Читать книгу The Blind Goddess - Arthur Train - Страница 6

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The sun, which had been deflected so obliquely into the Criminal Court room the afternoon before, lifted over Chinatown and the Five Points and hit Hugh squarely between the eyes. Through the crack of the door leading into the kitchen crept the smell of bacon and coffee, and the murmur of voices. He was possessed with a fierce desire for food, tempered only by his aversion to getting out of bed. It was going to be cold. He could tell that by his frosty breath. Then his alarm clock went off with the clatter of a steam riveter.

Grabbing up the coverlet, he wrapped it about his shoulders, seized the still sputtering clock, and cleared the intervening space to the kitchen in a single leap.

Ignatius O’Hara, his face covered with lather, was shaving himself by the window in his undershirt. Jeffrey Quirk, his wig hanging from the gas jet, was in his customary posture before the stove, the line of separation between his features and his bald pate so definitely marked as to give almost the impression of his having on a false face, made, possibly, of green cheese.

A copper boiler simmered on one side of the stove, and on the other a steaming coffee-pot.

Hugh bade the others good morning, filled a tin basin from the boiler, and carried it to the sink.

“Fried, poached, or boiled, Mr. Dillon?” inquired Quirk mechanically.

“Fried for me!—Three of ’em!” grunted O’Hara between scrapes. “I haven’t made up yet for the meal I lost last night. I dreamt of a mutton chop as big as a rubric, and a mug of musty the size of a bishop’s chalice.”

“I’ll do my own!” spluttered Hugh from behind the roller towel. “Why don’t you put on your wig, Quirk?”

“I thought it was on!” replied Quirk, trying to adjust it with one hand. “Do you notice any difference in its color, Mr. O’Hara?”

“No more than might be attributed to the change of season,” replied his master. “As I recall, it was a soft and gentle green last spring. But this is autumn—when the leaves are red—or is it yellow?”

Quirk held it off for inspection.

“That was because it fell into a pail of borax water,” he explained, as Hugh lifted off the frying-pan and took his seat at the table.

“What’s on the calendar this morning?” he asked.

“A bunch of stuff over in the police court—but Quirk can hold most of it—adjourn it for a couple of days until we can look it over—a Tong murder, and one or two little things of that sort,” answered O’Hara. “Then there are a couple of motions in Part I, and five pleadings. I’ll attend to the motions, but you’ll have to handle the rest. You can plead ’em all guilty then and there if they haven’t any money. I’ve got a habeas corpus returnable before Judge Lawrence in Part II of the Supreme Court at eleven o’clock. A fairly busy morning. When is your next case?”

“My next case is the first one I can force the district attorney to try,” said Hugh. “Three of our clients have been rotting over there in the Tombs for a month, when there’s not a shred of credible evidence against them. Look at Renig! He was in the Tombs three weeks before he was tried! Who can say there isn’t one law for the poor and another for the rich?”

“Well, don’t look at me!” said O’Hara. “I didn’t.”

“It’s true all the same!” Hugh continued, waving his coffee spoon toward the Tombs. “That place over there is just a pest-house. Every man and woman that goes in there comes out infected with some social distemper. I’ll bet Renig is half Bolshevik already. I’d be, in his place! Justice is the basis of everything, isn’t it? We ought to administer the law as well as we play baseball, oughtn’t we?”

“Sure! We ought to!” agreed O’Hara. “But don’t forget, my bonny boy, that meantime we’re making a pretty good living out of its injustices!”

The law office of Hoyle & O’Hara was no less conveniently situated than the residence of the junior partner, being also on Franklin Street, fifty yards nearer Broadway. It occupied the ground floor of a brick building opposite “Pontin’s,” a restaurant much frequented by both prosecutors and lawyers, as well as by their clients and witnesses. A stout rail curbed the cupidity or apprehension of the prospective client until his business was made fully known to the hawk-faced youth who sat on guard. Here perforce until the word was forthcoming which admitted him to the august presence of one of the partners, he must kick his heels on a wooden bench in company with a waiting throng of sly-faced youths in fear of jail, widows seeking damages for their bereavement, young ladies who had been “taken advantage of,” elderly gentlemen who were being “annoyed” and were seeking relief therefrom, and all the others of the miscellany making up the firm’s clientele.

The office in the rear overlooking the withered plane-trees of Mulcahy’s Beer Garden, was sacred to the head of the firm, Sylvanus Hoyle himself, whose totally bald pink pate resembled that of an oversized baby, but whose sharp nose, small, tightly compressed mouth, and smoothly shaven cheeks, with their cavernous eye-sockets, also gave him when his head was covered the appearance of a large white owl in a hat, a physical similarity intensified by the huge horn-rimmed spectacles which he was never without.

Hoyle’s past was shrouded in a mystery from which he never drew aside the veil. Tradition had it that he was the son of a Salem clergyman—a graduate of Harvard, who through personal experiences incident to early dissipation, had discovered the ease with which a shrewd member of the bar could profit by the misfortunes of his fellow men. No one knew where he lived, and he was rarely seen outside the four walls of his office. At rare intervals he emerged, brief-case in hand, in a blue cape and silk stovepipe hat, on his way to argue an appeal in the Appellate Division or in the Court of Appeals at Albany; on rarer occasions his door opened to admit some agitated applicant for legal succor, with whom he would be closeted for a long period of time, after which it might happen that a smell of burning paper, suggestive of brimstone, would follow the exit of his visitor along the passage to the outer office. Indeed the high brazier on its iron tripod in the corner, with the possible exception of the engraving of Lord Eldon between the windows, was the most conspicuous object in his office. He was a man of silence, who slipped out and in without so much as a good morning or a good night to his employees; but, if forced to stop and speak, his face was so boyish, his eyes so guileless, as to create an uncanny feeling that there was something wrong there—either that he had sold his soul to Satan in exchange for the secret of perpetual youth, or that in fact he was a child masquerading as a man.

So far as could be observed Hoyle never spoke to O’Hara, and neither did O’Hara speak to Hoyle, although he always referred to him with a veneration verging, particularly when he had been drinking, upon awe. The two must have communicated—like cats on a fence, perhaps—yet how or when, none knew, nor what hold the older man had upon his junior partner. For the face of O’Hara, for all that he was burly as a prize-fighter, was cruelly lined with passion, drink, and anxiety, and his eyes were the sad eyes of one who once had ideals that he has lost. His was the body of an athlete with the head of a world-weary debauchee; Hoyle’s the decrepit figure of an octogenarian with the rosy cheeks and bland gaze of a precocious infant.

O’Hara was as rough in his exterior as his senior was smooth, and at first, with his purple unshaven cheeks and stubble-covered chin, gave an impression of general disreputability which persisted until he had once begun to speak, when it was immediately dispelled by the mellow, organ-like quality of his voice. No more was known of his private history than was of Hoyle’s, although he was reported to have once had a wife, but, whether widowed or divorced, he had her no longer, and he never referred to her.

The third member of this strange triumvirate, who although not a member of the bar, formed an integral part of it, was Jeffrey Quirk, over whom as over his partner O’Hara, the silent Hoyle seemed to exercise some occult control. In the latter’s presence Quirk cowered like a dog, shrinking from him as if in terror of the lash, or appealing with mute eyes to O’Hara for protection. Indeed, Quirk always seemed to Hugh more like an animal endowed with a limited rationality than a man—a mentally enfeebled and unmoral creature, who had shattered his nervous system by the use of drugs, yet who nevertheless retained an instinctive perception for beauty and a curious mysticism strangely at variance with his occupation and surroundings—in appearance a sort of living dead man, endowed with automatic motion, whose soul still hovered within reach and at times returned to it, but who at others could be utilized by a stronger mind as its tool for either good or evil. He was, in a way, the firm’s familiar spirit, flitting here and there in the gloomy purlieus of the Tombs like a bat at their behest, mysteriously appearing after unexpected absences, always on hand in every court-room, apparently at one and the same time, to answer “Ready!” or to plead a prisoner guilty. His build and air, like his master Hoyle’s, were boyish, but his yellow skin was furrowed with wrinkles and scarred by smallpox.

Unsuspicious by nature, since there had been nothing in his early life to make him otherwise, Hugh neither saw nor felt anything sinister, or even unusual, in this peculiar trio. It did not occur to him to question any of the statements of his associates, or to dream that either of them could possibly be guilty of lying to him. Exteriorly they were not particularly different from some of the lawyers he had known at home. Old Mr. Safford was almost as bald as Mr. Hoyle. O’Hara was just like any other roughneck attorney. Quirk aroused his pity and instinct for protection. He knew no “Wall Street lawyers,” as civil attorneys are ordinarily referred to among the members of the criminal bar, and he had no opportunity to meet any, since they never condescended to appear in a criminal court, knowing full well in all probability that they would make asses of themselves if they did so. Hence Hugh had no standard of comparison except those set by the members of the professional staff of the district attorney—men such as Michael Redmond, for example, whom he disliked and distrusted. It was enough for Hugh that he was employed by Hoyle & O’Hara to make him fiercely a partisan both of the firm and of those whom it represented.

Hoyle & O’Hara’s offices were already crowded with waiting clients when they arrived, but since Hugh was the “trial” member of the firm, O’Hara made a practice of conferring with most of those who merely sought advice, thus leaving his young associate free to prepare for his more active duties in court.

Hugh looked over his correspondence, and studied his calendar. There were five “pleas” on it—that is to say, the firm had five clients who would be arraigned at the bar for the purpose of being interrogated as to their guilt or innocence. Practically nobody ever pleaded “guilty” in the first instance. Even those caught red-handed always claimed that they were “not guilty” in the expectation that rather than try their cases the district attorney would accept a plea of guilty to some lesser offense or, at any rate, to a lower degree of the same crime.

All a lawyer did was to take his stand beside his client when the latter was brought to the bar, and say “not guilty” when the clerk asked what plea the prisoner “desired to enter”; after which the defendant was taken back to his cell, to remain until somebody remembered that he was there, or the “D. A.” and his lawyer got tired of haggling over the disposition of his body. There were well-known cases where men, who if they had gone to trial would have been either acquitted or sentenced to but a nominal imprisonment, had lain for months in the Tombs while their lawyers negotiated for a plea.

It angered Hugh that the liberty of human beings should be dealt with as a matter of business or politics. He often told himself that he could never be a prosecutor, earning his salary by convicting men and sending them to prison or to the electric chair. How rotten it must have made Redmond feel, for instance, to find himself in the position of prosecuting poor Renig! This at once brought Moira to his mind. When would he see her again, he wondered. Had she really taken a fancy to him? Or was she merely gratifying a momentary whim, indulging herself in the cruel amusement of playing with him to find out what that kind of young man would do? Was she just another Roman princess who slew her lovers? What could a girl of her wealth and social position see in a shabby police court lawyer like himself? Yet he could not think of her without a thrill even then. The fiery quality of her beauty was tempered by the tenderness of her eyes. Sun and sky! Lilt of west wind, murmur of pine tops, chuckle of shallows and gurgle of rapids! Where was he drifting? Hoyle & O’Hara!

“Lady to see you!”

The office boy had said it just in the same metre. The words repeated themselves in Hugh’s ears:

“Lady to see you!

Lilt of the West Wind!

Sunshine and starlight!

Where am I drifting?

Show in the lady!”

“Show in the lady.”

“Yes, sir!” answered the boy, staring at him as if he were quite mad, as he was.

He did not need to ask her name. No “lady,” so far as he was aware, had ever called at the office of Hoyle & O’Hara before—certainly not while he had been connected with it.

“It’s getting to be a sort of joke, isn’t it!” she said, holding out her hand.

“The kind I like! The best one I know!” he assured her.

“Don’t be angry with me for taking you at your word so soon!” she said. “I’m like that. If I want anything I can’t wait. I have to do it right off!”

“You’ve come to the right place! You can do whatever you want here right now this minute.”

“You’re not angry with me—are you?”

“Angry!” he answered. “I’m a rather impatient person myself. I should have been angry if you hadn’t come.”

“I want to see everything! You say we girls from uptown don’t know enough to be of any help. Well, I want to know enough. Let me be your assistant. You attend to the law, I to the philanthropy.”

“A partnership?”

“Sure. Let’s begin right now. Dillon and Devens.”

“‘Devens and Dillon,’ you mean!”

She gave her characteristic little laugh.

“So you’ve discovered that already! You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

He took hold of her arm, just above the elbow.

“Do you think I am?” he demanded.

“I thought so last night!”

There was only a bunch of orchids between Moira and Hugh. Her eyes challenged his again.

“I’m part Irish like yourself!” he explained. “Let’s go over to court and start work. Our clients are waiting.”

The little Renault had already collected a crowd. Motors did not pause in Franklin Street even if they passed through it.

“What shall I do with the car?” she asked.

“It depends on how long you expect to stay.”

“That,” she retorted, “depends on you.”

“In that case I wouldn’t order him back before seven o’clock,” he declared.

That she should find herself in court for the second time within twenty-four hours was no greater a surprise to Moira herself than to the attendants about the building, who recognized her as the “Old Man’s” daughter. In coming to the Criminal Trial Term the afternoon before she had acted purely upon impulse, and as a result of that impulse she already had erected an elaborate dream castle, inhabited by herself and a passionate, black-haired young man, the physical counterpart of the defender of Paul Renig, and so desperately in love with her that he did everything she wished, even before she asked him to. Her whole life had been such as to develop her self-will. Richard Devens had been almost criminally indulgent, and her wilfulness had been fostered by loneliness. Moira could not remember ever having a mother. One of her earliest recollections was of standing dressed all in black, with her hand in that of her father, and looking up at the coldly beautiful face of the portrait over the fireplace in the dining-room—her “picture mamma,” as she called it.

Even the nuns at the convent had made overmuch of her, and later on she had gone merely as a day scholar to a smart finishing school, where, after one o’clock, she was her own mistress. Already at sixteen she was acting as chatelaine of the big marzipan house opposite Central Park, presiding, to her father’s intense pride, at the dinners given to his political and business associates, flattered and encouraged to show off by a lot of old boys who, even if they had not all kissed the Blarney Stone, would have spoiled her out of real affection.

The wonder was that under these conditions Moira had remained the frank, generous girl that she was, for in spite of her wilfulness there was nothing selfish about her, and she was constantly indulging in acts of philanthropic Quixoticism which put a heavy strain on Richard Devens’ personal bank account. She had fancied herself in love a hundred times, but never, save to the staccato knock of that “Object!” in court the afternoon before, had the door of her heart really swung outward. It had opened of its own accord, before she was aware of the fact, and already a totally unexpected stranger had his foot firmly planted inside.

Hugh did not know what to make of her. No other girl had ever before so piqued his interest or aroused his emotions. The Hudson Valley beauties whom he had half-heartedly wooed had been soft, simpering damsels, who surreptitiously chewed gum and craned away giggling when he had jestingly tried to embrace them. But this tempestuous girl——!

All that morning she sat among the spectators in the court-room listening so attentively to the proceedings that when the hour for adjournment came she was tired out. Instead, therefore, of going to Pontin’s crowded, smoky lunch-room, Hugh took her for a bowl of chop suey and a reviving cup of tea to a quiet little Chinese restaurant in Doyers Street, where they were, fortunately, the only customers, and afterward led her afoot through the mazes of Chatham Square and Mulberry Bend, showed her where the “Tea Water” pump had stood, the old “Kissing Bridge” on the Boston Turnpike, and the former boundaries of the “Collect Pond.” She was quite different that afternoon, interested but passive, for what she had seen in the court-rooms within the past twenty-four hours had been a severe strain upon her sensibilities. Those poor, poor people! And, naturally enough, her interest was far keener in Hugh himself than in what he showed her. What a boy! How eager he was! He got almost as excited over the precise location of the “Tea Water” as he had over Renig!

It was nearly four o’clock before they found themselves in front of the office of Hoyle & O’Hara again. Her motor had been waiting there since three. Quirk was on the steps, looking anxiously up and down Franklin Street, and as Hugh opened the door of the motor he hastily descended.

“Mr. Hoyle wants to see you at once!” he said. “I’ve been everywhere for you.”

Moira, on the point of getting in, turned.

“But I thought you were coming home to have tea with me!”

“I wish I could, but duty calls!” Hugh answered, his mind reverting to the episode of the evening before.

“But I want you!” she cried. “Send word to Mr. Hoyle that you’re engaged!”

“Seriously, I mustn’t. It’s been a wonderful day for me! Promise to come again!”

He looked very handsome, very compelling, as he stood there in the dusk, hat in hand.

“I want you—now!” She drew him toward her with her eyes as she had that morning in his office. Then her lips parted in an unasked question as she shifted her glance over his shoulder. A woman was coming down the steps behind—a woman in a bedraggled picture hat, with a soiled chinchilla boa about her narrow shoulders. [70] Hugh instinctively stepped back. Eileen Clayton stood face to face with her daughter. Every drop of blood in her body was crying out to the girl in an agony of yearning. For an instant she hesitated, then with a supreme effort turned up the street. Moira looked after her compassionately.

“That is the same woman I saw yesterday afternoon. Poor creature! Do you know who she is?”

Hugh shook his head. The haunted expression on the woman’s face had depressed him. Moira got into the motor without referring again to tea. The electric current which all day had flowed between her and Hugh had been broken by the interposition of another and, for the time being, more powerful one.

“Good night!” he said. “Don’t forget to come soon!”

“Good night!” she replied, but the look on her face had nothing to do with him.

There were two persons in Hoyle’s office—the lawyer, who sat with his back to the light between the windows, and the wolfish-looking man in a gray suit, opposite him. The blaze of glory reflected from Mulcahy’s fence made the room seem dark. A gray cat was picking her way between the barbs on the top of the fence. Hoyle gave him a gray cat-like smile.

“Mr. Kranich—Mr. Dillon,” he said, but it was as though he had not spoken.

The wolfish man stretched his mouth into an exaggerated grin and immediately let it snap back again. Hugh swung his chair so that the light should not hit him in the eyes. A discolored paper bag had caught on the bare branches of Mulcahy’s plane-tree.

“Case—look after it,” murmured Mr. Hoyle, in a vocal undercurrent. In the half light he looked like the [71] pink baby advertising some infant food. Mr. Kranich lifted a fat brief-bag to his knees.

“It’s a clear case of forgery in the third, grand larceny, and criminal conspiracy against one of the richest corporations in the city—a walkover! We’ve got ’em cold!” He fished out a dossier in blue covers. “We’ve had our accountants on it now for nearly two years—ever since the reorganization. They ran into a raft of stuff none of us even suspected!”

“Who’s ‘we’?” inquired Hugh.

“The parties I represent.”

“What parties?”

“That I can’t disclose. Important people! We’re going to retain your firm to represent us in the police court, subpœna their books, and play hell with ’em generally. We’ll have the press solid behind us. But”—and he looked hard at Hugh—“you can’t go into a thing like this half-cock! It’s a big job!”

“I should think you might persuade District Attorney Farley to lay the matter before the grand jury in the first instance—if it’s as important as all that!” commented Hugh.

“But that’s not our game. We don’t want an indictment—at least, not yet. What we want to do is to expose their corrupt practices—show ’em up!”

“Dillon’s your man! He’ll rip ’em up the back proper for you!” said Hoyle.

“Well, there’s money in it, all sorts of ways, if you understand me,” remarked Kranich significantly. “They’re capitalized at fifteen millions. Their common stock is selling around ninety.”

“And if this goes through—?” murmured Hoyle.

“It won’t sell above nine! We all ought to make our everlasting fortunes!”

Hugh could hardly credit his ears. Kranich was baldly proposing blackmail!

“Who are these miscreants?” he inquired curiously.

“A concern known as ‘The Associated Architects and Builders.’” Kranich awaited the effect of his disclosure.

“You mean Devens’ company?”

“Yes—one of them. The other, the J. S. Burke Company, is involved too. We’ve got ’em both.”

Hugh studied his partner’s face. It was as expressionless as a pan of milk. The gray cat was feeling her way toward the window. Was it conceivable that Hoyle was contemplating taking a case against his own client? It was unthinkable! But, if not, what could he be up to? Was he trying to trick Kranich into disclosing his hand? Dirty business, at any rate! In no event could he participate in a criminal prosecution against Moira’s father. These people were his friends!

“I’d like to think this matter over,” he said slowly.

“Take all the time you want. There’s no great hurry. Only this looks like a fairly propitious moment for picking the plums. Glance this over and call me up when you’re ready.” Kranich offered Hugh the blue dossier. “The whole thing’s right there.”

“You better hang on to it for the present. I shan’t have time to look at it—I wouldn’t leave it lying around if I were you.”

Hoyle stretched out a short fat arm, but before his highly polished fingernails could reach the papers Hugh lifted them out of Mr. Kranich’s hand.

“Perhaps I’ll have time to go over it, after all.”

He thrust the blue-backed sheets into his inner pocket. Mr. Kranich closed his brief-case.

“Well, the sooner the quicker,” he remarked, getting [73] to his feet. “So long, Mr. Hoyle!—So long, Mr. Dillon!” He slipped through the door like a shadow. Hoyle got up and closed it behind him.

“Let’s have a look at those papers.”

“One moment!” Hugh held him off. “I would like to get this straight. In the first place, no matter what you do I’m out of this whole business. Mr. Devens is a friend of mine. In the second, am I right in supposing that you intend taking a case against one of your own clients?”

Hoyle had gone back to his chair and was watching Hugh over arched fingers.

“Who told you they were my clients?”

“O’Hara.”

Hoyle’s mouth drew into a small rosette.

“Doesn’t it occur to you that if I find one of my clients is crooked I can get rid of him? If Kranich has evidence that the A. A. and B., or its officers, have been guilty of crime, there is no reason why we should continue to represent them, or, for matter of that, why we should not act against them. It might be our duty to do so!”

“That’s a sweet thought!” ejaculated Hugh with contempt.

It was his introduction to high-class legal rascality. Hoyle eyed him from the shadow between the windows. The cat had tiptoed along all three sides of the fence and was now on her return trip, daintily lifting her white paws. Hugh took a step nearer.

“And it doesn’t answer my question. Are you going to take the case?”

“That depends——”

“On which side is the most money, I suppose,” hazarded Hugh scornfully. “That’s one way to practise [74] law! On the one hand to take a case against a corporation whose money is in your pocket, or on the other to trap a man who wishes to retain you, into giving you confidential information to hand over to your client!—You’ve got to double-cross one or the other!”

Hoyle’s jowls had turned the color of raw meat.

“Give me those papers or get out of this office!” he said.

Hugh buttoned his coat.

“That is what I intend to do. If I ever need a devil’s advocate I’ll know where to find him. Meantime, I shall take these papers back to Kranich.”

The light had faded from Mulcahy’s fence. The cat had vanished. The room was still.

“I’m a bad man to have for an enemy!” remarked Hoyle. “You’re young—and— Well—I’m willing to overlook this incident if you’ll behave yourself properly and give me those papers!”

Hugh turned his back on him and started for the door. “This is the end of a promising young career!” he thought. The chances and changes of this mortal life were certainly astonishing! At the threshold he paused. There had come into his mind the refrain of the song they had used to shout at the Heinies across the trenches.

“‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling for you, and not for me!’” he remarked to his erstwhile partner. “Good-by, Hoyle and O’Hara! Give my regards to Sing Sing!”

Moira’s chauffeur, swinging down White Street in order to attain the broader thoroughfare of Lafayette again, nearly ran over Mr. Michael Redmond, who leaped gracefully upon the running-board and smiled upon her.

“Shall I give you a lift?” she asked.

“You nearly lifted me into eternal glory!” replied Redmond, twisting through the door. “But I will allow you to make amends. I saw you not long ago in Part I. You seem to have the habit. Has your pet burglar landed in the Tombs?”

“Yes,” answered Moira. “All my pet burglars and murderers and robbers have landed there. Where are you going to land?”

“I had thought of landing in your drawing-room about tea-time.”

“Do, by all means.”

She seemed encouragingly cordial, and it occurred to Mr. Redmond that he had been mistaken about her not liking him yesterday afternoon. So, being a bold young man, he said:

“You know, I would most awfully like to kiss you.”

“In that case you would land in the street,” she remarked definitely, “even if I let you first. Do you remember Gautier’s ‘One of Cleopatra’s Nights’?”

“I wish I could!” he mused. “You will observe that I only said I would like to.”

“It is a mistake to theorize about such things.”

“But not to do them?”

“If one expects to do them. It is too late now for either theorizing or action.”

Because she was Irish she liked him better this way than when he was humble. Really, he was rather nice!

“What sort of a young man is that Mr. Dillon?” she asked, partly from a desire to annoy him. Redmond finished lighting his cigarette.

“A nice fellow, I think. A sort of volcano. You never know when he’s going into eruption. A mighty good trial lawyer. He’s all right!”

Had he but known it he could have kissed her at that moment without rebuke! But he did not know it. He merely knew instinctively that the best way to cajole a woman is to praise her lover.

There were fifteen young people already having tea at the house when they made their entrance.

“Do forgive me for being late!” she begged. “No—keep right on pouring, Mona!—Make it strong, please! I’m sorry, but I had important business down at the Tombs—and I’m a wreck.”

“I hasten to add that I wasn’t the business,” added Mr. Redmond, modestly.

“Isn’t it a terrible place?” inquired a languid girl with green eyes and earrings. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it myself. Will you take me down some day, Mr. Redmond?”

Moira swung on her.

“If you are going down there merely out of curiosity you’d better stay away, Elsie dear.”

“I’m not going merely out of curiosity. I’d like to be of some help to those poor people!”

The others had stopped talking. Moira found herself quoting Hugh.

“Don’t think me rude,” she said, “but the idea that girls like us can really be of any help to men in prison, strikes me as ridiculous. What do we know about the conditions that brought them there? For that matter, what do we know about life?”

From which sententious utterance most of those present immediately concluded that she was stalking Mr. Michael Redmond, and was taking that way of notifying others to keep off her hunting-ground. Her remark, however, was taken as a challenge, and precipitated an animated discussion in which Moira found herself hopelessly in the minority, and which was still going on when the party broke up at seven o’clock.

Meanwhile, in her father’s den across the hall, another discussion was taking place which, curiously enough, also centred about the Tombs. Richard Devens had no downtown office, and it was Daniel Shay’s habit to report to him daily at about six o’clock, after which, if his friend had nothing else afoot, he was very apt to stay to dinner.

They sat in their customary attitude, Devens at his desk with the right-hand slide pulled out, and Shay beside him, this position having been demonstrated by experience to be convenient for the examination of papers.

“I’m after seeing Eileen last night, Dick. She’s in a bad way—says she can’t live like this any longer. I feared from her manner of speaking she might try to do away with herself.”

Devens’ massive jaw seemed to grow squarer.

“It breaks my heart, Dan! But what can I do? She’s worse than she’s ever been. How could I let her see Moira? It would ruin the girl’s life.”

“Eileen’s livin’ in hell!”

“She brought it on herself!”

Uncle Dan laid his hand on that of his associate.

“After all, she’s Moira’s mother!”

Devens bowed his big head.

“The mother must always be sacrificed to the child,” he said. “It’s the law of nature. You know how I loved her, Danny!—how I still love her—the real Eileen, I mean! This poor creature is somebody else! I knew trouble was brewing before you came in. Hoyle telephoned me she’d been down there to see him and [78] wanted the contract modified so she could see Moira once a week. But, Dan, if I let her see the girl once, she’ll want to be with her all the time. Moira’d have to become nurse to a drug addict. I can’t turn this house into a sanatorium! I’ve got troubles enough as it is!”

“Did Hoyle give you any other news?”

“Yes. Kranich’s gang have started their campaign. Who do you suppose they tried to retain first? Hoyle himself!”

“Hoyle!”

Shay gave an ironic chuckle.

“That’s a good one! Luck’s still with us!”

“Hoyle says he’d have had their guts if young Dillon hadn’t kicked over the bucket.”

“Dillon? How?”

“By insisting that Hoyle and O’Hara refuse to take the case, on the ground of their retainer by us. Incidentally, I gather that he used some pretty strong language and then checked out.”

“The young devil!”

Devens rubbed his chin.

“Hoyle says Kranich intends to lay the case before the district attorney as soon as he gets counsel. If we could find out in advance what they’re going to try to prove, we could forestall ’em. No district attorney is going to stand in with a bunch of blackmailers unless he has to.”

Devens meditated a moment just as Moira, the tea-party having broken up, paused on the threshold.

“It’s a damn shame young Dillon couldn’t get on with Hoyle and O’Hara. I took a real fancy to him. He must have acted pretty rough for Hoyle to fire him!”

Moira stepped quickly into the room.

“Do you mean that Hugh Dillon has lost his position with Hoyle and O’Hara, daddy?”

“That is the fact.”

“Oh, daddy! And I was going to make him Mayor of New York!”

“I fancy he’d still be willing, wouldn’t he?”

“But how is the poor boy to live? He doesn’t know anybody in New York? Where do you suppose he is sleeping to-night? Why can’t we ask him up here! Oh, I knew some bad luck was in store when that poor woman came out and looked at me so strangely. It was the second time I’d seen her. You know, daddy, she acted exactly as if she knew me! For a moment I thought she was going to speak, for she half-smiled as she went by—such a pathetic smile it was!—and started to hold out her hand.”

Devens lifted the cover of the humidor and felt inside for a cigar without meeting her eyes.

“Maybe she did know you. A lot of people must recognize you as my daughter.”

“I’d never laid eyes on her before yesterday afternoon. I’m sure of it. No one who’d seen her once could ever forget her, daddy!—Hugh Dillon was with me. I hope she didn’t cast the evil eye on him! Oh, what am I saying! You’ll do something right off for him, daddy—won’t you? Why don’t you make him an assistant district attorney?”

At her words Uncle Dan lifted his cupped hands and clapped them silently together behind her.

“That’s a grand idea, Dickie!” he commented. “He might be after coming in very handy some day. A friend at court, you know!”

“Oh, do! daddy!” cried Moira. “That would be simply wonderful! That is, if he’d take the position.”

“Take it? Of course he’d take it! What young man wouldn’t?” asked her father.

“Hugh Dillon mightn’t!” she answered seriously. “He’s a queer lad! But, oh, daddy!” and she threw her arms about Richard Devens’ neck and kissed him, “he’s a broth of a boy! And I love him!”