MRS1 The Under Dogs (19 page)

Jessie gathered from various whispered conferences that went on that Bill and Fingy were going "to turn a trick" that night. There was no animosity between the two where business was concerned. She also understood from a word or two that was dropped, that Abell would be out also, at least during the earlier part of the night. This would leave her alone in the house with Kate, Sam and Pap. She considered the chances. Pap slept in the room over hers, while Sam had the front hall room on the top floor to himself. However, she must first establish communications with the prisoner.

In the morning she carried a broom upstairs with which to sweep her room; and afterwards left it in her room, as if by accident. Pap did not miss it. Obtaining paper and pencil was rather more difficult. Apparently nobody in that house had any occasion to write. Finally, on a cupboard shelf she picked up a sheaf of cigarette papers, which would serve very well, but a pencil her sharp eyes could discover nowhere either in dining-room or kitchen. It would have been highly imprudent to ask for one. In the end it occurred to her that if they played cards, they must have a pencil to score with, so, hanging about the kitchen, as if at a loose end, she said with a yawn:

"Gee! I gotta have something to do! Where are the cards kept?"

Pap pointed to a drawer in the dresser, and there, among odds and ends of all sorts, Jessie found several worn packs of cards, and to her joy, a stubby pencil. Spreading the cards on the kitchen table, she played solitaire, until Pap told her ill-temperedly that she was in his way. Whereupon, Jessie slung the cards back in the drawer—but kept the pencil.

After lunch the time seemed ripe to act. Bill, Fingy and Abell had gone to their rooms to sleep, in order to be fresh for the night's work. Kate was in her room, too, and also sleeping, Jessie hoped. Sam had been sent out on an errand. Pap was in the kitchen. She was not likely to get a better opportunity.

The bathroom of the house was next to Jessie's room, and therefore immediately under the room where the prisoner was confined. Jessie carried broom, paper and pencil into the bathroom, and hooked the door behind her. Drawing down the top sash of the window, she stood on the sill, and leaning backwards over the sash, thrust her broom up as far as she could reach, and waved the brush to and fro in front of the window above.

There was no response, and Jessie was finally obliged to let the broom softly brush against the sill of the window overhead. The risk was sickening, because Fingy was in the room next to the girl's; his window was open, of course, and he might not be asleep. Finally, through the window above, came faintly the rattle of a chain, and an astonished head stuck out. With a great uprush of joy, Jessie saw that it was indeed Melanie Soupert.

Jessie had never seen Melanie closer than five hundred feet, but the girl had often been described to her, and there could be no possibility of mistaking that bobbed black hair, those big dark eyes, and the resolute, beautiful mouth. Melanie showed with tragic clearness what she had been through; her face was gaunt, her hair unkempt, her eyes red-rimmed. She looked at Jessie in the purest amazement, for Melanie had no clue to her.

Jessie instantly laid a finger on her lips, and pointed to the window of the room adjoining Melanie's. Melanie closed her eyes and silently signified a person snoring. Jessie, reassured, showed her the pencil and paper, and retired inside the window to write her note.

"I am your friend. I will help you. Have you got a couple of sheets? If you'll knot them and let them down when I give you a signal, I'll come to you to-night."

Jessie inserted the paper between the splints of the broom, and pushed it up towards Melanie. Melanie read it, and her dulled eyes began to shine again. She nodded eagerly. The paper she instinctively put in her mouth.

Jessie wrote her a second note. "My room is next to the bathroom. I am locked in at night. I can get across to the bathroom window all right. The rope needn't be but about eight feet long. It ought to have a knot every eighteen inches. See that the end is firmly secured to the frame of your bed. Let it drop over when you hear me scratch on my sill."

Melanie read this with more eager nods, and Jessie went back to her own room, well satisfied with the start she had made. She subsequently returned the broom to its corner in the kitchen, and the pencil to its drawer.

During the rest of the day Jessie mooned about those parts of the house that were free to her; the kitchen, the dining-room and her own room, apparently bored to extinction, but with her mind functioning in a high state of activity. Her prime object, of course, was to rescue Melanie, but it was of no less importance to get the big boss of them all. How to work the two things together; that was her problem. She could not allow Melanie to remain there indefinitely in danger; but on the other hand, if she got Melanie out, that would certainly blow the whole game. As yet Jessie had no direct lead to the man she wanted.

Black Kate joined the others at supper that night, and Jessie had a different part to play. It was useless, now, to think of winning Kate's good-will, and to seek to win the others while Kate was present, would be an unforgivable offence in the woman's eyes. So Jessie contented herself with marking time, letting it be seen, though, that she had nothing on her mind, and that she was perfectly willing to laugh and joke with anybody who gave her an opening.

But it was a sullen meal; an ordeal for a sensitive person to have to sit through it. Apart from Jessie, though, there were no sensitive persons present, with the possible exception of little Abell, whose thin face was bitter. The others seemed to find the atmosphere of hate and suspicion quite natural.

When the company around the table broke up, Bill Combs, with mysterious becks and winks, let it be still more clearly seen that he had a communication to make to Jessie. It seemed to Jessie that it was worth risking something to receive it; and with a meaning look at Bill, she went up to her room, and waited in the doorway. He presently came to her.

Bill was like a great mastiff trying to be friendly.

"You don't need to be afraid of me no more," he whispered huskily.

"I am not afraid of you, Bill," she said simply.

"Here," he said, "I wanted you to have this while I was out to-night. Maybe I won't be back."

"Won't be back!" she echoed in dismay.

He was rather pathetically pleased by her concern. "Would you care?" he said.

"You know you're the only friend I've got!"

"Oh, well, it's nothing special," he said. "But there's always a risk when you've got a trick to turn."

"And it's us that takes it," said Jessie.

"Oh, sure," he said philosophically; "whatever happens to us, the organisation goes on."

Meanwhile, Bill was pressing a cold, object of significant shape into Jessie's hand. It was a small automatic.

"'Tain't loaded," he said, "I don't want no shooting here. But just to show it would protect you."

"Thanks, Bill," said Jessie. "But what have I got to be afraid of to-night? Not of Pap nor of Sam, surely."

"I wasn't thinkin' about them," said Bill, "but of Black Kate. She's got a nasty streak of cruelty in her nature. And when I was out she might try to take it out on you."

"I understand," said Jessie. "Thanks again, Bill."

"Don't mention it," said Bill seriously.

Jessie chuckled inwardly at the big fellow's new-found manners.

He went on up to his room, which he shared with Abell. Jessie went down to the kitchen. Always trying to make good with the gang, she volunteered to help Pap with the dishes. Before they were finished Big Bill and Fingy Silo set off through the back door upon the night's lousiness. Neatly dressed and freshly shaven. Jessie found herself inwardly smiling at their virtuous expressions. "How strange life is!" she thought.

Afterwards she and Pap sat down to a game of pinochle. In the kitchen they were pretty safe from Black Kate's presence, for the mistress of the house considered it beneath her dignity to sit down there. Neither Kate nor Sam troubled them during the evening. At ten o'clock Abell went out carrying his little black satchell. He gave Jessie a twisted smile; friendly enough, and inexpressibly painful.

And then, to Jessie's satisfaction, Pap began to yawn. "I wish I could give you a sleeping-draught, old man," she thought. The game petered out, and Jessie went upstairs.

Listening within her room, she heard Pap come up. He stopped at Kate's door for the key, handed in Melanie's meagre rations to her, and returned the key to Kate. Finally Jessie heard him enter his own room above her. In a few minutes Kate came along the hall and locked the door of Jessie's room.

Jessie paced up and down. She must give Pap plenty of time to settle down. A horrible indecision attacked her. She was seriously disturbed by Bill's suggestion concerning Black Kate. Suppose Kate came to her room while she was out of it? Better put it off until another night perhaps. On the other hand, the danger of Kate's coming would be the same every night. And that poor girl upstairs would be waiting the livelong night through for the signal. No! this night as well as another.

She jammed the back of the chair firmly under the handle of her door. That ought to hold it long enough for her to get back. It was only a matter of swinging down on the rope. But if Kate found her fully-dressed? She decided to go in her night-clothes. She hung the little pistol around her neck on a string. She tumbled the bed clothes.

When she was ready, she went to the window. All was dark outside. Whether Pap snored or not, she did not know. No sound reached her. She stuck her head out, and looked up. Over the sill above, and to the right, stuck another head, shadowy against the night sky. How long had Melanie been waiting there?

With her hand Melanie made a gesture of negation, Jessie was not to come yet. So they waited. At intervals Melanie left the window, no doubt to listen with her ear against the partition between the two rooms. A long time passed. Finally Melanie beckoned, and Jessie climbed out on the window sill.

The knotted sheet fell in front of her, and Jessie reached for it. It would be easier to go than it would be to come back, but Jessie had no doubt of her ability to make it. She grasped the rope, and swung over. Hand over hand she pulled herself up by the knots. Melanie helped her over the sill.

Jessie felt for the girl's hand in the dark, and squeezed it. There was no answering pressure, and things went swiftly through Jessie's mind. "Melanie has been thinking things over, and has become suspicious!" she thought. "It is natural enough. She thinks I may have been planted by Black Kate just to betray her." In an instant Jessie had changed her whole plan of action. She determined not to tell Melanie who she was. That story would sound too incredible, and might very well confirm the girl in her suspicions.

"Who are you?" Melanie breathed in her ear.

"Jessie Seipp," she answered. "Listen, and I'll tell you."

The two sat side by side on the bed. Always lip pressed to ear they spoke. Jessie apprehended that Melanie was dragging the chain from one wrist. Jessie kept Melanie's hand between both of hers, feeling that she must be assured in the end by the beat of her pulses that she Jessie, was her true friend.

"I was sent up to Woburn for robbin' Mrs. Cornelius Marquardt," Jessie whispered. "Up there I was put in the next cell to a girl called Minnie Dickerson. We used to talk nights. She told me all about you, and how you escaped from Woburn. She told me a lot about this gang too; I mean only what an outsider might know. She said they'd come after me, and they did. The woman of the house here, Mrs. Pullen, or Black Kate, as they call her. She came to see me at Woburn. And afterwards she got me out, and she brought me here.

"I been here two days now," Jessie went on, "and I picked up a word here, and a word there, and I finally pieced it out that you was locked up here. I seen Pap bring you your supper. Then I made a signal to you wit' t' broom, and here I am. It's a dirty rotten shame. I'm goin' to stand by you and be your friend."

"You can't do nothin' for me," whispered Melanie apathetically.

"I'm goin' to get you out and get myself out, too. Minnie was right when she said it was worse than suicide, goin' in with this gang. I on'y been here two days, but I seen how things are."

"There's no place we could go where he couldn't get us."

"I got friends who'll keep us close."

"What you want to do all this for? I'm nottin' to you."

"Well, I promised Minnie I'd be friends if I ever come up with you. We got to help each other out, ain't we?"

Still there was no response, and for a moment Jessie was at a loss. It would be fatal to try to force the girl's confidence. Finally mother wit whispered what to do. "Well, I better go now," she breathed in Melanie's ear. "It's too risky, staying."

It worked. Melanie's hand instantly clung to hers. That slightly trembling hand was terribly eloquent. It spoke both of Melanie's longing to make a friend, and her fear of betrayal.

"Ain't you got nothin' to ask me?" she whispered to Jessie.

"No," Jessie whispered back. "You suspicion me already. If I tried to get anything out of you, then you'd be sure I was workin' for Black Kate."

"Will you come again?" Melanie whispered tremulously.

"No," said Jessie. "It's too risky. I won't come again until I got a plan all doped out. That may take time."

This simple speech turned the scale. For, of course, if Jessie was in right with Black Kate, she could come at any time. Melanie broke down. Half turning on the bed, she flung an arm around Jessie, and buried her face in her shoulder. It was the terrible and complete break-down of an ordinarily strong and self-sufficient nature. Melanie's whole body was shaken as by a violent ague of sobbing, though she made no sound.

Jessie held her close. "There! It's all right now," she whispered. "You and me'll see each other through."

"You ... you don't know what I been through!" whispered Melanie, suffocated by her sobs.

"Sh!" breathed Jessie. "Don't try to talk, or you'll bust out. Just let it come easy. Do you good. I know how it is. I can guess what you been through, too. That woman is a fiend out of hell!"