The White Moll. Frank L. Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ lamp standing on the chair beside the bed. Rough Rorke stepped toward it.

      "Dere ain't any oil in dat," croaked Rhoda Gray. "Didn't I tell youse de candle was over dere on de washstand, an'—"

      The words seemed to freeze in her throat, the chair, the lamp, the shadowy figure of the man in the match flame to swirl before her eyes, and a sick nausea to come upon her soul itself. With a short, triumphant oath, Rough Rorke had stopped suddenly and reached in under the chair. And now he was dangling a new, black kid glove in front of her. Caught! Yes, she was caught! She remembered Gypsy Nan's attempt to put on her gloves—one must have fallen to the floor unnoticed by either of them when Gypsy Nan had thought to put them in her pocket! The man's voice came to her as from some great distance:

      "So, she ain't here—ain't she! I'll teach you to lie to me! I'll—" The match was dying out. Rorke raised it higher, and with the last flicker located the washstand, and made toward it, obviously for the candle.

      Her wits against Rough Rorke's! Nothing else could save her! Failing to find any one here but herself, certain now that the White Moll was here, only a fool could have failed in his deduction—and Rough Rorke was not a fool. Her wits against Rough Rorke's! There was the time left her while the garret was still in darkness, just that, no more!

      With a quick spring she leaped from the bed, seized the chair, sending the lamp to the floor, and, dragging the chair after her to make as much noise and confusion as she could, she rushed for the door, screeching at the top of her voice:

      "Run, dearie, run! Run!" She was scuffling with her feet, clattering the chair, as she wrenched the door open. And then, in her own voice: "Nan, I won't! I won't let you stand for this, I—"

      Then as Gypsy Nan again: "Run, dearie! Don't youse mind old Nan!" She banged the door shut, locked it, and whipped out the key. It had taken scarcely a second. She was still screeching at the top of her voice to cover the absence of flying footers on the stairs. "Run, dearie, run! Run!"

      And then, in the darkness, the candle still unlighted, Rough Rorke was on her like a madman. With a sweep of his arm he sent her crashing to the floor, and wrenched at the door. The next instant he was on her again.

      "The key! Give me that key!" he roared.

      For answer she flung it from her. It fell with a tinkle on the floor at the far end of the garret. The man was beside himself with rage.

      "Damn you, if I had time, I'd wring your neck for this, you she-devil!" he bawled-and raced back, evidently for the candle on the washstand.

      Rhoda Gray, sprawled on the floor where he had thrown her, did not move-except to take the revolver from the pocket of her dress. She was crooning queerly to herself, as she watched Rough Rorke light the candle and grope around on the floor:

      "She was good to me, de White Moll was. Jellies an' t'ings she brought me, she did. An' Gypsy Nan don't ferret. Gypsy Nan don't—"

      She sat up suddenly, snarling. Rorke had found the key, left the bottle with the short stub of guttering candle standing on the floor, and was back again.

      "By God!" he gritted through his teeth, as he jabbed the key with frantic haste into the lock. "I'll fix you for this!" He made a clutch at her throat, as he swung the door open.

      She jerked herself backward, eluding him, her revolver leveled.

      "Youse keep yer dirty paws off me!" she screamed. "Yah, wot can youse do! Wot do I care! She was good to me, she was, an—"

      Rough Rorke was gone-taking the stairs three and four at a time. Then she heard the street door slam.

      She rose slowly to her feet—and suddenly reached out, grasping at the door to steady herself. It seemed as though every muscle had gone limp, as though her limbs had not strength to support her. And for a moment she hung there, then she locked the door, staggered back, sank down on the edge of the bed, and, with her chin in her hands, stared at the guttering stub of candle. And presently, in an almost aimless, mechanical way, she felt in her pocket for the piece of paper that she had found wrapped around the key, and drew it out. There were three figures scrawled upon it—nothing else.

      7 3 9

      She dropped her chin in her hands again, and stared again at the candle. And after a while the candle went out.

      IV.

       The Adventurer

       Table of Contents

      Twenty-Four hours had passed. Twenty four hours! Was it no more than that since—Rhoda Gray, in the guise of Gypsy Nan, as she sat on the edge of the disreputable, poverty-stricken cot, grew suddenly tense, holding her breath as she listened. The sound reached the attic so faintly that it might be but the product solely of the imagination. No—it came again! And it even defined itself now—a stealthy footstep on the lower stairs.

      A small, leather-bound notebook, in which she had been engrossed, was tucked instantly away under the soiled blanket, and she glanced sharply around the garret. A new candle, which she had bought in the single excursion she had ventured to make from the house during the day, was stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, and burned now on the chair beside her. She had not bought a new lamp—it gave too much light! The old one, the pieces of it, lay over there, brushed into a heap in the corner on the floor.

      The footstep became more audible. Her lips tightened a little. The hour was late. It must be already after eleven o'clock. Her eyes grew perturbed. Perhaps it was only one of the unknown tenants of the floor below going to his or her room; but, on the other hand, no one had come near the garret since last night, when that strange and, yes, sinister trick of fate had thrust upon her the personality of Gypsy Nan, and it was hoping for too much to expect such seclusion to obtain much longer. There were too many who must be interested, vitally interested, in Gypsy Nan! There was Rough Rorke, of headquarters; he had given no sign, but that did not mean he had lost interest in Gypsy Nan. There was the death of the real Gypsy Nan, which was pregnant with possibilities; and though the newspapers, that she, Rhoda Gray, had bought and scanned with such tragic eagerness, had said nothing about the death of one Charlotte Green in the hospital, much less had given any hint that the identity Gypsy Nan had risked so much to hide had been discovered, it did not mean that the police, with their own ends in view, might not be fully informed, and were but keeping their own counsel while they baited a trap.

      Also, and even more to be feared, there were those of this criminal organization to which Gypsy Nan had belonged, and to which she, Rhoda Gray, through a sort of hideous proxy, now belonged herself! Sooner or later, they must show their hands, and the test of her identity would come. And here her danger was the greater because she did not know who any of them were, unless the man who had stepped in between Rough Rorke and herself last night was one of them—which was a question that had harassed her all day. The man had been no more drunk than she had been, and he had obviously only played the part to get her out of the clutches of Rough Rorke; but, against this, he had seen her simply as herself then, the White Moll, and what could the criminal associates of Gypsy Nan have cared as to what became of the White Moll?

      A newspaper, to procure which had been the prime motive that had lured her out of her retreat that afternoon, caught her eye now, and she shivered a little as, from where it lay on the floor, the headlines seemed to leer up at her, and mock, and menace her. "The White Moll....The Saint of the East Side Exposed....Vicious Hypocrisy....Lowly Charity for Years Cloaks a Consummate СКАЧАТЬ