Chapter XXXVIII

Then he began to speak in a quiet voice. "Never touched me. Bubbles. Pull that cord at the right of the window. That will close the curtains. Careful not to show yourself. The man that fired that shot thinks he got me. I fell over to make him think so and to keep him from shooting again. Now then"--the curtain had been drawn over the window with the broken pane--"let's see what sort of a gun our friend uses, and then perhaps we can spot our friend. Did you hear the shot?"

"No, sir. There was a noise just when the clock broke like when a steel girder falls on the sidewalk."

"That noise was just _before_ the clock broke, Bubbles. And it was loud enough to drown the noise of our friend's gun. Clever work, though, to _have_ to pull the trigger at a given moment, and to make such a close shot. Probably had his gun screwed in a vise."

Meanwhile Lichtenstein had extracted from the ruined clock a .45-calibre bullet of nickel steel. A glance at the grooves made by the rifling of the barrel from which it had been expelled caused him to raise his colorless eyebrows and smile cynically.

"New government automatic, Bubbles," he said, "and the funny part of it is they've only been issued to officers so far, and the factory hasn't put 'em on sale yet."

"Must have been stole from an officer, then," said Bubbles.

"You steal her jewels from an actress," said Lichtenstein, "her mite from the widow, its romances from the people, but you don't steal his side arms from an American army officer. No. Somebody in the factory has let the weapon that fired this slip out. It doesn't matter--it's just a little link in the long chain."

He seated himself calmly at the table and set down in black and white the fact that he had been very nearly murdered by a bullet fired from the new army pistol. Then he began to gather up the sheets of his manuscript.

"Now I wonder," he said, "where I can go to finish this document? I don't want them to 'get' me until I've paved the way for the man that comes after me. Now then--the secret passage isn't only for the wicked."

Kneeling on the clean hearth, Mr. Lichtenstein caused the ornamental cast-iron back of the fireplace to swing outward upon a hinge. Reaching a long arm into the disclosed opening, he unfastened and pushed ajar the iron back of a fireplace in the next house.

Bubbles, crawling through first, found himself in a somewhat overdressed pink and blue bedroom. The lace curtains were too elaborate. The room was luxurious and vulgar. Among the photographs on the centre-table reposed a champagne-bottle, three parts empty, and two glasses, in which a number of flies were heavily crawling.

Lichtenstein, having carefully replaced the fire-backs, rose smiling, and clapped a hand upon Bubbles's shoulder.

"Now then, Bubbles," he said, "push that bell-button by the door four times, and we'll see what Mrs. Popple can do to get us out of this. Never met Mrs. Popple? She's one of us, and at heart a good one."

The lady in question came swiftly in answer to the four rings. At first sight she passed for a woman of hard and forbidding aspect; filmy laces and a clinging kimona of rose-pink silk neither softened nor made feminine the alabaster-colored face with its thin, straight mouth, heavy hairy eyebrows, and clean-cut Greek nose. Only her costume and her hair, indescribably fine, and indescribably yellow, betrayed that there were follies in her nature. But the moment she spoke you liked her. She had a slow, deep, beautiful voice, and the slowness of her speech was offset by the fewness of her words.

"What's wrong, Abe?"

Lichtenstein explained briefly, and added: "Now how are we to get out of this without being spotted and followed?"

"Easy," said Mrs. Popple. She went to a vast wardrobe painted white, and pulled the creaking doors wide open. "Wedge the man into one dress," she said, "pad the boy into another. Send 'em off in a taxi. Now, boy. Is this Bubbles? Pleased to meet you. I'm old enough to be your grandmother."

The words were a command, and the boy, much embarrassed, began to take off his coat.

"Get busy, Abe. Can take your own things along in a suit-case. I don't look, see? I'm looking out duds for you. What's that? Razor? Find everything in medicine-closet over wash-basin in bath-room."

Lichtenstein disappeared, and gave forth presently the rasping sounds of a man shaving in a hurry. And in the meanwhile, always swift and sure, Mrs. Popple initiated Bubbles into the ABC's of female attire.

"No trouble about a straight front for you," she chuckled, and gave a sudden strong tug at the laces of Bubbles's corsets. He gasped, and the tears came to his eyes.

"Mind to take little steps," she said, "and don't swing your arms." She clasped a blond wig upon his head, and drew back to see the effect.

"Abe," she called, "she's a pippin!"

A moment later she frowned, almost savagely, laid her finger on her lips, knelt at the fireplace, thrust her head far in and listened intently.

Lichtenstein, one side of his face in lather, appeared at the bath-room door. His eyes on the crouching figure of Mrs. Popple, he continued calmly and methodically to shave himself.

After an interval the woman rose, and shook her head.

"Can't make out who's in there," she whispered. "Have Lizzie watch front window see who goes out."

Lichtenstein nodded, washed the tag ends of lather from his face, and proceeded in dead silence to dress himself as a lady of somewhat doubtful age, looks, and position. But Bubbles would have made a very pretty girl, if Mrs. Popple had not insisted on powdering his face till it was as white as that of a clown.

"Won't do to be conspicuous," she explained.

Lichtenstein packed the things which he and Bubbles had taken off into a suit-case marked "A.P." (Amelia Popple), and led the way downstairs. A little later a taxicab drew up at the curb, and the two disguised secret-service agents sauntered down the high steps of Mrs. Popple's brownstone house, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and got in.

"Where to?" said the driver, with rather a bold leer. The average lady who descended or ascended Mrs. Popple's steps; was not considered respectable even by taxi-drivers.

It had been agreed that Bubbles, having of the two the more feminine adaptabilities of voice, should do the talking.

"Grand Central," he said.