Part 51

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 partition 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.

“Come over here and light the candle,” she said. “I can't find my matches.”

Her hand was in the pocket of her skirt now, her fingers tight-closed on the stock of her automatic, as he shuffled his way across the attic to her side. A match spurted into flame; the candle wick flickered, then steadied, dispersing little by little, as it grew brighter, the nearer shadows--and there came a startled cry from Danglar--and Rhoda Gray, the weapon in her pocket forgotten, was staring as though stricken of her senses across the garret. The Adventurer was sitting on the edge of the cot, and a revolver in his hand held a steady bead upon Danglar and herself..

XXI. THE RECKONING

It was the Adventurer who spoke first.

“Both of you! What charming luck!” he murmured whimsically. “You'll forgive the intrusion won't you? A friend of mine, the Sparrow by name--I think you are acquainted with him, Danglar--was good enough to open the door for me, and lock it again on the outside. You see, I didn't wish to cause you any alarm through a premature suspicion that you might have a guest!” His voice hardened suddenly as he rose from the cot, and, though he limped badly, stepped quickly toward them. “Don't move, Danglar--or you, Mrs. Danglar!” he ordered sharply--and with a lightning movement of his hand felt for, and whipped Danglar's revolver from the latter's pocket. “Pardon me!” he said--and his hand was in and out of Rhoda Gray's pocket. He tossed the two weapons coolly over onto the cot. “Well, Danglar,” he smiled grimly, “there's quite a change in the last few hours, isn't there?”

Danglar made no answer. His face was ashen; his little black eyes, like those of a cornered rat, and as though searching for some avenue of escape, were darting hunted glances all around the garret.

Rhoda Gray, the first shock of surprise gone, leaned back against the washstand with an air of composure that she did not altogether feel. What was the Adventurer going to do? True, she need have no fear of personal violence--she had only to disclose herself. But--but there were other considerations. She saw that reckoning of her own with Danglar at an end, though--yes!--perhaps the Adventurer would become her ally in that matter. But, then, there was something else. The Adventurer was a thief, and she could not let him get away with those packages of banknotes up there behind the trap-door in the ceiling, if she could help it. That was perhaps what he had come for, and--and--Her mind seemed to tumble into chaos. She did not know what to do. She stared at the Adventurer. He was still dressed as the Pug, though the eye-patch was gone, and there was no longer any sign of the artificial facial disfigurements.

The Adventurer spoke again.

“Won't you sit down--Mrs. Danglar?” He pushed the single chair the garret possessed toward her--and shrugged his shoulders as she remained motionless. “You'll pardon me, then, if I sit down myself.” He appropriated the chair, and faced them, his revolver dangling with ominous carelessness in his hand. “I've had a rather upsetting experience this evening, and I am afraid I am still a little the worse for it--as perhaps you know, Danglar?”

“You damned traitor!” Danglar burst out wildly. “I--I--”

“Quite so!” said the Adventurer smoothly. “But we'll get to that in a minute. Do you mind if I inflict a little story on you? I promise you it won't take long. It's a little personal history which I think will be interesting to you both; but, in any case, as my hosts, I am sure you will be polite enough to listen. It concerns the murder of a man named Deemer; but in order that you may understand my interest in the matter, I must go back quite a little further. Perhaps I even ought to introduce myself. My name, my real name, you know, is David Holt. My father was in the American Consular service in India when I was about ten. He eventually left it and went into business there through the advice of a very warm friend of his, a certain very rich and very powerful rajah in the State of Chota Nagpur in the Province of Bengal, where we then lived. I became an equally intimate friend of the rajah's son, and--do I bore you, Danglar?”

Danglar was like a crouched animal, his head drawn into his shoulders, his hands behind him with fingers twisting and gripping at the edge of the washstand.

“What's your proposition?” he snarled. “Curse you, name your price, and have done with it! You're as big a crook as I am!”

“You are impatient!” The Adventurer's shoulders went up again. “In due time the rajah decided that a trip through Europe and back home through America would round out his son's education, and broaden and fit him for his future duties in a way that nothing else would. It was also decided, I need hardly say to my intense delight, that I should accompany him. We come now to our journey through the United States--you see, Danglar, that I am omitting everything but the essential details. In a certain city in the Middle West--I think you will remember it well, Danglar--the young rajah met with an accident. He was out riding in the outskirts of the city. His horse took fright and dashed for the river-bank. He was an excellent horseman, but, pitched from his seat, his foot became tangled in the stirrup, and as he hung there head down, a blow from he horse's hoof rendered him unconscious, and he was being dragged along, when a man by the name of Deemer, at the risk of his own life, saved the rajah's son. The horse plunged over the bank and into the water with both of them. They were both nearly drowned. Deemer, let me say in passing, did one of the bravest things that any man ever did. Submerged, half drowned himself, he stayed with the maddened animal until he had succeeded in freeing the unconscious man. All this was some two years ago.”

The Adventurer paused.

Rhoda Gray, hanging on his words, was leaning tensely forward--it seemed as though some great, dawning wonderment was lifting her out of herself, making her even unconscious of her surroundings.

“The rajah's son remained at the hotel there for several days to recuperate,” continued the Adventurer deliberately; “and during that time he saw a great deal of Deemer, and, naturally, so did I. And, incidentally, Danglar, though I thought nothing much of it then, I saw something of you; and something of Mrs. Danglar there, too, though--if she will permit me to say it--in a more becoming costume than she is now wearing!” Once more he shrugged his shoulders as Danglar snarled. “Yes, yes; I will hurry. I am almost through. While it was not made public throughout the country, inasmuch as the rajah's son was more or less an official guest of the government, the details of the accident were of course known locally, as also was the fact that the young rajah in token of his gratitude had presented Deemer with a collection of jewels of almost priceless worth. We resumed our journey; Deemer, who was a man in very moderate circumstances, and who had probably never had any means in his life before, went to New York, presumably to have his first real holiday, and, as it turned out, to dispose of the stones, or at least a portion of them. When we reached the coast we received two advices containing very ill news. The first was an urgent message to return instantly to India on account of the old rajah's serious illness; the second was to the effect that Deemer had been murdered by a woman in New York, and that the jewels had been stolen.”

Again the Adventurer paused, and, eying Danglar, smiled--not pleasantly.

“I will not attempt to explain to you,” he went on, “the young rajah's feelings when he heard that the gift he had given Deemer in return for his own life had cost Deemer his. Nor will I attempt to explain the racial characteristics of the people of whom the young rajah was one, and who do not lightly forget or forgive. But an eye for an eye, Danglar--you will understand that. If it cost all he had, there should be justice. He could not stay himself; and so I stayed-because he made me swear I would, and because he made me swear that I would never allow the chase to lag until the murderers were found.

“And so I came East again. I remembered you, Danglar--that on several occasions when I had come upon Deemer unawares, you, sometimes accompanied by a woman, and sometimes not, had been lurking in the background. I went to Cloran, the house detective at the hotel here in New York where Deemer was murdered. He described the woman. She was the same woman that had been with you. I went to the authorities and showed my credentials, with which the young rajah had seen to it I was supplied from very high sources indeed. I did not wish to interfere with the authorities in their handling of the case; but, on the other hand, I had no wish to sit down idly and watch them, and it was necessary therefore that I should protect myself in anything I did. I also made myself known to one of New York's assistant district attorneys, who was an old friend of my father's. And then, Danglar, I started out after you.

“I discovered you after about a month; then I wormed myself into your gang as the Pug. That took about a year. I was almost another year with you as an accepted member of the gang. You know what happened during that period. A little while ago I found out that the woman we wanted--with you, Danglar--was your wife, living in hiding in this garret as Gypsy Nan. But the jewels themselves were still missing. To-night they are not. A--a friend of mine, one very much misjudged publicly, I might say, has them, and has told me they would be handed to the police.

“And so, Danglar, after coming here to-night, I sent the Sparrow out to gather together a few of the authorities who are interested in the case--my friend the assistant district attorney; Cloran, the house detective; Rough Rorke of headquarters, who on one occasion was very much interested in Gypsy Nan; and enough men to make the round of arrests. They should be conveniently hidden across the road now, and waiting for my signal. My idea, you see, was to allow Mrs. Danglar to enter here without having her suspicions aroused, and to see that she did not get away again if she arrived before those who are duly qualified--which I am not--to arrest her did; also, in view of what transpired earlier this evening, I must confess I was a little anxious about those several years' accumulation of stolen funds up there in the ceiling. As I said at the beginning, I hardly expected the luck to get you both at the same time; though we should have got you, Danglar, and every one of the rest of the gang before morning, and--”

“You,” Rhoda Gray whispered, “you--are not a thief!” Brain and soul seemed on fire. It seemed as though she had striven to voice those words a dozen times since he had been speaking, but that she had been afraid--afraid that this was not true, this great, wonderful thing, that it could not be true. “You--you are not a--a thief!”

The Adventurer's face lost its immobility. He half rose from his chair, staring at her in a startled way--but it was Danglar now who spoke.

“It's a lie!” he screamed out. “It's a lie!” The man's reason appeared to be almost unhinged; a mad terror seemed to possess him. “It's all a lie! I never heard of this rajah bunk before in my life! I never heard of Deemer, or any jewels before. You lie! I tell you, you lie! You can't prove it; you can't--”

“But I can,” said Rhoda Gray in a low voice. The shawl fell from her shoulders; from her blouse she took the package of jewels and held them out to the Adventurer. “Here are the stones. I got them from where you had put them in old Luertz's room. I was hidden there all the time last night.” She was removing her spectacles and her wig of tangled gray hair as she spoke, and now she turned her face full upon Danglar. “I heard you discuss Deemer's murder with your brother last night, and plan to get rid of Cloran, who you thought was the only existing witness you need fear, and--”

“Great God!” The Adventurer cried out. “You--Rhoda! The White Moll! I--I don't understand, though I can see you are not the woman who originally masqueraded as Gypsy Nan, for I knew her, as I said, by sight.”