Chapter XXX

When Bubbles entered Blicker's drug-store, the city clocks were striking a quarter to twelve, but the place was still brightly lighted, and at the soda-counter a young man was treating his flame to a glass of chocolate vanilla ice-cream.

Bubbles marched to the prescription counter, and began to unwrap a bloody handkerchief from his left hand. Then he began to clear his throat. This brought Mr. Blicker from a region of mortar pestles, empty pill-boxes, and glass retorts.

"What you want?" he asked aggressively.

"I want me thumb bandaged."

"You cut him--eh?"

Bubbles lowered his voice. "On a barnacle."

"Come in back here," said Mr. Blicker roughly. "I fix him." But once out of sight in the depths of the store, his manner changed, and he patted Bubbles enthusiastically on the back. "You have found out some things?"

"Sure--lots."

The chemist, without commenting, began to treat the cut thumb, washing, disinfecting, and bandaging. Then, very loud, for the benefit perhaps of the lovers at the soda-counter, "So," he said, "I let you out the back door."

And he actually opened a door, slammed it shut, and turned a key in the lock. But it was a closet door. Then with a finger on his lips he pointed to a narrow staircase and, his own feet making a great tramping, led the way up it. Upon the top steps they found Mr. Lichtenstein, nervously puffing clouds of tobacco smoke,

"'Bout given you up," he said. "Good boy!"

"Better talk by the parlor," said Blicker; "here is too exposed."

When the door of the stuffy little parlor had closed behind them, the proprietor began to smile and beam. But Mr. Lichtenstein looked grave and troubled. It was not for pleasure that he sometimes found occasion to put dangerous work in the hands of children.

"Hurt your thumb bad?" he asked.

Bubbles shook his head and plunged into his story. Now and then the German laughed, but the red-haired, pug-nosed Jew appeared to sink deeper and deeper into his own thoughts, only showing by an occasional question that he was following the boy's narrative. Bubbles wished to dwell at length and with comment upon the use of the passage for disposing of dead bodies, but to Mr. Lichtenstein this appeared to be merely a natural by-product of its construction.

"It wasn't dug for that," he said. "How big is the main excavation?"

"'Bout as big as a small East Side dance-hall."

Mr. Liechtenstein turned to the German. "Hold a lot of loot--what?"

"I bet me," said the German, and washed his hands with air.

"Lot o' what?" asked Bubbles.

"Loot--gold, silver, jewels, bullion."

"Your ideas," said the German, "is all idiot. No mans is such a darn fool as to think he can get away by such a business--no mans, that is, but is crazy."

"Blizzard is crazy," said Mr. Lichtenstein simply. "It wasn't until we hit on that hypothesis that we made any progress. Bubbles, did you ever hear of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew?"

"Sure," said Bubbles, "they shot him full of arrows."

"That was Saint Sebastian," corrected the Jew. "Now listen, this is history. On the night of August 24, 1572, two thousand men, distinguished from other men by white cockades in their hats, on the order of a crazy man, at the tolling of a bell, drew their swords, murdered everybody in a great city who opposed their leaders, and made themselves absolute masters of the place. What two thousand men did in Paris during the Middle Ages, ten thousand men acting in concert could do in New York to-day. If a man rose up with the power to command such a following, with the ability to keep his plans absolutely secret, with the genius to make plans in which there were no flaws, he could loot Maiden Lane, the Sub-Treasury, Tiffany's, the Metropolitan Museum--_and get away with it_."

Mr. Lichtenstein's small eyes glittered. He was visibly excited. And so was Mr. Blicker.

"He will loot the Metropolitan Museum," said this one, "but what will he do with the metropolitan police?"

"Well," said Mr. Lichtenstein, "I am only supposing. But suppose some fine night a building somewhere central was blown up with dynamite. Suppose the sound was so big that it could be heard in every part of greater New York. Suppose at the sound every policeman in greater New York was shot dead in his tracks--"

Bubbles's hair began to bristle. "Say," he cried in his excitement, "the straw hats--the soft straw hats that Blizzard makes and don't sell--they're the white cockades!"

Mr. Blicker guffawed. Mr. Lichtenstein rose and paced the room.

"And that proves," he exclaimed, "that nothing is to happen when you and I are wearing straw hats--but in winter. Bubbles, you're a bright boy!"

"You are both so bright," said Mr. Blicker, "you keep me all the time laughing."

"Well," said Mr. Lichtenstein, "that may be, but suppose you tell me why Blizzard makes straw hats and don't sell 'em. Tell me why he's dug such a great hole under his house with a passage leading to the river, and ships. Tell me why O'Hagan is drilling men in the West. Tell me why Blizzard has gone out of the white-slave business. It fetched him in a pretty penny."

"I think I can answer the last question," said Bubbles.

"Do then."

"I think," said the small boy, "that he's got some good in him somewhere, and I know he's dead gone on my Miss Ferris. I think he's ashamed o' some o' the things he's done."

Mr. Lichtenstein considered this at some length. Then he said: "Well, that's possible. But it's an absolutely new idea to me. Blizzard _ashamed_? Hum!"