MRS1 The Under Dogs (30 page)

"Where are they playing?"

"In the cloak-room to the left of the entrance, with the door open. If you stuck your head out of this door and called, they'd be up here in three jumps."

Jessie's heart rose slowly in her throat, and seemed to stick there. The switch which controlled the burglar alarm was in the cloak-room to the left of the entrance. She could not get out of the house without throwing it off!

Mr. Sterry came out into the sitting-room, and switched off the lights. He offered to close the door of his wife's room, but she had changed her mind about that.

"It makes you seem too far away," she said.

Her husband went into his bedroom for the last time, leaving the door open behind him.

Jessie settled herself for a long wait. According to the schedule she had laid down for herself, they were to have half an hour to get into bed, and a whole hour to settle themselves to sleep, before she got busy. She hoped that they might both be snorers; it would be so reassuring. Mrs. Sterry's highly nervous state did not promise well for Jessie.

They occasionally spoke to each other back and forth across the sitting-room. Mr. Sterry's voice took on a sleepy quality. Finally he did indeed begin to snore. But his wife woke him up.

"Walbridge! Walbridge!"

"Hum! Ha! ... What is it, my dear?"

"
Please
don't go to sleep until I do."

He gave a short, exasperated laugh. "Well, let me know as soon as you've gone, my dear."

Very soon he began to snore again. His wife did not wake him up, but Jessie could hear her tossing on her bed, and uttering little complaining noises. At length these sounds too, were stilled.

Jessie sat listening; listening. Through the open windows came the deep night hum of the city which is never stilled. Occasionally a particular sound separated itself from the hum, such as the rumble of an elevated train from Third Avenue, or the purr of a rapidly moving automobile. Then Jessie heard some one softly whistling in the street below. This would be the gray-clad watchman. The sound resolved itself out of nothing as he slowly approached the house, and faded into nothing again as he went on. Jessie could even distinguish the air; it was
Traumerei
. These musical souls turn up in the oddest places. "So much the better," she thought; "if he has a tender heart he will not be able to resist Bella."

Every now and then, Jessie cast the light of her tiny flash on the dial of her watch. And each time she thought her watch must have stopped. It was the longest hour of her life.

Meanwhile, she debated how to solve the problem of the two guards below. "Assuming that there are two men playing cards in the cloak-room, what must I do? I must make a noise somehow that will draw them out. I must manage to make a noise at a little distance from myself, so that when they run out of the room, I can slip in." She thought of Mrs. Sterry's work-box on the centre table. A spool of thread!

Quarter of an hour before the time she had appointed with me, Jessie decided to start. As she snaked her body across the floor of the sitting-room, her heart pressed up suffocatingly into her throat. "So this is what it feels like to be a thief," she thought. "Hereafter, I will always remember it, when I catch one."

How thankful she was then, for her long practice with the combination of the safe! When her fingers met the knob, they knew by instinct what to do. She turned it forward, then back, listening for the slight sounds from inside that she had learned to know. Through the open door on her right came the comfortable sounds of Mr. Sterry's snoring; through the door on the left—nothing. Was Mrs. Sterry lying there with wide open eyes, listening? The mental picture caused Jessie's hand to tremble.

At last the tumblers of the combination fell into place, and Jessie grasped the handle of the lock. She turned it with the most exquisite care, the grate of steel on steel makes so significant a sound. Just as she was about to pull the door of the safe to her, Mrs. Sterry spoke.

Jessie's heart seemed to turn over in her breast. She clamped down the screws of self-control. For she had to turn that handle back to its normal position with equal care, before she dared leave it. One of them might come out and switch on the lights. Jessie slipped back to her hiding-place behind the screen, where she sat, sternly forcing her trembling body under control.

She heard Mrs. Sterry's voice again, and realised from the quality of it that the woman was asleep. In the sudden reaction that followed upon her relief, she trembled more violently than ever, and was forced to stretch herself out on the floor, clenching her teeth, before she could regain command of herself. Yet, throughout her terrors, Jessie, true to her nature, was watching herself from the outside with a sort of amusement. "Well," she thought, "for pure excitement, there is nothing like committing a robbery. But I can do with less."

She returned to the safe, and pulling open the door, inserted her little key in the drawer, and pulled that out with infinite care. The tiara was contained in a little bag, drawn tight with a tape. Through the sleazy material, Jessie could feel the sharp points. There were also one or two flat cases in the drawer, presumably containing other jewels; but Jessie, notwithstanding Black Kate's behest, let them be. The tiara would serve her purpose sufficiently.

Keeping her hands under iron control, Jessie closed the drawer and locked it; closed the door of the safe, and turned the handle. Finally she gave the knob of the combination a twirl to set it. There only remained to search Mrs. Sterry's workbox on the table. Jessie chose the coarsest thread, judging from the size of the spool, and made for the door. She took whole minutes to turn the handle of that door—a door handle is treacherous! and to release it when she was outside. When her hand dropped from it she breathed a sigh of relief. That much was over.

She went softly down the first flight of stairs, and half-way down the second. There she sat down to consider her further moves. She still had ten or fifteen minutes before it was time to leave the house. From where she sat she could see across the wide foyer the light streaming out through the open door of the cloakroom; and occasionally a murmured word in a man's voice reached her, as one of the players scored in the game.

Her first thought had been to conceal herself in the other cloak-room, but the door was closed, and it would be too risky to attempt opening it, immediately opposite the door of the room where the men were. They were trained thief-takers, she supposed, with eyes and ears on the alert. So she looked around for some other hiding-place in the foyer, but there was none in that empty place. If any alarm was raised, the first act of the men, naturally, would be to flood it with light. Jessie determined to act from the service corridor behind the cloak-room.

She had first to dispose of the tiara. There was but one possible place for that; shoved down inside the top of her stocking, the curve of the ornament to her leg. The folded-up bag went with it.

Jessie then retraced her steps to the main floor of the house, where she unscrewed a bulb from one of the sidelights about the walls. One bulb was not heavy enough for her purpose, so she collected three, and tied them together with thread. She hung this cluster on a tread over the top of the door that led to the service stairway, making sure that there was space enough for the thread to pass freely back and forth when the door was closed. She then descended the stairway, paying out the thread from the spool as she went. There was a little well in the middle of the stairway, down through which the thread might pass without having to turn any corners.

Across the little central hall in the basement, and back through the narrow corridor towards the service entrance, she went, paying out her thread, and continually pausing to make sure that it was still running freely. Her principal anxiety was lest she might not have thread enough; but she remembered with satisfaction that most spools are marked "50 yards," and this was a full spool. She arrived outside the door to the cloak-room, with plenty to spare.

Wrapping the end of the thread around her forefinger, she cast a light upon her watch. It was then three-fifteen, that is to say, the exact moment that she had told me to get busy in the street outside. She gave me five minutes, seven minutes, to do my job. Meanwhile, with her ear to the crack of the door, she listened to the slap of the cards on the table, and the murmurs of the two men as they scored their points.

When the proper moment arrived, she gave the thread a tug, and it broke. Instantly she had the satisfaction of hearing a sound like an explosion within the depths of the house. The two men in the cloak-room leaped up, knocking their chairs over backwards, and ran out. Jessie instantly opened the door. The little wall cupboard was almost within reach of her hand. She pulled open the door, and jerked down the handle of the switch that controlled the burglar alarm. A second later she was back in the service corridor with the door closed behind her.

She reached for the street door. This was the door by which she and Alfred had entered the house, you remember. Bolt and spring-lock, she had it all fixed in her mind. Between the door and the iron gate she paused for a second, peering between the bars for the watchman. But I had done my part, and he was not there. She ventured out with a horrible sinking feeling. Suppose Mr. or Mrs. Sterry stuck a head out of the window. She would have to trust to her heels then. However, no alarm was raised. She walked sedately to Madison Avenue. As she turned the corner she looked back. Still no alarm. The furious beating of her heart quieted down.

You can imagine the little comedy when Jessie came into the drug store. There was I, sitting on a chair in a state of semi-collapse, with the druggist offering me something in a glass, and the gray-coated watchman looking on solicitously. I drank what was offered me—I suppose I was taking a considerable chance; and immediately said I felt better. The watchman, suddenly recollecting his job, expressed a hasty wish for my recovery, and beat it out of the shop. The druggist offered to send for an ambulance, but I insisted I was quite well again.

He then went to wait on Jessie, who asked for headache tablets, a very natural request at that time of night. Jessie expressed her sympathy for me, and we all got into talk. The druggist asked me where I lived. I gave an address nearby, and Jessie volunteered to see me to my door. So we walked out of the shop together. How simple!

Jessie whispered: "Is it all right about Rumsey?"

"He's on the job," said I.

"Good! Then I can go ahead."

"Have you got the tiara," I asked trembling.

"In my stocking," she said dryly.

"Anything more for me to do?" I asked.

"No," she said. "We'll take the Broadway subway down, and you can drop off at Twenty-Third."

As we turned the corner into Fifty-Ninth Street, we came face to face with Black Kate, who was evidently waiting there for us. She gave me a poisonous glance. Here was a pretty how-de-do!

"What's she doing here?" she demanded.

Now my mistress, faced by a sudden and unexpected situation, will always tell the truth. "She's been helping me," she said coolly. "If she hadn't taken the watchman out of the way, I wouldn't be here myself."

"Why didn't you ask me for assistance," said Black Kate.

"I've heard others ask you," said Jessie coolly.

Black Kate was in a fix. Devoured by rage, she was afraid to exhibit it before a stranger. She didn't know how much I knew. "What does she expect to get out of it?" she snarled.

"That's between me and her," said Jessie.

"Well, come on home," said Black Kate.

In the dark part of the block, under the wall of the Savoy Hotel, a dingy, inconspicuous car was waiting by the curb. Black Kate opened the door. "Get in," she said to Jessie.

Jessie hesitated. As she explained to me afterwards, she didn't know Charley, the chauffeur; she had no influence over him. She suspected they might stop the car some place, and the two of them take the tiara from her forcibly, and thus destroy all her work.

"Get in," Jessie said to me.

"She can't come with us," said Black Kate blustering.

"Unless she comes, I don't," said Jessie.

There was a brief pause. Then Black Kate changed her tune. I suppose it suddenly occurred to her that this was the best way out of her difficulty, after all. "Get in! Get in! Both of you," she said with a hideous smile, which suggested to me that if she had her way, I would never get out of that house, once I got in. I knew far too much to suit Black Kate.

So we all got in, and the car started.

"Let me see the tiara," said Black Kate.

"I will, when we get home," said Jessie.

"You give it to me now!"

Jessie made no answer to that. Black Kate started to curse her, then threw me a sidelong look, and fell silent. Finally she asked in a strangled voice:

"What's the big idea?"

"They say that bit of jewellery's worth near half a million," said Jessie coolly. "I ain't agoin' to hand it over till I'm satisfied what I get out of it."

Black Kate started to laugh. It had a truly horrible sound. "All right, all right," she said. "We'll settle all that when we get home."

I need not say how terrified I was by this unexpected turn of events. My whole body was damp with a cold sweat. But it was not so bad though, as one of those terrible situations where you have to make up your mind what to do. I had my orders, and there was no choice but to obey.

Nothing more was said. We rolled rapidly through the streets, and in about ten minutes pulled up at the curb in a dark block of old-fashioned houses. The house before which we stopped was vacant, and advertised for sale. At one side was a narrow, arched opening, leading through to the rear, and of course I recognised the place as the masked entrance of the house on Varick Street.

We three women got out, and entered the narrow passage. I heard the car drive on. We crossed the narrow court behind the front dwelling, and paused, while Black Kate opened the door of the rear tenement with a key.