The Wheel of Death/Chapter 5

The impish face of the make-believe street gamin showed sudden alarm at the mention of Grogan's Restaurant. After all, she was a girl— and she had been threatened with death in that restaurant only a few hours previously.

Wentworth watched her calculatingly. Much that he might do would depend upon her nerve and courage. Even in the presence of imminent danger, he so judged little things so that he might base his future actions upon them.

"If it's for father," she said, while the alarm left her face and was replaced by an attractive stubbornness, "I'll go there or anywhere else. I'd go to hell for him!"

"Good girl!" grinned Wentworth. "We'll go together."

It did not seem to strike Molly as strange that this man was doing so much for her father. His was a direct friendliness which reached her and gave her unquestioning confidence in him, even under the guise of the unattractive characters he was portraying. And there was nobody else in all the world who could do anything for her. She was quite certain of that, and she had to accept him without reason and without question.

She watched him as, with grayed hair and in his long, black coat, he stood calmly regarding the door, judging its remaining strength. With the intention of forcing the door outward into the hall, a crowbar was being inserted, high up near the top hinge.

In the bathroom Ram Singh had completed his task of piling the old clothes in the bathtub. The closet was empty and the tub held all the clothes in the apartment save those which were being worn by the three inmates.

Molly was puzzled. She did not understand the reason for this strange proceeding. Neither did Ram Singh understand it. But Ram Singh was only puzzled when he did not understand how to do what he was told to do. The reason for doing anything was his master's business and, since his master was always right, there could be no sense in worrying about it. It was a pleasant philosophy.

But the reason for the strange proceeding began to be made clear when Wentworth took from the shelf of the closet a large can of kerosene, an old-fashioned remedy which Ram Singh used upon rusty knife blades and gun barrels. Over the mass of clothes in the bathtub he poured the entire contents of the can. Then he snapped his cigarette lighter and deliberately set fire to the mass.

Smoky, yellow flames rose from the tub as the mass of old clothes began to smolder and burn with sickly, soot laden flares. The smoke increased in volume, filled the bathroom and passed out through the open window to the street in a thick stream.

Wentworth closed the bathroom door and returned to the living room where Ram Singh watched the door, fingering his long knife. Molly came and stood beside her new-found protector. The two of them presented a curious spectacle, the tall, cadaverous man in the long, black coat and the saucy street urchin who was almost lost in the dilapidated trousers and loose-hanging coat.

Near the upper hinge of the door the biting end of the crowbar was being forced inward. It would not be long now before the proper leverage was obtained and the door wrenched bodily outward into the hall. Wentworth observed this, but apparently remained unmoved. Quietly he gave the Hindu some final instructions in his own language, to which Ram Singh replied at intervals with an emphatic. "Han, sahib!"— to indicate his perfect agreement and willingness to do what was wanted.

"Fire!" From somewhere in the building a woman could faintly be heard as she screamed that word of grim alarm. There are some buildings in New York where almost anything may be done without attracting the interest of other inmates; but there is no building in the entire world where the alarm of fire will not focus attention. The volume of smoke escaping from the bathroom window must have become quite prodigious. Some of it was now seeping under the bathroom door and creeping into the living room.

Wentworth smiled. Even the underworld characters in the hall would be respectful to the danger of the attention which fire would draw from other people and ultimately from the New York Fire Department. New York firemen could be just as rough as New York policemen.

Unexpectedly the smile died from Wentworth's face, and he asked Molly a question— a question which completely astonished her.

"Molly," he asked, "were you ever in love?" Her face was not so boyish as she met the surprising question. A mixture of sorrow and anger flitted across it as she looked down at the floor without answering.

"Well, Molly," continued Wentworth, the smile returning to his face, "I see that you have a sweetheart but have quarreled with him."

Her cheeks reddened even through the grime which Ram Singh had implanted upon them. "How do you know that?" she demanded, the question admitting the truth of the statement he had made.

It was an extraordinary conversation under the circumstances. Even as he answered her the crowbar again splintered the door, and it was apparent that the attacking men had not yet become aware of the coming commotion.

"I couldn't tell you, Molly," he replied. "Women, and even little girls, are like pieces of old Chinese porcelain. A sixth sense is necessary to understand them. But tell me, who is this sweetheart of yours?"

"Jerry Stone," she answered. "He was an assistant bookkeeper under father in the Mack Syndicate."

Wentworth looked interested in what she said, but did not continue the conversation. The distant woman was again screaming "Fire!" and, outside the door, the men had ceased to wield the crowbar. No doubt they were waiting to see what was going to happen. Undoubtedly they were watching the door in case Wentworth should emerge.

But Wentworth seemed in no hurry to emerge or to take his next step. He appeared to be listening, and while he listened his mind sought some additional occupation— with the result that he picked up the telephone and dialed a number as casually as if he had been at home in his own library with faithful old Jenkyns, the butler, at his beck and call.

And it was across New York that he sent his voice, high up into the tower of Riverside Mansions where the small apartment of Nita Van Sloan looked down upon the Hudson River far below. It was there that Nita, of the brown curls and blue eyes of mystery, lived with Apollo, the Great Dane dog that had been a gift from Richard Wentworth when a puppy.

Nita painted light effects upon the Hudson and sometimes sold them because her family and her fortune had been swept away by the war. Apollo adored Nita and was quite ready to be the bringer of sudden death to any enemy of hers.

"Nita, this is Dick," Wentworth commenced, and lapsed at once into the French language, although it was, perhaps, a trifle rude of him to use a language which he judged that Molly could not understand.

But Wentworth used the romantic language of France for the speech of love, and a man should be pardoned for speaking such words in private. In the midst of hard problems and during moments of action and danger, his mind always felt the stimulation of Nita's influence. At such times he frequently telephoned to her, sometimes from across the ocean, just to feel the stirring uplift which was carried to him by her voice.

And Nita knew the powerful stimulation which she could give him. Always she gave of herself to him wholeheartedly, although she was aware that his life was such that they probably never could be married. There was compensation, however, for her. She knew that she would never have cause for jealousy, and that is something which many a wife does not possess.

Molly watched him with her big Irish eyes, looking out from her grimy face, and, although she did not understand the words he used, she recognized the tone of his voice. And there was no secret from her in the message of his heart.

In the midst of the telephone conversation there came a clanging from the street. The New York Fire Department had sent some of its apparatus to the building which was allowing such a great quantity of black smoke to issue from one of its bathroom windows. Wentworth heard the fire gongs and suspended his telephone talk for a moment in order to issue some rapid directions to Ram Singh. Then he continued his conversation with Nita as quietly as if nothing at all were happening.

Ram Singh slipped his great knife into a sheath within his sleeve, held a large handkerchief over his mouth and nose and rushed into the bathroom where he closed the window and returned to the living room, leaving the door open behind him.

The smoke, having its first exit closed, found the new exit immediately and began rolling into the living room. Ram Singh looked at the incoming smoke and transferred his gaze to his master, waiting for further directions.

Wentworth, however, continued to talk over the telephone quite as though volumes of smoke were perfectly natural to a living room. Molly began to cough a little. Ram Singh remained impassive, eyes fixed on Wentworth, waiting.

Presently as Ram Singh, at a motion from his master, began taking down the barricades from the door, Molly heard the telephone conversation turn back into the English language. She was so interested in what he said that she did not cough so much because of the smoke which was coming into the room.

Wentworth was talking about Mortimer Mack, President of the Mack Syndicate. He seemed to be asking Nita what she thought of him and how much she knew about him.

"Mortimer Mack brought a fairly good polish out of Harvard," Wentworth said, "but he's only on the fringe of society and still trying to get in. I'm on the trail of something, however, which may get him into Sing Sing before he gets into the Social Register. Suppose you and I go after him, Nita! Let's take him apart and see how he's put together. If he is all right, we will restore any missing parts. What say?"

While Wentworth was listening to Nita's reply, Molly was crouching near the floor with a handkerchief over her nose, trying to keep from coughing on account of the smoke, which was becoming more and more dense. Ram Singh had taken the last of the barricade away from the door and stood with his hand on the bolt, looking back at his master.

Molly, gasping, also looked back at Wentworth and wondered how he managed to refrain from coughing. He seemed so calm and at his ease as he sat at the telephone in the smoke.

She began to believe that he must be superhuman. What other kind of a man would and could do the things for her that he was doing? She did not wonder so much about Ram Singh. She had heard that Hindus could walk on fire with bare feet and, if they could do that, they could probably breathe smoke quite easily. As for herself, she could not help coughing. But she would die before she would complain.

Through the rolling smoke Molly could see Wentworth adjusting the black patches over his eyes. She did not know that each black patch had a tiny pinhole which gave him considerable vision. Suddenly she realized that she would have to lead him through the streets of the city— if they ever got out of the building.

Heavy steps sounded on the stairs. The firemen were coming up.

Wentworth rose to his feet with the telephone in his hand, still talking.

"I am afraid I shall have to ring off," he said. "I have an engagement to take a young lady out to a restaurant."

He replaced the telephone upon the table and came forward, holding out his hand for Molly. She grasped it eagerly, fearlessly.

"Open the door," he said to Ram Singh.