MRS1 The Under Dogs

In
The Under Dogs
Mr. Footner is in his finest form. In it he tells of the amazing detective skill of Rosika Storey alias Jessie Seipp, in the opinion of the New York police the cleverest woman in the world. It tells how she wove the net which was to snare the greatest crook organisation in America. She faced infinite peril and hardship, and the greatest demands were made upon her courage and her brains, but in the end her triumph was complete. There is not a dull moment in the book; Rosika is a fascinating character, and the book reveals a vast knowledge of New York's underworld.

Also by Hulbert Footner

THE QUEEN OF CLUBS
A SELF-MADE THIEF
MADAME STOREY
OFFICER!
THE VELVET HAND
THE OWL TAXI
RAMSHACKLE HOUSE
THE DEAVES AFFAIR
THE SUBSTITUTE MILLIONAIRE

The Teresa de Guion case, owing to the extraordinary prominence of the persons concerned, raised Mme. Storey to the very pinnacle of her fame; and she (as well as myself in my humbler capacity) had to pay the penalty of the attendant publicity. All day long our offices were thronged by the most diverse collection of human beings, ranging from bank presidents and society leaders all the way down to the cranks and semi-lunatics that make themselves known at such a time.

These people made the oddest demands upon my mistress; or requests for her aid; or appeals to her sympathy. Some wanted to divorce their mates; others to win back an erring husband or wife. Many persons, otherwise sane, firmly believed that they were being persecuted by an unknown enemy; others seemed to fancy that my mistress was a sort of soothsayer with magical powers. Still others, and this was the most numerous class of all, had not the shadow of an excuse for troubling us, except the desire to edge into the limelight that was beating so fiercely on Mme. Storey. Such were the hostesses who wished to ask her to dinner; and the gentlemen who, roused by the extraordinary beauty of her published photographs, desired to ask her to dinners of another sort.

In order to protect my mistress, I was obliged to lock the door between my office and hers, and communicate with her over the extension 'phone. When I had to see her, I went around through the hall and the middle room. It was all very exciting, but it was wearing too. Amongst all this mob of suitors there was scarcely one who was entitled to serious consideration.

Those who were unable to come to our offices, wrote. Every day I had a stack of letters a foot high to open. It was a rule of the office that all letters must be read and answered—once. Of course, when silly people continued to write after they had received a proper answer, their letters went into the waste paper basket. The matter of these letters, I need hardly say, was even wilder than the preferred requests of those who called.

One morning there was an anonymous letter in the mail, which was rather curiously worded. I paid little attention to it at first, because I have a constitutional prejudice against anonymous letters. However, I laid it on Mme. Storey's desk amongst the others.

You can never forecast what she is going to do. Of all the scores of letters that day, it was the anonymous letter which attracted her attention.

We had a fairly quiet hour between twelve and one, and I was seated at her desk taking dictation. She picked up the letter in question, and studied it with narrowed eyes. In the other hand she had the inevitable cigarette.

"There's something about this..." she murmured.

"It's anonymous!" I said scornfully.

"Even so.... An anonymous letter is only contemptible when it seeks to administer a stab in the back. This doesn't.... Listen..."

When she read it, her warm, slow voice made me feel what there was in it.

"DEAR MADAME STOREY:—Teresa de Guion deserved all she got. It did my heart good to see that high society dame yanked down from her perch. She deserves to get it harder than poor devils who have to go crooked to live. Say, it was fine the way you brought it home to her. Any other bull that I ever heard of would have shut right up as soon as he found who it was that had croaked the girl. He wouldn't have dared go any further. None of those high-up folks wanted you to show up one of their number. But although they were paying you, you saw it through. That was all right. Although you're a bull you seem human to me. I never expected to find myself writing to one.

"I suppose, when you read this letter, you'll laugh and chuck it in the waste basket. Oh well, I should worry. I ain't got nothing better to do. Do you ever take a job without pay? I guess not. You're not in business for your health. There's a girl called Melanie Soupert about to come up for trial in General Sessions for grand larceny. She's guilty, too. What is there about it then, you may ask. Well, if you wanted to make a quiet investigation of all the circumstances behind that case, you might turn up something startling. But you'd have to dig deep for it.

"There's nothing in this for you except the chance of helping a lot of poor damned souls without hope. Maybe that isn't much of an inducement. Don't get the idea that this letter is from Melanie. There's no use trying to get anything out of her. She's a hard case. Besides, she's being well taken care of. But there are others in it.

"If you are fool enough to take any notice of this letter, don't show your hand if you value your own life. At the first move you made against the interested parties your light would be put out just like pressing a button in the wall. If you
are
going to do anything, you might put a little personal ad. in the
Sphere
, just saying: 'X: I'm on the job; Y.' That would give me something to hope for. But, of course, you won't. After this, I'll have no way of communicating with you.

"Well, anyhow, you're a bit of all right, Madame Storey. I like to think there are women like you going about outside. Life is a rotten mess, and it's us poor boobs that make it so.

"AN ADMIRER."

"What do you think of it, Bella?" asked my mistress with a thoughtful smile.

"It's from a crook," I said.

"Of course. One thoroughly familiar with the seamy side of life, and with 'bulls,' poor soul. That's what appeals to me. We have never had a crook for a client."

"You don't mean to take it seriously?" I said.

"It moves me," she said simply. "It rings like a genuine cry from the heart."

It had moved me too, when she read it, but I was filled with anxiety for my generous mistress, who offered such a shining mark for envy and hatred to shoot at. "It may be a trap," I said.

"Who would ever bait a trap with words like these: 'If you are fool enough to take any notice of this letter?'" asked Mme. Storey, smiling.

"Any one who knew you would know that that was the very way to catch you," I said.

She laughed outright. "But there are few who know me as well as you do, my Bella. You are supposing a superhuman cleverness in the writer."

"You cannot afford to go into anything with your eyes shut," I said earnestly. "Depend upon it, it's a rotten mess of some sort. He as good as admits it in the letter."

"He?" said Mme. Storey.

"Well, he or she," said I.

"But there can be no doubt as to the sex of the writer," said Mme. Storey. "Every sentence reveals the feminine. Who but a woman would beg for my help, and in the next sentence tell me I was a fool if I listened to her? Moreover, observe that though this is the letter of one utterly reckless, and though the anonymity releases all inhibitions, it is neither profane nor blasphemous. A reckless man couldn't help but curse."

"I heard a damn in it somewhere," I grumbled.

"'Poor damned souls,'" quoted Mme. Storey. "It is not used in the sense of profanity there, but as a simple adjective.... No; a woman wrote this. Her whole attitude towards me is that of a fellow-woman.... Moreover," she went on in a lower tone, "it is from a woman whose nature is similar to my own."

I stared hard at that.

"If I was hard up against it," Mme. Storey went on, "that is just such a letter as I might write myself. That feeling of despair which makes the breast tight; that utter recklessness which makes one mock at that which one most desires—how well I know it! And so you see, my Bella, I could not possibly disregard this cry of pain."

"Just the same," I said, "it seems to me both dangerous and unwise to pay heed to an anonymous letter."

"But I know who wrote it," said Mme. Storey, smiling.

I stared at her, awaiting the explanation.

"It is from Melanie Soupert—whoever she may be."

"How do you know?"

"Because she says it isn't," said Mme. Storey, with her most provoking smile. "If this letter had been written by somebody else, it wouldn't be necessary for the writer to state that it wasn't from Melanie Soupert. Two sentences suggest that it was written in jail. She says first: 'I haven't anything else to do;' towards the end she says: 'It's nice to think of women like you going about outside;'
i.e.
, she was locked up."

"If she's got a good case, why doesn't she state it in her letter?" I asked.

"But she's got a rotten case," said Mme. Storey. "She says she's guilty. Can't you conceive of a woman who was in bad, and yet worthy of help? Indeed, that's the sort that appeals to me most.... Her lawyer, presumably, has her case in charge. She says this is something
behind
the case. She begs me to save her, and serves notice that I can expect no help from her. How like a woman, my Bella!"

"I don't like it! I don't like it!" I cried unhappily. "Suppose the letter is genuine; why should you put yourself in danger? You could not protect yourself, because you wouldn't know from what quarter to expect it."

Mme. Storey laid her hand briefly on mine. "Your feelings do you credit, my dear," she said. "But I can't help myself. This letter has got me where I live. I must see the matter through. As for danger—well, you know that the danger of a situation is always grossly exaggerated in the prospect. Anyhow, a little danger will brisken us up. Our lives are too soft."