Chapter IX: Part 9

"The Black Book, as you call it," it wrote, "has been sent by messenger to be deposited in escrow with the Gotham Trust Company to be delivered, Tuesday, the third of November, on the written order of Craig Kennedy and John Carton. An officer of the trust company will notify you of its receipt immediately, which will close the entire transaction as far as I am concerned."

Kennedy could not wait. He had already seized his own telephone and was calling a number.

"They have it," he announced a moment later, scrawling the information on the transmitter of the telautograph.

A moment it was still, then it wrote again.

"Good-bye and good luck," it traced. "Murtha!"

The Smiling Boss could not resist his little joke at the end, even now.

"Can--we--get it?" asked Carton, almost stunned at the unexpected turn of events.

"No," cautioned Kennedy, "not yet. To-morrow. I made the same promise to Murtha that I made to Dorgan, when I went to him with Walter, although Walter did not hear it. This is to be a fair fight, for the election, now."

"Then," said Carton earnestly, "I may as well tell you that I shall not sleep to-night. I can't, even if I can use the book only after election in the clean-up of the city!"

Kennedy laughed.

"Perhaps I can entertain you with some other things," he said gleefully, adding, "About those photographs."

Carton was as good as his word. He did not sleep, and the greater part of the night we spent in telling him about what Craig had discovered by his scientific analysis of the faked pictures.

At last morning came. Though Kennedy and I had slept soundly in our apartment, Carton had in reality only dozed in a chair, after we closed the laboratory.

Slowly the hours slipped away until the trust company opened.

We were the first to be admitted, with our order ready signed and personally delivered.

As the officer handed over the package, Craig tore the wrapper off eagerly.

There, at last, was the Black Book!

Carton almost seized it from Kennedy, turning the pages, skimming over it, gloating like a veritable miser.

It was the debacle of Dorgan--the end of the man highest up!

XXV

THE BLOOD CRYSTALS

Much as we had accomplished, we had not found Betty Blackwell. Except for her shadowing of Mrs. Ogleby, Clare Kendall had devoted her time to winning the confidence of the poor girl, Sybil Seymour, whom we had rescued from Margot's. Meanwhile, the estrangement of Carton and Margaret Ashton threw a cloud over even our success.

During the rest of the morning Craig was at work again in the laboratory. He was busily engaged in testing something through his powerful microscopes and had a large number of curious microphotographs spread out on the table. As I watched him, apparently there was nothing but the blood-stained gauze bandage which had been fastened to the face of the strange, light-haired woman, and on the stains on this bandage he was concentrating his attention. I could not imagine what he expected to discover from it.

I waited for Kennedy to speak, but he was too busy more than to notice that I had come in. I fell to thinking of that woman. And the more I thought of the fair face, the more I was puzzled by it. I felt somehow or other that I had seen it somewhere before, yet could not place it.

A second time I examined the unpublished photograph of Betty Blackwell as well as the pictures that had been published. The only conclusion that I could come to was that it could not be she, for although she was light-haired and of fair complexion, the face as I remembered it was that of a mature woman who was much larger than the slight Betty. I was sure of that.

Every time I reasoned it out I came to the same contradictory conclusion that I had seen her, and I hadn't. I gave it up, and as Kennedy seemed indisposed to enlighten me, I went for a stroll about the campus, returning as if drawn back to him by a lodestone.

About him was still the litter of test tubes, the photographs, the microscopes; and he was more absorbed in his delicate work than ever.

He looked up from his examination of a little glass slide and I could see by the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes that he was not looking so much at me as through me at a very puzzling problem.

"Walter," he remarked at length, "did you notice anything in particular about that blonde woman who dashed down the steps into the taxicab and escaped from the dope joint?"

"I should say that I did," I returned, glad to ease my mind of what had been perplexing me ever since. "I don't want to appear to be foolish, but, frankly, I thought I had seen her before, and then when I tried to place her I found that I could not recognize her at all. She seemed to be familiar, and yet when I tried to place her I could think of no one with just those features. It was a foolish impression, I suppose."

"That's exactly it," he exclaimed. "I thought at first it was just a foolish impression, too, an intuition which my later judgment rejected. But often those first impressions put you on the track of the truth. I reconsidered. You remember she had dropped that bandage from her face with the blood-stain on it. I picked it up and it occurred to me to try a little experiment with these blood-stains which might show something."

He paused a moment and fingered some of the microphotographs.

"What would you say," he went on, "if I should tell you that a pronounced blonde, with a fair complexion and thin, almost hooked, nose, was in reality a negress?"

"If it were anyone but you, Craig," I replied frankly, "I'd be tempted to call him something. But you--well, what's the answer? How do you know?"

"I wonder if you have ever heard of the Reichert blood test? Well, the Carnegie Institution has recently published an account of it. Professor Edward Reichert of the University of Pennsylvania has discovered that the blood crystals of all animals and men show characteristic differences.

"It has even been suggested that before the studies are over photographs of blood corpuscles may be used to identify criminals, almost like fingerprints. There is much that can be discovered already by the use of these hemoglobin clues. That hemoglobin, or red colouring matter of the blood, forms crystals has been known for a long time. These crystals vary in different animals, as they are studied under the polarizing microscope, both in form and molecular structure. That is of immense importance for the scientific criminologist.

"A man's blood is not like the blood of any other living creature, either fish, flesh, or fowl. Further, it is said that the blood of a woman or a man and of different individuals shows differences that will reveal themselves under certain tests. You can take blood from any number of animals and the scientists to-day can tell that it is not human blood, but the blood, say, of an animal.

"The scientists now can go further. They even hope soon to be able to tell the difference between individuals so closely that they can trace parentage by these tests. Already they can actually distinguish among the races of men, whether a certain sample of blood, by its crystals, is from a Chinaman, a Caucasian, or a negro. Each gives its own characteristic crystal. The Caucasian shows that he is more closely related to one group of primates; the negro to another. It is scientific proof of evolution.

"It is all the more wonderful, Walter, when you consider that these crystals are only 1-2250th of an inch in length and 1-9000th of an inch in width."

"How do you study them?" I asked.

"The method I employed was to take a little of the blood and add some oxalate of ammonium to it, then shake it up thoroughly with ether to free the hemoglobin from the corpuscles. I then separated the ether carefully from the rest of the blood mixture and put a few drops of it on a slide, covered them with a cover slip and sealed the edges with balsam. Gradually the crystals appear and they can be studied and photographed in the usual way--not only the shapes of the crystals, but also the relation that their angles bear to each other. So it is impossible to mistake the blood of one animal for another or of one race, like the white race, for that of another, like the black. In fact the physical characteristics by which some physicians profess to detect the presence of negro blood are held by other authorities to be valueless. But not so with this test."

"And you have discovered in this case?" I asked.

"That the blood on the bandage from the face of that woman who escaped was not the blood of a pure Caucasian. She shows traces of negro blood, in fact exactly what would have been expected of a mulatto."

It dawned on me that the woman must have been Marie, after all; at least that that was what he meant.

"But," I objected, "one look at her face was enough to show that she was not the dark-skinned Marie with her straight nose, her dark hair and other features. This woman was fair, had a nose that was almost hooked and hair that was almost flaxen. Remember the portrait parle."

"Just so--the portrait parle. That is what I am remembering. You recall Carton discovered that in some way these people found out that we were using it? What would they do? Why, they have thought out the only possible way in which to beat it, don't you see?

"Marie, Madame Margot, whatever you call her, had a beauty parlour. Oh, they are clever, these people. They reasoned it all out. What was a beauty parlour, a cosmetic surgery, for, if it could not be used to save them? They knew we had her scientific description. What was the thing to do, then? Why, change it, of course, change her!"

Kennedy was quite excited now.

"You know what Miss Kendall said of decorative surgery, there? They change noses, ears, foreheads, chins, even eyes. They put the thing up to Dr. Harris with his knives and bandages and lotions. He must work quickly. It would take all his time. So he disappeared into Margot's and stayed there. Marie also stayed there until such time as she might be able to walk out, another person entirely. Harris must have had charge of her features. The attendants in Margot's had charge of her complexion and hair--those were the things in which they specialized.

"Don't you see it all now? She could retire a few days into the dope joint next door and she would emerge literally a new woman ready to face us, even with Bertillon's portrait parle against her."

It was amazing how quickly Kennedy pieced the facts together into an explanation.

"Yes," he concluded triumphantly, "that blonde woman was our dark-skinned mulatto made over--Marie. But they can't escape the power of science, even by using science themselves. She might change her identity to our eyes, but she could not before the Reichert test and the microscope. No, the Ethiopian could not change her skin before the eye of science."

It was late in the afternoon that Kennedy received a hurried telephone call from Miss Kendall. I could tell by the scraps of conversation which I overheard that it was most important.

"That girl, Sybil Seymour, has broken down," was all he said as he turned from the instrument. "She will be here to-day with Miss Kendall. You must see Carton immediately. Tell him not to fail to be here, at the laboratory, this afternoon at three, sharp."

He was gone before I could question him further and there was nothing for me to do but to execute the commission he had laid on me.

I met Carton at his club, relating to him all that I could about the progress of the case. He seemed interested but I could see that his mind was really not on it. The estrangement between him and Margaret Ashton outweighed success in this case and even in the election.

Half an hour before the appointed time, however, we arrived at the laboratory in Carton's car, to find Kennedy already there, putting the finishing touches on the preparations he was making to receive his "guests."

"Dorgan will be here," he answered, evading Carton's question as to what he had discovered.

"Dorgan?" we repeated in surprise.

"Yes. I have made arrangements to have Martin Ogleby, too. They won't dare stay away. Ike the Dropper, Dr. Harris, and Marie Margot have not been found yet, but Miss Kendall will bring Sybil Seymour. Then we shall see."

The door opened. It was Ogleby. He bowed stiffly, but before he could say anything, a noise outside heralded the arrival of someone else.

It proved to be Dorgan, who had come from an opposite direction. Dorgan seemed to treat the whole affair with contempt, which he took pleasure in showing. He was cool and calm, master of himself, in any situation no matter how hostile.

As we waited, the strained silence, broken only by an occasional whisper between Carton and Kennedy, was relieved even by the arrival of Miss Kendall and Sybil Seymour in a cab. As they entered I fancied that a friendship had sprung up between the two, that Miss Kendall had won her fight for the girl. Indeed, I suspect that it was the first time in years that the girl had had a really disinterested friend of either sex.

I thought Ogleby visibly winced as he caught sight of Miss Seymour. He evidently had not expected her, and I thought that perhaps he had no relish for the recollection of the Montmartre which her presence suggested.

Miss Seymour, now like herself as she had appeared first behind the desk at the hotel, only subdued and serious, seemed ill at ease. Dorgan, on the other hand, bowed to her brazenly and mockingly. He was evidently preparing against any surprises which Craig might have in store, and maintained his usual surly silence.

"Perhaps," hemmed Ogleby, clearing his throat and looking at his watch ostentatiously, "Professor Kennedy can inform us regarding the purpose of this extra-legal proceeding? Some of us, I know, have other engagements. I would suggest that you begin, Professor."

He placed a sarcastic emphasis on the word "professor," as the two men faced each other--Craig tall, clean-cut, earnest; Ogleby polished, smooth, keen.

"Very well," replied Craig with that steel-trap snap of his jaws which I knew boded ill for someone.

"It is not necessary for me to repeat what has happened at the Montmartre and the beauty parlour adjoining it," began Kennedy deliberately. "One thing, however, I want to say. Twice, now, I have seen Dr. Harris handing out packets of drugs--once to Ike the Dropper, agent for the police and a corrupt politician, and once to a mulatto woman, almost white, who conducted the beauty parlour and dope joint which I have mentioned, a friend and associate of Ike the Dropper, a constant go-between from Ike to the corrupt person higher up.

"This woman, whom I have just mentioned, we have been seeking by use of Bertillon's new system of the portrait parle. She has escaped, for the time, by a very clever ruse, by changing her very face in the beauty parlour. She is Madame Margot herself!"

Not a word was breathed by any of the little audience as they hung on Kennedy's words.

"Why was it necessary to get Betty Blackwell out of the way?" he asked suddenly, then without waiting for an answer, "You know and District Attorney Carton knows. Someone was afraid of Carton and his crusade. Someone wanted to destroy the value of that Black Book, which I now have. The only safety lay in removing the person whose evidence would be required in court to establish it--Betty Blackwell. And the manner? What more natural than to use the dope fiends and the degenerates of the Montmartre gang?"

"That's silly," interrupted Ogleby contemptuously.

"Silly? You can say that--you, the tool of that--that monster?"

It was a woman's voice that interrupted. I turned. Sybil Seymour, her face blazing with resentment, had risen and was facing Ogleby squarely.

"You lie!" exclaimed the Silent Boss, forgetting both his silence and his superciliousness.

The situation was tense as the girl faced him.

"Go on, Sybil," urged Clare.

"Be careful, woman," cried Dorgan roughly.

Sybil Seymour turned quickly to her new assailant. "You are the man for whom we were all coined into dollars," she scorned, "Dorgan--politician, man higher up! You reaped the profits through your dirty agent, Ike the Dropper, and those over him, even the police you controlled. Dr. Harris, Marie Margot, all are your tools--and the worst of them all is this man Martin Ogleby!"

Dorgan's face was livid. For once in his life he was speechless rather than silent, as the girl poured out the inside gossip of the Montmartre which Kennedy had now stamped with the earmarks of legal proof.

She had turned from Dorgan, as if from an unclean animal and was now facing Ogleby.

"As for you, Martin Ogleby, they call you a club-man and society leader. Do you want to know what club I think you really belong to--you who have involved one girl after another in the meshes of this devilish System? You belong to the Abduction Club--that is what I would call it--you--you libertine!"

XXVI

THE WHITE SLAVE

Carton had sprung to his feet at the direct charge and was facing Ogleby.

"Is that true--about the Montmartre?" he demanded.

Ogleby fairly sputtered. "She lies," he almost hissed.

"Just a moment," interrupted Dorgan. "What has that to do with Miss Blackwell, anyhow?"

Sybil Seymour did not pause.

"It is true," she reiterated. "This is what it has to do with Betty Blackwell. Listen. He is the man who led me on, who would have done the same to Betty Blackwell. I yielded, but she fought. They could not conquer her--neither by drugs nor drink, nor by clothes, nor a good time, nor force. I saw it all in the Montmartre and the beauty parlour--all."

"Lies--all lies," hissed Ogleby, beside himself with anger.

"No, no," cried Sybil. "I do not lie. Mr. Carton and this good woman, Miss Kendall, who is working for him, are the first people I have seen since you, Martin Ogleby, brought me to the Montmartre, who have ever given me a chance to become again what I was before you and your friends got me."

"Have a care, young woman," interrupted Dorgan, recovering himself as she proceeded. "There are laws and--"

"I don't care a rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs--that was what you were going to say--I'd snap my fingers in the face of Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I would tell the truth.

"Let me tell you my case," she continued, turning in appeal to the rest of us, "the case of a poor girl in a small city near New York, who liked a good time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an automobile, theatres, excitement, bright lights, night life. I liked them. He knew that. He led me on, made me like him. And when I began to show the strain of the pace--we all show it more than the men--he cast me aside, like a squeezed-out lemon."

Sybil Seymour was talking rapidly, but she was not hysterical.

"Already you know Betty Blackwell's story--part of it," she hurried on. "Miss Kendall has told me--how she was bribed to disappear. But beyond that--what?"

For a moment she paused. No one said a word. Here at last was the one person who held the key to the mystery.

"She did disappear. She kept her word. At last she had money, the one thing she had longed for. At last she was able to gratify those desires to play the fashionable lady which her family had always felt. What more natural, then, than while she must keep in hiding to make one visit to the beauty parlour to which so many society women went--Margot's? It was there that she went on the day that she disappeared."

We were hanging breathlessly now on the words of the girl as she untangled the sordid story.

"And then?" prompted Kennedy.

"Then came into play another arm of the System," she replied. "They tried to make sure that she would disappear. They tried the same arts on her that they had on me--this man and the gang about him. He played on her love of beauty and Madame Margot helped him. He used the Montmartre and the Futurist to fascinate her, but still she was not his. She let herself drift along, perhaps because she knew that her family was every bit the equal socially of his own. Madame Margot tried drugs; first the doped cigarette, then drugs that had to be forced on her. She kept her in that joint for days by force; and there where I went for relief day after day from my own bitter thoughts I saw her, in that hell which Miss Kendall now by her evidence will close forever. Still she would not yield.

"I saw it all. Maybe you will say I was jealous because I had lost him. I was not. I hated him. You do not know how close hate can be to love in the heart of a woman. I could not help it. I had to write a letter that might save her.

"Miss Kendall has told me about the typewritten letters; how you, Professor Kennedy, traced them to the Montmartre. I wrote them, I admit, for these people. I wrote that stuff about drugs for Dr. Harris. And I wrote the first letter of all to the District Attorney. I wrote it for myself and signed it as I am--God forgive me--'An Outcast.'"

The poor girl, overwrought by the strain of the confession that laid bare her very soul, sank back in her chair and cried, as Miss Kendall gently tried to soothe her.

Dorgan and Ogleby listened sullenly. Never in their lives had they dreamed of such a situation as this.

There was no air of triumph about Kennedy now over the confession, which with the aid of Miss Kendall, he had staged so effectively. Rather it was a spirit of earnestness, of retribution, justice.

"You know all this?" he inquired gently of the girl.

"I saw it," she said simply, raising her bowed head.

Dorgan had been doing some quick thinking. He leaned over and whispered quickly to Ogleby.

"Why was she not discovered then when these detectives broke into the private house--an act which they themselves will have to answer for when the time comes?" demanded Ogleby.

It seemed as if the mere sound of his voice roused the girl.

"Because it was dangerous to keep her there any longer," she replied. "I heard the talk about the hotel, the rumour that someone was using this new French detective scheme. I heard them blame the District Attorney--who was clever enough to have others working on the case whom you did not know. While you were watching his officers, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Kendall were gathering evidence almost under your very eyes.

"But you were panic-stricken. You and your agents wanted to remove the danger of discovery. Dr. Harris and Marie Margot had a plan which you grasped at eagerly. There was Ike the Dropper, that scoundrel who lives on women. Between them you would spirit her away. You were glad to have them do it, little realizing that, with every step, they had you involved deeper and worse. You forgot everything, all honour and manhood in your panic; you were ready to consent, to urge any course that would relieve you--and you have taken the course that involves you worse than any other."

"Who will believe a story like that?" demanded Ogleby. "What are you--according to your own confession? Am I to be charged with everything this gang, as you call it, does? You are their agent, perhaps working for this blackmailing crew. But I tell you, I will fight, I will not be blackened by--"

Sybil laughed, half hysterically.

"Blackened?" she repeated. "You who would put this thing all off on others who worked for you, who played on your vices and passions, not because you were weak, but because you thought you were above the law!

"You did not care what became of that girl, so long as she was where she could not accuse you. You left her to that gang, to Ike, to Marie, to Harris." She paused a moment, and flashed a quick glance of scorn at him. "Do you want to know what has become of her, what you are responsible for?

"I will tell you. They had other ideas than just getting her out of the way of your selfish career. They are in this life for money. Betty Blackwell to them was a marketable article, a piece of merchandise in the terrible traffic which they carry on. If she had been yielding, like the rest of us, she might now be apparently free, yet held by a bondage as powerful and unescapable as if it were of iron, a life from which she could not escape. But she was not yielding. They would break her. Perhaps you have tried to ease your conscience, if you have any, by the thought that it is they, not you, who have her hidden away somewhere now. You cannot escape that way; it was you who made her, who made others of us, what we are."

"Let her rave, Ogleby," sneered Dorgan.

"Yes--raving, that's it," echoed Ogleby. But his expression belied him.

"There it is," she continued. "You have not even an opinion of your own. You repeat even the remarks of others. They have you in their power. You have put yourself there."

"All very pretty," remarked Dorgan with biting sarcasm. "All very cleverly thought out. So nice here! Wait until you have to tell that story in court. You know the first rule of equity? Do you go into court with clean hands? There is a day of reckoning coming to you, young woman, and to these other meddlers here--whether they are playing politics or meddling just because they are old-maidish busy-bodies."

She was facing the politician with burning cheeks.

"You," she scorned, "belong to an age that is passing away. You cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton, who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You would not pull us up--you shoved us down deeper, in your greed. But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose? You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything from us. We--"

"Come, Ogleby," interposed Dorgan, deliberately turning his back on her and slowly placing his hat on his half-bald head. "We are indebted to Professor Kennedy for a pleasant entertainment. When he has another show equally original we trust he will not forget the first-nighters who have enjoyed this farce."

Dorgan had reached the door and had his hand on the knob. I had expected Kennedy to reply. But he said nothing. Instead his hand stole along the edge of the table beside which he was standing.

"Good-night," bowed Dorgan with mock solemnity. "Thank you for laying the cards on the table. We shall know how to play--"

Dorgan cut the words short.

Kennedy had touched the button of an electric attachment which was under the table by which he could lock every door and window of the laboratory instantly and silently.

"Well?" demanded Dorgan fiercely, though there was a tremble in his voice that had never been heard before.

"Where is Betty Blackwell?" demanded Craig, turning to Sybil Seymour. "Where did they take her?"

We hung breathlessly on the answer. Was she being held as a white slave in some obscure den? I knew that that did not mean that she was necessarily imprisoned behind locked doors and barred windows, although even that might be the case. I knew that the restraint might be just as effective, even though it was not actually or wholly physical.

An ordinary girl, I reasoned, with little knowledge of her rights or of the powers which she might call to her aid if she knew how to summon them, might she not be so hemmed in by the forces into whose hands she had fallen as to be practically held in bonds which she could not break?

Here was Sybil herself! Once she had been like Betty Blackwell. Indeed, when she seemed to have every chance to escape she did not. She knew how she could be pursued, hounded at every turn, forced back, and her only course was to sink deeper into the life. The thought of what might be accomplished by drugs startled me.

Clare bent over the poor girl reassuringly. What was it that seemed to freeze her tongue now? Was it still some vestige of the old fear under which she had been held so long? Clare strove, although we could not hear what she was saying, to calm her.

At last Sybil raised her head, with a wild cry, as if she were sealing her own doom.

"It was Ike. He kept us all in terror. Oh, if he hears he will kill me," she blurted out.

"Where did he take her?" asked Clare.

She had broken down the girl's last fear.

"To that place on the West Side--that black and tan joint, where Marie Margot came from before the gang took her in."

"Carton," called Kennedy. "You and Walter will take Miss Kendall and Miss Seymour. Let me see. Dorgan, Ogleby, and myself will ride in the taxicab."

Carton was toying ostentatiously with a police whistle as Dorgan hesitated, then entered the cab.

I think at the joint, as we pulled up with a rush after our wild ride downtown, they must have thought that a party of revellers had dropped in to see the sights. It was perhaps just as well that they did, for there was no alarm at first.

As we entered the black and tan joint, I took another long look at its forbidding exterior. Below, it was a saloon and dance hall; above, it was a "hotel." It was weatherbeaten, dirty, and unsightly, without, except for the entrance; unsanitary, ramshackle, within, except for the tawdry decorations. At every window were awnings and all were down, although it was on the shady side of the street in the daytime and it was now getting late. That was the mute sign post to the initiated of the character of the place.

Instead of turning downstairs where we had gone on our other visit, Kennedy led the way up through a door that read, "Hotel Entrance--Office."

A clerk at a desk in a little alcove on the second floor mechanically pushed out a register at us, then seeming to sense trouble, pulled it back quickly and with his foot gave a sharp kick at the door of a little safe, locking the combination.

"I'm looking for someone," was all Kennedy said. "This is the District Attorney. We'll go through--"

"Yes, you will!"

It was Ike the Dropper. He had heard the commotion, and, seeing ladies, came to the conclusion that it was not a police plainclothes raid, but some new game of the reformers.

He stopped short in amazement at the sight of Dorgan and Ogleby.

"Well--I'll be--"

"Carton! Walter!" shouted Kennedy. "Take care of him. Watch out for a knife or gun. He's soft, though. Carton--the whistle!"

Our struggle with the redoubtable Ike was short and quickly over. Sullen, and with torn clothes and bleeding face, we held him until the policeman arrived, and turned him over to the law.

At a room on the same floor Craig knocked.

"Come in," answered a woman's voice.

He pushed open the door. There was the woman who had fled so precipitately from the dope joint.

Evidently she did not recognize us. "You are under arrest," announced Kennedy.

The blonde woman laughed mockingly.

"Under arrest? For what?"

"You are Marie Margot. Never mind about your alias. All the arts of your employees and Dr. Harris himself cannot change you so that I cannot recognize you. You may feel safe from the portrait parle, but there are other means of detection that you never dreamed of. Where is Betty Blackwell? Marie, it's all off!"

All the brazen assurance with which she had met us was gone. She looked from one to the other and read that it was the end. With a shriek, she suddenly darted past us, out of the door. Down the hall was Ike the Dropper with the policeman and Carton. Beside her was a stairway leading to the upper floors. She chose the stairs.

Following Kennedy we hurried through the hotel, from one dirty room to another, with their loose and creaking floors, rotten and filthy, sagging as we walked, covered with matting that was rotting away. Damp and unventilated, the air was heavy and filled with foul odours of tobacco, perfumery, and cheap disinfectants. There seemed to have been no attempt to keep the place clean.

The rooms were small and separated by thin partitions through which conversations in even low tones could be heard. The furniture was cheap and worn with constant use.

Downstairs we could hear the uproar as the news spread that the District Attorney was raiding the place. As fast as they could the sordid crowd in the dance hall and cabaret was disappearing. Now and then we could hear a door bang, a hasty conference, and then silence as some of the inmates realized that upstairs all escape was cut off.

On the top floor we came to a door, locked and bolted. With all the force that he could gather in the narrow hall, Kennedy catapulted himself against it. It yielded in its rottenness with a crash.

A woman, in all her finery, lay across the foot of a bed, a formless heap. Kennedy turned her over. It was Marie, motionless, but still breathing faintly. In an armchair, with his hands hanging limply down almost to the floor, his head sagging forward on his chest, sprawled Harris.

Kennedy picked up a little silver receptacle on the floor where it lay near his right hand. It was nearly empty, but as he looked from it quickly to the two insensible figures before us he muttered: "Morphine. They have robbed the law of its punishment."

He bent over the suicides, but it was too late to do anything for them. They had paid the price.

"My heavens!" he exclaimed suddenly, as a thought flashed over his mind. "I hope they have not carried the secret of Betty Blackwell with them to the grave. Where is Miss Kendall?"

Down the hall, cut off from the rest of the hotel into a sort of private suite, Clare had entered one of the rooms and was bending over a pale, wan shadow of a girl, tossing restlessly on a bed. The room was scantily furnished with a dilapidated bureau in one corner and a rickety washstand equipped with a dirty washbowl and pitcher. A few cheap chromos on the walls were the only decorations, and a small badly soiled rug covered a floor innocent for many years of soap.

I looked sharply at the girl lying before us. Somehow it did not occur to me who she was. She was so worn that anyone might safely have transported her through the streets and never have been questioned, in spite of the fact that every paper in the country which prints pictures had published her photograph, not once but many times.

It was Betty Blackwell at last, struggling against the drugs that had been forced on her, half conscious, but with one firm and acute feeling left--resistance to the end.

Kennedy had dropped on his knees before her and was examining her closely.

"Open the windows--more air," he ordered. "Walter, see if you can find some ice water and a little stimulant."

While Craig was taking such restorative measures as were possible on the spur of the moment, Miss Kendall gently massaged her head and hands.

She seemed to understand that she was in the hands of friends, and though she did not know us her mute look of thanks was touching.

"Don't get excited, my dear," breathed Miss Kendall into her ear. "You will be all right soon."

As the wronged girl relaxed from her constant tension of watching, it seemed as if she fell into a stupor. Now and then she moaned feebly, and words, half-formed, seemed to come to her lips only to die away.

Suddenly she seemed to have a vision more vivid than the rest.

"No--no--Mr. Ogleby--leave me. Where--my mother--oh, where is mother?" she cried hysterically, sitting bolt upright and staring at us without seeing us.

Kennedy passed the broad palm of his hand over her forehead and murmured, "There, there, you are all right now." Then he added to us: "I did not send for her mother because I wasn't sure that we might find her even as well as this. Will someone find Carton? Get the address and send a messenger for Mrs. Blackwell."

Sybil was on her knees by the bedside of the girl, holding Betty's hand in both of her own.

"You poor, poor girl," she cried softly. "It is--dreadful."

She had sunk her head into the worn and dirty covers of the bed. Kennedy reached over and took hold of her arm. "She will be all right, soon," he said reassuringly. "Miss Kendall will take good care of her."

As we descended the stairs, we could see Carton at the foot. A patrol wagon had been backed up to the curb in front and the inmates of the place were being taken out, protesting violently at being detained.

Further down the hall, by the "office," Dorgan and Ogleby were storming, protesting that "influence" would "break" everyone concerned, from Carton down to the innocent patrolmen.

Kennedy listened a moment, then turned to Clare Kendall.

"I will leave Miss Blackwell in your care," he said quietly. "It is on her we must rely to prove the contents of the Black Book."

Clare nodded, as, with a clang, Carton drove off with his prisoners to see them safely entered on the "blotter."

"Our work is over," remarked Kennedy, turning again to Miss Kendall, in a tone as if he might have said more, but refrained.

Looking Craig frankly in the eye, she extended her hand in that same cordial straight-arm shake with which she had first greeted us, and added, "But not the memory of this fight we have won."

XXVII

THE ELECTION NIGHT

It was election night. Kennedy and Carton had arranged between them that we were all to receive the returns at the headquarters of the Reform League, where one of the papers which was particularly interested, had installed several special wires.

The polls had scarcely closed when Kennedy and I, who had voted early, if not often, in spite of our strenuous day, hastened up to the headquarters. Already it was a scene of activity.

The first election district had come in, one on the lower East Side, which was a stronghold of Dorgan, where the count could be made quickly, for there were no split tickets there. Dorgan had drawn first blood.

"I hope it isn't an omen," smiled Carton, like a good sport.

Kennedy smiled quietly.

We looked about, but Miss Ashton was not there. I wondered why not and where she was.

The first returns had scarcely begun to filter in, though, when Craig leaned over and whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her home, or if not there, at a woman's club of which she was one of the leading members.

I found her at home and sent up my card. She had apparently lost interest in the election and it was with difficulty that I could persuade her to accompany me to the League headquarters. However, I argued the case with what ability I had and finally she consented.

The other members of the Ashton family had monopolized the cars and we were obliged to take a taxicab. As our driver threaded his way slowly and carefully through the thronged streets it gave us a splendid chance to see some of the enthusiasm. I think it did Margaret Ashton good, too, to get out, instead of brooding over the events of the past few days, as she had seen them. Her heightened colour made her more attractive than ever.

The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance before this.

Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans, hisses, and catcalls, or all together, with cheers, as the returns swung in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a crowd as this.

Enterprising newspapers had established places at which they flashed out the returns on huge sheets on every prominent corner. Some of them had bands, and moving pictures, and elaborate forms of entertainment for the crowds.

Now and then, where the crowd was more than usually dense, we had to make a wide detour. Even the quieter streets seemed alive. On some boys had built huge bonfires from barrels and boxes that had been saved religiously for weeks or surreptitiously purloined from the grocer or the patient house-holder. About the fires, they kept an ever watchful eye for the descent of their two sworn enemies--the policeman and the rival gang privateering in the name of a hostile candidate.

Boys with armfuls of newspapers were everywhere, selling news that in the rapid-fire change of the statistics seemed almost archeologically old.

Lights blazed on every side. Automobiles honked and ground their gears. The lobster palaces, where for weeks, Francois, Carl, and William had been taking small treasury notes for tables reserved against the occasion, were thronged. In theatres people squirmed uneasily until the ends of acts, in order to listen to returns read from the stage before the curtain. Police were everywhere. People with horns, and bells, and all manner of noise-making devices, with confetti and "ticklers" pushed up on one side of Broadway and down on the other.

At every square they congested foot and vehicle traffic, as they paused ravenously to feed on the meagre bulletins of news.

Yet back of all the noise and human energy, as a newspaperman, I could think only of the silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news, of the busy scenes that each journal's office presented, the haste, the excitement, the thrill in the very smell of the printer's ink.

Miss Ashton, I was glad to note, as we proceeded downtown, fell more and more into the spirit of the adventure.

High up in the League headquarters in the tower, when we arrived, it was almost like a newspaper office, to me. A corps of clerks was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports. As first the city swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and fell.

I could not help noticing, however, after a while that Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease. There was such a crowd there of Leaguers and their friends that it was easily possible for her not to meet Carton. But as I circulated about in the throng, I came upon him. Carton looked worried and was paying less attention to the returns than seemed natural. It was evident that, in spite of the crowd, she had avoided him and he hesitated to seek her out.

There were so many things to think of thrusting themselves into one's attention that I could follow none consistently. First I found myself wondering about Carton and Miss Ashton. Before I knew it I was delivering a snap judgment on whether the uptown residence district returns would be large enough to overcome the hostile downtown vote. I was frankly amazed, now, to see how strongly the city as a whole was turning to the Reform League.

A boy, pushing through the crowd, came upon Kennedy and myself, talking to Miss Ashton. He shoved a message quickly into Craig's hand and disappeared.

"For heaven's sake!" he exclaimed as he tore open the envelope and read. "What do you think of that? My shadows report that Martin Ogleby has been arrested and his confession will be enough, with the Black Book and Betty Blackwell, to indict Dorgan. Kahn has committed suicide! Hartley Langhorne has sailed for Paris on the French line, with Mrs. Ogleby!"

"Mary Ogleby--eloped?" repeated Miss Ashton, aghast.

The very name seemed to call up unpleasant associations and her face plainly showed it. Kennedy had said nothing to her since the day when he had pleaded with her to suspend judgment.

"By the way," he said in a low voice, leaning over toward her, "have you heard that those pictures of her were faked? It was really Dorgan, and some crook photographer cut out his face and substituted Carton's. We got the Black Book, this morning, too, and it tells the story of Mrs. Ogleby's misadventures--as well as a lot of much more important things. We got it from Mr. Murtha and---"

"Mr. Murtha?" she inquired, in surprise.

"It is a secret, but I think I can violate it to a certain extent for Mr. Carton is a party to it and--"

Kennedy paused. He was speaking with the assurance of one who assumed that John Carton and Margaret Ashton had no secrets. She saw it, and coloured deeply.

Then he lowered his voice further to a whisper and when he finished, her face was even a deeper scarlet. But her eyes had a brightness they had lacked for days. And I could see the emotion she felt as her slight form quivered with excitement.

Kennedy excused himself and we worked our way through the press toward Carton.

"Dorgan has lost his nerve!" ejaculated Craig as we came up with him, watching district after district which showed that the Boss's usual pluralities were being seriously reduced.

"Lost his nerve?" repeated Carton.

"Yes. I told him I would publish the whole affair of the photographs just as I knew it, not caring whom it hit. I advised him to read his revised statutes again about money in elections and I added the threat, 'There will be no "dough day" or it will be carried to the limit, Dorgan, and I will resurrect Murtha in an hour!' You should have seen his face! There was no dough day. That's what I meant when I said it was to be a fair fight. You see the effect on the returns."

Carton was absolutely speechless. The tears stood in his eyes as he grasped Kennedy's hand, then swung around to me.

A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office. One of them rushed in with a still unblotted report.

Kennedy seized it and read:

"Dorgan concedes the city by a safe plurality to Carton, fifty-two election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform League victory."

I turned to Carton.

Behind us, through the crowd, had followed a young lady and now Carton had no ears for anything except the pretty apology of Margaret Ashton.

Kennedy pulled me toward the door.

"We might as well concede Miss Ashton to Carton," he beamed. "Let's go out and watch the crowd."

THE END