Читать книгу The House with the Blue Door - Footner Hulbert - Страница 9

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The third boarder they took in was Spanish Jack D’Acosta, usually called Spanish around the house. He had been a croupier at Sam Bartol’s El Mirador across the river until that showy establishment was closed. Afterward, when he and another man had attempted to open a house in New York, they were raided by the police and sent to Welfare Island for six months as common gamblers. Spanish had just been released. He was a small man, very trimly made, who dressed in a style of quiet elegance. He had a pale, masklike face and ever-watchful eyes, as befitted his profession. His age might have been anything between thirty and forty-five. He said little and was polite to all. Sieg Ammon, who had worked with him at Bartol’s, enthusiastically endorsed him.

Lee, from the beginning, felt a vague distaste in the presence of Spanish that at first he could not account for. Spanish, for his part, was a student of Lee’s books and professed a great admiration for their author. He brought the books to Lee to be autographed, and was forever seeking his opinion upon this question or that. Spanish had his features under control and his expression never changed—yet somehow it did change. Lee presently perceived that it lay in his eyes. While he was looking at you and talking pleasantly, the pupils had a trick of contracting suddenly. You could not see what had happened but it caused a little shiver of primal fear to creep down your backbone. Spanish had the topaz eyes of a cat animal—or a killer.

Whenever Lee appeared at the Henry Street house, Spanish attached himself to him. The first time Lee saw him, Spanish said:

“Mr. Mappin, I don’t want to go to jail again.”

“Naturally,” said Lee.

“But what future is there for a gambler in America?”

“None whatever.”

“Then what can I do? I have nerves of steel and perfect self-control. I can read human nature. Nothing escapes my observation. Surely those qualities ought to be salable somewhere.”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” said Lee. “Be a little patient and we’ll find an opening for you.”

Spanish cast down the telltale yellow eyes. “I suppose a psychologist would call me a callous or unfeeling character,” he said deprecatingly. “On that account I need a strong stimulus of excitement to make me feel that I’m alive. In a monotonous job the same day after day and year after year I’d go off my nut.”

“I can sympathize with that,” said Lee.

“Is there such a thing as honest excitement, Mr. Mappin?”

“Oh, I find it occasionally,” said Lee, smiling. “Sometimes too much!”

“I was hoping,” Spanish went on, “that you might find some occasion to employ me in one of your investigations. I can say I am a cool hand.”

“I can see that,” said Lee. “Such a man might be very valuable to me some time or other.” Privately he was thinking: I would as lief employ an adder! He took a pinch of snuff.

Lee thoroughly disapproved of the house on Henry Street, but it had an undeniable fascination for him. He was fond of dropping in for a while before dinner to chat with the inmates in the game room. A few nights after his talk with Spanish, he happened to be standing alone by the fire when Letty approached him with a bright smile. He had just time to note that her smile had a strained effect when he heard her saying:

“Don’t look surprised at what I’m going to say, Mr. Mappin. We are watched.”

Lee smiled brightly back at her. “Nothing you could say would make me look surprised, my dear.”

“Are you ever at home in the evenings between half past seven and half past nine?”

“I would be if you wanted to see me.”

“I do, but I don’t want you to put yourself out. I mentioned those hours because I could tell everybody I was going to the movies. We can’t talk in this house because if it was suspected that there was any understanding between you and me it would spoil everything.”

“How about tonight?” suggested Lee.

“Thanks,” she said quickly. “I’ll be there.” She went on in a slightly raised voice: “I do wish I could persuade you to stay to dinner.”

Over her shoulder, Lee saw Spanish approaching. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I have an honest-to-God date tonight.”

Lee waited for her at home in no little curiosity. She came a little before eight. When Jermyn brought her into the big living room she dropped into a big easy chair and let her head fall against the back. Lee saw that her beautiful face was white and drawn as if from fatigue, and his heart was soft for her. Past experience had taught him that only too often it was the wistful, fragile type like Letty that furnished the material for tragedy.

“Have a small coffee and a liqueur with me,” he urged.

She shook her head.

“A highball, then?”

“No, please,” she murmured. “I don’t want anything. It’s so peaceful here. I feel safe.”

Lee was deeply moved. “My dear girl!”

Tears gathered under her lowered lids and rolled down her cheeks. “You mustn’t ... you mustn’t sympathize with me,” she said with a twisted smile, “or I’ll begin to bawl. I can’t stand sympathy.”

Lee bustled around the room affecting to ignore her. “This room is too damned hot!” he grumbled. He flung a window up and presently flung it down again.

Letty in the chair began to laugh weakly. “You’re so kind!” she murmured. “So very, very kind! I’ve never known anything like it!”

“Don’t talk that way,” said Lee gruffly, “or you’ll have me bawling presently.”

“My tears don’t mean anything,” she said. “It’s only that I can relax here. I’m under such a strain all the time.”

“Tell me about it,” said Lee. “And perhaps we can find a way to ease it ... And cry all you like if it’s a relief. I have a whole drawer full of handkerchiefs when yours gives out.”

She shook her head. “I’m not going to cry any more. I’ll tell you all I can—but I can’t tell you everything. You’re the first person I ever knew that I felt I could trust.”

“My dear child!”

“I’ve had a rough life. I was born over on San Juan Hill—you know what that’s like; where the Irish and the negroes fight in the streets. Most of my childhood was spent in different orphanages.”

“You don’t show it,” said Lee.

“I know I don’t,” she said with her painful smile. “I’ve had a hard life but it hasn’t made me hard. I wish it had. I’m not a brave woman! I only want to live quiet.”

“I thought you were happy with Sieg,” suggested Lee.

“I am!” she said quickly. “That is, I love him terribly. I love him too much. That’s not exactly the same thing as happiness, is it? Happiness is peace. I never know a moment’s peace!”

“Why not?”

“Sieg is too attractive to other women. Nearly every woman flings herself at his head. Even when I am present.”

Lee thought of Queenie Deane.

“And Sieg is only human,” Letty went on. “He loves flattery as much as any man. I live in dread that one of these women will take him away from me.”

Lee said: “He married you because you were different from any woman he had even known. And you’re still different.”

“Oh, I suppose he would always come back to me,” said Letty wearily. “But it would kill me to share him with other women.”

Lee pictured the little scene he had witnessed in Le Coq Noir and lowered his eyes to hide the grimness he felt.

“When I married Sieg,” Letty continued, “I was hoping that he would be content with a quiet life. He swore to me that he was going straight and I’m sure he means to. But Sieg can’t be satisfied to live quietly. He must always have people around him and plenty of excitement. The house in Henry Street is so bad for him! All those convicts start talking about the exciting jobs they have pulled off in the past, and Sieg gets restless. If we could only live among nice people!”

“You’re right,” said Lee. “This Henry Street scheme is absolutely unworkable. My hope is that it won’t be long before Mrs. Cassells sees that for herself and closes the house.”

“If only we don’t have a smash first!” murmured Letty. “... And if she does close the house, what will become of Sieg and me?” she presently added. “Mrs. Cassells is kind, but rich women never stick to anything long.”

“If Mrs. Cassells forsakes you, I pledge myself to see that you and Sieg get a fair start,” said Lee.

She smiled at him enchantingly. “That’s a load off my mind,” she said. “Because I know I can depend on what you say.”

Lee studied her shrewdly. “This isn’t what you came to talk about.”

Letty, quickly looking away, shook her head.

“There is something special and particular that is troubling you.”

She nodded. “It’s Spanish Jack,” she said very low.

Lee grunted. “I might have guessed as much. He’s a bad egg.”

Letty shivered. “He’s the worst of all!” she murmured. “He doesn’t care what he does. He has neither fear nor pity nor any natural feelings. He’s inhuman!”

“What do you know about him?” asked Lee.

“I worked with him at Sam Bartol’s for over a year,” she said evasively. “He is a man who would stop at nothing.”

Lee scowled. “Is he persecuting you?”

She nodded. “I had trouble with him before. He ... he threatened me. Now he’s threatening me again.”

“How do you mean, threatening you? Threatening you with what?”

“I can’t tell you the whole story, Mr. Mappin. It’s too dangerous ... too dangerous!”

“You said you trusted me, Letty. How can I act intelligently if you don’t tell me the whole story?”

Letty began to tremble pitifully. “I do trust you, Mr. Mappin. It’s not that. It’s too dangerous! For you, for all of us. It’s not only Spanish himself. He belongs to a gang whose members have sworn to stand by each other. If you succeeded in putting him away, there would be a dozen to take his place!”

“Do you know any of the other members of this gang?”

“I know one of them. His name is Piero Mendes and he lives at 223½ Sands Street, Brooklyn.”

Lee considered what she had told him. “Putting him away” had a significant sound. He said: “You must let me be the judge of the danger, Letty. When a danger is faced out, it is never so bad as it seems.”

“This is! This is! This is!” she wailed. “I dare not tell you!”

“At least tell me plainly why you can’t tell me the whole story.”

“Because then you would be forced to take a line that would ruin us all. We would be killed!”

Lee shook his head in perplexity. “How did you expect me to help you if I am to be kept in the dark?”

Letty clasped her hands. “Oh, get him out of the house without his suspecting that I have been to see you! To have him there all the time ... all the time ... frightens me so I can scarcely know what I am doing. He plays with me like a cat with a mouse! I am afraid of giving something away. If Sieg should suspect ...!”

“I think I see a way of getting him out of the house temporarily,” said Lee slowly. “But when you’ve quieted down and got a grip on yourself, you must tell me the whole story, and leave it to me to decide how to act. It’s not fair to ask me to act in the dark.”

“If you can only get him out of the house, I’ll do whatever you say!”

“Can you stand him for a couple of days longer? I don’t want to act too precipitately, or he might suspect something.”

“I can stand anything if I know there is a hope of release!”

Three nights later Lee had Spanish Jack to dinner in his apartment. Spanish glanced around the wide living room with mixed approval and envy in his pale eyes. He went out on the balcony and looked down at the passing boats in the East River and the lights on the farther shore. Coming in, he said:

“What a swell joint, Mr. Mappin! And no woman around to mess things up. A man needs a place where he can get away from women!”

Lee smiled. “It’s all a matter of temperament!”

Spanish was accustomed to the good things of life and Lee took care to give him a superior dinner. He had some of his best wines served. It was clear that Spanish was enjoying himself to the full, yet more than once, when his mouth was full of friendliness and flattery, Lee saw that baleful change take place in his eyes. Lee thought: He hates me. I suppose he hates everybody on earth. There is no room in his breast for any feeling but hatred.

Meanwhile he set himself in friendly guise to draw out his guest. Spanish, perfectly aware of it, talked freely and well, but divulged only the obvious facts about himself. He was born in Rio, he said, and drifted down to Argentina at an early age, where he was first employed in a gambling casino. From Buenos Aires he progressed to Bucharest and, gradually making his way across Europe, finally landed the job of croupier in the swanky Sporting Club at Monte Carlo. When the upheaval took place in Europe, he was forced to return to America, where he had experienced various ups and downs—mostly downs, he said with a wry smile. He had no family complications. “I’m a bird of passage,” he said. “I would begin to hate a woman as soon as I was tied to her.”

It was a cool evening and Lee had a fire lighted in the living room. As they sat in front of it later with highballs, he said:

“I suppose you’ve been wondering why I asked you up here tonight.”

“I’ve been hoping there was something good in it for me,” Spanish answered, smiling with his lips.

“Well, it may prove to be a beginning. You put the idea into my head by suggesting that you might be able to help me in some of my investigations. I led you to suppose that I rarely undertook an independent investigation. That was not true. I have cases from time to time, but they are all of the sort that calls for absolute secrecy. A breath of publicity would ruin me. Consequently it is easier for me to make out that I am just an amateur.”

“I suspected as much,” said Spanish.

“You’re a smart fellow! ... You can see, then, that if you are going to be of any help to me, you must act with complete discretion.”

“You needn’t have any fear of that, Mr. Mappin. If I hadn’t learned to keep a close tongue in my head I would have died much younger.”

“Good! There’s another warning I must give you in advance. It will not be possible for me to take you completely into my confidence. It is a rule that I have adopted toward everybody.”

“That’s all right with me. You just give me my line and I’ll stick to it.”

“Something has come up concerning a prominent man in Boston. He is a distinguished member of the Harvard Faculty and bears a blameless reputation. For this reason you must proceed with the greatest care. There is some evidence that he is leading a double life. If he has turned to crime, he is a very dangerous man because he possesses one of the most remarkable brains in the country. I want you to keep him under surveillance for a while and find out what he is up to.”

“What do you suspect?” asked Spanish.

“I shall not tell you that, because there is no proof. I want you to start with an open mind. It is up to you to lay bare the facts. This man and I are supposed to be friends. For that reason I cannot help you to approach him. You must find your own way. You must not allow him, of course, to suspect that he is being watched, for then your usefulness would be at an end.”

“I get you,” said Spanish. “What sort of a screw will I get?”

“To start with I’ll pay you fifty dollars a week over and above expenses. As soon as you make yourself valuable to me I’ll pay more.”

“I’m satisfied, Mr. Mappin.”

“Call yourself George Alvarez,” Lee went on. “That will account for your slight accent. Take a room at a small hotel called the Charles on lower Tremont Street. It is run by a man called Simon Fussell. He’s a friend of mine and he will know that you are working for me. He’ll help you in any way that will not compromise his position. Your quarry is Professor Henry Stonestreet, the head of the Department of Paleontology at Harvard. Do not, of course, name him in your reports to me.”

“When do I start?” asked Spanish.

“The sooner the better.”

Spanish glanced at his watch. “I can take the midnight to Boston.”

“Very good. I’ll give you a note of introduction to Simon Fussell and a hundred dollars on account for expenses. Send me daily reports of progress.”

As soon as Spanish had left him, Lee sat down to write to Professor Stonestreet:—

Dear Henry:

It was necessary for me today to invent a job on the spot for a man in order to get him out of town, and I have taken the liberty of setting him on your trail. I hope you will forgive me for using you as a kind of fall guy. I am hoping you may get a little humor out of the situation.

The fellow will call himself George Alvarez. He’s a slick little guy of Brazilian extraction with a face as smooth as wax and keen yellow eyes. You can’t help but recognize him when you see him. He’s a bad egg. Do not let him guess that you are on to him, but string him along. If he annoys you in any way, let me know at once and I’ll call him off.

Yours ever,

Lee Mappin.

P.S. Destroy this as soon as you have read it.