The Drums of Jeopardy - Harold MacGrath (open ebook TXT) 📗

with me. Off the living room is a storeroom. I found the key in the lock the other day and investigated. I still have the key. Now, then, there's a door that gives to the main loft. At the other end is the stairhead. There is a door at the foot of the first flight down. We can jolly well leave this way, but we shall have to return by the lift. That bally young ruffian can't refuse to carry us up, y' know!"

Kitty laughed. "This is going to be fun!"

"Rather!"

They groped their way through the dim loft - for it was growing dark outside - and made the stairhead. The door to the seventeenth floor opened, and they stepped forth into the lighted hallway.

"Now what?" asked Kitty, bubbling.

"The floor below, and one of the other lifts, what?" Twenty minutes later the two of them, arm in arm, turned into Broadway.

"This, sir," began Kitty with a gesture, "is Broadway - America's backyard in the daytime and Ali Baba's cave at night. The way of the gilded youth; the funnel for papa's money; the chorus lady; the starting point of the high cost of living. We New Yorkers despise it because we can't afford it."

"The lights!" gasped Hawksley.

"Wreckers' lights. Behold! Yonder is a highly nutritious whisky blinking its bloomin' farewell. Do you chew gum? Even if you don't, in a few minutes I'll give you a cud for thought. Chewing gum was invented by a man with a talkative wife. He missed the physiological point, however, that a body can chew and talk at the same time. Come on!"

They went on uptown, Hawksley highly amused, exhilarated, but frequently puzzled. The pungent irony of her observations conveyed to him that under this gayety was a current of extreme bitterness. "I say, are all American girls like you?"

"Heavens, no! Why?"

"Because I never met one like you before. Rather stilted - on their good behaviour, I fancy."

"And I interest you because I'm not on my good behaviour?" Kitty whipped back.

"Because you are as God made you - without camouflage."

"The poor innocent young man! I'm nothing but camouflage to-night. Why are you risking your life in the street? Why am I sharing that risk? Because we both feel bound and are blindly trying to break through. What do you know about me? Nothing. What do I know about you? Nothing. But what do we care? Come on, come on!"

Tumpitum - tump! tumpitum - tump! drummed the Elevated. Kitty laughed. The tocsin! Always something happened when she heard it.

"Pearls!" she cried, dragging him toward a jeweller's window.

"No!" he said, holding back. "I hate - jewels! How I hate them!" He broke away from her and hurried on.

She had to run after him. Had she hesitated they might have become separated. Hated jewels? No, no! There should be no questions, verbal or mental, this night. She presently forced him to slow down. "Not so fast! We must never become separated," she warned. "Our safety - such as it is - lies in being together."

"I'm an ass. Perhaps my head is ratty without my realizing it. I fancy I'm like a dog that's been kicked; I'm trying to run away from the pain. What's this tomb?"

"The Metropolitan Opera House."

As they were passing a thin, wailing sound came to the ears of both. Seated with his back to the wall was a blind fiddler with a tin cup strapped to a knee. He was out of bounds; he had no right on Broadway; but he possessed a singular advantage over the law. He could not be forced to move on without his guide - if he were honestly blind. Hundreds of people were passing; but the fiddler's "Last Rose of Summer" wasn't worth a cent. His cup was empty.

"The poor thing!" said Kitty.

"Wait!" Hawksley approached the fiddler, exchanged a few words with him, and the blind man surrendered his fiddle.

"Give me your hat!" cried Kitty, delighted.

Carefully Hawksley pried loose his derby and handed it to Kitty. No stab of pain; something to find that out. He turned the instrument, tucked it under his chin and began "Traumerei." Kitty, smiling, extended the hat. Just the sort of interlude to make the adventure memorable. She knew this thoroughfare. Shortly there would be a crowd, and the fiddler's cup would overflow - that is, if the police did not interfere too soon.

As for the owner of the wretched fiddle, he raised his head, his mouth opened. Up there, somewhere, a door to heaven had opened.

True to her expectations a crowd slowly gathered. The beauty of the girl and the dark, handsome face of the musician, his picturesque bare head, were sufficient for these cynical passers-by. They understood. Operatic celebrities, having a little fun on their own. So quarters and dimes and nickels began to patter into Cutty's ancient derby hat. Broadway will always contribute generously toward a novelty of this order. Famous names were tossed about in undertones.

Entered then the enemy of the proletariat. Kitty, being a New Yorker born, had had her weather eye roving. The brass-buttoned minion of the law was always around when a bit of innocent fun was going on. As the policeman reached the inner rim of the audience the last notes of Handel's "Largo" were fading on the ear.

"What's this?" demanded the policeman.

"It's all over, sir," answered Kitty, smiling.

"Can't have this on Broadway, miss. Obstruction." He could not speak gruffly in the face of such beauty - especially with a Broadway crowd at his back.

"It's all over. Just let me put this money in the blind man's cup." Kitty poured her coins into the receptacle. At the same time Hawksley laid the fiddle in the blind man's lap. Then he turned to Kitty and boomed a long Russian phrase at her. Her quick wit caught the intent. "You see, he doesn't understand that this cannot be done in New York. I couldn't explain."

"All right, miss; but don't do it again." The policeman grinned.

"And please don't be harsh with the blind man. Just tell him he mustn't play on Broadway again. Thank you!'

She linked her arm in Hawksley's, and they went on; and the crowd dissolved; only the policeman and the blind man remained, the one contemplating his duty and the other his vision of heaven.

"What a lark!" exclaimed Hawksley.

"Were you asking me for your hat?"

"I was telling the bobby to go to the devil!"

They laughed like children.

"March hares!" he said.

"No. April fools! Good heavens, the time! Twenty minutes to seven. Our dinner!"

"We'll take a taxi.... Dash it!"

"What's wrong?"

"Not a bally copper in my pockets!"

"And I left my handbag on the sideboard! We'll have to walk. If we hurry we can just about make it."

Meantime, there lay in wait for them - this pair of April fools - a taxicab. It stood snugly against the curb opposite the entrance to Cutty's apartment. The door was slightly ajar.

The driver watched the south corner; the three men inside never took their gaze off the north corner.

"But, I say, hasn't this been a jolly lark?"

"If we had known we could have borrowed a dollar from the blind man; he'd never have missed it."


CHAPTER XXVII


Champagne in the glass is a beautiful thing to see. So is water, the morning after. That is the fault with frolic; there is always an inescapable rebound. The most violent love drops into humdrum tolerance. A pessimist is only a poor devil who has anticipated the inevitable; he has his headache at the start. Mental champagnes have their aftermaths even as the juice of the grape.

Hawksley and Kitty, hurrying back, began to taste lees. They began to see things, too - menace in every loiterer, threat in every alley. They had had a glorious lark; somewhere beyond would be the piper with an appalling bill. They exaggerated the dangers, multiplied them; perhaps wisely. There would be no let-down in their vigilance until they reached haven. But this state of mind they covered with smiling masks, banter, bursts of laughter, and flashes of wit.

They were both genuinely frightened, but with unselfish fear. Kitty's fear was not for herself but for Johnny Two-Hawks. If anything happened the blame would rightly be hers. With that head he wasn't strictly accountable for what he did; she was. A firm negative on her part and he would never have left the apartment. And his fear was wholly for this astonishing girl. He had recklessly thrust her into grave danger. Who knew, better than he, the implacable hate of the men who sought to kill him?

Moreover, his strength was leaving him. There was an alarming weakness in his legs, purely physical. He had overdone, and if need rose he would not be able to protect her. Damnable fool! But she had known. That was the odd phase of it. She hadn't come blindly. What mood had urged her to share the danger along with the lark? Somehow, she was always just beyond his reach, this girl. He would never forget that fan popping out of the pistol, the egg burning in the pan.

The apartment was only three blocks away when Kitty decided to drop her mask. "I'd give a good deal to see a policeman. They are never around when you really want them. Johnny Two-Hawks, I'm a little fool! You wouldn't have left the apartment but for me. Will you forgive me?"

"It is I who should ask forgiveness. I say, how much farther is it?"

"Only about two blocks; but they may be long ones. Let's step into this doorway for a moment. I see a taxicab. It looks to be standing opposite the building. Don't like it. Suppose we watch it for a few minutes?"

Hawksley was grateful for the respite; and together they stared at the unwinking red eye of the tail light. But no man approached the cab or left it.

"I believe I've hit upon a plan," said Kitty. "Certainly we have not been followed. In that event they would have had a dozen chances. If someone saw us leave together, naturally they will expect us to return together. We'll walk to the corner of our block, then turn east; but I shall remain just out of sight while you will go round the block. Fifteen minutes should carry you to the south corner. I'll be on watch for you. The moment you turn I'll walk toward you. It will give us a bit of a handicap in case that taxi is a menace. If any one appears, run