Part 31 (1/2)
The footsteps died away. There was silence then for a moment; and then, faintly, from the direction of the shed, there came a chorus of baffled rage and execration. She smiled a little wearily to herself. It was all right. That was what she wanted to know. The Adventurer had got away.
Still she lay there. She dared not leave the boat yet; but she could change her position now. She crawled half out from under the docking, and lay with her head on the sailcloth. It was exquisite relief! They could not come back along the wharf without her hearing them, and she could retreat under the decking again in an instant, if necessary.
Voices reached her now occasionally from the direction of the shed.
Finally a silence fell. The minutes pa.s.sed--ten--fifteen--twenty of them. And then Rhoda Gray climbed warily to the wharf, made her way warily past the shed, and gained the road--and three-quarters of an hour later, in another shed, in the lane behind the garret, she was changing quickly into the rags of Gypsy Nan again.
It was almost the end now. To-night, she would keep the appointment Danglar had given her--and keep it ahead of time. It was almost the end.
Her lips set tightly. The Adventurer had been warned. There was nothing now to stand in the way of her going to the police, save only the substantiation of that one point in her own story which Danglar must supply.
Her transformation completed, she reached in under the flooring and took out the package of jewels--they would help very materially when she faced Danglar!--and, though it was somewhat large, tucked it inside her blouse. It could not be noticed. The black, greasy shawl hid it effectively.
She stepped out into the lane, and from there to the street, and began to make her way across town. She did not have to search for Danglar to-night. She was to meet him at Matty's at midnight, and it was not more than halfpast eleven now. Three hours and a half! Was that all since at eight o'clock, as nearly as she could place it, he had left her in the lane? It seemed as many years; but it was only twenty minutes after eleven, she had noticed, when she had left the subway on her return a few minutes ago. Her hand clenched suddenly. She was to meet him at Matty's--and, thereafter, if it took all night, she would not leave him until she had got him alone somewhere and disclosed herself.
The man was a coward in soul. She could trust to the effect upon him of an automatic in the hands of the White Mall to make him talk.
Rhoda Gray walked quickly. It was not very far. She turned the corner into the street where Danglar's deformed brother, Matty, cloaked the executive activities of the gang with his cheap little notion store--and halted abruptly. The store was just ahead of her, and Danglar himself, coming out, had just closed the door.
He saw her, and stepping instantly to her side, grasped her arm roughly and wheeled her about.
”Come on!” he said--and a vicious oath broke from his lips.
The man was in a towering, ungovernable pa.s.sion. She cast a furtive glance at his face. She had seen him before in anger; but now, with his lips drawn back and working, his whole face contorted, he seemed utterly beside himself.
”What's the matter?” she inquired innocently. ”Wouldn't the Pug talk, or is it a case of 'another hour or so,' and--”
He swung on her furiously.
”Hold your cursed tongue!” he flared. ”You'll snicker on the wrong side of your face this time!” He gulped, stared at her threateningly, and quickened his step, forcing her to keep pace with him. But he spoke again after a minute, savagely, bitterly, but more in control of himself. ”The Pug got away. The White Moll queered us again. But it's worse than that. The game's up! I told you to be here at midnight. It's only half past eleven yet. I figured you would still be over in the garret, and I was going there for you. That's where we're going now.
There's no chance at those rajah's jewels now; there's no chance of fixing Cloran so's you can swell it around in the open again--the only chance we've got is to save what we can and beat it!”
She did not need to simulate either excitement or disquiet.
”What is it? What's happened?” she asked tensely.
”The gang's thrown us down!” he said between his teeth. ”They're scared; they've got cold feet--they're going to quit. Shluker and Pinkie were with me at the iron plant. We went back to Matty's from there. Matty's with them, too. They say the Pug knows every one of us, and every game we've pulled, and that in revenge for our trying to murder him he'll wise up the police--that he could do it easily enough without getting nipped himself, by sending them a letter, or even telephoning the names and addresses of the whole layout. They're scared--he curs! They say he knows where all our coin is too; and they're for splitting it up to-night, and ducking it out of New York for a while to get under cover.” He laughed out suddenly, raucously. ”They will--eh? I'll show them--the yellow-streaked pups! They wouldn't listen to me--and it meant that you and I were thrown down for fair. If we're caught, it's the chair. I'll show them! When I saw it wasn't any use trying to get them to stick, I pretended to agree with them. See? I said they could go around and dig up the rest of the gang, and if the others felt the same way about it, they were all to come over to the garret, and I'd be waiting for them,--and we'd split up the swag, and everybody'd be on his own after that.” Again he laughed out raucously. ”It'll take them half an hour to get together--but it won't take that long for us to grab all that's worth grabbing out of that trap-door, and making our getaway.
See? I'll teach them to throw Pierre Danglar down! Come on, hurry!”
”Sure!” she mumbled mechanically.
Her mind was sifting, sorting, weighing what he had said. She was not surprised. She remembered Pinkie Bonn's outburst in the boat. She walked on beside Danglar. The man was muttering and cursing under his breath.
Well, why shouldn't she appear to fall in with his plans? Under what choicer surroundings could she get him alone than in the garret? And half an hour would be ample time for her, too! Yes, yes, she began to see! With Danglar, when she had got what she wanted out of him herself, held up at the point of her automatic, she could back to the door and lock him in there--and notify the police--and the police would not only get Danglar and the ill-gotten h.o.a.rd hidden in the ceiling behind that trap-door, but they would get all the rest of the gang as the latter in due course appeared on the scene. Yes, why not? She experienced an exhilaration creeping upon her; she even increased, unconsciously, the rapid pace which Danglar had set.
”That's the stuff!” he grunted in savage approval. ”We need every minute we've got.”
They reached the house where once--so long ago now, it seemed!--Rhoda Gray had first found the original Gypsy Nan; and, Danglar leading, mounted the dark, narrow stairway to the hall above, and from there up the short, ladder-like steps to the garret. He groped in the aperture under the part.i.tion for the key, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Rhoda Gray, following, removed the key, inserted it on the inside of the door, and, as she too entered, locked the door behind her. It was pitch-black here in the attic. Her face was set now, her lips firm. She had been waiting for this, hadn't she? It was near the end at last.
She had Danglar--alone. But not in the darkness! He was too tricky! She crossed the garret to where the candle-stub, stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, stood on the rickety washstand.