Part 6 (2/2)
”Youse look to me like a slick crook!” she said bluntly.
”I will admit,” he said, ”that I have at times, perhaps, taken liberties with the law.”
”Well, den,” she snapped, ”cut out de high-brow stuff, an' come across wid wot brought youse here. I ain't holdin' no reception. Who's de friend youse was talkin' about?”
The Adventurer looked around him, and lowered his voice.
”The White Moll,” he said.
Rhoda Gray eyed the man for a long minute; then she shook her head.
”I take back wot I said about youse bein' a slick crook,” she announced coolly. ”I guess youse're a d.i.c.k from headquarters. Well, youse have got de wrong number--see? Me fingers are crossed. Try next door!”
The Adventurer's eyes were fixed on the newspaper headlines on the floor. He raised them now significantly to hers.
”You helped her to get away from Rough Rorke last night,” he said gently. ”Well, so did I. I am very anxious to find the White Moll, and, as I know of no other way except through you, I have got to make you believe in me, if I can. Listen, my dear lady--and don't look at me so suspiciously. I have already admitted that I have taken liberties with the law. Let me add now that last night there was a little fortune of quite a few thousand dollars that I had already made up my mind was as good as in my pocket. I was on my way to get it--the newspaper will already have given you the details--when I found that I had been forestalled by the young lady, who, the papers say, is known as the White Moll.” He smiled whimsically. ”Even though one might be a slick crook as you suggest, it is no reason why he should fail in his duty to himself--as a gentleman. What other course was open to me? I discovered a very charming young lady in the grip of a hulking police brute. She also, apparently, took liberties with the law. There was a bond between us. I--er--took it upon myself to do what I could. And, besides, I was not insensible to the fact that I was under a certain obligation to her, quixotic as it may sound, in view of the fact that we were evidently compet.i.tors after the same game. You see, if she had not forestalled me and been caught herself, I should most certainly have walked into the trap that our friend of headquarters had prepared. I--er--as I say, did what I could. She got away; but somehow Rough Rorke later discovered her here in this room, I understand that he was not happy over the result; that, thanks to you, she escaped again, and has not been heard of since.”
Rhoda Gray dropped her chin in her grime-smeared hand, staring speculatively at the other. The man sat there, apparently a self-confessed crook and criminal, but, also, he sat there as the man to whom she owed the fact that at the present moment she was not behind prison bars. He proclaimed himself in the same breath both a thief and a gentleman, as far as she could make out. They were characteristics which, until now, she had never a.s.sociated together; but now, curiously enough, they did not seem so utterly at variance. Of course they were at variance, must of necessity be so; but in the personality of this man the incongruity seemed somehow lost. Perhaps it was a sense of grat.i.tude toward him that modified her views. He looked a gentleman. There was something about him that appealed. The gray eyes seemed full of cool, confident, self-possession; and, quiet as his manner was, she sensed a latent dynamic something lurking near the surface all the time--that she was conscious she would much prefer to have enlisted on her behalf than against her. The strong, firm chin bore this out. He was not handsome, but--with a sort of mental jerk, she forced her mind back to the stark realities of her surroundings. She could not thank him for what he had done last night. She could not tell him that she was the White Moll.
She could only play out the role of Gypsy Nan until--until--Her hand tightened with a fierce, involuntary pressure upon her chin until it brought a physical hurt. Until what? G.o.d alone knew what the end of this miserable, impossible horror, in which she found herself engulfed, would be!
Her eyes sought his face again. The Adventurer was tactfully engaged in carefully smoothing out the fingers of his yellow gloves. Thief and gentleman, whatever he might be, whatever he might choose to call himself, what, exactly, was it that had brought him here to-night? The White Moll, he had said; but what did he want with the White Moll?
He answered her unspoken question now, almost as though he had read her thoughts.
”She is very clever,” he said quietly. ”She must be exceedingly clever to have beaten the police the way she has for the last few years; and--er--I wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of cleverness--especially if it be a woman's. The idea struck me last night that if she and I should--er--pool our resources, we should not have to complain of the reward.”
”Oh, so youse wants to work wid her, eh?” sniffed Rhoda Gray. ”So dat's it, is it?”
”Partially,” he said. ”But, quite apart from that, the reason I want to find her is because she is in very great danger. Clever as she is, it is a very different matter to-day now that the police have found her out.
She has been forced into hiding, and, if alone and without any friend to help her, her situation, to put it mildly, must be desperate in the extreme. You befriended her last night, and I honor you for the unselfishness with which you laid yourself open to the future attentions of that animal Rorke, but that very fact has deprived her of what might otherwise have been a refuge and a quite secure retreat here with you. I do not wish to intrude, or force myself upon her, but I believe I could be of very material help, and so I have come to you, as I have said, because you are the only source through which I can hope to find her, and because, through your act of last night, I know you to be a trustworthy, and, perhaps, even an intimate, friend of hers.”
”Aw, go on!” said Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, deprecatingly. ”Dat don't prove nothin'! I'd have done as much for a stray cat if de bulls was chasm' her. See? I told youse once youse had de wrong number. She didn't leave no address. Dat's flat, an' dat's de end of it.”
”I'm sorry,” said the Adventurer gravely. ”Perhaps I haven't made out a good enough case. Or perhaps, even believing me, you consider that the White Moll, and not yourself, should be the judge as to whether my services are acceptable or not?”
”Youse can dope it out any way youse likes,” said Rhoda Gray indifferently. ”Me t'roat's gettin' hoa.r.s.e tellin' youse dere's nothin'
doin'!”
”I'm sorry,” said the Adventurer again. He smiled suddenly, and tucking his gloves into his pocket, leaned forward and tore off a small piece from the margin of the newspaper on the floor--but his head the while was now c.o.c.ked in a curious listening att.i.tude in the direction of the door. ”You will pardon me, my dear lady, if I confess that, in spite of what you say, I still harbor the belief that you know where to reach the White Moll; and so--” He stopped abruptly, and she found his glance, sharp and critical, upon her. ”You are expecting a visitor, perhaps?” he inquired softly.
Rhoda Gray stared in genuine perplexity.
”Wot's de answer?” she demanded.
”There is some one on the stairs,” replied the Adventurer.
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