The White Moll. Frank L. Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Her lips firmed suddenly, as she listened. The stealthy footfall had not paused in the hall below. It was on the short, ladder-like steps now, leading up here to the garret—and now it had halted outside her door, and there came a low, insistent knocking on the panels.

      "Who's dere?" demanded Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, in a grumbling tone, as, getting up from the bed, she moved the chair noiselessly a few feet farther away, so that the bed would be beyond the immediate radius of the candle light. Then she shuffled across the floor to the door. "Who's dere?" she demanded again, and her hand, deep in the voluminous pocket of Gypsy Nan's greasy skirt, closed tightly around the stock of Gypsy Nan's revolver.

      The voice that answered her expostulated in a plaintive whisper:

      "My dear lady! And after all the trouble I have taken to reach here without being either seen or heard!"

      For an instant Rhoda Gray hesitated—there seemed something familiar about the voice—then she unlocked the door, and retreated toward the bed.

      The door opened and closed softly. Rhoda Gray, reaching the edge of the bed, sat down. It was the fashionably-attired, immaculate young man, who had saved her from Rough Rorke last night. She stared at him in the faint light without a word. Her mind was racing in a mad turmoil of doubt, uncertainty, fear. Was he one of the gang, or not? Was she, in the role of Gypsy Nan, supposed to know him, or not? Did he know that the real Gypsy Nan, too, had but played a part, and, therefore, when she spoke must it be in the vernacular of the East Side—or not? And then sudden enlightenment, with its incident relief, came to her.

      "My dear lady"—the young man's soft felt hat was under his arm, and he was plucking daintily at the fingers of his yellow gloves as he removed them—"I beg you to pardon the intrusion of a perfect stranger. I offer you my very genuine apologies. My excuse is that I come from a—I hope I am not overstepping the bounds in using the term—mutual friend." Rhoda Gray snorted disdainfully.

      "Aw, cut out de boudoir talk, an' get down to cases!" she croaked. "Who are youse, anyway?"

      The young man had gray eyes—and they lighted up now humorously.

      "Boudoir? Ah—yes! Of course! Awfully neat!" His eyes, from the chair that held the candle, strayed around the scantily furnished, murky garret as though in search of a seat, and finally rested inquiringly on Rhoda Gray.

      "Youse can put de candle on de floor, if youse like," she said grudgingly. "Dat's de only chair dere is."

      "Thank you!" he said.

      Rhoda Gray watched him with puckered brow, as he placed the gin bottle with its candle on the floor, and appropriated the chair. He might, from his tone, have been thanking her for some priceless boon. He wore a boutonniere. His clothes fitted him like gloves. He exuded a certain studied, almost languid fastidiousness—that was wholly out of keeping with the quick, daring, agile wit that he had exhibited the night before. She found her hand toying unconsciously with the weapon in her pocket. She was aware that she was fencing with unbuttoned foils. How much did he know—about last night?

      "Well, why don't youse spill it?" she invited curtly. "Who are youse?"

      "Who am I?" He lifted the lapel of his coat, carrying the boutonniere to his nose. "My dear lady, I am an adventurer."

      "Youse don't say!" observed Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan. "An' wot's dat w' en it's at home?"

      "In my case, first of all a gentleman, I trust," he said pleasantly; "after that, I do not quarrel with the accepted definition of the term—though it is not altogether complimentary."

      Rhoda Gray scowled. As Rhoda Gray, she might have answered him; as Gypsy Nan, it was too subtle, and she was beyond her depth.

      "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 dick 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 competitors 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 associated 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 gratitude 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? God 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 СКАЧАТЬ