs. H. and warn her that the girl may turn up, and that she must take care of her. Arrange through Crider, so that they can call on our organisation for any help they may need. This is a remote contingency, I hope.

  "Second: Go to Inspector Rumsey, and tell him the situation. Say that I hope to deliver the master crook into his hands before morning. Let him post half a dozen men secretly about the house that you know of. Explain to him about the secret entrance. Let him have the telephone wire from that house tapped to-night. The number is — Spring. If all goes well they will telephone from the house for our man to come there. When he hears that, let Rumsey take his measures accordingly. Warn Rumsey not to interfere with the man on his way to the house, or he'll leave me up in the air. Let the man enter unmolested. When he comes out again, he must be taken into custody. When he has his man fast, let Rumsey gather his men together, and apply at the front door of the house. If it is not immediately opened to him, let him break it down. But while he is doing this—this is most important, he must leave the side entrance absolutely free. I have loyal friends and helpers in that house, and I am in honour bound to let them escape.

  "Third: When you have settled everything with Rumsey, drive out to the Hagland estate at Glen Cove, to see what you can of the Oriental fête. It's a public affair, and you can get in for five or ten dollars, or whatever it may be. Keep Mrs. Walbridge Sterry in sight as well as you can. Follow them back to New York when they leave. What I want you to do is to establish the time when they get home. Then dismiss your car.

  "One hour and forty-five minutes after the Sterry's have got home, I want you to walk through Sixty-Third Street from Madison Avenue to Fifth. You are to look for the private watchman in that block. You may recognise him by his gray uniform. When you meet him, make believe to be taken suddenly ill. Heart attack. Get him to assist you to the all-night drug store on Madison Avenue, just below Fifty-Ninth. Detain him with you as long as you are able. When I come into the store you may appear to get better. We will not recognise each other. Should I not come within half an hour, go right back to your room."

  I repeated all this to my mistress, and we bade each other good-bye.

  Of my part, during that terrible night, I need only say that I was able to carry out all her instructions to the letter. I saw the two private detectives that the Walbridge Sterry's brought back from Glen Cove with them, and saw them taken into the house. I was driven nearly frantic with anxiety, for I had no way of warning my mistress, who was then inside.

  To go on with the adventures of Jessie:

  The Walbridge Sterry house, which was one of the show-places of New York, was hidden away in the middle of the block of a mere side street.

  "For the sake of the quietness," explained Alfred, who was jealous of the family's prestige. It was a new building in a severely handsome style of architecture—the sort of house that promises gorgeousness within. It occupied several frontage lots, and was quite shallow, so that it had good light from the rear, something that even the richest people in New York were not assured of, Alfred pointed out.

  Alfred and Jessie entered through a steel gate at one corner of the façade. Jessie made Alfred go first, "to show the way," and as she pulled the gate to, after her, she contrived to catch her dress in it. This gave her an opportunity to turn around and examine the lock. It was an ordinary spring-lock, protected by a steel plate with curved edges from any possibility of being opened from the outside. A short distance within the gate, there was a door. This also had a spring-lock, also a bolt, which was presumably shot at night. Jessie photographed the position of the locks on her brain, so that if she came that way later in a hurry, she would know just where to put her hands.

  Inside the door there was a landing, with a door at the right. Jessie greatly desired to know what was behind that door, but judged that it was a little t
oo soon to ask questions. Alfred led the way down a narrow stair into a corridor running back to the servant's dining-room, a pleasant room facing the rear, and well furnished. Evidently the Sterry's were not niggardly below stairs.

  There were three people in the room, whom Alfred introduced as: Mr. Spinney (evidently the butler); Miss Trudeau (Americanised French maid); and Mr. Simpson (an admirer of Miss Trudeau's). They greeted Jessie with no great cordiality, and it was clear to her that Alfred had not brought his girl into the house without considerable opposition on the part of the other servants. Jessie applied herself to charming it away. She foresaw that a crisis must arise the moment she and the amorous Alfred were left alone together, and she therefore desired to keep the party together as long as possible.

  Mr. Spinney, being only a second butler, was not quite the majestic creature that usually presides over such a servant's hall. However, he was the principal person present, and Jessie devoted herself first to him.

  "It was real nice of you to let me join your little party," she said in the confidential tones that no man over forty can resist in a woman. "I did so want to see the inside of such a fine house."

  "Hum! Ha! Yes!" said Mr. Spinney.

  "Maybe you'll show me a little bit of it later."

  "Ha! Yes, yes," said Mr. Spinney. "Of course, it's an old story to me."

  "Have you been long with the family?" asked Jessie.

  "Seven years, miss. I started as cellar-man, and rose."

  "Of course you would," said Jessie.

  Mr. Spinney began to think she was a most unusual girl.

  Jessie turned to the ladies' maid. "It must be heavenly to work in a house like this," she said. "So much space and all; no crowd."

  Trudeau, a black, raw-boned creature, with little of the traditional charm of the French woman, but capable, said with a snap of her black eyes: "Oh, a grand house isn't everything." She wished to let Jessie understand she couldn't come over her as easy as she could a man.

  "Wouldn't you like to see the house, too?" Jessie asked Mr. Simpson, a big, slow fellow, who looked like a returned doughboy, and would never look like anything else.

  "Well, I'd hardly like to presume...." he said, glancing sheepishly at Miss Trudeau.

  "Oh, you can if you want," she said indifferently.

  Thus Jessie made sure that the house would be viewed in a body.

  From the kitchen, next door, they were presently joined by Mrs. Pitt, the cook, a comfortable body, whom Jessie had no difficulty in impressing favourably. Jessie begged permission to peep into her kitchen, a marvellous place, where every known culinary appliance was installed.

  Alfred was not a very perspicacious person, and it never occurred to him to inquire why the haughty Jessie should suddenly choose to reveal herself in such an amiable light. Manlike, he took it all to himself. It delighted him to see his girl make good "with the bunch," and he became more and more infatuated with every passing moment.

  "Say, Mr. Spinney, ain't you got some ginger ale on the ice? If you have I got somepin to put in it that'll make the girls feel good!"

  "Oh, Mr. Booker, ain't you terrible!" said Mrs. Pitt. "How about some nice crackers and cheese with it?"

  Ten minutes later all six of them were seated happily about the table with their refreshments before them. Even the suspicious Nina Trudeau partly unbent. Jessie unlimbered her story-telling faculty—just a little; for she did not want to start Alfred thinking; nor did she wish the others to ask themselves how so clever a girl could have fallen for the foppish and empty-headed Alfred. She gave them just enough to start the others.

  Mrs. Pitt was an innocent old party, who added greatly to the hilarity of the company by her incapacity to see the point of any joke. It was Alfred's great stunt to ask her conundrums with perfectly meaningless answers.

  "Mrs. Pitt, what is the difference between a cock-eyed rooster and a man with one leg?"

  "Well, what is the difference, Mr. Booker?"

  "The higher, the fewer."

  "Why, of course!"

  "Mrs. Pitt, why is a mouse when it spins?"

  "I don't quite get that, Mr. Booker."

  "Why is a mouse when it spins?"

  "Well, why is it, Mr. Booker. I give up."

  "Just because."

  "Oh, how comical!"

  It presently appeared that Mr. Spinney played the bones. Mr. Simpson produced a mouth organ from his breast pocket, as big as a cake of chocolate. So they had music. It was all as cosy and friendly as possible.

  "Can it be that I am going to rob this house to-night?" Jessie asked herself, with a feeling of curious unreality.

  "Take your hat off, dearie; it's more comfortable," suggested Mrs. Pitt.

  But Jessie knew she would have need of that hat later. "It's hardly worth while," she said. "I'll have to be going soon."

  Alfred began to get uneasy at the duration of the party. "Well, if we're going to take a look around upstairs...." he said.

  There was a general move. Mrs. Pitt said she would remain behind to clean up.

  Outside the servants' dining-room there was a sort of central hall with many doors. One of these doors opened to a service stairway which they started to ascend.

  "This stair runs all the way to the roof," Mr. Spinney remarked.

  They issued out into the central hall of the house at the street level. It was a wide foyer, floored and lined with marble, magnificent in its stark bareness, with a sweeping stairway of marble and wrought iron at the back. At the rear of this floor was the dining-room, a noble apartment forty feet long. At the sight of it Jessie exclaimed in wonder.

  "But you should see it when all the plate is displayed!" said Mr. Spinney.

  He was then for leading the way up the grand stairway, but Jessie had a particular reason for wishing to see the front. "What's over here?" she asked, striking off.

  In front of the great foyer there was a square vestibule, with the front door on one side, and a small room on either hand as you entered. The front door was a massive affair of wrought iron and plate glass. Jessie, as if in idleness of mind, turned the knob, and found that it swung open easily. The door had only the usual spring-lock upon it, which worked automatically. She peeped into each of the small rooms.

  "These small rooms are intended for cloak-rooms, when the family is entertaining," Mr. Spinney explained. "At other times they are used by the footmen, and for persons to wait in, who are not exactly friends of the family."

  "In the room on your left as you entered, there was a door on the far side. Where does that go to?" asked Jessie. "I thought that was the side of the house."

  "That leads to the landing just inside the service entrance," said Mr. Spinney.

  Jessie remembered having seen that door from the other side.

  "With a house full of rich things like this, I should think you'd be afraid of burglars every night," remarked Jessie.

  "No," said Mr. Spinney, "when we retire for the night, the burglar alarm is always turned on."

  "What's that?" asked Jessie innocently.

  "It's an electrical appliance connected with all the doors and windows. After it is turned on, if anything was opened, it would ring a gong in the house, and also sound an alarm in the office of the protective agency, who would have their men here in a moment or two."

  "Do show it to me," begged Jessie.

  It appeared that the switch was in the same small room to the left of the front door. Mr. Spinney good-naturedly opened a little cupboard in the wall, and showed her the switch.

  "When the handle is up, it's on," he said; "and when it's down it's off."

  "Think of that!" said Jessie.

  They then ascended the great stairway, padded with a red carpet as soft as grass, to the palatial rooms above. These were the entertaining rooms; a beautiful salon, stretching across the front of the house; a great central hall; library and music room at the rear. It was all very wonderful; and Jessie looked, admired and asked questions without sti
nt. But her real interest lay in what was above. Unfortunately, it appeared that the tour was to end here.

  "Well, that's all," said Mr. Spinney.

  "What's on the next floor?" asked Jessie.

  "That's the private suite of the master and mistress," said Mr. Spinney. "Sitting-room, bedrooms, boudoir, and all. I don't feel as how we ought to walk through their private rooms."

  "Just a peep inside the sitting-room door," begged Jessie.

  "Oh, well. Just the sitting-room."

  They went up another flight. The sitting-room was in the middle of the front of the house. Like every other room in the house, it was full of rare and costly things, but it had an inviting and livable look. It bore the marks of use. Jessie spotted such homely objects as a work-box of Mrs. Sterry's and a row of the master's briar pipes.

  Mr. Spinney explained that the master's bedroom was on one side, and the mistress's on the other. Back of the bedrooms were dressing-rooms, wardrobes, bathrooms, etc. At the rear of this floor, Mrs. Sterry's boudoir was on one side, and Mr. Sterry's den on the other.

  "I didn't know there was so many different kinds of rooms," remarked Jessie.

  In the sitting-room, she had no difficulty in picking out the safe, though it did not advertise its nature, being contained in a handsome walnut cabinet between the two windows. She also chose her hiding-place behind a Spanish screen of decorated leather in the corner.

  They started down the service stairway, Mr. Spinney in advance; then Nina Trudeau and her friend; Jessie and Alfred bringing up the rear. At the next landing, Alfred laid a hand on Jessie's arm, and whispered:

  "Let them go on."

  They waited in the dark until they heard the others pass out on the basement floor; then Alfred softly drew Jessie through a door. They were on the main floor of the house, among the great rooms.

  "I want to show you something," said Alfred.

  "What will they think?" protested Jessie.

  "Oh, they'll just think we stopped to spoon on the stairs."

  Without lighting any lights he led Jessie through the music-room, and through a French window on to a little balcony which overlooked a sunken garden in the rear of the house. It was very pretty, but that was not what Alfred had come for. He slipped his arm around Jessie's waist, and his lips sought hers greedily.