The Chinese Jewel/Chapter 2

HAT same morning, a little before noon, Billy Steele found a yellow envelope under his door. It was a telegram, and the words were:

"MY DEAR BILLY TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO GET YOU BY PHONE YOU SEEM TO BE KEEPING ON THE JUMP THESE DAYS HAVE YOU A LITTLE TIME FOR AN OLD FRIEND IF SO WILL YOU LUNCH WITH ME AT MY HOME TO-DAY. TOM REAGAN."

Steele, in no mood for pleasantries from this quarter, crumpled up the message savagely. He strode to his telephone, snatching it up from his table, about to put in a call for Reagan merely for the satisfaction of cursing him. At the last minute he hesitated and altered his purpose. He set the instrument down, glanced at his clock, and ran back down the steps to the street. A passing taxi responded to his signal, and, with the telegram still in his hand, he was on his way to lunch with Reagan.

He knew Reagan's establishment well. For many a time had he and Reagan lunched or dinned together, either at some hotel or in Reagan's own rooms. For Reagan stood apart from other crooks even as he stood apart from, and often above, other men whom Steele knew. He was the quarry of many stern and eager men, and he knew it, and, further, was inclined to look upon the whole thing as a great bit of sport, a game of kings, as he liked to call it. He had said many times frankly to Steele, to Johnnie Margrave, and to Lieutenant Kilgore and perhaps to others: “We're on opposite sides and we're all in it to a finish. But is that any reason we shouldn't appreciate and enjoy one another? You are like hunters out after the big king of the forest; do such hunters have to hate a lion just because they go out gunning for him? Some day, I suppose, I'll get too far out on a limb and somebody will pop me off; I only hope it will be one of you boys, whom I've taken a fancy to, does the job.”

To-day at Reagan's old brownstone home—aforetime it had been the Ruysendyl home—everything was in its customary state of calm order. The beautiful little garden flourished; Nagi, the incomparable Japanese servant, opened the door without keeping Steele waiting and ushered him into the great hallway. Upon the console table stood the usual bowl of violets. At the door of the library Nagi deserted him. King Reagan was sitting in a monster armchair, a book in his hand. He sprang quickly to his feet and came forward, offering his hand, his eyes brightening.

“Good boy, Billy!” he cried heartily. “It was bully of you to come.”

“I thought that it was just as well to come, Reagan,” said Steele quietly. “But I don't know that I care to shake hands.”

“Because of the dirty trick I played on you last night?” and Reagan's laughter was like that of a successful practical joker. “It was a low-lived trick, and I'll admit it, Billy, But anything goes between you and me, doesn't it?”

Steele went to a chair across the table from his host and sat down. Reagan stood where he was, his hands on his hips, looking down at him. In spite of himself, Steele felt rising within him his old admiration of the man; the poise of the powerful and yet graceful body, the frank look of the wide-spaced eyes, the very carriage of the shaggy head inspired approval of the physical man. And when Reagan put himself out to be affable, as he was plainly bent on doing to-day, he was not without a strange charm of personality.

“I'm sorry, Steele,” he said presently with what seemed genuinely sincere regret, “that you won't shake hands. What I tried to do was to hand you a knock-out body blow, but I hoped and rather expected you'd take it the same way I'd take anything you handed me, seeing it's all in the game.” He went to his own chair. “How about the lunch? Will you draw the line at eating with me, too?”

“If there's any business between us, let's get at it,” Steele replied: “Since there's no sense in a man's starving himself, and I'm hungry, I'll eat with you, provided it's understood in the beginning that there's no friendship this time in sharing your salt.”

Reagan frowned. And then, shrugging his massive shoulders, he laughed lightly.

“You're just plain mad, Billy,” he said. “You'll get over that.” And when at his ring Nagi stole silently into the room he ordered sandwiches and coffee and a bottle of brandy sent in to the library.

“How about the five hundred I left on your table, Steele?” Reagan went on presently, the light of banter in his eyes. “So sore you won't even think of keeping that, I suppose? Going to slam it back in my face?”

“No,” answered Steele. “I'm going to keep it. And use it. I figure that the game you worked on me was worth the five hundred to you. It certainly was worth it and considerably more to me!”

“That's sense; you're right there. And of course you count on it going to help defray your expenses in running me down?” He chuckled. “That would be poetic vengeance, wouldn't it? Or by any chance have you decided to let me alone after this? You're out of Ferguson's, aren't you?”

“I'm not out of the game, Reagan. You know it's got to where it is going to be you or me.”

“You're a stubborn devil,” muttered Reagan. He opened a drawer, tossed a box of Steele's favorite Turkish cigarettes on the table, and considered. “Look here; after all can't you see that I wasn't actuated by animosity in what I did at the Newton last night? That, in fact, I merely paid you a mighty pretty compliment? Most of the boys in your profession would have been all puffed up by a thing like that.”

“So it was a compliment, was it?”

“Undoubtedly. When Tom Reagan goes to all that trouble, not to mention the few dollars involved, to rid himself of somebody on his trail, isn't it rather a compliment?”

A second Japanese boy served a light lunch, placing two little tables, one at Steele's elbow, the other at Reagan's, and went out. Reagan suddenly leaned forward, his look grave.

“When it comes on to rain,” he said abruptly, “a man with any brains gets under an umbrella. If it's a big storm, he wants a sturdy roof over him. The storm is coming, Steele. Better get under shelter.”

Steele lifted his brows.

“You're not suggesting buying me out again, are you, Reagan?”

“Well, why not?” demanded Reagan. “Bigger men than you have been bought up, Billy Steele. Yes, by thunder, and by me, too, if you want to know! Why not, I ask you? There's nothing in your game; after years and years of plugging a little thing like last night happens, and where are you? Ferguson, the squarehead, puts you down wrong and you hop off your job; Margrave and Kilgore, both of whom ought to know better, believe their eyes and name you a crook. Stay with the sort of thing you're doing and you'll plug along another bunch of empty years and get nowhere—or you'll stumble close to getting my tag and I'll wipe you off the face of the earth. You're too good a man for a fool's game, Billy. Besides, I like you. Come in now and I'll fill your pockets and pack you off to Paris for a year's vacation. Come alive, man!”

“Another compliment, I suppose?”

“Yes! By Heaven, yes!” Reagan cried passionately. “Do you think I'd talk to you like that unless I thought you were a man?”

“You wouldn't talk to me like that,” Steele told him steadily and with steady eyes, “unless you were about ready to pull a big deal and were afraid I'd spoil it for you.”

“Afraid?” Reagan drummed on the table and his eyes narrowed. “Isn't that the wrong word, Billy?”

Steele knew that it was. Reagan was not afraid, and never would be. Crook and criminal and worse he might be; coward, never.

“There's no use splitting hairs between us,” said Steele. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” and Reagan nodded. “I know what you mean. And you've made up your mind not to listen to reason? You won't pull in your horns and come in with me?”

Steele shook his head. Reagan pondered. In the end he sighed.

“I might have known it,” he admitted slowly. “Well, I guess you are right, seeing the game from your own angle. And I suppose I would have been disappointed in you if you had turned your coat. You're a square shooter, Steele, and in my way so am I. At least I never double-crossed a pal, and when you've got my word for anything you can tie to it. Well, let's not get sentimental. You're out to get my scalp, eh?”

“Yes,” Steele replied.

“Then let's forget I insulted you by offering to buy you. I'll not do it again. As you've already said, I've got a big play on now. So, inevitably, things are going to come to a showdown between you and me in pretty short order. Remember I offered you my hand, Billy, and you chose knives.”

“I'll remember,” Steele said quietly.

“Just one little matter,” went on Reagan. “If there are any papers you want to get in order to have everything shipshape in: case anything happened to you, I'd see to them.”

From without came the hum of New York's busy streets; the sunlight flooded the gardens below the library windows; some birds twittered and splashed in the bird fountain to be seen from where Steele sat. Falling athwart such an atmosphere, Reagan's words, with their sinister implication, seemed unreal, a hoax. But Steele, withdrawing his eyes and turning them speculatively upon the man across the table, knew that King Tom Reagan was in earnest.

“You're not trying to scare me off, are you?” he asked curiously.

“No,” said Reagan. “I wish that I thought I could. Going already, Billy? Well, so long.”

“So long,” Steele replied, and went out. And he knew that if he persisted he would be braving death from a man who had caused death to more than one man who stood in his path.

“It's going to be one of us this time,” he muttered when he stood out in the sunshine. And the rest of the day he spent in his room, setting in order all of his worldly affairs.