MRS1 The Under Dogs

by Hulbert Footner

  Jessie, instantly on the alert, slipped sideways out of his embrace, and faced him. "Hey! cut that out!"

  "Aw," said Alfred, reaching for her again.

  "Cut it out, I say," said Jessie evading him.

  "Aw, you said..."

  "I said nothing."

  "Well, you gave me to understand..."

  "I can't help it if your understanding's defective."

  "Aw!..."

  Jessie felt a moment's compunction on Alfred's account. There was justice in his protests. He was getting a raw deal in this affair. However, in a game of such magnitude, one could not regard the feelings of so insignificant a pawn.

  Alfred began to grow sore. "You shouldn't have come here if you didn't mean nothing by it."

  "I wanted to see the house."

  "You gone too far now to turn me down. I won't take it from yeh."

  He came at her in good earnest then. Jessie retreated through the French window. There was a short, sharp struggle inside, all in silence. Jessie was easily a match for him. Women are called the weaker sex, but I have noticed they can defend themselves very well against men when they have a mind to. Jessie tore herself free, and waited for him. When he rushed at her again, she presented a shoulder, and catching him full on the chest, sent him flying backwards, full length on the floor.

  In a flash she was out of the room. The door was open. She pulled it to after her, to delay him, and went down the great stairway as if she were running on a hundred little feet. I have seen her do that. When she got to the bottom Alfred was at the door overhead. She sped across the entrance hall, and got the front door open. Then the heavy, thudding slam of it sounded through the house, an unmistakable sound.

  But Jessie was not outside, of course. She dropped to the floor, and crept on all fours to the little room on the left.

  Alfred reached the front door a second later. He opened it, but did not run out. Jessie could see the motionless shadow of him. No doubt it had occurred to him that if she was gone, she was gone, and he could not very well chase her bareheaded through the streets. At any rate, he broke into a low, thick cursing, and let the door close.

  Jessie retreated softly through the door into the side corridor. She could not be sure which way he would go then. He might turn on lights. Listening at the crack of the door, she heard him come towards it, and flitted as quietly as a ghost down the stairs, and along the corridor to the rear. The door of the servant's dining-room stood open, and Nina and her young man were sitting on the sofa within. The voices of Mr. Spinney and Mrs. Pitt came from the kitchen. As the hall was dark, Jessie had no trouble in getting past the open door unseen. She opened the door leading to the service stairway, and waited on the bottom step listening.

  Alfred came along the corridor, and entered the dining-room.

  "Where's your girl?" asked Nina indifferently.

  "I'm goin' to take her home now," said Alfred. "Came after my hat.... She asked me to tell you good-night," he added as an afterthought.

  "That's real kind," said Nina sarcastically. "Tell her the same from me."

  Having presumably secured his hat, Alfred returned along the corridor.

  Jessie went softly up the service stairway for three flights, and made her way to the sitting-room in front.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE BURGLARY

  It was still something short of eleven o'clock when Jessie stole into the sitting-room, and the Sterrys did not return until half-past one. The time seemed interminable to the waiting Jessie. She left the door open to guard against surprise. She expected Nina to come for the purpose of laying out her mistress's night things, or Alfred to perform a like office for his master. But it must have been done earlier, for neither of them appeared. In the dense silence that filled the house, she heard the servants, one by one, go up the back stairs to bed.

  The tedious wait proved to be very valuable to Jessie. She spent the whole of it stretched out on the floor in front of the safe, working the combination from the memorandum that she had. She soon memorised the figures; more than that; she worked at it until she found herself able to shut off her little pocket light, and open the safe merely by the feel of the lock, and by listening to the click of the tumblers as they fell into place.

  It was with a little sob of relief that she at last heard the automobile drive up to the door, and the people enter below. She stole to the door of the room and closed it, since it was customarily kept closed, and went behind her screen. She had previously satisfied herself that there was nothing behind the screen; therefore, no reason for anybody to come to that corner. The screen was purely for ornament.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sterry entered the room, and closed the door behind them. They were in the middle of a conversation which was unintelligible to Jessie, since she had missed the key word. They were evidently fatigued, and the talk soon lapsed. They moved here and there about the room. Finally Mr. Sterry said:

  "Hand me the gew-gaws."

  He was evidently kneeling in front of the safe.

  His wife presumably handed over the jewels. "Oh, I wish they were safe out of the house," she said nervously. "I shan't be able to sleep a wink for thinking of them."

  "Well, my dear, that's the penalty for having such things," he said. "Uneasy lies the head, etc., etc.... I wonder if it's worth it."

  "Are you sorry you bought it?" she asked quickly.

  "I bought it for you, my dear. Are you satisfied?"

  "Oh, yes! I had a veritable triumph to-night. There wasn't a woman present who wouldn't have given her eyes to be me."

  "I dare say, I dare say," he said. "... It is beautiful," he went on dreamily—evidently he had the tiara in his hands, "quite beautiful enough to go to hell for—if one wasn't so civilised. These stones are like little living eyes peering at one—or it's as if each one had a soul imprisoned within it."

  "Mercy!" she said. "Do put it out of sight, Walbridge. It makes me nervous when we're alone here."

  Jessie heard, successively, the steel drawer flung in, the safe door closed, the handle turned that locked it, and the knob of the combination spun around.

  Mrs. Sterry then went into her own room, and Mr. Sterry into his. They left the doors open, and talked across the sitting-room; talk of no moment, mostly dealing with the events of the party that night. Finally, Mrs. Sterry said:

  "You leave your door open, Walbridge, so you can hear anything, and I'll close mine."

  "Why close yours?" he asked.

  "Because I don't want to hear anything."

  He laughed. "Don't you feel safe with our two brawny defenders downstairs?"

  At these words the listening Jessie's heart seemed to miss a beat. Here was something outside of her calculations. Two brawny defenders! Who were they?

  "No, I don't feel safe!" complained Mrs. Sterry. "I'm as much afraid of those two as I am of anything. Here they are right inside the house. What's to prevent them stealing upstairs and blackjacking us in our beds!"

  "Oh, my dear! my dear!" laughed her husband. "There are some honest men in the world. These fellows are hired to protect us; men don't go back on their responsibilities like that. And suppose they were tempted; they're known men; they know they'd be caught within an hour."

  "There's no provision for them to sleep anywhere," said Mrs. Sterry.

  "They're not supposed to sleep. They're going to sit up until they're relieved at eight o'clock. They asked me for a pack of cards!"

  "Where are they playing?"

  "In the cloak-room to the left of the entrance, with the door open. If you stuck your head out of this door and called, they'd be up here in three jumps."

  Jessie's heart rose slowly in her throat, and seemed to stick there. The switch which controlled the burglar alarm was in the cloak-room to the left of the entrance. She could not get out of the house without throwing it off!

  Mr. Sterry came out into the sitting-room, and switched off the lights. He offered to close the door of his wife's room, but she ha
d changed her mind about that.

  "It makes you seem too far away," she said.

  Her husband went into his bedroom for the last time, leaving the door open behind him.

  Jessie settled herself for a long wait. According to the schedule she had laid down for herself, they were to have half an hour to get into bed, and a whole hour to settle themselves to sleep, before she got busy. She hoped that they might both be snorers; it would be so reassuring. Mrs. Sterry's highly nervous state did not promise well for Jessie.

  They occasionally spoke to each other back and forth across the sitting-room. Mr. Sterry's voice took on a sleepy quality. Finally he did indeed begin to snore. But his wife woke him up.

  "Walbridge! Walbridge!"

  "Hum! Ha! ... What is it, my dear?"

  "Please don't go to sleep until I do."

  He gave a short, exasperated laugh. "Well, let me know as soon as you've gone, my dear."

  Very soon he began to snore again. His wife did not wake him up, but Jessie could hear her tossing on her bed, and uttering little complaining noises. At length these sounds too, were stilled.

  Jessie sat listening; listening. Through the open windows came the deep night hum of the city which is never stilled. Occasionally a particular sound separated itself from the hum, such as the rumble of an elevated train from Third Avenue, or the purr of a rapidly moving automobile. Then Jessie heard some one softly whistling in the street below. This would be the gray-clad watchman. The sound resolved itself out of nothing as he slowly approached the house, and faded into nothing again as he went on. Jessie could even distinguish the air; it was Traumerei. These musical souls turn up in the oddest places. "So much the better," she thought; "if he has a tender heart he will not be able to resist Bella."

  Every now and then, Jessie cast the light of her tiny flash on the dial of her watch. And each time she thought her watch must have stopped. It was the longest hour of her life.

  Meanwhile, she debated how to solve the problem of the two guards below. "Assuming that there are two men playing cards in the cloak-room, what must I do? I must make a noise somehow that will draw them out. I must manage to make a noise at a little distance from myself, so that when they run out of the room, I can slip in." She thought of Mrs. Sterry's work-box on the centre table. A spool of thread!

  Quarter of an hour before the time she had appointed with me, Jessie decided to start. As she snaked her body across the floor of the sitting-room, her heart pressed up suffocatingly into her throat. "So this is what it feels like to be a thief," she thought. "Hereafter, I will always remember it, when I catch one."

  How thankful she was then, for her long practice with the combination of the safe! When her fingers met the knob, they knew by instinct what to do. She turned it forward, then back, listening for the slight sounds from inside that she had learned to know. Through the open door on her right came the comfortable sounds of Mr. Sterry's snoring; through the door on the left—nothing. Was Mrs. Sterry lying there with wide open eyes, listening? The mental picture caused Jessie's hand to tremble.

  At last the tumblers of the combination fell into place, and Jessie grasped the handle of the lock. She turned it with the most exquisite care, the grate of steel on steel makes so significant a sound. Just as she was about to pull the door of the safe to her, Mrs. Sterry spoke.

  Jessie's heart seemed to turn over in her breast. She clamped down the screws of self-control. For she had to turn that handle back to its normal position with equal care, before she dared leave it. One of them might come out and switch on the lights. Jessie slipped back to her hiding-place behind the screen, where she sat, sternly forcing her trembling body under control.

  She heard Mrs. Sterry's voice again, and realised from the quality of it that the woman was asleep. In the sudden reaction that followed upon her relief, she trembled more violently than ever, and was forced to stretch herself out on the floor, clenching her teeth, before she could regain command of herself. Yet, throughout her terrors, Jessie, true to her nature, was watching herself from the outside with a sort of amusement. "Well," she thought, "for pure excitement, there is nothing like committing a robbery. But I can do with less."

  She returned to the safe, and pulling open the door, inserted her little key in the drawer, and pulled that out with infinite care. The tiara was contained in a little bag, drawn tight with a tape. Through the sleazy material, Jessie could feel the sharp points. There were also one or two flat cases in the drawer, presumably containing other jewels; but Jessie, notwithstanding Black Kate's behest, let them be. The tiara would serve her purpose sufficiently.

  Keeping her hands under iron control, Jessie closed the drawer and locked it; closed the door of the safe, and turned the handle. Finally she gave the knob of the combination a twirl to set it. There only remained to search Mrs. Sterry's workbox on the table. Jessie chose the coarsest thread, judging from the size of the spool, and made for the door. She took whole minutes to turn the handle of that door—a door handle is treacherous! and to release it when she was outside. When her hand dropped from it she breathed a sigh of relief. That much was over.

  She went softly down the first flight of stairs, and half-way down the second. There she sat down to consider her further moves. She still had ten or fifteen minutes before it was time to leave the house. From where she sat she could see across the wide foyer the light streaming out through the open door of the cloakroom; and occasionally a murmured word in a man's voice reached her, as one of the players scored in the game.

  Her first thought had been to conceal herself in the other cloak-room, but the door was closed, and it would be too risky to attempt opening it, immediately opposite the door of the room where the men were. They were trained thief-takers, she supposed, with eyes and ears on the alert. So she looked around for some other hiding-place in the foyer, but there was none in that empty place. If any alarm was raised, the first act of the men, naturally, would be to flood it with light. Jessie determined to act from the service corridor behind the cloak-room.

  She had first to dispose of the tiara. There was but one possible place for that; shoved down inside the top of her stocking, the curve of the ornament to her leg. The folded-up bag went with it.

  Jessie then retraced her steps to the main floor of the house, where she unscrewed a bulb from one of the sidelights about the walls. One bulb was not heavy enough for her purpose, so she collected three, and tied them together with thread. She hung this cluster on a tread over the top of the door that led to the service stairway, making sure that there was space enough for the thread to pass freely back and forth when the door was closed. She then descended the stairway, paying out the thread from the spool as she went. There was a little well in the middle of the stairway, down through which the thread might pass without having to turn any corners.

  Across the little central hall in the basement, and back through the narrow corridor towards the service entrance, she went, paying out her thread, and continually pausing to make sure that it was still running freely. Her principal anxiety was lest she might not have thread enough; but she remembered with satisfaction that most spools are marked "50 yards," and this was a full spool. She arrived outside the door to the cloak-room, with plenty to spare.

  Wrapping the end of the thread around her forefinger, she cast a light upon her watch. It was then three-fifteen, that is to say, the exact moment that she had told me to get busy in the street outside. She gave me five minutes, seven minutes, to do my job. Meanwhile, with her ear to the crack of the door, she listened to the slap of the cards on the table, and the murmurs of the two men as they scored their points.

  When the proper moment arrived, she gave the thread a tug, and it broke. Instantly she had the satisfaction of hearing a sound like an explosion within the depths of the house. The two men in the cloak-room leaped up, knocking their chairs over backwards, and ran out. Jessie instantly opened the door. The little wall cupboard was almost within reach of her hand. She pul
led open the door, and jerked down the handle of the switch that controlled the burglar alarm. A second later she was back in the service corridor with the door closed behind her.

  She reached for the street door. This was the door by which she and Alfred had entered the house, you remember. Bolt and spring-lock, she had it all fixed in her mind. Between the door and the iron gate she paused for a second, peering between the bars for the watchman. But I had done my part, and he was not there. She ventured out with a horrible sinking feeling. Suppose Mr. or Mrs. Sterry stuck a head out of the window. She would have to trust to her heels then. However, no alarm was raised. She walked sedately to Madison Avenue. As she turned the corner she looked back. Still no alarm. The furious beating of her heart quieted down.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE MUTINY

  You can imagine the little comedy when Jessie came into the drug store. There was I, sitting on a chair in a state of semi-collapse, with the druggist offering me something in a glass, and the gray-coated watchman looking on solicitously. I drank what was offered me—I suppose I was taking a considerable chance; and immediately said I felt better. The watchman, suddenly recollecting his job, expressed a hasty wish for my recovery, and beat it out of the shop. The druggist offered to send for an ambulance, but I insisted I was quite well again.

  He then went to wait on Jessie, who asked for headache tablets, a very natural request at that time of night. Jessie expressed her sympathy for me, and we all got into talk. The druggist asked me where I lived. I gave an address nearby, and Jessie volunteered to see me to my door. So we walked out of the shop together. How simple!

  Jessie whispered: "Is it all right about Rumsey?"

  "He's on the job," said I.

  "Good! Then I can go ahead."

  "Have you got the tiara," I asked trembling.