Stamped in Gold/Chapter 9

HREE men sat in a private ward of a Brooklyn hospital and compared notes.

“Look here,” said Wilbur Smith, shaking his bandaged head, “we've got to keep you hidden, Frank.”

Frank Alwin laughed.

“There's no sense in laughing,” said Wilbur Smith seriously. “The gang isn't on to you, or you wouldn't he walking around a live man. You knew a great deal too much. It is probable they imagine you know more than you do.” He turned to the other. “Well, Peter, did you see Mendelsheim's books?”

Peter nodded. “The story is clearing up,” he said, “but the devil of it is that the more I go into the matter, the more Miss Bertram is implicated. You remember the Higgins Tenement Murder, when the wife of Laste, the gambler, was shot?”

They nodded.

“You remember that Laste said his wife had found these thousand-dollar bills in a bock which was bought by Mrs. Laste at Mendelsheim's stores on the afternoon of the night the store was burgled. She was a great book reader, was Mrs. Laste, and she got this particular issue at bargain rates because it had had ink spilled on the cover, That is why the manager of Mendelsheim's remembers the sale so well. It also helped me to trace the book back to where the ink was spilled. You remember my telling you that that storekeeper fellow, Rayburn, was in the habit of sending up all the latest novels to Miss Bertram, who chose what she wanted and sent the rest back? Well, the book which Mrs. Laste had was one of these. I have no doubt in my mind that it was in the cover of this book that the thousand-dollar bills were hidden. It is likely that she found a much larger sum than she told her husband, knowing that he would gamble away every cent.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Wilbur Smith bluntly, “that Miss Bertram put the money between the leaves of this book and sent them back to the store?”

“I have no theory,” said Peter. “I'm telling you the facts.”

He was a little irritable, which was unusual in him, and was duly noted by the observant Wilbur.

“All I know is that these two events occurred within twenty-four hours—the return of the books purchased by Mrs. Laste, the burglary at the book store, and less than twelve hours afterward the shooting of Mrs. Laste.”

“Two things we have to find,” said Wilbur Smith after consideration. “The first is the temple in the garden, and the second is the mysterious individual who is called Rosie.”

“Rosie I'm trying to locate,” said Alwin. “When I was in Washington during the war I was brought into touch with Lazarus Manton, who, in spite of his foolish name, is a police captain or superintendent—I don't know what they call them—at Scotland Yard, in London. I have cabled him, because I have an idea that Rosie is English.”

“It's too bad, Frank, you were in too much of a daze to remember where that temple is,” said Wilbur Smith. “But the obvious thing to do is to watch the Pennsylvania Station. The words which Alwin heard when he was sitting tight in the box must have a special significance. You're doing this, of course, Peter?”

Peter nodded.

“Watching the Pennsylvania Station is a mighty big proposition,” he said, “and, although I've two men on the job, I shouldn't feel very confident if I had a squad.”

“Where have you posted them?” asked Smith.

“In the waiting rooms,” replied Peter. “Locating the next demonstration of The Golden Hades at the Pennsylvania Station is about as explicit and as useful as locating it in Greater New York. I'd give a couple of hours to the work in the busy time of the afternoon, but what are we looking for? Alwin cannot help us to recognize the men, and as we don't know exactly what they're going to do or what particular act we've to frustrate, why, the task is hopeless.”

Nevertheless, it was the Pennsylvania Station which produced the most important clew in this most intricate and difficult case. Peter himself was on watch the following afternoon, sitting hunched up on a bench in such a position that he could look over and see the people who came in a never-ending stream from the arcade. It was such a stream of humanity as ordinarily interested him more than anything else. He checked them up—the alert man, the tired men, the old men, women, and children; some came at their leisure; there were units in frantic haste. There were women with parcels and women without parcels—at such an hour the Pennsylvania Station was a microcosm of the great city.

It was his seventh sense which directed his attention to a middle-aged man carrying a collection of parcels under his arm. The man came wearily to a vacant seat and flopped down, placing his packages by his side. Peter marked him for no especial reason, then turned his eyes again to the stairs. When he looked at the man again he saw that somebody was sitting by his side and that it was a man. He sat only for a minute, then rose and strolled away. It was only a back view, but it was a back which was familiar to Peter, though for the moment he could not identify it. The man with the parcels looked at his watch, then threw a helpless glance around, and rose undecidedly.

Peter watched him as he moved toward one of the many exits, which would take him eventually to his train. He watched him idly, having no particular interest that he could understand or analyze, and was not even stirred from his apathy when the man was intercepted near the exit by a girl. They spoke together for a little while, and it appeared from the man's attitude that the girl was a stranger.

Presently the man carried his parcels to a vacant seat, and, laying them down proceeded to count them, the girl watching the process. Then he detached one, and with a smile handed it to her—and Peter still saw nothing extraordinary in the circumstance.

“He has been shopping and has taken the wrong parcel from the store,” he thought. “Lucky girl to recover your property before it was too late.”

They parted, the man lifting his hat and passing through the exit, the girl turning and walking with quick steps up the stairway. She was halfway up before Peter decided to follow her. He did not know why he came to such a decision—probably the seventh sense again. He lost sight of her, and was on Seventh Avenue before he picked her up, walking rapidly away from the depot, looking neither to the left nor to the right. He was hesitating whether to follow her further, when a limousine swung out of the center of the street and drew up just in front of her. She opened the door and stepped in, and the machine sped on.

It was at that moment that Peter had an inspiration. His qualities as a sprinter were proverbial, and he had leaped on to the footboard of the car before it had gone half a dozen yards.

“Sorry to trouble you,” he said coolly, “but I”

He stopped dead. The girl was José Bertram.

She held a little parcel on her lap, a parcel from which she had ripped the cover as she entered the car, and under her hands was a great package of bills.

Without another word Peter opened the door of the limousine and stepped in. He took the bills from her unresisting hands and turned the top one over. It bore the glittering stamp of The Golden Hades.

No word was spoken for the rest of the journey. Peter seemed deprived of speech. The girl sat, her hands clasped before her, staring steadily at the back of the chauffeur's head. Only when the car was pulled up by a traffic policeman at Times Square did she make a move, giving some instructions to the chauffeur through the speaking tube. The car changed its direction, running up Fifth Avenue, till she tapped at the window. She had thrust the money into one of the deep pockets in the side of the car, and apparently she was no longer interested in its fate.

“Let us walk in the park,” she said, and they paced along, still in silence.

Peter hardly knew where to begin. The girl was evidently in as great a dilemma.

“Mr. Correlly,” she said at last, “how much do you know?”

“About The Golden Hades?” he answered. “I know a lot, Miss Bertram, but I am hoping that you will tell me more.”

She shut her lips tightly, as though she was afraid that she might involuntarily disclose the heart-aching secret which was hers.

“I can tell you nothing,” she said. “What is there to be told? This money is mine. It is not an offense to carry money, even in New York.”

“It is an offense to carry money which bears that stamp,” said Peter sternly. “It is an offense to be associated with a sign which itself is associated with a ruthless murder.”

She looked at him in horror.

“Murder!” she faltered. “Murder! Oh, not murder!”

“Murder and worse,” he said. “It was at the back of the Higgins murder. It was behind the kidnaping of Mr. Alwin”

“But I don't understand,” she said, bewildered. “I knew it was a folly. I knew that the thing is wrong—all wrong; but not murder? Oh, tell me there is no murder!”

Her agitation was painful to watch. She stood there, a pathetic little figure, a look of unutterable sorrow in her eyes, wringing her hands in an agony of despair. He laid his hand upon her arm, and at his touch she shrank back.

“Miss Bertram,” he said, “why don't you let me help you? I want to help you more than I ever wanted to help any human being in this world. I am speaking to you as your own brother might speak to you. Won't you trust me?”

She shook her head. “You can't—you can't,” she almost wailed. “It isn't I, it isn't I that wants help.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I can't tell you,” she said. “I wish I could, but I can't tell you. It is horrible, horrible!”

He took her unresisting arm in his, and drew her by unfrequented roads from the curious eyes which were observing her.

“Tell me this,” he said at last. “How long have you known about The Golden Hades?

“Two days.”

The detective nodded.

“It was at your little dinner party

She looked at him quickly.

“Answer me, please. Was it at the dinner party?”

“I didn't know, but I had an idea, and that night I found out for certain.”

“Was that when you discovered that you were—going to be married?” He hesitated before he asked the question.

She nodded, and it seemed as though the question of her marriage had faded into insignificance beside some graver issue.

“I am going back now,” she said suddenly. “Please do not come with me. I believe we are watched.”

She shook hands with him, and was turning to go, when she said:

“If I want you, Mr. Correlly, I will telephone. I have your number. It is on the card.” She smiled. “You remember the card you asked me to return?”

Without another word she went, and Peter followed her at a leisurely pace. He came out on to Fifth Avenue in time to see the back of the car disappearing, and made his way back to his office.

There was a letter on his table waiting for him, but he did not trouble to open it. He leaned back in his chair, elevating his feet to the desk, and thought and thought, and the more he thought the more puzzled he became, till at last he realized that he was departing from his practice and was building a theory, and he hated theories.

He stretched out his hand, and, taking up the letter, opened it. It was a brief note from Alwin. He had never seen Alwin's writing before, or he would have opened it sooner. It ran:

He unfolded the cable form, and read:

Peter looked from the cablegram to the ceiling and from the ceiling to the cablegram, and a slow smile dawned on his face.